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...

Observations Before The Holidays Consume My Time Pt.7

• Hadn't posted recently about events in Iran, where things have taken a turn. An ayatollah, a major player from the 1970s revolution named Montazeri who was a well-known moderating figure and who could have been the grand ayatollah (thus the current grand poohbah Khamenei's most prominent opposition threat)... well he recently passed away. Just on the eve of a grand national period in Iran, a week of national mourning, meaning the chance to grieve his passing is going to give the corrupt regime nightmares and give the Green uprising the opportunity they need to take once more to the streets with legitimacy. Sullivan again is posting updates as often as possible. This is going to be a scary, unsettling, and God willing a hopeful week the nation of Iran is entering...
• I didn't pass the A+ Essentials exam I took yesterday. I need to take it again very soon.
• MightyGodKing recently posted probably the best short story I've read in years. It tells a "What If" historical revision where the Beatles take up SNL's infamous offer to re-unite on the show for $3000, starting off humorous but then as the tale unfolds enters into darker themes. At first reading, it ends on an odd note, but it forces you to loop back, as the hero of the story loops back and you read it again and pick up on things you missed in the first telling... as supplement, read MGK's answer to how he came up with the story ideas...
• The more I watch the craziness unfold in Congress the more I want to join the Modern Whigs and see about running for office myself. I swear I couldn't make things worse than they are...

Letter to Obama: WHAT THE HELL IS TAKING YOU?

Dear Mr. President Obama: what part of HELP WE NEED F-CKING JOBS do you not understand?

This article from the St. Pete Times might help as a wake-up call (highlights are mine):

Even as the national unemployment picture slightly improved, the job front in Florida — and Tampa Bay in particular — took a turn for the worse in November.

Among lowlights revealed Friday:

• In shedding 16,700 more jobs last month, Florida not only lost more jobs than any other state, it exceeded the net loss of jobs for the entire country (11,000 jobs).

• Florida's unemployment rate rose to a 34-year high of 11.5 percent, up from a revised 11.3 percent in October. The state rate is now running a full 1.5 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate. For much of the recession, the gap had been one percentage point or less.

• The Tampa Bay area's jobless rate jumped half a percentage point to 12.3 percent, making it the most job-challenged major metropolitan area in Florida. The region's most sluggish county remained Hernando, which saw its unemployment rate rocket to 14.7 percent, up from 14.0 percent the prior month.

At Career Central, a job resource center in Spring Hill (NOTE: I've been to that office! Hi guys!), Tara Romano, 24, was eager to replace a job she had lost at McDonald's just after Thanksgiving. Her boyfriend, who had been laid off from Wendy's, was searching job prospects at a nearby computer terminal.

"We're looking at retail," Romano said. "Kind of like everyone else, we'll take whatever we can get just to survive."

Lucy Diaz said she has never seen the job market this bad in her five years managing the Hernando County career center.

"We try to give people hope. We tell them this is just a transition," Diaz said. "It's hard, especially now with this season. People want to be able to buy presents for their kids."

Rebecca Rust, chief economist with the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation, which coordinates the unemployment report, offered little hope of a fast turnaround.

As one of the states at the epicenter of the housing bust, Florida is expected to lag behind much of the country in creating new jobs.

November's rate is the highest posted in Florida since May 1975, when unemployment peaked at 11.9 percent. Several economists predict the state will break the 12 percent mark early next year before gradually retreating.

It could take until 2019 (NOTE: SONOFA... HEEEELPPPP!!), state economists project, before unemployment in Florida gets back to a more palatable 6 percent range.

With more than 1 million jobless out of a statewide labor force of 9.2 million, Florida was singled out by the Labor Department as the only state in the country to post a statistically significant increase in unemployment in November. Seven other states that posted significant changes in unemployment all saw their rates go down. In fact, 36 states and the District of Columbia all saw a dip in unemployment last month.

