Did Obama Really Win the Presidency?

Seriously folks, if the dems in Massachusetts couldn't hold Ted Kennedy's seat, how did they manage to win the White House or their still significant majorities in both houses of Congress. It seems we're back to the way things were before Barry won in '08.

The question now is whether the dems in Congress have the balls to get healthcare passed in any of the remaining methods available to them without 60 votes once Sen. Brown (R-Mass) is sworn in. Personally I like the one that has them get the compromise done and voted on before he has to be sworn in according to Massachusetts law. I believe that brings it to about Jan. 29.

You got 10 days folks. Can you do it?

Jon Stewart observed that the Repubelicans never had 60 in the Senate yet they did absolutely anything they wanted. Why??

Joe Lieberman Is a Douchebag

I want someone from Connecticut to explain to me why they have allowed this preening, sanctimonious schmendreck to continue to represent them in the US Senate. He stands for nothing except promoting the Jo'mentum, whatever the hell that is supposed to be. He has switched positions on everything he's ever claimed to stand for in the past. He makes Arlen Specter come off like a paragon of consistency. He is single-handedly on the verge of putting the kibosh on the most important domestic policy development since Reagan and Tip O'Neil compromised to save Social Security over 25 years ago.

The Republican party has spent a generation systematically destroying the economy, our international reputation, our standard of living, our education system, our infrastructure, our native sense of political moderation, our actual aspirations to the ideals embodied in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, our legal system, our environment, and on and on (I invite readers to add to the list in their comments). And though the Democrats aren't all that much better -- mostly because this silly herd of felines have all clearly been neutered during this generational implosion of what had been a continuing process to become a more perfect union -- at least they are making an effort and making some, if not much, progress towards righting what has gone so terribly wrong for too terribly long in this nation.

I haven't liked Lieberman since the first time I noticed him on the national scene, as the only Democrat who stood up and made personal hay by shaking his finger back at Bill Clinton over his distasteful shenanigans with Monica Lewinsky. He struck me then as a strange genetic cross between Elmer Fudd and Droopy Dog but other than that of no great import. Somehow though, he managed to turn that self-righteousness into a run at the Vice Presidency. For me as a resident of Florida, I've always considered Joe a big reason why Gore failed in Florida. As the first Jewish national candidate, I couldn't understand why he wasn't in my area, which is among the most heavily Jewish and Democratic in the country, personally busing the otherwise immobilized alter-cacas to the polls to vote in enormous droves for the ticket. He couldn't find 200 more Jews who could punch the ballot correctly that day? I wasn't in south Florida at the time, but I could have accomplished that myself in about 20 minutes by walking around my mother's neighborhood. Not the Supreme Court, not the lizards representing George W. Bush, not that sneaky, unnaturally wide-hipped little brother of GWB who was our governor at the time, not the morons who advised Gore on his legal strategy on the recount fight,,, but JOE "I am a schmuck and I don't care who knows it" LIEBERMAN lost the 2000 election.

He's done an amazing number of things to stick his thumbs in the eyes of the party he nominally works with since then. It seemed clear after the '08 election that his comeuppance was finally due. Oh but then we had to wait to see what happened with Al Franken. And then Specter crossed the aisle. Oh crap and then Joe became #60 for the dems in the Senate. So now Joe's butt must be licked whenever he feels it needs a shine.

Well how about this: promise Joe anything he asks for outside of healthcare, make some sort of minor change in the Medicare buy-in to give him cover. Pass the stinking thing already. And then, when the dust settles and he comes knocking for his porridge, stab him in the back and strip him naked in front of everyone. Remove every vestige of authority he has in the Democratic caucus, loudly and with great pomp, then toss his droopy ass out for the GOP vultures to ignore. Joe Lieberman has altered history once to the great detriment of the United States and the world. Don't let this douchebag do it again.

Payment Holiday: How To Make the Banks Fix the Mess They Created

Banks are happy to take their profits when the economy is going well, but they don't seem to want to take their lumps when it isn't. The only real solution I see to the home value crisis is the banks rewriting the mortgages to some version of fair market value. But they won't do it. No incentive.

