7/8/10

The San Jose Mercury reports this Thursday morning that the honchos at the federally bailed-out Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are worried about a new program that will reduce the up-front costs of greening one's private residence, such things as solar energy recovery, solar water heating, low volume flushes, etc. These geniuses have stopped the program dead in its tracks!

F&F are worried about "green liens" that would be paid off before F&F mortgages. It is almost as simple as that.

Well, two things, homeowners are not obliged to consult with Freddy or Fanny before engaging any other contractors whose rights are already firmly established in the "mechanic's lien" concept of law. So, on the face of it, F&F are yipping and snarling about something that is really nothing new at all and with which they will have to deal whether this new program is inaugurated or not. So, why are they doing this?

Some nervous Nellie "rising star" in these unbelievably poorly managed agencies saw that the government was going to stimulate a program that would, inevitably, lead to a a number of "mechanic's liens" being placed on F&F mortgaged properties and thought—without thinking—that this was the government shooting itself in the foot. Ah, an opportunity to channel Proxmire he/she "thought!" Some other smartie saw an opening for F&F to be bailed out of the unenviable position of being second to "mechanic's liens" all over the country. They decided to run some figures and doubtless the total came to an impressive number. They did not provide the White House or Treasury with the percentage, you can bet!

F&F are not going to stop this bill. They are just looking for ways to reduce their risks. But, they are looking in the wrong places and holding up progress on a very important program. The "risk" of a mechanic's lien being placed ahead of mortgager recourse is deliberate and part of Main Street's protection. F&F should be quietly told to back F&F off and shut up!

JB

7/6/10

The New York Times this Tuesday morning writes about the appalling attempt by the drug lords of Mexico to have their way with the elections in that "country." Their "way" is to disrupt and terrorize in order to destroy Mexicans' sense of citizenship, to further enserf them under and into the exceedingly wealthy and well-armed cocaine baronies. The Times was kind to the concept of there still being a Mexican polity, but two-thirds of the way up the eastern seaboard provides less perspective than you would hope. It is more like anesthesia!

Were the Times published in Arizona or Texas or New Mexico ... not just printed, but actually published with the immediacy of the situation in its face ... the kind comments about how Mexicans voted despite the bodies hanging from bridges might have taken a different slant, an understanding that the voters's votes will be for officials whose very lives depend on doing the business of the drug cartels.

The tipping point from a rule of law to one of outright criminality and feudal narcokleptocracy was passed years ago. Mexico is a petri dish of the brazen and toxic. The failed state below our borders is not confined to its national territory, however, it exports drugs and hideous crimes over the borders with impunity. In days of yore we would have long since sent a General Pershing across the border after these latter-day Pancho Villa wannabes, but Pershing was unsuccessful at last, and times change.

Instead, Arizona and about 20% of the rest of the states are moving toward filling the vacuum of executive responsibility created by a series of feckless Congresses and paralyzed Presidents. Rather than chasing Pancho all over northern Mexico, Arizona is saying, "ola, mister/señor, you sure act like you are here illegally, let's see if you are muling drugs into our country to feed the music industry and high schools across the length and breadth of the land."

Whoops! Now everyone thinks that every Hispanic looking person in Arizona will be harassed out of their minds by profiling police bent on instigating a guerra del la raza, as if they had nothing better to do and people to do it with in a state with more debt per capita than almost any.

Washington is saying, well Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales, Yuma, Casa Grande, yes, you are being invaded. We can see that. But, you all know, the Army and the National Guard is busy right now. You should take the burden gratefully, because we are winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. No?

No! The feds are not saying that out loud. They are saying: okay Arizona you have stepped over the line and are doing what we feds are supposed to do but are deliberately not doing. We are not defending Americans on American soil against incursions from foreign countries, because we do not want to. And, accordingly, we are going to sue you Arizonans on what the Washington Post describes as "constitutional" grounds that our failure to perform is no defense of your willingness to take up the slack.

Actually, Hillary and Barack, embarrassed to death that the kids of illegal drug-bearing immigrants might not eventually vote Democratic, if they are hassled as illegals as a matter of national policy. They are also afraid that Mexican-Americans who cannot afford to sponsor family members and relatives for legal entry into the U.S. will revolt against the Democrats and choose—of all things—the political party of agribusiness that hires migrant Mexican workers at subsistence wages, including children in the fields against other U.S. laws that are also not being adequately enforced.

Down here in Arizona we are more than a little suspicious of the motivations in Washington that keep open a cheap safety valve on dissent within Mexico, a safety valve that provides an opportunity in the U.S. for the poorest and most oppressed where, without that safety valve, the Mexicans would realize their own responsibility to overthrow the "plantation" economy of Mexico. Of course that would create an embarrassing political instability where now we have merely social, legal, and criminal instability to contend with along and deep inside our borders!

