Governors in the position of having an opportunity to pick a Senate seat certainly do face a daunting decision. They can promote a political ally, or give a boost to someone who can in turn, either through their personal popularity or their fundraising prowess, help the Governor further his or her own political career.
But the pitfalls are many as well. Choose poorly the reverse can happen. A Governor can turn an ally into an enemy, or suffer in terms of his or her own popularity because some people may disagree with the Senate selection.
What is clear though, is that the longer a Governor takes, the more intensely the spotlight shines, and the bigger the risks become.
We've obviously seen the Blagojevich scandal in Illinois, but even that is now taking a backseat to the intense and growing pressure that New York Governor David Paterson is under to alternately select Caroline Kennedy or not to select Caroline Kennedy (and if not Caroline Kennedy then all kinds of contradictory pressures as to who other than her to select.)
In contrast, outgoing Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner is leaving office without much heat. Granted, she is apparently retiring anyway, but despite questions that have been raised over her selection of an obscure aide to Joe Biden who is apparently just going to serve two years and keep the seat warm for Beau Biden, Joe's son who will run as soon as he gets back from Iraq, Minner isn't the focus of much media heat.
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter is starting to face a similar spotlight. The biggest question is whether he will appoint Ken Salazar's older brother, Congressman John Salazar to the Senate seat, or whether it will be someone with a different surname. My advice to Governor Ritter is this: If he doesn't want to end up in the same position as Governor Paterson, where virtually anything he does is sure to tick off a majority of the public and make some powerful enemies, he should act quickly and decisively and put a name out there.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
California court nullifies most of the state's 'Good Samaritan' law
I'm not anti-lawyer or anti-lawsuit. I've only had to originate a lawsuit once in my life, when I was rear-ended while stopped for an emergency vehicle (I was clearly in the right on that one), and the other driver's insurance company kept giving me the runaround, re-assigning my case to somebody else and somebody else and somebody else (who were always out when I called) until I finally said the heck with it and called a lawyer. Last year I thought I had a fairly strong case that I could have sued a hospital over, but I was able to resolve it without doing that.
So I'm not anti-lawyer. There is a saying that it's easy to dislike lawyers until you need one. And I think that a lot of the so-called 'frivilous' lawsuits turn out to not be all that frivilous. A good example was the infamous McDonald's hot coffee case, in which a woman got second degree burns when she spilled some coffee on herself and won a lawsuit against McDonald's for three million dollars. At least that's the part that got reported in the media. Of course the media left out two crucial details: first that McDonald's knew that their coffee had burned other people in the past (including a two year old who spilled someone else's coffee on himself) and had been warned about its temperature by at least one state health department, and second that the judge in the case decided that three million dollars was an excessive amount for punitive damages and knocked it down to $400,000 (probably fair for a problem they'd known about for a long time and chose to ignore.)
Sometimes the courts are the last and only recourse for ordinary people when they are being pushed around by 'Mr. Big' (whether that means the government, a corporation or simply Mr. Big.)
However, I believe that the California Supreme Court erred yesterday when it allowed a lawsuit to go forward against a 'good samaritan.'
At issue was a woman who was paralyzed after being pulled from her car. The rescuer thought that the car might explode. It didn't. However, the rescuer used her best judgment at the time. If she had not pulled her friend out and the car had exploded, then would she have been liable for murder? Probably not, but clearly this is a judgment call and there are going to be times when people using their best judgment get things wrong.
Far more chilling though is that this opens up the system to lawsuits in which everyone who is not directly 'providing medical help' (the words the court used) can be sued for what help they do give. So for example, if you see a car broken down on the side of the road, find a lost child in the mall or see someone trapped in a burning vehicle (as was the case here) your best option may be to do nothing.
Some years ago I was coming back late at night from working in St. Johns, a town in the mountains in eastern Arizona, down a lonely two lane road (so lonely that you can drive for an hour on that road sometimes at night and never see a car coming the other way.) This was on a cold night in February, and the cold wind was blowing. I saw a truck broken down on the side of the road. A woman was in it, and she said that she felt safe enough in the truck but asked if I could pick up her husband (who had started walking home so he could get their other car). She said if I kept on going, I'd see him walking a mile or two down the road. I did, and I gave him a ride. Twelve miles, I gave him a ride. It was frankly cold enough out there that he might have frozen before he got home. Plus, his wife would sooner or later have frozen in the truck. There are no police out there because there is no traffic out there at that time of the night, and I didn't have a cell with me (even if I did, I doubt if it would have been in range out there.) Now, was I rendering 'medical assistance' (as the California court says I should be)? Absolutely not. So according to the court, I was a fool to let him in the car because if anything had happened (suppose he claimed that he wrenched his shoulder putting on the seatbelt?) then I could be sued.
This ruling is chilling to me, because it is exactly the kind of thing that deters people from rendering help where help is needed.
According to he California Supreme Court, the biblical 'Good Samaritan' was a fool. The rich man who walked on by the injured man and the priest were wise. And true, while he was binding up the wounds the 'Good Samaritan' was 'rendering medical assistance' but when he took the man to the inn and paid for his room, he was not directly doing so, and as such the man could have sued him.
So the rich man and the priest are now the smarter ones, and the Good Samaritan was a fool. Is this the kind of society we want?
So I'm not anti-lawyer. There is a saying that it's easy to dislike lawyers until you need one. And I think that a lot of the so-called 'frivilous' lawsuits turn out to not be all that frivilous. A good example was the infamous McDonald's hot coffee case, in which a woman got second degree burns when she spilled some coffee on herself and won a lawsuit against McDonald's for three million dollars. At least that's the part that got reported in the media. Of course the media left out two crucial details: first that McDonald's knew that their coffee had burned other people in the past (including a two year old who spilled someone else's coffee on himself) and had been warned about its temperature by at least one state health department, and second that the judge in the case decided that three million dollars was an excessive amount for punitive damages and knocked it down to $400,000 (probably fair for a problem they'd known about for a long time and chose to ignore.)
Sometimes the courts are the last and only recourse for ordinary people when they are being pushed around by 'Mr. Big' (whether that means the government, a corporation or simply Mr. Big.)
However, I believe that the California Supreme Court erred yesterday when it allowed a lawsuit to go forward against a 'good samaritan.'
At issue was a woman who was paralyzed after being pulled from her car. The rescuer thought that the car might explode. It didn't. However, the rescuer used her best judgment at the time. If she had not pulled her friend out and the car had exploded, then would she have been liable for murder? Probably not, but clearly this is a judgment call and there are going to be times when people using their best judgment get things wrong.
Far more chilling though is that this opens up the system to lawsuits in which everyone who is not directly 'providing medical help' (the words the court used) can be sued for what help they do give. So for example, if you see a car broken down on the side of the road, find a lost child in the mall or see someone trapped in a burning vehicle (as was the case here) your best option may be to do nothing.
Some years ago I was coming back late at night from working in St. Johns, a town in the mountains in eastern Arizona, down a lonely two lane road (so lonely that you can drive for an hour on that road sometimes at night and never see a car coming the other way.) This was on a cold night in February, and the cold wind was blowing. I saw a truck broken down on the side of the road. A woman was in it, and she said that she felt safe enough in the truck but asked if I could pick up her husband (who had started walking home so he could get their other car). She said if I kept on going, I'd see him walking a mile or two down the road. I did, and I gave him a ride. Twelve miles, I gave him a ride. It was frankly cold enough out there that he might have frozen before he got home. Plus, his wife would sooner or later have frozen in the truck. There are no police out there because there is no traffic out there at that time of the night, and I didn't have a cell with me (even if I did, I doubt if it would have been in range out there.) Now, was I rendering 'medical assistance' (as the California court says I should be)? Absolutely not. So according to the court, I was a fool to let him in the car because if anything had happened (suppose he claimed that he wrenched his shoulder putting on the seatbelt?) then I could be sued.
This ruling is chilling to me, because it is exactly the kind of thing that deters people from rendering help where help is needed.
According to he California Supreme Court, the biblical 'Good Samaritan' was a fool. The rich man who walked on by the injured man and the priest were wise. And true, while he was binding up the wounds the 'Good Samaritan' was 'rendering medical assistance' but when he took the man to the inn and paid for his room, he was not directly doing so, and as such the man could have sued him.
So the rich man and the priest are now the smarter ones, and the Good Samaritan was a fool. Is this the kind of society we want?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Republicans shoot themselves in the shorts.
When things are going well, even when you appear to lose, they end up going the way you wanted. Hence the situation for Democrats on Capitol Hill and the auto industry bailout.
A couple of weeks ago, Democrats in Congress were adamant that the auto bailout should come from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion bailout mainly targeted towards the financial industry that Congress passed earlier this year, or if not from that source then in the form of a loan from the Federal Reserve.
The Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson balked at that and refused to spend money from the program, asking instead the Congress pass a separate bailout for the auto industry. And after making that clear, President Bush threatened to veto any bailout that took money from the TARP program (even future funds from it), and instead insisted that it should come from $25 billion already appropriated and earmarked to go to the Detroit automakers under a seperate bill to finance research and development of new cleaner and more fuel efficient vehicles.
After several days of negotiations with the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backed down and agreed to tap the research and development money. They agreed to a $14 billion package, which would keep the automakers solvent until January, when the next Congress and President can develop a longer term plan.
So then members of Congress started questioning union contracts. And the union made some concessions on payment to laid off workers and health care.
Once those were in, Harry Reid made another concession and agreed to not give Federal judges a pay raise in order to rope in wayward Democrat Clair McCaskill of Missouri.
So then Senate Republicans started demanding that the bill included a new wage structure in which union workers in Michigan would be paid on the same wage scale as non-union workers in Alabama. The union refused.
So then they launched a filibuster that garnered 43 votes, enough to block the measure. It died in the Senate.
So yesterday White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said that the Bush administration will look at using TARP funds, or if not that then a loan from the Treasury Department. Heck, by the end of the day yesterday the White House announcement even had GM stock almost all the way back where it started the day.
Either way, whether TARP funds are used or it comes from the Treasury Department, this is where Democrats began on this whole thing. The $25 billion fund for cleaner vehicles will remain intact, there will be very few strings attached relating to union benefits, and the judges will get their pay raise.
Which is exactly what the Democratic leadership's position was in the first place.
It's great when your opponent is a party as leaderless, as directionless and as tied in knots as today's GOP. Even when they beat you, the result is that you actually get what you wanted to begin with.
A couple of weeks ago, Democrats in Congress were adamant that the auto bailout should come from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $700 billion bailout mainly targeted towards the financial industry that Congress passed earlier this year, or if not from that source then in the form of a loan from the Federal Reserve.
The Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson balked at that and refused to spend money from the program, asking instead the Congress pass a separate bailout for the auto industry. And after making that clear, President Bush threatened to veto any bailout that took money from the TARP program (even future funds from it), and instead insisted that it should come from $25 billion already appropriated and earmarked to go to the Detroit automakers under a seperate bill to finance research and development of new cleaner and more fuel efficient vehicles.
After several days of negotiations with the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backed down and agreed to tap the research and development money. They agreed to a $14 billion package, which would keep the automakers solvent until January, when the next Congress and President can develop a longer term plan.
So then members of Congress started questioning union contracts. And the union made some concessions on payment to laid off workers and health care.
Once those were in, Harry Reid made another concession and agreed to not give Federal judges a pay raise in order to rope in wayward Democrat Clair McCaskill of Missouri.
So then Senate Republicans started demanding that the bill included a new wage structure in which union workers in Michigan would be paid on the same wage scale as non-union workers in Alabama. The union refused.
So then they launched a filibuster that garnered 43 votes, enough to block the measure. It died in the Senate.
So yesterday White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said that the Bush administration will look at using TARP funds, or if not that then a loan from the Treasury Department. Heck, by the end of the day yesterday the White House announcement even had GM stock almost all the way back where it started the day.
Either way, whether TARP funds are used or it comes from the Treasury Department, this is where Democrats began on this whole thing. The $25 billion fund for cleaner vehicles will remain intact, there will be very few strings attached relating to union benefits, and the judges will get their pay raise.
Which is exactly what the Democratic leadership's position was in the first place.
It's great when your opponent is a party as leaderless, as directionless and as tied in knots as today's GOP. Even when they beat you, the result is that you actually get what you wanted to begin with.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Top three I''m glad to see go.
Now that the election (including runoffs, delayed elections, etc.) is over, I'm ready (once again) to publish my post on the top three departures (yeah, I know that the Minnesota recount is still technically going on but even if things really turn around and Franken wins, Coleman isn't really a Republican who I can't stand.) This year's list was a little harder to assemble than 2006 (when I picked Don Rumsfeld, Rick Santorum and J.D. Hayworth), but then most of the really 'low hanging fruit' was gone. But not all of it. I might also add that this list is only a 'feet first' list-- those who actually are leaving because they lost an election (or in the case of Rumsfeld in 2006, were forced to leave not on their own accord.) Hence, although I'd love to include my departing congressman Rick Renzi (who is departing to federal court where he will face trial on charges of extortion, money laundering and embezzlement) he at least chose to not seek re-election, which makes him ineligible for this list.
So here is the 2008 list.
3. (tie) Ted Stevens/William Jefferson
No, Blago isn't gone yet. And as I just noted Renzi (and also indicted California Republican John Doolittle) at least are leaving on their feet by retiring instead of having the office ripped away from them directly by the voters. Not so with Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate (and also the king of pork), who last year was convicted on bribery charges and who still almost pulled out a win in Alaska (must be something in the water up there.) "Almost" is the operative word though. Stevens lost to Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, and for that we can all be thankful. Then last week, the same thing happened to William Jefferson. Despite running in a heavily African-American and Democratic district in New Orleans (a place where politicians have long been synonymous with corruption,) voters got rid of Jefferson and elected a Republican, Anh "Joseph" Cao (who in this year of firsts, is the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.) As you may recall, Jefferson is the indicted Congressman who tried to hide $90,000 in cash in his refrigerator. He managed to eke out a win in 2006 when he was involved in a runoff against a very controversial Democrat, but against a guy who was supposed to be a token opponent (Cao) and where the pundits hadn't even bothered to make a projection, he lost in an election that was delayed because of Hurricane Gustav. As I wrote last week, I am very happy about this outcome. Corruption is a problem that stretches across partisanship. Barack Obama had pointedly refused to endorse Jefferson this year (the only Democratic member of Congress who had sought Obama's endorsement that he turned down). So good riddance to Mr. Stevens and Mr. Jefferson. Maybe they can share something else in the future besides just being tied on this list. Like, maybe a cell, a bunk and a toilet.
2. Robin Hayes
"liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."
-- Rep. Robin Hayes, (R-NC).
Yeah, just feel the love and warmth around this guy. This kind of speech may go over well with talk radio listeners and right wing loonies, but Hayes apparently forgot that he had to win more votes than that. Talk radio nuts and right-wingers who think liberals are evil and malicious don't make up the majority of the electorate, not even in Jesse Helms' home state. Hayes, through a spokeswoman at first denied saying this, until he was confronted with an audiotape. Hayes had, until he made this comment had been leading in a competitive race that was leaning his way, but ended up losing solidly to Democratic challenger Larry Kissell. It is worth noting that this occurred in North Carolina, where Senator Liddy Dole also stumbled late by poisoning the water and trying to tie rival Kay Hagan to an atheist group, even to the point of hiring someone to mimic Hagan's voice saying something she never said. It is also worth noting that though Barack Obama, thanks to intensive voter registration drives and an excellent ground game won the state, Kissell (in his district) and Hagan (statewide) did even better than Obama, indicating that there were some North Carolinians who voted for John McCain but couldn't handle the kind of rhetoric that they heard coming from Hayes and Dole.
1. Marilyn Musgrave
Without a doubt, Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) was the biggest target for progressives this year. For starters, she has been the most conservative member of Congress according to the American Conservative Union, which gave her a 99 percent liftime rating. Musgrave worked hard to change comprehensive sex education to abstinence-only (as a school board member, then a state legislator and then as a congresswoman.) She also took a very hardline against any kind of recognition of rights for gays, arguing that homosexuality was a disease. She also tried to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. Musgrave was also one of Congress' most vocal opponents of abortion, and sponsored several anti-abortion initiatives. Musgrave also proposed sponsored legislation designed to outlaw online gambling, especially internet poker.
