Can Washington Pols see more then 5 minutes ahead?

Yesterday the US senate voted to remove the 60 vote barrier required on Presidential nominees. Essentially saying they did not want or need any support from the other party. 

This is pretty much the same thing they did with ACA (Obamacare).  Toss the rules out so the simple majority can get their way.  

For more almost 225 years, the Senate has been the moderating force in our government ensuring that everyone pretty much has a say in how things got done and further ensuring that we did not have majority mob rule. 

What is striking is that this is not the first time the Senate has considered this action in the face of a small few who felt the need to hold up a nomination.  The irony is that there is a plethora of video out there with nearly every single democrat senator objecting the Republicans doing this same thing only about 10 years ago.  

To say the legislative environment is "bitter" is a gross understatement.  What is at stake is power because we citizens have seen fit to hand it over.  We let Washington dictate to our schools what to teach, what to serve at lunch, how much districts can spend... We let them dictate all sort of things to our states on the environment, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, employment rules. In short, we have a new nanny and it is the Federal Government.  And that role for politicians is a powerful and addictive intoxicant; unfortunately one that is not regulated.  The nature of the intoxicant causes a complete lack of ability to consider consequences beyond a few minutes.

When democrats voted to make simple majority the rule of the day, did they consider the political landscape with the crash and burn of the ACA?  They will almost certainly allow Republicans to keep the house and have put enough seats in play in the Senate that Republicans could very well have both houses in a little over a year?  Does that precedent mean nothing?  How can democrats defend their certain objection when Republican invoke the "nuclear option" once they are back in power?

If the ACA continues on the path of utter decimation of the average persons healthcare, the presidency will also very likely move to the right.  How will the precedent work then?  If Republicans have the house, senate and the presidency, and no filibuster protection for the left in the senate, it is a fair bet that everything the left has fought for over the last 50 years could disappear in a matter of weeks or months.  I am in favor of this - so don be confused.  My point is that it could never happen except that senate democrats have knocked down the trees and started paving the road in this direction.  Their myopic vision will empower the right and have the exact opposite effect on the countries direction that they want.  The right could not have mapped out and executed a better plan.

A Proposition unfulfilled

150 years ago words spoken by President Lincoln, still haunt us.  Not because of their insight, not because of their brevity, not because of the poetic cadence, but because they remain largely unfulfilled.

"...dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..."

This remains an unfulfilled proposition.  The proposition, as I understand it, was that the law should be blind.  All of us start at the same point, and what we do with our lives is a product of our own industry, insight, intelligence, perseverance and intellect.  Yet we continue to not see each other as equals.  We are a selfish and competitive lot.  We use the law and taxes to try to force equality upon us, but those efforts make the proposition of equality yet more difficult to attain.

We recognized that race was making winners and losers in society so we wrote laws requiring a balanced workforce regarding race.  We wrote laws to balance college admissions by race.  We wrote laws that moved money around based on race.   We reasoned that since race was the root of the problem, race could be used to solve it.   But when you dig deep, those laws are doing exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.  Someone is being denied a job or a promotion, or entrance into a college because of the color of his skin.  The person on the losing end of that proposition is not likely to take a position that this is ok because its payback for past wrongs.  It only perpetuates, at a minimum, hard feelings and at worst racism.

How do we define ourselves racially speaking?  What makes us black or white or Asian or Hispanic? We have a president who we call "black," yet his mother is, by most definitions 100% white.  How do we reconcile that?  Can anyone really define race anyway?  It seems to me it is entirely a fabrication of our society designed to push white people to the top of the social standing - affording them better opportunity for power and wealth.

I believe that until the day comes when the law can not tell the difference between a man and a woman, a black man and a white man and an Asian and an Indian and a Hispanic, between gay and straight, the rich and the poor ... until that day comes, much of our law is just an exercise in optics. When in our own minds we can look at each other at a level deeper than color, when we can take a measure of each others character, we will be stuck in an unequal world.

Perhaps in another 150 years, after more homogenization of our DNA, we can see those words as the "realization that all of us are created equal"

Silence... for now

I've been absent from my blog this summer, not from a lack of interest, but because my need to vent has been taken up by Facebook, Twitter and responding to articles and comments on articles directly.

While that's been satisfying, it is defense.  And defense only wins if it's complimented by an effective offense.  In the world of politics, offense is probably best done with effective and original ideas that provoke discussion and challenge conventional thinking.  So I'll make a more dedicated effort to keep my thoughts here original rather than responding to what I hear and read.

Responding to what I hear and read though, is pretty much what I will do here today.  And that is not a contradiction at all.

