Daily Archives: November 24, 2007

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John Edwards: “as President, I represent the American People!”

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John Edwards has gotten many laughs with the cutting line about Industry Lobbyists: “If you give them a seat at the Table — they’ll eat all the food!”

Lobbyists are the “Bogey Man” that’s everyone loves to hate — but are they really that big of a Deal?

It’s just Business right? Corporations are People too. They deserve to have their Voices heard in DC, too, Right?  I thought I read that somewhere in the Constitution, Didn’t I? …. Hmmmm ….

There he goes again! Talking about those big, bad Drug Companies, Insurance Companies, and Oil Companies and their Lobbyists!  Woooh Scarey!

John Edwards – Just Say No

http://www.youtube.c…

The reason we don’t have Universal Health Care today, is because of Drug Companies, Insurance Companies and their Lobbyists in Washington. They stand between you and the Health Care that you need.

We have to take this System on. We have to Change it! We have to be willing to be honest about it. I don’t believe you can change that system and bring about the change we need on Health Care, on Energy, and on everything else, unless you’re willing to say ‘It’s broken — It doesn’t work!’ If you defend it, and you say, ‘Oh well it’s fine, we’ll just take money from the Lobbyists, it’s no big deal — and then we’ll work it all out.’ — that doesn’t work! You have to say NO to these people.

You have to say as President, I represent the American People! I don’t represent Drug Companies, Insurance Companies and their Lobbyists in Washington! I don’t represent Oil Companies — I represent America! Because that’s the ONLY way we’re going to get the Change that we need in this Country. …

How dare Edwards have the audacity to want to actually “represent the American People, as President”?

Doesn’t he know, that’s not how our System of Government Works anymore?

Exactly!

Edwards does know, and he’s Just Saying No. No More!

NO More “Business as Usual”

NO More CEO’s “Buying a Seat at the Table” in Congress

Lobbying Overview – Total Spending, by Industry Sector:

NO More trading our Corporate Representatives for their, and vice versa:

Just how much of those Lobbyists BILLIONS finds its way into Congress?

HMOs – $30 Million


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Drug Companies – $77 Million


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Insurance Companies – $179 Million


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Oil & Gas Companies – $117 Million


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Electric Utilities – $81 Million


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No More taking over the Election Process, by helping those Representatives pay their Campaign Bills:

If previous Campaign Donation Trends are any guide, get ready for another year of “Madison Avenue” Mud-Slinging!
(the 2008 “donations” are just getting started)

HMOs


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Drug Companies


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Insurance Companies


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Oil & Gas Companies


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Electric Utilities


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No More taking over the Legislation Process, by reminding those Representatives WHO paid their Campaign Bills:

Here are the Top 20 Members of Congress raking it in from each Industry sector:

HMOs


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Drug Companies


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Insurance Companies


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Oil & Gas Companies


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Electric Utilities


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John Edwards is Ready to give them Hell! 
He knows how they operate. He’s been beating Corporate Interests for 20 years, in the court room arena.

One things for sure, John Edwards does not back down from a Fight!

John Edwards – “Give ‘Em Hell”

http://www.youtube.c…

Reform Groups Announce Six Benchmarks for Lobbying Reform

Jan 23, 2006

1. Break the nexus between lobbyists, money and lawmakers.

Cap contributions from lobbyists and lobbying firm PACs to federal candidates at $200 per election and to national parties and leadership PACs at $500 per election cycle.

Prohibit lobbyists and lobbying firms from soliciting, arranging or delivering contributions and from serving as officials on candidate campaign committees and leadership PACs.

2. Prevent private interests from financing trips and from subsidizing travel for members of Congress and staff, and executive branch officials and federal judges.

3. Ban gifts to members of Congress and staff.

4. Oversee and enforce ethics rules and lobbying laws through an independent congressional Office of Public Integrity and increase penalties for violations.

5. Slow the revolving door.

6. Place sunshine on lobbying activities and financial disclosure reports.


It will take more than just rhetoric.

