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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, March 04, 2005

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, AND THEN SOME

...the hottest Republican wet dream over the last couple of decades has been to somehow drive the Federal budget so deeply in the ditch that the only apparent way out was to engage in a brutal bloody slashing of all those disgusting social programs that they so despise, having been provided the cover of a desperate financial situation that could hide their true motivations. Fortunately for lefties everywhere, there isn't any need to fear attacks for actually saying that this was the core neocon agenda, because there have in recent years been the likes of neo-con architect Grover Norquist to say it for them. Now the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has weighed in to say, "Good Job, boys and girls; you're just about where you want to be." Today the CBO issued a report revealing that, given Gee Dub's current set of economic initiatives, deficits will hover at around $200 BILLION annually and that the national debt will be 2.58 TRILLION dollars ten years from now. Were Gee Dub to just squint up into the weak late-winter sun of Washington, DC, say "the hell with all this", and chopper off to Andrews AFB for a quick Air Force One flight to Crawford to spend the rest of this lame-duck term chopping brush and making the ranch safe for his imaginary horses and pretend cattle, it would actually save the American people $1.6 trillion over the next decade. If there was any question, now you know what 3% really means...

...there are stark differences between the Bush Monkeys' estimates of deficits and debts and those of the CBO. Unfortunately for whichever Republican wants to take a shot at the White House next time around, those differences are almost entirely the result of duplicity on the part of Gee Dub's gang in preparation of budgets and outyear estimates. Bushco fails to fully account for costs of his proposed PRIVATIZATION of Social Security, the known-but-unrevealed overruns in the Medicare drug program, and the ongoing costs associated with trying to hold Iraq together and make Afghanistan a safe place for the production of opium without interference from reconstituted elements of the former Taliban regime. Republicans are, of course, singing the fiscal restraint blues, saying that all indicators point toward heeding the President's new-found concern for fiscal discipline. Sadly, both for the state of political rhetoric and for the faith of the American people in their elected government, there isn't enough fiscal discipline in all the wide world to make all of this go away or get better. Republicans, for all their staunch support for balanced budgets (well, ok, so that just came along this year), simply do not have the political wherewithal to finally carry out their long-held dream of killing vast fields of - to them - objectionable entitlement programs. Their own constituents take advantage of these programs, whether those programs are understood to be entitlements or not. Whether you are talking about midwestern family farmers or conservative but poverty-level poor in the southern Bible belt, everybody in Congress has a constituency that needs to be protected if hopes of future electoral success are to bear fruit; in such a climate, cheap talk about fiscal discipline is just that and no more. Home town case in point: the Bush Monkeys are looking to implement a plan that would require that Bonneville Power Administration, the federal power authority that sells power generated from federal dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, sell its power at market rates instead of the traditionally lower local rates that have been in place more than the last half century. This would result in an immediate 20% increase in electricity cost for every business and residential customer in three or four western states. The concept itself is certainly entirely sound, eliminating the taint of subsidy from Northwest power supply (subsidies being pure anathema to Republicans, except when applied to big-dollar contributors) and it is my firm belief that every Republican Member of Congress, from my own Greg Walden and Gordon Smith to Washington's House members and Idaho's entire congressional delegation, should throw the entire weight of their influence into seeing that this provision makes it through the budgetary process. In fact, I think all right-thinking Americans of a Pacific Northwest persuasion should write his or her Republican congressional members, both Senate and House, and insist that this initiative become reality...and we'll see y'all down the road, individually hundreds of dollars poorer and in many cases out of work, when it's time for the next election...

...the bottom is simple; Republicans have no more courage than Democrats, despite all their tough talk. All the silly banter about fiscal responsibility will only apply to those programs that Democrats care about but can't protect from a minority position. What the CBO forecasts is most likely what is going to happen because - at a district-by-district level - the wingnuts have to service their voters, too. The only margin of difference will be the loss of funding for programs that have solely a traditionally Democratic constituency, and that's not going to be enough to fix the fiscal problems. It is, however, going to provide an opportunity for Democrats. They won't even need to create a victim class to save; the Republicans will be doing that for them. All that's necessary to get back to the promised land is a stern desire to fight the majority on its own terms, trading insult for innuendo, and letting voters know - in the final analysis - who was willing to give perks and treats and tax cuts and bennies to the well-off in order for the little people to be put into the position of paying the price of "fiscal sanity". It's not necessarily a blueprint for progressive electoral success, but it certainly is a good place to start the war...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:24 PM 0 comments

