The Left Coaster

Winning, In Spite Of Himself

Steve — 2013-05-18T12:40:09-08:00

Having effectively neutered the GOP scandal mongers on Benghazi by releasing emails proving no cover-up took place, (emails that the GOP had months ago), the Obama administration hopes to continue on a dual-track strategy of focusing on achievable small things while devoting a separate effort to scandal-management. Today's NYT reports that the administration will work to get something done on immigration, see if a budget deal is possible, and focus on student loans, implementing health care, and smaller things through executive order while hoping the GOP steam peters out.

It's a good strategy, except one word was missing from the Obama agenda: jobs. This is a critical mistake, but one he has already made back in 2009 when he downplayed jobs and the stimulus. He is about to make the mistake again. Sure, Obama should take credit for and talk up the declining deficits under his watch, but hammering the GOP for ignoring jobs to focus on scandal is low-hanging fruit for this administration, and would greatly help 2014 Democratic candidates. Yet Obama's team tosses this away at their peril.

As for the remaining "scandal" of interest to the public, the IRS ham-handed selective oversight of conservative Section 501(c)(4) applicants, the White House should not assume it can sweep this one under the rug until it has an answer regarding this:

The inspector general gave Republicans some fodder Friday when he divulged that he informed the Treasury’s general counsel he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of politically active groups seeking tax exemptions on June 4, 2012. He told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin “shortly after,” he said. That meant Obama administration officials were aware of the matter during the presidential campaign year.

If Treasury knew about this ongoing audit in June 2012, in the midst of the election season, then where the hell was Tim Geithner? Are we to believe that one of his deputies knew about this audit but the news never made its way through Geithner to the White House? There are several possible explanations here, and none are good.

The Wrong Lessons From the IRS Tea Party Flap

Steve — 2013-05-14T11:05:31-08:00

Much of the media yesterday took away the wrong message from the revelations that IRS field staff were singling out Tea Party Section 501(c)(4) "social welfare" applicants for review. While the GOP will certainly use (as the NYT editorial board said today) the misapplication of government oversight as a political weapon for its base, that doesn't mean Democrats and the White House should be cowered into retreat on this issue.

The plain truth is that the IRS has an obligation to review timely all applicants for tax exempt treatment to guard against abuse of this special status. The IRS should be reviewing all applicants for Tax Code Section 501(c)(4) coverage, large and small, from all sides of the political spectrum. That means Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, and Barack Obama's associates all deserve scrutiny in their operation of these entities. Yet is that happening?

No.

Nick Confessore of the NYT reports in today's paper that the real abuse in this story is that the large players get away without any scrutiny while the newer, smaller Tea Party applicants of recent years had the full weight of IRS attention applied to them. Why?

The correct response from our friends at MSNBC, the rest of the real media, Democratic members of Congress, and yes, Barack Obama should be an insistence that those accountable for a singular focus on smaller Tea Party players be removed, and that the IRS start immediately to apply a fuller focus on all current 501(c)(4) operators, leading up to the 2014 midterms. Make the GOP say "no" to that, and explain why Karl Rove, Corporate America, and the Koch Brothers deserve a free run at abusing the tax code and buying elections.

Anything less than that from Barack Obama, or any sign of retreat or caving from him without a forceful demand that all groups get this treatment will reflect capitulation by the White House.

Call the GOP Out

Steve — 2013-05-13T12:46:13-08:00

President Obama said today that the ongoing GOP “Benghazi is Watergate” nonsense is a sideshow. Unfortunately, he is wrong for two reasons: one because the State Department did modify the original CIA talking points. And two, because this story will continue to have legs until the White House points out how the House GOP shares this one for rejecting additional embassy security funding in 2011.

Look, State's own emails confirm that the original CIA talking points were changed. As confirmed by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, the reason why she wanted the original Agency talking points changed was that the CIA was ascribing the Benghazi attacks to Al Qaeda, a newfound capability not contained in previous analyses to State. Nuland, who is an experienced Washington official from both Republican and Democratic administrations didn’t want the Agency to now sandbag Foggy Bottom for not paying attention to local terrorist groups when the Agency themselves never previously identified such a threat. This was a perfectly legitimate reason for wanting the original CIA talking points changed.

The White House will not get ahead of the curve on this issue until they push back publicly against the GOP complicity in poor embassy security. But to do that, the White House will have to finally accept that they are dealing with an opposition that has decided to ignore the 2012 election and to continue the "oppose at all costs" strategy hatched the night of the 2008 inauguration. Obama needs to put the Benghazi hype into an overall GOP "search and destroy" narrative that highlights the roadblocks raised on his second term, exemplified by the stonewalling of his cabinet appointees. Until Obama is willing to do so and get over this pollyannish BS about "working together", he will fail to escape the GOP's trap.

Ending the Draft Was a Very Good Thing

paradox — 2013-05-10T06:14:36-08:00

The good David Sirota of Salon asks an excellent question in wondering whether ending the draft (forced military conscription for young males) was a wise military and societal move after Vietnam, a rather well-worn political science question but obviously high in value in keeping in the front of our consciousness, the United States is horribly lost in violence and militarism.

