Been Trying For Days to Think of a Coherent Argument In Defense of Unions, But the Best I Got Is "Damn You To Hell, Koch Brothers"

The recent fight in Wisconsin (and now other GOP-held states) over Governor Walker's attempt to break the public unions by restricting their rights and basically eliminating unions' right to collectively bargain deserves a ton of commentary, but I can't necessarily come up with anything refined like an essay on the issues.  It's mostly sheer rage at the gall of the Republicans that they are so blatant about going after workers' unions during a jobless economic recession.

So here instead are some links:

Huffington Post article about how union members REALLY ARE NOT THAT OVERPAID.

A reporter faking he was "David Koch", one of the deepest pockets among the GOP financial backers, was able to bluff his way past staffers to get a one-on-one with Governor Walker, who amiably chatted about how he was gonna bust the unions and provide a role model for other GOP governors to do the same.  Jokes about using violence, and a serious discussion on hiring people to infiltrate the protesters to incite violence were part of the discussion


That Walker was planning to trick the absent Democratic senators back to the state under the pretense of negotiation... and then force a quorum to allow the legislature to push through his anti-union bill... means that if those Democrats had any goddamn brain cells in them they'd best wait on returning until Walker can get recalled out of office.  Unfortunately, that's gonna take a year at least...

A review of Walker's planned budget is being labeled a "Bait and Switch".  Meaning it's gonna screw honest people the hardest.

The fact that a guy claiming to be a deep-pocket financial backer can get a direct call to the governor, while ordinary citizens and the press get nothing but static, highlights the serious problem of access that the wealthy have to our politicians.

And the legal and ethical ramifications of what Walker said are floating about the intertubes.

One other thing: Unions don't kill state budgets.  Weak housing markets (and I can attest to that here in "right to work" non-union Florida with its' collapsed home ownership/property development market) do.

Moderated Thread At 1:10 PM

I figure if I wanna increase more traffic I need to host more Open Threads.

However...

The blog's not set up for Open Thread.  You will need ID.

It's yours.

Damage Done: Rick Scott Kills The Rail

I'll get straight to the facts: Rick "WHAT PART OF MEDICARE FRAUD DID YOU VOTERS OVERLOOK" Scott killed the $2.4 billion high speed rail project that was set to build between Tampa and Orlando.

How big a deal is this?

This was what was called "shovel-ready": A project that had been in the planning stages long enough that the federal and state governments had set aside land to begin installing the rails.  The recent roadwork done to I-4 (the interstate connecting Tampa and Orlando) had space set aside for the trains.  It was ready to go.  All they needed was to start the bidding between private contractors to start construction.

And Scott killed it.

The high speed rail is part of Obama's push to upgrade our nation's aging infrastructure.  We haven't had new rail lines installed in ages, decades, and the old rails use old engine technology.  The newer systems are faster, cleaner, updated.  Nearly every industrialized nation uses rail, and all of them are upgrading to the high-speed rails.  Except here in the United States, where the teabagger reactionaries of the Far Right view high-speed rail as a government boondoggle of wasteful spending.  Regardless of the fact the rail projects have been paid for (via creative accounting and shuffling of stimulus funding).

So Scott, who caters to the teabagger crowd, killed it.  Because anything Obama wants the teabaggers hate, so Scott killed it.

Scott's reasoning was that the train project would suffer cost overruns.  Not true: the contract bids with the private companies insisted up front that the public will not pay for the overruns (meaning the company who gets the bid has to eat it if overruns do happen).

Scott even got it into his head that the money for the rail is now Florida's to control, and had asked the federal agency issuing the funds to see about spending the money on more roads in Florida.  And this is where he's really screwing up, because he either didn't know or didn't care to know: The money was earmarked (yes, that word) for the high-speed rail ONLY.  That if the state's governor rejected the money for the rail construction, the money gets pulled back into the federal pool and gets shipped off to another state that WILL take that money for their high speed rail plans.

Personally, I didn't care one way or another that we were getting a high speed rail between Orlando and Tampa.  I'm not in construction so the job growth potential didn't directly affect me.  I would prefer getting funding to create a light rail train system within the Tampa Bay metro to connect all major points between Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.  But I understood the value the high speed rail would have for our state's tourism.  Connecting Orlando (AKA Mickeytown) and their theme park meccas of Disney, Universal, Sea World and others to the Tampa Bay metro with sports teams and some of the best beaches on the planet made tons of sense to boost our tourism trade.  This is Florida.  Tourism is our Number Two industry (illegal drug trafficking is sadly Number One).  And there was evidence from existing high speed rails that tourism gets boosted by 20 percent.

So Scott said NO to the high speed rail money, and now it's getting sent to other states.  Other states with massive unemployment who will take that money in a heartbeat to hire more construction workers and generate more jobs and improve their states economies.  States that can boost their own tourism and travel businesses while Florida suffers with traffic jams and car pileups on I-4.

Oh, and to cap this whole thing?  Scott made his decision on his own: he did not discuss the matter with legislature leaders, he did not consult the state's Transportation office, he did not set up a committee or open hearing on the matter, he did not wait for a current committee to report their findings (things he promised to do during the election, by the by).  Scott basically did this by imperial decree.

How big a deal is this?

Almost the entire state exploded in rage when word got out.  The media, already skeptical of Scott's performance his first month in office, dumped on his decision with no one defending him. (If Scott has any defenders in the media, I've yet to find it.  Then again, I don't read Weekly Standard or National Review much)

Worse for Scott, his fellow Republicans at the state legislature and federal Congressional level are openly rebelling against his move.  Normally the party would back the governor to avoid public rifts that could weaken the party's hold.  Not happening this time.  Republicans along the I-4 corridor - viewed by political hacks as a key Republican voting bloc - are reaching out to the Transportation Department to convince them to hold onto the money and wait for someone to smack some goddamn sense in Scott's bald noggin (already California and New York are asking after the $2.4 billion.  Gee, thanks Scott).  How this affects Scott's interaction with the state legislature is still open for debate, but he's got to be losing friends by the hour in Tall Hassle...

