The Club For Growth's RePORK Card

Admitting to the fact that Club for Growth has a political agenda, the RePORK card doesn't hold very good news for most Congressmen or the American taxpayer:

The Club for Growth has compiled a RePORK Card of all members' votes on all 50 anti-pork amendments (see below). 'Taxpayers have a right to know which congressmen stand up for them and which stand up for the special interests,' said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey. 'Unfortunately, the Club for Growth RePORK Card shows that most congressmen care more about lining their buddies' pockets than they care about protecting American taxpayers.' Some interesting numbers to consider:

• Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.
• The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.
• The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.
• Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.
• Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.
• 105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.
• The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

Here is the list of zero percenters (Appropriations Committee members in Bold):
Abercrombie (D-HI-1)
Aderholt (R-AL-4)
Alexander, R. (R-LA-5)
Altmire (D-PA-4)
Andrews (D-NJ-1)
Arcuri (D-NY-24)
Baca (D-CA-43)
Baker (R-LA-6)
Baldwin (D-WI-2)
Becerra (D-CA-31)
Bishop, T. (D-NY-1)
Boucher (D-VA-9)
Boustany (R-LA-7)
Boyda, N. (D-KS-2)
Butterfield (D-NC-1)
Calvert (R-CA-44)
Capito (R-WV-2)
Capuano (D-MA-8)
Carson (D-IN-7)
Conyers (D-MI-14)
Costello (D-IL-12)
Cramer (D-AL-5)
DeLauro (D-CT-3)
Diaz-Balart, L. (R-FL-21)
Donnelly (D-IN-2)
Edwards (D-TX-17)
Ellsworth (D-IN-8)
Emerson (R-MO-8)
Etheridge (D-NC-2)
Frelinghuysen (R-NJ-11)
Gilchrest (R-MD-1)
Gonzalez (D-TX-20)
Green, G. (D-TX-29)
Grijalva (D-AZ-7)
Hall, J. (D-NY-19)
Hastings, A. (D-FL-23)
Hinchey (D-NY-22)
Hinojosa (D-TX-15)
Hirono (D-HI-2)
Hodes (D-NH-2)
Holt (D-NJ-12)
Inslee (D-WA-1)
Israel (D-NY-2)
Jackson, J. (D-IL-2)
Kagen (D-WI-8)
Kaptur (D-OH-9)
Kennedy, P. (D-RI-1)
Kildee (D-MI-5)
Knollenberg (R-MI-9)
Kucinich (D-OH-10)
Kuhl (R-NY-29)
LaHood (R-IL-18)
Lampson (D-TX-22)
Levin, S. (D-MI-12)
Lewis, Jerry (R-CA-41)
Lipinski (D-IL-3)
McCollum (D-MN-4)
McIntyre (D-NC-7)
McNulty (D-NY-21)
Michaud (D-ME-2)
Mollohan (D-WV-1)
Murphy, C. (D-CT-5)
Murphy, T. (R-PA-18)
Murtha (D-PA-12)
Napolitano (D-CA-38)
Obey (D-WI-7)
Olver (D-MA-1)
Ortiz (D-TX-27)
Pallone (D-NJ-6)
Pascrell (D-NJ-8)
Pastor (D-AZ-4)
Payne (D-NJ-10)
Peterson, C. (D-MN-7)
Peterson, J. (R-PA-5)
Price, D. (D-NC-4)
Rangel (D-NY-15)
Regula (R-OH-16)
Rehberg (R-MT-AL )
Renzi (R-AZ-1)
Reyes (D-TX-16)
Rogers, H. (R-KY-5)
Rogers, Mike D. (R-AL-3)
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-18)
Roybal-Allard (D-CA-34)
Ruppersberger (D-MD-2)
Ryan, T. (D-OH-17)
Sarbanes (D-MD-3)
Serrano (D-NY-16)
Sherman (D-CA-27)
Shuler (D-NC-11)
Snyder (D-AR-2)
Thompson, B. (D-MS-2)
Tiahrt (R-KS-4)
Towns (D-NY-10)
Udall, T. (D-NM-3)
Van Hollen (D-MD-8)
Velazquez (D-NY-12)
Visclosky (D-IN-1)
Walsh (R-NY-25)
Walz (D-MN-1)
Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL-20)
Watson (D-CA-33)
Watt (D-NC-12)
Welch (D-VT-AL )
Wilson, C. (D-OH-6)

It is the Appropriators that set the standard and when both the Chairman and the Ranking Members don't take to heart the need for fiscal restraint and reducing pork, do we really expect everyone else in Congress to do so?

Democratic Economics

James Pethokoukis looks at some of the statements made by Democratic candidates regarding the economy at the AFL-CIO candidate forum. Some of the statements fly in the face of truth, but given the audience, you can expect the Pandermeter to be hitting the red zone.

Two Crimes in DC Charter Schools Case, Only One Gets Punished

In U.S. District Court yesterday, former DC Charter Schools administrator Brenda Belton admitted to an embezzlement and fraud scheme that cost DC taxpayers $649,000 over a three year period:

Belton, 61, admitted to U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina that she steered about $446,000 in seven no-bid contracts to friends and a cousin and stole $203,000 by paying school funds to a fictitious company she controlled. At the same time, she received $180,000 in illegal payments and kickbacks from friends she helped with school business. The crimes took place from March 2003 to May 2006, prosecutors said.

"Are these statements true and accurate?" Urbina asked Belton after Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch described the details of the government's evidence.

"Yes, they are true," she answered in a muffled voice.

During sentencing in November, Belton will face a likely term of 30 to 37 months in prison for theft and tax evasion charges. She has agreed to pay restitution of $383,000, most of which will go back to the school system.

She does not have to repay the money involved in the no-bid contracts because the investigation has not established that she directly benefited or that the city got no work for the money. No one else has been charged in the case.

Belton will get her sentence in November, but the larger crime is that lack of oversight.

Belton's crimes could have been caught had there been adequate oversight by senior education officials and the DC City Council. The fact that no one else caught this scheme until an employee tipped off authorities. The scheme seems so brazen, loaded with personal friends of Belton and compounded by lack of oversight from the Charter Board and the School Board. In one instance:

School officials missed a chance to discover a problem, prosecutors' court filings show. The Board of Education was supposed to approve the use of Equal Access Inc. every year; tougher oversight could have revealed the dummy company.

As Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee continue their work to reform the DC schools, much attention will need to be paid to proper accounting and oversight methods in order to counteract the blatant greed and graft that seems to be an everyday part of the education system in DC.

To my knowledge, no DC school board member or DC school employee has lost their job beside Belton as a result of this fiasco. That is just about as big a crime as Belton's.

Forging Signatures on Nominating Petition Nets Criminal Charges

In Harrisburg, PA, Political consultant Mark Zabierek has been charged with eight counts of forging signatures and eight counts of forging signatures and statements in a nomination petition. His attorney said that Zaierek waived his Miranda rights and may seek to have the charges waived to the court in a preliminary hearing set for September 24.

There is a lot to be said for a ballot petition process that calls for a filing fee only as opposed to signatures--it certainly makes things easier and less subject to these kinds of activities.

Hat Tip: Prof. Hasen.

1in 10 Counties in America are Majority Minority Counties

So blares a number of headlines across the country, but Philip Mella a Clear Commentary has some counter thoughts:

We have become so conditioned by the insidious and cynical use of race in our cultural conversation that we've lost all sense of perspective.

Let's begin by recalling The Rev. Martin Luther King's now quaint command that we judge others not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Yet in the ensuing years the liberal establishment, along with its proxies in academia and the entertainment world, have diligently worked to convince us of precisely the opposite: That skin color is, in fact, dispositive of everything from values to character, and that to both redress past wrongs and to establish their uniquely skewed notion of equal opportunity, we must have a two-track system.

From race-based school admissions criteria to the more invisible but nonetheless noxious predicate for welfare and other insulting programs--that minorities are inherently less capable of success--modern liberalism has erected an entire policy and program edifice based solely on skin color. That's exactly what Dr. King found most divisive as well as contrary to the goal of real civil rights reform.

Taking this Denver revelation further, isn't America a nation of immigrants, and doesn't each hyphenated American have some historical grudge they can legitimately bring to the table of cultural grievances? Whether it's the Irish or Italians in the 19th century or the Germans or Japanese in the 20th, there is a rich if unflattering list of racial and ethnic wrongs that punctuate American history.

Racial and ethnic wrongs are a long and sordid part of any country's history. Liberals hold out Western Europe as a bastion of inclusiveness and tolerance, but you would be wrong. For example, see the story of DeMarcus Beasley, a black American soccer player playing for Glasgow Rangers being subjected to racist "monkey" chants during matches on the continent--more than once.

But we as a nation, and particularly liberals, can't seem to get past the categorization by skin color. The paternalistic nature of liberal programs of affirmative action, minority set asides and the constant challenge of "diversity" means that liberals stereotype more than any single group in America. We have all kinds of hyphenated groups today, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, or (name your group)-Americans and not nearly enough Americans.

