tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68867985023388499172024-02-24T01:36:13.237-08:00Advice From A Fake Consultantfake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.comBlogger346125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-89257537273241060152012-06-15T14:57:00.000-07:002012-06-15T14:57:26.190-07:00Rosemary’s Weekly Campaign Memo: Don’t Ever Misdial The FEC<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">It’s been an active couple of weeks as Rosemary Candidate
(the potted plant that’s challenging both Republican “Ineffectual Dave” Reichert
and “Generic Democratic Opponent” in <placename w:st="on">Washington</placename>
<placetype w:st="on">State</placetype>’s 8<sup>th</sup> Congressional District)
continues to grow through the legal process of officially becoming a <place w:st="on">PAC.</place></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">Rosemary recently obtained her Taxpayer ID Number from the
IRS, she also opened her campaign bank account, and she’s about to file the last
official paperwork before the inanimate potted plant becomes an official
political entity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">Along the way, we had an encounter with the Federal Election
Commission that involved misdirection, extraordinary irony, and a phone call
that could well have cost $1.99 a minute – and the scary part was that, for a
minute, it all made actual sense.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">We have a lot to talk about this time; we better get right
to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial";">For many ladies the
victor cuts a ridiculous figure because he is swelling with importance and yet
cannot cope with the never-ending handshaking, saluting, bowing, and waving,
while the defeated keep their mouths shut and casually pet the necks of their
whinnying horses.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial";">--From the story<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> “<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://franzkafkastories.com/shortStories.php?story_id=kafka_reflections_for_gentlemen_jockeys"><span style="color: purple;">Reflections for Gentlemen-Jockeys</span></a></span>”</i>, by Franz
Kafka</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">As we’ve mentioned in a previous story, it’s impossible to
be a political candidate or committee without handling the money issues first
(did you need direct evidence that money rules politics? Here it is…); that
required Rosemary to obtain from the IRS a Taxpayer ID Number which then allowed
her to open her bank account, and that will allow her to file her FEC Form 1,
which is the document announcing to the Federal Election Commission your plant
friend’s intention to form an “independent political expenditure committee”.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">The IRS helpfully provides an online and a telephone service
to issue Taxpayer ID Numbers; it took about 15 minutes to get it done, and
there’s no charge for the service – and that’s pretty darn good for dealing with
the IRS. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">She also had to file an IRS Form 8871 to tell them that the
Write In Rosemary PAC is an official nonprofit, in this case a 527(c)(4)
organization, which, as with all political groups, means donations are not tax
deductable (as opposed to charities, which are 527(c)(3) nonprofits; their
donations are tax deductable).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">When we first began to search out a bank, we tried Key Bank,
but they wanted $250 to open an account, and that created an apparent “<span style="color: red;"><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Catch-22"><span style="color: purple;">Catch-22</span></a></span>”:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">The Write In Rosemary PAC cannot accept or solicit donations
without first opening a bank account, and $250 is a legally reportable donation,
which, obviously, Rosemary cannot accept until after her account is
opened.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">The bank representative suggested perhaps Rosemary could ask
for small donations to get to $250, but, again, that’s soliciting donations,
which is illegal absent a bank account.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">So I figured I better call the Federal Election Commission
for advice, which, in their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Committee
Treasurers Brochure”</i>, they encourage, so I went to the website and dialed
the 1-800 number.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">The recording told me to hang up and dial the “Live Talk
Line”, or something to that effect, which I thought was a bit odd, but then I
figured, hey, maybe the FEC is doing some sort of phone tree reorganization to
create better customer response outputs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">So I called.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">The somewhat overly dramatic female voice who answered the
“Live Talk Line” reported to me in no uncertain terms that I had come to the
right place if I was looking to engage with one of her colleagues in some sort
of live chat designed to…well, to elicit a better customer response output,
anyway…and by the time she began to discuss the manner in which she intended to
handle certain shafts that might come her way (a manner which, I might add, was
wildly outside the context of any mining situation that you could possibly
imagine), I was pretty darn sure that this wasn’t the FEC or any other Federal
regulatory agency on the other end of the line – although, if you think about
it, if it really was the FEC it could actually make a lot of sense, in its own
weird way:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">After all, there has been a real effort on the part of the
Republicans in the House to cut funding for the regulatory agencies, and this is
a good way to raise a buck, I suppose (a buck? How about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">$1.99</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a minute<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">…</b></i>), and there is a close connection
in the minds of the public between elections and getting screwed, so I could
see, conceptually, where the FEC might be going here – but it’s pretty hard to
imagine, even for me, that anyone in the “No-Drama Obama” Administration would
be willing to allow the FEC to turn the 1-800 number over to a performance
artist in an election year, and that’s what really convinced me that something
must be wrong.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">Sure enough, I’d transposed two of the numbers (I’ll leave
it to y’all to figure out which ones), and once the error had been corrected the
again very helpful folks there at the FEC let me know that, as far as they were
concerned, until I got to $5000 in either donations or expenditures they weren’t
too worried about how I was taking in donations (although they did point out
that, even under $5000, I still have to report certain donors, which is true
within the boundaries of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html"><span style="color: purple;">Citizens United</span></a></span></i> ruling).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">With that advice in mind, Rosemary has since found a smaller
local bank that allowed her to open a no-fee campaign account with a $100
initial deposit (no names, in order to protect the innocent, but it starts with
an “S” and ends with “terling”, and so far they seem quite nice), and she will
soon have all the legal “t”s dotted and “i”s crossed to allow her to accept (non
tax deductable) donations from interested members of the
public.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">Rosemary is also about to begin her actual public campaign
work, which is a subject about which we’ll have more to say shortly; for now
let’s just say that Rosemary is planning a bit of political performance art of
her own, and we’ll see how <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i></b> goes when we get together next
time – and if we get lucky, there’ll be some fun video to get the conversation
going.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">So that’s where we are for the next few days: the final
paperwork is going into place, then we move along to the actual parts of the
thing that are the hardest: getting out there and reminding folks <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">en masse</i> how much Reichert really does
suck, and learning how to ask for money, which is something I don’t do naturally
and Rosemary is going to have to learn to do fast if she wants to stay in the
campaign in any real way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">Any questions? You can always email Rosemary at <a href="mailto:RosemaryforCongress@msn.com">RosemaryforCongress@msn.com</a>; if
you Twitter you can also follow @ElectRosemary to keep up with all the
fun.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial";">It’ll be an interesting summer, that’s for sure, and if
nothing else I’m already learning, in a real way, that there in nothing in
politics before money – and if any of you ever wonder as to why there aren’t
more “plain folks” in politics, I suspect we are getting a pretty good handle on
one of the biggest reasons why.</span></div>fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-89847132431022515152012-01-02T05:08:00.000-08:002012-01-02T05:11:45.772-08:00On Being Petarded, Or, Michele Bachmann, It’s Time For The ForkAs we speak, the Iowa Caucuses (which, even before the deportations, had a remarkably small Ingush population) are about to take place, and while we aren’t sure who will ride the wave of victory all the way to the White House – or if the wave will crest even before New Hampshire – we are petty sure that whatever happens, it ain’t gonna happen to Michele Bachmann.<br /><br />And I feel bad for her, because she really has put in the time in Iowa, having virtually moved there some time back, and probably having shaken every available hand in the State…but it’s still never going to happen for her.<br /><br />It’s not her ideology, either; those of you who follow her know she can hit all the right notes a conservative electorate (caucusate?) wants to hear, and she can do it with those crazy bug eyes that just tell you that <em>whatever</em> she’s saying she’ll do in office, she’ll probably try to do it.<br /><br />And I have a feeling she either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to acknowledge what the real problem here might be – but I’m here to help, and we’ll see if we can’t set her straight.<br /><br /><blockquote>At the end of their third long visit, the Butthole Surfers wanted to thank us by throwing a party, and there was a ceremonial, portentous aspect to the whole thing. First they made a huge dinner of Tex-Mex shrimp, red hot. Then came the real party, for which we cleared all the furniture from one side of the loft. They were going to play.<br /><br />Early on, a friend of the band showed up with thirty-five tabs of acid. I don’t remember who took what. There were dozens of friends there. But try to imagine a band, especially this one, playing with high-powered amps in an old loft building on the Bowery. I loved it, though I knew this was the end.<br /><br />--From the story, <em>“<a href="http://www.gmax.co.za/feel/books/07/030711-bookmarks.html">My Boyfriend Brought Home A Rock Band</a>”</em>, by Jerry Rosco</blockquote><br /><br />So she really does hit all those right notes, and if you go visit her website (which first requires a visit to the donation page, and then, in a new twist, a page that sales pitches you on her new book – then you can go visit the site), and she does it that special Lutzian language we love so well. Here are a couple of examples from her <em>“<a href="http://www.michelebachmann.com/issues/americanjobsrightnow/">American Jobs, Right Now</a>”</em> page:<br /><br /><blockquote>REPEAL THE JOBS AND HOUSING DESTRUCTION ACT, ALSO KNOWN AS DODD-FRANK.<br /><br />REPEAL JOB KILLING REGULATIONS.<br /><br />UNLEASH AMERICAN INVESTMENT.</blockquote><br /><br />Here’s a classic from the <em>“<a href="http://www.michelebachmann.com/issues/security/">A More Secure Nation</a>”</em> page:<br /><br /><blockquote>...Instead, we have a President who devalues the special relationship with our most trusted ally, Britain, even as he bows to kings, bends to dictators, bumbles with reset buttons, and babies radical Islamists. We have a President who tells our true friend, Israel, that it must surrender its right to defensible borders to appease forces that have never recognized that nation’s right to exist… <br /><br />... We have a President who – in unprecedented fashion – is ravaging our military strength and structure at a time of war, while elevating political correctness over readiness in its ranks. And we have a President who is declaring a premature end to the war on terror against the advice of his own generals.</blockquote><br /><br />So she can throw the red meat, just the way Iowa GOP voters like, and according to her website, she’s visited every single Iowa county, just like <a href="http://blog.spreadingsantorum.com/">Rick Santorum</a> – and yet she doesn’t have anywhere near Santorum’s poll numbers.<br /><br />The thing that’s really weird about all this, at first glance, is that in a State full of conservatives who are still truly distraught about the fact that same-sex couples can marry in Iowa…she <em>really</em> don’t like “Teh Gays”.<br /><br />Consider this, from an article by Michelle Goldberg in <em>“<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/14/michele-bachmanns-unrivaled-extremism-gay-rights-to-religion.html">The Daily Beast</a>”</em>, back in June of ’11…<br /><br /><blockquote>Lots of politicians talk about a sinister homosexual agenda. Bachmann, who has made opposition to gay rights a cornerstone of her career, seems genuinely to believe in one. Her conviction trumps even her once close relationship with her lesbian stepsister.<br /></blockquote><br />…or this, from <a href="http://perezhilton.com/2011-10-07-michele-bachmann-presidential-campaign-ad-against-gay-marriage">Perez Hilton</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Why doesn't she just walk around with a sandwich board draped on her body, equipped neon lights flashing the words, "Homos Be Gone"? That would be more subtle.<br /></blockquote><br />And while they may officially deny it, it appears that the Bachmanns are able to earn a living because her husband, Marcus, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/michele-bachmann-exclusive-pray-gay-candidates-clinic/story?id=14048691#.TwB2ZSmqGuI">actually operates one of those “pray away the gay” operations</a>, which should be enough to out-homophobe even Santorum, who has achieved near-legendary status for his elaborate gay-themed fantasies.<br /><br />Add it all up, and I’m sure Michele Bachmann wonders, right about now, why things aren’t going better?<br /><br />Well, I hate to tell you this, Michele, but all the homophobia in the world ain’t gonna cover up the fact…that a lot of folks out there think your husband is gay.<br /><br />And with video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iQ4csYHNlt0">like this</a> out there, it’s not really a huge surprise:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iQ4csYHNlt0?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iQ4csYHNlt0?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315"> <embed></object><br /><br />And God bless him, he is a rock for Michele: you can see him at personal appearances, right next to her, and she introduces him to almost everyone: “This is my husband, Marcus…” – but when he looks right back at the person proffering the handshake, and he smiles that big smile, and he does that “<em>Soo</em> nice to meet yew…” thing that he does to say hello…well, you can actually see that for some of the voters, it’s a bit awkward.<br /><br />Especially when you consider that he’s running that “pray away the gay” clinic…<br /><br />And it’s not just me: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgPg7-uWhGE">Dan Savage</a> and <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-13-2011/field-of-dongs">Jon Stewart</a> have famously suggested that Mr. Bachmann might be in the closet – and in fact, that led to a response of its own, from June Thomas, over at <em>“<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/07/14/dan_savage_suggests_marcus_bachmann_is_gay_.html">Slate</a>”</em>:<br /><br /><blockquote>In other words, the man who launched the “It Gets Better Project,” an effort to stop the bullying of gay teens, was acting like a big bully. As Savage always notes, the kind of smear-the-queer taunts that can cause so much pain to young people aren’t aimed only at kids who are gay, they’re often aimed at boys who don’t live up to some mythical standard of masculinity and girls who just aren’t girly enough. I can only imagine how listeners who happen to have the kind of lisping, effeminate speech and affect that Savage was ridiculing felt upon hearing the attack.<br /></blockquote><br />(For what it’s worth, I’m on Stewart’s and Savage’s sides here: that’s because they are pointing out Bachmann’s perceived hypocrisy; as Savage puts it, the effort to drag people back into the closet is Marcus Bachmann’s life work, and I don’t see that kind of attack as being really out of line.)<br /><br />So, listen, Michele, if you’re out there…I don’t know what to tell ya.<br /><br />You have staked your political and personal fortune on homophobia, and it worked out pretty well for awhile, but now it’s quickly become a national joke – a <em>“<a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-13-2011/field-of-dongs">Field of Dongs</a>”</em>, as it were – and all those people you were counting on to hate Teh Gay, do.<br /><br />And whether it’s appropriate or not, a lot of those very same haters get kinda squeamish when they see Marcus out and about.<br /><br />They wonder if maybe he, too, has a bit of a “<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wide%20Stance">wide stance</a>”, if you know what I mean.<br /><br />And when your anti-gay-indoctrinated voters hear him lisp his way though an entirely bizarre anti-gay rant that suggests that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8spCOEePSo">what gay people really need is more discipline</a>…well, that’s not helping.<br /><br />So good luck Tuesday, and I’m sorry that perception sometimes equals reality, especially as it relates to Marcus – but if things go as badly for you as they now appear they will Tuesday, I think it’s officially going to be time to stick a fork in it and call it done, because South Carolina and Florida are not going to be the bastions of bedrock conservative, LBGT-accepting voters that you’ll apparently need to get over the hump here…and after that, well, it actually <em>doesn’t</em> get better.<br /><br />I’m not a Biblical kind of writer myself, but you can’t help but notice that sowing and reaping are surely connected in this case, and as much as I see Michele preaching from the pulpit, I hope it’s a Bible lesson she someday learns.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-67440188639061318492012-01-02T02:39:00.000-08:002012-01-02T05:08:21.396-08:00On Holding Down The Conversational Fort, Or, Jobs, Republicans, And HooeyAs the next Congressional fight over payroll tax extensions and unemployment benefits and pipelines gets set up in the next few weeks for either its final chapter or to be kicked down the road a bit farther, one or the other, you’re going to hear a lot from our Republican friends about how much they value work and workers; most especially, they’ll tell you, they value American jobs for American workers.<br /><br />After all, they’ll say, creating American jobs is the most important thing of all.<br /><br />But if we were to look back over just the last few months, some would tell us, we could quickly find examples of how Republicans promote ideas that don’t seem to value work or workers at all, much less American jobs.<br /><br />Well as it turns out, “some” seem to be right; to illustrate one of those examples we’ll look back a month or two or three to a time some Republicans might wish was long, long, ago, in a galaxy far, far away.<br /><br /><blockquote>A successful comedian usually becomes more megalomaniacal as the success barometer rises. Initial success might be achieved from stand-up but then the comedian envisions a sitcom, then Broadway, albums, extended tours, Europe, and then his or her own production company. These things are all fine. Don’t do dinner theater. Don’t open stuff, like shopping centers or bowling alleys. Don’t do fairs, especially if you follow the pig contest.<br /><br />--From the book <em>“How To Be A Stand-Up Comic”</em>, by <a href="http://www.ibelz.com/">Richard Belzer</a></blockquote><br /><br />So…the House Republicans went and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/republicans-turn-keystone-xl-pipeline-into-an-election-issue/2011/12/13/gIQAep5GuO_story.html">promoted and passed out</a> their payroll tax cut plan, and within that plan was a demand that the <a href="http://www.junkiexl.com/2011/08/junkie-xl-mollys-e/">Junkie XL</a> Pipeline – sorry, that should be <em>Keystone</em> XL Pipeline – get special “expedited” approvals, despite the objections of those who are worried about their water supply, and we have to do this, <em><a href="http://www.speaker.gov/blog/">right now</a></em>, those same House Republicans tell us, in order to put more or less 6500 folks to work getting the thing built. <br /><br />And as we mentioned above, this is because the House Republicans care about American jobs and American workers.<br /><br />So…it may strike you as a bit odd that the exact same House Republicans sent to the Senate in September the “Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act” (<a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR02587:@@@L&summ2=m&">HR 2587</a>), which has only one purpose: it tells the National Labor Relations Board (the “NLRB”) that if workers at a company decide to form a union, or the company even <em>thinks</em> a union might be coming, and the company, in retaliation, decides to move work from that plant – or, for that matter, decides to move the entire plant – then neither the NLRB nor the United States Courts shall have the authority to do anything about it. <br /><br />All of this <a href="http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/files/documents/112/pdf/letters/LegalExperts.pdf">stems from an effort by Boeing</a> to move work from Washington State to South Carolina in retaliation for union activity by the Puget Sound workforce; the NLRB <a href="http://www.nlrb.gov/boeing-complaint-fact-sheet">has ruled that Boeing cannot move the work</a>, and the Company and its friends in Congress have joined forces with other anti-Union Members of Congress to move this legislation.<br /><br />Need a third-party expert opinion to help make sense of the NLRB’s involvement and remedies? Consider <a href="http://www.ifpte.org/downloads/news/manager/113d.pdf">this comment</a> from University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Ellen Dannin, via Dennis Kucinich:<br /><br /><blockquote>The NLRB has decades of experience with cases of this sort, and the National Labor Relations Act is clear that employer actions like Boeing’s violate the law. If this were a murder case, it would be a case in which the police found a person saying : “I did it,” while standing over a fresh corpse with smoking gun in hand.</blockquote><br /><br />Decades of experience, did she say? Yes she did – and she was right. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that the NLRB had the power to order remedies that include making companies “bring work back”, the relevant case being <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/us/379/203/"><em>Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. Labor Board</em>, 379 U.S. 203</a>.<br /><br />The <a href="http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/sites/democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/files/documents/112/pdf/letters/LegalExperts.pdf">250 law professors</a> who wrote a letter explaining why HR 2587 is such a bad idea point out that it’s not just about Boeing: companies will no longer have any reason to even bargain with unionized workers (or those who wish they were) before closing plants and moving work overseas, as they have to do now under the law; again, that’s because no one will have the power of enforcement in these cases anymore.<br /><br />As you might imagine, that’s going to accelerate the departure of jobs overseas, and it won’t take very long to get to 6500, which makes all that Republican fussin’ and fightin’ and sanctimoneoussin’ about Keystone look a bit hollow, eh?<br /> <br />Let’s jump to the side track, as it were, and take a moment to talk about why the question of which Party controls Congress matters: HR 2587 was introduced into the House, and if the Democrats controlled the Chamber it would have died in Committee, and that would have been that…but they don’t, and it didn’t, so the bill made it to the House floor, where it <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll711.xml">passed</a> with no Democratic “aye” votes and six Republicans voting “nay”.<br /><br />Then it went to the Senate.<br /><br />Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Sometimes Frustrating) has a bit more power than a Speaker of the House to kill any bill before his Chamber, if he’s so inclined; in this case the bill <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR02587:@@@R">sits on the Senate Legislative Calendar</a>, and unless he says otherwise, that’s where it’ll stay. Of course if Mitch McConnell (R-Hates Obama With The Fire Of A Thousand Suns) were Majority Leader, he would have that bill on the Senate Floor in a heartbeat – and it would pass with a Republican majority, unless Democrats were willing to stand firm and filibuster the thing or the President was willing to use the veto pen, neither of which seems particularly certain.