Auspicious Scuttlebutt

Inauspicious Scuttlebutt

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 03:05:00 +0000

I don't know what to make of this blog anymore. What was originally intended to be a random smattering of news and interesting stories I'd found online became a political blog after the shooting of Gabby Giffords in January 2011. This frustration at what I felt at the time to be the unhinging of "the American way" has since only descended further into a wretched mess of polarity in the country today.

From a personal perspective, this blog became an outlet for my subconscious, a place to rant in the midst of unemployment, underemployment, and a distant, detached relationship with my ex-wife. In short, it preserved my sanity, slowly built up my ability to write and edit, then became an albatross during the 2012 Election. There's no doubt I reveled in all of it, yet I just don't care to do it anymore. I no longer need to write about politics to channel my frustration, nor am I as absorbed in it as I once was.

Further, I found that my hope to populate this space with the under-covered stories of the day, that weren't finding traction in this messed up world of corporate sponsored media outlets - things like the environment, marriage equality, the advance of progressive movements and the things that get lost in the shuffle, just wasn't happening. Today, these stories are finally getting the traction and media attention they've long deserved, which is awesome. As for my own writing, it rarely turned out that way, too often finding myself reveling in the media I claimed to loathe, sucked in like the rest by the intensity of the moment, the nastiness of political debate and my own tendencies to lapse into long, professorial analyses. Yes, I began to bore even myself.

With Congress' intransigence and purely political mission to regain power, the president's inability to better assert his own political will, the whole system's corrupt approach to elections, lobbying and corporate focus, plus the overall feeling that justice is a fleeting ideal that only the monied can afford, my faith in the American system of democracy has been shaken. To be honest, more than anything, I'd just rather spend my time doing more constructive things than lament the frivolous, media driven, ideologues that dominate a government that's supposed to be informed and guided by the will of the people.

There may come a day, movement or election year that may change this perspective and reignite my motivation for such pursuits. I don't see that happening in the immediate future, especially since I'd prefer to spend my free time writing about more positive things like music (how I first started writing) and the growth of craft beer, which has grown into it's own animal since I arrived in Portland a few years back. In fact, I just started writing for a small craft beer magazine based in Japan, that's starting up in June. So I'm thankful that my time will be better spent doing that, likely providing resources for a larger, more specific readership that's looking for such content.

I'm sure I'll continue to post interesting articles via the Auspicious Scuttlebutt facebook page, which directly populates my twitter feed and I see no reason why I wouldn't at least take a stab at stories from time to time, including 2016, which has the potential to turn into a full blown clown show, even beyond the Circus Of The Absurd we saw in 2012.

In the meantime, be sure to treat the ones you love with full blown patience, compassion and understanding. And please don't forget to keep talking, it's the most important part, for if we stop doing that, well then... we deserve what's coming to us.

Be well and may your world keep giving you reasons to seek out the Auspicious.

Politics vs Action

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:30:00 +0000

via popsci.com

I was enheartened by our president's inaugural address today, definitely more than I was four years ago. There were a number of excellent passages that specifically addressed LGBT issues, climate change, immigration and human rights. But I was most struck by one particular passage:

Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle century’s long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time. For now, decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act. We must act knowing that our work will be imperfect.

We do not all agree on everything, but we acknowledge the founders vision, begat to us and refined over generations, that our leaders collective purpose is to maintain that vision by promoting the best outcomes for all our citizens. And above all we must act to maintain that vision, to manage what we can to improve that which is imperfect.

We cannot let those who lie at the extremes subterfuge the collective well being of our state for the sake of their own specific causes. The ideological intransigence of the few cannot be allowed to thwart the will of the greater populace who often wish to be unfettered of such concerns.

Yes, we need to speak our minds and promote the best options our country requires to find success, yet our aims will only be accepted by the body politic if they promote the greater good for all, not just for those in power, the monied or special interests.

We all have a stake and thus, all must participate and do their part to make our union something that lives up to it's definition: a country for all, ruled by no one man or woman, willing to champion the causes of all who participate and strive to be heard.

Make your voices heard. Write your congress men and women. Speak your mind. We must acknowledge that each ingredient in this greater recipe will ultimately nourish us all. For to not do so, we forfeit our privilege and will yearn for sustenance, growing hungry without knowing why.

Our country will not flourish unless we provide the nourishment for it to sustain.

And sustain we must.

Reflecting on Gun Violence and Mental Health in America

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 04:54:00 +0000

I didn't want to write about this. I told myself I wouldn't, but my conscience won't let me be. I'm tired of hearing about people being killed. I'm tired of living in a culture that views and glorifies military action, fighting, retribution and violent resolutions to our human condition. I'm tired of hearing about soldiers being killed in Afghanistan, of innocents being killed as a result of drone strikes in middle-eastern countries and of innocent children being killed in classrooms in America and in Pakistan.

I'm tired of reading about death, period

I'm tired of hearing people say that to talk the way I'm talking is "politicizing the situation." To not talk about it is politicizing the situation. To sit numbly staring at the television is to accept the political matter before us, to absorb the glorification of a troubled youth who should not have had access to semi-automatic weapons of which his parents apparently had at least 5 as has been reported.

28 people, 20 of which were 6 or 7 year old first graders, were killed because a troubled teen had access to firearms. Were that not the case, I doubt any of this would have occurred.

I'm am not a parent. I have yet to be blessed with children in my life, but I cannot imagine what any parent has had to deal with over the past 48 hours. What I do know is that parents love their children and want to protect their children, so, I hope, in this vain, all those who own weapons of any kind, who have children, especially young ones or teenagers, have taken the steps to secure their weapons or better yet, not have them located inside your home.

I live in a metropolitan area. There is far more crime where I live than in the places where many people own multiple guns per person, yet there are far more gun deaths in those more sparsely populated and gun friendly states (of which Oregon is one). This shooting occurred in a neighborhood where there is very little violence. These are recreational guns, unlikely to ever be used for self defense, so why were they unsecured or easily accessed by a 20 year old?

This year has seen the most mass-shooting fatalities in 30 years. According to Mother Jones and the New Republic...

...there have been 70 mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and 2012, leaving 543 people dead (assuming the reports of 27 fatalities from [yesterday's] shootings are correct.) Seven of those 70 shootings occurred this year. Sixty-eight of those 543 victims were killed this year. If the scenes of horror and heartbreak are now familiar, it's because the past six years have been particularly bloody. Fully 45% of the victims of mass shootings in America over the past three decades were killed since 2007. That is a crisis.

These are numerical facts. As a country, we are nearly about to have as many gun deaths in a year as automobile deaths and we have far more automobiles, with hundreds of safety measures for them.

I've heard a lot of talk about how we shouldn't be talking about gun control and how instead we should be talking about mental health. I've heard a lot of talk about how we need to abolish the 2nd Amendment. I've also heard a lot of people talk over this past year about how these are isolated incidents done only by troubled people. I've heard about 22 people stabbed by a man in China, all of whom survived. These arguments, on their own, won't solve our problems.

The two issues people point to the most, mental health and gun laws, are not mutually exclusive. They are both reasons for this terrible tragedy. They both cannot go unrecognized and we must find solutions to them both. I don't have the answers to these problems, but it's clearer today than it's been in decades that this is a national issue, that our governments (national, state and local) must act in a reasoned fashion to protect the safety of our citizens via measures that specifically address gun safety and health care.

Ezra Klein had a must read article in the Washington Post yesterday about gun ownership in our country. In today's NY Times, Nicholas Kristof talks about what other countries have done:

In Australia in 1996, a mass killing of 35 people galvanized the nation’s conservative prime minister to ban certain rapid-fire long guns.The “national firearms agreement,” as it was known, led to the buyback of 650,000 guns and to tighter rules for licensing and safe storage of those remaining in public hands. The law did not end gun ownership in Australia. It reduced the number of firearms in private hands by one-fifth, and they were the kinds most likely to be used in mass shootings. In the 18 years before the law, Australia suffered 13 mass shootings — but not one in the 14 years after the law took full effect. The murder rate with firearms has dropped by more than 40 percent, according to data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, and the suicide rate with firearms has dropped by more than half. Or we can look north to Canada. It now requires a 28-day waiting period to buy a handgun, and it imposes a clever safeguard: gun buyers should have the support of two people vouching for them. For that matter, we can look for inspiration at our own history on auto safety. As with guns, some auto deaths are caused by people who break laws or behave irresponsibly. But we don’t shrug and say, “Cars don’t kill people, drunks do.”

It is clear that there are solutions to the gun safety issue. On the health care issue, I think that not cutting federal funding for health care, as a result of "fiscal cliff" discussions is the first place to start. I think that pushing states to allow the Affordable Care Act to do what it was created to do will go a long way to help all Americans as well. For many of the middle to low income citizens in this country it is far more expensive and far less fun or sexy to own health care than it is to own a gun.

So begin the process Mr. President and Congress. Write up some bills and present them to the American people, then have the debate about how we want these bills to work, without the threat of filibuster. We can't afford to hem and haw around the edges of this issue any longer. It is time for action. Now.

If you are concerned about a loved one or are concerned about your own mental health, talk to someone you love or find resources online to help those you love.

Revelations on Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:53:00 +0000

No, don't worry. I'm not about to go off on some tirade about the Bible or the end times, though that Mayan landmark date will be upon us shortly. I spent the better part of my childhood reading and learning about the Bible, yet I never read most of the book of Revelation. For me, Christianity was never about Fear or Hellfire, so I guess it never piqued my interest.

What did pique my interests though, as a young boy, was the flicking images on the big screen. The first film I ever saw was Annie in 1982 at the age of 5. I promptly came home and told my parents the whole story. I was hypnotized, but like all things, in time it faded away... I don't think I've seen Annie in over 25 years.

Ever since, film has always had an impact on me. Sure, there was a lot of crap made in the 80's and the 90's, but still, every so often, I see a film that bends my perspective on the world. Just as characters in a film overcome obstacles in the arc of the story based upon revelations, so too are we shaped by reality. Sometimes, regardless of the film, I see something that strikes me as the perfect solve, at that time and place in my life, for whatever it is I'm going through in my life.

In 1991 there was a film called Defending Your Life (an Albert Brooks film) that really was the right film for me to watch at that time in my life. I was 14 and dealing with anxiety/depression, as teenagers are known to do and the point of the film, not letting your fears keep you from living life, really struck a chord in me. I was just finishing up the only counseling I've ever really had with a therapist, and the feeling I had, upon the film's completion, was one of exhilaration, freedom, strength and self-esteem.

I such a moment this evening.

I was watching Skyfall, the latest in the Bond franchise and arguably one of the best ever made, or at least the best over the past 20 years or so. I don't know what it was about the film that gave me such a not-so-revolutionary-epiphany but it came to me before the climax of the film as the main characters first enter the Skyfall estate.

I felt a sudden sense of self-awareness, that I hadn't been living in reality over the past 6 months. I guess such a self-assessment isn't surprising when you've lost your father and your wife within the past year, both occurring within the same week.

Tonight's revelation was about living in reality itself. About not succumbing to the comfortable, to the expected, to not fall into the mundane of day-to-day life. Ultimately, it was about not taking this life for granted. My life over the past 5 years has occasionally felt imprisoned by the invisible iron bars of the internet. Reality wasn't doing it for me, so I hid here, but I now feel stronger, wiser, freer and more confident.

You may not know that I studied film in college or that I've only made one film. I had hoped to make an impact on the world with a mass-media format that can change peoples lives in the span of 2 hours, all done in a comfortable chair, in the dark. Instead I found that I'm better at helping others in the first-person and it's what I hope to continue doing, in one form or another, for the rest of my days.

What I've learned is that if you hit one of these hurdles in life, you cannot stop and argue with the hurdle, it'll do you no good. You keep running, preparing for the next hurdle, clearing it as you're supposed to.

We lead cynical lives in this here 21st Century. These times are trying and sometimes it feels difficult to carry on, but we must. We carry on because the one who says that the only person you can trust in is yourself, and the person who says you can only accomplish your goals with the assistance of others are both wrong.

We can't afford to be so cynical to think that there are absolute answers. Nothing in our world is this black and white. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong, is trying to sell you something, or is only concerned with saving their own neck.

So please, go out and DO. Live this life. Ask questions. Substitute anger and hate with acceptance and love. Try to overcome the cynical with optimism and light. Let us be dazzled by the small things. Let reality wash over us. Lets get on with it, keeping a watchful eye on that next hurdle.

And inspiration? Thank god for that.

Election 2012: The Real Reason the GOP Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:29:00 +0000

via Zap2It

Tuesday was an exciting evening, but actually surprising considering how close all the media made it out to be. It was especially shocking if you'd been peddled this lie that Romney was going to win, even by a landslide, according to some prognostications. If you haven't seen it, Rachel Maddow's rant Wednesday night, detailing the deception of the conservative media and the lies they continue to perpetuate, is worth viewing:

In the days since the election, many on the conservative right and in the media, have tried to explain why the GOP got "shellacked." You may have heard some interesting interpretations, just as I have, so here just a few of the excuses I've heard, none of which add up.

Hurricane Sandy killed Romney's Momentum.

Romney had no momentum when Sandy hit. He could have dispelled the notion everybody had that he's against FEMA, he didn't. He could have stopped campaigning, gotten his hands dirty and helped communities, instead of still holding a campaign rally, posing as a faux can drive. He could have tried to buck the general public's notion that all he wanted to do was win, stopping his official campaign for the same duration Obama did, but he didn't. Sometimes being presidential is about not being political and I don't know if Romney understands this.