At the founding of our nation, most of the former British colonists now Americans saw themselves first as citizens of their state. There were New Yorkers and Virginians, Pennsylvanians and South Carolinians, but few Americans. Sectional and state differences drove much of our early politics, but in the battle to survive as a nation, our early leaders recongnized that we must present to the world the image of being Americans first and everything else second. Thus, by the War of 1812 and beyond, people saw themselves not as Marylanders or Virginians, but as Americans.

Until we can embrace that mindset of Americans first, we will forever be stuck fighting battles based on race or ethnicity or national origin. How productive is that for America and how does that fulfill Dr. Martin Luther King's Dream.

Clinton "Midnight" Pardons Have Legal Troubles Still

From The Hill:

At least three individuals pardoned by President Clinton during his last minutes in office have run into further trouble with the government.

But despite the recent brouhaha over President Bush’s commutation of the prison sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and the controversy surrounding Clinton’s “midnight pardons,” Congress has shown little appetite for making substantial changes to the executive branch’s clemency power.

While some lawmakers over the last decade have called for changes to the pardon system, the few bills proposed have not come close to becoming law.

Financier Marc Rich, businessman Almon Glenn Braswell and Roger Clinton Jr., the president’s half-brother, were among the 140 individuals President Clinton pardoned during his last day in office. The GOP-led Congress investigated these pardons in 2001, probing the familial and financial connections between the White House and those pardoned.

The legal issues that the trio faced over the past six years range from drug charges to fraud to tax evasion.(emphasis added)

Color me shocked about additional legal troubles.

But the emphasized paragraph struck me. Congress has called for changes to the pardon system? How, by constitutional amenment? That is the only way to change the pardon system since the power to pardon or grant clemency rests solely with the President. Congress may not like some of the pardons and that is their right, but only the President can pardon and no other branch of government can do anything about it without a change in the Constitution.

Bush Bashes Congress on Productivity

President Bush, in his press conference today, put the smackdown on a Congress that spends more time on oversight than on legislating.

“As a matter of fact, I would hope Congress would become more prone to deliver pieces of legislation that matter as opposed to being the investigative body,” Bush told reporters. “I mean, there have been over 600 different hearings, and yet they’re struggling with getting appropriations bills to my desk.”

The administration in recent weeks has made a point of noting how much effort the Democratic majority spends on oversight.

The Democratic Congress does seem a tad obsessed with finding a scandal or smoking gun of wrongdoing.

What happened to all that stuff that was supposed to happen in the 100 hours?

Daschel Calls GOP "Sad" and "Desperate" For Targeting Sen. Johnson

Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle sent a fundraising letter on behalf of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) in which he attacked the NRSC for targeting Johnson's seat according to The Hill.

In his e-mail, Daschle asks supporters to send Ensign e-mails demanding that he “stop the attacks.”

“Tim’s focus should be on his recovery to serve the people of South Dakota, not fending off classless political attacks from national Republicans,” Daschle wrote. “That means we’re not going to sit back and wait for the right-wing slime machine to attack Tim Johnson. We have to fight back.”

In an e-mail to supporters issued by Johnson’s campaign committee, Daschle criticizes National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman John Ensign (Nev.) for saying he would push forward with an effort to defeat Johnson in 2008.

In 2002, Johnson survived a challenge by then Rep. John Thune (R). In 2004 Thune challenged and defeated Daschle in one of the most expensive Seante races per capita. Due to the generally conservative nature of South Dakota and the close races in 2002 and 2004, Johnson was on the NRSC target list ever since the day after he won in 2002.

In fact, the NRSC's recruitment and fundraising campaigns have actually been hampered by Johnson's illness. Johnson suffered a brain hemmorhage in December and has been on a leave of absence from the Senate while recouperating.

Methinks Daschle doth protest too much and certainly can be guilty (perhaps by association or directly) of hypocrisy. Despite accusations against the NRSC for targeting Johnson, Johnson's illness has not prevented the Democrats from raising $1.2 million on behalf of Johnson, despite his infirmity.

Johnson is expected to return to his duties after the August recess, but it is unclear whether he will run for re-election.

Getting Out of Our Own Way

Eduwank guest blogger Chris Cerf has another insightful piece up, this time on responsbility and accountability.

There is no greater path to madness than holding someone accountable and then not giving him or her the authority to deliver. By the same token, a central lesson from the early years of the charter school movement is that autonomy without meaningful accountability is equally misguided.

I suspect that if you talk to school principals and vice principals, the greatest headeaches in their daily work is not teachers or students or even helicopter parents, but REMFs (as the military used to call them, "Rear Echelon Mother F'ers"), the central school administration bureaucrats who need to justify their existence by hassling the front line school administrators.

The opposite of accountability is authority, and for far too many principals in our schools today, they lack a great deal of authority. Assuming a principal is empowered to hire teachers, they certainly don't have the ability to fire them due to procedures enshrined in most union contracts. So to whom are teachers accountable? Principals are held accountable for their budgets, to a certain extent, yet they have no authority to contract for services outside a very limited area. Principals are accountable to the parents and students in their charge, but have no authority to really make changes and accomodations necessary to effect a student's education. For example, in most school districts, individual education plans, required under federal law for special ed students, usually have to be finalized by the district, and the student's principal has little if any direct involvement, despite probably having a pretty good grasp of what she can provide and what she can't provide in the way of services.

Assuming some of these matters are properly within the realm of the school principal, why aren't more schools taking a page from New York City and decentralizing administration of schools. Empower principals to make decisions would seem to be the purpose of principals, otherwise, why seek to have principals have so many credentials and just hire a "yes man" for the Superintendent and central bureaucracy as save a few thousand dollars a year in salary.

Here are the areas in which a principal should have control:

1. Hiring AND firing of staff, including teachers and support staff. Greivance procedures should include appeals to a central authority.
2. Budgetary control, including control over all non-salary items. Large district wide contracts such as food service or transportation would probably be restricted, but other items, including maintenance, textbooks, groundskeeping, etc should be lef to the principal and she should be held fully accountable for results.
3. Scheduling and time management (within guidelines provided by central office of things like bussing)
4. Scheduling of school resources for non-school related groups--a lot of churches and community groups use the school spaces and the school should control their spaces

This is a small list and may be longer, but in the end, the principal must be prepared to defend all decisions to both parents and the school board.

It is not rocket science and should empower and reward principals to do the best they can, but that can only be done if the central bureaucracy lets go a little.

President Urges Congress to Set Proper Transportation Priorities

At the White House Press Conference, President Bush rejected the idea of increasing federal gas taxes by a nickel or more in order to pay for highway bridge repair:

President Bush dismissed Thursday raising the federal gasoline tax to repair the nation’s bridges at least until Congress changes the way it spends highway money.

“The way it seems to have worked is that each member on that (Transportation) committee gets to set his or her own priorities first,” Bush said. “That’s not the right way to prioritize the people’s money. Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities.”

The President is completely accurate on this matter.

If one were to look at the location of and amounts spent on transportation and infrastucture construction in congressional districts, you would find a very, very high correlation to the membership of the Committees. The prioritization of projects is very much similar to the earmarking issue as well. Members on transportation committees take care of themselves and their consitutents first. While I have no problems with Congressmen bringing home the bacon so long as they are above board about it, those tasks should be last on the list of priorities.

The sad thing is that it has taken the deaths of Americans for us to come to the conclusion that the way Congress does business is not about the American people first, but about politicians first.

Gingrich: Modern Presidential Campaigns Verging on the Insane

Given the latest news, it is very hard to disagree with the former Speaker's comments about presidential campaigning.

Potential presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Tuesday blasted the modern-day road to the White House as too long, too expensive and verging on "insane."

The former House speaker from Georgia said he will decide whether to enter the GOP presidential field in October. But in a wide-ranging speech at the National Press Club in Washington, he ridiculed campaign consultants and spin doctors who he said are extending the 2008 campaign. He said presidential debates have become "almost unendurable."

"These aren't debates," the former Georgia congressman said. "This is a cross between [TV shows] 'The Bachelor,' 'American Idol' and 'Who's Smarter than a Fifth-Grader.'"

Despite my general interest in politics, I too have found the debates painful to watch. I get more out of reading the transcript and have taken to doing that. The expense and the activity level are brutal and probably unnecessary. Gingrich, ever the idea man, offers a solution:

Gingrich's answer to the problems would be to get rid of limits on campaign financing, which he said have made the problems worse by requiring more individual donations to meet the same goals, and to stage a series of "dialogues" among the major-party candidates -- once a week, for 90 minutes, for nine weeks before the elections.

Candidates would pick the topics, and their answers would be uninterrupted "except for fairness on time," he said.

"After nine 90-minute conversations in their living rooms, the American people would have a remarkable sense of the two personalities and which person had the right ideas, the right character, the right capacity to be a leader," he said.

I love the campaign finance side of things, so long as there is reasonable disclosure. I also like the dialogues idea, but I wonder how it would work in a primary context, but I can see it in a general election context quite easily and like the idea a great deal.

Get Paid to Stay In School

I have heard proposals like this one to pay Arizona high school students to stay in school, but I am not sure about the program as a whole. Surely we can find other ways of keeping potential drop outs in school.

