Obama waives democracy requirement for aid to Egypt

After the Mubarak years, is this a bad idea or sensible short term politics? Long term it's critical that Egypt is both friendly, but also democratic. Washington Post:

The Obama administration told Congress on Thursday it will waive democracy requirements to release up to $1.5 billion in aid to Egypt despite concerns that the country is backsliding on commitments it made to democratic governance and rule of law.

U.5 officials and lawmakers said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has determined that it was in the U.S. national interest to allow $1.3 billion in military assistance to flow. She also certified that Egypt is meeting its obligations to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, which frees up an additional $200 million in economic aid, they said.

A senior State Department official said the decisions “reflect our overarching goal: to maintain our strategic partnership with an Egypt made stronger and more stable by a successful transition to democracy.”

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How Limbaugh and Beck's propaganda works

I am just completing some interior renovations and about to start some exterior work and so was talking to a couple of contractors. The first told me a conspiracy theory a friend of a friend had told him from the Rush Limbaugh show, whereby the government was alleged to be requiring spy cameras in every HD TV set. I have not been able to track down what Limbaugh might have said to have triggered this claim, but the 'Chinese whispers' effect is instrumental in the workings of this type of propaganda. The speaker makes a claim that is hedged with qualifications and caveats knowing that their words will be repeated without them.

The second conspiracy theory involved a story on Glenn Beck's site about a government 'plan' to ban PVC pipe. The headline has a question mark but it is clear that the reader is intended to believe this is a real proposal.

Banning PVC pipe in home building probably isn't much of a concern to most people but it would certainly worry the people in the building trade most of whom are the blue collar males who are the target audience for Beck and Limbaugh.

The propaganda follows a pattern that will be familiar to anyone who has watched Beck's show. First there is an incredibly detailed introduction that is designed to prove to the reader that the writer is an authority on the subject by stating a long list of essentially irrelevant facts that could be found on wikipedia. Next there comes a sequence of paragraphs that juxtapose facts in a way that is essentially irrelevant to the point but intended to create an association in the reader's mind. The big lie must be preceded by an advance guard of spurious but hard to check claims designed to distract attention from the blatant misrepresentation to follow:

First off, LEED certification is not cheap. Design and construction review of a new building can cost up to $27,500. In fact, in 2009, the USGBC made over $74 million from accreditation, membership dues, and certification fees. The non-profit organization reported $53 million in net assets at the end of that year.

It $27K for LEED certification expensive or cheap? It all depends on the cost of the building and the planning considerations. $27K would be rather expensive for a single residential building and a rounding error for a developer building an office block or a 100 unit residential community.

Next comes a completely irrelevant statistic:

The extent to which the federal government subsidizes the USGBC is made clear when you realize the amount of LEED-certified building space in Washington, DC, which has more LEED-certified space on a per-capita basis than in any of the 50 states. Over 18.9 million square feet, or 31.5 square feet per resident, is LEED certified in the Washington, DC; the closest state is Colorado, with 2.7 square feet per person.

Does it really make sense to compare a city to a state? Isn't it rather likely that Manhattan, Chicago and Boston have more LEED certified office space per capita than any of the 50 states as well?

Finally, after the preamble has prepared the reader and exhausted their fact checking efforts we get to the money shot, a statement that is clearly designed to get the reader whose livelihood depends on building houses worried:

And this brings us all the way back to PVC. As first mentioned, the GSA is considering new USGBC regulations that include the “avoidance” of the popular material.

As the proposal states: The intent is to “decrease the concentrations of chemical contaminants that can damage air quality, human health, productivity, and the environment.” And to this end, LEED will certify whoever uses products or materials “that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product.” This includes Polyvinyl chloride.

OK so assuming that the government is not intending to shut down the construction industry by banning PVC pipe, what is really going on?

What is really happening is that the LEED program has a 'pilot program' that developers can use to secure 'extra credit'. Participating a pilot is optional and many pilots list many different ways to score the credit. The pilot at issue here is Pilot Credit 54 "Avoidance of Chemicals of Concern". The criteria are hardly very exacting:

Use a minimum of 20%, by cost, of at least 3 building product and material types
meeting one of the options below

The option then lists a series of highly toxic materials; lead, mercury cadmium and so on. PVC isn't even in the list. So these are requirements that only apply to 20% of the building materials costs. A PVC building floating on a lake of mercury could qualify for the pilot credit provided at least 20% of the cost was other materials. I don't know how much my plumber spent on PVC pipe but I doubt it added up to more than a few hundred bucks. It certainly didn't amount to 80%.

