fuhryblahg

2009-04-08T14:41:00.001-07:00

This here is a 'wow' article on Dubai. It doesn't surprise me, but it's pretty shocking nonetheless.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

Recap

2009-01-21T07:30:00.001-08:00

So.

In 1999, wealthy political investors known as 'pioneers' came up with the idea of, and financed, the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, who was at that time holding the largely ceremonial Governorship of Texas.

Under the ruthless and brilliant direction of Karl Rove, and with the aid of a news media intent on ridiculing the awkward but competent Al Gore, and with the aid of a Nader candidacy sucking voters disenchanted with Clinton's centrism, the candidacy of George W. Bush manuevered itself into striking distance of the Presidency.

With the aid of the President's brother, Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida, and Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of Florida and state chair for the Bush campaign, Voter rolls were liberally cleansed of African American and other likely Democratic groups of voters. An extremely close election in Florida was called by the networks for Bush, despite the fact that a recount was likely and that recounts tend to add more votes from poorer, more Democratic districts due to their inferior voting machines.

With a complicit news media and a Secretary of State acting in Bush's favor, Gore had to go to the Florida Supreme Court to try to get a recount, while fighting a public relations battle to convince people he was not being a sore loser. The Florida Supreme Court (who should be given medals for patriotism) came down with a sensible decision on how to recount the votes, based on Florida law which clearly favored determining voter intent.

With a recount likely to end up favoring Gore, the United States Supreme Court shockingly agreed to review Bush's case. Then even more shockingly, they ruled that the recount must stop. For the U.S. Supreme Court to meddle in a state's election, even for a national office, was shocking and unprecendented. Their logic was flawed. And yet they stopped the recount and gave the election to George Bush. Months later, findings were released which indicated that had a full recount based on determining voter intent been undertaken according to Florida law, Gore would have emerged with more votes, and would have won the Presidency. And yet, he did not, due to the astounding, anti-democratic and unpatriotic actions of Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, and 5 Supreme Court Justices, all of whom derelicted their duties as Americans in order to install their preferred candidate in the White House. Let us name them. William Rehnquist. Antoin Scalia. Sandra Day O'Connor. Anthony Kennedy. Clarence Thomas.

Once President, the administration of George Bush, largely run by Vice President Dick Cheney, proceeded to hand out large sums to the 'pioneers' in the guise of a number of disingenous policies - policies whose effects were usually contradictory to what their names described. No Child Left Behind. Clear Skies Initiative. Regulations were dismantled and industry exectives were appointed to regulate (or to not regulate) their own industries. The Alternative Minimum Tax was abolished - retroactively, and taxes already paid were returned to large corporations that financed Bush's campaign. Meanwhile, Neo-Conservatives from the Project for The New American Century were shaping foreign policy.

Before September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration ignored warnings from the Clinton Administration and from subsequent intelligence that indicated that Al Qaeda was capable of and was planning an attack on American soil. On that day, over 3000 Americans died in the attacks. The Neo-cons' PNAC document stated that a 'New Pearl Harbor' might be necessary to garner public support for its foreign policy goals. With 9/11, that event happened. And what the Bush Administration did after 9/11 is exactly what the Neo-Cons proposed.

They used the good will and sympathy from the nation and the world to enact more policies which enriched the 'Pioneers'. They used that good will to go to Afghanistan, where a pipeline opposed by the government there soon got underway. They used that good will to sell the nation and mainstream news media on a war in Iraq, which helped them to control the world's energy supply, and allowed them to funnel still more money to Halliburton and other 'pioneer' companies such as Blackwater. Meanwhile, they ran the national deficits up and ballooned the national debt. With all the money going into their contributors' pockets. Meanwhile thousands of American soldiers died. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died, and millions suffered as the infrastructure of Iraq was destroyed. Here in America, the infrastructure crumbled. Laws protecting ordinary working Americans disappeared. Those people got poorer. But the pioneers got richer, and this was all that mattered to them. This was a grift. This was organized crime on a huge scale. They stole our surplus, then they borrowed money and stole that. It was the joining of Corporate and Political power - the very definition of Facism.

Slowly, more and more Americans began to wake up and notice that something was wrong. This was not an administration. These were not conservatives. These were not moral Christians. The geniality of Bush fooled people for a long time. People trusted Bush to be decent. They believed him, and if someone like him was in control, it seemed unlikely that evil was being done. But Bush was not in control. He was never in control. He wasn't interested in being in control. That's why he was the perfect front man for this operation.

As the levees crumbled in New Orleans and Katrina drowned the city and its poorer residents, the last of the veneer began to strip away. Throughout history, faced with this dilemma, Fascist dictators became more and more desperate and would crack down harder and harder. And they would not reliquish control until it was pried from their dead hands. However, in this peculiar form of American Facism, the unmotivated and empty vessel of a leader had no power or interest in maintaining power to the end. In typical Bush fashion, they prepared to leap overboard with their profits as the ship sunk. Like rats, off they went in their lifeboats, with one last bailout of the institutions whose unregulated malfeasance caused the economy to collapse. And they rowed away, waiting for a day when the people once again trusted their Goverment and their news media. And when that day comes, they will once again try to exploit the public trust for private greed. Meanwhile, they will buy up the desperate nation's resources for pennies on the dollar. They are desperate for wealth and power, and they think this makes them better than the rest of us. In fact, they are sick, deranged human beings, who think it perfectly acceptable for others to suffer and die so that they can have more and more.

A new day is upon us. A new generation of leaders, led by the decent and earnest Barack Obama, has gained power and tilted the balance once more toward a vision of the public good. As we continue to feel the effects of this Bush hurricane which has leveled our nation, we will all suffer and we will all have to work together to restore what we have lost. To rebuild on a solid foundation of teamwork and mutual respect. Power will once again belong to those that have earned it in the eyes of their fellow citizens.It will be hard, and it will be good.

But I, for one, will never forget what those bastards did to us. What they did to our soldiers. To the residents of New Orleans. To the people of Iraq. Whether Bush and Cheney and everyone else who was a party to this scheme spends the rest of their lives in a jail cell or sipping margaritas in Paraguay doesn't matter to me anymore. But I want the people of this nation to know what happened. I want the details to be exposed, and publicized. We should know exactly what they did and how they did it, so that next time, more of us will see the warning signs, so that people like Dick Cheney, who by all rights should have lived his life muttering to himself at the last seat of some bar, will remain there, and leave the rest of us to build the best life we can for our families and our communities.

To George Bush and Dick Cheney and the Pioneers: Fuck off and die.

Love,

Peter Fuhry

2009-01-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

I'm going to go a bit against the grain here. Why exactly, now more than any other time, is Harry Reid being Mr. Tough Guy about Blagojevich's appointment of Burris to Obama's Senate seat?

If he calls a vote to exclude Mr. Burris, he's on shaky Constitutional ground. If they seat Mr. Burris and then try to expel him, he needs a 2/3 vote, which may be difficult to get. Why invite a lawsuit and a big hubbub? And why all the posturing, threatening not to seat a Blago appointment? Now that Blago has called your bluff, you have to step to the plate.

Meanwhile the Illinois secretary of state threatens that he won't certify the appointment. On what authority?

Everyone is falling all over themselves to prevent this guy from making an appointment. Meanwhile, though it may be clear that he isn't an honorable fellow and isn't fit for office, he has yet to be convicted of anything - he has yet to be impeached, and he is still, legally, the Governor of Illinois. Everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over this guy, but they're making the mistake of posturing and threatening. And they don't have the power to follow through.

Read it: We don't have the power to easily and ethically stop Blagojevich from appointing Burris to the Senate.

And what is the big deal anyway? So Burris, who seems to be at least somewhat qualified, serves out Obama's term. Then, he probably loses the primary in the next election, as he has before... Unless he distinguishes himself and distances himself from the Blagojevich stink.

I think Reid will cave on this, as he caves on most things after talking tough. But I think he picked the wrong thing to talk tough about. Of all the things!

I would like to see Reid step down. He's shown bad judgment in the way he's handled this. This is like bad parenting. You make threats and yell and scream, and then capitulate. How about staying quiet and calmly enforcing rules and pushing your agenda as best you can? How about calling the Republicans' bluff like everyone calls yours?

How about Russ Feingold replacing Harry Reid? Shit, even John Kerry would be better.

* * *

And another thing. Diane Feinstein will never whine about Big Business ruling America and stealing from the treasury. But appointing Leon Panetta to head the CIA? Hissy fit. I think Diane Feinstein is an idiot.

This is a ballsy move for Obama. I like it, because it's confrontational. It says "I'm going to change the culture at the CIA," and that's a dangerous thing to do. It's also a scary thing for Panetta to do. But it speaks to a conviction and a dedication to reversing the torture ethos, and removing the stink of providing 'intelligence' to satisfy a political need. Panetta has a history of being principled.

This is awesome

2008-12-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

This is the most awesomely awesome thing I've read in a long time.