To the 2.5 million Floridians who voted Rick "I JUST KILLED JOBS" Scott to run our state.  Next time you're stuck in five hours of traffic on sixty miles of highway between Tampa and Orlando, turn your A/C off and roll the windows up and SUFFER.  And wonder why all the tourists are flocking to where they have high speed rail.  And wonder why our state's economy is still floundering at 12 percent unemployment (or worse).

P.S.  Anyone else notice how having a "CEO as President/Governor" doesn't REALLY work too well?  A CEO or head of a company may work well in a corporate setting where decisions have to be made top-down and things are viewed as "Zero Sum".  But the public sector (government and non-profits) operate toward different objectives and require more collective action.  Worse still, the CEOs who DO tend to run for office?  Not exactly the "Best of the Best" when it comes to business leadership...

P.S.S. To all fellow Floridians.  This might be of interest: Awake the State.

Finally

Remember Shirley Sherrod, whose NAACP speech got edited by Breitbart to make her appear as a reverse-racist?

She finally filed a lawsuit on his sorry ass.

Prepare to watch as Brietbart tries to twist himself in every direction to make himself the victim of all this.  He'll have help, obviously, as his Far Right mongers have to worry that a successful suit against their waves of lie after lie the last twenty years will bring an end to their money-making Machine of Fear.

Breitbart Delendus Est.

Proof Why Rick Scott Is Gonna Be A Terrible Governor

It's not the damage he's going to do to Florida's schools.  Kinda knew that he was going to destroy public education from Day One.

It's not the damage he's going to do to Florida's environment.  A fragile ecosystem like ours - the threat of drought, water toxicity, etc - was never the concern of conservatives obsessed with land development even in a market incapable of selling new (or even existing) properties.

It's not the damage he's going to do to Florida's social net - the cuts to public employee jobs, killing off service departments, forcibly privatizing services that will actually be MORE EXPENSIVE - in order to justify massive tax cuts to corporations that take everything from the state and GIVE NOTHING BACK.

No.  The proof that Rick Scott is going to be a terrible Governor is how he's ruining the lives in OTHER STATES by seeking to kill a proposed law that would regulate pharmacies by tracking prescription drugs.

Why is this a big deal?

Something called "pill mills".  Thanks to the law, any "pharmacy" in this state can open up to sell medications - pain-killers like Oxycodone - that are perfectly legal but have to be regulated as they are narcotic and deadly when overdosed.  These pill mills create a system where people can come in "claiming" they need pain-killers, get a "doctor" to sign off on a high dosage, and buy them by the hundreds.  The people can then travel to other states that tightly regulate pain-killers and sell the pills on a street corner.  It's hard to arrest a pain-killer seller as the pills ARE legal (you have to prove intent, usually if the dealer is packing tons of the pills).

Florida is currently the nation's primary source of "pill mills".  Thanks to one thing: we currently have no means of tracking prescriptions.  A law passed in 2009 but not yet implemented would do that.  Scott and his pro-business buddies in the State Lege want to kill that law before it even starts, citing it as an "Orwellian" step over our state's medical records.

The problem with allowing these "pill mills" to continue operating is obvious: those pain-killers can be lethal.   There's reportedly seven deaths A DAY in Florida alone.  People get addicted to them pretty quickly too.  And because of their legality (under regulation), pain-killers are easier to get than cocaine and heroin (and maybe even meth).

Scott's excuse that the prescription tracking is "Orwellian" flies in the face of logic.  Other medical records and other prescriptions are tracked all the time.  Considering the massive War On Drugs (with billions spent going after marijuana, one of the least deadly drugs out there), would Scott consider attempts to regulate medical marijuana usage "Orwellian" as well?  Probably not.

Here's Scott's real reason for wanting to kill this regulation:  It's a regulation.  Period.  The Far Right in this country have hate-filled obsessions, one of which is regulations (the others are taxes, Social Security, voting rights, abortion, sex ed, evolution, and freedom marches in other countries).  If there's a regulation on how a business operates, even if that regulation is there to SAVE LIVES, the Far Right wants it gone and gone yesterday.

Here's another reason: Scott's background in medical services.  Not only was he a MASSIVE MEDICARE FRAUD when he ran an HMO, he went on to establish clinics and pharmacies (like Solantic or Pharmaca) to increase his personal wealth.  He's got ties to the state's pharmaceutical industry... an industry that's profiting one way or another from having these "pill mills" stay open.  They profit: he profits.  It's that simple, and that scary.

Forty-two other states have a similar database system in place.  The state office that was supervising it had garnered private grants to begin its funding (it wasn't costing taxpayers much of anything).  There is no reason to oppose such a common-sense program that could well help Florida save millions in law enforcement costs and drug abuse treatments.

Except for one reason: Rick Scott is a greedy-ass crook.  And a terrible governor.

To the 2.5 million Floridians who voted for Scott: I hope your family members are pain-killer addicts.  It's called Karma, enjoy it.

(I know I shouldn't be mean-spirited, but how the hell else you gonna get through to the Far Right how screwed up their priorities and obsessions are?)

Good Work, Egypt. Just Remember, This Is Round One

President Mubarak of Egypt, after 30 years of authoritarian rule, stepped down from office today.  The country's leadership is pretty much been sacked by the military in a de facto coup (not by overt actions by the military, but by the fact the Egyptian army was the only branch of government still working).

This all happened on what was the 18th day of nationwide protests, following in the wake of Tunisia's popular uprising earlier in January.  The protest themselves ebbed and flowed but never abated.  After Mubarak attempted to send out pro-government thugs into the streets to intimidate both the media and the protesters into fleeing, the protests regained their focus and resolve.

The tipping point had to be last night's speech by Mubarak.  The whole world had come to believe it was going to be an official announcement he would resign.  Instead, Mubarak went into full "I'm Indispensable" Mode that dictators operate from: he insisted he wouldn't leave until September when elections were scheduled, he offered patronizing words about how he had always been so protective and faithful to Egypt, and blamed "outsider" influences on the chaos now wracking the nation.

It was, basically, the most tone-deaf speech in history (well, other than anything Jefferson Davis ever said as President of the Confederacy.  I'd name a few others, but that delves into Godwin territory...).

