Category: Politics

Dear America,

Thanks for doing the right thing.

Picture courtesy of The Telegraph.

Most of you have no idea how huge Grant Park is.  Sure, there are a lot of people here.  But you can’t appreciate how many people there are until you know how freaking huge Grant Park is. How big is it? The whole thing is 319 acres.  And there were people standing outside who couldn’t get inside.  It’s so big that there isn’t an openable window in sniper range, despite the fact that it is sandwiched in between downtown Chicago’s skyscrapers and Lake Michigan.

To think that in addition to this crowd, there were crowds in New York and in Washington and I don’t even know where else.  Just in the United States.  Not counting those in “palaces and parliaments” and “huddled around radios” around the world.  Wow.  What a night.

Thank you, America.

As for California, I’ll deal with you later!

Hugs and kisses,

ShortWoman.

Despite the fact that I consider myself only “slightly left of [the real] center,”  I don’t vote like a lot of “centrists” and “moderates.”  In fact, the last Republican I voted for was a Justice of the Peace in Fort Worth back around 1994.

That’s right. I vote a straight ticket.

It isn’t that I agree with the Democratic party all the time.  In fact, there have been times I have had to hold my nose to vote.  However, the time to choose the right candidate isn’t just on Election Day:  it’s at the primaries;  it’s at the caucuses;  it’s at the local political events that happen weeks and months and sometimes over a year before the election itself.

My views in this regards are informed by the writings of the late Robert Heinlein, author of such books as Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers. He also wrote a book on political activism called Take Back Your Government.  Mr. Heinlein recommended that if you really want to change your country, you must change the political parties.  And the way to do that is from the inside!

There are two sides to many issues, and conveniently enough two political parties.  Just pick the one closest to your views and join up. I don’t care which party you join; in fact the Republicans could sure use some new ideas right about now.  Start going to your local events.  Learn who the local players are.  Do some volunteer work and meet some people.  Get a feel for who might be running not just next year, but for some years in the future.  From here, you can influence the future!  You can quietly argue for the points where you don’t necessarily agree with the party, and maybe change the way the party sees things.

While I think there is some merit to crossing party lines to vote for an incumbent who honestly has been doing right by his/her constituents, I hold no truck with those who “vote the man, not the party.”  For a man [or woman] to get to the point where they are running for a political office higher than Dog Catcher, he [or she] must have demonstrated some willingness to adhere to the party line. All Maverickyness aside, the candidate did not get to be the candidate by being independent.  This, by the way, explains why Joe Lieberman finally lost the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat;  he wasn’t much of a Democrat anymore.

Yes, I am a member of the party. I gave money.  I volunteered.  I wrote letters to my Congresscritters.  I wrote essays here and elsewhere.  If you want change, you have to work for change.  You won’t get it by doing nothing more than showing up at your polling place today.

In closing, special election day edition: Fetal rights are bad news even if you are [so-called] Pro-Life;  how Election Day came to be today; mmCoffee; mmIceCream.  Get off the computer and vote.  And then get busy!

Ok.  I’m not the first person to post this picture:

According to Buzzflash, that’s a $650 Louis Vuitton handbag. For a 6 year old.  Just for reference purposes, I have been an adult *ahem* somewhat longer than Little Miss Palin has been alive, and I haven’t spent that much on handbags, total, in my lifetime. To get anywhere near that total, you’d have to add briefcases, backpacks (ranging from K-Mart cheapies to L.L. Bean), and a computer bag.  Sure, I know people who would buy that kind of bag for a kid (well, a teenager anyway);  I also know people who can barely afford the gas to get to work in the morning.

But according to Shaun at Kiko’s House, it’s even worse.  The bag isn’t real, but a counterfeit!  Buying a stupidly expensive handbag for a first grader is merely bad taste.  After all, they can afford the real thing — particularly if the RNC is paying.  Counterfeiting is a crime.  Supporting it is theft of intellectual property.  Oh, yeah, the money made from these bags may also support organized crime and terrorism.  Way to be “America First” there.

In Closing: My what big borders you have; a creepy doctor’s office (thankfully, abandoned); cut Federal spending all you like, but you won’t touch the National Debt without letting the blood out of some sacred cows; the downside of public transit?; Agent Greenspan Is Just Shocked!!; ok ok fine split the baby and each of you can have half, or Fake Centrists taken to task; and sign of the economic times as much as the academic times, today’s kids less likely to graduate high school than their parents. Forgive me for not seeing this as a problem in any way;  nobody needs a diploma to sack groceries or scrub floors or dozens of other tasks that are menial but necessary. Furthermore, no school administrator is able to wave a magic wand and make poor families able to do without the meager income brought in by a working (ex-)student.

Good morning, readers.

This morning I have a post by special request from a research team at New York University. They would like you to participate in a political opinion survey.  According to the site, the initial set of questions should take 15-20 minutes, and there will be a follow up that might take another 15 minutes.

