Impressive!

I've got a few thoughts swirling in my head of things I'm not happy about with the current administration, such as their adoption of the same bigoted defense of DOMA, their recent attempts to keep the visitors logs to the White House secret, and one other that's popped out of my head right now.

But today they did something which might just be really clever (or might just be a coincidence), and I wanted to say something now, so that if I turn out to be right, I can say "I told you so" (and if it doesn't, most likely no one will remember I said it. ;-) ).

I think Obama has found a way to make the fiscal conservatives support gay marriage. Really.

So far, Obama has left the political hot-potato of same-sex marriage lying in the coals, not wanting to burn himself, but he did just take the somewhat less politicall charged step of extending benefits to same sex partners of government workers.

Now of course the logical response to that is "But then what keeps the average single guy from claiming his roommate is his 'partner' to gain benefits?". I think that's unlikely to be a large problem, I think the combination of the basic honesty of most people and the "ick factor" for most straight people at claiming to be gay will keep the numbers of swindlers and con artists down (although they will exist). But it is still a possibility.

And so what is the answer? It is "we have no way of restricting it, because same sex couples can't marry, this is the only way we could be fair to them in benefits". Sure, some people will argue that the benefits should never have been offered, or should be rescinded to solve the problem, but having been offered, I suspect that there would be some very successful lawsuits if the benefits were rescinded.

This leaves the only practical result for the fiscal conservatives (those who are primarily fiscal, not social, conservatives) to be to come out for same-sex marriage, so that if Joe wants to get medical benefits for his worthless lazy roommate Steve, they'll have to actually have a ceremony, put Joe at risk of Steve taking half his stuff in a divorce, etc.

Really, if I'm right, over the next few months as we see people coming out against these benefits because of the abuse factor, they're playing right into the hands of the gay marrage folks.

Pretty slick, Mr. Obama!

Not good...

I subscribe to news alerts from several newspapers. One of them is the New York Times, which hit me with this little blurb recently:

* * *

U.S. Could Let Detainees Plead Guilty Without Trials

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

The provision could permit military prosecutors to avoid airing the details of brutal interrogation techniques. It could also allow the five detainees who have been charged with the Sept. 11 attacks to achieve their stated goal of pleading guilty to gain what they have called martyrdom.

* * *

This seems, to me, to be a really stupid idea, on top of being yet another violation of the core principles which make our country great.

I dislike this on principle. Everyone gets their day in court, even those who want to plead guilty. That's the way our country works, it always has been, and while the court is likely to find someone guilty who is bound and determined to plead that way, there are certainly cases where the court has determined that the person on trial was either not mentally competant to plead guilty, or had reasons political rather than justice on their minds during the pleading.

But on top of this, how stupid is this? These people want to become martyrs, they've stated as much. If we try them in a fair trial, convict them and execute them, then justice is served, even if it does allow them to become martyrs.

But if we kill someone without a trial, even someone who asked to have it happen, we play into the worst stereotypes the Muslim world has about us, that we're "the great satan", that we're "at war with Islam", and that our way of life is not just or pure.

We need to stop this increasing tendency to view our laws as inconveniences and obstacles to be overcome, rather than as vital foundations to the strength and greatness of our nation.

Broadway? How DARE he?

OK, enough of the "how DARE the Obamas go to NY to see a Broadway show" complaints that seem to be everywhere in the last couple of days.

Presidents are human, they have the right to a social life just like everyone else. If it becomes excessive, that's a problem. If it happens during an emergency, that's a problem.

But the complaint seems to be the cost to the taxpayers, so let's think about this...

Why does the President going anywhere cost the taxpayers money? Because we live in a society where high profile people have targets painted on their chests. And if you don't believe that, take a look at the weekend's news about Dr. Tiller, the abortion doctor murdered in cold blood which at church.

Like it or not, with the inflamatory nature of cable news, talk radio and the blogosphere, there are people out there who turn a philosophical difference of opinion into a justification for a holy war.

An abortion doctor is murdered after what could almost be classified as negligent urging on the part of several high profile conservative pundits, the same people who speak of "Obama the Muslim" and "Obama the socialist" and "Obama, who we'd better hope fails or he's going to destroy our country". Add in to that the fact that Obama is of African descent, which makes him a target of the bigoted racist loons in our country, and you have a focal point that some crazy people will convince themselves would be not merely acceptable to assassinate, but actually laudible.

This has been a problem for years, but most prominently in the age of the blog and tv and talk radio.

The tax payers provide security for the President not because he demands it, but because the nature of the job demands it.

I was a big denigrator of the previous President spending record shattering amounts of time "on vacation" at his Crawford, TX ranch, but it never was about the cost to the tax payers (I hope, if it did, I was wrong). The President flies in Air Force One not because he necessarily demands to be treated that way, but because the Secret Service requires it, Air Force One being one of the most technologically secure modes of transportation available.

So what this past weekend comes down to is a man who had promised to take his wife to a show making good on that promise. If I take a day off from work and drive or fly my wife down to Broadway to see a show, it's no big deal. If my job requires high security and my employer decides to pay someone to drive us down there and act as body guard, that doesn't mean I've recklessly chosen to cost my company money, it merely means that I've lived my life and, as a separate matter, it has been determined that my life requires extra protection.

That's it.

If Obama starts spending one week out of four in Hawaii with his family, or back in Chicago, we can certainly call him to task for it. If he starts taking month long vacations every year, or being on vacation while a national emergency is unfolding, absolutely he should be held to task.

But let's not forget that he's still a human being, he's still doing a job, and he still has a right to leisure activities.

Disappointment

Wasn't this the administration that was going to start following American values and American laws?

Am I missing something?

I'm not sure, yet, I'm overtired and having trouble focusing on the news blurb I just heard on TV, so I'm going to have to do some more digging when I'm fresher to make sure I heard/understood correctly, but if what I heard was correct, President Obama is trying to assert the legal right to hold people indefinitely, without charge. People who have not committed any crimes on the belief that they might commit such crimes in the future.

He couched it all in fancy talk about American values, and being subject to judicial review and the like, which is a step better than the last guy, but on just.

I really hope I misunderstood this. Because I'm just getting used to the idea that maybe I can comfortably travel to Europe again and not feel the urge to tell people I'm Canadian, just so they won't look at me in that certain way. I'm really not ready yet for another President, another administration, who feel that the Constitution and the core values of this country are obstacles to be overcome or somehow maleable to the needs of the moment.

Maybe I'm wrong. But I will hold President Obama's feet to the fire (to what limited extent I can here on this blog) just like I did President Bush, if I feel he's violating the law or the spirit of this country.

Liam.

Swine Flu: Don't Panic!

We need to think about some statistics.

As of this morning, there are about a hundred confirmed cases of swine flu in this country, and one death (not a U.S. citizen, but a child brought in from Mexico for treatment). There are no deaths in the U.S. of people who caught the disease in the U.S.

Now, compare that to this: According to the CDC(1), about 36,000 people die in the U.S. each year from influenza (flu) and related complications. That's about 100 deaths per day.

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases (NIAID), estimates range from 35 to 50 million Americans coming down with flu each year during the high flu season (November to March).(2)

Now, assuming 50 million people get some strain of the flu each year, that's about one person in 6. If 36,000 die from flu each year, that's about one death for every 8500 people in the U.S. And it means that one person dies for every 1375 people who catch the flu.

Yes, it pays to be careful, it's always good to avoid people who are visibly sick, and to wash our hands frequently and such. But really, they're closing down schools and people are discussing closing the border, and it's way too early to be discussing either of those. There will have to be over 300,000 cases of swine flu in this country before even 1 person in 100 will have been affected.

Could this become a pandemic? Yes. But statistically, compared with the incidence of other strains of flu, swine flu isn't even a blip on the radar. If it helps you to behave more safely, by all means pay attention.

But don't start panicing until the number of cases reaches the hundreds of thousands, or the number of deaths reaches the 10s of thousands. Any less than that, and it's no different than any other strain of virus that hits on any given year.

Liam.


(1 - http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r030107.htm )
(2 - http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/prevalence.htm )

Cliff May Interview

I have to give kudos to a man named Cliff May, he's the first guy in defense of what I believe to be torture who has actually made some sense. I also have to give kudos to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, who has again proven to have the ability to do the kind of hard-hitting serious interviews you almost never see on TV news any more.

Here are the three parts of the interview. Very thought provoking.

I've only just finished watching them, and will likely need to watch them a few more times before I fully absorb them and can comment, but the initial impression I have is that while May makes some very good points, he misses one extremely important one: While there may be honest debate over what really does constitute torture, the fact is that waterboarding is unambiguous. It has been considered torture historically, it has been tested and found to be torture, it is not ambiguous.

I'm also going to get around to reading the so-called "torture memos" tonight, so there will probably be another post on them if I feel so inclined.

Meanwhile, watch this. Regardless of what your opinion is on torture, it's a pretty good airing of both sides, and hopefully you can come away from it with a better sense of what the other side believes, even if your own mind is not changed.

Liam.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

Fear Mongering...

Another day, another Administration, another political party's pundits playing the fear card. I'm tired of it.

Last night, I was watching Countdown, and they spent an inordinate amount of time on the fact that Susan Collins and a few other Senators are still "bragging" about having removed pandemic readiness from the stimulus bill.

They did at one point admit that the readiness bill was passed separately, but they spent large amounts of time condemning these Republican Senators for their short-sightedness in light of the current Swine Flu situation.

But let's think about it. First off, Swine Flu is far from a pandemic at this point. It's a little bit scary, but the numbers of cases are not out of line with the numbers of cases of other influenzas, and the fatality numbers aren't that much higher than the other ones.

But secondly, given the fact that the preparedness bill did pass in an alternate form, what this really represents was someone's attempt to remove it from the stimulus bill, so as to make that already huge bill less political and pork-laden.

There are arguments on both sides, of course. Disease preparedness isn't directly related to stimulus, but it can also be said that a pandemic at a time of recession could topple the country into a full fledged depression, so viewed through that lens, perhaps it belonged in the stimulus bill as a "protective measure against further economic down turn".

But really, I'm sick and tired of people with political axes to grind. When you spend a lot of time talking about torture and what this country should do to atone and make right the behaviors of the recent past, that is not necessarily partisan. It certainly may be used for that purpose, but there are those of us who aren't looking for charges based on party affiliation, but on law breaking. If, as some assert, certain high ranking Democrats were briefed on the program and didn't object, they should be prosecuted as well.

But this whole "Lookie lookie at how the Republicans were short sighted, playing politics with this important bill, now that Swine Flu is rearing its ugly head" meme has got to go.

It isn't unreasonable for someone to believe it didn't belong in the stimulus bill, and it clearly passed separately, so any faux-trage is just political partisan posturing.

Enough.

FairTax, another thought...

What about all of those "Roth IRAs" out there? What about the 529 college accounts?

Both of these work by putting away POST tax money, and the benefit is accrued at the time of withdrawal, the money which has grown tax-free continues to be tax-free.

As soon as you enact the "FairTax" you basically invalidate the planning of anyone responsible enough to make use of one of these plans.

Of course, you could always have a "one time pre-bate" payment to people to make up for the loss, but that's one more bit of spent money that would have to be made up, and one more complication thrown into the mix.

Just my thoughts for this morning.

Liam.

More Thoughts on the so-called "FairTax"

I have discussed the so-called "FairTax" in this space before, and everything I've read about it seems to indicate that it is an overly simplistic idea that appeals because of its simplicity, but which would in fact not be nearly as simple or beneficial as its supporters suggest.

I've been reading over the FAQ page on FairTax.org and had a few more thoughts that I thought I'd write down.

