Tumult in Iraqi Parliament Over Shoe

BAGHDAD — A session of the Iraqi Parliament erupted in an uproar on Wednesday as lawmakers clashed over how to respond to the continuing detention of an Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference earlier this week, people attending the parliamentary meeting said.
As Parliament began to discuss legislation on the withdrawal from Iraq of armed forces from nations other than the United States, a group of lawmakers demanded that the legislature instead take up the issue of the detained journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29. After his shoes narrowly missed Mr. Bush’s head at the news conference on Sunday, Mr. Zaidi was subdued by a fellow journalist and then beaten by members of the prime minister’s security detail.

The legislative session became so tumultuous that it prompted the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, to announce his resignation, according to The Associated Press. A spokesman for Mr. Mashhadani, Jabar al-Mashhadani, refused to confirm whether the speaker had tendered his resignation, although he would not deny it. Some in Parliament say the government should release Mr. Zaidi immediately, while others say the judiciary should decide his fate.
How badly injured Mr. Zaidi was by members of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s security detail is not clear. He has not appeared in public since his arrest, and his family members and his legal representatives say they have not been permitted to visit him. On Wednesday, Mr. Zaidi was scheduled to appear before a judge, but it was unclear whether that happened.

Dhiya al-Saadi, one of Mr. Zaidi’s lawyers, said Wednesday that he was not sure whether Mr. Zaidi had appeared before a judge. As part of the Iraqi legal system, a judge typically determines whether bringing formal charges against a suspect is warranted, criminal lawyers in Iraq said. Mr. Zaidi faces up to seven years in prison if he is charged with and convicted of offending the head of a foreign state.

What’s the worst that could happen?

That’s a question that James Rickards spends a lot of time pondering these days, as he sifts through the national security implications of the financial crisis facing the United States.
Rickards will lay out his worst case scenarios in a lecture sponsored by the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy tonight. And his forecasts aren’t for the faint of heart.
Rickards calls it the “A to Z” problem: What are the threats that could make the U.S. economy look less like America and more like Zimbabwe? He sees them everywhere – in the Chinese ownership of vast amounts of American debt, in Russia’s increased centralization of its economy, in Al Qaeda’s long-established fascination with damaging the U.S. economy.
In many ways, Rickards is the ultimate bear. He’s not just thinking about whether the stock market will decline, but whether or not the stock market will survive.
All that puts Rickards decidedly outside mainstream economic and political thinking in America. But he does have an influential audience: the United States intelligence and defense communities.
Rickards is a regular adviser on financial issues to the director of national intelligence's office, and he lends his financial advice to the national security community.

His lecture comes as part of an annual “Rethinking Seminar” produced by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Rickards argues that government is not doing nearly enough to prepare for the worst. “Here’s the policy problem for the United States,” he said in an interview. “We have experts in defense and intelligence, and huge depth in capital markets experience at the Fed and at Treasury. But they’re separated by the Potomac River. And they’re not talking to each other.”

Rickards came by his economic experience the hard way. He was the general counsel at Long Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that collapsed in spectacular fashion in the late 1990s and nearly took the global economy along with it. That near-economic death experience gave him a healthy appreciation for risk. Today, he’s the senior managing director for research at Omnis, an applied research firm.

Four of the scenarios keep him up at night:

The Bait Effect
Terrorists, and al Qaeda in particular, are fascinated with the idea of destroying the U.S. economy. Rickards worries that the economic meltdown in the United States could serve as bait of sorts for a terrorist attack, as plotters calculate that a strike now could have a “force multiplier” effect because of the already skittish U.S. stock market.

The China Syndrome
The Chinese own more than $500 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds, and billons more in the debt of other U.S. entities such as those held by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. And a general sense of mutually assured financial destruction keeps them from wielding that debt like a weapon: if the Chinese dumped U.S. debt on the global market, their own holdings of U.S. debt would decline in value, the U.S. economy would be damaged, ultimately harming the Chinese economy by reducing American ability to buy more Chinese goods.
They’d have to be crazy to try it. But Rickards points out that governments don’t always do the rational thing. And in the meantime, their holdings give the Chinese incredible power over American decision making.