<br /><br />A companion bill, <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:SN01523:">S 1523</a>, was introduced by Lindsey Graham; it was referred to Committee, possibly to never be seen again – which is also thanks to Harry Reid, with an assist from Tom Harkin, who is the relevant Chair. <br /><br />At this point I was going to move on to the “what have we learned today” part of the deal, but before I do, I want to take a moment to show you just what kind of legislation our GOP friends will bring to the table, given the chance:<br /><br /><a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:SN01720:@@@D&summ2=m&">S 1720</a>, the “Put All Your Crazy Eggs In One Basket Act” (not the real bill title, but close enough), was introduced by John McCain just before Halloween (it’s now on the Legislative Calendar, not doing much), and it’s a classic.<br /><br />This one single bill calls for a Balanced Budget Amendment vote, a semi-flat income tax, repeals “ObamaCare”, repeals Dodd-Frank (Wall Street reform), says you basically can’t sue for medical malpractice anymore, says that if Congress fails to approve any Federal Agency regulation in 90 days, it’s invalid, and then says no Agency can pass any regulation, of any kind, until unemployment hits 7.7%...and there’s a lot more besides, including, I kid you not, forbidding the EPA from regulating the discharge of pesticides into water.<br /><br />So now let’s get to “what have we learned?”<br /><br />How about this:<br /><br />We are going to hear a lot over the next 60 days about how the GOP loves you, the American worker, but at the exact same time they are looking to…well…put all the crazy eggs in one basket, if they can get away with it, and at the same time they’re looking to make it easier and easier to send more jobs to more countries than ever before, even to the point of trying to tell courts and regulators that they can no longer enforce laws Republicans can’t get repealed.<br /><br />As our GOP friends stand before you, these next couple months, professing their undying love, remind them of this conversation today, and HR 2587, and S 1720, McCain’s “Crazy Egg Basket” bill, and then ask them if they think the GOP <em>really</em> cares about American jobs, or if they’re just getting hustled by slightly-slicker versions of used-car dealership credit managers?<br /><br />Then you lean in close, look ‘em in the eye, smile just a bit, and you say to ‘em: “And hey, while you’re here…what do I gotta do to get you into a slightly used <a href="http://www.rvharvey.com/roadmaster.htm">1993 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon</a>…<em>today</em>?”<br /><br />Then you can both have a little laugh – while you take their money and run.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-57409786033563511342011-12-26T06:35:00.000-08:002011-12-26T06:45:01.343-08:00On Christmas 2.0, Or, Who Might Be The New Santa?I’ve been thinking a lot about the evolution of Christmas, and I’ve been thinking that there is a lot about the current practice that we can admire.<br /><br />Peace and good will, of course, and cookies and candy canes, and happy kids – and this is also the time we think the most about those less fortunate, as do Jews and Muslims, who also have holiday celebrations this time of the year that include a component of charity.<br /><br />But if there is anything that I could change about the modern practice of Christmas, it would be the installation of Santa Claus as an icon of consumer spending, more or less to the exclusion of everything else.<br /><br />As an intellectual exercise, I started thinking about what a different Santa might be like; today’s story lays out who a few candidates might be for “Santa 2.0” and why.<br /><br />So go grab a cookie, and, perhaps, a refreshing beverage…and let’s have some post-Christmas fun.<br /><br /><blockquote>Chipmunk Family Reunion…<br />…someone stole the nuts…<br />…squirrel jail… <br />…Justice.<br /><br />--“Flo”, the Progressive Insurance Representative, in a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqvKOez0XV4">recent commercial</a></blockquote><br /><br />To help everyone understand my choices, I’m partial to the kind of Santa who might be inclined to be a force for good in society, even when Christmas isn’t around; that concept’s central to these selections.<br /><br />I also tried to pick folks who would make the gift-giving role Santa fills interesting and, above all, fun; with all that in mind let’s jump right in and see where this thing goes:<br /><br />In a tough economy, you want to save where you can, with that in mind my first nomination for the new Santa is Michael Moore, if for no other reason than he fact that he already fits the suit.<br /><br />He’s from Michigan, you know, so the cold weather up there at the North Pole is something he’s already used to – and you can imagine that the Elves will finally be getting the health care and retirement benefits that they’ve been negotiating for these past several years.<br /><br />But beyond that, I could see Mike coming down the chimney and giving people jobs if he could apply the Santa power that way, and I figure he likes cookies and milk, too, so we wouldn’t have to change that part of the deal – and all that suggests he’d be really good for the economy.<br /><br />Plus, if he had all of Santa’s powers, he’d always know <a href="http://dogeatdog.michaelmoore.com/synopsis.html">where Roger is</a>, and that’s pretty cool, too, eh?<br /><br />Now our next choice is a bit unusual, but I think we’re on the right path nonetheless, and that’s <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-september-9-2010/meghan-mccain">Meghan McCain</a>, daughter of the Senator from Arizona.<br /><br />She seems to be a really nice person, which is a good place to start, she’s blonde, which, again, works with the red suit, and I get the impression that she’d be OK with dealing with kids all day.<br /><br />As for her Santa power…she’s an outspoken critic of the Crazy Right, and it’s entirely possible that she’ll bring some degree of rationality and reason from way up North to the GOP, which would be a present we could all use.<br /><br />Some of y’all might be a bit put off by the idea that she appears to be the kind of person who, if a 13-year-old boy asked, would get him a gun, but I got a Godson who was given his first rifle younger than that, and he turned out to be a nonviolent person, so, you know, maybe Santa would turn out to support the Second Amendment, but that doesn’t automatically have to be a bad thing.<br /><br />For our next nomination, we’re going way off the track to select someone you’ve probably never heard of: Yetta Kurland.<br /><br />Ye-who What, you say?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kurlandassociates.com/kbaattorneys.html">Yetta Kurland</a> is an attorney in New York City, and for the past few years, if you are a member of the LBGT community, and you’re interested in civil rights litigation, Yetta Kurland’s has been a pretty good name to know.<br /><br />But beyond that, Yetta’s been working as a member of the National Lawyer’s Guild as one of the on-site <a href="http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-wall-street-yetta-kurland-on-the-battle-for-zuccotti-park">attorneys for Occupy Wall Street</a>, right down there at New York City’s Zucotti Park – and that means our Santa nominee’s been working day and night, literally out on the barricades, fighting for the rights of every one of us.<br /><br /><a href="http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/gay-lesbian/42358/yetta-kurland-runs-for-city-council">Animal rights</a> are also a big focus for Yetta, and that suggests a Santa who would be thinking about <em>all</em> the kids, even the ones covered in fur…and that also means a Santa who might be particularly interested in bringing good homes to abandoned animals, which is as worthy a cause as anyone could wish for.<br /><br />The best part is that Kurland is already interested in the arts, as is the potential Ms. Claus (Kurland’s partner, <a href="http://recessionartshows.com/about/past/past/americanidolatry/aiallsaintsdinner/">Elizabeth Koke</a>); that’s good news for the Elves going forward, and for anyone who would be getting presents designed and manufactured at the North Pole Workshops. <br /><br />Finally, the nomination for Claus 2.0 that I consider the most serendipitous – and potentially the most interesting of all: Lady Gaga.<br /><br />She’s already known, loved, and admired around the world, which is exactly what you want in a Santa, she’s bound to do something interesting to the costume every year, which seems like a “great leap forward”, and she’s already used to dealing with great volumes of fan interaction – and if Lady Gaga were the next Santa, you could expect social media to become a big, big, deal at the North Pole.<br /><br />It was entirely coincidental, but I happened to catch <em>”<a href="http://www.ladygaga.com/news/default.aspx?nid=36497">Gaga by Gaultier</a>”</em> the other night, and as it turns out Gaga is looking to recreate <a href="http://societeperrier.com/london/articles/the-factory-warhol-and-his-circle-proud-chelsea/">The Factory</a>, the storied workshop and studios of Andy Warhol…which could not be more perfect for a Santa with artistic ambitions, since the North Pole Workshops are full of skilled technicians who have been cranking out a mixture of art and fun as long as there’s been a Santa Claus, for Goodness sake.<br /><br />As for her Santa power: imagine if someone could visit all the bullied boys and girls, all in one night, just to let them know that things can “<a href="http://www.itgetsbetter.org/">get better</a>”…and leave coal and access to social services for the bullies…well, that’s a pretty good power, and if Santa could do all that while singing <em>“I Was Born This Way”</em> – then I think we may have a winner. <br /><br />So how about that? Four alternative Santas, each with a set of unique qualifications, all of whom could make things fun even as they’re stirring things up a bit, and all of whom bring their own interesting personality characteristics to this thought exercise.<br /><br />Toss it around in your head a bit, see what you think, and let’s have a bit more fun fleshing out the thinking here in an effort to see who might really be the best choice for Santa 2.0.<br /><br />In other words, now that I’ve reported – you decide.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-83449958565338815732011-12-19T09:56:00.000-08:002011-12-19T10:52:12.714-08:00On Helping Republicans, Or, Next Time You Need A Bad Idea, Try TheseI have spent a number of years complaining about the interactions between Democrats and Republicans, but after the recent events involving the Keystone XL and civil liberties cave-ins, I’ve decided it’s time to stop complaining and embrace the madness.<br /><br />But I also feel like there’s an ugly edge to all this…that hasn’t really been fully exploited.<br /><br />I mean, Republicans have tried to force through a lot of disgusting ideas this Congress as they’ve held various bills hostage, but it seems like, if they really tried, they could do so much more.<br /><br />But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to help; that’s why today we’ll be trotting out a few ideas of our own that Republicans can attach to bills throughout 2012, with the assistance of certain errant Democrats.<br /><br />It’ll be fun, it’ll be festive, but most of all…it’ll be an exercise in Civic Responsibility, and in these difficult times, that’s something we could sorely use.<br /><br /><br /><blockquote>1) Above all, the needs of the army need to be taken into consideration. For instance, it will scarcely be possible to avoid, here and there, leaving behind some trade Jews who are absolutely essential for the provisioning of the troops, for lack of other possibilities. But in each case the proper Aryanization of these enterprises is to be planned and the move of the Jews to be completed in due course, in cooperation with the competent local German administrative authorities. <br /><br />--From a planning document written in 1939 by Reinhard Heydrich, as reported in the book <em>“<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=4_4PlAy7kdwC&lpg=PA172&ots=aM9rxFgvPM&dq=Documents%20of%20the%20Holocaust%2C%20arad%2C%20gutman&pg=PA173#v=onepage&q=Documents%20of%20the%20Holocaust%2C%20arad%2C%20gutman&f=false">Documents of the Holocaust</a>”</em>, edited by Yitzhak Arad, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot</blockquote><br /><br />So let’s start with the economy: the Census Bureau tells us that nearly <a href="http://presstv.com/detail/216053.html">half the population</a> is now poor or near-poor, and something needs to be done. With that in mind, I’d propose the “Economic Freedom and Upward Mobility Act” (HR 4377), which would establish a series of military catapult sites along the US border where carefully selected poor folks would be given, literally, economic freedom and upward mobility, even as we instantly reduce the number of impoverished persons in the United States.<br /><br />Civil rights are important, but not at any cost; that’s why the “Election Cost Control Act” (HR OU812) would allow States to empower local officials to preselect winners in various elections, saving the taxpayer the time and expense of having to count the votes for all those losing candidates. <br /><br />Messaging matters, and there’s no reason Republicans have to be the bearers of all the bad news: Mississippi Congressman Hatesem Lotsabunch confirmed to me in a phone call yesterday that he will take my suggestion and introduce the “Voter Education Act”, which would require President Obama to wear a giant red, white, and blue dog whistle on a thick silver chain every time he appears in public between the date of passage and November of 2012. (For the record, I actually suggested a gold chain; he thought that was a bit “uppity”.)<br /><br />We have a serious immigration problem, but I think we can take a page from the Newt Gingrich playbook and introduce the “Guest Worker Protection and Identification Act” (GWIPA). <br /><br />Here’s the idea: Gingrich has proposed creating a class of persons (“worker residents”?) who are allowed to live and work in the USA, but are never going to be allowed to have US citizenship. The problem is that it will be impossible to quickly tell who is a legal worker resident and who isn’t. Under GWIPA, government-issued armbands would be provided for all legal worker residents to hold their photo ID; as long as they always wear the armband, they’ll be protected from having to show papers to law enforcement officials as they go about their daily business.<br /><br />Governors as diverse as Rick Perry, Jan Brewer, and Robert Bentley have demanded that the Federal Government finally get serious about “securing the border”; the “Nuclear Assault Mine/Border Legislation Act” (NAM/BLA) is my “if you’re crazy enough to support Rick Santorum, why not this?” proposal to make that happen. The new law would order the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to work together to develop, manufacture, and deploy small “assault-sized” nuclear land mines along the Mexican border as a way to deter illegal immigration. <br /><br /><blockquote>"Well you look perfectly idiotic in those clothes!"<br />"These aren't my clothes!"<br />"Well, where are your clothes?"<br />"I've lost my clothes!"<br />"Well, why are you wearing these clothes?"<br />"Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!" <br /><br />--Cary Grant, as David Huxley, from the 1938 movie <em>“<a href="http://www.reelclassics.com/Actors/Cary/cary.htm">Bringing Up Baby</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />Finally, let’s take a moment and consider one of the vital social issues of the day.<br /><br />It is apparently still possible to lock down some GOP votes by going “hard negative” on the LBGT community, if what I’m hearing from the candidates is to be believed (I was particularly struck by Mitt Romney’s ability to twist on this issue: in the last GOP debate, in one single sentence, Romney said he felt there should be no discrimination against the LBGT community…but that there should be no same-sex marriages), and I have a proposal that allows the GOP to appear to be moving to a better place while ensuring that nothing ever changes at all:<br /><br />The “Mitt Romney Legal Access Beyond Intimidation Act” (MRLABIA) would do two things: it would repeal the Federal Defense of Marriage Act – and, in the Mitt Romney tradition, it would also add a new provision into law that prevents same-sex couples from entering into contracts for the purposes of marriage, thus ensuring “a perfect flip-flop, every time”, as they might say on an infomercial somewhere.<br /><br />So there you go: instead of relying on the usual “poison pills”, I’m challenging the GOP to try out a few of these ideas – and I’m also challenging much of the American media to try and tell the difference between some of these ideas and the present reality; just at the moment that won’t be easy, and, all humor aside, I think that might actually be the saddest part of this whole exercise.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-90957606252100849402011-12-08T12:31:00.000-08:002011-12-08T14:32:55.650-08:00On The Question Of Virginity, Or, “Starter? I Can’t Make Her Stop!”I got a weird little story about my friend Blitz Krieger to bring to you today.<br /><br />He’s had a crazy car problem, he has, and over the past few months he thought he had found a solution – in fact, he thought he had found the solution of his dreams – but in the end, he’s discovered that the things you dream about often don’t go according to plan. <br /><br />The way it’s worked out for him so far, it’s been a lot of anticipation followed by a sudden wave of frustration, but I feel like he’s a lot better off having his particular problem with his car…because if he’d had cancer instead, he’d surely be dead by now. <br /><br /><blockquote>The community is always embarrassed by the drag queens because straight society says, “A faggot always dresses in drag, or he’s effeminate.” But you got to be who you are. Passing for straight is like a light-skinned woman or man passing for white. I refuse to pass. I couldn’t have passed, not in this lifetime.<br /><br />--Sylvia Rivera, describing the founding of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), quoted in the book <em>“<a href="https://blogs.libraries.iub.edu/glbtlibrary/2011/10/19/lgbt-history-month/">Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So here’s what happened to Blitz: he waited forever to buy his first car because he wanted, more than anything else in life, to drive his “perfect” car: a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tymGc9PWJ5A">1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4</a>. <br /><br />It’s a wild car: it was designed as a small hatchback…with a V-8 engine…and “switchable” 4WD…which allowed it to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBjecIfCBks">travel easily in snow</a> in a way that virtually no other passenger car at the time could manage.<br /><br />So he waited all this time, and two years ago, in California, he literally found a little old lady from Pasadena who sold him his “Dream Car”, which, ironically, was the same brown color as Al Bundy’s Dodge.<br /><br />It drove great for about six months, but it’s been suffering from a strange malady that presents as a horrible grinding noise when he tries to start the car. He has no idea what to do – and standing in the way of a solution is an obsession that I find a bit strange:<br /><br />He is absolutely determined that he is not going to go to just any mechanic.<br /><br />Instead, Blitz told me that since it’s the first time the Dream Car needs to be repaired, he intends to go to a mechanic who has never worked on any car before his – and he says he wants to do this because he feels the experience of having the work done this way will make it more “special” for the both of them.<br /><br />It took him almost a year to find someone, but when he did, it was truly perfect: he met a woman named Jenna Talia who wanted more than anything to be a mechanic.<br /><br />She’d been studying through one of those “learn at home” programs, and, amazingly, she had an attitude similar to my friend Blitz’s: she knew about how to fix a car from what she’d read in a book, but she refused to actually repair one until she got the chance to work on her Dream Car – and even more amazingly, her Dream Car…was a 1982 American Motors Eagle SX/4.<br /><br />They actually met on the bus (Blitz, naturally, refused to drive any other car except the Dream Car), and after a few months of knowing each other, Blitz proposed that Jenna might work on his car in his garage, and she agreed.<br /><br /><blockquote>Fun Fact I Just Made Up: In a recent poll, 32% of voters thought the Iowa Caucuses were a country located near the former Soviet Georgia.<br /></blockquote><br />So we’re going out last Saturday night, and I get a call from Blitz asking if I could come by and pick ‘em both up there at his house, and I’m OK with that, because with two drinks in a night being a big evening for me I’m more or less a permanent designated driver. <br /><br />I was wondering how it was going with the car, and what I saw was stunning: the upper half of the engine was sitting in the living room, entirely disassembled. There were rockers and rods and all kinds of stuff there, neatly arranged for easy reassembly, and it looked like they had really put a lot of effort into the thing, but it was clear that they just couldn’t get it quite figured out…which isn’t surprising, considering it was the first time for both of them.<br /><br />And you could see, in just that first second, that the two of them were some kind of frustrated. But it gets worse: Blitz told me that this was her third “diagnosis”, and that, now that she was actually face-to-face with a real car, she seemed to be entirely confused about exactly what to do.<br /><br />Apparently things had gone so bad that Jenna wouldn’t even leave his house at night to go home until she could get things figured out…and, from what he’s telling me, he’s ready to throw her out, buy a different car, and get that car fixed by a mechanic who’s been there and done that – a <em>lot</em>.<br /><br />To put it another way, he’s ready to dump his virgin mechanic…for a slut.<br /><br />Now here’s the really crazy part of the story: I’ve had a bit of experience with cars breaking down over time, and I knew what was wrong from the beginning, as many of you probably did, too: the starter was bad – and that’s located on the very bottom of the engine, not the top, which means everything they’d been doing was pretty much pointless.<br /><br />But I couldn’t tell them that in the beginning…because, again, it would’ve just spoiled the experience…and I sure wasn’t gonna say “I told you so” now…so even though I could have offered them both useful advice about how ignorance ain’t bliss, they surely didn’t want to hear it.<br /><br />So look, folks, we could have a lot more fun following out this comic premise, but there’s a bigger point: I don’t want a virgin mechanic, and surely not a virgin doctor – and they don’t even <em>allow</em> virgin pilots to carry passengers.<br /><br />What is it about sex (and politics, for that matter) that makes people think they’ll be able to simply “get it” with no experience at all? What is it that makes them think that celebrating their own ignorance is the best way to show they’re ready to take on something that, frankly, requires a bit of trial…and error…before you really get it right?<br /><br />I don’t know the answer, but the next time someone tells you how their ignorance makes them a lot smarter about something, do me a favor and think about Blitz and Jenna and the Dream Car – and the living room full of engine parts – and if that person’s running for office, run the other way. Quickly.<br /><br />I’d appreciate it; so will you – and if I know Blitz, he will, too.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-67826085454179132652011-11-28T23:42:00.000-08:002011-11-29T00:07:36.179-08:00On The Emergence Of China, Or, Zhou Knew This Was ComingAfter doing a bit of mountain hiking a few days back, I had a chance to get involved in a great afternoon conversation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Mike Wessel, who also serves as a Commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; the conversation was about how we’re doing when it comes to our relationship with China.<br /><br />As it turns out, the two events went well together, because what I’m hearing from these guys is that we have a great big ol’ mountain to climb if we hope to get back to a level playing field in our interactions with this most important country.<br /><br />There’s news to report across a variety of issues; that’s why today we’ll be talking about trade, human rights, cybersecurity, poverty and development, and the methods by which you can apply “soft power” to achieve hard results.<br /><br />The entirely unanticipated result: all of this will reveal the <em>naïveté</em> of Ron Paul when it comes to foreign policy; we’ll discuss that at the end. <br /><br /><blockquote>The King of China's daughter<br />So beautiful to see<br />With a face like yellow water<br />Left her nutmeg tree<br /><br />--From the song <em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VId1DffyvlU">“The King of China’s Daughter”</a></em>, by Natalie Merchant</blockquote><br /><br />So let’s start with the background stuff: the <a href="http://www.uscc.gov/">U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission</a> exists today because of the legislative wars surrounding China being granted Most Favored Nation status back in the day.<br /><br />At the time, there were concerns about the way China does business on the international stage, and the Commission provides a follow-on monitoring program to examine questions regarding the Chinese human rights record, issues related to economics, cybersecurity issues, the intentions of the Chinese military, and lots more.<br /><br />The Commission issues annual reports to Congress, and <a href="http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2011/annual_report_full_11.pdf">this year’s report</a> has just been released.