Jul 03 2009
June's job creation and unemployment figures released yesterday represent another disastrous month for the American economy.
The unemployment rate rose again, this time to 9.5 percent, the highest in 26 years. Some 14.7 million Americans were unemployed in June and, if those who have stopped looking for jobs or who have settled for part-time jobs are included in the total, the rate is 16.5 percent, or one in every six American workers.
Happy talk emanating from the federal government, promoting the effectiveness of the expensive economic stimulus package to banks, financial houses and auto companies, says that the employment rate will be one of the last indicators to show improvement in the economy. What exactly are Americans supposed to do at this point? Gauge the state of the economy by the rise in bailed-out bank executives' salaries? Or maybe how much swindler Bernie Madoff's wife, Ruth, got to keep of his ill-gotten gains?
President Barack Obama cannot be faulted for putting the salvation of the sagging American economy at the top of his list of priorities to tackle. The question is whether it has been done right. Looking at the key figure of job creation, we would note that -- instead of putting out there the some 150,000 new jobs per month that are needed just to stay even in the face of new entries into the economy -- employers cut some 467,000 jobs in June, more than government and private prognosticators had predicted. Even they had expected a loss of 363,000 jobs. If that would have been good news, heaven help the country.
So what can be done? Why not start, first, with the Obama administration seeing to it that the economic stimulus money it is dishing out, running up the national debt enormously in the process, goes to job creation, not to banks buying other banks, or to restoring or supporting the shocking levels of compensation that senior executives have become accustomed to?
A second useful step would be to see that none of the economic stimulus money goes to relieving the states, including Pennsylvania, from meeting their obligation to live within their means. A good start on Pennsylvania's part would be to reduce the size of the Legislature. A second would be to auction off the franchises for the liquor stores. A third would be to reduce the membership of the various commissions that reside in various parts of the Pennsylvania state government, currently providing employment opportunities for multiple political appointees.
Mr. Obama's economic stimulus program was a good idea. Current unemployment figures show that so far it isn't working in putting jobs into the market. Some adjustment is clearly needed.
Jul 03 2009
After one of the closest elections in recent history and eight months of protracted legal appeals, Minnesota finally has a new junior senator -- Democrat Al Franken.
The race ended officially this week when one-term Republican incumbent Norm Coleman called Mr. Franken to concede. The call followed the Minnesota Supreme Court's unanimous ruling earlier in the day that the lower court had not erred when it excluded thousands of absentee ballots from the final tally.
Mr. Coleman had appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court to overrule the lower court on the grounds that the absentee ballots favored his candidacy. The margin without the disputed absentee ballots was 312 votes in Mr. Franken's favor out of 2.9 million ballots cast.
Republicans outside of the state encouraged Mr. Coleman in his quixotic challenge because of fears of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. Mr. Coleman could have appealed to federal court and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court, but it would have infuriated the weary voters of Minnesota who are eager to be represented by two senators again.
On Tuesday night, Minnesota's Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed Mr. Coleman's election certificate. Mr. Franken could be seated early next week. His staff is already in place and eager to engage in Senate business.
For his part, Mr. Franken has insisted that he won't be going to Washington as the dependable 60th vote in a filibuster-proof Democratic majority. He said he will be going to Washington to represent the interests of his constituents in Minnesota.
Mr. Franken, a former comedian and writer for "Saturday Night Live," is the latest in a string of nontraditional candidates to win high office in Minnesota. World Wrestling Entertainment commentator Jesse "The Body" Ventura ran as an independent for governor in 1998 and won.
Now that Gov. Pawlenty, who is rumored to have presidential ambitions, announced that he won't run for that office again, it is believed that Mr. Coleman will seek that office. We will soon find out whether the former senator has worn out his welcome with Minnesotans disgusted by the protracted senate race.