“It gives the Chinese de facto veto power over certain U.S. interest rate and exchange rate decisions,” Rickards explained. “For example, there’s a limit to how much dollar depreciation the Chinese would tolerate.”

That potentially closes off one American economic strategy: allowing the dollar to decline in value in order to help boost U.S. exporters. And China’s leverage is only growing as each federal bailout adds to the U.S. deficit.

The Existential Crash
A pessimist by nature, Rickards believes that many economic forecasters are wrong, and the recession will get far worse than predicted.
He sees an epic disaster scenario in which the U.S. gross domestic product declines by a staggering 35 percent over the next six to seven years. Crippling deflation could take hold. Unemployment, he says, could approach 15 percent.
That’s a calamitous rate, but it would not be an all-time high: unemployment hit 25 percent during the Great Depression.

“The national security community needs to be conversant with this,” Rickards said. “In defense, intelligence, and national security, you earn your money by preparing for things that may be remote, but pose an existential threat if they come to pass.”

In this scenario, the possibilities for global unrest increase dramatically as a staggering United States retreats from foreign aid and global diplomacy and the list of dangerous failed states grows sharply.

The Alternate-Dollar Nightmare
“The Number One vulnerability is the dollar itself,” Rickards concluded. “We’re printing them and shoving them out the door, and the Fed is basically out of bullets. So why hasn’t the dollar collapsed? The short answer is, global investors don’t have any other choice.” That is, there simply aren’t enough Euro- or Yen-backed securities for investors to shift their money out of dollars and into some other currency.
But what if some kind of global coalition – say a trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund allied with several countries around the world – banded together to create a gold-backed alternative to the dollar?
Rickards says investors – many of whom already resent that they have no alternative to the dollar – would sell American currency in huge numbers to take advantage of the new opportunity.

“If that happens, that’s the end of the dollar,” Rickards said. “You’d have high unemployment, deflation, and interest rates would go up. It would take what already looks like a strong recession and make it a Great Depression or worse.”

Still, even Rickards sees a silver lining to all this. He looks around the world to the problems facing other countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and those in the Middle East.

“There are vulnerabilities for the United States, but also opportunities,” he said. “I’d rather be the United States than any of these other countries.”

Nancy Pelosi lays down the law with Rahm Emanuel

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In a recent conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel offered some advice on a Democratic House leadership race. Pelosi’s response, according to several Democratic sources: It is “an internal House Democratic Caucus matter, and we’ll handle it.”
Democratic insiders say there’s no animosity between Pelosi and Emanuel, who’s leaving his post as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus to become the next White House chief of staff.

But the speaker is laying down the law nonetheless.

In talks with Emanuel and others, sources say, Pelosi has “set parameters” for what she wants from Barack Obama and his White House staff — no surprises, and no backdoor efforts to go around her and other Democratic leaders by cutting deals with moderate New Democrats or conservative Blue Dogs.
Specifically, Pelosi has told Emanuel that she wants to know when representatives of the incoming administration have any contact with her rank-and-file Democrats — and why, sources say.
During the Bush years, the White House set policy, and Republicans on Capitol Hill were expected to follow it. Former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) occasionally lashed out at former White House chief of staff Andy Card or other senior administration aides when he felt they had gone too far. But in general, Republican lawmakers followed Bush’s lead on every major legislative battle, from Iraq to tax and spending bills to anti-terror policies. With the exception of immigration reform, the House fight over the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package and last week’s meltdown over a bailout for the Big Three automakers, Bush got what he wanted from Congress, especially within his own party.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are signaling that they won’t tolerate a repeat with a Democrat in the White House and Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.
Pelosi “is not going to allow Obama to triangulate her,” said a Democratic source close to the leadership. “It’s not going to happen to her.”
Pelosi’s mantra, in a way, is “no surprises.” The speaker wants to be told when Reid is communicating with the Blue Dogs or other factions with her caucus, and she expects the same from Obama when he arrives in the Oval Office, said Democratic sources.
“We certainly are in frequent communication with the [Obama] transition team,” said Brendan Daly, Pelosi’s communications director. Daly noted that Pelosi and Emanuel have long-standing ties — she appointed him to head up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at the start of 2005 — and added that Emanuel often speaks directly with John Lawrence, Pelosi’s chief of staff.
More from Politico:

Go Caroline, GO!

