Outside Agitator

Knockout or Scorecards

2008-04-27T20:21:00.003-05:00

As you all know, the Pennsylvania primary held last Tuesday was considered to be a must-win contest for Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), with a loss certain to end the race and crown Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) as the Democratic nominee against Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in the fall. As you probably also know, Senator Clinton won by a substantial margin, winning 55-45, nearly echoing her must-win in Ohio last month. So, with Senator Clinton proving to be one of the toughest outs in politics, and Senator Obama proving unable to win the states that he has to win, the Obama camp has ratcheted up its efforts to call for Senator Clinton to end the race, perhaps because she is embarrassing him with that pesky ability to win primaries.

However, my question is this: when has the candidate who is behind ever been expected to drop out of the race after posting double-digit victories in key swing states? The Obama campaign is acting indignant and arguing that Senator Clinton can't win. However, if that is the case, why not make her get out? The Obama campaign has pushed the Clinton campaign to a must-win status in six states in the primary season (New Hampshire on 1/8, California and New Jersey on 2/5, Ohio and Texas on 3/4, and Pennsylvania on 4/22), but she manages to survive because the Obama campaign has lost all six. Yes, it is true that Senator Clinton pushed Obama to that point once and failed to win (South Carolina on 1/26), but the point is that if you want credit for the knockout, you have to win the knockout. I have heard Obama supporters argue that this is a different standard. No, it isn't! The standard is 2024 delegates at the national convention. What is changing the rules is trying to argue that a campaign that is still winning has no legitimate reason for being in the race.

Well, she is still in the race for a reason, and that is because the voters have made it clear that we do not want this primary to be over just yet (Disclaimer: I voted for Senator Clinton in the PA primary). Each candidate has a substantial base of support that the other has proven unable to erode. Maybe the reason why the Obama campaign is worried is because they realize that the longer this election drags on, the longer the Clinton campaign shows its strength.

That being said, if the Obama campaign wants to get the knockout, here's a simple idea: get the knockout! There are three states left that are must-wins for Senator Clinton: Indiana on 5/6, West Virginia on 5/13, and Kentucky on 5/20. If Senator Obama wins any of these, he can rightly claim that he has done what he needs to do to prove himself worthy of the nomination. Still, if outspending your opponent nearly 3:1 and still losing big leads to tough talk like that, maybe that is showing desperation. Are they worried about a Clinton surprise showing in one of the states that Senator Obama is expected to win? Are they worried that her ability to win will lead to her having more days like her fundraising tsunami after winning the Keystone State? Either way, if you want to treat this like a boxing match, if neither candidate can get a knockout, the fight goes to the scorecards. I don't think that a TKO would prove satisfying to anyone. Senator Clinton has no reason to throw in the towel, and Senator Obama's supporters have no right to ask. There is a way to end this before Montana and South Dakota, but the ref will have to count to ten.

No Difference? Really?

2008-03-30T18:25:00.005-05:00

Oh, what a strange two months it has been. John McCain beat Mitt Romney in enough winner-take-all states on Super Tuesday to make his way clear toward the Republican Presidential nomination while the Democratic race plays out like an epic boxing match with neither unable to land the knockout blow. (Interestingly enough, there were also arguments in Michigan by the Obama people that somehow it will disenfranchise voters to have a revote, and that this will not hurt him in Novmber should he be the nominee against McCain, as arguments continue as to whether or not it's even possible at this point for Senator Clinton to catch Senator Obama to win the nomination.) However, one thing that should come as a surprise to no one, is that Ralph Nader (Egomania) is going to make yet another run for President.

By now, anyone with a pulse who has followed American politics over the last decade or so can recite Nader's pitch almost verbatim: the two parties are beholden to special interest money, they are trying to keep him out of the debate, we need more than two options, no difference between the two major parties, etc. However, one thing that has changed between Nader's 2000 run and his 2008 run is the fact that we have seen what happens when one thinks that there really is no difference between the two major parties. Well, let's look at the things that have happened under President George W. Bush and ask whether or not those would have occurred under President Gore.

Taxes and the Budget Deficit President Bush's first major legislative accomplishment was the passage of his $1.35 trillion tax cut which saw nearly 40% of the benefits go to the top 1% of income earners in the United States. Before the passage of this tax cut, I remember arguments that we were actually paying off the national debt too fast. At the time of the 200 Presidential elections, I remember that Vice President Gore talked about paying off all national debt not dedicated to Social Security and Medicare by 2012. Now that we are getting closer and closer to that date, it looks like the national debt will probably double instead.

Economy I will not pretend that many millions of Americans were left behind by the economic boom of the 1990's. However, for the first time in a long time, things were looking up for those at the bottom of the economic totem pole. By the end of the Clinton Administration, real wages (amount non-salaried workers made adjusted to inflation) increased for the first time since 1978. The poverty rate declined steadily every year. There were more millionaires and billionaires created in those eight years than in any other time in our nation's history combined. However, since then, the economic rebound for the working-class has ended, poverty has increased dramatically, the shift of income to the top has only accelerated, and with the collapse of housing and the dollar, one dreads what would be required to get us out of this fiscal mess, which would make what FED Chairman Paul Volcker did to end the inflation of the 1970's and the recession of the early 1980's seem tame in comparison.

Health Care In 1993-94, President Clinton, and then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, attempted to bring about universal health insurance for Americans. As we all know, that plan failed. However, there were other accomplishments during that era, such as the passage of S-CHIP. When President Clinton took office, there were 37 million Americans uninsured, or 14.2% of the total population at the time. By the end of his term in office, that number had risen to 39 million Americans, but it had actually fallen as a percentage of the population to 13.8%. In the past seven years, the number made it to 47 million, and a percentage of the population at 15.7%.

The Environment Considering that Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket in 2000, you would think that Nader and his supporters would have taken some pause at the argument that George W. Bush, the Texas oilman son of a Texas oilman who allowed Houston to overtake Los Angeles as the smog capital of the world in 1999 (A title that was returned to L.A. in the early 2000's), was really no different than the author of Earth in the Balance, the man who held global warming hearings in Congress as early as 1977, succeeded in the fight to clean up nuclear energy disposal in 1978, and was one of the key advocates of the Montreal Accords, which effectively solved the CFC crisis of the 1980's. However, the fact that global warming has gotten worse while Former Vice President Gore went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 shows me that maybe it wasn't about the environment after all.

War in Iraq President Bush made an effort to rally the nation to war in Iraq as early as the "axis of evil" speech during the State of the Union in January 2002. In September of that year, Al Gore stood up and said that there was no reason to go to war with Iraq. In November 2002, when asked about what he would have done differently in the "war on terror" by David Letterman, he replied that he would have kept a force of at least 35,000 in Afghanistan as a peacekeeping effort, something made impossible by the efforts of President Bush to siphon funds to Iraq instead of Afghanistan.

There you have it, on every major issue, things have gotten worse over the last eight years. On every one of those issues, Vice President Gore was right, and Governor Bush was wrong. However, for Ralph Nader, this never mattered. An article posted on Slate one week before the 2000 election tells us all that really mattered to Nader all along:

This depraved indifference to Republican rule has made Nader's old liberal friends even more furious. A bunch of intellectuals organized by Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin are circulating a much nastier open letter, denouncing Nader's "wrecking-ball campaign--one that betrays the very liberal and progressive values it claims to uphold." But really, the question shouldn't be the one liberals seem to be asking about why Nader is doing what he's doing. The question should be why anyone is surprised. For some time now, Nader has made it perfectly clear that his campaign isn't about trying to pull the Democrats back to the left. Rather, his strategy is the Leninist one of "heightening the contradictions." It's not just that Nader is willing to take a chance of being personally responsible for electing Bush. It's that he's actively trying to elect Bush because he thinks that social conditions in American need to get worse before they can better.

Nader often makes this "the worse, the better" point on the stump in relation to Republicans and the environment. He says that Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt was useful because he was a "provocateur" for change, noting that Watt spurred a massive boost in the Sierra Club's membership. More recently, Nader applied the same logic to Bush himself. Here's the Los Angeles Times' account of a speech Nader gave at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., last week: "After lambasting Gore as part of a do-nothing Clinton administration, Nader said, 'If it were a choice between a provocateur and an anesthetizer, I'd rather have a provocateur. It would mobilize us.' "

The article goes on to state Nader's desire to defeat all kinds of Democrats in close states, even liberal heroes such as the late Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). So, it was never to pull Democrats to the left; it was to start a movement of the Green Party with Nader as the head of the new left-wing major political party in America.

Now, of course, Nader is trying to insist that he wasn't the one who swung the election to Bush after all. (I guess there are only so many donors you can lose because of your real motives before you drop that tune, at least publicly.) Even if it really was the Supreme Court that did it in Florida, let's look at the math. Al Gore "lost" Florida by 537 votes in the 2000 election, swinging the Electoral College to George W. Bush by a margin of 271-267, meaning any one state would have made the difference in giving the election to Gore. There were two states where Bush's margin was exceeded by Nader's vote total: Florida and New Hampshire. In the case of the latter, Gore lost by 7000 voters with Nader receiving 22,000 votes, meaning that in the exit poll question of Nader voters of who they would have voted for with Nader out of the election, Gore, Bush or none of the above, Gore would have had to have beat Bush on that count by a net of 32%. In other words, if every Nader voter would have voted for one or the other, Gore would have had to have been the preferred choice of at least 66% of the voters. It is possible, but not the most likely scenario, so let's ignore it for now and assume that Bush would have won New Hampshire anyway.

Which brings us back to Florida. The official margin was 537. Ralph Nader received 97,419 votes, which makes this scenario much more likely. So, let's go to the exit polls in Florida. The final percentages: vote for Gore, 37%; vote for Bush, 21%; other/not vote, 42%. In other words, a net of 16% of Nader voters that would have certainly gone to Gore, or a total of 15,587 votes for Gore. If you add that to his margin in Florida, he would have won the state by 15,050 votes, and it would have been impossible for the Supreme Court to take that victory away. So, yes, Ralph Nader swung the 2000 election to George W. Bush, which is just what he wanted.

So, to all the Nader supporters out there, was it worth it? How have these last eight years worked for you? I have heard a lot about the things that Nader accomplished as a young man, and they were indeed important. However, I've been unable to find anything that he has accomplished since 1980, when he publicly distanced himself from Nader's Raider Joan Claybrook for taking a job with the Carter Administration. (Public Citizen, the group Nader founded and Claybrook heads, removed his name from their masthead as founder emeritus in 2004, and reminded supporters that Nader had nothing to do with the organization after 1980.) As someone who will have back pain for the rest of my life because of Bush's war, can any of you give me an honest answer as to why I wouldn't be able to get up in the morning most every day without a sharp pain in my back (caused by armor plating that didn't fit, and only arrived after I was in the theater of operations for 264 days) if it would have been Al Gore in the White House? If not, can I at least receive an apology for your act of vanity? As Randi Rhodes told Nader four years ago, "We can't afford you!"

Thanks a Lot, Early States!

2008-02-03T16:59:00.000-05:00

With this being Super Sunday, and Super Tuesday coming upon is in a mere two days, I think that now is a good time to look at just much we have been screwed by the first four states that narrowed down our Presidential choices to two: Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL). When this process started, there were six candidates who were making an honest effort to win the nomination. (I exclude Congressman Dennis Kucinich [D-OH] and Former Senator Mike Gravel [D-AK] because they didn't make an effort to compete in key states, which included Congressman Kucinich sending out an e-mail asking people to vote for him in the MySpace primary a mere two days before the Iowa caucuses.) Iowa, by breaking hugely in favor of only three canididates, ended the campaigns of Senators Joe Biden (D-DE) and Chris Dodd (D-CT), both seasoned Democrats and committee chairs in the Senate, with the former serving 35 years in the Senate, and the latter serving 27 years in the Senate and six in the House, and both doing so with distinction. The 7% he received in the entrance polls and the 2% he received in the caucuses, despite polling at 12% only three days earlier, would turn out to be a fatal blow to Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), albeit one that took New Hampshire's 5% to deal the final blow for a man who had served 14 years in Congress, four as a Cabinet-level official and five as Governor of New Mexico, the closest swing state of the last two elections, where he won re-election in 2006 with nearly 70% of the vote.

Then, once Governor Richardson was gone from the race, I realized that the best candidate of the three remaining was Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC). He was talking about poverty, and he could do so while standing up to corporations in a way that could lead to Democrats taking a firm stand and winning in November. Not only that, but I thought that he could realign politics in a way that FDR did in 1932, and he was the man who led the field in bold proposals for health care and the minimum wage. (Governor Richardson led the field on global warming and Iraq. See, when Democrats talk about changing the face of politics, we talk about those who did it in a positive way.) However, the lack of money ruined several campaigns, and his funds dried up after disappointing showings in Nevada and South Carolina.

So, we are left with the two worst candidates we could field. One with a tendency to talk about things in a way that hurts the party against Republicans, and one who refuses to apologize for some of the wrong votes that she has cast in the past. One whose supporters insist that his opponent voted for the bankruptcy bill, when he did so as well. The other who will do anything to win, even if it means crippling her opponent should he be the general election nominee. So, thanks a lot, early states! You really screwed us. Let's talk about some of the ways.

Health Care Anyone who read my last post on this blog knows that I am not happy about the language that Senator Obama has used in describing health care. However, it seems to have only gotten worse. For the latest evidence, one needs to only look at this entry from Talking Points Memo shows the new mailers that Senator Obama is using that channel the infamous "Harry and Louise" ads run by the health insurance industry to scare people away from the proposal on health insurance in 1993-94. When reading comments, I have heard such pathetic defenses as "How do we know that this comes from the Obama campaign?" (Answer: when the last page is enlarged, it clearly says "Paid for by Obama for America" and has an address blacked out, so this is legit.) or "He is destroying the argument the right will use against the eventual nominee" (Answer: all he is doing is reinforcing the GOP talking point, which will be used against either Democratic candidate in the general election, which will only be worse because it is coming from a Democratic candidate.) that makes me question whether they are thinking at all about anything other than his ability to give a pretty speech.

For further debunking of the Obama proposal on health care, Paul Krugman gives a nice summary of the recent research that documents the need for mandates if anyone wants to have anything near universal health coverage. Much like why so many Democrats abandoned Senator Joe "Zell" Lieberman (I-CT) for remarks that delegitimized any opposition to the Iraq War, I wonder if this line has been crossed.

Foreign Policy Everyone knows that Senator Obama gave a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq War while Senator Clinton voted for it. However, their votes in the Senate have been identical since 2005, when both were in the Senate. One point of contention was Senator Clinton's vote in favor of the Kyl/Lieberman resolution last year that declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist entity, which many believe will give President Bush authorization to go to war with Iran. However, Senator Obama was not there when the vote came up on the floor.

So, the differences seem to be mostly about style. Senator Clinton is trying to paint a picture of being tough, while Senator Obama considers talking to foreign leaders without preconditions. We have seen the danger in both approaches. I am not saying that we should continue the policy of only talking to those who like us, but there has to be some way to figure out what the dialogue is supposed to produce before agreeing to talks. Talking for its own sake won't do any good, but neither will isolationism or the go-it-alone style we have been used to seeing.

The Environment Here, you have a case of Senator Clinton virtually copying (once again) the proposal of Senator Edwards. Senator Obama has mostly done that, but he has also capitulated to the coal industry, proposing liquid coal, and pretending that he only wanted to do so if it meant a reduction in CO2 emissions (The Bunning/Obama bill had no such provision), so neither candidate shines through.

Corporate Influence Senator Clinton infamously said at last year's Daily Kos debate that corporate lobbyists were a positive force, and she sat on the corporate board of Wal-Mart for six years. This is where we need a fighter. Once someone insists that everyone can get along, there is no place to negotiate or to push for reform.

So, there you have the case for where we are now. Where is Stephen Colbert when you really need him?

Where Things stand for Dems

2008-01-31T13:54:00.000-05:00

With Edwards out, Super Tuesday is only between two candidates, Obama and Clinton. Here are some of the latest polls (with Edwards included) across the country from Rasmussenhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifMass.: :Clinton leads 43-37 %
Conn: 40-40.
California: Clinton 43 to 40.

Edwards dropping out makes a significant difference here but it is too soon to tell how his supporters will break.

The McCain Advantage

2008-01-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

This I found to be curious. McCain is leading both democratic candidates. Is he enjoying the white male vote bump from an Edwards bid drop? To summarize: McCain stands at 48% to 40% to Clinton among Likely voters. Against Obama it is 47% to 41%. Of course these change- after all McCain was losing to both of them just last week.

Delegate Watch

2008-01-25T15:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a good Website for real election observers. This year looks like we may have to look beyond February before we know who the nominee is (and here's hoping!) so keep track of what the real numbers are for this primary year.

An Edwards Surge?

2008-01-25T13:15:00.000-05:00

Latest Reuters/C-Span/Zogby Poll shows Edwards coming up with a late surge in South Carolina. But is a second place finish really what his campaign needs? I will say yes. Here's why: Edwards may be a long shot to get the bid and failed to nudge his way into a two-way debate with Barack after Iowa, but he can collect delegates along the primary season and later on affect the bid outcome to his liking (which may be his only option.) Even if he were to win or come in second in SC he faces tough odds in southern states where his most likely base would be. Here are the latest in Georgia and Alabama. Edwards motivation in this fight may be to win, but a reality will set in and he will have to consider what objectives he wants to fulfill with his campaign.

Update: I just wanted to note, that intense campaign focus has yet to hit these Super Tuesday states but still Clinton and Obama are hitting the airwaves in not just the south but everywhere NY TIMES has the story.

Obama is "Present"

2008-01-25T13:08:00.001-05:00

On Monday's MLK debate in South Carolina (watchhere), Hillary Clinton and John Edwards bot dogpiled on Barack Obama's 130 votes of "present" while in Illinois. (I don't believe that Obama was expecting that one.) AP has an interesting article regarding the votes. Most interesting was this part:

Several involve abortion — a ban on certain late-pregnancy abortions, a requirement that a minor's parents be notified and restrictions on a type of abortion where the fetus sometimes survives for short periods.

"A woman's right to choose ... demands a leader who will stand up and protect it," said one Clinton campaign mailer.

But the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council says Obama's "present" votes were actually part of a careful strategy to prevent those restrictions from passing.

President Pam Sutherland said the group feared several senators were going to vote "yes" on the legislation because of attacks from Republicans over their past opposition. Sutherland says she approached Obama and convinced him to vote "present" so that the wavering senators would do the same. For their purposes, a "present" was as good as an outright "no" because it kept the bills from reaching the majority needed to pass.

Hey a lesson learned in Illinois state politics!

Losing the Battle Before It Starts

2008-01-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time since I have posted on this board. (A transition from part-time to full-time student will do that.) However, I have a little bit of free time now, and I am going to post about some of the things that I see in the candidates for the Democratic primary. The controversy du jour comes from the statements that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) made to the Las Vegas Sun earlier this week. For anyone who hasn't seen them, the quote that generated the controversy was the following paragraph:

I don't want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what's different are the times. ... I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing. (emphasis added)

I know that the Obamamaniacs are going to be upset at me saying this, but do we really want a nominee who is speaking off of the page of the Republican National Committee. The Republican Party has spent the last 20 years making a concerted effort canonizing, if not deifying, Ronald Reagan. Yes, it is true that Ronald Reagan did change the country in a serious way when he got elected to the Presidency in 1980. However, I could not think of many Presidents who have changed America for the worse. He has given this country a debt that will never be repaid. He presided over the worst and longest recession (16 months, 1982-83) as well as the highest unemployment (10.9%) that this country has seen since the Great Depression. He opposed civil rights and opened his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, MS, the site of the 1964 Freedom Summer murders, where he extolled the virtues of states' rights. (Anyone from the South or a border state knows what this really means.) He cut benefits for the hardworking people of this country, and set in motion the process that has seen the average CEO make hundreds of times what the average employee makes, all while cutting their taxes while raising taxes on working people.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time Senator Obama has spoken from the GOP hymnbook. When discussing the health care proposals of his rivals who are actually making a serious effort to win the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), the major difference is that his proposal does not require that everyone gets health insurance (although he does so for children). When asked the reason he did so, Senator Obama argues that "we can't force people to get health insurance from the government." Well, if you are someone whose ultimate goal is some form of single-payer health insurance, that is exactly what you want to do. It has been pointed out that not mandating health insurance will only cover about half of the uninsured at best, leaving 24 million Americans uninsured. The proposals by Senators Clinton and Edwards both offer mandates (although Senator Clinton's proposal borrowed heavily from the proposal made earlier by Former Senator Edwards), which will lead to coverage of 98-99 percent of the American people. I am opposed to seeing anyone uninsured in this country, but seeing 3 to 6 million uninsured is much less of an atrocity than seeing 24 million uninsured. Also, this is the same argument being used by Republicans against Democrats who have proposed any expansion of government-provided health insurance. There are those who argue that Senator Obama is simply being practical, but he is sacrificing potential long-term gains for questionable short-term advantages. At a time when universal health insurance is once again in the political conscience, we cannot afford to see someone squander this rare opportunity.

Even worse is Senator Obama's suggestion that "everything should be left on the table." This has been used for years as a talking point by Republicans who want to privatize our retirement. By doing this, Senator Obama is leaving himself open for charges of dishonesty by Republicans when he refuses to put everything on the table. After all, if he takes privatization off the table (as he has done in Democratic debates when called on this kind of rhetoric), the Republican is going to have a field day. They have figured out how to wield the flip-flopper charge like a club in the 2004 election, and they will do it again. I can imagine the ad now, "Barack Obama SAYS he wants to put everything on the table when dealing with Social Security. However, he has said that he won't let the American workers have the chance to invest their own money. [Insert Republican nominee here] WILL give people this option. Barack Obama: all rhetoric, no substance."

You see, by saying that everything should be on the table and arguing from the right, he is allowing himself to be outflanked in November. By insisting that it is a bad thing to insist on universal health insurance, he is opening up himself for Republicans to call him on any effort to improve health insurance. By praising Reagan against the "extremes" of the Great Society era, he is continuing the myth that Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents. Harry S Truman famously said that given a choice between voting for a Republican and a Republican, they will take the Republican. Giving into their rhetoric gives the American people this choice.

Iowa and NH- No Longer determining things

2008-01-09T09:07:00.000-05:00

You gotta love conventional media wisdom. Not only did most people get it wrong before Iowa this year, they jumped to the next bandwagon and got it wrong in NH.

It is obvious that in the first two contests that no winner is the victor- only the issue: CHANGE.

Hillary won because she came out big on Monday evening sounding her change. That gave voters what they wanted to hear. Obama and Edwards did that in Iowa giving both of them surprise finishes.

For Republicans- it was obvious that Huckabee shows that the evangelicals will not be taken lightly this election. It will most likely be a bitter battle between him and Mitt Romney in the end. John McCain had his last hurrah and it is very unlikely he will carry this momentum too much further. Guiliani barely registered in these contests and it is a huge gamble on his part. The only thing he can hope for is for Huckabee to flame out and fight it out with Romney. His big state later strategy has cost him a valuable voice in the proceedings early on. Other candidates will have momentum and he will have to start.

Huckabee winning in Iowa, to me, was also not much of a surprise. He has a message of change as well. It will only get stronger as evengelicals and other conservatives hear his crossover appeal of limited government and a CHANGED foreign policy. That gives Huckabee a much more uphill battle because of his party's status quo branch, the economic royalists.

Here are the numbers you really need to know (not some ridiculously sensational media numbers): 2025 and 1259 These are the Democratic and Republican numbers of needed delegates to the national convention. They are also the ones you especially need to know if things do not get decided fron now until then.

Let the Third World War Begin

2007-11-13T21:27:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the next World War. (Cue the Dramatic Music)

With Devious Alliances...

Explosions...

And
a cast of villans!

Why not Hillary? Here's why...

2007-11-02T14:38:00.000-05:00

Note: This is not an endorsement of any kind for the Edwards campaign. He just made probably the best attack ad I have seen since Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it."

Political Horse Race Analysis...

2007-10-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

... always piss me off. This from the AP is what I'm talking about. I can't stand people making predictions or saying it is this when it is nothing but specualtion. There are polls saying she's ahead, but really folks- its all name recognition. Obama has some but he also wasn't a first lady for 8 years.

As someone who has witnessed two presidential campaign cycles, I learned one thing: It's October and nothing is decided. People for the most part don't even know who is running. All of the debates mean nothing and people probably won't be paying attention until the end of November. So when I hear bull like this:

Memo to the Democratic presidential candidates: You can still beat Hillary Rodham Clinton, but you better act fast.

The former first lady looks more likely to win the nomination every day, showing strength in polling, fundraising and setting the campaign agenda.

I get a little angry. The sad thing is most general voters won't be listening until next year and that is AFTER the parties have picked their nominees. So no regular voter even gets input. So much for primaries...

Here's My Rant
Let's face it- this primary system reflects none of the the actual principles it was founded on. Once upon a time it was supposed to take the candidate selection away from smoke-filled rooms. Now it still allows an elite class decide who gets it. But it isn't for the reasons the pundit class in the media (and "genius" analytical skills) say. It isn't liberal rank-and-file party voters deciding. IN fact the average party activist is cut out of the whole thing.

It is Washington money-funnelers. Who can get the most money the quickest. Clinton is a perfect example of this sham of a nominating process. I give Kudos to Obama and Edwards for their respective stands to fight it. But really those come from being unable to emulate Clinton's Washington schmoozing.

And then after all of this you hear inane news analysis like this:

There is always the chance that Clinton could make an error in the next couple of months that would hurt her chances. Some argue that her vote against Iran at a time when anti-war Democrats are concerned about war there has the potential to damage her standing.

But Democratic insiders, including some working on various 2008 campaigns who spoke on condition of anonymity, agree that barring a major stumble, Clinton is all but sure to win the nomination if she wins the opening contest in Iowa. She is polling well in the states that follow, and no one else would be able to challenge her unless an Iowa loss made her look vulnerable.

This system is stacked for Washington insiders. Pretty much the same reason we started primaries in the first place. There are many ideas about how to structure the out-of-control front-loading of the primary system- but the this balancing won't do much when the Washington money-funnelers play gate-keeper.

Fighting for the Mountains

2007-10-25T14:01:00.000-05:00

Over at DailyKos is push to ask Congressmen to support protections as the Bush Administration is seeking to ease restrictions for the coal operators to destroy mountaintops in the Mountain State (WV, of course!)and elsewhere.

We here at Outside-Agitator urge you to do the same. Check this out and help stop this destructive process. Mining coal is a necessary process but we must make it a responsible and cleaner practice.

So what's the plan: Iran

2007-10-25T09:22:00.000-05:00

Here's the new plan folks. Sanction Iran to make it weaker.

