Category: Politics

You would never know there were any real problems in this nation to look at the Congress the last few days.

First, a House committee decided to investigate steroid use in pro baseball. If they are investigating this from the standpoint of employers abusing their employees, perhaps they should remember that the employees in question are a bunch of college educated millionaires. If Congress cares so much about workplace conditions, maybe they should look to the conditions that average American workers endure. If, rather, the argument is that teenage athletes are emulating the dangerous behavior of the pros, I would like to remind Congress that every teenage athlete has parents. It is Mom and/or Dad’s job to be clued in enough to say “These pills are dangerous and you will not be using them.” (Just like it’s Mom and/or Dad’s job to control what kids watch on the TV, not some “organization,” not the cable company, not the FCC. But that’s another story.)

As if this were not a big enough waste of Congress’s time and our tax dollars, they now want to subpoena a brain-dead woman to testify about…. uh, something. This is by Bill Frist’s own admission nothing more than a scheme to prevent her feeding tube from being removed, despite multiple court orders allowing it. In the time it has taken to write this post, yet another court has ordered the feeding tube removal take place.

Will they hold her in contempt of Congress for refusing to talk?

Never mind Social Security, the Federal Budget, the War in Iraq, the War on Terror, the misuse of Federal funds to produce propaganda designed to look like news, the fact that a gigolo was allowed within meters of the President of the United States on a regular basis with a daily press pass under a fake name, the fact that corrupt and unqualified judicial candidates may be rammed through the Senate, the fact that the CIA is allowed to outsource torture, ethics problems within the House, or any of the other things Congress could be addressing right now. Please, pay attention to the Congressional testimony of the millionaire drug users.

This morning, the Senate passed the steaming pile of excrement known as bankruptcy reform legislation. The votes of individual Senators can be found right here. I am willing to cut Ms. Clinton of New York a bit of slack for not voting only because her husband is in the hospital. Notice that not a single Republican voted against this gift to the credit card industry at the expense of taxpayers. Then notice the number of “Yea” votes that came from people with a “D” after their name. These people will henceforth be known as Democrats In Name Only, or DINOs. And just like DINOsaurs, they need to be on the lookout for mass extinction.

Make no mistake, this thing is bad, bad, bad. It means that if a judge thinks a person filing bankruptcy can come up with $100 per month, he will be paying most of the mountain of debt that he is buried under. It makes no difference whether he racked up those debts because he was called up to National Guard active duty in Iraq and therefore wasn’t working his regular job despite the fact that his family had their regular bills. It makes no difference whether he had a catastrophic illness that limited his ability to work and drained his bank account. It makes no difference that he is one of the many people who have been unemployed for over six months. It makes no difference that thanks to the magic of compound interest, he has paid several times what he charged on his credit cards and still owes as much as he charged. It makes no difference that she is a single mom working 2 jobs, worrying about reliable childcare, and unable to afford a lawyer to go after the deadbeat ex-husband who hates her more than he loves his own kids. It makes no difference that he lost a lot of money trying to start a business that would have given jobs to people in his community if only it had succeeded.

Oh, none of this applies if you are wealthy enough to set up an asset protection trust.

Yes, there are a lot of bankruptcies in this country. A Senate that really wanted to lower that number would be thinking about regulating credit card interest and creating more quality, good paying jobs (the kind that include health insurance for the whole family).

Shame, shame on every one of the 74 Senators who voted for this stain on the American Dream.

But back to the DINOs, the most shameful of the bunch. I have a message for them: Don’t think that the “New Democrats” over at the DLC will save you. And don’t sit back and smugly remark that it will take more than a couple of bloggers to bring you down. The guy you need to worry about is the head of the Democratic Party. I finished reading Howard Dean’s book earlier this week, along about the time you voted to stop debate on amendments. It’s a little fluffy — if you are pressed for time, flip to chapter 6 — but it had some really good points, the best of which is that everybody in the Democratic Party needs to remember the people. Here’s a little quote from page 170:

For one thing, there is no reason not to pose primary challenges to Democratic incumbents who vote with the Republicans on critical Democratic priorities.

Biden and company, you’ve got almost a year to straighten up and try to get the target off your back. Not even Lieberman voted for this dog. We The People don’t care how much money the credit card companies gave you, the fact is they can’t vote.