The court case against Arizona will be a pyrrhic victory for the plantation-class in Washington. The grounds for the suit is "the locus of responsibility." If won on those grounds they must finally at last take the responsibility. But, to relieve Arizona of the responsibility to assist (as the Arizona law plainly states) in the apprehension of federal fugitives, federal criminals, federally illegal immigrants is nonsensical and utterly moronic.

Frankly, I don't see Obama standing up to all of this issue, and as I have already written, Hillary has committed political suicide over it. The court would be wise to give equal notice to the causes of the disagreement and for just one moment consider what the opposite of a people defending themselves might be!

JB

6/18/10

There was some hope for Hilary Clinton, what with Barack Obama channeling the old Jerry Brown's Zen-like trance over the BP oil debacle in the Gulf and failing to make a political point from it. Yeah, we know, keeping one's temper and all that, but Americans expect the White House to try to lead public opinion or at least follow it closely enough to be seen as part of the outrage. Obama is correct that the debacle is a risk the government took on our behalf that panned out poorly. Obama is incorrect in thinking that the American public gives a shit about cool calm calculations on why and how. Like all good masses Americans are emotional about their own failures and completely respectable in their denial state and in their SUVs. So, what about Hilary?

Clinton is going to sue the State of Arizona for its law enabling peace officers to question people with suspicious behaviors about their citizenship status. She is going to do this because the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Homeland Security, and the whole apparatus of physical coersion in this country are not able to stanch the flow of illegals across the border ... to the tune of 600,000 per year in AZ alone.

Perhaps Mrs. Clinton did not notice that the Arizona law is being considered in at least twelve other states, that a national poll suggests that over 50% of Americans like the idea of having a secure border and detaining-then-ejecting those who manage to get through anyway. Did she not notice the outrage over the feckless attitude in Washington about laws more strict than the Arizona law, but lying on the political cutting room floor? Does she think that she is endearing herself to the voting public by holding hands with Obama on this issue.

If Hilary had any courage at all, she would have stood up and said that she agrees in principle with Arizona, but believes it is a Federal issue. When she hypothetically did that, Arizona would ask for billions of dollars to support its public agencies that bear the brunt of the illegals, the police, hospitals, schools, etc. So, of course, you see why she demurred on the responsibility point.

A political suicide ... and you were there watching from the driver's seat of your SUV.

JB

6/16/10

Provided for you at the link below, the essay by Tom Englehardt underscores the very essence of the reason why my website, Iron Mountain, exists.

Tom, as usual, does not deal with the nagging details of life in the 21st century, the real problem of continued attempts to "terrorize" the American public and other countries as well. But, in his essay, he does craft a very good picture of the historical meaning of prolonged militarism and remaining hostage to a colossal military-industrial complex. The decisions have been made and the outcomes are anybody's guess, but the trendline for the American Republic is toward moral and economic bankrupcy. Tom is correct, and although he does not offer any real advice on how to proceed from here, his strong implication is that continuing the same path is actually suicidal.

Washington Drunk on War

JB

5/4/10

Just a couple thoughts about the attempted bombing and the rightwing "take" on the unsuccessful Times Square SUV bomb incident.

My rightwing sources tell me this morning that the principal suspect in this case, a naturalized American immigrant from Pakistan, probably lied about his intentions as a future American citizen when he immigrated. Immediately, the rightwing morons say that our government is not doing enough to screen potential terrorists from among the peaceful immigrants! Now I ask you, how could the INS tell whether the suspect was lying or not? Give me a break. If someone who is clean in their native country comes here and asks for citizenship, they are treated at face value.

Second, although the early reports were that the suspect acted alone, subsequently two others have been identified, one of whom is a Pakistani who visited the suspect after he became a U.S. citizen. This is important news.

First thing is that the INS and other agencies are keeping track of people whose country of origin is subject to "multiple interpretations" of honesty and intention. The arrival of the 2nd Pakistani set off a legitimately raised eyebrow.

Second, we do not know whether the visitor brought plans or blackmail or threats against the first suspect's family. So, we should keep our consciences clear by understanding that everyone who comes to America, visitor, immigrant, or just tourist is vulnerable in many ways to coercion. We just don't know at this point. Our suspect could have been a long-range "plant" or he could have been "turned" by the visitor by several means.

Finally, the suspect did precious little to cover his tracks. Perhaps he thought he could escape the country before being fingered and wanted to leave a trail leading to himself, so that a declaration of "jihad" would have credibility. Perhaps, on the other hand, this event was meant not to kill or maim, but only to show the vulnerability we have all the time to persons with malevolent intentions. Or, perhaps the suspect deliberately botched the job because he did not want to hurt anyone, but only wanted to free himself of the coercion he (or his family) was (perhaps) enduring.

Everyone is writing about this, but, in my opinion, few are thinking clearly about it. Take a breath and see what develops.

