I Vant To See Your Papers! Schnell! Schnell!! (Updated)

Via Balloon Juice:

"Race and racism has nothing to do with it:

"Just a week after signing the country's toughest immigration bill into law, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer now must decide whether to endorse another bill passed by her state legislature — one that outlaws ethnic-studies programs in public schools.

***

"Arizona's superintendent for public instruction, Tom Horne, has said he's backing the measure because ethnic-studies programs encourage 'ethnic chauvinism'; he's also suggested that such programs could breed secessionist sentiment among Hispanic students.

"Since when is secessionist sentiment bad? Also, apparently accents will soon be verboten:

"The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English.

"State education officials say the move is intended to ensure that students with limited English have teachers who speak the language flawlessly. But some school principals and administrators say the department is imposing arbitrary fluency standards that could undermine students by thinning the ranks of experienced educators.

"Arizona wants to make it clear that the only acceptable accent is a proper German one."

-------

Update: Added the link to the original post on Balloon Juice and corrected formatting.

Palin distorts the President's words ... will the media notice?

Via Daily Kos

Palin distorts the President's words ... will the media notice?:

As long as the traditional media is going to report on every utterance from the former half-term governor of Alaska, will they bother to fact-check her?

Via The Plum Line, the latest distortion from the hand of Sarah Palin:

Mr. President, is a strong America a problem?

Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”

Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it.

Here’s what the President actually said:

But what we can make sure of is, is that we are constantly present, constantly engaged, and setting out very clearly to both sides our belief that not only is it in the interests of each party to resolve these conflicts but it’s also in the interest of the United States. It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.

Well, that's quite a bit different, isn't it? The President wants to resolve conflicts because of the cost to the United States both in money and American lives, and Sarah Palin distorts his words for personal political gain.

There's only one person with a problem here.

Wow...

From a campaign rally where Sarah Palin was appearing in support of John McCain:

"Kaylie Chriss, a registered Republican, said she remained undecided about who to vote for in the primary election but felt Palin's appearance would boost McCain.

"'It definitely helps him,' she said. 'It gets him a lot more support from people who may not have heard of him.'"

Really? He's running for what? ...his forthieth six-year term as a U.S. Senator? He was um... let me think... the Republican nominee for president or something like that, right? The name is familiar but I cannot quite put my finger on how I know him...

Decision Time

Via Ezra Klein

"Looks like David Frum has been fired from the American Enterprise Institute. The sin appears to be his recent criticism that lockstep Republican opposition to the health-care bill sacrificed conservative policy goals at the altar of short-term electoral incentives. This, apparently, is out of bounds. But he should know that: This dismissal comes after he left the National Review on the heels of bitter arguments over whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be president.

What you're seeing here is the tension between being a conservative and being a Republican. It's not that you can't be both at the same time, but that you have to know which wins when ideological push comes to electoral shove.

...

"Moreover, there was no doubt the bill looked like the reforms Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts and that the conservative Heritage Foundation advocated in the early Aughts. There's no doubt that it was more ideologically conservative than any major reform bill that had come before it. But none of that played any role in the party's rhetoric. Any time you heard someone calling this bill a 'takeover of one-sixth of the economy,' it was pretty good evidence that you could write that commentator off entirely.

"As Frum saw clearly, if you were interested in a conservative health-care system, there was room for compromise in this bill. If Republicans had cut a deal on revenue, we could've capped the tax break for employer-sponsored insurance and there would've been no increase in Medicare payroll taxes. Health savings accounts and tort reform could've been much larger parts of the bill. A system of reinsurance for catastrophic costs, as Sen. Chuck Grassley once proposed, was certainly on the table. If Republicans had offered 40 real votes for Wyden-Bennett, I would've been on their side in this debate."

I cannot agree more. There are a lot of conservative ideas present in this law and not a single conservative Republican would get behind it. Their political aspirations trumped their policy philosophy and they lost on both counts. Concessions were made numerous time to try and build bipartisan support for the bill - mostly by moderate Democrats. This bill is not just centrist, it's centrist leaning to the right. Is it perfect? No. Would Republican input have made this law better? That is debatable, but it certainly would have made it more comprehensive.

They rolled an awfully big pair of dice playing the obscure and obstruct game and came up bust. The gamble only would have payed off if they could have stopped the legislation from becoming law. If they had succeeded, the defeated bill and its details would have become a memory recalled as only a closely-contested, nail-biting defeat of government intrusion into peoples' health care; the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship kept pure from an over-reaching federal authority with shades of socialism.

What's going to happen though is that as aspects of the law are enacted one after another and people see how horrible the GOP distorted the facts and tried to derail the debate public opinion is going to turn against them. It's already happening. Public opinion polls already have the new law, the Democrats and President Obama tracking higher than before passage. The big question is do they reconsider their strategy and stop the obstruction that they are already ratcheting up? ...do they give up the heated rhetoric designed to whip their base into a even greater furor? Or do they start reaching across the aisle as Lynsey Graham has on immigration reform? Or do they stay ideologically pure and further relegate themselves to the sidelines?

