Smearing Democratic VP Selections

The effort to smear John Edwards was pretty coordinated. The smear merchants who are trying to sabotage Kathleen Sebelius have to work harder to come up with something better than this:

Beyond her decision not to "speak Catholic," Sebelius has a politically thorny relationship with her bishop. In April, she vetoed legislation that would have beefed up efforts to enforce restrictions on abortion providers in Kansas. The law was aimed squarely at Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's fiercest defenders of late-term abortions. Sebelius said she vetoed the law because it was clearly unconstitutional and would invite frivolous lawsuits, a position that was supported by the Kansas City Star and various women's organizations. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City — Sebelius's own bishop — saw it differently: He went public with his request that the governor refrain from presenting herself for communion. In a column in his diocesan paper, the archbishop called her behavior "scandalous" before going on to say, "The spiritually lethal message, communicated by our governor, as well as many other high-profile Catholics in public life, has been in effect: 'The church's teaching on abortion is optional.'" Sebelius did not offer any public response to the archbishop's edict.

Archbishop Naumann is one of a number of conservative prelates who have decided to use the communion rail as a bludgeon in the culture war. (The most famous example came in 2004, when Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis forbade John Kerry from receiving communion within his jurisdiction; another was when Douglas Kmiec, a former Department of Justice official in the Reagan administration, was denied communion for his support of Obama this year.) Naumann has been published in the conservative Catholic journal First Things, a magazine that often mimics White House talking points more faithfully than it follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. And he has participated in the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that's meant to bring Catholics together with (mostly Republican) political leaders. In the event that Obama selects Sebelius, we can expect Naumann to take to the airwaves, and Obama's campaign could be forced into a high-profile and unwelcome skirmish with a religious figure.

Sounds devastating! But it's not. Sounds like Sebelius is out. But she isn't.

Not only do most Americans disagree with the good bishop, so do most Catholics, depending on who asks the questions and who frames them. Not only would the American people react with indifference and confusion to something like this, there's a pretty good chance they'll see it for what it is and embrace Sebelius as a good leader. When people see what a demagogue the bishop is, they'll quickly reject what he has to say. Public policy should not be dictated by religious leaders in this country and that's exactly how Sebelius has governed. That means she passes the test of being a good leader.

And that means she's qualified. No politician who separates faith from public policy should have any kind of "problem."

--WS

Sebelius Wields the Veto Pen

Via Think Progress, there's word out of Kansas that voter ID is unacceptable:

A bill requiring Kansas voters to show photo identification in 2010 elections was vetoed today by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The measure — HB 2019 — was similar to a measure she threatened to veto during last year’s legislative session. Last year’s measure failed, but this year’s version passed through the efforts of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Sebelius is a Democrat.

In her veto message, the governor said the bill created a roadblock that prevents citizens from voting.

“Additionally, no elected official should support enacting new laws discouraging or disenfranchising any American who has been legally voting for years,” she wrote.

During debate, the bill’s advocates said the measure would help prevent voter fraud. The governor said Kansas already has secure, fair elections.

“HB 2019 seeks to solve a problem of voter fraud which does not exist in our state due to the tireless efforts of our local election officials,” the governor added.

Or virtually anywhere else, for that matter. Voter fraud is a Republican invention, not a reality.

GAO Report Highlights Infrastructure Problems

According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the US needs to reexamine how it funds, improves and rehabilitates its vital surface transportation infrastructure.

Through our prior analyses of existing programs, we identified a number of principles that could help guide a reexamination of the federal surface transportation program. While these principles are designed specifically to reexamine the surface transportation program, most, if not all of them, could be applicable to other federal infrastructure programs. These principles are:

• creating well-defined goals based on identified areas of national interest,
• establishing and clearly defining the federal role in achieving each goal,
• incorporating performance and accountability into funding decisions,
• employing the best tools and approaches to emphasize return on investment, and
• ensuring fiscal sustainability.

The reasons are very clear:

The economic well-being of the United States is dependent on the reliability, safety, and security of its physical infrastructure. The nation’s infrastructure is vast and affects the daily lives of virtually all Americans. In total, there are about 4 million miles of roads, 117,000 miles of rail, 600,000 bridges, 79,000 dams, 26,000 miles of commercially navigable waterways, 11,000 miles of transit lines, 500 train stations, 300 ports, 19,000 airports,5 55,000 community drinking water systems, and 30,000 wastewater treatment and collection facilities. Collectively, this infrastructure connects communities, facilitates trade, provides clean drinking water, and protects public health, among other things.

