On Holding Down The Conversational Fort, Or, Jobs, Republicans, And Hooey

As 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.

After all, they’ll say, creating American jobs is the most important thing of all.

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.

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.

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.

--From the book “How To Be A Stand-Up Comic”, by Richard Belzer

So…the House Republicans went and promoted and passed out their payroll tax cut plan, and within that plan was a demand that the Junkie XL Pipeline – sorry, that should be Keystone XL Pipeline – get special “expedited” approvals, despite the objections of those who are worried about their water supply, and we have to do this, right now, those same House Republicans tell us, in order to put more or less 6500 folks to work getting the thing built.

And as we mentioned above, this is because the House Republicans care about American jobs and American workers.

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” (HR 2587), 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 thinks 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.

All of this stems from an effort by Boeing to move work from Washington State to South Carolina in retaliation for union activity by the Puget Sound workforce; the NLRB has ruled that Boeing cannot move the work, and the Company and its friends in Congress have joined forces with other anti-Union Members of Congress to move this legislation.

Need a third-party expert opinion to help make sense of the NLRB’s involvement and remedies? Consider this comment from University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Ellen Dannin, via Dennis Kucinich:

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.

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 Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. Labor Board, 379 U.S. 203.

The 250 law professors 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.

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?

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 passed with no Democratic “aye” votes and six Republicans voting “nay”.

Then it went to the Senate.

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 sits on the Senate Legislative Calendar, 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.

A companion bill, S 1523, 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.

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:

S 1720, 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.

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.

So now let’s get to “what have we learned?”

How about this:

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.

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 really cares about American jobs, or if they’re just getting hustled by slightly-slicker versions of used-car dealership credit managers?

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 1993 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon…today?”

Then you can both have a little laugh – while you take their money and run.

On Speaking To Power, Or, When Sanity’s Gone, There’s Always Satire

So everybody’s hearing the news, right?

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.

All in all, it’s some pretty slick negotiating, and I’m sure this Administration and Democratic Congressional leaders must be very proud.

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.

“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.”

--Howard Cosell, from the Woody Allen movie “Bananas”

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.

“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”.

No problem.

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.

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.)

Just to get you in the sarcastic spirit of the thing, here are some of the Tweets I’ve sent so far today:

@whitehouse Obama visits fallen building, a collapsed trench, and Carlsbad Caverns; says he'll "never cave" on debt deal. #thanksalot

@whitehouse republicans propose "logan's run", obama seeks reasonable compromise. #thanksalot

@whitehouse offers 1 Wet-Nap for each American thrown under bus yesterday; Republicans protest new "entitlement" #thanksalot

@whitehouse Prozac pill commits suicide; says in note that White House caving once again is "too depressing" #thanksalot

@whitehouse To avoid uncertainty in December, Obama Administration announces today they're caving on Bush tax cut extension #thanksalot

@whitehouse Dec. 23, 2011-Boehner: "We'll agree to revenue increases when both houses have a clean vote to repeal Obamacare..." #thanksalot

@whitehouse Dec 25, 2011-Administration announces entitlement compromise: cat food now food stamp-eligible #thanksalot

@whitehouse Obama Administration announces they prefer to negotiate with hostage-takers: "It makes us feel less guilty..." #thanksalot

@whitehouse Obama Administration "feels America's pain", announces nationwide program to distribute K-Y after debt deal #thanksalot

@whitehouse is there some sort of political viagra that could make obama "stand firm", just once? #thanksalot

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.

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.

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?

And what about Michelle Bachmann?

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.

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.

On 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.

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.

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.

“…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…”

--William H. Seward, deprecating President James Buchanan’s efforts to preserve the Union, as quoted in the book “Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 mine uranium right next door to the Grand Canyon.

So with all that in mind, let’s talk money.

In the month of August, the Federal Government is expected to take in $172.4 billion.

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.

Where’s that money go?

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.

And that leaves $12.4 billion to fund everything else the Federal Government has to do.

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.

So that’s the situation – and now it’s time for you to become the boss and make the choices:

The fine folks at Bloomberg Government have created an interactive tool that allows you to point and click your way to figuring this stuff out.

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.

“…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.”

--Steve Harvey, quoted in October 2003’s “Vibe” magazine

OK folks, so now you know where to go, and you know what to do, so let’s make something happen.

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.

I’d tell you the looks on their faces would be priceless – but that’s not true.

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 Supermax.

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.

Hitler Holds News Conference, Blames Balanced Budget Amendment For U.S. Defeat

(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947) 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.

“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.”

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

“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”.

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.

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.

On 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.

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.

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.

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.

--Scott Adams, from the book “Dogbert’s Top Secret Management Handbook”

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).

So what do I do? The same as a lot of you: I don’t get sick.

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.

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.

So much for optimism.

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.

I’m lucky that Washington State has a “Charity Care Law”; 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.

(The Department of Health reports 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 well above the rate of inflation.)

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.

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.

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.

That said…imagine if I lived in Canada.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

(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 62%, all this according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Three-quarters of that 62% had medical insurance.

Canada does not have a medical bankruptcy problem of statistical significance.)

When you add all this together, it begins to explain how it’s possible that Canada can insure all their people for about 11% 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.

(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.

By a lot.

When it comes to the cost of health care, the USA is #1.)

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.)

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.

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.

Dangerous, you say?

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.

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).

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.

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 that’s what they had been talking about.

Obama 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.

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.

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.

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.

"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."

--Greg Swienton, COO of Ryder Systems, advising Army NCOs at a leadership seminar, July 2009.

First things first: let me tell you how the hustle is potentially going to go down.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So here’s what I think we have to do:

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:

“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.

