Republicrats: Shifts Toward Blue

Why do my favorite Supreme Court Justices keep retiring? First it was Rehnquist, then O'Connor, now Souter. They were my favorites for writing intelligible opinions. Lawyers learn to write and use language partly to obscure their meaning. These justices seem to indicate to me that it is possible to be a brilliant and principled legal scholar and still be capable of being understood.

This would be my only comment at Souter's announcement of his impending retirement except for the political cast it takes on given the defection of Arlen Specter to the Democratic party which also occurred this week.

This article picks up on the greater significance that this has for the Republican party, especially given Specter's admission that the Republican party today is not the one he joined when he defected from the Democratic party. Like most of ABC's reporting it misdiagnoses the state of public opinion.

ABC paints this as being a division between moderates in power and conservative ideologues. I think this makes the inexplicable mistake of lumping fiscal and social conservatives together as one group. Well, i suppose it is not entirely inexplicable since this is the fundamental misconception of Karl Rove's political strategy that is misconstrued as appealing to the base.

Clearly the idea of going after the base is meant to be cast in contrast to Reagan's "Big Tent," particularly after the separation of the Libertarian wing of the party under Perot. But those of us who are truly Libertarian, not just fiscally but socially as well, understood Karl Rove's strategy as one of appealing to hot button right wing extremist issues that were rarely voted on before.

This whole strategy of appealing to people based on irrelevant emotional issues such as religion, national security, and immigration creates a misconception that conceals the true voting motives of "Blue Dog Republicans." This was something both Clinton and Obama picked up on in the last election and is why Ohio and Pennsylvania went blue. Sure there were narrow margins but it is illustrative of the problem of confusing propaganda with substance. The campaign propaganda to the MSM claimed these people were the base of the republican party but in truth you can only get so far by appealing to base and divisive emotions.

Now the Republican party is saddled with the burden of politicians that were elected for running socially right wing campaigns in a place and time when that would fly. This segment of the party is going to remain entrenched in its black and white social issues and while they may eventually learn to understand general notions of governance their presence at the table is going to continue to confuse the party at large about what went wrong in the last few elections.

In a political system where those that represent the people are forced to choose between two ridiculous characters of public opinion this does a tremendous disservice to real people who won't be stuffed into one of the two categories by Fox or MSNBC.

The New Politics: RIP 2/1/09 That Didn't Take Long

Apparently Republicans are running around raising ideological opposition to Obama's huge economic stimulus package. Heh heh. The Republicans got a good look at Obama's Package this week and the President spent time coming in and out of their offices trying to get them to take it. It seems like the do nothing Congress has decided to keep with what they know rather than try to spend massively huge shit tons of money in hopes Keynesian economics does work.



The kicker is that the debate isn't over whether the money should be spent. Its about whether we are giving enough tax breaks to the wealthy fuckers that aren't feeling the pinch. This is a debate over ideology rather than substance. Let me point out that tax cuts and government spending are actually the same thing. Cuts in income and spending both reduce the amount of money in the treasury. The two terms are just ideological code for where the politician thinks the money should go. If you believe in entitlement of the upper class you say "tax cuts." If you believe in entitlement of the poor you say "appropriation." It's bullshit and I am surprised that the fact this is all about ideology doesn't rise to the level of public discourse. Sure you might say that there is an economic debate behind the two sides, except real economists will admit that even amongst them it is really an ideological debate because there is no lab in which to experiment and prove who is more wrong.

The Difference Between Infantaside and Abortion

You are probably seeing this article in your Google search because you misspelled "infanticide."

This posting is only slightly related to the title. On Friday Obama signed an executive order reinstating funding for groups that perform or provide information regarding abortion overseas. Reversing the "Mexico City Policy" of George Bush and the right wing religious extremists that supported him. Editorials across the nation declare that this has inflamed the national furor over abortion again, but this was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and those people had their undies in a twist for this day in advance.



It is really upsetting to me that the national abortion debate never rises above our worst and most base instincts. People on both sides straw man each others position's and are disrespectful of their opponents ideology to the point of deliberately lying to their own supporters. What is most interesting to me is that the Supreme Court has heard some well thought out policy arguments in its handling of the issue and it is unfortunate that some of these thoughts don't trickle down into the national debate. For instance the supreme court ruled a law criminalizing use of contraception out of respect for the dignity of family and marriage and the privacy of marital intimacy. Kind of throws a clog in the pro-family rhetoric the right wing slings about.

When it comes to women in the workplace and abortion I feel stupid for never putting two and two together until I read the opinion of The Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.

The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.

505 U.S. 833, 833 (1992) Hurrr I'm a durrr. Given the nature of the glass ceiling and the thinly veiled questions women get in job interviews regarding whether they are "planning to have a family", and the correlation between attitudes regarding abortion and attitudes regarding women in the workplace, I can't believe it took the Supreme Court to point out this conclusion to me.

Don't You All Fell Better Now That Racism Is Over?