John Edwards will take the power out of the hands of Lobbyists. He will:

— Take on the Lobbyists’ Power with a Constitutional Line-Item Veto:

— Prohibit Lobbyists from Giving or Raising Campaign Cash:

— Today, lobbyists approach politicians with campaign checks in one hand and wish lists in the other. Federally registered lobbyists gave over $23 million in the 2006 campaign. Edwards has never taken a dime from federal lobbyists or PACs. He will sever the connection between money and lobbyist influence by:

     * Ending lobbyist campaign contributions:

— Lobbyists should be able to make their cases on the merits, not by influencing politicians with donations. Edwards will prohibit all federal candidates from accepting campaign contributions from federal lobbyists.

     * Stopping lobbyists from bundling:

— Lobbyists solicit donations from others and direct them towards candidates to maximize their impact, a practice known as bundling. Edwards has never allowed any lobbyists to bundle donations for him. As president he will ban federal lobbyists from bundling for federal candidates.

— Close the Lobbyist Revolving Door:

     * Banning top government officials from becoming lobbyists:

     * Banning lobbyists from taking top government jobs

— Expose Lobbyist Contacts to Sunlight

— Prohibit Executive Branch Employees from Accepting Corporate Gifts

http://johnedwards.c…

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John Edwards — The Plan to Build One America

End the Unique Power of Lobbyists

— Prohibit lobbyists from donating to campaigns or fundraising for them.

— Fight lobbyists’ bread and butter – earmarked pork-barrel spending – with a constitutional version of the line-item veto.

— Close the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street by banning former top officials from lobbying their colleagues and lobbyists from taking executive branch positions related to their former clients.

— Expand the congressional ban on lobbyist gifts and travel to executive branch officials.

It’s really not a Laughing Matter! The Legislation that the Lobbyists help write and pressure through Congress IS really criminal, sometimes!

IF the Focus of this Country doesn’t change soon,
from how Wall Street is doing
to how “your Street” is doing —

well America should just quit pretending to represent the People
and Actually start inviting CEO’s to Congress for Planning Sessions,
since it’s their Opinions that are the ones that matter anyways!

Oh wait, they already do —

The Cheney Energy Plan,
The Lieberman-Warner Carbon Give Away,
FCC Telecommunications Consolidation Plan,

… the list goes on.

Big Business gets the Concessions,
We the People get the Bills!

Edwards is right – It’s Time to End this Game!

And NOT when “it’s Convenient” for Politicians to fix it
(huh, when’s that ???) —  But NOW!

It seems some Senators IN OFFICE NOW, could be reforming this System of Corporate Favoritism, NOW — not “Later”? 

SO Why Aren’t they? …. Hmmm?
————

Post Script:

If John Edwards has a valid point about Lobbyists, why is the Media all too ready to just chalk it up to “Edwards has become Angry”?

Well, Could it have anything to do with the fact, that the Corporate Media is “trying to get their Seat at the Congressional Table” too?

TV-Radio Stations


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Books, Magazines, Newspapers


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It’s the American People WHO need to get Angry !@!
And Support Candidates, like John Edwards, who are willing to take on this Broken System — and NOT just go along with it!

No one else will do it for you!
Indeed, they’d rather have you “Relax, Just Go Shopping” …

“Business as Usual” is Good for “some interests”.
The ones that matter most in today’s world, it seems.


[Note: Most Images, click thru to more info!]

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CA-12: What will a Speier run really mean?

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(I received an email with this piece from a fellow public policy grad of Berkeley, Richard Harris Smith. Mr. Smith argues that Lantos could be more effective from outside of the halls of Congress than from within. It’s a valid and reasonable point. Check it out here. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

There’s another report on the Jackie Speier primary challenge for Tom Lantos in today’s Matier and Ross:

she told us late Friday that she hasn’t made a final decision – and that when she does, we’ll be among the first to know. “The good news is Congressman Lantos has finally come back to the district,” she said, a digging reference to his trip home this week for the holidays and to attend a congressional subcommittee hearing on the Coast Guard’s role in the big bay oil spill.

Challenge or not, Lantos, who will turn 80 in February, said through his spokeswoman: “I fully expect to win the primary in June and the general election next November. “As always, I intend to run a positive, constructive campaign,” he added, “and I trust that any opponents will do the same.”(SF Chron 11.24.07)

This district is literally 2 blocks from my home, as it knifes through the middle of San Francisco, but it’s far different from Pelosi’s seat. By any measure, it’s a very progressive seat, but different factors are in play. It’s a heavily minority seat, primarily Asian-Americans, but Speier was easily elected in her final run for state senate in 2002. (The districts don’t perfectly overlap, but it’s close.)