They Weren't Conservative Enough

The one thing that hurt Romney more than anything was his late pivot back to the middle. He's historically been a moderate and went conservative to win the primary, but if he had pivoted back to the middle before his convention, maybe he'd been better able to handle the 47% charge that was levied against him. The only time he had momentum was the week after the first debate, right after he pivoted and seemed sensible, knocking Obama on his heels. It's the independent, moderate voters that decide elections, not just turning out the base.

Because Those Who Voted For Obama Want "Stuff"

First, a majority of the states that receive more aid per-capita than they pay in taxes tend to vote Republican. So this fallacy that was foisted upon us by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney prior to the election, is now being used as an excuse for why Obama won by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. Second, it's an absurd statement when most of the "takers" (as they call them) are their own electorate, with many of that 47% being soldiers, veterans, senior citizens, students and the very poor. If you're trying to find ways to win by courting the votes of minorities, women and young voters, it might make more sense to offer positive reasons to join your ranks, instead of putting down people who already rely on government in situations beyond their control. Maybe they were considering voting for you until you decided to put them down. This whole "makers vs. takers" debate is a fraud, especially when one considers how the "makers" earn their money ( often by the hard work of the very people they call "takers"). Further, many of these so called "makers" often work for or own companies that are receiving corporate welfare (federal subsidies), making them "takers" as well.

Instead of pointing fingers, accusing others of being lazy or welfare queens, they could work on the 28% of the electorate that isn't white, that they (for some reason) have again struggled to bring into the tent. The reason why they're struggling isn't because they don't have enough leaders of color in their ranks (which they still don't), but it's because of policy, it's the quality of the leaders they're nominating, it's their own damn party platform. Don't blame other people for your own shortcomings; take ownership of your loss, identify your shortcomings and work to become a better party.

In the end, it wasn't the fault of hurricane Sandy, or not being conservative enough, or "people wanting stuff", or not having enough minority leaders, or not catering to minorities needs. You lost because your party is devoid of ideas. There are many Americans in this country, myself included, that vote based on empirical evidence. We vote for leaders that can identify the issues of the day, know how to address them and actually fight to get them fixed. We voted the way we did in 2012 because all the republican candidates offered were a pledge to remove all the things the president put in place to improve our economy, which, go figure, continues to improve. Get back to us when you decide that you want to help our economy by providing real solutions, not just a plan to win elections by stonewalling the president and the will of the people.

The End Days of Election 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 21:57:00 +0000

via Rolling Stone

It's funny, I was planning to write this whole long analysis, potentially spread out over 4 posts, about why Obama deserves re-election and why Romney is likely the worst Republican candidate ever. Yet here we stand, 3.5 days from the election and I'd like to hope that 95% of those planning to vote Tuesday have already made up their minds. There's no need to retrace the narrative we've all heard from Obama's lips a thousand times nor do I feel the need to continue pounding my head against the lies and deceits of Romney's vacuous campaign rhetoric. I'm over it.

So, what now then?

I think the best way to go about this is provide for you the starkest examples of why this decision should be so much easier for the country than it's been presented thus far. I mean really. The past two months have felt like the middling days of the Republican primary season when 5 different candidates each held a lead at one point, except that during this general election it's been defined by our instant reactions to the debates, it's been powered by the catchy and timely memes (while fun, they end up being a sugary dessert distracting from the meat of the main course) and of course the never ending polling.

In truth though, what we've really witnessed is the direct result of one bump in the road, Romney's huge switch from conservative darling to the moderate Mitt of Massachusetts. This obvious set of calculated reversals should, on it's own merit, cause voters to stop and assess the sheer, compromised nature of Willard's political existence. Obama was dominating the polls after Romney's flailing gambit of an overseas tour of confusion, after the GOP's mediocre convention which was apparently upstaged by Honey Boo Boo and the strong Democratic convention. Then, in what appeared to be Romney's death knell, we were given a fly-on-the-wall peak into a Romney fundraiser for fat cats via a secret tape that focused on his view of the 47% of Americans he claims don't pay taxes, that view themselves as "victims" which he'd never be able to convince.

That huge lead was obliterated after Obama failed to show up at the first debate, yet as we head into the final days of the 2012 election, Democrats have nearly returned to the high water mark just before that turn of events. First, Joe Biden ripped apart Paul Ryan in what should be viewed as one of the best, if not the most entertaining debates ever, and the Republican ticket has been knocked back on it's heels ever since. Obama showed up for the second debate, looking stronger and more determined, then scored another win in the final debate which focused on one of his strongest attributes over the past 4 years, foreign policy.

While Obama's foreign policy has been strong (except for what many consider to be an excessive reliance on a drone strike kill list) it's our domestic policy that should the biggest focus. Only recently have Obama and Biden been willing to even say the word "stimulus," which probably felt like safer ground to inhabit after Clinton's stirring speech at the DNC.

So, for sake of brevity, clarity and efficacy, for all those questioning Obama's abilities as president, here is a compilation of graphics, quotes and links that should be sufficient evidence of why Barack Obama has earned re-election.

Visual Evidence

First, in four years, our country has been able to recover from one of the most catastrophic economic situations in our history. While the rise of low paying, part-time, service industry jobs continue, we have also seen a scaling back of public sector jobs (reducing federal expenditures), debunking this myth of Obama's prioritizing Big Government and an emphasis on reduced federal expenditures...

...we have also seen the creation of 750,000 private sector jobs in Obama's 4 years. Interesting considering the 1,168,000 jobs lost in W. Bush's first term. This private sector job growth has been going on for 32 consecutive months. Do we want to continue this upward trend or do we want to elect a candidate who's staff is largely made up of the same people that lost us all those jobs? Should we again empower those who wish to direct money to those who're already thriving at the top instead of enabling the middle class, the central driving force that's always strengthened our economy in the past?

via barackobama.com

One thing Romney's "5 Point Plan," which focuses first on the creation of 12 million new jobs (something Moody's has projected to happen regardless of who becomes president), doesn't possess is real, feasible details. The president's plan for a second term has been laid out clearly and I highly recommend checking it out here.

Now as far as foreign policy goes, the choice here seems obvious. We know what the president has done and that is continuing to move our country away from war. Mitt Romney has advocated in the past an aggressive, militaristic approach to Iran, then recently said he'd do the same as Obama has done. Just like his assertions on the economy, we just don't know what to expect from Romney, except that he wants to spend 2 trillion more on the military, which makes no sense especially considering our debt, no realistic plan to increase revenue and no willingness to return to a tax code that will stimulate growth.

via blareshare

While it has often been documented by the media over the past 4 years, the intractable obstructionism of the Republican congress has truly has been the biggest reason our economy hasn't seen greater successes sooner, we haven't heard about it much lately. They've blocked numerous job acts, pushed the once automatic increase of the debt ceiling to the point of default, resulting in a downgrade of our country's credit rating, created a potential fiscal cliff in January and have done it all with the sole purpose of making Obama a one term president. Instead of trying to fix what ails our nation, many in congress and in state houses across the country have pursued a record number of bills attempting to curb access to abortion and contraceptive services.

via Laci Green

This last graphic I feel is the most important in spotlighting the details of just how bad it could have been. While we are still recovering, we're recovering faster than has been done historically and as a result, are in better shape than most European and Asian nations today.

via Oregon Office of Economic Analysis

To briefly mention the record of Mitt Romney. There are really only two things he can brag about in his history as a leader. The first would be his emergency posting as CEO and president. There is no doubt about the success of the Salt Lake City Winter games of 2002, yet how they came to have success is important to analyse since it wouldn't have gone so well without federal government aid. The olympics received $400 to $600 millions dollars in federal aid as a result of Romney's lobbying the government. Sure, it's commendable that he was able to get this done, yet it completely flies in the face of his assertion that he's against Big Government.

The other big accomplishment in the political life of Mitt Romney is his biggest achievement as governor of Massachusetts, the implementation of the individual mandate version of near universal healthcare. As a result, 95% of Mass. residents now have health care and it is very popular in the state. Amongst the 20 things Romney claims he'd do on his first day as president, ending Obamacare, the basis of which is the health care system he helped create, would arguably top the list.

Both of his strongest accomplishment further add to the greater narrative... who is Mitt Romney and what does he stand for?

Before You Vote

Chances are, many of you out there have already voted as I have. If you haven't or if you simply want to learn more about the candidates, I highly recommend the following articles and videos.

If you have two hours, I highly recommend Frontline's unbiased look at both candidates, worts and all.

The best written defense of Obama's first four years was written this week by New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait. If you don't have the time to read the whole thing, here's his closing argument:

What can be said without equivocation is that Obama has proven himself morally, intellectually, temperamentally, and strategically. In my lifetime, or my parents’, he is easily the best president. On his own terms, and not merely as a contrast to an unacceptable alternative, he overwhelmingly deserves reelection.

Matt Taibbi, one of the best political writers today, provides an excellent look at the myths surrounding Big vs. Small government debate. His article centers around the aftermath of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy and that government aid isn't just for the poor or elderly, government plays an important role in all of our lives.

No doubt Lawrence O'Donnell is prone to hyperbole, but his Rewrite commentary last night was an excellent look at how important government is in enabling business to function, again in the context of Sandy, but with added focus on the false "You Didn't Build That" talking point.

Lastly, conservative leaning magazine The Economist may not have given the president the most ringing endorsement, it may very well be seen by many fence dwellers as a cogent argument for why Romney should not be president.

The Closing Argument

The best thing I can say about Mitt Romney today is that, with the exception of Jon Huntsman who was drubbed from the start, he is the best candidate Republicans could have chosen of the lot. Otherwise, as I wrote 10 months ago, Mitt Romney simply cannot be trusted. His assertions have been vague and filled more with grand ideological talking points than with ANY substantial or realistic plans. He caters every word he says to the ears that are absorbing them and possesses no backbone. Lastly, why should we ever elect a leader from a party that doesn't believe in the central tenets of our founders vision: that we are a government of the people. Corporations are not people. Ideologies should not supplant the needs of the people and a Romney administration would put the needs of business and ideology before the needs of the citizenry.

I've noted above, as I did 7 months ago, that Obama deserves a second term. Further reasons include the fact that he still wants to close Guantanamo, is still pursuing policies that look to reduce our reliance on oil, wants to solve the issue of immigration and has put forward clear plans to improve our system of education, and increase spending on research and development. Certainly Obama's first term has not been perfect, yet his biggest failings have been a result of communication and congressional obstructionism. If he can rekindle the bi-partisan message, potentially with a more balanced and less partisan House, Obama would have a far more successful second term than Romney would a first.

Our future will not be built on tired ideas that our economy will grow based on military spending, tax cuts and deregulation. These ideas have worked in specific contexts in our history (WWII, Reagan's first term, etc.), but have otherwise failed when put into action over the past 30 years. One news item that came up this week detailed how the GOP withdrew a request from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. This report determined that tax cuts for the top 1% have not historically accounted for sustained economic growth. They've attempted to suppress this data because it is the central thesis of 30 years of conservative economic governance. For them it's not about shared success, it's about success for their wealthy political contributors. It's about taking care of their own, not the middle class, not the worker or those wishing to pursue the American Dream.

The biggest hoax the mass media has perpetuated, especially since the advent of cable news, is that every story has two sides. Yes, there are many opinions on every facet of our civilization, but facts should remain constant. There are never two sides to every fact. There are facts and there are falsehoods or lies.

We need to focus our priorities on the basis of facts. If we elect Mitt Romney, who has run a campaign devoid of facts, we will perpetuate the notion that our leaders don't have to be honest with us, instead, they'll remain shrouded behind the curtain, uncertain about our future and thus, weakening our standing in a global economy. Conversely, the president has reasserted our position in the world, put in motion reforms that continue to strengthen our economy and is by far the more moderate of the two candidates. With Obama there is no mystery as to what he wants us to accomplish as a country; with Governor Romney there are far too many question marks, with a far greater likelihood that we'll return to the same policies that created our debt, weakened our economy and established our poor standing overseas, all of which could again result in economic calamity.

The choice should seem pretty clear; I can only hope we choose wisely.

Presidential Debate #2: Do the Polls Move?

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:00:00 +0000

via twitter

I'm gonna keep this short since it was a late night, following a long day, capped by a reinvigorating performance by the president.

Two points that should impact the movement of the polls over the next few days:

1) After Obama's dismal performance in the first debate, right leaning moderates and conservatives rallied around their candidate as evidenced by the tightening of national polls and the lack of movement in the swing states. Of the swing states up for grabs (Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida) Romney took clear leads in only three (Colorado, Virginia and Florida), meaning that most of his gains were in states he's already solidified... the red states. With Obama's performance Tuesday night, the liberal base will obviously be fired up, likely those in the swing states who weren't terribly swayed by Romney's first performance.

2) Some of Obama's biggest strengths last night, beyond owning his record and further sullying his challenger's purported record on jobs, was his ability to bring clear, rational explanations supporting women's reproductive health and in handling the ongoing issue of undocumented immigrants. Both of these demographics were central to Romney's rebound the past two weeks and with the president hitting it out of the park on these two topics, I see him not only improving his numbers with these groups. He should also gain among veterans, blue-collar workers and undecided voters in general, based on the strength of his overall performance.

What impressed me most was his ability to bring succinct, interesting details where all of Romney's stats only supported his increasingly preposterous assertions about Obama's failed economic policies. Numbers that ultimately reflect more on 8 years of Bush's failed policies and less on Obama's attempts to get jobs bills passed in an ever obstructionist Congress. If there was one thing I'd like to hear more of from Obama, it's about the intransigence we've seen from a Congress that's gone out of it's way to thwart any government action.

