Doug Shields Won't Run for Mayor of Pittsburgh

Council President Releases Statement on Democratic Mayoral Primary

9 February 2009

Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields today released the following statement:

“With the encouragement and support of many people, I have seriously considered running for Mayor of the City of Pittsburgh. At this time, the right choice for me, for this Council, and for the people of Pittsburgh is to continue to serve as Council President.

City Council's positive image and strong record of accomplishment is very gratifying to me. Leadership means being willing to serve the bigger picture over personal ambition. In these difficult economic times, we have serious financial and governance issues to work through. As we face these many challenges, I believe that leading Council is how I can best serve the city.

What the citizens in Pittsburgh most need is a productive common agenda, not a divisive political campaign. I pledge to continue working in the best interests of the people who elected me.”

David will be interviewing Shields later this afternoon.
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Spot On

SNL takes on the Michael Phelps controversy and totally nails it:



UPDATE: I can't embed NBC videos, but you can watch it here.
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By the numbers

From Think Progress (Graph by The Gavel):

The current recession that the United States economy finds itself in is, by far, dramatically worse than the recessions of 1990-91 and 2001. How much worse? The economy has lost 3.6 million jobs in the last 13 months. The Gavel compares these numbers to the two most recent recessions:

(Click on graph for larger version)
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February 9 - Alice Walker's Birthday

Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker was born today in 1944.

In her honor, here she is reading Sojourner Truth:

Jack Kelly Sunday

This week's column could be called "A Conservative's failed attempt moral equivalence" where Jack rattles off the evidence of corruption in President Obama's White House.

It pleases me no end that Jack spoke too soon:

Michael S. Steele, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed, [Alan B. Fabian,] his finance chairman from that campaign has told federal prosecutors.

Oopsie. Wait, there's more from the Post:

Fabian's claims emerge as Steele begins his new role at the RNC, where he oversees the raising and spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in party money. The former Maryland lieutenant governor has faced questions about his handling of campaign money in prior elections and was twice fined for missing filing deadlines.

TWICE fined. Again - oopsie.

Of course, the good folks over at the National Review Online already have an explanation:

The Washington Post has quite a hit job on Michael Steele on the front page this morning, with an above-the-fold story alleging he violated a number of campaign-finance rules. Despite the purple language and frothy allegations of the story, my in-house (literally) campaign-finance expert says it is far from clear that Steele actually violated any of the increasingly arcane and impossible-to-explain federal campaign finance laws, but of course as we all know it's the appearance of impropriety that counts for Republicans.

I wonder if they realize the inadvertent truth of that last sentence.

Let's get back to Jack. He begins:

When in the last election Democrats spoke of a "culture of corruption" in Washington, few realized they were making a promise.

The Obama administration is not yet three weeks old but already features a growing collection of ethically challenged officials.

Do I need to point out that the phrase "culture of corruption" comes from the 2006 election cycle and NOT the last election which took place just last year (in 2008)? And let's review the level and type of corruption the Republicans were swimming in. Note these are just some of the guilty pleas. I am not even getting to the indictments:

• Jack Abramhoff - pled guilty in January 4 2o06 on felony counts of fraud conspiracy and tax evasion. The next day he pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud.
  
• Randy "Duke" Cunningham - pled guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud.
• Bob Ney - pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to a charge of falsifying financial disclosure forms.

Then there's the indictments of Tom Delay (and the House Republicans' changing of the rules to protect him), and the rest of the wide ranging Abramoff scandal (the K Street project and so on).

And then there's the non-money scandals of Larry Craig and Scooter Libby. And so on.

And Jack spends a column equating that record to President Obama's cabinet/staffing choices. Of course he gets somethings wrong. First there's this:

...Tom Daschle, whose nomination for secretary of health and human services was withdrawn after it was disclosed that he didn't pay $101,000 worth of taxes owed for a car and driver, or $83,000 on consulting income, and Timothy Geithner, who was confirmed as treasury secretary despite his failure to pay payroll taxes for four years.

