On the Contrary

Here is a summary of the News in Washington:

• Republicans add amendments to immigration bill to derail its implentation
• Republicans vote to kill Obamacare and warn of dire consequences
• Republicans demand emails on Benghazi as conspiracy mongering held sway
• Senate Republicans block vote on Obama EPA nominee
• House Republicans vote on debt ceiling bill that allows bond holders (China) not our servicemen to get payments when they threaten default. That way they can hold us hostage again to failed austerity

Get the drift? They have no plan other than lower taxes and their plan is to block anybody else’s plan. Who again is the problem?

Well it is the morning after and I am reflecting on all that has happened, what has been said, some of it incredibly stupid, some profound. My favorite came from my son last night when he said something to the effect of, “Bostonians rule. They will shut down their whole city to get the guys who bombed the marathon”. In other circles, people will criticize Boston for reacting this way to terrorists. I guess my thoughts are that I agree with my son. Lives are so much more important than a day’s worth of commerce. Boston is a close knit community and showed the rest of us how we ought to act. Can you imagine L.A. closing down for a day?

And then there was the absolute spectacle of Bostonians out in their streets applauding the FBI, DEA, ATF, State Police, Boston Police, Watertown Police, and Transit Police. It said something to the world and to those in this country who hate government. Our government is we the people and our police force are brave men and women trying very hard to serve their country. Boston showed us what it is to be a community.

Meanwhile in politician land, the Republicans are going to be quick to try an gin up more fear of terrorism emotions to distract us from their lack of any policy solutions for our country. Lindsey Graham, who has gone completely off the rails gave us, “If captured, I hope Administration will at least consider holding the Boston suspect as enemy combatant for intelligence gathering purposes“. There was also the wish for predator drones in the hunt (screw collateral damage). I thought conservatives revered the Constitution.

A New York State GOP legislator, Greg Ball tweeted, “So, scum bag #2 in custody. Who wouldn’t use torture on this punk to save more lives?” I guess he missed the study that showed it was counter productive, ineffective, and immoral, but then these are Republicans. Then there was Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell (R) sent out an insensitive tweet Friday morning, asking “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?” Yep, arm everyone, it would have prevented the bombing and the two suspects armed to the teeth, right?

But my favorite is from Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the most senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he opened a hearing on immigration legislation by stressing the issue’s importance “particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week.” Yep, let us take one event of two very off the rail boys and apply it to the whole immigration issue. Well here is one for you Senator Grassley, when was the last time anyone from Mexico, Central, or South America bombed anyone. Neither argument is relevant, but you can be sure it will cloud the debate because their minds are already clouded by fuzy logic.

I am still holding on to my original thesis and I think our media is off the rails trying to find some international plot. Not that you shouldn’t look for one, but it should not be the all consuming narrative. In my mind this is a one-off thing where two American brothers, losers and maybe radicalized by separatists in their own country, decided to take their frustration out on Boston. See The Boston Tragedy and Some More Wild Speculation. This is really probably the new face of terrorist acts which is a combination of radicalized dogma, and Columbine/Newtown mentality, not some international plot. This could just as easily been some white supremacist or gun nut group with perceived grievances and trying to “take by their country” by making a statement.

Finally, I have some mixed emotions about the decision that the suspect would not be read his Miranda rights because the authorities would invoke the public safety exception* to question him extensively about other potential explosive devices or accomplices and to try to gain intelligence. Extensively probably means about 48 hours and then his Miranda Rights will be read to him. Now there are two issues. The first is that this could be challenged in court if he gave any information that incriminated himself and it was used in court. There are two rebuttals to that in that first, there really is a fear of other bombers out there or another plot, so it seems justified. Second is that the prosecuting attorney may have more than enough other information to convict him and anything he says under that exemption is really moot.

