Our Civil Liberties, May They Rest in Peace

I haven't visited or contributed to this blog in a long time, but I think it's of paramount importance that recent events be told.

Yesterday, 12/15/2011, Congress approved a bill that would allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens who were considered to be terrorists, aiding terrorists, or other enemies of the state.

Shortly thereafter, a group known simply as "Anonymous" released a video detailing the dire consequences of this bill:




After seeing this very chilling and eerie video, I, like a loon, became very curious about the origin and nature of the group who released it. As they say, curiosity killed the cat.

I somehow, through my poking around, stumbled onto a site detailing press releases from "Anonymous" and from there, somehow found the main site where this group meets.

I'm detailing my experiences here, so that you, and those whom I already know are reading may know I, as an individual, am not a threat, am not associated with this group, and have no information further than what can be accessed by anyone else online.

After finding this site, I found further information. Again, I bit, and pursued.

I watched several videos by the group Anonymous, and from there, watched many videos posted by one simply known as wellaware1. These videos, very convincingly, make the case that:


- Many of the worldwide revolutions have been staged.

- Many of the child disappearances have been staged - what percentage of them, no one knows.

- The #occupy movement is staged, and is a sham. This hurts me to say, as I was a very big supporter, and honestly thought we had touched a string for a peaceful grassroots movement to instigate fundamental change. This is not so. And the evidence is hard to deny.


As of this morning, after poking my nose around in places I'm sure it shouldn't have been:

- I have several new suspect characters stalking my political contributions online from several sources. (Yes, I noticed.)

- I've noticed a long string of strangely consistent hits on this blog, even though its been months since I've written on it or contributed anything to it at all.

- TODAY, I AM BLACKLISTED (account suspended) FROM ACCESSING THE WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE. 


Friends, before you institutionalize me, I know this sounds like something out of the x-files and I myself wouldn't believe it if it weren't happening to me. I may be currently on the enemy of the state watch-list and with the passage of this new bill, if it is signed into law, I genuinely fear for what happens next.

Spend time with your family. Prepare yourself for emergencies, just in case. Pay attention to the things that matter. I'd also recommend you do not snoop around like I did, but I'd hate to be a hypocrite.

I'd like to reiterate, for the record, I am not a threat, I am not affiliated with Anonymous, nor do I know anything further about them.

We Managed to Skirt Economapocalypse - Yay!

Good day folks!


So we’ve just passed the budget/ debt-ceiling raise and narrowly averted what I’ve been referring to as “Economapocalypse.” Because the deal was passed in the eleventh hour, there are plenty of questions about what this bill actually contains.


View the “Budget Control Act of 2011” in its final version here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s365enr/pdf/BILLS-112s365enr.pdf



Some points of interest within the Bill:


1)Caps the amount that is available for an increase to the budget of the Disability portion of Social Security to $1,309,000,000 for additional new budget authority by 2017, to be continued at that rate from that point forward.


2)Introduces limits for additional new budget authority for Healthcare Fraud and Abuse control. (Similar to the caps on Social Security Disability.)


3)DISASTER RELIEF. This is a measure I’m particularly concerned about given the recent wave of devastating natural disasters in the U.S. This measure would limit the amount of disaster relief spending on any given incident to an average of disaster relief spending over the last 10 years, excluding both the highest and the lowest years.


4)Sets Discretionary Budget increase limits per each year. Discretionary spending includes both the security and non-security categories. Here is the breakdown over the next decade or so for the additional discretionary budget authority by year:


2012      $1,043,000,000,000
2013      $1,047,000,000,000
2014      $1,066,000,000,000
2015      $1,086,000,000,000
2016      $1,107,000,000,000
2017      $1,131,000,000,000
2018      $1,156,000,000,000
2019      $1,182,000,000,000
2020     $1,208,000,000,000
2021      $1,234,000,000,000


Certainly, there is tons and tons of material to read through, but those are some big factors in this legislation. Also of note are multiple changes to the higher education funding system, specifically to Pell grants, but I have not yet had time to review that portion of the legislation so I can’t tell you exactly what is contained within. There are also concerns regarding the creation of a “Super Congress” which is a newly created committee consisting of 3 members from each party that will act in some capacity of budget enforcement. Lastly, there are extreme implications for the judicial system including the questionable level of increase of judiciary authority (“legislating from the bench” or, activist judges) as well as a potential decrease in the level of court accessibility for tort and other average citizen-brought cases.


There is definitely a lot of information to sift through here and I’m positive we haven’t heard the last of this mess. Take some time to review the legislation yourself too and let me know if there is anything in particular you would like me to further research!

Im Back!

Sorry I have not been more attentive to my political blog, followers and readers!! My sincere apologies because some real shit has gone down in Washington lately.

That being said, I'm going to take today to re-vamp the blog a bit and get back to posting so you can all get back to reading.

Thanks guys!!!

The Re-Re-Re-Invention of the Wheel

Read the Story Here:White House Deficit Talks Coming Apart At The Seams

Both House and Senate members today released their picks for budget negotiations liaisons for their respective parties. Both Republicans and Democrats chose to send far fewer than the number of legislators requested by President Obama (8 from each party), and many of the picks on both sides of the aisle are already becoming controversial, threatening to slow or severely complicate the formation of a working budget by September.

