As Burris’ allies (and the Politico) would have it, the source of Burris’ current problems is his crappy PR strategy.

Here’s his former media relations guy, Bud Jackson, disclaiming any responsibility for his recent woes (Jackson worked with Burris until he became Senator).

As many of you may recall I actively helped my former client, Roland Burris, during his run-up to being successfully seated in the United States Senate.

Since that time, well … his team’s public relations efforts have been less than stellar. Turns out that, because my business is political communication, I need to let folks know that I have not been involved in the decisions that have led to the public relations fiasco over the past week. In fact, I actively counseled his team to take very different actions, to no avail…

I know based on my own private conversations and experience that Senator Roland Burris has been the victim of bad advice and, when set-up to fail, he certainly shall we say, has had less than adeqaute attempts to better and more clearly inform the public at a press conference, or two. It has ben painful to watch. Regardless, the senator has more than 30 years of public service and his integrity has never been questioned. [empahsis original]

And here’s the Politico’s "news" story explaining that Burris’ problems all stem from bad media strategy.

The crisis now threatening Sen. Roland Burris’ political career started with revelations about his entanglements with disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. 

But it was the way the situation was handled by Burris and his advisers — trapped between competing political and legal demands — that has made the problem much worse and has pushed him to the brink of losing his seat. In multiple interviews, several Senate aides and Burris confidants say the senator was unprepared from a public relations and political perspective to deal with the national media frenzy and ethics problems he now confronts.

[snip]

Absent an aggressive communications strategy, the press and the public have formed their own opinions that the senator got his new job on false pretenses. As his support crumbled, Burris made a calculated decision not to rile up his backers — many of whom are black — for fear that it would create a vicious racial debate. But this decision has made him appear completely isolated politically, with virtually nobody in Illinois or Washington speaking up for him.

With the perception that Burris was not forthright under oath in describing the circumstances of his Dec. 30 appointment, the junior Democratic senator has now dug himself in a very deep hole that even his backers acknowledge he won’t be able to get out of unless he’s vindicated by a state prosecutor’s office and the Senate Ethics Committee, both of which are now investigating him.

Against this backdrop, Burris and his team continue to fight calls for his resignation, saying doing so would be an admission of guilt when they believe they were guilty only of a poor strategy. [my emphasis]

One especially nice aspect of the Politico story is that the only named source is Danny Davis, the guy whom Blago offered the Senate seat to just before he approached Burris about it (and who wanted the seat himself). 

“The whole thing got out of hand so quickly and perhaps too quickly for it to be effectively managed,” said Rep. Danny K. Davis, a Chicago Democrat. “I think people have made up their mind … and I don’t know if there’s a great deal he’s going to be able to do to turn that around.”

But aside from Davis, the Politico cites one after another anonymous source talking about what a shame it is that Burris didn’t adopt a better PR strategy.

Not a one questions the wisdom of Burris actually accepting the seat after Burris made attempts to raise money–potentially in exchange for the seat. Nor do any of these unnamed sources–or Manu Raju, reporting the story–entertain the possibility that the problem was in Burris’ seemingly deliberate attempt to keep his extensive discussions with Blago’s team secret, and not his management of the crisis that broke out after those discussions became public knowledge. And none of Burris’ anonymous allies or Raju consider the possibility that no media strategy would blunt the real suspicions people have that Burris deliberately hid his ties to Blagojevich just long enough to get the Senate seat.

Nope. It’s all because Burris’ smoke and mirrors were insufficient to the task, not any problem with the underlying reality of Burris’ actions.

This morning, I noted that the January 21 filing supporting Bush’s crazy notions about email might well be the work of Dead-Enders. We know Dead-Enders submitted a brief in another suit naming the President as defendant during the week of the inauguration. And DOJ has added a new lawyer to the team, suggesting it intends to continue the litigation. 

From CREW, one of the plaintiffs in the email suit, we’ve got confirmation that the Obama White House intends to continue the litigation. 

Recognizing the incoming Obama administration may not have had an opportunity to fully evaluate the merits of the motion to dismiss, even though it was filed on behalf of the Executive Office of the President, one of the named defendants, on January 21, we waited several weeks before reaching out to the White House to suggest they consider withdrawing their motion. The response from the White House, on the afternoon of February 20 (the day our brief was due) was that we should go ahead and file. Thus, at least at this point, the new administration has indicated quite clearly it plans to continue litigating this issue.  

