Category: News

Current Events

Political Compassion

Meg Whitman’s former maid, Nicandra Diaz-Santillan, an illegal immigrant, was in the news again recently, settling for $5,500 to cover back wages owed to her. Not present at the negotiations was her former employer and the former candidate for Governor of California.

Whitman claimed that she did not know Diaz-Santillan was an illegal immigrant when she ran for governor. Four months into her campaign, she fired Diaz-Santillan without compassion, told her that she never knew her, and tried to keep the whole affair secret. When it came out, Whitman shifted the blame onto the housekeeper. She even said in one interview that the woman should be deported.

Now Whitman may think the housekeeper incident is to blame for her loss in the governor’s race. However, had Whitman gone about it the right way, she could have come across as compassionate, and the whole affair might have worked in her favor.  (See my post of October 5, 2010 “ Meg Whitman’s Housekeeper.”)

The California governor’s race shows how important it is to appear compassionate. Whitman spent close to $150M on her campaign. By comparison, Jerry Brown’s funds were puny. Whitman’s ads attacked Brown, as expected, but ads that were meant to extol Whitman were cold and clinical, often appearing more like Powerpoint presentations. Brown’s ads substantiated this by depicting Whitman as a heartless CEO, in it only for herself. More importantly, when Brown appeared at the end of his ads, he came over as passionate and caring.

The same situation appeared in the other big California race, the one for Barbara Boxer’s senate seat, a race that the GOP thought they could win with a high profile candidate. Carli Fiorina’s ad campaign was based around attacks on Barbara Boxer, but Boxer’s campaign took a similar approach to Brown’s, showing Fiorina as a non-caring CEO out for herself only, in contrast to a caring Boxer. Since the voters knew Boxer as a long serving senator and did not know the newcomer Fiorina, the attacks on Boxer largely failed, while the depiction of Fiorina as cold and heartless stuck.  As the election neared, the Fiorina ads took a cue from Jerry Brown’s campaign and tried to show Fiorina as personable and passionate, but by then it was too late.

We don’t just want capable leaders; we want leaders that feel. The unpopularity of the former speaker of the house and present minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, is because she shows no compassion. By contrast, the new speaker John Boehner may be less capable, but he has shown genuine emotion on national TV, and that will work for us.

I think one reason for President Bill Clinton’s popularity was that people knew he cared. When he said, “I feel your pain,” people believed him. Even now, I still think he genuinely did.

What about Clinton’s successors, George W. Bush and Barack Obama? I am prepared to say that both Bush cared and Obama cares. With Bush, this did not always come across. The most notable time when it did not was during the Katrina disaster. There is no question that that damaged Bush’s standing. Now with Obama, when a large part of the country is hurting, the sense of compassion is not seen to be there. His words are always fine and appropriate, and he may be able fix the problem and get the economy moving again, albeit slowly, but what we need to see is that our predicament hurts him too.

A Conservative Moron

Voters on Maryland’s Eastern Shore should now realize what an idiot they elected when they chose Republican Andy Harris over the incumbent Democrat Frank Kratovil.

Harris ran on a heavily anti-health care platform, attacking Kratovil on health care reform, even though Kratovil actually voted against the health care reform package.

So far so good, but when Harris arrived at the Monday orientation session for newly elected representatives, he demanded government sponsored health care for himself, not just when it was due on February 1, 2011, but 28 days earlier.

How ironic! No government sponsored health care for my constituents, but government health care for me, Andy Harris!

What a schmuck!

Sarah Palin 2012

The 2010 mid-term election was the first test of the tea party on a national stage, and the overall result must be encouraging.  A large part of the swing to the conservatives was engineered through and by the tea party. As a result they will remain a political force in the conservative movement to be reckoned with going into the 2012 presidential race.

In 2010, the main beneficiaries of the tea party movement have been the Republicans in regaining control of the House of Representatives. Now the tea party has demanded its pound of flesh: elected Republicans must keep their campaign promises or face defeat in their next primaries.

In the longer term, it is Sarah Palin who gains from the tea party’s successes. She has aligned herself very closely with the tea party movement, and this will stand her in good stead when she seeks the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

Palin has been unfairly blamed for the failure of John McCain’s presidential bid in 2008. It is true that she put her foot wrong in a number of minor ways, but her selection as running mate revitalized a flagging campaign. And she was not allowed to campaign freely on her own merits.  Since then, she has shown herself to be a very effective campaigner.

Now with the showing of “Sara Palin’s Alaska” on TLC, we are seeing her in a different light. The program is non-political, but it nevertheless works as an effective promotion of Palin, softening her image and filling out the human aspects.

The old Republican guard, if there is still an effective one, may pale at the idea of Palin running, but as it stands at present, she must be considered the front-runner.

The Tea Party in a Republican House

The 2010 US elections have gone as expected, the Republicans taking the House, but not the Senate. This follows the usual pattern that takes place in a “mid-term” election. It also happened with George Bush in 2006, when the Democrats made the large gains.