The other concern I have is that we are once again wavering from strict American jurisprudence. But I think the needs of public safety in this case override that and as been noted, it has been held up by the courts before. Forty-f is not 24/7 sleep deprivation and again the worst that could happen is that what he said could not be used in a court of law against him, but it could be used to act on if there are other threats. I don’t think there are, but, I think this is reasonable.

Now I will go turn on the TV and see how our media is mashing all this up.

*Under this exception, to be admissible in the government’s direct case at a trial, the questioning must not be “actually compelled by police conduct which overcame his will to resist,” and must be focused and limited, involving a situation “in which police officers ask questions reasonably prompted by a concern for the public safety.”

From the FBI website: The “public safety” exception to Miranda is a powerful tool with a modern application for law enforcement. When police officers are confronted by a concern for public safety, Miranda warnings need not be provided prior to asking questions directed at neutralizing an imminent threat, and voluntary statements made in response to such narrowly tailored questions can be admitted at trial. Once the questions turn from those designed to resolve the concern for safety to questions designed solely to elicit incriminating statements, the questioning falls outside the scope of the exception and within the traditional rules of Miranda.

I was reading the papers this morning (actually reading their e-editions) and it occurred to me that they are giving us three truly important rules to live by:

• If you want a policy to fail, compromise with Republicans (See Loopholes in gun laws allows buyers to skirt background checks (note in this article that Republicans have passed legislation that prevents the ATF from keeping data on effective enforcement policy, and Rough outlines of Senate immigration reform emerges
• If religious conservatives don’t like it, it is probably a good idea. I could mention gay marriage but what is most interesting was this article about establishing basic scientific educational standards, that of course they oppose (New Guidelines call for broad changes in science education. The corollary to this rule is, if the South or middle America doesn’t like it, count me in.
• Oh and my favorite, If a proposal is bipartisan and centralist, it is paid for by the poor and middle class, is a capitulation to the Right, and even so, is going nowhere. See The President’s Budget

I believe we have some real wisdom to live by. Who said reading the news just depresses us?

The A’s were playing last night and their hitting and pitching were pitiful, so I channel surfed and ended up on that old John Wayne Movie (1954) The High and the Mighty. This was one of my favorites as kid and John Wayne was my hero (his politics and treatment of woman soured that later in my life). But what got my mind churning was watching the interaction of the passengers as they faced impending disaster. Most reflected and found the inner strength to face ditching in the sea, but a couple just went to pieces or were trouble makers. Someone was going to pay for all the bad things that were happening.

It was a caricature of America today and Republicans as the unruly passengers. Most of us know what needs to be done, but the hysterical few are controlling the action. We are four months from Newtown and nothing is going to happen to curb gun violence. We can’t get an immigration bill on the table and watch the Tea Party fearful run from it. Our economy lags and we let the shouters in the back of the plane claiming everyone is going to die control the action. Real action to fix anything from global warming to the banking system goes nowhere. Sadly we have no John Wayne in the cockpit who will slap the pilot and snap him out of his panic. Get him to face the only choice, going for it because ditching in rough seas (austerity) is not really an option. Instead we have panicked Republicans terrified of losing their grip on power, obstructing everything.

It is almost astounding how art imitates life and how the basic human condition and frailty never changes. No America really can’t do anything any more.

I listened to the news today and everything discussed is couched in terms of what is politically possible meaning get 60 votes in the Senate (thank you Harry Reid and the institutional Democrats) or can garner enough Republican votes to pass in the house, assuming it even gets a vote. I heard Chuck Schummer, whom I have very little love for, when discussing the background check carefully change his language from universal background check to just background check. We all saw Marco Rubio take steps back from immigration reform to cover his Tea Party ass.

And here is the lesson here. If you think anything that Republicans will vote for will be effective, there is a guy in Texas selling parts of the moon I can put you in touch with. Really Democrats, wake up. Once again in your effort to get some meaningful legislation passed, you agree to water it down to the point that is, well, meaningless, and now you are part of the problem. Republicans win again. If our media discussions are going to about what is politically possible, I can save them a lot of time, nothing that will work. How about we talk about what might actually work instead of what the cowards in Washington would agree to?

