End of the Session and Tax Cuts.

    With Congress nearing the end of its session, there has been a whole slew of legislative activity taking place which is great.  After a period of harping by the Republicans that acting during the lame duck session was somehow immoral, Congress managed to act during the lame duck session.  Now, there are some legitimate arguments to be made about how Congress should not do anything while waiting for a new Congress, namely that it might enact legislation that is counter to what the voters want as indicated by the recent batch of representatives elected.  Congress managed to pass a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell; an extension of tax cuts for the Middle Class and an extension of unemployment benefits; food safety regulations, and other such policies that were favored by Democrats with a few left out.
    I want to point out that the tax deal is not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.  First, there was no way to get the middle class tax cuts without giving the upper class tax cuts as well.  Democrats in the Senate were not going to use reconciliation to pass that bill, too many moderate senators happen to like wealthy people more than the rest of society.  Furthermore, I think everything that can be done, should be done with regards to demonstrating that no one cares about the deficit.  I'm just disappointed that the media keeps calling people in Washington fiscally conservative, because no one is.  They love spending money on things, they only care about the deficit when that money goes to groups that aren't their own constituents or don't support them.  In addition, how pissed off would the country be if taxes went up for everyone AND unemployment benefits weren't extended?  I maintain that there was no realistic way to get the middle class cuts extended and get unemployment benefits done at this point, and maybe not even earlier for that matter.  In an ideal world, Obama and Congressional Democrats would have passed the Obama tax cuts which affected only those making under 250,000 while letting the Bush tax cuts elapse because the people who passed them were shortsighted.  They could do this with only 50 votes, Biden could provide the tie breaker.  Some might blame this not happening on Obama, I squarely place the blame on the fact that there are a number of conservative Democrats who enjoy posturing about the subject and who frankly are more supportive of he affluent.
   

Brian's BCS Breakdown

    The college football season is ending, meaning that in order to get my fix I'm watching Appalachian State take on Villanova.  I figured I'd discuss a few of my problems with the current system of FBS football and how they handle their championship.  By and large, I am opposed to the BCS not necessarily because it doesn't set up a good match between 1 and 2, it usually does to some extent, but because it really messes everything else.  It's a system in which you can win all your games and still be left out of a good bowl or the national championship.  Let's look at Auburn a few years back, or Michigan State this year.  They beat Wisconsin, have the same record, but because Michigan State's loss came later in the year they miss out on the Rose Bowl.  I have a word for that, idiocy.  Think of the reaction were that to occur in a professional sport.  Let us say that the Pats and the Jets have the same record at the end of the year and the Pats own the head to head tie breaker.  If the Jets got into the playoffs over the Pats because of random computations by a shadowy cabal of nerds there would be rioting in the street.  Things should be settled on the field, not by the perceptions of coaches, sports writers, and others who pay no more attention to the game than looking at scores, records and the name of the school in a newspaper. 
    Many would argue that the implementation of a play-off would diminish the regular season, that if teams didn't have to go undefeated the games would be less thrilling.  There is some truth to this, emphasis on some.  Not every game is important for every team and different games have different levels of importance.  It turns out that Virginia Tech, Stanford, Arkansas, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Oklahoma didn't have to win every game, as long as they lost earlier in the year everything was peachy keen.  Virginia Tech and Connecticut both lost to more teams and to inferior competition than Boise State and Michigan State yet both get to attend prestigious bowl games with large payouts.  To say that every game matters is to be disingenuous.  If every game mattered, only undefeated teams or teams with better records would be represented in the bowls. 
    I happen to be an ardent supporter of a playoff though there would be less excitement for some teams.  Auburn or Oregon or another highly ranked team could likely drop a game and still get a good seed in the playoff.  Other teams though, would still have the excitement of having to play there way in, still making every game important.  The same number of games would likely still be important, people would still have stayed up late to watch Boise State vs Nevada because it would have determined whether or not that Boise State could have gone to the playoffs, most current projections for a playoff would have the top eight teams competing, a distinction that Boise State lost when it lost the game.  I personally like the idea that the individual ranked conference champion gets in with a few at large bids.  With the current standings, that would mean that Oregon, Auburn, TCU, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Boise State, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and UCF would all receive automatic bids, add in 5 wild-cards that would probably be Ohio State, Stanford, Arkansas, Michigan State, and Boise State.  Oregon and Auburn would receive a first round bye making for thirteen games to be played in total over four weeks, which is about how long the bowl season lasts as it stands presently.  Are teams left out of this system?  Yes.  Do some lower ranked teams get in over higher ranked teams?  Again, yes.  But, this view completely disregards the fact that there are competitive disadvantages between certain conferences that make this plan better than the current one.
    Over the course of the last season, many complained about Boise State being included in the same breath as Oregon or Auburn, claiming that Boise would never be able to compete week in and week out with the rest of the SEC or Pac 10.  My problem with this argument, is that I don't think that Auburn or Oregon could compete in their respective conferences if their funding and facilities were at the same level as Boise's.  The NCAA is not like the NFL, there is no larger revenue sharing or salary cap.  Certain conferences make a lot more money and the schools that belong to it benefit more from it.  I'm for more amenable to the argument that the champion of the NFC West should be left out of the playoffs than I am that the champion of the Mountain West should be left out.  Besides, I think that a robust playoff like this might actually put a huge dent in the perceptions that people have of rankings and the mega conferences.  Right now I'm watching unranked Villanova convincingly outplay #1 ranked Appalachian State.
    Many would argue that this would interfere with the studies of the students etc etc.  These are unconvincing arguments because every other sport has playoffs and they manage to do just fine.  If the University Presidents were actually concerned about the impact that playoffs would have on academic performance they would schedule their games to take place in the Summer.  Besides, I guarantee Villanova has great academic achievements and that they still manage to win a playoff match up to get a national championship.  Furthermore, if the University presidents actually cared about student part of the student athlete, they would have academic performance and graduation rates factor into the BCS computation, likely pitting Stanford and TCU in the championship game.  These are student-athletes, so being good students should result in some kind of tangible reward for them on the field.  
    Really, the attachment to the bowl games has everything to do with money but here's the thing, these schools would still make a ton of money if there was a switch to the playoff and there's nothing that says that the various bowls can't still be utilized.  There could be a two tier structure like we have with NCAA Basketball, the good teams get to go into the playoffs and the bad teams get to go bowling.  Most of the bowls are really stupid anyways and are only important to the teams that are in them. 
    As a final note, I want to touch upon the Cam Newton scandal.  This feels like the height of hypocrisy to me.  Bush loses the Heisman because the NCAA held that the actions of the parent are not to be held distinct with the actions of the child.  If the parent does something wrong, the child did something wrong.  The NCAA decided not to do it that way this time and argued that Cecil Newton acted independently of Cam Newton so Cam should not be punished and found disqualified.  That's pure idiocy, even if he did not know, he may have materially benefited from his father's actions, which gives him a competitive advantage that is against the rules.  Not to mention that this makes it way easier to cheat in the future, athletes can just claim they didn't know what there parents were doing.  The only reason why the NCAA went all limp-wristed on this issue was because Auburn is getting ready to play for the National Championship and Cam Newton is up for the Heisman, if the team sucked you know they would have found him ineligible.  Frankly this just seems like an event where the NCAA will punish Auburn and Cam after it's no longer important anymore. 