<br /><br />Now normally I would present a point of view, followed by a counterpoint; today, we’ll do the opposite: there are folks I listen to out there, including Thomas P. M. Barnett, who would tell you that you are not going to be able to keep spending $900 billion a year on the defense budget if you can’t find an opponent worth $900 billion a year, and China looks like that kind of opponent, in a number of ways that Al Qaeda never could…even if, in Barnett’s opinion, China is a <a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/china-political-future-0111">great big paper tiger</a>.<br /><br />Al Qaeda will never build aircraft carriers, or intercontinental ballistic missiles; they’ll never put to sea in submarines or build a stealth fighter, and they darn sure aren’t going to be mounting military operations in space or engaging in cyberwarfare.<br /><br />And yet, if you’re a defense contractor, a General, or an Admiral, that’s where all the money is; naturally, if the money goes away, some of those Generals and Admirals are not going to have the chance to “graduate” from the military and become defense contractor representatives themselves.<br /><br />Put it all together, and some would tell you that the biggest battle facing the Military/Industrial Complex today…is making sure we’re always nervously looking under our beds at night, just to be safe. <br /><br />You should also know that our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, convinced his brand-spanking-new country to put in place a series of protective tariffs. The intent was to foster manufacturing in the then-agrarian United States; this was intended to create a climate favorable for non-farm businesses and to allow a far more disparate group of immigrants to come to the new Nation than what would have occurred if the only major business activities around the country were farming-related.<br /><br />So with all that in mind, let’s talk China.<br /><br />The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (the USCC) wants you to know that China is very much on a knifedge: the country is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (the PLA).<br /><br />The USCC would tell you that the primary goal of the CCP and PLA leadership is to “protect their phony-baloney jobs” and the corruption that goes with ‘em (thanks for the line, Mel Brooks), and that they have to do a few things to keep those jobs safe: they have to find a way to make 900 million near-peasants into a middle class, quickly, because the peasants have seen how the other 300 million live, to secure markets and resources China has to begin to project power around the world, by military or other means, and they have to make extra sure that nobody in China, except the CCP, gets the opportunity to take over the political conversation – in other words, ensure that the “Arab Spring” doesn’t become the “Jasmine Spring”.<br /><br />There’s more: in a country without something like Social Security, China’s population will age faster than any in history, and many of the 900 million seem to want to move from the country to the city in numbers so large that they literally can’t build cities fast enough. <br /><br />So how does the Chinese Government deal with all this?<br /><br />What China has been doing is seeking internal “quietude” by growing the economy through manufacturing, and they have decided to choose certain industries as the linchpin of “valuing up” that growth, so that China’s low-tech manufacturing becomes more high-tech. (Think computers and telecommunications, space, alternative fuel vehicles, aviation, green energy technologies, that sort of thing.)<br /><br />China has decided that virtually the only way a foreign company can do business in any of the “chosen” areas is to mandate technology transfers that allow Chinese companies to obtain the methods and tools needed to compete with the foreign supplier down the road. (This is officially against WTO rules; China disputes that assertion. The USCC says they now make these demands in subtle ways that are less “enforceable”.) Chinese buyers are told to give preference to “state-innovated” technologies.<br /><br />China also uses their currency as a way of “preferencing” the local economy. The Renminbi (RMB) is, according to most observers, deliberately undervalued in order to make Chinese goods cheap overseas and imported goods expensive at home. Mike Wessel would tell you it’s about 40% undervalued, and that that “trade tax” (my term, not his) costs the US budget about $500 billion a year, with a similar impact on State budgets. Despite much USA pressure and some recent upward valuation (roughly 6% last year), it looks like China is not going to move much on the RMB anytime soon.<br /><br />Wessel anticipates China will spend about $1.5 trillion on anti-poverty subsidies to quell unrest over the next 5 years; that would become a lot more difficult if a revaluation were to occur.<br /><br />During the 1990s China began to move to a free-market model that emphasized the growth of privately-owned businesses; Wessel says today China is going back to promoting the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to the detriment of a free market.<br /><br />This has been bad for our own industrial strategy, such as it is, which assumed we would be selling China lots of high-tech goods, even as they sold us cheap goods. That has not worked out; in fact, China is now the largest market for cars and cell phones, among other products…and those products are not being manufactured in the USA.<br /><br />It’s reported that the theft of intellectual property is the normal way business is done in China; as an example Wessel notes that something like 80% of the software on Chinese corporate computers is stolen.<br /><br />We are told that the PLA is looking to create an “area of influence” that extends from the South China Sea to space; to this end the first <a href="http://en.rian.ru/world/20110810/165679359.html">Chinese aircraft carrier</a> is being readied for service, a stealth fighter is in development, antiship missile systems are being upgraded, and a “counterspace” capability <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/world/asia/19china.html?pagewanted=all">has been demonstrated</a>. (The idea is that Chinese satellites explode near other satellites, thus disabling them. The USA and Russia seem to have similar capabilities.) <br /><br />Chinese military doctrine, Wessel tells us, advocates shutting down the “network-centric” model of US military operations; it is believed that a significant campaign of computer-based intrusions and attacks on the USA have already taken place, including <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062755/Real-life-Star-Wars-Were-Chinese-hackers-attacks-U-S-military-satellites.html">two events</a> that took place at Department of Defense-operated satellite-control facilities that seem to have been external attacks. <br /><br />Wessel anticipates that a war with China would begin with China attempting to disable various USA computer networks and infrastructure; the resulting confusion would be used to China’s advantage.<br /><br />Beyond that, Wessel worries that we’re buying so much of our telecommunications and computing infrastructure from China that we may be vulnerable to being spied upon by our own laptops; he cited two examples of this problem: a computer sale to the State Department that involved Lenovo laptops and classified data, and a sale of network equipment by <a href="http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/report-sprint-excludes-huawei-zte-bids-network-project/2010-11-05">Huawei</a> to Sprint that might have allowed classified computer traffic to be compromised.<br /><br />Chinese spying, Wessel would tell you, is widespread and not limited to government: trade secrets are up for grabs in a big way, and even the US Patent and Trademark Office had to upgrade its security after it discovered patent applications were being snatched out of the system and appearing as Chinese products, with Chinese patents, before the applications could even be acted upon in the USA.<br /><br />Wessel also wants you to understand that China uses “soft power” to advance its interests: there are lots of “hosted” opportunities to study in China, former military officers of various nations, including the USA, are <a href="http://thetaiwanlink.blogspot.com/2010/08/taiwans-sanya-initiative-pla-targeting.html">recruited</a> as “representatives”, and there are lots of “<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-12-08-1Achinesestudents_VA_N.htm">get to know us</a>” opportunities that have been created around the world; all of this is intended to “sell” China in ways we do not. <br /><br />And with all that said, let’s talk about Ron Paul.<br /><br />Paul’s attitude toward China seems to be that we should allow free, unimpeded trade, and that the currency manipulations about which many complain would not exist if we went back to a gold standard. Paul <a href="http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/rep_bios.php?rep_id=47384468&category=views&id=20110314124343">stated</a> in 2001 that:<br /><br /><blockquote>Concern about our negative trade balance with the Chinese is irrelevant. Balance of payments are always in balance. For every dollar we spend in China those dollars must come back to America. Maybe not buying American goods, as some would like, but they do come back and they serve to finance our current account deficit.<br /><br />Free trade, it should be argued, is beneficial even when done unilaterally, providing a benefit to our consumers.</blockquote><br /><br />If I’ve been paying attention during the recent Republican debates, this is still what Paul believes about China, and here are a couple of thoughts about how he’s got it entirely wrong:<br /><br />Paul may not like it, but Hamilton succeeded when he used tariffs to jump-start a manufacturing economy in this country, and not having free trade is working pretty well for China as well. Unfortunately, it’s working very badly for us.<br /><br />On the one hand, Wal-Mart and all the others who import less-expensive products from China have done a great job of masking the fact that incomes have been either stagnant or declining for about 99% of us, but Wessel would say that’s been at the cost of sending millions upon millions of jobs to a country that is working hard on every level to ensure we can never again compete as a manufacturing nation – and while we thought we would make up that difference with our high-tech advantages, theft and spying and a devalued currency and “partnerships with benefits” and protectionist “state-innovation” rules have made sure we don’t.<br /><br />A gold standard won’t fix this, and simply advocating that we allow China unfettered access to USA markets while they rob us blind seems a bit like suggesting everyone leave their houses unlocked so that the market can more efficiently decide which ones are the best for burglars. <br /><br />So we’ve covered a lot of ground today, and let’s wrap this thing up with a summary of where Commissioner Wessel says we’ve been: <br /><br />We have a competitor in China who will do more or less anything to keep its current political leadership in power, even as that leadership is forever worried that 900 million of its citizens will discover that you can overthrow a government.<br /><br />The PLA is busy as well, with the South China Sea and everything above being the “area of influence”; computer warfare seems to be the next phase.<br /><br />“Soft power” is also being applied; we have former military officers and Chinese language students and lots of other folks either hearing or telling China’s story all over the world and we don’t do a good job of answering back.<br /><br />All the while, the CCP is working hard to create a higher-tech Chinese economy, by hook or by crook, and that’s putting the future of our own economy at risk, not to mention the operations of our government.<br /><br />We, as a people, seem to be unaware of all of this, and that plays out in the form of ignorance in our politicians, with Ron Paul being a recent prominent example.<br /><br />So now it’s up to you to figure out what all this means: is this really a substantial threat that we have to defend against (and there’s lots of evidence to suggest it is), or is this an effort to find a way to keep spending that $900 billion every year?<br /><br />My take: Wessel’s not a defense lobbyist, even as he is trying to promote manufacturing in the USA, and there is a lot of evidence to support his thinking; with all that in mind I’m more inclined to believe he’s sending a warning we better pay attention to than he is seeing Commies under the bed. <br /><br />Nonetheless, there are lots of folks who would like to keep stackin’ that big cheddar, at your expense, and even as we think very hard about China, we better also keep in mind that Northup Grumman could be just as dangerous.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-35190393272354427202011-11-08T03:35:00.000-08:002011-11-08T04:21:34.789-08:00On Punishing The Job Creators, Or, “The Poor Have It So Good Today”You know what the problem is with America?<br />The poor don’t get just how great they have it.<br /><br />I’ve hear this a lot lately; the basic thrust of the discussion is that all those cars, TVs, DVD players, refrigerators, and stoves that have found their way into the homes of the economic underclass are proof there’s really no such thing as “poor” in America.<br /><br />If they were truly poor, the argument goes, well…think recycled corn.<br /><br />And if the poor want things to get better, let ‘em pull themselves up by their own bootstraps – and if they can’t, then let ‘em rot, because that’s the best thing for the economy.<br /><br />But I don’t buy all that, and by the time we’re done today, I hope to have given you a whole new perspective on how jobs get created in this country.<br /><br /><blockquote>There isn't a rich man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax board. They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick. Iron-clad, so to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire to acquire him for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates.<br /><br />--From the letter <em>"<a href="http://www.mtwain.com/A_Humane_Word_From_Satan/0.html">A Humane Word From Satan</a>"</em>, by Sam Clemens</blockquote><br /><br />We must have completely misjudged how many Americans live here about 15 years ago, because everywhere I go I see vacant buildings.<br /><br />Empty retail space, empty office buildings, empty factories, and all of it apparently just thrown up for no reason whatsoever.<br /><br />But then I recently saw some historical pictures from the 1990s, and it turns out a lot of those buildings used to have businesses operating within their now-abandoned walls – businesses which have since gone away.<br /><br />And that’s when I began to get confused.<br /><br />You see I’ve always known, just as you have, that it’s all about capital; that’s why it’s only the very wealthiest people who can create jobs in this country. <br /><br />And I’ve always known that they can only do that when they are 100% certain that nothing was going to hurt their current economic condition, and that any sacrifice on our part, no matter how large, was crucially important to keep this very special source of economic vitality full and happy and creating jobs for America’s future.<br /><br />And when I look at the statistics, I know we’ve been doing <em>our</em> part: the wealthy have been getting wealthier, faster, over the past 30 years than at any time in memory…and yet, for some reason, all those businesses were closing down.<br /><br />So many, in fact, that I began to question whether America actually understands how jobs get created. It even began to cross my mind that maybe we’ve been coddling the wrong people.<br /><br />I mean, what if the actual job creators…are the people who no longer work in those empty buildings?<br /><br />It makes sense, if you think about it. <br /><br />The common argument is that those with capital make investments, which creates jobs. <br /><br />But why would anyone invest capital unless there was perceived demand for a product, or a need to do research to meet perceived future demands?<br /><br />That seems to suggest demand drives investment; a good way to “prove” the point would be to consider what happens to capital without demand: building factories and ships and warehouses does no good if there are no buyers at the store.<br /><br />Of course, I’m not the first to think workers drive demand: Henry Ford famously paid his workers double the prevailing wage; <a href="http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-54463_18670_18793-53441--,00.html">part of the idea</a> was to create demand for all those Model Ts he was cranking out in his new factories.<br /><br />So now that we know who the job creators really are, and we established years ago that we have to do every single possible thing on the face of the Earth to keep the job creators happy, happy, happy…how do we get started?<br /><br />Well, here’s an idea: the Fed willingly gave more than <a href="http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/bailouttracker/">$1.5 trillion</a> to banks for bailouts, mostly by simply “creating” money; now I’m proposing we do the same for homeowners. <br /><br />If you have a loan backed by Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac, let’s allow you to apply for a one-time $200,000 markdown on your mortgage – and let’s allow the first “tranche” of any markdown to apply to any back-due loan payments.<br /><br />The amount of “haircut” (fancy technical term) you might impose on each loan could vary, but $1.5 trillion would allow 7.5 million writedowns at $200,000 each; if you limited the haircut to 50% of the loan value many would be less than $200,000. (It’s estimated that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/usa-housing-idUSN1E79H14020111021">11 million homes</a> in the USA from are underwater; $2.5 trillion or less would cover all underwater loans.)<br /><br />Since Fannie and Freddy back <a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1r-2.pdf">$10 trillion</a> or so in mortgages, and you probably won’t be able to write down every loan, how would you decide who gets writedowns? <br /><br />One way would be to create a “triage score” that incorporates things like the odds an applicant/borrower can pay off a restructured loan and the amount of foreclosed or underwater homes in any given community; the 7.5 million highest (or lowest) scores get the writedowns. <br /><br />(One <em>caveat</em>: many who are having trouble today with home loans are also laid off; unless we can find ways to keep those folks in homes until they can find work, we’ll still have a substantial foreclosure problem.)<br /><br />Writing down mortgages does several things: it quickly applies a “moral hazard cost” to those who deliberately lent to unqualified borrowers, it turns millions of “underwater” loans into homes with equity, it turns millions of “nonperforming” loans into “performing” loans, keeping millions out of foreclosure, it gives communities a chance to either stabilize or recover from “mass foreclosure-itis”, and it finally breaks the deadlock between banks and regulators over who will blink first on loan “haircuts” versus bank recapitalizations.<br /><br />Wait? What was that last one?<br /><br />Banks are scared to death that if they write down all these loans they will have to <a href="http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/what-does-recapitalizing-banks-actually-mean/">find new capital</a> to make up the losses – and they probably won’t be able to raise that new capital by charging a $5 fee to have a debit card. <br /><br />That could mean a few things: it could mean big banks are going to have to more sneakily raise lots of other fees and sell things to raise capital, or, perhaps, the Feds ease back a bit on capital requirements. <br /><br />Or…it may mean that the banks end up having to get smaller. Consider this scenario: a forced haircut of significant size, followed by regulators who stand firm on capital requirements, followed by a less-than-stellar round of stock offerings or asset sales; next thing you know, “too big to fail” becomes “we have to spin off some part of the retail business for reasons related to the rules governing capital requirements”.<br /><br />This could happen without the passage of new regulations or legislation beyond the initial bailout authorization – and even that might be within the power of Federal regulators already, since Fannie and Freddy, as the owners of many of these loans, have the power to forgive some or all of that debt, and capital requirements are not set by legislation. <br /><br />And where does all that leave you? <br /><br />Well, you’d have 7.5 million families that could more easily afford to make house payments than before, and those folks will probably take that money and spend it on things they haven’t been buying for several years: home improvements, cars, appliances, and the travel and entertainment markets could all see substantial bumps in sales. <br /><br />Many, if not most of those families, would immediately go from being “underwater” to having equity, which always helps turn reluctant consumers into willing consumers.<br /><br />Cities could begin to recover as well, as the number of foreclosures bottoms out; once banks are forced to write those properties down from “2006 value” to today’s market value they’ll be looking to sell ‘em at bargain prices; that’ll help soak up today’s housing supply “overhang”. All of this is good for beleaguered new home builders, who are today in a holding pattern.<br /><br />And here’s the best part: if you get a handle on foreclosures, and put some cash back in some pockets, and start selling stuff…well, that looks like a bit of a jobs program, even if Congress might not be willing to sign up for one just at the moment.<br /><br />So how about that?<br /><br />If we make an effort to give to the actual job creators the same level of incentives that we gave to the “demand responders” since November of ‘08, we could actually find ourselves creating actual jobs with our money – and doing it by the millions, just when we need ‘em.<br /><br />Considering how fast we were able to find ways to create TARP, QE1, QE2, an alternative auto industry bailout, and anything else a banker could ask for, including, I’m sure, partridges in pear trees…well, we should be able to knock this out over a weekend, assuming we can either make a really convincing argument – or do like the banks do, and lay out a million a day for lobbyists until it gets convincing enough to get things done.<br /><br />Of course, if we have to we could also start Occupying the Offices of reluctant Members of Congress to help make the point; as long as the end result is some serious pampering of the <em>real</em> job creators, I’m all good.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-69486104245182474792011-10-16T18:46:00.000-07:002011-10-16T21:41:02.470-07:00On Common Ambitions, Or, Occupy Wall Street Likes Capitalism – Sort OfWell I’m finally back here at work after another recent series of personal adventures; in the middle of all the fun I’ve been finding time to get down to my local “Occupy” event, and for those of you who have not been keeping up I thought we’d take a moment today to compare a bit of Fox-driven perception to the reality I’ve been seeing.<br /><br />What I’ve been told to expect, at least in certain quarters of the public space, are dirty filthy hippies with no jobs or ambitions hoping to destroy America while having deviant public couplings fueled by the free distribution of dangerous psychotropic drugs.<br /><br />Sadly, I’ve found that there’s not really much truth in that description, even as tiny bits of it do ring true; but with a manifesto in hand and a few conversations under my belt we’ll see what we can do to create a picture that will surprise a lot of the 99% who already support Occupy Wall Street, even if they don’t know it yet.<br /><br /><blockquote>Individuals or individual states may call themselves what they please: but the world, and especially the world of enemies, is not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. Sovereignty must have power to protect all the parts that compose and constitute it: and as UNITED STATES we are equal to the importance of the title, but otherwise we are not.<br /><br />-- From <em>“<a href="http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-13.htm">The Crisis</a>”</em>, by Thomas Paine (emphasis is original)</blockquote><br /><br />So before we go any farther, let’s set a few conditions to this analysis: I have only been down to <a href="http://occupyseattle.org/">Occupy Seattle</a> in person for a total of about six hours over three visits, and even though I try to follow things nationwide on the twitter and the various Livestreams, there’s obviously a lot being missed that’s not going to be reflected here.<br /><br />Beyond that, we need to recognize that there is a lot of “frogs jumping out of the wheelbarrow” within the Occupy movement; by that I mean people with a lot of different grievances have come together, and even as many agree on one issue or another, many do not – which probably sounds familiar to many of the folks who populate the Tea Party movement as well.<br /><br />And I’ll tell you something else, just to get the conversational ball rolling: despite what Glenn Beck might imagine in his wildest fantasies, there are a lot of folks in the Occupy movement who are indeed capitalists, even as they may eschew the term themselves; as evidence to support that proposition we’ll have a look at the statement adopted by The General Assembly.<br /><br />If you know nothing about the Occupy events, let’s start with the setting: in the case of Occupy Seattle, the event has been taking place at <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/parks/park_detail.asp?id=332">Westlake Park</a>, which is dead square in the middle of downtown; the 1/10th acre triangle is home to a couple of speaking platforms, a fountain, a big feeding and medical tent, and then several smaller groupings of sleeping bundles and a single group with a tarp over their sleeping bags (since I last visited, that “tarp over sleeping bag” tent is gone, thanks to the Seattle Police Department; <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/komo/article/Police-arrest-10-at-Westlake-take-down-tent-2218549.php">10 were arrested</a> in the process).