How about this crazy idea: what if all you mortgage payers out there take just one month off from your loan payments all at the same time? And hey, do it on your credit cards too. They're killing you with the raised rates anyway.

If everyone took a one month payment holiday at the same time, I suspect it would bring the financial system to its knees pretty quickly. How's that for incentive?

I'm thinking January 2010 just when the bills come in for the Christmas shopping.

Everyday Health Care in America

Here's something that happened to me yesterday. I've had mild high blood pressure since my late teens. At various points since then my doctors have prescribed a low dose, common water pill. Brand name is Diovan and the generic is HCTZ, which is what I've always gotten. Yesterday I went to go get my refill at a local Walgreen's (which have sprouted like mushrooms in my area, it being populated by so many retirees waiting their turn at the Pearly Gates). Under my insurance plan I can only get a one month supply or 30 pills. But the doc prescribes it at 100 count per scrip. I would rather not have to make the extra trips if it's not necessary so I go off the insurance. It's a really cheap med anyway so I figure it's worth a little extra. So I go to pick up the refill at the drive thru. The girl sends it through and it's just the one month supply at a cost of $11.99. I send it back and explain that I'll go off-insurance and get the whole 100. She says she'll check the pricing. Comes back with... $11.99.

Yes I made sure she rechecked it several times and asked her if that seemed a little odd.

America, you're worried that the government's gonna rip you off? Your pockets are already empty and you just haven't pulled up the lint yet.

Afghanistan: Failure of Intent

When we went into Afghanistan, it was not yet a month past 9/11, the world effectively supported any reasonable appearing action the US might take, and the American people certainly agreed that since this was the geographical source of the crime, this is where we needed to show that we can’t be so easily knocked down.

NATO joined in and the task at hand seemed fairly straightforward: get in there and roust the intransigent and vile Taliban that took over the country after the withdrawal of the Soviets over a decade earlier; and who made the poor choice of allowing an Arab-based terrorist organization run by an old-style Muslim whackjob with a lot of daddy’s construction cash left under his keffiyeh have undue influence in the country, and the ability to inspire immense acts of murder out of the country. All that, rather than accept billions of US dollars to switch from poppies to potatoes and let girls learn how to read. Once the Taliban was knocked over, blow out the caves and get the sand worm bin Laden and call it a day.

I remember well the day the invasion started. I was out on a country drive with my then-girlfriend and I said to her when the news came on the radio, “I hope this guy knows what he’s doing.” Other than the speech to congress following 9/11 and the megaphone stunt at ground zero, I hadn’t seen anything out of this man-child Bush that gave me any confidence in him at all. He always seemed to me to be the goofy kid of the “guy who was involved in getting things done” which like them or not, was what his daddy, grand daddy, and great grand daddy were. So now he had his chance. Well at least he had the old wise man Cheney at his side, right? And Powell too.

Like each and every other matter these discredited miscreants laid their hands on, they blew it. After quickly bombing the Taliban out of power and taking Kabul, all enemies, Taliban and al-Qaeda were on the run and nearly bottled up at Tora Bora, the jagged, ancient mountains near the Pakistan border. Because another genius, Donald Rumsfeld refused to provide the few thousand additional troops requested for that battle, US forces worked with local anti-Taliban groups who, though good fighters, mostly veterans of the Soviet insurgency, had no great taste after a point to fight fellow Muslims while supporting non-Muslims. The result was that the locals brokered a separate cease-fire which gave bin Laden and his minions the chance to scurry across to the Pakistani tribal areas where, if he lives today, bin Laden remains.

Like the distraction-disaster that followed, GW Bush and his half-a-brain trust either failed or refused to give our military the resources needed to achieve the tasks at hand. And they damn near pulled it off both times anyway.

Now the man who chose to take the cesspit of American politics and policy onto his lanky lap, my friend Barry, is about to make his Big Announcement which, as that earlier expert military tactician Cheney says, he has been dithering over for approximately 90 days. How long does it take to decide on the least screwed up way to deal with what is now a completely screwed up situation? A “war” which should have ended after about 60 days has lasted 8 years and cost about 1500 American lives. Maybe not making a rash decision is called for here, hmmm?