Liberty to abstain is cited as one abstract rationale for ending the draft--meaning freedom for ordinary citizens from worrying about Afghanistan because their sons aren’t drafted there—but totally missing is the freaking liberty of the individual, I can hardly think of a more horrifying societal experience of taking an essentially gentle, peaceful boy and transforming him into a ravenous killer through conscription. You’re coming into my young American life to force me into the Marine Corps with all that screaming, sweat, blood and death? The very physical and political core of America better be threatened for that wire to be tripped into conscription, only that justifies such a hideous intervention of liberty into an individual’s life.

My personal security tripwire is invasion from Mexico. When the Mexican tank divisions are massing on the border for imminent invasion then—and only then—activate Selective Service.

Stated thesis that the personal citizen involvement of the draft is the only proven safeguard against the rampant militarism afflicting us now is incorrect. For many long periods of our history we essentially had no standing arming at all with of course no conscription, the battleship navy the only anomaly of a nation fiercely proud of its ability to stay out of those stupid European wars. Politically there was a very strong consciousness that standing armies—militarism—inevitably led to horrible human abuses and stories simply on the whim of political leaders who turned out to be stupid little boys, committing our men to insane death usually for no more good reason than ego and posturing.

Or powerful money interests, of course. Even in early isolationist 20th century that’s how one gets an American Marine Corps general reflecting upon retirement that he sent far too many boys to their deaths for Shell Oil and Dole Banana.

We never built a social utopia with all the money we didn’t spend on standing armies, but at least we didn’t waste it, either.

WWI saw us end conscription and shut the Army down, again leaving somewhat of a Navy. Sure the Depression forced a lot of isolationism, but the country was merely returning to its sensible roots of avoiding the disastrous pitfalls of militarism—without a draft to cement that national mentality in place.

WWII swamped us and the world with unparalleled institutionalized violence, mayhem and death, but I would argue it was the stupid, hysterical, manipulative politics of anti-Communism that gradually eroded America’s traditional suspicion to large ready military forces. Those same political forces felt immense shame and frustration after the defeat of Vietnam, and were completely ecstatic when George Bush smashed a reeling non-fighting Iraqi army so British Petroleum and their pals could keep the planet warming in the first Gulf War.

Then his son lied us into another war to finish buffing the testicles of his national security bff’s. A Global Force for Good, that sure worked out, eh?

Anyway, the point is that the usual American suspicion against standing armies and conscription was completely lost after WWII, Rachel Maddow covered the evolution very well in her latest book. Initiating and then ending the draft for Vietnam was not the sole variable in our rampant militarism today. I’m not saying Mr. Sirota is wrong, only that the answer is incomplete in how we got into our flaming mess of militarist violence of the present, yes, even without a draft.

As y’all know I have been immensely dismayed that President Obama has fully embraced heinously wasteful US militarism, even continuing the utterly futile war in Afghanistan for six years. The oil companies received $20 billion a year for the fuel bill, but the little people got nothing but evil, maiming and death for all the insanity.¹

Reinstating the draft won’t stop the Navy from switching to drones, tripling their attack force for each carrier to 144. The Navy likes to use carriers in pods of three, in 2030 six of them could launch 900 drones with precision weapons and no risk of American life. Is that the kind of capability we want in some quack Tea Party President to have, let alone any human soul?

The first step in getting out of this mess (something I don’t have an answer for) is peace, leadership committed to staying the hell out of Syria or any war. I’ve been yelling about it for six years, but DC is totally uninterested.

[1] I forget the precise year of tax return, but President Obama one year filed as a deduction many, many tens of thousands of dollars of charitable giving to reputable organizations that helped our soldiers with limbs lost in Afghanistan. It seems likely to me—I don’t know—that he’s done that every year of his presidency.

A Hard Look

Steve — 2013-05-08T03:43:16-08:00

I know that much of this will sound strange coming from me, but almost five years into the Obama presidency I find myself focusing on results and disdainful of the hype. And on the political strategy and government accountability fronts, the Obama team continues to fail.

Political Strategy

With Republicans giving notice that they will use the health care law, gun safety efforts, and immigration reform to drive their rabid base to the polls next year against Democrats in a typically low-turnout midterm, Team Obama will ask nervous incumbent Democrats to defend a health care law that the White House has failed to sell all these years, that doesn't really cut costs, and which doesn't even start largely until the election season. Worse, Obama intends to build his legacy upon getting gun safety, immigration reform, and a grand budget deal done before the 2016 election season starts, yet his timeline for action asks vulnerable Democrats to cast risky votes leading up to the 2014 midterms, and to do so on two issues (gun safety and immigration reform) that rank low amongst the public's priorities right now.

This seems a replay of 2010, when the White House threw away vote-winning issues like jobs and financial reform and instead asked Democrats to walk the plank and vote for Obama's legacy project of health care reform. And once again, what do the polls tell us are the vote-winning issues that Democrats should be focusing on right now to please 2014 voters? That's right: jobs and the economy.