Mubarak clearly had no grasp of the situation outside his circle of handlers and allies.  The mobs in the streets were overwhelming in their desire to have Mubarak leave office (and even further, leave the country).  Leave as in right now.  Not in September.  Not in six months when he could pretend everything this month never happened and then never leave.  The people of Egypt by 100-to-1 (rough estimates) wanted Mubarak gone.  And he never grasped that basic reality (that link to the New Yorker article highlights how dictators ALWAYS view themselves as so indispensable to nations they forced to love them.)  It had to take a public desertion by a key ally (the head of Mubarak's political party) and most likely a ton of behind-the-scenes shouting matches by the generals to get Mubarak to concede and resign.

And so, the good news: we are bearing witness to one of those rare global moments of pure joy.  I've seen several in my lifetime: the People Power movement of the Philippines, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the balloting of a post-apartheid South Africa, the crowds at Grant Park as Obama won in 2008.  And now this.  Tunisia was the first nation in this wave of Arab uprisings, but that had all happened off-camera (almost no coverage by the West outside of the blogs and social networks).  Egypt, however, is a key Arab nation, and this had been going on for weeks.  Every news channel has a camera on this now, and the images of the joy were a thing of beauty.

Now, here's the rough news.  You guys have to rebuild the nation.

There's a reason, well three or four reasons, you Egyptians rose up in protest.  Mostly due to a bad economy.  High unemployment, high food prices, corrupt business leaders, and additional.  The unemployment crisis in Egypt is worse than the United States (!), with 20somethings struggling to find work.  Poverty is everywhere.

I don't envy whoever has to take charge of Egypt over the next few years.  (I'm thinking the Muslim Brotherhood's promise to not run any candidate for the presidency is a smart, long-term plan.  Whoever takes the job now has the thankless task of fixing everything.  All the Brotherhood has to do is sit back a few years, wait for the frustration to boil, and THEN make a power grab...).  The next President has to get the wealthy of his nation to spread the wealth downward, lessen corruption, increase job growth, lessen poverty conditions, secure more food supplies, and quite possibly guarantee the Egyptian soccer team wins the next World Cup.  Like I said, a thankless and borderline impossible job.

The best suggestion I have to the Egyptian people is this: do not lose sight of the goal.  The goal is an open and just government.  Justice guarantees honest oversight of the economy.  Honest oversight leads to a strong economy.  A strong economy gets you jobs and food on the tables.

The task of building an open and just government is difficult.  And it is ongoing.  The United States is a perfect example.  For all our belief in American Exceptionalism, ours is still a nation in progress.  We only secured the right for women to vote less than 100 years ago.  Blacks and other minorities were discriminated into non-citizen status up until 45 years ago.  We're currently struggling through a deep recession and a jobless recovery the likes of which is hurting millions of families with a poverty rate that's been the highest in decades.

But we work at it.  Every day is a struggle for our political and legal rights.  For as much as we think we are free, we still gotta work for it all the time.  But we believe in the system, from the Constitution on down, we believe that the system works.  It's not a religious belief or a philosophical belief... it just is.  We know we can vote every two or four years for new representatives and changes in leadership, and we hope that things can get fixed.

There's this theory of a cycle of revolution: one-man ruler falls before a democratic committee, which collapses under the rule of a purist who purges all enemies by murder, which victimizes itself until a military leader seizes power, which turns into an autocratic one-man rule (and repeat).  The trick of breaking the cycle is re-imagining what you are doing.  Don't be a revolution (which decays into that cycle of violence).  Be a rebellion (which the American Revolution really was, the throwing off the oppressive yolk of what had become a foreign power so that the nation of states we were meant to be could form).

Be a rebellion, Egypt.  Rebel against the Middle Eastern mindset of kleptocratic, authoritarian rule.  Avoid the mindset of purges: a real democracy respects political opposition as long as all parties have honorable intent.

It's going to be hard work, people.  Freedom is worth it:

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."
--Tom Paine, The Crisis

Good luck with your freedom, Egypt.  It will be hard work.  But it will be worth it.

My Computer Is DEAD and Other Topics

1) My main box died this morning, and its the motherboard.  Might as well get a new computer.  This is a laptop I'm currently on but it's not built for gaming and DAMMIT I NEED MY CITY OF HEROES FIX.

2) Egypt is erupting into violence as Mubarak finally rallied enough pro-dictator people to show up with whips and bully clubs.  So far, the violence is moderately bad but can get worse.  On the good news side of things, the army seems to be siding with the pro-democracy crowds and trying to disperse the violence-bringing pro-Mubarak thugs.  And the pro-Mubarak seem to be losing...

3) I filled out unemployment extension paperwork today, hopefully means there's a Tier 5 benefits package out there.  The bad news: I'M STILL UNEMPLOYED AND CAN'T AFFORD A NEW COMPUTER.

4) So this means one thing.  Two things actually.

BUY MY BOOK!

And, BUY MY NEW ONLINE STORY!

It's going towards a new gaming box, not drugs I swear...

5) This Onion article explains exactly how the GOP opposes Obama on... well, everything.  Even common sense things like protecting the planet from getting hit with a freaking asteroid...

If There's One Good Thing About Egypt's Protests

And it's something that's taken some time to comprehend, but I think this is a key fact and something the U.S. and western allies can base their hopes on:

The Egyptians that are protesting are doing so AGAINST President Mubarak and FOR open elections/government.  The one thing they ARE NOT doing is protesting for a mullah-led or theocratic government like what happened in Iran.

They've used prayer as a means of protest, sure.  It's Islam: public praying five times a day toward Mecca is a given, and it's a great way to organize and gather.  But the protesters are NOT gathering around any particular spiritual leader.  There's not a mullah or ayatollah being touted as the Next Great Savior.  They're also leaving F-CK MUBARAK graffiti everywhere, in the honored and storied tradition of ancient Roman wall artists.

The biggest concern is that, yes, the Muslim Brotherhood is the group that has the most to gain if Mubarak gets kicked out.  And the Brotherhood is fundamentalist and way against women rights.  But there are other groups in Egypt, and there is a moderate political opponent (Mohamed ElBaradei) around whom the protesters have rallied (he's a lawyer, international nuclear arms regulator with the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize on his resume). AND the Brotherhood isn't the group that will have a final say... it's actually the military, which profits from U.S. aid and will most likely push for a more moderate government once the revolution ends.

