Los Angeles for Obama '08!

Song

Walt — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:01:21 EST

Walt Whitman was Lincoln's favorite poet. This a quote of one of Whitman's poems.
"I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or the young wife at work, or the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day--at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs."

Song is one of the things missing from the current American scene. I try to put song back into my work with silly little jingles for each different xray exam: this hand is your hand, B.E.(barium enema) brings good things to life, ERCP to the tune of YMCA, let's all go to the trauma and it's a small bowel after all. Silly though they are, they make my co-workers smile. And a smile does make the work easier and more fun.

Poverty part 2

Walt — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:57:25 EST

When I was a resident of California, there was a small, niggling payroll deduction called, SDI, State Disability Insurance. I wasn't sure what it was for, but it wasn't much, just another reduction in my net income. Then I found out that it was an important part of the safety net provided by the state of California. I needed eye surgery to save my sight in one eye. I had developed a macular hole that required out-patient surgery. The surgeon charged $9000 and the hospital where I was employed billed me $17,000 for the 4 hours I was in the hospital. I received both bills in the mail the same day while I was recovering. I remember that day very well. My employer would not allow me to return to work for 6 weeks since my surgery required limiting my weight lifting to 20 pounds or less. No income and huge bills that my insurance at the hospital where I worked would cover only in part. It was then that I learned how essential a part of the safety net SDI was. It paid me about 75% of my take home pay for the time I could not work.

When I moved to Utah and was between jobs, I was injured in an auto accident and then fell and broke a leg. Utah has no equivalent to California's SDI, at least that I am aware of. Eight months later I returned to work at a new job and deeply in debt. I am not poor, but I skated on the edge of the abyss. The bills come in and I pay them. Recently I decided to add up just the monthly interest charges on the various debts. $1400. That money buys me nothing useful. Just think what I could do with an extra $1400 per month. That money just goes to the banks making them richer and me poorer. It's not fair and it is not right.

Poverty affects all of us, whether or not we experience it directly or indirectly. Two thirds of Americans use the safety net at some point in their lives. Poverty makes it hard for children to learn. It makes it difficult for our fellow citizens to contribute their time and thoughts to the community. Participation in our democracy is limited or made impossible for the poor who lack a permanent address. How much freedom do the poor have? Some make freedom and democracy a rallying cry. Is it to be freedom and democracy for some, or do we want freedom and democracy for all? In his July 27, 2004, keynote speech in Boston to the Democratic convention, Barack stated, "It's that fundamental belief--I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper--that makes this country work."

How do we lessen or eliminate poverty? We create more good paying jobs so that all who want to work are amply rewarded for their work. At this time there are not enough good paying jobs for all who want to work and some of those jobs are being shipped abroad. We can and should limit the export of jobs by means of our tax laws. Improving one's skills is not a sure-fire route to a good paying job.

As an analogy, I like to describe the good-jobs market as a carousel, a merry-go-round. There is a capacity for only so many riders on the horses, the benches and standing room. The unemployed and the holders of poor paying jobs are standing in line waiting for a vacancy to appear on the carousel so that they can step aboard. When the ride stops, some of the riders may switch places on the ride, sitting on a bench when someone else stands or switching one horse for another. No one waiting on the sidelines can get on the carousel of good jobs unless someone else gets off because of injury, illness or retirement. No matter how much the people waiting for a ride improve their skills, they cannot get a good paying job unless someone else gives one up. Creating more good paying jobs is analogous to making the carousel bigger or building more of them.

How to Win

Walt — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:51:34 EST

How to win a Fight with a Conservative by Daniel Kurtzman is a book of humor with some good, practical advice mixed in. He has also written a companion volume entitled How to Win a Fight with a Liberal. At the back of the book is a table consisting of three columns, A, B and C. Each column contains 30 insulting words or short phrases that yield 27,000 unique insults that can be used in arguments with conservatives. Just choose one word or phrase from column A, one from B and one from C and combine them in you ABC conservative. Now I don't recommend this procedure but it is interesting to see an example of how easy it is for the opposition to come up with the mud some of the other side slings.

The People Speak

Walt — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:55:59 EST

Today's local paper contains Michelle Malkin's review of the History Channel's Sunday program, The People Speak. It is based on Howard Zinn's book, A People's History of the United States. I missed the TV show but I have just finished reading the book. Zinn encourages readers to think for themselves. Malkin disagrees with him and labels those who disagree with her as Marxists. Apparently thinking for yourself is not an activity approved by the Right. Name calling your opponents Marxists is the sign of a weak argument.

Malkin disapproves of change, at least change she has not instituted. Both FDR and Obama have told supporters that if they want change, they must make the leaders produce it. It is possible to change the US for the better. Otherwise the current state of employment, healthcare, infrastructure decay and education is perfect. Criticizing what is wrong with the country in an effort to make it better is not hatred of the country. Malkin confuses the two.

"An Open Prayer": Something we normally do in private

"NERVIE" — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:25:38 EST

Dear Heavenly Host, We understand, and see "up close" and in a personal way, how leaders of banks and other financial institutions do not want to see the economic stimulus that President Obama developed to work. We see how they are making Obama appear "less attractive" to the future American voters. Obstructionist don't want him to go down in history as the President who released the economic, healthcare and financial hold on American's lives. They are trying to save this anointment for their next "Presidential" pick, inspite of the eight years they held the pulse, fear, chaos of American thinking in their hands. It is the same cat and mouse game that was played with President Jimmy Carter and the release of American captives in Iran. We still hear "how fantastic Ronald Reagan was" in doing this. The same with the Berlin Wall. We know the elements were already in place before Reagan became President.It appears no matter how hard President Obama may insist on bipartisan participation, the harder the other side comes up with excuses to not work as a collective. And this is what is causing many to say, don't worry about the other side anymore, they are obstructionist, the "party of no", serious denial and don't want to admit "their prior selfish leaders got us in this mess in the first place". Now they want believers in Obama to own up to Democrats being part of Republican bad decisions. Lord we see the split in their party's attitude. We see how they are using your name to feather their beds more. We see the fear mongering and hatred being used to divide us. We know some in their party feel they were blindsided by the other side in creating a war with one nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. Yes, there were Democrats who voted with them. Many Democrats say now they were doing the immediate, efficient, "patriot vote" for political survival and not asking enough questions and exploring the options. We Lord these individuals lost sight of you and the human purpose, for the "selfish purpose", and hence we are where we are. There may be little new under the sun to you Lord, but if you know where we should look to learn more about "the past" so we don't continue to make the same mistakes, please guide us. The support that President Obama needs now is "tantamount". The Gridlock is increasing the closer we get to "voting time". To make us disheartened and walk away is the goal. Then they can say the American people are disappointed in President Obama and he doesn't deserve a second term. We hear the negative repetition like drum beats but we know they are not drum beats from you Lord. Right now, the media is hungry, looking for any "missteps", "mistakes", or any "hesitationon the Obama Administration's part and they believe they are our "little Gods". Obama, Lord, selected individuals who had been part of the Bush and Clinton Administrations to find peace and understanding in where we have been to rectify the present. May the Lord's wisdom continue to be Obama's guide and we pray that Obama does not lose sight of the most needed elements of the American people knowing the world is too as dependent on his walk to progress. AMEN! Minerva & Todd, "The Communicators" of Santa Clarita

Truthout

Walt — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:52:34 EST

I recommend Truthout as a source of news. It is news when you want it and the articles cover subjects not covered so well elsewhere. You can pick and choose what you read and when. No commercials like TV and much more detail than in a brief report on the tube. You may not agree with the article, but it is a voice worth considering. They need your support. There is no admission charge, but consider making a donation. I donate $10 per month automatically. I feel that an independent source of news is worth maintaining. The media giants are too big to fail and support corporate interests more than the first amendment. The web address is www.truthout.org

California

Walt — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:01:58 EST

Golden state
Golden gate
Riches untold
Citrus and dates
Cattle and lettuce
Fruits and nuts
Yosemite
Kings Canyon
Kings ransom
Sequoia
Redwoods
John Muir
Muir Woods
Sutter's mill
1849
Donner party
Snow
18 feet deep
Mt. Whitney
Death Valley
Beverly Hills
Watts/South LA
The barrio
Discrimination
Left coast
Liberal
Orange County
John Wayne Airport
John Birch Society
Diversity
California

Utah

Walt — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:49:03 EST

Red rock
Black lava
Gray granite
Sage brush
Tan hills
Fertile fields
Prosperous ranches
Mormon faith
Scenic wonders
Bryce Canyon
Zion Park
Marble Arches
Painted Deserts
Trees of stone
Sandstone
Sand and cactus
Plants that sting
Snakes and scorpions
Birds that run
Open spaces
Treeless plains
Mountain peaks
Desert depths
Gentle streams
Roaring torrents
Utah

Utah winter

Walt — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:45:42 EST

Clear skies
Cold nights
Hot cocoa
Whipped cream
Bright lights
Christmas gifts
Carols float
High/low notes
Powder snow
Skiers delight
White peaks
Vast lakes
Spirited giving
Faithful living
Utah in winter

Party of Yes

Walt — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:40:45 EST

Those of us who support Barack Obama belong to the Party of Yes.

Yes we can.
Yes we can pass affordable healthcare reform.
Yes we can defeat al-Qaeda.
Yes we can provide affordable college educations.
Yes we can give the able-bodied good jobs at decent wages.
Yes we can lead the world by our example.
Yes we can.

Party of No

Walt — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:35:19 EST

The Party of No is looking for new recruits. If you qualify and want to join, please go their web site, www.gop.com , to signup. If you don't qualify, they will cheerfully accept your cash donation, the larger the better. These are the qualities they are looking for. They realize that these are the ideal and most people will not possess all these desired attributes.

No heart
No eyes to see the truth
No nose to sniff out corruption
No tongue to taste the false and misleading
No spine to stand up for what is right
No compassion for the less fortunate
No lips to speak one's mind
No brain to think for oneself
No strength of personal conviction
No two legs to stand on
No feet firmly planted to resist lies
No intestinal fortitude
No guts, no glory

No

Walt — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:01:08 EST

No birds
No bees
No leaves on trees
No sunny days
No starry nights
November
November 2010

In November 2010, the Party of No will seek to regain power in Congress. Here is their platform. Please consider it and then vote your conscience.

No healthcare
No healthcare reform
No healthcare reform at prices we can afford
No jobs
No jobs here in US
No good jobs here in US that pay well
Nothing
Nothing for you
Nothing for you, everything for me and my contributors.
Vote for me
Vote for me or don't vote
Vote for me or we will obstruct your right to vote.
No, no, no
NO, NO
NO

PEACE: YES WE CAN!

Blondie07 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:45:04 EST

jUST FEW WORDS TO President Obama

We like you and we love you, but please, please....:

END THIS WAR, NOBODY WANTS IT

God bless You and the USA

War

Walt — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:21:29 EST

Why is the Republican party waging war on democracy? Because they view democracy only as a way to win elections and maintain or gain power. Democracy to them is not increasing dialogue and participation to decide what is good for the country or what is right or wrong. Republicans know they cannot win if more people vote. That is why they wage war on groups and individuals and organizations that they believe may support their opposition with donations or votes. Money is the mother's milk of politics and that is why any source of contributions for the opposition is attacked and vilified. Witness their attacks on ACORN, trial lawyers, unions, George Soros, the Hollywood crowd, the liberal press and the list goes on. Opponents are labelled radicals, extremists, socialists, communists or Marxists without a shred of evidence. It's the schoolyard all over again. Stick and stones etc.

Princes and Paupers (Afghanistan)

Stephen Siciliano — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:27:09 EST

"When I look past the crazy name, I just see another guy from Harvard," highwayscribery's dad said of Barack Obama on the eve of the 2008 presidential election.

In doing so the old man might have presaged the scribe's content with President Obama as a traditional Democratic, but his disillusionment as an orthodox hippie.

The president has turned out to be utterly conventional where Democratic policies are concerned.

That's hurting him with independents who took his pledge to bring change as meaning something different than government spending to improve our collective lot.

They don't like stimulus plans, don't care much for infrastructure schemes, and hardly give a hoot about reforms in labor relations or health care.

They just wish their credit cards worked again.

That's fine. Democrats must sink or swim according to the appeal and impact of their policies.

But the staffing of the administration with familiar party hacks and Obama's retention of the Bush crowd's Defense Secretary has put us wild-eyed dreamers in the position of defending so much realpolitik from "our" president.

We have to tell ourselves that Obama's pragmatism keeps us in power and permits a slow sea change in American politics and culture as witnessed, let's say, in the largely quiet movement toward a liberalization of marijuana laws.

At highwayscribery we consider it a good thing that people be freer to partake in their stimulant of choice and that our jails not be busting with those busted for doing so. And we think the administration's simple decision not to harass medical marijuana outlets in states where they go in for that kind of thing has had a cataclysmic impact.

Hurray for the hippies! If only the Obama crowd was so influential elsewhere.

For example, Afghanistan, where we don't much like what we see.

It is just too familiar, what with Dick Cheney accusing the president of "weakness" for merely deliberating so important a matter.

Obama seems more worried about such criticism than a traditional Democrat might. His efforts are always designed to assure those who are convinced he is a black radical, that he is not a black radical.

And giving in on the war will gain him no grace in the "weakness" department. In fact, giving in at all will win no converts from their camp.

For we have seen plenty of what passes for a Republican Party these days and it's no surprise debate and thought are confused with "weakness" since the GOP is short on both, and long on bluster or "strength" (as they see it).

Anticipating the President's non decision to keep W.'s Afghan adventure alive, "New York Times" columnist Bob Herbert deemed the new/old policy "A Tragic Mistake."

"New York Times" columnist David Brooks went softer, suggesting in "Clear, Hold, and Duct Tape," that Obama is merely splitting the difference between peace and war through a half-hearted military effort focused on withdrawal.

highwayscribery's positions are normally aligned with Mr. Herbert, who can probably withstand the damaging association, and not so harmonious with Mr. Brooks's, who probably can't.

Caviling about our boys dying overseas has never achieved much. After all, folks like Cheney are always willing to sacrifice other people's children while their own enjoy life on the D.C. cocktail and conference circuit.

And America is hardly a place where moral and ethical ideas hold the same currency as, well, currency.

So we're going to do what the administration did and sit the hippie over in a corner (with his weed, of course). In his stead we'll forward the rank-and-file Democrat's economic arguments before going to pick the kid up from his overcrowded and under-funded public school.

And rather than stain Brooks through our usual trick of electronically linking and commingling our prose with columnist stars such as himself and Herbert, we're going to spin things in a literary way.

We will do this by excerpting a timely exchange between King Henry VIII, and a lesser-know historical entity by the name of Thomas Cromwell, beautifully presented in Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize-winning novel, "Wolf Hall."

Sincerest apologies Ms. Mantel.

In this exchange (page 150), Cromwell has come for a chat with the King whom he hopes will let up on his own patron, the Cardinal of York, a fellow falling out of favor "at court" as they say in these English dramas.

Cheney, er, um Henry, apparently blessed with a long memory, quickly takes Cromwell to task for a speech in Parliament, made seven years prior, challenging the king's right to wage war in France:

"Listen to me, master -- you said I should not fight because the taxes would break the country. What is the country for, but to support its prince in his enterprise?"

"I believe I said -- saving your Majesty -- we didn't have the gold to see you through a year's campaign. All the bullion in the country would be swallowed by the war. I have read there was a time when people exchanged leather tokens, for want of metal coins. I said we could be back to those days."

"You said I was not to lead my troops. You said if I was taken, the country couldn't put up the ransom. So what do you want? You want a king who doesn't fight? You want me to huddle indoors like a sick girl?"

"That would be ideal, for fiscal purposes."

Everybody wonders if the Internet has made newspapers obsolete. A more important question might by why we need public discourse at all if the issues never change and neither do our responses?

Earmarks

Walt — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:37:03 EST

I have not made a final decision about earmarks. I suppose that one person's valued project is another person's wasteful spending. The money will be spent and someone must decide how it is spent. In Congress, as in life, it may be necessary to go along to get along. In his book Catastrophe, Dick Morris has a list of earmarks that he disapproves of, I believe. They are listed by title and amount which is insufficient information to decide the merits of the expenditures. One earmark caught my attention, $1,791,000 for swine odor and manure management research in Iowa. Apparently Dick has never lived near a pig farm. I have not either, but I understand the smell is horrific. If he had lived near a pig farm, I am sure he would support increasing the funding.

I sometimes must drive from Southern California to Northern California on Interstate 5. In Central California along the east side of the freeway is a cattle feedlot. The animals are packed tightly and the odor is terrible. Rolling up the car windows and closing the air conditioning vents is insufficient to keep the odor out. All one can do is speed up and hold one's breath. I cannot hold my breath for the five minutes required to escape the odor entirely.

Book Report: "Working Class New York," by Joshua Freeman

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:59:57 EST

The narrative in "Working Class New York," grows less interesting along with the declining labor movement it chronicles.

That's no criticism. After all, Joshua Freeman did not write a novel, rather penned an important nonfiction and academic effort that tells the story of New York through its workers.

"Working Class New York," is wonderfully done and demonstrative, at every turn, with the author's passion for his subject.

But, for labor enthusiasts, the end can't match the beginning for excitement.

In the early chapters, the poesy of labor reigns as the Hatters, Printers, Furriers, Elevator Operators, Milliners, Bakers and Tugboat workers, representing a rainbow of crafts and productive industries, bring the world's mightiest city to a halt through mass strikes driven by the underlining goal of reorganizing society itself.

Freeman's analysis of New York's economic structure, and how it created a textured union movement unequaled in the rest of the country, is fascinating and as much a love letter to the unions as to Gotham itself.

