Removing the Watchdogs, Part 1

In what one can easily assume is a sign of things to come, House Republicans have now voted to strip the Office of Congressional Ethics of its oversight ability.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3249503-OCE-NEW-RULE.html

Instead, it will now be up to the congressional Committee on Ethics to police itself.  This was pushed through in secret without debate and, interestingly, over the objections of Speaker Paul Ryan (among others).

In effect, the House Republicans have unilaterally removed a key ethics watchdog.  Given that they are going to be trying to ramrod through their agenda while they control all three chambers, it's understandable why they may not wish to have anyone keeping tabs on the lobbyists who knock on their doors, dinners they attend, gifts they may or may not receive, and promises they make behind closed doors in exchange for votes and favors.  Anyone who believes they will actually police themselves...well, they probably voted for Trump.

It's Not Just Me

I spoke yesterday with one of my long-time friends (and former Centrist Dude blog subject) for the first time since the election.  On some level, I had been avoiding the conversation because it was likely to devolve into a comiseration.  But I couldn't, or at least shouldn't, avoid it forever so I picked up the phone, which went something like this:

"Randall!  How the hell are you?"
"Well, I'm...uh...nervous laughter...I don't know how to answer that.  I feel like I'm watching a hurricane 5 days out, all the models have us in the cone, and everyone around me seems to be going about business as usual."
"I wish I didn't know what you were talking about, but unfortunately I do."

Note: not a single mention of politics or Donald Trump.  We had most recently been discussing the Cubs.  We talk business.  Yes we talk politics, but we are not in lockstep politically.

We're both making contingency plans to off-shore and not telling those around us about it.  We both see the same signs of fascism and willing participants in the government who can encourage and foment its implementation.  It was cathartic to hear someone else echo almost precisely what I've been thinking and feeling.  And to logically lay out why I'm neither crazy nor alarmist.  There is always the possibility that we both are those things, of course.  But I'm beginning to think it's crazier for me to keep that line of thinking open.  It's certainly less productive as it gives me an excuse to slow preparations.

The line he uttered that I shall use as the model for the next year: "The smart Jews got out early."

The Fascist Playbook Continues

As reported this morning in Politico, Trump is planning to keep his own security detail instead of turning everything over to the Secret Service.

Not only is this a breach of protocol, it's going to make things more difficult for the Secret Service to actively protect him, which may sound like a good idea to a lot of people, but it may have the opposite effect.  I can see a plausible scenario where Trump declares coordination will be "too difficult" and he will increase the size and scope of his private detail, in essence creating his own paramilitary group.  From there it's not much of a stretch to see the "need" to expand the group to other areas: security squads permanently encamped in cities and communities deemed dangerous or in need of observation.  New York, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco...any place that the case can be made to "clean up."  His detail is already forcibly roughing up protesters at the rallies on his "Thank You" tour, so it's not a stretch to start increasing the ranks.  After all, white, uneducated, low-skilled workers need jobs, and cracking skulls doesn't require a lot of education.  But it does do well with blind loyalty.

I'm not suggesting that this IS going to happen, but I am seeing more of the signs that it may well happen.  After all, it is Chapter 2 of the Fascist Playbook.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama says that "now we're feeling what not having hope feels like."  Commentary I'm seeing from those on the right, and commentary that I've heard from my family tell me just how much a sizeable swath of the country doesn't seem to grasp what we're dealing with.

This is not about "my candidate" losing, or a Republican winning.  This is not business as usual.  This is about a terrible shitstorm being wrought by someone who is too stupid and arrogant to understand just how incompetent he is.  The party he represents isn't the issue.  If he were a Democrat I'd feel exactly the same way.

It seems so ridiculously obvious to me that I've questioned if I'm being alarmist, even though that is not my tendency at all.  But every day I see fresh evidence that I am not incorrect.  Today Trump is tweeting this:
"China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters - rips it out of water and takes it to China in an unpresidented act."

Let's start with the fact that China's "act" can be laid at Trump's feet for his irresponsible and ill-thought out public questioning of our public stance with China and Taiwan.  But "Unpresidented"?  Are you fucking kidding me?

That's what I'd like to fucking do to you, you fucking low-life moron.

This is not a politician with a vision different from mine.  This is a clueless, reckless human being.  He's not even in office yet. This is going to really be bad.

Courtesy of Robert Reich, here's a quote from FDR's VP Henry Wallace that rings eerily true 72 years later:

“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity .…They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

Having absorbed volumes about Mussolini many years ago, I see in Trump a pattern so similar that it's as if he's following a script.  Listen/observe in macro, not to one or two specific comments.  He is a master of obfuscation and double-speak, but if you cut out the noise and concentrate on the substance his path is very obvious.  Unable to be taken seriously by career politicians, he is coalescing those with economic and military power in an effort to wrest political power for himself.  Trump doesn't want to be President, he wants to be El Duce.

Most of us have been snubbed in our lives.  Trying to land the big client only for it to be made obvious that they consider you too small-time.  A coach not giving you the opportunity in a team sport because of their preconceived notion about you.  A high school clique from which you are shunned.   A sorority you were denied entry into.  A venue you can't play because you're not on the current list of hot local acts.  And so on.

For Donald Trump it was not being allowed into the inner circle of Manhattan society, no matter how much money he had.

Most people get over the hurt feelings.  Even if you land the client or the gig or are befriended by a clique member there's a little voice in most of our heads telling us to stay cool.  But Mr. Trump seems intent on rubbing people's noses in it, because his emotional development was arrested at the age of 15.  He is the embodiment of what my friend Guy Forsyth penned: "I wonder how the world sees us: rich without equal, powerful beyond compare, a spoiled teenager waving a gun in their faces."  So he courts Mitt Romney simply to pull his hand away and say "psych!"  He nominates cabinet members that are unconventional, not to shake things up but to thumb his nose at the people who never let him in the club.  His "thank you" tour is full of nanny nanny boo boo commentary about the media, Hillary, even those to whom he's made part of his administration (Reince Priebus, for instance) because they dared to denounce him.

That same lack of discipline or ability to know when to let something go has caused him to pick a fight with the CIA over their assessment of Russian hacking.  And now he asked for records of civil servants in the Departments of Energy and Interior that worked on any climate change projects, presumably as a threat to fire them.  Mind you, these are career employees who likely did what they were told.

This pattern is not going to be modified nor applied with any reasonable filter.  The man is 70 years old; he's not going to change.  He simply has development that's been arrested for 55 years.

Speaking of cabinet picks: Rick Perry to head a Department that he couldn't remember he wanted to shut down.  That should work out well.

Donald Trump is in favor of the tactics used by Phillipine President Rodrigo Duerte.  If you don't know, Duerte has been employing facist-style paramilitary groups (think of the Nazi's SS and the Italian Fascists Brown Shirts) for quite some time to murder citizens it deems bad in a thinly disguised war on drugs.  Trump told Duerte that he's handling this non-judicial and violent mode "in the right way."

This all seems to be part of a pattern.  Trump continually talks about how bad the crime is in America, even though it is statistically inaccurate.  He speaks of the need to grow the military, and instead of demilarizing our beefed-up local police forces he wants to give them even more weaponry and leeway.

Note a pattern here?

