March 2008 Archives

3. In the Senate you have one of the poorest attendance records, and you often simply vote present on thorny issues, why?

Because when Obama's had a long-held plan to coast to the White House on personality, emotion, and the "audacity of hope" alone, a paper trail of votes that shows his real positions on the issues would counter his wanton image as the great uniter, and give plenty o' ammunition to his opponents.

For crying out loud, whose idea was it for Barack to bowl? After Dukakis in the tank and Kerry in weird outfits or windsurfing, haven't candidates learned to avoid ridiculous photo-ops that backfire so easily? Barack looks silly, and he bowled a 37 to boot -- I've seen raccoons have greater success in an alley.

Time was when JFK refused to be seen eating, sensitive as he was to how dumb you can look while being photographed chewing.

Simple tip: Don't try to look like the common man. Try to look like someone the common would be proud to have as his leader.

I’m disappointed in Earl Ofari Hutchinson’s 10 questions for Obama. Some of them are misleading in their formulations and others in their implication. Here are my responses and they are not those of either Sen Obama or his campaign. Just me.

1. I suppose you could spin Obama’s statement that he was against the war without seeing the secret intelligence as a negative. However, I read it as “You guys saw the intel and you still got it wrong.”

2.This is a disingenuous criticism. His subcommittee is on European Affairs. Despite continental drift, Afghanistan remains outside of Europe.

3. The parts of this compound question mix his Illinois Senate service and his national service where there is no vote of Present.

4. I don’t know anything about this.

5. Do you really want to get into how dirty the money sources on all sides of both parties? Bill’s contributors to his library and his multi-million dollar retainer as a consultant are pretty putrid. There are no winners here. For the most part mega fortunes are not made with pristine cleanliness. They may however be cleaned up by being inherited. (See #6)

6. Penny Pritzker, one of Abraham Pritzker’s 12 grandchildren inherited her fortune and is a billionaire in her own right. She doesn’t need to skim from failed banks. The whole subprime thing ended in a fiasco but originally was supposed to help poor people, people who didn’t qualify to regular loans. It was a way of avoiding the redlining of poor people in poor neighborhoods. Yes it was predicated on a continually rising market and that market, as all markets eventually “correct.”

7. See #5

8. Does this question imply that Obama lied or just didn’t know what all his staff and surrogates were saying? Both are certainly sins, but one is worse than the other.

9. Has anyone asked?

10. Oh come on. Hillary stayed in along with Kucinich, Dodd and Gravel. Obama, Edwards and Biden did the honorable thing and tried to follow the request of the national party.

Here are ten troubling questions for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama that he’d be wise to answer coming from me. If he’s the Democratic presidential nominee you can bank that John McCain and the GOP truth squad will ask him them. The questions were sent directly to him at his national campaign headquarters Friday, March 28. The questions are not campaign rhetoric, gossip, and partisan allegations. They are fully documented, and totally a matter of public record. If Obama won’t answer them, then the challenge is for his supporters to answer them point by point. This doesn’t mean hurling the usual cheap shot, brainless, personal invectives, name calling, personal insults, or character assassination. This is no substitute for factual answers.

1. You stated that you were not in the Senate in October 2002 when President Bush rammed through Congress the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. But you also stated that “perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence.” This implies that you might have voted for the war if you had been in the Senate when the vote was taken. Why then do you condemn Hillary Clinton and other Senators who voted for the war authorization resolution when you admit the possibility that if you had been in the Senate you would have done the same?

2. As chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Foreign Relations you could have held oversight hearings, called witnesses and offered alternatives to Bush’s disastrous efforts against A Qeada in Afghanistan. Your subcommittee held none and provided no alternatives to Bush policy that you condemn, why?

3. In the Senate you have one of the poorest attendance records, and you often simply vote present on thorny issues, why?

4. Senate Legislation was proposed to require nuclear giant, Exelon to make public disclosure of its radiation leaks. You did not fully support that requirement. Exelon has been identified as your fourth biggest campaign contributor. Why did you oppose the tougher regulatory proposal for Exelon?

5. Chicago financier Tony Rezko has been accused of numerous financial illicit dealings. You have claimed that you did no political or personal favors for Rezko. Yet as an Illinois state legislator you wrote endorsement letters to government agencies on his behalf, as well as having conducted other documented financial transactions and dealings and with him. Why do you deny that you have no relationship with Rezko?

6. The head of your campaign finance chair is Penny Pritzker. Before taking over Obama’s campaign finances, she headed up the borderline shady and failed Superior Bank. It collapsed in 2002. The bank engaged in deceptive and faulty lending, questionable accounting practices, and charged hidden fees. It made thousands of dubious loans to mostly poor, strapped homeowners. A disproportionate number of them were minority. Why does she still have a principal financial role in your campaign?

