Regarding "Illegals"

A letter from me to the New York Times:

The New York Times recently refered to individuals who come illegally to this country as "illegals" themselves ("GOP Hopefuls Temper Anti-Immigrant Talk," Dec. 9). While I recognize the Times's need to use language reflecting the current American vernacular, I am furious that one respectable news source after another has given in to using "illegal" as a noun. We must remember that we are talking about people who broke our laws only to take part in the prosperity and freedom we mostly take for granted. They immigrated illegally. Calling them "illegals" rejects their more important status -- as human beings.

The Bush Administration's Response to Musharraf's Military Rule

Hitting the Mute Button on the Freedom Agenda

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, November 6, 2007; A02

Just last Thursday, President Bush spoke of his Freedom Agenda spreading democracy across the globe: "We are standing with those who yearn for liberty."

Yesterday, the Bush administration unveiled a pragmatic new foreign policy: The Stand by Your Man Agenda.

In the intervening period, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally, had suspended his country's constitution, arrested Supreme Court judges, closed media outlets, and beat or imprisoned demonstrators by the hundreds -- using some of his billions of dollars in American military aid to impose martial law.

Bush's Freedom Agenda frowns upon these activities -- and yet Bush and his aides acted yesterday as if Musharraf had made an illegal right on red, or perhaps parked in a handicapped space.

"What we think we ought to be doing is using our various forms of influence at this point in time to help a friend, who we think has done something ill-advised," one of Bush's top aides declared from the podium in the White House briefing room.

"The question is, what do you do when someone makes a mistake that is a close ally?" the official argued. "The president's guidance to us is see if we can work with them to get back on track."

So would there be consequences for Musharraf's misbehavior? "That's going to depend heavily on what we hear, obviously, from the Pakistani government," he said, making sure to add: "And that is not a threat in any way."

It didn't even rise to a diplomatic slap on the wrist -- and Bush aides must have realized this was not something to be proud of. Before the official briefed reporters from behind the microphone, an aide removed the oval White House seal from the lectern. And the White House ordered that the official, though he has appeared on the Sunday television talk shows, speak anonymously.

"Can we make it on the record?" the Associated Press's Terry Hunt asked at the start of the briefing.

"No," replied White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "The president has spoken on the record."

Indeed he had -- no more forcefully than Mr. Anonymous.

"With respect to Pakistan, it is also our desire to see a return to democracy in the shortest time possible," Bush announced in the Oval Office. "I hope now that he hurry back to elections," he added.

And what happens if Musharraf ignores Bush's hopes and desires? "Hypothetical question," Bush replied.

Did Bush misjudge Musharraf? No answer.

It has been a humbling few days for the administration and its attempts to exercise American power. Last week, Bush aides begged Musharraf not to suspend the constitution -- and he ignored them. Similarly, Bush met in the Oval Office yesterday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him not to send troops into Iraq to fight Kurdish militants -- and Erdogan evidently gave him no commitment.

"In an environment where international support and cooperation does not exist, Turkey, quite naturally, will exercise its own right to protect itself and its people against terrorism," the prime minister, echoing some of Bush's own "war on terror" language, told the National Press Club after his meeting with the president.

The defiance by Musharraf and, to a lesser extent, Erdogan, left Bush and his aides sounding like representatives of a pitiful giant.

"We made it clear to [Musharraf] that we would hope he wouldn't have declared the emergency powers he declared," said Bush.

White House press secretary Dana Perino voiced her "hope" that Pakistan will proceed with elections.

And Mr. Anonymous mentioned his hopes eight times in his 40 minutes with reporters. "We hope that we'll get some clarification on the intentions of the government in the next few days. . . . We are hopeful that we will see some clarification. . . . We hope they will do that."

Missing were the serious diplomatic words such as "outrageous" and "unacceptable." In their place were gentle sentiments such as "unfortunate" and "disappointed" and, two dozen times, "concern." The concern was so slight, though, that the official admitted that Bush hadn't even spoken directly with Musharraf.

Elaine Quijano of CNN asked about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's charge that Bush had sacrificed democracy for Musharraf's help against terrorists.

The official replied that Pakistan was "emblematic of the president's strategy generally."

USA Today's David Jackson asked if this might be termed "a setback for the Freedom Agenda."

"We don't know, because we don't know how this story comes out," Mr. Anonymous said.

Cox News's Ken Herman asked if Bush was giving Musharraf a deadline for action.

"No," the official replied.

Steven Myers of the New York Times said that the administration seemed "to have had very little influence" on Musharraf."

