The Best Article on The Three Lies

Normally I read Mighty God King for the snarky comics commentary and the ever-growing research on how Betty Cooper is insane.  But this weekend a guest commentator posted this great reminder about how and why politicians lie so often:

...But the point still stands, and has in fact stood throughout all of human history. There are certain lies that will always work in politics, no matter how often they’re used, no matter how often they’re debunked, and frequently, even if both the speaker and the listener know they’re lies. Because they’re seductive. They’re things we want to believe are true, and so we let ourselves go along with them because the truth is nasty and unpleasant and the lie is warm and comfortable. There has always been an audience for these lies, and there always will be. The three lies are:
1. It’s somebody else’s fault.
2. There are easy answers.
3. You shouldn’t have to pay for it.

We've seen a lot of those three lies during the recent years-long ruckus over the Democrats' Health Care Reform efforts.  We've seen them nearly every time there's an election year, although in the past ten years or so given the full-campaign-mode politics now operates by we're basically seeing them 24/7.
Each of those lies are easy and seductive.  Isn't it pretty to think that it IS somebody else's fault your work pays you nothing, that your kids aren't learning, that your roads are bumpy and your latte less foamy?  Simplistic, three-word banner-worthy explanations go into the brain so much quicker than a 50-page treatise (wait, you need to know what that word means, right?) that may be more factual but can be soooooo dull.  And this is America: nobody (mostly the upper class... and the middle class... for the poorer class it isn't a question of not wanting, they just honestly can't afford it) wants to pay (screw taxes!) for anything (what do you mean more money means better lattes?) ever.
And so politicians lie.  It's Not Your Fault: BLAME SOCIALISTS.  Hey y'all, I'm one of you so VOTE FOR ME and git er dunn!  And let's CUT THOSE TAXES 'cause that will fix the deficits and force them ebil governments to cut poor people's welfare benefits!
The one thing that guest commentator Seavey doesn't mention, however, is that for all this lying the politicians are NEVER held accountable for it all.  True story.  Every election year these guys head back home as incumbents and for all the anti-incumbent mood the national voters are in, we voters keep sending them back!  After all "It's all them OTHER elected officials who keep lying to ya!  Trust your own dawg, people!"
Sigh.
THIS is why I push for that amendment idea that spells out:

• Lying is NOT protected speech;
• Any elected or government employee caught lying in some form or another (there are different types of lying) will get suspended without pay pending investigation.  If it's proven the person knowingly made a false statement (such as having foreknowledge of actual data or evidence and saying otherwise), they get removed from their job and banned for life from federal employment AND acting as a lobbyist or petitioner to any branch of federal government.

It'd be nice if we ever get to see an amendment like that even get through Congress: I doubt it, as everyone in government is gonna HATE being forced to tell the truth.  PS: there will be an exception made for National Security purposes, of course, but I'd make damn sure what gets listed as National Security gets to be a VERY SMALL list (energy policy is NOT a security concern!).  PSS: If an elected official doesn't WANT to say the truth, he/she could always say "I'm unable to answer that question at this time."  Well, it WOULD be truthful.  PSSS: Anything along the lines of "I don't recall" however should be construed as lying, or else be viewed as brain damage, especially if the idiot says "I don't recall" over 70 times during testimony.
Ahem.  That's a lot of postscripts for a paragraph, I know.
Yes, there is lying in government.  And Yes, these lies are making it harder and harder to get anything fixed in this nation.  So YES, we need to make it punishable to lie.  It's gotta happen, and the sooner the better.

Have I Added Frum and Friedersdorf to My Links Over On The Side?

I've been trying this year - an unwritten new year's resolution - to get my dad weaned off of Glenn Beck and onto more, well, coherent conservative commentators.  Like Marc Ambinder on the Atlantic or even David Frum.  Conor Friedersdorf was recommended to me by people on Ambinder's site.  Sadly, dad's not much of a blog follower and I don't have the parental locks for his FiOS channels to block FOX Not-News.

Still and all, I keep up with them, and for what won't be my last entry about the whole Health Care Reform headache, I found this by Frum about how the Far Right in the Republican leadership (Sen. DeMint's phrasing) declared this would be Obama's Waterloo (bold highlights are mine, some clippage of the original post may occur):

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.
It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:
(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.
(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.
So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:
A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.
At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.
Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. (NOTE: People seem to forget Perot pulled a lot of votes away from Bush the Elder.  Clinton didn't have a true mandate in 1993, although he did well enough in the 1996 election to earn a second term.  Only a GOP-held Congress by then blocked Clinton from re-attempting any left-leaning programs).  The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.
This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.
...No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November (NOTE: unlikely.  Democrats would have to lose more than 55 House seats, when you consider incumbents have a huge advantage even in anti-incumbent public moods.  That's not even considering how the Senate will shake out this midterm), how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? (Answer: none)  How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? (Answer: that would definitely bring on rioters)  How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage?  (Answer: depends on how the parents are getting along with their slacker kids)  And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal? (Answer: surprisingly yes.  But only after he pulls off that rubber mask and reveal he's a lizard alien from Reticula Beta.)