I don't know if my own experience over the past month has been unique but I have noticed an increase in little incidents of racism and they seem to be connected to Obama being elected. Here is what I mean, I will be with a group of people and the topic will turn to the recent election and while the subject of the first black president is in the air someone will then tell a joke so racist that you would think Carlos Mencia had just walked in the room. It's like some kind of weird cognitive dissonance is trying to work itself out of the population. In many cases, the people I hear doing this are not what I would call racist but I don't know how else to quantify what I am experiencing. Its somewhere on the racism scale between being uncomfortable with interracial dating and using the word "colored" when drunk.

Like the beetle who's larva burrow into the human brain, Bush's political appointees are burrowing into their respective departments. As the president's term comes to an end, people who occupy positions that are appointed by the executive take up new jobs within their departments, preserving their high status within influential government agency's and moving beyond the reach of the incoming president of the opposing party. It is something that always accompanys a change in the guard but with the Bush administration's appointees it takes on a more sinister effect. We have recounted many times here that President Bush's picks for department heads have not been based on quality of the individual but on their loyalty to his narrow ideology and the individual of the president. One need only look to the energy department the EPA or to the Justice department to see scandals arising from industry insiders acting as regulators or "holy hires" who were picked because of the ultra right wing religious fundamentalist colleges they attended. The damage done to policy and the public interest done by this administration will take decades to undo.

Another example of cementing of Bush policy long into an Obama presidency is the midnight passage of executive orders. Like the burrowing of political hacks, these last minute orders cement extremest right wing policy and weaken government oversite and cannot be easily overturned by a new administration partly because of the time consuming process of determining all the changes and waiting through the public commentary period but also because of a lack of political will. Somehow there is the perception in Washington that turning back all these executive orders will cause some kind of liberal shock to the populace at large resulting in a backlash against the president. As if setting things back to the way they were is somehow more shocking than a lame duck president without a mandate of the people sneakily instituting his personal preference for policy at the last minute.

The Burning Questions

Whether you supported John McCain, Ron Paul, or even Brian Moore, the real Socialist candidate, congratulations are certainly in order for the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, there are more than a few questions he needs to answer almost immediately. Sure, he can have a few days to bask in the glory of the acceptance of an entire nation-state, if not the entire world, but try to keep it short. Some of these questions may have already been answered in campaign promises, but as the last few presidential campaigns have demonstrated, promises can be forgotten so easily, and so these need to be asked. So without further avail, in no particular order, are the list of questions we here at the Fringe Element would like to see Barack Obama answer. 

