Moonage Political Webdream

That just makes me wonder how much he paid for it.

Burris’s contention is there is nothing in the law that states that a governor can not be tainted in order to appoint a Senator.  However, what Burris is ignoring is what the rest of the world thinks about him. His appointment is tainted. He’s therefore tainted. The fact he’s so enthusiastic about being tainted just makes it look like he’s paid to play to me. Calling himself the magic man certainly doesn’t help his image any either.

Now, where it gets real fun for me is how Harry Reid is dealing with all this.  At first he absolutely refused to seat anyone Blago appointed.  Now, he says there is room to negotiate.  In other words, he’s capitulating.  Dick Durbin is not.  He doesn’t want Burris there at all.  However, both Durbin and Reid are more than anxious to get Al Franken seated even though the election is still contested.  In simpler terms, Burris is there under a cloud and that’s not good, Franken is there under a cloud and that’s OK.  Makes ya gotta wonder what the difference is?  I’m sure Jesse Jackson will have something to say if Reid persists to endorse the candidate who only won by getting the recounts he wanted and dismissing the ones he didn’t while blocking the candidate no one voted for.

Meanwhile, best I can tell, Nancy Pelosi has had nothing to say.

Tags: blogojavich, harry reid, illinois, magic man, nancy pelosi, roland burris, Senate, tainted

No Comments »

People voted for “change” without ever really considering what the “change” was about.  Today we got a few examples.

Bill Richardson, under investigation for pay to play politics ( read taking bribes ), was nevertheless nominated to a cabinet position under Obama’s “change”.  He withdrew his nomination today.  There’s no change when it comes to cronyism.

Leon Panetta, who was the Clinton Chief of Staff, was offered as the director of the CIA.  Nevermind the fact he has no national security experience at all.  There’s no change when it comes to political gerrymandering.  And, regardless of the rhetoric, the only change will obviously be a lesser focus on national security if Obama thinks the Central Intelligence Agency should be run like a civil rights agency.

And finally, Nancy Pelosi is rumored to be stripping the House Fairness rules of 1995 that were enacted to assure all members of Congress, regardless of party, had an opportunity to contribute to the debate and passage of legislation.  And, there’s obviously no change in partisanship.  If Pelosi pursues this, there is no need at all for Republicans to feel the bi-partisan love Obama preached about.  They will be screwed from the get-go.  If this does pass, look for things to get real nasty real quick as the Republicans and independents will have absolutely nothing to lose by going after Pelosi’s throat.  I would suggest playing over and over Obama’s pledges of bipartisanship contrasted to Pelosi’s actions.

The national stimulus package that was supposed to kick-start the economy is now a $500 tax credit.  Where’s the “change” from the last $500 rebate?  Did that fix anything?  Sure, there’s talk of investing in infrastructure, but that’s all it is so far.

But, I did forget the other change we’re looking at so far, Obama is wanting NASA to ditch one rocket for another to do exactly the same thing.

Before Obama can get anything positive to come out of DC, he’s going to have to reign in Pelosi.  She’s going to destroy any good will people have been trying to extend to Obama.

Tags: bill-richardson, CIA, congress, credit, fairness, leon panetta, nancy pelosi, nasa, National Security, partisanship, stimulus, tax

No Comments »

Been reading that Obama is planning on naming Leon Panetta head of the CIA.

A while back I did a series of posts on basically what happened when the security of the United States was wonked to death by people more interested in internal policies than doing what was necessary to protect us.  Basically, the root of the problem as I saw it was that lawyers ran the CIA and FBI instead of security people like the military.  This wonking led to 9/11 and the Iraq War.  Not to fear everyone said, Obama believes in a strong national security.   That was said while Obama was signing onto legislation banning cluster bombs.  Now, we get the icing on the cake, Obama is a assigning a man who once was the Director of the Office of Civil Rights.  Nowhere in his resume, other than a brief stint in the military, do we see anything advocating national security.  We do see him advocating civil rights 25 years after the civil rights movements of the 60’s.  We do see him doing everything he can to prevent off-shore drilling.  We do see him advocating more entitlement programs.  I see a lot of things Leon Panetta can be great at.  And, I do mean great.  But, to put him in charge of the CIA sends a message I am not comfortable with at all.  It’s telling me that the policies of Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton/Janet Reno are back.