JB

5/3/10

Ross Douhat, a relatively new columnist for the New York Times whom unfortunately I have read sporadically and quoted less,(a condition that will change as of now) has nailed the immigration issue quite well today. Hyperbolic screams of anguish from people carrying political grudges and agendas about "desert fascism" in Arizona are, as Douhat says, way off the mark and divert attention from the real problem .. which we identified long ago ... Washington simply does not have the courage to enforce its own laws.

JB

Claims and counter-claims about AZ's new law. The fact is that the federal government is in charge and, being in charge, is not discharging its duties to protect its citizens. Yesterday I called Mexico a "failed state." Today, I am going to tattoo that on Uncle Sam. What do you think TeaParty and CoffeeParty are all about. It is that the feds are seemingly hopelessly muscle-bound and cannot tie even their own shoes.

(I titled yesterday's piece "Norwegian Grandmothers" because George Will, to whom I linked and from whom I drew a sense of balance on the immigration issue, used the term. If you did not read George Will you would not understand. The links I put into my pieces are meant to be read.) (Also, I have at least one grandmother in my family tree with a Scandinavian name, although I cannot be sure it was Norse. Coulda been Danish.)

Today in the New York Times comes a variety of articles and this article about Arizona's dramatic step. Just to clear the air a bit, here it is.

ON Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law — SB 1070 — that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal alien verify the person’s immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it “misguided” and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don’t seem to have done. The arguments we’ve heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers ... you’re going to be harassed,” the president said. “That’s not the right way to go.” But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime. Moreover, as anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

“Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn’t invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the “totality of circumstances” that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making any stops or determining immigration status. In addition, all normal Fourth Amendment protections against profiling will continue to apply. In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

State governments aren’t allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn’t expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn’t conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That’s why Arizona’s 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In sum, the Arizona law hardly creates a police state. It takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.

And it’s very necessary: Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It’s no surprise that Arizona’s police associations favored the bill, along with 70 percent of Arizonans.

President Obama and the Beltway crowd feel these problems can be taken care of with “comprehensive immigration reform” — meaning amnesty and a few other new laws. But we already have plenty of federal immigration laws on the books, and the typical illegal alien is guilty of breaking many of them. What we need is for the executive branch to enforce the laws that we already have.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has scaled back work-site enforcement and otherwise shown it does not consider immigration laws to be a high priority. It is any wonder the Arizona Legislature, at the front line of the immigration issue, sees things differently?

Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, was Attorney General John Ashcroft’s chief adviser on immigration law and border security from 2001 to 2003.

JB

4/28/10

I live in Arizona. Just this one state, Arizona, has just short of half a million illegal aliens to contend with, most of them from Mexico, which if you live here close to the border you know to be a "failed state" in the classic meaning of the term—a political entity unable to exercise the fundamental powers of a sovereign, that is, to protect its honest citizens from the illegal acts of its dishonest ones. You might also add that Mexico fails at providing an economic environment hospitable to a reasonable standard of living for well over half of its people. I utterly detest Mexico. It is not quaint; it is squalid.

On the other hand, I have liked virtually every Mexican-American I have ever met. I don't care for their carry-over culture much, but Cinco de Maio and excessive preoccupation with Death on Halloween are minor things compared to what we gringos concoct within the confines of our "culture"—reality television, Sarah Palin, vulgar rap, tea party anarchism, incivility from every corner, OCD athletics, Donald Trump and the rest of the plutocrats in NYC and Connecticut, to name just a few. Mexican-Americans are Americans whose forebears immigrated legally to make a better life for themselves. Many have done just that. Most have settled in to a life many, many times more civilized and comfortable than ever they could have realized in Mexico.

So Arizona now has a law that irritates the ACLU and which George Will, the venerable rightwing dose of salts columnist thinks is just about right. The question at hand boils down to this: does enforcing the law of the land require that we tie both hands behind our backs, blindfold ourselves, and put a gag-ball into our mouths? Is there not some reasonable use of our brains and consciences that gives us the leeway to look for illegal aliens where they are more likely to be found so that we can eject them from our country?

It is easy to see that fingering people because they are of a certain skin color ... and not fingering other people because of their skin color ... can lead to abuses. It already has. Red-headed Irish, dark Portuguese, Japanese and other Asians, and Black people have experienced the reign of terror from Klan-mentality police and mobs and individuals simply because they are dark skinned or have a "look." Mexican Americans have a less striking dissimilarity from northern European racial stock, but they are nevertheless "browner," as my colleague notes. So the question boils down to this: are the abuses of our immigration laws, of our hospitality, our emergency rooms, our citizenship, and all the other impositions that illegal aliens put on our communities EQUAL or LESS THAN the duty we have to defend our rights against unreasonable searches and seizures and arrests without warrants? In Arizona we have said that the sum of all the abuses done by ILLEGAL aliens outweighs the threat to our civil rights. It is really as simple as that on the face of it.