-Snippage-

Rust cited numerous factors hampering recovery: small businesses are still struggling to get credit; there's a mismatch between many of the unemployed and job openings; big budget deficits are holding down spending; and the housing market remains sluggish despite a recent increase in prices.

-Snippage-

Durr, 27, was laid off at Weeki Wachee Springs a year ago when the attraction became a state park. Since then, he has postponed his wedding and taken courses in the medical field to bolster his technology background.

And he has become more philosophical. "Being unemployed has been an eye-opener," Durr said. "I learned so many things about myself. You find you have friends in the strangest places. A lot of people say it builds character.

"I wouldn't trade it."

Um, I would. I'd trade it for a F-CKING JOB THAT PAYS WELL!

Dear Obama: There are 30 million Americans AND GROWING who need your help more than the F-CKING CEOS of the F-CKING BANKS. HEEEEEEELLPPPP! OVER HERE! HEY! HEEEEEELLPPPPPPPPppppppp...

The Numb Decade

Not only is December a time of yearly reflection (Best Of, Worst Of Lists abound), but anything -9 on the calender gets to be a time of looking back upon an entire decade... 1989 focusing on The Eighties, 1999 focusing on The Nineties (overwhelmed by a case of centennial reminiscing for the whole 1900s). So now it becomes time to look back upon an entire decade: the 2000s, also known as the Aughts.

Each decade comes to be known for a particular theme: 1930s = Depression/pre-War years; 1940s = The War Effort; 1950s = Rise of the Boomer teens, Rock music, The Atomic Age; 1960s = New Frontier/The Nam/Woodstock Nation; 1970s = Nixon, Disco, Urban Blight, National Malaise (in short, the 70s Sucked); 1980s = Reagan Era of Good Feelings; 1990s = Post-Cold War/Dawn of the Internet; 2000s = ?

This came to me when I posted a comment to Flick Filosopher's post asking which film defined this decade. After giving it serious thought, I came to realize that a lot of the movies - even the good movies - seemed bereft of passion, of any amount of dedication to craft on the part of film-makers. It was just... throwing mass spectacle up on the screen and trying to see what sticks. I realized the films of this decade all suffered - and for the ones that tried to enjoy themselves - from a form of numbness.

This got me looking at the decade itself. And indeed, there was a kind of "God, Please, just let this go and not bother me anymore" feeling encompassing all. The era of scandal-plagued Clinton years finally awashed with Clinton Fatigue (just stop yelling about the BLOWJOBS, you wingnuts!). We got as a result one of the most dull, predictable Presidential campaigns in 2000 that ended up with a jaw-dropping questionable vote count (the Butterfly Ballot doomed us all) in my home state of Florida (I was in Broward - Ground Zero 2000 - for the insane recount) that ended with a questionable result (Bush wins in a 5-4 vote). By the end of all that, people just wanted to move on...

And then 2001. No space odyssey for humanity. Just a coordinated terrorist attack that killed thousands and drove the United States into the GWOT.

Everything in the political arena was pretty much consumed by the War on Terror, which mutated into a War on Iraq, which mutated further into an Occupation of Iraq and a growing schzoid madness in our Mainstream Media (half obsessed with justifying an increasingly unjustifable invasion and occupation, the other half terrified of being label unpatriotic). In the meanwhile, a GOP majority in control of Congress and the White House went on a spending spree that would have made LBJ blush, disregarding ethics and regulatory concerns (even in the wake of a massive corporate scandal involving Enron, WorldCom, criminal accounting tricks and more). All concerns for reform: none, and that lack of concern fed down into the whole of society, to where everyone is just shell-shocked at the large unemployment, the growing corpulence of the financial industry even in the wake of a global recession they caused, and pretty much everything else.

We're at 10 percent unemployment, and despite the Media talking heads trying to convince themselves the worst is over, there's good signs the worst ISN'T over. And yet, no one's marching in the streets about that. We've got more unemployed people since the 1930s and the streets are not crammed with protestors screaming for jobs, for job security, for ANYTHING from the government to help us.

