Don't Cry For Me Argentina

One test down, six more to go. I think the rate of monetary compensation for a professional career is inversely proportional to the length of the professional exam.

Today, (well, yesterday by this point) is Canada Day. It is a very youthful 142 years old. Happy birthday Canada.

I take ONE week off, and all hell breaks loose. Can’t a man just take a break?

Last Thursday on my way to dinner I was flipping through the channels of my free trial satellite radio when I stumbled across Chris Cornell’s cover of Billie Jean. It was followed by the Alien Ant Farm version of Smooth Criminal and a Fall Out Boy rendition of Beat It. At the time I thought it nothing more than an interesting combination of clever cover songs and moved on to the next one. Only when I arrived at the restaurant and glanced up at the television in the corner did I realize that Michael Jackson had passed away.

Unlike a lot of people my age, I didn’t grow up on Michael Jackson. Pop music wasn’t allowed in our house, and MTV might as well have been the Playboy channel, so I don’t have the same frame of reference as the thousands of people that gathered outside UCLA medical center or the Apollo theatre. The Michael Jackson I remember slept in an oxygen chamber, replaced his nose every other week, and lived with a chimp named Bubbles. But in spite of all the weirdness, Jackson’s influence on music and pop culture is undeniable. High schools in the 80’s were filled with white gloves and leather jackets with more zippers than stitching and black penny loafers moon-walking the halls. “Thriller” killed the radio star, on a channel that prior to Michael Jackson refused to air videos from black artists. He brought Rhythm and Blues into the mainstream and inspired the work of generations of performers, including a white grunge singer from Minnesota, an alt. metal band from Southern California and a pop punk sensation grown in Illinois, not to mention prison dance troops in the Philippines. We truly have lost a legend. Sleep well Michael Jackson. May you find in death the peace you never found in life.

Rough week for deaths. Five hours prior to Michael Jackson’s passing, actress Farrah Fawcett (of Charlie’s Angels fame, among other things) lost her battle with colon cancer. And two days before that we lost “Tonight” Show veteran Ed McMahon at the age of 86. Apparently there’s an old adage that death comes in threes – the old, the sick and the sudden. But if you ordered last week, death would throw in a fourth celebrity for free. (My tribute to Billy Mays. Late night infomercials will never be the same without him.)

For Nevada Senator John Ensign, what happened in Vegas, at least stayed in Nevada. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford wasn’t so lucky. After losing a battle with both the South Carolina Legislature and Supreme Court over federal stimulus money, Sanford simply disappeared. He drove away from the state capitol in a black SUV and dropped off the face of the earth. No one saw him or heard from him for seven days, during which time the lieutenant governor was forced to assume Sanford’s responsibilities. Then, as suddenly as he’d left, Sanford reappeared at the airport in Atlanta, his office claiming he had been “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” (on National Nude Hiking Day, over the Father’s Day Weekend), and was surprised by all the attention the disappearance of a state governor was receiving in the media. Less than 24 hours later, the governor realized that pathetic excuse for an excuse was never going to fly, and decided to come clean. So, after ten minutes of near-incomprehensible blather at his press conference, Sanford broke down and told the truth. He had not been hiking the Appalachian Trail after all. He had been in Argentina. Having an illicit affair. With a woman who was not his wife. Surprise! Sanford went on to admit that on several occasions he used taxpayer-funded trips to Argentina to visit his mistress, but most people tuned out after “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife.”

I don’t care that Mark Sanford cheated on his wife. Personally, I think that the correct way to handle falling in love with someone in a foreign country who is not your spouse would be to divorce your spouse, resign your position and then run off to Argentina, but what do I know. I don’t really care that he lied about having an affair - it’s embarrassing, who would want to admit to that. I don’t even care that the local newspaper surrendered whatever journalistic integrity it had by holding on to the e-mail communications between Sanford and his mistress for five months without reporting it. What irks me about the Mark Sanford circus is the fact that this clown refuses to resign his post as Governor of South Carolina. A decade ago, then Congressman Mark Sanford voted in favor of three of the four articles of impeachment against president Clinton because he felt leadership demanded a “moral legitimacy” that Clinton had surrendered by his infidelity. This means one of three things. One, Mark Sanford was lying. He’s never believed in “moral legitimacy” and certainly isn’t about to start now. Two, Mark Sanford believes that only Democrats need “moral legitimacy” in positions of leadership. Or three, Mark Sanford believes that “moral legitimacy” is a requirement for every leader EXCEPT Mark Sanford. That he, and he alone is somehow greater than the sum of his faults. That the fact that he espouses a belief in lower taxes gives him the right to use those taxes to fund his illicit “business.” That he is so special, so valuable to the bigger picture, that the rules don’t apply to him. The smart money is on option three. At a press conference the following day, Sanford compared himself to the biblical King David, chosen by God to lead his nation in spite of his marital infidelity. Mark Sanford believes he is in the same league with King David. And he lamented Bill Clinton’s hubris. It’s one thing to fail to live up to standards someone else has set for you – or even standards you have set for yourself. But its another thing altogether to fail to live up to the standards by which you judge everyone else.

The Minnesota Supreme Court finally ended the farce surrounding their senatorial election today by declaring Al Franken the winner of the state-wide recount by a margin of about 300 votes. All it took was seven months. Even Florida figured it out in the same calendar year. To his credit, now former Senator Norm Coleman conceded immediately after the verdict was delivered, paving the way for Minnesota to regain full representation in the Senate, just in time for major votes on healthcare, climate change and judicial confirmations. It also gives the Democratic Party the ability shut down any Republican attempt to filibuster legislation, provided they can show the same level of discipline their opponents routinely muster on the issue at hand. But the chances of that are slimmer than a supermodel on a cucumber diet. As Will Rogers so eloquently put it, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

Let’s get a few things straight about this healthcare debate. I keep hearing that the United States has the best healthcare system in the world. American’s also believed they manufactured the best automobiles in the world, but they were wrong about that too. According to the last ranking of world healthcare systems by the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 37th, behind such beacons of science and technology as Oman, Cyprus and Morocco. Yet on the list of most expensive healthcare systems (as a percentage of GDP), the United States ranks second. India’s largest growth industry is medical tourism. Why? Operations costing over $100,000 here are performed for less than a third of that over there - often by U.S. trained and educated doctors. American healthcare the best in the world? No. The most expensive? Yes.

