National
Two deaths yesterday are generating some interesting news. First, Vaclav Havel, heroic anti-communist dissident in Czechoslovakia. The Economist has an “in memoriam” column that is a good read:
Havel practised what he preached. He himself was denied higher education, as the scion of a famous bourgeois family. Others might have curried favour by writing plays praising the regime. But he worked as a stage-hand, and studied drama in his spare time. As Czechoslovak communist rule eased in the 1960s, his plays were performed, and gained public acclaim. By 1968, he was a well-known and successful playwright.
For him and the rest of the country’s cultural elite, the Soviet-led invasion posed a sharp problem: emigrate, collaborate, or face the consequences. Philosophers became stokers, and poets street-sweepers. Havel took a job in a brewery (which he wrote about in his play “Audience“). In the mid 1970s he moved into active opposition to the regime, defending the underground rock group Plastic People of the Universe and, in 1977, signing the dissident declaration “Charter 77″.
The late 1970s were tough years for the captive nations of the Soviet empire. Havel was jailed from 1979 to 1984, during which he wrote the letters to his wife, Olga, that later became part of perhaps his best-known book. He also spent many days under arrest and interrogation. Out of jail, his every move, visitor, letter, phone call and utterance were subject to scrutiny by the StB, the secret-police servants of Czechoslovakia’s communist masters.
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Havel was the de-facto leader of the Czechoslovak dissident movement, but it was not a role he enjoyed. He hated the intrusive phone calls from newspapers and radio stations, often retreating to his country cottage for some peace and quiet. He kept his appointments list on a small scrap of folded paper, sometimes entrusted to his beloved friend Zden?k Urbánek, whose stately good manners and quavering English could deter even the pushiest television crews (many would turn up unannounced, determined to interview the “opposition leader” on the spot, regardless of convenience or even agreement). His habitual and even plaintive refrain was that he was a playwright, not a politician. His only desire was for a political system in which he could do the only job that he felt truly qualified to do.
The second death came late yesterday of Kim Jong-Il, dictator in North Korea. Reason’s Matt Welch has a good related post, complete with disturbing video out of Korea:
One of modern history’s greatest monsters, the grand crab of the Hermit Kingdom, is dead of heart failure at 69 after a 17-year reign of terror.
As in most totalitarian monarchies, the death leaves a potential succession crisis in its wake. Son Kim Jong Un, the foreign-educated, maybe-in-his-late-20s annointed successor and known Michael Jordan fan, is said to lack a certain gravitas, and, more importantly, the full confidence of the military. Whatever happens next to the pulverized North Korean populace, it could hardly be worse.
Reason on Kim Jong-Il here. Of special note is John Gorenfeld’sgreat 2005 look into the dictator’s work as a drama critic and librettist, one of many bizarre cult-of-personality traits that made Jong-Il the unlikely breakout star of Team America World Police. As Nick Gillespie wrote in 2004, “North Korea remains a site of cosmically black humor, too real to be funny, a human nightmare incapable of being fully processed.”
Ilya Somin’s posts on Havel and Kim are worth reading as well.
In GOP primary news, Ron Paul has officially taken the lead in polls in Iowa:
A survey by left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) finds the Texas congressman now leading for the GOP nomination in Iowa, where voters cast the first ballots of the 2012 presidential contest on Jan. 3.
Paul today also announced on his website that he raised more than $4 million since Friday in his latest “money bomb,” aimed at helping him in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — which all hold early caucuses or primaries.
Paul’s rise comes as Newt Gingrich fades. The former House speaker has dropped nine percentage points nationally since the beginning of the month, according to the Gallup daily tracking poll.
Note that the Public Policy Polling survey is just one poll, and polls are a snapshot in time.
In Iowa, Gingrich is leading Paul by an average of one point, according to several recent surveys compiled by RealClearPolitics. Mitt Romney is third in the Hawkeye State, according to the RCP data.
Read the full article here. Speaking of poll numbers, Obama continues to decline in popularity:
A majority of adults say President Barack Obama does not deserve a second term but are evenly divided on whether he will win re-election next year, says a new Associated Press-GfK poll that highlights some of the campaign obstacles he faces.
Although the public would prefer Obama be voted out of office, he fares relatively well in potential matchups with Republicans Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Another bit of good news for the Democrat: For the first time since spring, more adults said the economy got better in the past month than said it got worse.
The president’s approval rating on unemployment shifted upward – from 40 percent in October to 45 percent in the latest poll – as the jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent last month, its lowest level since March 2009.
But Obama’s approval rating on his handling of the economy overall remains stagnant: 39 percent approve and 60 percent disapprove.
Heading into the 2012 campaign, the poll shows the challenges facing Obama as he tries to win a second term among a public that does not support his steering of the economy, the most dominant issue for Americans, or his reforms to health care, one of his signature accomplishments. Yet voters appear to be grappling with whether to replace him with Romney or Gingrich.
For the first time, the poll found that a majority of adults, 52 percent, said Obama should be voted out of office while 43 percent said he deserves a second term. The numbers represent a clear reversal since last May, when 53 percent said Obama should be re-elected while 43 percent said he didn’t deserve four more years.