According to Popular Mechanics, there are ten critically important pieces of US infrastructure that need repair or rehabilitation immediately, including major interchanges, dams, airports, and canal locks.

For example:

In 2006, engineering experts calculated that in any given year there is a 1-in-6 chance that the Herbert Hoover Dike will fail, releasing waters from Lake Okeechobee. If that happened, South Florida's water supply could be contaminated, and 40,000 lakeside residents could be threatened by flooding. The Army Corps of Engineers has been working on improvements, but funding is limited–for the 2009 budget year, the government alloted about half of the requested money. In February 2008, a 1000-ft.-long stretch of dangerously eroded land was found near state-owned floodgates north of the lake.

The collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota highlighted the need to continue to invest and rehabilitate infrastructure. The cost of replacing bridges that collapse and kill or injure US citizens adds more of a burden are spread to the costs of lawsuits as well as the cost in productivity and wear and tear on other resources when commuters are shunted to other roads and vital arteries.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern, warn that turning the financing of infrastructure projects over to Wall Street could lead to another subprime mortgage meltdown:

Leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties know the U.S. cannot raise money from traditional public sources of financing, including municipal bonds, user fees and taxes.

The financiers on Wall Street already have positioned themselves to take advantage of this national crisis for their own gain. Where most Americans see crumbling bridges and traffic congestion, the money managers see a treasure trove of fees, profits and more record bonuses for CEOs.

It's why some private equity firms and banks on Wall Street are raising massive dollars to buy these assets that have typically been owned and managed by the government.

In recent years, new infrastructure funds have been established in North America with capital commitments of $40 billion to $45 billion. These private funds have sprouted up like weeds, structured for short-term profits and sky-high fees -- usually up to a 2 percent management fee plus up to 20 percent of the profits.

It would be a monumental mistake to turn the future of America's infrastructure over to the same crowd that brought us the subprime crisis, an economy loaded down with debt and recession.

We should know better by now than to create a scenario where bridges and highways are sliced and diced like subprime loans into financially engineered "collateralized infrastructure obligations."

America needs a large source of stable, long-term capital to build the system of buildings, roads and power supplies needed to sustain the country. We need a source of capital that values infrastructure because it provides a reasonable rate of return, strengthens the overall economy and doesn't burden users with excessive fees.

Every decade or so, there is a renewed call for a return to the 1930s and the resurrection of the Civlian Conservation Corps as a means of reducing unemployment, investing in infrastructure, and energizing the American people in an effort to improve their country:

[Civilian Conservation Corps] CCC enrollees throughout the country were credited with renewing the nation's decimated forests by planting an estimated three billion trees from 1933 to 1942.

The 1932 Presidential election was more a cry for help from a desperate people near panic as it was an election in a "landslide" vote, the nation turned to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic party searching for an end to the rampant unemployment and economic chaos that gripped the country. They weren't disappointed. Accepting the Presidential nomination on July 1, 1932, New York Governor Roosevelt planned a fight against soil erosion and declining timber resources, utilizing the unemployed of large urban areas.

Professional foresters and interested layman raised these aims. In what would later be called "The Hundred Days," President Roosevelt revitalized the faith of the nation with several measures, one of which was the Emergency Conservation Work (ECW) Act, more commonly known as the Civilian Conservation Corps. With this action, he brought together two wasted resources, the young men and the land, in an effort to save both.



The President wasted no time: He called the 73rd Congress into Emergency Session on March 9, 1933, to hear and authorize his program. He proposed to recruit thousands of unemployed young men, enroll them in a peacetime army, and send them into battle against destruction and erosion of our natural resources. Before it was over, over three million young men engaged in a massive salvage operation, the most popular experiment of the New Deal.

Could an infrastructure revitalization project, based in part on the CCC model, make up for the gaps in what Federal, state and local governments are willing to spend on infrastructure? A proposed pilot program could answer that question, if enacted and studied properly.

Big Coal Resorts to Bribery

But then, it might be the last card they have left in the deck.

Last fall the Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied air-quality permits for two proposed 700-megawatt coal-fired generators to be built in Western Kansas, near Holcomb. At the time he rendered his decision, Roderick L. Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said that “After careful consideration of my responsibility to protect the public health and environment from actual, threatened or potential harm from air pollution, I have decided to deny the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation application for an air quality permit. I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing. ”

Well the wingnuts in the Kansas lege went into full-frothed meltdown, and Big Coal ran ads like the one at the left, hiding behind an astroturf organization called Kansans for Affordable Energy, which was funded by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. The ads painted Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as in league with the likes of Chavez, Putin and Ahmadinejad.