More from the AP:

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday — the harshest since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 — charging anew that Tehran supports terrorism in the Middle East, exports missiles and is engaging in a nuclear build up.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, joined at a State Department news conference by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, said the steps the Bush administration is taking against the Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks are designed, among other things, to punish Tehran for its support of terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East.

Rice said the moves were in response to "a comprehensive policy to confront the threatening behavior of the Iranians" although she also said that Washington remains open to "a diplomatic solution."

But Rice quickly added: "Unfortunately the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations, instead threatening peace and security by pursuing nuclear technologies that can lead to a nuclear weapon, building dangerous ballistic missiles, supporting Shia militants in Iraq and terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, and denying the existence of a fellow member of the United Nations, threatening to wipe Israeli off the map."

I really like Rice's "open to diplomatic solutions." It is our president who has threatened WWIII. It is also this administration who supported Israeli invasion into Lebanon. And Iraq- well, need I say more?

And for y'all who think that somehow Iran is going to nuke Israel- one of the stupidest notions I have ever heard- I will off this tidbit of "evidence" of the true intentions of Iran.

Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesdaythat Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press agency reported.

...

His tone was reminiscent of that of the early days of Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies since then, and anti-Israel slogans have been common at rallies.

...

Ahmadinejad said in his remarks Wednesday that the issue of a Palestinian state would be resolved only when Palestinians took control of all their lands.

What Ahmedinejad is saying is nothing new. There isn't a new threat there.
Iran wants Palestinians to have their land. What land will there be to have if it is nuked?

In your own minds, cut through the rhthym of the war drum beat and hear the logic and reasoning. It is the only way we can stop another disaster for our land and country.

Obama- Sister Souljah Moment??

2007-10-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

Gays are railing against a gospel singer who is actively supports Obama. Whatever happened to "can't we all just get along?"

More from the <AP:

A gay rights group on Monday urged Barack Obama to cut ties with a gospel singer who it says spreads false information about homosexuality being a choice.

Donnie McClurkin is among several gospel singers scheduled to raise money for the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate at a concert in South Carolina this weekend.

McClurkin has drawn attention from gay rights activists for his views on homosexuality.

"I don't believe that it is the intention of God," McClurkin said Monday in a telephone interview. "Sexuality, everything is a matter of choice."

McClurkin said he does not believe in discriminating against homosexuals. "What people do in their bedrooms and who they are as human beings are two different things," he said.

In a statement, Obama said he believes gays and lesbians are "our brothers and sisters" and should be afforded the same respect, dignity and rights granted all other citizens.

I hope for Obama's sake he stands his ground. If he is to be a leader for the country he can't let the inmates run the madhouse- so to speak. In other words, he needs to show independence and allow those with differing opinions to stand in support of him or else Obama just becomes a special interest lackey.

For gays- Obama supports you, so pipe down. What- is everyone going to bolt to guiliani if it becomes a choice between him or Obama? Give me a break- there's a war on people!

Color Me Skeptical

2007-10-23T13:47:00.000-05:00

I place this under the "Highly Doubtful" column. Hillary Clinton says she will give back powers that the Bush White House has taken for themselves.

Clinton denounced the Bush Administration's push to concentrate more power in the White House as a "power grab" not supported by the Constitution.

Asked if she would consider giving up some of those powers if she were president, Clinton replied, "Oh, absolutely ... I mean, that has to be part of the review that I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that."

A president is not just going to go back and cede power to Congress, which in its ineptitude during the 5, ah hell make it 50, years did not force it to give back. I really can't think of a moment when Congress did this. The War Powers Act was probably the most forceful of these attempts and that is being undermined daily by the Bush Administration. Congress has been fighting a losing battle with the White House Since the days of FDR.

Transformers trailer

2007-10-22T03:00:00.009-05:00

Transformers 2 Disc Special Edition DVD Review

2007-10-22T00:21:00.000-05:00

For those of us who grew up watching Transformers there was a bit of childlike excitement inside of us when we heard that Michael Bay was directing a live action movie. There were also those that didn't give a damn. Despite those people there was a tremendous amount of hype surrounding this film. Computer hackers broke into studio computers to read the script and see Transformer design drafts only to bash Michael Bay for ruining their childhood. In retaliation, Bay did as much research as he possibly could on Transformers and released a teaser trailer that was the most downloaded in Internet history. The question is did it all pay off? Well it depends on who you ask, but in my opinion he made a pretty cool movie. If you have seen any of Bay's previous work I shouldn't have to tell you that this isn't Oscar material, or in anyway conceivable. Having said that I'm sure you also know that's what he is best at. Inconceivable unrealistic action packed shit! Every time he sticks to that format he doesn't lose. Transformers looks so good that you accept it, no matter how ridiculous it gets. It is also so fun that we almost forgive him for making Pearl Harbor, one of the worst films in history. As far as the plot goes it isn't any more complex than the cartoons we watched as a child but it should still maintain your attention throughout the entire film. While Michael Bay's vision and The Transformers are the real stars of the film, the humans don't do to bad themselves. Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) convinces us that he is here to stay with a memorable performance and good comic relief. Megan Fox(Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen) is really only there to look sexy but she does it well. Josh Duhamel (Live Free or Die Hard, Hitman) plays the military action hero well. John Voight (Anaconda, National Treasure, Enemy of the State) plays the Defense Secretary as well as he can in an action film and John Turturro (Secret Window, O Brother, Where art thou?) fits here well with his unique style of acting. The DVD Features include pretty much everything you could ever want to know about the making of Transformers in a little over 2 hours. If you are hardcore Transformer nerds, or just want to gain appreciation for how much work went into this film it is quite interesting.

The Film - 3 out of 5 stars

The DVD - 3 1/2 out of 5 stars

Features:

Disc 1

Commentary by Director Michael Bay

Disc 2

Our World - Explore the world of TRANSFORMERS through interviews with the cast and crew, stunt training footage, and exclusive access to the on-set locations.

Their War - Learn more about the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS with exclusive access to production design, military advisors, and digital special effects.

More than meets the eye - An in-depth featurette on the making of the Skorponok Desert Attack scene and concept boards.

Jersey Actually Proves It's Worth... Again!

2007-10-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

Well, rag on the New Jersey people all you want (for good reason I might add), but the boys from Piscataway came through when it counted. The Scarlet Knights (5-2, 1-1) knocked the #2 South Florida Bulls (6-1, 1-1) from the ranks of the unbeaten last night to the tune of 30-27. The game was hardly a thing of beauty, with both teams committing special teams blunders, lots and lots of penalties, and ill-timed turnovers.
This win really shouldn't have come as much as a surprise as one might think, either. USF, while very good, was hardly ever great this season. They achieved their now-defunct #2 ranking simply because they were winning in a season where everyone else is losing. Now, don't dismiss that. Give the Bulls their just do credit for doing exactly where they were supposed to. But, you knew they were going to get tagged at some point. The Bulls' lack of a true, consistent running game (outside of a Matt Groethe draw up the middle) cost them this game. The Bulls had three separate leads, but without any real threat of a consistent, clock-draining rushing attack, the Rutgers defense was able to line-up on the line of scrimmage and blitz and blitz and blitz. They sacked Groethe six times, and forced him to scramble and hurry several more. The Bulls' O-line offered little resistance. The results were USF being behind in downs and distance, especially through the second half.
Meanwhile, Rutgers continues to have the luxury of a guy named Ray Rice. USF's vaunted defense has had no success against Rice since he started at running back. Last year, Rice shredded the Bulls' D for 202 yards, and last night had 181 yards on 33 touches. He also lost a fumble that ended up not mattering. Rutgers QB Mike Teel certainly didn't have a great game, with numerous over-thrown balls and wrong reads, but be made plays when he had to. That said, a lot of credit goes to his receivers, most notably Taiquan Underwood. He finished with five catches for 114 yards and two scores. Also, give credit to Rutgers head boss Greg Schiano for some uber-ballsy play calling. Twice, twice he went for it on fourth down, each time lining up in a special teams formation and running a gadget play. These plays led directly to ten points. They're the kind of decisions a coach is lauded for, or riled against. But, they worked, and they're timing was superb.

So where do we go from here?

Pretty or not, this is exactly what WVU needed, as now the conference is back to square-one (MathNet not included). Rutgers' win not only puts the Mountaineers right back into Big East Conference title contention, but now one can realistically begin to fantasize about bigger dreams. The way this college football season has been going, no one is safe, but you knew that by now.
Don't be surprised if Ohio State goes down tomorrow at Michigan State. By this point, truly anything can happen. Boston College and Arizona State may have the luxury of waking up Monday morning ranked #1 and #2 simply because they don't play this weekend.

WVU got the first big step back into the BCS. Now, with an impressive win over a improving Mississippi State team (they did beat Auburn and Arkansas) on homecoming weekend, be ready to watch WVU begin a slow and methodical climb up the rankings. Just win, baby, just win, and things will be fine. The Mountaineers CANNOT afford to lose another game. However, win out, and those lofty preseason expectations aren't far behind.

New AG, Same as Old AG

2007-10-19T10:40:00.000-05:00

Bush's new lapdog Attorney General may make a condemning statement here and there against torture- "Ooooh torture memo so bad"- but he still parses words and relies on semantics to slither his way through definitions.

What's worse is that nothing changes in how the government is working. Mukasey stil feels Bush should have the same amount of power as before. Meet the same jerk, just as bad as the old chump. From the CQ:

Attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey signaled Thursday he shares the administration’s expansive view of President Bush’s authority to withhold information from Congress, skirt federal statutes and authorize harsh interrogation techniques.

The retired federal judge’s statements, during the second day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, put him at odds with the Democrats who will decide whether Mukasey succeeds Alberto R. Gonzales as the head of the Justice Department.

That is actually the whole article. But you can find a whole story about how Mukasey wiggled and writhed through explaining water-boarding. Sure it is probably fun to watch, but I find his disturbing view on our democracy to be much more newsworthy.

Bush threatens WW III

2007-10-17T14:24:00.000-05:00

So Bush in his impotent belligerence answers Putin's warning not to attack Iran and use other countries in region to launch an attack, with his own imature retort .

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," he said. "So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

I guess this harmless in the end right? Bush is simply saying all options are on the table. You know same old rhetoric. No. This escalation in rhetoric is dangerous. Does Bush truly intend to send us to war with Iran if it has nukes? Does he not understand that Iran wouldn't nuke a country if it knows that retaliation and certain annihilation will come from it?? This is simple international politics. Putin looks like a veritable diplomatic guru compared to Bush.It is amazing at the ease he is playing Bush off of Ahmedinejad. See this article for further reference and foresight. The last bit is telling:

"A nuclear Iran would be bad for all, but the perception of this threat is different," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs magazine. "Washington sees it as huge step toward a catastrophe. And Russia thinks: "yes, it will be bad, but it won't be directed against us.'"

Meantime- Turkey is talking about invasions. Guess WW III is all how you define it.

Bush at 24- Congress at 11

2007-10-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

I hate Polls. Sure they are a measure of public opinion. That is it. There is no way to measure the "rigthness" of policy or decisions. It has become an excuse to do or not do something based on making the "tough" decision or doing the right thing Americans want. It is really saying, "I will do this whether you like it or not," i.e. "FUCK YOU."

It by no means shows that by going against public opinion you're making the "tough" or "right" decision, as Bush would have you believe he is doing. He can't have it both ways- invade and it be popular- that was the "right" decision after you manipulated public opinion by fear and intimidation. It is also not the "right" decision when the president is exposed as a liar and arrogant leader and public decides the sacrifice of the public honor, blood, resources, and trust in the his warped worldview is not worth it. It is time to honor American public that entrusted you. Lest you be a parasite on the body public, not wanted but yet taking strength and life from us to empower itself, the politics of the today must respond. In other words, if Washington cannot bring change, it will soon endanger its own existence.

With that disclaimer Bush at 24 percent approval and Congress at 11 in the recent Reuters/Zogby poll for a sustained time shows that public is continually aginst this conflict and Bush, yet he is unresponsive. Congress is also unresponsive. Yet both carry on like they are truly governing this country. The public is restless and without directiion becuase of its uncaring leadership. Washington does not feel the effects of its policies. The issues are telling. Bush vetoes the healthcare coverage of children- for reasons so absurd they are not worth reprinting.

Congress let's interest groups and strong lobbyist groups decides what is in the best interest of the world and the country. This week it is by revisitng history and placing labels on human tragedy and those who perpetrate it.
We can be hopeful that in 100 years the mass death of Iraqis will not be labeled crimes against humanity or genocide by the Chinese, Indians, or Russians (or any other great power).

Update from my friends....

2007-10-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

This was posted today on cfn.scout.com, my personal favorite website comprised of other nerds like me with nothing else to do but to mused about collegiate football. It's their first BCS predictions and breakdowns.

I promise I'll post something soon about the MLB playoffs, but for now, enjoy:

The C.O.W. airing of the grievances followed by the feats of strength

There’s no need to watch college football until January. Now that the initial BCS rankings are out, I’m going to clue you in on what’s going to happen in the BCS race. The ten teams in the big money matchups will be …

10. Arizona State – Rose Bowl
No one is believing in the Sun Devils, mainly because no one has seen them play. Those late night games in the desert are always off the map for most, but that’ll soon change. The offensive line has a few issues in pass protection, but with a physical style, to go along with all the normal ASU speed and athleticism, ASU should be able to keep up in home games against Cal and USC, and should be able to overcome an upcoming loss at Oregon to go 11-1 and win the Pac 10 title. Dennis Erickson's team will then go to Pasadena to play ….

9. Boise State – Rose Bowl
The Rose Bowl will lose the number one team to the BCS Championship game, so it’ll get its first pick from all the at-large teams. Even so, the selection people will be a bit hamstrung by their options, and will end up being happy to get all the Bronco fans streaming down from Boise, while getting huge TV ratings with everyone looking for the 2007 Fiesta Bowl magic to kick in again. There won’t be any Big Ten teams available, and after Boise State beats Hawaii when everyone is watching, and runs the rest of the table, it’ll move up enough in the BCS rankings to get into the top 12 and earn an automatic spot.

8. LSU – Sugar Bowl
The LSU schedule eases up big-time, with the two road games left, after a home date with Auburn, coming against Alabama and Ole Miss. Nick Saban will pull out all the stops against his former team and give the Tide the early signature win in his tenure. The Tigers will still win the West and will still go on to win the SEC title, while also eliminating the East representative from the BCS chase. LSU will sell out the Superdome against …

7. Kansas – Sugar Bowl
If you’re waiting for the schedule to get nasty, it doesn't get too bad, with road games against Colorado, Texas A&M, Oklahoma State, along with home dates against Nebraska and Iowa State. 13th in the initial rankings, Mark Mangino’s team will keep moving up and up as others start dropping with key losses late. KU won’t win the North, losing to Missouri in the regular season finale, but it won’t be by much. Mizzou will lose a rematch in the Big 12 title game to …

6. Oklahoma – Fiesta Bowl
The Sooners will obliterate Iowa State, Texas A&M and Baylor to get into the number two spot in the BCS rankings, after South Florida loses to Rutgers, BC loses to Virginia Tech and LSU loses to Alabama, and then they’ll run into a Texas Tech buzzsaw in Lubbock to ruin the national title hopes. However, they’ll get a whale of a showdown against …

5. Oregon – Fiesta Bowl
The world will jump all over the Ducks, currently tenth in the BCS, after they beat USC (and badly), and ruin Arizona State’s unbeaten season. Just when it seems like they’ll be in the national title discussion, UCLA will pull a performance out of its ear in a shootout in Pasadena.

4. Virginia Tech – Orange Bowl
The Hokies enter the national title picture with a win over Boston College, and then they’ll lose to Georgia Tech to bring things to a screeching halt. However, they’ll beat Florida State, Miami and Virginia, and the Cavaliers will have already lost at least once along the way, forcing a BC – VT rematch in the ACC title game. The Hokies will come up with a second win over the Eagles.

3. South Florida – Orange Bowl
Here we go with the big debate of the 2007 season. South Florida will lose at Rutgers in a thriller, but will beat Connecticut, Cincinnati, Syracuse, Louisville and Pitt to finish 11-1 to earn an automatic spot in the BCS as the Big East champion. The computers will all have the Bulls in the top two, with at least one having them number one, but because of the recency effect, with the voters remembering the Rutgers loss and forgetting about the West Virginia win, the humans will screw things up by putting them just low enough to open the door for ….

*****2. West Virginia – BCS Championship
Currently ninth in the BCS rankings, the Mountaineers will start creeping up with impressive win after impressive win. They’ll beat Mississippi State, Rutgers, Louisville, Cincinnati, Connecticut and Pitt to finish 11-1, and get just enough love from the computers to go along with the respect from the human polls. I’m not saying it’s right that West Virginia will get in over South Florida, I’m just predicting here. The Mountaineers will get the number two spot, USF will be three, and the college football world will be buzzing.

1. Ohio State – BCS Championship
You’re not happy about it, and SEC fans are going to have a conniption over a Big Ten team getting into the big dance again, but Ohio State is going to make up for past sins. With wins over Michigan State, at Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and at Michigan, in yet another classic, the Buckeyes will earn more respect than it’ll likely receive, and on a mission, they’re not going to make the same mistake two years in a row.

Death Proof Review

2007-10-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the entertainment section of the Outside Agitator. This week's review is on "Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof". For those of you who have followed Tarantino's career, this film hits the nail on the head dead on! It is everything fans have come to expect; including clever dialogue, interesting situations, and James Dean cool characters that look really good smoking cancer sticks. The film flows well around the character Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who drives around in his 1970s style car with a skull on the hood. His mission is to prey on some very sexy young chicks because he has nothing better to do. He's out for blood and his weapon is speed. This appears to be the perfect role for Russell if you are at all a fan of "Escape from New York". He plays the character well and with style. His female victims are equally as entertaining. Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Zoe Bell and Jordan Ladd are some of the road rage cuties you can expect to see. If you are a horror fan this film may not necessarily be for you. It contains aspect of horror, but it is not a Texas Chainsaw Massacre style bloodbath. In all sincerity this is its biggest strength. Our movie theaters have been overrun with stupid female victims that don't fight back and killers that have no face, or personality. Death proof has the opposite. The victims are smarter and more interesting than most and the killer has a weapon that we don't normally see in modern horror. A fast death demon of a car is much more interesting than a knife, or a gun. Add the charm of the killer and you have the most fun you will have all year.

Death Proof was originally part of a double feature know as "Grindhouse" which also featured Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and farce trailers in between viewings. I will not disagree that this is the coolest way to experience both of these films, but I do think they work well as individual DVD releases. This is simply business. It was either do it now or in theaters which would have taken away from the experience. The tragedy is not they are separate DVDs, but that it didn't make as much in theaters as expected. "Grindhouse" was the most fun I had at the theater all year. Even though they will likely release the theatrical versions later, I am happy to buy them now. I think fan interest will make them very successful cult classics in the long run.

Death Proof DVD Features

Limited Time $5 off coupon for Planet Terror

Disc 1

- Death Proof: Extended and Unrated Version

- Trailers and Poster Gallery

Disc 2

- Stunts On Wheels: The Legendary Drivers of Death Proof

- Kurt Russell As Stuntman Mike- Finding Quentin's Gals

- The Guys of Death Proof

- Introducing Zoe Bell

- Quentin's Greatest Collaborator: Editor Sally Menke

- Double Dare Trailer

Grindhouse Trailers

2007-10-15T21:26:00.001-05:00

Death Proof and Planet Terror Trailers

Welcome to my crap.

2007-10-15T16:16:00.001-05:00

Well, before I get started, I guess I should explain myself.

Amos approached me a few weeks ago, and I asked if I would like to contribute to his little shindig here. Evidently, he thinks, though I would disagree, that I happen to know a thing or three about the sporting world. But, as a great philosopher once mused, "I know enough to know I know nothing."

With that in mind, I've accepted (and appreciate) the consideration. So, for now, or whenever I get a moment of inspiration or what-have-you, I will be the sports guy for this thing. I will focus mainly on college and professional football, hockey, along with some college basketball, MLB baseball, and the dreaded NASCAR. However, this does not mean I am limiting myself to those areas. One of the great things about the internet (besides the porn and spyware, of course), is that gives every idiot like myself the chance to rant and rave about something insignificant as sports. Woo hoo!

Catching you up to speed...

I feel as though I probably should have jumped into this a few weeks ago. At that time, the wave of upsets across the Division 1-A College Football world began and have continued up until right now. Since the last week of September, eight of the top-10 ranked teams have lost. These included the USF Bulls knocking off then-number five West Virginia on a Friday night, a precursor to what happened the next day. Six teams in the top-13 lost, as well as then #21 Penn State.

The upset bug spread the following week, when then #1/#2 Southern Cal lost at home to then 1-3 Stanford, 24-23 Statistically, it was the biggest upset in college football history. (Stanford was a 41-point underdog. Interestingly, the biggest upset in terms of point favorites had occurred just two weeks prior, when Syracuse, a 39-point underdog defeated Louisville in Louisville.)

That left LSU, which had beaten Florida in an all-timer, as the undisputed number one, with Cal #2, and Ohio State #3. Well, again the upsets continued this past weekend, almost being to the point of absurdity. When I learned that both LSU and Cal lost, I chuckled. Not because I almost expected it happen, but almost because I had grown used to it, so why the hell not?

So, on the weekend where the first BCS standings were to be announced, both of the top two teams in the country fall. Why not? When Appalachian State can go to the Big House in Ann Arbor, MI and beat Michigan on opening day, it seems fitting. Ironically, Michigan's loss started this unprecedented Year of the Upset. And who benefits most? The hated OSU Buckeyes.

Where we're at now...

Yes, it's the Fighting Tressels who are ranked #1 in the BCS standings, with South Florida (a team that didn't even exist eleven years ago) #2, Boston College #3, LSU only dropping to #4, and Oklahoma #5. WVU is currently #9, which is good enough for an at-large BCS berth. (The top twelve teams ranked in the BCS are guaranteed a BCS game.)

Where WVU fits in....

Most have the Mountaineers slated in the Rose Bowl (you read that right, the Rose Bowl) facing Cal or USC. Not too shabby. All WVU needs to do is win out, and they will finish with no worse than an at-large big money game.
Now, in words of the legendary Winston Wolf, let's not start sucking each other's dicks just yet. We've seen this from the Blue and Gold before, remember? Even after losing at Louisville last year, WVU was still in the top-10 and, provided they win out and a couple breaks for their way, would have ended up with an at-large BCS bid. Well, all the breaks WVU needed panned out exactly to plan, except for the Mountaineers didn't hold up their end of the bargain. A 24-19 home loss to South Florida derailed any chance of a second consecutive trip to the BCS, and WVU went on to lay claim to the entire state of Georgia by knocking off the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Gator Bowl. (At long last, a Gator Bowl win! Hey, even the blind squirrel gets an acorn eventually, right?)

While the buzz this preseason around Morganhole was one of national championship dreams, those were quickly erased by the debacle in Tampa on September 28. The general ambiance around town was somewhere near funeral-ish. But, after a couple of weeks, things are looking up again. I'm not saying to pencil in the 'Eers for a trip to Bourbon Street for the BCS Championship, but if they win out, they will do no worse than the aforementioned at-large. (I still maintain they'll end up in Miami for the Orange Bowl for a contest between former Big East conference rivals Va Tech or Boston College. A match-up like that would make Big East Big Man Mike Tranghese cream himself.)

A glance around the conference, and what may be to come....

WVU stares up the Big East standings to see USF, Cincinnati, and UConn above them. UConn has to come to Morganhole in early December, but UConn will have faded considerably by then. WVU will be seeking a win to clinch at least a share of the Big East crown. USF will lose at least one game before the regular season is over.
The Bulls have to travel to Rutgers to face the Knights in swamps of Jersey, as well as a roadie to Cincy, and host Louisville. Don't be surprised if the Bulls drop one or two of those. While their defense is simply amazing, I'm still not sold on their offense. Their D is only reason they defeated WVU, and even then, the Mountaineers still had the ball with a minute left and a chance to tie. Louisville's defense couldn't stop you, me, your grandpap, and the dog from putting 24 points on the board. But, Brian Brohm is playing like the future top-five NFL draft pick he is, and their offense will simply outscore USF.
South Florida and Cincinnati still have to play, and the loser of that game will be out of the Big East race. The Bearcats dropped yet another game to the Cardinals this past weekend, a 28-24 contest. Cincy has lived by the turnover this season, but couldn't produce one in the loss to the Cardinals, and that probably was the difference. If the Bearcats defeat the Bulls in Nippert Stadium, WVU's trip to the Queen City on November 17 would effectively become the Big East championship game, with the automatic BCS bowl berth along with it.
Pitt still sucks, and in a bad way. A lot of people have asked me if Dave Wannestache will be canned after this season. I say no. The Pittsburgh media is absolutely enamored with this guy. They love him. Even with a third straight embarrassingly bad performance (along with even worse play calling) in the home loss to Navy, there aren't even any questions being asked. Pitt has dropped four in a row now, and sits at 2-4. They are last in the Big East, and seemed to have regressed as the season goes on. Some have argued that injuries have crippled this team. This warrants some credence, but it can't all be chalked up to that. Wanny was supposed be hauling in ultra-mega-hyper-super-fantastic recruiting classes, as well as inheriting a team that former head man Walt Harris took to the Fiesta Bowl. The cupboard wasn't exactly bare; if Wanny was half the coach people think he is, Pitt should be substantially better than the 13-16 record he has posted in his two and a third seasons. The only way Wannstache is out of a job come December is if the new, as-of-yet-undetermined, athletic director comes in and wants to establish a new beginning with their man.

I'm going to rap this up here, not because I'm out of stuff to say, but to do time commitments. Stop by again, and I always welcome comments or questions. Thanks for reading through my meandering bullshit, and stop by again. I'll try to post at least once or twice a week. Be sure to check out the links to the right as well.

Stop the Insanity

2007-09-08T14:35:00.000-05:00

As the months of 2007 have passed by much too quickly, one thing has gone on far too long in the minds of many people, and that is our Presidential nominating contests. Already, two of the original 10 have dropped out of the race, and Former Senator Fred Thomspon (R-TN) entered last week, with speculation still abounding on Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)'s prospects of getting in. Of the eight Democratic candidates, the field has remained the same for months, although there is still the possibility that Former Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) may enter the race. On our side of the field, several of the frontrunners, led by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who wanted to change the tone in Washington so very, very much, have opted out of having any more debates than the ones that have already been scheduled by the Democratic Party. (Perhaps his insistence on a moratorium on new debates comes from the fact that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has beaten him in all of the debates, except for the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago, where the two have appeared.) There was a stretch where it seemed like states were threatening to schedule their primaries earlier and earlier, with the possbility of pushing Iowa and New Hampshire into December 2007. (However, a crackdown on bolting states such as Florida and Michigan by DNC Chairman Howard Dean, plus a pledge by the top six Democratic contenders seems to have stopped this lurch into January in its tracks on the Democratic side.)