Every day Fox News runs an hysterical story on how millions of Canadians are streaming across the border every year to get treatment they would otherwise have to wait for in Canada. Let’s be honest, some of that does happen. But while we’re being honest, let’s tell the rest of that story. Many - if not most - of those Canadians are on waiting lists for elective surgeries, some for vanity surgeries. And while it is true that some Canadians have to wait for advanced medical care, isn’t it also true that many Americans are denied advanced medical care under the current system because they can’t afford to pay for it and their insurance company refuses to cover it? Is having to wait for treatment somehow worse than being denied treatment?

The argument pushed by opponents of an optional public plan always attempts to raise the specter of some government bureaucrat deciding what treatment you can and can’t receive. But right now, some bureaucrat from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, or Aetna or Humana decides what treatment I can and can’t receive. What’s the difference? Anyone who has ever dealt with private insurance knows it’s FAR from perfect. Public insurance is at worst, an alternate bureaucracy. If you like your private insurance bureaucrat, stay with them. If you think you’d hate the government bureaucrat less, switch. It’s not that difficult. “But Mark, private insurance companies will never be able to compete with a public plan and they’ll be driven out of business!” What a load of doo doo. For eternity conservatives have been telling anyone who will listen that competition is what drives innovation, improves quality and holds down costs. They have also built an entire political platform on the idea that government can do no right, that everything government touches becomes slow, inefficient and doomed to failure. (Somehow none of these indictments seem to ever apply to the military.) So, by their own logic, they have absolutely nothing to fear from a public insurance plan. Forced to compete against private plans providing higher quality services at lower prices, the bloated, cumbersome waste-of-time public plan will force everyone back to private insurance in a matter of months, right? Right? I hear crickets chirping.

The bottom line on healthcare is this, reform is going to cost money. In typical American fashion, everybody agrees that the current system is a failure, but nobody wants to spend any money to fix it. Everybody wants the perfect solution to his/her individual problem at the expense of the rest of the system. It is the reason universal single-payer healthcare will NEVER work in America. This country has been spoiled by too many buy one get one free sales at Walmart. You CANNOT get something for nothing. Don't demand drastic change one moment, then feign shock and awe when you discover the cost. America needs to make a decision. We either accept the system as it is or we change it. If we accept it as it is, then accept that tens of millions of people are going to continue to go without insurance, millions more will lose coverage when they lose their jobs and costs will continue to skyrocket. If we decide to change it, then accept that change is going to carry a significant price tag and quit whining about the numbers.

Additional audio tapes (what?) of former president Richard Nixon were released to the public last week. I didn’t think it was possible to loathe this man anymore than I already did, but people continue to surprise me. On one of the tapes, Nixon can be heard discussing the Roe v. Wade decision issued the day before with several aides. While somewhat ambivalent regarding the concept of abortion, we worried that greater access to it would foster “permissiveness,” and “break the family.” Then he made the following statement: “There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white, or a rape.” The then President of the United States felt abortion was a bad idea - unless the baby was interracial. Then it was perfectly okay. What a lovely human being. Fortunately we are light-years ahead of where we were only 36 years ago.

Last week, the Supreme Court decided 8-1 that the strip-search of a 13-year-old eighth-grader by middle-school officials in Arizona rumored to be providing ibuprofen to classmates constitutes an illegal, unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. I don’t know what’s more disturbing; the fact that otherwise rational adults decided to strip a 13-year-old to her underwear looking for not crack, not heroin, but Advil, or the fact that Justice Thomas doesn’t see anything wrong with that. Even Scalia and Alito got this one right.

Finally, Kodak has announced they will discontinue Kodachrome film due to declining sales volume. What is this “film” business? I’m kidding. I remember film. In fact, I had three rolls developed just last week. (Can you believe it used to come in rolls?) I don’t think I’ve ever shot anything on Kodachrome, but we’ve all seen Kodachrome images, like the famous National Geographic cover photograph of the Afghan girl with the bright green eyes. It was bound to happen, film is rapidly going the way of the 8-track, but I am a little sorry to see it go. There is something comforting about the lineal nature and the permanence of film that just isn't present with digital photography. Sorry Paul. They’ve taken your Kodachrome away.

Multiple Choice

With the exception of the Iranian election fiasco, it's been a pretty slow news week. Lucky for me. I should take advantage of the lull to dissect the healthcare and deficit debates clogging up Capitol Hill. But alas, I cannot. For I am scheduled to take an Architectural Registration Exam next Tuesday and need to instead expend valuable commentary time studying for said test. So, check back next Wednesday for new thoughts on things. Good times, noodle salad.

I'd Like To Try Your Wu Tang Style

Robert Ludlum is DEAD people! Get over it! No more Jason Bourne books!

I’m sure many of you have seen by now the video of President Obama killing a fly in mid-air with his hands. As if it weren’t enough of an accomplishment to be the first black President, we now discover he is also the first ninja warrior elected to the office.

How about those Iranian elections, huh? And we thought political theater was a uniquely American phenomenon.

Last Friday, Iranians went to the polls to either elect and new president, or re-elect the old one. Merely hours after the polls closed, in an election featuring record high voter turnout (around 80%), in a country without electronic voting, where all the ballots must be counted by hand and with less than 20% of the vote counted, government officials declared current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, two votes to one. According to officials, despite the miserable performance (or lack thereof) of the Iranian economy over the past four years, Ahmadinejad won re-election by a greater margin than when he first took power in 2005, and each of his challengers - all of who performed very well in 2005, lost even their home districts by the same two-to-one margin. That would be the U.S. equivalent of John McCain losing Phoenix, or Barack Obama losing Chicago. Seriously. Even McGovern won his home state. Supporters of the current regime point to an opinion poll taken three weeks ago showing Ahmadinejad with a two-to-one lead over his opposition. But wiser people than they are quick to point out that Iranian election campaigns only run four to five weeks, and much changed during the final 10 days of the campaign. The referenced poll is the U.S. equivalent of polling the electorate on January 1st, 2008 and declaring Rudy Giuliani the winner over Hillary Clinton. Rule number one of rigging elections, at least try to make it believable. To paraphrase my lovely wife, they’re making a mockery of sham elections.