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What's wrong with being a symbol?
She has made it to be that, not a colorless tasteless fruit on the giant tree. She is inspired! She will have somewhat else to do than defending mythical family values with a pregnant juvenile daughter and she has a short direct line to the White House.
What's wrong with Kennedy for President in 2016? Yes, breathtaking and Jesse Jackson Jr. as her VP. No experience? Bullshit, she has a lot of diverse experience but she is better, not being raised in a political mono-culture. She knows it all, but she is not guilty.

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Is there a pattern of dynasties?

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Rachel Maddow pushes back on George Bush' Taliban claim

For a long time, one of the ancient tropes that emanated from the White House and its defenders was that at some point in the past, the Taliban was defeated. Nothing of the sort ever happened, but that was back when our neo-con taskmasters believed that "new realities" could be created by reading their dream journals aloud, and anyway, if we hadn't managed to eliminate the Taliban... well, then, it would sure seem a little crazy to commit all of our military resources to fighting a war of choice in Iraq, wouldn't it? Someone might have to question the good sense of that, I guess!

Well, hard on the heels of his "So what?" confession that, yes, contra-all previous statements, al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq prior to the invasion, Bush is backtracking on one of the essential myths of his administration. At a press availability in Afghanistan, Bush told a reporter:

PRESIDENT BUSH: I respectfully disagree with you. The Taliban was brutalizing the people of Afghanistan. And they're not in power. And I just cited the progress that is undeniable.
Now, is there more work to be done? You bet. I never said the Taliban was eliminated, I said they were removed from power.

Oh, but no. President Bush has consistently depicted his accomplishments with regard to the Taliban as one of elimination. As early as July 4, 2002, the President was saying:

In Afghanistan we defeated the Taliban regime, but that was just the first step.

In May of 2003, Bush was braggin' with Central European foreign ministers:

In the battle of Afghanistan, nations from central and eastern Europe supplied soldiers and special forces and peacekeepers to help defeat the Taliban, to help destroy the terrorists and to bring freedom to the Afghan people.

Heck, in 2004, the elimination of the Taliban was part of the reason Bush gave George Tenet some medal or something!

Early in his tenure as DCI, George Tenet was one of the first to recognize and address the growing threat to America from radical terrorist networks. Immediately after the attacks of September the 11th, George was ready with a plan to strike back at al Qaeda and to topple the Taliban. CIA officers were on the ground in Afghanistan within days. Seasoned American intelligence officers, armed with laptop computers, Afghan clothes and a visionary plan, rode horseback with the fighters of the Northern Alliance, identified key targets for our military and helped to free a nation.

But look, maybe some of those armchair semanticists out there want to take issue with this contention, and parse the distance between "eliminate" and "defeat." That's okay. I think Sarabeth at 1115.org has the unparsable statement from Bush, circa September 2004:

[BUSH:] "And as a result of the United States military, Taliban no longer is in existence. And the people of Afghanistan are now free."
And no matter how you twist and turn the phrase, "Taliban no longer is in existence" parses out only to "Taliban was eliminated" and not "Taliban was removed from power".

So this was about how President George W. Bush had made the extraordinary utterance that he had never before said that "the Taliban was eliminated," when in fact, he had done so personally a BUNCH of times. So much so, that the notion of an eliminated Taliban was an enduring myth for the myth-besotted throughout the aughts. Well, last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow put a nice little button on this attempt at revising the historical record. "Why is that ringing the big 'YOU'RE TELLING A LIE' bell in my head?" Maddow wondered, before pulling out a pair of statements straight from Bush's mouth:

2003: "In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban."