I am not suggesting that Obama walk away from gun safety and immigration reform. Instead, Obama should let the Senate push their bipartisan package and watch the right wing fringe destroy it in both the Senate and the House, and then let Democrats use that against the GOP in key races next year rather than make that and gun safety a national Democratic priority. Sorry for being politically crass here, but these two issues should be relegated to a renewed push in 2015 with a different Congress and as base drivers of their own with Democrats for 2016. With the House GOP leadership now sensing their own 2014 vulnerability from any further talk about budget reductions and cuts to popular entitlements, and with their pivot to elite-pleasing talk about tax reform, polls show that Democrats can capitalize by seizing the two most popular issues (jobs and the economy) and pointing out that the GOP has no answers or interest in these issues.

Government Accountability

While we talk about Obama's legacy, can we also talk briefly about actual accomplishments and missed opportunities? The list of Obama disappointments runs long, including the failures to match his campaign rhetoric on a variety of issues including civil liberties, financial reform and accountability, and of course jobs and the economy. But apart from the gap between rhetoric and reality, what about the actual accomplishments on the things he takes credit for? And I'm not just talking about Obamacare, which hindsight may show came at an unnecessary political cost for something that was unnecessarily complex and too industry-friendly, and remains terribly undersold to the American people. Teddy Kennedy was right years ago that Medicare-for-all was the way to go.

But what about looking at the things Obama takes credit for in the context of missed opportunities? For instance, while Obama and Leon Panetta focused on getting Osama Bin Laden, why did Panetta's CIA totally miss the Arab Spring? How did Team Obama not pivot early and develop a plan for dealing with these events from a security-first perspective?

When he moved over to the Pentagon, why did Panetta and Obama focus on the base-pleasing and media-friendly issues of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and getting more women into combat roles, and yet ignore dealing with the increasing disgrace of sexual assaults in the military? Why hasn't the Veterans' Administration dealt effectively with the unjustifiable backlog of benefit applications from our returning troops? Does it really take five years to tackle?

Lastly, while Hillary Clinton was logging all those miles talking up women's rights and getting the rock star treatment around the world, did the United States actually push the ball forward in any area of the world? Yes, Obama took credit for achieving the low-hanging fruit campaign promise of getting us out of Iraq, but he then pivoted to his own "surge" in Afghanistan at the expense of State's hopeful political reconciliation efforts within the country, that were scuttled when David Petraeus and yes, Leon Panetta pushed the military options instead.

Aside from letting our hackers undermine the Iranian nuclear program, did we make any real progress on Iran in these last 4+ years? Have we expended any real energy in the Middle East in that time? Why was Africa not on the radar screen until the Arab Spring surprise? Have we seen any real intelligence anywhere except in getting Bin Laden?

Was the real plan for the first term to get Hillary out of the country with no portfolio or real power to do anything of consequence? Did she have the ability to override the CIA or the Pentagon when necessary? Don't get me wrong: Hillary is accountable for State and its operations like embassy security. But foreign policy is a reflection of the president. What can Team Obama really point to overseas besides getting out of Iraq and nailing Bin Laden, and is this enough if it came at a cost of much more?

It isn't enough to say that you aren't the Bush administration, because that bar was pretty low to begin with.

The Solar Panels are Installed at the Local High Schools

paradox — 2013-05-06T06:13:15-08:00

Quite impressive, actually. Voted in years ago as part of a bond improvement implementation for local high schools they tilt in the parking lots on squat incongruously fat three foot diameter concrete bases, heavy tubed steel rising above the cars supporting solar panels that will easily stand for 100 years. Perhaps the bases act as sort of a fender, and the steel primarily used for aesthetics, but the result is that these structures are going to stand for a long, long time, cool shade bathing electric cars and baking black asphalt.

A good story, of course, but not central to my mission this morning, there are certain elements represented in their construction that are important to talk about.

First is that the cost-benefit analysis used in their mental formation is a crock. I’m positive the math was good, but the problem (as in 95% of ridiculous CBA’s) is that the core values represented by numbers are horribly skewed or simply missing, all citizens should be aware of this. Cost benefit analysis is only useful when the environment is completely stable and ably represented, useless for evaluating costs in those high school solar panels.

WWII is upon us, time to strategically bomb Japan, which is cheaper, taking apart and shipping the extra B-25’s in Europe for the air fleet or building new B-29’s in Seattle? That is the proper use for cost benefit analysis, a singular question in a narrow, absolutely known complete environment.

The cost benefit analysis implemented for solar panels is based upon market price and construction, absolutely useless. We now know with total certainty in 60 years carbon emissions will fry half of California’s agricultural capability, it’s simply too hot to grow strawberries, grapes or cherries (along with no snowpack in the Sierra). How many billions will that cost us, besides horribly dimming our human spirits? The solar panel cost benefit analysis doesn’t freaking say, in that model the carbon atoms from coal electricity are free. Whoops.

Any time cost benefit analysis is held up as some total answer or solution all of us should ask ourselves how is this person or organization trying to rationalize or sell something that doesn’t represent the complete truth? A frequently dismaying trick of current politicians is to project the environment 20 or 30 years from now, either a problem will bloom or we must act now because of it, offensively clueless that of course the environment 20 years from now is completely unknown, what absolute reeking mental garbage to act now on a projected environment of even 10 years.