It is entirely possible - if not probable - that Ahmadinejad won re-election. No one is disputing that. It is manner in which the supposed victory was accomplished that has lit the firestorm of doubt inside Iran and around the world. Ignoring threats of violence against them, supporters of the primary challenger Mir Hossein Moussavi poured into the streets of Tehran on Monday by the tens-(possibly hundreds)-of-thousands to protest the election results in a scene described by many reporters as the largest demonstration seen in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In response, government officials shot themselves in the foot by organizing a counter-protest of Ahmadinejad supporters on Tuesday while banning all foreign journalists from covering any protests. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei retreated from his endorsement of Ahmadinejad on Saturday to order the Guardian Council to perform a recount of a number of districts in order to affirm or dismiss claims of voting irregularities. But that isn’t good enough for Moussavi and his supporters. They want an entirely new election. Whether or not they get one remains to be seen. It’s highly unlikely given the nature of the Iranian political system. But we’ve seen a lot of highly unlikely things in Iran over the past five days.

As a side note, smart move by the President to largely keep out of what is at this point an internal Iranian affair. He seems to understand something his critics just can’t seem to fathom, a perspective he no-doubt gained through his international background. The primary complaint of foreign nations against the United States is not our wealth, our cultural excess or our trade policy. It is the nasty habit we have of constantly sticking our noses in other country’s business. An unequivocal presidential statement of support for Iranian reformers, as called for by GOP Senator John McCain and Congressman Mike Pence have demanded Obama make, instantly delegitimize the reformers in the eyes of Iranian citizens as pawns of Western governments, and any progress they might have made is null and void. What the President needs to do is let Iranians decide who will represent them on the world stage, and deal with whomever that turns out to be.

Last week Thursday an 88-year-old white supremacist walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and shot and killed the guard that opened the door for him, then continued shooting until he was disabled and taken into custody by security. For the second time in eleven days, a right wing extremist committed an act of domestic terrorism by assassinating an American citizen with whom his ideology took issue. The use of those words is not accidental. Terrorism is the use of violence to advance a political agenda, and assassination is murder for the purpose of gaining political advantage. George Tiller and Stephen Johns were not murdered by some 18-year-old kids with delusions of grandeur. They were assassinated by men with political goals, one the criminalization of abortion, the other a “racially pure” society. There is far more to be said about these incidents than can be given just due in this post. But there is one thought that needs to be explored.

The suggestion has been made that perhaps the right-wing radio talking heads are somehow responsible for the actions of two very disturbed individuals. Let’s put one thing to bed right away. There is absolutely no bright line to be drawn between words on the radio - regardless of how offensive they may be - and gunning a man down in church, or at his place of employment. But there is a tangential connection that the voices in the ether don’t want to acknowledge. Consider the following.

Bill O’Reilly is on a crusade against “gangsta rap.” As far as I can tell, he’s been on this crusade at least as long as he’s been on television. He misses no opportunity to expound upon how thoroughly the songs are laced with profanity, how vile and degrading many of the lyrics are - to women in particular, and how the lifestyle glorifies drug use, violence, apathy and anti-social behavior. Accompanying his rant is always the assertion that while for many/most well-rounded, mature adults, “gangsta rap” is nothing more than harmless entertainment, the genre can be tremendously damaging to impressionable young kids and other unstable individuals. I don’t say this often, but he might be correct. I admit, I own several albums falling into the “gangsta rap” genre. I find several “gangsta rap” artists entertaining. I can even recite the lyrics to a few “gangsta rap” songs. But I am a well-rounded, mature adult. And before I was a well-rounded, mature adult, I was a well-rounded, mature adolescent. I had parents who taught me the value of life, and an honest day’s work. Parents who taught me the value of education, respect for women and how to resolve a conflict without shooting up the neighborhood. I am fully capable of separating fantasy from reality. Unfortunately, there are far too many people who cannot. And because they constantly inundate themselves with violent, degrading, materialistic imagery, they create for themselves an environment in which it is perfectly acceptable to emulate that behavior.

If O’Reilly is bright enough to make the connection between the influences unstable people surround themselves with and the results of those actions when dealing with rap music, why is he too dense to apply the same principles to his own line of work? As difficult as it may be to believe, one could plausibly make the argument that rational, well-adjusted adults could spend 18 hours a day with the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Savage and Beck and derive nothing more than entertainment and the odd kernel of information. Two incidents do not a pattern make, but there seems to be a growing maladjusted segment of the population from whom reality is defined by something other than what is real. And when such unstable individuals are constantly bombarded in the language of war by the asinine notions that their country is “being stolen from them,” that their neighborhoods are being “invaded by foreigners,” that doctors are “committing genocide against babies in the womb”, that the government is coming to “confiscate their guns,” and that the democratically elected government is a “clear and present danger” and a “threat the safety and security of their nation”, why is it unreasonable to assume they will react in any other manner than to take up arms and protect themselves and their loved ones from the enemy? The constant drumbeat of suspicion, hysteria and hyperbole from the right-wing fringe at the very least contributes to a climate of fear and paranoia that affords the unhinged just enough social comfort to believe their radical actions fall somewhere within the realm of acceptable behavior. Gangsta rap never held a gun to anyone’s head and pulled the trigger, just as talk radio never shot up a holocaust museum or blew up an abortion clinic. But if a genre of music can be held responsible for the purported degeneration of the culture, shouldn’t a microcosm of a political ideology that has declared war on sober, rational thought be held under the same microscope?

Late last week President Obama signed new anti-smoking legislation into law giving the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco. I can’t help but be a little annoyed by this bill - as I find myself annoyed with most legislation of this ilk. Over the past two or three decades we have collected mountains of evidence showing the relationship between cigarette smoke and various types of cancer. If General Motors produced a vehicle the contributed to the death of 440,000 people every single year, those cars would be crushed on car dealer’s lots and the company would be sued out of business in a week. Yet instead of simply banning cigarettes, we continue to allow and encourage they be produced for the perversely ironic purpose of funding projects like cancer research and healthcare for children. We tie more and more programs at higher and higher costs to tobacco-related revenue while actively campaigning to reduce the number of smokers generating that revenue. Enough with the mixed signals! If it’s terrible for us, which it is, let’s get rid of it altogether. If it’s not, leave it alone.

Some of you more astute readers out there may have noticed there is some sort of debate taking place in Washington regarding healthcare reform. Apparently this debate has been dragging on for about 50 years now, but according to experts, this time is supposed to be different. Strangely, while the cost of healthcare has exploded over the past half-century, the fear-mongering from the opposition to reform doesn’t seem to have changed at all. But we can explore that next week. It’s not like the issue is going away any time soon.