We can target Congressional Democrats.

Each and every one of you, as a group.

And with that in mind, you are now on notice: if you allow this President to make a deal that includes any 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.

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.

Even if it’s not your fault.

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.

If Obama slips on the stairs and his pen accidentally signs the bill…it’s now your fault.

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 your fault.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Is this unfair to our friends?

Yup.

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.

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.

And then, mirabile dictu, repeal passed, in a lame-duck Congress, even when virtually all observers had said it had no chance.

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.

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.

It’s time for hardball, folks – and in this fight, we need to be the ones with the hardest balls.

Because if we’re not…the terrorists win.

On Happy-ing Their Gilmores, Or, Will Body Bags Be The New Gold Watch?

We are continuing a recent theme here today in which two of my favorite topics are going to converge: Social Security and in-your-face political activism.

I have been encouraging folks to take advantage of the recent Congressional recess to have a few words with your CongressCritter about the proposed Death Of Medicare and all the proposed cuts to Social Security…and you have, as we’ll discuss…and now we have an opportunity to do something on a national scale, just as we did a few weeks ago in support of Social Security.

This time, we’re going to concentrate on fighting the idea that retirement ages should go up before we become eligible for Social Security and Medicare (and elements of Medicaid, as well), and that Americans should just keep right on working until the age of 67 or so—which isn’t going to be any big problem…really…trust us.

Now that just makes no sense, and to help make the point we have a really cool video that you can pass around to all your friends—and your enemies, for that matter, since they’ll also have to worry about what happens to them if they should ever make it to old age.

“…Art can create a climate of sensitivity in which it is possible for change to occur…”

--Shabana Azmi, on Riz Khan’s Al Jazeera program “One on One”

Members of Congress are at home this week, and they love to go out and meet the voters—but it hasn’t been as much fun all of a sudden for some of them, and there are several videos out on the Web right now where it looks like Members wish they hadn’t been hanging out where the public could see them so easily.

Now some of these videos are loud and boisterous—but the one that should really scare Republicans was Charlie Bass’ appearance in Hillsboro, NH on the 4/20 holiday.

If you look at the crowd, they’re older, for the most part—and for the most part they came to the meeting with their own information, meaning that they weren’t so much looking for the Congressman to tell them what was up as they were looking to tell Mr. Bass (who represents the State’s 2nd District) that they weren’t too happy with him about this “entitlements reform” deal.

Now they weren’t there with pitchforks and torches by any means, and a lot of them were supportive of many of the Congressman’s other positions—but they were extremely unhappy about the idea that Medicare would become a voucher system (just so you know, Bass would insist that it’s a “premium support system” whenever the word “voucher” came up), and they did not find the argument that “this won’t affect you” very convincing, either.

In addition to the obvious question (basically, “why would the plan be better if it only sticks it to our kids and grandkids?”), a woman from the crowd asked a question I don’t think Karl Rove ever thought would come up: you might not be sticking it to senior citizens today…but she wondered what’s to prevent conservatives from coming back in a few years and asking those under 65 why they should be supporting those old people and their “Cadillac plans”—at which point it will be “stick it to the old folks” season, and Medicare will officially die, along with a lot more old and disabled people, sooner than they should have.

And he wasn’t the only one to have a bit of a tough week at what used to be really friendly Town Halls: Pat Meehan (PA-07) got himself into a shouting match with his putative employers, so did Lou Barletta, he of Pennsylvania’s 11th…and so did Catfood 2.0’s architect, Paul Ryan, who had to face what he politely described as an “enthusiastic” crowd in Milton, Wisconsin.

“Happy learned how to putt! Uh-oh!”

--Adam Sandler, from the movie “Happy Gilmore”

To put it bluntly, the Members are hating it, big-time, as it appears that their 2009 “Town Hall Goose” has suddenly become just a little too good for the gander.

And if we’re already making life hot for these folks…why not just keep on pushing?

That’s the idea behind “Don’t Make Us Work ‘Til We Die”, which is an effort of the fine folks at Strengthen Social Security to highlight the fact that a lot of people right now are proposing to raise the retirement age; either to 67, or to something north of that…for the good of America, of course.

After all, if you’re a firefighter, or a nurse, or maybe you work in the trades, or a restaurant kitchen, or you drive a gasoline truck…or maybe you’re a smokejumper for the Forest Service…why would working until 67 be a problem for you?

Here’s a video that makes the point very nicely:



(By the way, they would love for you to spread this video far and wide; grab the embed code and just go nuts—or, if you prefer, email the link—and in the interests of Full Disclosure: I’m associated with the Campaign for America’s Future and they’re one of the members of the Strengthen Social Security coalition.)
.
On Wednesday and Thursday all of this goes outside and hits the streets all across the country, and to make it easy, the same website can help you find an event near you—or, if you live in Wyoming or something, you can attend the “virtual event”—either way, just visit the handy website and go from there.

So there you go: we have Republicans feeling mighty uncomfortable all of a sudden, we have a chance this week to get out in public and make the point in a bigger way—and now you even have the perfect video to send to that one relative who always forwards you Michael Savage’s latest missives.

Now get out and keep the momentum going forward—and don’t forget, it’s really easy to look at the person next to you in line at the grocery store and say: “Can you believe how they’re trying to screw us out of Social Security?”

That’s about all it takes to get a pretty good conversation going…and if you repeat that process, about a million times…well, that’s how politics gets done.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was written with the support of the CAF State Blogger's Network Project.

On Living Up To Your Words, Or, Tornado? That’s Not In The Constitution.