• Will you promise not to lie to the American people, even if the truth will hurt your political aspirations?
• Will you move the U.S.A.'s foreign policy away from the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes into foreign countries?
• Will you free the West Memphis Three and Mumia Abu-Jamal?
• Do you plan to amend the FISA Act and discontinue the NSA's domestic surveillance programs?
• Will you use neutral experts to evaluate science and policy before committing tax money to any specific plans and regulations?
• Your running mate is famous for having been the reason for the creation of PGP encryption. Will you enunciate a series of principles governing your administration's relationship to the internet, and will you continue to support net neutrality? Furthermore, will you enforce net neutrality regulations with civil and criminal penalties?
• Do you realize and acknowledge that infrastructure, the environment, the economy, taxes, energy, crime, prisons, and drugs are all interrelated facets of one national domestic problem that must be solved with a cohesive effort and a comprehensive policy?
• How do you plan to address the ongoing global economic crisis? Do you want to convene a Bretton Woods II, or try to create a novel set of policies?
• How will you direct your appointed Treasurer to manage the funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act? Will you direct these funds to help homeowners or businesses?
• Will the focus of whatever economic plan you craft be to create jobs, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt with his New Deal, or to help corporations?
• How do you plan to regulate big business? That is to say, how do you plan to regulate corporations so that no corporation is "too big to fail"?
• How do you plan to encourage the creation and growth of small businesses while protecting the public interest?
• Do you plan to trim down the budget of the Department of Defense? Or, if not, at least demand better accountability of funds that are spent?
• How will you encourage private, self-interested companies to develop alternatives to fossil fuels and solutions for our energy crisis?
• How do you plan to address the shortage in funds in the Social Security trust that were promised to the now-retiring baby boomer generation?
• Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the military-industrial complex?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the prison-industrial complex?
• What measures do you plan to take in fostering a so-called green economy?
• What is your plan for addressing America's crumbling infrastructure?
• Do you plan on re-tasking the FBI from its current counter-terrorism mission to being more focused on domestic crime, such as white collar crime and political corruption?
• Do you promise not to politicize the Justice Department and the various U.S. Attorneys?
• What type of Judge will you appoint to the Supreme Court if given the chance?
• How do you plan to address the Bush Administration's last minute changes to federal regulations governing such matters as consumer safety and the management of federal lands, and such bureaucracies as the Environmental Protection Agency?
• Do you plan to drill for oil and natural gas offshore and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge?
• How do you plan to address the growing shortage of lending for college students and their families?
• Do you have any plan to provide health care for all American citizens?
• Are you going to follow-up on Vice President-elect Joe Biden's promise to prosecute former members of the Bush Administration for their various allegend misdemeanors and felonies?
• Do you plan to continue to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons?
• Would you be interested in negotiating a multilateral treaty governing Space, the Internet, and other facets of information warfare?
• Will you continue to address terrorism as a national security issue, or view it as a problem of criminal justice?
• Do you plan to rehabilitate ties with Russia?
• Are you going to continue with the installation of the missile defense shield, especially in the Czeck Republic and Poland?
• Do you plan to change America's foreign policy in regards to the Republic of Georgia?
• Do you plan to change government policy as it relates to selling weapons to foreign nations?
• What will be your administration's policy towards Israel? Are you going to take meaningful steps in creating a Palestinian state or otherwise realizing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
• Will you denounce Israeli settlements in the West Bank that have been recognized as illegal under international law?
• You have already expressed a willingness to negotiate with the government of the Republic of Iran directly, but will you continue to enforce unilateral sanctions placed upon that country by the Bush Administration?
• How long is your timeline for pulling American troops out of Iraq?
• What is your plan for Afghanistan? Will you follow-up on your promise of deploying additional troops to the region? How will you address the concerns of the Afghani government about civilian casualties? 
• You have also addressed a willingness to address the various problems in Pakistan, such as the Taliban haven along its shared border with Afghanistan, but will you direct the Department of Defense to continue using Predator drone missile strikes into Pakistani territory to kill militants? Will you continue to support the Pakistani government's campaign to fight the aforementioned militants in the form of cash payments and limited training, or will you try a different approach? Do you have any plan for addressing Pakistan's foreign exchange problem?
• Do you plan to convene peace talks between Pakistan, India, and the People's Republic of China over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka?
• Do you plan to engage in talks with the military government of Myanmar?
• At the risk of asking too large of a question, what will be your administration's policy towards the People's Republic of China? Will you continue to sell armaments to Taiwan?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
• How do you plan to address piracy in the Gulf of Aden based in Somalia?
• Do you have any plan to engage in talks with Robert Mugabe's government and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe?
• Do you plan to continue the DEA's coca eradication program in South America?
• Do you plan to lift the embargo on Cuba?
• How do you plan to mend ties between the U.S.A. and Latin America?
• Do you have any ideas for combating the rise in drug-related violence in Mexico?

The Afterglow

I have made the analogy before that the campaign was like being hit on by a drunken sociopath. In the aftermath of the election it seems even more so with various special interest groups and media outlets remembering various promises made by Obama while on the road to the White House. They seem like an expectant lover on the morning after, hopeful that this impulsive decision to get in bed with this beautiful person who said all the right things will turn into a healthy relationship. All the while the recipient of the lover's attention hurriedly prepares to move on with his agenda while assuring the lover that, "that was all pillow talk baby." We can at least hope that Obama doesn't spurn the voters like a one night stand. But he is a politician and I won't hold my breath.

John Stewart made the observation to Obama that the country isn't what it was when he started this race. Truly Obama is inheriting a sloppy shit sandwich from one of the most hated presidents in history. Unfortunately for the discontent, Bush is scheduled to leave office and they will loose a symbol of everything they dislike about U.S. policy. But the problems he created will remain. What happens if Obama fails? Do we loose the meager gains we have made in race relations? Does the country swing wildly back to the politically extreme right? Will there be much left of the country after four years if he can't get a hold on these various crises?

Parts of the country started to reflect Bush's low approval ratings by going blue this election. My question is whether these states who were red in 2004 have an indelible sin on them for causing the last 4 years of unnecessary downward spiraling of the nation. Ohio and Pennsylvania, I am looking at you.

As usual, I have nothing positive to say.

The Walk of Shame: A Shameful Roundup

Saving the best for last.

First, a new study shows that half of all American doctors prescribe a placebo to their patients, and most of them that do, do not inform the patient that the medication will not do anything for their condition. The study goes on to say that doctors usually use pain medication, vitamins, or stress medications rather than the sugar pill one usually associates with placebo.

This throws into question medical ethics and the doctrine of informed consent. It would be possible to meet the standard of informed consent and still get the beneficial effects of a placebo. It also raises questions of further wasting money in the already inefficient American medical system.

This strikes me as similar to the use of tazers since in both cases a professional with a fiduciary duty to the people is using a device as a shortcut around dealing with the psychological difficulty's of the individual they are faced with at the time. It's lazy. It's laziness that has harmful consequences.


Second, the McCain campaign volunteer who claimed to have been attacked and beaten by a black man who carved a "B" into her face to signify Barrac Obama, admitted to lying about the attack. Apparently the woman is mentally unstable and probably did it to herself.