So, I see widening leads in the states that Obama is barely leading in, a big boost in Ohio, a complete recapturing of Colorado and a potential retaking of Florida. Yes, Romney had momentum, but he had it mostly in states that do nothing to bolster his electoral college numbers, the one's he's already winning handily. Sure, he gained in the national horserace, but recent polls, since the VP debate, have shown that momentum his momentum has stopped and the tide's about to roll back.

Halfway Through the Debates: Is the Best Yet to Come?

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 07:44:00 +0000

Fear via Business Insider

The first two debates could be easily categorized as falling within the Dennis Green philosphy, "they are who we thought they were." Romney has been a historically good debater, check. Obama has been a historically bad debater, check. The challenger usually wins the first debate, check. Biden is the elder, more experienced debater, check. Ryan is less experienced, but looks good on tv, check.

Yes, Obama falling flat on his face was a surprise to most everybody, including me, but otherwise I'd say the debate season, often the most thrilling part of election season, has stayed pretty much on script based on historic precedent. Romney came out guns blazing as many expected and Obama, who didn't refute some obviously misguided (to put it nicely) statements, rarely took the offensive, instead going wonky and verbose, something he's prone to do.

Biden turned the tables in this week's debate, yet not only is it unheard of to score a knockout blow in a VP debate (historically, until the past few years, the least memorable of the debates), they are also not the standard bearers of their respective parties nor the face of each ticket. Sure, we've heard plenty from the right about how Biden acted like a drunk, grinned too much, was rude or cut off Paul Ryan. Yes, his performance was a little over the top, but it worked. He kept a perceptibly calm Ryan off balance in his responses, caught him in a lie about stimulus requests, was stronger on foreign policy, actively fact-checked Ryan's statements and was definitively the more confident of the two. A few of the highlights...

What I found to be Biden's most effective portion of the evening, talking about unemployment, taxes and the 47% claim:

With the challengers taking the first debate and the incumbent taking the second, the next debate (at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY) comes to us in a town hall format which tends to be the least combative format available. Each candidate takes their turn answering a question from the audience, without immediate rebuttal, as Biden relished on Thursday.

Considering the general consensus that the first debate was pretty much an ass-whipping for Obama, I don't think anyone expects him not to come up short this time and since it won't be in the traditional debate format, this may work to his advantage, that is if he doesn't drone on too long. Romney, if he can keep the same composure he had for the first debate, should also be strong.

The key in this debate, as it is for most any other, is to see how each candidate answers the question. Do they take the answer head on, then present facts that effectively refute their opponents position? Or do they provide vague platitudes in response, then pivot to a positive answer they're better prepared to give?

I have a feeling that this third debate will be the most pivotal. If Romney wins decidedly, Obama will then really be on the ropes for the last two weeks. If Obama wins, his campaign will not only stop the downward trend in polls since the first debate, but also set up a potential reversal of fortunes in the last debate. If there's no clear winner at the town hall this Tuesday, then things get even more interesting as we head in the final debate.

As far as substance goes, what to watch for in the coming debate is to see if Obama takes a page from Biden and actively fact-checks and provides the correct answers to Romney's scripted fantasy responses or if he'll just stick with his own message. Will Massachusetts Mitt show up again, as he did in the first debate, or will he get stuck in a position between pandering to his party instead of wooing undecideds?

While the race is far closer than I'd expected at this point and while I still think Obama has a distinct advantage based on the continued improvement of the economy and being the incumbent, it still is anyone's race. Now it's just a matter of whether it will be down to the wire or if a knockout can be landed by either camp in one of the last two debates.

Previewing the 2012 Presidential Debates

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:31:00 +0000

via abc news

Being that I don't regularly post stuff on this here blog, ergo, when I do, it's a huge post with too much information going on, I figured it'd make sense to briefly preview the last month of the election season, namely the debates. I, like many Americans, look forward to the presidential debates and I think it has something to do with our competitive nature and a desire to witness that true head-to-head, unfiltered and "honest" battle that's intended to ultimately sway the voting public. Maybe there was a time when this may have been true, yet nowadays with early voting, the 24hr news cycle and the internet, it seems more like a spin session, with the candidates not exactly answering the questions, more evading them, then providing a positive finishing statement to redirect any negative mojo the original question or assertion may have engendered.

Thinking about the debates in this fashion should provide us a keener insight into who stands to gain from the debates. There has already been a lot of talk about expectations, with Obama seeming to want them lowered and Romney raising them a bit since it's been pretty clear of late that he's behind at this point, with even Fox News projecting Obama as having a 5 point advantage. Be sure to check out the best analysis of polling today, if you like "into the weeds" analysis of this stuff, which is Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog.

The interesting angle going into the stretch run here is whether or not the debates will make an impact on polling. What has been clear for the bulk of this election season is that the polls didn't move much until the conclusion of the Democratic Convention, then once the wheels on the Romney camp came off (see rushed response to the killings in Libya, the hidden video-47% comments, releasing his politically manipulated 2011 tax returns, etc.) it's become an uphill battle for the beleaguered champion of the elites. What's even more telling are his feeble attempts to re-brand himself as supportive of the middle class by effectively continuing the branding of Obama as the food stamp president who's taken the work requirement out of welfare reform - the former an assertion more indicative of his predecessors handy work and the latter a baldfaced lie.

So with many states already voting and the bulk of the electorate apparently decided on whom they wish to support, it will be interesting to see the stances Romney takes. Obama has stayed pretty true to the same policies he's espoused in his state of the union addresses and stump speeches - jobs/tax reform, energy, education and debt reduction, yet there continue to be no new specifics from the Romney camp. He's already said he's going to "describe very clearly what [he] will do to get America working again" at the debates, but if his plans differ from the expected framework of either the Ryan or Romney budget, he'll live up to his flip-flop/etch-a-sketch persona, alienating the far-right vote he's spent a year trying to convince his conservative chops to. Conversely, if he doubles down on the vague platitudes he's already presented in the past with hard data that would essentially paint a picture of how the richest will be the greatest to gain from their policies, with the middle class and poor further weakened by tax increases, including the removal of deductions from the tax code, then he loses the independent vote.

Of course it won't be this black and white. The only way Romney can possibly win this election is by coming off as more personable, providing really effective policy details and putting Obama on his heels. While many claim that Romney is the better debater (besting his far weaker GOP opponents in the circus-like debates last fall is hardly a confirmation of his abilities), he certainly is a well versed slinger of improvisational bullshit. Obama's weakness is his tendency to ramble, being slow and deliberative in his responses. Yet these assessments are based on his early 2008 debates, a series in which he improved markedly over 6 months. Further, he has the advantage of actually living with and dealing with current events and policy, putting them into practice every day of his life over the past 4 years, yet a candidate, such as Romney, like Obama in '08, merely learns what he's supposed to say and has to conjure responses based primarily on memorization only.

Many on the left think Romney will be toasted to a crisp once the debates have run their course. While in the end I think Obama will make a better case for his re-election than Romney will, to think this will be an easy win for Obama would be short-sighted. When all is said and done, Romney will most likely do as he did in the GOP debates: stick with vague policies and provide red meat to the right, thus neither winning nor losing, but keeping the status quo. Obama will have some lapses and have to spin his way out of attacks on his economic record and if he has to answer questions on his drone strategies then he could stumble there as well. I doubt Romney will net a big enough bounce from the debates considering the hole he finds himself in today and Obama should maintain his lead or even further cement the undecided and independent vote.

If things continue as they have for the Romney/Ryan ticket, Obama has a strong chance to surpass the margin that he won by in 2008, with the possibly of a 60-40 result come November. If Romney can put Obama on the defensive, make him look weak and shock the nation by actually coming across as likable to the middle class, then we could have a very close result come election day. At this point, that seems very unlikely.

Further Resources

2012 Presidential Debate Schedule

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight Blog

60 Minutes Debate Preview

Andrew Sullivan, The Dish

Real Clear Politics

2012 Convention Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:18:00 +0000

After three days of the Republican convention, then three more days of the Democratic convention, I have to say, first and foremost, I'm glad they're over. The reason I haven't really written much about these generally vapid demonstrations of Americanism is because they're mostly just a big pep-rally for each party's respective base and a choreographed appeal to independent types. Here's your red meat, here's your gender specific reference, here's a minority who overcame all odds to prove his/her value as an American. And yes, a number of those who spoke were inspiring and many were even noteworthy (the first illegal immigrant to speak at a convention, Clinton's speech, Mr. Eastwood, etc.) but in the end it seems to be about bringing a disney-eque sheen to the face of each party, while slipping in one liners about how the other guy is wrong and we are right.

While there were some interesting speeches today to watch and listen to, before I get to that, I was thinking about how cool it would be if there was a way to fuse both of these affairs. That each party could handle their business proceedings separately (the party platforms, the delegate roll calls, the regalia and ceremony) then have a collective gathering that would be open to both party's delegates and independents. A collective call to civility in politics. In imagining it as a chance for all sides to lay down their arms and embrace what we agree upon and wish to accomplish together, I quickly realize that such a scene could never exist in our polarized political culture of finger-pointing, division and ideological crosses to bear. Oh well, it could have been one for the ages, so I guess we'll have to settle for this, for now...

The contrast between what I saw at each convention was greater than normal. Usually it ends up being a week of "we think this as Republicans" then a week of "we think this as Democrats" with the rest of each event pretty much filling the time with USA chants, awkward looking people who look even freakier when you put a camera on them and a whole lot of BS filler. The difference I saw between the two gatherings this year was far more stark than in years past. Republicans most talked about moment was a cameo by Clint Eastwood which turned into a quasi-nightmare for Romney as it pretty much overshadowed his own message 30 minutes later. At least Obama had a full day for everyone to gush about Clinton's performance before he was almost muted by reverb from the two-term president's mesmerizing performance.

Each night at the RNC was a crap shoot. Ann Romney's speech was one of the few greats given over the entire week. The VP-nominee Ryan provided an error filled message, in a tense, robotic way that gave Romney's style a run for it's money. Marco Rubio apparently gave the best speech of the week, but I have yet to get around to it watching it. Then Romney gave a decent speech as the nominee but came off to me as so "Hall of Presidents" animatronic with all his goofy, fake head canting that I began to wonder if even he knew whether he was running for president or Miss America. Unfortunately for them, Hurricane Issac and Mr. Eastwood made bigger headlines than their uninspiring ideological banter. It all seemed message-less, unless you count their tired motto based on another out-of-context jab at Obama. Plus there was the failure to acknowledge Afghanistan or the troops by Romney, nor any real mention of Bush #2. In the end, if felt like more of a vacuous mess than usual and I sincerely felt bad for moderate Republicans and Independents who may have been looking for answers; instead, all they got were a couple of robots and a crazy old man arguing with a chair.

To be fair, I did watch more of the DNC because I actually don't completely feel like jabbing my eyes out while watching it, but for the most part did watch the prime-time hours for both and the notable speeches each week (except for poor Rubio). I really enjoyed Michelle Obama's speech because I believed her story and knew she spoke from the heart. That and she spent a month writing her own speech, which for anyone to speak to a national audience with their own words in their hand AND be praised for it is impressive. My third favorite speech of the week had to be Deval Patrick's. His speech not only called out the GOP on lies and half-truths, but he also brought fire to the podium as he catalogued Romney's gubernatorial record. He gave the audience a little "backbone" too.

I only caught part of Biden's speech but what I saw of it was great. Everyone knows the guy speaks from the hip and from the heart, which is exactly why I enjoy watching him rant and emote. Tonight's speech by the president was solid, yet even for him, a man who's had a number of memorable speeches just in the past 8 years (2004 convention, the "Race Speech", 2008 acceptance speech, 2008 election night), it was relatively mild in it's presentation and it's pedestrian vibe. Yes, there were some excellent policy points and a general calm reserved for State of the Union oratory. I enjoyed it, especially the parts about dealing with climate change, the concept of citizenship and his overall positive tone. He took few risks, often covering the same ground he has over the past 3 years at the podium, but played things pretty honest with admissions of letting even himself down over his term in office. I felt that Ezra Klein of the Washington Post summed it up best:

"If you looked past the rhetoric and focused just on the policy, this was a modest speech. It was a more humble vision. What President Obama offered the country on the final night of the Democratic convention was reminiscent of what Warren G. Harding offered almost a century ago: A return to normalcy after a long period of emergency."

Of course, by most everyone's standards, the best speech over both weeks had to be Bill Clinton's, last night. It's difficult to find a more charismatic speaker who can talk about political policy in a language crafted for absorption by the everyman and still go long by ab-libbing through a 50 minute speech. I've never seen anyone else do it before - it was astounding. So, when all was said and done, it didn't matter if Clinton killed and Obama did "ok" (for him), Clinton created a blueprint for dems running in contests all over the country, bolstered his party's visibility with real ideas (not empty chairs), ways to refute false claims from the other side and he consequently blew away the competition, for at least one more night. I must say that overall I was very impressed by the variety of messages, from varied speakers and all walks of life, that took the stage in Charlotte.

I can't remember another convention where the best speakers available were willing to step up to speak also performed well and did so consistently throughout the whole week. Sure, you could say that I enjoyed the DNC more than the RNC because I'm a Democrat and you'd probably be right. Then I want you to look at the feeble bounce (about +2) Romney got as a result of last week after his convention, then watch what Obama receives over the next week, then we'll see what's what. It was quite a convention.... as far as fake-ass poltical beauty pageants go.

One more month till the debates...