Tags: barack obama, CIA, civil rights, jamie-gorelick, janet-reno, leon panetta, National Security

No Comments »

Incoming president Barack Obama stated he wanted a massive economic stimulus package ready for him to sign the second he took office.  I pretty much thought this was symbolic at best, naive at worst.  Almost immediately the second the word stimulus was mentioned, some conservative bloggers went bonkers.

Take some Maalox before you read this headline from The Hill (via HA headlines):

“McConnell says GOP could back stimulus.”

The upshot, as I read it, is that the Republican Party is willing to entertain the Democrats’ massive stimulus so long as they get kabuki hearings and some nominal input into the package.

Here I was, gearing up this week for a united conservative front against the Obama boondoggle, and Mitch McConnell opens his mouth. Where’s my head-banging-against-the-wall graphic again? Oh, there it is:

You’ll have to visit Michelle Malkin’s site to see the cute graphic.  She’s not attacking Obama’s stimulus package, she’s attacking Republicans, or perceived conservatives, for even mentioning the idea they may support a stimulus package.  Of course, a hundred readers had to jump in and and trash Mitch McConnell for the mere thought of supporting the stimulus.

I’ve got problems with this.

Primarily, we don’t have a clue what the stimulus package is.  Now, there are liberal stimulus ideas, and there are conservative ideas.  But, the idea of pumping cash into the economy to get it going is not new.  And, it’s been proven to work sometimes.  The heart of Keynesian economics is twofold:

• a reduction in interest rates.
• Government investment in infrastructure - the injection of income results in more spending in the general economy, which in turn stimulates more production and investment involving still more income and spending and so forth. The initial stimulation starts a cascade of events, whose total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment.

Now, the key here in my opinion is a conservative approach to the stimulus package would be sticking closely to what Keynes originally proposed, investing in infrastructure.  The beauty of that is it creates jobs almost immediately.  The caveat is it creates jobs in the sector most hurt by the economic downturn, construction.  In addition, you’re not bogging down the system for the future.  Once the infrastructure item is complete, you can either fund a new one, or, if the economy is back to where you want it to be, not fund another project.

The liberal approach would be to pour money into services.  The problem with that is obvious I think.  Once you hire someone in the governmnent system, they are there forever.  The caveat argued of course you can always stop funding the service.  But, we all know how often that happens.  Bottom line is once an entitlement is created, it never goes away.  It may change names, but it will be there for eternity.

So, there are two ways we can do this.  Barack Obama has never been called a fiscal conservative.  I’m going to assume he’s going to stay the course he’s pursued his entire political life.  People like Michelle Malkin want us to simply cede that decision to Obama.  People like myself, and apparently Mitch McConnell, want to have some say-so and hopefully get the Democrats to make the right decision.  I’ll worry about elections later, a growing economy means a lot more to me right now.

Additionally, there are the political implications that go a lot broader than pandering to the conservative base..  The Republicans are in a position where they are going to have to oppose a lot of things.  Some of that opposition will get ugly.  Mitch knows Obama’s stimulus plan will not be ready by his inauguration.  It’s just too big, too complicated, and too political.  Toss in the Blago ugliness, the Bill Richardson flap, the Rahm Emanuel rumors, now the Burris and Franken Senate issues, and of course the Rick Warren debacle, and I think Mitch is aware that he doesn’t have to be the bad guy right now.  Obama’s doing a fine job pinning himself in.  If he tried right now, he’d be fighthing a tsunami of media support for Obama.  If he waits a couple of months, that tsunami won’t be so big.  And, if he’s thinking like me, in six months that tsunami may be heading in the other direction when the average Joe becomes aware Obama is not the savior they painted him as.

Tags: economic stimulus package, infrastructure, keynesian economics, michelle malkin, mitch mcconnell

No Comments »

You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it’s almost embarrassing to listen to you.

- Zbigniew Brzezinski

That was Zbigniew’s response to a statement by Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe.  It was in reply to a statement by Joe regarding Yassir Arafat and the 2000 Camp David Summit.  The facts surrounding the quote are debatable, the reply by Zbig priceless.