So while Democrats water down legislation that might do anything meaningful to get by 60 votes in the scant hope that the House will even take it up, they once again appear weak and stand for nothing. Wake up Democrats! Republicans aren’t going to pass anything that would make you look good, meaning actually work, so why not stand for what would and try to change the mind of the country instead of looking like fools? Why not take control of the debate by standing up something. It is about our future not the next polling cycle.

Well, what have we got on the table this week for entertainment? I say this because most of the issues we face are not rocket science, the solutions are simple (and progressive), but we are a nation of morons who live in the past or believe what we hear repeated the most times. How else do you explain that our number 1 issue is the decline of the middle class and yet the policies we discuss are how to make them decline some more?

Anyway, first up this morning is Prop 8, followed by DOMA. Wait! I have a question. Many times you hear the phrase gay and lesbians. That would imply that gay applies to men and lesbians are women right? But then you hear the phrase gay men. Okay, one of them is redundant, but which one? No wonder this issue is confusing. We don’t even know what the words mean. But I get distracted. This is a no-brainer if you are either a libertarian or believe in the Declaration of Independence (That would be almost all of us). Those against are either in full homosexual denial, or are religious nuts who want to use government to force their intolerance on the rest of us.

So what will the Supremes do? Well they could strike them both down and make it apply to the whole country, thus just stating that gays have equal rights, but we have the terrible five on the court living in the 18th century so here is my guess. Prop 8 is clearly unconstitutional but to limit the damage (and preserve the fiction of State’s rights) they will probably rule that their ruling only applies to California. If on the other hand, they find some reason to leave it in place, they will have alienated everyone under the age of forty who will now see the Supreme Court as just another political wing of the government out of touch with reality. And of course, California will quickly put the whole thing on the ballot (where civil rights should never be voted on) and end the whole mess.

Actually, if they wanted to save the Republican Party from themselves the best thing they could do is strike them both down and take the issue off the table so the Republicans can focus on the other stuff they also have so terribly wrong. So let the arguments begin on an issue that is clearly a civil rights issue and should be quickly and fairly decided in favor of equal rights for our gay and lesbian community. On another note, who cares who they love, get married, divorce, etc., is that really what government is about?

On to guns, another no-brainer issue being controlled by the nut-cases in our country. This actually is a great lesson in political cowardice both from the Republicans and the Democrats and shows why this nation can never, never, never, deal with tough problems until our noses are rubbed in it. Who would have thought military assault weapons, giant clips, and background checks would be an issue?

But the best example of the problem this country faces is an interview I listened to yesterday to on Martin Bashir where some woman was explaining her need for an assault rifle and high capacity magazines. First she took issue with the description of the assault weapon as military type weapon. The generals who have described them as such, simply are wrong. What would they know about military type weapons? Then she says a limitation on clip size would put her at risk if there were multiple assailants breaking into her home. It is interesting how some people see the world as barbarians at the gate. I wonder why a simple shoot gun blast would not suffice? Oh well, what do I know. Remind me never to go up to that woman’s door unannounced.

Immigration reform, I think, is doubtful. To be meaningful we have to first quickly pass the original DREAM Act giving citizenship to all the kids. Then we need to legalize everyone here with a short path to citizenship. You think any of that is going to happen with Republicans who love to blame and punish? The Machiavellians maybe who see the political reality, but not the ideologues who see immigrants as the evil defiler of their blood lines and law breakers who must be punished for stealing their jobs. Oh, I hope I am so wrong here, because you can make this argument purely in economic terms if the moral ones fail you.