"We have a lot of influence," the official replied, "but we don't dictate."

Speak softly and carry a slender reed: It's a key component of the Stand by Your Man Agenda.

Lies from Denny Rehberg

I got this response from my Congressman, regarding legislation to protect LGBT individuals from employment discrimination:

Dear Daniel:

Thanks for contacting me regarding the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 (H.R. 2015). It's good to hear from you.

As you know, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 was introduced on April 24, 2007 by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA). This act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity by employers, employment agencies, labor organizations, and joint-labor management committees.

I oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007 because the non-discriminatory policy of federal statutes should be equally applied to all citizens. While this bill would do nothing to eliminate discrimination in the workplace, it would increase uncertainty for Montana small business owners who will have to endure vague definitions of the "perceived" characteristics of their employees.

In addition, I also have concerns that this language does not protect the hiring prerogatives of religious schools. Under current law, the Civil Rights Act provides hiring protections for religious corporations, associations, societies, and educational institutions. This legislation fails to include these protections.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me on this matter. For more information and to sign up for my e-newsletter, please visit my website at http://www.house.gov/rehberg. Keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Denny Rehberg
Montana's Congressman

Hmm. "[T]he non-discriminatory policy of federal statutes should be equally applied to all citizens." Someone please tell me what this means. Please.

While I think religious schools, like any other schools, should be barred from discrimination, the bill does omit these schools, etc. from the protections it provides. It's right in the bill: "This Act shall not apply to a religious organization." But that's vague, you say. No, because "religious organization" is precisely defined in the bill. Check it out, if you like: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-3685.

Denny Rehberg is my Congressman, and I am ashamed that he is using blatant lies as tools to continue unfair treatment of LGBT Americans.

Too Far

I am enraged. Twice today. This doesn't happen often with me; I'm normally a pretty levelheaded guy, not quick to anger. Two things today pushed me over the edge and upset my stomach. I am suddenly quite worried about the possibility that the Bush Administration is bringing us -- very literally -- to fascism.

1) Captain Pat McCarthy, the government's lead council at Guantanamo, came on the 11/1/07 Fresh Air to rebut a lawyer for one of the detainees.
A) McCarthy emphasized that detention conditions are really good these days. Detainees get three meals a day (whether they want them or not. Hunger-striking prisoners are force-fed. And not the way doctors do it; 110 cm tubes are excruciatingly shoved up the detainee's nose. This brutal method is employed to make hunger-straking "inconvenient".). Detainees get at least two hours outdoor rereation per day, and are even allowed to talk to the prisoner in the area next to them. In response to a question about a UN report describing terrible living conditions for the detainees, McCarthy proclaimed that he was not familiar with the report. Instead, he said that if three meals a day and outdoor recreation was torture, we should consider revising our definition of torture so as not to cheapen the word.
B) Lawyers for detainees are not permitted to take notes or recordings out of Guantanamo. Instead they must wait as any notes they take are forwarded to DC to be read over by representatives of the U.S. Government, who redact anything they please. Employee-client privilege, anyone? In response, McCarthy noted that lawyers had to sign an agreement to this process in order to be let into Guantanamo. If they disagreed, they should not have signed.
C) The detainee's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, cited a study from Seton Hall that 95% of Guantanamo detainees were not apprehended by U.S. military in the first place. They were instead brought to the Americans by Pakistani and Afghan authorities. These governments had issued general bounties for people to turn in anyone who they claimed was a terrorist. Therefore, shouldn't there be more skepticism toward the evidence against the detainees? No. McCarthy responded by claiming that the Seton Hall study was flawed, inaccurate. Why? Because it did not include -- wait for it -- classified information. West Point did a different study, he said, using classified information, that yielded different results. He didn't specify the results, and he was also wrong about the West Point study -- it didn't include classified info.
D) McCarthy said we shouldn't trust what Smith says, because, after all, he represents a Guantanamo detainee. Hmmm. Who else from the outside talk with the detainees, but the lawyers? And who do you represent, Captain McCarthy?

2) General Pervez Musharraf has essentially declared martial law, suspended Pakistan's constitution, and dismissed the Supreme Court. He seems to care more about defending his own regime against fair democratic process than he cares about rooting out terrorists/ He is using the military as a means of political oppression. So what, as the leaders of the free world, do we do about it? Continue to donate billions of dollars to Pakistan's military.

9/11 was a tragedy. Our actions as a nation in the aftermath of 9/11 have been a far greater tragedy. We are responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. We are tearing apart the Constitution in a futile attempt to ensure security. We are treating foreigners as if their lives and liberty did not matter, simply because they are not American. We support brutal regimes. We mock international institutions. We dismiss fairness and justice as impediments to our own sense of protection against "another 9/11."

