Estropundit

Tom Hayden reminds us of Hillary's radical roots

2008-04-27T10:50:00.000-04:00

Former Michigander Tom Hayden, an author of the Port Huron Statement of the Sixties, writes in The Nation about how disingenuous Hillary is being by piling on in attempts to tie Barack Obama to Sixties' radicals.

As Obama noted, he was only eight years old when the Weathermen were active. But he did not point out, as some think he should, that Hillary Clinton was a radical back then -- something that the "right-wing attack machine" is holding in reserve if she gets the nod for the fall election.

After leaving Yale, newly minted lawyer Hillary went to work for a left-wing San Francisco firm that specialized in defending the Black Panthers and labor leaders tied to Communist causes. Those facts may make me wish Hillary were more like she once was. But they also show that people change and that you cannot be judged by the actions of every friend or family member. (Though I am not sure I can forgive Hillary for sticking with Bill, especially now.)

As Hayden writes:

. . . doesn't she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn't the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn't the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach?

I am glad to see Obama remaining above the fray, but I hope that Hayden's comments get a wide play. The argument that the right has thrown everything at Hillary belies the fact that they haven't even started.

First sign that the Dem establishment will give it to Hillary?

2008-04-27T10:49:00.000-04:00

I just watched in horror as Howard Dean told the "Meet the Press" audience this morning that the Dem race is a virtual tie. A tie?

As Politico et al have explained, there is simply no way under the prevailing rules that Hillary Clinton can catch and then overtake Barack Obama in the remaining primaries. Tie? A tie where superdelegates should break the tie by choosing the person on the basis of who is perceived as most electable? Is that code for the black man cannot win, so give it to Hillary?

Rep. James Clyburn notes that many African Americans are worried that this is the "graybeards" of the party finding a way to rob the upstart black man of the nomination. Hillary is the mainstream candidate, arm twisting the superdelegates with promises of favors and threats of retribution - made all the more credible by years of doing just that. All Obama is offering is hope of a better society.

So is this a sign that the party elders are going to do whatever it takes to give Hillary a shot, even though her negatives are so high that they give John McCain a real shot in the fall? And will mainstream media collude because they love to keep the race going?

As Clyburn rightly noted, the idea that whites are the swing vote that should decide the race treats black voters as irrelevant. Why isn't anyone asking why Hillary no longer does as well with black voters as she once did?

No Democrat can win in the fall without the black vote. So why doesn't it matter that Hillary is threatening to bring the party down with the divisive tactics her campaign has been using, especially husband Bill?

If Howard Dean and his pals end up giving the nod to Hillary, then I will wonder why I ever returned to the fold after going to the Green Party in 2000.

Home price drop worst ever - check yours

2008-03-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

Check your home's
current value at Cyberhomes.com

Home prices in the United States fell 11.4% last month, the worst drop since Standard & Poors began tracking them in 1987. A broader composite of cities shows home prices falling 10.7%, the first time both indices have ever fallen by double digits.

I checked my home on Cyberhomes and found it has dropped $22,770 just last month. I don't know about you, but I can't make that up by turning down the thermostat to the point where I turn blue.

Cyberhomes says my home would sell today for between $179,091 - $228,838, so the drop reflects what Standard & Poor's is reporting. Since I am 63 and have hopes of retiring someday without being forced to dine exclusively on dog food, losing more than a tenth of the value of my major asset is disconcerting, to say the least.

Pocketbook politics means me even more upset with the Clinton's continuing ego quest to win the nomination for Hillary at any cost.

David Brook's column in the New York Times today says that Hillary's 10% chance of winning the nomination is now down to 5%. Given the choice between McCain, who admits he's no good on the economy, and Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill apparently have no qualms about conducting a scorched-earth campaign that risks handing McCain a victory in the fall.

On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC this morning, Chris Matthews proposes that the Clintons would prefer a one-term McCain presidency to a possible two-term Obama presidency, if Hillary cannot get the nomination this time. Matthews is suggesting that the Clintons are so ruthless that they will do whatever they can to set up Hillary for the next time, if she cannot win this time, even if it means electing a Republican in the fall.

Now that's Hardball.

And that's reprehensible.

And it must be stopped before the bottom completely falls out of my home's value.

It's time for Howard Dean et al in the Democratic Party to find a way to put a stake through the heart of the Clinton candidacy at the end of the primary season in June, at the latest. Waiting until the convention in August is a surefire way to weaken the Democratic candidate to the point of unelectability.

Guiding the U.S. economy through the dangerous shoals of a falling dollar, a ballooning trade deficit, continuing losses in manufacturing jobs and dramatic rises in energy and food prices, on top of the crisis in housing, requires focusing on what the candidates propose to do about the economy.

Yes, I know Hillary embellished the dangers she faced in Tuzla a dozen years ago. But, as Dick Cheney would say, So? It's time for the media to stop trafficking in trivia, even when today's news benefits my guy.

Before the housing market collapses completely, let's get back on track and start talking about what government can do to turn this around, other than bailing out the big boys on Wall Street, while fobbing me off with $600 I will have to wait months to collect.

Economic predictions sound familiar - meanwhile BBC shows us the new Hoovervilles

2008-03-23T10:55:00.000-04:00

CNBC superstars Erin Burnett ("Street Signs") and Maria Baritromo ("Closing Bell with Maria Bartiromo) just appeared on "Meet the Press" where they (mostly) assured everyone that the economy looks good in the long run and how much better off you will be if you put your money in stocks.

Money Honey Bartiromo said that the Federal Reserve and international banks have made it clear they will do whatever it takes to avert disaster. Up-and-comer Burnett hinted that there are some who fear that doing everything may not be enough to stave off nasty surprises.

An editorial in Gold Eagle by Colin Seymour in 2001 saved me the trouble of looking up reassuring predictions from the past. Here are a few of the 20 entries Seymour gathered:

- "There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity." - Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

- "We feel that fundamentally Wall Street is sound, and that for people who can afford to pay for them outright, good stocks are cheap at these prices." - Goodbody and Company market-letter quoted in The New York Times, Friday, October 25, 1929

- "I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence." - Herbert Hoover, December 1929

- "There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about." - Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

- "... the present depression has about spent its force..." - Harvard Economic Society, Aug 30, 1930

- "All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S." - President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

- - - - - -

My goal is not to foment panic. After all, economic prosperity depends on everyone maintaining faith in the system, and I have a retirement account to protect.

But I, for one, am weary of having my security threatened by a two-party system with one position on the economy, which is to allow corporate America to call the shots without any real regulation.

Remember the Savings and Loan scandal? Weren't we supposed to learn some lessons from that?

Republicans and Democrats colluded in passing NAFTA without requiring other countries to meet our environmental and labor standards, guaranteeing the playing field for manufacturing jobs would tilt elsewhere. Then there was the Internet bubble, the Enron energy bubble and now the housing bubble.

Remember the old song called "I'm forever blowing bubbles - pretty bubbles in the air"?

When the bubbles burst, tax dollars are used to mop up the fallout on corporations, but not on citizens. And our corporate media colludes in offering reassurances rather than analysis.

Congratulations to the BBC for showing us the tent cities springing up in our country. And thanks to the Internet for allowing us a way to see real reporting again.

A break from politics - or maybe not?

2008-03-12T17:43:00.001-04:00

Click on the little doggie, and she will take you to a place where you can give her commands. (Don't forget to ask for a "kiss.")

The first time I asked her to vote for Obama, and she told me to "Please put that in dog-friendly language." The second time, she said, "That is beyond my abilities.

I wonder what she would say about Hillary? Recognize another b----? (As Barbara Bush would say, "Rhymes with rich.")

Gotcha! Federal Reserve HAS been bailing out the banks without telling us!

2008-02-18T23:19:00.005-05:00

Reuters now has a report from The Financial Times explaining that banks have quietly borrowed roughly $50 billion from the Federal Reserve the past few weeks.

Please note that on February 7, this blogger noted that the report on the Federal Reserve website showed that more than $40 billion had disappeared from the books in just the past few weeks. (Thanks again to all my paranoid (but eagle-eyed) buddies at the Godlike Productions forum for spotting the strange goings on.)

The Fed site shows that its reserves had tumbled from $42,281 billion in the black during November to -$8749 billion in the red by February 7. As of February 13, they are now down to -$18,009 billion. According to the records on the Fed site, nothing like this has ever happened before.

Aren't these the reserves designed to protect us against bank runs and insolvency? Does this mean we're broke but nobody has bothered to tell us yet?

I do want to thank the vigilant citizen journalist watchdogs who are keeping on eye on the big boys for us. But I also want to know how a meltdown of these proportions could go unnoticed by the mainstream financial press.

Even now, with word of the bailout beginning to leak out, where is the analysis telling us what it means?

The Financial Times fails to answer my bottom-line question - is it time to put my money in gold -- or in my mattress?

Marrying John didn't make Yoko a great singer and marrying Bill . . .

2008-02-14T08:35:00.001-05:00

Erica Jong argues in the Huffington Post that the Hillary-Haters are ruining the chances for us to have the first woman president in the United States. She views women for Obama as turncoats. "Ok folks, stick your heads in the sand like Maureen Dowd who thinks we're not against women but just against Clinton 'baggage.'"

What Jong and many other old-line feminists ignore is that believing that a woman should have an equal shot at being president does not mean that every woman is the right choice for the job. Again, marrying John didn't make Yoko a Beatle or a great singer. And marrying Bill didn't make Hillary a great politician or a potentially great president either.

The problem with the Clintons is baggage. Pointing out the failures of the Clinton co-presidency is not evidence of Hillary-hating, it's proof of a good memory, coupled with an overwhelming desire not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

On January 31, the New York Times ran an article about how Bill Clinton took Canadian mining exec Frank Giustra with him to Kazakhstan, where two days later Giustra walked off with three spectacular contracts for uranium. Shortly thereafter, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Library (or patronage slush fund, if you prefer), with a promise of $100 million more.

Barack Obama may not need to use this ammo to derail Hillary's presidential aspirations. He seems to be doing just fine rolling along above the fray. But can you imagine what the Republicans could do with that in a fall campaign? Even today's Hillary-lovers might recover from their current amnesia and remember why she's ultimately unelectable no matter which gender she is.

Some of Hillary's high negatives stem from misogyny, which remains a sad reality. There are also white folks who will never vote for Barack Obama no matter how qualified and talented he is, and that is equally sad.

But sympathy for discrimination is not a good enough reason to vote for a woman who is not the right choice for the job. The worst thing in the world would be for women to push Hillary over the top now only to have her fail in the fall and elect President McCain.

A trend whose time has not come

2008-02-12T09:33:00.002-05:00

I am old enough to remember the beehives of the Fifties. Maybe someone as hot/cool at Amy Winehouse can wear her hair piled high, but Cindy McCain has been looking a little odd lately, with that French twist thingie creeping up the back of her head. And we all remember those painful years when Hillary's hair shaped-shifted from one dorky 'do to another. Let's nip this new trend in the bud before it spreads any further.

A new future for Michigan

2008-02-12T09:33:00.001-05:00

Note to Michigan Future: If you want credibility in talking about high-tech jobs, invest in a better-looking Web site.

A new study by Michigan Future Inc. finds that Detroit, Grand Rapids and Lansing are falling behind the rest of the country in creating high-level jobs. The report argues that recent MIchigan government policies, such as cutting corporate taxes and dis-investing in higher education, are the wrong medicine for what ails us.

It is sad that The Detroit News, the Republican business paper, embraces the know-nothing strategies that actually drive good jobs from Michigan. There's the cut-taxes mantra. Equally as short-sighted is the rigid orthodoxy that lowering CAFE standards is bad for the car business.

Sorry, Henry, but the lesson of the Seventies was that smart car companies should focus on building fuel-efficient, reliable cars. Detroit's Big Three instead invested in manufacturing pickup trucks on steroids they sold to insecure males desperate to flaunt something big. Or SUVs/Hummers for soccer moms who mistakenly think they're safer. These gas-guzzling monsters are simply this era's equivalent of the fin-tailed, chrome-clotted land-monsters that put Detroit and Flint into the economic dumper the first time that gas prices spiked as a result of Middle East misadventures.

