S. 649

The Senate has voted to move forward with debate on S. 649, the Senate Firearms bill.  My thanks to the Republicans who broke ranks, allowing this to happen.  I have a few thoughts on gun control.

The position that the buying, selling and possession of firearms should be completely unregulated - the NRA position - is completely ridiculous.  We don't live in a hippie commune with 20 people, we live in a country with 300 million people, and one of the down sides of living in a large society is, like it or not, everything has to be regulated to some degree ... for safety, for efficiency, for common sense.  

The position that any regulation of firearms is pointless because criminals will always find a way to get guns - also an NRA position -  is even more ridiculous.  Using that argument, we should eliminate all rules and regulations, all laws of any kind, because criminals will only break them.  But that isn't really the point, is it?  Laws are made for law-abiding people.  To make them effective, we have to enforce them vigorously and provide severe penalties for those who break them.  

There are two elements of firearms regulations that I consider absolutely essential: universal background checks - easily accomplished with the swipe of a credit card - and limited capacity ammo clips, ten rounds being the max.  Anything less is painfully weak.  We may have to accept something less, as a starting point, but it's a long way from common sense.  

Personally, I don't see any reason to ban the assault weapon.  It isn't automatic - it isn't a machine gun -  and it doesn't fire any faster than semi-automatic hand guns.  The problem is, people who use them see them as military weapons ... and see themselves as soldiers.  This is a complicated issue and has more to do with our violent culture than the gun itself.  We should concede this point in order to get the ones we want.

Murder at the DOJ

A few days ago, NBC News revealed a Department of Justice white paper that summarized the department's legal position on murdering Americans abroad who are suspected of terrorism: no problem!  Once the intended target is identified as a "senior operational leader" in al-Qaeda or an associated group, who poses an imminent threat to U.S. security, the DOJ now claims that person is fair game, du process be damned.  They do go to great lengths to blur the meaning of the word "imminent," leaving the actual definition to the reader.  Hey, what could possibly go wrong with that policy?  Let's see:

1.  The intel is wrong, the intended target is innocent, and they kill him anyway.

2.  The intel is right, but they misspells his name, so they target the wrong person.  Impossible?  As far as I can tell, no two government agencies can agree on the spelling of al-Qaeda.

3.  The intel is right, but they gets the address wrong and kills the target's neighbor ... and his family.

4.  The intel is right and a drone strike successfully kills the target ... along with the Turkish ambassador to Iran, with whom he is having dinner, which causes an international incident.  

The purpose of the Constitution - and the Magna Carta, for that matter - is to see that society is governed by the rule of law, not by the rule of men.  It is an insurance policy against tyrants.  National security is important, of course, but if we give our leaders the legal authority to execute whomever they see fit, without proof, without a trial, without oversight - in short, without due process - the game is over.  Once you have invoked the specter of national security, it is a small step indeed to move from executing Americans overseas to executing Americans at home.  Even if you happen to trust our current leaders, how do you know who will come next?  Imagine giving a man like Dick Cheney that kind of power.

This cannot be right.

Legalizing murder

A few days ago, NBC News revealed a Department of Justice white paper that summarized the department's legal position on murdering Americans abroad who are suspected of terrorism: no problem!  Once the intended target is identified as a "senior operational leader" in al-Qaeda or an associated group, who poses an imminent threat to U.S. security, the DOJ now claims that person is fair game, du process be damned.  They do go to great lengths to blur the meaning of the word "imminent," leaving the actual definition to the reader.  Hey, what could possibly go wrong with that policy?  Let's see:

1.  The intel is wrong, the intended target is innocent, and they kill him anyway.

2.  The intel is right, but they misspells his name, so they target the wrong person.  Impossible?  As far as I can tell, no two government agencies can agree on the spelling of al-Qaeda.

3.  The intel is right, but they gets the address wrong and kills the target's neighbor ... and his family.

4.  The intel is right and a drone strike successfully kills the target ... along with the Turkish ambassador to Iran, with whom he is having dinner, which causes an international incident.  

The purpose of the Constitution - and the Magna Carta, for that matter - is to see that society is governed by the rule of law, not by the rule of men.  It is an insurance policy against tyrants.  National security is important, of course, but if we give our leaders the legal authority to execute whomever they see fit, without proof, without a trial, without oversight - in short, without due process - the game is over.  Once you have invoked the specter of national security, it is a small step indeed to move from executing Americans overseas to executing Americans at home.  Even if you happen to trust our current leaders, how do you know who will come next?  Imagine giving a man like Dick Cheney that kind of power.

This cannot be right.

    I'm a golf fanatic, I admit it.  I play once a week, practice on the driving range twice a week, I watch just about every PGA tournament, and I take lessons from the best golfers in the world: Rory McIlroy, Jim Furyk, Fred Couples, even Tiger Woods.  By watching all the tournaments and the slow-motion analysis done with the Conica/Minolta, Biz Hub, Swing Vision camera, I see exactly what you're supposed to do and what you're not.

