A Jackson County Democratic group is very involved and aggressive in visibility activities at various area festivals, usually manning a booth at these high traffic events. I received the following e-mail about a straw poll the group held at their booth at the recent festival in Blue Springs:

Results of the Blue Springs Straw Poll for Dem. Pres:

Here’s the count of the straws and the percentages:

Blue Springs Fall Festival–Sept 14, 15, 16, 2007
Democrats 21st Century Democratic Presidential Straw Poll

Total straws deposited during the 3 day weekend:  710

Hillary Clinton – 354  (49.8%)

Obama – 149  (20.9%)

Edwards – 141 (19.8%)

Biden – 23  (3%)

Richardson – 14 (1.9%)

Kucinich 14 – (1.9%)

Dodd – 8 (1%)

Gravel- 7 (1%)

As with the straw poll which was done during Santa Cali Gon, we let only people vote who were at least 18 by Feb 5, 2008, which is the Missouri Presidential primary election. Also, we believe that the people who participated were either Democrats or voters who at least lean Democratic in their votes. We did not have a large number of identified Republicans who participated. And we knew this from the conversation that took place during their stop at our booth.

Democrats 21st Century
Independence, MO 64050

dems21cent@sbcglobal.net

Bear in mind that straw polls are exactly that.

At last Tuesday’s blogger meetup (which was fantastic by the way – if you weren’t there, you really missed out), the talk turned to Claire McCaskill’s recent disappointing votes on FISA and on troop withdrawals from Iraq. The feeling all around was disappointment in someone that many of us worked really hard for in 2006. We knocked doors, made phone calls, and raised money to elect someone who would not rubberstamp Bush’s excesses like her predecessor did, but that’s what we’re getting. (Yes, I am happy with her vote on the Webb Amendment to extend rest time for the troops.) And what’s worse, we had no inkling as to why McCaskill voted the way she did, especially on FISA. I mean, why would you vote to expand the powers that Bush was already abusing?

I wrote to Senator McCaskill and received no response, but a friend of mine did get an e-mail response from her office. She argues that the DNI (yeah, that guy) wrote a letter to the Senate requesting a speedy revision of the FISA law because of the increased threat of terrorism, so she gave it to him. McCaskill actually argues against herself, saying in the end, this temporary legislation erodes constitutional protections. So why vote for it at all?

The temporary nature of the legislation does nothing to assuage my fears, either. The Patriot Act, Bush’s tax cuts, and the Iraq War all face or have faced sunset provisions, and even in the case of the unpopular Iraq War, Bush, hardly an endearing president, always gets what he wants. Apparently McCaskill is going to work hard to fix the situation; I’ll believe it when I see it.

I still haven’t seen anything amounting to a logical line of reasoning coming from McCaskill on why Bush (or any president, for that matter) should have the power to sidestep the courts when listening in on the private communications of an American citizen.

Full text of the letter below the jump.

Photo courtesy of PubDef

Dear [redacted]:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Protect America Act of 2007 (S. 1927). I appreciate hearing from you, and I welcome the chance to respond.

On August 1, 2007, I was faced with a stark reality: the Director of National Intelligence sent a letter warning the Senate of the heightened threat of international terrorism, and urging us to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) before the August recess “to ensure that we do not have critical gaps in our ability to provide warnings of threats to the country”. The call to quickly revise FISA in order to reflect developments in telecommunications technology was echoed by four Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I chose to heed these urgent warnings.

I voted for two measures to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I preferred the legislation offered by Senators Rockefeller and Levin; however, it failed to gather the 60 votes needed to pass. I also voted for the Bond-McConnell version, which did receive enough votes to pass. Corresponding legislation was later approved by the House of Representatives, and the President quickly signed the bill into law.

It is important to recognize that this legislation is a temporary fix to provide our intelligence community with the most immediate tools needed to protect our country – it will be in place for only six months, and it cannot be renewed before it is thoroughly reviewed and authorized by Congress. This gives us six months to create a more acceptable permanent intelligence collection process that that allows us to effectively monitor terrorist communications overseas while also protecting the privacy of law-abiding American citizens. I can assure you I will be one of the Senators working hard to re-establish the constitutional protections that have been eroded by this President and this temporary FISA legislation.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your concerns with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance.