Crazy Never Goes Out of Style in Some Circles

In 1961 when Ronald Reagan was campaigning against Medicare he said, "[I]f you don't [stop Medicare] and I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free." That's pretty much the jist of the message the GOP has been hammering non-stop since Health Care reform passed in the house. According to them, we are now one black-booted goosestep away from becoming a totalitarian, socialist country. On April 19th (the anniversery of Wako and the Oklahoma City bombing) there is a march being planned in Washington D.C. - and the organizers are encouraging its participants to come armed. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is tweeting "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." Bricks have been tosesed through the windows of local Democratic Headquarters and the office of Representatives Louise Slaughter and Gabrielle Giffords in reaction the HCR becoming law. Some Tea Party leaders gave out (what they thought was) the address of a Virgina congressman who had voted for reform so that they could "drop by and say hi and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care." They slashed the propane line leading to the home. And just a few weeks ago a batshit insane, anti-tax reactionary flew his fully-fueled plane into a federal building.

...and they accused President Obama of palling around with terrorists?

For me, the G.O.P. lost all relevance and any claim to the moral higher ground when they courted disaffected southern Democrats who felt betrayed when the party turned their backs on them and enacted civil rights legislation for black Americans. From that point on they have been on the wrong side of history with very few exceptions. H. W. Bush's showing restraint during the first Gulf War and leaving Saddam Hussein in power is good example. An infinitely unpopular decision at the time but one that the last eight years on the ground in Iraq have show to be a prudent one. Many, many conservative consider dear, old Ronnie not just one of the best presidents in recent history, but in the entire history of the United States - more than Lincoln and Washington combined. To them, he is the very epitome of what the president should be. According to them, He should be added to Mount Rushmore and replace Grant on the $50 bill. Reagan was an amazing politician and an horrific president. Decried "tax and spend" Democrats while burying us in a huge deficit with runaway military spending. He liked to talk tough about America protecting and defending democracy while selling weapons to the sandinistas and secretly empowering Iran and the mujahideen in Afghanistan (who eventually morphed into the Taliban.)

And not much has changed since the days of the Gipper. ...at least not for the GOP. And they want to keep it that way. The bad news for them is that the world has changed around them, the country's values are and have been shifting without them even noticing. Why else would they call natural progress toward a more pratical (and universal) healthcare system treasonous and socialist? Is it any surprise that they're still the using the bogeyman of the shadow of the red menace of Communism (thank you Sen. McCarthy) to try and scare people into opposing issues?

Finally!

Harry Reid has discovered his spine. In a letter he sent to Mitch McConnell he told him in no uncertain terms that the Democrats in the Senate are going to pass the healthcare bill via reconciliation. ...or Ezra Klein from the Washington Post put it, "Reconcile this!" Here is part of the letter Reid sent to the Senate minority leader:

"Though we have tried to engage in a serious discussion, our efforts have been met by repeatedly debunked myths and outright lies. At the same time, Republicans have resorted to extraordinary legislative maneuvers in an effort not to improve the bill, but to delay and kill it. After watching these tactics for nearly a year, there is only one conclusion an objective observer could make: these Republican maneuvers are rooted less in substantive policy concerns and more in a partisan desire to discredit Democrats, bolster Republicans, and protect the status quo on behalf of the insurance industry.[...]

"60 Senators voted to pass historic reform that will make health insurance more affordable, make health insurance companies more accountable and reduce our deficit by roughly a trillion dollars. The House passed a similar bill. However, many Republicans now are demanding that we simply ignore the progress we've made, the extensive debate and negotiations we've held, the amendments we've added (including more than 100 from Republicans) and the votes of a supermajority in favor of a bill whose contents the American people unambiguously support. We will not. We will finish the job. We will do so by revising individual elements of the bills both Houses of Congress passed last year, and we plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process that the Republican caucus has used many times.

"I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their argument is unjustified. There is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the use of reconciliation. As one of the most senior Senators in your caucus, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said in explaining the use of this very same option, 'Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don't think so.' Similarly, as non-partisan congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein said in this Sunday's New York Times, our proposal is 'compatible with the law, Senate rules and the framers' intent.'

"Reconciliation is designed to deal with budget-related matters, and some have expressed doubt that it could be used for comprehensive health care reform that includes many policies with no budget implications. But the reconciliation bill now under consideration would not be the vehicle for comprehensive reform – that bill already passed outside of reconciliation with 60 votes. Instead, reconciliation would be used to make a modest number of changes to the original legislation, all of which would be budget-related. There is nothing inappropriate about this. Reconciliation has been used many times for a variety of health-related matters, including the establishment of the Children's Health Insurance Program and COBRA benefits, and many changes to Medicare and Medicaid.

"As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush's massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority. Either way, we disagree. Keep in mind that reconciliation will not exclude Republicans from the legislative process. You will continue to have an opportunity to offer amendments and change the shape of the legislation. In addition, at the end of the process, the bill can pass only if it wins a democratic, up-or-down majority vote. If Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces health
care costs, fills the prescription drug 'donut hole' for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will have every right to do so."