    If you have the slightest notion that you might want to become a politician, get you a video copy of Bill Clinton's nominating speech at tonight's Democratic Convention.  Everything you need to know about either politics or speechifying is contained in that 45 minutes of expertly crafted political gold.  Obama came out to give Clinton a hug after the speech - he owes him a good deal more than that.  The speech was a thing of beauty, and a real pleasure to watch.

Dem Con 1

    The Democratic Convention opened with a bang last night in Charlotte, NC.  A small pantheon of star speakers swept the loyal attendees off their feet - actually, swept them on their feet, as they were often up and out of their seats, with thunderous applause.
    Former Governor Ted Strickland called Romney out for lying - he actually used the L word - about Obama, Welfare, and the work requirement.  He quoted scripture - "where thy treasure is, so too shall thy heart be there" - to poke fun at Romney's fortune, saying his money needed a passport because it summered in the Caamen Islands and wintered in the Swiss Alps.  He put it to the Republican ticket, with no holds barred.
    Deval Patrick, the current Governor of Massachusetts, set the stage and readied the crowd for the keynote speech.  He had a long list of the things Romney did and didn't do during his tenure as Governor of Mass.  Remarkably, however, like all the other speakers, Patrick kept his comments mostly positive, choosing to dwell on Obama's accomplishments rather than Romney's failures.
    The Keynote address was delivered by rising Democratic star, Julián Castro (kind of an unfortunate name for an American politician), the mayor of San Antonio, TX.  He was introduced by his twin broth, Juoaquin, who is currently running for Congress.  These two young Hispanics (in their 30s) have one of those immigrant stories that is so typical in America: grandparents struggled to get  here and struggled when they got here; mother cleaned toilets so her boys could go to Stanford and Harvard; those boys are now stand-out Americans, on the way up.  It seems like a cliché, but it truly is inspiring.  By the end of his speech, Castro had the audience screaming "Romney said no" in a direct-response, kabuki theatre exercise.  Without a doubt, this keynote address will launch Castro onto the national political scene in the same way that Obama's keynote address launched him from the 2004 convention.  It was a great speech.
    The clean-up hitter, First Lady Michelle Obama, sashayed onto the stage in a extraordinary dress (sleeveless, some coral color) which at first blush seemed completely inappropriate for the moment but was absolutely perfect for her.  She looked like looked like a million bucks, swung for the fence,  and hit the home run everyone was  hoping for.  Her long narrative, covering both her family and Barack's, matched the immigrant tale just told by Castro: poor but decent people struggling for their piece of the American dream.  She told it with grace and charm, making the comparison between her husband's story and Mitt Romney's, without ever mentioning the other guy's name, and did it all without becoming either negative or strident.  As many of the pundits said afterward, if she is interested in a political career at the end of Barack's tenure, the door just swung open.
    So far, the Democrats are managing their convention better than the GOP.  The star of day #2 will be former president Bill Clinton.  I can hardly wait.

    Every politician wants the endorsement of Hollywood stars.  They're so glaaaamorous.  The problem is, most stars are Democrats.  So the GOP has to settle for whomever they can get.  In this case, they got Clint Eastwood, and a bit more than they bargained for.
    With a long string of iconic American films to his credit, many of which he directed beautifully, it's easy to forget that Clint Eastwood isn't much of an actor.  Never was.  When "the outlaw Josie Wales" climbs effortlessly onto his horse and rides off into the sunset, the effect is pretty powerful.  What you don't see is the previous five takes in which Eastwood steps in horse shit and misses the stirrup.  Last night the GOP was treated to the horse shit take.  Eastwood, with his hair messed up and looking less like Harry Callahan and more like an old man who just got out of bed, mumbled his way through an unscripted, unedited conversation with an imaginary President Obama sitting in an empty chair.  The audience applauded, but I think they were fairly shocked.   Pee Wee Herman would have been more effective.
    The closer for the evening was, of course, the candidate, Mitt Romney.  His entrance was choreographed to look like the president entering the House for the State of the Union speech.  From a distance it looked pretty good, but with today's modern, light weight cameras no more than six feet away, you could see that his greetings to the conventioneers along the rope line were about as real and heartfelt as Jay Leno's nightly entrance on The Tonight Show.
    His speech was ... not bad.  He isn't a comfortable speaker.  It was obviously well rehearsed and I think he probably accomplished what he set out to do.  Like his wife, he spent a lot of time pandering to women.  He noted how many women had held top positions in his Massachusetts administration.  He did not mention the plank in the GOP platform which dictates the behavior of those women should they become pregnant.
    He spoke glowingly of his family, whom he obviously loves, and moved on to sharply criticize the president's policies.  I noticed that at the end of every phrase he tilted his head to one side and made a you-know-I'm right face.  It's as if he were saying, "Come on, we were fair, we gave the colored guy a chance and he just didn't work out.  Now let's get serious."  I'll bet it's the same face he made to his high school class mates when he held one of them down and cut off his hair.  "Come on,  the guy's a fag.  You know I'm right."
    Lost in the excitement of Clint Eastwood and the hoop-la of Mitt Romney was a very effective speech by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  As he walked through his talking points, you couldn't help but wonder what life would be like if Carl Rove had met him instead of George W.
    Let's take a week off and then gird our loins for the Democratic Convention.  I hope George Clooney doesn't talk to an empty chair.