All best,
Senator Claire McCaskill

Look for the House Democrats to compromise on SCHIP to more closely follow the Senate Bill.  Although many House Democrats are unhappy with the compromise bill, negotiated primarily by Nancy Pelosi, they are unlikely to vote against it. The compromise bill will increase the funding $35 billion over the next five years, bringing the total to $60 billion, which will be funded by an increase to 61cents per pack on cigarettes.

The compromise bill will likely waive some of the new rules announced by the Bush administration last month, but it will likely not eliminate all of them.  One rule, particularly difficult to achieve, would require states to enroll at least 95% of children with family incomes below 200% of the poverty level.  Identification of 95% of these children is almost impossible, not to mention, actually enrolling them in the program.  The latest information is that the bill will affirm states rights to decide who qualifies for enrollment to the program based on poverty level percentages.

House Republicans are starting to splinter.  Even with the compromise, a veto override sufficiency is not expected.

This from the White House

Administration Response
Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle on Monday in an interview said he will not compromise on Bush’s SCHIP spending limit, CongressDaily reports. Nussle said, “The president has made it very clear …. he sets the top-line number, and he’s going to hold to it,” adding, “I don’t feel as if I need to reinterpret what the president said” (Cohn, CongressDaily, 9/18). Bush has proposed a $5 billion increase over five years for SCHIP, which would raise the program’s total five-year funding to $30 billion. Bush has said he would veto the House and Senate bills (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 9/6).

Nussle said that Democrats are “choosing political strategy over kids … they can’t get their work done, so they’re going to send up something that they know is veto bait,” adding, “Everyone knows that; it’s been as telegraphed as just about anything around here” (CongressDaily, 9/18). White House spokesperson Tony Fratto said that SCHIP “should be focused on children in poor households,” adding, “We should not be creating policy that substitutes a government-run program for private health insurance”

And the latest report is that 30 Governors signed a letter sent September 17 to Secretary of Health & Human Services Michael Leavitt to rescind the new CMS requirements. Governor Blunt did not sign the letter. The new rules will result in children losing SCHIP coverage.

  44 US Senators — including McCaskill and Bond — have signed a letter to President Bush to withdraw the new CMS requirements.

Also forgot to add earlier. the current SCHIP program is due to expire on September 30 leaving vulnerable children without health coverage.  Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

On few issues is the line dividing Democrats from Republicans 100 percent pure and obvious, and the CAFO issue is not one of them. 

Democrats don’t always behave as I would have them do.  Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton (pictured), for example, is sponsoring House legislation (a companion bill to one being offered by Kit Bond) to have CAFO (Contained Animal Feeding Operation) waste declared non-toxic.  Such a law would effectively remove CAFOs from EPA oversight.

To pretend that animal waste in those concentrations isn’t toxic is horse hockey.  McDonald County, in the very southwest corner of the state, is dotted with CAFOs, and every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.

But when I called Skelton’s office to ask why he is sponsoring this legislation, the aide brushed me off.  I’m not one of his constituents and “congressional courtesy” requires that I bring the matter up with my own rep–as if Lacy Clay has any notion why Skelton would initiate such a law and might be offended if Skelton’s people spoke to me.  Oh.

So I asked our resident “follow the money man” to look into Farm Bureau contributions to Bond and Skelton.  You can examine what he found here, but the bottom line is that both men have had regular contributions from the Farm Bureau. (So have Graves, Hulshof, Emerson, and Akin.  The Bureau gave no money to McCaskill, Cleaver, Carnahan, or Clay.)

Which brings us to the gray area of Claire’s stand on CAFOs.  Her website bemoans how the hog farming industry has been cornered by CAFOs and tells us:

Claire believes we need to stop giving taxpayer subsidies to CAFOs and allow for local control and oversight of CAFOs.