I write about the environment and global warming often lately, horribly discouraged at other political failures, which isn’t important right now. What is important is the stewardship of our Earth, and I want to talk to the Republicans.

Yeah, you. I’m not unaware of your presence or history of readership. I suppose—I hardly know—the base despise y’all hold for all liberals is that somehow I am some wizard of redistribution, a loafer freeloader who hitches—or wants to—a free ride on the backs of real Americans who work. Throw in an assault on sexism, inequality and patriarchy and I can see how we don’t exactly frolic with love together in our great America.

None of that matters now. You know me, fiercely liberal, staunch defender of feminism, the environment and the little people, yes, but also a crew-cut middle-aged-and-classed homeowner with a F-150, hopelessly infatuated with women and the Oakland A’s all my life. There’s way more than enough American in me for you to listen to me this time, just as I will respect you in this.

Our Earth goes beyond a tax cut or level of defense spending, beyond us as humans and our differences. Trust me, fellas, this time we really do have to do this, this one time we can stop throwing insults at each other (it’s the only environment I plan to, believe me) and fix this. Happily all the technical elements to get America off gasoline are right in our hands this very moment, as soon as political will reaches a tipping point in 40 years our children won’t know what the sound of a Harley is, praise baby Jesus on his electric scooter with the neon signals.

That is our mission and what we as all Americans will do, we have to. Our great political problem will be the catastrophic loss of revenues for oil and grid companies. Trust me, seriously, get yourselves and the Republican Party on the correct side of this or face even more electoral oblivion than you do now, very soon solving global warming will become The American Way.

GOP Has No Economic Solutions

Steve — 2013-05-05T18:20:07-08:00

I thank Adam Davidson for penning his piece in the New York Times' Magazine today on Larry Summers' and Glenn Hubbard’s competing economic viewpoints, because it clearly points out the intellectual bankruptcy behind contemporary conservative economics. In short, despite all their talk about entitlements, taxes, and regulatory burdens, conservatives have no immediate solutions to deal with what is corroding American society right now: depressed consumer demand caused by a debt hangover and elevated unemployment, and an economy built to serve the few at the expense of the many.

Hubbard says the real question is how to improve the earnings of lower- and middle-income Americans, and then offers nothing in his solutions to improve those earnings in the short term, as if the millions of under- and unemployed right under his nose weren’t worthy of attention. Hubbard asserts with a straight face that the solution is increased education and skills training down the road, after Social Security and Medicare are shrunk and Corporate America takes its reduced tax burden and hires more workers. If Hubbard honestly looked into the mirror at the Bush tax and jobs record he helped create, and acknowledged Corporate America’s current cash reserves and miniscule tax burden, he would never peddle this nonsense in public. The net takeaway is that Hubbard and the right have no solution for today’s problems nor can they credibly fault Social Security and Medicare for our current weak economy. Until these actors can offer real solutions to our actual and current economic problems, they are just that: actors.

The New Windmills are Up at Altamont Pass

paradox — 2013-05-01T08:32:45-08:00

They’re really beautiful. I had greatly admired a small grove of them that had always been there, but many years ago through voter referendum the many thousands of small windmills that killed birds and gave the appearance of noxious man-weeds over Altamont pass were voted out in favor of the currently massive turns of grace, such huge examples of marvelous engineering blending so coherently in the smooth hills.

Some of my people are in Brentwood and I travel Vasco road fairly often, it has been cheering in these times to see the new windmills go up. They represent beauty and grace, of course, but so much more, a real vision and tangibility to a future of clean renewable electrons. At least 150 meters high and painted white, I wish my friend Jerome a Paris could see them, that the new electron revolution is here—starting too slowly, I know, dude—but that we Americans still know a way forward.

On the fine view of the patio where I would take things in (Brentwood still abounds with rabbits, turkeys, doves, quail and foxes, their sounds at dawn are enchanting) I noticed the square Teutonic symmetry of the roofing for that new housing development, the concrete shakes lending themselves to perfect lines and rigid conformity of shape everywhere. The corn is already 10 inches high on the outskirts of town, smooth Delta winds and California sunshine bathing cherry and apricot groves, but utterly wasted where the folks and those perfect roofs live.

How many billions of amperes go to waste every day on those new roofs? Those new homes have heating and cooling systems, electrical and plumbing too, but somehow we forgot the tens of thousands (over the house’s lifetime) of dollars worth of amperes just sitting there on the roof, waiting only solar panels to soak them in.

Well, we saw our mistake with the old windmills and are tearing them down, there’s no reason we shouldn’t make it totally senseless from a homeowner standpoint not to retrofit a roof with solar panels. In fact two of the roofs in that Brentwood housing development have been retrofitted for our future of electrons. We need them for our electric cars, this country is going off gasoline.