The FAQ page says that corporations would not be taxed. The authors were quite incensed about the idea that a corporation was somehow a legal person and should pay taxes. So my question is what prevents me from setting up a personal corporation and doing all of my purchasing that way? What's to prevent retail establishments from offering their better customers deals whereby they'd simply report that the sales went to corporations, and then not charging the tax?

It doesn't even have to be a phony corporation, suppose someone like my wife, who manages several apartment buildings for a living, uses her corporation to purchase things for our home. It's not a phony or sham corporation, but should we be able to avoid paying our "FairTax" income taxation because we did the purchasing through our corporation?

Also, the "FairTax" is assessed on services as well as goods. That means that small business owners such as landlords who have never really been set up to deal with taxation (other than income, of course) from their businesses will now have to collect a 30% higher rent and file the taxes on those rents. Hardly a simplification for those who own rental properties.

The "FairTax" web site says that the interest and principal payments on mortgages would be exempt from taxation, which (it says) means that everyone would gain the full benefits of home ownership, not just those who itemize their deductions, and that even those who do would gain by using non-taxed dollars to pay the principal as well as the interest. This is disingenuous, though, because at purchase time, the price of the house is taxed at the "FairTax" rate of 30%. So let's imagine a home purchased for $100,000. Under today's system, under a 30 year mortgage at a 5% interest rate, the payments would be $536.83, and for the first three years, at least $400 of that is pre-tax interest payment and less than $137 is post-income-tax principal payment. Even assuming income taxation at the highest rate of 39%, that means the principal payment plus tax is around $225 for a total payment of about $625.

Now buy the house with a 30% "FairTax", so the purchase price is now $130,000. The same mortgage now has a payment of $697.87. You have to get almost 16 years into the mortgage in the first case, while earning income in the highest tax bracket, before you break even on that mortgage payment including the tax on the taxable portion. So much for "everyone benefitting". Statistically, few people keep a mortgage for more than 15 years, with moves, refinances and the like, mortgages that see their 15th year are quite rare.

Oh, and for those who say "But wait, you aren't calculating in the savings on Property Taxes", that's right, because Property Taxes are a state tax, not a federal tax, which means they would not be affected by the "FairTax". At best it would be revenue neutral, assuming states continued to tax the value of the house and not the value-plus-FairTax higher price paid. Those taxes would be paid with non-taxed dollars, just as they are today (interest paid is deductible on your federal income taxes).

I'm not a big fan of taxation, I don't know anyone who is, although I do believe that we need to pay for the things we buy, and if we can't reign in our government's spending, then paying taxes to support that spending is really the only reasonable option.

Still, this "FairTax" system really feels scary to me, because the people advocating it are clearly selling it with incomplete information, and whenever I can feel the sales job, the cynical part of my brain starts wondering what they aren't telling me.

By the way, if you want another view of some of what is wrong with the FairTax, check out this link.

Liam.

Bigotry revealed

There’s a storm gathering.

The clouds are dark and the winds are strong and I am afraid.

Some who advocate for interracial marriage have taken the issue far beyond mixed-race couples. They want to bring the issue into my life. My freedom will be taken away.

I’m a California pastor who must choose between my faith and my job.

I’m part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can’t support interracial marriage.

I’m a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son that blacks marrying whites is okay.

But some who advocate interracial marriage have not been content with interracial couples living as they wish. Those advocates want to change the way I live. I will have no choice. The storm is coming.

But we have hope, a rainbow coalition of people of every creed and color are coming together in love to protect racially pure marriage.

Paid for by National Organization for Marriage which is responsible for the content of this ad.

This is NOT the content of the ad paid for by the National Organization for Marriage, because they are advocating against same sex marriage, rather than different-race marriage.

Nevertheless, the ad I have adulterated above is presented with soft, reasonable sounding voices and soothing music, all designed to make it sound reasonable, and it really requires a change like the one I've made above to truly see how vile this hatred and bigotry is.

Just because you can say something in a reasonable sounding way does not mean that it is inherently reasonable.

If you are homophobic and a bigot and can't support gay marriage, that's fine, but don't try to tell me that your argument is any more reasonable or righteous than the anti-miscegeny arguments of the middle of the last century.

Liam, really peeved on behalf of his gay friends and neighbors.

So Much For 'Change You Can Believe In'

The Obama administration seems to have done a complete 180 on its position regarding executive authority to spy on citizens, and while the cynic in me isn't particularly surprised, the optimist in me really feels let down, and the constitutionalist is just plain pissed off.

Long time readers will recall that I took great exception to some of the extra-Constitutional activities of the previous administration, including:

1. their insane justifications for "interrogation techniques" which when perpetrated upon us by others in past wars we've tried as torture and war crimes
2. their use of semantic tricks such as defining new categories ("enemy combatant") to circumvent the existing laws for treatment of prisoners in war time
3. their use of warrantless wiretaps even on American citizens, in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, especially without warrants

It is this last one which concerns me today, because the current administration (in the form of Attorney General Eric Holder), rather than backing away from these activities, has asserted not only the right of the government to continue doing these things, but has asserted rights in excess of those claimed by the Bush administration.

To wit: The case of Jewel vs. the NSA deals with people who are suing over AT&T's alleged transmission of their telephone information to the NSA.

Holder has asserted to the judge that defending against these claims would violate "state's secret privileges". In effect, he's telling the judge "You can't let these people sue, because whatever we did, legal or not, would violate state secrets for us to defend against it", which essentially also says "We as the government can do whatever we like, because we refuse to acknowledge anyone's right to hold our feet to the fire if we violate pesky little things like the law, the Constitution or citizens' rights".

But the really heinous part is that not only are they arguing against even the possibility of any findings that laws might have been broken and rights may have been violated, they also argue something called "sovereign immunity", which sounds a whole lot to me like "unitary executive power" in different clothing. Under this, the administration claims that the government can only be sued if the information gathered by such wiretapping is released. As someone on one of the radio shows said this morning, this is kind of like claiming that if I steal money from you, I can only be prosecuted if I actually spend the money I stole.

The administration further asserts that not only can they not be required to defend against this suit because it might require the release of classified information about the NSA, they even assert that being forced to confirm or deny facts which are already publicly confirmed via other sources would violate these state secrets.

Now, I understand national security. I do. And there are times when it can be used legitimately. But it galls me that the federal government has become so large that it now feels justified in acting however it feels because it alone has the right to assert when a case against it can validly be heard.

Imagine a murderer with the power to decide which evidence the police could use against him, or able to successfully get the case against him dismissed on his assertion alone that defending himself against the charges would involve releasing information that must vitally be kept secret.

We have laws. These laws are supposed to apply to everyone. Instead, we have a state government that seizes power from the citizens that it isn't due under the constitution, a federal government which likewise seizes from the states powers which are constitutionally not theirs to grab, and an executive branch which continues to view itself not as one of three co-equal branches of government, but as essentially an elected king. That anyone who craved power enough to run for the office wouldn't likely voluntarily cede any of it is not surprising.

Still, this is one of the promises Obama made to us when he was running, that he would put a stop to flagrant abuse of executive power and restore law and order. To have him continue to assert the same tactics in defense of what was, according to the constitutional scholars I've read, pretty clearly a violation of the Constitution is galling.

(Much of the information for this post came from last night's Countdown with Keith Olbermann).

Hypocrisy and America Hating

Remember how if you didn't support Bush, you were America-hating, how we should all respect the Presidency and how whether we voted for him or not, we had to pull for him?

I recall being asked why I hated America several times, because my disagreement with Bush policies made that clear, apparently.

Apparently, though, that only applies if the President is Republican, at least according to Bobby Jindal. It's been all of a couple of months since Bush left office, and suddenly wanting the President to fail is just peachy keen, and it's just a Democratic "gotcha game" against Republicans to suggest otherwise.

I don't particularly mind people disagreeing with the President, but I'm a little bit miffed that some of the same people who considered me to be the ultimate in traitorous scum for disagreeing with President Bush now think it's perfectly fair and reasonable (perhaps even laudable) to disagree with President Obama.

This is what is wrong with our political system today, and it isn't limited to one party, as you'll note from my other recent posting: hypocrisy.

If we really were just concentrating on the issues, maybe we could get something done. Compromise occasionally. Listen to each other and be open minded enough to be persuaded by a strong argument we hadn't considered before.

But we get so far off into the weeds with moral outrage at behavior that we ourselves perpetrate when the tables are turned. It's so very difficult to get past the hypocrisy and insults when it's time to sit down and work with someone. I have several strongly right-wing people within my friend/family sphere, one in particularly recently who epitomizes this dichotomy.

And the truth is, while I'd like to believe I could learn things from him and listen to his argument for nuggets I hadn't gleaned before, the truth is that his bombast and closed mindedness and the sheer hypocrisy of some of his arguments (and his reactions to my responses when those responses are the mirror image of ones he himself has given on the other side) make it very difficult for me to take him seriously any more.

And that's sad.

Filibuster Cycles

Consider this...

The place: The Senate.

The situation: The minority party using the filibuster law to block the majority party's agenda.

The moral outrage by the majority party: That the use of filibuster is in some way unprecedented, is shutting down government in ways it was never intended to.

The attempt: To use some obscure rule to shut down the filibuster.

The thwarting of the attempt: A small group of moderate members of the majority party refusing to go along with any such shut-downs, rendering the obscure rule usage moot.

The moral outrage by the minority party: That this ran entirely counter to the "check and balance" that the filibuster was exactly intended for.

Sounds a lot like the so-called "nuclear option" proposed by Senate Republicans when those horrible, evil Democrats were using their filibuster powers to keep judges they believed to be too extreme from reaching the federal bench, right? And the Republicans insisted that this was unprecedented and unfair and were going to use the fact that it only takes a simple majority of the Senate to change Senate rules, and thus, by simple majority they could change the 2/3rds majority required for cloture of a filibuster to a simple majority?

And I said it was a horrible idea, because unfettered access to either side's agenda is a horrible idea, and that the filibuster rule was exactly put into place to PREVENT either side in a two-party system from reaching potentially dictatorial power.

But it isn't that "nuclear option". Fast forward just a few years, and now it isn't "the filibuster was never intended to be used against JUDGES" that the majority (Republicans) are saying, but "the filibuster was never intended to hold up just about every important bill or resolution we bring up" that the majority (Democrats) are saying.

And while I'm a little more sympathetic to the second argument than the first, because it feels like a more abusive use of filibuster than the really very limited use it was getting in the former case, the idea of circumventing that filibuster is just as horrible and I'm just as glad that there is a group of moderate Democrats willing to stand up and say they will vote with the Republicans on any bill that filibuster is blocked on.

The details are a little bit simplistic, here, and it's sort of important that they remain so, or else bogged down in the minutiae we could start arguing the minor and pedantic details of how this case is different than the last, and thus, either justified or horribly worse (depending on which party you identify with).

For example, near as I can tell this time the obscure rule being proposed to shut down the filibuster is that it apparently only takes a simple majority to bring up a bill in filibuster-proof way. I haven't found the details, but it's called the "budget reconciliation process", and it apparently only takes a simple majority to implement. So the Republican tactic was to essentially do away with the filibuster entirely, and the Democratic tactic is to just do away with it on a case-by-case basis. A distinction without a difference.

I wish the children could play nicely together, I really do. It's so much better when they all work together to build a snow man, than when the big kids and little kids separate into groups and begin forming sides and pelting each other with snowballs. But when they decide to go the latter route, we have rules in place to prevent the big kids from just demolishing those pesky little kids, and those rules are important.

It is a good thing that the "nuclear option" was never put into play (although I note that if it had been, the current use of filibuster by the Republicans wouldn't be happening, which should be a really good lesson for the Democrats who are currently in charge: you WILL be the minority again one day, and you REALLY don't want to load this weapon and hand it to the Republicans who will be in power on that day, just as I said to Republicans at the time of that older filibuster conflict). It will be a similar good thing if this rule is never put into action.

