Analysis – Obama’s Feet On The Resolute Desk & The Partisan Mind
This analysis is actually fairly easy because, although I make no secret of my disagreement with Barack Obama on a number of issues, most of the complaints lobbed at this president these days by Conservatives never rise above dumb, easily dismissed hypocrisy and partisan buffoonery.
For example:
There are lots of Conservatives out there whining about this man putting his feet up on the Resolute Desk, claiming it proves he is an arrogant ass who has no respect for the office of the presidency…
… but oddly draw no similar conclusion about this man:
Likewise, I can imagine there were Liberals whining about Bush putting his feet on the Resolute Desk who would not be voicing such complaints about Obama now.
Why? Because partisan thinkers (on both sides) are dishonest and stupid.
Leith List – Sarah Palin’s Crib Notes
Striking the Right Chord. Firstly, there’s nothing at all wrong or shameful about Sarah Palin having notes scribbled in the palm of her hand during a Q&A at the recent Tea Party summit. She’s only human, after all. Still, to use such crib notes while whining and snarking about Obama’s ever-present teleprompters was hypocrisy. But at a convention of plutocrat-resourced activists claiming to be grassroots, using decades-old anti-Republic talking points while claiming to be a spontaneous uprising, and claiming to love the Constitution while seeking to bleed dry the Republic that is its very manifestation … perhaps such self-contradiction was perfectly in tune with the hypocrisy and self-delusion of the event.
Bottom line: A political house built on the sands of deceit will not stand.
Analysis – Tea Party Convention Attracts “Sellout” Crowd
You Don’t Make Tea With Hot Air. FOXNews.com told more truth than it probably intended when it reported that “the first ever Tea Party Convention has attracted a sellout crowd of a thousand activists.”
Key phrases: “sellout” and “a thousand activists.” This Tea Party phenomenon is not now, nor has it ever been, a grassroots movement in the interests of average Americans or in the “No Taxation Without Representation” spirit of the Boston Tea Party.
Firstly, the movement got its name last February when CNBC reporter Rick Santelli stood on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (not exactly Main Street, USA) and whined about having to help Americans who were duped by financial professionals into taking on more mortgage credit than they were able to bear.
This same financial elite had already successfully subverted the free market by using their influence in Washington to force new contract terms on everyday Americans who did not have their financial expertise. And now, they’re whining because they might have to foot part of the bill to clean up the housing mess they created through professional incompetence and/or dishonesty.
When Santelli, apparently ignorant of the historical context of the Boston Tea Party, half-jokingly proposed a similar protest to protect the financial elite from the consequences of their own massive scam against American home-owners, the plutocrat flunkies on the floor whooped a war cry.
Secondly, as has been pointed out to the point that Tea Party supporters really no longer have an excuse, this movement has been egged on from the very beginning by agents of the financial elite. In fact, just hours after Santelli’s “Tea Party” rant in front of the agents of the financial elite, the Americans for Prosperity think tank registered the taxpayerteaparty.com domain.
But, who founded Americans for Prosperity, you ask? Grassroots citizens fighting the socialist schemes of the Left? Joe and Jenny Sixpack, tired of having their hard-earned wages taxed by Big Government? Nope. It was founded by the Koch brothers, two of the world’s wealthiest billionaires, who inherited their fortunes and their oil company from their father.
Tea Party supporters who were inspired to join the movement after 19 February 2009, meet your Masters.
Thirdly, the tax-whining elites stirring up this rebellious fever on America’s patriotic Main Street are from the same “starve the beast” cabal whose explicit political goal is to denigrate and reduce America’s constitutional government until they can “drown it in a bathtub,” replacing our blood-earned Republic with the unaccountable power of the private sector elite.
In other words, it’s really not so much about the tax money you get to keep in your wallet; it’s more about the resources the American Republic does not get to have in order to do things like establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the Common Defense (absent high-paid corporate mercenaries), promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty.
