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A few days ago, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics announced that the government's general budget for next year would be cut by 8 percent — the biggest budget cut the nation has ever experienced. How much worse can the nation's fiscal situation get? A few figures may suggest an answer to this.
First, the ratio of tax revenue to GDP fell on an annual basis from 20 percent in 1990 to 12.8 percent in 2011, and the ratio of the net annual revenue of all levels of government to GDP fell from 25.8 percent to 16.9 percent over the same period.
Second, the government has made various legal amendments and provided all kinds of tax relief and exemptions over the years aimed at attracting domestic and overseas investment, and these measures have greatly eroded the tax base. The most recent statistics show that corporate tax in Taiwan only represents 2.7 percent of GDP, which is much lower than in China and Hong Kong. A survey published by CommonWealth Magazine shows that the average effective tax rate paid by 24 Taiwanese listed companies whose annual profits exceed NT$10 billion (US$334 million) is just 9.1 percent, which is lower than the rate of individual income tax paid by ordinary white-collar workers.
Third, Taiwan is becoming a tax haven for the rich. Several years ago, the government, worried that the rich might move abroad and hoping to attract capital flow back to the nation and thus increase tax revenue, cut the rates of estate tax and gift tax to a flat 10 percent from a maximum of 50 percent, but this only resulted in a fall in tax revenue. The business tax was also cut from 25 percent to 17 percent, but this did not create more job opportunities — even indirectly.
The nation's broadly defined government debt (government bonds plus borrowing) stood at NT$608.4 billion, or 14.5 percent of GDP, in 1990. The government initiated fiscal reform, but affected by the 2008 global financial crisis, the ratio of deficit of all levels of government to GDP rose further. Last year, broad government debt reached NT$6.9975 trillion, or 49.85 percent of GDP.
Borrowing can make a positive contribution to a country's capital formation and economic growth in the short term, but when it reaches a certain threshold, it will affect monetary policy and even generate inflation. Furthermore, the burden of paying interest on debt and repaying the principal could drain the economy, so that the allocation of the nation's resources becomes less effective, thus holding back economic growth. Growth in the US, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Japan has clearly been impeded as a result of having outstanding debt in excess of 100 percent of GDP.
For many years, Taiwanese politicians have been doling out welfare in an irrational way as a way of winning votes, and this has turned Taiwan into a small country with respect to tax revenue, but a big one in terms of welfare spending. Among expenditure categories in this year's budget, social welfare takes first place at NT$438.9 billion, or 22.6 percent of the total, while spending on economic development comes fourth at NT$272.6 billion, or 14 percent. This makes it difficult to stimulate the economy through public-sector investment, and the additional budget cuts scheduled for next year will only make matters worse.
The nation needs to build a sound tax system, remove legal tax loopholes for the rich, and implement a fair, just and secure system of taxation based on the ability to pay. If it fails to do so, and instead keeps cutting taxes for businesses, it will be hard put to increase revenue and cut spending. In that case, government finances cannot be stabilized and Taiwan will sooner or later stumble over a fiscal cliff.
Lee Wo-chiang is a professor in the Department of Banking and Finance at Tamkang University.
Translated by Julian Clegg


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Airlines have canceled more than 7,400 flights as Hurricane Sandy nears major airports along the East Coast.
About 1,200 flights were scratched for Sunday and more than 5,500 were canceled for Monday as airlines scrambled to prepare for a potentially severe storm. An additional 640 flights were dropped for Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com, an airline information service.
Many of the cancellations involved flights coming or going to New York area airports, such as Newark Liberty International, LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy.
PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy, en route to "Frankenstorm"
For Monday, United Airlines had canceled nearly 800 flights and Delta Air Lines had scrubbed more than 500 flights, according to FlightAware data.

subset: commoncrawl


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By CASEY JUNKINS
Shale Play
NATRIUM, W.Va. - The plant has yet to process its first barrel of butane, but Dominion Resources and Caiman Energy have struck a $1.5 billion deal to operate the Natrium natural gas processing facility, along with other Utica and Marcellus shale infrastructure.
Article Photos
The $500 million Dominion plant is scheduled to open early this year. Officials with both Dominion and Caiman believe the plant's location along the Ohio River in Marshall County will allow it to be a centerpiece in the burgeoning Utica and Marcellus shale industries in Ohio and West Virginia.
"The Utica Shale has enormous potential to provide jobs and revenues for the local Ohio economy," said Thomas F. Farrell II, Dominion's chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Because the portion of the Utica Shale targeted today produces a rich gas stream, gathering and processing capacity must be developed so that the natural gas and valuable natural gas liquids can be separated and sold."
Dominion and Caiman will operate the Natrium plant and other infrastructure under the badge of Blue Racer Midstream. In the natural gas and oil industry, the term "midstream" broadly refers to pipelines that gather and transport gas and oil, processing plants, fractionators and compressor stations.
This deal also includes Dominion's gathering pipeline system throughout eastern Ohio, which includes a line connecting to the Natrium plant on the other side of the Ohio River in West Virginia. Dominion officials have said they will be able to process 200 million cubic feet of natural gas per day upon completing the Natrium project's first phase, with the possibility of expanding capacity to 400 million cubic feet per day once the plant is completely finished.
Once the wet Marcellus and Utica shale gas travels to the Dominion plant via the company's pipeline network, the ethane, butane, propane and other natural gas liquids will be separated from the "dry" methane gas so that all the products can be individually marketed.
A company such as Chesapeake Energy - which has agreed to supply the Dominion plant with its gas stream - is known in the industry as a "producer" because it sells the gas that it pumps out of the ground. Because the wet gas requires processing before it can go to market, Chesapeake and other producers send their gas to companies such as Dominion, Williams Partners or MarkWest Energy for processing.
Once separated from the gas stream, the propane and butane will be kept in tanks on the Dominion site to be marketed. However, this cannot be done with ethane because of the product's volatility, so Dominion is looking to ship the ethane to a user.
In April, Caiman sold nearly all of its Marcellus Shale assets - most substantially the processing plant located at Fort Beeler along U.S. 250 between Moundsville and Cameron - to Williams Partners for $2.5 billion. Caiman is now investing in a new Upper Ohio Valley venture.
"Dominion brings well-positioned assets and experienced operations for gathering, processing, fractionating and delivering natural gas and liquids produced from the Utica Shale field," said Jack Lafield, Caiman's chairman and chief executive officer. "With our experience in developing midstream businesses and our $800 million in equity commitments for the joint venture, we can quickly leverage Dominion's assets, expertise and relationships to meet producers' needs as they fully develop their natural gas acreage."


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AP Story on Ariz. Terrorist Bombing Attempt References 1995 OKC Bombing, Not Others Since
Well, it was only a matter of time before the Associated Press was going to have to write up something about a Friday bomb explosion just outside of a Social Security office in Casa Grande, Arizona.
I guess the AP's Brian Skoloff needed time to work on maximizing the misdirection in his report. Instead of associating the attempted bombing by Abdullatif Ali Aldosary, described yesterday in a PJ Media post by Patrick Poole as "an Iraqi refugee" (but not by the AP reporter, of course), with any of the actual or failed terrorist bombing attacks by Islamists both on American soil and overseas beginning in the late 1990s, Skoloff's dispatch strangely decided to go all the way back to 1995 (bolds are mine througout this post):
A man charged with detonating a homemade explosive device outside a Social Security Administration office in Arizona had researched how to construct a particular explosive that authorities say has been used in terrorist bomb plots, according to a criminal complaint.
Abdullatif Ali Aldosary, 47, was charged in federal court with maliciously damaging federal property by means of explosives and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He appeared in a Phoenix courtroom Monday but didn't enter a plea. He is set to appear again on Wednesday.
No defense attorney was listed in court records, and a message left at Aldosary's home wasn't returned.
The small explosion occurred Friday morning outside a Social Security office in Casa Grande, about 50 miles south of Phoenix. Authorities said no employees were in the building at the time, no one was injured, and the damage wasn't extensive.
… According to the criminal complaint filed Saturday, authorities executing a search warrant at Aldosary's home in nearby Coolidge found documents explaining how to build a bomb hidden behind a picture. The papers included explanations of what specific chemicals to use, such as ammonium nitrate, the same type of fertilizer Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
You would think that 1995 might have been the last time ammonium nitrate was used in a terrorist bombing attack. Not exactly as ABC's Brian Ross (yeah, that Brian Ross) reported in 2006:
Ammonium Nitrate: Weapon of Choice for Terrorists?
Ammonium nitrate has been used around the world in devastating terror attacks — from Istanbul, Turkey to Oklahoma City. There's even an al Qaeda video posted on the internet, showing how to mix ammonium nitrate to make a bomb. "Ammonium nitrate is a weapon of choice for terrorists," said Congressman Peter King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Yet as a widely used fertilizer, it is easily and cheaply purchased at farm supply and gardening stores around the country. There is no federal law restricting, or even requiring registration of, who can buy it and no background checks required as we discovered in the course of an ABC News undercover investigation.
In other words, based on the more recent track record (including the six years since), the more appropriate frame of reference relating to who is actively using ammonium nitrate isn't disturbed supposedly right-wing psychopaths like Timothy McVeigh (it should be noted that McVeigh was very likely assisted to a significant degree by Islamists). It's al Qaeda-backed and al Qaeda-influenced Islamic terrorists, including the Kenyan embassy bombing, which killed more people than did McVeigh in Oklahoma City.
Though it's apparently too early to tell what Aldosary's motivations were, Poole reports, based on discussions he claims to have had with insiders (from what I can tell, his position in life is such that he is able to have such discussions):
… it is highly unlikely that Aldosary will be charged with any terrorism offense. While they are internally treating it like a domestic terrorism investigation, including looking at if he had any help constructing the explosive device, the FBI is saying very little and will prosecute this as a simple explosives and arson case because of "the political sensitivities involved."
Translation: Consistent with its treatment of the Ft. Hood murders as "workplace violence," he Obama administration is hellbent on keeping its alleged track record of "no terrorist attacks on American soil" intact by calling real terrorism something else.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.


