Unintended consequence #2,475,693

If guns are outlawed, only people with 3D printers will have guns.

Brian McFadden takes on America’s D+ infrastructure

US economic progress in the 20th century was based on having first rate infrastructure. Our decline is a direct result of our failure to maintain and improve it.

Where is Eugene V. Debs when you need him?

In Kentucky, where evil clown Mitch McConnell is up for reelection, " … there is some concern that [probable candidate Ashley] Judd’s more liberal positions would cause problems for down ballot Democrats … making some some Democrats nervous … prominent local Democrats and national Democrats, including the Clintons, are working hard to find an alternative … "

The Democrats are irremediably the party of the Center (while it would be satisfying to see the backside of McConnell, a blue dog Democrat won't be much of an improvement).

The Right has a lock on the GOP.

The country needs a party of the Left.

"John Gabree was at The Tree House."

Really Facebook?

John Gabree doesn't even know what The Tree House is.

Fact vs Fiction

Whether or not its Satan has been made deliberately  remindful of Barack Obama, I can't understand why something called the History Channel is dramatizing ooga booga from the Judeo-Christian bible. I can understand why they might want to undertake a historical look at the book's long and troubled history. But won't a dramatization likely be taken by many of the viewership's slower members to be "history"?

Back story

"Mr. Katz has had previous troubles. A veterinarian by trade, he was once accused of illegally disposing of a dead German shepherd, and another time of allegedly attacking a Chihuahua he was treating. Both times, he said, he was exonerated." -- From an article in the Times Friday about New York Republican assemblyman Stephen M. Katz's arrest for marijuana possession during a traffic stop for speeding.

By the way, the assemblyman, who is a member of the chamber’s Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, voted last year against a bill that would have legalized medical pot.

Rational but impractical

We will never have a truly representative democracy as long as 350,000 people in one state have the same voting power as 35,000,000 people in another state. Here's what the states would like if they had equal populations. Note that some states are drawn to take account of socioeconomic factors; for example, western PA and western NY are joined together because they have they have more in common with each other than with the other parts of their current states.

Fifteen or Fight!

For someone so ept at electoral politics, Barack Obama has repeatedly shown himself to be artless when it comes to the political side of governance. Over and over again the president has entered policy negotiations with low-ball proposals that set-up compromises that, in real terms, hand victory to his opponents.

Take the $9 minimum wage proposal. A person making $9 an hour will earn, before deductions, $360 a week. That's working a full week, but many retail and service jobs offer much shorter hours. Even a worker lucky enough to land two full-time jobs -- 80 hours a week -- would take home less than $720 a week after deductions. Clearly, a minimum wage of $9 is insufficient if the goal is to assure that, as the president said, no one with a full time job should have to live in poverty.

The problem with Obama's maladroit handling of negotiations with the conservatives is that he establishes benchmarks that, while they may achieve "compromise," not only don't fix the problem being addressed but make it more unlikely that a better result can be achieved in the future (think of health care reform).

As politics, $9 barely makes sense; as policy, it's ridiculous. Labor and liberals should have nothing to do with it.

Is there anyone in Congress or the White House, elected official or staff member, who would work for $9 an hour?

For someone so ept at electoral politics, President Obama has repeatedly shown himself to be artless when it comes to the political side of governance. On issue after issue, he has entered policy negotiations with low-ball proposals that set-up compromises that, in real terms, hand victory to his opponents.

Take the $9 minimum wage proposal. A person making $9 an hour will earn, before deductions, $360 a week. That's working a full 40-hour week, but many retail and service jobs offer much shorter hours. Even a worker lucky enough to land two full-time jobs -- 80 hours a week -- would take home less than $720 a week after deductions. Clearly, a minimum wage of $9 is not sufficient if the goal is to assure that, as the president said Tuesday in his address to Congress, no one with a full time job should have to live in poverty.

The problem with Obama's maladroit handling of negotiations with the conservatives is that he establishes benchmarks that, while they may achieve "compromise," not only don't fix the problem being addressed but make it less likely that a better result can be achieved in the future (think of health care reform). If a deal at all cost is your goal, $9 may make some sense; as policy, it's ridiculous.

Labor and liberals should have nothing to do with it.