Behind the face of it nationally is the federal government run by political parties both of which are afraid to stir up controversy among the relatives of the illegal aliens, that is, the co-cultural persons already here legally and voting. You see then that where the rubber hits the road, the most awful kind of racial stereotyping and profiling is taking place. Washington needs to get out among the Hispanic community and hear how angry they are with being put in jeopardy by illegals. They don't want them here illegally either ... BUT, as long as the federal government is unwilling to stand up to its own laws, like any sane group of people they are telling their relatives in Mexico to get in while the getting is "good." Yes, this is duplicitous, but it is real and what you can expect, and the effect is to accelerate illegal immigration and to confuse the self-righteous in Washington ... but not in Phoenix, however!

There are suits already to stop implementation of the Arizona anti-illegal alien law. One or more of them will succeed in muddying the waters or, perhaps, declaring the law to be unconstitutional. In the meantime, however, the American civilization must understand that there has to be a rule of reason in this and that Arizona has, as George Will correctly points out, simply called Washington's bluff and taken the first necessary step to get control of its border with Mexico.

JB

4/28/10

I live in Arizona. Just this one state, Arizona, has just short of half a million illegal aliens to contend with, most of them from Mexico, which if you live here close to the border you know to be a "failed state" in the classic meaning of the term—a political entity unable to exercise the fundamental powers of a sovereign, that is, to protect its honest citizens from the illegal acts of its dishonest ones. You might also add that Mexico fails at providing an economic environment hospitable to a reasonable standard of living for well over half of its people. I utterly detest Mexico. It is not quaint; it is squalid.

On the other hand, I have liked virtually every Mexican-American I have ever met. I don't care for their carry-over culture much, but Cinco de Maio and excessive preoccupation with Death on Halloween are minor things compared to what we gringos concoct within the confines of our "culture"—reality television, Sarah Palin, vulgar rap, tea party anarchism, incivility from every corner, OCD athletics, Donald Trump and the rest of the plutocrats in NYC and Connecticut, to name just a few. Mexican-Americans are Americans whose forebears immigrated legally to make a better life for themselves. Many have done just that. Most have settled in to a life many, many times more civilized and comfortable than ever they could have realized in Mexico.

So Arizona now has a law that irritates the ACLU and which George Will, the venerable rightwing dose of salts columnist thinks is just about right. The question at hand boils down to this: does enforcing the law of the land require that we tie both hands behind our backs, blindfold ourselves, and put a gag-ball into our mouths? Is there not some reasonable use of our brains and consciences that gives us the leeway to look for illegal aliens where they are more likely to be found so that we can eject them from our country?

It is easy to see that fingering people because they are of a certain skin color ... and not fingering other people because of their skin color ... can lead to abuses. It already has. Red-headed Irish, dark Portuguese, Japanese and other Asians, and Black people have experienced the reign of terror from Klan-mentality police and mobs and individuals simply because they are dark skinned or have a "look." Mexican Americans have a less striking dissimilarity from northern European racial stock, but they are nevertheless "browner," as my colleague notes. So the question boils down to this: are the abuses of our immigration laws, of our hospitality, our emergency rooms, our citizenship, and all the other impositions that illegal aliens put on our communities EQUAL or LESS THAN the duty we have to defend our rights against unreasonable searches and seizures and arrests without warrants? In Arizona we have said that the sum of all the abuses done by ILLEGAL aliens outweighs the threat to our civil rights. It is really as simple as that on the face of it.

Behind the face of it nationally is the federal government run by political parties both of which are afraid to stir up controversy among the relatives of the illegal aliens, that is, the co-cultural persons already here legally and voting. You see then that where the rubber hits the road, the most awful kind of racial stereotyping and profiling is taking place. Washington needs to get out among the Hispanic community and hear how angry they are with being put in jeopardy by illegals. They don't want them here illegally either ... BUT, as long as the federal government is unwilling to stand up to its own laws, like any sane group of people they are telling their relatives in Mexico to get in while the getting is "good." Yes, this is duplicitous, but it is real and what you can expect, and the effect is to accelerate illegal immigration and to confuse the self-righteous in Washington ... but not in Phoenix, however!

There are suits already to stop implementation of the Arizona anti-illegal alien law. One or more of them will succeed in muddying the waters or, perhaps, declaring the law to be unconstitutional. In the meantime, however, the American civilization must understand that there has to be a rule of reason in this and that Arizona has, as George Will correctly points out, simply called Washington's bluff and taken the first necessary step to get control of its border with Mexico.

JB

4/15/10

On Monday, in the Boston Globe, James Carroll wrote an important piece about paying our taxes, making the important point that the rebellion of the colonists against the Stamp Act and other misdemeanors perpetrated by George III's government in London was not so much about the tax, but the lack of representation in the government.

Today we have TeaParty folk, madder than hell about nearly everything, throwing a tantrum about Obama and his policies and about Congress for being corrupt and bought and sold to special corporate interests. It is unlikely that any TeaParty person will have read Carroll, but it is important that you do, to understand the nature of protest, its real direction and its real meaning.