Musgrave is more than just a social conservative however. She is conservative all the way down the line, getting support from the National Taxpayers Union, the Club for Growth and a number of anti-tax organizations. She has pushed hard for the elimination of all estate (inheritance) taxes. She is a staunch supporter of various initiatives to drive down wages, from Right to Work legislation to her working to convince President Bush to suspend the Davis-Bacon wage protection act in the gulf coast following Hurricane Katrina (which Bush had to do a U-turn on following a public outcry, including from gulf coast residents who questioned why a representative from Colorado was giving advice to the President on how to pay people who were working to rebuild after the hurricane.)
Musgrave was running in a district that is a classic swing district. It includes a number of Republican-leaning rural counties, Larimer county, home of Colorado State University and reliably liberal, and Weld county, a suburban Denver county where she had won in the past. Musgrave has been remarkably scandal-free, so as an incumbent, even in a Democratic year, in theory she should have been able to win. Her opponent was Betsy Markey.
Markey's line was very simple and direct: Musgrave was too conservative. And it worked, as Markey won. And won big, by a double digit margin. So the message is clear. Conservatives for years made a living off of attacking liberals for being liberals. But if you're too conservative, that alone may be enough to beat you in the future.
So here is the 2008 list.
3. (tie) Ted Stevens/William Jefferson
No, Blago isn't gone yet. And as I just noted Renzi (and also indicted California Republican John Doolittle) at least are leaving on their feet by retiring instead of having the office ripped away from them directly by the voters. Not so with Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate (and also the king of pork), who last year was convicted on bribery charges and who still almost pulled out a win in Alaska (must be something in the water up there.) "Almost" is the operative word though. Stevens lost to Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, and for that we can all be thankful. Then last week, the same thing happened to William Jefferson. Despite running in a heavily African-American and Democratic district in New Orleans (a place where politicians have long been synonymous with corruption,) voters got rid of Jefferson and elected a Republican, Anh "Joseph" Cao (who in this year of firsts, is the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress.) As you may recall, Jefferson is the indicted Congressman who tried to hide $90,000 in cash in his refrigerator. He managed to eke out a win in 2006 when he was involved in a runoff against a very controversial Democrat, but against a guy who was supposed to be a token opponent (Cao) and where the pundits hadn't even bothered to make a projection, he lost in an election that was delayed because of Hurricane Gustav. As I wrote last week, I am very happy about this outcome. Corruption is a problem that stretches across partisanship. Barack Obama had pointedly refused to endorse Jefferson this year (the only Democratic member of Congress who had sought Obama's endorsement that he turned down). So good riddance to Mr. Stevens and Mr. Jefferson. Maybe they can share something else in the future besides just being tied on this list. Like, maybe a cell, a bunk and a toilet.
2. Robin Hayes
"liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God."
-- Rep. Robin Hayes, (R-NC).
Yeah, just feel the love and warmth around this guy. This kind of speech may go over well with talk radio listeners and right wing loonies, but Hayes apparently forgot that he had to win more votes than that. Talk radio nuts and right-wingers who think liberals are evil and malicious don't make up the majority of the electorate, not even in Jesse Helms' home state. Hayes, through a spokeswoman at first denied saying this, until he was confronted with an audiotape. Hayes had, until he made this comment had been leading in a competitive race that was leaning his way, but ended up losing solidly to Democratic challenger Larry Kissell. It is worth noting that this occurred in North Carolina, where Senator Liddy Dole also stumbled late by poisoning the water and trying to tie rival Kay Hagan to an atheist group, even to the point of hiring someone to mimic Hagan's voice saying something she never said. It is also worth noting that though Barack Obama, thanks to intensive voter registration drives and an excellent ground game won the state, Kissell (in his district) and Hagan (statewide) did even better than Obama, indicating that there were some North Carolinians who voted for John McCain but couldn't handle the kind of rhetoric that they heard coming from Hayes and Dole.
1. Marilyn Musgrave
Without a doubt, Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) was the biggest target for progressives this year. For starters, she has been the most conservative member of Congress according to the American Conservative Union, which gave her a 99 percent liftime rating. Musgrave worked hard to change comprehensive sex education to abstinence-only (as a school board member, then a state legislator and then as a congresswoman.) She also took a very hardline against any kind of recognition of rights for gays, arguing that homosexuality was a disease. She also tried to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. Musgrave was also one of Congress' most vocal opponents of abortion, and sponsored several anti-abortion initiatives. Musgrave also proposed sponsored legislation designed to outlaw online gambling, especially internet poker.
Musgrave is more than just a social conservative however. She is conservative all the way down the line, getting support from the National Taxpayers Union, the Club for Growth and a number of anti-tax organizations. She has pushed hard for the elimination of all estate (inheritance) taxes. She is a staunch supporter of various initiatives to drive down wages, from Right to Work legislation to her working to convince President Bush to suspend the Davis-Bacon wage protection act in the gulf coast following Hurricane Katrina (which Bush had to do a U-turn on following a public outcry, including from gulf coast residents who questioned why a representative from Colorado was giving advice to the President on how to pay people who were working to rebuild after the hurricane.)
Musgrave was running in a district that is a classic swing district. It includes a number of Republican-leaning rural counties, Larimer county, home of Colorado State University and reliably liberal, and Weld county, a suburban Denver county where she had won in the past. Musgrave has been remarkably scandal-free, so as an incumbent, even in a Democratic year, in theory she should have been able to win. Her opponent was Betsy Markey.
Markey's line was very simple and direct: Musgrave was too conservative. And it worked, as Markey won. And won big, by a double digit margin. So the message is clear. Conservatives for years made a living off of attacking liberals for being liberals. But if you're too conservative, that alone may be enough to beat you in the future.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
This political clown is right out of the 1920's. And he needs to go to prison
I'm still having trouble absorbing the absolutely shocking news involving Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and the degree and breadth of his corruption 'spree' (to quote U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald.) Among the most shocking allegations are that he tried to sell his appointment to fill the Senate seat formerly occupied by Barack Obama (or appoint himself if no one would pay his price), and also that he worked to block the Chicago Tribune from selling Wrigley Field until they fired editorial writers who had been critical of him and replaced them with 'editorial support' (presumably meaning editorial writers who were willing to write nicer things about Blagojevich.) The transcripts of Blagojevich's own words are all over the internet by now, and they are pretty damning-- though those on the right side of the blogsphere who want to try and spin this into an attack on Obama are tripping over themselves since Blagojevich profanely complained that the Obama people 'wouldn't give him anything.' In fact, Valerie Jarrett, who was known to be Obama's choice for the job, abruptly removed her name from consideration, apparently right away once she found out that Blagojevich was going to make the appointment based on what he could get out of it instead of more wholesome considerations. It is even being reported that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel may have tipped off Fitzgerald about the potential sale of the Senate seat so he could add it to the long list of investigations he had ongoing involving the Illinois Governor.
I wrote a couple of days ago regarding Louisiana Democratic congressman William Jefferson, who is facing a court date after being indicted on bribery and corruption charges that I was glad to see him go.
As in the case of Jefferson, I refuse to support Blagojevich just because he is a Democrat. My sense of partisan loyalty ends when it comes to felony corruption. If he does not resign immediately there is no question that he should be impeached by the Illinois legislature. Even before that though the Illinois legislature should immediately act on Senator Dick Durbin's recommendation and take the power to fill this seat away from the Governor and schedule a special election.
Remember how as Democrats we held the high moral ground during the Abramoff scandal, the Plame scandal and other scandals that rocked the previous Republican congress and administration. But we should not claim that our public servants are less susceptible to scandal. Instead we must maintain that high moral ground by drawing a sharp contrast to the 'hanging-on-until-the-last' attitude that characterized the Tom Delay/Scooter Libby Republicans. We have to speak out and take a strong stance against corruption.
And for that matter, that includes ongoing ethical questions. Right now Charlie Rangel, a Democrat who I've always admired, is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee. While I agree that he deserves to have the investigation run its course before any action is taken, I believe that it would be appropriate for him to step aside as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee until he is either cleared by the Ethics Committee, or the charges are sustained in which case it will be up to the House what action to take.
Political corruption can show up in politicians of any political stripe. And it is never acceptable.
I wrote a couple of days ago regarding Louisiana Democratic congressman William Jefferson, who is facing a court date after being indicted on bribery and corruption charges that I was glad to see him go.
As in the case of Jefferson, I refuse to support Blagojevich just because he is a Democrat. My sense of partisan loyalty ends when it comes to felony corruption. If he does not resign immediately there is no question that he should be impeached by the Illinois legislature. Even before that though the Illinois legislature should immediately act on Senator Dick Durbin's recommendation and take the power to fill this seat away from the Governor and schedule a special election.
Remember how as Democrats we held the high moral ground during the Abramoff scandal, the Plame scandal and other scandals that rocked the previous Republican congress and administration. But we should not claim that our public servants are less susceptible to scandal. Instead we must maintain that high moral ground by drawing a sharp contrast to the 'hanging-on-until-the-last' attitude that characterized the Tom Delay/Scooter Libby Republicans. We have to speak out and take a strong stance against corruption.
And for that matter, that includes ongoing ethical questions. Right now Charlie Rangel, a Democrat who I've always admired, is being investigated by the House Ethics Committee. While I agree that he deserves to have the investigation run its course before any action is taken, I believe that it would be appropriate for him to step aside as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee until he is either cleared by the Ethics Committee, or the charges are sustained in which case it will be up to the House what action to take.
Political corruption can show up in politicians of any political stripe. And it is never acceptable.
Monday, December 08, 2008
English-- our national languish
In 1947, as he was pondering how best to create a new nation that would last, thrive and prosper, one of the biggest problems that Mahatma Gandhi had to consider was that of language. In India, there were literally hundreds of different languages and dialects spoken, by dozens of distinct ethnic groups. Hindi speakers wanted Hindi for the national language, Urdu speakers wanted it to be Urdu and speakers of other languages, while conceding that their local tongues didn't lay claim to as many speakers as Hindi or Urdu, hoped that each region of India would be able to choose its own official language. Each option offered risks which bordered on unacceptable. If Ghandi chose Hindi or Urdu then he risked creating a two tier society (even while working to rid India of the ancient but oppressive caste system) in which native speakers would have an advantage in business, schools and other competitive fields, and as such might naturally come to assume that they were somehow naturally advantaged while speakers of other languages might become similarly resentful. If he allowed each region to select its own language then he risked creating deep regional divisions that might eventually lead to the rise of nationalism among ethnic minorities and the further division of the country (Gandhi's worst nightmare had already occurred, when the British had partitioned the country into a predominantly hindu India and a predominantly muslim Pakistan.)
Gandhi made his decision. And when he did it confounded everyone and angered many. Gandhi decided that the official language of India would be English, the hated tongue of the colonial masters. Gandhi however saw the logic in this decision. First, it did not give anyone an innate advantage, as the colonial language was equally detested everywhere. Second, by decreeing that governmental communications would be published in English and that school children would study it, he guaranteed the basic solvency of India because it meant that an Indian from anywhere in the country could sit and talk to an Indian from anywhere else in the country. Third, he believed that by educating students in English, India would develop faster and develop stronger business ties with the English speaking world (though I doubt if he foresaw the use of call centers in his country by American credit card companies.)
History has shown it to have been a wise decision however. And I do see the logic and agree with it that in the United States it is good to have everyone learn to speak English so that we can all communicate with each other.
However, we have gone too far in the direction of 'English only,' and to the point where it is becoming harmful not only to our citizenry but to our economic standing in the world. Our education model, which is essentially hased on nineteenth and early twentieth century ideas about how to study linguistics, assumes that children should not learn a foreign language until they are old enough to conjugate a verb. Generally this is in high school. In fact, some years ago I tried to enroll my then nine-year old daughters to audit a Spanish class at the local community college (along with myself, we were all going to audit the class together.) The official response however was that they could not enroll because they had to be fourteen. However, this is a very wrong-headed approach to the problem. Children learn languages best at a young age. Recent research has even showed that during puberty the brains of children change, and it appears that one of the changes is that the brain is less adept and learning new language skills. So the crux of the argument is this-- it's OK if a student learns bad grammar in another language. Kids learn bad grammar in English, and we are able to work on fixing the double negatives, the slang and the poor writing skills in junior high and high school. But the basic knowlege of the English language is there by then. So there is precedent for the idea that learning a language early doesn't preclude the study of word structure and other more advanced language skills later.
That doesn't mean of course that people can't learn one or more second languages later on in life, but it is and will always be that-- a 'second' language. Your basic thought processes will always be in your first language, so that you will always be at least at a slight disadvantage when speaking to someone who grew up speaking the language that you studied all those long hours out of books and audiocassettes to try and perfect. You may remember how to say something, but they don't have to remember. It's a part of their thought process and comes out naturally.
The truth is, that in today's world knowing more than one language is important. In Europe it's always been that way, as European countries are about the size of U.S. states on average and it is necessary to know more than one language if one wants to travel anywhere. Even in America, let's just say that if you apply for a job in Los Angeles and know one language and the other applicant is bilingual then guess who gets the job? Businesses are there to make money, and they won't hire someone who can't communicate with some of their potential customers when someone else applies who can. But the real problem is when it comes to trade. In an increasingly globalized world, international trade is itself an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. And the people who manage and drive that industry are those who can communicate with the people on both ends of the line. In general, they is not Americans. For example, nearly all of the hundreds of billions of dollars in trade between the U.S. and China is directed and managed by Chinese middlemen. That's because millions of Chinese kids are taught at a young age to speak English as well as Chinese, while very few Americans are fluent in Mandarin. So when it comes time to arrange a deal then the power broker that someone calls is most probably Chinese.
In contrast, I'd like to talk about my cousin's daughter (I'll call her Alice). My cousin is on my father's side, and our family is American all the way back to the Mayflower (I had an ancestor who outfitted the Mayflower and rented it to the pilgrims, and he himself came over ten years later, in 1630.) She is married to a man from central America. So Alice grew up speaking both English and Spanish. She can easily switch back and forth between the two languages and carry on a conversation in either one without having to stop and think about how to say something. She is also an excellent student.
Alice is an prime example of what we could have-- IF we changed 'English only' to 'English and' then we would with one shot both guarantee that we could all speak to each other AND give people the language skills that they will need, and that we collectively need for them to have in an increasingly interconnected and global world. We could also do away with some of the sillier controversies we have in schools today. If we required all kids to learn in elementary school two languages, one of which would be English and the other of which would be something else with the goal that by the end of sixth grade all kids would be fluent in at least two languages, then all kids would also be on an equal footing. Those whose native language was not English would have to learn English. The rest would know English but would have to learn something else (which would be a matter of choice-- and yes, I'd include sign language as a valid choice.)
But it's time we quit debating with ourselves about teaching and learning languages and instead realized that we must move forward on it. In a world of global business, our economic future depends on it. If we do not, and assume that the status quo is good enough then we will languish on the vine as others pass us up. And therein is a thought for the title of this essay.
Gandhi made his decision. And when he did it confounded everyone and angered many. Gandhi decided that the official language of India would be English, the hated tongue of the colonial masters. Gandhi however saw the logic in this decision. First, it did not give anyone an innate advantage, as the colonial language was equally detested everywhere. Second, by decreeing that governmental communications would be published in English and that school children would study it, he guaranteed the basic solvency of India because it meant that an Indian from anywhere in the country could sit and talk to an Indian from anywhere else in the country. Third, he believed that by educating students in English, India would develop faster and develop stronger business ties with the English speaking world (though I doubt if he foresaw the use of call centers in his country by American credit card companies.)
History has shown it to have been a wise decision however. And I do see the logic and agree with it that in the United States it is good to have everyone learn to speak English so that we can all communicate with each other.