It's a lot more frustrating when it is legislation you agree with being blocked, but we defend the use of the weapon against us to preserve it for ourselves when we need it to prevent something we find entirely odious.

LEAVE THE FILIBUSTER ALONE.

And by the way, if you (like many liberal commentators) were outraged when the Republicans wanted to use the "nuclear option" and are now cheering this move by the Democrats, or if you (like many conservative commentators) were touting the "nuclear option" as a great and appropriate way to shut down those upstart Democrats but are now ginning up faux moral "outrage" that Republicans could be treated this way, you need to go away for a while and drink a nice steaming cup of SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE.

Obama's Choice

Tomorrow, Barack Obama will take the oath of office, and the Bush years, for better or for worse, will be behind us.

So far, Obama has done a lot, and more of it right than wrong, to run as inclusive a pre-administration as possible, and the pundits are all wondering whether this signals a new direction in American politics, and the truth is, it probably doesn't, and it probably doesn't regardless of what the Obama administration does.

The truth is that eventually, the excitement will fade. With his first official acts, he will begin making decisions which some will like and some will not, and those who do not like them will begin to cast aspersions, and eventually the bipartisanship will no longer be evident, even if the administration tries to keep the open dialog. I had a CEO at a job once who said "We make products, but we sell stories", which was his way of pointing out that if reality actually had any bearing on perception and ultimate success, Microsoft would not have put several better competing products out of business.

And so the perception will eventually turn. If it isn't Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, then it will be some other, next generation partisan, but someone will gain a soap box and a following and will loudly declare Obama the worst president ever, and some will listen. Heck, he's not even taken office yet, and we're already hearing about "the Obama recession" and there are still groups pushing law-suits claiming that Obama's birth records are in question, when in fact the state of Hawaii has affirmed that everything is in order. So already there are those who are willing to ignore the facts in favor of playing to the conspiracy minded.

Which (and that's probably the longest introduction I've ever written before getting to my point) brings me to Obama's choice.

It becomes ever more clear that we have engaged in torture, and that it was approved from the very top, by Vice President Cheney and President Bush themselves against Kahlid Sheik Mohammad. The President has as much as admitted it, the Vice President has as well, not to mention the recent admission by Susan Crawford, the Bush Administration official charged with deciding which Guantanamo detainees should be brought to trial, that we couldn't bring some of them because the evidence against them was obtained by torture, which would nullify any ability to win a conviction.

Now, President-elect Obama has implied that he is inclined to let the past be the past and not prosecute anyone for the war crimes committed. This is a political move, designed to keep the feeling of bipartisanship for as long as possible, but it is a mistake.

War crimes are serious business, and we as America tell ourselves we're the moral beacon of the world, and we tell ourselves that in our system, no one is above the law. And we get all morally offended when someone tortures one of our citizens.

If any of this is to be true, there have to be prosecutions for these crimes. Torture was committed. In our names, by those we elected to steer our country, and the only way we can remove even some of the stain of that torture from our hands is to hold those people accountable, to say to the world "yes, they did this in our names, but we didn't approve of it, and when we had the opportunity, we held them accountable for it."

Torture doesn't work. By all reports, it produces questionable results (experts have said a bonding scenario with prisoners provides much better results than torture), and it is banned by every civilized nation. It is a slippery slope we simply do not want to set foot upon, and having already trod there, need desperately to get off of, as quickly and decisively as possible.

So, Obama's choice is between risking accusations of a partisan witch hunt in order to prove to the world that we really do mean it when we say no one is above the law, and when we say that we find torture abhorrent, or to take the politically easier route of letting it slide and claiming that simply by stopping the policies of the past, without doing anything to atone for them, we will in any way wash the stain of this chapter of our history from our collective hands.

I hope he makes the harder choice.

Russian Fiction

This is an interesting link.

Not sure I believe it, but it is sourced to Bloomberg, so I believe that the Russian Professor there quoted said what he reportedly said.

He claims that the U.S. is on a rapid decline and will fairly soon break into six autonomous countries over the financial crisis.

Those regions are the Pacific Coast, the South, Texas, the Atlantic Coast, the Central States and the Northern states.

I think I'd bet against it, so I'm not sure why I'm posting it, I'm just finding it fascinating the kinds of speculations people are putting on the financial crisis.

Liam.

Pardon Me, Did You Say 'Torture'?

An interesting article from the Wall Street Journal today (well, yesterday now).

The White House is asserting that because they wrote up judicial memos of dubious legality justifying torture, that there's no need to pardon any of the people who took part in the torture program, because they didn't commit any crime. This is essentially like when Richard Nixon tried to claim that it was impossible for the President to violate the law, because "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal", and it is clearly not true.

But my take on this is that this is a smoke screen, largely hoping to avoid having those who might be left twisting in the wind by not being pardoned to feel abandoned, disgruntled, and perhaps eventually inclined to testify about the program in a future investigation, if offered an immunity deal.

Because here's the dirty little secret: The President cannot issue blanket pardons. A pardon requires specificity, both in terms of the specific person or persons (by name) being pardoned and the actions (potential crimes, whether charges have been brought or not) for which they are being pardoned.

Now, imagine what would happen if President Bush were to start issuing pardons with that specificity. He would essentially be admitting that torture took place and would be giving enough detail for future investigations to determine just exactly what took place. And he would be removing the threat of prosecution from the very people who might now be called to testify on such extreme interrogation programs, people who would now have only to fear prosecution for failure to provide accurate testimony (contempt of court/congress, for example).

Recall that President Bush can not pardon himself, and that Presidential pardons only apply in the United States. If we did torture, even once, it violates international law (in the form of the Geneva Convention, to which we are a signatory nation), and even if the Obama Administration or some future one declined to prosecute, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the International Court might decide to take a crack at it, given sufficient evidence that such violations occurred.

So really, there is nothing to be gained and everything to lose for President Bush to offer those pardons. This justification is (to use a much maligned phrase) lipstick on a pig.

Liam.

The Ongoing Bailout

Wow, this is a scary number I just heard on the Rachel Maddow show...

The current price tag thus far spent on bailouts for the current crisis (not including Citigroup) is about $4.3 trillion.

According to Barry Ritholtz, author of "Bailout Nation", even after adjusting for inflation, that sum costs more than each of the following:

• Marshall Plan
• The Louisiana Purchase
• The race to moon
• The Savings & Loan Crisis
• The Korean War
• The New Deal
• The invasion and ongoing war in Iraq
• The Vietnam War
• The entire budget of NASA over its entire existence

Not individually, COMBINED.

Adjusted to today's dollars, those nine historical events cost $3.92 trillion.

And one more interesting number: According to one site I found, the total of all mortgages in the United States today is estimated to be about $12 trillion. Which means in trying to solve a crisis sparked by bad mortgages, we have spent an amount sufficient to pay off more than a third of every mortgage in the country.

(Not that I'm suggesting using the money in that fashion would be a good idea, after all, supposedly there's some chances that we as a country may get some portion of that $4.3 trillion back, either in loan repayments or because we've assumed ownership of a portion of the assets of those we've bailed out. Still, though, it's a sobering number).

Liam.

Conditional Ethics

OK, folks, there's being sad your guy lost and then there's going crazy. Let's all calm down until at least after January 20th, OK?

There are two things which make me write this. First, there are already at least three different "Impeach Obama" groups on Facebook, the first has more than 700 members, the other two have over 150 members each.

Now, Impeachment is for the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors while in office, so... what say we wait until there's even a chance to commit some before calling for such a drastic step. Certainly it calls into question the sincerity of your charges if you began making them before it was even possible for the crime to have been committed.

"But Liam," I hear some of you cry, "there are over 95 'Impeach Bush' groups on Facebook. What about them?"

First, I'd bet most of them began SINCE some of the more controversial of Bush's actions in office. (Actually, that's not a fair bet, since Facebook didn't really exist before Bush took office, but still...) and any such groups on other sites which might have begun a campaign to have him impeached before he took office were similarly tainted.

Second, there are some real questions about some of Bush's conduct. I know some of the Bush supporters in my reading audience will disagree, but an objective look at some of his behaviors gives at least legitimate reason to question whether unconstitutional and other un-American activities have gone on, and certainly with the extent to which constitutionally mandated Congressional oversight has been thwarted, Impeachment might have been one way to end the stalling and allow Congress to do it's job. There's a huge difference between calling for the investigation and possible removal from office of someone whose actions seem questionable and calling for the investigation and possible removal from office of someone who has yet to even take the oath of that office or even, technically, be elected (remember, the Electoral College does not actually cast it's official ballots for another few weeks, Obama is not technically our "President Elect" yet).



But the other thing that prompted this message is Senator John Kyl. You may remember this interview and ones like it back in April of 2006, during the debate over the so-called "nuclear options", when the Republicans in charge of Congress were considering shutting down the filibuster power of the minority party over some nominations to certain judicial positions. Kyl was one of the more outspoken Republicans expressing outrage that these nominees weren't getting their "up or down" votes and essentially implying that the Democrats were sneaky, underhanded and downright immoral for exercising what little power our system of government leaves the minority party to check the power of the majority. (By the way, I'll bet the Republicans are pretty glad now they didn't do away with filibuster, eh?)

So of course, this man who felt so strongly about up or down votes, he'll certainly support holding votes on every Obama nominee, right?

Well, not so much. And he's not even waiting for a hypothetical "bad" nominee to come along, he's ALREADY issued a statement saying that if Obama nominates justices whom he (Kyl) disagrees with, he intends to filibuster them.

Now, maybe I'm old fashioned, but wasn't there a time when people at least pretended to hold true to their principles? A time when a Senator such as Kyl, having made such pious pronouncements on the sanctity of up-or-down votes on judicial nominees would wait until such a nominee was actually announced and then, with much faux hand-wringing, announced that while he still held his prior beliefs, this particular nominee was so egregious that he had no choice but to violate his principles?

What a two-faced buffoon, announcing at this stage of the game his intention to play by exactly the same set of rules that he so decried Democrats for playing by.

Nice conditional ethics there, Kyl.

Liam.

A Different Special Comment

OK, a lot of people have stopped listening to Keith Olbermann's Special Comments, because after the first few, he has occasionally gone over the top, expressing a level of umbrage not necessarily justified by the facts.

But this one... this one is not politics, particularly. It's about California's Prop 8 and propositions like it around the country.

For what it's worth, I was on a discussion board of fellow Obama supporters as the results came in on Tuesday last, and I recall saying that the results on Prop 8 were preventing me from feeling much joy at Obama's win, that all of the change that the Obama win represented for me was overshadowed by the narrow minded public support of hate inherent in the passage of Prop 8. Sure, there have been other such measures in other states, but this one was different. This was California. Tolerant, liberal, inclusive California, telling the gay members of their state that they were no longer full citizens, and telling those who had already been married under the state's gay marriage rules that their marriage didn't really count. Technically, the proposition doesn't retroactively un-marry those people, it simply says that the state "does not recognize" those marriages. A distinction without a difference.

And one wonders what will happen when the first of those marriages head to divorce court, as happens in half of heterosexual marriages, so we can hardly expect gay marriages to fare any better. If the state no longer recognizes those marriages, does that mean it can no longer legally recognize them enough to perform a divorce? Must those gay couples married under California law now travel to MA or CT or NH or one of the other gay-marriage supporting states in order to obtain a divorce of a marriage which is in a sort of legal "limbo"?

No, this is the sort of institutionalized bigotry and hatred I simply cannot understand, and so it made me ever so happy to see this Special Comment out of Mr. Olbermann.

Liam.