Lastly, we have the Maryland police spying scandal. The state police went to public meetings of politically left protest organizations and entered the names of participants in a database of persons suspected for involvement in terrorism. So essentially what we have is a law enforcement body labeling as terrorists, U.S. citizens who are exercising their constitutionally guaranteed first amendment rights without any evidence that any crime had or would be committed.

The ACLU were the ones credited with this story seeing the light of day because of an information request. This week the state started sending out letters to people who's names are on the list. There are varying accounts of what the letters say or what their purpose is. Questions need to be answered like; why were these people targeted, was it because they were politically liberal, why not investigate groups like the KKK which is already listed as a terrorist group, what prompted this spying, will the victims be able to see what is in their file, what criteria are used to determine someone is a terrorist, how does someone get their name off the list, is it possible to remove someones name?

This again gives an answer the question, "if you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to fear?" These people were not doing anything wrong. One officers reports even showed that these people were not planning on doing anything wrong. Yet they were labeled as terrorists. At this point we still do not know why. Again, most people don't concern themselves with the draconian methods of dealing with suspected terrorists since 9/11. Except we have been repeatedly shown that one does not need to do anything wrong to be labeled a terrorist and be subjected to torture. But then again, this woman seems to think that protesters, or anyone that is vocal about their political opinions deserves to be given the third degree.

The Walk of Shame: Palin

This is a pretty detailed article on the whole affair. The bottom line is that the legislative investigation found that Sarah Palin violated the public trust in her office as Governor when she allegedly pressured for the firing of a State Trooper that had been married to her sister. In these cynical times it is hard for me to explain how serious a violation of the public trust is other than to say that even lawyers are required to be more ethical than this.

Once again this raises the question of how well Palin was vetted before she was picked as the VP nominee. Her ability wink and to segue into memorized talking points during the VP debate does not reassure me that she is more intelligent than the Couric interviews have shown her to be. Now there is this report detailing how she wasted no time in becoming corrupt after being elected as Governor of Alaska. Its probably a testament to her Orwellian campaigning that she was originally billed as a reformer.

The most telling part of this story is the reaction of the Republican party and the Republican presidential campaign. When the eye of justice was turned on them they immidiately and vigorously began attacking the integrity and nature of the investigation. What they were doing was analogous to if one was a murder suspect, arguing that the police did not have the authority to look for the murder weapon.

It makes me wonder if any other Alaska Republicans will be found guilty of corruption in the final weeks before the election.

The Ben Franklin Report: Talking Points and the MSM

It was interesting to me to observe the tone of media coverage regarding the Bailout over the last week. Prior to the rejection of the first bill by the House the coverage was neutral with most coverage being directed at explaining just what the legislation was supposed to do but there was almost no coverage of popular opinion which was vastly opposed to the measure. After the shock subsided from the precipitous drop in the stock markets following the vote by the House, and it was found that the sky had not fallen and business continued as normal, the MSM started covering the vast negative public sentiment. This was mainly as a means of explaining why the Representatives voted as they did and attached to the old adage that the House is the more populist body. Suggesting that the real people of the country are only actually represented in government at the national level in the House of Representatives.

Until this morning the MSM was freely using the term "Bailout" to describe this massive gift of taxpayer dollars to the greedy rich motherfuckers that got us into this crisis in the first place. However this morning, the MSM has started referring to the bill as the "Rescue Plan." Yes, the Bailout that passed the Senate in the dark hours of the night when noone could see their shame has been spun. Instead of being a colossal failure of leadership, this is now a plan. Instead of being a giant burden of over $10,000 on every taxpayer, this is being called a "Rescue."

How long will this kind of transparent bullshit go unchallenged? Where is the voice of the American people? We, the people of the United States are overwhelmingly opposed to this legislation but if you look at the MSM you would think that we all accept this bill as a necessary evil. This is exactly the same failure of the media that got us into Iraq. Where are the pointed questions? Where are the experts holding the feet of the members of congress to the fire? Why is Kucinich the Keebler the only person that sounds sane? It takes a vegan who thinks he was abducted by aliens to raise concerns about the artificial haste with which this bill is being forced through congress? What about the old adage that the Senate is the more deliberative side of the Legislature?

Where was the thought process yesterday? It was clouded by fear and greed. Fear that there is an imminent catastrophic collapse in the future, and greed motivated by all that money. Why think about rational solutions when you can slip in a rider that directs funds back to your pet projects? If you are going to alienate millions of people by voting "yes" you might as well buy the votes of a few back home.

Like 9/11, this is another crisis that was easy to foresee but once it materializes people in government are using the ignorance of those that did not see it coming to create an unjustified panic in order to gain unfettered power. I cant' believe that exactly the same trick is working on the same people just six years later. I guess Lincoln was wrong.

I wish that was all I had to say about this but I want to highlight the behavior of the presidential candidates and I want to single out a particular economic pundit who has been causing me great personal outrage for the last three weeks.