In a related story, an 18-year-old girl diagnosed herself with Crohn’s disease upon examining her own tissue sample in a high-school biology class. Doctors had been trying in vain to determine the source of her crippling abdominal pain for the past eight years. Might that say something about the current state of healthcare in this country?

Speaking for his party last week, House minority whip Eric Cantor claimed in a television interview with Fox News that there is neither legal framework nor precedent for trying terrorists in U.S. criminal courts. Proof once again that he GOP lives in a world of the GOP’s own creation. Cantor is apparently unaware of the trials, convictions and imprisonment (on U.S. soil) of Omar Abdel-Rahman, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reid, Theodore Kaczynski and Terry Nichols to name just a few. But seriously, facts only get in the way when you’re trying to scare the begeezus out of the masses.

For seven years, Republicans told us that the only way to “support the troops” was to continue to fund the war effort. Anyone who voted against funding the wars - whatever the reason - was unacceptable, un-American, perhaps even providing aid and confront to the enemy. Any Democrat who dared not support the Bush war effort was tarred and feathered as weak on defense and eager to hand over the keys to the country Osama Bin Laden. Yet, this past Tuesday, when the final supplemental war funding bill came before the House for passage, every single House Republican save five voted against it. Not because they had seen the light, or been awakened to some higher purpose, or even decided that the best way to “support the troops” is to bring them home and out of harm's way. House Republicans voted against “the troops” because $5 billion of the $106 billion measure was allocated for assistance to the International Monetary Fund. Apparently, the Republican Party believes that American soldiers aren’t worth 4.7% of a hundred billion dollar spending bill. I want to see that in every single Democratic campaign commercial between now and 2012.

Finally, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has been fired. The new face of opposition to same-sex marriage apparently failed to perform the duties required of Miss California and was released last week by pageant owner and walking hair club advertisement, Donald Trump. Only a few weeks ago, the Donald came to the defense of Miss Prejean, claiming that she was just too beautiful to be fired. Apparently that was only true so long as she was too beautiful at the times and places stipulated in her contract. Once she started skipping out on her appointments to do her own thing - whatever that thing is or was - and costing Trump money, that pathetic justification was out the window. Congratulations to Tami Farrell, the replacement Miss California. She can’t possibly do any worse than her predecessor. The bar has been set pretty low.

Central Perk

It’s snowing in my neighborhood. Apparently the cottonwood trees are pollenating and everything is covered in fluffy white fuzz. It’s like Christmas without the presents. Or any vacation days. Or sub zero temperatures. So nothing at all like Christmas then.

I’m watching Olberman and O’Reilly split screen. Bill is trying to wrap his head around the idea that someone can oppose torture (illegal) while supporting a woman’s right to choose (legal) while Keith sports some hair he must have borrowed from Mitt Romney. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

After a few false positives last week, the Brazilian navy has found pieces of wreckage from Air France Flight 447. What happened to the aircraft still remains a mystery. Due to the location of the wreckage, it is quite possible that the flight data recorders are lost under 4 miles of salt water and may never be recovered. Bad ending to a really bad story.

Monday afternoon the Supreme Court ordered that the sale of whatever is left of Chrysler to Fiat be delayed so that three Indiana Pension Funds can make the argument to the court that they should get more money out of the deal. So much for an expedited bankruptcy. The court offered no reason for it’s decision and no timeline on how it intends to proceed. But in the event the issue is not resolved by June 15th, Fiat can walk away from the deal, leaving Chrysler no alternative but to file for Chapter 7 and liquidate. Ever notice how there’s always one guy on the team who only seems to care about his own stats? It matter that the team is collapsing around him, that the quarterback has to cut back on his deep throws, that the tailback has to split carries with the fullback, that the receiving tight end has to stay in to block to help out a banged up offensive line. As long as he gets his catches, the team be damned. The Indiana Pension Funds are the Terrell Owens of this Chrysler bankruptcy. They don’t really care if a few hundred thousand people lose their jobs, as long as they get a hundred percent return on their investment. Patriots, one and all. Yes, I’ve heard the bogus complaints by people who know better that the UAW “took no haircut” throughout this bankruptcy, that the only thing they gave up was a day of vacation and the antiquated notion of job security. The automakers have been slashing jobs left and right since 2005. Since that time over 100,000 UAW manufacturing jobs have been eliminated in the United States alone. Chrysler has cut it’s manufacturing positions in half. Most retired UAW employees no longer have the pensions they worked half their lives for, or the healthcare benefits they’d been assured of. All their wages have been scaled back, and about two-thirds of them now find themselves under new management. For their trouble, the UAW has been rewarded with a 55% stake in two car companies currently worth absolutely nothing. While all this was happening, the investors in both General Motors and Chrysler - including the Indiana Pension Funds - were being paid what they were due. They didn’t find that unfair at all. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

UPDATE: On Tuesday evening the Supreme Court decided that the Indiana Pension Funds had not met the burden of convincing four of the nine justices that the issue raised is serious enough to warrant a full hearing, and that a majority of the court will conclude that the lower court decision was wrong, thereby clearing the way for the sale of Chrysler’s assets and for them to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the week. Turns out that the pension funds claim that they would receive only 29 cents on the dollar for their investment was, at best, inaccurate, to the tune of 43 cents. Indiana Pension Funds purchased $42 million worth of bonds for a fire-sale price of $17 million. Under the terms of the bankruptcy they are set to recover $12.2 million, 72% of the money they paid into the company. And that’s a guaranteed 72% of their investment, not the 55% of nothing the deal grants to the UAW.

On Tuesday morning the Treasury Department announced that 10 of the major recipients of TARP funding have been cleared to begin returning taxpayer dollars to the tune of $68 billion. According to Geithner, that money will be held in case it is needed to stabilize some other failing institutions, then used to pay down the budget deficit and by extension the national debt. If by some miracle taxpayers get all of the $700 billion TARP and TALF funding back from the banks, it will reduce a $1.2 billion budget deficit to a manageable $500 billion. If, by some miracle.