The lack of confirmed appointees at the Justice Department does not suggest this is an interim position, given that the White House is the defendant here with a fully-staffed White House Counsel’s Office. As for the change in DOJ counsel, it is simply the result of the trial attorney previously assigned to the case departing DOJ for a detail (in the White House Counsel’s Office). 

The CREW argument that this is not an interim position doesn’t hold much weight, given the al-Haramain example (the President is also the defendant in that suit and their stance has changed since the January 22 filing). 

But, for the moment, it does say that Greg Craig is not only continuing Bush’s legislation, but he’s hiring one of the DOJ Dead-Enders that got us to this point. We’re not going to get very far if Greg Craig sees fit to hire the Dead-Enders into the White House.

I’ve lost my touch.

It used to be I’d go away for a week and Karl Rove or Alberto Gonzales would resign. Here we are, Monday morning after I’ve been gone a week (thanks to bmaz for really superb work last week!), and Roland Burris is still Senator.

Maybe if I do a recap of Burris’ week, though, and point out the looming holes in his story, then it’ll hasten his departure.

Fitz Joins the Fun

Remember how, in his press conference trying to explain how he forgot to mention his talks with RobBlago and John Harris, Burris couldn’t decide whether he had or had not been contacted by Fitz’ people regarding his negotiations on buying a Senate seat?

That question has now been solved, as Burris spent some time with federal investigators on Saturday.

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris was interviewed by federal authorities for several hours Saturday as part of the ongoing corruption investigation into charges that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell a Senate seat for personal or political profit, sources familiar with the talks said.

Burris’ interview, which had been delayed for weeks, took place at his attorney’s offices in downtown Chicago. He has been informed he is not a target of the probe, the sources said.

Several details of this are interesting: what was responsible for the "weeks" delay in Burris’ testimony? Did he have to straighten out his story to the legislature first (though he did not do that with the State Supreme Court), so as to attempt to prevent perjury charges? Or did Fitz just want to make sure they had a complete catalog of the times Burris spoke to Blago’s people–including the multiple phone calls to John Harris that Burris still hasn’t ‘fessed to? Perhaps, too, Fitz wanted to wait until after the FBI started collecting information on Patti Blago’s tenure at the Chicago Christian Industrial League, since that was one way (through Burris’ partner Fred Lebed, who is on the board of the charity) that Burris could have influenced Blago in ways other than fundraising directly. Or, maybe, Burris was negotiating the terms on which he would be very forthcoming to Fitz?

Note that Burris’ secret sources (otherwise known as his attorney, I’m guessing) have gone to the Robert Luskin school of prosecutor-talk. Burris "has been informed he is not a target" of the probe. But did anyone mention anything about him being a subject?

Reporting on Burris’ Saturday chat with the Feds make it clear that the conversation pertained to the Senate seat sale, not to Burris’ new alleged perjury. I’m guessing Fitz and the FBI asked some much more precise questions, including whether anyone gave money on behalf of Burris, what Sam Adam Jr. said to Burris when he offered him the seat, and whether RobBlago and Burris were brainstorming ways to raise money for Blago while covering their tracks after the election.

Burris’ Lobbying Business

It was utterly predictable that Burris’ lobbying disclosure–which he submitted with his tardy February 5 affidavit—would also reveal some surprises. After all, if it didn’t include such surprises, why wait until after getting sworn in to release it?

In a Feb. 5 submission to the committee, Burris listed 26 clients dating to 2003.

But the filing contains discrepancies with documents filed with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office and with the Chicago Board of Ethics. A number of clients are listed only in either the legislative filing or in the agency records.

For example, records with the secretary of state show Burris representing the Council of Independent Tobacco Manufacturers of America from 2003 to 2005 and the Illinois Association of Mortgage Brokers in 2007. But those clients don’t appear in his filing with the Impeachment Committee.

This is something I intend to look at more closely, because I suspect it is just as damning as the belated admission of discussions with Blago’s people. One company that appears in Burris’ affidavit but not the IL or Federal lobbyist databases, for example, is ACS Healthcare, a company that does healthcare IT outsourcing. Burris says he Burris & Lebed worked for ACS from 2005 to the present. Now, it may be that Burris was lobbying in other states (the company is HQed in MI and has an office in TX). But healthcare outsourcing is precisely the kind of thing that might be eligible for state-level kickbacks. So what did Burris do for the company, and did he do it in IL?