Indeed, the author frequently asserts that the city's best face was the lined countenance of the laborer or craftsperson enlightened by their recognition of a shared destiny, on the shop floor and front stoop, with similarly situated souls.

"Working Class New York," meticulously follows the labor movement's progress and retrenchments, starting with its halcyon days in the post-war 1940s.

It makes no bones about the powerful impetus communist politics played, and the subsequent loss of energy that coincided with the reds being chased out of American labor.

Freeman illustrates how the union movement reflected changes in the city as it lost manufacturing jobs and embraced the financial and service-based industries.

His mapping of municipal unionism's rise has less of a workerist flavor and more of what the departed Allan Bloom called the "Nitzscheanization of the left," as ethnicity and cultural issues consumed unions' internal power struggles and drove their industrial strategies.

And the book details how the decline of labor in New York reflected its nationwide losses as the country grew more individualistic and market-oriented in the 1970s and '80s.

Freeman's chapter on how financial types used The Big Apple's fiscal crisis in the late 1970s to undermine and rollback the unions' hard-earned, and unique urban social democracy, is must-read for anyone interested in those dynamics affecting the American workplace for nigh on a generation now.

Take back the country

Walt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:18:33 EST

Barack's critics are saying that they will take back the country in 2010. I am starting to hear this at work and in the media. We will hear it much more next year. I intend to challenge each and every occurrence of that claim with two questions. From whom are you going to take the country back from? What is your agenda for the country if you succeed? We don't want a return to the Bush years and the BushMess.

Inalienable rights

Walt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:16:45 EST

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Author Thomas Jefferson. These words are part of the Declaration of Independence. Instead of shouting at town halls and waving this document in the air, I suggest that the protesters read what they have in their hands.

The inalienable rights are given by the Creator to all men/women, not just American men/women. Inalienable means cannot be taken away, not that aliens do not possess these rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Don't Pull The Trigger

JD from Seal Beach, CA — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:40:42 EST

To trigger or not to trigger.

The trigger option for public healthcare insurance is raising its ugly head once again. It is being touted as “the” compromise between the two sides of the democratic caucus. There are some fundamental points that need to be considered when discussing the “trigger”.

First, the idea for the trigger assumes that the status quo is acceptable and that the trigger will only be used if things get worse. The status quo is NOT acceptable. It’s like saying that you will call the fire department if things get worse when your house is burning down.

The House and Senate bills go into effect in 2013 or 2014 and the trigger will delay beyond that any remedy to the current broken system. What do you say to the person who can’t qualify or can’t afford health insurance now?

Quoting Senator Chuck Schumer, "Any reasonable criteria for triggering a public plan has already been met."

Second, triggers don’t work. What most don’t realize is that there is a trigger built into Medicare Part D that allows the government to negotiate lower prescription prices if the costs balloon out of proportion to other costs. Even though drug prices under the program have skyrocketed, with Medicare Part D paying on average 30% more for drugs than regular Medicaid and costing taxpayers over $60 billion extra over 10 years, the trigger has never been triggered.

Let’s be clear. This strategy to make the public option more palatable to blue-dog democrats is nothing more than a sham. To quote Jason Rosenbaum from HCAN:

“The trigger amendment isn’t a fig leaf. It isn’t even a co-op. It’s a plan to kill the public health insurance option outright, and give taxpayer money straight to private insurance companies.”

We must continue to remind our Senators and Representatives that health care insurance reform must be meaningful. And triggers are not acceptable. We have come this far in our fight to get the public option into the final bill.

Let’s not give up now.

Jerry Brown Does Sunset Blvd.

Stephen Siciliano — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:14:32 EST

California Attorney General Jerry Brown's Nov. 19 appearance at XIV on Sunset Blvd., was proof there is such a thing as being young at heart.

The former-governor-running-to-be-governor was in good form, voluble, humorous, and purposeful.

By way of confession, highwayscribery attended the event, sponsored by Generation for Change, with little enthusiasm for the budding Brown candidacy.

Covering the attorney general as a real-life reporter at press conferences, the highway scribe's alter-ego and rainmaker was left with an impression that, at 71-years-old, Brown had lost a step and gone mushy in his gray matter.

And besides, maybe it's time for some others to try. Politics these days, at least Democratic Party politics, have a transformational tinge that was reflected in the event itself.

Generation for Change, after all, grew out of Generation Obama Los Angeles following the president's triumph last November.

It is headed-up by two political operatives - Justyn Winner and Haroom "Boom" Saleem, still young enough to actually believe in all the Obama-inspired Hopela and energetic enough to convene a cabal of handsome, well-dressed, young professionals comfortable in venues like XIV (by Michael Mina) who, prior to last year' campaign were hardly worthy of political consideration.

And the kids are learning the hard way. Saleem noted that last year's ardor for change has given way to this years sense of disappointment.

Patience, grasshopper, patience.

For his part, Brown has always been more of a visionary type. His turns as secretary of state, Oakland mayor, and attorney general, while positive contributions, do not bring out the quest-like qualities in him that running for president and governor do.

For Brown wants to lead in big, system-changing ways and Generation for Change, thinks he has the stuff, and has come out early for him.

The ambience of confident cool hardly intimidated Brown who grabbed the microphone, and persuaded the crowd to separate itself so that everyone could see him.

He did not, Brown said, work from prepared speeches, "because they're boring. If you have something to say you should be able to say it without looking at some notes."

Freed from the tyranny of text on paper, Brown rambled on in an organized fashion only someone of his unique cast can.

He pulled the crowd, separated from him by decades of life lived, closer, talking about the nonpolitical part of his personal journey: "I've lived in Mexico and different countries of South America, I took Linda Ronstadt to Africa. I went to Japan and meditated for six months; not on the achievements of my life, but on the essential emptiness of it. And you're not going to find a lot of politicians who will do that."

Working the crowd afterward, Brown may have learned how few knew who Linda Ronstadt is (was?), but he's just getting going at this point, and that gap could link his living legend to a time when California was truly a Golden State.

The day's backdrop was a University of California Regents meeting two miles away at UCLA. There, student demonstrators clashed with police while inside "the board" jacked-up their tuition 32 percent.

The campus was crammed with so many police it begged the question of whether cutting the force's size might improve the tuition picture. The university's shock troops, with the help of California Highways Patrol(ers) handled the students' in a typically over-the-top fashion: rude, violent, disdainful of the fact universities exist for the kids.

It was tense, and unpleasant, and sad for those who remember the state's halcyon days.

Things clearly need fixing and if Brown's audience represented a generation of "change," he suggested they had much in common since he's been accused by political enemies of changing all his life.

"And it's true. But I'm not ashamed of that," he said, "because if you're alive, and your mind is open, than you have to change."

They ate it up without fully understanding how true the claims were. Brown's politics have always invited intense debate. However, the inherent truth of his commitment, his advocacy, and his willingness to go a new way are agreed upon by friend and foe alike.

Perhaps the crowd sensed it.

The quintessentially Irish-looking pol enumerated the many offices he has run for successfully and not so successfully.

"Many of the people I ran against are dead," said Brown, hinting of his hand in their demise, "because I'm a stressful person, and some of these other people in this campaign for governor are going to find out the same thing."

And them's fightin' words of which the impromptu address contained more; perhaps a tip-off to the approach Brown may take in the campaign, running on his experience rather than away from it.

Brown said the country had been, 30 or 40 years ago, a productive one that lost its edge and then continually borrowed to maintain privileges no longer earned the old-fashioned way.

He did not, of course, use the words "old" or "fashioned."

Brown conducted a brief analysis of the financial "leveraging" that brought the state and country to its knees, and referred to the resulting fiscal crisis as "the greatest case of grand larceny in American history."

Applause again.

The country's political system is, Brown observed, "in an advanced state of decay." He lamented the "wall of resistance" President Obama has run into at the hands of Republicans in Washington D.C. and said it was a symptom of that decay.

The attorney general did not run away from Obama, rather suggested the president was a kindred spirit who could use some help with the heavy lifting out on the Left Coast.

He wove is merry way through about a 20-minute discourse, jumping from subject to subject, free-associating, joking, and holding the group's attention through the background chatter of the adjacent restaurant, and clatter of pots in the close-by kitchen.

California's budget deficit, large as it is, amounts to only 1 percent of its annual gross product and is fixable, said Brown.

He is, naturally, the person to do it. "These other people running don't know how tough it is to run the state. I've worked in it my whole life. I do."

For political junkies, the evening on Sunset offered a good sampling of what Brown is testing in the campaign's early phases.

His effort at tapping into the energy of a generation that knows little of him, but offers some of our best prospects, demonstrated the flexibility he claims to possess in real time.

More than anything, it was a tip of the hat to the hoary old notion that youth must be served...

...in very good restaurants.

On Obstruction

Stephen Siciliano — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:30:52 EST

Saturday's Senate debate has as much to do with Republican obstruction as it does with health care.

The Republican strategy of arresting any progress on the country's problems, of suppressing the will of voters who elected President Barack Obama and a attendant Democratic congressional majority, has begun to garner attention.

Which is why this post will be written more by other writers than the highway scribe, whose intention is to extend their reach and blow off a little steam at the same time.

Like Social Security, the weekend, paid vacations, and health care reform, the first volley came from the far left of the American spectrum in the form of a Nov. 11 "Washington Post," piece by Harold Meyerson.

In the "Do-nothing Senate" the one-time "L.A. Weekly" essayist referred to that body as "dithering heights."

That's pretty good and demonstrates how you need a sense of humor to make your ideology go down a little easier.

Meyerson noted that a few weeks ago, the Republicans thrice filibustered a measure to extend unemployment insurance. Once they relented, the measure passed 98-0.

"Just flexing their muscles, mind you," he wrote. "Establishing a new normal. If we have anything to do with it, nothing moves."

Indeed.

The filibuster, as we know only too well now, is an endless stream of B.S. meant to bury a bill under the Senate's terms of unlimited debate. It was not always thus. At the beginning, under rules drafted by none other than Thomas Jefferson, a senator was allowed to "move the previous question" and end floor discussion.

But Aaron Burr, the guy who shot Alexander Hamilton and came to personify American infamy (except for Gore Vidal), got that rule stricken and the filibuster was born. Its use was nil at first, but grew over the years.

During the Bush II debacle, Democrats used it with greater frequency, but typically infuriated their radicalized supporters with an urge to cooperate and get things done.

Under Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell (pictured), the thing has taken on a life of its own, since voters so reduced his caucus that filibusters are all he can use for leverage.

And use it McConnell has.

As Meyerson pointed out, "Unless you can get a 60-vote majority to end debate, all major bills (and some minor ones) are dead in the water."

He left out political and judicial choices, but on Nov 16, Michael Savage of the "Los Angeles Times," picked up on the meme, detailing a disparity in the judicial appointments made by his predecessor over the same time-period Obama has been in office.

"So far," Savage wrote, "only six of Obama's nominees to the lower federal courts have won approval. By comparison, President George W. Bush had 28 judges confirmed in his first year in office, even though Democrats held a narrow majority for much of the year."

The point being Democrats recognize the president's prerogatives, even when he garners less votes than his opponent and the Supreme Court shuts down a recount in a state governed by his brother (making him president).

On Nov. 17, one day later, the "New York Times" joined the chorus in an editorial generically entitled, "Obama's Judicial Nominations."

While noting the president has been tentative, the anonymous editorialist observed that Senate Republicans bear the blame on the confirmation side by, "doing their best to drag things out."

On Tuesday, a crack in the armor appeared over Obama's nomination of Judge David Hamilton to the U.S. Seventh District Court of Appeals.

The gentleman, who hails from a paternal line of Methodist ministers and enjoys the support of home-state Republican Senator Richard Lugar, apparently ran afoul of "conservative activists," because he worked for the American Civil Liberties Union before joining the bench.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) demurred in respecting the president's choice, saying "a common DNA" ran through Obama appointees in the form of an "ACLU chromosome."

And they say Republicans are "anti-science."

They tried to filibuster the nomination and, in the words of the "Washington Post's"Dana Milbank, got "Filibusted."

Which is pretty good, too.

His piece does a great job of detailing the suddenly changed views of Republicans who, just a few years ago, likened Democratic filibusters to obstruction.

By November 19, the big boys were taking a wider view of the filibuster phenomenon.

"The Washington Post's" E.J. Dionne came out with the "The GOP's no-exit strategy," which warned that it is "time to start paying attention to how Republicans, with Machievellian brilliance, have hit upon what might be called the Beltway-at-Rush-Hour Strategy, aimed at snarling legislative traffic to a standstill so Democrats have no hope of reaching the next exit."

On November 22, "The Post's" Fred Hiatt got into the act, further fleshing out the ramifications of what the "New York Times'" Charles Blow referred to as "the Republican's surprisingly effective obstructionist strategy."

Hiatt noted that, "more than a year after his electoral triumph, President Obama has filled only 55 percent of Senate-confirmed slots in his government. He has nominated few judges, won confirmation for fewer. The principal item on the agenda of the unions that went all in for him, labor law reform, is on hold. Almost everyone agrees that America's immigration laws are broken, yet no fix is in sight. Long after the collapse of our financial system, new systems of regulation have yet to emerge. There is no discernible trade policy."

Hiatt's point of departure was what all this looks like to friend and foe alike overseas. And what it looks like is that American democracy is in paralysis.

The Republicans, the party of flag-wrapped patriots, care a lot about America's image, but not so much as they do about regaining power. And they show no shame in their effort to do it.

For example, in "Help in Battling the Big Boys," highwayscribery lauded the efforts of Democrats, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut in particular, for proposed legislation that would prevent credit card companies from imposing the arbitrary interest rates and fee increases they're dumping on customers before the new law capping such things takes effect.

But in "A Gift to Credit Card Companies," the "New York Times" reported that Sen. Thad Cochran of (R-Miss.), blocked a vote on the bill, "in yet another act of obeisance by Senate Republicans to the banking and credit card industries."

Thanks Thad.

"The Times" editorial on the judicial nominations noted that, "In March, every Republican senator signed an outrageous letter to the White House warning that they would filibuster any nominee from their home states if they did not approve the choice in advance."

That the Republican caucus is "outrageous," is not the point here. It's that "every" Republican senator signed the piece of trash.

Democrats have never enjoyed such lock-step discipline and as Meyerson and Dionne pointed out, "Blue Dog" or "centrist" or "spineless" Democrats (whatever you want to call them) are playing an important role in all of this.

Dionne said Republican use of the filibuster is making the majority look "foolish, ineffectual and incompetent." Moderate Democrats, by making their own narrow interests paramount on crucial matters like health care reform and climate change, "will only make themselves complicit in this humiliation."

The balky Democratic senators are not only betraying their own party, Myerson wrote, but simultaneously making a mockery of majority rule.

If they are "comfortable with the idea that elections shouldn't have consequences, they should say so publicly. If not, they should let the debate begin."

The word is out. Spread it around. Let's see what happens.

It's the economy

Walt — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:51:05 EST

It's the economy, stupid
Polls from the Right and
Polls from the Left
Polls and more polls everywhere
The only polls that matter
November 2008 and 2010
The media must poll and poll
Or else what is there to discuss?
Forget healthcare reform
Forget Iraq and Afghanistan
It's the economy, stupid
Forget the polls, Mr. President
They do not matter
Barack and we all know
All the nation's problems
Are linked and intertwined
You can't solve one
Without solving another.
It's not just the economy, stupid.

Wishes

Walt — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:28:57 EST

From time to time for fun, I like to pretend that I have a magic power that allows me to grant wishes. I limit each recipient to one wish and state that I will fill the wish if I can, but that I cannot fill all wishes. I listen to my co-workers talking, and if I hear a wish, I try to fill it. One co-worker wished for a pack of gum, and I immediately purchased a pack from a vending machine. She was grateful until she learned that she could have wished for a million dollars instead. She wanted to trade, but no deal. Many people ask for money. I am not rich enough to fill their wishes directly, but I do supply a copy of the book, Automatic Millionaire. That book advocates saving by payroll deduction where the employer matches funds going into a 401K. It takes time and effort, but the saver can accumulate a sizable nest egg. Granting wishes takes thought and some resources but it is very satisfying. Try it, you'll enjoy it.

Barack is called upon from all sides to grant all kinds of wishes, some very contradictory. That is why I limit my recipients to only one wish each. It would be hard to grant two wishes that are directly opposite each other. Barack must deal with citizens who want stimulus for jobs at the same time the deficit is reduced. Logically, deficit reduction comes after job stimulus. Barack has the much tougher job of satisfying so many conflicting demands. I wish him luck for his sake and for ours.

9-11 Trial

Walt — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:57:41 EST

If I lived in New York City, I too would be nervous about the upcoming 9-11 terrorists trial. But then I have been nervous about another al-Qaeda attack since 9-12-01. I live in a small town in Utah and I don't fear an al-Qaeda attack here. I think that they will attack again when they are ready with WMD's. Al-Qaeda has vowed revenge for the Muslims whose death we have caused, at least in their opinion. They blame us for more than 10 million Muslim deaths in Iraq and around the world. Thus I expect that they will attack large population centers to cause the maximum number of deaths. New York would be a target whether the 9-11 trial is held there or not.

Some opponents of the trial say that we will provide the terrorists with a propaganda platform. However, we will be affirming our commitment to justice for all, not justice for all except Muslims. The advantage that the terrorists receive will be more than offset, in my opinion, by our demonstration to the world that we practice what we preach. Hopefully our example will make recruiting for al-Qaeda more difficult.

Letter to Lieberman: America is a Public Option

Stephen Siciliano — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:07:40 EST

Nov. 13, 2009

Senator Joseph Lieberman
706 Hart Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Sir,

Recent news that you planned to support a Republican filibuster if the health care reform bill contained a "public option" was very disconcerting to me.