So the early word says Barry is gonna give the general about 2/3 of what he asked for, which to a military man is probably everything he expected. I learned a long time ago to start a negotiation high and settle low. For our friends on the right, who shop retail and buy the sticker price, this makes no sense and they will say so and loudly. But they will never have Barry’s back, unless it’s in crosshairs so why he continues to bother is a question that my political mind cannot reach. I am not myself a political animal so I have no desire to be appreciated by everyone who doesn’t like me for any reason or no reason so I don’t waste effort trying.

On the left there will be howls because this guy was supposed to get us out of these stupid wars. Well yes, but even this guy said he thought this was a correct war so expecting him to ditch it is wrong-headed. Expecting him to do nothing clearly isn’t going to work since, well, it’s not working. So doing what appears to be a half-measure is what should be expected. No one will be happy, which may mean he’s found a good middle ground, like he does in every issue.

My feeling is that numerically, it’s probably necessary to increase troops since there were never enough to cover the country in the first place (it’s bigger and more spread out than Iraq by a substantial margin). It has much less infrastructure and a much less educated population who are nevertheless battle weary and tested following what is now nearly 30 years of near constant war and insurrection involving the world’s major powers: NONE OF WHOM HAVE EVER MANAGED TO SUBDUE THE PLACE.

Very simply, we should stay there long enough in this form to allow Karzai to clean up his act or not, to rebuild some of what we broke, to try to rout the Taliban out of the two southern provinces that actually have lots of Taliban (Helmand and Kandahar), and do so using anti-insurgency tactics rather than old-style big battle plans. We need to get into the villages and interact with the people, gain their confidence and give them the strength to fight off the guys we don’t like and then make sure we continue to supply them appropriately when we want to leave. That’s what finally succeeded in Iraq and that’s what will succeed in Afghanistan. We won’t leave behind a modern democracy. The culture there in 10,000 years old, possibly older than the one we tried to change in Iraq. Dropping bombs around them for a few years isn’t going to bring a light to their world that will obscure the one they have known since before cattle were domesticated.

The Greatest Threat To Liberty?

The founders of the United States were liberals. They believed that men (yes, white property owning men) had a God-given right to determine the direction their lives could take free from outside interference. In their day, the most likely source of interference and the one they revolted against, was an unresponsive and corrupt central government headed by a hereditary monarch. For the first hundred years of the nation's existence, that perspective was maintained effectively as the sole means by which to measure individual liberty and government authority. By the 1880s though, another threat to personal liberty arose in a way not fully contemplated by the founders: the perpetual corporation.

In the founders' day corporations were rarely used and novel methods of agglomerating capital to take on tasks and disburse the risk of loss in a venture which could not normally be carried by a single owner/operator. They were single-purposed and short-lived. Governments also had great authority to exercise control over the effects a corporation had within its community. Some of the founders recognized the possibility of such entities growing beyond the ability of small governments to control them but that foresight could only go so far.

By the last quarter of the 19th century though, laws had changed to allow the growth of corporate behemoths of size, scope, and influence beyond any of the founders' worst nightmares. Accordingly, a new major threat to the liberty of the individual became a force in American life. The question of whether or how to contend with that threat effectively defines much about modern American politics. Simply stated, the only entity capable of bringing to bear enough resources to assure that the people are not abused by the whims, desires, greed, need, what-have-you of the modern corporation was a larger, more commercially active government at all levels. It required the proper functioning of the former great threat to manage the dangers posed by the abuse of the latter great threat.

The goal is still to protect individual liberty; the Liberal Ideal. The means to do so, requires one to trust in the good graces of two recognized devils. Somewhere along the line, because corporations are private property, the label conservative has stuck to those who still see government as the greater threat to liberty while liberals, who long ago fought a revolution to limit government interference in the liberty of the people, now look to it as the main protector of that same liberty.

Perhaps the greatest threat to liberty is the failure of adequate labels to show we all take different roads to get to the same place.