As has been mentioned around here a couple of times, Lantos has been known to use his Holocaust survivor history in discussions of foreign policy. And while these experiences are valid, questions remain about whether he can accurately represent the anti-war sentiments of the district. He supported the initial invasion, and has been fairly hawkish on Iran. However, he’s been a vocal critic of recent Iraq strategy, and has been a useful voice for the Speaker as she seeks to promote better diplomacy.

It seems reasonably clear at this point that the Speaker would not be pleased to see Lantos taken out in a primary challenge. Lantos is a strong Pelosi supporter, and any way, the Speaker is no vocal supporter of primary challenges. However, given her relationship with Lantos, one would suspect that she would take this very seriously. Most assuredly we would see a strong Pelosi endorsement of Lantos, likely along with some money and a bit of her time if the race is close as we approach June.

There are a lot of competing forces at play here, a challenge to Lantos would be a very bold step for Speier, but it’s still an open question at this point. However, Speier seems to have some tentative support in the netroots.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Budget

California’s Shock Doctrine: How the Media Spins Arnold’s Budget Crisis

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The projected deficit for the state budget in 2008 is $10 billion and growing quickly. As the scope of the crisis becomes clearer, the state’s media is beginning to take notice and, as always, trying to spin the situation according to their own preconceived notions.

In that vein comes today’s article by Evan Halper in the LA Times. While the article would seem to boost us by laying the blame at Arnold’s feet, its primary argument is actually that the budget crisis is due to “voter-imposed budget constraints” that limit the legislature’s ability to slash spending when needed, and limiting the effectiveness of government.

It’s not a new claim, of course, and the article quotes Don Perata’s complaint about this that he made earlier in the year. But the politics of the budget crisis are shaped by the media coverage of it, and in that sense it’s not just significant how much the LA Times is playing up the locked-in spending, but how much they’re downplaying the lack of tax revenue.

If we’re going to prevent this budget crisis from seeing the death blow to the liberal state that Pat Brown helped build in the 1960s as well as from crippling our ability to respond to our own ecological and urban crises, we need to aggressively push back against the idea that spending cuts are the answer. California’s budget is in crisis not because we spend too much, but because we tax too little.

The LA Times article begins:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could soon come to regard the epic budget mess he inherited four years ago as a minor nuisance compared to the challenge he faces now.

As he prepares the budget blueprint that he will release in January, the governor is in a bind. There isn’t as much red ink this time, or an emergency cash shortage — at least not yet. But deals he made to keep the state afloat earlier in his tenure now hamper his ability to take on a rapidly swelling deficit that early projections show will hit at least $10 billion.

Those deals, made when the deficit was substantially larger, put a lock on billions of dollars. Large pots of money that lawmakers have tapped to patch past budget deficits are no longer available to them. The prohibitions are even etched into California’s Constitution, thanks to ballot measures championed by Schwarzenegger.

“There is no question this budget will be tougher” than when the deficit was $14 billion, said Mike Genest, the governor’s budget chief. “A lot of options we had before have been removed.”

The tone is set from the beginning – locked-in spending and prohibitions on cutting funding to schools or raiding local government coffers are going to make things “tougher” and are the basic problem the state faces in trying to resolve the deficit.

And of course, Mike Genest is being disingenuous when he said “a lot of the options we had before have been removed.” There’s nothing stopping you guys from reinstating the MVET, is there? No, to Arnold and his cronies, the only “options” are spending cuts that hurt the working and middle-classes, not tax increases that might capture some of the massive wealth generated by a small class of Californians.

The article quotes some Democrats as well:

We have just tightened the noose around our neck instead of figuring out how to get out of the noose in the first place,” said Hannah-Beth Jackson, a former Democratic assemblywoman from Santa Barbara who plans to run for the Senate next year. “We have all these spending requirements, and they end up working against each other. We can’t take from this, we can’t take from that; we’ve become immobilized.”