She rightly dismissed their lunatic raving as "over the top nonsense" at the time, and went on about the business of governing her state, but we all know how these jackals operate, and we knew they would be back.

And you will never guess what tack they are taking this time...they went to the wingnut infested state legislature with checkbook slightly open. Let Sunflower build their two coal-fired behemoths and they will give K-State $2.5 million over ten years for energy research. Into biofuels.

It is embarrassing how cheap a wingnut will sell out. $250 grand a year for ten years? For research into alternatives to coal? Someone pass me a hanky, I'm bustin' up and tears are streaming!

What a joke! That is five paltry $50,000 grants per year - that isn't enough to pay two grad students to do the actual work! And never mind that the bloom is fading from the biofuels rose.

But House Speaker Melvin Neufeld (Wingnut, Ingalls) thinks it's a jolly good notion, that the state should just flip up her skirts and let Big Coal have a go.

State Representative Paul Davis, Democrat of Lawrence, recognizes the quid pro quo for the round rogering it really is, and blasted the attempted bribe. “I think it’s in poor taste to dangle a contribution to a state university in front of the state Legislature on the eve of a debate on a major bill like this, and then to also say, ‘If you don’t pass the bill I want, we are not going to make this contribution,’ ” said Davis, who opposed the bill.

Just for the record - this isn't a NIMBY position - I would oppose two new coal fired plants no matter where they were on environmental grounds alone, even if I didn't live approximately 300 miles to the east. That they want to put them on the Kansas prairie, where the wind never stops blowing, is just stupid to the point that it's ridiculous.

Sebelius to Endorse Obama?

There's a Fund Raiser going on--scroll down for more, okay?


Governor Kathleen Sebelius is set to give the Democratic Response to what is sure to be a largely self-aggrandizing and detached-from-reality State of the Union Address.

Oh, and then there's this:

Sebelius Plans To Endorse Obama
27 Jan 2008 03:33 pm

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) will deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union on Monday.

And then Tuesday or Wednesday, she plans to endorse Barack Obama, numerous Democratic sources said.

The sources said that Sebelius decided some time ago that Obama was her candidate but decided to wait until after the State of the Union.

An Obama spokesperson declined to comment.

"Right now, the Governor's focus is on delivering her response to the President's State of the Union message Monday night," said Nicole Corcoran, communications director to Sebelius. "The Governor will have more to say about the presidential campaign after Monday."

Hey, America!

What about an Obama-Sebelius ticket?

Snow vs Sebelius? My money is on Kathleen

The Useless Tool™ is coming to Kansas for a photo op. But Greensburg isn’t getting verklempt about it all. In fact, I get the impression as I peruse the websites of the western Kansas press outlets that they probably consider his visit just another frickin’ thing they have to deal with.

Haven’t they suffered enough?

GREENSBURG - A visit by President Bush on Wednesday would normally be the biggest event in the town's history.

But digging out from under a tornado's rubble, the people of Greensburg are just too busy to pay the visit much heed.

"He doesn't want us to stop," Steve Hewitt, city administrator, said of the president, "and we don't want us to stop."

People are too busy mapping out how to eat, where to sleep next, where to get fresh laundry and how to literally pick up the pieces of their lives, their futures and their homes.

For them, they said time has blurred, and they grow weary with fatigue and the sorrow that comes with the reading of the newly confirmed dead: three more at a news conference this morning.

Simultaneously, Tony Snow is lyin’ and spinnin’ like he ain’t on his way to hell.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the fault was Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’.

In a spat reminiscent of White House finger-pointing at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco after the federal government’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Snow rapped Sebelius for not following procedure to find gaps and then asking the federal government to fill them.

”If you don’t request it, you’re not going to get it,” he said.

(Just let me say, cancer or no, this guy is a dick.)

The Kansas Guard itself seems more in tune with what the Governor is saying than the spin of the Snow-job.

Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state’s adjutant general, said the Kansas National Guard was equipped at only about 40 percent of its required levels, down from the 60 percent that it had at the start of the war.

Even as Snow insisted he wasn’t trying to get into a political tussle with the Democratic governor, he aggressively defended the administration’s performance.

Now I am not worried about Kathleen Sebelius. She will come out of this on top, and Snow-job will rue the day that he questioned the competence of the most popular Democratic Governor of Kansas in the last half century - maybe the most popular governor of either party of the last half century.

The Kansas City Star pointed out that Governor Sebelius has been bringing up the issue of the under-equipped nature of the Guard for over a year now.