<br /><br />You can’t use bullhorns to be heard above the street noise, and that’s why you’re seeing those videos of people chanting in unison whenever anything’s said: the “speaker” offers a sentence, then the members of the crowd (who are, collectively, “The General Assembly”) repeat the phrase for everyone else (it’s called “the people’s microphone”); <a href="http://occupyseattle.org/resource/general-assembly-guidelines-hand-signals">hand signals</a> are used to offer immediate feedback to what’s being said, and votes are used to make decisions, just like an old-style New England town hall meeting.<br /><br />For The General Assembly to adopt anything, from a plan of action to a Statement, requires great deliberation and discussion, and on my second visit there was an ongoing deliberation as to whether the group should negotiate with the Mayor to move the encampment to City Hall.<br /><br />Out of the New York City process, as we’ve mentioned before, came a <a href="http://occupyseattle.org/resource/official-statement-occupy-wall-street/">Statement</a>; right off the bat it would tell you this:<br /><br /><blockquote>We come to you at a time when corporations – which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality – run our governments.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />That doesn’t seem like a ringing endorsement of capitalism, and neither do the parts of the Statement that reference taking bailouts “with impunity”, even as Executives receive “exorbitant bonuses”, nor the comments about the destruction of the farming system or the issues raised regarding “the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals”; there’s a whole lot more I could cite to make this point, but what you need to take away from this couple of paragraphs is that there is a lot to be said against how we do capitalism, and these folks are voicing some of the same complaints we’ve all had lately.<br /><br />Despite all that, there are some very telling portions of the statement for those who think Occupy Wall Street is intent on recreating Mad Max in Manhattan; here are a few (not in their original order):<br /><br /><blockquote>They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.<br /><br />They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.<br /><br />They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.<br /><br />They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.<br /><br />They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.<br /><br />They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.<br /><br />They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.<br /><br />They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.<br /><br />They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.<br /><br />They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.<br /><br />They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.<br /><br />They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.<br /><br />They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />So what am I reading here?<br /><br />I believe I’m reading something created by a community of people who expect to get an education, find work, and own a home. I believe they expect to find equal pay and safe working conditions at that job, and then they’d like to have some say in how the economy of our country works.<br /><br />I believe they expect safe products, and access to reasonably priced, but still profitable medicine, and a safe environment that they might be able to pass along to future generations.<br /><br />I believe they don’t like it when the rules of the game are written by referees who have been bought off by one of the teams.<br /><br />And if you put all that together, my nervous Conservative friends…I believe you’re looking at a bunch of capitalists who want to take The American Dream and make it work a whole lot better than it does today.<br /><br />I believe, when you hear them talking about corruption in government, and bank bailouts, and the need for affordable health care, and making American jobs available for an American future, they’re looking to do something about the same kinds of problems that also keep nice Conservative folks up late at night – and when you put all that together, I think you’re gonna find out that, Conservative or Liberal, Progressive or Tea Party, we, all of us, really are the 99%.<br /><br />So put aside all that Fox “fear porn” stuff for a few minutes, think about the things that are making you upset about this country today, look at what these folks are saying about a lot of the same issues, and see if you can’t find a place for yourselves in this 99%.<br /><br />Then get down to an Occupy event near you and see where it goes (and by now they are, almost literally, everywhere, including <a href="http://occupytaipei.tw/">Taipei, Taiwan</a>): ask questions, join The General Assembly for a session, maybe even move the conversation a bit yourself.<br /><br />It’s free speech, it’s people seeking a redress of grievances in a peaceful assembly, there’s voting…hell, the only way this could be more representative of Truth, Justice, and The American Way is if everyone down there was wearing a Superman suit; so go on down there, be a patriot, speak your piece, do some listening, make some new friends, and let’s see if we can’t build a better planet, one Occupy at a time.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-87129892521253747152011-10-03T18:26:00.000-07:002011-10-03T18:33:59.712-07:00On Imperfection, Or, How Do You Choose A New Bank?Like a lot of people these days, we have come to the conclusion that it’s time to change our lousy bank.<br /><br />And it wasn’t even like we chose badly, either – we were customers of Washington Mutual for almost two decades, and we loved ‘em: they were nice people to deal with, they didn’t constantly hammer you every time you came in to the branch with desperate sales pitches, and they didn’t even charge you for using another bank’s cash machines.<br /><br />It turns out, however, that all that beneficence came at a cost: WaMu made a lot of money making sketchy mortgage loans, and when it all came crashing down, we found ourselves customers of JPMorgan Chase, who we now hate with the fire of a thousand suns.<br /><br />But it turns out choosing a new bank ain’t all that easy – and that’s where you come into today’s conversation.<br /><br /><blockquote>"I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested...Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents."<br /><br />--From a speech delivered by <a href="http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/butler01-by_schmidt.html">General Smedley Butler</a> to an American Legion Convention, New Britain, Connecticut, August 21, 1931</blockquote><br /><br />We had a chance to do a refinancing deal which would lower our mortgage interest rate quite considerably at about the same time that WaMu went down, which we did, and although we thought we’d be doing business with our old bank, we got the news of the Chase takeover in all the confusion as the bank collapsed.<br /><br />Our new friends at Chase were quite anxious for us to set up an “autopay” arrangement, which we did; three months later they were threatening to take our house for failure to make the payments.<br /><br />When we had to explain to them that the money was right there, sitting in the account, and that they were failing to collect the payments every month, we knew we were going to have a problem with Chase.<br /><br />Remember this scene from <em>“<a href="http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheAlternateSide.htm">Seinfeld</a>”</em>?<br /><br /><blockquote>Jerry: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?<br /><br />Agent: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.<br /><br />Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the<br />reservation.<br /><br />Agent: I know why we have reservations.<br /><br />Jerry: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to<br />take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and<br />that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them. </blockquote><br /><br />I actually got to have a variation of that same conversation with the Loan Officer who set up the autopay in the first place, when he asked why we hadn’t been making sure they were collecting the money more carefully, which was a lot of fun, if I might say so myself, even as he clearly hated it. I also made him call Chase Customer Service, in our presence, to fix the problem, which he hated even more.<br /><br />As you might guess, we don’t have autopay anymore, and from time to time a teller will ask if we want it…and that gives us a chance to tell the story to any other customers who might be nearby, which they always seem to find, shall we say, “relatable”.<br /><br />But what with all the new fees and the generally lousy atmosphere in the branches these days, not to mention the fact that we’ve come to view Chase as essentially pirates on a financial sea, looking to rob us blind, it’s time to cut ship and move on – and up to this point, that’s actually been a bit of problem.<br /><br />See, the thing is, we’re having as much trouble finding a bank we like as the Tea Party is settling on a Presidential Candidate – and for the same reason: every one of ‘em has some sort of fatal flaw.<br /><br /><blockquote>Fun Fact: the NYPD arrested 700 or more people today for marching in the traffic lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge – and in this video, you can <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz67fULXc-0&feature=youtu.be">see the NYPD leading the marchers onto the traffic lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge</a>.</blockquote><br /><br />The standard answer to this question is to choose a Credit Union, but that doesn’t work for us very well as the local Credit Unions don’t really have a presence outside the local area. (We live in Seattle and travel up and down the West Coast from time to time, so this is a bit of an issue for us.)<br /><br />We have the same problem with banks like Sterling Savings or Umpqua Bank, which seem to have nice reputations, as banks go – and that leaves us having to choose from one of the banks we all hate. <br /><br />At the moment, the “candidate banks” are basically down to The Usual Suspects: Bank of America, US Bank, Key Bank, and Wells Fargo.<br /><br />Now we have some personal opinions of our own about each of these banks, but what I want to happen today is that you give us your opinions about each of these admittedly flawed choices: in other words, which one might be the least of the worst?<br /><br />Think of it as a chance to vent – and if you have a bit of inside dirt on one of these banks that would tell us about fees or cutbacks, or anything else, for that matter, let it fly.<br /><br />Think of this as an exercise in community “comment carding” – and keep in mind that with Occupy Wall Street and all, there are going to be a lot of folks like us who want a different bank, but won’t be able to make what might be the best possible choice, so let’s see if we can’t also comment to that larger audience as we go along.<br /><br />Monday’s coming, and that’s a good day to get out of a bank…so let’s see if we can’t get a discussion going that helps a few folks do exactly that.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-5489186709243926232011-09-23T05:43:00.000-07:002011-09-23T06:16:13.368-07:00On Protecting The Innocent, Or, Is There A Death Penalty Compromise?I don’t feel very good about this country this morning, and as so many of us are I’m thinking of how Troy Davis was hustled off this mortal coil by the State of Georgia without a lot of thought of what it means to execute the innocent.<br /><br />And given the choice, I’d rather see us abandon the death penalty altogether, for reasons that must, at this moment, seem self-evident; that said, it’s my suspicion that a lot of states are not going to be in any hurry to abandon their death penalties anytime soon now that they know the Supreme Court will allow the innocent to be murdered.<br /><br />So what if there was a way to create a compromise that balanced the absolute need to protect the innocent with the feeling among many Americans that, for some crimes, we absolutely have to impose the death penalty?<br /><br />Considering the circumstances, it’s not going to be an easy subject, but let’s give it a try, and see what we can do.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong>Let’s Fix An Error Dept.:</strong> Apologies are in order, because in <a href="http://fakeconsultant.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-fixing-world-or-help-george-carlin.html">our last story</a> we identified The Riverside Church in Manhattan as the place where George Carlin learned to be Catholic – and that could not have been more incorrect. Bad research was the culprit here, and it’s something that we’ll obviously be working to improve. So, once again: sorry, and my bad.</blockquote><br /><br />Now if all the states want to limit the imposition of the death penalty to just the guilty (and after what we just saw in Georgia, that’s no longer 100% certain), one way you could do it would be to make it a lot harder to prove guilt – and that’s what we have in mind for today’s proposal.<br /><br />As you may recall, we convict today with a “burden of proof” that is described as “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”; as we now know, it is possible to prove guilt, beyond a reasonable doubt, even when there’s a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/21/troy-davis-10-reasons?newsfeed=true">whole lot of reasonable doubt</a> to be found. <br /><br />In Davis’ case, he was given a chance on appeal to prove his innocence, and despite <a href="http://www.chicagodefender.com/article-8614-judge-troy-davis-failed-to-prove-innocence.html">this conclusion</a> from the Judge hearing the case…<br /><br /><blockquote>"Ultimately, while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors…"</blockquote><br /><br />…Davis was still executed.<br /><br />So the way I would get at this problem would be to change the burden of proof in these cases: if you want to execute someone who is facing an aggravated murder or other capital charge, instead of “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”, I would require “guilt beyond all doubt”.<br /><br />If you can’t get to guilt beyond all doubt, but you can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then you could impose no sentence harsher than life without parole. <br /><br />If this proposal had been in effect in Davis’ case, there could have been no execution after he argued that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, because that would have erased “all doubt”; after that he would have had the rest of his life to demonstrate that he was wrongly convicted.<br /><br />There are going to be a few reasons people might not like this proposal, and I’ll try to address some of them briefly:<br /><br />Right off the bat, many will complain that because of the new burden of proof it will be virtually impossible to have executions at all; I would tell those folks that if that were to occur…then the system is working. The entire purpose of this plan is to make executions an extraordinarily rare occurrence and to move just about everyone on Death Rows nationwide to a “life without parole” future.<br /><br />Beyond that, many will say that capital punishment is morally unacceptable under any circumstances, and to those folks I would respond that y’all make a pretty good point…but at the moment there are a lot of Americans who do not hold that moral position – and they have strong feelings too – and unless we can move them to a different point of view, then the best chance we have to prevent the innocent from being executed is to find some sort of compromise like this one.<br /><br />(Don’t believe me about that “strong feelings” thing? How many of the readers here would be OK with the death penalty for Osama Bin Laden, if he were proved “beyond all doubt” to have been the person behind 9/11?)<br /><br />A similar line of thought is expressed in the idea that we are seeing more and more voters who do oppose capital punishment, and with a bit of patience, this problem will go away.<br /><br />After what happened to Troy Davis, I think there’s more urgency now than there was in times past, and that’s because we now see that at least one State will quickly kill a prisoner in order to “clear the case”, suggesting to me that patience is not as good an option as it was before. <br /><br />Finally, I suspect many will feel that the effort to pass a proposal like this one would distract from the effort to end the death penalty, which is, again, a pretty good argument.<br /><br />To those folks I would respond that we may get some states to end the death penalty today, but there are a lot of other states that are not going to want to give up the death penalty for some time to come (remember the people who cheered Rick Perry’s execution record?), and if we aren’t going to be able to end the death penalty completely, then I think we have to offer some sort of compromise; a compromise based on the concepts of “killing the innocent isn’t The American Way” or “you could still execute Osama” could appeal to voters who simply won’t give up on the death penalty altogether.<br /><br />So that’s what we have for you today: even though I personally would prefer that we end the death penalty and just go to life without parole for all these crimes, I don’t think we’re going to achieve that in a lot of states; with that in mind I’m proposing a compromise that would protect the innocent by ending virtually all executions, even as it allows an extraordinarily difficult to reach exception that could satisfy those who absolutely do not want to see the application of the death penalty come to an end.<br /><br />It’s an imperfect compromise, I’ll admit – but in a big ol’ swath of America that runs from roughly Florida to Idaho, it may be the best compromise we can make right now, and right now, in those places, that might have to be good enough.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong>Entirely Off The Subject Dept.:</strong> We are still trying to get signatures for the petition to change the name of Manhattan's W 121st St (one block from Seminary Row) to <a href="http://fakeconsultant.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-fixing-world-or-help-george-carlin.html">George Carlin Street</a>, and we need your help; you can <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/district-9-community-board-and-nyc-city-council-name-the-500-block-of-west-121-street-in-honor-of-george-carlin">sign right here</a>. The goal is to reach 10,000 signatures by Monday, so...get to it.</blockquote>fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-20175852731183030292011-09-15T04:12:00.000-07:002011-09-15T04:26:14.643-07:00On Fixing The World, Or, Help George Carlin Stick It To GodOnce again The Fates have come our way to provide a story, and once again, we have a contender for the “Ironic Story Of The Year”.<br /><br />It’s got everything you need for serious irony: an irascible comedian who mocked religion at every opportunity, a city that loved him, and the rich coincidence of his having been born at the crossroads of New York City’s communities of religious education.<br /><br />And that’s why, today, we’ll be talking about the effort to name the street right next to Manhattan’s Seminary Row…Carlin Street.<br /><br />(And before we go further, a language warning: we’ll be quoting George Carlin liberally, and that means there may be present today certain of the seven words with which he created one of his best known routines. You are now officially warned.)<br /><br /><blockquote>I’ve begun worshipping the Sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the Sun. It’s there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There’s no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, and there’s no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the Sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.<br /><br />--George Carlin, from the book <em>“<a href="http://agnosticuniverse.org/blog/2008/07/">Brain Droppings</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />There is a peculiarity to life in Manhattan that exists nowhere else on Earth: for more than 120 years, two of the world’s most important seminary institutions, the Union Theological Seminary and The Jewish Theological Seminary, have been literally kitty-corner from each other, right there at Broadway and W 122nd St.<br /><br />It is such a significant part of the culture of the community that W 122nd St is now officially known as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/22/nyregion/talk-seminary-row-west-122d-street-where-theologians-past-present-future-hold.html?src=pm">Seminary Row</a>, as it has been for over 40 years.<br /><br />And just one block away is the place where George Carlin grew up, on W 121st. During his childhood the Catholic Carlin was an altar boy, and it has been suggested that all this religious exposure may have <a href="http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/george_carlin/abortion_part_1-lyrics-219961.html">impacted his comedy</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>Now, speaking of consistency, Catholics, which I was until I reached the age of reason, Catholics and other Christians are against abortions, and they're against homosexuals. Well who has less abortions than homosexuals?! Leave these fucking people alone, for Christ sakes! Here is an entire class of people guaranteed never to have an abortion! And the Catholics and Christians are just tossing them aside! You'd think they'd make natural allies. Go look for consistency in religion. And speaking of my friends the Catholics, when John Cardinal O'Connor of New York and some of these other Cardinals and Bishops have experienced their first pregnancies and their first labor pains and they've raised a couple of children on minimum wage, then I'll be glad to hear what they have to say about abortion. I'm sure it'll be interesting. Enlightening, too. But, in the meantime what they ought to be doing is telling these priests who took a vow of chastity to keep their hands off the altar boys! Keep your hands to yourself, Father! You know? When Jesus said 'Suffer the little children come unto me', that's not what he was talking about!</blockquote><br /><br />It’s not just the two seminaries, either, that would have influenced Carlin: Columbia University is immediately next door, as are The Manhattan School of Music/Julliard (The Julliard School later moved to Lincoln Center, but when Carlin lived on the block they had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/realestate/streetscapes-manhattan-school-music-122nd-street-between-claremont-avenue.html?pagewanted=3&src=pm">1800 students enrolled</a>), and <a href="http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/">The Riverside Church</a>, which is presumably the exact place that set Carlin on his future path. <br /><br /><blockquote>Fun Fact: Italian game design studio <a href="http://www.molleindustria.org/en/home">Molleindustria</a>, the same folks who partnered with <a href="http://yeslab.org/project/phone-story">YesLab</a> to produce <a href="http://www.phonestory.org/">Phone Story</a> (the App that was <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2011/09/13/phone-story-app-critiques-iphone-lifecycle-gets-yanked/">yanked after one day at the App Store</a> because it says a bit too much about how phones are made; it’s still available on the Android market), also created the game <em><a href="http://www.molleindustria.org/en/operation-pedopriest">Operation: Pedopreist</a></em>, which is one of several “Radical Games” that you can play online at their website.</blockquote><br /><br />So now comes before us Kevin Bartini (he’s the warm-up comic for <em>“The Daily Show”</em>), with an <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Name-West-121-Street-for-George-Carlin/243958212301511">organizing effort</a> to change W 121st to Carlin Street.<br /><br />Bartini, who told the <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/09/george_carlin_s.php">Village Voice</a> that this is a “no-brainer”, says his interest is motivated not just by the fact that Carlin grew up in the neighborhood; he also wants to acknowledge the influence the neighborhood had on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo">Carlin’s comedy</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>“…and the Invisible Man has a special list of ten things that he does not want you to do, and if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, ‘til the end of time – but he loves you.”</blockquote><br /><br />A <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/district-9-community-board-and-nyc-city-council-name-the-500-block-of-west-121-street-in-honor-of-george-carlin">petition</a> is now circulating, and after 6 days 3000 signatures had been collected…but this is George Carlin, and this is New York City, and, dammit, this is America, and I think we can do a lot better than that if we try, so do me a favor, sign the petition, and go show some love to someone who truly deserves the recognition.<br /><br />You won’t have to wear a suit or a big hat, no one will be bowing or kneeling, and there won’t be a collection plate. Sacramental wine is encouraged; if you’d prefer sacramental pizza I’m sure no one’s going to complain – but if you have ‘em both together, make sure it’s not at a Sbarro or something.<br /><br />I think we’ve enough for today, and there’s no need to drag this out when you have your mission, so let’s go get those signatures, and let’s get Carlin Street officially on the map.<br /><br />And just think: if we succeed – it could well have been God’s will.<br />And what could be more ironic than that?fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-54472747019445970612011-09-11T06:53:00.001-07:002012-06-15T14:57:29.128-07:00On Not Doing 9/11, Or, Right Now, I’ve Got A Desk To ClearI’m going to be really honest with you: after all the fights at the mall to get just the right present for everybody and the giant hassle of going to the Post Office so I can get the perfect stamps for my cards – and then worrying that I left someone off the list – I am just not in the mood to do a 9/11 story.