In an interview with PBS last week on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham made it clear that while he “would really like to vote for confirmation,” he finds himself unable to do so because then Senator Obama voted against seating Justices Roberts and Alito. Nice to see that Lindsey Graham never graduated from the third grade. Note to Senator Graham; grow a spine. If you want to vote for confirmation, vote for confirmation, if you don’t, then don’t. But for crying out loud, do it based of some kind of principle, not some ridiculous elementary school grudge.

On a related issue, much continues to be made of the assertion by some that due to an extra-contextual phrase in a speech, Judge Sotomayor is some sort of “reverse racist.” I stumbled across this gem today in the form of an e-mail to National Public Radio’s “Talk of the Nation.” The e-mailer prefaced his comments by stating that it wouldn’t have mattered to him if Sotomayor was “a man, woman, transgender, green, black, red or white, she erred in her comment that her world view is better than that of a white male.” (Which is not at all what she said, but I guess facts aren’t really relevant here.) The e-mailer went on to write, “...it is different, differently informed, but a brilliant white male once said that all men are created equal. We should find another justice who is capable of thinking larger than his or her self.” Not surprisingly, it never occurred to the writer of that e-mail, that the brilliant white man who penned those famous words contradicted those words every single day of his life on his estate full of men and women he most certainly did not consider equal. I respectfully submit that had Thomas Jefferson been privy to the “richness of experience” of even one of the slaves held at Monticello, it might not have taken 182 years for this country to legally recognize the truth of his statement.

The politics of fear and loathing raised a reported $14 million dollars for the Republican party Monday night at a dinner in Washington D.C. Luminaries like Jon Voight and Sarah Palin, and retreads like Newt Gingrich spent their time at the microphone accusing Congressional Democrats and specifically President Obama of everything from failure to oppression to tyranny to being a “false prophet.” I firmly believe that language is important - that words mean things. And the extreme hyperbole and incredible disingenuous nature of those comments is pathetic. The idea that this president is some sort of oppressive tyrant bent on subjugating Americans is absurd and obviously false to anyone capable of formulating coherent thought, so the fact that those assertions can be used as applause lines in speeches to a certain segment of the population is disturbing and somewhat depressing. We know what real tyrants are like. The 20th century was plagued by them. Men like Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot, men who murdered tens of millions of people and oppressed millions more to achieve some bizarre notion of utopia. To equate the President of the United States with monsters like those for the sin of temporarily nationalizing a handful of financial institutions and two car companies in an attempt to prevent the collapse of the American economy is a perversion of language so disgusting it should be disavowed by every reasonable individual, and the people who spout such drivel should be relegated to the fringes of society - if recognized by society at all.

Walmart announced plans to open 150 stores and hire 22,000 workers nationwide this year. Apparently, when the going gets tough, the tough go to Walmart. I have to admit, I’m a little conflicted about this. There’s nothing negative about 22,000 new jobs in this economy - even if they are nothing more than unskilled, minimum wage positions. But as a pseudo-architect, the thought of 150 new Walmart stores blighting cities all across America makes me sick to my stomach. I think we can do better. I know we can.

The city of Atlanta has begun its campaign to demolish all of its public housing projects by June of next year. It’s an enormous task - Atlanta has has the fifth-largest public housing agency in the nation with approximately 20,000 units. Having worked with public housing agencies for the past nine years, I think this is nothing short of a great idea. It’s sad that it has taken so long for society to realize that when you treat people like cattle, herding them into claustrophobic dilapidated projects, you’re going to get out exactly what you put in. Relocating all those residents will not be easy, it will not be cheap and it will not be without problems. Chicago has been undergoing a similar transformation for several years now with mixed results. But nobody makes the argument that things were better in the projects. It’s a step in the right direction. Keep walking.

Finally, an early morning fire destroyed the Grandview Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, Maine, the same coffee shop that created national media buzz when it opened this past February. Arson is suspected, but no one has been arrested in connection with the blaze. What is it about bare breasts that makes people crazy? Is it the roundness? The firmness? The perk? What is the problem? If you don’t like breasts, don’t look at them. Burning down their place of employment accomplishes nothing. The breasts will still be there. They’ll just work somewhere else and be viewed by other people. Breasts are here to stay. Deal with it.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Just finished skimming some comic art of vamped-up Disney princesses. Creepy. Interesting, but creepy.



General Motors, the American industrial icon, filed for bankruptcy on Monday. Accordingly, it - along with financial megalith Citigroup were dropped from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after 83 years as part of the index. How the mighty have fallen. I don’t have much to write about this, as pretty much everything I noted regarding the Chrysler bankruptcy applies to General Motors. On the plus side, the quick and tidy Chapter 11 reorganization of Chrysler by the federal courts that the experts insisted was impossible appears to be less than a week away from completion, indicating that a similar treatment of GM might also be possible. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the entire state of Michigan hopes that is the case.

An Air France A330 Airbus in flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared from radar Monday morning and is presumed down in the Atlantic. Last radio contact put the aircraft in the midst of heavy turbulence. Several minutes later air traffic control received automated messages of electrical failures, then nothing else. On Tuesday afternoon, Brazilian air force aircraft spotted a three-mile-long trail of wreckage scattered on top of the water. Speculation is that the plane may have been struck by lightning in a storm. This in and of itself is not unusual, airplanes are struck by lightning all the time. But if that is indeed the case, it seems Flight 447 was unable to dissipate the charge. Whatever the cause, it’s been a terrible day for every family that arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport expecting to pick up their loved ones. There’s a reason I don’t like to fly.

Infamous Kansas-based abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his church on Sunday. This marks the first time in 11 years since an abortion provider has been murdered. Tiller was no stranger to violence - his clinic was bombed in 1985 and he survived being shot in both arms in 1993 by individuals violently opposed to his practice. Police arrested 51-year-old Scott Roeder in connection with the murder. Apparently Roeder has a history of protesting at abortion clinics and posting about Tiller on various pro-life websites, but, every major pro-life organization stumbled over themselves this morning to issue statements condemning Roeder’s alleged actions. Two weeks ago in his speech at the University of Notre Dame, President Obama made the point that so many people are either unable or unwilling to concede. At its core, this issue is fundamentally irresolvable. There is no common ground between the poles of a woman’s right to choose vs. a fetus’ right to life. So, as a society we are forced to find some other way to mediate our disputes and work toward a common goal of reducing the number of abortions in this country. It’s more than unfortunate that there are some people who believe that bullets are an acceptable form of mediation.

