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kausfiles.comMay 19, 2010 4:20 PM I'll pay for a week's worth of Andrew Sullivan's testosterone injections if he can find a single blog post where I "assumed [Gary] Condit's guilt." ... I've apologized for thinking Condit's guilt was more of a possibility than was justified. That's not assuming guilt. I always held open the alternative possibility that he wasn't guilty--as he wasn't, it turned out--because early on I'd talked to a very sensible and well-positioned source who scoffed at the idea that Condit did it. ... 4:26 P.M. ___________________________ All Your Base Is ... : Big Labor flexes muscles, delivers for "card check" switcher Specter in PA primary! ... Oh wait. 4:32 P.M. ___________________________  May 19, 2010 2:00 AM A chance for her to unleash the "intellectual firepower" she's been holding in reserve for so long. ... 2:01 A.M. ___________________________ May 16, 2010 11:50 PM Good morning, San Francisco. ... 6:18 P.M. ___________________________ And he's sheveled? Jonah Goldberg wrote a very generous article (except for the "balding, often disheveled" part). ... When he interviewed me, though, it seemed pretty clear he was writing it for the L.A. Times. I wonder what happened? ... Note: Headline is not meant to implicate the editor of the LAT editorial pages, Nick Goldberg, who was out of town, as I understand it. ... 12:52 A.M. ___________________________ Just cut some radio spots. How annoying is it that in a 30 second spot, 5 seconds are words dictated by the government: "Paid for by Kaus for Senate" and "I'm Mickey Kaus, candidate for U.S. Senate, and I approved this ad." It's not as if voters might otherwise assume that my campaign a) hadn't paid for the ad and b) didn't approve it. ... Maybe if someone else's campaign had produced the ad they should have to disclose that, to avoid deception. Or if the ad was an attack ad that never mentions the candidate who funded it. But this was an ad in which I appear and identify myself. I don't quite see the compelling public interest in forcing candidates to tell voters that, yes, what they naturally assume is the case is, in fact, the case. It seems more like the government just forcing them to jump through verbal hoops because it can. ... Maybe Justice Kennedy would agree. ... 1:06 A.M. ___________________________ May 12, 2010 5:30 PM The SEIU story Ezra Klein missed. ... 10:08 A.M. ___________________________ I stopped by the Sacramento Bee Capitol bureau and talked with Amy Chance, who wrote a very fair blog item with what I think is a decent sound bite on immigration. But you tell me. (Mickey_Kaus@msn.com). ... Update: Chance has added a reaction from the Boxer camp in the print version of the piece. Boxer spokeswoman Rose Kapolczynski cites a Public Policy Institue poll for the proposition that 70 percent of Californians think illegal immigrants should have a "path to citizenship"--and therefore I'm "out of the mainstream." If the Boxer campaign really believes in that PPIC poll they are in deep trouble! Here's what the pollsters asked: If you had to choose, what do you think should happen to most illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the United States for at least two years? [rotate] [1] They should be given a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status [or] [2] They should be deported back to their native country. 72% chance to keep jobs 25 deported 3 don't know a) The poll question is designed to exclude exactly the middle ground policy I'm advocating, offering only the options of 1) deportation or 2) giving illegals "a chance to keep their jobs and eventuallly apply for legal status." What about neither deporting them nor legalizing them but instead fixing the border and waiting to see if that works first? b) "apply for legal status"? Polls on immigration, like polls on welfare, are very sensitive to wording. Here PPIC doesn't say illegals will get legal status, only that they can "apply." This suggests they can be turned down, and will obviously get more approval than if the survey had said even something as neutral as "become legal." A sign of the pollsters' guiding hand. c) Why do only "most" illegals get this opportunity, according to the poll? What about the others? Those responding are left to assume that maybe 49% won't qualify. d)"eventually"? "Eventually" is a long time. In the long run--say, if we fix the borders, then wait 10 years--even I might agree with the proposition. But, in fact, under the proposed Democratic reform illegals would immediately be given "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" status. Calling this "eventually" is affirmatively misleading. e) Someone tell Ms. Kapolczynski that the PPIC poll doesn't mention any "path to citizenship," which is in fact what Dems are proposing but which would undoubtedly meet greater opposition. It refers only to "a chance" to "eventuallly apply" for "legal status," which might be something well short of citizenship. That's four deceptive slant-words in a row. The poll is junk. (I suspect Boxer's internal polls confirm that conclusion.) 