After all, as a life-long Democrat, I voted for yourself and Vice President Gore in the 2000 election. I remain convinced that it was an election of which you were robbed, setting in motion eight years of environmental degradation, preemptive war, and the abuse of our most cherished values and institutions.

All of which makes your choice of allies in this matter of the public option more perplexing. Their party filed the successful lawsuit to enjoin votes from being counted in Florida and deliver the presidential election to George W. Bush.

Your name was subsequently reduced to use in a trashy sobriquet on placards waved by rabble outside Mr. Gore's residence reading "Sore-Loserman."

I understand you've since endured some rough handling by Democrats over issues related to the Iraq war. All I can say is, you're entitled to your independence so long as you are willing to take the resulting heat.

Ours, since the debacle of Vietnam, has been the party of peace. When you decide upon hewing to a different path, the ensuing battle is of your making and not the Democratic Party's.

And for all that, you caucus with the Democrats through whom you reached your current status. They, in turn, were able to consolidate a filibuster-proof majority with your adherence.

The Republican Party is bent on defeating President Obama at any cost. Siding with them is no way to settle grievances most of us thought were smoothed over when you maintained your chairmanship of a Senate committee in spite of your support for Sen. John McCain in November 2008.

There is an amorality in your pledge to back a filibuster threatened by the party that denied you the vice presidency.

There is, senator, no two-thirds vote requirement for a measure's enactment by the Senate. Bills pass with the majority's blessing. Abuse of the filibuster has created an unfortunate state of affairs and gummed-up the nation's business, while giving a rump and regional party greater leverage than its reduced voting base warrants.

Your support of the filibuster on a matter of national importance, not parochial concern, diminishes the traditions of an institution to which you have dedicated a goodly portion of your efforts as public servant - the United States Senate.

As for the public option, the respected magazine "Miller-McCune" reports that only 10 percent of Americans could utilize the feature as presently constituted in the proposed legislation.

I'd be one of them, senator, and resent your single-handed efforts to deny me the opportunity to gain a modicum of health and economic security, through a parliamentary maneuver.

If you want to oppose reform through your vote in the Senate, that's your business, although I would disagree with that act. However, supporting a filibuster that prevents health care reform from reaching the Senate floor would be a move both anti-democratic and not unlike the lawsuit that kept Florida from doing a proper ballot count in 2000.

An issue such as reform deserves a full airing in the nation's representative bodies, not some cheap, short-circuit shutdown.

I understand that Connecticut, your home state, has a high concentration of insurance companies and your are bound, in part, to represent their interests. But as the same article noted, by 2019, 168 million Americans will likely receive coverage through their employer, "no differently than they do today."

By supporting the likes of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C), you're throwing in with their Tea Partiers' interpretation that the public option represents some government takeover of health care.

It's not, because I prefer such a takeover and know it cannot be found in the the legislation.

These insurance companies are not to my, or many other Americans', liking senator. They gouge their customers and then stick them with the burden of pursuing reimbursements for treatments duly paid for through their premiums. They are an important reason the clamor for reform has accumulated lo these many decades.

Nonetheless, your colleague Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has noted that, "The bottom line is that the public option can't really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market because private insurance companies aren't going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can't take their business elsewhere."

Finally, as a policy matter, I'm advocating for the option because over the years the public space in our country has diminished and with it, our sense of engagement with one another.

America cannot prosper as a country of infinite privacies where people cultivate "My Music" and "My Videos" folders on their personal computers while walking the streets with earphones cutting them off from any awareness of the "us" and "ours" all around them.

There must be a commons, a public place and space, a civic way of being through which Americans can venture out from their gated communities and locked doors to meet and share in the life of this country. Otherwise what is the country?

The idea of America itself is a public option.

Regards,
the highway scribe

Help In Battling the Big Boys

Stephen Siciliano — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:21:29 EST

Life's not easy when it is spent jousting with the Internal Revenue Service, Bank of America, and Anthem/Blue Cross.

As it is for many of you, it is thus for the highway scribe. The American struggle is a lonely one. It is a gauntlet run without the assistance of potent unions, affordable legal help, merciful tax rules, or simple health insurance policies.

For decades, policy has exalted the myth of our rugged individualism to the point where we have been left alone to tilt at behemoths against which we are no match.

Today, via the wonder of Web banking, Bank of America helped itself to $8.95 of the highway scribe's money for services that can only be guessed at. And that's because any time the scribe actually needs something from the bank, he gets nailed with a fee.

The relationship is simple wherein the bank serves as a brief holder and dispenser of the scribe's money while checks are deposited and quickly gobbled up by expenses associated with his humble existence. It's a pretty clean collaboration, which is why the free price originally offered for the account made sense.

One day, without any notice, the price went up to $5.95. highwayscribery called to find out what was up with that and got the stock response that such increases were included in the long, illegible text of a document he signed agreeing to a free checking account.

Which is not news to any of you.

Then, sometime after the Obama administration came into power, banks found themselves in the extremely rare position of having customer gripes funneled back at them through the White House.

In "Change New World," we expressed our initial shock at having the government do our bidding.

In "Credit Card Crookery" and "Credit Card Redux," this unique pleasure was extended, in particular, to the financial industry, which had it coming.

Of course, these companies didn't get richer than the rest of us by being stupider. Soon came their response to new rules reining in the parasitical abuses.

These involved arbitrary increases to most everyone's interest rates and general account fees. The companies also kept their promise on sticking it to credit cardholders who were on the up and up all these years.

That's around the time the aforementioned bump to $8.95 on the scribe's free checking account occurred. Bank of America stretched the terms of our original agreement by $107.40 per annum with nary a "howdy-do!"

Of course, on a sliding scale, a $107 heist is relatively small when compared with what happens when a bank does one the favor of paying a series of five $6 debit charges and then hits you for $35 on each.

Which is to say, the scribe absorbed it figuring nothing in life is truly free. Mired in a 1099 hourly wage reality, the effort in going over to the bank and getting the monthly fee reduced wasn't worth the time... financially speaking.

So it was with great pleasure that highwayscribery, in its ritual perusal of the "New York Times," on Tuesday, Oct. 2, ran into a charming slice of life on page B9 wherein Sen. Chris Dodd (D) of Connecticut was calling for an "interim freeze" on further fee increases of the type just detailed for your reading pleasure.

The author of the piece, Andrew Martin, by the way, does an excellent job on the myriad ways banks and credit card companies screw people. His pieces provide the consolation that you are not alone, and that someone with a decent megaphone is pointing out the abuses of usury to which we numbly submit.

But we digress with much territory to cover.

The article explains that Congress is only too aware of the run-up in fees and rates as banks interpret the interim between when the new law goes into effect, and now, as a window in which it’s okay to loot as many customers as possible.

A bill was recently reported out of the House Financial Services Committee that would close the window more quickly, on Dec. 1, instead of February 22 of next year.

Said Dodd: "At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, jacked-up rates can quickly create crushing debt. People need to be responsible with their money, but they shouldn't be taken to the cleaners by outrageous fees."

What the Connecticut Yankee wants, in reality, is an old-time, 1970s-style price control. highwayscribery and others of his ilk love a good price control. They had fallen very much out of favor during the free market rage, but since that worked out about as well as it did in 1929, the price control may be making a comeback.

A fellow named Talbot from something called the Financial Service Roundtable said Dodd's desire is fired by the false notion that fees and interest rates are going up because of the new law to hold them down (if you follow).

Talbot added that the increases strem from the economy is so bad and people are having such a tough time paying their credit card bills.

But that's why taxpayers gave the big banks and brokerage houses those big bucks bailouts, so it won't wash. And thank heavens the Democrats are in power because we'd never have gotten this kind of love from the Tea Party Party.

Not to suggest the Dems are somehow holy and sacrosanct when it comes to protecting the naked consumer. They sat around for years bending to the will of marketeers and cultivated a lot of our current-day problems during the disappointing days of President Bill Clinton.

And that's because they're not as good as Republicans when it comes to loving their base.

GOPers can rush into a hotly contested New York congressional race and back the Conservative Party candidate (against their own!) without fear of...well, fear of anything.

National Democratic leaders jumping into a local race to back a socialist candidate, on principle, would result in their being sent straight to hell, or jail or worse. So they tend to take their left-wingers for granted because they have nowhere else to go.

Then they sit around waiting for independents and Olympia Snow (R-Maine) to give them cover.

Even as they have benefited from the change in our political landscape, Democrats have been slow to truly internalize it, which is why the public option was dead a month ago and now it’s not.

We've had 11 months of the Obama administration, but are into about the third year of the Obama era during which conventional wisepersons have seen their predictions upended again and again.

And so it goes with the public option. In his most recent column, David Broder wrote that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) finally decided upon the public option to satisfy the "labor-left" of his party. That's the highway scribe, who will avail himself of the benefit as soon as it becomes available.

But it's also a lot of other people, not necessarily for unions or anything else "left," but affordable health care.

Broder, like many in his field, think the Obama election happened in some weird vacuum that represented no shift in Americans' political thinking.

Reid thought that, too, and so did a lot of other people in Congress until the President did some decent explaining, the debate groaned on, and the public option concept grew clearer to the electorate.

The numbers don't lie. Reid can interpret them and feels safe in putting the idea forward.

But he needs some help, because oft-times, the peoples' will is thwarted.

Here's a petition asking Democratic leaders to strip any Senator supporting Republican filibuster efforts of their chairmanship.

highwayscribery calls it the "Lieberman Petition."

Here's Reid's petition asking you to help him out on the public option.

Here's former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, Robert Reich asking you, via video, to call your representatives on behalf of the public option.

Now, don't you feel better?

The "Times" ran an article on "Senate naysayer," John Cornyn (R-Okla.) who is hell-bent on stopping health care reform, because of the "financial ruin" it represents.

The article says he has a big "No," sign behind his desk in the Hart Senate Building of which he is very proud. The reason why is a secret of Cornyn's own keeping, but highwayscribery is willing to bet his tightwad ways don't extend to arms purchases and war packages.

And we're betting a yahoo like Cornyn, effective as he may be in gumming up the legislative works, won't be able to stop this thing coming down the pike.

Once achieved, health care reform is going to make life with or without Anthem/BlueCross a lot easier for a lot of people.

All of which, dare we way, represents something of a pending victory for President Obama whose Paul Krugman noted, "The seemingly impossible dream of fundamental health care reform is just a few steps away from becoming reality, and each player has to decide whether he or she is going to help it across the finish line or stand in its way."

Wow.

Which brings us to that final phantom, the IRS.

If you follow American politics very closely, you might come away with an impression that President Obama is not faring well. That people like him, but not his policies. That Republicans are poised for a comeback. You might have been caught off guard by news that he'd won the Nobel Peace Prize and swayed by those who say he has accomplished naught to deserve it.

In an Op-ed piece penned by U2's Bono in the "New York Times" a short while back, the singer attempted to explain why Obama is beloved in Europe, where they lack an entire network dedicated to the daily trashing of his reputation.

Among these virtues are Obama’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals of halving world poverty by 2015. Obama, Bono notes, was not around when the goals were set, “but he’s there now. Indeed he’s gone further -- all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.”

Such policies, wrote Bono, “are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity, if the words signal action.”

This does not mean the specter of the Internal Revenue Service and the crushing penalties it has visited upon the scribe's family will suddenly evaporate. Even Obama can't do that.

But, we hope, it means that WHAT we give to the government will be spent less on institutionalized violence and more on the promotion of peace, human harmony, and the vision of our better angels abroad.

And that's change you can bank on.

Only the Super-Rich

Walt — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:30:49 EDT

Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! by Ralph Nader, 733 pages is a fast reading fable about what is wrong in the US and how with leadership and donations from billionaires we can right the wrongs. Nader gives names to the good guys and slightly disguised names to the bad guys. I found the inside details on the working of Wal-Mart and Congress the most interesting parts of the book. Whether you like Ralph Nader or not, he has done a lot of good for the country. In this book, he reveals knowledge that he has accumulated over a lifetime fighting for the average citizen.

Some critics of Barack want the US to be the tough kid on the block in defense matters. This is Nader's response: "Asserting moral courage is being tough. Waging peace is tough. Standing up to arrogant power is being tough. And until we have the deeply just society our people deserve, doing the right thing even it costs us in the short run is being tough."

Nader also relates Lincoln's style on campaigning before there was mass media in 1840. Lincoln advocated dividing the voters into three categories: those who are with you from the get-go, those who are susceptible to persuasion, and those who are against you from the get-go. Then he guided his followers through the step-by-step process-- or more accurately the doorstep-by-doorstep process--of meeting with every voter except the opposition hardliners. Worked for Lincoln. Let's give it a go in 2010.

He also quoted Judge Learned Hand, "If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shall not ration justice." Nader contends..." that it is democracy, justice, and the rule of law that make capitalism produce a better material life for more people, not capitalism in itself.'

I am giving my copy of this book to my son. I have purchased two additional copies of the book which I will send free of charge to the first two people who respond to this message. I wish that I could give away more than two copies. Please send an email to me at walthe@aol.com and put "Nader book" in the subject line. I will send a book to each of the first two responders.

Debtors prison

Walt — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:19:20 EDT

In England in Charles Dickens's day, people who could not pay their bills went to prison. They stayed until they raised the money to get out, either by selling property, inheritance or through the efforts of friends and relatives. Prison furnished very little and prisoners were required to pay for any extras like clothing, more food or a better cell location.

Now we don't use debtors prisons; our debtors are allowed to roam the country so that they can work to repay their debt. As an experiment, I suggest that you add up all the interest that you pay per month including mortgage interest. You'll be surprised at the total; I was. Mortgage interest is deductible on your income tax, a subsidy to the home buyer, but also to the lender who can thus charge more, Lenders don't really provide much of a service for the exorbitant amounts they charge, If too big to fail, the risk is minimal. And it is our money they are lending, not theirs. For more on this I suggest a nearly century old classic, Other People's Money by Louis Brandeis. A slender book as true now as it was when it was written.

In Dickens's day before TV, people used to visit debtors prisons and insane asylums for entertainment. Now we can be entertained without leaving home by watching home videos of people falling down. A small improvement. Instead of finding other's problems entertaining, we should be doing all that we can to help solve their problems. With the debt problem, that means insisting on lower bank fees and interest rates.

Bankers

Walt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:23:19 EDT

Those of their ilk
Are quick to complain
Used to silk and more silk
Sackcloth is too plain
Downing straight milk
They are in ulcerative pain
The taxpayer they bilk
TARP is their gain.
Not ours, the taxpayer
Whose money it is.
Too big to fail
Too small to take less
Golden parachutes follow
Salaries and bonuses
Out of sight, but
Not out of our minds
Their greed will not
Be allowed to continue
A 90% cut is just the beginning.

Fox

Walt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:58:23 EDT

Under the first amendment, Fox has the right to criticize the President. Under the first amendment, the White House has the right to criticize Fox.

George W. Bush's first press secretary was Ari Fleischer, who called reporters whose stories the White House did not like. Reportedly he threatened some with loss of access to White House sources in the future. If you are a White House reporter and cannot get access, you could very well lose your job. In my opinion, Fleischer's threats crossed the line. Can anyone truly say that the actions of the Obama White House have crossed a line?

Iran

Walt — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:42:41 EDT

In a recent post, I predicted that Iran would be an ally on the war on terror. I want to explain my thinking. Before the 1979 revolution, the US supported the Shah with weapons sales so that Iran would have a big stick to police that part of the world. The US had installed the Shah in power and he had ruled with an iron fist through his secret police, SAVAK. Their abuses probably exceeded ours at Abu Graib. Our interference in Iranian affairs made many Iranians anti-American and goes a long way toward explaining their current attitude to the US.

Our current allies in the West are doing little in the war on terror and in Afghanistan and want to do less. Our allies in the Muslim world do little to help and some sectors of their societies are actually helping the other side. Saudis are funding madrassas, schools, in Pakistan that produce Taliban recruits and probably recruits for al-Qaeda too. The Pakistan intelligence service, ISI, has been an active supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now that support has boomeranged with Taliban attacks in Pakistan. I do no know if ISI support for the Taliban continues at this date.

We in the West who are not Muslim are infidels to be converted to Islam. Shiitie Muslims in the Middle East are considered by most Sunni Muslims to be heretics to be put to death. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, That puts the Muslim Shiites and the majority of the West on the same side. I do not expect Iran to send troops to Afghanistan or Pakistan. I do expect that Iran will desire peaceful borders with Iraq, Aghanistan and Pakistan. Iran has a larger population than any of its neighbors, save Pakistan. Iran has a big stake in settling the wars in their neighborhood.

If we reduce our dependence on Saudi oil, the Saudis will not be able to take our support and protection for granted. Our friendship with Iran will put pressure on Saudi Arabia to modernize their society, reduce corruption and reduce funding for the madrassas in Pakistan if they desire our continued friendship.

Marxist

Walt — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 10:07:00 EDT

I ran into a new charge against Barack recently. that he is a Marxist. It looked like a laundry list of guilt by association. I was instructed by the author to read Marx and at this time I do not have the time. Can any reader of this blog respond by posting a comment that the rest of us can use to respond to this charge? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Student debt

Walt — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:03:30 EDT

A college degree used to be a sure ticket of admission to a middle class life style. No more. With the rising cost of college and the accelerating disappearance of good paying jobs, exacerbated by the Great Recession, new grads are finding it very difficult to find jobs that will allow them to begin paying back the loans that got them through school. Many are forced to live at home with their parents as they postpone starting a life of their own.

Adding to the downward pressure on wages is the insistence of business to import temporary workers to fill jobs that Americans would fill but at a higher wage. A recent online study shows that IT workers, such as computer programmers and software engineers earn about 6% less than they would without the competition of H-1B visa workers. The undocumented and those with green cards or H-1B visas hold down wages for all of us.

