Fox commits journalistic suicide

I thought MSNBC's deal with Starbucks was a horrible decision, and it was, but at least it only compromised the integrity of one show -- Morning Joe -- not the entire network. Rupert Murdoch's call for his News Corporation to donate $1 million to the Republican's Governor's Association is simply mind blowing.

I don't understand how the News Corporation -- the media group that owns Fox News and The Wall Street Journal among others -- can even claim any level of journalistic distance, objectivity, and/or integrity after this one. Unprecedented and unreal.

The only question I have is whether this is just the beginning, not only for the News Corporation but for media conglomerates in general. Is this what happens when news outlets eventually fall under the ownership of a handful of companies with narrow agendas? Say it ain't so.

Arizona and Immigration

Photo by Wing-Chi Poon

I was reading in The New York Times today that a judge has blocked several controversial parts of Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070.

Among other things, SB 1070 authorizes police officers to detain individuals whom they suspect may be illegal immigrants. It also makes the act of not carrying immigration papers a criminal misdemeanor.

Federal Judge Susan Bolton ruled that such actions allow state laws to supersede federal law and thus must not be enforced, which I feel is a weak argument.

I sympathize with the Arizona state government. Immigration is a huge issue (and potentially a problem) for the state as well as several other states along the Southern border. Federal reform is needed but never seems to come, so Arizona took action because it felt something needed to be done.

Though I sympathize, I certainly don't agree. I think Arizona acted rashly in creating a law that causes a considerable inconvenience to legal residents by mandating racial profiling on an unprecedented scale.

Regardless of your feelings about the law or Arizona's actions, I think you'd be hard pressed to defend SB 1070 as a practical solution. It's impossible to enforce a law of that magnitude; the number of suspects is simply too large. It's a massive drain on the law enforcement officials who could spend their time in more productive ways.

Consider Governor Jan Brewer's response to the ruling: "This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens."

I respect the desire to protect the citizenry, but how much does deporting illegal immigrants protect citizens -- especially when you compare the cost of doing so to a decrease in manpower to combat more serious crime?

To me the solution would be to check the legal status of anyone arrested by the police. If you are in this country illegally and are causing a great enough disturbance to merit an arrest, then a quick paperwork check is merited. If you are here illegally simply going about your day and causing no harm to anyone, why not just leave well enough alone? I just don't believe the problem is of such great magnitude.

We put the "cycle" in recycle

Photo by dno 1967

Transitional periods are a fun part of life, but time consuming -- which explains why I haven't posted in awhile.

I recently graduated from the University of Georgia and uprooted myself from my Athens apartment to move back to my hometown, Louisville, KY. On the plus side, I have a degree. On the downside, I am now unemployed.

Since my income is next to nothing, I've been cutting back. I don't make as many purchases, I'm living in my parents basement, and an expensive beer has been redefined as PBR (which stands for "Preferred Beer of the Recession" for those of you in the dark).

One of the biggest things I've done is convert extra time into extra money by doing regular maintenance on my car myself as opposed to taking it to the shop. Typically this amounts to quick fluid changes, but recently it led to a frustrating adventure that got me thinking, so I thought I would share.

A few weeks back I flushed my car's coolant system, which resulted in about 4 gallons of tainted antifreeze of which to dispose.

Now engine coolant is some nasty stuff. Basically it consists of ethylene glycol, which is fairly poisonous and can easily kill small animals. On top of that danger, once antifreeze has been running in an engine for 30,000 miles, it collects moderately high levels of heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and chromium.

For these reasons, the EPA recommends waste antifreeze be treated as hazardous material. In most states, simply dumping it is illegal. At best you can flush small amounts down your toilet. More often than not, however, states mandate that it be recycled.

I try to be environmentally responsible and do the right thing, so I set about recycling my old antifreeze. First, I called Auto Zone to see if they would take it seeing as they recycle used engine oil. No dice.

Next, I checked the Louisville Metro Government Web site to see if the city recycling program would be of help. Turns out, the city does recycle antifreeze but "only at the staffed recycling locations."

No problem. A quick check of drop off locations and I find that there are five. The Southwest Government Center is nearest my house, so I head there.

"We don't take that," was the unexpected greeting I received. I was told to drive to an E-Scrap recycling center on Meriwether Avenue.

"We don't take that," said the staff at Meriwether. But I was in luck. A liquid recycling center on Grade Lane recycles antifreeze.

"We don't take that," was familiar by this point. The liquid recycling center told me to drive up the road to Waste Management, the company who handles most of the city's garbage disposal.

This time, a slightly different answer: "We don't recycle that." There I was told that I could just throw it away or dump in in my backyard, so long as no one was watching.

The reasoning behind that suggestion was hilarious. "Back in the old days," I was told, "engines used 100% antifreeze. Now we use that 50/50 stuff, so it's no big deal." I'm not sure if engines ever ran with 100% antifreeze in the radiator, but one half of poison is still poison.