After what was a narrowly avoided political and financial disaster regarding passing a new Federal budget just a few weeks ago, here we sit, deadlocked yet again.

Both parties in the last round of budget fiasco were both forced to cherry-pick which pet programs would be sacrificed and which would be saved. Obviously, the right vying for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the Defense budget while taking a machete to the rest of the Federal Government and the left attempting to save programs that help the poorest in America as well as fighting to preserve programs such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), Planned Parenthood subsidies, as well as their biggest accomplishment of the prior legislative session – health insurance reform.

So instead of bickering over the minutest of details and facts, can we simply apply some common sense here and quit wasting everyone’s time?

Every single budget discussion quickly turns into a partisan shit fest where every program, its effectiveness, and its funding are called into question. While I feel those factors probably do need to be addressed, I would think that’s something we would do prior to having these talks.

All of that aside, why do we attack the Federal Budget like we’ve never done this before? Go back about a decade to the Clinton administration. We had a budget surplus. Not only a budget surplus, but a robust and booming economy in which the Middle Class grew like weeds, the top 2% were still the top 2%, and the poorest folks in America at least knew their children had a shot at the Middle Class if they studied and worked hard.

And I’ll be honest – I don’t particularly care who can take the credit for that budget. Point is, we have already found a model that works exceedingly well. Let’s go back to both the spending levels and the revenue levels of the mid-90’s and see where that takes us. All spending an equal percentage of the GDP as it was back then, all taxes back to those rates for everyone.

This is your “EASY” button, Federal Government. All you have to do is push it.

Apparently, We Love Blowing Sh!t Up.

Read the Story Here:Operation Odyssey Dawn: U.S. Launches Military Strikes in Libya

On Saturday, March 19th, the U.S. launched an attack against Gadhafi's air defenses from an aircraft carrier stationed in the Medierranian Sea to protect the U.N. sanctined "no fly zone" around Libya. Missiles were launched in the name of "support operations" to protect French and other military air operations following numerous impositions of sanctions against Gadhafi and Libya.

I am SO MAD about this!!!! We shouldn't even have gotten involved in this in the first place. We have two other unsuccessful wars already in the region and if the U.N. wants to do something about Gadaffi, why are WE the ones footing the bill??

I know we fired 122 missiles...those missiles cost roughly $500,000 each.

That, my friends is = $61,000,000 total.

In other words, the cost of firing those missiles could have paid fully for yearly salaries and full benefits for 813 teachers!!!! We have got some seriously misplaced priorities when we'd rather bomb other countries than educate our own citizens.

Perhaps I would feel differently about this IF:

If we weren't so selective in deciding precisely who receives our support (think Sudan).

If we weren't fracking BROKE as a nation due to our military operations in the first place.

If we hadn't already lost so many of our soldiers in the past decade.

If we didn't already have two failing wars under our belt.

If the U.N. would foot part of the bill.

Now generally speaking, I am a huge human rights activist. However, I do not feel our involvement in the region is appropriate. I understand we have an interest in the outcome and that it would be prudent of us to help these revolutionaries as opposed to be on the receiving end of their resentment, if they are successful on their own, for supporting their tyrannical leaders in the first place. Every country has had a revolution and has been left to its own devices to sort out for themselves, a government that reflects the will and wishes of the people. By middling in that process, we are not allowing things to take their course and will end up resented for that anyway.

So why bother??

This is not an argument for intervention, but rather a damn good argument against it. If we had never bothered to take sides in these matters, we wouldn’t be back-peddling against our own current. I continue to think about all the self-sustaining, peaceful, nations who keep to themselves and only have excellent education, modern infrastructure, wonderful healthcare, and happy citizens who have some of the highest approval ratings of their government in the entire world, as a result.

Hope in February's Unemployment Numbers

Read the story here:Unemployment Rate Falls in February, U.S. Adds 192K Jobs

Unemployment numbers from February indicate a small decrease in overall U.S. unemployment figures dropping to 8.9% from a steady 9% throughout most of the winter season. The private sector added 192,000 jobs last month, almost double the monthly average from all months last year. Job growth occured in sectors such as healthcare, construction, and office administration. The last time the U.S. saw this number of jobs added was in 2006 however, the percentage of American's seeking work remains at just 64.2%, a very low rate comparable to March of 1984.

To me, this seems like news to expend a little bit of hope over. It's not that unemployment is significantly down but more so that job growth is significantly up. I was curious as to how this data played out so I made myself a graph I'd like to share:

It may be difficult to read the legend so let me fill you in: Everything in BLUE represents 2008 so you can blame all that mess on the Bush Administration. The rest of the bars you can blame on the Obama Administration as he took office January 20, 2009 with RED = 2009, GREEN = 2010, and PURPLE = 2011. I'm sure everyone noted that the positive gains were all post-Bush. ;) Or, here is another way you can look at the data. The purple chunks represent a chronological timeline beginning with the same time period, January 2008 moving through to today's data, February 2011. The green line is the number of jobs either added or lost during that time:

So in short, we have been on nothing but an upwards trend with jobs starting with Obama's move into office. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of measures this administration could have taken that would have pulled us out of this crap a lot faster, but the numbers don't lie and we are seeing improvement.