Finally, on the economy, I think Mark Thoma said it best, we lost moderate paying jobs in the recession and the new jobs are low paying, and the political world is focusing on cutting entitlements. As Mark wrote:

“But more broadly the indifference of both parties to the problems of the unemployed – the failure to take any real action to help after it became clear the initial stimulus package was far, far from enough – speaks to the lack of political power of the majority of people in the U.S. today. Money talks loudly in Washington, and there was a time when unions gave the working class a voice that could be heard. That voice has faded with the demise of unions, and – as people often complain – Washington is not as responsive to the needs of the vast majority of households as it ought to be. Unless Democrats can remember who they are supposed to represent without the “memory aid” provided by powerful, well-funded unions, it’s hard to see how that will change.“

So we are ruled by morons who fail to recognize that our problems are simply solved and it is only dealing with morons that makes it complicated. So I don’t see much this week but entertainment as Washington becomes more and more irrelevant to America’s future.

Let’s see, what is the Greatest Country in the World (GCITW) doing today? Well, after watching Europe put in place an austerity campaign to “restore confidence” that ended up contracting their economies*, warnings by Economic Nobel laureates, Paul Krugman, Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz, and Robert M. Solow, that our debt is not our problem, a growing economy and jobs are, and even our Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke tells us the near term debt is not the problem, the sequester will further weaken the economy, and we need to be increasing spending right now, we are, you guessed it boys and girls, implementing the sequester. The sequester is austerity on steroids.

The GCITW’s Republicans cheered their leader for not negotiating some kind of solution. How did we get here? The GCITW put in place a doomsday device that would gut the government assuming no sane person would actually activate it, thus they thought, forcing compromise. But the people controlling the GCITW (Tea Party Republicans) are crazy and they activated it. For the GCITW, facts, logic, and science no longer hold sway and we are lead by VSPs** and the Tea Party with bad data and unable to read charts and graphs.

And what is the GCITW’s news media doing to alert us of the coming self-inflicted disaster? Well they are reporting and hyping a spat (made up) between Bobby Woodward and the White House because it titilates the twitter world (where deep and important thoughts can be expressed in 146 characters while the English language degenerates into acronyms) and sells advertising space. Oh, and least I forget, continues the both sides do it nonsense that confuses the voter on who is really preventing any progress, although I think even that is breaking through.

So the GCITW is unable to move forward in any discernible way, cannot ban assault weapons; can’t come up with a viable immigration policy; can’t deal with global warming; can’t recognize that our medical care system, which is the most expensive in the world, isn’t working; can’t invest in pre-kindergarden education which is the most effective way to ensure a successful life; blames both sides when a small minority of Republicans in the House and the Republican use of the filibuster in the Senate blocks everything; and is about to throw out the Civil Rights Act that has prevented states from trampling on the rights of their citizens while attempts to disenfranchise voters grows. If this is the GCITW, I would like to see some that aren’t doing so well.

But what do I know? I am old and grumpy. YOU KIDS GET OFF OF MY LAWN! Is it too early to crack open a nice bottle of wine? (Disclosure: I live on almost 22 acres of Sierra forest in the middle of a vineyard and the most pesky critters are gophers who along with Republicans, really are a scourge on the earth).

*If the results of the election in Italy are any indication, not only are the policies of austerity being rejected, but harsh economic conditions forced on the people bring out the crazies and there are disturbing parallels to the rise of Hitler in post WWI Europe.

**VSPs – Are those that look at a problem and appear serious because they call for harsh measures and self-sacrifice to seem serious about the problem when those measures are actually counterproductive, but makes them appear to be serious thinkers. Very Serious People hear other Very Serious People citing an alleged finding that supports their conclusions, then repeated it themselves, and it became part of what Everyone Knows — after all, everyone they talked to said it was true (this is also known as the Scarborough effect).