RAHM EMANUEL: This is Rahm.
ROD BLAGOJEVICH: Hey Rahm, yeah it's Rod.
EMANUEL: Uh-huh. What's going on governor, I'm busy.
BLAGO: Well, it's about that Senate appointment...
EMANUEL: We already gave you the list of people we like.
BLAGO: Yeah, I been looking the list over. Interesting names. Good people. How's the transition going?
EMANUEL: It's going fine, governor. Are you calling to fucking tell me anything, or what, cause I--
BLAGO: No no, I'm just wondering if you have all your picks already made. I heard something about Dashle for HHS--
EMANUEL: I'm not gonna discuss ongoing deliberations, gov, you know that.
BLAGO: Hey, come on Rahm, let's not act like I'm a stranger here.
EMANUEL: Did I call you a stranger? If I thought you were a stranger, you think I'd be interrupting my important fucking business to take this fucking phone call?
BLAGO: Hey you don't have to get curt with me, Rahm.
EMANUEL: This isn't me being curt, Gov, this is me being fucking busy. Now what did you call about?
BLAGO: I'm just feeling you out, seeing if Valerie [Jarret] still wants that Senate seat, just wondering what kind of priority that is for the President-Elect.
EMANUEL: Actually, it's not a priority. Valerie's had second thoughts about the job.
BLAGO: What, she doesn't want it anymore?
EMANUEL: She's having second thoughts. You want more details, you ask her.
BLAGO: She won't take my calls.
EMANUEL: Big fucking surprise.
BLAGO: What's that supposed to mean?
EMANUEL: Um, I don't know, what's it supposed to mean governor? A.) You're a fucking crook. B.) You're a fucking asshole. C.) All of the above.
BLAGO: I'm clean Rahm, you know this. You think that fucking Fitzgerald would being twiddling his fucking thumbs if he had shit to go on?
EMANUEL: I gotta go, Gov. You appoint who you want, we really don't give a shit.
BLAGO: What if I appoint Valerie, what if she takes it?
EMANUEL: What do you want me to say? We'd appreciate it, I'm not gonna fucking kiss your ring over it.
BLAGO: "Appreciate it"? Come on, this is a senate seat we're talking about. It's worth a fuck of a lot more than appreciation.
EMANUEL: You asked us for a list, we gave you a fucking list, you want to make your own list then make your own fucking list. [Raising voice] But if you're asking for anything else from me, or Barack, or Valerie, then you can fucking stop talking right now Rod.
BLAGO: Wait a sec there Rahm. Wait just a fucking minute. Who are you to talk to me like that? I fucking made you.
EMANUEL: You made me? You made me? Tell me you're fucking joking.
BLAGO: No no no, you listen to me shit-face. You see this list I got, the names motherfucking Obama fucking wants for the Senate. I just ripped it in two. How you like that? Oops, Harris just dropped it in the shredder. Harris?
HARRIS (muffled): Yes sir?
BLAGO: Did you just drop that list in the shredder?
[Whirring, shredder noise]
HARRIS (muffled): I did.
EMANUEL: Do you have me on fucking speakerphone?
BLAGO: It's in the shredder, Rahm. The list is bye bye.
EMANUEL: Hold on a sec -- you got me on fucking speakerphone? Who the fuck do you think I am?
BLAGO: Who are you Rahm? Who are you? You're shit, you hear me? Don't come back to Chicago Rahm, it's not your town any more.
EMANUEL: Pick up the phone Rod.
BLAGO: I'll put someone in the senate who will fucking fuck you. I might even put myself in there, how you like that Rahm? How you gonna explain that to fucking Barack, every time he's gotta call me up for my fucking vote. He'd have to take my calls then, wouldn't he?
EMANUEL: [Screaming] I said pick up the FUCKING phone!
BLAGO: [Picks up phone, speakerphone off] I got your attention now, didn't I?
EMANUEL: Shut the fuck up and listen to me for one second Rod. And I want you to listen carefully, because this is the last time I'm ever going to talk to you. You are fucking dead to me. You been fucking dead to Barack since '06, now you're dead to me. Know what that means? That means you're dead to my people in Chicago, Daley on down, and all these friends you think you have aren't gonna touch you with a ten foot fucking pole.
BLAGO: Oh now you're the fucking Godfather? Fuck you.
EMANUEL: No fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
BLAGO: Fuck you!
EMANUEL: Listen up asshole. The shit's gonna hit the fan, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, and when Fitz finally brings down the hammer it's gonna be my name that's going through your head. You won't know the hows or the fucking whys, but it's gonna have my fucking fingerprints all over it. Have a great life fatso.
BLAGO: Hey fuck--
EMANUEL: [Click.]
End of conversation

Why Minnesota Rocks

2008-11-21T06:59:00.001-08:00

This is a release from the Citizens for Electoral Integrity of Minnesota. This is a great thing to read, and explains pretty well how to run an election. I'm putting it here in its entirety - pg

Why Minnesota's Recount Process is a Model for the Country
- Statement by CEIMN November 20, 2008

Mark Halvorson, Director, Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota; David Klein, Elections Operations Specialist, formerly with the Ohio Secretary of State; and Pam Smith, President, Verified Voting Foundation.

With a celebrity candidate and record-setting expenditures the race to represent Minnesota in the US Senate captured the nation’s attention even before the historically close margin was announced. An automatic, manual recount of the Minnesota U.S. Senate race that began could last until mid-December. As non-partisan, election integrity advocates in Minnesota, we welcome this attention and hope that one of the outcomes will be lessons learned that strengthen our democracy.

One reason for our optimism is that Minnesota’s election system minimizes problems and circumstances that have historically reduced voter confidence. The occurrence of such problems and circumstances in other states plagued the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. The people, procedures, and technology comprising Minnesota’s election system are among the most respected in the nation. Minnesota’s election system has great potential to certify results that accurately reflect the will of the voters and in which voters can have confidence.

Minnesota’s reputation for electoral integrity begins with the state's choice of election technology: a system of voter-marked paper ballots which are read by optical-scan machines. A meaningful recount is possible because the paper ballots provide a permanent record of each voter’s intent. Such a permanent record does not exist in all states; over one third of the states use electronic machines that do not offer voter-verifiable paper records. Many top computer security experts have warned that paperless electronic voting is inherently insecure and does not provide for a real recount.

Minnesota’s election process is characterized by transparency and openness. Citizens can, and do, observe the process. For example, Citizens For Election Integrity Minnesota, The League of Women Voters Minnesota, and Common Cause Minnesota are mobilizing a non-partisan citizen observation of the recount to protect the integrity of the process.

Minnesota independently assesses the accuracy of the election system that uses optical scanners by auditing a random sample of roughly 5% of the ballots immediately after every federal election cycle; 16 states conduct post-election audits, which is the highest number ever, but not high enough. There is no question that every state should include a mandatory process to independently check the accuracy of election results that includes provisions to expand the verification when errors are detected. Moreover, such post-election review processes need to have mechanisms in place to see that the errors are corrected automatically instead of needing to go to a judicial or a legislative body. The audits, along with the 2008 primary election recount, have given Minnesota election officials statewide the experience in manually counting ballots and in determining voter intent necessary for the impending U.S. Senate recount.

Claims of partisan application of the law will inevitably be leveled in these situations. Certainly there is a benefit to laws in Minnesota and elsewhere that prevent our state’s chief election officer from grossly appearing to have a conflict of interest such as overseeing an election while also chairing the state’s committee to elect one of the candidates as was the case in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004).

The detailed, written procedures of the Minnesota recount law leave little room for discretion or bias in conducting the recount, covering: the ballot chain of custody, ballot counting, and the interpretation of voter intent. The Minnesota recount law requires that 100% of accepted ballots be manually inspected, counted, and tallied.

At the end of the recount, we expect to see a lot of really bored lawyers, election officials, reporters, and citizens who were present for the sorting, stacking, and counting of 2.9 million paper ballots. We expect confirmation that the vast majority of ballots unambiguously reflect a selection of one of the candidates, or no vote at all. We expect a tiny percentage of ballots marked in a way that the optical scanners cannot determine the voter’s intent, which could change the outcome given the miniscule margin. Any programming errors, software glitches or clerical errors in reporting vote totals will be caught and corrected by the manual recount.

Be careful not to yawn and fail to recognize that the effort and detailed care is necessary, even if the outcome doesn’t change – there is no other way to be confident in the results of this race. It is not that a systematic review is required because we distrust the election system. Rather, a systematic review is required because we care enough about this important process to be as certain as possible.

http://www.ceimn.org/Minnesota_senate_recount_Franken_Coleman_Ritchie_elections

GM Bailout?

2008-11-14T08:14:00.001-08:00

Hey... I have an idea.

Extend Medicare to cover all GM employees.

You save the country and the industry from a bloody Labor-Management battle.

You effectively bail out GM by saving them from crushing health care costs for their employees. You remove the incentive to bust the Union or export jobs overseas. You turn one corporate giant against another.

If you borrow more money from China to bail them out, that money's going to go right into the healthcare industry. Fuck that.

The other car makers, and other corporations, are going to line up to be a part of this deal. The health insurance industry is killing us. The only way to stop them and get decent health care for all Americans is to turn the other industries against them.

I have another idea: Huge tax breaks for every electric car manufactured. GM and the other carmakers, including startups, can get huge tax savings, basically bailouts, by producing electric cars. You've got to produce the financial means for these major car makers to stop being pawns of the oil companies.

If GM and the US carmakers don't want to take your deal, you let them fail and let Tesla, Myers Motors, and Commuter Cars inc take the deal.

I have little sympathy for the American auto manufacturers. Most of the cars they produce don't sell. They make 20 different models each, all of which do basically the same thing, hoping to make one that's 'hot' and catches the fancy of your average car buyer. Instead of searching for new markets (hybrid, electric, etc) they merely hope that extending more and more credit to car buyers will help them to buy cars more often. They have a very inefficient strategy. If people can't get the credit, their whole scheme is over. If people were more like me, and avoided going into debt for a car that will lose 90% (or more) of it's value in 10 years, there would be no auto industry.

But if I could buy an electric car for $20,000 that would give me thousands in fuel savings, I might do it. I, like most people, drive less than 50 miles per day. It's astonishing that I simply cannot buy such a car today, though it would meet my needs perfectly. My only option is for a tiny, expensive vehicle from a boutique startup, or an equally expensive conversion. If GM was still making the EV-1, can you imagine how many would have sold when gas hit $4 a gallon? It probably would have saved their ass. The Government of California already tried to save their ass in the 90's and they said 'Fuck you'. Now they come asking for a handout and blaming the unions. Maybe we should tell them 'Fuck You' and give the money to Tesla.

I actually think unions can be problematic. They wield enormous power, and while they are great, and necessary, in order to prevent worker abuse, they can shoot themselves in the foot by handicapping their industry and by eliminating merit-based pay. In this way, they can encourage mediocrity. And I say this as a person who's grandfather was a union boss. It's a tricky business. In a way, a union wedges itself into a position of co-managing the corporation, and they've got to think that way.

And I think most of them do. But I think the expanding cost of health insurance has put a knife into Labor-Management relations in this country. And I think they ought to work together to remove that knife and repair relations. And I think the Government ought to encourage that.