...There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible... I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

So What's It All About Then, This... Health Care Reform You Seek?

Well, the shouting ain't over but the stress on my psyche probably is.

So what exactly are we gonna get out of this Health Care bill just passed?

Here's a link to Politifact about what's NOT in the HCR package: Top 5 Lies About Health Care.

Another link to Politifact about what will happen through this HCR package: Top 10 Facts To Know...

That Top 10 list goes like this (cut and pasted from the Politifact article by Angie Holan, with following comments by me, so the list is accurate but the comments aren't, please do note this. heh):

1. The plan is not a government takeover of health care like in Canada or Britain.  This isn't Single Payer.  For all the yelling and screaming about bureaucrats making medical decisions, the truth is the insurance companies and the hospitals/doctors will still be the go-to people for paying and managing health care.
2. Insurance companies will be regulated more heavily.  Although not every aspect of the insurance industry will be regulated, some caps and restraints on what companies can do will be put in place... by 2014.  While it seems painful that it can take 4 years for this to take effect, there may yet be ongoing efforts between now and then to gradually phase the companies into the new restrictions and guidelines.
3. Everyone will have to have health insurance or pay a fine, a requirement known as the individual mandate. This is the mandate that seems to be causing most of the dissatisfaction with people: it will force people either to pay into an HMO of some kind or else pay fines to the government, without regard if the person can actually afford to do either.  The Public Option proposal - where the government provides a low-cost alternative people could afford - was meant to counter this, but said Public Option ("ZOMG Government Takeover" by the Far Right, "ZOMG Health Insurers Will Dump the Sick and Poor Into It" by the Far Moderate) was too much a sticking point to pass (this time). 
4. Employers will not be required to buy insurance for their employees, but large employers may be subject to fines if they don't provide insurance.  Part of the problem with rising health care costs was how companies - especially the larger firms - couldn't keep up with said costs and were dropping out of HMO plans.  Given the size of the company - over 50 employees - said company is going to have to get health care coverage.  How will the companies afford them?  Tax credits, I believe.  Another option not in this current program but one that could help would be more competition: most states are dominated by one health care company, which means monopolistic (profit at all cost) practices.  Give companies more cost-effective choices and you'll see more businesses able to afford the HMOs.
5. The vast majority of people will not see significant declines in premiums.  Premiums (what you pay out of pocket) won't change for most currently insured.  People in self-paid PPOs might even see their rates go up in the short-term.  What will happen is that the rate of increase for said premiums will ease off: instead of 5 percent to 30 percent rate increases, people will see 1 to 3 percent.
6. The plan might or might not bend the curve on health spending.  Via Holan: "The most recent estimate of the plan, released Thursday by the CBO, said that it would spend $940 billion over 10 years. But new taxes, penalties and cost savings would offset that spending, according to the CBO, so that overall the plan pay for itself, dropping the deficit by slightly $138 billion over 10 years. Obama has said the plan will save more than $1 trillion in the second 10 years, but that estimate, according to the CBO, is highly speculative."  Via me: there are still other aspects of health care spending - promoting more competition with more HMO choices for one - that could go a long way to reduce the costs that were threatening to overwhelm everything.
7. The government-run Medicare program will keep paying medical bills for seniors, but it will begin implementing cost controls on health care providers, mostly through penalties and incentives. There's been evidence for years that Medicare was rife with abuse and waste, adding to the costs.  Hopefully the right things - waste, double billing, other sinful deeds - will get cut as the reforms get implemented.
8. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for the poor, will cover all of the poor, instead of just a few groups the way it currently does.  This might be as close to government-run health care as we'll get.
9. The government won't pay for elective abortions. But the conservatives are still screaming about "baby killers" because of this new health care bill.  For the Love of Ceiling Cat, you wingnuts, not everything should be viewed through that pro-life prism of yours!  Can you consider the slight possibility that now because health care is accessible to all - especially the poor - that expectant mothers can afford to keep their fetuses and raise healthy children?
10. No one is proposing new benefits for illegal immigrants.  That's true: your fruits and vegetables are still going to get picked and packaged by illegals working sick and sneezing on everything.  ENJOY!

I Keep Humming "The Final Countdown"

After years, after months, after so many God-Help-Us moments, it might be over.

We might get a half-baked Health Care Reform bill by the end of tonight.