Here's hoping the Egyptian military keeps their word that they will not fire on unarmed and peaceful protesters.  Here's hoping the protesters keep the peace as they speak for their nation's reforms.  Here's hoping Egypt becomes another Turkey and not an Iran.  And here's hoping that when (not if, this isn't North Korea nor China, and the whole world is watching now) Mubarak leaves, the Egyptians' anger towards the U.S. (which has backed Mubarak all these decades in the expediency of international security) abates.

To Tunisa... To Egypt... To Where

This all started over a fruit cart in Tunisa.

A poor man, struggling to earn some money for his family and for his sisters' educations, unable to get any other work other than selling fruit in the marketplace.  Tunisian economy is pretty rough: rampant unemployment, and political corruption from the top on down where only the powerful get jobs.

Like in a lot of places, you need a permit to sell in the marketplace.  Mohamed Bouazizi couldn't afford either the permit nor the bribes that corrupt local police wanted, and so they kept shutting him down.  On Dec. 17th 2010, they did more than that: they humiliated him.  It drove him to an act of self-immolation: burning himself in front of the government offices that denied him any justice or recourse (He died early January).  To a nation seething under the 23-year rule of a corrupt President-for-life, it was the final straw.

It took a few days, and almost no international notice (outside of the social media sources Twitter, Facebook and others), but the Tunisians overthrew the dictator and are currently in the throes of rebuilding a nation.  God help them and may they succeed in making a more open, less corrupt Tunisa work.

But once President Ben Ali fled to exile, the rest of the Arab world... and the rest of the world period... sat up and took notice.  Because if there's one thing about politics in the Middle East... it's that a lot of the nations are one-person, one-party places.  Places like Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia... I'd mention Iran, but you might notice they've had their own uprising attempt a few years ago and their government is most likely keeping all this stuff off their news as much as possible...

The American understanding of the Middle East has been "there are guys who side with us and those who don't," with our key allies being Israel (with our alliance part of the political turmoil in the Middle East to begin with, and that would take a whole book to discuss), Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.  Turkey is democratic and for the most part solid allies (just don't talk about the Kurds or Armenians).  But it's the protests in Egypt and Saudi Arabia that are gaining U.S. attention... and our concerns.

Especially as the Egyptian protests ratchet up and as President Mubarak is doing what he can to clamp down.

The problem is Islamic fundamentalism.  Primarily the reactionary elements that oppose Westernized culture (the openness of sex, vulgarity, and jazz/blues/rap/country music) and values (gender equality).  They also have a few issues with Israel (basically its right to even exist), and a few geopolitical extremists who are still upset about how the spread of Islam stopped at the Spanish and Bosnian borders.

Most of our allies in the Arab world are led by Westernized Muslims (that is, they're willing to do business with us and allow American tourists to take snapshots of everybody).  Problem is, those nations have small but very-well-organized extremist terror groups who would love nothing more than to blow everybody up, drive out the non-Muslims, take over their governments, install religious law (based on a twisted reading of the Quran, and not on actual justice or human rights), and pretty much become as corrupt as the one-party rulers they're trying to throw out (SEE Iran 1979 to now).  As a result, those American allies tended to rule by fiat, becoming dictators and staging rigging elections to maintain the status quo.  You get extremes at both ends, with the majority population screwed by both sides.  It's been quiet until now: the global economic meltdown of the last decade has hurt, with a lot of Arab nations suffering high unemployment and food prices inflation.  Now, the masses of the Middle East are out of money and beginning to starve: they have nothing to lose if they take to the streets...

In Tunisa, the ruling party was relatively successful in exiling their extremists, which was why U.S. interests in what happened there were meager.  And why, even with all the chaos ongoing there, Tunisa is viewed as gaining some moderate stability soon.  But Egypt is a different story: they have groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (who openly renounce violence but clearly oppose womens' rights and want to place Egypt under Sharia law), and worse groups like Islamic Jihad with ties to Al-Qaeda.  If the protests do succeed in ousting Mubarak, the fear is (SEE AGAIN Iran 1979 to now) that the extremists will be the only organized group to take over Egypt and start their reign of terror.

An Islam extremist Egypt will certainly break all treaties with Israel, their agreements having been the keystone to Middle East peace efforts over the last 30 years.  They'd also expel most of the tourists, arrest every Coptic, and place their women in Third-Class status (think Taliban but in hotter climes).  What's worse - Iran fell to extremists in 1979 but they were Shiite by faith, and they are a minority of Muslim followers and thus had little influence across the Islam world: Egypt is mostly Sunni, and if they fall to extremists the Sunni extremists in other nations will have a rallying cry and a base of support. 

All of the rising protests in the Middle East should bring concerns to the rest of the world.  If even one of these nations - Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia - falls to an extremist government, no matter if the others become solid democracies they will still have a poisonous asp sitting in their midst looking to spread their violent jihad everywhere they think their faith should be (which starts with their Sunni neighbors, then every nation ever touched by Muslim rule, then the rest of the world).

There's little the United States can do with regards to these uprisings: like the recent Iranian protests, a heavy U.S. presence will do the exact opposite of what our nation would like.  We'd like a pro-Western Iran to have risen from the anger of the Green Revolution of 2009... but any U.S. public support would have been used by the corrupt regime to justify their crackdown of "foreign-influenced rioters".  We'd like a pro-Western Egypt (and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and Algeria) to remain ticking along like a reliable clock, but we can neither public upbraid Mubarak to have him open up his government (which would humiliate and weaken him), nor back any violent crackdowns that would keep the extremists from power (but would also harm a ton of honest Egyptians in the process).

The best we can do is hope that saner heads remain in control of the uprisings.  That the extremists are viewed as obstacles and not allies by the protesters.  That we do get to see genuine democratic nations in the Middle East when this is all over.  And that as few people as possible are harmed in the chaos befalling their nations.  There's been too many deaths already...


Best we can do is pray.

Here Comes The State of the Union

"...He shall, from time to time..."

The biggest question about Obama's upcoming SOTU speech among the Talking Heads on television will be if he speaks out against Keith Olbermann's ouster from MSNBC.  Kidding.  But I wouldn't be surprised if those self-absorbed nabobs went there.