Pipe dream, I know.

2008-11-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

All this talk about what Obama's victory means and whether was or is now a center-right country or a center-left country is... not interesting, but notable.

I think that what happened was that the Republican Party was discredited by the events of the last 4 years - starting with Katrina and the quagmire quality the Iraq war took on, continuing with power abuses and the US attorney scandal, and finishing up with the economic collapse. Events proved the Bush administration's ideas to be without merit. And since the Republicans did such a good job of sticking together over the last eight years, there was no way any Republican could separate him or herself from Bush. And McCain didn't really try the 'distancing' approach until after the economic collapse. It was way, way too late.

It could be said that the only chance the Republicans had was to tack leftward. Only McCain, Giuliani and possibly Romney could have done that, but usually a moderate doesn't win a primary. In this case, almost miraculously, McCain won. He could have picked Lieberman or another more moderate Republican. He would have risked ascending the candidacy of Bob Barr, but that still might have been a better risk for him. Instead he picked Palin and tried to tack leftward and rightward simultaneously.

What does it mean? As I said, I think this election was about the failure of Republicans becoming apparent. However, it was also about the success of the Democrats' campaign - Hillary's as well as Obama's - to take advantage of the fracturing of the Republican coalition. But they did it not by forcefully espousing liberal or progressive ideas. They did some of that, but mostly they did it by truly capturing the center. Over the years, they've abandoned or de-emphasized some of the liberal views that many people find offensive. They've also repositioned themselves as the party of responsible, mainstream adults. They are not particularly hawkish or doveish. They don't generally put forth european solutions to social issues. They believe in God and go to church. They have marriages that often stay together. They're not gay, but they're OK with it. They're not super rich.

And as they've slowly convinced the American people that they're absolutely mainstream, the Republican Party has begun to eat itself in frustration. One head, the fearful, anti-intellectual country folk, blames the socially moderate, fiscal conservative monied head.

Has America changed? I'd say not much, other than people have sat up and started to notice things a little more. More people have bothered to get informed. And more people have decided that it's worth it to go and vote.

But America was never a center-right country. The unholy marriage, aka the 'southern strategy' , with a lot of corporate help, managed to elect a center-right Government. A long time ago, in 1976, an unholy marriage of old southern Democrats and liberal northerners managed to elect a center-left Government. Actually it may have been a right-left coalition Both fell apart, as unholy marriages do.

I think Obama will govern from a pragmatic place. I think it is pretty close to the center. The center is a place that Republicans have been calling radical left for years, but they only got away with that because of the temporary power afforded them by their unholy alliance. Meanwhile the Democrats have been utterly mainstream and uncontroversial for at least eight years, and I think people started to see that. Indiana started to see that.

This is all still Civil War stuff resolving itself. The Democrats, being the pro-slavery party, seceded from the Union in the face of a populist uprising of abolitionism. The Republicans, having defeated the Democrats, lost the will and the popular mandate to continue to occupy the south, so they let the Democrats back in. Slowly, by the 1920's, the popular tide had turned racist and the Republicans largely went along, clinging only slightly to Lincoln.

With FDR and the Depression, the Democrats began to capture the national needs, and then, with Kennedy standing up for Blacks in the south, they suddenly turned the country on its head by 1964. The chaos of the Vietnam war allowed a moderate Republican to be elected, who later damaged their brand further.

Finally, Reagan appealed to southern whites left behind by the Democratic Party's transition. And they rode that train as far as they could. But in the last eight years, they've completely discredited themselves by abandoning any sense of honor and fiscal conservatism.

I don't see the Republicans, as currently constituted, being able to hash together an alliance to win a national election. I think they will have to tack centerward, toward reason, honor and accountability, at some point. Perhaps the Democratic party will become too progressive in a way that turns off a lot of Americans and makes them ripe to be swiped back again. Maybe the Republican party will redefine itself as the anti-corporate party. Or the anti-interventionist party. Stranger things have happened.

What does it all mean?

2008-11-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

My friend Audrey posted this:

The New Map

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

Our presidential electoral process distorts the vote to weigh rural areas more than urban areas. This was written into our Constitution in both the Senate and the Electoral College. The cities are finally getting big enough to overcome this hurdle. 80% of the US population lives in cities now - a trend that is not reversing.

Obama is the first Big City Northern Democratic President since JFK. And he won his first presidential bid without any of the following: being a vice president, a governor, a war hero, from a wealthy family, or from a southern state. so let's talk about mandate.

Obama won more than 50% of the popular vote as a Democrat (52%) - the first since the Reagan realignment in 1980, 28 years ago. Since 1900 only 3 Democrats have won a clear popular vote majority. Carter, Johnson, Roosevelt Wilson JFK and Clinton all won because of a split ticket. 10 Republicans since 1900 have won a clear majority - McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes.

There are may more historical precedents here besides which country his dad was from and his skin color.

The 20th century Democratic Presidents

Wilson was an openly racist son of wealthy confederate slave owners in Virgina who won twice because of a split Democratic party

FDR was a Wealthy Big City North-Eastern Liberal disabled man Governor of New York who won because of an economic crisis and the new technology of Radio

Truman was a former VP and War Hero narrowly won re-election with a rural whistle-stop tour

JFK a Wealthy Big City North-Eastern Liberal Catholic War Hero from Boston who narrowly won by mastering the new technology of TV

Johnson a former VP and War Hero Southerner from Texas who married wealth and ran as southern rural poor folk who came up in the world

Carter was ia Wealthy Southern peanut farmer and Sunday School Teacher Governor from Georgia won by having a national strategy

Clinton was was a Southern Governor of Arkansas who was the head of the Texas McGovern Campaign and won because of a split ticket

Obama is a biracial middle class Big City Machine Politics Chicago community organizer from Hawaii and Senator of Illinois who won by mastering the new technology of the Internet and having a national strategy also helped by a economic crisis

Here is a electoral map history of the US: http://www.100bestwebsites.org/alt/evmaps/electoral-maps.htm

My response:

I would like to mention that Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, and by most measures would have won Florida and the Presidency had voter intent been correctly recorded. He did this overcoming a ticket split by Nader (not in Gore's favor, unlike Perot). Not to mention a mainstream press punditry that thought their own personal dislike for Gore was worthy of being presented as 'news'. I think Obama's victory represents a trend, temporarily derailed by 9/11 and the exploitation of it, as the Democratic Party has overcome the crippling assassinations of its most charasmatic leaders, and has also completed its transformation from a strange marriage of very liberal and southern Democratic remnants to a party that represents the mainstream of American values. Meanwhile, the Republican party has lurched rightward and fearward, relying on a coalition of establishment, monied urban fiscal conservatives and radical Christian evangelicals, creating their own strange marriage.

Looking at it that way, the last eight years could be seen as a desperate, hail mary attempt by the Republicans to hold onto power in the face of a much more logical and stable coalition. Their tools? Fear, loyalty to the Republican Brand, cultivation of a conservative press, and electoral shenanigans.

In addition, the Bush administration has not pursued an earnest ideological agenda for the most part, preferring to hand out the Government's assets to their big campaign contributors, disguising this grift as 'policy'. As the disaster created by this administration (and their willing accomplices in the Congress and in the press) unfolds, the Republican brand has been sullied, stripping away the last of the facade and pushing lots of people left behind(!) by the Republican Party over to the Democrats. And also, pushing a lot of those mainstream Pundits over as well.

All that was left was to field a decent candidate, run a strong, organized campaign, and register enough voters to overcome shenanigans. The candidate was extremely strong in terms of inspiration and organization - a little more challenged in terms of comfort with the needed crossover voters due to his background, name, skin color and experience level, but spectacularly able to reassure those voters.

The Democrats have captured the center ideologically and now have captured the Government politically. They are under no obligation to reach out to the remnants of the Republican machine. The Republicans are in a position where they must adjust for the sake of their political lives. Especially if this new Government is able to prove its worth to Americans over the next four years. And I think they will, especially as people are forced to think more about how to feed their families and less about whether abortions and gay marriages are happening and whether the terrorists are coming to their town.

final election thoughts #1

2008-11-02T13:43:00.001-08:00

To those that say that the Democratic and Republican parties are both wings of the same corpocracy or whatever, I say... "fuck off."

If you are playing a football game, and you are down three touchdowns, do you give up and leave the stadium because you can't take the lead in one drive?

I would say that a large percentage of Democratic politicians, maybe 40-50%, are useless, corporate-friendly placeholders. But for the Republican party, it's up around 90-95%. So again, to use another sports analogy, if my team is 5 runs behind, and I cannot possibly put us ahead with my current at-bat, do I just walk away, or try to hit a five-run homer?

No. I try to get on base. I try to start a rally.

The institutionalization of the two party system is an American tragedy. It puts us all into two camps when we are really many different places along the ideological spectrum. It places people of largely similar values on opposite sides of a bloody war. It is the continuance of America's Civil War. It shuttles everything toward the center, with no effective mechanism to pull anything toward any kind of progressive direction.

We need a couple of Constitutional Amendments - one, to establish instant runoff voting, which will empower and embolden third party and independent candidates and those who might vote for them. Two, we need to outlaw lobbying and other interference by corporations in the lawmaking process. We need to establish church/state type separations - between Corporations and Government and between political parties and Government. The influence of Corporations on Government has been a disaster for the people. Likewise, the institutionalization of the two party system has also been a disaster for the people.

But right now, the situation is what it is. What is the first step toward acheiving these goals? Is it a protest vote, for Nader or McKinney? No. The first step is to elect Barack Obama and to prevent John McCain and Sarah Palin from being elected. It's not the solution to our problems. It's actually a small step. But it's an important step.

Next, we need to continue to push the Democrats toward an anti-corporate, populist stance. Support progressive primary challenges of conservative or pro-corporate Democrats, or independent or third party challenges, where possible.