Thursday, March 03, 2005

NO, THE POT IS BLACK

...so now Robert Byrd, senior Senator from West Virginia; is being accused of calling Republicans Nazi’s. This is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my casual reference in the last post to how the game is played. Robert Byrd was speaking about angry suggestions by the Republican Senate majority of employing what has been come to be known as ‘the nuclear option’ - or, if you are a staunch Republican Gee Dub disciple, the ‘nuculer option’. The ‘nuclear option’, as all good politics wonks know, is the removal of the filibuster option from Senate debate, eliminating the need to accrue 60 votes to invoke cloture on debate in order to bring a vote to the Senate floor. It is the final tool available to the minority to force the Senate to consider the concerns of the minority, and has been used a handful of times in the last session by Democrats to stop the confirmation of a small wad of wingnut judicial nominees that Gee Dub threw onto the floor to keep faith with portions of his constituency. All the wild talk aside, the pure facts in that particular matter are that the Democratic minority has blocked far, far fewer judicial nominees than the Republicans did during the last two years of the Clinton Administration. The difference is that the Republicans were in the majority in Clinton’s second term and could rely on simply ploys like refusing to hold hearings on his nominees, rendering the filibuster unnecessary and turning all of their current mush-mouthed whining about how they didn’t do this to the last guy into the sort of lying, meaningless, self-serving drivel that has become the best that we can expect from these so-called leaders of the US Congress. Now, however, they think they’ve got the hook...

...what Byrd specifically said was that the Nazi’s came to power and wreaked their havoc by instituting laws favoring the dominance of the majority, and that the history and protocol of the United States Senate should remain in place to prevent dominance by the majority of the sort that the Nazi’s employed. He didn’t call anybody or the Republican party Nazi’s. Because of the manner in which the game is played, however, the association of the two words, ‘Nazi’ and ‘Republican’ in the same sentence gave the wingers the hook they needed to attempt to subvert and diminish one of their most powerful and respected opponents in their wet-dreams of killing the concept of cloture. It’s all part of the same game; uncounted billions of electrons and pixels have been expended by lefty bloggers urging Democrats to get in the game and fight back against these sorts of vicious little word games that the Republicans play without challenge - to no particular positive effect, and the “aggrieved” parties in this case are part of the same cast of usual subjects, with a clever Semitic twist. Not only do we have Rick Santorum, easily one of the slimiest characters to crawl out of the industrial Pennsylvanian muck to stride the national stage in a sea-turtle’s lifetime, demanding an apology, but we also have spokesmen from the Anti-Defamation League, anxious to curry favor with the current administration and its staunch, “end of days” support for Israel, as well as from some shill group called the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose name itself suggests that it isn’t really a meaningful player in the universe of political discussion. All of them, along with the faceless gnome from the Republican National Committee (who probably figures he needs to get some face time for credibility purposes now that Howard Dean is careening around town at the helm of the Democratic ship), have done a masterful job of setting up the charge of ugly name calling to be absorbed by the unwashed masses who don’t focus closely on such debates but rather collect their impressions from the headlines....

...and it’s really too bad, because there’s some good stuff to pick on here. The most appallingly stupid and self-serving of the group is Matt Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who goes on at length about Byrd’s abuse of Holocaust symbolism (after playing the old KKK card):

Brooks also attacked as “disgusting” Byrd’s remark that “some in the Senate are ready to callously incinerate” senators’ rights to filibuster. The comment came amid several references by Byrd to the “nuclear option.”
“There is no excuse for raising the specter of the Holocaust crematoria in a discussion of the Senate filibuster,” Brooks said.

...we desperately need Jon Stewart at this moment, staring out at the camera with his patented look of dumbstruck disbelief at the simple stupid absurdity of such a comment. While the ploy is obvious as a part of Republican Nazi-like efforts to demonize the opposition to diminish the value of the opposition’s opinion, this particular attempt is so mind-grindingly simple-minded as to call into question whether the Republicans should seriously consider allowing this little manufactured advocacy group to speak on their behalf. Apparently Mr. Brooks upbringing somehow missed the fact that - for almost 40 years - Americans of all political and religious persuasions lived under the threat of a nuclear holocaust that would make the World War II sufferings of his people second page news. Apparently Mr. Brooks is either so locked into his own action or so dim-witted that he doesn’t even have the capacity to understand that there are still people alive in two medium-sized Japanese cities who direct personal memory would allow them to completely understand Byrd’s ‘incineration’ reference without making any connection at all to the Jewish Holocaust perpetrated by Hitler and his thugs. In Dr. Pangloss’s otherwise perfect world (5 points for the correct identification of the reference), people like Mr. Brooks would be, by acclamation, be denied the stage to carry on his odd meanderings due to the preponderance of simple stupidity...

