February 2011 Archives
GOP Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker knows exactly what he's doing. Forget the stuff about the state's broke, and can't afford to pay the wage, health, and pension benefits public employees expect and are entitled to. Wisconsin's red ink has grown, but it ranks way down on the list of red ink states that are in far worse shape than it is. Forget the stuff about greedy unions not giving an inch on demands for cuts. They have agreed to big cuts and changes in their health and pension benefit plans.
Walker's game is not to balance the budget, or even to break the power of the unions. Walker wants to send a message that the GOP will be the party in 2012 that can say it really did something about knocking government down to size, putting a permanent clamp on runaway spending, and making the country fiscally and politically responsible.
This has been the incessantly chanted mantra of the GOP for a decade. But it's been just that a mantra, with nothing more than a verbal chant behind it. But with the White House hanging in the balance in 2012, and a so far weak, and imminently beatable field of GOP contenders vying to face Obama, Walker's game plan to shove the GOP to be the change agent in reverse that it thinks Americans demand, then Wisconsin is the perfect testing ground for that. There is much method to Walker's Wisconsin madness, and it has everything to do with campaign 2012.
There's always a lot not to like about unions. We think of Jimmy Hoffa. We think of On the Water Front. We think of the worker version of fat cats--only in bad suits. Everything wrong with unions is also what's wrong with all institutions and all who exercise and abuse power.
We have the same problems with business owners, managers and, of course, politicians. So, for those who complain about the unions, okay, I'll stipulate to the problems, but eliminating them just puts our system of checks and balances out of whack. Just as with our three co-equal branches of government, that depend on a certain dynamic tension, so we need investors, management and workers. If one group wins permanent control and domination over the others, we will have a disaster. I'm not opposed to Gov. Walker pushing back against unions. I am very much opposed to him winning a permanent victory that will eviscerate the power of workers--yes, even state workers--to bargain as a unit.
Fighting about benefits is fair game. Eliminating the rights of workers to organize and bargain together isn't. That is a hard-won right that workers will defend. It's fair to complain that workers did too well in past negotiations and that a coming generation will not be able to have all of these benefits. It's not all right to break promises already made. Many workers--teachers, firefighters, police and other civil servants--gave up salary in exchange for deferred benefits. Withdrawing those benefits will be socially and fiscally costly--as well as being evidence of bad faith.
Gov. Walker has grabbed a tiger by the tail and politically he may not be able to let go. But his over-reach will cost him. The class warfare that Republicans are always accusing Democrats of waging, but are now waging themselves, will not work in the long run. Accusing public employee unions of getting a free ride on the backs of normal workers will not work, and Republicans may find themselves alone and marginalized.
The greatest hope Obama has for re-election is Republican ideology, easily confused with Republican idiocy.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Beneath all the hoopla over Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's measure to bring the unions to their knees is one point that makes sense. Employees should have the right to decide whether or not they want to even join one. As one who had to join a union with more than its share of knuckleheads, I know how important this is.
When I was a member of the United Teachers Los Angeles, there were times I called, AJ Duffy, their grand, high exalted mystic ruler, but he never called back. Then I called another grand, high exalted mystic ruler, and she did the same. And here I was, a dues paying member. A coerced dues paying member, but a dues-paying member nonetheless, who indirectly paid their salaries and bought coffee and office furniture. They acted like civil service employees who could come to work in nothing but tennis socks and gym shoes and still have a job.
But it is the governor's stand on collective bargaining that is really going to curtail his political career. If those rights are taken away, then employees would be at the mercy of the bosses, and it could turn the country into a giant sweatshop. The real budget problem isn't pensions and healthcare. It's rooted in the tax breaks that Walker's business cronies get. In his mind, breaking the backs of the middle class while sidling up to the Koch brothers, who will then bankroll him into the White House, in his dreams, anyway, seems to be his real motive.
If Scott Walker and his cronies want to spend more time in office than President Harrison did during his month-long term, then they'd better remember that the good people of Wisconsin voted them in office, and the good people will vote them out regardless of whose money is behind them.
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," poet Robert Frost wrote. During the civil rights era we sang, "Tear down the walls and set my brothers free." In Berlin Reagan implored, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Now, so many years later, those walls have largely, if not completely, fallen. They did not fall by themselves but through efforts and sacrifices across our political spectrum. There are still roadblocks and impediments, but most no longer see them as god-given, eternal or legitimate.
Across the world there is, what an Egyptian journalist characterized as, a "Freedom Fever" spreading. As someone who spent two years living and working in Tunisia, I feel a special sense of connection with the fever and the struggle that broke out first in "my" Tunisia. I hurt for their oppression and take pride and hope in their courageous, and largely peaceful, effort to tear down the walls that kept them out, separated them from the world and the opportunity to succeed and even to hope.
The walls guarding the palaces and privileges of despots and kings are being breached throughout the Middle East. Once thought invincible, Hosni Mubarak fell, the walls are down and there is both danger and opportunity. In Jordan, King Abdullah II and his Hashemite army rule over a majority Palestinian state and there is strife. In Syria, the Alawite Shiite minority cruelly rules a Sunni majority, while in Bahrain a Sunni royal house violently oppresses the majority Shiite population. In Libya, the issues are not so religious as political.
All over the world that feathered thing called hope has flown in and both taunted and inspired people, sick to death of tyranny, with possibilities.
There are still far too many walls in all our societies. We erect walls of religion, race and ethnicity. We build walls with litmus tests and ideologies. We re-enforce walls with the rebar of disrespect for those who think, feel and reason differently. We make walls have importance that is not intrinsic when we fail to see our opportunities for breaching our divides, one little step at a time. Tea Party people voting with Dennis Kucinich may seem an isolated freak of nature, but, whether you agree or disagree with that particular vote, the opportunity to find common cause is heartening. The left/right alliance that killed the unneeded and unwanted jet engine (to have been built in Speaker Boehner's district) was also a hopeful sign.
Common cause may also be struck across what seems an unbreachable divide between the radicals of the 60s, now in our 60s, and Tea Party folks, also largely older, white and middle class. Both distrust institutions and are capable of passion, dedication, self-righteousness and rudeness.