The first time is tragedy, the second time farce. So why aren't we laughing?

Edwards' withdrawal could boost Obama

2008-01-30T09:29:00.001-05:00

A real surprise - John Edwards will end his campaign in New Orleans today. He has decided that he will no longer serve as the port where frightened Democratic white male voters can safely shelter their vote. Even though these guys knew Edwards couldn't win, his candidacy was a way for them to reject Hillary without having to take a gamble on Obama.

Now Democratic voters must choose between Hillary or Obama -- and they will have their first chance to see them go head to head in the upcoming debate.

Perhaps there is still time for Obama to win. Voters who think Hillary is the safe choice may realize that there's a good reason that the Republicans are salivating at the thought of running against her. She has the highest negatives of any presidential candidate in recent memory.

If McCain gets the Republican nod, the race will pit a Nixonian Evita against a shorter, older John Wayne. But if the race comes down to Obama versus McCain, it will be the past versus the future, peace versus war, jobs versus guns.

The challenge for Obama is that there is not much time for voters to digest all this before next week's SuperDuper Tuesday. Thank God for the 24-hour news cycle and the Internet.

STATE OF THE UNION - A voter ID boondoggle that would make the KGB proud

2008-01-29T11:43:00.000-05:00

Why aren't Republicans whining about voter fraud during the primaries? Down deep, do they know that there is actually little or no real problem with people showing up to vote who shouldn't be?

JURIST reported last year that a federal panel found the only voter fraud occurs with absentee ballots. (The fact that the report was completed in May but wasn't released until October also suggests the Republican administration didn't like the findings.)

Yet voter ID will undoubtedly be a big issue for Republicans this fall. (Karl Rove can be counted on to perpetuate the hoax.) Note that part of Bush's desultory State of the Union message last night talked about giving employers "the tools" they need to ensure their workers are not illegal immigrants. As BBC reporter Greg Palast blogs, that's code for a kajillion-dollar government giveaway to cronies to build a citizen ID database, preferably one that tracks our fingerprints, DNA and retinal scans (maybe even some face recognition?).

This bill of goods that will shred our Bill of Rights will be sold as a way to ensure none of those pesky illegal immigrants steal our jobs or dilute our votes. Right-wing radio will whip listeners into a frenzy at the thought that hordes of "illegals" will spill across the border straight into the polls to pull the lever for the (female or black) Democratic nominee this fall. The horror. The horror.

What the citizen ID program will really do, of course, is make it easier for the federal government to spy on us. And if you think the Dems will save us from such evils, keep an eye this Friday to see if the Democrats cave to Bush's demands that Congress pass legislation to indemnify the big telcos against lawsuits for the illegal spying on us that they have already done.

At least in Iraq, people who care get to vote. They even get the day off work to do so. Our system instead puts every possible obstacle in the way of people at the bottom of the economic pile. Applying for a new federal ID card is just the latest version of the old-fashioned poll test. Makes you wonder when and if democracy will ever become a priority here, too.

DTRT MYR SCNDL - 1 dwn - 1 2 go?

2008-01-29T10:58:00.001-05:00

The text-messaging mayor remains hunkered down in his mansion, planning how to avoid facing the music. As always, it is the woman who steps down. (The persistence of the glass ceiling keeps women in the lesser-ranked jobs -- so there's no question that a Monica would go, not a Bill.)

At some point, Mayor Kilpatrick will emerge and hiphop his way through a press conference, arguing that the official investigation precludes him from commenting. So unless Prosecutor Kym Worthy can get the goods on him, don't buy any wolf tickets that promise Hizzoner will go away anytime soon.

Will a corrupt delegates system give the Clintons an undeserved win?

2008-01-27T14:04:00.001-05:00

As both the Democratic and Republican primaries tighten, political junkies like me will start tallying up how many delegates each candidate has. (After last night, the interactive MSNBC toteboard shows Obama with 63 delegates to Clinton's 48. Meanwhile Romney has 59 delegates, compared to Huckabee's 40. "Frontrunner" McCain has only 36.)

But don't bother paying too much attention to those running totals. It's the "superdelegates" (for the Dems) and the "unpledged delegates" (for the Republicans) who may well decide both races. (To learn more about how the two parties choose and allocate delegates, consult the SFgate.com article that tries to make these murky rules comprehensible.)

Awarding someone superdelegate or unpledged status is a way to reward party bigshots, at the same time it also means that they could swing the outcome. When Governor Janet Napolitano endorsed Barack Obama, not only did that win him a few positive headlines when the announcement was made, but she's also a superdelegate whose vote therefore can be counted in his column if there's a convention showdown.

According to the Minnesota Monitor,the Dems have assigned 796 (19%) of the 4,090 primary delegates "superdelegate" status. The Republicans have 463 unpledged delegates (19%) out of 2,380 total (and of those unpledged, 123 are members of the Republican National Committee). Bottom line is that one out of every five votes at the convention will be cast by people who have no requirement to reflect the will of the voters.

The history of primary voting in the United States has long been a battle between democracy and power politics. Sadly, ever since the "power to the people" Sixties, the pendulum has been swinging back to giving party hacks more power, to the point where the system in place today makes the old Soviet Union look like a bastion of democracy in comparison.

I am old enough to remember seeing Mayor Daley's red-faced machinations to ensure Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic nominee in 1968, even though I was watching him on a black-and-white TV. Revulsion at that kind of politics in the Sixties briefly made us a more democratic country. And, for the most part, primary elections since have not been tight enough for voters to realize how much our people power has eroded since.

This could be the year we will see how much we've lost. On the Republican side, imagine the kinds of games that the Establishment Republicans will play if Mike Huckabee comes anywhere near the number needed to be nominated.

The more dangerous and divisive possibility, however, is that Obama could be robbed of the nomination by the ruthless Clinton machine. Can't you see Terry McAuliffe threatening superdelegates with the political equivalent of homicide to ensure the final votes go Hillary's way?

Does anyone doubt that the Clintons would do this? Would they even flinch?

Is it just me or does today's Democratic race echo 1968?The entry in Wikipedia about that contest decades ago reminds us that we never had the chance to find out whether Bobby Kennedy would have received the nod. Before his assassination in Los Angeles during the California primary, Kennedy had won four primaries to Eugene McCarthy's five. Hubert Humphrey did not compete, instead using "favorite son" surrogates to gain delegates he could count on.

Some historians believe Kennedy's charisma would have carried him to the nomination. More objective observers such as Tom Wicker of the New York Times insisted that Humphrey had enough delegates to win and would not have given up the nomination no matter what.

On many levels, I worry that we could be watching a similar scenario unfold today. My biggest fear is that we will return to the political bloodshed of the past. There is something unnerving about having Caroline Kennedy and (probably) Teddy Kennedy, the remaining icons of the Jack/Bobby legacy, endorse Barack Obama.

My second-biggest fear is that we will again see youthful idealism crushed by politics as usual if the relentless Clinton machine is not derailed in time.

This past week proves that the Clintons have no shame. The next few weeks will show whether women voters can see past their gender loyalty to Hillary Clinton and deny her the delegates needed to make it close enough so that the superdelegates matter.

Anyone who cares about the future knows those young people behind Barack Obama last night are the emerging heart of the Democratic Party. I don't want to play Cassandra and jinx the outcome, but if Hillary Clinton ends up winning the nomination by manipulating the superdelegate count, she and Bill will preside over the death of the Democratic Party.

On the one hand, I am energized at the thought that hope will triumph. On the other hand, however, I can feel my heart in my throat.

Hill-Billy, go home

2008-01-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

How can the Dems avert a disaster this fall? Find a way to dump Hill-Billy in the primaries.

When I see our former president, with his W. C. Fields nose, in his shiny gray suit with the neon orange tie, he looks like the kind of guy who would seduce a self-absorbed young intern into playing sexual tricks with him and a cigar.

But I remember feeling guilty when I first had these thoughts about Bill. How could I be so trivial, so superficial? But then Bill became the self-anointed Hillary hatchetman. To help Hillary win, Bill is willing to slime Barack Obama himself himself, no matter how undignified this is for a former president. And now I just want Hill-Billy gone.

There is no doubt in my mind that, if we don't stop them, Bill and Hillary will become the stars of a new low-rent soap opera that we will be forced to watch for four more years, four more years. Bill Clinton has proven himself willing to distort, if not outright lie, about Barack Obama, unleashing the same scorched earth assaults that he levied against the "nuts and sluts" who stood in his way before. According to a new poll on CNN, Bill Clinton's attempts to paint Obama as the black candidate mean that Barack will win South Carolina, but with only 10% of the white vote, far lower than his share in Iowa and New Hampshire.

A pundit this morning (too early for me to remember who) said that the Clintons had gone so far that they must plan on offering Obama the veep slot, because it's the only hope they will have of securing the black vote in the fall.

No mas. Let's end it. Make sure that the Clintons take a drubbing on SuperDuper Tuesday. If they aren't stopped, it will be Washington business as usual for the the foreseeable future. It's time to turn a new page.

Bush and Dems destroy stimulus plan

2008-01-25T07:51:00.000-05:00

I should worry that I find myself agreeing with more and more of my Detroit News blogmates. But George Bullard is right that the stimulus/tax rebate plan won't do much good.

As economist Paul Krugman explains in the New York Times, the Dems caved on a stimulus plan that would have worked, by putting the money into the hands of people who need it and will spend it. A sensible plan would have included extending unemployment benefits, or paying folks good wages to rebuild our infrastructure, or targeting the money to low-income people.

But the Republicans fixation on taxes taxes taxes and the Democrats timidity and lack of vision conspired to produce a plan that risks spending $140 billion on a plan less likely to work than the alternatives that were quickly rejected. When Mitt Romney droned on last night about how our economy sucks because Washington is broken, we all know that he would be yet another MBA without a clue about the lives of real people.

Did you hear Romney talk about how great the stock market plunge was? While the rest of us worried that our retirement money was eroding to the point we could look forward to dining on dog food, Squire Romney looked upon the disaster as a great "buying opportunity."

But no wonder the multimillionaire Romney isn't worried. He has his money tax sheltered in the Cayman Islands, so that he doesn't have to pay income tax on it like the little people.

NYT endorsements (they were wrong on WMD, too)

2008-01-24T20:59:00.000-05:00

Arguing that Hillary deserves the nod because she's ready from day one, the New York Times has just endorsed Hillary Clinton as their choice for the Democratic nomination. Equally as non-sensically, the NYT also endorsed John McCain arguing that the fractious senator is a consensus-builder who knows how to work well with others.

A fall election campaign from hell! The battle-axe and the bulldog. Is this really the best the United States can come up with after spending millions on primaries that defy reason? Or is this just another example of the establishment closing ranks?

Kwame, Bill and intellectual consistency

2008-01-24T20:02:00.001-05:00

I agree with my Detroit News blogmate Henry Payne that the Free Press should not try to have it both ways. The newspaper's editorial board cannot logically argue that Kwame should go for lying under oath when they previously argued that Bill Clinton deserved pass for similar transgressions. However, it is with no great joy that I am being consistent in saying that both men should go.

Lying under oath about a material issue is lying under oath.
The issue for me is equity. If it were Bonnie Bucqueroux or Lil' Kim fibbing under oath, we would end up doing time (as Lil' Kim did). The argument that either Bill and Kwame somehow deserve to escape punishment just because the issue is adultery fails to move me.

In Bill's case, his sin was compounded when he signed legislation that criminalized the workplace harassment that he then lied about in the Paula Jones' case. Serial lying blended with hypocrisy compounded with sexual harassment means that the case cannot be dismissed as "just about sex."

Last I knew, Kwame has not spent much time pandering to the feminist vote as Bill did, but he made a bad situation worse by putting both his arrogance and his adultery on the taxpayer's tab. Settling the case brought about by his unscrupulous behavior in suppressing information about his private life cost Detroiters $9 million they don't have to waste on his peccadilloes.

If consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, put me down for a tiny hat size. I think both men deserve to be broomed off the stage, the sooner the better. Watching Bill Clinton tarnish his already tainted reputation makes me wish that we had seen the last of him long ago.

We do need a new kind of politics.

Kiss my bottom

2008-01-23T21:55:00.001-05:00

Market analysts like Jim Cramer seem elated at the thought that the stock market has "bottomed." Cramer's eyes glistened and gleamed tonight on his CNBC show "Mad Money." Time for the piggies to head back to the greed trough!

But there is another school of thought, the gloom and doomers (of whom I am a charter member) who foresee a different future. Global warming, with its violent weather, emerging diseases, drought, wildfires and economic dislocations. Then there's also Peak Oil - the argument that we are on the downslope of depleting the world's oil supplies, and that our commuter-based suburban lifestyle will soon become untenable.

James Kunstler, the best author in this apocalyptic mini-genre, will follow up his book "The Long Emergency" with a novel at the end of February called World Made by Hand. This new book explores how our world will shrink to the point where we can only know and care about what we can walk to. In a blog about his predictions for 2008, Kunstler argues that we can no longer sustain our wasteful ways. "Has there ever been a society so exquisitely rigged for implosion? The whole listing, creaking, reeking edifice stands like one of those obsolete Las Vegas pleasure palaces awaiting a mere pulse of electrons to ignite a thousand explosive charges perfectly placed to blow away the structural supports."

BBC reporter Greg Palast, author of the rollicking read "Armed Madhouse," recently blogged about the inevitable economic unraveling that is now a question of when, not if. His latest screed explains how the Saudis now own us, lock, stock and barrel (of oil), now that we owe $3 trillion to China, Saudi Arabia and Japan who hold the paper on our national debt.

So before heaving a sigh of relief that the economic meltdown has been averted, take a moment to read these oracles who remind us that the slide is only beginning.

Let's build a neighborhood response plan now

2005-09-17T16:46:00.000-04:00

The same folks who brought you the post-invasion chaos of Baghdad and the post-hurricane debacle of New Orleans are the same folks we must rely on to deal with bird flu. As ABC so succinctly put it, "It could kill a billion people worldwide, make ghost towns out of parts of major cities and there is not enough medicine to fight it. It is called the avian flu."

Run for the hills!

Or maybe what we need is to invest in developing neighborhood-based response stategies that could allow us to cope with a variety of different local threats. At the first organizing meeting, put together a list of local residents and all of their contact information. If the communication infrastucture survives, you can use it to get the word out and also to quell rumors. If our landlines and cellphones die, we can also go on foot around the neighborhood with updates. Make sure to collect information on people with special needs.

Next step is to identify a safe refuge within walking distance. The basement of a school, the township hall, the community center. Pitch in to stockpile food, water, blankets, flashlights, batteries and all those other things we will need if something goes wrong, whether it's a blizzard, a tornado, an epidemic or a terrorist attack of one kind or another. Put someone smart and organizing in charge of developing the checklist and seek local donations.

Then we need a response plan to get people to the refuge, while identifying fallback options. Make sure that volunteers conduct periodic dry runs to make sure the plans work.

I would be overjoyed to find that my local and state officials, as well as FEMA, have it together. But I do not want to bet my life and my family's life on it. In most cases, the challenge is to get through the first few days. That persuades me that it's time to get to know my neighbors better. How about a potluck to get started?

Atheism tutorial continued

2005-09-17T16:13:00.000-04:00

It is clear from many of the comments regarding my previous posting about why "Under God" should be excised from the Pledge of Allegiance that many people really do have an uninformed, if not twisted, view of atheism, at least atheism as practiced by yours truly.

First, Big Bonnie does believe in something. I posted my credo: "Humans should strive to support the best possible quality of life for all living creatures." And, yes, that does mean that I revere all life on the planet. Indeed, when push comes to shove (as it often does), I increasingly find that I prefer most dogs to most people. (You posters know who you are.)

And if I may be allowed a second commandment, it is that we also owe the natural world, both plants and animals, our attention and respect. While the U.S. media almost universally ignores such stories, the Independent in the United Kingdom reports that we may be approaching the point of no return with global warming -- if we have not passed it already. (For a lengthy discussion of my analysis of why, please visit my less-than-optimistic article called "Why conservatives will keep winning ... and winning ... and winning.)

As a card-carrying atheist, I look to science for answers to many but not all questions. So I exercise those not-God-given brain cells of mine seeking information that helps me better understand the world, knowing that we can never find all the answers.

I realize that it is less work and less unsettling to believe in a sky god or astrology or some other system that requires only faith. And some spiritual constructs, if they are appreciated as metaphor and not as literal truth, contribute to our quest to make sense of our lives.

But it is the pursuit of information and ideas and the attempt to place them within a logical framework that makes life exciting and worth living for me. I would actually find it quite sad and constricting to find that someone or something else hands us all the answers.

Roe versus Wade? Bush says he doesn't care how people got out of New Orleans

2005-09-17T16:11:00.000-04:00

That joke from my sister sums up how an increasing number of people view George Bush -- as clueless, indifferent, incurious and over (as in "put a fork in him, he's over").

Columnist E. J. Dionne of the influential Washington Post this week announces the Bush era is over

. Former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal says in Salon, "Bush's America is gone with the wind," while the headline screams that Bush's presidency is ruined.

Bush lovers will argue that these are people who never thought much of Bush in the first place. But the difference now is that the press no longer hesitates for fear of being called unpatriotic. News organizations have regained their voice and are willing to criticize this group of ideological kleptocrats for what they are -- radicals who line their own pockets with your money.

The rebuilding after Katrina shows the Bush folks for who and what they are. They don't give a damn for the folks abandoned at the SuperDome or the Convention Center, as evidenced by the fact that Bush immediately lifted the Davis-Bacon requirement to pay prevailing wages from all those new contracts. And Halliburton, of course, gets first dibs, even after whistleblower Bunnatine Greenhouse of the Army Corps of Engineers was demoted for telling us how badly Halliburton performed in the rebuilding or Iraq.

This is cronyism of the highest order. It is also part of that privitization ideology that means workers get screwed so that owners can make higher profits, cloaked in the argument that we must create a business-friendly climate of competition. Do you know any competitors for corporations are large as Halliburton and Bechtel that aren't equally as corrupt and incompetent?

In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins blows the whistle on the work he used to do -- selling economic development to Third World countries that did nothing but enrich the Halliburton and Bechtel corporations, while leaving the impoverished countries with a massive debt and dubious projects. These policies not only do nothing to alleviate poverty, they add to it. Sound familiar?

Unintentional honesty by Irish TV

2005-09-15T17:43:00.000-04:00

A TV broadcast in Ireland inadvertently titled its image of George Bush correctly - he is one of the worst disasters to hit the U.S. in my book.

"Under God" should go back where it came from

2005-09-15T14:32:00.000-04:00

I know that even some fellow atheists are arguing that banning the "Pledge of Allegiance" from schools, as Michael Newdow's court case attempts to do, has been pooh-poohed as the wrong battle at the wrong time.

But this is not the same as having a reference to god on our money. The pledge is recited in schools each day, which means that children who don't believe in a god face harrassment.

I know I did. I was in elementary school in Cleveland when Eisenhower stuck "under God" into the pledge and I was ridiculed daily for refusing to do so.

By middle school, we had moved to the country and the issue became my refusal to say the morning prayer that the principal led over the PA. (In Burton, Ohio, in the 1950s, it apparently didn't matter what the Supreme Court said.)

I can still hear the principal say, "Little Bonnie doesn't believe in God. She and her parents think she will be harmed to hear these healing words of prayer. So we will ask her to step outside until we are done seeking the Lord's blessing." How Christian of him.

It wasn't yet an era when you could raise a clenched fist in support of Atheist Power. (Come to think of it, it's pretty dangerous to do that now.) I sure wanted to do something to rebel against his self-righteous, smug and superior tone. But usually I was just too busy running for my life.

The fact is, when we talk about religious toleration in this country, the baseline standard often seems to be that everyone believes, but maybe not in the same sky god. The reality, of course, is that there are actually lots of people like me here who don't believe -- atheists, agnostics, ignostics (I don't know what you mean when you say god, so I don't know whether I believe what you believe or not), freethinkers (think Tom Paine) and The Brights (kind of atheist-lite or atheist but more wholesome and friendly).

Throw in a few existentialists as well (It's those pesky French again).

The problem for many of my peers back there in Ohio was that to them, an atheist was immoral, maybe even a Satanist. As one young red-faced boy shouted at me years ago, "You just don't believe in nothing so what would stop you from killing and stealing." Not as eloquent as Albert Camus quintessential question perhaps - "without god, who can say that it is better to nurse lepers than burn Jews?" But I found comfort in Jean Paul Sartre's challenge that each of us must construct our own meaning against the backdrop of a cold and uncaring universe.

For those of us who have struggled to create our own beliefs and rituals to support them, the idea of an off-the-shelf set of beliefs based on garbled utterances of self-anointed prophets in agricultural societies thousands of years ago seems far more peculiar. My modest credo -- that humans should strive to support the best possible quality of life for all living creatures -- seems all the more appealing because of the process required to develop my own values.

But requiring school children to pay obeisance to a god, any god, whether it's in the Pledge of Allegiance or school prayer does what it has always done - which is invite expressions of intolerance against those who don't agree. Most of my peers received little or no spiritual nourishment from repeating the words "under God" in the pledge -- most paid little attention to what they were saying. But the ritual of invoking a god in school contributes to perpetuating the myth that people like me don't exist or don't deserve to.

FEMA concentration camps?

2005-09-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

This first-person account (with pictures) of a family bringing donations to Katrina evacuees housed aT a church camp in Oklahoma run by FEMA sounds more like a prison. If you leave the camp, you cannot come back. No cooking in the kitchen -- even the church groups who volunteered aren't allowed to. No cellphone coverage. And the government plans to keep people there five months!

The more you read this family's account and look at the pictures, you see that FEMA is not about protection but control.

I don't know about you, but I don't remember voting yes on making our country a police state. Oops, sorry -- I guess we did when we allowed Congress to pass the PATRIOT Act and establish Homeland Security.

One thing the right and the left should agree on is that our freedoms are eroding. I am old -- I remember when we were freer. I worry that if Abby Hoffman and the Yippies were protesting today, throwing money at the New York Stock Exchange and trying to levitate the Pentagon, they would be whisked into federal custody as potential terrorists.

It's time for both ends of the political spectrum to join forces and take our country back.

FEMA debit cards cancelled - do you smell a rat?

2005-09-10T14:00:00.000-04:00

FEMA has not really given a coherent explanation for halting its debit-card program that gave each Katrina evacuee as much as $2,000 in direct assistance in Houston. Could it be because the banks and the usurious check-cashing companies that have long been allowed to exploit the poor weren't getting their share? (Let's keep those campaign donations rolling.)

With the pro-privatization crowd in power, it always pays to look for the underlying economic motive. But part of the challenge in investigating these issues is that reporters themselves rarely know what it was like to grow up poor, so they don't even know what questions to ask.

Do you think that Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper, ever had to worry about how high the check-cashing fees are?

Because we kid ourselves that we are a classless society, when there is talk about diversifying our newsrooms (and all too often it is just talk), they never talk about diversity in terms of class. We may see more women and people of color hired (and occasionally promoted), but they all come from the same narrow socioeconomic slice of society.

And as our colleges and universities become more and more expensive to attend, only the sons and daughters of the upper middle class can afford four-year degrees, which will further narrow the range of voices we hear and issues we address.

These people will never get it

2005-09-08T15:42:00.000-04:00

Former White House staffer Jock Gill blogged: "As a former staffer in the White Office of Media Affairs, my sympathy goes out to the current White House staffers for their recent epic failure to recognize that hurricane Katrina presented their principal, POTUS, an opportunity to demonstrate strong Presidential leadership - an opportunity which, unfortunately, may become more frequent.