...the bottom line isn’t very far down the page in this particular story, unfortunately. The strong aggressive efforts of the Republican party - at least that part operation out of or at the behest of the White House - to quell open discussion and dissent by the raw ugly demonizing of opponents has its parallel in regimes that my father and his generation took up arms to defeat. It’s a game they started: claiming the questionable right to call opponents to it’s policies traitors; suggesting that reasonable questions about the whole Iraqi situation was somehow providing ‘aid and comfort to the enemy’ (now there’s a buzz phrase); cautioning journalists, as Administration officials did, that they needed to be cautious about voicing disagreement with the administration (“be careful about what you say”). These are all manifestations of an effort to control, not to lead. These are behaviors that the Nazi’s used to take control of a nominally democratic government. It’s simply time to call a spade a spade and ignore the puppy dog affinity groups that want to wiggle around the edges to throw in their meaningless little charges of anti-Semitism or whatever. If Republicans don’t want their behavior to be compared to the Nazi’s, they should give serious consideration to perhaps not acting in a manner that invites such comparisons. Robert Byrd may be proscribed from calling them certain specific names in consideration to the alleged comity of the Senate (which is a long-lost wisp of a legend, courtesy of the Republican Party and it’s obsessive effort to become the ONE party of the country), but nobody outside the chamber is so proscribed. Note to the Republican Party: if you don’t want to be compared to the Nazi’s, don’t act like ‘em...

UPDATE: Avedon has more thoughts on this story, as well as links to other good comments.
Posted by: Jack K. / 9:28 PM 0 comments
STEMMING THE SCOURGE OF CANADIAN TERRORISTS

...when it comes to lying, US officials sometimes come across as less facile and capable than the average eight-year-old. Take the case of Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham...

...back in January, Mr. Graham tried to catch a commercial flight from the great White North to New Jersey, but was delayed in boarding because, according to quotes from his aide, his name matched that on some sort of American watch list. Now, in response to Canadian press coverage about the episode, the US Embassy is insisting that any delay was not as a result of any US watch list, although they won't discuss either the possibility of his name on such a list in particular or any aspect of any such list in general. This leaves us with something of a quandary. Are we to believe that it was the singular initiative of the airline itself that created barriers to Mr. Graham's access to his seat? Are we to understand that the air carriers are maintaining their own security lists in order to filter out high government officials or, perhaps, aging American evangelists? Inquiring minds wonder...

...we know that the United States maintains lists defining varying degrees of security scrutiny for fliers. Stories abound of travelers ranging from the former Cat Stevens to various environmental and political activists to a friend of mine who seem to reliably attract far more attention than the average Joe in their attempts to board a passenger jet. While Canada doesn't officially have security lists, disturbing stories exist about the covert existence of such lists or reliance on the American 'no-fly' list. Be that as it may, it would seem like the Defense Minister would be one of the last people to run up against such a Canadian list. Imagine Don Rumsfeld being bodily escorted out to the sidewalk at Ronald Reagan Int'l Airport by stern-faced TSA personnel after being booted from a flight (although that little fantasy might face an increasing likelihood next time he tries to fly to Canada). Yet here we are, with US Embassy spokespersons insisting with straight-faced determination that - nosirree, Bob - we had nothin' to do with this...

...who knows, maybe it's a bogus story. Maybe the Globe and Mail got it all wrong, or maybe they just manufactured the quote from the Minister's aide clearing stating that a security issue kept one of the most important people in Canadian government from boarding a US-bound flight. On the other hand, maybe some of our people need to get back to basics. Perhaps they may want to consider working on "honest, Mom, I don't know how that vase got broke!" or "but I did do my homework, Dad!". Little steps...they need to start with little steps if they want to get to the prevarication big leagues...
Posted by: Jack K. / 10:52 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

MEASURE 37 CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST

...ok, so I'm not an Oregon native (although my kids are, so I rely on a perverse sort of reverse citizenship standard to lay my claims), but I have, over the last 20 years lived and traveled all over this state. One of the most beautiful mind pictures of this state that I can conjure is an early summer evening in the heights south of Hood River, just when the light from the shallow late day sun lends a honeyed glow to the rolling orchard-rich landscape. From a sufficient vantage, one can take in the back-lit bulk of Mt. Hood, the evening half-moon face of Mt. Adams to the north, and - in the middle ground across the Columbia - the steep face of the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge looming above White Salmon. Courtesy of Measure 37, the most recent assault on Oregon's land use laws, I'm trying to brain-Photoshop a chunk of the near ground landscape into 800 roof-tops, which would be the outcome of John M. Benton's claim to be allowed to turn 210 acres of his family orchards into residential housing. It doesn't make a pretty picture, but - under the terms of Measure 37 and his desires for the use of his land - it may not long be the sort of image that only resides in one's head...