When supply and demand are equal, the price set by their intersection is called the market clearing pricer since enough is supplied to meet demand with no overage. Business wants no government interference in setting the market clearing price since a price too low would lead to shortages and less profit on items they sell. However, when it comes to their purchases, business is happy with a price below the market clearing price since it reduces their costs and increases profits.

Let's assume no H-1B visas are issued. Jobs would be filled with American workers and wages would rise if some jobs are not filled. That would create an incentive for Americans to train themselves in the skills needed to fill what are now better paying jobs. It might take some time, but eventually, the supply of job applicants would increase to meet demand and a market clearing wage would be established at the higher level.

Predictions

Walt — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:29:26 EDT

Today Barack has been in office for nine months and one day. His critics are saying that he should take full responsibility for the mess Bush left behind and stop blaming his predecessor. George W. Bush inherited a nation mainly at peace and a budget surplus. He left office with the nation at war and deeply in debt. During his eight years in office, he never fully accepted responsibility, continuing to imply that Bill Clinton was at fault for 9-11.

I predict that Barack will take full responsibility soon for the state of the economy and for our relations with the rest of the world, both peaceful and not. Barack is a man of high moral courage who will demonstrate progress both here and abroad before the elections of November, 2010. I predict that Barack will outsmart Osama bin Laden. That is something that George W. Bush was never able to accomplish, preferring force to strategy. I can make these predictions because of my high level of confidence in Barack Obama and his advisers.

At this time, I want to make another prediction that I am not as confident about. If you look at a map of the area, you see how central Iran is to wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I predict that Iran will be an ally, perhaps our most valuable ally in our effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, both Sunni organizations. Iran is a Shiite country with regional aspirations. If we do not attack Iran, I believe that Iran will be willing to help us, not tomorrow perhaps, but soon.

Death

Walt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:05:50 EDT

These numbers are approximate.

43,000 died in traffic accidents in 2008.
30,000 die each year from gun shot wounds
45,000 die each year from lack of health insurance

That is a total of 118,000 US citizens dying each year needlessly. What are you going to do about it? Probably nothing unless a friend or loved one falls into one of those three groups and then it will be too late. How many of us are among the walking wounded bearing physical or emotional scars from contact with the results of the above three sources of death?

The NTSA and others have worked for years to reduce traffic fatalities. Now it's the turn of lack of health insurance to receive attention. In a few days or weeks, the US Congress will decide the fate of health care reform. In the immortal words of George W. Bush, " You're either with us or against us." If you are a member of Congress and you don't support health care reform, please get out of the way. If you support health care reform, now is the time to be vocal about it. The opportunity for real reform is a very rare occurrence.

Truth/fiction

Walt — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:46:24 EDT

One person's truth is another person's fiction. How can we tell which is which? I suggest a trusted authority as a starting point. Then if the point in dispute is important to you, read at least two books by other authors, one on each side of the argument. Do online research and discuss it with friends and co-workers. Then make up your own mind, but be alert for additional facts which may cause you to change your mind later. A mind that cannot or will not change is a sign of advanced age, not advanced wisdom.

Patrick Henry Caucus part 3

Walt — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:59:31 EDT

The Patrick Henry Caucus held a rally here in St. George on Saturday October 17. The rally started at 4pm under cloudless skies at Worthen park with a temperature in the low 90's. Entertainment was provided by a band and two vocalists who performed their We Are the People, which was available there on CD for a donation to the cause. The founder of the Caucus, Carl Wimmer, first spoke at 419pm when he introduced the giver of the invocation and then again at 426pm when he led the pledge of allegiance. Next he introduced his mentor, state senator Margaret Dayton, who spoke at length about several proposed laws for 2010 in the Utah legislature.

It was hot in the sun and at one point Carl and I were supporting the same tree as we sought its shade. Carl held up one side of the tree while I supported it from the other. When we left the shade, the tree was able to stand on its own. When I left the park and the rally, Carl was asking for donations to create a web site that would allow members of the Patrick Henry Caucus to talk to each other and to their elected legislators. We already have a site for the state at www.le.state.ut.us and the federal government at www.usa.gov I don't quite understand the need for another site. The easiest way to find someone is to do a search at www.google.com Another site will not guarantee its use by our elected officials. I email Orrin Hatch often and he always responds by letter delivered days or weeks later by the US Postal Service. I can predict his reply; he always disagrees with my ideas. Why do I bother to write? I want him to know that his constituents have a variety of views.

The local newspaper estimated the audience that day at 125 people. I think that is a bit generous but I will not disagree. Most of the audience were senior citizens. The children there were bored. Young adults attending were a distinct minority. I saw no other minorities in attendance. I will not venture a prediction about the future of the Patrick Henry Caucus although I understand that this rally drew less than half the attendance of a prior one.

The organizers of the event were wearing name badges that sometimes listed their professions. One young adult's badge stated constitutional lawyer. Here in St. George? I wondered about that. Perhaps he teaches or perhaps he traveled to St. George from Salt Lake City. In any case, I place my faith in Barack, a constitutional lawyer that we elected President.

Patrick Henry Caucus part 2

Walt — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:09:28 EDT

Today's local paper gave extensive coverage to a rally yesterday that I attended with about 125 other mostly senior citizens. The Patrick Henry Caucus is all about state's rights and the 10th amendment to the Constitution. I would suggest reading the rest of the document and not just the second and the tenth amendments. For example, under the 14th, all those children of illegal aliens in our schools were probably born here and are therefore US citizens. Most illegals who cross the border northward are smart enough to leave their children at home since the trek north can be very dangerous.

Obamacare

Walt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:34:03 EDT

Yesterday's local paper carried an op-ed piece by Michelle Malkin on Obamacare. I have read the article several times looking for her reasons for opposing healthcare reform, but I can't find any. I can think of only three reasons for opposing healthcare reform, but there may be others. 1, fear of change. 2, don't care about uninsured. 3. cause Obama to fail. I support healthcare reform for 2 reason: the country needs it and Obama cares. My wife has been a nurse for more than 40 years and I have worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years. I know what I am talking about. Too many of Obamacare's critics do not.

Gravity

Walt — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:24:54 EDT

I have osteoporosis and a fear of falling. What may make me fall? Gravity. Therefore I fear gravity; I hate it. What I hate and fear I label socialism. Forget about the fact that gravity helps me walk upright and that it keeps stuff where I put it. I hate and fear it nevertheless. It is SOCIALISM.

Banks

Walt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:29:12 EDT

Yesterday my wife called a local branch of a national bank. While waiting to speak to a real live human, a recording told her that the call might be recorded for training purposes and quality control. She jokingly suggested that she was recording the call as well. Tit for tat. When the real live human finally came on the line, she questioned whether my wife was really recording the conversation. My wife admitted she was not. If she had tried to record the conversation, the bank representative indicated that the call would be immediately terminated. Small thing you say? Yes, but indicative of the non level playing field between the banks and us.

Banks were largely deregulated to foster competition that was supposed to lead to better service and lower prices for consumers. The only result of banks competing is that banks are competing in raising fees and profits so that the larger banks can merge with and swallow smaller banks. Then they are too large to fail and must be bailed out if failure is imminent. We the taxpayers pay if the banks succeed or if they fail. Interest rates used to be regulated. Now the banks can charge whatever they please and change interest rates whenever they please. I consider an interest rate above 10% as usury. Usury is condemned in the Bible and makes getting out of debt very difficult. Consumers should use debt wisely so say the lending institutions. Then why do they make it so easy to borrow and hard to get out of debt?

My wife feels about banks the same way I do about insurance companies. Her solution is for the consumer to boycott the banks until such time as the banks start treating the consumer with respect. Not a bad idea if it were possible. My approach would be through our Congressional representatives. Through deregulation, they got us in this situation, and now it is time for them to get us out.

Congratulations Mr. President?

Stephen Siciliano — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:39:29 EDT

Remember, "Congratulations to my worthy opponent?"

Now, you lose the Olympics, you lose. You win the Nobel Prize for Peace, you lose.

Today's rarified, fast-paced news environment means you can wake up on the West Coast to commentary -- from Glenn Greenwald on the left to the choir of crass on the right -- insulting their own president for winning the Nobel before you can read that he actually won the Nobel.

The "fallout" from an issue for which there should be no fallout, overwhelms the original news itself.

Everybody from Joan Walsh to Joe Gergen get to weigh-in on whether the award was deserved, conveniently shunting aside the group which does painstaking, year-round work to make the designation and, mind you, pony-up the accompanying prize money.

They work in media, you see. Don't think until they interpret it for you.

If any proof were needed (and none was) that nothing President Barack Obama does will ever placate the conservative hate machine, this latest wrinkle (and our marvelous president delivers them quickly) ought to do the trick.

Obama had the chestnuts to speak on behalf of his hometown's bid for the Olympics and the fortitude to take the hit, such as it was. The choir was loud and sour in jeering those efforts.

It was disjointed coming from guys who wear American flag ties and whistle George M. Cohan tunes in the shower.

After all, Hannity and cohorts are always lamenting Obama's failure to highlight "American exceptionalism" in his forays abroad. But what could be more "exceptional" than winning the Nobel Prize for Peace?

In other, smaller, countries, when a native citizen wins such a prize, it is naturally an occasion for universal celebration.

As a matter of fact, in other smaller countries, Obama's winning seems to have ushered in just such an occasion.

Only in his own country, where a television network and millions of dollars in conservative funding have turned the president into a big-eared, socialist, Kenyan-born object of loathing, is the party dampened.

The Nobel gift became a really great chance to criticize.

Once the party of blue-haired dowagers and genteel country clubbers, the current GOPers can't summon up the simple gentleman's grace of wishing one of their own countryman a terse congratulations.

Tell you what, with the kind of noise heard yesterday, highwayscribery will have to reject the Nobel Prize for Literature, when it comes, for his family's sake.

But Obama is made of sterner stuff than highwayscribery. Despite what his detractors say, the President works hard and did not win his prize in a vacuum.

What really galls his enemies is that Obama is what we call "a winner" and no sooner was the grave soil on Chicago's Olympian disappointment settling, when the President had provoked them again by bringing honor to their country.

The brayers might say those of us closer to reality on the political spectrum would have done much the same had George W. Bush won the award.

But he did not, which is the greater message in all of this.

Recovery

Walt — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:07:09 EDT

Wall Street is recovering and since that is in the backyard of so much of the media, they think that the recession is over. On the contrary, outside of New York and Washington DC, the country continues to suffer and additional stimulus will be necessary. Opponents of additional stimulus will point to the deficit. The deficit will only get worse until the Great Recession is over. None of the critics of additional stimulus will be among the unemployed.

Chicago violence

Walt — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:46:33 EDT

Young people are killing young people in Chicago. Would second amendment supporters suggest arming everyone for self defense? When the smoke cleared, the streets would be littered with the dead. As an alternative, should the police shoot to kill? That might reduce the violence temporarily, but is not the solution.

I grew up in Chicago but it is many years since I have been back. When I lived there, Chicago was one of the most segregated cities in the country. I doubt that much has changed. I am now in Utah and Chicago is still many miles away in Illinois, but from here I think I know what the problems are. I cannot offer specific solutions but I do know that a piecemeal approach will not work. The problems that face our youth must be approached simultaneously if there is to be any hope of success.

The problems are: drugs, gangs, broken families, poor schools, guns in the wrong hands, unemployment and lack of opportunity. Why spend the effort to educate yourself if you are denied a chance to advance? Good , rewarding lives as productive members of society require good, well-paying jobs. Political and social leaders must set moral examples. Jails are overcrowded and the courts are too. Justice delayed is justice denied.

John Birch Society

Walt — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:15:37 EDT

I thought that the John Birch Society had died and gone to heaven or to that other place. Instead it is alive and well and dwelling at www.jbs.org . I owe this knowledge to a rambling letter to the editor I saw recently in a local newspaper. I don't advocate joining the Birch Society but I do recommend browsing their site from time to time to see what the other side is saying. As expected, they oppose everything that Barack is trying to do. One individual there is calling for the impeachment of B. Hussein Obama.

Letter to the Honduran Ambassador

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:33:28 EDT

Roberto Flores Bermudez
Honduran Ambassador to the United States
3007 Tilden St., N.W. #4 M
Washington D.C. 20008

Mr. Ambassador,

I'm absolutely sickened by press notices regarding the treatment, not only of anti-government supporters but of those who just happened to be in the way of government troops.

As I just wrote to your counterpart from Guinea, military coups do not work. Either they further enrage popular sentiment, which is always on the side of democracy, or they smother it. The latter instance entails nothing more than a country being occupied by its own army.

Unleashing these ill-prepared, and unscrupulous soldiers on middle-aged women, academics, and any poor soul trying to get home from the market is speaks volumes as to Micheletti Government's ability to lead. This is not leading, this is repression.

Reports of tanks rolling through the poor parts of the country as a way of intimidating President Zelaya's supporters is unconscionable and hints of oligarchic forces seeking to forestall a true democratic process.

If people didn't want Zelaya to run for a third term, they would have voted down the referendum. "Fixing" things with an army that brutalizes them was probably a distant preference for Hondurans of both the left and right.

Shame on the ruling junta.

Regards,
the highway scribe

Letter to the Guinean Ambassador

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:32:10 EDT

Guinean Embassy to the United States
2112 Leroy Place N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008

Dear Sir or Madame,

I want to express my outrage at the behavior of soldiers in your country. We do not hear much of Guinea here in the United States and it is most unfortunate that we should become familiar with your country thanks to the savage acts of men whose charge, one would suppose, is to protect a country's citizens.

These stories and images of women being raped by military forces in the streets of Conakry are abhorrent. President Moussa Dadis Camara's protestations that he could not foresee this bloodbath are unacceptable. Either he controls his army or doesn't. They should all be stripped of their commissions. These are not soldiers, but thugs.

Perhaps I am naive, but there must be a difference between the two types of person.

This is why military coups don't work. Nobody can stand in the way of those with guns if there is no system of civil law to provide prior restraint. I don't see how the trauma and tragedy can ever be revoked, but the current government might do the whole world a favor and step down so that voters might have a chance to replace them with more responsible human beings. And I emphasize "human."

Shame on your government.

Regards,
the highway scribe

Free Elliot Madison

Stephen Siciliano — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:10:25 EDT

Before you get upset about all those Iranian protestors being run through the wringer over there, you might turn your attention to those enduring similar treatment over here.

In "Twitter-Patter Revolutions," highwayscribery drew parallels between what governments do in Iran, and everywhere else, by framing examples of the violent way our own government has treated its dissidents.

highwayscribery reached back to the murder of four students at Kent State University in the 1960s and moved onto some overzealous police enforcement at Democratic and Republican national conventions over the past decade.

Now, we've got a fresh example from the recent G-20 summit and corresponding protests in Pittsburgh.

Similar to the way authorities responded to the Twitter-Patter revolution in Tehran, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents invaded a house in Queens, New York on Oct. 1, and rooted around its entrails for 16 hours.

That's not a misprint: 16 hours.

As part of the FBI effort in overkill, agents arrested a 41-year old social worker named Elliot Madison. It is not clear what Mr. Madison has done other than participated in the coordination of demonstrations around the G-20 confab.

Last we checked, which was just a few minutes ago, that's not a crime, rather a protected civil right.

His attorney, Martin Stolar told "The Times, "There's absolutely nothing that he's done that should subject him to any criminal liability."

highwayscribery agrees.

The article is devoid of evidence this fellow did anything other than occupy an improvised e-communications bureau that helped demonstrators divine the movements of the police details bent knocking the snot out of them.

The attorney said he'll know what the charges are when the affidavit empowering the FBI to disembowel his home is unsealed.

That's another anti-democratic feature of our democracy that drives the highway scribe nuts. The sealed court document. In his real-life job as a reporter, the scribe must comb the PACER system for federal court documents and they are often sealed, which is a way of keeping them from public purview without explanation.

Explanation, we posit here, is the essence of democracy. For a government by and for the people to take an action, it must explain the action to those same people.

The point being we have a ways to go here before pointing the figure at other places.

A criminal complaint against Madison, in Pennsylvania, said he directed, "others, specifically protestors of the G-20 summit, in order to avoid apprehension after a lawful order to disperse."

Of course, whenever a government issues an order to disperse, it's lawful, so Pennsylvania authorities are belaboring a weak point.

Emerson reminds us, "A good man obeys the law not too well," as in a case like this where your constitutional right to assemble for political reasons is questioned by a bunch of meat-headed, truncheon-wielding yo-yos.

Meant-headed, truncheon-wielding yo-yos, by the way, hate the Constitution because of the way it makes a crime out of venting their most basic and savage urges.
So what we're saying here is the same thing we said in "Twitter Patter Revolutions" and "President Obama and The Venice Drum Circle": Countries in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

If you want to argue that there is no moral equivalent between the enforcers in Iran and those in the United States, ask those who have to breathe the spew from their teargas canisters first.

If you think highwayscribery is getting all bent out of shape over something isolated, keep in mind that on the next page, same newspaper spread, it is reported that New York City will blow $24 million -- useful in forestalling foreclosures or paying furloughed teachers -- to install an "electronic bulwark" against "terrorists" in midtown Manhattan.

Hey, we're all against terrorism right? What's the problem with that?

The problem is that "terrorists" are not the only people the forces of order will be using their new electronic toys to watch.

How do you think they found Madison and his protesting friends in Pittsburgh?

And why is highwayscribery taking potshots at the police?

Because highwayscribery wouldn't trust a policeman farther than he could throw one, and because this article, also in next page of "The Times," regarding the impunity with which officers in that once free and anarchic city operate.