Night Two of the 2012 DNC

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 05:33:00 +0000

via The Dish

Tonight was impressive display of political firepower. I was lucky enough to catch all of the last three speeches tonight. The biggest surprise was the impressive performance by Sandra Fluke. A solid speech highlighting the disconnect between the Republican party and women's reproductive rights. Elizabeth Warren followed her with an excellent rebuttal of the "We Built It", anti-financial regulation and individualist approach seen last week in Tampa. Her speech was more tempered than I expected, as I feared she might get a little carried away with too much anti-free-market rhetoric, but it was fair and evenly balanced. Unfortunately for Warren, and for everyone whom preceded her, they were all overshadowed by one of the best speeches President Bill Clinton has ever given. It was filled with emotion, with more details than any other political speech this year and effectively debunked each and every argument the Republican party espoused and has advertised for over the past 6 months. It felt like a modern television version of what I imagined FDR's fireside chats to be like: a conversation with the entire country about the important matters of our country, without withholding the truth and ensuring he provides all the facts. It was quite impressive and a tough act to follow tomorrow night, though I have a feeling the President will find a way...

Sandra Fluke

Senator-Elect Elizabeth Warren - Massachusetts

President William Jefferson Clinton

In Case You Missed It... Highlights from Night One of the 2012 DNC.

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:49:00 +0000

via Daily Beast

Having spent the better part of the past year writing about the Republican primary season and everything that led to Romney's coronation, it's a breath of fresh air to watch speeches and personalities that I can relate to. I can't maintain this blog as a full-time job, so I didn't catch all those who spoke tonight as I was on my way home from work, but from everything I've read and heard thus far, the three speeches below were the best of the first night of the Democratic National Convention. It feels good to revel in the humanity below, for it certainly sounds a lot more positive than what I heard last week... so far.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

San Antonio Major Julian Castro

First Lady Michelle Obama

The Selfish Planks of the GOP Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Historically, Republicans have prided themselves in being the party that represents the moral heart of America. It chiefly started with the rise of the Moral Majority under Reagan - the notion that our country had a deficit when it came to religious values, economic policy, an over reliance on government vs. private investment, foreign power, etc. As a result Reagan built huge deficits (reduced tax rates and a wealth of military spending), providing short term economic gains at the top which ended years of stagflation, yet his term culminated in a Savings and Loan scandal, the Iran-Contra scandal, arguably the largest deregulation of industry ever, a foreign policy of international police actions, 4 years of recession, and ultimately creating a climate of "me first" in Washington D.C., in the marketplace and among the general population as a whole.

The short-term successes of Reaganomics and the Moral Majority have powered the Republican party for the past 30 years. They effectively put in place a federal culture of money over morals (see K Street and Citizens United), enabled Gingrich's Contract With America and a subsequent series of government shutdowns, and in the end, created an emphasis on corporate/financial deregulation that in turn created our worst financial crisis since 1929, a bevy of foreclosures, and our worst median adjusted incomes since1968.

The overarching mantra, that has always captured the ear of middle-class Americans who've fallen victim, time and again, to these policies that many voted to endorse, is the cause of freedom. If you're a small business owner, if you hate paying your share in taxes, if you'd rather build a deficit to launch foreign wars that serve no purpose but to fill the pockets of war profiteers than to level the playing field so all Americans can enjoy this concept of freedom, if you put your religious beliefs ahead of the rights of your fellow citizens, you might be a Republican. Here's what our "conservative" American leaders stand for, in turn making them look like a bunch of self-serving jerks...

Freedom
For a party that can't shut up about freedom, they sure aren't concerned about the freedom of others. The right's notion of freedom clearly isn't about providing equal access to the tools (education, job training, health care, etc.) that can create economic freedom via middle-class jobs, fixing those missing ladder rungs which could enable every American the freedom to find success. Our country's emphasis on freedom stems from that founding principle of being free from the tyranny of foreign control, you know, ending taxation without representation (sorry D.C.). Now that we have our own country, where we tax our own citizens so that we can all utilize services that allow chances for each individual to succeed, why would any self-respecting middle-class American vote against creating infrastructure, investing in our schools and thus putting money in the pockets of the very people who drive the economy toward success? Freedom is not free, clearly paid for with the lives our own citizens and loved ones we've lost in war over the years, but also in an economic approach to government that requires investment in our own people. If we do otherwise, the freedom of our population will further decline as corporate interests continue to amass financial fortunes that will perpetually shut the rest of us out of the political process.

via washington post

Economics and Taxation
The policies and positions espoused by today's GOP aren't based on what's needed for the greater good of our country, but on what's best for the richest among us, those who've already acquired status, money and power. They carry on about how elitist the media and democrats are, but who's trying to evade taxes, impose crony capitalism on our government by buying up lobbyists to manipulate our laws, and who's using said funds to promote economic methods that have, time and time again, gone bust?

If there's one point I want to get across, more than any other, it's that our history of success as a country can be singularly evidenced by taxation over the years. in the Nineteen-teens and twenties, when our tax code was antiquated and our fiscal policy was minimal, a vast amount of wealth and a lack of widespread regulation created our worst economic conditions ever from 1929 through 1942. Our tax code fluctuated wildly in the early 20th century, with the top nominal tax rate starting at 7% in 1913, then 77% during World War I, then 26% in 1928, with the minimal income for top rates changing from $500K to $1 million to $100K, respectively. As our country recovered, primarily via work programs, social programs and a general improvement in quality of life, our strongest period of growth and financial success then occurred between the years 1944 and 1986. During those years the top tax rates were as high as 94% in 1944 and as low as 50% in 1986. With the exception of a period of justified stagflation in the late 70's through the mid 80's, when the rate hadn't changed since 1965 (70%), our economic growth was unprecedented. And it continued again in the late 90's when top rates were raised up to 39.6% in '93 after a low of 28% in '88 (source).

Now those at the top can quibble all they want about paying too much in taxes, even though they've been paying at historically lower levels of 35% and even lower (15%) for those claiming dividends and capital gains since 2004. Then there are those who're even more clever, evading their share of taxes by clever accounting and off-shoring their finances in foreign tax havens, such as Mitt Romney (14% in 2010), instead paying an effect rate of anywhere between 5% and 20%. The pattern I see is that when our taxes on highest incomes (on those who make far more than millions of Americans combined) are higher, our economy has flourished because those in the middle, who can then buy goods and services since they aren't being weighed down by taxation. When our richest citizens are paying less (see 1986 to 1993 and 2003 to present) our economy has languished in slow growth, smaller wages, but also increased profits and income at the very top. Now if only those of us in the middle could be paid a living wage... that's a whole other issue that needs to be addressed as well.

via barackobama.com

Religion
Oh sure, the right is all about freedom of religion until a purported Muslim get's elected. GASP! We live in one of the freest cultures in the world, so even if Obama was a Muslim, why should it matter? Since when does personal freedom get overrun by religiously ideological individuals who wish to restrict access to birth control or define rape as "legitimate" or use their own beliefs to determine whether a woman can have a safe and healthy abortion? We are a nation of laws purposefully created to be vague of religious doctrine. We are a people of diverse, celebrated beliefs, not dogmatic rule based on extreme, politically fueled religiosity. If anything, I'd like to see the Republican party spend a little more time focusing on their own spiritual side instead of imposing their own belief systems on a country of free individuals. If there's anything we can learn from the Christian religion, it's that Jesus was a believer in doing good deeds, sharing our collective resources for the greater good, not to ostracize but provide actual help to the weakest among us, forgiving those who've been the victims of injustice and keeping open hearts and minds in accepting those who are different than us. You may have seen surrogates and the leaders of the GOP espouse such values this week in Tampa, but it's rarely reflected in their voting records, their policy proposals and in their budgetary priorities. For me, if Jesus were alive today to see what's been done in his name over the past 30 years, I doubt he'd be very happy and I'm certain more than a few merchant's tables would be tossed as a result.

Education
Of late, political and corporate power appears to be reserved for those who're born with a foot in the door. Manicured and shaped like a delicate piece of topiary, the children of the well-to-do have the added benefit of going to the best schools and being socially connected to people who may be richer than their own family. So you want to go to school at Harvard but can't because you were raised with the everyday tasks of having to babysit your 5 other sibling, working a part-time job because there's no one else in your family who can, having no personal transportation, with no additional funds to take preparatory courses for college placement exams? What's the elite response to this? You apparently didn't pull yourself up by your bootstaps! Or "stop being so lazy, stealing money from your fellow citizens by taking foodstamps and bringing down the property values in my town." These tired lines of reasoning are bullshit.

What about investing in your own community or greater metropolitan region? How about donating money to something more than your church's insular/missionary driven model of benevolence? How do you expect your companies to flourish and for our economy to be strong unless those youth who need to fill those positions are properly educated and given the opportunity to be productive members of society? You making more money does not make us more money. It doesn't pay my rent or put gas in my tank It creates more investments for you, which doesn't put money where it's needed most (the general population) but back into the hands of those perpetuating the same sadistic, selfish lifestyle your pompous neighbors share with you. Let's put that money into our schools and programs that enable everyone in the country to receive an education that we can be proud of.

via guttmacher.org

Women
With all the talk about freedom and ending big government, the biggest hypocrisy foisted upon our population by Republican leaders over the past few years has been a disproportionate amount of time spent on restricting abortion, defunding Planned Parenthood, combating the ACA's intention of providing free birth control and a number of other women's issues. The interesting question to answer here, amidst record job loses and our economy in financial ruins, is why are they spending so much time on inhibiting the rights of women? Well, when we look at the Republican heyday of Eisenhower and the days that most conservatives yearn for, the post WWII salad days of the 1950's, other than having the right to vote, most women were pretty restricted to the home, being asked to raise a family, not join the workforce and, of course, birth control was essentially non-existent.

One reason they might want to go back to these times is in the hopes of returning economic power to men, further weakening those who are most likely to be unable to afford birth control, effectively forcing more women out of the workforce and back into the home where they feel women belong. Can it be this crude a rationale? It could be, but it's never that simple. It also has a lot to do with religious values - they want to protect the "life" of an unformed zygote, but simultaneously send a hundred thousand soldiers overseas to kill thousands and be killed by the thousands. You can call yourself pro-life all you want, but it's so hypocritical, to me, to claim that preventing the birth of an unwanted child or prevention of pregnancy is evil and that killing other humans is fine, as long as it's in the name of democracy. Again, Jesus would be pissed.

Minorities
If you've noticed anything about this year's RNC, it's that they've brought to the stage as many minority leaders as they could find. It's funny to me because they've spent so little time attempting to curry the favor of America's plethora of non-white ethnic groups until this week. What's also been interesting is how the words said by these multi-cultural surrogates rarely mirror the expected policies of those they're claiming to support or even the greater Republican platform as a whole. To be fair, there are passages about enabling legal immigrants and giving those on student or work visas the ability to succeed, if they possess or earn collegiate degrees, which can provide much needed support to our economy. Yet in the same document, illegal immigrants are effectively equated to being potential terrorists and pose "grave risks to the safety and sovereignty of the United States." Nothing like instilling a little fear into the population, to get them to root out the evil among us!

This sounds like such an antiquated way of dealing with immigration and, again, hypocritical considering that most all of us in the US today are descendants of immigrants who didn't have papers either. It's also so McCarthy-esque and hate driven that it's difficult to fathom that this crap was written only a few days ago. It appears to me, that the Republican stance on our country's minorities is to defund the programs they depend on most, deport illegals (and their children), increase taxes on the lowest wage earners (made up predominantly of minorities) as evidenced by Romney's tax plan (above), and stem their potential by doing nothing to further their ability to succeed. It should be no surprise that the latest poll of African Americans finds that 0% plan to vote for Romney and only 28% of Latinos plan to support the Romney/Ryan ticket. I find their approach to the rights and needs of minorities severely lacking, further emboldening the selfish attitudes of many who scapegoat minorities and illegal immigrants as one cause of our economic woes.

Voting Rights
Quite possibly the issue that scares me the most, the disenfranchisement of millions Americans in the name of rarely seen voter fraud, is very real leading up to this year's elections. Roughly 10 to 11 percent of eligible voters would be affected by recently enacted voter identification laws that have been put in place by conservative led statehouses in roughly 26 states (some cases are still pending such as in Pennsylvania). It's been clearly acknowledged, even by one of their own leaders, that the purpose of these laws is to enable conservatives to win in November. By imposing such requirements, it clearly limits the number of senior citizens, minorities, students and other groups, that historically vote Democratic, to be disfranchised from voting. The selfishness of such actions are defended by invoking ACORN and/or the notion that we need to protect the vote from illegal immigrants. The idea that states can take away the right of their own citizens to vote is unfair and clearly being done to win by any means possible.

via The Christian Science Monitor

When all is said and done, the one thing that scares me the most is the ability for the richest in our country to skew our elections by funding mysterious super-PACs and funding the political lobby industry (something both parties are guilty of), which will in turn manipulate the laws that we live by, allowing unscrupulous pursuits that continue to undermine the middle-class, disenfranchise voters and corrupt the morals of our citizens. It's really an unvirtuous cycle that will be continued for years to come if we can't fix things like the Citizens United ruling, which grants corporations the same rights as individuals, has already been proven to weaken workers unions, further removing the general American electorate from the process of determining our path forward as a country.

If our country is to return to those years of prosperity we've enjoyed in years past, it will be because the leaders we elect, most importantly those who currently inhabit our broken Congress, will put down their partisan baggage and work together to find bipartisan solutions for what ails our country. This can only happen if groups like Americans for Tax Reform, with their notion that taxes can only be reduced never increased, are removed from the process. Our economic problems as a country aren't a result of over taxation but in poor law making, a lack of oversight or regulation, the destructive nature of persistent filibustering and too much credence being given to those standing to benefit most from the laws the richest among us are pushing through our government to further enable their own selfish pursuits.

