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Sunday, September 23, 2007
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Talking Points Memo: "Apparently, the White House is a little concerned about the political fallout of Bush's opposition to a bipartisan expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). The president called a press conference this week, apparently for no other reason than to denounce Congress' work on making healthcare more accessible to millions of uninsured kids."
"2008 pres"
4:09:57 PM 
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Juan Cole: "Meanwhile, charges surfaced that Blackwater employees had shipped weapons to Iraq without proper paperwork, which could be interpreted as a form of arms smuggling. The company denies the charges."
"2008 pres"
4:05:36 PM
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Science Blog: "Researchers at the University of British Columbia have made a compelling case that drug prohibition and backwards welfare rules increase criminal activity. A team led by Kora DeBeck and Thomas Kerr surveyed injection drug users in the Vancouver area. They asked, "If you didn't need the money to pay for your drug use, are there any sources of income in the last 30 days that you would eliminate?" In that study, 62 percent of prostitutes and 41 percent of drug dealers said that they would cease their criminal activities if they did not need the extra income for drugs."
"2008 pres"
4:03:38 PM
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Captain's Quarters: "Israel captured nuclear material in a daring raid on a joint facility operated by Syria and North Korea before bombing it into oblivion, the Times of London reports today. Tests indicate that the nuclear material originated in North Korean facilities. It indicates that the 'Axis of Evil' still works together for proliferation and other mischief."
"2008 pres"
3:58:07 PM
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Say hello to the Watchdog Blog. They, "...work to ensure that Congress represents citizens by exposing the harmful impact of money in politics and fighting for an improved democracy. We also champion consumer interests before the U.S. Congress and seek to preserve citizen access to the courts to redress corporate harm and negligence." Here's link for their RSS Feed.
"2008 pres"
3:00:56 PM
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Here's a look financing the 2008 Democratic National Convention from The Denver Post. From the article:
Congress is in the final stages of approving $100 million to be equally divided between Denver, which is hosting the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and St. Paul, Minn., which is hosting the GOP convention. Because the cities' officials don't want to cover the large costs upfront and then wait for Congress to approve reimbursements after the fact, their officials have lobbied for the money to be ready in 2008. But Boston's experience shows that even with the money available, the repayment process can extend several months into the following budget year. Audits have to be done. Expenses have to be carefully detailed. Federal officials have to sign off. Denver's Katherine Archuleta, a mayoral senior adviser who serves as liaison to the convention process, said the city will try to recover the money as quickly as possible. She declined to say how it would cover costs should the repayment schedule extend into 2009. She said it was possible that the federal program had benefited from lessons it learned in Boston and would be speedier in repaying in 2008. "I just don't want to speculate," Archuleta said. "I'm hopeful that it is going to be very different from what Boston experienced." The $100 million figure Congress is mulling for 2008 comes from the 2004 conventions. That year, Congress made $50 million available to be divided between New York City, which hosted the GOP, and Boston. But because the cities were hosting the first conventions after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, security costs ran higher than that appropriation. For New York, the primary victim of the attacks, costs ran to $50 million. A second round of appropriations produced an extra $50 million for the two cities in 2005, though Boston needed far less than that...
If the Denver effort costs the full $50 million, it would mean a 27.3 percent increase in next year's $183 million police and 911 budget simply to secure the city for that one week. The lion's share of Boston's security expenses came in overtime for police and other security personnel - more than $11.7 million. Because multi-day riots during Seattle's hosting of the World Trade Organization in 1999 drained police there of riot-control gear, Dunford bought extra supplies. Records show police bought at least $178,000 worth of extra rubber bullets, pepper-spray foggers, Tasers, percussion grenades, rubber batons, riot shields and helmets and other supplies.
"2008 pres"
8:30:06 AM
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From TheDay.com, "The Bush administration's aggressive drive to promote oil and gas drilling on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains has sparked growing anger here among traditional Republican constituents who say that the stepped-up push for energy development is sullying some of the country's most majestic landscape."
More from the article:
The emerging backlash from ranchers and sportsmen, which is occurring despite an economic boom driven by drilling, is threatening GOP primacy in at least one corner of what has been a solidly Republican West. Long the most reliably conservative expanse of a state that has gone red in six of the past seven presidential contests, Colorado's western third shows evidence of the "purpling" that has made Colorado look increasingly like a swing state. Support from the western slope was seen as pivotal in the elections of Democrats Bill Ritter as governor last year and Sen. Ken Salazar in 2004, the same year Salazar's older brother, John Salazar, was elected to Congress from a western Colorado district that had given 66 percent of its vote to the Republican candidate four years earlier. All three Democrats found support in GOP enclaves while calling for "balance" in energy extraction. "I can only speak for myself and I'm a registered Republican, but last year I voted a straight Democratic ticket. First time in my life," said Bob Elderkin, 68, who heads the town of Rifle's chapter of the Colorado Mule Deer Association, a hunting group that has made common cause with environmentalists against drilling. "The Republicans have kind of lost touch with reality."[...]
The state has 32,000 active gas and oil wells, and plans call for at least 40,000 more in the next decade. A new Wilderness Society forecast sees 125,000 new wells across the region. "They are creating problems by the magnitude," said Joan Savage, who welcomed the 146 gas wells on her family's 6,000-acre ranch but shakes her head at federal plans to drill atop the majestic Roan Plateau, which towers over it...
...concern about the downside of drilling has helped define the terms of political debate even in deep-red Wyoming, where Sen. John Barrasso, the Republican appointed to the seat of the late Craig Thomas, this summer suggested buying back leases from gas companies to protect the range. In Colorado, the backlash has emboldened officeholders who are accustomed to walking a tightrope between the state's conservative rangeland and suburbs and the heavily Democratic ski and union enclaves. Ken Salazar placed a hold on the appointment of a new Bureau of Land Management head to pressure the Interior Department to delay drilling atop the Roan, framed by Savage's office window...
Residents in deeply Republican Mesa County say the gas is needed, especially with output from offshore reserves falling. But there is also apprehension about the approach of the rigs that transformed Garfield. The Bureau of Land Management recently authorized gas drilling -- a process that uses hydraulic pressures to fracture underground formations -- in the area that supplies Grand Junction with its drinking water. "You do not drill on your freaking watershed!" said Frank Lamm, 62, who squared off against energy companies after sulfurous odors from the nearby Black Mountain oil field fluids disposal site began drifting into his trailer home. Evenings now find him watching TV from behind a dust mask, his front door sealed with duct tape. Rainwater from his roof runs clear into plastic buckets, then turns a disquieting red. Lamm, a registered Republican who voted for President Bush, found himself the spokesman for Citizens for Responsible Energy Development (CRED). Group discussions stick to plotting against the energy companies that the attending liberals and conservatives have united against. "We didn't dare talk about anything else, because we'd argue about anything else," Lamm said. The same unified front prompted the state legislature this year to reform Colorado's traditionally pro-industry oil and gas commission on new lines championed by a coalition of environmentalists, hunters and ranchers.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"2008 pres"
8:06:06 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/15/09; 1:28:28 PM.
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