Since she’s not paid by the Farm Bureau, she has the good sense to stand up for family farmers.  Sort of.  At one of Claire’s recent meetings in a rural area, Day Kerr asked her if she supports the Bond/Skelton legislation.  Day tells me that Claire said she did because it would be a hardship on farmers if manure were considered toxic.  Hold on.  That’s not the point.  It isn’t a problem on small family farms, but in CAFO concentrations, it is a problem, especially when that waste is chock full of growth hormones and antibiotics. 

That position seems contradictory to what her website says, so I called to find out about it.  Called three times and left voice messages with the appropriate person.  Nada.  I guess the resounding silence is my own fault.  I made the mistake of letting the office know I’m a blogger, and they probably figure that not commenting is better than digging the hole deeper.  I figure that not commenting just makes her look inconsistent … and evasive.  Difference of opinion.

So much for our D.C. legislators.  Now we come to how Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature deal with the issue, and we’ll start with a man who is from both parties in a way:  Chris Koster.  Last spring, as a Republican, he sponsored legislation that would remove the power counties have to create zoning ordinances and health ordinances that might keep CAFOs out.  There were some sops to the other side (money for odor control and such), but the power to oversee those improvements would have remained in the hands of Farm Bureau proxies. 

Knowing that once they lost their right to zone their own counties, getting those rights back would be near impossible, rural people organized and fought S 364.  They put pressure on their Republican senators to buck the leadership.  When it became obvious that enough Republicans would join the Democrats on this issue to defeat it, the bill was withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Rep. Jeff Harris (D-Columbia) had been trying to get legislation heard that would ban CAFOs nearer than five miles to any state park, historic site or national historic landmark.  That was an exercise in butting his head against a wall. 

The Republican leadership refused to give the bill a hearing.  Next Harris tried attaching it as an amendment to appropriate bills dealing with agriculture, state parks, or tourism bills.  Every single time, though, the leadership ruled him out of order, pretending that his amendment was not “within the scope” of the bills they were attached to–which was a flaming … misrepresentation.

Harris feels that, considering the number of Republicans willing to switch sides to defeat Koster’s bill, his bill and amendments stood a good chance of passing.  The Republican leadership was simply too scared to put it to a vote.

The Democratic record on CAFOs is not, as I said, 100 percent pure.  Skelton, McCaskill, and Koster have some ‘splainin’ to do.  But on the whole, I’ll take the Democratic record on this issue over the Republicans’ record. 

One thing for sure:  it’s going to take a huge commitment from local activists to prod the legislature into staring down the forces of the Farm Bureau.

Before I give you the answers to this week’s question, I want to tip my hat to Representatives Jeff Harris and Margaret Donnelly, not only because they are participating in this forum, but because they have agreed to return all contributions over the reinstated fundraising limits. (From what I understand, Chris Koster has also now agreed to return all excess contributions, so he gets a tip of the hat, too. A source tells me that this is not quite correct – Koster is still waiting for more guidance from the MEC.)

And without further adieu, in the order received, the answers to this week’s question: “What job that you’ve held in the past has best prepared you for the job of Attorney General? Why?”

If you like either answer, or if you like both, please show some support to the candidate(s) with some cash. Representative Harris’ ActBlue page is here, and Representative Donnelly’s is here. 

Rep. Jeff Harris’ answer:

Thanks again for allowing me to participate in this question and answer forum. 

The experience I’ve had that best prepares me for the position I seek, Missouri Attorney General, was my last job – as Democratic Leader in the Missouri House of Representatives.  When I made the decision to pursue a leadership position, I knew that building a broad coalition was key to success.  My tenure as Minority Leader taught me how to reach out and bring together people with diverse backgrounds – urban, rural, minorities, gays and lesbians, trade unionists, and white collar professionals – and to speak with one voice against the Blunt agenda. 