7. You have taken money in past campaigns from straw donors. These are donors that have taken money from tainted and dubious sources and then contribute to your campaign under their names. You have talked much about financial openness in campaigns. Why did you take money from straw donors in the past? And do you take money from them now?

8. Following a speech by Hillary Clinton praising Lyndon Johnson for his role in helping pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an Obama campaign advisor privately released a four page memo urging hammering Clinton for denigrating Dr. King. Yet, you told reporters that neither you nor anyone in your campaign had made the accusation that Clinton denigrated King. Why did you say that when clearly it was the memo from your campaign advisor that triggered the media and public assault on Clinton regarding King?

9. You have not produced a single public document that would provide the public with greater insight and knowledge about legislation, initiatives proposed, your votes on key bills, and your attendance record during your terms in the Illinois legislature. Why?

10. You have repeatedly charged that Clinton violated a pledge not to put her name on the Michigan Democratic primary ballot. However, neither Clinton nor any other Democratic contender pledged to the DNC not to have their name on the ballot. Three other candidates had their name on the ballot in addition to Clinton. Why do continue to make this claim that the other candidates, but especially Clinton, violated a pledge not to have their name on the Michigan ballot?

Obama’s campaign is based on the firm pillar that he represents a new, open, fresh, and transparent politics. He is the candidate that is the antithesis of the political duplicity, double dealing, evasions, lies and corruption that marred other candidates. Obama can prove it by answering these questions; questions that raise serious doubt about his contention that he represents a radical break from the political past. If he won’t answer them then will his supporters answer them for him? That’s again, before McCain asks them.

My column Sunday about my DWP bill in the context of the current debates over proposed DWP rate prompted readers' similar tales of woe over the ever increasing cost of living here in Los Angeles. One reader is a widow trying to live on $15,000 a year:

With the DWP rates and its long list of assorted charges always increasing, Internet service constantly going up, and of course the cost of gasoline, it is getting extremely difficult to keep my head above water. Like you, I am an environmentally conscious person doing all that I can think of to be energy efficient. I am very conscious about recycling and like you I am fully aware of the blue barrels being emptied by the scavengers long before the trucks come along to empty the empty barrels. ... How do we get the attention of those in charge when they can care less about us? It doesn't bother them, they are financially sound with their huge salaries and all the perks they receive. The DWP salaries are and have always been outrageously high. I say reduce those and all government salaries, make people in all levels of government employment far more accountable.

And an earlier post about my DWP bill prompted this comment:

My Woodland Hills home is a one family home. It has about 4000 square feet. After my children grew up and I was single again, I favored staying in the house. However, I simply did not personally need all that space for myself and it was too difficult for me to maintain alone.

I then had the truly bright idea of creating lovely guest suites -- virtually apartments -- within the space. There are connecting doors between each suite (because of understandable city and fire laws). But each space has its own entrance.

The DWP sees my house as an apartment building with four units. Therefore, the DWP has quadrupled my trash bill to $112 every two months. Here's the real issue at hand.....

I am effectively paying for 12 trash cans when, in fact, I only have three.
I called DWP about these charges. Once they realized the facts, they said I had to "use it (the 12 cans) or lose it." I then said my property cannot accomodate any more than three cans ... that the number of people who live in the house now has not changed from the original number that represented my family. They then had the gall to say to me that I should have no complaints ... that my rents likely more than cover this increased trash fee. This, of course, is not their business. Fairly billing people is. But, by this point, I just gave up while thinking I can't fight city hall.

If my trash fee goes from $112 to $152 I believe I'll actually save money if I simply hire a private trash service. I will simply dismiss ... discharge ... fire the city trash service. I look forward to that day.

Now, that's a lot of money for trash collection. Seems a trip to the dump would be cheaper.

Hillary denies privately complaining about big boys bullying her, but it just sounds so in keeping with the spirit of the last several weeks of the nomination process. When anyone comes within a 50-mile zone of classic racial or gender resentments, one of the candidates sounds an alarm (or uses surrogates to sound it).

It will be interesting to see how this dynamic changes come the general election, when Bubba of the Bible Belt will be less receptive to such posturing.

We already know that Bush and Gordon Brown have no cojones when it comes to standing up for China and boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- Forbes' most powerful woman in the world and highly worthy of the title -- has become the first leader to put her foot down and do the right thing:

"As pressure built for concerted western protests to China over the crackdown in Tibet, EU leaders prepared to discuss the crisis for the first time today, amid a rift over whether to boycott the Olympics.

