Today At Talk Radio News

Reporters are covering:

1. The House Appropriations Committee Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the base posture and supplemental request. Witness: Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command.

2.House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing on "The American Clean Energy Security Act of 2009, Day 4. Witnesses: Former Vice President Al Gore, former Sen. John Warner, (R-Va.), and others.

G.R.E.E.N. Spells Jobs

Coffee Brown, University of New Mexico, Talk Radio News

When blue collar unions and green environmentalists discussed how alternative energy is a path to new, high quality jobs, the Blue Green Alliance was born, according to Dave Foster, the Executive Director.


Foster notes that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Sen. John Warner (R-VA) have sponsored separate Cap-and-Trade bills, and, along with Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins (R-ME), still support some form of carbon tax.

Europe and Japan have far lower per capita energy usage, he said, which means “through efficiency, we can pay for an awful lot of of these global warming reductions.”


Still, "I find it a little odd that a certain section of the Republican party has chosen to wave the banner of anti-science,” Foster said.

America is already feeling the economic effects of climate change, Foster said, and gave the example of the loss of 4,000 jobs in the aluminum industry as decreased amounts of snow pack formed in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest over the past 20 years. Hydroelectric dams depend on snow melt for power. As that diminished, electricity became prohibitively expensive.


“The cost of doing nothing about global warming will far, far exceed the cost of doing something," Foster said, while praising the thousands of steel-working jobs gained in manufacturing clean-energy wind turbines.


Foster said that alternative energy jobs tend to put skilled people back to work in familiar jobs.


“We’re not engaging in massive re-training, we’re engaging in a massive recall to work... On exactly the kinds of projects that they’ve been trained to do before,” he said.

“The Blue Green Alliance is a strategic national partnership between labor unions (the “blue” in “blue-collar”) and environmental organizations (the “green”) “ (http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/site/c.enKIITNpEiG/b.3416603/k.DD10/About_BGA.htm)

Gates on Iraq: We must get the endgame there right

“The surge helped achieve a lower level of violence. It has not yet achieved its stated purpose- political accommodation among Iraq’s leaders,” Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said in his opening statement at the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our “open-ended commitment in Iraq” is an invitation to “continued Iraqi dawdling and dependency,” and it’s carrying the costs of the lives of Americans and billions of dollars.

Senator John Warner (R-Va) expressed his respect for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and said that he’d had the opportunity to work with every Secretary of Defense since 1969, and that “you never shot from the hip.” Gates, Warner said, understood that they needed bipartisan support and that Gates had it like Warner had never seen before. We thank you, Warner said, but there is much to be done. I commend the concept of the surge, he said, and I commend most heartily the courage of the troops. By any fair and pragmatic judgement, it has been a success.

The withdrawal of approximately 3,400 non-combat forces began this month, Gates began, saying that it will continue through the fall and winter, and finish in January. The drawdown is possible, he said, “because of the success achieved in reducing violence and building Iraqi security capacity.” There has been a fundamental change in the nature of the conflict, and “no matter what you think about the origins of the war in Iraq, we must get the endgame there right.”

In response to a congressional question of the assessment of the new government in Pakistan and their willingness to work with the United States, Gates said they're already seeing positive signs with Pakistan, because Pakistan has suffered a lot of casualties and they’ve captured terrorists. What’s important in Pakistan, is to forge a new stronger partnership with the civilian government. The recent attacks have made it clear to them that there is an existential threat to Pakistan.

Gates said he is not satisfied with the civil reconstruction and the development of the capacity of the Afghan government. “That war on terror started in this region, and it must end there.” The reality is, Gates continued, is that in the last 18 months, we have added over 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, and there are two considerations about the situation. One, we need to think about how heavy a “military footprint” the United States ought to have in Afghanistan, and are we better off channeling resources instead into “building the Afghan Army” as quickly as possible. Two, (which he says he feels is evident to all), is that without changing deployment patterns, and length of tours, we do not have the forces to send three additional brigade combat teams to Afghanistan at this point, but they will probably become available in the spring/summer of 2009. That’s a decision that will ultimately be up to President Bush’s successor.

Code Pink, an anti-war group, proliferated the audience, wearing “Bail out of Iraq” placards and multitudes of pink buttons, signs, and t-shirts. They mainly sat quietly in the audience, appropriately not holding signs above their heads, but at one point one member started calling out “shame!” during Gates’ speech.

