The Command Post

Mayor Mitch and Chief Wiggum are getting serious about violence.

2012-01-13T11:06:00.000-06:00

For real, this time!

I'll believe it when I see it, frankly.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/01/mayor_mitch_landrieu_superinte.html

This week, 17 people were shot over an 18-hour period and at least two police officers were fired on.
In short, it's getting worse, not better, and these guys are calling a news conference.

Again.

I honestly had high hopes for Mitch Landrieu, but at this point, if he continues to keep Serpas on as police chief, I'm going to have to look at a different candidate for mayor. I like a lot of what Landrieu is doing, but all of that is meaningless if his police department can't get the murder rate back down to human levels.

Occupy Wall Street is not the Tea Party of the left

2011-10-26T14:50:00.000-05:00

What it portends is actually much more serious than the Tea Party, and it will not be co-opted by the Democratic party the way the Tea Party was by the Republicans.

Let's first examine what the Tea Party actually is, at its core: it is the resurgence of anti-federalism. This has been discussed at length in other areas. They've done a rather effective job of dictating to the Republican party how business is (or rather, is not) going to be conducted in Washington. The Tea Party is not interested in finding better ways for Washington to do business. They are interested in stopping business. They view any action on the part of the federal government as an infringement of liberty. It should be noted that they are not "Constitutionalists" as they like to present themselves. Their views are more in line with a re-establishment of the Articles of Confederacy. They are not a conservative movement. They are retrogressive. At a minimum, they want to roll back the New Deal. They are all but openly campaigning on this.

I do not believe that the Tea Party have any use for the religious right, except as a way of gathering votes for their party. And pro-corporate conservatives are fine with them, as long as they don't expand the reach of the federal government. Their interests happen to align, since it's the federal government telling religious conservatives that they can't force kids to pray in public schools and telling corporations that they can't dump toxic sludge in the water at will. The Tea Partiers generally oppose the federal government on principle.

To be sure, this is a radical position at this point in our history, but it's the latest incarnation of a very old debate, and they've been successfully brought back into the Republican party fold. Republicans call themselves "Tea Party conservatives" as a way of hitching a ride on the latest fad. Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives are not true Tea Partiers, because the Tea Party, it bears pointing out again, is not a conservative movement. It is retrogressive and anti-federalist, but in the end, they're happy to fall back in line with the Republican party as long as they promise to cut spending and never raise taxes.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is something else entirely: it is the natural blowback from the Tea Party's anti-federalist policies and President Obama's attempts to appease them. If the Tea Party are the philosophical heirs of Patrick Henry (who, aside from his famous "Give me liberty, or give me death" quote, was a staunch anti-federalist and opponent of the Constitution). then the Occupy Wall Street movement are the philosophical heirs of Huey P. Long.

The key planks of the Share Our Wealth platform included:
No person would be allowed to accumulate a personal net worth of more than 300 times the average family fortune, which would limit personal assets to between $5 million and $8 million. A graduated capital levy tax would be assessed on all persons with a net worth exceeding $1 million.
Annual incomes would be limited to $1 million and inheritances would be capped at $5 million.
Every family was to be furnished with a homestead allowance of not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country. Every family was to be guaranteed an annual family income of at least $2,000 to $2,500, or not less than one-third of the average annual family income in the United States. Yearly income, however, cannot exceed more than 300 times the size of the average family income.
An old-age pension would be made available for all persons over 60.
To balance agricultural production, the government would preserve/store surplus goods, abolishing the practice of destroying surplus food and other necessities due to lack of purchasing power.
Veterans would be paid what they were owed (a pension and healthcare benefits).
Free education and training for all students to have equal opportunities in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions for training in the professions and vocations of life.
The raising of revenue and taxes for the support of this program was to come from the reduction of swollen fortunes from the top, as well as for the support of public works to give employment whenever there may be any slackening necessary in private enterprise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_Our_Wealth

This was during the Great Depression. Much of the New Deal was implemented as a way of countering Long's populist appeal. They were also a way to circumvent a communist revolution. They were effective. By establishing a social safety net and building a strong middle class, it minimized the number of disaffected people who could push for a communist revolution. The Tea Party wants to smash all of that in the middle of one of the worst economic conditions since they were implemented in the first place.

What the Occupy movement is demanding is, essentially, a certain amount of wealth redistribution. Not a lot, but some. That's what the New Deal was. The government ignores that sentiment at its peril. If the injustices of wealth distribution in this country are not addressed, and indeed, the social safety nets put in place generations ago are stripped away as the Tea Party would like, then the Occupy movement's position is going to become increasingly radicalized. It is going to become violent. There will be some within the movement who will conclude that protests are not enough.

The Democrats are embracing the movement because they believe that this will be a chance for them to reignite their base. They misread the mood. These protests are not going to conduct get out the vote drives for Obama and congressional Democrats. They did that in 2008. They already got Obama elected. Now they've come to demand the change they were promised, and they're not going away until they get it.

And Republicans need to understand that there's more at stake here than whether or not Obama wins re-election. They need to address the real problems Americans are facing, or they're going to have some real problems of their own.

In short: the Tea Party is an anti-federalist Get Out The Vote drive for the Republican party.

The Occupy movement is the birth pangs of a revolution. The Republicans recognize this and are scared to death of it. But their response is all wrong. They think they can ridicule it away. They can't. They need to address the concerns before it gets out of hand.

I say this as a patriot who loves his country: politicians in Washington, please pull your heads out of your asses. Your employers are pissed. Do something to calm them down, before this gets ugly.

Some changes to this blog.

2011-10-26T13:18:00.000-05:00

The template of the blog has changed somewhat so as to better avail myself of Blogger's new features. It allows me to do a few things that I've wanted to do for a while, which is to have a feed of postings from blogs I want to direct people toward. On top of that, text formatting is much cleaner in this format than it was in the old one. If you happened to read my Paul Ryan post before, you may remember that the quoted text was choppy. I made no edits to the post; the new Blogger template corrected that for me.

Also, I've set the blog up to be available on mobile, in mobile format. This should help greatly when I want to text somebody my blog address and refer them to a specific writing while we're in a bar or some such.

I would especially like to recommend No Rest For The Awake, especially considering that is where the bulk of my traffic comes from. Least I can do is try to return the favor.

Now that I've made my blog much cleaner and more user friendly, I suppose I'll have to start writing on it some more.

A Response to Paul Ryan

2011-10-01T16:46:00.002-05:00

In this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) reviews a book titled, The Price of Civilization, by Jeffrey Sachs. While I have not read the book and cannot thusly respond to that, there are a few assertions which Ryan makes (and doesn't make) which merit a response.

He begins,

Free enterprise has never lacked for moral critics. In the mid-18th
century, for instance, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected the
proposition that the free exchange of goods and services, and the competitive
pursuit of self-interest by economic actors, result in general prosperity—ideas
then emanating from Great Britain. In a commercial society, according to
Rousseau, the people are "scheming, violent, greedy, ambitious, servile, and
knavish . . . and all of it at one extreme or the other of misery and opulence."
Only a people with "simple customs [and] wholesome tastes" can be
virtuous.

Of note is that Rep. Ryan does not dispute this premise. It is instructive to understand that Rep. Ryan does not, at any point in this article, dispute any of the moral criticisms directed toward capitalism, but rather offers his own moral criticisms of the author's suggestions. The article is hardly a full-throated endorsement of capitalism, and it isn't the type of ideological thumping which I've come to expect from anybody discussing politics these days. His responses are thoughtful, he acknowledges certain failings of our system, and even posits that there may be a better way forward, but that the author's suggestions are not it. In short, it's one side of the type of discussion intellectuals on both sides of the political divide ought to be having, would that we could shut out the noise. To wit:

Mr. Sachs is honest enough to acknowledge that the "rich" are not nearly
rich enough to pay for his ever-expansive vision of government. We're told that
"each of us with an above-average income" (i.e., $50,000 per household) must
"understand that if we are prudent, we can make do with a little less take-home
pay."

Such appeals to the citizenry to make sacrifices might be more
compelling if Mr. Sachs coupled them with calls for spending restraint in
Washington. Instead, his budget proposal insists on the need to "augment"
government spending by trillions of dollars in the years ahead. Thus the
sacrifices of citizens are to be made to increase the size and scope of a
federal government that Mr. Sachs admits has demonstrated little aptitude for
allocating resources efficiently or even fairly. This conundrum leads him to a
conclusion that would be comical if he were not deadly serious: "Yes, the
federal government is incompetent and corrupt—but we need more, not less, of
it."

Rep. Ryan offers us a false choice here, however. It's not simply a question of "more government" versus "less government". There's also "efficient government", "effective government", and "useful government", as opposed to the often wasteful and clueless government we have now. In short, we could simply decide to cut spending or increase spending, as though those goals are ends in and of themselves, or we can decide which government agencies and programs are worth preserving, which are not working, and why. Once we establish the "why" of whether a program is working or not, we can decide whether it's a question of doing something better or whether it's not worth doing at all.

An example of a program which is worth doing but could be done better is the Department of Defense. Just because this is an essential agency does not mean that every expenditure by DoD is essential. Obviously. On the flip side would be the public housing program, which is widely acknowledged as a failure not due to a failure of delivery, but because the program as designed failed to meet its objectives. The larger point is that simply because programs which are designed to alleviate poverty often fail to do so (although that is up for debate) does not mean that alleviating poverty is not a goal worth pursuing. Returning to a pre-New Deal economic model is not the answer. To argue that we need to move away from a 20th century model does not mean that we need to move toward a 19th century model. We need to find a new model for the 21st century -- one which meets the challenges of the day.

Ryan wraps up with this:

The dialogue between capitalism and its critics is an old one, and it will
continue. But as citizens of a self-governing nation, Americans must choose from
time to time between alternative visions for our future. This book's budget
proposals and economic policies are profoundly revealing. They lay bare the real
agenda of those who wish us to abandon the American idea and consign our nation
to the irrevocable path of decline. If only in that sense, "The Price of
Civilization" is a useful contribution to the conversation we must have in order
to make informed political choices in the years ahead.

And in choosing that vision as his foil, I would argue that Rep. Ryan is reaching for low-hanging fruit. This may be an easy argument to defeat, but doing so isn't particularly enlightening. I give Rep. Ryan more credit than that regarding his intellectual acumen, so I can assume that this article was a way to frame the discussion as a choice between Republican policies and America's decline. The two are not mutually exclusive, frankly. Austerity is a sort of tacit admission of decline; it says we simply cannot afford the excesses of yesterday and we have to make do with less. This may or may not be true, but scaling back social safety nets to protect those most vulnerable is not a sign of strength. A truly virtuous and strong society makes a determination that those who have benefited most from our economic system have a responsibility to help those who have fallen between the cracks. A free market economy is not equipped to handle that responsibility. When profit is the ultimate virtue, then charity is a vice. Only government has the resources and authority to fill those gaps.

What is needed is a means by which to change or eliminate programs which are not meeting their objectives. Often, entrenched interests (be they civil servants or contractors who make their living off these programs) will resist efforts to eliminate programs which aren't doing the job. Writing performance metrics into legislation as a prerequisitive to continued funding may be a way to circumvent that. If, for instance, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act fails to substantially reduce the number of uninsured Americans, then it should be eliminated and replaced with something else. As it stands, it has yet to even be fully implemented. To call it a failure at this point would be, to say the least, premature.

I'm glad to see the Rep. Ryan wishes to engage in a real discussion as opposed to the shouting past one another I too often hear in the larger debate in this country. Simply winning the next election should not be our goal. Actually meeting the challenges facing our country today should be the end to which winning an election is the mean. I hope to see more of this type of debate.

9 Reasons I Don't Blog That Much

2011-09-23T08:39:00.005-05:00

For as much thought, time, and effort as I try to put into my blog posts, for as much as I try to contribute in a constructive, meaningful way to the larger conversation about the direction of our society, and for as much as I bare my very soul that it may benefit even one person who reads this blog, I've had trouble getting off the ground.

On the other hand, my roommate draws on a chalk board and posts a picture of it online, and it goes viral.

If it sounds like I'm bitter, I'm not. My roommate's awesome. It just occured to me that perhaps this blog could use a bit more humor, and would do well to take itself a little less seriously. The world ain't so bad.

So that's what I'll try to do. I tend to only blog about larger things, probably stemming from my days in the military when I had to maintain a degree of anonymity. But bringing it back down to earth would probably be a net positive.

Oh, and HumorTouch.com... really? You branded my roommate's picture? You didn't take that picture, you pulled it off of BuzzFeed. Come on.

Our Bloody Decade

2011-09-10T17:19:00.001-05:00

I suppose it is to be expected that the media would spend lots of air time memorializing the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After all, much of the national media are based out of New York. For them, this is not simply something which happened, but a deeply traumatic event in their own lives. Different communities have different shared experiences. I remember watching the towers fall while stationed far away in South Dakota. Somehow, everybody knew we were going to war, even though, as I pointed out, we didn’t yet know who was behind the attack. Somehow, the media immediately grabbed the name Osama bin Laden and ran with it as the most likely perpetrator, given his history of attacking U.S. targets. And somehow it didn’t matter either way. There would be blood. We’d figure out whose shortly.

There was a moment in which it seemed as though the nation was coming together, united by our common shock. Pundits like to refer to it as a lost opportunity to improve ourselves, to build an even more perfect union. Let us be candid about this point: that was fear, not some sort of new-found love for our fellow Americans. These were petrified Americans, not patriotic Americans. President Bush accurately measured the national mood. While there was some desire to turn the nation’s attention toward a higher purpose, the nation mostly reacted like a wounded animal. Their President was happy to stoke the bloodthirsty mob toward his ends… and then tell them to go shopping.

See, we had a volunteer military to handle the dirty work. No need for tax increases, we would simply borrow the money to pay for our great national bloodletting. No need for a draft, we have enough volunteers willing to risk their lives. Thank them for their service, listen to country music, slap a (magnetic, we don’t want to damage the paint job) yellow ribbon on your SUV, max out your credit cards, and vote Republican! This is what was asked of most Americans. No call to service, not even something domestic like Americorps. Indulge all your consumer desires, and don’t worry: statistically speaking, most of you probably don’t know anybody in the military, anyway.

Vietnam syndrome, thwarted.

The Iraq campaign eventually became deeply unpopular, especially after it had dragged on for over a year (imagine!) and it was revealed that, oops, guess they weren’t stocking WMD and didn’t have anything to do with 9/11 and really weren’t a threat to us at all and our military has been stacking prisoners in naked pyramids and menacing them with dogs and all this tough talk about how it would be good if we had a long, bloody campaign to prove our mettle typed up by courageous keyboard warriors were just so much bluster and that even if we could “take it”, the price we were paying for… what again?... wasn’t worth it anymore. Never was. But somehow, in their heart of hearts, the electorate remained deeply, deeply afraid… of gay marriage. And as such, they gave the unelected buffoon who oversaw the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil and dragged us into a costly and unnecessary war his first electoral mandate as President, saying with conviction, “four more years”.

Hurricane Katrina finally awakened the portion of the American people who know that the earth revolves around the sun that President Bush did not have the people’s interests in mind when making policy decisions. He had set us on a path to self-destruction which would ultimately be realized when the economy collapsed in the final months of his presidency, and he mostly treated it like a big joke. Our dopey, impetuous President, grinning like the Cheshire Cat with blood dripping from his teeth, was finally revealed for the fraud he was. The stubborn partisans who had cheered his war mongering mostly went into hiding until tax day in 2009, in which they rebranded themselves “Tea Party Patriots”, shifting the discussion entirely to the economic policies of the new administration, one of the most huge and successful acts of changing the subject I’ve ever seen.

The subject has been changed. The page has been turned. After President Obama took office, we heard nary a word about Osama bin Laden until President Obama’s May 2, 2011 announcement of his death. We no longer endure a barrage of transparently political “terror alerts”, always timed to distract from news which would be embarrassing to the administration.

And yet, some of us haven’t moved on… haven’t turned the page. The sound of rocket fire is a distant four year-old memory for me, but the barrage of 9/11 coverage has called back the rage and frustration I felt over the senseless destruction and loss of life. The alchemy of war is to turn blood into gold. KBR and Blackwater knew how to do that with ease. Rifle fire, explosions, and helicopter blades were my lullaby, but defense contractors couldn’t hear it over the sound of their coffers filling up. “Thank you for your service,” they said with a grin and a Scrooge McDuck money bin. And as a nation, we have yet to come to grips with what we did. Neo-conservatives mostly keep their heads down, although Dick Cheney has been making the rounds. Charles Krauthammer, in his characteristically pompous manner, has recently tried to renew the old and discredited justifications. Liberals occasionally mention Iraq as one of the wrong-headed policy decisions of the last administration, but only ever in a detached, academic way, not with the passion of those who remember 9/11 personally.

And the average American citizen would just as soon forget it ever happened. To them, electing Obama was their mea culpa. He promised to end the war. He was black and had a Muslim name. No more was required.

Please don’t thank me for my service any more. Instead, go to a veterans’ cemetery, look for a grave with the words, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” inscribed on it, lay a rose next to it and very quietly and quite sincerely say, “I’m sorry.”

Another Jefferson crony goes down

2011-07-25T20:04:00.003-05:00

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/07/renee_gill_pratt_ordered_to_pa.html

A federal jury has ordered former New Orleans City Councilwoman and state Rep. Renee Gill Pratt to pay back roughly $1.1 million of the $1.4 million that prosecutors said was stolen in a scheme to loot a string of Central City charities controlled by the family of former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

A lot of these sweetheart deals ceased after she was unseated from the New Orleans City Council by Stacy Head, but then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) was able to keep a lot of the money flowing, at least until he was subsequently defeated by Republican Joseph Cao in 2008 (whom Head crossed party lines to endorse) and convicted of bribery.

None of this, of course, sat well with Jefferson groupie Tracie Washington, who came to Jefferson's staunch defense and turned her ire toward Head.

The indictment was "fiction, " Washington promptly declared at a rally she organized as chairwoman of the Justice for Jefferson Steering Committee. She reminded those present that "the Constitution says that a citizen is presumed innocent until he or she has had the opportunity to defend himself."
Jefferson's supporters will not have needed reminding for they are forever quoting that part of the Constitution. This is an admirable feat of memory, considering that it does not exist. The Constitution nowhere mentions the presumption of innocence, a concept derived from the English common law.
An argument might be made that it is implicit in the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process, but Washington was not in the mood for subtlety that night, or, indeed, for understatement. Jefferson, she declared, was the victim of the "Machiavellian twisting of Karl Rove and his Brownshirts."

Staunchly defending an indicted congressman....

http://www.abc26.com/news/politics/wgno-ringside-head051509-story,0,2038811.story

Her latest opponent is lawyer and activist Tracie Washington, who posted a few of Head's e-mail communications on her group's website. The stunt was designed to embarrass Head as much as possible and cause her significant political damage. It is too early to determine the political fallout for Head after the selective release of these inflammatory e-mails.

In the e-mails, Head complained about the city's incompetent technology chief, Anthony Jones, who lied about his credentials, but was still on the city payroll and receiving $80,000 per year. She also blasted her council colleague Jackie Clarkson, community activist Jerome Smith and related an upsetting incident involving a "chick" using food stamps at a grocery store.

After posting the e-mails for several hours, Washington removed them from her website. Washington released the e-mails even though the State Supreme Court blocked the distribution of the messages. The Supreme Court action came after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal overruled District Court Judge Lloyd Medley and gave permission for Washington to release the 400,000 e-mails.

This whole episode is a rather troubling insight into the racial politics of New Orleans. In her initial public records request, Washington only targeted white council members and did not solicit the e-mails of any of the African American council members. Washington secured the e-mails only through the cooperation of Veronica White, who despises Stacy Head. It is outrageous that the Sanitation Director would be involved in such a record request. For this offense, she should have been fired, but, sadly, White remains on the city payroll with her bloated salary.

...and attacks the councilwoman who unseated Gill Pratt and has been working to combat graft and corruption in city government as a racist.

Is Stacy Head totally clean? Well, she's a New Orleans politician, so I have my doubts, but she's a New Orleans politician whom the Jefferson family despise, so that's a point in her favor.

Rachel, I do hope you read this after I directed you to it. I know you've sought Tracie Washington out for comment in the past, but you should know that all is not as it seems in this city. I initially came here with the thought of getting involved with some of these non-profits in the city, but after seeing this type of activity, as well as wondering exactly where all the money these charities are receiving is going (into the Jefferson family's pockets, it would seem), I have to wonder if they aren't actually part of the problem, holding the city back by boosting pols like Bill Jefferson and Renee Gill Pratt.

Upsetting the Established Disorder

2010-12-03T20:57:00.004-06:00

I must confess to never having read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I tried, but I am cursed with a loathsome attention span, as evidenced by the sporadic nature of my postings on this blog. From what I understand of its premise, however, it is largely about a society in which the government has become oppressive toward its achievers, far too stifling of creativity, and in which the exceptional people of society go on "strike". This, of course, was largely a response to the New Deal policies of the Roosevelt administration, which sought to protect the most vulnerable in our society from the most powerful, and clearly Rand's Social Darwinist philosophies painted far too generous a picture of those who have achieved much in life. It is true that society is driven by the captains of industry, but their achievements are made on the backs of those for whom Rand had so much contempt: the simple, ordinary people.

Still, I have, upon moving to New Orleans, come upon a curious situation in which exceptional people of all sorts seem to have gone on strike in their own way, and the country at large barely notices. It is one in which artists, writers, poets, and even an odd architect or two have come to congregate, take their degrees and talents and apply them toward becoming waiters and bartenders. They subsequently destroy their minds with drugs and alcohol, and willfully wash all of their natural capacities down the drain -- largely because society at large rejected them, or else simply failed to recognize or appreciate how beautiful they were and how much they had to offer.

I myself stared into that abyss and rejected the entire experience. I took on a job as a waiter for a time, and drowned my mind in alcohol for an even longer time... all in the interest of gleaning the authentic New Orleans experience. To my mind, the New Orleans experience is one of death. No longer mourning life, people come here to kill themselves, if not directly, then indirectly. They destroy their minds and thus no longer can truly be said to be themselves. They fall into the abyss of despair and rejoice in it. They are all happy because nobody any longer expects anything from them... they are simply waiters and bartenders, and from that platform of low expectations, they can snicker at all the moneyed tourists who come through and make snide comments at them, insulting their intelligence without them knowing, and letting them wonder why society is so screwed up, and isn't there anybody out there who can fix it?

Atlas shrugged, and so did everybody else. Now we have a city with a service industry staffed with people capable of becoming doctors, engineers, and philosophers, and all anybody can think about when they talk about this city is helping out the people who don't work... the junkies, the panhandlers, the thugs. In this town, having a job is a bragging point. Poverty is so endemic that panhandling is a profession. Say bra, you got a qwata? Hey, I betcha I can tell you where you got them shoes.

Nothing in the media of the bartender at Cajun Mike's with a master's in counseling. Nothing of the RN waiting tables. Nothing of the brilliant artist who tends bar and is so down on herself that she barely considers herself one. No, it is always the Lower Ninth Ward, presented in the national media as a "working class" neighborhood which fell prey to Katrina, but the truth is that it was always a troubled neighborhood.

But suppose somebody comes along who doesn't fall into their trap. It has been said that if you upset the established order, everything turns to chaos. What if somebody came along and upset the established disorder of this city? What happens then?

Nice victory, GOP. Now what?

2010-11-06T18:38:00.002-05:00

Obviously this blog has been off the grid for nearly a year. This is due largely to major transitions in my personal life, as well as a growing disaffection with politics. However, given the Republicans' recent victories in Congress, regaining the House and making major gains in the Senate, I feel a need to re-engage, if only with myself. I've no illusions that I will have a great many number of readers given that I've posted nothing in the past year. However, in time, I can make this a sounding board off of which to formulate ideas, and once again formulate my own mind.

My disaffection with politics remains. This is because, while the Democrats deserved to lose, the Republicans most certainly had done nothing to deserve to win. They presented no viable policy ideas, gummed up the works to prevent important legislation from passing rather than working to improve what the legislation contained, and engaged in demagoguery rather than serious discussion on the shortcomings of the President's policy initiatives... and there were many.

First, let us address what the Republicans did "right", which is to say what they did which allowed them to win in November, which is apparently all they are interested in doing. On the legislative front, their unprecedented and devastatingly effective use of the filibuster allowed them to require 60 votes for any legislation to pass. Any progressive legislation which may have been presented was not going to be progressive for long, given the number of conservative Democrats in the Senate with a propensity for inserting poison pills into the legislation. The health care debacle was a key example of this. The 60 vote water mark gave a handful of senators extraordinary influence in the process which they were happy to take advantage of. Ben Nelson (D-NE) scored such an egregious bit of pork for his home state that he was ultimately shamed into having it removed. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) flaunted his importance, bargained in bad faith, and overall stoked his ego while reveling in his own ego. All of this was made possible by the Republicans, who simply committed to voting against bringing the bill to a vote. 51 votes are required to pass legislation in the Senate, but because of arcane Senate rules, 60 votes are required to bring the bill to the floor if one senator has a problem with it. Generally speaking, 40 of them did. The Democrats had 60 votes, but a few would threaten to join a Republican filibuster unless the bill had this provision or that inserted, and of course, this was never coming from the progressive side of the Democratic party, who simply wanted to see an effective bill passed. That isn't what happened. The bill was terrible, and everybody knows it. This is due to ineffective leadership by the President, who farmed the task out to Congress rather than presenting his own proposal and who refused to use the power of his office to keep these Senators in line.

Of course, I'd like to revisit the issue of the stimulus bill, which was supposed to lead the country out of the dark, but really didn't. Nobel laureate for economics Paul Krugman stated back in January 2009 that the stimulus bill needed to be twice as large. The Republicans, of course, opposed it on general principle, stating that tax cuts were the way to go. The President apparently believed that ceding to the Republicans by including tax cuts and making the bill much smaller than the economist who's been right on most economic issues over the last ten years said it should be made the most political sense. Thus, he sacrificed policy for politics, and ended up with a loser on both fronts. The economy is not nearly as bad off as it might have been, but neither is it as well of as we had hoped.