Is Reid Leveraging Burris Out?

On Friday, Darrell Thompson–whom Harry Reid had lent to Burris as Chief of Staff to help him get up to speed in the Senate–stepped down, effective immediately. It may be that Thompson just got tired of the Burris drama. But I suspect that Thompson’s resignation reflects an early attempt on Harry Reid’s part (in addition to the Senate ethics investigation) to leverage Burris out. By removing Burris’ ability to work with any effectiveness in DC, Reid ensures that Burris remains expendable in the Senate.

I’m really waiting on Committee assignments, though. In the past, the Senate has often waited until a Senator was indicted, as Stevens was, before pulling key Committee assignments. But Reid can take away one big incentive of Burris’ simply by taking away his Committee assignments, and there is a great deal of precedent for doing so when there is a question of corruption.

Calls for Burris to Resign

A stampede of public officials have now called for Burris to resign:

IL Governor Pat Quinn

Obama’s Spokesperson, Robert Gibbs

Dick Durbin

Some anonymous African American ministers from Chicago

Daley’s Silence on Burris

But not Richard Daley.

Also Saturday, Mayor Richard Daley declined to call for Burris to step down and sought to minimize the impact of the political controversy.

"Let’s put everything in perspective and give him an opportunity to explain himself," Daley told reporters. "Automatically, every time something happens, people want everybody to resign. Is it becoming very common now to tell people to resign after he was appointed?"

Asked if he thought voters who wanted more transparency in government were disappointed with the controversy over Burris’ appointment, Daley said he thought people would eventually "move on with their lives."

"Three people got killed [last night]. Do you think the people who killed them care who is their U.S. senator?" Daley said. "Life goes on."

Just weeks ago, Daley was willing to call Blago "cuckoo," but now he just wants everyone to move on with their life and their corrupt Senator.

Perhaps that’s because some of Daley’s own actions are getting more and more scrutiny.

Federal authorities are investigating five construction companies that collectively have gotten hundreds of millions of dollars in construction work at O’Hare Airport under Mayor Daley, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

One question being looked at, sources said, is how the companies landed those city deals.

News of the probe comes two days after Daley lobbied Congress to pass President Obama’s multibillion-dollar stimulus bill — a package the mayor wants to include money for his O’Hare Modernization Program, which could cost as much as $15 billion.

There’s more news to come with Roland Burris, mark my words. But ultimately, neither Burris nor Blagojevich are the biggest corrupt targets in IL. And as this thing continues to blow up, it may get even more interesting.

A number of you have pointed to this story describing the "Obama" Administration support for the Bush Administration refusal to reconstruct Dick Cheney’s emails.

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.

That claim is based on a January 21 motion to dismiss much of the National Security Archive suit against the Bush Administration, basically arguing that the only thing an NGO–and the Courts–can do is order the Administration to start restoring emails; they don’t have the grounds to force them to actually restore all the emails.

Check the date on that filing carefully.

January 21, of course, was Obama’s first full day in office, well before Eric Holder was sworn in as Attorney General. Heck, it was well before Obama’s team even got the email working at the White House themselves. And even, in a supreme bit of irony, it was the very same day when Obama signed an Executive Order saying incumbent Presidents, and not former ones, get to control the Presidential records of that former President.

January 21 was also just one day before the "Obama" Administration submitted a filing in the al-Haramain case that completely supported Bush’s unitary executive claims. Curiously, though, when the Obama Administration submitted another al-Haramain filing later in February, it adopted a significantly different strategy than they had in that January 22 filing. In other words, we know that the January 22 al-Haramain filing was indeed Dead-Enders submitting Bush’s strategy under Obama’s name; that strategy has since been changed.

We don’t–yet–have proof that the January 21 email filing was another case of a Dead-Ender submitting legal briefs in Obama’s name.  But there are two interesting details that suggest this might be the case. First, the ubiquitous Michael Hertz was–as he was on the al-Haramain case and just about everything else we’ve hated "Obama’s DOJ" doing–the senior official listed on the January 21 filing.