DADT Repeal (I wish my Exasperation Would Come Through Better)

    I just found out that the US Senate failed to past DADT repeal as part of the Defense funding bill with a vote of 57-40.  That's right, 57% of our elected officials in the Senate were in favor of allowing Gays to openly serve in the military, something that many advanced armies  have done throughout the world without any kind of disruptions to unit cohesion or efficacy.  Were 57% vs 40% of the population to vote for one presidential candidate it would be a landslide of historic proportions.  What kind of world is this when something like this doesn't pass?  It's immoral, and frankly does not bode well for any kind of legislative efficacy in the future. 

    A couple of other blogs have touched upon the subject.  Joshua Bernstein has wondered why Reid would try to bring this to a vote without absolute surety that it would have sufficient votes.  Something that I can understand to an extent but still doesn't address the key issue that something like this is obscenely inefficient and counter-intuitive.  Bradford Plumer over at The New Republic takes the view that this is an example of extreme senatorial malfunction. 

   Hopefully there will be some kind of change to the workings of the Senate that will make it less of a place where legislation goes to die despite receiving a majority of the vote along with holding rather wide public support.  The Senate's rules can be reformed at the beginning of a new session and conceivably at any time Reid could reform the rules regarding filibusters or placing holds with a simple majority vote.  I'm torn between my desire to remove the filibuster (or at least amend it) and my concern that doing so would turn the Senate into a more conservative House.  I say more conservative because the Senate is structurally set up to favor rural states and will often have Senators who were elected under a different political climate than the one that the public currently has.  In a few years I might favor the filibuster of a Republican bill that I oppose just as I'm sure there are a number of Republicans who are really excited about the ability to block Democratic policies.  Still, at the end of the day, I'm tired of having legislation that is clearly popular being blocked because of even the threat of a filibuster.  I'm tired of Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana having the ability to place a hold on a nomination just so she can extort something from the Obama administration.

The Tax Cut Deal

    As you all undoubtedly know, the Bush Tax cuts for both the upper income bracket as well as the other brackets have been extended.  In addition to the extension of these cuts, unemployment benefits have been extended, payroll taxes have been cut, and the estate tax has increased the level which can be writ off.  A lot has been written on the subject from the liberal perspective that has been to a certain extent bemoaning the lack of political spine of Obama.  An individual blogger than I read quite frequently has a pretty good take on why this deal was eventually reached and it basically comes down to the fact that the two groups both wanted something: Democrats wanted the extension of middle class tax cuts and unemployment benefits, and Republicans wanted the extension of Upper Class tax breaks.  What happened?  They did what we all say we want from our elected officials, they compromised and created a bill that would meet the demands of both groups.  It's bipartisan!

    This particular agreement goes a long way towards demonstrating my belief that no one cares about deficits, but I'm not going to go on about that.  Anyone who still believes that these individuals care about deficits is deluding themselves.  This plan will in fact increase the deficit/debt/ whatever we want to call it because it combines spending with massive cuts in potential revenue.  I will say that I don't actually think this matters because the deficit is something that is not an issue now, all of this posturing about the deficit is really just an excuse to cut government services.

    What this deal really says about the state of American politics is that individuals in power are incapable of raising taxes on anyone, for any reason, at any time.  We have a party that is nominally dedicated to the Middle Class and refuses to make them pay more taxes (Democrats), and we have a group that refuses to raise taxes on corporations or the Upper Class (Republicans).  Given that these two groups will always be exchanging power while holding large majorities when they are not in control, that is a recipe for no raised taxes.  We as a society have elected officials that will not raise taxes, will not cut spending, and generally tell us how someone else will pay for what we want without any kind of impact on our everyday lives or pocketbook.  We're a society of having our cake, and eating it to.  One need only look at the Bowles-Simpson plan that was produced.  Within it, a number of spending cuts were introduced but no tax hikes.  Taxes would actually be reduced for upper income earners in favor of greater price controls for health care.  When we are more willing to talk about cutting Medicare or Social Security instead of increasing taxes on the wealthy or closing corporate tax loopholes, we have discovered a new third rail.

    I would like to finish with the idea that, though this plan should represent the end of talks about fiscal restraint or reducing the deficit, it won't.  Also I want to say that overall this isn't the worst thing in the world that could have happened to Obama or the Democrats.  They actually got two key policy goals, extension of unemployment benefits and the middle class tax cut, out of this agreement that would have hurt them if they hadn't done anything.  Can you imagine what would happened had Democrats not made a deal and let all of the tax cuts lapse?  We'd be burning them in effigy in all likelihood.  One area of complaint that I actually have is that more could have been gotten out of this by Obama and Democrats.  Republicans have to cut taxes, they are ideologically compelled to, especially for upper income earners.  Reid and Obama should have packed a few more things into this, DADT Repeal would definitely have passed if linked with tax cut extension because Republicans care more about carrying water for corporate interests than Gays.

Someone's Been Reading My Blog (Other Than My Parents.)

    This just in, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has adopted my proposal to have Sarah Palin be the next chair of the RNC.  I'm waiting for him to start calling for the limiting of who can vote, which I actually should make an addendum to.  Ala Starship Troopers, we should only allow soldiers to vote because clearly the only individuals who are worthy of deciding are political fate are those who are defending it.  

