1. My response to the Susan Roesgen thing to CNN:

Dear CNN,

I recently was shown the Susan Roesgen clip. I want to know if it is the position of the Network that the tea party protests were anti-government and anti-CNN.

Also, I would like to know whether or not Roesgen is going to be reprimanded or fired given her clear violation of journalistic ethics.

You’re probably getting a lot of these, probably a lot more than you get viewers, so I’ll keep it short.

~ MJS

—

2. Another diary mentioned how do you argue with liberals. Let me give you some classic examples of how you don’t. Go here and read yesterday’s “polarizing” question. It may be that the moderator didn’t allow enough direct responses, but read the sort of stuff that got thrown up without defense:

“Everyone knows who has a made career out of polarizing the electorate around wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, all the while turning a blind eye as their Wall Street friends robbed the country blind.” — No mention of left-wing activist groups who also polarize the electorate.

Also: “It is interesting that a Republican can say Obama is not keeping his promise to be bipartisan after what Bush did to the concept of “compassionate conservatism” shortly after he took office in 2001.” — It’s like all the compromises of the Bush era are forgotten. We have a few people who mention them, but lies like this get stated outright and are not even questioned. The Moderator has shown, on Politico, he is not willing to actually attack outright aggressiveness from either side or lies. It is the job of other posters to fight those. Take, for example, Roth:

—

For the party of Rush Limbaugh to accuse Obama of being polarizing is really cute

The “data” behind the charge of polarization isn’t very compelling. The reasoning seems to be that if Obama had much lower overall approval ratings he would be less polarizing? Does that really make sense?

The polarization of the tea-baggers is less a reaction to specific policies of President Obama than it is a symptom of the intellectual vacuum currently afflicting much of the right wing in America. The right wing of the party of “no” sees polarization because many of their moderates have joined with the Democrats. Their reaction to losing the middle groun

—

This is flagrant strawmanning and lying. And you know who responds to it? Not anyone calling him to the floor for his lies and misstatements — but yes-man Kos poster Dworkin. In his attempt to say “it wasn’t Republicans”, he stumbles around and says that Tea Parties were third-party voters who voted for Ron Paul. Cause, you see, Ron Paul is not a Republican. I can’t tell if he just wasn’t sure whether his talking points were meant to undermine the tea parties still, or if he was supposed to be attacking Republicans (since, apparently, Perry’s not a -R any more either).

There’s two ways to deal with this. But first, go ahead and read the whole thing. It’s filled with this junk.

First, we can respond.

Second, if we’re not given a chance to respond (either because there’s a limited amount of review, like with Politico’s Arena, or because protestors throw chairs through windows like at Universities), we need to create venues where responsible debate can happen. I used to think Politico’s Arena met that purpose. Reading through the last couple of days (starting with the question about “drivel”), it has become clear that Barbash doesn’t have the where-with-all or permission to actually restrict the debate to useful comments. In all the discussions, folks on both sides had useful things to say (Dworkin’s stats, while often skewed and not representative, are useful to see and investigate), but the place is supposed to be civil.

And it’s not.

Skocpol asked about “Why are the media, with POLITICO very much in the vanguard, continuing to privilege this drivel?” Barbash claimed to have heard quite a lot of complaining about the foreign trip question. Barbash’s response? In part:

“We are among the few places where people who disagree politically actually communicate with each other and with a broad audience, as opposed to communicating only with those already on their side.”

I, for one, after reading yesterday’s segment don’t see why anyone on the right would feel welcome there. I’m done reading the Arena. If Barbash won’t moderate out the extremely vocal Arena trolls (because that’s what folks like Stewart and Roth are — and don’t think that there aren’t a few on the right who aren’t the same, Craig Shirley and Grover Norquist go over board too. Which is a shame, because at least, unlike Roth, they sometimes have interesting things to say woven between their rhetoric.

I know it may not be my place, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks about Arena and its process. Was yesterday really as different as I’m perceiving it compared to the rest (I’ve been following it since day 1 or so)? Or has the quality been steadily declining and yesterday was just the breaking point for me?

So, serious question to Fred Barbash. Why does the Arena allow posts that are no better than internet troll postings?

~ MJS

There are some problems with the facts in the Right Wing Extremism report.

I want to highlight them.

—-

(1) “A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009. The alleged gunman’s reaction reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment conspiracy theories related to gun confiscations, citizen detention camps, and a Jewish-controlled “one world government.”

Thought: As mentioned on Hot Air, the guy was a follower of some guy, Alex Jones or other sort of crazy, and an avowed National Socialist. National Socialists are not known for their right wing extremism. Just, you know, saying.