Return of Medicare For All

Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.

Although Obamacare is an improvement over what existed before, it was clear from the beginning of the health care debate that the compromised plan would deliver neither truly universal nor truly affordable access to health care. The greatest fear of liberals who opposed it was that, by embedding the insurance industry in the health care infrastructure, it would prevent either of these goals from ever being achieved. As the deficiencies of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have become more recognized, however, a new opportunity has opened up for Congress to do what should have been done in the first place: establish a single-payer system.

The insurance industry will oppose single-payer with scalpels and skull saws, of course, but the fight will be somewhat fairer because the industry's reputation is even lower than that of Congress. Still, with little or no help to be expected from the White House, it promises to be a hell of a battle, one that will be won only if ordinary citizens are mobilized. You can help right

from the start by asking your representative today to become an original cosponsor of H.R. 676: "The Expanded and Improved Medicare For All Act" (Capitol switchboard: 866-220-0044).

Rep. John Conyers will reintroduce national, single-payer healthcare legislation sometime this week. Before he introduces the bill, Conyers would like to have as many original cosponsors as possible. Please call your rep today and let them know you want them to cosponsor H.R. 676. Help them out by mentioning that in order to become an original cosponsor of H.R. 676 your member will need to contact Michael Darner from Rep. Conyers' office at michael.darner@mail.house.gov or 202-225-5126.

Already on board (thank them if you're in their district): Nadler, Schakowsky, Pingree, Grijalva, Ellison, Hank Johnson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Takano, Holmes-Norton, Lofgren, Rangel, Moore, Chu, Al Green, Farr, McGovern, Welch, Clarke, Lee, Nolan, Pocan, Doyle, Engel, Gutierrez, Frederica Wilson, Cohen, Edwards, McDermott, Clay, Huffman, Roybal-Allard, Cummings, Yarmuth, George Miller, Honda, Christensen, Rush.

If you live on the liberal west side of Los Angeles, note the following absences from this list: Waxman, Hahn, Sherman and Bass (Capitol switchboard: 866-220-0044).

Resources: PNHP.org: Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 18,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance
Healthcare-Now!: Organizing for a National Single-Payer Healthcare System
PublicCitizen: the Health Research Group of one of the country's most effective citizen's organizations

New World Order

For the fun of it:

The George W. Bush Paintings: A Freudian Analysis by Michael Schaffer (The New Republic).

Welfare states

Red indicates states that get more than a dollar back from the federal government for every dollar paid in federal taxes.

Bailing

The reliably feckless David Brooks has this to say about the domination of the GOP by radicals:

"It's probably futile to try to change current Republicans. It's smarter to build a new wing of the Republican Party, one that can compete in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states, in the upper Midwest and along the West Coast. It's smarter to build a new division that is different the way the Westin is different than the Sheraton..."

"Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who's going to build a second G.O.P.?"

Representative democracy would benefit from such a development, but here's an easier way to do it than by trying to recapture the GOP. Stragglers from the moderate wing of the Republicans, if joined by the neoliberals, now a declining and reviled minority among Democrats, would form a new centrist, corporatist, neoliberal party (the New Whigs?). The Republican Party under this scenario would continue to represent fundamentalists, reactionaries and rightist libertarians. The Democratic Party would take on its proper role as the champion of the middle and working classes. And a green party, maybe the Green Party, would carry on with an agenda focused climate change. A House with four or five parties could only function by building coalitions, making it far more likely that rational, practical and more representative political outcomes would prevail.

All parties in the legislature have an interest in reining in the executive branch. The Founders envisioned ours as a legislative democracy, and it would serve us all to return to that model. The assignment of power through winner-take-all contests has proven itself to be dangerous to democracy as well as to wise stewardship.

Headway

Though what they do will always trump what they say, it is a sign of progress that Stonewall is in a major presidential speech in the same sentence with Selma and that climate change is acknowledged there to require action.

Oligarchy

Not to say we have a ruling class in this country, but according to Ancestry.com, Mitt Romney’s family tree connects him to Franklin D. Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Pierce, Herbert Hoover, and George H.W. and George W. Bush.

It's all just a show, folks.