Real Reform Merit Pay

Edspresso has posted an outline of what they think real teacher merit pay would look like:

First, pay for performance in education is and should be used to describe only those pay scales/arrangements where a significant portion of an educator's salary is determined by their accomplishments in educating children. There are different ways to calculate this, but we'd mainly endorse basing this solely on the value the teacher has added to each child, added up and averaged out over the classes he/she actually taught. That is one major part of paying for performance but as the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) outlines there are a few additional factors, including paying more for additional responsibility, skills, and some aspect of peer and management review.

There are bonus programs masquerading as merit pay where entire faculties earn a bonus if various things happen to a school. That's silly. It masks the people who aren't pulling their weight and obscures those who are so great they should be receiving tens of thousands more! (link in original)

Admittedly, too often teacher merit pay gets bogged down in the details of how appraisals will be done, who does the reviews, etc. Edspresso looks like they are trying to take a step back and talk about how a program would ideally look.

I have a slightly different take. First, merit pay and bonuse should be real and they should be substantial. I get bonuses in my job and while I am glad to get them, $500 or $1,000 in a quarter (when compared against my base salary) are not a real incentive to improve my work or my billing. The same thing applies to teachers, $1,000-$3,000 in a year are not much of an incentive, particularly after the IRS and state tax agencies take their bite--which because it is bonus pay is taxed at teh highest marginal rate, regardless of what your normal rate is--there is not much left over--perhaps as little as $500 or less depending on your tax situation.

Bonuses need to be substantial. For the top performing teachers, I would like to see bonuses on the range of 20-25 percent of annual base salary. For a teacher earning $40,000 per year--that comes to $8,000 to $10,000 bonus. That is a real bonus and probably should only be given to the teachers showing the most value added. Smaller bonus can be paid to some teachers, but I don't think any real merit pay bonus can be considered a bonus unless you are talking about at least 10 percent of base salary. Bonuses on this level provide enough incentive for teachers to really work at improving their skills and classroom practices. Such bonus winners would also then be in demand from other teachers serious about getting top bonuses that everyone will start to improve.

I have heard ideas that once a teacher wins a bonus, they are ineligible the next year. Absolute rubbish. Any teacher who can sustain top performance year after year deserves not only the bonuses they earn but a massive pay raise on top of it. While minimum service criteria may be needed, like the number of days worked in a year (so as to avoid teachers hired in the middle of a year or teachers who take a a mid-year leave of absence are exempted from consideration), everyone should be eligible, regardless of past performance.

I differ a bit with Edspresso about facility bonuses. I think facility bonuses could be quite useful to spur competition between schools. The more schools compete to improve on one another, the more our students will benefit. There may be other criteria involved in school bonuses, such as teacher retention, evaluations of the school's atomosphere, additional professional development training, etc. that could be considered, but school based bonuses could help.

A school bonus of $3,000 to $4,000 per employee could spur the competition. There is nothing wrong with rewarding the teachers and the schools that have the best performance record.

Any merit pay scheme must be substantial, must be immediate and the criteria must be objective and publicly available, or at least available to other teachers/administrators so that no one can question the process. Merit pay, pay for performance or whatever you want to call it, must be the basis for attracting and retaining great teachers. Great teachers beget great teachers because everyone wants that bonus, particularly when the bonus actually is a bonus.

International Club Matches for MLS

Houston Dynamo Coach Dominic Kinnear had this to say about the SuperLiga tournament between MLS and Mexican clubs, courtesy of Marc at The Offside:

What’s important for us is exposing players to a different style of competition, a different style from what we play in MLS. In our league, other than Chivas, which plays a Latin-type of game, our style in MLS does not vary too much. It’s also important for American guys who want to play on the national team to get exposed to the game internationally early in careers. I think it’s great.

I tend to agree, but there is one major caveat to this thought. Most of the international club matches and even the friendlies occur when the American teams are in the midst of their season and the international clubs in their pre-season. The MLS should look to schedule friendlies--both in other nations and here at home, when the MLS teams are in pre-season form and the international clubs in their mid-season form. This is likely to be a much better determinant of MLS club's ability to perform and compete on the highest levels of the game.

Fulham Manager Sanchez Confident as Result of Summer Signing

Fulham Football Club's manager, a Irishman with the unlikely name of Lawrie Sanchez is happy with his summer signings and is feeling confident about this year's Premiership campaign.

I am glad he is confident, but a team that barely escaped relegation last year thanks to a timely goal by American midfielder Clint Dempsey, needs to be wary. A fair number of so-called experts have predicted relegation this year for the Cottagers.

With eight signings this summer, Fulham have cause for optimism and cause for concern. The new players will need to gel quickly with the current roster. Of the eight, the most recent addition, Hameur Bouazza may be the most significant. Bouazza is a speedy striker and may compliment the very solid air game of Brian McBride with a solid ground game. But still, Fulham has a long way to go this season.

I don't know what Sanchez is hoping for this season, but for me a top 12 finish in the Premiership would be enough of an improvement if coupled with a solid performance in the FA Cup, preferably a fifth round appearance in which they don't get drubbed like they did this year by Tottenham Hotspur (a 4-0 loss). A sixth round appearance would, of course symbolize advancement as well.

Robot Medic: How Cool is This?

DARPA announced that a robot medic will be ready to deploy in 2009. Science fiction come to life!!!

One of the first announcements at this year's three-day DARPATech conference is going to be hard to top: the first portable, self-contained surgical robot will be deployed in the next two years. Brett Giroir, director of the research agency's Defense Sciences Office also announced that the system, called Trauma Pod, has successfully "treated" a mannequin during a test, with no complications.

A single human will operate the robot remotely during surgery, but Trauma Pod will be able to perform a number of functions, such as fluid administration and surgical assistance, autonomously. The goal is to stabilize injured soldiers as quickly as possible, and previous Trauma Pod designs have included related systems that evacuate the patient. Giroir said that a prototype will be delivered to troops within two years.

In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves as Neo: "Whoooaa!"

Via Instapundit.

Air Force Court Martial of Alledged Rape Victim

Ed Morrisey has the story of an female Air Force airman undergoing a court martial for a series of offenses including indecent acts and underage drinking. She claims she was raped, but refused to testify because of the emotional trauma. Her three alledged attackers have taken non-judicial punishment AND have been granted immunity in order to testify at the woman's court martial.

Ed smells a rat because of the grant of immunity:

It's the grant of immunity to the three men that they will use as their star witnesses that smells. If they told the truth, why do they need immunity from a charge that they've already pled guilty to? And if the Air Force prosecutors grant that immunity, they have to believe that a more serious charge could be leveled against them -- and in that case, why prosecute the woman?

During my time in the Navy, which occured around the time of the Tailhook fiasco, a female shipmate of mine was essentially hounded out of our unit after she alledged a sexual assault. Part of the problem was, no witnesses, her lack of a desire to testify and her past history.

Admittedly, she was less than discrete about her sexual history, but the treatment she received at the hands of the Navy was tantamount to a sexual assault. Essentially, because she was a little too promiscuous for the unit's taste, she was treated poorly. Even a couple of our officers made rude comments about her, to the point once where I, as an enlisted man, had to caution the officers to keep their yaps shut.

To say that the Air Force's treatment of this woman is a surprise would be a lie. Despire all the advancements the military has made regarding women in the service, there is still something of a double standard when it comes to sex offenses and there is still something of a "blame the victim" mentality when it comes to sexual assault, particularly if the woman was either sexually aggressive or sexually promiscuous. While her personal choices may have an impact on the unit and she can and should be disciplined for that in a NJP setting, or perhaps transferred, this particular incident smells a little to much for me as well.

DeRosa Debunks Miller

It is posts like this one that are the reasons why I like reading Ken DeRosa's De-d Reckoning blog. Last week, House Education and Workforce Chairman George Miller (D-CA) gave a speech about NCLB reauthorization and DeRosa starts to break it down and tear it apart. After dispensing with the notion that our "investment" in public education has "fallen off," which is so much horse puckey as to almost be laughable, DeRosa notes this and what NCLB has done:

If NCLB has achieved anything it certainly has made the many failings of our education system more transparent and has shown us "exactly which students, and which groups of students, are not learning and performing at grade level." And, as this embarrassing data has come to light, it has certainly sparked debate since the public now knows that those in charge of providing a quality education to our children have been failing miserably at the task. Unfortunately, the debate has largely been about the opponents of NCLB trying to do away with or water down NCLB so this data could be more easily suppressed rather than improving education outcomes under NCLB. Pity that.

Even more unfortunately Miller appears to be succumbing to this mentality. He spends the rest of the speech trying to come off as a champion for NCLB will systematically offering revisions that would undermine the efficacy of NCLB.

To be fair, Miller has not been one of the standard bearers of the Democratic push to water down NCLB, but he has been justifiably critical of its implementation.

So far though, most of the rhetoric I have seen on the issue has not really talked about better implementation.

Teacher/Astronaut Headed to Space==Finally

Very cool news.