No, the biggest question is if Obama will surrender his forces to the GOP House / Teabagger leadership under threat of government shutdowns and whatnot.

The buzz is that Obama will address the deficit as the primary issue, but how he will address it is the key.  Will Obama push for drastic cuts on everything the Republicans hate - Social Security, social safety net spending, education, state funding, etc. - or will he aim for more moderate cuts with a stronger emphasis on spending caps?

For myself, I hope that Obama comes out swinging on the issue that's REALLY the major issue for most Americans: the ongoing unemployment crisis.  For every Congressperson obsessed with the deficit (THAT THEY CAUSED) there's about ten Americans obsessed with how bad the job market is and how bad the wage earnings are.  Obama's probably unable to push for any government project (the Republicans still hate Obama's stimulus package with a vengeance, and most Americans still aren't aware how effective that stimulus was in keeping us out of a full-blown DEPRESSION), but he's got to do something to address the fact that there's at least 15-20 million Americans who have been unemployed longer than 27 weeks... and that those long-term unemployed are frozen out of the sluggish recovery we've recently been watching on the financial news.

Obama better have something good on the table for the jobs issue.  If he doesn't, we're screwed.  It's jobs, people, it's JOBS that help keep this economy going...

Because No One Demanded It... A Revised Lost Battalion Logo

Never heard back from Ta-Nehisi if he was gonna use the logo I crafted to start his own t-shirt line (damn Sully, stealing my ideas!), so out of boredom I went and carved out a variation on the logo.

I changed the fonts around, using Stencil as the primary font and BattleLines for the secondary font.

So who wants this on a t-shirt!

EDIT (1/21): So far I got one vote for, one vote against.  The against vote objects to the use of military imagery for what is supposed to be a platonic group.  So... I need an image of book readers charging against the defenses at Balaclava?

EDIT PART TWO: Okay.  I got the Cafe Press store up.  I have no idea if it will work until people attempt to waste their money on it.  Address is http://www.cafepress.com/TNCLostBattalion

Words of Wisdom On This Day

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

--Martin Luther King Jr. from Where Do We Go From Here (1967)

The Chart That Ought To Scare The Crap Out of Politicians... But Doesn't.

This was actually last week on Sullivan's blog, but there was a distraction or three going on...

This chart points to how long unemployed people are actually staying unemployed.
It shows that recently unemployed people have about double the chances of relocating a new job to get back into the grand economic circle of life.  But the second you get over that 27 weeks or more of unemployed... well, you're screwed.  That, by the by, is where the real problems of our current unemployment crisis is...

There's a couple of reasons for this:

• Those long-term unemployed are from sectors of the economy - construction, public works, finance, manufacturing - that have lost jobs that are NOT coming back any time soon.  The housing and foreclosure crisis has put a crimp on new housing and housing repairs, for example.  Manufacturing jobs are bleeding to overseas markets with cheaper non-union labor.  Public sector jobs - state and county and city - have been hit hard with massive deficits forcing spending cuts.  The quick rehiring of those out of work under 26 weeks involve industries that are fluctuating but not losing job openings that can be refilled.
• The other reason is psychological on the part of HR departments.  They seem reluctant to hire anyone who's been out of service for so long, as though there's a stench of failure all about a candidate who's been out of luck for 27 weeks or more.

The reason the long-term unemployed is a major problem for our government and our economy is that they will sooner rather than later become a burden on society in the worst way.  Sooner or later they drop out of the job-hunting and unemployment benefits system.  Unemployment really isn't at 9.8 percent: that's just the people still reporting for benefits.  REAL Unemployment, including the ones who've given up on benefits or no longer able to garner them (known as the 99ers for the ninty-nine weeks (and counting) they've been out of work), is actually past 10.4 percent (and might even be worse than that).  But what happens when the unemployment benefits end or the unemployed move on?  They move on over to Food Stamps, or some other form of welfare.  The burden merely shifts to another public sector that's facing cutbacks in the wake of statewide and national deficits.  Worse, they become a burden to family members or friends who may be employed (or retired living on benefits themselves) but who are incapable of paying for the needs of their out-of-work relative/friend.

Look.  Having one-tenth of your employable population out of work is NEVER good.  But there's little sign that the federal government is going to do anything about it, which sucks.  And the conservatives' solution - tax cuts that DON'T REALLY go to job creation or wage improvements - isn't going to work (all those tax cuts after 2001... and this is the shape of our job market today.  Buy a clue, Republicans: TAX CUTS DON'T WORK.  Grrrr.)

• We need laws in place to force HR departments to look at hiring the long-term unemployed first.  We're the ones at greater risk.
• We need laws in place to keep international corporations from shipping OUR jobs elsewhere.  You wanna get our tax breaks?  Give some breaks to the people who live here!
• We need a works program similar to the ones that FDR had back in the 1930s that helped us climb out of the Great Depression.  Nothing huge like the CCC, but at least something to get people back to work and stimulating the economy with their efforts and their spending.  I honestly don't get why there's this huge hate on for Keynesian policies of the 1930s that worked (nations like Japan that quickly adopted Keynesian economic models were the ones that survived the global economic meltdown).  I know that Keynesianism was choking on itself by the 1970s, but that was when our government and economy could operate without it... but today, dammit...

So an open call to all unemployed persons across the nation.  To all my fellow 99ers, this is pretty much the only solution left to us.  Run for office.  Run at the county level, state level, federal level, whatever it takes.  Go to your party if you've registered with one and sign up to run for any openings in the coming election cycle.  Trust me, you gotta start looking into the paperwork on that stuff before it gets too late... and the deadlines come up on the calendar faster than you realize.

Run for office, unemployed people.  We need more elected officials who have a damn good idea just how bad the job market is out here in the Real World.

Wartenberg in 2012.  I Need The Work.

(this has been edited for some grammar errors and to highlight additional thoughts)

I Link to Things I Like

Following up on my previous post:

John Cole at Balloon-Juice:

The point we have been trying to make for the last couple of years is that Republicans need to stop whipping up crazy people with violent political rhetoric. This is really not a hard concept to follow. There are crazy people out there. Stop egging them on.