The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games' opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown's determination to attend the Olympics.

Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

'The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate,' Tusk said. 'I do not intend to take part.'

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, confirmed that Merkel was staying away. He added that neither he nor Wolfgang Schäuble, the interior minister responsible for sport, would attend the opening ceremony.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, the politician from Merkel's Christian Democratic party who chairs the European parliament, encouraged talk of an Olympic boycott this week and invited the Dalai Lama to address the chamber in Strasbourg, while another senior German Christian Democrat, Ruprecht Polenz, said a boycott should remain on the table."

This is awesome news!! And I'm willing to bet that Sarko will take the boycott route.

My column last week on how we shouldn't play China's games anymore got a lot of interesting reaction, by the way, including a death threat from the mainland. No worries -- I'll just sic these creepy "fuwas" on him:

No, I haven't gotten that check, but I did get the direct deposit of my whopping $10 federal tax refund!! (I had to pay the state.) Why, thank you Uncle Sam for rewarding my hard work so... shall I buy a roll of laundry quarters, or a gyro plate at Firehouse?

This is the time of year I start lusting for Steve Forbes again: Flat tax!! FLAT TAX!!! And as far as the black hole where my tax money goes... cut those useless wasteful programs!! Reduce spending!! Chop, chop, chop...

Moammar Gadhafi, who apparently has taken pleather to new, exciting places, gets all street with the amazingly birdlike Syrian President Bashar Assad...

Very, very sad news about the passing yesterday of Dith Pran, the "Killing Fields" survivor who became a photographer for The New York Times -- and strove to ensure that Pol Pot's genocide would not be forgotten:

"I'm a one-person crusade. I must speak for those who did not survive and for those who still suffer. Since coming to America, I have visited Cambodia three times to evaluate the ongoing Cambodian crisis. The problems Cambodia faces are not only political but also economical and social. The Khmer Rouge have brought Cambodia back to year zero and that's why I'm trying to bring the Khmer Rouge leaders to the World Court. Like one of my heroes, Elie Wiesel, who alerts the world to the horrors of the Jewish holocaust, I try to awaken the world to the holocaust of Cambodia, for all tragedies have universal implications."

"Part of my life is saving life. I don't consider myself a politician or a hero. I'm a messenger. If Cambodia is to survive, she needs many voices."

A little Monday morning fluff, courtesy of GQ's "The Whipped List." Their No. 1 most emasculated man? Mr. Madonna, who used to be the man's man director of "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and then got, er, "Swept Away." Plus, as they note, Guy Ritchie is now making a documentary to go with Madonna's Kabbalah fad.

Other funny bits on the list include Rupert Murdoch's arm candy Wendi Dang, who "once asked him in front of colleagues, 'Are you going deaf, old man?'" And on the political front, GQ picks John Edwards:

"After Ann Coulter referred to the former senator and failed presidential candidate as a 'fa---t,' Edwards did the stand-up thing: He let his wife, Elizabeth, call in to Hardball and tell the right-wing harpy off but good. John, meanwhile, looked like a man holding his wife’s purse."

Ah, but in the name of emasculated bipartisanship, Rudy Giuliani also comes in on the list:

"If the former New York mayor is serious about ever running for office again, he should think twice about paying his wife, Judy, a six-figure paycheck for 'writing' speeches she’ll later interrupt with her phone calls."

All of the people with piercings are probably freaking out over the story of the woman who was forced by TSA to remove her nipple piercings with pliers to board a plane. It's just evidence of what we all know: that so much of the so-called security post-9/11 is really for our benefit. I have a can of pepper spray at home that proves it. A friend came to visit me from DC in January and accidentally left the can of spray in a pocket of a jacket that she stuck in her carry-on luggage. No one batted an eye at that, though her lotion and shampoo were examined thoroughly. She wisely decided not to try to bring the can home.

So, while babies have to remove shoes and alternative people have to remove body art, pepper spray goes overlooked into the cabin of an airplane. Doesn't make me feel too safe.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and members of the City Council meet to discuss L.A.'s budget woes.

(Or offer your own captions in the combox ...)

Yikes. Just reading that quote makes me wince. It comes from lawyer-to-the-cameras Gloria Allred, who today will be -- you guessed it -- holding a press conference denouncing TSA for forcing a passenger at LAX to remove her nipple rings before boarding a flight. According to Allred, this is some sort of terrible violation of civil rights, although TSA defenders say that, depending on the nipple ring in question, this could just be consistent with the practice of barring passengers from bringing sharp objects, chains, etc. onto planes.

