Head Scratcher

It isn't every day that two major newspapers publish opinion pieces critiquing a national party written by members of that party. Today, however, was one of those days as two long-standing conservatives excoriated the Republican Party for what it has become and for what it has done to the nation.

The first was written by David Klinghoffer, long affiliated with the National Review, and published by the Los Angeles Times. His piece is a philosophical look at his party and it is very clear that the changes he notes have provided him with more than a little spiritual angst:

...more characteristic of conservative leadership are figures on TV, radio and the Internet who make their money by stirring fears and resentments. With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. Once the talk was of "neocons" versus "paleocons." Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons. ...

When I became a conservative, that is what I signed up for: a profound vision granting transcendent significance to public life and hope in private life. The goal wasn't to defeat Democratic officeholders or humiliate left-wing activists. It was, and still is, with those who remember, to save civilization.

The second is by David Stockman, who was a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, and was published by the New York Times. Mr. Stockman takes a more concrete look at the behavior of the GOP over the past few decades, particularly the last one, with respect to the issue of fiscal responsibility:

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. ...

Both men make no excuses for their party. Their condemnation is harsh and unequivocal. Both men hearken back to the most fundamental principles of the Republican Party and find the current version sadly lacking in even the most basic understanding of those principles. Even if one disputes the underlying assumptions of the two opinion pieces, those pieces are accurate in their critiques and written elegantly. Both are well worth reading.

Here, however, is what puzzles me. Neither man said anything that many of us haven't been saying for years, yet in an election year in which Democrats are, according to the mainstream media, in grave danger of losing control of the Senate and of losing ground in the House, no Democrats are pointing out the madness of the Republican Party. None that I have heard or read are putting out the message that Republican policies are what have gotten us into the deep problems we face, from the illegal, foolish, and very expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, through the disastrous consequences of the economic policies which allowed Wall Street and their banking friends to carpet-bomb the economy, to the obstructionism which prevents any meaningful legislation to ameliorate the damage done.

Is it because it doesn't matter? Are the differences between the two parties so shallow and trivial that in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter? Are the oligarchs the real center of power and our elected officials from the White House to Congress to state capitals merely puppets whose strings are manipulated by those oligarchs?

If that is so, and I fear it is, then our democracy isn't doomed. It already no longer exists.

Rulings and Rhetoric

The issues that a Supreme Court decides are often put in terms of the issues of the underlying lawsuit, without acknowledging that the justices are deciding on how the law applies. When our laws included legislation deciding that miscegenation (interracial marriage), or integration, or abortion, was punishable, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution prevented the laws against such non-crimes as those.

Now we have wingnuts who are committed to keeping women from the right to decide - under medical supervision - on matters related to their own reproduction and/or health. The wingnut mantra often includes an invocation to rid ourselves of 'activist judges', and sometimes the doctors who practice healing their ideology opposes.

The issues which are actually before the court are very different from the steamy accusations of the ignorant.

The presumption in a democracy is that the majority rules, and frustration results when unelected judges set aside the majority's rules. The frustration is tempered if the court bases its decision on clear-cut constitutional rights or if the explanation resonates at some basic level even among those who are disappointed in the outcome. But clear-cut cases are rare for the Supreme Court. If the Constitution's meaning in a case is clear, the case will probably be resolved by the lower courts.

So how should a Supreme Court justice go about resolving the constitutional issues that divide the court? That is the question the Senate will be exploring with Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

The questions will focus on specific issues -- whether, for example, the nominee agrees that the Constitution protects the right to choose an abortion. Concerns will be expressed, and assurances given, in familiar terms -- that the nominee is or is not a judicial activist or does or does not believe the court should make law or policy. The real debate, however, will be over who gets to decide the most controversial issues of the day -- elected representatives who are responsive to majority will or an independent judiciary that is (relatively) immune from public pressure.

Everyone has an opinion about abortion, same-sex marriage, gun control and affirmative action. But we should care as much about who decides these issues as we do about what decision is made. Calling something a "constitutional right" means that the court, not Congress or state legislatures, has the final word -- in every sense. Legislation is by its nature tentative. It can be revoked at any time for any reason. A constitutional decision by the Supreme Court, however, is for all time. It is a statement that a principle is so fundamental that it cannot be subject to majority rule, now or ever. That is what the Supreme Court is deciding when it declares something a matter of constitutional right. It is the kind of judgment that a justice must be confident enough to make at times, but modest enough not to make too eagerly.

Sanity would be a great improvement over the present level of argument about the nomination of Judge Sotomayor. This post has a great deal of sanity, and logic, so it is most likely to be ignored.

On a court that rendered judgment against a woman's right to choose, declaring that women can't bear that responsibility, a voice of reason is desperately needed.

Yesterday the existing court passed down a ruling that determined our existing laws are the problem with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'. While I see that equal rights for gays are constitutional, the majority on the court found that a decision must be made by the administration before the judicial branch can act.

The court sided with the administration, which had urged the justices not to hear the appeal against the policy, even though President Obama is on record as opposing it.

The court thus spared the administration from having to defend in court a policy that the president eventually wants to abolish pending a review by the Pentagon.
(snip)
According to a July 2008 Washington Post/ABC News poll, 75 percent of Americans favor allowing gays to serve openly in the services, compared with 44 percent in 1993.

Most citizens of the U.S. are of the same mind that I am, and that means that the court has decided contrary to public wishes, but on the side of existing law. While this article implies that the Supreme Court has considered political views in deciding the law, that should not be part of any decision. Only the legal issues should be before them.

Of course, if the membership of the court were changed, it obviously would be more in line with the constitution, and majority rule, when its existing decisions are reviewed.

Primarying No More

Remember that primary that went on until we all were screaming Just Stop? If you are blessedly forgetful, congratulations. I remember it well, and would rather not ever see the Neverending Story wind on like that again. Thankfully, the Democratic National Committee shared that experience with us and wants to head it off at the Past.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., will co-chair a 37-member panel aimed at changing the presidential nominating process, the Democratic National Committee announced Monday night.