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The AG|WPJA is proud to announce that D-65 is sponsoring all of our 2009 quarterly photo contests. Through this sponsorship, the AG|WPJA and D-65 have come together to offer our members an exciting opportunity to be educated by some of the digital innovators in the photography industry.
Do you want to quickly process your files and have them look awesome? Do you want to be able to find any image in the blink of an eye? Are you keywording properly and using metadata to your advantage? Do your prints look the way you want? Can you convert to CMYK? Wondering how to set up a real archive? Are you working in 16-bit and using ProPhoto? Can you extend the dynamic range of an image? Is your computer optimized for workflow, or is it running slow? Would you like to blow your clients away with quality they rarely see? Are your digital files better than your film files? They should be.
If you've asked yourself any of these questions, then D-65 has THE Workshop for you.
The key to shooting digitally is comprehending all of the technology. Once you understand what is involved, digital is intensely rewarding. Digital offers a world of new creativity and allows for greater quality control over your imagery.
The D-65 workshops teach bulletproof techniques to increase workflow productivity and save time. These workshops demonstrate ways to automate, search, archive, present and deliver the zillions of images today's photographers accumulate. Attendees will learn to create files perfect for reproduction; tagged, named, sized and sharpened correctly, along with attaching the appropriate metadata and keywords. You'll learn the correct way to keep your images organized, and archived. The workshops are intensive, and focus on optimizing digital photography -- from input to output.
Grow technically, artistically and financially as a photographer in this intensive, four-day digital workflow workshop. Our days consist of hands-on training and lectures supplemented by a comprehensive D-65 digital workflow textbook. By the end of the program, you will have the ability to create your own successful workflow, and better communicate with your clients.
Workshops now include training with Lightroom 2.0
The program centers around Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, going far beyond the basics of digital. It truly prepares the professional photographer, art director, photo editor or advanced amateur for the digital world. The workshops are taught by Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer and cover:
- Adobe Lightroom 2.0
- Photoshop CS3
- Digital Asset Management
- Optimizing Lightroom & Photoshop Preferences
- Color Spaces
- File Formats
- Digital Standards
- Exposing for Digital
- White Balance
- Color Management from Input to Output
- Profiling Monitors & Systems
- Using Lightroom: The 5 Modules
- Lightroom Catalog & Preferences
- Importing Images into Lightroom
- File Naming Conventions
- Metadata & Keywording
- Rating Your Images
- Tweaking Your Files - the Beauty of Parametric Editing
- Sharpening: Capture, Creative and Output
- Processing Files
- Custom Presets
- Automating Workflow
- Creating Actions for Lightroom
- Client Delivery
- FTP File Transmission
- Web Galleries, Slide Shows, PDF Presentations
- Printing, Soft Proofing & ICC Profiles
- Converting to CMYK
- Archiving
- Retouching for Digital
- The Business of Digital
- Copyright and Security
- Digital Camera Maintenance


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Today marks the debut of the third stylistic incarnation of A View to Hugh. I hope you like it! So what does this mean for you, our readers? Beyond just the different "look-and-feel" of this new WordPress theme, "Twenty Eleven," (more on themes later), the updated style allows for different kinds of posts than our previous themes (first "Blue Zinfindel" followed by "Atahualpa"). I'll be experimenting with these new features for future posts. If nothing else, the cleaner look will hopefully offer you a refreshing, easy-to-read experience. And while we had the capability before with the previous theme, I've categorized the links to other websites and blogs to make them easier to find and use. Also added are two icons for links to Facebook and Twitter to make it easier for you to share a post with your friends. All that, and there's no change in the admission price. Please let me know what you think of the changes!
So why the change? In the spirit of a "Behind-the-Scenes" post, the answer is . . .
Side note: If "library talk" is less enjoyable to you than the sound of fingernails scraping a blackboard, now would be a great time to explore previous posts and leave a comment, read one of the great essays from last year (maybe the essay that includes today's featured photograph) and start or contribute to a discussion, or explore the online collection of Hugh Morton images!
. . . With the growing desire by library staff members to create new blogs, the library's IT (information technology) department has become increasingly confronted by the challenges associated with maintaining the corresponding growth in the number of different WordPress themes selected by staff to design their blogs. (Phew, that was a mouthful!)
WordPress is the software used by the UNC Library that makes these blogs possible. A WordPress theme is "a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying, unifying design for a blog.
WordPress has a rigorous schedule for version updating. Every time WordPress releases a new version of its software, Library IT staff have to check each blog theme to be sure that it works properly, and then fix what was broken. That process was getting to be more and more cumbersome with each WordPress upgrade. The same held true when a theme creator updated a theme.
To make life simpler, Library IT initially thought that they might limit staff choices to just a handful of themes. They eventually concluded, however, that we could select one from any of the 114 free themes supported by WordPress.com (the "hosted" flavor of WordPress where your blog is maintained on its servers; the WordPress software available for downloading onto your own computer/server is obtained from www.wordpress.org.)
At first glance, supporting any number of those 114 themes may seem like even more work. The key to Library IT's decision, however, is that (theoretically) by limiting our theme choice to one of those supported by WordPress.com, there is a greater likelihood that a particular theme's code would also be updated so that it functions properly in conjunction with the underlying WordPress content management software upgrade—and thus function properly with minimal effort on our part.
So . . . if you are still following along, you may have deduced that our previous theme was not among the approved 114 themes. (There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of WordPress themes out there!)
To pick a theme that I thought would work for A View to Hugh, I used the WordPress Themes Showcase and filtered for "Art" and "Photography" and "Three-columns" . . . and didn't see anything I liked. More browsing lead me to "Duster," which I really liked. Seeing Duster made me think that using three-columns was not as important as it was when we began, because the nature of the blog has changed since processing the collection is now complete. The need for two side columns to hold all the links closer to the top of the screen just didn't feel as compelling, and "expanding" to two columns would allow the photographs to be displayed a bit larger (35 pixels wider) and yet still feature the written word. A View to Hugh has always been about a dialogue between our writers, our audience, and the photographs, which is why we quickly discarded the notion of a "photoblog" in the early design stage back in 2007.
To wrap things up . . . a few days after settling on Duster, WordPress.com announced its new default theme for this year, Twenty Eleven, which they touted as an improved and enhanced version of Duster. We made the switch . . . and now you know why A View to Hugh met Twenty Eleven in 2011.