In the 2006 elections, under my leadership, the Democratic caucus articulated a unified message that resulted in the first Democratic gain in the Missouri House in 20 years and the largest gain since 1978.  As Missouri Attorney General, and as a former Missouri Assistant A.G., I’ll tap that experience to build the best team in state government.  My staff will be diverse and representative of the entire state.  I’ll reach out to every community to understand their concerns as well as their hopes and dreams.  My office will defend the defenseless, fight for the underdog, and most importantly, enforce the law – with integrity, fairness and humility.  I humbly ask for your support in the Democratic primary election next August for Missouri Attorney General and in November 2008.  Visit my website at www.electjeffharris.com to learn more about me and how you can help.

Rep. Margaret Donnelly’s answer:

I have practiced law for twenty years and spent thousands of hours in the courtroom and worked with average Missourians on tough legal problems. I believe this is a key part of my experience that has prepared me to be an effective attorney general. The attorney general is frequently called the “people’s lawyer”. It is the office’s job to take the problems of individual Missourians and fight for their rights collectively.

We hear daily jokes about lawyers, but it was in my law practice where I saw how lawyers can protect and even save a person’s life. I was regularly appointed as the attorney to represent children in child abuse cases and custody disputes. Many of the children I represented were horribly abused by their parents. I was able to use my role as an advocate to protect these children from further harm.

Keeping families safe and secure has been the focus of my law practice. I intend to take that same spirit with me to the attorney general’s office. I pledge to vigorously enforce our sexual predator laws, prosecute Medicaid fraud and abuse and those who steal health care from the neediest Missourians, and keep unsafe products out of our stores. I will be the people’s lawyer.

Chris Koster informed me that unfortunately he again could not participate, as he has not declared his intention to run for the Attorney General’s office.

As always, you can discuss their answers in comments and vote in our poll. Please try to focus on the answers, rather than rah-rah for the candidates.

[poll id=”

7

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Evidently, almost 800 years of civilization doesn’t mean squat to Kit Bond.

….No free man shall in future be arrested or imprisoned or disseised of his freehold, liberties or free customs, or outlawed or exiled or victimised in any other way, neither will we attack him or send anyone to attack him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay right of justice…

The Constitution doesn’t seem to have too much influence with him, either:

…The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it…

The United States Senate couldn’t get enough votes to stop the fillibuster of the amendment to restore habeas corpus.

Vote Summary

Question: On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Specter Amdt. No. 2022 )
Vote Number:  340
Vote Date:  September 19, 2007, 10:47 AM
Required For Majority:  3/5
Vote Result:  Cloture Motion Rejected
Amendment Number:  S.Amdt. 2022 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585 (National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008)
Statement of Purpose:  To restore habeas corpus for those detained by the United States.
Vote Counts:
YEAs 56
NAYs 43
Not Voting 1…

Bond (R-MO), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea

They needed 60 votes, they got 56.

Now, does anyone need a reminder about why we all voted for Claire McCaskill in 2006?

Matt Blunt is nonchalant about the fuss over all the deleted e-mails in his office.

Blunt, in explaining his staff’s intentions, said with a chuckle, “I think people are trying to have a clear and manageable in-box. That’s what they’re trying to do.”

Chill.  Those e-mails will be available to the public “if they exist“.  So what’s the problem?

Jo Mannies pointedly rebutted Blunt’s easy assertions, insisting, for example that:

the preservation requirements mandate that all state communications or memos dealing with management, policy or financial matters need to be preserved for three years, or 90 days after the release of a state audit on that office. The law defines communications broadly, including those on paper or electronic.

And she defended Jay Nixon against one of Blunt’s misrepresentations (“Nixon has never publicly made such an assertion. What he has said repeatedly …”)

In fact, it was impressive the way Mannies refused, without being biased, to be sucked into the usual he said/she said journalistic “neutrality” game.

Despite Mannies resisting his charm, though, Matt is not worried.  I’m sure he’d tell us: this is no Rovian scheme to hide the fact that Ed Martin’s been doing anti-abortion campaign business on state time–or to hide any of the other illegal stuff we’re up to.  Hell, we don’t have anyone of Rove’s intellect steering us.  We just figure that when you control both houses and the executive, you don’t have to be sub-tile.  Right? 