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine announced the Democratic Change Commission membership will include fellow Richmond Democrat State Del. Jennifer McClellan.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman is the only mayor included on the panel. The group will address: changing the window of time during which states can hold presidential primaries and caucuses; reducing the number of superdelegates (thus giving primaries and caucuses more weight in nomination fights), and improving the caucus system. The commission is to report back to the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee by January 1, 2010.

The prolonged Democratic presidential primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton last year left people still wondering by summertime who would be the party's presidential nominee. Some saw the drawn out primary contest as bruising to the party, while other observers say the process helped to strengthen grassroots organizing since more states had the chance to vote in contested presidential primaries. By August there was still grumbling that superdelegates -- party insiders who can vote at the Democratic nominating convention for any presidential nominee they choose -- could sidestep the will of primary voters.

In announcing the commission, Kaine said he hopes to work with the Republican National Committee on "a common approach that puts voters first."

Voters would like that. I would also like to see less spending on advertisements required. The role of Dollars in the campaigns is disheartening. Debates, town meetings, press conferences would all be better ways for making voting decisions.

The Superdelegates were particularly unsavory, as it gives the impression that mere voters can't be trusted to make choices good enough for leadership. As it wound along, the Democratic campaign was a public-oriented event, however it drew on. However, it is easy to see that the use of Superdelegates could easily fall into the hands of a more authoritarian candidate and be misused to the detriment of the party, and of all voters' will.

Good to begin so soon, and to determine what will serve best to keep the Democratic Party responsive to the populace. We never, ever want to be For Sale like the Gang of Nope.

People Power

Welcome to the first week of Ooopsies. The public has been politicized, something that really happened when suddenly Barack Obama the candidate kept winning despite the pundits' dismissal. Coming into office with the push of insistent public approval, President Obama has been taking the reins of an out-of-control fire engine on the way to a fire.

Lots of mess has ensued, but its the kind of mess that the public could deal with, knowing that eight years of robbing them had led up to it. This week, the tolerance shut down when even the president took a passive approach to dealing with more blatant robbery than ever - corporate CEO's who took down a lot of the financial world giving themselves hefty rewards.

I admit I'm as usual disappointed that finding out this country was using torture as a standard operating procedure didn't prove the final straw. Instead, CEO's who have destroyed our economy insisting they needed more gold toilet seats did the trick.

The maxim of business that made America prosper was that executives worked to make the firm strong, to direct it into a functioning producer of wealth for the long term. As I have pointed out here previously, when business was turned into a money machine for the executives instead of the firm's investors and workers, the American economy turned self-destructive.

Far and wide, pundittoes are declaiming the same thing, that we wuz robbed. They're a bit behind in taking up this theme, because in almost every American family there are examples of this victimization by unregulated, rampant, theft. It isn't even the first time this has happened to most families, because many of them still have memories of, or tales from, the 20's when the same thing occurred, that our laws were supposed to protect us from.

Frank Rich does a long diatribe about the Wall Street frenzy. He points up quite a number of the problems Americans are not stepping away from any longer, and gives a nice handy list of what's brought on the crucible.

What made Jon Stewart’s takedown of Jim Cramer resonate was less his specific brief against CNBC’s cheerleading for bad stocks than his larger indictment of the gaping economic inequality that defined the bubble. As Stewart said, there were “two markets” — the long-term market that Americans earnestly thought would sustain their 401(k)’s, and the fast-moving, short-term “real market” in the back room where high-rolling insiders wagered “giant piles of money” and brought down everyone with them.

No one is more commanding on this subject than our president. In his town-hall meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Wednesday, he described the A.I.G. bonuses as merely a symptom of “a culture where people made enormous sums of money taking irresponsible risks that have now put the entire economy at risk.” But rhetoric won’t tamp down the anger out there, and neither will calculated displays of presidential “outrage.” We must have governance to match the message.

To get ahead of the anger, Obama must do what he has repeatedly promised but not always done: make everything about his economic policies transparent and hold every player accountable. His administration must start actually answering the questions that officials like Geithner and Summers routinely duck.

Inquiring Americans have the right to know why it took six months for us to learn (some of) what A.I.G. did with our money. We need to understand why some of that money was used to bail out foreign banks. And why Goldman, which declared that its potential losses with A.I.G. were “immaterial,” nonetheless got the largest-known A.I.G. handout of taxpayers’ cash ($12.9 billion) while also receiving a TARP bailout. We need to be told why retention bonuses went to some 50 bankers who not only were in the toxic A.I.G. unit but who left despite the “retention” jackpots. We must be told why taxpayers have so little control of the bailed-out financial institutions that we now own some or most of. And where are the M.R.I.’s from those “stress tests” the Treasury Department is giving those banks?
(snip)
As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail.

Of course, the spectacle of an aroused populace has suddenly turned the suckup party into born-again populists. While those of us who have opposed their thieving for most of our lives think it's all too obvious that it's the Party of Nope that's engineered and cheered on this economic disaster, we've learned not to expect that being obvious means that this travesty will be perceived by the general public.

There were still about 25% who believed in the departed cretin in chief even as the world's economy collapsed around us, reassurance that our country didn't torture was disproved in all directions, wars that were adventures at best (business opportunities at worst) raged on unabated, and the executive department as a whole continuously betrayed the public interest at any opportunity. This is fertile ground for the charade we're seeing from the ringleaders of the Gang of Nope.

While I can't give the president all the answers, I do see him trying to do the right thing. It isn't easy, not for him and not for me, to get through this time. It's going to take a lot more than saying 'I told you so' - for all of us.

Like FDR, President Obama is trying to do a lot of things. Some are failures, some are successes. I will look for the failures to be abandoned, the successes to be strengthened and improved upon. If I can help, I will. This post is one attempt on my part.

I'm going to expect those of good will to forge to the front, and let the gangsters eat our dust.

Crying 'Socialist'

With his usual wry sense of humor, Bill Moyers last night produced an actual socialist, since accusations are flying about public interest legislation being 'socialist'. Mr. Davis the Actual Socialist of course pointed out that being inclined to support working members of our society is not enough to make a socialist out of our president.

The actual existence of a socialist occasioned a closing moment, though, that encourages thinking, feeling people that there are some of those left, and often they engage in the struggle to return powers to the individuals who think and feel.