Our elected officials sometimes forget one important fact: people vote. Unions and special interest groups and churches do not vote, but their members do. Manufacturers and banks and stores do not vote, but their employees and customers do. Today I would like to focus on just a few instances where our “elected” lawmakers are actively working against the best interests of the citizens who put them where they are.

Since certain provisions of the controversial PATRIOT Act are set to expire, the push to make Congress renew and expand the whole darn thing is on. Yes, the man who brought us the torture memos, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, feels that despite the fact that the law “makes it easier for law-enforcement authorities to eavesdrop and to seize business and personal records,” it just doesn’t go far enough. I particularly like this article for saying “Gonzales said he was not aware of a single civil rights violation connected to the Patriot Act,” and then going on to discuss Jose Padilla — who might be a very bad man with an impossible plan to blow up multiple apartment complexes — saying “Gonzales conceded that the government might have a tough time making a criminal case against Padilla because of the way evidence against him was gathered.”

So we didn’t violate his civil rights, just his Constitutional ones.

Then we have the pending bankruptcy “reform” legislation being considered by the Senate as I write this. This bill is just plain bad. Even conservative sources like Newsday call this stinker a “gift to the rich, burden to the poor.” What, you don’t think Kenny Lay or Bernie Ebbers will have to give up their multi-million dollar houses if they file for bankruptcy to get out of paying damages from shareholder lawsuits, do you? US News and World Report does a nice job of just presenting the facts, harsh as they may be. Here’s The Phladelphia Enquirer and part of an ongoing series by the LA Times. Here’s an item from Elizabeth Warren, probably the one person who knows more about bankruptcy in this country that anybody else. Two flawed attempts to add a hike in the minimum wage to this stinker have been defeated. But in the end, guess what might really bring down this steaming pile of a bill: a provision about whether or not “violent anti-abortion protesters” would have to pay fines and penalties incurred while breaking the law.

I haven’t even discussed Social Security (Republicans who support private/personal accounts won’t even answer direct questions about how that “fixes” the expected shortfall), or any of the other tenets of the “Ownership Society.”

Seems more like a pwnership society to me.

On the state level, you have multiple states in a race to the bottom making special tax deals to attract one large employer, Intel. The Pheonix Business Journal puts it very honestly: ” Semiconductor kingpin Intel Corp. is sending a not-so-subtle ultimatum to state lawmakers: Give the company a tax break or risk losing out on the chance for a $4 billion production expansion.” At the same time, Intel is trying to strongarm Oregon into a huge tax break.

I am generally against tax gifts for big entities. First of all, they say loudly and clearly that if you are big enough, you are above the law. How then can we act surprised when they violate other laws? Second, they discount the costs involved in keeping that big employer around: road maintenance, infrastructure improvements, and (in the case of certain employers) state services to employees. Yes, they will give jobs to taxpayers, but at what net cost? Third, it is unfair to smaller employers who also provide jobs to taxpayers, but must compete while paying higher expenses. And finally, there is really no guaranty that the big employer will stay around one second longer than is legally required. Unfortunately, nobody has the guts to say “No, you will play by the rules like everybody else.”

In closing, I bring you two things: the National Security Archives, and having an affair with an employee is always “bad judgment.”

Today I read some political news that truly cheered me. No, really. It turns out that public outcry — ordinary citizens calling and writing their elected Congressmen — turned back an egregious attempt by certain Republicans in the House of Representatives to substantially loosen ethics rules:

Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) said during a break in the meeting that the “indictment rule” was restored in part because of complaints that members had heard back home. “Constituents reacted,” he said. “We’re blessed with a leadership that listens.”

[snip]

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) called the planned ethics changes “a grave mistake.”

“Those of us who were here in 1994 remember we gained our Republican majority in part because we argued that as public servants, we have a responsibility to the American people to maintain the highest standards of conduct,” Shays said.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said: “Even for Republicans, this proposed change was unconscionable. The issue simply became too hot for them to handle, so they had to drop it.”

There are other ethics rules changes still under consideration, so if you think Congressmen being held to ethical standards is good — and keep in mind how many of them ran on a platform that stressed “values” — be ready to write some email.