However, we have gone too far in the direction of 'English only,' and to the point where it is becoming harmful not only to our citizenry but to our economic standing in the world. Our education model, which is essentially hased on nineteenth and early twentieth century ideas about how to study linguistics, assumes that children should not learn a foreign language until they are old enough to conjugate a verb. Generally this is in high school. In fact, some years ago I tried to enroll my then nine-year old daughters to audit a Spanish class at the local community college (along with myself, we were all going to audit the class together.) The official response however was that they could not enroll because they had to be fourteen. However, this is a very wrong-headed approach to the problem. Children learn languages best at a young age. Recent research has even showed that during puberty the brains of children change, and it appears that one of the changes is that the brain is less adept and learning new language skills. So the crux of the argument is this-- it's OK if a student learns bad grammar in another language. Kids learn bad grammar in English, and we are able to work on fixing the double negatives, the slang and the poor writing skills in junior high and high school. But the basic knowlege of the English language is there by then. So there is precedent for the idea that learning a language early doesn't preclude the study of word structure and other more advanced language skills later.
That doesn't mean of course that people can't learn one or more second languages later on in life, but it is and will always be that-- a 'second' language. Your basic thought processes will always be in your first language, so that you will always be at least at a slight disadvantage when speaking to someone who grew up speaking the language that you studied all those long hours out of books and audiocassettes to try and perfect. You may remember how to say something, but they don't have to remember. It's a part of their thought process and comes out naturally.
The truth is, that in today's world knowing more than one language is important. In Europe it's always been that way, as European countries are about the size of U.S. states on average and it is necessary to know more than one language if one wants to travel anywhere. Even in America, let's just say that if you apply for a job in Los Angeles and know one language and the other applicant is bilingual then guess who gets the job? Businesses are there to make money, and they won't hire someone who can't communicate with some of their potential customers when someone else applies who can. But the real problem is when it comes to trade. In an increasingly globalized world, international trade is itself an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. And the people who manage and drive that industry are those who can communicate with the people on both ends of the line. In general, they is not Americans. For example, nearly all of the hundreds of billions of dollars in trade between the U.S. and China is directed and managed by Chinese middlemen. That's because millions of Chinese kids are taught at a young age to speak English as well as Chinese, while very few Americans are fluent in Mandarin. So when it comes time to arrange a deal then the power broker that someone calls is most probably Chinese.
In contrast, I'd like to talk about my cousin's daughter (I'll call her Alice). My cousin is on my father's side, and our family is American all the way back to the Mayflower (I had an ancestor who outfitted the Mayflower and rented it to the pilgrims, and he himself came over ten years later, in 1630.) She is married to a man from central America. So Alice grew up speaking both English and Spanish. She can easily switch back and forth between the two languages and carry on a conversation in either one without having to stop and think about how to say something. She is also an excellent student.
Alice is an prime example of what we could have-- IF we changed 'English only' to 'English and' then we would with one shot both guarantee that we could all speak to each other AND give people the language skills that they will need, and that we collectively need for them to have in an increasingly interconnected and global world. We could also do away with some of the sillier controversies we have in schools today. If we required all kids to learn in elementary school two languages, one of which would be English and the other of which would be something else with the goal that by the end of sixth grade all kids would be fluent in at least two languages, then all kids would also be on an equal footing. Those whose native language was not English would have to learn English. The rest would know English but would have to learn something else (which would be a matter of choice-- and yes, I'd include sign language as a valid choice.)
But it's time we quit debating with ourselves about teaching and learning languages and instead realized that we must move forward on it. In a world of global business, our economic future depends on it. If we do not, and assume that the status quo is good enough then we will languish on the vine as others pass us up. And therein is a thought for the title of this essay.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
About the only time I'm congratulating a Republican for beating a Democrat
Very, very rarely would you ever see me express any satisfaction about a Republican beating a Democrat, especially a Democratic incumbent.
But I am happy about a huge upset win in a runoff in New Orleans tonight, in which Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao upset Democratic incument congressman William Jefferson.
Jefferson, of course, is facing a trial after being indicted on federal corruption charges after FBI agents found, among other evidence, $90,000 in cash in his refrigerator. Just as a lot of Republicans were not so secretly happy when the Alaska vote count finally resulted in the departure of convicted felon Ted Stevens from the Senate, a lot of Democrats (and I count myself as one of those) are happy to see Jefferson go. In fact, I don't think I've ever said anything nice about my own indicted congressman, Rick Renzi but I will say that I congratulate Renzi on at least being smart enough to not run for re-election this year. Ann Kirkpatrick (yes, I finally have a REPRESENTATIVE who actually does REPRESENT me!) beat someone else instead, sparing Renzi the final bit of humiliation that were the lot of Stevens and Jefferson this year.
I strongly suspect that in this overwelmingly Democratic and African-American district in New Orleans, Cao will be a one-term congressman and will be beaten in two years by a Democrat (just by one who thinks that refrigerators are for storing groceries.)
But in the meantime, Ted Stevens will be able to appeal his conviction, and Rick Renzi, William Jefferson and retiring California Republican John DooLittle will be able to focus on their upcoming corruption trials all without the distraction of carrying out congressional business.
And it's about time.
But I am happy about a huge upset win in a runoff in New Orleans tonight, in which Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao upset Democratic incument congressman William Jefferson.
Jefferson, of course, is facing a trial after being indicted on federal corruption charges after FBI agents found, among other evidence, $90,000 in cash in his refrigerator. Just as a lot of Republicans were not so secretly happy when the Alaska vote count finally resulted in the departure of convicted felon Ted Stevens from the Senate, a lot of Democrats (and I count myself as one of those) are happy to see Jefferson go. In fact, I don't think I've ever said anything nice about my own indicted congressman, Rick Renzi but I will say that I congratulate Renzi on at least being smart enough to not run for re-election this year. Ann Kirkpatrick (yes, I finally have a REPRESENTATIVE who actually does REPRESENT me!) beat someone else instead, sparing Renzi the final bit of humiliation that were the lot of Stevens and Jefferson this year.
I strongly suspect that in this overwelmingly Democratic and African-American district in New Orleans, Cao will be a one-term congressman and will be beaten in two years by a Democrat (just by one who thinks that refrigerators are for storing groceries.)
But in the meantime, Ted Stevens will be able to appeal his conviction, and Rick Renzi, William Jefferson and retiring California Republican John DooLittle will be able to focus on their upcoming corruption trials all without the distraction of carrying out congressional business.
And it's about time.
Friday, December 05, 2008
75th anniversary of the 21st amendment-- and a time to talk about marijuana
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the 21st amendment, or in other words it's been three quarters of a century since we repealed the only amendment to the United States Constitution which was clearly a mistake.
The eighteenth amendment, Prohibition, expressly forbad the sale, trafficking and production of alcoholic beverages in the United States.
During the 1920's, the illegal alcohol industry fueled the rise of Capone and other alcohol kingpins, which eventually coalesced around a violent gang imported from Sicily, a.k.a. the Mafia. Of course not every two bit bathtub gin operator had ties to gangs or organized crime to be sure. There were plenty of bootleggers outrunning the 'revenooers' or shooting them down in places like the hills and hollows of Appalachia or small border towns along the Canadian border (liquor was legal and Canada and that country was a major source of it). Are you a NASCAR fan? Great. But the origin of modern stock car racing came straight out of prohibition. Win, and you got a paycheck. Lose and you'd see the inside of a cell for a good long time. In fact some of the early stock car racing champions were former bootleggers.
And what fueled the whole industry was a simple fact. If there are both suppliers (i.e. bootleggers) and consumers (millions of Americans who still wanted a drink) then there was a market, and markets are like a river-- it may be possible to manage them or channel them, but you won't be able to end them simply by passing a law mandating that they take themselves out of existence.
After spending tens of millions of dollars tracking down, arresting and putting bootleggers in prison during the 1920's, the country discovered this themselves. There were always more bootleggers, more speakeasies, more stills out in the woods, and more hooch. And there were always more customers to buy the hooch.
Further, that deadly Sicilian virus that had taken root in America probably decades earlier, but which was nourished and fed by Prohibition had by then used the power it gained to branch out and infect many, many other fields-- gambling, trash collection, labor, shipping, politics and even organizing street crime to name a few. It took decades of dedicated and very dangerous police work to finally neuter the Mafia.
And then the Great Depression hit. Tax collections went way down, and the demand for Government services went way up. In many states a significant proportion of the prison population was there for crimes related to the production, transport or sale of alcohol and the states were being bled dry by the need to house all of them. So something had to give.
And it did. America finally decided that the experiment of Prohibition was not only a failure, but a very expensive failure which we could no longer afford. So, the Congress of the day quickly, at the behest of the Roosevelt administration, passed another amendment (the only way to revoke a Constitutional amendment is with another amendment) and it was soon ratified by the states.
OK. So now let me pitch something to you.
Other than the fact that it is a different drug, and that the Constitution does not discuss it at all, why couldn't you make all these points about alcohol, at least as clearly for marijuana?
I will concede that yes, there are drugs that are so dangerous to individuals as well as to society that it is worth the cost of keeping them illegal (methamphetamine springs immedately to mind.) But as one of my college professors used to like to say, "an overdose of marijuana is a 200 lb bale dropped from 10 feet over your head." That isn't to say that marijuana isn't dangerous. It is dangerous. So what? It's no more dangerous than alcohol, which kills many more people every year from everthing from cirrhosis of the liver to autombile accidents. And while you can't overdose on marijuana, dozens of people die every year from alcohol poisoning after drinking too much, too fast.
OK, so why else should it stay illegal? Because it's a gateway to other drugs? That seems to me to be a self-fulfilling argument. Precisely because it's illegal, pushers sell marijuana to people and then have their clientele ready for and waiting when they decide it's time to make the move up to meth.
Why else? Morality? I agree that any drug use is not 'moral.' Again, does that justify making something illegal in the absence of any other reason? There was for example a time when adulterers were stoned to death, and more recently when they could be sent to prison or otherwise punished by the law. But today, they are tried in civil, not criminal courts. And that's appropriate. Adultery is just as immoral as it always has been, but it's not a crime. We've come to recognize that. So morality in and of itself is not a reason to criminalize a behavior.
But there are at least two reasons to consider legalization of marijuana, and they are both reasons that ultimately contributed (in a somehwat different but still recognizably similar form) to reaching the conclusion that prohibition was a failure:
1. Violent criminal organizations do indeed fight for control of marijuana distribution. And yes, that includes in the United States as well as other countries. And certainly if marijuana is legalized, it wouldn't put those gangs out of business-- they'd still have meth, cocaine and all kinds of other drugs. But at the same time marijuana is still their basic drug 'currency.' If it were legalized there is no doubt that it would put a serious crimp in their business. And in the meantime, during hard economic times legitimate businesses, everyone from convenience stores to shipping companies, would get a boost to their business.
2. The expense of trying so many drug cases which clog up our court system and then housing all those prisoners (up to half of all defendants are there on drug related charges, and almost half of them on marijuana) is crippling. True that a lot of police departments partially finance themselves based on what they seize in drug cases, but that is hardly a reason in and of itself to keep something illegal.
The eighteenth amendment, Prohibition, expressly forbad the sale, trafficking and production of alcoholic beverages in the United States.
During the 1920's, the illegal alcohol industry fueled the rise of Capone and other alcohol kingpins, which eventually coalesced around a violent gang imported from Sicily, a.k.a. the Mafia. Of course not every two bit bathtub gin operator had ties to gangs or organized crime to be sure. There were plenty of bootleggers outrunning the 'revenooers' or shooting them down in places like the hills and hollows of Appalachia or small border towns along the Canadian border (liquor was legal and Canada and that country was a major source of it). Are you a NASCAR fan? Great. But the origin of modern stock car racing came straight out of prohibition. Win, and you got a paycheck. Lose and you'd see the inside of a cell for a good long time. In fact some of the early stock car racing champions were former bootleggers.
And what fueled the whole industry was a simple fact. If there are both suppliers (i.e. bootleggers) and consumers (millions of Americans who still wanted a drink) then there was a market, and markets are like a river-- it may be possible to manage them or channel them, but you won't be able to end them simply by passing a law mandating that they take themselves out of existence.
After spending tens of millions of dollars tracking down, arresting and putting bootleggers in prison during the 1920's, the country discovered this themselves. There were always more bootleggers, more speakeasies, more stills out in the woods, and more hooch. And there were always more customers to buy the hooch.
Further, that deadly Sicilian virus that had taken root in America probably decades earlier, but which was nourished and fed by Prohibition had by then used the power it gained to branch out and infect many, many other fields-- gambling, trash collection, labor, shipping, politics and even organizing street crime to name a few. It took decades of dedicated and very dangerous police work to finally neuter the Mafia.
And then the Great Depression hit. Tax collections went way down, and the demand for Government services went way up. In many states a significant proportion of the prison population was there for crimes related to the production, transport or sale of alcohol and the states were being bled dry by the need to house all of them. So something had to give.
And it did. America finally decided that the experiment of Prohibition was not only a failure, but a very expensive failure which we could no longer afford. So, the Congress of the day quickly, at the behest of the Roosevelt administration, passed another amendment (the only way to revoke a Constitutional amendment is with another amendment) and it was soon ratified by the states.
OK. So now let me pitch something to you.
Other than the fact that it is a different drug, and that the Constitution does not discuss it at all, why couldn't you make all these points about alcohol, at least as clearly for marijuana?
I will concede that yes, there are drugs that are so dangerous to individuals as well as to society that it is worth the cost of keeping them illegal (methamphetamine springs immedately to mind.) But as one of my college professors used to like to say, "an overdose of marijuana is a 200 lb bale dropped from 10 feet over your head." That isn't to say that marijuana isn't dangerous. It is dangerous. So what? It's no more dangerous than alcohol, which kills many more people every year from everthing from cirrhosis of the liver to autombile accidents. And while you can't overdose on marijuana, dozens of people die every year from alcohol poisoning after drinking too much, too fast.
OK, so why else should it stay illegal? Because it's a gateway to other drugs? That seems to me to be a self-fulfilling argument. Precisely because it's illegal, pushers sell marijuana to people and then have their clientele ready for and waiting when they decide it's time to make the move up to meth.
Why else? Morality? I agree that any drug use is not 'moral.' Again, does that justify making something illegal in the absence of any other reason? There was for example a time when adulterers were stoned to death, and more recently when they could be sent to prison or otherwise punished by the law. But today, they are tried in civil, not criminal courts. And that's appropriate. Adultery is just as immoral as it always has been, but it's not a crime. We've come to recognize that. So morality in and of itself is not a reason to criminalize a behavior.
But there are at least two reasons to consider legalization of marijuana, and they are both reasons that ultimately contributed (in a somehwat different but still recognizably similar form) to reaching the conclusion that prohibition was a failure:
1. Violent criminal organizations do indeed fight for control of marijuana distribution. And yes, that includes in the United States as well as other countries. And certainly if marijuana is legalized, it wouldn't put those gangs out of business-- they'd still have meth, cocaine and all kinds of other drugs. But at the same time marijuana is still their basic drug 'currency.' If it were legalized there is no doubt that it would put a serious crimp in their business. And in the meantime, during hard economic times legitimate businesses, everyone from convenience stores to shipping companies, would get a boost to their business.
2. The expense of trying so many drug cases which clog up our court system and then housing all those prisoners (up to half of all defendants are there on drug related charges, and almost half of them on marijuana) is crippling. True that a lot of police departments partially finance themselves based on what they seize in drug cases, but that is hardly a reason in and of itself to keep something illegal.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
I don't get why some Latinos are upset about Richardson cabinet appointment
I read an article today where some Hispanic leaders are upset that Governor Bill Richardson, who endorsed Obama (though late in the campaign, when it was clear which way the tide was moving) and dearly wanted the Secretary of State's job, will instead be getting a less prestigious and less influential cabinet post, that of Secretary of Commerce. Hillary Clinton will be the next Secretary of State.
Now I will give one point that the dissapointed Hispanic leaders are making. There is no question that Richardson is more qualified in terms of his foreign policy experience, having actually sat across the table from some pretty tough characters and hammered out real agreements with them. Clinton has never done that. But that isn't the same as saying that she can't, she is certainly smart and capable enough to do it (and she will of course have the advice of her husband, who has done plenty of direct negotiating.)
However, when I was working with the Richardson campaign (yes some longtime readers of this blog may recall that I was a former Richardson supporter,) I remember that polling never showed that he was getting near the support that Clinton was getting among Hispanics in states like California, even before he dropped out. His support among Hispanic voters rarely polled above 10%.