—-

(2) — Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures. Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish “financial elites.” These “accusatory” tactics are employed to draw new recruits into rightwing extremist groups and further radicalize those already subscribing to extremist beliefs. DHS/I&A assesses this trend is likely to accelerate if the economy is perceived to worsen.

Thought: It is not a known right-wing cartoonist whose cartoon has recently been picked up by… was it Hamas?… depicting Jews as Nazis?

—-

(3) Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

Let me presto-change-o this:

Leftwing extremists are harnessing this highly contested election as a recruitment tool. Many leftwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration (including protesting with images of the president being beheaded or shot) and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the impact of social programs on minorities, and allowing of firearms ownership and use. Leftwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2000 election timeframe to the present, leftwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

Dude. Awesome.

—-

(5) — A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”

I think the organization that stated that is this one. No evidence is given, and I’ve never heard of them before. Why did we not list our source for this statement? Citing sources is Junior High people. Get it right.

—-

So, factually, I have problems with this report. Did I miss any other problems — besides, you know, the blatant politicization of a government entity?

Let’s take Politico; I normally don’t see it terribly slanted.

Then, we get a story like this:

“Ex-Jailbird Ney Gets Radio Show.”

Read it over.

I suppose Ney’s only at fault because, unlike a Kennedy or an Ayers, he didn’t kill anyone when he went to jail — or, well, I guess… didn’t? I find it fascinating we can get a list of folks who have made careers post embarrassment and it painted as some terrible thing, or a uniquely conservative thing.

Thrush, of the Politico bloggers, is systematically the most biased. But I thought this was a bit exceptional and worthy of comment.

So, I comment.

When I heard this statement from President Obama, I thought: “Well, yes. I know that. You know that. Everyone I’ve talked to knows that. President Bush knew that.”

So, what’s up with repeating it?

It’s pretty clear to me now though. The idea is that by saying we are not at war with Islam, that at one point — we were. It’s more of Obama’s inability to do any thing without trying to blame someone else. It has become a habitual problem with the current administration. It was clear during the run for the presidency, when “staff” caused all sorts of problems from signing his name on forms, when big money forced him to opt out of public financing — pretty much anything he’s done that’s been bad, he blamed on someone else. He couldn’t even take responsibility for listening in Wright’s church without finding a way to say “it wasn’t my fault.”

This, I think, is a terrible thing. Bush made mistakes — but he owned up and claimed responsibility for things he did. He even acknowledged that the bail outs were a step away from his normal ideology, and he was doing it of his own free will to try and save the market. Can you imagine Obama saying: “This is a necessary step I am choosing, because I feel it must be done, no matter the cost to my reputation or ideals?”

No. He would say: “Look, this is last year’s business. I know I said no more earmarks. But, guys. Let me eat my waffle.”

And that’s the sort of presidency we’re going to have for four years. Any thing bad or unpopular isn’t going to be his fault. Someone forced him to make that decision. And his supporters will believe it. Ask them about FISA, State Secrets, Gitmo, his war funding in Afghanistan and Iraq, his recent claims of victory in Iraq — the only reason Obama has decided to do this is because we are not at war with Islam. Essentially, the last administration did something heinous, so we… have to keep doing it till it gets better, I guess?

We should start a pool on how long it takes till it becomes: “We are no longer engaging in George Bush’s War with Islam.”

I was there today. And I was rather impressed, to be honest. Granted, the only reason I was there was because I stumbled across it in the Annandale fire house on my way to the Post Office, but hey — I was there.

I liked him a lot more than I liked his Lt. Governor. Which, I imagine, is why he’s on the top of the ticket instead of the bottom. Because the world bends to my personal likes and dislikes.

Three things about him that I approved of:

1. Auditing the government. I can get audited, and I don’t spend your money. Shouldn’t the people who spend all our money occassionally have to prove they’re being good stewards?

2. Commercial space port. Eat your heart out Richard Garriott. Not government sunk funds into it, but promoting the commercialization of space.

3. An all-in plan for energy, that includes nuclear, renewables, solar, wind, gas and oil — and will promote job growth in VA.

One thing that they have to work on at these events is training the greeters. Let it be known that being greeted with:

“We hope to have a strong support from Hispanics, like yourself, this election,” does not make me feel particular welcome. As, you know, I’m not Hispanic. But, hey. I didn’t come to hear them speak. So, this is just a note that I was there, would like to hear some input from anyone who attended anything else/has opinions on McDonnel. And that, if Mr. McDonnel or his staff read this, that they should maybe convince their greeters to just stick with “We hope to have strong support from the community this election.”