Before I get too high up on my horse, I would like to mention the one factor that could either plop us straight back into the middle of this recession, or pull us straight out - gas prices. There is speculation on both sides of this and I tend to agree with the former in that this is going to harm, not help our situation. Those who say the rise in gas prices may help believe that it could significantly impact other countries who pay a lot more for oil than we do here and as a result, manufacturing jobs may start coming home where oil is cheaper to use. I can't say I'm that optimistic. We, as a country, have very limited alternatives for the ground transportation of products that doesn't involve a couple of tanks of gasoline. True we may pay less per gallon for it, but due to the size of our country, the overall costs of ground transportation are stunning and definetly higher than our Chinese counter-parts who have the option of using a mag-train, therefore negating the rise in oil.

I do think this is a positive trend and overall good news so keep your chin up 99er's!

Tennessee Proposes Felony Charges for Freedom of Religion

Read the story here: Tennessee Considers Bill That Makes Following Shariah A Felony

The Tennessee State legislature is currently considering a bill that would make observing some versions and portions of Shariah a felony. The bill is backed by a conservative advocacy group with ties to the same group attempting to block the so-called "Ground Zero" mosque and represents yet another attempt to limit religious freedoms for Muslims in the US. Muslims fear that this could fundamentally fracture the way they worship due to the obtuse nature of the proposed regulations. Proponents of the bill say this measure gives them powerful counter-terrorism tools and that it simply attempts to outlaw the most extreme Islamic practices - peacefully practicing Muslims would be exempt from these laws.

Last time I checked, freedom of religion in this nation was a constitutionally guaranteed right. But that was yesterday. I feel pretty confident issuing the prediction that this will not stand up in The Supreme Court, which is where it will end up if this passes and we are talking about Tennessee here, but then again this court has already committed greater atrocities against established precedent. However, I would certainly call this easily unconstitutional, so instead of talking about the varying loads of legal cases that back this up, I’d like to first of all explain what Shariah law actually is.

Shariah law is the sacred law of the Muslim religion that derives from the Qur’an and the teachings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Since most of us are familiar with the basics of Christianity, it is very similar to the moral code of conduct Christians derive from both the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Also, just as with Christianity, there are several different sects and degrees of belief including fundamentalists, traditionalists, and modernists. Shariah law typically addresses secular issues such as crime and money but also addresses personal conduct in matter of sexuality, morality, prayer, etc.

“Nadeem Siddiqi, a 35-year-old American Muslim entrepreneur … said Shariah governs his life."Shariah is how I know how to fast in the month of Ramadan; how I wash before my prayers," he said. "It also directs me in how much charity I need to give to the poor. It orders me to be honest and fair in my business dealings."

Now that we have established that there is nothing fundamentally extremist about the nature of Shariah law, next I want to look at what the proponents of the bill are saying. What could possibly lead them to want to ban portions of someone’s moral compass?

Tennessee republican Sen. Bill Ketron who sponsors the bill:

"[the bill condemns those] who take Shariah law to the other extreme."
"a powerful counterterrorism tool."

Clearly, this represents a broad misunderstanding of not only Shariah, but also of the US Constitution. We do not ban portions of someone’s religion in this country, be it extreme or benign. Regardless, associating terrorism with Shariah law is nothing short of attacking the Muslim religion as being held responsible for the attacks on September 11th. Conservatives have long insisted that they are not blaming Islam as a religion for these attacks – this proposal strips away any slimy film of that notion. Shariah in practice does not mandate Jihad, just as Christianity in practice does not impose a 10 year debt-forgiveness schedule. Anyone who’s had a credit card or a mortgage for 11 years is painfully aware of that fact!

The thing you must remember is that when it comes to protecting our freedom of religion, an attack upon one religion, any religion, is an attack upon all of them. Sure it's on Islam now, but who is to say that your belief system, or lack thereof, isn’t next on the list? Now would be a good time to practice some personal Shariah and treat others as you would have them do unto you.

EU Bans Gender Discrimination on Insurance - So Why Haven't We?

Read the story here: EU Court Bans Insurance Sex Discrimination

In summary, the highest court in the EU recently ruled that Insurance companies including medical, car, life, and other policies, cannot charge men and women differently for insurance. Historically, both in the US and the EU, women have paid more for insurance with these companies citing that their female customers indeed do cost them more money and therefore, it is only fair that their premiums reflect their higher costs. However, the court ruling lays down that charging different rates on the basis of sex is blatent discrimination and has now made the practice illegal. Insurance companies have responded threatening higher premiums for everyone now to cover the higher costs of female customers.

My Take

So why hasn't the US done the same? Insurance companies insist that it is statistically possible, and easy, to prove that women cost them more when utilizing insurance. On the surface, this seems easy enough to believe. Our medical costs are generally higher due to the ability to birth a child, life insurance would pay out at a higher rate due to a higher life expectancy than men, and when a woman carries homeowners insurance in her name only the assumption that she is single and therefore less apt to fix or repair a house problem so she lets the insurance take care of it instead. Albeit sexist in nature, these things are statistically true.