So my question is a simple one: How can a group of voters be upset that a candidate doesn't get a position, when they themselves never really got behind him (and the person they did support gets the position instead?)
There is no question that Bill Richardson broke new ground by becoming the first Hispanic to run for President in a major party primary. But I don't see how Obama is somehow obligated to choose him for Secretary of State based on some combination of his resume, his demographic and his endorsement that came so late it seemed opportunistic (Joe Biden, who at one time was also talked about as a potential Secretary of State did far better by not endorsing either Obama or Clinton at all.)
Now I will give one point that the dissapointed Hispanic leaders are making. There is no question that Richardson is more qualified in terms of his foreign policy experience, having actually sat across the table from some pretty tough characters and hammered out real agreements with them. Clinton has never done that. But that isn't the same as saying that she can't, she is certainly smart and capable enough to do it (and she will of course have the advice of her husband, who has done plenty of direct negotiating.)
However, when I was working with the Richardson campaign (yes some longtime readers of this blog may recall that I was a former Richardson supporter,) I remember that polling never showed that he was getting near the support that Clinton was getting among Hispanics in states like California, even before he dropped out. His support among Hispanic voters rarely polled above 10%.
So my question is a simple one: How can a group of voters be upset that a candidate doesn't get a position, when they themselves never really got behind him (and the person they did support gets the position instead?)
There is no question that Bill Richardson broke new ground by becoming the first Hispanic to run for President in a major party primary. But I don't see how Obama is somehow obligated to choose him for Secretary of State based on some combination of his resume, his demographic and his endorsement that came so late it seemed opportunistic (Joe Biden, who at one time was also talked about as a potential Secretary of State did far better by not endorsing either Obama or Clinton at all.)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Still doesn't get it
House Minority Leader John Boehner said yesterday that Washington politicians should listen to the 'American people,' who are saying they don't want any more big spending government programs.
Well, he's half right. Washington politicians should listen to the "American people."
But if they were saying they didn't want any big program to get out of the situation we are in now, I'd only point out that the voice of the 'American people' has been made clear.
If the 'American people' really wanted the low tax, small market conservatism espoused by Boehner and others on the right, they could have had it. But they sent a different message instead-- the message they sent in 2006, and look ready to send again, this fall.
If Boehner was right about what the 'American people' wanted to hear, he'd still be majority leader.
Well, he's half right. Washington politicians should listen to the "American people."
But if they were saying they didn't want any big program to get out of the situation we are in now, I'd only point out that the voice of the 'American people' has been made clear.
If the 'American people' really wanted the low tax, small market conservatism espoused by Boehner and others on the right, they could have had it. But they sent a different message instead-- the message they sent in 2006, and look ready to send again, this fall.
If Boehner was right about what the 'American people' wanted to hear, he'd still be majority leader.
Monday, November 17, 2008
A Buffet (t) of choices when choosing a Treasury Secretary
I'd like to discuss the most important Obama cabinet appointment: Secretary of the Treasury.
There is no doubt that we are heading into trying economic times (that may be an understatement.) It seems that every day we get more news of economic disaster at home or abroad, and in the interconnected global markets it feels like we are in one neverending domino chain as markets crash all around the world and then feed into the next market crash. Over one million jobs have been lost just since January. Wages are flat or declining and both crime and bankruptcies are on the rise. Further, with trillions of dollars in Federal debt and no prospect of any real growth in the foreseeable future it looks like this situation will last for years.
Into this cauldron, there will come a new economic team (not completely new, of course-- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke serves a staggered term so he will have to be included in any decisions that are made now.) The most important appointment that President-Elect Obama will make is that of Secretary of the Treasury. Whoever he picks will be the administration's point man (or woman) on the economy, and this economy is the biggest challenge that any incoming administration has faced in at least three quarters of a century. Armed for the challenge though the next Treasury Secretary will have been made flush with as much as a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to bail out some, but not enough to bail out all, of those whose ships are sinking. His or her job will be to try and keep the economy from sinking, and probably making some very tough decisions about where to put down a huge, but limited supply of chips.
I'd like to look at some who are rumored to be leading candidates.
During the campaign we heard the name of Warren Buffett, who both candidates lavished praise on and who is known to be a close economic advisor to Obama and endorsed him during the campaign. Buffett is an American legend, parlaying a $12,000 per year job as a stockbroker into one of the world's greatest fortunes. He has displayed an uncanny understanding of how markets work and rarely made a bad investment. During the present economic meltdown, Buffett did his part of stabilizing the banks by publically announcing that he was investing five billion dollars in Goldman Sachs, which stabilized the bank's share price and gave it some hard assets. There is no doubt that Obama will continue to seek Buffett's advice on economic issues. However I don't think that Obama will ask him to be Secretary of the Treasury, nor that Buffett wants the job. Buffett, who is 77, has largely given up day to day operation even of his own company (Berkshire Hathaway) in order to focus on his own extensive philanthropic pursuits and is far more likely to be used only as a resource or consultant than to be asked to manage the entire economy.
Another name that has been bandied about is Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Wall Street Bank JP Morgan Chase. Dimon has run the bank well, and it has avoided many, though not all, of the pitfalls that have befallen other banks (in fact earlier this year it was Chase that stepped in and swallowed up the assets of the defunct Washington Mutual.) One of Dimon's biggest assets, and one reason Obama seems to like him, is that Dimon isn't shy about telling the truth instead of sugar coating bad news. That quality was on full display this week as Dimon said that rising unemployment was likely to add to the number of delinquencies the bank (and other banks) could face, prompting banking analyst Richard Bove cut his price target on Dimon's bank from $45 per share to $37. I doubt if Obama will choose Dimon either though. Dimon's biggest liability may be where he works now. Many people blame Wall Street banks for getting us into this mess (though that is in fact a gross oversimplification, at best they were only a piece of a larger whole.) So choosing the CEO of a big Wall Street Bank might not go over well with the public, and just recently Barry L. Zubrow, the chief risk officer for JP Morgan Morgan had to answer questions about whether the bank was using government bailout money to acquire smaller banks instead of to give loans to customers. That may be a mess that the Obama administration doesn't want to step in.
Another name that some have mentioned as a possible Treasury Secretary is Timothy Geithner. Geithner is the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There is no doubt that Geithner has experience commensurate with the job, but on the other hand he has been a member of the Federal Reserve (and therefore was in on all the decisions they made) since 2003. This again suggests that while some people may be pushing for Geithner, Obama won't pick him. Like Dimon, Geithner can be blamed for helping create the current mess, and he doesn't even have the cover of a public record like Dimon has of sometimes bucking the trend to suggest that he would be willing to make the hard decisions that the next Treasury Secretary must be willing to make. Another knock on Geithner is that as a free marketeer and advocate of deregulation (at least he was when it had some advocates) he is unpopular with organized labor. There is no question that unions were a huge part of the Obama coalition and helped him hold together the working class white voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania this year. That doesn't automatically disqualify Geithner but realistically Obama won't want to begin his tenure by ticking off some of his most critical supporters.
If Obama wants experience in the post, he may turn to either of two former Clinton treasury secretaries: Robert Rubin or Lawrence Summers. Both served as treasury secretary during a time of economic prosperity and both have the advantage that they will come in already knowing the abilities and limitations of the position so that they can hit the ground running. My guess is that if Obama follows this path he is tempermentally more inclined to go with Summers, more of a low-key 'get things done' kind of guy instead of the sometimes outspoken Rubin. On the other hand, Summers made some sexist comments last year in his job as President of Harvard University. While he apologized for them it might be tough to swallow for some feminists if Summers were named to Treasury-- especially if someone other than Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State.
Another Clinton official who may get a look is Laura Tyson, who served as the chair of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. Her advantage would also be that she served and advised during prosperous times, and has been away from both government and Wall Street (teaching economics at the University of California at Berkeley) while everything has been going to pot. If Tyson is selected then she would also be the first ever female Treasury Secretary (we've had two female treasurers, Francine Neff and Mary Ellen Withrow, but that is a lower level position often confused with the Secretary of the Treasury.)
If he instead opts for something out of the ordinary, there are a couple of possibilities out there that could shake things up a bit. One of these is Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. Certainly in today's rapidly changing and increasingly technological economy, Schmidt would fit right in with Obama's perspective on painting the future in broad brush strokes rather than doing what others have expected, tested and possibly found wanting. No one questions Schmidt's business acumen, and with Obama's belief in technology as a path to a better future it's no wonder that Schmidt's name has come up in some discussions about Treasury Secretary. Another name that I've seen once or twice and which would also confound the experts is Mitt Romney, who ran for President as a Republican earlier this year. After losing to John McCain in a bitter primary, Romney endorsed and worked for McCain and proved he could be a team player, and he did run a successful business. Obama has pledged to include Republicans in his cabinet, but I'd be surprised if he did so in such a high profile position-- that would also be a break with the past (Bill Clinton appointed Republican William Cohen as Secretary of Defense and George W. Bush appointed Democrat Norman Mineta as Transportation Secretary.) Obama might also run the risk of setting up a Republican known to have higher ambitions to run against him in 2012; if Romney were named and then the economy turned around and boomed then Romney would rightly or wrongly claim a lot of the credit. One other name has been mentioned-- Paul Volcker. Volcker has served as a chairman of the Federal Reserve-- between 1979 and 1987 (having been appointed by Carter and reappointed by Reagan.) Volcker is so old, he'd be new. On the other hand, he's also so old, he's old. In fact Volcker is even older than Warren Buffett.
To be honest, I've not got a clue as to who the President-Elect will choose. There are some very strong candidates, but each of them also comes with some drawbacks-- so there is no obvious choice. But who Obama picks may well give us an insight into exactly what his strategy is for dealing with the economy.
There is no doubt that we are heading into trying economic times (that may be an understatement.) It seems that every day we get more news of economic disaster at home or abroad, and in the interconnected global markets it feels like we are in one neverending domino chain as markets crash all around the world and then feed into the next market crash. Over one million jobs have been lost just since January. Wages are flat or declining and both crime and bankruptcies are on the rise. Further, with trillions of dollars in Federal debt and no prospect of any real growth in the foreseeable future it looks like this situation will last for years.
Into this cauldron, there will come a new economic team (not completely new, of course-- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke serves a staggered term so he will have to be included in any decisions that are made now.) The most important appointment that President-Elect Obama will make is that of Secretary of the Treasury. Whoever he picks will be the administration's point man (or woman) on the economy, and this economy is the biggest challenge that any incoming administration has faced in at least three quarters of a century. Armed for the challenge though the next Treasury Secretary will have been made flush with as much as a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to bail out some, but not enough to bail out all, of those whose ships are sinking. His or her job will be to try and keep the economy from sinking, and probably making some very tough decisions about where to put down a huge, but limited supply of chips.
I'd like to look at some who are rumored to be leading candidates.
During the campaign we heard the name of Warren Buffett, who both candidates lavished praise on and who is known to be a close economic advisor to Obama and endorsed him during the campaign. Buffett is an American legend, parlaying a $12,000 per year job as a stockbroker into one of the world's greatest fortunes. He has displayed an uncanny understanding of how markets work and rarely made a bad investment. During the present economic meltdown, Buffett did his part of stabilizing the banks by publically announcing that he was investing five billion dollars in Goldman Sachs, which stabilized the bank's share price and gave it some hard assets. There is no doubt that Obama will continue to seek Buffett's advice on economic issues. However I don't think that Obama will ask him to be Secretary of the Treasury, nor that Buffett wants the job. Buffett, who is 77, has largely given up day to day operation even of his own company (Berkshire Hathaway) in order to focus on his own extensive philanthropic pursuits and is far more likely to be used only as a resource or consultant than to be asked to manage the entire economy.
Another name that has been bandied about is Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Wall Street Bank JP Morgan Chase. Dimon has run the bank well, and it has avoided many, though not all, of the pitfalls that have befallen other banks (in fact earlier this year it was Chase that stepped in and swallowed up the assets of the defunct Washington Mutual.) One of Dimon's biggest assets, and one reason Obama seems to like him, is that Dimon isn't shy about telling the truth instead of sugar coating bad news. That quality was on full display this week as Dimon said that rising unemployment was likely to add to the number of delinquencies the bank (and other banks) could face, prompting banking analyst Richard Bove cut his price target on Dimon's bank from $45 per share to $37. I doubt if Obama will choose Dimon either though. Dimon's biggest liability may be where he works now. Many people blame Wall Street banks for getting us into this mess (though that is in fact a gross oversimplification, at best they were only a piece of a larger whole.) So choosing the CEO of a big Wall Street Bank might not go over well with the public, and just recently Barry L. Zubrow, the chief risk officer for JP Morgan Morgan had to answer questions about whether the bank was using government bailout money to acquire smaller banks instead of to give loans to customers. That may be a mess that the Obama administration doesn't want to step in.
Another name that some have mentioned as a possible Treasury Secretary is Timothy Geithner. Geithner is the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. There is no doubt that Geithner has experience commensurate with the job, but on the other hand he has been a member of the Federal Reserve (and therefore was in on all the decisions they made) since 2003. This again suggests that while some people may be pushing for Geithner, Obama won't pick him. Like Dimon, Geithner can be blamed for helping create the current mess, and he doesn't even have the cover of a public record like Dimon has of sometimes bucking the trend to suggest that he would be willing to make the hard decisions that the next Treasury Secretary must be willing to make. Another knock on Geithner is that as a free marketeer and advocate of deregulation (at least he was when it had some advocates) he is unpopular with organized labor. There is no question that unions were a huge part of the Obama coalition and helped him hold together the working class white voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania this year. That doesn't automatically disqualify Geithner but realistically Obama won't want to begin his tenure by ticking off some of his most critical supporters.
If Obama wants experience in the post, he may turn to either of two former Clinton treasury secretaries: Robert Rubin or Lawrence Summers. Both served as treasury secretary during a time of economic prosperity and both have the advantage that they will come in already knowing the abilities and limitations of the position so that they can hit the ground running. My guess is that if Obama follows this path he is tempermentally more inclined to go with Summers, more of a low-key 'get things done' kind of guy instead of the sometimes outspoken Rubin. On the other hand, Summers made some sexist comments last year in his job as President of Harvard University. While he apologized for them it might be tough to swallow for some feminists if Summers were named to Treasury-- especially if someone other than Hillary Clinton becomes Secretary of State.
Another Clinton official who may get a look is Laura Tyson, who served as the chair of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. Her advantage would also be that she served and advised during prosperous times, and has been away from both government and Wall Street (teaching economics at the University of California at Berkeley) while everything has been going to pot. If Tyson is selected then she would also be the first ever female Treasury Secretary (we've had two female treasurers, Francine Neff and Mary Ellen Withrow, but that is a lower level position often confused with the Secretary of the Treasury.)
If he instead opts for something out of the ordinary, there are a couple of possibilities out there that could shake things up a bit. One of these is Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. Certainly in today's rapidly changing and increasingly technological economy, Schmidt would fit right in with Obama's perspective on painting the future in broad brush strokes rather than doing what others have expected, tested and possibly found wanting. No one questions Schmidt's business acumen, and with Obama's belief in technology as a path to a better future it's no wonder that Schmidt's name has come up in some discussions about Treasury Secretary. Another name that I've seen once or twice and which would also confound the experts is Mitt Romney, who ran for President as a Republican earlier this year. After losing to John McCain in a bitter primary, Romney endorsed and worked for McCain and proved he could be a team player, and he did run a successful business. Obama has pledged to include Republicans in his cabinet, but I'd be surprised if he did so in such a high profile position-- that would also be a break with the past (Bill Clinton appointed Republican William Cohen as Secretary of Defense and George W. Bush appointed Democrat Norman Mineta as Transportation Secretary.) Obama might also run the risk of setting up a Republican known to have higher ambitions to run against him in 2012; if Romney were named and then the economy turned around and boomed then Romney would rightly or wrongly claim a lot of the credit. One other name has been mentioned-- Paul Volcker. Volcker has served as a chairman of the Federal Reserve-- between 1979 and 1987 (having been appointed by Carter and reappointed by Reagan.) Volcker is so old, he'd be new. On the other hand, he's also so old, he's old. In fact Volcker is even older than Warren Buffett.