Well, I’ve been fringed. Instantly marginalized as some greenie with a beard and pot leaves weaved into his backpack, I guess, I really have no idea, spouting some utopian future of cleanliness and petroleum peace. Slot me, baby, that 15% of the Democratic Party classified as Environmentalist, you know, people and stuff we pay attention to but somehow never following through or committing to. Got a war on, you know?

Jesus on his electron scooter with the neon blinkers how utterly lost and foolish, I truly do not know which bothers me more, the ridiculous classification of my views as hippie fringe or that the environment is something we can always shove to the back of our tax-cut safety-net-cut agenda.

I am a middle-class, conformist white boy American schmuck with a degree and service record, about as fringe as the Oakland A’s. Was a time when the environment could be ignored, it doesn’t vote, contribute or fight back, but now global warming is with us. Climate change. Real change.

Our planet is warming dramatically and will crush us (Hurricane Sandy, anyone?) if we don’t get off gasoline. Not one god damn Californian alive is willing to look at their grandchildren in the face and say, sorry, we can’t grow wine or go skiing here anymore because we loved our smog machines. Even though we had the answers right in our hands we fried the place into an oblivion none of us recognize, stupidity and greed were our gods and our souls, not the lives of our children or planet.

Oh yeah, tell me that’s fringe, hippie or foolishly green utopia, what total horseshit the marginalization of environmental issues are. Look at our kids and tell me we’re not stewards of their future, how is that somehow less of a priority than Afghanistan? What about all the heavenly employment we could get from converting to solar and electric cars?

Well, words can only do so much. My suggestion, if somehow possible, is to walk and be among the new windmills at Altamont Pass or Palm Springs. There one can find such breathtaking beauty and grace, yes, but far more importantly a tangible reality of our urgent immediate need and future, a place of easy clean electrons and no gasoline. That is our total future, yapping fossils who cling to gasoline soon to be marginalized themselves.

Time to Switch to Electrons

paradox — 2013-04-25T05:03:25-08:00

Watching the Keystone pipeline fight it occurred to me that the age of personal machines (mainly the automobile) is just smudging the centurion mark, it was right around this time 100 years ago competing technologies for expensive personal cars started an amazing machine wave into American life. Steam, electric and internal combustion were all viably in the mix, with of course internal combustion the eventual winner in the market. Within 40 years millions of internal combustion machines crawled and flew over the planet, completely transforming the American experience.

Well, we blew that one. A simple mistake of clean ignorance, total unawareness that internal combustion pollutants were completely unviable to earthly biological existence. We’ll cook our planet and our country into something totally unrecognizable in 2 generations if we don’t change, so it’s time to switch to electrons for automobiles. This is the great logistical challenge of our age, our generation, right now. Technically easy, seemingly politically impossible.

I’m a middle-aged white guy, two cars and a house, a family and the normal range of American psychology for our times. I’m ridiculously conventional in appearance and manners, to classify me as some fringe hippie environmentalist is absurd in the extreme. It’s just time to accept that as a race and people we made a totally understandable mistake in choosing internal combustion, time to switch to electrons, let’s get to it.

Yes, we have the total solution right in our hands, I’m not the sort of person to be petulantly alarmist without offering a path forward. Electric cars are completely viable in technology and price this very moment, to keep things simple we as a people can take on this challenge easily.

To wander peripherally momentarily, what about jets? Our biggest future adjustment will be slow flying in electric blimps. What about trucking? Pneumatic freight will have to transform to short-range hubs around electric rail. What about shipping? The only real unknown here, something vastly slower utilizing wind and battery will have to be employed.

Now then, it’s quite enough as a people to get rid of internal combustion in our cars, a vastly worthy goal meriting no distractions as a start to alleviating global warming. Right now batteries are too expensive and seriously need research, so triple the current electric car subsidy and start a crash Manhattan-like research program for batteries.

We can’t do this, it’s too expensive? Oh shut up, you know? We spend 2 Manhattan projects a year on total failure in Afghanistan, we have for ten freaking years, what precisely has this delivered to the little people of America?

Was a time before all this hideous endless war on the terra when America was a bright inventing place, rock music and computers and video games and space machines and amazing universities everywhere, folks happily flocked here to study and play without being abused at the airport. We were totally renowned on the planet as very energetic, inventive optimistic people until we became such badass drone killers and we will again, we have to be, we can easily switch to electric cars and we will.

Imagine no more filthy choking smog, no more oil changes or transmission fluid, no gas stations, no pipelines, no tankers fouling Alaska, no more nasty background worry we're ruining the planet for future generations. Sounds awful, eh?

You’re telling me that we as Americans, with all our history of invention and optimism, can’t build a smart grid and supporting solar structure to make electric cars happen? Heh.

So politically it’s totally impossible, you’re just the tiniest of an American with no way to take on the power of the oil companies. Well, they can happily survive in the vast synthetic material market, oh woe for them, and I refuse to believe that Americans will be so willfully stupid for so many continuing generations with the answers right in our hands.

Our people desperately need solar conversion jobs, a political representation can’t occur with that element so painfully with us? What about all the health and geopolitical benefits from abandoning oil, those will somehow be ignored too?

