On the Contrary

Here are just a few thoughts I had running through my mind at 5 am this morning as I perused the papers and the days events:

• In Moore we celebrate the “rebuild it” mentality as we did in New York after Sandy. I wonder why. Can’t we learn from stupid choices which are sure to repeat themselves soon enough?
• We are going to limit our drone wars. I can’t help it. Killing and war are fairly stupid and if we believe in human rights, there should be due process. Mistakes are common. Collateral damage just isn’t acceptable. In a declared war is one thing, but we are violating everything we stand for because we think it will never apply to us
• Apple gets celebrated for their innovative ways of tax sheltering billions of dollars and we want to send tax collectors (IRS) to jail. Tells you something about our Congress and why the country is becoming about the 1% or as Jared Bernstein said this morning in the Huffington Post, “Because they can indefinitely shield their foreign profits from U.S. taxes, meanwhile engaging in endless (legal) schemes to avoid taxes in countries where they book those earnings, the link between the profitability of American companies and the well-being of America is broken”
• I guess the compromise excluding gay couples from the immigration bill may be worth throwing our principles about equal rights out. After all there was that three-fifths thing in the Constitution regarding counting slaves for representation. But then that got sorted out in the Civil War. Also thinking somehow the Supreme Court will bail them out on this in their ruling on DOMA is a pipe dream
• Yes the deficit is coming down, but for all the wrong reasons at the wrong time or as the Wonkblog put it, “Our deficits aren’t dropping because we’re doing something right. They’re dropping because we’re doing everything wrong. We’re cutting deficits much too quickly in the next few years — that’s what Bernanke’s testimony is about. We’re letting them rise (albeit modestly) between 2016 and 2023. We’re doing basically nothing about long-term deficits, which is where the problem actually lies. And we’re using policies, like sequestration, that most everyone agrees are bad policy — so we’re cutting spending by cutting the wrong kind of spending.”
• In Florida an 18-year-old American is facing felony charges over claims that she had sexual contact with her underage girlfriend in a consensual affair. That is after a model student at another high school was charged with a felony after a science experiment went bad (discharging a destructive device which was Mentos dropped into a plastic Coke bottle). Another state I never want to visit or live in. These people need to get a life.
• In the world of giant hypocrisy, Stephen Fincher, a Tennessee congressman who supports billion of dollars in cuts to the food stamp program is one of the largest recipients of federal farm subsides, collecting nearly $3.5 million in subsidies from 1999 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the data shows, Mr. Fincher received about $70,000 in direct payments, money that is given to farmers and farmland owners, even if they do not grow crops. I wonder how many food stamp folks got $70,000 in food stamps. So who is the leech again?
• In hearings, the IRS has taken the Fifth and is not being cooperative with Congress. I wonder why? Could it be because the Republicans, before knowing anything, sent out a lyching party to “throw people in jail”? One has to wonder why anyone would work for the federal government

Well just a few of the “say what?” moments while reading the paper this morning. Oh, and nothing on creating jobs, dealing with global warming, fixing our infrastructure, etc. Is this a great country or what?

Jonathan Chait kind of nailed it today when he explained why two different economists, one on the right and one on the left, will never agree looking at the same data:

Both have an interest in increasing human welfare, but economic conservatism is driven by deeper philosophical beliefs about the size of government in a way that liberalism is not. Liberals believe in bigger government as a means to the end of increasing human welfare — which is to say, how liberals interpret evidence about the effect of government on human welfare determines their stance. Conservatives believe in smaller government as a means but also as an end in and of itself. They consider bigger government a threat to freedom. There is no analogous philosophical liberal objection to smaller government (though of course liberals do have practical objections).

In other words, liberals are not concerned about the size of government and their policies are not dictated by that constraint. Conservatives are terrified by big government and thus, by definition, government can’t be the solution. This goes a long way in explaining their irrational behavior. This doesn’t say that big governments can’t cause problems or reduce freedom, which they can. But at least liberals recognize that government can also be the solution, sometimes the only solution to our problems. It just has to be smart effective government. Meanwhile in conservative land, a whole fantasy world has to be constructed because government cannot under any circumstances be the solution.