Please, take the time to help them out.  Here is the link to the opening page of the survey, with more information. You will notice that comments are turned off;  that is by request of the research team.  They don’t want the comments thread to accidentally color the results.

Aw heck, it wouldn’t be much of a post without In closing: you clearly need a cardboard box opening simulator; 100 skills every man should know; a wise open letter to Hank and Benny; a comic that captures my sentiments; The Money Meltdown; the Economist’s View of What The Heck Happened; Ok we have a bailout, but it won’t fix everything; in fact, some think it will only help if the housing market gets better (locally, it’s happening but nationally, even the NAR is guessing); Economists Prefer Obama; parents prefer telling kids the truth about sex; the employment situation sucks, particularly when you include “the underemployed”; peacekeepers in a neighborhood near you?; not to scare you but the presidential election could end in an electoral tie (remember that when you vote for a Representative in Congress, ok?); and Stationmaster Tama is still a cat, but he’s driving tourism to his local Eki (train station).  I suppose he actually runs the local worldgate as well.

Or, “Are you healthy?”

A lot has been said about Senator McCain’s proposed health insurance reform plan. He says “I want to make sure we’re not handing the health care system over to the federal government….”  Interestingly enough, the federal government has taken care of his health care for his entire life.  But on to the plan.

He wants to take away the tax break your employer (assuming you have one) gets for providing you health insurance, and instead give you a tax credit of up to $5000 for buying your own insurance. The thing is, I honestly believed such a plan would work 5 years ago. I now think that such a plan would have worked perhaps 10 or even 15 years ago, but it’s way too late (and frankly was probably too late 5 years ago). Critics say it will cause companies to drop coverage for employees.  Yes, yes it does.  And that’s the goal.

Senator McCain thinks it will work out to give you $5000 in April to pay for something that costs you $12,000, payable in monthly installments.  That’s only problem one.  Problem two is that in some states, citizens are required to have health insurance.  Talk about raising the cost of living! Furthermore, mandates such as this completely short-circuit the “market actions” that would have brought costs down. Without such mandates, consumers might have demanded quality policies with decent coverage that cost something closer to what they would get out of the tax credit.

The goal — an admirable one — was to bring down health insurance costs by making the insurance industry more subject to the laws of supply and demand.  The actual result of such a plan would be people spending way more of their income on insurance without getting a whole lot more for their money.

Just a few things about the bailout package that failed yesterday (NOT because Republicans were being babies, not because “we just don’t understand” how important it is, but rather because that particular package was BAD NEWS): it’s raining investors; consumer spending dropped last month, probably mostly because consumer income dropped on an inflation-adjusted basis (funny about not spending lots of money when you don’t have lots of money to spend); an all too true chart; Congress is — of course — scrambling to polish that turd revise the bill; and 5 lessons from the Credit Crisis.

In closing: a shout-out to those of you in Fort Worth to check out Sheila Ford, candidate for state House of Representatives; you know it’s bad when the BBC is reporting on Americans who live in their cars; a collection of links to accounts of the Great Depression; My Backpack’s Got Jets! (reference); Koizumi the younger is entering politics; Stupid Republican Tricks (what on earth was she thinking when she said that??); about time they started to investigate those fired prosecutors (does “executive privilege” apply after January?); tomorrow is World Vegetarian Day; on the possibility of a Detroit bailout (Citizen Carrie, if you have anything to say please do); and finally, Snow On Mars.

Some people were giving Senator Obama a bad time for taking what is to many Americans a “dream vacation”:  a trip to Hawaii. He was called “elitist.”

But tell me, what could possibly be more elitist than hunting predatory game from the safety of an airplane?

Talk about your drive-by shootings!

In closing: Generic Democratic Nomination Acceptance Speech; Bristol is a person, not a pawn; today’s dose of Japanfilter is Jrawk, the murder scene that wasn’t, and CSM’s follow-up on the transition to a new Japanese Prime Minister (background here); Feminism, economic stability, and family planning all go together;  CNN Money Duhpartment of Research tells us that collapsing housing values may effect your retirement; and How Important Is Social Security?  Let me count the money ways.

Greater Blogtopia and all the media outlets have now had a chance to ruminate on the McCain-Palin ticket, and really it doesn’t sound like many people have a lot good to say about Gov. Palin. Ok, she has some supporters.

A lot of us are left scratching our heads (here’s Joe Gandelman on Why Palin), and a lot of people think her selection was a full-on error of judgment. Here’s Bloomberg, Sydney Morning Herald, the paper people are reading in Minneapolis-St. Paul (you remember, where they’re having the Republican convention this week with or without the President and Vice President), the Guardian‘s round-up of American politicians, some opinion from Alaska (you know, the home state where she’s a well-loved if brief-tenured governor), someone who had until Friday been a McCain supporter, and opinions as varied as the World Socialists and the Associated Press (yeah I guess I’m not boycotting them, but I’m sure as **** not paying them either!)