Good Laugh This Morning

On a news article about how Obama is getting his first tour of the White House and first post-election meeting with Bush, I was idly scanning the comments, and found this one:


I can't believe Obama hasn't even taken the oath of office and he's ALREADY sitting down with an unpopular, aggressive world leader without preconditions.

Oh, One More Cabinet Position

I don't know as he'd be interested in the position, but it might be nice to see someone like Al Gore in charge of the EPA.

Depending on global warming being the huge ecological catastrophy some have said (and not the latest "chicken little" issue) one could argue that solving our ecological crisis is our single most pressing problem right now.

After all, if we're slowly transforming the planet into an uninhabitable rock in space, perhaps "little things" like our financial crisis and our war on terror may not matter so much.

(Yes, I'm being facetious when I refer to those things as "little things", but the truth (in the words of psychologist Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Need") is that when you're on fire, that's generally the thing you worry about most, and it's not until the flames are extinguished that you consider the fact that you're also ravenously hungry and utterly broke.)

Liam.

President Obama's First Hundred Days

Finally for tonight, a lot of people are debating what priorities President Obama should have right off the bat in his Administration, and while I know that he will have access to information I don't have (and thus make some decisions that I might personally not understand), there are two mainstays of his campaign appearances that will be an important measurement for me as to whether President Obama will be the man he promised to be, or just another lying politician.

First, there are Executive Orders and Signing Statements. Having seen him speak several times, I can tell you that candidate Obama promised regularly during the campaign that one of the first things he'd do in office was direct his Attorney General to go through all of the Executive Orders and the controversial Signing Statements of the Bush administration with an eye towards identifying those which de facto (if not outright de jure) violate Constitutional principles. He has promised that as they are identified, he will move swiftly to counter them with Executive Orders of his own.

Now, you may not be as bothered as I am by the orders and statements that the Bush Administration has issued, but that was definitely a major supporting piece of the "change" message Candidate Obama ran on, and I will be interested in watching whether President Obama delivers.

The second thing I'm looking for out of President Obama is an immediate return to the days when the Geneva Convention was an honored piece of human rights legislation that we followed and expected others to follow as well, rather than a thorny inconvenience to be ignored or outright derided.

How will this manifest? I don't know. It will show up in how we handle Guantanamo Bay going forward. It will show up in how the trials of those in that prison are handled. It will show up in whether we try to continue the legal fiction that by creating a new label, "enemy combatant", we can then claim that people in that category are not due any of the rights they would previously have been under any of the existing labels.

I don't know exactly how any of these things will change. Guantanamo Bay and the greater war on terrorism are sticky situations, we need to take extra careful steps in trying to resolve them.

Still, I am watching to see how these change.

Liam.

Fraud Waiting to Happen

[I wrote this up a week ago, but never got around to posting it. I figure it was probably too late to change it for this time around anyway, but it'd be nice to consider before the next election.]

Yeah, I've been kind of quiet on here recently. I had a long argument with several family members in e-mail a few weeks back, culminating in one of the people involved arguing against the progressive tax system ultimately proposing an alternative that results in nearly exactly the same effective tax rate at all levels of income... just calculated in a different way.

I got so exasperated that I stopped writing about politics for a while. The truth is, there's not much time to change anyone's mind at this point anyway...

But, I learned today of something that I think needs to be fixed, and I wanted to comment on it.
Now, to begin with, I'm sure that the people who are doing this have the best of intentions, but... Apparently, at least here in NH, lists of which people have voted are available to the campaigns, ostensibly so that they can contact their supporters who have not yet voted and "get out the vote", offering rides and encouragement, etc.

But here's the scoop: this should NOT be allowed as long as identification is not required at the polling places. Now, I'm not one that's calling for ID in order to vote, I think our current system works pretty well. But let's not make it that easy to commit fraud by presenting lists to both sides of people who have not yet voted.

(Technically, no such lists are presented, it's only lists of people who HAVE voted, but if you have a pretty good list of registered voters and get a list of who has voted, it's not difficult to find the people who HAVEN'T.)

My feeling is that the "ride to the polls" service on both sides is pretty well publicized. There's simply no reason that any citizen who wishes to vote should fail to be able to do so due to lack of transportation. Thus, if you don't care enough to bother to vote, I'm not sure your vote should count just because someone was able to guilt you into it.

Especially when you compare that to the potential for people showing up to the polls claiming to be someone they aren't and casting a ballot that the actual citizen might not have agreed with.

Of course, the best way to make sure your own personal vote isn't stolen by someone who supports different priorities than you do is to make sure to cast your own vote, but so long as nearly 40% of our society can't be bothered to show up and cast a vote, these lists are a dangerous precedent to set.

Liam.

Everyman Strategy

Y'know, I've been thinking about this tonight (I have a pretty high fever, so I'm sort of lying here unable to do much and doing a lot of thinking, probably very little of it coherent), and I'm trying to figure out why "just like us" / "joe six pack" is a winning strategy and "elitist" is a bad thing in our government officials.

Now before anyone tells me why, I actually do get the human nature principles involved, but for me, I would really like to see the people involved in our government be WAY smarter than average. When it comes to movie stars or sports heroes, the "just like me / would I enjoy hanging out and having a beer with them" yardstick may be perfectly reasonable.

But we've got some pretty serious problems in our country right now. Two wars. A catastrophic financial crisis. Others.

I'd really kind of like to have the most elitist people we can find (in terms of education, intelligence and capability) working on those problems. The "just like me" test may bring us people we feel closer to, or people we may believe more likely to understand our particular situation, but I wouldn't want me working on many of the problems of the world. I want someone way smarter than me working on those problems.

Liam.

Next Cabinet Position: Secretary of the Treasury

A lot of speculation has been running around about Paul Volcker as the new Secretary of the Treasury, but I've been wondering whether a different Paul would be the way to go...

In specific, I'm thinking of Paul Krugman. Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics this year, and whenever I've heard him interviewed, he's made a lot of sense to me.

Now, economics is not a discipline in which I can claim any expertise, so perhaps I could be way off on this one, but I wonder if the two Pauls wouldn't do well in a combination of Treasury and FED chairman (the term of Ben Bernanke (the current FED chairman) does not end until 2010, so President Obama won't need to choose a replacement (or choose to renew his tenure) until then.

Still, Paul Krugman seems like a smart guy and perhaps one whom President Obama should tap for his expertise.

Liam.

The Obama Cabinet

I've been thinking a lot about who I'd like to see in the Obama cabinet.

Of course, we all know that often cabinet positions are filled not with high profile people but with people we've never heard of, and so of course the odds are that anyone's list of who's likely will be wrong.

However, there are several people I'd like to see in there, and I'd like to list them here, for my own amusement.

Richard Clarke - National Security Advisor or Secretary of Homeland Security
Chuck Hagel - Secretary of Defense
Colin Powell - Secretary of Education
Howard Dean - Surgeon General

I had been pulling for John Edwards as Attorney General, but I'm afraid his recent scandal makes him untouchable, so I'm not counting on that one.

But the truth is that Obama had promised us during the campaign that he'd like to surround himself with advisors from all over the political spectrum, in order to make informed decisions.

By the way, I know Powell has already said he does not want a position, so he's probably out of the running.

Still, over the next few days or weeks, until the cabinet is announced, I'll probably be stopping in here occasionally to comment on this person or that whom I think would make a good addition to the cabinet.

Liam.

McCain Concession Speech

Now THAT was a speech. If McCain had spoken like that during the campaign, he might not have lost.

Seriously.

President Barack Obama.

That's all that needs to be said tonight.

Party Identification Failure

Check out this picture.

Now, people have suggested that the scarf is horses, not donkeys, but still, if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase your wardrobe with, don't you think maybe it's best to avoid this scarf, even if it only LOOKS like you're subtly supporting the other party?

Liam.

P.S. The guy who sent the link to me followed it up with "Though to be fair... donkeys have longer ears." and a moment later with "oh, and the ears on the scarf are too short, too."

Al Qaeda Endorses John McCain?

Of course not. But if the news today had come out the other direction, you can be certain we'd be hearing it non-stop out of the McCain camp.

Certain al Qaeda websites have posted messages indicating glee at our current financial troubles and the fervent hope that hot-headed John McCain wins our next election, so that he'll continue to further our fiscal woes with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is a non-issue, or should be. But it rings back in my head to 2004, when we heard incessantly how al Qaeda wanted Kerry to win, and it just reminds me how ugly and dirty politics have gotten, and how angry I was at the time.

So, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. To use John McCain's latest rhetorical flourish, I think the American public needs to know more about McCain's ties to al Qaeda, and to ask themselves why al Qaeda would prefer him as our next President.

Of course it's ludicrous. But if things were reversed, I'll lay good odds that the OTHER side wouldn't be so quick to call it ludicrous. Remember back in April, when McCain said Obama was the Hamas choice? He said essentially that.

Liam.

Fiscal Responsibility

Another news story that broke recently is interesting less for what it is than for what it represents to a party that took such great umbrage to John Edwards' $400 haircut, using it to paint him as elitist and out of touch with average Americans:

Since being selected as running mate for John McCain, the Republican National Committee has spent over $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Palin and her family.

That's almost $2,500 per day since she was selected, more each day than the average family spends ANNUALLY on clothing (per the Bureau of Labor Statistics). More than four times the annual income of "Joe the Plumber", if he earns the median salary for plumbers ($37,514 per salary.com).

Now, there's probably nothing LEGALLY wrong with this, as the campaign and the RNC say all of the clothing will be donated to charity once the campaign is over.

Still, for a woman who spends much of her time trying to appeal as a "joe six-pack" and "hockey mom" every-woman, this shows how out of touch she actually is with average America.

Turnabout is fair play. If Edwards was out of touch because he got a haircut which turned out to cost $400, what does this say about Palin?

Liam.

Palin v. Constitution

Check out this frightening video (below). Sarah Palin has made this mistake before, but it was caught and corrected and she's still asserting it.

At issue is the job of the Vice President. Shades of Cheney's claim that the VP was neither part of the Executive branch nor the Legislative, Palin asserts that the VP is "in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom."

The truth is that the Constitution is clear, "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided." That does not mean control, it means the ONLY time such officer has any control in the Senate is when the vote is exactly split, he or she casts the tiebreaking vote. That's it.

The definition or role of "President of the Senate" is not further defined and is thus left to the discretion OF the Senate. The Senate web site makes it clear that although early code of conduct rules for the Senate gave the VP (as President of the Senate) great power in shaping the agenda OF the Senate, currently the role is considered largely ceremonial, except for those critical tie-breaking votes.

And because it is defined by the rules of the Senate, it does not appear that a Vice President could change that back without agreement of the Senate, or one must surely conclude Dick Cheney would already have done it.

This is at best a level of misunderstanding of the way the job works that should give serious questions about Palin's fitness for the job, and at worst a statement of intention to further shift the balance of power in favor of the executive branch, until we end up with a monarch instead of a President.

Scary.

Liam.

Suspended Campaigns...

Now this, I think, is a legitimate reason to suspend a campaign.

Barack Obama has announced that he will be cancelling his campaign events for two days to fly back to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother, whose health has reportedly taken a turn for the worse.

But to me, this differs from McCain's much touted "suspension" of his campaign over the bailout bill in several important ways. There is something useful Obama can do, his grandmother isn't going to suddenly fail moments after it looks like she's going to recover just because Obama sticks his nose in.

And more importantly, I don't expect Obama to make any political hay out of this, or even to try. He announced this with little fanfare, just enough to let people who had been planning to attend campaign events he was no longer going to participate in change their plans.

I predict little further mention of it by Obama, except to answer questions asked of him. I also predict ads from the McCain camp claiming that Obama wouldn't suspend when it was "important", and that this shows a lack of proper priorities on Obama's part.

And if I'm right, and we see that, just keep repeating "these are what real family values look like" until the lie is transparent.