Arkansas police arrested a 24-year-old Little Rock man in connection with a shooting at a military recruiting office leaving one soldier dead and another wounded. Yet another individual who thinks bullets are an acceptable form of mediation.

Apparently I was so wrapped up in trying to instruct winners to act like winners last week that I missed a couple big stories. The biggest of these was President Obama’s decision to nominate 2nd Circuit Federal Appellate court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill Justice David Souter’s soon-to-be vacant seat on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Latina and only the third woman to sit on the high court since it’s inception in 1789. As usually happens when a justice is formally nominated, every special interest group in the country releases a pre-fabricated form criticism of the nominee. In this instance, since the nominee was selected by a Democratic president, liberal activist groups praise her adherence to established precedent and belief in unenumerated rights, while conservative activist groups decry her as a judicial activist extremist.

All this criticism is of course nothing more than code for whether or not said interest group agrees with her politics. When a judge has served on the bench as long as Judge Sotomayor has, darn near everyone can find a ruling or an opinion or a statement he/she takes exception to. Conservative talking heads have made much ado about a single line from a speech Sotomayor made several years ago that reads as follows: “...I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” De-facto GOP spokesman Rush Limbaugh and Republican retread Newt Gingrich immediately decried her as a raving liberal socialist racist, and demanded she withdraw herself from consideration. I guess in the age of Twitter-sized attention spans it’s pointless to expect the media to investigate or report anything beyond the sound-bite, so I have included some of the relevant context of the speech below.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach. For all of us, how do change the facts that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike, report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race has shaped their careers, from hiring, retention to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom?

Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

After putting the sound-bite in context, it’s pretty clear that Judge Sotomayor is trying to make the point that every human being undergoes different life experiences and it it absurd to think that those life experiences never influence our judgement. But through understanding how our experiences shape our decision-making we can then be vigilant in keeping our assumptions, presumptions and perspectives in check when making decisions. Not racist. Cautious.

As a matter of practicality, short of discovering that Sonia Sotomayor is really a Romulan spy sent to prepare mankind for an impending invasion, there is nothing Republicans can do to derail this nomination. They have only 40 senators, and if they delay hearings until September as ranking member of the judiciary committee Jeff Sessions wants to do, the electoral farce in Minnesota will be resolved, Al Franken will be seated as the 60th Democratic senator and there will be no way for them to hold the process hostage with a filibuster, as many conservative activist groups are demanding they do. And truthfully, even if Franken is not yet seated, unless Sotomayor is Karl Marx reincarnated, Olympia Snow or Susan Collins will provide the cloture vote to prevent the filibuster. So, all they can do is continue to be the party of “no.” And for what purpose? Sotomayor’s replacement of Souter will not shift the ideological balance of the court. The only thing marching to war against a qualified female Hispanic nomination does is hurt the GOP with Hispanic voters, as if the incendiary rhetoric over immigration hasn’t done enough damage to that relationship. The first rule of warfare is to know your enemy. The second is to pick your battles. So far they’re failing on both accounts.

In a related story, de-facto party spokesman Limbaugh is in rare form, assailing the President over the nomination and the nominee over her existence. For years, many Democrats seems anxious that there seems to be no single coherent powerful voice to challenge him from the left. Fortunately in his case, no challenger is required. On an episode of his radio program during the confirmation battles over Justices Roberts and Alito, Limbaugh blabbered the following into the golden EIB microphone:

“I’m tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election. Somebody needs to stand up and say, “When you win the election, you pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don’t come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, all over the court, but until then, SHUT UP! You are really irritating me.”

That’s right. You just read Rush Limbaugh telling Rush Limbaugh to shut the bleep up. What do you suppose the odds are on him talking his own advice?

The California Supreme Court upheld the validity of Proposition 8 making same-sex marriage illegal throughout the state. However, the court also ruled that the 18,000 marriages performed during the period of in which same-sex marriage was legal in California are also valid, and will remain so. Given the facts of the case, it was really the only conclusion the court could come to. However, being California, the players on both sides of the debate realize that the conflict over same-sex marriage is far from over, and will probably be waged again at the ballot box in November, 2010. A team of high-profile attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit charging that Prop 8 violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Many feel it’s too early to mount a Supreme Court challenge, and they’re probably right. But discretion has never been the better part of activism, has it.

The FBI foiled a terrorist plot foiled in New York City by providing the would-be bombers with fake C4 explosives and dummy surface-to-air missiles. Fake C4 and dummy surface-to-air missiles. I hope all terrorists are this stupid.

Finally, Ashton Kutcher, television star and veteran of such movie masterpieces as “Dude, Where’s My Car?” has threatened to stop “tweeting.” Apparently, Twitter is rumored to be negotiating a deal for a reality television show that would put “ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.” Kutcher fears such a program could lead to celebrities - namely himself - being stalked by crazy fans. I hate to say it, but he’s not as dumb as he looks. Of course it would lead to celebrities being stalked, which at some point would probably lead to a celebrity being kidnapped, harmed or worse. But let’s be honest about something. Ashton Kutcher is partially responsible for creating the culture in which a reality show of this nature could thrive. He is part of the entertainment system that now celebrates ordinary everyday idiots for accomplishing nothing more than making fools of themselves on television and on YouTube. If all one has to do to achieve national recognition is to appear in a poor-quality web video falling off the chair he/she is dancing on in his/her living room, how big of a leap is it to assume one can achieve similar fame by chasing down and harassing a celebrity for a hidden camera? Oh wait, I think Kutcher’s already made that show. Might he have “Punk’d” himself with this Twitter nonsense?

It Doesn't Matter What Your Name Is!

There is some big news this week. The President nominated what would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice to the high court on Tuesday, and in response, de-facto GOP leader Rush Limbaugh revealed himself once again to be the blithering idiot a growing number of people understand him to be. The California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, as well as the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in the state before it’s passage. A “homegrown” terrorist plot was foiled in New York City by fake weapons provided by the F.B.I. Mike Tyson’s 4-year-old daughter died in a treadmill accident at her home. And Ashton Kutcher threatened to stop twittering. But I’ll get to all that stuff later this week. Something’s been bothering me for several days now, and I want to get through that first.