Hours before Mr. Daschle withdrew his nomination Tuesday, Nancy Killefer withdrew hers as chief compliance officer when it was revealed that the District of Columbia had placed a lien on her Wesley Heights mansion for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee.

Note to Jack: Daschle has already paid $140,000 in back taxes and interest and presumably he'll pay back the rest. Another note to Jack: Geithner has also paid the back taxes he owed. Further note to Jack: Killefer has also settled her tax issues.

So of course this is exactly like Jack Abramoff (or Duke Cunningham or Bob Ney) going to prison for corruption.

Do I need to go on?

The President, Today

On This Date in 1964

Via our friends across the pond:

The four members of the British hit band, the Beatles, have arrived in New York at the start of their first tour of the United States.

The young men, with their now infamous mop-head hairstyles, stepped onto the tarmac at Kennedy Airport just after 1300 local time.

The seventh of February in 1964 was a Friday. That Sunday, this happened:

LGBT Pittsburgh Advocacy Workshop TODAY!

From Equality Advocates Pennsylvania:

Please join us this Saturday, February 7 for a workshop to discuss upcoming legislative priorities for the LGBT community in Pennsylvania and to acquire the skills needed to effectively advocate on these issues!

This workshop will focus primarily on legislation that will soon be introduced in the state legislature, and how to most effectively advocate to legislators on these issues.

Learn from seasoned activists and organizers in the LGBT and progressive community how to effectively organize around local and state LGBT issues. Please stop by to gain the skills necessary to successfully advocate for LGBT Pennsylvanians!

Date: Saturday February 7, 2009
Time: 3:00pm- 5:00pm
Location: Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh

Presenters include:
Jake Kaskey, Policy and Outreach Coordinator, Equality Advocates Pennsylvania
Andy Hoover, Legislative Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania
Steve Glassman

Please CLICK HERE to RSVP for this event!

For more information or if you have any questions, contact Jake Kaskey at jkaskey@equalitypa.org or (215) 407-5313.

We hope to see you on Saturday!

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Damn! I Wish I'd Said This:

Found this here:

I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear a member of God's Own Party lecture the nation about the need for bipartisanship.

Keith Olberman Tonight

Transcript (via crooksandliars) here.

GOP Theatre of the Absurd

Act I
36 out of 41 Republican senators voted to scrap all spending in the Stimulus Bill -- all of it.

Act II
Republicans don't want Obama's Labor Secretary to work on key labor issue (but Bush's Labor Secretary -- Mitch McConnell's wife -- could fight it).

Act III
GOP Rep: We Might Need A Taliban-Like "Insurgency"

Music & Lyrics by:




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The President, Yesterday

Via Huffington Post. He was speaking before some 200 House Democrats:

Look, I value the constructive criticism and healthy debate that is a foundation of American democracy. I don't think any of us have cornered the market on wisdom, or that good ideas are the province of any party. The American people know that our challenges are great. They're not expecting Democratic solutions or Republican solutions - they want American solutions. And I have said that to those who have criticized the plan.

But what I have also said is - don't come to table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped create this crisis.

Dudes (and, of course, Dude-ettes), I think he just dissed the Republicans! He continued:

We're not going to get relief by turning back to the very same policies that in eight short years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. We can't embrace the losing formula that offers more tax cuts as the only answer to every problem we face, while ignoring critical challenges like our addiction to foreign oil, the soaring cost of health care, failing schools and crumbling bridges, roads and levees. I don't care whether you're driving a hybrid or an SUV - if you're headed for a cliff, you have to change direction.

He DID just diss the Republicans! And more:

The American people are watching. They did not send us here to get bogged down with the same old delay and distractions. They did not vote for the false theories of the past. They did not vote for the status quo - they sent us here to bring change, and we owe it to them to act.

Yes, we are watching. I am at least.

My question is this: The guy won the election bigtime. The GOP lost - again bigtime. So why aren't the Democrats getting on every TV shouting back at the inane arguments the GOP is spewing out for the sole purpose of obstructing the stimulus plan?