Nice!!!

Really???

I had an active day... aside from work and cooking dinner, I found the time to write two Senators about job creation legislation. One of them was Senator Dodd, which is understandable - he is my senator, after all... The other one was John Kyl of Arizona, whom I loathe. The letter to Senator Dodd is below; my letter to senator Kyl is included in the body of my letter to Senator Dodd:

"I sent a message to Senator Kyl through his website, but since I am not from Arizona I am not going to hold my breath for a reply, action or even acknowledgement. I'm not even sure that his staff will actually show it to him, since I am not a constituent. But the obstructive action he is pursuing has far-reaching ramifications - it impacts unemployed workers in every state of the union, so I feel I have a right to make my displeasure with him known. Would be so kind as to read my letter to him on the floor of the Senate to let the Senator from Arizona know that the obstruction he is putting in the way of extending unemployment insurance and COBRA has enraged voters two thousand miles away. Here is the test of the message I sent to Senator Kyl:

"'Are you really blocking extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA, which is going to expire in three days, because you want to talk about estate taxes? What is wrong with you? What is wrong with your priorities? You're willing to delay helping those most in need during these tough economic times to help the most privileged and affluent in this country? Are you that out of touch and removed from the stark reality that everyday people are facing in this country? You're more worried about multi-millionaires getting a tax cut than unemployed workers losing their benefits?

"'You should be ashamed of yourself. Your job is to represent the people of your state, not just the people of your state who are in a position to contribute the most to your campaign fund.'

"Thank you."

As of this moment, I haven't heard back from either one of them.

CPAC Swag

I really get a kick out of Rachel Maddow.

Any new ideas?

Why is it that the worst ideas just never seem to die? Michael Lind writes in salon.com about the two new ideas to come from the bright, new stars of the G.O.P.: attacking Iran and privatizing Social Security.

Sarah Palin suggests that if President Obama were to show stronger support for Israel and attack Iran that voters might perceive him as being "stronger." She says that he's not doing enough to make Americans feel safe and that he should pull out the "war card." I guess escalating the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban isn't enough. I guess that it's not enough that we're already occupying two Muslim nations in the Middle East. Let's make it a nice, round threesome! I'm sure that will resonate great with voters who are already tired of thousands of Americans dead in Iraq (for no good reason) and years of trying to tame Afghanistan (when no other nation in all of recorded history couldn't) and going into a trillion dollar deficit in the process. Is this what she would do if she were elected president in 2012!? "Gosh darnit, our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have done so much to make 'real Americans™' and our neighbors and friends in Israel and around the world, we need to continue the good work of the Bush Doctrine and declare war on every Muslim nation in the Middle East."

The other bright idea, privatizing Medicare has been around for so long that I actually laugh when I hear it. I was simply and utterly shocked when the GOP's ranking member on the House Budget Committee actually announced the contents of the party's "shadow bill." It privatizes Social Security, has vouchers for Medicare and completely does away with Medicaid.

"That's what Americans are demanding, Rep. Ryan. Millions of Americans are not content to have lost much or all of their 401K and other private retirement savings in the stock market in the last decade, with nothing but Social Security remaining to rescue them in their retirement years. No, Americans are angry because they weren't allowed to lose all of their Social Security money, as well, in the stock market." You'd think with all the populist backlash against Wall Street giving themselves big bonuses after driving the economy into a ditch the last thing you want to do is give them all the government's money for Americans' retirements. That's like arriving at the scene of an accident caused by a drunk driver and instead of arresting them you give them a bigger, more expensive car and a case of liquor and send them on their merry way.

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way!

I know I've pointed out numerous time in various places the extreme measures that the G.O.P. has been employing since last year to completely and utterly delay, if not derail, the legislative process. Holds have been placed on every single nomination on not just cabinet level nominations, but on all levels, many of whom are not in the least way controversial. The filibuster has been invoked on over 90% of all legislation, including bills that are eventually passed unanimously, such as a bill to extend unemployment benefits with passed the Senate 90-0. And it is the Senate where this is a unique problem. Here is just one example: Craig Becker has been nominated to serve on the National Labor Relations Board; Senator McCain has placed a hold on his nomination back in July and that hold is still in effect. During this time Mr. Becker has answered over 280 submitted written questions from various senators and is still awaiting confirmation. A hold on a nomination, from a purely theoretical viewpoint makes lots of sense. A senator places a hold, so that a nominee can be more thoroughly vetted. Whatever committee that senator sits upon can then ask the nominee questions, hold further hearings and get more testimony from references, for or against, said nominee. But it is being used for sheer political reasons at this point. That was why we did not have a Surgeon General during the H1N1 scare. That was why there was no one in charge at the National Travel Safety Board (and still isn't) when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. (Mr Southers, the nominee for the position withdrew his nomination on Jan 20th, in frustration perhaps? - Thank Jim DeMint for that.) At President George W. Bush's one year mark there were 70 nominees still awaiting confirmation, which shows that both sides play this game. But at President Obama's 365th day in office there were 177 nominees still awaiting confirmation. What's worse is that dozens and dozens of those nominees are slated to work in areas affecting the U.S.'s safety and foreign policy - in the midst of two wars! There is no one at the head of the Office of Legal Counsel (that would have been the guy in W's administration who wrote the torture memos.) There was no undersecretary for the Western Hemisphere, whose duties include coordinating our response to events in South America, during the constitutional crisis in Honduras.