Several years ago, before achieving moderate success in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson was a W.W.E. professional wrestler known as “The Rock.” His character was brash, boisterous, arrogant and clever, a huge force of personality, and even as a heel (bad guy, for those not fluent in rastling-speak) he was an enormous fan favorite. As the Rock he delivered many witty quips and biting one-liners to the roar of an approving crowd. However, the witticism relevant to what I’d like to write about would happen as follows: During backstage “interviews,” the Rock would spend a few moments chatting up the interviewer, complimenting him/her on a question or an article of clothing. This would lead the interviewer to drop his/her guard an warm up to him a little. The Rock would then throw out a rather innocuous question, like asking the interviewer his/her name. And as soon as the interviewer opened his/her mouth to respond, the Rock would snatch the microphone from a startled interviewer, look him/her dead in the eyes and scream, “It doesn’t matter what your name is!,” then launch into his remarks concerning the upcoming match. I like to refer to that tactic as “controlling the message.”

Modern politics is a little like professional wrestling. Two bitter rivals, hyping themselves through interviews and public appearances, throwing metaphorical elbows and drop-kicks and head-butts in the policy debate, pinning the opponent by winning elections and legislative battles, then going out for a beer with the rest of the guys after the show. But more often than not, the real winner of a wrestling watch is not the guy that pinned his opponent, but the guy that controlled the message and the narrative of his character. Politics is no different. Winners control the message. Winning gives them the ability to so, and the fact that they do so enables further victories. It is a lesson all winners must learn in order to maintain their position at the top. And no winners in the history of politics more desperately need to understand this than the Democratic party.

This past week, the party lead by a president elected in an electoral college landslide, the party with a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate, the party with more votes in the House than they know what to do with, was completely and utterly defeated in the media this week by a party crushed in the past two two elections, feuding amongst itself and still without a legitimate leader. How did this happen? Because the Democrats failed to control the message. Democrats don’t know how to be winners.

Republicans understand one thing VERY well. Fear. The success of the Republican party is dependent upon creating a perpetual state of fear and loathing. As long as people are terrified, Republicans believe people will turn to them for protection from the ghouls and ghosts and goblins waiting to devour us just beyond our borders - and along the East and West coasts. And last week, the Democrats folded like a bad poker hand, the same way they’ve done time and time again in the face of even the most pathetic opposition. Save for six, every last Democratic senator voted against funding the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a policy every single one of them voraciously endorsed barely four months ago. Instead of making the case that torture is amoral and unethical and should not be undertaken by agents of the U.S. government, Democrats wasted valuable time and resources trying to track down whether or not the CIA gave briefings when they said they did and what the Speaker of the House may or may not have known and when she may or may not have known it.

“But Mark, Nancy Pelosi knew...” IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT NANCY PELOSI KNEW, OR WHEN SHE KNEW IT! Torture is evil, and those who practice torture should be forced to face the consequences of their actions, regardless of who they are. I’ll be the last person to call for an investigation of the previous administration, for reasons I’ve detailed many times before. But if there is going to be some sort of investigation, then everybody connected with torture should be punished, regardless of party affiliation. If it turns out that the Speaker is culpable in some manner, then let the punishment fit the crime. The fact that she may or may not have been told some ambiguous morsel of classified information has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not people were waterboarded 183 times. NOTHING!

“But Mark, Dick Cheney says that if we don’t torture people and intern them indefinitely, then terrorism...” IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT DICK CHENEY SAYS! EVER! For six years nobody could get this guy to open his mouth to anyone with any information whatsoever! Now that nobody is interested in anything he has to say, he won’t shut up! Stop cowering in fear every single time someone utters the words national security! The Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be closed because America doesn’t hold suspects indefinitely without charge, without trial and without punishment. “Terrorists” will not be “released” onto the mainland to hide in your hedges and crawl in through your basement windows while you’re asleep. There are already more than a few convicted terrorists held currently in the nation’s supermax prison, none of them “radicalizing” the prison population, no attempts made to “liberate” them by sympathetic individuals or groups. How many assaults have been made on Guantanamo Bay to free the prisoners?

Grow a spine, Democrats. Quit cannibalizing each other the moment the opposition points a finger at you. And when somebody tries to slap a bumper sticker on you, stalk across the parking lot and key their car. You won the election, act like it. Your President is. Instead of sticking your finger in his eye, try learning something from him. In fact, learn this first: the media is not your friend. It is your tool. Use it to communicate your message. The media will print, blog or broadcast whatever you want, so long as it makes headlines. The President figured this out, who haven’t you? Give the media what it wants, give it headlines. Just make sure they’re your headlines. And make sure the message is loud and clear - louder and clearer than anything your opponents can eek out in the pauses between your sentences. It doesn’t matter what they think. When you want their opinion, you’ll give it to them. If you start acting like winners, people might actually begin to believe you are winners. Imagine the possibilities.

Resolved

I am watching a fascinating episode of Frontline regarding the makings of the current financial crisis and just how close we came to absolute disaster. This is the second time I’ve watched this and it’s just as riveting this time as it was the first time.

So, the big news of the weekend seems to have been President Obama’s appearance at the commencement ceremonies of the University of Notre Dame. In case some people have been living under rocks for the past four months, Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, has been roundly criticized by a particularly vocal group of Catholics and pro-life organizations for granting a pro-choice President an honorary law degree and allowing him to address the graduating class. The way cable news covered the weeks leading up to the speech one might have expected the pope himself to arrive from Rome with a literal army of cardinals, bishops and 700 Club members, ready to retake the sacred institution from the defilement of the presence of the President of the United States. However, as so often happens in these situations, the adults threw tantrums, acting like children and it was left up to the kids to remind them how to act like adults. While grown men tried to shout down the speech, pushed strollers with dolls covered in fake blood along the quad and flew banners with images of aborted fetuses over the campus, the students (95% of whom supported extending the invitation to Obama to speak) respected the office of the President, applauded when appropriate and showed the rest of the country that Americans are more than capable of civil disagreement without resorting to the demonization of the opposing point of view. Cheers to Notre Dame for inviting the President to speak. Cheers to Barack Obama for showing up and tackling serious issues with tact and diplomacy. And cheers to the Fightin’ Irish class of 2009 for demonstrating a dignity so often lacking in our society.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele found himself back in the news this week, vowing to take President Obama “head on” in the coming weeks. In remarks to an RNC meeting in Maryland, Steele told Republicans that “the era of apology is over,” and that a Republican resurgence is beginning. “This change comes in a tea bag,” he declared. Sigh. Still with the tea, huh. The one benefit Steele does seem to bring to the GOP is that he is often an amusing distraction from the ideological and intellectual cannibalism consuming the Republican party. Taking his tea-bagging message to the hip hop precincts.