2004: "As a result of the United States military, the Taliban is no longer in existence."

As figures in the mainstream media go, Maddow does a pretty fine job in batting back Bush's contentions. Additionally, as figures in the mainstream media go, Maddow is one of the few doing that job at all.

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Source: The Huffington Post a.o.

White House's LAST "Barney Christmas Video"

Given this week's events, I did not think it was possible to find a video more excruciating to watch or more embarrassing to the United States than the footage of an Iraqi journalist shot putting his shoes at George W. Bush. Oh...wait...I found one: The 2008 Barney Christmas Video from the White House.
My question: How much of this White House Christmas video mit Hund can you watch before your fight-or-flight reflex kicks in and have to stand up and run--not walk, but run? I made it through about 30 seconds.
OK, here we go:Be honest: How long did you last?

Summing up: In the same week that a reporter calls George W. Bush a dog ( ! ) the aforementioned head of state issues a holiday greeting in which he and his family converse openly with (ehem...) a dog.
When the going gets tough, the tough talk to the dog.
The existential issue that emerges here should be obvious to everyone. Maybe we were all wrong about the shoe throwing incident in Iraq. Maybe it was not a protest so much as an announcement--an inter-species human rights declaration of sorts. Rather than insulting George W. Bush by calling him a dog, maybe the reporter was loudly and proudly stating his acceptance of the fact that George W. Bush is a man who talks to dogs. "You are a dog--whisperer!" Maybe the Iraqi reporter was not throwing the shoe at Bush, but throwing the shoe to Bush so he could in turn throw it for Barney to fetch?

Meanwhile, working communities collapse with layoffs not seen in almost a century.

Meanwhile, the United States military descends deeper into the Iraqi meat grinder.
Meanwhile, 2008 Yuletide retail sales sink like a gingersnap in bowl of sour eggnog.
Meanwhile, parents across the country stare at their bank statements and wonder how they are going to weave the few pennies that remain into a season of joy for their children.
While America descends into the morass of fear and uncertainty caused by our current President, the White House invites us to steal away with a few warm and fuzzy dog-cam shots taken from the eye-level of America's Presidential pup--a canine, who, while not fantasizing about winning golf tournaments and Olympic medals, proposes and carries out a jingoistic holiday interior decorating scheme as a final tribute to the George W. Bush era of government. The blend of shock, incredulity, and stomach cramps I felt when I watched the first 30 seconds of the Barney Christmas video I will not soon forget.

By comparison, come to think of it, that sour eggnog is sounding better and better.

Obama and the wary left

It was entirely predictable: Barack Obama would disappoint the liberal base of his party. At his moment of victory on Nov. 4, expectations for the president-elect were sky-high. He had campaigned, after all, on an open-ended promise of change and some clear, sharp turns on policy, such as a pullout from Iraq and tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.
Now, the promise of immediate action on Iraq is softening, and the tax hikes might wait. He’s also pulled back from his pledge to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Some of his appointments have sparked chagrin in the liberal blogosphere. He kept President Bush’s Defense secretary, Robert Gates, and has nominated Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a onetime supporter of the Iraq war, to be his secretary of State.
Alumni from the centrist administration of Bill Clinton figure prominently in Mr. Obama’s Cabinet and White House staff, including economic adviser Larry Summers and his intended Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner. Both were part of the team during the Clinton years that resisted regulation of financial instruments that proved destructive to Wall Street.
But in the grand scheme of things, with more than a month to go before Inauguration Day, Obama is far from losing faith with his base. A Gallup poll shows that Obama still enjoys the confidence of the vast majority of self-identified liberals – 84 percent – even after announcing a national security team whose most liberal member, Susan Rice, is the nominee for UN ambassador, not a top policymaking position. In late November, before the team was announced, Obama was at 91 percent with liberals, according to Gallup.