More interestingly, DOJ submitted a notice of appearance for Carlotta Poter Wells, a new lawyer to the government’s email team, about a week after this filing (though still before Holder was sworn in on Ferbuary 3). Why would you add a new lawyer to your legal team if you honestly planned on getting the suit dismissed?

We know the Dead-Enders were sneaking Bush legal strategy in under cover of inauguration week fun. I can’t prove that’s the case here. But I wouldn’t–yet–get worked up over a court filing submitted by Dead-Enders during inauguration week. 

Whether it is Henry Paulson, Tim Geithner or the yammering dipsticks on CNBC, it seems the there has been a headlong rush to seek analysis, wisdom and solutions from the very self proclaimed geniuses that put the US and the world in the problem to start with. Aren’t there any big bankers/finance ministers that really got it right? Turns out there are, and he comes from a most unexpected place. From the Los Angeles Times comes the story of Riad Toufic Salame:

Instead, the silver-haired banker became a hero by playing it very, very safe. In 2005, he defied pressure from the Lebanese business community and bucked international trends to issue what now looks like a prophetic decree: a blanket order barring any bank in his country from investing in mortgage-backed securities, which contributed to the most dramatic collapse of financial institutions since the Great Depression.

So as major banks in America and Europe were shuttered or partly nationalized and thousands of people in the U.S. financial sector were laid off, Lebanon’s banks had one of their best years ever.

Billions in cash continue to pour in to the relative safety of Lebanese savings accounts, with comfy but not extravagant yields of 6%. A nation shunned for years as the quintessential failed state has become a pretty safe bet, or as safe a bet as investors are likely to find in this climate.

Well, that is kind of refreshing, how did Salame do it? By being a rational technocrat, eschewing excesses, turning a deaf ear to cries for irrational rates of return, maintaining tight regulation, imposing conservative balance-sheet requirements, refusing to launder dirty money and, most critically:

When the real estate boom crested this decade and investors began bundling debt into nebulous financial instruments fueled by easy credit, the pressure was on for Salame to let banks take advantage of the high yields.

But Salame steadfastly refused.

He says the mortgage-backed securities worried him from the start. He watched curiously as investment bankers engaged in what he calls "rituals" to please the credit ratings agencies and got back such safe assessments of their products. He didn’t get it. Why were these considered safe investments? They were just too complicated. They went against a major tradition in Lebanese and Middle Eastern banking: Know to whom you’re fronting cash and who’s going to pay you back.

"We could not really sense who would be responsible in the end to collect these loans," he said. "And we do not perceive banking as being a place to speculate on financial instruments that are not really concrete."

There, that wasn’t all that hard was it? Keep it simple, be willing to work and ding the bling. The way to responsibly run a nation’s banking system and economy is to adhere to good old fashioned principles of banking, economics and governmental regulation. It is really not hard, in fact it is blindingly simple.

Go with what you know.

Graphic by Twolf

I tell you what, those Republicans may not have squat for rational ideas, but they sure have some humor. Heck, it was less than two days ago we were watching Crockett and Tubbs Steele and Boner in "DC Vice". Fear not intrepid viewers, these jokers are bringin da funny all over. Our latest episode involves that wacky character Urkel Jindal, Governor of Louisiana. From Yahoo/Politico:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states.

In a statement, Jindal, who is slated to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s message to Congress on Tuesday, expressed concern that expanding unemployment insurance coverage would lead to increased unemployment insurance taxes later on.

Wow, the fine folks in Louisiana must find this hilarious since most governors are constantly scrapping to get their states funding they are in dire need of. And, as you may have heard, there are needs in Louisiana, part of Katrina ground central. Too bad they no longer have Dollar Bill Jefferson around to keep that stimulus money on ice.

What the hell though, life must be a hoot in a state run by a guy named Piyush who changed his name to Bobby because he identified with a character on the Brady Bunch. Personally, I don’t get it. He looks like Urkel to me.

[Awesome graphic by Twolf!]

Via Laura Rozen comes reference to a chilling piece by Sam Quinones in Foreign Policy on the drug smuggling violence that has escalated to a total state of war rivaling levels in Iraq.