The other thing the Republicans did, which was both effective and loathsome, was the level of demagoguery they leveled against the President, usually through their proxies at FOX News and on talk radio. He was born in Kenya. He was a socialist. He was instituting a government take-over of the health care system. Death panels. The list goes on. They doubled down on the Bush-era fear and directed it towards the President rather than the terrorists. It worked, at least for now.

But now they have to come up with something, because Obama actually has a viable opposition party, and when he's sparring with an opponent, he tends to be at his best. The American people gave the GOP the House of Representatives. Now they're actually going to have to pass some policy initiatives. Unless they simply want them to die in the Senate the way the Democrats' have, they're going to have to bargain in good faith. Nothing they pass will reach the President's desk without having to negotiate with the Democratic Senate. If they come up with nothing in the next two years, they won't be able to simply say that the Democrats can't govern; they will have shown themselves unable to, as well.

As for the President, he does need to put on his big boy pants and start leading. He's not a community organizer, anymore. He's not a state legislator, anymore. He's not a U.S. Senator, anymore. He's the President of the United States. He needs to start acting like it.

Republicans... two years ago I posted some policy initiatives which I thought might help you re-establish yourselves as a serious political party. Now's your chance to do it. Because, and let's be honest here, nobody thinks you're actually going to do anything. This was just about punishing the Democrats for failing to deliver on their campaign promises in 2008. The American people still hate you.

But it speaks to President Obama that people have apparently already forgotten how terrible his predecessor was. Would that I could forget the sound of rocket fire in Iraq, or the sight of blood-soaked sand. Bush may be fading from my mind, but the consequences of his presidency never will.

Nuclear power is the future (for now)

2009-11-13T00:34:00.001-06:00

I’ve recently taken to reading David Frum’s blog, simply because I’ve been looking for places to read serious conservative thought which doesn’t involve screaming or insane comparisons of health care reform to Nazi death camps. My old conservative magazine of choice, National Review, has been overtaken by the ideologues, I fear, and Bill Buckley is dead. The Weekly Standard is not a serious choice, either. Frum, on the other hand, seems willing to acknowledge the fact that good government sometimes means bending on one’s principles, since there is no “one size fits all” set of ideas. I’m also willing to make that concession. The Democrats seem to be showing how limited their toolbox really is, and at the risk of being bitten, I’d like to re-engage American conservatives in a serious discussion.

I’ll start with something at once controversial and non-partisan: nuclear power.

Frum writes:

http://www.frumforum.com/more-nukes

The big cost in wind and solar is not the turbine or the solar panel. The prices of turbine and panels could fall to zero, and still wind and solar would cost much more than coal or nuclear. Electricity cannot be stored and it is expensive to move. Cheap power is power that flows at predictable levels and is generated near to its users.

A modern nuclear reactor can generate about 1300 megawatts of electricity. A single nuclear plant with two or three reactors can generate enough power to sustain a fair-sized city – and can be sited as close to the population center as politics permits, so long as there is a body of water nearby for reactor cooling.

A modern wind turbine generates at most 2 megawatts. To equal a single reactor you’d need 650 turbines – probably many more, since they are so unreliable. Now think of the cost of the land assembly to support this vast array of machines. Next – think about the wiring required to connect them to a grid. Finally – think of the cost of moving that power across the country, because wind blows strongest in places like west Texas and the Dakotas, about as far as you can get from the nation’s big consumer markets. It’s the wiring that makes wind so costly, and that cost is not going to be reduced anytime soon by technological improvements.

Solar of course confronts this problem in even more radical form. The basic solar panel we’ve all seen emits only about 120 watts. You’d need acres of them to equal even the output of a wind turbine. And again, the sun shines brightest where people don’t live.

Frum makes a few points I hadn’t previously considered, but while electricity cannot be stored as such, there are ways to store other forms of potential energy which can be easily converted into electricity. However, Frum is correct that such technology does not yet exist and as such our beloved renewable energy sources (which are wonderful, don’t get me wrong) cannot yet replace the amount of energy which coal currently produces. Nuclear can.

It emits no greenhouse gases, and it produces less radioactive waste than coal plants.

Huh?

Don’t take my word for it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * [See Editor's Note at end of page 2]

At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels.

Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food. People living within a "stack shadow"—the area within a half- to one-mile (0.8- to 1.6-kilometer) radius of a coal plant's smokestacks—might then ingest small amounts of radiation. Fly ash is also disposed of in landfills and abandoned mines and quarries, posing a potential risk to people living around those areas.

In short, replacing coal plants with nuclear plants would reduce the amount of radioactive waste current being introduced into our environment. Disposal is also at issue: it is much easier to dispose and contain the small amounts of radioactive waste from a nuclear plant than it is to contain all the fly ash from a coal plant. Trying to contain all of that would be a logistical nightmare.

Nuclear energy is by no means a perfect solution, but it is one which would buy us more time to come up with something better.

Matthew Yglesias’s take largely revolves around the ideological inconsistencies inherent to conservatives backing nuclear power, due to the large government subsidies needed to stand up nuclear power on a large scale:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/11/nuclear-socialism.php

What I find especially odd about it is that it’s so at odds with American conservatives’ ardor for the free market. You see this mismatch in a small sense in that their nuclear agenda in congress consists basically of asking for subsidies. But in a larger sense the issue is that the big example one can find of a country living the nuclear dream is . . . France. And it’s not just an irony or a funny coincidence, nuclear power in France is deeply tied to the genuinely socialistic (i.e., not just high taxes and a generous welfare state) aspects of the French economy.

Which is all well and good, but I’m less interested in whether or not an idea is ideologically consistent than I am in whether or not it will work. Yglesias’s blog stems from a New Republic article written by Brad Plumer:

http://www.tnr.com/environment-energy/nuclear-option-0

The debate over nukes has long exacerbated the deadlock over climate policy. Of the handful of Republicans who think global warming is a serious problem--like Alexander--most refuse to address it unless nuclear power gets a starring role. But many Democrats and green groups are loath to lavish even more money on an industry that has received countless subsidies to date--including $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees in 2005--yet still struggles to procure financing for new plants, to say nothing of concerns about safety and waste disposal. John McCain has chalked up his refusal to support the very cap-and-trade policies he once championed to "left-wing environmentalist organizations that are not allowing us to move forward with nuclear power."

Now, however, that deadlock may be dissolving. In October, John Kerry, the lead sponsor of the Senate cap-and-trade bill, co-authored a New York Times op-ed with Republican Lindsey Graham outlining a possible bipartisan deal that would include offshore drilling and nukes. "Nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets," they wrote, endorsing the need to "jettison cumbersome regulations" and help utilities "secure financing for more plants." Graham has hinted that sufficient nuclear incentives could get "at least half a dozen" Republicans on board--allowing a climate bill to squeak through the Senate. As a result, many liberals and environmental groups are gritting their teeth and nervously bracing for a possible compromise. But that raises the question: If Democrats do haggle on nukes, will Republicans actually step up and agree to tackle global warming?

This is a compromise which I support, of course. There’s a saying about not making the perfect the enemy of the good. Nuclear power is a good option for now, and it will carry us for a long time while we continue research and development into renewable energy sources. Environmentalists and Luddites need to recognize that we aren’t going to go back to horse-and-buggy without a steep drop in our population and life expectancies.

New chairs

2009-09-21T00:31:00.000-05:00

I know I haven’t blogged in a while, but I thought I’d share this little tidbit of information with you all. There has been a lot of discussion about excess government spending, but despite efforts by our President and Secretary of Defense, the universal culture of fraud, waste, and abuse in the Department of Defense continues unabated.

A few months ago our unit needed to fund a trip to another island to conduct a mandatory inspection. It wasn’t an optional thing – it was required by Air Force Instruction. The whole trip cost roughly $2,500, but there were still other places we needed to go. The other trips may have been more expensive, but they were still mandatory. My leadership wanted to know who was going to pay for it, and from the way they were talking, it was as though the money tree had just died and we were going to have to start picking coconuts and hunting the range chickens for food.

Today my replacement was tasked with shopping out 30 chairs with roughly $13,000 to spend. We’ve reached the end of the fiscal year, you see, and if we don’t spend all the money allocated to us, it’ll be taken away the following fiscal year.

So. We skimp on spending money to do our jobs and then splurge at the end of the fiscal year to buy non-essentials like new chairs, just because we have the money. I’ve seen this in every unit I’ve been with – Baghdad was the worst. The system needs to change. There needs to be better oversight of how money is spent, and if a unit goes on a spending spree in September year in and year out, then there needs to be an audit of their finances to determine if they’re wasting money on frivolous items like $400 chairs while neglecting important mission-related items.

Open letter to President Obama

2009-07-15T19:14:00.002-05:00

Mailed this morning:

-----------

The Honorable Barack Hussein Obama

President of the United States

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20500

Mr. President:

Good day. I write to you on the issue of U.S.C. Title 10 § 654, the governing statute regarding the separation of military members for homosexual conduct and UCMJ Article 125, the provision prohibiting “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex”. During the campaign last year and through the course of your young administration since, you have spoken of your opposition to the first law, typically and from this point forward referred to as “don't ask, don't tell” (DADT). Whereas the UCMJ article in question predates DADT and in fact was indirectly referenced as justification for continuing restrictions on homosexual activity while passing the 1993 law, it should be addressed as part of the larger question with regards to privacy rights for military members, especially in light of the implications of the finding in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

The prohibition on homosexual conduct in the military was incorporated at a time when anti-sodomy laws were prevalent through the United States. Since then, much has changed in the political landscape regarding not only the acceptance of people's right to live as they wish, but also our understanding of what is encompassed in Constitutionally-protected privacy. As Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion for Lawrence, “liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex... [t]he State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without the intervention of the government.” Prior to Lawrence, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) was the established precedent, and therefore DADT was consistent with the Court's opinion on whether or not there existed a right to privacy in the sexual affairs of consenting adults. In Lawrence, however, the Court overruled Bowers and stated that such a right to privacy exists. Indeed, Justice Kennedy also wrote that “[t]he Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.”

It has been argued that the military is a special case with unique circumstances and thus that the findings in Lawrence do not apply to it. In fact, the government argued just that in United States v. Marcum (2004) when upon appeal, the Air Force Criminal Court of Appeals considered whether or not, in light of the then-recent Lawrence ruling, Article 125 was unconstitutional on its face. The government argued that Lawrence only applied to civilian conduct and was inapplicable to the military, despite the fact that no such stipulation was made in the majority opinion. However, this was not the finding of the court:

“Constitutional rights identified by the Supreme Court generally apply to members of the military unless by text or scope they are plainly inapplicable. Therefore, we consider the application of Lawrence to Appellant’s conduct. However, we conclude that its application must be addressed in context and not through a facial challenge to Article 125. This view is consistent with the principle that facial challenges to criminal statutes are “best when infrequent” and are “especially to be discouraged.” Sabri v. United States, ___ U.S. __, __, 124 S. Ct. 1941, 1948 (2004). In the military setting, as this case demonstrates, an understanding of military culture and mission cautions against sweeping constitutional pronouncements that may not account for the nuance of military life. This conclusion is also supported by this Court’s general practice of addressing constitutional questions on an as applied basis where national security and constitutional rights are both paramount interests. Further, because Article 125 addresses both forcible and non-forcible sodomy, a facial challenge reaches too far. Clearly, the Lawrence analysis is not at issue with respect to forcible sodomy.”

The court was unwilling to invalidate Article 125 in this case because special circumstances existed in the case which made the member's activity contrary to good order and discipline: namely, that he was engaged in a sexual relationship with a subordinate. Also, the court determined that the provisions regarding forcible sodomy did not fall under the scope of the Lawrence ruling and thus that Article 125 was not, on its face, unconstitutional. However, other provisions within the UCMJ already address the two uniquely military issues at hand. Article 120 deals with the issue of rape and sexual assault, and Article 134-23 deals with the issue of fraternization. Clearly, from a chain of command stand-point, engaging in sexual activities with a subordinate of the opposite sex would also have an adverse effect on morale and discipline. A specific prohibition on sodomy with subordinates is superfluous and regardless, it is not addressed in Article 125. It is a blanket prohibition on all sodomy. The portions of Article 125 regarding forced sodomy are redundant with relation to Article 120 and are clearly a post hoc rationalization to regulate the private sexual activities of military members with only a vague claim of “good order and discipline” to justify it.

In truth, the findings outlined in DADT could just as easily be applied to any minority group with whom someone could be uncomfortable. A devout Christian may not be comfortable serving next to an atheist or a Muslim, but that Christian has to move beyond that discomfort just as much as the atheist or Muslim would have to move beyond the discomfort of serving next to a devout Christian. Whereas we live in a pluralistic society and have specific prohibitions outlined in the Constitution and in U.S. law against racial and religious discrimination, the military has to accommodate the minorities as well as members for whom the presence of these minorities is disconcerting, just like any other government agency. Aside from religious sensibilities of the majority, there is no case to be made as to why the presence of a homosexual would be bad for unit cohesion. We do not accommodate racists who does not regard a black man as his equal or misogynists who will not take orders from a woman. No reason exists to accommodate homophobes who cannot coexist with someone who does not love the same way they do.

The Congress's claim of exclusive authority in setting standards for admission is specious at best. The Constitution does invest the Congress with the authority to raise armies and provide navies per section 8 of Article I of the Constitution, but they are still subject to other requirements laid out in the Constitution with regards to civil rights and civil liberties, and they are still subject to judicial review. Significant precedent exists stating that American citizens do not check their civil liberties at the door when they enter the military, except to the extent that a valid mission need to do so exists. Justice Ginsburg, in her written concurrence with the majority ruling in Weiss v. United States (1994) stated, “men and women in the Armed Forces do not leave constitutional safeguards and judicial protection behind when they enter military service.” Only when the application of those civil liberties would be harmful to the mission may they be curtailed, and then only to the extent necessary. Advocates of restricting military members' sexual activities have never made a case where private, consensual sexual activities between two clear-headed adults have any mission impact, save for in a war zone, where all sexual activities are prohibited anyway. The United States Army Court of Appeals recognized this in United States v. Bullock (2004) when, using Lawrence as precedent, they ruled that an act of sodomy as defined by Article 125 did not demonstrate any “additional factors relevant solely in the military environment that affect the nature and reach of the Lawrence liberty interest.” They thus overturned his conviction for an act of sodomy with a civilian woman, since prosecuting him for that was a violation of his civil liberties.

There is no evidence that a person's private sexual activities has any impact on mission readiness or unit cohesion. If anything, it is the military's incessant snooping in our private affairs which is destructive to morale. Our desire to keep our private lives private and out of the all-seeing military's eye does not make us undisciplined or immoral. It simply makes us American.

The rationales for continuing to defend these restrictions in court do not carry any Constitutional validity. Rather than feeling bound to uphold a bad law, would it not be possible to file suit challenging the Constitutionality of the law yourselves? Its legal grounding seems dubious, especially in light of the Lawrence ruling and subsequent findings by military courts that it does apply to military members. DADT seems like it's just waiting to be knocked down by somebody big enough.

One final point of contention: the “Rule of Construction” in U.S.C. Title 10 § 654 paragraph (e) explicitly gives the Secretary of Defense broad authority to determine through regulation whether or not a member should be separated on account of homosexual conduct. To wit:

“(e) Rule of Construction.— Nothing in subsection (b) shall be construed to require that a member of the armed forces be processed for separation from the armed forces when a determination is made in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Defense that—

the member engaged in conduct or made statements for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service; and

separation of the member would not be in the best interest of the armed forces.”

It strikes me that if challenging DADT in the courts is too drastic, the SECDEF could simply determine it to be in the best interest of the armed forces to suspend all separations stemming from homosexual conduct until such time as the Congress has fully reviewed the policy and passed legislation changing or even outright repealing the law. If you asked Secretary Gates to make such a finding, would he not do as the Commander in Chief asked? You have the authority under the very statute you say you are bound to uphold to suspend it. Why have you not done so?

I hope that this letter will find you well. As a heterosexual who has had to watch homosexual friends struggle with their hidden identities over the years, it pains me to see them still having to wait for action which was promised to them and which could, in all reality, be carried out today. I hope you will give this full consideration.

Thank you for your time.

Public Healthcare? (follow up)

2009-06-23T18:05:00.001-05:00

A follow-up point which I neglected to mention: Medicare provides health
coverage for the elderly and disabled, who typically have higher health care
costs. Again, this is an apples and oranges comparison, since the linked
article compares all private health insurance costs against patient costs
for a program designed for the elderly and disabled.

-----Original Message-----

A friend recently sent me an article to read about public health care.
Names and e-mail addresses have been deleted, but otherwise the exchange is
presented without edits. The link to the article is at the bottom. My
analysis is cursory and actual research is limited. Feel free to dissect my
analysis, as it is incomplete and I would enjoy a more full discussion on
this issue.

-----Original Message-----
From: (CarbonDate)
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:34 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: RE: Public Healthcare?

One point I'll concede is that I fail to see how a public option would
actually address the real cost of health care, which is the real problem, as
opposed to simply easing the burden on consumers. I like the public option
where people buy into Medicare (which doesn't appear to be the Obama plan,
but oh well) because of its potential to bridge the gap for people between
jobs (which there are a lot of these days), provide an affordable
alternative for people who don't qualify for Medicaid, and provide a new
revenue source for Medicare without raising taxes.

That said, I would like to discuss the article further. A couple of points:

1) The out-of-pocket expenditure change isn't something that happened in a
vacuum. There's a reason for it. That the article doesn't discuss the
reason leads me to believe that it's inconvenient for the point the author
is trying to make. Could it be that out-of-pocket health care is no longer
something average Americans can afford, where as it was back in 1970?

2) "Only 35%"? In nine years? Am I the only one that thinks that's a
rather sizable increase?

3) Comparing the rise of out-of-pocket costs to the rise in total Medicare
expenses is apples and oranges, and in any case, the reason is easy to
deduct: Medicare likely has a lower deductible than most private insurance
plans. That's just speculation, of course.

4) "From a policy perspective, this would suggest that the key to lowering
costs is to let consumers control more of their own resources - that when
they have the freedom and incentive to pursue value, they know how to keep
costs down."

Translation: "Let them eat cake." You're right, the article does speak for
itself.

Seriously, is he suggesting that all health care be paid for out of pocket?
Who can actually afford that?

5) I do have a problem with an author citing his own "study" as an
authoritative source. At a minimum, he should explain where he compiled his
numbers from. The fact that the study was published by the Pacific Research
Institute (of which he is a senior fellow) doesn't really lend it any
additional credibility; this is an agenda-driven group. I'm not saying the
numbers are necessarily inaccurate, but it's not a scientific study. They
found a way to make the numbers work in their favor, and even then they have
to concede that out-of-pocket health care costs have risen 35% over the last
nine years.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Research_Institute

A former senior speechwriter in the Bush administration is, of course, free
to write articles about health care and can even contribute constructively
to the discussion, but he shouldn't cite himself as his source, especially
since a layman like me can easily point out that he's a political animal,
not a public health care expert.

But at least you know I read the article ;).

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:01 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Cc: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: Public Healthcare?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067

This article speaks for itself.

Public Healthcare?

2009-06-23T17:49:00.001-05:00

-----Original Message-----
From: (CarbonDate)
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:34 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: RE: Public Healthcare?

That said, I would like to discuss the article further. A couple of points:

2) "Only 35%"? In nine years? Am I the only one that thinks that's a
rather sizable increase?

Translation: "Let them eat cake." You're right, the article does speak for
itself.

Seriously, is he suggesting that all health care be paid for out of pocket?
Who can actually afford that?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pacific_Research_Institute

But at least you know I read the article ;).

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:01 AM
To: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Cc: xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx
Subject: Public Healthcare?

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=480067

This article speaks for itself.

Arlen Specter and why the Republican party is dying

2009-04-28T17:22:00.003-05:00

As most of you have heard by now, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) has announced his intention to become Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). This has had a predictable reaction among D.C. circles: Republicans hate him and Democrats love him. Sen. Specter clearly read the writing on the wall and saw that he was going to lose in the Republican primary because the modern Republican party has no room for moderates such as himself. In age when elected officials are kissing the ring of a radio talk show host, the Republican party is clearly in dire straits.

Sen. Mitch McConnell stated that this increasingly unipolar political landscape is bad for the country, and I would have to agree. However, it is Republican policies which have pushed the nation in this direction. The answer isn't for voters to throw the Republicans a bone and vote a few of them in to hold back the changes Democrats will bring -- changes which, by the way, the American people are voting for in large majorities -- but rather for the Republican party to go back to the drawing board and come up with some better ideas. As it stands, the Republicans have been absolutely pathetic since 2005. The marginalizing of the Republican party didn't begin with Hurricane Katrina -- that's just when it was solidified. It began with Terry Schiavo.

The nation watched national Republican officials all the way up to the President of the United States directly inject themselves into a decision which should have been a private family affair: whether or not to keep alive by artificial means a woman who had been in a permanent vegetative state for fifteen years. Prior to that, Republicans had held the nation in fear over terrorism and managed to manipulate a portion of the population over the issue of gay marriage. The gay marriage issue tied in with abortion on a broader "bedroom police" platform. Not wanting to dispense with a winning strategy, the next natural step was to inject themselves into life or death medical decisions other than abortion. Whether or not it was right to pull the feeding tube of Terry Schiavo is not, and never was the issue. The issue was whether this was a decision for her family or for Washington politicians. At that moment, all the fear-mongering about socialism with regard to universal health care lost its bite. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones injecting themselves into private medical decisions. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones telling people who they could and could not love. The Republicans, not the Democrats, were the ones telling women that if they had their way, they would have to carry all their children to term, regardless of their circumstances.

And now, as it turns out, the Republicans were the ones rounding people up and putting them in camps to be tortured. Not for intel purposes, but for propoganda purposes. They wanted somebody to tell them that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in order to justify invading Iraq. The Republicans were the ones listening to our phone calls without warrants. It goes on and on: the Republicans became the party of Big Brother. They became the party of aggressive war. They became the party of torture. They became the party of homophobia, xenophobia, and Pax Americana. They became the party of a nationalist political philosophy which good manners dictate we not mention in civil debate. So I won't. Their actions speak for themselves, and we need not look to the past to find a label to which to attach these philosophies. We need only call them what they are: the Republican party platform. And these days, people understand well enough what that means in order to reject it out of hand. Republicans, when calling Democrats socialists, only serve to stir up their fringe base. The label doesn't have any affect on people's perceptions of the Democratic party platform. If anything, it only serves to soften the image of socialism in the minds of Americans. So when the Republicans loosely accuse the Obama administration of "tyranny" for the heinous act of governing as they promised to during a Presidential campaign they won by sweeping margins, it really does sound like a classic case of projection.

Republicans, if they wish to survive, need to denounce the policies of the Bush administration forcefully and declare a new day for the Republican party. As it stands, they seem to believe that the current political climate is simply a passing storm rather than the sea of change it actually represents. They need to do this for the good of America, because they're not entirely wrong: single party rule does make for bad government. Just not as bad as Republicans do right now. If they cannot change, then they need to dissolve and allow a new party to take their place. Right now they're in their last throes, and their choice is simple: evolve or die.

The 20th century is over. America is moving into a new day. Perhaps the Republican party has simply outlived its usefulness. But if a viable conservative party does not soon emerge to take its place, then a party which sits to the left of the Democratic party will. Then we really will begin moving toward socialism. It's incumbent upon conservatives to find ways to make capitalism continue to work in the 21st century, not to simply assert that it does. And they need to give up on their imperial ambitions. The future lies in global partnership, not world domination. It's not just the pragmatic way: it's the American way.

The future is leaving the Republican party behind.

Cell phones are tracking devices

2009-04-25T10:54:00.003-05:00

And, according to the Obama Department of Justice, should be used as such.

A bit of context: the actual brief requesting that law enforcement officials not be required to show probable cause before seizing cell phone records tracking your movement was filed by U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, a Bush holdover who has refused to tender her resignation under the new administration. President Obama has not seen fit to terminate her, despite the fact that her philosophies are quite divergent from his own. As such, by choosing to keep her on, he is responsible for any briefs she files. Her most notorious case has been the prosecution of Tommy Chong for shipping drug paraphernalia through the mail. Now she wants access to your where-abouts by tapping into your cell phone records. Awesome! Somebody's been watching too many movies:

But if you're a law-abiding citizen, you've nothing to worry about, right? Unless, of course, you're engaged in constitutionally-protected free speech which upsets the establishment, such as an anti-war demonstration or a tea party demonstration. Say they want a list of names of people at that demonstration. Anybody with a cell phone (which is most people these days) can be tracked. Say they start a police riot and want to press trumped-up charges against anybody at that demonstration, both to discredit the demonstration and to send a message to anybody who gets any ideas about standing against them. You see where this is going.

The real people who would need to be concerned would be the organizers of such a rally. Some of these things can get quite large, and without some sort of organized presence behind them, can get unwieldy, potentially chaotic. What better way to communicate than by cell phone? Well, I'd recommend purchasing a pre-paid cell phone. They can track that, but they'd have to know who they're tracking. Some require you to register in order to use it; these are a bad deal and defeat the purpose. You want use of the technology without having to have your movements tracked. For your average Joe Protestor? Leave your cell phone at home, or else pull the battery if you want to keep it on hand in case of an emergency. Even if you turn it off, the phone still transmits and receives signals. Only pulling the battery stops the signals.

Best bet for those who don't actually have a need for a mobile phone but just keep it out of convenience: get a land line. It's cheaper, and these days if you really need a cell phone for a specific purpose, you can pick up a cheap disposable pre-paid phone for $30. It's what I do any time I go back to the states. I've already discontinued my GuamCell service and will be picking up a land line when I get back to Guam.

That's a tip for activists, not average folks who don't represent a threat to the status quo.