Liam.

More on Torture

And the last one for today... A story from the Washington Post that gives yet more evidence that the White House not only knew about the specific torture practices we were using on prisoners, such as waterboarding, it actively condoned those methods.

Read the article. It will make you proud to be an American... if you're insane.

Liam.

More Signing Statements

Here is an article from the New York Times from the past week.

It tells of a recent pair of bills President Bush signed into law, but then "issued a so-called signing statement in which he instructed the executive branch to view parts of each as unconstitutional constraints on presidential power.".

This continues to be a usurpation of both Legislative and Judicial powers. The Executive Branch executes the laws. Period. They do not determine what is or is not constitutional, that's the job of the judiciary. And they do not have a line item veto.

This signing statement business has to go. Using it as former Presidents have, to clarify their understanding of a particularly ambiguously worded bit of legalese is reasonable. Using them in lieu of a veto, as a line-item veto (which has itself been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court), and not subject to an override vote by the Congress (which is also an unconstitutional power grab) shows just how far Bush believes his power reaches, and no one is calling him on it.

One bill was a military authorization act, and President Bush's signing statement attempts to negate parts that "forbid the money from being used to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq" and "required negotiations for an agreement by which Iraq would share some of the costs of the American military operations there."

Remember when they told us that the war wouldn't cost us very much, because Iraqi oil profits would pay for it? Now he's refusing even to negotiate that the Iraqis shoulder any of the burden.

The second bill was "a measure giving inspectors general greater independence from White House control." and Bush's signing statements significantly weakened the measure.

Now, we can debate the merits of the two bills, I'm not necessarily arguing that they are good law, but the fact is that the Constitution gives the President two options only: Sign the bills or veto them (either actively or by allowing the signing time limit to expire, the so-called "pocket veto"). In either case, the Congress has the option of overriding the veto and enacting the law anyway.

This unconstitutional use of signing statements changes the fundamental balance of power, because instead of taking the risk that Congress will enact a bill the President doesn't like, he simply alters the content of the bill (something he has no constitutional right to do) by directing his Executive Branch not to follow certain portions.

This should be enough to get the man impeached. If the Democratic members of Congress had any spines at all, he would have been, long since.

Liam.

How Important is Terrorist Support to McCain?

Last week, John McCain put up this list of prominent supporters. In the section titled "FORMER U.S. AMBASSADORS FOR MCCAIN-PALIN", check out the second name.

Lenore Annenberg

Yes, the same Annenberg that is responsible for the Annenberg Foundation, supporters of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the people who put up all of the money for William Ayres in the venture that eventually also had as a board member one Barack Obama, for which he has taken so much heat.

So apparently, if you sit on the board of a charitable foundation with someone who was a terrorist when you were pre-pubescent, that's unacceptable. But if you give large sums of money to a charitable foundation STARTED by that terrorist, then you're perfectly welcome to support John McCain.

Anyone want to guess what kind of hoopla we'd be hearing if Lenore Annenberg had supported Obama?

Liam.

P.S. Someone recently suggested to me that factcheck.org (which receives its major funding from the Annenberg Foundation) might be biased in favor of Obama, since he sat on the board of an Annenberg funded charity. I think this pretty well trumps that. I'm still willing to take factcheck.org as non-partisan and unbiased, but I certainly will not listen to people tell me that they're likely to choose to be biased towards someone who was once one member of a board of people on a charity funded by Annenberg over someone the leader of the foundation supports.

ACORN

You may have noticed, I’ve been pretty silent on here the last week or so. As long time readers will recall, I tend to go through phases. I get a lot of energy for things political, and then I get tired and need a break. I guess I’m sort of in a break right now, but there’s one story that I’ve followed and I decided I need to comment on: The whole ACORN "voter fraud" story.

There is a lot that’s been written on this, but I just wanted to throw out a few important bullet points to counteract the whole tizzy that’s going on.

First, understand that this isn’t voter fraud, this is voter REGISTRATION fraud. The whole story is that ACORN employees are defrauding ACORN, because they are paid by the number of registrations they (the employees) turn in. So ACORN is paying people for fraudulent registrations that in virtually every case will never be used. It’s not that there’s someone who is going to show up and try to vote as “Mickey Mouse”, it’s that ACORN paid someone for that registration, even though no such person will ever show up to vote. Also, the one case that has been pointed out many times, where one gentleman registered something like 50 times under his own name and address… that’s going to get him exactly ONE vote. ACORN was cheated out of 49 registration payments, but there will only be ONE registration when that man comes in to vote.

Second, people are pointing at ACORN as the source of the problem, but they are the ones who pointed out the problem. The law requires that any group that takes voter registrations turn in ALL of them. This is to prevent groups from going out, registering a lot of people, and then only turning in the ones for the party they support and leaving the other people thinking they’re registered but in fact showing up on election day and being unable to vote. So ACORN turned in all of the registration forms and flagged the ones they felt were fraudulent. ACORN did not try to defraud anyone, they merely complied with the law, while taking the additional step of telling the states which forms they considered to be questionable. The process worked.

Third, this is being used to attempt to justify "picture identification" laws, but here’s the scoop: It’s already, so I’ve read, federally mandated that if you do not register in person at your local government office (at which time you’d have to show ID), then when you go to vote you have to show ID. So all of these questionable registrations will already have to show ID when they go to vote.

Fourth, this isn’t a new story, ACORN has been registering people to vote since the primaries and has been flagging the registrations they felt were questionable all that time. However, now it makes a good story because it looks like a last minute thing. I’m virtually certain this is coming out now because McCain is so far behind in the polls. It’s being used to justify massive (and in some cases illegal) purges of the voter rolls and general voter suppression techniques, all ostensibly in the name of combating voter fraud but in fact aimed at suppressing poor and minority voting, since it will predominantly go to Obama.

Fifth, John McCain has been a supporter of ACORN until just recently, speaking at their events and praising them for their great work on behalf of the nation. But then, McCain has changed so many positions this election cycle that this should hardly surprise anyone.

So just remember all of these facts when someone starts saying "Booga booga, scary bogeyman voter fraud ACORN. Booga booga!" The facts do not support VOTER fraud, but VOTER REGISTRATION fraud. The facts do not support these registrations actually passing into the voter rolls, but that ACORN is being defrauded by some of its agents.

And the facts to not justify these wholesale voter challenges and voting roll purges which are going on, those are not legitimate, they are an attempt to remove as many Obama supporters from the rolls as possible, while claiming that any such legitimate voters who were thus removed were "unintended consequences."

They are intended consequences.

For anyone who is interested in more information on this, I've heard (although I've not been there to verify) that you can find a lot of information on this at the Brad Blog (also a good source of information about voter fraud in general and specifically the continuing problems with electronic voting machines).

Liam.

P.S. If you want to make sure that you have not been purged from the voter rolls in your state, go to votersunite.org and click on the "Are YOU Registered to Vote?" link on the right hand side, it will tell you how to verify in your home state.

Voting Proposition

This post comes out of the ACORN post I'm about to post, but I want that one to be at the top of the blog for a few days, so I'm posting this first.

I'd just like to reiterate my proposal for solving the problems with our voting machines. I do not believe electronic voting machines are bad, I actually believe they can be a force for good... subject to certain safeguards.

I suggest electronic voting machines print out a receipt like ATMs do. These receipts should be machine and human readable.

After each voter verifies that their receipt correctly represents the vote that they cast, it is then fed into a separate, un-connected system (preferably built by a different company) which keeps a second tally and then maintains the paper receipts for manual recounts where necessary.

I believe there are at least three cases when recounts should be performed:

1. In the case of challenge of the results (in close races, or where there's some statistical anomaly, like results which don't match exit polling).
2. Whenever some threshold is met in disagreement between the two separate machines(*)
3. For spot inspections, where some random set of districts during each election are selected for a manual recount to ensure the veracity of the results from the two electronic counts.

There would also be a process (hopefully rarely used) for a voter to challenge if his/her receipt does not match the vote they intended to cast.

Liam.

(*) This recount would automatically trigger any time there was a difference beyond a certain threshold between the two "official" counts. This threshold would probably be a percentage deviation or whenever the results of the two machines' counts change the results of one or more races. I say "a threshold" rather than "any discrepancy" because there will always be someone who forgets to submit their paper receipt after voting, so I'm willing to accept some small and statistically insignificant difference (although any time the "recount" machine registers a higher tally than the primary machine, that might raise an eyebrow or two)

I similarly expect that the number of challenges to results on the receipts will not be zero, both from user error of the primar e-voting machine, from those with memory or other mental infirmities who may honestly be confused, and from the occasional trouble-maker who decides to throw the system into question by voting one way and immediately (and loudly) trumpeting how the system was "obviously" rigged because he would never have voted for this particular candidate.

More on the Bail Out

Here's a nice video, detailing how Congress was pressured to pass the Bail Out bill. I meant to write about it before the vote, but I got involved in other things and forgot.

But here's the scoop, and it made me all the more opposed to the bail out bill: According to Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California), they were told in private conversations that without this bill, the market would drop 5000 points over a few days and that there would be martial law in the United States.

This is fear mongering, plain and simple, and smacks of the same pressuring that the Administration did for the Patriot Act in the days after 9/11. This Administration has used up its credibility. I wish more of our Representatives had seen this for the same sort of ham-handed coercion that went on in 2001 and had pushed back and required that more study go into the bill before it was passed.

If we've learned nothing else in the last 8 years, we've learned that when the Administration uses fear to try to urge a quick response, it's generally because there are things they want that they're afraid cooler heads will refuse to give them.

Here's one video of Sherman discussing this:



And here's a longer YouTube sound clip of Sherman on some radio show discussing the same thing...



Liam.

Still Think The Bailout Was A Good Idea?

Here is an article in the Guardian (U.K.) pointing out that AIG, the Insurance giant which received an $85 billion emergency bail-out loan from the Government a few days before the major bailout bill that we've talked about was passed, followed that up several days later by spending over $400,000 on a "lavish corporate retreat".

There have been other stories that some of the financial institutions which were pushing so hard for the $700 billion bailout package last week were busy at the same time shoring up their own "golden parachutes", making payments to, or arrangements for such payments to, senior management members.

Now let's just think about this. If you or I got hired to work for a company and completely screwed up everything we worked on, we'd be shown the door, most likely with no severance package at all. But these people at the top, who clearly were at the helm when the ship struck the reef, are being rewarded.

It makes me want to scream!

Liam.

Shredded Constitution

I read an AP article today that everyone should read. I've seen it in several papers, here is the link to one such, in the LA Times.

The story tells of three men, two U.S. citizens and one "legal resident" who have all been held in "military prisons" on U.S. soil but denied their basic Constitutional rights. (According to a different article I read on the topic, these brigs were in Virginia and South Carolina.)

One of the men, according to a military officer, was "being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation." According to the article, the military was ordered to treat Americans the same way as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

All three men were interrogated by the CIA. Denied access to attorneys, mail and any human contact but for guards and interrogators. Under Bush Administration orders, they were held as "enemy combatants" for years of interrogations without criminal charges. Remember, two of these men were American citizens, and all three were being held on American soil.

To me, it is immaterial whether any of these men or all of them were ultimately terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. One of the three was released to Saudi Arabia on condition that he renounce his American citizenship, so essentially an American citizen was effectively deported from the country.

And yet there are still people in this country who think that the Bush Administration has been just great for this country. Indeed, a few of these people perhaps should consider what it would be like if they, themselves were picked up, accused of being terrorists or sympathizers, held for years without access to natural light or their families, interrogated regularly, and then finally offered the chance to get out but only if they'd leave the U.S. and renounce their citizenship.