Jul 03 2009
Pittsburgh firefighter Vincent Manzella hasn't been convicted of a crime yet, but he has already admitted to investigators that he phoned in several false alarms to make it easier to burglarize empty fire stations to support his heroin habit.
It appears that Mr. Manzella has endangered fellow firefighters and the public. He has been charged with theft, burglary and calling in false alarms. That betrayal of trust ought to be the main focus of everyone.
But the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1 seems more concerned about the Ravenstahl administration imposing drug testing that falls outside the specific language of the contract. The union wants to negotiate an understanding.
While not technically opposed to the 30-day suspension Mr. Manzella received, the union argues that he is being convicted in the court of public opinion before the trial board, composed of three firefighters, has heard the evidence. And that raises a different issue.
Under current state law, only the trial board can terminate a firefighter, a law the union supports. The city counters that it is ridiculous to leave the disciplining of firefighters to their colleagues.
The city is asking the General Assembly to rewrite the 70-year-old state law governing discipline of Pittsburgh firefighters so that the city has more discretion to fire under these circumstances. The union prefers the status quo. Common sense suggests that a change is needed.
Jul 02 2009
The legal adage that "hard cases make bad law" was demonstrated amply in this week's Supreme Court ruling in a case concerning white and Hispanic firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who were rejected for promotion because black candidates did not do well on the test.
That old adage also can be expanded here to say "hard cases make bad politics." That's because conservative commentators have made much of the fact -- way too much -- that the Supreme Court reversed an appeals court ruling supported by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee for the top court.
Judge Sotomayor is not the first candidate for the court to be reversed. And in affirming a district court finding, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals that she sits on did not issue a full opinion, perhaps because legal precedents seemed to favor the city, not the rejected firefighters. However diced, the issues raised here were complicated -- the Supreme Court decided the case by the barest 5-4 margin.
In part what makes this case hard is that the disappointed firefighters had a sympathetic claim -- some had gone to considerable time and expense in their successful preparations to pass the test, only to have their chances of promotion dashed when the authorities refused to certify the results.
On the face of it, this seems an injustice, but the city rejected the results because it feared that it would be sued if it did not. Given what the law said, there was reason to be concerned.
Whether the test in New Haven was fair to black candidates was debated at the time (the majority opinion of the court held that it was open and fair), but Title VII of the Civil Rights Act specifically prohibits both intentional discrimination as well as unintentional discrimination that has the effect of having a disproportionate effect on minorities, which was what New Haven was worried about.
Of the 77 candidates who in late 2003 took the tests for promotion to lieutenant (43 whites, 19 blacks and 15 Hispanics), the top 10 candidates who did the best all turned out to be white. For captain, 41 completed the examination (25 whites, eight blacks and eight Hispanics), the test came up with seven whites and two Hispanics as eligible for promotion.
Writing for the court majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the city lacked the required "strong basis in evidence" to believe that it would face a lawsuit if it certified the test results. Moreover, he wrote that fear "of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions."
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that the city had good cause to fear a lawsuit if it had proceeded. She raised questions about the effectiveness of the test in achieving racial balance and persuasively chronicled the precedents that the court was now slighting.
She also gave an important historical context to the seeming injustice done to the rejected firefighters -- one that goes to the very heart of what Congress was trying to remedy with this law. She pointed out that in the early 1970s African Americans and Hispanics composed 30 percent of New Haven's population but only 3.6 percent of the city's firefighters -- and the racial disparity in the officer ranks was even more pronounced.
"By order of this court, New Haven, a city in which African Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population, must today be served -- as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination -- by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions."
That was the big picture the majority ignored in finding unlawful reverse discrimination. And they did it by making a new rule of law that -- in the words of Justice Ginsburg -- "sets at odds the statute's core directives." The result will be to make life harder for employers seeking to meet the objectives that Congress had sought under the Civil Rights Act.
Those right-wing critics who say this hard case is proof of Judge Sotomayor's legal activism have it exactly wrong. If anything, the precedent-breaking activists here were on the court majority.
