This is what we like to call a chazakah:

One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, “Ethics & Religion,” appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. “I needed to draw this bright line,” Horn tells Salon. “The policy is being implemented and we’re moving forward.” Horn’s move came on the heels of Wednesday’s report in the Washington Post that HHS had paid syndicated columnist and marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher $21,000 to write brochures and essays and to brief government employees on the president’s marriage initiative. Gallagher later wrote in her column that she would have revealed the $21,000 payment to readers had she recalled receiving it.

My piece in the YDN today:

Last night, the members of Local 34 met to commemorate two decades since winning their first contract with Yale. After a string of failed attempts, Local 34 gained recognition in 1984 as one of the first clerical and technical workers’ unions at a private university. And after a hard-fought ten-week strike that belied University Secretary John Wilkinson’s derisive claim that “the ladies will be back in three days,” they won a contract in 1985 that pushed Yale along the long, unfinished path toward achieving the strikers’ central demand: equal work for equal pay. Local 34’s victory was won with the solidarity of the members of Local 35, who went out on strike with them despite threats of legal retaliation. And that January, when Local 34’s membership committed to go back out on strike if need be to secure just contracts for Local 35, the University settled that contract as well.

Building that alliance and winning that fight meant defying entrenched perceptions about men, women and work. Yale’s 1971 anti-union campaign included distributing a Reader’s Digest article called “You’ll be a hooker — or else!” suggesting that unions were a male scheme to force women into prostitution. A letter from a deputy provost argued that unions were for “industrial” workers like those in Local 35 and created “two classes of labor and management, and assumes they oppose each other,” and were thus inappropriate for the civilized tasks of clerical and technical workers. Yale literature opposing the 1984 organizing drive declared unions inappropriate for “an institution as varied and diverse as Yale, where value is placed on individual skills and merit.” The implicit message of union opponents remained the same: Unions are for rough, manual and untrained labor, not for subtle work involving interpersonal communications and trust. While collective bargaining fits the predominately black male workforce of Local 35, it would wreak havoc for the white women in Yale’s clerical and technical workforce. Union opponents also asked why Yale’s “blue-collar” union was helping to organize Yale’s “pink-collar” workers. Anonymous fliers sprung up asking why “a union of hotel employees and restaurant employees is so concerned about a bunch of clerical and technical workers,” while the University intimated that the international union was plotting to merge the locals and shunt new union members in with old. Another Yale leaflet was titled “LOCAL 34 CAN BE FORCED TO STRIKE IF LOCAL 35 STRUCK.” And strike they did…

Yesterday, every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee took an important stance in voting against confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General:

The vote was much closer than expected, as all eight Democrats on the panel voted against Mr. Gonzales. Several Democrats who had indicated their support for Mr. Gonzales when President Bush first nominated him in November called Mr. Gonzales on Tuesday to say they would oppose him. Democrats accused Mr. Gonzales of being evasive and “arrogant” in explaining the Bush administration’s stance on the treatment of prisoners in the fight against terrorism. But his Republican defenders lauded him as a man of integrity and keen intellect whose Horatio Alger-like story – rising from poverty as the son of migrant workers in Texas – made him suited to become the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general…the Judiciary Committee’s narrow endorsement, a day after many Democrats attacked Condoleezza Rice on the Senate floor over her nomination for secretary of state, signaled the minority party’s willingness to do battle with the White House over another high-profile nomination, and Republicans acknowledged their disappointment over the strong show of opposition.

Most telling is Russ Feingold, who declared Gonzales unfit even given the broad latitude he grants the President in appointing a cabinet:

As all of my colleagues on this Committee know, I believe that Presidents are entitled to a great deal of deference in their cabinet nominations. I have voted in favor of a number of this President’s nominees, including the current Attorney General, with whom I had serious disagreements on matters of policy and general ideology. My votes may not have always pleased my political supporters, or my party’s leadership. But in carrying out my part in the constitutional scheme, as one who is asked to advise on and consent to a President’s nominations, I am guided by my conscience, and by the history and practices of the United States Senate. Rejecting a cabinet nominee is a very rare event. The decision to do so must never be taken lightly. Mr. Chairman, I have reached the conclusion, after a great deal of thought and careful consideration, that I cannot support Judge Gonzales’s nomination.