Continue reading ‘Leadership Again and Other Miscellaneous Stuff’ »

I am just amazed at the Republicans.  They really do have brass balls attached to an empty head.  The are contemptuous  of President Obama’s policy in the Middle East, but what exactly would they have him do?  Enter the war in Syria, should have kept Mubarak, and put troops on the ground in Libya? So which is it?  Do we support leaders who stamp down the Arab Spring or do we support them.  And then when the outcome is, well their’s (the Arab’s), then what?  Invade?  Saber rattle?  Worked out well in Iraq didn’t it.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  On Friday Paul Ryan was giving a critique of Obama on the poor.  No, I am not kidding.  Like the Republicans care about the poor?  Like they are really going to protect Medicare?  Basically he said that the poor (and this is true) are increasing and President Obama’s policies have failed to move people out of poverty (also true).  But of course every time President Obama raised the issue of helping the poor it is seen by Republicans as handouts to the undeserving (see Obamacare) and they try to defeat it.  Actually I believe their policy here is kind of like their Immigration Policy (Self deport).  If we just starve them to death they will either quit being lazing and work as slaves or die.

Then of course we have their attack on the economy.  The economy sucks they claim (it does).  Obama’s policies have failed (sort of).  Put us in charge and we will fix it.  Okay, how?  Silence.  They never take credit for the mess they handed Obama, the 140 filibusters they used to block his attempts to help the situation (remember them blocking the Jobs Bill?), and they won’t tell us how their policies will be different from what they have always done.  I have to laugh at the pundits who tell Republicans to focus on the economy.  If they did, eventually one of those pundits will have to ask them what their plan is, and that is their Achilles Heel.  They don’t have one other than what has failed us so miserably under Bush.

By the way, there are two really interesting facts out there, one that the stimulus worked wonders and it is too bad we didn’t have more (Don’t Tell Anyone, But the Stimulus Worked) and another that asks the question does cutting taxes really work (Do Tax Cuts Lead to Economic Growth).  The answer to that one is that maybe when the rich paid a marginal rate of 70% or more (up until Reagan), but not anymore, at least based on the data. But I get distracted with facts.

The Republican approach to this election is very simple:  ”Do you like where we are?”  The obvious answer is no.  ”Then put us in power because the other guys (ignore all our obstruction) are not getting you there.”  And when asked how they are going to do that they say:

• We will create an America where if you work hard, you will be successful
• We will balance the budget and return America to prosperity
• We will get rid of all those pesky rules that are holding back our banks and small businesses
• We will make sure the rest of the world respects us and reform the Middle East
• We will ensure that Iran does not have nuclear weapons
• We will secure our borders
• We will reduce the poverty rates and make sure we restore the American education system
• Oh, and don’t forget to shop around for cheaper higher education, and corporations are people, and Obama ended work requirements for welfare, and apologized to the rioting Arabs, stimulus didn’t work, and Obamacare is busting the budget  (All lies, Sorry, I couldn’t resist)

Okay, those are nice goals that all of us can agree to (except for that last bullet), but how are you going to do that?  What specific policies are you going to enact, what budgets will you cut, what rules will you strike down, who will you invade, how will you solve the problem of 12 million illegal immigrants, etc.  The silence is deafening.  ”We need smaller government, and lower taxes, and less regulation, and a bigger tougher military.”  Okay, how does that solve any of those problems?  They have no answers and they are hoping we won’t notice.  Their ideology has not moved one iota since George Bush and we are suppose to reinstitute those failed policies?  Do you think bombing Iran would be a good idea?  What would be the blow-back?

So the bottom line is that the Republicans have nothing.  They are trying to run a race where they disenfranchise as many voters as possible to steal the election, use race coded language to appeal to their white base, hide the fact that they want women pregnant and barefoot, lie about Obama and his policies and don’t seem to care that the press is finally fact checking them, and criticize everything without offering substantial policies that can be analyzed in the light of day.  And you wonder why I say people have to be brain dead to vote Republican?

If we could push this bunch out of Washington, and get the President behind a new stimulus  program, with QE3 giving us record low interest rates, and the cost of repairing our infrastructure at its lowest in decades, we could turn this job problem and our lackluster economy around in less than 12 months.  But we let fear of the deficit and people spouting failed polices to drive our train.  Isn’t time to turn the ship around?  If you have a brain not flash frozen in a conservative ideology, you actually believe in science and rational thought, you actually read the data out there by non-partisan economists, then why would anybody vote for these throwbacks to the dark ages?  It is embarrassing to listen to them.