Republican senators take a stand on protecting American justice

Eight Senate Republicans gathered this afternoon to hold a forum on “Protecting American Justice: Ensuring Confirmation of Qualified Judicial Nominees.” Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) led the forum and said that it is not fair to the American people for Congress to block certain judicial nominees in an effort to obtain partisan revenge. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) agreed with Specter and said that U.S. courts are the front lines of contact between the American citizens and Congress.

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said that there is no excuse for not considering voting upon a good judicial nominee. He said that republicans are ready to go to work and serve justice. Sen. John Warner said it is sad watching qualified nominees not get invited to hearings and go into the “partisan fight.” Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) agreed with Warner and said that good nominees should not be trumped by partisan politics.

John McGinnis of Northwestern Law School said the process of confirming judicial nominees has broken down in the last few years and become a partisan process. He explained that over the last twenty years, the Senate Judiciary Committee has often refused to hold hearings or take votes on federal court nominees of a President who is a member of the opposing political party. McGinnis said that by delaying or refusing to provide hearings for plausibly qualified federal court nominees, the Judiciary Committee is likely to harm the quality of the judiciary. He proposed that the Committee pass a rule requiring the Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing within six months of a nomination and to hold a Committee vote without one month of the hearing, unless at least two-thirds of the Committee agrees to postpone it.

David Bohn of the North Carolina Bar Association said that his association joins in calling for nominations to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to move forward immediately, specifically Judge Robert Conrad’s nomination. Bohn said that further delay in the nomination will cause more harm than good, and that to continue to have the State of North Carolina under-represented in the Circuit is “a misfortunate, unnecessary detriment to the public and the legal community of North Carolina.”

Roscoe Howard, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, explained that the D.C. Circuit has been affected by a growing caseload. He said that not having vacancies filled during a time like this is “just wrong.” Howard gave his support for Mr. Keisler and Judge Conrad and said that when the confirmation of men such as them fail to move forward, there is an appearance of a lack of appreciation of their capabilities, and of the respect they have earned. More importantly, Howard said that the integrity of the U.S. judicial system of selecting judges is harmed and diminished.

United States Senate Committee on Armed Services discusses future of Afghanistan during hearing

Chairman of the Committee Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) began by talking about two recently published reports drafted by the Afghanistan Study Group and the Atlantic Council which highlight widespread and growing instability in Afghanistan. According to Levin, the Afghanistan Study Group report finds that since 2002, violence, insecurity, and opium production have "risen dramatically." He said that the Atlantic Council report states, "Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan." Levin said that despite these reports, the Bush administration continues to "paint a rosy picture" of the situation in Afghanistan and that he hopes the administration will interpret the reports as a signal of the "urgent need to reassess its approach" there.

Member of the committee Senator John Warner (R-VA) spoke briefly saying that the "credibility of NATO is at stake" in the ongoing fight in Afghanistan. He said that a failure in Afghanistan would boost extremist movements and called for Europe to contribute more to the war. He said that some Europeans have been unwilling to commit more troops to Afghanistan and said that terrorist attacks in Europe such as those in London and Madrid prove that Europeans have an interest in winning in Afghanistan.

James Shinn, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs gave testimony before the committee where he stated that he agrees with many of the conclusions reached by the Afghanistan Study Group and the Atlantic Council in their reports. He said that the approach taken in Afghanistan needs to be "fundamentally altered" but he did say that NATO is winning "slowly and painfully." According to him, NATO is successful in every battle against Taliban forces but the failure to win the war is caused by the inability to eliminate the resurgence of those forces. He cited widespread corruption within the Afghan National Police (ANP) as a major obstacle preventing Afghan people from trusting the security officials. He also said that the U.S. does not bare sole responsibility in Afghanistan but the United Nations, Europe, NATO, and Afghanistan itself must all contribute to secure the country.

Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, commented mostly on positive aspects of the conflict. He said that there is not yet success in Afghanistan, but that many achievements have been made there. According to him, 5 million Afghan children are enrolled in school this year—up from 900,000 children in 2001. He said that Afghans are all talking about the number of internet cafes and gas stations springing up off a road that the U.S. built. He also said that economic growth is on the rise and described last year's estimated growth of 13% as "remarkably high." But he did say that narcotics trafficking, weak government, and corruption remain "endemic."