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A sudden spasm of violence in western Iraq has reignited the debate over how much responsibility the United States bears for the current turmoil in the Middle East and whether the right response is to wade in deeper or keep its distance.
For some foreign-policy analysts, the bloodshed this month in Iraq's western Anbar province, where more than 1,000 American forces died in the fight against Sunni Muslim insurgents, is a reminder that the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 galvanized a jihadist movement that plagues the region today.
Analysts in this camp say the lesson is that U.S. military intervention – whether in Iraq's current violence or in the civil war in neighboring Syria – is too risky in a region that's highly unstable after the so-called Arab Spring uprisings.
In the opposing camp, other analysts argue that it's precisely the Obama administration's inaction on Syria that's allowed the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – an al Qaida affiliate – to carve out operational space in the lawless stretch between rebel-controlled eastern Syria and the tribal badlands of western Iraq.
Had the U.S. only armed the early moderate rebels, the reasoning goes, they would've been a more formidable foil to the jihadists who ultimately hijacked the movement to try and topple Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime. Now, the al Qaida operatives trying to reclaim territory in Iraq's Anbar province have a cross-border escape route, making it difficult for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to rout them even with expedited weapons deliveries from the United States.
"Now all of a sudden the Obama administration realizes, 'Wait, we should get involved here because al Qaida has this massive base in eastern Syria'? Well, now it's almost too late," said Kirk Sowell, a Jordan-based political risk analyst who's the editor of the newsletter "Inside Iraqi Politics."
Sowell said the United States should push Maliki on reforms that would make his security apparatus more representative and professional, but he added that the war in Syria limits the extent to which the prime minister would be able to confront al Qaida: "As long as ISIS has this base in eastern Syria, that's a huge part of the resurgence."
The link between the Anbar unrest and the civil war next door is another point of contention in foreign policy circles, where many analysts don't buy the argument that the bloodshed that straddles the Iraqi-Syrian border could've been avoided had the U.S. moved quickly to support the moderate rebels.
The British journalist Brian Whitaker, who's covered the Middle East for years with The Guardian newspaper, wrote this week that for all the criticism of the U.S. response to Syria, nobody has come up with an alternative that's indisputably better.
"To some extent, Obama is being blamed for not behaving towards Syria as George Bush behaved towards Iraq – and we all know where that led," Whitaker wrote on al-bab.com, his blog about politics in the Arab world. "There are still too many Americans who find it difficult to accept that the power of the United States has limitations and who view every problem, no matter where it occurs, as one that the U.S. has an obligation to try and solve – even at the risk of making things worse."
Anbar province's descent has spawned a flurry of commentary from longtime Iraq observers – academics, diplomats and military strategists – whose advice to the White House ranges from steering clear and letting the Iraqis resolve an internal conflict to beefing up military support for Maliki in a decisive battle to keep al Qaida from reclaiming an old foothold.
Still others land somewhere in the middle, advocating U.S. help for Maliki to combat al Qaida, but only on the condition that he take concrete steps to address the long-standing Sunni grievances and institutional sectarianism that have plagued the country.
"Provision of increased military support should be contingent on a true power-sharing agreement, one that respects the rights of all Iraqi citizens and brings to an end the vicious witch hunts against Sunni politicians," argued Peter Mansoor, a retired colonel who served as executive officer to U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq and who now teaches at Ohio State University. "Until he agrees to such arrangements, Prime Minister Maliki should be left to handle the situation in his country on his own."
So far the U.S. response has been fairly muted. Secretary of State John Kerry declared, "This is their fight," and ruled out the possibility of sending U.S. troops to help. But the administration did accelerate the delivery of 100 Hellfire missiles and 10 drones, and is lobbying Congress to permit the sale of a fleet of attack helicopters. Lawmakers have been reluctant to support the sale because of Maliki's backsliding on the path to more democratic rule.
James Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012, told "PBS NewsHour" that he disagreed with Kerry's stance, and he argued that the United States should focus on flushing out al Qaida even if it meant going soft on Maliki. The eradication of al Qaida in Iraq should be a national security priority for the United States, he argued.
"This is our fight," Jeffrey said this week in a PBS appearance. "We fought there in 2004 and we fought there, in part, to drive al Qaida out after they established a foothold. The Maliki government, for all of its problems, is still a government that's a quasi-ally of ours."
Another vocal Maliki supporter is Douglas Ollivant, who served as Iraq director on the National Security Council in the Bush and Obama administrations and was among the military intellectuals advising Petraeus when he was in Iraq. Now affiliated with the New America Foundation research center in Washington, Ollivant argued that while Maliki isn't blameless, the greater threat is al Qaida.
"Politicians make mistakes and miscalculate," Ollivant wrote online for the journal Foreign Policy. "But the fact remains that a terrorist force is blowing up thousands of Iraqi citizens. What kind of responsible elected official would just sit around and do nothing?"
And that's where the views of Maliki diverge. A whole cadre of Iraq observers – among them some who advocate more U.S. involvement to quell the latest unrest – would scoff at the notion that the prime minister has performed as a "responsible elected official." Indeed, they say, the list of his administration's misdeeds is long and well documented.
Some commentators question the wisdom of the U.S. going after ISIS at all, especially if it aligns the United States with the problematic Maliki administration. Maliki repeatedly has invoked sectarian rhetoric, costing his administration potential Sunni supporters who now feel caught between al Qaida's dubious offers of protection and a perceived government campaign to subjugate Sunnis.
"If the greatest U.S. concern is the growth of ISIS as a potential threat to the United States, then the best thing it can do is keep far, far away from Maliki," said Jacqueline L. Hazelton, a professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College. "Maliki's authoritarian tendencies provide one more rallying point for jihadis."


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Ty lawsonTy Lawson @TyLawson3
It Looks like im going to be a nugget for another 4 yrs..Thanks to the Kronke family, Masai, nuggets fans and everybody 4 believing In me
Kudos to Ty_Lawson in the off-season thread for breaking the news first.
Ty lawsonTy Lawson @TyLawson3
It Looks like im going to be a nugget for another 4 yrs..Thanks to the Kronke family, Masai, nuggets fans and everybody 4 believing In me
Kudos to Ty_Lawson in the off-season thread for breaking the news first.
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DPTy Lawson has agreed to contract extension with Nuggets
Point guard Ty Lawson has agreed to sign an extension with the Nuggets on a four-year, $48 million contract, a league source confirmed.
Lawson, 24, is one of the Nuggets' key players, the motor of Denver's fast-paced offense. In his first season as a starter in 2011-12, Lawson averaged 16.4 points per game and 6.6 assists.
Lawson was drafted out of North Carolina after winning a national championship in 2009. For his career, the 5-foot-11 guard has averaged 12 points per game and 4.8 assists.
According to coach George Karl, Lawson can improve by being more aggressive. For instance, in Game 4 and Game 5 in the first-round playoff series against the Lakers, Lawson scored 11 and nine points; in Games 6-7, he scored 32 and 24. Karl has said time and again that for Lawson to reach the highest echelon of Western Conference point guards, he must find ways for his team to win more regularly.
So he wanted an extra 3 mil?? Maybe there are more bonuses in this one..or guaranteed money.
Anyway, in Uriji I trust. He does it again.
Very good news!
We messed up in signing McGee to that contract this offseason. He should have made closer to 10. Still with this, Masai has 7 of our 8 best players locked up for the next 3 years, and once we extend iggy we will have all 8 of our best players for a long time. (All 5 starters and Miller, Chandler, Koufus). This is the last extension I see us giving until Iggy in 2014, but I expect a move made by next offseason. I am kinda over the Idea of getting another FA considering our high salary already, so instead I believe we should look to a get a really high draft pick. A package of Mozzy, Hamilton and Maybe Brewer + our 1st rounder might land us a potential top 5 pick. Do this for either this year or next years draft. Congrats Ty! I have loved watching you ever since you were a rook, and i will continue to love watching you for the next 5 seasons!
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DEN is pretty capped out now, but with trade assets for either a true star or a top 5 pick. But to get a top 5 pick you probably have to include Chandler or maybe even Gallo.
And I would have to agree, unless we move someone like McGee (or another high salary piece), we will need to build through the draft as they come with much lower salaries in the short term.
I saw the google chat with Iguodala and he said the best shooter on the team is Gallo, followed by Hamilton. So I am hoping Gallo has a breakout season. Hoping he does not become any part of trade rumors in the future. And his salary right now does look like a bargain when compared to McGee and Lawson.
Ty has posted 16.4, 17.9, 19.4 PER of his 3 seasons thus far. Rondo has never hit higher than 19.1 PER. Ty also has the superior true shooting percentage (TS%) of .589 while Rondo posts a .513. Rondo is the far superior defender and facilitates better than Ty (although Ty is getting better at that and also is picking it up on the steals department) but Ty is the superior offensive weapon and he's not even established yet.
If Ty continues his improvement and there is really no reason to believe he won't..he'll out produce his contract.
It's all mental with Ty though, it's always been. That's the one big problem.
I expect Ty to be Tynomite tomorrow night, with all the stress and hassles of the contract now out of the way, it's time for him to just play basketball.
As you mentioned in another thread, I think McGee will now play off others and not try to create his own shot until he proves he can do it consistently in practice.
Do believe we will see the really Nuggets tomorrow night, especially since Lawson will be playing to his high octane pace again.
great resigning... if we can resign iggy we have our core together for a long time.
idk unless injuries occur in the west I don't see Ty being an all star. Westbroook, Paul, Parker, Linn (China voting), Nash, Curry. It will be touuuugh.
What I meant with that was that he has the best chance to be that "superstar" that analysts always bring up about us as a weakness not actually make it to the NBA all-star game..
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Episode #1311
series: Piano Guy
air date: 4/28/13 12:30 PM
Host Scott Houston and guests show viewers how to play the Les Brown big band hit "Sentimental Journey" and the signature lick to Elton John's "Crocodile Rock." Featured guests include David Tolley, Dave Powers and Lori Mechem.
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As Memphis International Airport expands and contracts depending on the time of day, the state of the airline industry and the financial climate, much of the responsibility of keeping the facility running smoothly falls to John Greaud.
The vice president of operations for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority and his team of approximately 240 employees are charged with seeing that day-to-day functioning of the airport remains at a constant.
The MSCAA owns and operates three airports – Memphis International, General DeWitt Spain north of Downtown and Charles W. Baker in Millington – yet most of the focus of Greaud's work and resources are on Memphis International.
FedEx, UPS, Wilson Air Center, Tennessee Air National Guard and Signature Flight Support all lease ground from the Airport Authority but are responsible for managing and maintaining their own facilities.
Three divisions fall under Greaud's purview.
The maintenance division includes maintaining the structure and public spaces of the terminal, the landscaping, runways, taxiways and road systems, but not the detail maintenance of space leased by individual airlines and concessionaires. This division is also responsible for vehicle fleet maintenance for Memphis International, Baker and Spain.
The development division handles environmental, planning, design and construction of the facilities.
The third of Greaud's divisions is operations, which covers the airport's police department, communications center and ID office. It is responsible for emergency planning, certification through the Federal Aviation Administration and the coordination to ensure they meet those requirements daily, Transportation Security Administration coordination, and aircraft rescue and firefighting.
In addition to these three divisions, Greaud also oversees the customer service department and its 65 volunteers, and the Dorothy L. Bobbitt Health Station, which is contracted out to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
It's a massive job, he admits, "and that's part of the reason there's not a typical day, it's all over the place, I go wherever I need to based upon the time."
The son of an Air Force pilot, Greaud moved around a lot as a child.
"People ask me where I'm from and I say, 'I don't know,'" he says with a laugh.
For the record, he was born in Texas and lived in England, South Carolina, Las Vegas, and Virginia for high school and college. His career began with training from Virginia Tech, followed by four years in the U.S. Air Force as a civil engineer.
"I did a variety of things there, to include essentially what my development division does, and then for a while I was involved in the maintenance end of things," Greaud said. "So that's where I started my airport experience, in the military."
A year as a district manager for Taco Bell gave him experience – though vastly different from his engineering background – as a manager.
"Part of what the Air Force does with their officers when they come in is they teach you to be a manager," he said. "As I was seeking positions outside the Air Force, I knew I didn't want to sit behind a design desk all day long and do detail design; that's just not my personality. I need to interact with people and be involved in other things."
He would eventually find his way back to the tarmac, though, and landed his first job with a civilian airport in Birmingham, Ala., as an engineer.
He came to Memphis International in 1989 as a projects engineer in the development division, where he worked for nine years before becoming director of maintenance for another nine. He began his current position in 2008.
Greaud retired from the Air Force Reserve in 2011, and enjoys spending time now with his wife, Joanna, their two children, Josh and Julie, and two grandchildren. When it comes time to unwind, he hits the water with the Collierville Ski Club.
With such extensive experience with airports and the airline business, Greaud sees firsthand the current state of his industry with its airline mergers and a change in philosophy from chasing market share to chasing profit – and yet he remains cautiously optimistic for Memphis International.
"What I see going forward," he said, "is that we will see a slight increase – slow, steady growth – in local traffic."