The problem lies in the frontloading of our national primary calendar. In an article on Slate, Jeff Greenfield argues for the virtues of the 1984 Presidential nominating calendar that eventually selected Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale (D-MN) over then-Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) as the Democratic nominee. At the time, Vice President Mondale was the heavy favorite, with the backing of labor and civil rights leaders, and the benefit of a divided anti-Mondale vote. However, as Greenfield noted, by finishing second place, Senator Hart became the anti-Mondale and pulled off a huge upset in New Hampshire. Then, for those of us looking for an ebb-and-flow of a campaign that actually involves voters rather than speculation, and a ridiculous money chase that may end up with the first billion-dollar campaign, whether by one of both candidates, the following happened:

When Hart followed up with a landslide victory in Vermont a week later, Mondale found himself on the verge of political death.

And then the nominating process saved him. The progression of primaries from March to June gave voters time to take a longer look at the players. Even as Hart's face splashed onto the covers of news magazines, unsettling questions began to pop up. Why had he changed his name from Hartpence? Why had he dissembled about his age? Why had his signature radically changed? Then came a memorable moment during a debate in Atlanta, shortly before the March 13 primaries in several Southern states. Turning to Hart, Mondale borrowed a line from the famous Wendy's TV ad of the day: "When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: 'Where's the beef?' " (Mondale had actually never seen the ad; his campaign manager, Bob Beckel, had to act it out for him).

Mondale also had time to rally groups in the traditional Democratic coalition, which was suspicious of Hart's post-New Deal "new ideas" rhetoric. In two Southern states, it is not too much to say that Mondale's campaign was saved by the black vote. Mondale was a civil rights stalwart; Hart had entered politics after that movement's great victories and had once said of himself and his ideological contemporaries, "We're not a bunch of little Hubert Humphreys." To blacks (and to unions), that was not a recommendation. On March 13, already three weeks into the long primary season, Mondale lost the Florida, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island primaries. But with the support of civil rights leaders Julian Bond and Coretta Scott King in Georgia, and Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington in Alabama—who broke with other blacks and shunned the Jackson campaign—Mondale won those two states and survived to fight another day.

From mid-March to June, the contest went on, without a clear victor. On March 20, the remnants of Richard Daley's Chicago organization managed a five-point victory for Mondale over Hart. A week later, New York weighed in with a 17-point win for Mondale. But while Mondale re-emerged the front-runner, the contest was far from over. During the next two months, Wisconsin went narrowly for Hart; Pennsylvania went big for Mondale; Indiana went for Hart; Maryland and North Carolina chose Mondale; and Ohio gave Hart a two-point victory.

On June 5, six states voted. Hart seemed poised to stage yet anther comeback, with poll leads in California and New Jersey. Then, in an act of self-destruction trumped only by his sleepover with Donna Rice three years later, Hart apparently forgot all about the sensibilities of New Jersey voters. He said of his wife, Lee, at a fund-raiser in California in Los Angeles, "The good news for her is that she campaigns in California, while I campaign in New Jersey. " When Mrs. Hart interjected, "I got to hold a koala bear," Hart said, "I won't tell you what I got to hold: samples from a toxic waste site." On primary day, Hart went on to scratch out a win in California, but the aggrieved citizens of New Jersey gave Mondale a 15-point win. And finally, the race was effectively over. All told, Mondale won 6.8 million votes to Hart's 6.5 million (Jesse Jackson placed third with 3.3 million votes).

In sum, in 1984, we got what we say we want today. Iowa and New Hampshire gave a long shot a chance to be seen and heard. The South then played an early pivotal role. The big industrial states got their chance to be highly consequential. And voters around the country had months to learn more and more about the candidates.

Yes, it is true that Vice President Mondale went on to lose in one of the most lopsided Presidential defeats in American history (winning 41% of the national vote and carrying his home state and the District of Columbia for a 525-13 rout, the fewest electoral votes by a major party nominee since Alf Landon's defeat by Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 by a total of 523-8.) However, for better or worse, Walter Mondale was a better representative of the Democratic Party in 1984 than Hart. (Does anyone else besides me think that the Donna Rice incident would have occurred three years earlier if Hart were the nominee?) He went out and worked hard after realizing that his sit-back style would not work, and he did what he had to do, getting the votes to win the nomination.

For those who think that this is a bad example of Presidential nominations, consider the fact that the last Democrat to have a margin of victory that was above reproach of the Supreme Court was Bill Clinton. In 1992, he became one of the early favorites, only to seem to have it all go away when rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers became the first thing that many Americans would hear about Bill Clinton who didn't live in his home state of Arkansas or the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. After finishing a distant third in an Iowa contest that was rendered irrelevant because no one ran a serious campaign in the state to oppose Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), he went on to become the famous "comeback kid" in New Hampshire with his close second place against Former Senator Paul Tsongas (D-MA). Then, the campaign went to the South, where Clinton dominated and after Super Tuesday, Tsongas dropped out of the race, with Former Governor (and current state Attorney General) Jerry Brown (D-CA) staying in the race as the leading opponent of Goveror Clinton. At first, the race seemed to be Clinton's, especially after his huge win in New York, but Brown managed to stay in the race a little while longer, beginning with a win in Colorado in April. Once this happened, even though the race was virtually Clinton's to win, Brown was able to stay in the race and Clinton didn't get the required delegates for the nomination wrapped up until June 2nd. (In contrast, Gore had that total by March 7th and Kerry had that total by March 10th.)

As Greenfield notes in the article, there were other battles for the nomination that resulted in battle-tested candidates who either won (FDR in 1932 and Eisenhower, nominated on the third ballot in 1952, the last nominee in either party not selected on the first ballot, although JFK came very close in 1960) or made huge comebacks from things that sunk their campaigns before they began (Ford in 1976).

In addition to the Greenfield argument of simply returning to the 1984 schedule, except for giving other states the chance to go first, there are other proposals out there. There are some who call for a striaght-up national primary, but we practically have that already, and for underfunded candidates who have shown a somewhat decent amount of support, such as Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) and Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), who have raised $22 and $13 million in the first half of this year, respectively, barring a huge win in an early state, there is no chance for them to get in. (The sad thing is that just one election cycle ago, those numbers would have been massive.) Also, there is still the question of a brokered convention, because it would be easier for no one to win an outright majority of delegates if everyone voted on the same day, meaning a return to the smoke-filled rooms. So, that is out.

There is also the proposal of a rotating regional primary, but again, even though this won't be quite as expensive as a national primary, that's still a lot of voters, and people who live in small states will be lost in the shuffle.

Then, there is the plan known as the Delaware Plan, without allowing any of the early contests to retain their positions in the front of the line, has the states go in pods spaced 30 days apart in increasing order based on the size of the state's population. This has the problem of not allowing any early states at all, thus providing a smaller opportunity for underdogs to have a chance, because instead of competing in two to four early states, depending on the calculations, the candidates would have to campaign in 12 states, DC, and the US territories.

Finally, there is the California Plan, also known as the American Plan, which sets ten two-week intervals of states randomly selected that have totals of (in order) 8, 16, 24, 56, 32, 64, 40, 72, 48 and 80 Congressional districts. I think that this is an interesting proposal, although I must admit that I like the idea of having a few small states selected to go first, but I think that we need to have something that can be done in order to keep the wolves at bay, and I think that if we don't do it sooner rather than later, Pandora may not be able to get the box closed again.

An Unintentional Truth

2007-08-31T10:36:00.000-05:00

Recently, President Bush gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, where he gave a speech on the importance of staying the course in Iraq. Included in this speech was a truth that he probably didn't mean to give, and one that was clouded by a complete and total misunderstanding of the facts that he presented to make his case.

Of course, I am talking about his comparing the current war with Iraq with Vietnam. In the speech, he made the argument that defeatists who decided to leave Vietnam in 1975 were the ones who ruined America's reputation abroad and left Vietnam to waste. However, the simple fact is that you cannot win an insurgent war militarily, and the United States actually tried a lot of things that were celebrated as successes in both wars. For example, President Bush and his GOP sycophants have trumpeted the Iraqi elections of 2005 and 2006 as proof that spreading democracy was actually working. However, these were the same arguments presented when South Vietnam had elections in 1967 and 1970. In the Graham Greene novel The Quiet American, the British reporter Thomas Fowler asks American doctor and naive idealist Alden Pyle, who says that he supports elections and the democratic process, what happens if the Vietnamese hold an election and Ho Chi Minh is the winner. (The novel takes place in 1955, a year after the United States began its involvement in Vietnam and nine years before its escalation.) President Bush quoted the novel in the speech, apparently not getting the memo that it is an anti-Vietnam War book that is opposed to American intervention. (It was also turned into a movie starring Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser a few years ago. I highly recommend either the book or the remake. Do not watch the 1958 version of the movie starring Audie Murphy, because it was severely butchered and turned into a piece of Cold War propaganda.)

Which leads us to the questions of Iraqi democracy. If the Iraqis keep a strong central government, which the Bush Administration seems to support, what kind of government would it be? Considering the fact that the Shi'ites are a solid majority in Iraq, I think it is safe to say that they will control their country's fate. Who is the most influential Shi'ite in Iraq? It is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the 79-year-old cleric whose website with a Q&A section in several languages says that it is wrong to shake a woman's hand, and that masturbation by yourself is forbidden, but it is allowed if it is done in front of your wife. However, he has since said that he doesn't want to mess with the Iraqi government any more, so he is out. However, another Shi'ite cleric, 33-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr does enjoy broad support among Shi'ites, and could very well be the type who could win an election and force an Islamic theocracy on this formerly secular state. Is that really what we went to Iraq for?

There is also the argument made by those who still support the war that we are in fact winning on the battlefield. However, there was a famous remark by an American colonel to a Vietnamese general after Vietnam ended, where he said, "but we beat you in every battle we fought." The Vietnamese general replied, "This is true, but it doesn't matter." That is because this isn't the type of war that can be won by conquest. If this were the case, the "mission accomplished" banner would have been accurate. The reason we failed in Vietnam and are failing in Iraq is because we did nothing for stability and alienated those we were trying to "liberate."

There was a window where we could have acted to win the war in Iraq. However, because of the lack of planning, and the lack of honesty when things were going wrong (another similarity with Vietnam), that window has closed, possibly forever. The real question about Iraq isn't whether we will get out, or what will happen when we do (It will be bad, but it is probably the least bad option available.), but how many Americans will die before that happens.

Obama names names

2007-08-25T20:07:00.000-05:00

Oh who is it?

In Defense of Taxing and Spending

2007-08-10T20:07:00.000-05:00

One of the most ridiculous accusations I have heard Republicans make of Democrats is that we are "tax-and-spend liberals." Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all governments have to spend money? And don't they have to have revenue, i.e. taxes, in order to spend that money? If that is an admonition not to spend money, I think that the events of last week have demonstrated the fact that taxes and spending are good things and that there is a definite role for these in our government policy.

There are those who argue that the government should have a very limited role and do practically nothing. However, last week, there was a bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis, which was caused by neglect of our infrastructure. When President Bush was there, he gave a speech where he talked about the failure of government. In other words, "I am such a screw up that I would just waste the money anway." There was no talk about doing anything to help build our roads and bridges. This to me shows everything wrong with the complaints of tax and spend. These are people who would rather not pay for government than have a government that actually works. Then, when they take power, they do everything in their power to destroy people's confidence in the govenrment in an effort to insure that the people won't trust the government to do the things it needs to do, thus leading to more calls for tax cuts because after all, the government can't do what it's supposed to do, which will lead to less government confidence, which leads to less taxes, until, in the immortal words of Grover Norquist, they get to drown the government in a bathtub.

If you think this is hyperbole, listen to the rhetoric of Congressman and Presidential Candidate Ron Paul (R-TX). In an interview, he said that FEMA should be abolished, and that the government should have found another way to abolish slavery besides the Civil War. If someone wants to refight the causes of the Civil War as "big government," then you know that person should be questioned about what the government should do. However, the government does a lot of things well. The reason the Republicans got burned on Social Security in 2005, is because people believe in the system, and they know that it works, even if not perfectly. Despite all of the claims of "socialized medicine" every time someone complains about universal health insurance, Medicare works, and most people don't want rid of it. Maybe Republicans just don't have the guts to admit that they want to get rid of it.

Let's take the question at hand: roads and bridges. Does anyone honestly believe that the govenrment isn't the only entity that could do that? Roads provide a lot of revenue for other people, so why should a company shoulder all of the risk for free? If someone says that the road builders should just charge a toll, how would that be different from highway taxes? This is why there are some things that have to be done by the government and that some of things actually cost money. So, the next time you hear someone complain about taxing and spending, start asking them what they think the government should do, and how to pay for it. Because, believe it or not, taxing and spending are good things that can provide for the common good in America.

Update: President Bush recently said that he would not consider raising the gasoline tax by five cents in order to pay for the reconstruction and repair of our nation's bridges. It is times like this where one can truly appreciate the Twenty-second Amendment.--Albert

Armin' Allies: Saudi Arabia

2007-07-28T11:12:00.001-05:00

NYT reports that the White House plans a $20 billion military aid deal to the Saudis. What is funny is that the critics are Israel supporters.

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

What are they, angry they didn't get double what the Saudis got?
The critics of the arms deal must be only feigning this "nervousness" when they get this:

In addition to promising an increase in American military aid to Israel, the Pentagon is seeking to ease Israel’s concerns over the proposed weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by asking the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, including a commitment not to store the weapons at air bases close to Israeli territory, the officials said.

The package and the possible steps to allay Israel’s concerns were described to Congress this week, in an effort by the administration to test the reaction on Capitol Hill before entering into final negotiations on the package with Saudi officials. The Saudis had requested that Congress be told about the planned sale, the officials said, in an effort to avoid the kind of bruising fight on Capitol Hill that occurred in the 1980s over proposed arms sales to the kingdom.

Sorry fellas, these guns are pointed at Tehran, not Jerusalem.
The Bush administration is seeking desparately counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East. And considering that an end in the Bush administration will mean intensified efforts to pull out will pressure greatly whoever comes next. They want to have someone who will fight Iran. Here and here, a little background on Saudi-Iranian relations.

Update: Here's some more analysis from William Arkin. He feels that this is not even Iran's problem. Really just another way to be stuck in the region.

Don't Call Me Progressive

2007-07-24T13:19:00.001-05:00

Something that has frustrated me with fellow travelers on the Left is a seeming inability to use the word "liberal" when describing political views. Many have opted for the word "progressive" instead. At last night's CNN/YouTube debate, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), referred to herself as a "modern progressive." I have heard others say "I don't like labels" or "labels don't matter" or other vapid things like that. I will use this post to address the proud liberal tradition in America and urge my fellow liberals to stop being afraid of the word "liberal" and to reclaim it from the right.

Liberals have a long and proud tradition in American politics, dating all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, which would become the Democratic Party (and not the Democrat Party, a term which was first coined by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) and popularized by Lee Atwater, who noticed that you can put the accent on "rat" if done just right) under Andrew Jackson in 1824, when the Democratic-Republican Party split into the Democratic Party and the National-Republican Party. We have been the constant champion of working class people in this country. Admittedly, for the longest time there was a small government aspect to liberalism, but that was in part a reaction to royalism and authoritarianism, which had its first semi-support in the United States under Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary and the first person to get shot by a sitting Vice President. This was because they had long seen the government used to give special privilege to the wealthy. Jefferson's ideal was "the yeoman farmer," an educated, rural person, which is fitting because of the Democratic-Republican Party's strength in the rural South.

However, liberalism is nothing if not pragmatic, and Andrew Jackson fought to bring democracy to the masses, by fighting to expand the franchise (In the 1820's, the franchise increaseed from landowners to most white men, which, while not perfect, was an improvement.) and making his appeals to the common people. In 1824, when the Electoral College sent the election into the House, which elected John Quincy Adams, one of the National Republicans, who finished second to Jackson in both the popular and electoral vote, after a "corrupt bargain" with fourth place finisher (and thus excluded from the vote in the House), Congressman Henry Clay of Kentucky, Jackson toured the country calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. You can argue whether or not he was right to go after Biddle's Bank, but he did so because he felt that it was acting in the interests of the priveleged over the few.

At the turn of the 20th Century, after about 40 years of dominance by conservatives, a young orator and populist, Congressman William Jennings Bryan (D-NE), went to the Democratic convention and famously gave the "Cross of Gold" speech that propelled him, at the age of 36, into the Democratic nomination over President Grover Cleveland (making Bryan the youngest major party Presidential nominee, a record that holds to this day and will probably never be broken) and reclaiming the Democratic Party mantle for liberals. Even though he would fail in all three Presidential bids he made (1896, 1900 and 1908), his calls for an income tax, direct election of Senators and women's sufferage would all be heeded in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Nineteenth Amendments, respectively.

In 1932, a patrician governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, electrified a country mired in the Great Depression, and promised a vigorous effort by the government to get people back to work and restore faith in America. This was at a time when many people began to see as attractive the Save Our Wealth proposals by Senator Huey Long (D-LA), which promised a tax of 100% on all incomes over $1 million and all assets over $5 million. Rather than go the route of socialism, Roosevelt studied the work of British economist John Maynard Keynes, a committed capitalist who felt that the best way to have prosperity was to regulate capitalism, thus making the free market system more transparent, more honest, and more effective. This also led to the slate of programs known as the New Deal which got people working, prepared a retirement, gave the people a minimum wage, the right to organize, and paved the way for the middle class as we know it today. Then, he acted decisively and led this country through most of World War II, dying just weeks before V-E Day.

In 1946, Harry S Truman, a man who had greatness thrust upon him after succeeding to the Presidency with the highly unenviable task of filling FDR's shoes, realized that it was time to expand the policies of FDR to benefit all Americans, and he desegregated the military. The next year, he enacted the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe and gave the United States and early edge in the Cold War. In 1948, despite the grumblings of Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, President Truman insisted on the full support of civil rights in the Democratic platform, which led to the Dixiecrat revolt. He also battled former Vice President and Commerce Secretary Henry Wallace, who wanted appeasement with the Soviet Union, who bolted and ran a third-party movement to Truman's left. Despite all this, Truman won the 1948 election and paved the way in foreign policy and civil rights, and began the long struggle for universal health insurance.

In 1962, John F. Kennedy worked smartly and effectively in ending the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest this country ever came to nuclear war, and one year later was instrumental in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has helped curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

Faced with poverty in American, President Lyndon B. Johnson embarked on the War on Poverty, which did not eliminate pvoerty, but sharply reduced it. In 1964, he got the Civil Rights Act passed and signed, even though he knew that he had just "lost the South for a generation." Under his hardworking and hardball style, we saw Medicare, Food Stamps, Head Start and other programs that we take for granted today.

What did each of these people have in common? They were all liberals. They were all proud of being liberals. They all fought for justice and expanded those notions in their own time. So, why are so many people afraid of the word "liberal"? Even George Lakoff, the author of Don't Think of an Elephant! the book that lays out the connections that lie behind the things we say, uses the word "progressive." I am well aware of the fact that Republicans have turned the word into a slur, but retreating from it means that they are the only ones who get to define it, and we will never get the chance to make the shange that we want to make until we do like Homer Simpson would advise, when he told Milhouse, "Stand up for yourself, Poindexter!" So, I hope that fear isn't the reason why so many people avoid it.

As Lakoff points out, labels are important, because they are the way that people connect to other ideas. He calls this concept "framing." So, to avoid labels means that you are, in essence, rejecting your own world view. There are different philosophies and points of view, and some of them just come closer to different labels. To say that labels don't matter is to ignore political philosophies and world views and do the public dialogue a great disservice.

I have heard some on the left say that the don't like the word "liberal" because of its connections to the muscular foreign policy of the Cold War and imperialism. Have these people read their history?

One of the other problems with people who call themselves "progressive" is that they can't seem to define what progressive is. I've even seen the laughable definition of a "non-ideological ideology." History is not a much better guide, because there are three distinct eras of the progressive movement in America, and they were all vastly different.

The first was that of Teddy Roosevelt. For the people who complain about using liberal because of people like Kennedy who were so hawkish and imperial, they seem to ignore the fact that Teddy Roosevelt is the father of American imperialism. (I am not including Manifest Destiny because, while it was about the expansion of territory, it was about expansion on the North American continent and, until the 1840's, was based on going after territories held by European powers.) He was the one who led the charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, which was the first manifestation of global ambitions for the United States. While there are some things that liberals can be proud of from this era, such as Trust Busting and child labor laws, this certainly flies in the face of the arguments by those who are trying to say that progressive is a mellow word.

Then, there was the progressivism of "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, who left the Republican Party in 1924 to run for President under the label of Progressive. This was not the Bull Moose Progressives of Teddy Roosevelt, but an argument for good government and ballot initiatives, as well as popular elections of judges. Considering that it is unethical for judges to campaign based on their previous rulings, or to decide on things where they have already stated a preference, is this a good thing? Also, look at the TABOR in Colorado and Proposition 13 in California. The former led to a situation where it had to be altered by 2005 or else the state would become the first in the nation to privatize the state university system due to lack of funds. In the case of California, so much spending is dictated by more and more propositions, despite the fact that Prop 13 really harms the right of the government to collect revenue, and another initiative requires a 2/3 majority for any budget, making the state virtually ungovernable. Is this what the progressives of today want?

Then, there was the revolt of Henry Wallace, who founded another party called the Progressive Party in 1948. This was in opposition to things like the Marshall Plan which rebuilt Europe and the efforts by the Truman Administration to come to the aid of those who opposed communism. Instead, Wallace encouraged strong relations with Stalin and an attempt to remain allies after World War II. Wallace was elected Vice President in 1940, but kicked off the ticket in 1944 for his sympathies toward Stalin and other proposals. Harry S Truman also fired him as Commerce Secretary after his public opposition to the Truman Doctrine and efforts to coddle the Soviet Union. He would break from the Progressives in 1950 because of his support for the United States in the Korean War, seemingly repenting from his progressive ways.

Is this what people really want to support when they call themselves "progressive"? On a message board a couple of years ago, someone told me that I should support his proposal for an asset tax as opposed to a more progressive income tax with fewer deductions ("progressive income tax" is a technical term for the type of system of taxation) if I "want to be a progressive." Well, I'm not a progressive, I'm a liberal. It is a tradition that I proudly support and am willing to work in to help advance it. Don't call me progressive, call me liberal.

Operation Chickenhawk

2007-07-24T12:51:00.000-05:00

This is pretty entertaining.

Executive Privilege=Divine Right

2007-07-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

It is always pretty astonishing just how much this White House sees itself as ordained rulers with unchecked power. If anyone has served or been near the president, their actions are guarded executive privilege. The mechanisms of government only function on the will of the president. Of course this is something we've come to expect from the Bush Administration who simply just do not care. The question is, will there be anybody in congress, and enough of these people, who have the courage to see the rights of our popularly elected legislative body preserved?

So now the Bush Administration tells Congress it can't do its job, that is of providing a check to their own power, and bring in people who ignore congressional subpeonas for contempt. Just as the Bush Admnistration once ran roughshod over the Democrats during elections, they are moving the same way over a Democratic Congress. The Democrats for their part are indignant but ineffective (so far.)

More from the WP:

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege. Officials pointed to a Justice Department legal opinion during the Reagan administration, which made the same argument in a case that was never resolved by the courts.

"A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case," said a senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. "And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen."

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, added: "It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."

Good Lord. Sigh.

What are the options? More:

Under long-established procedures and laws, the House and Senate can each pursue two kinds of criminal contempt proceedings, and the Senate also has a civil contempt option. The first, called statutory contempt, has been the avenue most frequently pursued in modern times, and is the one that requires a referral to the U.S. attorney in the District.

Both chambers also have an "inherent contempt" power, allowing either body to hold its own trials and even jail those found in defiance of Congress. Although widely used during the 19th century, the power has not been invoked since 1934 and Democratic lawmakers have not displayed an appetite for reviving the practice.

In defending its argument, administration officials point to a 1984 opinion by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, headed at the time by Theodore B. Olson, a prominent conservative lawyer who was solicitor general from 2001 to 2004. The opinion centered on a contempt citation issued by the House for Anne Gorsuch Burford, then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It concluded: "The President, through a United States Attorney, need not, indeed may not, prosecute criminally a subordinate for asserting on his behalf a claim of executive privilege. Nor could the Legislative Branch or the courts require or implement the prosecution of such an individual."

So Congress will have to do this on their own. It kinda makes you long for the days of the Roman Republic when the Senate would take up arms against such Tyranny.

We got 'em!

2007-07-18T10:10:00.000-05:00

So the U.S. got the top Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq. Or so the military claims. Of course this apparently isn't the first time we got 'em. I probably couldn't count on one hand how many times we nabbed number 1 or number 2. Of course this time, the leader some timely information to fess up.

More from AP:

BAGHDAD - The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter.

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

"Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network," Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

Well isn't that special? As soon as there is a new National Intelligence Estimate that says that Al-Qaeda wants to attack in the U.S. again and President Bush says there we are indeed fighting the same people in Iraq who attacked on 9/11, the military produces a #1 leader who confirms it. The president has been saying that we are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq for years now. Nothing about this is new. Any attempt to make that the issue is fear-mongering and rallying for the 'cause of staying the (new) course in Iraq. It doesn't change our disastrous position in the country and doesn't change the risk if we leave or stay. If we stay Al-Qaeda will continue to seek attacks in our country, if we leave, it will remain the same, except our country can divert more of its resources that would go to this treacherous conflict to actually stopping attacks in our homeland.

Hillary Stongest in WV?

2007-07-18T08:54:00.000-05:00

So Hillary Clinton in ahead in Fundraising in West Virginia. No doubt a legacy of the Clinton years. But really is she doing that much better than other candidates?? More from the AP:

Clinton, D-N.Y., led the field of 19 hopefuls during the three-month filing period that ended June 30, collecting just over $28,000 in the state.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, followed closely behind and also topped the GOP contenders in West Virginia, raising $25,520.

But John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic running mate, remains the overall money leader in the state. West Virginians have given the former North Carolina senator $88,754 so far this year. Edwards' total includes $16,654 from the April-June reporting period.

Oh good, I thought that had to be wrong. It was for the second quarter. Edwards is the obvious candidate to beat in WV and already one presidential campaign under his belt through here. Poverty is also his issue, something that West Virginian politicos are or should be concerned about.

Clinton is in Charleston on July 27 btw.