...there's an easy temptation for supporters of strong land use laws to make people like Benton and others who seem to be cashing in on the requirements of the measure look to be bad guys. It certainly appears that Benton or farmers northeast of Bend or others across the state are taking advantage of the fact that local governments can't begin to come up with the money to respond to claims; the farming family isn't even offering the altruistic opportunity for affordable housing to address the lack of such accommodations in Central Oregon, what with their vision of $500 - $600 K homes on 1 to 3 acres. At the same time, there is a strong personal land ethic in the rural west, a sense that a man's land is his to do with as he will, which was a driving force behind the victorious poster-child campaign illustrating the plight of long-time landowners saddled with after-the-fact land use regulations. Such stylizing plays strongly to a native westerner's sense of fair play. There is, however, a downside, a price to be paid that isn't addressed in the rather ego-centric self-serving "me-first-and-the-hell-with-you" nature of Measure 37. That price is being paid by neighbors, and as this little game plays its way out the price can be steep. Just as suburban encroachment around airports leads to noise complaints that hamper airport operations, or just as suburban encroachment spreading out from Vancouver, Washington, placed huge burdens on the dairy farmers who once lived "north of town, these encroachments will run the risk of having an impact not only on the lifestyle of the adjacent farmers and orchardists but also on their very operations. This is an impact that Measure 37 neither measures nor for which it allows compensation. While these neighbors have the opportunity to have a commentary role in the decision-making process, the power of the Measure and it's dark threatening burden on the local regulatory agency to either approve or pay the claim - the ultimate "put up or shut up gambit" - tilts the playing field so far toward the offended long-time land-owner with new ideas for using his land that cheap talk about fairness or neighbor's rights isn't worth the breath necessary to even bring it up. Mr. Benton, the Hood River orchardist turned land baron, certainly understands this part of the game:

During a break in the hearing, Benton was asked about the fury that his plan has unleashed among his neighbors.

"Life is not equal," he said. "There is a law that got passed, and there is going to be a good amount of whining going on."

...there you go. Hang on that thought for a minute. "Life is not equal." Or, put in simpler terms, "I win, you lose, see ya at the bank." This particular divisive sort of grabbing for the gusto is going to be divisive enough of its own self as this process unwinds, but there's an even bigger shoe waiting to drop out there in the cold late winter darkness. The issue of transferability hasn't been fully addressed, although the State Attorney General's office has issued an opinion that the rights under Measure 37 don't transfer to a buyer who purchased the land after the pertaining land use regulations came into effect. This will be the big fight that makes all the land use lawyers filthy rich. Measure 37 seemed to say that it only applied to those who owned the land before more restrictive land use laws were instituted. If that right to file a claim against the land use regulation preventing a desired use is somehow found to be transferable, it will spell the end of land use regulation as a means of protecting both the integrity of land uses and the rights and lives of adjacent residents and landowners. This will be the fundamental battle occupying the minds of land use regulation advocates and opponents, twisting the debate all out of proportion to the plaintive ramblings of some old woman who decried the denial of her right to leave something for her children that was such a powerful talisman in the last campaign...

...in the meantime, however, the forces of development are on the charge, feeling powerful and victorious from having fed on the vanquished flesh of a couple of decades of effort to keep Oregon a decent place to live. As a result, if you would like to capture that perfect rural late day vision of golden light playing it's special dance over the rolling orchard land in the heights above Hood River on the trailing edge of a cottony summer's day on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge, best do it as soon as possible. Measure 37 says you won't have the chance to experience that moment for very much longer...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:30 PM 0 comments

Sunday, February 27, 2005

WHY LIFE SUCKS FOR GEE DUB

...in their effort to turn the Middle East into a friendly Arab version of a Wal Mart Supercenter, the Bush Administration has been making military noises at Syria. Syria wasn't an original member of the big three in the Axis of Evil game, but they have certainly been a focus of Gee Dub's gang over the last few months. But now they have to deal with this, and all the bets are off the table. With Syria taking steps to help the Iraqi government by turning over Saddam's half brother, it is now a tough row to hoe for the Bush Monkey's to slide them into Iraq's former place in that famed axis. No lengthy analysis or lengthy construct of passages needs to take place. This just sucks for Gee Dub and the boys....
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:59 PM 0 comments
DOPE SLAP FOR THE OREGON KICKER