Most Americans get a real bargain for their taxes. When you consider how much the Army's ammunition costs, the average American family contributes less than a minute's worth of small arms fire in Iraq or in Afghanistan. We pay much less for school systems, state universities, roads, police and firemen. Taxes are a real bargain, probably the reason we get used to the value and are so outraged when government wastes a lot of money on pure crap.

Today, if you haven't already, is the day to pay up, make an estimated contribution for next year, and to stand proudly ... for a moment ... in a country where your taxes are the result of a democratic decision making process, however flawed.

JB

3/7/10

The "peanut gallery" has been more or less silent about David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political advisor and successful campaign manager. This commentator, yours truly, fingered Rahm Emanuel early on and mentioned Axelrod but once in eight months' worth of deconstructing the West Wing to the purpose of finding what ASIDE FROM OBAMA HIMSELF is causing the political ineptitude emanating (if leadership seeping slowly can be described as "emanating") from the Administration. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times we finally have an interesting article about Axelrod, and yes, it seems as if he has an attitude problem, too.

Happily, there is an excellent article in the Washington Post about the problems Toyota Motor Corporation has in finding the problems with its products, which up to now have dominated the automobile market on account of their high quality. It is an instructive essay because it very nicely points out that diagnosis is a tricky business in engineering and in medicine … and now with a good analogy … in politics. We cannot just rely on deconstruction of individual personalities, but must view the whole thing in action, then on the laboratory bench, then in terms of exogenous conditions, that is, the response of the organism to its environment. Key to the analysis is the notion that an "emergent" condition occurs, absent with any individual, but crucial (perhaps fatal) when the whole mechanism (or organism) is assembled. This, I believe, is the overarching problem with the Obama administration.

Let's take those scenarios one by one. The environment is hostile in Washington, and even in the best of times partisanship muddies the waters. Nowadays the environment provides sewage and slander, outrageous lies and complete, alternative realities. The response of the White House has been, predictably, to see the nattering voices of negativism as enemies, and the first reaction is to gain some kind of perspective on them by reducing their voices to "peanut gallery" status. This is unhealthy, contagious, indiscriminant, and the combination of West Wing voices amplifies the isolation that this produces.

The laboratory bench scenario is hard to replicate, but given the analogy the problem seems to be that the Obama team has given the testing of draft policy to a Congress-owned "company" that is dysfunctional in its own right. It reveals an administration that seems not to have the courage (or wherewithal) to do its own diagnoses. Or, even more likely, it seems to be jumping from one prefabricated conclusion to the next … with bi-partisanship being the common thread that infects each decision. Again courage may be the problem … or a misguided… terribly misguided … understanding of the Republican strategy.

Obama and Axelrod and Emanuel, huddled together with a huge crisis on their plates, see themselves as harried and yet unappreciated. They turn to personal loyalty as a defense, but ignore the problems that unexamined loyalty instantly creates. They have no internal criticism mechanism that challenges the wisdom of one another.

Finally, the road tests of the Obama administration are pretty ugly. The parts break down and no amount of swearing at the vehicle seems to fix the problem. We could have told you that over a year ago. In fact, we did. Swearing seems to let off steam, but it really is nothing more than an admission of failure to perceive an efficacious way of working through a problem. Rahm is the main culprit here, it seems, and with no progress toward using his brain rather than his gutter vocabulary, he needs to be gone. Now Axelrod seems to be picking up the torch from Emanuel, and perhaps it would be better if Obama surrounded himself not with profane and seriously underprepared operatives from Chicago, but professionals from around the country, people with a sense of the impending doom that the first year's incompetence has wrought.

I gave Obama until the Ides of March to demonstrate a change of course. Frank Rich seems to think that something is afoot, but like him, I think it is not enough ... yet .. and unlike him, I do not see 11/2/10 as the deadline. I continue to give Obama until Tax Day to remove Rahm. Now, I think it is important and necessary to re-locate Axelrod as well.

JB

3/2/10

Those of you who read these essays regularly know that I have been very displeased with the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff. He's no Leo McGary, that's for sure. He is not even a Dick Cheney, whose work for Gerald Ford was bent toward the accretion of power to a fumbling President. Rahm is a hot head and a profane ... not just profane, but actively and forcefully profane ... person. The smooth functioning of the Obama White House is his responsibility. Now you tell me: is the Obama White House functioning ... let alone smoothly?

Now comes the Washington Post with a long article about how perhaps the problems with this inglorious adminstration are that Rahm Emanuel is not listened to by Barack Obama. Horsefeathers! First, even if it were true that Emanuel is being ignored by the President (and believe me there are lots of reasons a hothead loses credibility), why would Obama keep him around at all? Rahm is an insult to the rest of the Executive staff, a martinet, a verbal abuser, and not smart enough to realize that he is at the pinnacle of power on this planet and due for a vocabulary and attitude make-over!