Hip-Hop Feature: Immortal Technique

2007-07-17T12:19:00.000-05:00

On Business Friendliness

2007-07-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

This is nothing new. IN fact, it will continue as long as West Virginians keep refusing to give in to corporate ideologues like the Chamber of Commerce and their allies. I mean is anyone surprised that Forbes magazine judges West Virginia as a place not to
do business?

Forbes Lists mean nothing. There are many more business magazines to pay attention to than the the millionaire's club digest.

Here are the Real Reasons:

1. Forbes Magazine rankings mean nothing to honest-to-goodness business. Look who this magazine is written for really. To be ranked last in business-friendly means simply to be last on Wall Street's list. Which looking historically back means we were always last

2. Don't confuse Corporate-friendly with business-friendly. Sorry Republicans but your friends don't count. We want honest small-businesses to create a solid foundation of wealth in this state. Outside business interests take their money and go home once the resources are dried up or too costly to remove. Oh that's right, the only real concern corporations have shown this state have been in energy and timber. After decimating those resources and the land around it they left.

3. Today's corporate world has no big gains to find in West Virginia other than minimal investment. It is safe to say that we only returns we offer wall street continue to be resource or primary economic investments. Simply put opportunity for investors is not here because of reliance on traditional industries which long-ago lost competitiveness and that has nothing to do with taxes or

Finally here is something for everyone from the article that will strike everyone as strange:

Expansion Management Magazine conducted surveys of 19 million companies over eight years and found West Virginia had three cities in the top 20 small metro areas attracting businesses, Burdette said, adding Charleston ranked eighth, Parkersburg ranked 14th and Wheeling ranking 17th on that list.

The lists compiled showed the cities that were "magnets for business," he said.

"These are the places where people are locating," Burdette said. "I think that speaks volumes."

I guess Economic Expansion Magazine doesn't know what it is talking about. Or maybe it's just not communicating the desires of Wall Street to pressure states into making uniform changes to benefit corporations and investors.

Update: Just an afterthought of my post. More from the EconomicExpansion Magazine:

Tourists know West Virginia for its scenic views, but businesses are finding it a location that supports world-class manufacturing.

The state has added 18,000 jobs since 2003, said George Hammond, research associate professor in the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at West Virginia University. There has been job growth in the headquarters, professional and business services, and manufacturing sectors.

"One of the things we hear a lot is that the work force quality is high," Hammond said. "We have low rates of turnover and high rates of loyalty."

The quality of life is also an asset for the Mountaineer State.

"West Virginia is really a great place to live," Hammond said. "We are a state of small towns. That small town atmosphere, with a low crime rate and a high level of social cohesiveness, makes it very attractive."

The draw is apparent even to international firms like Intelli-Spray, which announced in September that it would relocate its U.S. headquarters from California to the Kanawha Valley, north of Charleston. The company is a subsidiary of Australia-based Quik Corp.

....

One big thing here too:

The state is a prime location for distributors because it is within overnight trucking distance of more than 60 percent of the U.S. population and more than one-third of the Canadian population.

WV GOP: Fat Lady Already Sang

2007-07-16T08:46:00.000-05:00

Things just aren't trending so red in WV and the GOP isn't feeling so bullish. From the Daily Mail in Charleston:

The GOP learned just days earlier that Secretary of State Betty Ireland, its only executive branch officeholder, had decided against seeking another term. One of the party's most promising campaigners, Ireland plans to sit out the upcoming election entirely.

Another of its star players, U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, announced in May that she would stay in the 2nd Congressional District. Republicans had hoped she would instead challenge U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., next year.

Other factors signal tough sledding for the GOP, from the uphill road it faces in challenging a popular Gov. Joe Manchin next year, to the looming fight to keep the state Senate seat being vacated by former Minority Leader Vic Sprouse, R-Kanawha.

The party is also looking to rebound after a rough 2006. With the midterm ballot dominated by Legislative races, the GOP lost ground in both the Senate and House of Delegates after several successive elections of gains.

Not only is leadership continuing to fade, so too is the party's ability to run elections. The WVGOP is in debt and the national party is almost completely ignoring it. But the national party is tending to its own suffering, no time to think about the poor folk of WV.

Callaghan has new life...

2007-07-16T08:12:00.000-05:00

Just not in politics (yet). News from Charleston: former WV State Democratic Party Chairman and Congressional Candidate Mike Callaghan is starting a law firm with former WV State Supreme Court justice Richard Neely.

Hiding Behind the Sacrifices of Others

2007-07-14T10:18:00.000-05:00

Something that has bothered me of late in politics is the tendency of pro-war people to hide behind the service of others as immunization from criticism. I was reading The Charleston Daily-Mail recently, and there was an article about the efforts by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to criticize Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) for her terrible record on veterans' issues. The key examples listed were her votes with the President on the budgets for the Department of Veterans Affairs that were based on faulty assumptions about the number of veterans who would need service and ultimately led to an increase in the annual out-of-pocket costs of the VA Hospital from $24 before she entered office to $430, as well as her vote an a 2003 amendment to the emergency appropriations for the Iraq War that would have given a $1500 bonus to every veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, in a vote that failed 213-213. The Daily-Mail defended Capito by pointing out that the $230 million for the bonus would have come at the cost of the rest of the military funds (even though $8.8 billion have been "lost" by defense contractors such as Halliburton with nary a peep from Congressional Republicans), at which point Capito said that as a daughter of a World War II veteran with a Purple Heart that she is insulted that people would think that she could oppose it.

Well, just as someone else's bravery doesn't automatically make anyone else more brave (although admittedly it may inspire acts of bravery), hiding behind veterans doesn't make anyone more patriotic. (Then again, if she is playing this card, does that automatically make her a crook?) Another example of this is that horrible Toby Keith song, "The Angry American (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue)." If you are one of the lucky ones who hasn't had the misfortune of listening to this tripe, it is the song where Toby confuses putting boots up people's asses with the Constitution. That being said, the lyric that irritates me the most in this lyric is the following:

My daddy served in the Army where he lost his right eye

Well, Toby, you're a big strapping young man. Why didn't you serve in the Army? Or the Air Force? Or the Navy? Or the Marines? It's like VH1 said in the countdown of the 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs... Ever, "Toby Keith was so moved by the attacks of September 11th that he joined the Army. No, wait. He wrote a song." Hey, my dad served in the Air Force, his dad and his dad served in the Army, so if that's the case, do I get bonus points, too.

However, the biggest example of hiding behind the patriotism of others comes from the Decider himself, who always insists that criticizing his time in the Texas Air National Guard is an insult to all of those who carry such a heavy burden in today's military while in the National Guard. However, there were huge differences. By the time I enlisted in 2000, there was no longer the option to say that one didn't want to be considered for overseas service, an option that George W. Bush took advantage of in 1968. The National Guard made up a small portion of the force in Vietnam, while today, the reserve components account for fully one-third of the troops in Iraq. Finally, I don't know of too many people who have done so much to undermine the treatment of our veterans than George W. Bush.

Patriotism is not something that someone else does, it is something that each individual does for the greater good. If someone wants to really support the troops, first they should do no harm when it comes to benefits after we get home. Second, and perhaps most important, don't send us into unnecessary and unjust wars in the first place. Ask the hard questions, and demand that our military gets all of the equipment needed for the job. My service in the National Guard does not make George W. Bush's any more noble, and Shelley Moore Capito should stop hiding behind her father's wounds when she talks about what she has and has not done for veterans.

2008 Race Shaping Up

2007-07-11T11:33:00.000-05:00

So official word is WV Sec. of State Betty Ireland is out for next year.

No specific Republican candidates are listed as running

But on the other side, Democrats are lining up for the position:

1. House Majority Leader Joe Delong

2. Senate Majority Whip Billy Wayne Bailey

3. Natalie Tennant, former news anchorwoman from Charleston, who just lost the nod in '04.

Other news: Sen. Vic Sprouse, Senate Minority Leader is out as well. Shame he endeared himself so greatly to the citizens of WV. Truly this is good news for the Republicans in the WV because new leadership is sorely needed on their side.

The Challenge: Development and Environment

2007-07-10T08:46:00.001-05:00

This is an interesting piece about a battle to keep streams protected from polluters and development.

West Virginia faces some very tough choices in its desire to develop and prosper. But it has become increasingly clear in recent years that prosperity comes with a clean environment. The only problem is, that with State Code on almost every issue is slow to adapt with times and often is a hinderance because of its parochial nature.

Strictly WV News: Tamarack control soon to be changing hands

2007-07-09T14:22:00.000-05:00

A "showpiece" of West Virginian and Appalachian culture, Tamarack will soon be under the stewardship of a different part of WV government. The transfer of control will most likely go to the the WV Dept of Commerce.

Strangely enough, it was under the control of the WV Parkways Authority.

Gov. Manchin Addresses "Brain Drain"

2007-07-09T14:19:00.000-05:00

You've always heard about it. Students and well-educated leave WV for better opportunity. Well Gov. Manchin had some recent comments on the issue.

Don Blankenship gets his...

2007-07-09T14:17:00.000-05:00

Yes! Our favorite Coal Baron gets slapped with a huge jury verdict...

I Thought Jobs Were a Good Thing

2007-07-02T19:13:00.000-05:00

Often, I hear conservatives insists that liberals "don't reward work" and want people to be lazy and rely on government handouts. Never mind that job growth has been faster under every Democratic President than every Republican President since the Coolidge Adminstration, something with a .03% probability of happening randomly. However, we are constantly told that our belief in a social safety net is something that turns into a hammock for the lazy people. However, in yesterday's Charleston Gazette a story ran on the successful table games initiative in Hancock County on June 30 with 59% of the vote, three weeks after the successful vote in Ohio County and the defeat in Jefferson County. In the article, the West Virginia Family Foundation, a leading opponent of the table games referendum, had an interesting remark:

Mountaineer “already had their tentacles in the community with jobs and benefits and things people need to support their families,” President Kevin McCoy said. “They have such a strong hold on the citizens that it’s hard to counter.”

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't jobs a good thing? Aren't jobs with benefits even better? That is what I have always thought. When I ran for House of Delegates last year, I ran on things that I thought would create jobs. My opponent did the same thing. I honestly can't think of any time that I have ever heard a candidate say that jobs were a bad thing. If a candidate did say such a thing, I am sure that he or she wouldn't win. So, if the West Virginia Family Foundation really thinks that jobs are "tentacles," why do so many conservatives who accuse us of being the pro-lazy people seek the support of the West Virginia Family Foundation? Well, I think that this is an ad in the making for anyone who is attacked by this group. While, admittedly, I probably wouldn't vote for a table games resolution in my county, I think that the people of three of the four racetrack counties have spoken so far, and their wishes should be respected, but I certainly wouldn't frame this is being about "the tentacles of jobs."

2007-06-29T08:58:00.000-05:00

See this is a huge problem with the party or at least the presidential candidates (but I am leaning toward the former).

My issue is that, with the surpreme court, there have been so many abhorrent rulings in the past week, that Dems should not just focus all of their ire on this specific on the race ruling for the black audience. The format, i get from reading the article was primed to focus on issues on "black america" so they keep focusing on segregation. But this dogged focus on one particular ruling segregates the issues for
african-americans, thus doing the same thing they were criticizing. I mean african-americans still have to worry about free speech or entrpreneurs are hurt with the overturning of law prohibiting price floors! That hurts African-Americans as consumers too! Why not speak to African-Americans as the normal citizens that they and about issues that are holding them back as much as a racial divide.

There is a racial divide as long as they keep treating African-Americans as a special interest to be pandered. It is what the party is doing to every group and no one is equal when we are all treated differently.

In Defense of Political Parties

2007-06-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

With all of the talk of late about NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg's potential Independent run for President and talk of Ralph Nader considering another spoiler run for President upon realizing that he wasn't getting all of the third-party attention, there was a lot of talk about the need to abandon the two-party system or to simply abandon political parties altogether. After all, the argument goes, the Founding Fathers were worried about political parties (or "factions" as they called them) so why should we rely on them so heavily in this country?

Well, the Founding Fathers may have been worried about political parties, but that didn't stop them from forming them within five years of the adoption of the Constitution, with Thomas Jefferson founding the Democratic-Republican Party (which would eventually become the Democratic Party under Andrew Jackson) and Alexander Hamilton starting the Federalist Party (which was dismantled after five straight Presidential losses in 1816). In 1796, the first truly contested Presidential election, candidates ran as electors promising to be "Adams's men" or "Jefferson's men." One election later, in the rematch, Jefferson's men also voted for Aaron Burr, thus paving the way for the Twelfth Amendment, allowing for separate voted for President and Vice President. However, is this a bad thing? Is it a bad thing that we have two dominant political parties, or even political parties at all, for that matter? I don't think it is, and I will now explain the virtues of political parties.

The first, and most obvious, benefit of a political party is the fact that it allows people of like-minded political views to come together for a cause. Most of us don't have the money or the network to begin a political campaign, and one way to do this is through political parties. In other words, the elitist argument is the one against political parties. There are those who complain about disagreement in America and just how messy things are between the two political parties. However, the major ideologies are liberal and conservative, unlike other countries where it is socialist vs. conservative, so captialism has pretty much won the battle of ideas in this country, so we actually have less disagreement than other countries.

This brings me to my second point. People are going to disagree about the very nature of government. Should the goal be to reduce services? Increase services? How much of the budget should be spent on the military? How should the Constitution be interpreted? How willing should we be to go to war? To get into personal decisions? When does life begin? You are not going to get unviersal consensus on these issues, so there are bound to be things called political parties where people who agree on the answers to these questoins get together.

Finally, in our current system, the candidate who gets the most votes wins, except in the Electoral College where a failure to win an absolute majority sends an election to Congress, where the House elects the President and the Senate elects the Vice President. If we had a runoff, people could vote for third-party candidates without any fear of playing spoiler. However, in 2000, Ralph Nader voters were asked the question in Florida of who they would vote for if Nader wasn't in the race, and the breakdown was as follows: 37% said they would vote for Al Gore, 21% said they would vote for George W. Bush, and the rest said that they wouldn't vote at all. Based on this hypothetical question, Al Gore would have netted an additional 15,000 voters, far exceeding George W. Bush's 537-vote margin of "victory" in the state. In other words, Nader and Naderites cannot say that he didn't play the spoiler because he certainly did pay a role in getting George W. Bush into the White House for the last 6 1/2 years, so let's give them a big ol' hand right now. OK, enough sarcasm.

Except for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 and Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 (who, ironically, reduced the GOP to a third party for all intents and purposes in that election), virtually every third-party candidate is beyond the two major-party moninees in the political spectrum, thus making almost every one of them closer to the one of the major-party candidates and draw votes away from that nominee, thus making it more likely to get the candidate who is even farther away from them to win in a close election. Nader even admitted this after the fact, saying that his goal was to punish Democrats in close election. This included such people who would otherwise be natural allies as the late Senator Paul Wellsone (D-MN) and eventually did make the difference when former Vice President Walter Mondale lost the 2002 election to Norm Coleman 50-48, with the Green Party candidate getting the rest. So, if you want further Republican dominance as they are on the verge of destruction, by all means, vote for Ralph Nader or Mike Bloomberg, but if you want to get things done, you must realize that it is going to be done within the two major political parties, one of which can actually win.

Intellectual Laziness

2007-06-19T18:21:00.000-05:00

As I write this post, word is coming that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has officially left the Republican Party where he never he really fit over the last few years to become an Independent. It has been reported that he is willing to spend up to $1 billion (you read that right) of his own money for a potential Independent bid for President next year. Every where you go, you hear people complain about "the system" but it seems to be an especially popular complaint in politics. However, this constant complaining about how bad the system is underlies the fact that the system has always been used as a scapegoat for the intellectually lazy and those who don't want to actually do anything to address the problems in America.

As E. J. Dionne noted in a column last week's Washington Post about the nature of the complaint of "the system." This column was written in response to those who said "the system is broken" because of the failure to pass a bill on immigration, ignoring the fact that this bill was always a very shaky compromise that infuriated liberals like me because it would have broken up families and made a cruel and ineffective guest worker program the law of the land, and infuriated conservatives because it offered a path to citizenship for the 12 million or so illegal immigrants currently in the United States, even though their hero Ronald Reagan signed an outright amnesty in 1986. (So much for the notion that he was an ideological purist. He may have been the most overrated President ever, not to mention the object of worship in an icky Republican cult, but he did try to be practical from time-to-time.) This was a bill that tried to be too many things to too many people, thus fitting the schizophrenic nature of public opinion on immigration.

However, as Dionne noted, the problem is that most of the people who complain about "the system" never explain any solutions. Or, in his own words:

It's all nonsense, but it is not harmless nonsense. The tendency to blame the system is a convenient way of leaving no one accountable. Those who offer this argument can sound sage without having to grapple with the specifics of any piece of legislation. There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.

And when Republicans and Democrats are battling each other with particular ferocity, there is always a call for the appearance of an above-the-battle savior who will seize the presidency as an independent. This messiah, it is said, will transcend such "petty" concerns as philosophy or ideology.

Finally, those who attack the system don't actually want to change it much.

He couldn't be more correct. I've lost track of how many times the response to malfeasance and abuse of power by Republicans was some variant of "well, they both suck." Well, if they both such, why change things? Then, there is the self-righteous declaration my many Republicans in this state that, "I don't vote for the party, I vote for the individual," even if they always vote for the Republican. Of course, all this really is is a cheap political trick to try to insinuate that those of us on the left are not thinking and informed citizens, but automatons who will vote for anyone with a D behind his/her name. Well, there are differences between the two political parties. It doesn't really make much sense to be a liberal in this day and age and have an R behind your name. This is the reason outgoing South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb changed parties in 2005, and why his duaghter essentially beat him to the punch when she came of age politically.

There are differences between the two major political parties and the two dominant political ideologies in America and the two major parties (although admittedly in this day and age, Republicans are more attached to conservatism than Democrats are to liberalism). Because of those differences, it does not make sense to insist that people are going to come together somewhere in the middle to make a solution that will please everyone on every issue. The reason we still have fights over reproductive rights in this country is because this is a question with little room for compromise. The reason we still have battles over the Iraq War is because it is kind of hard to split the difference between ending the war and continuing the war. Instead of complaining about how "both sides are bad," examine the differences and igure out what the best fit will be. And if you don't like choosing one or the other, stop whining about how evil the two-party system is and try to actually propose something that will make it possible for someone to vote third-party without making it easier for the candidate who is farther away on the political spectrum to win, thus guaranteeing that things will get even worse in your opinion, a la Nader voters in 2000. (In that election, if anyone still honestly believes that there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush: congratulations, you have officially proven the entire point of this post.)

I see this similar process with those such as supporters of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) who insist that he is for "change," although none of them have ever been able to articulate what this change is. I know that he has already violated Jesus' warning to "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Which is more of an admonition against hypocrisy than it is saying that we should never call things out when they are wrong.) on several occasions. I remember that he complained in his initial address to Internet supporters announcing the creation of a Presidential exploratory committee about the influence of money in politics, but when he came to Charleston last year for the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner he had time for the $1000 donors who were the members of the JFK Society, but not the volunteers or the people who paid $75 for a ticket, a sharp increase over the $25 to see then-Senator John Edwards (D-NC) in 2002 and the $50 to see then-Governor Mark Warner (D-VA) in 2005. Incidentally, both of these keynote speakers had the time to speak to every single person who wished to speak to them, thus invalidating the excuse offered by Obamamaniacs that he had to catch a plane. (I know because I spoke to both of them.) Also, I received multiple calls from the Obama campaign asking for money, despite the fact that I told them repeatedly that I would not pick a candidate until this fall, although I didn't tell them that my holdout is because I am waiting to see if Al Gore gets into the race. In the calls, there were repeated boasts of the money that Senator Obama had raised in the first quarter and how "we need to stop Hillary."

Of course, this brings me to the other bone of contention with Obama's vague insistence of change. He has complained about negative campaigning, but his campaign was not above a cheap shot at Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), referring to her as "D-Punjab" in a campaign memo. This doesn't sound like elevating the tone. It seems to me like the same old negative politics that Obama has criticized. There are two common defenses to Obama on this one: 1) He didn't write the memo, it was a staffer, and 2) Everyone does it. Well, when I ran for office last year, unless I put a disclaimer on a communication, every single word of every communication made by supporters on my behalf (for that matter, when I posted newspaper articles by unfriendly sources on my website, it was still my responsibility to put the disclaimer on that material, which I did) was as good as coming out of my own mouth, pen, pencil or keyboard. There are only so many times that you can blame it on the staffers before it becomes obvious that you have a problem with discipline in your own campaign. Also, the question isn't whether Senator Obama will do what everyone else does, the real question is his ability to live up to his own lofty standards. While people love to quote Matthew 7:1, as I did above, many people forget that the next verse is "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." I am not quoting these verses because I believe that there should be some sort of Christian nation, but because this is something that people of every conviction of every kind would have no problem with affirming. (In fact, Jesus essentially affirmed the basic idea of something taught by the rabbi Hillel in virtually every part of the Sermon on the Mount.) In other words, the standard for the Obama campaign isn't whether or not he is as negative as everyone else, the standard is whether he runs a negative campaign at all. (Again, going back to my own campaign, I only signed the Code of Fair Campaign Practices after I was assured that it did not prohibit me from criticizing the policies and votes of my opponent.) If you still think that Obama is the way to go, just imagine how much of a handicap that will be when it comes to criticizing the Republican nominee. In other words, all of this concern with "the system" and "change" is nothing more than a tool to score cheap political points, and it will not sustain itself in the long run.

Finally, there are ways to criticize the system that are valid. However, the only way to do this is to offer a solution to the critique. When I ran, I made two systemic criticisms: campaign finance and health insurance. My criticism always came with a solution: public financing of campaigns for the former, and single-payer for the latter. In other words, if you think there is a problem with money in politics, you have a moral obligation to explain how you want to fix it. Al Gore has done this as well in his book The Assault on Reason, insisting that the solution to the current focus on triviality is to a) stop asking stupid horserace questions and actually research the issues, b) more use of alternate media such as the Internet that are more participatory (and something that he brought to TV with Current in 2005 with its short films by viewers, that has spread to more viewer created content, such as the first commercial of Super Bowl XLI by Dorito's) and c) improved education and study to develop critical thinking skills. So, next time you hear someone complain about the system, ask that person what he/she plans to do about it. If you don't hear one, this is just an example of intellectual laziness at work.

Thank God for Small Favors

2007-06-10T12:32:00.000-05:00

I have heard a lot of Republicans, including the man Stephen Colbert describes as his favorite Republican, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), argue over the last few years that the Democratic Party has abandoned our tradition of muscular foreign policy to, in effect, weaken our country. A Republican friend of mine even says that JFK would not be allowed into the Democratic Party today. (You could easily make the same argument about Abraham Lincoln and the GOP, but that is neither here nor there.) Today, I write to examine this charge about what JFK would have done in Iraq, by looking at what he actually did.

In 2004, at the Republican National Convention in New York, Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NYC) said that on the day of Septmeber 11, he turned to his appointed police chief Bernard Kerik and said:

Thank God that George W. Bush is President.

However, after reading the book Thirteen Days by Robert F. Kennedy, I thank God that George W. Bush was not President in 1962. We are told by those who don't care about the legacy of our 35th President (except for scoring cheap and bogus political points) that he would have attacked Iraq, but I would ask that we look at the evidence of the biggest foreign policy crisis of the Kennedy Administration, as well as the closest the world had ever come to its destruction. The thirteen days in October 1962 that encompassed the Cuban Missile Crisis and showed the world how a leader should act when dealing with the greatest threats of our day.

For those who don't remember the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy woke up the morning of Tuesday, October 16, with word from his CIA Director McGeorge Bundy that the United States had conclusive evidence, including photographs, that the Soviet Union had shipped surface-to-surface missiles to Cuba, thus ratcheting up nuclear tensions between the two world superpowers. Six days later, President Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine of all ships headed towards Cuba, with required inspections 500 miles away from Cuba. After a tense negotion and UN session leading to the famous "Stevenson moment," where two-time Democratic Presidential nominee, former Governor and then-UN Ambassador Adlai Stevnson (D-IL) confronted the Soviet Ambassador, and asking if there were missiles in Cuba, waiting for the Soviet ambassador to answer the question of whether the Soviet Union had missiles in Cuba, Stevenson famously said:

You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now, and you can answer yes or no. You denied that they exist, and I want to know whether I have understood you correctly. [...}

I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room.

At this point, pictures were brought into the UN general assembly, which showed the Soviet missles and weapons site.

A few days later, the first ship went through the inspection process, and on October 25, Soviet ships and submarines either stopped dead in the water or turned around before reaching the quarantine, with an agreement ultimately being made on October 28 that the Soviet Union would dismantle missiles in Cuba with UN inspection and verification with the United States to secretly dismantle weapons that they deemed unnecessary in Turkey several months later.

Does this sound like what Goerge W. Bush would have done? I think that the evidence of the buildup to the Iraq War proves otherwise. President Kennedy was on the hotline with Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev on a daily basis, and both were determined to avoid a nuclear war. Hearing most of the advisors in the room advocate for a strike against Cuba, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's most trusted advisor, wrote a note to his brother (who he referred to as "the President" in the book on all except for two occasions, where he referred to him as "President Kennedy") saying:

Now I know how Tojo felt when he was planning Pearl Harbor.

In other words, President Kennedy and Attorney General Kennedy were both concerned with the moral standing of the United States in the world. President Kennedy also thought several steps ahead, worried about the casualties, which Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told him would be 25,000 in the first day alone. His prmary concern wasn't with the first step, but "the fourth or fifth step, because the world will be gone before the sixth step." However, Attorney General Kennedy knew the stakes in this escalation, and he said later:

The 10 or 12 people who had participated in all these discussion were bright and energetic people. We had perhaps amongst the most able in the country, and if any one of half a dozen of them were Preisdent the world would have very likely been plunged into catastrophic war.

President Kennedy was also an astute student of history, as evidenced by his senior thesis at Harvard, Why England Slept, which detailed the reasons the United Kingdom overlooked the growing threat in Germany, that would eventually be published, so he was no reactionary dove. He also wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage in 1955, detailing the stories of eight of his historical Senate colleagues who made unpopular decisions under intense pressure. He was also well informed by the book The Guns of August, written by Barbara Tuchman, chronicling the miscommunications, misunderstandings and mistakes that ultimately drew Europe into World War I alnost by accident. President Kennedy did not want to repeat that history, as he told his brother on October 26:

I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, The Missiles of October. If anybody is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace and every effort to give our adversary room to move. I am not going to push the Russians an inch beyond what is necessary.