The only ones marching? Teabaggers. And *they're* obsessed over SOCIALISM ZOMG, or Obama's BIRF CERTIFICATION ZOMG, or DEATH PANELS THAT DON'T EXIST ZOMG. In short, they're obsessed over b-llsh-t stuff that ain't true.

We're facing massive economic collapse with our current health care system, but the bill is close to death in the Senate all because of egotistical morans wanting their pretty pony presents. And past the outrage on the progressive blogs and on Olbermann's show, what else? Again, the streets are empty of people FOR the health care reform. Even though there's good evidence there's a lot of people out there who WANT AND NEED it.

It's like there's a kind of numbness in us. A refusal to work ourselves out of our homes, our cubicles. Not entirely fear of losing our homes or jobs, even though that can (and will) happen (if nothing gets fixed). Not enough anger, perhaps. Definitely not enough passion to see it done.

I dunno if it was the Clinton Fatigue from the 1990s that led to this kind of political apathy of letting the loudest idiots win the arguments just to let it end, even when those loudmouths are criminally wrong. I dunno if it was 9/11. I dunno if it was the Bush administration letting its ignorance and toadying permeate into our cultural consciousness. All I know is, we've been numbed into a lull. As a nation. We're just sitting here, waiting for the end. Of what, we all know. But we're at the point we don't care.

And that doesn't even terrify me. It did, once... See?

A Viable Third Party?

I think I've ranted on occasion re: the need for a viable Third Party here in the United States. Primarily on two points:

• The Democrats are led by spineless self-serving wimps who couldn't enforce discipline if their lives depended on it (and it does);
• The Republicans are batsh-t insane sociopaths obsessed with tax cuts, killing abortion doctors, and insulting or degrading anything they deem 'foreign' or 'Socialist', and willing to purge their party of anyone who doesn't toe the line 100 percent.

The pity of Third Party attempts is that the system is rigged: the two established parties (R and D) may hate the sh-t out of each other, but they're terrified of voters getting pulled to other choices. I still believe Pat Buchanan's takeover of the Reform Party in 2000 was an attempt by the GOP to sabotage Ross Perot's pet project of shaking up the status quo. By making the Reform Party a top-down system, where they focused on the Presidency and failed to push local, state and congressional candidates, Perot made that party vulnerable to a takeover by a name candidate who could then run it into the dirt. You don't see the Reform Party mentioned much anymore anywhere. Pretty much any other Third Party program out there - Greens, noticeably - tend to be single-issue parties obsessed with far-wingnut (left and right) issues, nothing that would attract moderate and centrist voters disgusted with the ideological calcification of the existing Bigs...

An interesting article on Slate's website by Andrew Dubbins, that I saw earlier this morning, offered something promising: The Modern Whigs. Formed by returning war vets, but opening themselves to non-vet voters, the Whigs seem promising. While their platform is as vague on some topics as you'd expect, they don't come across as batsh-t insane (which is a big criteria for me right now). They also seem to be going about this party construction the right way: they're fielding candidates at local and state levels, rather than gambling on a big-name run at the biggest target (the White House) out there.

I'm intrigued. They've got Congressional candidates lined up in my home state of Florida. I'm going to give them a closer look.

Saturnalia Wish List 2009 Edition

Once again kiddies as part of our effort in the WAR ON BILL O'REILLY'S CHRISTMAS we here at this blog celebrate the life-affirming pagan holiday known as Saturnalia! The day all Romans put giant rings around their head and Voyager probes on their earrings! Wait, what?

Anywho. As part of tradition, I'm posting my wishlist to The Roman Lord of Time (hi there!) in the mad hopes that the pagan gods will once again after thousands of years notice us tiny insignificant lifeforms and smite our enemies. It's pretty much the only way Goldman Sachs and Dick Cheney will answer for their crimes since the secular forces on this planet won't do a g-dd-mn thing.

The wishlist is as follows:
1) The Tampa Bay Bucs get the first overall draft pick in next April's NFL Rookie Draft. 'Cause buddy, they need it.