Of course, this noose analogy only works if you don’t include the possibility of tax increases. Prop 13 and the state budget rules form a noose as well around state budgeting, preventing legislators from enacting a fair and sensible tax system that pays for the state’s needs without stressing lower and middle income families. Perhaps she was quoted out of context here, but HBJ should know that legislative immobility on the budget has more to do with taxes than spending – and more importantly, as progressives we need to be pushing hard on the tax issue instead of arguing that the problem is an inability to cut spending.

These spending constraints were the product of an electorate angry at legislators for raiding necessary programs:

But legislators have played a role in creating the dilemma they face. Citizen ballot initiatives often draw on the public’s distaste for a Legislature perceived as financially incompetent and politically tone-deaf. Only 25% of likely voters trust state government officials to do what is right most or all of the time, according to a September poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Lawmakers’ slowness in addressing skyrocketing property tax bills led voters in 1978 to pass the landmark Proposition 13, limiting how much such bills can increase every year. In 1988, voters approved Proposition 98, which set aside about 45% of the state’s general fund for education programs and gave lawmakers complicated rules for allocating it.

“The reason voters lock in spending is because they don’t trust the Legislature to share their priorities,” said John G. Matsusaka, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at USC.

It seems that legislators have not, in fact, actually dealt with this lack of trust. It was lack of trust that created the political conditions in 1978 that helped pass Prop 13, and a similar lack of trust that has led voters to protect important services such as education. It was a lack of trust, exploited by Republican dirty tricks, that led to the recall in 2003 during a previous budget crisis.

So for legislators to complain that locked-in spending is the problem seems to me to be missing the point entirely. But it doesn’t help when the LA Times publishes an article so strongly reinforcing that point.

The real issue here is that in 2008 we face a crossroads in California. Will we continue to balance California’s budgets on the backs of our most vulnerable and needy people, on the backs of an already stressed middle class, so that the wealthy can escape their obligations? Or will we finally push back and work to restore the promises of the 1960s, AND face the crises of our own time?

Further quotes from Arnold’s budget man suggest that they’re going to try the former route, with gusto:

Genest said the governor has no regrets….

Now is the time, Genest said, for hard decisions.

“The governor made these deals fully aware that the day would come when some of us would say we wish we had more options,” he said.

That suggests to me that Arnold is “fully aware” of what those spending constraints would lead to – an overwhelming desire to gut state services in the next budget crisis. It’s the shock doctrine for California – gin up a crisis and then use that crisis to push through a deconstruction of the liberal state, privatizing government services in the name of ending the fiscal crisis but in fact merely enriching a small coterie while the vastly inferior privatized services set most Californians even further behind.

Sound a bit overstated? Consider who was in Mike Genest’s position when these spending limits were made: Donna Arduin. As I explained in my article “The Plot To Privatize Public Education”:

And it is a deliberate privatization. ALL of this is in fact quite deliberate. It is not a reaction to a fiscal crisis. Instead it is a carefully planned effort to destroy mobility and access for the mass of Californians in order to allow those who have already prospered to keep their wealth while shutting the door behind them to those who wish to follow.

It goes back to Donna Arduin. Brought in as Arnold’s finance director in 2003, she is an ardent advocate of privatization. In order to “balance” budgets in Michigan, New York, and Florida under Republican governors, she advocated the gutting of social and educational spending so as to prevent a tax increase. As [an earlier] LA Times article notes, she took a similar approach to higher ed in CA:

Her budget plan for UC and CSU called for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts for the third consecutive year, major student fee hikes, a reduction in enrollment and a plan to steer thousands of students to community colleges instead of the universities.

With Arduin as his very own Milton Friedman Arnold has maneuvered California into a crisis, and hopes to use that crisis to finish off what remains of California’s liberal promises of equality and opportunity for all its residents.

Will Democrats go along with this? With the media stoking Arnold’s fires, the prognosis is not good.  If we are to prevent this crisis from gutting not just our egalitarian heritage, but our ability to respond to our own crises – water, energy, food, transportation, renewed accessibility for higher ed, and health care – all these will require new state spending. There’s simply no way around it.

The only time the LA Times article gets even close to discussing the revenue problem is at the end:

Others are hopeful voters will see that the state lacks the funds to provide all the services they expect, and a tax increase is not unreasonable.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer says that at minimum, that is a healthy debate to have. And one long overdue after years of the state spending more than it brings in and papering over deficits by shifting funds around from accounts that now cannot be touched.