Either way, sounds painful to me. And yes, a little overboard. But seeing that TSA won't even let you bring a nail clipper aboard an airplane, we shouldn't be surprised. If national security can't handle mile-high nose-hair trimming, it probably can't handle Axl Rose nipple rings, either.

Then again, maybe TSA should make an exception here. Taking nipple rings off the banned list could inspire countless al-Qaida to take various sharp objects to their own nipples -- an excruciating fate they richly deserve.

As this article makes clear, we have to bring a mature and patient approach to the notion that the spread of democracy will make the U.S. strong and safe. Key excerpts:

Deputy secretary of state John Negroponte arrived for consultations even before the new government had a chance to form itself, fuelling paranoia in the country about being ruled from Washington... The rules have changed. Mr. Negroponte and assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher received a cold reception from politicians, highlighting the difference between dealing with an elected government and the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf.

The neoconservative idealism, distilled most famously in President Bush's second inaugural address about how "the untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world" -- presumably in a way that will allow us to balance our war-bound budget, pay off our national debt, achieve a trade balance, and avoid the slings and arrows of other countries' angry hillbillies. The rub, however, is that, as the excerpted paragraph shows, there is a paranoia in places such as Pakistan, fueled precisely by the idea that the U.S. is less interested in others' liberty and more interested in our own privileges. The President's rhetoric and moral clarity have dug us a deep hole; his successor will need wisdom in getting us out of it.

But here's one decent solution, I'd say, courtesy of two of America's premier military men.

Plus room and airfare.

To travel with a SoCal lobbying entourage from April 15 though 18 on the L.A Chamber of Commerce's "Access Washington DC Tour," all you have to do is register here, pick your lobbying team (aviation, climate change, housing, transit, etc.) and provide your credit card information for the $850 fee. For that modest amount you can work the hall of Capitol Hill alongside Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Santa Monica's mayor, whathisface.

Join more than 200 of the region's top business leaders and elected officials for Southern California's largest advocacy trip to Washington, D.C. from April 15-18, 2008. This is an incredible opportunity to meet with members of Congress and Bush Administration officials on the issues important to our communities.

Access Washington, D.C. is a partnership of nearly two dozen business advocacy organizations, non-profits, educational institutions and local government leaders. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Santa Monica Mayor Herb Katz are co-leading the 2008 delegation.

Sounds like a real hoot! Surely worth $850 to lobby the mayor, I mean with the mayor in those hallowed halls.

Why is it that if gas prices dropped by 25 percent, we would be dancing in the streets ... but when housing prices drop 25 percent, we prepare for the next Great Depression?

And a corollary: Why is that when gas prices rise by 25, 50, even 100 percent, we denounce big oil for price gouging ... but when housing prices similarly soar, we gladly sell our homes at "market value"?

Fascinating George Will column today citing data that destroy two of the most common political assumptions: 1) Conservatives are rich; liberals are poor, and 2) Liberals are more compassionate than conservatives. There are a lot of good stats to discredit these assumptions, but to cite one factoid that stands out:

Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).

There are two phenomena at work here. The first is that, on average, conservatives tend to be more religious (or, to express it conversely, atheists are more likely to be liberal), and most religions require some form of tithing. (Tellingly, the least charitable group of Americans is secular conservatives -- i.e., Country Club Republicans.)

The second, related phenomenon is ideological: While both liberals and conservatives, by and large, recognize a need to help the disadvantaged, liberals tend to view government as the primary vehicle for doing so, whereas conservatives put their stock (and money) in private charity. To quote Will:

People who reject the idea that "government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality" give an average of four times more than people who accept that proposition....

While conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility, some liberals consider private charity a retrograde phenomenon -- a poor palliative for an inadequate welfare state and a distraction from achieving adequacy by force, by increasing taxes.

This explains not only why liberals are less likely to give to charity, but also why they're more willing to pay higher taxes. They see ponying up more money to the state as the price to pay for living in a more just and compassionate society. Conservatives, on the other hand, don't trust the government to do the job, and having already made generous charitable donations on their own, resent the implication that the government thinks they should be doing more.

These are two radically different world views, but one shouldn't assume -- as politicians and partisans often do -- that the other is intrinsically selfish.

Since societal compassion requires some level of both private and public efforts, perhaps we should see our differences here as a blessing -- a necessary system of checks and balances -- rather than as one more cause for political sanctimony and partisan outrage.

In the process of writing and editing an opinion piece for a major newspaper, a lot of things can end up snipped out by an enthusiastic editor. It is part of the process, and, in my experience, is not reflective of bias or political sensitivity. Unfortunately, some of those snips can snag substantive morsels of information.