Tags: brzezinski, camp david summit, morning joe, scarborough, zbigniew

No Comments »

Nancy Pelosi never ceases to amaze me with her ability to say something obviously stupid.  We got another great one today.  A little background first:

After this year’s deluge of tax-rebate checks failed to ease the economic drought, congressional leaders seem likely to try the steady-drizzle approach, doling out a new round of middle-class tax cuts through changes in workers’ paychecks.

Besides delivering on a campaign promise, President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats also will be conducting an economics experiment: Will people spend more if they get an extra $10 at the end of each week than if they get $500 in the mail? The answer should be clear by late 2009.

Nancy’s logic supporting this concept is very simple, of course:

“The impact is faster than a rebate, which takes a few months to get into people’s hands,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., told The Wall Street Journal in November.

OK, let’s do some simple math here.  Let’s assume it takes three months to get your full rebate.  That would be $10×4x3.  That would be $120 with her math.  The previously tried option would be $500.  The impact of spending $500 is always greater than spending $120.  So, no, it would not create a faster impact of any significant proportion.  Sure, you can argue that someone spending $10 now is greater than not spending $10 now.  But, I’m here to tell ya, $10 won’t do squat for the economy.  Economic indicators and the like do not measure the sale of lottery tickets or cigarettes.  They look at major expenditures like housing, car sales, etc..  $40 a month ain’t going to do anything for any of those.  The reason the last stimulus didn’t work because it didn’t affect housing or give people enough relief from their debt load.  And, that’s the reason this one won’t work either.

It also amazes me that Nancy Pelosi will resort to using the exact same “failed policies of the Bush Administration”, re-package them as her own, and sell them to the public with not one single person outing her for what she is.  And, if this is the tax relief for the working class Obama promised, we’re screwed.  And quite frankly, he probably is too.

Bottom line, we don’t need handouts, we need jobs and a vision to create those jobs.

Even bottomer line, this ain’t an experiment in the first place, it’s a watered down version of trickle down economics.  But, since that was coined by a Republican, Nancy will have to call it something else.

Tags: $500, economics, idiot, math, nancy pelosi, obama, rhetoric, stimulus, tax, tax relief, taxes, trickle down economics

No Comments »

During the recent debate over whether or not to give US automakers a loan, bailout, or any help at all, the Big Three were constantly trashed for poor management.  Our entire system of making cars was put under scrutiny, with the unions taking a huge brunt of the assault.  A lot of people argued for simply letting them go belly up and take the economy with them.  The counter argument became that those who thought the Big Three were a corrupt, bloated, and obsolete management style were only Republicans in the South who relied on foreign automakers ( read non-union ).

Well, as of today, that worm has turned.

Toyota seen posting first-ever operating loss

The icon of how to do it right isn’t so right at this time either.  This raises all kinds of issues:

• Since Toyota is a major manufacturer in the US, how will their situation affect the manufacturing chain Ford says depends so heavily on all participants being healthy?
• Who will bail out Toyota if they get in deeper trouble financially?  Us or the Japanese?
• There are several joint ventures between Toyota and US automakers, do we just let those die?  ( read lost jobs )
• Who’s going to deal with the laid off Toyota employees?
• Will the unions go to bat for Toyota as they did GM and Chrysler?  I mean, it’s the economy stupid, a job is a job.
• Will Marie Cocco and others rejoice in the demise of Toyota?  I mean, since Toyota is non-union, they must not have been promoting the middle class in the first place.
• Since Toyota is the only company to successfully market an electric car, will this be the nail in the green car movement?

The list goes on and on.  The debate over bailing out the automakers has been about as stupid as any debate I’ve ever witnessed barring Iraq.  What the problem with Toyota illustrates is there is a indsutry wide situation occurring not specific to US automakers.  In my opinion, it changes the whole bailout ballgame and makes Bush’s actions appear more close to right than the opponents ( of which was, may still be ).  Toyota is not subject to union expenses.  They are not subject to a massive retirement fund.  They are not subject to any of the obvious ailments the US automakers are.  Therefore, their example can no longer be the holy grail that people like me have fallen back on.  We’re going to have to look a little deeper at what the problems are, and therefore what the solutions would be.  Sure, it’s obvious that ditching the unions will make cars cheaper.  But, since Toyotas already are cheaper, that’s obviously not the only answer.  I don’t what it is right now.  I guess I’d be rich if I did.  But, I had two arguments in this debate that I pretty much held onto:

1. The primary ill for domestic makers was the unions.
2. The second problem was not looking to the future with their products.  We should all be driving electric cars by now.