Screw 'em. We're with Madison and his ilk.

Let Freedom Ring

Walt — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:07:06 EDT

Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity was published in 2002. This is the first in an occasional series of reviews of the writing of Barack's critics. Sean Hannity is co-host of Hannity and Colmes on Fox. It is not a show I watch regularly but I might give it a sampling now and then. Hannity considers his life a success and he says that if he can do it with hard work, anyone can. Apparently he has been lucky so far but then we'll see if he changes his tune if life deals him a reverse or two.

Hannity is a conservative who believes what he says. Some of his opinions are flat out wrong in my opinion, and he shows that he has given little thought and done little research on some topics that he offers opinions on. Religion plays a big role in his life and his world view. The US is the greatest country and can do no serious wrong. Criticism that could lead to improvement is not welcome. He worries that Congressional hearings into national security could become political circuses. Certainly there is an ample supply of clowns in Washington. Less government is better; least is best. Liberals who disagree with him are against freedom and democracy. We owe it to our children to support a strong military so that no other country or group of countries can challenge US hegemony.

I believe that he subscribes to the conservative ethic that the husband dominated family is the strength of the country. Straying from that model leads to all kinds of evil that weaken the country's morale and morals. The liberal view of the family is a partnership between two adults, usually of differing genders, but not exclusively. The liberal family lives a moral life that is not dictated solely by someone else's interpretation of the Bible. It is possible to live a moral life with a different or no religious belief. That is anathema to the religious Right.

Hannity began his broadcasting career at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says that he offended the powers that be with his conservative views and was asked to move on. I lived in Santa Barbara at that time and I was not aware of his presence. I was also conservative in my earlier years and I was disturbed by the lopsided liberal voting pattern at UCSB. I thought then that the students and other residents of the university community should think for themselves. 90% versus 10% results, to my mind, did not represent independent thought. Thinking for oneself and being willing to accept new evidence are the mark of the truly educated.

Sticks and stones

Walt — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:01:56 EDT

According to some, Barack is a liar, communist, terrorist, socialist and the list goes on. Do we as Barack's supporters respond in kind? I say no. Name calling at this or any level is a waste of time. We should be discussing our differences in an adult fashion with the goal of advancing the nation. We won't do that by the school yard manner of name calling. Neither side can advance its agenda by out shouting or out denouncing the other.

Socialism

Walt — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:26:18 EDT

Socialism is a term used by many today to express their opposition to many different proposals. The favorite term used to be communism but you don't hear that used as much today since the USSR dissolved. Socialism is a word used as though democracy and freedom are opposites. That is not true. Most countries still practicing socialism successfully are democracies with all the freedoms we have, but with a higher level of taxes. Who opposes higher taxes? Those who will have to pay them and those who are fooled into thinking that they will have to pay them.

Let's do away with taxes and government. We want freedom and free market capitalism which are not the same thing. Let's do away with Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits and disaster relief. Make our highways into toll roads. Extend the workday to 12-14 hours each, six days per week. Take children out of our failing schools and let their start earning a living in factories here in the US instead of sending those jobs to South America, Africa or Asia to employ children there. Our children can work just as well as their children. Now that is freedom.

8 months

Walt — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:09:27 EDT

January 20 to September 26, 2009. The Obama presidency is only 8 months and a few days old, but it seems like forever. The Bush administration is a rapidly fading bad dream. If Barack had a honeymoon, it was certainly a short one. All the Republicans can do is make noise and delay, and that they are doing at full volume. Barack continues to make good decisions and great speeches. Soon the 2010 electioneering season will be upon us and it will be another 12 months of the same old right wing noise. The time is going to drag, but we can make use of it to reduce their numbers in Congress. The Republicans are counting on history to increase their numbers in Congress. Let's give them a big surprise.

Graveyard of empires

Walt — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 20:05:56 EDT

Afghanistan is rightly called a graveyard of empires. The natives gave Alexander the Great a hard time when he passed through on his way to India about 2300 years ago. More recently, neither Great Britain nor Russia was able to subdue Afghanistan for long. Now the US is finding how difficult a nut Afghanistan is to crack.

Some say that as the world's only superpower, we have the right and the duty to rule the world. The rest of the world disagrees. Great Britain gave up its empire to preserve its democracy. Russia gave up its empire and never really achieved full democracy. What it did achieve is slowly slipping away. Now it is our turn to choose between empire and democracy and we must make our decision soon. I choose democracy.

Cantor's Song

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:16:55 EDT

Governing Governing and protesting are markedly different activities.

This from a daily newspaper article dated Sept. 22:

"The same actions to confront the same problems are reaping the same results: voluntary activism, heroic public protest, slogans and posters, militant loyalty and the concentration of hopes in the central figure of a leader who has yet to harness a national crisis into a viable alternative political and social organization through which multiple sectors and interests impacted by poor government can fight for more than sound bites and the next congressional elections."

A summation of the populist uprising fomented by Glenn Beck and FOX News?

No, words from the pen of "La Jornada" columnist, Julio Hernandez Lopez on the state of Mexico 's left-wing opposition.

But it crosses that screwy “virtual” border fence to sum up the Republican status quo pretty easily doesn’t it?

In yesterday's "Washington Post," another columnist, Dana Milbank, wrote a piece that might lead one to believe House Republican Whip Eric Cantor has been delving into some of Lopez's writing.

In "The Health-Care War Gets a Little More Civil," Milbank recounts the staid circumstances of a public meeting convened by Cantor on (what else?) health care.

The meeting was conducted under rather strict rules of conduct, that wouldn't be considered so strict had certain people demonstrated an ability to behave like responsible adults during this summer's nefarious health care town halls.

You can read the piece for yourself, but in summation, Cantor, a snarky, perpetual Young Republican, invited a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and the issue, to join him.

The usual cast of crazies who found the town halls such fertile ground for ranting about the president, the color of his skin and socialistic tendencies, materialized anew.

But Cantor informed them, after some predictable early outbursts, that this was not a town hall, rather a "public square" and that, "We are here today to talk about health care."

That was something of a shocking, if passive, admission that those who disrupted the town halls did everything but talk about health care.

The piece chronicles the disappointment of those who came to rumble over the fact that Cantor was more willing to engage those who came to discuss. They were aghast at the collegial treatment, once a hallmark of The Peoples' House, Cantor afforded his opposite number, Rep. Bobby Scott (D).

"I felt like pulling a Joe Wilson," one defrauded attendee told Milbank.

We know.

You have to wonder what Republican internal polls are telling them about the impact the Tea Party and 9-12 crowd's caterwauling has had on party fortunes.

highwayscribery thought he espied the first shoots of this new Republican tone when Newt Gingrich, the original braying backbencher, decided not to join in bashing the president’s school kids speech.

Let’s revisit the Mexico article and highlight the fragment which reads: "...has yet to harness a national crisis into a viable alternative political and social organization through which multiple sectors and interests impacted by poor government can fight..."

Columnists (and bloggers) can get very wordy, but that swatch of text can be reduced to: “Yelling loud is bringing us no closer to governing.”

And as we said in our opener, whether in Mexico or Richmond, Virginia (Cantor's redoubt), screaming, tearing down, and obstructing is something quite different from governing.

Gingrich, who couldn't match Sara Palin in "exciting the base,” had this epiphany and decided to make a run at being a serious, even-tempered alternative, because people don’t like to see their presidents yelling.

Just ask Howard Dean.

Cantor, as potential national leader, apparently came to the same conclusions Gingrich did. And he might have also noted, with his belated town square on the topic, that for all the media clamor about the August troubles, we're still talking health care.

Worse, for he and his party, it’s going to become a law, with all the ensuing ballyhoo and poll bumps one might expect from that miracle. There is a resolve becoming apparent and it has something to do with the guy in the White House.

The lesson here is this: The party with the votes is the party that makes the laws.

Back when highwayscribery was in the opposition he, and those of his political ilk, made a lot of angry charges about George W. Bush. This left us, or the highway scribe at least, watching the town hall ruckus with a sinking sense of (ir)responsibility.

We still feel, naturally, that our caviling about Bush's questionable legitimacy was er, um, more legitimate, because he filed a lawsuit to stop votes from being counted, which made his claims to victory fairly transparent.

And furthermore, Obama won by a landslide, not by electoral votes delivered in a questionable tally by a state his brother (Jeb Obama) governed.

But we rant when we now recognize the corrosive effects of ranting.

For all our efforts to blow holes in the prior administration’s embarrassing run guiding the ship of state, at the end of the day, the Republicans and Bush always beat us because voters had delivered power unto them.

Yes, journalists fanned rumors of moderate Republicans disagreeing with how the (p)resident and Tom Delay were going about crafting some legislative package or other, but the bottom line is that they eventually got in line and passed the bill.

And so will moderate Democrats, because, once Republicans made clear they wanted health care to be Obama’s Waterloo, there was very little value in striking out independent of the president’s wishes.

And, of course, there are conservatives who play politics because they want to legislate and participate in the majestic process by which our system has unfolded over the past 230-odd years.

They, too, were going to have their say. Not at the top of their lungs, but in the hushed tones of the cloakroom and/or country club.

And like Obama, they wisely waited for the blowhards to run out of gas and the value of their shock tactics to wear thin.

Smart Republicans have faced up to the fact that they lost the election and that cooperating with the other guys is the only path to policy input.

The rants are giving way to something like Cantor’s sweet song.

We congratulate the Republican House Whip and welcome him to the real patriots’ debate.

Cross purposes

Walt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:41:56 EDT

The problem, as I see it, is healthcare reform and its opponents are confused by the linking of two systems that are at cross purposes, loggerheads if you will. The purpose of healthcare is a healthy population. The purpose of healthcare insurance if done by a free market, profit making company is to make as much profit as possible. In healthcare, salaries are largely determined by education level. In healthcare insurance, salaries are determined by how much one contributes to the bottom line, net profit. And the CEO is rewarded outlandishly if profits are high and increasing.

Solving this set of cross purposes requires breaking the link between the two systems. In my opinion, a public option leading eventually to Medicare for all is the solution.

Hate crime

Walt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:28:07 EDT

Hate produces hate crimes. I sympathize with Nancy Pelosi when she suggests that the recent upsurge in hateful language reminds her of past events in San Francisco. All who deride others will deny that their words have any influence on those who commit hate crimes, but words have consequences. All who use hateful words and those who do not protest their use bear some responsibility for the actions of those who take hateful actions in response to those words.

Let me cite a personal experience. I began my healthcare career as a nursing assistant first in a nursing home and later in a hospital. While working a hospital shift, one of my assigned patients was a Mexican-American farm worker who was brutally beaten by two young drunken Anglos on New Year's Eve. He had been kicked in the head and could no longer speak or care for himself. In the hospital bed, he was in constant motion and was difficult to care for or keep from accidentally harming himself.

In a long trial, the two attackers were sentenced each to a year in prison for what had been an unprovoked attack, a hate crime that they committed only because they hated Mexican-Americans. The victim's family lost a husband/father/breadwinner while society, that is you and I, had a new responsibility, providing care for the victim and aid to his family.

Seeing the results of a hate crime firsthand is an eye-opening experience. At the time, I was very disappointed at the sentence the two attackers received. One year seemed not enough. I think that the sentence would have been more if they had been sober. Drunk or sober made no difference to their victim. I wanted the attackers trained as nursing assistants so that they could spend the rest of their lives caring for other people disabled by similar hate crimes.

EFCA

Walt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:01:05 EDT

EFCA, the employee free choice act. Some oppose it because it produces unionization in a workplace without an election. That is not democracy say the critics. NONSENSE. In this country, we have free speech but not in the workplace. How can there be democracy in the workplace without free speech? All an election does is allow management to delay an election while it campaigns against a union. Those who support a union too strongly are fired. Others lose interest as the election is delayed. I have witnessed management's actions at first hand, and although mild by some standards, management still danced in the aisles when the union effort failed.

Hope/fear

Walt — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:55:19 EDT

The Democrats are the party of hope. The Republicans are the party of fear. If you have watched any of the Republican members of Congress on TV lately, you have heard them speak about all the things American now fear: higher taxes, the deficit, health care reform, socialism etc. It is easier to make political points using the emotion of fear than it is education on issues to produce hope.

Barack is our educator-in-chief but he cannot do everything or be everywhere no matter this past Sunday. I have a suggestion. Each Obama support group should organize a portion of the membership into truth squads. Each member of the squad can monitor a local newspaper or TV station or program and look for distortions or untruths. A prompt response may prevent further distortions. None of us can do it all against such an organized Republican campaign, which I'll bet is financed by just a few very wealthy individuals. We cannot permit the 2008 election to be nullified by a few wealthy people. Millions of us worked hard to elect Barack and we cast ballots to elect him. Now the opposition is mounting and using fear to defeat his and our agenda.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself and a big money campaign by those out to destroy the Obama presidency.

Heart

Walt — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:43:14 EDT

In a recent post, I said that I support Barack because he tells the truth. I support him also because he has a heart and it is in the right place. Additionally, he is consistent and the only consistency in the Republican opposition is their inconsistency.

Recently a Republican spokesman on TV called for respect for presidential addresses to Congress so that the next Republican president may receive the same treatment. George W. Bush may be the last Republican president if the Republican party continues its present course. The Whig party disappeared to be replaced by the Republican party. At some point in the near future, the Republican party may be supplanted by a new party, perhaps named the Conservative party. Our system functions best when we have two vigorous, responsible parties that both appeal to the moderate center.

Welcome to the Future

Walt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:13:01 EDT

I was eating breakfast at work Sunday before beginning my shift at 7:00 am when a music video by Brad Paisley captured my attention. It featured smiling and attractive children of many races with captions stating their choices for future occupations. The optimism of this video is so uplifting and encouraging that it contrasts greatly with the dissension and anger that so much of TV news presents today.

AFL-CIO

Walt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:10:48 EDT

Just moments ago, Barack Obama concluded a stirring speech in Pittsburgh to the AFL-CIO. He expressed the many ways that unions, organized labor, are essential to the American middle class. He expressed his support for EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act. I recently sent an email to Senator Orrin Hatch asking him to support EFCA in Washington. He is very good in responding and he did so expressing his opposition as I expected. I wanted him to know that there are EFCA supporters in Utah. His response to my email took the form of a letter delivered by snail mail, the US Postal Service. The form of his response and his mindset are behind the times, at least in my opinion.

Fairness

Walt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:05:59 EDT

Some hedge fund owners/managers make as much as a billion dollars per year which is $500,000 per hour while the janitor who cleans their offices at night might make $10 per hour. The person who makes $500,000 per hour would not miss $10 per hour to double the janitor's wage to $20 per hour. After all, that would leave the hedge fund owner/manager with $499,990 per hour. Surely enough.

The hedge fund billionaire could surely spare $1000 per hour to give 50 breadwinners an additional $20 per hour and thus provide a more decent life for them and their families. If each family consisted of 3 people, 150 people would benefit from the hedge fund owner's generosity. As Barack told Joe the plumber, he wanted to spread the wealth around. The hedge fund billionaire would still be making $499,000 per hour. The question before us is, how many of us need to suffer to allow a few to live lavishly?

Writing

Walt — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:04:05 EDT

When I was a student, writing was hard. What do I say? Now as a senior citizen, I have something to say and writing down my thoughts and opinions is easier. The more practice I get, the easier it becomes. If you want to make your thoughts known and possibly have an influence on national or local issues, write to your Congressman/woman, US Senators and local newspaper. You can find their email addresses by using Google. Use your own words, just don't forward someone else's work. Once is not enough. To have an effect, you must write repeatedly and redouble your efforts when an election looms. Write to those you agree with and those you don't. Here are the email addresses of a liberal and a conservative to get you started. rachel@msnbc.com and georgewill@washpost.com

Labor day

Walt — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:58:22 EDT

On Labor day September 7, 2009, the future came to Cincinnati before it came to the rest of the US. Mark Twain reportedly said, "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times." Today Barack spoke to the assembled AFL-CIO and his words of praise for labor were an indication of what we can expect tomorrow when he addresses the nation's school children and Wednesday when he addresses a joint session of Congress on health care reform. He is fired up and ready to fight for a better America. Let us join him and carry this struggle to a successful conclusion.

Book Report: "I Am a Teamster," by Terry Spencer Hesser

Stephen Siciliano — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:46:23 EDT

In recognition of Labor Day, highwayscribery presents this review of "I Am a Teamster."
If departed Teamster leader Regina Polk had been a book, a thorough read would have been required before any judgment was rendered.

Terry Spencer Hesser's newly released "I Am a Teamster" details the too-short life of a woman who forged striking personal contradictions into a hybrid hellion of unique force.

The union organizer's story puts the lie to Republican detractors who can't see "real Americans" in the country's progressive ranks.

It is a story with roots in a hardscrabble western existence begun in Prescott, Arizona. Her father was a farmer who roamed from spread to spread in search of that ever-elusive American dream.

The family ultimately settled in the Sierra Nevada town of Paradise, California where the credo was, "Less Government, More Responsibility, and -- with God's help -- a Better World."

But raising a child takes a village and, in the 1960s, the village was undergoing a transformation of the kind that permitted teenaged Regina to access the sexually-charged "Kinsey Report."

At her mother's urging, Polk applied to the rich girls' school of Mills College where she was caught up in the chaos that was nearby, 1960s Berkeley.

She was permanently affected by the crosscurrents of civil rights, feminism and anti-war activism that characterized the time and place.

Freed by cheap gas at the height of automobile era, the searching Polk wound up at University of Chicago where she enrolled in a masters program for labor relations, but it was her real job where she got the true schooling.

To pay bills she found work as a receptionist at the inappropriately named Red Star Inn. Hesser writes that Regina was a "knockout by anybody's standards," and enjoyed the concomitant privileges extended by management.