Former Ohio Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, the House radical, has signed on as a regular contributor to Fox News, the AP reports. Fox News chairman Roger Ailes said he's "always been impressed with Kucinich's fearlessness and thoughtfulness on the issues."

Sound advice

Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it. -- Will Rogers

If "teachers with guns" is the answer, then we're asking the wrong question.

Guns don't kill people; people who are ticked off kill people

Places, people, situations, other than public schools, that would benefit from more guns: the DMV; rude waiters; tardy Warner Cable installers; anyone who quotes Faux News; digital media wannabes on cell phones in public spaces; Jehovah's Witnesses at the door; bicyclists on the sidewalk; Segways; Republicans; the DNC; texters -- in traffic, on the sidewalk, bicycling; drivers faking disabilities to park for free; dog walkers without plastic bags; tiny, fidgety "service" dogs in restaurants...

Habeas corpus. Look it up.

11 years of Guantanamo: The first detainees arrived 11 years today: Is death the only way out of Gitmo? -- Amnesty International

Think about it

Water, water everywhere...

I'd bet the word I use most often in political discussions is "infrastructure." Along with education, it was infrastructure that gave us our biggest advantage over economic rivals in the 20th century. Natural resources are abundant in North America, of course, but it was government infrastructure spending in the form of railroads, electric grids, highways, port facilities, and so on (and a work force trained and educated in publicly financed schools) that enabled us to convert resources into wealth. Forty years of feckless leadership has squandered this advantage; a succession of Democratic and Republican regimes has presided over the transfer of public wealth into private hands, leaving virtually nothing to spend on the commons.

The penalty for allowing our government to devolve into kleptocracy is coming due, however.

Take water as an example. Even though it is more important to life than any other factor, we treat it with about as much consciousness as goldfish in a bowl. Even now, with two-thirds of the country in severe drought, with aquifers, lakes, reservoirs and rivers drying up -- even the Mississippi is close to being unnavigable for lack of water -- we routinely waste unconscionable quantities of H2O. And the crumbling infrastructure is making a bad situation worse. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we "lose" 1.7 trillion gallons of water each year -- enough to supply 68 million people -- to aging, leaky pipes (650 water mains burst on the average day). As the population grows and the supply of water declines, we will be forced to make changes in everything from agriculture to personal hygiene. And security planners say international tensions caused by water disputes will be a further burden on our ability to be the World's Policeman. Upgrading our water infrastructure will cost a bundle, at least $1 trillion, probably a lot more, but the costs of not doing anything -- in disease, productivity, unrest, and so on, are sure to be far greater. If we fail to act, and access to clean water dries up, we won't last much longer than goldfish flopping next to a broken bowl.

As with all our infrastructure problems, we have to resources to set this right, but doing so would require two seemingly impossible changes in our politics: we would need to raise taxes significantly and we would have to reorient our national priorities away from militarism and corporate welfare and toward spending for the common good. Neither of these outcomes is possible unless there is a radical updating of our political system to make it more democratic. Constitution 2.0 is long past due.

Tax Fraud

The primary justification for the negotiations b/t the WH and the GOP was the need to reduce the federal budget. However, the CBO estimates the budgetary impact of the fiscal-cliff deal will be that the debt will be nearly $4 trillion higher over the next ten years as compared with current policy.

The Hill: “The extension of lower tax rates for a bulk of the nation’s taxpayers and the addition of a permanent patch to the alternative minimum tax would add roughly $3.6 trillion to the deficit over the next decade… Other individual, business, and energy tax extenders would add another $76 billion.

“The extension of unemployment benefits would cost roughly $30 billion, and the so-called ‘doc fix’ would tally another $25 billion through fiscal 2022… the budget agreement will lead to an overall increase in spending of about $330 billion.”

Worse is yet to come

In the opening volley of his campaign to unseat John Boehner as Speaker, "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) came out against the fiscal cliff deal passed by the Senate, according to Republican members in attendance at a closed-door meeting of the House GOP conference Tuesday afternoon." If you think you hated Boehner as Speaker....

Maybe we should stop electing Democrats to the White House and start electing democrats.