Apparently, the Bush Administration thinks that's perfectly reasonable. I think it's another reason why large numbers of the Administration, from Bush and Cheney on down, should be in prison for life for wanton abuse of power.

Liam.

Maverick?

I've been meaning to write some more things on here, but haven't had the energy.

Until I do again, here is an article from Rolling Stone about John McCain's Maverick bona fides, or lack thereof.

Good reading.

Enjoy!

Liam.

Lectures by the Dull and Uninformed

There are few things in life more frustrating, at least to me, than being lectured by someone who has incomplete facts and has shown a complete lack of knowledge or even competence in the area upon which they are lecturing me.

I get frustrated when it is my children, who will occasionally try to tell me what some little noise or behavior on the part of my two year old son means… in spite of the fact that he’s the FIRST toddler they have ever experienced and I have dealt with three. More than half the time, they are incorrect. Of the times they have been correct, I have yet to be surprised or informed by what they told me. It’s infuriating to have someone with less information than I do lecture me.

My grandmother used to like to lecture me about my depression. She knew nothing about it, grew up in an era when the term “depression” was nearly unheard of. She didn’t understand biochemical imbalances or other legitimate causes, she was just certain that I just needed to “smile more”. I, by the summer the particular set of conversations I’m referencing occurred, was about thirty and had probably fifteen years of experience dealing with depression and various therapies and anti-depressant medications and other coping strategies. She had a barely working knowledge of the state of the art as of her youth, which is to say she had heard the word “leeches” and presumed she knew how to handle an organ which needed to be replaced via transplant. It’s infuriating to have someone with less information than I do lecture me.

And so tonight, I am extremely angry at someone who has chosen to lecture me about my relationship with my wife.

Now, I will state right off the bat, no relationship is perfect. There are ups and downs, there are the great triumphs and the great battles. You love each other, you do your best to work through the problems, and life goes on. Anyone who tells you that a good relationship has no conflict is deluded or trying to sell you something. I’m not saying Janet and I have any huge problems right now, we don’t. We have the same sorts of little problems every successful marriage goes through periodically.

However, there is a person in whom Janet sometimes confides. This person has not, in her entire life, had a successful, stable or healthy relationship. She is at best a mediocre parent to her single child (born out of wedlock, the product of one in a long string of spectacularly failed relationships). She spends hours talking with Janet about the sorts of social stupidity most teen-aged girls do in high school… but then grow out of by college, and certainly by their 30s.

And yet this person, who has at best shown the same talent for relationships that my grandmother did for quadruple bypass surgery, or my children do for the intricacies of child rearing, took a few details she got from Janet after a minor argument and decided to spin that into a series of e-mails telling me that my relationship with my wife was failing, that I was tearing both my marriage and my wife apart, and that it was all my fault. This woman who can’t keep a relationship going (except for crawling back with her dignity in her hand for sexual liaisons with one or more of her former boyfriends during dry spells) and who does not understand that there’s nothing she could tell me about my relationship with Janet that she and I had not already discussed and come to either an understanding on or at least a plan for how to work on it, thinks it is somehow useful to put her spectacularly idiotic relationship skills into suggestions for me.

It’s really infuriating when morons lecture me.

Liam.

Who Is To Blame?

I want to blame someone. I want someone to pay for doing this to our economy, for taking $2300 for every man woman and child in this country to pay for a screw up that should never have happened. I want to find the person or persons responsible and make sure they pay for their crimes.

And I'm not alone. But, in discussing this with like-minded individuals, a big problem came up, and that's how do we identify who DESERVES to be punished? I don't want a big witch-hunt with everyone looking for SOMEONE to pay, just so we'll all feel better.

Anyway, the rest of this is a slightly reworked e-mail I sent out to a group of family and friends who were thinking along the same lines, and since I exhorted them to help me figure out who the guilty are, I figured I should post it here as well, to see if anyone in my vast reading audience has any thoughts.

Liam.

* * *

OK, I've been thinking about this some more, and the very real question I've come up with is this: How do we determine who was at fault?

Was it the CEOs and other executives at the companies? They would seem an obvious choice, but the fact is that the things they were doing, although perhaps ethically questionable, were entirely legal and weren't being regulated, and you can make the argument that in any company, the executive team's job is to make as much money as possible for shareholders, and if this was a legal path to make money (and more importantly, if "everyone else was doing it" such that by NOT participating they ran a real risk of losing out to other companies), was what they were doing justification for prison?

OK, so how about the regulators? Shouldn't they have stopped it? Well, from what I understand, there's been fairly minimal regulation on these financial shenanigans, and so I'm not sure it was within the job description of the regulating authorities to put a stop to it.

You could make an argument that President Bush and the Republican rubber-stamp Congress he had for the first six years is to blame, for consistently putting people into positions of regulatory authority who have significant ties to the industries over which they are supposed to watch, but that's how his constituents wanted it, the Republicans being the party of deregulation.

You could make the same argument about President Clinton and the Democratic Congress he had at the beginning, who pushed through the laws being pointed to that required a certain percentage of all mortgages written had to go to less advantaged people.

The truth, and I've come to believe this about most of the woes in this country, is that we have two fundamentally different philosophies going on, and they are incompatible. Either would work, on its own, but they conflict in really bad ways.

As an example, take national security. As an over-simplified example, the Democratic philosophy is to be friends with everyone so that no one WANTS to attack us, and then maintain a somewhat minimal armed forces to take care of the opportunists, while being "good neighbors" to prevent everyone else from attacking.

The Republican philosophy, equally over-simplified, is to arm ourselves to the teeth and be the big kid on the block, so that no one dares mess with us. Assert our authority. Be the alpha dog. Make it just too scary a proposition to attack us.

Either philosophy could work, but when you combine them it's like combining fire and dynamite. Assert your authority until people are afraid but also angry, and then switch to the "carrot" approach. People don't react to your suddenly being good neighbors as fast as you expect, and if you cut back on defense too quickly, boom.

I think the same thing is true here, too. The Democratic plan (still simplified, this time mostly because I'm not strong on economic issues) for mortgages was to help make owning houses more available to the under privileged (something which President Bush also talked about early in his tenure), but required a lot of oversight and regulation to make sure it wasn't abused. The Republican plan (also simplified) involved deregulating, but wouldn't have set up the plan for disadvantaged borrowers to borrow money.

And when you take a plan that only works safely with a lot of regulation and combine it with people in charge who fundamentally believe in deregulation where ever possible, boom.

So really, as much as I'd love to see someone "pay" for this, to be able to point to someone and say "You, this is YOUR fault, YOU did this, now it's time for you to spend the rest of your life in a small room with a cell mate named 'Bubba' who thinks you've got a purty mouth", the fact is that I'm not sure who to point to and say that about. I'm not sure if there's any one person or group of people more at fault than any other, or that most of the people who contributed to the problem did enough on their own to cause it.

Now, all of that said, if you have any ideas as to how to identify the guilty, or who in this whole mess should have known better and fell down on the job, I’m all ears. But until I have some idea of WHO I think should be punished, I feel kind of strange writing to my Senators and Representative demanding that "someone" be held accountable, because that way lies witch hunts, seeking someone to blame to assuage our anger, rather than for justice.

Wonderful Post

A few days ago, I had not heard of Kathleen Parker. She's apparently a solidly right-wing columnist, who had the audacity to question whether Palin was good for the ticket, the party or the nation (if she wins).

Yesterday, she wrote a response column, and it has a lot of good things to say about the extent to which much of this nation has bought into partisanship and adherence to message over principles.

You can find it here. It's a great read, and one we should all think about.

I'm sure I've fallen into the trap occasionally, even though I'm not formally allied with either party, because in this particular election I feel so strongly that we need a change in party.

I know others who happily trot out the most bogus claims, the most dubious logic, the most questionable twist on the meaning of some statement or other and pounce on it as incontravertible proof that the "other guy" is one step above antichrist in status and not worthy of cleaning gum off of the bottom of our shoes.

We really need to think more about this attitude we have, or else any time we get an elected official who is good for the nation, it'll be entirely by accident.

Liam.

Reduced Sodium Posting

No more grains of salt needed.

Here is a link to video of John McCain calling for the Treasury to spend a trillion dollars without Congressional approval several times yesterday, a day after Congress denied spending 70% of that amount on the same purpose.

Amazing. I don't know if he's right or wrong on the legality of it, but the sheer HUBRIS of deciding that if the people's branch of the federal government doesn't approve of something, they should just be circumvented.

By the way, McCain yesterday also took Obama's call for increasing the FDIC insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000 (he did give credit for it), which is interesting, in that 23 years ago when it went from $40,000 to $100,000 he OPPOSED it and claimed that the $40,000 of insurance was already responsible for the Savings & Loan failures.

McCain is clearly not a fiscal genius.

Liam.

Take This With A Grain Of Salt

I haven't been able to confirm this yet, but it's such a staggeringly bad idea that I want to mention it, just in case it turns out to be true.

Several sources are reporting that John McCain is now urging President Bush to spend about one trillion dollars to solve the current financial crisis... without Congressional approval, without oversight, and just days after Congress rejected a plan that had a 30% lower price tag.

The most reputable source I've found for this so far is this from Time, which is reputable but a little bit short on details for my taste.

Following on the heals of stating that he'd fire someone the President has no power to fire (the SEC chairman), it seems obvious that McCain views the President in much the same way Bush does, as an Imperial force with near kingly powers, rather than as one of three co-equal branches of government.

If you ever needed a good reason to vote for Barack Obama, this is it. Obama has pledged to re-balance the power the way the Constitution (or its framers, anyway) intended. While it is hard to believe that any President will willingly cede power to the other branches, at least he won't continue us down this dangerous path.

A trillion dollars. Advocated by a man who until six months ago widely proclaimed his lack of knowledge of the economy. Unregulated.

Don't let this man be President. We won't have a country left.

Liam.

Playing Both Sides

It is beginning to look like the Republicans miscalculated. Apparently, they expected the bail-out bill to pass but be unpopular, and had planned to run AGAINST Democratic incumbents using it as ammunition.

In specific, Monday morning, before the vote, this ad was sent out to several stations to be aired that evening:



It clearly attempts to call the bailout plan "Barack Obama's plan", even though it originated with Secretary Paulson and was claimed as an achievemnt by John McCain.

But, as of today, McCain and the Republican Party are running at least two different ads blaming Obama for the failure to pass the bill (while saying in stump speeches that "now is not the time for laying blame"). There have been several attempts to link Obama to the failure, such as this:



and the RNC fundraising e-mail that went out with the subject line "Obama Stood By, Did Nothing, And Showed No Leadership On The Bailout Negotiations."

So apparently the Republican party and John McCain were and are prepared to use ANY outcome against Barack Obama.

Which sort of calls into question the veracity of anything they say on the subject.

Liam.

More on the Debate

I had two more thoughts on the debate.

First, remembering all the kerfuffle about lapel flag pins during the primary, I would point out that Senator McCain was not wearing one. Senator Obama was. It's stupid, pointless symbolism, but it was damned important and showed a lack of patriotism when Obama didn't wear one. I wonder what it means when McCain doesn't?

Also, I mentioned the recycled stump speech lines that McCain used, but I was re-watching the debate and I noticed that one of them he didn't even use CORRECTLY.

He has been saying for weeks now that the solution to pork barrel spending is his pen, and that in office he will veto every spending bill that comes with earmarked spending.

The quote he's been using has been this:

"I've got a pen, my friends, and the first pork barrel-laden earmark,
big-spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it. You will know their
names. I will make them famous and we’ll stop this corruption."

But in the debate, he said that he would veto "every single spending bill that comes across my desk" followed by the "You will know their names" threat.

It's a small thing, but I think the government would grind to a halt if he vetoed every single spending bill.

Liam

Bailing Out of the Bail Out

As we've all heard by now, the bail out package failed to pass the House of Representatives.