This is why I always did my X-Mas shopping Dec. 24:

2008-11-28T22:35:00.002-06:00

I know they call it "Black Friday", but this is outrageous. There's a deep sickness in America that it won't be easy to address, but it's going to be up to our new President to at least try to put down this out-of-control culture of greed in our country. It goes from the top to the bottom, whether it's a shopper stepping on a worker to save a few bucks on a TV or a President sending a nation to war over billions of dollars in oil. Republicans talk a good game about establishing a "culture of life", but this culture of greed we've established stems from the same principles that drove the Reagan revolution: greed is good. I don't know if our new President can do anything about this, but I'm hopeful that his call to service may stem the tide. We can hope.

A Wal-Mart worker died early Friday after an "out-of-control" mob of frenzied shoppers smashed through the Long Island store's front doors and trampled him, police said.

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde.

When the madness ended, 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour was dead and four shoppers, including a woman eight months pregnant, were injured.
...

Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?

"He was such a young man with a good heart, full of life. He didn't deserve that."
...

"I look at these people's faces and I keep thinking one of them could have stepped on him," said one employee. "How could you take a man's life to save $20 on a TV?"

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html?page=1

Future of the Republican party

2008-11-18T23:26:00.000-06:00

I want the Republican party to get back on its feet, for the same reasons I was so distressed with the idea of them running everything: echo chambers are not conducive to good governance, and a variety of ideas and points of view are necessary in order to pluck the best ones from the crop.

For the future of the Republican party, I like what I see from Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-18/governor-cool/

Not because of his specific policy proposals, which are rather vague in this article, but because he gets it: he understands that if a hammer is only making things worse, the answer isn’t a sledgehammer. Just because the hammer got the job done when the job was to nail some plywood to a 2 x 4 doesn’t mean that the hammer is the right tool for setting glass plating.

Basically what I’d like is to have two political parties who both have a number of good ideas hashing them out together and coming to a consensus on which ones are best. Seemingly what we have now are the Republicans, who believe that every problem can be solved by cutting taxes or blowing up another country, and the Democrats, who believe that every problem can be solved by some new government program. Neither view is correct.

A couple of places where I think the Republicans can start:

1. Universal health care is something that Americans want, whether Republicans do, or not. However, I don’t necessarily think that a big new government bureaucracy is the way to go, especially with our massive existing federal deficit. The Republicans could fashion something workable that would be free market-based and managed at the state level. The problem with many of the Republicans’ health care proposals to date have been that they’re either designed to fail or don’t address the actual problems. If the Republicans could come up with something like that, they’d be competitive again by 2012.

2. The inequitable nature of public education is a long-standing problem in this country, dating back to segregation. The Democrats have largely tried to bail out the Titanic with a Dixie cup on this issue, and Republicans’ sole policy proposal has been to man the lifeboats by giving out vouchers. However, once again, manning the lifeboats doesn’t address the actual issue: there is no reason that public education cannot be as high quality as private education. I’ve seen that in Green Bay: we had high quality public schools in that city, mainly because the people and the government made it a point to deliver high quality education in their schools. The Republicans can take the lead on this issue by discontinuing their efforts to simply abandon the public school system and begin to work at the local level to fix the system. Once again, I don’t think a massive federal program can fix this: it has to be the people on site doing the job, but the Department of Education can coordinate by studying school districts like Green Bay to figure out what they’re doing right and then studying school districts like Milwaukee to figure out what they’re doing wrong and then providing actual guidance (not just testing) to those failing school districts to get them back on track.

3. The programs of the Great Society failed to fix the problem of poverty and have instead institutionalized it. Kudos to LBJ for trying, but it didn’t work. Unfortunately, the Republicans have offered little more than “let the churches handle it” as an alternative solution to the problem. This is a messy issue, and no one big sweeping program will fix it. It’s going to take a number of approaches, and I really do think the Republicans do have some potential to offer some constructive input on this front. The Republicans are terribly fond of telling people to pull themselves up by their boot straps. They should take it a step further and show people how. Work with the business and religious communities to change people’s mindsets from one of dependency to one of empowerment. Take the “homeless shelter” model and take it a step further: help those who want it, even those who are not homeless, to overcome drug and alcohol addictions. Offer work to those want it in exchange for a minimum wage, shelter, food, and job training. Don’t just hand it out to them: make them earn it. There is always litter to pick up and graffiti that needs to be painted over. If they do good work, provide letters of recommendation for prospective employers. Don’t just feed them hand to mouth: make them productive citizens. I think everybody wins in that arena. And give the churches and private charities the freedom to operate as they see best, with some bare minimum standards in place to prevent unlawful discrimination. Each community’s needs are going to be different, so too stringent of standards will only ensure failure.

4. The Republicans need to address the perception that they are a “whites only” and “Christians only” party. The percentage of people in this country who are other than white or other than Christian is growing, and if the Republicans don’t get on board with that reality, they’re going to be left in the cold. The first step in addressing that perception would be to shun the racist and Christianist elements of their party. In the short term, that will cost them some votes in the south, but one thing I’ve learned is that one need not be white or Christian in order to be socially conservative. I’ve met atheist Republicans and black Republicans. It’s the people who are saying, “you’re not like us, you’re not welcome here” who are creating this problem in the Republican party. Following the nomination of Barack Obama, we had a number of closet racists in the Democratic party (“PUMAs”) bolt for McCain. Good riddance, I say. Let the Republicans and Democrats once and for all say to these people, “You have no place in our party. Make your own party.” And here’s the thing: the Republicans don’t have the monopoly on racists. There were plenty of racists in the Democratic party, but the Democrats didn’t try to pander to them the way the Republicans have with their “southern strategy”. Well, the southern strategy has come full circle: the Republicans are now officially the Party of Dixie, since they weren’t able to consistently win outside of the old CSA and flyover country in the Midwest. New England, the Great Lakes states, and the west coast are all lost to them. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. If the Republicans keep trying to act as though this is a simple question of marketing or that “those darkies are too stupid to know what’s good for ‘em”, then they’re going to continue losing ground with minorities, and thus with the country as a whole.

5. Finally, having a firm hand on the world stage doesn’t mean slapping everyone who looks are you cross-eyed. Not everybody who says mean things about us is automatically our enemy (France and Venezuela come to mind) and we should be receptive to at least saying, “Okay, I’m not saying you’re right, but let’s talk about this.” If Nixon could go to China… if Reagan could talk to the Soviet Union… then there’s no reason Obama shouldn’t be able to meet with the Iranian president, is there? Finally, if the Republicans can finally make a distinction between world leadership and world domination, then I think that would go a long way in making them credible on the world stage again.

Republicans are going to have a choice in 2012, and I think it’s going to boil down to Pawlenty vs. Palin. Will they be a party of substance or will they become, as it was put in The Economist recently, the “stupid party”?

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12599247

I’ll be frank: Pawlenty in 2012 doesn’t guarantee a win for the Republicans unless Obama’s first four years are marked by a Katrina-like disaster for which Obama takes the blame. Barring that, if Obama’s first term is even marginally successful, I think he has a good shot at getting re-elected in 2012. However, it would be an important first step in the right direction for the Republicans and set the stage for a Jindall candidacy in 2016 (I regard him as too young to be a credible candidate in 2012). I believe that a Palin candidacy would solidify the Republicans’ “stupid party” label and set the stage for a generation of Democratic presidents and Congresses. I don’t think Palin has the good sense to lay low and brush up on her understanding of world and national issues to be a credible threat to Barack Obama in 2012, even with a Katrina-like disaster. She’s going to keep running her mouth in the press to try to get face time with the American public, and the press will continue handing her the rope with which to hang herself.

As to the question of whether the Republicans have been “too conservative” or “not conservative enough”, I think the real answer is that they need to dispose of the “left vs. right” paradigm and start thinking in terms of pragmatism and good government. The modern Republican party is simply too caught up with labels and dogma to govern effectively, which is why they haven’t and why it was best that they lost this election resoundingly. However, if the Republicans are left to lie in the gutter for too long, then the Democrats will simply become what the Republicans have been. We need a viable opposition party in this country to keeping the majority party in check, and the Republicans right now are a complete mess. Their ideology is morally, intellectually, and (of late) financially bankrupt. They need to go into the back room and do some serious re-thinking of their platform. Hopefully the ideas I’ve presented above can help.

What if history isn't repeating itself?

2008-11-14T15:35:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I went home after a very frustrating day at work of inventories and a futile search for a computer which nobody has used for over a year. It's been sitting in a corner gathering dust in somebody else's work center and somebody finally moved it somewhere where I cannot find it. Such is life for an equipment custodian. I went down for an hour nap around 6:30 last night and just woke up twenty minutes ago, at 5:30 this morning. I did some rather intense dreaming, but for all its vividness, it was remarkable mostly for its absurdity. It featured Homer Simpson using a magic beard to propel himself over a wall. Finally after things went badly, we all started running, but I found myself trapped in a cage with a large guard dog with security guards bearing down on me with rifles. I realized there was only one way out: I woke up.

After eleven hours of sleep, I got some water and went outside. The sun is just now rising and I can see the full moon to the west from my balcony. Sitting out here on my twelfth story balcony, seeing the full moon and two planes passing in the night over my tropical island paradise, I decided it was time for blogging.

I've given a lot of thought to this past Presidential election, and sentiment aside, I always try to place these things in some sort of historical context. You can usually look back at history and see when something similar has happened in the past, no matter how new and unique a particular event may seem at the time. I've been trying to contextualize the 2008 Presidential election, and while a number of past elections seem to fit on the surface, the comparisons fall apart upon further analysis.

Is it like 2000? In all senses, no. Then Governor Bush and Vice President Gore were running during a time of economic prosperity. Bush ran against Clinton's character and Gore ran on his and Clinton's record. Gore's margin of victory was so narrow that he actually lost. What followed was eight years of mismanagement and strife that set the stage for 2008.

Is it like 1992? Again, no. We were in a recession, but Americans didn't want to fundamentally change the way we did business; they just wanted someone they thought could do it more competently than President Bush did, so they elected then Governor Clinton.

Is it like 1980? In some ways, yes. Reagan represented a fundamental shift in how the government did business. He wasn't simply running to the right of President Carter, but also to the right of President Nixon, and that's how he governed. Reagan set the stage for the next twenty-eight years. Even President Clinton was forced to govern to the right of himself as a consequence of the political climate of the time.

But upon further analysis, 2008 is actually the antithesis of 1980. What Reagan represented was a turn away from responsibility and service. You shouldn't have to pay high taxes, he said. You shouldn't have to worry yourselves about what's going on overseas, he said. Those Soviets are the Evil Empire, and you shouldn't have to think about it any further than that. We're Number One. Reagan simply asked Americans to trust him to do the right thing, whatever that may be. The Reagan presidency marked the beginning of America's great apathy toward its government. After Watergate, Americans simply concluded that “they're all a bunch of crooks” and voted for the guy they found personally likable – the guy who wouldn't ask anything of them, but who would take care of things himself while they turned on the TV and tuned out of their government: seemingly forever.

2008 can be likened to a great awakening of the body politic. Suddenly, everybody's paying attention. Suddenly, everybody is greatly concerned about the future of their country – even those who don't support Obama. I'm not just talking about the millions of people who either donated to or volunteered for Obama's campaign, although that's significant enough in of itself. I'm also talking about the disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters who for a time refused to vote for Obama because they believed so strongly in her candidacy. I'm also talking about the disaffected Republicans who, although they may not have liked the performance of their current standard-bearer, believed enough in Republican ideals that they still supported McCain. I'm talking about disaffected Republicans who were so fed up with the direction their party has taken that they chose, for the first time ever, to vote for a Democrat for President of the United States. And, of course, I'm talking about evangelical Republicans who'd almost given up on being relevant in politics, only to find their new standard-bearer in Sarah Palin.

America isn't tuning out like they did in 1980. They're finally tuning in. And while I have no idea what kind of changes this sort of resurgent democracy will bring, I do think that I can safely say that the days of the next American Idol commanding more attention than the next President of the United States are drawing to a close. People are really paying attention, and what that means for our next President is that he's going to have to govern accordingly. Gone are the days when a President can pull a fast one on the American public and simply ask them to trust him. Bush saw to that when there were no WMD in Iraq.

There were other historical comparisons made. There was fear of a repeat of 1968. That hasn't happened. There were no riots in the streets, there were no assassinations of major public figures. 1968 was the year America lost the last vestiges of its innocence and gave up on hope. 2008 is the year that, just based on the mere fact of an African American being elected President, America has begun to realize that hope never actually died and that fundamental change really is possible. It's like America blacked out for forty years and is suddenly asking itself, “wait, how did I get here?”

It's not 1960. 2000 was really a lot closer to 1960. Kennedy ran to the right of Nixon on foreign policy in order to appease the Cold War fears of the day. Obama actively ran against an on-going war (note of caution: Nixon also ran on a promise to end the war in Vietnam in 1968, so Obama supporters hoping to see an end to the war in Iraq will need to remain vigilant, even during an Obama presidency. Now, Nixon ran on a “secret plan”, while Obama made his plan public. But the point remains: stay on top of this. We haven't won this fight until the last man is out.)

You could make a case for 1952. General Eisenhower ran against Governor Stevenson, who was burdened by being from the same party as the very unpopular President Truman. There was an unpopular war in Korea from which the public was largely disengaged. Neither candidate was a sitting President or Vice President, and that's actually the last time that has happened. Mostly, however, Stevenson was burdened by the simple fact of not being Eisenhower, much the way McCain was burdened by the simple fact of not being Obama. But ultimately, Eisenhower's election was an affirmation of people's approval of his performance in World War II and an easing of their concerns of having a dovish Adlai Stevenson as President in the midst of the Cold War. In 2008, the American people have simply said, as the Wisconsin state flag does, “FORWARD”. Obama's election is not about what he has done, but about what people hope he will do. Indeed, that has largely been the greatest criticism of his campaign. What's he done? What's he accomplished? The answer really is, “not much... yet.”
I'll end with another year people have compared it to: 1932. In that year, people voted Herbert Hoover out of office in favor Franklin Roosevelt. This has mostly been based on the economic issues of the day, which even a superficial analysis will show are not as dire today as they were then, mostly thanks to the safeguards which were put into place by Roosevelt in the years following. People have raised the possibility of a generation of Democratic Presidents similar to the generation of Roosevelt and Truman. But again, this is faulty. What we're seeing is not a rejection of Republicans per se, but a rejection of politics as usual, which is to say a rejection of, once again, “trust me” politics. If Democrats expect the American people to simply go back to sleep after this election and simply go along with everything they do, they're in for a big surprise. The Republican party will return as a legitimate force in national politics within the next eight years. I'll caveat that by saying that it will be longer if the evangelicals manage to make Sarah Palin the standard-bearer of the party. The Republicans can no longer cheaply win elections by appealing to the worst in people. The gratuitous use of Obama's middle name to score cheap political points didn't work this time around. That in of itself should send them a signal: they can't use those types of dog whistles anymore. They're going to have to stop being lazy and win on the merits of their ideas, and that means they're going to have to actually come up with some new ideas. Supply side economics isn't a winning policy position anymore. They're going to have to retool and come up with something new. If they don't, then yes: we'll see a generation of Democratic Presidents. If they do, then I think we'll see a purge of the business-as-usual Democrats who've only managed to stay in power because they're not Republicans. That means you, Harry and Nancy. You're on notice: if you don't recognize the winds of change all around you and adapt to them, you'll be swept away by them eventually, too.

And let that serve notice to our President-elect, as well. We're not looking for another Clinton administration of small, incremental change. We're looking for fundamental change: a new New Deal. Think big. Act bigger. And most importantly, listen to the people. I'll give you a name of someone who's been really good about that: Russ Feingold. Bring him into your administration. He's been in the Senate for sixteen years and hasn't lost touch with the reasons he came to Washington in 1992. You can learn a thing or two from him if you're really interested in changing Washington instead of being changed by it.

But what of the historical context? How do we place this election in the larger scheme of things? Has a man who belongs to a race of people who were once enslaved by his nation ever been elected its leader? When viewed in that context, this election is almost Arthurian. But we can't afford those types of mythical comparisons. This isn't a story book we're reading: it's real life. That means that we simply have to admit that we have no idea where this is going, and if for no other reason than that, we all must stay engaged in the navigation of our ship of state for the next four years.

Geronimo.

Tears of joy.

2008-11-04T23:09:00.002-06:00

I didn't expect it to come on so quickly. I was sitting in my hotel room here at Keesler AFB in Mississippi, in the heart of the old Confederacy, on the base where I watched the nation begin its long downward spiral, watching Obama's 30 minute video on my laptop and then turned my eyes up at the TV, which had the volume down, and saw a name and a number:

BARACK OBAMA 284

I stared in disbelief. Was I really reading it? Had it really happened? Am I really here, on this night, watching the end of this long national nightmare? Good god in heaven, have I really come full circle to the place where I watched the sun begin to set on my country only to watch day begin to break? Then it came on. Waterworks. I'm not ashamed to admit it; it was such a relief. More than one person in my life was talking about leaving the country if McCain won, and I was one of them. Looks like I'll be sticking around after all.

Goodbye to all of that.

Goodbye to Vietnam. Goodbye to our nation's original sin, to the permanent sense of fear which has gripped our nation since the planes struck the Twin Towers. Goodbye to the war on the middle class, to the excuses for not doing better for our citizens, to the notion of patriotism being a Republican value. Goodbye to the notion that a young man with the wrong colored skin being raised by a single mother doesn't have a chance in this country. Goodbye to the Confederate States of America, to Jefferson Davis and to George Wallace.

Goodbye to our past. Hello to our future.

But what does that future hold? We don't know, and that's the beautiful thing about it. Our future is wide open. We're no longer bound by the limitations of the past. What's past is prologue, but it's been gone over so many times. Tonight we've gained back something that we seemingly lost forever when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy died 40 years ago:

Hope.

Down to the wire.

2008-11-04T16:50:00.002-06:00

Today is Election Day, but I'll not share my thoughts on this day until the final results are in. It's bittersweet for me; I'm back here at Keesler AFB, MS: the same place I was eight years ago when everything went terribly awry. Today presents an opportunity for America to show how far they've come and how much farther we are capable of going, to show that our best days have yet to come and that while we may stumble on occasion, we will always get back up stronger than before. Or else we can accept the status quo and push out an entire new generation because of our inability to let go of our petty fears and hatreds. That's the choice we face today: the future or the past. For the first time in a while, I have faith in my countrymen to make the right decision.

We'll see if that faith is reinforced.

What I want to share with you right now is my experience in the city of New Orleans over the weekend. Those of you who know me know that I am very fond of that city, and those who know me well know that I play hard when I'm there. On Halloween, I played very hard and blacked out for four hours. I discovered myself wandering around in a strange part of town (Gentilly) which I didn't recognize, thinking I was somewhere else. The reorientation process was disconcerting to say the least, and I wasn't exactly in the best neighborhood.

To the extent which anybody had any reaction to me, it was fear. I was obviously out of my mind, and they felt threatened by me. Some people were hesitant to help me because I was so obviously out of place, but one finally called me a cab so I could get back to the Garden District where my dear friend and fellow contributor Queen Elizabeth lives. The only thing I was missing was her spare key, and I initially believed that someone had slipped me something in my drink and had stolen her key because they knew who I was and where I was staying. Hey, if you find yourself wandering around in a strange neighborhood with no idea where you are or how you got there, you'll get paranoid too, believe me.

What struck me is that for all that people make of the high crime rate in New Orleans, nothing happened to me. I was essentially helpless as a babe in a situation of my own making, and yet nobody saw fit to take advantage. In fact, I get a feeling that some bartender along the way told me that I'd had enough to drink and told me to go home. Now, maybe (s)he could have called me a cab? But really, I was left alone as I wandered for miles after dark. What does that tell me?

Not so much that people are fundamentally this or that, but that they're never as bad or good as you might assume they are. They didn't exactly jump out of their seats to help me after I started regaining my senses, but they didn't lift my wallet or steal my clothes, which they easily could have in my state. They mostly just let me alone, from beginning to end. It also tells me that true friends are invaluable, because aside from them, you're on your own, and that having a friend around not only helps you stay out of trouble, but helps you get through it when it finds you. Simple stuff, but I'd become overly self-reliant over the years, and it's nice to find friends who are willing to let you rely on them.

I'll have comments about the implications of tonight's election results after they come out.

I'm back.

2008-10-24T23:22:00.002-05:00

I've decided to make this my primary personal blog and post here what I'd been posting on MySpace. It's not going to be strictly a military blog or a political blog or a travel blog; it's going to be sort of "all of the above".

In the past, I tried promoting this blog, and while I am proud of some of the writings on this blog, I think I can still deliver the same stuff I delivered before, but without the self-promotion or self-restriction. In short, you'll be getting me, no more, no less. I have some online readers whom I've never met and some close personal friends and family who've perhaps never seen me really get into the political stuff.

Keeping the different sides of myself segregated into different websites hasn't worked so well for me. Darrell, CarbonDate, and SSgt K (sorry, no last names here) aren't different people, no matter how much I tried to keep the three separate. Instead, I'll just let my writing speak for itself, and if people don't always like what they see, then that's life.

But yes, I'm back, and I'll be seeing about getting other contributors to come on board and actually contribute ;).

Nothing from me for weeks.

2008-05-17T03:40:00.002-05:00

It's going to be slow going for a while, just as it has been for the past few months. Despite my best intentions, my personal life keeps getting in the way. That's a good thing, overall. Last week I was in Japan and Diego Garcia, the week prior I was prepping for that trip, and this week I've been prepping for my trip to Australia tomorrow. So as you can see, I've been kind of busy, but in a good way.

Those of you who may be worried about me need not worry. If I get deployed again I'll be blogging about that. I've made arrangements which will allow me to blog from Iraq more regularly even without commercial internet access. It's just that, right now, my life has been interesting enough to keep me from engaging in any deep analysis of current affairs. It's not that I don't care; I just don't have anything interesting to say about them (as evidenced by my poor effort to talk about a congressional race in Wisconsin from Guam).

When I have something worth saying, I'll say it. In the mean time, it'll be slow going here.

Gard to challenge Kagen for WI-8

2008-04-29T06:53:00.005-05:00

John Gard (R-unemployed) will be challenging Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) for the 8th Congressional district seat. Gard unsuccessfully ran against Kagen for the same seat two years ago when now-Ambassador Mark Green (R-Tanzania) unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Governor Jim Doyle.

From the Press-Gazette:

Former speaker of the state Assembly John Gard officially announced his plan to challenge Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, for the seat this fall, saying he offers a "clear contrast" with the freshman congressman.

Loser, winner. Unemployed, congressman. Yup, clear contrast.

Gard, now a resident of Suamico, officially announced his intention in Green Bay and Appleton on Sunday, although he has been raising money for a possible run for several months.
Promising fiscal order, Gard drew a distinction between the two by saying he would have "voted differently than Steven Kagen did" on a number of issues including immigration, tax relief and abortion.

If I woulda won, I'da voted like a Republican! See, you voted for a librul!!!11!

Actually, I regard Kagen as a rather nondescript, run-of-the-mill Democrat. Being the successful allergist (Dr. Millionaire, they called him) he is, I imagine his views are a bit more nuanced than he lets on, but then again, maybe not. It really could be that he holds the simplistic party-line views he espouses. It's clear to me that he's in a holding pattern right now for Sen. Herb Kohl to retire so he can run for the seat Kohl will be vacating, but then, I imagine that's Gard's ambition, as well. Could we see a Kagen/Gard match-up at the state level? If Gard can remain unemployed for two years and still have the resources to stage another congressional bid, then he apparently has no other ambitions than politics.

Still, at least Gard and Kagen are both better options than the insipid Chad Fradette, currently angling for a state senate seat (not that you could tell from his website; he hadn't updated it for two years, and now it appears that he only decided to update it well after he announced his state senate bid. Tip for Chad: have your shit together before you make the big announcement; that way you can roll it out all at once in a big show. You just look disorganized this way.)

Guam: An object lesson on the U.S.'s designs on Iraq

2008-04-26T06:04:00.002-05:00

Rolling blackouts. Serious environmental issues. Resentment of an obtrusive U.S. military presence. An impotent "elected" government consisting of local oligarchs with no legal standing against the U.S. government. An infrastructure facing buy-out by outside investors. Am I describing Iraq? No, I'm describing the island territory of Guam.

The parallels between Iraq and Guam have recently become apparent to me. The glaring difference is the lack of organized resistance against the U.S. military's presence on Guam. The people here largely welcome us here, if begrudgingly at times, whereas in Iraq they were more inclined to shoot rockets at us on their way home from work.

(An aside: even the protesters here are friendly; the first time I saw a group of protesters outside the main gate on my way home from work, I waved at them, and they waved back. It's all good; we know that we're both pawns in this big game, so a healthy perspective on the big picture tends to diffuse any hard feelings which might exist. It's the people with delusions of self-determination who generally get all worked up about these things. Frankly, if anybody should understand the frustration of having their lives dictated to them by an over-reaching, seemingly omnipotent and impersonal bureaucracy, it's a member of the United States military. But I guess some people like being serfs; it's certainly easier than thinking.)

Here's an article from the Pacific Daily News:

The Defense Department has been considering a $1 billion road that would link Andersen and the Navy base on the other side of the island.
But the U.S. military buildup's draft master plan does not include the billion-dollar road.
Bordallo said military planners still are considering whether to build the Andersen-Navy roadway.
Retired Maj. Gen. David Bice, executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, which oversees the buildup efforts on Guam for the Defense Department, said yesterday the proposed Defense Access Road is not off the radar screen, Bordallo said.
But the road, Bordallo said, "will be considered in the context of decisions yet to be made on housing, training, storage and maintenance areas."
The proposed Defense Access Road could be a helpful way to mitigate traffic with a new, north-south corridor, but the road will have a major environmental impact, too," she added.