So Trump is now following the facist playbook almost verbatim:
1) Beef up law enforcement and tacitly encourage vigilantism

2) Increase the military.  Next up will be: go looking for a conflict that can be easily won & touted. In Italy it was Ethiopia.  In Germany it was the Rhineland and then Czechoslovakia.  In Spain it was a coup attempt that led to civil war.  The low-hanging fruits appear to be Syria and Libya.  Preach peace while all the while gearing up for conflict.

3) Cozy up to the largest economic companies in the country to make their success tied to the administration's success, at least in the way it can be spun.  Remove as many impediments as possible to allow them to conduct business unfettered.  (I.e., "We're doing so well economically; look at the money Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil are doing.  So my plan is working.")

4) Wrap it in patriotic slogans and rhetoric to suggest that any opposition is both unpatriotic and a domestic enemy.

This is completely in keeping with Trump's admiration of Vladimir Putin and Turkey's Recep Erdogan.  It's likely that he'll find other strongmen around the world who he'll suddenly respect and admire, as it legitimizes the tactics that he is pursuing.

Detailing Trump's Takedown of America

I'm not an alarmist.  At all.  It's not in my makeup.  If anything, my tendency is to be skeptical of doom and gloom predictions.  So this is almost entirely out of character:

Donald Trump is going to do irreparable, permanent damage to the United States.  And for those that refuse to see it coming, who should know better, this falls squarely on your shoulders.

If you voted for Trump simply because you hate Hillary, this is your fault.
If you voted for a 3rd party candidate, especially in a swing state, this is your fault.
If you stayed home because you disliked both candidates, this is your fault.
If you refused to vote for Clinton because she wasn't Bernie, this is your fault.

Because it doesn't matter who was the other candidate: Donald Trump is so unfit for office that he has zero business being President.  Zero.

If you think this turns out well, you're wrong.

What pains me the most is that the majority of my family and a significant number of friends & acquaintances, most of whom I believed to be smarter than this, voted for Trump.  Talking to them did no good, and it's not going to do any good now.  So I've quit talking.  But I have to do something because, while the details can be difficult to predict, the macro outcome is not.

It's like a 5-year old lying to your face, and they can't figure out how you know.  That kind of obvious.

It's being in the path of the Category 5 hurricane on all the models 3 days out.  You hold out small hope for a miraculous turn, but you start battening down the hatches and get out of town.  You know there will be damage and hope somehow you're spared the worst.  That kind of obvious.

So I'm going to begin detailing this horror story.  And I'm going to do it here so that it's not being shoved down your throat if you're on that list above, unless you wish to seek this out.  But it will be documented.  And some day, you're going to read this and either deny that this was foreseeable (because you won't be able to take pointing the finger back at yourself and your lack of vision/intellect/reasoning skills), get angry at me (like I did this somehow...another form of pretzel logic to salve your wounded ego), or wonder how you missed something this obvious.

The housing crisis was this kind of obvious.  Yet people still didn't see it coming and still try to claim that it was not the glaring train-in-the-tunnel headlight that it was.

So let's begin.  He's not even President yet, and there's already a laundry list.

Trump breaks diplomatic precedent by calling the President of Taiwan and unnecessarily angering China over...well, no reason.

Malcom Turnbull, one of our staunchest allies, is now signaling to his country and the world that Australia must consider alliance options other than America.  Any guesses where they'll turn?  Come on...it's not difficult.

Cabinet choices so far:
-Ben Carson, wholly unqualified for any governmental position, has been tapped to lead HUD.
-Linda McMahon, also wholly unqualified, to head the SBA.
-James Mattis, ineligible due to federal law, SecDef.  Trump pushing for an unprecedented waiver.
-By most accounts, Trump isn't taking daily security briefings.  Likely too much info to digest, since he has no understanding or interest in geopolitics.
-Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt, who publicly hates the EPA & believes climate change is a Chinese-led  hoax, to lead the EPA.  You can't make this stuff up.
-Jeff Sessions, a barely disguised racist and sexist, for Attorney General.

I have to get back to work and also drill my Spanish.  More to follow.  Lots more.

I have had a front-row seat for the past 6 weeks to the debate over what has eventually become House Bill 2 (HB2) in the Texas state legislature.

To a majority of the people outside of Texas and perhaps to a significant percentage in-state who are only paying marginal attention, the debate has been framed as two sides arguing over a late-term abortion bill.  This has been a masterful red herring by the Perry-Dewhurst administration, swallowed by some of the national press, because a majority of the country is against "late-term abortions", even though that definition is a very loose one.

Problem is, that's not what the protests have been about.  Had this bill been simply about reducing the period to obtain a legal abortion in Texas from 24 weeks to 20 weeks you would not have seen the level of protests nor the passion.  There would have been no Special Legislative Session nor a second one.  (Texas lawmakers only meet every 2 years for a maximum of 140 days, but the Governor can call a 30-day Special Session if he/she believes there is legislation that is too important to wait.)

A SUMMARY IF YOU DON'T WISH TO READ DETAILS
Framed by the administration and the bill's authors as a bill to restrict late-term abortions, and secondarily at 20 weeks because this is the (wholly unproven) point where fetuses feel pain.  The real aim of this bill, though, is to shut down any clinic providing abortions, by adding onerous restrictions that they hoped they could bury sufficiently so that the media or the public would not notice the details, which would have allowed it to be ramrodded through by the Republican majority in both chambers.  And they were almost successful until being out-maneuvered by the Democrats in the Senate, which allowed enough time for public opposition in Texas to be organized.

The proponents of the bill then shifted gears to try and frame it as protecting women's health, a dubious argument when it would shut down clinics across the state, not only leaving few options for abortions but also shuttering dozens of clinics that provide the only care facilities for hundreds of miles around.

In short, this has not been a fight over late-term abortions.  This has been a fight over an attempt to eliminate abortions without regard for the consequences.

WHAT'S IN THE BILL
No abortions can legally be performed in Texas after 20 weeks.  The method of calculation is also altered to start at date of fertilization (most of the time this is a guess, of course) instead of the typical method of going forward 7 days from the last menstrual period.  The stated reasoning for this is because of a supposition that the fetus "feels pain" beyond 20 weeks.

All abortions must be administered by a doctor who has "admitting privileges" at a hospital no more than 30 miles away.

All facilities where abortions are performed must be brought up to Ambulatory Surgical Center, or ASC, standards.  This includes the following: men's and women's locker rooms, hallways wide enough for gurneys to turn around, a boiler room, a centrifuge, a pharmacy staffed by licensed pharmacists, and an on-staff janitor and janitor's closet.

If the drug RU486 is to be administered to induce abortion, it must be taken in the presence of a doctor with admitting privileges at a local hospital, as must the follow-up dosage 48 hours later.

WHAT'S NOT IN THE BILL
Any exceptions.  Health of the mother is endangered?  Too bad once you pass 20 weeks.  A 12-year old impregnated by her uncle?  Should have spoken up sooner.  A women raped by her boss?  Same.  The baby is going to be badly deformed, will die soon after birth, or is already dead?  Tough it out and carry it to term.

Any funding for contraception usage.

Any increase or even mention of counseling support.

Any increased funding or even moving of funds towards strengthening or encouraging adoption.

Any requirement or strengthening of sex education.


THE HOOPS
This bill did not survive in the regular legislative session.  So Governor Rick Perry called a "special session" of 30 days, which he has the right to do, and changed all Senate votes from the normal 2/3 majority to a simply majority, which mystically he also has the right to do.  The bill's opponents successfully galvanized the public to demonstrate and voice their opposition, which delayed a vote long enough to lead to the event that sparked a more national interest, when Senator Wendy Davis successfully fillibustered the bill long enough to allow the clock to run out on the Special Session.  (It's a bit more complex than that, but that's the gist of what occurred.)