PVC only appears in 'Option 2' which is an alternative option within the pilot and the wording is rather obscure:

Meet the requirements of Option 1.AND Use third party certified building products and materials that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product over the reporting thresholds
below. Calculate compliant building products and materials at twice the cost.

What this appears to say is that if your materials don't contain PVC or the other substances in concentrations higher than those allowed they count double. So you only need to source 10% of your components from these sources.

I can't see how a developer would have a problem meeting the requirements. My biggest building material expenses were concrete, framing lumber and plywood. The real challenge would be documenting that the requirements were met.

Remember that LEED is an optional program designed to illustrate best of breed, it is not regulation. This proposal isn't even a proposal for a LEED requirement. If the pilot requirements are unmeetable, nobody is going to meet them. If nobody meets them, the pilot proposals are unlikely to even become a LEED requirement.

This position is reinforced by a series of statements by what are cited as 'experts' but are really spokespersons for the PVC industry:

Allen Blakey, vice president of Industry and Government Affairs for the Vinyl Institute, says his organization is “astonished to see PVC added to the USGBC’s list of chemicals to avoid,” the report adds. According to Blakey, PVC is a material that’s been studied for some time by the USGBC itself.

And finally the writer heads off into crazy loopsville:

So why is LEED trying to blacklist the material?

Well, maybe it’s important to understand a little bit more about LEED’s “founding founder” Robert Watson, a man who infamously said “Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment.”

This are not the ravings of a lunatic, they are the work of a deliberate, cynical propagandist. Deconstructing the propaganda is really not hard but it does require some critical thinking skills. The type of skills that Republicans would rather not see taught in schools.

First the reader needs to be able to identify the small set of factual statements that are actually relevant. Next the reader has to fact check the key claims by examining the original sources. In this case the key source is a document that appears to be written by lawyers for lawyers but even a quick glance demonstrates that it is being misrepresented. Finally the reader has to do a bit of work with Google to find the original source for the out of context quote. This is what I found:

Lest we forget. "Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment," Rob Watson of the Natural Resources Defense Council tells Grist magazine (November 25). "All of the buildings in the U.S. consume more than twice as much energy as all of the cars in the country." Chicago has a building that does much better--the Chicago Center for Green Technology, at 445 N. Sacramento, is the third building in the country to receive a "platinum" rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

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Video: Corgi-cam

A dog's eye view of a hike.

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Student loan debt hits new record high

But at least the parents got their tax cuts. Sure the costs for school have jumped because of the cuts but hey, think of the tax cut savings. Too bad for the kids that are saddled with debt coming out of school, but at least they can enjoy the debt knowing that their parents saved a few bucks.

U.S. student-loan debt reached the $1 trillion mark, as young borrowers struggle to keep up with soaring tuition costs, according to the initial findings of a government study.

The figure, which is higher than the country’s credit-card debt, was probably reached “several months ago,” Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a posting yesterday, excerpted from a speech he made at the Consumer Bankers Association meeting in Austin, Texas.

“Young consumers are shouldering much of the punishment in the form of substantial student-loan bills for doing exactly what they were told would be the key to a better life,” Chopra, the bureau’s student-loan ombudsman, said in the posting.

Remind me again how the young generation has a shot at the American dream when they have this much debt in their early 20's? Read the rest of this post...

Etch A Sketch stock surges after Romney team gaffe

Looks like Romney is doing something to help the economy, though maybe not exactly in the way he had hoped. Every time someone now mentions an Etch A Sketch, they're going to be reminded of his team's most recent comment about Romney's flip-flopping history.

Ohio Art Co. (OART) surged in trading after its Etch A Sketch drawing toy became a metaphor for Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

The thinly traded toymaker more than doubled to $9.65 after three trades, totaling 800 shares, as of 1:22 p.m. New York time in the over-the-counter market. The shares earlier reached $12.50 for the biggest intraday rise since at least 1980, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Yesterday, Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom was asked on CNN whether he was concerned that the candidate might be forced by Republican opponents to take extreme positions during the primary that could alienate moderates in a race against President Barack Obama.