    I'll have a post later today about something else but I just wanted all of my readers to know that someone important is reading this blog. 

Why Extend the Bush Tax Cuts?

    I've already posted earlier that people don't actually care about the deficit in any meaningful manner despite what polls may say.  An interesting thing keeps popping up with regards to these tax cuts that proves quite well that no one in Congress cares about the deficit.  Republicans have been claiming that we should extend all of the tax cuts because you should never raise taxes during the middle of a recession and also their belief that lowering taxes increases revenue, something that is demonstrably false.  (The link discusses how revenue actually increases when taxes are higher tangentially because it really talks about how you can lie with charts.  The chart shows that during the Clinton years when he raised taxes, revenue increased for the government.)  They have simultaneously been refusing to extend unemployment benefits because it adds to the deficit.  Interestingly enough, both add to the deficit, tax cuts just do it more so because they are so much greater.

    Why do congressional Republicans and some Democrats want to extend tax cuts?  It has nothing to do with fiscal policy, nothing to do with ideology, it has nothing to do with any kind of concern with the deficit, (because NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE DEFICIT) it has everything to do with the fact that they would be raising their own marginal tax rates if they voted not to extend the Bush tax cuts.  How come no one has made this point?  People vote their interests and this includes congressmen.  There are people who would choose to increase their tax burden, this has to be the case because congressmen and Presidents do work to increase the tax rates at times.  Let's face it though, people who tend to make a lot of money vote Republican because they know that their taxes are likely to decrease.  Guess what?  Most Congressmen are wealthy, so obviously they'll tend to vote to lower their tax burden if presented with the opportunity.  This incoming class of congressmen is wealthier than usual by current standards apparently.  If you were to ask average everyday people to raise their own tax rates voluntarily, I'm curious as to how much success you'd find.  Why should we expect Congressmen to behave any differently?

    

*     I did say earlier that ideology is not important, that's not quite true because ideology does influence how people vote.  I really just meant to say that material interests will tend to outweigh ideological ones.  This explains why conservative elderly people still support socialized healthcare for the elderly.  (Medicare)

Who Should Vote

    There has been a lot of talk recently about Republicans advocating limitations on who can vote and what we as voters can vote about, mostly involving the repeal of the 17th Amendment.  The head of the Tea Party nation has what some would consider and even more radical and anachronistic view, that we should limit the right to vote to only those people who own property, as was the case during the infancy of our great Republic.  Here's the excerpt of his remarks, which came from here:

• Phillips said: "The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn't you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."

    Phillips is quite right that the Founding Fathers had such restrictions on voting but he misses a clear opportunity to shrink the size the government by still allowing some rent-seekers to have a vote and corrupt us with socialism.  What he should really be advocating is the elimination of individuals receiving money from  the government from voting.  Think about it, so long as these people are sucking at the teat of government welfare they will continue to support such programs, effectively transferring money from hard workers to lazy layabouts.  We shouldn't allow people on medicaid or welfare to vote because they're only going to support candidates who will keep these programs in place.  The same can be said about Seniors when dealing with Social Security and Medicare, both of which massively expand the size and role of government at the expense of freedom.  Furthermore, this would cut out all of those lazy farmers who receive subsidies to grow corn instead of just manning up and dealing with the realities of the market.  We could get rid of all those stinking Marxist college kids who receive Pell Grants or attend colleges that receive federal funding.  We'd be without all of those pesky doctors that receive medicare/medicaid reimbursement from hospitals.  Politicians would no longer be forced to cater to policemen, firefighters, librarians, teachers, and all those other government employees because they only care about extending their benefits or improving their wages.  We'd also have the happy fortune of denying politicians the right to vote because they'd only vote for themselves, further extending their control of American freedom.  Really, I'm disappointed in Nelson for missing a wonderful opportunity to take our country back from all of these godforsaken leaches. 

Post Thanksgiving Musings on the Political Opinions of Families

    Just got back from visiting my family for the Thanksgiving break and one of the interesting things about these kinds of family get togethers is how politics always seem to come up and always causes a minor disturbance.  I could use this as an opportunity to call out my family members but instead I think I'll discuss some of the issues that came up and try to dissect them in a proactive manner.  One of the big things to occur last week was the shelling of a South Korean village by North Korea.  This is a situation that appears to have very few good solutions surrounded by bad ones.  As long as China and Russia support Kim Jong Il, it will be difficult to affect any kind of change in the region, whether or not we want to use military options.  There's no way we would launch a military strike for fear of riling up either of the aforementioned countries and there's really nothing left to take from North Korea unless China and Russia decide to stop supporting the regime financially.  I'm of the opinion that neither country will stop supporting North Korea because it would mean the collapse of the state and hundreds of thousands of refugees flooding both countries.  So unfortunately, the kind of choices available to the US are limited, and mostly uninspired.

    Another issue that came up would have to be views on HCA.  A lot of people don't know what's in it.  That's a fact.  Most of these same people dislike the law because they don't know what's in it.  A not totally unreasonable belief.  The problem with this is that many of these same individuals haven't done any research to actually improve their knowledge on the subject.  There's no guarantee that increased knowledge would lead towards increased support, though some earlier polls did show this.  I find it bothersome that people would choose to not inform themselves of an issue and then hold negative views about an issue because they don't know anything about it.  Considering the amount of information that is at our disposal at any time of the day, it is an irresponsible action to not know something and then refuse to do any kind of research on the issue despite professing support or distaste for it.  I don't know how quantum mechanics, works does that mean that I should be able to criticize it all I want without having to first do research on the subject?  Should I blame scientists for not doing a better job of explaining it to me?

    Another pair of comments that have come up that really bothered me were ones that dealt with the promises of presidents and the matter of single issue voters.  The latter bothers me because I consider it to be very short sighted and frankly counter intuitive.  There are issues that are more important to some voters than others.  Sometimes those issues outweigh all others and there's nothing wrong with any of that.  Voters should vote their interests.  Think about the number of times people will vote to simply block a specific candidate.  That's a single issue vote right there, the single issue being that it is not the other guy.  Another problem I have with this critique of the American voter is that I question how prevalent it really is.  Sure, there are a number of people who won't vote for a candidate that is pro-choice (and vice-versa).  But it is often the case that they agree with the candidate on other issues as well, just to a lesser degree.  I find it very unlikely that pro-life voters would vote for a pro-socialism, pro-gay rights, pro-drug legalization, and anti-war candidate who also happened to be pro-life; no matter how highly they might rank abortion as their defining issue.  