Roger Hickey, co-director of the progressive Campaign for America’s Future, is well aware of the angst pouring forth on liberal websites – including his own organization’s blog – but he is willing to cut the president-elect some slack.
“I think that Obama’s right on target, and he is talking very boldly both on foreign policy and domestic economics and global economics,” Mr. Hickey says.
“They’re dealing with economic realities that no president has dealt with since [Franklin] Roosevelt,” he adds. “So while many of us might have quibbled with some Clinton retreads being appointed to high economic posts, it’s very obvious that everybody in the new team understands that there’s an economic crisis, and that the policies that might have worked in the Clinton era have to be thrown out the window.”
There may also be a bit of Kabuki theater in progressives’ complaints about some of Obama’s earliest moves. Liberal thought leaders are letting him know they’re paying attention, and that further down the road, if Obama is perceived as having strayed too far to the right, he could lose some of his most active support. Top Obama aides are themselves calling on their progressive ground troops to make noise, in anticipation of clashes with the right when the Obama administration is in power and pushing its agenda.

Senator Caroline Kennedy?

By Tom Degan
When it was learned last week that Caroline Kennedy was interested in seeking the New York senate seat which is being vacated in January by Hillary Clinton, some Democrats had a positive hissy fit. The worst example of this was New York congressman Gary Ackerman, a guy I normally admire and respect. "Sure!" opined the positively flustered Mr. Ackerman, "She may have name recognition - but so does J. Lo!" Yo! Gary! Just relax and take a chill pill, pardner! Jeez Louise!
Truth be told, when I heard that Miss Hillary's seat was going to be vacant, my first thought was Bubbah. Oh! I thought, wouldn't that just drive the Right Wing nuts? Bill Clinton making policy? I could just imagine Mitch McConnell and Kaye Bailey Hutchinson having a collective nervous breakdown right on the senate floor at hearing the news. But as the Monkees once opined,"That was then; this is now". I don't know about you, but I am now one-hundred percent behind the idea of Caroline Kennedy Scholssberg as my representative in the senate.
The main argument that many in the media and on Capital Hill are making against Caroline Kennedy's prospective political career is that she does not have the personality to be a politician. Oh heart of mine be still! Would you like to know how I read that? She's not a self-promoting bullshit artist like ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the rest of them. She doesn't have the personality to be a politician, huh? That's exactly what the Boston Pols said about her old man when he first ran for congress in 1946. In case you've forgotten, he turned out to be not half bad. Maybe she doesn't have your classic "political personality" (whatever the hell that means) but neither did Henry Clay. Neither, for that matter, did George Washington. This much is obvious, though: she has a first class legislative temperament. If you need proof of this, read the two books she co-authored with Ellen Alderman, In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action (1990) and The Right to Privacy (1995). She is possessed of a brilliant mind, a compassionate heart and a palpable sense of purpose -- a perfect combination for an outstanding political career -- check the history books.
A number of years ago, Caroline Kennedy established the Profiles In Courage Award, which is presented annually at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. The award is named for dear ol' dad's 1957, Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles In Courage, which chronicled the stories of politicians throughout American History who took unpopular stands at a cost to their own political careers. Obviously, political courage means a lot to this wise and gifted woman. Given her heritage, it's easy to conclude that it is a huge part of her philosophical value system. She is the type of person we desperately need in the senate. What kind of senator would she be?
It's a fairly safe bet that Caroline Kennedy would not have had anything to do with giving a president the authority to launch an unnecessary war just to prove to the boys that she's as hardened a warrior as any man. Given JFK's literary legacy, she's not about to open herself up to charges of political timidity or cowardice. I've got a really funny feeling that she really wants to win that Profiles In Courage Award, baby! Then again, she would look kind of funny presenting it to herself, wouldn't she?
If you've been reading The Rant low these two-and-a-half years, you know that one of my fiercest complaints regarding the Democratic party is their absolute genius for taking a bottle of finely aged, twelve-year-old scotch and turning it into donkey piss. Please, Dems, you're on a roll! Don't blow it, alright? There is nothing wrong with grace and dignity. Don't use the tired old criteria that people wouldn't want to "have a beer" with Caroline Kennedy. We used that standard of electoral qualification in 2000 and 2004 and where has it gotten us? For the last eight years we've had Bobo the Simpleminded sleeping in the White House. Our social and economic infrastructure has been destroyed and we're teetering on the edge of a full scale Depression. Maybe Ms. Kennedy will be the new yardstick by which future senatorial aspirants may be measured! She is an outstanding human being. Am I biased? Sure I am. So sue me!