Does this sound like how George W. Bush treated the Iraq War? It certainly doesn't seem like it to me. Instead, he used every oportunity to rachet up the conflict with Iraq, consequences be damned. However, there was a person involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis who did seem an awful lot like George W. Bush in this situation. That was Air Force Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay. General LeMay argued for a full-scale air attack on Cuba from the beginning, and when asked what he thought the Soviet Union's response would be, insisted that there would be none. Rather than being a beacon of Democratic Party thinking, as hawks would have you believe, General LeMay would resurface six years later as running mate for the American Independent Party campaign of Alabama Governor George C. Wallace (D-AL).

So, the next time you hear a Republican insist that Democrats should be the ones supporting the Iraq War because of our history, remind them that they are not following the tradition of John F. Kennedy, they are following the example of Curtis LeMay, and that if George W. Bush were President in 1962, the world as we know it would not exist.

Coal's Newest Push

2007-05-29T08:15:00.001-05:00

Whereas coal is a high-funded lobby, and other alternative fuels (which truly are environmentally friendly) have nary a penny to spare on politicians' campaigns, you see this feeding-frenzy on Capitol Hill.

The article plays balance very well, pitting coal-backed dollar-sign glazed looks, that sound CHA-CHING with every blink, studies against academic studies over the costs of handing the coal-industry a gift-bag of billions. Take a look at what is driving this political process:

One of the most vociferous champions of coal-to-liquid fuels is the Southern States Energy Board, a group organized by governors from 16 states. Last year, the group published a study, which cost $500,000, that concluded that coal-to-liquid fuel could and should replace almost one-third of imported oil by 2030.

As it happens, the coal industry supplied much of the financing for the study and subsequent marketing. Peabody Energy contributed about $150,000 and the National Mining Association added $50,000, officials at the Southern States Energy Board said.

The inducements under discussion would not only subsidize up to 10 coal-to-liquid plants, but also guarantee a minimum market through long-term contracts with the Air Force and minimum prices for at least some producers.

The push is to give coal companies billions of dollars so that they can use a highly expensive process that also mentioned in the article itself, it still produces more carbon emissions as regular diesel.

The process itself is called the Fischer-Tropsch which makes synthetic diesel from coal. It is a great process for countries who are fighting a major war and does not have access to oil or are isolated countries from the international community. But America is neither of these, and this energy independence plan is supposed to be the plan for America to finally move away from carbon-producing energy.

But this all this money is being given away for the coal-capitalists, capitalizing on a corrupted political system and lack of competition in lobbying rather than ideas. Classic American Capitalism. This is not a long-term solution for America, but as long as the dollar-signs glitter as gold, you'll have a salesman saying they have exactly what you need. Of course with the dollar signs, Washington politicians, tongues-wagging, will be eager to shore up campaign coffers and make sure that the right groups at home know who is "creating" their short-term well-being.

And for people in West Virginia, we face the same dynamic of years past. Rep. Nick Joe Rahall, a big underwriter for this true exercise in governmental waste, is pushing strenuously for big coal's big give-away. Big Coal operators will get their money fromt the Federal Government, we might see an uptick in the economy for WV. Then the economy moves on as the expense in capital and environmental, West Virginians are left with a newly abandoned coal-fields, polluted streams and flatter mountains. Exactly what we need.

White House Winning its Political Battles.

2007-05-22T09:33:00.000-05:00

You can judge for yourselves the validity of the story. Sounds like the White House is getting what it wants from Iran.
That is- upscaling the war in Iraq to include direct confrontation between Bush and Iran.

And now the White House will from it intransigence, get the blank check from Congress on which to expand the war even more.

God Help us.

Let Us Reason Together

2007-05-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

With all apologies to the prophet Isaiah, I used these words for this post because I feel that, looking at our "debate" on guns, there are too few times when reason actually plays into the discussion, which inevitably bogs down when some gun control opponent screams about the people who'd " better try to take my guuuns!" They also will talk about "my Second Amendment rights," but amazingly have an inability to actually quote what the Second Amendment even says. (If I were a betting man, I would have quite a few dollars betting that the phrase "well-regulated milita" won't come up in this attempt to quote the amendment that is surely being violated.) So, let's try to have an honst discussion about guns that doesn't involve the stoking of fears of some bogeyman to try to take away everyone's guns.

First of all, the last major attempt to regulate gun ownership in this country was a failed bid in 1999 to force gun manufacturers to install child safety locks on handguns. The last major gun regulation passed in this country was the assault weapons ban in 1994, which the Republican Congress allowed to lapse in 2004. Despite the claims by NRA enthusiasts that gun control does nothing to stop gun violence because "only criminals will have guns," the homicide rate, gun death rate, gun homicide rate and accidental gun death rate all declined every year from 1994 (The year the Brady Bill went into effect.) to 2000, with a slight uptick after 2001, the year that the Brady Bill was gutted by the Bush Administration. Despite claims that the five-day waiting period is unnecessary because of the effectiveness of the instant background checks favored by the NRA, these instant background checks failed to stop a mentally unstable college student with enough red flags to line several city streets. But, as soon as something happens, they insist that more guns would have made this tragedy much less tragic. I guess in their fantasy world, everyone is an expert marksman who only fires loaded weapons at the bad guys. An a message board, someone told me that this tragedy wouldn't have been avoided because "a knife could jsut as easily be used," but does anyone honestly think that 32 people would have been killed if it were a knife that was doing the damage?

Then again, this is what happens when people base their beliefs on ideology and work their way backwards to find reasons for their positions. Of course, they aren't entirely to blame, because they put their faith in the NRA, a source that I trust about as far as I could throw Rush Limbaugh with my left arm and Newt Gingrich with my right, at the same time. I say this because I heard from the fine people of the National Rifle Association during my run for the House of Delegates last year. Among several right-wing groups, I found at least one misleading question, but when I received the NRA questoinnaire, fully half the questions were either untrue or ridiculously vague in their intent. One of the most easily refuted falsehoods told by the NRA was that Maryland already had ballistic fingerprinting in 2002 when the DC sniper committed his crimes. If they would have just left at that, they would have simply used a misleading factoid, but they instead said that ballistic fingerprinting does not work and is an attempt to monitor gun owners. Never mind that the first hole in the logic is that if it is an attempt to monitor gun owners, it has to be effective in identifying which gun fired the weapon, but the Maryland ballistic fingerprinting file was only for handguns, not rifles, which the DC sniper used. In other words, when an obvious case can be made for extending ballistic fingerprinting because the record is incomplete, the NRA insists that, well, they have the records and they were useless. I called them on this horrible lie in my response, and needless to say, I got an F from the NRA. Which raises a question, if you are really correct on the issue, why do you have to lie in your arguments?

There is no one who is trying to take everyone's gun away. The Second Amendment uses the language "well regulated" while the First Amendment uses "no law" in explaining the treatment of how these amendments are to be treated in constitutional law. Responsible regulation of gun ownership has reduced crime and kept guns out of the hands of a lot of criminals. So, instead of using hysterics to try to make specious cases, let us reason together so that we can have gun laws that make America a safer place to live and one where law abiding citizens don't live in fear of those who are trying to ban all guns, when such people don't exist.

The China/India Dodge

2007-04-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

Last week was Earth Day. I couldn't make my post then, because I was in Huntington doing what I could to help a couple of good candidates get elected to office in the WV Young Democrats. However, it is better late than never and I thought that now was the time to get to it on this vital issue. Anyone who is being honest and not simply making political arguments with their ideological predisposition trumping their senses knows that there is something seriously wrong with the current trajectory of our climate. As Former Vice President (and hopefully future President) Al Gore noted in An Inconvenient Truth, in scientific peer-reviewed articles, none mentioned any doubts about the existence of global warming, but 53% of all stories in popular media questioned the reality of global warming. Then again, corporate shills such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (with its infamous "Some people call it pollution, we call it life" commercials from last year) know that the best chance for inaction on the pending climate crisis is to spread seeds of doubt in the public mind.

Even when that seems to fail, as it seems that we may finally getting to the threshold where people realize that action must be taken, the latest tactic of the flat earthers is to insist that, even if global warming is real, the real problem isn't the United States, but China and India, which are rapidly transitioning to an industrial society. They argue that within the next few years, China is on pace to become the world's largest producers of CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, they are just as wrong on this one as they are on the question of global warming's reality.

First, let's look at the question of whether or not global warming is real. The global temperature of 58 degrees Fahreheit (14 1/2 Celsius) is the highest the earth's temperature has been recorded in over 100,000 years (Before the last major Ice Age and the last time there was no polar ice caps.) and over the last 650,000, CO2 concentration never exceeded 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. In 1958, when Roger Revelle began measuring the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, it was at 315 ppm. When Earth in the Balance was published in 1992, CO2 had already risen to 355 ppm, and we are currently at 381 ppm, with an expected CO2 concentration of over 600 ppm expected by 2050, or even more depending on whether the Siberian ice shelf completely melts in that time, releasing CO2 trapped in the shelf. With the global temperatures expected to rise by 3 degrees Celsius (5 1/2 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, the sea level is expected to rise by at least three feet, and several island countries in the Southern Hemisphere have already had to evacuate to New Zealand because their homes have been reclaimed by the ocean. And this is if temperature rises by the lowest estimates over the next 50 years, leading to a potential refugee crisis in the tens of milions, if not hundreds of millions. Considering the evidence, I think it is safe to say that the planet is heating up, and the consequences will be very bad for the planet and its inhabitants.

Now, let's look at the China/India Dodge. Do they produce more CO2 than the United States? Not even close. The United States is responsible for 30% of greenshouse gas emissions, with Southeast Asia (including China and India) contributing only 12%. Let us not forget that China and India combined have seven times the population of the United States. In terms of carbon dioxide, the United States is responsible for roughly 12,000 pounds per person, while China produces 1000 and India produces roughly half that per person. When these countries are listed based on total contribution, the US more than doubles China's CO2 emissions and sextuples India's. So, I don't think that it is their fault. As a matter of fact, while China has a potential problem with its rising use of dirty coal, they have at least pushed their fuel efficiency to 36 mpg, dwarfing our 24 mpg.

There are steps that can be made that will actually create lots of new wealth (and West Virginia is ripe for wind and tidal energy, and this will benefit individual West Virginians if we lease the rights to the and used for these forms of energy, instead of selling it dirt cheap like the Republicans of the 1860's did in this state) and save people money. For example, I switched only two of my lightbulbs in my apartment to compact fluorescents and, even though the $7 I paid for them was more than the $1.50 or so I would have paid for incandescents, I have saved $4/month since, thus more than paying for themselves. Also, on days I am off work, I don't turn my lights on when natural light is sufficient to see, and this has saved money as well as having the added bonus of the tranition to natural light being less harsh when I go outside. I have also started trying to drive at the 65 mph range on the interstate rather than 70, and my gas mileage has improved 3 mpg since doing so, saving 10% at the pump. I have also started unplugging my computer when I am not using it, and this has led to a very tiny uptick in my electric bills of less than $1 a month, while my bill went down $2 a month when my last computer died. In other words, doing the right thing for the environment has saved money, and I haven't really taken any drastic steps. These are things everyone can do, and if everyone does them, it will lead to a significant reduction of CO2 emissions, which is a vital first step considering that we will need to reduce our CO2 emissions by at least 50% in the next 50 years to have the low-range effects of global warming and 80% to halt them completely. The technology is there, but the question is whether we have the will to do so.

This is the one that can be frustrating in our current political climate. The last US President to ask us to make sacrifices was Jimmy Carter, and Republicans still mock him for wearing a sweater in the White House in an effort to save energy costs. However, we put a man on the moon, won two world wars and became the leader in the world. I am sick and tired of having to motivate people for fuel independency by saying "If Brazil can do it, we can too."

Bush lost. Big Surprise.

2007-04-24T10:59:00.000-05:00

Wrong War Mr. President.

President Bush empathized with Abraham Lincoln on Monday, saying they both stood by their principles in the face of criticism during wartime.

...He showed the group a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. He said Lincoln was unpopular during the Civil War but maintained his belief that all men are created equal.

"Look what would have happened to history" if Lincoln had abandoned that principle, Bush said.

Principled Stands by Al Gore

2007-04-20T13:21:00.000-05:00

That's right Right-Wingers one of your favorites has done more to live his principles than the right will ever admit. It would be too much for them to handle. Cognitive Dissonance and all that you know.

Check out Gore's latest principled stand on supporting hardliners in South America:

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, facing allegations that he supported right-wing death squads, said former U.S. Vice President Al Gore pulled out of a conference on Friday where the two were scheduled to speak.

Uribe said Gore's office contacted him to say he would not attend the conference in Miami because of the scandal in which eight members of Uribe's congressional coalition are in jail awaiting trial for backing drug-running paramilitaries.

The cocaine-funded militias, branded terrorists by Washington, have massacred thousands of Colombians in the name of fighting left-wing rebels.

Finally an American politician who isn't so interested in supporting the hard-right in Colombia who are responsible for the deaths of so many innocents as the "communists" they are supposed to be fighting. This is not just a stand against the indiscrimanate deaths of innocents, but also how America has been funneling money to the hard-right conservatives in Colombian government.

Finally, the right was soooo quick to point out that Gore's high use of electricity makes him a hypocrite, though all it means is he works from his house. Now he's putting his work further into action by installing solar panels in his house. Looks either the right went on this attack too soon and now they won't be able to even use the hypocrite argument for on the climate change issue or they simply are full of shit. I might opt for the latter.

So the Media Narrative Reappears: Dems Scared on Social Issues

2007-04-19T10:44:00.000-05:00

Here we go again. To surmise the situation, a Va. Tech shooter rampages and kills 32 people and then the Supreme Court upholds the rare procedure late term pregnancy abortions, even without any exception to the health of the mother. And so no doubt Republicans have to feel emboldened that Culture Wars can give them something to their waning political clout. The media laps it up because it gives more dramatic horse-race material to speculate to no end. It also gives conservatives a new fresh round of appearances on tv to attack Democrats and Liberals as the evil that are the cause of death for your pup last week.

Well, you knew it had to come sometime!

So the media narrative now is not only are Dems on the opposite ends of the what happened, they are also scared to take on the issue, refusing to make a statement on Gun Control in the wake of tragedy.

Here's the ABC news headline: Democratic Party 2.0: Wary of Hot-Button Topics

Maybe the callous profiteers of tragic circumstance can't seem to conceive that now is not a great time to take on these issues when our nation's health is at stake. Our soldiers die and Iraqis are slaughtered. Our democracy is coming closer and closer to a crisis with a dangerous, arrogant and wreckless president.

Maybe just Maybe, Democrats, and definitely the majority of Americans feel that mourning is to be done for the departed. Maybe the Democrats and the majority of Americans feel that the issue of abortion is to be settled another time and not forced down our throats. Maybe at a time when our President shows respect for the lives of our soldiers and leaving them indefinitely in harm's way.

Finally, Democrats can expect this push to come full force when the calendar turns '08. Avoiding it will be pointless if we want to be the absolute majority in this country. Gun Control- a non-issue, but this abortion, Dems will have to speak earnestly and openly. Seek exceptions for health. Limit precedent to ban normal procedures. Time to tell NOW that we can is protect a basic right, but know it limitations. But don't give into the media hype, you aren't scared of this issue. Dems don't want abortions either. Time to stop unwanted pregnancy. Time to control what informed consent means. It is time to educate the American people on what abortion means.

Don't limit your power in these areas, fight the smart battle, don't be arrogant. Control the debate. What else is power good for?

Capito's Challengers start appearing...

2007-04-13T08:17:00.000-05:00

Nah, not too early in the election cycle to start planning these things out... WV State Sen. John Unger from the Eastern Panhandle is thinking of making his move.
From Charleston Daily Mail:

National and state Democrats are priming state Sen. John Unger for a potential run against U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito next year.
But Unger, D-Berkeley, says he's only considering the option at this time and has not made a definitive decision.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, including its chairman, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., met with Unger a few weeks ago to discuss a possible run for Capito's 2nd Congressional District seat in West Virginia.

The committee says Unger has its support if he decides to throw his hat into the race.

Not a bad possibility, though I don't hear that many great things about Unger.
Whatever gets Capito out, and it is good to see that without Rahm Emanuel running things, we have a serious DCCC chair in Van Hollen who recognizes the potential of the WV-2.

Wolfowitz very popular everywhere he goes...

2007-04-13T07:48:00.000-05:00

Paul Wolfowitz, one of the biggest contributors to the very poor state of affairs in the world today, is not having such a heckuva time at his current cushy position, President of the World Bank.

Let's read some more from NYTimes:

Paul D. Wolfowitz’s tenure as president of the World Bank was thrown into turmoil on Thursday by the disclosure that he had helped arrange a pay raise for his companion at the time of her transfer from the bank to the State Department, where she remained on the bank payroll.

You mean he's a corrupt asshole? I couldn't even begin to imagine!

But Maybe he made an honest mistake apologizes, I'm sure that will smooth things over right? Let's see:

Earlier, the bank’s staff association had declared that it was “impossible for the institution to move forward with any sense of purpose under the present leadership.” The association had helped spearhead an investigation into Ms. Riza’s transfer and raise, details of which came into the open in the last 24 hours.

The events injected a new ugliness into what had already been a bitter rift between Mr. Wolfowitz and many of the bank’s employees, who have questioned his suitability for the job as a former deputy secretary of defense and architect of the Iraq war, and have challenged many of his policies at the bank, especially those cracking down on corruption in which he suspended aid to several countries without consulting the board.

Poor Wolfy, can't seem to get a break.

This man, among many others should be run out of town and never take part in form of international governance ever again. Never.

A lesson for all Political Newbies

2007-04-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

This is a funny lesson learned for someone entering politics- file your damn paperwork, on time! Check this out from the Charleston Gazette:

But the Democrat failed to file any of the other required reports on time. His pre-primary report, due by April 29 last year, was not filed until May 10. His post-primary election report, due by June 9, did not arrive until Aug. 30. And, his post-general election report that was due by Dec. 8 was not filed until Feb. 12.

Beakes said his office began the $25-a-day late fine in January 2006. The office has not gone back prior years on any group or candidate, he said.

Political action committees and candidates are supposed to file two financial reports prior to the May primary election and one afterward. They then do the same for the general election in November.

Having run for a less than important office of Delegate to the Democratic National Convention, I could have been this guy.

But this is not a bad move Secretary of State Betty Ireland's part. She is enforcing what the law says. She is also crakcing down on PACs, which should be a top priority:

Beakes said the staff is tired of people and PACs filing their campaign financial disclosures persistently late — leaving their opponents in the dark about their finances — and are now cracking down with fines.

There are 19 “out of roughly 1,500 PACs and candidates” that are “habitual late-filers,” Beakes said. The office has notified all of them they now owe fines.

“They’ve filed all their reports, but they’ve been severely late,” he said.

Well, efficacy in state office. Howabout it? Makes for a stronger candidacy for possible statewide office. Not questioning motives, just pointing it out...

Update: Here are some of the other people getting fined:

Derrick W. Love of Weston faces a fine of $1,200 for filing late, while Brian Louk of Morgantown must pay a fine of $375.

Leading the way for PACs is the state Democratic County Chairs Association, which now owes a $1,600 fine, and the Triple AAA 2002, a PAC headed by Helen Midkiff of Chapmanville. The latter group reportedly paid a number of people $50 to canvass door-to-door and take people to the polls in Logan County.

Other PACs and the fines levied against them include the Lincoln County Republican Executive Committee, $800; the Logan County Republican Executive Committee, $775; the Nicholas County and the Wayne County Republican executive committees, both $755; City of Charleston Democratic Executive Committee, $550; United School Service Employees Association, $475; Lincoln County Federation of Teachers, $250; Local Union 5958 of the United Mine Workers, $250; West Virginia Democratic Legislative Council, $250; the Housing Political Action Committee, $250; Marion County Democratic Executive Committee, $200; Equal Justice, $150; KIDSPAC, $150, and West Virginia Unity, $125.

Enough with the CYA Already!

2007-04-04T23:57:00.000-05:00

I was driving to work this morning and listening to NPR and the West Virginia Morning segment of Morning Edition and I heard a story about the VA hospitals in West Virginia, with a focus on the hospital in Beckley. [Author's note: I receive treatment at the VA Hospital in Clarksburg, and my dad, a Vietnam-era Air Force veteran, receives treatment at the Beckley hospital.] The reporter was interviewing patients at the VA hospital and they were not giving the most flattering picture of the treatment of our veterans at the VA hospital. Among other complaints, the veterans pointed out that they had to travel several hours to Richmond, VA, Fayetteville, NC, or Winston-Salem, NC, to get treatment when the Beckley hospital lacks the equipment to perform needed tests, and that surgery takes years after the initial complaint, often leading to addiction to painkillers by the time the surgery finally takes place. (My dad and several other veterans have also complained about the VA no longer paying for eyeglasses. The cost of deductibles and co-payments has also increased from $24 to $430 since George W. Bush took office.)

However, this interview was cut short, with a security guard insisting that they were violating federal law by interviewing people at the VA hospital and explaining the crackdown on this rule due to "Walter Reed and a bunch of other stuff." In other words, the VA didn't want the word to get out about the substandard and inexcusable treatment of our veterans at the Beckley VA hospital. Senator Rockefeller and Senator Byrd have made numerous complaints over the years about the understaffed hospital and the horrible treatment of veterans and workers. However, the local officials insist that there is nothing wrong with the VA hosptial and the way it is managed.

For those of you who were never in the military, the CYA approach was the answer to almost everything. Briefings were made on the way to speak to the press, and it was not uncommon for things to be "pencil-whipped," or made to look better on paper than they really are. Recently, efforts were made to fix the situation at Walter Reed, despite years of neglect, but the attitude of ignoring problems in the hopes that they will go away needs to stop. I am sick and tired of seeing my fellow veterans be treated in such a manner. I remember Bill Maher saying in his HBO comedy special Victory Begins at Home that teachers, firefighters and police officers do not receive enough pay even though we say they are our heroes, and then he explains, "Maybe they are our heroes because they work cheap" to a rousing applause point, where he said, "Don't worry. Applause costs you nothing." How many more times do I have to hear George W. Bush and his GOP cronies insist that they are the party that stands behind the troops, while accusing those of us who disagree with them, even those of us who have gone to their bogus war, of treason while cutting VA funding and ignoring the real issues of taking care of our soldiers. Well, support for us is not a pathetic photo-op (I'm looking at you, John McCain.) but it is doing the day-to-day business of actually seeing that those who offered their all are given the treatment promised and deserved when we get home. Oh, and by the way, this applies to those who have those bumper stickers on their cars who aren't writing to Congress and the White House to make such a noise for our troops that these issues cannot be ignored.

Political Maverick to Opportunist

2007-04-03T10:58:00.000-05:00

So according to the Hill McCain, not only approached Democrat Senate minority in 2001 to switch parties, he also approached, according to MyDD.com, John Kerry for a possible spot on his '04 Democratic Ticket.

Here's what happened in '01:

Daschle said that throughout April and May of 2001, he and McCain “had meetings and conversations on the floor and in his office, I think in mine as well, about how we would do it, what the conditions would be. We talked about committees and his seniority … [A lot of issues] were on the table.”

Obviously McCain's people deny this. But who will you believe? The man out of politics or the man gunning for the presidential nomination for the party he nearly abandoned?

Kerry's interview with Jonathan Singer from MyDD.com is available on their Website, but here's a transcript:

Jonathan Singer: There's a story in The Hill, I think on Tuesday, by Bob Cusack on the front page of the paper talking about how John McCain's people -- John Weaver -- had approached Tom Daschle and a New York Congressman, I don't remember his name, about switching parties. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what your discussions were with him in 2004, how far it went, who approached whom... if there was any "there" there.

John Kerry: I don't know all the details of it. I know that Tom, from a conversation with him, was in conversation with a number of Republicans back then. It doesn't surprise me completely because his people similarly approached me to engage in a discussion about his potentially being on the ticket as Vice President. So his people were active -- let's put it that way.

Singer: Okay. And just to confirm, you said it, but this is something they approached you rather than...

Kerry: Absolutely correct. John Weaver of his shop... [JK aswers phone]

So all the wrangling between McCain and Kerry early on in his VP search ends up making Kerry look foolish was actually a crass attempt to get into the White House by any means, even abandoning his own party. A true maverick. But really it is not the "good kind". Maverick's aren't necessarily ideal politicians. Here's the definitions provided for what a maverick is:

maverick, 1867, "calf or yearling found without an owner's brand," in allusion to Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas cattle owner who was negligent in branding his calves. Sense of "individualist, unconventional person" is first recorded 1886, via notion of "masterless."

Emphasis added.

Right- masterless, as in self-serving and without loyalty. McCain's problems are adding up, not just with Iraq, but with his questionable loyalties.

Tom DeLay: The New Chickenhawk Poster Child

2007-03-28T12:44:00.000-05:00

Many of you fellow political junkies have seen Tom DeLay plugging his new book, No Retreat, No Surrender on the TV circuit. The former House Majority Leader and currently indicted money laundering suspect, is lecturing those who oppose the war in Iraq and accusing us of treason, even those of us who actually served in this misguided war. This pattern continued on a recent Meet the Press appearance. When called on this by Rep. Joe Sestak (R-PA), a retired Navy Vice Admiral (three-star) and the first veteran of the Afghanistan War elected to Congress, DeLay and Richard Perle accused Congressman Sestak of ignorance about the miltary, and Former Congressman Tom Andrews (D-ME) said that he would rather take military advice "from Admiral Sestak than Tom DeLay." When questioned by Tim Russert about his insistence that war critics have committed treason, DeLay said the following:

Well, I--it, it is my opinion that when you go to war, we ought to all come together. You can debate going to war, that's a legitimate debate. But once you have our soldiers and our, our young people dying on the battlefield, we should come together, and we shouldn't have what we had yesterday on the Mall of, of, of--in Washington, D.C. When the--those are not, in my mind--my opinion, patriots that are talking about impeaching the commander in chief, that are--that are--work as, as Tom's group works...

Let's look at some of the things that are totally hypocritical about this quote. First of all, DeLay is equating mentioning impeachment with treason. While I want to make it clear that I oppose impeachment because I see no way that it will be successful, and even if it would be, I do not want to see President Cheney either, I think that this is an interesting turn of events from DeLay. As noted in the book The Hammer:Tom DeLay: God, Money, and the Rise of the Republican Congress by Lou Dubose and Jan Reid, Hot Tub Tom (This was his nickname in his days in the Texas Legislature because of his eagerness to be schmoozed by lobbyists and party.) blocked any and all efforts at censure against President Clinton because he knew that such efforts would derail impeachment. In other words, not only did he mention impeachment, he strong-armed Congress into actually impeaching a President.