Rick Perry, wanting to burnish his conservative credentials for another run at the Presidency, immediately called a 2nd Special Session to attempt to ramrod the bill through again. In this session, the renamed bill was pushed through at the front of the session to ensure that there would be no last-minute parliamentary procedures to delay it.

Part of the Republican strategy was to not accept any amendments to the bill, as this would cause a 48-hour delay because it would be required to be kicked back to the other chamber (in this case the House) for debate.  Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, accepted no amendments.  None for rape and incest exceptions.  None for when the mother's life was in danger.  None for a baby that would be born unviable or stillborn.

INTIMIDATION, INFLATION, AND OTHER UNDERHANDED TACTICS

This is a long series of dirty tricks by the Republicans.

Ending the Citizen's Filibuster
Texas law allows for a Citizen's Filibuster.  This essentially allows individuals the forum to get up and speak against (or for) a particular bill.  While each citizen is limited to 3 minutes of time, there is no limit to the number of citizens who can speak.  They are required to be a resident of Texas or the district where the bill we take affect if it's not statewide.  Over 700 people registered to speak against the bill.   But the Republican-led State Affairs Committee voted to cessate the filibuster.  (This will undoubtedly be one of the upcoming legal challenges.)  And this breach of protocol at best and law at worst is what led Wendy Davis to declare that she would personally filibuster the bill.

Questionable Procedural Ethics
During Wendy Davis's filibuster, Senate Republicans broke from traditional decorum to do anything they could to find technical reasons to end her filibuster.  There is a 3 strike rule, and the first strike was given when she mentioned Planned Parenthood's budget for not being germane to the conversation.  About abortion.  Yes, they were serious.

The second strike came she was trying to adjust a back brace she had worn. (Senate filibuster rules say that you must stand, cannot lean on anything for support, cannot eat, drink, or leave chambers)  The strike came when Senator Royce West helped her adjust the brace when it appeared she was having difficulty.

When she mentioned the previously passed Sonogram law the majority Republicans ruled she had violated "germaneness" rules and had strayed too far from the topic at hand, ending her filibuster.  In case you're not familar with the Sonogram law, it requires every woman seeking an abortion to first submit to a sonogram at least 24 hours prior to the abortion, and then to be forced to listen to the heartbeat (if there is one) and be shown displays of the embryo/fetus.  Yes, this was considered off topic to even mention when discussing abortion.  What it really was: a thinly-veiled and underhanded attempt to push Senator Davis off the floor so they could sneak in a vote before midnight, when the Special Session was mandated to end.

Senate Democrats fought this in chambers, but finally at about 11:45pm they had run out of options.  And that's when the citizens opposed to the bill who were seated in the Senate gallery took over.  Fed up with the underhandedness of the Republicans, they spontaneously made as much noise as they possibly could, ultimately making it impossible for a vote to be taken because no one on the floor could here.

Manipulating the Vote
Republicans managed to tabulate a vote by walking around the floor from member to member, but it took too long and the vote was tabulated after midnight.  Incredibly, with the procedures being live-streamed and observed by over 800,000 people, they manually changed the time stamp on the vote to reflect it as occurring before the midnight deadline.  No surprise, this was caught immediately and reported to media outlets just as quickly.  The Republicans were forced to rescind the vote.  (Although never apologizing or actually confessing that they had done this purposefully.)

2nd Special Session
Governor Perry now called for a 2nd Special Session.  Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst, smarting from his failure to pass the bill in the 1st SS, now made it priority.

Why Stick to Texas Voters?
But now the bill's opponents in the State had become educated, angry, and organized.  A rally was held on the State capitol's steps the day the 2nd SS opened.  Over 5000 were on hand to support the effort.  Anti-abortion groups were now trying to martial their troops and attempted to organize supporters to come to capitol for a counter-protest.  Their numbers were awful by comparison, measuring in the low 100s.

The anti-choice groups decided that they needed to take more drastic action and began organizing church groups from outside of Texas to attend every event.  Slowly, their numbers grew so that at each event they were closer and closer to making the numbers appear equal.  But these were not largely Texas residents, but people who were zealots from elsewhere, some being paid to attend by being given places to stay, meals, and free transportation.  Bear that in mind with any video you may see.

Capitol Police Intimidation
Possibly the most heinous aspect of all was the behavior of the Capitol Police force.  In all probability they were being directed to take the following actions by the Administration. (Perry and Dewhurst both referred to the bill's opponents as an "unruly mob" even though there had been no incidents.)  These tactics included:

-showing up to all rallies in riot gear
-creating lines of troopers on horses (also in riot gear)
-purposely not putting bags on the horses so they would defecate in the middle of rallies and leave the piles
-removing people from the gallery for breaking all sorts of rules (like talking).  Of course, only opponents of the bill.  There's not a single report of a "blue shirt" being removed.

-And the most heinous: confiscating tampons and feminine pads the day that the vote was to be taken.  The first reports were that some people had tried to bring jars of feces and urine, so the response was to confiscate anything that could be thrown.  The Texas Tribune was the first to report that there had been no such jars.  Senator Kirk Watson (D-Austin) convinced the DPS (Department of Public Safety) to cease the confiscations.

Further irony here: concealed weapons (guns) were allowed in chambers.  You can't make this up.

BOTTOM LINE
Despite what most of the media is sadly reporting, this bill is NOT about limiting legal abortions in Texas to 20 weeks, nor are the protests focused on that.  This is about forcing clinics to close, no matter what the fallout.  Regardless of your stance on abortion, remember that.  Understand that this will severely reduce the health options of women in much of Texas, not just those seeking abortions.  Republicans have gone so far off the rails they don't care who they hurt, so long as they can destroy Planned Parenthood.

Anything else is a red herring, which is exactly what the Republicans want you to focus on.

It may not be political, but it's just as ridiculous as partisan politics.

Quit with the West Nile hysteria.

If every West Nile death actually occurred in Texas (which it has not), that would be 41 people this year out of a population of 25MM, or .000000164%.  The actual number as of this posting is 17 people dead.  As a national statistic of 41 deaths in 8 months given a population of 310MM it's even more laughable to be on the radar.  More people die from the flu in almost any given week than have died from West Nile this entire year. (Roughly 25,000 annually, over 200,000 hospitalized annually.)  More mothers die in labor (800-900/yr).  More pedestrians are hit by cars and killed (4300 in 2010).  More people are shot and killed (35K-40K/yr).  More people die of alcohol poisoning (estimates run around 1200 annually).  I do not mean this to intimate that a death from something such as West Nile is not horrific and horrible.  But to suggest that this is something for which everyone need to gird their loins is irresponsible.

West Nile is not statistically significant. It isn't going to mutate and be transmitted in another way, so there's no reasonable chance for an epidemic. Yet Dallas and Tarrant counties here in Texas have commmitted tens of thousands of dollars to spraying insecticides, which will probably not prove effective (mosquitoes breed too readily) and will harm the environment.  Spraying pesticides kills everything: bees, dragonflies (which eat the mosquitoes), and beneficial insects.  The long-term effects of DEET are still unknown, and while it could turn out to be perfectly safe there is a reasonable possibility that it will have long-term negative effects, such as increased risk of cancer.  DEET-infused mosquito spray melts plastic and strips nail polish.  Generally speaking, that's not desirable in a topical spray that coats your body.