What puzzles, as well as alarms me, is that people in this country do not a) care about this or b) are simply not aware of this. The rest of the world has certainly taken notice as U. S. embassies around the world sat empty due to the lack of an ambassador, China hasn't been fully engaged on currency exchange policy due to staffing shortages in the Treasury Department... And why? Because the senate G.O.P. has the legislative process hog-tied and locked up in a closet in an attempt to paint the Democrats as unable to get things done.

By the way, do know how many of the 280 written questions submitted to Mr. Becker were submitted by Senator McCain?

Z E R O !

Surprised

It shouldn't come as a shock that I am not a fan of Cindy McCain, but I have to give her kudos for her support for the repeal of proposition 8 in California. Meghan McCain is also appearing in an image for the NO H8 Campaign, but she's a half-way decent person already. Cindy McCain doing this is a real shock. Her husband, Sen. John McCain, evidently ins't too happy about the whole thing and his office released a statement:

"Senator McCain respects the views of members of his family. The Senator chaired the effort to successfully pass Arizona Proposition 102, the Marriage Protection Amendment, and his opposition to gay marriage remains the same. Senator McCain believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman."

I wonder if the first Mrs. McCain agrees with her ex-husband who ran off with the beautiful heiress on the whole the whole "one man and one woman thing."

Disappointed

I know that there were not a lot of good options that were present to President Obama concerning Afghanistan and the course we should pursue there. One of the options that I pretty sure were never put on the table for discussion was complete and immediate withdrawal of all of our troops. What is most disappointing is the way that the president is embracing the Bush doctrine; it may not be a full-on, twenty second, bromance kind of hug. It's more like an awkward, uncomfortable embrace with your aging great-aunt who smells funny, but it's an embrace, none the less. Tuesday's night's speech was probably the most un-inspiring, flat, lifeless speech that I've ever heard President Obama deliver. I would like to think that his heart wasn't really in it and that deep down inside that he didn't really agree with the orders our military are about to carry out. I don't know if this decision is the product of pressure being exerted by the pentagon and our military leaders. If so, this decision flies in the face of George Washington's ideal of a civilian commanding our military; the armed forces are supposed to answer to the president, not the other way around.

What really would be immensely disappointing is the idea that this decision was made to give political cover to the Democratic party in the upcoming elections in 2010 and 2012. If the president were to order a complete withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan to begin immediately, the Democratic party would be vulnerable politically. The GOP would portray us as soft on terror, unwilling to make the hard decisions to keep America safe, unwilling to listen to the advice of our military's generals, etc. I am not ready or willing to embrace this idea. I do not think that President Obama, while a shrewd and polished politician is willing to sacrifice the lives of young American men and women and add billions upon billions of dollars to the deficit for sheer political gain. My cynicism hasn't plunged to that depth yet.

One thing I must say though is that while I am disappointed with this decision, I am not at all surprised. I am very much a liberal and Obama was not my choice for president during the primaries. The two candidates who I was most willing to vote for were Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. They had both dropped out of the race when we were voting the primaries in Connecticut. I voted for Hillary Clinton. Obama, I thought was always too much of a centrist; he's not really a liberal. He always said he would, as president, defeat al Qaeda and give the war in Afghanistan the attention it deserved, that this was the region that should be our focus in the war on terror and not Iraq. So while I do not feel that this is the decision that the president should have come to in his deliberation on the situation in Afghanistan, and by proxy Pakistan, I cannot say that I didn't see it coming. And I still voted for him, in spite of this fact. He was a much better choice than Senator McCain - I cannot and don't want to imagine the mess the country would be in if Barack Obama had not been elected. I hope that we stick with the withdrawal schedule the president has come up with for 2011. It's not as soon as I'd like to see the troops come home, but if we stick with that timetable, hopefully the cost of this war, in both monetary and human cost, will not be too high.

Going Rogue

I just read this. Someone tweeted a link to it and I thought that I would go take a look. I have to admit that my reading and sources of information are rather insulated. I think everyone's natural tendency is to gravitate to views that reinforce your own views. While this may make us feel better and gives us a sense of validation the tunnel vision that comes as a byproduct, in reality, does neither us nor the country any real favors. In fact it has the potential to be extremely harmful. Is it any wonder that, according to some statistics, over 40% of Republicans do not believe that President Obama is a natural-born citizen and therefor illegible to hold office. This is in spite of the fact that the contrary has been proven by the cable news networks, the White House, factcheck.org and plenty of other sources. The more you read information that only supports your preconceived ideas and opinions the more polarized your views are bound to become.