In that respect, Blunt is a Bush clone, someone who believes he should be able to give a comradely chuckle, then flap his hand dismissively at pesky reporters and bloggers.

That was Dubya’s attitude when the whole Joe Wilson/Scooter Libby brouhaha surfaced.  He pretended for a few seconds to take it seriously–gotta offer the public at least a thin veneer of concern–but George knew all he had to do was pardon Libby.

And this situation is nowhere near as serious as Bush’s was.  Blunt knows, if worse comes to worst, that he might have to start saving e-mails.  Shrug. 

Only people who take themselves too seriously would wax eloquent about the indecency of covering up crimes and misdemeanors this way.  Only pontificators would remind the governor of what happened to Richard Nixon and Al Capone for their coverups.  Such sermonizers would be vastly overstating Blunt’s danger. 

No doubt, the governor sees this dustup as something that nobody but political nerds will notice.  The Republican base sure doesn’t care.  This subject is dry.  It lacks the blood and guts of stem cells and baby killers.  As far as that goes, the issue won’t grab many independents.  And if you want to know the truth, most Democrats will shrug and think, “everybody loses e-mail.”

Blunt’s probably right.  Yes, he’s broken the law, but he’s unveiling his health insurance for the poor scam program, and that’s more important than some dusty old Sunshine law.  Yada, yada.  Don’t get your knickers in a twist. 

Greg Palast, as always the investigative reporter with the scoop and the bon mot, will tell you that the dead sheik wasn’t one.

Bush shook Abu Risha’s hand two weeks ago for the cameras. Bush can shake his hand again, but not the rest of him: Abu Risha was blown away just hours before Bush was to go on the air to praise his new friend.

Here’s what you need to know that NPR won’t tell you.

1. Sheik Abu Risha wasn’t a sheik.
2. He wasn’t killed by Al Qaeda.
3. The new alliance with former insurgents in Anbar is as fake as the sheik – and a murderous deceit.

Here’s where you can read the rest.

Apparently, the bureaucracy of the United States government considers having a bit of expertise on “Pomp and Circumstance” as a threat to our national security.

Musicologist Nalini Ghuman can’t find out why. Meanwhile, she is barred from entering the United States.

Nalini Ghuman, an up-and-coming musicologist and expert on the British composer Edward Elgar, was stopped at the San Francisco airport in August last year and, without explanation, told that she was no longer allowed to enter the United States.

Her case has become a cause célèbre among musicologists and the subject of a protest campaign by the American Musicological Society and by academic leaders like Leon Botstein, president of Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where Ghuman was to have participated last month in the Bard Music Festival, showcasing Elgar’s music.

But the door has remained closed to Ghuman, an assistant professor at Mills College in Oakland, California, who is British and who had lived, studied and worked in the United States for 10 years before her abrupt exclusion.

The mystery of her case shows how difficult, if not impossible, it is to defend against such a decision once the secretive government process has been set in motion….

The American Musicological Society [the premiere organization of music history scholars in the United States] issued a call for action under the signature of the president of the society:

Letter to the membership from Charles Atkinson,
President of the American Musicological Society 

30 April 2007

Dear Colleagues,

As I reported in the President’s Message in the February 2007 issue of the AMS Newsletter, one of our members, a citizen of the United Kingdom, was detained without explanation at the San Francisco airport this past August upon returning to the U.S. to resume her teaching position here in the United States.  Her visa was summarily revoked, and she was forced to return to the U.K.  When she was unable to return to the U.S. in order to give a paper at the Annual Meeting of our Society, the AMS Board of Directors sent a letter to the U.S. State Department, to the U.S. Consulate in London, and to the appropriate legislative representatives in Washington, expressing our profound consternation and anxiety over her treatment and our desire that her situation be resolved as soon as possible.  In the President’s Message I did not mention her name, Nalini Ghuman, or her academic affiliation, Mills College, because she felt that this was a simple misunderstanding that could be resolved quickly out of the public eye.  It has now been more than eight months since the incident at the San Francisco airport, and there has been no apparent movement toward resolution….