Well I saw two demands for First Amendment rights today from our moronic (I just can’t find a more accurate term) conservative religious right. There were lines of very white Christians lined up outside Chick Fil-A to show their support for the position taken by the CEO against gay people. The right they are demanding is to discriminate against gay people. They are demanding that we be tolerate of their intolerance.

But my favorite is more white people who want their First Amendment rights upheld so they can deny women birth control paid for by their medical insurance. That is right, as of today because of Obama care, a ton of diagnostic tools like breast cancer screening are now required without a copay including not being charge a surcharge for their health insurance because they are a woman. Included in that is birth control pills. “This is not about women’s health, this is about an assault on our First Amendment rights.” “This is about religious freedom”. Huh? So exactly what First Amendment rights are you being denied because your medical insurance supplied contraception to women free of charge? You don’t have to accept the birth control pills. But what these nitwits really want is to prevent you from having the right to choose. This is again religious intolerance forced upon the rest of us by very intolerant people, which quite frankly we should not tolerate.

But most doctors will tell you that this really is all about women’s health and that these things in the bill will make us a healthier nation with lower costs in the future. You want to see real tyranny, wait until those insurance companies realize that all this diagnostic tests and women’s access to birth control lower their costs, and then see them require them in their plans. It is inconceivable to me how providing contraception to people who can’t afford it, is denying anyone else their rights, except the right to disenfranchise others, That would be the our intolerant Religious Right.

By the way, Gore Vidal died today believing that we are a declining nation and have been declining for a long time. Could we have better evidence than listening to these morons being taken seriously by anyone?

I was watching Chris Mathews question a couple of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protestors and what they wanted and what this protest meant to them.  Chris, like many of the pundits, just don’t get it if they don’t have a bullet point list of demands.  In other words, what did the OWS want from government and it is not a bad question.  Their answers were surprising in that what they wanted in the bottom line was to be represented by their government.  Yes this is a rag tag conglomeration of people from many different political persuasions, but the common thread that tied all of them together was that they felt their government no longer represented them.   What that means in a political agenda is not defined yet.

What really brought this home to me was reading Jeffrey Sachs’ new book, The Price of Civilization:  Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity.  In his chapter on “The Rigged Game” he brought us these insights which is what is being expressed by the OWS folks:

“The public has its main say on one day every two years:  election day.  The choice is between two political parties that cynically ignore their constituencies the very next day in order to carry out policies aimed at the rich and powerful rather than the voters…..Congress is therefore a maze of special interests.  Passing national legislation means forming coalitions of local interest groups and trading favors across these groups.  This kind of politics naturally gives enormous weight to narrow interest groups….America has thereby been pulled to a median that is politically far to the right of center and to the right of the public’s true values.  On issue after issue, Washington politics back the special interests rather than broad public values.”

I think Dr. Sachs has exactly expressed what OWS is all about.  It is not about specific special interests so to speak, but a larger movement to make government responsive to all its citizens instead of its monied interests.  That would be a government that tries to solve problems with the total public interest in mind instead of corporations and financial institutions as the benchmark for what is good for America.  Most his book, by the way is why policies favoring these interests is what has made the mess we are in today.

In that same vein, we have the Republican Debates last night which was totally bereft of any concern for the public or any real plan for our future:

• Cain offers a tax plan that will raise taxes on 84% of Americans, and you guessed it, not on the rich.  He also offers a fence as a solution to what is really a minor problem in our real economic morass, immigration.  Of course the money to pay and maintain such a border will grow trees and doesn’t discuss any of the impacts to the environment or how our real economy depends on immigration labor.
• They attack Romney’s healthcare plan but offer no solutions to our healthcare problems.  They just hate anything government.
• They argued about who had created more jobs and whether those jobs actually came from illegal immigration (Texas) but nobody offers a believable plan for job creation except the usual suspects, lower taxes and less regulation
• Foreign affairs was George Bush all over again and after watching these clowns in action, would you let them control our military?
• 67% of Americans are in favor of the Obama Jobs Plan yet they are not?  And what is there plan?  See bullet on taxes and regulation
• Romney wants to just let the foreclosures go so we can get through this and start to recoup values on homes.  So the interest of the people in the country who will lose their homes and wealth is irrelevant to restoring bank equity

So here we have really badly informed people, ignoring the will of the majority of people in an attempt to appeal to a small special interest group that is destroying our country.  And you still don’t understand what the Occupy Wall Street protests are about?