And for God's sake, should Obama get elected, when the Republicans try to take him down with some kind of Whitewater type scandal bullshit, let's not get on the bandwagon because we're pissed off that Obama didn't turn out to be our progressive savior. Like Clinton, he probably won't. But that doesn't mean he isn't our ally. Had Democrats not jumped on the impeach Clinton bandwagon, or given it legitimacy by not virulently opposing it, we might not be backed up to our own one yard line right now.

Obama can be our guy up there at the top. He can't take us all of the way there. But Nader or McKinney or Kucinich is not going to be up there right now. And no one more progressive than Obama is ever going to get up there unless we elect Obama now and continue to push and fight. We need a populist movement for instant runoff voting, and for the ending of corporate influence on elections and elected officials. These two principles must be adopted, and must be given the sacred status of amendments to the Constitution, in order to save this Republic from its own worst demons.

But again, the first step is to ELECT OBAMA PRESIDENT AND VOTE FOR THE BEST CANDIDATES THAT CAN REALISTICALLY WIN IN THIS ELECTION!

Once a great man?

2008-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, a strong supporter of Obama from the get-go, referred to McCain as having been "Once a great man".

I respond thusly:

McCain was never a great man.

He wasn't the most evil person either, and he has some likeable qualities. I actually don't think he's mean-spirited. Like any national Republican candidate, he has to appeal to some fear-addled bigots in order to turn a minority of well-off people into an electoral majority, and in a way it's sad, though also justified, that he should be held responsible for their actions.

But in terms of his character, I think his latest appearance on Letterman summed it up for me.

McCain: "I screwed up."

This is what McCain has - the ability to say "I screwed up" endearingly. It endeared him to the mainstream press, who believed that his ability to say "I screwed up" endearingly indicated a truthfulness and high sense of honor and principle. And they proceeded to shower praise on him from 1999 until a few weeks ago, when they finally got fed up with being duped. They should have got fed up with themselves rather than him, but I digress.

That McCain can admit he was wrong when he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar is, I suppose, a good thing, as these things go. The problem is he has said "I screwed up" far too many times. And I forgive him. But you don't put a screw-up in a position of authority. He hasn't changed. He's always been a screw-up. He's never had a strong moral compass or an ability to influence people around him to do the right thing*.

The pundits loved him because they're screw-ups too. And that woman that made up the story. Hoo boy, that was a major screw-up.

I'm just glad that it appears that this country might... just... NOT... screw up this election!

*By 'right thing' I mean any principled stand, regardless of where in the ideological spectrum it might fall.

big capitalists and their pawns

2008-10-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

I think the big capitalists out there have always sought to influence government, since governments, especially democratic governments, can interfere with their plans by empowering the less well-off. This, to the wealthy capitalist, is the greatest injustice - those that have profited from the system are forced to give back (some) of their profits.

But it's a dangerous game. At the same time that they seek to avoid being controlled by government, they are also reliant on it - to maintain order, and to protect and legitimize their investments. A smart capitalist would realize that it is in their best interest to invest in the stability and long term viability of government, while at the same time trying to limit the government's ability to protect working class people from them.

Alas, no one ever said the capitalists were smart. Actually, people say that all the time. But when they get themselves a deregulation through their influence on government, the competetive advantage to them is limited, and brief. The rule change will apply accross the board, and other capitalists will (and yea, must) adjust to the new playing field.

The really smart ones play this cycle as well. Building up wealth during a huge, ill fated boom cycle, they sell at the right time and retain wealth while the rest of the systems collapse. They increase their power this way.

Political leaders that can appear populist but yet are too weak to actually be populist are the kind of political leaders these big capitalist players like. There are different kinds of populism. They hate the 'redistribution of wealth' kind of populism. They're okay with the kumbaya liberal 'love everybody' kind of populism. A lot of Democratic politicians are in this group. But the kind of faux-populist the big capitalist players really prefer is the religious, racist, sexist anti-government kind of faux-populist. Because this kind whips working class citizens up in a frenzy against other working class citizens, cutting their real power in half. Or in quarters.

Still, when the big capitalist players promote politicians like this, they are playing with fire. Sometimes, the politician is useful, but really, really crazy, and a little smarter than they thought. A person like this can really become a dictator and start exterminating people. Hitler is a good example of this. George W. Bush is not - he has that religious sort of populism, but he really doesn't care enough - about anything, I suspect. He's a perfect vessel. McCain is very similar actually. In terms of popular leadership power, he's impotent. But he gives the impression of being a populist - less religious and more 'straight talking fairness'. Bill Clinton was a liberal kumbaya sort of populist with a little bit of a wealth distribution streak, which freaked out the big capitalist players probably more than it should have. Clinton had no problem with the players keeping power. He just wanted the people to have a place at the table, to keep the system going smoothly without people getting hurt too badly. That's why he gets along with George H.W. Bush, who is a more conservative, Republican version of the same. Keep the system going, keep the players happy, keep the people happy enough not to revolt. Man, those players had it good under Clinton. But they couldn't stand it. They wanted more. They are sick, sick people - not really smart, with a self-destructive addiction to wealth.

They wanted more, and they got it with George W. Bush. And now, the system teeters on the brink of collapse, with all but the richest and most entrenched big capitalist players in peril of losing everything. And now, I think, they're split - do we go with the moderate democrat, let the system correct, and mitigate the damage? Or do we go for another one we can control, and keep the scheme going further with more outlandish governmental malfeasance?

Obama is the former, McCain/Palin is the latter. It is scary enough to think of McCain and Palin winning, and the consequences of that. But to me, the thing that is scarier still is the prostpect of Palin becoming President.

I think she may be more than those big capitalist powers can handle. She's got an ideological, religious, dominionist streak, and I think she really believes it. She might be able to outmanuever them and actually implement her radical, apocalyptic agenda.

There are some that think that the Bush administration will, in the end, not cede power - that they will invent or take advantage of a phony or semi-phony crisis to remain and become true dictators. I don't think so. It's always been the Bush way to drive a company or organization into the ground and then jump ship. I think they mis-timed it a little, but I think that's what they're going to do. The treasury is looted, the oil companies are flush with cash. The cheap oil is at least somewhat under our control. The job is done.

Palin on the other hand.... She ain't lazy like Bush. And she isn't a child of the big capitalist players or their friendly politicians. She's a whole 'nother animal. She's more like Cheney, except Cheney isn't religious. I think, potentially a President Palin could become a dictator Palin, complete with military misadventures and bad times for non-believers in the Christian Dominionist thing. I'm not saying she necessarily could or would do that, but the potential is much much greater than with Bush, Cheney, or McCain.

The US attorneys in the swing states are already pursuing their bogus 'fraud' cases. The electronic voting machines are in place. The mainstream press are in semi-revolt against McCain, and some of the American people are slowly waking up, jarred out of their anti-depressant cable-TV stupor by their evaporationg 401K's.

It's down to the wire here. Good versus evil - the United States of America hangs in the balance. If McCain wins, those big capitalist players are about to get a whole lot more than they bargained for. If Obama wins, this country survives to see another day (and fight through Great Depression II)

2008-10-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm tickled to see Obama polling well and doing well in the debates as we go down to the wire here. At the same time, I am troubled by the behavior of the mainstream press. Most liberals and progressives are not complaining about this now, for the obvious reason that it is McCain rather than Obama that is on the receiving end of the behavior. But the behavior still troubles me. I saw only the last few minutes of the debate - I didn't see the 'That one' comment. I did see the feed after the broadcast ended. I was impressed by the way Obama stayed much longer and shook everyone's hand, and I noticed that McCain ducked out.

But honestly, I don't think he was disrespectful to Obama. Less eloquent, sure. Less at ease, sure. Caught between defending discredited ideas and appearing flip-floppy and non-conservative, he really had nowhere to go in this debate.

He's being exposed as what he is - a somewhat personable, weak minded guy that only turns populist when caught with his hand in the cookie jar, tossing cookies to the rich and powerful. I think his lack of leadership qualities is being exposed by events.

And that's enough to me. I don't need to pile on the guy and get all up in arms about his handshake, or call him a racist because he said 'That one'. Maybe he ducked out after the debate because his 72 year old tortured, broken body hurt. Whatever. He's a crappy old Senator with a decent sense of humor that fooled some people for a while into thinking he was a bold, honorable leader. I don't much want him as my President and other people realize that too.

I don't need all these pundits to help. I don't want them telling me what to think. And I don't want them telling anyone else how to think either, even if it's the way I think. All these losers that were attracted like flies to the shit of the Clinton witch hunt and the shit of the McCain 'honor' and the shit of Gore's supposed 'truth' problem are starting to realize that the balance of power is shifting and they're turning like a big hive in the other direction. But the behavior still sucks, and I'm still going to call them on it even if they're helping my guy now.

Bob Somersby over at the http://www.dailyhowler.com/ has got some good stuff today:

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Within a few weeks of financial disaster, Broder is crying because the candidates won’t say exactly how they’ll respond. But uh-oh! Staring disaster in the face, Broder has started looking for intelligent policy leadership. Our reaction? Maybe he should have thought about that when he was ridiculing Big Dems in the past—Gore’s 2000 convention speech, for example. That speech included so many “swell ideas” that “I almost nodded off,” Broder mockingly wrote, two weeks after praising Bush’s brilliant convention effort. (“[A]n acceptance speech of exceptional eloquence.”)

Maybe Broder should have thought about the need for intelligent leadership when he mocked Hillary Clinton for boring him with that endless speech about energy (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/25/06). But this was the culture of the time—and big dopes like Broder enjoyed it.

Good grief. Today, The Dean of All Pundits cries and complains about the two candidates’ “flight from reality.” Look who’s talking, we incomparably thought, recalling the way this big buffoon engaged in the ritual trashing of very smart Dems over the past many years.