And it’s been getting worse every year. I mean, just like the “It’s Christmas Every Day Store”, I know there’s one of the “9/11 Every Day” stores open, in the all-too-human form of Rudy Giuliani, and I’ve learned to live with that, but it seems like they got started with the 9/11 earlier than ever this year – and by the time the TV memorials and analysis and retrospectives are all over, to paraphrase Lewis Black…I’m going to hate freedom.
In an effort to stave off this fate, we’ll be headed in a different direction today: I have three stories to pass along; each is important enough that you really should know about them, and yet they’re each very much bite-sized and easily digestible.
It’s all good stuff…so let’s get right to it.
<blockquote>ASHES TO ASHES
FOREST TO DUST
KEEP WISCONSIN GREEN
OR WE’LL
ALL GO BUST
BURMA-SHAVE
--Burma Shave sign, 1949, as quoted in the book <em>“<a href="http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/burmashave.html">Verse By The Side Of The Road</a>”</em>, by Frank Rowsome, Jr. </blockquote>
So let’s start with AIDS. If you have it, you need AIDS drugs – but you might not be able to afford ‘em. So what do you do?
Well…one obvious choice is to die, slowly – but another is to seek help from the State. In most States, that is done in a fairly routine matter, but in some Sates it is not; for some of the folks in these States, instead of drugs, they get a waiting list.
And since AIDS doesn’t really recognize waiting lists…this is bad.
(Fun Fact: See if you can guess where the 12 States who have waiting lists <a href="http://dgsma.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/montana-petition-to-end-adap-waiting-lists/">are located</a>; if you guessed more or less the Old Confederacy, you get a cookie. Of the 9200 Americans on waiting lists, only about 225 live above the Mason-Dixon Line; almost 6000 are in Florida and Georgia alone.)
But it can be fixed, for about <a href="http://www.bilerico.com/2011/09/adap_crisis_how_you_can_help.php">$105 million</a>, if we lean on the right people, and as our friend D. Gregory Smith over at Bilerico tells us, Congressman <a href="http://rehberg.house.gov/index.html">Denny Rehberg</a> (MT-01) is one person to be leaning on.
A <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/chair-house-labor-hhs-appropriations-subcommittee-increase-the-aids-drug-assistance-program-adap-funding">petition</a> is circulating that you can sign to help move this along, or you can call Rehberg’s DC office Monday at (202) 225-3211 – and whichever one you do – or both – you’re going to be doing a whole lot of folks you never met a whole lot of good.
So now that you’ve done your part to help out those who need it…how about a bit of a thought experiment?
You are no doubt aware that you’ve been subsidizing, with your hard-earned tax dollars, the use of fossil fuels – and in fact, if you’re a typical American, you spent just about $500 over the past five years to do just that.
Of course, over the same time period you’ve been subsidizing solar power as well, and here’s where the thought experiment comes into play:
Try to imagine how much you’ve spent on <em>that</em> subsidy.
Whaddaya think?
$250, $150, $900?
$825, $3350, <a href="http://simpsonsimages.tumblr.com/post/1475315267/wrong-the-cash-register-says-847-63-this-was-a">$847.63</a>?
How about none of the above.
How about…wait for it…$7.24.
That’s right: at the same time you’ve been handing over an extra $100 a year to oil companies…for no particular reason…even as the price of oil keeps going up…you’ve been providing about a $1.40 a year to encourage the rollout of a technology that can potentially <a href="http://howsolarworks.1bog.org/solar-economics/">pay for itself</a>, might just help get us off oil as a transportation fuel, and could even provide a few million jobs along the way – and as we all know, if we build “solar stuff” in the USA and throw it right up on our roofs, then it’s gonna make it pretty tough for OPEC or China or whomever to raise the price of the Sun as we back away from oil and build out electric cars.
Pretty much all of this argument is presented in <a href="http://1bog.org/blog/what-if-solar-power-had-fossil-fuel-like-subsidies-infographic-b/">one handy graphic</a> by the folks at <a href="http://1bog.org/">1 Block Off The Grid</a>, an organization that seeks to put solar electricity generation on your roof, and I became aware of this because it was Tweeted to me (and to be honest, I get enough Tweets a day that I’m not going to go back and figure out who it was (<em>mea culpa</em>) – although I can tell you that Roger Ebert posted the handy graphic at <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/science-and-not/what-if-solar-energy-received-.html">his blog</a> on the <em>“Chicago Sun-Times”</em> site; he’s also Tweeted on the subject.
That’s two out of today’s three stories down, and the last one is a good one:
If you don’t know The Yes Men by now, you should; they’re a modern version of the “Merry Pranksters” who blow minds by helping corporations stumble over their own deep embarrassments - very publicly.
Here’s the most recent example: Peabody Energy mines coal that is associated with air pollution that is threatening the lives of the kids who live near…well, air, anyway, and The Yes Men did a little collaboration with a group called <a href="http://www.change.org/coal_kills_kids">Coal is Killing Kids</a> that involved creating a fake “health campaign” supposedly orchestrated by Peabody (the “<a href="http://yeslab.org/project/coal-cares">Coal Cares</a>” Project).
The <a href="http://coalcares.org/">fake announcement</a> said that Peabody would begin giving free inhalers to kids living near coal-fired power plants – and to make asthma more fun for the kids, “fake Peabody” announced their new line of kiddie inhalers: “the Bieber”, “My Little Pony”, “Baby’s First Inhaler”, and, of course, the “Harry Potter”.
There’s also a webpage with <a href="http://coalcares.org/kidzkoalkorner.html">fun activities for the kids</a> (try the wordsearch…or perhaps you’d rather color in “Puff” and “Ash”); just swing on by <a href="http://www.coalcares.org/">CoalCares.org</a> to join the fun.
Naturally, the real Peabody had to deny everything, and they’re not at all happy about it – and that is what equals victory in these “assaults of embarrassment”. (There was an additional, coincidental, victory: Scholastic Books decided to <a href="http://commercialfreechildhood.blogspot.com/2011/05/scholastic-severs-ties-with-coal.html">sever their ties</a> with the coal industry, and <a href="http://yeslab.org/project/coal-cares-scholastic">CoalCares</a> helped; as a result coal industry-funded curricular materials will no longer be distributed to schools.)
Now the reason all this happened is because The Yes Men have decided they couldn’t <a href="http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/">fix the world</a> all by themselves, and they’re sort of “growing the brand” by launching the <a href="http://www.yeslab.org/">YesLab</a> (it’s another collaboration, this time with New York University). Are you in New York on the 14th? <a href="http://hemi.nyu.edu/hemi/es/eventos-hemisferico-ny/996-09-14-11-worlds-collide">Attend the launch event</a>. It’s free, and it will be fun.
But amidst all the fun and frivolity, there’s a serious side here: this thing is not going to be cheap, and while I almost never ask you to donate to anything – even me – I am going to ask you, if you have a few extra bucks, to help out the YesLab, which you can do by hitting that “Donate” button on the left side of the <a href="http://www.yeslab.org/">YesLab.org</a> page.
So that’s it for today: you can help fix the world, you can help spread the word about energy subsidies for fossil fuels, and maybe you can help someone get off a waiting list that, at the moment, is leaving them waiting for death.
Or, I suppose, you could go pop on the TV and watch the rest of that 72-hour 9/11 marathon that’s been on every single channel in the world – but with my 9/11 cards now sent out and the presents all delivered…I know which one <em>I’d</em> prefer.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-29512616734277268592011-09-06T14:03:00.000-07:002011-09-06T14:26:06.509-07:00On Bilking The Sophisticated, Or, Check It Out: We’re Suing Banks!I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I’m sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.<br /><br />You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone’s faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?<br /><br />Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.<br /><br />Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they’re suing 17 firms (I’ll give you a list, bit it’s pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.<br /><br />As Joe Biden would say, it’s a big…well, it’s a big deal, anyway, and that’s why we’re starting the new week with this one.<br /><br /><blockquote>“An artist is only answerable to himself. He promises nothing to the centuries to come save his own works. He stands caution only for himself. He dies childless. He has been his own king, his own priest, and his own god.”<br /><br />--Charles Baudelaire, as quoted in the book <em>“<a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300141061">Cezanné and Beyond</a>”</em>, edited by Joseph J Rishel and Katherine Sachs </blockquote><br /><br />So what do we know?<br /><br />As we said, on Friday the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/federal-government-to-sue-major-banks-over-fannie-and-freddie-losses/2011/09/02/gIQAPom7wJ_story.html">Washington Post</a> and others reported that there were a series of lawsuits <a href="http://www.fhfa.gov/Default.aspx?Page=110">filed by the FHFA</a> in their capacity as Conservator of the assets of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac against darn near everyone.<br /><br />The FHFA is alleging, to make a long story short, that everyone involved misled Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac (the “Entities”, in the words of the lawsuits), to some extent, and that the misleading involved making representations to the Entities about the various metrics related to what Fanny and Freddy were buying from these banks.<br /><br />For example, it’s alleged that when certain banks sold batches of mortgage loans to the Entities, they lied about how many of the owners were actually living in the homes; that makes a difference when you’re trying to figure out how likely a borrower is to pay back a loan.<br /><br />It appears that a <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15362522,00.html">defense</a> the banks will offer is that Fannie and Freddy were “sophisticated investors” who should have known the risks buried in the batches of loans they were buying (and they <em>were</em> sophisticated investors: they bought, literally, trillions of dollars worth of loans) – but if it can be proven that the banks were lying about what was in the loan packages, that defense might not do so well in front of a jury.<br /><br />“<a href="http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/22599/PLSLitigation_final_090211.pdf">Everyone involved</a>” includes Bank of America (B of A), Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Countrywide (which means B of A is actually being sued twice), Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, the UK’s HSBC and Barclays Banks, France’s Société Générale, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura Securities (representing Japan), and GE and GM (<a href="http://www.gecapital.com/en/index.html">GE Capital</a> is a surprisingly large and varied business; GM got in the banking business to finance auto sales, and you may today know them as Ally Bank). <br /><br />Of course, Wall Street is also part of “everyone”; that’s why the list also includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch (which means, thanks to acquisitions, that B of A is actually getting sued <em>three</em> times). The City of Memphis also <a href="http://www.memphisflyer.com/CityBeatBlog/archives/2011/09/03/memphis-cracks-global-top-17-in-financial-shenanigans">proudly</a> makes the list, thanks to First Horizon.<br /><br />Some notable names not on the list? Key Bank and Wells Fargo, who seem to have escaped action so far; there’s also UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland), who was already served with a <a href="http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/21841/FHFAvUBSstamped.pdf">similar lawsuit</a> in July.<br /><br />It is difficult to determine exactly how much money is involved, as various sources disagree, but we know that Deutsche Bank is being sued for about <a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15362522,00.html">$14 billion</a>, all by itself. (B of A is being sued, all told, for a bit over $50 billion; they’ve already paid out more than $12 billion this year to settle another similar claim.) <br /><br />Felix Salmon, at the Seeking Alpha website, has <a href="http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2011/9/4/saupload_table_thumb1.jpg">created a chart</a> that seeks to measure who is in the most trouble here; by his measure JP Morgan Chase is far and away at the top of the list…except that the current incarnation of B of A represents three of the top eight spots on his list, which suggests the FHFA is targeting them for the most recovery. (Salmon used the number of individual defendants, how many pages were in the lawsuit, and whether the suits seek punitive damages as his yardsticks; from there he calculated a score that makes up his rankings.)<br /><br />All this had to happen right now, it appears, because a statute of limitations <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/federal-government-to-sue-major-banks-over-fannie-and-freddie-losses/2011/09/02/gIQAPom7wJ_story.html">is in play</a>; the WaPo reports that a failure to file the suits would have meant the FHFA would have lost the ability to recover those monies. (It’s also reported that pre-lawsuit negotiations were stalling, and those negotiations will presumably continue, with a series of impending court dates to help, shall we say, sharpen the focus.)<br /><br />Now that is pretty much all the story I have for you today on this one – except for a bit of a “discuss amongst yourselves” to finish things up:<br /><br />It has been suggested that the FHFA is in an inherently conflicted position in all these cases. That’s because the agency is acting as both the regulator of these banks and the “victim” as we seek any monies that may be due from any fraud. <br /><br />So what would be a better situation?<br /><br />Should the FHFA continue to regulate the banks they’re suing as a victim, or should another regulator be put in place…or should another Conservator be appointed, leaving the FHFA as “just a regulator”, and not a victim?<br /><br />It’s a question worth about $200 billion, more or less – and even in these times, that’s still a lot of your money.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-83956613393434713882011-08-22T03:04:00.000-07:002011-08-22T03:20:54.382-07:00On Doing Better Than 50%, Part Two, Or, Is “Made in USA” A Jobs Program?When <a href="http://fakeconsultant.blogspot.com/2011/08/on-doing-better-than-50-or-could-more.html">last we met</a>, it was to discuss a Big Idea that the Obama Administration might apply to get some job creation going, despite a difficult Congress; the Big Idea was to look at the “Buy American” provisions that exist in our laws, regulations, and Executive Orders and see if we could practice a bit of “jobs <em>arbitrage</em>” by not just meeting the “Made in USA” requirements when governments across this country make purchases, but exceeding them.
<br />
<br />(As it stands today, pretty much any “good or service” with more than 50% Made in USA content qualifies as a Made in USA purchase, even if 49% of the “good or service” comes from somewhere else).
<br />
<br />At the time, I told you that if all went well we could look forward to comments from both Labor and the Administration as to the practicality of the Big Idea, and as it turns out I have comments for you that hit close to that mark – and a bit more besides:
<br />
<br />On Saturday I just happened to bump into Congressman Adam Smith (WA-09); in the course of that conversation I told him what we’re doing here, and he wanted to offer a few thoughts of his own…and when you put all that together, I think we’re going to have a lot to talk about.
<br />
<br /><blockquote>“Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them; Britain has trembled like an auge at the report of a French fleet of flat bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was preformed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc.
<br />
<br />--From <em>“<a href="http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm">The Crisis</a>”</em>, by Thomas Paine; essay of December 23, 1776</blockquote>
<br />
<br />So the two-second recap of the Big Idea is that if government, at all levels, were Buying More American we could create More American Jobs, and as we mentioned above, the way the rules stand today, 51% Made in USA is good enough – and that seems to leave a lot of room to do better.
<br />
<br />Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems, and despite what Tom Lehrer might say, it’s not all <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhuMLpdnOjY">skittles and beer</a> for this proposal either.
<br />
<br />I have a source in the Administration who would not go on the record for this story; nonetheless I was sent a detailed email response “on background”, which I’ll paraphrase for our use today:
<br />
<br /><blockquote>We are looking to expand US trade abroad, and we have made deals for access. We agree not to restrict, for the most part, where purchases can be made, and we expect reciprocity from the rest of the world when their governments do their purchasing - or at least from those governments with whom we have a WTO Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) or a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). (Want even more details? Check out either the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/usc_sup_01_19_10_13.html">Trade Agreements Act of 1979</a> or <a href="http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/98-545.pdf">this</a> Congressional Research Service report).
<br />
<br />The Administration would tell you that 95% of the world’s consumers live outside the USA, making trade reciprocity particularly valuable for the US.
<br />
<br />They would also tell you that if we decide on our own to “change the deal”, then we should expect retaliation from other governments.
<br />
<br />Beyond that, they would suggest that there are US companies that source many of their products or product components globally, and those companies would actually be hurt by stricter Made in USA requirements.
<br />
<br />Finally, the Administration points out that there is a dollar cost for more Made in USA, as opposed to using what can often be cheaper foreign sourcing.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />In the introduction I suggested that I had a comment from Labor, and that’s somewhat correct. I contacted the Washington Sate Labor Council (WSLC) for a comment, and they sent me material that came from the <a href="http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/buyamericalawsreportr.pdf">Alliance for American Manufacturing</a> (AAM), at the same time telling me that the AAM’s position on Buy American is the same as their own.
<br />
<br />It is inaccurate to refer to the AAM as a Labor organization, however, as they are a <a href="http://www.usw.org/our_union/allies_and_partners?id=0010">partnership</a> of Unions, manufacturers, and other interested parties. Among those partners are the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers (USW); the USW was one of the founders of the group.
<br />
<br />They take issue with a great deal of what the Administration has to say, and I’ll start with a quote from an email sent to me Friday by the AAM’s Steven Capozzola:
<br />
<br /><blockquote>The threat of retaliation for buy America is ridiculous. The law [the Buy American Act, <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/41/10a.html">41 USC 10a-d</a>] is specifically written so as to be applied when permissible under our existing trade obligations.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />Here’s a quote from AAM material that was referred to me by the WSLC:
<br />
<br /><blockquote>…the U.S. is, by far, the world’s largest importer, soaking up a net $819 billion in goods in 2007…The U.S. imports far more than it exports, a balance of sales that our trading partners are anxious to preserve. This is not about restricting imports. It is about using taxpayer dollars, when allowed by our international obligations, to purchase U.S.-produced goods. As the global downturn has progressed, many industrialized countries such as France and China have already taken similar action to support their domestic manufacturing base.
<br />
<br />…These trade agreements do however allow for domestic preference under a number of circumstances…These preferences were negotiated for a reason. It would be irresponsible not to utilize them to the fullest extent possible.
<br />
<br />…By contrast, other countries have held themselves out of the reform movement and have instead opted to promote their own manufacturing base through closed self-procurement programs. A good example is China, which, in addition to a recent $586 billion stimulus program, continues to subsidize its own producers via deliberate (and illegal) currency undervaluation. Until countries like China make the same commitments, and sign-on to internationally accepted procurement agreements, the U.S. will accomplish nothing by making yet more unilateral concessions.
<br />
<br />In addition, as noted above, these contentions rely on the baseless assumption that the U.S. currently has any significant access to foreign procurement markets that would be at risk if other countries “retaliated.” The majority of the foreign stimulus in PPI’s tally is made up of $614 billion being spent by countries that have no procurement obligations towards the United States and that already apply domestic procurement preferences (principally China, but also India and Brazil).
<br />
<br />-- Alliance for American Manufacturing, <em>“<a href="http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/fyi_factonbuyamerica.pdf">The Facts on ‘Buy America’ and Domestic Sourcing</a>”</em>, February 2009</blockquote>
<br />
<br />The AAM would also want you to know that in addition to China numerous other countries, specifically Canada, certain European nations, Japan, and Brazil all use other forms of “discrimination” to “preference” their goods over ours when it comes to government procurement: impossible-to-meet technical standards, “murky” purchase procedures, and bid rigging are all tools used around the world to make sure local suppliers are just a bit more, shall we say…reciprocal…than a US supplier might be.
<br />
<br />Look, I hate to do this to everyone, but we’re once again running longer than we should, and we still have a lot more to talk about, so at this point I’m going to call “cliffhanger!” and set us up for a Part Three.
<br />
<br />Here’s the “agenda”:
<br />
<br />We’ll be talking about how the devil’s in the details: specifically, we’ll be looking at what “Buy American” is already excluded from these various trade agreements– and there’s a lot more than you might think, even as some of it is targeted in amazingly specific ways (to do that we’ll be paying particular attention to the annexes to the WTO agreement); we’ll also get Congressman Smith’s reaction to all of this…and once again, we’ll see if we can’t get it all done in 1500 words or less.
<br />
<br />And on a lovely summer’s day, what could possibly be better beach reading…what with the redolence of the lazy sea breezes and the surf washing gently up on the shore and all…than 1500 <em>more</em> words on the annexes to the WTO agreement and how it all relates to sneaking a jobs program past recalcitrant Republicans?
<br />
<br />I can’t think of anything else either, and I can’t wait to see you there.