~ MS

All this hullabalu about the failure of the AIG house protests had me thinking.

Maybe CT Working Families’ problem is that they just were targeting the public’s rage at the wrong people?

In keeping with this thought, I decided to contact them and give them a suggestion that might yield a more successful protest.

So, I decided to fire off a quick suggestion.

—

Dear CT Working Families,

After having watched your actions regarding the AIG bonuses, I wonder if we will be able to also incite anger against other people who have managed to swindle the government out of large chunks of money. Senator Dodd, for one, pocketed over $100 grand from AIG, which is money that could have been used to employ two to three more individuals at AIG. President Obama, likewise, accepted money from AIG that could have gone to working families. Multiple other politicians also took money from AIG, but none with such quantity. At the insistence of Geinther and Dodd (mattering on when in March you heard the story), the stimulus bill contained protections for AIG, which are only now being addressed when public outrage occurred to show the government that working families, like yours and mine, will not stand to have the government’s money wasted.

I feel it is important to let the government know that their actions in support of AIG have likewise filled the community with anger. I feel, however, that protesting at the homes of government officials may be improper.

Senator Dodd’s office can be found at:
448 Russell Building
Washington D.C., 20510

His CT office:
30 Lewis St Suite 101
Hartford, CT 06103

President Obama’s house can be found at:
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C.

Geinther’s office address is:
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

Please let me know when you plan to protest these individuals’ for their blatant disrespect for American Working Families, and I will see if I can get on the bus. Hopefully, it will be more successful than previous attempts at organized protesting through your organizations. I would suggest contacting the Tea Party protest organizers for advice on successful protest organizations.

~ Matt S.

—

And, as an added bonus, these folks are actually public people who, frankly, we SHOULD let know when we’re a smidge upset at them.

This is Senator Jim Webb’s Response to my request to not vote for the Economic Stimulus Bill:

—

Dear Mr. Sablan:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding the ongoing economic crisis and the federal government’s response.  I appreciate your taking the time to share your concerns with me.

The United States is facing an economic crisis that is causing American families to fall behind.  Communities are being hard hit by home foreclosures, failing businesses, and job losses that are almost unprecedented in recent history.  As your U.S. Senator, I am committed to supporting policies that will help end the economic crisis and will help restore basic fairness for all Americans.

It is for this reason that I supported the bi-partisan American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1). This economic recovery package is designed to swiftly drive money into our struggling economy. With help for struggling families, meaningful tax cuts and concentrated funding on key infrastructure programs, I am hopeful that this responsibly-crafted legislation will create millions of new jobs and begin immediately to restore America’s economic strength.

As one of those who were concerned with many aspects of the original proposal, I was pleased to work with colleagues from both sides of the aisle to put this plan into place within a set of targeted parameters for economic renewal. My Senate colleagues and I focused on programs to help families struggling under today’s serious economic downturn, on shovel-ready infrastructure and public works projects, and on addressing the housing crisis. I am pleased that we were able to remove almost $100 billion in spending from the original proposal.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act also contains tax cuts for families and businesses, provisions to help unemployed Americans keep their health care and find new employment, and provides aid to help the most vulnerable. While this legislation is an important step, other measures must be adopted to restore the health of our economy. These include appropriate reforms of our banking and financial systems, tax fairness, and measures to place the nation on a long-term path to fiscal responsibility.

I appreciate hearing from my constituents.  Your correspondence helps me serve you better in the Senate. I hope that you will continue to share your views with me and my staff in the years ahead.

I would also invite you to visit my website at www.webb.senate.gov for regular updates about my activities and positions on matters that are important to Virginia and our nation.

Thank you once again for contacting my office.

Sincerely,

Jim Webb

United States Senator

—

I’m not really going to have much to say on this, but hey — at least he got back to me. Eventually.

Thanks Senator Webb. Though, I wonder — did you really read my e-mail? Because, frankly, it doesn’t sound like you read a word I said.

I’m just tossing this out there in case any one from VA is curious what Webb’s official position was on this. Note that I don’t think he quite cut out as much as he wanted to cut — but like there was any doubt he’d vote for it.

Dear 22%, from the 59% –

We’re right.

Here’s where the numbers come from.

With public approval of the stimulus plan waning (I am taking credit for at least 3% of that 12% drop), it is becoming clear why. Americans actually have a general idea of what works and what doesn’t. Tax cuts work — they worked for Bush, Bush, Reagan, Kennedy — to name a few. It took something radically out of each one’s control before their economy started going down (for example, the most recent Bush made more revenue by making it more cost effective to just pay the damn taxes instead of hire good lawyers to legally avoid them. Remember folks: tax avoidance is legal and awesome, tax evasion is illegal and bad. Unless you’re the Secretary of the Treasury.)