Here's Captain McCarthy: "This is a question for the American people. How are we going to detain guys who we pick up who we know to be threats? That's a big, that's a big issue. Should we bring 'em to the United States, should we set 'em free, should we give 'em a little stipend and thank 'em for their job, maybe they can come back and do a better job next time? I don't know what it is, but this is not a question only for the military....But the way on terror -- on September the 11th it became a question for all Americans, and every American's got to ask that question, and they've got to bear the responsibility for the outcome of their answer."

Captain McCarthy, President Bush: Here's my answer, carefully considered. If we believe in freedom, if we believe in our concept of justice as an ideal and not just a bullshit requirement that restrains the government from putting people behind bars, we should treat people of other nationalities as if they had exactly the same rights Americans do. Try them in criminal court. Try them as war criminals. We were strong enough as a nation to do this at Nuremberg, to our great credit. We can do it again. Inevitably, some bona fide terrorists will be acquitted. Humans are imperfect, and unjust acquittals are the bitter price of a just system. I consider this a small price to pay, given the stakes.

The stock market is *mostly* fake

Some very hateful emails have been flooding my inbox explaining stridently that despite my 9/7/07 post the stock market is NOT fake.

They point out the following.

Companies can buy back stock they've issued. This is called "treasury stock." (They normally do this to inflate their share price and provide better returns to those lucky employees who have stock options.) They can hold on to this treasury stock indefinitely, they can cancel it and destroy the shares, or they can sell it back to the public. Therefore, if you buy socially responsible stock, there's a very small chance you're buying it from the company itself, and providing them capital. But if you hadn't bought the shares, the nature of the market is that someone else would have -- perhaps at an infinitesimally lower price.

Companies can leverage high net worth of the company to secure loans and other financial instruments. They can pay back interest to the loaning company with stock, in many cases. So the higher the stock price, the fewer shares they have to pay. I'm told there are many many other ways companies derive tangible benefit from high stock prices. It's all happening in the fake accounting world, but if it brings more capital to makers of windmills, it's not entirely fake.

So which is better? I can buy shares in Vestas wind systems, or I can buy shares or Wal-Mart and advocate as a shareholder for greater use of wind energy. Which choice has the greater impact on GHG emissions? I couldn't find anyone to give me a straight answer. Green Century, the mutual fund company, couldn't tell me, but they did try to sell me their mutual funds. So I asked Vestas itself. They even have an Investor Relations division. Perfect. They responded a week later:

Dear Daniel

On behalf of Vestas, I can inform you that we do not offer investment consultancy service. To evaluate whether you want to invest in Vestas Wind Systems, I can only advise you to study our website – www.vestas.com. On the website you will find a lot of information about our products, our latest financial reports, etc.

Fuck you, Vestas! Is this a fucking state secret? Fuck. I'll find out, just you wait.

For now I'm uncertain, and I'm leaving my money in GEX.

Global Warmings

Bush got up in front of the UN today an, with as straight a face as he could suffer, offered to lead the world in the battle against global warming. His weapons of choice? Voluntary emissions reductions and a global fund to finance clean energy in developing countries.

Where to begin? At some point this administration just completely gave up being logical. It's like they decided consciously that they would rather piss the world off than be right about anything.

1. President Bush has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Perhaps he can tell us what energy company would stop burning coal upon the President's announcement of voluntary emissions reductions.

But okay, that's obvious. What about his proposed fund?

2. The fund is also voluntary. What countries will want to give money to this American creation, when we won't so much as talk about mandatory cuts? I'm guessing no one. We have absolutely no political capital at the UN.

3. Most emissions in the coming years will be rising up from the U.S. and China. Next come Russia and the EU. Together those four make up about 60% of current emissions. China is now the largest emitter of GHG in the world, and it's a developing nation. Are we expecting about half of this fund to go to China, then? For a country growing so fast, do we expect this chump change to actually help windmills supplant fossil fuels rather than (at best) complement them? China is building a coal-fired power plant every week -- they won't blanch at this pissant fund.

4. Bush doesn't want to set mandatory limits. Let's not be hasty, right? Wouldn't want to sacrifice our economy now, let's do this as painlessly as possible.

This argument about the economy has always been complete bullshit. Green energy isn't something hippies sell out of trucks in their front yards. Green energy is sold by corporations, and even without looking to the externalities, these corporations have the potential to be just as important a piece of our economy as oil and gas is today.