    The other issue, the one dealing with how presidential and congressional candidates will win just because they say the things that will get them elected.  My key problem with this is that by the reasoning, they would prefer the candidate to promise to do the things that we hate and are exceptionally unpopular.  There's nothing wrong with a politician conforming his views to popular opinion, don't we want to our politicians to craft policies that reflect our desires?  This kind of opinion is also an extension of the paradox that polling creates.  On one hand, if asked, almost all people would say that politicians should govern with respect to the wishes of the electorate.  At the same time, almost everyone would say that politicians should not govern based strictly on opinion polls.  So here we have a situation in which people would hold the view that politicians should agree with the American people and at the same time, enact policies that the American people would disagree with.  By this reasoning, Obamacare was a resounding success, large portions of the American public agreed that there needed to be health care reform, and roughly half (depends on the poll you use and how you want to interpret it) of the population disagreed with enacting Obamacare.

    To prevent the above paragraph from being a strawman argument, most of these people who hold the view that I dislike maintain that politicians make a bunch of promises and then don't follow through with them.  This is a legitimate complaint, unfortunately it's one that would preclude voting for any and all candidates.  I'm fairly certain that only Polk has kept all of his campaign promises in the history of the republic.  (Promised to establish an independent treasury system, reduce tariffs, acquire Oregon, California, and New Mexico.)  Politicians make a number of promises to voters because that is how they get them to vote for them, candidates need platforms and platforms are a series of promises.  Voters won't vote for candidates without getting an idea of how they would govern and platforms are the key way of providing that idea.  Politicians will then prioritize their platform and try to enact it going from what they think is most important to that which they think is least important.  Unfortunately, there are a number of other candidates that make promises to other voters that will attempt to thwart the promises made by the first candidate.  Should the voters in the first candidate's district punish him/her because a different candidate made promises to their constituents that counteracted the first candidate?  If a candidate makes a number of promises and then fails to fulfill them, there's nothing wrong with voting them out.  But one should never believe that candidates will do anything but make promises that they think will get them elected.  This isn't meant to be a cynical take on politics or elections.  Candidates should promise to enact policies.  Those policies should conform to the desires of the electorate.  And not all of those promises will be able to be fulfilled due to the constraints of the system in which we live.  Nothing about any of that is wrong. 

Sara Palin in 2012

    On a serious note, I think Palin would be crazy to run in 2012.  Why would she want to put herself through all of the scrutiny and torture to be President when it's so much easier to be a Republican firebrand who can pick and choose what to do and say while making a ton of money?  I'm not saying it would be crazy for her to run as a candidate because she'd lose.  Depending on how things look in 2012, I can certainly imagine a situation in which she could win.  I can also see her building up huge leads in certain Republican primaries like Iowa, South Carolina, and other rural/Southern states.  Does anyone really believe that Sarah Palin wants to face the kind of scrutiny that is expected of Presidential candidates, her in particular?  People are going to want to grill her and I'm unsure of whether she can get away with only speaking on FOX.  If she doesn't run, she can play kingmaker as well as assure that whoever the Republicans do pick will have a great person to come out, give a folksy speech, and get people to see her.  Frankly, I think the GOP would be smart to make her party chairman and replace Michael Steele, it is not as if he is some kind of political genius.  This way she'd also be able to keep making a ton of money having ghost-writers create books and appear on FOX and TLC. 

The Palins (Because There's to Much to Say About any Single One)

    *  I want to point out that I hate how much attention the Palin's receive and how it really is just nauseating to have to deal with it all the time.  And yes I'm aware of how hypocritical is to say that and then proceed to increase the coverage they have. (Though this is a good way to get hits I'm told.)





    I debated long and hard about whether I wanted to post something on Sarah Palin and her family.  On the one hand, I think that all of the focus on her is largely lacking in seriousness and focuses upon some really asinine qualities.  In addition, no matter what anyone says bad about her, there's a base of the population that will never desert her regardless of any kind of question or revelation.  She's in the territory of having to be outed as a lesbian for her to lose support.  (As an aside, I'm starting that rumor here and now, Sarah Palin is actually a lesbian, I don't have proof but only someone in the closet would pretend to be that straight and Republican.)  I decided to talk about the family as a whole because they're getting a lot of news right now and causing quite of a stir.

    They of course have the new show where Sarah can show off Alaska and how cute and rustic her family is on TLC.  I refuse to watch the show because I renounce TLC and everything it does.  It used to be somewhat educational and now it is full blown voyeurism where otherwise normal people can watch curiosities for money.  It's the modern sanitized equivalent of charging people to see mental patients back in the day.  The show is soft journalism at its finest and it doesn't really have to add anything meaningful politically, socially, or even really in the field of entertainment.  I would much prefer to watch Sarah Palin try to name all 9 Supreme Court Justices or name a Founding Father she liked.  Somewhere there was an article that talked about our obsession with Alaska given the rise of shows featuring the state, I believe the gist of it was that we liked the myth associated with the rugged determination necessary to survive there.  I could only wish someone on that show would ask the Palins on the issue of Alaska receiving more federal spending than it pays back in taxes.  Last I checked, self-reliance had something to do with, you know, not relying on others.

    Another big issue that has been going on with regards to the Palins has been the behavior of their children Bristol and Willow.  I'm going to completely ignore the issue of Willow because 16 year old girls do and say dumb stuff on Facebook, with any luck she'll learn from this and be more careful who she allows to contact her now that she has been injected into the public sphere by her mother.  As for Bristol, I don't believe it when people should say that she's off limits, she injected herself into the role of spokes-model for unwed teenage mothers through her TV and public appearances.  I also don't care that she's advancing on Dancing with the Stars because the show is in large part a popularity contest and she's receiving a lot of support from the demographic that likes the show along with her mother.  Also, I only care about the former NFL players who go on it because I happen to like football so I'm pretty bummed out by Kurt Warner getting the boot.(Disclaimer: I don't watch the show so I don't actually know if anyone is actually good at dancing, furthermore, it really is just a means to make yourself slightly more relevant on TV.)