The problem with statistics is that they are a one sided view of a large population and can be easily manipulated to reflect a desired outcome of information. I could go on all day about wrongful statistical implications so let's take a different approach with an example of medical insurance and spare some wind.

Meet Jane Doe and John Everyman. Jane, being a woman, pays significantly higher premiums for her medical insurance. Jane is an empowered single woman who is the picture of health - she exercises daily, eats well-balanced meals, and takes excellent care of herself. She does not plan on having children. John Everyman however, sits on the couch drinking beer and eating potato chips in front of the TV all day. He is quite sedentary and quite often ill. John, being a man, pays lower insurance premiums than Jane. The point is this: while is is possible to prove statistically that women (plural) cost more in medical insurance, Jane Doe will not cost her insurance company more than chronically ill John Everyman and yet, still pays more for coverage. It is discrimination on the basis that being a woman does not make her "everywoman" and ignores Jane's individual case scenario and lifestyle which are HUGE factors in long-term costs to insurance companies. In short, its a cop-out excuse.

The Solution

Instead of simply generalizing on a statistical basis, why can companies not do a comprehensive interview of the individual and adjust their policy accordingly? It is not being a woman that makes medical insurance high for women, its the ability to birth children. If a female client does not plan to or better yet, medically cannot have children, why should she pay more? Same goes for homeowners insurance. What if a woman is currently paying a higher rate on her homeowners insurance but does construction for a living? Basically, I'm simply suggesting that if insurance companies really want to use the excue of charging people fairly for policies they need to get to know their clients as individuals and be able to take into account certain factors within their lifestyle that could substantially influence the probability of a high cost customer. If they're willing to collect the infomation, a small investment into a database could give them more accurate and less discriminatory information that could even save them money in the long run. No more excuses.

Quote of the Week

People come to Washington believing it's the center of power.  I know I did.  It was only much later that I learned that Washington is a steering wheel that's not connected to the engine.  ~Richard Goodwin
I think members of both parties can probably identify with this.

Quote of the Week

As television beamed the image of this extraordinary gathering across the border oceans, everyone who believed in man's capacity to better himself had a moment of inspiration and confidence in the future of the human race.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr., about the March on Washington in the summer of 1963, Why We Can't Wait, 1963
Nothing is more important or worth fighting for than basic human rights; allowing us all to exist without being faulted, for what we are. Please take a moment to reflect upon the Civil Rights battles of the past, those still being fought in the present, and for those that still go unrecognized.

An Open Letter...

Dear American Citizens:

We need to talk. It seems that somewhere along the way a misunderst­anding developed about the functional role of government in our lives and exactly what that means to us as patriots.

When we as a people developed this nation and asserted our independen­ce from Great Britan, we decided to form a centralize­d government to better organize and plan for our future as a great nation. In developing a central governance­, we also conceded that they should be responsibl­e for the collective direction of our future, as well as the safety and general welfare of its inhabitant­s.

It is important, necessary, and beneficial to have certain social safety nets in place that, in the very least, guarantee each and every one of us an equal starting opportunit­y. Things like social security, healthcare­/medicare/­medicaid, emergency services, health and human services, police, education, transporta­tion, medical and tech research, green energy; these are all important and necessary things that do, indeed, contribute to the betterment of our society as a whole and therefore, also to you as an individual­.

However, this notion that we can continue to expand services that are functional­ly necessary and beneficial without ever paying for them is, to put it mildly, ignorant and absurd.

We have a decision to make, America. We need to figure out if we're a nation that believes in equal opportunti­es for everyone, or if we are going to become a nation of individual­s who believes in darwinian, sink-or-sw­im, every man for himself. If we truely want to perpetuate the concept of an America where ANYONE can grow up to be president, then we need to stop acting like entitled children and pay for the services we receive in taxes, like grown-ass adults. And quit whining about it.

Sincerely,
Miss Muffett of Huffington Post
Heather Wiegraffe

Some Thoughts on the Attempted Assassination of Rep. Giffords

In light of the assassination attempt on Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, January 8, I thought it would be appropriate to have a discussion on the topic.

Saturday was a very tragic day for our nation. With current counts of at least 13 injured and 6 killed, we all mourn together that for several families, there will be an empty seat at the kitchen table. Among those killed was a 9 year old little girl. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.

I’d like to start with some updates, a little historical context, and some of the notable statements issued by public figures on the incident:

Rep. Giffords was the first female and one of five victims of assassination attempts made upon a politician actively serving in Congress. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110109/tr_ac/7569454_history_of_murder_and_assassination_attempts_on_us_congressmen

Mary Rose Wilcox, member of Arizona’s Maricopa County Board of Directors, was shot in 1997 by a man who was angry about the impending ‘baseball stadium tax’. Prior to the assassination attempt, Wilcox had been targeted on local talk radio which encouraged Maricopa residents to, “take her out.” At trial the shooter confessed, “I shot her because the radio said I should take her out.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/extremism-in-arizona-victims-political-violence_n_806657.html

NBC Chicago reports that Illinois representative Danny Davis received an email on Sunday that read, “Danny Davis is next” in presumable reference to the shooting on Saturday. http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/politics/danny-davis-threat-giffords-113177769.html

Sen. Feinstein (D-CA), who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was the person to find the bodies of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone after they were assassinated by Dan White in 1978 has issued the following Statement:

                “…This senseless violence has no place in a free society. She and the other victims were engaged in the very essence of democracy, an elected representative meeting face-to-face with her constituents.