Hysteria over West Nile is leading to "cures" that are far worse than the problem, which in reality really isn't that big of one.

Every so often you come across something you wish you'd written. 

Below is a reprint of a tongue-in-cheek article that appeared in Thursday's Chicago Tribune. Not that this is necessarily directed at a single party, but the Tribune was, of course, historically a conservative newspaper that now finds itself nowhere near the Republicans due to the shifting ground and polarization of the past decade.

To which I can completely relate. 

The tome:

RIP: Facts (360 B.C.-A.D. 2012)

By Rex W. Huppke, Chicago Tribune reporter

 

April 19, 2012

A quick review of the long and illustrious career of Facts reveals some of the world's most cherished absolutes: Gravity makes things fall down; 2 + 2 = 4; the sky is blue.

But for many, Facts' most memorable moments came in simple day-to-day realities, from a child's certainty of its mother's love to the comforting knowledge that a favorite television show would start promptly at 8 p.m.

Over the centuries, Facts became such a prevalent part of most people's lives that Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said: "Facts are to the mind what food is to the body."

To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.

Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372.

"It's very depressing," said Mary Poovey, a professor of English at New York University and author of "A History of the Modern Fact." "I think the thing Americans ought to miss most about facts is the lack of agreement that there are facts. This means we will never reach consensus about anything. Tax policies, presidential candidates. We'll never agree on anything."

Facts was born in ancient Greece, the brainchild of famed philosopher Aristotle. Poovey said that in its youth, Facts was viewed as "universal principles that everybody agrees on" or "shared assumptions."

But in the late 16th century, English philosopher and scientist Sir Francis Bacon took Facts under his wing and began to develop a new way of thinking.

"There was a shift of the word 'fact' to refer to empirical observations," Poovey said.

Facts became concrete observations based on evidence. It was growing up.

Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Facts reached adulthood as the world underwent a shift toward proving things true through the principles of physics and mathematical modeling. There was respect for scientists as arbiters of the truth, and Facts itself reached the peak of its power.

But those halcyon days would not last.

People unable to understand how science works began to question Facts. And at the same time there was a rise in political partisanship and a growth in the number of media outlets that would disseminate information, rarely relying on feedback from Facts.

"There was an erosion of any kind of collective sense of what's true or how you would go about verifying any truth claims," Poovey said. "Opinion has become the new truth. And many people who already have opinions see in the 'news' an affirmation of the opinion they already had, and that confirms their opinion as fact."

Though weakened, Facts managed to persevere through the last two decades, despite historic setbacks that included President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the justification forPresidentGeorge W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq and the debate over President Barack Obama's American citizenship.

Facts was wounded repeatedly throughout the recent GOP primary campaign, near fatally when Michele Bachmann claimed a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease causes mental retardation. In December, Facts was briefly hospitalized after MSNBC's erroneous report that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign was using an expression once used by the Ku Klux Klan.

But friends and relatives of Facts said Rep. West's claim that dozens of Democratic politicians are communists was simply too much for the aging concept to overcome.

As the world mourned Wednesday, some were unwilling to believe Facts was actually gone.

Gary Alan Fine, the John Evans Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, said: "Facts aren't dead. If anything, there are too many of them out there. There has been a population explosion."

Fine pointed to one of Facts' greatest battles, the debate over global warming.

"There are all kinds of studies out there," he said. "There is more than enough information to make any case you want to make. There may be a preponderance of evidence and there are communities that decide something is a fact, but there are enough facts that people who are opposed to that claim have their own facts to rely on."

To some, Fine's insistence on Facts' survival may seem reminiscent of the belief that rock stars like Jim Morrison are still alive.

"How do I know if Jim Morrison is dead?" Fine asked. "How do I know he's dead except that somebody told me that?"

Poovey, however, who knew Facts as well as anyone, said Facts' demise is undoubtedly factual.

"American society has lost confidence that there's a single alternative," she said. "Anybody can express an opinion on a blog or any other outlet and there's no system of verification or double-checking, you just say whatever you want to and it gets magnified. It's just kind of a bizarre world in which one person's opinion counts as much as anybody else's."

Facts is survived by two brothers, Rumor and Innuendo, and a sister, Emphatic Assertion.

Services are alleged to be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that mourners make a donation to their favorite super PAC.

Amen.

Work, Parenthood, and Faux Apologies

Lost in the Hillary Rosen-Ann Romney flap (with a side of Bill Maher thrown in for good measure) is what Mitt Romney's position has been when the subject of the debate wasn't his wife. A video has surfaced of Mitt Romney discussing his view of welfare earlier this year before the upcoming New Hamsphire primary. It's easy to locate on major media sites (and probably YouTube), so I suggest you should watch the entire exchange. The short version is that he believes that those who are going to accept aid from the government, federal or state, should in return be required to take a job so that they can share in "the dignity of work." And of course, intentionally or not he's suggesting requiring unemployed mothers to get a job since they comprise the vast majority of welfare recipients.

So, we have a more clear understanding of how Mitt feels, especially since his legislative record reflects what he says in this speech, leaving little doubt that this is his actual opinion. Perhaps there can now be a sane and measured conversation.

Let's go back to what actually started this chain of events: Mitt Romney commenting on more than one occasion that Ann is his go-to source when he wants to know about women's issues and how the economy affects families. And that says more about him than it does her.

See, this actually has little to do with Ann, who by all accounts is a wonderful mother and person and has come through some serious health crises. This is about Mitt, who appears to seek counsel about the economic toll befalling non-wealthy American women from a person who was also born into privilege, married into privilege, and chose not to enter what most of us consider the workplace. She is no more qualified to give advice on the subject of everyday economics than I, a childless man, am qualified to give advice on parenting.

Now, if the discussion moves to what Romney said in Manchester, then that's another conversation entirely, and one that probably should be fleshed out. There are undoubtedly some people who could be working who choose not to, but there also will be people who cannot land a job whether it's "required" or not. It's not a simple debate with easy answers, but that's precisely why the debate should occur. But let's not obfuscate the real problem here: a man who's never known hardship seeking advice from his long-time companion who's also never known hardship about "ordinary Americans." And the counsel-giver has never worked in the public or private sector. That is the real issue here, and it goes to the heart of Romney's judgements and critical thinking skills.

So sure: exact the pound of flesh from Hillary Rosen, who's an easy target precisely because she does speak in sound bites and talking points instead of providing thoughtful commentary or insightful information. But understand, now that the dust has settled and people have had time to digest the topic, many are going to conclude that it could be a real problem to have a President, already seen as out-of-touch, who turns to a person in his same circumstances for most of his advice instead of reaching out to experts in the various disciplines needed to run the country.

One Question

If all of you people who thought putting in Tea Party candidates was such a good idea, let me ask you one question:

If they weren't in Congress, would we be having this meaningless and destructive showdown over the debt ceiling?

"Anybody but..." is a stupid way to elect your representatives, especially when it's a bloc that combines ignorance with arrogance. Too late now, though, as you're reaping what you sowed. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with it as well.

Dumbing Ourselves Down

I’m going to start by saying that this new blogging journey that the CW and I are on is an interesting one. Any blogger, or even most national opinion writers, can sit at their computers and spout. To back up your positions with factual information requires a great deal of time and research. Despite the time-suck the CW and I are determined to stay the course. If every blogger in America did the same we’d probably have better discourse in this country. Alas…

Onwards.