It is not necessary to salivate at the thought of money to be a contributing member of our society!

BILL MOYERS: People with ideas like yours in the last 30 years have been marginalized. No coverage in the press. No participation in the public debates. Why did you become a Radical? What made you what made you so radical?

MIKE DAVIS: Well, in my case, there really was a burning bush. And that was the Civil Rights movement in San Diego where I grew up in the '50s and '60s. And at 16 years old my father had a heart attack. And I had to leave school for a while to work. And the black side of my family by marriage, they got me to come to a demonstration of the Congress of Racial Equality in front of the Bank of America in downtown San Diego. And I mean, it literally transformed my life, just the sheer beauty of it and the sheer righteousness of it. And I won't claim that every decision or political stance or political group I joined as a result of the Civil Rights movement was the right one. But it permanently shaped my life. And then I think it was a friend of yours, this great Texas populous newspaper editor, Archer Fuhliham. I was in Texas in '67. And most of my friends were becoming Marxists. And I didn't want become a Marxist. And I heard him give a great speech. So I made a pilgrimage. He's sitting on his porch, carving a gourd out of Koontz, Texas, Hardin County. And I said, "Archer, can we revive the Populous Party? You know, can you be the leader of the Populous Party?" And he looked at me. And he said, "Son," he says, "you're one of the dumbest piss-ants I've ever met." He says, "The Populous Party is history. Corporations run this country. And they run the Democratic Party. And you better figure out this stuff for yourself." And it's what I've been you know, trying to do since.

I mean, to be a Socialist in the United States is not to be an orphan, okay? It is really it's to stand in the shadow and a you know, immense history of American radicalism and labor, but with the responsibility to ensure its regeneration. And I actually think the American Left is about to receive a huge blood transfusion in the next year or two. It has to because the existence of the Left, the existence of radical social economic critiques, the existence of imagination that goes beyond selfishness and principles of competition is necessary to have any kind of serious debate in this country.

BILL MOYERS: I pulled something off the Web that you wrote recently. You said, "I believe great opportunities lie ahead for the rebels of the world to swell our ranks and take the fight forward. A new generation of young people is discovering that their political engagement counts." Now, where are you seeing that?

MIKE DAVIS: Well, I have no difficulty finding hope. Hope kind of seeks me out. I've seen things in my life that I couldn't really believed had happened, black working people in the South, antiwar, you know, GIs. And when you've seen that happen in your life, you can never be pessimistic. But there's an enormous legacy of the American Left and of American radicalism in general that has to be nurtured and continued and passed down and let new generations shape it in, you know, the ways it needs to be shaped.

The message that hope pays off is much needed at this point. While, as I noted yesterday, some of us see good signs that this administration is working toward a just society, I see many worthwhile people who are alarmed at its failings.

We have a chance now to encourage the great things that can be accomplished, and I hate to see possible contributors to a better world turning away from that effort. Bill Moyers helped with his conversation last night with an Actual Socialist. Hopefully, the positive light will overcome that pervasive darkness and we will keep the faith.

Voting Rights

Long, long ago there was a young country writing a Constitution. At the time there was little communication, and it took a day to get to Mt. Vernon from the District of Columbia. Under those circumstances, it appeared that the capitol area should be specially designated as a district while the other areas were granted statehood, so that undue influence wouldn't be conferred by the immediate environs of the capitol and government. Residents of D.C. were denied the vote by our original U.S. Constitution, as were women and descendants of slaves.

The U.S. Senate is scheduled to debate giving the District of Columbia a voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives next week (ed.note; written Feb. 16). Delegate Eleanor Homes Norton (D-DC) has told reporters that she believes the votes are there to pass the legislation. The Obama fever gripping the Congress during President Barack Obama's 'honeymoon' period may be enough to propel the bill to passage.

Obama's recent opponent, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has declared he believes such legislation would be unconstitutional because the District of Columbia is not a state. Residents of the District gained the Presidential vote with passage of the 23rd Amendment however lack voting representation in Congress.

For most of us today the lack of a vote would be a cause of real consternation. For residents of D.C. it is an anachronistic denial of basic citizens' rights. It has deteriorated into a right wing issue to deny the vote to D.C. - because the residents are overwhelmingly Democratic in affiliation.

This week the vote for citizens residing in D.C. comes again to a vote in Congress. Fortunately, the party of Nope is out of control, in this sense in a good way. This would seem like good time to get beyond the errors of the writers of the original Constitution, and confer the rights of citizenship on D.C. residents. Incidentally, even Ken Starr admits that the Constitution is invalid as an excuse for denying voting rights to D.C.

The right wing has used redistricting, that trammeled on long established traditions, to deny rights to citizens in my home state of Texas. This last refuge of scoundrels will be revived in the D.C. citizenship vote, under the guise of preserving the Constitution. As we have observed all too closely over the past eight years, the Constitution is of absolutely no concern to wingers when it gets in the way of their ideology. The previous occupier of the White House ignored it to make war without justification, and in whittling away at individual rights, the rule of law and the role of the President, which is to execute the laws. To use the Constitution as a basis to keep a longstanding right to the vote from this country's citizens is a new height of hypocrisy.

The vote is a basic right. This Congress should extend that right to the District of Columbia.

Saving Capitalism

Saving Capitalism? That was the rather unique description of the New Deal given by Dr. Eric Rauchway on CSpan this morning. It has been trying to listen to the right wing as they lit into any kind of public service that the government could actually be expected to do. It is rather amazing that the entire party of Nope could disassociate itself completely from the social contract. You remember the social contract, it's the one that gives the government power to rule, so that it can protect public interests. It was refreshing to hear a scholar/historian using actual knowledge of the subject to point out that the actual policies that put our resources to work for us in the trying 1930's were flawed only in that they could have been bigger and that would have brought us out of the Great Depression sooner.

While much of the real horrors of the Depression have always seemed to me to have stemmed from the drought that brought on the Dust Bowl, I find it an interesting insight that the excesses of unregulated capitalism could well have led to the conclusion that the system itself was threatened. The country has seen less than turbulent social upheaval in our recent election, and I tend to forget that there were riots and actual violence not so long ago. In the days that saw people working to get real representation, and against violence like that of labor organization, back to the Civil War episodes, it seems as if violence and insurrection were closer to the surface.