2:52 P.M. ___________________________ Mike Kinsley on why Barbara Boxer's anti-bailout grandstanding is mostly a self-protecting fraud. ... Declaring you'll never, ever bail out financial firms again doesn't do anything to stop you, when the crunch comes, from bailing out financial firms. Nor should it. Boxer's amendment is mainly about her poll numbers. ... Update: I put out a press release. ... 1:18 P.M. ___________________________ The Case for Socialism: Spain's Socialist prime minister has cut civil service pay by 5% and then frozen it in an attempt to reduce budget deficits by almost half (from over 11% to 6% of GDP) in two years. Try to imagine a California Democrat doing the same thing ... 5:35 P.M. ____________________________ Former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan has declared war on the city's failing Blue Machine coalition of ambitious Latino pols and public employee unions. ... 5:39 P.M. _____________________________ May 11, 2010 1:15 AM I finally filed the required financial disclosure form with the Senate ethics committee. Like other regs I've had to comply with, it was annoyingly pedantic--do they really need to know about each separate tiny mutual fund holding in my IRA-yet not as bad as I'd feared. You wonder, though, if all the cumulative pedantry is designed to safeguard our democracy's ethics or to ward off democracy by catching non-professional challengers in petty procedural errors. But it's not like the committee that reviews it is chaired by my opponent. ... Oh, wait. ... P.S.: That's actually a form of protection, I think, because if they came after me they would have to, you know, mention my candidacy. Controversy is good, at least now. ... 1:22 A.M. May 9, 2010 9:55 PM Kaus for Senate has South Dakota nailed down! Thanks. ... And while I'm not sure you necessarily want to have your campaign called "surprisingly resilient," we'll take it. ... Judging from my e-mailbox, Big Journalism already has a bigger reach than many traditional web sites. ... ___________________________ Unions Go for the Green: Electrical workers' union tries to block an innovative apprenticeship program to train solar installers. ... 10:50 A.M. ___________________________ ICE Try: The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is supposed to pick up inmates at Rikers Island who are in the country illegally and eligible for deportation. These aren't ordinary undocumented folks rounded up on the street while minding their own business, remember. These are people in jail for alleged criminal conduct. Here's what happens in New York City: May 7, 2010 3:05 AM I had hoped that the L.A. Times, in the course of inevitably endorsing Barbara Boxer, might say a few nice words about me. It didn't occur to me that they'd actually stay neutral in the race. ... Press release here. ... Times non-endorsement here. ... 3:11 A.M. ___________________________ I'll be debating unionism today, Friday, May 7, from 3 to 3:30 P.M. on KPFK, 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. The pro-union side, I'm told, will be taken up by Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of history at UCSB and director of its Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy ... 3:15 A.M. ___________________________ May 5, 2010 12:10 AM "Kaus the Demagogue" ... Now we're getting somewhere! ... 3:59 P.M. ___________________________ Fred Barnes raises the possibility of a "mad duck" Congress, in which Democrats lose their majorities and their soon-to-be-ex Congressmen reconvene in December to pass all the most controversial parts of the Democratic agenda, including an immigration bill and a VAT, before they lose power. ... It seems implausible and paranoid, but how, exactly, could it be stopped?