But before you hit send, there are two other issues where your elected officials need to know your opinion. The media says the two big issues for this Congress are Social Security and judicial nominees.

As important as judicial nominees are, it is also important to look at the fellow President Bush has nominated for the other side of the bench, Attorney General Nominee Alberto Gonzales. As you form your opinion about this man, you must remember that he is the fellow who helped write the rules on interrogation techniques that are in use at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo. You also need to know that the White House is trying to gloss over that fact. They wouldn’t hide it if they were proud. Regardless of what you think of the people being held in those facilities, the fact remains that anything we do to them becomes fair for enemies of our nation to do should they capture American soldiers as Prisoners of War. If you need a reason why torture is bad, there you are.

The other thing that your elected officials need your opinion on is Social Security. There is still some hope among moderate Democrats that a truly bipartisan solution to “reform” can be made. I think such appeasement strategies are doomed to failure. Private Retirement Accounts are not going to work. If the goal is to increase the amount of retirement funds Joe and Jane Average has in the stock market, then increase the amount they can contribute to their IRA, but don’t pretend diverted Social Security money won’t be eaten by fees and unpredictable returns. A terrific summary is available from a guy I generally don’t like, Mark Cuban. A choice bit:

[W]hen companies were given the chance to make investments to meet their obligations to their pensioners, they were unable to do so. They had the option of taking on more risk, or playing it safe. They took on the risk and lost…. [W]hen it was all said and done, when corporations took on the job of investing for the financial security their retirees, they were unable to do so. They are now turning to the government funding of The Pensions Benefit Guaranty Corp with the expectation of being bailed out. If the experts that run our pension system had the expectation of financial protection by the government if they failed, do we really think that all of us wont have the same expectation?

The other thing to remember about what we are told is an impending Social Security Crisis is that the nice folks at the Social Security Administration have been aware of the Baby Boomers for quite some time. So they have taken the surplus they have now and put it in nice, safe United States Savings Bonds. This leads economists such as Paul Krugman to say:

The short version is that the bonds in the Social Security trust fund are obligations of the federal government’s general fund, the budget outside Social Security. They have the same status as U.S. bonds owned by Japanese pension funds and the government of China. The general fund is legally obliged to pay the interest and principal on those bonds, and Social Security is legally obliged to pay full benefits as long as there is money in the trust fund.

There are only two things that could endanger Social Security’s ability to pay benefits before the trust fund runs out. One would be a fiscal crisis that led the U.S. to default on all its debts. The other would be legislation specifically repudiating the general fund’s debts to retirees.

That is, we can’t have a Social Security crisis without a general fiscal crisis – unless Congress declares that debts to foreign bondholders must be honored, but that promises to older Americans, who have spent most of their working lives paying extra payroll taxes to build up the trust fund, don’t count.

It is time to make your voice heard. Write your Senator and Representative. After that, if you’d like something literally fluffy to think about, here is a map of library cats around the world.

Congress is currently in a “lame duck” session, trying to finish up a veritable buffet of issues that they should have resolved before the elections. Little things, like the Federal budget — no hurry, the fiscal year only started in October. This happens every year, as if they never see the new budget year coming. Oh, and since we are having record deficits, they are going to have to pass an increase on the deficit cap. Of course, Congress has other things in mind, too. Like that intelligence reform thing that the 9/11 Commission recommended (their report is in the running for an award, you know). Hopefully they can pull this off without a witchhunt. Of course my inner cynic wants to know why, if this could be put off until late November, it couldn’t have been handled in early January when the newly elected congresscritters arrive.

Among the issues they hope to tackle, an issue clearly on a footing with whether or not the expenses of the Federal government get paid, is taking away your fair use rights regarding media you legally own. Currently under consideration is a bill written so poorly or craftily, depending on your bias, that it boggles the mind. In addition to providing a prison term for people who bring video cameras into movie theaters, it would make it illegal to use iTunes music sharing, a feature that allows people to listen to but not copy items on the local network. Under this proposed law, it is legal to fast forward over gory bits of a horror film, but illegal to skip commercials. Will it at least be legal to use the bathroom during the commercial break?

I wonder how that will be enforced.

A wide array of groups are protesting, but your voice is needed as well. Let your Senators know that although you are a registered voter, the RIAA and MPAA are not.