To be honest, I've not got a clue as to who the President-Elect will choose. There are some very strong candidates, but each of them also comes with some drawbacks-- so there is no obvious choice. But who Obama picks may well give us an insight into exactly what his strategy is for dealing with the economy.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Why have a code name when you are going to tell everyone?
I thought code names were supposed to be code names-- designed to mislead or confuse someone who is listening in with ill intent.
So why is it already out what the Secret Service names are for the Obamas and Bidens?.
If they are going to publicize the names then what is even the point of having them?
Now granted, they may very well be just public code names while they actually use other code names (in fact I'd say this is highly probable) but there still isn't any point in publicizing even the first set of names (then someone who figures them out will think they actually found something.)
So why is it already out what the Secret Service names are for the Obamas and Bidens?.
If they are going to publicize the names then what is even the point of having them?
Now granted, they may very well be just public code names while they actually use other code names (in fact I'd say this is highly probable) but there still isn't any point in publicizing even the first set of names (then someone who figures them out will think they actually found something.)
Friday, November 07, 2008
Latinos jumped to Obama three times as fast as other voters.
A fresh look at the numbers hit the nail on the head as to where Obama picked up the most Bush support.
It wasn't from evangelicals, or working class whites, groups that Obama made a point of reaching out to. It wasn't from young voters or African-Americans either-- those groups both went strongly for John Kerry four years ago (in the case of African-Americans, especially, who went 90% for John Kerry, while they upped that into the mid-ninety percent range for Obama, there is only so much more you can squeeze out when you start at 90%.)
No, the really big shift came among Latino voters. While Obama got 5% overall more of the electorate than Kerry, among Hispanics he almost tripled that, to 14% more.
Latino voters shifted in huge numbers away from the Republicans to vote for Senator Barack Obama in the presidential election...
In a year when turnout among many groups surged nationwide, the number of Latinos who went to the polls increased by nearly 25 percent over 2004, with sharp rises among naturalized immigrants and young, first-time voters, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Hispanic support for the Democratic nominee increased by 14 points over all compared with 2004, the biggest shift toward the Democrats by any voter group.
Nationwide, Hispanics voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama and 31 percent for Senator John McCain, according to Edison/Mitofsky exit polls. In 2004, Senator John Kerry won 53 percent, while 44 percent of Hispanics voted for President Bush, a record for Latino support for a Republican presidential nominee.
Even McCain's loss of 14% represents a sharp improvement from the 2006 midterm elections in which the level of Hispanic support for the GOP literally was cut in half, from the 44% for President Bush down to 20%. McCain still has some support from the group.
The reason why is not hard to figure out. Hispanics up until 2004 had been trending Republican. Many if not a clear majority of them are Christians, hard workers, appreciate America and serve in the military at a higher rate than the national average. Family is important to Latino voters so much of what the GOP used to say went over well with them.
Starting after the 2004 election though the GOP really began ginning up their attacks on immigration. I personally believe that this issue alone is the entire reason for the rush away from the GOP by Hispanic voters, but if not then there are other issues that the GOP will have to figure out and address.
There are other ways for Republicans to get their base out. The immigrant-bashing has served them poorly (and it certainly bit the past two elections.) Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic minority in the country (not just because of immigration either; it's a fact that Hispanic women have a higher fertility rate than the rest of the population.) So driving them straight into the hands of the Democratic party (while a gift to us) shows exactly how the GOP has become a ship of fools.
It wasn't from evangelicals, or working class whites, groups that Obama made a point of reaching out to. It wasn't from young voters or African-Americans either-- those groups both went strongly for John Kerry four years ago (in the case of African-Americans, especially, who went 90% for John Kerry, while they upped that into the mid-ninety percent range for Obama, there is only so much more you can squeeze out when you start at 90%.)
No, the really big shift came among Latino voters. While Obama got 5% overall more of the electorate than Kerry, among Hispanics he almost tripled that, to 14% more.
Latino voters shifted in huge numbers away from the Republicans to vote for Senator Barack Obama in the presidential election...
In a year when turnout among many groups surged nationwide, the number of Latinos who went to the polls increased by nearly 25 percent over 2004, with sharp rises among naturalized immigrants and young, first-time voters, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Hispanic support for the Democratic nominee increased by 14 points over all compared with 2004, the biggest shift toward the Democrats by any voter group.
Nationwide, Hispanics voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama and 31 percent for Senator John McCain, according to Edison/Mitofsky exit polls. In 2004, Senator John Kerry won 53 percent, while 44 percent of Hispanics voted for President Bush, a record for Latino support for a Republican presidential nominee.
Even McCain's loss of 14% represents a sharp improvement from the 2006 midterm elections in which the level of Hispanic support for the GOP literally was cut in half, from the 44% for President Bush down to 20%. McCain still has some support from the group.
The reason why is not hard to figure out. Hispanics up until 2004 had been trending Republican. Many if not a clear majority of them are Christians, hard workers, appreciate America and serve in the military at a higher rate than the national average. Family is important to Latino voters so much of what the GOP used to say went over well with them.
Starting after the 2004 election though the GOP really began ginning up their attacks on immigration. I personally believe that this issue alone is the entire reason for the rush away from the GOP by Hispanic voters, but if not then there are other issues that the GOP will have to figure out and address.
There are other ways for Republicans to get their base out. The immigrant-bashing has served them poorly (and it certainly bit the past two elections.) Hispanics are the fastest growing ethnic minority in the country (not just because of immigration either; it's a fact that Hispanic women have a higher fertility rate than the rest of the population.) So driving them straight into the hands of the Democratic party (while a gift to us) shows exactly how the GOP has become a ship of fools.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
A mandate, it is
The country that Barack Obama will take over is vastly different from the one that George W. Bush inherited eight years ago (I don't need to enumerate the differences, because we all know what they are.)
Nevertheless, the operative word here is hope. Our new President-elect is an enormously talented man, and the way he was able to balance calmness with measured action during the economic crisis a few weeks ago should give us confidence-- I know it gives me confidence.
Nationally, the election was historic, not only for the election of the first black President (those who would never vote for a black man are becoming older and less influential as time goes on, and they are now clearly themselves in a minority.) It was also historic because it is a mandate for the changes that Obama has laid out-- increased regulation, a return to the Clinton tax rates and a government that is prepared to take an activist role in everything from health care to energy independence. More than sixty-three million Americans cast votes for Barack Obama, more than have ever voted for any Presidential candidate in history. States like Virginia and Indiana, Republican strongholds for decades, voted for Obama last night. Even North Carolina, the home state of Jesse Helms, remains too close to call today.
Beyond that, it was historic for the gains that Democrats made in Congress. There are those on the right (like Bob Novak, today) who are trying to spin it as a failure because Democrats won't have sixty seats in the Senate. But the truth is, that was always a tall order and if you'd suggested at the start of the election cycle that Democrats could gain five seats in the Senate, that would have sounded pretty good. And five is a floor; right now there are still two Senate races being counted, one headed for a recount and a fourth headed to a December runoff. Likewise, some on the right are trying to spin the pickup of about 20 seats in the house as some kind of a diminishment, pointing out that it is near the low end of the latest pre-election estimates of some pundits. However, that kind of analysis conveniently omits the fact that only a few weeks ago those same pundits were predicting a Democratic gain in the single digits in the House. Ultimately it isn't the pundits who elect members of Congress, it is the voters. And the voters made a historic choice in Congress as well. Adding this year's gains to those of 2006, you see a swing of fifty seats in the house and at least eleven in the Senate. The timing of two consecutive wave elections is extraordinarily rare, most recently occurring in 1930-1932, when Democrats were the beneficiaries, and 1950-1952 when it benefitted Republicans. What it really is is one wave which hit over a period of time when it was divided into two parts. So yes, the mandate is clearly here.
Nevertheless, the operative word here is hope. Our new President-elect is an enormously talented man, and the way he was able to balance calmness with measured action during the economic crisis a few weeks ago should give us confidence-- I know it gives me confidence.
Nationally, the election was historic, not only for the election of the first black President (those who would never vote for a black man are becoming older and less influential as time goes on, and they are now clearly themselves in a minority.) It was also historic because it is a mandate for the changes that Obama has laid out-- increased regulation, a return to the Clinton tax rates and a government that is prepared to take an activist role in everything from health care to energy independence. More than sixty-three million Americans cast votes for Barack Obama, more than have ever voted for any Presidential candidate in history. States like Virginia and Indiana, Republican strongholds for decades, voted for Obama last night. Even North Carolina, the home state of Jesse Helms, remains too close to call today.
Beyond that, it was historic for the gains that Democrats made in Congress. There are those on the right (like Bob Novak, today) who are trying to spin it as a failure because Democrats won't have sixty seats in the Senate. But the truth is, that was always a tall order and if you'd suggested at the start of the election cycle that Democrats could gain five seats in the Senate, that would have sounded pretty good. And five is a floor; right now there are still two Senate races being counted, one headed for a recount and a fourth headed to a December runoff. Likewise, some on the right are trying to spin the pickup of about 20 seats in the house as some kind of a diminishment, pointing out that it is near the low end of the latest pre-election estimates of some pundits. However, that kind of analysis conveniently omits the fact that only a few weeks ago those same pundits were predicting a Democratic gain in the single digits in the House. Ultimately it isn't the pundits who elect members of Congress, it is the voters. And the voters made a historic choice in Congress as well. Adding this year's gains to those of 2006, you see a swing of fifty seats in the house and at least eleven in the Senate. The timing of two consecutive wave elections is extraordinarily rare, most recently occurring in 1930-1932, when Democrats were the beneficiaries, and 1950-1952 when it benefitted Republicans. What it really is is one wave which hit over a period of time when it was divided into two parts. So yes, the mandate is clearly here.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Live blogging on news 12
You won't catch me on here tonight, because I am liveblogging during the next two hours on channel 12 in Phoenix. You can see my news 12 blog right here.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Why I haven't been on much lately
I'm sure some people are wondering why the blog volume here has dropped right before the election.
Easy answer to that. I'm part of that 'Obama ground game' that pundits are always referring to.
I've been doing stuff all throughout the campaign, but for example this weekend on Friday I helped put together a whole bunch of packages that could be hung on doors and this weekend I was out volunteering in a nearby town hanging those hangers on doors. On Tuesday I'm taking a day off work to hand out palm cards at a precinct in a nearby town, at least until I have to take off to go down to Phoenix and help provide commentary by live blogging when the early results come in on channel 12 news.
Don't worry, I'll have plenty to write after the election.
Easy answer to that. I'm part of that 'Obama ground game' that pundits are always referring to.
I've been doing stuff all throughout the campaign, but for example this weekend on Friday I helped put together a whole bunch of packages that could be hung on doors and this weekend I was out volunteering in a nearby town hanging those hangers on doors. On Tuesday I'm taking a day off work to hand out palm cards at a precinct in a nearby town, at least until I have to take off to go down to Phoenix and help provide commentary by live blogging when the early results come in on channel 12 news.
Don't worry, I'll have plenty to write after the election.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
McCain mob threatens Obama counterdemonstrators.
I go to a lot of Democratic events. And at some of them there have been counterdemonstrators.
I remember going to listen to Bill Clinton speak at the University of New Mexico in 1992. And as it happened I ended up right in front of a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding up a big sign calling Clinton a draft-dodger and a baby-killer. They were also quite vocal, although Clinton had a mike and they were some distance away so I doubt if anyone at the stage heard them, but I sure did.
I remember watching John Kerry when he made his whistle stop in Winslow in 2004. In the back of the crowd were two men holding up a 'Bush/Cheney' sign and who booed when Kerry was being introduced. Like everyone else, I chose to ignore them.
I remember also in 2004, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Wild Horse resort near Chandler. On the way in, I passed a group of Bush supporters who were enthusiastically waving signs, and strategically placed to try and make people think that the right road to go down was one that led to the casino there (not the building where the speech was.)
But hey, that's America. We believe in freedom of speech, and as long as people don't actually try to disrupt a campaign event they are every bit as free to show their non-support of a candidate as others are to show their support.
Except, apparently at John McCain rallies like the one in Miami today. It seems like his supporters are willing to threaten violence and engage in mob mentality if anyone dares to show up and suggest that they are not for McCain.
From fivethirtyeight:
Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber.
After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.
The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.
"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."
Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."
Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.
The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.
For an hour during the rally, the two had stood across the street from the lumberyard on public property holding yard signs. Some drivers honked in support, and others honked in disapproval. When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.
Note that they did obey the request to vacate the private property, and were situated on the street, which by law is public access (anyone can stand there and demonstrate in other words.)
Well, Tony had something else to say to the man who had threatened him:
Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."
Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.
But this is something that the McCain supporters don't get. Maybe Tony Garcia got under their skin by using his Constitutional right to counterdemonstrate at a McCain rally. But what else is he going to do this weekend? Darn right, he's volunteering to help people vote.
There are millions of Tony Garcias in the country, people who want change and whether they are as outspoken as he is or not, are going to do their part to make it happen.
We are all Tony Garcia.
I remember going to listen to Bill Clinton speak at the University of New Mexico in 1992. And as it happened I ended up right in front of a group of pro-life demonstrators who were holding up a big sign calling Clinton a draft-dodger and a baby-killer. They were also quite vocal, although Clinton had a mike and they were some distance away so I doubt if anyone at the stage heard them, but I sure did.
I remember watching John Kerry when he made his whistle stop in Winslow in 2004. In the back of the crowd were two men holding up a 'Bush/Cheney' sign and who booed when Kerry was being introduced. Like everyone else, I chose to ignore them.
I remember also in 2004, Hillary Clinton was giving a speech at the Wild Horse resort near Chandler. On the way in, I passed a group of Bush supporters who were enthusiastically waving signs, and strategically placed to try and make people think that the right road to go down was one that led to the casino there (not the building where the speech was.)
But hey, that's America. We believe in freedom of speech, and as long as people don't actually try to disrupt a campaign event they are every bit as free to show their non-support of a candidate as others are to show their support.
Except, apparently at John McCain rallies like the one in Miami today. It seems like his supporters are willing to threaten violence and engage in mob mentality if anyone dares to show up and suggest that they are not for McCain.
From fivethirtyeight:
Tonight we'll be at the Obama-Clinton rally in Kissimmee, Florida, and we're breaking in from Miami, where John McCain just concluded his "Joe the Plumber" rally at Everglades Lumber.
After the rally, we witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.
The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.
"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."
Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."
Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.
The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.
For an hour during the rally, the two had stood across the street from the lumberyard on public property holding yard signs. Some drivers honked in support, and others honked in disapproval. When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.
Note that they did obey the request to vacate the private property, and were situated on the street, which by law is public access (anyone can stand there and demonstrate in other words.)
Well, Tony had something else to say to the man who had threatened him:
Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."
Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.
But this is something that the McCain supporters don't get. Maybe Tony Garcia got under their skin by using his Constitutional right to counterdemonstrate at a McCain rally. But what else is he going to do this weekend? Darn right, he's volunteering to help people vote.
There are millions of Tony Garcias in the country, people who want change and whether they are as outspoken as he is or not, are going to do their part to make it happen.
We are all Tony Garcia.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Obama health care plan is about getting people insured, not about running hospitals
In my last post, about health care, I got a critique in which the poster pointed out that the hospital that had kept an injured and uninsured woman waiting for nineteen hours was a county hospital, and then suggested that the Obama plan would put all hospitals under government control. I responded by pointing out that privately run hospitals have the same kinds of problems (I referenced, for example this post about a person who died after more than a day in the waiting room of a privately managed (though government owned) hospital.
However there is a far more fundamental misconception on the part of people who like to bash the Obama plan. The misconception is that it involves some kind of nationalization of the health care industry. It does not. There is nothing at all in the Obama plan about taking over the private hospitals and making them part of the government.
The Obama health care plan is about insurance. Right now, most hospital emergency rooms have a two tiered system for serving customers. Those who have insurance stand first in line. The uninsured are the equivalent of 'stand by,' being seen only when and if there are no insured customers waiting to be seen.
Given this reality, and the fact that there are around fifty million uninsured Americans (this is more than the population of California) the Obama health care plan is pretty basic-- it wants to make sure that everyone has access to insurance they can afford. The plan does achieve this goal by heavily subsidizing health insurance that is offered to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it-- be they too poor to be able to afford it, or be they cancer survivors or other people at high risk who might otherwise not be able to purchase insurance.