In Wisconsin, and soon across the country, we may see regular working people rebelling against the once inevitable policies and programs that seem to drain money from our lives and life from our social programs. Whether wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or bridges and trains to nowhere, there are opportunities for strange bedfellows to, well, uh, mate. Our offspring might create or solve problems, but they will be heard. Now whether they listen is an open question.
As I marched with my Catholic friends protesting a war in the 60s or against them on a woman's right to choose, we drove to the marches together and came home together. Walls of ideological purity must not be allowed to make us feel powerless and isolated.
What Freedom Fever consists of is the insight that tomorrow does not have to be the same as yesterday, that the poor are not poor because some god willed it and accepting injustice is not either a civic or a religious virtue. Revolt usually comes not when conditions are at their worst but when hope makes us believe that walls do tumble down and we can help them fall. And yes we can help them fall.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Hi Guys, and Women, too, of course,
I'm up again on Wordpress. This time I promise the link will work.
Best,
G.Tz.
At last, the proverbial pile of bile has hit the fan for Amanda Knox's parents, Curt Knox and Edda Mellas. Amanda is the charming Washington state ingénue who went to Italy three years ago at the age of twenty seeking adventure. What she got instead was a deserved jail sentence for murdering her roommate, 21 year-old Leeds student, Meredith Kercher.
Knox, of course, has denied any involvement in the crime despite evidence to the contrary. First, her DNA was found on Meredith Kercher's bra clasp. Yet her defense team claims that the DNA was contaminated. This may be true, but her DNA was still found there, which places her at the scene of the crime. The lab also found the DNA of Knox's former boyfriend, Raffaelle Sollecito, the son of an Italian doctor, who was also sentenced to 26 years in prison for his role in the crime. Although she tried scouring the scene of any evidence, the Italian police also found Knox's footprints with Kercher's blood on it.
Then there was the question of her behavior itself after the murder. Most (innocent) people would be concerned to come home and find a pool of blood on the bathroom floor and an unresponsive roommate, but not Amanda Knox. She claimed that Kercher had been menstruating and had bled all over the bathroom floor. She then trotted down to a store at 5:00 a.m. and waited for it to open so she could buy some bleach.
Most anyone coming home to a blood stained house wouldn't be concerned about cleaning anything up first unless they had something to hide. They would go straight to the police and report a crime.
Equally questionable, was her behavior in relation to her boyfriend and at the police station. She bought sex toys the day after the murder and was turning cartwheels and sitting in Sollecito's lap in the police station. At one point, she placed herself at the scene of the crime and then later recanted her story, saying that she simply didn't remember where she was and accused her boss of committing the crime. He was released after spending a few weeks in jail and is now suing her.
Her parents claiming her innocence and echoing her accusations, have accused the Italian police of slapping her around despite any evidence. They have gone on national TV and made these allegations, but this is where the buck stops because they are now going to have to stand trial for defaming the Italian police.
Some believe that Knox is being scapegoated because of anti-American sentiment abroad, though in truth, her behavior has done little to make Americans look good. They claim that we should boycott Italy because Knox and Mellas have free speech. But this isn't necessarily so because even free speech has its limits, and it draws the line at defamation and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The courts are going to reexamine the DNA evidence after a lab reviews it, and Knox's parents are going to have to go to trial. I predict that Amanda Knox will lose her appeal and that she and Raffaelle Sollecito will spend the rest of their lives behind bars, as they deserve. I also predict hefty legal bills and financial ruin for her parents. One thing is certain, though, the apple didn't fall far from the tree on this one.
I agreed completely with President George W. Bush's promise to conduct a humble foreign policy. That he utterly failed at this post 9-11 is inarguable. That we went off to war in Afghanistan was understandable. That we suffered from attention deficit disorder and abandoned Afghanistan for Iraq was a tragic mistake--and now we know, what many suspected, that it was based on lies. Our main intelligence source, code-named Curveball threw us a curve. Who would have imagined with such a Dickensian name? His reporting of Saddam's nuclear and biological programs were lies intended to get us to depose Saddam (a bad man) and advance the cause of Iran (some more bad folks).
Now we are involved in a worldwide war and there are indeed people who want us dead, who would attack us with conventional weapons and with nuclear weapons and dirty bombs if they could--and when they can. We are fighting them with soldiers, with drones and with black-ops. But we also have to fight the conditions that cause militancy and hate. We really can't kill them all, and the more unfocused our violence the more enemies we recruit.
As Gail-Tzipporah correctly points out, we do not have a good record in picking, supporting or overthrowing the leaders of other nations. From South Vietnam to countless bad guys in Latin America, from overthrowing the elected leader of Iran to changing our mind and throwing the Shah overboard, from supporting Ben Ali and Mubarak to abandoning them, there is little reason for us or our enemies, or indeed our allies, to trust either our judgment or our fidelity.
We should have a humanitarian reason to meddle or intervene in the politics and governance of other nations. We should care about genocide, starvation and oppression. Too often our policies have been rationalized on humanitarian grounds but there seems to be a strange and troubling tendency to see gross injustices only where oil, precious minerals and rare earth are. The poor and oppressed not blessed to sit on valuable land have been out of view and therefore out of luck.
We need to meddle but we also need to know our limits and truly have some sense of both humanity and humility.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
There is a bit of advice for in-laws when dealing with a married couple. Never meddle. Let them say what they want, throw what they want and bring up each other's shortcomings, but never meddle.
Some may say that the same goes for the U.S.'s involvement in the affairs of other countries. And this is not without provocation, either as our track record has been pretty shabby. After all, we're the ones who put Chile's Pinochet in power, and he ended up murdering at least 3,000 of his countrymen and torturing 40,000 more. We're the ones who put Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier in power, and Haiti is the most poverty-ridden country in the Western Hemisphere, not to mention one of the more corrupt. And we're the ones who put Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak in power as well. All told, this has worn a hole in our welcome mat to many places in the world.