For whatever reason, there seems to be strong empirical evidence that Americans have surprisingly little knowledge of current political issues even as they seemingly have incredibly black and white views on political positions. Proving or disproving this beyond the empirical is a difficult, if not impossible proposition, although one can easily find enough evidence to comfortably say that Americans are woefully ignorant of political realities and facts. Examples: Barack Obama is a Muslim, who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and who the top military commander is in Afghanistan. So we (“we” being me and the CW) chose to do some research on how people today are getting their political information.

To do this, we had to make some suppositions. We started with the way news is reported, and we looked at 1) political and news magazines, 2) local and national newspapers, and 3) cable and local television news.

-Our first supposition was that news magazines (e.g., Time, U.S. News, Christian Science Monitor Weekly, Business Week, Forbes) have the most in-depth coverage of stories based on their area of interest when compared to the newspapers and TV.
-The second supposition is that both national (e.g., USA Today, Wall Street Journal) and local newspapers cover topics that are more widely varying than magazines or TV, especially local newspapers since they also are attempting to cover stories of local interest.
-By nature, if these suppositions are true (which seem reasonable that they are based on empirical evidence and common sense), then TV news reports little more than an overview of a small number of stories. Even 24/7 cable news does not spend the in-depth time on most issues, outside of opinion and tabloid shows.

-According to this synopsis by the Pew Research Center of a survey concluded in February 2009, readership of newspapers in any form has fallen among all age groups. The WWII generation (the “Greatest Generation”) dropped to 53% from 65%, and Baby Boomers dropped from 48% to 38%. Gen X & Gen Y apparently never started reading newspapers in any form, as their numbers over the same time went from 31% & 22% respectively to 26% & 21% respectively.

-During this same time period news gathered from TV sources has remained stable.

-Even for those getting their news online, online cable TV news sites (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) are visited consistently higher than the entire aggregation of local newspaper sites, which also suggests that people’s understanding of local issues, arguably more important in people’s day-to-day lives than national issues, is declining rapidly.

Pew also breaks the country down by how they get their news into Integrators, Net-Newsers, Traditionalists and Disengaged, with Traditionalists being by far the largest segment (46%). This is the only segment that is almost solely reliant on TV for their news. However, the Integrators (23%) also use TV as their main news source. Integrators are defined as those who use traditional sources (TV, magazine, newspaper) and the internet. They tend to be middle-aged Americans who are “well-educated and affluent.” This means that, taken as an aggregate, 69% of all Americans rely on TV for all or most of their news.

This might be ok if TV were a reliable source for accuracy in a “headline news” sort of mode, or if the 24/7 news channels were to take the major stories of the day and give them a journalistic analysis. But that’s not the reality of what national news coverage has become; certainly not with the cable news stations, which have become more and more politicized over time. CNN, which was once thought of as both the bastion of TV journalism and ironically as the mouthpiece of the left is now foundering as not being politicized enough, and therefore 3rd in the cable news ratings.


So if TV news is a brief overview of issues, is overtly politicized instead of being journalistically sound, is rewarded (by ratings) for assuming a political stance, and people are picking and choosing what network to watch based on their political affiliation, then the viewership is being rewarded for continuing to believe what they want to believe. Along the same line, the network or station in question is rewarded for giving their viewership “red meat” along the political lines they hold. To the medium of television news, journalism is all but dead, true dissent is dead, and by nature, the truth is dead. Yet this is what 69% of all Americans choose as their primary news source.

Is it any wonder that we are becoming more polarized and more intractable? If this climate continues, will we ever be able to compromise for the good of the country? Ask yourself, whatever you believe: can you see any point in listening tothe other side? Or do you believe that the other side is so out of touch that there’s no sense in listening to them?

Regardless of the answers, it seems reasonably clear that to have some grasp of the truth you must turn off the TV.

Silent No More

My blogging absence has been purposeful. In trying to keep above the toxic rancor it seemed better to be silent than to add to the cacophony. However, there have been several occurrences that have convinced me that silence is the wrong option, and that now more than ever is the time to voice concerns and thoughts.

Because there are voluminous topics which need exploration, I’m going to consider this particular posting to be a preview of what will be written in detail over the next few weeks. So, somewhat Larry King-style and in no particular order, a smattering of topics and my POV that will be covered:

-How a segment of the population is rationalizing that the 1st Amendment, specifically the separation of church and state, can be summarily tossed out the window, and the long-term damage this does to our economy.

-The hypocrisy of newly-minted “constitutionalists” who claim to want a strict interpretation of a “dead document,” while at the same time express a desire to toss out that which they don’t like, such as the 14th Amendment.

-How a large swath of evangelical Christians are being led down a blind alley by disingenuous and dangerous “leaders” who prey on their worst fears, and what this likely means for them and for the country if they continue.

-The venom and negativity of conservatives and Republicans is matched only by the vacuum left from the lack of any positive direction or ideas they have.

-The failure of Democrats to have a unified message or to fully get behind Obama has been almost as detrimental as the negative spewing coming from the right.

-Why Obama needs to abandon his natural state of reasoned debate, as no one’s paying attention to sane dialog. Instead he must change his tactic to lay out his vision in overly simplistic terms while doggedly attacking Republicans. The question becomes whether or not he has the temperament to do so.

-The irony of the continued cry of “activist judge” as a slur against the left, while the current conservative Supreme Court has reached for decisions that are just as activist and also have the side effect of being damaging instead of merely polarizing.

-A definition of facism, since few people seem to understand exactly what that is, and why it is both more of a threat to U.S. style capitalism than socialism and also far more likely of an occurrence.

-The continued and arguably accelerating “dumbing down” of America. Everyone seems to think it’s happening, but few look in the mirror to see if they’re part of the problem or take personal responsibility to do anything about it.

-Why TV news is the single worst place to get information and, since the 24/7 news cycle is here to stay, how we must re-train ourselves in its wake.

-The rise of fringe candidates and how they disrupt or even derail governmental effectiveness.

-Racism is alive and well, only society and the right has gotten better at sending coded messages so that their followers can convince themselves that they’re not actually racist.

-Why it doesn’t matter whether you believe in climate change or not, since failure to change our energy policy will remove the United States from its perch as both the economic, military and political superpower, presuming the damage is not already irreversible.

-Why taking policies further that conservatives parrot (e.g., lower taxes, less regulations, relaxing of antitrust laws) will have a detrimental effect on the overall economy.

-An examination of how, as individuals, our personal habits have made us responsible for the mess we’re in, even though no one wants to admit or accept any blame for it; also, the way forward out it.

I will be trying to remain calm and factual. When opinion is necessary, I will strive to remove as much emotion as possible. I am not a journalist, nor an economist, nor a politician. I am just an interested observer who tries to do his homework. A good dialog would be nice, but it’s not really my aim. If I can serve in some small way to educate, inform and make someone think who otherwise is just aping buzzwords and re-hashing talking points, even if they retain their ideological position, then I will feel that this has accomplished something positive.

I've Had Enough

There comes a point when one has had enough with both sides of the aisle. Ok...there comes a point when THE CENTRIST DUDE has had enough with both sides of the aisle. And those not in an aisle as well.

Can we reintroduce some sanity?