This is one of those.

Shortly after the death of Suzie Pena, the LAPD SWAT team held a regular range practice at Angeles Range, in the Foothill Division. The team was stunned at having lost their first hostage in 35 years, disturbed at the possibility it might have been one of their own errant rounds tha killed her. Multiplying the tension, for the first time in their history, the potential of a serious inquiry into the actions and practices this world-class outfit loomed in the background.

That's when Assistant Chief Sharon Papa showed up. Papa, the highest ranking woman in the LAPD, is in large part an LAPD outsider. She was the chief of the old Metropolitan Transit Authority Police when it was absorbed by LAPD. She joined as a Commander -- a senior manager. For better or worse, she never pushed an "A Car" around an LAPD Division. Her experience with the kinds of calls and problems faced uniquely by LAPD officers is (and remains) limited.

So, having her around the premiere LAPD unit already caused the SWAT officers a bit of discomfort, especially given the motivation for her visit: She was going to discuss the Pena inquiry.

But it was the first words out of her mouth that none of the officers who were present will ever forget, numerous officers who were present have told me. Her words were not "thanks for having me." She didn't say "how are you guys holding up? I know its been a rough few days." She didn't even try to set a tone of cooperation.

Instead, this was her first comment:

"So, where are all the women? Oh, THAT's RIGHT, there are no women in SWAT."

Suzie Pena had barely been buried, and Sharon Papa was primarily focused on politcal correctness.

And thus the stage was set. Less than a month later, Papa was appointed to lead the Pena inquiry, and its conclusions were forgone. SWAT needs a woman. Dead hostages be damned.

Notably, two weeks ago, Papa, the senior officials of the LAPD's administration and personnel management activities, wrote an email to the wife of a SWAT officer, denying any knowledge of changes made to the SWAT selection test that would make it more accessible to women. Does anyone really believe, after a comment like this, that she really lost all interest in having a woman on SWAT?

Me either.

Thankfully someone stepped in and told Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to keep her mouth shut and butt out of the battle between Obama and Clinton over the superdelegates. That came from a group of top Clinton backers in a letter in which they demanded that Pelosi retract her hector of superdelegates to back Obama. The only thing wrong with their letter is that they took so long to write it. Pelosi popped off a week ago and sternly warned the superdelegates that they risked a palace revolt at the Democratic convention if they defied “the will of the people” and handpicked a nominee.

Pelosi’s silly saber rattle had to rank as one of the most asinine lapses of judgment, common sense, not to mention political ethics by a top Democrat in recent memory. The rationale, if it can be called such, is this. Obama leads Clinton in the number of pledged delegates he’s netted. Therefore, the superdelegates should slavishly fall in line and nominate him.

The checklist of things wrong with this would fill up a thick political primer. Here’s just a few of them. There are still a half dozen primaries left and that includes the big, crucial and must win Pennsylvania primary April 22. The vote there won’t even be close. Polls, surveys, and voter statements show that Obama will go down to a crushing defeat and if Clinton as expected picks up the bulk of the 128 delegate votes from her primary victory there she’ll be in a virtual statistical dead heat with Obama in the number of pledged delegates.

Even without the Pennsylvania win and despite the shrill drum beat calls from the rabid Hillary haters for her to stand down, their empty shout at her that it’s impossible for her to win, and their slander that she’s wrecking the party with her obstinate refusal to bow to Obama, she’s less than five percentage points behind Obama in the number of pledged delegates. That’s hardly a resounding mandate from the majority of delegates for Obama.

Here’s another. Many of the superdelegates had committed or pledged to back Clinton before Obama’s magical appearance on the national political scene. Pelosi almost certainly sans Obama would have been one of them.

Here’s another. The superdelegates have the responsibility not just too blindly cheer lead a candidate because of his fleeting momentary, and always ephemeral popularity but to make a hard headed political assessment of which Democrat has the best chance to beat the GOP guy. Clinton’s vote demographics among core Democrats are rock solid. She’s backed by older women, Latinos, blue collar workers, and party regulars. Recent polls even show that she even has the backing of nearly one fourth of African-American voters.

She has won both the big states and the crucial swing states of Ohio and Florida, and soon Pennsylvania. Without them, no Democrat has a prayer of winning the White House. Polls show that in a head-to head face off with McCain, Clinton is in a statistical dead heat with him while Obama slightly trails him.

Here’s yet another. The superdelegates are supposed to be the firewall to insure electability. Though Pelosi apparently confused that with Obama’s media celebrity and his popular aura, it’s anything but. The superdelegates, even if Pelosi can’t, are supposed to be able to tell the difference between the two.