In spite of this, I still say we should meddle, though not only with our own material interests in sight. We should meddle and get involved when there are human rights violations. We should meddle and get involved when gasoline is doused on a woman and she is set on fire for refusing to obey her husband or his parents, we should meddle and get involved in the name of sweat shops and human rights violations, and we should get involved when Palestinians murder and main innocent people under the guise of freedom and self-determination. Because left to their own, many of these places could be far worse.
But we should be smarter about who we support and we should make sure that the newer model doesn't have dollar signs for eyeballs and turpentine running through his veins.
At last we seem to have a national consensus. At last left and right, fringe and center, all agree that our deficit is a problem that needs to be attacked today! That's the good news--a rare moment of multi-partisan agreement. In these hyper-partisan times, I hate to reject any agreement but the bad news is that we are united in wanting to do exactly the wrong thing.
Obama's budget is a political document that, in the words of a good friend and economist, shows "neither leadership nor courage." The Republican plan, which is not yet a plan but only an assembly of criticism, wants draconian cuts in spending without increases in revenue. Both parties are playing games and not serious about cutting spending. In the cynical chess game of partisan politics, both sides want the other to propose cuts so that they can act appalled. The Democrats will decry the Republican's insensitivity to our needy and support of big business--oil and defense in particular-- with tax cuts and subsidies. The Republicans will decry the Democrat's refusal to wrestle with entitlements and their constant support of inefficient, if well meaning, social programs.
Both sides are correct in their criticism but miss the main point. Neither side is serious about actually changing anything. They accuse and complain but know that they are really united only in calling for some one else to make a sacrifice. Except for the hypocrisy of this game, I support inaction.
I believe our consensus is wrong. While deficits can be a problem, will be a problem eventually, they are not a critical problem that must be solved today. This is not a fiscal emergency in budgetary terms. Our fiscal emergency is lack of jobs, lack of sales, lack of tax receipts. As a percent of GDP our deficit, while high, is half of what it was during WWII. We are currently fighting two wars and have the worse unemployment since the Great Depression.
With unemployment comes a cascading loss of revenue from sales, property and income taxes. With unemployment people slow down on buying and so still more people get laid off, don't make purchases and don't pay taxes. What then is our bi-partisan solution? Cut off support for the poor, lay off more people and ship jobs off shore. The unemployed and under-employed do not spend enough to grow the economy or pay taxes sufficient to run our society.
While we cannot just spend ourselves out of a recession by printing money, neither can we cut jobs and expect our recession to end. Austerity may be a personal virtue, but jobs, education and a social safety-net pave the path for recovery.
In my, albeit, minority view, we are not spending enough, going deep enough into debt. I would cut very little--not even defense. While I'd also like to transition to building infrastructure and all the dreamed of green technology, defense workers pay taxes, support stores and restaurants, and this is not the time to cut them either.
There is a legitimate discussion about how to spend our money in order to grow the economy. Liberals might want to put it in through the government and Conservatives might want to put it in through businesses (by way of tax cuts). We probably need some mix of these two methods. What that mix should be is an appropriate subject for debate, but that we need to support growth and jobs should be a given. The debt that we pass on to our children and grandchildren will be less if this nation can get back to work!
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
To My Two Faithful Readers:
I just posted again here. If the link doesn't work, then pls. go to, ImNotCrazyitsThem.wordpress.com.
Thank you Jonathan and my other reader!
Yours Truly,
Gail-Tz.
A US Treasury spokesperson was asked whether it would follow the Swiss government's lead and freeze fallen Egyptian military dictator Hosni Mubarak's ill gotten assets. The Treasury's answer was properly non-committal and evasive. It shouldn't be the. U.S. has a strong case to make for forbidding Mubarak and his family from continuing to live the plush and lavish lifestyle that the known $5 billion in assets they've plundered the country of the past decade from their state sanctioned shakedown down of corporations and businesses doing business in Egypt.
Their shakedown operation has been well documented. Companies must pay what amounts to a tribute of from a 5 to 20 percent commission to a company that was set up by one of Mubarak's sons. This is not a one-time pay-off. The companies must keep paying as long as they do business in the country. The Mubarak family badly abused and misused Egyptian law that requires foreign companies to give a majority stake in their Egyptian operations to fatten their bank accounts and holdings. The local partner or sponsor that the law requires for a foreign company to set up operations in the country was conveniently routed through the Mubarak family or one of his ruling party cronies.
The full extent of the state sanctioned family rip-off is not known. But it has been documented that a big chunk of the Mubarak booty is ploughed into real estate developments, properties and palatial homes in New York, Beverly Hills and European cities. The Mubarak illicit operation is neat, tidy, and wildly profitable, and has cost the Egyptian economy untold billions. Global Financial Integrity, a Washington DC based government financial watchdog group, did a comprehensive study of the drain on the Egyptian economy from the shakedown operation of Mubarak, his family and cronies. It found that the Egyptian economy has hemorrhaged to the tune of more than $6 billion per year. Over an eight year period from 2000 to 2008, the loss from the Mubarak shakedown operation totaled a staggering $57.2 billion flood of money to illicit financial activities and official government corruption. Egyptian activists have called this exactly what it is a massive squandering of the resources of Egypt.The result of the theft is a staggering poverty rate, massive unemployment, chronic shortages, endemic waste, and fraud, and chronic stagnation in the country.
The US has the power to freeze Mubarak's assets and the precedent for doing it. In 2001, the United States used the provisions of the Patriot Act to aggressively go after Saddam's Hussein's and his cronies assets in the US. It took ownership of nearly $2 billion of Iraqi assets (Hussein related) and then transferred nearly $1 billion of the frozen monies to a fund for Iraq development. The US also has a variety of legal and financial weapons it has used to combat money laundering and terrorist financing to recover foreign regimes' illicit gained assets.