My own view of the Challenger incident is fairly well burned into my memory. On the day of the accident, I was in Mrs. Osborne's U.S. History class in Middleburg Florida, when school funny man Billy Heuther came into class and said the Challenger had just exploded. We all thought, not funny Billy, but a few second later the principal came over the loudspeakers and announced what had happened.

On a clear day (meaning low humidity) you could see the exhaust trail of shuttle launches from our school.

I for one am glad that Morgan is going up, but I wonder how much teaching she will be able to do once she returns to Earth.

Iranian Radicals Want to Buy Manchester United?

Gateway Pundit has the story.

I am not a big Manchester United Fan (Fulham is my EPL team), but still I am glad that Man. U. owners have dismissed the notion out of hand.

Seventh Circuit Issues Ruling in Case With and Unusual Fact Pattern

Today, the Seventh Circuit issued a ruling in Sides v. Champaign (IL), a case involving a Target Store employee, a video camera, sex in a car and standing in the hot sun.

Like I said, not your normal fact pattern (as if there is one).

Hat Tip: Howard Bashman

Transparency at Colleges and Universities

Phi Beta Cons have had a couple of posts today regarding transparency of finances and adminissions practices at our institutions of higher learning. Phi Beta Cons on National Review Online. For public universities, the disclosure could be better, but they are subject to some disclosure already. On the issue of admissions, Roger Clegg says:

In addition to greater financial transparency, how about requiring colleges and universities to make public if they are using racial and ethnic admission preferences-and, if so, that they meet the legal constraints the Supreme Court has put on such discrimination?

Here's a question, why not simply assume they are using racial/ethnic preferences and ask for proof that they are not?

Hypocrisy on Obama's Foreign Policy Team

I didn't know who was Obama's foreign policy advisor, but I wouldn't have thought it was Samantha Powers. Ed Lasky points out why.

Education Next Survey on American Attitudes to Schools

The survey is here. I have not had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but one thing is apparent, like most controversial issues, there is a real split in America about education:

Americans both care about their schools and want them to improve. Though adults give the nation’s public schools only mediocre grades—a plurality confer a “C”—they are willing to invest more money in public education and they are reasonably confident that doing so will improve student learning. They are also open to a host of school reforms ranging from high-stakes student accountability to merit pay for teachers to school vouchers and tax credits that would give low-income families greater access to private schools. By sizable margins, they back reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law that mandates school accountability.

The public, however, also appears selective in its desire for change. Americans balk at some market-based reforms, such as paying more for teachers who work in fields like math and science, where quality teachers are in scarce supply. And substantial percentages remain undecided about charter schools and other reform initiatives, suggesting that the current national debate over school policy has the potential to sway public opinion in one direction or another.

More to come as I get more of the results read.

Measuring Teacher Effectiveness

I haven't gotten much play on my Teacher Quality stats (see categories to the left), mostly because I have zero credibility in the area, but there are those who do who are pushing the same ideas that teacher effectiveness in the classroom is the most important measure.

Christopher Cerf, guestblogging at Eduwonk, talks about the issue thusly:

In combination, these two points explain why, quite appropriately, "value added analysis" has become the holy grail of the accountability systems urban school districts across the country are rushing to build. Opponents express the reasonable concern that isolating "teacher effect" as an independent variable is immensely complex given the many factors that contribute to achievement trends. But isn't that the point?

The debate is no longer over whether, but how evidence of student learning will increasingly inform the management of a school. In unsophisticated hands, achievement data can be used as far too blunt instrument to meet basic standards of fairness. Wouldn't opponents of "value added" serve their interests far better if, instead of opposing "value added" analysis altogether, they put their shoulder into the challenge of designing data systems that take into account the complexity of each individual classroom and working with districts to ensure that they are used responsibly?

Indeed, in my own work, I have yet to come up with ways to isolate some important inputs into the system, largely because there is both a plethora of data out there and not very much that is focused on the results of classroom functions.

Still I think Cerf is right, we are moving beyond the simple and into more complex measurements, but it is a worthwhile move.

Interesting Idea from Google

Via Instapundit. Google is going to try a new feature:

We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.

Wow, no more quotes out of context, or skewed information. An editor's worst nightmare!

"Smart Growth" Causes Home Mortgage Collapse

Thomas Sowell turns his keen eye onto the collapse of the mortgage industry and the housing market.

Amid all the hand-wringing and finger-pointing as housing markets collapse, mortgage foreclosures skyrocket, and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess.

Such risky mortgage loans were rare just a few years ago. As of 2002, fewer than 10 percent of the new mortgages in the United States were of this type. But, by 2006, 31 percent of all new mortgages were of this "creative" or risky type.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, 66 percent of the new mortgages were of this type.

Why this difference in times and places? Because housing prices were skyrocketing in some places and times, so that people of modest incomes had to go out on a limb to buy a house, if they expected to buy a house at all.

But why were housing prices going up so fast, in the first place? A number of studies of communities across the United States and in countries overseas turned up the same conclusion: Government restrictions on building.

While many other factors can be involved -- rising incomes, population growth, construction costs -- a scrutiny of the times and places where housing prices doubled, tripled, or quadrupled within a decade shows that restrictions on building have been the key.

Attractive and heady phrases like "open space," "smart growth" and the like have accompanied land use restrictions that made the cost of land rise in many places to the point where it greatly exceeded the cost of the homes built on the land.

In places that resisted this political rhetoric, home prices remained reasonable, despite rising incomes and population growth.

Construction costs were seldom a major factor, for there was relatively little construction in places with severe building restrictions and skyrocketing home prices.

In short, government has been the principal factor preventing the "affordable housing" that politicians talk about so much.

Politicians have also been a key factor behind pushing lenders to lend to borrowers with lower prospects of being able to repay their loans.

The Community Reinvestment Act lets politicians pressure lenders to lend to people they might not lend to otherwise -- and the same politicians are quick to cry "exploitation" when the interest charged to high-risk borrowers reflects that risk.

The huge losses of sub-prime lenders, some of whom have gone bankrupt, demonstrate again the consequences of letting politicians try to micro-manage the economy.

Yet with all the finger-pointing in the media and in government, seldom is a finger pointed at the politicians at local, state and national levels who have played a key role in setting up the conditions that led to financial disasters for individual home buyers and for those who lent to them.

In Maryland, where I live, the driving force in much of the housing crunch comes from the People's Republic of Montgomery County. Their policies regarding growth, i.e. limiting it a great deal, meant that many people wanting to live in Montgomery county looked elsewhere for housing, nearby Frederick, Carroll, Howard and Prince George's Counties. That market pressure drove up housing prices in those counties and well as spurred massive real estate development, which then caused "Smart Growth" supporters in those counties to push the government for smart growth restrictsion there, again artificially inflating housing prices.

Thus as Sowell points out, people who otherwise might not qualify for a mortgage get a sub-prime loan to afford a house and then it comes back to bite them when their income doesn't rise to the level necessary to pay the latter years of the mortgage. In my home county of Frederick, a "starter house," like a 1500 square foot townhome runs about $275,000 at the low end of the cost spectrum. A couple would need to earn about $77,000 a year to afford such a home on a standard 30 year mortgage with a 5 percent down payment. However, the median income in Frederick is just over $53,000 for a family of four.

In short the supply of homes is limited by artificial means and the push for homeownership is rewarded by artificial means (by deductibility of mortgage interest) that people made bad decisions.

Yes, the government has a hand in the problem, but they really can't offer much of a hand to fix it, nor should they. The best move for local governments to do right now is to lift all "smart growth" restrictions and let the housing market sort itself out.

Wisconsin Experimenting with Socialized health care

John Stossel argues that we should let Wisconsin try their experiement with socialized health care because it is only with an American experiment that we can finally prove, once and for all, that socialized health care won't work.

The Wall Street Journal editorial-page editors are upset that Wisconsin's state Senate passed "Healthy Wisconsin", which will give health insurance to every person in the state. Of course, the Journal editors are right in saying that the plan is "openly hostile to market incentives that contain costs" and that the "Cheesehead nation could expect to attract health-care free-riders while losing productive workers who leave for less-taxing climes."

In addition, as the Journal put it, "Wow, is 'free' health care expensive. The plan would cost an estimated $15.2 billion, or $3 billion more than the state currently collects in all income, sales and corporate income taxes."

And, of course, down the road it will cost much more than that. Even the $15 billion is based on the usual Pollyannaish assumptions such as millions in savings "from putting more emphasis on primary care."

As usual, most of the new taxes will be imposed on employers. Progressives believe money taken from them doesn't cost anything. Rich corporations will simply waste less on lavish perks and excess profits. But taxes on business are often paid by workers, stockholders and consumers. Businesses that can't pass the taxes on to someone else will close or move out of state.

But progressives are oblivious to this fact. They see Wisconsin becoming a fairyland of health happiness supervised by the 16-person "authority" that will oversee the plan. Socialism will work this time because the "right" people will be in charge.

Does it never occur to the progressives that the legislature's intrusion into private contracts is one reason health care and health insurance are expensive now? The average annual health-insurance premium for a family in Wisconsin is $4,462 partly because Wisconsin imposes 29 mandates on health insurers: Every policy must cover chiropractors, dentists, genetic testing, etc. Think chiropractors are quacks? Too bad. You still must pay them to treat people in your state.