For someone who was so against opposing a war once it started as treason, it is interesting to note that Hot Tub Tom was a vociferous opponent of the war in Kosovo even after it started. I found the following quotes while looking up Hot Tub Tom's remarks on Kosovo:

• “This is [President Clinton’s] war.” Washington Post, 4/14/99

• “The Kosovo operation is different and oxymoronic. It is a ‘peace war’ waged by ‘peace hawks’ pursuing a dovish social agenda. Peace hawks are global idealists and former anti-war activists, including the youthful Bill Clinton.” Floor Statement, 4/15/99

• “Doing good on a worldwide scale appeals to peace hawks, who are motivated by altruism, not patriotism.” Floor Statement, 4/15/99

• “There's no national interest of the United States in Kosovo. It's flawed policy and it was flawed to go in. I think this president is one of the least effective presidents of my life time. He's hollowed out our forces while running round the world with these adventures.” The Guardian, 5/17/99

• “I rise today to state that no defense funds should be used for ground forces in Kosovo unless authorized by Congress.” Floor Statement, 4/15/99

• “So what they are doing here is they are voting to continue an unplanned war by an administration that is incompetent of [sic] carrying it out. I hope my colleagues will vote against this resolution.” Floor Statement on S. Con. Res. 21, 4/15/99

• “It is clear that any deployment to Kosovo will similarly drag on and go enormously over budget.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

• “When asked the question, ‘what if he does not come to the table,’ they said, ‘well, we will go to Phase 2, and Phase 2 is that we will bomb for a few more days. Then he will be going to the table, by crackie.’ And when we asked, ‘Then, what?’ then they said, ‘well, we will bomb for another week and that will force him to come to the table and this will be all over with.’ And then when we asked, ‘Then, what?’ there was silence. This administration started a war without a plan farther along than two weeks.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

• “I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

• “Instead of sending in ground troops, we should pull out the forces we now have in the region. Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should send ground troops to Kosovo and I do not think we should be bombing in the Balkans, and I do not think that NATO should be destroyed by changing its mission into a humanitarian invasion force.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

• “So what they are doing here is they are voting to continue an unplanned war by an administration that is incompetent of carrying it out. I hope my colleagues will vote against the resolution.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

• “It’s very simple. The president is not supported by the House, and the military is supported by the House.” As quoted in USA Today, regarding Floor votes on Kosovo, 4/30/99

• “For us to call this a victory and to commend the President of the United States as the Commander in Chief showing great leadership in Operation Allied Force is a farce.” Floor Statement opposing resolution commending America’s successful campaign in Kosovo, 7/1/99

All but the last of these statements was made by Hot Tub Tom during the operations in Kosovo. (Thanks to blogger Justin Logan for cataloguing these statements.) If Tom DeLay were held to his own standards on treason, he would already be executed.

However, the fact that he told a 31-year Navy veteran that he was a traitor really bugs me the most. After all, Hot Tub Tom came of age during the Vietnam era and was 26 when the draft ended in 1973. You would think that he would have served proubly in the Vietnam War. However, when asked in 1988 about his military service, Hot Tub Tom said the following:

So many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself.

Hey, Hot Tub. Here's a newsflash: There was a draft! Of course, there was room for people like you, although I would argue that the "patriotic" part does not apply. After all, Al Gore, who was and is a patriotic person, enlisted in the Army in 1969 and served as a journalist in Vietnam. If you want to question his service because it was not a combat role, the second Vietnam veteran to win a major party's Preisdential nomination was John Kerry, who received a commission in the Navy in 1966, and then went on to win a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts as a swift boater. Hot Tub also had praise for President Bush for the aricraft carrier landing, complete with codpiece, telling a group of College Repbulicans:

Could you imagine Ted Kennedy in uniform, making that landing?

Well, admittedly, I would wonder if Senator Kennedy could land a plane. However, I could imagine the senior Senator from Massachusetts in uniform. You see, unlike Hot Tub Tom, Edward Kennedy did serve his country, with a two-year stint in the US Army (1951-53) when he served in Europe. If one wanted to quibble, they could point out that he served in Europe during the Korean War, but this was the height of the Cold War, so I see no reason to question Senator Kennedy's willingness to serve his country. His brother, John, also showed the difference between himself and chickenhawks by getting waivers so he could serve in the Navy during World War II, despite health concerns.

The thing that is shocking is just how many Republican hawks managed to avoid military service and war in particular during their own youths. As Al Franken pointed out in Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations and Lies and Lying Liars: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, this list is quite extensive. Here is a partial offering:

Newt Gingrich (Former House Speaker, 1995-98 and Congressman, 1979-98, possible 2008 Presidential candidate): Received student and teaching deferrments during the Vietnam War. Later wondered aloud if he "missed something" by avoiding military service.

Pat Buchanan (Presidential candidate, 1992, 1996, 2000. Political commentator, Nixon official): 4-F due to a football injury in high school, still manages to run on a treadmill almost daily.

Dick Armey (Former House majority leader, 1995-2003, Congressman 1985-2003): received student deferments

George Will (Washington Post columnist, contributor to Newsweek and This Week with George Stephanopholous): student deferments

Bill O'Reilly (conservative commentator, host of The O'Reilly Factor and The Radio Factor): avoided service, no one is really sure how

Rush Limbaugh (conservative commentator and radio talk show host): claimed to have a pilonidal cyst, went to draft board with a doctor's note, despite the fact that pilonidal cysts are an operable condition

Paul Wolfowitz (former Deputy Defense Secretary): student deferments

Richard Perle (former Reagan defense official) and Bill Kristol (editor, The Weekly Standard): student deferments

Dick Cheney (Vice President, 2001-present; Defense Secretary, 1989-93; Congressman, 1979-89; Chief of Staff, President Gerald Ford, 1975-77): five deferments, said he had "other priorities at the time," first daughter born nine months and two days after President Johnson announced that deferments for married men with no children would be lifted

John Wayne (starred in numerous war movies, released America, Why I Love Her, a patriotic spoken-word album in 1973; major donor to George Wallace in 1968, supporter of conservative causes, icon of "tough guy" and "American hero"): Sought, and received, draft deferment to take care of his kids during WWII. Stayed home despite the fact that many (at the time) bigger actors served in WWII, including Clark Gable and Henry Fonda, who were older than the Duke. Re-classified as 1-A (fit for service and eligible for draft) in 1944, but studio appealed and had his draft status changed back to 2-A. Apocryphal stories tell of a time when John Ford, who did serve as a film-maker during several key air missions in the Pacific, would criticize Wayne for his salute, saying "god****it, don't you know how to salute? Never mind." Would repeatedly get into fights with soldiers who were angered by the fact that Wayne didn't serve.

George W. Bush: served in Texas Air National Guard 1968-73, asked to be exempt from overseas service, left Texas Air National Guard eight months early to attend Harvard Business School (lampooned later in Doonesbury when Ray and an unnamed soldier requested an early release from their enlistment to attend business school), no one really sure how he spent that year that he was supposed to be in Alabama, despite offers of $10,000 to anyone who could conclusively prove that he did his full stint of service in Alabama, grounded in 1970 after refusing to take a flight physical, which is the same year nasal cavity inspections and drug tests were made (ironic because he appeared in TXANG anti-drug posters); later complained about anti-war "elitists" and refuses to listen to anyone who disagrees with him on the Iraq War.

Ronald Reagan (President, 1981-89; Governor of California, 1967-75): Spent WWII making training films. Later confused his action on training films with actually fighting in WWII.

The fact that so many Republicans who now lecture us about our patriotism (as well as Joe Lieberman, who got student and family deferments during the Vietnam War) for opposing such a foolish mission tells me that we have to fight back. As soon as your Republican friends talk about how great the war is, if they are capable of military service, hand them a business card for their friendly neighborhood recruiter. If you ever get the chance to debate someone, call them out on their lack of service. If your local paper runs ads for Hot Tub's book, write letters-to-the-editor criticizing his hypocrisy. But, above all, we cannot let these chickenhawks get away with their false patriotism.

Don't Blame It on Incompetence

2007-03-25T21:46:00.000-05:00

Over the last few years, I have heard people of various ideological stripes blame the Bush Administration's malfeasance on incompetence. However, I would argue that there is a different problem that makes the problem of incompetence possible. That problem is anti-government conservatism.

There are three basic types of conservatives in this country: big-government conservatives (think Bill Kristol), small-government conservatives (think Barry Goldwater) and anti-government conservatives (think Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and George W. Bush). Big-government conservatives are a problem all there own, because they have a misguided notion about what big government should do. In other words, instead of protecting the people, they believe that the goal of the government is to fight the big wars and other things that the government should not be doing (For example, Dinesh D'Sousa wants the government to embrace the thecoracy of the Taliban to create a Christian/Islam alliance). I'm not too worried about small-government conservatives, because most of them usually abandon this track as soon as they become the party in power.

However, anti-government conservatives are a different animal altogether. The main belief of the anti-government conservative is that government can't do anything right. This is exemplified by Ronald Reagan's "ten most frightening words in the English language" (I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.) and his insistence in his 1981 inaugural that government is "not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem." The main goal of these conservatives is deregulation of business. The subgoal of the Grover Norquist type of anti-government conservative is to manage the government so badly that they destroy people's faith in government and eventually cut so many taxes for the wealthy and raise the debt so high that the only thing government can actually pay for is interest on the national debt and maybe defense. Think I am being cynical? Norquist is on the record saying, "The goal isn't to get rid of government. The goal is to reduce the government to the size that we can take it into the bathtub and drown it."

How does this play out? Let me give you a few examples:

Iraq War There are a lot of people who complain about the incompetence displayed by former (Oh, what a joy it is to add that word!) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in relation to the management of the Iraq War. However, a read of Plan of Attack points out the problem is really, to invert the Michael Dukakis argument, one of ideology and not competence. Rumsfeld was determined to surround himself with yes-men who believed that the Iraq War could be won with 150,000 troops or less and a very short post-war invasion. In the book, Woodward writes that Rumsfeld liked Franks because he was the one who believed that a smaller force could do the job. However, Franks initial war-planning put the needed troop strength at 245,000-300,000. Rumsfeld repeatedly challenged Franks to find ways to shrink the force. It is obvious that there weren't enough forces in Iraq to secure the country, but ideology ruled the day. Ideology also ruled the day when Rumsfeld was asked about looting and vandalism in post-war Iraq, and he gave the infamous reply, "People in a free society are free to do whatever they want." In other words, Rumsfeld didn't believe that the government could or should act to keep law-and-order, thus giving his tacit approval to the insurgency.

Hurricane Katrina OK, let me make this clear. I do not believe that George W. Bush caused Hurricane Katrina. However, I do think that he is to blame for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It had been reported for years that the levies in New Orleans were not prepared to handle anything over Level Three force hurricanes. However, despite years of the Army Corps of Engineers asking for the levies to be fortified, these requests were ignored. President Bush also took five days after Hurricane Katrina to fly over Hurricane Katrina, after attempting to play a G chord in California, thus providing the modern equivalent to Nero's fiddle. He also imfamously insisted, when talking about FEMA head Michael Brown, whose previous experience was running the Arabian Horse Association, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," days before being forced to fire Brownie.

However, we found at later that as clueless as Brownie was, he tried to warn President Bush about the problems in New Orleans and he did nothing. In other words, it seems to me like Kanye West was accurate when he said, "George Bush does not care about black people." This is not to say that he actively hates black people, but let's just say that they aren't a concern.

The last major hurricane to hit New Orleans under a Texas President (albeit a real one) shows the difference between someone who believes in government and someone who doesn't. In 1964, when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans, President Lyndon B. Johnson flew to New Orleans almost immediately, actually bothered to land, and holding a flashlight to his face (in a big contrast to President Bush landing in New Orleans eventually for a press conference with plenty of generators that were turned off as soon as the cameras were, showing his true indifference to the people) and told the people, "Your President is here to help." In other words, Lyndon Johnson showed us how a President should handle a crisis, and just about any President who actually believed in government would have done this.

VA and Military Hospitals As a veteran, I take this one personally. The Bush Administration has repeatedly underestimated the needs of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which have had a huge spike in demand because of the haevy reliance on reserve components in the Iraq War. (Reserve Component veterans are ineligible for any VA benefits unless we served in a combat zone, 180 consecutive days active duty, or 20 years active service in the Reserve Component.) As a result, the VA hospital system, which was supposed to be free, went from $2/month co-pay for prescription drugs when President Bush took over in 2001, to $15/month for prescription drugs and an annual user fee of $250 for those who make at least $26,000/year. In other words, the VA has gone from costing those who laid their life on the line $24 to $430 in the last six years. Is this something someone who believed in government would allow?

Even worse is Walter Reed Hospital, considered to be the premier military hospital. However, those who were at the residence had to endure rats in the rooms, feces-stained matresses and old food. Defense Secretary Robert Gates decided to make heads roll, especially after the commanders insisted there was nothing to see in a scene reminiscent of Officer Barbrady in South Park. While this seemed to be a sign of better things to come, the soldiers were required to wake up every morning for inspection as a reminder of what happens to those who squeal.

Each of these are well-documented examples of the failures of anti-government conservatism. It is easy to see why cronies who don't care about their jobs and couldn't do them properly even if they wanted to are put in such positions. If someone doesn't believe that the government can work, what is wrong with letting some of your buddies make some money off the system? This is why we should make a pledge to refuse to vote for anyone who insists that the government can't do anything right and is the problem. Hopefully, this is the time when liberals stand up and make 2008 the year of transformation to a government that works for the people. The problem isn't the government, or incompetence, it is the anti-government conservatives who are trying their darndest to run the government into the ground.

Nation Moving Towards National Primary...

2007-03-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

...And not in any formal or planned fashion. Florida is now among some of the large states that are moving to diminish the influence of two small states. Check out this article:

If Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer signs the primary date legislation — which would bump the contest up four weeks from its expected March 4 date — the giant of the Northeast will join California, the nation’s most populous state, and more than a dozen other states in perhaps the busiest single presidential primary day in history.

Florida, another heavily populated state, is fast-tracking legislation that would switch its primary to an even earlier date, Jan. 29, even though that would violate scheduling rules set by both the Democratic and Republican national committees. These moves collectively threaten to take some of the luster off the traditional first-in-the-nation nominating events, the Iowa caucuses (currently slated to go on Jan. 14) and the New Hampshire primary (projected for Jan. 22).

Because New Hampshire and Iowa have selfishly denied political parties the chance to reshape the primary season so that a logical and coherent selection process can be delibarative and reasonable, big states are now throwing their weight around. Here is the problem, only the well connected have the resources to take on the monumental task of going coast to coast. Our presidential electoral system is evolving spasmatically and around money. A system that will value policy, debate and reason over money and schmoozing must be set in place. This is no longer a debate for political scientists, but for politicians. This process needs some leadership. Will the Democratic Party, who is the only party showing leadership on this issue, going to simply allow this continue or take control and set forth a process that will allow this country to competently pick its leader?

Khalid Sheik Mohammed confesses to 9/11...

2007-03-15T09:31:00.000-05:00

...in a military tribunal court at Guantonamo Bay.

Here is a little of what he had to say (from the AP):

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed's confession was read by a member of the U.S. military who is serving as his personal representative.

The Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of the closed-door proceedings on Wednesday night. Some material was omitted, and it wasn't possible to immediately confirm details. The document refers to locations for which the United States and other nations have issued terrorism warnings based on what they deemed credible threats from 1993 to the present.

...In laying out his role in 31 attacks, his words drew al-Qaida closer to plots of the early 1990s than the group has previously been linked, including the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing in which six people died.

Six people with links to global terror networks were convicted in federal court and sentenced to life in prison for that attack.

Mohammed made clear that al-Qaida wanted to down a second trans-Atlantic aircraft during would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid's operation.

And he confessed to the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in a section of the statement that was excised from the public document, The Associated Press has learned. Pearl was abducted in January 2002 in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic militancy. Mohammed has long been a suspect in the slaying, which was captured on video.

And we are supposed to believe everything this man says after years of imprisonment and being held by the CIA? This admission means nothing, because A) introduced in a "court" that allows no press or independent observers B) he was held for three years in secret prisons by the CIA.

We must ask ourselves (especially the fuckin' press who never gets it) if we can really accept this admission considering the circumstances. We have no idea when it was given and under what conditions. For all we know this man just simply wants it to end and this is his way out. Confess to everything.

"Daniel Pearl, oh yeah that was me. You know that crazy guy who scared you shitless last week when you were flying? I secretly communicated with him to say his Islamic prayers to keep you in fear. I instructed him though not take out his bottle of "mouthwash" and blow up the plane though. That's for next time."

Bottomline: This whole process has no credibiity, not when it is a process that has been set up by the Bush Administration and not when this was in CIA secret prisons and all of this with the knowledge of what we know now. It is what Americans who have opposed Bush for years now have been saying. We have a crisis of confidence.

A Creation in His Own Image: Ths U.S. Justice Department

2007-03-13T08:30:00.000-05:00

President Bush is unfortunately a transformative figure, in the worst corrupt and villianous way. From Supreme Court to foreign policy to democracy to justice. The latest breaking news is that the White House IS deeply involved with the firing of 8 federal prosecutors, released because of "performance issues". Though Dems are fuckin' up when it comes to stopping our bloody world messes, they at least know a good Washington scandal when they smell one.

This has all the makings of classic corruption. Releasing prosecutors who serve at the pleasure of the president, moves to replace them with cronies who will do White House bidding to attack opposition party across the country, it has it all. One can only imagine that in the 5 years previous to this, that we would never get a full public airing of the issues around this case.

The Administration acts like this is business as usual for presidential politics. Sure it is, when you're a corrupt and dictatorial leader whose version of justice is whatever consolidates your ever-growing power. Here's the truly disturbing item that is included in today's NYT:

In early 2005, Harriet E. Miers, then the White House legal counsel, asked a Justice Department official whether it would be feasible to replace all United States attorneys when their four-year terms expired, according to the Justice Department. The proposal came as the administration was considering which political appointees to replace in the second term, Ms. Perino said.

Ms. Miers sent her query to D. Kyle Sampson, a top aide to Mr. Gonzales, the Justice officials said. Mr. Sampson, who resigned Monday, replied that filling so many jobs at once would overtax the department. He suggested replacing a smaller group, according to e-mail messages and other memorandums compiled by the Justice Department.

Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, also had rejected the idea of replacing all the prosecutors, Ms. Perino said. But as Ms. Miers worked with Mr. Sampson on devising a list of attorneys to oust, Mr. Rove relayed to her complaints he had received that the Justice Department was not moving aggressively on voter fraud cases.

(Emphasis mine)

They wanted to replace every federal prosecutor with a subservient sycophant hack who will protect the president and do his bidding. This amounts to political thuggery, putting your people in every corridor of justice and corrput it with its vile stench.

Friends and reasoned opponents, we face the most legitimate threat to our country's unity and the sovereignty of its citizens than since the days when brothers took up arms against one another.

Is it enough to simply understand the facts? We must take the action we must to give our cowardly members of Congress some ounce of courage. Something they will not lack when they understand that they stand not alone. And they will find it deep within themselves to speak to this vicious power lest they be implicit in this corruption.

Dems are weak... not on war but resisting it.

2007-03-12T20:22:00.000-05:00

In the face of Intimidation, Democrats wilt

If you want the weakness narrative to continue, repeatedly do this. Over and Over again, how many more times will Democrats betray America's trust?

Top House Democrats retreated Monday from an attempt to limit President Bush's authority for taking military action against Iran as the leadership concentrated on a looming confrontation with the White House over the Iraq war.

Officials said Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the leadership had decided to strip from a major military spending bill a requirement for Bush to gain approval from Congress before moving against Iran.

Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy.

The developments occurred as Democrats pointed toward an initial test vote in the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday on the overall bill, which would require the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2008, if not earlier. The measure provides nearly $100 billion to pay for fighting in two wars, and includes more money than the president requested for operations in Afghanistan and what Democrats called training and equipment shortages.

The White House has issued a veto threat against the bill, and Vice President Dick Cheney attacked its supporters in a speech, declaring they "are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out."

Americans voted Democrats in to check Bush and now they renege on their trust. I can only think of Bush leaving religious conservatives behind after '04 as the worst political betrayal, but then again he got them closer to a Supreme Court than Dems appear willing to do with Iraq and the Middle East. Their failures are coming through on many points like minimum wage.

It is hard to contain the sweeping rage to see fear and weakness motivate our actions. America will soon feel the same way.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement that America was less safe today because of the war. The president "must change course, and it's time for the Senate to demand he do it," he added.

The Iran-related proposal stemmed from a desire to make sure Bush did not launch an attack without going to Congress for approval, but drew opposition from numerous members of the rank and file in a series of closed-door sessions last week.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in an interview there is widespread fear in Israel about Iran, which is believed to be seeking nuclear weapons and has expressed unremitting hostility about the Jewish state.

"It would take away perhaps the most important negotiating tool that the U.S. has when it comes to Iran," she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"I didn't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize it in a civilized way," said Rep. Gary Ackerman of New York.

Several officials said there was widespread opposition to the proposal at a closed-door meeting last week of conservative and moderate Democrats, who said they feared tying the hands of the administration when dealing with an unpredictable and potentially hostile regime in Tehran.

Friends, that truly is standing strong for the people of America... Oh wait, rather the people of America who have political money to finance re-election campaigns. WEAK.WEAK.WEAK.WEAK.WEAK.WEAK.PATHETIC.

The members of Congress are not morons, and we presume that they know more than us when we elect them to represent us at higher office.

BUT...

Iran is not irrational, understand that their motives this very moment and in the near future are for sel-preservation. They will not destroy themselves to destroy Israel, no matter how much they would like. This is much like America or the Soviet Union would've loved to destroy each other but understand that the costs are too great. We hold the threat of war over Iran, unstated or otherwise. They know that we do not need to say it is still an option, and we sure as hell don't need President Bush to make the decision to launch some overnight war. War is always an option, we don't Bush making this decision without Congress. Apparently, Congress doesn't feel the same way. These are fuckin' losers.

The Emperor lost the trust and credibility and so America attempted to keep him from making the same mistake twice and elected the opposition party to power in Congress. Apparently we have been failed.

A Call to Arms: Why Blog?

2007-03-12T15:25:00.000-05:00

It's a Beginning

This article, though from the NYT, gets an idea about the purpose and usefulness of blogging.

Instead of a journalist pontificating from afar about bloggers and their inferior roles they play in the media landscape, this article covers the coverage given to the Scooter Libby trial by Firedoglake, a superior liberal blog. I thought this got to the matter at hand: What the hell is blogging and what is it for?

Here's what a Mr. Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association says:

"My goal is to get judges to think of bloggers as citizen journalists who should get the same protections as other journalists get,"

This is where the future is my friends, straight back to the older days when you had a press, you had an opinion:

Even as they exploit the newest technologies, the Libby trial bloggers are a throwback to a journalistic style of decades ago, when many reporters made no pretense of political neutrality. Compared with the sober, neutral drudges of the establishment press, the bloggers are class clowns and crusaders, satirists and scolds.

What can I say? We look around us today and find the old names of newspapers, don't be surprised to find one call a Democrat or Republican. American or even European Press was rooted in partisanship. It was always a tool for informing you and yours. It is also a means of state-control. That is something we must fight with national media in Washington and in our own states.

As Firedoglake puts it:

Ms. Hamsher describes the blog as "a collective watering hole" where contributors with diverse expertise "scour every possible source for information and then pool their resources."

Blogging is not a substitute for journalism, but it is a tool to increase the information for readers and writers and get under the narrative of a established forms of media. Nothing can be more subversive. The rest stems from there.

Our Hero-in-Chief: Caption Contest

2007-03-12T08:43:00.000-05:00

Come, you know you have something clever to say...

Check this out: Democrats Prosecuted with Greater Vigor at Local Level

2007-03-09T15:25:00.000-05:00

Maybe Persecuted is a better word

Check out this study by Donald C. Shields and John F. Cragan, two retired political science professors, which made its way into Paul Krugman's column today in the NYT. Basic Premise, Bush's federal attorneys prosecute "corrupt" Dems at a tremendous rate compared to their political kinsmen. The Attorneys who got purged late last year (and whose story is finally making the headlines), they apparently weren't aggressive enough. The real story comes through.

The current Bush Republican Administration appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling.

There is not much to add. Everyone should definitely read the rest.

Ann Coulter and Canadian news media

2007-03-08T08:53:00.000-05:00

Ann Coulter gets caught on her bullshit... why did have to take a Canadian?

CPAC Conference

2007-03-07T09:15:00.000-05:00

The Perils of Working Backward

2007-03-05T18:57:00.000-05:00

Most of the people reading this blog will remember algebra, where you are given an equation and have to work backward in order to find the value of the variable(s). Unfortunately, there are too many people in politics today who seem to be working backward to try to find a reason to support candidates after already deciding who to support.

It seems like most of the people who are working backwards are doing so in their support of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) in the 2008 Presidential election. [Note: I have not yet decided who to support in the 2008 election because I am waiting to see whether or not former Vice President Al Gore gets in the election.] Virtually every Obama supporter I come into contact with seems to just make up the reasons for their support of Obama on the spot just so it seems like they have one. On one message board for Obama supporters, one person asked why Obama was the best candidate, and the reason given was something along the lines of "he will bring about POSTIVE change in America!!!!!" (emphasis in original). The original poster asked what that meant, and I don't think that he ever really got an answer. (On one occasion, I was told to Google Obama. While I am not too lazy to Google, I must admit that that was a pretty sad conclusion for supporting someone.) Is some vague example such as "positive change" the real reason why this poster decided to support Obama? Unfortunately, I feel that Senator Obama does nothing to help explain the substance of the reasons for his own campaign, other than a vague notion of "hope." (He has complained about the money in politics, but he has refused to accept all matching funds for the Presidential election in the hopes of raising as much money as possible; and at the 2006 West Virginia Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, he had time for the $1000 donors who contributed the legal limit to the WV Democratic Party to become members of the JFK Society, but none for those who volunteered for the event or paid $75 in tickets, a sharp increase from the $25 from two years earlier. He has no proposal for public funding of campaigns or campaign finance reform, so this surely can't be the reason.)

Another invariable question from Obama critics (Let it be known that I do not doubt Obama's potential or his political skills, I just doubt that he is the best candidate for President in 2008.) is the fact that Obama has very little experience. I have actually heard Obamamaniacs (I'm not really sure what Obama supporters are calling themselves) say that this is a good thing because that means that he doesn't have much of a record that will be open to scrutiny by his opponents. I'm sorry, but to me, things like that emphasize everything that is wrong with politics. If someone is really so insecure in his/her beliefs that they want someone who won't run on issues, I have to ask why anyone like that would be involved in politics in the first place. (This same question goes to anyone who uses "we won, you lost" as a rebuttal in every single political conversation.) People who complain about how vapid politics are can look to statements like that for the reason so many campaigns avoid substance. If you seriosuly think that a lack of experience is a good thing for the Presidency, then you are the one to blame if too many electoral contests sound like student council elections. [NOTE: Author of post was elected class representative to student council his senior year. Had he been elected earlier, he would have opted out of running for re-election due to frustration over the fact that student council basically has power to do nothing.]