Yes, the bill won't be perfect.  It's not going to be like any of the other universal health care programs other capitalist nations provide.  But it's a start, it has a few saving graces to it, and other things to make health care better can get added to it later once the Far Right b-llsh-t gets proven wrong.

And maybe now we can get Obama and the Congress to focus on what really matters: GETTING ME A JOB DAMMIT!

Just To Note, This Happened Too

While the media and the political Beltway bubble obsess over the final stages of the Health Care Reform effort, this happened:

President Obama signed a jobs bill into law on Thursday, but declared that the measure, which is intended to spur employment by providing businesses incentives to hire new workers, “is by no means enough.”

Of course it's not enough.  I'm still without a full-time job over here.

The bill itself is pretty meager:

The bill gives employers an exemption from payroll taxes through the end of 2010 on workers they hire who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. It also extends the federal highway construction program, shifts $20 billion to road and bridge building and allows small businesses to accelerate the depreciation on investments they make in equipment, by allowing them to write off purchases of up to $250,000 right away.
But while Mr. Obama began the year vowing to focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” he and the Congressional Democratic leadership have taken a largely incremental approach. Some economists have said the measure Mr. Obama signed will have only a modest impact on unemployment, and Democrats are already planning to follow it up with legislation that would extend more than $30 billion in corporate tax breaks and aid to small businesses.

As you can see, the bill focuses more on construction jobs - which I will admit had been hit hard by the Recession and which does fit into Obama's Stimulus programs - and on providing businesses tax credits to hire people currently unemployed.  But I really don't see anything here that helps where I work.  There's nothing here for library growth or retention - in fact states are still looking at cutting funding for libraries.  There's nothing here directly in technology and computer jobs for my computer skills.

The other problem is that the $15-20 billion in the bill isn't all that much.  Seriously, at the federal level that's kinda cheap.  Considering that having 9.7 percent of the employable population is officially out of work - equal to about what, 27 million Americans? - I would think that any... Actually I don't consider anything much past my own nose right about now when it comes to getting employed.  It's been more than 14 months now that I've been unable to find anything full-time that would hire me, that I could justify as a good hire...  I know I'm being selfish, but there's gotta be a lot of guys and gals just like me - college-educated, struggling, white-collar or office-trained - in the same boat and in no position to go for these 'shovel ready' jobs.  Where's the 'clipboard ready' jobs, eh?

The only two options I'm facing right now are 1) running a write-in campaign for the US Senate or 2) Sending my resume to every CEO job on Wall Street so I can get some of that awesome BONUS moneys.  So what if I lack an MBA?  Those company boards are more clueless than I am when it comes to Economics 101 (hint: Buy Low.  Sell High.  I could write a book on that!...).

Side Note: Making an eBook

I bit the bullet a week ago and ordered the POD service XLibris to make my short story collection Last of the Grapefruit Wars available in eBook format.

There's a few eBook devices out there - Kindle, Sony eReader, Nook - and the publisher has already converted it in Kindle and Sony format (not sure what format Nook uses).

I'm not sure how soon Grapefruit Wars will be available on the market in ebook format and I'm checking every day when it will, but for those of you with an eBook reader... BUY MY BOOK!  BUY IT!  I NEED THE STAT COUNT!  FIVE THOUSAND BUYERS AND I GET A NEW TOASTER OR A BOOK DEAL OR SOMETHING!  Ahem...

Sorry.  Being unemployed and desperate for ANYTHING in terms of income kinda does push the Panic Mode button for me.  I'd be a little more proactive with advertising and all, but with the POD (Print On Demand) system you have to pay for your advertising, and I just don't have the budget for that.  I barely had enough to justify the cost of ebook conversion... but I figure as electronic publishing becomes the norm this is a good investment for now.

Oh, and one more thing.  BUY MY BOOK!  BUY IT!!!

It's Just The Mood I'm In

I'd love to post more often.
There tends to be a lot of things going on in the political scene that I'd love to comment on.
Part of the problem is that most of the time, other people (especially the ones I've got linked to the side here) say things exactly the way I'm thinking, so repeating them gets to feel redundant.
Part of the problem is I have distractions - looking for work, for example, or trying to snap another bout of crippling writer's block - that keep me from the blogging here.
Mostly, though, it's the depression.  I know I got it, I've taken meds for it before, but a shift in work locations ended that and I never got back to it at the new workplace and so...  And then I lost my focus at work, and then I lost my job, and... And part of me doesn't want to use this depression as an excuse, you know?  But it's piling on top of me, one thing feeding the other, and the depression coming from the lack of work and turning right around to discourage me as I look for new work, and so on.
I'd love to go to the doctor's and see about getting back onto some kind of antidepressant, but my COBRA runs out in June and so what's the point of trying to start up a treatment that's not even going to last for 3 months?  It'd be nice if they ever develop an OTC antidepressant that's non-addictive / non-lethal so I wouldn't have to freaking worry about the bills and the medical bureaucracy.
But on the bright side, this prolonged unemployment is giving me motivation to look into running for the US Senate!  Why not?  It's a job, isn't it?  The hours are good and the pay/benefits are great!  So all I gotta do is convince enough Floridians to vote for me as a write-in candidate come November and WOOT!  I got a job.  And I can't be any worse than this SOB who just screwed half the country over for some ego-driven BS (holding up unemployment benefits for 27 million Americans?  Forcing thousands of federal employees out of work?  Smart move, Bunning.  You just proved the liberals and their blogger buddies right about you and your GOP buddies being uncaring BASTARDS).
So vote for me!  Wartenberg in 2010!  I NEED THE WORK!  (Most Honest Campaign Platform Ever.)

