NDN Blog

More than a decade after Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton's aggressive efforts to round-up nuclear materials after the end of the Cold War, there is still work to be done.  Yesterday's arrest of a Russian attempting to sell highly refined uranium, in Georgia, proves the need for continued vigilance to prevent against the unthinkable.

It's worth remembering today that John Kerry put a lot of emphasis on nuclear proliferation when he ran for the Presidency in 2004.

Don't miss this must-read from Laura Rozen in the National Journal.  The basic thesis:

While the Iraq debate was gripping Washington over the past few weeks, the Bush administration was also shifting its policy toward neighboring Iran -- in a more confrontational direction.

U.S. officials, who asked not to be identified, say that the Iran policy has expanded from focusing chiefly on Iran's nuclear ambitions to challenging Tehran's suspected misbehavior across the Middle East. Indeed, one source said succinctly that the new policy is geared to "confront Iran in every way but direct armed conflict, using all means short of war."

Also be sure to read Simon's analysis of the recent NYT article on moderate Arab governements' sponsership of anti-US propaganda in response to, again from Rozen, this development:

Middle East analyst Daniel Byman, who is the director of Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, said, "The most popular people in the Islamic world right now, and the two most popular people in Egypt, are Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And their popularity is increasing. They are like Che Guevara."

Not in the Senate, according to the Politico.  I mention this because NDN met with good friend Kirsten Gillibrand this morning, the newly elected Congresswoman from NY's 20th Congressional District.  Rep.  Gillibrand is a young, rising star in the House.  Now we'll just have to get her and more like her into the Senate, and soon.

Senator Biden's Foreign Relations Committee yesterday sent a strong message of opposition to the President over his plan to send 20,000 additional US troops to Baghdad.  The non-binding resolution is an important step in involving Congress in fixing the failed approach of the Bush Administration in Iraq.  NDN, as Simon's writing over the last few months shows, has been advocating for and supportive of this process from the beginning, and will continue to look for a better way forward in the Middle East.  Click anywhere on the quote to read the entire article. 

One day after President Bush implored Congress to give his Iraq strategy a chance to succeed, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution on Wednesday denouncing the plan to send more troops to Baghdad, setting up the most direct confrontation over the war since it began nearly four years ago...

The Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution by a vote of 12 to 9, with a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, joining 11 Democrats in supporting it. But even Republicans who opposed the resolution, including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, expressed deep doubt about whether the troop increase could succeed and suggested it was time for a new direction.

That is the early consensus on the energy policy elements of the President's State of the Union speech.  No specifics to cap carbon and reverse with global warming, modest increases in fuel standards, but no plan to deal with the 80% of emissions that don't come from passenger vehicles, and no specifics on how to balance the economics and environmental impact of alternative fuels. 

And much of what the President proposed is duplicitous:

• 20% reduction in gas usage in 10 years, actually means 20% less then projected levels, not 20% less than usage today.  That means gasoline consumption would actually increase slightly - not as ambitious as it sounded in the SOTU.
• Bush's fuel economy standard increases would actually lead to more gas guzzling vehicles being sold, by moving from fleet average standards to individual vehicle standards. 
• When the President talks about alternative energy, he is really playing to coal producers who want to start producing liquid coal as a fuel - liquid coal that releases twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as gasoline.

The lesson, as NDN has argued, is that what the President, and so many conservatives in his mold, are good at is politics, not governing.  Real leadership on energy and tackling the catastrophic threat of global warming will come from progressive thinkers, regardless of party, who are ready to move beyond the cynical half-measures of the current Administration.

Watch Hagel speak out against escalation...

Senate Democrats fell 6 votes short of the 60 needed to end debate on passing the clean, House veriosn of the minimum wage hike, and will now debate adding small business tax cut amendments to the bill.  From the NYT:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, expressed disappointment over the Senate vote. “Our colleagues in the House came together -- Democrats and Republicans -- and they passed a minimum wage bill with no strings attached,” he said.

Low-wage workers “deserved the same respect from the Senate,” Mr. Kennedy said. “We should have passed this bill today and put it before the president for his signature this afternoon. We will not rest until we do right by working families.”

Our friend Markos Moulitsas has a must read post on the rise of Senator Jim Webb.

This is one of my favorite Rove stories, and apparently he's at it again, as Grover Norquist describes below.

and 

Earlier this month Rove showed up at a weekly meeting of influential D.C. conservatives, surprising attendees with his bubbly demeanor after weeks of rumors that he might be headed out.

"I think some people had given him up for dead, but he was good old Karl, upbeat and enthusiastic," says GOP activist Grover Norquist, who hosts the weekly sit-down. At the meeting Rove previewed Bush's final two years in office, saying Social Security reform was likely off the table and that Iraq and the economy would be the biggest issues for 2008. Rove offered a $5 bet to anyone in the room that Bush would not raise taxes during his final years in office. According to Norquist, two attendees took the bet.

It may have been smart to take the bet, but if history is a guide, it's foolish to expect to be paid. 

Those two letters are 'i' and 'c' and the President left them out of a key moment in the State of the Union Address last night.  Instead of saying the "Democratic Party," he strayed from the prepared text  - not to mention the teleprompter - in order to refer to the "Democrat majority." 

Don't miss this New Yorker article to find out why the President included this lingual jab in the SOTU and what conservative lunminaries of the past (Joe McCarthy for one) inspired him.