The National Labor Relations Board, which (almost) never saw an employer anti-union tactic it (really) didn’t like, rules that pro-union sentiments among managers make an election invalid:

Even employers who force employees to attend anti-union meetings are acting lawfully. Yet the Bush-appointed majority of the Board recently ruled that pro-union conduct by a supervisor was objectionable, coercive, and grounds for overturning a five-year-old union election victory. In 1998, the employees of Harborside Healthcare, a nursing home in Beachwood, OH, sought to form a union with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Robin Thomas was one of the Harborside employees who participated in the union campaign. She told her co-workers about the benefits of joining a union and asked them to sign cards authorizing SEIU as their representative in collective bargaining. Despite Harborside’s anti-union stance, the workers voted 49 to 36 in favor of union representation on October 1, 1998. The company filed to overturn the results of the election with the NLRB, charging that Thomas was a supervisor and that her pro-union conduct during the organizing campaign coerced employees into voting for union representation. In a unanimous decision, the Board denied Harborside’s appeal and certified the results of the election in 1999. The Board members ruled that Thomas was a supervisor under the law, but that her conduct was not objectionable because she did not explicitly threaten or promise benefits to her co-workers. Harborside appealed the ruling. Rather than ruling on the case, a federal appeals court remanded the case back to the Board for further clarification in 2000. On December 8, 2004 – after sitting on the case for four years – the board finally issued a 3 to 2 decision overturning the results of the election. In its ruling, the Board majority determined that the pro-union position of one low-level supervisor was enough to taint the election, despite the fact Harborside ran an anti-union campaign. Among the conduct they found objectionable were Thomas’ statements describing the benefits of forming a union for job security and the solicitation of signatures for a pro-union petition, the latter being an explicit reversal of a previous Board decision.

The dissenting members of the Board charged the majority with creating an “arbitrary double standard” in their treatment of pro vs. anti-union conduct. The Board has long allowed employers to force employees to attend ‘captive audience’ meetings where they are often deluged with anti-union propaganda. Yet the majority found it objectionable for Thomas to simply urge her co-workers to attend union meetings. In their dissent, the minority argued, “Contrary to the majority’s view, the law does not apply more harshly to pro-union supervisors…than to anti-union supervisors…” If this new standard were applied to anti-union conduct—the Board would ban much of what has become standard anti-union tactics used by employers to crush organizing efforts.

Today’s YDN reports a win for financial aid reform:

The University will likely soon unveil additions to undergraduate financial aid that would provide students currently receiving aid with funding to cover the costs of summer study abroad programs, Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said Monday. If discussions among top administrators continue to move forward, Salovey said, the final details will likely be ironed out as early as February — just as Yale students are finalizing their summer plans. The idea that all students, including those on financial aid, should be able to participate in costly foreign study opportunities was first articulated in the Committee for Yale College Education’s 2003 curriculum review. But discussions became “especially serious” last summer, when the University developed plans to bolster study abroad options in nations such as India and China, he said…

Currently Yale does not provide any need-based financial aid to students studying overseas during the summer months, although the University does fund study abroad options during the academic year for financial aid students. The administration is now soliciting ideas about ways to implement such an aid program from a variety of standing committees on international education, admissions and financial aid, and a new committee on programs in China that Salovey appointed in November. But Yale’s top administrators will make final budgetary decisions, Salovey said…The total cost of funding summer study abroad for financial aid students has not yet been determined, Salovey said. Although officials have not yet identified a source of the funding, Salovey said he thinks this would be an “attractive gift opportunity” for alumni and major donors of the University.

And Alexis Wolff reflects on financial aid’s role in her four years here:

To pay my self-help requirement for four years, I will have worked (at $10/hour) a total of 1,680 hours. (And that’s assuming I needed no spending money.) Work-study jobs have allowed me to refine my secretarial and cataloguing skills, but I am finding myself under-qualified as I contemplate my post-Yale life. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised: My more affluent Yale classmates had at least 1,680 more hours to dedicate to their classes, reading The Wall Street Journal or writing poetry. (No matter how great my innate poetry skills, whom would you predict to be the better poet — me, or the kid with 1,680 more hours of practice?) Yale’s current self-help requirement does not make extracurricular activities impossible, but it makes them difficult. My freshman year, I spent approximately 20 hours a week writing for the Yale Daily News. I compensated for the time financially by filling my self-help through loans. By the end of the year, however, I had depleted my high school savings and had no spending money, so sophomore year I had to get a job. I have worked 10 to 20 hours a week since then.