Increased government spending doesn’t work, unless it is very well tempered and spurred on by, say, a World War. World Wars are, by the way, not part of the economic stimulus plan. We even axed the trade war aspects of it.

Because we have to remember what the point of the stimulus is. The point is to get money out to the people and businesses quick enough to grow jobs. The argument is that if the government can just inject 800 (sorry, 900 billion) into the economy fast enough, it can pump enough in to not sink the ship. They figure they just have to take enough from somewhere to put it into the economy (and various non-economy initiatives that are in the bill) to make the economy work. The current line is every $1.00 of spending will net back $1.50 or so in revenue for the economy, or GDP, or whatever measurement they are using after the CBO shoots down their last one.

I understand that you have to spend money to make money sometimes. But, want me to tell you something? You spend that money on useful things. Not unuseful things. If I were a business and I needed to have more jobs, I wouldn’t sink money into half the things they want to sink money into. Because they won’t grow jobs — and at the cost of 200+k per job made, you have to wonder how much of that is going to overhead if we’re talking construction jobs. I don’t know too many construction workers, but I bet Bob the Builder is not raking in around 200k a year.

But here’s a difference with government. It is not going to spend its money — it is either going to take more money from us, or borrow it from other countries. Neither is a good option to trying to grow the economy. The more money they take from businesses and you and me, the uh, less money businesses and you and me have to do things. In businesses case, pay you and me — in our cases, to buy the sorts of things that the government wants to spend money on — condoms, the arts, food, so on and so forth. None of these are unworthy causes that shouldn’t be having money spent on them. But you know what’s more stimulative for an economy?

Not taking 900$ billion out of it. Because then, you don’t have to decide where it goes. That leads us to the government’s next option. Borrowing the money.

This is also to easy to see why it won’t work. You wake up tomorrow and you say: “Honey,” we’ll imagine you have a person you call honey before hitting them up for money. “Honey, I need $10, I lost my Metro card.” You get your $10, you buy your Metro card. Now, assuming you plan to pay Honey back — you are still down $10. You just put it off. Now, you need a Metro card (presumably that’s why Honey gave you $10.) And yes, we need a stimulus. But, we have to understand that there were other ways for you to get that $10 — for example, if you hadn’t been going to Starbucks for the past four weeks and buying their $3 wallet drainers, you’d have had enough money to buy your own Metro card. Well, it is also possible that if Honey wasn’t hoarding all the money, you could have simply pulled $10 from your own bank account and you’d've been fine. Neither happened. Instead, Honey drops you off at the Metro and buys you your Metro Card.

Borrowing from Honey costs her money now — and keeps her from buying things she wants. Borrowing from Honey cramps your style (that’s three days with no Starbucks!) If, however, instead, you’d been more moderate in your spending, you wouldn’t have had to borrow from Honey. Then you’d've been able to get your Metro Card, not cramped her style, and not given her $10 worth of leverage when it’s time to pick what’s at the top of the Netflix list. And, still, been able to give to the charity known as Starbucks.

In this analogy? America is you, China is Honey.

Borrowing also just moves debt around. You owe Honey $10, Honey is down $10 (but expecting it back. With interest.), and the Metro is now $10 richer. In this analogy — the Metro are the people you decide to give the money you took from Honey. In our stimulus’s case, go and read the behemoth to see who is getting the money that we’re taking. Gee willickers! It looks like it is supposed to go to us and Starbucks… which is where, if you recall, your money was going anyway.

So… what is the purpose of government taking money from us — and China — to put money where we — and China — were going to put the money anyway? Maybe not in the exact percentages the government wants, but last I checked, government was not that good with money. Seriously, it’s like they think they can just print more of it.

So what have we learned from Matt’s “my roommate’s alarm started going off at 5 and I couldn’t get back to sleep, hey, what’s on the news radio” morning rant? I don’t know. It is incoherent. But, we’ve learned he makes weird analogies on little sleep.

<a href=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/23/mayors-scandal-divides-portland/>When some people have sex with under aged persons</a>, and they lie about it: they “deserve a shot at redemption.”

<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_foley>When other folks</a> commit sexual harassment, they lose their jobs and are investigated for the crimes they committed.

This Adams guy is a jerk. From the sound of the story, he had sex with his intern. But, I suppose, he just deserves a second chance.