Which is what makes this blog post so refreshing. Following a link to a conservative site to read a review of Sarah Palin's book, I didn't expect such an honest and frank assessment, especially after conservative pundits have been falling over each other to praise it. Rush Limbaugh actually said that it was the best book on policy that he has ever read. But this was review was written by someone who evidently has been a supporter (and defender) of Governor Palin but was honest enough to allow themselves to be subjective in reading the book. Unlike a lot of conservatives who say that the discrepancies in the book that were found by the AP were nothing more than liberal media smear campaign, this reviewer saw the errors in the book and took them for what they are: errors.

"Her publisher did not fact check this book well (if at all). She was badly served by her publisher and editor. People who criticize me for nit-picking her use of quotations miss the point. I am a fan . . . though now a weary one . . . and I found the errors. The publisher had to know that her critics would check every fact.

"How can I in a single day with no help find error after error when I am no writer, no editor (as this blog post indicates), and no specialist?"

It's refreshing to see someone, anyone, take off the rose-colored glasses and take an honest look at the people that they look up to. It's rare. I think that may be part of the reason I admire Glenn Greenwald so much.

GO(W)P

Sorry for the blogging diarrhea but I've had a lot ricocheting around in my noggin and not a lot of time to sit down express it....

....anyway...

I saw this editorial on CNN.com, which I find myself reading less and less, but that's another blog entry. It's very true what the writer points out: that Sarah Palin is almost going out of her way to avoid minorities, people of color and urban areas on her book tour. I realize that she is not running for office nor in public office at the moment, but the feel of the book tour, the timing of it all, her involvement in the election in upstate NY all reek of a thinly veiled campaign of some kind. If she were truly on a book tour, where the objective would be to expose as many people as possible to the book, meet as many people as possible to get your it marketed and eventually sold to the greatest number of people possible?

As the author, points out, "Palin's curious tour schedule takes me right back to some of the more disturbing displays during last year's campaign, when people at some campaign rallies at times made racist remarks." He then goes on to say that he does not believe that Palin herself is a racist. That's okay; I'll do it for him.

I don't think that she's an overt racist. She may not even be aware that her actions are racist. But during the presidential campaign, every time someone would shout out a racial epithet or a death threat, etc. about then Senator Obama she said or did nothing to address those actions. Rather than speaking out and trying to keep the campaign focused on issues and differences in policy, she instead allowed it sink into the mire. It got to be so bad that the mood of the campaign became bigger news than the actual campaign itself. We all remember when that seemingly addled woman stood up at a McCain rally and said to him that she said, "I don't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab." John McCain was finally forced to stand up and address the madness that his campaign had been inciting. I think John McCain is, at heart, a decent man. I don't know if anyone else got the sense that I did from that moment, that he was sorry for opening the Pandora's Box of populism and attempting to appeal to the far right, super conservative base of his party by nominating Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin has yet to address the fact that when given the opportunity to repudiate the hateful and/or racist comments shouted out by people in the crowds at her campaign events. She has yet to comments on her divisive, offensive comments that did nothing but encourage the xenophobia and racism of the people who attended her rallies: "He's not one of us." He "pals around with terrorists." Maybe she is a racist, maybe not. She is, without a doubt, a self-serving and self-centered individual who does not care what kind of destruction or damage to the American political landscape she leaves in her wake.

Our two biggest problems

So, our country is at something of a crossroads; we've been standing here for quite a while, being pulled one way and another trying to find direction. We're facing a number of crises but it's not all grim news. Just like JFK said, "When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters-one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." We are faced with a financial crisis, the magnitude of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression in the 1930's. We are mired in two wars that have bankrupted our nation, financially and morally. We have, for the first time in our history, and much to the surprise of the rest of the world, elected a man of color to the highest office in the land, giving us hope to move into a post-racial America.

But what are the two things holding us back?

Partisanship and Populism.

The election of Barack Obama was supposed to signal an era of post-partisanship. In his first hundred days he regularly invited GOP members of congress to the White House on a regular basis. In a Gallup poll taken during his first 100 days in congress, 66% of Americans felt that he was making a sincere effort to reach bipartisan solutions for the problems that we face. In stark contrast, only 38% percent felt that Republican congress were making the effort to reach across the aisle in the same poll. Many liberals, myself included, were banging our head against any available hard surface wondering why the hell he was even bothering. All the while the Republican party, in spite of the fact of naming members of the GOP to cabinet level positions, ambassador posts, etc., still cry foul - that the administration is incredibly partisan.

Like I said previously, we are facing daunting challenges. But we're not all doing the most we can to fix the problems. There is no denying that healthcare in our country is nowhere as good as it should be. It is safe to say that the inefficiencies, inequalities and the unethical practices that the insurance companies use are pushing this country closer and closer to the edge of an economic as well as moral crisis. ...unless of course you are so rabidly partisan that you think the white house is using the term "crisis" only so they can grab more power for themselves. We're never going to solve our problems if half the people working in government spend most of their time obscuring and distorting the facts, opposing any action taken by the majority, slow walking and delaying action, nominations, etc all in the name of political gain.