I’ll stick with #1 with the caveat that #1 wouldn’t matter so much if they had done #2 a long time ago.  With the drop in gas prices, I’m afraid #2 will be put on the backburner even farther that it already has been.  That being the case, #1 will continue to be the primary problem.

Tags: automaker, chryler, Ford, GM, loss, toyota, uaw, union

No Comments »

The election of 2008 was running pretty good for John McCain for a while.  He had chipped away at Obama’s lead for a while and gotten a good boost from the publicity of the national convention and his choice for vice president.  Then, a couple of things seemed to totally derail his entire campaign.  I think when pundits look back, they’ll say this one was all about the economy.  One of the keys of the economic downturn was the gas crisis.  During the spring and summer the price of gas climbed steadily, then in the fall, it shot up like a rocket with seemingly no end in sight.  Come the first Tuesday in November, McCain was toast as he seemingly had no response at all to the gas crisis as well as the other economic issues that seemed to cascade with the gas crisis.

Then, immediately after the election, a funny thing happened to the price of gas with no real concrete explanation given:

Price of crude for 20 years

 The price of crude lost 75% of its value.  Some have pinned the drop on the world economic crisis that seemed to be predicated by the gas crisis caused by, well, the people who have now decided crude wasn’t so expensive after all.

I don’t really believe in conspiracy theories.  However, the timing of this seems rather curious.  The economic downturn was in full bloom by September, but the price kept climbing.  So, to argue the forces that drove the price down now didn’t apply then doesn’t really jive with me.  Sure, there’s always a lag, but futures investing involves hedging on what a person perceives ahead of time, not behind.  So, to assume all the futures investors didnt’ think the economic downturn that started this summer with the gas crisis and finance crisis would affect the future price of oil is completely disingenuous ( a big word for bogus ).  The conspiracy theory that very easily flows from this is OPEC decided who they wanted and got’r done.

The more logical approach is that it seems kind of odd that OPEC would want Obama since Obama took a very aggressive attitude against OPEC during the elections.  McCain wasn’t any easier on them though.  However, in June 2008, the house of Saud “endorsed” Obama.  They felt “change” was good.  Apparently they got’r done.

Tags: crude, election, manipulation, obama, oil, opec, presidential, price

No Comments »

A lot has been made of Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren to give an invocation at his inauguration.  A lot of people are upset.  I’m not.  This really isn’t much of an issue that affects my day to day life.   What I have enjoyed is watching people who advocate various political policies squirm.  The left is pissy about it.  The right, for the most part, seems to be chuckling.  Then I stumbled upon the oddest defense of Barack yet:

Like other gay Republicans, I have been amused by the brouhaha among gay activists, bloggers (and their allies on the left) over President-elect Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren, a proponent of Proposition 8 which bars the state of California from recognizing same-sex marriages, to offer the invocation at his inauguration.

Unlike some of my ideological confrères, I don’t see this as a sign that he has thrown his gay supporters under the bus.

That was written by B. Daniel Blatt, a gay REPUBLICAN.  He doesn’t think Warren’s anti-gay rants and opposing Prop 8 in California is something people should be concerned with.  After all, Warren says he has a hundred gay friends. ( I sorta doubt that. )

On the Democrat side, I guess my favorite gay Democrat would have to be Barney Frank.  He gives me all kinds of stuff to write about.  Here’s his opinion:

”Mr. Warren compared same-sex couples to incest. I found that deeply offensive and unfair…. If he was inviting the Rev. Warren to participate in a forum and to make a speech, that would be a good thing. But being singled out to give the prayer at the inauguration is a high honor. It has traditionally given as a mark of great respect. And, yes, I think it was wrong to single him out for this mark of respect.”

That is coming from a gay DEMOCRAT.

So, we got Republicans endorsing Obama and Democrats openly opposing Obama.  Granted, it can be argued Frank is a little more of a spokesperson for the Democrats than Blatt is for the Republicans.  However, the problem I have with making this any more equitable is any time a Republican is associated with being gay, the media treats it as a scandal and they either resign, retire,  or get voted out.  If not, they are just “disgraced” forever.  If a Democrat does it, no one cares and they are treated as an icon on the issue.