It is a burden I carry that my mind is forever looking at thoughts and contentions from many different angles.  With that in mind here is what caught my attention on this beautiful Sunday Morning.

• Tom Friedman wrote a column recently about how connected, in fact hyper connected we all are.  I would question that.  I travel through life on one’s mundane tasks and what I see are people who have disconnected from the world around them as they are a slave to their cell phones.  I see kids traveling who have a DVD player in the car or some video game and are missing the here and now.  Yes we are connected, but in some machine way to a small circle of friends and intimacy and discovery are being pushed away with trite little communications.  And with all this distraction we may be losing our ability to self entertain, dream, and use our imaginations.
• The New York police arrested 700 protestors today and one wonders if they will ever learn.  After the pepper spray incident and now arresting this mass group protesting what we all hate, the big banks and Wall Street in a non-violent and in some ways, innocent manner, the police just abuse their power and inculcate further distrust in authority.  What do I learn from TV Police shows where police violate the rights of the accused to “get the bad guy”, and the actions of the New York Police Department?  The police are not my friend.  Is that not the last message they want to send?
• I am reading the new novel by Arnaldur Indridison, (Icelandic author) called Operation Napoleon.  The plot is basically that a WWII airplane that crashed at the end of the war in a glacier in Iceland has been found by Americans and they are secretly extracting it.  Those local natives that find our about it are being murdered to keep them quiet.  Think about it from the Icelandic authors point of view.  He sees it quite believable that the United States would murder innocent people to protect their secrets.  Then I think about the predator drone assassinations, and I think I understand why this is a believable plot to them.
• In California, the state has decided to move many offenders out of their over crowed prison system and back into local jails.  Of course there is a great outcry with the shift of burden to the local jurisdictions and if they can really manage these prisoners.  I happen to look at it another way (No surprise here).  Instead of sending every offender off to never-never land, not heard of again, with the problem of incarceration now a local problem, maybe this idea of throwing everybody in prison for minor offenses (drugs) might have to be rethought.  Maybe we ought to look for root causes of anti-social behavior instead of just punishing the resulting behavior and flushing the offenders down the toliet
• In California one poor teacher got in major trouble with parents because the kids were using disruptive “God Bless You” after every sneeze to disrupt the classroom.  Of course some parents did not see this as an attempt to get control of his classroom and focus the kids on what they are suppose to be learning, but an attack on religion.  The number 1 reason teachers leave the profession is dealing with parents.  Can’t they just leave the poor man alone to manage his classroom?
• Finally I watched Dylan Ratigan who had an “expert” on the problems in Europe and she explained how she had heard over and over from financial managers in Europe (the same geniuses that did not see the housing bubble/derivitive crisis) that once Europe gets its financing lined up for debtor countries, the “uncertainty” will be over and companies will expand.  These are the VSP (Very Serious People) that Paul Krugman refers to as having it exactly backwards.  The problem isn’t uncertainty, but demand where our “experts” are acting on anecdotal information instead of the data that shows massive unused capacity which requires no risk to utilize, if there is demand.  It just boggles the mind how these conventional wisdoms just keep on going in the face of actual facts.  Zombie Economics.  Austerity for all!
• Oh, I almost forgot.  In the lineup for Sunday TV News Shows we have Herman Cain, John Mcain, Haley Barbour, Dick Cheney, and daughter Liz, and various other “leaders”.  See any new ideas there?  See anything but the thinking that got us into this mess?  See any economists who might actually understand Econ 101?  Why bother?

Just another Sunday morning swimming upstream.

I see where others in the Progressive cause have recognized what I have about the proposal for jobs (Opportunity Knocks for the Democrats).  Firedoglake.com ran this story which is my favorite: Obama Unsure on Whether to propose Jobs Ideas that Can’t pass or a Jobs Ideas that Can’t Pass.  Meanwhile E.J. Dionne was on Hardball recommending basically the same thing.  He could not see why the President wouldn’t lay out a plan that would actually create jobs because no matter what he does the Republicans are going to shoot it down.  Meanwhile I heard the Washington Media questioning Richard Trumka, head of AFL-CIO when he said the they would not support politicians who proposed half measures.  Their stock question is, but what’s the point if it can’t get by the Republican Congress.  The point was standing up for things we really believe in instead of what won’t work and won’t get by Congress anyway and giving voters a real choice in 2012.  Finally there is a ray of sunshine in political circles.  We can only hope Obama stumbles upon it.