2) Tell us just what exactly happened over Norway just now. I mean, seriously, there's NO WAY that was a malfunctioning rocket. That spiral pattern: A) Stayed in roughly the same place overhead for over 10 minutes, long enough for people to get their cameras out and document that thing. ROCKETS DON'T HOVER; B) While the large white spiral pattern could be explained away by misaligned or damaged rocket boosters, that blue-green haze-like thing emanating from the center of that spiral doesn't make sense. It's not normal rocket exhaust, for one. Eyewitness reports claim that blue-green light (and it's not smoke, it would disseminate differently if it was) CAME AFTER THE SPIRAL APPEARED: if it were rocket exhaust it would have been simultaneously happening.
Personally, I don't think the Russians were testing a rocket: I think they were testing a hyperspace gateway! (shh, don't me otherwise! Hey, being an X-Phile all these years is finally paying off!)

3) That the citizens of Conneticut and Nebraska take good long looks at Lieberman and Nelson, at how they are sabotaging every health care reform attempt being made in the Senate, and then find out which health care companies have contributed to their campaign warchest, and then file bribery charges against those health care companies. There is way too much evidence of quid pro quod deals going on here. This isn't a democracy or a republic when our elected officials answer to the greedhead deep pockets and not the actual majority.

4) That Tom Harkin's effort to reform the filibuster gets somewhere: personally, dude, keep the filibuster ONLY for judicial lifetime nominations that do require some form of supermajority requirement. Everything else should be simple majority vote like in the House. And get rid of those damn SECRET HOLDS while you're at it.

5) A passing grade on the upcoming A+ Certification exam I'm trying to line up. If that doesn't succeed, then...

6) A frickin' Jobs Bill that would give an unemployed Mensa idiot like me something that's full-time and over minimum wage! Dear Obama: your polling numbers wouldn't be tanking IF YOU'D ONLY GOTTEN AROUND TO GETTING US JOBS THREE MONTHS AGO. HURRY UP DAMMIT.

7) That the Democrats push for an immigration reform bill during summer 2010 so that the Republicans will commit mass suicide opposing it and drawing the ire of Hispanic voters across the nation.

8) That you pagan gods need to do more to remind my fellow short-term-memory American citizens that it's the REPUBLICAN Party that had wrecked the economy, weakened our military, ruined our international clout, and lost us our jobs. Stop giving them better polling numbers, America, BECAUSE THE GOP IDIOTS HAVEN'T CHANGED. Put them back in power AND IT'S GONNA GET WORSE.

Sigh.

So that's what I'm working with right now, O Lord of Time And Planetary Rings. That and finishing up my NaNoWriMo rough draft... and that A+ Exam is serious business... and please see about getting Cheney in jail before the Super Bowl, okay? 'Kay.

And don't forget to send the bill for the Mithras bull sacrifice over to Bill O'Reilly's place, will you?

IO SATURNALIA!

Free Iran Update Dec. 7

Been a bit busy today with final exams, but the Iranian students seemed to be a bit busy as well.

This was a day of remembrance of sorts - 16 Azar by the calendar, known as Student Day - and the Khamenei dictatorship was well prepared for it (thousands of Basiji brutes, riot police in force, etc.). The students and others in the Green movement still went for it.

It was bloody, and violent, and yet still the Iranian people will not stay quiet.

Pray for them. Hope they make it through the night... and the month... and the coming year.

This won't end quickly. But it will end with the bullies gone. Just a matter of time...