**... The new laws would be hard to repeal while Obama is in office--if they could ever be repealed. (Once you legalize illegal immigrants, can you re-illegalize them again? I doubt it. The change seems irreversible.) ... The only sure solution to Mad Duckism that I can see is for the Republicans to not win too big, leaving at least a substantial number of Dems with something left to lose. ... **--Update: Alert reader J. suggests "an all-out filibuster" would stop a mad-duck legislating binge. Not if the legislation can be put in the form of "reconciliation" bills--and I would think a VAT would qualify because of its obvious budgetary impact. ... P.S.: It's good to see Barnes admitting that any immigration reform that includes an amnesty is "unpopular." That's not what he said when Bush proposed the same thing. Here's Barnes in 2006 ("Bordering on Victory"): THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE HAS FLIPPED in President Bush's favor. The public now firmly supports toughened border enforcement plus--and this is a big plus for the president--a system for letting illegal immigrants already in America earn citizenship. "Firmly"? So wrong! ... Not sure I should trust Barnes now just because he's started saying what I want to hear. ... 12:25 A.M. ___________________________ May 4, 2010 9:40 AM Man Bites Dog! ... Oh wait: Why would a California teachers' union oppose a tax increase that would raise unionized teachers' salaries? Because some (18%) of the money would go to increasingly popular charter schools. ... [Thks. to alert reader H.] 10:25 P.M. ______________ On Keith Olbermann's show last night, immigration legalization advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez said: We want to end that magnet system that brings undocumented workers into this country, because here, I`ll tell you, I think it does reduce the wages for American workers and undercuts them. [E.A.] This seems like a significant concession, no? Once you agree the labor market for low-wage workers is actually subject to normal laws of supply and demand, controlling the supply becomes a legitimate policy objective--and we can have an argument over whether granting an amnesty before securing the borders is really going to be an effective way to control supply. ... 9:59 A.M. ___________________________ Shorter Eugene Robinson: The border is already secure! There's no way to make the border secure! ... And I have flamboyant scorn for anyone who thinks different! ... 9:56 A.M. ___________________________ They tried: Despite CBS/NYT pollsters efforts, the new Arizona immigration law still turned up popular--by a 51/36 margin--in their latest poll. ... Another 9 percent said the law "doesn't go far enough." ... Is that the "fearful fifth" my friend Jon Alter of Newsweek sneers at? Looks kind of like three-fifths in this case. ... 9:49 A.M. ___________________________ Kaus for Senate wins the coveted BeerCanPolitics endorsement. Thanks! ... 9:41 P.M. ___________________________ May 3, 2010 9:10 AM My attempt to explain why Democrats, "even liberal Democrats," should be skeptical of union power is in the L.A. Times. Excerpt: As the private economy has faltered, we increasingly have a two-tier economy: If you're an insider, a unionized government employee, you're in good shape. Even if you don't do a very good job, you won't be fired. Even in hard times, Washington will spend billions in stimulus funds so that you don't get laid off. You won't even have to take much of a pay cut. And you can retire like an aristocrat at taxpayer expense. But if you're an outsider, trying to survive in a world of $10-an-hour jobs, competing with immigrant labor, paying for your own healthcare, forced to send your children to lousy public schools run by unfireable teachers and $100,000-a-year bureaucrats — well, good luck to you. But be sure to vote Democratic. If Republicans were looking for a way to discredit "affirmative government," could they have come up with a more effective weapon than today's public sector unions? ...The piece also discusses private sector unions. ... Thanks to the Times for publishing it (including a good edit). ... Update: When even the liberal Mother Jones agrees that job protection regs got out of hand long ago. Ditto for work rules and public sector pensions you know unionism is on the defensive. ...9:28 A.M. ___________________________ April 30, 2010 10:05 AM Today's press release on tomorrow's marches. ... It also takes a qualified position in support of Arizona's new law. ... Recommended: David Frum's defense of Arizona. ... P.S.: It's getting highly annoying to hear Obama and Senate Democrats pretend that to have effective border control we have to take a package deal that includes amnesty. They're worse than the cable company when it comes to package deals. ... 