There are lots of big tough words coming out of our friends in the Tea Party these days, especially when it comes to the permissible functions of the Federal Government.

”If it’s not specifically enumerated in the Constitution,” they say, “It must be a function of the States—and the 10th Amendment says so!”

None are tougher in their language than those living in the States located below the old Mason-Dixon line—and by an amazing coincidence, just this weekend pretty much all of those States got a bit of a “gut check” in the form of dozens of tornados that slammed into the area.

So we’re going to put the Tea Party philosophy to the test today, and see just what exactly the Federal Government should—and should not—be doing to fulfill the Tea Party vision and to help those folks who were hit by this particular natural disaster.

“…For that was not true; his attitude was not to be explained by greed, or at any rate by greed alone, but rather by the touchiness which his great labors and their complete unsuccess had bred in him.”

--From the story “The Village School Master [The Giant Mole]”, by Franz Kafka

Stories often begin by setting the terms of the discussion; that will be true today, and the framework for where we’ll start is Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which is the “unless it’s enumerated…” part of the Tea Party argument:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

OK…so, let’s talk about “who’s who” in this little drama (for the record, this won’t be a complete list of events or people; it’s just a sample for the purposes of discussion):

Arkansas had tornados Friday night; seven people died (five of those from winds not attributable to a tornado), and according to “The Post and Courier” of Charleston, SC, there had been three days of warnings from the National Weather Service before this particular weather event.

The paper also reports that Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Mississippi were hit.

North Carolina was hit with as many as 62 tornados over the weekend, with at least 22 dead.

In Virginia, Saturday, a 12-mile swath of Gloucester County was severely damaged, with a total of 5 dead in the Commonwealth.

North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi have declared a State of Emergency, so has Virginia. Oklahoma has been under one State of Emergency due to wildfires since March, a second Emergency was declared over the weekend, and Federal assistance was again requested by Governor Mary Fallin to help make things better.

To keep this to a reasonable length, we’re going to drill in on three States, and three Governors; those States are Virginia, Alabama, and Oklahoma.

Alabama’s new Governor, Robert Benchley, is one of those “enumerated powers” kind of guys, in fact, he signed The 10th Amendment Pledge; the parts which concern us here read as follows:

The phrase, “General Welfare,” in Article I, Section 8 does not authorize Congress to enact any laws it claims are in the “General Welfare” of the United States. The phrase sets forth the requirement that all laws passed by Congress in Pursuance of the enumerated powers of the Constitution shall also be in the General Welfare of the United States…

… I do, and will continue to, oppose any and all efforts by the federal government to act beyond its Constitutional authority.

Let’s move on: the Tenth Amendment Center is proud of Oklahoma’s Mary Fallin for turning down the Federal grant to set up the State’s “Obamacare” insurance exchange (officially part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [PPACA]) on 10th Amendment grounds—and she would also want you to know that:

“…I believe, as I know many of our legislators and the majority of our citizens do, that the PPACA is unconstitutional, fatally flawed and ultimately harmful to our economy and the health of our citizens…”

And then there’s Virginia:

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Friday drew cheers from the tea party crowd as he announced support for a “Repeal Amendment” to the Constitution.

“There has been a bi-partisan trampling of that federal compact of the 10th Amendment,” said McDonnell as he spoke at the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention in Richmond.

A “Repeal Amendment” was proposed last month by House Speaker Del. Bill Howell, R- Fredericksburg. The amendment to the U.S. Constitution would allow a federal act to be over-turned if two-thirds of state legislatures voted against it. Such an act would sway power to state legislatures, and is a popular concept in tea party circles.

When the panel moderator asked McDonnell is he would support such an amendment, he replied “yes.”

And now it’s disaster time, and these Governors are looking for disaster help…but they have a very particular view of how the Federal Government and the States ought to relate to each other…so… at this moment of urgency, just what precisely are the specifically enumerated powers that the Federal Government has at our disposal for disaster relief?

Well, according to my quick re-reading of Article 1, Section 8, that would be exactly…no power at all, except to act in case of insurrection, to try any Federal criminal offenses that might occur, and to repair any Federal docks or other needful Buildings.

(You’ll note I did not say “try and punish” any Federal criminal offenses. That’s because there’s nothing I can see in Article 1, Section 8 about Federal prisons.)

I don’t see anything in there about the National Weather Service, either, so from now on, if a State wants to know if a tornado’s coming, I guess they better pony up the cash and start themselves a State Weather Service, or buy the forecasting and warning services from a private contractor.

(This could be good for the economy, by the way: forecasting the weather requires satellites, and if every State that believes in self-reliance each launches their own satellite constellations…that’s some jobs, right there.)

FEMA? In the view of those who truly understand, it’s unconstitutional on its face, and, therefore, the Governors shouldn’t be looking to them for help.

The loans that businesses and citizens rely on to get back on their feet? Show me the “enumerated” language that permits those activities, because I can’t find it.

Grants to States to cover their extraordinary expenses? I don’t see anything authorizing such activities, and with that in mind…I don’t think so.

According to the “purist” view, the 10th Amendment requires all of this to be handled by the States, not the Federal Government; that’s why, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why these Governors weren’t thinking about disaster planning from the start of their terms.

Why weren’t these supposedly self-reliant States ready when this happened?

I mean, each of these States already has an emergency management department, and I’m sure they can manage much better locally than the Feds (or at least they claim they can), so why are they even asking for Federal help in the first place?

How is it possible that these Governors never considered that protecting the citizens of their States would be “Job 1”, to steal a phrase, and, to make a moral point, why should the rest of us be bailing them out now?

I mean, hey: you told us these were State problems, and now you have problems, and you still have States, so you know what?