Catching Up and Falling Behind

As we round the calendar year into the final month (December 2009), there are a few points of contention and observations to discuss:

• It's been pretty much one year... and it's been pretty much SIXTY YEARS of the Democrats trying for something even close to universal health care to pass through Congress, and here we STILL ARE DEBATING THE DAMN THING. In a more sane political system - no filibusters, no Holds, no bullsh-tting Senators with egos the size of Jupiter - this would have passed MONTHS AGO.
• It's been one full year of unemployment for me this month. Job hunting has been full of fits and starts, I'm finishing up my A+ Cert studies at PHCC this week, I've got the CompTIA exam in two weeks, and my brain still can't warp itself around TCP/IP stuff. Grrr Argh.
• Sarah Palin's 'biography' is so full of lies, half-truths, and non-researched crap that someone (not me, as I haven't wasted money on it) ought to sue the publisher for fraud. As a librarian, I don't trust any supposed non-fiction book that does NOT have a bibliography (sign of research) or an index (sign of subject checking: lack of an index also shows the book was rushed to print). I'm surprised as hell that NO ONE mentioned in her book in an unfavorable way - which is basically anyone outside her family circle - hasn't started rounding up lawyers for a libel or slander case.
• Obama's recent announcements to quickly send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in a Surge-esque attempt to push back the Taliban / Al Qaeda forces to justify a 2011 staged withdrawal is, once you take a longer look at it, the least worst choice out of a set of really bad choices. After all, what else could he do?
  Obvious choice: full and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. Begin a six-month phased exit of troops from the ground, finishing up around key cities and transit points to try and ensure the nation doesn't fall into complete chaos. The problem there isn't so much the far right wingnuts screaming for impeachment (they'd do that anyways), but the reasonable fact that the current regime - corrupt and unable to handle infrastructural needs - would be immediately overrun with the Taliban claiming victory (they'd do that anyways), reclaiming the nation and returning it to a massive hellhole.
  Other obvious choice: keep up the current situation, try to force the Afghani government to fix itself, and just hope to outlast the Taliban's insurgency efforts. The problem there is, without a deadline of sorts, there's little incentive for the Afghani government to steady itself: it'll just keep relying on us and our allies to keep them propped up. We'll also be unable to establish any kind of excuse or reason to force an exit strategy ourselves, meaning we'll be tied down for as long as the Taliban remains a threat. And the Taliban and Al Qaeda jerks want that to be forever (to justify their argument that we're empire building, a Western Christian nation yet again beating up on poor faithful Muslims). Oh, the far right wingnuts will continue to claim that Obama's not doing enough for the troops, he doesn't want victory, yadda yadda.
  That left this choice: commit more troops to "flood the zone" and push the Taliban out of key locations. Commit to a deadline to show other Muslim nations we're not in it for the empire building. That deadline also pressures the military to create results (hopefully not sloppy bloody results, but tangible ones that don't involve hundreds of dead civilians). And while critics complain that deadline gives the Taliban an objective to keep messing with us to where we'd have to break said deadline, that overlooks the fact the Taliban would have kept messing with us anyway. The argument that the Taliban can just lay low until the deadline and we leave to strike back is also faulty: if the Taliban lays low, it gives Karzai's government a chance to stabilize well enough to stand on their own.
  This is, of course, all academic. We can only know for sure after 2011 if this all works out right. It REALLY depends on if everyone involved - The U.S., our allies, Karzai's government, et al - makes good faith efforts to fix things well enough that we can bring the troops home...
  
• The big news for the Republicans - other than Palin being a bane to her own fans - has been the recent tragic shooting of four police officers in Washington State... in that the cop killer was a violent parolee from Arkansas who had his long sentence commuted to a shorter time. That shorter time allowed for an early parole, which the guy violated, but his second stint was quickly annulled because of a screw-up with the prosecutors' office not pursuing the matter properly. The governor who commuted the sentence? Mike Huckabee. That noise you just heard was the air let out of his 2012 Primary balloon.
  See, here's the problem: it's not that Huckabee could have forseen the guy was going to become a cop killer. It's not even Huckabee's fault that the prosecutors' didn't handle the guy's parole violation. But this is the second time that a Huckabee parolee had gone violent after release: there are questions now about how many other prisoners that were granted leniency through his office returned to lives of violence (for what I know, there's a third one that's lesser known. So far).
  This incident brings to question Huckabee's decision making. Which has been proven elsewhere, but highlighted by this case, to be a faith-based system. The stories are getting around now of how Huckabee listened to ministers and preachers - instead of prosecutors and victims - regarding whom to show mercy. Stories about how prisoners in Arkansas quickly expressed conversions to faith as a means to lessen their jail times. And while it's great for a man, any person, to have a solid faith system in their personal lives, this is just one more proof that religion and secular matters - the law, politics, people's lives - should not mix.
  If Dukakis got derailed by Willie Horton, having a cop killer like Clemmons as your personal albatross should guarantee you won't even start a Presidential campaign... so who does that leave for the Republicans in 2012? Palin. Romney. Pawlenty from Minnesota has to be drooling right about now.
  