For the record, I don't hate rich people. I am enraged by the notion that many who have wealth today are willing only to perpetuate their status by undercutting and giving little quarter to those whom they should be relying on to keep our economy strong - our workers, our teachers, our autoworkers, our everyday citizens who simply wish to participate on a more level playing field. No one is asking for socialism, no one is asking you to sacrifice your livelihood for the sake of big government. There is no doubt that government needs to be reformed and it actually has been, to some extent, if you haven't been paying attention the past few years. Merely cutting taxes to grow our entire economy hasn't worked for the past 10 years, it didn't work from 1986 to1993 and it won't lead our country on a path to prosperity. Our choice this November: do we stifle innovation, education and middle-class purchasing power; or do we return to a time when we asked the richest to pay a larger proportion of taxes to enable growth and continue to rebuild a middle-class that can again power the wheels of our nation? I can only hope that enough Americans can see through the lies and distortions of the Republican party, if only long enough to realize that the last thing we need to do is double-down on policies we should all plainly regard as destructive.

Recommended Reading

Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy

Rachel Maddow, Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power

Robert Reich, Beyond Outrage: What has gone wrong with our economy and our democracy and how to fix it.

Will Ryan be Romney's Savior?

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 21:55:00 +0000

Hi There! (via Politico)

If you weren't watching the Women's 5000m race last night, which was thankfully interrupted by rumors of Paul Ryan being picked as Mitt Romney's Vice Presidential running mate, you've most likely learned about it this morning since it was officially announced on the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, VA. Ryan has of late become the darling of a Republican Congress that's become considerably more extreme since the 2010 elections, so this choice really comes as no surprise to most of us political junkies.

The real surprise lies in the risk and the bucking of trends this pick signifies. Historically, nominees pick someone to balance the ticket, such as McCain choosing the more conservative Palin to balance his moderate chops, Kerry choosing Lieberman, etc. You're supposed to choose someone to fill the void you can't provide to the general electorate. Now historically Romney has been very moderate, but since last Fall he's grown increasingly conservative and has yet to tack back to the center. So, this pick of a Libertarian in an elephant's clothing could yet be Mitt's most quizzical move yet. Is he planning to move to the center and have Ryan be his conservative attack dog or is he doubling down, effectively acquiescing to the base, considering their reticence to his milquetoast, robotic and thus ineffectual campaign? I see it being nothing more than the latter of the two.

For those unfamiliar with Ryan's record, here's a rundown of what Ryan brings to the ticket:

With the exception of Rand and Ron Paul, there are few in American politics today that have waived the conservative Libertarian flag of Ayn Rand as vigorously as Ryan has.

Ryan's much ballyhooed budget plan, "The Path to Prosperity", brings to the fore the most conservative budget proposal since Gingrich's failed "Contract With America" containing the following non-starters... turning Medicare into a voucher program; ending the Affordable Care Act; cutting discretionary spending in half; eliminating tax deductions, exemptions and subsidies; turning Medicaid funding into state portioned block grants.

Ryan was one of the biggest supporters of Jack Kemp's push to have W. Bush privatize Social Security, turning a collective system into a system of individually managed accounts, subject to the whims of the market. In an earlier version of the budget in 2011, this privatization was included in his plan, but has proven to be unpopular enough to have since been removed as a provision. The irony that he wishes to dismantle a federal program that he himself benefited from as a child after his father's untimely death should not be lost on the public. In this sense, he merges quite nicely with Mitt's historically contradictory stances on social programs.

Paul Ryan brings an uber-focus on deficit reduction at the expense of popular programs such a Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, plus the already strapped state and local budgets that would suffer as a result of across the board cuts to funding. If Romney isn't careful his campaign's theme of creating a mandate against a president that has led us to poor growth will be sabotaged by the very theme democratic strategists have already successfully levied against Romney from the beginning: the Ryan budget will return the country to the same policies that caused our economic demise in the first place.

It must said that today they have already stated that Romney will devise his own budget plan, presummed to be based around Ryan's, yet it's hard to know what those amendments will be and if they will continue to be vague on specifics, something both men have been guilty of.

via The Monkey Cage

Were Romney still the moderate governor who actually created the template for the now hated ACA, then Paul Ryan would be the ideal choice to balance his ticket. Being that even moderately conservative pundits have questioned the fiscal policies of Ryan, it's clear that this choice is not meant to bring moderates and independents into the fold, but to further bolster Romney's intention to flash his conservative credentials which have really only surfaced over the past year. As a result, not only does Romney risk alienating the 55+ crowd, he also does nothing to win over moderate and independent legions of undecided women and minorities. I don't know why Marco Rubio was never really part of the vetting process, a choice that I feel could have done more for swing state votes, minorities and senior citizens, but instead he's made it crystal clear today that his interests lie within an inclusive party that isn't concerned about those groups.

The irony of this pick is that there was a time and place were Romney really could have pulled a trick here by balancing his moderate credentials with Ryan's Libertarian posture, but that time has past, unless of course he flip-flops again, trying to make us believe that he really is a moderate after all. That scenario is as unlikely as the notion that this decision will cause a 10 point bump in the polls, as his staff projected last night. And maybe I'm still thinking in an antiquated way that success in presidential politics lies in their ability to create interest across the board, with all Americans. With this pick it's clear that our national political parties (or at least one of them) aren't interested in appealing to all, but to excite and reassure those who already follow them, all the more confirming our concerns about the continued polarization of our country.

So hey, Romney could have done a worse job of picking a VP, in fact it looks like a great pick in the eyes of the conservative base. The real question now is will it translate into electoral and popular votes come November or further alienate an electorate that already has a highly unfavorable view of Romney and a Republican House who's fiscal policy of late has been led of late by Ryan? It's obviously too early to tell, but I don't know how this pick really does much to reassure industry, middle-class Americans or senior citizens. As the hour grows later and as Romney flailed abroad and has no answer to the financial mysteries of his past, I really don't see anything being able to repair his image enough to put him over the hump. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Of Course Mckayla is NOT Impressed

The Politics of Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 07:05:00 +0000

An interesting thing this internet. As youth, we never had this ability to witness and discuss the feelings of people on the other side of the country, much less the other side of the world. It's nowhere as prevalent or as obvious as it is, right now, being posted on our social media sites, especially facebook. I've been on that confounded, addicting, abhorrent and glorious site for 7 years now. Some days I feel like finding Zuckerberg and demanding my life back, yet it's junk-pop culture, political brimstone, 'likes,' annoying games and real connections continue to bring us back for more. No, none of the ever increasing changes really fazed me but recently there is something more ominous that's caught my ire and should be seen as an item of concern for everyone.

It's not the notion that facebook will cease to be free for everybody someday, or that growing means of advertising they've foisted upon us. It's what Eli Pariser describes below as a "filter bubble" - most notably how Google's search engines, metrics and algorithms direct us to content based on previous searches, preferences, etc. Of course those at most online companies are merely hoping to improve the experience and at worst help create a sale via those all important advertising dollars, but may unintentionally be pushing the polarization of our country and the entire world, far more than we ever could have imagined.

In the case of facebook, it may be even worse than Eli describes. Yes, he does talk about how more often conservatives were being filtered out of his 'news feed' and how ultimately this filtering can make us all "a web of one" yet it's also done with, for the sake of time I'm sure, a more cursory glance at the greater issues involved. Issue such as who do we all become when we know each other better without personal contact than we do in person?

In the early days of facebook, it was a great service that interconnected classmates and high school graduates who migrated to universities all over the country. An ideal tool to keep up with those who maybe you only got a few minutes of face time with the night before or to potentially pursue a romantic flame. I loved it because I traveled to universities all over the country and it enabled me to keep up with everybody I was visiting in a casual, non-threatening way, allowing me to better understand who I was working with and what I could do to improve my job performance. It was a godsend.

To eventually open it up to everyone was a great thing, which had to happen because MySpace was dying and needed to acquiesce into the shadows of social media past. So we got the ability to 'like' things, the ability to share posts, to be badgered by our relatives, co-workers, elementary school buddies and on and on. It grew so big, so fast and quickly became a global phenomenon. But now, after all the concerns about facebook's initial inflexibility on privacy (now overly complex), the often chided timeline feature, a botched stock IPO a few months back and the publicly traded share's decline ever since has taken the luster off of facebook of late.

In the end, to me, all of the above is just window dressing for the greater problems I've noticed of late. Take for instance the response we've seen to the Chick-Fil-A madness, or conversations on gun violence over the past month, or the political back and forth leading up to November's election. We've become so insulated as to what and who've we've chosen to surround ourselves with - who we read, who we 'friend' and 'de-friend,' which pages we follow and so on - that when we do poke our heads outside of our self-contained bubble, the venom that we see spewed on others or even on ourselves can be vicious and at times unconscionable.

When I look at activity today on facebook, most of what I see is congruent with my views and that's to be expected, but to see the comments others make on Chick-Fil-A's page, unrelenting anger over bigotry, personal freedoms and thousands "counter-protesting" by waiting hours for chicken sandwiches, even the description of this should cause someone to dismiss it as overtly comical, inflexible or ideologic. We need to have honest, face-to-face discussions in our country, not detached, disparate cock-fighting sessions over a melodramatic post on who performed best on American Idol or positively trying to wrangle the angry, insensitive rhetoric of closet cases with no proper real-world outlets. As Pariser emphasizes above, this technology that's suppose to bring us all together, is instead driving us further apart.

I've noticed that over the past year the prevalence of casual facebook usership has declined. Is it a result of facebook's changes, that ever widening chasm I've described above or are people just growing bored by this technology?

Ideally the internet, facebook, twitter, google+ and other social media sites should be a bastion for the sharing of information, of keeping up with those we love and wish we could be with in person. It should also be a place for lively and honest debate in a respectful way. Instead, it is too often becoming a confluence of divergent views, a network of individual bubbles, at times too strong to be burst by the sharing of opposing views.

I encourage all those reading this to be open and accepting of what others have to say, but also to put forth our best side to share positive notions with others. I know I've been guilty in the past of exactly what I've portrayed above and of late, I'm tired of seeing it in myself and in others. If we are to collectively succeed in this ever advancing, technology driven world, it will not be done by carrying a banner of self-importance, hate or distrust, but to hoist one with an educational spirit, with an eye toward collective improvement, and one filled more with consensual acceptance and love than with hearts and minds filled hate.

Moving Forward...

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:11:00 +0000

via underthemountainbunker.com

Life's been a heavy sack of bananas for me lately. Dealing with my father's passing, a divorce and the subsequent lamentations/heartbreak/loneliness of it all eventually pushed me back toward the past-times of my younger days. Most notable of these would have to be my reinvestment in sports, of which I've enjoyed seeing one hometown team own the best record in baseball (Dodgers) and another capture their first ever Stanley Cup (Kings). Yes, I've become a lazy, sports addled bachelor again.

It's all distracted me from what had become a relatively steady stream of writing that I (mostly) wish I'd never left behind. Yet as I look at the 5 drafts I see seeing sitting among this blogs posts, beyond the aforementioned distractions, I realize that I may have burned out or at least temporarily lost that passion that compels my writing. For me, as it is with most writers, I must have some sort of motivation, namely getting pissed at the world, pissed at political idiocy, frustrated with perceived helplessness or what can only be described as downright boredom (the latter unfortunately producing the worst end result).

After the Fall/Winter/Spring of that damned mind-numbing Republican campaign/circus, a subsequently tiring emphasis on fundraising details, the he said/she said battles between Romney and Obama, then the Walker nightmare in Wisconsin, it all kinda got me burned-out-tired of politics. Don't get me wrong, I still care of about our collective political condition as Americans and will continue to write, I just needed some downtime to revel in my own business, instead of reveling in everybody else's, if only for a little while.

So, with that said, some posts you might see on the horizon:

A look back at Reagan, the right's obsession with his policies that've been proven not to work in today's world and why.

A review of Robert Reich's short ebook on our current economic quagmire, political miasmas and how we can fix them.

Considering the role selfishness plays in our tendency as a country to be extremely polarized politically.

More biased Obama stuff??

A post on Race and Politics that I'm still not sure I want to finish...

And of course, the beginnings of the real general election season - the conventions, the VP selection and the debates.

Lastly, it should be noted that I've also taken on more hours of work with my current employer, a bonus that includes having actual two-day weekends (I know, I'm spoiled). This should allow me more time to get things done, relax AND write as I once did.

Thank you for your patience. It'll all be happening again very soon... I think.

Obama Supports Gay Marriage, GOP on Wrong Side of History and Jon Stewart on Cognitive Dissonance.

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:46:00 +0000

In case you didn't know...

Almost as good: Fox News' Sheppard Smith's willingness to proclaim that the GOP now finds themselves on the wrong side of history.

Further, Jon Stewart had a great piece on the cognitive dissonance of the Republican party, including a reluctance to admit the successes of Obama and Romney taking credit for the auto industry's rebound.

The Case for Re-Electing a Practical President

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:36:00 +0000

via Politic365

Nobody can deny how much has changed over the past 5 years. The continued impact the internet has had on our daily lives, bringing with it easier accessibility to information and the unblinking eye of the modern twittered-up media, all of which have placed demands on our government and it's leaders to not only be accountable to the population, but to also be transparent. In turn, provoking the greatest single change to government in our lifetimes.

To be fair, the bulk of these demands have been created by a more technologically advanced world and citizenry, yet it can also be argued that much of this shift lies within the promises made by an outsider who took the reins of the highest executive office in government nearly 4 years ago. It was the financial meltdown, economic collapse, high unemployment, burst of the real estate bubble and a general distrust in government following 8 years of deregulation, war, declining wages and tax breaks that fed this demand as well.

The results of which spurred the conservative right backlash via the Tea Party (the pre-text of which was expertly covered by Matt Taibbi in his book, The Great Derangement), the "conservative wave" during the 2010 mid-term elections, the increasingly loud and noxious drone of Fox News' biased coverage, and the resulting intransigent posturing by an ideologically driven congress.