The H-pod has been getting increasingly aggravating with his constant reliance on the trickle down theory of economics as if it is still a valid method of thinking. As if trickle down hasn't been clearly disproven by the recent recession. As if he isn't just fattening us up for the slaughter. Velshi is just trying to keep the taxpayers calm and encourage acceptance of the vastly flawed Bailout.

As for the candidates, they have both failed to show leadership in this crisis. Neither candidate has even attempted to deliver a strategy for solving this problem. Neither candidate nor their VP nominees have given concrete examples of things they would do if elected that differs from anything they have been saying since June of '07. To me its painfully obvious that they could follow FDR and his lead that propelled us out of the last Great Depression. They start a massive public works project. How about one that creates energy independence? Then you solve two national problems at once. OK, its four problems is you include oil wars in the middle east and energy's impact on the environment. Massive building projects that create super solar farms in the sun belt, wind farms in the great lakes and off the Atlantic coast, factories that produce the new solar power generating windows. The government can spend some of the seven hundred fucking billion dollars of U.S. taxpayer rape on investing in our technology future. The U.S. is falling behind. It was the lack of foresight of congress that caused the Large Hadron collider to be built in France and Belgium.

Both parties have failed. Both houses of Congress have failed. The Bush administration has failed. Local governments have failed. Wallstreet has failed. Individual investors and property buyers have failed. Foreign governments and corporations have failed. There is plenty of blame to go around but little understanding of the full scope of the failure. This colossal failure of leadership is not likely to be cured by panic and a rush to pass the first piece of legislation proposed by an administration that has showen itself to be power hungry and incompetant. We need to vote every one of these selfish beureaucrats and politicians out of office. We need to finish the job of cleaning house that we started in 2006.

Throw the bums out.

Life Lessons and Vice Presidential Candidates

As a child, I learned two lessons about the adult world almost as soon as I was able to tell right from wrong. That the authority granted to adults and supposed authority figures most often is not granted because they are moral or even responsible people and is usually a coincidence arising from their career, rather than given to them through any legitimate means. Second, I learned that most people are not deserving of respect (beyond that due every human) until they prove otherwise. Since I learned those lessons at Catholic school, it took me a while to separate my problem with authority from my perception of all Christians as hypocrites. If you have read some of my other posts on this blog you will notice that I still have that perception of Christians.

Christian hypocrisy is a good transition into discussing the issues surrounding the pregnancy of Sarah Palins unwed teenage daughter. Anti-abortion types will see this as not being hypocritical since Bristol, Palins daughter, will be keeping the child. This is itself a red herring and the hypocrisy I wish to discuss because it ignores the anti-contraception and anti-sexed positions that are associated with an anti-abortion and which Gov. Palin has herself expressed. A friend of mine observed today that you can't treat teen sex like the Easter bunny and decide not to believe in it because it does happen and has profound consequences. Many of those consequences will not be felt by Bristol and her child(eren) because of the financial status of her family. Sadly this is not the case for most unwed teenage mothers. Teen pregnancy is almost a guarantee that the mother and new child will live out their lives in poverty according to the CDC. It is easy to be anti-abortion when you have a safety net. Yet the Bush administration, right wing Christians, and other people with nothing personally at stake continue to push for abstinance only sex education, which has been shown to do nothing to reduce premarital sex or teen pregnancy. At the same time, Jamie Lynn Spears is on a publicity romp, glorifying teen pregnancy. To get back to the accusations of hypocrisy, Sarah Palin has advocated abstinence only sex ed while claiming to be anti-abortion, which is consistent until you notice her unwed teenage daughters pregnancy and have to question Palins parenting.

So while she is telling the rest of the nations women what is right for them she is either not practicing what she preaches or she is ironically suffering the consequences of the polices she supports, but not really suffering from them the same way every one else will. At the same time the Republicans are decrying all the public attention this is getting because its prying into a personal family matter and shouldn't be public, which is hypocritical because of the way in which the very same Republicans dug into the personal sexual lives of the Clintons during the Monica Lewinski scandal.

I applaud Sarah Palin for supporting her daughters choice to become pregnant and to keep her child. (Remember there is always adoption.) I just hope it can be a learning experience for her about the failings of abstinence only sex education even though it will not open her eyes to the deep personal consequences it has for far too many American girls and the resulting social costs to U.S. taxpayers.

Zer-0bama

During Gov. Lingles speech at the RNC tonight the crowd could be heard chanting "Zero," when Lingle attempted to answer accusations that Sara Palin is inexperienced by pointing out that neither Obama nor Joe Biden has any experience in an executive office. The red herring aside, I was immediately inspired. The number zero and the letter "O" are similarly shaped and to distinguish between the two, people and computers will frequently put a slash through the zero. I thought this could be a clever way for the Republicans to say "No," to Obama while also implying that he has no experience as a leader. It could be spelled as 0bama or as zer0bama and pronounced "Zer-obama." Hands off that, I am going to try to sell the idea to the RNC.