I have seen firsthand the effects of assassination, and there is no place for this kind of violence in our political discourse. It must be universally condemned. We do not yet know the gunman’s motivations, but I am convinced that we must reject extremism and violent rhetoric.”

A big question on all our minds is: who is to blame? There have been many in the last few days who have placed the blame heavily on media figure, Sarah Palin for her use violent rhetoric including referring to elections as ‘salvos’, her famous “don’t retreat, RELOAD” tweet in reference to losing Republican elections, as well as gun-scope crosshairs on an online “target list” of incumbent Democrats, Rep. Giffords being one of those targets. In response to those allegations, many on the right have began placing blame on the left calling the shooter a “left-winger” and a “known liberal extremist.”

There is some evidence to suggest that the shooter may have been mentally ill and despite a report from Fox News that the suspect may have had involvement with the anti-government, white supremacist group known as American Renaissance, those claims have been contradicted by the DHS and the FBI who claim they have not established any such link.

While it is easy for the left to blame the right and the right to blame the left for the type of hateful and incendiary speech that often inspires these massacres, the blame comes to rest with those individuals who substantiate the language in an attempt to capitalize from it. Truthfully, it does not matter what is being said or who is saying it. News, websites, and other mass media transport vehicles are the ones who turn things said into something to worry about – therefore, validating the potential implications but not necessarily the correct intentions of the speaker.

An attack upon a serving member of any level of elected office is an attack on our Democratic process. Find out about legislation. Understand what it means. Figure out why you are for or against it and verify your facts but you must put faith in our system. That means learning about policies, candidates, and going out to vote when it comes time for primaries, generals, locals, congressional, and presidential elections.

It is far past the time to take the partisan politics down a notch, turn the volume up on truth and information, and allow our system to do what it is in place to do. Below are some resources I have found helpful in keeping current with new legislation and verifying information I receive on editorial news networks. If you feel compelled at any point to contact your representatives, check out our Resources page for links to contact both local and federal representatives in any State.

For political news without the editorial commentary:

http://www.c-span.org/

Non-partisan, non- profit, tax policy information from The Tax Foundation:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/

Non-partisan, non-profit, economic policy information from the Committee for Economic Development:

http://www.ced.org/about/about-ced

For accurate information on just about any topic research The US Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/index.html

To view and read all signed legislation, go here:

(You will be redirected to a branch of the Library of Congress that will lead you through a few steps and give you the signed bill, in its entire and original form)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/signed-legislation

All generalized information from The White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Quote of the Week

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.  ~Ernest Benn
An otherwise benign quote carries so much meaning in wake of the attempted assassination upon Rep. Giffords this past weekend.

Quote of the Week

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.  ~George Jean Nathan

In the last congressional election, only 30% of the population voted. Of that 30%, only 11% were youths ages 18-29 while 34% were voters aged 60+. Since we know full well that citizens aged 60+ do not make up 34% of our overall population, are we really being accurately represented if the majority of those who are eligable to vote don't?

~ New Contributor ~

Somehow, I've managed to lure another human being into contributing to my blog.


Welcome Will!

Will has a whole host of interesting stories and perspectives to share. A smart and hilarious guy, Im sure we'll all enjoy him!


Be sure to check out his other blog, Aut Pax Aut Bellum http://wgunn.blogspot.com/, for everything from epic sandwiches to politics.

Tax Racket

                Before we head into the New Year, I wanted a chance to discuss the recently approved Tax Compromise that will take effect on January 1^st. I’ve also been dying to put in my two cents since the new tax code was approved in mid-December. First, to get a side-by-side comparison of how each of the different tax plans would have affected you personally, I highly suggest going to www.mytaxburden.org to view and understand what perspective you’re coming from before reading on. It may have an influence on your opinion – it did mine.

                Let me begin by saying there are both good and bad things about the new tax policy. However, I’d separate the good things into a short-term category, and the bad things into a long-term category so considering that tax codes are re-written every two years anyhow, the fact that the negative implications are far greater and will affect us fiscally as a nation for a longer period of time, concerns me.

1.       Extending the tax cuts currently in place simply perpetuates the status quo.

There are two levels to view this on – how it will affect you personally, and how it is going to affect our overall economic situation.  I can’t speak for the former but as for the latter, I’ll ask this, “How’s that workin’ out for ya?” In no complex terms, we’ve already tried this voodoo economics, trickle-down, fiscal bunk and it hasn’t worked! Corporations have posted record (and by record, I mean biggest ever since we’ve been recording these things) quarterly profits in three out of the four quarters of this year. So the first half of the plan worked; the tax cuts gave corporations the money they needed to hire more workers. However, the trickier and more important aspect, the actual jobs, never came. Very little explanation, no recovery. And this is the situation we’re willing to propagate?