I mean, it’s not like he lied about… or uh… potentially did it when the intern was a minor… or… uh…

OK. I don’t get it. Is this essentially: “Look, he’s a Democrat. So, let’s let him mulligan.” Or am I missing part of the story?

The weekend of February 6th, I am told, is the date the new Administration <a href=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18208_Page2.html>wants folks to get together for an economic stimulus pow-wow</a> to discuss how great his plan is and pressure our legislatures to support him.

Now, that’s the intent.

But, the way I understand it, it’s supposed to be about meeting together and discussing plans to stimulate the economy. This, dear folks, I am totally down with. You won’t even need the video from the Obama Administration for it, as far as I’m concerned (I don’t plan to pick it up). Now, I know I’ve been saying that I was taking a break from politics come February, but folks — our President has asked for the hoi-poloi to get together and discuss the tax and spend proposal.

For this, folks, I am down. Our President assures us “The President’s plan passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday. But if it’s going to move forward, we need to avoid the usual partisan game.” I agree. This is why we can’t shut out the minority voice and pummel them with faux posturing of bipartisanship when they offer reasonable solutions and are bludgeoned with legal gagging. We also need to stop the political waffling and backtracking — the e-mail promises us he’ll put 3 million people back to work. Earlier it was saving 2 million jobs. Even their economists have no clue how many jobs will be created or saved — or whatever the term is now. And that is just the start of the problem. Which should be part of any discussion involving the economic stimulus.

So, I see no reason why those of us — i.e., me — who happen to think there are BETTER ways to economically stimulate the country should NOT also get in on this. The President says: “That’s why supporters are opening their homes to talk with neighbors and friends about how the plan will work — and what it means for their community.” I say, that’s not exactly an offering to find a way to stimulate the economy. That’s campaigning.

Campaigning, folks, is not — I repeat not — how we are going to save America’s economy. The President tells us “The economic crisis can seem overwhelming and complex, but you can help the people you know connect the recovery plan to their lives and learn more about why it’s so important.” I know the crisis is overwhelming and complex. There’s over 200 pages worth of crap to read to figure out that darn recovery plan. And I’ve tried, and I STILL missed some of the pork in the Economic Earmark Bill of 2008 (”It isn’t an earmark if the whole bill is one giant spending project,” I explained when someone told me that the Administration managed to avoid ear marks in the bill.)

So — Mr. President, I’m in. On the weekend of Feb. 6th, I’ll find a nice public place to have a discussion on economic stimulus.

No really, I will. I’m just looking for a place that will be accomodating in the D.C. Metro Area. Because there’s no way I’m letting folks know where I live over this. Have you seen what people do to people they disagree with now a days?

On Feb. 3rd there’s going to be a special election where I live. That means, on Feb. 3rd, I get up early, walk past the 7-11 to the Fire Station where I cast a vote. It’s a very simple process.

But, I figure that it would be worth mentioning. In part because I recall seeing a post requesting folks to update about local elections and because, frankly, I’m not sure if the way I’m voting is the right way to do it.

Currently, the special election is for the Chairman of the board of supervisors for Fairfax, replacing a seat left vacant when Connolly got voted into a national election. The two candidates are:

Sharon Bulova

and

Pat Herrity

You can take the time to flip through both their pages and do some Googling if you’re interested. Otherwise, here’s my general understanding. Pat Herrity moved to have a budget that was balanced by spending cuts and the like, while Sharon Bulova has had issues with balancing the budget in her current position — but has been very successful in other aspects of her previous positions. Herrity is a CPA and has earned awards for his economic experience; Sharon has helped some faith based initiatives and organizing multiple things.

Pat Herrity has a conveinet business resume as part of his introduction to us on his Web page, compared to Sharon’s introduction which doesn’t feel as in depth to me. Then again, maybe I’m just missing the link? Her list of endorsers leaves me kind of indifferent. Herrity seems a bit overly reactive in regards to the illegal immigrant problem facing Fairfax County; but it IS illegal, so I don’t know if I’m being too lenient or if this is a valid concern.

Otherwise, he seems more capable handling the economic problems that should be come readily apparent if you peruse their sites. His Web site, as a whole, is also pretty impressive (both how it works and the general information.)

Maybe I’m a bit biased, in that I read his information first before Bulova’s, but I can’t see a reason to not pick him over Bulova for the position.

If anyone is local, take a gander and remember the special election.

The title is the lesson I’ve learned from this transition.

When does experience matter? When there’s a crisis. Except when you’re appointing someone to Secretary of State — well, she HAD experience, we just lied to you about it to get voted.