Or at least why aren't the Democrats getting on every TV educating the country about the reality of stimulus vs tax cuts?

Why not more stuff like this? Here's a few interesting parts:

"This is not a stimulus plan, it's a spending plan," Nebraska's freshman senator, Mike Johanns (R), said Wednesday in a maiden floor speech full of budget-balancing orthodoxy that would have made Herbert Hoover proud. The stimulus bill, he declared, "won't create the promised jobs. It won't activate our economy."

Johanns was too busy yesterday to explain this radical departure from standard theory and practice. Where does the senator think the $800 billion will go? Down a rabbit hole? Even if the entire sum were to be stolen by federal employees and spent entirely on fast cars, fancy homes, gambling junkets and fancy clothes, it would still be an $800 billion increase in the demand for goods and services -- a pretty good working definition for economic stimulus. The only question is whether spending it on other things would create more long-term value, which it almost certainly would.

And:

What really irks so many Republicans, of course, is that all the stimulus money isn't being used to cut individual and business taxes, their cure-all for economic ailments, even though all the credible evidence is that tax cuts are only about half as stimulative as direct government spending.

He also has a few choice things to say about the supposedly "centrist" plan that cuts spending. Good stuff. I may have to start reading the business press.

Happy Birthday Luke!

Here's Luke in a rather iconic picture. He's defending the free golf outing he got from UPMC before the City Ethics Hearing Board a few years ago back when he was a wee 27. He was quoted as saying "This was not a gift to me. I received nothing from UPMC."

Perhaps it was a coincidence that sometime later UPMC got some sweet tax breaks.

I am sure everyone has their own favorite Luke story. From the SUV to the drunken "arrest" at Heinz Field:

"Admits to drinking with several of his friends. Becomes argumentative with a police officer. Using vulgarity towards a police officer. Led away in handcuffs," said McNeilly. "How many 25-year-old young men who have been drinking, who were just vulgar with the police and shouting at the police, would be un-handcuffed and released?"

My favorite, of course, is my own.

He was 25 when he was handcuffed at Heinz Field, 27 when UPMC bought him the golf. Now that he's, uh, 29 maybe he'll grow up a little.

Feel free to add your favorite Luke story in the comments!

Happy Birthday Mayor Ravenstahl!

Define "Victory"

Recently our good friend Jack Kelly wrote:

What is essentially a victory in Iraq [...]

And when he wrote that, I wondered what his definition of "victory" was. If you also think that we've been "victorious" in Bush's illegal war, consider what John Tirman writes in The Nation:

We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. Looking at the empirical evidence of Bush's war legacy will put his claims of victory in perspective. Of course, even by his standards--"stability"--the jury is out. Most independent analysts would say it's too soon to judge the political outcome. Nearly six years after the invasion, the country remains riven by sectarian politics and major unresolved issues, like the status of Kirkuk.

We have a better grasp of the human costs of the war. For example, the United Nations estimates that there are about 4.5 million displaced Iraqis--more than half of them refugees--or about one in every six citizens. Only 5 percent have chosen to return to their homes over the past year, a period of reduced violence from the high levels of 2005-07. The availability of healthcare, clean water, functioning schools, jobs and so forth remains elusive. According to Unicef, many provinces report that less than 40 percent of households have access to clean water. More than 40 percent of children in Basra, and more than 70 percent in Baghdad, cannot attend school.

The mortality caused by the war is also high. Several household surveys were conducted between 2004 and 2007. While there are differences among them, the range suggests a congruence of estimates. But none have been conducted for eighteen months, and the two most reliable surveys were completed in mid-2006. The higher of those found 650,000 "excess deaths" (mortality attributable to war); the other yielded 400,000. The war remained ferocious for twelve to fifteen months after those surveys were finished and then began to subside. Iraq Body Count, a London NGO that uses English-language press reports from Iraq to count civilian deaths, provides a means to update the 2006 estimates. While it is known to be an undercount, because press reports are incomplete and Baghdad-centric, IBC nonetheless provides useful trends, which are striking. Its estimates are nearing 100,000, more than double its June 2006 figure of 45,000. (It does not count nonviolent excess deaths--from health emergencies, for example--or insurgent deaths.) If this is an acceptable marker, a plausible estimate of total deaths can be calculated by doubling the totals of the 2006 household surveys, which used a much more reliable and sophisticated method for estimates that draws on long experience in epidemiology. So we have, at present, between 800,000 and 1.3 million "excess deaths" as we approach the six-year anniversary of this war.