Again, if you are a politician of any stripe or position, and especially if you aspire to go into public political office, champ down on electric cars like a bulldog, American folks will listen to you and flock to your position. Our young people will do so much for you, they want a planet and life like we were given. Stop the wars on terra and drugs for a real job on switching to electrons and an extremely bright political future is yours.

Is It Really the Congress?

Steve — 2013-04-22T08:02:21-08:00

As we move into Obama's second term and see the ongoing GOP obstructionism to any of his initiatives, I and probably many others may fall too easily into the trap of assuming that the problem rests solely upon the GOP. But what if a major part of the problem also rests with Obama's unwillingness or inability to effectively use the presidency to push through initiatives? Maureen Dowd of the NYT went to this point yesterday when she wrote that Obama still seems after one term unable to use the bully pulpit to go after pockets of resistance and get enough votes for his legislative goals. In fact, I would argue that Obama and his team's insularity has resulted in an ineffective legislative liaison operation whereby his team downplays the need for stroking legislators and engaging in power politics because they feel it is beneath Obama.

If the problem was solely a faulty operation, that would be bad enough, but the inability to effectively negotiate because of bad policy choices continues into the second term. One key example is Obama's pathetic belief that by offering the chained CPI in his budget proposal, he would persuade the House GOP to come to the table. This is wrong in so many ways, not the least of which is that Boehner sees no reason to help Obama dig out of his self-inflicted hole with seniors by offering up tax closures. But what does it say about Obama's values when the solution he offers only closes a fifth of the long-term gap in Social Security funding, when the real solution he should be opening with and demanding closes nearly 90% of the gap without hurting seniors? And this is aside from the fact that Social Security has no bearing on our current and near-term debt problem.

Sports For Nerdy People

paradox — 2013-04-21T10:29:44-08:00

Sorry to be so quiet for so long, but there are other things in life that are difficult and the last thing I needed was immersion in American politics. I probably would have spit out some machine gun text the President and Party so richly deserve in other circumstances, but that’s precisely what the White House is waiting for, paradox the ranting leftist, see how we’re not him? It’s one thing to be insulted and abused, quite another to have an expectation of triangulated manipulation behind it, so you’ll have to excuse me, President Obama, I’m not going to be your predictable attack dog this morning.

But there are four elements of our current nightmare that deserve note and attention, not particularly earth-shattering or new in their scope, but well worth political study.

Colorado celebrated its sweet 420 legalization yesterday, notable not in that some idiot shot off his handgun but that it happened it all. Enormously powerful forces are in play on both sides of the cannabis issue, yet the Obama administration, hopelessly and mentally corned by a spaghetti of political rationalizations, is frozen into doing nothing. Old former attorney general white guys, The Law so thunderously on their side, demanded the President act. In the sweetest of justice they were laughably clueless about, he did nothing.

Note this evolution very carefully, it’s rare a political actor or party simply does nothing with their hands on the lever of a hot issue. Acting one way or another always delivers a payoff and political direction, it’s what these humans have devoted their mental lives to, yet the Obama administration can’t even politically breathe here, what a carcass of a political animal they can be. In just an opinion it appears even the Obama people cannot shove policy shit down the throats of their people and the country in this instance anymore, it’s simply too offensive, yet they’re so weak they can’t confront the authoritarians.¹

The United States has completely lost control of its drone warfare program under the last two Executives. Congressional oversight failure is a very old story in our times, yes, but note the horrifying scope of policy failure on so many fronts here. The President has totally chucked judicial review in a laughable procedure to kill any human soul he wishes, courts and Congress be damned. International law and boundary of warfare definition have gone to the winds. Rage and retribution are totally predictable outcomes, while the name and integrity of the United States might as well be a turd of Satan.

This horror show leads into a third noteworthy political element, a vastly American powerful vacuum for honest candidates who can actually work for our government and little people. Dianne Feinstein and the rest of those clowns in Congress have been lying to us about drones for years, they damn well knew the Obama administration was blowing away anyone they had an itch about.

We seriously need new candidates in the Democratic Party, if you have ever thought about it please run. The war on drugs, terrible employment and wages, global warming and healthcare, these are supremely motivating issues for our people that will elect Americans brave enough to fight for the little people. You have a great chance, know it, there’s so much failure right now almost all of our politicians are gone soon, one way or another, and it would be so much better for the country if committed liberals filled this amazing vacuum. It is going to get filled, oh yes, and the history of that evolution for our species is not reassuring.

Which brings me to my final point of this day, inspired by the incomparable Amanda Marcotte, who noted that many conservatives—fat, content, privileged, a good life mainly handed to them—think of politics as sports for nerdy people. I’m not depressed and outraged by the idiots in DC because they crossed me intellectually—I’m hardly that important, we all know that—it’s because I know with every cell in my body how they’re hurting our people and our country.

I sort of know what the pain of societal failure can deliver to the human psyche, yeah. Life can be very difficult, to deliberately make it worse through cruel politics or to unbelievably just sit there in inactivity because of smug weak rationalizations while human beings terribly suffer fills me with an outraged revulsion.

This is no game, something I’m positive the Obama administration is clueless about. I’m also pretty sure they’re going find out how wrong they are.