    In many ways I have larger problems with Bristol Palin because of the fact that she's a terrible role-model.  Her getting pregnant as an unmarried, teenage mother was the best thing that could happen to her from the standpoint of relevance.  Because she got pregnant, she was able to draw all kinds of attention to herself and her failed policy of abstinence.  In addition, she's hardly representative of the average unwed teenage mother who does not have the same kind of resources that she can draw upon.  How many of this group that she supposedly speaks for gets the chance to appear on "Dancing with the Stars" and other crappy TV shows on the ABC family of networks?  What's even more maddening is this obsession with abstinence education, she's living proof of its shortcomings.  If she had used protection, imagine how much no one would care about her.  I'm going out of a limb, but I think Meghan McCain has probably not engaged in abstinence only activities, but because she was probably smart and used protection, no one really cared about her other than to make fun of her for being curvaceous and not being enough like Bristol Palin.  You know there's something wrong when the girl who gets knocked up by her white trash boyfriend is held in higher esteem than the articulate, thoughtful girl who did not.

    I really don't like abstinence only education.  We should be telling kids that, no you really shouldn't be having casual sex, but if you are going to do it, use protection.  I will further state that I guarantee that the word Prophylactic does not appear anywhere in the Bible, making it perfectly acceptable to use one.  If we weren't allowed to use them, it would have said so explicitly.

    I also want to finish with yet another rumor that I am starting here and we all need to make it spread.  Originally it was thought that one of Sarah Palin's other children was actually Bristol's but that's not true.  What really happened was that Sarah Palin made her daughter get pregnant, she forced Levi Johnson to not wear a condom which he was totally set to do, in order to use her as a talisman of Conservative Family Values, that's the rumor we need to spread as much as possible.  (I want to further point out how crazy it is that conservatives would support something like that.  If they were really conservative they would have had themselves a shotgun wedding.)

Obama and Democrats Keep Letting Down Gay People

    I'm still holding off on writing my thoughts on Bowles-Simpson and in the meantime I'm going to give another rousing talk on a different subject matter.  DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) keeps resurfacing in the news because some felt that there might be a chance that it would be repealed either by the Congress elected in 2008 or might get passed in the lame duck session.  I'm sorry to break it to everyone, but it's not going to happen.  We'll continue to discriminate against Gays in the military and the rest of society because that's just how we do things.  I'm sorry to all of those who voted Democrat and thought that this might change but it's just really low on the totem poll for what elected Democrats want to accomplish.  If they cared, they would have done something about it.
     There are a few things about this issue that I think Democrats are really screwing up on.  First and foremost, Obama left it to Congress to try to get this passed which was a huge mistake because there are a considerable number of conservative Democrats who could and did block any kind of moves on this issue.  Obama seems to forget that he's the Commander-in-Chief and that he can just order the military to integrate ala Harry Truman and Executive Order 9981.  He did the exact opposite of what worked last time we integrated the military in favor of taking actions that would guarantee that nothing good happened.  He could very easily given the order, then let Congress work out the logistics and spared himself and a number of Democratic supporters who are also supportive of gay rights a lot of heartache.
    Another problem I have with this debate is the disingenuous nature of the Republican, and Democratic, opposition to integration.  Whenever they talk about what the military thinks and feels they are forgetting a key aspect of our nation.  It's a civilian run military and the President, the leader of our armed forces, is in favor of integration (so he says).  As such, everyone who made the preceding argument should be in favor of integration since America's top military official is in favor of it.
    A final issue I have with this debate, and the fact that Democrats are not bringing this up at every conceivable instance any time this debate is had is just criminal, is why this debate is not constantly framed by stating this was how we integrated the military racially.  Guess what?  60 years ago the country was exceptionally racist and wouldn't allow for the mixing of races in our military.  We integrated, and everything turned out dandy.  People are a lot more adaptable than we give them credit for.  Anytime anyone says anything about gays in the military, the immediate response should be:  "Why is it OK to discriminate against gays but not OK to discriminate against blacks and women?"  Repeat that ad nauseum if necessary, but the fact that Democrats, and others advocating this approach, have not linked homophobic arguments supporting DADT with the unpopular views of sexism and racism is just poor form and strategy.  
   I also want to add that all of this vacillating on the subject does not help anyone.  Republicans already maintain that Democrats are in the pocket of Big-Gay and use that as a wedge issue regardless of what Democrats actually do.  If you're going to catch flak for doing something, even if you don't actually do it, just do it anyways to please your constituents because you're going to be hammered by the opposition anyways.  This is a constant problem for Democrats that they just don't get, they're going to be crucified by the opposition anyways, so they might as well do what they're being crucified for because then they will have accomplished a political goal.  Most commentators maintain that it was worth it for the Democrats to pass HCR even though it may have cost them politically, this is a similar issue.

The Debt (And Why No One Cares)