Meanwhile on the N.J. front, there was another lesson for Obama if he is not buried in his I am the man of compromise bubble.  There was Governor Christie, who I rarely agree with or like, taking on the press on his handling of the Irene threat, showing who was in charge and being very, oh should I say it, Presidential.  It was clear who was in charge and what he believed when reporters asked him if he (government) over reacted, he took them on. He knows what he believes and is unafraid to stand for it.  It is everything Obama isn’t and needs to be if he is ever going to be an effective leader (Daily Beast).

The papers today indicated that Irene is going to be one of the top 10 costliest disasters ever.  Meanwhile more of the Republican morons are jumping on the band wagon of only paying for the repairs by stealing money from other programs instead of borrowing.  Think about it.  What is really happening is a disaster hits and it simply takes more money out of the economy and further depresses our recovery (both economic and from Irene).  Paul Krugman addressed this in purely economics terms to demonstrate how this is just basic bad economics in his blog (Disaster Relief Economics).  As he pointed out, where were they when we decided to go to war and wanted to pay for it with borrowing instead of cuts to other programs.

Dick Cheney, in the form of Darth Vader, is out there again reinventing history.  This is a very good thing for Democrats because he reminds a very fickle voting population about the mistakes that were made.  I found it interesting that he wears it as a badge of honor that he is a war criminal.  “He did what had to be done.”  Meanwhile Col Lawrence Wilkerson (Collin Powell’s Deputy) explained how “what had to be done” (torture) got them bad intelligence.  This remind anyone beside me of  Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”?  When questioned by one interviewer on whether what they did in Iraq lowered the world’s esteem of the United States, he simply replied he did not believe that.  Like the rest of his brethren in the Republican party, facts are purely subjective.  He is truly an evil man who has little use for the law or democracy.

Finally, there is an editorial on controlling feral pigs where they have become a problem (Hawaii, Texas, California) (High above the Hog).  I could not help myself.  All I could think of was is this about feral pigs or piggy Republicans who are doing great damage to our country as they swill from the trough and make sure none flows over to the rest of us.  We need a national control program so that the damage they cause is greatly reduced (feral pigs and Republicans).  One suggestion from this article on feral pigs that we might want to listen to for Republicans is this:  “Most important, we must deal with the hunters who are helping pigs spread. Laws on the transportation and release of hogs should be toughened so that the penalties reflect the damage done.”  I read that as the corporations and monied interests who are controlling our politics today, creating the Tea Party (and then turning them loose), and owning the lobbyists.  You know we could learn a lot from nature if we would just pay attention.

The disconnect and ultimate failure of the Afghanistan strategy can be easily seen when one listens to the debate.  They are talking about a country that doesn’t exist.  The argument goes something like this:  We will put things back in order, establish security for the people, and give the Afghanistan Army and police a chance to rebuild to defend themselves.  The logic of the argument is built with a basic logical construct that people want an effective and efficient central government.  But in a tribal society the last thing they want is interference from the outside by some government they hate.  The police are part of the problem and their existence is based on bribes and tributes they extract.  The whole thing is about sects and tribes and we are going to solve it with a strong central government?  It is a total failure to understand the battle we are in.  For a more detailed look at this failed logic see “A Tale of Two Countries”.

But back home we have the saga of Tiger Woods.  Now I will just have to expose my prejudices right up front.  I don’t know what the big deal is about celebrities.  Tiger Woods is a great golfer, but get a grip.  He is good at hitting a little white ball around on a very expensively manicured lawn.  That does not add much to the knowledge or betterment of mankind.  It just gives us a distraction.  Okay, I will give you that because of his color, he may be a great role model for young blacks who have not had good role models in the past.  But putting all that aside, we have Tiger wrecking his car, and apparently his marriage, and he is surprised?  He had no idea of the intrusion of the press into his life?  That is how he makes his money.

The amazing thing is that he didn’t think he would get caught.  This is like, have you been asleep for the last 40 years?  Did you not think the subject women would eventually want there 15 minutes of fame?  And here is the only real lesson in this other than Tiger is a lot less of a person than we thought:  He is special and the rules don’t apply to him.  Maybe he and Bill Clinton, or a number of Republican lawmakers, should get together to discuss this.  Well now he knows he is not special, or like many, he will decide he really is special, but that the celebrity press is out of control.