Then there’s Pelosi herself. She is a superdelegate and she has not publicly committed to back either Obama or Clinton. That’s fine so far. She’s also the House majority leader and that means that she’s supposed to be a neutral and impartial political arbiter and broker for the Democratic Party’s interests in Congress. That also entails working with and unifying the discordant factions among the Democrats. In her naked Obama tilt badger of the super delegates she forgot all of that and became a partisan political hatchet woman for Obama.

The hard headed and strong willed Pelosi will probably do the wrong thing and ignore the demand that she recant her biased admonition to the superdelegates to get on board the Obama train. However, if she’s got any political sense, or sense period, she’ll at least zip it up, stop trying to massage things for Obama and let the superdelegates do their job and that’s to pick the candidate that has the best chance to beat McCain. Right now, neither Pelosi, nor any other top Democrat, can say with certainty which one that is.

What's worse than having to endure government flakery? Having to pay for it.

Like millions of Americans, I got a happy note in the mail from the IRS the other day. Who knew that could happen? it was the notice telling me that I was going to get a bribe, er rebate check in the mail shortly (though not in time enough to pay my tax bill next month). After the relief of not reading an audit notice, I started to get a little annoyed.Doesn't everyone whose head is not in the sand know there's a rebate? What exactly what was the point of this mailed note other than pure flakery? What's worse, this lRS letter campaign cost $42 million to mail.

The tax rebate was already a tremendously obvious PR stunt to momentarily make us forget that the Iraq war lumbers into its fifth year, gas prices are rising, the housing market is crumbling and so is the individual wealth of millions of working people, the nation's wealth is disproportionately going to the ultra rich, who are getting richer by laying off hardworking employees, and all our social safety nets have been rendered virtually worthless by decades of republicrats who have put the U.S. on the track toward third-world status. And the country has to finance this $169 billion economic package, of which these $600 bribes are part, making the final cost much, much larger. And this added, unnecessary cost of trying to spin the American people makes it offensive.

This is not to say I won't cash my check and spend it on some crap I don't need, and which was probably made in China or Mexico or Indonesia. I just wish that someone in DC would suddenly wake up and and say "hey, this is a bad idea. Let's stop the madness."

A couple of experts that I respect wrote this fine piece here (disclosure: I'm a researcher for one of them).

They make a fascinating point about how the American economy tripled expectations over the past 25 years, thanks to this nation's ability to innovate while others merely imitate. Coincidentally, BusinessWeek recently noted that Americans' debt-to-income ratio has doubled over these same past 25 years. Much more of our wealth is now in our homes, which we leveraged to the max and which now are declining in value.

That seems to make us more like the grasshopper and less like the ant of the ancient parable.

Working hard and spending wisely is not enough to keep you on top. No one worked harder or spent more frugally than the Depression generation. What gets you on top is the ability to innovate. What keeps you on top is the ability to work hard and spend wisely. We have the innovation down, but our instant-gratification culture doesn't have any concept of spending wisely. That's why I bemoan the current bipartisan attempts to save the economy, which place consumption on a pedestal high above production.

It would be nice to see a candidate show the courage to tell a debt-ridden citizenry (and an equally debt-ridden government) that the laws of economic physics do still apply. And it would be nice to see the citizenry not dismiss him or her as a crackpot.

It's been a while since I last posted here on Friendly Fire. I've been busy comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable in the San Gabriel Valley, and then when a little birdy dropped a package in my hands, the fit really hit the shan... as the saying goes.

However, if I read the tea leaves correctly, this could potentially be my last post. Ever. Anywhere.

The Los Angeles Chief of Police wants me silenced.

The package the birdy gave me contained the highly secret and remarkably inane report of the LAPD SWAT Board of Inquiry. Supposedly appointed to look into the Suzie Pena incident from 2005by Police Chief William J. Bratton, the board instead looked at everything but (it didn't even interview the Pena officers) and then made some dramatic allegations and recommendations that fly in the face of a remarkably successul organization. Actually, the board didn't really look at anything - SWAT cops tell me they rarely if ever saw the board, thus the board rarely saw SWAT, too. Many of its statements are demonstrably false and absent any factual basis.

Anyway, this package led to my authoring an OpEd for the other paper in town, an that led to a bunch of other stories, a mini-media tour of local talk radio stations and a grievance filed by the Police Protective League.

Apparrently, Chief Bratton is not amused.

In a stunning -- shocking -- statement, Bratton drew parallels to himself and the Corleone family from the movie "The Godfather." He vowed to silence his critics and noted: "And at the end of the movie, all debts are settled in a very bloody way."