Those of you more closely acquainted with studies of history probably are more familiar with the unrest that happened more often in the early 1900's. We seem to be at a period now when people voice all the views we can have and not share, but don't very often take up those pitchforks. That was more the resort when we had fewer outlets, it would seem. I can pick up my remote and turn off the babblings of Congressmen like Phil Gingrey and DeMint, and have just had to do that for the past week. If I don't want to share racist sentiments, I can go to other websites than those that entertain them. I usually don't get into the kind of wrangling that goes in even at websites I like. Maybe that's one reason I can't see an outbreak of violence as a possibility, but from his experience with that period, Dr. Rauchway has the idea that actual overthrow of government was possible. The aspect that we could have viewed capitalism as a failure because unregulated investment of people's funds had led to its loss was probably more likely in President Roosevelt's view as well. When I listened this morning to his talks, his appeal to the public to get together to work out the solution I saw it in a new light. The country came together, shouldered a responsibility and worked through that time.

Hopefully, despite the efforts of the wingers who would rather tear down than do their job, that will happen again. There are times like watching the scurvy bunch try to shut out that public service that is their job, the subject of their oath of office, that I don't want to share this country with them at all.

Promising Beginnings.

The appearance of President-elect Obama on This Week was disappointing only because he didn't declare that in nine days we will be able to prosecute the war criminals in the White House. He also didn't rule it out.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: "We're still evaluating how we're going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we're going to look at past practices. And I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you've got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don't want them to suddenly feel like they've got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering up.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: "So no 9/11 Commission with independent seeking of power?"

OBAMA: "Well we have not made any final decisions but my instinct is for us to focus on how do we make sure that moving forward, we are doing the right thing. That doesn't mean that if somebody has blatantly broken the law, that they are above the law. But my orientation's going to be to move forward," Obama said.

STEPHANOPOULOS: "So let me just press that one more time. You're not ruling out prosecution, but will you tell your Justice Department to investigate these cases and follow the evidence where it leads?"

OBAMA: What I -- I think my general view when it comes to my attorney general is that he's the people's lawyer. Eric Holder's been nominated. His job is to uphold the Constitution and look after the interests of the American people. Not be swayed by my day-to-day politics. So ultimately, he's going to be making some calls. But my general belief is that when it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

First,as I have said here before, we have to get a functioning Justice Department. I wish as much as anyone that it was simple. I want probably more than any of you that the law had never been undermined, broken, made meaningless. I have been sick to see things accomplished by the fine and wonderfully dedicated people I worked with, saw defeated politically because they stood on principle, be subverted by the vile thugs in the occupied White House. I am very comfortable that the new administration knows what it has to do, and that it is doing that in the best fashion. It will be obstructed at every turn. They are digging in and doing the first steps, and it isn't easy. After returning our constitution, they can start eliminating the worst crimes, and criminals. What I see is very encouraging.

After we reinstitute Constitutional government, we can prosecute criminals. While it would be nice to come out swinging, that won't work.

In order to get laws passed, you have to get the votes. Diane refers to the process as grinding sausage, and that's sometimes what it looks like. If we were all honest upstanding citizens it would be easy. Sorry, that's just not the case. Or even casings (to use sausage language).

How Sausage Got Made

It apparently is all about access, according to an article in today's NY Times, and former staffers of Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska who moved on to cushy jobs on K Street had plenty of it. It was a simple system: work for the Republican Senator for a while, keep him happy, and have him secure you a job with a major lobbying firm.

Until recently, there were few better ways to start a lobbying career than by leaving the office of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.

With 40 years of seniority on important Senate committees, Mr. Stevens, a Republican, wielded unrivaled power over industries like fishing, forestry, communications, aviation and the military, steering billions each year to pet Alaskan projects like Eskimo whaling, missile defense and even salmon-based dog treats called Yummy Chummies.

His power made his good will a valuable commodity on K Street, where many lobbying firms are located. During the past five years, just nine lobbyists and firms known primarily for their ties to Mr. Stevens reported over $60 million in lobbyist fees, not including other income for less direct “consulting.” The most recent person to leave his staff to become a lobbyist reported fees of more than $800,000 in just the last 18 months.

While Sen. Stevens was the most notable of easily accessible congress critters, he certainly wasn't the only one, nor is the list just Republican in persuasion. The article suggests that Rep. Charles Rangel (D.-NY) has his own coterie. Mr. Rangel's power, however, has just been diminished somewhat by his replacement as chair of a powerful committee by Rep. Henry Waxman (D.-CA). Still, K Street gets greeted warmly on The Hill, much more warmly than the rest of us, the ones members of Congress were elected to serve.

Yes, the Alaskans benefited from Mr. Stevens' power, but clearly the real beneficiaries were not the citizens, but rather powerful interests within the state. The more honest of the lobbyists frankly admit that:

Others turned to dark humor, lashing out at the voters who cut off the main wellspring of the political pork that Alaskans — and their lobbyists — have enjoyed for so long. “They don’t understand the connection between Ted and the way of life they have come to take for granted,” read one e-mail message circulating among former Stevens staff members on K Street. “For those of us long on the dole, the coming reality will take some getting used to.” [Emphasis added]

Good luck with that.

For the rest of us, the problem remains. Lobbyists are already looking for new friends on the hill and at the White House, and they undoubtedly will find them. Our job is to make it clear to our representatives that lobbyists and their clients don't vote more than once and there are more of us than there are of them. To do that, we all are going to have to be better informed as to has all of that extra access.

Articles like this NY Times one are a good start, but only a start and one that in this case comes after the fact. At this stage of our vaunted free press's history, I don't expect to find anything substantive about those not under indictment or convicted. That means we are going to have to do our own digging. Fortunately, there are sites on the net which do summarize campaign contributions by industry.

And, of course, we still have the old fashioned ways of forcing our way into our representative's consciousness: telephone calls, faxes, emails, even visits to local and DC offices can be effective if done in large enough numbers. Organizations such as Move On and Take Back America regularly send out emailed calls to action. The larger bloggers do likewise. What is required is our informed response.

Selah.