If nothing changes, nothing changes. Come this time next year we’ll be no better off than we are today.

2.       The spending/borrowing the US will have to do to pay for these tax cuts ensures that job-creating legislation, such as the infrastructure bill due to hit the floor early next year, will be blocked on the basis of cost. Aka – we’ve already spent all our money.

It is not new news to most of us that the US is falling behind in our infrastructure and that goes far beyond the maintenance of our current system. China, along with other countries, is revolutionizing how its people and more importantly, products, are getting around. Not only is it an excellent way to increase business efficiency, it’s one of the best job-creators available. Providing far more bang for our buck than a tax cut, these projects would employ thousands American workers and as most building material is fabricated, manufactured, and sold domestically, would provide local stimulus as well.

American schools are also in dire need of some Federal attention. We need an overhaul in curriculum, equipment, and technology. It is almost impossible to list the reasons why this is so critically important.  One day, these kids whose education has been passed over time and time again in favor of short term political gains, will be the ones making Medicare decisions for all of us. That alone should be reason enough to ensure that they are, in the very least, decently educated.

3.       Since the compromise will have to be approved again at the end of next year and again in 2012, tax policy is going to take center stage in political and presidential campaigns for the next two years, taking the focus away from jobs and the economy as a whole.

This, in my opinion, is one of the worst consequences of the tax compromise. Allowing these tax cuts to expire again in two years is certain to dominate the majority of the presidential campaigns and, let’s face it, probably half of 2011. While I agree that tax policy is extraordinarily important (clearly important enough to write a diatribe on the subject) it is not the most important issue we need to address at the moment. Priorities people. I feel like this is a “counting your chickens before they hatch” scenario. That is, it seems awfully misguided to be discussing income tax rates today when no one can be sure if they’re still going to have a job tomorrow. Your entire opinion on the subject could be changed at any minute with the presentation of a little pink slip.   

Instead of a campaign season smothered in tax policy that tries to please every bracket of constituents (focusing, of course, on the biggest campaign donors), we need to be hearing a realistic plan for immediate implementation of painfully specific measures to get jobs back on track and the economy moving at anything other than its currently glacial pace.

4.       The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts will only improve unemployment figures by 0.2% over the course of next year and ranks tax cuts as the least efficient way to stimulate the economy.

We can spend $900B in further attempt to continue to coax businesses and corporations into hiring and have nothing to show for it (just like the last time we tried this under Bush) OR we could be investing that money in infrastructure, education, green energy, emerging technologies, and research and have something tangible that improves the overall condition of our Country and the lives of its citizens.

5.       The prospect of the US borrowing from China to the tune of $900B over the next five years to pay for this beast gives plenty of reason for Europe and other nations to start betting against our debt.

This one gets kind of complex and extremely scary if you live and spend in American dollars. In the simplest way I can explain it, the dollar is currently the world reserve currency. Since oil and other various commodities are bought and sold with dollars, foreign governments are basically forced to retain a large amount of currency in US dollars. Usually this currency is used to buy US Treasury bonds, thus their reserve is loaned to us for interest. We use these funds to help cover our huge deficits. That's why traditionally we can get away with huge deficits on a scale that would bankrupt most other nations. If the world moves to the euro, as China, Iraq, and Venezuela have spoken about in the recent past, then everyone would sell off these bonds and our economy would collapse. If conservatives are really concerned about this country moving the way of Greece, this right here is precisely how it will happen.

Following the financial apocalypse would be massive dollar devaluation, skyrocketing inflation, and general credit markets chaos.

As always, BIG thanks to all of my generalized sources:

©2010 Tax Foundation, www.mytaxburden.org,  The Congressional Budget Office http://www.cbo.gov/aboutcbo/, C-SPAN http://www.c-span.org, The Committee for Economic Development http://www.ced.org, and others Im sure.

Quote of the Week

Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.  ~Walter Lippmann

Something to think about perhaps as we head into the new year?

Endstate

"And mortgag'd States their Grandsires' Wreaths regret
From Age to Age in everlasting Debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought Right convey
To rust on Medals, or on Stones decay."
-Dr. Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, 1749



June 2, 2007, Paktika Province, Lwara District, near FOB Tillman, Afghanistan - "Hafiz, ask him what the fuck he's so upset about. [...] The school? Yeah, someone put a bomb outside it, that's why we're here. [...] No shit. You're telling me that someone in the village blew it up? For what? [...] Because he didn't get the contract to build it in the first place? Seriously? What a war."

Nine years, two months, and twenty-one days ago, the United States embarked on OEF-A, our military's term for our nation's longest sustained active conflict: the war in Afghanistan. Our general mission was two-fold: first, to bring the perpetrators of the September 11th terrorist attacks to justice, and second, to restore some measure of stability to what is arguably the most devastated, war-torn, depleted country on the face of the Earth. Rounding the corner on OEF's 10th anniversary, it is difficult to tell how our results have measured up to our initial expectations. Quantifying those results is far from a mere academic exercise. As our country continues to pour billions of dollars and millions of man-hours (to say nothing of the lives, limbs, eyesight, and sanity lost by so many of our young soldiers) into Afghanistan, we must remove ourselves from our national pride and re-examine our national purpose.