Iran: Known as 22 Bahman

Today was (as I'm writing this the day there has passed into night) a big day for Iran.  22 Bahman is the official day of victory for the Iranian Revolution under the Ayatollahs.

And as such the protesters against Ayatollah Khamenei's rule were out in force.  Even as the ones in power (Khamenei and his presidential puppet Ahmadinejad) tried to control the media both inside and out, and as they tried to present themselves as firmly in control (only by force, not by popular acclaim).

Sullivan (and his blog wranglers) payed attention for the whole day.  The link here is to a wrap-up: check the rest of his site for the various updates and retorts.

The only thing keeping Khamenei in power now is his corrupt personal army/police and basij street thugs.  They have the guns, but the Iranian people have the numbers and the will.

Just pray to God this all ends with as little bloodshed as possible.  And that it ends soon.

More About Secret Holds and the Failure of the U.S. Senate

It's like, OMG OMG I had a commentator post on my blog!  I had someone comment on my Calcification entry about the abusive Senatorial tool known as Secret Holds.

Just like to say a Big Hi and Thanks to ye for commenting.  And you mentioned that you were doing research on these Holds for your government class?  Well, here's a link to Balloon Juice just recently that will highlight a bit more about how Secret Holds are getting abused nowadays (which is also a link to Talking Points Memo, who do a decent job of keeping track of these sort of political con games):

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.
“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily’s Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”
The Mobile Press-Register picked up the story early this afternoon. The paper confirmed Reid’s account of the hold, and reported that a Shelby spokesperson “did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation of the senator’s action or his reason for doing so.”

The TPM entry notes that Shelby is attempting to extort (there is no other word for it) the Obama administration into sending millions of earmark money to his state that they're trying to cut back.  While this is happening, our government is denied key people at key positions, meaning more backlog of work and more chances of screw-ups and mismanagement.  Worst of all, Shelby's not even blocking these nominations for ideological reasons.  If he was blocking them because he feared any of those 70 nominations were pro-choice or pro-union... well, that'd still suck but at least there'd be some excuse.  He's just doing it for the damn money!

As I mentioned in my Calcification thread, this is yet another example of how the legislative system is broken: its' responsibility to provide a check/balance to the executive branch twisted into an abuse of power and yet another grab at government pork (sing with me!  They want the moooooooonnneeeeeyyyy ah, It's what they want).

Get rid of Secret Holds, limit Filibustering, and maybe, just you know maybe, we might get a working Congress again.

UPDATE (2/11/2010): As of now, Shelby has given up the blanket hold, releasing all but three nominations (all of the three are military appointments) after the massive negative publicity (Republicans couldn't claim that "Democrats do it too": a blanket hold like that was unprecedented, period.).  This still doesn't change the underlying problem: HOLDS ARE UNDEMOCRATIC.  Get rid of the Damn Holds.

Oh God No Not Now! I Was Gonna Go Hand Obama My Resume!

Cough.

Sniffle.

Cough cough cough.

Gahhhhh, sore throat.

...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo...

Damn you, flu season!  I was going to go see Obama in Tampa today!  I was going to pass along my resume, and get hired in the West Wing, and hopefully get Josh's office and flirt shamelessly with a Donna-type, except you know more brunette-ish, and you know get off the unemployed schnide and everything!  But the Secret Service isn't gonna let my sick ass anywhere near the guy!  NOOOOOoooooooooo...

Off to the walk-in clinic.  Sob cough cough.

If Obama ever reads this, be grateful I was thinking of your well-being.  Now, HIRE ME!!!  (glances about) there's gotta be a way to attach mah resume here...

Notes and Observations for the End of Jan. 2010

Wow.  A month's already come and gone just about.  I wanted to write about the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling, but that's taking more thought than planned, so hopefully later.

Just these tidbits:

• Tonight is Obama's State of the Union speech.  Also known as the Let's-Try-Bipartisanship-Some-More Surrender speech.
  