You think? As of right now, the drive from Andersen to Big Navy takes nearly an hour during peak traffic times, and significantly less when the roads are clear. It's not abundantly clear whether this "Defense Access Road" would be open to the public or not; I'm betting not. If you look at the history of these major build-up plans, you'll see that GovGuam's role in this has not been "advise and consent", but rather, "Would you like fries with that?"

Shift to Iraq. Anybody who's been there and been briefed at all on the long-term plans for Iraq knows that the U.S. government has no aims on leaving. I think it would be unrealistic to expect any of our Presidential candidates to completely withdraw our troops out of Iraq (including my candidate of choice), mainly because the plans for Iraq are much like our plans for Guam: it is to become the central hub of all U.S. military activity in its part of the world.

When I was at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), there was a big push to build up the base as a long-term presence. Sather AB was transitioning from tents to trailers. While I can't go into too much more detail than that, the larger push was to build up, not draw down. Let me be clear: from my observations on the ground, any talk about troop draw-downs are political theater. There was no talk of turning the bases over to the Iraqis at any point. Period. Those bases are for us.

Let's look at some of the other similarities. The government of Iraq is incapable of keeping the peace on its own. Indeed, that very inability is pointed to as the main reason we have to stay. Similarly, the incompetence of GovGuam is pointed to as a big reason why Guam needs to remain a U.S. territory, since clearly they'd be lost without us. I've gotten the impression that many of the locals believe it, too. That, in addition to the horrible treatment they received at the hands of the Japanese during WWII, is a big reason why so many are happy to have us here. But who taught GovGuam how to manage itself? The U.S. Similarly, the U.S. went into Iraq and disbanded all of its existing government infrastructure, even scattering its army to the winds to join on with various militias. Mistake? I don't think so. I think it had its desired intent: justifying our presence in the country by pointing both to its lack of an organized army and to the threat posed by the roving militias. And, of course, neither Iraq nor Guam have a reliable power grid.

Part of self-government depends not only on having people with the management skills necessary to run the government, but also the technical skills to maintain infrastructure. Indeed, it's a truism of any institution that the wrench-turners are and always will be more important than the bean-counters. While Guam does have a number of good technicians (the military bases couldn't run without them), there aren't nearly enough for the island to effectively run as a sovereign nation, or even as a state. Most of the employment opportunity on the island is either on the military bases or in various shops and bars around the island (such as the one I'm typing this blog from now). Just from looking around, there's a lot of wasted potential here, and it's clear to me that the U.S. has intentionally created a cycle of dependency here by never fully enabling the people to take care of themselves.

You want to put Guam on the path to self-government (we know the U.S. government doesn't, but let's just say for the sake of argument)? The first step is a major push to provide children with quality schools. The schools I've seen on island are a disgrace, and that's largely because they're managed by the money pit known as GovGuam. The Department of Education needs to step in and say, "Okay, this is how you run a school district. This is how you maintain a school." Build schools which are conducive to a quality education. Southern High School has been without full air conditioning for 480 days (yes, you read that correctly; nearly a year and four months). Can you imagine trying to pay attention in class in a tropical environment without A/C? It would be unthinkable back home, but it's come to be accepted as the status quo for GovGuam. But this is how the U.S. government wants it. They've even come to building schools on the bases rather than sending the children of military personnel to the local schools.

The next step is a major push for technical education not only in high school, but at the post-secondary level. Two years vocational programs should be offered free of charge to all high school graduates, and they should offer the type of training that would be offered at a technical college in the mainland U.S. I can't speak to the quality of the vocational training at Guam Community College, but based on the major infrastructure problems I see on the island, it's clear to me that GCC isn't adequate to the island's needs.

Meanwhile, individuals looking for a quality liberal arts education should not have to leave the island to find it. The University of Guam nearly lost its accreditation in 2002, and while it's made strides since then, more work will continue to be needed.

Of course, this is all common sense, and nobody needs me to point all of this out. I'm certainly no expert on Guam, having lived here less than two years. But my point is that these problems, and their solutions, are apparent even to somebody like me, who's been here all of 22 months (minus four spent in Iraq). There can only be one conclusion: the powers that be don't want Guam to stand on its own two feet -- neither the federal government, nor the local power brokers who have a vested interest in facing no meaningful challenge.

Far from being a well cared-for territory, what I see around me is poverty reminiscent of East St. Louis with all of the prime real estate being gobbled up either by the military or outside investors. Tumon Bay is hardly visible for all of the hotels which have lined up along side it. Simply put, the island does not belong to the islanders in any meaningful sense, and the only reason I can think of that there isn't more organized resistance to this state of affairs is the amount of crystal meth floating around. (I'm amazed there hasn't been more of a push to drug the population of Iraq; this would be the quickest way to shut down the insurgency. Or are they? See, and I thought it was just the troops we were drugging.)

Of course, the U.S. is a much-more entrenched power on Guam than it is in Iraq. The island is much more accustomed to colonial rule than Iraq, having been a Spanish colony for hundreds of years before the U.S. took over, whereas Iraq had been a sovereign (if emasculated following the Gulf War) nation for a while after shaking off British colonial rule. And, of course, Guam does not possess the means to stage a military resistance against the U.S., but they some are attempting to stage a civil resistance to their subordinate role through the United Nations, although it is doubtful that anything meaningful will come of that.

Rather, I would implore local activists to take advantage of the upcoming Guam caucuses to highlight their dubious political status to the rest of the nation, and to the two Democratic candidates vying for Guam's four pledged delegates. With the amount of press attention on every contest, Guam has a unique opportunity to grab some national press attention. Most Americans do not even know that Guam is part of the country, and I think a lot of people would be stricken by the inherent lack of fairness in this group of U.S. citizens not even having a vote in Congress or a say in selecting our President, despite the fact that many have fought in this President's war in Iraq.

I'll close by apologizing for the many digressions in this particular blog, but there were a number of issues I wished to highlight beyond similarities between Guam and Iraq. That particular topic is fairly self-explanatory, and I think it's clear that if you examine those similarities, you'll also start to see them popping up in other U.S. foreign endeavors: create a facade of democracy without helping the local government become self-sufficient and use that lack of self-sufficiency as an excuse to remain in place. In truth, the governments of Guam and Iraq will never become truly self-sufficient until Uncle Sam either helps toward that end or at least gets out of the way.

Change of direction on The Command Post.

2008-04-25T03:47:00.002-05:00

Rather than focusing on national issues, the emphasis will be on local issues. Now for me, "local" is relative. For me, "local" could be any number of places I've spent a significant amount of time. Green Bay, where I grew up, or Guam, where I now live, but also St. Louis and South Dakota, where I've spent two and three years respectively, and also, on occasion, Iraq, since my life is now inescapably intertwined with that country.

Here's a taste of something Michael Lujan Bevacqua posted; much more at the link:

In 2005 and 2006, we appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of these two frightening facts: 1) it was recently discovered that the U.S. Department of Interior purposefully killed a presidential directive handed down in 1975, which ordered that Guam be given a commonwealth status no less favorable than the one the U.S. was negotiating with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands at that time; and 2) a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (the island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market) is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.

Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The meager, questionable victories we have had to stay this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists who, on their own—with no financial, institutional, or strategic support—holding both their hands up, holding the line as best they can. At great personal cost.

Your Excellencies: Know this—the indigenous Chamoru people of Guam are neither informed nor unified around this military buildup despite dominant media representations. For all intents and purposes, there is no free press in Guam. Local media only makes noise of the re-occupation, not sense of it. The Pacific Daily News—the American subsidiary newspaper that dominates the discourse—has cut off the oxygen supply to indigenous resistance movement. Rather than debating this buildup's enormous sociopolitical, environmental and cultural consequences, it has framed the conversation around how best to ask the U.S. (politely) for de facto consideration of our concerns. Without appearing un-American.

We are not Americans. We are Chamorus. We are heirs to a matrilineal, indigenous civilization born two thousand years before Jesus. And we are being disappeared. Off your radar.

For the last three years, we have appeared before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee, alerting the UN organ of a campaign of the Guam Chamber of Commerce (primarily consisting of U.S. Statesiders) to privatize every one of Guam's public resources (our island's only water provider, only power provider, only local telephone provider, public schools, and its only port, on an island that imports 85-90% of its food and where private monopolies of public goods would truly make us captive to the forces of the market). This is undermining our ancient indigenous civilization with violent speed. Eating us whole.

Not much has changed since we last were here in New York. Our power provider has been privatized, our telecommunications sold. Our only water provider and one port are under relentless attack. The very small victories we have had to stop this mass privatization are only the result of indigenous Chamoru grassroots activists, fighting at great personal cost.

All this, and only two years until the end of the Second International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. And no midterm review by the Special Committee on Decolonization. No designation of any expert to track Guam’s progress, or lack thereof, toward progressing off the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Not one UN visiting mission to Guam.

Going on vacation....

2008-04-20T01:27:00.000-05:00

I won't be posting for a while. Life's going on the front burner. That is all.

Primary battle wearing on you? It's wearing on me. A solution, if I may.

2008-03-31T02:44:00.002-05:00

Senator Clinton, Senator Obama:

Stop it. Just... stop it. Right now. This is getting you no where.

Senator Clinton, your kitchen sink strategy has your approval rating at Bush-like numbers.

Senator Obama, attacking Senator Clinton betrays your earlier words about a different kind of politics.

Enough already. Distinctions have been drawn. There's nothing left to talk about, except...

Oh yeah. Senator McCain. Remember him? The presumptive Republican nominee? The one who's going to be the next President of the United States if you keep it up?

Senator Clinton, you said you're going to take your campaign all the way to the convention. Well, that's fine. Really.

Senator Obama, you have the lead in pledged delegates, popular vote, and number of states won. Well, goody on you. That does you absolutely nothing if you lose in November.

Let's talk about a radical concept which would benefit both candidates in the long term: stop campaigning against each other. To the extent which you even mention each other at all on the campaign trail, make it positive. Focus your attention on Senator McCain. Let the primaries play out as they will. Introduce yourselves to constituents in the remaining primary states and talk about what you'll do as President and how you're a better choice than Senator McCain.

Super delegates? Jockey for them all you wish. Just keep it on the down low. Don't attack super delegates who endorse your primary opponent. Congratulate your opponent and move on. There are more important things to talk about.

Keep your surrogates on a leash. No talk of Rev. Wright or Ms. Ferraro. Keep it classy. Pledge to support your opponent no matter who ends up with the nomination. Encourage your supporters to do the same. We should be together, not fighting.

What does this benefit you? Well, Senator McCain will have to fight a two-front war until the Democratic National Convention while you two will be campaigning both for yourselves and for each other. Let's even agree in advance that one of you will be the nominee and the other will return to the Senate. No joint ticket; leave that final element of surprise -- the running mate -- until the convention. Honestly, do either of you want to be reduced to that status? You have more power in the Senate -- period.

How about it? Can I get a witness?

The Great McCain vs McCain Debates

2008-03-24T09:07:00.004-05:00

The DNC has come up with a great idea!
...
DNC Announces New Round of Debates as Senator McCain Squares Off Against Senator McCain

WASHINGTON, March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --
The Democratic National Committee announced today that Senator John McCain will appear in a series of debates to be broadcast on http://www.mccaindebates.com. The one candidate in this debate who could beat John McCain, is John McCain himself. As the two McCains square off, the American people will have the opportunity to hear the old McCain and the new McCain for themselves. McCain the Maverick, the come-from-behind phenom whose Straight Talk Express sped into New Hampshire eight years ago and knocked Establishment Candidate George W. Bush off his feet, has agreed to debate 2008 Republican Nominee McCain, the third Bush termer and pandering politician who will say or do anything to win and has no qualms selling out his principles to score some votes.

The McCain vs. McCain debates will be held over the coming weeks, with the first debate to be held today on Iraq. Fresh from a trip to Iraq and the Middle East in which McCain sought to burnish his foreign policy
credentials, the first spirited exchange is not to be missed as questions about the threat of Saddam Hussein, the ease of success in Iraq, true feelings about Don Rumsfeld and the strategy on the ground are posed. The additional debates will focus on other issues in this campaign. Additional details regarding specifics for the coming debates will be announced at a later time.
...

Check it out....

Update: ALL THREE Presidential candidates' passport files were breached.

2008-03-21T19:03:00.004-05:00

This is bigger than I thought: Now, McCain's and Clinton's files were breached, as well:

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Confidential passport files of all three presidential candidates were improperly breached by State Department employees, a department spokesman said.

The private data of Democratic Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain were accessed in separate incidents, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said today.

``We're going to do a full investigation,'' McCormack said. ``We take very seriously the trust that is put in us'' to safeguard personal data, he said.

State Department officials are visiting the Capitol Hill offices of all three senators today in Washington to explain the incidents. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke by phone with Obama and Clinton to apologize and she plans to call McCain today, McCormack said.

As I said in my last post, this story is still developing. We'll see how it plays out.

McCormack cited an incident last summer when a trainee had unauthorized access to Hillary Clinton's passport file. It was part of a training seminar in which people usually ``are encouraged to enter a family member's name,'' McCormack said today in Washington. The individual was ``immediately admonished,'' he said.

The State Department also detected earlier this year that one of the people who accessed Obama's file also accessed McCain's, McCormack said. That individual was disciplined.

The State Department's inquiry began yesterday after a reporter inquired about the breach of Obama's records. After senior management researched the incidents surrounding Obama, they decided to check whether Clinton's and McCain's records also were breached. This morning, it became clear that they had, McCormack said.

They explain the circumstances behind Clinton's breach, but not behind any of the others.

On edit: I've decided it's too early to point fingers just yet. There are a few coincidences which seem to point to Clinton, but nothing anywhere near definitive, or even circumstantial. Sometimes I have to check myself to make sure I don't let my biases distort my view. This story is still developing, so I'll stick to the facts from here on out. My apologies for jumping the gun.

Obama's passport file breached

2008-03-21T03:58:00.002-05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7308098.stm

The US Department of State has fired two contractors and disciplined a third for accessing the passport file of presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
A spokesman for the department, Sean McCormack, said the cases were probably the result of "imprudent curiosity".
But he said it was not clear what the employees may have seen or what they were looking for.
A spokesman for Mr Obama suggested that the government could be using private information for "political purposes".
The BBC's North America editor, Justin Webb, says it is an extraordinary lapse in security which allowed temporary state department employees access to personal information on a man who is guarded by the secret service day and night .

Extraordinary indeed. Consider the timeline of the breaches:

8 January: New Hampshire primaries
9 January: First breach of Obama's records

19 February: Wisconsin primary and Hawai'i caucus (last day of Obama's February streak)
21 February: Second breach of Obama's records

12 March: Clinton campaign sends attack memo with the following text to reporters: "As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it's legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?"
14 March: Jeremiah Wright's sermons capture nation's attention... and third breach of Obama's records.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

Consider further:

After the news broke Thursday that two employees of the State Department had been fired and a third disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama, MSNBC noted a Clinton connection to the story. The network reported that Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under Bill Clinton.

And further....

"That is one of the things we are obviously investigating," said Patrick F. Kennedy, head of bureau of consular affairs. "I have no reason to believe they did, but I am certainly not going to be dismissive of what is a serious and valid question. On the basis of fast work this afternoon [I don't believe they did]."

Patrick F. Kennedy? That's Patrick F. Kennedy, Assistant Secretary of State for the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. Also Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

This story is still developing. There might yet be a revelation that doesn't point right at the Clinton campaign. Watergate, anybody?

Just listen.

2008-03-20T04:32:00.002-05:00

If you have any questions on why I support Obama, this speech should answer them. Right here he says the things that people have been saying for a long time, but never to each other.

This man will be our next President.

Solution to Florida and Michigan

2008-03-17T20:17:00.001-05:00

Barack Obama can bring an end to the impasse with Florida and Michigan with a simple compromise measure: seat Florida and Michigan's delegates as is under one condition: all of Michigan's "Uncommitted" delegates become pledged to him. Given that Sen. Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot, it only strikes me as fair that the people who showed up to vote against her have their votes count, as well. Seems simple and fair enough, except for one problem for Sen. Clinton: seating Michigan and Florida "as is" only nets her a 44 delegate gain, which chops Obama's pledged delegate lead from 169 to 125. She would need to carry Pennsylvania with 95% of the vote to overcome that lead (there aren't enough delegates in Pennsylvania for her to overcome his present pledged delegate lead), or else carry every remaining state (including Pennsylvania and all the way up to Puerto Rico) with an at least 64% of the vote. That's with Florida and Michigan added to the tally. Without them? She has to win every remaining state with at least 69%. In other words, Florida and Michigan don't aid her cause as much as she'd like us to believe, unless she insists on some "winner take all" standard for those states which hasn't been applied to any other state and she's not in a position to demand. Absent that, adding Florida and Michigan moves her chances from just this side of impossible to... just this side of impossible.

Obama should agree to seat Michigan and Florida (with the one caveat I specified above regarding uncommitted delegates), then he should show this math to the press and call on Sen. Clinton to bow out gracefully. If she won't, then the remaining superdelegates need to put this one to rest. It's all over but the crying, but if I know Sen. Clinton, there's still a lot of that to be had.

Music break

2008-03-17T05:59:00.002-05:00

My friend Katie Scovell has some new music up on her page. Click on the link and choose "Ode a Mon Frere". It's MySpace music, so I can't post it directly, sorry:

http://www.myspace.com/ktscovell

Palast: Eliot's Mess and the $200 Million Bailout

2008-03-16T17:08:00.001-05:00

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

By Greg Palast
Reporting for Air America Radio’s Clout

Listen to Palast on Clout at www.GregPalast.com

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.

....

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and it’s variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chuck of these ‘sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 a month payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. Grinnings move into their Toyota.

....

But there were rumblings that the party would soon be over. Angry regulators, burned investors and the weight of millions of homes about to be boarded up were causing the sharks to sink. Countrywide’s stock was down 50%, and Citigroup was off 38%, not pleasing to the Gulf sheiks who now control its biggest share blocks.

Then, on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bail-out. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

....

Keith Olbermann Special Comment. Target: Hillary Clinton.

2008-03-13T05:05:00.002-05:00

In truth, people have been noticing for some time, including this author, a racist overtone of the Clinton campaign, and it has come to a head with Geraldine Ferraro's remarks dismissing Barack Obama's success as some sort of affirmative action quota. Finally, we see the awful truth: the Democratic party, for whom black Americans have been the most loyal and consistent voting block, views that block with something between condescension and contempt.

Or perhaps not the Democratic party as a whole, but certainly the Democratic Leadership Council. The message from the DLC has been clear in this primary election: you may take a place at the table, but never at the head. I think, in their heart of hearts, black Americans have known this for some time, but it was always preferable to being relegated to the children's table by the Republicans.

This status quo is not, and should not be, acceptable any longer. Every opportunity which is open to white Americans should be open to black Americans, just as every opportunity which is open to men should be open to women.

Barack Obama got where he is not because he is black, but despite it. That Geraldine Ferraro cannot see that belies her latent racism (which she also cannot apparently see), and that Hillary Clinton tolerates it belies that while she may not approve of racism, it doesn't get her hackles up. It doesn't create the visceral reaction in her that it does in many others. A strong condemnation of Ms. Ferraro could have been her moment where she wins back the black community and re-establishes herself as a champion for all people, not just herself. Alas, she couldn't bring herself to even pretend to do that, placing herself below John McCain in terms of moral authority on racism. Think she can count on the black vote in the general election? Are you kidding me? After all this? John McCain will be able to speak to the black community and say, "This is what the Democrats really think of you; vote for the party of Lincoln." While he may not win all or even a majority of the black community, the Democrats will forever lose them as their most loyal and reliable voting base -- and they'll deserve to.

Admiral Fallon, CENTCOM/CC, resigns

2008-03-11T17:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/11/national/main3926955.shtml

(CBS/AP) The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigned Tuesday amid speculation about a rift over U.S. policy in Iran.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Gates said the decision, effective March 31, was entirely Fallon's and that Gates believed it was "the right thing to do."

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Separately, the New York Times reported that there was "no question" that Fallon's departure was prompted by policy differences with the White House, and with Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq.

The newspaper said senior officials in the Bush administration were unhappy with remarks Fallon has made about Iran and the pace of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Fallon was out of step with the White House almost from the day he took over the U.S. Central Command, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. On his first trip to Iraq, he allowed a reporter for the New York Times to accompany him to a meeting at which he lectured Prime Ministrer Maliki on the need for political reform. A source close to Fallon says that earned him phone calls from Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice and National Security Adviser Hadley. Afterwards, Fallon said he had "two strikes against me" and lamented ever taking the job.

Martin reports there will be a lot of speculation that Fallon's departure clears the decks for war with Iran before the Bush leaves office, despite the fact that Secretary Gates twice called the notion "ridiculous."

The implications of Admiral Fallon's resignation are significant. I've blogged before about the "500 year war" lunacy his chief enlisted advisor was spouting back when he was in charge of PACOM, but that impression of Fallon has always gone against conventional wisdom which said he was some sort of "lone voice in the woods" trying to hold war in Iran back. If that's the case, then why was CSM Kinney off his leash spouting this nonsense to junior NCOs?

In any case, ADM Fallon's resignation means there are some tectonic plates shifting, and we should be on the look out for who his eventual replacement will be.

Hillary Clinton: Monster

2008-03-11T07:01:00.001-05:00

Can you say, "riots in the streets"?

Somebody in the party please stop her. Please. Even in failing, she will irreparable damage to both the party and the nation.

Hillary Clinton, Not So Good on Genocide

2008-03-08T17:03:00.002-06:00

Marc Cooper talks about the Clinton record on genocide, and how 38 year-old Samantha Power has more foreign policy cred in her left pinky then 60 year-old Hillary Clinton has in her whole body.

http://www.alternet.org/story/79019

---

Power was rightfully awarded the Pulitzer for her finely written and downright horrifying book A Problem From Hell which, in macabre detail, describes the calculated indifference of the Clinton administration when 800,000 Rwandans were being systematically butchered. The red phone rang and rang and rang again. I don't know where Hillary was then. But her husband and his entire experienced foreign policy team -- from the brass in the Pentagon to the congenitally feckless Secretary of State Warren Christopher -- just let it ring.
And as more than one researcher has amply documented the case, the bloody paralysis of the Clinton administration in the face of the Rwandan genocide owed not at all to a lack of information, but rather to a lack of will. A reviewer of Power's book for The New York Times, perhaps summed it up best, saying that the picture of Clinton that emerges from this reading is that of an "amoral narcissist."
Former Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the UN forces in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, tells us a similar story in his own memoir. General Dallaire recounts how, at the height of the Rwandan holocaust, he got a phone call from a Clinton administration staffer who wanted to know how many Rwandans had already died, how many were refugees and how many were internally displaced. Writes Dallaire: "He told me that his estimates indicated that it would take the deaths of 85,000 Rwandans to justify the risking of the life of one American soldier." Eventually, ten times that many would die. And our response? A handful of years later, at a photo-op stopover in Kigali airport, Bill Clinton bit his lip and said he was sorry.
Therein resides the richest and saddest irony of all. Samantha Power has actually lived the sort of life that Hillary Clinton's campaign staff has, for public consumption, invented for its candidate. Though not quite 40 years old, Power has spent no time on any Wal-Mart boards but has rather dedicated her entire adult life rather tirelessly to championing humanitarian causes. She has spoken up when others were silent. She took great personal risks during the Balkan wars to witness and record and denounce the carnage (She reported that Bill Clinton intervened against the Serbs only when he felt he was losing personal credibility as a result of his inaction. "I'm getting creamed," Power quoted the then-President saying as he fretted over global consternation over his own hesitation to act).

---

Samantha Power for National Security Advisor

2008-03-07T19:36:00.003-06:00

What, she should be precluded from government service because she was mean to Sen. Clinton? She has one of the best foreign policy minds I've ever seen. Watching the linked BBC clip on YouTube, I have to say that while political gamesmanship is to be expected from the candidates, I would hope that the rest of us, who have a greater stake in the correct policy being implemented than we do in our preferred candidate being elected, could have an honest discussion on these matters rather than trying to simply "one up" our competition. But perhaps that's impossible in the middle of a campaign season? I should hope not; this campaign has been going on for over a year, and it will continue through the rest of this year. Are we to forestall honest discussion for two years out of every four year Presidential term simply because the politicians don't feel like being honest with us about their intentions?

Of course Sen. Obama is presenting best case scenarios in his campaign. It's a political campaign. It's certainly no different from what Sen. Clinton is doing with regards to health care. Does anybody actually think that the plan she's crafted for the purpose of her campaign will be the one she presents to Congress? Don't be naive. It'll be a starting point, just like Sen. Obama's Iraq plan. It'll get chopped up by experts until a plan which bears very little resemblance to the original plan is scrapped.

To my original point: if we're going to kick every talented advisor to the curb because he or she says something politically inconvenient or impolite is the height of absurdity. Advisors should, by their nature, be plain-spoken and occasionally impolite. An advisor who never says anything which offends anybody is a cipher and should have no place in the White House.

I'm upset about Power's resignation from Obama's campaign, because what she has to offer is too important for petty politics to take precedence.

Why a U.S. - Russia alliance makes sense for America

2008-03-05T03:09:00.002-06:00

Impressed with all the gee-whiz gadgets the American military has come up with over the years? Check out this Russian fighter, the Su-30MK:

I'm sure even the hawkish sorts in America can see the value behind being on the same side as the people who built this airplane. I imagine the time, resources, and ingenuity used to build it being put toward peaceful purposes, and I feel like there is nothing our two great nations couldn't accomplish together.

Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island: "No You Can't"

2008-03-05T02:31:00.003-06:00

Hillary Clinton won the primaries in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Obama won Vermont. Texas caucus results are still pending, so we'll see how that pans out.

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

McCain secured the nomination on the Republican side.