So much for the claim that the Tea Party movement wants to defend the Constitution. Perhaps the supporters on Main Street do, but the ringleaders on Wall Street would like nothing more than to preserve the Constitution … on a curio shelf as a relic of the brief moment between the Imperial British plutocracy of the 1700s and the corporate plutocracy of the 21st Century.
Fourthly, all this “Tea Party” rhetoric from the “thousand sellout activists” in service to the corporate elite is particularly hypocritical in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision giving corporate “persons” a louder representative voice in Washington than millions of everyday Americans could muster if they joined together.
The Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, not taxation with representation according to how many campaign dollars you can spend.
Finally, if this movement were truly about the spirit of the Boston Tea Party and its ethic of “no taxation without representation,” then the No. 1 item on its agenda would be granting full congressional representation — or exemption from Federal taxation — to residents of the District of Columbia.
Considering that most of this tax-whining is taking place in parts of the country where Americans actually have voting representatives on Capitol Hill, it’s remarkable that the “thousand activists” inciting all this anger have the nerve to invoke that sacred moment in our nation’s history. Frankly, the “sellout” leaders of this movement are treating their supporters like idiots.
The silver lining, of course, is that these supporters seem to be waking up to the fraud.
Leith List – Tea Party Profiteering
Pay No Entry Fee To The Man Behind The Curtain. Tea Party supporters — who have long been incited from above by agents from political groups funded by the rich — are now starting to wake up to the reality that their movement is little more than another avenue for profit. The reality behind all this “big government” whining is that the financial elite’s unsavory elements (not all rich people are so seditious) would like nothing more than to starve the American Republic to death and replace its accountable, democratic power with their own unaccountable, plutocratic power.
Bottom line: You can invest in a strong American Republic with institutionalized civil rights and democratic accountability, or you can throw in your lot with plutocrats who care nothing about your rights (except to invoke them as a marketing technique) and respond to nothing but the dictates of Mammon.
Leith List – AIG Plans More Bonuses For Failed Business Unit
The Proof Is In The Padding. Do you believe that a competitive free market meritocracy is the best road to long-term prosperity? So do I. That’s why we should be angered to learn that AIG is once again planning to dump six digits worth of bonuses on the business unit whose survivor trading (read: scamming & gambling) nearly destroyed the company and contributed to the near-destruction of America’s economy. Do you remember the part in free market economics where we reward failure? No? So, this must not be free market economics, huh? It’s top-down, command economics, just like in Medieval feudalism and the Soviet Union.
Bottom line: Rewarding failure because it happens in a seat of wealth is plutocracy, plain and simple. It’s un-American, and it’s a violation of free market principles. And, those who say AIG is bound by contracts that do not allow withdrawal of bonuses based on performance (whether this is true or not, I’ve heard this argument) should understand that such contract language would itself be a violation of free market principles.
Leith List – Gays In The Military Yes, Political Fraud No
Pious Fraud Is Still Fraud. Regular readers know that I have long believed that any morale problem caused by gays in the military is due to the undisciplined homophobes, not the homosexuals. However, announcing his plan to drop the current rule of ”don’t ask - don’t tell - don’t pursue - don’t harass”* President Obama made the dishonest claim that “the law … denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.” Firstly, there is no such “right” to serve, neither morally nor legally; a constitutional lawyer like Barack Obama should know this and be honest about it. Secondly, given the “don’t pursue - don’t harass” provisions, the rule does not make gays ineligible to serve “because of who they are,” but instead sets up protections to defend them from being forced to leave by others seeking to out them involuntarily. It’s a ridiculous rule, which should be repealed, but it does not do what Obama claims it does.
Pattern of Liberal Hyperbole: Obama’s exaggeration is similar to the dishonest claim by Keith Olbermann that banning gay marriage denies homosexuals happiness and companionship. (Cue the knowing chuckles of straight married/divorced people across the country.) Pundits and politicians lying “to support a good cause” is really just supporting the cause of lying pundits and politicians.