Broder was hardly alone in that conduct. In fact, the press elite got drunk on the joys of Clinton/Gore-trashing, as they responded to the growth of Republican rule in the District. And of course, the sanctification of mediocrities like Bush and McCain was part of their new raucous culture. Was Broder really alone in this conduct? Yesterday, the analysts almost blew lunch right into the bushes, reacting to this sorry display from Jim Fallows. Because these loser-men stick together, Fallows linked to Andrew Sullivan, and to some Latter Day insight from the sage of TPM. Like many others, Fallows starts by adopting the basic idea that the great Saint McCain has now changed:

FALLOWS (10/8/08): Andrew Sullivan and others have already mentioned this clip by TPMtv, but here is why I think it is important: It does a lot to explain why many people who felt they "knew" John McCain in his earlier DC life have been slow to face and accept what he has become.
The video alternates clips of the "good" McCain, talking about respect and commitment to high-road politics, with ads and other evidence of the way he is running his campaign.

For another time, discussion of whether the "good" McCain was ever an authentic product. I'll just say, many people including me found it appealing at the time. What is undeniable is the contrast between the way he then seemed and the way he now acts. This is obviously an anti-McCain clip, but I think it's instructive even for his supporters. And, in real time before tonight's debate, it shows the range of personas he might choose to project.

What a fool. We’ll now explain why a wimp like Fallows found “the good McCain” so “appealing at the time.” He found this silly invention appealing because he, like almost everyone else in his cohort, had bought into Washington’s spreading culture of Clinton/Gore/Democrat-hatred. In the summer of 2000, this led Fallows to publish that slanderous Atlantic cover story about demon Gore—the cover story which set the framework for the way the press corps attacked Gore’s performance in that crucial first debate with George Bush.

Go Bob, Go.

palin

2008-10-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

I couldn't watch. For some reason, I was able to watch the debates in 2004, but now, I don't know, I'm just scared of something going wrong at this point.

But I did read some transcripts and watch some clips.

It's truly astounding to me the way Palin talks. I don't think we should be languagist (is that a word?) or sexist, and I think some pundits have been a little with her. It's hard to keep your cool when confronted with a candidate that is really an insult. Not as a person, necessarily, but as a Vice Presidential Candidate.

Her stumbling verbal style keeps reminding me of something, and I think I figured out what it is. It's a northern Alaskan/Canadian version of valley girl speak - or like the girls from Long Island with the big hair that I went to college with. Not that there's anything so bad about it - it's just shocking to hear a candidate for Vice President speaking this way.

Of all the strange, unique things about this election, and there have been many, Palin's speaking voice, I think, is the strangest. It's not so much the Alaskan accent (though that is strange to me), but the hyperactive delivery featuring the prolific use of such words as 'like', 'wow', 'also', 'there', 'betcha', 'y'know', et cetera.

But enough about that. From what I saw and read, I instantly identified what she was doing. I did this in college. Not all the time, but a lot. I'd find myself having to write an essay, not having done the reading. I would only have general recollections of things the professor had said in class. So I would take these very thin ideas and write an essay, stretching it out with a bunch of flowery language, taking care to mimic the cadence of the professor as best I could. I often got decent grades this way, despite having little command of the material. Occasionally, a professor would see right through it. I passed a lot of classes this way- mostly the ones that didn't interest me that much.

I would not have had the balls to try using this technique to get a graduate degree or a doctorate.

2008-10-01T08:20:00.001-07:00

We shouldn't forget about the US Attorney firings. Eugene Robinson has a good article in the Washington Post today.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902663.html

Here's a highlight:

The people who have been running our government for the past eight years have nothing but contempt for government. They believe only in politics and ideology, in that order. First, win elections by any means necessary. Second, once in a position to act in the public good, govern with the ideological conviction that government is either irrelevant or harmful to the public interest.

That's pretty strong stuff coming from the pages of the Washington Post. While Robinson touches upon the firing of David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico being related to his unwillingness to pursue 'voter fraud' cases, he fails to make the connection between this firing and the Republican tactic of referring to caging, voter roll purges and other electoral malfeasance as being done in the name of combating 'voter fraud'. There is no 'voter fraud' there. What there is is a U.S. Attorney that is not going to rubber stamp or pursue GOP efforts at disenfranchising likely Democratic voters.

Go here - I'm sure Brad has something about it: http://www.bradblog.com. Basically the U.S. Attorney firings were largely done to remove impediments to the fucking with of elections. Excuse my stumbling prose - after all it IS high treason we are talking about!

2008-09-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

You know, When I saw that the House had rejected the compromise bailout bill, and that the stock market had tanked, I found myself laughing. Maybe I shouldn't find this so amusing, but I do.

I think Michael Moore agrees with me.

When I read some of the comments from the floor of the stock exchange, I laughed even more. Talk about a nation of whiners!

I know that the stock market crashing kind of makes the world suck, I guess. I don't know. I'm the kind of guy that is a skilled worker that can make enough salary to afford to buy a modest house. I'm also the kind of guy mortgage lenders were tripping over themselves trying to lend $400,000 to. I'm also the guy that's been getting credit card offers for the last 20 years, offering unsecured credit lines up to $20,000.

I didn't do most of that, though I have built up quite a bit of credit card debt trying to take care of my family.

But a lot of people said yes to those offers, and bought a new $25,000 car on top of that. All those bad mortgages created a real estate frenzy that probably inflated the price of my house by a factor of two - and I live in Texas. It's a lot worse in California.

Basically, we have an economy that has been running at this high, artificial level because it's based on people buying things they can't afford. The Wall Street guys have been playing this game and making money off of it... hoping that someone else is left holding the debt when its true nature is revealed.

I think I'm laughing because they got caught with the bad debt. They tried to transfer it onto the taxpayers - and failed.

I think we are overdue for a correction. And it's not bad for everyone.

There are wealthy people with so much old money that they are largely immune to recessions and depressions, except to the extent that they are so obsessed with money they get really upset about losing out on $20.

There are these sort of upper middle class folks that have gotten pretty wealthy with high level managment jobs in the banking, finance, and corporate sector, through high salaries and investments. These people will be hurt the most. They have been upper middle class/borderline rich for a long time now, but they will become middle class in a hurry.

These people are the people that can actually afford houses in the 300K - Several million dollar range.

See, I'm not one of those people, but I was unable to buy a house in the neighborhood I wanted to live in because there were so many of these people. These are also the people that are freaking out on Wall Street. I think that's why I'm laughing.

There are middle class people that will lose their retirement funds, and may lose their jobs, and may end up with less income. They also may lose their houses, but in a depressed market, I think they will find housing again. I also think the Government will eventually come through with mortgage relief for these people in line with the new, deflated value of their homes. These people will hurt, and will go through change, but I think they will be OK.

For the working poor, that don't make high wages and that don't own property, I don't think this really hurts them all that much. In fact, some things get better for them because they won't be pushed around and squeezed out by all these upper-middle-classers.

And the good thing is that we will all break our dependency on cheap, easy money and will be forced to really work together to make our lives better. That starts with paying attention and learning about what's really going on in our community and in the country and in the world, and making real, intelligent, informed choices when we decide where to get our news from, and when we go to the voting booth. And that will revitalize our democracy.

We will all be poorer, but we will all be happier. That is my prediction.

2008-09-29T14:39:00.000-07:00

Since 1992, 'recession' has been such a poison concept politically that it's been considered prudent economic policy to borrow money to avoid it - and to relax regulations that prevent the market from becoming a big ponzi scheme, where wealth is created by 'hoping' someone else will be left holding the hot potato (the hot potatoes being bad mortgates and credit default swaps and such things).

Though this is a bit different from 1929, I'm afraid we're in a similar boat. Natural recessions have been staved off for so long that we really have an awful lot of wealth built up on nothing. Should we take steps to avoid another Great Depression? Sure, If we can. But I don't know if it is possible to avoid a huge correction in the markets. This bailout may just make the eventual, inevitable correction worse.You cannot sustain a life built on credit indefinitely. There has to come a time when the money is paid back. There's now a huge amount of money out there that's never going to be paid back. Therefore it's not. really. money. Oops.

I think that most 401K's and a lot of pensions are going to be lost. A lot of jobs are going to be lost too, and a lot of companies are going to go under. There will be inflation and wages won't increase. But I think we're going to be all right, because we will live in a world of reality again. Read this - it made me feel better: http://www.hpol.org/fdr/inaug/

2008-09-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

It was a little hard to watch last night. I was so worried Obama was going to mess up in some way. I didn't like the way he talked about the Russia-Georgia thing.

But really, he didn't mess up, I don't think. He seemed reasonable, studied, and authoritative. I think his deep, sonorous voice is the essence of his charisma. I think he quite possibly won some people over in the debate. Voting for a young black guy that says we've been doing everything wrong for the last eight years is a pretty scary thing for a swing voter. But I think if anyone can make them feel more secure, it's Obama.

Especially because McCain doesn't come accross too well. I actually think he sounded more sane than he has acted over the past few weeks, and that might help him. But my first impression was that his suit was too big, and that he seems unable to lift his arms.

Were Palin a more formidable candidate, this might not hurt him so much. But people are really beginning to get a little scared of her. That Couric interview was , ooo, woooof. Couric isn't exactly tough, but Palin couldn't even handle it. It would take a pretty nimble politician to dance around the dissonance between McCain's occasional populist rhetoric and his actual record. She's not that sophisticated that way. It's not just that she doesn't have experience in national affairs -she's never had an interest in it and it shows. I've never met a foreign head of state either, and I'm younger than she is (a little), but I think I could project a more reassuring image than that.

I think McCain's peaked - and Palin may get a little bounceback from that VP debate if she exceeds low expectations and Biden gaffes, but it's going to be tough for McCain to make up ground. But there's still the fear of black people out there that could be unpredictable, and there is still all the caging and purging of the voter rolls, and finally the electronic voting tabulation that undoubtedly will be tilted in McCain's favor in several states. Obama needs a sizable lead, and the press, historically, is not going to want to let that happen because it takes the suspense out.

What Obama has going for him is that the mainstream punditry is like McCain's jilted lover. They were deeply in love with him, and now they feel wronged. In their collective stupidity, they feel he has betrayed them, even though it was really their own shortsightedness and weak sense of journalistic ethics that did them in. And those things are very much still in play. They may start to feel sorry for McCain, and want to even this thing out.