No, I wouldn't want to - nor could I even imagine - having a beer with Caroline Kennedy. But here's the weird thing: I could very well imagine getting high with her. Go figure.

Here's another reason I want this seat to go to Caroline: since I was about five-years-old, I've had a bit of a thing for her. I'll be blunt with you, campers; this is beyond a mere school boy crush - I'M HEAD OVER HEELS IN LOVE WITH THE GAL, OKAY??? Please, Governor Patterson, do this for me! It would be as good as having Patty Duke as my senator (I had a serious crush on her, too).This would be the fulfillment of all my childhood dreams....I'm sorry, I'm being silly. Back to the serious subject....
Forgive this blunt appeal to your sentiments, but it has to be said. She is the sole survivor of an extraordinary family, all of whom left this veil of tears far too young. Would it not be a beautiful thing to have the unfinished dreams of the father, mother and brother given a voice through the political career of the daughter and sister? Yeah, I know! I'm being really maudlin here. Forgive me, I'm Irish Catholic! (and I've also had a couple of drinks). It may be sappy; it may be sentimental; but I believe I speak for millions of people when I say that we respect and admire this tribe of imperfect human beings for all the good they've done and the awful sacrifices they've made throughout the decades for our beloved nation - all in the name of public service. Let's face some serious facts here, folks: uncle Ted wasn't in it for the money. Neither, you may be absolutely certain, is cousin Caroline.

The question now being asked in some circles is, "Just what are her qualifications?" Damned good question. Please let me attempt to answer it:

She is probably the most intelligent person to run for the senate in decades. You disagree? Name one smarter; go ahead! You can't, can you! I rest my case.
Caroline Kennedy is not Al D'Amato, that's for damned sure. There will not be so much as a hint of corruption surrounding her office - of that you may be sure. Believe me, Grandpa Joe Kennedy left her set for life. Unlike Al D'Amato, her tenure as senator won't be about serving herself. It will be about serving her constituency in general and the American people in particular. How do I know this? I just do. You've gotta trust me on this one, kids! Hey! Have I ever lied to you???
And here's something else that can't be emphasized enough: she has the respect and admiration of the entire world. America's international reputation is lower than at any time since the Civil War. Having so extraordinary a woman in the senate can only help alleviate the damage that has been done to us by the Bush Mob.
As expected, the Hillary Clinton crowd is throwing a monkey wrench into the situation. "A history of public service is no qualification for being a senator" they're saying. Excuse me, but that should be the only qualification! And would one of these hypocrites please explain to me just what Hillary's qualifications were when she ran for the senate in 2000? Eight years as First Lady? Have another sip.

This evening on MSNBC's Hardball, a congressman from Brooklyn, NY with the unfortunate name, Anthony Wiener, was quoted making the observation that Caroline Kennedy would be a terrible candidate because no one could imagine her milking a cow in any upstate county fair. I can't imagine it either.
Think about this: On the morning of November 22, 1963, just two hours before he was murdered in cold blood on the streets of Dallas, Texas, her father, attending a political breakfast in Houston, politely refused to be photographed wearing one of those hideously stupid ten-gallon-hats that some Texans are so fond of. Was the man a snob? Not according to the memoirs of everyone who knew him. My guess is that President Kennedy believed that cheap, political pandering - a silly photo-op - was beneath the dignity of his office. That kind of substance is so rare in politics today. And now along comes Caroline Kennedy, like a nostalgic, long dead dream come back to life.
You know, I was just thinking: on Election Day 2016, she will be fifty-eight years old - just the right age to....I'm sorry. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