I think the article is the first in a developing story that Rahm Emanuel is on his way out. In other words, I read this article as a negative, not as a print. The people who think Rahm is being ignored are precisely the people who we do not want to lead. They are claiming that Obama is missing the art of the possible by being too wedded to his illusions. Well, bipartisanship is the only place where I see Obama completely deluded ... and listen! ... Rahm Emanuel was brought in to facilitate that process precisely because of his reputation as Majority Whip in bringing votes in the House to closure. Rahm has been stunningly inept at this with both the House and Senate from his perch in the West Wing. Not just stunningly inept. He has failed every test!

Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part. Maybe Rahm does have something to say besides "F*** YOU" to the denizens of D.C., but if he is not smart enough to have gotten the ear and the imagination of his boss, nor has he accomplished simple tasks like getting holds on appointments out of the pockets of Republican pranksters and ideologues, he does not deserve the job. You name it, Rahm has failed. The article has to be the overture to his swan song.

Obama will treat him well, I am sure. Perhaps he should be Ambassador to Israel.

JB

2/9/10

The question posed in the title, above, is one that has been nettling me and other observers for the past six to eight months. Finally, the punditocracy of Washington is asking, too. This article appeared yesterday and you should read it, if you are wondering where Change is and why it is lost in the bushes.

I think that the hold the Chicago "team" has on the White House is a national emergency, but I am equally sure that Obama does not ... in fact cannot ... see it. He probably believes himself helpless without these people. Well, he is helpless with them.

Now that the cat is finally out of the bag, it is time for some statesmen on the Hill to tell Obama how to be President!

JB

2/5/10

Steven Pearlstein, a columnist for the Business Section of the Washington Post defies gravity today in his article about the impending lockjaw or log jam in the U.S. Senate now that the Democrats are down to 59 potential votes. I say this because the forces that have created this mess in Washington are not the least unlike the pervasiveness and irreducibility of physical gravity. Ubiquitous and inexorable are these forces and the cure is not for Vice President Biden to become CEO of the Senate and get himself impeached or worse. The problem is also way deeper than newly sworn-in Senator Brown, although he does seem to resemble a talisman of the problem.

The problem in Washington is partly the deliberately inherent clash of forces envisioned by the Framers as a bulwark against tyranny of the Legislature or the other two branches. Understanding that representatives have split personalities ... if not the mental wherewithall to carry that off ... they are tossed by the need to teach and listen at home, on the one hand, and to rise above their petty concerns towards the "statesmanship" required for legislating in the 3rd most populace nation on earth.

Then, with statesmanship in the tool box, ideology must give way occasionally to pragmatism. The Republicans' idea of pragmatism currently is to understand that thwarting anything Obama tries to accomplish will accrue to their general benefit, that is, a program completely devoid of the substance of ideology and purely obstructionist. Joe Biden cannot fix that with the slender powers given him by the Constitution!

The failure in Washington, as always, is one of leadership. Nancy Pelosi and her team seem to have the House in some kind of herded cats order, but dear old Harry Reid and the rest of the pompinjays on the Democratic side in the Senate are utterly bereft of statesmanlike leadership. True, Harry can make a deal, but equally those deals fall apart the moment Harry leaves the room. He just does not have clout ... and the White House cannot give it to him, especially a White House "run" by Rahm Emanuel, whose cachet is rampant vulgarity, childish temper tantrums, and ineffective persuasion. Rahm has not accomplished anything in Congress, and I defy anyone to point out a single instance of success. Just one!

Pearlstein is right about one thing. We are nearly at a state of paralysis from this misbegotten sloganeering about bipartisanship. Obama is completely deluded if he thinks that the center will hold for him if he plays these games. There is no way that the center holds; it is a fiction and a state of mind based in indecision and clearly not statesmanship. Obama must change, Emanuel must leave or be tossed out on his ass, and the Senate must look elsewhere than Nevada for Majority leadership. Joe Biden can work with these folks, but his titular Presidency of the Senate is another of those buckets of warm spit.

JB

The Sunday, January 24th, edition of the New York Times "Book Review" section contains a very interesting article by Walter Isaacson on the views of "war powers" in the U.S. federal government, the notorious John Yoo of Bolt Hall (U.C. Berkeley and recently the U.S. Department of Justice) on the executive powers side and with Gary Wills on the other side, reading the Constitution literally and noticing formally that Congress has the (reserved?) authority to declare war. Wills's side of the argument is not the one that history favors, of course, and Yoo's side has been the focus of much anguished attention here and throughout the liberal blogosphere and press and media.

The interesting thing about the article is the search for authority conducted by Yoo and by Wills, going back to the earliest moments of the republic. Yoo notes that President Washington, presumably having had his fill of the fiscal conservatism chatter in the Congress, asserted his executive powers to quell an Indian disturbance, effectively putting the new country at war with the native inhabitants without so much as a formal nod to Congress.