The NRA and the upcoming election

The NRA recently sent out a political advertisement that purports to be a survey of members political attitudes regarding gun control issues among other things. They say that this will be used to dispel myths about gun owners and to prove that gun owners are a voting block that needs to be catered to by the political elite. They obviously don't respect the intelligence of their own members since gun owners attitudes regarding gun control are not going to vary significantly enough to require a survey by a lobbying entity that they are members of. What is really going on here is the NRA is sending out anti-Obama propaganda to its membership. I filled out the survey and sent it back with a letter that chastises the survey makers for undertaking such an Orwellian propaganda campaign against their own members, and for filling the "survey" with straw men and red herrings. This type of propaganda is more insidious in a private communication like a letter since there is noone there to point out to the reader what is being done.

I am no fan of Obama but the far right wing nature of the politics of the NRA disturbs me. To me, being pro-gun is about freedom verses fascism, not about left verses right. The fact that John Bolton is a prominent member of the NRA and was given a hero's welcome at the national convention would be enough to raise questions about the motives of the NRA but that fact that they gloss over John McCain's anti-gun votes in their American Rifleman interview where he receives the NRA's endorsement leads me to believe that the NRA is more about promoting a Barry Goldwater type of politics rather than looking out for the Second Amendment freedoms of all Americans.

The Old Media

OK so the previous post was a bit of an act of contrition toward the old media that gets so much of a beating in the blogosphere because for some reason I have been feeling a bit guilty about the hard time they are given. Except the beating the old media gets is usually justified. If there was more first person reporting of actual news and less fluff and opinion then there wouldn't be any reason to bitch.

This post is a specific bitch about the way the old media has been treating Obama's world tour this week. Not only has there been more coverage of Obama's speeches and doings than McCain's, news outlets have dedicated their fluff space to speculation about what he will do next and commentary on whether his speech in Germany was historic or epic. The LA Times tries at some apologetics for the unfairness here. The unfairness is one thing but the outright bias is another. This kind of tour has happened several times before. An international policy tour by a presidential candidate that was not a sitting president has happened a few times in the past and McCain himself has done so. But this is OBAMA! So even when a program recognizes that fact, they still go out of their way to book a guest that insists this is a one of a kind event.

Obama needs to be on his guard with the media. Howard Dean was a media darling for his campaign till he started criticising them. Then the two faced serpent turned around and destroyed his political career.

In the mean time the freedom haters in the old media are trying to make an issue out of concealed carry in national parks. Concealed carry will be the battleground of the future in gun control since an outright ban is out of the question now.

Maybe Carlin Was Right

So now there is no one left to vote for. At the beginning of this long election season I could see no difference between Obama McCain and Clinton. They are all the same centrist robot pushed forth by the two big parties. It feels like 1999 again when there was no apparent difference between Bush and Gore. Over time though, like with all politicians, the candidates have revealed which freedoms they hate and what they want to spend our money on.

Yesterday the Green Party announced their presidential candidate will be Cynthia McKinney. Yes, that Cynthia McKinney. Its confusing to me that the Green party would field a candidate that is obviously not capable of being president. This woman has no self control and is fixated on trivial issues. At best, she would be an embarrassment to the country if she were on a world stage, at worst she would spark an international incident with her lack of tact and decorum.

The only reason I mention the Greens here is because I am now at a loss for whom I shall cast my vote. Obama voted for the FISA bill. That's just about the only concrete thing I know about the guy. That and he was a crusader to ban guns until he decided to run for president. McCain is little better. From being the maverick Senator that stood up for what he believed in even if it was against his own party, he has cozyed up to right wing religious fanatics, stood up for the party that betrayed him in 2000, and gone against his own campaign finance laws and ideals. He was an idealistic war hero that stood above the corruption of politics and filth of Washington before he lost the primary to Bush. Now he is just another pandering politician trying to tell you what you want to hear. This election makes me feel like its last call and I am being hit on by a drunk sociopath.

The Libertarians have put forth Bob Barr of all people. Holy fucking mother of everliving fat! Bob fucking Barr! This man was regarded as the most right-wing conservative politician in congress. He was anti-drug, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, he tried to outlaw all non-Abrahamic religions in the military, and he voted for the PATRIOT act. Now he has criticized his vote for the patriot act, advocated the repeal of the income tax, and paid lip service to legalization of pot, which is apparently sufficient for the party heads of the Libertarian party. This is why I call myself philosophically libertarian rather than identify with the Libertarian party. They are more concerned with taxes and free trade than with actual liberty. So now there is no one left to vote for but freedom hating hypocrites.

Its like a bad movie and they are running out of extras. Seriously, Bob Barr and Cynthia McKinney? This is the best we can do? There are hundreds of people in politics at the national level. Senators, Representatives, Judges, Party heads. Most of us know businessmen and fucking actors that would be better choices. I feel like I am in a poorly written political farce that has run low on budget and can't afford more actors with lines.