Er… or when appointing someone to head the CIA. Then, character counts. Character — it matters for the CIA… but not the Treasury? Who knew?

When do hiring rules matter? For lobbyists!

Well, except for some lobbyists; some lobbyists are just created more equal than others.

When does the law for who we let into the Senate matter, according to Reid? It matters on who you are. Sometimes, law matter. Sometimes they don’t.

So, I figure that I don’t have to follow any laws… or just the ones that would be inconvenient for the folks upstairs for me to follow. At least we know standards change.

Today, according to Politico, Obama froze the pay of people making 100,000 or more in his administration. That’s great. It’s a noble gesture to say that government spending needs to get reined in.

But, I’ll say it.

It is just a gesture. It has no meat to it. If we look at it logically.

First,as a point of amusing note:  $100,000 is well under $250,000. That’s the number Obama said people needed to make to need his tax cuts (and not be the bad kind of rich).  Obviously, people making $100,000 can be cut off from their pay and be just fine. So, was Obama’s $250,000 number just a random number?[1] It sure seems to me like Obama, at some point, played fast and loose with his numbers. Clearly, the people making $100,000 are fine enough to suffer a pay freeze. Which makes you wonder why $250,000 was picked if people making less than that are fine. But, back to why this is just an empty gesture:

Obama’s reasoning? According to Politico:

—

Obama said the moves were aimed at helping to “restore that faith in government without which we cannot deliver the changes we were sent here to make,” drawing a barely veiled contrast between himself and a predecessor who was accused by critics of excessive secrecy and abuses of the law.

—

So, maybe this was just a chance to show some of that New Politics… by partisanly attacking the last administration? Sure. That could be it. Politico again, in this article, tells us that no lobbyists can work in their realm of lobbying expertise in the Obama administration. I’m welcoming folks to show where that rule is broken. Because I’ve heard it has been — but I don’t have any data to back it up.

So, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. And it is not partisanship.

Maybe this is Obama’s reason for doing this:

—

“For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said. “The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over.”

—

So, I have a question. When is that audit of Obama’s election campaign going to happen to investigate the small donors that are obviously fradulent? I mean — there’s been too much secrecy in this city. If Obama really wants to show he’s out to end secrecy in Washington, open up his campaign’s books to scrutiny. It’s clear they should be audited. Laws were clearly broken by people donating to his campaign — he should put his mouth where his money came from and allow an audit.

Unless, as I suspect, this isn’t about secrecy. Maybe there’s another reason Obama cited for doing this?

It can’t be about spending — he doesn’t mention it in Politico and it would make no sense, since Obama is advocating opening more government jobs than this pay freeze will pay for. So, I have to wonder:

What was the real point of this pay freeze? Despite a pleasant gesture that will make people think he’s doing something?

—-

[1] No. It was the number fed to him by the debate moderator at the time, and he stuck with it to save face. There’s no real rationale for his number other than he said it when the debate moderator caught him with his pants down and supplied him a number for an out.

Some people seem to be surprised that people were rude to Bush during the inauguration.

I do not understand this surprise. Is it mock surprise? Am I missing the joke?

Folks, this was mild compared to what I was expecting. Seriously, you have people calling him a war criminal, protesting outside with effigies of him and pictures of him beheaded — and people CHEERING that sort of behavior on, and you suddenly think they’ll be respectful?

Give me some of what they’re smoking. Because, clearly, folks like Mr. “Bad Form There” missed exactly what sort of frenzy they whipped up the last couple of years in the echo chamber.

So, who will be blamed for this? I suggest Pelosi; I mean, she thinks his administration may have committed War Crimes. I think that might work to enrage some people.

Hey, if you listen closely, maybe we can convince everyone that someone yelled for us to kill him.  Aren’t double standards grand?

The only surprise should be that the crowd was restrained and the on air personalities weren’t shouting “Worst Person in the World” or whatever it is they do now.

I’m going to be reading the stimulus bill over the next few days. I’m hoping to put my thoughts up for some discussion. First of all, I went into it with an open mind. I wanted to be convinced this would be a good idea.

Thus far, not convinced. The first thing you notice after we get to the nitty gritty is that there are going to be a lot of committees. Lots. Quarterly reports and monthly reports and bi-monthly reports. The most odd thing? Annual reports.

I see no reason for Annual Reports for something that won’t get made till March at the earliest and is supposed to be over by 2010. This makes me very hesistant — maybe it isn’t supposed to go away? We should put in the stimulus bill that it cannot be extended by any way. There currently is a time when it closes, but the bill can just be patched (much like the Alternative Minimum Tax) to extend it longer. That is unacceptable. One change that needs to be made is that it cannot be amended. To let you know the minimum it can be around now, 2012. Why does an emergency measure to fix our current economic problem need to last until the next presidential election?