Having been a naval officer in my younger days and fully aware of the nature of modern warfare, I am convinced that a nation defending itself and its interests must act very much like an individual, not like a committee. (That is one "loaded" sentence, btw.) Defending ourselves against marauding Indians is one thing, but acting during a 15 minute window before all hell rains down in a nuclear weapons attack is quite another. (But, having written that sentence,) it becomes clearer that response time is not just trigger-pulling, but also the time for fact-finding and effective target-selection. The excuses for leaving Congress out of the equation become poorer and poorer, even in the nuclear context where retaliatory nuclear strikes can be envisioned, scripted, double-scripted, and fail-safes implemented ... by Congress or under some review by Congress.

The big question ... packed into my "loaded" sentence ... is what constitutes a U.S. "interest" beyond the life, limb, and property within the 50 states and territories? WWI was fought for "national interests" that clearly went way beyond the loss of U.S. ships and of foreign ships with U.S. passengers. Congress declared that war, but only "resolved" to ask the President to respond to the undoubtedly (in hind-sight) contrived event in Tonkin Gulf some fifty years later.

The question of "interests" then doubles back upon itself when you take into the discussion the emergence of the U.S. (in President Eisenhower's terms) as a nation-state characterized as "a military-industrial complex." You have to consider that Congress is bought and paid for by the very elements of the industrial sector committed to armaments. And, needless to say, both the legislative and executive branches of government prosper in times of war, both in accretion of power and personally financially.

This line of thought goes directly to the questions raised by the "Special Study Group" that concocted the "Report from Iron Mountain," which this website takes as its ironical point of departure. In other words, Isaacson's piece in the Times makes me think anew about the M-I complex, which I had been dating only back to Eisenhower, but clearly has roots in 18th c. America. I am confronted with the idea that the U.S. was potentially a military-industrial complex from the very beginning, lacking only the pervasiveness of the complexity, the thorough-going development of industry, and the thorough undermining of the moral commitments we see between the lines in the Constitution. Idealism fails in the heat of a sordid reality. All the more reason to keep vigilant and demand shared responsibility.

JB

1/22/10

Benito Mussolini, the most notorious exponent of Fascism (who used the "fasces" as the symbol of his political party in the 1930's and 1940's) said that the philosophy of Fascism would be better described as "corporatism," that is, a melding of the corporate interests of the productive sectors of the nation with the government of the nation, in other words a merger of corporations with government. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that corporations may not have their spending on political campaign restricted, because that is an infringement on their civil rights ... reiterating the 1870's ruling that corporations are "individuals" with classical civil rights!

The ruling 140 years ago, made during the so-called Gilded Age when robber barons and financier plutocrats ran the federal government, was wrong, of course, and now this Supreme Court has doubled-down on that fallacious argument and brought our fragile democracy to the gallows.

This ruling, in my opinion, is no less partisan and ill-considered than the ruling in Gore v. Bush, where without reference to any real ... not supposed ... thread of jurisprudence or philosophy the Court misruled. But the point is that it is partisan and unworthy of the Court, a travesty, and a clear and present danger to the republic, worthy certainly of impeachment, would that anyone in Congress had the cojones to do that.

The only relief from this horrible act of ideological treachery is for Congress to swiftly pass restrictions that go to the essential question of equal protection of the law in an environment where equal financial resources are an ugly joke. They must do this immediately and tell the Court that it has ruled badly and without consideration for the balance of voices in our society. The Court will likely rule against any such legislation, but it will take time to bring such a case to the Court. This time we must overturn the 1870's ruling that corporations—which clearly are NOT INDIVIDUALS and therefore have no civil rights—and end this threat to our democracy.

JB

1/4/10

The other day as we were cleaning up after a festive, delicious, but slightly sloppy meal, I produced the Pledge™ to eradicate some spots on the pub table. She quickly responded that I should not be using this s**t, because it is full of chemicals ... dangerous chemicals. The producer counters this allegation in its commercials on television by emphasizing that the company is "family owned" for a couple of generations, a feel-good bit of information that is entirely irrelevant to the chemical products industry. After all, The Family in NJ is just as likely to kill you off as not. Why should the makers of Endust™ or any other chemical concoction that we breath in on a ... er ... weekly basis be bad for us. And, more to the point, how will we know whether products are made out of atomized honey or trinitrotoluene?

Enter Lyndsey Layton, a writer for the Washington Post, with an apt article about an appalling law protecting producers from even telling us what is in the products we use. I am hoping that Layton's article sparks a general rumble throughout the country and that this b.s. law is repealed forthwith.

JB

12/28/09

I think that most of us are astounded and deeply disappointed to the point of utter disgust and, frankly, apprehension, that the vaunted anti-terrorism apparatus of the United States has been proved to be porous, leaky, and INEPT! I will not go so far as to say that I agree with Republicans on this issue, but I will say that the failure of the "system" (State, Homeland Security, FBI, whatever) to understand the gravity of a situation in which a Muslim father fingers his own son is incomprehensible.