The program is voluntary for adults. It is mandatory that parents purchase insurance for their kids. There is precedent for this though-- we require drivers to purchase car insurance so they are covered against any damage they may inflict upon other drivers by their own negligence, so it is hardly irresponsible for us to require that they purchase insurance to cover their own kids (not doing so would indeed be negligent.) But under the Obama plan, if they insist they don't want any inurance, they don't have to buy any for themselves. Adults have every right to be stupid, and the Obama plan recognizes this. But they don't have the right to by their stupidity endanger other people (especially children, theirs or anyone else's.)
Incidentally, there is one other industrialized country-- Japan-- which has achieved universal coverage via private insurance with a partial government subsidy. And the Japanese have among the longest lifespans in the world, so it seems to work pretty well.
But to jump from Obama's plan to help people purchase insurance, to arguing that Senator Obama plans to take over and run private hospitals, is ridiculous and represents the kind of paranoid thinking that seems to have hijacked otherwise reasonable people on the right.
However there is a far more fundamental misconception on the part of people who like to bash the Obama plan. The misconception is that it involves some kind of nationalization of the health care industry. It does not. There is nothing at all in the Obama plan about taking over the private hospitals and making them part of the government.
The Obama health care plan is about insurance. Right now, most hospital emergency rooms have a two tiered system for serving customers. Those who have insurance stand first in line. The uninsured are the equivalent of 'stand by,' being seen only when and if there are no insured customers waiting to be seen.
Given this reality, and the fact that there are around fifty million uninsured Americans (this is more than the population of California) the Obama health care plan is pretty basic-- it wants to make sure that everyone has access to insurance they can afford. The plan does achieve this goal by heavily subsidizing health insurance that is offered to people who might otherwise not be able to afford it-- be they too poor to be able to afford it, or be they cancer survivors or other people at high risk who might otherwise not be able to purchase insurance.
The program is voluntary for adults. It is mandatory that parents purchase insurance for their kids. There is precedent for this though-- we require drivers to purchase car insurance so they are covered against any damage they may inflict upon other drivers by their own negligence, so it is hardly irresponsible for us to require that they purchase insurance to cover their own kids (not doing so would indeed be negligent.) But under the Obama plan, if they insist they don't want any inurance, they don't have to buy any for themselves. Adults have every right to be stupid, and the Obama plan recognizes this. But they don't have the right to by their stupidity endanger other people (especially children, theirs or anyone else's.)
Incidentally, there is one other industrialized country-- Japan-- which has achieved universal coverage via private insurance with a partial government subsidy. And the Japanese have among the longest lifespans in the world, so it seems to work pretty well.
But to jump from Obama's plan to help people purchase insurance, to arguing that Senator Obama plans to take over and run private hospitals, is ridiculous and represents the kind of paranoid thinking that seems to have hijacked otherwise reasonable people on the right.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Woman gets a hospital bill-- for not being seen.
Amber Milbrodt broke a bone in her leg playing volleyball and made it to the emergency room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
She waited for nineteen hours to see a doctor and was never seen, and so she finally left in disgust and still in pain. She did finally get some attention from the hospital though: a bill for $162.
She spent all night and the next day in that position, waiting to see a doctor.
Finally, she gave up and hobbled out in disgust.
Two weeks after her Sept. 24 visit, she received a bill from Parkland for $162.
"It should have been more like them paying me for having to sit in the emergency room for 19 hours," she says. "That's just sad. It's not proper. It's almost not moral, what I went through."
Parkland officials, already on the defensive about wait times after a man died in the ER following a 19-hour wait last month, say the charge was appropriate because a nurse spent time assessing Ms. Milbrodt for triage.
I've never been to the ER and had a nurse take my vital signs that lasted more than a few minutes.
It is appalling that she would have to wait this long in pain and still not be seen, but it is even more appalling that they would have the gall to send her a bill for it.
And we wonder why people in most other developed countries live longer than we do (well, I don't wonder, but doctrinaire conservatives who continue to stick their fingers in their ears will continue to wonder or come up with torturous logic to try and explain it all away).
It's time for the Obama health care plan. Now.
She waited for nineteen hours to see a doctor and was never seen, and so she finally left in disgust and still in pain. She did finally get some attention from the hospital though: a bill for $162.
She spent all night and the next day in that position, waiting to see a doctor.
Finally, she gave up and hobbled out in disgust.
Two weeks after her Sept. 24 visit, she received a bill from Parkland for $162.
"It should have been more like them paying me for having to sit in the emergency room for 19 hours," she says. "That's just sad. It's not proper. It's almost not moral, what I went through."
Parkland officials, already on the defensive about wait times after a man died in the ER following a 19-hour wait last month, say the charge was appropriate because a nurse spent time assessing Ms. Milbrodt for triage.
I've never been to the ER and had a nurse take my vital signs that lasted more than a few minutes.
It is appalling that she would have to wait this long in pain and still not be seen, but it is even more appalling that they would have the gall to send her a bill for it.
And we wonder why people in most other developed countries live longer than we do (well, I don't wonder, but doctrinaire conservatives who continue to stick their fingers in their ears will continue to wonder or come up with torturous logic to try and explain it all away).
It's time for the Obama health care plan. Now.
rubber stamping some more changes to the endangered species act
The Bush administration is trying to rush through a change in the administration of the endangered species act, giving themselves 32 hours to go through over 200,000 comments they've received regarding their proposals to remove greenhouse gases from the list of harmful byproducts of any proposed new construction, and also to no longer accept input from federal biologists in making endangered species related decisions.
This means they intend to read, evaluate and process nearly two comments per second before making the changes (and they will make the changes, even having a comment period at all is only to comply with the letter of the law.)
One more way the Bushies can flip the rest of the world the proverbial finger before leaving office.
This means they intend to read, evaluate and process nearly two comments per second before making the changes (and they will make the changes, even having a comment period at all is only to comply with the letter of the law.)
One more way the Bushies can flip the rest of the world the proverbial finger before leaving office.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Rightist rhetoric makes a disturbing turn into their conscious thinking.
It's a funny way that those on the right define 'American.'
Last week, Sarah Palin made the comment that she thinks that some parts of the country are 'more American' than others. The exact quote, made in North Carolina last week is that she praised areas where she was as the, "pro-America areas of this great nation"
That sentiment is not confined to Palin however.
On MSNBC's hardball, Chris Matthews asked Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann about Palin's comments and about Senator Obama in particular. Not only did Bachmann agree and say that Obama may have 'anti-American views,' but she went farther, calling on the media to look at members of Congress to "find out, are they pro-America or anti-America."
Then Republican congressman Robin Hayes of North Carolina last week said that liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God. Hayes originally denied saying that until he was confronted by an audiotape of the speech.
It's even gone to the state level. McCain advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer said that Northern Virginia is 'not the real Virginia.' She said that "I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia....But the rest of the state, 'real Virginia,' if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message "
This view shows the elitism of the right. After years of listening to cranks on the radio scream that anyone who disagrees with their narrow view of America is actually anti-American and trying to destroy, not change, America-- this view has permeated the minds of otherwise rational people. They actually believe (or why would this attitude come out four times within a week) that liberals or anyone else who has a vision for America that doesn't agree with their doctrinaire conservative view is actually anti-American, or at least not sufficiently pro-American.
To some degree this is nothing new. The GOP has regularly been questioning the patriotism of people who don't happen to agree with their schemes since at least the days of McCarthy and Nixon. But the offhanded and casual ways in which these comments have rolled off the tongue recently makes me think that this whole way of thinking (i.e., 'traitor out to destroy the country' replacing 'American with whom I have a disagreement') has reached the point of being taken for granted by people in positions of responsibility on the right, that they sound like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage without even thinking about it.
Well, I have to tell you something, jerkfusses on the right.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see people in AMERICA be able to go to a doctor without being afraid of going broke if they get sick.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country where when people do have to go to the hospital the focus is on getting them well, not on whether they have insurance.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see our military ready to respond immediately to any challenge, not bogged down in a stupid war that we started years ago in a small country thousands of miles away.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see war-- as costly and ugly as it is-- considered only as a last, not as a first, resort to future international problem spots.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country where people feel safe from their own government, and don't have to worry that someone is listening in on their phone conversations.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see the land that we live on, the air that we breathe and the water that we drink preserved and kept clean for the next generation of AMERICANS.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I don't want to see any young person who is capable of going to college and earning a degree denied that opportunity because they are too poor to be able to afford it.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want working people in AMERICA to feel secure in their jobs.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see the degreed professionals that we hire to prepare our own kids to go to college, to earn enough to send their own kids to college.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see people staying in their homes, not moving into homeless shelters in record numbers because their homes are being foreclosed on and their credit is too poor to even qualify for a rental contract.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see my country respected-- not just feared but respected and trusted and listened to again in the world.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us take the lead again in scientific research.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us develop renewable sources of energy so that we don't need to use all that oil anymore (and therefore, not have to pay for it.)
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us go back to the budget surplus we enjoyed a few years ago.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see other Americans, in Louisiana and Mississippi, get the help rebuilding their homes that was promised but more than three years later has still never been delivered.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country in which we quit trying to divide people against each other and start looking at how we can all work together for a better AMERICA.
Patriotism is not blindly following your leaders. It is questioning them and where necessary opposing them.
Memo to the right: there are more than 300 million Americans spread out all over the country. So quit trying to claim that only those who happen to support you are 'real Americans' or are 'pro-America. We are all Americans.
Last week, Sarah Palin made the comment that she thinks that some parts of the country are 'more American' than others. The exact quote, made in North Carolina last week is that she praised areas where she was as the, "pro-America areas of this great nation"
That sentiment is not confined to Palin however.
On MSNBC's hardball, Chris Matthews asked Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann about Palin's comments and about Senator Obama in particular. Not only did Bachmann agree and say that Obama may have 'anti-American views,' but she went farther, calling on the media to look at members of Congress to "find out, are they pro-America or anti-America."
Then Republican congressman Robin Hayes of North Carolina last week said that liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God. Hayes originally denied saying that until he was confronted by an audiotape of the speech.
It's even gone to the state level. McCain advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer said that Northern Virginia is 'not the real Virginia.' She said that "I can tell you that the Democrats have just come in from the District of Columbia and moved into northern Virginia....But the rest of the state, 'real Virginia,' if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message "
This view shows the elitism of the right. After years of listening to cranks on the radio scream that anyone who disagrees with their narrow view of America is actually anti-American and trying to destroy, not change, America-- this view has permeated the minds of otherwise rational people. They actually believe (or why would this attitude come out four times within a week) that liberals or anyone else who has a vision for America that doesn't agree with their doctrinaire conservative view is actually anti-American, or at least not sufficiently pro-American.
To some degree this is nothing new. The GOP has regularly been questioning the patriotism of people who don't happen to agree with their schemes since at least the days of McCarthy and Nixon. But the offhanded and casual ways in which these comments have rolled off the tongue recently makes me think that this whole way of thinking (i.e., 'traitor out to destroy the country' replacing 'American with whom I have a disagreement') has reached the point of being taken for granted by people in positions of responsibility on the right, that they sound like Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage without even thinking about it.
Well, I have to tell you something, jerkfusses on the right.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see people in AMERICA be able to go to a doctor without being afraid of going broke if they get sick.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country where when people do have to go to the hospital the focus is on getting them well, not on whether they have insurance.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see our military ready to respond immediately to any challenge, not bogged down in a stupid war that we started years ago in a small country thousands of miles away.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see war-- as costly and ugly as it is-- considered only as a last, not as a first, resort to future international problem spots.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country where people feel safe from their own government, and don't have to worry that someone is listening in on their phone conversations.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see the land that we live on, the air that we breathe and the water that we drink preserved and kept clean for the next generation of AMERICANS.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I don't want to see any young person who is capable of going to college and earning a degree denied that opportunity because they are too poor to be able to afford it.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want working people in AMERICA to feel secure in their jobs.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see the degreed professionals that we hire to prepare our own kids to go to college, to earn enough to send their own kids to college.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see people staying in their homes, not moving into homeless shelters in record numbers because their homes are being foreclosed on and their credit is too poor to even qualify for a rental contract.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see my country respected-- not just feared but respected and trusted and listened to again in the world.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us take the lead again in scientific research.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us develop renewable sources of energy so that we don't need to use all that oil anymore (and therefore, not have to pay for it.)
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see us go back to the budget surplus we enjoyed a few years ago.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see other Americans, in Louisiana and Mississippi, get the help rebuilding their homes that was promised but more than three years later has still never been delivered.
Because I'm an AMERICAN, I want to see a country in which we quit trying to divide people against each other and start looking at how we can all work together for a better AMERICA.
Patriotism is not blindly following your leaders. It is questioning them and where necessary opposing them.
Memo to the right: there are more than 300 million Americans spread out all over the country. So quit trying to claim that only those who happen to support you are 'real Americans' or are 'pro-America. We are all Americans.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Does this photo reflect the way things are really going?
Someone snapped this photo as Obama and McCain were walking off stage from last night's debate.
It may be metaphorical, but it looks like McCain is desperately trying to get a grip on Obama and pull him back to where McCain is.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Spending so fast we can even bust the national debt clock ahead of schedule.
This week the national debt clock in New York exceeded the number of digits it was designed for (picture.) There is now a '1' reading in the place reserved for the dollar sign while someone has glued a handmade dollar sign next to the 1.
The sign is maintained by a private foundation and was originally put in place almost two decades ago when the national debt was around two trillion dollars. It is due to be replaced in 2009 with a new sign, presumably one in which the ten trillions place will be represented by a digit. During the late 1990's when the nation regularly ran a budget surplus, the clock was even turned off for a couple of years (I guess it's not programed to run backwards.)
When President Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the national debt was $5.8 trillion. So in his seven plus years he has nearly doubled it.
That's the price of 'fuzzy math' (as he accused Al Gore of.) He thinks he is being a 'fiscal conservative' because he can cut a million or two here and there for the national parks, but has had no problem with tossing around trillions like they were play money (a trillion in tax cuts, a trillion for Iraq and another trillion in corporate welfare for the pharmaceutical industry courtesy of the prescription drug 'benefit' that Bush and Congressional Republicans passed in 2003.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The only post of the campaign in which I defend John McCain
Today John Lewis (D-GA), a veteran of the civil rights struggle who marched with Dr. King and was beaten bloody by police during non-violent protests in the 1960's, attacked John McCain and compared his attacks on Barack Obama to 'playing with fire' and then went on compare McCain himself to George Wallace.
As much as I respect rep. Lewis and all that he has accomplished, I have to disagree with that. As I alluded to in my last post, McCain finally stepped in himself to try and end some of the more outrageous attacks and was booed by his own crowd for doing so.
That isn't to say that there aren't some obdurate racists among John McCain's supporters. There most certainly are.
And Lewis, in saying that McCain is 'playing with fire' was right to refer to the fact that the McCain campaign in order to gin up the Republican 'base' has sometimes failed to confront some of their more extremist supporters.
However, I do not personally believe that McCain is comparable to George Wallace, who was the face and the personification of segregation during the most turbulent days of the Civil Rights movement.
Obama is significantly ahead of McCain right now, and it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that McCain has nothing to offer but the worn-out and failed policies of George W. Bush. People already know that hasn't worked, so rather than keep at it for four more years they are looking to vote for something different. It's just that simple.
I don't blame McCain for trying to win the election (after all he too is running for President.) And I know that politics can get a little rough at times. But Lewis' statement should be repudiated because it's not true. McCain is not George Wallace. McCain is just wrong, that's all. Maybe comparing him to Herbert Hoover would be more apt.
As much as I respect rep. Lewis and all that he has accomplished, I have to disagree with that. As I alluded to in my last post, McCain finally stepped in himself to try and end some of the more outrageous attacks and was booed by his own crowd for doing so.
That isn't to say that there aren't some obdurate racists among John McCain's supporters. There most certainly are.
And Lewis, in saying that McCain is 'playing with fire' was right to refer to the fact that the McCain campaign in order to gin up the Republican 'base' has sometimes failed to confront some of their more extremist supporters.