Next:

“In using funds made available in this Act for infrastructure investment, recipients shall give preference to activities that can be started and completed expeditiously, including a goal of using at least 50 percent of the funds for activities that can be initiated not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.”

I don’t know about you — but 4 months or so is a long time. That’s hardly “fast” in an economy, I’d imagine. But, any quicker and you couldn’t get all your reports done before the disbursement, I suppose.

As an aside:

SEC. 1109. PROHIBITED USES.
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool.

I find it really odd to link zoos with casinos. So, I guess our National Zoo isn’t getting any thing? They had some construction languishing last I was there. Poor Smithsonian, no bailout for you. That’s what you get for letting your Chairmen set executive salaries. Cause we know that’s open for abuse.

Oh.

Look.

SEC. 1225. STAFFING.
(a) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR.—The Chairman of the Board may appoint and fix the compensation of an executive director and other personnel as may be required to carry out the functions of the Board. The Director shall be paid at the rate of basic pay for level IV of the Executive Schedule.

Don’t worry. If you have issues with the Board, there’s a LOT of reporting. So we know that means oversight. Plus, they can CONTRACT OUT more transparency:

“(e) CONTRACTS.—The Board may enter into contracts to enable the Board to discharge its duties under this Act.”

But, all these reports, committees and contractors will be totally transparent. You can tell because they will make a website. On the internet:

“(a) REQUIREMENT TO ESTABLISH WEBSITE.—The Board shall establish and maintain a website on the Internet to be named Recovery.gov, to foster greater account1ability and transparency in the use of funds made avail1able in this Act.”

We haven’t even gotten to how the money is going to be spent and I’m not thrilled. But hey, at least there’ll be a website. That’s Accountability!

At first, I thought — nah. This guy should get the job he’s after.

Then, I thought about it. I haven’t cared about other appointments too much — sure, there were some lobbyists. I figure a President gets to pick their staff, so be it. But I wasn’t expecting that promise to stand the test of time. Some people have compared Geithner to Mr. The Plumber. I’m not going down that road. Compare Geithner with me.

To give you some background, last year when I did my taxes, I found out my State Taxes had not been properly withheld. So, I sucked it up and paid them. On time. You know how I found out they weren’t paid? I bothered to look at my forms. Crazy, I know. I mean, I didn’t even sign any paper saying I was acknowledging that I was getting extra money to pay those self-same taxes — I just checked to see if I had paid what I owed. The answer was no.

So I paid.

In doing so, I was majorly inconvenienced. $700+ all at once hurts on what I made at the time. It still would. I mean, I wasn’t even fraudulently deducting child care camp, so I got hit with the whole cost. I could’ve taken the audit roulette, but I didn’t.

Because I’m a law abiding citizen who pays my taxes.

What would have happened if I didn’t? I may have gone to court — probably not jail, it wasn’t as much as Geithner didn’t pay. But, yeah. Court. Some fines. Lots of those. Definitely wouldn’t have passed the background check for my current job with that on the record.

Geithner? He gets to sweep it under the rug with a big “no big deal. I just participated in expanding the tax gap so all you law abiding schmucks like Mr. S. over there had to pay up.” And pay up I did. While Geithner was not paying for roads, supplies for our troops, welfare and government programs — I was. While he willingly chose to ignore the law — even though he signed off saying he wouldn’t, while he cooked his books with illegal write offs — I was making sure I was paying every last dime I owed.

Geithner wasn’t just withholding baby sitting money, e-Bay sales or profits from self-publication. He withheld a huge chunk of change that he didn’t deem fit to pay till he got caught.

And that, folks, is who will be running our IRS. Maybe next time I want a promotion, I won’t pay my taxes.

I’ve been hearing it since election day.  Now that the Democrats are in charge they are going to have to own it. Everything that goes wrong will be blamed on them. With Bush and Republicans out, there’s no one to blame but the Democrats.

Let me explain to you that that is wrong. Politico had a story where a Democrat strategist was eyeing Portman as being the architect of the Bush economy. Obama laid the ground work in several speeches by saying this is too big a problem to handle in one term. We saw it in Politico’s Arena when Christine Pelosi acknowledged terrorists might just be responsible for terrorist attacks instead of the Executive Branch.