Full article here. On a related note, the Republican Policy Committee explained last week just exactly how Obama is making it worse:
George Will again writes about economic liberty this week, as only he can:
In 1927, seven years before the board game was created, Washington state decided to play monopoly. It gave a private interest the exclusive right to operate a ferry on 55-mile-long Lake Chelan in the northern Cascade Mountains. It apparently will defend this folly until Judgment Day, when state officials will get an earful from the Creator who — we have Jefferson’s word for this — endowed everyone, including Jim and Cliff Courtney, with the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Courtney brothers’ happiness would be enlarged if they could operate a competing ferry. But 84 years ago Washington state asserted a principle much favored by all of America’s governments:It may parcel out certain economic liberties sparingly and only to those who can prove to government that their exercise of their liberty will satisfy some government-concocted criteria.
That principle lacks constitutional warrant and repudiates the nation’s foundational philosophy. Hence the national importance of the Courtney brothers’ litigation, which asks courts to correct judicial mistakes of 1873 and 1938.
Read the full column here and read about the Courtneys’ lawsuit here.
Today’s video is a tribute to Vaclav Havel, a look at the fall of communism and the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (click here to view in YouTube):
New Mexico
New Mexico Watchdog has the story of the altercation between Reps. Stapleton and Espinoza:
During a break in Wednesday’s Legislative Education Study Committee, Rep. Sheryl Williams Stapleton (D-Albuquerque) angrily confronted Rep. Nora Espinoza (R-Roswell), shouting “Don’t mess with me” and accusing Espinoza of “carrying the Mexican’s water on the fourth floor,” referring to Gov. Susana Martinez.
Back on Oct. 28, KRQE-TV aired an investigative piece from Larry Barker that said Stapleton did not take leave from her job as an administrator at the Albuquerque Public Schools system and received pay while attending legislative sessions. (You can click here to see that story.)
I’m pissed,” Stapleton said as she confronted Espinoza during a lunch break at the committee meeting, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Espinoza got a few words in before Stapleton said, “You said I’m corrupt. Prove it!”
“I’ve been falsely and biasly accused,” Stapleton told reporters a few minutes later. “It was a biased story and my colleague added to it by saying I committed corruption.”
Stapleton said she believes Espinoza was set up by people in the governor’s office to criticize Stapleton because she has resisted many of the governor’s educational reform bills. “From what I’ve heard from the blogs across the state,” Stapleton said, “the fourth floor [where the governor's office is located] is behind it.”
When asked about the comment, “carrying the Mexican’s water,” and how some people could consider that offensive, Stapleton said, “If it is, I didn’t mean it to be inflammatory,” adding that she is part Spanish.
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Update: Just got done talking to Espinoza, who said she was startled by Stapleton’s outburst.
“It caught me by surprise,” Espinoza told Capitol Report New Mexico. “I was shocked when she came and attacked me. She doesn’t feel that she did but … everyone there could see it, the loudness of her voice … That’s an ethics violation, first of all, being a legislator. That is wrong, that is totally wrong.”
Stapleton is part of the Democratic House leadership, holding the position of Majority Whip.
Espinoza said she was surprised because, “I never mentioned her [Stapleton] in my criticisms. My comments were aimed at Winston Brooks,” who is the APS superintendent who told Barker in his Channel 13 report that he was changing the school district’s policy about granting leave with pay to APS employees and administrators.
Full story here. Heath Haussamen has the latest on the Richardson federal grand jury investigation:
Two high-profile politicos with ties to Bill Richardsonapparently testified Tuesday before a federal grand jury investigating the former governor.
From The Santa Fe New Mexican:
“A former deputy campaign manager with former Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign and an Albuquerque restaurateur and developer appeared before a federal grand jury looking into possible wrongdoing by the state’s former chief executive.
“But neither Amanda Cooper nor Jimmy Daskalos had anything to say as they entered and left the Pete V. Domenici federal courthouse Tuesday in Albuquerque.
“Cooper is the stepdaughter of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and worked as Richardson’s deputy campaign manager during his presidential run. Cooper also worked on Richardson’s 2006 re-election campaign for governor.
“Daskalos, who has owned Yanni’s, a prominent Albuquerque restaurant, with Richardson insider Nick Kapnison, was a fundraiser for the former governor.”
The Albuquerque Journal added that neither Cooper nor Daskalos would comment on the situation. Grand jury proceedings are secret.
Full article here.
For those who wonder about 2012 in NM, it is looking “safe” for Obama according to Heath Haussamen:
After surveying New Mexico voters recently, a left-leaning polling company says President Barack Obama’s re-election chances in the state look good.
Of course, we’re talking about the group Public Policy Polling, and I’ve already written about the controversy surrounding their work and this specific poll.
At any rate, PPP’s survey found the Democrat Obama leading all Republican candidates by wide margins. In two-person races, Ron Paul came the closest to challenging Obama, with 51 percent saying they would vote for Obama, 38 percent saying they would vote for Paul, and 12 percent being undecided.
However, add former N.M. Gov. Gary Johnson into the mix as a libertarian – Johnson is consideringabandoning his GOP bid for president to do just that – and things get even worse for Republicans. With the three candidates being Obama, Johnson, and Republican Newt Gingrich, for example, Obama won with 45 percent to Gingrich’s 28 percent and Johnson’s 20 percent. In a three-person race that included Republican Mitt Romney instead of Gingrich, Obama won with 44 percent to Romney’s 27 percent and Johnson’s 23 percent.