• I need 25,000 - 50,000 more words for a decent book to come out of the NaNoWriMo effort. Hence the need to keep writing elsewhere than this blog. Sorry. I'll probably post a Io Saturnalia request before the Pagan Eggnog and Gift-Sharing and Tree-Decorating Day, but that's about it. Unless Congress does something really stupid before then. Sigh.

Slightly OT, but what the hell: I Survived NaNo

I survived NaNo.

The 50,000 word count was achieved last night.

And the novel itself is really 2/3s done, maybe half done. I have a ways to go before getting a publishable book out of this.

To all publishers: the bidding war starts now! Okay, okay, who's signing me for a 3-book $300 deal? Anyone? Anyone?

And Thus Did Turkey Day Get Its Awesome TV Episode

Certain holidays get the love when it comes to our popular culture.

Christmas, obviously. Halloween, for the kids and the cosplayers. 4th of July. Easter. Flag Day (Happy Birthday MOM!)

Which is the pity of it for some of the other big holidays that, well, just don't have the cultural impact that those primary holidays have. Thanksgiving, for one.

Oh, it's a big holiday to be sure. One of the few nationally sanctioned by the government and yet treated as more than just some bank or school holiday. Tied in with our historical heritage of the Pilgrims giving thanks for a successful harvest in the earliest days of our nation's founding (and our subsequent march across to the Pacific to ensure our Manifest Destiny, yeah the Sioux and the Mexicans are still thrilled about that), Thanksgiving is meant as a time for family, for gathering, for eating large amounts of food (well, for the half of us not living on unemployment benefits). Oh, and there's the Macy's Parade and three (used to be two, but Detroit and Dallas don't always have good teams to encourage viewing so...) NFL football games for the guys to watch while Mom burns her fingers off getting the turkey out of the oven.

But Turkey Day, I mean Thanksgiving, doesn't have a lot in terms of entertainment. There's not a lot of movies celebrating it: most holiday gathering flicks tend to go with Christmas. There's very few television specials and just one off the top of my head: Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, but this is considering they've made specials for ALL holidays (for the Love of Snoopy, there's an Arbor Day special!). Other than Adam Sandler, there's no songs celebrating Thanksgiving and the turkey delights.

Ah, but then, back in 1978, a then-new sitcom called WKRP in Cincinnati broadcast an episode called "Turkeys Away."

This episode has been as close to universally hailed as the best episode ever for one of the best sitcoms ever. (this link btw takes you to a blog that reviews a lot of WKRP episodes and delves into a lot of the show's history and struggles with music copyright. Read through please)

Adding a link to video: (looks like it's the whole episode, better sit here for 25 minutes, but it's worth it!):




Hope the link showed. Damn I hate this embed stuff.

Anywho. Best. Turkey. Episode. Ever.

That they don't run a WKRP marathon on Comedy Central every Turkey Day is a sin.

"As God is my witness... I thought turkeys could fly!"

Because Andrew Sullivan Takes This Sh-t Seriously

Over on the Atlantic blogging pages, Andrew Sullivan let most of the day slip by before posting any kind of update or report. Usually he and his mini-staff of two overworked and underpaid interns update practically every hour to the delight of millions (no, I'm not kidding, Sullivan's one the biggest reads on the 'Net). But Nov. 18th, there was dead silence for most of the day...