Some choice reading on the matter: What Republicans Really Think of Women; McCain-Palin Dream Ticket; and 45 potential political problems that have turned up for Gov. Palin in the first 35 hours of her being a candidate. Ok, right now it’s up to 51, which is pretty close to one per hour. I am very impressed! Fascinating reading. Did you know that in addition to being vehemently Pro-“Life”, she’s against all forms of birth control and for the now completely discredited abstinence only sex-ed? And that doesn’t even get into her stances on the environment and workplace safety, nor her little Abramoff problem (what, you didn’t think his stench had left the party, did you?)

In closing: Business Week disagrees with me about leaving the summary off a resume, so let me revise my stance — only put in a summary if you have room and can write a convincing summary that makes it sound like I need to have you on my payroll for at least the next 5 years; Minyanland seems to be an economy game for kids; GameTracker; on the possibility of Financial Armageddon; a comic with too much truth in it; and at least locally, J-1 visa-holders are just as bad off as their H-1b brethren. Think we can’t outsource medical care? Think again.

This week the Republican National Convention will take place.  Also this week, Hurricane Gustav will hit the gulf coast.  It’s already a Category 4 storm;  Katrina was Category 5, and New Orleans is still a big mess 3 years later.

The big news for the week was supposed to have been Senator McCain’s Vice Presidential candidate, now known to be Sarah Palin.  More than one person thought of Michael Palin — except for the whole not being American thing. Gov. Palin is an interesting selection, and one that took almost everyone by surprise.  Nobody is sure yet whether this is a big win or a big loss.  Leading theories on the motive for this pick:  she’s a woman and the pseudo-feminists who wouldn’t vote for anybody but Hillary will be impressed;  there was a checklist of positions on various issues and she fit; since she’s relatively unknown, it’s hard to know anything bad about her.

But as MSNBC pointed out last night, there was actually quite an under-the-radar campaign for her.  How else do you explain her spread in December’s Vogue Magazine?  Her appearance on CNBC with Maria Bartiromo?  Her other appearance on CNBC with Larry Kudlow (wherein she wonders what exactly the Vice President does all day!)?

And as many others have pointed out, she has problems.  She has an abuse of power scandal, very little experience, a small baby to take care of on the campaign trail (one commentator wonders if she is breastfeeding), a pro-life stance as courageous as it is out-of-touch for most Americans (at least she walks the walk on this), a host of other positions most Americans don’t share, the town where she was mayor is still trying to recover financially, some experts wonder why she was chosen, others call her a “panic pick“, and to top everything off, her youngest child may very well actually be her grandchild!  Some suspect she may be the grandmother twice!

She is the Governor of Alaska.  Alaska has a population of roughly 670,000 people in 2006. Her entire state has a population roughly equal to the cities of Memphis TN or Austin TX. Not including suburbs. Keep in mind that 27% of the population of Alaska is under 18;  the maximum number of votes she could possibly have received — lifetime, including for Miss Alaska and the PTA and Mayor — was under 500,000.  Roughly 18,000,000 people voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.  That’s 36 times the number of votes Gov. Palin could possibly have received for anything, for any purpose, in any poll.

Seriously, what was Senator McCain thinking?

In the end, the nicest thing anybody outside party leadership could find to say was “At least it’s not Romney.”

In closing,  an August retrospective: people still use this as a reference on Wendy Gramm; everybody go serfin’, Serfin’ USA!; duh, drinking lots of high-calorie sugary drinks could make you fat; I wish this were no longer relevant, but a Message for the College Students in your life; here’s Everything You Need to Know about Social Security Reform and Everything You Need to Know about a Federal Sales Tax.

Have a great Labor Day weekend!

It seems just yesterday I called myself a “the-center-is-progressive lady”. Oh wait, that was yesterday! Today the Daily Kos has an item called The “Far Left” is the Mainstream. They give us the figures that show “Most” Americans oppose the Iraq war, support stem cell research, and think we should raise the minimum wage. Most Americans even support abortion rights, at least in part. That is what makes it so puzzling when politicians pander to the rather conservative point on the spectrum that they mistakenly think is the moderate center. Of course, if anyone was paying attention, the late Molly Ivins said the same thing back in 2006.

Welcome to reality, Kos-ites and Kos-acks. Enjoy the view.

Meanwhile, many thanks to Norman Goldman, filling in on the Ed Schultz Show for breaking a story on McCain’s really awful sense of “humor”. Apparently the man, who has been on the record calling his wife a certain impolite sexist term, really did tell this joke:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’

Yeah, cause being beaten, raped, and left to die is so effing funny.

In closing: more reasons Mandatory Health Insurance won’t work, as “Individual health policies leave many in the lurch” and “Deep flaws found in U.S. Health Care” (yet one more place that politicians are pandering to a far right “center”); and welcoming Michelle Obama to BlogHer.