The Swiss government in its statement announcing the freeze on Mubarak's assets was blunt. It said "The Federal Council is taking all the measures required to avoid any misappropriation of government assets." The US government should do know less than that with Mubarak and company's Egyptian plunder.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on ktym.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
I know that no one can predict the future. But I predict that it will be more complicated and evolving than being a choice of some finite number of foreseeable alternatives. We may want a military authority--and I suspect will have that for a good (and difficult) while. We may fear a coup by religious extremists. This is a legitimate fear, but an unlikely outcome. Or, as Gail Tzipporah also presents, there could be a strongman on a white horse--or the even rarer, white camel.
No one really knows anything yet. We don't know if the newly free and powerful feeling masses will try to make peace or exact revenge and purge the nation of anyone who was connected to the bad old regime. We don't know if the formerly powerful will launch a counter-revolution. We don't know how long any government can create a semblance of order out of the chaos of discontent as freedom fails to equal immediate financial success.
We have been calling the protestors Pro-Democracy. But that is not entirely true. They were united in opposition to Mubarak's horrible regime. They are made up, however, of many component parts, and the fissures will begin to show pretty soon. Without a history of democracy there is no social contract to accept the results of an election. How will it be managed?
Everyone has feared the Iranian model of the Mullahs managing the elected officials, vetting them and limiting their ability to govern. But Egypt is not Iran, and there are no Mullahs. The Muslim Brotherhood in not the same. In Egypt the part of the Mullahs will be played by the military. What is most likely in the short run, of 18 months to 2 years, is a version of the Turkish form of government with an elected body that has a certain amount of freedom but is limited by a secular military establishment.
Here is the final unknown: Will the military be the old guard generals, blooded in wars with Israel and trained by the Soviet Union, or the new generation of officers trained in America and with working relationships both with us and Israel? Yes, that will make a difference.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Hosni Mubarek got to be like the houseguest who stays too long. Just about everyone has had one or knows one. They're the ones who sit on the divan sipping a demitasse after the table has been cleared, the dishes have been washed and the lights have been turned off. That came to be this guy.
On the one hand, I feel sorry for him. He's either that clueless or he's that much of a megalomaniac. But like the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Baghdad, he's now out.
The question is what kind of a change is he going to bring? People and protestors in the western world can say what they want, but he was a friend to Israel and to many of these countries.
I consulted with one of those Romanian fortunetellers Jonathan opined about through mental telepathy, and here's what Madame Sarah said:
"Don't worry, bubbelah, it is going to go one of three ways. Either the military is going to take over, and it will be the same old junkski. Or they are going to lead the way to the Muslim Brotherhood, which I foresee as not being too kosher for Israel and the rest of the western world, IMHO. Or some big guys are going to have to put someone there like a potted plant. Now, excuse but I have to run."
I say, hopefully, it will be the choice behind door number three who will be better for Israel and the United States and to the citizens of that beleaguered place.
What do Chris Lee, Clarence Thomas and Hosni Mubarak have in common? Well, as it turns out quite a bit--besides all being big and embarrassing news stories. They share problems with hypocrisy and a certain deafness of tone. They all had problems getting it.
Chris Lee was certainly trying to get "it" when he, a family values conservative, emailed a picture of his pecs to woman on Craig's List. But to his credit, fraud and hypocrite though he may be, he immediately understood that he had gotten caught, and he decided to do the decent thing for himself and his family (probably in that order). He resigned.
Mr. Justice Clarence Thomas had no such reaction when he was caught filing false disclosure forms--under penalty of perjury! Had this been a one off, his explanation of just not seeing the box that he was required to check and explain his wife's outside sources of income, might have been credible. But he failed to disclose for 13 years his wife's work and income from various highly partisan political groups. He may well have feared that such financial benefits to him and his family might have put his objectivity into question and called for his recusal on many issues before the court. JUst as he didn't see the box, he doesn't see a problem. This means he is either intellectually challenged or ethically challenged. Possibly both.
But for pure tone deafness, Hosni Mubarak is this week's winner. He didn't know it was over when it was over. His generals came to him yesterday and thought they had a deal to step down. He fought them and tried only to step aside--out of the line of fire. But it didn't work. This left the generals having to choose either to kill their own people or drop Mubarak off the back of the caravan. The generals, knowing Mubarak's days were numbered, had no good reason to fight for him. As with most megalomaniacal dictators, he didn't get it. Friday afternoon, his generals explained it to him.
For those readers who think I pick on conservatives, let me say that the great irony of the week is that former Rep. Chris Lee was the quickest wit of the group and the first to understand that the game was over, cop to his transgression and leave the room. Hosni followed. This leaves only Justice Thomas. We're waiting.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Chris Lee is my role model. Here's a righteous family guy who preached hard line conservative, presumably family values, and then literally gets caught via Craigslist with his shirt down, and his naked lies about himself exposed. He initially starts to do the GOP exposed scoundrel tap dance, and that's duck, dodge, deny, and then a mea culpa. But then he had an apparent epiphany and did the right thing. He owned up to his rascality and resigned. He dropped all pretense of being a victim of take your pick the White House, Nancy Pelosi, jealous Democratic constituents, or leftwing/liberal media dirty tricks and smears.
The problem with what Lee did is that while he did the honorable thing and bailed with no finger pointing, his party and the long list of self-righteous, holier than thou, even Bible thumping members who lie, cheat, steal, and engage in assorted sexual hijinks can't bring themselves to follow Lee's example. Case in Point De Judge, Clarence Thomas. He likely shredded the truth about Anita Hill. He shredded the truth about lobbying pay-offs to his wife. He shredded the truth about conflict of appearances he made before a cabal of right wing groups who have a deep vested interest in court decisions that he ruled on or is likely to rule on.
But Thomas won't even entertain the idea of recusing himself from sensitive cases where there's clearly interest conflict. He laughs at and flaunts the law and ethics with not a peep of an outcry from a GOP lip. He's hardly alone. Hear hear for Chris Lee.
There is something about a good scandal that rouses the crowd. They're what sell supermarket tabloids; they're what made bloggers like Perez Hilton rich, and they're what sell juicy autobiographies. Most people don't want to read about the guy who was nice and kind to everyone his entire blessed life. They want to read about the guy who fell down the rabbit hole but managed to climb out, as one of my writing teachers used to say. Or the guy who started with all the best opportunities and somehow managed to rotten up enough to wind up at the bottom of the rabbit hole for good. Think some of the Kennedys, some of the Gettys and some of the Hiltons.
