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 Posted May 9th, 2011 at 12:05AM
So I caught the live news coverage as it unfolded a week ago Sunday night, as we learned that Osama bin Laden was shot by a team of Navy SEALS. I guess people with better internet connections learned it beforehand, but I got screwed by work and was busy all day, so I watched and speculated along with the rest of the 20th century hosers as NBC first played their “breaking news” intro (which doesn’t mean much, as I’m jaded by them cutting into regularly scheduled broadcasts regularly), then Brian Williams said it had to do with OBL (ears perked up), then the kill was confirmed, then Barack Obama finally finished his speech and delivered it after suitable build-up.
I thought the flash mobs immediately following appropriate, but the cheering, flag waving, and “U.S.A.” chanting eerily reminiscent of effigy-burning “anti-US” demonstrations in the Middle East. I subscribe to the line of thought behind the Dalai Lama’s response.
With hindsight 20/20, Obama’s direction and handling of the situation was superb. As the talking heads have already talked to death, the predator drone attack would have been the easier, less risky path to take — but less rewarding, as we now know a “small college library” amount of intelligence was collected from OBL’s compound.
I saw talking heads compliment “both past presidents” on Meet the Press this morning, for changes to the intelligence community that allowed this success to take place. Concurrently, I’ve been catching up on a past (pre-OBL demise) Time article which followed FBI Director Robert Mueller. It’s occurred to me that George W. Bush likely did not have much to do with the changing intelligence landscape (other than following other’s recommendations regarding the appointments of new people); while Obama had an obvious, tangible role in getting OBL. But that’s just the partisan in me talking.
There’s not much substance to this post, other than that I’ve kept this blog alive for this long and I would feel remiss to pass this story by without giving my two cents.
I’ll have additional cents to come, if not on this topic, on others.
Posted October 29th, 2010 at 12:57PM
Paladino is one tea bagger that no one seems to be talking much about these days, go figure, although Cuomo certainly doesn’t send any thrills up my leg, for better or worse. Both New York Senators are also in clear sailing. Unfortunately, the latest polling shows a tightening race in my congressional district. The Siena Research Institute poll released this Tuesday gives challenger Chris GIbson a 9 point lead, and shows Gibson shoring support with Republicans, gaining a plurality of independents, and leading in favorability ratings.
We’re swamped with television advertisements from candidate campaigns and outside interest groups. Karl Rove’s attack dogs American Crossroads have been pounding Smurphy, along with 60 Plus, Americans for Prosperity, and Citizens United.
Murphy seems to have represented the district fine over the past year and a half, and I’m not seeing any evidence that Gibson would have done a better job, or, any job at all should I say given the Republicans’ obstructionism.
We’ll see what comes along next Tuesday. I’m also following the Vermont races with some interest.
In other news, I washed both of my cars, and snapped some photos which I’ll upload soon. I should write something about my WRX along the way. It can still clean up… dents, scratches, peeling clear coat and all!
Posted April 16th, 2010 at 11:59AM
The fact that “47% of Americans paid no federal income tax in 2009″ made the rounds recently as Americans geared up to pay their taxes again and rich white people picketed on the deadline to file, April 15th. My first reaction was, “Well, yeah, but seems like that burden is being shifted downward to the state and local level.” Dig a little deeper, and it turns out that more people are paying the feds than at first glance. Between payroll, medicare and social security, excise, and gas taxes, three-quarters of the population stand to pay something to the federal government this year, according to the Tax Policy Center.
And the average federal take – median of 18%, millionaires at 27% – trends toward reasonable, at least to the reasonably-inclined. The problem of course is the gap between what the government collects and what it spends. American sales tax is low compared to other nations, where a value-added tax, or VAT, is the norm. This method adds fractional tax percentages at each stage of production of a product, taxing the additional value. This taxes consumption more directly and would stand to raise a fair amount of additional revenue. Alone, a VAT can be seen as regressive, but a refundable tax credit – for lower income taxpayers who spend proportionately more of their income on necessary goods –solves that dilemma.
The overall American tax structure might not need drastic reform then, but incremental. Everyone acknowledges that cutting into the deficit will require both increased revenue and decreased spending. On the spending side, it’s popular to say that there are no easy answers, but I can think of a few right off the bat. The military budget continues to bloat, with total defense spending budgeted between $880 billion to $1 trillion in fiscal year 2010. It’s a sickening waste of money, the bulk of which stands to do nothing against the reigning terrorism bogeyman, but there’s little to no political will to start cutting the fat. Going hand in hand, the war on drugs continues to blow untold billions in federal, state, and local enforcement, lost wages and cost of imprisonment of offenders, and costs associated with failure to provide due treatment to those abusing. True reform of the tax code stands to bring in substantial additional revenue by cutting granddaddy entitlements and credits to business and special interests with no redeeming value.