CHICAGO – Barack Obama named Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan as education secretary Tuesday – calling him “the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners,” when it comes to school reform.
“When faced with tough decisions, Arne doesn’t blink. He’s not beholden to any one ideology – and he doesn’t hesitate for one minute to do what needs to be done,” Obama said. “He’s worked tirelessly to improve teacher quality, increasing the number of master teachers who’ve completed a rigorous national certification process from 11 to just shy of 1,200, and rewarding school leaders and teachers for gains in student achievement.”
Duncan was appointed as the chief executive officer of Chicago schools in 2001 by Mayor Richard M. Daley. He is largely viewed as a reformer, credited with raising the graduation rate in the nation’s third largest school district and turning around low-performing schools. The West Side elementary school that Obama used as a backdrop for his announcement, Dodge Renaissance Academy, is one of Duncan’s success stories.
“We are on a winning streak here, those trends must continue,” Duncan said, noting the strides the school system has made under his leadership. “I am eager to apply some of the lessons we have learned here in Chicago, we have worked with a sense of urgency, because we can wait.”
Yet Duncan has often been a polarizing figure in Chicago.
“To make him secretary of education is one of the biggest mistakes Obama has made,” said Johnny Holmes, an advocate trainer for the Chicago group Parents United for Responsible Education. “He is not an educator. He is a person who went to school.”
Duncan’s name surfaced repeatedly at an Obama post-election gathering last Sunday of supporters in Chicago’s South Side, where the president-elect worked as a community organizer and where his wife, Michelle, grew up. Education was the most discussed topic at the gathering. At the time Duncan was just rumored as Obama’s choice.
“This is not a time to play homeboy favorite,” one attendee said. “That would be the first big mistake the president-elect would make.”
Obama, however, had only praise for Duncan, whom he has known for more than a decade.

“In just seven years, he’s boosted elementary test scores here in Chicago from 38 percent of students meeting the standards to 67 percent,” Obama said. “The dropout rate has gone down every year he’s been in charge. ... So when Arne speaks to educators across America, it won’t be from up in some ivory tower, but from the lessons he’s learned during his years changing our schools from the bottom up.”
A Harvard graduate like Obama, Duncan was co-captain of the Crimson basketball team and even played professionally in Australia.
He was an adviser to Obama on education policy during the campaign and was among those who played basketball with Obama on Election Day. Obama joked that he didn’t pick Duncan because of his skills on the court, but noted that his is the “best basketball-playing Cabinet in American history.”
Before joining the Chicago school system in 1998, Duncan oversaw the Ariel Education Initiative, a program benefiting disadvantaged students in Chicago’s South Side. He was a little-known figure when Daley tapped him for schools chief.
Duncan has called for more flexibility in the No Child Left Behind school accountability law. He has also backed paying kids for good grades, and a gay-friendly school environment. Obama said he was impressed that Duncan has championed charter schools, even when it wasn’t popular, adding that he shared with Duncan a deep pragmatism.
“With his leadership, I am confident that together, we will bring our education system – and our economy – into the 21st century, and give all our kids the chance to succeed,” Obama said.

James Kotecki: Cute little girl runs for Senate and No cow fart tax!

The tax policy of cow farts, the advice of Newt Gingrich, and the Person of the Year.