It May Not Look Like You Succeeded

Since I'm not out there at the shops getting the freebie's for showing up before a decent hour - to shop for a couple of dollars off - I saw a really nice item. Having myself been at events that seemed sparsely attended, when it should have drawn a crowd, especially candidate meeting parties, sometimes a body gets discouraged.

Sometimes there's an effect you didn't expect, it seems.

Despite the possibilities created by the Web, calling people to action still depends on people putting their bodies -- not just their mouse-clicks -- on the line, says Hale, the Seton Hall professor.

"All of the stuff you can do online ultimately has to show up in the real world," Hale says. "I don't see the Internet as a substitute [for social activism] but as a complement to it."

Paul Loeb, author of "The Soul of a Citizen,'' a book that examines the psychology of social activism, also says online activism can be powerful but limited. He tells a story from his book to make his point.

He says a friend took her kids to a protest against nuclear testing in front of the White House during the early 1960s. But she became dejected because only a few people joined her demonstration and then it rained.

Years later, the same woman attended a major march against nuclear testing. Benjamin Spock, the best-selling author and pediatrician who opposed the Vietnam War, was a featured speaker. He told marchers that he was inspired to join the march after seeing a small group of women huddled with their kids in the rain while marching in front of the White House years earlier.

"I thought that if those women were out there," Spock said, "their cause must be really important.

I remember the embarrassment of having a long list of folks who said they'd show up, and trying to stall while waiting for them to get there. I remember finding out those loyal supporters who said they'd bring lots of friends along never invited anybody at all, and then they ducked out, themselves. I remember the hosts who asked for donations from the candidate to cover their measly refreshments.

Then there are the passersby at the demos who make the "Get a job" remarks. I even have a tape of The Kid demonstrating on Key Bridge when Reagan closed down the government, and car passengers yelling at him that he's a bum. A newsperson came out for the fun of it, which is why it's on tape.

Don't stay home, though. You'll be glad you did something, even when what you did may not show up when you'd like it to. That snoop on the other end of the tapped line might just get a kick from his/her own conscience.

**********************

A commenter at Eschaton this a.m. told me this is a message of hope everyone could use.

Republican [Shhhh] Convention

I have been trying to watch the convention, and I did watch all the speeches last night, so I am still groggy. But the most interesting piece of information I have seen to date is that in the entire text of last night's acknowledgment of receiving the Republican nomination is that McAyn never once said that word, R-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n.

It's hardly surprising that anyone wanting to get elected would avoid association with the biggest disaster that has ever been committed in public office, but that is the party that'[s putting on the show and putting up the money. This is a bit like calling your mom Mrs. (fill in the blank) While he did condemn his party for coming to D.C. to change things and instead being changed by D.C., it was the basic concept of the party that he was espousing when he chose to be a member, and the basic concept of that party that he condemned it for losing.

The basic concept is that one that his president, that fella who occupied the White House and knocks down anything to do with the public interest, that business is the interest this government should serve. As long as business is the object of the government though, the public is disserved. As long as the Republican party sees no reason to come out and tell the truth, that voting them in is voting yourself out of power, then this country will be in trouble.

I have never seen anything to recommend voting myself out of power. While the right wing deplores anything that serves those who have not made a fortune, they do have to give in to reality occasionally as they did in doling out a 'supplement' of $600 or so dollars that gave a badly needed boost to the economy.

It's not really funny that some one who is asking you to vote him into power realizes that his platform is a total failure. If he would show that plain speaking tendency he likes to claim, he would tell us that we would be fools to continue on the disastrous course that his party has followed, and will continue to follow.

It might be a good time for the party that time and again shows it does not have the interests of this country at heart to rename itself. If they don't like the word Republican, I am sure a new title can be brought up. I suggest 'crook', but then I do tend to be plainspoken.

How ... Quaint

Now, here's a real stunner, and I didn't even have to go over to Watching America in order to find this Reuters article published in the NY Times. It seems there is at least one country with the wheels still attached (sorta kinda) to their democracy.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suspended the entire leadership of Brazil's intelligence agency on Monday after it was accused of spying on the Supreme Court chief and members of Congress. ...

Veja, the country's leading news magazine, reported on the weekend that the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, or Abin, spied on Supreme Court President Gilmar Mendes and tapped his telephones. It published what it said was a transcript of a private telephone conversation Mendes had with a member of Congress.

An Abin agent who provided the transcript said such illegal phone tapping of authorities was common and also included the head of the Senate and two cabinet members, Veja reported.

Lula held urgent talks for most of Monday with Mendes, the Senate speaker and several Congress members who expressed their concern and demanded those responsible to be punished. ...

"There is complete lack of control in the state apparatus," [Supreme Court President]Mendes told reporters.

Most of the legislators suspected of being spied on are in opposition parties, and Mendes is presiding over a high-profile case involving a prominent banker, politicians and businessmen.

"The rule of law has been broken, the credibility of our democratic institutions has been damaged," said Sen. Jose Agripino of the DEM party. [Emphasis added]

Let's just parse this story for a moment. First of all, the press reported a story of illegal domestic spying, and the victim was a Supreme Court official.

Second, the reporting caused such a furor that President Lula da Silva, someone who just recently dodged an impeachment bullet, was put in the position of having to do something about the illegal behavior and actually did something.

Third, the Brazilian Congress, especially the opposition parties, expressed their outrage and opened investigations into the matter of an intelligence agency running wild.

Wow.

So that's how it's done.

Maybe we should collect some money for scholarships and send folks down to Brazil so that they can learn how democracy works when people who actually care about democracy do their freakin' jobs. You know, people like journalists and congress critters (I hold no hope for the current administration and, besides, I don't want them leaving the country to escape subpoena powers).

Just a thought.

Sidelight

Watching last night's round of speakers, I was struck by a simple message from Bob Casey, that the Democratic party is about the nation's strength relying on the opportunity for everyone in it. There is a massive failure in our system because of the inability of the right wing to see that. When each of us can reach prosperity, health and enlightenment, the whole nation is improved by each incremental rise to his/her highest possibility. It works, and that's what has been proved over and over as Democrats replace Rethuglican failed regimes over and over.