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Beauty Secrets
Terri Trespicio shares easy ways to beautify your skin and hair.
Sunscreen may rule your summer skin-care regimen, but keeping your skin and hair beautiful requires more than just UV protection. Terri Trespicio, senior editor at Whole Living magazine, shares important tips for staying exfoliated, moisturized, and glowing.
How to Exfoliate Your Skin
Exfoliation is detox for your skin: It removes dead skin cells, improves circulation, and invigorates your entire body.
"Dry brushing is a simple but effective way to keep your skin in great shape," Terri says. Try using a body brush once a day before showering, starting at your feet and brushing in small, circular patterns toward your heart. Then, brush your hands, arms, torso, and neck.
Facial exfoliant scrubs are another effective option. Try exfoliating your face once a week with a gentle exfoliator.
Products to Try
Simple Moisturizers
Keeping skin moisturized remains important even as warm weather approaches. For a simple approach, try rubbing a bit of plant oil -- such as jojoba, coconut, or almond oil -- into your skin and hair right after the shower.
For deeper moisturizing, make a simple mask using household ingredients: Combine 1 tablespoon Greek yogurt with 1 teaspoon honey, and apply to face.
Product to Try: Aura Cacia Sweet Almond Oil (More Info | Buy)
Healthy Food, Healthy Skin
Great skin starts from the inside out, with a healthy, nutritious diet. Antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables such as apples, blueberries, beets, and collard greens help fight free-radical damage to the skin.
Healthy fats such as omega-3s are also important for keeping skin lubricated, reducing water loss, and decreasing inflammation. Avocados, sardines, and wild salmon are all excellent sources of omega-3s, but dietary supplements can also do the trick.
Products to Try
Keeping Hair Beautiful
Hair can sustain a good deal of damage over the summer as we spend time under the sun and in chlorine-filled pools. For an easy way to remove impurities from hair, apply 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to your hair once a week after shampooing, leave in for five minutes, and rinse and condition. As an alternative, use a store-bought clarifying shampoo.
Learn More About Clarifying Shampoo
It's also important to add moisture back into your hair during a sun-filled summer. Try applying a deep-conditioning mask once a week to restore moisture and softness.
Products to Try


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Making Do Without Doughty: Los Angeles Kings Open 2011 Training Camp
September 18, 2011 8 Comments
TRAINING CAMP COVERAGE: Frozen Royalty's coverage of the Los Angeles Kings' 2011 Training Camp begins with details on who might get ice time as a replacement for holdout defenseman Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar's ankle and how it held up on the first day, more on Dustin Penner's conditioning, and on Dustin Brown trying to build chemistry with new line mates. Includes 15 audio interviews from Day 1 of training camp.
EL SEGUNDO, CA — The Los Angeles Kings hit the ice for the first time during their 2011 Training Camp on Saturday, September 17, and, unless you've been hiding under a rock, or vacationing in a desolate, primitive area, isolated from the hockey world, you know that defenseman Drew Doughty is in the midst of a contract dispute with the Kings, and is now a holdout.
Indeed, the 21-year-old defenseman was nowhere to be found when the Kings hit the ice at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, California, their practice facility.
With no end in sight in the Doughty saga, the story was not just his absence, but who might fill his skate boots should he continue to holdout.
"The plans [for training camp] do not change at all," said head coach Terry Murray. "We're going to miss Doughty. I wish he was here to be a part of it. He's a very important player, he's a big part of the locker room, and a fun guy to be around. He's a great player for us, but the plans do not change for the training camp. We have to get ready for the start of the year." Read more of this post


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Lack of depth dooms LSU women in loss to Kentucky
- Associated Press
- January 27, 2013 - 6:16 PM
LEXINGTON, Ky. - On a day in which LSU's reserves scored a total of six points, No. 5 Kentucky used its depth to beat the Lady Tigers.
Azia Bishop scored a career-high 17 points in 20 points for the Wildcats in the 73-60 victory on Sunday.
Kentucky had 27 total points from its bench: Bishop's 17, eight from freshman Janee Thompson, and two points from Kastine Evans.
"Their depth played a huge role," LSU leading scorer Theresa Plaisance said. "When you have a player coming off the bench scoring double figures, high double figures, that's always a plus. Their size inside_they could sub out their inside game as well as their outside game. Their bench was just as good as their starters. That's always a plus when your bench can come in and just keep up the tempo of your starting five."
Plaisance, the SEC's leading scorer at 18.3 points per game, sat on the bench for much of the first half with two fouls for LSU. She still finished with 19 points in 30 minutes, but fouled out with 42 seconds to play, at which point LSU (12-8, 3-4 SEC) was down 67-60.
She could only watch as Bishop took over.
Bishop, a 6-3 sophomore who was averaging 3.2 points and 2.9 rebounds before Sunday's game, shot 7 of 10 from the floor in 20 minutes, and she stepped up at several key passages in which LSU threatened the Wildcats' lead. She also had five rebounds.
The Lady Tigers traded the lead with Kentucky (19-2, 7-1) several times throughout the first half but could never gain a lead of more than one possession. With 26 seconds until halftime and the game tied at 26, Bishop hit a 3-pointer.
After an LSU turnover, Bishop put in a lay-up with 10 seconds to go to give the Wildcats a 31-26 halftime lead.
"I think she gave the team a big spark, especially because in their zone, the middle was open a lot," Kentucky guard Jennifer O'Neill said. "She was able to flash and be a presence there. But then she turned around to shoot, too. I give credit to her that she's a good shooter and a lot of people don't know that. She showed it today."
The Lady Tigers closed Kentucky's lead to 49-45 with 8:40 to play, and Bishop scored her first basket of the second half on the next possession. When LSU got within five points in the second half on two occasions, Bishop answered both times with baskets on the next possession.
With 53 seconds to play and LSU trailing 66-60, Kentucky's Samarie Walker drew a foul on a defensive rebound attempt. After the whistle, Walker jerked away from the scrum of LSU players and was assessed a technical foul. But Adrienne Webb, who had 18 points and is an 80-percent free-throw shooter this season, missed both technical free throws.
The Wildcats, whose 17-game win streak was snapped Thursday against No. 18 South Carolina, scored the last nine points of the game over its final two minutes to pull away late. The 13-point margin of victory was also the Wildcats' largest lead of the game.
"The last two minutes of the game, you could see a level of intensity rise in their ability to push the ball 94 feet," LSU coach Nikki Caldwell said. "You saw players making plays down the stretch. Defensively we had opportunities, but then we broke down and they were able to pick us apart."
© 2018 Star Tribune