In order to get a good sense of how we're doing, it's important to take a close look at what we're doing. The US military is involved in a variety of interconnected campaigns in Afghanistan, run through several different joint commands and encompassing a vast array of tactics, techniques, and procedures. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines are engaged in an ever-shifting mixture of nation-building, tactical-level diplomacy, civil engineering, and high-altitude guerrilla warfare. To characterize Afghanistan as a shooting war first and foremost misses the point, especially in recent years. Kinetic operations (shooting people) have given way to non-kinetic operations (building things for people, giving money / crops / hope to people, asking people questions, etc.) and the war has taken on an entirely different character. In doing so, we have shifted our focus from a mission based on holding accountable those who attacked us to a mission based on building a better life for the Afghan people.

The important question is why we have shifted focus. This is not meant to be rhetorical. In large part, many of the high-value targets we sought in Afghanistan and elsewhere were killed or captured during the earliest stages of the war. Of note, of course, is Osama Bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11th attacks and the public face of Al Qaeda, who escaped into Pakistan during the war's early months. While we still routinely kill and capture commanders of various local Taliban forces, it is safe to assert that the high-value-target phase of the war is all but finished; the Taliban is now commanded from Pakistan's tribal regions by men who do not expose themselves to the tender caresses of guided bombs. Bin Laden has escaped; Pakistan has no intention of turning him over even if they were able to find him. This leaves us with the second general objective: restoring stability to a region ravaged by practically every kind of degradation, violence, and disease imaginable.

When I was a young 2nd Lieutenant serving in OEF VI, I rode along on a patrol to the village of Margah, about twenty kilometers north of FOB Bermel, Paktika. As a Fire Support Officer, I took on the secondary role of Company Intelligence Officer, and in this particular case was tasked with gathering a list of necessary medical supplies which would enable the village's resident doctor to better care for his charges. I met the man at his house, and sat down for tea with him and his attendant. We carefully inventoried his remaining supplies, and he made suggestions for what would help him take care of the village. After this was complete, I inquired as to the common health problems he faced. He discussed the question with my interpreter, who turned to me and said "Sir, he says there are many health problems here, but the ones he sees most frequently and is most concerned about are malaria, tuberculosis, and scarlet fever." This conversation has stayed with me throughout the years because of what it indicates about the general state of human existence in rural Afghanistan. There is no question: rural Afghan society currently exists at a standard of living unknown to the vast, overwhelming majority of the human population. Disease and famine routinely kill villages at a time, the country has been embroiled in a variety of military conflicts longer than most living Afghans can remember, and it is not uncommon for families to lack every possible civil service outside rudimentary subsistence agriculture and a polluted source of drinking water.

It is this level of isolation and lack of support that presents such an incredibly difficult problem to our nation-building efforts. Afghanistan has a government; one may even endeavor to argue that they have a legitimate, democratically elected government, although my own suspicions tend to counter this position. What they do not have is a government presence. The government is utterly and completely disconnected from the preponderance of Afghan civilians, and while this persists the war is, for all intents and purposes, un-winnable. Many of the Afghans I encountered during OEF VIII, my second tour, lived near enough to the border that they had no concept of national identity whatsoever. Their ethnic identity had replaced it fully; they believed themselves to be citizens of Waziristan. We sought to convince them that they were in fact Afghans, but I cannot say that I blame them for their skepticism.

It is truly difficult to conceive of this level of isolation from a Western perspective. A great many Afghan civilians never venture outside their home valley, or if they do, their travel is limited to extremely similar villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The border is generally thought of as more of a nuisance than anything; in most cases tribal and ethnic groups extend across it and family ties are in every case far more important than any national feeling. The government simply has next to no presence in many rural areas. When it does, it frequently takes the form of Afghan National Police (ANP) who are usually under-paid due to corruption in the higher ranks, badly armed, far from home, and utterly uneducated. In contrast, the rebel fighters commonly known as the Taliban generally operate in the area in which they grew up, they are well-armed and supplied, and are in many cases familiar to the locals. The ANP have gotten a (sometimes deserved) reputation for committing the crimes they are intended to stop, which makes exploitation of the gulf between civilians and the ANP even easier for the Taliban.

Let me pause to explain what I mean by "the Taliban." Contrary to the typical assumption, many if not most of the attacks carried out against Coalition forces in Afghanistan are supported in large part by what we would call "amateurs." Hard-line, fundamentalist, do-or-die Taliban are relatively few and far between, although they do exist and are extremely dangerous. Many attacks are planned by the Taliban, financed by the Taliban, and carried out by local dirt farmers for $30. Afghanistan is a land without hope for the future. The people have spent so long without education and civil services, without employment opportunities or a chance to learn new skills that they have oftentimes abandoned hope of ever attaining these things. The Afghan (Pashtun) conception of honor is centered around defense of a thriving family; having heirs to carry on one's name is of paramount importance. Heirs require marriage(s), which requires money. No money, and therefore, no honor is to be had as a dirt farmer. This is a serious problem to your average Afghan male. The offer of a few dollars to fire a rocket at the Americans or spot for an IED team is very difficult to turn down if you are living in the kind of poverty that causes large percentages of your village to starve and die if the rains are worse than usual. Killing these people in droves is not effective. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. There is little to do in rural Afghanistan for recreation, so sex is a frequent go-to cure for boredom when one has run out of hashish. Families are enormous. Every rocket-firing dirt-farmer who eats a missile for his trouble has ten brothers, all ten of whom are now willing to fight to the death to restore the family's honor.