• A week after crowing that the Massachusetts Special Election victory for Brown meant that Democrats Lose Forever and that Republicans Are ALWAYS Right, the Far Right is already complaining that their Savior Brown is more moderate with his voting record and habits, and more deferential to the likes of Sen. McCain, than they'd realized.  Coming on the fact that the RNC is going to vote soon on that Purity Test proposal, the fact that their current elected darling wouldn't have passed the purity isn't going over well...

• Speaking of GOP disappointments, their hopes of that young lad O'Keefe being the next conservative media darling took a huge hit this week with his federal FELONY arrest for attempting to wiretap a Senator's home office in Louisiana.  Given how O'Keefe operates - clownish undercover 'sting' operations designed to make ACORN look bad - this may have been in his mind another 'prank' or something similar.  But dude, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and wiretapping (if you're not FBI or NSA) tends to be ILLEGAL.  Especially if the person you're tapping is a sitting US Senator WHO HAPPENS TO BE ON THE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE.  /facepalm
  There is, of course, a lot more to this case than at first glance.  Still and all... BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Ta-Nehisi was right: this was a sweet flagon of Schadenfreude...

• Obama is planning to visit Tampa tomorrow as part of his tour to promote the White House's suggested plan to create jobs in this harsh economy promote high speed rail construction to create jobs.  Great.  That means I don't have to drive up to DC now to drop off my resume, I can just hand it to him while he's here... whadda ya mean, the Secret Service agents will take it?  Fine.  Just don't... (agent tosses the resume on top of a pile of 50,000 other resumes)... well, just fine... sigh.

So, how goes it in your part of the world?

In the Aftermath of Yet Another Political Debacle

...where the Republicans win through attrition and voters-with-short-attention-spans and the Democrats lose despite a hefty majority in both Houses all because they have no party discipline at all and tend to jump at their own shadows.

A whole year of political warfare, fighting over health care reform that the Democrats should have had signed and ready by last March, having had 20 no make that 60 YEARS of knowing what needed to be done and STILL wasting this year bickering over the details.  And while they bickered, no interest or exertion paid towards the more growing issues of job losses, growing unemployment, insanely criminal CEO bonuses, anything else that would be bothering the 67 million to 250 million Americans still bearing the pains and paying the bills of our current Great Recession (Dear Talking Heads: IT'S STILL A RECESSION).

More to say later, mostly on the economic problems this nation faces.

You know that A+ Exam stuff I was stressing over the past 12 months?

I passed the 602 IT Technician exam today.

FINALLY!

/Dances like a white boy

Glory!  Glory Hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler... what, you don't know that tune?  Sigh.

Okay now, you job listings for IT Techs!  HERE!  COME!  THE DRUMS!

/Dances like a white boy some more

What to Expect from the MA Senate Special Election 2010

Madness, above all sheer inhuman madness.

Dear Massachusetts voters: where you NOT PAYING ATTENTION?  WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!

What had been viewed as an easy pick-up for the Democrats in filling recently deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat has turned into a down-to-the-wire election nail-biter.

Problems abound regarding this election.  The Democratic candidate, Coakley, has turned out to be one of the worst campaigners ever, having spent the earlier parts of the election just coasting, all the while presenting a resume with a few embarrassments on it.  Meanwhile the Republican candidate, Brown, is turning out to be nowhere near the 'moderate' Republican that New Englanders tend to like, showing up with a history of sucking up to Teabaggers and Birthers and pushing a hard pro-life platform.

But the biggest problem is if Republican Brown wins.  If he does, this will happen:

• The Faux-News mob - the Becks and Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Coulters and Malkins and Hannitys and their proxies - will announce that it means EVERYONE HATES OBAMA AND OBAMA SHOULD RESIGN AND PUT CHENEY IN CHARGE AND CUT ALL TAXES AND END THE STIMULUS AND WORSHIP PAT ROBERTSON AND EVERYTHING F-CKING ELSE AT THIS VOLUME FOR THE NEXT TWENTY GODDAMN YEARS.  Or they die of heart attacks, heat strokes or poisoned air, whichever comes first.  The Republican Noise Machine will explode in celebration obviously, especially because the seat once belonged to the Liberal Lion Ted Kennedy, but they will overreact and claim it a great victory for the Far Right's ideology - Tax Cuts Always, No Health Care Reform Ever, Block All Appointments, Bomb Iran, Torture Everyone, and Deregulate Every Industry - even though the more direct evidence is that 1) Massachusetts voters are more underwhelmed with Coakley as a choice and 2) Republican voters are more motivated at the moment than Democratic ones.