GOP Convention: Day III

    Missed it!  It was too hot, I had rehearsals for a new play, I knew it would be the SOS, so ...  But I do have a question.  What's the short argument in favor of lower taxes for investors?  Needless to say, investors, like the Mittster,  pay roughly 15% on their profits while the rest of us pay about 35% on our wages.  So the short argument is that the tax break is an incentive, it encourages investors to invest, which creates jobs, which give consumers money they can then spend on products - right?  Sounds pretty good, don't  you think?
    But to buy that argument, you'd have to believe that an investor who saw an opportunity to put his money in a profitable business wouldn't do it unless he knew he was getting that extra 20%.  Rather than make a smaller profit,  he would let his money sit under the mattress and make nothing.  I can't see anyone doing that, unless of course that extra 20% was the only profit he was making, in which case, you and I would be subsidising this guy's investment.  Am I missing something.  Don't be shy, let me know.

     Day two of the GOP convention - day one was the hurricane - was reserved for ideology.  The first two "spear carriers" were Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the second place finisher in the GOP primary, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.   They drove home the traditional Republican talking points - hard work, family values, smaller government - and did their best to demonize President Obama.  They set the stage for the principle speaker of the evening, Ann Romney.

     Mrs. Romney, a breast cancer survivor who now suffers from MS, though that was entirely unnoticeable, is not an experienced public speaker, and certainly never gave a speech to a national audience from a sports stadium.   She hit the ball out of the park.  In her simple, straight forward style, she talked about her family, her sons, and her early romance with Mitt, painting a lovely picture of an ordinary couple who had been happily married, through thick and thin, for 43 years.  She talked, with pride, of how hard Mitt had worked to achieve success, ignoring the tendency among people born on third base to assume they hit the triple that got them there.  It was bullshit, of course, but she did a good job, giving conventioneers the story they wanted to hear.  Then she made a special appeal to women, explaining that they were the real heart and soul of America, the backbone of our freedom and financial success, and the best part of the Republican Party.  She did not mention reproductive rights, trans-vaginal images, or the no abortions/no exceptions plank in the Republican platform.  If you are willing to ignore these omissions, she was a very effective speaker.

    The Keynote address was delivered by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.  Essentially, Christie is a big, fat bully.  Unlike Mrs. Romney, however, Christie is an experienced public speaker, and this intense fish bowl was the perfect forum for him.  He ranted and raved, bragging about his accomplishments in NJ, how he had given the evil unions "what for" and what a really bipartisan guy he is.  Toward the end of he speech, he grudgingly mentioned Romney, promising that he was the guy to get the job done for America.  Blah, blah, blah.  Nothing special.

    Tomorrow night the VP candidate, Paul Ryan, will speak and is expected to do his wonky best to set the stage for the closing speech by the GOP candidate, the Mittster.  We shall see what we shall see.

GOP Convention - Day 1

    As Hurricane Isaac gathers strength and heads for New Orleans, the GOP gathers in Tampa to try an whip up excitement for the world's most boring candidate and come away with a cohesive message.  Both Romney and Obama have a single task, in my opinion, which has nothing to do with birth certificates or tax returns: it is to try and regain trust.  Not so easy.
    We labor under a system in which members of Congress have allotted themselves annual salaries of $174,000 to $194,000 with very sweet insurance and retirement benefits.  Not quite as sweet as the email chain letter that goes around from time to time implies, but still pretty sweet.   The same system allows a Congressman to sit on a committee that regulates an industry, and when his term is up accept a multi-million dollar job in that same industry.  It allows congressional staffers to leave and take multi-million dollar jobs on K Street.  It allows lobbyists and legislators to freely exchange special access and special gifts.  There is a word for all this - it is "corruption."  The core of this corruption runs so deep as to affect our entire economy. Until one of these candidates addresses this crippling issue and credibly vows to fix it, a pox on both their houses.

TWILIGHT OF THE ELITES

Do you ever get the feeling that the game is completely rigged?  You don't really want to say anything because, first of all, what if it isn't rigged and you're just not smart enough to figure out how to play.  Or, what if the game is actually fair, but you're nuts!  Well, the good news is, you're not nuts.  The bad news is, the game is actually rigged.

MSNBC's young, firebrand commentator, Chris Hayes, has written an exceptional book about American politics, education, religion, and economics.  "Twilight of the Elites - the end of Meritocracy" paints a clear picture of our past, our present, and our potential future.    Hayes is an excellent writer with a gift for making his vision clear to the reader.  When you finish you'll have a better understanding of how the recession started, why the banks were bailed out and the middle class was left dangling in the breeze, and what we might be able to do about it.  Give it a read, you'll be glad you did.