This, alone, may not be a bad thing. I have begun to have serious doubts about the bill and its size. (Note, I am not an economist, I have taken exactly one basic economics course over 20 years ago, so this is all based on what I'm reading, not based on any expertise!)

The truth is that economists do not seem to agree on this bill. This isn't surprising, it seems like if you get N economists in a room, you end up with at least N+1 opinions on any situation.

Nevertheless, there are some who seem pretty convinced that:

1. This package won't work particularly well.
2. With the high price tag, this package will further damage the economy.
3. There are cheaper things we could do that might have a better chance of working.

I don't know if any of this is true, but it seems like an awfully big gamble of a lot of money, a lot of additional national debt and a lot of weakening of the dollar on a gamble.

However, I'm getting really annoyed at the partisanship. The vote was called when Nancy Pelosi said she could deliver a certain number of democrats, and John Boehner said he could deliver a certain amount of republicans. Those two numbers together added up to enough to pass the bill, but after the votes were cast, the democrats came through, the republicans did not.

Rep. Boehner immediately pointed the finger of blame at Nancy Pelosi for a supposed partisan speech she gave before the vote. Even assuming that's true, it does not make me feel any better about the republicans that they would base their vote on what some have said the most important financial legislation in our lifetimes on hurt feelings, and if they did, it says a lot (all bad) about their willingness to throw the country and its economy under the bus.

Far more likely, of course, is that Boehner needs an excuse why he can't even control the people he's supposed to lead, because it doesn't look good for a party's leadership in the Congress to be that weak.

Also, Senator Obama has been very quiet on the whole matter, enough so that John McCain has accused him of doing nothing, showing no leadership in the whole matter. But the truth is that what that really means is that Obama isn't playing politics with it.

Today, just a bit after 5pm, McCain held a press conference in which two of his statements, back to back, were to talk about how shameful it was that "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress" had injected "unnecessary partisanship into the process", followed by "Now is not the time to affix blame, it's time to fix the problem."

Essentially "It's all Obama's fault. But it's not time to assign fault."

The entire handling of this affair has smacked of raw partisan politics on the McCain side, and it's making me sick.

Liam.

Financial Crisis Spin

Oh, the spin is starting. A right wing friend of mine just sent me an e-mail claiming that although they're trying to spin it otherwise, John McCain actually WAS vital to the process last week, and really DID put country above campaign, even though the story about him essentially screwing up the works has come from both ends of the political spectrum.

This was essentially my response to him, reformatted and with identifying information removed.

* * *

McCain tried too hard to make political hay out of this. Forget for the moment let's assume that everything you say is true (which I doubt, because it's only the McCain camp that's saying so). He keeps trying to tell us he puts country before his campaign. If you're going to do that, Senator, just go ahead and friggin DO it. The way he did it was akin to a really bad actor's death scene in a movie. You know, stumbling about the set with huge melodramatic moves, announcing "Oh! The Pain! I'm dying!" repetitively, in a loud, strong, healthy voice. This impression was made all the more appropriate by the fact that although he announced he was "suspending his campaign", he continued to do interviews and campaign events.(*)

There are two ways it could have been handled and ACTUALLY gotten him some credit. First, he could have just done it and quietly fed a talking point or two to someone loyal but sufficiently distant from the core campaign that the message was "Hey, this guy is risking his campaign to work on the crisis" rather than "Hey, this guy is loudly telling us that he's risking his campaign to work on the crisis".

Or he could have ACTUALLY just done it quietly, not fed a talking point to anyone. Chris Dodd got similar plaudits and a bump in his polling (granted, it was from 1% to about 4%) when he suspended his campaign and went back to Washington to fillibuster the... I think it was the telecom immunity portion of the FISA bill.

But Dodd didn't wave his hands and say "Ooooh, look at me! See what I'm doing! I'm the big hero! I'm showing leadership! I'm doing my G-D job!"

Also, McCain's running back to do his damn job would ring a lot less hollow if he'd voted EVEN ONCE since early April. McCain has missed more votes this year by far than any other Senator, even more than Tim Johnson, who was out for months with a damned brain hemmorage. He's missed almost half again as many as Obama and Clinton, the #3 and #4 offenders.

(Which doesn't look good on Obama or Clinton either, it's the only profession in which you can spend full time interviewing for a new position while still drawing your old salary but not really doing your old job).

But neither Obama nor Clinton has tried to make a big show of how they were going to take a few seconds and actually do their job for the first time in very close to half a year!

So, you want to reject the story that says McCain was responsible for the collapse of the deal on Thursday? Fine.

You want to ignore that twice he was caught not really rushing to help out (first when he said he was rushing right there to Letterman, and then didn't show up in DC for about 20 hours, second when he was supposedly working hard on the bill but was caught out at a four star restaurant with his wife and the Libermans), fine. You want to ignore how he wasn't on the committee that was working on it, so really couldn't even be in the room while they were working on it, and could only express support or lack there of? Fine.

You want to ignore that reportedly he got home and then did most of his work BY PHONE FROM HOME (aka, he DID phone it in)(**)? Fine.

And you want to ignore the political grandstanding move of feinting towards the minority alternate plan that shook up the initial deal before switching back to the main one, all to look like he had some great influence on the process? Fine.

But don't try to tell me that he (or Obama, for that matter, who also skipped a couple of things to make his way back to Washington for the meeting) are somehow heroes because they have been drawing a salary all year on a job they've barely attended.

* * *

(*) I am not one who complains overmuch about the continued running of ads. Although technically it's not a suspended campaign if there are ads still being run, the fact is that it can be reasonably assumed that by "suspending his campaign" he meant "suspending his campaign activities". In other words, there's no real reason why his staff couldn't continue the normal day-to-day activities of the campaign in his absence, he just wasn't going to be available to personally participate... It's that he then proceeded to go on Katie Couric's show followed by a campaign event in the morning before "rushing" back to the capital. Also, the absurdity of the "suspending his campaign" line was brought into stark relief when his Vice Presidential running mate Sarah Palin announced that she might be suspending hers as well rather than stepping up and taking over for McCain, as will be her job if they win and he is otherwise unable to handle his day to day tasks.

(**) As part of his talking points, my friend had suggested that McCain deserved credit for going back to Washington instead of just "phoning it in", which would make sense except that when he got caught sitting at home in Washington instead of going in to the office, the campaign's reaction was "He's doing the job he needs to do, and most of that can be done over the phone." Translation, he literally was phoning it in.

Liam.

Kissinger Changes His Story

From FactCheck.org...

As of the debate, Henry Kissinger's public statements on discussions with Iran were largely based on this quote from a few days before at a forum for current and former secretaries of state:

Kissinger: Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we -- we know we're dealing with authentic...

CNN's Frank Sesno: Put at a very high level right out of the box?

Kissinger: Initially, yes.But I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations.

There's also this bit, also from factcheck:

Later, McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, was asked about this by CBS News anchor Katie Couric, and Palin said, "I’ve never heard Henry Kissinger say, ‘Yeah, I’ll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met.'" Afterward Couric said, "We confirmed Henry Kissinger’s position following our interview."

To me, this is clearly in the spirit of what Obama has been saying for months, that we (the United States) need to be open to talking with countries such as Iran without preconditions, not necessarily that it has to be the President meeting directly with the leaders of Iran, and in fact he even said (I think it was in the debate, but I might be misremembering where I saw it) that the Presidential level meeting would follow preparations including lower level diplomacy, when the situation warranted.

This has all been in a clear response to the Bush Administration policy of not talking to Iran period, until they give up their nuclear ambitions. That's not "No Presidential discussions with President Ahmadinejad", that's no diplomatic contact at all.

Anyway, Kissinger has decided that he's a Republican at heart after all, and has decided to take the McCain interpretation of Obama's statements and has issued this statement:

Kissinger: Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain.

But McCain has advocated the Bush line of no discussions with Iran *AT ALL* without preconditions. And so in spite of his partisan statement of support here, it is fairly clear that Kissinger's opinion when not clouded by party line message is more in line with the Obama position than the McCain.

Liam.

The Third Fact Check

Finally got the one from FactCheck.org. I like it.

It also seems to be much more comprehensive than either of the previous two I linked to. Go Fact Check go!

The link.

Liam.

Another Debate Fact Check

The Associated Press has a fact check of the basic assertions of the debate (I found it on the Huffington Post, but it is sourced to AP, not HP).

I find it interesting reading as well. Here's the link.

By the way, I note that they take a position much closer to mine with regard to the Kissinger statement.

Liam.

The Debate part two

OK, now that I got the official bit out of the way, some impressions.

I liked the debate format, it's the closest thing we've had to an honest debate in years. Both candidates are to be applauded for agreeing to a give-and-take format that allowed them to pose questions to each other, and also for not abusing that overmuch by interrupting each other.

I thought it was telling, I'm just not sure of what, that McCain (who asked for this style of meeting when he asked for a series of "town meeting" campaign events) almost never looked directly at Senator Obama, and referred to him in the third person, as though he were not in the room. When McCain was speaking, it was "Senator Obama wants this" or "My opponent wants that".

Obama on the other hand stayed truer to the proposed format, speaking TO Senator McCain. "John, you know that's not true", "John, you said (x) and you were wrong", and he looked at McCain when he was speaking to/about him.

To me, that looked more Presidential. McCain tried to sow seeds of doubt about Obama's abilities by repeating some version of the phrase "Senator Obama doesn't get it" over and over, but Obama looked more comfortable. He looked prepared to take challengers head on, while McCain looked like he'd rather have applied that "don't talk to them until they already agree with you" tactic on Obama.

McCain also seemed to rely on his stump speech line and his carefully packaged image far more than Obama. I got home a little bit late, and the first thing I heard when I turned it on was McCain using his stump speech laugh line about how he wasn't sure if the money to study the DNA of bears was a paternity or criminal matter, and he used the "I was never voted Miss Congeniality" line multiple times. He also brought up his war bona fides several times, while conveniently ignoring the facts that:

A) there is no evidence that he's any better a tactician or strategist than anyone else (he's only been directly involved in one war, we "lost" that one and he spent most of his time during it in a cell), and

B) there is still a lot of unanswered evidence that "war hero" McCain may actually have actively worked to cover up things that happened during his POW years, to the detriment of other POW/MIAs of that era, and

C) veterans groups continue to rate him very low, so while he claims he's the one who will support our vets the most, it doesn't seem they feel his history on the topic has been much to crow over.


I plan to re-watch the debate sometime this weekend, and I'll probably cover some more things as they come into my head, but I wanted to get these out there, while I was thinking about them.

Liam.

The Debate

I know a couple of people have been waiting to hear my take on the debate last night, so I guess it's time I sat down to write something.

The truth is, I didn't write before this on the topic because I'm not sure there was a clear winner. Of course, there's all the old wisdom about how "a tie goes to the current leader", or the argument that "The topic this time was McCain's professed strong suit, so for Obama to hold his own makes it a win for him", but that all seems like spin to me.

In my opinion, someone watching the debates who hasn't paid all that much attention up until now and isn't terribly well versed in the facts of the world, it was pretty even. They both had their "um, ah" moments, McCain perhaps came across as a bit more snarky and condescending, but neither one either hit the ball out of the park, nor tripped over their own feet.

There are several sites I like to go to for "truth tests". My favorite (for political things) is factcheck.org, and of course for everything else my favorite is snopes.com.

But up there on my list is politifact.com. I like them a tad less, because they rate every statement on a "Truth-o-meter", ranking everything as "True, mostly true, half true, barely true or pants on fire", which loses some nuance.

That said, their writeup on the statements in the debate can be found here.