The governor’s concerns date to at least December 2005, when she wrote to the then secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, pleading for the replacement of equipment that would be needed in a state emergency.

The following month, while riding with President Bush to Kansas State University, she again mentioned equipment that never returns from Iraq.

Kansans as a general rule have good bullshit detectors, and they are beeping like crazy right now, every time they hear the slurs against the Governor they reelected with something like 96% of the vote in November. (I kid - it was more like 88%...)

But still…Where is the national Democratic Party? They need to get behind the Governor right god-damned now.

Howard Dean, do you have anything to say about this?

UPDATE: Via Think Progress, here is a more comprehensive list of Sebelius agitating for Guard equipment:

– Jan. 23, 2006: Sebelius personally urges Bush to increase National Guard funding. In an one-hour motorcade ride in Kansas with Bush, Sebelius expressed concern about “a reduction of National Guard troop strength in its next budget.” Bush assured her he was “dealing” with the shortages. [Topeka Capital-Journal, 1/24/06; Kansas City Star, 3/11/06]

– June 28, 2006: Sebelius sends Army Secretary list of equipment lost in war. In a meeting with Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey, Sebelius told Harvey that the state had lost about $140 million in National Guard equipment to the Iraq war. Her office then sent him a list of the lost equipment. [Topeka Capital-Journal, 6/29/06]

– Sept. 2006: Sebelius lobbies for replacement of National Guard equipment sent to Iraq. “Kansas’ congressional delegation, Sebelius and governors from around the country have been lobbying the Pentagon for increased funding to replace National Guard equipment that has been left in Iraq or damaged beyond repair after repeated use in war.” [AP, 9/5/06]

– Feb. 27, 2007: Sebelius pushes White House and Congress for more funding. “Now the Guard needs Washington’s help,” Sebelius said in press conference on Capitol Hill. “The President and Congress need to step up to the plate and give our Guard members the support they deserve.” [Press Release, 2/27/07]

Some Perspective For You

...on the feckless tool Francona.

He eviscerates the cracked kernel in red...

Lack of equipment in Kansas is symptomatic of a larger problem

COMMENTARY

By Lt. Col. Rick Francona

Military analyst

MSNBC

The governor of Kansas claims that recovery efforts in the tornado-devastated town of Greensburg are being hampered by shortages of Kansas National Guard equipment – Humvees, front loaders, trucks – currently deployed to Iraq and not in her state.

Okay, let’s get the politics out of this up front. I am not sure how much her party affiliation – she is a Democrat – plays into her remarks. It does make a nice sound bite and checks the “attack the administration” block. That said, she has a point.

[So Governor Sebelius--who is under attack from Press Secretary Tony Snow--is "playing politics?" Now, how much do you want to be if she were a Republican, not a whisper or a word would be said in response to her very accurate and level-headed assessment? The fact of the matter is, LTG Blum, head of the National Guard, said last month that there was a shortage of equipment. Every reserve and National Guard unit in the ENTIRE COUNTRY is short of equipment. And Sebelius is playing politics when she says the same thing LTG Blum is saying? When a Republican says something, it's just a Republican saying something. When a Democrat says something, it's politics. Thank you for clearing that up--now that we know that the Republican Party doesn't play politics, I'm sure that we'll stop seeing every member of the Republican Party give speeches in front US servicemen and women from now until the end of time. And how long before the President stands in front of servicemen and firemen and anyone else he can use for a prop? After all--he's not playing politics, is he? No, you moonbat. He's not.]

When the governor complains that much of the Kansas National Guard’s equipment is in Iraq, including 15 of its 19 Blackhawk helicopters, she is describing a symptom of a larger problem that goes far beyond Kansas, and far beyond the present situation. The problem is lack of serviceable equipment and it is not limited to the National Guard and reserves. On average these units have only 40 percent of their authorized “TO&E” –- table of organization and equipment –- and it is not in the best of shape. The Guard is supposed to get $21 billion for new equipment over the next five years –- basically a Band-Aid fix. Our regular forces fare only a bit better.

[That's right--but why not state the facts. The DoD and the Bush Administration have left the United States of America undefended. That, my friends, is the impeachable offense that trumps any other impeachable offense.]

War's toll on military equipment
The five-plus year "global war on terror" has taken its toll on military equipment, especially on the vehicles assigned to the ground forces. The problem is most acute in Iraq, where constant improvised explosive device attacks, combined with a harsh operating environment, have degraded the normally robust Humvees. Modifications to the Humvees to make them fighting vehicles (something they were not designed to be) have added weight and changed the driving characteristics dramatically, and shortened their service life. Many, if not most, need to be replaced. Units rotating back to the States often leave most of their Humvees in Iraq.

