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Tag Archives: Democratic

The GOP Presidential Campaign: A “Turd Blossom” Special

September 3, 2012

Hey, look a-yonder comin’

Comin’ down that railroad track

It’s the Turd Blossom Special
Bringin’ my trickle down back

Well, I’m going down to Florida
And get some sand in my shoes

I’ll ride that Turd Blossom Special
And lose these George Bush blues

(a paraphrase from Johnny Cash’s Orange Blossom Special)

Though there wasn’t much substance coming out of the Republic Convention in Tampa this last week, there was a clear signal that the Karl Rove style of politics was back in play for the Republican Party.  Rove, who was the architect of George Bush’s presidential wins, has become the poster boy for deception and deviousness in contemporary politics.

 

Their message for themselves is that they are pro-business and that Democrats are anti-business.  While positing the notion that the wealthy pay the greater share of taxes they portray Democrats as supporting freeloaders who pay no taxes.  Romney asserted in his speech that rather than address global warming issues he promised to help “you and your family” even though the Tax Policy Center said Romney’s tax plan would increase the tax burden on middle- and low-income Americans.   VP nominee Ryan promised that they would “protect the weak” and “make the safety net safe again” while implying that it was Obamacare that was threatening the soundness of Medicare.  Yet data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has demonstrated that Ryan’s voucher plan for Medicare will increase costs for the elderly poor.  

It was a White Hat vs Black Hat comparison that Leni Riefenstahl and Joseph Goebbels would be envious of.  This theme becomes enhanced by the pundits who serve as a megaphone for the GOP.

Bill O’Reilly attempts to portray the Republicans as thinking pragmatists and Democrats are still bleeding heart liberals.

Speakers at the Republican convention have largely been selected to negate Democratic propaganda, while the speakers at the Democratic convention next week in Charlotte are largely on stage to inflame the liberal base.

The strategy for the Republicans is persuade the mind, right here. The strategy for the Democrats seems to be to persuade the hearts. Hearts versus mind is the theme this year.   SOURCE   

In character as usual, O’Reilly says all of this after he has informed his viewing audience how truly objective he and those at the FOX network really are.

“As you may know, we cover politics a bit differently here. We are not much on party propaganda or political bloviating,” the guy who looks just like Bill O’Reilly explained.

[Our convention coverage] will not be the Republicans are good and Democrats are bad or vice versa. We are not in the business of promoting any political party.”

And though Rush Limbaugh is technically correct when he says, “I never once said that I want anybody at this convention to go out there and say Obama’s a bad guy” he has done nothing but portray the President as a bad guy since he was inaugurated.  In terms of good and bad, what do you consider a person who has been characterized as one who “hates this country” and has been “indoctrinated as a child” by his “communist” father and his “leftist” mother.  Does this imagery conjure up the word “good” for the majority of Americans?

When people like conservative columnist Walter Williams rehashes over and over again how “the top 10 percent of income earners pay 71 percent of the federal income tax burden while 47 percent of Americans pay absolutely nothing” they are implying that all incomes have risen equally.  They haven’t.  Like him or not, Paul Krugman is accurate when he says, “The Rich Are Paying More Taxes Because They’re Much Richer Than They Used To Be.“

CBO: “The Share Of Income Going To Higher-Income Households Rose, While the Share Going To Lower-Income Fell.” An October 25, 2011, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report found that the top fifth of all earners saw their share of after-tax income increased by 10 percentage points – with almost the entire gain going to the top 1 percent – while the other four-fifths of earners saw their share of after-tax income fall. The report included this chart which depicts the gains made by the top fifth and the losses by the rest.


What ultimately evolves by design here is how the GOP turns victimization on its head.  Casting the very wealthy and entrepreneurs as victims strikes at a perception that any ambitious American would find repugnant.  And perhaps rightfully so.  We all openly or secretly aspire to be financially secure and envision ourselves as masters of our fate by owning our own business.  But what is getting downplayed and even omitted here is how the American Dream is being lost not through government spending aimed at easing economic hardships and providing federal jobs, but rather through economic globalization that takes jobs to cheaper labor markets abroad and policies that reduce taxes which deprives revenue for vital social services.

The long-held Libertarian notion that any form of wealth distribution is evil has risen its ugly head again and gained a foothold in the American conscience following the collapse of the financial markets and the government bailouts of those who played fast and loose with investments and savings of Americans aspiring to claim some of that ownership held almost exclusively by the top 1%.   Free markets failed to live up to expectations but Libertarians were quick to redirect the focus on government actions aimed at offsetting the great recession of 2008.  Poorly informed and frightened workers were captivated by the mantra of the Tea Party who voiced this discontent and who became quickly supported by Bush-era neo-conservatives in a thinly veiled attempt to regain the power they thought would never end prior to 2006 when they lost their House majority.