There are so many hot spots for attention these days – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gitmo, not to mention the ops that are being run on US citizens by their own government as a result of the Bush/Cheney decision to gin up a military rationale for surveillance domestically – that it is easy to forget what is going on just across the border. Easy, at least, until you take in Sam Quinones’ tale:

That week in Monterrey, newspapers reported, Mexico clocked 167 drug-related murders. When I lived there, they didn’t have to measure murder by the week. There were only about a thousand drug-related killings annually. The Mexico I returned to in 2008 would end that year with a body count of more than 5,300 dead. That’s almost double the death toll from the year before—and more than all the U.S. troops killed in Iraq since that war began.

But it wasn’t just the amount of killing that shocked me. When I lived in Mexico, the occasional gang member would turn up executed, maybe with duct-taped hands, rolled in a carpet, and dropped in an alley. But Mexico’s newspapers itemized a different kind of slaughter last August: Twenty-four of the week’s 167 dead were cops, 21 were decapitated, and 30 showed signs of torture. Campesinos found a pile of 12 more headless bodies in the Yucatán. Four more decapitated corpses were found in Tijuana, the same city where barrels of acid containing human remains were later placed in front of a seafood restaurant. A couple of weeks later, someone threw two hand grenades into an Independence Day celebration in Morelia, killing eight and injuring dozens more. And at any time, you could find YouTube videos of Mexican gangs executing their rivals—an eerie reminder of, and possibly a lesson learned from, al Qaeda in Iraq.

This is neither new nor isolated. When I was younger, I used to go down to Tijuana, it was a great time. It really was easy and fun; what Chinatown was to LA, Tijuana was to San Diego. No longer is even the formerly relatively civil Tijuana docile and appropriate for casual strolling about. Long ago, back in the sixties, on our way back to Kentucky to visit my grandparents during summers, we used to cross over into Juarez. Juarez was always a little scarier than Tijuana or Puerto Penasco, but, still, it was cool. That all changed in Juarez as far back as the late 70s and early 80s; then it became off of most people’s travel itinerary. Now it is all a war zone.

With war raging between Mexico’s narcogangs, and with plenty of cash available from drug sales to Americans—$25 billion a year, by one reliable estimate—cartel gunmen began to grow discontented with the limited selection of arms found in the thousands of gun stores along the southern U.S. border. Instead, they have sought out—and acquired—the world’s fiercest weaponry. Today, hillbilly pistoleros are showing signs of becoming modern paramilitaries.

Mexico’s gangs had the means and motive to create upheaval, and in Mexico’s failure to reform into a modern state, especially at local levels, the cartels found their opportunity. Mexico has traditionally starved its cities. They have weak taxing power. Their mayors can’t be reelected. Constant turnover breeds incompetence, improvisation, and corruption. Local cops are poorly paid, trained, and equipped. They have to ration bullets and gas and are easily given to bribery. Their morale stinks. So what should be the first line of defense against criminal gangs is instead anemic and easily compromised. Mexico has been left handicapped, and gangs that would have been stomped out locally in a more effective state have been able to grow into a powerful force that now attacks the Mexican state itself.

Hillbilly pistoleros indeed. Lou Dobbs on CNN may be, and in fact clearly is, a raving belligerent maniac regarding Mexico and brown people, but that doesn’t mean there is no problem on the other side of the border, and it doesn’t mean that it is not bleeding in to this side. It is a problem, and it is here; trust me, the next part hits right in my city, Phoenix.

Americans watch this upheaval with curious detachment. One warning sign is Phoenix. This city has replaced Miami as the prime gateway for illegal drugs entering the United States. Cartel chaos in Mexico is pushing bad elements north along with the dope—enforcers without work and footloose to freelance.

Phoenix—the snowbird getaway, the land of yellow cardigans and emerald fairways—is now awash in kidnappings—366 in 2008 alone, up from 96 a decade ago. Most committing these crimes hail from Sinaloa, several hundred miles south. In one alarming incident, a gang of Mexican nationals, dressed in Phoenix police uniforms and using high-powered weapons and military tactics, stormed a drug dealer’s house in a barrage of gunfire, killing him and taking his dope.

I wish I could say that Quinones has overstated this; he has not. So far, the infiltrating drug gangs, when I did major drug cases we called them "Sinaloa Cowboys", seem to mostly prey on their own rivals and have not really started taking from the general population of Phoenix. But the fear of expansion is palpable, and is exactly what the execrable Sheriff Joe Arpaio feeds off of to pull his anti-Hispanic oppressive raids and policing publicity stunts. The sad, but predictable, part is that, of course, Arpaio is so busy running stunts with the media (he even has his own Fox reality show now) that he doesn’t even come close to lifting a finger against the real violence. That is left to the Phoenix Police Department while he preens around.