That's pretty much how the Republican response will be.  The Democratic Response to a Brown victory goes two ways:

• The Democrats as a whole will panic.  Which is actually typical for them.  They will attempt to push the Senate form of the Health Care reform package so they can get it done and signed before Brown can be seated, but the more progressive left of their party might rebel against it and split their own party.  The possibility of no health care reform at all for the next 4-10 years becomes even more dire.  The more conservative and centrist of the Democrats - the Blue Dogs - might openly side with the GOP more often, and could well switch parties.  Nothing substantial gets passed for the next year as the Democratic Senate fails to find any way of breaking the Cloture/Filibuster firewall the Republicans will be sure to enact.  Considering the ongoing problems with unemployment, immigration reform, and climate change, the lack of action from Congress could actually exacerbate those problems, and people will turn against the Democrats rather than the Republicans who are the assholes blocking any fix and was the party in power that caused all these problems in the first place.
  
• The Democrats decide to man up and take on the obstructionist Republicans.  Given most of the Dem leadership, this is sheer wish fulfillment.  But in this scenario, the Democrats decide to scuttle the rule of Filibuster, or else take everything that can go into Reconciliation votes as much as possible.  In this scenario, the Dems go on the offensive with an immigration reform package similar to the one Bush the Lesser proposed back in 2006, the same one which sent the Far Right into a race-raged tailspin that pretty much drove half the Hispanic vote - the largest growing voting bloc - to the Democrats.  The Dems could also push very public attempts to reform the financial markets and force the large banks to cut back on their overtly greedy CEO superbonuses, which would kill any 'populist' image the Republicans are trying to sell themselves with for the midterms.  While the Far Right will riot, it's not going to be any different than the bad behavior they're pulling now anyways.

In the case Coakley pulls out a win, either because the Dem Political Machine wakes up or the voters sober up, this is what will happen:

• The Teabagger-driven GOP will continue to act like total bastards.  The Democrats will sigh a big sigh of relief and go back to avoiding their own shadows.  In short, nothing will change.  Ahh.

Yes, Coakley is not a good choice.  BUT BROWN IS A WORSE CHOICE.  For the LOVE OF GOD, Massachusetts, vote SANE.

Haiti

This hasn't been a very good week for the nation of Haiti.

Then again, it hasn't really been a very good century or two for them either.

Link here to charities providing aid and supplies.  Some of the phone lines allow you to send a Text request, it will bill you $10 or so depending on the charity straight to your phone bill, which people are finding easy to implement.

My knowledge of Haiti comes from my job and my studies in History.  My first full-time employment was at North Regional BCC Library where I was assigned collection development duties in the History/Travel section.  The library was joint-use with the community college and the students had a World History program that had them do term papers on a specific country.  Given the large expat population from the Caribbean, we had a huge demand on Jamaica and Haiti.  Maddeningly, there weren't a lot of books on Jamaica available for purchase at the time, but Haiti... ah, Haiti had hundreds, and I was able to broaden the collection on that topic.

Haiti's history has been, and is now, very messy and pretty heartbreaking.  The island and its population never really seem to get a fair shake once the Europeans show up.  Even when the slave population rose up in response to the American and French Revolutions, the European powers still attempted invasions and attempts to recapture the island.  By 1825, the French were able to force a treaty on Haiti that granted Haiti its independence but forced reparation payments that were so severe the country wasn't able to pay them off until somewhere in the 20th century.  Because of that, Haiti remained impoverished, and the nation began a long, painful cycle of coups that kept their government destabilized.  And because Haiti was so unstable, foreign nations - Britain, Spain, France again, Germany at a later point, and the United States - kept interfering, ostensibly to fix the government but - accidentally or intentionally - perpetuating the cycle of coups and adding to the amount of foreign debt to Haiti's bill.

After the U.S. occupation of 1915-34, Haiti had finally achieved some stability at great cost, and still a huge debt that siphoned funds to foreign creditors at the expense of improving the nation's economy.  The occupation also created a border dispute with the Dominican Republic that led that led to genocide and a violent discriminatory policy against Haitians.

And then in 1957, the Duvalier family took over.  Because of the ongoing Cold War and the rise of Communist Cuba that kept the United States wavering between concern and inaction for Haiti, and shady business interests that fed off the corruption, the likes of Papa Doc and Baby Doc were able to build their cults of personality and maintain their death squads and their insane destruction of their own nation.  By 1986, Baby Doc was driven out, but the damage done.  Subsequent attempts to rebuild led to more coups, more government instability, more American intervention that really hadn't ended yet.  And now, with the massive earthquake disaster this week, more instability... more suffering.

The people of Haiti have really suffered.  All of history... living as slaves... fighting for freedom... caught under waves of military takeovers and oppression... fiscally drained economies from corruption and foreign debt... natural disasters on a near-annual basis - all those hurricanes, never a chance to rebuild properly, and now this earthquake, ye Gods...