Some of the instances where nuance changes the meaning are the "half true" when talking about whether Henry Kissinger's statement was more in line with Obama's position or McCain's. I've heard Obama talk about "meetings without preconditions" many times, and I've always gotten the sense that he was not necessarily talking about Presidential level meetings, but Administration meetings. When he said "I would not require preconditions before meeting with other nations" I've always taken that as the conceit that the man is the office and the office is the entire administration.

Because my impression of the Bush Administration policy for most of the last 8 years has been "We will not talk with Iran until they give up their nuclear ambitions", meaning "No one in my administration will have any official contact with anyone in their government until they accede to our wishes in the negotiations". And so to me, Obama's reaction has been "That's ludicrous, that's what negotiation is all about, of course I wouldn't deny talks with other nations until they'd given in to our demands."

So calling that "half true" buys into the McCain perpetuated impression that Obama is saying he'll personally, as President, meet with anyone and everyone.

But, and here's the kicker, I also dislike the "half true" for this reason: Even if you buy into the idea that Obama is claiming he would personally meet with any world leader without preconditions and McCain is holding firm to the Bush policy of no official negotiations until they meet our preconditions, then to me Kissinger's statement is still much closer to the Obama position than the McCain position.

All in all, though, I believe that for those who don't pay attention to the news, McCain and Obama more or less tied. I believe for those who DO pay attention, there was a lot more falsehood and unfair innuendo on the McCain side than on the Obama side.

Liam.

A Break From Politics...

I ran into an interesting site today that I thought I'd pass along.

It has a video that purports to display every commercial airline flight in the world in a 24 hour period.

I have no idea whether it's factual or not, but it's an interesting thing to watch and very pretty, even if it isn't factually accurate. And if it is, it's also quite interesting to see just how much air traffic we humans generate on a daily basis.

Here's the site link.

Liam.

McCain Wins Debate! Prematurely!

In case you ever wondered if it was possible for a candidate to do SO poorly that even their own campaign would admit that they didn't win it, I submit to you exhibit A.

This article from the Washington Post's "The Fix" column, which notes that the McCain campaign already has banner ads up proclaiming him the winner... and the first debate is not even scheduled until tonight (and we only just learned moments ago that McCain would even be attending, after his theatrics of the last couple of days).

Click through, check it out. They've got screen captures of the Wall Street Journal and the "McCain Wins Debate! (paid for by McCain-Palin 2008)" banner ad.

Liam.

More Proof McCain is Playing Politics

As you might have guessed from how much I've got to say early this morning, I didn't sleep well last night, and as a result, I saw quite a bit of television.

I ran into yet another bit of politics John McCain is playing with the current crisis.

It was a short statement that McCain made during an interview. The words that struck me were: "I think that we've made progress, and I'm confident we will have a deal. How much I had to do with that, I'll let you and others be the judge."

Now picture McCain as your 3 year old brother and you're working on a puzzle. You have a puzzle you've been working on for a week and you're 95% done and you're looking forward to looking down and seeing it completed when said little brother comes along and messes up all the pieces. He then says "Look! I helped! You're going to finish the puzzle, and I helped!"

The interview is a pure political trick.

"I have a record of putting my country first. I see that we did not have a deal, and unfortunately we STILL don't have a deal."

See, if it was really about country first, it wouldn't be the first word out of his mouth at every turn. If it was really about the good of the country, he wouldn't be thinking of spinning his actions to his own gain. By touting this particular supposed record he makes it painfully clear to everyone that this WASN'T country first, this was "Oooh, I can make it LOOK like I put country first, and that will help me!". He also neglects to mention that we were reportedly within inches of having a deal... until he got involved.

Watch the video:



He ruined the puzzle and he's crowing about how much good he's doing for the country. Naked politics of the very worst kind.

Liam.

Church and State

The New York Times has an article about a planned protest by 33 churches in which the ministers plan to endorse a Presidential candidate from the pulpit this weekend.

I am a firm believer that they should lose their tax exempt status. We have reasons for the separation of church and state in this country, and if you're going to participate in state, you should not be considered a church, simple as that. Anything less is a slippery slope to theocracy.

This is not, as those who disagree with me will likely say, an attack on Christianity. Our rules are set up that way because we are a nation in which people are free to be whatever religion they choose to be, and that freedom becomes ashes on the tongue if that freedom comes along with rules and customs from another religion being made law. If that happens, this country becomes no better than the Taliban era Afghanistan or than Iran.

And who decides WHICH biblical rules become laws? Is it just the reasonable ones, like not stealing, not killing, etc? Or does someone try to mandate Christianity? Keeping the Sabbath holy? Honoring our parents? And what is the punishment if we don't? Who decides what is and isn't a violation of "honoring" your parents?

Or to step away from the "Big 10", who is to say someone doesn't decide to enforce the rule against wearing clothing made of different fibers? Or not being near a woman during her cycle? Or stoning to death those who cheat on a spouse, or are a witch (another religion, by the way), or a number of other crimes?

And I'm sure the next question is "Liam, do you really see no difference between letting religious leaders endorse candidates and the total theocratic nightmare you describe?" Well, sure. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and small steps. Starting down the path, every little step seems reasonable until you're too close to the end to turn back, and then it's too late.

The rules are there for a reason. Violate them, and we take away your tax exempt status.

Liam.

Ethics Reform You Can Believe In

According to the Washington Post, after cracking down on state officials accepting gifts as part of her touted "ethics reform" in Alaska, state records show that in 20 months in the Governor's office, Sarah Palin has accepted over $25,000 in gifts from industry executives and others.

Way to set an example for your state there, Governor Palin!

Liam.

Alternate Plan

OK, I've gotten some tentative information on the "alternate plan" proposed by the conservative Republicans.

Not a lot of detail, but it apparently calls for:

1. Mortgage insurance on many of the mortgage-backed securities.
2. A temporary repeal of the Captal Gains tax (which they will almost certainly spin as a "tax increase" if it is not made permanent next year)
3. Regulatory relief for businesses.

So basically, we bail out the people who bought these risky securities hoping to make a huge profit, because their gamble went south. We give tax breaks predominantly to those who can afford to have significant savings and almost nothing to the people who are falling victim to these predatory loans and who thus have almost nothing they can afford to put away in savings. And we repeal yet more regulations on business, because of course there's no possible way that insufficient regulations could come back to bite us.

Makes perfect sense that McCain would support this. It also makes perfect sense if he really wants to postpone this debate (obviously, if there had been a deal made today, there'd be no reason to justify that postponement).

And in typical Republican fashion it bails out the people who stood to BENEFIT had those securities NOT gone south and nothing to help the people at the bottom who are really just struggling to keep their homes.

As one friend of mine put it, it does make a weird sort of sense if you look at it the right way: If you want to stop people from illegally breaking and entering, one way to do it is to repeal the law that makes breaking and entering illegal. Boom, problem solved, no more illegal breaking and entering.

Liam.

More Political Theater

As with most Americans, I'm not overly happy about the Wall Street bailout. As with most, I don't fully understand the issues, but I know it feels like we the taxpayers are being asked to support socialism for big corporations that have already wrung huge profits out of the behaviors that now have them in trouble, and we're being asked to support this by the same people who tell us how evil socialism is when we want to support a higher minimum wage or support for the homeowners who are facing foreclosure or to find a way to help more families afford health insurance.

As with most Americans, I'm in the awkward position of trusting leaders whom I inherently do not trust to do what is in my best interest.

And today, it seems like John McCain is playing politics with that.

Democratic and Republican members of both houses of Congress have been working together, long hours, for a week in order to hammer out a bipartisan solution quickly. John McCain recently said "If we don't have a solution this week, this country could slide into a Depression by next Monday" and face "12% unemployment".

So, this afternoon, as leaders of both parties have reached a tenuous agreement as to how best to try to solve the crisis, in swoops McCain and announces that he's supporting a different plan, put forth by a small group of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, throwing the whole process into disarray, and most likely delaying the approval of any plan at all for a week or more.

So according to McCain, we need something by Friday or we very well might be in a Depression by Monday, but I guess it's worth that risk if he can show up at the eleventh hour and try to show decisive leadership by hijacking the process.

Where was McCain for the last week, if his input was so vital? Come to think of it, when he announced yesterday that he was suspending his campaign to rush back to Washington, and cancelling his appearance on David Letterman, why did he instead go to be interviewed by Katie Couric?

I do not believe there was any need for McCain to rush back. He has as much as said he's no expert on the economy, he's said it in several interviews over the past year. He is trying to look Presidential, but is instead merely gumming up the works, upsetting the careful work done by everyone who has actually been at work on the problem for the last week.

You can read more about this from Reuters.

That McCain would stoop to political theater, especially political theater that undermines the hard work of better informed and more involved people, and which at worst delays legislation that may be incredibly time sensitive, is entirely unforgivable.

If you need an example of why I'm so convinced John McCain would be a horrendous mistake for this country, I can't think of a better one than this.

An admitted novice at economics, stays out of the whole thing until the eleventh hour, and then rides in on his horse at the final moment to disrupt the whole thing to attempt to look like a maverick in charge, ultimately delaying legislation he himself claimed was vital to avoiding a Depression in this country.

Self serving at best, treasonous at worst. If you still support him, I can't imagine why. If he wins, may God have mercy on all of our souls.

Liam.

Two Things You Need To Know

There are two things you need to know about the current "bail out".

The first is that the number $700 billion keeps being thrown around, but that's actually not the limit (at least in the initial proposal, no one yet knows what will be on the final version passed). In fact, the $700 billion number is the amount the Treasury Secretary can spend "at one time". In other words, he (or she, we are going to have a new one fairly soon) could spend up to $700 billion now and then next month decide he or she needs another $700 billion, etc...

Second, understand that this $700 billion does not solve all of our problems. There are still lots of people struggling under the weight of predatory loans (up to 80% of whom were given high interest, high risk "subprime" mortgages when they in fact could have qualified for less risky mortgages) who stand to lose their homes as payments swell and interest rates rise on them. And there's the FDIC. According to this article in Bloomberg News, the FDIC coffers are nearly depleated with the failure of the IndyMac bank.

As of June 30th, Bloomberg reports that FDIC had about $45 billion in assets, and is currently projecting $200 billion in insurance payouts by the end of the year. According to the article, FDIC and other failures could cost the government more than $400 billion ON TOP of the $700 billion "bail out". And according to Bloomberg, that number could swell to $2.5 trillion (yes, trillion) if the government decides to bail out investors in accounts which are not officially covered by the FDIC (for instance, the recent promise to cover money market accounts).

So it's quite possible the $700 billion (or whatever value the final plan comes in at) may be just the tip of the iceberg.

Liam.

Suspending? Really?

David Blaine suspending himself upside-down for 60 hours I understand, he's really got nothing except his publicity stunts.

John McCain suspending his campaigning for President I understand, although I think it's largely a publicity stunt rather than a legitimate need, he at least can make a credible SOUNDING argument as to why it should happen, and so it's yet another "hail mary" play (as others have said) in a long series of them in this campaign.

But Sarah Palin suspending her campaigning as well? What, is the governor of our fourth smallest population state suddenly vital to solving the financial crisis?

She's already far less accessible to the press than any of the other three (and as by far the least well known, arguably needs to be the MOST open), and now instead of keeping the campaign going she's suspending as well?

It makes one wonder, if John McCain dies or becomes disabled will she decide to die or become disabled as well? Her job as his VP is to step in when he can't. Which means she really should be stepping up in his absence. If she's really qualified to be President, this is the campaign's chance to prove that she's really got what it takes by stepping up to fill the gap in the campaign while McCain is handling other things.

Instead, the campaign has decided to take it's pandering "hail mary" pass and throw the pass through the end-zone and into the stands. If this doesn't make it clear that this move on the McCain campaigns part is politics rather than necessity, I don't know what does.

Liam.