You don’t have to watch or listen to Lou Dobbs, no sentient being should have to do that lately, but do not discount the seriousness of the violence; and it is growing. Is it epidemic yet? No, not there yet, not on this side of the border anyway. However, among all the other things on our, and President Obama’s, plates, this one needs to be added to the list before it does metastasize out of control. Please go read Sam Quinones’ entire piece, it deserves that.

Why GM Matters

[As I indicated yesterday in the post "Why American Industry (And Its Future) Matters", we have the privilege of having author William J. Holstein today at Emptywheel and Firedoglake. Mr. Holstein has a long and rich history as a journalist and author. Most importantly for today, he has plunged into the history and ethos of General Motors and produced an incredible work detailing just how critical General Motors, the American auto industry, and American industry itself is to the United States economy and way of life.

As Michael Fitzgerald observed at bnet.com, "Holstein is using GM as a symbol for whether it makes sense for the U.S. to bother with manufacturing. That might sound odd for a country that for now probably remains the world’s largest manufacturing economy. But Holstein argues that our political and financial leaders don’t get manufacturing, and don’t think it’s important. This is the crux of the Main Street vs. Wall Street debate, and it is shaping up as the core fight of economic policy over the next few years: do we get a justifiable return if we invest in making things, or should we focus on information-driven innovation?"

I think that is right. Since we cannot layout the entire book in the intro here, Bill and I decided to focus on the emerging technology, and specifically battery/electric technology, and the new product lines, that GM is producing. With that said, what follows are prepared remarks in that regard by Bill Holstein. Take a look, and then join us in discussion. I am looking forward to the best and brightest that inhabit our little corner of the world participating in and driving this. Oh, and visit Bill anytime at his blog WilliamJHolstein.com Also, I heartily recommend purchasing his book, it is a fascinating look into a critical issue of our time, not to mention a great read. – bmaz]

*****
By: William J. Holstein:

It’s time to cut through all the nonsense about General Motors “not making cars that Amrericans want to buy.” The truth is that GM has seized design and performance leadership over its longtime nemesis, Toyota. Toyota’s cars these days resemble appliances, i.e. refrigerators on wheels. They don’t break, but they hardly inspire.

In terms of their physical appearance, GM vehicles have real attitude. The new CTS has a very bold and aggressive front end that designer John Manoogian came up with at the last moment. He and his team decided to take the V-shape that used to stop at the bumpers and let it plunge below the bumpers toward the ground. They also inserted grilles on the right front panels merely for decorative purposes. That nearly drove the engineers crazy because of the challenge of stamping a piece of sheet metal with an odd hole in the middle of it. But they did it. At first, the competition could not believe that GM had figured out how to achieve that.

GM’s design revival started in the late 1990s with the new creased look of the Cadillac. But it accelerated with the arrival of Bob Lutz in 2001. Lutz is the quintessential “car guy” and he took responsibility for product development. He acknowledges, and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner acknowledges, that design got lost at GM for at least two decades. The flamboyant designers of the 1940s and 1950s faded away and were replaced by engineers and bean-counters who relied on “clinics,” or panel sessions with consumers, to decide what the market wanted. This was a disastrous way to design cars—consumers can only respond to what they see on the road. They can’t anticipate the new and exciting.

Lutz helped allow the designers, led by Ed Welburn, to once again take risks and insist that the engineers and metal stampers and accountants let designers pursue their dreams. Designers have to play. They have to tinker. They have to reach into history to identify the themes and motifs that turn Americans on. That’s exactly what GM’s designers are doing these days. For my book, I walked through GM design studios in the United States, Germany and China. They are filled with young people from all over the world who are excited about working for GM. That could never have been said 10 years ago.

Not enough Americans understand why General Motors’ effort to develop the Chevrolet Volt with a lithium ion battery is so important. Here’s why:

Alliance Bernstein estimates that lithium ion batteries could be a $150 billion a year industry by 2030. It is a new industry waiting to be born. It’s a perfect example of the so-called “green industries” that President Obama says he wants to see in America.