Frustrated, I called the Louisville Metro Government for help, and they suggested I go to a staffed recycling location. Back to square one, and explaining my adventure to the nice woman trying to help. She suggested I try the Central Government Center on Outer Loop.

Success! Finally I recycled my antifreeze. It only took me an entire afternoon of crossing the city in what amounted to a 44 mile journey. Hopefully all the carbon monoxide spewing from my 1992 Plymouth didn't cancel out the good.

Now that my ordeal is over, I just have one question: Why was that so fucking hard?! With the right information, that could have been a one and done trip. Instead, I was bounced around Louisville like a damn pinball.

Still, I couldn't help think this whole scenario was a beautiful metaphor for something I'd read recently in Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff. Leonard describes the cycle that our stuff goes through from its creation to the time we simply throw it away.

Wealthier nations have depleted most of their natural resources by now, so we tend to get materials from poorer nations. Similarly, we often pass the trash buck as well because the hassle of disposal as well as the resultant environmental damage are beyond what we want to deal with.

This perpetual story of "not in my backyard" is lazy and irresponsible. That's sort of how I felt about my city when I was trying to recycle my antifreeze: like I was visiting an endless cycle of accountable individuals ducking responsibility.

In my case, however, I think it would have been simpler to just deal with the damn problem. Simply have 5 locations around the city to handle hazardous waste as opposed to one. This would be infinitely more convenient, and inconvenience is probably the biggest obstacle to environmentally sustainable behavior.

I wonder if the "hassle" of simply accepting responsibility for our own waste on the larger scale is actually less of a pain than making it someone else's problem.

Financial Reform

Apologies for neglecting this blog over the past month. Since the health care bill passed I haven't had much to say about prominent issues (though I still insist that we need universal health care and I am not satisfied with the bill).

Well, the S.E.C. lawsuit against Goldman Sachs and the clear intentions of Obama and Congressional Democrats to institute meaningful financial reform have given me something to reflect upon.

Obama gave a timely speech this week in New York outlining his basic financial reform plan. I thought he did a pretty good job not only laying out his ideas, but also making an argument that banking lobbyists have promoted a false choice between free markets or strangled economy.

To me, these reforms are pretty modest, but they would go a long way at protecting consumers. Limiting executive bonuses, restricting risky investments, calling for greater transparency on derivatives, allowing shareholders a larger say in organizational policy, and shrinking the size of large banks are all good ideas. My feeling is that such measures would help get us off of this boom/bust cycle and back to something more stable, which is more desirable for most people.

This speech comes on the heels of the S.E.C.'s charge that Goldman Sachs fraudulently misled its customers into investing in mortgage-backed securities that the organization knew were worthless. On top of that, Goldman Sachs took out insurance on these securities, essentially betting that they would fail. Turning to our good friend, Jon Stewart...these fucking guys:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
These F@#king Guys - Goldman Sachs
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

It's insane to me that the scenario described above might actually be legal. Even The New York Times is reporting that the S.E.C. may actually have a difficult case in proving Goldman Sachs committed a crime. That is simply unreal.

One of the company's main arguments is that it didn't actually turn a profit on these investments, but that doesn't make its actions any less wrong. That's like saying you shouldn't be charge for robbing a bank because the money fell out of your van during the getaway.

Still, I think this legal battle is a win-win, largely because the story is too big to ignore and its implications are too great. Goldman Sachs has to fight the charges to maintain any credibility. If Goldman Sachs loses, then there is concrete proof that Wall Street banking firms are committing fraud and should thus be regulated further. If Goldman Sachs wins, people will be pissed off that what the company did is actually legal and -- hopefully -- demand reform.

What I don't understand is Republican opposition to even discussing tighter regulation. To some degree or another, most national politician are in bed with these guys, but that doesn't mean you have to get fucked. This move is political suicide. Anger at the financial district is probably the most bipartisan emotion in this country. I could understand defending them through argument (at least in theory), but to not even allow the argument to be made is just nuts. More than anything, I'm curious to see what the Republicans have up their collective sleeve on this one.

Reconciling Senate differences

I've been hearing a lot about the political process of reconciliation lately, seeing as the Democratic super majority no longer exists -- and for practical purposes never really did. A large tent means diverse views, and it's hard to get everyone on the same page.

I don't really understand the process all that well, but from what I can gather, it began in 1974 to eliminate the possibility of filibustering budget-specific legislation. Since then, the use of the measure has been extended in ways it was never intended, but I like it.

Essentially, it returns us to a simple "majority rules" position. When the filibuster was introduced early in our country's history as a leftover of parliamentary procedure, political parties didn't really exist -- or at the very least they were not so divided. Gaining 60 votes for important measures was probably much easier, but now the game of politics supersedes the importance of progress, health care being just one example.