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Jobless numbers improve, again

More good news on the economy. There is still a very long way to go before it's a strong recovery, but it's hard to argue against the positive trend. (Not that some aren't trying to dismiss it.) Bloomberg:

Applications (INJCJC) for unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level in four years, reinforcing signs the U.S. labor market is picking up.

Jobless claims decreased by 5,000 to 348,000 in the week ended March 17, the fewest since February 2008, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 46 economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected 350,000. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls and those getting extended payments also fell.

Dismissals have been waning and reports show companies are becoming more willing to expand workforces amid evidence sales are improving. Employment growth will help spur consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

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Obama to fast track Keystone oil pipeline

UPDATE: This is getting awfully confusing.  The administration is saying that this isn't a flip-flop.  They're saying that this is what the President said he'd do last January - that he'd fast-track the non-controversial part of the pipeline, the lower part.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 18, 2012

Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline

Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.

This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.

_________________

Although I can imagine a lot of Americans, not on the left, thinking that additional drilling will help lower gasoline prices - even though AP showed that this is untrue - we're hearing that the Obama administration is speeding up approval of the controversial Keystone pipeline.  Even though we now know that it won't help lower gas prices.  But people will "think" it will help, and rather than actually solve the problem, let's play the Republican game where we simply pretend to solve problems since it will fool the public and maybe help us in the polls.

Not to mention, I thought we just killed this thing?  So now our side is bringing it back up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The tar sands oil extraction process is the last thing the environment needs. Heaven forbid anyone discusses how dirty the process of oil extraction is or makes an effort to get serious about moving away from an oil based society. But hey, there's a campaign to win and Republicans to appease. The Guardian:

The president will use a stop in Cushing, Oklahoma on Thursday morning to announce an executive order directing government agencies to speed up permits for the southern US-only segment of the pipeline, running from the town to Port Arthur, Texas

The approval – which brought angry reactions from environmental groups – could allow construction on the southern portion of the pipeline to begin before the November elections, instead of next year.

In addition, White House officials indicated in a conference call with reporters that Obama was likely to improve the entire route, which stretches more than 1,600 miles from the tar sands of Alberta to the refineries of Texas.

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Trayvon Martin and the so-called "Castle Doctrine" — How the NRA "got its way" in 2006

Many of the laws that got Trayvon Martin killed were passed in 2006 as a result of a huge push by the NRA. The following, from a piece by Rick Perlstein in The New Republic and published at the time, details much of this effort. It's fascinating and prescient.

Note as you read the use of the phrase "Castle Doctrine" — a brilliant bit of false framing, a perversion of something in English common law that allows a person to defend himself in his home — a place from which there is no retreat. If you can't retreat, you get to stand your ground; otherwise, you must retreat if you can.

The NRA (per)version of the Castle Doctrine, as Perlstein explains, applies a "no retreat needed" rule to any place a person has a "right to be." License to kill, in other words, from wherever you happen to be standing.

Note also the indemnification of the shooter provided by these laws. The perfect one-two punch enabling the modern citizen-assassin.

Perlstein has added elsewhere that the "NRA got [these insane laws] passed around the country, with practically nobody noticing, and far too few Democrats objecting." Too right.

Here's a chunk from of his TNR piece. Classic Perlstein.

Enjoy (sorry, no online version; my emphasis and some reparagraphing):

Unnoticed by most of the national media, 2006 became the year the National Rifle Association got its way — and average citizens in almost a dozen states earned more leeway to shoot first and ask questions later than, in some circumstances, officers of the law.

The NRA calls it the "Castle Doctrine," after a mellifluous passage in Book 4 in Blackstone's Commentaries:

"And the law of England has so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man's house, that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with immunity."

But what has been sold to state legislators as the restoration of a stolen patrimony — "the Castle Doctrine, in essence, simply places into law what is a fundamental right: self defense," as an NRA newsletter puts it — is in actuality quite radical.

Existing statutes and court precedents impose a "duty to retreat" in the face of an intruder. Genuine self-defense is legal — always has been, always will. For over 200 years, distinguishing the one from the other was for police, prosecutors, juries, and judges to decide.