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Winner Selected for 2013 Jon E Hastings Memorial Award Writing Competition
Wyatt Sassman, a third-year student at Vanderbilt University Law School, has won first place in the TBA Environmental Law Section's 2013 Jon E. Hastings Memorial Award Writing Competition. His article "Administrative Compliance Orders and Due Process after Sackett" looks at the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which allowed an Idaho couple to challenge an EPA order requiring restoration of a wetland before the agency enforced the order with penalties. Sassman argues three points: that the court disregarded precedent and legislative history in finding for the Sacketts, that administrative orders do not violate due process rights, and that federal agencies should be free to use such orders without judicial interference. He will collect a cash award and his article will be published in an upcoming section newsletter.
Read the TBA's press release on the winning essay
The full article follows:
Administrative Compliance Orders and Due Process After Sackett
By Wyatt Sassman
When asked to speak on his originalist judicial philosophy, Justice Scalia quipped "It's a pizzazzy topic: Constitutional Interpretation."[1] The Justice recalled a television debate on the Court's then-recent decision in Roper v. Simmons.[2] One pundit argued that the court got it right: people should not be subjected to the death penalty for crimes they committed while under the age of eighteen.[3] Another argued that the court got it wrong: a jury should have the option, given the right context, to subject people to capital punishment regardless of age.[4] The Justice responded, "It struck me how irrelevant it was, how much the point had been missed. The question wasn't whether the call was right or wrong. The important question was who should make the call."[5] To Justice Scalia, the question presented in Roper was not whether the application of the death penalty in this particular situation was right or wrong. The correct question, and what ultimately controlled Justice Scalia's opinion in Roper, was whether the Constitution had delegated this decision to someone other than the judiciary. Scalia believed that it had, and that by focusing on the application of the law rather than the constitutional structure both the Roper majority and the television debaters had missed the whole point.
One must wonder if Justice Scalia feels the same about the public's reaction to Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. That case questioned whether the Michael and Chantell Sackett could seek immediate judicial review of an Administrative Compliance Order (ACO) issued to them by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the authority of the Clean Water Act (CWA).[6] The Sacketts received this ACO while building a home in scenic Idaho, with a nice view of Priest Lake.[7] The ACO asserted that the Sackett's lot is a wetland subject to the jurisdiction of the CWA, and that the Sacketts had violated the Act when they filled in their wetland without a permit.[8] The ACO required the Sacketts to return their parcel to its original condition (a costly demand given their construction work) and threatened further civil or administrative penalties if the Sackett's failed to comply with the order.[9] Stalwart, the Sacketts requested a hearing before the Agency to argue that their land is not a wetland.[10] The Agency denied their request for a hearing.[11]
With the help of a property rights advocacy group, the Sacketts filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.[12] The Sacketts again argued that their property is not a wetland subject to the CWA, but now they also argued that CWA ACOs are an unconstitutional deprivation of due process rights.[13] The court dismissed the action, agreeing with "every published district court decision on this same issue" that the court lacked jurisdiction to assess an ACO issued under the CWA prior to EPA initiating its own enforcement action—in other words, ACOs were immune to pre-enforcement judicial review.[14] Stalwart, the Sacketts appealed the decision but lost yet again.[15] An issue of first impression before the Ninth Circuit, the court addressed the constitutional claims in depth but was nevertheless persuaded by the "uniformity of consensus on this issue"—that ACOs were neither reviewable prior to enforcement nor a violation of due process rights.[16]
The Sacketts' plight grew in popularity. Their case became a "cause celebre for the right, which [was] depicting the EPA as an out of control agency."[17] The couple appeared on Lou Dobbs' television program three times in 2011, and testified before Congress in October of 2012 regarding the "government's assault on private property."[18] Journalists wondered if the Sacketts "might get a friendlier reception from the Supreme Court," given that "Justice Antonin Scalia once complained that the EPA has used its authority over wetlands to claim control over an 'immense' area of the nation."[19] Bloggers argued that "private citizens should not be forced into bankruptcy as the penalty for pursuing the American Dream."[20]
The Sacketts appealed to the Supreme Court. The government urged the Court to deny certiorari, "noting that every federal Circuit Court to face the issue had ruled against allowing pre-enforcement lawsuits, limiting enforcement to cases in which EPA chose to sue."[21] The Court nevertheless accepted the case and issued its decision on March 22, 2012. The Court held that the Sacketts could challenge the EPA's jurisdiction over their land through pre-enforcement judicial review of the ACO.[22] The Court's decision was unanimous, with Justice Ginsburg and Justice Alito writing separate concurrences.[23]
The Court intended its decision to be a limited one. As Justice Ginsburg noted in her concurrence, the Court only held that "the Sacketts may immediately litigate their jurisdictional challenge in federal court," and that other concerns such as the content and constitutionality of the ACO are questions that the opinion "does not reach out to resolve."[24] One law professor opined that "the Sackett decision is not based on any particular notion of property rights [and, in fact, it] hardly mentions property rights."[25] But such restraint was limited to the campus, or soon forgotten:
Last month, the Supreme Court righteously defended due process and private property when they unanimously ruled against the egregious regulatory abuses of The Government in Sackett v. EPA. It was a definitive victory for the freedom of the individual over the whims of a power-tripping bureaucracy, and we should take it as such.[26]
To be fair, observers are merely that. But one must wonder, did the public really miss the point?
The Supreme Court did more than give the Sacketts their fair day in court when they reversed the judgment of nearly every federal court that had addressed the reviewability of ACOs under the CWA—the Court stuck a wrench in a much larger enforcement scheme. ACOs are one of EPAs most utilized enforcement tools. Most of the nation's major environmental laws authorize EPA to issue ACOs. Three of these laws, the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) contain ACO schemes nearly identical to the CWA. Importantly, none of these statutes include an explicit prohibition on pre-enforcement review of ACOs—courts had implied a prohibition from the legislative history and statutory structure of these laws. In Sackett the Court discounted the legislative history and statutory design of the CWA that convinced all other federal courts of Congress' intent to prohibit pre-enforcement review of ACOs. It is only by diminishing Congress' intent that the Court subjected the ACO scheme to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Observers applying Sackett to the other statutes expect that their ACO schemes will suffer the same fate.
One ACO scheme, however, seems to survive the reasoning in Sackett. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup, and Liability Act (CERCLA) explicitly prohibits pre-enforcement judicial review of ACOs. When faced with the explicit rather than implicit intent of Congress, Sackett's reasoning will not apply. CERLCA ACOs will likely stand as the only ACO scheme insulated from pre-enforcement review after Sackett.
As such, CERCLA invites the due process question. The Due Process Clause of the Constitution requires "that some form of hearing is required before an individual is finally deprived of a property interest."[27] If pre-enforcement judicial review is that hearing in a post-Sackett world, does CERCLA violate the Constitution by denying that hearing to a litigant who can articulate a property interest?
The Court has declined to hear a direct due process challenge to ACOs,[28] and avoided the issue in Sackett. Instead, the Sackett Court focused on a regulated party's ability to challenge EPA's asserted jurisdiction—whether the EPA was right or wrong when it issued a particular ACO. But this Essay argues that important question in Sackett is not whether the call was right or wrong, but who should make the call.
When the Court opened ACOs to pre-enforcement review, the Court removed the structural element that distinguishes ACOs as a separate enforcement tool. Congress, however, intended ACOs to be a separate enforcement tool from judicial enforcement. Legislative history shows that Congress made the decision to delay judicial review of ACOs in order to give the Agency a tool that was quicker and more flexible than the judicial and administrative enforcement tools already available to it. In essence, Congress made a decision to empower administrative efficiency at the expense of immediate judicial review. Congress' ability to make this choice implicates the very nature of administrative agencies in our constitutional structure, and these constitutional concerns have long motivated courts to defer to an agency's ability to enforce its laws as delegated by Congress.
These same constitutional concerns control the enforcement of due process rights by our courts. When courts address a procedural due process issue they weigh the significance of the private interest at risk of deprivation without a hearing against the government's interest in avoiding judicial interference with its desired program. By articulating the constitutional implications of Congress' ability to empower its executive agencies, this Essay argues that the government's interest in avoiding judicial interference with the ACO scheme is strong. So strong that it will outweigh any private property interest articulated by a regulated party who receives an ACO. As such, ACOs insulated from pre-enforcement review do not violate the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. The Sackett Court worried that EPA was making the wrong decisions when it issued ACOs. As a result, the Court ignored congressional intent to find that ACOs are subject to immediate rather than delayed judicial review. But Sackett focused on the wrong question. The important question is whether a court should make this call. This Essay argues that a court should not.
The Basics - ACOs are a complementary enforcement tool used alongside traditional judicial and administrative enforcement in environmental law. They are utilized in the nation's most pervasive environmental policies, and in nearly every medium.[29] Most commonly, ACOs are one of three civil enforcement options available to the EPA: direct judicial enforcement, administrative adjudication subject to judicial review, or an ACO.[30] Because they offer unique speed, structure, and flexibility, ACOs have become the EPA's most commonly used enforcement tool.[31]
Generally, ACO schemes share a similar structure because they share a common theme: the expansion EPA's administrative authority in response to the shortcomings and burdens of traditional judicial and administrative enforcement tools. The ACO addressed to the Sacketts can trace its lineage to 1972, when the modern CWA took shape in response to EPA's failure to effectively administer the nation's water laws.[32] Prior to 1972, enforcement of the nation's water pollution laws was anywhere from "spotty" and "slow and awkward" to "ineffectual" and stricken by "an almost total lack of enforcement."[33] In 1971, Senator Muskie led a charge to mandate tougher enforcement of water pollution laws.[34] His original bill introduced section 309(a)(3), requiring the Administrator to issue a compliance order upon finding a violation of the Act.[35] Section 309(b) further required the Administrator to initiate a civil action whenever a compliance order was violated.[36] The Senate drafting committee explicitly noted that these sections sought to remedy the weak enforcement procedures available to the federal government under prior water laws.[37]
The introduction of ACOs into the CAA follows a more modern but similar story. Prior to the 1990 Amendments to the CAA, the only administrative order authority available to EPA under the Act was section 120.[38] Section 120's inability to adequately address ongoing violations led EPA to funnel its enforcement to civil litigation, where the government could at least seek injunctions to stop violations.[39] Yet the slow pace and high costs of civil litigation frustrated both agencies' goals, decreasing overall enforcement.[40] Congress again turned to ACOs for a solution, importing ACO authority into the 1990 Amendments to the CAA.[41]
It is this theme that ultimately led most courts to hold, despite each statute's silence on the issue, that ACOs are not reviewable prior to judicial enforcement initiated by the Agency.[42] Otherwise, ACOs would hardly be an alternative to immediate judicial enforcement. CERCLA is the exception, being the only ACO scheme to explicitly prohibit judicial review of ACOs prior to Agency enforcement.[43] Thus, CERCLA remains even in light of Sackett and tees up the due process issue.[44]
Procedural due process analysis under Mathews v. Eldridge remains a useful way of assessing whether the ACO schemes violate the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.[45] Mathews asks a court to weigh a party's private interest in property or liberty against the government's administrative and institutional interests in maintaining its desired scheme.[46] The early motions of the Mathews analysis are of less interest to this essay. It is safe to assume that a private party issued an ACO will be able to articulate a protected property interest,[47] and courts have already identified that the fiscal and administrative burden of offering a hearing for every ACO issued would be substantial.[48]
But the Mathews Court cautioned that "more is implicated in [procedural due process cases] than ad hoc weighing of fiscal and administrative burdens against the interests of a particular category of claimants."[49] Courts must also consider the government's interest in preserving the proper balance of judicial review over executive action.[50] This institutional interest is arguably the more important of the two elements; the Court explained that the "ultimate balance" of the procedural due process question "involves a determination as to when, under our constitutional system, judicial-type procedures must be imposed upon administrative action to assure fairness."[51]
Constitutional and Administrative Law: Agency Legitimacy and Expertise - Administrative agencies have long been described as constitutional oddities. As Jerry Mashaw put it "there is a hole in the U.S. Constitution," for our founding document "provided for a legislature, a Supreme Court, and two executive offices" but "[a]dministration was missing."[52] Administrative law bridges this gap, never fully divorced from separation of powers and other constitutional doctrines. As the Supreme Court has noted, some of the most foundational elements of judicial review over agency action "stem from the administrative agency's unique constitutional position"—although in the Court's eyes this constitutional position is "delicate, subtle, and complex."[53]
Law professors are less intimidated. Surveying the earliest Federalist administrations, an era which he describes as "in some sense a continuation of the Constitutional Convention," Mashaw identifies that "[t]he task of administrative law is to generate institutional designs that appropriately balance the simultaneous demands of political responsiveness, efficient administration, and respect for legal rights."[54] For the administrative state is ultimately a pragmatic, ad hoc solution to the hole in the Constitution, and it is somewhere triangulated between these three administrative goals that an agency appropriately fills the hole and operates at the peak of its constitutional legitimacy.
These tripartite goals frame modern administrative law scholarship on agency legitimacy. The demand that agencies remain politically accountable has manifested both the interest group model and the presidential control model of legitimizing agency action.[55] Other scholars argue that controlling arbitrary action and respecting legal rights is the key to administrative legitimacy under our constitutional structure.[56] Mashaw argues that the earliest administrative goal was "[e]nergy and effectiveness in administration," a goal that "contemporary administrative law's concentration on control and accountability all but obscures."[57] Efficient administration is an important and pragmatic goal, since it determines the modern nation's "capacity to carry through on the multitude of common projects that the modern administrative state has launched or to manage emerging threats and grasp emerging opportunities."[58]
Agency expertise is an essential element of an agency's efficiency in administration, and thus a keystone element of an agency's legitimacy.[59] Expertise is one of the primary reasons why agencies are delegated the authority to administer the law in the first place, with the expectation that expert administrators will create more effective policy than a generalist Congress.[60] Expertise is also a key reason for judicial deference to agency decisions, partly out of explicit respect for the constitutional role carved out for administrative agencies.[61] Thus, expertise and efficiency in regulation is best understood as an equal among the other administrative goals of political accountability and avoiding arbitrariness—each a continuing and important element in legitimizing agency actions in our constitutional structure.[62]