Apparently Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island Democrats decided they liked what they heard from Sen. Clinton and wanted to see four years of this:

And this:

Or maybe they'd rather see four years of this:

Bottom line, though? I've done the math, and Obama had something like a 150 pledged delegate lead coming into tonight's contests. After winning three of the four states, Clinton has now sliced Obama's lead to... 130. Yes, she's cut Obama's delegate lead by 20 delegates (still pending results from the Texas caucuses). Tonight was an opportunity for Obama to finish Clinton off. He didn't, but she hasn't overtaken him, either.

We need to rethink our place in the world.

2008-03-04T05:11:00.002-06:00

Something has to give with regards to our military presence overseas. We continue taking on new obligations and we never release ourselves from the old ones. This is largely because we don't stay in a particular place simply because we like the view or because we're trying to protect an ally, but because we're looking to be strategically located so as to strike at an enemy at a moment's notice, or else to protect a precious resource.

Simply put, we spend over $400 billion a year on the current arrangement, and the bank's going to break before too long. At the same time, our economy rests on the positioning of our military might around the world to protect our dominance of world markets. In short, if we stay we risk economic collapse. If we go, we risk economic collapse.

Here's how we can protect our interests while scaling back our imperial policies. I'll throw some ideas out there, undoubtedly of varying quality or feasibility:

Revise our status of forces agreements with friendly nations hosting our forces. It will require compromise on our part (namely giving more favorable economic positions to these friendly nations), but it will ultimately be the least costly. I propose giving full control, responsibility, and ownership of the military infrastructure we presently have in these countries to the host nations. In short, don't close down the bases: give them to the host nation. Develop trade and military treaties which give oversight of the region to these nations. If we empower them as partners and not client states, the imperial stench of our current policies will eventually begin to fade.
Before turning our bases over to Korea, develop a four-way agreement with the United States, China, and North and South Korea to reunite Korea, guaranteeing economic and military autonomy and a "hands-off" promise from both China and the U.S. with regards to their internal affairs, but allowing agreements to be developed between the newly united Korea and any nation they choose. A united Korea will be a military and economic powerhouse in the region, and an alliance between Korea and the U.S. would be useful.
Take the leash off of Japan and let them develop a viable military force. Not an imperial force, but allow them to take responsibility for their own defense. A combined alliance between Japan and Korea would potentially be enough to balance Chinese dominance of the region, especially if backed by an alliance with the U.S. -- as opposed to these nations functioning as neutered client states for the U.S. Balancing China is crucial, because they are showing signs of making the same mistakes we made in the past century.
Develop a formal economic and military alliance with Russia. Turn the old Cold War paradigm on its head: instead of these two great powers competing and fighting proxy wars on foreign soil, have them work together in their respective halves of the world toward common interests, and ultimately peace in the world. Don't scrap NATO; redevelop it to meet post-Cold War needs. With the end of the Cold War, it makes the most sense for the U.S. and Russia to be partners, not two titans struggling for dominance.
Ultimately, it should not simply be protection of U.S. economic interests we should seek. Rather, it should be a goal of world peace. There will always be nations who act out in aggression, but if the world's major powers begin working toward common cause and stop acts of aggression before they get out of hand, we can finally put an end to this process of perpetual war through all time.

What is perpetual war but the slow necrosis of our species? These proxy wars we fight with other world powers over depleting resources only consume ever more of those resources, driving up demand for those resources, and thus increasing the wars we fight. Lather, rinse, repeat. Our innovation goes not into developing alternative means to meeting our needs and wants, but into bigger and better ways to fight the wars over the resources upon which we have become dependent. We have to be better than this.

But peace can only be assured when all parties have a common stake in it. If we continue to build our illusion of "peace and prosperity" on the backs of the poor, then it will never be sustainable. If we continue to deny one another that which we desire for ourselves, then none shall have it at all. There is a better way, but we can only find it by working together rather than at odds with one another. We cannot find it by withdrawing behind our fences and into our communities, by shutting out our neighbors or denying their existence and inherent self worth, regardless of their particular race, religion, lifestyle choices, or political persuasions. In short, we cannot find it simply within ourselves; we have to find it within each other.

And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal. -- President John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963

Clinton on hope.

2008-02-29T20:45:00.000-06:00

Oh... how awkward for you.

Obama leads in Texas, close in Ohio

2008-02-29T03:28:00.002-06:00

Reuters has it.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama holds a slight lead on Hillary Clinton in Texas and has almost pulled even in Ohio before contests that could decide their Democratic presidential battle, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll released on Friday.

The contests on Tuesday are crucial for Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady fighting to halt Obama's streak of 11 consecutive victories in their battle for the Democratic nomination for the November 4 presidential election.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has a 6-point edge on Clinton in Texas, 48 percent to 42 percent. He trails Clinton 44 percent to 42 percent in Ohio -- well within the poll's margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

*Cough*

I predict a close race in Ohio (with Wisconsin being a possible harbinger of things to come) with Texas a surprise win for Obama.

Just sayin'....

Dick Gregory clarifies who's black and who isn't.

2008-02-28T04:46:00.000-06:00

Clearly, McCain thinks Obama is the nominee.

2008-02-28T04:09:00.001-06:00

Here's a fun exchange between the two without any additional comment from me:

Rolling Stone: The Myth of the Surge

2008-02-26T00:23:00.001-06:00

Great article from Rolling Stone. No comment, just snippage and linkage.

It's a cold, gray day in December, and I'm walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city's no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

My guide, a thirty-one-year-old named Osama who grew up in Dora, points to shops he used to go to, now abandoned or destroyed: a barbershop, a hardware store. Since the U.S. occupation began, Osama has watched civil war turn the streets where he grew up into an ethnic killing field. After the fall of Saddam, the Americans allowed looters and gangs to take over the streets, and Iraqi security forces were stripped of their jobs. The Mahdi Army, the powerful Shiite paramilitary force led by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, took advantage of the power shift to retaliate in areas such as Dora, where Shiites had been driven from their homes. Shiite forces tried to cleanse the district of Sunni families like Osama's, burning or confiscating their homes and torturing or killing those who refused to leave.

"The Mahdi Army was killing people here," Osama says, pointing to a now-destroyed Shiite mosque that in earlier times had been a cafe and before that an office for Saddam's Baath Party. Later, driving in the nearby district of Baya, Osama shows me a gas station. "They killed my uncle here. He didn't accept to leave. Twenty guys came to his house, the women were screaming. He ran to the back, but they caught him, tortured him and killed him." Under siege by Shiite militias and the U.S. military, who viewed Sunnis as Saddam supporters, and largely cut out of the Shiite-dominated government, many Sunnis joined the resistance. Others turned to Al Qaeda and other jihadists for protection.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

McCain on Iraq

2008-02-25T18:22:00.003-06:00

Sen. McCain talked about Iraq and how his campaign is tied down by it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/25/john-mccain-says-he-could_n_88344.html

"We can fail in Iraq," McCain said Monday in an Associated Press interview. But, he added: "I see a clear path to success in Iraq." He defined that as fewer casualties and Iraqi troops taking over security to allow U.S. forces to return home. "All of us want out of Iraq, the question is how do we want out of Iraq," he added.

See, but that's inaccurate. Not everybody wants out of Iraq. Everybody does want the fighting to stop, but U.S. strategy largely revolves around our long-standing policy of setting up U.S. bases in strategically useful locations so we can exert control over regional politics by flexing our military muscle. "Global attack", as it's referred to in Air Force doctrine. McCain has said as much, citing our bases in Korea, Germany, and Japan as examples. So to say that he wants "out of Iraq" is misleading, at best.

The point he made which I agree with pertains to how we will be able to get out: Iraqi troops taking responsibility for Iraqi security. The problem we've run into in that regard is that militia members have often infiltrated the Iraqi military. But then, we have our own American gangs infiltrating our military; it hasn't stopped us from doing what we do. So while the issue of militia moles in the Iraqi military is a problem, it needn't be a show-stopper.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to posit a few ideas on how to accelerate this process.

Train the Iraqi military out of country. While training in the area they'll be fighting has obvious advantages, it can create distractions. One of the most effective things about U.S. basic military training is that they isolate us from our friends, family, and the rest of society. They create an environment in which we are completely dependent on each other for support and our military training instructor for survival. He or she controls our meals, when we can go to the bathroom, when we can shower, when we brush our teeth, and when we can speak, sit, stand -- everything. That allows Stockholm Syndrome to set in, and before long, we are intensely loyal not only to one another, but to our erstwhile abusive instructor. If these militia members are in any way able to maintain contact with their militia, that can erode the Stockholm effect. Even with the non-militia members, extended contact with family and friends can erode it. And while, once outside of that training environment, that "loyalty" to their instructor will fade, their loyalty to each other does not fade so easily. Train them in Kuwait or Qatar, which are both similar enough to Iraq, isolate them from their friends and family, and then, after how ever many months it takes them to get them sufficiently trained, rotate them in to replace an American unit. Keep this process rolling and soon the future of Iraq will be in the Iraqis' hands. Mission Accomplished! We won't even have to stage a massive withdrawal, because most of our troops will already be out. In fact, don't tell anyone, but that's exactly what a "phased withdrawal" would be.

Many people have unrealistic expectations on how this would go down. On the right, some expect that we should stay until everything is sunshine and rainbows. I never saw any rainbows over in Iraq, but I did see some large plumes of smoke. The violence will not abate while we are still over there because, in large part, we're the reason for it. It will continue as long as we stay; that's just a fact.

On the left, there are calls to simply cut off funding, as though this is a video game where if just unplug the console, all the problems over there will disappear. Again, that's unrealistic at best, and a callous disregard for the people we'll leave behind at worst. Yes, the violence will continue as long as we stay, but we've torn things up so badly and created such a dependency on our presence in that country that we need to at least try to set the Iraqis up for success. Allowing the Iraqis to steadily take increased control of their own fate will mean the difference between giving them a fish and teaching them to fish. The "cut off the funds" approach amounts to kicking them out of the boat and telling them they'd best learn to swim.

Naturally, there's still a chance that Iraq will devolve into a failed state, even after we've done everything we can to set them up for success. But in the end, we cannot stay forever. At some point, we will need to leave, and the longer we stay, the less likely it will be that they will be able or willing to take ownership of their own nation. As it stands, the U.S. has indicated every intention of maintaining a permanent presence in the country, and the Iraqis have noticed. A sharp shift in that regard will likely do a lot to accelerate the end of the violence. When the signal we send is, "the quicker this goes, the sooner we'll leave", that will provide a huge incentive to cooperate with us.

It's not hopeless; we can still succeed, as Sen. McCain points out, but if we are still in Iraq four years from now, that, in of itself, will represent a collossal failure on our part, just as the current situation does now. Success must be defined by allowing the Iraqis to take ownership of their own country. It's the only real measure we have left.

Hillary & Obama's Senate records compared

2008-02-25T14:48:00.004-06:00

from azul:

Daily Kos: I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)
by Grassroots Mom
Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 05:13:32 PM PST

The next President is going to have some MAJOR challenges.
I refuse to buy into the hype, on either side, but especially on that of Obama. However the "empty rhetoric" v. "history of accomplishments" arguments have prompted me to check it out on my own, not relying on any candidate's website, book, or worst of all supporters' diaries, like this one.

I went to the Library of Congress Website. The FACTS of what each did in the Senate last year sure surprised me. I'm sure they will surprise you, too. Whether you love or hate Hillary, you will be surprised. Whether you think Obama is the second coming of JFK or an inexperienced lightweight, you will surprised. Go check out the Library of Congress Website. After spending some time there, it will be clear that there is really only one candidate would is ready to be the next president, even better than Gore. If you don't want to spend an hour or two doing research, then I'll tell you what I discovered on the jump.

* Grassroots Mom's diary :: ::
*

I looked up Obama and looked up Clinton. I looked at the bills that they both authored and introduced. Anyone who has been around politics, and is honest, realizes that there are a lot of reasons why a Senator votes one way or another on bills or misses votes. However an examination of the bills that each of these Senators cared enough about to author and introduce revealed much to me: what they care about, what their priorities are, how they tackle problems. And the list of co-sponsors showed something about how they lead, inspire and work with others. Finally, looking at which bills actually passed is pretty indicative of how effective each would be at getting things done.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, let's all be honest here. It is damn hard to get anything through Congress these days. And Obama and Clinton care about the same issues and have obviously worked together on a lot of legislation, whatever Sen. Clinton's campaign may imply. She is a frequent co-sponsor on his bills, and he on hers. They are both completely competent senators.

-snip-

Daily Kos

Just a reminder....

2008-02-25T01:51:00.001-06:00

We have more than one author on this page. Please be sure to check who the author is before automatically attributing everything on this page to me. Thanks.

THIS worries me a lot more than Nader does…

2008-02-24T13:17:00.021-06:00

It emerged as a creepy feeling and has grown into a full-blown anxiety attack: If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, will the DLC try to defeat him in the general election?

My questions about the 2004 presidential election have come back to haunt me in full force. There were so many indications that the Democratic Party – or some faction of it – threw the election to Bush.

First, there was the theory that Wesley Clark was a stalking horse for Clinton. At the time, I was a strong Clark supporter and I brushed this aside. But when The General endorsed Hillary for 2008, it crept back into my consciousness:

warm spot for Wesley
By Gloria Borger
Posted 9/21/03

The first public hint of the new Bill Clinton-Wesley Clark axis came a couple of weeks ago at cocktails at the Clintons' Chappaqua, N.Y., home. It was what the money guys call a "donor maintenance" event--something to keep wealthy Democratic contributors happy with that warm "in the loop" feeling only a schmoozefest with ex-presidents and senators can provide. After complimenting the Democratic field, Bill Clinton went on to toast two other "stars" in the party--General Clark and Hillary Clinton.
...
"Safe harbor." The most cynical view, shared by the White House--and even some Democrats of competing presidential campaigns--is that Wesley Clark is a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton. "The issue is let's make certain this race stays screwed up," says a White House adviser.

"And guess who that clears the way for?" He says Hillary in 2008; some wary Democrats wonder if the Clintons are arguing about whether it should be in 2004. In any case, sources tell me that while Hillary won't endorse Clark, she's thrilled about the candidacy. Why? "He's a safe harbor," says a Hillary Clinton adviser. "There's no downside for her in being seen with a general."

Of course, there is this small matter of the rest of the Democratic field. They didn't avoid Clinton, like Al Gore--they courted him, even pretended to be close to him. "Now he kicks them all in the ass," says an ex-Clinton ally. "Everyone knows he's winking at people about Clark." So the field is miffed. "I guess I can understand how they would be annoyed," says Howard Wolfson, Hillary Clinton's former spokesman. "But the fact is there are a lot of undecided people out there--both real voters and Democratic insiders. They're concerned about Howard Dean, and that's not Bill Clinton's fault." But he will be happy to fix everything.

A second data point that has gotten little attention outside my state of New Mexico: There is credible evidence that Governor Bill Richardson helped steal NM for Bush in 2004. The theory widely held by progressive Dems here was that he did it so he could run for president in '08. Greg Palast wrote a bit about this:

New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, seemed curiously uncurious about Hispanic and Native precincts where nearly one in ten voters couldn't be bothered to choose a president.

Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not only stopped any attempt at a recount directly following the election, but demanded that all the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence of potential fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled the Secretary of State's machine-cleaning job illegal - too late to change the outcome of the election, of course.

But who are we to second-guess Secretary Vigil-Giron? After all, she is a big shot, at the time president, no less, of the National Association of Secretaries of State, the top banana of all our nation&rsquos elections officials.

Vigil-Giron, after putting a stop to the recount, rather than schlep out to investigate the missing vote among the iguanas and Navajos, left the state to officiate at a dinner meeting in Minneapolis for her national association. It was held on a dinner boat. The tab for the moonlight ride was picked up by touch-screen voting machine maker ES&S Corporation. Breakfast, in case you&rsquore curious, was served by touchscreen maker Diebold Corp.

At the time of this writing, Vigil-Giron is busy planning the next big confab of vendors and state officials -- this time in Santa Fe, "the city different." But aside from Wal-Mart signing on as a sponsor, nothing much is different when it comes to the inner workings of the voting industrial complex.

And then there’s the DLC, which in 2005 appointed Hillary Clinton “to define a party agenda for the upcoming 2006 and 2008 elections.” NPR did a piece on this at the time. If you want to catch my anxiety, listen to this audio clip.

So, Hillary Clinton is without a doubt the DLC’s candidate, and has been since at least 2005. It must be a great shock for them to see Obama come out of nowhere and upset the plan.

Obama is not a DLC member – and even requested that they remove his name from their website, after they used it without his permission or knowledge. The Black Commentator really put Obama through his paces on the DLC issue when he was running for his Illinois Senate seat. Their questions to him and his response make for very interesting reading.

So, we are still involved in an historic battle for the very “soul” of the Democratic Party which can be described by this simple equation:
Clinton vs Obama = DLC vs DNC

Or this one: Clinton vs Obama = Top-Down vs Bottom-Up

Let’s recall Howard Dean’s election as Chairman of the DNC – how bitter it was – as the DLC candidates were overthrown by “The Democratic wing of The Democratic Party” – in a rebellion based on support of Dean’s 50 State Strategy of bottom-up party building.

I just went back and read this excellent Ari Berman piece from 2005 titled Going Nowhere: The DLC Sputters to a Halt and it’s a great history of the DLC v DNC fight and a window on the political battle that was raging at the time and the players. Here’s a bit, but the whole thing is still timely:

After Kerry's defeat, the DLC promised to "avoid the circular firing squad" mentality but then quickly broke the promise, reverting to its favorite target: the Democratic base. Instead of labor unions and feminists, the DLC fixated on MoveOn.org and Michael Moore. "We need to be the party of Harry Truman and John Kennedy, not Michael Moore," the DLC wrote on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, of all places. "What leftist elites smugly imagine is a sophisticated view of their country's flaws strikes much of America as a false and malicious cartoon," the DLC's Will Marshall wrote in Blueprint, the group's magazine, in a rant worthy of The Weekly Standard. "Democrats should have no truck with the rancid anti-Americanism of the conspiracy-mongering left." The DLC continued this vitriol into March.

Fast forward: Along comes Obama, not merely using Dr. Dean’s bottom-up every-state strategies, but actually making them work!

This is what is keeping me up at night: Is it possible that the DLC actually wanted Kerry to lose in 2004, to enable a Hillary Clinton run in 2008?

Did the DLC and Clinton allies like Wesley Clark and Bill Richardson actually participate in bringing Kerry down - and put the world through four more years of Bush - just so the Clintons could come back as party leaders in 2008?

And here’s the really scary question:

If Obama is the Democratic Party nominee in 2008, will the DLCers – who have written Clinton’s name in stone for 2008 – help McCain win, so Hillary can run again in 2012? The “inevitable” – better late than never?

I am very, very worried about this.

Olbermann Time Line: How Bushco exploited terror threats

2008-02-24T07:25:00.002-06:00

From The Huffington Post (video 17 min. long):

In case you missed it, on Thursday night's "Countdown" Keith Olbermann presented an impressively detailed timeline he called "The Nexus of Politics and Terror," in which he chronicled the Bush administration's exploitation of terror threats for political gain. Olbermann's exhaustive account weaves from each revelation of an intelligence failure or a Democratic political victory to an almost immediate orange alert or "new threat" from al Qaeda.

Huff Post

On a lighter note....

2008-02-24T05:31:00.002-06:00

...I have to go over that "to do" list tomorrow. Let's see....

B-2 Bomber Crashes at Andersen AFB, Guam

2008-02-23T21:28:00.003-06:00

From Bloomberg:

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- A B-2 stealth bomber crashed at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and both pilots were safe after ejecting, the Pacific Air Forces said today in a statement on its Web site.

The Pacific Air Forces said a board of officers will look into the accident and more information will be made available later. The pilots were from the 509th Bomb Wing and are in ``good condition'' after medical checks were carried out, the statement said. The aircraft was sent to Guam from Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri, its only operational base.

The B-2 stealth bomber, which costs about $1.2 billion, can carry conventional and nuclear bombs, according to a fact sheet on the same Web site. The design, materials and coatings make its detection by defensive radar systems difficult.

The aircraft involved in the crash was destroyed during the accident, the Air Force Times reported, citing an unidentified official at Andersen Air Force Base. Calls made to the two phone numbers listed in the statement by the Pacific Air Forces weren't immediately answered.

The accident happened at around 10:30 a.m. local time when the aircraft was leaving the base in Yigo, Guam, the U.S. territory's local media Kuam News reported. It was the second military plane to crash in a month after a Navy Ea-6b Prowler from the USS Kittyhawk went down 20 miles from the base Feb. 12, Kuam News said.

I got the call from my flight super about five hours later; I didn't want to post anything about it until I saw it in the news. Now that it's out, though, I'm blogging about it here. I don't have any special insight as to what may have caused two planes to crash out here inside of a month, except that Andersen is seriously under-manned right now. I know that when people are overworked and understaffed, it puts a strain on people and their families, and that accidents do increase.

Once is happenstance... twice is coincidence... thrice is enemy action. This is only twice, so far. Let's all hope it stays that way.

Discuss at The Forum.

Clinton or Obama will need to clean house.

2008-02-22T20:41:00.004-06:00

I'm concerned about the possibility of long-entrenched partisans in the Executive Branch undermining our next President the way many of them did to Kennedy. Here's a few names:

Allen Dulles: The first civilian director of the CIA and one of the brain-powers behind the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay: Air Force Chief of Staff under Kennedy. Kennedy believed he could assuage his right-wing critics by appointing LeMay, but he only emboldened them. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay wanted to bomb the missile sites. While he admitted that he could only guarantee that he would get 90% of the missile sites (a guarantee which later turned out to be rather generous), he also opined that the Soviets would probably not retaliate. Kennedy found that remarkably naive, especially coming from a four star general, and did not follow his advice. Personally, I don't think LeMay was naive, just disingenuous. It's not that he didn't think the Soviets would retaliate; he just didn't care. "Bombs away". Afterwards, he said, "We had a chance to throw the Communists out of Cuba. But the administration was scared to death (the Soviet Union) might shoot a missile at us." Yeah, what's one or two nuclear missiles in one or two U.S. cities, right? If the LeMays of the world had had their way, we'd be living (or not) in a post-apocalyptic nightmare. We avoided a nuclear exchange by the skin of our teeth as it was. I guarantee there are many more LeMays waiting in the ranks under this administration. Clinton or Obama will have to root them out and help them find their way into retirement.

Richard Helms: The man behind the curtain at the CIA while John McCone was director. Directed many assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders, often at the expense of diplomatic efforts on the part of the President.

There are others, but these three are sufficient to demonstrate that the President does not, by himself, run the executive branch. If the next President does not clean house within the first 100 days, he or she will likely be stuck with whatever trolls this administration has left hiding under the bridge.

Both Clinton and Obama have retired four star generals in their corner: Clinton has former NATO Commander Wesley Clark in her corner and Obama has former USCENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni in his. I would suggest that both these men be put to use in the next administration: Zinni as SECDEF and Clark as CIA director. Or vice versa. Hayden has to go, and his trolls will be waiting to undermine Clinton or Obama. It is absolutely vital that we have a strong CIA director to root them out, and either Zinni or Clark would fit that bill.

On edit: I forgot about DHS. This department, created under Bush, will be filled entirely with Bush partisans. One way to tame the CIA beast would be to incorporate it under DHS rather than allowing it to continue as its own nebulous independent agency. In that case, I would favor Clark or Zinni as DHS secretary rather than CIA director. Right now, DHS is still finding its identity, and while it will be stocked with Bush partisans, it hasn't been around long enough for any of them to be "entrenched". Big opportunity to change the face of DHS and the CIA.

I'm actually split on this one with regards to Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton. I think Sen. Clinton would be better suited to this task, but I think Sen. Obama would be more likely to actually carry it out. I lean toward Sen. Obama if he gets the right people behind him (e.g., Clark and Zinni), but this is one area where he can't try to "reach out". These people will take any attempted outreach as a sign of weakness, and they will absolutely try to exploit it. I hope he's wise to this fact. If he has Zinni as an advisor, I'm sure he is.

Discuss at The Forum.

Why Hillary Will Lose

2008-02-21T04:25:00.001-06:00

She has toads like this speaking for her:

“Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking,
Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies
crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round
against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a
fighter.”

He sounds just like a Republican there. Does the crowd sound pleased with him to you?

Sgt Ryan Jopek

2008-02-20T06:26:00.003-06:00

Obama mentioned a soldier whose mother gave him a bracelet with her son's name inscribed during his victory speech. Without any additional comment, here is that soldier's MySpace profile, so that you may know him as the person he was rather than simply a symbol in a political speech.

Read the comments in his profile.

Obama: 9 for 9 since Super Tuesday

2008-02-20T03:33:00.003-06:00

Let's run the list:

Louisiana: Obama, 57 - 36.
Nebraska: Obama, 68 - 32.
Washington: Obama, 68 - 31.
Maine: Obama, 59 - 40.
District of Columbia: Obama, 75 - 24.
Maryland: Obama, 60 - 37.
Virgina: Obama, 64 - 35.
Wisconsin: Obama, 58 - 41.
Hawaii: Obama, 76 - 24 (so far).

Obama's smallest lead has been in Wisconsin, winning by "only" 17 percentage points. Hawaii is Obama's home state, so I doubt it's going to deviate much from his current 51 percentage point lead. By the way, can we scratch the ARG polls? You know, the ones that Clinton supporters were citing all week claiming she was ahead in Wisconsin?

In 13 days, Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island vote. According to polls I've seen, Obama is tied with Clinton in Texas, while Clinton holds a commanding lead in Ohio. But... there are 13 days for Obama to introduce himself to the voters in those states and make his case. I predict a close race in Ohio (with Wisconsin being a possible harbinger of things to come) with Texas a surprise win for Obama. I also expect Vermont and Rhode Island to fall to Obama, as well. If Obama only had seven days I'd feel differently, but given how much ground Obama can cover when he has time, I expect that March 4 will not be the knock-out for Clinton that she was hoping, and may possibly spell her doom.