The latest slide down the rabbit hole comes by way of Congressman, Chris Lee, R, New York. Although he is a 46 year-old married man with a kid and a supposed upholder of the Constitution, he threw himself down the rabbit hold by falling for a pretty face on Craigslist.
It's funny what a camera phone and a siren can do to impair a person's memory. He forgot he was married; he fudged on his age and he sent the siren a picture of himself in a Tarzan-type pose.
The thing is that most guys (and women) who do that wind up getting caught- eventually. But it's a double whammy when it's a politician because we expect more from them even if they are human and put their shoes and socks on one at a time like everyone else.
But we still expect more from them. They already went to the trouble of getting elected and setting up a campaign, paying for those ads and going to those debates, so that should make them smarter than the average bear, in theory anyway. Aside from that, we expect them to set the example, even if everyone else flounders. And we expect them to uphold the Constitution, be kind and loving to their families and never drink. When a funny idea does come into their heads, we expect them to hide it, not pose shirtless then send the darned thing to someone on Craigslist. Because that would be defying the smarter than the average bear theory. In the end, politicians who do those kinds of things never really fall down the rabbit hole. They jump. And by doing so, blindside us all.
Queen Witch Bratara Buzea Resists Accountability
While the world looks to the Mid East for disaster, while we fear the next threatening edict from the Iranians, while Asia quakes in anticipation of the coming irrational overblown threat from North Korea, we do not see the real danger to our way of life coming from Romania!
Yes, Romania has just passed a law more dangerous to our democracy than any fatwa or fatuous threat from the great dictators of our day. The Romanian Senate just passed a bill holding fortunetellers accountable for their predictions and threatening them with fines, or even jail, if their predictions didn't come to pass. Queen Witch, Bratara Buzea, has cast a spell on the Romanian Solons and claims it is unfair to blame witches when the fault is in the cards. No really. I have made none of this up!
Laugh if you must, but this is indeed a real story and a dangerously slippery slope. Sure they are starting with witches, Roma and gypsies, but all who know history realize that Op-Ed writers and pundits will be next.
Imagine what would happen if we were held accountable for our predictions. "Oh Mubarak will be done in 24 hours. Maliki will fall in days. Hillary will absolutely get the nomination. President McCain will..." Well, you get the idea--and it's a bad one!
All of the public soothsayers will foreswear their sooth, and there will be no programming on cable TV--except, of course, for MSNBC weekend type shows about Lesbian Prison Tattoo Artists and The Lighter Side of Self-Consuming Cannibals).
Without our bloviating, well, there would be blessed silence, perhaps thoughtful and modest communications and a definite reduction in the rate of global warming. Imagine, no more dumb predictions posited by people with no special knowledge or qualifications.
What would happen if fortunetellers, TV pundits and Op-Ed writers had our scores, like batting averages, printed next to our bylines? Like calories posted at a fast-food restaurant, with public pundit scores people would be able to see our numbers and make their judgments accordingly.
Okay, I'm convinced. There is wisdom in this Romanian ordinance. Even if it costs me money, I'll get in line and restrict my predictions. Yes, it has a chilling effect on the freedom to enunciate nonsense, still I'll go out on a limb, risking all and tell you: The Cubs will NOT win the series.
©2011Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
President Obama will unveil his budget for 2012 on February 14. The administration has so far been guarded about detailing how deeply the budget ax will slice. What is certain, however, is that the cuts will be painful and that the neediest Americans will feel the worst of that pain. More than 44 million Americans are living in poverty--a fact that Obama barely referenced in his State of the Union speech. Yet a huge chunk of federal spending goes directly and indirectly for programs and services that provide for the needs of the poor.
Last September, Obama dropped a major hint about which programs were likely to be hardest hit. He quietly issued a directive to federal agencies to come up with ways to slash up to $75 billion from discretionary spending for 2012. This figure was not much different from the $100 billion in cuts demanded by the new Tea Party-influenced House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan. Obama's directive ticked off several politically safe ways to achieve those cuts, including streamlining government contracting, selling off federal properties, consolidating some agencies, and revamping data collection. When he listed some of these predictable ideas in his State of the Union speech, the response was, predictably, applause.
But Obama made no mention though of the likely cuts that pose the greatest peril to the needy, including a 50 percent drop in funding for community service block grants that has already been floated. The savings from these grants--which fund an array of community education, health and social service programs in poor, underserved, largely inner-city neighborhoods--would amount to a relatively modest $350 million. Yet the programs that could be defunded or completely eliminated include many of the type that were near and dear to Obama's heart during his days as a community organizer in Chicago's South Side.
The bigger 2012 cuts are likely to be concentrated among the dozens of programs and agencies already identified by the Office of Management Budget as ripe for the chopping block. These include: more than 110 programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics education across 14 departments and agencies; more than 100 youth-mentoring programs, and 40-plus programs that provide employment and training assistance. Sizeable cuts also loom in departments that disproportionately impact low-income communities of color: Health and Human Services ($4.1 billion), Transportation ($4.0 billion), Education ($2.5 billion), Housing and Urban Development ($2.1 billion) and Justice ($1.4 billion).
Obama has little room to maneuver when it comes to these massive cuts. He has been relentlessly pounded by the GOP as a Big Government, tax-and-spend Democrat since the moment he announced his candidacy for president in 2007--a drumbeat that has become deafening. Nervous foreign investors as well as a slew of financial experts and economists, worry that the budget deficit--projected to soar to nearly $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, a post-World War II record--will continue to widen. This would saddle the nation, they claim, with higher taxes; deeper cuts in education, health and social services; staggering permanent debt; and possibly even bankruptcy.
This doomsday scenario is part political hyperbole, part financial panic. The projected deficit is about 10 percent of gross domestic product. That's big enough, theoretically, to threaten economic growth if it were sustained for decades--but proportionally far smaller than the deficits that the U.S. ran during and immediately after World War II. The dooms-dayers also fail to acknowledge why and how the deficit ballooned to current levels.