[1] Even given the enormously conflicting forces of cannabis that could theoretically produce such a political stall, cannabis is much like the gay rights issue in that doing the right thing hurts no one with results so obviously benign. The oil companies, defense contractors and authoritarians really lose nothing, while only relatively pipsqueak prison guard unions will make a fuss about cannabis legalization.

FBI, Homeland Security Have Explaining To Do

Steve — 2013-04-20T13:41:40-08:00

I hate to rain upon the Obama administration’s jingoistic feel-good narrative about the outcome of the Boston manhunt, but let’s be clear about something: both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have a lot of explaining to do about why the older brother wasn’t more aggressively tracked since his return from Russia last summer.

When the Russians reach out to you in 2011 with concerns about someone and asks for information, and then he travels there and spends six months for largely unknown reasons, that should have been the first flag. If that wasn't enough, he returns and posts pro-Al Qaeda videos to YouTube and suddenly changes his dress away from western norms. That taken together should have been enough for the Bureau or DHS to monitor him, yet they admit today they only tracked him for a couple of months, after which he apparently fell off the grid until the bombing, thereby missing the recent clues that he returned to western dress of late (according to NBC News). Even a minimal continued "check-in" on him over the last 6-9 months would have let him know he was still on the radar screen.

Sorry Mr. President, but your team dropped the ball.

Fighting the Gun Industry Whores

Steve — 2013-04-18T12:58:39-08:00

There is so much going on this week that deserves comment, but the one issue that drives my anger the most is yesterday's vote on the Manchin-Toomey amendment that would have instituted a universal background check system. It was very discouraging to see four Democrats vote against universal background checks, but at least in three of the four cases I can understand why a red-state 2014 Democratic incumbent (Begich, Pryor, and Baucus) would not risk a "yes" vote. Heidi Heitkamp on the other hand doesn't face the voters of North Dakota for another five years, and frankly hasn't offered much of a reason yet why she deserves a national office like United States senator.

President Obama showed the appropriate level of rage against the NRA yesterday for lying about the Manchin-Toomey amendment, and for doing its job to stir up opposition enough to force senators to cave in as he said to pressure. Yet Obama shares some of the blame for not striking quick enough after Newtown to push the NRA on the defensive early, and he has no one to blame but himself for losing the battle against the gun industry. Of course the NRA lies. Of course Congress is bought and paid for by the gun industry. There is nothing new about this, and Obama's naivete and unwillingness to call those truths out into the open sooner played a part in what happened yesterday. The question now is what to do about it.

First, some GOP senators need to be held to account for the lies they get away with in justifying their votes. For example, Chuck Grassley of Iowa gave several different reasons for voting against the amendment:

-Criminals don't submit to background checks;
-Background checks wouldn't stop another Newtown;
-Universal background checks would lead to national gun registration.

On the first and second assertions, Grassley and the NRA have no way of knowing or proving either statement. What is known for certain is that the gun show loophole that exists in 33 states does nothing to prevent criminals or the mentally unstable from getting guns at gun shows. So the key question the press needs to ask Grassley and other NRA whores is "Why should gun show sellers be able to sell their guns without any background checks on who is buying those guns?" Because until Grassley can show that Iowa law currently prevents gun show sales to criminals and the mentally unstable, his vote yesterday enabled criminals and the mentally unstable to get guns.

On the third issue, Grassley and the other NRA whores need to tell us why local law enforcement should be barred from knowing who in their community has stockpiled weapons.

Lastly, as for a strategy going forward, I would recommend that NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg use his money to set up a national organization called "Gun Victims of America". A separate issue advocacy organization that gives a face to the gun industry's hostage-taking of our government is better suited to hold both Democrats and Republicans accountable than Obama is. Setting up such offices across the country in media markets of the 46 "no" votes yesterday can call attention to how many of those senators are on the gun industry payroll while ignoring the victims amongst their constituencies. Such an organization can pointedly ask Senator Grassley to show us where exactly in the U. S. Constitution does it say anyone has a right to an assault weapon with large magazine clips without background checks, and that those rights trump the rights of the community to be safe themselves.

Was Iraq Really Worth $4 Trillion?

Steve — 2013-03-31T21:45:48-08:00

Why are we not surprised at this news?

Ten years after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, the country's oil industry is poised to boom and make the troubled nation the No. 2 oil exporter in the world.

But the nation that's moving to take advantage of Iraq's riches isn't the United States. It's China.

[snip]

Iraq hasn't become the bonanza for big Western international oil companies that some might have expected when the U.S. invaded 10 years ago.

It's a different story, though, for the U.S. oil field services and engineering companies that have established dominant positions in Iraq. That includes Halliburton, the company that Iraq war booster Dick Cheney led before he became vice president.

It is no mystery that much of what Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld said about the war's likely outcome and the indirect message it had for our access to that oil was nothing more than treasonous garbage, especially when the true cost of this war is now known:

A new exhaustive analysis undertaken by Harvard Kennedy School Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes indicates that the U.S. military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq have resulted in "the most expensive wars in U.S. history." And, as a result she argues, the federal government will face some extremely difficult defense budget tradeoffs in the years ahead.