The Inevitable Assessment of a Modern Major Genral

The report leaked today from Gen. William McChrystal, the commander of all forces in Afghanistan said that unless forces are dramatically increased, the American effort there is likely to fail. He may be right, after all he has his McChrystal balls to rely on. But on the other hand, what are the chances that any general is going to recommend retreat, which will always look to some as a failure, as opposed to going all in which at least has a chance of "winning" whatever that may be in a place as poor, corrupt, remote, ungoverned, and unconquered as Afghanistan? Pulling out is no choice any military man would ever take. Leave that to the Commander-in-Chief, a civilian whose calculations on such matters have to take into account many more factors than anything a general has to worry about. This does not demean the general's advice in any way, but rather places it in context along with any other sources of advice the president must take into consideration.

Racism in the Current Discourse

We have here in the US a president whose father was a native of sub-Saharan Africa. The skin tone of this president bears a closer resemblance to his father's than it does to his mother's, who hailed from Kansas and whose skin tone was as peach/pink/white as anyone whose heritage emanated from northern Europe. At this point proportionately less people care about that one way or the other that at other time in this country's sorry history on that point.

But a lot of people still do care about the president's skin tone; both as a reason to like and to dislike him. While I won't go so far as to say it's an utterly meaningless fact but any discussion of it in the context of the current health care debate is a complete waste of time. Those who support the president primarily because he's a black man will do so no matter what and won't be changed and the same is true of those who can't stand the notion of a black man sitting in the big chair in the White House.

All that will happen if one side or the other accuses anyone of racism is that the chance of any substantive discussion of the particular issue actually at hand will come absolutely to an end. The heat gets turned up. Anyone not predisposed to the extremes gets pushed to it in order to defend themselves against probably baseless charges and before long things could turn violent.

The media, which is astounding me more each day with its unconscionable laziness, goes immediately to the most extreme points of view in order to sensationalize everything and make all debate appear more like a car wreck in process instead of trying to parse through the complexities of difficult issues. Hey I dig it, it's hard to do research to understand the composition of health care in this country and the varieties of ways it comes into play among the 300+ million people living here and the 50 states and the regional variations and enormous sums of cash and the tension between government and service providers and insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, not to mention the different ways it's handled in other countries, all in the midst of the horrors of the current economic problems.

Like everything else, it's all a lot easier if you try to make it a black or white issue.

The America I Know and Love...

I hear that phrase in various forms over and over a lot lately. It's featured most prominently in the ridiculous rant by that Dangerous Moron, Sarah Palin. It comes up in blurts from birthers wanting "their" country back for that Kenyan posing as president.

Here's a simple request for the folks out there who hold that sentiment: please comment below by explaining to me what exactly it is that you mean by holding to any version of the phrase.

Is-ism

Unintentionally I seem to have taken a summer recess in blog posting and though much is in need of comment and discussion, instead I want to start getting to some basic principles which should have been addressed long ago, namely, what do I mean by calling myself a Mighty Liberal? This is the first of what hopefully will be many installments on this point and with luck, some readers will add their thoughts.

The goal of liberalism in modern America is tricky and that is part of what makes it a slippery concept, seemingly unprincipled. But it is the seeming unprincipledness of it all which is the hallmark of liberalism. Focus on seeming because in reality that is the aspect of liberalism which makes it a dynamic force. To contrast, conservatives of all stripes make a fetish out of hewing tightly to their so-called principles to the point that the steamrolling of populations along the way becomes testimony to the lengths of sacrifice they would make to assure consistency. They are certain they know what it is that things are. Note the words I use here. They have a desire to have a world governed by "Is-ism". They know what the meaning of "Is" is. Anything which does not meet their self-definition of just about anything is then, by definition, wrong, and therefore to be scorned and destroyed at all costs by any means.

Contrary to conservatism, Liberalism is flexible. It has to be in order to strike a constant balance between liberty and anything which might threaten liberty. Solutions change. Adjustments must be made on the fly. Nothing is certain except the constant need for trying to understand as many facts, circumstances, and opinions as possible while knowing at the same time that full knowing of anything is impossible. We humans must do the best we can and strive always to do better. In the moment, the desire to always be ready to alter one's path can look pretty wishy washy to someone determined to plow ahead at all costs no matter the circumstances. But in most cases, such plowing behavior is good only for an ox.

An ox may be strong but it's not very smart. And it's a herd animal by nature as well. We are humans. We can and should be able to do better. We tell the ox what to do and where to go. And when we're done with the ox, we eat it.