...while it would be fun to be blogging the Oscars - cultural slut that I am - the fact is the best news of the weekend isn't how many awards "The Aviator" wins, but the fact that the Oregon State Supreme Court on Friday established a limit on the infamous Kicker. For my guests not blessed to be living in this twisted bit of confusion we call Oregon, the Kicker is a bit of tax rebate artifice created by the Republican-led legislature several years ago to accomplish two goals: 1) punish state economists for not guessing with sufficient accuracy what state revenues would be two years out, and 2) to strip the Legislature of any hope of ever building up a state surplus that could see it through the sort of economic upheaval that the state has experienced over the last two years. Coupled with ballot Measure 5, which severely restricted local property tax revenue and forced the majority of school funding to come from the state coffers, and Measure 11, which established strict criminal sentencing guidelines helping Oregon to become a national leader in the particular civil engineering field of prison construction in order to accommodate the dramatic increase in inmates, the Kicker rebate has helped to turn the state into the sort of social services wasteland that Republicans and anti-tax advocates have been hungering after for a couple of decades. The State Supremes Friday did all the normal citizens of the state a big favor on Friday by declaring that the Kicker, a gift from now-US Senator Gordon Smith for which we never have fully thanked him, has a leash on it that only reaches a certain distance from the porch...

...OFF-TOPIC ASIDE: there's some guy on the tv right now, with Carlos Santana riffing at his side, singing the Oscar-nominated song from "The Motorcycle Diaries". What is it with these guys? I'm a guy totally comfortable with my guy-ness, but these Spanish singers just sweat a strong sexual power that makes me want to run out and shoot some unarmed innocent animal just to reaffirm my manliness. I can sing pretty well, but if I could carry of this passion act you can bet I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here typing about the Oregon Kicker refund. And Santana is a demigod...

...we are faced these days with no particular way to fix the nonsense foisted on Oregonians by the Kicker refund. The only hope of sensibility in state budgetary matters we can hope for is for legislators to have enough sense and courage to snatch from the state General Fund those items that didn't belong there to begin with. One of the failings of State law is that far too many things go into a share-and-share-alike pot, causing the potential for disasters such as having to send a refund to taxpayers because of money sent to the state by the Federal government to cover Medicare expenditures. My own State Senator, shockingly enough a Republican - albeit a common-sense moderate when it comes to state finances has it exactly right:

"I always believed we were right," said Sen. Ben Westlund, R-Tumalo, who was one of the architects of the Medicaid Upper Payment Limit (MUPL) plan.

"That was federal money, and it never made sense to take federal money that was earmarked for health care and then send it to Oregon taxpayers in the form of a tax rebate."

...then, of course, there are the "tear down the state" types, the local version of the national Republican push to rip up and throw away any sort of idea that we, as a collection of people have an obligation to help the less-well-off amongst us. They make it all sound like it's an effort to wisely spend taxpayers' money, although a casual review of their efforts that it's all about making the world safe for business profits and not about putting a few extra dollars in your pocket. For example, we have Republican Senator Gary George of Newberg:

"This will go down in history as a black mark on the integrity of the Oregon Legislature, but it was just rubber stamped with a big OK by the Supreme Court of Oregon," he said. "I'm a little sad, and a little mad."

He said he fears the ruling will open the door to future efforts to divert dollars from the general fund and lower kicker rebates.

...there is the battle line, drawn clearly for all to see. To the folks whose life-dream is to get the state entirely out of the business of doing anything but patching roads, underfunding schools, building lots of prisons in every back yard in the state, and providing a minimal police force - presumably to respond to all the traffic accidents resulting from an inadequate State Patrol presence to keep big friggin' 100,000 thousand pound semi tractor-trailer rigs from chasing me down the road so closely that all I can see is the "N..W..O.." on the grill of their Kenworth trucks in my rearview mirror - anything that robs them of their opportunity to claim even targeted funding as part of the general fund subject to state revenue is a horror and a travesty, misbehavior if not malfeasance on the part of the State legislature. Fortunately, we have the State Supreme Court to thank for this most recent retreat to sanity; this surly band of wild-eyed criminal-coddling, leftist pinko jurists drew the line so that I don't get an extra tax refund based on federal funding supplied to the state for particularly targeted reasons. It all seems like common sense, but the whole concept is beyond the reach of certain fixated idealogues with an agenda bigger than any sort of concept of how state government really ought to work. Unless Diebold was at work in certain jurisdictions, somebody votes for these people, God love 'em. At least we still at the state level have a system of checks and balances that keeps them from going too far in making all of us Oregonians too silly even for Doonesbury's tastes...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:03 PM 0 comments

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