Tea Partiers:

If you're really taking "fiscally conservative" as your mantra, then put our expenditures in Afghanistan and and Iraq on the table. If balancing the fiscal budget is truly your cause, and you cannot acknowledge the drain on our federal budget that comes from those conflicts and at least enter into a debate about how to better spend our defense dollars, then it's very difficult to believe that you're sincere. And therefore, the logical conlusion is that you only care about fiscal restraint for things you don't agree with, but are fine with pouring it down a sinkhole for things that you like. And by the way, that doesn't make you any different than most individuals, much less infer that you're special or justifying of a "movement." That is why there's so much hue and cry that all your bluster is covering for a bunch of anti-Democrat, anti-Obama, and/or anti-black white people who won't voice their true views in public.

Democrats/liberals:

Have you figured out yet that the country hasn't suddenly bought into your way of thinking? That maybe 2008 was more anti-Republican/anti-Bush than pro-anything-you believe? The country doesn't want the federal government to solve all of our woes.

You have missed a golden opportunity to be viewed as the adults in the national conversation. While Republicans did nothing but obstruct, which may I remind you was your tactic when you were the minority party, instead of rising above it and taking your case to the public you seemed to be more interested in pushing your agenda forward at all costs. Yes, we have problems in this country that need solutions, and some are so big that the federal government is the only plausible largesse available. But politics is the art of the possible, not the art of ram-it-down-their-throat, even if you are convinced that your beliefs are correct. By the way, that conviction doesn't separate you from anyone else.

If you can't bring the conversation back to the center, then you are as much of the problem as that which you rail against. Centrists and independents do matter. Quit shouting louder from your corner.

Republicans/conservatives:

Wow. How short your memory is. And how big of a pox you have left on this country. Do you realize that you got rightly butt-whipped in 2008? So don't confusing the current animosity towards Democrats as an acceptance of your agenda. Quite frankly, you're way more lost than the two entities above. You seem to have no road map out of the mess you have largely created, other than "Democrats suck." You rail against big government, but can't show how the lack of government is going to help people who you seem to be hell-bent on leaving in the lurch. Government won't solve all our ills, but get a grip: lack of government won't solve them either.

You won't or can't acknowledge how much damage has been done by your conservative Supreme Court (let's just start with the ruling that corporations have rights on par with individuals when it comes to political contributions), and the destruction of our political standing with respect to the rest of the world. In fact, you are so clueless that you demonize our President as being on an "apology tour," like we don't actually have issues to answer for. And now you suddenly think the country is coming around to your way of thinking? I would laugh if it weren't so sad how clueless you actually are.

Yes, there does need to be a "re-start" button, but I'm not referring to the health care debate. The best scenario would be to explode both parties, but that obviously isn't going to happen. So the next thing to do is to start eliminating incumbents until we have a plurality that understands a few things:

We have a fiscal deficit that badly needs to be addressed, but we also have investments that need to be made that can't just be put off. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that investing in our infrastructure, mass transportation, green energy and other industries of the future is a bad thing? If you own a company, would you stick your head in the sand and ignore new markets and improving your products? No, unless you're not very bright. You'd understand that is the key to being relevant and growing. This country is no different. If you don't get the concept of "spending money to make money", then you're truly stupid.

We have systemic greed on Wall Street that is a major part of our landscape, and it needs to be checked. There are bad people who want to break rules. That's what antitrust is all about. That's what regulation is for. Yes, in the late 70s we had too much regulation and too much bureaucracy. The pendulum has swung. Recognize it.

Our health care system is in ruins, and only those who have their heads in the sand can't see that. On several levels: loss of work force, cost of medical treatment, cost of insurance, an aging populous, this current "system" stands to wreck our country faster than Social Security, taxes, terrorists, or any competing cause. If we don't address it, it's going to be horribly ironic that the America we think we know will be destroyed by a social issue that right-wingers refused to acknowledge. Get off your high horse and bring solutions to the table. (And by the way, the most plausible solution here is to make health care insurance the responsibility of individuals, not employers. But like so many things, we all know that's not going to happen, either.)

You might still be an environmental skeptic or believe that climate change is bogus. Fine. But at least acknowledge that there's a ridiculous amount of money to be made in being on the forefront of "green" energy. This is the next dotcom boom. So why would you rail against it? And while we're on the subject, can those of you on the right please drop the "China and India aren't playing nice" talk as justification for doing nothing? Using that logic, if m neighbor doesn't take care of his yard I'm supposed to let mine go as well. That's got to be in the running for the single stupidest argument ever made.

While there is plenty of blame to go around, it's the current crop Republicans who disappoint and disgust me the most. I'm absolutely amazed at how quickly right-wing politics have become the safe harbor for nutcases and lunatics. I don't hear the constant chatter of crazy talk from the left any more; it's all coming from the right. What happened? How, without my views significantly shifting, has the landscape changed to a place where in my world "Republican" equals Nut Job? Democrats circa 1979 = Republicans circa 2010. If you're a Republican or conservative, you might want to think about that. I haven't fundamentally changed. But you certainly have.

As for the voters, if we really want change and for Washington to be once more about public service, then quit thinking your current congressional rep or senators are doing you any favors. Vote 'em all out. Dick Lugar and Lloyd Doggett aren't helping the cause, either, so why keep them around? Vote against every incumbent, starting with the primaries this week. Time to put the fear of God into any currently elected office holder. That's the only way anyone's going to start working for the good of the country.

Our Selective Ideological Memories

I’m sure most people recognize this scenario:

New president, following an increasingly unpopular regime, is elected in a major electoral referendum as the populous wants a directional change for the country. Quickly, the new administration moves to reverse the course of the past several years and completely change the federal government’s focus. A massive stimulus package is passed within the first 100 days. The government steps in to dismantle and remake a sector of the transportation industry, to the hue and cry of a segment of the population, and it brings claims of government overreach. The President goes on the offensive to reclaim America’s prestige in the world and undoing the damage done by the previous administration, revamping relationships with both allies and enemies, and reclaiming the mantle of world leadership. The President has strong weapons: he is charismatic, a world-class orator with an easy smile and a disarming personality. Even his detractors can’t help but find him likeable, though they strongly disagree with his policies.

But…after a year and alarmingly mounting debts, the popular tide begins to turn. Congress, formerly seeming to be just a pawn doing the administration’s bidding, now has its eye on the midterm elections, and with the mood of the country casting doubt begins to buck the administration. Reforms that the President deems vital to finishing the job that he started are thwarted by Congress, usually with the excuse that the country’s deficits are already too big, and both the House and Senate routinely block further changes to any existing programs. Unemployment runs over 10% for 9 months, and that’s only among those who haven’t given up looking for work. Predictably, the midterm elections are a bloodbath for the President’s party, rolling back all of the gains made on his coattails in his election year.

Surprisingly to some, this scenario isn’t a hypothetical about Obama, but is a recounting of Reagan’s first two years in office.

If you’re like most Americans, and especially most Republicans, the details of the days from January 1981 to December 1982 are largely forgotten; only the ultimate result of the Reagan years are in most people’s memory banks.

What Reagan did isn’t really that different from what Obama is doing. Reagan’s version of the Recovery Act was to cut the crushing income taxes the country was under across the board (the top tax rate was initially cut from 70% to 50%, while the middle class also received huge tax relief), but the net result was the same: money went to the economic stimulus at the expense of the federal government’s coffers, meaning that the government had a huge budget shortfall. Reagan fired the PATCO workers in what was deemed an unprecedented federal intervention and abuse of power (and arguably putting the air transportation industry’s safety in jeopardy for a time period). Even with the decreased federal coffers, Reagan felt it essential to ratchet up the country’s spending on defense in an attempt to outspend the Soviet Union and ultimately end the Cold War, but at a price that was astronomical (and with no guarantee of success at the time).