As summer drew to a close, the buzz in the political world was what would happen at the beginning of October when Obamacare rolled out.  The focus was on the web site.  The first wind I got about cancelled policies was shortly after that.  Then, as media types began to penetrate the layers of the web site, and actually saw their own Obamacare rates, their collective jaws dropped and, slowly, the stories emerged from even the most left leaning outlets like MSMBC that this was not what was promised - that the process was not easy and the RATES were not lower.

Pardon my snicker for the past 3 months.  I probably posted 100 links to stories on my facebook backing up my belief that this healthcare law was going to be a disaster. Imploring my liberal friends to acknowledge this was naive - I admit that.  In the past, they would post comebacks and we would have a sometimes very long thread of back and forth.  They never really ended, we just got tired, until another post came up that threw more gasoline on the dying embers.

But since early October, there has been a notable change.  No long threads.  No arguments.  No nothing. No one will engage.  A few of the weaker souls unfreinded me, but most have stopped posting altogether on politics and have reverted to pictures of their supper or their cat. Silence.  I don't struggle to understand that.  I get it completely.  I am not the type that wants to throw salt in the wound either.

The build-up to a big game is filled with bravado and claims of superiority. Doesn't matter if it's a high school rivalry or the Super Bowl.  Everyone is confident. Everyone feels confident in victory and confident that if they brag enough, the team will not let them down.  Then the big game comes and one team and its fans celebrate.  The other team's fans slip into a sort of sulking hangover.   Every word seems painful and its' just easier to lay quietly - in silence.  I felt that way in November 1976, 1992, 1996, 2008 and again in 2012.  In all of those cases I was not convinced I was on the wrong side, I was angered that my side picked the wrong team.  Seriously, Ford, Dole, McCain, Romney?  

Losing is painful to the spirit.  It causes us to challenge our most internally held beliefs. How could I have supported those guys?  What was I thinking?  Why am I invested in them?  How could anyone support the other team? What do they see? How can they not see what I see?

In Cleveland, where some of the worlds most loyal sports fans reside, we understand loosing better than most.  Our teams perennially show promise and with equal frequency, let us down.  Sure some call the sports talk shows, but the next day at work after a big game is very quiet. Wounds take time to heal.  Politics works the same way.  The talk shows and pundits still talk and write because they have to. The individuals are looking for answers.

The political right said the healthcare.gov web site would be a disaster, they challenged the President every time he said they could keep their coverage, they argued that Obamacare's entire purpose was to ensure that everyone would give up their private insurance, they swore that it would raise costs, not lower them, they pointed out that the young would not buy expensive insurance and they said the whole thing would be a train wreck. The debate was passionate! The left was comfortable standing up for the president - arguing his points, adding their passion to the debate. Then, over the last 6 weeks the bottom fell out.  Like the longest sports competition ever played... and while not over yet. the score is so lopsided, the contest seems all but lost to the left.

Conservatives were right on most points.  It has been a train wreck in every sense.  The hard part, if you are a supporter of the President, is coming to grips with why it happened this way.  Were your beliefs misplaced? Why did you not see this coming?  Can it be fixed? Can it be fixed by this team (administration and congress)?

Conservatives are rejoicing in a victory which in the scheme of the war is a relatively small, but consequential battle.  They are also rejoicing in the silence of their opponents.  That Silence will not last.  The Administration will herald every little improvement in the website and parade the handful of buyers that actually saved money before throngs of adoring supporters in an attempt to win back some political inertia.   But November 2014 is too soon and the problems are too great.  There is nothing that can happen good for Obamacare that will help the left.  The only thing they can hope for, or work for, is a major change of subject.

The silent ones out there want to talk about something, anything, else.

Tear Down This Wall

On June 12, 1987 President Reagan stood in front of a crowd of West Berliners in the shadow of the Berlin Wall... and defiantly called to the Soviet Union to withdraw its unjust influence over East Germany.

"Mr Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! "

The crowd erupted in wild applause as did the rest of the world.  What was not known at the time was that the State Department and others on Reagan's staff were extremely vocal in opposition to using such a strong statement.  They insisted that he soften his rhetoric.  He simply said "no."  We needed to stand up to the bullies in our own government and in the eastern block and let the world know that our principles were not going to be masked in political correctness.

Soon, the wall fell of it's own injustice as did the Soviet Union and the power it held over most of eastern Europe.   16 years later, a unified Germany thrives and most of the former Soviet Block countries are seeing prosperity they have not known since before World War II.