But the obvious obstacle to all of this is hyperpartisanship and no one having any incentive until the plug is pulled by America’s creditors.
In summary: “wah wah wah!”
Posted March 22nd, 2010 at 3:32PM
So while things have been quiet around here, I’ve been following the healthcare debate closely. Kucinich’s change of heart mid last week coincided with mine, and so I was pleased with Representative Scott Murphy’s decision to vote in favor – and relieved when the final tallies were announced late last night.
My line of thinking is now along the lines that this legislation is (or at least, can be, optimistically assuming the best possible outcome – a great leap of faith) better than nothing. Nothing, coming after more than a year of effort on the part of the Democrats, always the consummate lesser of two evils. A failure here, pragmatically spelling the end of Hope with a capital H, and putting any future reform efforts on the back burner for another decade plus.
With two-thousand plus pages of legislation, I won’t make any claims to understanding anything beyond the easily digestible bullet points being paraded in the news. Earlier, I became hopeful that this legislation would actually affect me in the near term, with the clause allowing dependent children to stay on their parent’s plans till the age of 26. I am most definitely still dependent on my parents, and I am also under the age of 26 for another whopping three months. My eagerness to get back on the roles isn’t borne from my pre-existing condition (T2 diabetes – still very much under control), but for the recent ultimatum on my wisdom teeth – they’s gotsta go! (For years their place was secure, since apparently I have the jaw line and accompanying mouth space of one of homo sapien’s earlier ancestors. But while the top pair have come in fine, the bottoms still aren’t completely through, and the determination has been made that they need to come out. And the older I get, the less chance of my gums healing properly.)
But from what I can tell, this piece of the healthcare legislation won’t be applicable in my case. First off, although this is purportedly one of the pieces enacted immediately, I still found word that there is a six month grace period involved. Secondly, I can’t figure out whether this is applicable at all for all of the 21-26 year olds who’ve already been kicked off – can we just sign back on, or are we in a loophole? Thirdly, the wisdom teeth would most likely be deemed a “pre-existing condition” and not covered even if I was able to get insured for the next three months. (Pre-existing conditions will be a thing of the past for adults by 2014, children (real children) immediately.) Fourthly, and last, I just found out that New York has already had legislation that allows unmarried children to remain on their parent’s insurance – until the age of 30!
I don’t recall what age I was when I was kicked off of my parent’s insurance. It seemed an arbitrary age, and I remember it being before I even graduated from college. While attending, I had some very low cost plan associated with the college and assumed it would cover anything catastrophic. And I was uninsured when diagnosed with diabetes two years ago. I am not enthused at my chances of being re-enrolled, as the current for-profit healthcare system stands to gain nothing by having me insured getting proper medical treatment at an affordable cost. Therein lies the fundamental problem, an issue never at task over the past year of partisan squabbling.
Still, although I am yet another instance of an uninsured individual who will likely see nothing come from this legislation in the short term, I feel like I can only hope for the best in that the CBO estimates show some savings to be had, long term, nationally. If this effort was sunk, reform would not be attempted again, and this would undoubtedly result in a worsening of the crippled system – by the CBO’s own estimates. Further skyrocketing costs, millions more uninsured, more and more of the same.
It is hard to feel any satisfaction, or to even see this as a “victory.” Healthcare reform has been a significant issue for me for several election cycles. Watching the political process over the past year neuter the most substantial reforms has been disheartening. This legislative success looks to do nothing for the thousands still dying for lack of care. Perhaps the sense of victory will hold them over until 2014 or whenever the applicable parts of the bill come into effect. Premiums will surely increase astronomically while health insurance companies have free reign to do so.
Watching the whole debacle, I’m taken aback by the unscrupulousness of the Republicans, Waterloo-ing the issue the whole time; and by the emasculated nature of the Dems, incapable of passing substantial reform while in control of both Congress and the presidency. It’s hard to see how any progress can be made under this system.
Posted March 1st, 2010 at 12:20PM
Fatigued by the tea? Looking for a movement named after a drink popular with 21st century Americans? Look no further than the Coffee Party, a sorta-lame-at-first-glance rejoinder with a lot more going for it once you skim the surface:
Many of us had the same thought: the tactics being employed by the Tea Party movement are not likely to produce solutions to the problems that we face as a nation, and we urgently need an alternative.
It’s very hard to get people to rally around a new idea. But here I am reminding them of something that they already know: that we are all Americans. We should not divide ourselves over differences of opinion. We need to be one community. Our democracy is what unites us as a people. We must protect it, and to protect it we must engage in the political process, respecting the reality that we are diverse nation with diverse points of view.