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* How many of you knew that those last two prohibitions were part of the policy? If you didn’t know, it’s because your sources of information (likely activists and pundits) are either ignorant of the whole truth or purposefully withholding it from you.
Leith List – Iráq’s Rising Violence and the Rearview Mirror, Part 2
No Credit For Cassandra. A couple of months ago, I mentioned that “hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in multiple bombings.” I could open with the same sentence today, as Sunní terrorists claiming ties to Al-Qáedah target Shí’í pilgrims and the Ministry of the Interior’s investigations directorate. Long-time readers may remember that I predicted years ago (in Iráq – Forfeit, Fumble, or Field Goal, Feb 2007) that partition of Iráq was inevitable.
What I Said Then: “The only real choices we have are: How violent will the process be? How many Iráqís and Americans have to die for a country that never really was? How will America’s reputation fare at the end of it all?”
Leith List – Overreaching to Mars
A Non-Bridge Too Far. A few days ago, I reacted to reports that the White House was nixing plans for an American return to the Moon, in favor of the International Space Station, by calling it “one of the dumbest mistakes in human history.” Now that it is confirmed that the administration wants to abandon Lunar plans while pushing for a manned mission to Mars, my assessment has not changed much. While the Mars component of space exploration is critical, leaping a hundred million kilometers without consolidating our current stepping stone on the nearby Moon is like building bridge without a middle span.
Observation 1: The Obama administration seems at times to fluctuate between timidity and rash overreach, and current NASA reform is no exception.
Observation 2: Focusing on the ISS and Mars while ignoring the Moon echoes the weird gaps in the high-speed rail proposal. Just like in America’s intelligence failures, dots are failing to be connected due to foolish leadership.
Leith List – Haiti And The Other Side Of Expansionism
Invitation Only. Although it should be clear that driving Native Americans from their land and overthrowing the Hawaiian government were inexcusable and imperialistic, the paternalistic passivism that leads many Americans to balk at the very idea of American expansion and “policing the world” is unveiled by the desire of many Haitians that the United States to “take over” the country, replacing the Haitian government. Some political wonks might remember whispers of the Canadian maritime provinces appealing to join the US had Quebec gained independence during the sovereignty crisis in the 1990s. General immigration trends should also be noted: people want to be Americans.
Bottom line: The United States should not be seen as a sealed and settled set of 50, but as a living Union open to possibilities, territories, and yes even new states. The past abuses of American expansionism should not blind us to the possibilities of its benign implementation, not the least of which would be the end of brutal cycles of intervention, withdrawal, and decay leading to renewed need for intervention.
Question – Why Is The High-Speed Rail Proposal So Disjoined?
Taking a look at the Department of Transportation’s suggested high-speed rail lines below, can someone explain why there are routes to Eugene, Mobile, Tulsa, Little Rock, and Louisville* — and those two weirdly duplicate, 100-mile-long lines connecting Chicago directly to Toledo and Detroit rather than running a single line through Detroit to Toledo — but no connectors between the main network and the three nearby hubs so that people could travel high-speed from New York, DC, and Atlanta to Chicago, Miami, or Dallas?
* No offense, guys.
Leith List – White House Ceding America’s Claim To The Moon?
Fly Me To … A Couple Hundred Miles Away. If reports are true that the Obama White House is abandoning plans for a solid-ground lunar outpost to keep the clumsy International Space Station (ISS) floating around in mid-space (while throwing a lucrative bone to private, for-profit space shuttle service) this will be remembered as one of the dumbest mistakes in human history. We are on the edge of becoming a space-faring civilization, and the Moon is the first real stepping stone — not some tumbling can in free fall about as far from Earth as DC is from New York. The ISS is a false start; whoever establishes a base on Luna first will have an unprecedented advantage over everyone else on the planet.