But the employer's treatment of lesser types -- dishwashers, busboys, waitresses and kitchen help -- stuck in Polk's politicized craw and she contacted Bob Simpson, organizing director of Teamsters Union Local 743.

In the book, Simpson recounts that Polk struck him, "as a hippie. The way she dressed and looked. She was for all kinds of rights. Worker rights. Civil rights. Women's lib."

Simpson, who had little interest in expending precious resources on organizing the Red Star, became one of many who learned that Regina Polk did not take "no" for an answer.

She set out to organize the restaurant's workers and, when management got wind of the effort, was fired. The union filed a grievance, the restaurant paid money to get rid of Polk, and Simpson hired her as a part-time organizer.

The rest, as they say, is herstory.

By 1975, American capital's move out of the manufacturing business was in full swing and the Teamsters' saw their primary source of dues-paying members evaporate. In search of greener pastures, union researchers identified a surging class of white, middle-class, moderately educated workers.

"To organize white-collar women," Hesser writes, "the Teamsters needed a different kind of organizer to lead them out of the mire of scandal and suspicion that surrounded them on a national level."

Enter Regina Polk.

She was a college-educated, floppy-hat-wearing fashion plate with a philosophical crush on Jimmy Hoffa. Polk possessed a cosmopolite's travel lust and a farm girl’s ear for country western. A serial savior of imperiled animals, she carried an ice pick for slashing tires in the old-time Teamster way.

A culinary epicurean, she walked into one of Southside Chicago's roughest neighborhoods so that her maid Johnnie Scott didn't go without a paycheck.

"I lived on Justine on the South Side," Scott remembers in the book. "At the time, it wasn't a suitable neighborhood. It was bad. And I remember lookin' out the window and here comes Regina walking by herself. Bringing me my paycheck. She wasn't afraid of nobody. 'Have a nice vacation,' she told me, 'it's better with pay.' That's the way she phrased it: It's better with pay.'"

The anecdote is indicative of Polk's approach to both organizing and contract enforcement, which focused on individuals. None of whom were too insignificant to benefit from her assistance.

"She defended ferociously her members when managers attempted to abuse them, believing that the union should do more than just guarantee a wage, that it should also see to it that its members were treated respectfully," Gary Mamlin, a University of Chicago shop steward, told the author.

In her under-appreciated "The Other Women's Movement," Dorothy Sue Cobble posited that in between the first wave of suffragette feminists, and the second-wave feminists spawned by the Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan five decades later, thrived a special breed of "labor feminists."

These women took root and cover in their unions during the 1930s when labor syndicates enjoyed a heyday in the United States.

Polk's religious dedication to union values, and fearless confrontations with the old boys in labor and management alike, suggest she was a unique mix of the latter two waves.

As such, she neither demeaned the value of domestic work nor avoided it.

"If she was coming home late or not at all," Scott remembered, "she would cook for Tom [her husband] a beautiful plate of lamb chops and peas and wrap his dishes before she left, leaving me instructions or telling him to eat it cold."

Classified by the famed political scientist C. Wright Mills as "weak insiders," unions typically groan under the weight of servicing the least fortunate with a dearth of resources

And so, the Teamsters promptly put Polk to work helping organize clerical workers at Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Chicago. She later reported to union bosses on the difficulty of getting "status-conscious" and "image conscious" women to join a "truck drivers union."

Nonetheless the Teamsters prevailed. The extent of Polk's contribution to the victory might be read in the 28-year old’s subsequent assignment to organize workers at the University of Chicago.

Faced with a recalcitrant university president who had successfully dislodged the union at Yale, Polk's campaign was conducted largely "underground" or secretively so as to protect those with the courage or need to join the Teamsters' drive.

The campaign prevailed, too.

"The university was stunned," writes Hesser. "It had failed to realize that over the previous twenty years the people who worked on campus were no longer faculty wives but bread-winners who needed the money. They were mothers, many of them single, whose paltry paychecks started looking worse and worse."

"I Am a Teamster," is no syrupy-sweet story about the virtues of organized labor. Hesser makes it clear that Polk had her detractors within the union.

"I think it was because she was so aggressive," said Simpson, "but I can remember specifically one guy saying to me, 'I didn't like her from fuckin' day one!' And that was exactly his words and this guy was a board member."

Regina also grew disillusioned with the union’s lackluster support of its members.

Nor is “I Am a Teamster,” the tale of perpetual triumph, because Polk's campaigns did not always prevail.

After one defeat, she came across her opposite numbers from a union-busting law firm at a local bar. One of the "bastards with briefcases," as she referred to such consultants, approached to share a conciliatory, post-battle drink. Instead, she took the one she was nursing and threw it in his face.

All of Polk’s fire was extinguished in a plane crash at the age of 32. Some years later, when her wrongful death suit was at trial, one of the jurors recognized Regina as the person who had donated the very clothes she was wearing.

Hesser's slim volume, 147-pages long, renders a large life with efficiency. The author commits the biographer’s forgivable sin of falling in love with her subject. She starts off unevenly, accumulating too many posthumous summations, inappropriate for a chapter on childhood, while applying enthusiastic adjectives to someone whose larger-than-life actions speak for themselves.

But as Polk's career takes form, so does the narrative, which is delivered in a no-frills reportorial form that leans properly on numerous interviews of people who were there at the time.

"I Am a Teamster," celebrates the difference one person, empowered and guided by the simple principal of solidarity, can have upon the lives of others through brute effort, consideration, compassion, and even joy.

One of her Teamster mentors, Ray Hamilton, eulogized Polk by saying, "She lived as she believed and felt that it was more important to actually help one person than to talk about saving the world."

Although she inspired fellow Teamsters, the union was never going to make a template of Polk from which a generation of like labor leaders could be modeled.

She was too unique and too individual. A real American if you will.

Education

Walt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:53:12 EDT

Some Republicans are opposed to the President encouraging students to stay in school and get an education. I guess that means they don't want educated voters. We already know that they want to keep voter participation low so that elections are easier for them to win or to steal. What won't they stop at?

Joe Klein

Walt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:10:21 EDT

He has an interesting 2 page article in the August 31 issue of Time magazine. He talks about his aged parents and his efforts at end-of-life counseling. He was unsuccessful in discussions with his father. He goes on to talk about how the Republican party has degenerated into a party of no-nothings, opposed to rational discussions with the Democrats. His blog can be accessed at www.time.com/swampland I recommend it.

9-11

Walt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:45:10 EDT

As we approach the 8th anniversary of 9-11, Dick Cheney is out and about telling us what a great job Bush-Cheney did in protecting the country. If that is so, why is bin Laden still at large?

Bin Laden thought outside the box to use commercial airplanes as weapons. He probably intends to attack us again when he is ready using another method outside the box. What has been our reaction so far? We screen passengers above the cabin floor, but we do a poor job of screening cargo which flies in the same planes below the aircraft cabin floor. We must protect the US from other methods of attack that bin Laden might use. Trucks crossing the border from the north or the south are possibilities. Small aircraft are other possibilities. I worry about ships carrying WMDs in the containers that arrive at our ports.

Wouldn't it be ironic if ships loaded by Dubai Ports contained WMDs courtesy of Osama bin Laden. George W. Bush wanted to sell control of 6 US ports to Dubai Ports, and the deal was stopped only by Congress supported by a public outcry.

Rationing

Walt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:27:54 EDT

Rationing of health care? Another scare tactic from opponents of health care reform. Of course, if we offer health care to 50 million uninsured, there will be a surge in demand for treatment of untreated illnesses initially. Once that surge is past, the demand for care will plateau and grow at about the same rate as the growth of population in the US.

The question before us is do we continue denying health care to a significant portion of our population? It is a moral question. I work for a health care provider and I know that there is excess capacity in the system, at least here where I work. Our capacity can be rapidly expanded by the training of additional workers or by increasing the number of hours worked by present employees. If doctors do not need to practice defensive medicine, then the system capacity can be increased also.

Initially there will be some waiting due to increased demand. Those delays will go away as capacity is expanded. There are unemployed people looking for jobs. Don't you think that increasing employment in health care and green industries is the way to go to reduce unemployment at the same time providing much needed services? Then there is our moral obligation to our fellow citizens. Don't listen to the rationing argument. It is a false argument.

Health or health insurance?

Walt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:55:08 EDT

Which do you lose first, health or health insurance? Lose one and eventually you will lose the other. Thank God for medicare. I work part time for a large company where you lose your health insurance for a minimum of 4 months if you do not work their prescribed minimum hours on average each quarter. I do not control the hours worked and with the economy struggling, so am I. My hours have been cut so that I no longer work enough to qualify for the life and dental insurance I once had. To re qualify, I am required to work enough hours in the following 3 months to raise my average hours worked for this quarter and the prior quarter above their minimum. I don't think that is possible. I surely hope for the benefit of others not covered by medicare that the Obama reforms pass so that this situation is curbed in the future.

Mike Murphy

Walt — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:58:33 EDT

Looking at a copy of Time magazine dated June 22, 2009, recently, I spotted a commentary by Republican consultant Mike Murphy. I respect Mike because he thinks for himself and he says what he thinks. He says that demographics favor the Democrats because of the youth and Latinos votes. He thinks that the Republicans will not be competitive again until they modernize their conservative message. I predict that that won't happen soon. They will exhaust every other approach until they must try his method out of desperation. That won't happen until after the 2012-2014 elections and they won't be competitive until 2020 at the earliest.

2010 part 2

Walt — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:05:46 EDT

I am fired up and ready to go. Politics does not stop. We started the process of change in 2006 and continued it in 2008. We need to finish the job in 2010. Historically, the party out of power makes a comeback in off year elections. In 2010, let's make history by defying history.

Barack needs us to work as hard in 2010 as we did in 2008. If we can reduce the number of Republican obstructionists in Congress, we can finally enact the Obama agenda more quickly for the benefit of all of us. Yes we can.

The Liberal

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:12:27 EDT

He carried his personal flaws and tragic miscues in the same way he carried the liberal credo: slightly wearied, but unyielding.

His opponents linked them seamlessly.

If the health care debate reveals anything, it is that to believe in a government conceived with the purpose of serving the people places one in the company of someone who drives a young girl off a bridge, runs, and then hides.

Together, Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy and the large liberal constituency that thrives throughout this country, have trudged on, standing by tired platitudes that are no less virtuous for being time-worn and tested.

His loss is a terrible blow to Republican fundraisers, but not so much as it will be to an ungrateful and impatient people who take whatever they can get, while viewing the acts of sharing with or giving to the less-fortunate as foolhardy.

For those of us inspired and instructed by his political example, his like will not be seen for a long time, if ever.

Kennedy never saw a military intervention he liked. He taught, by his example, that such consistency is the stuff of being anti-war and pro-human, never falling for the slick trick of associating support for a missile system with a desire for peace.

Those of us who agreed with him were never disappointed - no matter how low the value of our philosophy sunk - when we awaited his lone and familiar voice to speak out with intelligence against organized and taxpayer-funded mayhem.

We were never disappointed when the corporations that run our lives, pirate our money and health, had come up with yet another new line of propaganda that succeeded by appealing to what was worst, rather than best, in the American spirit.

He was there, like a default setting; turning our helpless rage into articulate argument that we might carry forth onto the streets, into parties, and anywhere else informed public debate still percolates.

For those of us who retired at night, beaten by our own mistakes -- thrown into doubt -- Kennedy demonstrated how one picks-up and carries on.

The marvelous and masterful senator taught us that our questionable pasts and sorry records could be righted by doing one small thing tomorrow and another the day after and so on.

He taught us that our job is to get better at what we do and to not be undone by setbacks.

He did not define what it meant to be liberal because all of that came before his rise to power and fame. But Kennedy taught us what it cost to remain liberal, to endure the insults and continue the work of assisting those who need it.

Unlike his brothers, frozen in youth by martyrdom, his story encompassed the sloppy narrative that becomes all our narratives, which in the end, is the same effort at doing good while swimming against a current of so much evil.

Good bye you good Liberal.

Guns

Walt — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:48:49 EDT

The following thoughts are my opinion and do not reflect the views of the Obama administration.

The US Constitution guarantees the right of US citizens to bear arms. That is not the same as each citizen owning an arsenal; that should be the right of governments only. There are too many guns out there in the wrong hands. Therefore, I favor some form of gun control. How to reconcile that with the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Constitution? How to reconcile the irreconcilable?

That was a problem that stumped me for the longest time. Recently an idea hit me like a .38 between the eyes. Here in Utah there are state liquor stores. Why not state gun stores? The stores would be the sole provider of new and used guns. Only residents of the state could buy and sell at the state store. Each state could set its own rules and prices. One set of rules for densely populated states with gun violence and another set of rules and prices for states populated by large numbers of hunters.

Everyone but the gun dealers win. Fewer guns in irresponsible hands and another source of revenue for the states. No federal regulation. I like the idea. How about you?

Positive Lessons Learned from Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff’s Healthcare Reform Town Hall on Tuesday 8/11/2009

Michael from Santa Monica, CA — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:03:59 EDT

Please help me figure out how to get this to those that are preparing for future events...

Positive Lessons Learned from
Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff’s Healthcare Reform Town Hall
on Tuesday 8/11/2009

On Tuesday 8/11/2009, I attended a very well run Town Hall event that provided some very clear lessons on how to overcome the organized attempts at disruption and fear/hate mongering led by the radical right and corporate anti-reform supporters.

My thanks and congratulations go to Congressman Schiff and everyone involved in this event. This is the first such event that I have attended, and it was a very positive experience overall. (I was drawn to attend in an attempt to balance out the rowdy anti-reform crowds that I have seen on TV trying to dominate such events.)

The event had at least the expected 2000 people present, and despite the vocal attempts of anti-reform people, the event was kept relatively civilized and constructive.

A large part of this success is due to the obvious efforts of the event organizers to actively manage the event, rather than utilize a normal town hall format, which the anti-reform sponsors have recently managed so well to game to their advantage.

Below I list my observations, which I highly recommend that all Democratic legislators and town hall event planners study before/while planning their own events to discuss healthcare reform.

I also recommend that you contact Congressman Schiff, the event planners at his office and the City of Alhambra, the moderator Dr. Bruce Hensel, and the Alhambra Police Department for their own lessons learned.

Things done right to support a constructive dialog:

Don’t assume that this will be a normal town hall event. Treat this as a unique event with its own necessary preparation steps to ensure success.
The anti-reform sponsors have worked hard to game the format employed by normal town hall gatherings. Do not reward their efforts by passively playing along.
Be very clear on the goals of anti-reform sponsors…

· To agitate the radical right

· To prevent constructive dialog on this topic by disrupting and monopolizing the event

· To limit opportunities for reform supporters to spread their message

· To propagate intentional lies about reform goals/methods

· To intimidate supporters of healthcare reform from participating

· To wear down and intimidate pro-reform legislators

Do not limit attendance.
Attendance limits reward organizers who can bus in their supporters early during working hours so as to claim all available seats. Limits thus penalize people with jobs who find that by the time they can arrive after work and traffic the event is filled and they will not be admitted.
Hold the event outdoors.
This reduces the impact of people shouting to disrupt the event. During the first half of our event a number of anti-reformers attempted to shout non-stop to reduce dialog, but the open air dispersed their volume. They could not effectively compete with the sound system used by the podium speakers, and eventually they gave up and shut up.
An outdoor venue also supports the ability to avoid attendance limits.
Our event was held at a grassy area outside the library at the City of Alhambra Town Hall.
Use a high-quality sound system for the podium speakers.
The sound must be loud enough to be clearly heard by all in the audience, without distortion. Use a professional company for this and test it in advance.
Allow signs
Pro-reform audience members were obviously more polite and less likely to resort to out-shouting their opponents. Signs provided an alternative means for them to make their opinions known.
There will be many crazy signs from the anti-reform movement, such as pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache. This is acceptable vs. the benefit of providing more civilized members of the audience with a means to communicate.
Use a professional moderator who is knowledgeable about healthcare reform.
Dr. Bruce Hensel, Medical, Health, and Science Editor/Reporter for NBC4 performed this role very admirably at Adam Schiff’s event. I recommend that organizers of similar events contact him to learn his own lessons learned.
The moderator should feel free to guide the discussion with the goal of providing constructive dialog.
Do not provide microphones for audience speakers, have the moderator restate their questions for the audience.
This reduces both the incentive for and impact of grandstanding and attempts to disrupt.
Not hearing amplified ranting also discourages other members of the audience from piling on with more shouting/chanting in an attempt to disrupt/monopolize the event.
It also allows legitimate, but nervous/awkwardly phrased questions to be restated in a manner that supports better dialog.
Have audience members line up to approach the front to ask questions
This is necessary for them to be heard by the moderator and legislator, since they will not be issued microphones. It also allows the moderator to more clearly call on people to come forward and speak.
At our event there was a pseudo line which formed as people moved forward to reach the front where they might be called on. This provided a cooling off period where people are required to behave in a civilized manner before speaking. Make sure that latecomers to the event are able to join the line as well as people that camp it before hand.
Using a line does not mean that the next person to speak is predetermined. At our event the line was a few people wide, and the moderator retained the right select the next speaker. This helps him/her try to balance the questions based on impressions of which side people may support, and to avoid calling on obviously disruptive people.
(I was able to move through the crowd, line up and eventually ask a question, even though by the time I arrived the event was just starting with over 2000 people present.)
Have sufficient room at the front for the selected speaker to step forward away from the line and speak.
Having the person separate themselves from the line makes it more clear who is to speak. It also reduces any potential intimidation from other people in line.
At our event a little girl was able to step up and ask a question without feeling intimidated.
Use a panel format
This allows the moderator to select appropriate experts to speak, and perhaps more importantly will avoid having the legislator get trapped in a cycle of having to continuously defend him/her self. The legislator remains free to speak up as desired though. It also supports the impression that the legislator is not the only person supporting reform.
Do not feel that the panel needs to be overly balanced so as to include people that do not support healthcare reform. The goal should be to support discussion of what type of reform, rather than having panelists attack the very concept.
Panelists should be warned though that due to the contentious nature of the anti-reformers, there may be limited opportunities to have a real debate, and much of the time may be spent simply defending the concept of healthcare reform.
Give the panelists a few minutes each at the beginning to state their positions once they are introduced.
At our event, the panelists were…

· Dr. Benjamin Chu, President, Southern California Region, Kaiser

· Dr. Richard Brown, Director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research

· Jerry Flanagan, Health Care Advocate, Consumer Watchdog

· Leeba Lessin, President, CareMore Health Plan

Have a visible, but not overbearing, police presence for crowd control, especially near the front.
The Alhambra Police Department is to be commended for very successful crowd control which helped to protect the panelists and audience, as well as the spirit of the event itself. Their firm, but restrained guidance should be seen as a model of police support for civilized debate in a democracy. They were visible, but not at all overbearing. This helped lead to an almost carnival atmosphere where people were confident of their safety, without feeling intimidated by the government.
The 3-4 police between the audience and the podium helped ensure that the “line” of people moving forward to ask questions remained civilized. At one point they were required to step in and handle a minor disruption, but this in no way detracted from the event as it was handled firmly, but with restraint. Once I asked my question, an officer politely, but firmly asked me to step back if I was done with my question. I happily thanked him for his efforts and rejoined the crowd.
Perhaps most importantly, keep a sense of humor, and don’t allow yourself to be intimidated
Congressman Schiff was very good at this, including occasionally joking in a friendly manner with the crowd about their “passionate debate”. He began the event by specifically asking everyone to act in a positive manner, which also helped. He also clearly stated that he was not going to be able to please everyone, while making visible attempts address anti-reform questions. A very impressive balancing act during a challenging event in my opinion.