As Avedon has expressed very well, this convention is going off the balance beam by trying to make this campaign about the individual candidate, Obama. While I think more of him as a candidate than many of you do, I can see that it's going to take a whole lot of dedicated service from a whole lot of realtime public servants to repair the rents in our nation's fabric from all those who have been ripping out their own piece of the pie. The damage is not irreperable, but it is large.

Casey's speech, eagerly anticipated by Pennsylvania delegates, offered one of the harshest critiques of McCain so far this week. Decrying the fact that McCain, he said, wanted to continue Bush's policies for four more years, he repeatedly said "not four more years, four more months." Soon, the crowd was roused to chants of "four more months!"

"The people of Pennsylvania can't afford four more years of Bush-Cheney economics, because you know what, with John McCain, that's exactly what we get."

Saying McCain had voted with Bush 90 percent of the time, he snapped: That's not a maverick, that's a sidekick."

Four more months. That will be hard to repair, but it's a goal worth working for, hard. It's the only one that makes any sense in view of the past nearly eight years.

***************************************************

Congratulations to Senator Clinton for a strength of character, that has developed from so much dedication to the admirably high principles of the Democratic party. She did us proud.

Skewing a Few Facts

Having determined that democracy is the government of choice of all the world's autocrats, the author of history's sad ending, Francis Fukuyama, capsulizes the appeal of autocracy:

The so-called Beijing Consensus, which mixes authoritarian government with market economics, is popular in many developing countries, and with good reason: Under Beijing's rules, national leaders can just do business and make money, without being hectored about democracy and human rights.

To backtrack a bit, the same author totally ignores the fact that China had agreed to give freedoms a chance as a prerequisite of hosting the games, an agreement the leaders ignored, and concludes that the appeals of democracy are shown in China's lipservice to democratic ideals and throws in a few other questionable examples.

Despite recent authoritarian advances, liberal democracy remains the strongest, most broadly appealing idea out there. Most autocrats, including Putin and Chávez, still feel that they have to conform to the outward rituals of democracy even as they gut its substance. Even China's Hu Jintao felt compelled to talk about democracy in the run-up to Beijing's Olympic Games. And Musharraf proved enough of a democrat to let himself be driven from office by the threat of impeachment.

Democracy has a great appeal for us masses, who expect, and need, government to serve the public interest. The underside that has been so misused by our present autocratic leaders is that the masses can be swayed by lies.

The appeal that Fukuyama sees as autocratic governments' reasons for giving outward appearance of democracy looks more like accession to underlying agreements that are often ignored in the actual daily operations.

The return of actual powers of government into the peoples' hands seems to be about to happen here, and the results appear tied to the economic disasters brought about by the present ruling autocrats. How much greater the events would be if they were an overthrow of the torture and war leanings of the criminal elements, than a rejection of their failure to keep a sound economy.

A Record and Expectations

The appeal to those working class white guys that Biden brings to the ticket makes this a good choice in my eyes. To call statements like this racist ignores that there are issues of race in voters' choices.

I have been told by people I have seen for years operating without bias in their daily lives, that they are scared by Obama. They are getting fed this view by an element they despise, that seems to be not only dominant but now in complete charge of the party of the right.

An appeal to fear has the kind of effect that subliminal advertising is known for, creating a need without actually speaking any persuasive argument. Like a picture of inviting food, it makes the viewer want something, and this seems politically to be a closed circle. That fearful, hesitating, person is the voter that Biden brings a more comfortable prospect. He's wickedly bright, and confident. From Eugene Robinson comes analysis of Biden's appeal that hits chord for me.

No, Joe Biden isn't exactly a new face to complement the new politics that Barack Obama promises. But tell me if you agree that most Democrats, having nervously checked the text message that arrived from the Obama campaign at three in the morning, are breathing signs of relief.

Tim Kaine would have been new politics, all right -- so new that he hasn't even finished one term as governor of Virginia. He would have reinforced Obama's "negative" of having scant experience. Evan Bayh? Not exactly Mr. Excitement. Chet Edwards? Please. And besides, through no fault of the Texas congressman (blame goes to the former North Carolina senator), this year the GOP would have loved to run against any ticket that included the name Edwards.

Hillary Clinton? It just wasn't going to happen. She knew it, he knew it, and we should have known it too.

Joe Biden gives Obama experience, gravitas, gray hair -- and, perhaps most important, a sharp-tongued pugnacity. He'll have Obama's back. He's fiercely smart, and he knows it. (Should I add that he's "articulate" and "clean"?) All in all, I think, probably the choice that does the Democratic ticket the most good and the least harm.

What I won't see, that I'd like to see, is Sen. Biden debate McCain. While Obama has the acuteness to make that a scene worth watching, Sen. Biden has the age and years in politics to throw the straight talk poseur right under his own bus. No one will call Biden uppity when he talks back to that industrial strength image, the POW, that has steered the right wing around the issues of a real campaign.

As Atrios says, too, the man isn't rich. He earned his way every inch of his career. The voters are aware of his record, and know he can be relied on, even when it means admitting mistakes. Choosing orange juice instead of coffee, knowing what arugula is, gives no grounds, however spuriously, to call Biden out of touch.

Oh, but we're talking about the Serious people - never mind.

Our Ms. Brooks: Revolutionaries

Earlier today, I posted the full text of the Declaration of Independence, which I try to remember to do each July 4th. I consider it one of the most amazing documents in the history of humankind, and with good reason. There it was, drafted by a bunch of DFHs in the face of a far superior power, but those brave men didn't care. It was what they believed, believed so much that they were willing to die for the principles it espoused. A few years later many of those same people would produce another remarkable and historically significant document, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the world was forever changed. With those two documents, the goal and the marching orders for those of the species were put in place by those who believed it was time for the next step in evolution.

It's pretty hard to imagine the kind of courage those founders had these days. We're told that the rights that those men fought for are really only contingent. If a few sociopaths with box cutters attack the nation, all the rights enumerated in these two documents can be ignored. Our telephones can be tapped, we can be detained forever without a remedy, we can be forced to pay for wars we've been lied into, and we can be shut out of jobs if we don't vote or worship a particular way.

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, columnist Rosa Brooks did a brilliant job in pointing out the incongruity of the two historical periods, so brilliant that I'm going to go beyond what is probably fair use in quoting.