He finally posted an apology of sorts.

It seems he and his crew are poring over every word and every sentence in Sarah Palin's 'auto'-biography. Sullivan's seriously examining everything Palin's got on paper now - as a kind of official record - as a means of uncovering lapses (well that would be the more polite term for lying) in her political narrative.

He's caught some flack about this by now, you might have heard about it. He's a bit... obsessive-compulsive with Palin ever since she popped up on the national scene as McCain's VP pick. Like me, and a lot of other Americans, we hadn't really heard much about her. Her reputation at the time was that she was a 'reformer' who stood up to the Alaskan party machines... It wasn't until Sullivan and others started examining that reputation and finding out it was overblown - Palin's challenges to the local GOP elite was because they wouldn't give her the shiny pretty jobs she hoped for - that Sullivan started arguing against what he saw as her lying about her creditials, her background, her politics, her family... even the events surrounding the birth of her baby Trig.

Palin's defenders of course dismiss Sullivan as a hack... and even Sully's readers take him to task from time to time when his arguments cross the line into obsessive crazy talk. But Sullivan was one of the earliest to turn against her pick as Veep... and the disasters she visited on McCain's campaign - especially her horrific interviews that successively showed her getting WORSE handling them - proved him and the other Palin critics absolutely right.

And so, ever since then Sullivan has been keeping a harsh critical eye on Palin. Especially as Palin is promoting herself for an obvious attempt at the Presidency herself in 2012. This biography of hers (I can't call it an autobiography: she clearly has a ghost writer on it, and there's so sign of Palin having any literary skills) is a clear chance for Sullivan to dig as deep as he can without outright forcing her to sit with him on a one-on-one interview.

And so... we wait.

It's not like there was a lot else going on in the political world for Sully to comment upon, other than Sen. Sessions' attempt at a filibuster getting squashed... and Obama's trip to China and Japan... and Obama bowing to the Japanese Emperor and giving the wingnuts back home another excuse to have a collective conniption over a PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE ACT OF PROTOCOL YOU BABIES. Anywho.

At least I'm doing well with NaNoWriMo...

Calcification

The major blogs are starting to recognize the real problem with our current political landscape: the fact that our legislative system has frozen in place.

...Meyerson notes the Democrats' three great governing opportunities/challenges of the last century. The first was in 1933, when FDR and a Democratic Congress delivered on a New Deal. The second was in 1965, when LBJ and a Democratic Congress advanced the Great Society. The third is right now. And while the first two saw a flurry of legislative successes that came to define a generation, 2009 isn't working out the same way -- partly because Republicans have embraced obstructionism on an unprecedented scale, partly because some Democrats are conservatives who are comfortable with failure, and partly because of legislative procedural hurdles that FDR and LBJ didn't have to worry about.

As Benen notes, the partisan obstructionism of the Republicans is part of the reason we're not seeing more legislative action this year, or indeed out of the past 10 years (most legislation under the GOP tenure of the Aughts were self-serving deficit-increasing disasters like the handouts to Big Pharma in their Plan D package, every tax cut they could get away with, and funding two out-of-control wars). But the other aspects are just as bad: there are indeed Democrats not so much comfortable with failure as they are with the Status Quo - failure they can live with, they don't want to rock the boat and risk their incumbent re-election campaigns.

The other problem is the procedural hurdles currently in play. Worst of all is the filibuster rule. What was once an obscure rule is now an impediment on getting anything passed in the Senate (the House has no filibuster and so can pass laws by majority vote more quickly) because the filibuster can't be stopped (Cloture) unless two-thirds of the Senate votes to, which means you need 60 votes nowadays to ensure Cloture. Problem is where the Republicans are organized to a fault to where their own party is consuming themselves, the Democrats are disorganized to where each Senator can (and does) act like their own party and vote however they want... so even though they've GOT 60 Senators in their caucus (58 D plus 2 Ind), the Dems can't count on that 60 to really enforce anything because 20 of those asses will act up like petulant children and kick the furniture until they get their very own pony for Christmas... not that I'm expressing any frustration at the moment (DAMN YOU LIEBERMAN!). As a result, all the Republicans have to do (or Lieberman, YOU EFFING TRAITOR, just go R and BE DONE WITH IT) is threaten to filibuster and the Democrat-led Senate will freeze up and choke.