Statement Concerning Dr. Nalini Ghuman
Assistant Professor of Music
Mills College
Oakland, California

In August 2006, British citizen Dr. Nalini Ghuman was detained for 8 hours at San Francisco airport after returning from a month-long research visit to the UK.  Professor Ghuman had previously held F1 student visas since September 1996 while earning a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.  She has been employed as an Assistant Professor of Music at Mills College since 2003, and was in possession of an H1B visa, issued in London, valid until 31 May 2008.

Instead of being allowed to return to her home in Oakland to start her fourth year at Mills, Dr. Ghuman had her visa revoked and was denied re-entry to the country where she has lived, studied, and worked for 10 years.  A distinguished music graduate of Oxford University and of Kings College, London, Dr. Ghuman is completing her book focused on the influence of India on English music in the early twentieth century.

Bay Area legislators have received dozens of letters protesting Dr Ghuman’s exclusion from the USA, and Mills College has written to the Department of State urging their office to correct a grave error by restoring Dr Ghuman’s visa immediately so that she can return to her teaching position without further loss to her students and harm to her career as a classical music scholar.  Dr. Ghuman’s students at Mills have already waited over eight months for her to be allowed to return to her teaching duties.  This semester she is teaching her seminar on music in fin-de-siècle France via professional video-link from the University of Wales and maintains full contact with her students.  The government action denying her entry to the U.S. prevented her from presenting her professional work at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society in November 2006.  In response to this the Board of Directors of the AMS, the largest international association dealing with music as a branch of learning and scholarship, officially protested her exclusion in a letter to the Department of State.

Despite numerous requests from herself and from prominent legislators, Dr. Ghuman has never received an explanation for her exclusion from the U.S. or for the continuing delay on her application for a replacement visa.  According to a recent communication received by Senator Richard Durbin, her application is still awaiting security clearance at the Department of State in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Ghuman has been informed by her Member of Parliament’s office that the U.S. London Embassy is convinced that mistaken identity is the issue in her case.  They state that they are, however, finding it impossible to get through to the State Department and are frustrated by the lack of response from Washington.  They have told her MP’s office to keep up their attempts to contact the State Department.

At Mills, faculty members in the Music Department are bewildered by Dr. Ghuman’s exclusion from the U.S., which is keeping her from her role as a passionate advocate of classical music as part of a liberal arts education.  According to department head David Bernstein, Dr. Ghuman came to Mills more than three years ago with great potential as both a scholar and as a teacher.  Her continuing exclusion from the U.S. has created uncertainty in the Music Department for her students and faculty colleagues.

Mary-Ann Milford, Provost and Dean of Faculty at Mills, says that Dr. Ghumans absence this year has been a great loss to both her department and the College because she performed a broad scope of duties as the Colleges classical musicologist.  According to Mills President Janet L. Holmgren, the arbitrary and inexplicable exclusion of Dr. Ghuman has been a personal tragedy for her and a cause of distress to Mills and to American higher education.

Our tax dollars at work.

A blog entry by a former student at UC berkeley puts the situation in more approachable terms:

nalini ghuman
Were any of you in University Chorus when Paul Flight was the conductor? (Marika was on leave then). I know he conducted it Fall 2000 and Spring 2001 (my first two semesters in u chorus), and he conducted it for a while again later, I can’t remember what year. Anyway, remember Nalini, the grad student (then) who did the accompaniment? Now she’s a professor at Mills. There is a big article in the new york times about her today. She was barred from coming back to the country last August…

….It’s so weird. I had no idea. She was so cool! And like so warm and so awesome at the piano and stuff. It’s so weird to see a former instructor making international news like this. WTF America??????????????????????????

=(

Meanwhile, dubya’s administration can’t find a six foot five inch guy attached to a dialysis machine. I feel safer already…