[Why is that? Why does a unit leave behind their equipment? Because there is no transportation available to ship them back. Once a unit's gear goes forward, there isn't enough resource available to ship it back to where it came from. And if the gear isn't being replaced, the unit goes without critical equipment. Remind me again--who's running this fucking country? Who's the Decider?]

Whether you agree or disagree with the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, the fact is that American troops are deployed in a combat zone. Combat operations are tough on equipment, and equipment is expensive. It must be replaced at a much higher rate than during peacetime training rotations. For whatever reason, we have not done that. The administration is reluctant to request the actual funds that are required to keep our forces equipped at the optimum level. Yes, the figure would be shocking, but would you deny an American soldier or Marine the very best hardware, and enough of it? Of course not.

Talk about soft-pedalling the obvious--troops are dying because they are not getting the gear they need. Who vetoed the funding legislation again?

Adequate reserves
As I have noted in the past, our armed forces are too small to protect the worldwide national interests of a superpower. One half of one percent of our population in uniform is not enough if we are to fight essentially two wars, maintain forces in other potential hot spots, support relief efforts, provide forces for United Nations commitments, and still have adequate reserves to respond to emergencies at home.

[United Nations commitments? Like, one battalion for duty in the Sinai peninsula?]

I chose the words “adequate reserves” carefully. In the final analysis, the National Guard is a reserve component of the United States Army –- about half of the Army’s combat units are in the National Guard. While the governor is correct that 20 percent of the Kansas Army National Guard is deployed to Iraq, its primary mission is to provide forces for the United States Army. It is the federal government that funds the National Guard, not the governor.

[And he patently ignores the fact that Bush can Federalize the Guard and take it away from Blue State governors at will--courtesy of a rule change rammed into law by the last Republican Congress. And, he can Federalize the guard and use them to put down citizen insurrections--such as when the Quakers get rowdy and have a peace rally. Yes, the full weight of the US Military can be used to kill American citizens and there isn't a goddamned thing anyone can do about it. Remind me again--who's in charge?]

What is a governor to do when his or her state’s Guardsmen are deployed on federal service? The governor of each state is authorized to organize, train and equip a State Defense Force, not subject to federal service, to be used specifically when the National Guard is away. Kansas has such a force; I assume the governor has mobilized them.

[Otherwise known as the Citizen's Auxilliary? Is he serious? What few people would still be available have just had their homes destroyed. Everyone else is just trying to survive. All of the useful and critical people are deployed or busy keeping everyone alive in their own communities. They are shorthanded and need help--hence, you call out the Guard. Oh, wait--they're in Iraq! Brilliant.]

When all is said and done, the United States needs a larger Army. Until we reestablish an adequate force level to meet the requirements levied on our active duty armed forces, we will continue to call up the National Guard and reserves.

[No, until we bring our troops home and spend hundreds of billions of dollars to retrain, re-equip and rebuild the forces that are charged with defending this country, there will be more US cities wiped off the face of the Earth. Remind me again--who's in charge and who's responsible for this debacle? ]

So how many American cities, exactly, have to disappear before the people finally wake up and "get it"?

Question everything these mendacious pricks say, folks.

Note to aWol: We don't need you to bring a dog-and-pony show to Kansas...We need our Guard equipment home...

First, Louisiana could not mount an adequate response because all of the Louisiana National Guard’s deep-water vehicles were in Iraq when Katrina hit.

Now the Kansas National Guard has plenty of manpower – only a little over 10% of the Kansas Guard is deployed. But over 50% of their equipment is in Iraq. The front loaders and dump trucks and the like.

All Things Considered, May 7, 2007 · Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius says that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have drained equipment from her state's National Guard. She expects that to hamper recovery from the devastating tornado that struck the town of Greensburg Friday. At least 10 people died.

Residents are returning to the town, where many buildings have been reduced to rubble. The tornado's winds reached speeds of more than 200 miles.

She tells Robert Siegel that 50 percent of the Guard's heavy equipment, such as dump trucks and backhoes, is not in Kansas. She also says there is little equipment to borrow from surrounding states since their equipment also has been deployed elsewhere.

Despite the equipment shortage and the extent of the destruction in the town of Greensburg, Sebelius says she expects residents to rebuild.

Rescue crews continue to look for survivors.

The National Guard is supposed to be there for us, to protect the homeland when disaster strikes. But they need their damned equipment. They can’t respond to a disaster with their bare hands!

Enough already – bring the troops – and their equipment – home. Now.