Profits are first and foremost at the heart of any business and if it requires evading taxes and sending jobs overseas, then so be it.  Yet profits have never been higher for many businesses or taxes lower than they are today.  And still we are led to believe that the free markets and the wealthy class are under siege.  The Democrats are portrayed as those who support “people with miserable, meaningless lives” and “people who don’t count,” according to Rush Limbaugh, even though Paul Ryan wants everyone to see Republicans as champions trying to “protect the weak”.

If it all seems so confusing that’s because it is intended to be.  The architect of this approach to circumvent fact and disorient voters is the person George Bush affectionately called “Turd Blossom” – Karl Rove.  From the time “he founded a political consulting firm, Karl Rove & Company, in Austin, Texas in 1981 … Rove “earned a reputation for being a savage political strategist, willing to engage in dirty tricks.”    The idiom of Rove can be seen in the brief Tweet from Romney pollster Neil Newhouse responding to the media’s objections to its welfare ad when Newhouse stated ”we’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact ckecckers”(sic)

Rove’s back


Newt Gingrich has also contributed to a view that capitalizes on misinformation and deception through some of his earliest efforts in political office aimed at destroying the credibility of Congress in the hopes to achieve a majority of Republicans to further extreme right-wing goals.

“What was Gingrich’s strategy? He was both passionate about his goals and coldly analytical in his means. The core strategy was to destroy the institution to save it, to so intensify public hatred of Congress that voters would buy into the notion of the need for sweeping change and throw the majority bums out. His method? To unite his Republicans in refusing to cooperate with Democrats in committee and on the floor, while publicly attacking them as a permanent majority presiding over and benefitting from a thoroughly corrupt institution. (p.33)

It had taken Gingrich sixteen years to realize his objective of a House Republican majority (1994), but his original strategy to gain power by attacking the Congress left a lasting mark on American politics.”(p.40)   – Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein’s, “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With The New Politics of Extremism 

It’s true that you can’t fool everybody all of the time but it is also clear that the goal of the GOP has been a costly and passionate attempt to do as much “fooling” as they possibly can.   It has after all been their “top political priority … to deny President Obama a second term.”    To do that you have to distort the facts to make people forget what the policies were prior to Obama’s election that have resulted in one of the highest misery index ratings since Ronald Reagan. 

 

RELATED ARTICLES:

Fact Check: Mitt Romney Convention Speech 

Once Upon a Trickle Down 

They Love the Lies Paul Ryan Tells

Lies, Damn Lies and GOP Video 

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4 comments

Are Picture ID Requirements Restrictive for Some Voters?

January 11, 2012

When you weigh both sides of the arguments, the case for mandatory photo IDs at voting booths just doesn’t stack up.

The issue of voter fraud that is raised every election cycle has pretty much been debunked as a straw man argument yet will simply not go away because conservatives won’t allow it to die.  It’s not that there hasn’t been some case examples that strengthen conservative views about voter fraud.  However, if citing one or two examples of illegal action were proof positive that voter fraud was rampant in this country and directly impacting outcomes of most elections, then all the other in-depth research that counters such notions would be a waste of time.  What objective person in their right mind looks at a few commentaries and studies and confers an absolute status on them?

I have read and watched supporters of this straw man argument for the last few weeks present their cases on editorial pages and blogs and have made what I have thought were logical and documented arguments that reasonably rebuff them.  But like any ingrained belief, mere facts alone will not dislodge something so deeply held for so long.  Yet here I go anyway to try to respond to this position simply because a blogger friend of mine has essentially challenged me to do so.

My friend, Kendrick McDowell on his blog, The Prince and the Little Prince, feels that he has sufficiently proven that getting people to apply for pictured IDs actually enhances the possibility that more people will vote and made the case that such IDs are necessary to strengthen election integrity.  I’ll address this in a second but I think I should note that what Kendrick is doing here is what so many other supporters of these efforts do by proposing  arguments that serve as end-around responses to the bigger question people like me pose – is voter fraud a serious enough issue to be concerned about and if so, is there any documented evidence that will convince rational people (those without a political agenda) that such fraud has altered the outcome on any election in favor of one candidate over another?

The answer to the first part is “no”, based on a study by the Brennan Center for Justice back in 2007 that I linked Kendrick to, exposing this straw man argument raised each election cycle and showed that a person is more likely to get struck by lightening than they are to fraudulently cast a public election ballot.  The second part is “no” also because all of those claims of voter fraud have NEVER published anything other than their speculations and feelings about the outcomes of certain elections.  As convincing as some of these arguments are, they are still, in the final analysis, nothing more than someone making biased assertions.

In briefing filed with the Supreme Court in the Crawford v. Marion County Election Board case, the State of Indiana and several of its allied amici again fail to justify Indiana’s photo ID law. They recite various examples of problems that the challenged law would not solve.