But right now, the Americans are lagging behind Japan, China, South Korea and the French in developing these batteries that are considered more efficient and longer-lasting than previous generations of batteries, such as the nickel metal hydride battery that is in the Toyota Prius.

GM has invested $1 billion so far in this battery project and has tapped LG Chem, a unit of the LG group of South Korea, to develop a particular variety of the lithium ion batter. LG will make the battery cells in Korea and bring them to Michigan where they will be packagd into systems that can actually be built into the Volt.

It’s true that the Volt will be relatively expensive when it comes out by the end of 2010—somewhere in the $35,000 to $40,000 range. But what GM hopes to do is introduce the lithium ion battery into other models and into other geographic markets like China so that it can drive down the costs. It’s much like gearing up the semiconductor or flat panel display industries. Once you can achieve scale, you can drive costs way down.

If GM can get momentum with the lithium ion battery, it’s likely that more and more of the “value added” elements of making the batteries will end up on American soil. This is great from many different perspectives—it creates jobs, it eases our dependence on foreign energy sources and it will diminish emissions. In fact, if you operate the Volt for only 40 miles, there will be zero emissions. That’s because the Volt will go 40 miles between charges. If you go further, a gasoline turbine kicks in to recharge the battery. At that point, the driver would be consuming gasoline and emitting carbon dioxide. But 78 percent of Americans drive 40 or fewer miles each day. So most people who own a Volt will not be emitting anything during the course of their daily lives.

That’s different from the way the Prius works. It has a gasoline engine and a battery-powered engine. When you accelerate the vehicle, the gas engine is doing the work. But when you are idle, or when you are coasting or braking, the battery takes over. But it is not possible to operate the Prius in the battery-only mode for any extended period of time. This difference in how the Volt is equipped is another part of the breakthrough that GM is on the verge of achieving.

This is another element of why GM is important to America’s future. If the government forces GM into bankruptcy or other downward spirals, the Volt program almost certainly would be delayed—and with them, America’s hopes for being a player in the lithium ion future.

So let’s dispense with this myth that “GM only makes gas-guzzling SUVs.” GM is back in the car design business, and back in style.

I have a busy morning here, but want to draw attention to an article this morning in the New York Times by Robert Pear on the ongoing discussions of healthcare reform for the United States:

Since last fall, many of the leading figures in the nation’s long-running health care debate have been meeting secretly in a Senate hearing room. Now, with the blessing of the Senate’s leading proponent of universal health insurance, Edward M. Kennedy, they appear to be inching toward a consensus that could reshape the debate.

Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance.
…
“There seems to be a sense of the room that some form of tax penalty is an effective means to enforce such an obligation, though only on those for whom affordable coverage is available,” said the memorandum, prepared by David C. Bowen, a neurobiologist who is director of the health staff at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The proposal for an individual mandate was one of the few policy disagreements between Mr. Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in their fight for the Democratic presidential nomination. She wanted to require everyone to have and maintain insurance. He said he wanted to “ensure affordable coverage for all,” but would initially apply the mandate only to children.

The 20 people who regularly attend the meetings on Capitol Hill include lobbyists for AARP, Aetna, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

"Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance." Yeah, no one could have anticipated that I guess. It suggests that those allowed in these discussions are overwhelmingly tied to the current system; few if any represent alternative approaches. So what is Kennedy’s staff doing? And why are people sworn to secrecy? Surely this deserves more light. With regards to "mandate," the mandate they’re talking about is everyone required to purchase insurance. That does little to control total costs, which is the macro issue that drives the long-run insolvency claims about Medicare/Medicaid and the fact that US costs are higher than elsewhere.

If everyone must have PRIVATE insurance, that’s full employment and industry expansion beyond that for the insurance industry. OTOH, if we move to universal care and single-payer, that cuts the throat of the private health insurance industry. I know which seems more palatable to me. I’ll be honest, I had to struggle to find anything positive to say at all about the things laid out in Pear’s article. There is maybe some help in this for the truly poor. Pretty clear though that for the rest of the country, they are going to keep getting raped as usual on healthcare; perhaps even more so. This doesn’t do squat for anybody in my family, nor anybody I know. I understand that is not the overriding criteria of judgment, but it does matter to me. But we are going broke paying for medical insurance because we all have to buy individual policies that don’t provide that great of coverage and cost a fortune.