<br />fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-69879877509158734032011-08-15T02:42:00.000-07:002011-08-15T03:24:50.473-07:00On Doing Better Than 50%, Or, Could More “Made In USA” Mean More Jobs?We gotta grow some jobs, and that’s a fact, and we probably aren’t going to be able to do it with big ol’ jobs programs funded by the Federal Government, what with today’s politics and all, and that means if this Administration wants to stay in the jobs game they’re going to have to find some smaller and more creative ways to do it.
<br />
<br />They are also going to have to come up with ideas that are pretty much “bulletproof”, meaning that they are so hard to object to that even Allen West and Louie Gohmert will not want to be on record saying “no no no!”; alternatively, solutions that work around the legislative process entirely could represent the other form of “bulletproof-ery”.
<br />
<br />Well, I have one of those “maybe bulletproof” ideas for you today, and it has to do with how “Made in USA” the things are that our Government buys.
<br />
<br /><blockquote>The archer sees the mark along the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far.
<br />
<br />Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
<br />
<br />For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.
<br />
<br />--From <em>“<a href="http://leb.net/~mira/works/prophet/prophet4.html">The Prophet</a>”</em>, by Kahlil Gibran
<br /></blockquote>
<br />For the rest of the story to make sense, we’ll have to define a term; specifically, “Made in USA”.
<br />
<br />Most manufacturers in the US have to meet a very stringent standard before they can refer to a product as “Made in USA”; here’s how the standard is described by the <a href="http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard">Federal Trade Commission</a>:
<br />
<br /><blockquote>Traditionally, the Commission has required that a product advertised as Made in USA be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.
<br /></blockquote>
<br />
<br />There are special rules, most notably for automobiles (also textiles, wool, and fur), but for the most part everyone else goes by the “all or virtually all” standard when they claim something is “Made in USA”.
<br />
<br />With one giant exception.
<br />
<br />When the Federal Government “Buys American”, anything with over 50% US content is considered “Made in USA”; this according to the provisions of, naturally enough, the Buy American Act, <a href="http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/41/1/10a">41 USC 10a – c</a>. (Beyond the law, there are also certain Federal Regulations and Executive Orders involved; for now we’ll just call it all “the law” and let it go at that.)
<br />
<br />Now there doesn’t seem to be anything immediately evident in the law that would prevent the Federal Government from purchasing <em>more</em> than 50% US content if we wanted to, and the Big Idea here today is that if government at all levels began to purchase more than 50% US content, we could create more US jobs, now and in the future, and we could do it with a minimum of muss and fuss.
<br />
<br />Obviously, there are practical limits as to how far you could take such an approach (for example, good luck buying a Made in USA laptop), and the current law has exceptions that reflect that reality.
<br />
<br />But consider this: there are about <a href="http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/admin/2010FFR1a.xls">450.000</a> vehicles in the Federal inventory (that does not include military combat vehicles), with roughly half of those belonging to the Postal Service; the General Services Administration buys about <a href="http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20100122/FACILITIES03/1220305/1030/FACILITIES03">65.000</a> vehicles a year (they run the Federal motor pool, and that’s the other half of the inventory).
<br />
<br />Beyond that, think of all the billions upon billions of dollars of more mundane things the government buys every year: janitorial supplies, paper and toner, desks and chairs…well, you get the idea; now imagine if more of all of that was made right here.
<br />
<br />One example of how we can do better can be found in Celina, Tennessee, where a garment factory that was doing work for the Air Force found itself unable to compete for a subcontract on $100 million worth of uniforms being made for the TSA; that’s because the uniforms were being <a href="http://www.newschannel5.com/story/12297925/us-tax-money-pays-foreign-workers-for-tsa-uniforms">made in Mexico</a> instead.
<br />
<br />If the work was being done here, it could mean about 300 jobs in a town that could really use ‘em. (By law, military uniforms are supposed to be made in USA; that’s an <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1308090.stm">imperfect process</a>.)
<br />
<br />Some things already are restricted: if we don’t have a reciprocal trade agreement with a country, they generally can’t sell to the US government; China and Taiwan fall into that group.
<br />
<br />I’m often guilty of running stories too long, so we’re going to cut this short today with a summary…followed by a cliffhanger that should keep you looking forward to Part Two:
<br />
<br />Government buys a whole lot of stuff, and we could be buying more of it in the USA, and if we did, it could translate into jobs in places like Celina, Tennessee.
<br />
<br />But it’s not as simple a picture as you might think, and when we get together next time, we’ll talk about the impact of free trade agreements on “Made in USA” purchasing, we’ll get the AFL-CIO’s reaction to all of this, and, if all goes well, we’ll see if we can provide official reaction from the Obama Administration.
<br />
<br />And even though you’ll be sitting in your seat…you’re only gonna need the edge…
<br />fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-2374662138783477932011-08-04T05:19:00.000-07:002011-08-04T12:28:35.934-07:00On Organizing Anger, Or, Could Olbermann Primary Obama?It was just a couple of nights ago that Keith Olbermann was challenging us, in one of his “Special Comments”, to rise up in the streets and take back this country.<br /><br />He pointed out that the only way those on the left were going to be able to fight against those who are looking to get all “Tea Party” is to be as angry and as organized and as aggressive as the Tea Party community, and if we’re smart, we’ll take him up on that challenge.<br /><br />But if you really want to push “professional” Democrats to the left, most especially this President, and you want to do it in time to impact the ’12 cycle, the only way to do it is to run a candidate in primary contests that either moves the conversation your way…or leaves you with a surprising new Candidate.<br /><br />And right here, right now, we actually have a chance to do exactly that – and that’s why, in today’s discussion, I’m going to challenge Olbermann right back.<br /><br /><blockquote>“Then white men began to fence the plains so that we could not travel; and anyhow there was…nothing to travel for. We began to stay in one place, and to grow lazy and sicker all the time. Our men had fought hard against our enemies, holding them back from our beautiful country by their bravery, but now with everything else going wrong, we began to be whipped by their weak foolishness…”<br /><br />--Pretty Shield, of the Crow Nation, quoted in the book <em>“<a href="http://www.loremipsumbooks.com/inv/2222727">The Native Americans: An Illustrated History</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So imagine, if you will, how the political conversation would be different right now if this President was facing a primary challenge from an unabashed Lefty.<br /><br />Let’s go further: just imagine how things would be different over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or over at the Capitol if someone announced they were running against this President from the left – and on the day that person announced, they had 15-20% of the Democratic electorate in their pocket, with an increasingly unpopular President on the other side.<br /><br />Now imagine if that person had no qualms about “pooping in the Democratic pool”, and was willing to call out the Party establishment for having let the Nation down in so many different ways these past couple years, which would presumably make that candidate very interesting to those who support the interests of Labor, just to give one example. <br /><br />And most importantly of all, imagine if this President, having just caved, again, for a second, and, soon, a third round of Republican hostage-taking (and facing a fourth in January of 2013), had to face a riled-up and articulate opponent on a debate stage.<br /><br />Of course, for that to happen, you’d need a credible figure with national recognition, and in this environment, it wouldn’t hurt if that person wasn’t too closely associated with either Washington or the existing political parties. <br /><br />(All of this would also make that candidate interesting to centrist voters as well; you’ll recall that the ’08 Obama Campaign appealed to many centrist voters for many of the same reasons.)<br /><br />It also wouldn’t hurt if that person <em>looked</em> like a President, and even better, if that person was entirely familiar with the world of television.<br /><br />So think about all that for a minute…and after you do, consider this: is there anyone else out there that you’d rather see primarying this President than Keith Olbermann?<br /><br />Now let me take a minute and talk directly to you, Mr. Olbermann:<br /><br />I know you said that it’s time for us to get organized and angry, but in this media world, if you don’t have Astroturf to get your movement off the ground, you need a celebrity with respect in all the right places, and that describes you pretty well.<br /><br />Movements need to raise money, and if you were to go out there and do a week of hustling, I’ll bet you could raise seed money from both the “Left Coast” and “Upper West Side” communities (and you might even be able to hit your boss up for a donation); you could also draw a lot of PAC money (Labor, for starters, the gAyTM, for another) and lots of individual, enthusiastic, Internet contributions – and what happens to the political conversation if the Olbermann Campaign begins to raise money at a pace that puts The Fear on the Obama Campaign?<br /><br />Al Gore took a big risk, and a made a big financial commitment besides, when he decided to bring you over to Current, and I don’t want you to have to worry about what’s going to happen over there; with that in mind I’m going to suggest that we ask Michael Moore to step in to take the wheel for a short time, at the same time you let Schuster run the actual newsgathering operation, so that we know you’ll be able to come back to something that has been in pretty good hands.<br /><br /><blockquote>“…(baseball is) our national pastime, that is if you discount political campaigning.”<br /><br />--<a href="http://www.uncoverage.net/2011/04/major-league-baseball-tributes-to-ronald-reagan/">Ronald Reagan</a></blockquote><br /><br />Before you dismiss this idea out of hand, Keith (can I call you Keith?), I want you to think about one thing, and I want you to think about this very, very, carefully:<br /><br />You know what happens to those lucky few who actually make it through a Presidential campaign and win?<br /><br />They get to throw out the first pitch of the new baseball season – at least four times.<br /><br />You could take a few months out of what you have done so well and really change the direction of this nation’s politics, and you could think of it as a patriotic duty– but it would also be an incredible learning experience, and you’d come back to your own job with an understanding of the inner workings of <em>realpolitik</em> that very few on television could ever match…and after it’s over, since you wouldn’t be running again, you could actually talk about “where the bodies are buried” in a way no one else can. <br /><br />Maybe you’re thinking: “How can I be credible if I have no real ability to run a government?” The answer can be found, literally, right here.<br /><br />The Blogosphere is entirely capable of providing the appointees who would run a Government – after all, we have experts, including a Nobel laureate, to run an economy (Secretary of the Treasury Paul Krugman? Robert Reich for Council of Economic Advisors?), and folks like Lawrence Wilkerson who could take over at State…and I could go on and on and on, all the way down to my man Marshall Adame, who, I promise you, has all the training and skills we would need to ramrod the actual physical process of withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan (you’ll find him at BlueNC; on his <em>resume</em> is a stint running the Basra Airport, a couple of decades as a Marine logistician, and an unsuccessful run for Congress).<br /><br />And it’s not like you would be <em>more</em> subject to scrutiny than you are now: virtually every hard-right Conservative out there already sees you as the Devil incarnate – and that’s actually an advantage in this situation that can’t be ignored.<br /><br />So…whaddaya think?<br /><br />You want to go from making Special Comments about how The Fear has overtaken Democrats to being the one who puts The Fear upon them?<br /><br />You wanna drive Grover Norquist and Steny Hoyer absolutely nuts, both at the same time?<br /><br />You want to finally do what Craig Nettles got to do, that you never did: play baseball <em>and</em> join the circus?<br /><br />Well, here’s your chance to do something that could change the whole political conversation – and before we’re done, President Obama might even find those “comfortable shoes” we’ve heard so much about.<br /><br />So let’s take one for America, and let’s get this thing on the hump, or whatever <em>cliché</em> you prefer…but let’s do it now, and let’s do it well, and let’s create something that brings the “discouraged” public to bear in a way they aren’t today.<br /><br />This is your chance to do something big, something profound…something that takes your “diva tendencies” and plays them to their best advantage…and I think it’s time for you to get behind this idea; before, as you suggested could happen, the window to fight back closes.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-86657714950403608152011-08-01T07:30:00.000-07:002011-08-01T07:31:40.381-07:00On Speaking To Power, Or, When Sanity’s Gone, There’s Always SatireSo everybody’s hearing the news, right?<br /><br />There is a tentative debt ceiling deal, and this Administration and Congressional Democrats seem to have won everything they wanted: Republicans get to have multiple “we don’t approve” votes before 2012 on raising the debt ceiling, there won’t be any new revenue, there’s going to be another “hostage-taking” event around Christmastime, for many Democrats the issue of the Ryan Budget and the dismantling of Medicare is likely off the table for the 2012 electoral cycle, and the Administration seems to have figured out a way to not involve itself in shaping the way that entitlement reform will work out. <br /><br />All in all, it’s some pretty slick negotiating, and I’m sure this Administration and Democratic Congressional leaders must be very proud. <br /><br />Even on bad days, however, you gotta have some fun, and that’s why I’m encouraging everyone to take a minute today to say #thanksalot.<br /><br /><blockquote>“This is tremendous, Don, just tremendous. The atmosphere heavy, uncertain, overtones of ugliness; a reminder in a way of how it was in March of 1964, at Miami Beach, when Clay met Liston for the first time and nobody was certain how it would turn out.”<br /><br />--Howard Cosell, from the Woody Allen movie <em>“<a href="http://boingboing.net/2008/10/10/christopher-hitchens-1.html">Bananas</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />There are a thousand other people today who will detail exactly where this went wrong, but I’m all about at least sending some kind of message; in order to say “thanks a lot” I’ve been Tweeting satire to the White House, and I’m hoping you’ll take some time today to do the same thing, using the #thanksalot hashtag.<br /><br />“But I don’t Twibble, or Twister, or whatever they do on twitter”, you might say “and I don’t really get how it works”.<br /><br />No problem.<br /><br />If you want to send a message to a twitter user, you just put an “@” in front of their name, as in @whitehouse, usually right at the beginning of your message. <br /><br />Hashtags are keywords that allow for lots of similar messages to be located, all together; when you put an “#” in front of a “word” it becomes a hashtag, as in #thanksalot or #arentyoutiredof. Popular hashtags become “trending” hashtags, and that’s one way how you make a big public statement on twitter (“Retweeting” someone else’s message is another way it’s done; retweeting and the sending of hastagged messages often occur symbiotically.)<br /><br />Just to get you in the sarcastic spirit of the thing, here are some of the Tweets I’ve sent so far today:<br /><br /><blockquote>@whitehouse Obama visits fallen building, a collapsed trench, and Carlsbad Caverns; says he'll "never cave" on debt deal. #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse republicans propose "logan's run", obama seeks reasonable compromise. #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse offers 1 Wet-Nap for each American thrown under bus yesterday; Republicans protest new "entitlement" #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse Prozac pill commits suicide; says in note that White House caving once again is "too depressing" #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse To avoid uncertainty in December, Obama Administration announces today they're caving on Bush tax cut extension #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse Dec. 23, 2011-Boehner: "We'll agree to revenue increases when both houses have a clean vote to repeal Obamacare..." #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse Dec 25, 2011-Administration announces entitlement compromise: cat food now food stamp-eligible #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse Obama Administration announces they prefer to negotiate with hostage-takers: "It makes us feel less guilty..." #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse Obama Administration "feels America's pain", announces nationwide program to distribute K-Y after debt deal #thanksalot<br /><br />@whitehouse is there some sort of political viagra that could make obama "stand firm", just once? #thanksalot</blockquote><br /><br />At this point it looks like the only way this stinker goes down is if House Democrats vote against this bill and take the “Debt Ceiling Sword of Damocles” that the President has placed over their heads and put it right back on his, forcing either a 14th Amendment solution or a “clean” debt limit increase; if they do they not only stop this next hostage-taking dead in its tracks, but they create, for this Administration, the same level of fear that the Tea Party has today, and if that happens, then we move into the next stage of debt reduction negotiations from a position of strength.<br /><br />If they fail to stop this deal, then when Medicare gets whacked in December the Democrats become co-conspirators – and at that point, for a Congressional Democrat up for reelection in ‘12 it’s gonna be either go down with all the other incumbents or run against Obama.<br /><br />And at that point, the most interesting political question might be: did Obama depress turnout enough to cause Democrats to lose even more seats in Congress, or, when the details are better-known, is there going to be a huge “throw out all the bastards” vote that hammers Republicans just as ferociously as it does Democrats? <br /><br />And what about Michelle Bachmann?<br /><br />I don’t know, but it should be quite a soap opera between now and then, so stay tuned, make sure to say #thanksalot…and then do it a few times more…and most importantly of all, try to have as much fun in a bad situation as you can.<br /><br />After all, as long as it’s happening to everyone else, it’s still comedy; until it finally does hit you…it’s not yet officially tragedy.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-70723176561363049242011-07-29T04:30:00.000-07:002011-07-29T04:38:19.250-07:00On Running Your Own Government, Or, Why Pay The Military?I have not been talking about the insanity around the debt ceiling and debt and deficit and the efforts of Republicans to drive us all off the cliff, but I am today – and I’m going to do it by allowing you to grab ahold of this problem and see for yourself just how unbelievably bad this manufactured crisis is going to be.<br /><br />You will hear a lot of conversation about the consequences from others; today, however, you are going to get the chance to be both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will get to decide for yourself exactly what bills the Federal Government should and should not pay as the cash runs out if a deal is not made by the time borrowing authority runs out. <br /><br />At that point you’ll be able to see what’s coming for yourself – and once you do, you won’t need me to tell you what ugly is going to look like.<br /><br /><blockquote>“…no state has the right to secede unless it wishes to…[and] it is the President’s duty to enforce the laws, unless somebody opposes him…”<br /><br />--<a href="http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=93&subjectID=2">William H. Seward</a>, deprecating President James Buchanan’s efforts to preserve the Union, as quoted in the book <em>“<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=GXfGuNAvm7AC&pg=PA248&lpg=PA248&dq=No+state+has+the+right+to+secede+unless+it+wishes+to,+and+it+is+the+president%E2%80%99s+duty+to+enforce+the+laws,+unless+somebody+opposes+him.&source=bl&ots=R0slHHc4W_&sig=OCPOXS1nhl3uS7x3">Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So before I go sending you off to take the reins of power, let’s fill you in on a few things that you’ll need to know.<br /><br />If no one has explained it to you yet, the Great Big Fuss that is going on right now is set around two issues: there are those who feel that the best way to make this economy better is to ensure that the Federal Government is a smaller player in our economy and not running on a deficit; many of these folks feel the way to achieve this is to make immediate, drastic, cuts in Federal spending.<br /><br />At the same time, the United States has run up against its “debt limit”. That means the US will be unable to borrow money to fund ongoing government operations, and as you’ll soon see, right now we borrow a lot of the money we need to run today’s Government.<br /><br />So if you are one of those who seeks to immediately cut Federal spending, you could force that to happen by refusing to allow the Federal Government any more borrowing authority; the fear of what could happen after that is presumably going to force the opposition to accept any deal, no matter how draconian, just to obtain that borrowing authority.<br /><br />Naturally, the bigger a hostage you’re holding, the more draconian of a deal you hope you can make, and holding the “Full Faith and Credit of the United States” hostage is about as big as it gets; that’s why the Republicans are pushing for everything right this very second, from the end of Medicare and Medicaid to the right to <a href="http://www.grandcanyontrust.org/news/2011/07/sparks-fly-over-grand-canyon-rider-at-house-approps-markup/">mine uranium right next door to the Grand Canyon</a>.<br /><br />So with all that in mind, let’s talk money.<br /><br />In the month of August, the Federal Government is expected to take in <a href="http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Debt%20Ceiling%20Analysis%20FINAL%20(updated).pdf">$172.4 billion</a>.<br /><br />There will be a mess of bills that are coming due during the month; that amount totals $306.7 billion, and that means about 44% of the bills must go unpaid.<br /><br />Where’s that money go?<br /><br />The Big Five are interest on current debt, which must be paid to avoid a default, payments due to defense contractors, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; the five of those, alone, will be just about $160 billion.<br /><br />And that leaves $12.4 billion to fund everything else the Federal Government has to do.<br /><br />That would include the remaining cost of supporting our several wars, the entire Federal law enforcement establishment (for example, the FBI, DEA, ATF, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the TSA, the Border Patrol, the Federal Marshals’ Service and the Bureau of Prisons), the National Parks Service and the Forest Service, the Centers for Disease Control, the Weather Service…well, just about every single thing the Federal Government does, except the Big Five.<br /><br />So that’s the situation – and now it’s time for you to become the boss and make the choices:<br /><br />The fine folks at Bloomberg Government have created <a href="http://about.bgov.com/2011/07/12/august-invoices-show-u-s-treasury’s-limited-choices/">an interactive tool</a> that allows you to point and click your way to figuring this stuff out.<br /><br />You will find your spending choices, and you just click on what you want until you run out of money, which the handy bar on the left will manage for you. When the bar turns red…you’re out of money.<br /><br /><blockquote>“…Each month, I put all my bill collectors’ names in a hat, reach in, and pull out a name. That’s who I pay. If you keep calling here, then your name is not going in the hat next month.”