Labor Relations

The Teamsters held a protest Saturday to protest high gas prices, and a bad deal they got from FedEx as well as to tell their membership not to vote for John Mccain.

As is usually the case with these sorts of things, the old media isnt covering it. Honestly, I find it frustrating to cover myself. They don't say anything meaningfull about why they are protesting or what they are angry about or what they want to solve the problem. This whole exercise was just to get a bunch of surly men together, dressed alike, to shout slogans at each other. I doubt its effectveness and whether it has any meaning.

I desperately wanted to air their grevances and give some much needed coverage to labor issues here, but all I got was an ear full of rhetoric.

Yager-bombing the Middle East

Aparently Hillary Clinton was able to drink McCain under the table in Estonia. This raises serious questions for the McCain presidential campaign. How can we expect a presidential candidate to be hard on the terrorists when they go easy on their own liver? While they both only consumed four(4) shots of vodka at least we can assume Hillary could out drink both Osama Bin Laden and Muqtada al-Sadr because muslims are not permitted to drink alcohol and we can assume they would not be prepaired for it. We have yet to hear of any exploits of Obama's capacitiy to imbibe intoxicants and this story raises the question. How much can Obama drink? For that matter how much can Ron Paul drink? Obama looks pretty lanky, and Ron Paul is no spring chicken but experience is what counts. Also, the story lacks information on how large a shot is in Estonia. I would assume that being married to President Bill Clinton would give one plenty of experience with keeping ones composure after consuming mass quantities of alcohol. So I was quite shocked to find that the contest had ended after four shots. Perhaps that is just when McCain threw in the towel. Which brings us back to the question. If McCain gave in to Hillary after just four shots of vodka, how can we believe his talk that he will stand strong against the terrorists and win the war in Iraq?

Cleveland Ohio; Terrible American City, Or The Worst American CIty?

The Cuyahoga county Board of Elections is debating what to do about people who voted in the primary. They think that many Republicans "crossed over" and voted for a Democratic candidate in the primary election without swearing a "loyalty oath" to the party. You see, the Democrats believe that these Republicans may have done so with the intention of throwing the election by voting for the candidate they believed could not win against McCain. That claim has a lot to do with what people knew and when they knew it. Hillary may have won in Ohio but it only became apparent recently that she has no legitimate chance of winning the Democratic nomination. They have decided not to issue subpoenas.

To me, this seems like sour grapes. The Democrats in power locally are upset that the candidate they favor was not selected by the voters. I don't see what they hope to accomplish by this. Even if they do take some of these people to trial, it wont change the election.

The real issue here is freedom, specifically Freedom of Speech. Fortunately the Secretary of State understands this. The questions I don't hear anyone asking assume there are only two party's. Fuck that noise.

Section 3513.19 of the Ohio Revised Code demands that each voter be affiliated with one political party and vote only in that party's primary election. One's affiliation is determined by examining what party the voter voted for in the prior two years. Silly me, I thought these were supposed to be secret elections to prevent persecution by zealous political party members from hunting down and disenfranchising opponents. Section 3513.05 has been interpreted by Bouse v. Cickelli 97 Ohio App. 43 (1954) as meaning that a voter is automatically affiliated with a political party by voting in that party's primary election until that voter takes some affirmative act to change that status. The real kicker is that if you are subpoenaed by the election gestapo, under section 3513.19 (B), you must swear an oath to the effect that you wish to be affiliated with and support the principles of the political party whose primary ballot you wish to vote on.

What if you are independent and don't ever want to be affiliated with any party? What if the previous statement is true and you genuinely want to vote for the candidate in the primary that you feel would be the best president? In Ohio, apparently they are like McCain in that they value party loyalty over principle and freedom.

Here is the bottom line, failing to make this required oath or making it and then if it is somehow found to be false by the freedom haters that enforce this law, is a felony and carries with it a huge fine. In most states, felons cannot vote or own weapons, making this a really good way to disenfranchise voters. You just look at the records, pick out some cross over voters from the other party and stamp them as felons, thereby ensuring the purity of your party and the inability of any other party from getting votes in the future. This also discourages people from switching party's. However, not showing up to your hearing to make this insane oath is a misdemeanor. See sections 3599.36-.37

You can take the following as my affirmative act and public deceleration. I hereby refuse any affiliation with any political party that I do not expressly request. I further reject the principles of any political party that would accept my forced or assumed allegance.

Turkey

Its more than just delicious with cranberries. Aparently Turkey is also a country in both Europe and the Middle East. Turkey invaded Iraq last Thursday to fight the ethnic Kurdish sepratists. The President has called on Turkey to limit the incursion while Turkish politicians use the Bush administrations selfsame rhetoric to support their own "war on terror." I find Turkey's reaction to Kosovo's declaration of independence interesting in comparison to that of Russia. Russia objected to Kosovo's independence because they are afraid international recognition of such states will only encourage other seperatist regions to break away from their mother countries. Which is supposed to be a reference to Chechnya. Turkey, on the other hand supported Kosovo's independence and recognized them as a country. I wonder what they think of Russia's stated reason of not wanting to encourage break away republics.