The ever-defensive of Washington foibles Washington Post ascribes the failure to detect and detain the Nigerian Abdulmutallab, who intended to blow up a Northwest Airlines over Detroit to "noise." Yes, of course, there is noise in any intelligence gathering system. But, the cultural tone-deafness of the "system" in this case requires some answers. How could it be that our personnel do not understand the gravity of reporting one's own son to the authorities? Do these people live such technocratic lives that the personal flagwaving of a distraught father go unnoticed, unweighed, unmeasured? It is an unacceptable situation!

The American public should demand that heads roll on this one. Someone hired to be awake at the switch was asleep, despite the Post's hope that we will be all satisfied that there is just too much information. Everyone who goes through the hell of modern commercial air transportation understands that there is too much information AND that they—the "system"—is wasting its resources being "democratic" and "even-handed" about evidence gathering. Enough! Profile! There is nothing in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that says profiling is illegal. It could be misused, but so could a slavish, stupid, adherence to false privacy doctrines as well ... as the Detroit/Northwest incident proves!

Obama, get your people to understand that zero defects is possible and mandatory! Fire the jackass who made the decision to bury the Abdulmutalllab intel under "noise." If this happens again, you can kiss off your majorities in Congress and a second term. And woe betide us when that happens!

JB

12/18/09

Originally, the United States Senate was conceived as a counter-balance to the perils of democracy as posed by the United States House of Representatives. Also, originally, the Senate was elected by state legislatures, often from among their own number, thus replacing "representative democracy" with the opportunity to establish an old men's club responsible only to a good-old-boy network and whomever it was that contributed most to their campaigns. Flash forward to the present day and only one thing has changed. We now elect Senators directly, instead of having our state senators and assemblymen do it for us.

I have been trying to think of one thing, just one, that the Senate has done well since I was born. My criteria are that the Senate must have saved us from some exuberance of the House, provided otherwise unavailable wisdom in our national legislature and national polical discourse, or actually hatched a really good idea from among its 100 members and brought that good idea all the way to fruition benefitting the public in such a way as we might most of us understand that we "owe it all" to the Senate.

I cannot.

Just to refresh your memory, the Senate does not originate taxation or other revenue producing bills; the Constitution gives this honor to the House

Section 7.
All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

In fact the Senate is more of a judicial body of supposedly wise solons who act as the court in the case of the House impeaching a federal officer, or by reviewing the qualifications of persons nominated to fill important federal government positions, including the Supreme Court. The Senate also approves or disapproves treaties ... in at least one case removing the U.S. from an international organization that might have avoided WWII (and much else both before and after) had we been a member and counter-acted the short-sightedness of some of the participants.

Lately, the U.S. Senate has become embroiled in a contest between factions which for various reasons do or do not want the federal government to insert itself (further) into the national health care quagmire. Among those who favor legislation that will wrest control of medical care from the insurance companies whose first interest is financial profit are progressives and liberals who noticed that while we were sitting around on our hands the rest of the industrialized world had provided their populations with health care systems that actually work, hold down costs, keep insurance companies at bay, and stimulate private citizens to take responsibility for healthy living.

Those against Health Care Reform either believe that the government should not compete with private industry no matter how poorly private enterprise is doing, or they are owned lock, stock, and barrel by insurance or other medical corporations. This last issue obtains most often in poorer and less populace states where the high cost of getting and staying elected cannot be borne by the citizens of the state, but must be augmented and subvened (and owned) by large donations from corporate donors.

The Senate this week is showing how much further removed it is from its role as wise council in the legislature that the Framers envisioned. Owing to its own rules of engagement and parliamentary procedure, the individual Senators are making a mockery of the few vestiges of democracy intended for that body. The vote of Republicans is being disciplined by the iron laws of blood politics, that is, Republicans are refusing, en masse, to cooperate in any fashion that could later be used to flatter or support the Democratic administration or Democratic majority in Congress. The votes of individual Democrats reveal the depth of servitude these men and women have to their owners and managers in the corporate world, and to a lesser degree the depth of servitude these folks have to obsolete and outdated ideologies.

Nevertheless, economists like Paul Krugman believe that the majority (everyone but the corrupt and the Republicans, who may be seen as ideologically incapable and corrupt) have produced a response to the bill passed by the House that in and of itself provides needed reform ... as bad as it is having left out so many things that a responsible Senate could have produced. Krugman says the rules in the Senate must change, but first pass this bill. I agree. The Senate must reorganize or else. The "else" will be a political revolution through the ballot box or at the point of bayonets. The fact is that we no longer need a Senate as provided for in the Constitution. All they need do is continue to abuse their position and responsibilities further and we, the people, will disabuse them of their chamber, their fatcat sinecures, and their salaries, pensions, and other perquisites of "office." Enough is enough.

JB

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