It was unchecked defense spending and reckless tax cuts by GOP presidents Reagan and Bush that first swelled the deficit to post-World War II records. Bush and Congress piled on more debt with the $1 billion (and probably much bigger) bailout to Wall Street houses and banks in 2008.
The GOP boxed in Obama and forced him to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. This, along with Congress's refusal to make more than cosmetic trims in a bloated military budget, continues the decades-long (and largely Republican) pattern of piling debt on more debt. The GOP recalcitrance virtually insures that the deficit "crisis" will continue to be a political attack issue and that programs to boost education, health, and jobs will continue to be the prime target of budget cuts this year and for years to come. The needy have good cause for concern.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on ktym.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Scalia: This far between moral and intellectual consistency
There is a great Constitutional debate in this country between people who see the Constitution as evolving and those who believe we must try to divine the original intent of the Framers. Interestingly, to me, if the "Original Intent" folks, like Scalia, got their way, we would not have a sitting Supreme Court right now. The Framers never could have intended a Supreme Court without a single Protestant or probably with a "Papist," an African American or a Jew. But now we have Six Roman Catholics and three Jews--two of whom are women! The least followers of Original Intent could do, to be morally and intellectually consistent, would be to resign immediately!
The premise of most religions is that there is a body of law that is holy, revealed and also eternal. It was given to us by God and our God's sacred and anointed messengers. Our job is to accept the wisdom of the divine and the inspiration of the prophets who handed us these sacred, but often annoyingly vague, laws.
Such is also the case with our own American Constitution. Many see it as holy writ, as something revealed from God. Strangely enough, God apparently decided to make this revelation to Deists and not, for the most part, to Theists. But the Theists would be quick, I'm sure, to admit that the Lord works in mysterious ways.
There is both a sentimental opinion and a slightly more considered thought that our Founding Fathers were giants of both intellectual and moral stature--and therefore our Constitution, like the orthodox of all faiths believe about their different revelations, is perfect and eternal.
That they were intellectually gifted seems beyond question but they were also mostly rich, universally white and beset by all our normal human peccadilloes. We tend to see a bunch of Saints. I see pack of peccadilloes. Though peccadillo is a bit weak for the holding of slaves.
Yet when we listen to modern discussions of our Constitution, it sounds like a religious debate and the Constitution is holy, and given to us by God's grace. It is our American Torah, plus the Gospels. The Founders received it and revealed it and now we must follow it.
But even if one accepts this premise, what does it say and how was it intended to be understood? Obviously Mr. Justice Scalia and Madame Justice Ginsberg read the same black letters on parchment but very different constitutions. A liberal reading finds rights of privacy, a conservative reading of the original intent finds no equal rights for women. A liberal reading understands that "cruel and unusual punishment" is an evolving doctrine--with different practices tolerated or forbidden over time. An original intent reading would let us hang, shoot, draw and quarter criminals, hold slaves and restrict the vote to white male property holders.
For me the greatest irony in the worship of the Founders and their legal and moral infallibility by those who distrust the government, is this: Though the Founders had some distrust of government--usually because royalty depended on divine right--their greatest fear and contempt was for the ordinary man, the rabble, the mob. They were, in fact, what many populist types most detest: educated elitists. Oh the irony.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Hello All,
I hope that your bets on the game placed. If not, then maybe it means you shouldn't be betting. To get your mind off things and onto other ones, I've posted on my blog.
www.imnotcrazyitsthem,wordpress.com
Thanks, Happy Viewing and May the Force be with you.
Gail-Tz.
This is the holiest day of the year in America. Across this great nation Americans of all races, classes and religions meet to take part in our great national communion. Bread and wine? No, on this holy day, we commune with beer and guacamole.
As with any religious rite, we are called upon to make a decision, a commitment. There can be no equivocation, no innocent spectators. We pledge ourselves to participate in a titanic struggle between good and evil. We wager our souls, our property and our sacred honor on the outcome. We pick different gods but we pick good, while others--misguided reprobates that they are--perversely take evil. Naturally, a thoughtful participant has to wonder if Satan recognizes the point spread.
There is, as with any religious service, music. There is spectacle. There are prayers asking for intervention. Yes, the Super Bowl has all the trappings of religion--including violence and aggression--and that's not just on the field but also in the stands and in way too many homes. Alcohol and testosterone. Who could ask for anything more?
All of this goes to show that people who think religion needs a deity have only a cramped and limited view of religion. The Super Bowl is our highest form of secular religion--bringing people together, getting them charged up, passionate, entertained and made to feel a part of something greater than themselves.
Now every religion has two primary parts. The emotional and ecstatic, those experiences that take us out of our solitary selves and connect us, bind us together. The second part is the more thoughtful and even rational road. The music and liturgies call to our hearts but the sermons (outside the Baptist and Evangelical traditions that are ecstatic and meant to be) call to our heads. They tell us how to feel, how to think and ultimately what to do.
Traditionally the sermon has been used not to legislate but to explain the law. The first biblical sermon was Ezra who set up a wooden pulpit in front of the Watergate and explained the law. Clearly the law was not self-evident, and then, as now, people could twist and spin it. Some trusted people or class needed to be recognized to tell the people what God or the prophets meant or intended. Later on Jesus does the same with the Sermon on the Mount--explaining the law and exhorting his followers not to change the law but to obey it--not only with actions but with their whole hearts.
The premise of the religious sermonic tradition is that there is a body of law and that it is holy, it is revealed and is also eternal. It was given to us by God and our God's sacred anointed messengers--and not a jot or tittle can be changed. Our job is to accept the wisdom of the divine and the inspiration of the prophets who handed us these sacred, but often annoyingly vague, laws.
Such is the case with the growing secular religion around our own American Constitution. Many see it as holy writ, as something revealed from God--strangely enough, God apparently decided to make this revelation to Deists and not, for the most part to Theists. But the Theists would be quick, I'm sure, to admit that the Lord works in mysterious ways.