Hillary is on the ropes, and she needs to win at least two states (at least one of which has to be one of the large states) on March 4 in order to remain competitive. If she loses every state on March 4, she should drop out gracefully and support Obama, because she will be done. Superdelegates will not risk offending their voters by supporting Clinton over Obama at that point, so she will have no further recourse to carry the nomination.

If she scores big on March 4, that puts her back in the driver's seat. But for that to happen, her campaign needs to change tactics in a big way, because what she's doing isn't working. I think it may be too late in the game for that big of an adjustment. This one was over when Clinton failed to knock out Obama on Super Tuesday. She didn't have a game plan after that, and it shows.

Guam: Where America's Empire Begins

2008-02-18T01:32:00.003-06:00

Michael posts this about Guam's place as the "tip of the spear" in the Pacific and the effect it has on the effect it has on the people. For a taste:

From the perspective of the DoD, Guam appears to be an ideal example of a patriotic, militarized society. Despite the fact that (a) 30% of the island’s 210 square miles are covered by Navy and Air Force bases, (b) the entire island has been severely contaminated by military dumping and use, and (c) federal policies have kept the island economically dependent to keep it from seeking independence, most on Guam don’t consider the U.S. to be a malevolent, militaristic colonizer, but rather a benevolent liberator. The most common reason for this is the U.S. role in expelling the Japanese who brutally occupied the island for 32 months during World War II.

On the surface, the Chamorros and other residents of Guam seem to overwhelmingly support the U.S. military and its missions. This is manifest most prominently through “Liberation Day,” the island’s largest annual celebration that brings together massive parades, parties, carnivals and beauty pageants every July 21 in celebration of the U.S. return to Guam in 1944.

To the Pentagon, Guam appears to be an oasis in a world where the tide of sentiment against U.S. bases is rising. In contrast to populations in the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and Iraq, who have protested U.S. presence on their lands, Guam appears to understand the role of the U.S. military in the world today. Hence, rather than resist the militarization of their lives or challenge the role of Guam as “the tip of the spear” of the U.S. war machine, the island seems to enthusiastically welcome military presence and actively participate in it.

It's a fantastic essay. Click here for the whole thing.

Of the blogs I presently read, Michael's is easily the best. I blogroll him for a reason. You should really check his blog out.

That's it; Hillary just won me over.

2008-02-16T01:49:00.003-06:00

With the power of a grade school pep rally, the soul of a Wal*Mart ad, and the faux enthusiasm of a North Korean standing right in front of Kim Jung Il, this video captures the true spirit of the Clinton campaign.

Sorry I haven't been posting lately.

2008-02-15T20:00:00.001-06:00

I haven't been feeling well. I'll post this in the mean time:

Clintons, Nostalgia, and a Reactionary Comfort Zone

2008-02-10T09:45:00.000-06:00

It rings true to me when Obama says, ”It is about the past versus the future.”

What do Rush Limbaugh, BartCop, and many Clinton supporters have in common? A certain nostalgia for the Clinton Years – or is it nostalgia for the Clinton Wars?

Hillary promotes this idea - a replay of Clinton battles with the “vast right-wing conspiracy". She repeatedly reminds us that she has already fought this war, and knows how to fight it. Many of her supporters think she is the best candidate precisely because they anticipate a rehash of the same battles they fought through the Clinton administrations.

They know the kind of accusations that will come.
Counter-arguments and defenses are well-prepared.

It’s all so familiar, almost comfortable.

Remember, both Limbaugh and “the anti-rush”, BartCop, built their careers on this fight over the Clintons. For them, those truly were “the good old days”. Nostalgia.

On the other hand, Obama is a wild-card. He pretty much came out of nowhere. He has not been fully “vetted”, some say.

So, although we may guess what the attacks from the right wingnuts will be – Foreigner, Muslim, Color, etc. – we don’t exactly know how he will respond.

What we do know is that the battle will be something new and different. If he is our candidate, “they” will dig up or make up new ugly accusations. He and we will have to develop and promote new strategies. Hard work.

Certainly, many Clinton supporters really feel nostalgia for the Clinton presidency and all that peace (except for the bombings and war) and prosperity. Still suffering the outrages of the Bush regime, it’s easy to look fondly on the Clintons’ time.

But let us not forget that it takes two to tango.
The Clintons framed their battles as much as their enemies did.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, passed by the Congress and signed by President Clinton, empowered the echo chamber of “the vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary railed against.

Alan Greenspan thinks “Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we've had in a while.”

I don’t feel nostalgic for even the “best” Republican president or reruns of the all-too-familiar battles a Clinton campaign or administration will bring. I’m ready for a new and different future.

At least MoveOn, which also sprang from fighting the good Clinton fight, has. moved. on.

Iraq Veterans Face Job Discrimination

2008-02-10T02:05:00.000-06:00

"Hire a vet! Your best bet yet!"

I remember my father telling me about that slogan when he was getting out of the Navy back in the 1972. It seems nostalgic to think about times when our country honored veterans upon their return, rather than simply "supporting the troops" (which these days, seems to consist of slapping a yellow ribbon magnet on their SUV and watching Bill O'Reilly). Was it so long ago? Must be, because 18% of veterans discharged since 1990 have found themselves unemployed within one to three years of leaving the service.

The report blamed the poor prospects partly on inadequate job networks and lack of mentors after extended periods in war. The study said employers often had misplaced stereotypes about veterans' fitness for employment, such as concerns they did not have adequate technological skills, or were too rigid, lacked education or were at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.
It urged the federal government to consider working with a private-sector marketing firm to help promote and brand war veterans as capable employees, as well as re-examine education and training such as the GI Bill.
"The issue of mental health has turned into a double-edged sword for returning veterans. More publicity has generated more public awareness and federal funding for those who return home different from when they left. However, more publicity — especially stories that perpetuate the 'Wacko Vet' myth — has also made some employers more cautious to hire a veteran," said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Maybe they're right. I can feel the rage boiling up inside of me at the utter ingratitude toward people who've sacrificed so much for their country. It's one thing to not give preference to veterans, but to actively discriminate against them because of some ignorant stereotype is inexcusable.

Reservists are having problems when they come home, too:

Separately, a Labor Department report obtained by the AP showed that formal job complaints by reservists remained high, citing concerns about denied jobs or benefits after they tried to return to their old jobs after extended tours in Iraq. Reservists filed 1,357 complaints with the department in 2006, the latest figures available, down from nearly 1,600 in 2005, when complaints reached the highest level since 1991.

When we talk about spitting on veterans, let it be said that American businesses, not anti-war protesters, were the most egregious offenders in the Iraq War.

Connely: Have Clintons worn out welcome?

2008-02-10T01:30:00.000-06:00

Note: this column predates the Washington caucuses, which Obama won 68% to Clinton's 31%. Obama also won Louisiana and Nebraska by slightly smaller margins.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/350570_joel08.html

"As much as I respect Hillary Clinton's intellect, I think F. Scott Fitzgerald put it best in 'The Great Gatsby' when he wrote, 'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.' The same could be said of Bill and Hillary."

The Clintons have -- literally -- retreated from "the folks" and days of Pike Place Market rallies.

The "Hillaryland" rally Thursday night was the first time since 1996 a Clinton event in Seattle has not required a check (or book buy) for admission. Until Friday's Tacoma and Spokane events, Hillary Clinton had taken questions here only from fundraiser guests who shelled out $2,300.

As well, even contentiously liberal Seattle wants an end to the acrid, acrimonious political divisions of the Clinton and Bush II eras. An Obama endorsement letter by six City Council members put it succinctly: "Like you, we seek a new politics that goes beyond old divisions and looks to a future where we all work together to solve problems. ... We know Americans have a deep longing for a revitalization of the spirit of America, a renewal of our quest for a just and sustainable nation."

They ticked off challenges facing cities, from climate change to affordable housing, much as Bill Clinton did when he promised to build a "bridge to the 21st century."

A big part of the Democratic Party yearns for a new bridge builder, in part to reconnect it with "red state" America.

Some people disagree with that desire. Some people (such as those at an old forum I used to frequent) want to continue "the acrid, acrimonious political divisions of the Clinton and Bush II eras". The political conflict is part of their identity, and if they cannot hate the opposition and view them as evil, they will be lost. It is, for the lack of a better word, their religion. Their desire to hate the Republicans, to view them as evil people who need to be stopped, not negotiated with or talked to, echoes the words of those very Republicans who so hate the Muslims of the world... or the words of those Muslims who so hate us. Etc. and so on. Even self-styled progressives aren't immune to the irrational hatred which accompanies fear and anger.

But for those of us who wish to see peace in the world, there is no way we can make peace with our enemies until we first make peace with ourselves. That goes for us as a nation. How can we make peace with the Muslim world if we're too busy punching each other in the face to even talk to them?

"We need a President willing to engage in a fistfight to safeguard and restore our national virtues," said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

Thing is, I've never seen the Clintons actually fight for anything other than their own political survival. Please correct me if you've ever seen the Clintons come out swinging for a principle. On gays in the military, Bill folded. On health care, Bill folded. Those were two of his biggest campaign promises in 1992, and he failed to deliver. On the Iraq War, Bill and Hillary both hedged, not standing firmly for or against it. He did put up a fight during his impeachment.

That's not to say they are without their accomplishments, but this image of them being fist fighters is largely based on their survival instincts. On policy matters, their record is remarkably similar to Pelosi, Reid, Daschle, and Gephardt: when the chips are down, fold.

A better idea would be to build a consensus among the American people around our ideas. To do that, we need a leader who people see as appealing and approachable. Hence, Barack Obama.

Time is up. I'm making my endorsement.

2008-02-09T15:40:00.000-06:00

Well, according to the poll I just took on the Washington Post's website, my political views are the most in line with Hillary. That's not a huge surprise, and above the surface – and for a long time back – I have wanted to see another Clinton victory in the White House for various reasons, which we'll get to and address as we come to them.

However, the actual questions of the poll left me wanting for more, much more, in the way of choices. For many questions, the difference in answers (and by default, the differences between the candidates) were nothing more than a dance in semantics. Essentially, they were all saying the same thing, just in minimally different ways of speaking. I guess this is what's referred to in politics as 'towing the old party line,' but I don't like it one bit.

Honestly, since I've begun really digging into this issue, I've found that I can't wholeheartedly support any one candidate, as long as all the candidates are sticking to what their respective parties want to hear. If we want real change, we have to be willing to step outside the box, and the watered down, pathetic stances on the issues that I've been reading about are making me downright angry. I truly had the thought go through my head this afternoon, “Why can't we just do away with the parties, let seven or eight candidates put themselves on the line, show their true selves and their real visions for America, and let the best (wo)man win?” I know it would never happen. Just like the electoral college. I think it's an outdated system for which modern America has no use. We're no longer collecting votes by riders on horseback. Let us have a REAL democracy – rather than a republic whose representation is completely out of touch with its constituents. It's a broken system whose purpose is no longer necessary, and it makes voters feel like their votes don't really count when a victor has less of the majority vote than his opponent. Of course, no one wants to change a system that got them into the presidency, so it's not likely to change, but, for now, let's try not to broaden the scope of my rant too greatly, or I'll never get to the heart of the matter. Perhaps in a Utopian world, right?

Now, according to “Choose Your Candidate, Democratic Edition,” my candidates scores were:

John Edwards: 15 pts. Agreed with answers on: Health Care, Energy 2, Immigration, Economy.
Hillary Clinton: 29 pts. Agreed with answers on: National Security, Energy, Immigration 2, Economy 2.
Barack Obama: 18 pts. Agreed with answers on: Social Security, Social Security 2, Iraq, Iraq 2, Top Priorities.

OK, so, to be fair, I was going to get my results from “Choose Your Candidate, Republican Edition,” but I found that their version of the test was just the same: the only differences in answers – and again, by default – candidates were basic semantics. So, for the majority of the questions, I couldn't choose an answer, so I decided it was a moot point.

Anyway, not long after I began this blog (which was sometime back in January), I discovered that according to the mass media, Louisiana's polls were 'not going to matter' after the 22-state Super-Tuesday polls were expected to decide all. They were wrong, and now, today, (after enjoying our OWN super Tuesday) Louisiana Democrats are heading to the polls, hoping to make a difference in America. I, too, will join them, but in order to do so, I still have to endorse a candidate, so here is what I have surmised so far:

Health Care – It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me at all to know that this is one of my soapbox issues and one that hits very close to home on many levels. These policies will not only have a direct effect on my career field, but I have also spent several years of my life (including right now) uninsured and often suffering, simply because my employer didn't offer the option of health care, and to buy it on my own, I might as well not have coverage. (I can elaborate on this later, if anyone's interested, but in the interest of time, I'll leave it at that.) Now, when I began reading all the nitty gritty details to each candidate's plan, I discovered something: they now sound exactly the same! In the debates, it appears that Obama's plan leaves gaps in coverage, while Clinton's plan is for universal care. However, he claims that she mandates coverage while he makes it affordable. Once again, my friends, we are in a semantic dance that really boils down to the same thing if you truly get into their bullet points and compare them. She says she wants everyone to be eligible for the federal workers' benefits. So does he. They both encourage affordable, portable health care. They both encourage preventative medicine. All in all, whether it began this way or not, both their plans for health care sound like the same plan!

So, while I'm saying that both policies are seemingly similar, I still believe that this is a topic that Hillary is better equipped to tackle, given her history particularly in this policy field. No, she was not successful in the nineties, but in the nineties, the general public did not understand the need for universal health care as many others of us did. She, too, is sticking to the hard line that we must fight for universal coverage for every American coming out of the gate in order to make any progress at all, while Barack refuses to call his plan 'universal.' I'm afraid that that lack of commitment to ALL Americans may mean a non-coverage, so to speak, for many Americans, and I don't want to be another one still falling through the cracks.

Beyond that, I have to say that I'm largely unimpressed with their plans as a whole. Obviously, I am more in line with the Democratic Party than with the Republican platform, but I find it interesting that no one (save Ron Paul) has mentioned taking the privatization completely out of health care, as so many other countries have done and as Michael Moore so adeptly showed us in “Sicko.” (I don't care what you think of the man, having worked in and around healthcare as long as I have, I can tell you that his movie was dead-on accurate.) I don't have time to go into all his points right now, but anyone who believes that the quality of care would go down by instituting a national health care system is being HUGELY misled.

So, that said (and I'm sorry that I'm leaving out a LOT here, including the military, though again, both Democratic candidates seem to have similar plans for it and Iraq as well), I'm going to make my way to the polls, and I'm going to cast my ballot for Hillary, not necessarily that she has the best plan at this precise moment, but because, I believe with her insight and determination, she will lead us to that light at the end of the tunnel and will eventually, with Congress and her choice of VP, come up with a plan that will truly benefit ALL Americans. Perhaps Barack will be at her side. Perhaps Edwards will. Maybe Michael Moore will. (Ha!) At any rate, I believe she has the tools necessary to make my hopes a reality. I guess we shall see.

I've been remiss on the issue of the storms.

2008-02-08T04:20:00.001-06:00

Fortunately, my friend Monkeyfister hasn't.

Kudos to you, MF. And sorry I'm late on this one; I've spent less than a total of a month in CONUS since June of 2006, so the U.S. has become increasingly remote. No excuse, I know, but I'm trying to make amends.

I'll not comment it myself; just click on Monkeyfister's link above and read what he has to say on it. He blogged on the storms while they were raging past his home. Monkeyfister was all over this, and I am rather red-faced for having missed this.

Just a note: both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have links on their front pages seeking donations to help the victims of the storm. The Republican candidates (McCain, Huckabee, and Paul), however, do not.

I'll be leaving this as the top post for a few days, since it's important. If even one of my dozens (TM - Bartcop) of readers decides to click on the link and show the mid-south a little love, it'll be worthwhile.

Our choice in November

2008-02-08T04:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes, during the heat of a primary, it's easy to get one's passions up and vow never to vote for your candidate's primary opponent. The jeers are predictable: "Yeah, well, what are you going to do: vote Republican?" The temptation is there to say, "You know what? Maybe I will!"

Then I see this:

This right here makes him completely unacceptable to me. Of course, it'll also make him unacceptable to the majority of the electorate, so what I think may be a non-issue. But it's important to remember what's at stake here and not let our egos get in the way. Even the most avid Obama supporter has to look at that and say, "Okay, you got me, Hillary, you corporate shill. You lesser of two evils. You got my vote."

We need to push for a real energy policy

2008-02-06T07:47:00.000-06:00

by azul

It brings in most other issues and is already affecting us all. Because war is our current energy policy, our young people are dying, we are going broke and we are hastening global warming with all the energy wasted on this "Risk" game style approach. It is an approach based on fear and scarcity rather than innovation and creativity which anyone will tell you in a heart beat is what made our economy grow (along with hard work). It is a top down approach for short term profit that will cause civil unrest and threaten what is left of our freedom because we know that our leaders aren't serious about a real solution.

It is another area where we use spending and debt over savings and investment since we import 60-70 percent of our fuel. Overspending on imports is hollowing out what is left of our economy. Hydrocarbons are key to our whole lifestyle which will have to change by force or by choice. Any choice we still have would leave room for creative solutions. As we all know, our government's focus on grabbing what they can of a non-sustainable source of energy by force and wasting much of what we have left is misleading us. Our candidates have to make a plan for the future.

We should insist on a realistic energy policy from our candidates no matter who they are. I had an idea the other day. Besides contacting the candidates directly, how about we call all the people in our areas who are backing a Presidential candidate (x, y or z) and insist on it, because they have the candidate's ear to some extent. They could be advising them. So if they are getting a lot of phone calls in their home area about this issue, it may influence them as they advise the candidates who are formulating the policy they will follow when they land in the WH.

We still have a great resource of smart people, universities and research institutions in this country who are working but could be working much more on the many solutions we can come up with, rather than waiting for some big oil company to provide it for us. We could be leaders in this, but because we have people in charge who want to make money off of hydrocarbons for as long as they can until Mad Max arrives here, we sit and watch as the French come up with the fastest, most efficient train while our rail system deteriorates... I think our lobbying as citizens now could make a difference.

Interesting story:
------
Last night I saw part of a documentary on the development of electric trains going into NYC. The existing trains were owned by the Vanderbilts, and were steam engines (or at least Grand Central was -don't have all the facts). Around 1903 there was a big fire in one of the tunnels where many people died so NYC mandated that all trains coming in to Manhattan island be electric. The man who figured out the solution and implemented it was chief engineer of NY Central RR. He figured out a way to use the development of the real estate belonging to the railroad on Park Avenue to pay for a complete overhaul of Grand Central when he put the new electric trains underground (and I assume brought in the Pennsylvania RR to Penn Station which was ahead of NY's trains in going electric and was trying to get into Manhattan rather than just stopping in NJ). It was a huge project. It made a difference in a lot of lives. Not sure what lessons to draw from it as I only saw a bit of it, but one man without money to invest or a college degree made a big difference because he had a creative solution and the will to follow it through.

I found mention of this person in Wikipedia on Grand Central:
In order to accommodate ever-growing rail traffic into the restricted Midtown area, William J. Wilgus, chief engineer of the New York Central Railroad took advantage of the recent electrification technology to propose a novel scheme: a bi-level station below ground.
Under "Covering Park Avenue":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Terminal

Residents of Puerto Rico, Guam called "foreign citizens"

2008-02-06T04:42:00.000-06:00

This article demonstrates the need for education on the status of our territories. Here is a United States congresswoman who doesn't even know that the people of Puerto Rico and Guam are U.S. citizens:

Several Guam lawmakers have asked a Republican congresswoman from Florida to apologize for referring to residents of Guam as "foreign citizens."
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., in a news release last week, referred to residents of Guam and Puerto Rico as foreign citizens, and said she opposes including the territories in a recently approved economic stimulus package since they do not pay taxes.
Guam residents pay taxes according to federal tax laws, but the money stays on Guam for use by the local government. Guam residents have been U.S. citizens since 1950 because of the federal Organic Act. The island has been a U.S. territory since 1898.

Not surprising, but it's still offensive, especially given how many people from both territories are currently serving their country honorably.

Michelle Obama

2008-02-06T04:00:00.000-06:00

Something occurred to me today. I've noticed how many Clinton supporters speak derisively about Michelle Obama very much the same way Republicans spoke about Hillary Clinton in 1992, occasionally using very racist and misogynistic language about her.

Personally, I think she'd make a fine First Lady. She seems to have all the qualities people once admired about Hillary Clinton, before Hillary became a force unto herself. And frankly, I think that a lot of people dislike Michelle Obama for many of the same reasons they disliked Hillary: she's a strong woman with accomplishments and a mind of her own and who (this is key) disagrees with them on something. Just why Hillary supporters are using the misogynistic language (I've heard the words "bitch" and "cunt" thrown around in the comments section at the Huffington Post) with regards to Michelle, I can't begin to fathom, but it reinforces a feeling that I've had for a while: many people in the Democratic party have become the same sorts of demagogues that they once despised. Now, I'm quite sure that the people in the Hillary camp using this kind of language are a very small minority, but I hope that people can look inside themselves and ask whether or not they've become the thing they hate.

Here's an interview with Michelle Obama. I'll let you draw your own conclusions:

Baghdad drowing in sewage

2008-02-04T04:02:00.000-06:00

Just as a reminder, everything is still completely messed up in Iraq:

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Baghdad is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said on Sunday in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.
One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth," said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

Sheikhly told a news conference in the capital that water pipes, where they exist, are so old that it is not possible to pump water at a sufficient rate to meet demands -- leaving many neighbourhoods parched.

I've heard from people over there the the troops are running low on water, too. After nearly five years and hundreds of billions of dollars poured into this occupation, we can't get water or electricity running? Any good news?

Education and health across Iraq had both seen improvements, according to US military commander Brigadier General Jeffrey Dorko of the US Gulf Regional Division which is engaged in reconstruction projects.

Dorko told the news conference that 76 new health clinics -- 21 of them in Baghdad -- had been built while 1,885 new schools had been constructed countrywide and another 1,604 repaired.

They realize that "schools are opening" has become a punch-line, right?

He said that the demand for electricity was likely to outstrip supply for several years because many Iraqi power stations had been damaged or destroyed and commissioning new ones would take anything up to four years.

Demand was increasing, Dorko added, because Iraqis were increasingly buying electrical appliances as the security situation improved.

Everything is terrible because everything is wonderful. Is that the "catastrophic success" Bush was talking about in 2004?

Asked if it may take 10 years before Baghdad receives full power 24 hours a day, he replied: "There are so many variables... but I think it will be less than 10 years."

Less than 10 years! That's encouraging. How many trillions of dollars will it cost us just to restore things to the crappy level they were at under Saddam?

I'll make a wager that if you took the reconstruction efforts away from KBR and gave them to military civil engineers, it would take less than two years. Pay LNs $5 an hour to do these jobs and oh my goodness -- that will boost their economy like nothing they've ever seen.

The profit margins KBR and their ilk are skimming are ridiculous. They pay these TCNs and LNs an absolute pittance and sock it to the American tax payers as though they're paying their workers in gold bullion. They need to be cut out of the process -- they're clearly not getting the job done.

Letter to Pandora

2008-02-03T03:56:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I write private correspondence that allows me to collect ideas that blogging doesn't. It's a question of context, and the context of an e-mail I wrote to Command Post contributor Pandora allowed me to collect some thoughts I'd been kicking around for a while. Here's the letter:

The thing that's been kind of eating at me is that there's this perception that the Clintons "know how to win". Point of fact, Bill Clinton in 1992 won a lower percentage of the popular vote than Michael Dukakis did in 1988. They always neglect to mention the Perot factor, which arguably threw the election to Clinton in both 1992 and 1996. I crunched the numbers; there were enough states where the Perot votes more than covered Clinton's margin of victory in 1996, and it is plausible that had Perot not run, Dole may have won. It seems almost certain that Bush would have won a second term if not for Perot in 1992. So wherefore all this talk of the Clintons' incredible political acumen?

The difference between Clinton's third-way politics and Obama's brand of reaching out to the other side is that Clinton seeks to make herself appealing to conservatives by co-opting their agenda (something Bill Clinton was accused of in 1996 by Republicans and Democrats alike), while Obama seeks to make his *ideas* appealing to Republicans by using language they can relate to. Clinton's way might win short term battles, but it loses the larger war. Obama is trying to do what Reagan did for Republicans: build a consensus around his ideas. That is how we build the "permanent majority" that Rove was seeking. Rove was a hack though, and burned so many bridges that what he ended up building was a permanent 60+% disapproval rating for his boss. He won the short term battles, but he's on the verge of losing the broader war, and the Clintons are in real danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by adopting his tactics. Thankfully, the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot so badly that they never established an heir to Bush's legacy, and now they're fighting over which faction of the party (Romney: business, McCain: militant, Huckabee: religious right) will have dominance.

The Democratic party will be united coming into the general election, and we will likely win over a fractured GOP (especially if Bloomberg decides to be a sport and play Perot in this election). Obama will be President; the only question is whether it will be this year or four to eight years from now. I say now, because I don't want to have to refight these battles in four to eight years after Clinton fails (once again) to build a broad consensus around our ideas, and throws them under the bus in the interest of avoiding electoral defeat.

Poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of Americans support a progressive agenda; we just need a President who can convince Americans to trust themselves enough to cast off the yoke of Reagan-era rhetoric and move forward to a better future.

Decolonization of Guam

2008-02-02T00:09:00.000-06:00

I've been remiss in my pledge to address the issue of decolonization on Guam over a month ago. I, like most of my countrymen, have been paying close attention to the primaries, yet issues affecting people in America continue. This includes the people of Guam, of course, who are as much citizens of this nation as you or I.

To make up for this oversight, I have submitted the following letter to Sen. Obama, Presidential candidate and my senator, for whom I voted in 2004 and endorsed for President this year. I will post his reply, if and when I receive it.

Sen. Obama:

I write to you as an Illinois voter stationed overseas and someone who has contributed money to your Presidential bid on a matter affecting the island territory of Guam. I would first like to note that when selecting a category for this e-mail, there was nothing in there relating to issues affecting U.S. territories, which rather reinforces my perception that the future of our territories isn't even on most politicians' radars. I don't hold it against you, but I'm going to take it as my duty to put it there.