<br /><br />--Steve Harvey, quoted in October 2003’s <em>“<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2yYEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=paying+bills:+if+you+keep+calling+me,+you+won't+be+in+the+hat&source=bl&ots=cFUEQT3JFb&sig=raJL0AktjdYYA414mVpxKyBGC2o&hl=en&ei=h4IyTojUIYnRiALg8oC6CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false">Vibe</a>”</em> magazine</blockquote><br /><br />OK folks, so now you know where to go, and you know what to do, so let’s make something happen. <br /><br />Take this tool and use it to create a conversation about just what really is at stake, and watch the look on your friends’ faces when you point out that the entire Federal Government is about to go out of business if Republicans have their way.<br /><br />I’d tell you the looks on their faces would be priceless – but that’s not true. <br /><br />Absent a debt ceiling deal, the price is actually going to be about $134 billion, which is the money we’re just not going to have next month, when we’re not doing things like paying for the salaries of active-duty servicemembers or food inspectors or the guards out there at the <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article713240.ece">Supermax</a>.<br /><br />It should be a fun time, all the way around – unless, of course, you’re one of the 300 million or so of us who are gonna get screwed over by it all.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-85740882272463421402011-07-26T07:29:00.000-07:002011-07-26T07:30:24.716-07:00Hitler Holds News Conference, Blames Balanced Budget Amendment For U.S. Defeat<strong>(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947)</strong> America’s new Führer, Adolf Hitler, announced today that his official War History would in fact acknowledge that one of the biggest contributing factors to the defeat of the Allies was the insistence of the former United States of America on sticking to its Balanced Budget Amendment, which left them unable to fund the wartime conversion of the US economy for the benefit of the Alliance.<br /><br />“All those ideas Mr. Roosevelt spoke of”, said Hitler, “Lend-Lease, modular shipbuilding, War Bonds, secret weapons…in the end, all of them were just words, since the Americans’ Congress was never willing to allow the country to fully fund its war effort.” <br /><br />As has been previously disclosed, Waffen SS historians have already located caches of documents in Washington describing plans to fund a massive military expansion in the former United States by selling War Bonds. <br /><br />These debt instruments would have allowed the Roosevelt Administration to spend up to 40% of the Gross Domestic Product of the former Nation in defending itself, the former United Kingdom, and other nations against the Fatherland, but for reasons that are still not well understood Conservative politicians demanded that the former US Government never “take on debt for outsiders”, or, in the words of Mae Cadoodie, leader of the American Tea Party movement, “Never invite a foreign entanglement that raises our taxes”.<br /><br />Had the Americans been allowed to sell War Bonds, or to raise taxes to fund the War, it is estimated that they could have provided tens of thousands of aircraft, millions of military vehicles, and hundreds of ships, but the Balanced Budget Amendment prevented any of that.<br /><br />This represents the end of a series of political arguments that had been taking place since the 1930s, when some American economists were suggesting that a new idea called “deficit spending” could be helpful in bringing the former USA out of the Great Depression; at that time the Roosevelt Administration was unable to establish agencies such as the Work Projects Administration, which would have built public works projects throughout the USA in an effort to revive the moribund economy.<br /><br />Mae Cadoodie and others fought back successfully against these ideas, pointing out that the last thing the US economy needed in a bad economy was new taxes; they made the same arguments when the Roosevelt Administration first proposed Lend-Lease as a war emergency measure.<br /><br />“We cannot inflict punishing new taxes on American industry at this fragile time in our recovery” Cadoodie said in a famous speech in 1939, “and if the market is really there for this military materiel, if it’s not just some boondoggle manufactured by Roosevelt to take money out of the pockets of the American people, then I’m sure the British will be able to find the funding they need from the markets or from charitable donations”. <br /><br />Cadoodie was unavailable for comment, as she and most other former American politicians are still serving on the Eastern Front, and will be for the foreseeable future.<br /><br />In a related story, the conversion of the remainder of the American industrial base is underway for the fight against the Russians, and millions of otherwise unemployed Americans are being drafted into the military services in preparation for the final assault.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-48832871348999856512011-07-23T21:16:00.000-07:002011-07-23T21:47:05.605-07:00On My Last Weekend, Or, Wanna Save A Few Trillion On Health Care?So I disappeared for a full week, right in the middle of what should have been a busy writing schedule, and I have to claim some “personal days” to cover the time we missed here at the blog – but it won’t be time entirely wasted.<br /><br />Instead, I’m going to jump into my own personal life for today’s story, and I’m going to do it so that we can stimulate some thinking about where we really need to go to if we ever hope to make some sense out of the crazy way we deliver health care in this country. <br /><br />Since this appears to be the weekend that a lot of decisions are either going to be made about the future of our “social safety net”…or they wont; we’re entirely unsure…let’s talk about how it actually works for a lot of us – and how it could work a lot better.<br /><br /><blockquote>But the worst part of the Industrial Revolution – and the part that has never been documented – is what happened to the role of managers. The owners of factories realized they needed a layer of insulation between themselves and the people they were exploiting. They needed the type of people who were incapable of understanding the workers’ pleas for common sense, decency, and safe working conditions. The owners wisely chose managers for these roles.<br /><br />--Scott Adams, from the book <em>“<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Smwpw6yb14sC&pg=PT159&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false">Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So as most of you know, I am a blogger, and that means, for better or worse, that this is how I’m trying to make a living – and as a result I, along with about 50,000,000 other Americans, find myself on the DGS Health Plan (never heard of DGS? It’s the “Don’t Get Sick” Health Plan).<br /><br />So what do I do? The same as a lot of you: I don’t get sick.<br /><br />And up ‘til now, it’s worked out surprisingly well, even though I weigh more than I should and I have a coke addiction that can see me consuming as much as 2 liters in a single day…but by last Friday I had one of those tooth twinges building up that you know is not going to end up well. <br /><br />By Friday night things were getting bad enough that I had to tell The Girlfriend that we were very likely to be going to an Emergency Room, if not that night, certainly by morning – unless things cleared up on their own, which, if you’re an optimist, could happen.<br /><br />So much for optimism. <br /><br />Midday Saturday we’re in downtown Seattle and I’m waiting in line to be seen by an intake clerk, then a triage nurse, and then a financial counselor, because there’s no way I can really take on a big medical bill.<br /><br />I’m lucky that Washington State has a “<a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=70.170">Charity Care Law</a>”; that law requires Washington’s hospitals to accept all comers at the Emergency Room, regardless of ability to pay – and there’s been a considerable increase in demand over the past four years. <br /><br />(The Department of Health <a href="http://www.doh.wa.gov/EHSPHL/hospdata/CharityCare/Default.htm">reports</a> that $591 million in such care was provided in ’07, and in the last year for which numbers are available, ’09, the same cost had run up to $846 million; that’s a 43% jump in just two years. The odds are pretty good that the ’10 and ’11 numbers will also show an increase that’s <em>well</em> above the rate of inflation.)<br /><br />Anyway, after that they showed me to a sort of mini-Emergency Room facility, I was examined by a Medical Student and his Instructor, and they decided that maybe a CAT scan would be a good idea, just to determine exactly how badly and how widespread this infection might be.<br /><br />I rode the ride, an assessment was made, and it time to offer up my various elbows to my Medical Student, which left me with a couple of bruises that are still healing, and him with a couple of experience points.<br /><br />More assessment followed the return of the lab results; as a result I was given a prescription of a rather unpleasant antibiotic that I’ll be taking for a few more days, but all in all, for me, things worked out pretty well.<br /><br />That said…imagine if I lived in Canada.<br /><br />First thing, I waited longer than I should have with this infection, and if I had a General Practitioner with whom I had an ongoing relationship, I would have gone there at least a day sooner.<br /><br />That delay imposed a few costs: I had that CAT scan, took up ER time and a mini-ER suite; instead I could have made an office visit, and probably walked out with a prescription for the same antibiotic with a quick exam or just a blood test.<br /><br />There is no financial counselor in Canadian healthcare – instead, you present your Provincial insurance card, and that’s that. For those not aware, Canadian healthcare, for the most part, works like American care, except there’s only one insurance company, and that’s each Province; they also collect taxes to fund the services. <br /><br />That means providers only deal with one insurer, and all of that cuts a lot of administrative expenses out of the system. It also means patients never have to worry about whether their provider will be “in the network”.<br /><br />(Fun Fact: bankruptcy is now a big part of the American medical system. In 1981 8% of bankruptcies were related to medical costs, but by 2007 that number appears to have grown to <em><a href="http://www.pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf">62%</a></em>, all this according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Three-quarters of that 62% had medical insurance. <br /><br />Canada <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/03/08/reform-in-massachusetts-fails-to-reduce-medical-bankruptcies/">does not</a> have a medical bankruptcy problem of statistical significance.)<br /><br />When you add all this together, it begins to explain how it’s possible that Canada can insure all their people for about <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf">11%</a> of their 2009 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) when we pay about 17% of GDP and still leave a huge portion of the population either completely uninsured or unable to pay for care even if they have insurance, due to what won’t be covered when the bill comes in at the end of the month.<br /><br />(Fun Fact #2: Sweden, Switzerland, France, Germany, Iceland – in fact, any country that you can name on the face of the Earth – pays less than we do for their health care. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.creditloan.com/blog/2010/03/01/healthcare-costs-around-the-world/">By a lot</a>.<br /><br />When it comes to the cost of health care, the USA <em>is</em> #1.)<br /><br />So it’s not all skittles and beer, up there in Canada. You might have to wait a while to get some types of care, and it appears that there’s an element of “rationing by waiting period”, which is a constant source of complaints up there. (The counterargument is that rationing of some sort is required in any medical insurance scheme; otherwise, you’ll have folks at the doctor’s for no reason at all, and that’ll quickly drive a system broke.)<br /><br />There are co-pays, for some services, and no coverage for others, depending on your Province, (nonemergency dental and vision are often not covered) and that can lead to some out-of-pocket, but for the most part taxes cover the bills.<br /><br />And just as we in the USA are struggling to pay for medical care, so is everyone else: controlling medical costs are hard, for a variety of reasons, including the cost of paying medical professionals to do work in a dangerous environment that can often be hard to automate. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.premierinc.com/safety/topics/back_injury/">Dangerous</a>, you say?<br /><br /><blockquote>In healthcare, back injuries, frequently caused by overexertion, occur at a very high rate. Healthcare industry workers sustain 4.5 times more overexertion injuries than any other type of worker…According to national statistics, six of the top 10 professions at greatest risk for back injury are: nurse's aides, licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, health aides, radiology technicians, and physical therapists.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />So the other reason I’m having this conversation today is because I was having a talk with a very nice gentleman just about 48 hours ago who is a bit more Conservative politically than I, and he wondered how I felt about “Obamacare” (formally known as the Affordable Health Care Act).<br /><br />I’m not a big fan of that plan, I’m not, and that’s because I’d much rather do something like expand Medicare to everyone, or “go all Canada”; either choice seems simpler and easier and doable at far lower administrative costs than any plan that relies on private insurers, as the Affordable Health Care Act does.<br /><br />So there you go: that’s how I spent the weekend, and a couple of days after to boot, and if we were living in Canada I could have had the same problem, but it would have cost the healthcare system a whole lot less money – and when everyone gathered at the White House today, I wish <em>that’s</em> what they had been talking about.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-23680242591748159472011-07-13T19:46:00.000-07:002011-07-13T20:38:45.359-07:00On Anticipation, Or, I’m In Seattle, So It’s A Dennis Kucinich StoryIt was a beautiful day in Seattle last Saturday, and at the unholy hour of 7:30 AM I was steering my car into the parking lot of Qwest Field, preparing to take advantage of the spectacular weather by descending into the showroom of The Comedy Underground – in order to spend the day surrounded by politics and politicians. <br /><br />The only thing that could have made the irony more prefect…is if all the espresso shops had been closed.<br /><br />Thank your favorite deity (or, perhaps, the power of serendipity) that they weren’t, or we might not been able to cover the events at NWroots 2011 at all.<br /><br />We’ll have a lot to talk about over the next few days, and to lead things off I’ll tell you about the series of events that might – or might not – have to do with why I happened to bump into Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich as he came down from the sunlight into the same dark room as the rest of us.<br /><br /><blockquote>Your emperor may be a great prince: I do not doubt it, seeing as he has sent his subjects so far across the waters; and I am willing to treat him as my brother. As for the pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him.<br /><br />--Atahualpa, the last Sapa Inca of Tahuantinsuyu, quoted in the book <em>“<a href="http://www.ecampus.com/native-americans-illustrated-history-1st/bk/9781878685421"><a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=OH&district=10">The Native Americans: An Illustrated History</a></a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So here are today’s “need to knows”: the Constitution mandates that the Census be used to determine how many Representatives each State sends to Congress; based on the last Census, Ohio’s losing two seats in the House, Washington’s gaining one.<br /><br />In Ohio, the most significant population declines occurred in urban areas, particularly Dennis Kucinich’s <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=OH&district=10">10th District</a> (Cleveland’s western suburbs; Cleveland’s population today is <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-03-09-ohio-census_N.htm">more than 15% smaller</a> than it was a decade ago.)<br /><br />Combine that with the fact that the proudly liberal Kucinich has been a thorn in the side of Ohio Republicans, who, cycle after cycle, just can’t seem to knock him off when it comes time to count the votes, and you have a lot of rumors that all come to the same conclusion: if you can’t beat Kucinich in an election…why not just make his District disappear?<br /><br />In the meantime, Washington is looking to have at least two open seats in the politically “purple” western half of the State: Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee is running for Governor, freeing up the 1st; there’s also going to be this new 10th District, the boundaries of which are as yet uncertain.<br /><br />The odds are pretty good that the Redistricting Commission (two Republicans, two Democrats, and a fifth member appointed by the other four), will assemble a District from an “area of overpopulation” that would probably include parts of Thurston, Pierce, and King Counties:<br /><br />--Thurston Country includes liberal, liberal, Olympia, the State Capitol, as well as suburbs for residents who work as far away as Seattle – but it also includes areas that are quite rural. Around the county there’s a wide range of incomes, but there’s also rising unemployment.<br /><br />--Pierce Country (Tacoma is the big city in the County) has a healthy suburban and rural crime problem that has evolved over time as the methamphetamine business changed from a “local manufacturing” model to one based on imported Mexican drugs (there are fewer meth labs today, but meth possession and the associated auto thefts, burglaries, and family problems are still going strong…), and the street violence in Tacoma itself has been moderated. That said, the underlying economic causes of these problems are still there, which probably sounds familiar to a lot of readers around the country. <br /><br />Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base are now “Joint Base Lewis McChord” and that large military presence is amplified throughout the region by the presence of dependants, retirees, and civilian workers. Because there’s a war on unemployment in the County is <a href="http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/news/news-page/9319-unemployment-up-slightly">relatively low</a>.<br /><br />--King County is the place everyone thinks of when they think of Washington: Seattle’s here, and it appears, if the legends are to be believed, like a woodsy Upper West Side with high-tech campuses dotting the landscape and producing billionaires by the bucketful – and all that thanks to the gentle mists of espresso falling from the sky.<br /><br />The reality’s a bit different: King County is surprisingly purple at election time, and about 2/3 of the population is located outside the city limits of reliably liberal Seattle. The 8th District, out in the eastern suburbs, has elected two Republicans to the House for almost 20 years in a row: the annoyingly effective Jennifer Dunn and the amazingly ineffectual Dave Reichert.<br /><br />--Much of Inslee’s <a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/default.aspx">1st District</a> is located west of Seattle, and much of it is rural – but also included in his District are Seattle’s northern suburbs, including Everett, home to a giant Boeing assembly facility. The District is also one of the most military in the Nation; within the District or immediately next door are elements of Naval Base Kitsap (which is actually several facilities combined under one name) and Naval Station Everett (which homeports a Carrier Battle Group).<br /><br />So with all that in mind, here’s the first couple of minutes of Kucinich’s speech, where he describes his connection with Seattle and his rejection of war as a concept:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ahoYYyQ59ww?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ahoYYyQ59ww?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" embed></object><br /><br />Bonus Video: check out this little “Hey, how’s it goin’?” moment between Kucinich and the aforementioned Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott, who spoke just after Kucinich:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YXrPX3i14_c?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YXrPX3i14_c?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" ></embed></object><br /> <br />So the question now becomes: if Kucinich were to run for Congress in Washington…where and how?<br /><br />To help answer that question, I’m going to fall back on the <a href="http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/PreviousElections/2009/GeneralElection/Documents/2009Gen%20Breakdown%20by%20city%20all%20counties.pdf">electoral results</a> of 2009’s Referendum 71, which represents the most recent example of Washington voters making the “liberal” choice in a Statewide election (<a href="http://approvereferendum71.org/">R-71 was enacted</a> to protect certain rights of qualified domestic partners).<br /><br />WA-01, Inslee’s current District, includes portions of Snohomish and Kitsap Counties; in 2009 R-71 passed in Snohomish County 53-47% with about 100,000 votes cast. More significantly, most cities with more than 2000 votes cast voted for the measure.<br /><br />Kitsap County voted heavily in favor of the measure; the entire County voted 65-35% and cast about 24,000 votes.<br /><br />What about a potential WA-10?<br /><br />Let’s start up north and go south: for the most part, southern King County voted against R-71, for the most part, it was somewhere around 52-48%; if you were to cut off all of King County south of Seattle and plunk it in WA-10, there would be about 75,000 votes in play.<br /><br />Pierce County voted exactly 50-50% on R-71, with 110,000 votes cast – but Tacoma accounted for 40,000 of those votes, and they went 58-42% in favor of the more liberal position.<br /><br />Thurston County went very heavily for R-71 (63-37%; 33,000 votes), but 15,000 of those votes were cast in Olympia (73-27%); if Olympia’s not in the 10th the rest of the County looks more like 53-47% in favor of the liberal choice.<br /><br />More Bonus Video: here’s Kucinich talking about Social Security:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nIPjPsai6mo?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nIPjPsai6mo?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" ></embed></object><br /><br />So if those are the apparent numbers…who might show up to help a Kucinich campaign?<br /><br />Let’s start with Labor: I had the impression that Jeff Johnson, who is President of the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC), might like to work with a (well-known Friend Of Labor) Kucinich – but I have been warned, more than once, that the WSLC can’t endorse anyone until the Union’s State Convention debates and votes on the matter. (This year’s Convention is in the first week of August; that could be an issue if Kucinich were to announce his intentions this Fall or Winter).<br /><br />Seattle’s "<a href="http://www.ifc.com/videos/portlandia-flyer-wars.php">Portlandia</a>", for want of a better word, will come out to help Kucinich in a big way; that would probably be true whether he ran in the 1st or the 10th.<br /><br />In Washington elections, “boots on the ground” become doorbellers and phone bankers - but 100% vote-by-mail means no driving voters to the polls, and that means ensuring turnout becomes more of a messaging issue. We can probably assume that the number of volunteers Inslee was able to pull last time is gonna be about what is required if a Kucinich WA-01 run were to occur.<br /><br />Beyond that, there's a lot of out-of-state help available as well: for example, if Kucinich were to get public about repeal of the Washington State Defense of Marriage Act, it seems likely that LBGT money and help would come in from around the country.<br /> <br />There are groups like <a href="http://iava.org/">IAVA</a>, the Iraq/Afghanistan Veterans' group, that might step up (and they <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27102433/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/t/rachel-maddow-showfor-wednesday-october/">do</a> recognize Kucinich as an ally), which would be helpful (lots of active duty and their families, civilian contractors, vets, and retirees in both WA-01 and a likely WA-10). You could expect to see Progressive PAC money and virtual “phone bank” help from folks like MoveOn as well, just as there will likely be a ton of "Crossroads GPS"-like cash and Conservative volunteering coming to any opponent. <br /> <br />What about timing? The Ohio Redistricting Commission (three Republicans, two Democrats) will have the first say in what happens; that process has just begun with the <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Redistricting_in_Ohio">first meeting</a> of the Ohio Legislative Task Force on Redistricting, Reapportionment, and Demographic Research on June 16th. <br /><br />(Wanna make some money? Draw The Line Ohio is sponsoring a competition to draw the best Districts, which they intend to present to the Commission, and they’re willing to pay cash prizes for the best work: check it out at the Draw The Line Midwest <a href="http://drawthelinemidwest.org/ohio/competition/">website</a>.)