...the Constitution also doesn't contain any footnotes that say, "Note to our descendants: This Constitution is intended for easy times only. At the first sign of trouble, feed this document to your dog. We won't mind. We only fought a war for it."

This Fourth of July, celebrate by rereading the Declaration of Independence, created by more or less the same crowd who brought us the Constitution, 11 years and one war later. Remember it? "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Wild stuff! To the founders, "all men" have "unalienable rights" -- not just U.S. citizens in the continental United States. (If the founding fathers were around today, Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani would pillory them as limp-wristed, latte-drinking, soft-on-terror liberals.)

It was treasonous stuff too. When the Declaration of Independence was drafted, there were no U.S. citizens: Instead, there were about 2.5 million scrappy Colonists who legally owed allegiance to the king of England, George III. But they went to war -- over the little matter of freedom, law and unalienable, God-given rights.

Among their grievances against King George, the rebellious Colonists complained that he ignored the will of their representative bodies, refused "his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers" and "affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power." The Colonists also objected to the denial of "the benefit of trial by jury" and the king's practice of avoiding the inconveniences of due process by transporting prisoners "beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses." (George III would have loved Guantanamo.)

The founders had a word for governments that respected rights only arbitrarily and selectively: tyranny. The signers of the declaration took rights seriously. They wrote, "For the support of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." That wasn't mere rhetoric. Technically, the signers were all traitors, liable to be executed for treason. And they accepted that standing up for rights means taking some real risks. ...

The Constitution is no "suicide pact," but the people who founded this nation risked war, prison and death for the sake of unalienable human rights. Their values guided us through good times and bad, through the Civil War, two world wars and the Cold War. But today, some Americans seem happy to discard those same precious values in the name of "security."

Sometimes I wonder: If the founders could have foreseen this, would they have bothered to fight the Revolutionary War?

Yes, Rosa, I believe they would have. The ideas and ideals were that important. We just have to find a way engender that passion in our own breasts.

Times Are Great

I was astonished to see another article this a.m. repeating the mantra that economic disaster is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Can anyone actually be repeating this drivel who has seen the prices of everything rise, while incomes are going down, not just for the working poor? The prices of those refinanced houses has also gone down. We're all losing purchasing power.

The real story is out there, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has it.

For years, self-proclaimed socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been railing about the shrinking middle class and the effect of rising costs on working people.

But he didn't know the extent of the problem until he appealed to his constituents, asking them recently to describe how America's beleaguered economy was affecting them. He expected a few dozen replies.

The request unleashed a torrent of e-mail messages and letters describing -- in soul-baring personal detail -- the economic tightrope being walked by people in Vermont and beyond who are struggling to stay warm and keep food on the table. More than 869 replies came in, prompting Sanders to publish some excerpts and read others on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

"The number just blew me away," he said Tuesday. "The power and poignancy and the pain expressed in these letters was just heartbreaking. These weren't interviews done at the homeless shelter. These were middle-class people, working people or seniors. These weren't people on the margin. By and large, most of the people were working people and most owned their own homes.

"It seems to me that the decline of the middle class has been taking place for years, but the rising price of gas has taken people over the economic cliff. Now, many people are desperate, and the level of desperation has really surprised me," said Sanders, I-Vt.
(snip)
A 31-year-old woman with two children wrote that her husband was contemplating quitting his job because the pay now barely covers the gas it takes his pickup truck to get there. "Meanwhile, my mortgage is behind, we are at risk for foreclosure and I can't keep up with my car payments," she wrote. "My parents, both in their 60s, are back to work so that they can make ends meet, and struggle to come up with enough gas money so they can get to doctor's appointments."

These are not people who are driving up in cadillacs to cash their welfare check, an image the GoPervs used to make the public resent those who were unable to support themselves. The people working those two or three jobs that the cretin in chief calls "real Americans" can't pay for their basic needs.

Meanwhile we have a few idiots at WaPo saying it's a matter of self-fulfilling prophecies, those mythical stories that make us think we don't get enough to eat because we can't afford three meals a day. No, we have jobs so we should be dancing to stay warm.

According to most broad measures of how the economy is doing, it's not all that grim.

Soft? You betcha. In recession? Quite possibly. And a crisis in the financial markets has rattled nerves for months now. But so far, the economy is holding up better than it did during the last two recessions in 1990 and 2001. Employers haven't shed as many jobs, the unemployment rate is still relatively low, and gross domestic product has kept rising.
(snip)
Two-thirds of the economy is consumer spending. So if people's negative outlook leads them to cut their spending, a steeper downturn could happen.

See, all you big spenders? If you just keep spending you will keep us all afloat.

There really are those business writers still trying to convince you that you need to mortgage that house and buy more. If you will just listen to those great economic indicators about productivity and keep eating the mud cookies, everything will be fine.

I heard that same line in the savings and loan crash. Value isn't something some glib words will create, for all that the business writer is paid to tell you it is. When you can't afford to heat or cool your home, that's the 'real' economy. It isn't make believe. And the 'socialist' policies of allowing working people the amount they earn, a living wage, is what is needed to solve the problems our country is facing.

The gold standard has been replaced by consumer confidence, making you, the wage earner, the only value there is. And if you aren't getting what you are earning, that is devaluation.

Fathers Getting the Shaft

Happy fathers' day, and you know as well as I do that the ability to take care of your family is going byebye. I have been watching this happen, and it isn't a surprise. The robber barons are in control, and we have to end that. Friday night Bill Moyers' Journal did a great job, showing what is happening to us all.

HOLLY SKLAR: Our wages now adjusting for inflation, average wages are lower than they were in the 1970s. Our minimum wage, adjusting for inflation, is lower than it was in the 1950s, and why is it? One of the things going on is that income and wealth inequality have gone back to the 1920s. We are back at levels that we saw right before the Great Depression.

BILL MOYERS: But, during this time, the economy's been growing. Why aren't workers sharing in the prosperity that they've helped create?

HOLLY SKLAR: Well, that's exactly the problem. It used to be that when productivity went up, wages went up. Worker--

BILL MOYERS: You work harder, you got more of the results.