I followed a thread to a place called Driftglass:

In other words, no mention of the fact that Right's interlocking political/media/religious keiretsu has been a massive paint-shaker for Crazy for as long as anyone can remember: when they need a few more votes or a few more dollars, they notch it up; when someone takes them up on their elimination rhetoric and blows up a federal building or flies a plane into an IRS office or murders a doctor, they dial it back a little and pretend they have no idea where anyone could have gotten such ideas...  What Mr. Sullivan and his expatriate tribe have never come to terms with is that this problem didn't just precipitate out of the pellucid ether two years ago with the arrival of "The Palin forces". It was right there, in plain sight, during all the many, many years he was cheer-leading for the Right because Palinism is nothing more or less than the latest, mutant manifestation of the violent, paranoid and often-racist rot that has always been at the very heart of Mr. Sullivan's beloved Movement.  There was no Palin when McVeigh blew up the federal building in Oklahoma to stop the Evil Government whose imaginary treachery had been dinned into his ears for years, or when militias armed themselves against the coming of the Black Helicopters and the U.N. New World Order, or when the Clintons were being gutted in the press every day as a murderers, assassins, depraved monsters and drug dealers...  Palin is merely an emergent property of all that preceded her: just the latest inheritor of Conservatism's long and obscene legacy who is using that inheritance exactly as she was taught to use it by her Conservative forebears.

Digby:

There are certainly left wing people who spew incendiary and violent rhetoric. But they are few and far between compared to the drumbeat of hatred and consequential acts of violence we've seen over the past two years and none who make the kind of profit at it that the right wing noise machine does. There is no comparison, it's ridiculous to frame it that way. And it ends up distorting the truth, which is that we have a violent right wing political movement developing in this country with the help and acquiescence of a major political party which refuses to police its own... 

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

...As appalled as I've been over the past couple of years by ads like this, veiled allusions to insurrection, and the otherizing of the president, I've found arguments drawing connections between a "climate of hate" and Loughner unpersuasive. Simply put, the case that far-right rhetoric contributed or caused this killing spree strikes me as squishy, and, at the moment, unprovable. In The Times and Post this morning, there are some of the calling-cards of the conspiratorial right. But more relevant, there are hallmarks of severe mental problems, and a troubled home-life...

Sully:

A survey of the bloggy scene suggests a rigid, uniform, passionate position that this assassination has nothing whatsoever to do with violent rhetoric and political polarization. It is as if some loony had just randomly shot some schoolkids or ran into a mall killing strangers. If you are looking for reflectiveness, you won't find it, in what strikes me as an ominous sign of a right-wing movement more willing to see its opponents gunned down than ever engage in introspection... I don't disagree with the sentiment that we should not refrain from robust or colorful or exuberant rhetoric. But constant resort to violent imagery directed at specific and named human targets is not a sign of a lively discourse but of thuggishness... There is the obvious third option that has occurred to almost anyone not ideologically primed to defend anything Republican. That option - voiced even by Palin apologist Howie Kurtz - is that Palin's words were "highly unfortunate" and certainly regrettable. Does Glenn Reynolds believe otherwise? Does he endorse the gun-sights imagery? Does he see nothing wrong with it in retrospect? Would he have attended the Jesse Kelly "Fire an M-16" to show you want to defeat Gabby Giffords? We know the answer...

At Moderate Voice, Joe Gandelman: 

...In the short term, politicos of both parties are now talking about how perhaps it’s important to adjust the tone of American politics. And that would certainly be a nice, lofty goal: almost day by day, American politics on so many fronts is increasingly personal and toxic, where the operative goal seems to be to paint the other side as evil as possible. You see and hear it in Congress, on the radio, on TV, on the web and (most assuredly) in comments sections on web-logs of all political persuasions.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. You’ll turn blue.  Most likely, there will be a period where politicos, talk show hosts, bloggers, talking heads, newspaper columnists and partisan activists from both parties rein in some of the vitriol. But then place money in Vegas that it’ll be business as usual. There is now too much of an institutional and cultural vested interest in American politics in keeping the tone and pundit flow as it now exists: partisans and ideologues on both sides find that pushing “hot buttons” is a way to rally sympathizers to your side and talk radio and cable ideological shows and websites make money throwing red meat to an audience that shows up because they already agree with an opinionated host or info-outlet...

Personally:

Cole's comment nails it.  Stop egging the crazies on.  That's the one thing we need to take away from this tragic killing spree...  Pity is, Sullivan and Gandelman are most likely right that this isn't going to tone down... it's going to get worse...

Blood On The Streets of Tucson AZ

Today has been a terrible day for the nation.  A gunman opened fire at a public event being held by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.  Eyewitness reports have the gunman coming right up behind the congresswoman, shouting something and pulling the trigger.

Giffords was shot in the head.  Ten others were wounded and along with her taken to hospital for rescue.  One of the wounded, a nine-year-old girl, died at the hospital.  For hours, word kept getting out that Giffords had died, but surgeons finally came out to report that they were able to save her life and that she will with hope recover.  Five others, including a federal judge John Roll attending the public meet-and-greet, were killed on the spot.

It is difficult to explain the rage I have at this moment, for almost the whole day...

Regardless of the political leanings of the shooter - and the Far Right are eager to point out how Loughner is some left-wing hippie, with the Far Left pointing out Loughner's gold-standard obsessions fit right in with Ron Paul's - this horrifying crime underscores a LOT that is f-cking wrong with this country.


In case Giffords was someone you didn't know before today, she was one of 20 Democratic House members targeted - LITERALLY TARGETED - by Sarah Palin's crew during the 2010 midterms.  And in case you didn't know this by this evening, but Palin and her supporters had quickly pulled that poster (THAT THEY STILL HAD UP ON THEIR WEBSITES AFTER THE MIDTERMS) from their pages, trying desperately to scrub away the violent rhetoric that they have been pushing on our nation over the last two, no eight, no eighteen years.  That bulls-eye poster reminds me of the John Bircher crap back in the 1960s... for example that infamous WANTED poster of JFK that happened to be in a Dallas newspaper around Nov. 22 1963...

