Great Day for Sanity

Wow, for an off-year election, Tuesday, November 8, 2011 turned out to be a doozy of a setback for the reactionary GOP forces that swept the elections one year ago. Sanity has prevailed like wildfire:

• In Ohio, Republican Governor John Kasich's anti-union law was struct down forcefully by voters

• Ditto the Mississippi anti-choice law defining personhood at conception - gone, gone, gone

• Arizona State Senate President and architect of the absurdly strict immigration law, Republican Russell Pearce, was voted out in a recall election after spending crazy amounts of dough

• Marriage equality is safe in Iowa thanks to a definitive Dem State Senator win that was supposed to be a squeaker with the Tea Party candidate

• Maine now has same-day election registration after the GOP ran ads against that voting right

• Even the Raleigh, NC school district went Dem majority...

• ...and Pittsburgh got referendum approval of a city library-supporting tax (.25/$1000 of property value)

It sure seems like proof that Republican overreach and partisanship has awakened the non-reactionary Americans from their electoral slumber. I'll be interested to see if they guys like Kasich "moderating" their positions or at least pretending to from here to the next election. Is this the beginning of the Obama "comeback?"

Because in non-Election Day news, Obama's healthcare reform just won a big court test (with conservative judges included), and the GOP's "front-runner" is making his own disaster much, much worse. Daily.

Is there a tide turning?

God bless democracy.

God bless these United States of America.

Getting Things Done

As the finance reform bill made it out of House/Senate conference committee today somewhat stronger thanks to CSPAN coverage that took it out of the backroom, now on to almost certain passage by both houses of Congress, and with our President once again asserting his authority in no uncertain terms, it's time to take stock again of how much is actually getting accomplished.

This is no do-nothing Congress; you may not favor the legislation they are passing, but they're stimulating the economy while getting started on 21st Century infrastructure, reforming healthcare including the elimination of pre-existing conditions and the creation of exchanges, passing some campaign reform to counteract the Supreme Court blank check for corporate influence, creating a financial Consumer Protection Agency with real teeth (depending which party and leader is in power) and regulating bank involvement with derivatives, working on Don't Ask Don't Tell, working on a climate change / energy future bill, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Act...and lots more I don't even know or remember.

The President accomplished a significant milestone when he fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal and reasserted civilian control (Executive control) over our nation's military, he got $20B out of criminally negligent BP just at the end of last week, he took Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Hell Burger and signed some technology deals, and is now at the G8/G20. There is no denying that he's getting things done. Per Taegan Goddard, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform the country." I'd argue that while some on the Left find the comparison to FDR wanting, he's on track to best every President since with essentially a (small-c) conservative form of Progressivism, very much a common sense form less interested in lofty ideology but still believing that it's the responsibility of government to lessen the suffering of its peoples and stand up against vicissitudes of nature, moneyed interests, criminal elements and global enemies.



With Republicans determined to stall another jobs bill, per 1930's W-shaped Depression Era history more than likely to cause another recovery stall, one can only imagine the Party as a whole is still betting on obstructionism in order to keep conditions from getting so good that they have no platform to run on. It's funny that they actually choose to do the opposite of what The Bible recommends, saving up during the seven fat years so as not to be boned in the seven lean ones (Genesis 41:27), i.e. cutting taxes on their wealthy patrons while spending insanely during the good times of the Bush Administration, then allowing the population to starve after the bubble burst.

I know they're feeling like their voter base is enthused and Tea'ed up, but I'm wondering what they actually will have to run on, especially if the jobs market continues to recover. Obama as Hitler?

Well, as of today, Palin's gone there.

I Love America, Too

(Now with 50% less snark than yesterday's post.)

The late Verna Oller of Washington State understood the meaning of community:

There are two things about 98-year-old Verna Oller that just about anyone around her neigborhood in Long Beach, Washington can tell you. She was feisty, and she was frugal.

...

Oller never made much money, earning an hourly wage filleting fish until she was in her 70s. She cut her own firewood until she was in her 90s. But Oller was carrying a secret, a big one, and she entrusted the Glenns to keep it. It turned out she was a master investor.

"She went to the library and read Barrons," Guy Glenn said. "She read the Wall Street Journal."

...

The sturdy old lady with no formal education amassed a not-so-small fortune: $4.5 million. It was up over $5 million before the recession. Before she died, she directed Guy Glenn to spend every cent of it, but not on her, on her home town.

"She wants a swimming pool to be built, that was her main goal," he said.

Mission accomplished. Part of Oller's money will go to building the town's very first indoor swimming pool. The pool was important to Oller because as a poor little girl growing up there it frustrated her that kids often had no place to swim even though they lived on the ocean. But the shoreline can be dangerous in the Pacific Northwestern town. Money will also be set aside for scholarships and grants for local teachers.