Live up to your words: get all “10th Amendment-y”, and suck it up, and deal with it yourselves.

That’s what you told us you wanted, when you were Full Of Big Campaign Talk, so now do it, Governors, and stop all that crying and whimpering to us for outside help, and go make that 10th Amendment work for you.

Show us how much better local control is than when the Giant Hand Of The Federal Government Tells You What To Do.

Be the self-reliant Brawny Men that you were in your campaign ads.

And I’d pose the same challenge to anyone who voted for these Governors:

Remember how you all cheered when your candidates told you Government wasn’t the solution; that it was, instead, the problem?

If you really believed that, then what in the world are you doing asking for the Federal Government’s help now?

After all, you said you wanted Government “off your back”, and “the Government that governs best governs least”, right, so why would you want Government in your faces at a time when you’re trying your hardest just to get back on your feet?

Why aren’t you (and I’m thinking specifically of you, Tri-Corner Hat Patriot Guys) demanding that the Federal Government stay out of this and leave the States alone?

And it’s only fair: there was no tornado in California this weekend, so why should Californians pay taxes for your disaster?

And remember how adamant you were, just a couple of weeks ago, that the budget cuts associated with those Continuing Budget Resolutions weren’t deep enough?

Well, how are we supposed to make the kind of budget cuts y’all wanted on the Federal side when you’re coming around here demanding more money?

We have a deficit, remember, and we can’t be spending money we don’t have—and even if we had the money, we couldn’t spend it on helping you, because, as you all recall, there’s nothing specifically in the Constitution to allow it.

This is your problem, Constitutional purists, and, according to your own logic, it’s not ours…so if you want your roads and schools fixed, ask your citizens to volunteer to do the work or something.

Since we can no longer help you, maybe the Red Cross or some other private charity could fund the rebuilding of your communities.

Since so many conservatives believe corporate and religious philanthropy will fill in the gaps in the shrinking “social safety net”, you could try asking churches and private industry to do the work for you as a community service; I’m sure they’ll jump right in and pick up all the slack.

Hey: you were the ones full of tough talk last November, my Tea Party friends, and now it’s 10th Amendment “gut check” time, and I want to see you live up to your own words, if you have the “man pants” to do it…or I want you to see you acknowledge that this was all a giant load of hooey.

That maybe there’s a place for a United States of America, that maybe there is such a thing as “general Welfare”…or maybe even that being a 10th Amendment purist might be great down at the ol’ Heritage Foundation when you’re hustling for campaign money, but that once the big winds start blowing, ideology ain’t worth spit compared to a system of weather radars and satellites and a FEMA that will come and bail your butt out if it all goes wrong.

And if you voted for one of these clowns…either you need to get smart, right now…or maybe we need to cut the cord.

Maybe you need to see what your own vision of “10th Amendment reality” is really all about.

Maybe, just as so many of you have demanded, we should mind our own Federal business and let local government govern best.

And if it doesn’t work out, then, maybe, you’ll wake up and realize that Ronald Reagan was wrong: sometimes Government is the only game in town, and when it’s not around, providing helpful solutions…that’s when you got real problems.

On Fighting To Win, Or, A Tale Of Two Kinds Of Democrats

If your view of politics is filtered by a lens marked “Progressive” or “Liberal”, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve been gnashing your teeth and pulling your hair in frustration over the “give away the store, then negotiate” approach professional Democrats have used when facing the challenges from the Tea Party last year, and all that’s come after.

Over and over and over people like me have written stories wondering why Democrats, starting with this President, don’t get out in a very public way and slam Republican policies, over and over and over—especially when most Americans hate the things Republicans seem to love to support.

Turning over Government to the highest bidder?
Not so popular.

Going back to a heathcare system run by, for, and of the insurance industry?
Again, not so much.

Jacking up taxes and healthcare costs for you and me in order to provide another trillion in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires?
So unpopular pollsters hardly believe it.

But there is another way, and today’s story is in two parts: we’re going to talk about how hard it is to get Democrats, as a group, to get loud and get aggressive—and then we’re going to talk about Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who is out there showing any reluctant Democrat just exactly how you can “grow the brand”.

We are, all, North and South, engaged in the White Slave Trade, and he who succeeds best, is esteemed most respectable. It is far more cruel than the Black Slave Trade, because it exacts more of its slaves, and neither protects nor governs them. We boast, that it exacts more, when we say, "that the profits made from employing free labor are greater than those from slave labor." The profits, made from free labor, are the amount of the products of such labor, which the employer, by means of the command which capital or skill gives him, takes away, exacts or "exploitates" from the free laborer. The profits of slave labor are that portion of the products of such labor which the power of the master enables him to appropriate. These profits are less, because the master allows the slave to retain a larger share of the results of his own labor, than do the employers of free labor.

--From the book “Cannibals All!”, by George Fitzhugh, 1857

So let’s start with the “how hard is it?” part:

I get to participate in conference calls these days, and I was recently on a call with a Member of Congress who shall remain nameless (to protect the moderately guilty). The Member was unable to remain on the call until my question, but I was able to get an email off to the press rep over there, who was kind enough to get back to me.

After an exchange of emails, we got down to the real question:

How should I explain to readers why they don't hear every Democrat saying something like this, every single day: "We get that there's a financing problem in the future, and the good news that it can be fixed without raising the retirement age, and without cutting benefits, and we can even lower the payroll tax rate at the same time--and that's why we will never let the Republicans destroy Social Security, even under cover of a budget fight"?