    I know it's been awhile since I posted but I've been busy writing a paper that will likely determine my future in academia.  During this period, a lot of stuff has happened that I could have wrote an insightful commentary on and now I'm opting to discuss the new Deficit Commission plans for reducing the debt in the United States.  The Bowles-Simpson commission has released what is essentially a center-right plan for reducing the debt that has many liberals upset about the priorities the government has seemed to set when it comes to reducing the debt.
    Before we get too far, I want to say that no one actually cares about the debt in a meaningful manner.  We care about the national debt the same way we care about our societies obsession with celebrities.  We talk about and then proceed to buy Star magazine at the checkout counter.  The elderly maintain that they don't want to leave a pile of debt to their children but they refuse to accept any cuts to Medicare, one of the largest government expenditures.  Throughout the country people decry government waste, but not when it comes to them.  Farmers still want agricultural subsidies that encourage them to overgrow and artificially inflates the price of land, Congressmen still want to build the F-22, not because it will help us fight terrorism (it was designed to fight MiGs from the 80's), because it's built in their districts.  Students aren't going accept cuts to Pell Grants because it lowers the cost of college.  The list goes on, it's not government waste when it helps them.  Though there are groups that quite vociferously protest the debt right now, they weren't saying much when many of the structural costs were put in place.  No one complained about launching two wars, initiating a huge tax cut, as well as creating a socialized drug plan that was unfunded; all of which would lead towards the position that we're in now, and we knew it then too though we didn't care, 'cause NO ONE REALLY cares about the debt.
    Democrats care about the debt loosely, a lot of them buy into Keynesian models meaning that massive government debts can be a good thing, especially at the present time.  (That is, debt can be good if the government is trying create economic demand which it currently isn't doing, the debt has more to do with our unwillingness to actually pay for government services, the housing collapse, and the ensuing efforts to halt a total economic collapse.)  Really, we have bad deficit spending because it isn't priming the economic pump, it's just paying for the stuff we already made commitments to and are only in the red because the economy is doing piss poor.  In some respects, Democrats care about the debt a little bit more, as can be demonstrated by HCR actually reducing government expenditures on health care over the long term,  according to the CBO.  Also, as can be demonstrated by the last Democratic President eliminating the debt, whereas the Republican administrations that bracketed him exploded it.  (I'm exempting the first Bush from this.)
    Republicans care about the debt because it's a good issue to campaign on and because for some reason they have this mantle of fiscal conservatism which they only have because they say they do.  It's like vegetarians who say they don't eat meat and then proceed to chow down on fish, crab, and shrimp.  I'm firmly of the belief that when you call yourself something, it should have some reflection in reality.  Call me crazy.  They don't care about the debt because they aren't going to cut anything and still cut taxes.  Farm subsidies?  Nope, because most Republicans represent rural areas that really like them.  Military?  Nope, because the military is sacrosanct and they also like the money that goes to their districts.  Medicare or Social Security?  Never, that would mean their elderly base would desert them in droves.  Closing tax loopholes or eliminating tax breaks for highly profitable companies?  Again, never because then their corporate supporters would stop supporting them.  Not to mention that to Republicans, these actions count as a tax hike which they are physically incapable of performing.  Also, according to Republicans, tax cuts pay for themselves despite the fact that they don't.  If you have an expanding economy, revenue goes up, but there is no linkage between low taxes and better economic performance.  The US has incredibly high tax rates throughout the '50's and '60's and guess what?  Still had a booming economy.  Yes, theoretically taxes can be so high as choke economic activity, but according to Republicans any level of taxes chokes economic activity.
    The question now is whether we should care about the debt.  The economy is in the dumps and the best way to reduce the debt is to improve the economy.  Severely cutting programs in the government will likely have the effect of increasing unemployment, which is bad for the economy.  Look at the states, states have to run balanced budgets which means cutting services and employees, which results in increased unemployment interestingly enough.  When you have more unemployed people, there's less economic activity creating a huge drag.  Increasing taxes and cutting large amounts of spending is the only way to reduce the debt, aside from economic recovery, doing either of those things will likely exacerbate the economic troubles that we find ourselves in.  As such, given that, and the fact that no one actually cares about the debt in any meaningful manner, no, we shouldn't care about the debt.  Anytime someone says they care about the debt, just remember the vegetarian who eats fish. 

**    I've decided to save my views on the debt commission for later because I've just wasted a lot of verbiage on why no one cares about the debt.

**    I also need to add that what was released wasn't technically the debt commission's findings, it was a memo released by the two guys heading it, Bowles and Simpson.

Rick Perry and the Problems of State Power

    Just watched the interview with Rick Perry on the Daily Show and must say that I am glad I don't live in the state of Texas and that guy has a tenuous grasp on the kinds of powers that states should have with relation to the Federal government.  Initially, he completely brushes off the question of whether the Federal government has the power to regulate the amount of dangerous chemicals in products, because to admit that they do would mean admitting that the Federal government has greater powers than the states.  He also opts to not pay attention to the fact that the Federal Government actually dictates certain policies for state colleges as well as provide a great deal of funding for the institutions and the students.  Individuals who support the notion of greater state power still want the Federal Government to pay for these things, they just don't want the Federal Government to have any say in how the money is spent after they've given it to them.  This belief is supported by Perry's acceptance of stimulus funds while planning other was to spend it.
    Another question that Stewart should have asked that would have been insightful, as well as demonstrated the limits of this State powers argument, would have been to ask Perry what he thought about the incorporation of the Bill of Rights.  Prior to the Slaughter House Cases states did not have to comply with the Bill of Rights, does Perry really believe that a state would have the power to deny a citizen the right to bear arms?  I would have picked freedom of speech or religion, but I think he might have agreed with a state denying those rights. 
    I also disagree with Perry's take on the environmental issues that he thinks states are better equipped to handle.  For one thing, it completely disregards the reality of the situation that many states could have lax environmental standards and those lower standards might not only impact them but states surrounding them.  If coal mining operations dump their chemicals in the Ohio River in Appalachia it can have a serious impact on the quality of water in areas down river.  The state of Kentucky might be fine but Tennessee might be punished and have no say in the matter.  I firmly believe that there should national standards for a variety of issues and then if states want to go above and beyond, because often times they have a closer look at the issue, more power to them.  I think there should be a national minimum wage, if Texas wants to offer a larger one to entice more workers and better protect them, that's fantastic.  I don't think Texas has the power to offer a lower minimum wage though, just like I don't think Texas has the power to opt out of environmental protection or the 2nd Amendment.
    As a final statement, I want to point out how frustrated I am with Perry and other conservative leaders making the argument that the New Deal didn't work.  First off, Perry got his degree in Animal Science and I'm pretty sure his grasp of history is tenuous at best.  Secondly, he likely associates the New Deal with only the WPA which is incredibly limited.  The New Deal encompassed a variety of programs including the Tennessee Valley Authority which brought electricity and power to regions that were considered too rural and expensive for private companies to come to.  In addition, whenever anyone says that WWII got us out of the Depression and not the New Deal, I want to yell and scream and at them.  The New Deal was instrumental in financing the construction of all of these new factories that were meant to build the armaments for the war.  These people who claim that WWII got them out of the Depression have obviously never read anything about the Reconstruction Finance Corporation which built factories, railroads, refineries, and other industrial necessities and then leased them to private companies to run.  Then, at the end of the war these properties were sold back to the private companies at a heavily reduced price.  If that's not government working to solve an economic crisis I don't what is.  It is a perfect example of Keynesian  stimulus and demonstrates how the New Deal was instrumental to the war effort.  They don't know about this because they haven't read my undergraduate thesis and they're not history students.