It looks like the new deal (an expression I am using ironically) will define -- absurdly -- "middle class" as any family making up to $450,000/yr or individual bringing in $400,000. The median household income is about $50,000/yr. Four out of five U.S. families make less than $100,000/yr. Fewer than 1% earn more than $450,000/yr. We've got to stop electing Democrats to the White House and start electing democrats.

On not knowing when to hold 'em

"I think the president made a huge mistake by negotiating over what he'd previously said was non-negotiable (namely, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000). Then the White House compounded that mistake by sending Biden to 'close' the deal when Harry Reid appeared to give up on it. As a practical matter, this signaled to Republicans that the White House wouldn't walk away from the bargaining table, allowing the GOP to keep extracting concessions into the absolute final hours before the deadline." -- Noam Scheiber

"Anyone looking at these negotiations, especially given Obama's previous behavior, can't help but reach one main conclusion: whenever the president says that there's an issue on which he absolutely, positively won't give ground, you can count on him, you know, giving way -- and soon, too. The idea that you should only make promises and threats you intend to make good on doesn't seem to be one that this particular president can grasp." -- Paul Krugman

Note to Rod Stewart:

"Blue Christmas" is supposed to be sad, not pathetic.

The chalk conspiracy

Well, sure. You give kids chalk and pretty soon they've become artists.

Chalk: the doorway art supply.

  

Texas DPS Troopers arrested Santa Claus after he handed out chalk to children at Tuba Christmas this afternoon. Asked to add to 'Santa's Christmas Wish List', children wrote messages like "joy and peace."

More photos.

Law-Abiding Citizens Have Nothing to Fear from Reasonable Gun Control Regulations

A system of registration and insurance would protect everyone from effects of gun violence.

A risk of the current gun control squabble is that people with a history of mental illness will be scapegoated ("Guns don't kill people. People with mental illness kill people."). But as is demonstrated by comparing the nearly simultaneous knife attack on school children in China with Connecticut's tragedy, guns do kill people; other weapons less so.

Alas, a prohibition of assault weapons and bullets will probably work as well as any prohibition; in this case, as gun advocates warn, it is likely to mean that the only persons in possession of assault weapons will be criminals (and the police, but that's an argument for another day). How much better -- instead of creating special classes of citizens or another highly profitable traffic in contraband -- to make firearms themselves the target of reform. The licensing of automobiles provides a model (although in contrast gun control, since we're starting virtually from scratch, offers an opportunity to create a national system instead of relying on a hodgepodge of state regulations):

1) People who wish to shoot would be required to take a course in firearm care, handling and safety (similar to Drivers' Ed). They would need to show proof that they had fulfilled course requirements and to pass a test.
2) People with no record of violent crime who wish to own a gun, like those who seek to own a car, would be required to register the weapon and show proof that the weapon is insured: if the gun causes injury in the commission of a crime or through accident or negligence, the victims will be compensated, even if through theft or loss the registered owner no longer possesses or controls the weapon.
3) A national database would track firearms. If you buy a car, truck or motorcycle, that vehicle's record of involvement in accidents, recalls, etc., is easily available to you by a simple check of the VIN. Gun manufacturers would enter the serial numbers of new guns into the database and that number would be reported each time the weapon changed hands as it moved through distribution channels to owners. Gun manufacturers and distributors would carry insurance on weapons under their nominal control. Except for a small additional cost in fees and insurance spread across the industry and the entire 40% of the population that is armed, this system would be no more onerous than auto registration and insurance (the reason to insure weapons instead of users is to guarantee that no matter what the particular situation a victim of gun violence will be compensated). A portion of registration fees or insurance charges would need to be set aside for persons injured by non-registered firearms.

A system of this sort would go a considerable way toward making guns safer -- by separating the criminal population more clearly from the mass of lawful guns owners; by lessening the likelihood of accidents; and by reducing the impact of gun misuse on victims by the application of personal injury liability insurance to firearms -- without creating new populations of second-class citizens (for example, by using such squishy notions as a "history" of "mental illness").