Connecting Agency Expertise and Agency Enforcement Discretion- An agency is an expert at enforcing its laws. Because the agency is applying the very rules and regulations it generated through its policy expertise, the agency is in a uniquely qualified position to make decisions regarding the efficient enforcement of those laws.
The Supreme Court recognized the relationship between enforcement and expertise in Heckler v. Chaney.[63] Chaney found that the FDA's decision not to pursue an enforcement action was not reviewable by a court under the APA.[64] Importantly, the Court identified the connection between an agency's enforcement decisions, its expertise, and its proper role in administrative law. Chief Justice Rehnquist's reasoning is worth quoting at length:
[T]he agency must not only assess whether a violation has occurred, but whether agency resources are best spent on this violation or another, whether the agency is likely to succeed if it acts, whether the particular enforcement action requested best fits the agency's overall policies, and, indeed, whether the agency has enough resources to undertake the action at all. An agency generally cannot act against each technical violation of the statute it is charged with enforcing. The agency is far better equipped than the courts to deal with the many variables involved in the proper ordering of its priorities. Similar concerns animate the principles of administrative law that courts generally will defer to an agency's construction of the statute it is charged with implementing, and to the procedures it adopts for implementing that statute.[65]
Chaney's reasoning however does not command courts to withhold review of all agency enforcement decisions.[66] But Chaney does suggest that an agency's enforcement decisions deserve judicial deference when reviewed. The source of this deference remains the agency's particular expertise in enforcing its laws. This expertise sounds in the "administrative principles" referenced by the Chaney court—a constitutional backdrop encouraging judicial recognition of an agency's efficient administration of the law.
Connecting the ACO Structure to Agency Enforcement Discretion - The ability to utilize an ACO is an enforcement policy choice within the realm of the agency's expertise that deserves judicial deference. When Congress empowered the EPA to issue ACOs, it intended to give the Agency an enforcement option that was decidedly quicker and more flexible than traditional judicial enforcement or administrative adjudication.[67] Key to this scheme is that the Agency controls the timing of judicial review; the ACO thus encourages voluntary compliance and cooperation with the Agency in a forum outside of judicial review.[68] Judicial review is nevertheless required for enforcement of the ACO, but triggered at the Agency's desire rather than the regulated party's.[69] By removing the Agency's control over the timing of judicial review, the ACO looses its identity as a separate enforcement choice—it becomes no more than a warning letter, holding no leverage to encourage compliance outside of a judicial forum and serving the same function as warnings already issued by the Agency under separate authority.[70]
A court should use appropriate deference when interfering with the Agency's ability to choose among its statutory enforcement options. The EPA's ability to choose an ACO over immediate judicial enforcement or administrative adjudication empowers the Agency's enforcement expertise.[71] Indeed, Congress empowered EPA to issue ACOs precisely because the Agency could not "act against each technical violation of the statute it is charged with enforcing" using its traditional enforcement tools.[72] Mathews analysis compels a court to respect Congress's role here and find that ACOs do not violate due process.
Admittedly, this Article's due process analysis exerts significant pressure on the reasoning of Sackett by relying on the legislative history and structure of the ACO statutes to illustrate congressional intent. The Sackett court explicitly held that "there is no suggestion that Congress has sought to exclude" CWA ACOs from the APA's presumption of judicial review.[73] This Article's due process argument is premised on the fact that Congress has expressed clear intent to preclude ACOs from pre-enforcement judicial review in an effort to empower agency enforcement, particularly in CERCLA but also in other statutes like the CWA and the CAA.
But frankly, Sackett should be subjected to this pressure. The decision departed from the reasoning of nearly every federal court without adequate explanation. In the words of the Sacketts' attorney, "[h]ow can it be that so many courts got it wrong, and why did the Supreme Court let the error persist for so long?"[74] Writing from his experience, the Sacketts' attorney suggested that the Supreme Court is simply more hostile to environmental regulation than lower courts, or that his clients were supremely sympathetic.[75] But these explanations are troublesome because they fail to explain why the traditionally liberal members of the Court—Justices who are often considered more receptive to environmental enforcement and regulation of private property—signed onto the decision. The unanimity of the decision is even more poignant considering that its reasoning palpably avoids legislative history and is authored by Justice Scalia, whose "protracted battle against reliance on legislative history" has often put him at odds with traditionally more liberal sitting Justices.[76]
Constitutional avoidance provides a more persuasive narrative for the liberal Justices' participation in the Sackett opinion. The due process question is more difficult for the Agency to win and poses a greater risk to EPA enforcement authority than the Court's more narrow ruling under the APA.[77] Adopting the due process argument outlined in this Essay and grounding ACOs in their proper constitutional authority will help repair their role in environmental law. Limiting the influence of Sackett is but the first step in realigning ACO law with federal precedent, congressional intent, the constitutional foundations of administrative law, and the nation's commitment to protect our environment.
| TBA Law Blog
[1] Justice Antonin Scalia, "Constitutional Interpretation the Old Fashioned Way," (Mar. 14, 2005) available at http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/guest_commentary/
[2] Id. (discussing Roper, 543 U.S. 551, 578-79 (2005)).
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.
[6] 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq.
[7] See Sackett v. EPA, 622 F.3d 1139, 1141 (9th Cir. 2010) [hereinafter Sackett II].
[8] Sackett II, 622 F.3d at 1141.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] See Sackett v. EPA, No. 08-cv-185-N-EJL, 2008 WL 3286801 at *1 (D. Idaho, Aug. 7, 2008) [hereinafter Sackett I].
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Id. at 1143.
[16] Id.
[17] David G. Savage, Supreme Court Takes Up Property Rights Dispute, Los Angeles Times (Jan. 3, 2012), http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/03/nation/la-na-wetlands-court-20120103
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Sackett v. EPA: Supreme Court Takes Up Clean Water Act Case, Heritage Foundation (Jan. 9, 2012), http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/09/sackett-v-epa-supreme-court-takes-up-property-rights-case/
[21] Lyle Denniston, Two More Cases Granted, SCOTUS Blog, (June 28th, 9:07am) http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/06/two-more-cases-granted/. See also Brief for the Respondents in Opposition, Sackett v. EPA, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 1367 (2012) (No. 10-1062).
[22] Sackett v. EPA, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 1367, 1374 (2012) [hereinafter Sackett III].
[23] See id. at 1374 (Ginsburg, J., concurring); see id. at 1375 (Alito, J., concurring).
[24] Sackett III, 132 S.Ct. at 1374-75 (Ginsburg, J., concurring).
[25] See also William Funk, "Rule of Law Prevails in Sackett v. EPA" RegBlog (March 25, 2012) https://www.law.upenn.edu/blogs/regblog/2012/03/rule-of-law-prevails-in-... ("Property rights advocates are trumpeting a victory. Yet that's quite an overstatement because the Sackett decision is not based on any particular notion of property rights. The Court's opinion hardly mentions property rights.")
[26] Erika Johnsen, Sackett v. EPA: The Battle is Won, but the War is Just Beginning, Townhall.com (April 13, 2012) http://townhall.com/tipsheet/erikajohnsen/2012/04/13/sackett_v_epa_the_b...
[27] Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333 (1976).
[28] TVA v. Whitman, 336 F.3d 1236 (11th Cir. 2003), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1030 (2004).
[29] CWA § 309(a)(3)-(6), 33 U.S.C § 1319(a)(3)-(6). CAA § 113(a), 42 U.S.C. § 7413(a). RCRA §§ 3008(a), 3008(h), 3004(u), 3004(v), 3013(a); 42 U.S.C. §§ 6928(a), 6928(h), 6924(u), 6924(v), 6934(a). CERCLA § 106(a), 42 U.S.C. § 9606(a). SDWA, 42 U.S.C. § 303g-3(g).
[30] See, e.g., Jason D. Nichols, Towards Reviving the Efficacy of Administrative Compliance Orders: Balancing Due Process Concerns and the Need for Enforcement Flexibility in Environmental Law,57Admin. L. Rev. 193, 196-201 (reviewing common traits among ACOs in a section titled "ACOs—One of Several Available Enforcement Mechanisms"). See also David M. Moore, Pre-Enforcement Review of Administrative Orders to Abate Environmental Hazards, 9 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 675, 687-710 (offering a useful statute-by-statute breakdown of authority for ACOs).
[31] Christopher M. Wynn, Facing A Hobson's Choice? The Constitutionality of the EPA's Administrative Compliance Order Enforcement Scheme Under the Clean Air Act, 62 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1879, 1880
[32] William L. Andreen, Beyond Words of Exhortation: The Congressional Prescription for Vigorous Federal Enforcement of the Clean Water Act, 55 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 202, 203.
[33] Id. at 211, 224.
[34] Id. at 223 (quoting 117 Cong. Rec. 1346-47 (1971) (remarks of Sen. Muskie).
[35] Id. at 225.
[36] Id.
[37] Id.
[38] James Miskiewicz & John S. Rudd, Civil and Criminal Enforcement of the Clean Air Act After the 1990 Amendments, 9 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 281, 308-309 (1992).
[39] Id at 310.
[40] Id.
[41] Id. at 311.
[42] See David M. Moore, Pre-Enforcement Review of Administrative Orders to Abate Environmental Hazards, 9 Pace Envtl. L. Rev. 675, 687-710 (offering a statute by statute breakdown of judicial reasoning for finding implied preclusion of pre-enforcement judicial review). .
[43] See CERCLA § 113(h). Interestingly, CERCLA's ACO provisions did not originally contain this jurisdictional bar; Congress added the provision in 1986, only after most courts agreed that CERCLA ACOs were not subject to pre-enforcement judicial review.See, e.g., Moore, supra note 42 at 678 ("Prior to 1986, CERCLA was silent as to whether review of administrative orders was available, but the majority of the courts considering the issue found that the statute implicitly barred review."). In fact, the drafters intended CERCLA's statutory bar on pre-enforcement review "to confirm and build upon existing case law." Voluntary Purchasing Groups, Inc. v. Reilly, 889 F.2d 1380, 1389 (5th Cir. 1989) (quoting 132 Cong. Rec. S14928 (daily ed. Oct. 3, 1986) (Statement of Senator Thurmond, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee that drafted SARA's judicial review provision)).
[44] CERCLA § 113(h).
[45]See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333 (1976). But see, e.g., Edward L. Rubin, Due Process and the Administrative State, 72 Cal. L. Rev. 1044, 1137 (1984) (Mathews' "premises are debatable; its methodologies are impractical; and each of its three factors is of questionable relevance.") Professor Rubin critiqued Mathews' ability to determine minimum and specific procedures required by due process—and to this extent, Mathews is indeed of little help. But this Article requires a different result from Mathews; it askscourts to internalize constitutional foundations for judicial deference to administrative decisions through Mathews'procedural due process analysis. Mathews' language permits, if not requires, this internalization—and at minimum, Mathews is a useful analytical tool for this purpose.
[46] Mathews, 424 U.S. at 333.
[47] For example, parties could assert an interesteither their ability to use their land insofar that the party believes its use complies with environmental laws, or a protected interest in the cost of compliance activities necessary to avoid further agency enforcement. Scholars too have identified other potential protected interests. For example, Professor Jonathan Adler suggests that ACOs could implicate protected interests by merely imposing any legal obligations, or by infringing upon a persons right to exclude others from property. Jonathan Adler, Cato Supreme Court Review, 157-58 forthcoming, Wetlands, Property Rights, and the Due Process Deficit in Environmental Law.
[48] See General Electric I, 595 F. Supp. 2d at 33.Courts note that EPA issues a surprisingly large number of ACOs, many of which would likely be challenged if the opportunity was available. Id. For example, in one year over 80% of EPA's enforcement actions were ACOs; the Agency issued 3,228 administrative orders compared to 478 civil and criminal judicial cases. See Joel A. Mintz, Sackett v. EPA and Judicial Interpretations of Environmental Statutes: What Role for NEPA?, 42 Evnt'l L. 1027, 1029 (2012). Indeed, courts recognize that ACOs leverage these "high stakes and complex technical judgments, [and that] any hearing before a neutral decision-maker would involve significant fiscal and administrative burdens." Id.
[49] 424 U.S. at 348.
[50] Id.
[51] Id.
[52] Jerry L. Mashaw, Recovering American Administrative Law: Federalist Foundations, 1787-1801, 115 Yale L. J. 1256, 1265 (2006)
[53] FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 535 (2009) (Kennedy, J., concurring). See also Eric Berger, Individual Rights, Judicial Deference, and Administrative Law Norms in Constitutional Decision Making, 91 Bos. U. L. Rev. 2029, 2056-57 (2011) (discussing the boundaries of constitutional and administrative law).
[54] Mashaw, supra note 52, at 1263-64. See also Berger, supra note 53, at 2054-55 (adopting Mashaw's goals of the administrative state).
[55] See Lisa S. Bressman, Beyond Accountability: Arbitrariness and Legitimacy in the Administrative State, 78 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 461, 475-91 (describing the shift from the interest group model to the presidential control model, noting the simultaneous rise in the "majoritarian paradigm," or the importance of presidential control over the executive to constitutional theory as an effort to keep the executive politically accountable). See also Elana Kagan, Presidential Administration, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 2245, 2254 (2001) (articulating the presidential control model).
[56] See Bressman, supra note 55, at 466-67 ("I argue that . . .majoritarianism fails to account for an additional concern of paramount constitutional significance: the risk of arbitrary administrative decision making.").
[57] Mashaw, supra note 52, at 1266.
[58] Id. at 1267.
[59] See, e.g., Emily H. Meazell, Presidential Control, Expertise, and the Deference Dilemma, 61 Duke L. J. 1763, 1771 (2012) ("Since the dawn of the modern administrative state, expertise has played an important role as an anchor of regulatory legitimacy that has shaped the relationship between courts and agencies.")
[60] Id. at 1771-72.
[61]Id. at 1772; see also Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 864-65 (1984) (discussing both presidential control and agency expertise as rationales for judicial deference).
[62]See Meazell, supra note 59, at 1774 ("Either way, an agency's expertise serves an important role by helping to legitimize its activities.").
[64] Id. at 823-827.
[65] Id. at 831-32.
[66] Id. Others have raised persuasive arguments against Chaney's reasoning. See id. at 840-45 (Marshall, J., dissenting); Lisa S. Bressman, Judicial Review of Agency Inaction: An Arbitrariness Approach,79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1657, 1691-92 (2004).
[67] See Part I.A.
[68] Id.
[69] Id.
[70] Id. See also Sackett III, 132 S.Ct. at 1373 (noting that ACO's subject to judicial review will merely act as notices of potential violation, and that "The [CWA] does not guarantee the EPA that issuing a compliance order will always be the most effective choice."); Sackett III transcript (discussing EPA's authority to issue warning letters separate from their authority to issue ACOs).
[71] See Chaney, 470 U.S. at 831-32.
[72] Id.
[73] Sackett III, 132 S.Ct at 1374.
[74] Damien M. Schiff, Sackett v. EPA: Compliance Orders and Right of Judicial Review, 2011-2012 Cato Sup. Ct. Rev. 113, 136 (2012) available at http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2012/9/scr-2012-schiff.pdf.
[75] Id.
[76] Mark Tushnet, Theory and Practice in Statutory Interpretation, 43 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 1185, 1199; see generally id. (framing competing theories of statutory interpretation by comparing Justice Scalia with Justice Breyer).
[77] Courts accord less deference to an agency's expertise when assessing constitutional challenges to agency action.SeeJ.J. Cassone Bakery, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 554 F.3d 1041, 1044 (D.C. Cir. 2009) ("'[A] reviewing court owes no deference to the agency's pronouncement on a constitutional question.' In other words, we entertain [plaintiff's] due process claim de novo.") (quoting Lead Indus. Ass'n v. EPA, 647 F.2d 1130, 1173-74 (D.C.Cir.1980)); Porter v. Califano, 592 F.2d 770, 780-81 (5th Cir. 1979)("The intent of Congress in [defining the scope of review over agency action] was that courts should make an independent assessment of a citizen's claim of constitutional right when reviewing agency decision-making," even when the agency acts within its expertise). Constitutional challenges encourage the Court to engage the particular facts of the case—dangerous if the Sacketts were as sympathetic as their attorney suggests. See Porter, 592 F.2d at 781 ("As the Supreme Court noted . . . "(t)his Court has regularly held that where constitutional rights are in issue an independent examination of the record will be made in order that the controlling legal principles may be applied to the actual facts of the case.") (quoting Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563, 578 n.2 (1968)).