Yea, that's a "victory."

Lockstep

Earlier this week Chris Potter over at his Slag Heap blog wrote about some proposed changes to the Allegheny County Democratic Committee's bylaws (link on this page).

As Potter put it:

And the key question to be discussed is:

Should Democratic committee people be required to support the party's endorsed candidates?

As he notes, they already are required to do this but the bylaw revisions would now include punishment for those who do not march in lockstep.

I'd also like to point out this proposed change in RULE IV Conduct:

e. Determine that said committee member is ineligible for endorsement at one (1) or more future endorsement meetings for which said committee member seeks office;

If I read this correctly -- and from what I've heard about proposed changes from committee members over the last couple of years -- this means that if you are a committee member and you have the temerity to run for office against an ACDC endorsed candidate, you will be punished by being ineligible to even be considered for future endorsements. Many, if not most, candidates for local office are committee members or ward chairs.

To sum up:

1) If you are a committee person and you don't get ACDC's endorsement and you run anyway in an election (I don't see any exception even in the case of special elections when there is no primary or primary elections themselves) you may be blackballed from one or more future endorsements, and

2) If you are a committee person and you don't support the endorsed candidate in an election, there will be a trial and if found guilty, you will be punished (reprimanded verbally or in writing/or censored/deactivated/removed from office/be ineligible for future endorsements).

There is no indication as to what crime merits which punishment. (Written warning for a button, but deactivation for a yard sign?)

Under these proposed rules, City Councilman Bruce Kraus (for example) would have been punished by ACDC for running (and winning).

Why even bother to have primaries?

Hail Victory, ACDC!
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Agreed

What he said.

and

What he said.
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Quinn and Rose Update

A few days ago Maria got an e-mail from Rose, of Quinn and Rose. She wrote to point out an error I'd made in this posting. Seems that I'd mistakenly posted that Rose had agreed with Quinn when he favorably compared slavery to being on welfare.

He's since apologized, by the way.

To make a long story short, I got into a brief and very cordial e-mail exchange with Rose.

At the end I realized that I had no idea HOW she felt about what Quinn said so I sent this to her:

But I have to ask the question (and THIS IS FOR THE BLOG): What IS your position on Quinn's discussion vis a vis slavery and welfare? Do you agree or disagree?

This is her answer:

There is an update on our page www.warroom.com

I think it will address your concerns.

As for me, I believe that welfare, when used properly is a wonderful tool to help people until they get back on their feet. I also believe that it can be abused, and therefore, ultimately prove to be oppressive. I certainly did not care for the comparison that Jim made. And, apparently, Jim has re-thought his analogy. Please read above link for more info.

So there you have it.

Fact-Checking The Trib

Interesting "research" over at DickieCougarMellonScaife's editorial board this morning.

We begin with today's editorial. It's about the "Nanny State Band-Aid" known as SCHIP. Note this paragraph:

This is just more medicinal snake oil cooked up by liberals, because out of every 10 kids who will be added to the SCHIP scheme, six are currently covered by private insurance.

The new bill includes kids in families of four earning up to $80,000 per year. But the Congressional Budget Office reports that 77 percent of such children already have private health insurance, according to Michael F. Cannon, director of health-policy studies at the Cato Institute, a free-market think tank.

Remember the name Michael Cannon. It'll pop up again and again, I assure you.