But the people are starting to sit up a little. I really like how the bailout got derailed. I think the politicians were emboldened by enough of their constituents saying 'No'. That's the way things should happen. The press didn't really help - the people did that on their own.

At this stage in the election, a little fear will go a long way. In 2000, Gore made a late push, and when Bushs' DUI came out, people started getting a little scared of him, and Gore made a pretty historic popular vote victory when the polls indicated he was behind. In 2004, people were still very scared of 9/11, and they were scared of a Democrat being in charge. But there were plenty of reasons to be scared of Bush too, and I think Kerry's major mistake was that he didn't attack Bush's character hard enough. If he had, he could have set himself up as the safe choice. In the convention, he instructed everyone not to attack Bush's character. Despite cutting and effective criticisms of Bush's policy, in the last debate, he got all magnaminous and said that Bush was a good father and a good person in the end. I think that made it close enough for them to steal.

In the fear game, Obama starts at a disadvantage, being a Democrat and being young (and even younger looking) and, of course, being the first black candidate. But as the campaign goes on, it is he and Biden that are reassuring, and McCain and Palin that seem unstable and anxiety causing. Most peoples' minds are made up at this point, but I see Obama with a distinct advantage. Bank failures are scary, and I don't see how McCain gains any credibility on the economy.

some more good shit

2008-09-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

I think this is well written, and that you should read it.

http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13611

I'm learning about the economy

2008-09-23T07:41:00.001-07:00

This is good shit right here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/21/9322/74248/245/602838

Toward a Coherant Economic Stance

2008-09-22T10:24:00.001-07:00

OK, I'm making a ridiculous number of posts today, especially considering that no one reads this blog.

Here is a good explanation of the subprime crisis:

http://www.slate.com/id/2182709/

The more I think about it, the more I get insensed by the idea of bailing this out.

Basically, banks took a risk by lending money to people that didn't have a great chance of paying the money back. But they mitigated the risk by immediately selling the loan for cash. The buyer figured they could resell it too, and they did. But basically, this was a game of musical chairs. Someone was going to end up without a chair at some point.

Any institution that took on this kind of risk is, in my opinion, not very smart. Someone's going to lose, eventually. You want to gamble everything on the idea that it's not going to be you?

Government should regulate this kind of behavior, because it creates a whole pool of house buyers that really can't afford a house. And that drives house prices up. When a bunch of those end up foreclosing, there's a lot of houses on the market that few can afford, especially now that subprime loans are no longer available. That drives house prices down. Then, the foreclosing bank cannot recoup its investment by selling the house. The bank runs out of money, and cannot pay its depositors.

Then what? Do we pay 700 billion dollars to the stupid bank for these undervalued assets?

Or do we let the bank fail, pay the depositors through insurance, and take control of the properties in question?

And then, once we take control of the properties in question, we can renegotiate the terms of the mortgage according to the house's real value, rather than its over-inflated hypothetical value. Net result - same real estate recession, same Government expense, but people get to stay in their homes. Then you create regulations that prevent this from happenning again. That's a winner.

Also, others that might venture into the banking business learn a lesson. Don't do stupid things with other people's money.

The purpose of regulation is not to strangle business, but to control situations where competition forces companies to do destructive things to keep up with the other company. The purpose of regulation is to keep the focus on the long term. As Michael Moore says, to deregulate completely would mean that it would be legal to sell people crack cocaine. This would make a fabulous profit in the short term, and those companies that chose not to sell it would probably go out of business, but eventually the country (and the company) would be awash with non-productive, desperate, sick people.

Which is pretty much what we have now - but the drug is credit, not crack. The net effect of this whole business is that society has been thrown into turmoil, all of which is going to end up being very expensive and difficult to fix. Meanwhile, the executives of these institutions made off with a lot of cash. Now the taxpayers are supposed to fork out $2300 each to keep these institutions going? No way. These executives should be out of a job. In some sense, it's not all their fault - they were competing in the marketplace that existed. But there is so much lobbying going on from these companies, and most of it is focused toward deregulation. Which is also an incredibly stupid, short-sighted thing to do.

We should re-institute regulation for the long-term health of industry. And we should consider a Constitutional Amendment making it highly illegal for a private company to attempt to influence an elected official, or an election. That's really where this mess begins. When you influence elected officials and get them to legislate deregulation, your competitor is deregulated as well. There is no inherent advantage, except perhaps in the short term.

Unless, a Government buyout of the eventual collapse is part of the scheme.

Which is why we shouldn't contribute one thin dime to the survival of these companies. Damn the consequences. We can still grow food, we can still sell goods and services, we can still build and maintain housing. We, as a country, can survive this.

And then we have to do something so that it never happens again. The stupidity and short-sightedness of human beings is a constant. The Constitution is a great document that has saved our society at large from the effects of this stupidity on many occasions. But its flaw is that it was written before the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalist power.

It needs to be amended to protect the citizens from this sort of upheaval. Or, the upheaval itself must be allowed to happen without bailout. Those are, or should be, our two choices.

2008-09-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

This is from my dad, who submitted it to the New York Times Op-ed page. The Times, like most mainstream institutions, is run by a bunch of idiots these days, though there are still some smart people there... Or at least Krugman. Anyway, here it is:

A Taxpayer's Manifesto

By Ira Glasser

Socialism has now come openly and explicitly to America. And it has come to save free market capitalism. What else can one call it when the government takes over entire huge private sector entities for the good of society; when hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are pumped into failed private sector entities; when the government decides which entities shall die--Lehman-- and which survive--A.I.G.; and when the stock market is "rescued" by talk of creating a permanent government agency to do all that on a vast and permanent basis? OK, I accept all that, as conservatives and liberals alike seem to be doing. These recent actions by the government are necessary for the greater good of society. OK, fine. But then here are some things I never want to hear again from free market ideologues:

1. That the free market is self-correcting;

2. That the free market must always be protected from government regulation and control lest its growth, and the growth of the American economy, be stifled;

3. That any regulatory constraints on economic activities to prevent calamitous excesses is forbidden, while massive government takeovers to remedy those excesses is welcome;

4. That universal single-payer health care, like Medicare for everyone, is socialized medicine, to be avoided like the plague, and that health care should be left instead to the mystic genius of the free market;

5. That school voucher systems can provide the poor with better education through that same mystic genius;

6. That Individual Retirement Accounts invested in the stock market will provide ordinary people with retirement security better than Social Security;

7. That corporate defined contribution retirement plans that give employees their very own 401(k) accounts to manage and invest are better for ordinary people than defined benefit pension plans in which the employer assumes the long term risks and benefits of market fluctuations;

8. That greed and self interest, unregulated and unconstrained, is the surest way to economic paradise, and that government intervention is a road to serfdom;

9. That Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan were economic saviors, as opposed to John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal;

10. And finally, that Republican de-regulators are interested in cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, when the taxes cut are vanishingly small next to the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt the government has now assumed that will have to be paid by those same taxpayers, their children and their grandchildren.

If this is morning in America, perhaps it is time we all woke up.

I registered my agreement, and was inspired to type this:

This is just the final act of the big scheme where a bunch of wealthy people annoyed by democracy got together, masqueraded as politicians, and stole every penny that the United States of America had. And then they ran up our credit cards and pocketed the money. And when it started to look like we couldn't pay our credit card bills, they sold our children's future wages to China.

This deal will make the budget deficit for 2008 exceed one thousand billion dollars. That's a trillion, isn't it? Let's go back to 1980 when Reagan was attacking Carter for running up deficits of 80 billion. They've gradually desensitized us to these insane, ridiculous amounts of spending.

But this is the Bush Grift. It's what they've always done. Take over a company (or in this case, a country), run it into the ground and run off with the loot.

2008-09-22T06:45:00.000-07:00

I've somewhat calmed down. I'm still pissed off about this 700 billion bailout. I have yet to coalesce a coherent economic theory. But this gladdened my heart.

http://www.mlive.com/grpress/news/index.ssf/2008/09/george_will_lashes_out_against.html

I think George Will is a putz, especially when he talks about baseball. But reading this article, I have new respect for him. At least he is consistent in his conservatism. The fact that he is saying 'let them fail' makes me feel better about letting them fail. And I also thought his criticism of McCain was illuminating.

To use a baseball analogy, Will is like a Yankee fan that has always been a Yankee fan - not one of those front-runners that follows the Yankees because they happen to be winning. This bailout might be akin to the Commissioner of Baseball demanding the C.C. Sabathia and Johan Santana be given immediately to the Yankees to avoid the horror of a Yankee-less postseason.

Or maybe it's like giving the Yankees 10 games in the standings.

Yankee Stadium will never host a baseball game again. And the Republican Party as we know it may be finished.

financial crisis

2008-09-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, so,

seven

HUNDRED

BILLION

dollars.

To save the economy? I don't understand.

So, basically, a bunch of banks gave out loans for people to buy houses. They made a bunch of financial desicions based on the idea that these loans would all be paid back. They spent all the money they did have, much of which was depositors' money.

Now, it turns out, a lot of these people are not, in fact, going to be able to pay these mortgages back. So we're supposed to give a whole bunch of money to these banks so that they don't fail?

NO.

That's BULL SHIT.

I think.

Can somebody tell me - what happens if we don't bail them out? Do we lose all our savings? I don't have any savings. I guess I would lose my 401K. Oh wait, I cashed in all my 401K's last year, because I knew something like this was going to happen.

I mean, people losing their retirement funds - that sucks. But how is putting 700 billion into the economy going to help keep this going? So we borrow another 700 billion from China? What if they demand the money back?

I think that the people that invested their money in this big bullshit scheme that the economy has been for the past decade should take their lumps. 401K gone? I'm sorry, but maybe you shouldn't have believed your employer and the Republicans that told you it was such a great idea.

We still have seeds. We have soil. Much of the country has water. We can grow food. We have a fair amount of oil. A lot of people might lose their house. And then there will be a lot of houses on the market that no one can afford. And then they will drop in price. And then those same people might be able to buy back their house.