So for me, Tiger will just be another also ran.  Normally I don’t care about someone’s private life, but he had children, a commitment, and built his persona on consistency and discipline.  Now we know he is like so many others, “he was weak”, as though that excuses it.  Trust is a funny thing.  Earning it takes real commitment, but once it is lost, you will never get it back.  Besides being kind, it is the one other quality that ranks right up there as special.  And like being kind, in our world of notoriety and celebrity, it has been badly tarnished as old fashioned.  But when the confetti has stopped dropping, and the party is over, you are slowing down, and a whole other generation is now taking the lead, what you have is who you are and that was defined by who you were.  That’s when you find out you are not special and all the rules that applied to everyone else, applies to you.  That is when you get a real measure of yourself.  How’s it looking Tiger?  Maybe that is your contribution to mankind.  But I doubt it.  It will just give some body else an excuse to say, “I was weak.”  Now there is a role model.

This weekend’s round of Sunday talk shows was like a never ending recycling of the same old issues.  There is the health care muddle, the Afghanistan debate, the Iran nuclear program, cap and trade being watered down, and least I forget, Glenn Beck getting the key to some city in Washington that I never want to go to.  Banking reform is going nowhere with all the usual suspects.

On the President’s rethinking the Afghanistan war and a troop increase, there was Senator Kyle for Arizona saying what hawkish Republicans have been saying since time began.  We leave and the enemy will see this as a great weakness and they would fill the vacuum.  It will be our downfall.  It must really be comforting to have such a simple world view of every conflict where wagging our…..well you get the point.  What I find simply fascinating is there is no consideration of the cultural or historical record of this country or trying to understand this conflict in terms of what can really be accomplished with more blood and money.

On “60 Minutes”, there was a nice piece about General McChrystal and how dedicated he was to changing the way the war was fought.  He definitely is an admirable man, but that doesn’t make his approach any more appealing.  He is a fine general but this war is not about fighting, it is about minds and we still think like Western white men instead of Afghans (Note: after working on many projects in Afghanistan, Afghans are the people, Afghani is the currency).

I am sure his approach is the only way forward for “winning” the war, if we had 20 years and unlimited funds.  Or would that be 50 years?  Remember we have been there eight and things have gone from bad to worse. The real issue is can we afford it and is it really that high on our national priorities?  If we spent that money here at home making us a stronger economy, would that greatly increase the security of the average American?  I think it is time to quit being terrified of Al-Qaeda.  If the Afghans won’t fight the Taliban, let them live under them for a while and see how they like it.  Maybe it is a problem they have to work out for themselves.

Then there was the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland for having sex with a minor fourteen years ago.  Note that the child, now an adult, wants the charges dropped, but since Polanski was convicted before he ran, apparently California authorities just can’t let it go.  Why do I say that?  This is a horrible crime.  Maybe, but California is broke.  They have a population in prison that is breaking the bank, and they release roughly 120,000 inmates a year.  Many of these are truly dangerous sex offenders that we now no longer have the resources to track and monitor.  So we spend our precious dollars to see that the letter of the law is followed, while we drain the resources from those who could prevent truly heinous crimes.  Sooner or later we need people in government who can prioritize societies needs, not pursue some personal quest at the expense of everyone else’s safety.

The level of stupidity and inaction is reaching intolerable levels, while those in Washington continue to have debates about issues that most of us moved beyond years ago.  Of course banks and Wall Street need to be regulated and the tougher, the better.  If it is too tough, adjust it later.  The evidence for global warming is not just abundant, it is accelerating at an exponential rate (the evidence and the global warming), and yet Washington does nothing except wrangle about protecting vested interests as though disaster is not on the horizon.  Our addiction to oil is being facilitated by low gas prices and yet we know the other shoe is going to drop.  If you don’t buy the global warming thing (you are moron), then look at the transfer of our wealth to the Middle East.  The answer is clean, green energy both for our addiction and for our economy, and yet we do nothing.  Then there is health care.  Oh why bother.  The answer is obvious.

What we seem to be really good at today is denial.  We now have a whole party whose total platform is a denial that that platform has bankrupted us.  If we have health care today that we think is fine, there is no pressure for change because we can’t seem to grasp that health care costs are out of control and today’s satisfaction is tomorrow’s sticker price shock.  Wall Street seems to be coming back so why fix anything?  I don’t see no stinking global warming, and cap and trade will hurt some of my biggest contributors.  Did it ever occur to anyone that we have become a country that can’t?