Jul 02 2009
It is good to see Pittsburghers organizing themselves relatively early for the G-20 summit scheduled to take place here Sept. 24-25.
Although it is important to remember that Pittsburgh is the host and venue of the conference, not the subject of it, it will nonetheless provide the city an opportunity to present itself in its best light. It can emphasize its strengths and unique assets to good effect. Pittsburgh should continue to bear in mind that the people coming are in particular the economic and financial movers and shakers of their countries -- in other words, those who might think of the place when they are considering important future job-creating investments and deals.
Thinking of the "best light" criterion, it is a pity that the Steelers will be playing away and that the Penguins' season will not yet have started. Unless the Pirates' lamentable tendency to sell off every single one of their useful players can be stemmed, it also will be just as well that their season will be nearing its likely ignominious close at that point. This is not a gratuitous crack: Pittsburgh is famous worldwide for its sometimes stunning successes in sports.
It appears that local authority for the final schedule to be put together for the event by the federal government at all levels will lie in the hands of Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and apparently Allegheny Conference for Economic Development CEO Dennis Yablonsky.
That does not mean that other decision-makers will be excluded from the process. It is important, in fact, that they be included, and the financial support being provided by companies, foundations and universities is in Pittsburgh's finest tradition. In the end, of course, someone has to sort out the competing interests and present Washington a coherent picture of what Pittsburgh as host has in mind.
It is particularly important that the unions, in the form of the United Steelworkers and two other important groups, have signed on to the process. It is preferable in terms of the overall picture the city presents that the unions be on board, as opposed to outside the tent, perhaps aligning with the various protest groups that have signaled an intention to turn up. At the London G-20 summit the USW president, Leo Gerard, was a prominent speaker against globalization, one of the key issues at that summit.
In the meantime, it behooves Pittsburghers to make an effort to inform themselves about the issues that will be discussed at the G-20 summit, even though our role in consideration of them will be limited.
It will also be important -- and fun, as well -- to be aware of the sparkling array of world figures who will be coming to spend even a little time with us during the summit. Each one of them, from our own President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama to Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, who makes even gubernatorial philanderer Mark Sanford of South Carolina look minor league, should be people whose lives and careers Pittsburghers follow between now and the summit in order to know our guests. Such is the spice of life.
Jul 01 2009
Yesterday's withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq from its cities was the first significant step in fulfilling President Barack Obama's campaign pledge to end the now six-year-long Iraq war.
It is generally considered that the pledge to end the war was the most important factor in Mr. Obama's victory in the 2008 elections over Republican Sen. John McCain, his party's candidate, firmly committed to carrying on the war for 100 years if necessary.
There is still some distance to go before the war is over and all of the some 134,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq have come home. Full U.S. withdrawal is scheduled to take place by the end of 2011. That is what the United States has agreed upon with Iraq's occupation authorities, the government of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki.
It is also interesting to note that withdrawal is scheduled to be completed prior to the commencement of truly heavy lifting in the 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign. The beauty of it is that, based on withdrawal having been carried out or not, Americans will be able to judge Mr. Obama, presumably a candidate for re-election at that point, on the basis of whether he carried out his key 2008 pledge.
One hard part in Iraq will now commence as the reduced U.S. troop presence in the cities -- if not in the country -- begins to be appreciated by various armed Iraqi groups. For the relatively newly trained Iraqi government security forces it will be a test of their ability to retain order in the cities and the country in general with U.S. troops ostensibly on the sidelines.
For various Iraqi, more or less underground, insurgency groups, it will be a test of whether they will see wisdom in restraining themselves in order to obtain the total withdrawal of foreign troops from their country. It may be tempting for them to make things blow up, to embarrass the Maliki government, to embarrass the United States or simply to make an early effort to dominate the postwar Iraq scene.