The concept I have often used in dealing with health care issues is a like a Chinese menu, with the options of Universal Coverage, comprehensive care, and low cost. You can choose any two from this menu, but not all three. Wisconsin believes it can offer practially comprehensive care and universal coverage, but the cost outstrips their income--and that ignores all those other needs that the state pays for, education, police, roads, and everything else in the budget.

Wisconsin must believe it has found a solution, but Wisconsin is about to find out that you can't have all three. As Stossel concludes:

but people seem to like socialism, at least when it's sold as free stuff from politicians. Wisconsin's Capital Times reports that "two-thirds of Wisconsin residents support the Democratic plan -- even when presented with opponents' arguments that it would be a 'job killer' that could lead to higher taxes ... Said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, one of the plan's sponsors, 'Everything we have heard [against the plan], we put in the poll. And it still comes back at 67 percent approval.'"

That's why America needs "Healthy Wisconsin." The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments.

It's not enough. Wisconsin can show the other 49 states what "universal" coverage is like.

I feel bad for the people in Wisconsin. They already suffer from little job creation, and the Packers aren't winning, but it's better to experiment with one state than all of America.

Here is where a great Robert Heinlein quote comes in, "TANSTAAFL:There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." Now we will soon be able to grasp the concept that progressives or liberals fail to grasp: TANSTAFH: There Ain't No Such Thing As Free Healthcare.

Former governor Tommy Thompson, who pioneered the state as a laboratory of Democracy, including welfare reform and education reform, must be shaking his head in disgust.

I wonder what the Vegas oddsmakers would give me on an over/under on Wisconsin population loss in the next five years. I put it about 12-15%. Which is sad.

Edu-Carnivals

Mike at Education in Texas is hosting the The 131st Carnival of Education. Go check it out!

Update: Check out the Carnival of Homeschooling also!

The Housing Market

My wife and I are feeling this pain as we live in one of the outer suburbs. Two years ago, we could have sold our house for nearly $35,000 or more than what it just appraised for during our refinance (we had a five year ARM to redo since we are not moving right now).

Our house is a townhome in a pretty well situated area commutable to DC via mass transit (with some driving) and Baltimore (driving), three major airports within an hour and change, shopping, good schools and a pretty good neighborhood. Townhomes in our area have been on the market for better than three months whereas two years ago those houses would have been gone in about two weeks. Most of the townhomes and single family homes in our neighborhood have had to drop prices and that $35,000 figure is not a joke.

We have decided to stay, in large part due to imminent job changes and the start of schooling for our oldest. We will be doing some improvements to the house--a kitchen remodel is on the horizon along with some bathroom changes, new flooring, and a few smaller tasks that I will do for storage. I figure that in about 2-3 years, we will see the market rebound and we will be able to recoup our investments and then some.

American U-20 Star Danny Szetela Heading to Italian Leagues

Columbus Crew and U.S. U-20 mens tean star Danny Szetela is rumored to be heading to the Italian leagues, either Serie A's Roma or Lazio in Serie B. According to The Offside which has compiled a couple of reports, Szetela's contract runs through the end of this year with the Crew and a transfer to Italy could come at the conclusion of this year, but before the closing of the transfer window in Italy.

Szetela, due to injuries, did not see a lot of time with the Crew prior to the U-20 World Cup in Canada. But Szetela played in all five U.S. Matches in the U-20 Cup and scored two goals, providing another important weapon for opposing teams to watch, in addtion to teammates Jozy Altidore and Freddy Adu.

A move to Italy would do wonders for the 20 year old midfielder. His versatility in the midfield would help any team, but he may not see much action in Serie A initially, but would like see a great deal of playing time in Serie B, the Italian second division. Even if sitting the bench for a Serie A team (Roma is rumored to be interested), the exposure to the Italian style of play and the high level training atmosphere will no doubt improve his game and that of the U.S. side in international competitions.

Reporter Sheild Law Should Protect Bloggers as Well

Julie Hilden, writing at FindLaw.com argues that federal reporter sheild legislation should be passed , but only after addressing the blogger as reporter issue.

Last week, the proposed Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, H.R. 2102, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee. The legislation, if enacted, would create a federal privilege for journalists to protect their confidential sources, in the face of courts' or prosecutors' demands that they testify about (or otherwise disclose) the source's identity, or face jail.

snip

The privilege the Act would create is not absolute. Its application would be resolved on a case-by-case basis, based on a balancing of the government's interest in disclosure against the media's interest in preserving its ability to offer confidentiality to sources speaking on matters of public interest. In the criminal context, in particular, the law looks to whether the information sought to be shielded is "essential" to the investigation, the prosecution, or the defense (in which case, Sixth Amendment fair trial rights would be implicated).

In addition, the proposed legislation contains a specific exception for an actual, imminent danger to national security or public safety (as well as other exceptions for certain categories of information). Thus, any extreme hypothetical where the journalist is protecting a source who is, say, a terrorist or a criminal on the loose and about to wreak havoc is ruled out by the Act's own terms.(link in original)

Hilden argues that a federal rule to supplany various state laws on the matter, with different rules, interpretations and applications would simply the field of law. Given that freedom of press issues are implicated, a federal law seems appropriate. However, Hilden says that the definitions provided in the statute may not necessarily cover bloggers as journalists:

The Act's definition of the persons it protects is fairly reasonable: It covers both "a person engaged in journalism" and "a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate" of such a person.

"Journalism" is defined, in turn, as "the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

Personally, I would read these definitions to apply to bloggers, but it's very possible courts may not. In past cases, journalists without traditional credentials have been denied the coverage of the privilege. One example is Vanessa Leggett, whom I discussed in a prior column. Though her interviews occurred in the course of research for a nonfiction book, she served 168 days in jail because a court - unreasonably, in my view - would not deem her to be a journalist.

Another example is blogger and independent journalist Josh Wolf, who was imprisoned from August 1, 2006 to April 3, 2007. Wolf reported on protests and progressive events from the viewpoint of advocacy, through video that then appeared on the Internet, rather than purporting to offer neutral coverage. He is often referred to as a "video activist." Would he necessarily be deemed to have engaged in "journalism" under the proposed Act? Or might a conservative court see him as more agitator than journalist?

Adding a brief sentence to the statute -- "'Journalism, as defined for these purposes, need not be conducted by members of the traditional news media, but also may be an enterprise engaged in by paid or unpaid citizen journalists, including those who post their work on websites on the Internet" - may save a future Leggett or Wolf many months in jail. For that reason, it's very much worth adding.

On this site, I don't do a great deal of originial "reporting" as the term traditionally implies. I may call attention to a local or state issue and draw comparisons or comment, but I don't usually go digging for "news." However, there are many people who do this kind of blogging and regardless of whether their viewpoint is neutral or not, they should be accorded the same privileges as anyone else engaged in "professional" journalism. While the mainstream media may oppose the language Hilden suggests out of fear of being supplanted by "citizen-journalists," that ship has already sailed. Bloggers are here to stay and they are journalists, even if they are not getting paid or have press "credentials."

Joanne Jacobs: Don't Kids Play With Toys Anymore

Joanne Jacobs discusses a University of Washington study that says parents who park their kids in front of baby videos are actually stunting the development of said babies.

with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form. “The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew,” says Christakis.

snip

Last spring, Christakis and his colleagues found that by three months, 40% of babies are regular viewers of DVDs, videos or television; by the time they are two years old, almost 90% are spending two to three hours each day in front of a screen. Three studies have shown that watching television, even if it includes educational programming such as Sesame Street, delays language development.

Jacobs noted that her daughter didn't watch TV nor spend every waking moment with mom.

My daughters watch about 2 hours of TV a day, usually Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in the morning and Disney Channel in the evening. While the TV may be on at other times during the day, usually for things like the Weather Channel or the news (not so much since "if it bleeds, it leads" is still a journalistic mantra), they probably are not engrossed in it. Often times we use the cable's digital music channels to provide music in the house. Even when their shows are on, there is often a great deal of playing going on.

My oldest daughter started talking around 20 months or so and my youngest daughter (who is 22 months old) has been chattering away for solid six or seven months. I see no evidence that their TV habits have impacted their language development at all. In fact, I would suspect it has enhanced their vocabulary. As for their attention span, one need only watch the elaborate and lenghty "games," drama/dance scenarios and role-playing my daughters undertake (with hour-long or more scenarios involving dozens of characters, dolls, animals and rather intricate story lines) to know that their attention span is in no way damaged by TV or videos.

My guess is that this study, like all such studies, has some methodology flaws. Add to that the smart marketing of the DVD companies and the mixed messages about what makes a baby "smart" and you have a recipe for parents to do things just begging for such studies. Joanne Jacobs said her daughter played with her toys a lot, so do mine and there is nothing wrong with their development. In reality, my bet is that TV in moderation (and appropriate) is probably a good thing--as are books, music, physical play, games, toys, pets, and so on and so on.

The United States of Florida: After the Snowbird Invasion

Being originially from Florida (Orange Park and Middlebur), I this map of wintertime Florida from Strange Maps both funny and frighteningly accurate.