The Kurdish north has been the most stable part of Iraq since Bush declared "mission accomplished." Which is why neither the US or Iraq wanted to risk destabalizing the regioin by going in and trying to uproot the PKK. It was also the major reason not to pull US out of Iraq. Or at least I thought it was. The scinario painted by people like Sen. Mccain goes something like this. We leave, and with noone holding them back the Sunni and Shiite extremests begin a full scale civil war. The Kurdish north then takes all their trucks and goes home, declaring independence and the existence of a country called Kurdistan. Then the Kurds in Turkey try to take their land and join with the Kurds of the former Iraq and Turkey begins a massive military invasion of the region. This combined with the unfettered influence of Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia in Iraq throws the whole region into utter chaos.

At least, thats the nightmare situation as I understand it. Now that Turkey has invaded Iraq I find it less compelling to support John McCain as a presidential candidate, since my whole reason to back him has veen prevention of Turkey from crossing that line. Admitedly, that has never been one of the planks in his platform but it was my reason. Without the threat of total middle-eastern bedlam, McCain's pandering to the religious zealots and "conservatives" in his party is thown into stark relief. I still have boatloads of respect for the man who is a war hero, and a senator who has managed to keep his integrity while being pragmatic enough to work in politics for so long. He just is no longer appealing to me as a president. Unfortunately that only leaves Clinton who voted for the war, and Obama who I have heard nothing substantial about, or long shot also-rans who I like but are being ignored by the old media.

Oh, aparently the U.S.S. Cole is still floating

The Warm Glow of Freedom

Basking like with a last cigarette in the results of the Super Tuesday elections, one cant help but wonder if America really does have the best form of democracy in the world. First, of course, a definition of democracy.

The New York Times Editorial Board today posited on the reasons it would seem that American democracy is failing, or seems to be at any rate. According to the esteemed editors, democracy works best when it unites people by the party, and the problem is further complicated by the piles of money thrown at the candidates by interested parties. The Washington Post editorial today read like a recap of an insider's view, and pardon me for saying this if you find it offensive, but isn't it somewhat racist to cast entire demographies of American society in wide brush strokes? Casting the results as though all Hispanic voters favored Hillary Clinton, along with women, is rather disingenuous, overlooking the effects of class and the factors surrounding electoral participation. And, even though white voters might have a problem voting for a black man, Obama showed strongly in the South. Perhaps those who have been broadly cast as racists are looking for a change not offered by someone who is also seen as being from south of the Mason-Dixon. Or, perhaps, because of the unexpectedly high voter turnout in the primary, the traditional mainstream news media is unable to fully appreciate the results, or how they may have been distorted due to the procedural complications of our voting process.

Problems caused by overparticipation in the caucuses, which are themselves already undemocratic in structure, has reported caused problems across most of the country, as voter turnout was almost uniformly higher than projected by election officials. In states such as Kansas, Idaho, New Mexico, Colorado, and California all suffered from the problems related to the swell of voter participation, the ugly underside of democracy, voter disenfranchisement. Of course, it's easy for some pundits to say that the modern American election is more about individual, disparate districts begging for the attention of the candidates than any informative and substantive debate. However, considering the amount of popular participation in the primary elections, the U.S. is going to have some serious problems come November. In England, one observer asks if our system is the best, or the best that we can pay for. As one would expect, the comments are the best part of this article. To which, I can most simply respond that American's two party system doesn't properly reflect the policy aims of the American public, and probably wouldn't fit most definitions of democracy. That being said, here is the latest delegate count, according to CNN, not the distorting effect of the undemocratic Superdelegates in the Democratic race. Also, what good would this discussion be without being able to make fun of some polling data?

In Africa, always a target for those who criticize national governments on their lack of transparency and democratic institutions, the targets have somewhat changed. Tunji Ajibade, publishing from Abuja, frames the recent electoral violence in Kenya in the larger failing of democracy on the African continent and has some sharp words for hesitant British diplomats and their notions of development. Another darling of the West, South Africa, is faced with its own crisis in democracy, with the power of the state having come to reside in the hands of a single party, the African National Congress. One author criticizes the current system, and asks, "What next?" Other new darlings of the West, the Gambia, the DRC, and Ethiopia are also targets for abuse as what were essentially undemocratic elections yielded despots who, with the blessing of their aid donors, are ruthlessly enforcing their will over civil society and journalists.

In Afghanistan, whatever advances that have been made in democracy since the U.S. invasion seem to be quickly fading, as the Taliban continues to fight in the southern areas of the country. Meanwhile, the NATO countries are becoming increasingly frustrated in the varying levels of participation in the force responsible for bringing freedom and stability.

Here is a grim reminder of the dangers of flawed democracy, in which a small minority of a country was able to determine the fortunes and fates of the rest.

Now, for the election coverage!