HOLLY SKLAR: You got the fair day's pay for the fair day's work, you got more results. You shared in the rise and work of productivity. Now, almost all the rise and work of productivity is going not just to the upper class, but to the very top of the upper class. So, we have had a great redistribution of income and wealth in this country in the last three decades. The problem is that redistribution of wealth and income has been going up to the very top. And most people have even been treading water, or going behind. And often working for many, many longer hours to keep up with the living standards.

BILL MOYERS: Is it true that about 80 percent of our workforce in this country make their living from hourly wages?

HOLLY SKLAR: They do. And that's when we refer to average workers, that's usually what we mean. We mean people who are, you know, in production non-supervisory workers and they're, when I say average workers are making less, in real terms-in what they can buy, than they were able to in the 1970s. It's just shocking. And we are told often that we have to do this in order to make our country more competitive in the global economy. You know-

BILL MOYERS: We need to be leaner-

HOLLY SKLAR: Yeah, exactly-

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, leaner and meaner--

HOLLY SKLAR: Leaner and meaner, but we will all be better off in the long-run, we're gonna get more educated and so on. Well, here's the problem. We haven't been making our country more competitive. We've been actually driving it into the ground. Essentially, people at the top have essentially been you know, like they're corporate raiders, essentially raiding the whole country, milking it like a cash cow, is what's been going on and driving the economy into the ground. We have unprecedented debt to other countries.

You know, we have an infrastructure that was built by the tax dollars of prior generations, basically, that is now crumbling. We're not even paying to modernize for the global economy, we don't have a world class infrastructure anymore.

We have research and development that we're spending less on, proportionately. We have an education system that's lagging further and further behind. So the idea that we're getting more competitive for the global economy is ridiculous, that's a myth.
(snip)
HOLLY SKLAR: Well, we need a few things. One is, raise the minimum wage. Raise the floor. Set a green light in a different direction, and the green light is, raise wages, fair wages. The other is universal health care. Get to universal healthcare.

BILL MOYERS: Because?

HOLLY SKLAR: Because one, because something like 18,000 people die from lack of health insurance every year. Two, it's really destroying a lot of small businesses in the sense that they know they want to give health care to their workers but they are in a situation where they just are paying. I mean, it's just become astronomical. It's like a giant shift from, you know, from one person and from one business to another.

BILL MOYERS: It's encouraging that your organization has a lot of small business people, and others working for what is your mission? What are you trying to do?

HOLLY SKLAR: The mission is to say that we can change direction. In other words, that what's really good for business, what's really good for business is also what's good for workers, and good for communities, and good for the country. That instead of this kind of low-road path we've been on, which is low wages for workers, low taxes, lower taxes for the wealthy, reckless deregulation, irresponsible disinvestment in our infrastructure and so on, instead of that we can go to a higher road, where we're shoring up the economy from below, and we're doing long-term sustainable developments, smart development, that we need for long-term success. (Emphasis added.)

It's something I feel like I'm saying too much, but without living wages, our economy is shot. If you want to sell something, you want some one who can afford to buy it.

We are being robbed,and the robbers aren't even smart enough to go to the good neighborhoods to find real riches. We are being robbed of our ability to take care of ourselves.

What Ought To Happen

Dear Senator Obama and Democratic candidate Dr. Melancon,

We have a declining economy, one in which wages are stagnant and only the service sector is growing. Manufacturing jobs and wages are going abroad, which means that things that are sold here are becoming less expensive. While that is beneficial to those who have high salaries, it is not at all helpful to those who have lost their well-paid jobs and are getting by on several low salaries or on one that is altogether less than they need for living.

While a higher minimum wage, occasionally referred to as a living wage, is desirable, many businesses threaten to relocate offshore where wages are less, and expenses are less.

The business that pays low wages is expecting to sell into an economy where wages are high, an anomaly. It seems that some intervention is necessary for the sake of our economy here in the U.S.

Simple mathematics ought to be the measure here. A business that sells in the U.S. ought to produce a wage base proportionate to the amount it needs in profits, for the sake of our economy. It would be advisable for the government, instead of mandating a single aspect of business, living wages, could litigate for sanity in economy. Profits should not exceed by obscene amounts the amount invested in facilities and in non-executive wages. Instead of Free Trade that lets other countries have direct access to the prosperity enjoyed by American workers, we need to instigate Pay As You Go business balance. The deep pockets American workers once had are increasingly shallow, and expenses are growing at a greater rate than their capacity to afford living costs.

Under a balanced system, business can't constantly diminish the economy, but has to maintain it.

Our shared economy cannot be at the mercy of those business interests that wish to take the prosperity as their right, and do not recognize their duty to contribute to it.

The shared responsibility for our world is one that should be all of our initiative. When instead there are elements that would take all and leave nothing for the rest of us, there is regulatory power given to the government. That power can be used wisely, and well, for all of us.

Sincerely,

Ruth


*************************************************


I thank you for your attention to this matter. My legislative background includes the first bill to give federal protection to endangered species and the Plant Closing legislation which required workers to be given a period of wage payments in the event of suddenly closing their place of business.

Throwing Tea

When this country split off from England there was a great concept, No Taxation Without Representation. I think we've gotten back to that grounds again.

I was just listening to a little CSpan announcement, that the House will reconvene at 1 p.m. ET, to consider a bill that makes some technical adjustments to a highway bill. They will be discussing that a Florida highway project was inserted into the bill after it had been passed by the House and the Senate. Calling on the DOJ to investigate it. Oh, right that DOJ.

No Taxation Without Representation.

Our country has been taken over by criminals.

At least Lurita Doan just resigned.

Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, was forced to offer her resignation tonight, according to an e-mail she sent out this evening.

Doan was appointed in late May, 2006, becoming the first woman to serve as GSA Administrator. With 12,000 empioyees and a $20 billion annual budget, GSA has responsibilty for overseeing the thousands of building and properties owned by the federal government.

Doan became the subject of congressional scrutiny last year for allegedly using GSA to help Republican lawmakers win re-election. Doan denied the allegation, but her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was disastrous. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel, called on Doan to resign over the allegations, but Doan refused to step down.

One down, a whole executive branch of crooks to go. We have a lot of work ahead of us.