But it's more expensive!

Green energy is more expensive than conventional energy for two reasons: 1) it hasn't received decades of subsidies, as Big Oil has; and 2) it's new. Once the infrastructure and technology is in place, does anyone really doubt that solar panels transmitting energy from a rooftop will be less expensive than shipping natural gas from all over the world? Green energy is inherently local and thus inherently more efficient than oil and gas in the long run.

5. Only developing nations would get funding, right? Nice how that means the current energy structure in the U.S. wouldn't have to change. Bush's buddies down in Texas wouldn't lose a dime. You know, every time Bush is cautious, the oil and gas industry benefits. And every time he's stubborn and rash, the oil and gas industry benefits. They're just lucky, I guess.

The rest of the UN knows all of these things. They're ineffective, but they're not dumb. They sit in their assigned seats at the General Assembly and watch our President give a speech about a half-assed, can't-do, bullshit non-plan and they think to themselves, "This guy is just not worth listening to anymore." I couldn't agree more.

General Petraeus

Dear General Petraeus,

I have absolutely no idea what to do about Iraq. But I still think you're wrong.

Love,
Danny Kramer

654,965

is the number of Iraqi civilian casualties from our war, as of October of 2006. And if we leave it'll be a bloodbath?

How long will we listen to the political posturing? Iraqis aren't listening, they're trying to protect themselves any way they can. Whereas we sit sit and watch our president compare this war with the one in Vietnam and spin it into a reason to keep fighting. The longer we put up with the theater of our overprivileged shithead leaders, the more people die.

The stock market is fake

I slowly began to wonder how investing in a socially responsible manner actually helps the world. Seems an obvious question, right? I can't answer it. I keep putting money into an alternative energy ETF, because that seems better for the world than investing in a mutual fund that will invariably include Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil. Why would I want to invest in them?

Here's where language tricked me. Most of the time, I, sitting at home, have no opportunity whatsoever to invest in a company. There is really no such thing as investing in Vestas Wind Systems or in Wal-Mart.

The relevant question here is, "What is stock?" Most sources will slyly answer that a share of stock is part ownership of a company, equal to the reciprocal of the number of shares. This is surely theoretically true, and much of our financial and tax system is based on it. But poke at this answer a little. What does it really mean? And most importantly for our purposes, how does my part ownership of Vestas Wind Systems affect that company?

Sometimes private companies, in an attempt to raise capital, will want to sell off a percentage of ownership in the company. They divide this percentage into discrete units of ownership, called shares. They publicize a pending sale of these shares and jump through many regulatory hoops. Then the big day comes for the Initial Public Offering. The share price starts low so as to attract interest. Then it rises, and rises, and rises, and then falls, and then levels off.

After the IPO, the company no longer owns the shares. The shares at this point are bits of paper -- or not even that -- that float around from investor to investor. When you buy stock in Vestas, you're buying it from another investor. Nothing, of course, goes to the company. The same number of windmills will continue to be built. They won't have any extra money for advertising. All that money comes from their earnings, not a cent from stock (except for the initial public offering).

Divesting from Wal-Mart might send the stock price down a tiny tiny bit, but it won't affect the company's earnings. Those are affected only by the consumer market, not the stock market. And the company's ability to pay back loans (and therefore its ability to borrow) is based on how much money they have in the bank -- earnings. Not stocks. Their ability to destroy another community by placing a SuperCenter outside the city limits -- earnings.

There is no such real, tangible thing as owning a part of a company. It's far more accurate to say you're investing in a company's stock, a largely disconnected piece of a company that passes around cyberspace at a price based on predictions of a future price. Earnings affect share price only because people think they do; there's no real connection there. The same thing is true of P/E ratios, Beta numbers, and every single one of those opaque figures that confuse us into believing that the stock market is more than a collective hallucination.

So why invest in Vestas? I'm going to think about it some more, but at the moment I think it's a worthless thing to do. Better to invest in a manner so as to make as much money as possible, and after 20 years buy a windmill.

In fact, it's best to invest in the companies with the absolute worst practices (social, environmental, labor), and become an "activist shareholder." Show up at shareholder meetings and introduce resolutions to improve the company's business practices. Gather enough shareholder support and you actually can do some good. There are coalitions already trying to do this; we have only to join them. This is true socially responsible investing.

Objections:

But what about an IPO? Then you're actually providing capital to the green-friendly business. That's true. But "retail investors" such as myself do not have an opportunity to purchase an IPO. These shares sell very fast, and the only ones who can buy the IPO directly from the company at the IPO price are the "underwriters" of the IPO, the institutional investors who worked on the offering. Once these brokers own the shares, the shares are already estranged from the issuing company.