No there really isn’t. Turn on the news and you get the same things, gun politics, immigration politics, sequester politics, and nothing is changed, nothing. The Republicans are not moving on anything and have closed their minds. Oh, they might be slowly recognizing that maybe the DREAM Act might be a good idea, but what about citizenship? I am sure you have seen the polls today that say that by a large margin, Americans support the President on all these issues and there the Republicans sit blocking everything. (Plumb Line)

I mean think about it. How long has the Dream Act been out there (over a decade) and they are just starting to see the wisdom (economically and humanistically, or more realistically politically). It is the same with every other issue. And they are wrong on every one of those. And don’t give me the both sides have something to contribute. The solution does not lie somewhere in the middle of these two positions because the President already proposed a solution in the middle (see the Simpson-Bowles 2.0 nonsense).

We are fighting all these battles and artificially created crises because the Republicans have trained themselves to ignore reality and facts. See John McCain try to deal with these morons they created by feeding them false information in his Town Hall Meeting. Democrats and the majority of Americans are trying to pull us fully into the 21st century, and Republicans are trying to drag us crawling back into the 19th.

If Democrats don’t lose their courage, the ship may be slowly turning around. If the Senate can pass some reasonable legislation on all the above (Harry Reid screwed us when he did not reform the filibuster, but some Republicans really can read polls), then the House may be forced into action. If they block everything, they are done, and if more moderate Republicans in the House (there aren’t many) vote with Democrats, the lurch to the right is over. It is up to Democrats to stand up for what is right instead of some compromise that doesn’t fix anything and lets the Republicans off the hook. See the latest proposal to have all cuts, but let the President decide where they should be. It’s a trap to blame the President for all the cuts. We need to stick to the balanced approach option and add in some stimulus.

Sadly once again studies show that the Republicans have it all wrong. This from the Plumbline:

“The new study was performed by Thomas Hungerford of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. Though the study is not a CRS product, Hungerford’s data is widely cited on both sides; he’s an impeccably objective analyst.

Here’s what Hungerford found: The single greatest driver of income inequality over a recent 15 year period was runaway income from capital gains and dividends.

This finding is directly relevant to the current debate, because Obama and Democrats want to offset the sequester in part by closing loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy, such as the one that keeps tax rates on capital gains and dividends low. Dems want to do this in order to prevent a scenario where the sequester is averted only by deep spending cuts to social programs that could hurt a whole lot of poor and middle class Americans. Republicans oppose closing any such loopholes and want to avert the sequester with only deep spending cuts.“

So if you feel as I do that the gross inequality is also holding back the economy, it is time to start taxing capital gains as normal income.

Meanwhile in Arizona, I watched John McCain get thrashed at at Town Hall Meeting by ill informed fat white people who think we need to mobilize the army to the border to stop immigration (it was negative last year) and that immigrants were using up all our entitlements (they are not). Now that they have created Frankenstein, they will have to live with him. It is amazing to me how many truly ignorant people are out there.

Today marks the start of my 68th year on this planet. Other than the knees don’t work quite as well as they use to, I can’t complain. Wait a minute. This whole blog is about complaining. It is what keeps me awake after 8pm. And thankfully, this morning’s paper gave me a whole slew of things to complain about. But before I get into that, let me explain how I come at these issues.

I spent most of my life, professionally, solving other people’s problems. I was an engineer, project manager, contract manager, program manager, and now from time to time I write proposals for construction companies, usually explaining an execution strategy and how we will manage cost, schedule, safety, and quality. The point of all this is that my life has been focused on solutions that work*, whether in the actual execution of a project, or in selling the firm I am representing to a potential client, by convincing them we have not only a viable plan, but the best plan to build or solve whatever it is they want. Bottom line here is that I look for solutions and come up with executable plans. It is about what works, not what I would like to believe works.

So that brings me back to this morning’s news which is kind of a compilation of problems which have easy solutions, but we can’t seem to get there. We can’t get there because we have this whole spectrum of political agendas out there that have nothing to do with effective solutions. Now it is not like I did not come across this in my professional life, but generally the bottom line drove the train, meaning that sooner or later you had to employ what worked or you went out of business. In the world of politics, that simple truism does not seem to apply. I think this is because failure can be blamed on so many other factors and the impacts of those failures are not directly felt by people who have all these bad ideas. Austerity anyone?