So, the “scandal” to me is not so much that Obama picked Rick Warren, it’s how the media is dealing with the entire issue.

But if you want my own opinion, I think Rick Warren was a bad choice simply because he’s been divisive in his ministry and we just don’t any more polarization.  I would have picked someone who displays unrelenting humbleness, which is what I look for in my preachers.

Tags: barack obama, democrat, gay, homosexuality, humble, inauguration, Media, media bias, polarization, republican, rick warren

No Comments »

Well, in all fairness, they want to tax pretty much everything.  However, I’m gonna pick on this one issue right now.  To be able to increase the state budget, Gov. Paterson ( he’s a Democrat ), wants to increase taxes on a lot of things that have gone pretty much untaxed in the past.  However, he’s wanting to add taxes to some specific items.  Oen of those is high energy drinks.  The state’s claim is that “People don’t really realize the amount of calories they’re ingesting through liquids,” said Joe Baker acting deputy secretary for Health and Human Services to the governor. “They say, ‘Oh, it’s just a drink.”‘  The American Beverage Association is opposing this tax, of course.  Their claim is:

Furthermore, the governor’s rationale for the tax is flawed; it makes no sense to single out one food product as the cause for obesity. There is no science or logic that justifies it. Rather, we need to focus on promoting balanced eating habits and more physical activity. Until we get our kids exercising more the scales will be tipped against our next generation.

They also toss in the fact that the economy is bad and people need jobs.

Now, I don’t like higher taxes on anything.  However, I like to look at any debate from the merits of the debate itself.  On this one, the ABA is making a horrible argument for their cause.  Several things make me feel this way:

• There are tons of studies and research that directly link excessive calorie intake with obesity.  Find me a diet plan that does not control calorie intake.
• There are direct correlations between the advent of high energy drinks circa 1985 and the increase in Attention Deficit Disorders.  It has been proven that some, if not most, ADD sufferers have problems with blood sugar control.  Wanna fubar your blood sugar real quick, drink a high energy drink.
• ABA is arguing that there is no science or logic to justify targeting one individual product.  People will counter that this one individual product is designed for stimulation only and has no health benefits whatsoever.  That’s been the argument for taxing the hell out of cigarettes for the last twenty years.  It’s been the argument for taxing alcohol since prohibition.  Sure, you’re not going to find “science” supporting the argument that only high energy drinks cause obesity.  But, that’s not addressing the issue.  The issue is that things that are there for stimulation only, and one could argue designed for addiction only, are considered “sin” items.  “Sin” items have been taxed forever.  The argument is whether this is a “sin” item or not.  I don’t see how ABA can make the argument it’s not.
• As far as the economic argument goes, I don’t see how expecting people to pay an additional surcharge on one product will affect 160,000 jobs.  Now, if it were up to me, those drinks would be banned entirely.  That would affect some jobs.  But, since most of those 160,000 jobs produce a lot more products than just the high energy drinks, I doubt it would cost anyone a single job.

Bottom line, the “jolt” in caffeine in these drinks is caused by a drug.  The “jolt” from crack is caused by a drug.  One is legal right now, one is not.  I think we should do a lot better job protecting our kids from intentionally addictive stuff.  There is no argument for allowing kids access to a drug that intentionally cranks them up.  Now, I don’t know if studies have been made to see if kids who like to get cranked up on Jolt Cola push that button further with stuff that cranks them up even more.  If kids today are anything like the kids I grew up with, the answer would be “definitely”.  I don’t know if there has been studies on people getting addicted to caffeine, if there is anyone else in the world as addicted to coffee as I am, then the answer is “definitely”.  So, for the American Beverage Association to summarily dismiss “logic” that their product causes problems is offesnive to me.

Snide summary:  Maybe if they stayed away from the product they endorse, they wouldn’t have felt so rushed and could have come up with a better response.

Snide summary #2: Kentucky is once again looking at increasing taxes on the only sin they can think of, tobacco.  Maybe if that tax was distributed to other “sins” such as these high energy drinks, more money would be raised for the state to waste since from a lot of studies, it’s easier to quit smoking than to quit sugar.

Tags: addiction, american beverage association, attention deficit disorder, caffeine, calorie, cola, high energy drink, jolt, new york, obesity, paterson, sin tax, tax, tobacco

No Comments »