But Only if American History is a Pre-Requisite

From NRO:

Black students are not taking Advanced Placement courses that are becoming increasingly important for college admission. The solution that is being proposed to the College Board? Creating an AP African American History course

I am okay with that, so long as they have to take AP American History first.

Health Care, A Unenviable Choice

Arnold Kling discusses health care and the fact that most of our political leaders are not dealing with the important issues of Medicare solvency and actual costs to consumers, but instead are spending too much time talking about 45 million Americans without insurance as victims.

Kling addresses the uninsured problem in a way that should be appealing to fiscal conservatives and people who prefer individual responsibility over nanny-statism:

However, if I could pick any policy approach I wanted for dealing with the uninsured, I would try to move toward universal availability of health insurance, not universal coverage. I would encourage states to offer health insurance to the uninsurable. That is, there are people with pre-existing conditions that lead them to be turned down by ordinary health insurance companies. Many states address this problem by setting up "high-risk pools" that provide subsidized coverage for the uninsurable. That seems to me to be a sensible approach.

On the other hand, most of the people who are uninsured today are reasonably healthy. They just do not want to pay for their own health insurance. In my view, they ought to be allowed to make that choice, but they should face the consequences. If they require health care, the cost should not be shifted onto other people who have insurance.

Just because health care is expensive does not mean that we need insurance to pay for it. You can get a loan to pay for a car. You can get a loan to pay for college tuition. If you don't want health insurance but you need health care, then you may need to take out a loan.

My objection to "universal coverage" is that it reinforces our cultural taboo against individuals paying for medical services. This cultural taboo about paying for medicine is what led me to draw a parallel between health insurance and prostitution insurance. If medical service providers, particularly hospitals, could become less paranoid about dealing with the uninsured, then I would consider doing without insurance myself. (formatting and links in original)

This jibes with my experience. Most uninsured Americans fall into one of three categories--the "uninsurable," the "young, healthy, greedy people," and the "working poor." Kling talks about the first two. The third are those working Americans whose employer does not or cannot afford to offer insurance coverage, would like to have coverage but can't afford it themselves. In this regard, there are options for most of these avaialble through buy-ins to Medicaid or other state run insurance pools. If no such pool exists, perhaps the states could be encouraged to create one.

Kling's proposals for the uninsured would allow political leaders to look beyond this relatively small group (soon to be dwarfed by the baby boomers) of victims and focus on real problems in health care.

Michelle Malkin: Who’s Building Our Bridges?

Michelle Malkin notes that at least one company who builds highway bridges employed illegal immigrants, without much comment on the matter--leaving it to her readers to jump to the conclusion that poor bridge construction is the result of illegal labor.

But that is a long stretch for me on a number of fronts.

Frist, bridge construction involves a lot more than the largely unskilled labor one finds in the illegal immigrant labor pool. From iron and steel workers (overwhelmingly unionized and generally anti-illegal) to skilled surveyors, engineers, and crane operators. Were some workers illegal, well obviously so, but I would dare say that they comprise the minority of the total construction workforce and would not be responsible for skilled work. The excerpt Michelle provides talks about one company (out of how many thousands in the United States) that subcontracted for the largely low skilled work of paving the bridge.

I don't know what the NTSB will find in Minneapolis, but I am pretty confident it will have nothing to do with the roadway causing the collapse.

Second, the implication from the excerpted article and Michelle's lack of comment is that the illegal labor resulted in substandard work. This is a speculation without evidence and can be counteracted with circumstantial evidence to the contrary. Bridges, like all construction and perhaps more so, are subject to inspection at all stages of construction. Even if the illegals did substandard work, it would have to be corrected before the inspector would certify the work. (If the inspector is not doing his job, we have a different story all together).

Third, the article and Michelle leave the reader to jump to the conclusion that the Minneapolis bridge (built 40 years ago) was built by illegals. While it is not Michelle's duty or the newspapers duty to prevent such a conclusion in most cases, in this case I believe they both have an obligation to prevent such inferences being drawn.

Fourth and finally, while roads and bridges are vital infrastructure, the lack of immigration enforcement is really the culprit here. Companies have been able to hire illegal workers largely with impunity because the federal governemtn failed to do its job and enforce the law.

The federal government may have failed on many levels, leading in part to the collapse of the Minneapolis bridge, but I am not convinced that illegal immigrant labor is the cause and probably not even a contributing factor. The connection is dubious at best and salacious at worst.

Publix Supermarkets to Offer Prescription Drugs for Free

The Florida based Publix Supermarkets have announced plans to offer 7 popular prescription antibiotics for free. Publix is the latest prescription provided to enter the "drug wars" as retailers compete to bring in customers. Wal-Mart offers $4 dollar generic prescriptions on a vast array of generic drugs, as does Target and a number of other retailers, but Publix is the first to offer some drugs for free. The antibiotics that will be available are amoxicilin, cephalexin, penicillin VK, erythromycin, ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, and ciprofaxacin. The drugs are to be offered regardless of the patient's health plan or lack of health plan so long as the customer has a valid prescription and takes no more than a 14 day supply. Refills will be limited to those of allowed by the prescription.

Publix is a southeastern regional company with grocery stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The Political Psychology of Road Construction

The Minneapolis bridge collapse, while certainly tragic, could have been a lot worse and for that we must be thankful while mourning those we lost. Predictable, the handwringing has begun as we look for answers. One common meme that is making the rounds is the lack of funds spent on repair and maintenance of roads and bridges. The New York Times takes up the idea, leading with the story that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty twice vetoed legislation that would increase gas taxes to pay for roads. The Times carries this paragraph:

Even as the cause of the bridge disaster here remains under investigation, the collapse is changing a lot of minds about spending priorities. It has focused national attention on the crumbling condition of America’s roadways and bridges — and on the financial and political neglect they have received in Washington and many state capitals.

Despite historic highs in transportation spending, the political muscle of lawmakers, rather than dire need, has typically driven where much of the money goes. That has often meant construction of new, politically popular roads and transit projects rather than the mundane work of maintaining the worn-out ones.

For once, though the Times gets it right, the politically popular projects get funding and the mundane maintenance gets the short shrift.

Of course, some people will want to hold the current Congress and prior Congresses, for the Times, particularly the GOP lead Congress, accoutable for the poor attention paid to maintenance. Thomas Sowell, however, points out that the incentive structure for infrastructure construction is skewed toward the new, regardless of need, and not to the maintenance.

If this were just a matter of poor political leadership at various levels of government, we could at least hope for better leaders in the future. But the problem goes deeper than that.

It is not just the people but the incentives that are responsible for the neglect of infrastructure, while tax money is lavished on all sorts of less urgent projects.

In other words, when there is a complete turnover in political leaders over time, the same problem will remain because the same incentives will remain when new leaders take over.

Some people claim that the problem is how much money it would take to properly maintain bridges, highways, dams and other infrastructure. But money is found for other things, including things far less urgent and some things that are even counterproductive.

The real problem is that the political incentives are to spend the taxpayers' money on things that will enhance politicians' chances of getting re-elected.

There may be enough money available to maintain bridges and other infrastructure but that same money can have a bigger political pay-off if spent building something new instead of maintaining and repairing existing structures.

When money is spent building a new community center, a golf course, or anything that will be newsworthy, there will be ribbon-cutting ceremonies and the politicians who cut the ribbons can expect to see their pictures in the newspapers and on TV.

All that keeps their name before the public in a positive role and therefore enhances their prospects of being re-elected.

But there are no ribbon-cutting ceremonies when bridges are being repaired or pot-holes are being filled in. These latter activities may be more valuable than a community center or a golf course, but they are not nearly as photogenic.

In a sense, this whole highway funding mess is simply an extension of the earmarks matter. Earmarks for new transportation projects get publicity for the member, but earmarks for maintenance are just normal, not particularly newsworthy and probably wouldn't even generate more than a couple of paragraphs buried on page 10 of the local newspaper. Such things don't get members re-elected.

Still, changes to highway spending may result, but the correction will be short-term at best. But the blame for the political decisionmaking regarding roads cannot be placed solely at the feet of Congress or the state legislatures. We the average American must shoulder some of the blame and not just for failing to hold our leaders accountable.

Despite the need to maintain roads and bridges, America is in love with the new, we always have been. Whether it is the new plasma TV, the iPhone, the new rail commuter line, fascination with the new demands our attention and drives our decision making. We buy new cars every three to five years, even if the old one is not only running well, but would outperform the new car over time. We buy the latest cell phone with all kinds of features on it that we won't use enough to justify the cost. If we as individuals buy goods new rather than maintain the goods we have that serve us well, why should we think that it will be any different when it comes to infrastructure. I don't necessarily want to call it human nature, but focusing on what is new and happening does occupy a great deal of our attention.

While Sowell is talking about restructuring the political incentives regarding transportation funding and the Times talks about spending more tax money for maintenance, the reality is that a long term solution will have to be within ourselves and our thinking. We must remember that new does not always equal better and sometimes that clunky old grocery-getting mini-van (or bridge), with unappealing lines is far superior to the new, aesthetically pleasing SUV (or bridge a few miles downriver), and far cheaper to maintain.

