A Right-Wing Monster

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/opinion/25douthat.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20right-wing%20monster&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 10:42 AM
Subject: re: A Right-Wing Monster
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Mr. Duthout isn't wrong to observe that "Islam and liberal democracy have not yet proven natural bedfellows", but the experiment is only recently under way. One might as easily and as rightly have noted that Protestantism seemed inimical to peace, depending on when one wrote.  The century after Martin Luther's split with Rome saw wars raging across Europe--we even had a massacre of Huguenots in Florida--yet Catholics and Protestants have been living peacefully in Europe and this country for centuries now.  Mr. Duthout may still dream of a Europe united in monolithic allegiance to the Church of Rome (except for those stiff-necked Jews) but the rest of us have found that diversity--and tolerance--can be  very good things.

Barry Haskell Levine

Fast Traders, in Spotlight, Battle Rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/fast-traders-under-attack-defend-work.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 8:42 AM
Subject: re Fast Traders, in Spotlight, Battle Rules
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  John Wanamaker famously said "I know that I'm wasting half the money I spend on advertising. I just don't know which half". Likewise, it can be hard to tell if any particular dollar spent on Wall Street is fueling industry and innovation or is merely speculation.  For one group of purchases however, this distinction is clear. These are assets flipped very quickly. The cost is non-trivial; many of our societies best minds are now playing in this casino rather than inventing the technologies of our future.  The fix is not new regulation; we need to change the incentive structure. Profits on any asset held less than an hour should be taxed at no less than 95%. That rate can then ramp down to the long-term capital gains rate at about one percentage point every four days.

Barry Haskell Levine

Behind Battle Over Debt, a War Over Government

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/us/politics/15deficit.html?_r=1&ref=jackiecalmes

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:52 PM
Subject: re: Behind Battle Over Debt, a War Over Government
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Behind the battle over debt brews the clash between what we might call the Keynesian view and the Hooverian view. John Maynard Keynes was awarded the Nobel prize in economics for showing that a responsible government can and should spend money that it doesn't have in times of economic distress.  Herbert Clark Hoover was turned out of office for preaching austerity as the remedy to the Great Depression.  While history never quite repeats itself, the evidence in hand shows that deficit spending for make-work (e.g. raking leaves) and deficit spending for infrastructure (e.g. the TVA) and deficit spending for the U.S. participation in WWII (which dwarfed the other two) brought us from the Great Depression to our Post-War prosperity.  As long as president Obama is merely niggling over how to impose austerity, he is only slightly less wrong in applying the 20th century's lessons than are those who sit across the aisle.

Barry Levine

Utility Shelves Ambitious Plan to Limit Carbon

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/business/energy-environment/utility-shelves-plan-to-capture-carbon-dioxide.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=utility%20shelves%20plan&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Subject: re: Utility Shelves Ambitious Plan to Limit Carbon
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   The AEP carbon-capture plan was always a boondoggle, aimed at capturing federal subsidies more than carbon.  To mine coal (which is almost 100% carbon) and re-bury carbon dioxide (which is 27%carbon) you need a repository several times larger than the initial mine. It doesn't exist and never will. Coal is a terrific form in which to sequester carbon; it has worked for 200 million years. We can't afford to go on digging and burning it.

     If we are serious about undoing the damage we've wrought on our atmosphere and oceans since the Industrial Revolution, we need to be re-sequestering carbon not as carbon dioxide by as "biochar" or "anthropogenic peat".  Photosynthetic plants are already stripping twenty times as much carbon from the atmosphere as all of human activity contributes, year by year and hour by hour. We just have to keep some of the cellulose they're making from rotting back into the atmosphere.

Barry Haskell Levine

With Blunt, Salty Talk, Panetta Era Begins

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/world/13military.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=panetta%20era%20begins%20with%20blunt%20talk&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Subject: re: With Blunt, Salty Talk, Panetta Era Begins
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  I am not immune to secretary Panetta's blunt charm, but I attend to his words more than to his tone. His tenure at the CIA began with a promise that "no CIA agent will be prosecuted for torture". Surely that was a decision above his pay-grade.  Was this a promise that he would obstruct justice? Or that his masters did not intend to see that these Laws be faithfully prosecuted?  As secretary of Defense, we now entrust him with billions of our dollars and with the lives of our sons and daughters. We deserve to know if he means to abide by our laws.

Barry Haskell Levine

The Method to Their Madness

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/opinion/11douthat.html?_r=1&hp

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 9:58 AM
Subject: re: The Method to Their Madness
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If president Obama presides over a national economic recovery, he will be unstoppable for re-election in 2012; if he does not, he can be beaten. The U.S. economy and millions of Americans have accordingly been taken hostage by Republican strategists more loyal to their party than to their country. The rest is dust thrown in our eyes.

Barry Haskell Levine

Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/us/08execute.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Mexican%20Citizen%20is%20executed%20as%20Justices&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Subject: re: Mexican Citizen Is Executed as Justices Refuse to Step In
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  In his dissent, justice Breyer enumerates three counts on which a majority of our Supreme Court erred in the matter of Humberto Leal Garcia Jr. In each case he is right, but he is too diplomatic to add a fourth; the Court's action violates the plain meaning of our Constitution.  Our constitution provides that a foreign treaty duly ratified by our Senate is Federal Law. As such, when there is a conflict between State law and such a treaty, it is the treaty that is binding. Our supreme court got this wrong in re Medellin and it will continue to get this wrong until it overthrows that mistake.

Barry Haskell Levine

U.S. Widens Inquiries Into 2 Jail Deaths

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/us/politics/01DETAIN.html/?_r=1&scp=2&sq=cia%20investigation%20deaths&st=cse

- Hide quoted text -

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:13 PM
Subject: re: U.S. Widens Inquiries Into 2 Jail Deaths
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  Under the circumstances, John Durham has done a remarkable job. The two deaths he identified need to be investigated further. But the Durham inquiry was crippled from the inception. He was charged only to investigate violations of the DoJ's guidelines.  The president--and thus the whole Executive--is responsible not for the execution of DoJ guidelines, but to see that the law is faithfully executed. That means our statutes, our constitution and our treaty obligations, not some DoJ guideline document drafted in a back room.  Those 200 other deaths can't be dismissed until they have been investigated to this tougher standard.

Barry Haskell Levine