For the United States, if disorder begins to spread in Iraq's cities with U.S. forces having moved into a more background role, it will be difficult to stand by and watch the order that the United States was theoretically creating in Iraq crumble in the face of renewed violence.
At the same time, it will be absolutely necessary for the United States to do just that. After six years, in the wake of an invasion that was pointless in the first place and which Americans are now thoroughly sick of, it is obligatory that the United States let the Iraqis cope with their own problems and stay out of the way.
The U.S. death toll in Iraq now stands at more than 4,300. The financial cost is uncountable, particularly if one includes the likely cost both of refitting our armed forces and of dealing with the severe physical and emotional wounds of the Americans who have fought there.
It is definitely time to wrap it up. Yesterday's withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq's cities is a very important, positive first step.
Jul 01 2009
Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other type of malignancy, claiming 162,000 lives every year. It is responsible for nearly one-third of all cancer deaths, yet, as the death toll climbs, research funding for this ferocious killer is proportionately lower than any other major cancer.
Logic would suggest that research dollars aimed at developing ways to detect and treat diseases would be targeting the most ferocious killers, but that's not what's been happening. The National Institutes of Health, the primary funding agency for medical research, spent only 5 percent of its $4.8 billion budget in lung cancer research even though the disease caused 31 percent of the cancer deaths among men and 26 percent among women.
Few illnesses engender as little sympathy as lung cancer does for those afflicted with it because most lung cancer is caused by smoking. Cancer researchers told Post-Gazette reporter Mark Roth they believe that "punishment mentality" underlies funding decisions for cancer research.
But there's plenty wrong with that thinking.
First, women who never smoked now make up the fastest-growing group of lung cancer patients. Take Ann Dudurich, 49, of Unity, who never smoked and yet was diagnosed with the most advanced stage of lung cancer 18 months ago. She has endured surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and now credits the drug Tarceva with extending her life. Or listen to the sad story of Suzanne Hill Alfano, another nonsmoker, the daughter of a Churchill cancer specialist. Ms. Alfano died at age 39, leaving two young daughters and her parents, who now devote themselves to raising funds for research.
Second, blaming the victim offers no absolution to those who contract the disease through secondhand smoke, no fault of their own.
Third, society as a whole shares in the increased medical costs associated with treating its effects.
Unfortunately, there is no early-detection test for lung cancer, and eight out of 10 cases are advanced by the time they are diagnosed. As a consequence, the five-year survival rate for lung cancer remains at about 16 percent, a figure that has been largely unchanged as survival rates for other cancers have seen significant improvements.
The solution is development of effective protocols for spotting these cancers before they inflict fatal damage as well as devising treatments that will combat it.
That takes money, far more than has been directed to lung cancer research to date. But it is money well worth spending. Just ask the daughters of Suzanne Hill Alfano.
Jul 01 2009
Nearly two years ago, then 18-year-old John Mullarkey Jr. of Monroeville was feeling depressed when he visited his girlfriend to talk about their relationship. Demi Cuccia, a popular Gateway High School cheerleader had just turned 16 the day before. She was looking for a change.
Angry words were exchanged. John Mullarkey pulled out a 3.5-inch pocket knife and wounded Demi Cuccia 16 times. The only question was whether the murder was premeditated.
During the recent trial, John Mullarkey's defense implicated the acne drug Accutane as an unindicted co-conspirator. The defense argued that Mr. Mullarkey's behavior was exacerbated by the drug. The jury disagreed and convicted him of first-degree murder. He will serve a life sentence. The jury opted to hold the killer responsible and not an acne drug -- and that's a victory for common sense.
Jun 30 2009
A military coup d'etat in Honduras Sunday echoed the bad old days of Latin America when such changes of government were common.
President Manuel Zelaya was grabbed by soldiers in the presidential palace and carted off to neighboring Costa Rica. He was quickly replaced by the chairman of the Honduran parliament, Roberto Micheletti, but the nature of the departure and the reasons for Mr. Zelaya's overthrow made it clear that this was, in fact, an old-fashioned military coup d'etat by the Honduran armed forces.