Really? Is Bill Bratton going to silence me in a very bloody way?

Amazingly, the Los Angeles political and media establishment have been silent. There seems to be no discomfort whatsoever that the senior law enforcement official in this city has made reference to organized crime as his method for management.

However, extortion, threats and intimidation are clearly part of Bratton's LAPD calculus. Numerous SWAT officers have told me in recent days of mass punishment and statements to officers to the effect of "if you talk to the press, you're out of SWAT." At least one officer has been threatened with sanctions for things his wife said. So, Bratton disregards the First Ammendment, too.

Assistant Chief Sharon Papa pretty blatantly misled the wife of one SWAT officer. Some might say she lied. I won't - I don't wanna sleep with da fishes.

Despite all this, the local media is silent and our Mayor, who supposedly was all enthusiastic about the Bill of Rights when he ran the local chapter of the ACLU now seems more enthusiastic about the Bill who is his mafia don/Police Chief.

This is Los Angeles, 2008. Not the 1948 of LA Confidential. Not New York of the 1970s. Not Tiajuana. LOS ANGELES!!!!!

Yet our media seem uniformly unconcerned by mafia-style (literally) threats and intimidation. The "civil rights activists" are silent. Of course, they would be aghast if a beat cop was caught on tape comparing himself to a gang enforcer in trying to scare the bajeezus out of a thug in Jordan Downs. Imagine John Mack having nothing to say about that. Imagine the Times' consternation if Daryl Gates made an accurate, offhand remark about the immigration status of a cop killer (oh, wait, they did get upset, no need to imagine). Yet, when its from Bratton - nothing.

The silence in deafening.

If you don't hear from me for a while, just ask Bratton where he gave me my concrete shoes.

I discovered long ago that the mainstream media are, by and large, so illiterate on religious issues as to make most religion reporting untrustworthy. This is doubly so for the British press. So I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that the story I cited the other day about Mikhail Gorbachev's supposed conversion to Christianity is a phony. From the Chicago Tribune:

"Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies—I can't use any other word—about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie," Gorbachev told the Russian news agency Interfax. "To sum up and avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that I have been and remain an atheist."

Well, that makes matters pretty clear, doesn't it? Yet I don't see how Gorby's re-professed atheism squares with this quote from the original Telegraph story: "It was through St Francis that I arrived at the Church, so it was important that I came to visit his tomb." Either Gorbachev has quickly changed his tune, or, more likely, that quote and others similar to it are simply fraudulent. (Perhaps a deliberate mistranslation?)

Oh well. As Russian Orthodox patriarch Alexei II put i, "(Gorbachev) is still on his way to Christianity. If he arrives, we will welcome him." And I will never trust the British press on a religion story again.

Former Bush chief political strategist Karl Rove already answered the head-scratching question GOP strategists are pondering of whether Obama or Clinton is the easier mark for McCain. In an open memo which got almost no media play and zilch public attention last December, Rove spit out six things Obama should do to zap Clinton.

Obama has followed the script to the letter. He’s unleashed an all-out no holds barred attack on Clinton’s personality, record, and demeanor, and even tossed in some blatant racial digs at her and hubby Bill for supposedly demeaning Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, and of course himself. He’s made bold, brash, and loud pitches and promises to do everything from end the war to clean up the economy. This fulfills Rove’s admonition to him to stop sounding wishy-washy on the big ticket issues and create an aura and persona of confidence, expertise, and even invincibility about himself.

Rove and his anti-Clinton memo was sloughed off at the time as the blathering of a washed out GOP top gun operative who narrowly escaped an indictment. That’s a fatal mistake. Rove didn’t have an on the road to Damascus epiphany in lecturing Obama on how to beat Hillary. Obama is a moderate and centrist Democrat and that means he’s still very much a sworn GOP political enemy. More importantly, Rove got it right twice about how to beat the Democrats. And his sizing up of Obama as the easiest Democratic mark was based on a hard headed assessment of Obama’s weaknesses.

Rove viewed him as untested, inexperienced, way at the front on the learning curve on foreign policy matters, and with a checkered history. That included the hints, innuendos, and whispers about relations with his one time bankroller, the indicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko to his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Almost certainly, the GOP hit squads had the out of context YouTube tape of Wright’s diatribes wound and ready to be looped endlessly in the fall. And just as certainly the squads are hard at work trying to figure out an angle to try and soil Obama with Rezko dirt. That card would also be played in the fall.

The Wright expose, however, was just too juicy, and media and public tongue wagging scandalous to be put off until the fall. Rezko may not be far behind.