Holiday or Holy Day

Although the Third Street business district is only a quasi-governmental organization, the space at Wilshire and Third is clearly public property. How does the daily lighting of a menorah during Hanukkah on public property not violate the Establishment Clause when the chicken-wire nativity jails that were finally barred from Ocean Park obviously do? Doesn't it trivialize Judaism to excuse the lighting of menorot by setting the tradition on a secular par with decorating Christmas trees? Dressing evergreens is a rite picked up from pre-Christian Central Europe and has no religious symbolism whatsoever. It's true that nativity scenes are a clearer First Amendment violation, having no existence independent of Christian mythology, whereas the menorah (or at least the graphic representation of a particular historical menorah) has been given a secular role by being adopted by Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people, but as Israel has evolved toward theocracy the identification of the menorah with the State of Israel raises questions of its own. Anyway, sticking to the question of separation of church and state, shouldn't the menorah be on private property every bit as much as the creche?

Whats' right is right

I never liked safety net.

And entitlement is worse. An entitlement, a concept in law, is a right granted by statute or contract. Of course, right wing polemicists can give a negative spin to any word -- look what they've done to liberal" and socialist -- but by sounding privileged, entitlement makes their job particularly easy.

A better word is sitting in front of us: Right.

Let's drop entitlement. From now on, it's right all the way.

Right to Medicare. Right to Social Security. Right to unemployment insurance. Because underneath the rhetoric, it is the deeper sense of right that is really being addressed. Right as opposed to wrong. The right to a dignified old age. The right to medical care. The right to a roof over your head and a sufficiency of food on the table.

So no more entitlements.

It's rights from now on.

Where is Horatio Alger when you need him?

The Economist ranks US 16th best place to be be born: above us on the list are nothing but socialist hellholes with confiscatory taxes.

This administration brought to you by...

"If Obama does give in to the money [to privatize the inauguration], he should have to take the oath of office in a suit and tie emblazoned – like a NASCAR driver – with the logos of his sponsoring corporations." -- Jim Hightower

A cup too far?

Over the weekend, Starbucks introduced the first $7.00 cup of coffee (a grande Costa Rica Finca Palmilera - $40 for an 8 oz bag).

Too much?

A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.

You can read Bernie Sanders' progressive deficit reduction plan here.

Worst. Socialist. Ever.

OMG:

Four more weeks of this!:

Haul out the holly

Put up the tree before my spirit falls again

Fill up the stocking

I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now

For we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute

Candles in the window

Carols at the spinet

Yes, we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute

It hasn't snowed a single flurry

But Santa, dear, we're in a hurry

So climb down the chimney

Put up the brightest string of lights I've ever seen

Slice up the fruitcake

It's time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough

For I've grown a little leaner

Grown a little colder

Grown a little sadder

Grown a little older

And I need a little angel

Sitting on my shoulder

Need a little Christmas now

Where's RICO when you need it?

Adbusters magazine's new book "Meme Wars: the Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economies" uses hard-hitting images to make its points.

They're changing, just not fast enough

What's my line?

Download: Reframing the debate

[This is from the website of the Center for Economic and Policy Research]

The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive

By Dean Baker (2011)

Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing of political debates. They have accepted a framing where conservatives want market outcomes whereas liberals want the government to intervene to bring about outcomes that they consider fair.

This is not true. Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers.

This "loser liberalism" is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don't redistribute income upward. This book describes some of the key areas where progressives can focus their efforts in restructuring market so that more income flows to the bulk of the working population rather than just a small elite.

By releasing The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive under a Creative Commons license and as a free download, Baker walks the walk of one of his key arguments -- that copyrights are a form of government intervention in markets that leads to enormous inefficiency, in addition to redistributing income upward. (Hard copies are available for purchase, at cost.)  Distributing the book for free not only enables it to reach a wider audience, but Baker hopes to drive home one of the book's main points via his own example. While the e-book is free, donations to the Center for Economic and Policy Research are welcomed.

Read the book (other formats coming soon)
PDF | Kindle (.AZW) | NOOK (.EPUB) | .MOBI
Paperback

"Benghazi, Alex, for 10 points."

Usually, the Right throws some crap against the wall and if it sticks they throw some more; if it doesn't, they throw something else. But this Benghazi crap isn't sticking and still they don't stop. Are they so out of ideas the can't even come up with a good lie anymore?

Head count

Democrats got a boost of one in the Senate today.

The newly elected independent from the State of Maine, Angus King, said he will join the Democratic caucus: "Affiliating with the majority makes sense." That gives Democrats 55 seats in the upper house, with 45 seats for the Republicans. 