Let me give you an example (finally we are going to get to the news). There was a news story this morning about “Pro-Gun Law Makers are Open to Limits on size of Magazines“. But “view a proposed ban on assault weapons as politically toxic”. Now if we really wanted to reduce gun violence, we need to do everything the President recommended, and why is it that “sportsmen” need Weapons of Mass Destruction? This is a no-brainer if we want to solve the problem of gun violence, but through the lack of political courage, or some insane idea that you need fire power sufficient to fend off the Feds, or both, we can’t get there. And what is really sad is that when you are faced with the reality of the impact of gun violence, you want nothing to do with them, but many Americans live in that state of denial I described above. Would Oscar Pistorius’s girl friend Reeva Skeenkamp still be here if he didn’t need all those guns to feel safe? Does he feel safe now? That’s just the latest example of a never ending trail of domestic violence caused by easy access to guns.

Then there is immigration. The solutions and their details are not difficult. We need the Dream Act, a path for citizenship, simpler immigration at all levels, and not a bigger fence, but a real program to then enforce employer hiring. Will we get there? Not on your life. Watch Marco Rubio bashing the “leaked” plan by Obama and you see that Republicans really don’t want immigration reform and they are looking for anything to blame for its failure. Even more demented, they don’t want anything Obama. So we can’t get to simple immigration reform that will work because of the politics, not because we can’t find a solution that will work well for our country. That solution is already out there and proposed.

You probably saw the article about the cyber attacks from the Chinese on businesses that control our infrastructure like power generation, water supply, and transportation (Chinese Unit is Seen as tied to Hacking in the U.S.). All of a sudden it is a big problem, but the Obama Administration put forward a bill last year to tighten up cyber security for the affected businesses, and John McCain and the Republicans voted it down because it “interferes with business” (Cybersecurity Bill Killed). The solution is very straight forward, but political ideology prevents us from putting in place effective measures to protect ourselves. When the attack is successful, they won’t remember their obstructionism and of course blame whoever is in power. Exhibit “A” is John McCain trying to reinvent history by telling us the invasion of Iraq was a good idea ($3 trillion later, no connection to Al Qaeda, and no weapons of mass destruction).

I could mention global warming or the Keystone Pipeline. Republicans have blocked both our understanding of the consequences of our denial and effective policies to deal with global warming. Keystone Pipeline is a prime example. Should it be built? No. Will it be built? Yes, because there is money to be made in the near term. Implement a realistic carbon tax and all this goes away as the market place will then function to find us less carbon polluting technologies, but we can’t get there. Same with our health care costs. A single payer system with reasonable controls could reduce our costs by half and end all this nonsense about contraceptives since employers would no longer be responsible. But can we get there? No, because it is against some political ideology. By ‘some’, read Republican.

So on my first day of my 68th year and the first day of the rest of my life, I see easy solutions to most of our problems, but prevented by politics and ideology instead of reason. I could mention our economic problems, but I have spent pages and pages on that one. See Joe Scarborough try to reinvent facts and economics to believe his economic ideology (Joe Scarborough Flunks Economics). Sadly we can’t even say, “Try it Mikey, You might like it.” We can’t implement solutions with the idea that if they don’t work as planned we will modify them. What we have is political ideology that won’t even let you try another path because it is heresy. Instead we just keep doing the same things that don’t work. Yes, as I read the paper, the vision that goes through my mind is that of poor President Obama, herding cats who go off in all sorts of directions and are not focused at all on the real goal, only their short term needs to satisfy their ideological imperatives.

*I was also an RF-4C weapon systems officer during the Vietnam war and then a radar navigator in the B-52 sitting nuclear alert. In these jobs I really wasn’t solving somebody else’s problems. In the RF-4C I was just participating in a failed and stupid war, and in the B-52 my job was to bring you the end of civilization as we know it. I guess that is kind of a final solution, but one I would not recommend..