“The constraints limit our flexibility, but they do not cause overspending,” Lockyer said. “The real problem is tooth-fairy budgeting.”

No, Bill, the real problem is a lack of revenue. It’s really that simple. Since 1978 California has decided to protect a small group of homeowners and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. A 25-year increase in real estate values and wealth took place and the state saw hardly any of that money because of the unchallenged system of Prop 13. As our needs grew, and as the wealth to help address those needs grew, politicians such as yourself did nothing to tap those resources, preferring “tooth-fairy budgeting” to actual measures to put California on a long-term stable financial footing. Lockyer WAS in the legislature, after all, in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lockyer, you’ll remember, is also the person who recently kicked around the idea of privatizing UC outright. wu  ming delivered a classic smackdown of this idea, but it’s worth remembering that to Lockyer, the only viable solutions are neoliberal solutions. We should cut and gut state services, he counsels, but god forbid we actually consider fixing our tax crisis.

Already, 30 years of state budget cuts brought on by legislators’ unwillingness to challenge Prop 13 has led to what the California Budget Project called A Generation of Inequality, where Californians increasingly are stuck in low wage jobs while the wealthy few enjoy most of what remains of the California dream. Health care costs, housing costs, energy costs, and education costs play a primary role in that inequality – and the state can, with proper tax and spending priorities, help alleviate those problems.

The California Tax Reform Association has proposed a series of reforms that would raise upwards of $17 billion for state government – and that doesn’t even include restoring the MVET, which would add another $5-6 billion. If we also rejected wasteful spending like the ridiculous $9 billion prison bond, or the $3 billion in dams that Republicans demand, that’s another $12 billion in bond capacity we could use to help build badly needed infrastructure, like high speed rail or a revitalized Delta, without straining the general fund even further.

But to undertake any of these sensible reforms requires confronting squarely the dominant political assumptions of the last 30 years in California. And it’s important to note they are assumptions. Yes, California has straitjacketed itself on taxes as much as it has on spending – but why assume that the solution is to break the spending rules, and not the tax rules?

Orange County conservatives were hammered in the court of public opinion in recent weeks over their opposition to a 2005 tax measure that would have helped fund fire responses that were found lacking in the recent firestorms. An October LA Times poll showed voters are willing to tax themselves for health care. The opportunities to fight back against the neoliberal assumptions that have ruled California ARE there, to anyone willing to act on them.

And so we face a crossroads. Will we sit back and let Republicans and the media shock doctrine us into giving up what remains of equitable, accessible, broadly prosperous California, and eliminating our ability to tackle the multifaceted crisis of the 21st century? Or will we fight back and finally challenge these assumptions, that we should look to spending cuts before tax increases, and finally put California on a sound financial footing by giving us the resources we need?

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“And A Child Shall Lead Them…”

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A famous US patriot once said “These are the times that try men’s souls.” At the time, he spoke of the events and circumstances surrounding the birth of a nation destined to be defined by the rights and freedoms of the people; a nation led by government of the People, by the People and for the People, where leaders could inspire the People to stand united in spite of differing opinions or particular religious influence.

The advent of the twenty-first century has marked the most severe departure from our founding principles than ever before. We stand on the brink of self-immolation, leaderless and adrift, while selfish, arrogant hypocrites steer our ship of state toward the shoals.

Should we fail now to grow resolute and united in our determination to right this ship, we fail not only ourselves but our children, and their children’s children.

It is time to look to those children for inspiration and a reminder of what we, as adults, are tasked with as parents and guardians: to create and foster an environment where children can grow to adulthood, secure in the knowledge that we have passed along the best models for ethical leadership and responsible stewardship of this nation that we know how.

And a little child shall lead them

On Tuesday, September 6, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, an article appeared in the New York Times about a curious band of refugees that walked into a Baton Rouge evacuation point: six children, comprised of  five toddlers following a six year old boy carrying a five month old child:

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Leadership, in action, during a time where the adult leadership of the nation was focused on trying not to appear wholly incompetent.

They failed.

In times of crisis, a nation needs to have faith in the capacity of its appointed leaders to step in and guide them safely through. Taken in that context, our “leaders” have not simply failed — they have failed miserably, to the point where we can no longer think of them as “leaders” at all: that was the turning point where a more critical, if jaundiced, eye was cast upon their actions, and their carefully-constructed façade began to crumble to dust around them.