Time was when that would have been perceived as a majority. 

We'll see.

"Takin' Care Of Business":

What it means depends a whole lot on who says it.

A new organization is needed that will do two things:

1. provide training to ordinary citizens on the ins-and-outs of running for and serving in public office (this would not only identify potential candidates but help to train staff members for campaigns and officeholders); * and,
2. more crucially, grant subsidies to working people so that they can afford to seek office (an income cutoff of $250K would make 98% of the population eligible for some degree of help, depending on circumstances).

It is nearly impossible for a salaried person -- or a person bearing the burden of responsibilities (for children or elderly parents, for example) -- to expend without assistance the time and resources demanded by public service. The result is that we have a system of governance in which most elected officials are remote by reason of economic advantage from the people they purport to represent.

Take Congress. (Please.)

According to Capital Hill's Roll Call, Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, quite a different sum than you could put together from 535 Americans chosen at random.

Not to pick on Democrats, but with a median net value of $878,500 in 2010 the self-described defenders of the middle class were worth more than nine times the typical American household (most of these figures are drawn from reporting on CNN). Twenty-one congressional Democrats have average assets of more than $10 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (Barack Obama's average net worth of $7.3 million is nothing to sneeze at either, especially when compared to the median household net worth in America, which in 2009 was $96,000).

Republicans are a little richer, but not by much. Their median net is $957,500 on average and 35 of them have assets totaling more than $10 million. **

That's net worth: congresspersons' $174,000 salary also blows away the median household income of $49,445 for 2010 -- for most people, being elected to Congress would result in a healthy jump in income. And members' net worth has been on the rise since 2004, unlike ordinary Americans, who have seen their wealth decline (the center's figures don't even include a primary home when calculating net worth for politicians, but the Census, in calculating net worth for average Americans, includes all real estate assets, meaning the divide between the people and their representatives is even more pronounced than it appears).

Dishearteningly though not surprisingly, less than 2% of the Congress comes from the working class, a figure that's stayed constant for the last century.

There's no reason not to think that similar disparities exist at every level of government.

This is not to say that it might not be easier for a wealthy person to be an effective advocate for the interests of poor, working and middle class Americans than for a camel, say, to pass through the eye of a needle. But it's pretty clear that in the aggregate, elected officials inhabit a rarified economic environment that at the least makes it more difficult to keep the struggles of ordinary folks in perspective. It seems obvious that politicians from the working and middle classes will be more likely to concentrate on bread-and-butter domestic economic issues than will people whose principal domestic issue is whether the help all have their green cards.

It will take more than training and funding average Americans to make representative government more democratic. We need publicly financed elections, controls on media access, weekend voting, and so on. In the meantime, the suggestion I made many years ago that that the only political reform we really need is to limit the income of every elected official to the level of the average person he or she represents is still a pretty good one.

* Organizations Right and Left already exist that offer assistance and training to people who have decided to run for office. But what's needed is a national network of training centers, possibly operated through existing organizations like churches and labor unions, that broadens its appeal to include people who are just beginning to entertain the idea of service in government.

** You are permitted a moment to savor the irony that the $448 million fortune of the richest rep, Darrell Issa, is built on vehicle anti-theft devices.

Maybe you can still buy love, though

As we predicted, Richard Bloom is the legatee of Torie Osborn's inane and opportunistic run against Betsy Butler.

Turns out you can't buy an assembly seat after all.

Class Unconsciousness

President Obama has gotten a lot of free advice since Nov 6 from progressives who think he should refocus his attentions on their priorities. But why should he? Since, when it appeared he needed them, they volunteered their support for his reelection without demanding anything in return, why should he now feel obligated to take their wishes seriously?

When he was first running for president, then Sen. Obama repeated the famous story about a delegation of progressives, led by the great labor organizer A. Philip Randolph of the railroad porters' union, meeting with another newly elected president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The delegation described the things they believed FDR needed to do to help fix the economy and improve the situation of ordinary citizens. As the story is told, FDR listened intently, then replied: 'I agree with everything you have said. Now, make me do it.'