What got us there is leadership.  Mr. Reagan understood that the role of the US in the world was not just wielding military power, but by putting on display the principles we stood for and a willingness to fight for it - and to stand up for those principles for everyone in the world, not just our own citizens.  We needed to hold the lamp high and be that "shining city on the hill" and let the world know that there was hope, that we would be there for them, that we would not shrink to the bullies.

What we have now is something quite different, quite inferior.  What we have now is more in tune with what Mr. Gorbachev had... narcissism, self service, politics, graft, greed, bullying, arm twisting.  We do not lad by example, we do not lead on principal, we do not lead on the pure power of what is right.  The city on the hill has turned a bit dingy and the lamp we hold is neither high nor brightly lit. My God, what I would not give for leadership like we had in 1987!

Question of the day - Hero or Traitor?

I have seen the question many times over the past 48 hours regarding the "leak" of secret NSA activities and capabilities regarding snooping on US citizens.  Is the leaker a hero or is he a traitor of the highest order?  Did he do Americans a favor by informing them of the capability of the NSA or did he further the cause of terrorists and other USA enemies by giving them a heads up on the braod capacity and capability of the NSA.

So it seems there are really two parts to this story --- or maybe 2 stories to this story - Part 1:  The leak itself.  Part II: Analysis - Was it a good thing or a bad thing?

The leak was by most definitions a crime.  But then again, almost all leaking of national security information is a crime.  But then there are whistle blower protections.  The twist here is that the NSA appears to be doing exactly what congress authorized.  However, just because congress authorized it does not make it constitutionally pure.  Edward Snowden appears to believe what he was capable of doing with the technology at his finger tips afforded a broad violation of the 4th amendment to the constitution.  Leaking it was unquestionably a crime but what other remedies did he have?  Congress approved and oversaw it while the executive implemented it.  Arguably, he could have filed a lawsuit, but it is unlikely that that would have accomplished anything because pressure would have been brought to bear on the judge to throw the case out and then Mr. Snowden would have just disappeared - quite literally.  That may still happen.

Who was really surprised that the NSA is tapped into the phone and data systems across the planet. Perhaps some, naively thought the scope was limited to just the bad guys and that somehow their emails and (gulp) blog posts were immune to review.  The review, in my mind is the violation.  Others perhaps understood that this was probably going on (myself included) but did not give it much thought because we were not doing anything "wrong."  The surprise for me was that they are archiving the data and that a single person at a workstations with the proper clearance (and apparently there are thousands) could reach out and collect just about anything.   That, according to Mr. Snowden any way - no one has confirmed that what he said is true.  I am not sure he does not overstate the capability or the lack of security.  By confirming what most people already knew, I am not sure releasing this constitutes traitorous activity though.  We'll see if they prosecute, because if the claims he makes are untrue, what case does the government have?

The problems that surfaced at the IRS with political gaming of personal data pales in comparison to the damage that could be done by a political hack sitting at one of these NSA work stations with the clearance levels Mr. Snowden had.  But politics asside, what about the damage that could be done by someone who is spying for another government who sits at one of the NSA work stations.  We talk about how the NSA makes us secure at home, but the very act of collecting that data and housing it in one place without better security and creening procedures poses what I would deem a larger threat.

Pundits across the political spectrum seem conflicted.  They hate the snooping but they seem somehow comforted by its presence in the context of helping to keep Americans safe or perhaps better said, making American 'think' they are safer because of it.  The ultimate irony to me is that the distinction between left and right is quite blurred. Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh are against it while John McCain and Barbara Boxer are for it.   I'm pretty sure that has never happened.

There seems to be no easy place to draw the line of what side one falls on, which is an incredible sign of progress.  When political opponents stand together on principal, rather than retreat to the home base of party lines, we actually getting a real discussion with real passion and real ideas.  Politically, this is where real solutions are born.

Having said that, I find the concept of supporting the snooping on Americans in any form entirely untenable.  I fail to see where the anyone can argue for the snooping with the language of the 4th amendment being so clearly against it.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Can you argue that your email and web searches are not the latter day version of your papers and effects and afforded this protection?  Can you argue that the authority exists for collecting this data and warehousing it for later use falls outside the requirement for warrants for probable cause?  Suppose the police came to your house and said we need to go through all of your papers, make copies, take pictures of your personal possessions, make lists of all your music, and put a chip in your DVR and a microphone in your kitchen so they can record what you watch and say ... but then say "Don't worry!  We are only collecting this stuff in case you ever do something wrong and then and only then, will we get a legal warrant to actually look at it."  The premise is absurd and no one would tolerate it.

With that thought in mind, I am inclined to push Mr Snowden more towards the hero side of the spectrum.  I am still hopeful that we find that what he claims the domestic data collection and storage capabilities at the NSA are not true.  We'll see.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...