Don't stocks have an intrinsic or true price value? Sometimes they may deviate from that value (which makes it a good time to buy or sell), but they're based mostly on the true worth of the company -- divide the company's true worth by the number of shares, and you'll have a good idea of what a share should or will be worth. And you'll hear just as often that the worth of the company is determined by the worth of a share, multiplied by the number of shares. It's circular. There's no anchor. A share price is only based on what people think it should cost. Whether in shareholders' minds they're basing their valuation on assets, revenue, P/E, Morningstar ratings, President Bush's gaffe frequency, perception of "true value", whatever -- there's no reason it should or would reflect any of those things. But because so many people invest on the basis of P/E ratios especially, you can bet that a rising P/E will cause a stock price to fall.

But doesn't the stock price multiplied by the number of stocks determine a company's worth? Isn't that important? It's circular, as I discussed above. But yes, when it comes time for this company I've invested in to sell itself or to merge, its share price is a large determinant in how many shares of the purchasing/merging company I'll get. This is still trading shares for shares, and I'll own new slips of paper that are just as intrinsically worthless as the ones I owned before.

What about dividends? If the company is paying part of its earnings back out to investors, than owning a share of stock has definite, quantifiable value. Less than you'd think. First, most companies don't pay out dividends. Second, the dividend payout (from a company that does pay one) is considerably less than a simple U.S. Treasury bond. Third, dividends are fixed and regular; that is, they do not reflect a company's earnings. Therefore, dividends don't change the fact that speculation about a company's earnings potential should not logically affect stock price.

How is this different from a dollar bill? Since we abandoned the gold standard, a dollar bill has no fixed worth. You just haven't accepted that concept for stocks like you have for money itself. The whole monetary system has no anchor! It's different. One: the value of a dollar is based on quantifiable things for logical reasons -- most notably, the ratio of imports to exports with any other given currency, a country's bond rates, and a country's debt. You can draw economic graphs that show why this makes sense. And when a central bank tries to manipulate an exchange rate to be out of tune with these factors, it has tangible consequences. The collapse of the Bretton Woods exchange system in 1973 is an example. Our diplomatic dispute with China over undervaluation of their currency is another. Two: there is no expectation that a dollar waiting in my wallet is doing anything philanthropic for the world. We socially responsible investors feel we're doing something good by investing in Vestas. We're not.

Who cares? It might not be as logical as you'd like, but the stock market works. It makes money. Why should I care whether it makes sense? You probably shouldn't.

i'm tired of PETA now

i've never blogged before, so let's start small. PETA sent a letter to karl rove today. here it is, from the washington post:

"Dear Mr. Rove," began the letter from President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "From your frequent hunting trips to your bizarre little rap at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner ("I like to go home, get a drink, and tear the tops off of small animals"), it is clear that you lack the ability to empathize with other living beings. You consistently prove that you care less about animal welfare than Alberto Gonzales cares about habeas corpus."

Newkirk notes that the first thing Rove plans to do upon leaving the White House at the end of his month is "go dove hunting, i.e., kill little birds who are the international symbol of peace. You will leave politics to spend more time with your family only to destroy the families of other species."

Her last line: "I have just one suggestion: Please take Dick Cheney along on your hunting trips."

fuck you, ingrid newkirk, for making us vegans look bad.

you care about animals? spend some time where they live. come out here and watch bison migrations. find some elk. sit and watch a wild bear, hundreds of miles away from the nearest place to buy soy milk. do you know what a dove sounds like, or do you care only about what it symbolizes? you might know how it sounds to wake up to dove calls. honestly, i hope you do, it's a beautiful thing.

there are places in this country (and this world) where hunting and fishing are valued as highly as anything but god and friendship. as highly as i value walking in wilderness, these people value the art of killing and eating other species. and i am convinced that these values are well founded. they indicate an unusual willingness to confront the complicated questions we all have about death, questions most of us run from. hunting, killing, and eating an animal allows for primal and basic connections that urbanized americans eschew for the convenience of microwave dinners.

ingrid, you might disagree. maybe you'd say the primal connections are base rather than basic. fine. but consider whom you're alienating with this letter. you're alienating people who care enough about food to perform each act of food preparation themselves. many of these people show more interest in the origins of their food than most vegans. and they're often environmentalists, too.

some of them would even refrain from insulting the way of life of millions of people.

do what needs doing -- help shut down CAFO's

and bash karl rove all you want, he deserves it; just don't bash hunting in the name of veganism