We only need the mandate because we refuse to consider true national health insurance. Obama was focussed on bringing costs down during the campaign–the best way to get costs down, despite his protestations, is to get the ones who use the service least to pay into the pot.

If the gov’t was going to offer a program that undercut the private plans (which it easily could because of efficiency), it would theoretically drive private costs down or drive private insurers out of business. . . which would mostly be fine with me. However, with a medicare-for-all model as a competitor, we could make that mandate seem much less burdensome to individuals (and less expensive to the federal gov’t). . . and those that wanted to keep private insurance or demand supplemental plans from the market could do that. . . which sounds like a much freer market solution than the one we have, or the patchwork I expect to get.

As I have said for a long time now, the proper way to craft and pitch a doable healthcare reform is to make it "Medicare For Everyone!"

[The thoughts expressed in this post, aside from the Pear NYT quote, are an amalgamation of those from a discussion I had online with a few extremely bright good friends]

BartCop/Political Humor

At the end of December last year, Emptywheel reported that noted high powered Washington lobbyist Miss Vicki Iseman had filed a defamation suit against the New York Times. At issue was a February 21, 2008 Times article that Iseman contended lead people to believe that she played hanky blankie with McCain; but, as EW noted at the time:

What was at issue in the article was the appearance of an affair, not an affair itself, and the beliefs of McCain staffers about that appearance of an affair.

That was exactly right then, and it is still right now and ought to be kept in mind in light of the news yesterday that Iseman’s lawsuit was dismissed:

A lobbyist’s lawsuit against The New York Times over the newspaper’s account of her ties to Senator John McCain has been settled, both sides announced on Thursday.

The suit, filed by Vicki L. Iseman, the Washington lobbyist, was settled without payment and The Times did not retract the article. In an unusual agreement, however, The Times is letting Ms. Iseman’s lawyers give their views on the suit on the paper’s Web site.

Their opinion is accompanied by a joint statement from both sides and a note to readers, which is also appearing in Friday’s edition of the newspaper.

Let me boil down to the bone what has been accomplished legally as a result of Iseman’s complaint. Not a damn thing; both parties are sticking to the same exact public positions they maintained before the meritless suit was filed, it is just that for the sake of their pocketbooks they have agreed to take the pissing match back out of the costly court litigation system. And, now that they are back into an ink fight as opposed to boxing with attorneys, let’s take a look at how Times Editor Bill Keller describes the matter in a published statement today:

What the article set out to do, and did, was to establish that Senator McCain — a man whose career was ensnared by scandal and then rebuilt on a reputation for avoiding even the appearance of impropriety — was sometimes careless of that reputation. The story reported that a senator who cast himself as the scourge of lobbyists rode on the private jets of business executives with interests before his committee, and that a senator who disdained the influence of corporate money accepted corporate money to support that very cause.

The article also reported, in that regard, that the senator’s behavior toward Ms. Iseman convinced some of his aides that his relationship with the lobbyist had become romantic; that the aides warned the senator this could endanger his reputation; and that they set out to limit Ms. Iseman’s access to the senator. Our reporting was accurate.

Yep. The Times, in the joint spirit of both plaintiff and defendant wanting to get the heck out of court, also published a self serving piece from Iseman’s lawyers, Rod Smolla and Coleman Allen (of the ridiculously named firm of Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen. What, couldn’t they just be QuadrAllen or something?).

So, this suit has been conclusively established to have been a big bunch of nothing, not that such wasn’t patently obvious from the get go. And nobody has put a dent in John Weaver’s proposition that it was bad optics for McCain to be seen playing hanky blankie with Vicky Iseman, even if that was all it was. Now I don’t know the history of all those Allen boys, but Rod Smolla has a bit of a reputation for being very dogged on First Amendment plaintiff’s cases and for persevering against odds to victory. But here, even Smolla knew this complaint was hopeless garbage that had to be bailed from fast.

The real question here is what real end was serviced by the imposition of this meritless and hopeless lawsuit by Iseman and her attorneys? It is impossible to see anything of material gain they netted out of the suit; they were complaining in the press before the suit, and they have been reduced to that after the suit. Was John McCain just that hard up to try to retaliate against John Weaver? Was there some other sub-surface purpose?