Note that he doesn't regret that POTUS could have acted soon enough to save some babies and elderly folks who died of thirst before water got there. He's only sorry that the POTUS didn't get the chance to LOOK good.

Remember Billy Crystal as Ricardo Montalban saying, "It's better to look good than to feel good"? With this group, it's all about perception, not performance.

WHEN DADDY FAILS: Why the Bush team's mistakes are the only ones that really matter

2005-09-08T07:31:00.000-04:00

I am tired of the constant refrain from the Bush lovers that we must look first at the failures of the mayor and governor. No criticism of our boy until you pillory officials further down the food chain.

But even the conservatives should feel a chill down their spines when they think about What If It Happened Here?.

If a nuclear device goes off in DC, Mayor Nagin won't be there to blame.

If someone infected with bird flu is getting off a plane at Detroit Metro Airport this moment, it won't be Governor Blanco in charge of dealing with the pandemic.

We have paid billions for a vision of Homeland Security as our ultimate protector. Let the others dither and falter, these strong, brave and competent men will come to our rescue.

Uh-oh.

Born-agains aside, Bush won the last election because he peeled off enough women's votes -- women who turned to what they perceived as a strong husband and father to save them. His appeal to enough women to win became blindingly clear to me when beauteous Angie Harmon of Law and Order fame spoke at the Republican convention about how she felt after 9/11. With her own eyes, she had seen people of her race and class murdered by the thousands. She wanted no part of the Democratic Mommy Party, with its compassion and nuance -- give her the tough Republican Daddy Party every time.

So what may be the Bush administration's ultimate undoing is that they didn't deliver, no matter how many Democrats might have stood in their way. Dad is supposed to brush the feckless aside and carry you to safety.

If the Angie Harmons of the world don't abandon the Bush ship now, the only explanation I can come up with is that this time, the victims didn't look like them. If you don't identify with the folks at the SuperDome, maybe you can cling to the hope that these guys will still keep the privileged classes safe.

But even the Angies of this country must rest a little less comfortably at night wondering whether catastrophes like bird flu will spare people with means like the hurricane did. Maybe it takes having that second home up in the mountains, where you can shoot anyone with the sniffles who tries to stop by?

One of the comforting myths that Americans cling to is that we are all in this together. New Orleans showed how many are left behind. Let's hope that we all become smart enough to understand that the trickle-down theory leaves too many people drowning and that even those who own their own lifeboat may find they aren't safe either.

2005-09-07T16:53:00.000-04:00

On Common Dreams, eco-author Bill McKibben warns that the consequences of global warming will be devastating. A three-foot rise in ocean levels means 150 million people who live near the coast will be displaced. "That's more than the number of political refugees sent scurrying by the bloody century we've just endured," writes McKibben.

I am in danger of becoming a broken record, but I think the challenge will be to keep us focused on this issue. The problem with insidious catastrophes is that we do not have a media model to keep up the pressure. Yes, there was a report that the levees would break and New Orleans would look as it does now. But until the disaster occurs, you don't have the visuals on TV that keep people riveted to the tube, demanding action.

No one can prove that any one hurricane like Katrina is the direct result of global warming. But the increase in dangerous weather is undeniable and even the naysayers are running out of excuses.

In just the past few weeks, scientists discovered the error in the way temperatures were read that skeptics relied on to argue global warming is a myth. Soon even the diehards who cling to corporate-funded research to argue that humans are not part of the problem will be forced to face reality.

McKibben warns us that continuing to ignore taking action to slow climate change will mean that more people die and are displaced. We have already waited far too long to act decisively.

Time to get those oil men (and women - little Condi sat on the board of Chevron board of directors) out of the White House.

Rick Santorum - compassionate conservative

2005-09-06T18:51:00.000-04:00

Santorum calls for harsher penalties for those who stay. ABC in Pittsburgh has the clip. Clearly, Santorum is a man who has no clue what it is like to be poor -- and who doesn't want to learn.

ACCOUNTABILITY NOW: Why it matters

2005-09-06T18:16:00.000-04:00

(1) Phase 2 - The challenges ahead in re-building the Gulf are almost as big as the ones last week.

(2) More hurricanes this year - The updated forecast issues August 5 predicts hurricane activity 150% of normal.

(3) The terrorist threat - Maybe Osama bin Laden thinks he doesn't have to bother hitting us now. But if he has the means and the opportunity, he might want to see us reeling from a one-two punch.

(4) Bird flu - Experts warn that a flu pandemic isn't just possible but inevitable.

(5) Setting the right tone - We are a country that wasted untold amounts of Congressional time worrying about embryos and Terry Schiavo, while patting ourselves on our collective backs for caring so much about life. Meanwhile, we left tens of thousands of our citizens at risk.

We impeached Bill Clinton for having an affair and lying about it. What about a president who told us he'd keep us safe and didn't?

Isn't it time we expended a little effort right now finding out which bozos deserve to be fired so we aren't back here again in a few weeks wondering why?

Save the pets - an open letter to Bush & link to legislators

2005-09-06T15:54:00.000-04:00

Former Golden Girl Rue McLanahan heads Helping Animals. Her group's open letter to the President says: "I beg you to pick up the phone and order federal authorities to start evacuating people with their animals."

Click here to use their online form to send a letter to your legislators.

What matters - people, home, pets

2005-09-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

The Lansing State Journal reports that a convoy of buses from Lansing that went to Baton Rouge to bring back 150 families seeking shelter returned empty. The people in shelters there didn't want to be that far away from home, especially those who are still looking for their relatives.

That's why it's no surprise to me that so many people in New Orleans are refusing to leave their flooded homes -- especially when they have pets who will be stripped from them when they leave the city. I saw a distraught woman on CNN last night who had rescued dozens of neighbors. But when she went to leave herself, she found she couldn't take her dog Tinky. "I want to go, but I can't leave Tinky," she said.

I, for one, don't think she should be asked to leave her dog behind.

We've seen lots of people yelling and screaming about looting -- about things. Where is the chorus saying that we should let people take their pets with them if they want to? Where are our priorities? For many of us, our pets are family.

Welcome to Lake George

2005-09-05T18:44:00.000-04:00

- Thanks to my husband and Photoshop

THE BUSH SPIN: why don't I feel reassured?

2005-09-05T18:24:00.000-04:00

According to the Bush administration spin doctors: (1) it's the locals, not us and (2) it isn't about race and class.

But let's look at both premises a bit more closely:

(1) If your local government doesn't help you, we won't - According to the Bush folks, the problem is those pesky state and local officials. But isn't that why we have Homeland Security and FEMA? Because we know the locals cannot do it all? So now I have to worry and wonder whether my local officials have it together, because if they don't, the cavalry never comes? Then where have the billions the feds have spent on our security gone to?

(2)We will neglect everyone's safety equally - So all of us white people with a bit of money can rest assured that we'll find ourselves stranded for days without food or water? Why don't I find that thought comforting?

All I know is that FEMA did a pretty good job on the hurricanes in Florida the past couple years. You know, Florida, where Bush's brother is governor -- the state Bush desperately needed to win last November to remain in his job.

Is the real issue that the Bush folks only save people in the swing states?

Bush team follows my gameplan

2005-09-05T11:50:00.000-04:00

Remember my blog the other day on the Detroit News website that Bush will blame the locals (see below)? NYT reports Karl Rove is already on that job.

Because the world lives on soundbites, the fact that Governor Blanco refused to federalize the response makes it sound like she slowed them down. A 10-second sound bite might explain that she merely balked at the political hardball that could have meant she was set up as the patsy.

It would have been an insult to the National Guard to put them under federal control. As Gen. Russel Honore said this morning on CNN, he doesn't want the feds in charge - he's happy with the way things are. But Blanco's refusal to cave in to the obviously incompetent Bush folks is part of why they apparently disinvited her to today's Bush photo-op.

Here's my blog from Saturday at 4:20 -

HERE'S HOW THEY PLAN TO GET AWAY WITH IT
I can imagine Karl Rove and our Cowboy in Chief going over the talking points now:

Blame the Democratic Mayor and Governor - Admittedly, Governor Kathleen Blanco's dithering makes that easy to do, but we have a federal government precisely for those times when local resources and planning fail. And Rove certainly knows that most of the folks in waist deep water this past week probably weren't Bush voters to begin with.

Whom do you identify with? - Do you see yourself struggling among those decent but desperate folks at the Convention Center or the SuperDome? Or do you see yourself cowering at the Ritz Carlton among the tourists (or outside the city with the rescue workers), terrified to the point of paralysis by uncontrollable fears of looting and violence?

One of the sadder side effects of the alarmist rumors mongered mostly on Fox News is that the drama changed from one of compassion for the victims to fear of the predators. Sure, there were some truly dangerous people there -- and they were preying on the same people who were too weak to repel them the week before, back when the national and international media were not there and nobody cared.

This is the same fear that led people to flee our "dangerous" cities after the long, hot summers of the Sixties rather than invest the resources to fix the problems.

Today's fear echoes back even further. Remember that a toxic combination of racial fear and rumor once allowed many otherwise seemingly "normal" people to get caught up in the frenzy that resulted in more than 5,000 lynchings nationwide between the Civil War and the end of the Fifties.

And as long as the only people questioning whether institutional racism had anything to do with the slow response are African American, it will be easy to brush off the complaints as the same old predictable rhetoric.

- The double whammy - FEMA Director Michael Chertoff has invented a new category -- the "Ultra" disaster -- as an excuse for why they failed so miserably. It's almost as if he's saying we should feel lucky that New Orleans gave us a chance to understand this new phenomenon and practice during a real-world training exercise. That works only as long as you ignore the fact that experts have been warning about a one-two punch from hurricane followed by levee failure for years. But repeat this long enough and at least some people will believe it. (Rush Limbaugh and the other members of the right-wing buzz machine can be counted on to help.)

Co-opt as many Democrats as possible - At the end of the day, many politicians know that tomorrow it could just as easily be their time in the barrel. Better be nice to your opponents today in the (usually misplaced) hope that they will cover your posterior tomorrow. So even after former ambassador and Senator Carol Moseley Braun launches into a scathing indictment about how black are being treated like animals in New Orleans, she stops short of blaming the president. And the ever-ambitious Bill Clinton gives Bush political cover by saying the federal response was as good as it could get.

The challenge for all of us who know better is to continue making the case:

Don't Forget What You Saw - Those families at the Convention Center and the SuperDome weren't rioters and looters. This administration's ineptitude allowed babies in this country to die of thirst and starvation. Third World countries did better after the tsunami.

My Pet Goat/Baghdad Revisited - We have a disconnected president incapable of keeping us safe, surrounded by administrators who exhibit a greater sense of urgency when passing tax cuts than in trying to save people.

We Need Leaders Who Can Keep Us Safe Now More than Ever - The biggest threats to our country right now may well be bird flu and global warming, not terrorism. But no matter the threat, we need leaders who know how to assess the risk, make realistic plans and execute them. New Orleans proved that Bush and his crowd either cannot or will not do what it takes to keep us safe.

Why running a government is not like running a business

2005-09-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

Conservatives' eyes gleam when they talk about luring a business executive into government to clean up the mess. But this disaster underscores how different both systems are and why that doesn't work.

When a corporation experiences an increase in demand, revenues go up. It goes without saying that Katrina has dramatically increased demand on government, but this one risks bankrupting us.

There is also a pervasive view within the managerial class that bbusiness executives can work magic without needing to understand the product. I would argue that it's a tremendous blind spot in the kind of business model taught in the United States, but it becomes deadly when it's allowed to infect government.

Allow me a moment to illustrate what I mean with a personal story. My dad began work as an assistant sweeper in a factory in Cleveland right after World War II. Over the years, he rose through the ranks and was General Works Mananger for a similar forge shop in upstate New York when he was bought out by a conglomerate and his job evaporated in 1961.

Dad sent out 135 resumes in an era when most people didn't even know what they were. He got eight reponses -- five polite rejections and three positive responses, two job possibilities at forge shops (including the one in Jackson, Michigan, that brought me here) and one solid job offer with the highest pay from a plastics plant in Arizona.