- Annabel Park, founder of Coffee Party USA, via a live Q&A at the Washington Post
My initial reaction when getting the Facebook invite was of the “oh, that’s cute” nature. But with all the talk of participatory democracy, civic engagement, and public discourse, this nascent movement appears to be more Public Policy 201, less hysteric “Down Wit Gubment” herd mentality. And I can get behind any movement that actually addresses an issue at hand, of our fractured, tug-of-war method of governance. The schizoid two party system we have would seem amusing, but for actually living here and paying the taxes to support it.
Particularly disheartening this week was David Gregory, on Meet The Press doing his part to discredit the Mainstream Media, blithely glossing over all public opinion outside of the Tea Bagger movement, proclaiming that, “The only protests you’ve seen publicly are on the right in opposition to the [healthcare] bill.”
Truly, this would only be the case if your sole window on the world was the 6 o’clock news. Not only do I subscribe to newsletters of national movements in favor of reform (Healthcare-NOW!), but I have seen and heard of protest efforts coming from the left and center, across my local region. From demonstrations at the state Capitol, to the street corners of routes I take every day, there demonstrably are people frustrated at current national affairs, who still fall far short of the fanatical “fly a plane into an IRS building” stripe.
To say that the Right are the only ones expressing themselves is a fundamental failure of journalism, which purportedly exists to deliver news, not craft it as the NY Times has with New York’s coming gubernatorial election. I posit that perhaps 20th century news structures would not be in the dire straits they’re in if they were doing a better job at the close of the century. (Sometimes it feels like I only blog to contradict the notion of the blogosphere as a vast right-wing echo-chamber.)
The Tea Party is not an issue-based group per se, as far as limited or nonexistent government can be considered an “issue” (I consider it an ideology). It’s bizarre to think of Righties as sign-toting protesters, but then I can certainly empathize with the emotions of disconnect with government and the free press. They’re failing us all. Coffee is arguably the better direction; otherwise, politicos and big biz (I mean, the media) will continue to eagerly play us as fools. We need a fundamental redress of the systems at play, because TARP didn’t address the problems of Wall Street, and likewise with the stimulus and our economy. And while I’m not loony enough to proclaim government “the problem,” a nonfunctioning one certainly contributes to our ills.
Posted January 24th, 2010 at 1:59PM
Thursday’s decision, in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, “is going to flip the existing campaign order on its head,” said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a Republican campaign lawyer at the law-and-lobbying firm Patton Boggs who has represented both candidates and outside groups, including Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group formed to oppose Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.
“It will put on steroids the trend that outside groups are increasingly dominating campaigns,” Mr. Ginsberg said.
Great, so expect this court decision to spur an even greater emphasis on dollars spent each election cycle, becoming ever larger the biggest determining factor in sorting winners from losers. It was always my interpretation that the bill of rights spoke for the rights of the US citizen, not institutions of any stripe. Obviously the Supreme Court has set off on a different understanding while attempting to cohere various first amendment rulings. Unfortunately the divergent result is to limit the individuals’ voice during the democratic process. From the NY Times op-ed -
The [Supreme Court] majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money. They are given special privileges, including different tax rates, to do just that. It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.
The majority also makes the nonsensical claim that, unlike campaign contributions, which are still prohibited, independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” If Wall Street bankers told members of Congress that they would spend millions of dollars to defeat anyone who opposed their bailout, and then did so, it would certainly look corrupt.
McCain for his part has called campaign finance reform “dead” and the majority ruling in the Supreme Court “naive.” It seems like Obama, being the constitutional law scholar he is, could chart the course toward renewed campaign finance reform, viewed constitutionally legal by this conservatively activist Court. It seems like the only hope for rational government down the line.
If payola and the exchange of money is granted a verifiable constitutional guarantee, where does that leave us? If freedom of expression extends to corporations buying elections, will it similarly extend to the individual looking to purchase crack cocaine or solicit prostitutes?
Posted January 20th, 2010 at 4:00PM
Whenever there are circumstances these days that require direction from the Oval Office, it becomes a chance to “test” Obama. During immediate coverage of the Haitian earthquake last week, Matt Lauer eagerly and repeatedly dubbed it a “test.” Or cite Biden’s flub over being tested within six months in office. Has No Child Left Behind progressed to the presidency, where we now compulsively scrutinize, dutifully grading along some cosmic POTUS curve?
Never mind the response he gives when asked to self-grade (who doesn’t give themselves an A?), but think of the ludicrous proportions that question assumes when posed to his predecessor – a man familiar only with the “gentleman’s C.” (No, I would not like to be shown to YouTube footage of aforementioned question being asked.)
No one has been pleased all of the time here, myself least of all. But Obama has arguably proven his acumen for the job by now. Can it with the ongoing tallying of job performance assessments and get to analyzing the policy already. Or dare I ask too much from broadcast news?
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