Then, there is the other argument (sometimes given by the same people as above) by those who insist that Barack Obama does have sufficient experience on the basis of his six years in the Illinois State Senate (Obama first won election in 1996. He gave up his seat for a failed Congressional race in 2000, only to regain his State Senate seat in 2002.) as an example of Obama's experience in addition to his four years in the US Senate as of the 2008 elections. However, let's be honest. If it was anyone else who was floated as a possible Presidential candidate based on experience in the state legislature, would anyone else seriously consider that person? Case in point: Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer. I admire her greatly and I think that she has done a lot of good for Monongalia County and the State of West Virginia, and at the end of this term, she will have served in the West Virginia House of Delegates for 12 years, but I don't know of anyone who thinks that she should be President. That is because the State Legislature is a qualification for one of two things: legislature and state offices. It was perfectly logical for Barack Obama to cite his experience in the State Senate as a candidate for US Senate, but not for President. If he wants to get a chief executive job on the basis of his time in the state legislature, he should run for Governor of Illinois in 2010. There are Obama supporters (including Obama himself) who point to Abraham Lincoln's time in the Illinois State Legislature as proof that state legislative experience counts as experience towards a Presidential run, but I wouldn't use Abraham Lincoln's experience in the Legislature as something to brag about (If you have questions about this, look up a biography, not a hagiography, of Lincoln's time in the state legislature, and you will see why in his lifetime Lincoln the statesman ran hard from Lincoln the legislator.) if I was trying to present someone as a serious Presidential candidate.

Then, there is the argument that Barack Obama is a proven winner based on the 72% that he received in his Senate race against Alan Keyes in 2004. I have not yet turned 30 so I am ineligble for a Senate bid, but if I were running for Congress and Alan Keyes were the Republican nominee, I would thank God daily for my good fortune. Do you really think that Alan Keyes is a challenging candidate? The man who called Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist"? The man who criticized Hillary Clinton for moving to New York for a Senate seat as a "violation of the principles of federalism" only to move from Maryland to run for Senate four years later? The man who insisted that Barack Obama didn't know anything about the African American experience because he was not a descendant of slaves? The man whose MSNBC show lasted just a month longer than that of Michael Weiner-Savage?

Barack Obama has only had one serious race in his lifetime, and that was the 2000 Democratic Congressional primary against former Black Panther and sitting Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL), who criticized Obama for living in Hyde Park, a cushy neighborhood in South Chicago, and his affiliation with the University of Chicago, which is in the southern part of the city by geography, but is seen as distant and removed from the community. Rush insisted that Obama wasn't really a part of the neighborhood so to speak, and Obama received 31% in the primary. Is that a proven winner?

I do not write this to criticize someone for the simple act of supporting Barack Obama, but I do think that it is fair to ask the reason for supporting Barack Obama. We are talking about the nominee for President of the United States, not student council president. If you have not yet decided who you support for President, take an honest look at what you want in a President and then base your choice on that (and don't say "charisma," because that is just reinforcing the vapid personality contest elections have become). But whatever you do, don't work backwards to find your candidate. You owe yourself, your party and your country more than that.

Obama doing some good things, some bad...

2007-03-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

He's Just Not There Yet (If "There" is indeed where he is headed...)

Barack Obama sometimes shows that he gets it (that is, the continuing crass cycles of national politics), sometimes, his real inexperience shows. I must say it is inexperience because he has shown little in policy outcome. Reading his remarks or watching him speak, I can see an idealistic change the system premise, but it becomes muddled as he uses consultant, feel-good language or over-used Bush Admin. approved Washington dialogue (explained further on in this post.)

It is still unclear whether or not Obama is what so many claim him to be. He has had a few moments of freshness and frankness, but far more moments of recycled comments and phrases that Washington pollsters seem to think Americans want to hear on specific issues.

It is certain that activists see him as new and definitely are projecting their hopes and dreams for a new, better, and functioning democratic (small and big D- democratic)system.

Recently, Obama blamed Bush for the state of Mideast diplomacy in the Middle East, but more credits this administration the ascension of Iran in this dangerous game.
But let's look in brief at Obama'scomments::

Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday blamed Bush Administration failings in Iraq for strengthening the strategic position of Iran, which he says must be stopped from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Illinois senator said that means "direct engagement" with Iran similar to the meetings with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

It is a bit obvious for even casual international observers to to realize hardline politics is almost self-fulfilling when it comes to diplomacy. If one takes the "hardline" with another country and uses every possible policy to further threaten the existence of another state, that state will no doubt have to repsond to save itself from internally collapsing. (And this is where a conservatives inserts the Reagan argument. Forget it friend, Reagan dropped the hardline and talked to Gorbachev.)

But then Obama goes and says this, sounding just like Bush (and every other fool who feels the need to appease certain lobbies with whom they speak):

"While we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons," Obama said.

Wow! That will do wonders to speed up any compromises. If Obama wants America to move on past to the current stolid and static state of Washington affairs, then he's got dump this type of talk. What do I mean, you ask? First off, it is a given that America and/or Iran hold the right to engage in conflcit when the leaders of these countries feel that it will protect the existence of their regimes or enhance their strength. That is given. We never rule this out. Americans get it, start acting like it, you'll win over alot more voters. Second Obama would benefit to stand in front of a popular lobby and tell them that Israel doesn't deserve blank checks in "defending" itself. We guarantee its protection, but we don't do its bidding, simply put. It is not a total change in policy, just gives us the flexibility that Bush and so many Washington politicians claim to want in war and peace. A "Sista Souljah" moment anyone?

Bottomline: More of this

Now, keep in mind, this is the same guy that said we'd be greeted as liberators, the same guy that said that we're in the last throes. I'm sure he forecast sun today," Obama said to laughter from supporters holding campaign signs over their heads to keep dry. "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."

Ridicule these terrible people, attack them. (I couldn't imagine a better way to see Bush or Cheney lose their cool from being belittled), but don't talk their Republican language. If you change the words, you change the debate, and then you it becomes possible for change.

U.S. facing recession? Last thing this country needs...

2007-02-27T11:57:00.000-05:00

Politically though, this would end Bush. Why is there now speculation that the U.S. will finally have to pay the price of incompetentcy from our president? Alan Greenspan raised alarm this past week that the U.S. might see a recession at the end of the year.
What was his reasoning?

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Monday that the economy may fall into recession by the end of 2007, according to a published report.
Greenspan told a business conference that it's difficult to forecast the timing of recessions but that it was "possible" that one could occur later this year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The former Fed chief, who spoke to the conference by satellite link, said the U.S. economy has been growing since 2001 and that the economy cycle is nearing an end, according to the newspaper.

"When you get this far away from a recession, invariably forces build up for the next recession, and indeed we are beginning to see that sign, for example in the U.S., profit margins ... have begun to stabilize, which is an early sign we are in the later stages of a cycle," the Journal reported him as saying.

Well, Shite! But not to fear, Greenspan also assessed that our economy is resilient than before.

So Here IT Comes

From the AP we learn that today China is facing a big cool down in its economy.
Today China's stock exchange took a nine percent plunge and now Wall Street is feeling it.

Wall Street fell sharply Tuesday, joining a global stock decline sparked by growing concerns that the U.S. and Chinese economies are cooling and that U.S. stocks are about to embark on a major correction. The Dow Jones industrials dropped more than 140 points.

A 9 percent slide in Chinese stocks earlier set the tone for U.S. trading, a day after investors sent Shanghai's benchmark index to a record high close.

"Corrections usually happen because of a catalyst, and this may be it," said Ed Peters, chief investment officer at PanAgora Asset Management. "The move in China was a surprise, and when a major market has a shock it ripples through the rest of the market. With all the trade that goes on with China, there tends to be a knee-jerk reaction with that kind of drop."

So let's not get too panicked. But the trend will be troubling when we have a Vice President who in Australia on a diplomatic mission had this to say about China: "China's continued fast-paced military buildup are less constructive and are not consistent with China's stated goal of a peaceful rise."

Of course What Cheney considers diplomacy is closer to a bear telling a bunny to stop moving while he has his paws on its throat.

Greenspan doesn't seem to be too concerned from an economic standpoint about the coming recession because we have such a robust and "resilient" economy. But when we consider a couple of issues (check it out here and here)which this president, unlike the rest of America, has completely ignored, things could pretty hairy, especially when we want to talk smack to China.

Let's look further: 1. Dollar not doing so well from Asia Times:

Growing political instability in the US will weigh heavily on the dollar during 2007. This weight, combined with growing political pressure for dollar devaluation and a slew of negative economic factors, is likely to prompt significant dollar depreciation against most other currencies. The dollar's decline will help send asset values in the US sharply lower and precious metals prices soaring.

Needless to say, economists can often live in theoretical worlds that don't necessarily reflect the realities of the world and life (not to say political ideology doesn't either, libertarians or communists!)Politics and environment, etc. affect the economy. Not numbers, which is why our economy does look much better than many Americans feel that it is. If our economy was truly resilient, the whole country could be feeling it, not the rich elites who are running the damn country for their own benefit.
Read the whole article. It is where things are headed. If so, that means Bush is doomed, and we are not far behind. Democrats on the other hand might enjoy political benefits because of Republic Party incompetence.

Second reason we should worry about coming recession and any racheting tensions in the global marketplace: U.S. in debt.

There are some strange facts about the asset and trade positions of the US economy in the globalizing economy. The United States runs massive and growing trade deficits, is borrowing at a clip that would arouse the suspicions of a casino pit boss, and has been selling its assets to anyone who will buy. In the past 24 months, the US balance on goods and services comes in just shy of negative-$1.5 trillion. Across the same period, the US has sunk further into debt to the rest of the world.

For 2006, exports of US$1.4378 trillion and imports of $2.2014 trillion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $763.6 billion,
$46.9 billion more than the 2005 deficit of $716.7 billion. For goods, exports were $1.0237 trillion and imports were $1.8598 trillion, resulting in a goods deficit of $836.1 billion, $53.3 billion more than the 2005 deficit of $782.7 billion.

Who owns most this debt? China... Hold on for the rollercoaster.

Update: Wow, I scooped AP.

Transofmation: The Stakes of the '08 Election...

2007-02-22T16:43:00.000-05:00

Some leaders seem to understand the problems of Bush and how much he has missed opportunity to be a great leader (though I would be hard pressed to even consider he had that potential). Check out this article from the AP.

So everyone is catching on to the crucial times in our country's history. It's too bad that no one seemed to realize this when the media nitpicked VP Gore to death in his campaign. But nonetheless we have the what's left. I think anyone who would erase the stain of the Bush and Republican Congress for the last 6 years would be quite a transformation. But let's hear what the candidates themselves describe their transformative leadership:

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama announced he was running for president by declaring, "I want to transform this country."

Republican Mitt Romney launched his candidacy by telling people, "If there ever was a time when innovation and transformation were needed in government, it is now."

And Democrat John Edwards revved up his second presidential bid by offering "transformational change that will strengthen this country," as he phrased it in a recent Associated Press interview.

Well, thanks for AP not really getting into what all these candidates mean by this, but hey not expecting much. It is just heartening to me to see some our presidential
candidates understand the crucial decisions for our country need to be made. It remains to be seen that this idea that we call "centrism" is somehow inherently a virtue. The whole concept of centrism and moderation means little or nothing can be accomplished because the interests involved in making the decision will be diluted and completely ineffective. And then both sides will scramble to attack for another marginally victory, which pretty much explains the last 20 or so years. The biggest problem with Clinton this election cycle aiming to be "centrist" or moderate is that to make necessary changes, she needs to plan to have a willing and enthusiastic Democratic Majority when she comes to office and in fact should expect it. A Republican presidential candidate should want a Republican majority. Though as it now, that is slim, and Mitt Romney is the only one talking about it, and he faces huge challenges to getting even his own nomination.

Point being- transformation means "moderates" or "centrists" or "independents" or whatever fucking name the media and the political bourgeois wants call them, move to one side and create the realignment necessary to take this country in a new direction. It is become obvious that the petty personal politics and crony capitalistic Republican domestic agenda and war-driven imperial foreign policy somehow just didn't stick like it did the last time Republicans cemented a majority around the turn of the last century. Maybe it is because the Democrats made Americans believe and expect more from their government when they came to power in the 30's or maybe the too many people voting... universal suffrage sure is a bitch.

Surely There Were Other Things That Happened This Weekend

2007-02-20T18:26:00.000-05:00

I woke up on Saturday morning and flipped through the channels, stopping on the news channels expecting to see some serious news, in part because of the impending second attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to get a cloture vote through the Senate to allow debate on the Iraq War. However, I was bombarded with stories about Britney Spears' new hairdo (or undo) that I guess the media thought was so much more important.

Then, I came home yesterday evening after running some errands and I turned it to MSNBC to catch the news. Sure enough, it merited attention on three of the four major shows on the network (The exception being Hardball with Chris Matthews.), with Tucker Carlson devoting several minutes to the story, and bringing on Dr. Keith Adlow (who, ironically, was also bald as a cueball) to talk about how this was a signal of a mental breakdown, Keith Olbermann at least waiting until the end of his show, where he usually dumps soft news, aka "stories my producers made me do" and Joe Scarborough taking up about half of his show, but maybe that was because he got an exclusive with the woman who owned the salon where Britney Spears shaved her head because the owner refused to do it. (btw, for some reason, every time I go to the barber, the barber cuts my hair much shorter than I ask, so why is it that this industry can't give people what they want?)

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but haven't there been far worse cries for help from Britney Spears over the last three years? Personally, I think this is tame compared to driving with her son on her lap down the freeway, but I could be wrong. Then again, I think she could have looked much worse without hair. Still, there were a lot of things that happened this weekend that really should have gotten the public's attention. For example, there was the vote on cloture this Saturday, which fell four votes short (although with the improved health of Senator Tim Johnson [D-SD] he may get to 57 soon) and the successful effort by House Democrats on Friday to pass a resolution condemning the escalation of the Iraq War.

Or, if politics isn't your cup of tea (although if it isn't, why are you here?), there is the profoundly shocking story of a man who was mummified because he died while watching TV and no one noticed him for a year, despite the fact that his TV was on the whole time, and his bills and mail were piling up in his mailbox. While this may not seem to be a very important story, it is certainly more important as a symbol of a lack of concern about the community that would allow someone to be dead for over a year without anyone seeming to care enough to check on him.

Comparing Wars

2007-02-19T15:20:00.000-05:00

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this yesterday from the President as he seems to justify his wars (or rather tarnishes the memories of any justifiable wars)through unbelievable analogies. I understand, he's not much into history or reading newspapers, or general intellectual things. So I guess when I read that the Revolutionary war was supposed reflect our current crisis in Iraq (and around the world), I am not completely surprised. But in fairness, let's hear the what the president has to say:

"Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life," said Bush, standing in front of Washington's home and above a mostly frozen Potomac River.

"And as we work to advance the cause of freedom around the world, we remember that the father of our country believed that the freedoms we secured in our revolution were not meant for Americans alone."

Wow! I never guessed when we were the "terrorists" fighting a Great Power (Britain) that we would still be the underdogs when we are the Great power fighting a ragtag bunch of Sunnis, Shiites and what have you.

What he is really saying from the very beginning, the American Imperial ideology of "universal" values has never changed... though you can always question whether those patriots who fought for an independent state against the large imperial power of Britain would have it wise to repeat the same mistakes as their adversaries from the Revolutionary War.

Here's a better analogy that somehow the President never uses.

A war based on inconclusive evidence of a nation's involvement in the destruction of an American vessel, and aided by journalists and big media magnates concerned for the well-being of a land's in habitants decide to go to war without to liberate them from their terrible oppresors, which in turn leads to an extensive occupation to fight "insurgents" with a force of around 125,000 troops, resulting the deaths around 4,000 American troops and between 250k and a million natives. That was called the Spanish-American War to liberate the Cubans and the subsequent American-Filipino war . A war purely based on manipulation, lies, greed and imperialism. It was also started President William McKinley, the same fuckin' Republican, Karl Rove wished to immulate with President Bush's administration.

As Mark Twain said in opposition to the mess in the Philipines (though one can argue the stakes were not as high for us internationally):

"We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now – why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation."

More Gore, please

2007-02-08T16:50:00.000-05:00

We're going to be hearing more and more of this so long as the media hyperventilates over Clinton/Obama:

Veterans of Al Gore's past are quietly assembling a campaign to draft the former vice president into the 2008 presidential race — despite his repeated statements that he's not running.

His top policy adviser from his 2000 presidential campaign and other key supporters met Thursday in Boston to mull a potential Gore campaign. The participants and Gore's Nashville office both said Gore, who is in London, is not involved.

Elaine Kamarck, a veteran of the Clinton White House and Gore's policy guru in 2000, said the meeting was informal and shouldn't be taken as a sign there will be a Gore 2008 campaign.

Chris Mackin, a Boston consultant and Gore supporter, called it "an early stage conversation." But he added: "We're very serious about exploring this."

This is where Democrats should be wathcing, not how high Hillary's poll numbers are after one or two trips to Iowa, one year out. After all- Gore's pull is potent. We all know it and his people are eager to get him back in it when he is no longer tainted with the Clinton years and a Republican Congress investigating every fucking stupid thing the Democrats do (re: Pelosi post.)

Firing lawyers: When it is actually bad...

2007-02-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

So the Bush Administration decided to clean house with the Justice Department forcing the resignation of many federal attorneys recently. Now the battle begins to make sure Bush isn't (as he has with the Federal Judiciary) stacking the department with prosecutors who are buddy-buddy with the Bush Administration. Here's what I mean (From AP today):

Senate Democratic leaders sent Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a letter Thursday asking him to publicly answer several questions about the matter, including any role that presidential adviser Karl Rove might have had in replacing Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins with former Rove adviser Tim Griffin.

Senate Democrats accuse the administration of slipping the provision into the Patriot Act reauthorization that took effect last March with the intent of circumventing the Senate confirmation process and rewarding political allies. Specter, who wrote the reauthorization as chairman of the committee, says he was unaware of the provision and opposes it.

The Democrats cite the firings since March of seven U.S. attorneys from Arkansas to California, some without cause, as evidence that the administration is punishing prosecutors whose work targeted Republican allies and rewarding those faithful to the GOP.

This is more than some partisan squabbling on the part of the Democrats. The Senate is being bypassed each day. It is relieving to see Democrats recognizing the importance of Congress's roll in the Government. Here are some details of the bill proposed by Sen. Feinstein (D-CA):

U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and may be dismissed for any reason, or no reason at all. It's the process of replacement that, the bill's proponents argue, should prevent political cronyism.

Sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., the measure would eliminate a provision in the antiterror Patriot Act that gave the attorney general new power to replace fired U.S. attorneys indefinitely, avoiding the Senate confirmation process.

Feinstein's bill would allow the attorney general to appoint an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. If after that time someone had not been nominated and confirmed by the Senate, authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney would fall to the district court.

The Administration and Republicans are opposed because someone else other than the President can choose the interim lawyers. Makes sense to oppose something so temporary as a 120-day appointment when you only have so many days left in power...

That's it, keep wasting your time...

2007-02-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

Back to the Good 'Ol Days? Check out the Republicans new time waster (in place of substantive criticisms or debate about Iraq or other pertinent issues...):

The White House on Thursday defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) against Republican criticism that her desire to fly in an Air Force transport plane is an extravagance.

"This is a silly story and I think it's been unfair to the speaker," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Republicans are taking issue with the size of the plane Pelosi would need to fly in to reach her hometown of San Francisco without refueling. There are three Air Force airplanes that have the fuel capacity to make the trip nonstop, with the largest being a C-32 plane, a military version of the Boeing 757-200.

That's it- keep it up boys, waste the President's time. It is a little different for ya when the president is on your side and your wasting his time. But keep these petty issues on the table please. America really wants to know how absurd you are and soon enough will realize how the Clinton years were wasted because of your fucking inanity.

Hmmmm... here's a critical thinking problem. An equation if you will: Bush disasters + Republican leadership with nothing to say = Democratic Majority for many many years.

Rep. Adam Putnam of Florida, the No. 3 Republican leader, called Pelosi's desire for a large transport plane "an extravagance of power that the taxpayers won't swallow."

Taking on extravagance in the name of the taxpayer. I am certain Americans believe you when you say that, when I look to the last 12 years of republican power.

Really, try harder.

Uniting for Universal Healthcare?

2007-02-08T09:07:00.000-05:00

Check out this odd grouping of organizations, unions and corporations(???!!!) who are coming together to support the notion of universal healthcare. From yesterday's NYT:

The meeting between H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart, and Andrew L. Stern, president of the S.E.I.U., which caps months of secret conversations, could be the beginning, however tentative, of a détente between the nation’s largest employer and its labor critics.

At least on one issue. But the issue — providing affordable health insurance — is arguably the biggest facing both Mr. Stern and Mr. Scott. Wal-Mart, which insures fewer than half its workers, has identified health care as potentially the biggest vulnerability to its image and business, and the S.E.I.U., one of the country’s biggest unions, has called it the No. 1 priority for its members.

So during today’s meeting, Mr. Stern and Mr. Scott will announce a campaign to seek public acceptance of several principles of health policy. One goal is universal health coverage by a specific date, somewhere around 2012. Another is the idea of shared responsibility, emphasizing that individuals, businesses and government all play roles in financing health care and expanding coverage.

This speaks large volumes about Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). A divisive figure in labor politics himself, he has moved beyond the traditional labor approaches, and is in charge of the fastest-growing labor union in the country. In the last twenty years, America has seen its labor movement whither and its political significance in national politics lessened. Call it Reaganomics, globalization, or post-industrialism, but nothing will reverse this trend in the near future and Mr. Stern has shown his eagerness to adapt and to re-invigorate labor's pull. It is impressive he is able to get Wal-Mart on board for this.

This leaves one last thing to be discussed: the dysfunctional Healthcare system in the U.S. and the inability of business, big or small to keep health insurance costs down, and why this is needed. To read this one almost doesn't believe what he is seeing is real. I mean how is that possible? But it is one of those moments in time when interests collide.

Harley Shaiken, a professor specializing in labor issues at the University of California, Berkeley, said the meeting represented “a combination of pragmatism, idealism and desperation on the part of Wal-Mart and S.E.I.U; health care has become a devastating issue for both."

Wal-Mart stands to gain tremendously if it has the burden shifted off its back for healthcare, and all the while, looking concerned for the average person. From a PR standpoint, it is a winner. AT&T and Intel are among some of the other corporations joining in support of this movement. With corporate interests backing a plan of such magnitude, I wonder how long really will it take to overpower the insurance industry.

Look to the Votes: "Moderate" Republicans and the Iraq War

2007-02-07T13:25:00.000-05:00

There are few things in politics and in life that bother me more than hypocrisy. Ever since the speech by President Bush announcing the escalation of the Iraq War, there has been much gnashing of teeth by Congressional Republicans. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), while protesting those of his own party who opposed any effort for an anti-war resolution, said the follwing in response to the Biden-Hagel resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

I think all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this. What do you believe? What are you willing to support? What do you think? Why were you elected? If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes.

Senator John Warner (R-VA), joined with Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) in the Senate Armed Services Committee to draft a milder rebuke to the escalation of the war. Eventually, a deal was struck and the Warner-Levin resolution was agreed to and the Biden-Hagel resolution was dropped in an effort to find one resolution for Democrats to unite around. On Monday, there was a vote for cloture, to allow the Warner-Levin resolution to go forward, with much strong language by many involved on the war and on the need for a vote. So, how would you think Senators Warner and Hagel voted? If you think they voted to move a resolution they sponsored forward when "everyone should be counted," think again. Here is the way they voted on the cloture vote.

In other words, the only Republicans who were willing to have a vote on the resolution were Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Norm Coleman (R-MN). The only "Democrat" who voted against cloutre initially was Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) changing his vote to reserve the right to reintroduce a cloture vote. (Senate rules state that any member who voted against cloture can reintroduce cloture at a later date, so it is customary for the Senate Majority Leader to change a vote on cloture when it is obvious that it will fail when the leader wants to have a do-over.) A colture vote required a 3/5 majority to pass, and the final vote was 49-47 with Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Mel Martinez (R-FL) and John McCain (R-AZ) not voting, meaning that the final vote was ten short (nine including Reid's initial vote)of the 59 needed to pass. (It is 60 when all Senators are present.)

While Senator Coleman is a newcomer as a "moderate," he knows that he is in a very vulnerable place as he faces re-election last year, with GOP "dream candidate" former Congressman Mark Kennedy (R-MN) losing to then-Hannepin County Prosecutor Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) by 20 points and he knew that the vote would fail. This seems to be the only time that GOP "moderates" buck the party. The last instance that I can remember where a vote by "moderates" a Congressional Republican went against the leadership was Campaign Finance Reform in 2002, and the only other time that it meant anything in the Bush years was the vote by then-Senators Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) and Jim Jeffords (I-VT) to reduce the amount of the Bush tax cut, with the aftermath leading to Jeffords' defection from the Republican Party.

This is something that happens a lot of the time. There are Republicans in Congress in districts that are Democratic-leaning who will say that they are moderate and point out the times that they made "courageous" stands against the Republican leadership, but none of these times are actually brave, because the vote has already been decided. As Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) said about "moderate" Congressional Republicans, "There is no such thing as a moderate Republican in Congress. They say that they only voted with Tom DeLay 70 percent of the time, but they vote with him 100 percent of the time when he needs their votes." It looks like Senators Warner and Levin are doing the same thing. They are introducing resolutions critical of President Bush, but when push comes to shove, they tow the party line just like the rest of them. Of course, the initial press coverage is there for their "opposition" to the war, but not so much for their vote against their own resolution. However, there have been some on MSNBC who have called them on this blatant hypocrisy. Are we seeing a new dawn? If so, let's take Senator Hagel at his word. He said that if you don't want to go on the record, you should go sell shoes. Well, he is up for re-election this year, so let's do what we can to help him chart that course.

In a related note, why do people say that Sentor McCain is genuine in his war posturing but Senator Clinton is not. It is ludicrous to suggest that one is being calculated and the other is not. Senator McCain knows that he is painted himself into a corner politically and that he has to go forward and keep saying that everything in Iraq would be solved with more troops. He has been suggesting this for years, and he is now stuck there. He knows that he has to be a hawk or else lose credibility, so we need to stand up and say that he is, in the immortal words of Black Sabbath, "Treating people just like pawns chess/They only started the war" just as much as every other hawk on Iraq.