Now I post on almost 30 blog sites, from Kos to Docudharma to Left In Alabama to The Bilerico Project, and all sorts of others in between, and if there is one theme that is consistent across all these sites, it's that readers do not understand why so many Democrats, over and over, don't avail themselves of the obvious political advantages that are there to be had when they get in front of the public and, well, frankly, act like Democrats?

So that was the question I sent…and it’s a good thing I didn’t hold my breath waiting for an answer, because that answer never came.

I sent the same question to the office of a very liberal Member with whom I’ve had good relations in the past—and again, nothing.

Here’s another “what does it take to get Democrats to act like Democrats?” story:

I was in Olympia, Washington, on April 8th for a big ol’ labor rally, and the featured speaker was Senator Spencer Coggs (he’s one of the 14 Democratic State Senators who left Wisconsin to make Scott Walker’s life a whole lot less comfortable), and he tore up the crowd pretty good…but there was at least a couple of hours of speakers, and the event was held right in front of the State Capitol, and the (Democratically controlled) Legislature was in session, right at that very moment…and the (Democratically occupied) Governor’s Mansion is literally right next door…and yet, somehow, not one single elected official of the Democratic persuasion from anywhere in the entire State of Washington could manage to find their way past the kids ringing bells under the Dome and out the front door to greet the thousands of voters standing just outside.

OK, so that’s the problem—but as you know, I like to offer solutions as well, and with that in mind, it’s time to meet the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer.

Now, as you might imagine, Montana is not exactly a haven for lefty liberals, but Schweitzer, a Democrat, is not only not caving under pressure…he’s showing Democrats everywhere how to send a message—and how to send it with style.

The Republican-led Legislature passed a slew of bills he didn’t like (he reported that none of ‘em created new jobs—and doesn’t that sound familiar?), and he could have given in and signed them—or he could follow the advice of Denny Lester, ace political cartoonist for the Helena (MT) “Independent Record”, and veto the hell out of those bills, preferably with a branding iron.

There is a Montana Department of Livestock, and if you intend to register a new cattle brand, they are the folks you need to see—and sure enough, on February 23rd, an “Official Brand Certificate” was issued to the Governor for the brand “VETO”.

Then the Governor went out and created a job in Montana: he had a series of branding irons made, each carrying the new brand in various sizes (“calf”, “yearling”, and “bull”, depending on how much he wanted to veto any particular bill).

“…so my Mom called to find out if there was a branding going on, and I said well, not really, it’s a sort of a branding, and she said, uh, do you need somebody to bring the beer?...”

--Governor Brian Schweitzer, April 13, 2011

The Governor got a few friends together last Wednesday, and he vetoed not one, not two, but 17 bills he felt were “either frivolous, unconstitutional or in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana”…and he did it, with the cameras rolling, by using the branding irons to brand a red-hot “VETO” on those bills, all to the cheers of the assembled crowd.

You can see it for yourself, right here, in a video produced by the Montana Democratic Party—and trust me when I tell you, it’s a hoot:



Now if you watched that video, you might be thinking: “Hey, maybe that guy should be President…”—and that’s how we get to the real point of this story.

We have in front of us a President and a Democratic Party apparatus who can either negotiate with Republicans who want to kill both Social Security and Medicare (the likely end result being two programs and a Democratic Party that will basically be “circling the drain” from then on)…or they can take the branding iron to Paul Ryan’s “Catfood Plan v 2.0”, and a lot of other Republican ideas besides, and he can help his own Party and make every other Republican in the country feel the burn, all at the same time.

Since negotiating away Medicare and Social Security is hugely unpopular…that’s pretty much what I expect far too many Democrats to do, unless we can grab ‘em by the lapels and show ‘em that voters want Democratic Democrats—you know, the kind of Democrat who understands how to grow a brand, and how to keep it strong, and how to set fire to bad ideas, loudly and publicly, when that’s the right thing to do.

Tell your Member of Congress about this video, and your President, too; and let’s see if we can show our elected “followers” how to get on the road to becoming elected ”leaders”.

On Open-Source Entertainment, Or, Today, Jon Kyl Meets Twitter

So Arizona Senator Jon Kyl went and did a stupid thing the other day by claiming on the floor of the Senate that 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is related to abortions, and that, by God, we need to cut that Federal funding for abortions, and we need to cut all Federal funding for Planned Parenthood—and we need to do it today.

Of course, that 90% claim was total hooey; it turns out that only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s work relates to abortions. (The Federal funding for abortions part is, too; the Hyde Amendment made such funding illegal decades ago.)

When confronted, Kyl’s office released a statement claiming the Senator’s comments were “not intended to be a factual statement”.

Sir Rev. Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, decided to have a bit of fun with Kyl, and he challenged his audience to Tweet their own “Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement” about Kyl.

I decided to compose a Tweet of my own…and then another…and before I knew it I had an entire story’s worth; that’s why, today, we’ll be taking a taking a short break from the daily grind to have a bit of fun with a man who truly deserves it: Jon Kyl.

...I decided to celebrate Jon Kyl's ground-breaking excystplanation last night by tweeting round-the-clock nonfacts about him:

“For the past ten years Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit” and “Jon Kyl calls all Asians ‘Neil’ no matter what their name is”.

Both of which would be libelous if I hadn't added the hashtag notintendedtobeafactualstatement.

Well, Nation, you picked this up and ran with it, using my hashtag to tweet your own nonfacts as an uprece-tweeted rate of 46 per minute!

Which, incidentally, is the rate at which Jon Kyl catapults puppies into the sea.

--Stephen Colbert, speaking on the “Colbert Report”, Wednesday, Apr 13, 2011

So I did a bit of math, and if Colbert is correct about that “46 a minute” thing then about 65,000 tweets went up in the 24 hours following his announcement, and they’re still going up fast; check out #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement at Twitter to get a feel for what I’m talking about.