But the filibuster is only part of the problem.

What's worse is that a Senator can place a Secret (!) Hold on any motion from reaching the floor for a vote. This means anything (ANYTHING) that's gone through committee review and votes, from laws to nominees for key executive and judicial positions, can be held up for months (!) while NOTHING gets done. There's a boatload of vacancies in the White House and on our federal courts because Senators are abusing the Hold system out of partisan issues with particular agencies (or because they don't like the ideology of incoming administrations affecting who gets to fill lifetime judicial jobs). This is also what happened when Sens. Kyl and Hatch held up the unemployment benefits extension this month so they could essentially commit extortion. Both parties, let's be fair, have abused this rule, but right now it's gotten so much worse.

And WHAT MAKES IT WORSE is THE HOLD(S) IS/ARE SECRET. The Senator responsible for placing the hold doesn't have to be named in the official record, meaning they could hide their action from their voters back home and avoid accountability. It wasn't until an egregious hold placed on a government transparency bill of all things that a handful of aggrieved bloggers called around forcing nearly every Senator to flat-out deny they placed the hold (a direct public denial turning out to be a lie apparently never looks good on re-election efforts) until they narrowed the suspects down to four (by then the two culprits - Stevens and Byrd - fessed up). Subsequent Hold attempts are getting so brazen Senators are starting openly (but indirectly) to 'hint' who the bad guys are.

Attempts to fix the Filibuster and the Hold rules have come and gone, some brazenly partisan, others less so. For a while there, Holds were disallowed in the late 90s but then brought back. Either way, each procedural rule is turning out cause two problems: 1) they're undemocratic, preventing ANYTHING from getting done and 2) they create lack of accountability, not just for the Senators who abuse the procedures but also the Senators WHO LET THEM ABUSE IT.

The whole Upper House has gotten lazy and soft, beholden to themselves as Barons of power. And because of the short attention spans of the media (if not their state-bound voters), these Senators keep getting away with it. This leads to the Status Quo: unchanging, inflexible, stuck in ideas and beliefs 20 years out of date, and calcified.

We need reform. We need to fix the Senate truly before we can get any other reforms to save our nation in place. We need to set it in stone - not in the standing Senate Rules which no Senator will ever fix - but in amendments to the Constitution:

• The Filibuster can only be used by a Senator with regards to debating the approval of a judicial nominee that is filled by lifetime appointment. During the first 5 business days of filibustering it will require 2/3 vote for Cloture, and after the 5 business days it will require a simple majority for Cloture, and no nomination can be filibustered more than once;
• A Hold placed by a Senator on a legislative matter brought to the floor for a vote can only be in effect for up to 5 business days during which any questions the Senator has on the matter is resolved. The Senator must be named publicly and provide a written explanation for the Hold. The Senator cannot extend a Hold on that legislation (if the questions he/she has on the matter aren't resolved, he/she can still vote No), and only two Holds can be placed on the matter brought to the floor.

To finish out, a quote from Benen:

Facing extraordinary crises and challenges, the United States has a legislative branch that is barely able to legislate at all. The system can see the problems, but is struggling badly to address them. The first step in changing the way Congress operates is creating the demand -- most of the public has no idea that the Senate no longer operates by majority rule. Public frustration can lead to proposals, which can lead to debate, which can lead to solutions.

WAKE UP PEOPLE.

Support any and all efforts to get amendments, rules, whatever it takes to get reform methods - getting rid of Secret Holds, limiting the Filibuster to just votes on lifetime judicial appointments - in place AND FIX THE SENATE.