Alaska's 'Stevens money'

Michael Carey, writing at the Los Angeles Times notes the power of Sen. Ted Stevens and his impact on the Alaskan economy:

As a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee (and later the ranking minority member), Stevens has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to his constituents, sometimes through agency appropriations, sometimes through the now-vilified earmarks. In Alaska, the presence of so-called Stevens money is as prevalent as the winter snow. Everywhere you look, Stevens has left his mark.

Stevens' ability to deliver -- and his invulnerability to electoral challenge because he could deliver -- transformed him from an elected official into something of a frontier fertility god -- worshiped, propitiated, feared. Stevens answered to no one.

In a moment I will never forget from that breakfast, Stevens caught the eye of a man he knew across the room and waved to him, just as any old friend or longtime acquaintance would. The man became rigid and obviously uncomfortable, perhaps thinking, "Oh my God, Ted Stevens waved at me, now what do I do?" He quickly recovered, however, and came over to talk to Stevens -- not because he had anything to say but perhaps because he feared Stevens' disapproval if he did not.

If Stevens was transformed by his extraordinary power in Washington, so were Alaskans -- from constituents to supplicants. This transformation not only distorted Alaska's political system, it distorted our economy.

Sounds like Stevens is a little to powerful, right?

Try this one on, substitute Robert Byrd for Ted Stevens and West Virginia for Alaska. Now you have the same story, only Robert Byrd didn't have his house searched by the Feds.

The Recanting of Beuachamp

This story is going to be the talk of the sphere today and to be honest--I could care less.

The New Republic may be in its death throes now and certainly Frank Foer is probably on his way out the door. I put the over/under at 2 weeks.

The story is not about Beauchamp or even about The New Republic, but about the overwhelming desire by the media be first before being accurate. In teh neverending quest for ratings and circulation numbers, too many shortcuts are being taken and that is leading to mistakes like this one that could mean the downfall of a publication and certainly an editor all because a "story" was too sensational to fact check.

The Two Income Trap

Todd Zywicki looks at the "two-income trap" and to a certain extent debunks the premise of the commonly accepted theory that increases in mortgage costs drives the engine that creates a two-income household, which in turn actually makes the two income household less economically stable than a single income family. Zwicki notes that it is the tax burden, not the increased mortgage and childcare costs associated with a two income family that causes the greatest financial instability.

To a certain extent, my wife and I are in a similar situation. She is returning to the workforce full time at a time when I am looking for new legal work. Part of the reason is poor decision making regarding our finances previously and the attendant consequences of those decisions.

I do worry about the additional tax burden, but there are other reasons, beyond the simply financial, that my wife is returning to work. Part of the reason is my aversion (at my age and with my family) to working at a big time law firm where new associates are expected to work 65-70 hours a week and my desire to avoid 1.5 hour commute (one way) to get to work every day. That drives my range of employment options.

But another part is the desire of my wife to actually return to work despite the emotional toll it will place on her. While part of my wife's income will go to paying down out debts faster than had we just relied on my salary, a large portion of it will be saved for education and family expenses. We calculated that it would be better in terms of interest to start saving for our daughters' collegiate education now than if we wait three years until our youngest is in school. Smaller savings payments now translate to much bigger payoffs in the end.

What is ironic is that my wife, whose job will likely be with the University System of Maryland, will probably have even better benefits that I currently have, at least in terms of payroll deductions, that it may be cheaper for our entire family to be on her health plan, thus freeing up me to take a few risks in terms of employment that we otherwise would not be able to take if I had to keep my job for the health coverage.

Fair Weather Friends?

Instapundit brings word of a USA Today poll from over the weekend that shows more support for the surge than a month ago. In one month, the percentage of people believing the additional troops are making the situation better jumped from 22% to 31%.

While the news out of Iraq is getting better, I have to wonder about American resolve. We appear to only want to back winners and if a team, a person or an idea is not winning, then we abandon it in droves, only to return if the fortunes pick up.

Fortuneately, despite all the rhetoric, President Bush and his team didn't give up and were more than just fair weather friends.

I wonder how the Democratic caucus is greeting this news?

Unions In 2008 Elections

Viathe AP:

Union membership is down. The labor movement has split in two. Conservatives control the White House, the Supreme Court and, until last year, Congress.

Yet AFL-CIO leaders say things are looking up as the nation's largest labor federation heads toward the 2008 presidential elections.

"We're stronger in many ways," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, in Chicago for the federation's executive council meeting and Tuesday forum with the Democratic presidential primary candidates.

Organized labor played a large role in Democrats taking over Congress in the midterm elections, Sweeney said, and is trying to hold on to that momentum going into 2008.

The initial assertions are true, aside from public sector unions, like govnerment workers, transit unions and teachers unions, union membership has been in a decline, if not a freefall, in America largely due to a shift away from traditional manufacturing jobs to an information economy.

However, I have to disagree with Mr. Sweeney's assertion of a "large role" in the Democratic takeover of Congress. Unions are still massive turnout machines, but the union members they turn out are not nearly as monolithic as they would tell you or as their senior leadership would indicate. In any large organization (and unions are large organizations), the rank and file are not nearly as unanimous in opinion as Sweeney and other labor leaders would have you think.

Union household make up less than 15 percent of the voting public, which while a sizeable bloc of voters, they are not the huge bloc that can sway the vote one way or the other. The movement away from unions is affecting their membership, with only die-hards remaining in the ranks and that means they will have less and less of a chance to alter the elctoral vote, simply on a matter of numbers.

Shifting Realities

Michael Barone on the shifting perceptions of Iraq.

Just read it already.

When President Bush announced the Surge, I predicted to my colleague, if this works, Bush will be seen as a visionary and touted as a successful president. If it failed, he would be seen as a failure.

In the end, though, I think history will judge George W. Bush as a great man who displayed amazing prescience about the importance of combatting terrorism--even if history doesn't like the means he chose.

California Electoral Vote Initiative

Jonathan Alter looks at the effort in California to place a question on teh ballot that would change the state's electoral vote allocation from winner-take-all to proportional.

Our way of electing presidents has always been fer-tile ground for mischief. But there's sensible mischief—toying with existing laws and the Constitution to reflect popular will—and then there's the other kind, which tries to rig admission to the Electoral College for strictly partisan purposes. Mischief-makers in California (Republicans) and North Carolina (Democrats) are at work on changes that would subvert the system for momentary advantage and—in ways the political world is only beginning to understand—dramatically increase the odds that a Republican will be elected president in 2008.

Gee, no indication there of how Alter feels about the issue.

The point of the ballot question to change the allocation is of course political--every ballot question is, to some extent, political in nature--even the so-called benign ones. The fact that some Republican lawyer in California wants to get an advantage for his party in the state is no more surprising than a Republican voting for George Bush.

Instead of laboring in vain to turn California Red, a clever lawyer for the state Republican Party thought of a gimmicky shortcut. Thomas Hiltachk, who specializes in ballot referenda that try to fool people in the titles and fine print, is sponsoring a ballot initiative for the June 3, 2008, California primary (which now falls four months after the state's presidential primary). The Presidential Election Reform Act would award the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. Had this idea been in effect in 2004, Bush would have won 22 electoral votes from California, about the same number awarded the winners of states like Illinois or Pennsylvania. In practical terms, adopting the initiative would mean that the Democratic candidate would likely have to win both Ohio and Florida in 2008 (instead of one or the other) to be elected.

Using the law for electoral advantage is what election lawyers are paid to do. The title of this ballot question is not false advertising, the ballot question is approved would re-form the California electoral vote allocation system into a different format--the very definition of reform.

Of course this is "bad reform" because it is not good government, it is for "partisan purposes." Of course, what Alter and others like him forget is that they can do the same exact thing in vote rich Republican states, like Texas. In Republican North Carolina, a effort is underway in the legislature to make this exact change, only it will benefit Democrats. Alter addresses North Carolina thusly:

The monkey business underway this month in North Carolina is just as egregious—though with only three or four electoral votes at stake, probably less consequential. Democrats, who usually lose the state in presidential contests but control the legislature and the governor's mansion, make no secret of their desire to win partisan advantage by going to the congressional-district formula.

At least in North Carolina it's clearly constitutional. Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the selection of electors is up to state legislatures "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct." When power is delegated to the electorate in referenda, the legal authority gets fuzzy; the Constitution, of course, supersedes state law. In any event, the Hiltachk referendum will face a challenge in court.

I don't know about Alter's legal interpretation, the state legislature and the California Constitution permit a pretty open ballot question process and other propositions of questionable nature have survived court challenge.

Look, no one doubts that the electoral college is confusing and quaint, but it does provide a modicum of protection against the vagaries of popular vote. The current winner take all in California and other states exploits and magnifies what may actually be small partisan advantages.

But using the law to change the law for partisan reasons is no more shady or underhanded when undertaken by one party or another. It is politics and it is a bloodport.