Two Tweets by other writers sort of “bookmark” the types of missives that have been presented; Ben Cobb, writing as @MoltenPanther, Tweeted…

Jon Kyl started a squirrel farm to form a massive squirrel army in preparation for the coming apocalypse.

…and John Q, writing as @PencilName, wrote:

During an emergency, Jon Kyl can be used as a flotation device.

So with that in mind, here’s a few of my #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement submissions:

Jon Kyl's head once served as a landing light for Senator James Inhofe at the Eufala, Alabama airport.

Jon Kyl listens to Radio Disney--and doesn't know those are cover songs.

Jon Kyl likes KFC better than Popeye's.

It used to be John Kyl...but he lost the "h" in 1979 after a night of drinking, and now he can't find it.

"The KylBot AZ Mark II v.3.6505 is experiencing software malfunctions. Please try again later..."

Kyl's head brushed against Trump's hair on an airport runway last night. 450 passengers aboard, 0 injured.

On Saturday nights, John Kyl likes to dress up as a giant pretzel and get "stuffed in an M&M"

Why is Kyl so crazy? He gets 5 cents per page view every time he's in The Onion--and he needs the money.

Jon Kyl once caught Larry Craig eating Cheeze Whiz right out of the can.

Jon Kyl once impersonated Flip Wilson so he could appear in the movie "Uptown Saturday Night".

The most popular strain of medicinal marijuana in the United States today is "Jon Kyl".

Jon Kyl can see Russia from his house.

Jon Kyl's Malcolm X poster is covered by a Robert Mapplethorpe poster...so that no one will ever know...

Jon Kyl once snorted coke, but the bubbles really hurt his nose.

215,856 of Jon Kyl's constituents signed a petition asking him to start smoking.

Jon Kyl's iPhone has a dial.

Joe Arpaio is blackmailing Kyl with whatever's on his original birth certificate.

I know where Lemmywinks is tonight--and so does Jon Kyl's colon.

If Jon Kyl was a chicken-fried steak at Denny's he would give you diarrhea the next morning.

Jon Kyl's skull recently committed suicide. It was leading an empty life.

Jon Kyl never got that "Mulva" joke.

Powdered Toast Man once told Jon Kyl to go butter himself.

Jon Kyl once tried phone sex, but he didn't have enough lube, so he had to quit.

Jon Kyl's favorite kink is to dress up like a fence and play "Border Crossing".

From 1977 to 1981, Jon Kyl appeared onstage as Tommy Chong. Cheech Marin was never told of the deception.

Jon Kyl used whiffleball bats for his entire Major League Baseball career.

On his days off, Kyl plays Carl on "Aqua Teen Hunger Force".

Jon Kyl provides sanctuary for up to 800 illegal immigrants at a time in his at-home underground bunkers.

Wendy Williams' wig head Shakeetha has a restraining order out on Jon Kyl.

Jon Kyl once had Hansen's Disease--but then he got his "Mmm Bop" removed.

If Jon Kyl was in "Star Wars" he'd be known as Luke NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement-Walker.

Jon Kyl's Danny has never met its Dingo.

Jon Kyl once tried to Baskin his Robbins.

Jon Kyl's brain has seen the news reports, and now it doesn't want to come back from vacation.

Every defibrillator in Arizona recently signed a letter refusing to revive Jon Kyl.

If John Boehner's tears ever touch Jon Kyl, he'll dissolve.

So there you go: now that we’ve started the day out with a bit of fun, why not waste a bit of your boss’ time and direct a few Tweets of your own to Kyl?

And don’t forget: be smart, be funny, and be sure to add #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement to those Tweets—because after all, you don’t want to be out committing libel now, do you?

DADT Update: The Service Chiefs Report, The Republicans Fret

There’s been a great deal of concern around here about the effort to prepare the US military for the full repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), and I’ve had a few words of my own regarding how long the process might take.

There was a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday that had all four Services represented; with one exception these were the same Service Chiefs that were testifying last December when the bill to set the repeal process in motion was still a piece of prospective legislation.

At that time there was concern that the “combat arms” of the Marines and the Army were going to be impacted in a negative way by the transition to “open service”; the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Army’s Chief of Staff were the most outspoken in confirming that such concerns exist within the Pentagon as well.

We now have more information to report—including the increasing desperation of some of our Republican friends—and if you ask me, I think things might be better than we thought.

The Governments of the States Parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples declare:

That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed;

That ignorance of each other's ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the world through which their differences have all too often broken into war…

--From the Constitution of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, And Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

So let me start with the good news; I’ll do that by telling you what I though would happen, compared to what the Service Chiefs are now saying is going to happen:

My guess was that, due to all the process involved, we could be looking at a full year for implementation, and if the Services felt that they had to rotate all the overseas deployed forces back to the USA before they could complete training, you could easily be looking at 18 months.

That, as it turns out, was wildly inaccurate.

The Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Peter W. Chiarelli, reported Thursday that his Service might be able to report they’re ready to certify by May 15th of this year; to make that happen they are going to train the troops overseas and at home, both at the same time, and they wanted us to know that they’ve already completed much of the “train the trainer” work already. They also expect to certify after about 50% of the training is complete instead of waiting for 100%, and that’s because the leadership believes they’ll know of any implementation problems that are likely to crop up by then.

The most outspoken opponent of the change in December, Marine Commandant General James Amos, says that he’s seeing far fewer problems than he expected, and he believes the move to open service won’t have any serious impact on his force.