Rove also figures on the X factor of race. Despite the raves Obama gets from many whites (remember his opponent is a woman, and one named Clinton), the X factor remains in how many white centrist and independents will cheer him in a head to head race with any white male GOP presidential candidate, in this case McCain. Rove banks not many.

Obama that is before the pre-Wright fiasco certainly seemed to make an idiot out of Rove’s calculated, and cynical ploy to pump him up as the man the GOP could easily zap. Though Obama has followed his beat Hillary script to the letter, he also has shown enough political skills, stump charisma, and the prodigious ability to pile up a king’s ransom campaign chest to be a bona fide competitive Democratic contender against McCain.

Wright may have changed that. Polls show Obama if not exactly in a free fall, he’s suffered marked slippage against Clinton and McCain. But that hardly tags him as a GOP straw man, yet.

The exact last thing that Rove wants to see is a Democrat in the White House. A bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Obama and Clinton means a potentially bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Democratic Party. That will further fuel dissension, stoke bitter divisions and deflect attacks from Bush’s Iraq war and a meltdown economy and McCain’s back door defense of those policies.

In the Rove scheme, the havoc created by telling one Democratic contender how to beat another Democratic contender would so sour the core supporters and enthusiasts for Clinton and Obama that if their candidate didn’t get the nomination, they’d drag their feet getting to the polls on Election Day. That is if they got there at all. That would be the biggest plus of all for the GOP.

Rove gave Obama seemingly some priceless advice on beating Clinton. But the advice was not given to put Obama in the White House, but to make sure that he or Clinton doesn’t get there. The debate then among some GOP strategists over which is the weaker Democrat is looking more facile even irrelevant by the minute. Neither Obama nor Clinton will get the needed 2,025 delegates to lock up the nomination. The decision will be tossed to the superdelegates. That means more rancor and division. It also probably means not one but two mortally weakened Democratic nominees. That’s Rove and the GOP’s fondest dream.

All ... I ... can ... say ... is ... WOW.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow!!!

And may I add -- WOW!

But you need to go see it for yourself.

Then when you're all done, go read this. (H/T Rod Dreher.)

If the Internet has made us all anti-social, it has also turned everyone into an opinionista thanks to blogs and comment functions on websites and community virtual gathering sites. Not everyone's thrilled with the trend, especially not cops who are now the subject of a popularity contest via the L.A.-based RateMyCop.com.

The nationwide cop rating web site does for police what it previously did for academics, in the widely used and perused RateMyProfessors.com. It lists about 140,000 officers across the nation, and 9409 names of the sworn officers of the Los Angeles Police Department, including Chief William Bratton, and allows users to comment on them.

As you might expect, cops hate the attention, the public assessment of their performance and the ability for any yahoo to take a verbal smack at them. Who can blame them?

As someone subject to ratings and critiques by readers all the time, I have little sympathy for cops complaints that they are "exposed" by this site. It's ridiculous to imagine that the pain of getting critiqued by someone who's had contact with an officer (and many, many of them are good ratings, BTW) could put them in harm's way. Believe me, I know. I've been denounced by truly dangerous people and haven't been knocked off yet. And I don't have the protection of a badge. Besides, secrecy is the handmaiden of abuse of power. People should have an outlet to complain or praise the people who have so much power over them. And since we recently found the LAPD's inspector general's office can't be trusted with it, why not an independent web site?

I was so delighted to receive the Pulitzer Prize for my groundbreaking anthology of columns that the nomination for the Noble came as such a surprise that I was beyond shock when I actually won the Noble for my novel Fruitflies in Argentina, written in verse using magical realism.

I was very grateful that I had the funds from the MacArthur Genius Grant to underwrite my writing time. And I assure you all that I value this recognition more than even the two OSCARS ™ and EMMY for the movie version of the novel.

Of course nothing equals the Congressional Medal of Honor, which frankly I didn’t think I deserved. Shooting down 12 enemy planes with a pistol while flying cover for the troops in my Piper Cub while talking the medic on the ground through a brain surgery procedure, well, anyone, I’m sure, would have done the same.

I will now devout all my time to making the table-top cold fusion power system I invented available to all. I must, of course, in good conscience, therefore turn down the generous offers to become Pope, Sultan of Brunei and Secretary General of the UN. But thank you for thinking of me.

What? What? Oh sorry, Honey. Yes, I’ll take out the trash. No, I can’t pay the DWP bill in full. I spent everything on gasoline. What about the MacArthur and Noble money? Oh, well, er, sorry, I uh misspoke, I mean miss-typed.