10:11 A.M. ___________________________ April 29, 2010 10:45 PM I've been waiting for the pissy Bill Bradley piece on my candidacy. Wait's over. It's not as pissy as expected! ... P.S.: Bradley writes-- Without unions, this country would be headed for oligarchy. Think of Russia, with fewer machine guns. Presumably. Hyperbolic much? ... Unions are such a diminished presence in the private economy, shouldn't we be seeing signs of the Russian imperative by now? ... P.P.S.: Do we need the full Davis-Bacon Act to ward off the machine guns? ... P.P.P.S.: I tend to see the left's support of unionism (including Bradley's) as reification: the unwarranted assumption that what has been in the past will be in the future--in this case, reification reinforced by large campaign donations. ... 10:55 P.M. ___________________________ Wouldn't the surest way to take immigration reform off Congress' agenda be for Republicans to say, "Great! Let's vote!"? ... 10:49 P.M. ___________________________ April 27, 2010 11:55 AM Had a good talk on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio show. For me it was worth getting up at 4:45 for. ... Bennett immediately zeroed in on a key political mystery: Are African-American voters on board with the Democrats' recent amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants program? I suggested that the answer is no. But if that's true, why doesn't the GOP at least try to win over a piece of this most loyal Democratic group? It's a potentially deep fissure that could pry apart the Dems' coalition. ... P.S.: It's not clear to me that African-Americans have all that much at stake in the Democrats' obsession with promoting more unionization, in the private sector at least. What percent of A-A private sector workers are union members? Maybe it's not just white males who are starting to feel left out of today's Democratic party. ... 12:03 A.M. ___________________________ April 26, 2010 11:50 AM It's a stark illustration of the inequities of capitalism that organized labor can only afford to buy one political party, but Wall Street can buy both of them. ... 11:53 A.M. ___________________________ One of the key innovations of the Kaus for Senate campaign was supposed to be the combination of this pre-existing blog and the campaign web site. Readers would stop by the blog and while they were here they'd hit the contribution button to the right and send some money to get the message out to non-readers. Synergy! Well ... it's not working, people! Or, at least, it's stopped working. ... If you agree with the goals of this effort--to take the Democratic Party back from the interest groups that now control its agenda--please hit the button and send something. It doesn't have to be a lot. Thanks! ... P.S.: The money will go mainly into ads. It's obviously not going to high-priced consultants! .... 11:59 A.M. ___________________________ April 24, 2010 10:50 AM April 24, 2010 9:50 AM Did GM CEO Ed Whitacre really write an op-ed titled "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full?" He did! This is an astonishing lie--GM has given back a $6.7 billion loan it didn't need, not the more than $50 billion in bailout money U.S. and Canadian taxpayers sunk into the company (in exchange for an equity stake, after it was determined that GM couldn't reliably pay back a loan that big). And to think the FTC is investigating bloggers for consumer fraud. ... If Sarah Palin told a propagandistic whopper this big she'd be run back up to Wasilla by the press. ... It looks like, once the Obama administration realized GM was still in such bad shape there was no hope of pursuing Plan A--a public offering of stock to recoup at least some of the $50 billion capital bailout--they resorted to Plan B--a coordinated hype campaign to act as if the relatively puny $6.7 billion payback was the $50 billion. Larry Summers' credibility was dragged into the cesspool of PR scamming! ... Kausfiles calls on Summers to repudiate Whitacre's op-ed, lest his post-administration stature sink to Orszagesque levels. ... P.S.: GM really must be desperate for a way to counter resistance from bailophobic consumers if it has to blatantly jump the gun on claiming 'payback' like this. Whitacre's announcement is itself a sign, not of turnaround, but of GM's continuing weakness. ... P.P.S.: You might think the problem was only an overzealous and underinformed WSJ headline writer. But the final paragraph of Whitacre's piece--"Nobody was happy that GM needed government loans ..."