At present, 30% of the island of Guam is owned by the U.S. military, yet the people of Guam have no say in this matter. They have no vote in Congress, and they have no say in the upcoming Presidential election. I, however, do, and on their behalf I would like you to answer this question:

What will it take for the United States government to offer our territories (Puerto Rico and Guam) full statehood and equal standing with their fellow U.S. citizens?

It is simply amazing to me how many people don't even know that Guam exists, or believe it to be a euphemism for "very far away". While it may seem like a small, remote issue, I assure you that to the Chamorro people it is not. They are U.S. citizens, like you or I, but their voices are not heard. They are invisible to the establishment. I hope that, as a man of conscience, you will work to change that, either in the Senate or as President.

Best of luck to you on your campaign trail, and I hope you will find time to respond between your campaign events.

I've also come across this, which addressed the issue of self-determination on Guam:

The criticality of the need for self-determination for Guam's indigenous people was the topic of much discussion today at a summit at the University of Guam. "Protecting Our Way of Life and Ensuring Our Survival" sought to unite and educate Chamorros cross-generationally, and strengthen their awareness with the military forces to be transferred from Okinawa.

It is heartening to see this, since without a sense of solidarity among the people of Guam, it will be too easy for the powers that be to simply play "divide and conquer" among the people of Guam. Playing on racial divisions between Chamorros, Filipinos, haoles (Caucasians -- and yes, I've come to love this word for my people, even if it is often used as an epithet), and other assorted races living on Guam seems the most obvious way to keep people squabbling among themselves rather than finding common cause in seeking social justice. Racism is often used that way by established power, as demonstrated in mainland America -- keep a certain faction of poor or working class whites focused on their hatred of blacks, and you effectively get two groups of dispossessed and marginalized people working against each other while their true oppressors continue to exploit them unabated.

Here is a letter from a Chamorro serving in Iraq (and his status as a fellow Iraq War veteran makes him my brother, as I've covered earlier):

This essay was written in my effort to express a local perspective into a war few in the media, and island understand. I sent it to Pacific Daily News, after making contact with a editor through email and was asked to write and send pictures. I did and found no response since. I could not find a contact in Marianas Variety so if any do please forward this, with the intention of remembering those from the Islands who have served and remain a ripple in the pond, have created change and are a part of a change regardless if seen as good or bad, honorable men and women who gave, or give the ultimate sacrifice, being gone for long periods of time from their families or to a higher place....................

First and for most, I would like to convey my families condolences to the to former senator Umpingco's family. All people from all parts of Guam, appreciate the sacrifice he, and his family gave to serve our Island.

I write to you not for fame or recognition, but to share a event that might bring the war closer to home, and sharing one of my experience's in Iraq. This is a example of the emotional rolacoster that we face everyday. I hope that those that read this (if published) understand my intentions for it's weight in my heart compelled me to write .......

I arrived In Balad, Iraq with high hopes of finding friends and family, like I did in 2006. A second tour for me, and a holiday free tour in the sand box. I met the Guam National Guards 909th, Gil Reyes of Yona, Craig, my second cousin from Malojojo and David Quimbao from Talofofo, a childhood friend and brother in arms. To my surprise and dismay, those days of comfort and taste of home no longer existed. I visited the former building of the 909th, and asked a officer I saw walking out if he knew where the the Chamoru's were and he looked at me with a no idea. I found it alittle disturbing considering the big cement mortar barrier with the 909th emblem and Guam seal to their backs, and they still had no idea of whom I speak.

As I drove away with mixed feelings about them being gone and me being alone, and reassuring my self of the better morning my comrades will have because they will wake up too their families in Guam, something struck me to the core. A man was standing along the fence line with a little girl in his arms courting with the other towards the little girl in his arms saying loud and clear " Gift, Gifts, Gift", as to gesture something from the impenetrable walls that divide us. To help clarify what a man was doing out side the fence, I must explain. Outside the wire, farmers tend to their sunflower patches, and other vegetables while still tending to the children and live stock. All my training did not prepare me for what I was seeing. I could respond to incoming mortar, and taking on enemy fire, but this hopefully innocent gesture by this farmer, did me in. All my thoughts of fighting and unhappiness from being away from home stopped. I did what every well trained sailor or soldier would do.....

I have flown in helicopters over homes made of clay and farms as green as the Talofofo valleys in the middle of a desert, I have seen many of things, nothing more troubling than the man outside the wire with that little girl. It brought to light questions of this war, and what that man, like those of his country think. With Guam always in my mind, and the image of that man and child staring in the fence, I immediately related with the thought of us Chamoru's looking in the fence on our own land, and saw me and my 2 girls (Ha'ani & Sinahi), looking at the already crowded island with base's extending the fence lines with the soon movement of Marines, and the island's economic hand being led into reliance on the federal government or foreign investors. Every day away from my family, and Guam, the more I ponder on our course as a people, just like those in Iraq hoping the effort put into this war, and it's restructuring is really for their benefit.

To those fellow Chamoru's who have served and sacrificed their lives, I remember you and your sacrifice, and use that fuel to keep my head up with the love from my wife and two kids.
If I could convey one message, to people in Guam, " Hita I man Taotao Tano! Hita I kutura, I linguahi, i biblia, I ire yan I Tano Chamoru!" Your pains are the pains of every people, no matter the shades of ones skin, we must work toward a common goal of affordability in our home land, and our acceptance of changes on our own terms.

Saina Ma'ase,
Sean R, "Aguon" Sanchez

Very true, very true. On the off chance that the author of this letter reads this entry, I would like to note that the Pacific Daily News is owned by the same company, Gannett, which owns my local newspaper from my home town, the Green Bay Press-Gazette, derisively referred to by many as the "Green Bay Packers-Gazette" for its over-emphasis on the Packers at the exclusion of news stories which actually matter. I'm half a world away from my home, isolated from family, friends, and other things about my home which I cherish, and yet the same behemoth which controls my home town's print media also has its tentacles here, on Guam. This bit of synchronicity is not lost on me, and I think that my status as one of the many unpersons in this world (my internet handle, CarbonDate, has as much meaning and significance with regards to my words as my legal name) makes me much closer to the disenfranchised Chamorros of Guam than I am to the white men who run this nation.

I will continue to press Sen. Obama on this matter as long as he is my senator, especially given that he may be our next President. I would implore my fellow mainlanders to also speak on behalf of the islanders whose voices are not heard and ask the question which I asked Sen. Obama: What will it take for the United States government to offer our territories full statehood and equal standing with their fellow U.S. citizens?

Orwell's hell a terror era coming through, but this little brother is watching you too -- RATM, 1999

Sen. Clinton Get Key Endorsement From Ann Coulter

2008-02-01T21:25:00.000-06:00

Ann Coulter pledges to campaign for Hillary Clinton if John McCain is the Republican nominee.

This just tickles me.

Gary Hart: Bush quietly ensuring we will be in Iraq for decades to come

2008-02-01T20:53:00.000-06:00

From Gary Hart, via the Huffington Post:

For the better part of a year before the gratuitous invasion of Iraq, along with others I wrote often about the real neocon plan, the secret one not disclosed to the American people. It involved the use of Iraq as the U.S. political and military base in the Middle East, dictation of terms to surrounding nations, protection of our oil dependencies, long term occupation, and the construction of permanent military bases. All of this would be administered by a proconsul of Roman proportions, safely sequestered behind a multi-billion dollar fortress now known as the Green Zone.
Yesterday, President Bush signed the Defense Authorization Bill, including Section 1222 prohibiting permanent military bases in Iraq, with the now customary "signing statement" declaring that he has no intention of enforcing the law of the land, including this provision, though bound by oath and Constitution to do so.

To seal the deal, with the expectation of binding future presidential successors, Mr. Bush and Iraq president Nouri al-Maliki are in the process of negotiating a "status of forces agreement" that would commit the U.S. military to combat any internal or external factions the Iraqi government deemed a threat. This represents a one-directional security treaty cloaked in the form of an agreement not subject to Senate ratification. And it guarantees U.S. involvement in age-old Iraqi sectarian conflict for decades to come.

Well, there's an easy answer for Bush's successor to any claim that this agreement binds him: "This administration is not bound by any promises made by previous administrations." In fact, whereas U.S. law now explicitly prohibits permanent military bases in Iraq, that is what the next President would be bound by, Bush's extra-constitutional (and legally meaningless) signing statements not with standing.

Hart acknowledges this, but then talks of campaign tactics. Does Bush actually think that his unratified agreements with Iraq will be legally binding to his successors, or his he just trying to piss in the punch bowl for future Presidents?

Juan Cole: Iraq and Iran in the Democratic Debate

2008-02-01T08:43:00.000-06:00

I listened to this portion of the Clinton - Obama debate and I must say: Cole nails it.

Both candidates impressed me with their grasp of detail and the serious thought that they have given for how to get out of Iraq without leaving behind a catastrophe that will come around to bite us on the ass.

Chuck Todd says he thought Barack won the debate on the strength of his Iraq comments, and that Hillary was at a disadvantage because she had to explain once again why she voted to authorize the war. She even put herself in a position of being called naive about Bush by Wolf Blitzer, the moderator, because she went on about how she hadn't expected Bush to misuse the authorization.

I didn't see others comment on Barack's dig at Hillary over "mission creep" toward Iran. This was a reference to her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution encouraging Bush to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization (even though they are now a regular military analogous to the US National Guards, and in the past terrorism has been defined as the action of a non-state actor). Clinton painted Obama as soft on Iran, he painted her as devoted to mission creep and confrontation with Iran.

This might be another point on which he won; polling does not suggest the American public wants practical belligerent steps toward Iran.

It is worth noting that Clinton misstated the 1998 events.

The US did not bomb Iraq because Saddam "kicked out" the UN weapons inspectors. The US decided to bomb Iraq for other reasons and therefore ordered the inspectors out of the country. The myth that Saddam "kicked out" the inspectors just won't die.

Cole provides a transcript and relevant links here.

Panel calls for modernization of Guard and Reserves

2008-01-31T21:54:00.001-06:00

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0201/p02s03-usmi.html

Washington - Proposing what it called the first substantive reforms to the National Guard and Reserve in more than 50 years, a panel wants to refashion America's "weekend warriors" into an operational partner with the active-duty military.

That way, the reserve could be quickly mobilized to respond to a terrorist attack or natural disaster on the scale of a hurricane Katrina, says the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, which released its 368-page report Thursday.

"We don't have the capacity remaining to deal with these homeland defense threats in an adequate way," says Marine Gen. Arnold Punaro (ret.), who headed the panel. "We have put our lives, our property, and our economy at greater risk because of that."

Here's a thought: scale down U.S. military presence overseas and begin to focus our military's attention on homeland defense rather than forward projection of military force.

Forward projection of military force is one of the keystones of current military philosophy. In Air Force doctrine, it's referred to as "Global Attack". It means what it sounds like: the ability of the U.S. military to strike any target, any time, any place. While that sounds really cool (or frightening, if you're not an American), it currently costs us $439 billion a year. This does not include the actual application of "Global Attack" in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- this is just to maintain the capability.

I have a few proposals which would radically alter the face of the U.S. military, and thus the face of U.S. militarism:

1) Cut the permanent active duty military to a fraction of its current size.

This will elicit a visceral response in people, and largely be treated as unthinkable. It is not. Right now, many functions are filled on U.S. military bases which could be better filled by civilians. The military is already in the process of making many of those same transitions, but they're going about it the wrong way. Rather than hiring contractors (who, by their very nature, are looking for a quick profit and sometimes tend to cut corners), positions should be filled by civil servants. These would be government employees doing government work accountable to the government, but continuity would be greatly enhanced by taking on civilians who would remain in place on a permanent basis rather than moving around every couple of years the way military personnel do.

The current idea is to turn the military into a strictly expeditionary role: we would bed down into a war zone and build a base up. While at home duty station, we would spend all of our time training to perform that task. But to have people training to perform war-time tasks on a full time basis only makes sense if the U.S. is going to be perpetually at war for generations to come. That's no kind of way to run a country, least of all a democracy.

No, I propose transitioning the maintenance of U.S. military bases to civil servant employees and giving the "expeditionary" role to the Reserves. The Reserves can train to perform these tasks at their monthly drill and practice them in full during their two weeks a year. If mobilized, they can carry out the missions they are assigned every bit as capably as their current active duty counterparts, provided they receive proper training. Current U.S. military bases should be used for that purpose: training our Guard and Reserves to carry out their tasks on an "as needed" basis.

An active duty Navy will be necessary to secure shipping lanes across the seas against pirates or Navies of predatory nations, and an active duty Air Force will be necessary to secure our nation and our allies against aerial attack from aggressive nations. In the event of a war, active duty Marines will be capable of handling the first wave of a major ground assault while our reserve units are activated, as well as most minor skirmishes we might find ourselves engaged in. However, bomber wings should be under the jurisdiction of the Reserves, as they would only be utilized in the event of a war, as should all Army infantry units.

The temptation to always use the military to solve every little foreign policy dispute has proven to be too great for our leaders to resist. We need to take their toys away and go back to treating war as something done in an emergency, not as a natural matter of course.

2) Permanently dedicate the National Guard to homeland defense. If additional personnel are needed for the purposes of an overseas engagement, do the honorable thing and institute a draft.

Overseas engagements should not leave us vulnerable at home the way the war in Iraq has done. National Guardsmen should be defending their own communities during disaster recovery efforts, not Blackwater, USA.

3) Mandatory service of one year for all who are physically capable. Conscientious objectors may be allowed to focus on disaster recovery and humanitarian missions in the Guard, but all who can serve will serve. Eliminate "lifestyle" restrictions for service. All Americans will own a piece of their nation's future.

4) Expand Selective Service to include women. Women serve in the military now, and have shown themselves to be perfectly capable of doing the job. In the event of the kind of crisis which would precipitate the institution of a draft, it makes no sense to limit the selection pool to less than half of the population.

5) Massive mobilization of the Reserves should require a Congressional declaration of war, and they should be demobilized when the war is complete. Rebuilding efforts should be under the jurisdiction of the State Department, not Defense.

6) The U.S. should never take part in running another country. Upon defeating an enemy nation, the peace treaty should include a provision for national elections to be held within six weeks, thus returning sovereignty of that nation back to the people of that nation. That it took years to do this in Iraq is a blight upon our honor.

7) Scale down our overseas military presence almost entirely, only maintaining troops on a rotational basis at NATO allied bases. This would take a while due to diplomatic considerations, but we must begin to move away from our current status of hunkering down and permanently staying whenever we set foot in another country. A big diplomatic step in the right direction would be to partner with China to work toward re-unification of Korea. Sign a treaty with a mutual pledge of non-intervention in Korean affairs, and let "Sparta" (North Korea) and "Athens" (South Korea) come together and stand on their own two feet.

These are just a few of the ideas I've come up with, but another issue which arises from our permanent standing armies is cultural. The active duty military is, by its very nature, authoritarian. The media in our country has fetishized that authoritarian culture, placing the easy comforts of conformity ahead of more natural diversity of thought. It is not the selflessness of common people rising to serve a purpose greater than themselves which they honor; that is demonstrated by their dismissive treatment of veterans upon their return to civilian life. No, it is the authoritarian, seen and not heard, cookie-cutter mold "troops" whom they "support". As long as we salute smartly, shoot straight, and keep our mouths shut, we will continue to have that support. This is no way for members of a democracy to think, and it's something we ought to begin to discourage.

Thoughts?

Why I Hate Hillary, cont'd (kidding, Bartcop... sort of)

2008-01-31T04:01:00.001-06:00

To reprise: I'm not a big fan of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), or her husband, former President Bill Clinton. I appreciate the good things that came out of the Clinton years, but I feel I have to acknowledge the bad things, as well. Some of the Clintons' sell-outs have political consequences that we're still feeling today. Sen. Clinton hasn't show herself to be a leader, but an opportunistic politician who does absolutely anything that she thinks will give her a political advantage. She's never met a principle she won't sell out for political gain, and she will never do anything for the greater good that will make her poll numbers go down a percentage point. So without further ado....

3. AIPAC

Google Lawrence Anthony Franklin. This act of espionage on behalf of an organization that represents the interests of an allegedly friendly nation is enough to get my hackles up. Isolated incident? Google Jonathan Pollard.

Let me be clear on this point: all American politicians pander shamelessly to Israeli interests, including my candidate of choice, Barack Obama. It's pretty much a prerequisite for getting into federal office. Sen. Clinton, however, has been especially egregious on this, to the point of actively supporting Israel's use of cluster bombs (and, incidentally, the U.S.'s). Barack Obama supported legislation restricting Pentagon spending on cluster bombs, Hillary Clinton opposed it:

One little-mentioned split occurred on a proposal to restrict Pentagon spending on cluster bombs, which explode and scatter thousands of tiny weapons over a vast area. Those small bombs are prone to going off years after a battle, sometimes killing and maiming Middle Eastern children who mistakenly trigger them. Israel came under fire from the UN and international human rights groups for its use of cluster bombs during its 2006 war with Hizbullah forces in Lebanon. In the autumn of that year, with memories of the conflict still fresh, several Democrats sought to limit US defence spending to cluster bombs that would not be used in civilian areas.

...

Obama voted in favour of limiting use of the bombs, while Clinton and 69 other senators opposed the spending limits, defeating the proposal.
Whether the former first lady cast her vote to avoid a perceived rebuke of Israel or because of the Pentagon's resistance remains unknown: Clinton did not speak during the senate debate and did not issue a statement afterwards, according to her website.

Another interesting issue:

Another disagreement between the two Democratic frontrunners came during Congress's first failed attempt at addressing immigration, also in 2006. Clinton and Obama allied in favour of a path to citizenship for the 12 million people residing illegally in the US, but they differed on the more arcane question of admitting refugees to America who had fought against authoritarian governments overseas.
The proposal, written by judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy, would relax the Bush administration's so-called "material support bar". The bar was intended to prevent anyone supportive of armed terrorist groups from entering the US. But it inadvertently ended up blocking entry for democratic activists from Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.
Even some who aided revolutionary groups after being kidnapped or raped were later stopped from immigrating to the US under the bar.
"We can prevent the entry of those who would do America harm without closing our borders to genuine refugees who urgently need our help," Leahy said at the time, urging colleagues to back his proposal.
Senators opposed to the new refugee policy voiced unease about changing the legal definition of a terrorist group, arguing that the state department could handle the problem through immigration waivers.
Obama supported Leahy's unsuccessful plan to lift the support bar. Clinton opposed it. Just last week, Leahy endorsed Obama for president.

The article also addresses an anti-gun control measure Obama came down on the side of, one which prevented police from confiscating people's firearms during emergency situations. My fellow progressives can assess this particular legislation as they wish (I'm sure most of them will see at as a negative), but I tend to cringe at the thought of authorities using an emergency situation as a pretext for rounding up people's weapons, so I can't say I disagree with the Republicans (or Obama) on this one.

But I digress.

Sen. Clinton, prior to her Kyl-Liebermann Amendment, and prior to the National Intelligence Estimate which state unequivocally that Iran had abandoned its nuclear program four years prior, Sen. Clinton was one of Washington's biggest anti-Iran hawks. She somehow managed to avoid catching egg on her face for being one of the biggest cheerleaders for yet another unnecessary war with a Middle Eastern country, but I'm not going to let this be forgotten:

Calling Iran a danger to the U.S. and one of Israel's greatest threats, U.S. senator and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said "no option can be taken off the table" when dealing with that nation.
"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons," the Democrat told a crowd of Israel supporters. "In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table."

Clinton spoke at a Manhattan dinner held by the largest pro-Israel lobbying group in the U.S., the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Some 1,700 supporters applauded as she cited her efforts on behalf of the Jewish state and spoke scathingly of Iran's decision to hold a conference last month that questioned whether the Holocaust took place.

"To deny the Holocaust places Iran's leadership in company with the most despicable bigots and historical revisionists," Clinton said, criticizing what she called the Iranian administration's "pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric."

No doubt. But this didn't mean that they're pursuing nukes, and it didn't mean that we needed to engage in rhetoric which might provoke them. This type of rhetoric is irresponsible when so little is known, and it's clear that Sen. Clinton learned exactly nothing from President Bush's earlier Iraq deceptions. It's unclear whether she even cares to, but I do question whether the lives of innocent people in the Middle East are more or less important to Sen. Clinton than her own political ambitions. I suspect I know the answer to that one, but I'm not a mind-reader, and perhaps Sen. Clinton is simply a dupe who will keep falling for the same neo-con tricks over and over again. Either way, it doesn't lend itself to an enthusiastic endorsement from this author.

I'd be hard pressed to endorse a Republican candidate ahead of Sen. Clinton in the general election should she carry the nomination. Despite my many differences with her, I'm a lot closer to her on most issues than I am to any of the Republican candidates, including Sen. McCain. However, if we're going to engage in identity politics the way the New York chapter of NOW is, then I have to confess a certain yearning to support the war veteran, despite my many disagreements with him on almost every issue.

After World War II, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower was elected President. This marked the first of several WWII veterans elected to the White House. Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and George Bush all served in World War II. Nixon, Carter, and Reagan served in the military in some capacity, but not in WWII. Even Gerald Ford, who was never actually elected to the White House, served as a Naval officer in WWII.

Then Bill Clinton was elected President, and that all ended. Since then, veterans who served in Vietnam have gone up for the Presidency and been summarily turned away: John McCain in 2000 (lost in primaries to George W. Bush), Al Gore in 2000 (lost in general election to Bush), and John Kerry in 2004 (lost, again, to Bush in general election). No Vietnam veterans in the White House; just two draft dodgers. Clinton, who opposed the Vietnam War and thus had no desire to serve in it, got a reservist deferment by joining, then quitting, an advanced ROTC unit. Bush, who supported the Vietnam War but also had no desire to serve in it, used connections to move ahead of 500 applicants to join the Texas Air National Guard. Back then, the National Guard was a way to avoid the draft without being called a draft dodger. I'll do it anyway: George W. Bush was a draft dodger, and he's beaten three men who served in Vietnam for the Presidency. This says a lot about how our nation honors its veterans anymore: they don't. They just "support our troops".

As someone who served in Iraq as a support troop inside the wire (just like the vast majority of troops who deploy to Iraq, for the record), I make no claim to any acts of great gallantry or heroism. I went when I was called, did the best job I could even while coming under fire once in a while, and went home when it was time. Yet it was still a major readjustment to my perspectives, and I will forever hold a kinship with my fellow veterans of any war, regardless of their political affiliations. I want to see a Vietnam veteran in the White House (especially one who endured as much as John McCain), because I feel it would do a lot to heal the wounds of that period in our history, yet I fear that it may never happen now. I largely blame the Republicans for that -- they've honored big business at the expense of honoring the "troops" they pay so much lip service toward, and they smeared the war record of John Kerry in 2004. John McCain is the last hope for a Vietnam veteran President, but it may be too little (McCain has taken a major tumble among Democrats and independents for his sycophancy toward Bush), too late (he's 71 years old and looks to be seriously slowing down).

That's the sympathy I feel toward the McCain candidacy: it's not about the man, but his service and his generation of veterans, all of whom I wish to honor. And yet I see in another candidate a way forward, another path to healing the wounds of past generations through forgiveness and reconciliation. A nomination of Hillary Clinton will inevitably re-open the wounds of those years gone by. We've been picking at the scabs of those wounds ever since Carter pardoned Vietnam-era draft dodgers, our government's first attempt at healing from that time. A Clinton candidacy leads the way backward to the 90s, when Bill Clinton's draft evasion was still fresh on everybody's lips, and the resentment toward the fortunate sons like Bush and Clinton who had the connections to avoid being drafted while others less fortunate went to their deaths still burned deep inside. It burns inside of me now, as I watch Young Republicans cheer lead Bush's war while refusing to serve in it. It burns inside of me as Hillary continues to offer the lives of America's troops to sate AIPAC's lust for Arab blood. It burns... but a path to the future, away from the wounds of the past, offers a much more enticing promise. I hope the Democrats take it and don't fall into the trap of the "good old days".

NY NOW Puts Sen Kennedy on Blast For Endorsing a Man

2008-01-30T05:03:00.000-06:00

The New York chapter of NOW released a scathing rebuke of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) for endorsing a black man over a white woman:

"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal," NOW's New York State chapter said in a scorching rebuke. "Senator Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard."

On Monday, Kennedy, D-Mass., his son Patrick and his niece Caroline Kennedy announced their support for Obama. Edward Kennedy said the country needs a leader who can bring people together and create change.

But the move angered the state chapter of NOW, which called Kennedy's decision the "greatest betrayal."

"We are repaid with his abandonment!" the statement said. "He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton."

Wow, that’s pretty strong stuff. (And since they mentioned Ted Kennedy’s race, I felt it appropriate to mention Sen. Clinton’s and Sen. Obama’s. It only seemed fair, given how strongly they condemned Sen. Kennedy for endorsing a black man over a white woman.) The national office released its own statement, backing away from the New York chapter’s acidic words:

"The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Senator Edward Kennedy," NOW President Kim Gandy wrote. "For decades Senator Kennedy has been a friend of NOW, and a leader and fighter for women's civil and reproductive rights, and his record shows that."

Gandy said her group respects Kennedy's decision to back Obama.

"We continue to encourage women everywhere to express their opinions and exercise their right to vote," she said.

If NOW considers Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement of Sen. Obama a betrayal, then that is their prerogative. Many of Sen. Clinton’s supporters are backing her explicitly because she is a woman, as is their right. Given that there are many others who will oppose her for the same reason, it strikes me as only fair that they try to shore up as much support for her as possible to cover any lost ground. I don’t begrudge NOW’s support for Sen. Clinton, but I do begrudge the audacity of implying that anything less than gleefully enthusiastic support for the senator from New York is a betrayal of women everywhere.