Speaking of Michael Steele, the RNC as adopted a resolution demanding the Democratic party “stop pushing our country toward socialism.” This is a slight modification from the original resolution demanding the Democratic party rename itself the “Democrat Socialist Party.” Two things. First, you tried this already, remember? Black radical, Weather Underground, Obama sounds like Osama, fascists are communists are Democrats? You lost by eight million votes. Second, you might want to spend a little less time grandstanding and trying to define your opponent, and a little more time trying to define yourselves. Doesn’t matter who your opponent is if you don’t know who you are.

President Obama has selected Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to China. Huntsman, a Republican fluent in Mandarin, was more than a little surprised at his selection, yet accepted the post anyway – pending confirmation by the Senate. Huntsman was considered by some to be a strong senatorial candidate in 2010 and perhaps even a presidential candidate in 2012. But he has decided to put those ambitions on hold for a while to serve in the administration of a political rival. Utah’s a lit like China, right? Sparsely populated, nothing but small towns and a leisurely pace of life. He should feel right at home.

Most Democrats cheered when on only his first full day in office, Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within a year. They would finally be rid of this legally dubious public relations nightmare carried over from the previous administration. They didn’t care how it happened, only that it did. But after a brief respite from the politics of fear, rumors and accusations began to swirl, accusations were made and panic set in on Capitol Hill. Republicans began to shriek about the President wanting to “release terrorists into the United States.” And instead of rationally refuting the insanity, Democrats all scrambled to be the first to cower under their desks in fear of unfounded accusations. Well done Democrats. That’ll show ‘em.

Let’s be perfectly clear about a few things. NO ONE in the Obama administration has EVER advocated RELEASING TERRORISTS into the United States. Contrary to what former vice president Cheney would like us all to believe, not everyone detained in Cuba committed or supported acts of terrorism against the United States. More than a few detainees have been determined over the course of their hearings to be of no threat to the safety or security of this nation. Of those that have been determined to be combatants or support terrorism, not one would be released to roam the highways and byways of the American countryside. The Justice Department proposal would deport some to whatever foreign countries are willing to take them and move the remaining prisoners to the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, or the ADX federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Leavenworth is situated in the middle of a U.S. Army base populated by 3,500 soldiers, and ADX Florence currently houses convicted terrorists Ramzi Yousef, Terry Nichols, Ted Kaczynski and Omar Abdel-Rahman to name a few. (Not to mention the brand new, high-tech, maximum security and completely empty prison in Hardin, Montana.) No rational human being could argue that either of those facilities is less safe than the glorified kennel at Guantanamo Bay. Yet instead of taking a stand and permanently burying the politics of fear, Democrats caved in to the NIMBY mentality and now stand willing to oppose out of one side of their mouths the very policy they’ve been cheering from the other side for the past two years. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Voters in California have rejected all special-election ballot measures designed to close a 20 billion dollar state budget gap. So now, California lawmakers will be forced to return to the legislature to try to hammer out some sort of agreement on massive spending cuts and tax increases to balance the budget. And that went soooo well the last time, didn’t it. There is an old saying, that citizens get the government they deserve. Nowhere in America is this truism more accurate than California. The Golden State’s propensity to litter its ballot with initiatives and clutter its calendar with special elections contributes in no small part to the perpetual paralysis in Sacramento. Before any bill or proposition or initiative is given an opportunity to produce a result, it is superseded, nullified or repealed by another in a special election. The direction of public policy in California depends entirely on which side of the bed the electorate rolls out of on any given morning. For crying out loud people, choose a candidate based out what he/she stands for, vote for him/her, and leave him/her alone to do the job you pay them to do. At the end of his/her term, if you like what he/she did, give him/her a second term, if you don’t, throw the bum out! Please, leave the ballot initiatives to people who actually know what they’re doing.

After being ordered to have her 13-year-old son treated with chemotherapy for his cancer, a Minnesota mother has disappeared with her child rather than obey the court order. According to the doctors, chemotherapy is 95% effective in treating his type of cancer. But his parents opted instead to treat him with holistic medicine, and due to the fact that the holistic treatments were not improving his condition, the court stepped in and ordered the chemo. These cases are always difficult. As a parent, you have the right to raise your children as you see fit. However, at some point, the state has the obligation to step in and protect the welfare of children who are not being protected by their parents. Hopefully someone finds the kid before it’s too late.

Ex-Atlanta Falcon Michael Vick was released from prison yesterday after serving his 18-month sentence for federal dog-fighting convictions. As part of his post-prison rehabilitation program, Vick called the Humane Society and asked to work with them to develop programs aimed at eliminating dog-fighting. Like many people, I’m a little suspicious of Vick’s conversion from animal abuser to animal rights activist. The fact that a demonstration of remorse is a cornerstone of his re-instatement to the NFL cannot be ignored when considering his motives. But there are two other possibilities. One is that the loss of nearly two years of his life, his professional career and 100 million dollars actually brought home the reality of how serious and cruel his actions were, and because of that he has undergone a sobering change of heart. But the other is that maybe his motives don’t really matter all that much, as long as he accomplishes the goal of helping to reduce and eventually eliminate dog-fighting. To paraphrase the Humane Society, “there is a certain segment of society that we can’t reach because they aren’t listening to us, but if they are willing to listen to Michael Vick, then this is a venture worth pursuing.” I tend to agree. I sincerely hope Vick has had a change of heart. But even if he hasn’t, if he can get results where others have failed, more power to him.

Finally, Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker and defensive Player of the Year, James Harrison declined the invitation to travel to the White House with the team to meet the President. The decision was not all that unusual. More than a few athletes on championship teams have declined similar invitations. In fact, Harrison himself declined a previous invitation issued the last time the Steelers won the Superbowl. What made this stand out was the asinine reasoning Harrison offered for his decision. “If you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Harrison said, “invite us to the White House when we haven’t won the Superbowl. I fully believe he would have invited Arizona had they won instead.” Um, yeah. That’s how it goes Jim. Winner goes to the White House, loser goes to the golf course. Why did you have to say anything? Why not just say you didn’t want to go and save yourself from looking like a complete imbecile. Football players have a hard enough time convincing people they are more than over-paid, muscle-bound buffoons without having you confirm the stereotype.