Obamacare Repeal

    David Frum has a really good article about future Republican attempts to repeal Health-care Reform that I liked.  One of the points that he mentions at the end of the article is that by furiously drawing attention to unpopular provisions and attempting to defund key provisions will actually increase the popularity of Republicans.  In some areas, it might work though that remains to be seen.  I fail to see how defunding oversight to make sure that insurance companies are offering a standard level of health-care would endear them to the masses.  Furthermore, they'd really piss off their base (Seniors) by not funding the prescription drug program that was also part of the complete bill.  Another area which would greatly upset businesses and workers who don't get employer supplied insurance, would be the fact that defunding the program would likely entail eliminating the subsidies that the government would supply these groups when it comes to buying  health insurance. Republicans would protect the American people from having to buy cheaper insurance and seniors from having to pay less for prescription drugs?  

    Admittedly, I think the Democrats in Congress and Obama are going to somehow fail to raise these points because they have demonstrated a remarkable lack of showmanship, gamesmanship, and political savvy when it comes to branding their goals and ideas.  One can look at how they've handled the tax cut issue, it's really popular to raise taxes on the wealthy and yet they still continue to hem and haw about the issue when they could easily decouple them, pass the popular issue of extending tax cuts on the rest of the country, and let Republicans catch flack for being obsessed with the wealthy at the expense of others.  They haven't done that, they probably won't do that, because Democrats are bad at this kind of stuff.  And I just ranted, which I apologize for.

    I want to add my agreement to David Frum that there is very little chance the repeal is going through, even in 2012 if there were to be an increased Republican presence.  Even were Republicans to gain the Presidency, keep the House, and gain control of Senate, they're unlikely to get the full 60 seats there and I'm pretty sure Democrats will be in the mood to return the filibuster favor that Republicans have been giving so far.

The UN and the Security Council

    Obama's recent trip to India has him supporting a permanent seat on the Security Council for India.  In general, I am not supportive of expanding the Security Council for the UN, when you add more egos to a situation you don't increase the chance of things getting done, it simply means that now any decision has to overcome even greater hurdles.  The talk of reform does not include expanding the number of vetoes for members, but increasing the number of countries would still impede action.  I have a sneaking suspicion that adding permanent members to the Security Council is actually an attempt to further DECREASE the power of the UN when it comes to its role in international relations.

    Having said that, I think rewarding India with a seat on the Security Council is not entirely without merit.  It is the world's largest democracy with a modernizing economy and will likely play a larger role internationally as time goes on.  Furthermore, there's a good chance it might offset the growing power of China within the region and internationally, likely one of the key reasons Obama is suggesting such a move.  I think that countries should be rewarded with greater responsibilities when they modernize and this is one way to do that.  Though I don't support expanding the Security Council and though I think rewarding India's efforts at modernizing is a good thing to do, were I to add a permanent seat to the Security Council I would go with Brazil. 

    The reason I support Brazil is because South America is generally considered an afterthought on the international stage and this serve the purpose of promoting the strongest country in the region onto the international stage.  Everything that India has managed, Brazil has as well, both are strong economies with liberal democracies in place so both are worthy of recognition and of playing a greater role internationally.  I still think Brazil makes more sense largely because of geographic reasons, there's already a Security Council seat for 2 Asian countries. (I include Russia because it has a large presence in the region, specifically Central Asia where China has got East Asia covered)  

    Also, when speaking of adding countries to the Security Council, I always feel that major powers get left off for reasons that are no longer relevant.  Both Germany and Japan are strong economies, fully capable of fielding high tech military forces were they to be allowed, that share the politics and economies that are heavily promoted by both the Security Council and the UN.  Both are equally capable of nuclear weapons technology (both countries could create nuclear weapons really fast should the need arise), which seems to be a de facto requirement for Security Council membership.  Given both of these countries dedication to peace, global initiatives, and other efforts they would make great members of the Security Council.  It makes no sense to continually punish these two countries for WWII, admittedly, both countries were responsible for some serious atrocities, but that never stopped the UN from admitting any of the other countries that are currently on the Security Council. 

   I think a reform for the UN that I have not been heard floated around was the concept of a General Assembly override of Security Council vetoes.  Adding to the Security Council really only adds prestige to a particular country, it does not make the UN more effective at managing international relations, promoting global security, or defending human rights.  As of right now, any Security Council country can veto any action it disagrees with and that's the end of the matter barring cajoling by other countries.  I think an interesting reform that has the possibility of promoting democratic values within the UN and maybe have the effect of getting more stuff done.  I think that if 2/3 of the General Assembly were to vote to overturn a veto than the veto should be overturned.  I think this would happen rarely because it is very hard to get that many countries to agree on a matter.  Think of how hard it is to get 67 Senators to vote together, let alone 127 sovereign states.  But, this kind of reform would still have the impact of increasing the odds that something could happen rather than one state on the Security Council completely shutting down the situation.

Election Results

    There's a ton of stuff to be read that discusses the election and I suppose I could use this post as a jumping off for other takes on the election but I could save a lot of time simply by giving a short synopsis of how the election turned out based upon what other writers' political leanings were.  If you were conservative, the election demonstrates that the people repudiated Democratic policies and felt that Republicans would do a better job of creating jobs, prosperity, and fixing the deficit.  If you were liberal, your explanation of the election results followed along the lines that Democrats lost because the economy was bad in addition to their being a large number of Democrats in Republican territory.  For particularly upset liberals, they would maintain that the American people are stupid and that's why they voted for Republicans.  

    One factor that I think gets completely blown out of proportion is the impact made by the Tea Parties.  A lot of time and energy has been placed detailing this group but as far as I'm concerned no one has ever demonstrated effectively how any of these groups are meaningfully different from the Republican Party as a whole.  Yes, some of the people found at these rallies do identify with the Democratic Party but how many of these individuals have voted for a Democratic candidate at the major level?  There are still a number of people, especially within the South, who register with the Democratic Party but haven't voted that way in major elections for years.  The policies of the Tea Party are in no way different from what the Republican Party has been saying for years.  Lower taxes, smaller government, strong defense, pro-business, and a general affinity for a socially conservative set of laws like school prayer and no gays.  Are there some Tea Partiers that favor a more libertarian style of government?  Yes, just as there are some Republicans who do the same.  Neither group is completely unified in their outlook, but the general coalition of these two groups is essentially the same.  There is no difference between the Tea Party and the Republican Party other than the fact that there are different loci of power.  Different Republicans lead the two groups and there is contention over who should be in control.  I hate the fact that people try to treat them differently, they are no substantive differences between the Tea Party and Republican Party.