But our elected officials aren't the only ones to blame for all this. As long as the electorate is willing to be spoon fed utterly insane conspiracy theories, thinly-veiled racist hatred, off-base political commentary and accept it as "news" or "facts" we're going to be stuck in this mess. News companies, journalists, newspapers that lean to one side or the other keep on putting out sensationalist tripe in an effort to outsell their competition at the expense of neutral, factual, substantiated journalism. And as long as we are willing to allow them to do this the national conversation about the most pressing issues of the day will never rise above the most common denominator; no real progress will be easily made. If members of congress are able to gain political capital by telling lies about healthcare rationing, death panels, forced abortions any progress made will be hard fought and hard won. Much harder than it need be. If populism is allowed to have the upper hand over intelligent discourse, we become the biggest impasse to real progress in this country. We need to find a way to rise above the bitterness and bickering that has dragged our political process down into the mud.

Obstructionism is NOT the side of history you want to be on...

So, let me lay my thoughts out; spread them out on the table and get them organized.

For the majority of the last thirty years, the Republican party has held the reins of government. Most of our presidents have been Republicans and they have had more often than not a majority in Congress. Since the beginning of the 21st century, they have led the country down a rather ruinous path. Our economic health as a nation has not been this poor since the Great Depression; we are embroiled in two different, un-winnable wars against enemies that we cannot easily find or identify; we have lost our moral high ground by torturing and unlawfully detaining our enemies, spying on our own citizens and rolling back or trampling upon rights guaranteed in our constitution. Our standing in the world has been diminished and tarnished by a foreign policy of unilateralism and belligerence; we have gone from being the nation that helped found the U.N. and the failed League of Nations to a country whose leadership felt that tact and diplomacy has made us weak.

Understandably, the people of this nation decided that enough was enough and voted a Democratic majority into congress in 2006 and two years later added to that majority as well as electing a Democratic president: only the third Democratic president to be elected since 1968. It's not only a indictment of the mismanagement of the country by the previous administration, it was indicative of the changing demographics within the nation. Whether anyone likes it or not, we are a much different nation than we were at the end of the 20th century. The United States that walked tall and alone in the world no longer exists. While we are certainly the sole, remaining military superpower but after years of intertwining our economy with the world economy we are on our way to being on a more even playing field where trade and commerce are concerned. The face of the nation is changing; we are a little less white, a little less Christian, basically a little less like anyone who has held the power in our country since its founding.

In my opinion, it is plainly evident that there is a lot of work that needs to be done. We have to define our goals in Afghanistan and Iraq; the banks need to be reeled in, placed under greater scrutiny and regulation; unemployment needs to be addressed; something has to be done about the inequality and inequity of the ever-widening gap between the richest and the poorest in our country; our education system is outdated and failing; for a wealthy, industrialized country we have an abysmal healthcare system in comparison to our peers; on and on and on goes the list.

Don't get me wrong; I love this country. I know that it is a blessing to be born in the United States and be a citizen of this nation. I don't want to live anywhere else. But my eyes are open. I know that racism is still prevalent in our day and time. I know that there are people born into poverty in our inner-cities whose lives are so bleak and barren of any promise that they turn to gangs, violence and drugs.

So, in the face of some of the greatest challenges in our country's history and as we move towards a future that is quickly evolving before our very eyes, what is the GOP doing?

Nothing.

Actually, worse than nothing. They are opposing each and every initiative being taken up by their Democratic counterparts. Slow-walking nominations of sorely needed government positions: several months into our swine flu pandemic they had to be shamed into confirming the president's nominee for Surgeon General. Doing everything possible to cloud and confuse the issues with misinformation and divisive, populist rhetoric: death panels, socialism, czars. And this is coming from the mainstream members of the party. I won't even go into the fringe elements like the birthers and 3%ers.

They complain that they "want their country back." I think that they have had it for long enough and I don't think that they deserve to get it back. They are like a poorly behaved child who was given a precious family heirloom. Their parents (the voters) came into the room one day and found them beating the family dog with this precious family treasure and took it away from them. They chastised them and in turn gave it to their quieter, more cerebral and considerably more compassionate sibling and entrusted it to their care. The horror of a child is now pointing out the flaws of their sibling and making up a few for good measure (socialist, weak on national defense, not "real Americans") in an attempt to persuade their parents to give them back their plaything.

If the parents are smart, they'll tell the brat to shut up, go to his room and to leave their sibling alone...

Crrrrazy!

For a while now I have been spending quite a bit of time on Yahoo's Buzz feature. The way it's supposed to work is that people who use the site, "buzz up" news articles and other users can comment on them, buzz them up more, buzz them down, reply to other people's comments, yadda, yadda, yadda... It's basically a news-driven social networking site. Not a bad idea in theory. But, with the political discourse being what it is today, the Buzz has turned into a very nasty place. So, I am taking an indefinite break from going to, contributing to or commenting on anything on that site.