The briefs — submitted by the State of Indiana, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Attorney Generals of nine states, a national political party, members of Congress, various election officials, and several nonprofit organizations — contain more than 250 citations to reports of election problems.

But not one of the sources cited shows proof of a vote that Indiana’s law could prevent. That is, not one of the citations offered by Indiana or its allies refers to a proven example of a single vote cast at the polls in someone else’s name that could be stopped by a pollsite photo ID rule.  SOURCE 

Regarding the one academic study that Kendrick provided me by Jeffrey Milyo analyzing Indiana voters,  it makes a good point that “voter identification reforms may … instill greater confidence in the electoral process among eligible voters, making them more willing to participate in elections.”  My two concerns with this study however was did it account for two very important factors.

One, did it allow for population demographics, especially new voter populations.  Two, did it take into consideration the social context of current political conditions that often impact voter interest?  On the first concern it appears that Milyo covered his bases pretty good but left room for caveats.  On the second issue, he failed to address the emotional concerns of voters that existed between the two election cycles he used in his study which were the election years of 2002 and 2006.

So let’s focus on this aspect that surely had to impact voter turnout.  First let me point out that Milyo’s study not only showed a slight gain in voter turnout under conditions where voters were required to provide photo IDs (2%) but his study asserts that this voter turnout was slightly higher in those demographic areas where traditional Democratic voters dwell, based on ethnicity, income and age.  His premise that I mentioned above how the integrity of the voting process was a perhaps the main factor because of photo ID requirements to explain this increase disregards the fact that voters were more energized to vote in 2006 than they were in 2002 for reasons not related to election integrity.

Within this 4 year period of time the Bush/Cheney administration had demonstrated a set of values that crossed the line with many voters regarding federal spending, war declaration and associations with corporate lobbyists.  The view that was presented by the Bush campaign of 2000 as being a “compassionate conservative” and then later in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks as the one who invaded Afghanistan then Iraq as the defender of our national security had been diminished considerably by 2006 when it became apparent that his reasons for taking us to war were misleading and that his disregard for deficits were associated with his alliances with wealthy corporations.

Factor in also that the Democratic Party was vigorously engaged in getting out the vote during this period.  Many people who did not vote or voted for the GOP in 2002 were now out in a force and changing their votes in 2006 to remove what they saw as a threat to their values.  If there indeed were increases in voter turnout in those districts that were considered traditionally Democratic, this emotional factor would have been as much if not more a cause why these people would more likely vote in 2006 than they did in 2002, knowing full well they needed to offset the conservative majorities in Indiana that tend to exist in that state.

Now, is this indeed THE factor that explains Milyo’s 2% increase rather than his premise that election integrity had been enhanced with photo IDs?  Maybe!   But you cannot know the answer for sure based on Milyo’s study because he failed to factor it into his research.  Can you honestly deny that this emotional factor did have an effect on turnout in 2006 where none existed in 2002?  You would have to be disingenuous if you did.

Kendrick also provided examples of the Democratic legislative majorities in tiny Rhode Island enacting their own voter picture ID requirement and the comments of one black, Democratic Alabama candidate who supports picture IDs for voters as evidence that the integrity issue has more merit than it does.  Such changes as the one in Rhode Island may be of more value in the future than now as I point out later in this essay.  For the record, I’m not arguing against efforts to strengthen the prospects that validate a person’s claim that says he or she is who they are, especially when there is abundant evidence that such fraud exists.

But as I have already pointed out, that evidence doesn’t exist regarding election votes.  To raise this straw man argument each election cycle with the intensity that conservatives do comes across more as a wedge issue tactic to distract voters from more serious concerns that need to be voted on like the corporate cronyism within our government; a pervasive issue that does more harm to democracy than the small incidences of recorded voter fraud.

When you take into consideration the other actions taken by Republicans operatives to “cut back on early voting, which has been popular among working people who often cannot afford to take off from their jobs on Election Day”, and gerrymandering districts to create populations unrelated in any other fashion than they tend to vote Republican, then a bigger picture emerges that gives credence to the claim that photo IDs for voters are just one more attempt by an ideological fringe to increase better results for conservatives.

I want to be clear too that I am not scoffing at those who see the need to enhance the integrity of the voting process.  I’m all for elevating our electoral process to the highest standards.  The fact that photo IDs will be made available free for those who don’t have one and who are cash strapped from unemployment and lowly fixed incomes removes a concern that some of us have for mandating this requirement.  But this is only half of the problem for those who find it difficult to access those places that will provide these IDs.  People who live on the margins and work hours and live distances that make it difficult to access locations where free photo IDS can be obtained tend to be poor minorities.