Bottom Line: When Obama said “I will not accept second best for the USA” during the State of the Union address, I took him at his word. Retreating from plans to build a base on the moon is worse than second best; it’s essentially closing out America’s chapter in the history of humanity, because the next chapter will be written far beyond the orbit of the ISS.
Analysis – Obama’s Suggestion Would Not End Wasteful Spending
In the State of the Union address on Wednesday, President Obama suggested lawmakers publicize the earmarks they request — for transparency — claiming this would reduce pork spending.
The problem with this is that a lot of pork actually helps lawmakers get reelected. This is why, for example, you end up with an FBI fingerprint facility in the hills of West Virginia, far from FBI headquarters, thanks to Senator Byrd. Transparency in the earmarks a lawmaker requests is not going to put an end to pork, because constituent enthusiasm for such earmarks is exactly why pork exists in the first place!
In fact, a better suggestion would have been forbid lawmakers from taking credit for requesting earmarks. Obama’s suggestion would only be logical on Opposite Day.
But, more realistic than a gag order on members of Congress, the best way to stop pork is more transparency in who votes for an earmark, not who requests it. After all, those who suggest wasteful projects for their own state or district can’t push those projects into law on their own. It takes backroom deals and trades between lawmakers to transform these suggestions into revenue-sucking waste.
And I guarantee that voting for a pork project in some other lawmaker’s state or district would not be a successful campaign point.
That’s why my proposal of line-item voting is the best solution to such spending, because it shines a light where the light would be most effective in stopping the waste. Show voters not only which earmarks their Representatives and Senators request, but which ones for which they actually cast votes, item by item.
Again, inside-the-Beltway suggestions for how to rein in wasteful spending prove more rhetoric than realism.*
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* Ok so, as a DC resident, I also live and work “inside the Beltway” technically speaking.
Obama’s State of the Union
Last night, I tweeted live on Obama’s State of the Union address from The Leith List’s Twitter account.
I fully intended to be as skeptical as I was with George W. Bush, and during Obama’s previous speeches before Congress. (I know that might be hard to believe with a “Progress” image on the left, but rest assured I originally uploaded that graphic for a blog post beside which it made ironic comment.)
However, despite a few irrational comments or promises, the address was Obama at his best, at least from a rhetorical standpoint. My tweets, in chronological order but without timehacks, are below. Where appropriate, I have added clarifications in green.
If Only – Diane Rehm and Botulinum Toxin
NPR talk show host Diane Rehm: “We use Botox for reducing wrinkles and spasmodic dysphonia and medical uses in very low amounts, although others want to use it for terrorism, which is a very different use.”
Me [touching chin thoughtfully and leaning forward] : “How different?”
Leith List – Laying Seige To America From Within
Now that conservative operatives have been caught attempting to set up espionage equipment in the federal offices of Democratic Senator from Louisiana Mary Landrieu, it’s clear that the spirit of Nixon is alive and well on the Right. Lawyers for one of the accused tried to excuse them by reference to their being “highly educated.” Yeah, because it’s no biggie when federal criminals spying on their own country’s elected representatives have advanced degrees.
Action item: While America is under seige from without by terrorists and spies from extremists China and the Islamic world, the last thing we need is more domestic terrorism and espionage from conservative extremists attacking America from within. The Department of Justice should prosecute these smug turncoats with the harshest punishments available.
[Update: The conservative operatives in question are being charged with lesser crimes than wiretapping, and now claiming to have intended to "test" the Senator's phone system for disruptions.]
Analysis – Freeing The Poor From Dependence Is Not The Game
In the 1990s, when I was a humble editor-in-chief at the WVSC (now WVSU) student newspaper, I discovered something curious about right-wing attitudes toward the poor.
Specifically, I noticed that some of the names attached to advocacy for “welfare to work” reform were the very same names attached to supply-side economic analysis that a certain level of unemployment was helpful in keeping workers’ wages manageable for business. Essentially, the more unemployment there was, the more willing workers would be to take whatever wage their masters offered.