Like here. It's from October, 2007 and it's a list of suggestions on how to argue against SCHIP. Numbers one and two on the list:

About 60 percent of children currently eligible for SCHIP already have private health insurance, while 77 percent of those targeted by this expansion (i.e., children between 200-300 percent of the federal poverty level) already have private health insurance.

Economists Jonathan Gruber and Kosali Simon estimate that, in effect, 60 percent of children covered by SCHIP expansions already had private coverage.

Does something look familiar?

Then there's this sleight of hand:

Expanding SCHIP could make a bad situation worse by discouraging work. The Urban Institute offers an eye-opening example of the Law of Unintended Consequences:

"A single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico who increased her earnings by $30,000 would find no change in her net income: She would pay an additional $4,000 in taxes and lose $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits," the institute concludes.

Wonder who said that? You got it. Michael Cannon in September of 2007:

SCHIP discourages these families from climbing the economic ladder. If a single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico increases her annual earnings by $30,000, her net income does not change: She pays an additional $4,000 in taxes and loses $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits. Why should families expend that extra effort if it will leave them no better off financially? Expanding SCHIP would pull even more families into that low-wage trap.

Note that there's NO reference in Cannon's sentence about the "Urban Institute." But if you add that into The Google search you'll find this (again written by our new friend Michael Cannon):

One thing SCHIP does accomplish is to discourage work. SCHIP and similar programs create enormous disincentives to climb the economic ladder. A single mother of two earning minimum wage in New Mexico who increased her earnings by $30,000 would find no change in her net income: She would pay an additional $4,000 in taxes and lose $26,000 in SCHIP and other government benefits, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute for the federal government.

And where does that link lead to? ANOTHER piece by Michael Cannon. Here's the text:

For example, a low-income single mother of two in New Mexico is eligible for a number of income-related subsidies from the federal and state governments. These include the Earned Income Tax Credit, cash assistance, Food Stamps, WIC,22 housing subsidies, child care subsidies, and Medicaid.23 Figure 3 shows what happens if that hypothetical mother increases her earnings. The combination of progressively higher taxes and the progressive loss of government subsidies means that even if she increases her earnings from about $15,000 to $45,000, her net income remains the same at about $40,000.24

That last footnote tells the tale:

24 Data compiled using the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Marriage Calculator, available at http://marriagecalculator.acf.hhs.gov/marriage/. The calculator was created by scholars at the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center (http://www.urban.org/center/ibp/index.cfm).

Could that really be? It was just the calculator that comes from the Urban Institute? Any anyway how many single mothers in New Mexico can "raise their incomes" by 30 grand?

Don't you think the Tribune Review should do some broader research instead of relying on ONE Cato Institute guy?

Battle of the Dance Remixes: Bale Vs. O'Reilly

WARNING: Neither of these is even remotely safe for work.

Christian Bale:


Bill O'Reilly:

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Unofficial Results for Pittsburgh City Council District 2 Special Election

Via: http://www.alleghenycounty.us/elect/200902sp/el45.htm

SUMMARY REPORT Allegheny County Unofficial
Run Date:02/03/09 Pittsburgh Council District 2
RUN TIME:09:14 PM February 3, 2009

PRECINCTS COUNTED (OF 41) . . . . . 41 100.00%
REGISTERED VOTERS - TOTAL . . . . . 25,071
BALLOTS CAST - TOTAL. . . . . . . 2,609
VOTER TURNOUT - TOTAL . . . . . . 10.41%

Straight Party
Vote for not more than 1
Democratic (Dem) . . . . . . . . 288 67.29%
Republican (Rep) . . . . . . . . 41 9.58%
Independent (Ind). . . . . . . . 30 7.01%
Schubert for Council (Sfc). . . . . 69 16.12%

Member of Council DISTRICT 2
Vote for not more than 1
Theresa Smith (Dem) . . . . . . . 1,259 48.52%
Chris Metz (Rep) . . . . . . . . 239 9.21%
Georgia Blotzer (Ind) . . . . . . 639 24.62%
Brendan Schubert (Sfc) . . . . . . 450 17.34%
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 8 .31%
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