From Smoke-filled Rooms to Glitzy Dinners

2007-02-02T13:12:00.000-05:00

In the wake of Watergate and the downfall of the Nixon Presidency, helped in part by a 27-year-old lawyer who was one of the members of the Majority Counsel, laws were passed for a Presidential Matching Fund and limits to campaign contributions in an effort to limit the power of wealthy powerbrokers and make it easier for unknown candidates to get a hearing at the Presidential level. The deal was simple: campaigns contributions were capped at $1000 for the primary and general election seasons. For Presidential elections, a candidate would receive matching funds for contributions of up to $250 in exchange for hard caps on spending and foregoing campaign contributions in the general elections, which would be equal for the two major parties, and distributed to third-party candidates if their party received at least 5% of the popular vote the preceeding general election on a sliding scale, with full parity at 25%. However, according to this Washington Post article (free registration required), that young lawyer, who is now the junior Senator from New York, has dealt what may very well be the final crippling blow to the Presidential Matching Fund, by refusing any and all federal funds for her Presidential campaign, in the hopes that she can raise more money than the strict limits of the Presidential Matching Fund allow.

Of course, one could very easily point to charges of hypocrisy for Senator Hillary Clinton, but Mr. Campaign Finance Reform himself, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), is also preparing to forego the Presidential Matching Fund for the primary, but the jury is still out for the general election, and nearly every top-tiered candidate is expected to forego the $50 million cap in the primary season. However, the danger of a ripple effect is obvious, as stated by the article:

Clinton's decision will put pressure on other candidates in both parties to follow suit, and if they do, the 2008 campaign will complete what has been the rapid disintegration of a system designed to rein in unlimited spending in presidential campaigns.

One effect is to put lesser-known candidates at a further disadvantage in competing with rivals who have the capacity to raise huge amounts of money.

"It's going to be a tremendous test of whether this system survives," Robert Lenhard, chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said of the pressure building on the existing system. Michael Toner, his predecessor, was less restrained. This election, he predicted, will be "basically the death" of public financing.

Sadly, this trend is nothing new. In the lead-up to the 2000 election, then-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX) realized that it was possible to exceed the then-$45 million cap with the bundling of $1000 donations and he would be able to avoid the strict state-by-state caps imposed by the Presidential Matching Fund. Other candidates cried foul, but lost the nomination. However, both then-Governor Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore accepted the funds for the general election. In 2004, bolstered by McCain-Feingold's increase of the donation cap to $2000 with adjustments made every two years by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), President Bush repeated his 2004 strategy, but this time he was joined by former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) in foregoing Presidential Matching Funds for the primary season, with both major party nominees shattering George W. Bush's 2000 fundraising record. However, with Senator Clinton announcing her intention to forego all public financing, the system may have reached its breaking point, with pressure ratcheting up on the Republican nominee to forego the funds as well if Senator Clinton wins the nomination.

This will be nothing short of a disaster, with the very real possibility of a Presidential campaign raising and spending over $1 billion in the not-too-distant future if this process continues unabated. However, we can and must stop this process now and prevent the Presidential Matching Fund from becoming a ghetto for less-financed candidates. Maine and Arizona show us how this can be done with their Clean Campaign Laws. In exchange for foregoing all private and personal fundraising, a candidate agrees to raise a fixed number of $5 contributions to be contributed to the Clean Campaign Fund. When that number is received, the candidate receives a check for a fixed amount, with certain stricter enforcement of disclosure laws for a candidate who opts out of public funds. For example, if a candidate's contributions exceeds the amount given to Clean Campaign candidates, that candidate is required to report all contributions within 24 hours, and every candidate who opted in and qualifies receives a matching contribution. In the 2002 Arizona gubernatorial race, Janet Napolitano (D) qualified and her opponent raised far beyond the public funds, giving her an equal amount of millions. Republicans complained, but to no avail as it was determined that no one has a Constiutional right to outspend his or her opponent by a 5:1 ratio, and Napolitano won. In the 2006 Maine gubernatorial election, Governor John Balducci (D) opted out of the Clean Campaign Fund, but didn't raise over $404,000 for fear of the matching funds that his opponents would have received.

If this model is followed, will have a situation where more and more candidates opt in to the system, rather than our current system where more candidates opt out every cycle. I would be willing to wager that most Presidential candidates would gladly forego the endless campaign fundraisers if all they had to do was receive, say 200,000 $5 donations and be guaranteed equal funding to every candidate in the field. Not only that, but that would make candidates spend more time talking to everyday people instead of those who can write $2300 checks. By doing so, we will no longer have a situation where the interests of the wealthy few outweigh the needs and interests of the people, and most candidates will avoid making personal attacks and we will have an election that hinges on the issues rather than personalities and endless discussions of the horserace.

Unfortunately, there are some who are well-intentioned who may very well take us down the same road as the current Presidential Matching Fund here in West Virginia. A coalition met yesterday for Public Financing Day at the State Legislature, but their plan as currently proposed has huge flaws. For example, all donations must be received from inside the district. This may not seem like a difficult hurdle to clear, but with many districts being single-member House of Delegates districts that are part of one county, and a lot of the political activists in different portions of the county, it would be very difficult for a candidate to receive the 100 donations needed to qualify for the funds. Considering that candidates who opt out can raise money from anywhere in the US, I see no reason why Clean Campaign candidates shouldn't be allowed to receive the contributions statewide. (The proposal increases the number of required contributions by 25 for each member in the Delegate District.) Then, there is the more serious problem, for a single-member district, the fund is $7500, with matching funds for opponent's spending up to triple the initial amount. In other words, if someone can raise over $22,500, they will be able to do so to the detriment of their Clean Campaign funded opponent. (The initial funds increases by $2500 per member in the district, with the cap increasing by $7500.) If we make those simple changes to the proposal, we can have a system that makes local elections fairer and will allow more people a chance to get involved in the political process. If this bill goes through unamended, we will have the very real danger of repeating the same mistakes of the Presidential Matching Fund.

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce."-- Molly Ivins (1944-2007). This post is dedicated to her memory.

Update: Here is the proposed law . -Amos

Update: Senator Obama and former Senator Edwards have also decided to forego public financing for the primary and general elections. Information can be found here. -Albert

Domestic tensions in Iran

2007-01-29T19:06:00.000-05:00

So if there is any good news to come out of Iran these days for the United States government, this might be it:

Iran's beleaguered president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is facing a powerful challenge from his fiercest political rival for control of the country's nuclear and economic policies.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative defeated by Mr Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election, believes Iran may have to yield to western demands to suspend uranium enrichment to save the country's Islamic system from collapse.
He is trying to persuade the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in state matters, that further negotiations are essential to avoid a potentially disastrous conflict with the US or Israel.

It seems really hard for most Americans to understand that leaders of other countries have to bow to domestic influences, especially when we want to do something our way. (We have almost forgotten what this must be like in our own country, seeing as Bush has been the closest thing to a monarch we have ever had...) But in Iran, no matter how often our right-wing opponents want to claim otherwise, Iranian President Ahmadinejad still must contend with the political forces within his country which could slow confrontation on his end (though it appears that Bush is definitely pushing it in December with his party losing greatly in local elections, many analysts consider this a rebuke to Ahmedinejad's heavy focus on Sabre-rattling rather than economics:

The vote is being seen as a sign of public discontent with Ahmadinejad's constant fights with the West, which have led Iran closer to UN sanctions. His anti-Israel rhetoric and unbending stand on the nuclear programme are believed to have divided Iranians who voted him into power in 2005.

Some conservatives feel Ahmadinejad has spent too much time confronting the US and its allies and failed to deal with Iran's struggling economy. The voting also represented a partial comeback for reformists, who favour closer ties with the West and further loosening of social and political restrictions under the Islamic government. Leading reformist Saeed Shariati said the results of the election was a "big no" to Ahmadinejad and his allies.

In the meantime, the election also installed a major rival within the Council of Experts (which selects the Ayatullah.) Rafsanjani is the main candidate who lost in '05 to Ahmedinejad and also his biggest rival.

Who's this Rafsnajani, and how is he using his newfound position to undermine Ahmedinejad?

Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative defeated by Mr Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election, believes Iran may have to yield to western demands to suspend uranium enrichment to save the country's Islamic system from collapse.
He is trying to persuade the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in state matters, that further negotiations are essential to avoid a potentially disastrous conflict with the US or Israel.
Mr Rafsanjani, a former president and pillar of Iran's political establishment, disagrees and is understood to have formed a committee overseeing the nuclear negotiations. The committee will assess whether the country's international standing has been damaged by Mr Ahmadinejad's radical statements.

What does he have to say for himself?

"Before the sanctions, Rafsanjani hoped Iran could obtain its enrichment objectives through mutual understanding with the west. But now he thinks we have reached a dangerous point and that a step should be taken backwards in the hope that two forward can be taken later,"

Some of our more unenlightened friends might find it interesting to think that even in Iran, some are seeking moderation.

Of course, in Iran, one must wonder if U.S. intimidation is getting to them... In any case it is more likely that some people would rather see something resolved peacefully for once. Problem is America has an ass for a President who will not talk to Iran... at all.

It is certainly interesting and a good thing that we see that both leaders, eager for conflict, quick to confrontation, and both seen by almost every international observer as seeking to increase international tensions rather than seeking to decrease them, both find themselves facing forms of public discontent. The only problem is that both rebukes, in the U.S. and in Iran will most likely have little signifcance in policy changes during the next two years.

Update: Check out this Washington Post Article going over Iran's increasing influence in the region. It places the Bush Administration's biggest mistakes in bold fucking print. It really is no surprise that with mistake of the U.S. invasion of a rival of Iran's and the subsequent atrocities, the continuation of violence against normal Palestinians, and Israel's incursion into Lebanon, that America and Israel has only made Iran's ascent unavoidable. For the average person in the Middle East this is so many attacks on your people and your culture... There is only so much you are willing to take. The region will look for a leader to stand up to the U.S., it allies and Status Quo. It is quite obvious who seeks this role. It is not a role without precedent in the region.

I-deology of Winning

2007-01-25T14:18:00.000-05:00

Another year has passed and we witnessed again our president trivialize the institutions of the presidency with another meaningless State of the Union speech which contained nary a bold policy to change this country for the better. In foreign policy the dramatic shift was made years ago in 2002, and now it nears fruition as the President intensified his rhetoric towards Iran. But somethig else loomed in his speech when the discussion turned towards his thoughts on escalating America's military prescence in Iraq.

It is something a casual listener of the news will also hear from conservatives, pundits, and other media types. It is an idea that has little relation to the truth, or what is the right path in foreign affairs, yet it fuels America's current decision-making process.

Let's flash back four years ago, to the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. Half the case for attacking was that America would triumphantly prevail. It was the underlying fact that allowed Americans the convenience of ignoring the merits and ignoble justifications for war. The early boasts of our leaders were widely accepted as true and now our political elites hide their embarassment by demanding they be allowed to increase our committment in this war that is not ours to win. It really was not ours to win, it is history, it is culture, it is animosity bore out of our support for brutality of one man during one period of time, and then our change of heart.

This tragedy that is Iraq is America's fault, but tragedy is never described by its winners and losers, but solely by the depth of its horror and sorrow. In our national debate its only mention today is that it will be worse if we do not WIN. It appears now, that in the media, to our political elites, and to our president and his ilk, that our only moral failure in Iraq is that it is not a definitive victory. The howling criticism from so many political elites, cried that we were sold a fake victory. So now our president, pleads to allow him another chance to win it all. A win will undo all the evil we have seen.

It is this mantra, "We must win." or rather "We will win." It enables our failure, furthers our country's descent into tyranny, continues the incoherence of thought among our highest decision-makers. We simply must not lose, even if there is nothing here to win or lose. In American politics we are obsessed with the word and it destroys the fabric of our republic. A win in Iraq will not end any conflict. At best a win will slow the conflict, pacify the tensions for period of time so that America can have its "win". But it will never soothe the hatred, undo the devastation, or heal the wounds wrought by our invasion.

But this thinking is easily perpetuated in our culture. In America winning is an ideology in itself. It cuts across party lines, religious belief. Americans are always bent on winning. We are trained from the beginning of our lives that winning is our proof of self-worth. Many Americans proclaim moderation in political thought because it is a winner. It is thought worthy and virtuous to be in the middle because it wins and because to far to one side or another loses. But the only thing that is worthy is the truth. And the truth is that moderation of politics has no inherent worth when both sides are wrong. It is in America today a virtue to be in the middle of what is wrong.

The leadership of the Democratic Party is so high off winning that it merely bases the merit of its candidates on their ability to win. Hillary Clinton is the ultimate believer in this gospel of winning. Her defining statement of her candidacy was that she was "in it to win it." How embarassing to see our candidate be solely motivated to explain her campaign to her supporters that she is merely there to win. It is obvious statement demonstrated by the act of declaring. This stand alone statement shows the inherent lack of her worthiness to be president. Yet it is something the media did not criticize or lambast for it ridiculousness, because they perpetuate this game that is to be "won."

Our media apparently lacks the ability to think critically or deductively. It merely induces that by winning, something is true. If your idea or your wishes are not winners, be it the electoral box, in the marketplace or otherwise, then whatever fact you have said, or whatever proof you might present, whatever truth you might encounter, it is not real. Throughout American history, one sees examples where winning decides the truth.

But really, isn't that history? It is a series of interpretations by the winners of conflicts and competitions? America is only addicted to its sweet poison so long as it wins. It is one that many civilizations have sipped throughout our known human existence, and its bitter aftertaste always leaves tragic consequence.

Winning is the ideology of America and its inhabitants. Our chattering and political classes look to winning as the moral guidance of our country's decisions, it shows the probity of policy. And that sad fact is what drives this nation and this world into greater tragedy.

Cognitive Dissonance: When Talking Points No Longer Match Reality

2007-01-23T18:15:00.000-05:00

There are many times when I find myself in a conversation with Republicans and invariably I am amazed by how the rhetoric that they use is in no way, shape or form connected to the things that they actually believe. I will now look at some of the major ones and how they prove that, in order to be a a movement conservative, you have to abandon all intellectual honesty.

We are the party of smaller government. This is the one that I hear the most. Probably the funniest example of this was when Rep. Tom Tancredo, the anti-immigration zealot from Colorado (Never mind the fact that his grandparents came to this country from Italy.) was complaining about the lack of "limited government conservatives" who want "to keep government off the people's back" such as himself in the 2008 Presidential field. When your one issue is trying to keep all of those nasty furriners out of America, isn't that the definition of using the government to get on the backs of millions of people?

But, no, this was not enough. Congressman Tancredo then went on to explain that small-government conservatives want to "protect unborn life" and make sure marriage is recognized by the government as "a sacred institution for one man and woman." Can someone please explain to me how this can be small or limited government? If you want to talk spending, under George W. Bush and the Republican Congress, spending increased by a higher percentage in six years than in all eight years of the Clinton Adminstration, with or without defense spending as a factor.

We are the party of fiscal responsibility. This one is easily rebutted. The last time a Republican President balanced the budget (and the only time since World War II) was Eisenhower in 1958. Since World War II, Democrats have accomplished this feat eight times (three under Truman, one under Johnson and four under Clinton), this despite having 28 years in the White House compared to 34 for the GOP.

We support the troops. As a veteran, this is one that highly offends me. In 2003, there was a vote on the House floor to provide a $1500 bonus to every veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo as part of a war appropriations bill. The amendment was killed 213-213, without a single Democrat voting against us. One of those who cast this despicable vote was Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who then had the gall to write letters a few weeks later talking about all of the good things that she was doing for our troops and for national security. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

We are spreading democracy and freedom. You don't hear this one as much lately, but a couple of years ago this one was highly in vogue. On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart even ran a counter to show the number of times President Bush uttered the words "freedom" and "democracy" in his 2005 inaugural. However, you can't say that your goal is to spread democracy all across the world while supporting Realpolitik when economic and military interests are at stake, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This goes back to 1953 when the CIA took out the democractically-elected Mossadeq government in Iran after it nationalized Persian oil, on to removing democratically elected Marxists in the Congo in 1959 and Chile in 1973, to our present-day dealings in the Middle East, when groups that we don't like such as Hamas or individuals such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win elections. Democracy means accepting the choices of the people, not throwing a hissyfit when you lose.

Democrats are the angry party. If you think that the GOP has a point, mention Bill Clinton's name in a room full of Republicans and watch their faces and listen to the crazy conspiracy theories that are sure to follow.

We believe in the sanctity of marriage. This one is usually in terms of support for a Constitutional ban on gay marriage. However, if the Republican Party is so committed to "preserving" marriage, why don't they include a ban on divorce in their amendment? After all, Jesus had nothing to say about homosexuality, but he didn't like divorce. However, this belief in the sanctity of marriage had its limits for heterosexual couples as well. Even though Michael Schiavo was Terri Schiavo's next of kin and had legal standing as her husband, and the State of Florida repeatedly ruled that it was his decision (see "local government"), the Republican Congress insisted on taking the side of Terri Schiavo's parents.

We believe in a government that is closer to the people. They say this one because they know that the phrase "states' rights" brings up connotations of white Southerners using their "states' rights" to discriminate against and enslave black people. However, as soon as a state does something that the federal Republicans disagree with, such as Oregon's assisted suicide law, which was approved by the people of the state twice, they insist on using the federal government to override state laws.

What do we do with people who are so intellectually dishonest in their talking points? What I usually do is take those talking points head on. Usually, the Republican in question will deny the falsehood. (One time, someone even told me "Of course, Republicans believe in smaller government. How dare you say that?") However, there are times when you meet someone who is honest who will admit that their talking point is wrong. It is only when we let them know that we will not stand for this dishonesty that we can have an honest political discourse in America.

Bush to America: Unpopular war got you down? No problem! I've got an domestic agenda that you'll just love!

2007-01-22T21:17:00.000-05:00

Ever since the '06 elections confirmed that Americans are really tired of the Iraq war, (Why can't they understand we were attacked!) our beloved Messiah...I mean President Bush... has been trying to figure out what to do for two more years that will make people not hate him so. While trying to salvage his war through escalation...I mean..."surge", Bush has decided to focus on domestic issues.

From the AP:

The president is expected to address:
• Health care: Bush will propose a tax deduction of $7,500 for individuals and $15,000 for families regardless of whether they buy their own health insurance or receive medical coverage at work. Health care insurance would be considered taxable income, and people with more generous policies could face tax increases unless they change plans. The administration says its plan will help people who buy insurance individually rather than through their employers. The administration says the tax deductions will allow more Americans to buy insurance.

• Energy: Bush is expected to call for a sharp escalation of corn-based ethanol as a gasoline blend. He also may seek the power to raise fuel economy standards for passenger cars, probably as part of a plan to offer financial incentives for increasing alternative fuels. The auto industry has resisted upgraded mileage requirements and stressed a need for vehicles fueled by alternatives such as ethanol, diesel and eventually hydrogen. Bush asked for the same authority last year. Some Democrats worry the plan would give transportation officials overly broad authority to change the system and note the measure would not have any impact on current gas prices.

• Education: Bush will push for Congress to renew his education law, No Child Left Behind, which expires this year. Democrats have already signaled their intention to work with him but will expect him to go along with increases in spending. The law pushes schools that receive federal poverty aid to show yearly progress or face sanctions, including allowing students to transfer or demand extra tutoring.

Wow! I think these issues are going to cement the Bush legacy. All of these stands address some basic concerns of Americans, and do nothing to give in to the Communist...I mean Democrat party.

Let's review:

Health insurance a problem? Not anymore! We have a tax deduction for you. Never mind that Democratic talk that the system is in need of overhaul and healthcare industry is out of control. This tax deduction should be able to fix the problem.

Energy independence? Ha! Got that figured out. Ethanol has been around forever and we will just use it more. Let's not call on changing the way we live or force the auto industry to make better cars. Bush already said we are addicted to oil, this sounds like the solution. An energy source that takes more energy to produce than it creates. Yeah that's the ticket. Plus maybe people will forget that Bush called for a hydrogen car back in '03.

Education? Easy, just keep doing what we are doing. No Child Left Behind is working. Bush never really funded it and has basically reduced education to math and reading. That's all we need. People need to just know how to do math and read about what a great leader Bush has been. This policy really is working out.

Notice he isn't going to showcase his courageous stands on stem cell research, Social Security, or record deficits. No matter, he does have to leave a little room to defend his bold move to escalate...I mean utilize the "surge" option... in Iraq.

No president has ever gone without a little adversity. Looks like that is all we are facing right not. I have a good feeling about the State of the Union if I do say so myself.

Randolph Clark signing off... I'm off to join the ole boys for a good cigar and scotch before we shoot some farm raised quail tomorrow morning.

Theme Song

2007-01-09T21:54:00.000-05:00

Bush: Congressional spending is out of control. Yeah, and?

2007-01-03T16:10:00.000-05:00

This is too funny:

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday he'll submit a proposal to balance the budget in five years and exhorted Congress to "end the dead of night process" of quietly tucking expensive pet projects into spending bills.

Wow, Bush takes an overwhelmingly popular position. Something he can really unite the country on! But oh no no, Bush isn't a terrible spender himself. It's all Congress's faults. I mean they're the ones who keep sending him bills to sign after all.

But what about.. oh yes here we go wasteful war spending:

The president's spokesman, meanwhile, said Bush would talk in his Jan. 23 State of the Union address about making spending on the
Iraq war "as transparent as possible."

Lawmakers and the independent, bipartisan Iraq Study Group have criticized the Bush administration for funding the war through emergency supplemental bills, instead of including the costs in the administration's yearly formal budget request for running the government. That means the full cost of the war is not included in the administration's deficit calculations, and are not subject to overall spending caps.

So for someone who never suffers from cognitive dissonance, it must make total sense to send a budget that never accounts for all the daily emergencies we seem to have in Iraq. We will all realize, that Bush truly is only smart enough to win elections. And that says alot about our broken electoral system...

Direction of the Republican Party???

2006-12-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

I know the CW of the Washington establishment is always soooo right, that we all must assume right now all the friggin' hype about unannounced frontrunners (Clinton, Obama, McCain) are going to win the nominations for their respective parties. But take a look at this article about Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee:

"I think I would appeal to true conservatives for whom conservatism doesn't mean they're angry at everybody," Huckabee said in an interview with The Associated Press. "My brand of conservatism is not an angry, hostile brand. It's one that says `conservative' means we want to conserve the best of our culture, society, principles and values and pass them on."

For me that is the potent message that will be a huge thing for the Republican Party in the upcoming election. We are going to see McCain go down in flames because Bush is actually buying his Iraq strategy. Nothing will doom his candidacy more than a message of "no witdrawal without victory" when there really isn't any victory to be actually had and the very strategy he advocated in the first place never really achieves anything (that is if it even happens.... I mean where is the Army going to muster up so many troops? I haven't heard of a boom in recruting these days...)

In other words, in two years (though so far off, anything is possible... except some definite "victory" in Iraq), the Republicans refelcting further on their absence in relevance in public debate on so many issues, I think will look to moderate as quickly as humanly possible. They did so when they nominated Bush for his "compassionate conservatism". It was a reaction to the Republican Congress extreme act of impeaching Clinton, which turned off many voters. And they will do so this time around after losing in grand fashion this year. Iraq will also be moderated, especially if the escalation takes place. McCain, who we can consider the closest thing the Republican leadership has had to moderation in the last 6 years, will look every bit the hardline conservative he is.

Huckabee's my man to watch in '07, for '08...

If 30's the new 20, then 90 is the new 60?

2006-12-23T14:08:00.000-05:00

While I am obviously looking forward to Senator Byrd chairing the Appropriations Committee again, I came upon this article and I got to thinking about the problems of age in politics... But first read this:

Eighty-nine-year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the once and future head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been in office longer than the life span of eight of his fellow senators.

Eighty-year-old Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, first began hanging around Capitol Hill in the 1930s, when he worked as a House page. He recently had hip surgery — not because his hip wore out, but because his replacement hip needed a tuneup after more than 20 years in use...

...But Thurber said that when senior legislators do not budge, it can create a bottleneck that keeps younger members from moving up and "cuts off new ideas."

With older legislators, he said, sometimes "it's hard to have change. It's hard to react and it's hard to have knowledge and expertise in emerging policy areas." The smartest committee chairmen, he said, will delegate responsibility in some of those areas to younger subcommittee leaders.

Thurber cautioned that there could be some "pushback" by younger members next year if older legislators who remember the old days try to return to a time when committees were run like fiefdoms managed by barons exercising absolute power. That changed after Republicans took charge in 1994; they centralized power and reduced the clout of committee leaders.

1. They're really friggin' old. That can be A) a very good thing and sagacious wisdom comes down from on high and America benefits from these older Congressman. or B) Old age means the changing world requires new ideas and these guys simply won't have them or they stubborn to change with the times.

2. This, for me, represents a lot of things wrong with Congress. Dominated by an elite class that never goes away and change never occurs. Elitism of American politics has never been more obvious.

This raises the question, how long do we need these guys running things anyway? In the House we see the "safe seats" dominate the ideology of caucus which becomes so rigid and inflexible that it breaks at the first signs of crisis in reality. And of course with the elitism, we have the theoretical policies that say we were greeted as liberators.

Welcome to Outside Agitator

2006-12-20T21:04:00.000-05:00

Welcome all to Outside Agitator! This is a blog from the heart of the West Virginian mountains (and they are mountains!) for forward thinkers from all around. The name Outside Agitator is a reference to the labor movement in the 20th Century and most often in the coal mines of Appalachia. Local politicians and coal-mine owners would often label union organizers as "outsiders" sent to threaten the stability of their community, their jobs, but most importantly, their profits. Soon the criticism was leveled at anyone who would criticize laissez-faire capitalism and demand the dignity of laborers and workers. The argument against these "agitators" was an appeal to the us vs. them mentality, seeking to undermine support from the middle-class and the solidarity of workers. In short, these days it refers to anyone who questions the constructs of this "free and open" society. But we "outside agitators" are far from outsiders bent on destroying the social fabric of our communities. We are firsthand witnesses to the destructivness of corporatism and elite conservatism that undermines the democratic society we all seek. Our country was founded upon some good ideas,it was also incomplete and its potential to create an equal society with equal opportunity is far from being realized. If you think America has this potential and see the artificial limits and weak societal constructs propped up by our media, our politicians, our intellectual leaders, and our business leaders, then you my friend are an outside agitator, of the worst kind.

I'm your host Amos Noble, entrepeneur in ideas, agitator, and meanwhile adventurer. I welcome your views, perspectives, and ultimately comments in this experiment. I hope you find the content provocative and useful in challenging every convential thought you may have ever possessed. If you survive, you'll be stronger for it.