My anxious mother wanted Dad to take the sure thing in Arizona, but my father wouldn't even consider it. "I don't know the product," he said.

So now we see FEMA run by Michael Brown, who previously worked for the Arabian Horse Association. Clearly, he doesn't know the product.

The dangerous blinders we see in business and in government is there is some magic handed out in business school that automatically confers competence in a specific field.

It simply isn't true. Yes, a talented and bright person can learn a new field, but they had better listen to the people within the organization who know the ropes. As Willie Loman said in Death of a Salesman, "You gotta know the territory."

Conservatives believe that executive skills alone are enough to carry the day and we can see the deadly consequences of this fallacy unfolding before us on TV even today as people continue to die in New Orleans.

Even Donald Trump, who believes in a business education, would be quick to call the two Mikes, Chertoff and Brown, into his office today to say, "You're fired." It's time to bombard Congress with e-mails and letters demanding that Colin Powell take over.

People still dying in New Orleans with no federal help

2005-09-05T10:20:00.001-04:00

CNN's Soledad O'Brien just interviewed actor Sean Penn and historian Douglas Brinkley who said they had to abandon their planned reconnaissance trip to do search and rescue -- and that almost all of the boats out there doing the rescues were civilian. It may be easy to dismiss Penn as a lefty, but Brinkley is conservative. The issue isn't ideology but competence.

Sound familiar? Remember when Michael Dukakis was pilloried for saying that government was all about competence, not ideology? Our current president's father quickly turned that around with his race-baiting Willie Horton ads. Watching Bush the son bungle the biggest natural disaster our country has ever experienced reminded me that competence does matter.

President Bush was able to deflect criticism after 9/11 because people always rally against an external enemy. This time the enemy is not someone we can vilify and even Rev. Pat Robertson couldn't turn the hurricane away (or is he clamining that he led it in to purge us of our sins?). As Paul Krugman wrote today in the New York Times:

"But the federal government's lethal ineptitude wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?"

As I wrote here previously, this inherent revulsion toward government undermines effectiveness in so many ways.

For one, it fails to attract to people to public service -- it's as if they have to hold their nose to work in government. It institutionalizes cronyism, where contracts automatically go to their pals in Halliburton and the goal is to privatize and outsource everything they can. And it means that the political appointees atop these federal agencies ignore competent staff recommendations in favor of political posturing instead of delivering on their promises.

Thurs, Sept 1 - 8:50 - Political elite joins ranks

2005-09-05T10:20:00.000-04:00

For those of you who still believe we have a two-party system, think about former President Bill Clinton today defending the current president's response in New Orleans. Then listen to Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu on CNN thanking President Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for their leadership in this crisis.

For one crazy moment, I had visions of Bill Clinton ripping the microphone out of Bush Junior's hand and shouting to the world, "Be afraid, be very afraid. You elected this guy because you thought he'd keep you safe. I'd say the joke's on you but the situation is too sad and desperate for that."

Only in my dreams would a Democrat act like someone from the opposition party. Bill Clinton's current job is to get Hillary elected, so they are both running to the right as fast as they can to pick up votes from those so-called Reagan Democrats.

Meanwhile, on CNN, reporters stretched to the limit by what they are seeing periodically break into tears. Patrician Anderson Cooper (son of Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper) has clearly become radicalized. He began asking Landrieu why politicians are so busy thanking each other while babies in New Orleans are dying from dehydration. But little Mary never stopped her relentless spinning, hoping to turn disaster into votes for her the next time by talking about what a great people we are.

One of the high points of the day for me came when conservative commentator Jack Cafferty vented his outrage. Like Nixon going to China, it takes a conservative like Cafferty to certify that Bush's focus on law and order today when the priority should be saving lives is an outrage. As Cafferty said, the elephant in the room is that the majority of the people suffering and dying in New Orleans are poor and black.

The title of Public Enemy's old album Fear of a Black Planet kept running through my head when I heard on MSNBC that there were 80 busses sitting outside of New Orleans refusing to come in until "order was restored." The videographer who had been talking to desperate families said that they pleaded with the drivers that these were good people, people who had followed the rules and went where people told them to go to get help, only to be left stranded. But the drivers refused to budge.

They say the first step to recovery is to confront denial. Is this finally the turning point where average citizens in this country begin to understand that we have problems with racism and inequality? And that no leader in either party seems willing to speak out?

Michigan budget compromise symbolizes misguided priorities

2005-03-26T13:28:00.000-05:00

Thursday's announcement that Governor Granholm and Michigan's Republican legislature had reached a budget compromise offering the state's universities a ray of hope that the upcoming $30 million cut might end up being less if the economy picks up seems increasingly like a pipe dream.

First, a disclaimer. I teach at Michigan State (go Spartans), so I have an obvious bias in favor of wanting our universities to thrive. But when I look at what the children of Michigan will need to know in order to compete, I also know that we all have a vested interest in a healthy future for Michigan’s colleges and universities.

It was heartening to think that the Republican legislature would roll back the drastic $30 million proposed cut, which stung even more because it betrayed a promise not to make higher ed take the budget hits if the universities did their part by reining in tuition hikes. But a closer look shows that the new compromise offers little real hope but instead combines an empty public relations gesture with a new jobs program.

The plan offers universities an olive branch by suggesting that universities may end up suffering less of a cut if the economy picks up and more tax dollars flow into state coffers. But, despite years of striving for greater economic diversity, Michigan's fortunes are still inextricably tied to the health of Detroit's automakers and GM's current "cold" seems headed into pneumonia.

Despite Bob Lutz’ reassuring words in the company’s GMFastLane blog, Slate's Mickey Kaus worries that GM's decision to drop entire lines signals the company’s inability to compete effectively in today's market. He quotes Garsten's article in USA Today But he {Lutz} pulled the plug on the North America models after determining the vehicles could not be engineered and assembled to sell at prices competitive with the popular Chrysler 300C, Ford Mustang and other models, without sacrificing quality and content. Kaus goes on to argue that if GM cannot compete with the other Detroit automakers, how can the company expect to tackle Toyota?

The idea that Michigan will restore some of those lost funds not only seems to defy reality, remember that the colleges and universities must cut their budgets now no matter whether any money might be restored later.

The other part of the fig leaf offered higher ed is that the state will offset the damage done by the $30 million cut by floating $200 million in bonds for a new campus building boom. How happy would you be with a plan to cut your household budget by $10,000 next year but we might be willing to build you a new driveway to make you feel better? It may be good news for the folks who get jobs building the driveway, but it does nothing to pay the heat bill next winter.

While it is encouraging to see $19 million cut from the corrections budget, the disparity between the cuts suffered by higher ed and by corrections underscores the distorted priorities that have resulted from our misguided War on Drugs. Like many states, Michigan went on an orgy of prison building that has left our country with the highest incarceration rate in the world – and with the highest rates of violence of any country like ours.

There have been encouraging signs that Michigan is pulling back from the draconian drugs laws that filled our jails and prisons, but the cuts must be made deeper and faster. Please please please protect me from rapists and murderers by keeping them behind bars. But please please please don’t waste our tax dollars on non-violent offenders while we fall further behind in our attempts to give kids the education they need to live decent lives on the straight and narrow.

Michigan budget compromise symbolizes distorted priorities

2005-03-26T13:26:00.000-05:00

Carving out a faith-free zone

2005-03-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

I used to live in a secular society where people worried about how to make a living, educate their kids and make family decisions without turning everything into a religious battle. Yet even before the Schiavo case sparked saturation coverage about the role of faith in our society, our newsmagazines have started to look like Guideposts.

Time's cover story last week was Hail, Mary. Then this week, Jon Meacham writes yet another cover story for Newsweek on How Jesus Became Christ. Imagine what the covers will be next week if Terri dies around Easter!

After virtually ignoring religion for years, mainstream media seems heaven-bent on making up for lost time. As a born-again atheist, I hope this orgy of religious indulgence and self-righteousness ends soon. Let the beer-swilling, football-watching guys I grew up with get back to ogling Janet's nipple instead of treating it like the end of life on earth as we know it. Leave decisions about life and death and family disputes to the courts. And let's get back to teaching kids real science. It's now gotten so bad that Imax theaters in the South are refusing to show a documentary on volcanoes because of a reference to evolution.

I want politicians to spend their day thinking up ways to make the life we do have left in us more enjoyable. Spare the next generation the terrifying burden of trying to solve global warming before it's too late. Give people health insurance they can count on. Stop using our tax dollars to torture people as part of the Big Lie about how this keeps us safer. And spare me the self-righteous rhetoric about how you are on the side of the angels.

SCHIAVO CASE: Will Congressional meddling ever end?

2005-03-22T08:26:00.000-05:00

The Detroit News reports that the federal judge in the Schiavo case who refused to reinsert a feeding tube did so because he's persuaded there's little chance the state court decision to let her die will be reversed.

If the case quickly goes up the appeals process ladder and the decision remains the same, will Congress finally stop meddling? A CNN/Gallup poll shows 60% of Americans favor removing Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. ABC News polling shows almost 7 in 10 Americans think Congress should stay out of the case.

But can you imagine the religious right just giving up? And can you imagine a Republican administration and Congress who owes its domination to that group just letting this go?

Someone recently told me that democracy doesn't just mean that people are allowed to vote, but that the people on the losing side must be willing to live with results that are fairly decided.

The problem in this case is that the losers literally believe they are on the side of the angels and they want to impose their theology on all of us. Intoxicated with the heady brew of religious righteousness, they do not believe we are a nation of laws but instead want to see their god's law as the final word -- a word interpreted only by them.

Politicians who pander to these groups may well be tempted to act again before this sad drama draws to a close. An obvious medical crisis is that all Democrats seem to be suffering from laryngitis. Howard Dean should immediately challenge corporate medicine's hero Bill Frist for diagnosing Terri on the Senate floor just by viewing a carefully edited film clip the Schindler parents have made trying to show Terri responding to them. The only Dem with real guts so far is Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who clearly stands for allowing the court decision to go forward.

Where do we go from here? Vigils and protests for sure. But Congressional action? Harassing the judges who make decisions that the religious right doesn't like? Are we going to see the fanaticism of the abortion issues extended to the right to die?

Unless we protect our civil rights, none of us will ever again have the right to die in peace.

Estropundit videoblogs

2005-03-01T18:22:00.000-05:00

I am now videoblogging for The Detroit News (you can find me and my dog Schmoopsie in the upper right-hand section of the page at http://info.detnews.com/weblog). Archived links are listed below:

Bonnie & Schmoops tackle Social Security - 2-28-05 - I end up fighting Schmoopsie for her Alpo.

Bonnie and Schmoopsie go Hollywood - 2-24-05 - Lending support to Chris Rock and raising questions about Republicans in the closet.

Bonnie and Schmoopsie ask Don Rumsefld a few questions - 2-16-05 - Inquiring minds want to know.

Bonnie discovers discarded treasures at the Pentagon - 2-14-05 - I find Jeff Gannon's disarded press pass and Wonkette's martini snifter.

A flat tax the rich don't like

2005-01-23T19:02:00.000-05:00

With all the talk about the need to fix Social Security, Tim Russert asked Republican House Ways and Means chair Bill Thomas why we don't just remove the cap on wages above $90,000 that are currently exempt from the Social Security tax.

Thomas quickly cut Russert off, saying, "Well, my argument, of course, is why even bother looking at the payroll tax? That was a solution in the 1940s and the 1950s."

Ah, yes, the Forties, Fifties and Sixties. An era when real wages were rising, there was hope of reducing the gap between rich and poor and corporations were taxed at rates more than double what they are today, easing the tax burden on working families.

Thomas instead wants to explore "solutions" such as cutting Social Security benefits to women since they live longer. (He coveniently forgets the part about how women earn less along the way.)

"I don't think anything should be above being looked at," Thomas insisted. Anything, that is, except forcing the rich to pay their fair share.

Time to pardon Dr. Death?