However, I do not personally believe that McCain is comparable to George Wallace, who was the face and the personification of segregation during the most turbulent days of the Civil Rights movement.
Obama is significantly ahead of McCain right now, and it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the fact that McCain has nothing to offer but the worn-out and failed policies of George W. Bush. People already know that hasn't worked, so rather than keep at it for four more years they are looking to vote for something different. It's just that simple.
I don't blame McCain for trying to win the election (after all he too is running for President.) And I know that politics can get a little rough at times. But Lewis' statement should be repudiated because it's not true. McCain is not George Wallace. McCain is just wrong, that's all. Maybe comparing him to Herbert Hoover would be more apt.
Friday, October 10, 2008
McCain booed at McCain rally-- for calling Obama a 'decent person'
Today things got way out of hand for Senator McCain.
In recent weeks he's tried to stir up his crowd and get them enthused by leveling a variety of charges against Barack Obama. Of course he's had plenty of accomplices in stirring up the GOP faithful to intense feelings of animosity towards the junior Senator from Illinois-- everyone from hotheaded talk show hosts to shadowy 'independent' groups who have done their best to convince everyone that if Obama is elected then he will begin the jihad against Christian Americans as soon as he takes away everyone's guns so they can't defend themselves.
So today in a townhall meeting with supporters in Lakeville, Minnesota, some of them urged him to get more negative and personal in his attacks on Senator Obama. And then they booed their own candidate when he complemented his opponent.
"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.
In a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin,
He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."
Things are falling apart for the GOP. I've never heard of a major party Presidential candidate getting booed by his own supporters, at his own rally.
I can understand their frustration. For years some GOP strategists have known they were on the wrong side of a demographic divide, with a new generation (which a few years ago was defined as people under 25, then as people under 30, now as people in their twenties and thirties) leaning heavily towards the Democrats. This has been crystallized by the Iraq war (it is this generation which has been asked to sacrifice, and many if not most know a friend or family member who has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan while the GOP President hasn't even bothered to raise taxes on other generations to pay for the war-- meaning that the debt so incurred will also be passed onto the younger generation-- and many are resentful of that fact; I know some who feel this way, that their generation has been used, personally.) Other issues such as college aid, jobs and GOP cultural intolerance have also helped drive many younger people towards the Democratic party. Also, a lot of 'millenials' really only remember only two Presidents-- Clinton and Bush. They remember that when Clinton was the President people had jobs and Republicans tried to impeach him for sexual indiscretion (yes, I know that there were other issues but in a nutshell that is how it is perceived by most young people.) They've watched Bush as President, with a compliant Congress for most of it, and watched him go to war in Iraq instead of keeping after Osama bin Laden (they most certainly do remember 9/11), they have seen nothing actually get done about Katrina and they've watched the economy tank. Maybe in some cases Democrats have warts out of all this but for people who have paid attention for say the past 15 or 20 years (in which case they may also remember another President Bush who went to war with Iraq and fumbled on the economy) Republican leadership has been a failure, period. In fact, the youngest voters this year were born during the first Bush administration and may not even remember Clinton all that well. But polls show that overwhelmingly they favor Obama and other Democrats because they've seen enough of George W. Bush that the large majority have figured out they don't like him.
Another case in which the Republicans have ended up on the wrong side of a demographic divide is immigration. The GOP's suicidal focus on bashing immigrants has not won them a single seat in Congress, the Senate or a Governorship. In 2006 though it probably cost them at least two seats in Congress (one or possibly two in Arizona and one in Texas) as Hispanics, a demographic that in 2004 went 40% for President Bush, reacted with revulsion to the immigrant bashing and went only 20% GOP for Congress in 2006. John McCain is probably the best candidate the Republicans could have nominated to appeal to Hispanics but the truth is they've driven away a lot of culturally conservative, Christian, patriotic, hardworking voters who they should have been able to appeal to. In many cases Hispanics have relatives on both sides of the border, so GOP ideas like a border fence and requiring a passport to enter and leave the U.S. from Mexico have soured many Hispanics on the GOP (and I'm not even getting into racial profiling here.) Republicans like to point to polls showing that a majority of Americans favor tighter controls on immigration. That may be true but for hardly any is it a defining issue in a campaign. In contrast, the number of Hispanics whose own lives or the lives of their family is directly affected by it is much larger and for many of them it is a defining issue.
At the same time the bitter fruits of GOP economic policy have helped drive many working people, even those who had supported Bush, back to the Democrats. The GOP tried to take some hope from the fact that most of them supported Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama during this year's primaries. True enough, but now that the party (including Hillary) is pulling together behind Obama the Republicans are finding that the majority of the working people are now backing him too. Any suggestion that they might stick with the GOP because of God, guns, gays or similar types of 'red-meat' issues that have sometimes helped the Republican candidate in the past evaporated on Sunday, Sept. 14 (that was the day that Lehman Brothers bank failed, setting off the current nonstop economic drubbing that is affecting or likely will soon affect everyone's life for the worse.) Remember we've had thirty years of tax cuts, so-called "trickle down" and deregulation-- so these voters are smart enough to know that the fruit we have today is the result of these policies.) Instructive in categorizing the votes of working people is a new poll out in West Virginia. In the heavily Democratic state, which Hillary Clinton won by an enormous margin over Barack Obama and which Obama tried to downplay during the primaries by only visiting once (and he's not been back since) the new poll shows Obama opening up an eight point margin over McCain. That's pretty good for a state that he almost seemed to not want, not visiting, not even talking about and a state which went by a significant margin for Bush in 2004. McCain may pick off the occasional Hillary fanatic who refuses to ever vote for Obama, but it is clear that by and large the white, working class voters (West Virginia is a state where they predominate) who supported Hillary are now supporting Obama.
The personal attacks and smears (usually a GOP specialty) aren't working very well this year either.
So I can understand Republicans' frustration. Given the growth in the numbers and power of the millenial generation (and some late Gen-X'ers who exhibit some millenial outlook) and the decline in Republican voters (both those who have left the party over the past several years and the fact that on average Republican voters tend to be members of older generations than Democratic voters and therefore-- to be brutally blunt but harshly accurate-- have been dying at a faster rate than Democrats) to the point where they are a clear minority of the electorate it now seems as though the 2004 model won't work for the GOP. Even if the base is energized (as Palin was supposed to and for the most part has done) there just aren't enough Republicans anymore.
After the last time the economy looked this bad the GOP was in the wilderness for a generation (and it might have lasted longer than that if Ike hadn't come out as a Republican and provided them with their first really popular candidate since Teddy Roosevelt). Given the history of the two-party system I have no doubt that the GOP will eventually re-tool and figure out a way to get ahead on some issues that will come up in the future. But they will have to re-tool. The old deregulatory, tax-cuts-will-fix-any-problem, free market culturally restrictive conservative party that keeps looking backwards to Reagan for answers represents the Republican model that no longer appeals to enough Americans to win very many elections.
In recent weeks he's tried to stir up his crowd and get them enthused by leveling a variety of charges against Barack Obama. Of course he's had plenty of accomplices in stirring up the GOP faithful to intense feelings of animosity towards the junior Senator from Illinois-- everyone from hotheaded talk show hosts to shadowy 'independent' groups who have done their best to convince everyone that if Obama is elected then he will begin the jihad against Christian Americans as soon as he takes away everyone's guns so they can't defend themselves.
So today in a townhall meeting with supporters in Lakeville, Minnesota, some of them urged him to get more negative and personal in his attacks on Senator Obama. And then they booed their own candidate when he complemented his opponent.
"If you want a fight, we will fight," McCain said. "But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When people booed, he cut them off.
In a rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin,
He had drawn boos with his comment: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."
Things are falling apart for the GOP. I've never heard of a major party Presidential candidate getting booed by his own supporters, at his own rally.
I can understand their frustration. For years some GOP strategists have known they were on the wrong side of a demographic divide, with a new generation (which a few years ago was defined as people under 25, then as people under 30, now as people in their twenties and thirties) leaning heavily towards the Democrats. This has been crystallized by the Iraq war (it is this generation which has been asked to sacrifice, and many if not most know a friend or family member who has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan while the GOP President hasn't even bothered to raise taxes on other generations to pay for the war-- meaning that the debt so incurred will also be passed onto the younger generation-- and many are resentful of that fact; I know some who feel this way, that their generation has been used, personally.) Other issues such as college aid, jobs and GOP cultural intolerance have also helped drive many younger people towards the Democratic party. Also, a lot of 'millenials' really only remember only two Presidents-- Clinton and Bush. They remember that when Clinton was the President people had jobs and Republicans tried to impeach him for sexual indiscretion (yes, I know that there were other issues but in a nutshell that is how it is perceived by most young people.) They've watched Bush as President, with a compliant Congress for most of it, and watched him go to war in Iraq instead of keeping after Osama bin Laden (they most certainly do remember 9/11), they have seen nothing actually get done about Katrina and they've watched the economy tank. Maybe in some cases Democrats have warts out of all this but for people who have paid attention for say the past 15 or 20 years (in which case they may also remember another President Bush who went to war with Iraq and fumbled on the economy) Republican leadership has been a failure, period. In fact, the youngest voters this year were born during the first Bush administration and may not even remember Clinton all that well. But polls show that overwhelmingly they favor Obama and other Democrats because they've seen enough of George W. Bush that the large majority have figured out they don't like him.
Another case in which the Republicans have ended up on the wrong side of a demographic divide is immigration. The GOP's suicidal focus on bashing immigrants has not won them a single seat in Congress, the Senate or a Governorship. In 2006 though it probably cost them at least two seats in Congress (one or possibly two in Arizona and one in Texas) as Hispanics, a demographic that in 2004 went 40% for President Bush, reacted with revulsion to the immigrant bashing and went only 20% GOP for Congress in 2006. John McCain is probably the best candidate the Republicans could have nominated to appeal to Hispanics but the truth is they've driven away a lot of culturally conservative, Christian, patriotic, hardworking voters who they should have been able to appeal to. In many cases Hispanics have relatives on both sides of the border, so GOP ideas like a border fence and requiring a passport to enter and leave the U.S. from Mexico have soured many Hispanics on the GOP (and I'm not even getting into racial profiling here.) Republicans like to point to polls showing that a majority of Americans favor tighter controls on immigration. That may be true but for hardly any is it a defining issue in a campaign. In contrast, the number of Hispanics whose own lives or the lives of their family is directly affected by it is much larger and for many of them it is a defining issue.
At the same time the bitter fruits of GOP economic policy have helped drive many working people, even those who had supported Bush, back to the Democrats. The GOP tried to take some hope from the fact that most of them supported Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama during this year's primaries. True enough, but now that the party (including Hillary) is pulling together behind Obama the Republicans are finding that the majority of the working people are now backing him too. Any suggestion that they might stick with the GOP because of God, guns, gays or similar types of 'red-meat' issues that have sometimes helped the Republican candidate in the past evaporated on Sunday, Sept. 14 (that was the day that Lehman Brothers bank failed, setting off the current nonstop economic drubbing that is affecting or likely will soon affect everyone's life for the worse.) Remember we've had thirty years of tax cuts, so-called "trickle down" and deregulation-- so these voters are smart enough to know that the fruit we have today is the result of these policies.) Instructive in categorizing the votes of working people is a new poll out in West Virginia. In the heavily Democratic state, which Hillary Clinton won by an enormous margin over Barack Obama and which Obama tried to downplay during the primaries by only visiting once (and he's not been back since) the new poll shows Obama opening up an eight point margin over McCain. That's pretty good for a state that he almost seemed to not want, not visiting, not even talking about and a state which went by a significant margin for Bush in 2004. McCain may pick off the occasional Hillary fanatic who refuses to ever vote for Obama, but it is clear that by and large the white, working class voters (West Virginia is a state where they predominate) who supported Hillary are now supporting Obama.
The personal attacks and smears (usually a GOP specialty) aren't working very well this year either.
So I can understand Republicans' frustration. Given the growth in the numbers and power of the millenial generation (and some late Gen-X'ers who exhibit some millenial outlook) and the decline in Republican voters (both those who have left the party over the past several years and the fact that on average Republican voters tend to be members of older generations than Democratic voters and therefore-- to be brutally blunt but harshly accurate-- have been dying at a faster rate than Democrats) to the point where they are a clear minority of the electorate it now seems as though the 2004 model won't work for the GOP. Even if the base is energized (as Palin was supposed to and for the most part has done) there just aren't enough Republicans anymore.
After the last time the economy looked this bad the GOP was in the wilderness for a generation (and it might have lasted longer than that if Ike hadn't come out as a Republican and provided them with their first really popular candidate since Teddy Roosevelt). Given the history of the two-party system I have no doubt that the GOP will eventually re-tool and figure out a way to get ahead on some issues that will come up in the future. But they will have to re-tool. The old deregulatory, tax-cuts-will-fix-any-problem, free market culturally restrictive conservative party that keeps looking backwards to Reagan for answers represents the Republican model that no longer appeals to enough Americans to win very many elections.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
The Sarah Palin way to avoid trouble: investigate yourself and discover you are innocent
Sarah Palin seems to have figured out an all-new way to dodge any negative or damaging conclusions in a report due tomorrow: investigate yourself and then declare yourself exonerated.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.
Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.
The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation.
Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.
Keep in mind that this probe, begun by a Republican-led legislature back in July when Monegan was fired, was originally supposed to be completed and a report due October 31. The date was actually moved ahead three weeks for the benefit of Palin and McCain-- so that it wouldn't be released four days before the Presidential election. In spite of this, Palin and officials in her administration, who had cooperated with the probe initially spent weeks refusing to cooperate after she was tabbed as John McCain's running mate.
So, apparently afraid of what the report might say tomorrow about whether Palin used the power of her elected office to try and settle a petty family squabble, Palin and the McCain campaign actually investigated this themselves and are now issuing a report clearing Palin.
What a novel concept! Maybe using this as a precedent, McCain will, if elected, allow people accused of crimes to conduct the investigation themselves. Using the Palin-McCain standard for investigations, O.J. Simpson should have been allowed to run the investigation into his Las Vegas hotel room holdup himself. He should have been allowed to collect his own evidence, interview his own witnesses and expect the court and the jury to accept his own report instead of the police report.
This so-called 'report' by the McCain-Palin campaign could be called a whitewash, but that would do a disservice to Tom Sawyer, Richard Nixon and anyone else who has ever been associated with the term, 'whitewash.' It is a fraud and a dupe.
Really, publishing a report you wrote yourself, hoping people will read your report instead of the official one. How stupid do they think we are?
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.
Sen. John McCain's running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin's husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin's former brother-in-law.
The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation.
Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday. Campaign officials have yet to see that report — the result of an investigation that began before she was tapped as McCain's running mate — but said the investigation has falsely portrayed a legitimate policy dispute between a governor and her commissioner as something inappropriate.
Keep in mind that this probe, begun by a Republican-led legislature back in July when Monegan was fired, was originally supposed to be completed and a report due October 31. The date was actually moved ahead three weeks for the benefit of Palin and McCain-- so that it wouldn't be released four days before the Presidential election. In spite of this, Palin and officials in her administration, who had cooperated with the probe initially spent weeks refusing to cooperate after she was tabbed as John McCain's running mate.
So, apparently afraid of what the report might say tomorrow about whether Palin used the power of her elected office to try and settle a petty family squabble, Palin and the McCain campaign actually investigated this themselves and are now issuing a report clearing Palin.
What a novel concept! Maybe using this as a precedent, McCain will, if elected, allow people accused of crimes to conduct the investigation themselves. Using the Palin-McCain standard for investigations, O.J. Simpson should have been allowed to run the investigation into his Las Vegas hotel room holdup himself. He should have been allowed to collect his own evidence, interview his own witnesses and expect the court and the jury to accept his own report instead of the police report.
This so-called 'report' by the McCain-Palin campaign could be called a whitewash, but that would do a disservice to Tom Sawyer, Richard Nixon and anyone else who has ever been associated with the term, 'whitewash.' It is a fraud and a dupe.
Really, publishing a report you wrote yourself, hoping people will read your report instead of the official one. How stupid do they think we are?