Yes, we all need to be held accountable to do what it takes to practice our rights as citizens.  But despite this view there will always be those who procrastinate or who get the wrong information too late.  They were eligible to vote in previous elections but now that the rules have changed that requires a photo, they are to be prevented from exercising their constitutional right, with only the hope that their provisional ballot they can still cast will be fairly assessed by the voting clerks who make such decisions. 

And finally, let me offer a separate study about the effects on voter turnout regarding mandatory laws that require picture IDs.  This one challenges the conclusions drawn by isolated studies like Milyo’s in Indiana that claim state laws that require pictured IDs to vote are innocuous.  The 2009 study entitled Modeling Problems in the Voter Identification—Voter Turnout Debate by Professor of Political Science at Columbia University Robert S. Erikson and Lorraine C. Minnite, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Barnard College calls for a broader application of the limited research that’s out there at this time.

Additional elections and additional states enforcing strict voter ID laws will provide more and better data. Beyond that, we suggest a more detailed analysis not of survey turnout data, but of aggregate data within and between states. A more modest but still promising approach is to fall back on surveys of who has or does not have the kinds of identity documents mandated in recent voter identification legislation.

Until we have more experience with restrictive voter ID laws that are already on the books and, therefore, more data to analyze, survey findings and database matching showing thousands, perhaps millions of citizens lacking government-issued photo ID should raise red flags for policy-makers and voting rights advocates alike that these laws could prevent eligible voters from voting.  SOURCE

RELATED ARTICLES:

 The Truth About Fraud 

Professional “voter fraud” troll now preemptively predicting fake voter fraud

Despite A 0.0002 Percent Rate Of Voter Fraud, Reince Priebus Claims Wisconsin Is ‘Riddled With Voter Fraud’

Tea Party Groups Pick Up The Mantle of GOP’s Bogus Voter Fraud Claims 

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections, Wedge Issues Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

7 comments

Fighting From Giving Up Hope Altogether on the Obama Presidency

August 21, 2011

Ken Thomas with the Associated Press has a piece out this week that hits a chord with many Progressives and our despair over how poorly President Obama has failed to take advantage of the political capital he was given in November, 2008 to effect change that only the most extreme elements on the right would actually categorize in the ugliest form of partisan politics.

After eight years of Bush/Cheney policies that ruined the middle class as it favored the very wealthy, Obama was swept into office to not only halt the direction we were going but to turn it ever so slowly back to a more sane approach and to do what it reasonably took to get the economy back on track.  Even the most fervent liberal supporter had no delusions that all of the changes we sought would be totally achieved and that some would actually be sacrificed to move us forward.  But few of us realized that on the most critical issues of health care, financial reform, entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare and most important, jobs, that we would have someone who it turns out to be something close to the empty suit many on the right accuse him of being.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was his recent caving on the debt ceiling issue.  Everyone except the Tea Party crowd knew that this was a manufactured crisis the GOP threw up as a smoke screen to cover their lack of effort to create jobs.  A recent CNN/ORC poll showed that jobs was and continues to be the top priority for most Americans and that the federal deficit placed about 15 points behind this concern most of this year.  Concern about taxes averaged a meager 5% rating over the same period of time.  Yet the President failed to take the initiative and drive home this point, rallying his supporters and winning over Independents who provided his victory nearly three years ago.

The same weak attempts were apparent with the health care reform bill, financial reform and ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% last December.  In all of these efforts polls constantly showed that voters wanted more than the GOP was offering and what Obama was willing to give away.  It’s not that we find fault with efforts to work through important issues like this in bipartisan fashion.  This was one of the things we screamed about when the Republicans had control of the three national branches of government most of the first 8 years in this century as they rammed legislation through to satisfy their base.  Some give and take is part of the political machinery that makes up this democratic-republican form of government.  What we don’t expect is the constant giving and not getting that has become characteristic of the Obama White House.

Like some liberals I don’t believe that Obama is the flip side of a GOP coin.  I am cognizant too that many things have been achieved since Democrats gained control of the White House and Congress but most of this has been low-lying fruit and thinned out pretty much to accommodate Obama’s efforts to be bi-partisan.   What I am seeing however is that he lacks the courage and determination to take a fight to its apex when he has the support of most Americans behind him.  It’s as if he has become obsessed with this notion that it is best to look bi-partisan, even to the detriment of losing his base.  He is hooked on a notion that liberals will stay with him simply because they can’t stomach what the Tea Party-controlled GOP offers and that he must show the Independents out there that he is always willing to compromise.

It is true that liberals will not vote against Obama and many of the Democrats in 2012, but as Ken Thomas aptly states, the President can lose essential support from the Progressive camp that could diminish his efforts, making it a tighter race than is necessary.

The president faces no serious primary opponent, and polls show him faring fairly well within his party. Few liberals are likely to support a Republican for president next year.