We can survive this. We won't be able to act rich anymore, but we should still be able to eat and heat our homes in the winter. We shouldn't sell our souls to China so that we can keep the party going for another couple of years.

I kind of feel like we should just let it play out. People will feel a lot of pain - that will suck. But when they see that corporate CEO or that corporatist Republican politician walking down the street, maybe they will get angry at that person and string them up.

I think THAT's what they want to pay $700 billion to avoid.

Again, what is the consequence of NOT bailing out the economy? Will someone tell me? Inflation? Well, if you ask me, it's long overdue. I think the consequence of not bailing them out is that the big corporations will lose their ability to control society and produce everything we purchase. I think their big party is over, because they got too greedy. Are we going to REWARD them for that?

I am not thinking coherently. I am freaked out about this. I'm supposed to have a $100 co-pay for a hospital visit on my insurance, but I just got a bill from the hospital saying I owe $440 on top of that. I'm sure there was some de-regulation that happened that made this legal. Good for them. But at some point there isn't going to be any blood left in this stone. And I think that might end up hurting THEM more than it hurts ME.

I need Paul Krugman to explain this to me. We need Paul Krugman and James Kunstler in positions of authority to lead us through this mess. We are still people - we still have hands and brains, and we still have some materials to work with here. I think we really need to get back to reality, and do the work it takes to survive.

Because really, this American life of leisure, where we can go out to eat, and where we have all kinds of fancy electronic equipment, where we can go up the street and buy every kind of fancy food from all over the globe... where we can slack off in an office and make $50,000 a year.. Where we can just go out and buy something new and throw the old thing in the trash... this life is bullshit. They've been selling us the idea that this is sustainable, so that we borrow borrow borrow and spend spend spend money we don't have. And the money goes into the pockets of the few that actually DO have. And we end up with the bill, and we can't possibly pay it, and someone's going to get angry, but again, there is no blood in the stone. We have all been idiots. We're going to have to work out a way to survive and build community again. There is no Santa Claus. Well, maybe there is, but he doesn't come EVERY DAY - he comes ONCE a year, and he can't fit 5 billion 92 inch HD TV sets in his sleigh, so you're probably just getting a CARD.

mccain psychoanalysis

2008-09-19T13:54:00.001-07:00

What's the deal with McCain? Why does he sometimes seem like he has independence, only to end up agreeing with the powers-that-be? That independence is quite convincing. It seemed once, to me and to a lot of other people, to be convincing. Russ Feingold believes it. John Kerry believed it.

Man, I'm totally unqualified to do this, but it hit me today like a ton of bricks.

McCain was a rule-breaker at the Naval Academy. He got in trouble - he didn't get good grades. He didn't particularly respect rules or regulations. Once he was a pilot, he broke rules and lost planes. He was rebellious.

What happens to a person like that when they are captured and subjected to torture for five years?

It seems to me he would have been rebellious with his captors. He wouldn't have respected their authority. And he would have been tortured, over and over and over. They would have tried to break him. For five years.

What does this do to a man? How does it change his relationship to authority figures? Is he, as a result of this experience, conditioned to immediately cease his rebellious behavior when an authority figure walks into the room? Is he naturally rebellious and deeply traumautized by the results of his rebellion as a prisoner of war?

I mean, why, why did he abandon his contrary stance to the Bush Administration just as Bush's popularity began to tumble? It could be a calculated political move to try to win a primary, but it still doesn't seem to make sense to me. The way I see it, McCain won the primary by taking the moderate vote while the conservative vote was split between several flawed candidates. His primary victory alarmed conservatives. They still believed he was moderate, and he had to pick a conservative VP to mollify them.

McCain's behavior, to me, is bizarre. And yet, there is a certain logic to it considering his personality and his life experience.

todays rant

2008-09-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

I really think that if Obama manages to win this thing, he has to go ahead with investigating and prosecuting the various questionable actions this administration has undertaken.
Lying the nation into a war is only part of it. The expansion and flexing of unprecedented Presidential powers has been unprecedented. It makes Nixon look like a jaywalker in comparison.

I think Clinton's biggest mistake was that he let Iran-Contra drop in the name of getting his agenda going and making things better. It's vintage Clinton really - he was trying to earnestly concentrate on making things better for people and not worrying about wasting time on finding justice.

Unfortunately, history shows that when you let a bully off the hook, instead of them paying you back by leaving you alone, they take it as license to bully you again.

A lot of the players in Iran-Contra could have been smacked down, humiliated, and kept out of Government for the rest of their lives. Instead, they walked away for a while, walked back in, and commenced going even farther this time.

Since the primary, Obama has worried me with this 'moving beyond partisanship' stuff. I was worried that Obama was going to magnaminously let the Republicans off the hook and move beyond into earnest Governance. Even though his opponent in the primary, Hillary Clinton, was a Clinton, I felt that it was more likely she would pursue prosecution of those lawless bastards. She seemed more angry about it and I thought maybe she had learned the lesson of what appeasement does. Also, though she is married to Bill, she is not the same person. All in all, I thought it more likely Hillary would prosecute than Obama. That's the main reason why I voted for her and endured the ridicule of most of my friends, who were convinced Obama was the progressive standard bearer and that Hillary was on a par with McCain or worse.

I don't know who was right. I'm solidly behind Obama and I think he'll make a good President. He has the desire and intelligence to make this country better. But I'm concerned about the campaign. I think he should be painting the current Republican Party as a cesspool of corruption - as a bunch of compromised, unethical crooks. Not because it could win him the election, but because it's true. Yet he is not slamming the Republicans this way - only Bush.

I'm sure there are a lot of Republicans and Republican politicians that care about this country's future and have a conservative and earnest idea about policies they think will make things better. I used to believe McCain was one of them, but I'm pretty sure he isn't. From Keating through his current lobbyist connections, he has shown that in the end, he will suck up to powerful interests and do their bidding, putting the welfare of the people second.

The major Republican politicians of today are, for the most part, exhibiting a form of 'Governance' that seeks to increase the power and wealth of those that are already powerful while decreasing the power of the average voter. They are anti-democracy, and that's anti-American. There are many, many examples of this. The best one is how they try to get African-Americans and other likely Democratic voters off the voter rolls. They fight tooth and nail against paper ballots and other checkable forms of voting. Another example is the secrecy with which this administration does business. The true goals are always obscured, because the true goals are things which hurt the majority of Americans.

When Republicans complain about progressive tax structures or regulations on business, my reply is that we live in a Democracy. If a majority of the people want to tax rich people more, and you're a rich person, then too bad for you. Move somewhere else if you don't like it. The peoples' will rules in this country, unless that will wants to do something specifically forbidden by the Consitution and Bill of Rights. The rich and powerful will always be at a disadvantage in a democracy, because most people aren't rich and powerful.

A party or politician that represents the rich and powerful is inherently anti-democratic. I think it is clearly demonstrable that the Republicans are the preferred party of the rich and powerful, and that the Republicans enact policies that allow the rich and powerful to make more money and amass more power.

The Republican Party is so dominated by these types right now that to cede ground to them is pointless. They are not looking for compromise and consensus. Those are democratic values. They don't like democratic values. They want the pesky hordes to get out of their way and allow them to operate unfettered. They're never going to be happy with halfway.

They're anti-democracy, they're anti-American, they've gotten to the point where they've committed actual demonstrable and provable crimes, and they need to be prosecuted and removed from Government. To fail to do so would be to enable this sort of behavior and to put yourself in danger.

It's like if someone tries to strangle you in your sleep, but you woke up in time and fought them off you. Are you going to go back to sleep? You'd have to be crazy! No, you find them, and you tie them to a tree with about 8 miles of rope. Then you can sleep. That's the responsible, prudent thing to do. That's how you survive. That's how the United States of America survives.

Darwin...

2008-09-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's interesting that people like Sarah Palin favor the teaching of creationism in schools alongside or instead of evolution. There's an irony in it.

Once upon a time, people who were honorable and talented and ethical rose to positions of authority. Once upon a time, people that couldn't add 2 and 2 found themselves out of power and out of influence. If you couldn't balance your family budget, you ended up hungry. If you couldn't work hard and effectively at your job, you ended up out of a job. If you lied to people, or wronged them, you were no longer trusted and no longer listened to.

Nowadays, with runaway consumer credit and deflated prices for goods (as a result of cheap labor and cheap oil), and with the rampant government borrowing, it is possible for people to have luxuries without working that hard. It is possible for people to disregard realities like 2+2=4, and to be lauded and promoted for saying things like 2+2=5, and you never have to give up the extra one. And the people who cry that 2+2 still equals 4 are shouted down by these arrogant, shortsighted dorks. These ASD's are rewarded for their stupid behavior by the real holders of power, because the loud, obnoxious, overconfident ASD's help to keep the 2+2=4 crowd from amassing power.

This is getting very conceptual. But in the fields of journalism and politics, the ASD's are in control now, and lesser ASD's like to vote for them. They're all scared of 2+2=4.

But in a real, non-warped world, these ASD's would be muttering drunks in a bar - they'd be homeless people begging for change - they'd be the ne'er do well uncle that you keep having to bail out of jail. They'd be the ones who would never procreate - they'd be the runts of the litter.

I think the captains of industry - the real, super-rich power brokers - are still smart people, even though they may be completely ruthless, insane, and self-centered. But the people below them - the middle managers of this world - the CEO's, the big news pundits, the governors, the small town mayors, et cetera et cetera (a list that now includes the President of the United States)- the majority of these people are now ASD's. They are very useful, to the big powers, as long as most decent people continue to believe that these ASD's actually deserve to be in authority.

In other words, you have to believe that somehow, Sarah Palin deserves to be Governor of Alaska over everyone else in the state. You have to believe that Maureen Dowd or some other columnist has a better grasp of what is going on in this world than some blogger. I have a cousin who lives in Alaska. He's a decent guy - he works hard and he takes care of his family. You know, I think he'd make a better Governor, but he's probably more concerned about making sure his kids are OK. And I think I'm more qualified than Maureen Dowd or most of these people writing for the mainstream media.