In other words, these guys were not genuinely interested in welfare-to-work, or freeing the poor from dependence on the government. They were interested in welfare-to-unemployment as a means of transforming dependence on the democratically accountable public sector into dependence on unaccountable, private sector tyrants.
If I had any delusion that these advocates for slavery masquerading as free market economics had faded, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor André Bauer has shattered it with his now-infamous town halls comments.
Leith List – Gibberish and Astroturf in the Tea Party Movement
The Emperor’s New Clothes Are Made Of You. At yesterday’s Tea Party gathering in DC, activist Jenny Beth Martin asserted that the movement was conceived when 22 activists held a conference call in February 2009. How’s that for grass roots? And, at a press briefing, Freedomworks CEO Matt Tibbe said of the Tea Party movement: “We are building a sustainable community of people that believe in freedom 365 days a year.” What sort of “freedom” is he talking about? Well, the anti-Republic anti-tax Freedomworks was once known as Citizens for a Sound Economy. And who are the “citizens” behind Citizens for a Sound Economy? Charles and David Koch, the 19th and 20th richest billionaires on the planet, according to Forbes.
Bottom line: The Tea Party’s “sustainable community” of enthralled Joe and Jenny Sixpacks — filling crowds and holding up signs at these Tea Party rallies — is being ”built” (Tibbe’s term, not mine) by the opportunist lackeys of plutocrats, to bleed dry the American Republic one tax dollar at a time. The only “freedom” they are supporting is the freedom of the financial elite to bypass the legitimate and accountable institutions of democratic power and genuine free markets in favor of the unaccountable, top-down, private sector power of the financial elite.
Analysis – How “Sexism” Enables Sexism
A funny thing happened on the way to sexual equality. Folks on the Left decided that the only way to achieve equality is to brand one side as always wrong, and attribute to sexism (on the part of that branded side) every problem that arises between persons having different genders.
But, having galloped into this blog entry trumpeting such a serious battle call, let me tone it down a bit and turn to comedy. Specifically the quasi-comedic politics on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” and the quasi-political comedy on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show.” Recently, Olbermann and Stewart* had a good-hearted back-and-forth over the former’s blasting of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.
Leith List – Obama On Gender and Wages
Curious Baraxtaposition. At a town hall today, President Obama pushed the Left’s women-exploiting wage discrimination scare tactic in response to a question about completely unspecified (and therefore not necessarily related) injustices at Ford manufacturing plants. Then, he mentioned a recent unidentified study about women making more than men, in order to make the point that husbands should want their wives to get paid fairly. Seemingly unaware of how the study he cited utterly dashed the partisan B.S. about wage inequities, he plowed onward to assert hopes that his daughters wouldn’t face discrimination.
Nelson’s Dictionary: Systemic Wage Discrimination – The idea that American men in 2010 are so incredibly stupid that they would (a) ignore five decades of evidence about women in the workplace since the Equal Pay Act of ‘63, (b) violate federal law, and (c) flush their companies’ money down the toilet paying one equally productive worker more than another, all in order to surround themselves with more penises and fewer breasts.
Leith List – The Supreme Court Campaign Finance Ruling
The Plutocrat’s New Clothes. After torching campaign donation limits as violations of the First Amendment’s Free Speech guarantee — under the fantastical notions that corporate fictions are persons and money is speech — perhaps our Justices can explain this one to me: considering that corporations and unions wouldn’t waste their resources on political campaigns if those investments didn’t shift votes, how exactly is the Supreme Court’s ”One Dollar One Voice” principle substantively different from “One Dollar One Vote”?
Bottom Line: When Big Business conservatives start siding with Big Labor to endorse a “rule by wealth” system of campaigning, Joe and Jill Sixpack should translate this as: “You’re only as American as the size of your bank account.” Is this the America you want? If not, take back your Republic.