But angry liberals could refuse to volunteer to knock on doors or make phone calls, a pivotal grass-roots role for a candidate’s base of supporters. Disaffected Democrats could keep their wallets closed, hampering small-dollar fundraising over the Internet. Or they could just stay away from the polls on Election Day.

“They want to love him, but he’s given them little evidence and his rhetoric is running out of steam,” said Princeton professor Cornel West, who campaigned for Obama in 2008 but has become a fierce critic. “We find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. He’s going to need high levels of enthusiasm among his base, and it’s going to be hard to do that with speeches and no real serious actions or policies.”

I think too that Obama also misreads the moderates and Independent voters.  Many of those that support the programs that Obama wimped out on were not just liberal Democrats.  Many of those polled were working class families of no strong political persuasion who are simply tired of seeing their income shrink while spending cuts hit sectors that affect them more than the higher income groups.  Most Independents want the government to be aggressive in regulating the financial industry to prevent another banking failure as it saw in the late summer of 2008.  They want health care reform that looks more like Medicare for all than some washed down bill that completely resembled what the Republicans called for in 1994.  But most of all, they want to see someone in positions of responsibility do what it takes to get Americans back to work.

As much as you hear about how bad Obama and the Democrats are doing, it is even worse for Republicans.   Grumblings from the middle class about how low-income people seem to get more attention from Congress than they do is minor in comparison to their attitudes about how much attention the rich get.  Study after study shows that wages for the lower 95% have seen very little increase over the last few decades while those for the top 2% have increased dramatically.

One study put out last summer by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, whose findings are often based on the work of independent, nonpartisan authorities such as the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Government Accountability Office, found that the “gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007.   Their data also conveys the fact that though the rich do technically pay the greater share of taxes in this country, their income has elevated to a point where their after-tax income doubled during this same period, from 7.5 percent to 17.1 percent.

There are other studies out there that also show that the wealthiest do not necessarily reinvest any income increase from tax cuts back into the economy to create jobs and that through legislation that benefits the wealthy, many tax breaks have allowed the wealthiest to pay a lower rate than others who make far less.  This disparity and failure to promote a sense of “shared sacrifice” by the rich was brought home recently in an editorial by one of the wealthiest person’s in the world – Warren Buffett.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.   

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.  SOURCE

For Obama to think somehow that Independents would side with the GOP and their kowtowing to a mindset that opposes efforts to level the playing field for most Americans and implementing reasonable regulations that keep those who control the wealth and means of production in check from abuses that hurt our incomes, retirement savings and long-term health, simply isn’t in tune with his constituents.

It’s a different day today than it was during the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt had an equal or greater control over his messaging than Obama does via the internet and social media outlets of today.  Yet this factor can work for Obama as much as it can against him.  Many of the claims being made by his adversaries our straw man arguments that are easily knocked over with the facts.  Obama needs to connect with Americans much like Roosevelt’s fireside chats did.  He needn’t fear that the independents will abandon him if he points out the blatant weaknesses in the GOP and Tea Party talking points.

  

Obama could stand to emulate the courage of some of his predecessors 

By constantly getting the message out that there are those who are defending positions that exclude people of great wealth from shared sacrifice necessary to pay down our debt, blocking efforts to generate jobs and effective health care reform as well as efforts to curb industry practices by some that pollute our air and water as it contributes to conditions that negatively impact our climate, Obama can be seen more as a true leader.

Even in the face of adversity he needs to be seen as the one who is always fighting for those who lack the resources and status to protect themselves and their families.  It is the fight that inspires people.  Not the ruminations that lack actions.  There may still be time left before the 2012 elections to restore the image he presented to voters in 2008 but it will take more than clever, articulate speeches this time to convince many of us to devote our energy and money to his cause this go around.

RELATED ARTICLES

Obama’s Original Sin 

What Happened to Obama

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections, Social Discourse Tags: , , , , , , ,

6 comments

Notes From a Town Hall Meeting

August 11, 2011

The Texas 26th district is predominantly Republican.  Is there any value to congressional town hall meetings for moderate and progressive Independents and Democrats in such districts?

Congress has adjourned for their August recess and gone back to their home districts to face the voters following their circus performance on the manufactured crisis over the debt ceiling.  Democrats are angry with them because of spending cuts agreed upon that will hurt the economy and the most vulnerable amongst us, allowing no tax revenue to pay down our debt while TeaParty Republicans are angry that they even allowed the debt ceiling to be raised.  Democrats are also irked over the failure of the Republicans to act on a major campaign promise along with deficit reduction they made prior to the 2010 elections – J-O-B-S.  Not surprisingly, that has not occurred.  Over 200 days as the ruling Party in the House and not one jobs bill has been written.