Bilmes, who is a former CFO of the US Department of Commerce, calculated all direct and indirect war related expenditures, "including long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs." The total pricetag, she calculates, will amount to between $4 and 6 trillion dollars.

"The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid," Bilmes writes. "Since 2001, the US has expanded the quality, quantity, availability and eligibility of benefits for military personnel and veterans. This has led to unprecedented growth in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense budgets. These benefits will increase further over the next 40 years."

There are still nimrods around like Mr. Gal Luft of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, who tries to make the point that China's access and development of those Iraqi supplies would still benefit the United States as long as oil prices came down as a result. This is purely a Cheneyesque cost-benefit analysis to the issue, where the only thing that matters is the cost for another barrel of oil. I wish the world was that simple. More intelligent adults know that a war that will cost this country $2-4 trillion renders any such shortsighted analysis based on the cost of oil alone irrelevant.

Is it really in this country's national interest to go into debt $2-4 trillion just to let the Chinese develop oil fields and maybe lessen the cost of oil years from now?

We’ll Get ‘Em in Mexico

paradox — 2013-03-14T07:32:55-08:00

Imagine, if you will, a notoriously violent Mexican drug dealer being pursued in San Antonio, Texas. The televised chase suddenly turns into a quick hostage crisis that goes horrifyingly wrong, 8 Americans are dead and the drug dealer somehow escapes over the border in the melee.

Six weeks later American intelligence gets complete confirmation the killer drug dealer is on the road for the next six hours in Tabasco province. The information quickly goes to the Oval Office and after brief deliberation the order issues forth: take him out. An F-15 is quickly airborne with the relevant data, flies over Mexico, indentifies the target and decides to destroy with cannon. A 30 round burst at 1500 feet obliterates the drug dealer vehicle, which careens around a corner and crashes into a small bus, 8 Mexicans are killed there. The F-15 fed live video data to a White House situation room, and soon word is relayed to the President: collateral damage, mission accomplished.

Outrageous on multiple levels, of course. Such a scenario blows apart the international concepts of border and sovereignty, entering Mexican airspace with armed aircraft without written explanation and permission is a violation of treaty, is grossly disrespectful to Mexico in many ways, and stupidly invites American invasion of airspace by anybody with any purpose. Hey, we do it, why can’t the North Koreans?

There’s no due process here. The White House leaks to the New York Times the images of the torn body of the American Killer on a dusty Mexican road in the uproar to justify the killing, but of course leaves out the images of the 8 dead Mexicans killed in the van, 3 of them children. No American would consciously choose any process with the consequence of dead children, but in this American time and place, after review, the F-16 Mexico policy is kept in place anyway.

Such an action of course highly inflames the citizens and authorities of Mexico. Mexican jurisprudence is simply tossed to the winds, innocent Mexicans are dead, and such a horrifying and incredibly disrespectful act my occur again at any time. The arrogance and brutal ruthlessness of the Americans almost defies description in this scenario, which naturally will breed consequence. 2 boys survived the bus crash, they’ll grow up fast will not forget for as long as stars burn in the universe what Americans did to their family.

The reader may feel relief such a horror show is not going on just south of our border, but unfortunately America has been acting and killing in just such a precise way in Pakistan and the horn of Africa for years with drones (after those terrifying terrorists), along with serious surveillance of Iran. What’s the substantive difference in the scenarios between Mexican and Pakistan sovereignty? Nothing. What’s the substantive difference between F-15 cannon and drone Hellfire missiles? Nothing.

We creeped into this national security funhouse because the drone program—massively expanded under Bush—was declared Super Secret Forever and our servile lapdog journalism corps wags along in disgusting acquiescence. Congress, too, has ludicrously abdicated duty in the name of secrecy and completely given up on Executive oversight.

Just to add another slant in all the giggles here the alleged secrecy in all this has become downright disturbing. We blew away 24 Pakistani soldiers by mistake and they closed and Afghanistan supply route, another time the Iranians amusingly brought down some super stealth drone with ease, before our journalists obeyed smiling Iranians were plain to see next to the small flying wing. The secrecy game is up, Executive Branch, all right? Further pretense overseas military drones don’t exist results in some of the most advanced American humans on the planet—educated, qualified, experienced, attractive, wealthy, well-dressed—flapping their lips that drones are secret and the sky is green. Charming.

One more element in this story of human excellence is that of course legal justification would have to be cooked up for this somehow, so the Attorney General blathers dictator-esque nonsense on the justification of Executive drone killing of Americans, simply oblivious that other humans on the planet have rights and deserve due process too. Inspiring.

As a little person American one can only wearily chalk up another element of the US political landscape that is immensely disturbing in its ruthlessness, furtiveness, lawlessness, and ability to leave many humans dead and broken. Hope is always present Congress and the journalism corps will do their jobs, yet always as faint as exoplanets. Writhing embarrassment is the only reaction to what other global citizens must think of us, we frighteningly have the brains for drones and missiles but the political process and mindset for using them comes from a babbling political sanitorium.