Making Obama "do it" is going to take a lot more than op-ed pieces, open letters and online petitions. To move this administration in a more progressive direction, to overcome its leader's native caution and to beat back the relentless pressure it is under from the corporate class and the military-security state apparatus will require an equal or greater pressure from a national movement demanding economic justice and a restoration of the middle class. Such a movement can only be built if the identification that currently exists between the 99% and their oppressors can be broken. In other words, until Americans become class conscious there will never be a reason for Obama, or any politician, to do anything other than carry on with business as usual.

Building class consciousness won't happen -- can't happen -- by recruiting people to join the Peace and Freedom Party or the Greens (although third party mechanisms will be necessary in the future as the country continues its decline under the Democratic-Republican duopoly, so it's to be hoped that Jill Stein's paltry 396,684 tally is enough to keep the Green Party on state ballots). But class consciousness can be built by engaging in practical political work in our communities.

There are a number of local issues that are looming (or that are chronic, is more like it) -- repairing the public schools; providing universal access to public institutions of higher learning; keeping hospital emergency rooms and clinics open and accessible; raising local minimum wages to livable levels; restraining public transportation costs and assuring availability; resisting hand-outs to developers; opposing the crushing of local businesses by big-box stores and malls; increasing infrastructure spending; making state and local taxes more progressive; supporting labor actions by janitors, hotel workers, grocery clerks, teachers, factory workers -- that offer opportunities for common-sense, real-world discussions about capitalism and economic and social justice.

Also, reforms that would make our political system more democratic and thus more responsive to the majority -- weekend voting; instant run-offs; proportional representation; public financing of elections -- will only gain traction if they are tested and proven effective on the local level. And that won't happen, either, unless that majority begins to understand whose interests are served by the creaky, calcified, undemocratic political mechanism we use now.

This is not to say that we should give up attempting to affect national issues -- the security state; the war machine; our murderous and counter-productive foreign policy; the immoral drone campaign; climate change; free trade; protecting and expanding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security; the private health care insurance gravy train; control of the government by oligarchs; the kleptocracy -- but these are matters for discussion and op-ed pages; organizing around them will only make sense when people active locally begin to connect the dots between community concerns and macro issues, and local organizations join together to demand change on these national issues.

The Democratic Party as a whole has moved steadily to the right for four decades. But many people within the party who share our goals are potential allies in local fights; these engaged people also need and deserve support when they resist the pro-business, anti-labor forces that dominate the party. After the "change" election in 2008, many on the left suffered buyer's remorse when Obama adopted a business-as-usual attitude toward governing (and doubled-down on many of Bush's worst security-state policies); yet four-years later they found themselves with seemingly no choice but to push once again for the lesser-of-two-evils option. If we're going to use our limited personal energies in electoral politics going forward, it should be in local races and political institutions where we can build trust with our communities and demonstrate concrete results. If this country is going to begin down a new road, the journey will start at Neighborhood Watch and the PTA, in community organizations, planning commissions and city councils. Not only is it possible to make concrete changes in our lives at the micro-political level, but local successes will demonstrate the practical worth of our ideas.

President-Elect Obama, Grant Park, November 2008

If only we'd been listening.

So...

Yes on Prop 30, temporary taxes to fund education.

And yes on Prop 34: Death Penalty Repeal and Prop 36: Three Strikes Law, because the politicians will never dare to get these done in the legislature where they should get done.

As for the rest, No. Not because they don't have worthy goals (Prop 31: State Budget Process; Prop 33: Auto Insurance Rates; Prop 39: Multistate Business Tax), are badly drawn (Prop 32: Political Contributions; Prop 37: Genetically Modified Foods) or misdirected (Prop 35: Human Trafficking/Sex Offender), but because they're not the business of referendums; all would be better decided in the give-and-take of the legislative process.