The people of Haiti need our help.

I *Really* Shouldn't Have Done This...

But what the hell? Only the brave achieve success through risk.

Just posted via the Contact Us link at the White House's official website:

Hi. I may be traveling to the Baltimore/DC area with my parents in a few weeks on family matters. While I'm up there, as I'm unemployed I'm looking to visit a few places that might be hiring to see about applying and dropping off resumes. May I ask where I can visit at the White House so I can drop off my resume, chat up a HR contact person, and perhaps leave the subtle suggestion that you guys need to hurry up getting us 10 percent unemployed people, you know, back to good jobs? Please email back at your convenience.

I'm going to be in so much trouble, aren't I? :-) I might have mispeeled convenience... oh no, I didn't. Whew. Good, they're not gonna grab me for poor grammar.

Schadenfreude and Our Nation's Inability to Prioritize

Sorry for the bland entry title, but just "schadenfreude" itself would have been too vague...

The point of this article? A new book published: "Game Change," an insiders' account as it were about the 2008 Presidential campaign. It's mostly about the personalities involved - Obama, the Clintons, the McCains, Palin, the Edwards. And it's mostly about watching them and the minor sideline characters act like crazed, overly emotional, territorial, gossipy, back-stabbing teenagers.

How much entertainment value will this book have? Tons.

How much practical, enlightening value will this book have? None.

Basically, all the book does is show how real people act when they're away from the cameras and public niceties: usually self-centered, self-pitying, self-everything. But the book doesn't provide ideas or information that could actually improve our nation's situation, improve our economy, promote better policies, any of that. It's just a 300-page-plus tabloid selling for 35 bucks at the nearest Books-A-Million.

Problem is, this book and the 'scandalous' behavior revealed in its pages are going to be the TOP STORY OF THE DAY across the mainstream media. They're talking about it on all the cable news. And there's already buzz over 'scandalous' statements that Sen. Majority Leader Harry "Why Did I Take This Job?" Reid made about Obama's "racial appeal"... namely that Reid used the word "Negro". The Republicans and their media dogs are already screaming for his scalp, claiming Reid's statements are no different than Sen. Trent Lott's - back in, when was it, 2005? - when Lott waxed nostalgic about Strom Thurmond's 1948 "segregation forever" campaigning. Actually, Reid's statements are in the positive, whereas Lott's were in the negative. Truth? Reid's statements are no different than Rush Limbaugh's... so if Reid has to go, so should Rush. WHEN CAN WE EXPECT YOUR RETIREMENT, RUSH?

Sigh. See where this is going? NOWHERE. While all of Washington is buzzing over this crap, this nation is, in no special order:
1) losing thousands of jobs A DAY;
2) facing more financial failures due to failed regulation enforcement;
3) refusing to feed our kids, rebuild our schools, save our communities;
4) failing to fix our broken health care system;
5) allowing criminal malfeasance by our corporate overlords that will eventually doom us all

Where, I ask, are our priorities? Why aren't the papers and the media outlets FOCUSING ON MORE PRESSING MATTERS?!

Because of the old axiom: If it bleeds, it leads. Pain, suffering, human comedy in the form of watching others act like jerks and losers. The crap that makes up our gossip pages. Those type of stories trump policy issues every time.

Well, that should change. That should end. Rather than satisfy our more base urges, the damn media needs to frakking prioritize. They need to FOCUS ON THE STORIES THAT WE NEED TO KNOW, not on the stories that we want to indulge.

I recommend this legislation:

• That for free speech to be truly free, any publication or media outlet wanting full First Amendment protection must operate as non-profit. That noise you just heard was Rush Limbaugh screaming about his $100 million contract.
• All for-profit media must be regulated as a business - that is, with due regard for liability, accuracy and quality of product.
• Quality of media product can be defined by a list of ranking the importance of any particular news item. That is, news of vital interest - War, Business, Policy changes - will rank above news of prurient interest - Sex, Drugs, Inane human behavior.
  For example, a White House administrator forcing a lower-ranked official to lie to Congress about the future costs of a massive Medicare/Pharma buyout package will rank 10 points above a President lying about getting blowjobs from a college-age office intern. Seriously, honestly, which of those two acts have proved the more harmful to our nation? The lying about costs, obviously, is far more damaging than a guy lying about blowjobs. But guess which one still gets coverage in the news all these years later?

If we can get our mainstream media to better prioritize our news, the more likely our citizenry will be better informed, more motivated to act politically, and more likely our politicians will answer to the people than to their lobbyist paymasters.