Mr. Zelaya had been quarreling with the country's military in recent days over his attempts to reassert civilian authority over them by replacing the armed forces commander, Gen. Romeo Vasquez. He had also riled a number of Honduras's civilian political figures through his attempts to seek another term as president, in defiance of the country's constitution which limits a president to one term. The most recent route to holding onto power that he was exploring was to try to set up a referendum on the question.
America's attitude toward Sunday's coup is complicated to some degree by the fact that Mr. Zelaya is considered to be a Latin American president allied with Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. Mr. Chavez has been busily seeking to put together a coalition of like-minded, anti-American Latin America presidents, using his country's oil wealth as a blandishment. It is, however, now generally gauged that Mr. Chavez's attitude toward the United States is being softened by the approach to him taken by President Barack Obama since he took office in January.
The other complicating factor for the United States is that there has been a close relationship between the Honduran military and U.S. forces, maintained in the name of counterterrorism and narcotics traffic interdiction. It is a little difficult to believe that U.S. forces in Honduras were not aware of what their counterparts were up to, or that, if they had wished to they could not have headed off Sunday's coup by pointing out the likely negative reaction in Washington.
The Organization of American States and the United States have heartily condemned the coup and called for a quick return to democratic rule in Honduras. The best first choice would be for Mr. Zelaya to be returned to power from Costa Rica to serve out his term, which ends in January, and then be succeeded in honest elections. A second choice would be for fresh presidential elections to be held as soon as possible.
In the meantime, it is absolutely necessary that U.S. military cooperation with the Honduran armed forces who overthrew the president be cut off promptly and entirely until democratic governance has been restored in the country. Hondurans and the rest of Latin America need to see that even if the United States is not enchanted by a particular elected president, he is nonetheless an elected president and the military needs to be kept strictly out of politics. The precedent of a successful military coup is unacceptable, in Latin America or anywhere else.
Jun 30 2009
Hollow words. That's all the assurances by the Downtown Hilton's owners will be unless Pittsburghers see contractors hard at work to finish the hotel's renovation.
The on-again, off-again $25 million project is an eyesore ready to give a bad first impression of the city to world leaders who will attend the G-20 summit here in September. Sitting as the hotel does at the end of the Fort Pitt Bridge, the Hilton is the gateway to the Golden Triangle -- and, with an unfinished steel skeleton outside its front door, what a sorry vision the idle site is.
Because Florida-based Shubh Hotels LLC failed to pay $317,273 in bills, contractor P.J. Dick pulled its workers off the property in May, halting work for the second time in the last year. Based on a dozen other companies left holding the bag, Shubh is getting a reputation for not being able to handle its bills.
Among them is Chester Pool Systems Inc., which says Shubh owes it $129,000 for a custom-built pool that was to be part of the renovation.
Engineering firm Whitney Bailey Cox & Magnani LLC says it's been waiting over a year for $100,000 in design fees. Four hotel unions say the Hilton owners have failed to make more than $34,000 in required pension, benefit and annuity payments for hotel workers.
Do the Hilton's owners want to do business in Pittsburgh or not? They've lost their standing as a good civic neighbor. The question now is whether they truly want to be a hotelier at all.
In a phone interview Friday with Post-Gazette staff writer Mark Belko, Harris Mathis, Shubh's chief operating officer, said, "We want to get that project finished as much as anybody."
We'll believe it when we see it.
He said the company was working on its debt with P.J. Dick "to get that caught up to get them back on the job."
How about this week?
Mr. Mathis and his company have tremendous opportunity at this premier location, and its interior renovation has certainly modernized and improved the building. But anyone who walks or drives by the all-too-still exterior has to wonder if the Hilton's owners have the wherewithal to be in the hotel business.
Come September, some international visitors will wonder the same thing.
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