I attended the first one of my congressman’s Town Hall meetings this year, Michael Burgess, who held it at the Denton high school auditorium.  As the pictures convey below there were about 200 in attendance.  Based on reactions to Burgess’ comments on various issues I would venture to say that the political divide was about 50-50

   

Outside there were a couple of dozen protestors that primarily displayed signs opposed to GOP policies.  Denton is predominantly a Republican stronghold so this show of strength from the local Democrats was mildly impressive.  Unlike 2009 where town hall meetings were exploding with Tea Party anger, their presence here was mollified considerably by an equal force of the opposition.

photo courtesy of Denton Record Chronicle/BJ Lewis

Following a brief summary of his efforts over the last couple of weeks Burgess opened the floor for questioning and about 40 people quickly lined up in an aisle in the auditorium that stretched from the stage to the back of the room.

 

Democratic opponents conveyed their dissatisfaction about the partisan gridlock that has developed in Washington, the two wars George Bush started and then failed to pay for, the failure to create jobs as promised and one constituent even asked Burgess if he was willing to take a cut in pay to show empathy with those workers who have lost their jobs or have had to take a cut in pay to sustain their employment.

With a couple of exceptions I was disappointed how Democratic constituents used their opportunity to challenge Burgess.  For example, instead of asking Burgess if he would take a pay cut to show solidarity for working families, I would have rather seen someone ask him when he last voted against a pay raise for himself.

Another point that could have been raised would have committed the Congressman to side which way he would vote if Democrats could ever get a resolution to the floor on removing the $4 billion a year subsidy to Big Oil corporations. According to a report in May by Andrew Restuccia of The Hill:

House Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats Thursday to use a procedural maneuver to force a vote on a bill to repeal a key oil industry tax break.

Democrats sought to defeat a procedural motion to move forward on two GOP-backed offshore drilling bills. If the motion had been defeated, Democrats would have brought up a bill authored by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) to repeal the Section 199 domestic manufacturing tax deduction for the largest oil companies.

But the motion passed in a 241-171 vote, largely along party lines. Passage of the motion allows Republicans to move forward with consideration of the drilling bills.   SOURCE

Republicans in the Senate effectively filibustered efforts on their side to prevent a similar resolution to the floor to vote on.

Congressman Burgess is a strong “free market” advocate so it would be interesting to see if he would commit the mortal sin of capitalism by allowing government subsidies to fund activities that profits are designed to address.  What’s particularly egregious about this tax subsidy is that it continues in light of the fact that the seven major oil companies have had historic profits over the last 3 years with a combined $900 billion in profits since 2001.  Former Shell Oil CEO John Hofmeister even told the National Journal that “In the face of sustained high oil prices it was not an issue—for large companies—of needing the subsidies to entice us into looking for and producing more oil.”

Removing the $4 billion a year subsidy to Big Oil will hardly make a dent in the national deficit but it would go a long way to aiding start up businesses in the renewable energy fields of solar, wind, geo-thermal and bio-fuels.  Studies have shown that investments in the renewable energy fields “can generate a net increase of about 1.7 million jobs.”  What federal aid the renewable energy field has received from Uncle Sam has been but a fraction of what Coal, Oil and Natural Gas industries continue to reap.

But if Burgess’ Democratic opponents were weak in their expressions of concern to him, those friendly to the Congressman drove home the example of how ideologically driven some people can be to the point of being incomprehensible and just plain silly.

One large man with a tattoo on his left arm brought a prepared text that essentially repeated the tired old “Don”T Tread On Me” Tea Party mainstay jabber.  He read a couple of quotes from Jefferson that condemned big government and demanded that Burgess do everything in his power to restore America to it’s rightful moorings.  After quoting Jefferson he actually said that “we need to return to our Judeo-christian roots”.

   

Another constituent, a balding man who said he was a Vietnam Vet, commented on some policy that supposedly has every American paying roughly $2400 of their tax money being spent on foreigners, “especially Muslims”, the man claimed.  Some one in the audience shouted out “racist” at this comment of his.  To his credit, Burgess challenged the man telling him that he was unaware of such a program or such an amount and would he please e-mail it to his congressional office to study it.

The man also brought up the old saw that many Vietnam Vets have mentioned that essentially complains about our military’s hands being tied by politics to fight a war with all our military capabilities.  Never mind that Vietnam and today’s wars are no longer the conventional type that requires massive troop deployments and allows destroying everything in the country we have sent troops to.  This man was essentially asking why we weren’t using our nuclear capabilities to blow places like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan off the face of the map.

But I guess the most pathetic person that approached the microphone was a woman who was perhaps in her early to mid-sixties.  When she first spoke her words indicated she may be a barometer of a common thread that unites us all.  “I am here to represent ALL of the people in your district”, she said.  She spoke softly and as one who sat close to the microphone I could barely hear her after her initial remark, so I asked her to please speak up.  I wish I hadn’t.