Their response was followed belatedly by the Occupy Wall Street movement, focused on the fiscal transgressions of both the right and left ideological extremes, which continues to grow nationally and internationally via their own self-sustaining, grassroots funding and coverage despite the often uninterested eye cast upon it by our corporately held media conglomerates.

Tax reform, social wedge issues, consumer financial protection, job creation, re-examining federal regulations (or lack thereof), fair wages for all Americans, reforming the education system and health care have been and will continue to be the most important issues that drive the electorate and our leaders. At no other time since the presidency of Ronald Reagan has such a similar batch of topics been brought to the fore, which says something about what his legacy begat and what President Obama's foci have been. To say that what Obama's been working on is the opposite of what Reagan accomplished while in office would be false. In fact, they had exactly the same goals: get America working, protect the country.

Though their methods of achieving these goals were different, I believe their approaches were centrist in regard to policy and implementation. Reagan's legacy is in complete contradiction to those who continue to manipulate that legacy (Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, The Koch Family, and feeble attempts by Mitt Romney) to promote policies that weren't Reagan's is to me a manipulative means to draw American's into an unknowing trap that continues to enslave their conservative brethren economically, while espousing "it's all good" on conservative radio and TV stations owned by those profiting most from said failed policies.

To say that Obama doesn't have contributors that are corporate would be false and yes, there are many individuals whom have contributed to his efforts that also work for financial institutions, but I too work for a financial institution and there are millions of Americans who're employed by corporations that actually do good things in our communities and truly understand what it is to be a responsible corporation. Obama isn't fighting corporations, he's fighting tired, old, conservative and white collar ideologies that have been proven ineffective for our economy over the past 30 years. And if these financial sector or Hollywood contributions are so important, why hasn't the president espoused their cause by not supporting the Consumer Financial Protection Agency or trying to defeat SOPA? If there were one single area where he and Romney differ it's that Obama wants to fix the legacy of Reagan by balancing tax reform with economic success; Romney doesn't want anything to change, as he's ever beholden to those he knows best, his financial and corporate benefactors.

And for those who doubt the efficacy of Obama's economic, domestic and foreign policies? Here's a clear set of visual responses...

The past 4 years of Obama's presidency is best summed up by passages found in Richard Wolffe's book Renegade: The Making of a President in which he was given exclusive access to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Obama, in various venues, relates to Wolffe his approach to politics and the office of president, which he has since appeared to have followed, with few exceptions:

A quotation from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: “The basic requirement for the understanding of the politics of change is to recognize the world as it is. We must work with it on its terms if we are to change it to the kind of world we would like it to be. We must first see the world as it is and not as we would like it to be. We must see the world as all political realists have, in terms of ‘what men do and not what they ought to do,’ as Machiavelli and others have put it.”

A direct quote: “You can trust me, because politics didn’t lead me to working folks; working folks led me to politics.”

During an interview with Wolffe: So how much could he really change before the nation’s capital changed him? “I’m the captain of a ship,” he told me. “I am not the builder of a ship. So there’s certain constraints, in terms of the ship’s capacities. I can’t transform an old steamer into a nuclear submarine. I can’t steer the thing faster than its capacities. And most importantly, I don’t control the weather or the oceans. On the other hand, given what the oceans are and what the weather is and what the constraints of the ship are, I can be a better captain or a worse captain. And my job is to be the best captain I can be.”

During an interview post election: “And I think that if you think of the presidency just as a bureaucratic job, then you will not be effective. If you think of it only as a rhetorical, political job, you will not be effective. And I think that our goal has been to say, how do we function as good managers and good stewards of government and reform it and clean it up and make it work and make it tight? But let’s not lose sight of the fact that we also have to persuade the American people as to where the country needs to go. And those two things have to work in concert, in tandem, to be effective.”

In February 2008, not long after the Super Tuesday primaries, he explained the concept of “change” by checking off all the ways he wanted to fix the broken political system: to reduce the influence of special interests, increase voter participation, and cut through the spin and public relations. But then he explained what he really wanted. “Now, there’s another aspect to this, and that’s the need to change policies,” he told me on one flight to Seattle in the dead of night. “Whether it’s fixing our health care system or reversing climate change or making our schools work for all children or alleviating poverty. I have never been a good-government type that’s interested in change because it’s somehow morally correct. I have a pretty hardheaded view why we have to make our democracy work. We can’t bring about these changes without a more engaged citizenry and a more accountable and transparent government that allows us to sort through our various differences… It leads to better outcomes.”

It is these things that separate Obama from most every other president since Kennedy and from the passages above, is quite clear that his approach is clearly about being practical and prudent. He is a competitive idealist that's stubborn enough to take on what could arguably be called the world's largest broken system. No human is perfect and no leader operates in a vacuum. Is there legislation he's signed, actions he's taken and words he's spoken that I'm not happy with? Yes. Yet I don't have to lead 315 million citizens, a bulk of which are so polarized by a non-stop media machine that determines more about what voters think than any other group or individual. He's had to compromise with unyielding ideologues who never want a system, that's been tilted to favor the elite, to ever change. Every decision he's made reverberates from coast to coast, at times even affecting the outcomes of foreign countries citizens as much as his own.

And yes, I've donated to his campaign multiple times in those small, prescribed amounts. I also know that no one man can change the world, but anyone who counts his heroes and role models as Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan can't be far off the path of trying to accomplish just that. Some think his intentions more closely relate to those of Karl Marx, Ho Chi Minh or Vladimir Lenin and it's pretty clear that those who espouse this view obviously haven't been paying attention. If they were correct in these assertions, I doubt we'd see the occupation protests ramping up once again as the Spring thaw begin across the country.

What is truly exciting about this man is his ability to inadvertently defy those on the far left and far right. It isn't his job to cater to interest groups or corporate funding. Nor is it his intention to do so - in case you haven't noticed, his act is balanced, his aim is true and his focus is on all of America, not just one race, one economic class, one cause or any special interest. His burden is the American people's burden, an unquenchable thirst for justice he was unable to satiate as a community organizer or as an educator.

His task, if one looks at the entire body of his presidency, understood his background and his idealized perspective of our country, and could grasp his ever-the-outsider/underdog mentality, has been to create a paradigm shift. A shift away from self-interested foreign policy, toward international co-operation; away from corporate subsidies, toward saving jobs in local municipalities; away from "no, health care reform is too hard", toward what may ultimately become the foundation for single payer universal healthcare. For him the ends don't justify the means, he knows we can't fix the system without breaking the rules, and to get things done consensus cannot be reached without the use of mediation and compromise. He's said himself that "the problem right now is not the technical means to solve it; the problem is our politics" and it's clear from the quotation above that transparency has begun and the citizenry is becoming more engaged, hopefully creating the positive outcomes we all seek.

President Obama has proven that you can be an intellectual, a politician, an outsider and still govern, even in the face of the worse financial crisis, a monumental oil spill, various natural disasters and polarizing politics, whilst walking into a trip-wire laden foreign policy, then dealing with an intransigent Congress and a biased Supreme Court.

It hasn't been an easy term, but it's been fruitful and I see no reason why he shouldn't be re-elected to serve a second term, nor is there any one opponent formidable enough to overtake him at this time.

Change actually has shown up and will continue to grace us with it's presence until 2016.

Recommended reading that has contributed to the content of this blog over the past 2 years:

Eric Alterman; Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama.

Easily the least biased and thoroughly thought out examination, from a journalist and educator, on the first two years of Obama’s presidency. At 224 pages, it’s a succinct and easy to read book I recommend to everybody.

Ha-Joon Chang; 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism.

In a post on capitalism, I make a number of references to Chang’s excellent look at the fallacies of “Free Market” capitalism and why it hasn’t worked in the United States and around the world.

Doris Kearnes Goodwin; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

One of the best books I’ve ever read. It is lengthy, requiring me to read it in three 250 page segments over two years, but it is worth your time. Unintentionally parallels the decisions made by the Obama campaign (who apparently were reading it at the time) and his presidency with regard to his approaches to policy and cabinet choices.

John Heileman and Mark Halperin; Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.

A no holds barred, second-hand take on the entire 2008 presidential election. I love the unfiltered quotes derived from unnamed sources, which really gives this book color and a unique voice. The HBO film of the same name focuses solely on the McCain/Palin third of the book and is no where near as complete a perspective.

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner; Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance.

Two entertaining books that take on real world issues and how economics play a role in creating these problems and finding solutions.

Barack Obama; The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

Many have read this and for those who haven’t and want to learn more about the motivations and policy backgrounds of our president, I highly recommend it.

Matt Taibbi; The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire.

As noted above, Taibbi – often called the Hunter S. Thompson of his generation, hits the nail on the head of how the actions of the Bush administration seemed to hardwire those who’ve eventually fallen in line with Tea Party rhetoric, choosing ideology over reality.

Hunter S. Thompson; Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72.

For many, this has become the foundation for how political journalists have followed presidential campaigns ever since. While the book is filled with the expected diversions and digressions that come with every Thomson book and it took me some time to get through, the end result is a fascinating and rich look at the 1972 presidential campaign, especially the failed bid of George McGovern, whom he followed most.

Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President.

A first hand perspective of the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. A liberal bias is evident throughout, yet the detail and lengthy interviews with the candidate are second-to-none.

Partisan Politics vs. Health Care: SCOTUS Arguments Complete.

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 18:50:00 +0000

via The Dish

Now that the third and final day of deliberations by the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act's (aka ObamaCare) Individual Mandate provision are complete, here's some information you might find useful regarding today's discussion on the severability issue .

1) Here's the audio (mp3 download) of today's proceedings and below is the transcript:

Wednesday's First Hearing

2) Things are looking up for the mandate if what this guy says (Lyle Denniston from the SCOTUS Blog) makes sense:

The Supreme Court spent 91 minutes Wednesday operating on the assumption that it would strike down the key feature of the new health care law, but may have convinced itself in the end not to do that because of just how hard it would be to decide what to do after that. A common reaction, across the bench, was that the Justices themselves did not want the onerous task of going through the remainder of the entire 2,700 pages of the law and deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and most seemed to think that should be left to Congress. They could not come together, however, on just what task they would send across the street for the lawmakers to perform. The net effect may well have shored up support for the individual insurance mandate itself.

3) Jeffery Toobin of CNN is an insatiably hyperbolic idiot posing as a journalist. Why anyone takes him seriously is beyond me:

On Twitter:

At #scotus, still a train wreck, maybe also a plane wreck for@BarackObama.

Via NY Times:

"I think the individual mandate is gone, based on the questioning," the legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin told CNN after the morning argument. "It sure looks like there are at least five votes to get rid of this law."

This guy is a glory hound who's always been just below the attention span of the general public, more often merely an annoyance during the election cycle. After getting mad ink with his doom and gloom predictions following yesterday's 80 minutes of debate, Toobin (possibly at the urging of ratings-poor CNN) appears to be voicing concerns that most others aren't, with a ridiculous amount of confidence that no one else is espousing, especially when considering that the decision won't be handed down until late June, early July. No, I'm not an expert on the Supreme Court, nor am I a constitutional lawyer, but I have more sense than to make brash prognostications based on political bias, choosing instead to heed the facts and details that we all now have at our disposal to make an informed decision. It's precisely this type of zero-attention span media coverage that has and continues to ruin so many aspects of our culture today.

4) If the the ACA is gutted due to the individual mandate or killed completely by SCOTUS, it will be a result of politics, not based in reason or the jurisprudence we've come to expect from the highest court in the land. If there are specific problems with the law that need to be attended to, it should not be left to the courts to make those changes, but to the law makers themselves.

To that point, here's an excerpt from today's arguments, highlighted by the NY Times Lede Blog:

At one stage in this morning's discussion of whether or not the Court must strike down the entire health insurance overhaul law if a majority of the justices rule that the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional, Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that forcing the judges, or even their clerks, to read every page of the law, deciding item by item what parts could stand, might violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

Addressing Edwin S. Kneedler, a deputy solicitor general representing the Obama administration, Justice Scalia said, "what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?" After a burst of laughter in the room, he added: "And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?"

After Justice Sonya Sotomayor cut in to suggest, "I thought the answer was you don't have to because what we have to look at is what Congress said was essential, correct?" Mr. Kneedler said: "That is correct." He continued: "I just want to finish the thought I had about this being a matter of statutory interpretation. The Court's task, we submit, is not to look at the legislative process to see whether the bill would been — would have passed or not based on the political situation at the time, which would basically convert the Court into a function such as a whip count."

Moments later, Justice Elena Kagan observed, "that would be a revolution in our severability law, wouldn't it?" She added: "I mean, we have never suggested that we were going to say, look, this legislation was a brokered compromise and we are going to try to figure out exactly what would have happened in the complex parliamentary shenanigans that go on across the street and figure out whether they would have made a difference. Instead, we look at the text that's actually given us. For some people, we look only at the text. It should be easy for Justice Scalia's clerks."

One point: I love reading the articulate and intelligent discourse going on here with Kagan and Sotomayer. Certainly a welcome change to the often droll and expected comments we often hear from Scalia, Kennedy and Roberts. Then there's what Justice Clarence Thomas had to say:

That's right. Still nothing.

If the mandate goes or if the whole law is struck down, it will send reverberations throughout the judicial system until the end of time. It'd be an unprecedented overreach of judicial rulings and throw many past decisions into question. Please SCOTUS, take the easy way out and send it back to the lawmakers - it's their job, not yours.