Here’s how the Defense Department reported Amos’ testimony:

A department [of Defense] survey last year showed that about 60 percent of Marines in combat units had concerns about the repeal, Amos noted, but those concerns seem to be waning. The general visited with Marines in Afghanistan over Christmas and spoke with their commander this morning on the issue, he said.

“I’m looking specifically for issues that might arise out of Tier 1 and Tier 2 and, frankly, we just haven’t seen it,” Amos said. “There hasn’t been the recalcitrant push back, the anxiety about it” from forces in the field.

Amos said the Marines’ commander told him, “’Quite honestly, they’re focused on the enemy.’”

The Navy says they expect to complete their Tier 3 training (the final phase of training) as soon as the end of June; Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told the Committee that he foresees no problem achieving a successful transition to open service.

(A quick note to the reader: I have been known to write satirical stories with crazy made-up character names, but the actual name of the actual Admiral who is tasked with leading the Navy into the era of open service is actually…Roughead. Some may consider this to be evidence of Intelligent Design; I continue to disbelieve.)

Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz, who also seemed to suggest, back in December, that trouble might be waiting on the road ahead, seemed far more confident this week; it looks like the Air Force might have Tier 3 training wrapped up by the July 4th holiday.

The Service Chiefs also announced that those who have been discharged under DADT will be eligible to petition to return to the military.

There is today a mechanism in place within the Defense Department to consider the petitions of those who voluntarily leave the military and wish to reapply; that system looks at what jobs are available, and, if it meets the needs of the Services, a job offer is extended to the applicant. (The individual might not return at the same grade or rank they held when leaving, however, and that would also depend on the military’s interpretation of what best fits military “force structure” requirements.)

At the hearing the Committee members were told that those who were discharged under DADT could reapply under the same rules that exist today for those who leave voluntarily; the same system that’s in place today will “work” those applications.

There was some not unexpected bad news: Republican Members of the House are just so over the top on objecting to this one that it’s ridiculous and funny and maddening and just awful, all at once.

There was begging (“if there was just some way the Service Chiefs could convince the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs not to certify, then we could all be saved” was the gist of that one), and fake expertise (“when I served we were all afraid of ‘em, and I can’t believe today’s troops still aren’t” is the rough outline of how that argument went and California’s Duncan Hunter was an example of one Congressman who fit into that “genre”); there was even an offer to do another survey so we can “do what the troops really want” (I can save y’all the time and trouble: what they really want…is to get the hell out of Afghanistan).

If the Grim Weeper had been in the room, I’m sure he would have had a big ol’ blubbery cry over the tragedy that’s befallen the Nation on this somber occasion—and it’s a good thing he wasn’t, because I have no doubt such a display would have once again caused Tonstant Weader to fwow up, just like that time back at Pooh Corner.

Among the Republicans there was a lot of preoccupation with the potential for men, in combat, in those close, confined, spaces…men who are depending on each other, night and day…to be subject to the advances of other strong, powerful, muscular, men in a variety of manly uniforms—I mean, as far as I can tell, there are Republicans who see this as some kind of eventual “Livin’ La Vida Loca” kind of situation, only, you know, a bit more butch, and I would love to know what in the world they think life aboard a Ballistic Missile Submarine or on a Forward Operating Base in Southeastern Afghanistan is really like?

Oddly enough, the predominantly male Committee didn’t seem as concerned about the possibility of female same-sex relationships impacting military readiness and unit cohesion in a negative way; if anyone has a guess as to why that might be the case I’m sure I’d love to hear it.

The military, to their credit, did a lot of pushing back against the Republicans. For example, at one point there were questions as to whether this would cause an unacceptable number of troops to leave the all-volunteer military. The response: right now the real problem is that as we withdraw from Iraq and troopers come home to a bad economy, too few want to leave.

They also spent a lot of time pointing out that “standards of conduct” already exist to manage sexual contacts and harassing behaviors between opposite-gendered persons, and that those very same rules will be used to manage issues of conduct in a same-sex context.

Risk mitigation is suddenly very important for some Republicans, and they do not want to repeal if there is any risk at all that the move could impact combat readiness or pose a hazard to the force.

That line of logic led to one of the most stupid questions I have ever heard asked in a hearing, ever, in decades of actually paying attention, and it came from Republican Vicky Hartzler (MO-04).

What she was trying to do was to show that the Generals would not want to recommend policies that add to the risk facing the troops. What she had been told was that the future risks of open service were as yet unknown (hard to know today with 100% certainty what the future holds), but that, based on progress made so far, the risks seemed to be low and that mitigations seemed to be in place for currently identified potential problems.

But what she asked the commanding officers of four military services was…wait for it…whether they had ever recommended sending their troops into heightened risk environments?

They actually all kind of seemed a bit stunned by the question—but they kept their poker faces—and then they reminded her that sending troops into combat is actually a bit of a high-risk activity.

The deer then jumped out of the way of the headlights, and the hearing resumed.

Look, folks, I am not passing along any news when I tell you that DADT still scares the loose buttons off a bunch of suits in Washington and that they still want to have this out anyplace they can—but it is news to find out that they are ahead of where they could have been over at the Pentagon, and that all the Service Chiefs do really seem to be on board, at least publicly, and that they are all reporting fewer problems than they expected as this process moves forward.

In a tough week it’s nice to report good news, and I think this qualifies—and if things continue at this pace, we could see certification and full open service before Labor Day.

Now I know we don’t usually give Labor Day presents, and to make it worse, we’re hard to shop for…but if there’s one thing everyone loves to get, it’s a More Perfect Union—and I bet once we try it on, there’s no way it’s going back.