Cute little girl runs for Senate

Discovery of Roman Battlefield Poses Historical Riddle

And more from Andrew Curry in Kalefeld, Germany
Archaeologists in Germany say they have found an ancient battlefield strewn with Roman weapons. The find is significant because it indicates that Romans were fighting battles in north Germany at a far later stage than previously assumed.
The wilds of Germany may not have been off-limits to Roman legions, archaeologists announced on Monday. At a press conference in the woods near the town of Kalefeld, about 100 kilometers south of Hanover, researchers announced the discovery of a battlefield strewn with hundreds of Roman artifacts dating from the 3rd century A.D.
Finding evidence of Roman fighting forces so far north is surprising, the archaeologists say. Germany was once considered prime territory for Roman conquest. But in A.D. 9, thousands of Roman legionaries were slaughtered in a forest near modern-day Bremen.
"We thought that with the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, the Romans gave up on this region and pulled back behind the limes," or frontier fortifications further south, says Henning Hassmann, the Lower Saxony Conservation Department's lead archaeologist.
But evidence found in woods outside the small town of Kalefeld may force historians to take a new look at the Roman presence in Germany. More than 600 artifacts, ranging from axe heads and wagon parts to coins and arrowheads, have been found on a forested hill called the Harzhorn. So far, the artifacts indicate that Roman soldiers fought a battle on top of the hill.
The site first came to light in the summer of 2000, when local metal detector hobbyists found some pieces of metal while looking for a medieval fort. The fragments languished for years, until the men finally decided to turn them in to Petra Loenne, the Northeim area archaeologist.

Clustered Arrowheads Amid Towering Pines
Loenne immediately recognized an unusual tangle of metal. Called a "hippo-sandal," it was a sort of early horseshoe that was wrapped around the hoof of a horse or draft animal. "It definitely wasn't medieval," she says. In fact, it was Roman – but as far as Loenne knew it had no place in Lower Saxony, hundreds of miles north of the Roman frontier.
Loenne quickly assembled a team of archaeologists and historians – and local metal detector hobbyists with good connections to the archaeological authorities. Her priority was to locate any more artifacts close to the surface as quickly as possible. "We had to hurry and excavate before word got out and looters arrived," Loenne says.
Over the course of three months, they found a Roman-era battlefield spread over more than a mile of dense German forest. Standing under towering pines on Monday, Loenne said the battlefield may be one of the largest ever discovered intact from that era.
Metal detector hobbyists working under the watchful eye of Loenne and her team located over 600 metal objects, from Roman sandal nails to arrowheads and six-inch long iron spear points that once capped javelins fired from ballistae, a sort of giant crossbow.

How German Agents Helped Pave the Way into Iraq

Photo: General Tommy Franks led the invasion of Iraq. "Anyone who claims that these reports did not play a role for combat operations is living on another planet," he says.
He would make the perfect witness. The tall, slim retired US general has nothing but good things to say about the Germans. He says they are "reliable" and extremely trustworthy. Most of all, though, he knows things that German parliamentarians would like to know.
But General James Marks is not a witness, nor is he ever likely to be one. The German parliamentary committee charged with investigating the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), prefers to question Germans in its effort to find out what role the agency played during the Iraq war. Those asked to testify tend to be government employees and, therefore, dependent on the government. Americans have not thus far been summoned. Indeed, no effort to do so has been made.
Still, a man like Marks would have a lot to say. He could talk about the spring of 2003, when he was sitting in a windowless, air-conditioned briefing room at the US military's Camp Doha in the Kuwaiti desert, reading the reports of two BND agents who held out in Baghdad during the war. And he could talk about how the information provided by the Germans was incorporated into the situation reports he presented in daily videoconferences to General Tommy Franks, head of the US invading forces, and sometimes to then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
In the spring of 2003, Marks headed up the military intelligence efforts both before and during the American campaign. It was his job to ensure that the 115,000 US troops didn't run into any surprises as they advanced toward Baghdad. All information relevant to the war ended up on his desk. By virtue of this position, Marks, more than almost anyone else, knows how important the reports provided by the two Germans were for the American war effort.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will testify before the parliamentary investigative committee on Thursday. When the Iraq war began in early 2003, Steinmeier was head of Germany's secret services as well as being then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's chief of staff. Schröder, for his part, owed his re-election in September 2002 primarily to his tough opposition to US plans to invade Iraq.

Rewriting History?

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