The new laws remove that discretion. In Arizona's, passed in April [2006], a shooter "is presumed to be acting reasonably," their target presumed to intend bodily harm, if the target "unlawfully and forcefully enters or entered the person's dwelling, residence, or motor vehicle," or merely "is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied motor vehicle to further an unlawful activity." Notes NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam, "if someone breaks into your dwelling, it's reasonable to assume that person is in there to do you harm."

But in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, and Oklahoma, the same immunities apply in any place you have a legal right to be.

Florida's law also immunizes against the deaths of innocent bystanders — like the two men in a gunfight, Damon "Red Rock" Darling and Leroy "Yellowman" Larose, both of whom, according to the Miami Herald plan Castle Doctrine defenses once it is determined whose bullet it was that cut down Sherdavia Jenkins, nine, on her front porch in Liberty City. (Responds the NRAs Arulanandam: "Look, any law on the books will, you know — there are going to be people who are going to try to take advantage of the laws on the books.")

The Castle Doctrine covers shooters who simply feel at risk. In Winter Haven, Florida, Justin Boyette meant no harm when he approached Michael Brady on Brady's lawn, unarmed, possibly to shake his hand. Brady felt menaced and shot him anyway.

Brady feels deeply remorseful — but plans to attempt a Castle Doctrine defense nonetheless. But Castle Doctrine laws provide little guidance about what happens once cases reach the courts. An Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney in Kentucky, Kimberly Henderson Baird, was so baffled as to how the new law applied to the case of a drug dealer beaten to death by one of his customers that she gave up and accepted a manslaughter plea. "If we couldn't understand it ourselves, how are we going to get a jury to understand it?"

The victim's sister, when she learned her brother's killer would be eligible for parole in two months, noted Kentucky's new law "basically says if anyone comes into your home, and if you have a grudge against them or anything, you can do this and get away with it." She wonders whether the legislature "thought things through."

Good question. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as soon as the 2006 legislative sessions opened, the NRA roared into action so quickly gun control groups were blindsided. Bills were introduced in Georgia and South Carolina January 10; Arizona's was first read two days later; South Dakota's was signed by February; by summer, ten new Castle Doctrine laws were in force. Texas is scheduled to introduce theirs in January 2007.

The NRA has described it as a train "chugging through the nation, reuniting Americans with the right to protect themselves and loved ones from danger." Both Democrats and Republicans have been glad to grease the rails. Only one state legislator voted against Kentucky's law; Georgia's passed the state senate 26 to one. Democratic governors signed them in Louisiana, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Michigan.

Some of the laws specifically withhold immunity from those who shoot cops. Georgia's, however, does not....

More on the history of the Castle Doctrine from Garrett Epps at The American Prospect.

Do these laws have that rotten ALEC stink all over them? Yeah, thought so too. More coming.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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Obama fights back on health care reform and energy

It's about time.

On health care reform especially, I think the administration gave up too easily on the message war - before, during and after the legislation passed. (Seriously, how hard was it to demonize insurance companies, yet, incredibly, our side didn't.) What passed wasn't what a lot of us wanted (it wasn't what the public wanted - 70% supported a public option - even though the public now thinks the weaker law goes too far, because they're buying GOP messaging). But the law did include some good things that are defensible - and that the public, when you explain it to them, support in the polls - and the White House, and Obama campaign, should have been defending them a lot more aggressively, and finally they are.

I've written about this plenty of times before, so I won't repeat myself. But, in a nutshell, there are two kinds of people in this town. Those who take a public opinion poll and do what it tells them to do, and those who take a poll and then figure out how to change people's minds. The former have been calling the latter "naive" for three years. On behalf of the latter let me just say, told ya so.

From the Washington Post:

The White House has launched a concerted effort to turn political weakness into strength on two critical election-year issues that have become big vulnerabilities for President Obama: rising gas prices and the controversial health-care law.

At the heart of Obama’s strategy are attempts to dispel Republican claims that his policies have helped drive up the cost of gas, and to improve public opinion of the health-care law, which has been a source of GOP derision for two years.

After months on the defensive, the president is trying to remake both topics into the selling points they were in 2008.

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