...

When Oller died, she didn't want a funeral or even an obit. In fact, she didn't want any credit at all.

And then there's this America, always breaking the boundaries of homicidal behavior and language taboos, on the Today show, no less:

Kayla Manson, a 13-year-old Florida girl accused as an accomplice after her boyfriend allegedly attempted to murder her best friend, recalled the text messages that her friend and boyfriend exchanged before he attacked her.

Manson said she did not see the texts where her boyfriend, Wayne Treacy, threatened to kill her best friend, Josie Ratley, but rather only ones in which they called each other names.

Manson said the two text messages she saw were "the one where she calls him a rapist, and she calls him a cunt, I mean the one where he calls her a cunt."

"We just have to be careful with our language, but that's all right, sweetheart," Meredith Vieira said.

Reminds me of the classic Kurt Vonnegut short sci-fi story, "The Big Space Fuck," set in a future where all the words have been exposed, so the last obscenity left is "jizzum."

Thank you, young Kayla Manson.

Hmm. Any relation?

A Good Ending

Ted Kennedy knew he was on the way out over a year ago and was determined to have a good ending for himself, which included lots of entertaining with a valedictory stream of dinner guests as well as working as long as he could. Admirable, to be sure, as was the overall arc of his life from unimpressive lad to statesman.

There's an interesting post on DailyKos by feldo, comparing how liberal Democrat Senator Kennedy died to conservative Republican campaign operative, the oft feared, subtly racebaiting Lee Atwater:

And then only weeks before dying, he wrote, in, ironically, Life Magazine,

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

Nice sentiment at the end, albeit more regret than satisfaction.

The choice is yours.

Circuses of Bread

Concerning the AIG bonus tax, I agree with this Andrew Sullivan reader:

It's stupid, and probably unconstitutional, sure. But it's great because it gets us past what is, in the big picture, a trivial issue. If the bill becomes law, Americans can feel like the government did something to get their money back and we can move on to dealing with real problems. A lawsuit challenging the bill will follow, and in a year or two, it will get struck down, and no one will care, because we'll either be on our way to a recovery, or so deep in shit that we'll have much bigger problems on our mind.

I'm glad people have gotten angry, and it's good for the powers that run this country -- both Wall Street and Washington -- to remember that class war starts with them.

But the thing to remember is that fascism starts at home and it's based solely on populist rage, always borne of fear. Those who harness that rage in America can get pretty far -- Huey Long, Joe McCarthy.

Currently Governor Sarah Palin and whoever that guy is who's playing Joe the Plumber appear to be top contenders, vying for it. She's having her political action committee, Sara PAC, determine policy in Alaska, turning down Obama's stimulus (like education) money so she can run against him and for the GOP nomination on it. Endlessly. And as for Joe, with his soft-spoken dogwhistle to the rage, I contend he could be our next face in the crowd:



The fact is that there is ample reason to be angry with the capitalist class of money manipulators who take such a high percentage of our nation's wealth but diminishing responsibility there at the top of the food chain. But these banks are going to take a lot of dollars -- much or most of which will be in reserve so they can legally open their doors every day -- and it'll take at least a year to winnow through all the bad instruments. And maybe eight years until it's all cleaned up -- if Obama gets to enact enough controls.

John McCain is right: lay off of Geithner. Especially on the left. He's a regulatory guy who's finally working for an honest President, and he's working on the biggest economic meltdown since 1929 without a full staff yet. Schwarzenegger is right:

Schwarzenegger, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, met with President Barack Obama today in a closed meeting to discuss how to shore up federal spending on transit systems and renewable energy projects.

After the meeting, Schwarzenegger said the trio let the president know that "we are 100 percent behind him on this, to go out and to sell this to the American people.

" I think there is a tremendous demand out there for this,'' he said. "Not only does it help us make our economy function better, but also it helps us in creating jobs."

Every time you think of a bank getting bailed out, think about all the pension funds and municipalities that can't afford for our banking system to collapse. That's the gun those behind the derivative business grafted onto AIG's good name are holding to our nation's head.

It's going to be a rough ride, but I can't imagine anyone better equipped than our current President to navigate us through it.

Can you?

Still the Man

A month and a half into his first term and our President is still working hard and making us proud. Here's this week's video address:



Here's the kind of rich folks -- who was a fully functioning contributor to the disaster of the Bush/Cheney Administration that left Obama with as few options as they could -- that he's up against while he tries to pull the U.S.A. into the 21st Century:



Bonus interview: Obama spent 35 minutes with The New York Times and even called later for more clarification. Favorite quotes:

Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?