Potential improvements:
A few minor points might be improved upon…

When asking how many people in the audience are for or against healthcare reform, know that the second side asked will typically be louder than the first.
This is because they have time to prepare themselves, and have the ability to gauge how load they are willing to shout to surpass the first asked side. If you want to even out the chance for the more polite pro-reform side to present their numbers, I recommend that you ask first how many oppose healthcare reform, and then how many support it. At our event, the Congressman’s final question of how many people were undecided produced a predictable, but humorous response of only a handful of people.
Have the front area specifically reserved for people in line to ask questions,
Allowing people to remain in the front area allows more aggressive anti-reformers to crowd the more valuable positions towards the front where they can more effectively disrupt and intimidate.
At our event the crowd was allowed to be a little too close to the podium, which allowed a small mob of anti-reform shouters to have more than their fair share of influence.
Have police expel people that obviously attempt to disrupt the event
As mentioned above, at least one person as able to stand near the front and shout at the top of his lungs non-stop for about half the event.
Obviously the desire to address this has to be balanced with any potential for actual or perceived police intimidation. As stated, at our event, the open air venue and excellent sound system used by the podium speakers eventually caused this person to quit yelling, so perhaps this is not always necessary.
Try not to call on any one panelist too frequently
Mixing it up keeps all panelists involved and reduces the impression that any “pet-panelist” is being given too much attention.
Set the crowd’s expectations by clearly stating that there will be a period of at least ½ hour for the legislator and panelists to introduce themselves and give their positions before questions will be taken from the audience.
This will help control the anti-reformers’ desire to go straight to questions so that they can dominate the event. (It obviously won’t reduce their desire for this, but it will make their chants for questions to begin sound more rude, which will encourage the rest of the audience to discourage them.)
Possibly use a lottery to decide who is initially allowed to be up front for questions.
Assuming that the lottery is held immediately before the event, instead of well in advance, this would keep people from being able to camp the front.
The challenge here would be to come up with a method that would allow this to be done quickly and fairly, so it doesn’t become a distraction.

Disappointed in President Obama's Organizing for America Health Care Forum

Michael from Santa Monica, CA — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:37:53 EDT

Billed as a strategy session and “an incredible opportunity to huddle with the President and discuss how we're going to pass real health insurance reform this year”, what we got was preaching to the choir by our Professor in Chief, rather than a discussion of strategies to actually move this forward.

I was ESPECIALLY disappointed to hear the President refer to the select panel as a legitimate negotiating method, and to hear him praise the Republicans on it, including Senator Grassley who has promoted the lies about death panels, as acting in good faith.

Surely Obama can’t be this naïve!!

First of all, how can that panel be legitimate when half of the members are Republican in the first place. This is not the proportion that was elected. Voluntarily giving them equal weight has only prevented any real reform from moving forward. A perfect example of this is how the single payer option was never considered, because these Republicans would never go along with it. This freed them to target any public option as socialized medicine, which it now sounds like we are moving away from as we try to compromise with them.

The American public elected a Democratic majority to get the job done. In giving away our majority to do so, I can only assume that enough Democrats have been bought out by special interests so that no intent to actually deliver effective healthcare reform has ever been intended. Instead apparently we only wanted to sound like we are trying to accomplish it, while at the same time stacking the deck against ourselves.

Secondly, the actions and comments from these three Republicans have shown that they have no interest in passing anything. Grassley himself, after warning people to be afraid for grandma, recently said that he would never support a bill that a majority of Republicans would vote for. Given the underhanded tactics that they and their pundits use, it should be obvious that they have NO interest in a dialog in good faith, and are only negotiating as a means to drag out the process with a series of endless compromises, while they foster an environment of hatred and intolerance for reform.

Wake up Mr. President!!!

Quit letting the Republicans and Blue Dogs play you for a fool.

It’s time to show less compassion and understanding and instead more backbone and righteous indignation.

Call out the liars as despicable and unpatriotic.

Quit trying to convince the Blue Dogs to support reform by watering it down, and instead make it politically impossible for them to act against it.

Stop portraying the anger in America as legitimate debate and instead demonstrate how it is manufactured astro-turf.

If you don’t feel like you can do this and be a nice guy, assign a senior hard-ass to do it for you. The movement desperately needs someone to lead the counter charge.

It also needs more clear organization...

Your discussion today only vaguely stressed the need for people to talk to their friends and neighbors, and offered a couple of talking points in response to a couple of questions.
Lame! We need someone who is actively providing clear instructions on what and how to help.

At a minimum, there should be a 3-5 point bullet list of talking points that everyone is pushing. Shorter, sound bite length talking points, which you can then lecture on to your heart’s content.There needs to be clear instruction on who to contact to help.We need to take the tactics of our opponents, refine them so they are morally acceptable, and then deploy them in a clear fashion.This movement needs a General to guide it.

Now unfortunately, I missed the beginning of the Forum due to internet issues, so maybe the initial speakers provided this leadership and guidance.
If so, I’ll be very, very happy to see more information coming from them in the future.

So far though, this effort seems like a weak, half-hearted attempt to capitalize on the exact same volunteer structure used during the election, without realizing that it needs more focus and clarity to work for an issue-specific movement. And for God’s sake, don’t think that we will win in the end based on the pattern of the election! A lot of the reason that we won convincingly is that the Republicans imploded towards the end of the election.We can’t count on that now, especially given that there are such powerful special interests whose profits are directly threatened by the reform movement.

Cindy Sheehan

Walt — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:24:39 EDT

Cindy Sheehan is the anti-war activist who lost a son in the Iraq war. She and others camped out in Crawford, Texas in succeeding Augusts when George W, Bush was there on vacation. Barack and family will be vacationing on Martha's Vineyard later this August. George W. refused to talk to her. Cindy plans to picket Barack. Let's watch and see how Barack handles the situation. I predict that he will do a much better job than George W. did.

Winning Elections

Walt — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:58:45 EDT

Winning Elections, Political Campaign Management, Strategy & Tactics edited by Ronald A. Faucheux is a collection of 129 articles by experts in the field of politics. Clearly written with insider details, I think that it is a great source of information for those of us who want to participate fully in the critical elections that loom in our near future.

An open letter regarding Health Insurance Reform to President Barack Obama and the Democratic Members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate

Jill K from RedondObama Beach, CA — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:17:46 EDT

August 17, 2009

Dear Honorable Sirs and Madams,

About this time two years ago, Democrats across the country started gearing up for the fight of our lives. Primary elections were just around the corner, and it would be only a year until we would have our candidates for President and Vice President confirmed at our National Convention. Although some said that Democrats could put up an asparagus and beat the Republicans, most of us in the Democratic party knew all too well, after the disastrous results of the 2004 election, that this was going to be a hard-fought battle right to the finish line.

But this was not just about President and Vice President. This was about restoring the Democratic Party to a position of power to enact the legislation we must have to help move this country in the right direction. Millions of us in every state, took to the phones and the streets and the web. We rallied, we phone banked, we pounded the pavement knocking on doors. We talked to our neighbors, friends and business associates. We raised hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it five dollars at a time. And we did this for candidates on the Democratic ticket all across this nation.

We broke our backs, lost our voices, and some of us lost friends or other relationships, so that we could have a majority in both Houses, as well as regaining the Presidency. We gave you a huge majority in Congress and a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate. We handed you the reins on a silver platter!

We did this because our party ran on what is perhaps the most important Domestic issue in many of our lifetimes; Health Insurance Reform. With people filing bankruptcy, losing their homes, and dying every single day from our broken and corrupt system, we don’t have the luxury of time to wait any longer.

You have a grave and serious responsibility before you. NOW is not the time to cave in to the Republican party! You don’t have to! You have an obligation to do the job we sent you to Washington to do – pass Health Insurance Reform, and to do it as you promised you would, with a strong PUBLIC OPTION.

To say that I am perplexed, to say that I am stunned, to say that I am angry would all be understatements. You have allowed Republicans to take over control of the message and hijack this legislation. Their constituents get to go to sleep at night knowing their representatives are fighting tooth and nail on their behalf, while we Democrats go to bed wondering why on earth we worked so hard to put you in the majority, when you’re letting us down when we need you to stand up for us the most!

Make no mistake, this legislation is going to be “make or break” for our party. If you can’t get it done when you have control of the Administration, the House of Representatives and the Senate, what’s the use of working to keep you there in the next election cycle(s)? You seem to have forgotten that you work for us – the people who put you in office, not the Republicans.

While I respect the concept of bi-partisanship, there comes a time when it simply must be abandoned. And in fact, I contend that if you show the Republicans that you will pass legislation with or without them, and they get a bill they don’t like, then next time they’ll be more likely to work with you so their voices are heard, won’t they?

It’s time.

Progressives, and even moderates in our party, you have to start putting the screws to the "Blue Dogs" who are looking more and more like the "Blue Cross Dogs" every day. And to those of you who are the "Blue Dogs", don't forget that you are Democrats. You ran as Democrats, you won as Democrats, and you have an obligation to legislate as Democrats, not moderate Republicans.

President Obama, you need to wrest back control of this message, and if necessary, write your own legislation and make sure it gets passed instead of passing the buck.

You have the power. Use it.

Or lose it.

Sincerely,

Jill K

Redondo Beach, CA

Man in black

Walt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:31:29 EDT

Muqtada by Patrick Cockburn is a slender volume containing what we know about Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shiite leader, dressed in black, of the Mahdi army in Iraq. Son of a slain father who was a famous religious leader in Iraq, he has inherited much of his father's influence. His fiery anti-US sermons have earned the bitter enmity of US political and military leaders. He is widely respected in Iraq by some and considered a hoodlum by others. He is young by Iraqi religious leader standards and thus has his age working for him as his rivals retire.

I believe that at some point after we withdraw from Iraq that we will be forced to negotiate with him as his stature within Iraq is bound to increase. He is a Shiite leader and the Shiites are the vast majority within Iraq. The Shiites have little regard for the US because 150,000 of them died opposing Saddam Hussein after Gulf War I and George H. W. Bush helped the Kurds but not them. Between Gulf Wars I and II many Shiites died because of the US imposed sanctions.

November

Walt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:12:21 EDT

November is national Republican month; the other eleven months belong to the Democrats.

No birds, no bees
No leaves on trees
No sound, no color
No empathy
No remorse
No compromise
The party of no
The Republicans
In November
and throughout the year.

Bug

Walt — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:10:44 EDT

There is a bug in the software the Obama administration is using to call supporters and it was present during the campaign too. The software does not do a good job of keeping track of who has been already contacted. This leads to a duplication of effort and is irritating to supporters and potential supporters who receive more than one call with the same message.

All's fair

Walt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:53:49 EDT

All's fair in love and war and healthcare reform is NOT love. I cannot understand all the anger about healthcare reform. Don't people want to live longer and pay less to do so?

I reserve my anger for big insurers who won't pay their bills, big banks and other credit card issuers who send me daily letters telling me about higher fees and interest rates in my future because of the economic times. I also reserve my anger for Chinese made junk because it is all that I can afford when my income has stagnated for many years thanks to Republican economic policies.

Health Insurance Reform

Jane Anne Jeffries Johnson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:36:05 EDT

I retired from the Los Angeles Unified School District in February. I felt it was my civic duty to give up my job and live on my retirement, since the economy is struggling. I moved to Friday Harbor, Washington, where the economy is doing better than in California. I am able to keep abreast of the changes President Obama is making toward a more viable society and economy. I urge everyone who voted for him to continue to support him now. The sharks are swarming, and there is blood in the water. It's time to come together as a force for change.

Government is us

Walt — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:20:24 EDT

Government is us; government is not them. Government is "us" doing collectively what we can do better together or not at all individually. Government is not "them" unless the voter is completely alienated from government. That can happen if the voter does not participate and leaves the field to big money donors and/or corrupt legislators.

Politics never ends

Walt — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:01:35 EDT

Politics goes on day after day. It is occasionally punctuated by elections but they are few and far between. What we are seeing now about healthcare reform is out in the open only because it affects so many and the dollars involved are huge. Usually this sort of debate is held in private because fewer are involved and the dollars are less. In this case, only the size of the stakes are changed. Nothing else is different. If we want to put the special interests in their place while obtaining a result that is good for most of us, we must let our Congress people know what we want NOW

A Tale of Two Governments

Stephen Siciliano — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:06:28 EDT

Republicans and their wing-nut fellow travelers believe there are two governments in the United States.

One government runs foreign policy and wars and it is a government that never apologizes for America because America never commits a sin overseas.

It is a government never referred to as such.

It is just "America," a bright and shining example of all things good, that runs itself on the strength of its immaculate conception

The other government is the one that should never get involved with America's interior workings, should never monitor its businesses, and should never render any services, because it can't do anything right.

The two governments, of course, are one and the same. Republicans and their ilk consider the first one their particular provenance and shunt the other one off on Democrats whom they then deny the right to adminstrate as often as they can.

FOX News runs montages of President Obama committing the cardinal sin of admitting the first government's humanity and concomitant flaws before foreign audiences to the soundtrack of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana."

It spends the remaining air-time lamenting Obama's attempt to lead the second government's "takeover of the health care system."

The argument is this: The same American government that should never apologize for actions overseas cannot be trusted to best the wild and woolly wiles of our entrepreneurial class.

That's the religion.

It's a religion, like many religions, with adherents who subscribe to the tenets against their better interests.

But as Michael Hiltzik of the "Los Angeles Times" noted the other day, the entrepreneurs handling of health care sucks.

Writes Hiltzik: "Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a 'public option' in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option?"

And that's a whopper of an omission, which most of our elected representatives (in a rare demonstration of bipartisan comity), and cable news offerings on both the "left" and right, are all complicit in arranging.

Maybe some of you saw bumbling Bill Kristol's interview on "The Daily Show," not too long ago.

Host Jon Stewart observed how members of our military are the beneficiaries of government-controlled health care and Kristol, in his knee-jerk understanding of patriotism, noted that, because of their sacrifice, the soldiers deserved the best.

Stewart was on it, scribbling in a pad, "So you're saying a government-run plan is better than the sh*#t private insurance coverage the rest of us have?"

Kristol wanted to counter, but the knee had already jerked. He was nailed in the same way the rest of the hysterical right wing should be.

Republicans and conservatives are out to torpedo anything the Democrats might do to improve health care in this country. Not because they love getting reamed monthly by their insurer, but because they don't want the other "side" to have a victory.

This is an extreme example of what candidate Obama was talking about when referencing the corrosive impact of our divisive politics: Some Americans would rather forego better, perhaps life-saving health care, than let their opposite political numbers claim they had done something good for the country.

Full disclosure: highwayscribery hates his insurer Anthem/Blue Cross/Blue Shield etc. He views it as an adversary to whom he ponies-up the second largest chunk of his discretionary budget.

And it's not fair.

Taking his blogger's sense of the responsible citizen into the realm of health care, highwayscribery eats fruit salads every morning (except Sunday when he gets a sausage, egg, and cheese "McGriddle"), and salad (or gazpacho) for lunch.

At dinner, the scribe averages a single piece of meat per week, two fish meals, two pasta feasts, and some other culinary delights chosen for their salubrious balancing of his dietary intake (although he'd prefer more McGriddles).

He surfs three times a week, runs an average of 10 miles over the same period, and plays baseball with a six-year-old who can, and does, run rings around him.

The result is a low-cholesterol, low blood-pressure, clean bill of health for a middle-aged guy (don't ask) who asks little else of his health care providers than to confirm these positive results.

Last year the scribe paid $208 a month for his premium and this year it was raised to $248. No reason. Now the scribe is no Adam Smith, but he figures if the free market system our conservative countrymen are so worried about conserving actually functioned, a cut in premium would have been due.

But that's not what happened. What happened was the unilateral imposition of a considerable increase backed by a threat of financial ruin should the scribe walk away from this "relationship" and then be badly hurt.