Here are a few of the tidbits of news that shed some light on where we have been and where we are going:

• “Many Republicans are already angry over the emphasis Mr. Obama placed on the public plan (health care) in last weeks letter.  Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Friday that ‘the key to a bipartisan bill is not to have a government plan in the bill’ (New York Times).”  Said another way, the Republican idea of bipartisanship is their way or the highway.  We have already had enough of their failures haven’t we?  I wish they would just get the hell out of the way.  The real issue here is do you want something bipartisan or something that works.
• Here is another thought on health care:  The big question is how to pay for it and one of the suggestions is to tax health care benefits.  Another is to tax sugar in soft drinks. I find this whole discussion to be an indicator of how troubled our whole tax system is.  It also indicates how entrenched are the forces to prevent any change in our tax system when the suggestions are just to pile on more obscure taxes instead of reforming the whole system.  One way or another you already pay for health care so why not just get rid of all those hidden costs and include it as part of our income tax.
• Watching the banks maneuver is always entertaining, if not somewhat appalling.  Most of us understand that derivatives got us into the financial mess we are in because they were unregulated and basically invisible to the investor to understand their makeup and risk.  The Obama administration has proposed regulating them, but left a loophole for “customized” derivatives which would leave them, let’s just say, less than transparent.  Most agree that the best way to not allow speculation to get out of control again is to be able to evaluate the risk in each investment through the transparency of trading them on an open market.  So why are we opening ourselves up to “customized” derivatives?  So the banks can once again make fabulous amounts of money by hiding their risks and preventing open competition.  Isn’t it amazing that the boys who tout competition are the first ones who try to undermine it if it impacts their goose who is laying their golden eggs?
• President Obama has told Israel no more settlements.  This apparently broke an agreement by the Bush administration (verbal) that we would continue to say that, but normal growth is okay.  I think this is the pivotal “no duh” moment.  The Israelis have a problem here because much as we have our radicalized Republicans who want no government unless it prevents a woman’s choice or two consenting adults from marrying, they have their fruit loop religious radicals that think God made them special and they can take what they want (very similar to Republicans).  Until Israel decides on an equitable swap of land, there will never be peace there.  That means marginalizing their religious nuts.  So when the Republican Party can marginalize their nuts, maybe the Israelis can marginalize thiers and there may be hope for the future.  I am not holding my breath.
• It appears the administration is considering whether they can accept guilty pleas from some of the detainees for the 9/11 murders, skip the trial, and go directly to execution.  It solves so many problems like the law explicitly prohibits accepting the plea, and the fact that much of the evidence was gathered using torture which makes it problematic.  Note I am not saying abusive interrogation techniques.  Let’s just call it what it is.  Sometimes in our rush for retribution we forget what justice is about.  Yes a trial would be messy, but it would be honest.  And it would take what everyone knows is the PR approach to what a wonderful country we are off the package and expose our ugly underside.  But it would be what the world and we American citizens are really yearning for, honesty.  It would reemphasize that we are about, justice not efficacy, and it would help to expose what animals these people are.  Oh and on the execution thing, make it life without parole.  Execution just plays into their hands and makes them martyrs.   When will we ever learn that the hard road is the only road that will get us to where we want to go?
• Liz Cheney is still making a fool of herself along with most of the media.  She is still operating under the impression that saying it is so makes it so.  The media is also helping that impression by unquestioningly repeating whatever she or her dad say.  Ah, but the problem is video of what really happened and what they really said.  Liz is claiming that there was no attempt to link the 9/11 attack with Saddam Hussein.  Roll the video.  The only thing that worries me about all this is that the press seems to have learned nothing from their failures during the run up to war in Iraq.  But we still have The Daily Show, Colbert, and MSNBC.  The rest of them just sit there like idiots and accept this garbage or repeat it endlessly like it were true.  That’s entertainment folks!
• One last thought.  A friend of mine was trying to convince me that the whole economic mess was caused by Fannie and Freddie (government) and irresponsible home buyers.  That is like blaming your kids for their bad behavior without looking at how you set up an environment in which they could act out their worst impluses.  The banks were making a fortune repackaging debt and selling it to the rest of the world.  All the rest follows from this.  It is the root cause.  Why can’t we ever remember the simple rule, “follow the money.”

Are we getting anywhere yet?