Democrats ran Congress from 2006 on. How many of those failures did they end up owning? Even failures where their guys benefitted and were in charge it got blamed on Bush — see the tanking of the economy and Fannie and Freddie. People say McCain didn’t do a good enough job explaining it was their fault — but that’s not entirely the case. The problem was, a majority of the public refused to listen.

I would like to believe that with the transfer of power, Obama wiil be held to similarly strict standards as Bush did. But Obama has one thing Bush never had — Obama has a boogey man that frightens voters, and will continue to frighten voters till my generation dies off.  As irrational as it seems, Bush is going to be called up as a specter to attack the right forever and a day. Much like McGovern is whispered around during the Democrat’s primaries as a way to ward off certain candidates.

But, the worst of this is? The reason this will work is because the average voter is not acting rationally as we move forward into the age of the YouTube Presidency, where flash and 30 seconds clips dominate the day. Our voters think Obama is a Muslim, Bush caused Katrina and that McCain (and Obama) were ineligible to be President because of where they were born.

Because of voter’s irrationality, Obama and Democrats will leverage the specter of Bush from now to eternity. Everything that goes wrong is going to be blamed on Bush. We cannot expect anyone to make them own their mistakes. The only way to make people realize they are responsible is to be adamant, forthright and doggon’ determined. We can’t be rude and manic — but we can’t back down. We have to press, and we have to inform. We have to do so in a way that people get, understand and can fit between Google searches.

That’s our real challenge. The Democrats “own” their problems — not unless we make them. But, we can’t do it at the expense of our own rationality. Sometimes, our politicians are going to do stupid things. This is politics, not sport — when our team makes a mistake, we need to acknowledge it. We’re generally pretty good about that though.

This is what I was thinking about today on my commute — as I heard someone else say that now Obama was going to be responsible for every evil in the world. That’s just not how reality is going to work. And we need to not delude ourselves into thinking that. I’m hardly “Conservative” on a lot of issues, but for the sake of rationality in politics, we’ve got to find a way to make politicians actually responsible for their actions.

I was linked to this news post from Hot Air.

Governor Paterson is more and more the man (at least in regards to this specific issue — I still disagree on other things with him, but at least it seems more and more he just has bad ideas as opposed to being corrupt and/or inept).

To quote: He said the process is “sounding more like the prelude to a high school prom than the choosing of the United States senator.”

At least this is one governor who is doing his job in regards to appointing people. Here’s looking at DE and IL.

I have some good news to spread today.

Found this from Hot Air, I think while waiting for everyone here to wake up. Combined with knowing that Emmanuel and Blagovich are on the same tape makes me very amused. Can you imagine listening to these two guys on a wire tap?

It’s going to be a bleepin’ good time.

Better hope this is true.

I mean, the previous “no contact what so ever” turned out to be false — and it looks like you were just  a rogue cannon suggesting people without Obama’s permission according to his report.

Hopefully, you just were over zealous in contacting a known corrupt quantity and suggesting people even though you were not told to suggest people (until, of course, you WERE told to suggest people).

“One or two calls,” maybe “four” with Harris. That’s some high class internal reviewing there.

Not that anyone on the Obama team had conversations implying quid pro quo. Just you know, dropping a hint that maybe — just maybe — Blago was interested in something. The explaining of Axelrod’s mistake is also priceless: “He uh, thought that Obama would do it. But it was Rahm who talked with the Governor — and not with Obama’s permission.”

Then we have the family friend Dr. Whitaker, who apparently was promptly lied to by Obama. First, Obama claims no one has authority to talk about this and he won’t do anything with the investigation — and then he decides to tell Rahm a list of candidates to forward to Blago’s office. And then gives Rahm a SECOND list to forward as well.

For those too lazy to read the link, list one consisted of: Dan Hynes, Tammy Duckworth, Congresswoman Schakowsky and Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. List two consisted of: Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Ms. Cheryle Jackson. Not that anyone knew that there was an attempt to extract a personal benefit for the governor. They just, for some odd reason, made it clear they would only be offering gratitude. Just you know, out of the blue, someone decided to mention that.

Not like Valerie Jarrett might have gotten the idea some how. Because, you see:

“Mr. Balanoff did not suggest that the Governor, in talking about HHS, was linking a position for himself in the Obama cabinet to the selection of the President-Elect’s successor in the Senate, and Ms. Jarrett did not understand the conversation to suggest that the Governor wanted the cabinet seat as a quid pro quo for selecting any specific candidate to be the President-Elect’s replacement.”

And at no time in this blog am I explicitly saying this report is a load of bull.

Poor Rahm. Shaping up to be a fall guy before the administration even gets under way.