Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

The Al Franken show

I’ve been quite skeptical about Al Franken’s arrival in the U.S. Senate, concerned about the way he entered the race and about some of the positions he had taken early in his candidacy. I also was concerned that he would not be taken seriously.

His opening statement at Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court, already has gone a long way toward alleviating some of my concerns.

Here is the relevant passage:

First, I believe the position of Congress with respect to the Courts and the Executive is in jeopardy. Even before I aspired to represent the people of Minnesota in the United States Senate, I believed that the Framers made Congress the first branch of government for a reason. It answers most directly to the people and has the legitimacy to speak for the people in crafting laws to be carried out by the executive branch.

I am wary of judicial activism and I believe in judicial restraint. Except under the most exceptional circumstances, the judicial branch is designed to show deep deference to Congress and not make policy by itself.

Yet looking at recent decisions on voting rights, campaign finance reform, and a number of other topics, it appears that appropriate deference may not have been shown in the past few years – and there are ominous signs that judicial activism is on the rise in these areas.

I agree with Senator Feingold and Senator Whitehouse that we hear a lot about judicial activism when politicians talk about what kind of judge they want in the Supreme Court. But it seems that their definition of an activist judge is one who votes differently than they would like. Because during the Rhenquist Court, Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn federal laws more than Justices Stevens and Breyer combined.

Second, I am concerned that Americans are facing new barriers to defending their individual rights. The Supreme Court is the last court in the land where an individual is promised a level playing field and can seek to right a wrong:

It is the last place an employee can go if he or she is discriminated against because of age, gender, or color.

It is the last place a small business owner can go to ensure free and fair competition in the market.

It is the last place an investor can go to try to recover losses from securities fraud.

It is the last place a person can go to protect the free flow of information on the internet.

It is the last place a citizen can go to protect his or her vote.

It is the last place where a woman can go to protect her reproductive health and rights.

Yet from what I see, on each of those fronts, for each of those rights, the
past decade has made it a little bit harder for American citizens to defend
themselves.

As far as opening statements go, Sen. Franken’s shows he plans to be serious, that his chief concern will be the people — as opposed to the money interests — and that places him in stark contrast with most of his colleagues.

This sense of responsibility to the constitution has been evident in his questioning, as well, and stands in stark contrast to the race-based rhetoric of a GOP that seems still to be fighting the culture wars of the early Bush administration.

Runner’s diary Thursday

The breeze this morning was a saving grace, cutting through an unexpected level of humidity as I put in my three miles. I'm still feeling beat up, so I may have to rest it tomorrow, but we'll see how things go in the morning.

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The half year in music

This post demands a preface. The list that follows is in no way meant to be a comprehensive overview of the year in music. Its limitations are to be expected, guided by my own tastes and wallet. These are not necessarily the best albums of 2009, so far, the most notable or the most popular. They are just what they are: music that has been in heavy rotation on my iPod during the first almost seven months.

I’m going to list them alphabetically, to keep readers from thinking I’ve ranked them;

Lily Allen, It’s Not Me, It’s You — This is a dance record full of sly commentary and nasty asides; you have to pay attention, but make sure you’ve got on some kicking shoes.
Art Brut, Art Brut v. Satan — Album no. 3 from the British pop-punkers is as funny and sarcastic as the first, with a big guitar sound that translates well live (in fact, they are probably a better live band than studio band). These guys deserve to be stars, or as they might say, on “top of the pops”!
Elvis Costello, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane — Elvis goes bluegrass? This is an intriguing record, proving again that Elvis Costello is as restless as Neil Young when it comes to bending genres and providing a moving target for listeners.
Steve Earle, Townes — A labor of love, an album of songs written by the late, great Townes Van Zandt (Earle’s mentor) that brings one of the great folk/country songwriters back to the limelight.
Franz Ferdinand, Tonight – The band gets its disco on with its third effort (a remix/dub version called Blood is just as crazy) with great results.
Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown — Not as good as American Idiot, but then that would have been too much to be expected. I would have pared this back some, but it continues in AI’s political/operatic vein.
Buddy & Judy Miller, Written in Chalk — This is what Lucinda Williams calls sh**-kicking country. Or is it rock? Or blues? That the Millers make it so difficult to categorize this album says all you need to know.
Son Volt, American Central Dust — The band returns to their alt-country roots with a masterful release, as good as The Search, though less eclectic.
Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream — A good, but flawed follow-up to Magic that features some great tunes and at least one clinker (“Queen of the Supermarket”). It’s still Bruce, however, so it gets a guaranteed spot in the rotations.
U2, No Line on the Horizon — I’ve not made my mind up about the latest from the Irish rockers. The single, “Put on Your Boots,” is great, but the album has the feel of Zooropa, a sonic misdirection in the wake of a huge predecessor. (It is far better than Zooropa or Pop, so don’t misread what I’m saying.)
Wilco, Wilco (The Album) — Right now, this is my favorite album of 2009. Following Sky Blue Sky, a lovely, through somewhat subdued retrenching, Wilco (The Album) hits on all cylinders, bringing pieces of each of its six studio predecessors (not including various EPs or the CD included with The Wilco Book) so that the album stands as both a summary of the band’s past and a step forward into the future.