There is both a sentimental opinion, and a slightly more considered thought, that our Founding Fathers were giants of both intellectual and moral stature--and therefore our Constitution, as the orthodox of all faiths believe about their different revelations, is perfect and eternal. There can be no modern prophets to advance law or justice--only interpreters who tell us what it REALLY means.
That the Framers were often intellectually gifted seems beyond question, but when we dig down into moral character...well, they were mostly rich, universally white, male and beset by all our normal human peccadilloes. We tend to see a bunch of Saints. I, however, see a pack of peccadilloes. Though peccadillo is a bit weak for the holding of slaves. Maybe moral blind-spots.
All in all, though terribly bright, they were human beings--much like the religious prophets, though probably not as difficult to live with--except for Thomas Paine, who was quite a pain.
Yet when we listen to modern discussions of our Constitution, it sounds like a religious debate and the Constitution is holy, and given to us by God's grace. It is our American Torah. The Founders received it and revealed it and now we must follow it.
But even if one accepts what is to me this very flawed premise, what does it say and how was it intended to be understood? Obviously Mr. Justice Scalia and Madame Justice Ginsberg read the same black letters on white parchment but very different constitutions. A liberal reading finds rights of privacy. A conservative reading of the original intent finds no equal rights for women, according to Scalia. A liberal reading understands that "cruel and unusual punishment" is an evolving doctrine--with different practices tolerated or forbidden over time. An original intent reading would let us hang or shoot criminals, hold slaves and restrict the vote to white male property holders.
The problems in understanding our legal scriptures are clear. Even the 10 Commandments are not easy. It doesn't say Thou shalt not kill, but murder. That is far more open to interpretation. Are we talking murder one, murder two, negligent homicide or manslaughter? This means we have to interpret not only the intent of the law but of the transgressor. How about Honor Thy Father and Mother? Uh, what does it mean? Give a dinner in their honor, say nice things, and never say bad things? What are bad things? Or do we honor them with candor? Oy.
While not in the Constitution, how about wrestling with, "All men are created equal?" Does it only mean men as male? Does created equal refer to inherent worth and dignity or ability? It clearly didn't mean Africans or Native Americans back then. What about now? Do we go by original intent or organic growth?
This is fundamentally a secular religious question about how to interpret the law and Constitution. And the passionate debates we are having between the original intent people and organic people is as sharp and divisive as anything Catholic and Protestants, Sunni and Shiites ever engaged.
I suppose for me the greatest irony in the worship of the Founders and their legal and moral infallibility by Tea Party folks and others who distrust the government, is this: Though the Founders had some distrust of government--usually because most governments were royal and depended on divine right--their greatest fear and contempt was for the ordinary man, the rabble, the mob. They were, in fact, what many populist type conservatives most detest: educated elitists. Oh the irony.
Between the ritual ecstasies and traditional excesses of Super Bowl celebrations and the deification of our Holy Founding Fathers, we have 21st century secular religion at either its finest or worst. As with most faiths, what ultimately matters is what we do. Today I raise my guacamole laden chip and cold beer to our Founders, who gave us our rights and sanction this holy rite.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
The biggest potential stumbling block to then Democratic presidential candidate Obama's White House bid in 2008 was not race, but the knock against him that when confronted with a major foreign policy crisis he'd botch it. This would signal America's allies and avowed foes that America's leader was weak, indecisive, and a terrible choice to deal with the colossal pressures of the problems of the Middle East, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China, and repairing relations with the European allies.
In the early days of the campaign then President Bush strongly hinted that Obama was a foreign policy neophyte who could not be trusted on international crisis issues. Republican opponent John McCain and the Republican National Committee hammered on the point that foreign policy was to vital and delicate for on the job training for a would-be president. Obama's Democratic rival Hillary Clinton grabbed at the green on foreign policy rap against Obama to imprint the notion that she was the best Democratic presidential candidate to handle the inevitable crises that saddle all administrations. Her play of the inexperience card against Obama was supposed to be a reminder that Obama would be a question mark in the White House. A Pew Research Poll Center Poll in May 2008 found that "inspiring," "fresh," "change," and "visionary" was not the one word that voters said best described Obama. The one word was "inexperienced."
The Egyptian upheaval was just the sort of foreign policy crisis that Obama's attackers had in mind and more than a few gleefully hoped he'd stumble over. It is a textbook crisis in which the slightest misstep could spin it out of control and have damaging and long lasting consequences for the U.S. Egypt is the linchpin of the US's Middle East policy and military balance. Its despotic, autocratic leader for three decades has staunchly protected American interests in the region, put a hard check on radical Islamic and pro-Palestinian mass sentiment, insured no disruption in oil transit to the West through the Suez Canal, and maintained unshakeable cordiality with Israel. In the first hours of the crisis, it seemed that Obama might make the same time tested blunder that has been the signature of other presidents and that's tie the U.S.'s string to yet another hated, failed dictator.
Vice President Joe Biden bristled in a PBS Newshour interview bristled at the characterization of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a dictator, "I would not call him a dictator. Biden dubbed him an ally who played a big role in promoting regional stability. The shudder at Biden's reflexive and rash defense of Mubarak could be heard from Pennsylvania Avenue to Cairo. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made no shoot-from-the lip rush to judgment about Mubarak. But her early statements were testy, guarded, and opaque about just what and how the U.S. would deal with Mubarak. Clinton gave no indication that the Obama Administration would say or do anything to upset the delicate balance in U.S. support for and relations with his regime.
The Obama Administration was clearly in a wait and see mode on Egypt, careful not to give any overt support to the Egyptian throngs screaming for Mubarak to go. If Obama stayed in that spot even after the country was in virtual paralysis over Mubarak it would reinforce U.S. support for a dictatorial regime, make a mockery of Obama's words delivered in his Cairo speech in June, 2009 in which he championed democracy, and called for a new beginning in the Arab world. It would put the US once again on the side of a despised tyrannical police state as long as it did our bidding in the region.