They were brutally upstaged by the simple competence of a small child.1

Those self-same leaders, who proclaim their compassion for fellow citizens and their love for children, ardently oppose abortion rights for women — and equally oppose providing insurance for millions of uninsured children. They claim to support scientific research, but stand firm against fully embracing stem cell research while hypocritically claiming successful justification of their idiocy by pointing at the work of foreign scientists — scientists who are forging ahead in the field, while our own endeavors flounder here at home.2


Where have all the (adult) leaders gone?

In the year 2007, that question has been asked repeatedly, with growing emphasis. An eighty-two years old businessman by the name of Lee Iacocca even wrote a book with a very similar title: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?3 In order to find out where to look for leadership, and how to recognize it, we should take a peek inside the cover. The opening passages of the book alone should have sounded a clarion call to the would-be and wanna-be leaders of today:

I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies.

Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions.

Iacocca shouts out that he’d love to sit back and let the youth lead the charge against the encroaching apathy and ongoing destruction of our nation, but the youth is currently distracted and disillusioned. Our children and our young adults — by far one of the bigger factions of the public — don’t trust our politicians to represent their interests; he doesn’t blame them for this, but wants them to wake up and realize that only by standing up and participating in the system can they hope to change it for the better. He laments that we have created “a hell of a mess” and must all pitch in to clean it up.

So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense?

Those people are the ones who appear to be missing in action. Our Congress holds the responsibility to bring oversight and accountability to the workings of the government, particularly the Executive Branch;

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?

[…snip…]

You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play.

We all have a role to play. We need our Congress to play its role and to actively put the wayward Executive Branch back on track. We ourselves need to drop the veil of false civility and inject the righteous anger and frustration of our national plight into the public discourse — it is no longer time for political correctness, it’s time for political correction.


A Child’s Lead and a Childish Leader: Political Correction vs. “Politically Correct”

The legacy of the Republican Party of this day and age can be summed up in the person of their de facto creation: George W. Bush, and the malAdministration that he leads. Juxtaposed against pretty words carefully calculated to say one thing while supporting the opposite, the legacy of Bush Republicans is one of malignant deceit. They claim support of science, yet undermine any research that doesn’t support their politics in spite of the harm to the public or to national security. They claim to be strong on national security, yet gut the programs that would most help the nation and provide true security in order to prop up failed adventures as “successful” — all the while causing more harm than good. They loudly insist that they have created a better, stronger system for education while creating a system where states and schools are practically encouraged to misreport statistics in order to continue receiving funds. Is are children learning became a national embarrassment, along with the memorable phrase Childrens do learn,4 both brought to the forefront of national discourse by the ignoble head of the Republican Party and purported “leader” of the free world. Bush Republicans also support and extol the virtues of misnamed national policies like The Clean Air Act or Healthy Forests. These morally bankrupt hypocrites claim their support of severe restrictions on embryonic stem cell research helps children and credit research by others in another nation as evidence of their argument, and they aggressively push for war in the name of peace.5

It is a legacy of deceit, denial and dissembly.

It’s time we stood tall and dropped the false cover that political correctness provides to those who excel in prevarication. We need to be direct. We need to be forceful. We need to be blunt.

We should follow the lead of a child.

Here’s an enhanced closeup, as immortalized by marymary of MichelleMalkinIsAnIdiot:


The child appeared to be imitating something she had seen — probably more than once — when associated with the man standing in front of her. But unlike the parent who quickly and gently hid her action from view, the child’s gesture demonstrated exactly the type of blunt, direct and peaceful confrontation that our adult selves have been sorely deficient in. Fortunately, it is a deficiency that is not complete.