It's an ugly time in American politics at the moment, nastier than I've ever seen in my lifetime. The site is a reflection of that. Here are some direct quotes from things that people are actually posting on that site. Believe me when I say that I wish I was making this stuff up:

About Justice Sotomayor:
"God, what an ugly whore. She and Ruth Ginsburg are the ugliest whores in America. Congress obviously hates America to approve this bltch. I would like to see a list of names of those that voted her in, so I can help vote them out."

About Rush Limbaugh:
"He should be arrested immediately and sentenced to prison for inciting violence on a public official. Period. Republicans are very violent hate-filled people."

I don't see myself going back any time in the foreseeable future...

Wingnuts Unite!

If you were wondering where all the the crazy-ass, right-wing, nut-bags are hanging out online these days, they are congregating here.

Yahoo! Buzz was probably envisioned as a site where people of similar interests can converge and have a conversation. ...Or even as a place where lively, healthy debate could be held in a public forum. I'm sure that's what it was until the crazies took over. But now there is never an article where somehow the discussion doesn't get distorted into a hateful denouncement of the Democratic Party and President Obama, no matter what the subject.

No, really...

Don't believe me? Here's an article about Jessica Alba. Here's one about the Octomom. Here's one about Donald Trump taking control of his casinos; you don't even have to scroll down the page for that one... And these aren't even political stories.

The political stories are the ones where the hate is served the same way I like my coffee: hot and bold. Don't get me wrong; I think that people should be allowed to say whatever they please and are entitled to their opinions. What troubles me is that the loonies that congregate to these pages are so off-base, uninformed and hateful that it's down right scary.

Think I'm exaggerating? Take a look at this discussion about President Obama setting up a new regulatory agency to protect consumers. If you don't want to click over to that page here is one of the insane rants, posted by a person who calls himself "AMERICAN" whose avatar picture is the iconic Shephard Farey Obama image with a sniper sight superimposed over it:

"ARE YOU PEOPLE STARTING TO WAKE UP NOW !??!?!?!

YOU ELECTED AN ISLAMO FASCIST D!CKTATOR NAMED OBAMA.

A DEVIL IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.

OBAMA'S ONE GOAL IS TO ULTIMATELY RUN THE WORLD AS AN ISLAMIC STATE.

HE IS USING OTHER FOREIGN DICTATORS TO OFF THE RESISTANCE OF JEWS, CHRISTIANS, AND EVEN SOME ATHEISTS.
THIS IS WHY HE NEEDS IRAN'S REVOLUTION TO FAIL.

ONCE OBAMA HAS ELIMINATED REVOLUTIONS, HE WILL BGIN TO TAKE OUT CUBANS, KOREANS, VENEZUELANS, ETC WHO HELPED HIM BECOME THE NEW ONE WORLD LORD.

THE WORLD IS HEADING INTO A NEW DARK AGES THANKS TO OBAMA...


IF WE DO NOT FIGHT BACK NOW"

It's just insane... what's even crazier than that rant is the fact that as I am writing this there are five people who are agreeing with this hateful windbag. There are over 300 comments in that thread and the overwhelming majority of them are along the same lines.

Esquire, my favorite magazine, had a great article that touched on this. In that article it talks about the board of county commissioner from Warren County in Ohio who turned down $373,000 of stimulus money that was supposed to go towards addressing trasportation needs in the county's rural communities. One of the commissioners was quoted in the story saying, "I'll let Warren County go broke before taking any of Obama's filthy money."

Wow!

An AHA moment!

I was reading an article somewhere, it may have been at salon.com and I had a Eureka moment. I was thinking to myself, "Why are conservatives so outspoken? Why is there this constant, unending uproar about everything and anything from the right?" which got me to thinking about the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives. Now, I do not mean differences about ideology and policy; that's obvious. I got to thinking about behavior.

For instance, all this uproar about Sonia Sotomayor. Most polls I have seen show that about 70% of the general public approve of the president choosing her for the Supreme Court. And when I go on the political ticker blog on CNN.com or Yahoo Buzz about political stories there is this huge, loud vociferous protest in the comments. And it's disproportionate; the 30% disapproval translates into at least a 50% percent negative amount of comments on CNN. And let me tell you, Yahoo Buzz is overwhelmingly owned by the far right.

So I was thinking to myself, why is this? Here is my theory:

Conservatives have an almost pathological need to prove that their views are right; to prove to EVERYONE that they are right and anyone whose opinions vary from theirs in unequivocally wrong. And it's not just an ego thing, they're zealous about it. Now, I chose the word "zealous" very deliberately. It's almost religious and evangelical; like they are on fire to go out and tell anyone who is willing to listen about their views. They digest the talking points about different issues and repeat them as if they were gospel: 

• Sotomayor will not be true to the Constitution because her empathy will cause to make rulings based on her feelings instead of the law
  
• She's a reverse-racist because of the quote where she says, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
• She's a liberal activist because she said that policy is made in the court of appeals.