The point is this: remember what actually transpired during the Reagan years, and if you don’t remember, do a little research. This isn’t just about the ideological debate of larger government vs. smaller government, but about economic reality and what is best for the needs of the country. What ailed the country in 1980 was overregulation of business and high federal taxes. That can hardly be argued to be the case now, yet we’re in just as severe of an economic crisis. What Obama proposes is essentially the same formula: deliver a huge injection of money into the economy, which drives up the nation’s debt; make a sweeping investment in parts of the economy seen as necessary for long-term survival, which drives the deficit up further still, all in the expectation that the changes will be cheaper in the long run than doing nothing and will ultimately bring new economic growth.

I’m not going to take up space belaboring the obvious differences; I find the similarities more striking. It’s simply ironic that many of the same people who loved Reagan’s solution decry Obama’s now, even though the consequences of Reagan’s policies are exactly what they claim to fear today. The only difference is a belief that what methodology worked then is the same methodology that should be applied now, even though the details and problems have changed.

A little ideological agnosticism and a bit more pragmatism might do a large part of the country a great deal of good.

Centrist Dude Manifesto

Because I’ve heard from both sides about how wacky I’ve been in the past few months (note my blurb that resides right above this posting) I think it’s time for me to state for everyone what I do and do not believe. I am neither a socialist nor a monarchist, neither a fascist or a communist, and certainly neither a Democrat or a Republican. So it’s time for a personal manifesto of my political beliefs --

One of my fiercest fights has always been for personal liberty, and the biggest concern being laws that destroy it, because once taken away personal liberty never returns. Gay marriage laws, seat belt laws, helmet laws…these might please special interests but they are bad laws. The government is supposed to protect me from others, not from myself.

The second soapbox I’ve been on all of my adult life and much of my teenage years is the use of energy and our ostrich-like approach. We saw that OPEC could bring us to our knees in the early 70s. What have we learned? Apparently zero. Driving a big-ass SUV that gets 12mpg in the city is wasteful, destructive, irresponsible, and quite frankly feeds the machine abroad. And don’t tell me “that’s all I can fit in comfortably” or “but I can haul so much.” Sit in my Matrix and tell my 6’3” frame that you don’t have room. Watch me bring home a tree. I get 30mpg. We had a station wagon that got 20-25mpg. We brought 3 trees home in it once.

The main point is that we have had ample time to wean ourselves off of foreign oil and we’ve neither had the will nor the foresight to do it. This doesn’t even mention the damage to the planet. Which leads me to:

Global warming/climate change, whatever you want to call it, it’s a reality. Most people that rail against the concept are invested in maintaing the status quo, or they simply don’t want to take any personal responsibility to change their habits. Note that all of the major scientific communities in the world are alarmed by climate change and are in general agreement with the causes and changes that are happening. Advocacy scientists don’t count, folks; if Exxon paid for the research and it contradicts an independent study who do you think is likely to be telling the truth? We're hearing from people who have invested their lives in the pursuit of scientific truth and have a hell of a lot of schooling. Think of the scientists you know; they're an odd bunch but motivated by the search for truth on an almost religious level. I think they know what they’re talking about, and we should listen to them.

I am all for fiscal responsibility. Way for it. And one of the things I always expected the Republicans to do would be to watch my nation’s pocketbook, maybe even too much. ("So you’ve been out of work and you can’t feed your family? Too bad, maggot!") Yet, the Neocons believed only in tax cuts; they never met a spending bill they didn’t like, domestic or foreign. Unless it was against their religious beliefs, of course. And you know what? The party faithful bought it. So long as “their guy” was spending the money, deficits didn’t matter (remember Dick Cheney saying that exact quote?) and it all went to things the faithful liked…like faith-based initiatives, a two-front war, and “No Child Left Behind.” Ok, NCLB became an unfunded mandate that bankrupted the education budget of several states, but you get the point.

Conversely, the typical 70s Democrat who stereotypically couldn’t accept personal responsibility for any group….not my people, either.

To further this, I believe in the Ayn Rand concept of “personal greed is good” but only to a point. There are unscrupulous people in the world who aren’t in it for their own gain by the rules, but rather will lie, cheat, steal and seriously damage others. Pure capitalism is fine if we all are on the same page, but to not recognize that oversight is required (like referees in sporting events) is just silly. Yes, we’ve had too much regulation in the past. Usually it’s regulation about the wrong things for the wrong reasons. But we’ve seen basic regulations removed to the point to where it’s almost every person for themselves and Caveat Emptor seems like a quaint little poem.

Regulation is not a dirty word. It is often the only protection between you and Bernard Madoff, the difference between your portfolio thriving and an abnormally large investment in Enron, between your insurance company deciding to operate as a hedge fund or arbitrarily denying your life-saving surgery. It doesn’t take a genius to know when regulation is silly (all fire extinguishers must be between 3’8” and 4’2” from the floor or you get fined) and when the regulations are common sense. Right now, common sense has been zoned out. We’re way past the pendulum point.

The federal government is too large, too bloated, and too bureaucratic, but that doesn’t mean that it has no role. It’s the sledgehammer in the tool arsenal. You pull it out sparingly, but when you do pull it out don’t be afraid to whack away, and understand that there’s a lot of residual damage and the edges aren’t nice and neat. That’s because it’s a sledgehammer, not a chisel. And I do believe that now is the time to use the sledgehammer, because the time it will take to recover and the damage that will happen if we don’t re-open the faucet is greater than the damage we’ll wreak by banging open the wall to unstop the leak & get the water flowing again.

The Supreme Court is there for a reason, and it’s not to passively sit by. They are to render judgements when there is no clear direction by the law. That’s why the issue has come through the appellate courts in the first place. This does mean that sometimes they will, in effect, create law by creating precedent rulings. This whole “activist judges argument” quite frankly is pushed by people who do not apparently understand what the role of the judiciary is at its most basic level.

Both parties find a messiah every so often, then don’t really understand his (and someday her) message in the context of the time. So Democrats worship FDR and take his emergency save-the-country programs and turn them into public policy for 30 years. Republicans worship Reagan and take his lower taxes and keep-government-out-of-your-lives message past the point of relevancy. This is wrong, but this will happen again. That doesn’t mean that FDR or Reagan were wrong. They were right for their time, and it's not their fault that they eventually begat LBJ and GWB. (Maybe the problem is Texas presidents. But that’s not my point.)

Our system is flawed, like all systems and people. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong system nor that the world is coming to an end. However, blind following of ideologies is cute but childish. No ideology covers every contingency, and sometimes you have to take drastic measures to re-right the train. We all agree that murder is wrong, but we can all come up with a scenario that justifies killing someone. So why can’t we do the same with our governmental system? Why can neither side see that there really are evil people in the world across the spectrum? To the left I say: that person might not be a misunderstood pauper, they might just be a terrorist. To the right I say: that investment banker was actually exploiting and circumventing the system with no regard for anyone else and that makes him a criminal. It’s all the same in that they’re still evil. Neither Ayn Rand nor Ghandi have THE answer. Nor does anyone else. Ideology as a guide with a strong dose of pragmatism as a rudder is a much more effective way to enter into any situation.