Other albums worth noting, but that I have not had the chance to buy (I’ve either grabbed singles through the great podcasts at IndieFeed or MPR Song of the Day): Levon Helm, Electric Dirt; Low Anthem, Oh My God Charlie Darwin; Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Outer South; St. Vincent, Actor; Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career; John Doe and the Sadies, Country Club

More stimulus is needed

David Leonhardt’s column in today’s business section of The New York Times should be required reading for all of those pundits who have started talking and writing about the “green shoots” or recovery that they see evident in the economic figures.

The reality is that, while some indicators have shown small glimpses of progress, the economy remains in a downward spiral — characterized by longterm unemployment and under-employment.

Leonhardt writes of the “downturn … moving into a new stage.”

It has already been through three: the prologue, when credit markets began to quiver in 2007; the big shock, when the collapse of Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, led into almost six months of terrible economic news; and the stabilization, when the news became more mixed. Now comes Stage 4: the slog.

He defines the slog as a time when the recession can be said to officially have ended, based on increased economic output, even if the larger economy remains “weighed down by troubled credit markets and huge household debts,” meaning it could “be awhile before growth is fast enough to persuade companies to hire large numbers of workers.”

This would make for an odd contrast, in which the economy was getting better but feeling worse. These broad measures of unemployment and underemployment could approach a hard-to-fathom 25 percent in California, up from 12 percent a year ago. In several other states, including Florida, North Carolina and Washington, the rate could yet reach 20 percent — and, unfortunately, the stimulus bill does not do a good enough job of targeting the hardest-hit states.

After a decade in which household income barely outpaced inflation, a slow recovery could leave many people hard-pressed and frustrated. In just the last week, the Labor Department reported that the number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits dropped — but so did consumer confidence and Mr. Obama’s approval rating. Welcome to the slog.

Economists already are talking about a jobless recovery — which raises the question of how it can be called a recovery if large numbers of people remain unemployed. Part of the reason is that the stimulus should have been larger and more focused on creating jobs — i.e., modeled on many of the New Deal programs that put Americans to work. Basically, the government should be paying people to do jobs that need to be done.

Remember, the New Deal put people to work building roads, dams and parks and electifying regions of the south and west (the Princeton Arts Council building originally was built with New Deal money).

Instead, the Congress pared back the stimulus, reducing needed aid to cash-strapped states, and shifted much of it into tax cuts that are unlikely to do much to jump-start the economy.

At the same time, the federal government has been doling out money to private firms with few strings attached — GM is closing plants rather than retooling for green industry — further accelerating the decline of the manufacturing sector.

A second stimulus plan will be needed, one that targets the hardest hit areas (as Leonardt points out) and not on tax cuts. My fear, however, is that the minimal impact the current stimulus is having combined with the unwise and untransparent bailouts of the banking and investment industry will make voters suspicious of doing anything at all.

Quote of the day: Bankers with bad attitudes

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Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for Troubled-Asset Relief Program Funds, offered this comment on last night’s Rachel Maddow Show what Congress should be telling the banks and credit card companies and why oversight of the industry — in the form of a consumer protection panel — is necessary:

I‘m just saying, look, if you can‘t explain it so the person on the other side can understand it, then you shouldn‘t sell it to them.

Seems a pretty straightforward rule.