--makes it clear Whitacre wants readers to confuse the loans with the entire bailout. ... [via Instapundit] Update: After the bailout, GM and Chrysler made "few changes to [their] pension plans," which are of the "defined benefit" variety, according to the Government Accountability Office. As a result, taxpayers may have to shore them up with another $10+ billion. ... 10:18 A.M. ___________________________ Comments are now happening. Thanks for your patience. ... 9:50 A.M. ___________________________ April 22, 2010 11:00 PM I'll be on the John Phillips Show (KABC-790) in L.A. this evening (Friday). Show starts at 7. I don't know which hour I'll be on. ... ___________________________ Harry Reid's Pretend Agenda: "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is dead but they're going to prop it up like Weekend at Bernie's to fool the base? ... Revving up the base isn't the solution for the Dems. The base (unions, the Latino amnesty lobby) is the problem. ... 9:45 P.M. ___________________________ Can Public Employee Unions Read Writing on Wall? Dr. Wes' blog, via Instapundit: Only in Illinois: where teachers and union members rallied to raise more taxes yesterday. Not only in Illinois! Also in California. ... P.S.: Kabuki On the Way! At what point do statesmanlike public employee union leaders realize they are about to get creamed by the voters and beat a strategic managed 10% retreat? At what point do cynical Democratic pols (Jerry Brown, Barbara Boxer) realize the unpopular unions are about to drag them down and make a public show of opposing them (even while supporting 90% of what they want)? ... 11:17 P.M. ___________________________ I admit, when I plugged Dan Morain's column on Hollywood mogul Haim Saban's attempt to protect Rep. Howard Berman by killing Prop 11's anti-gerrymandering reform, I didn't quite understand how it was supposed to work, given that Prop 11 applies only to state legislative districts, not federal Congressmen--so Berman would be unaffected. Tony Quinn supplies the missing link: Turns out there is another anti-gerrymandering reform scheduled for the fall ballot that would apply to Congress. The idea is apparently that the pro-gerrymandering measure will kill the anti-gerrymandering measure, even if it dies in the process: By putting a measure on the November ballot to do away with citizens’ redistricting, they hope to confuse voters into voting against the measure to give congressional districting to the citizens’ panel. Too clever! I suspect this sort of smoke bomb approach worked better in the pre-Internet era when voters couldn't easily inform themselves on Election Eve. ... P.S.: Quinn has juicy details about how Howard Berman's brother Michael makes money. ... [via Rough & Tumble] 11:38 P.M. ___________________________ New Chevy Kabuki: I like Larry Summers, but does he really think GM repaying $6.7 of the over $50 billion the taxpayers have sunk into it means there is a significant chance for "a return of most of the taxpayers’ investment in these companies"? The $6.7 billion "payback" seems like an obvious PR move designed to disguise GM's ongoing trouble, even as the Obama administration moves to sell its stake for a gigantic taxpayer loss. ... Truth About Cars' Edward Niedermeyer explained all this back in November. ... If Obama had really made the "politically difficult" decision and forced the UAW to take even a mild cut in hourly wages, the story might be different, of course. ... 12:06 P.M. ___________________________ April 22, 2010 11:05 AM Talked to Northeast Democratic Club in Highland Park tonight. It went much better than my previous outing--they disagreed on immigration, of course, but asked good questions and seemed to listen to the answers. My pitch was "Comprehensive reform isn't going to pass. You're being strung along by Democratic politicians in order to boost turnout. The only way legalization will have a chance is if we secure the borders first and convince the electorate they're secure. So if you want eventual legalization, you should be focusing on enforcement right now." I claim some heads nodded at "strung along." ... They will not endorse me, but still a good discussion. ... P.S.: The speaker right after me, Assemblyman Kevin de Leon, seemed like a potential rock star, in both the good and bad (but mostly good) sense. By the time he gets to the top, though, the unions will own him. If they don't already. ... 