Allow me a recap: here we are, nine years and change sunk into a country with a sub-30% literacy rate, a war that can't be won by killing the other team, and the greatest nation-building challenge on Earth in our shaking hands. My question is "How do we win?" We need an endstate, and I cannot conceive of what such a thing would look like. Make no mistake, the Taliban are religious only because it suits their methods. Like America's extreme Christian Right, they desire only power, and are willing to use faith or any other convenient tool to derive it from the citizens of their country. If we left today, the Taliban would be back tomorrow, the banners of their proclaimed faith held high in triumph. We have partially succeeded and partially failed in our first objective, and for our second objective, we have set up a Sisyphean task. Any progress we make in terms of infrastructure will eventually come to benefit the Taliban when we leave and they return.

We speak at length of "getting the population on our side" and "connecting population with government" but there is simply no hope that we will convince the rural folk of Afghanistan to set aside literally thousands of years of tradition and ethnic pride and oppose the Taliban who many of them see as the lesser of two evils if not outright good. They are oppressive, they are brutal, but they are the True Believers in the eyes of the populace, and that carries weight no government can compare to. Our temporary measures have no long-term goal. The amount of time and money required to achieve such an enormous transformation as would be required to truly oppose the Taliban is far more than any sane nation would commit. We can win every single battle, but we cannot win this war, because it cannot be won over the long, long term. There is no "win" to be had. The sooner we accept this and act accordingly, the more American time, money, and lives can be saved.

We have not lost the war in Afghanistan. I can't imagine how such a thing would even be possible, unless perhaps we had been militarily defeated by the Taliban in the war's opening days. We have been winning the shooting war up and down, left and right, for years running. Do not make the mistake of considering a call for withdrawal to be defeatist in any way. There is simply nothing to gain. Consider the best of all possible outcomes. In the best possible scenario, Afghan society will undergo a transformation by our actions there and reject religious fundamentalism and its adherents in order to adopt representative democracy. I agree, it seems unlikely. Now consider what that will gain us:

- Afghanistan would no longer be used as a training ground for terrorists. Pardon me if I don't flail my arms with barely-contained joy. The only thing we gain by pushing extremists out of Afghanistan is pushing them into a different country (in this case Pakistan, or about half of Africa.)

- The Afghan people would enjoy a higher standard of living. This would be good for them, but we do not invade nations in order to drag their people, kicking and screaming, into the fourteenth century. Perhaps this is merely a sign of my cold-hearted cynicism, but I do not think several trillion dollars and thousands of lives is a fair trade for bringing running water to the people of tribal Afghanistan.

There is simply no point in continuing. There would not be much of a point in continuing if the war was completely free and did not risk American soldiers. As it stands, it is utterly absurd to commit troops to a war that we cannot win and would not benefit from winning if we could. Our government's reluctance to be perceived as weak is costing us human lives on a daily basis.

Welcome to Evolution

Welcome to The American Pie! I’d like to take a moment to explain a little bit about how I became interested in politics, the goal and intent of this blog, and exactly how we’re going to evolve political discourse.

                I became interested in politics when I was about 16 years old after taking a World History class from a teacher who absolutely blew me away with the sheer amount of knowledge he possessed. In a quest to attain this knowledge about the world for myself, I began watching the news on a nightly basis. After getting myself acquainted with several different news networks, I found that I identified most with Democrats and Independent progressives. Nearly 10 years later, with a few views revised, I remain cautiously comfortable in the left-wing.

                However, in the years it has taken to officially label myself a political junkie I notice the discussion becoming increasingly partisan with every turn of the dime in our government. While I understand the reasons we’ve developed this two party system, I do not believe there are only two solutions to all of the problems we are currently facing as a nation.

                Objectivity seems to have been either lost or forgotten somewhere along the way when having political and policy discussions. It seems these days, every piece of legislation is subjected to a partisan filter in which every discussion either ends or begins with the political implications for the two major political parties. Objectivity is defined as impartiality, detachment, independence, and most importantly – neutrality.

                So how can I justify identifying with one political party while attempting to remain objective in my analysis? How can we learn to evolve our discussions from partisan politics to objective and constructive debate? I firmly believe in a scholarly approach. That is, being able to utilize the information that history, psychology, economics, and other accepted studies have given us to form an analysis based not upon opinion or personal beliefs or common consensus but rather, on fact. That is the sole purpose for which I have created The American Pie. Facts, my friends, do not have a liberal or conservative bias; they represent pure, unadulterated truths.

                Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I sincerely hope you will find the information and discussions here to be of value. I look forward to reading your comments and will try to reply to every one of them.