She was not an articulate woman as I hoped she would be.  She began to blubber about how she had been asleep over the last couple of years and had only recently been “awakened” to what she surmised was going on in our country.  Sadly, the generic talking points that come from most Tea Partiers were repeated by this lady who was fearful that “our country was being destroyed” by this president.  As she walked away from the mike she reiterated that she represented all of the people in Burgess’ district and then confessed, “I am a Tea Partier”, as she turned toward her seat.

These three people represent a mindset that tends to be ignorant of our complex political history, the real strength of our military might and a sense of intolerance that excludes too many people who don’t look or think like them.  In other words they ARE the TEA PARTY.  None of them talked about the need to turn this economy around with real job creation or were willing to meet on a level playing field to discuss our concerns and compromise where necessary.

All of their comments came across as bitter, mean-spirited people with a point of view that suggested they were being hurt while other less worthy people were “making out” on the federal dole.  The man with the tattoo on his arm let everyone know he was not a Democrat or a Republican but “a constitutionalist”, yet seemed oblivious that the founding fathers who put that document together were there to give the central government more power, not greater state powers as his comments conveyed.  Likewise his “Judeo-christian” comment came on the heels of his Jefferson quotes; a founding father who held anti-Christian views and was also very mistrusting of corporations.

The balding man who was fearful that we were spending too  much on foreign nationals rather than Americans seemed unaware that U.S. foreign spending only amounted to about 1% of our national debt.  He also seemed to be insensitive about how his slash and burn ideas in waging war would only further agitate those abroad when we use “shock and awe” tactics that claim way too much “collateral damage”, as former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld so flippantly put it back in 2003.

And the mild-mannered lady who feels only Tea Party members make up the 26th congressional district in Texas had to be in a state of denial as she passed the protestors entering the auditorium that night and listened to many in the audience boo those comments she would have been supportive of while applauding others she wouldn’t have.  It is this state of mind by all three people who, as sincere as they may be, have come to represent an intransigence to the changing character of this nation and feel that it is better to have disharmony rather than let the wave of change have any footing at all.

It’s not that we all don’t share many things in common but these people seem to think that only they have a lock on what the constitution REALLY says and what the founding fathers REALLY meant when they wrote it.  It is their obsessive contempt for most anything that is related to government, especially if it’s the federal government.

They are either blind to the excesses and abuses of corporations or are in agreement with pretty much what they do.  To these zealots of capitalism as with zealots of any organized system of belief, what errors may be made are inconsequential from the gains one gets from them.

One Tea Partier at the Town Hall meeting pretty much confirmed this when a thirty-something woman was articulating the case for tax increases and the fallacy of tax cuts as a means to stimulate the economy.  She challenged that notion by conservatives that the savings from tax cuts to the rich go back into the economy that generates jobs.  “There is no real evidence of this” she claimed and cited the evidence of this during the Bush/Cheney years when job growth was weak, even though two of the biggest tax cuts to the rich in quite some time had been passed during that administration.

She intimated that they reward themselves and a select few of their investors with bonuses and golden parachute retirement funds.  It was at this point that an older, well dressed man six rows back from me could be overheard saying, “so what’s wrong with that”.  Clearly the notion that providing tax breaks for the wealthy as an investment for job creation was an unreal possibility for him or one that was secondary to keeping it instead and widening the income gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Whether Congressman Burgess heard something he could use or simply used selective hearing, confirming for himself that most voters in his district are not a threat to his re-election, remains to be seen.  I suspect that he heard what he wanted to hear and much of the same that he has practiced over the last eleven years will simply be replayed as long as he remains in office.  As long as the Texas 26th district remains a GOP stronghold most people are content with someone who doesn’t really fix anything but accommodates the case for not rocking the boat.

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections, Society and Politics, Texas/Local stories Tags: , , , , , ,

4 comments

Are Liberals Deceiving Themselves?

February 23, 2011

Should the kumbaya efforts of many liberals toward people who constantly vote against their own self-interest die a rapid death?

A piece I recently discovered from The Runaway Lawyers blog by Mark Ames called We, The Spiteful, got my juices flowing.  It addressed the question I have commented on more than once in my articles that asked the question – why do many Americans, especially white males, vote against their best interests?  Mr. Ames hits on something that Liberals like myself tend to be unwilling to concede -  how assholes like Bush, Boehner and the extremist just installed as Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, get elected by seemingly smart but spiteful people; people who appear to be well-adjusted but may for the most part be discontented with themselves and their lives.