text:
MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Gov. Scott Walker plans to use a combination of general fund revenue and bonding to cover more than $800 million in transportation spending in his executive budget.
Walker announced Friday his budget will include $6.4 billion for a range of transportation projects, including rebuilding Milwaukee's Zoo Interchange. That's about $500 million more than the 2011-2013 budget.
The governor's office says about $824 million for 2013-2015 will come from the state's general fund, petroleum inspection fund and new bonding.


text:
The most commonly asked questions, answered
- Home
- Doctors and health professionals
Find a private doctor or health professional near you
The Private Healthcare UK directory of doctors and health professionals contains information on around 20,000 private healthcare providers in the UK.
You can look up the details of a private consultant to find their email and website addresses or compare the profiles of doctors you are interested in visiting.
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Submit a request for further information, a quotation or indicative cost for private UK treatment.
- Your enquiry will be forwarded to up to 3 private healthcare providers
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text:
Mall name:
4300 Steeles Ave. E. at Kennedy, Markham, Ontario - ON L3R 0Y5, Canada
Phone number to Pacific Mall mall
905 470 8785
Hours (mall)
Sunday - Thursday 11:00 am - 8:00 pm, Friday - Saturday 11:00 am - 9:00 pm.
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text:
Pages: 1
My User Name is much too long when it's displayed in "Sessions Menu" mode in the "Action Buttons" app in the Panel. The only alternative is switching to "Action Buttons" mode which takes up as much space. I wish to use my initials instead. Outside of trying to change my administrative name which I used to set up my Petra account, how can I replace my full name for my initials in the "Action Buttons" name box?
Thanks for any tips!
Jim in NYC
XFCE 4.10 Linux Petra 32bit
Last edited by jimwg (2014-03-29 17:27:17)
The Actions plugin will use the comment field from /etc/passwd (if a value exists) otherwise it will display your username. So, to change what is displayed, change the value in the comments field. (If the value in that field is blank, it will use your system username).
To see what value is there now:
cat /etc/passwd
...it is the 5th field.
To change it:
sudo usermod -c "JW" USERNAME
...where "JW" is the string that you want to appear and USERNAME is your username.
After the change, you need to restart xfce4-panel:
xfce4-panel -r
Pages: 1