What insurance really gets you, of course, is the right to pick a fight with your insurer once illness strikes, and it decides "the procedure is not covered."

Or as Hiltzik puts it: "For if the insurers have proved anything over the last 15 years as the health crisis has gathered speed like an avalanche roaring downhill, it's that they're part of the problem, not the solution."

the scribe wrote the Anthem/Blue Shield plan administrator and let him know exactly what he felt about the increase. He said the company should have paid him for the aforementioned custodianship of his own well-being and added that he hoped President Obama instituted a single-payer, government-run system that responded to public pressure because private insurers certainly don't.

Anthem confirmed the argument by not replying.

The premium stood, much the same way Bank of America's unilateral decision to increase monthly fees by $5 on the scribe's checking account did.

It's all one way. Big boy leans, little guy bends and breaks.

"The firms," Hiltzick writes, "take billions of dollars out of the U.S. healthcare wallet as profits, while imposing enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, employers and patients. They've introduced complexity into the system at every level. Your doctor has to fight them to get approval for the treatment he or she thinks is best for you. Your hospital has to fight them for approval for every day you're laid up. Then they have to fight them to get their bills paid, and you do too."

That's what, no, that's who The Right is defending. These companies.

They are organizing (read: paying) people to attend town hall meetings on health care and disrupt the dialogue, shout down speakers, and insult their elected representatives.

Republican Party leaders at the national level such as Rep. John Boehner and Michael Steele defend these actions as if they were proper and worthy of a healthy civic culture. With the sophomoric smirk that has become their party's trademark responses to earnest policy, they mock Democrats as people who just don't get how badly Americans want to keep the crap arrangement currently in place...in place.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Instead these purported loyal oppositionists gain succor from what passes for the left in this country, with the onerous Democratic senators Max Baucus (pictured) and Ben Nelson, from Montana and Nebraska respectively, doing everything they can to eviscerate or eliminate altogether the American peoples' desire to have a public option to these corporate crooks.

Hiltzick, in his excellent piece, makes the connection to these "Blue Dog" Democrats thusly:

"You've heard of the Blue Dog Democrats, those mostly rural conservatives who blocked a summertime vote on reform legislation on Capitol Hill? According to the Center for Public Integrity, the biggest backer of the Blue Dogs’ political action committee is the healthcare industry, which is on the path to pumping a total of $1.2 million into the PAC's maw in the current 2009-10 election cycle."

Wow, there's a surprise.

Maybe this time things will backfire. Maybe if the opponents of change yell loud enough and insult enough people, Americans will get past the cant about "socialism," or "bureaucrats" (as if health insurers didn't have them, too), and see that the only thing Republicans propose is doing nothing.

Maybe Americans will see that the President's opponents stand for nothing, but will fall for anything that does harm the largest number of Americans.

But don't wait for an apology. Their America doesn't do that.

2010 begins

Walt — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:31:35 EDT

The election in November 2010 has begun. According to an article by Emily Miller on the web on Politics Daily, the Republicans are targeting 70 Democrats in the House to be defeated. On the other hand I want to see 25% of both the House and Senate Republicans replaced by Democrats. It won't be easy because history is on their side. This time history must take a back seat to the good of the country.

Republicans are 40 in the Senate and should be reduced to 30.

Republicans are 178 in the House and should be reduced to 133.

That will produce a 70-30 split in the Senate and a 302-133 split in the House.

It is time to retire the naysayers so that Barack can implement his vision for our future. We want a peaceful, more prosperous world for all of us and our children,

Reforming the Republicans

Walt — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:35:08 EDT

It is past time to start reforming the Republican party. Probably won't start to happen until the Republicans lose both the 2010 and 2012 elections. The country needs two parties that behave in a mature fashion, putting the country ahead of party. Now we are burdened with a Republican party that is not confident enough in itself to accept Barack's good ideas for the good of country. Now they oppose everything in hopes of a political win. Let's invite the dissenters, the nattering nabobs of negativity in Spiro Agnew's words, to leave the Republican party so that it can once again function in a mature fashion for the good of country. They owe us an effective opposition so that thinking voters have a choice.

President Obama and The Venice Drum Circle

Stephen Siciliano — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:04:39 EDT

For many years, on cool, cool California nights, the Venice Beach Drum Circle has gathered at the rim of the Pacific and rendered rhythmic homage to the sun, to life, and to liberty.

Congas clip, djembes clop, drummers bang and dancing dervishes delight. Incense floats from boardwalk merchant stands and sometimes it is accented with a wisp of marijuana. A crowd of onlookers, always different, enjoys all the spontaneity under the watchful eye of ...

...the Los Angeles Police Department.

highwayscribery can attest to this Sunday night ceremony stretching back to at least 1996, but suspects the tradition dates back to the first hippies.

Frequent attendance over the years also qualify the highway scribe to unequivocally state that these folks are not bothering anybody. Quite the opposite. Carving out a small piece of the public commons for themselves the goal is establishment of a tiny bubble where tolerance and primal beats reign.

It is a charming space to be for those who share the circle's open door philosophy and even for those who don't.

The fly in the ointment is the police presence. They do not serve any protective purpose. Instead the police skulk around observing and intimidating. It has gone on for years and often, they ruin the fun, inexplicably barging in and breaking up the circle before its climactic crescendo just as the sun dips into the ocean drink leaving an orangeade sky behind.

Venice Beach is Los Angeles' Greenwich Village. Despite suffering similar ravages of gentrification, it is holding better than its more famous bohemian cousin. It residents are your usual real estate poison pills of blacks, working-class Mexicans, and dreadlocked indy freaks.

They do not participate in the ambitious race that is American life for reasons varied as their odd raiment. But last year the neighborhood was papered in Shepard Fairey's famed "Hope" poster and local activists, usually aligned with the Green Party or Che Guevara's ghost, came out strong for Obama.

Like the conservative pundits who hurled time-worn labels at Obama such as "leftist" and "socialist," they did not completely buy what the media was claiming the next president to represent.

A "The New York Times," editorial on Mr. Obama and race, noted how he has refused the role of black "exceptionalist" lecturing his people "to stop whining about racism and get on with it."

Regardless of Obama's posture on Guantanamo, detentions, the intelligence capers, and other civil rights issues, the conservatives were correct in their earliest presentiments that he was something "other."

So were the "others."

And last Wednesday. The Venice Beach Drum Circle got their reward for voting Obama in November.

That was when President Obama, a guy who thinks thrice before talking, said that a stupid Cambridge cop "acted stupidly" in its handling of a report that a Harvard professor was burgling his own home.

Of course, the upstanding and obedient who claim all American values to be their own pounced, but out at Venice, around the drum circle at sunset, the congas were getting conked a little harder.

Because the victim of police abuse in the case at hand was African-American, much of the ensuing debate has rested upon the question of race, which is fine.

But for highwayscribery, and those at The Venice Drum Circle on behalf of whom he deigns to write, it was only a "black thing," to the extent African-Americans are subject to the larger "police thing."

In America, we reserve a place for the forces of law and order that are too often, well, above the law. There is and always has been a slavish deference to the whims and desires of those we ostensibly pay to protect us.

The only exception to the habitual bending of this tropism toward all things cop is the National Rifle Association, which can beat a capitol building lined with police officers seeking some sanity in our gun laws, every time.

highwayscribery does not need to go back very far in time in a search for events that make his case. And it is worth pointing out that the only reason we're talking about this now is because the Cambridge Police Force picked on the wrong black guy.

That's because Professor Gates is a black guy with a big brain, a brain with our Constitution's Bill of Rights etched into its recesses, and a strong conviction that democracy is healthier when you question cops rather than lick their shoes.

That, of course, was his privilege. Gates took the cop on because of the firepower (intelligence and connections) he had.

But not everyone is so blessed.

Only a month ago, in San Diego, a jury acquitted a police officer who, while off-duty, got into a road-rage scrape with another driver and wound up shooting both she and her eight-year old boy.

As the current state of affairs would have it, the one who got shot was convicted and sentenced, medical problems associated with being wounded by a cop, notwithstanding.

It turns out that she was an "unsympathetic" victim, someone whom even the prosecutor trying the cop called a "butthead" in court, a person plagued with flaws we'd have never known about had Officer Frank White not taken aim at her.
And fired.

Whatever Rachel Silva's imperfections, it was Mr. White who carried the gun, who was sworn to uphold the law, and who should have gotten spanked for acting in a manner beneath the dignity of his office (or anybody else's).

Also down in San Diego, Encinitas to be exact, a Democratic challenger to Rep. Brian Bilbray's congressional seat had a residential fundraiser "upset" by the local police.

A 60-year old woman, Shari Barman, and a 62-year old activist named Pam Morgan, were both pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and charged with the usual crimes associated with telling a cop to go and respond to a real crime.

The American Civil Liberties has said the case involves, "what appears to be a significant abuse of power by a peace officer who intruded into a person's home and reacted with unwarranted force to an unsubstantiated complaint alleging a minor infraction."

When Will Carless, an intrepid investigative reporter for the nonprofit "Voice of San Diego," requested documents from the Sheriff's Department on the investigation into Deputy Marshall G. Abbott's
meltdown, he was told to go screw.

See what we mean?

The "San Diego Union-Tribune," which never met a police raid it didn't like, was able, with the help of local "Christian" activist, to dredge up some evidence of Barman's "violent past" involving an altercation with an airport security guard in...1977.

Michael Wilson and Solomon Moore of the "The New York Times" wrote that, "The line of when to put on handcuffs is a personal and blurry one, varying among officers in the same city, the same precinct, even the same patrol car."

Some officers in the article described a degree of tolerance and the need for a thick skin in their particular line of work.

But another officer from Denver had a different take. "We're not going to take abuse," he said. "We have to remain in control. We're running the show."

Well, over at The Venice Drum Circle that they're never abusing anybody when the police come around. They might add that "control" is the provenance of free citizens until they forfeit it and note that civil society is not a "show" so there is no reason for somebody to "run" it.

It is worth noting that, in the San Diego incident, Abbott went haywire when Barman asked him why he needed her date of birth.

Seems Barman and Professor Gates hail from a similar time and generation that did not care much for the dictates of security guards and police officers with a dim view of America's claim to being a free county.

Ms. Barman's "partner," the 55 year-old Jane Stratton was also knocked down by "Wildman" Abbot.

See a pattern here?

NRA wins. Conga players, lesbians, and black people lose.

The NRA did not support or endorse Obama. Its propaganda about the meaning of his election led a guy in Pittsburgh to shoot up the town for fear our president would remove the sacred gun from his cold sweaty hands.

The conga players, the lesbians, and, for certain, the blacks, did vote for Mr. Obama. Thus elevated, he characterized a certain type of police behavior, common and accepted from the cold Northeast to the warm Southwest, in the same way they would have.

The president has not apologized. Obama has said he would have "calibrated" his remarks differently, but the sum total would have been the same.

If his hand was forced in commenting anew, and calling the policeman and the professor to a White House conversation, the victory goes to his supporters, because there Sergeant James Crowley will come face-to-face with his sloppy handiwork.

And that would be a first.

Social security

Walt — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:36:38 EDT

Will social security be there when you retire? Many people are asking that question because the politicians have such differing views. Actually you have the fate of your social security in your hands. If you elect those who say it won't be there for you, then it won't be. If you elect those who say it will be there for you, then it will be.

Economics 101

Walt — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:34:00 EDT

As people's incomes increase, they typically buy more goods except for those items that they buy less of, called inferior goods, One example cited in economics texts is the potato. As incomes increase, people usually eat fewer potatoes. As their incomes decrease, they eat more potatoes. Cheap and filling.

During the past 30 years, the average American has seen his/her income stagnate which I believe is the reason for the rapid growth of chain stores offering the retail equivalent of potatoes. Cheap goods that offer the illusion of keeping up with the Joneses. If incomes were increasing, big box stores would not be attracting so many customers.

Bush/Cheney and the law

Walt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:14:50 EDT

I am certain that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney wanted to protect the US from al Qaeda and thought that they were doing the right thing but they also wanted to increase the power of the President, upsetting the checks and balances among the three branches of government. Republicans claim that federal judges should not legislate from the bench making new laws. However, those judges are carefully scrutinized before confirmation.

In the case of Bush/Cheney and the law, Bush and Cheney shopped around among government lawyers looking for lawyers willing to write opinions that would alter the law and give Bush and Cheney the powers they sought. I doubt that those government lawyers received the scrutiny that federal judges receive.

2010

Walt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:03:30 EDT

The November 2010 election will be a challenge and an opportunity. It will be a challenge since the party out of power usually gains seats in Congress. It will be an opportunity to increase Democratic majorities and make Barack's change agenda easier to achieve. If the Republicans manage to hold their own, they will increase their obstruction and Barack will be able to do little in 2011 and 2012 as both parties jockey for position. The 2010 election is critical since we cannot afford to wait two more years for reforms.

My goal is to reduce the Republicans in Congress by 25%. I don't know the exact numbers in the House, but in the Senate that would be a reduction in the Republican ranks from 40 seats to 30. It will be difficult to achieve, but well worth the doing.

Consider the 2010 election as one of the 12 labors of Hercules: the cleaning of the Augean stables in one day. Hercules diverted a river to wash the stables clean. We must channel the desire for change on election day to further cleanse Congress of corruption and indifference to the well being of the majority. We began this process in 2006 and continued it in 2008. Many in Congress have still not gotten the message.

Waterloo

Walt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:47:40 EDT

Recently James DeMint, Republican junior senator from South Carolina, revealed the Republican strategy on health care reform, defeat Barack Obama so that his presidency will fail. It is not about health care reform; it is about re fighting the 2008 election. Now my confidence in team Obama, Barack and his advisors, is very high. It is the same team Obama that won elections in Illinois, the Democratic nomination and the 2008 election. If health care reform is anyone's Waterloo, it will the Republicans's. They are completely overmatched by team Obama.

Health care debate

Walt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:36:59 EDT

This is worth a look.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jul/19/ob10healthpulse19/

Democracy

Walt — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:42:10 EDT

Democracy is hard work. It is easy to vote or not vote and complain about the results. One vote by itself will not make a difference. One vote combined with a few more from like-minded voters can make a difference. To be heard: vote, voice your opinions, and donate time/money to a cause of your choosing. Making democracy work is hard work. Nothing worthwhile is easy.

Canadian health insurance

Walt — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:39:02 EDT

We live an average of 78 years while Canadians live an average of 81 years, or three years longer. They may wait for elective surgery but not for other care. They pay half what we do for health care. So what is wrong with paying less to live longer?

Little Story, Big News

Stephen Siciliano — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:32:48 EDT

Your "big" news stories confected for mainstream consumption do not always cover matters of mainstream consumption.

Sotomayor, health care, Guantanamo...a liberal's dream list of concerns blanket our Web pages and daily newspapers thanks to the change in power affected last November.

Sometimes, in the heat of it all, it is not so easy to remember that during the Bush regime Guantanamo was the particular province of media oddities such as, well, highwayscribery.

Yes, there are close votes on health care forthcoming, and frustrated minority senators sniping at a nominee assured confirmation, but the shift in agenda from Bush to Obama is dramatic enough to suggest they were two presidents of two different countries (with the same name).

As to mainstream consumption, it would have been unheard of, a year ago, that our big media outlets must needs bother themselves with such a thing as the Obama administration's efforts to restrict the use of anti-biotics in our food supply.

But lo and behold, there was Gardiner Harris's piece in the July 14 edition of "The New York Times."

Given its page 17 placement, HR 962, sponsored by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) is not the biggest star in the media constellation.

But if the Michael Jackson circus taught us anything, it is that the chieftains at our networks and bureaus have no monopoly on the country's sober priorities and are as apt to lose their heads as a teenage girl at a concert of the now departed pop star.

Gardiner ledes with the administration seeking, "to ban many routine uses antibiotics in farm animals in hopes of reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria in humans."

One of the unsung heroes of our time, or any time, Principal Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drug Joshua Sharfstein, told the House Rules Committee on Monday that, "feeding antibiotics to healthy chickens, pigs, and cattle -- done to encourage rapid growth -- should cease."

And that's a start. From there highwayscribery would like to see the cessation of all additions to farm livestock that are not necessarily...actual food.

Slaughter's legislation would ban seven classes of antibiotics from being given and restrict the application of others to therapeutic and preventive uses.

One would have thought that's what such things were intended for in the first place.

Sharfstein, and those who hired him in the Obama administration, believe the antibiotics lead to the development of bacteria in humans for which our immune systems have no response.

The American Medical Association agrees with them.

The bad and somewhat dispiriting news is that the farm lobby is against the measure and therefore, Gardiner reports, "makes its passage unlikely."

Well, you know, that's awful.

After all, we're aware something makes us sick -- and sounds funny as an idea to begin with -- the doctors' council essentially agrees, and because the National Pork Producers Council has paid for the loyalty of enough Congress members, we've got to eat...

But all hope is not lost. There's a plan to sidestep Congressional fans of polluted food and slip the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007" into the health care reform bill.

That should make the President's job even easier!

Dave Warner, a spokesman for the porkmen, admits there seem to be more cases of anti-biotic resistance diseases from food consumption. But he added that there are "no good studies" tying them to the use of these substances in the production of that food.

Which may or may not be true, but wouldn't it be nice if they stopped using these things until some degree of certainty is achieved on the question?

The Pew Environment Group, the article goes on to note, is paying for some advertisements supporting the measure.

Robert Martin, a senior officer at Pew said, "Just the fact that Congresswoman Slaughter is having a hearing today is a huge step forward."

Which is somewhat the point of this post.

(You can call Slaughter at (202) 225-3615 to encourage her efforts in this area).