And tell them to finish that darn Federal budget already, skip the pork.

This morning, I was listening to NPR. During one segment, they discussed the conflicting job creation numbers cited by Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush as they slog through the last week of vicious campaigning before election day. Mr. Bush claims there have been 1.9 million jobs created on his watch, while Mr. Kerry contends that millions of jobs have been lost in this administration. The NPR interviewer asked an expert which of these figures is correct.

The expert replied basically that both were, depending which set of figures were used and when you start counting. Bush used the household survey — calling a random sample of Americans on the phone and asking if they are working — and begins counting in August of 2003. After all, he says, 9/11 happened and economists’ opinions aside, you can’t blame him for jobs lost because of that. Of course Reuters is kind enough to point out that the 1.9 million jobs also counts jobs expected to be created through February of 2005.

Mr. Kerry, on the other hand, starts counting at the beginning of the Bush Administration. After all, the buck stops there, right? Furthermore, he uses the employment survey — which most economists prefer because it asks companies exactly how many people are on the payroll. It doesn’t count illegal workers or contractors, but there you are.

The NPR interviewer then asked which number voters should be paying attention to. My answer is neither. The number you need to pay attention to is 6.75 million. That is the number: the absolute bare minimum number of jobs that should have been created in the 45 months and counting of the Bush Administration just to keep up with new people entering the workforce. Those 6.75 million people don’t count in the big unemployment number. They can’t collect unemployment benefits because they never had jobs.

If you are one of those “undecided” voters, here is a handy rundown of official positions on various issues. Please keep in mind that sometimes what they say is not necessarily what they mean.

I realize this puts me in a minority, but I am not a big fan of voter initiatives. Some states vote on amendments to the state constitution, but the function is the same: an idea for whatever reason cannot be forced through the state legislature, so a sufficient number of signatures is collected to put the item on the ballot, where ordinary citizens can make it law. Supporters say this is the very heart of the democratic process, giving Joe and Jane Average political power over the representatives they, um, elected to government.

These initiatives always have titles and descriptions that make them sound like good things, if not complete no-brainers. The Initiative to Hug Cute Bunny Rabbits, for example. Washington’s I-884 is described as “concerns dedicating funds designated for educational purposes.” Gee, how can you not vote for dedicating money to schools you heartless oaf?

The problem is that this description, like that of many initiatives, is misleading. This one raises sales taxes, and theoretically earmarks the money raised from this tax for education only for the next two years. Such initiatives are often boiled down to their summary paragraph form from pages of legalese (11 pages in this case) that frankly, nobody wants to read in detail. You just have to take their word for what it says.

This process has also been hijacked by special interests seeking to avoid legislative “interference” in their agenda. There’s big money and big players involved, subverting the noble sounding idea of citizens forcing important ideas into law.

Another reason I don’t like voter initiatives is that they often if not always have unintended consequences. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest maybe that’s why the legislature couldn’t get the idea passed in the first place. Voters vote themselves lower taxes and therefore there is no money for fixing roads. Voters vote to make certain kinds of animal traps illegal and it is suddenly hard to get rid of nuissance coyotes and raccoons. The highest profile example is California’s “3 strikes” law, passed by voters years ago. The practical result was that people were getting harsh sentences for minor crimes, just because it happened to be the “third strike.” Such laws are also blamed as a factor in current record level prison populations. So now, California is having a ballot initiative to repeal a ballot initiative.

Also, because we don’t vote every month, we end up seeing many of these initiatives all at once. Sometimes, we see them for the first time on Election Day. Florida has 8 to worry about. Washington has 5, California has 16. Your milage may vary, but it might take some time to figure them all out if you don’t like my method of dealing with them.

I will be voting NO on each and every voter initiative on this November’s ballot.

Please accept my apologies for being completely wrong yesterday. I bought into the spin that the debates were fake and didn’t matter — a viewpoint which was strengthened by the inadvertent release of rough drafts of a debate wrap-up by a prominent news source hours before the debate itself. For the record, it is an open secret that news writers often pre-prepare likely news stories (e.g., obituary of public figure battling deadly disease) with room to fill in the details.

The New York Times put it most succinctly: “In the end, it was a real debate….”