The only prop we really need is the Prop to End All Props.

quote unquote: David Friedman

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. -- David Friedman

Practical Proposal

Or at least vote from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Agenda items

Now that consumer confidence, Hurricane Sandy and Mayor Bloomberg have settled the election, can we have a discussion about what to do about military spending;

drones; the assassination of American citizens; illegal military incursions into Pakistan; military adventures in Yemen, Bahrain, Somalia and now, it appears, Mali; Africom; the pumped up Drug War; militarization of US drug war interventions in Honduras, Guatemala, Columbia, et al; the brutal program of sanctions against Iran; the military "pivot" toward China; habeas corpus; Bradley Manning; expanded government secrecy and unprecedented actions against whistle-blowers; domestic government spying; continued the transfer of vast amounts of wealth into the hands of the financial giants without significant oversight or accountability; truly universal, truly affordable health care (Medicare for All); neoliberal judicial appointments and the general failure to make appointments at all; austerity as a budgetary priority; the need for a massive New Deal-style jobs program; the ambition to strike a "grand bargain" with McConnell, Cantor and Boehner that will put Social Security and Medicare "on the table;" and the ongoing control of the country by the corporations, the militarists and the industrial-security state?

And something else Romney and Obama might have discussed:

 Most Americans are financially totally unready for old age.

"Only 58% of us are even saving for retirement in the first place. Of that group, 60% have less than $25,000 put away....Almost half (48%) of workers ages 45 and up have less than $25,000 saved." -- ConvergEx Group

For perspective, Fidelity estimates that a couple retiring this year will need $240,000 just to cover medical bills before they die. If you haven't already, try to get long-term health insurance -- it's significantly cheaper the younger you are, and unlike Medicaid, should that continue to exists, you won't have to be bankrupt to benefit.

ConvergEx also found that "22% of retirees claim they're taking more than they thought they would out of their accounts, depleting their savings even faster than they anticipated," so even that $25,000 is less than it seems.

Having a pension may not protect you, either. Pew Charitable Trusts estimates public pensions are underfunded by $1.38 trillion. Standard & Poor's estimates that S&P 500 companies are $355 billion short of what's needed to cover pension obligations.

"Of the 500 companies, 338 have defined-benefit pension plans, and only 18 are fully funded." -- The New York Times.

You might have wondered why one candidate or the other didn't suggest that pension plans be fully funded as a matter of law.

The government solution is to have us work longer, maybe our entire lives. But that's assuming we'll be able to work 'til we drop dead. Even now, and it's going to get worse as medical science extends our lives, a healthy 25-year-old female can expect to live to nearly 100 years old. Let alone to a nonagenarian, there are few jobs that will be offered to a 55-year-old worker when a stronger, faster and more eager 25-year-old is available. And that's if you're healthy enough to work: dementia, osteoporosis, breathing disorders, heart trouble...there are a lot of diseases waiting in the wings as we grow older that will make any job impossible.

Finally, for a majority of people, Social Security, in the best of circumstances a meager instrument of defense, will be the only thing staving off ruin. And the looming "grand bargain" between Obama and the GOP trolls to balance the federal budget has cuts in that "on the table," too.

Here's something left out of the debates:

The median duration of unemployment is now 18.5 weeks, compared to a 50-year average of 8.2 weeks. The unemployment rate for those aged 16-24 is nearly 16%. According to a Rutgers study, 12% of those who have graduated college since 2006 are either unemployed or can't find full-time work -- and they're the ones with college degrees. In a study of men graduating from college between 1979 and 1989, Yale economist Lisa Kahn found that those entering the labor market during poor economic times earned about 7% less than those who graduated when the economy was strong, and the gap persisted for years: 17 years after graduation, Kahn found that those who began their careers when the economy was in recession were still earning less than those who started their careers when the economy was strong, adjusted for inflation and age. Those who stepped into a world of high unemployment were never able to shake it off. Testifying before Congress in 2010, Til von Wachter of Columbia University offered another startling stat: "The average mature worker losing a stable job at a good employer will see earnings reductions of 20% lasting over 15 to 20 years" when laid off during a recession. The longer unemployment lasts, the harder it is to recover from. We need a massive New Deal-style employment program.

For the record

"For the first time since the Great Depression, median family income has fallen substantially over an entire decade. Income grew slowly through most of the last decade, except at the top of the distribution, before falling sharply when the financial crisis began.

"By last year, family income was 8 percent lower than it had been 11 years earlier, at its peak in 2000, according to inflation-adjusted numbers from the Census Bureau. On average in 11-year periods in the decades just after World War II, inflation-adjusted median income rose by almost 30 percent." -- David Leonhardt (New York Times)