We had violent rhetoric about an abortion doctor in the Midwest, and Bill O'Reilly kept talking about him and about how he needed to get taken out.  Someone comes along and shoots him AT A CHURCH.  The Fox-Not-News crowd of opinionated pundits rail against liberals as socialists and how they're destroying our nation. Someone who listens and reads their crap, writes up his own list of targets to kill before driving out to a Unitarian church to shoot up a recital of Annie.

We get political candidates on the Right running for office screaming about "gathering your armies" and relying on "Second Amendment remedies," throwing tantrums for special treatment and privileges and reviling their opponents for un-American actions they can't ever prove in court but are able to convince their teabagger followers as God's honest truth.  But then the second any actual violence on a Democrat or Liberal takes place, then by God the same Far Right talking heads come out of the woodwork insisting the violence is all from the Left while quickly scrubbing away the evidence that it was the goddamn Right wingnut lies in the first place.

There is blood on the streets of Tucson Arizona.  There is sorrow within most of our souls tonight as we mourn the dead.  But will there ever be any semblance of accountability on the Right for their lying bullshit, for their obsession with violence?

Probably not.  Welcome to our Hell.

That Wasn't Me Doing the Heckling

Someone at Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott's inauguration heckled the proceedings, calling him "a criminal and not a Christian."

Someone at TNC's open threads asked me if I was the heckler.  Hell, no.  As a Gator alum and an honest man, I tend to avoid Tallahassee as best I can.

I'm innocent on this one.  Just don't ask me where I was when I heard about JFK.

NOTE: is it me, or does that photo from the linked article show a sparsely attended inauguration?  What was the attendance on that?

Today Is Different, Because Today Really Sucks

On this day, January 4, 2011, the State of Florida is going to swear in a well-known MEDICARE FRAUD as Governor.

May God Have Mercy On Us All.  All because 2.5 million of my fellow Floridians didn't know (which is impossible, because GODDAMMIT WE KEPT SCREAMING ABOUT IT) or didn't care.

From Howard Troxler's article:

He did not mortgage himself for campaign money. He famously (or infamously) spent his own fortune.  (PERSONAL EDIT: Do I recall Scott still hosting fund-raisers to get people to cough up even more money to him?  I *was* too busy trying to ignore him in the godforsaken hope he'll disappear while I wasn't looking...)

He did not kiss up to interest groups to win. True, he is totally pro-business, but he came that way out of the box — they're kissing up to him.

He does not seem to care about offending, or how he looks in the media (which he largely ignores), or the critics. This is a good thing, since he starts with a 43 percent unfavorable rating.

Troxler's article tries to be fair and balanced... but dammit this is no time for that.

But Question No. 1 is how much his platform of creating jobs and cutting "red tape" will conflict with Florida's environmental and growth laws. At best, he will balance the two; at worst, he will be willing to sacrifice the second for the first — with a Legislature eager to help.

As soon as he gets started, Scott has to figure out how he would close a gap in next year's state budget that is growing toward $4 billion. It will be interesting to see his "business" approach.

If his "business" approach was anything like the business approach he had with Columbia/HCA - where he ran a corporation into BILLIONS of dollars worth of Medicare fraud so heinous that the company had to fire him and pay BILLIONS in records fines - we are... all Floridians are honestly screwed.

I do not trust Rick Scott considering the employment crisis.  He and his party are more focused on corporate tax cuts than on job growth: despite their snake oil salesmanship, the truth is that TAX CUTS DO NOT CREATE JOBS (investment in capital and business expansion does), so if they go that route I can guarantee you a flat job growth rate that cannot keep up with job losses.  Raising taxes isn't even a fix: there is sizable evidence that businesses and banks (that can loan money to businesses to expand and increase jobs) are just sitting on tons of money that can well be used to boost the economy and get businesses starting and growing again.  If Scott makes honest attempts to get private money plugged into the economy to increase jobs (if I were governor, I'd be calling those money hoarders every day to the carpet in front of live cameras and asking each one if they are investing that money into jobs), then and only then will I be impressed...

But I have no hope in his regard.  Scott is a crook.  His track record points to it, and his lack of accountability for the damage he's done suggests he thinks he'll keep getting away with it.  I've got a pool going on how soon Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott gets nailed with felony charges during his governorship.  Personally, I got him by July 14 of this year.  Any takers?  Winner gets first rights to travel cross-state to meet every 2.5 million voters who went with that bastard, and shout in each voter's ear "WE TOLD YOU!"

Oh, One More Thing, 2010 Year End Thingee

Why our nation is screwed, Evidence #4,718.  The media does not have any accountability for their partisan bullshit.  From Conor Friedersdorf, covering for Sully:

There's a guy named Juan Carlos Vera. He worked at an ACORN office in San Diego, California. One day, James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles walked in with a hidden video camera, and pretended to be a pimp and prostitute. They asked for help smuggling underage girls across the Mexican border so that they could work in a brothel. Confronted with what appeared to be a sex trafficking plot, you'd hope that someone would play along, get as much information as possible, and call the police. And guess what? That's exactly what Mr. Vera did! Unbeknownst to O'Keefe or Giles, he called his cousin, a police officer, shortly after they left his office.
Perhaps you know what happened next. Having cut his teeth editing The Drudge Report and its notoriously misleading headlines, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart published the ACORN videos, which fooled me at the time – I praised them, and even encouraged Breitbart to pressure attorneys general into investigating the organization. I've never felt like such a fool. Some of the ACORN tapes reflect very badly on that organization, but taken as a whole, they are misleading in a lot of ways...
After publishing videos of Vera that made him look like a sex trafficker and costing the man his job, did Breitbart explain how the mistake happened, apologize and correct the record? Did he alert his readers to the truth? Having expressed outrage at the media on countless occasions for trafficking in serious accusations that weren't grounded in facts, did he behave better after realizing that he'd done exactly the same thing?
Nope. As far as I know, neither an apology nor a correction has ever appeared. The vast majority of his readership remains misinformed. The San Diego videos remain posted at Big Government, misleading as ever. I've attempted to get Breitbart and O'Keefe to address this. No luck...

Brietbart Delendus Est.

So What Will 2011 Hold In Store For Us?

If 2010 was any indication, the coming year is going to be batshit crazy.