Rand Paul today ruffled some feathers talking about a pathway to citizenship. 

Many of those who heard him at CPAC this week may have become part time fans.  Thinking, "Wow! This guy makes sense and maybe isn't the nut the media has made him out to be."  Then today, he expresses his libertarian edge and those temporary fans have fled. 

I don't propose to analyze Paul's statement, in part because I don't think they take the issue it far enough. 

Most of we Americans have forgotten our own history. The statue of Liberty - among our most cherished icons of freedom holds a plaque that says:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door! ..."

How beautiful! How touching and how much national pride we have felt being able to look back on our history and celebrate what we stand for.  There was a point in the nineteen century when people showed up on our shores with no more than a satchel of clothes and couple coins and a burning desire to make something of themselves in a land that did not have institutional class divisions but offered the opportunity to soar!  

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the federal government began changing the rules and imposing standards that included quotas by race or nationality.   Recognized at the time, by many, as a pure violation of our national principals, we have a continuous effort underway to rewrite these rules.  

Today, if you have means and an education, (especially in high tech fields,) you can get in the the USA quickly and get on a fast track to citizenship.  If you are poor, little education, and no means to get to our boarders, you have no prayer of getting in.  If you are a Cuban and risk your life crossing the Florida Strait, you are granted immediate citizenship.  If you are Mexican or from other central and south American countries, you can pay smugglers to get you across the Rio Grand, but your options when you get here are strictly limited.  

Conservatism should return to the values and virtues the country was build on. Not to earn the votes of the wretched refuse, but because it is right.  Because it would return us to a land of vast and limitless opportunity. 

Surely, some things needs to be fixed.  America has become a magnet to some because of it's opportunity, and to others because of the seemingly limitless list of freebies that governments offer up with the promise of more to come if you'll just vote a certain way.  There will be a price to pay, and it will require sacrafices in many ways, but, afterall, isn't that who we claim to be?

We must return to our founding principals and open our arms once again.  Don't stand near me and celebrate your liberty and freedom and then turn around and deny it to someone standing by the golden door wanting the same thing you celebrate. I say Open the doors!

Assault weapon attack on the 2nd Ammendment

Trending on Twitter over the past few days has been a growing surge of momentum to ban assault weapons.  To a low information citizen, the argument sounds reasonable: You don't need them to hunt, we are not under imminent threat of attack from Canada, Mexico or Cuba.

In order for the argument to succeed, you have to disregard what the purpose of the 2nd amendment is, namely to protect US citizens from internal threats from a government grown too powerful and intrusive.  The founders recognized the intoxicating nature of political power and understood that words on paper would not be enough of a barrier to protect against abuses.

They built a government with fire walls between the executive, legislative and judicial powers. But by allowing citizens to arm themselves, the threat of citizen armies converging on the seats of power was a 3rd, more powerful, check on government excess.  At the time, citizens could own anything - muskets, canon, etc.  Our government, while allowing police, National Guard and the military to have and use assault weapons and heavy armaments, bans most of that in the hands of citizens.  A citizen revolt against the government today would certainly fail because the 2nd has effectively already been neutered.

What those in the seats of power have learned is that they can mask their power grabs in frames of compassion and caring for citizens.  Saying they only want a safer country, banning assault weapons is proposed as a completely sound and reasonable move.  But opponents are making the case that the issues of safety are not solved by banning the weapon, but rather a two fold approach of arming more citizens and working more aggressively to understand what is happening with people suffering form mental illness.   So both sides can make their case.  Arguably, the way to solve it would be through a constitutional amendment changing or abolishing the 2nd amendment.

That is certainly not something I could support, because I like that those in Washington feel a slight threat from the citizen armies.  The Vice President today, however, has suggested that the President could effectively ban the semi-automatic rifles with an executive order.  That would be a breathtaking power grab and an unfortunate display of his lack of leadership skills.  This is a matter that needs to be handled legislatively, and the President certainly has the right, if not the duty, to use the bully pulpit to argue his case.  Citizens, through their representatives, also have a right to be heard and if they choose to ban certain types of arms, then so be it, although I believe it needs to be through the amendment process.  These types of changes need at least 2/3 support of the congress and states.  

My fear, albeit, not a big one, is that if an executive order is issued, which rings of an unconstitutional power grab, it could trigger some citizens on the fringe to overreact in ways that more people could get hurt and a constitutional crisis could ensue.  Were I a political weatherman, I would say this will run for a few weeks until something else will take the top spot from out attention span challenged media.