I’ve held roughly these same beliefs for the last 30 years or so. If I'm guilty of anything it's not having a singular ideology and someone else to preach it to me. Maybe you can understand how I have come to the same conclusions as President Obama. We need to infuse capital into the system, but not in handouts. Rather, they should be investments in our future. This means investing in our educational system like we did in the 50s, rebuilding our infrastructure to give the country a competitive advantage (like that wacky liberal Eisenhower), overhauling our energy economy to give us independence over our own lives again AND to build a brand-new economy….just like that ideologue FDR electrifying the rural Midwest and crazy Kennedy with his silly space program. Last time I looked, all of those paid major dividends.

And for the record, much of this crisis was caused by arrogant white-collar executives who, now that they’ve seriously screwed up, STILL don’t want to give up power.

Other things that have nothing to do with “manifesto”, but are instructive as to where I lie on the political spectrum:

Best President in my lifetime? Ronald Reagan. He was the right man for the time. No, his administration didn’t cut spending, which was a cornerstone of his entire smaller government argument, and would have solidified him as maybe the 2nd best President behind Lincoln or 3rd behind FDR. Unfortunately, that gave Democrats fodder for years to poke holes in his administration, and on the other side led Dick Cheney to famously and regrettably utter the phrase “Deficits don’t really matter.”

Worst President in my lifetime? Well, GWB has come remarkably close, but it’s probably still Jimmy Carter. He neither inspired confidence nor had good policy. He was simply a reaction to Nixon, which turned out to be horrific. Reflection over the next few years may make me change that, because Bush has sent us on a path that might prove to be more disastrous than we know. For the record, both are admirable human beings. That doesn’t make them good Presidents. And no, regardless of how quickly we pull out of the economic crisis, history will not be kind to W.

2nd best? Eek. My choices are LBJ, Nixon, Ford, GHB, Clinton. Sadly, I have to say that it’s a toss-up between Clinton & Nixon, with both having serious flaws. You might see a glimpse of why I have a bit more faith in Obama.

If you are only listening to pundits and news sources that believe as you do, and you’re only soliciting opinions from people in your socioeconomic strata, regardless of where that strata lies, then you’re part of the problem of divisiveness in this country. You’re not educating yourself, and you’re not helping make things better. All you’ve done is join a club.

Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner deserve each other. Sadly, we deserve neither of them. West Chester OH and San Francisco should both be ashamed and vote these two divisive, petty, vindictive losers out. But given the polarized and ideologically blind demographics of both communities, that probably won’t happen. And that, too, is sad.

My summation is this: I believe in capitalism and democracy. I also recognize that there are times that both have failings. That doesn’t mean that we abandon either, but we do need to recognize that both need tweaking from time to time, and maybe more importantly, sometimes things get so out of control that you need to temporarily throw the book out.

We must make America stronger by being more independent (e.g., controlling our own energy resources) but by also understanding that we cannot be an island. The world is looking to us for leadership, and if we create a void someone WILL come to fill it, and it might not be a someone we want to see. With leadership comes great responsibility, so any actions we take had best be considered carefully, and not just shot from the hip. Unless, of course, the situation dictates that we don’t have time to deliberate.

In other words, give me the smartest guy in the room who’s got a definite direction. I don’t give a flying you-know-what which side of the aisle he comes from.

Stop the Crazy Talk

The rhetoric coming from both sides is unbelievable. I’ve got an incredulous friend on one side who can’t believe that I could even suggest that Obama will be anything other than the most glorious thing to ever grace the Oval Office. I’ve got another alarmist friend on the other side who seems to think that Democratic rule will turn us into 1917 Russia, or at least 2002 France. And everyone else seems to be generally lining up in some varying degree in one camp or the other.

People, please. Obama is neither the second coming of Jesus nor the Antichrist. He does not possess the keys to the land of Utopia, nor does he have an inside track into the 7th circle of hell. We will not be forced into a One World Order, and he probably won’t re-establish the U.S. as the Most Powerful Country In the World. He is not going to fall under Nancy Pelosi’s power, nor will he be eaten for dinner by Putin and Medvedev.

Here’s the reality: the Obama administration is being left something of a scorched earth. You know this already, but it might be good to see it all laid out again –

-a recession that could spiral into a depression
-banks unwilling or unable to lend money as they try to save themselves
-manufacturing industries screaming for help lest they go belly up and take large segments of the economy with them
-state and city governments that have been trying to ‘make do’ for years seeing visions of bankruptcy
-unemployment threatening to hit levels last seen in the late 70s
-a health care system that can charitably be called inadequate and dysfunctional
-an unpopular war in Iraq that he’s pledged to end, but that we can’t just run away from
-a possibly unwinnable war in Afghanistan that is seen as something we can’t turn our backs on
-an international reputation where allies no longer trust America as a financial symbol or as a beacon of goodness
-a national debt that is threatening to top $13 trillion, much of which is borrowed from a country that is looking to unseat us as the pre-eminent world power
-an economy that relies heavily on a natural resource that largely comes from countries that are either hostile politically or in danger of a power shift to more unfriendly regimes, and we have no backup plan
-mortgage defaults that do not seem to be slowing down
-a national infrastructure that has been neglected for years and is now starting to crumble

And this doesn’t even take into account the extra monies already committed by the Bush administration in the form of “stimulus packages,” the increased size of the federal government, the oncoming retirement of the baby boomers and the strain on the Social Security system, Israel, Russia, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad, immigration reform, gay rights, abortion, potential Supreme Court nominees, the airline industry….need I go on?

Anyone that can look at that list and predict a rousingly successful presidency is so optimistic that Pollyana is calling you a nutcase to your face.

But make no mistake: Obama has shown himself to have the temperament, the vision, the organizational ability, a great ability to spot and attract talent, and the leadership skills to be someone who can make sense out of the mess we’re in and at least point the country in the direction out of the morass. It’s not about what he’s “accomplished” with respect to governmental legislation. All you have to do is look at what he accomplished and the way that he did so with his assault on the presidency, with all the odds stacked against him, to know that he has more than a fighting chance to see his way through.

Malcolm Forbes wrote a commentary about Ronald Reagan after he was elected but before he took office that struck me in 1980 and still resonates now. “He will neither be the savior that his followers believe him to be, nor the demon that his detractors expect him to be. In a way, he will disappoint them both.” That seems to be sage advice when one views the Obama presidency from this vantage point.

Election Night Projections

At the risk of either being overconfident, arrogant, impudent, or some other word ending in ‘nt’, I’ll make a prediction about tomorrow’s results.

The closest it gets is Obama 274, McCain 264, but that really seems unlikely. That would mean McCain picks off every realistic swing state, plus holds on to Virginia. Likewise, it is conceivable but improbable that Obama gets as many as 394 electoral votes. I predict Obama 349, McCain 189, which is enough of a spanking to force the GOP to re-examine itself and start becoming relevant again.

Despite whatever your favorite news coverage implies to keep you glued to your TV, the outcome will likely be telegraphed early. If Obama wins Virginia, the rout is on; the only discussion will be ‘how big.’ If McCain holds Virginia and Ohio, then it will be a close Obama victory. The only way McCain wins is if he takes those two states and Pennsylvania, in which case you can say that an upset is about to occur.

That being said, I’ll probably still be irrationally glued to my TV until way past my bedtime.