But there will always be one of these middle manager ASD's out there that will make some statement, and back it up with some 'proof', that 2+2=5. And since the mainstream media is now full of 2+2=5ers, they won't tell you it's wrong. Even if they want to, they probably won't know how. Because the people who do have the strength and power to do that are out of power in the mainstream media. They're blogging, like Bob Somersby, or maybe they're flipping burgers, or working some other low-level job where truth-telling and integrity is not counter-productive to success.

So how do you know? In the end, there will be someone saying '2+2=5' and someone else saying '2+2=4'. We also have a few people out there (Hi, Olbermann) who are saying '2+2=3'. Without an authoritative arbiter, how are you to know who is right?

It just comes down to your gut, I guess. It just comes down to who you believe. As the house of cards built up by 2+2=5 falls down (the banks fail and the scheme is unraveled), we are increasingly going to have to balance our checkbooks. When we do so, we will see that, yes, 2+2 does equal 4. And this will make the choice in the elections come into focus for us.

For McCain and Palin, they are hoping they can keep the illusion propped up for another few weeks. I'm not sure they will be able to do that.

We will all become poorer. We will all become smarter. We will recognize and respect the smart and the honorable among us. We will feel pain, but when we feel joy again, it will be real joy, not the empty joy of the cocaine high.

I'm not surprised that people like Palin don't recognize the truth of evolution. They have risen against natural selection. The irony is that these folks have arisen out of the Republican Party, who used to be the 'Social Darwinism' crowd.

You're no maverick!

2008-09-12T11:38:00.001-07:00

I was going to write something about this, but this guy over at dailykos did it right:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/10/16275/0853

Obama, please have Fontaine Maverick out on the campaign trail with you.

This makes me so mad

2008-09-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=9/11/2008&id=46027

This is a huge, huge problem that has affected the outcome of the last two Presidential elections. A State Secretary of State is also serving as the state chairman of of the Republican campaign.

This person is responsible for administering the election - including maintaining the voter rolls, allocating voting machines, certifying the election, setting standards for registration, et cetera et cetera.

Florida, 2000: Kathleen Harris
Ohio, 2004: J. Kenneth Blackwell
Wisconsin, 2008: J.B. Van Hollen

Could there be a more blatant conflict of interest?

Obama needs to call attention to this now.. so that when there is problem with the Wisconsin vote - and there will be - he will have had the first say in the issue.

Here's a suggested press release:

'We all want to have a fair election with results we can trust, regardless of the outcome. Even though the Presidential election is a national election, the voting is administered by each individual State. The most important person in a State with regard to ensuring that elections are administered fairly is the Secretary of State of that State.

Usually, this person is appointed by that State's Governor, and is usually either a Republican or a Democrat. That's largely unavoidable. However it has come to my attention that in Wisconsin, the Secretary of State, Mr. J.B. Van Hollen, is also the State Chairman of John McCain's Presidential Campaign. The Secretary of State is responsible for maintaining the State's voter rolls, setting registration guidelines, allocating voting machines, and a host of other responsibilities. For this person to be an official of one campaign or another is an unacceptable conflict of interest.

In Florida in 2000, Katherine Harris was the Secretary of State. And the State Chairman of George Bush's campaign. In Ohio in 2004, J. Kenneth Blackwell was the Secretary of State. And the State Chairman of George Bush's campaign. In both cases, there were documented cases of decisions being made both before and after the elections that suppressed voter turnout in Democrat leaning areas.

I am calling for the resignation of J.B. Van Hollen as Secretary of State of Wisconsin. It's not sufficient for Mr. Van Hollen to resign from the McCain campaign. His objectivity has already been brought into question. This election is too important to entrust to agents of one campaign or another. All of us, Republican or Democrat, are Americans first. And we must ensure that this election is truly a Democratic one.

The people that serve on my campaign believe in me and my vision for America with passion, and I am grateful for that. But those people wouldn't be the best qualified to make impartial decisions with regard to elections. That's why none of my State Campaign Chairs are also serving as Secretary of State*. As Democrats, we believe in fairness. It's about how good you are, not about who you know, or what your connections are. I hope that John McCain shares that sentiment, and will join me in calling for the resignation of J.B. Van Hollen.'

*I hope that's true.

yay jim hightower

2008-09-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/98380/sarah_palin%27s_faux_populism/

Not watching TV news, I was only dimly aware that some idiots were referring to Palin as a 'populist'. What is the point of having words at all? I think that Obama should begin to refer to himself as 'Conservative'. It's absolutely true. Look at Obama and Biden. They're pretty normal guys, hawking standard American positions. McCain and Palin are definitely a couple of freaks by comparison.

So, is Wasilla the meth capital of Alaska or not? I'm wondering about those buggy eyes.

I shouldn't say such things, but I do get offended when a Corporatist steals the word 'populist'. Hell, I don't even think Obama is a full populist. Russ Feingold and the late Paul Wellstone would be two examples, to me, of populists, and they made it as high as the Senate, but no higher. Has a populist ever been President? It's hard to say - perhaps Teddy Roosevelt. Perhaps FDR became one once in office. Abraham Lincoln might fall into that category as well. I don't think he was an abolitionist, really, though he wasn't pro-slavery either. I think he freed the slaves as a tactical move in the Civil War, but once he saw the affect that it had, he embraced the populism of it. And then he got shot shortly thereafter.

I don't think that McCain and Palin are particularly ideological about politics. Palin seems to be ideological about religion, but when it comes to policy, I think they're just the sort of politicians that are drawn to political 'status' positions like moths to a flame. They do seem to think that people with 'status' and/or money are inherently better, but it's not that they necessarily have evil intent. They just like getting into that power position and then they just let themselves be influenced by the big players. They like it. They really have no agenda and they're just happy to be there. And the big players loooove politicians like them. They're like empty vessels. They occasionally take a position or make a stand (McCain enjoys doing this once in a while, though he usually backs down), but for the most part they can be relied upon to do nothing to upset the powers that be.

Now, Clinton, he liked cozying up to the powers that be and having them sit at the table, and he loved to compromise with them, but he was a representative of the people at that table. I think Obama might be about the same, though many feel he does want to kick the powers that be out of the room. I hope that's true, but either way, I feel he has an interest in representing us. For both of them, though, deep down, they run and acheive positions because they have a desire to make the world a better place for people, and they want to leave their mark on the world that way. They may enjoy the process and the fame and the adulation, but deep down that populist desire exists. I don't think it does for McCain or Palin.

With friends like these...

2008-09-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

Observing this election cycle, it's become ever more clear that the mainstream press are either unwilling to list facts - or, perhaps, they want to, but simply have no idea how to do it. The mainstream news provides exposure and publicity for candidates, but if a candidate tells the truth, there will be essentially no verification. Therefore the system rewards liars. A columnist hoping to help Obama and hurt McCain could make their point quite well listing and explaining facts. But they screw that up too.

This article http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1839724,00.html is very negative toward Sarah Palin. As an Obama supporter, I guess I should be happy. But faced with a situation where simply listing and explaining the facts would cast Palin in a negative light, Kinsley instead takes a very negative, dismissive tone while doing a pretty bad job of explaining himself. The result is that it comes across as a hit piece. Instead of walking away thinking 'Sarah Palin is not so great', I walk away thinking, 'Kinsley really doesn't like her'.

KINSLEY: Palin has continued to repeat the already exposed lie that she said "No, thanks" to the famous "bridge to nowhere" (McCain's favorite example of wasteful federal spending). In fact, she said "Yes, please" until the project became a symbol and political albatross.

Actually, she didn't actually say "Yes, please". Instead of making up a cute "quote" to make his point, he could have said that she continued to support the bridge project for more than a year after it became a symbol and political albatross. The facts make the case much better, if reported correctly, than his snarky cuteness.

KINSLEY: Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Unfortunately, I, the reader, am thoroughly confused. The tax burden of Alaskan residents is 2 1/2 times the national average? And Alaska's spending more than double? How much more than double the national average? Less than 2 1/2 times the national average? Meaning they spend less than they take in? So why do they need Federal funds? What's he trying to say? I feel like it's Kinsley tricking me rather than Palin.

Oh, Okay. Now that I've re-read it for the fourth time, I think he might have meant that Alaska's spending is more than double their tax revenue. It was very clever to bring in the subject of dependence on foreign oil - cleverer still to come up with the hilarious phrase "pleasant to the pocketbook". If only he was clever enough to explain the situation without confusing the reader. Thanks, Michael Kinsley, but no thanks. See? I can do clever too. Can I have my six figure salary now?

Bridge to Nowhere timeline....

2008-09-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

Great timeline posted over on http://dailyhowler.com

OK! I have simplified it:

Summer 2005: Congress directs Alaska to build the bridge using federal funds.

November 2005: Congress rescinds the order for the bridge, allowing Alaska to keep the money and use it elsewhere.

November 2006:, Wasalia Mayor Sarah Palin, running for Governor, says she favors building the bridge.

September 2007: Palin cancels the bridge project, saying Congress wouldn't give any more
funds.

How this turns into 'I told Congress thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere' is quite the trick. It's a Rove-type trick: Grasp and distort the narrative which could hurt your candidate and turn it into a positive before your opponent can bring it up. To describe this with that tired old Kerryism 'She was for it before she was against it' (Oh, the cleverness!) is really a very poor argument*. What happened was that she took a pro-pork position in opposition to an anti-pork political firestorm. She was a maverick, all right - a pro-pork maverick! In fact, upon cancellation of this project her words suggest that she asked Congress for EVEN MORE PORK once the original funds were spent on other things!

*Not to mention, insulting to Kerry and the Democratic Brand. It's a capitulation to Republican efforts to turn Kerry's actions at the time, which were totally reasonable, into flip-flopism. Used this way, it describes Palin's actions, (lying about taking an action against something she actually favored), into mere flip-flopism.

2008-09-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

I am a political blogger. I keep sending these things in email to my friends and/or other bloggers i admire, and now I'm just going to post them here.

hi there

2005-03-29T16:50:00.000-08:00

i suppose this beats writing my own blog program.