<br /><br />I told Kucinich that I’d love to see him come out and run in the 8th, against the ineffectual Dave Reichert; his response: “I’m not here as a candidate”. <br /><br />I winked, he did <em>not</em> nudge.<br /><br />Should Kucinich run, I would expect attacks to cover ground such as: “He’s a carpetbagger!” or “He’s too liberal for the (insert name here) District” or what might become my favorite: a variation of “Vote against Nancy Pelosi: Vote against Dennis Kucinich”.<br /><br />So that’s what I know: Kucinich was in town to stir up the troops, and if things don’t go well in Ohio there are several scenarios that could place him here in Washington – and there are at least two Districts where he could have a shot at winning. <br /> <br />And with all that seen and said, I climbed the stairs from the darkened underground political comedy lair and returned to the world of light, where people do things like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8Q9KEmZeyA">knit tree cozies</a> – you know, the normal world.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-62705259517854871272011-07-08T02:09:00.000-07:002011-07-08T02:33:51.983-07:00Obama Wants To Attack The Middle Class? Take Congress Hostage!By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.<br /><br />And it looks like the President doesn’t really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it’s to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be “the adult in the room” in the runup to the ’12 election.<br /><br />So we’re going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy – and I think I’ve got a plan to force this President to listen.<br /><br />And it works like this: if this President ain’t gonna be moved by our message…we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.<br /><br /><blockquote>"You've got to put the points on the board. Good effort and style aren't enough. Everyone loves the Chicago Cubs, but no one expects them to win. Be more like the New York Yankees."<br /><br />--Greg Swienton, COO of Ryder Systems, advising Army NCOs <a href="http://www.army.mil/article/25374/ncos-learn-leadership-traits-from-execs-humorist/">at a leadership seminar</a>, July 2009.</blockquote><br /><br />First things first: let me tell you how the hustle is potentially going to go down. <br /><br />Republicans are going to try to force Obama to offer up 100% cuts in spending, with no new money coming in to Government at all, or they’ll let the whole “debt default” thing come crashing down, which looks like The Best Thing To The Tea Party Ever – and based on past history, this is a deal that Obama, around 11:56 PM on August 1st, will be willing to take.<br /> <br />The two most likely ways to cut spending and get results in the trillions of dollars are to change the connection between increases in your future Social Security benefits and the cost of living (which guarantees that you and I will forever be behind the inflation eight-ball), or to cut the payments coming out of Medicare or Medicaid, which is going to stick it, immediately, to medical service providers, the poorest of the poor, your Grandma and Grandpa (or, maybe, you), and the disabled.<br /><br />It is rumored that both of these approaches have been put out as options by the President. It is also rumored that, in return, he wants some amount of revenue increases – but it’s also rumored that he went from seeking a dollar in cuts for each dollar in new revenue to something that looks more like $6 in cuts for every $1 in new revenues – with lots more time available for Republicans to play chicken and get even more. <br /><br />So if the President is not going to put a stop to all this, I think we, ourselves, are going to have to step up and get it done.<br /><br />What I’m going to propose is brutal, unfair to many of our friends, and vindictive to the point of risking an even worse situation than we have now…but these are desperate times, and I suspect it’s now time for desperate measures.<br /><br />So here’s what I think we have to do:<br /><br />Now, today, before this gets any farther, we have to call every single Democratic Member of Congress, House and Senate, friend and foe, and deliver this message:<br /><br /><blockquote>“I don’t care what you ever did for us before, we are not going to let you do this to us now. We cannot stop Barack Obama directly – but we can do this.<br /><br />We can target Congressional Democrats.<br /><br />Each and every one of you, as a group.<br /><br />And with that in mind, you are now on notice: if you allow this President to make a deal that includes <em>any</em> cuts, adjustments, alterations, or anything else, to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, and you don’t get at least a dollar of new revenue for every dollar of cuts…then you are done.<br /><br />We will immediately stop giving any Democratic incumbent even one dollar of donations, we will not help you win elections by volunteering – and we will vote for any candidate that’s running against you in the next primary.<br /><br />Even if it’s not your fault.<br /><br />That’s how serious we are, and that means you better figure out, right now, how to stop Obama from caving…because now, it’s all on you.<br /><br />If Obama slips on the stairs and his pen accidentally signs the bill…it’s now <em>your</em> fault.<br /><br />If Obama puts his pen back in the desk set upside down, and there’s an open window in the Oval Office, and an errant breeze drags the bill across the upside-down pen… it’s now <em>your</em> fault.<br /><br />So what you better do is you better go make sure there aren’t any roller skates on the stairs at the White House, and go close the windows, and do whatever you have to do, because now, you, and every other Congressional Democrat…all of you, together…are going to be held responsible for what happens.”</blockquote><br /><br />And then we gotta stick to it – even if it costs us Jim McDermott and Raul Grijalva and Barney Frank, all on the same day.<br /><br />We have to show that we will bring even more wrath and destruction than the Tea Party – and we have to be ready to support new Democrats who rise up to oppose the current ones.<br /><br />And consider this: Labor is already making the effort to recruit and train Progressive candidates, and there are lots of opportunities to partner with unions who would presumably love to have some new partners of their own.<br /><br />The next negotiating session between the President and Congressional leadership is Sunday, and that means we need to move fast if we want this to work – but Sunday is unlikely to be the last day of negotiations, and after that is when we can really crank up the pressure on Democrats.<br /><br />Is this unfair to our friends?<br /><br />Yup.<br /><br />But that’s too bad, because we have been unfairly taking hits from our friends and Republican bullies alike for three years now - and the only thing that’s going to make it stop is if our friends fear us more a whole lot more than they fear Republicans. <br /><br />And if you don’t think this can work…well, guess what? The LBGT community got “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal passed when Republicans said they would never let it get through Congress – and then the LBGT community told Democrats that if repeal didn’t pass…the gAyTM was gonna be forever closed.<br /><br />And then, <em>mirabile dictu</em>, repeal passed, in a lame-duck Congress, even when virtually all observers had said it had no chance.<br /><br />That is the power of The Fear, and if we want to win this fight, we need to be the ones putting The Fear on our Democratic friends, not the other way around.<br /><br />So get up, grab the phone, and start reminding the nearest Democrat that unemployment, in this economy, really, really, sucks – and there’s no reason in the world why they can’t be just as unemployed as anyone else.<br /><br />It’s time for hardball, folks – and in this fight, we need to be the ones with the hardest balls.<br /><br />Because if we’re not…the terrorists win.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-57697997958031506242011-07-07T08:20:00.000-07:002011-07-07T08:42:25.904-07:00Do Washington State Democrats Have A Labor Problem? Let’s Ask Jay InsleeOK: so I’ve been working what is, on one level, a Jay Inslee story (Inslee is the Congressman from Washington’s 1st District, now running for Governor in ’12), and, on another level, a story of why Democrats are having all kinds of problems with what should be “natural” constituencies – and why those problems might not be going away anytime soon.<br /><br />I thought the two elements of this narrative would come together last Monday, when I attended the “announcement event” that marked the beginning of the Inslee Gubernatorial Campaign, and in fact they did…but it wasn’t in a way I would have expected, and that’s why we have something to talk about today.<br /><br />I reached out to some helpful outside voices, including Inslee himself; all of that will be brought to the discussion – and as another news organization famously offers to do, I’ll report, and leave you to decide.<br /><br /><blockquote>Krusty the Klown: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Good evening. Tonight my guest is AFL/CIO chairman George Meany, who will be discussing collective bargaining agreements <br /><br />George Meaney: It's a pleasure to be here, Krusty <br /><br />Krusty the Klown: Let me be blunt: is there a Labor crisis in America today? <br /><br />George Meaney: Well that depends what you mean by crisis...<br /><br />--From <em>“The Simpsons”</em> episode S06E01, <em>“<a href="http://www.wtso.net/movie/413-601_Bart_of_Darkness.html">Bart of Darkness</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />So here’s what I know: Jay Inslee brings to the contest for Governor a <a href="http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=27125">Congressional voting record</a> that could be great news for Washington State’s Progressive community: he’s generally supportive of LBGT and other civil rights issues, he seems to support the sort of elections I like (clean ones), he’s very much interested in a “next generation” energy and environmental policy, and he voted against the TARP Program (that’s the bank bailout that was passed in the last months of the Bush Administration) and the extension of the Patriot Act.<br /><br />All good stuff.<br /><br />But I also know this: if you are a State worker in Washington State, you are under attack, and you have been for some time now – and among the attackers are members of the Democratic Party – and the reason I’m so personally familiar with this fact is because The Girlfriend is one of those workers (she’s a nurse working within the Division of Developmental Disabilities, and she has been for more than 15 years), and I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. <br /><br />And I know that for these workers, each year the question becomes: “This year’s wage cuts: in cash, by jacking the cost of health care, or through furlough days?”<br /><br />This sort of problem extends to workers all across the State, as business interests target the State’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Industrial Insurance programs for attack, to give just two examples of recent legislative battles.<br /><br />And the State’s Unions are reacting: I had a back and forth with Kathy Cummings (she’s the Communications Director for WSLC, the Washington State Labor Council), who confirmed what I thought I’d been seeing: that since 2009 there has been an effort by the WSLC to bring the fight to Washington State Democrats, including a successful effort to unseat State Senator <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5jVk_7GcgX4J:jeanberkey.com/p/salsa/web/news/public/%3Fnews_item_KEY%3D412+Jean+Berkey,+union&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera&source=www.google.com">Jean Berkey</a>, who was targeted, according to Cummings, because of her votes on UI, public education and health care, pollution laws, and tax policy, which the WSLC viewed as favoring corporate interests.<br /><br />2009, by the way, was a watershed year for this State’s Labor unions, as that was the year Washington Democratic leaders actually <a href="http://horsesass.org/?p=13850">called in the State Patrol</a> to investigate whether internal discussions about whether to withhold future campaign contributions if those Democrats <a href="http://www.wslc.org/legis/09legrep/WPA.htm">didn’t get more cooperative</a> was some sort of criminal act.<br /><br />As a result, the WSLC formed the DIME PAC (DIME, of course, is an acronym; Don’t Invest in More Excuses, to be specific); this and other Labor-associated PACs are apparently acting as any PAC can, much to the chagrin of Democrats and business interests alike, including what appears to have been a controversial decision to <a href="http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/09/14/v-printerfriendly/1340494/follow-the-money-if-you-can.html">promote a Republican</a> in Berkey’s primary in order to knock her out of the contest early. (Washington uses a “<a href="http://wei.secstate.wa.gov/osos/en/Pages/Top2PrimaryFAQ.aspx">top-two</a>” primary system to determine who gets to the general election, and Berkey came in number three.)<br /><br />And sure enough, Democrats do appear to be less than supportive: Unions held two <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF7HNlJ0g3E">rallies</a> this spring at the State Capitol in Olympia, both of which I attended – and I couldn’t help but notice that Washington State Democrats weren’t up on the dais talking about how much they supported those workers gathered just outside.<br /><br />In fact, the only elected Democrat I saw on either stage, in March or April, speaking to the crowds was <a href="http://legis.wisconsin.gov/w3asp/contact/legislatorpages.aspx?house=senate&district=6">State Senator Spencer Coggs</a>…who is a <em>Wisconsin</em> State Senator. (Kathy Cummings helpfully points out that, despite what I thought, about 20 Democrats were introduced by name and were somewhere around the stage at various times during the April event to show support – and you’ll want to keep that in mind as we go along.)<br /><br />So here’s what I’m thinking as I’m on my way to attend Jay Inslee’s announcement and presser last Monday: Inslee is presumably aware of this history, and if he were to become Washington State’s top elected Democrat he would presumably want to act in a manner that heals that rift…which would be a pretty good story to report to a Progressive audience.<br /><br />That is <em>not</em> how it turned out.<br /><br /><blockquote>ME: "I attended two Labor rallies in Olympia over the past couple of months; the only Democratic elected official who seemed to be able to get out and speak to the crowd was from Wisconsin, Spencer Copps, State Senator <em>[which was an error; I should have said Spencer Coggs]</em>. I wondered what you think about that and what are you going to do to try to change it?"<br /><br />INSLEE: "Well, I'm not sure what you're referring to..."<br /><br />ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions..."<br /><br />INSLEE: "I'm sorry..."<br /><br />ME: "Well, you mentioned honoring unions, these folks were out trying to promote union rights, but Democrats don't seem to want to get out and support union rights in person. Do you see that as a problem; how would you like to change it?"<br /><br />INSLEE: "I don't see this as a problem, because I believe as I said I fundamentally believe in work, I fundamentally believe in workers, and I fundamentally believe that people have collective bargaining rights as an organized group, and I think what has gone on in Wisconsin is a travesty, and the reason it's a travesty is that, uh, Governor Walker, if he wanted to be angry at someone, he shouldn't have been angry at the first grade teachers, he should have been angry at the Wall Street investment bankers whose greed was responsible for the economic collapse, and yet I saw the Governor turn his sights on the middle class, and I don't believe an assault on the middle class, which is what happened in Wisconsin, is productive for economic growth, of anyone in our State, or our country. Now I've been pretty forthright in that regard, and, uh, I'll maintain that position."</blockquote><br /><br />Here’s the video:<br /><br /><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EW2zQSmW93g?version=3&hl=en_US"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EW2zQSmW93g?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" ></embed></object><br /><br />Now let me be the first to say that I did not ask the best possible question. What I should have done was be more specific about how much of a rift there is between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, and then specifically asked what steps Inslee would take, to, as I said earlier, heal the rift.<br /><br />So normally what you do in a case like that is you go back to the campaign staff and send a follow-up question, and some helpful person who is doing the Candidate’s communications work will get you an official response.<br /><br />But that’s where it gets weird.<br /><br />If you try to go to the <a href="http://www.jayinslee.com/">campaign website</a> to locate the contract information, it is literally nothing, except for three links: give me money, get on the mailing list, or click through to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/jayinslee">facebook</a>.<br /><br />I posted a note “on the wall” at facebook, asking who the contact person was for the campaign for media inquiries, and not only did that get no response, the request was removed from the wall within minutes. <br /><br />I sent follow-up questions to the originating address of the email that invited me to the Inslee event in the first place and to his Congressional office; those also went unacknowledged.<br /><br />And that, right there, is pretty much the entire story as I know it: there is a significant and growing rift between Labor and Washington State’s Democrats, I tried to bring Inslee out on the issue (albeit clumsily), which he did not seem to want to address – and, oddly enough, there appears to be no desire on the part of the campaign to take the opportunity to follow up and affirm that an Inslee Administration would be a friend of Labor when it comes to things like protecting UI, and not balancing the budget while exempting corporate interests from taxation, and protecting workers from environmental hazards on the job. <br /><br />Except there is one more thing. <br /><br />I asked the WSLC’s Cummings this question…<br /><br /><blockquote>Since the 2010 election cycle, have Democrats become more reliable partners, in the estimation of the WSLC?</blockquote><br /><br />…and she gave me a bit of a “tease”: the WSLC will release their 2011 <a href="http://www.wslc.org/legis/10legrep/COPE.htm">Legislative Report</a>, which will address that very question, just in time for their Annual Convention, which begins on August 4th – and we are told to stay tuned.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886798502338849917.post-84184936474531681182011-07-03T13:45:00.000-07:002011-07-03T14:49:19.241-07:00On Being Bumped, Or, Let’s Have Another RoundupSo I thought I was going to have another Jay Inslee story for y’all today, but it turns out that I’m going to have to do more research before we can “come to press” with that one.<br /><br />But that’s OK, because the world’s been busy doing a lot of other things – and while many of them get media coverage, some don’t get a lot of notice at all.<br /><br />And of course, there are also those stories that look one way at first glance…but look a lot different when you dig a bit deeper.<br /><br />We’ll hit a few of those today, have a bit of fun doing it, and get ready for what promises to be another busy week of strategically not doing things in Washington.<br /><br />To make things even better, some of the stories will be real, and some won’t.<br /><br />We’ll see if you can tell the difference.<br /><br /><blockquote>Wat baten kaars en bril, als den uil niet zienen wil?<br />(“What use are candle and glasses, if the owl does not want to see?”)<br /><br />--Traditional Dutch saying quoted in Peter Tate’s book <em>“<a href="http://www.bokklubben.no/SamboWeb/produkt.do?produktId=4033720">Flights of Fancy: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition</a>”</em></blockquote><br /><br />Let’s begin by closing out some business from our last story: I mentioned that I received a parking ticket from Seattle Parking Enforcement Office J. Hell, on Republican Street, while attending an event hosted by a Democratic candidate for Governor, and I suspect that some of you think I made all that up.<br /><br />For proof, I was going to copy the ticket and post it for folks to see…but, instead, check this out: Officer Hell actually made the <em>“Seattle Times”</em> back in June, and you can see her hard at work in that story <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015208474_parkingboot02m.html">booting a car</a>, which Seattle does after four unpaid parking tickets.<br /><br />And now, on to the new business:<br /><br />Have you seen the Viagra commercial where the guy is driving his horse trailer, and it gets stuck in the mud, and he uses the horses to pull himself out? <br /><br />Well, think about it just a minute: he’s a guy, and he already has a great big pickup truck, a cowboy hat, and horses…which he’s actually using to pull his great big pickup truck…and you’re telling me he doesn’t <em>already</em> have a boner?<br /><br />If he can’t achieve an erection at <em>that</em> point, what the hell good is Viagra gonna do?<br /><br />And speaking of erecting new things…<br /><br />In what I consider to be one of the best things to happen to politics (and the financing of television productions) in years, Stephen Colbert has been given permission to form his own SuperPAC.<br /><br />Colbert indicates that he intends to use any money donated to the PAC to produce certain campaign commercials, among other things – but according to the FEC advisory opinion, he is not allowed to expend any of his unlimited corporate contributions to run another effort like 2008’s “<a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/127605/october-30-2007/massie-ritsch">Hail to the Cheese</a>” Campaign, which was intended to merge corporate money and politics in an obvious and highly visible way.<br /><br />By the way, that FEC advisory opinion is <a href="http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/advisory/Advisory-Opinion.pdf">available for viewing</a>, if you’re so inclined – and in a most fascinating footnote, it unintentionally explains the existence of Fox News as a legitimate press entity:<br /><br /><blockquote>A news story, commentary, or editorial that lacks objectivity or is satirical can still be considered part of a press entity’s legitimate press function, even if that news story, commentary, or editorial expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal office.</blockquote><br /><br /><br />And speaking of unlimited corporate money…<br /><br />Monaco was the location of a Royal Wedding this weekend, with Monaco’s Prince Albert, resplendent in his military uniform, taking up the role of groom.<br /><br />Military uniform? <br />Monaco?<br />Really?<br /><br />As it turns out, <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Monaco&hl=en&ll=43.737616,7.436199&spn=0.033053,0.077162&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=37.052328,79.013672&t=h&z=14">tiny little Monaco</a> actually does have a military, and the Prince represents <a href="http://www.rivieratimes.com/index.php/monaco-article/items/the-prince-of-monacos-carabiniers.html">1/113th</a> of the entire force – which means if they ever try to invade the Vatican, the Swiss Guard will outnumber ‘em by about 19 guys.<br /><br />(By the way: the Prince is reported to have some <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/monaco/8612962/Prince-Albert-of-Monaco-faces-paternity-test-after-wedding-officials-confirm.html">DNA testing in his near future</a> to determine the paternity of what could be his third <em>and</em> fourth illegitimate children…which is presumably going to make for a bit of a frosty honeymoon.)<br /><br />What else is going on?<br /><br />Well…I was watching CNN and they suggested that people bearing retirement age should try making a budget that would reflect how they’ll be living after retirement and try living on that now.<br /><br />And I though to myself: “I should try that”.<br /><br />So I did…and now I’m wanted for bank robbery in four states.<br /><br />Thanks, CNN.<br /><br />And finally…<br /><br />In a story that is exclusive to Your Erstwhile Reporter, I am now able to report that Ohio Governor John Kasich, in an effort to simultaneously reduce unemployment and “send the proper message” to his workforce, will announce on Tuesday that he intends to hire 6,000 new state employees who will have only one duty: to travel around and visit all male State employees, at random, once a month…and kick them in the balls.<br /><br />In order to help female employees really “get a feel” for the new work environment, former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann has been brought back to reform and “restock” <a href="http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/dec/22/inspector-general-details-dann-mispending/">the Dannettes</a>; he’ll then be employed as the “Charlie” overseeing Ohio State Government’s newest “Angels”.<br /><br />So there we are, with this weekend’s Roundup, and we should be back shortly after Tuesday with either the Jay Inslee story that was supposed to be here today - or a substitute, depending on how our research goes.fake consultanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09254946474239731269noreply@blogger.com0