UPDATE. It's been awhile since I've linked to Greenwald, so here he is bemoaning the media's obsession with gossip:

The real value of a book like this lies in the opportunity it presents for Washington's elite class to distract themselves and everyone else from the oozing corruption, destruction, decaying and pillaging going on -- that these same Washington denizens have long enabled. With some important exceptions, that is the primary purpose of establishment journalism generally. Even better, the book lets our media and political elite -- and then the public generally -- feel good about themselves by morally condemning the trashy exploits of Rielle Hunter and the egoistic hypocrisies of the irrelevant John and Elizabeth Edwards. As The Nation's Chris Hayes so perfectly put it: "Just when you think the news cycle can't get any stupider, Mark Halperin publishes a book." All imperial courts -- especially collapsing ones -- love to occupy themselves with insular, snotty trivialities. As this book and the excitement it has produced demonstrates, providing that distraction is exactly what our press corps most loves to do and what it does best. The media sleazebags who turned Bill Clinton's penile spots, cigars and semen stains into headline news for two straight years haven't gone anywhere; they're actually stronger and more dominant than ever.

It's time to do something about it.

Just a Friendly Reminder for this New Year 2010

Just to remind all seven people who've read this blog over the last three years, considering this is a Congressional midterms election (2010 midterms):

The Republican Party were the ones in charge from 2000 to 2006 in Congress alongside eight years 2000 to 2008 in charge of the White House under Bush the Lesser, and during those six years their financial and budgetary performance was one of the worst in American History. The Republicans spent and borrowed like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards, wasting money on two wars (billions lost and unaccounted for), wasting money on an unfunded Medicare / Big Pharma payout (still one of the biggest under-reported scandals of the last decade!), and creating massive unjustifiable tax cuts that never 'trickled down' or 'paid for themselves' but instead creating massive deficits THAT DO MATTER. The Republicans do not have the right to call themselves 'Fiscally Responsible' for the next ten generations... and yet here they come in 2010, claiming the banners of "Let's Worry About Deficits Now" and "Let's Tighten Spending" simply because they no longer control the purse strings.
Try to remember people, when the Republicans controlled the purse strings they didn't worry about deficits and they were worse with spending than the Democrats have been since LBJ. And try to note this: the maniacs currently in charge of the Republican Party WANT TO GO BACK TO WHAT THEY WERE DOING FROM 2000 to 2006! They want, if they get back in charge of Congress, they want to CUT MORE TAXES! They want to CUT MORE REGULATIONS IN FINANCE AND BUSINESS where previous times of deregulation (SEE: 2002 and 2008) nearly killed the entire planet's economy! They want to START MORE WARS in the Middle East (Bomb Iran! Bomb Yemen (well, worse than we already are now)! Bomb Iraq some more!) Okay? Do you get it, America? Can you wake up for a moment and take a good look at the current GOP? THEY THINK THEIR IDEOLOGY WAS WORKING IN THE LAST DECADE, THEY DIDN'T CARE THE ECONOMY WAS IN THE CRAPPER AND THEY DIDN'T CARE THE WAR ON TERROR WAS MISMANAGED ALL TO HELL, ALL UNDER THEIR WATCH. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT VOTE THE REPUBLICANS BACK INTO POWER! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY!

If you seriously think the Democrats today after one year in power are far worse than how the Republicans were (and still are) from 2000 on, and that we need to go back to the GOP leadership that nearly bankrupted this country, there is something seriously wrong with you.

This message has been brought to you by a disgruntled ex-GOP Moderate who's putting in membership for the Modern Whigs. So there.

Last Thing to Say About 2000-2009

Goodbye and good riddance.

On a personal note, my loss of employment, and growing atrophy of whatever social skills I have left.

On a broader scale, the entire Bush the Lesser era should be viewed by historians as one of the greatest debacles - two quagmire wars, prolific spending and massive deficits, cultural warfare, an entire political/media culture without accountability - in American history. Forget any nostalgic feeling for the 1970s, of which there are actually few (Star Wars, the advent of punk). The 2000s were horrifying.

See ya all in 2010.

Blood In The Streets

There's blood in the streets it's up to my ankles/
Blood in the streets it's up to my knee/
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago Ashura/
Blood on the rise, it's following me...
-- The Doors "Peace Frog"

The rioting in Iran is getting worse. People are dying in the streets again, rumors and unconfirmed stories flying everywhere. The regime might have killed Mousavi's nephew. Mousavi himself may be in a hospital.

Additional reports that there are some police refusing to fire on protesters. The scary thing is still the same as from June: whether or not the regular Iranian army gets involved. The Revolutionary Guard is clearly with Khamenei, but the army is still on the fence...

If you've got friends and family over there, I pray they stay safe. I've said in earlier posts that this kind of violence was still possible, and truly it can get worse. If only, if only... If only Khamenei realizes he's not going to win no matter how many bodies pile up at his feet...