A Brief Look at Super Tuesday

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:31:00 +0000

via NY Times

So nothing has really been determined tonight, as expected. The fact that Gingrich thinks his campaign is still special because he was able to win his home state is absurd, but when you factor in that Paul hasn't won ANY states yet kind of says a lot about what this year's primary season has been all about. The weak holding out hope, the struggling propped up uber donors via Super PACs, Paul again cruising at low altitude with blinders on - yet propelled by grassroots support, then Romney, still coming out on top, like a stow away dog on the roof of a car.

via NY Times

It's quite clear that Santorum has the ear of the mid-western middle-class, Gingrich has cornered the deep-South vote, Paul is running on fumes and Romney is winning the moderate, white collar, monied voters.

via CNN

The fact that CNN is already trying to piece together the electoral map for November should either be a sign that even they are getting bored with these shenanigans or are potentially running out of things to do with John King. Both are probable, but in reality they present an interesting point. How will the swing states play out? How close could the electoral count become? In my opinion, being that the Republican race for the nomination is the featured attraction these days, based on King's assessment earlier this evening (which projected Obama vs. Romney at around 270 votes apiece), I think they're giving far too much credence to a higher number pf red states. Just wait, it won't be that close...

The splintering of the GOP, the evisceration of Rush Limbaugh and the excessive dirty laundry they've had on display now for months does not bode well for the Republicans in 2012. Here are the delegate totals so far.

via CNN

Stupor Tuesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 04:04:00 +0000

Stu·por noun \ˈstü-pər, ˈstyü-\

1 : a condition of greatly dulled or completely suspended sense or sensibility <a drunken stupor>

2 : a state of extreme apathy or torpor resulting often from stress or shock : daze

At this dull moment in the Republican race for the 2012 presidential nomination, I see no better way of defining what Tuesday's supposed "super" electoral extravagana actually is. In reality it's a four-pack of sad, ambling and weary men that have no real solutions or positive messages. Following Mitt's must-wins earlier this week in Arizona and Michigan, his campaign is finally looking like the powerhouse we'd always pressumed it to be. The funniest part is how he still managed to win Michigan despite this rambling, adolescent speech that sounded as if it'd been jotted down at 3am the night before on a cocktail napkin.

This guy wants to be president of the United States, yet improvises(?) his speeches worse than a high school kid on the debate team? Gah!

But really, where do these guys stand? Over so many years, the standard of having one or two really strong candidates has already been determined by this point. Of course there are 2002 delegates remaining, 1144 needed to win and 294 given out thus far (including Huntsman's 2). Of course it's still anyone's game at this point, yet just as exit-polling and trends in early returns can generally determine early the victor of one primary, so can the general trend of multiple states, comprising a variety of demographics, roughly project who should win the nomination.

via Real Clear Politics

Note: The data above conflicts with the New York Times delegate count, which is from the Associated Press and RCP doesn't list their source. I'm honestly not sure which one is right, though at this point it's pretty trivial.

I suppose it should be noted that the reason Newt is still in the running is to see if he can pick up enough random electoral votes (including the 76 at stake Tuesday in his home state of Georgia) to stay in the hunt. Yes, with the exception of Paul, I think everyone still has a chance at this, but if Newt fares poorly in Georgia, then a quick exit might ensue being that by all accounts his campaign coffers are drying up quick.

Paul has a consistent yet under-performing group of devotees in his stead all over the country, but he's yet to break out in any contest and stands at less than half the delegates of Santorum. I keep hearing how Paul is supposedly capturing Obama's 2008 youth vote, though such a wild assertion really can't be true or he'd at least be in second place at this point. I think a lot of that moderate, independent and/or youth vote is still more interested in Obama than a lackluster Paul and it's clear that the big money donors, the base and the radical right want nothing to do with him. Hard to tell how much longer he'll stay in but I don't think he'll be throwing in the towel soon.

Santorum is an unruly beast. Sure, there's the whole contraception battle going on over the Health Care mandates and the media has no problem stirring that pot, yet many find his straight forward, "honest" approach endearing. So in essence, Santorum appears locked in as the consensus standard bearer for the conservative, Christian, Fox News, Limbaugh sect of the GOP. Yet it's clear that over half the Republican party wants nothing to do with him, and while it wouldn't be impossible for him to overcome Romney, it's looking less likely and should be much clearer once Stupor Tuesday sorts things out.

I guess it's kind of unexciting to see Romney continue his "presumptive march to the nomination." Getting to this point has been fun and though it seems so anti-climactic after the last 6 months of confused candidate carnage, I'm still hoping for a convention floor battle come August 27th in Tampa Bay. So far I've yet to hear words from any of these men's lips that gives them half the legitimacy of Obama. Their foreign policy platforms (with the exception of Paul) are suffused with mad hyperbole, their budget and tax plans don't properly address the widening income gap in our country, Newt wants a colony on the moon, Romney just wants to win no matter what, Paul is far too polarizing for the base and the right-wing and Santorum wants to take away women's rights.

Maybe stupor is too vague a word here. Would buffoon work better?

via DogsAgainstRomney.com

Judging Less & Listening More Will Help Our Divided Discourse

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:55:00 +0000

No one likes to be put in a box.

Imagine being raised on a Native American Reservation in the arctic wilds of Alaska, the arid deserts of the Southwest or the less than desirable plots allotted to many in Oklahoma? In this space you've been set apart from the rest, told where you can live and restricted in a multitude of ways. How would such disparate treatment affect your world view?

What brought on this thought was my own introspective notions about how we view others in our own culture. We go out of our way to build walls around ourselves, with many forever attempting to protect their own biases that have been built up within them for years. These attitudes towards our fellow men and women build and foster fear, most often as a result of those people who inhabit our surrounding environments: parents, teachers, clergy, friends, enemies, etc.

Today, in our information-at-lightspeed world, it's seems that our tribal attitudes, religious clans, workplace circles and political leanings are actually propagating the exact opposite of what the information age was supposed to foster. For example, today many Google searches are going to provide each individual person a different result based on their previous searches, "likes", or preconceived biases, which in turn further reinforce their own biased views. How can one become a balanced member of society if all you ever read, learn and share is focused on the things you already like? How can we, as a human race, end the notion of profiling others, share beyond our own historically erected comfort zone walls and use the technology at our hands to accomplish more than what is shared between similarly interested parties on facebook, twitter, google or other media?

First, it's difficult for us to open up and share between our tribes/circles/friends because we naturally gravitate toward those we share and find things in common with. So to ask anyone to perpetually disassociate themselves from those they love, of those they're most fond of or their immediate family and friends is an absurd notion. I myself rely on the regular communication I share with others on facebook, for however superficial some may see such interactions, it is still a variety filled and valid, affirmative atmosphere that I can enjoy with others I know.

Most often the problem isn't with those who are already willing to share and exchange ideas with others, who already show a willingness to grow and learn. The problem is with those who revel in their own interests only, who are unwilling to walk in the shoes of a completely different person for a day, who fear the idea of spending time with those whom they were raised to believe were a member of an undesirable race, color, sexual persuasion, religion, region, zip code, country, city, state, area code, political party, etc. It's the intolerant among us, those who invoke the tired rhetoric of decades past, who wish to curb the rights of specific groups in our nation, who wish to categorize our people by race, sex, religion, gender identity (and so on) that are the most dangerous to our future success as a nation.

Yes. We all have freedoms and rights that we are privileged to enjoy as American citizens. And to be clear, I too have my own biases as a result of the environments I've spent my time in, but I am sincerely trying to learn and above all am willing to. We all have room to learn, blossom and grow in our lives, it's just that many among us wish to barter and trade in the same old tired ideologies that have oppressed many of our loved ones, friends and family members over the past 50 years. These people want to return to a time when minorities, women and GLBT citizens had fewer rights or none at all. When gay and lesbian soldiers couldn't openly serve, when people of color couldn't sit together at the same restaurant much less get married. or when people of the same gender were rarely, if ever, seen showing affection, much less be married, in public.

I don't have anything against conservatives or Republicans, nor do I only favor liberals or Democrats. In fact, I have quite a few friends and family members who categorize themselves as conservative, but many of them have the common sense and the human dignity to understand that times have changed over the past 50 years and that people should be allowed to live their lives as they see fit. It is those who choose to keep the blinders on, who imbibe the various media sources that cater to only one side or the other, who propagate these stereotypes about people they see as different from themselves, who chose to let their religion dictate their political views or who're uncomfortable with their president being black, these are the people I worry about. They are the ones who disregard the thoughts and feelings of other countries, races, political systems, religions, and/or sexual preferences because they don't know how to deal with them. They're afraid of the very things they don't understand, then instead of learning to overcome these feelings, they assign blame, mock and penalize them for their unique qualities.

We must help ourselves and those we know to break out of those constraints, to deflate those ideological bubbles and defuse preconceived notions about those they know little about.

I think about the two different ways political scientists conduct statistical polling for political contests. What we most often see on TV are the general preliminary polls that give us a rough notion of who's winning or losing the race overall. Then we see the more specific demographic stats done after voting is completed, commonly known as exit-polling. With the latter, the focus is on demographics, details that inform the candidates about who is voting for them based on age, gender, political leanings, race, etc. The former is based on opinion only.

What I'd like to see us begin to do is to work on that second evaluation. To judge others not based on the biases and stereotypes inherent to our own lives, but based on listening to their opinions first and our own second should be our collective aim. Taking such action could seriously effect our long term evolution; a world where we would think before we act and consider others viewpoints whilst determining our own. After all, there is no one answer to decide how we should live our lives - there are millions of ways. But if we choose to live only that life we were told or raised to inhabit, then we are limiting not only our own horizons, but also those that we love, those we share this earth with and those we want to see succeed as much as ourselves.

Being the change one wishes to see in the world is a great way to look at it. Helping others to realize they can change, to begin with, would be an even greater accomplishment. Let's put the knowledge we now possess via the technology at our fingertips to greater use. How you see that being accomplished in your own neighborhoods is the place to start

How can we get started to make such achievements possible in our communities and in our discourse to accomplish a greater good?

One Good Reason Rick Santorum Shouldn't Be President

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:05:00 +0000

via Spreading Santorum

This could quite possibly be my last political post for a while or at least my last GOP 2012 presidential primary post. This election season has certainly been one-of-a-kind and no doubt entertaining with all it's unexpected twists and turns. Ultimately though, when it comes to covering this kind of beat, it's kind of like munching on a bag of Funyons - it might seem like a good idea at first, until you develop that terrible taste in your mouth and may as well have been snacking on shit. Yeah. I'm starting to feel dirty, so I'm gonna take a break for a while, at least until one or two of these dyed-in-the-wool assholes can step up and actually offer something worthwhile, which as of yet remains to be seen.

Of the remaining candidates, it seems quite clear that Rick Santorum is BY FAR the least impressive or electable soul of them left. Based on exit polling and my own perceptions, he appears to represent the fear driven, rural masses who yearn to church with their government, as Santorum is arguably the only real conservative Christian (Catholic) remaining of the lot and while I'm sure Gingrich would debate me on that, everyone including him knows that he's full of shit. And then there's the man with the last name that, since his scandal back in 2003, can also be defined as a "frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex." Yeah, let's elect THAT guy!

Following his strong showing in Iowa, then the outright shockers in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, it's clear that this guy might have more going for him than just being a disgusting Urban Dictionary joke. Well, at least the lunatic fringe, evangelicals and all those other insensitive folks who first bolstered Trump, Cain, Bachmann and Perry no longer have to sacrifice their souls to support the maligned sinner Gingrich or The Mormon Romney. He's getting so much street cred these days, even Nate Silver is looking at how real Santorum's chances are going forward.

In the spirit of not wasting too much time on someone we shouldn't even still be talking about, one good reason Rick Santorum should not be president is that this man's politics and religion are almost inseparable. Those of us who take pride in being Americans, no matter whether you're a conservative or a liberal, we do so because we have the freedom to worship (or not to worship) to whomever we choose. You can say all you want about states rights, the lack of power held by local municipalities, the right to brandish a gun, etc. but we cannot debate the right for all Americans to decide how we each want to realize our own spirituality.

This should NOT be defined by the government. A woman's ability to have an abortion (especially in emergency situations or in cases of rape), to have access to contraceptives, access to affordable healthcare and generally protected from the radical laws some esoteric religious nuts want to impose, should all be basic rights for all American citizens, without the specter of fear induced notions of *gasp* SOCIALISM! Now people can bitch and complain about how big a Socialist Obama is (an outright farcial, Glenn-Beck-in-NAZI-garb daydream), a man who no doubt has his own faults and flaws, yet Santorum would have no problem imposing his strict religious beliefs on the laws guiding the people of this country. And if Obama is such a Socialist, ask all the left-wing liberals and Socialists who can't stand his moderate policies thus far.

Further, when we stand back and look at the increased role of the executive branch over the past 30 years, Americans must realize that to elect such an outlier to office would not only be detrimental to how our system of government is expected to operate, it would be to the detriment of every person in this country who comes to rely on our government for the substantial services it provides citizens everyday.

So, when you think of Santorum, think of eating too many shitty tasting Funyons or something else completely gross. That'll work fine, but remember, this man wants to represent us as a nation, something I can confidently say he wouldn't be able to effectively do were he elected president. And please tell me if I have my perception of American history wrong, but isn't the purpose of the president to lead, guide and mediate the dictates of Congress in a moderate fashion? No one who wields a holy text more easily than the rule of law should never be put in charge of our government. Just like conservative libertarians, who wish to eliminate the role of the federal government, should ever helm the office that is tasked to watch over it.

Both propositions are antithetical to our formation and purpose as a nation. Both ideologies go against our model of the bi-cameral legislature, with an intended result of two-party compromise. Neither deserves a real hearing, which is why I presume most conservatives feel stuck with either Romney or Gingrich. And yeah, they're no catch either.