text:
A minor collision between a delivery truck and a Lee County school bus sent six children to the hospital as a precautionary measure Tuesday morning.
A school bus transporting students to Gulf Middle School at approximately 9 a.m. was involved in a minor low speed impact northbound on Del Prado Boulevard in the left turn lane onto Viscaya Parkway.
Initially there were reports of no injuries, but firefighters and Lee County paramedics were called out to evaluate everyone just in case. During the scene assessment, six students complained of various minor injuries.
"In an abundance of caution, firefighters and paramedics, working with School District representatives, transported six students for a precautionary evaluation at a local hospital," said Cape Coral Fire Department spokesman Michael Heeder in a prepared statement.
The two drivers involved as well as the other student passengers were checked but denied any injury, officials said.
After the preliminary investigation was concluded by Cape Coral Police, the traffic lanes were cleared.
This is the second traffic crash involving a school bus in Cape Coral in less than a week. In spite of that, safety procedures as well as construction features significantly reduce injuries and deaths involving school buses. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, only one third of one percent (0.034%) of fatal traffic crashes involves school bus transportation. A large part of that is due to training of drivers and a proactive school bus safety education program conducted nationwide.
One of the major safety components in school buses are the seats constructed with thick padding and raised backs creating the concept of "compartmentalization." Seat "compartments" are designed to absorb the force in a crash, protecting the children, officials said.New bus seats are higher, wider and thicker, and all metal surfaces are covered with padding-all of which absorb energy in a crash. The seat structure allows it to bend forward when a child is thrown against it. Seats are also positioned no more than two feet apart, which limits the distance a child moves during a crash.
Compartmentalization provides protection in a head-on or a rear-end collision, which was a key safety feature in both crashes in Cape Coral.
This, coupled with the rapid response of School District officials and emergency workers, assures that students receive prompt attention and evaluation following a collision, officials said. In addition, Cape Coral firefighters receive ongoing medical training for all EMTs and paramedics that includes treatment of accident victims and managing a multiple injury situation such as a school bus crash.
Source: Cape Coral Fire Department


text:
It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Sarah Palin is a Daisy Buchanan for our time -- a careless person, indeed, who tosses around words or images with nary a thought as to their effect, before she retreats back into her money or vast carelessness or whatever. Her ill-timed and ill-conceived statement of resentment and self-pity -- on a day of national mourning for the victims of the massacre in Tucson, has accomplished its mission of calling attention to herself, particularly with her appallingly careless (how else to describe it?) use of the phrase "blood libel" to describe critics who have stated that her use of gun imagery and violence-tinged rhetoric had something to do with Jared Lee Loughner's insane actions.
The phrase "blood libel" has a long history and context in society's struggle against anti-Semitism which makes it a stunningly inappropriate use of language -- in addition to the loaded history, it is such a divisive term that elevates her alleged persecution in the media to the level of the murder of six people, including a 9-year-old girl, and that is simply unfathomable.
But I think there's something else. The perhaps predictable brouhaha over "blood libel" obscures the much broader -- and to my mind much more serious -- flaws in Palin's seven-minute speech, read from a Teleprompter, her first public comment or appearance since the tragedy in Tucson. The ex-half-term Alaska governor's talk touched greatly on the main conservative talking point since the events of 1/8/11, that the killings weren't about society or our national rhetoric but merely about the one unhinged person who did it.
In other words....personal responsibility.
Here is a key passage of Palin's talk:
President Reagan said, "We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.
Let's take a step back and remember the context here -- exactly why America was even interested in hearing from Sarah Palin at all this week. It was Palin's political committee that last March released a map of the districts that it was targeting -- including that of Tucson shooting victim Rep. Gabrielle Giffords -- by using the image of rifle crosshairs. I don't know of any other map like that one, from other Republicans or from Democrats, and so when Palin talks of "maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle," I have no idea what she is talking about. If she is aware of a similar map to her rifle crosshairs map, she should produce it. If there is no other map, then we should call this what it is. Lying.
UPDATE: Apparently, as others have told me, Palin is referring to a 2004 mailer from the Democratic Leadership Committee. Fair enough. It's wrong for the DLC to use violent imagery, just as it's wrong for Sarah Palin's PAC. Two wrongs don't make a right.
What's more, Palin has long reveled in violent imagery, whether it's the multiple images of her wielding a gun (such as at top of this blog post, from her "reality" show) or her comment made on more than one occasion that conservatives -- in the face of their political losses in the late 2000s -- need not to "retreat, instead reload."
Ironically, Palin could have retaken the high ground this morning. For one thing, there's no evidence that the gunman Loughner even knew who Sarah Palin was, let alone had any awareness of the crosshairs map that featured Giffords (whom he'd been paying attention to since 2007, or before Palin became a national figure) or the other extreme statements that Palin has made. It is certainly right for Palin and her supporters (and her detractors, like me) to point that out.
That said, many public figures on the right and the left have taken the Tucson shooting as a time to reflect on their own words and actions, regardless of what can or cannot be learned about how public discourse influenced Loughner. A high-profile example of that has been a liberal commentator, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who reflected on his own contributions to the national dialogue on the night of the shootings and scrapped his feature called "the Worst Persons in the World." This was a golden opportunity for Sarah Palin to state something along the lines of, "Ya know, I had nothing to do with what happened in Tucson, but I've nonetheless taken some time to reflect on the words and images I use. I hate violence. I hate war (those last two sentences are what she purportedly said to Glenn Beck in an email) and so when I fight for my bedrock conservative values -- as I will -- I'm going to be extra careful that I don't glorify violence or war. And to the extent that I have in the past, I am truly sorry."
In other words, to stop being so careless.
To, in the words of Ronald Reagan, "restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."
To take personal responsibility for her past words.
But Sarah Palin didn't do that. Instead, she doubled down on the victim card today, using unnecessarily inflammatory language to do so, and she dishonored not only herself but the real victims of the tragedy in Tucson and her fellow citizens who are trying today to mourn and process that loss. The only solace is that I believe more people are starting to realize what should have been apparent from Day One, that Sarah Palin is a careless person who continues to smash up things and creatures.