I don't really have a problem with the Republican standpoint other than the fact that they disingenuously stand for nothing. The claim is that they want to amend the bill, but the ways in which they wish to do so are largely unclear. Mostly we hear about tort reform, which would make it more difficult to sue doctors frivolously and lower the cost of health care by lowering malpractice insurance. Okay. Fine. I like that, but it's not enough.

The only other complaint I here frequently is the idea of pork barrel spending, which is a direct result of trying to set up state-run insurance pools -- which would not be an issue had the public option or single-payer system been set up nationally. The problem of pork resulted directly from a compromise that the Republicans demanded and are now scoring political points for actually landing.

It seems fairly evident to me that Republicans could care less bout health reform; rather, they are interested in defeating Obama and gaining political ground. Our good friend Mr. Stephen Colbert sums it up best:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Health Care Marriage Counseling
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

It's pure politics. And the Democrats are just as guilty at this point. They need this legislation to save face, but in an attempt to pass it in a bipartisan matter, they've allowed too much compromise to water it down. It seems like everyone has forgotten that keeping their job is secondary to actually doing it.

I say it's time to use the reconciliation measure and slam this thing through. With only 51 votes needed, Democrats could easily get a public option in as part of the bill -- potentially even something resembling single-payer -- and we might see some real change.

Republicans are complaining endlessly about the process of reconciliation, arguing that it undermines the intentions of the founders, but according to The New York Times, 16 of the 22 bills passed using reconciliation were done while Republican were in control, most notably the creation of COBRA, the Bush tax cuts, and welfare reform. Republicans weren't complaining then -- Democrats were. Nobody likes to loose, and reconciliation favors the majority, but so does democracy, so deal with it.

I simply don't buy the argument that reconciliation necessarily leads to bad legislation. Legislating leads to bad legislation because people are flawed and make poor decisions. That doesn't mean, however, that legislating is bad or that reconciliation in the case of health reform will be bad. In all likelihood, we'd be better off passing a more comprehensive bill than rolling over and doing nothing.

The only problem is that it would take some courage on the part of Democrats, a resource they lack seeing as protecting their own jobs appears more important. But the reality is that Americans elected these people to affect meaningful change, and if they don't, we'll fire them just as quickly. The Republicans know this, so they're waiting it out, which is a smart move.

For the Democrats, the smart move is to take a chance and attempt to serve their constituents, to do what they think is best. Even if they lose their respective elections because of it, at least they might maintain some respect.

Growing corporate influence

According to The New York Times, the Supreme Court narrowly decided (5-4) to allow corporations to give limitlessly to promote or oppose political candidates during election seasons. The ruling overturned several past precedents of campaign finance set by the Court over the last century.

I have already spoken about the danger of expanding corporate rights to the point where they outweigh the rights of the individual. Free speech exists more to protect the minority opinion than to provide grounds on which majority -- and more importantly, moneyed -- voices can drown it out. Not to mention the fact corporations are not people and should not be extended the all the rights of personhood.

The Court sided with corporate interest, which has been a predictable trend under Roberts. Blurring the lines between politics and corporate finance is dangerous ground on many fronts. As far as I can see it, there is nothing to stop the few individuals at the top of an organization from using corporate money to advance personal interests, an unhealthy proposition for organizational stockholders and democratic interests in general.

The 2010 midterm elections should provide a glimpse into how this law will effect future elections, but the bigger tell will probably come with the 2012 general elections, given the scale of the presidential race combined with the "practice round" experience from 2010. My feeling as that we are treading treacherous waters and that, years from now, we may look back on this ruling as a landmark in the erosion of personal rights and a major step in the domination of the democratic process by the wealthiest voices.

"Move Your Money" Movement

I was watching The Colbert Report yesterday - which sadly appears to feature more news than NBC, CBS, or ABC - and learned about an interesting movement called, "Move Your Money."

Essentially the idea is to get money away from large, seemingly corrupt banks to prevent them from using it to lobby for loose regulation. More implicitly, however, it seems to be a punishment for wrongdoings on the part of banking institutions, which is of greater interest to me.

I've always believed that the most important vote you can make is the one you make with your dollar. For instance, I am a supporter of the American auto industry for numerous reasons, so naturally I am concerned. When manufacturers like GM, Chrysler, and Ford began seeing declines in the middle of last decade, it was because buyers cast an important - and probably correct - vote. They bought more affordable, reliable, and fuel efficient vehicles from foreign manufacturers, which, in truth, is the best thing customers can do not only for themselves but also for industry. By purchasing the best product on the market, it encouraged change on the part of failing competitors (Ford being a notable example) or the weeding out of poor products (GM and Chrysler for instance, who were rescued by taxpayer money).

I don't think people will be making a run on the major banks because doing business with them affords many conveniences (multiple branches, ATM access, etc.), but the idea intrigues me because it is simple and it probably would work: if you don't like it, don't buy it.