    The proliferation of the Tea Parties energized Republican voters while while less Democrat aligned voters turned out.  That was their key contribution to the election of 2010.  I would mention the impact of independents abandoning Democrats but there are no such thing as independents.  While people say they are independent, they lean towards a particular party and a particular set of policy outcomes. 

    Ultimately, I come out saying that people did reject the Democrats, they didn't vote for them so what other conclusion could you draw?  Does this mean that the American people actually support all of the policy positions of the Republican Party?  No, polls have demonstrated that Republicans in congress are in fact less popular than Obama and the Democrats in Congress, a large segment of the population was in favor of a public option during healthcare reform debates and happen to think that the rich should be taxed more heavily.  The elderly happened to vote strongly for the Republican Party because they really liked the socialized medicine they received (Medicare) and were concerned that Obama's efforts to increase medical coverage would diminish their own coverage.  Had the Republican Party officially adopted Paul Ryan's policies on reforming Medicare and Social Security, there would be no way they would have turned out as strongly as they did.  The elderly think nothing should happen to either Medicare or Social Security, which will likely put them at cross purposes with Republicans who happen to favor privatizing Social Security.  Voters punished the Democrats because the economy sucks and they felt that the government should have done something to improve the situation.  Democrats had a hard time pointing to a concrete example of what exactly they did to improve the lives of American voters because the American voters did not agree with any of the examples that could be provided.  Large swaths believe that federal taxes went up, they didn't, that the stimulus and the bailout were the same thing and neither worked, they are different and most economists are generally positive about both, and that health care reform will explode the deficit and result in patient murder.  According to the CBO estimate, Obamacare diminishes the deficit over time and I sincerely doubt that forcing people to buy private insurance that is regulated to offer a standard level of care will result in greater death.  Unless private insurance really is that bad. 

    In addition to the economy sucking and Democrats being unable to demonstrate what they have done for voters recently, there are structural issues that make these kinds of sweeps inevitable.  If there are only two parties, you can only vote for the other guy to punish the first which limits how an election can turn out.  Is this the end of the world?  Are Republicans going to create another conservative majority to last decades?  No, didn't work for the Democrats two years ago why should it be any different now?  I'll post another discussion later about why I think that liberalism is still going strong in America. 

Feminine Role Models in Movies

    I was reading a Newsweek article,  I'm trying to wean myself off Newsweek because it has definitely drifted into the irrelevant and superficial category.  Not to mention that it's likely to go under soon.  The subject matter of the article got me to thinking about the representation of women in kids films.  I often don't think about these things because as a young man it doesn't register with me as an issue as much, though sometimes it does.  This got me to thinking about the kinds of female characters that are portrayed within fiction.  The article talks about women in kids movies but I think there is certainly a large selection of bad female characters in films for adults.  In addition, the image of women in novels has a less than stellar collection as well.  Within my educational required readings there was a decided lack of strong female characters.  I think Hester Prynne was the only one I can remember in my required reading. 
   This post isn't meant to display how bad my education was, what I wanted to discuss was how guys talk about these kinds of things.  Often times the remarks made in response to these kinds of articles, from men, are dismissive.  They wonder why this is a big deal, why we should care about cartoons being role models, etc. etc.  I think this is sort of dim view because there are a plethora of male characters that have a variety of strengths ranging from brawn to brains to idealism, there's hardly a lack and male characters run the gamut.  Female characters are less ranging in their breadth or numbering or the role they play.  It's much the same problem I have with white people talking about the issues of black characters.  Being a white male, I have a large swath of media to draw upon that portrays my demographic in a wide variety positive ways.  There's a heroic white male character for every occasion.  I can name a white male character who is intelligent, moral, physically gifted, and a leader of men: Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze.  Could I do the same for a female character?  A minority character?  Yes, Black Panther, but he also happens to be a comic book character so I'm unsure of the quality of that example.  (I'm aware that Doc Savage is not exactly fine literature, he is a character out of pulp fiction which may or may not be a step above comics.)
    Really, what I think should be considered with regards to female characters in movies is the fact that there seems to be a limited variety of roles, especially with regards to kids movies.  The female character is typically the reward for the male character for doing something heroic, her job is to be attractive and attainable.  There is nothing wrong with female characters being feminine, my understanding of feminism is that women should behave in the manner of their choosing without society defining their role or chastising them for behaving outside the parameters it sets.  The problem comes from the fact that a lot of these movies have only narrow roles for their female characters.  These characters don't have choices and never seem to stray too far from the parameters set by convention. Male characters never seem to find themselves in this position.  I can't think of a movie I saw when I was a kid where the male character's role was to be attractive and attainable only.  Not to say that such movies don't exist, I can just name ones that feature female characters more easily.


*Fixed the post a little because it needed it.

An Introduction

    Originally I felt that the act of blogging was a bit unnecessary, there are no qualifications to begin one other than spare time and desire, and often they have a certain air of certainty that is off-putting.  I hope to continue that grand tradition.  The impetus for starting this blog has to be the recent mid-term elections.  As a Democrat, and rather staunch progressive, it was kind of a blow.  That is not the only reason however, I have often felt that I could create reasonable arguments for policy and that I have a good grip on the nature of politics.  My main goal in life is to do something involving politics but unfortunately I'm just not enough of a masochist to pursue an elected position.  

    What you can expect out of this blog is my view on a variety of situations, mostly politics, though I will drift into other realms as suits my fancy.  I'd like to think that I'm making cogent arguments but I'm pretty sure that not everyone will agree with what I have to say because they have different political leanings and ideological goals.  I'm a progressive, I believe that the state can and should play a role in our everyday lives involving education, infrastructure, health, and protection from monied interests.  I'm generally ambivalent towards markets because what the market corrects for is not always what we as a society want it to correct for. 

    Most people try to cast their views as moderate, non-zealous, or a variety of things along those lines.  I'm not sure if I qualify for that, depending on the subject matter I switch based upon the strength of my feelings.  Like most individuals, if I like things to be a certain way my ideology conforms to it.  Were all of my views to be taken as an aggregate I might turn out to be moderate or radical leftist, I'm not sure.  

   All of that aside, I hope that more people than my mom and friends come to read this blog and feel things about what I said whether they are positive or negative.