Yale didn’t technically prevent me from juggling work and the YDN, or from joining the Dramat or Dwight Hall Ex-Comm. But like many students who come from low-income families, I felt guilty for forsaking work for a selfish activity. Once I started to earn money, I couldn’t turn back. The UOC’s platform, which can be viewed at http://www.petitiononline.com/yaleaid/petition.html, proposes cutting self-help in half and paying students on financial aid to participate in certain extracurricular activities. Searching for jobs, I realized my selection is more limited than that of my classmates, because I have loan payments due. Even though I chose to work rather than to pay my self-help contribution entirely through loans, I have still incurred debt much higher than Yale’s current financial aid policy would lead you to believe. Although Yale requires only the parental contribution recommended by a student’s FASFA-generated Student Aid Report, the SAR does not consider that when a family lives hand-to-mouth, things come up. This year, for example, my mom could only produce half of her required contribution, so I had to take out additional loans.

Yushchenko is inaugurated:

Viktor A. Yushchenko, his face disfigured by poison, his fate nearly undone by electoral fraud, took the oath of office as president of Ukraine today, vowing to unite a poor and badly divided country and lead it into the mainstream of Europe. Speaking first in Parliament and then on Kiev’s central square, Mr. Yushchenko declared Ukraine’s freedom and independence in thinly veiled remarks aimed at the outgoing president, Leonid D. Kuchma, and at Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, who openly supported his opponent…

In his speeches, Mr. Yushchenko, 50, was alternately conciliatory and defiant. His, he said, was a victory for all Ukrainians, and he pledged to honor the people’s right to worship in their own faith, to embrace their own politics and to speak in the language of their ancestors, the later a reference to the divisive issue of the Russian language, which Mr. Yanukovich had promised to make equal in law to Ukrainian. Mr. Yushchenko also vowed to fight the corruption and the shadowy economy that had become characteristic of the tumultuous decade under Mr. Kuchma, where a few closely allied with power accumulated vast fortunes. “We shall create a democratic power — honest, professional and patriotic,” he said. “The wall that separates government from the people will be destroyed.”

Prison guards say they aren’t placing inmates by the content of their character:

Prison guards claim state officials lied to the U.S. Supreme Court about racial segregation in California’s prisons and the extent to which race is used to set prison policies, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Correctional officers and inmates told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside that segregation is rampant throughout the system, despite state attorneys’ contention that it is limited to inmates’ first 60 days behind bars. “There is no way I’d put a white and a black together,” said Charles Hughes, a lieutenant at California State Prison in Lancaster. “I’d be putting my job on the line if I did that.”

California Senior Assistant Attorney General Frances Grunder told the high court that racial segregation is limited to “reception center” housing of inmates during their first 60 days at a prison. They are initially segregated to determine their propensity for racial violence, lawyers told the court. Attorney General Bill Lockyer said that beyond the reception centers, prison inmates are fully integrated.

Zach on Thursday’s protest:

The maoists were ridiculous, dogmatic and annoying, but at least those of us on the DAWN march didn’t have to deal with ANSWER (not to be sectarian or anything.) The anarchist-initiated splinter march didn’t seem like it was really working too well. And then the cops reportedly decided to brutalize non-violent protestors for no reason (although arrests (and, for that matter, numbers) were nothing like what we saw with the NoRNC mobilizations here in august,) marking the first, or is that “frist” such incident of the day. Sometimes typos are downright revelatory. Still, i think the coffins remained siginifiers as powerful as they were in New York. Singing Woody Guthrie and “Carry It On” and “Solidarity Forever” held a profoundly strong symbolism for me – placing forth enduring visions of collectivity and the commons against the inauguration’s celebration of greed, private power, and warmaking. Even “if i had a hammer” managed to be significantly less corny than usual. And no i am not a fucking hippy so fuck you.

Lest we think that Bush never fires anyone:

The Bush administration has blocked the reappointment of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency chief, Peter Hansen, after a campaign by conservative and Jewish groups in the US, and the government in Jerusalem which accused him of being an “Israel hater”. Some European and Arab governments were keen for Mr Hansen to stay on at the end of his nine-year tenure but the US supported Israel’s assertion that the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is biased and soft on “terrorists”. This week Mr Hansen sent an email to staff saying he will leave on March 31…

Mr Hansen infuriated the Israeli government with public criticisms of the military’s wholesale destruction of Palestinian homes which he described as a grave breach of international humanitarian law. He also spoke out against the killing of children by indiscriminate Israeli gunfire hitting UN-run schools, and Israeli policies that have contributed to economic collapse and growing hunger among about 1m refugees in Gaza. The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, often attacked Mr Hansen, saying he was exceeding his remit and calling him an “Israel hater”.

If this administration were half as concerned about ameliorating conditions in the occupied territories as he is about punishing criticism of the occupation, Israelis and Palestinians would both be a lot safer right now.