To reinforce my point, let me do a run-down of betrayals by Sen. Clinton:

1. Labor.

Hillary Clinton says she’s a supporter of labor, but I have doubts about her sincerity, based on her actions and her affiliations. In 2003, Clinton brought an Indian outsourcing firm to Buffalo, NY, which reportedly did more harm to Buffalo than it did good:

In 2003, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped the high-tech firm Tata Consultancy Services of India (TCS) to open a office in Buffalo, N.Y. by hoping that it would bring jobs to the area. Clinton later said the deal showed that outsourcing firms could create jobs both in their home countries and in the United States.

As a part of its program to expand its US presence, TCS will provide advanced IT training to new recruits. The training center is aptly named "Chrysalis", a word signifying the evolution of a larva into a butterfly. Company executives explained that the name alludes to the transformation of bright new talent into advanced IT professionals who would lead the technology industry in the future. The firm said it had already hired 20 new recruits, primarily from western New York, and had plans to triple that number by the middle of next year. But over that same period, Tata sought H-1B visa certifications to import nearly 500 foreign computer programmers and other specialists to upstate New York.

Since 2003,"the reality is that it probably created many more jobs for workers overseas and displaced lots of American workers according to leading news papers.

NRI Sudesh Agnihotra from New York told our representative that NYC residence are very up-set that about 500 foreign computer programmers and other specialists were dumped in their State and they had no gain.

Clinton always said, the United States benefits by admitting high-tech workers from abroad. She backs proposals to increase the number of temporary visas for skilled foreigners.

As a blue-collar kid (and IT professional myself), this kind of hits home for me. Tata couldn’t find any computer programmers in the Buffalo area? I find that hard to believe. If they had hired 500 American programmers, that would have been a boon to Buffalo. Instead, it’s simply a boon to Tata.

Let’s also talk about Mark Penn, CEO of union-busting firm Burson-Marsteller Inc. and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman:

Penn sheds a few crocodile tears over the questions about his firm’s anti-labor activities, but he clearly wasn’t broken up about the big bucks that those activities netted him. To head a firm that engages in anti-labor activities while claiming to be pro-labor because his father was a union man is a level of double-speak worthy of a Clinton campaign. I can see why they picked him.

And then there’s this from Palast:

But first, let’s stop at Wal-Mart. Read an official biography of the Senator and you’ll find her six-month stint on a child-protection task force. Yet you won’t find her SIX YEARS on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Corporation. She may have earned a Grammy for “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.” But it takes a Governor’s wife to provide cover for Wal-Mart’s profiteering off systematic wage-enslavement of children in its factories in South America.

Sam Walton called Hillary, “My little lady.” Sam paid her an eyebrow raising sum for a director - equal to 60% of her entire not-insubstantial salary as a lawyer. By contrast, Wendy Diaz (her real name), a 13-year-old in Honduras, was paid 25 cents an hour to make shirts for the “little lady’s” label.

Hillary’s rake-in was made possible by Wal-Mart’s 100% union-free operation and out-sourcing of 100% of its manufacturing, some to prison factories in China. Now, you could say that Hillary couldn’t hear the screams of the kiddies in Kamp Wal-Mart in Honduras. After all, she relied on the intelligence provided her by the President (of Wal-Mart).

2. The Iraq War.

The one consistent thing about Sen. Clinton’s position on the Iraq War is how dishonest she’s been about it.

October 2002:

Clinton gives a long-winded speech on the Senate floor, in which she commits herself to exactly no position at all and angles to cover her ass if things go badly.

Then she votes for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, while claiming that she wasn’t explicitly authorizing the use of military force against Iraq. This isn’t just typical Clintonian hair-splitting or triangulating; it’s just old-fashioned lying.

Skip past the long list of “whereas” statements, and you get to the meat of it:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.

In connection with the exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon there after as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, and

(2) acting pursuant to this resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorists attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

(c) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS. --

(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION. -- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.

(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS. -- Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

SEC. 4. REPORTS TO CONGRESS

(a) The President shall, at least once every 60 days, submit to the Congress a report on matters relevant to this joint resolution, including actions taken pursuant to the exercise of authority granted in section 2 and the status of planning for efforts that are expected to be required after such actions are completed, including those actions described in section 7 of Public Law 105-338 (the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998).

(b) To the extent that the submission of any report described in subsection (a) coincides with the submission of any other report on matters relevant to this joint resolution otherwise required to be submitted to Congress pursuant to the reporting requirements of Public Law 93-148 (the War Powers Resolution), all such reports may be submitted as a single consolidated report to the Congress.

(c) To the extent that the information required by section 3 of Public Law 102-1 is included in the report required by this section, such report shall be considered as meeting the requirements of section 3 of Public Law 102-1.

Bottom line: the President was required to determine that inspections were not working, send a report to Congress, and bombs away! How is that not an explicit authorization to do whatever the fuck he wants, whenever the fuck he wants? Did Sen. Clinton even read the resolution before voting on it? I know she didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimate beforehand.

Then, nearly five years later, Sen. Clinton votes for the Kyl-Liebermann amendment, described correctly by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) “as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.” By declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, it labels Iran as a nation which harbors and supports terrorists. Not hard to see how that could lead to the U.S. going to war with Iran -- unless you’re Hillary Clinton, of course.

I’ll continue this venture tomorrow, as this entry has taken a bit longer to put together than I’d originally anticipated.

Greg Palast on State of the Union

2008-01-29T15:50:00.001-06:00

Greg Palast offered his response to the State of the Union, and broke it down more effectively than anybody else I've seen:

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

-George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy, tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.

-$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the Harry Potter series.

If you can’t buy a book nor pay tuition with a sawbuck, what exactly can a poor kid buy with $20 in urban America? The Palast Investigative Team donned baseball caps and big pants and discovered we could obtain what local citizens call a “rock” of crack cocaine. For $20, we were guaranteed we could fulfill any kid’s dream for at least 15 minutes.

http://www.gregpalast.com/one-bush-left-behind/

Thank you Mr. Palast, for cutting to the heart of the issue in such short order.

Obama South Carolina victory speech

2008-01-27T00:56:00.000-06:00

Has this guy ever given a bad speech? One of these days he'll come out with a dud.

People are still talking about Al Gore getting into it

2008-01-26T21:42:00.001-06:00

Are they kidding? Just trying to stir the pot? Here's Jack Cafferty, talking about the possibility of Al Gore getting into the race.

Here's my thought on Gore:

America needs an elder statesman who's above all the partisan bickering. Bill Clinton has relinquished that role by backing his wife for the Presidency. I'm not blaming Clinton; I'd actually think less of him if he wasn't. But at the same time, he cannot, for a long time in the foreseeable future (especially if his wife wins), be seen as "objective" or in any sense "above it all". Nor can, on the Republican side, former President George H.W. Bush, the father of our current President, for many of the same reasons.

Who does that leave? It leaves two Nobel Laureates: former President James Carter and former Vice President Al Gore. The presence of these two men would be much more profound in an Obama or Edwards White House than in a Clinton White House (especially given Gore's history in the previous Clinton White House). Only Carter has the standing in the Democratic party that Gore has, and Carter is 83 years old. He will be a major presence for as long as he lives, but how much longer will that be? Gore will be 60 in March. Barring accident or illness, he will likely be around for at least another generation.

Clinton has done some admirable work in his time since leaving the White House, but he has not yet stepped away from politics, and therefore does not carry the weight and credibility of a statesman. Even if his wife loses, she will still be a United States Senator, and he will still be her husband. Somebody has to assume the role that Clinton is unable to fill, and in the event that this former President is unable to fulfill those duties, it seems fitting that his Vice President step up and take them on himself.

Gore should stay far, far away from this race. If he does, he will be a much greater asset to the next President than anybody currently running could ever be to him. Anybody who thinks the next President, especially if it's the Democratic nominee, will not have Gore on speed dial hasn't been paying enough attention.

Obama carries South Carolina

2008-01-26T21:10:00.000-06:00

Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) won the Presidential primary contest in South Carolina, John Edwards' home state, with 55% of the vote, netting 24 delegates to Sen Clinton's 11 and Edwards' 5. More at CNN.com.

Sen Clinton was not campaigning in South Carolina. However, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was there campaigning on her behalf. Sen Obama had made a comment in one debate that it wasn't always clear to him which of them he was running against (hint for Sen Obama: you're running against both of them), but it can be said that in a one-on-one contest against Bill Clinton in South Carolina, Sen Obama won big.

Looking at the exit polling, there are no really peculiar trends. Obama carried nearly every major demographic except for voters 65 and older (who went for Clinton) and non-blacks over 30, who tended to vote for Edwards.

This win doesn't help Obama nearly as much as a loss would have hurt him, since a win by Clinton would have re-established her as the clear front-runner, and a win by Edwards would have given his campaign new life. Still, it allows Obama to maintain his credibility as a challenger to Clinton. And by beating Edwards on his own turf, he essentially makes Edwards the new Kucinich of the race: a long shot who is quickly becoming a no-shot.

Come Super Tuesday, we may have a clear front-runner. Or, if Obama and Clinton manage to split it down the middle, we may see this race continue for a few more months. Clinton still leads in delegates, but with most of those being super delegates, that 182-89 lead in super delegates will become less and less important. Obama leads in normal delegates, 63-47-23. Super Tuesday may paint a very different picture. If not, later states will become increasingly important, especially large ones like California.

Enough horse race speculation for one day. As an Obama supporter myself, I'm happy with these results, and hope that they become a part of a larger trend.

Nigeria rebels want Clooney's help

2008-01-26T04:52:00.000-06:00

Fighters in Nigeria's oil region have invited George Clooney, an actor and peace activist, to visit the region.

They have also asked for UN intervention in the conflict.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, designated Clooney as a UN "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's activities.

The 46-year-old actor has been campaigning for an end to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, and for humanitarian aid for the millions caught up in the conflict.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6C4B74F6-82AD-4E81-B514-4610F103F5D9.htm

Notice how they didn't ask our illustrious President? Notice how it's Dennis Leary rebuilding fire stations in New Orleans? Hollywood now officially has more credibility than our government. This is Bush's legacy. We no longer have RFK functioning as a good-will ambassador to the world; now we have George Clooney.

This is just precious.

2008-01-26T00:35:00.000-06:00

My original stimulus posting from yesterday elicited this comment from Reuven (good to see people actually reading my blog):

Those "rich" people you hate so much, the people actually working and adding value to America, also pay your taxes for you! The Pelosi "stimulus" package makes me feel like I've been robbed. Some guy in Watsonville will be able to get new Rims for his car, or put a down payment on a new Hummer while I'm busy building businesses and creating jobs.

I won't see a penny of this "stimulus package", and I'm being taxed twice for it. Once because I have absolutely no tax deductions (they all phase out) and twice with these lower interest rates and inflationary policy that prevents me from earning a decent fixed income on my savings.

See http://www.waronsavings.com/ for some constructive suggestions.

This problem was caused by irresponsible people borrowing money they could never pay back to buy houses and cars. America decided not to treat it's citizens like babies and give them access to financial tools. And what does Joe Sixpack do? He buys a house he can only afford the "teaser payments on", two SUVs with 6 year loans, and goes BOO HOO HOO! HELP ME NANCY when he can't pay.

Be a MAN, Joe Sixpack! Sell all your crap and share an apartment with 6 people. That's what my family did when they came to this country and had no money.

So I typed up a comment of my own and checked out his link. (Dildo alert; no, literally.)

Oh, Lord. For those who don't know (I didn't), Watsonville is predominantly Hispanic/Latino. So he's covered a number of bases in one fell swoop:

Racism
Misogyny
Classism

At the link, the posts a picture of a dildo and suggests that she buy that "stimulus package" vice her legislative one. Then he refers to the rich as "the few hard-working Americans who actually pay taxes and are productive" and the middle class as the "non-taxpaying class". He also suggests a stimulus package that will go to the wealthy ($200 for every $100,000 in savings), apparently for no other reason than to suggest a way to flip the bird to the other 99% of the country.

Okay, once we've all had a good laugh at his expense (assuming he's even serious), let me point out a few things:

The bulk of the "rebates" go to middle class citizens who are likely to put this away into savings or pay off debt, and that the middle class who benefit from this (ask Krugman pointed out), most certainly do pay taxes. As part of the class of citizens who make less than $75,000 a year, I can attest to that.
We're supposed to be sympathetic to this guy being "robbed" while he suggests that "Joe Sixpack" go live in an apartment with six other people? Fuck you.
Finally, it's pretty clear that you view the victims of predatory lending practices as the bad guys here. "Blame the victim" type thinking typically reveals a pretty loathsome mindset, as do racism, misogyny, and classism. I don't entirely disagree with your point about living outside one's means, but I do think that you have some strange misconceptions about who pays taxes in this country, and I'm wondering if this isn't actually satire.

All that aside, thank you for reading my blog and sharing your thoughts, even if they are rather dickish.

Palast on South Carolina Dock Workers

2008-01-26T00:14:00.000-06:00

South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston. In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly. The cops beat the crap out of the protesters. Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot. And of course, of the five men handcuffed, four are Black. The prosecutor: a White, Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a state ripped in half - White versus Black.

South Carolina 2008: On Saturday, the Palmetto State may well choose our President, or at least the Democrat’s idea of a President. According to CNN and the pundit-ocracy, the only question is, Will the large Black population vote their pride (for Obama) or for “experience” (Hillary)? In other words, the election comes down to a matter of racial vanity.

The story of the dockworkers charged with rioting in 2000 suggest there’s an awfully good reason for Black folk to vote for one of their own. This is the chance to even the historic score in this land of lingering Jim Crow where the Confederate Flag flew over the capital while the longshoreman faced Southern justice.

But maybe there’s more to South Carolina’s story than Black and White.

http://www.gregpalast.com/south-carolina-primary-colors-black-and-white/

Much more at the link.

Paul Krugman addresses "stimulus"

2008-01-26T00:00:00.000-06:00

House Democrats and the White House have reached an agreement on an economic stimulus plan. Unfortunately, the plan — which essentially consists of nothing but tax cuts and gives most of those tax cuts to people in fairly good financial shape — looks like a lemon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Krugman addresses the point that most of the people who will be receiving these checks will be tucking them into savings instead of spending them right away.

I'm still not clear on whether this is an actual tax rebate, or whether it's a shell game where they pay you now what they would pay you later. Either way, it doesn't look like the economic downturn is avoidable, and the longer we try to stave it off with these sorts of half-measures, the worse it's going to be.

If you're interested in the economic picture, I highly recommend you visit my friend Monkeyfister. He's been all over this for a while. He's also been on top of peak oil, another factor which may come into play here. I blog-roll him, and I don't blog-roll anybody whom I don't think is worth reading (which is why it's so small).

Karzai: You can call me U.S. puppet

2008-01-25T23:48:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while, politicians let the truth slip out.

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) -- Unless more is done to tackle growing extremism in countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan could once again fall into terrorist hands with dire consequence for the region and the world, the country's president warned Friday.
Hamid Karzai addresses the opening session of the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.

Hamid Karzai said "misguided policy objectives" of unnamed countries or organizations were continuing to fuel violence in Afghanistan, although he was confident al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was no longer within its borders.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai also reluctantly accepted his image as "a puppet of America" but he shied away from accepting reported U.S. doubts that NATO troops lacked the training to combat the Taliban.
(snip)
On his perceived image as an impotent leader in thrall to the U.S. administration, Karzai, said he was willing to shoulder insults in return for U.S. assistance.
"Me a puppet? My God.

"Anyway, Americans have helped Afghanistan tremendously. The American people have a feeling for Afghanistan a very, very great feeling.
"The U.S administration has helped Afghanistan and if we are called puppets, or if I am called a puppet because we are grateful to America, then let that be my nickname.
"The truth is that without the United States in Afghanistan, Afghanistan would be a very poor, miserable country, occupied by neighbors and al Qaeda and terrorists."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/25/karzai.interview/index.html

Does anybody actually think that Karzai runs that country? Given how "the U.S. administration" largely abandoned Afghanistan in favor of its capers in Iraq, I would think the tone Karzai would take would be a little less gushing. Besides that, the rest of the article is largely a bunch of observations which anybody who reads Al Jazeera could see.

Musharraf issues warning to West

2008-01-25T20:25:00.001-06:00

He can shake his fist defiantly all he wants; we know his game. He's taken the money we've given him to fight terrorism and put it toward preparation for a military conflict with India, a U.S. ally.

President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan's success in fighting terrorism is critical and any failure could impact on the West.
In an address to a British think tank, he called for support and encouragement not "criticisms and insinuations".
He outlined his strategy for defeating al-Qaeda and the Taleban, and securing Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7209611.stm

Yes, he needs to secure that border, all right.

Musharraf reminds me of Bush: everything he says is bullshit.

Egyptians retreat from Gaza fence

2008-01-25T20:22:00.000-06:00

Egyptian security forces have pulled back from the border with Gaza after an apparent failure to reseal it.
Palestinians seemed to be still crossing freely in and out of Egypt for a third consecutive day, to stock up on supplies in defiance of a blockade.
A bulldozer made fresh holes in the border earlier, after Egyptian troops managed to seal earlier breaches.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7210311.stm

And as the U.S. Presidential primaries go on, the world keeps turning.

U.S. Troops to Pakistan

2008-01-25T06:09:00.000-06:00

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has said the United States is prepared to send troops to Pakistan to fight alongside the country's forces against Islamic fighters.

"We remain ready, willing and able to assist the Pakistanis and to partner with them, to provide additional training, to conduct joint operations, should they desire to do so," Gates said on Thursday.

He also made it clear that his country was open to providing more direct assistance.Asked if he envisaged US combat troops and Pakistani forces operating together, Gates said: "If the Pakistanis wanted to do that, I think we would."

'Act of war'

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said Gates's suggestion would anger most Pakistanis.

He said
: "The Pakistani people believe that it is only their armed forces that are able to handle the continued violence in the tribal region."

"Musharraf himself said that if foreign intervention is applied, it would be construed as an act of war.

"But ultimately, the government believes that an end to the conflict is via a political solution - not a military one - and it should not be dictated from overseas."

The US military is under strain from fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Bush administration says it is concerned about the ongoing clashes in Pakistan's tribal areas.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D06F9A6A-18CC-44D8-8E87-91717FAC7E38.htm

Let me tell you something about military leadership -- and this goes for the appointed civilian leadership at the Pentagon, as well: they don't publicly engage in idle speculation. If they're talking about it, they're planning it, and they're almost certainly going to do it. It's just a matter of time before we have a long-term military presence in Pakistan. My next deployment, perhaps?

I just predicted a few weeks ago that we were going to be going to Pakistan. I told my supervisor to expect it. She and a few others I work with were a bit incredulous about that prediction, but I stated that Pakistan was a nuke state which we couldn't afford to allow to fall to the Taliban or other people who are less than friendly to U.S. interests. Considering Pakistanis are now fleeing to Afghanistan, it struck me as only a matter of time before we sent troops over there. Truth be told though, I didn't expect it to happen quite so quickly.

If Musharraf gives them any push-back on this, expect to start hearing from the White House about how this current "important ally in the War on Terror" is suddenly an evil, terrorist-sympathizing tyrant.

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

"Stimulus" package passed

2008-01-25T05:34:00.000-06:00

The White House and the Democrats in Congress have agreed a $150bn (£76bn) economic stimulus package that will offer tax rebates to boost growth.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would act on the deal "at the earliest date, so those rebate cheques will be in the mail".
Some 117 million US homes will receive a rebate of up to $600 for individuals and up to $1,200 for married couples.
Washington is moving fast to try to avoid the US falling into a recession.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7206412.stm

So... what's that supposed to do? Stimulate spending? Are we robbing Peter to pay Paul like we did in 2001, with the $300 checks? Worked so well then, right?

Where have they been while working stiffs have been struggling to get by on wages which don't keep up with the rate of inflation? Now that the super rich might be taking a hit to their bottom line (and let's face it, they can weather it if they need to), suddenly it's Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress to the rescue?

I would advise everybody receiving one of these checks to pay very close attention to the fine print on this one. I'll be truthful: I don't honestly know whether this is actually a true rebate or simply an advance on your anticipated refund like it was in 2001. Back then, if you cashed your check thinking, "ooh, free money", you were in for a surprise come tax time: that $300 was coming out of your normal refund. Or, if you were one of those who don't try to have big refunds from the IRS every year, you would then have to pay that in. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Be careful, is all I'm saying -- especially those of you with children in low-income households. This "economic stimulus" will not find it's way back to you again. That's the problem with this whole plan: businesses have, of late, been experiencing huge gains in this country. The rich have gotten so rich that they literally don't know what to do with all of their money. All they know is that they couldn't possibly afford to pay any more in taxes. Certainly not to rebuild New Orleans, and certainly not to have properly reinforced the levies in the first place. And they most definitely cannot spare that money on higher wages for all the workers who are making them rich in the first place.

Something has to give, and when it all falls apart, can we count on the rich to do right by the rest of the country and give a little in order to prevent mass starvation and rampant violence? Nah, they'll just withdraw to their gated communities and pay Blackwater mercs to guard them.

New Orleans: No Firehouses Rebuilt

2008-01-25T05:05:00.000-06:00

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans has yet to rebuild a single fire station more than two years after Katrina destroyed or damaged 22 of the city's 33 firehouses. Appalled by the city's lack of action, an actor is leading the way in reconstruction of the fire stations.

"I gave up on ever hoping that politicians in this country -- local, state or federal -- would step in to help these guys," actor Denis Leary told CNN.

Leary, who stars as a firefighter on a TV show called "Rescue Me," is using his charitable foundation to bring together volunteers from a New York carpenter's union and the New Orleans Fire Department to rebuild the stations. So far, they've rebuilt five, with two more slated to be finished in a couple months.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/24/nola.firehouses/

Good on Leary for doing the right thing here, but this is still an absolute outrage. Over two years later, and the city still hadn't rebuilt their fire stations?

WHAT THE FUCK HAVE THEY BEEN DOING THE PAST TWO YEARS!?

Oh, yeah: tearing down housing.

More from the CNN story:

Edward Blakely, the czar of New Orleans recovery effort, appreciates the work from Leary's foundation and volunteers. He said the city has been focusing on rebuilding its police headquarters to combat the growing crime problem.
The police headquarters just recently reopened, now allowing the city to focus on the fire stations, Blakely said.
"We say to the citizens: 'Look, we are going to have a better city. You don't want us to put it back just the way it was. You want us to improve it,' " Blakely said. "That's what we're going to do. That takes a little more time, but it's worth it."

Bullshit! The whole point of this is to destroy the city and turn it into a test-bed for a laissez-faire paradise. Just like Chile under Pinochet, or the current Iraq situation. Thing is, it always turns out disastrously... for the people. The very, very rich always love it because they make out like bandits, which is why they keep doing it over and over again.

They are intentionally destroying the city's infrastructure to "prove" that the government can't do anything right, after which they will privatize every-fucking-thing in sight and buy it all up at a song, turning New Orleans into a Disneyland version of itself. They'll gut the city of its core identity, let the poor starve or leave, or else work for slave wages serving them Hand Grenades at their favorite pubs while faux jazz musicians play for them, since they don't have a soul in their fucking bodies and can't tell the difference between music with feeling behind it and music that's programed by a fucking computer, just like they won't be able to tell the difference between a New Orleans with rich diversity and a real sense of community and a New Orleans ice cream stand whose only flavor is vanilla.

It's a fucking crime, and the people in the rest of our country need to realize two very simple words before they brush this off as somebody else's problem: you're next. If you haven't figured out that they intend to do what they're doing to New Orleans to the rest of the country, then you need to take another look. New Orleans is a test bed. They're going to figure out which little fuck-overs make them money and which ones don't, and then they're going to try it in every other city in America. If they get away with it in New Orleans, it will be much more difficult to stop them anywhere else, because they'll be everywhere else. They'll have a veneer of credibility that will fool a lot of people: "Come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras; you can get your drinks, toss beads, watch young tarts flash their boobs... just like before, but without all the crime and, you know, black people."

The time is now; the battleground is New Orleans. Anybody who can lend a hand, do so:

http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

Hope Will Not Be Televised

2008-01-23T03:28:00.000-06:00

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=273806

Great speeches don't matter if no one hears them. Barack Obama delivered a riveting speech about America's moral crisis this weekend, calling for a united movement to overcome the nation's moral deficit and mounting economic inequality. Political observers praised the address and reporters covered it -- 53 mentions in major papers -- yet it's been largely overshadowed by the escalating fight between Obama and The Clintons, which still dominates this week's media narrative. The candidates and reporters are focused on the fight, a defensible choice given both its impact and the undeniable news of a former U.S. President "spreading demonstrably false information," according to ABC News. But it turns out the public found Obama's speech anyway.
While cable news shows gorge on campaign sparring, Obama's uplifting speech is absolutely dominating YouTube. The 34-minute address from Ebenezer Baptist Church is currently the fourth most viewed video in the world on YouTube, trailing two Britney Spears clips. Not only is that unusual traffic for a long political address – people also like it. On Tuesday, viewers voted it the second most "favorited" video in the world. It also drew the second highest number of incoming links, a key indicator of web interest that drives Google page rankings. About 43 percent of viewers have come from links on Obama's social networking page, MyBO, which encourages supporters to share videos and information with their friends. Other viewers came from apolitical networks, both within YouTube and on other sites. At SomethingAwful, a popular general interest site that proclaims the "Internet makes you stupid," one user wrote that the speech was so good it was worth posting in a non-political forum, attaching the video and text. The single post drew more than 3,000 new viewers in a day.

Here's the speech. It's long, but worth the listen. Seriously.

Please welcome Elizabeth and Pandora

2008-01-22T01:53:00.000-06:00

The Command Post is growing, and we now have four authors contributing to our blog. I've been wanting to turn this blog into a team effort rather than the solo effort that it's been, and I'm pleased with the team that we've assembled so far. Just by having Azul, Pandora, and Elizabeth on board, we've already begun to improve this little blog exponentially. We look forward to seeing some great contributions from each of them.