2005-01-23T18:59:00.000-05:00

Coming up on the second anniversary of my mother's death, I hear her voice asking me to remind people that Jack Kevorkian remains a political prisoner in Michigan.

Kevorkian was my mother's hero, willing to fight for her right to die. Mother was ill for decades and terrified of dying in agony. Doctors who say all pain is controllable are flatly lying. Many doctors are also afraid to give patients enough pain medication because of our misguided War on Drugs.

My mother ultimately found that she had an "off" switch -- all she had to do was stop taking her meds and she died a peaceful death a week later. But what about those of us who have no such switch? Why should religious extremists deny us the right to end our lives as we choose?

I heard lots of talk this week about how we value freedom. Democracy not theocracy. If so, will you join me in asking asking our governor to spend some of her political capital on freeing Jack Kevorkian now?

Visit me at the Detroit News

2005-01-22T19:34:00.000-05:00

I have been a political guest blogger at the Detroit News for the past couple weeks. It is an unusual format -- instead of seeing only my comments, mine are interspersed among other bloggers.

On the one hand, it's nice to have variety and the Detroit News brings new readers. On the other hand, it seems somewhat dicey to rely on them to continue to put me into their mix.

At least for now, I will try posting to both place at the same time.

News I could have done without

2005-01-08T14:02:00.000-05:00

In his review of 102 Minutes about what happened inside the towers on 9/11, James B. Stewart tells us:

. . . [the authors] suggest that not all the people who leapt from the upper floors of the towers did so of their own volition; some were pushed by those desperate for their place by a window and a breath of air.

In 1981, Ted Mooney wrote a book called "Easy Travel to Other Planets," where he proposed a new illness called information disease. People afflicted would dash out into the street raving from an overdose of media accounts of misery and chaos.

I would write more but I feel the need to run outside now.

Uh-oh - dangerous idea ahead

2005-01-08T13:38:00.000-05:00

The New York Times today published an article about a speech given by historian Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, in which he drew parallels between the Christian fundamentalism at the heart of Nazism and the melding of conservative politics and the Christian right in the U.S.. Stern gave the speech while receiving an award in Germany recently.

The opening sentence of Times reporter Chris Hedges' article notes, however, that Stern's remarks "startled several of his listeners." Huh? Are you kidding? Why do you think so many blue staters are nervous at the thought of a red state takeover? The left does worry that the path away from a secular society risks taking us down the path of fascism.

Oh, I forgot. This is the Times' way of alerting us that there is a dangerous idea ahead, an idea they would be criticized for repeating, if not for this timid disclaimer.

So how precisely did Hedges determine audience members were startled? Does he have photographic proof of raised eyebrows? Or were the eyebrows only his -- or those of his editor?

Last of the big spenders

2005-01-05T17:53:00.000-05:00

George Bush has donated $10,000 of his "own" money to tsunami relief. But since George is worth $15 million at a mininmum, that's less than .1% of his net worth. So much for compassionate conservatism.

Relative threats - tsunami versus Vioxx

2004-12-28T08:59:00.000-05:00

The Drudgereport uses two ! and one ? to exclaim that as many as 45,000 people may have been killed by the tsunamis. For a little perspective, let's remember that Dr. David Graham, a Food and Drug Administration researcher, notes that as many as 55,000 people died from taking Vioxx.

Vioxx -- a drug no better than aspirin or ibuprofen at controlling arthritis pain. Vioxx -- yet another drug, like HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy), relentlessly advertised on TV, something that no other nation like ours allows.

Killer tsunamis are rare. And the truth is that people can do little to protect themselves. Drug scandals like Vioxx are becoming quite common. And the sad truth is that U.S. citizens are supposed to have the power to change the way their governmente behaves, but that power has been abdicated to the corporations.

What does the mainstream media do about these relative threats? Reuters has dispatched its newsgathering minions to airports worldwide in the hope of finding new amateur footage of the waves rolling in to feed the story for a few more days.

That same media machine ignores people like Ralph Nader who tried to tell us the truth about Big Pharma. The only time he's allowed on TV is to answer the question about whether he is just a spoiler.

My goal is not to denigrate the victims of the tsunamis. It is to remind us that Scott Peterson and killer waves are not the real threats we face, though you wouldn't know it if you rely on mainstream media to help you figure out what matters.

Supporting soldiers/glorifying war

2004-12-25T10:12:00.000-05:00

If the Left learned one thing from Viet Nam, it was not to hold the soldiers accountable for the idiocy of their commanders. Watching CNN on Christmas Eve, there was an unrelenting succession of heartwarming stories about our soliders in Iraq, told with compassion if not reverence for our "brave men and women" putting their lives on the line for us.

While showing us the lives of the footsoldiers caught up in our war machine is admirable, the media barrage risks going beyond storytelling to glorifying war as a way to solve problems. Commentators seem hell-bent on reiterating the government line that the solders in Iraq are saving us from having to fight terrorism here, though the lack of attacks on our soil in the intervening years since 9/11 may instead be evidence that al Qaeda is not the international juggernaut we once supposed.

How refreshing amidst all this propaganda about war to find the Washington Post article on the Christmas truce of 1814, when Allied and Axis forces at the front line spontaneously put down their arms and celebrated together. As a survivor said, had it been left to the front-line troops, the war might well have ended there.

The article speculates about why there have been few cases since -- the advent of impersonal modern warfare and the death of the idea that the enemy are also "gentlemen." Yet my job shortly after graduating from high school in 1962 was to research a local educator. Doing so meant scouring the microfilms from seven local Jackson, Michigan, newspapers from 1900 to 1930. The Kaiser and the Huns were hardly treated as gentelemen. In fact, there were barely considered human.

Yet there is a worrisome difference, it seems, when the enemy is of another race. Beginning with Korea, then Viet Nam, and now Afghanistan and Iraq, there is a sense that it is easier to abuse, torture, and kill people with a different skin color. The previous century was the bloodiest ever in terms of civilians as well as soldiers killed in political conflicts. It would seem the media would serve us better by honoring our soldiers without crossing the line into pro-war propaganda, particularly as communication and transportation technology remind us how small and diverse a world we really share. Wouldn't that be a suitable Christmas message?

The answer: 4 minutes 36 seconds

2004-12-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

And the question?

How long was I able to shoot video at the subway station at Reagan Airport in DC before the cop showed up to ask me what I was doing?

"Is it against the law to shoot video here?" I asked.

"It's legal as long as you don't use a tripod," he responded. Huh?

On my return trip, I hauled out the trusty videocamera at the airport in Detroit and succeeded in scaring the hell out of my fellow travelers. I left my camera case open and walked 15 feet away to shoot people on the moving walkway. By the time I returned a minute or two later, my seatmates had demanded that the gate attendant get a security guard to come check me out. "Everyone's a junior security expert today," he whispered to me.

For a country that has not suffered a terrorist act since 9/11, we sure are jumpy.

Kerik's nanny problem

2004-12-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

Joining Zoe Baird, Bernard Kerik has a "nanny problem"that is at least part of the reason he withdrew his nomination to become head of Homeland Security. And again our immigration policy highlights the problems and the hypocracies.

Kerik long ago joined the wealthy elite (he also made $6.2 million on his Taser stock options - the real scandal) whose membership often includes seeking to save a few bucks by hiring an undocumented nanny. To save even a few bucks more, Kerik also failed to pay the requires taxes on her wages.

While he waxes eloquent about how she loved his kids, the truth is that he apparently liked child care on the cheap and he also likes an employee who dares not ask for much without risking deportation. So we again get a glimpse of how the rich are still willing to screw over the poor just to hang onto a few more dollars they will never live long enough to spend.

We also get a lesson in how the millions of undocumented workers who live among us drag down the wages at the lower end of the wage scale.

Charting an ethical and moral course on immigration is no easy matter. Listening to CNN's Lou Dobbs hammer home the anti-immigration theme each night often means that you find yourself accepting parts of the argument, at the same time you want to take a hot shower to wash off the stink of finding yourself in the company of nativists like Pat Buchanan.

If you open the U.S. borders to all comers, the result would be a surge of millions of the most desperate and unskilled workers escaping oppression everywhere else. Earlier this year, when Ralph Nader spoke at Michigan State, a Communist Party member challenged him to adopt an open border campaign plank. The ever-cerebral Nader looked at the young man like he was promoting belief in a flat earth. Yet there is no denying that the millions of undocumented workers already here serve as a stick to keep low-wage workers from asking for more, though chucking them out is not only unfeasible but inhumane.

What we have is the worst of both worlds. The Federation for American Immigration Reform says that there are at least nine million undocumented workers living among us. Bottom line is that we are not going to deport them all. Deny them driver's licenses and other benefits of our society and all you do is harass them and make their lives more miserable while they hang our drywall and take care of our kids. Auto insurers might enjoy be delighted to avoid paying claims on uninsured drivers, but you will not find that families who have been here for decades will opt to go home just because you make their lives tougher than they already are.

We need a mix of immigrants with various skills from all over the world to fulfill the American dream. When we demonize those who do so by hook or by crook instead of waiting in line, we are forgetting that these are the people with the courage, the brains, and the tenacity we need. The challenge becomes how to accept if not welcome them without encouraging an influx of newcomers who outstrip our economic and ecological carrying capacity.

We Like Mike for the People's Choice Award

2004-12-10T21:28:00.000-05:00

Visit Michael Moore's site and follow the link to vote for Fahrenheit 911 for best picture in the People's Choice Awards. Mike is actively campaigning for the award since the right wing has been trying intimidate the Academy Awards into ignoring his movie. As with voting in Ohio (the joke used to be Chicago), vote early and vote often.

T-Shirt Hell & Rolling Stone's ad policy

2004-11-30T08:50:00.000-05:00

No one has t-shirts more offensive (or funnier) than T-Shirt Hell. Juvenile perhaps, but who could resist: "I threw the cup at Ron Artest" or "I bought Christopher Reeve's wheelchair on eBay." My current favorite is: "I support stem cell research -- but only as a byproduct of my support for killing babies."

So I was expecting that TSH's problems getting their second ad into Rolling Stone would involve something really egregious, something that would offender damn near everyone -- instead click here for the story.

Corporate wussies is right.

Child murder in Texas: Is this progress?

2004-11-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

Again we have a mother who murders a child in the throes of post-partum depression. And again I fear that her fellow citizens will want to burn her at the stake.

More than 30 years ago, I lived outside Jackson, Michigan, near a woman who had murdered three of her children, slowly, with a knife, while suffering post-partum depression. Yet in her case, as I wrote in Lansing City Pulse, the courageous local prosecutor chose not to prosecute her.

In this era, with toxic right-wing radio, would he be able to withstand the outcry? Is this progress?

Onward Christian soldiers

2004-11-22T08:13:00.000-05:00

Past quote from Rep. Ernest Ishtook who is responsible for the clause that would allow Congress to paw through our income tax returns: "The message is really very clear, and if I have a message today for the Republican Party, it is that the most dynamic issues, the winning issues and the cutting edge issues of American politics today are moral and cultural. They are not fiscal and economic."

The Online Clinton Library

2004-11-19T19:45:00.000-05:00

Wonkette has some great comments on the ceremohy in Little Rock.

Why the surprise?

2004-11-16T07:23:00.000-05:00

So Bush bumped Colin to install Condo and told her to clean house. The Dems are not only surprised but horrified. Horrified I can understand. Surprised, no.

Only the Dems think that there is intrinsic virtue in bipartisanship. The Bush folks have a world view beyond just winning, so they are eager to make it happen whenever they get an opening. The Dems forget that the job of the opposition party is to make a case for a different path. Make the case well enough and you win the next election. Then when it is your turn to govern, you push like hell to change the course of the ship of state to further your view.

What's broken is that we have Dem party leaders who forget that Bill Clinton's tepid DLC Republican Lite strategy did not win the hearts and minds of the people. It worked only when Ross Perot siphoned off Republican votes in far greater numbers than Ralph Nader ever cost Al Gore.