Indeed, some Americans have already figured out that the best way to confront the hypocrisy is to visibly challenge those most responsible for it. In this clip, Richard “Dick” Cheney has his own words from the Senate floor (June 25, 2004) quoted back to him in the aftermath of Katrina, when the Bush officials finally decided it was safe to attempt a few photo ops:

Another adult who stood up to the Bush Administration, directly confronting Bush with dignity and grace, was Harry Taylor, a man who is now running for Congress:

These occurrences are, however, too few and far between. In the interest of our national well-being and the future of both the nation and the children who have lent us the temporary custody of it, we have to do better. Congress has to do better. Our next President has to do better. The current crop of ethically challenged and fiscally irresponsible Republicans know that if they are confronted — if the people begin to stand up and demand answers, criticizing the constant stream of noxious nonsense that is being spread thickly over the landscape — then they will lose their grip on power. They know they will likely lose billions in ill-gotten gains. And some of them, if we are truly diligent in our pursuit of truth and justice, may just end up in jail.  They know this, and they are striving to push back against it. They have stooped so low as to repeat and augment the Nixon-era’s challenge that “if the President does it, it’s legal” — they even attempt to quiet dissent by challenging it with the language of treason, while in actuality it is their own actions that betray the nation and her people.

We, the People of the United States of America, need to ensure that this happens. If not for ourselves, then do it for the children. They’re watching us, and will learn from our mistakes as well as our successes — but shouldn’t we try to demonstrate how much better it is to chalk up successes in the fight for freedom and democracy?

Investigate. Impeach. Convict. Remove. Indict. Convict. Imprison.

Set an example; throw the bums out, try them in accordance with the law, not in a kangaroo court, and when they are justly convicted ensure that they are justly imprisoned.

Namaste.

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Notes and Additional Video Support:
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1. Children have made headlines even more recently as enfants provocateurs (h/t Reason Online via Dawg’sBlog). From News24, an African online news source, comes this story on June 21, 2007:

Cops charge 3-year-old ‘rioter’

21/06/2007 13:44  – (SA)


Patna, India – Police in India have charged a three-year-old boy for allegedly leading a group of rioters and firing at security personnel, the toddler’s uncle said on Thursday.

[…snip…]

This news, of course, comes on the heels of a story from the previous month, detailing that charges were dropped against a six year old boy who was accused of molesting and assaulting a woman in her thirties, again in India.

Those kids in India…gotta watch ’em every minute.  ;P

2. When Pigs Fly by DarkSyde of DailyKos.

Mr. Spinmeister neglected to mention a few key facts in his apologetic zeal to lay the wreath of discovery at the feet of George Bush. To make a a skin cell behave like an embryonic stem cell, a couple of things go without saying: you’d have to know what an embryonic stem cell does. It would be damn helpful to have worked with human cells, particularly skin cells and embryonic stem cells. And that might be an obstacle if you happened to live in a country where having the latter is an expensive, over regulated pain in the ass specifically because of the unpopular policy of a certain unpopular President. Which may explain in part why this breakthrough occurred in Japan.

3. Iacocca, Lee and Catherine Whitney.   Where Have All the Leaders Gone?; New York: Scribner, 2007.   ISBN 1-416-53247-1. Citations and initial link in the piece above via Snopes.

4. This DailyKos diary by buffalo provided a most excellent and relevant YouTube video containing two key clips of education-related Bush malapropisms: George W. Bush: Childrens do learn!, posted 28 September 2007:

5. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Etc., etc.  From
Always Tell the Truth, posted by TileNut on April 16, 2006.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

Marriage Equality

SF Chamber of Commerce joins pro-marriage equality amicus brief

It’s not often that I get to praise any Chamber of Commerce. Sure, occasionally the LA and SF locals do something right, but it’s not an everday occurence. I mean, usually I’m blasting them for their ridiculous “Job Killer List.”  But, as I’m a believer in reinforcing positive action, I’ll point out the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce’s good deed.  Yesterday, they signed on to Levi Strauss’ amicus brief in favor of marriage equality for the pending CA Supreme Court case:

Support of marriage rights for gays and lesbians is “consistent with our organization’s advocacy of policies that are inclusive and contribute to business’ ability to attract and retain a diverse, talented workforce,” Steve Falk, the chamber’s chief executive, said in a statement this week. (SF Chron 11.24.2007)

There always has been a strong case for marriage equality from both the left and the right. Andrew Sullivan has made a pretty nice living, in fact, selling the conservative argument for marriage.  Of course, the SF Chamber has always been something of an outlier on social issues, and it’s not clear that this really has anything to do with the “conservative argument” for marriage. But, props to the SF Chamber and Levi Strauss for saying what needs to be said.

All written arguments have now been filed in the case, but a hearing date has not been scheduled.