Social Security: Are You Ready For A Congressional “Video Staycation”?

Diligent reporter that I am, I got up yesterday morning to do a bit of fishing for a story, and as so often happens, I’ve caught something a bit unexpected.

Now what I have for you today starts out as a bit of insider information that came to me on background—but it turns into a chance for those of us who support Social Security to very much get in the faces of our members of Congress, for two whole weeks.

And to make it even better, I’m going to throw out a few direct action ideas “for your consideration” (as they say in Hollywood during Awards Season) that would absolutely make good street actions and YouTube videos, both at the same time…and even more importantly, we’ll absolutely make some great Spring Break fun.

“I mean, just from the very notion that it said that 50 percent of beneficiaries under the Social Security program use those moneys as their sole source of income. So we've got to protect today's seniors. But for the rest of us? For - you know, listen. We're going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be…

…We're going to have to accept some changes as far as the rest of us. And what we're saying is for those 55 and older do not have to worry about changes in benefits. But for the rest of us we will. We will have to do that."

--House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, speaking at the Hoover Institution, March 21, 2011

OK, so like I said, I have bit of “inside baseball” that sets this whole thing up.

I got a piece of information “on background” yesterday from An Actual Well-Informed Source who seems to be about two or three “degrees of separation” away from actually being in the room while this news is occurring; because of that I’m willing to ascribe to it a reasonably good chance of proving to be entirely accurate.

What I was told was that Paul Ryan, who is the “manager” of the House Republicans’ budget-cutting effort, has decided not to push to include cuts in Social Security as part of the current fight over a Continuing Resolution…because Spring Break is coming up.

Check this out: according to the House Schedule, April 18-29 is Spring Recess, and I was told there’s a lot of concern on the Republican side about what would happen if anyone made any crazy Social Security proposals right now…when they have to go home and face you and me and the rest of the Angry Nation in just about two weeks.

(There’s some evidence to back this up: it is now possible that Cantor “misspoke” in that quote a couple of paragraphs up the page; as of this moment I can’t confirm if a "full backpedal" is officially underway or not.)

We can discern two things from that little nugget: for starters, we are having an impact on this fight—but beyond that, we also now know that we have two weeks to publicly torment those Members of Congress who are looking to cut Social Security…and we have two weeks to get ready.

Since hunger strikes are already underway, here are a few other ideas you’re welcome to steal to make your statement:

Is your Member going to be appearing at a community center or a friendly church?

Well how about arriving a few hours early and setting up a cardboard “Social Security Tahrir Square”?

You could have a box that’s the local “Catfood Grocery”, you could paint one of the boxes to look like “Grandma’s Gingerbread Box”, and you could even have a “Long-Term Care Facility” and hand out fliers of your own—and make sure you catch the reaction of the Congressional Staff on video to set up the bigger video of you interacting with the crowd…or y’all being ejected by the suddenly fearful Representative…or y’all “making happy” with a supportive Member.

Now you’re going to love this one, and there are two ways you can make it work.

What we’ll be playing on are the proposals to increase the retirement age and how we’ll be asking old people to do jobs that, obviously, they just can’t; what I basically want you to do is either go to an event…or outside one of the Members’ District Offices…and create a “job training center” for senior citizens.

Get a wheelbarrow and load it with a nice load of bricks, maybe fill some oval trays with a mess of plates and beverageware (safety first on this one; beware of glass and ceramic—and don’t forget the jackstands), and then rustle up a transfer belt and a heavy volunteer and simulate what nurses and their aides do all day long, and all night, too: lifting and transferring those who can’t do it for themselves.

Take it all to the venue, and you can either “train” your own 70+ year-old students…who might not be old enough to retire, under the new proposals…on how to do these types of jobs while the crowd watches—or you can invite older members of the crowd to try their hand at moving the bricks, or lifting the tray. Bring a medical worker and you can show them what lifting looks like, too—although I would be unlikely to invite the crowd to do that one without some kind of training.

(Do I have to warn you that this could get someone hurt, and you’ll have to use a reasonable amount of caution when you do this? I didn’t think so.)

Again, get it all on video—and then get that video right up on the Web.

Our final idea for today might be my favorite—but that might be because I used to be a caterer, and this really fits my sense of humor.

You know those “Top Chef” and “Iron Chef” shows?

And you know how we refer to that Deficit Commission as the Catfood Commission?

Well…why not sponsor a “Catfood Contest” at your Congresscritter’s event?

Again, you could go two ways: invite “contestants” in chef’s whites to create delightful dishes with the Commission’s Catfood, or you could judge competing sculptures; they do both at the Spam Jam in Waikiki, and if it was me I’d steal the ambiance of this kind of an event from Hawai’i, especially since it’s Spring Break season anyway.

An alternative way to do this: performance art of an elderly couple having a Catfood Commission BBQ, cooking Catfood patties on portable grills to make a point.

So there you go:

We have two weeks to get ready to have two great weeks of fun just really tightening the screws on those Members of Congress who are looking to jack America out of Social Security, and we have ideas on the table that you are entirely welcome to borrow, or adapt, or outright steal—and with any luck, other readers will toss in some ideas of their own—so get your art on, gather your props, and bring extra video batteries and a blank tape to give the police…just in case.

And here’s one last thing to remember: this isn’t just about turning back a disastrous plan to break the backs of Americans for decades to come—it’s also about having a good time.

Well-executed comedy makes people agree with you, and to like your message, and that’s a powerful thing; the more fun you’re having, the better the whole thing is going to work.

Now go forth, make some mischief, and watch the magic happen.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This post was written with the support of the CAF State Blogger's Network Project.