And on and on... you've heard or seen them all, probably. In this instance and in every other instance, incidents and words are taken out of context and misconstrued to their advantage. 

Not to say that liberal politicians don't do the same thing; I would be remiss to say that it doesn't happen on both sides. It most certainly does. The difference is that the conservative "base" absorbs these distortions and disseminates them until they becomes pervasive. There are hard-core liberals who also do this, but not on the scale that conservatives do.

So, these distorted facts are accepted as actual facts. Those who disagree with these "facts" are more often than not painted as un-patriotic, socialist, immoral, etc. Even people within their own political party are suspect if their views do not fall into this narrow framework. They call them RINOs: Republicans In Name Only. ...I've never heard anyone ever referred to as a Liberal in name only.

This tactic was brought into their playbook and perfected by Ronald Reagan, the conservatives' messianic figure. For Reagan there was little to no gray area on subjects: right/wrong, moral/immoral, patriotic/traitorous. He spoke plainly and ground the issues down to their most basic essence and painted his views as right and patriotic; those who held an opposing view were wrong and at the very least, less than patriotic. It still echoes through the GOP platform to this day.

This has escalated over the last eight years to the point where the ultra neo-conservative movement really cannot sustain itself any longer. Republicans have fallen out of favor with the American people over the mishandling of the economy, the destruction of the environment, the bloating of the government on their watch, the nearly-botched war in Iraq, torture, etc, ad infinatum... If they had been more inclusive and governed from the center and with less arrogance, they would have led our country down a much better path. But they continue to disavow and belittle moderates within their party and as they do so they will have less and less appeal to the average American. It is going to be a long time before the reins of the party are wrested from their hands. The moderate wing of the party has to become much more vocal and find their own charismatic leaders who are able to drown out and eventually cancel the noise emanating from the far right end of the political spectrum.

Until then, we liberals will take care of the country for you...

First and foremost, Rudy is an idiot.

I think that there are two problems that haunt the Republican Party and hurt them. The first is the tenacious, mindless devotion to the economic philosophy that has had so many different names: Supply-Side Economics, Trickle-Down Economics, even Voodoo Economics by a doubting George H. W. Bush.

I completely get the idea, I understand the principles behind it, but there is one fatal flaw in the equation: human nature. People are greedy by nature. Just look at Exxon. They broke their own record for earnings by earning 45.2 billion dollars in 2008. It's easy to make that kind of money when you're charging $4.50 a gallon for gas. I was and am still dumbfounded that I was paying that much for gas 6-7 months ago and am now paying $1.79 a gallon. There is no explanation for that. Why did that charge that much? I understand that OPEC cut back on production, they had to work within shared-production contracts with the refiners, etc. But that shouldn't triple the price.

How did prices get that high? Free markets... The notion that market's can and should be self-regulated is absolutely preposterous. Deregulation is what was at the heart of the Great Depression and is the source of our current economic woes. I understand and appreciate that over-regulation and excessive control of the markets will hinder or even stop growth of the economy; I'm not looking to live in a socialist country, but there has to be safeguards in place to ensure that consumers aren't raped by unchecked greed of large powerful corporations. Companies should not be allowed to become so big and have such a substantial influence over the economy that if they fail it means that the whole economy will collapse. Over the last eight years economic power has been consolidated in the hands of powerful, self-serving corporations who in addition to being able to exploit consumers also have been getting huge tax breaks and credits from the government.

And this is one of the cornerstones of Republican ideology...

The other ideology to which they continue to adhere, even as it harms their appeal and hampers their attempts to reach out to moderates is their affiliation with the religious right. Now, politically I am a very liberal Democrat however my personal beliefs lean very much to the right. I think that abortion is morally wrong. I think (like Mike Huckabee) that a person is born gay but can choose not to lead a gay life style and choose celibacy.

Having said that, if I was gay and knowing my personality and libido there is no way in hell I could live a celibate life. I could not enter the priesthood and just suppress my feelings and pray that I do not prey on poor altar boys. This is no longer the 19th Century. I don't expect gays and lesbians to stay out of public and be forced to hidden lives; I wouldn't want to do that. Why should they be expected to do so? Equality is equality. You cannot profess that you are for equality for minorities and women but not for equality for homosexuals. That is hypocrisy.

As far as the issue of abortion is concerned I do not believe that morality should be legislated. While I am morally opposed to abortion I do not believe that making abortion illegal is going to stop people from having abortions. It will only bring back the deadly, secret abortions in back alleys with coat hangers. People who are more affluent will simply go to Canada or {shudder} Mexico to have abortions performed.

And here is the real paradox in these two philosophies. When you put them together under the same roof, you are saying in one breath that you should not legislate morality on one hand (trust the corporations to be fair and let them govern themselves) and saying that you should legislate morality on the other hand (make abortion illegal and deny gays and lesbians the same rights and privileges that "normal" society takes for granted). That is damn near schizophrenic...