What Ames is suggesting is that people who perceive themselves subconsciously, maybe even consciously, as losers, vote against their own self-interests because they are “a bunch of mean, miserable hicks … hostile to enlightened thinking”.   You might want to write off Ames too quickly as cynical with comments like “malice and spite are as American as baseball and apple pie”.   But he makes a good defense for himself.

The point can definitely be made that anti-intellectual comments are common amongst many on the right like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, two of the biggest losers in terms of moral turpitude and callousness.  And the Tea Party demonstrators at town hall meetings were definitely exemplary of spiteful people who wanted nothing to do with government “socialist” programs but wanted you to leave their Medicare and Social Security alone.

To further illustrate this class of people we need to focus our attention on the patriarch in white families.  Many white males envision themselves as dapper Don Draper on “Mad Men”.  Not the fearful weakling that has hidden his identity for years but the image he struts in front of the public that makes him envious of other men.  Sarah Palin’s popularity was elevated by white males who were attracted to her good looks and even conceived that her winks to the crowds were little cupid arrows shot straight at them, or so thought the National Review’s Rich Lowry who commented on Palin’s performance during the 2008 Vice-Presidential debates.

Palin “projects through the screen like crazy,” Lowry cooed.  “I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, “Hey, I think she just winked at me.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.” Perhaps for many white males it was more like a pulsating sensation around their frontal area below the waist line.

Is there anything more pathetic than some pot-bellied, middle-aged man whose thinning hair is combed in a way to give the illusion that there’s more there than there is so he can impress some attractive woman who wouldn’t normally give him the time of day?  The movie success of stars like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vin Diesel hinges on male audiences who watch their movies and live vicariously through the persona they portray because they are pretty much the total opposite.

I think Ames may be more right than not when he asserts that too many Liberals have been naive in their views about the people who keep putting the men and women in office that rob them of their dignity when they’re referred to as hobos and slackers for taking unemployment benefits during this recession or convincing them that health care reform is a tool of the devil.  Just take a look at the “death panel” clause in the bill that Democrats want to force on old people, many on the right are heard to exclaim.

What is there not to understand about people who attack health care reform that reduces premiums and prevents insurance companies from refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions or canceling what coverage they have when their hospital bills get too high for the insurer’s tastes?  Nobody is that stupid.  They have to be spiteful to want to vote for someone who laughs all the way to the bank because they got enough people with low self-esteem to vote against their self-interest by suggesting a political opponent was  a “socialist”, gay, a Muslim or an abortion rights advocate; those emotional wedge issues that conservatives always fall back on to push their candidates across the line in a tough races that are too close to call.

For those who doubt that smart people would cut their nose off to spite themselves let me share some information about voters here in my neck of the woods, North Texas (I know, that seems like a no brainer to the rest of the country).  While working for the Democratic candidate running against 5-term incumbent Michael Burgess I walked the streets a couple of days to get signatures so we could put my candidate on the ballot.  As I knocked on doors and talked to people I ran across several who were more interested in my candidate’s views on abortion than they were about job creation or controlling health care costs.

They all pretty much conveyed to me in some form what one lady flat-out told me.  “I won’t vote for anyone who is for abortions.” I told her I wasn’t sure where my candidate stood on the issue (I truly had not discussed this with him) but asked if that single item would lose her vote even if he represented every other value that she believed in.  She assured me it would.

Now whether this lady and the others were oblivious that there was no bill pending on abortion floating around in the U.S. Congress wasn’t clear to me, but whether they knew or not didn’t matter.  Being pro-choice was worse than being pro-life, even if you supported real life sustaining measures like cheaper, more available health care coverage or tougher regulations to insure clean air and clean water or prevented contaminated food from reaching store shelves.   Babies may die from these circumstances after they’re born but these people were not going to vote for someone they thought might support the right for some naive teen to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.  If that isn’t spiteful then Sammy Davis Jr. wasn’t black.

Now I am not of the mind that all conservatives, even all white male conservatives are spiteful.  Many of them do vote along lines with Liberals for issues that serve their best interest.  The right-wing fringe might call them RINO’s (republican in name only) but they are the traditional conservatives that still linger in the GOP despite their shrinking numbers.  It is highly conceivable however that Ames’ perception of the rest of the crowd is the only plausible reason that makes sense, as off-the-wall as it seems.

The bottom line though is that Liberals need to get over their kumbaya notion about educating “misinformed” people who vote Republican when common sense dictates the opposite.  It’s a waste of time that takes away from the necessary efforts to win elections for candidates and issues that will benefit even the most egregious white male, despite the fact that they routinely attempt to prevent this from happening.  The fact that a “huge bloc of American voters are worse than merely ‘irrational’ ” is something that Liberals need to take to heart and ask themselves as Ames does, “why the hell do we need to like them; why is ‘likable’ even a factor?”

Posted by in Health Care Reform, Our crazy and wonderful world, People, Society and Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 comments

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