The Republicans' priorities at the federal level - now that they control the House of Representatives, and have demonstrated how they can bully their way about the Senate - are going to be 1) Screw Obama, 2) Demonize Obama, 3) Pillory Obama, 4) Cut Taxes for the Rich, 5) Shovel More Federal Money to the Rich, 6) Impeach Obama, 7) Take As Many Vacation Breaks As Possible While Railing Against the Lazy Poor and Unemployed, 8) Prepare for 2012 Elections, Because Elections are More Important Than Actual Governance.

The Republicans' priorities at the state level - considering they have a majority of state legislatures and governorships to play with, especially here in my home state of Florida - are going to be worse.

Already here in Florida, incoming Governor Rick "MEDICARE FRAUD, YOU IDIOT VOTERS HE COMMITTED MEDICARE FRAUD" Scott has already spoken openly about eliminating corporate taxes altogether, privatizing our entire school system, cutting state jobs which would affect social services at a time of massive unemployment and poverty, arguing against ANY regulations that would, you know, PROTECT PEOPLE FROM INJURY OR CRIMINAL ACTS, and not really offering any kind of works programs or incentives to businesses to grow and add jobs.

"I'm going to run this state like a business," Scott promises.  Considering he ran his businesses into law-breaking acts that led to massive fines, THIS IS NOT A GOOD SIGN.

What's worse?  I worry for the state of Texas.  There, the state legislature has 2/3rds Republican majority in the state legislature, meaning they could pass anything requiring supermajority vote... like amend the entire state constitution to whatever wingnut obsession tickles their fancy.  Meaning you Texans are going to say goodbye to whatever abortion rights you have, to whatever rights to privacy you have in your bedrooms and sexual lives, to whatever freedom of religion you thought you had, to any sane fiscal policy, and say hello to a secession amendment contingent on whether or not Obama gets impeached before 2012.

So, yeah, here comes 2011.

My predictions for the coming year?

Obama gets impeached right out the gate.  Instead of wasting time investigating Obama for his Hawaiian birth certificate, the House will admit into evidence whatever crazy shit Orly Taitz has and use that as grounds for impeachment.  It won't go anywhere in the Senate, as there are enough Republican Senators there with enough sanity to know how insane the House's move will be, but the real purpose - get Obama embarrassed early and often before the State of the Union speech - will be served.

Speaking of the State of the Union, it's already established that Justice Alito would like to excuse himself from appearing.  The question will be who among the Republican Far Right will excuse themselves along with him?  A half-empty audience will look bad on the television screens, no matter how petulant and childish the Republicans will be pulling this stunt.  That's because no one will hold them accountable for their childish stunts.  Hell, pulling these stunts was why they won in 2010, right?

Obama will then get impeached for the Health Care Reform bill, as it was an act of treason instituting such an obvious communist plot against America.  Never mind the final bill nearly matched the Republicans' proposals from 1994.

The state of Florida will pass legislation firing every state employee and then contracting out to private corporations to cover all services.  Never mind the fact that privatizing all state services - including law enforcement - is actually going to ADD another layer of bureaucracy and will most likely make things MORE expensive.  But hey, privatizing everything (except corporate welfare) is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Oh, and in Texas, half the population is going to flee for Oklahoma and New Mexico before April because their state lege is going to destroy every sane provision and law in their desire to create a Christianist Old Testament nation/state.

Enjoy.

The Only Good News In a Bleak Winter

At least Congress was able to get this mess cleaned up before the Republicans got back in charge of things:

This morning, a bipartisan group of 57 Democrats and six Republicans broke a GOP filibuster, allowing the Senate to vote up or down on a standalone bill to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." This afternoon, the Senate finished the deal -- the legislation passed 65 to 31.
The legislation is identical to the one that passed the House a few days ago, so its next stop is the White House, where President Obama will gladly sign it into law, officially removing DADT from the books and relegating the discriminatory policy to the trash heap of history.

For those who don't know, Don't Ask Don't Tell was a compromise plan put into play back in the 1990s to allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military.  As long as the gays and lesbians didn't publicly state their orientation, nobody was (supposed to) ask what that orientation was.

Problem was, the opponents to having gays in the military (social conservatives reading a very narrow and inflexible interpretation of the Bible) quickly figured out loopholes to that: for example, having a third party report someone suspected of gay/lesbian leanings.  And then using either the soldier's silence on the matter to remove them for insubordinate behavior, or force the soldier to admit their orientation and get drummed out for Telling.  What was meant to protect gays had instead been used to push even more of them out of service than before.

It took time - younger and more tolerant generations getting into the military, growing public awareness that a majority of straight soldiers had no problem serving with gays, the problem of pushing out highly qualified officers at a time of war and manpower shortages - but today, after years of conservative obstruction and flat-out fear-mongering (that homosexuality in the armed forces would lead to body art, adultery, bestiality, and waaaaaay too much make-up girlfriend), the Senate voted on the repeal of DADT.  Basically, gays and lesbians should be able to serve in the military same as straight people.

The Religious Right are going to have a conniption over this.  "Oh noes" they will scream "God will PUNISH us for not adhering to Leviticus!  Our military's gonna be filled with flamers and anal rapists and cow lovers!  Our nation is DOOMED (unless you buy my book about it, for only 29.99 directly from my website!)"

Problem for those "righteous" screamers is this: the ones yelling about it the most are the most hypocritical of all with their own sins (draft dodging, adultery, war-mongering).  So screw them.

The average soldier is not gonna have a problem serving with gays.  If there's a hassle, you take it to the MPs.  The military can maintain discipline in the face of ANYTHING, dammit (The US Armed Forces are quite possibly the most organized, prepared and adaptive military force since the Romans or the Mongols), and we ought to be able to trust all of them on that.

I have no problems with gays in the military.  If an American wants to serve in the armed forces, as long as they are fit and capable, as long as they accept the challenges before them, I don't care of their ethnicity, their religion, their gender, their statehood, their sexual orientation, their foot size, their hat size, their favorite color.  I never served, but that's me, and I'm not about to begrudge those who did with honor, and love of home and family.

This is a good day to be an American.  One more bigotry defeated.  One more right confirmed for those who want to serve this nation.

Tomorrow is gonna feel like a sunny day.