11:19 A.M. ___________________________ The Official Kaus for Senate Facebook page is officially official and operational. Scott Brown had one of those, right? ... Soon to be a vibrant online community! ... P.S.: Thanks to Todd Lemmon for setting up the unofficial page. ... 11:20 A.M. ___________________________ April 21, 2010 2:30 PM CA vs. TX: Why is the state of Texas doing relatively well in this recession--losing jobs later, and recovering jobs earlier--than California is? Dan Gross outlines some reasons: the energy industry is relatively recession proof, plus Texas is so big it can create its own "green" wind power jobs to power its cities without having to cooperate with neighboring states. ... Gross leaves off another potential factor, though: Texas has a relatively low rate of unionization--about a third of California's. That means a) fewer rigidities in the labor market, allowing it to adjust to the market more quickly--tiny quick wage cuts for a lot of people, for eample, mean employers don't have to lay people off as quickly b) fewer rigidities in organization structure--they don't have UAW-style work rules at Dell; and c) the absence of the public sector union "death-grip on state and local government" and politics and finances, which has helped produce near-bankruptcy at the state level (and actual bankruptcy in Vallejo). ... When Texas creates green jobs, maybe it's not just a power play by the union representing DWP workers to grab another stream of taxpayer funding, or by the Teamsters to monopolize employment at the port of LA. Maybe they are actual green jobs! ... Update: Kevin Williamson has more ... **-- It's not just that Texas is pumping crude. As Gross notes Texas' role in energy is less as an oil supplier and more as a supplier of technology and services to energy producers around the globe--a classic "globalized" industry. Could they do that as effectively if they were unionized? ... [Thanks to NewsAlert] 2:46 P.M. ___________________________ Outgoing SEIU union President Andy Stern tells WaPo's Ezra Klein that unions are the greatest middle-class, job-creating mechanism that we have ever had in America that doesn't cost tax payers a dime. Needless to say, under Klein's probing questioning Stern had to admit the idiocy of his remark. ... Oh wait. This is Ezra Klein we are talking about. There was no probing questioning. It was left to Klein's colleague Charles Lane to show the idiocy of Stern's remark: Really? Aren’t unions the main defenders of the Davis-Bacon Act, a certifiable waster of tax dollars and destroyer of jobs? Unions share the blame for the downfall of General Motors and Chrysler, too, don’t they? Last I checked, their bailouts had cost taxpayers more than a dime. I have also heard that the untouchable pensions and other benefits of public sector unions, including Stern’s SEIU, are pushing California into fiscal and economic disaster. I’m just back from Los Angeles, where the mayor, trying to close a $400 million-plus budget gap, has announced layoffs and service cuts, which can only be avoided if city employee unions accept wage cuts and contribute more to their own pensions. So far, the unions say no. Their counterproposal calls on the city to raise dog license fees and pass out more parking tickets, among other gimmicks and stopgaps. Not to mention the more basic point that when GM's unions won wage increases, back in the 1960s and 1970s when the industry had the closed, oligopoly structure unions prefer, it was GM's customers who paid the resulting increased prices. And GM's customers were by and large poorer than GM's workers. The fact that they suffered the loss as consumers and not "tax payers" may not have been much consolation. Stern's soundbite is the sort of BS a leader can only get away with when he is surrounded by yes-men (and yes-journalists). Otherwise somebody would have called him on it long before his "exit interview." ... This insularity helps explain why Stern was such a stunningly ineffective spokesman for his pet let-unions-avoid-the-secret-ballot ("card check") plan, which even Klein admits is now dead --though, of course, Barbara Boxer is still a "strong supporter." ... 3:16 P.M. ___________________________ April 20, 2010 12:00 PM First Web ad is up, on Althouse blog. ... 9:27 P.M. ___________________________ I Apologize ... : A California Democratic Party vice-chair has some warm and inclusive words for my candidacy in today's David Catanese Politico story:
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Contact:
Kaus for Senate
1601-B Oakwood Ave.
Venice, California 90291
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