It turns out that average Americans think Kerry won, even though NPR this morning proclaimed that it would be days before “public opinion gel[led]” and we know exactly what happened. Um, yeah. Oh, and if you’d like an outside opinion about what was said, The BBC has a nice wrap-up, with a PDF of the transcript available for download.

Many things have been said across the Greater Blogosphere about what was said and what it means. I will leave you with the one most important thing I heard. I know it was important because President Bush said it several times: “[Kerry says] It was the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.” This attempt to hearken back to the “risky tax scheme” meme that Clinton and Gore beat senseless in the ’96 debates backfired. Instead it sounded like he was making his opponent’s point for him. By the third time, all I could think of was “Quick! Don’t think of an elephant!”

Thinking of an elephant, aren’t you? Not me, I’m thinking of the next debate. It will be interesting to hear what these guys have to say about domestic policy.

Yawn. Let’s stop pretending there will be a Presidential Debate tonight, shall we?

Tonight is actually the first in a series of so-called debates, and the topic du jour is foreign policy. There will be a couple more of these before the big day in November. But this isn’t going to be like some of the decisive debates of the past. There will be no decisive I-can’t-believe-he-said-that moment, no clear winner except the man you favored to begin with. Don’t expect any “let me say this about that,” nor any “there you go again.” In fact, we’ll be lucky to get a “fuzzy math!” or a “gridlock!”

First of all, I think most of us are clear on where the candidates stand if we have paid attention.

More importantly, however, this isn’t a real debate. There’s nothing spontaneous being said, minimal interaction between the candidates, no truly independent arbiter, no deep issues, and an audience — required to be undecided and silent — that may as well be painted cardboard. It would be an improvement to let Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry each run an infomercial instead. What a waste of time and money. If you really must watch, have one of these Bingo cards in hand. Hit reload if you want a better one.

I can only hope my pathetically low expectations will be exceeded.

Here in the United States, the deadline for Voters Registration is rapidly approaching. This is your last chance to register to vote in the November 2 elections. It is vitally important that every concerned citizen register, and then carry through by voting. Do not let yourself be scared by stories of registrations being tossed out in Ohio or expected voting issues in Florida. If you don’t even try to register, none of that matters.

If you need help figuring out how and where to register, kottke.org has a nice page of information and useful links. If that’s too complicated, do a web search for “voters registration [insert your state here].” Rules may be a little complicated if you are a college student living in the dorms, so double check local requirements. If you have any questions about local rules, polling places, or whether you are already registered, add your county name to the search above and find the phone number of the local voters registration board.

Let me refute several common excuses:

I don’t want to be called for jury duty. Do you have a driver’s license? A telephone? Electricity service in your name? Then you may already at risk for being called to jury duty, depending where you live. If it really bothers you that much, bookmark this page of how legally to get out of serving on a jury.

It doesn’t matter how I vote anyway. There’s plenty of room for change in the electoral picture, as this graph shows. And that’s just the headliner. You’ve got a member of Congress to vote on, maybe a Senator, and a slate of State and local issues to vote on. Polls be damned, the voting booth is the one place your opinion really does matter. You may have “just one vote,” but that gets added in with everybody else’s just one vote. Ask your local voting officials or check your local newspaper for a voters guide of candidates and issues. You’ve got a month to study!

With my job schedule, I don’t have time to vote! Working twelve hour shifts, eh? If you seriously doubt you can leave for work a little early and vote on the way in, or get to the polls after work before they close, ask about an absentee ballot. Most states have liberalized their policies for such ballots. In fact, in some states with electronic voting, it has been suggested that absentee ballots at least have a paper trail.

I live on the West Coast. The election is long over by the time I can vote on the way home from work. By my count, Pacific Time Zone represents 78 electoral votes. Add another 7 for Alaska and Hawaii. This election may well be close enough that those 85 electoral votes are pivotal. But again, this attitude discounts the very important Congressional, State, and local issues every voter faces.

In short, if you do not vote, if you do not even bother registering to vote, people like me will have a hard time taking you seriously when you complain about the government, taxes, schools, roads, education, the environment, or the economy. Yeah, your vote impacts all that.

Please note that this post is free of partisan rhetoric. It is none of my business who you vote for, just vote.