Hoping for another corporate whack job to play spoiler is not a winning strategy. Standing for something other than corporate greed and fear of heaven and hell at least offers us a choice.

Politics makes strange bedfellows

2004-11-14T09:41:00.000-05:00

No wonder John Edwards has such a bright future

Bush	Cheney
Kerry	Edwards

Boardrooms/congregations a haven for right-wing reactionaries

2004-11-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

Conservative pundits continue to froth about the Chronicle of Higher Education study that showed most faculty on college campuses lean to the left. David Horowitz, president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, is therefore pushing universities to adopt "intellectual diversity" (political diversity) as a goal.

Yet even without any research, I can safely say that most corporate boardrooms in the United States are "havens" for right-wing reactionaries, as are the congregations of fundamentalist churches. Where is the outcry for ensuring diversity there?

Years ago, I was taunted by one of our community's right-wing tax resisters about why universities and the media are so dominated by left-wing thinkers. Because you have to be smart to have the job perhaps?

Is Peru in Europe?

2004-11-12T14:34:00.000-05:00

Yahoo reports that gays in the military in Peru now have a Constitutionally protected right to have sex, inside and outside their barracks. How heartening that Peru is more enlightened than we are.

Thinking with the little head again?

2004-11-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

The Smoking Gun offers the details of the $9 million palimony suit that Coco has brought against Bill Maher. She alleges various kinds of nastiness and assures us that he promised to marry her and have kids (though he has made his reputation on TV denying that he would ever do either).

Bill	The unhappy Coco

Bill (Maher) & Bill (O'Reilly). Maybe they can kiss and make up and form a little support group?

The lesson to be learned in all this is that blue state guys think with the little head just like the red state guys do, even though they think they are smarter.

"Centerfold model and former flight attendant" -- no doubt they met at a foreign policy discussion or a night class in quantum physics.

Precisely who are women with brains supposed to date if both the red guys and the blue guys prefer bimbos? Why is it that many bright and otherwise enlightened males inevitably get the hots for women whose IQ rarely registers higher than than the mean temperature in Fairbanks.

Brilliant and beautiful single women over 40 have good reason to worry that their chances of marrying are less than contracting ebola (and, yes, the there is some equivalence there), while watching some of the smartest men drive right into the ditch when choosing a mate.

Anyone have any insight into this phenomenon?

How Christian of him & sore winners

2004-11-11T14:20:00.000-05:00

Bob Jones III, of the eponymously entitled university, wrote an open letter to George Bush after the election, urging the president not to give an inch to those nasty liberals "despise you because they despise your Christ." How Christian of him.

And how would you like to sit down to dinner between Alan Simpson and Zell Miller -- maybe put Andrew Sullivan in the seat across from you. Simpson and Sullivan graced Bill Maher's show last Friday. Simpson did a full paranoid meltdown about how us blue state people are evil for mocking the good people in the country (good people are apparently defined as those who routinely dine on Bob Jones' God-fearing bilge).

Then Sullivan went ballistic about Noam Chomsky as an opportunistic and rapacious millionaire who rips off Europeans who pay the big bucks for his "anti-American" rants. Wonkette and others did a good job of bringing him down a peg or two for his ass fondling antics during the credits.

Then Zell Miller lit into Maureen Dowd, whom he called Maureen Loud and a "hussy from New York," on Don Imus' MSNBC morning show. What are these guys so mad about? They won.

Can you imagine what these sore winners would have done if they lost?

The lessons of Goldwater & Rove

2004-11-09T07:53:00.000-05:00

When Barry Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson in a rout far worse than the one suffered by John Kerry, the Republican Party faced a choice -- adopt more of the Dems mainstream positions or continue to make the case for convervatism. Karl Rove merely inherited the legacy of decades worth of conservatives who have worked hard to make their case and win converts.

Yet today we see the Dems on the verge of taking the opposite course. Instead of energizing progressives and helping them find a way to make their case and win converts, the Dems are demonizing people like Michael Moore who could be their salvation. We have already wasted decades on Republican Lite ideas like the Democratic Leadership Council. It's time for people who care to take back what's left of the party (pun intended), or to forge a new party of their own.

Dumping on Mike & dumping Terry

2004-11-09T07:44:00.000-05:00

Why has it become so fashionable to use Michael Moore as a whipping boy for the Democrats' loss? Mike knows how to put together a coherent narrative, combining humor and insight, which is something that the Kerry campaign never did, for all of Bob Shrum's supposed eloquence. Mike galvanizes people with a populist message, which is something that the Dems dearly need.

The only ray of sunshine coming out of the recent debate is that there is word that Howard Dean may replace Terry McAuliffe as head of the Democratic National Committee. The end of the Clintons' bloodless neoliberal reign cannot come soon enough for me.

According to Alexander Cockburn's book Dime's Worth of Difference, it was McAuliffe who put the screws to Howard Dean's campaign. Cockburn argues that McAuliffe wanted to squash Dean in case someone else might follow his example in raising money on the Internet independent of the party. For people like McAuliffe who doesn't stand for anything but winning, a candidate who takes a principled stand on the war as Dean did, whether it's a majority position or not, is dangerous.

Calculate points to get into Canada - you need a 67

2004-11-04T18:22:00.000-05:00

This website allows you to calculate your point score for immigrating to Canada. I'd go, but I can't speak Canadian.

Politics is not sports

2004-11-03T18:39:00.000-05:00

I dimly remember hearing Chris Matthews and Craig Crawford expounding in the wee hours of the morning how the Dems need to do more to court Southern, god-fearing, gay-baiting Bubbas if they are ever going to win again. Yet that reduces rooting for the Dems to the political equivalent of rooting for the Yankees.

Poor Ron Reagan tried to make the argument that the Dems won't win until they actually stand for something. But I fear that the party hacks see the world only in terms of winning or losing. Need to join the witch-burners to get back in the game? No problem, in their mind.

It's going to be a long four years until the next go-round.

Post-mortem - Part 2

2004-11-03T04:10:00.000-05:00

YOUNG PEOPLE: The youth vote last time, 17%. The youth vote this time . . . 17%. Does this mean that P. Diddy, with his Vote or Die t-shirts, will do the right thing and self-immolate? (The over-60 crowd actually increased.)

THE BLOGOSPHERE: It turns out that the Internet is great for raising money($80 million for Kerry's campaign) and lousy for getting people off their collective asses. This is the message from Howard Dean's bubble, from the MoveOn.org rallies in Miami where Cher and Rosie O'Donnell ended up with embarrassing small crowds, and now the Kerry surge that wasn't.

Meanwhile, in fundamentalist churches natiownide, ministers were preaching about the evils of homosexuality from informational packets produced by right-wing groups organized by the Ralph Reeds of the world.

As a practical matter, how can the left compete with fundamentalist churches where the faithful get together at least once a week, often more, to reaffirm their "values"?

NEW "CENTRIST" WISDOM: Brian Williams, the new Tom Brokaw, says that the Dems are already re-thinking a way to attract the born-agains -- that the left must stop patronizing of people of faith. Yeah, great -- let's jump on the creationist bandwagon.

Religious right rules

2004-11-03T03:59:00.000-05:00

The loathsome anti-gay "defense of marriage" initiatives in 11 states mobilized the born-again mullahs to bring out the faithful.

And yet again we have a Democratic candidate who relied on attracting undecided votes by adopted "centrist" positions. The Democratic Party needs to get the message before we slide into a full-blown theocracy, with no separation of church and state.

Bye bye, Terry McAuliffe. Bye bye, Bill and Hillary. Does anyone honestly believe that Howard Dean would have done worse?

Detroit News has cool blog page

2004-11-02T17:30:00.000-05:00

The Detroit News blog contains stories from bloggers around the state. You can also post on their polling place wrapup about what you found at the polls. Very cool, DetNews!

Cliches in the making - Part 1

2004-11-02T17:25:00.000-05:00

Lester Holt, MSNBC, on learning that turnout is high: "It looks like apathy will be the big loser tonight."

Thanks to Tricia

2004-11-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

Tricia Heinz of Utah agreed to swap votes with me, so I cast my vote for John Kerry here in Michigan and she voted for Nader for me there. My friend Ray thinks this is all too cute, arguing that a duopoly offers no real choice at all. While I cede the point, there is some hope an energized left might be able to persuade Kerry to undo at least some of the erosion of our civil rights.

Like Ralph, I was appalled to find how ugly the Dems could get in trying to stamp out any competition. But maybe the answer lies in working from within? I noted with alarm that all of the candidates running for our Township Board were Republicans. So my plan is to run against them as a Dem or a Green the next time.

Links from Zenzi

2004-11-02T08:32:00.000-05:00

Before the election, here are some sites that may be of interest.

The League of Women Voter's website for information on all candidates and measures on your ballot, voter rights, etc:
http://www.lwv.org/

Info on voting rights & hotline number for problems:
http://www.ourvote.com/
http://www.electionprotection2004.org/ (People for the American Way Foundation)

For advice on how to protect democracy, MoveOn.org's inspirational ads, and election protection card for printing out (& potentially distributing):
http://www.moveonpac.org/

Information about each state's laws on being able to leave work to vote:
http://www.timetovote.net/voter_leave_laws.html

Not the most neutral of names, but also interested in protect voter rights with on-line reporting (probably underfunded with not enough servers, so report elsewhere if possible or in addition):
http://www.impeachbush.org/

See a hysterical and educational (well, maybe) play in the spirit of Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, "43 Plays for 43 Presidents" on Nov 1 at the Carter Center (Jimmy saw the play last time it was in town but he may go again):
http://www.cmarket.com/catalog/landingPage.do?vhost=dadsgarage

Political Eminem video that rocks (with dial-up option):
http://www.guerrillanews.com/content/eminem_mosh.html

The Donald chimes in

2004-11-01T16:44:00.000-05:00

Does a Kerry win will guarantee a never-ending DLC strategy?

2004-11-01T07:04:00.000-05:00

In Slate, Chris Suellentrop argues that Karl Rove's strategy of energizing the base will be branded a failure if Kerry wins. Conversely, that means that Kerry/Clinton/Democratic Leadership Council strategy of going to the center while exploiting "small differences" to lure the "median voter" would be vindicated. And this means that the Dems will embrace the Terry McAuliffe Republican lite approach forever.

In my mind, if the Dems do win tomorrow, they should thank their lucky stars that they did. Throwing at least a little more red meat to the party faithful on our side of the spectrum could have resulted in a blowout. But with candidates like Kerry, we will never have the chance to find out.

Power failure - literal and figurative

2004-10-31T19:12:00.000-05:00

Count us among the 272,000 people in Michigan who lost power this weekend. It was truly a three-dog night, illuminated only by little battery-powered lanterns. A metaphor for the power failure felt by the left? Which of the two Yale Skull and Bones pro-war candidates do you prefer?

You can run . . . and you can also hide

2004-10-29T19:15:00.000-04:00

There is no little irony in the fact that George Bush once applied his "you can run . . ." rhetoric to Bin Laden and now applies it to Kerry. Perhaps once Wednesday morning dawns, George will be able to spend all of his time searching for Osama, just as O.J. continues to hunt the real killers.

BBC reports FL Bushies plan secret black vote challenges

2004-10-27T21:54:00.000-04:00

In a story that has not yet broken in the US, the BBC reports there is a document that shows the Republicans in Florida have a secret plan to intimidate black voters by challenging them when they try to vote. Though the new laws allow challenged voters to cast a provisional ballot that is sorted out later, not only does this slow down the voting process in black districts on election day, there are armies of Bushite lawyers who will try to claim victory before any provisional ballots can be counted.

No wonder arry Setzer (on Wonkette) said when he was arrested for trying to run down Katherine Harris that he was just exercising his "political expression."

Online VotePairing for Nader

2004-10-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

Ralph Nader deserves my vote. Not only does he have a track record of speaking truth to power, he continues to do so today, as the only anti-war candidate we have.