In the end, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how Santorum comes out...

eeewwww.

Can Populism Make Politics More Productive? Part 1: Reacting To A Broken System

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:06:00 +0000

The impetus for the following series of posts comes from reading Thomas Frank's 2012 book, Pity The Billionaire. The purpose of this first post is to better understand how two populist movements over the past 4 years have come into our collective consciousness. In future posts I'll further examine the media's impact, the greater impact on policy, taxes and civil rights, if a middle path can be achieved, and what populism has already done to fix the system. To some extent this is a hefty undertaking, yet I feel there is no more important issue today than the purpose of government and/or corporations, and what role they should and/or shouldn't play in our daily lives.

Led by the president, the democratic super-majority successfully passed the arguably compromised Affordable Care Act in 2010 following the passage of TARP, a stimulus package and various other bailouts with the intention of keeping the economy from being catapulted off a cliff in 2009. Considering our current status as a slowly rebuilding economy, especially in light of the European Union's recent fiscal woes as a result of it's own austerity measures (non-Socialist) which clearly have not worked, I'd say our government and corporations have been doing a fine, if not unnecessarily delayed, job and should be doing even better within a year or two.

To have stemmed the collpase so quickly and be on the road to recover within four years should be seen as nothing short of miraculous considering how systemic the issues, all the forces working against a Keynesian based recovery and how it took over a decade and a second World War to free ourselves from 10%+ unemployment rate (with at least 8 years over 15%) during the Great Depression. This time around we dealt with a national unemployment rate of 10% for a mere 3 months and a rate of 9% for 18 months. Despite those on the campaign trail demonizing the recovery initiatives put forth by Presidents Obama and W. Bush, it's clear that in the long run these measures have done exactly what they were intended to do, create an economic recovery.

via TradingEconomics.com

Those unsubstantiated fears of increased taxation and big government overreach (it's pure Socialism... stoked below) perpetuated by a recently enlivened conservative media, created a confused and fearful populist revolt. This post-2008 astroturf populism was primarily fueled by former conservative speaker Dick Armey's Freedom Works, David Koch's Americans for Prosperity, many Tea Party groups including the Tea Party Patriots, Tea Party Nation and Tea Party Express plus the personal patronage of wannabe leaders Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, all of whom were closely followed and foisted on high by Fox News. The Tea Party platform focused most on eliminating the debt, then cutting government without raising taxes - or effectively what George W. Bush did for 8 years, except that he created most the debt we now have by doing exactly what the Tea Party's platform supports - a war economy, low taxes, no accountability, a sneaky-big government. These groups and rich industrialists all generated a mechanical, self-interested and historic "wave" of anti-Washington fervor that swept the GOP into their biggest House majority since 1946 as a result of 2010's mid-term elections. The biggest swing occurred in New York with 6 democratic seats being lost to republicans, an ironic result considering that the conservative, free-market values Wall Street championed turned out to be at the heart of the deregulatory policies that begat the crash in the first place.

Voters replaced conservatives and liberals viewed as aiding Obama's stimulus policies with anti-tax, free-market stooges following the mantra of zero-tax zealots such as Grover Norquist, thus creating a hazardous climate in Washington for getting ANY business done in the halls of Congress (see debt ceiling debate, blocking a record number of presidential appointments, creating snafus in budget negotiations, countless filibusters, the actions of de facto congressional Tea Party leader and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, etc.). The aforementioned actions consisted of stonewalling most every democrat and/or Obama supported legislation from January 2011 to present, all with the intent of furthering an economic ideology that brought our country's economy to it's knees in the first place. The other goal of these nefarious players was to discredit the White House by obstructing it's every move to help further their own agenda, with the most notorious example being that of Senate Minority Leader's pledge to do everything in his power to make Obama a one term president (video below). In fact, until today, I had no idea that there was a whole website devoted to providing it's readers "a daily dose of hoping Obama fails." Were I from a different country, visiting America during an election year, it'd appear to me that America is more obsessed about getting behind one extreme ideology or the other. Or maybe choosing instead to be entertained rather than actually deciding for themselves which leader possesses the best strategy that'll work toward the betterment of the country as a whole. To me that's sad.

This D.C. intransigence, combined with an overall reluctance to in any way bring to justice those who should be held accountable for flushing of our financial future, in turn fomented a counter populist movement know as Occupy Wall Street which spawned hundreds of other national and international off-shoots, collectively known as the Occupy movement.

via wikipedia.com

While the Tea Party movement is composed primarily of middle to upper middle class baby boomers who feet they're being overtaxed, are worried that small business will be hurt by looming deficits and feel imposed upon by Big Government, the Occupy movement is generally composed of middle to lower class citizens in their 20's to 50's upset about corporate influence in Washington and bring a whole plethora of other concerns to the table. This time around, instead of being whipped into a frenzy by the likes of talk-radio, tv news outlets, being funded by outside political action groups or any other astroturf organizations, this was a true grassroots movement built by middle class workers, the unemployed and students. It sprang initially from an idea promoted by an Adbusters blog post (a Canadian based activist site), which spread through twitter much like the Arab Spring and Wisconsin protests before it, then put to use by many different action minded individuals, who decided to work together on a movement with a bigger mission, beyond the just the abuses of government itself.

To me, the difference here is obvious. Yes, there is a point on the Venn diagram (below) where the two entities collide and share the same purpose. In fact, a number of true Tea Party folks crossed over to the Occupy movement, presumably seeing a greater potential for long-term success. With that smaller minority accounted for though, it's quite clear to me that what the Tea Party was created for: self-interested scallywags who saw a political opening for their party/ideological goals who ran with it to make a lot of money and change the political process so it would point in their libertarian conservative favor. To push citizens in the direction of your ideology by creating a faux movement based in fear and broken, fabricated economic theories is scary. Ultimately, the citizens that have participated in either/or both groups obviously care enough about this country that they're willing to stand on a corner with a sign for hours, then brave the rain or snow to stand up for what they believe in.

via VisualNews

That is not to say that those who participate in the Tea Party movement are misguided, are comprised only of rich white people or are all racists. It is just as misguided to say that those who participate in OWS are all dirty hippies, without jobs, begging for food and costing taxpayers more money. While it might be entertaining to bash those who participate in a movement and make news outlets money in doing so, to paint everyone with the same biased brush isn't exactly fair. What is most clear to me though is that the stated intentions or goals of any organization in America, grassroots or otherwise, should be transparent and created by the people who started it, not by some self-interested third-party financiers. It is natural, healthy and expected for the citizens of a democracy to doubt their leaders and it is exactly for this reason we get to vote for new representatives every two years, presidents every 4 years and senators every 6 years - these are the terms they serve and if you want term limits, make that change happen by doing something about it. Our system was built with the intention of being not only a representative democracy but also a constitutional republic, which was intended to balance the opposing views of the people (Democrat vs. Republican, States vs. Federal or even Federalist vs. Democrat-Republican) and it could do exactly that except for when corporations are given the same rights as individuals and get in the way of us independently deciding our leaders.

via hummingbirdminds

Being a pragmatist, I've been unwilling to submit completely to either ideological concern. Sure, I witnessed first hand the beginnings of the Occupy Portland movement and even marched with them briefly, yet I am by no means a protester against the system. I know for a fact that the system can work, is at present broken, is badly in need of repair and I'm not talking about doing it via amendments, radical leaders or an overthrow of the government. I think we should start with campaign finance reform (namely the problems with the Citizens United ruling); fixing our broken tax code that benefits the wealthiest, and hurts the middle class and poorest; ending the over funded lobby groups; ending wage discrimination; fixing our student loan debt problem; fixing our education system; truly amending our health care system that will continue to cost the country billions each year and a whole host of other issues.

I find that the two-party, bicameral, three branch system of democratic governance works. What doesn't is the way money and power has overwhelmed those truths we originally found to be self-evident, that concept of self-governance. Both of these populist movements have been somewhat effective in our collective healing process, yet instead of helping us all come together, they've instead wedged us father apart. 2010's elections saw a radical swing right after what many perceived (or were told to perceive) as Socialist movements, initiated by an "avowed Muslim" - sadly, many still believe these manufactured lies. What the system is built to do and looks as though it will do again, is swing back to in the left this Fall with the expected re-election of Barack Obama and the transition of some seats from red to blue. For in the end, we are a country that runs best in a spirit of moderation, for with too much power given to either side, in either chamber, we can't get work done. If congress does what it was created to do, compromise, then maybe they can get back to doing the jobs they were elected to do.

We shouldn't care only about our own successes and failures, but also those of our neighbors; nor should we only back the most recent populist fad that comes down the pike but to regularly contribute something to our communities that they might in thrive in the long term. We have to find long term goals we can all agree upon, then elect the leaders we need to fix what ails our country. It cannot be done by one ideology or the other, but with both sides working literally in congress, together as one people with unified goals.

I think we should try to fix that problem in the middle of the Venn diagram instead of continually pointing at either side of the spectrum and accusing the most extreme ends. We should all be against large corporations lobbying the government to have more power, and should be against the government then enacting laws and regulations that are favorable to large corporations. These outcomes do not favor the will of people, but the powers that be, on both sides, watching from atop the pyramid as we the people fight over the scraps. We should not be led to believe this is a post-apocalyptic society - sorry, we do not inhabit Thunderdome... yet.

We, the expected "silent majority," must up the ante with our votes and in how we use our dollars. Protests have effectively voiced the people's concerns to our leaders; now our willingness to vote, and invest our time and our money locally must keep the momentum going.

The South Carolina Primary - Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Warren) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:46:00 +0000

via Real Clear Politics

Today marks the beginning of the end of the 2012 Republican nomination. I say this because South Carolina, who holds their primary today, represents the last stand-alone small primary to start the campaign season, often rallying the electorate around 1 or 2 remaining candidates. While Santorum and Paul are both portraying themselves as staying in the race for the long hall, the results tonight may dictate exactly how much longer they'll actually stick around.

Going into tonight, there are two candidates left that have a chance to capture the nomination: Romney and Gingrich. They have the most national political experience, with plenty of time in the spotlight. Again, this shouldn't particularly make either of them ideal candidates, more like the cream of the scum. Their persistent back and forth mudslinging, primarily funded via third-party Super PAC groups, has essentially corrupted any kind of good name they may have once had with voters.

Considering the extremely volatile climate of this year's nominating process, anything is possible yet time is running out for Paul and Santorum. Those who supported the conservatives that left the race in recent weeks (namely Perry and Bachmann) appear to have predominantly latched onto Newt, despite his record of ethical issues - the irony here is astounding. What has helped Santorum is the recent endorsement from evangelical leaders in Texas last weekend and the correction of the final tally in Iowa, though the end result is still technically a toss up. Santorum simply comes across as a weak weapon for Republicans in their war of attrition against the incumbent, yet today announced that he'll remain in the race until at least the completion of the Florida primary January 31st. To be fair though, he did some fine work on Gingrich a few nights ago:

At this point, I can only assume voters are so frustrated that many seem content with selecting the candidate that's most effective at projecting their feelings of rage onto the President, giving up any hope of actually picking a good candidate. They're deluding themselves into choosing a flawed candidate with only the short-term goal of beating Obama in November, without considering the long term consequences of the policies that accompany them. Such a fate doesn't look very probable at this point with Obama recently improving his approval rating (before beginning his campaign in earnest) while nursing a slowly rebounding economy and having 3 strong years at the helm. He's holding all the cards with the contenders scraping the bottom of the barrel to desperately seek out negative ammo against the incumbant. It's tough to beat an administration with few flaws, a decent track record, no real scandals, a record of job creation AND the moral high ground.

So, they make things up, use tired old Bachmann talking points and boast of how much better they'd do it were they in charge. Good luck with that.

I'll have a follow up later with an update once the polls close tonight.

Update: 5:34 pm EST

I guess you could call this an update. I forgot to include Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight blog SC Primary Projections.

These projections are based on FiveThirtyEight's forecast model which has been relatively accurate thus far. There'll certainly be more updates to come as the news starts rolling in after the polls close at 7pm EST.

Update: 8:15pm EST

With over an hour to wait for the results to come in, I figured I'd do a little reading but ended up taking a nap. Got up a few minutes ago - low and behold, Gingrich is projected the winner with only 21% in. How boring is that. Looking like a landslide and with this, as they say, everything changes.

I don't know how much more updating is needed after the pummeling Gingrich has given the field, but I recommend Andrew Sullivan's Live Blog updates on The Dish and the Live Updates from The New York Times.

I leave you with this, a tweet from radio show host Michael Graham:

Seriously, cannot overstate the historic SC vote. Mitt the first establishment frontrunner to lose SC GOP primary EVER. As in "EVER."

...after winning New Hampshire and nearly Iowa. More history has been made as primary season continues to thrill and make us all look like carnival barkers who have no idea the weight of the lady in the polka-dot dress. It has come to that. Stay tuned, it isn't over yet.

Update: 11:35 pm EST

Now that we stand at 99%, it's pretty much officially over. Gingrich won by a landslide and might stand a chance at moving forward with great strength being that the next primary is in Florida, another state that neighbors his Georgia homeland. So far, it looks like he got all the delegates too. Woe is Romney and the other two. Woe is the Republican party who might just suffer their greatest defeat in history come November if it turns out that the best they can do is Gingrich. The potential for the party scaring itself straight, disposing of their angry rhetoric, dirty politics and unethical leaders might finally happen, though it remains to be seen. We'll see...

Also, check out Fox News exit polling. I generally wouldn't use them as a source, but this is some pretty extensive and detailed exit polling they've got going on. Worth a peek.

All "update" graphics courtesy of The New York Times.