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Nothing new to tell me how John McCain's plan would be any different from what got us here
What really stuck out to me from last night's debate is that in the face of the global economic crisis, Senator McCain couldn't suggest anything other than tax cuts (mainly oriented towards the wealthy) and his stale old economic plan that looks almost indistiguishable from George Bush's economic plan.
If tax cuts were the secret to prosperity then you'd think after the $1.3 trillion Bush tax cut plan that was passed in March 2001, we'd all be flying high by now. I guess you can judge how high you are flying (AIG execs attending their taxpayer funded 'retreat' and others with golden parachutes excepted, of course.) We will be paying for the Bush tax cuts for generations to come.
But in fact, even during the most prosperous years of the Bush administration 200,000 jobs created in a month was considered 'good.' But that was less than the monthly average during the Clinton years. So let's get this straight-- the best that George Bush's economy could do anytime during his term was below Clinton's average.
And Senator Obama was right-- real incomes have gone down. He offers a different plan, one that is oriented towards making sure that ordinary people have what they need to survive, whether it is help with their mortgages or whether it is health insurance they can afford.
Some may call that socialism. So be it. Call it what you want, but it's obvious that after trying conservatism and massive tax cuts for eight years and seeing where that led us, maybe a dose of European-style socialism doesn't sound all that bad anymore. They are having the economic crisis in Europe like they are having it here (inevitable in a global economy) but at least in Europe nobody is afraid they might get sick and not be able to afford the doctor.
If tax cuts were the secret to prosperity then you'd think after the $1.3 trillion Bush tax cut plan that was passed in March 2001, we'd all be flying high by now. I guess you can judge how high you are flying (AIG execs attending their taxpayer funded 'retreat' and others with golden parachutes excepted, of course.) We will be paying for the Bush tax cuts for generations to come.
But in fact, even during the most prosperous years of the Bush administration 200,000 jobs created in a month was considered 'good.' But that was less than the monthly average during the Clinton years. So let's get this straight-- the best that George Bush's economy could do anytime during his term was below Clinton's average.
And Senator Obama was right-- real incomes have gone down. He offers a different plan, one that is oriented towards making sure that ordinary people have what they need to survive, whether it is help with their mortgages or whether it is health insurance they can afford.
Some may call that socialism. So be it. Call it what you want, but it's obvious that after trying conservatism and massive tax cuts for eight years and seeing where that led us, maybe a dose of European-style socialism doesn't sound all that bad anymore. They are having the economic crisis in Europe like they are having it here (inevitable in a global economy) but at least in Europe nobody is afraid they might get sick and not be able to afford the doctor.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Here it comes
Remember a few weeks ago when a McCain campaign advisor said that this year's campaign would be about 'personalities, not issues?'
And it began to be, with a flurry of negative ads by the McCain campaign, and misleading and irrelevant attacks on Senator Obama (i.e. claiming that the timeworn phrase, 'lipstick on a pig' was actually a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.)
Then we've had two weeks of the worst economic news since the Depression, and the focus was forcibly ripped back onto issues.
Now that the rescue plan has passed though the McCain campaign has wasted no time in saying they will be going back to the negative ad campaign.
Specifically, having used up Jeremiah Wright and milked the 'muslim' theme for all it is worth they intend to concentrate on Obama's past associations with disgraced fundraiser Tony Rezko and former Weatherman Bill Ayres. Never mind that when Rezko knew Obama he had not been convicted of anything, nor that Obama's associations with Ayres are at best of the 'acquaintance' variety and mostly occurred years in the past before Obama had any reason to know anything about Ayers' past, they intend to Willie Hortonize the campaign (former GOP operative Lee Atwater once bragged that he would have Mike Dukakis 'married' to murderer Willie Horton by the end of the campaign, and at least in the political sense, he did.)
In fact, the GOP are masters of pesonal attacks and distortions (does the term, 'swift-boat' raise any flags?) So we knew this was coming.
But that doesn't mean their campaign tactics have to work. There are two reasons to think they won't.
The first is that the issues this year are just plain too big. In 2004 they were plenty big (and Kerry was leading in the polls throughout the summer) but with the help of the 'swifties' the Bush campaign was able to sufficiently polarize the electorate to help their man across the finish line. But this year, after four more years of Bush failures, the issues are fundamentally huge. Rescue package or no, another Great Depression is staring us right in the face. Our army is still dangerously overextended, still fighting two wars at once and we now face a resurgent Russia to add to the same challenges that we faced in 2004.
The second is that the Obama campaign appears to be ready to respond to this crap. That makes a huge difference. The common theme between the Dukakis and Kerry campaigns is that they chose not to respond until it was too late. In contrast, Bill Clinton (who the GOP didn't even have to look for questionable associations, they had plenty on the candidate himself) was the master of the counterattack, and when he was negatively attacked, his campaign was able to throw it back, and harder (generally within hours or even minutes of the attack so it got into the same news story.) Obama has already pointed out that McCain 'plans to turn the page away from the issues and towards negative attacks' even before the first ones hit the airwaves.
Make no mistake. The Republicans are desperate to win the Presidency this year. They know very well that the failure called neo-conservatism that manifested itself in the 2006 congressional elections may well prevent the party that just two years ago had total control of the government from regaining Congress for at least a generation. Democrats are poised to make huge gains in the Senate. There is even an outside chance they could get to the sixty votes needed to prevent the GOP from even using the filibuster but even if they don't it seems likely that the GOP will be effectively prevented from using that tactic unless they can convince moderate Republican Senators like Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe to suddenly become such fierce partisans that they would go along with filibusters designed to do nothing other than derail the Democrats (unlikely IMO that they would do that very often.) Democrats will almost certainly increase, maybe even substantially increase their margin in the House, probably by enough so that they could even survive the defection of some 'blue dog' Democrats on key legislation and still push through a liberal agenda.
So there is only one path the GOP has to block what they would see as the ultimate doomsday scenario: having a Republican in the White House, who would use his veto pen to stifle a wholesale rush towards (for example) withdrawl from Iraq, universal health care and tax rates where the wealthy pay their fair share. They still haven't given up on gaining a consrvative majority on the Supreme Court but that certainly can only happen with a Republican President (even though he'd have to nominate someone who could get past a Democratic Senate.) Having even lame-duck Bush in the White House has stifled Democratic efforts to do a lot of things, ranging from ending the Iraq war to providing health care for children, so the GOP is now going to put all its resources behind getting John McCain there. And to do it they will smear, distort and engage in the politics of personal destruction against Barack Obama.
But don't despair. Those politics can be defeated (as Bill Clinton proved) and it's the only thing they have left anymore.
And it began to be, with a flurry of negative ads by the McCain campaign, and misleading and irrelevant attacks on Senator Obama (i.e. claiming that the timeworn phrase, 'lipstick on a pig' was actually a sexist attack on Sarah Palin.)
Then we've had two weeks of the worst economic news since the Depression, and the focus was forcibly ripped back onto issues.
Now that the rescue plan has passed though the McCain campaign has wasted no time in saying they will be going back to the negative ad campaign.
Specifically, having used up Jeremiah Wright and milked the 'muslim' theme for all it is worth they intend to concentrate on Obama's past associations with disgraced fundraiser Tony Rezko and former Weatherman Bill Ayres. Never mind that when Rezko knew Obama he had not been convicted of anything, nor that Obama's associations with Ayres are at best of the 'acquaintance' variety and mostly occurred years in the past before Obama had any reason to know anything about Ayers' past, they intend to Willie Hortonize the campaign (former GOP operative Lee Atwater once bragged that he would have Mike Dukakis 'married' to murderer Willie Horton by the end of the campaign, and at least in the political sense, he did.)
In fact, the GOP are masters of pesonal attacks and distortions (does the term, 'swift-boat' raise any flags?) So we knew this was coming.
But that doesn't mean their campaign tactics have to work. There are two reasons to think they won't.
The first is that the issues this year are just plain too big. In 2004 they were plenty big (and Kerry was leading in the polls throughout the summer) but with the help of the 'swifties' the Bush campaign was able to sufficiently polarize the electorate to help their man across the finish line. But this year, after four more years of Bush failures, the issues are fundamentally huge. Rescue package or no, another Great Depression is staring us right in the face. Our army is still dangerously overextended, still fighting two wars at once and we now face a resurgent Russia to add to the same challenges that we faced in 2004.
The second is that the Obama campaign appears to be ready to respond to this crap. That makes a huge difference. The common theme between the Dukakis and Kerry campaigns is that they chose not to respond until it was too late. In contrast, Bill Clinton (who the GOP didn't even have to look for questionable associations, they had plenty on the candidate himself) was the master of the counterattack, and when he was negatively attacked, his campaign was able to throw it back, and harder (generally within hours or even minutes of the attack so it got into the same news story.) Obama has already pointed out that McCain 'plans to turn the page away from the issues and towards negative attacks' even before the first ones hit the airwaves.
Make no mistake. The Republicans are desperate to win the Presidency this year. They know very well that the failure called neo-conservatism that manifested itself in the 2006 congressional elections may well prevent the party that just two years ago had total control of the government from regaining Congress for at least a generation. Democrats are poised to make huge gains in the Senate. There is even an outside chance they could get to the sixty votes needed to prevent the GOP from even using the filibuster but even if they don't it seems likely that the GOP will be effectively prevented from using that tactic unless they can convince moderate Republican Senators like Arlen Specter or Olympia Snowe to suddenly become such fierce partisans that they would go along with filibusters designed to do nothing other than derail the Democrats (unlikely IMO that they would do that very often.) Democrats will almost certainly increase, maybe even substantially increase their margin in the House, probably by enough so that they could even survive the defection of some 'blue dog' Democrats on key legislation and still push through a liberal agenda.
So there is only one path the GOP has to block what they would see as the ultimate doomsday scenario: having a Republican in the White House, who would use his veto pen to stifle a wholesale rush towards (for example) withdrawl from Iraq, universal health care and tax rates where the wealthy pay their fair share. They still haven't given up on gaining a consrvative majority on the Supreme Court but that certainly can only happen with a Republican President (even though he'd have to nominate someone who could get past a Democratic Senate.) Having even lame-duck Bush in the White House has stifled Democratic efforts to do a lot of things, ranging from ending the Iraq war to providing health care for children, so the GOP is now going to put all its resources behind getting John McCain there. And to do it they will smear, distort and engage in the politics of personal destruction against Barack Obama.
But don't despair. Those politics can be defeated (as Bill Clinton proved) and it's the only thing they have left anymore.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
God Bless, Joe
Joe Biden has abruptly cancelled his campaign appearances tonight and tomorrow to be with his wife and her mother.
Bonnie Jacobs, Biden's mother in law is in a hospice in Pennsylvania and is reported to be very ill. David Waid, a spokesman for Biden put out a statement advising that Biden has suspended campaigning to be with his wife, mother in law and the rest of his family at this time.
We are keeping Senator Biden and his family in our thoughts and prayers.
UPDATE: Apparently Bonnie Jacobs has passed away. Best thoughts and wishes for Jill Biden and the family.
Bonnie Jacobs, Biden's mother in law is in a hospice in Pennsylvania and is reported to be very ill. David Waid, a spokesman for Biden put out a statement advising that Biden has suspended campaigning to be with his wife, mother in law and the rest of his family at this time.
We are keeping Senator Biden and his family in our thoughts and prayers.
UPDATE: Apparently Bonnie Jacobs has passed away. Best thoughts and wishes for Jill Biden and the family.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Too cute by half
The first thing that Sarah Palin said at last night's debate was to Joe Biden, "Hey, can I call you Joe?"
Certainly that fit her 'folksy' outlook better than if she'd used 'Senator Biden,' though at a time when people are looking for knowlege and breadth of understanding about the myriad issues facing America today I'm not sure if 'folksy' is what they want. We've had eight years of 'folksy,' (remember that supporters of President Bush bragged about him being a 'C' student?) Where has it gotten us? Into a very, very tough spot, that's where.
But I was waiting for a specific 'Joe' line, and it came towards the end of the debate.
Palin responded to something Biden had said with, "Say it ain't so, Joe."
For all but the oldest of baseball fans, the zinger there was lost. But it's one of the most famous sayings to come out of an awful situation.
The 1919 Chicago White Sox, led by their star, "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (considered by many baseball historians to be the second greatest player of his day, after Ty Cobb) won the American league pennant and were favored to win the World Series. Gamblers bought off eight members of the team, including Jackson, paying them money to lose the series on purpose. And sure enough, they did lose. The next year the plot fell apart. As Jackson left the Federal Courthouse, the story is told that a young fan, who had always idolized Jackson and looked up to him as a role model, went up to the star with tears in his eyes and pleaded, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Of course the great Joe Jackson could only hang his head in shame as he knew he could not speak those three simple words.
Maybe in ninety years, Mark McGwire's "I'm not here to talk about the past," will be similarly enshrined in America's lexicon of phrases whose original meaning is slowly being lost, but somehow I doubt it. It's hard to imagine heartbreak in a Senate subcommittee the same way as it is to imagine it in a ten year old boy.
So what was Palin up to by alluding to baseball's most painful moment of the past century? And yes, even though it happened before virtually anyone alive today can remember I rank the 'Black Sox scandal' as a peculiarly painful moment in the history of baseball ahead of the tragic and untimely deaths of stars Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente and Thurman Munson, the ugly and horrible treatment that was accorded to Jackie Robinson all through the National League (and which came back to life though not so intensely and echoed again a quarter century later for Henry Aaron), the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, the Pete Rose ban, the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and the recent 'roid rage' scandals. All painful moments for baseball, but none so painful as the Black Sox scandal. Apparently Palin wanted to suggest something deeper than just "I think you're wrong about that, Senator." Viscerally the pain from the first time that phrase was uttered still lingers, even among people who aren't quite sure why it should hurt-- but it does.
Not coincidentally, Barack Obama is from the south side of Chicago-- White Sox territory.
Certainly that fit her 'folksy' outlook better than if she'd used 'Senator Biden,' though at a time when people are looking for knowlege and breadth of understanding about the myriad issues facing America today I'm not sure if 'folksy' is what they want. We've had eight years of 'folksy,' (remember that supporters of President Bush bragged about him being a 'C' student?) Where has it gotten us? Into a very, very tough spot, that's where.
But I was waiting for a specific 'Joe' line, and it came towards the end of the debate.
Palin responded to something Biden had said with, "Say it ain't so, Joe."
For all but the oldest of baseball fans, the zinger there was lost. But it's one of the most famous sayings to come out of an awful situation.
The 1919 Chicago White Sox, led by their star, "Shoeless Joe" Jackson (considered by many baseball historians to be the second greatest player of his day, after Ty Cobb) won the American league pennant and were favored to win the World Series. Gamblers bought off eight members of the team, including Jackson, paying them money to lose the series on purpose. And sure enough, they did lose. The next year the plot fell apart. As Jackson left the Federal Courthouse, the story is told that a young fan, who had always idolized Jackson and looked up to him as a role model, went up to the star with tears in his eyes and pleaded, "Say it ain't so, Joe." Of course the great Joe Jackson could only hang his head in shame as he knew he could not speak those three simple words.
Maybe in ninety years, Mark McGwire's "I'm not here to talk about the past," will be similarly enshrined in America's lexicon of phrases whose original meaning is slowly being lost, but somehow I doubt it. It's hard to imagine heartbreak in a Senate subcommittee the same way as it is to imagine it in a ten year old boy.
So what was Palin up to by alluding to baseball's most painful moment of the past century? And yes, even though it happened before virtually anyone alive today can remember I rank the 'Black Sox scandal' as a peculiarly painful moment in the history of baseball ahead of the tragic and untimely deaths of stars Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente and Thurman Munson, the ugly and horrible treatment that was accorded to Jackie Robinson all through the National League (and which came back to life though not so intensely and echoed again a quarter century later for Henry Aaron), the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, the Pete Rose ban, the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and the recent 'roid rage' scandals. All painful moments for baseball, but none so painful as the Black Sox scandal. Apparently Palin wanted to suggest something deeper than just "I think you're wrong about that, Senator." Viscerally the pain from the first time that phrase was uttered still lingers, even among people who aren't quite sure why it should hurt-- but it does.
Not coincidentally, Barack Obama is from the south side of Chicago-- White Sox territory.
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