A. You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no.

And:

What I’m refusing to do and what I’ve instructed my staff that we will not do is to try to kick the can down the road, to try to paper over problems, try to use gimmicks on budgets, try to pretend that health care is not an issue, to continue with a situation where we are exporting – importing – more and more oil from the middle east, continuing with a situation in which average working families are seeing their wages flat line. At some point, we’ve got to take on these problems.

Let's get his back.

Protecting Our Children Pt. 2

Surprise surprise:

The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn't used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children’s products.

Both have fought efforts to better police imported toys from China.

So how did they fight these efforts to protect America's kids?

But as recently as last December, the Sierra Club sued the Bush administration after the Environmental Protection Agency rebuffed a petition to require health and safety studies for companies that use lead in children’s products. The EPA and Sierra Club settled out of court in April, with the administration agreeing to write a letter to the CPSC that expressed concern about insufficient quality control on products containing lead.

The Sierra Club’s interest in lead paint in children's products grew out of the largest-ever CPSC-conducted recall. That action on July 8, 2004, targeted 150 million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry sold in vending machines across the United States. Since 2003, the commission has conducted about 40 recalls of children’s jewelry because of high levels of lead.

In March 2006, a 4-year-old Minnesota boy died of lead poisoning after swallowing a metal charm that came with Reebok shoes. The charm was found to contain more than 90 percent lead.

Oh my God, why don't we just give Cheney, Bush and the rest of the ruling Republicans as many sledgehammers as they like and let them run around American bashing their country to pieces. It'd be a lot faster than the way they're going about it.

The most important point to make about all of this madness is that it isn't just Mister Bush, it isn't just President Cheney, it isn't just Karl Rove. It isn't just incompetence and cronyism.

It's a bankrupt governing philosophy.

Per the McClatchy article:

The Bush administration has hindered regulation on two fronts, consumer advocates say. It stalled efforts to press for greater inspections of imported children’s products, and it altered the focus of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), moving it from aggressive protection of consumers to a more manufacturer-friendly approach.

“The overall philosophy is regulations are bad and they are too large a cost for industry, and the market will take care of it,” said Rick Melberth, director of regulatory policy at OMBWatch, a government watchdog group formed in 1983. “That’s been the philosophy of the Bush administration.”

I used to think that the Conservatives had some points, that some sort of middle groups would be the "best" way. I no longer believe it. Now that there's a Netroots policing the Liberal or, as we seem to be hearing more and more, Progressive governing forces, it's a much safer America for liberal thought.

We have to catch this country up to the higher Western European standards of the 21st Century. No, it doesn't mean everything will always be perfect, that there won't be mistakes or this or that crooked guy caught.

What it means is that the starting point isn't greed, it's the common good, so that we can survive, thrive and prosper. This other way, this private-only way, unmitigated, is a disaster.

Back when I once read One Hundred Years of Solitude I remember understanding that if a family or, in our case, a country allows itself to become corrupt, to rot from the inside, then no matter the original good intentions or hearkened Golden Age, it'll be the unexpected act of nature for which that grand unit will be unprepared. There won't be any time to recover or rebuild, there will only be a vanquishing.

I pray it doesn't happen to America. I pray it isn't the melting of the Polar Ice Caps due to our hyper-industrial warming tendencies. I pray it isn't the death of the bee population and subsequent fractionating of our food supply. I pray it isn't a nuclear terrorist attack.

Time feels tight, like we need to act quickly to right our ways and establish real moral leadership in our country, our government policy, and in the world. So much so that even the 17 months left in the Cheney Administration seems like way way too much -- too much time to brand the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists to create a pretext for World War III.

I'll be interested to see who moves fast, who moves the fastest, as it could be as early as December, before the end of this year even, when the rubber hits the road.

Sisyphus

The Dems are running a television ad against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in his home state.

The ad ties McConnell to his support of Mister W's endlessly failed Iraq policy and, in doing so, serves a number of functions:

- With more Americans than ever before wanting our involvement in the War to end ASAP, it brands him strong enough to follow him into his reelection race next year.

- If it scares him enough maybe he really will do the right thing and help us get the hell out. Even better if he smears Cheney and Bush with their own fecal matter, but that's unlikely in today's lock$tep Republican Party.

- It reminds any viewer that Bush has lost this one a long, long time ago. He's just too stubborn, arrogant and, yes, corrupt.

His corruption is one of needy ego rather than need for wealth (he was born with that), but at the same time he's appointed and encouraged others to seek personal wealth at the expense of The Common Good. He is a sworn enemy of The Common Good, no matter what lie intended or otherwise that shoots out of his lips.

Here's the ad, from Matthew Yglesias's always excellent blog.

Smell the Progress.