The business as usual stance would have been a policy nightmare for the U.S. and a prescription for disaster in the short and long run. Obama recognized that. The suspension of aid to Mubarak, the welcome if not encouragement of the army to pledge not to fire on the demonstrators, and to respect their right to protest, and the blunt message to Mubarak to begin the democratic transition process now was a huge departure from past policy and practice. The practice was to a U.S. president choose the dictatorship (we helped prop up, turned a blind eye to its grotesque violations of human rights outrages, and then refuse to abandon) over the democratic forces that loudly demanded change. Obama ignored the screeches from Mubarak backers in Egypt and ultra-conservatives in the US who lambasted him for "meddling" in Egyptian affairs, claiming this would pave the way for a takeover of the government by radical, Islamic radicals, or Al Qaeda, boost Iran, and put Israel security in dire jeopardy. This was shrill propaganda, with not a scintilla of proof that any of this was true, and much evidence from the pro-democracy leaders and opposition in Egypt that that this talk was a ploy to keep Mubarak in the presidential palace to the bitter end.
Obama didn't buy it and in diplomatic speak said so. In doing so he buried the myth that he'd crumble in the face of crisis. This put real meaning to his call for democracy. The message wasn't lost in Egypt.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts national Capitol Hill broadcast radio talk show on KTYM Radio Los Angeles and WFAX Radio Washington D.C. streamed on ktym.com and wfax.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
Mubarak is a dead dictator walking. Whether he goes this Friday after prayers or if he hangs on for a few months, he has already lost everything. The military will tire of Mubarak and abandon him--maybe out of the ethical consideration of not killing their own countrymen, but also from practical considerations. Knowing that Mubarak will go soon, they wonder how they can preserve their standing? They will make their pick in days.
Whatever legacy Mubarak thought he created he destroyed in Tahrir Square when he sent in his goons. Whatever hope he harbored of passing his secular throne to his son, Gamal Mubarak, flew away when Gamal flew to England on the very first day of protest. Though reasonably frightened by reports from Tunisia of Ben Ali's relatives being arrested or killed, it pretty much ended his path to power.
So, what comes next? We don't know, but we can be pretty certain that it will not be friendlier to either Israel or the USA. But it need not be a catastrophe. I am not happy about the Muslim Brotherhood, but democracy is democracy, and they have a place in a coalition. We must understand with a certain nuance. They themselves are a coalition containing, yes, radical Islamists who will be militantly anti-west and anti-Israel. They also have more political parts, as well as moderates and pragmatists. They have been forced together by Mubarak outlawing political opposition. If you can't form a party, if you can't hold a political meeting in your home, you go to the Mosque. When they are free to form parties, they could well splinter.
However, they would be in government along with business interests, socialists, unions--above all, the military. The rhetoric of governance will certainly be louder, sharper and more critical of Israel and the west. But though the present Cold Peace will get colder, war is unlikely.
Why would the military choose peace, however cold, with Israel? One reason is fear of losing and another is the damage to cities, industry, monuments and the Aswan Dam--the best hostage to hostilities. But most of all, ironically, our military aid plays a role for peace. Since most of what they drive, shoot and fly comes from us--so do the spare and repair parts. In days not weeks war would make their tanks grind to a halt and their planes would become grounded.
What comes next will be a messy struggle because Egypt is close to being a failed state. But order can come out of the chaos, and though tomorrow is not likely to be better than today, next year holds some promise for the Egyptian people, Israel, the region and us.
©2011 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
Imagine if all the nations in the Middle East pooled their resources. What a power keg that would be.
Coming from a place where education is mandatory and even the poor buy their kids Nikes, it is hard to know what is going on in the minds of those who never learned to read and write and live in squalor. Because of circumstances beyond their control and a government where school is a luxury rather than a right, their minds must be like open vats ready to receive anything that is poured into it if it means a better life and enough food to eat.
What I don't understand is how this squalor occurs in countries that have enough money to buy and sell Manhattan several times over. It is these kinds of things that give rise to revolutions and in many cases terrorists and terrorism.
Still, everyone has a freewill, so expect that the people that broke into the Egyptian museum and decapitated the mummy are the same people who are going to decapitate the culture as well. And the same people that blow up civilians driving in Jerusalem are going to be the same people that turn on their brethren as well.
Though I beg to differ from Jonathan because whatever happens in the Middle East, especially with events in Egypt and now Jordan is bound to affect Israel. The chances are slim that any order will be restored that does not call in the Muslim Brotherhood or some Hamas backed element. And for this Israel should be very scared.
It's too bad that some people's shortsightedness gets in the way because the whole region with all its natural resources and technology could be a power keg rather than a powder keg.
Copyright Notice |
Privacy Policy |
Information |
Subscriber Services |
Site Map |
RSS 
MNG Corporate Site Map | Newspaper Media Kit
MNG Corporate Site Map | Newspaper Media Kit
| For more local Southern California News: | Copyright ©2012 |
| Los Angeles Newspaper Group |
Recent Comments
Gail-Tzipporah Saunders on George Zimmerman, Current Poster Boy for Racism: Yeah? Well a lot of people care that I saw "the Help," especially Vio ...
Jonathan Dobrer on George Zimmerman, Current Poster Boy for Racism: This comment was emailed to me and I'm posting it: Seriously? This p ...
BGF on Zimmerman is the Poster Boy For Racism: How utterly stupid, hypocritical and insane can we, as a “society”, be ...
Gail-Tzipporah Saunders on The C'est la Vie School of Classroom Management: There are some real pips in the district. That's for sure. ...
Candidate city council dist 11 Wilson on The C'est la Vie School of Classroom Management: I tried to be a teacher of Math in the 1970s. I had a BA in Math, took ...
Jack on Deaths in Toulouse: Soldiers not wearing uniforms off base -- another example of capitulat ...
vintage1 on About Gail-Tzipporah Saunders: good ...
vintage1 on Iraq and bankruptcy.: Portia de Rossi Picture credit rating Perhaps sometime, plus size cock ...
Jack on The Multiple Tragedies in Afghanistan: This is a "war without end" and the administration has yet to realize ...