At the same time, I live in one of those second-tier battleground states that drives Slate nuts, as it shifts from red to blue to purple (or grey in their case). What if my pitiful little vote really could make the difference between four more years of born-again macho bravado and a Boston brahmin? Can I really stand four more years of "he can run . . . but he cannot . . ."? (I shudder at the thought.)

So I have decided to opt for the political version of having my cake and eating it, too. I signed up at VotePair where they will now match me with a Dem in a solidly red state whose vote literally doesn't count and we will agree that I will vote Kerry while they vote Nader for me.

That way, Kerry gets what could be a precious vote in a battleground state, while my counterpart in one of the horrid Bush states can translate an otherwise useless vote into a vote for Nader. Maybe a groundswell of such votes persuades Kerry to stop running as Republican lite and become more progressive? Hmmm, investing my belief in the Easter Bunny might make better sense (at least I might get some chocolate out of the deal).

I suppose there is really no hope that Kerry will become radicalized again once in office. Did you see the frail Mr. Clinton gain strength yesterday hammering conservative themes? Both he and Kerry are card-carrying Democratic Leadership Council members. You remember the DLC, don't you? It'st he group that has ruined the Democratic Party by pandering for corporate cash? You could tell that Clinton was almost sorry he had passed welfare "reform," so that he didn't have his own welfare queen to kick in the hope of scaring up a few more suburban votes.

Here we go again

2004-10-17T20:13:00.000-04:00

In my previous post, I talked about how Florida Republican Katherine Harris depressed the Democratic vote in 2000 by sending polling places an intentionally flawed list of supposed felons to remove from the rolls. Now we see Bush's brother Jeb pulling the same trick (click here). Does anyone know when it was that we decided to become a Banana Republic?

Provisional ballots - the election night nightmare

2004-10-17T13:16:00.000-04:00

David Boies' new book Courting Justice

How many of you think the election will produce a solid winner on election night, raise your hands? Now think again. Remember these two words -- provisional ballots. Keep them in mind while watching Tim Russert tote up the votes in the battleground states with his grease pencil and whiteboard -- these are the ballots the election officials must give you to fill out if you think you were wrongly purged from the voter rolls. In battleground states, Republicans are engaged in trench warfare to ensure that few, if any, provisional ballots are ever counted.

Republicans know that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, so anything that suppresses the overall vote is peachy keen with them. (That's why election day is not a national holiday or held on a weekend -- the goal is to make it harder for working-class people to get to the polls. And again, I ask, why have the Democrats refused to fight for these reforms?)

Better yet for the Republicans is when they can suppress an entire category of voters. In Florida last time, Republican operatives passed out flyers in black churches that said you couldn't vote if you had a parking ticket. Ed Rollins let slip the fact that Republicans routinely funnel money to black preachers to depress voter turnout, only to find that the truth is not a defense against bi-partisan attacks.

In 2000, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris was warned by the company she hired to purge the rolls of convicted felons that her requested approach would knock thousands of eligible voters off the rolls. Harris then ordered them to use the flawed formula anyhow. After all, that was the idea. The fewer the merrier in Republican eyes.

After the last presidential election debacle, provisional ballots were endorsed as a reform that would ensure voters cannot just be turned away. The rule now is that any voter who is rejected can request a provisional ballot that must be kept on hand by law until the outcome of the election is certified. In a tight race, the determination about the validity of those thousands of provisional ballots in battleground states could make the difference.

That's why the Republicans are fighting so hard to make this reform as useless as possible. In some places, Republicans are instituting rules where a person who picks the wrong precinct is simply not told that he is registered elsewhere and that is used as justification to discard the ballot.

For all the rhetoric about how we want free and fair elections, the Republican tricksters are out there wreaking havoc wherever possible. The height of hypocrisy is having Republican operatives fund efforts to put Nader on the ballot -- then the court fights delay printing absentee ballots -- and then having the Republicans spin the delay as a Democratic plot to deny our brave soldiers the vote.

David Boies, who fought for Gore the last time, has a new book detailing what happened -- along with an army of lawyers on both sites just itching for a fight. Forget putting on the coffee. Unless it's a blowout, we won't know squat on November 3.

The rise of the gummer revolutionaries?

2004-10-17T09:20:00.000-04:00

I hope this time we can dress warmer

Facilitating a discussion last night after a campus showing of Control Room, the documentary on Al Jazeera's coverage of the Iraq War, it was clear that those who stayed were at least over 40, maybe mostly over 50. Without a draft to compel them to pay attention to this war, younger people today have better things to do on a Saturday night than talk politics.

Looking around the group, it seems clear that my generation wants another shot at the -isms -- imperialism, materialism, fundamentalism. Are the radicals of the Sixties ready to emerge from their chrysalis of raising families, building careers and paying mortgages? Are we up to the challenge of battling the establishment again? When I was lining up interviews for my anti-Drug War Movie, I found myself talking again and again to Boomers over 60 who had taken an early retirement to work for causes they cared about. There's the retired teacher fighting for medical marijuana. The retired police detective trying to end the drug war.

One man last night talked about what we should have learned from Viet Nam, singling out a slick military PR official in the movie named Lt. Rushing as a prime example of a "REMF" (a Rear Echelon M-----F-----). Rushing is the smiling fascist who sells the world the war as liberation, not occupation. He's the superb actor who knows how to stay on message while pretending that he's listening to the other side.

One woman talked of our own media's collusion -- CNN & company tell us the number of U.S. soldiers killed every day, yet they never even estimate the number of dead Iraqis.

Imagine what a force a band of energized gummers could be! We would have the time in retirement to fight for the unpopular causes that others won't touch. Many of us have also gained skills and even clout far beyond what we possessed in the Viet Nam era. A Woodstock-type love-in might not be a sight I would be eager to see, but I for one am eager to dust off those love beads and make one last effort to change the paradigm from war to peace, from fear to freedom, from unrestrained greed to caring for the planet.

In this election, the question is, which of the two war candidates do you prefer? We can do better than that if the duffers get off their duffs. Age of Aquarius? How about the age of Social Securitarians? It's time. It's time. Let's just hope it's not too late.

No pearls from Shrummy?

2004-10-13T22:50:00.000-04:00

I thought the only thing Bob Shrum was supposed to bring to Kerry's table was singing rhetoric. So why nothing at the end with any lyricism or lilt? Bush's godawful mush about the cowboy painting at least offered some feeble attempt at offering an inspiring image. Kerry just repeated same stuff, different day. Kerry makes Nader look warm and fuzzy.

Bush sure loves No Child Left Behind

2004-10-13T22:25:00.001-04:00

Whenever he was trapped, Bush cited the No Child Left Behind act as the solution. Ask him about jobs, he tells you that NCLB is really a jobs bill. Outsourcing? NCLB will is the answer. Raise the minimum wage? Don't bother because the next generation is getting all this great education. NCLB and a few Pell grants and we can fix global warming as well.

Dress code? Thought code?

2004-10-13T22:25:00.000-04:00

Same red ties with tiny figures. Same suit, same flag in the lapel, same white shirt. Same patronizing attitudes toward the little ladies. Why no women on the ticket, boys?

Same stuff, different day

2004-10-13T21:34:00.000-04:00

I have yet to hear anything that I did not hear during the last debate. I know what was is George Bush's back -- it is the string you pull to get him to say the same thing.

Devolution

2004-10-13T21:22:00.000-04:00

I am old, so I remember a time when Bobby Kennedy, a patrician if there ever was one, became radicalized by seeing the devastation that poverty wreaked on the people who lived in Appalachia. Today instead we get two Yale skull-and-bonesmen who never spend any time with people who are struggling. They have never seen up close what it's like to live in public housing, what it's like to come home to a trailer broiling in the heat, without quite enough food to keep the kids happy.

Both men traipse through the countryside shielded by their respective bubbles. The Bush people even go so far as to handpick the crowds so that George can mug and whinny and issue one-liners without anyone telling him he hasn't a clue.

Here were are a half-hour into the debate and Schieffer has given both men softballs that they have bobbled. Not because they don't have the facts, but because they don't understand the impact of policy on the lives of real people. The issue for most displaced workers isn't a Pell grant, it's extending unemployment benefits and insurance so that they don't end up on the street.

Atheist that I am, all I can think is - god save us from them both.

A little help from our friends?

2004-10-13T07:56:00.000-04:00

According to the Financial Times of London, Germany "might deploy troops" to Iraq if circumstances change. Just as Don Imus is ranting about how no country in Europe would be dumb enough to do so and that Kerry is therefore lying, this new article appears. Imus, of course, says that he's a Kerry supporter, but he takes every opportunity to trash him. In the latest Newsweek, Imus also says Bush will win because he's so much better at connecting with people. With friends like these . . .

Answering my own question

2004-10-11T16:05:00.000-04:00

In my previous post, I asked whether Abu Ghraib will be mentioned at all during any debate. I will now answer by own question, since it offers further proof that we now have a one-party system with two wings.

It is easy to see why Bush will avoid any mention, but why won't Democratic "challenger" Kerry take Bush to task? It can only be because Kerry fears the those security Moms whose votes he wants are now willing to tacitly condone torture as a way to keep us safe. We don't want to say it out loud, but go ahead and waterboard Sheik Kahlil Mohammed and any others who don't look and talk like us. A country so willing to give up its own civil rights can hardly be expected to worry about theirs. And John Kerry who once had our respect for being willing to tell truth to power now panders with the rest of them.

Abu Ghraib forgotten?

2004-10-10T11:59:00.000-04:00

I have been waiting for someone -- moderator or citizen -- to ask a question about Abu Ghraib. But it appears we may get through all four debates without anyone holding Bush accountable for tortures committed on his watch. Does the "new normal" mean we simply don't give a damn?

Watching the Debates with Chris Matthews

2004-10-09T10:41:00.000-04:00

Why do I continue to watch Chris Matthews on MSNBC? I suspect it’s because I want to see the moment live when Chris finally slips into a full-blown testosterone-induced psychotic break. (Hide the pointy objects.)

Watching Chris provide instant analysis of the debates is like watching a serial killer on the couch talk about his daddy.

Like much of America (the part that scares me), Chris speaks from the gonads rather than the brain. Instead of an authentic blow-by-blow account, round by round, as MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann does with his liveblogging, mixing style points with the content points, Chris cares only about strength versus weakness -- Who’s your Daddy? Who strutted the most? Who shouted loudest? Who threw the best manly punch?

The only damper on Chris during the first debate was that Bush’s arrogant performance made it harder for him to fall in love with Bush (as he does again and again). But within seconds after the vice-presidential debate ended, Chris made it clear that Darth Vader had won handily by bitch-slapping the Breck girl.

The meaner Cheney got, the more Chris “respected” him. I cringe watching the tortured Mr. Matthews play out the psychodrama of his upbringing, where his Catholic guilt and his undoubtedly anguished relationship with father obviously set the stage for his adult love/hate of all male authority figures.

But just about the time I feel sorry for Chris for exposing himself like this on TV (and it's clear he worries a lot that his is smaller), I remember that he surrounds himself with men on the panel by choice.

Last night, Chris sparred with “objective analysts” like Ben Ginsburg, Pat Buchanan, and Ron Silver. (Can you imagine having dinner with that crew?) For hours, the only woman on screen was Andrea Mitchell, normally a competent woman who begins to stutter uncontrollably like a domestic violence victim waiting for Chris to assault her whenever she opens her mouth.

Apparently, Chris’ idea of a fair, balanced, and complete panel consists of a succession of male Republican hacks and one lone female reporter. Does Chris really believe that Andrea somehow represents both gender balance and a voice for the left? How many Lefties do you know who get the hots for Allen Greenspan? (Andrea's married to him.:

Speaking of looks on a person’s face, I saw Matthews go blank when another woman reporter said that Bush wasn’t manly but rude when he shut down Charley Gibson. Shouting, cutting off anyone who challenges you, these are the reasons Bush is dangerous, not reasons to revere him.

I watch Matthews and his fellow phallus worshippers in the same way I watch the hurricanes that periodically threaten our coast – because it is important to keep an eye on them in case you have to evacuate. Canada O Canada.