Michael Yon:Al Qaeda is Guilty of Monstrosities In Iraq

Michael Yon in the New York Post:

Amid all this talk of timetables for the War in Iraq, blurred as they are by a strange lemming-like compulsion to declare the "surge" strategy a failure almost before it actually began, one deadline looms larger with each passing day: It's time for a reckoning with the truth.

The problem is that almost none of those who have cast themselves as truth-tellers have the requisite credibility for the job. The one man who does was told he had only until September to evaluate progress.

I'm not suggesting that I make a worthy substitute for the commanding general, David Petraeus, on this or any subject, but since December of 2004, I have spent roughly a 1½ years on the battlefields of Iraq.

I've traveled alongside American Army and Marines and British forces, from Basra to Mosul and just about anywhere of note in between.

When it comes to Iraq, being there matters because of the massive disconnect between what most Americans think they know about Iraq, and what is actually going on there.

The current controversy about the extent to which Al Qaeda is a threat to peace in Iraq is a case in point. Questions about which group calling itself an offshoot of Al Qaeda is really an offshoot of Al Qaeda is a distraction masquerading as a debate.

Al Qaeda is in Iraq, intentionally inflaming sectarian hostilities, deliberately pushing for full scale civil war. They do this by launching attacks against Shia, Sunni, Kurds and coalition forces. To ensure the attacks provoke counterattacks, they make them particularly gruesome.

A lot of Congressmen have visited Iraq and I wonder what their impressions are as compared to the actual situation on the ground.

Michael Yon is a modern day Ernie Pyle, only with faster dispatch speed.

Impeachment--Dumb Democratic Move

Michael Tomasky

The political case, though, is another question entirely. Impeachment is not merely a bad idea, but the single worst course of action that Democrats could possibly undertake -- the only thing they could do that might, in one stroke, convert Bush from the figure of contempt and mockery he is now into one of vague sympathy. Just as bad, it's the one move that would definitively alienate nonideological voters and, therefore, harm the Democrats' otherwise excellent chances for winning congressional seats and the White House in 2008. And that's just what impeachment would do to the Democrats. Even worse is what it would do to liberalism and to the country.

You don't have to be as expert a nose counter as Lyndon B. Johnson to know that impeachment wouldn't succeed. You'd have to get both Bush and Cheney to make any difference, which makes it a heavier lift. Even if the articles of impeachment somehow got through the House -- a stretch, because 61 Democrats represent nominally "red" districts and thus may feel compelled to vote nay -- conviction would require 67 votes in the Senate. That means at least 18 Republicans would have to vote to remove a Republican president and vice president. (I'm assuming that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, an independent, would vote no.) Of course, new bombshells could change all that. But for now, impeachment advocates are urging Democrats to start a fight they'd lose.

Well, the Sheehan camp says, Republicans' failure to convict President Bill Clinton in 1999 didn't seem to hurt them in 2000, when they took the presidency and retained control of both houses of Congress. True enough, but that argument assumes that the parties are identical beasts. They emphatically are not. Republicans would be far more adept at turning a failed impeachment effort to their advantage in 2008 than the Democrats were in 2000. Back then, Al Gore, his handlers and Democrats in general sought to run from Clinton and push the conversation back to that bland terrain to which defensive Democrats always scamper: "the issues." Republicans, who aren't usually defensive and don't generally scamper, would make impeachment the issue, and by Election Day 2008, the GOP would have millions of Americans believing that -- get this -- the really merciless partisans of the Bush era were the Democrats.

One of the Democrats' strongest arguments for 2008, regardless of their nominee, will be that it's time for the country to set aside rampant partisanship and ideologically driven government. Impeachment would take away that argument.

I though the impeachment of Bill Clinton was not a good idea, but at least there was an actual perjury involved. Whether that rose to the level of high crime or misdemeanor is an open question.

But of all the "crimes" Tomasky enumerated in his article, none are really crimes:

There's little disagreement among liberals about the substance. If any administration since President Richard M. Nixon's has committed high crimes and misdemeanors, surely it's this one; if lying about consensual sexual activity fit the bill, then surely lying about the reason for a war does, too. As Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky argue in their indignant book "The Case for Impeachment," the bill of indictment goes far beyond Bush's grave lies about Iraq. There's also the arrest and detention without trial of U.S. citizens, the violation of international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions at the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the "blatant violation" of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment "by secretly authorizing secret warrantless spying on thousands of American citizens by the National Security Agency."

Lying about consensual sexual activity is not a crime (if it were lots of teenage boys would be in prison), lying about consensual sexual activity under oath is a crime. Last time I checked, no member of the Bush Administration was under oath when talking about the purpose of Iraq--an there is substantial evidence to cause reasonable doubt as to the veracity of either sides claims. Abu Gharib was bad, but apparently none of it done at the insistence or direction of the white House. Detention of enemy combatants has a long history. There may be grounds for the wiretapping issue, but I imagine a could case can be made based on interpretation.

Tomasky is right though, impeachment does not advance the Democratic agenda and an impeachment all but guarantees a loss by the Democrats in 2008. President Bush's actions may not be popular, but no one can suggest that he is an inactive president. The same cannot be said of Democrats in Congress--which is where the leading Democratic candidates are working--or not.

What a Spectacularly Bad Idea

Robert Dallek writing in the Washington Post posits the idea of a presidential recall. his reasonng seems based on the continued poor popularity ratings of the President and the fact that there is no viable constitutional grounds for removing the president.

The political argument against Bush's continuing tenure is not frivolous. There are good reasons to see him as a failed president whose remaining time in office will be unproductive at best and destructive to the country's well-being at worst. But given the constitutional rules by which the presidency operates, there is no serious prospect of removing him from office.

A fine solution would be a Nixon-style resignation, but anyone who thinks that Bush and Vice President Cheney would give in to such a demand is dreaming. With no serious threat of impeachment looming, Bush and Cheney can afford to dismiss calls for their departure as the outcries of political extremists. Instead, the president, determined to stay the course, declares that his strategy in Iraq needs more time to work, that the many charges of abuse of power are unsubstantiated, and that, as with Harry Truman, who also lost his hold on the public in the last two years of his presidency, history will vindicate him.

Halleck talks about a recall provision that would require supermajorities of both the House and Senate followed by a simple up or down vote by the American people.

Sounds sensible, right? Well maybe, if we could be better assured of what Halleck, a historian, was getting at. Here is a hint:

However limited the use of this initiative might prove to be, its availability could help to pressure an ineffective, unpopular president into abandoning policies or altering actions that had turned the country against him. Would Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding have been so casual about the wrongdoing in their administrations if they knew that a device other than impeachment existed for ousting them? Might Herbert Hoover have been less rigid or more receptive to fresh ideas for dealing with the Depression if he had a greater sense of urgency about satisfying public demands for economic remedies? Would Lyndon Johnson have been so unyielding about escalating the war in Vietnam if he feared voter wrath before the end of his four-year term?

Such an amendment would compel presidents to think about public support or government by consensus throughout their time in office, rather than as they approached reelection, particularly during a second term, when they would otherwise have no reason to fear voter repudiation.

So what Halleck wants is a more "responsive" president, one more malleable to a public opinion that is hard to pin down.

So what about current pulic opinion? There is a great deal of support for ending the war in Iraq, but hardly overwhelming. There have been calls for a "new direction" in Iraq, but no concrete counterproposals to follow. In reality, President Bush is not popular, but may yet still be vindicated--even within his own term.

The framers no doubt thought about the impact of a president who was unpopular, but truth be told, they were not all that concerned about a President who was no popular or effective. They had envisioned a Congress that is much more active and engaged that the Congress we have now or have had in the past decade. Congress penchant for investigation over legislation has not provided teh necessary check on presidential power or presidential politics. A strong president must be countered by a strong Congress in order for our constitutional system to function properly. President Bush has an agenda, we not only expect him to have one, but we demand of him to have one.

So a significant portion of the country does not like the President. Perhaps the Framers figured it is better for a nation to suffer "a fool" for four years or a portion of four years as a reminder that elections must be taken seriously.

Giuliani's Daughter Support Obama--Oh No the World is Ending

Wow, this is important news!! First of all, who gives a care about what the 17 year old daughter of Rudy Giuliani believes or who she supports. Last time I checked, this is a free country and children often disagree with the parents (particularly early on) and when the relationship is strained, as apparently this one is, why is it so shocking that a daughter will support different candidates.

Not exactly a barn burner of a story at Slate.

UPDATE (3:57pm): NRO reports that Giuliani will address his daughter's support for Obama. That is not necessary and simply caves to the lowest common denominator.

Update: (5:03pm): The problem with reporting on the likes and dislikes of a 17 year are that they shift so quickly. From the AP:

The daughter of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani signaled she was supporting Democrat Barack Obama, then backed off when faced with questions.

On her Facebook profile, 17-year-old Caroline Giuliani listed herself as a member of Obama's Facebook group, "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." She left the group Monday morning after the online magazine Slate sent an inquiry and later in the day, a spokeswoman said she did not intend to comment on the 2008 race.

"Before the presidential campaign got under way, Caroline added herself to a list on Facebook as an expression of interest in certain principles," said the spokeswoman, Joannie Danielides. "It was not intended as an indication of support in a presidential campaign, and she has removed it."