Not surprisingly, the Republicans see the 2010 results as affirming their agenda. The gains made by the Republicans were greater than the usual mid-term swing, and this can be attributed to the influence of the tea party. Now the tea party has served notice that it expects its agenda to be followed; otherwise, it will work towards taking out those Republicans that do not cooperate.

Unfortunately, we don’t really know what the Republican agenda is, except to continue the huge Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, to overturn health care legislation and to make sure that Obama is not reelected in two years time. The agenda of the tea party Republicans is primarily to cut the deficit. It also includes getting rid of earmarks (pork barrel projects) and the health care legislation, and uncompromising non-cooperation with the Democrats.

Where does this take us? The Bush tax cuts, an overriding issue with the Republicans, run in direct conflict with the tea party’s desire to cut the deficit. Continuing the tax cuts would add $650 billion to the deficit. How does this sit with the tea partiers?

As for health care, labeled ObamaCare by its detractors, it is difficult to see how the Republicans can overturn it while the president has the power of veto. It is unlikely that the tea party wishes can be met on this issue. Also, despite the election results, 57 percent of voters are in favor of the so-called Obamacare, a percentage that is likely to rise as new provisions come into effect.

Non-cooperation with the Democrats is certainly possible. So is bringing the business of government that has to go through the House to a complete standstill. Will the Republicans do this and risk the consequences?

The truth of the matter is that tea party demands cannot be met 100 percent. The Republican Party is not so irresponsible as to make government impossible. At least some cooperation is necessary to ensure that the party is not blamed for stalemating and bankrupting the country.

Step Down, Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi has her place in history as the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives. This is her legacy and, after the 2010 mid term elections, she cannot add to it in any positive way.

It is time for her to step aside and have someone else to be the minority leader of the House.

While Pelosi has been an effective leader for the House Democrats, she is a negative polarizing force to the wider voting public. Her popularity has never been high, even among Democrat voters.

In the last elections, the Republicans seized on her unpopularity and  ran ads focused on attacking Pelosi as part of the strategy to win control of the house, ads costing around $65 million, an excellent tactical move that paid off handsomely. This expenditure shows what an asset to the GOP she has become. There is no doubt that a large part of the Democrats’ loss can be attributed to Pelosi.

It is the right thing to do for a leader to step down when there has been a loss of majority. In this case, there is even more at stake than doing the decent thing. It goes right to the top. The Republican Party would be very happy for Nancy Pelosi to continue as the minority leader, since she can do no more than assist them in the defeat of the Democrats and help them to win the presidential office in 2012.

Virginia Doubts

Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, said she was “extending an olive branch” when she called Anita Hill to ask her to apologize for accusing Thomas of sexually harassing her, nineteen years ago. She also wanted “some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband…”

Clearly, this is no “olive branch”; it is only a little short of demanding that Hill admit to fabricating the harassment charge—in other words, it is an attack. In response, Hill publicly restated that her testimony was “truthful.”

What is interesting here is not the respective statements of Thomas and Hill, but the reason why Virginia Thomas chose to act as she did. What was her motivation?

The answer is that it is not about Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill, so much as it is about Virginia. It seems very likely that she knows in her heart, or at least suspects, that Clarence Thomas was not truthful, even if she consciously does not admit to it.  What she wants is to have her suspicions put to rest, and the only way to do this is for Anita Hill to retract the accusations.

Well, the accusations will not be put to rest, because Hill reaffirmed them. So, poor Virginia will have to continue with that doubt in her heart.

Added Later:

It looks like Virginia Thomas has her confirmation after all. Lillian McEwan, Clarence Thomas’ one time lover has now confirmed that Thomas had an obsession with pornography and that he ogled women’s breasts and was preoccupied with bra sizes—in other words, she backed up what Anita Hill said in 1991.

Yes, Virginia, the worst Supreme Court justice ever is indeed the pervert as alleged. You should have kept your mouth shut.

Legalizing Marijuana – Again

Before when I wrote on California’s Proposition 19 (“Legalizing Marijuana” July 14, 2010), I said, “If the latest proposition is passed, the main benefit would be the decriminalization of marijuana together with a steep drop in prices that would make trafficking the drug unattractive to criminal elements, and there would be some state income from taxes.” This is an argument that has been made in favor of the proposition. But the monetary benefit is actually illusionary.

There cannot be any income from taxes on pot under the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court has already ruled (unanimously) that it is unconstitutional to require anyone to pay taxes on marijuana because to do so is to admit to a violation of federal law (Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 1969). Even if Proposition 19 passes, the use of marijuana remains illegal under federal law. It would not be long before a tax case comes to court and cities like Oakland, who are banking on income from taxes on pot, will find that those coffers will remain empty.

Any savings from decriminalizing marijuana will have to be redirected to the demands of regulation, which are part of the proposition. Drug enforcement will still be required not just for the regulation of marijuana, but also for the increased trafficking of other drugs. The “criminal elements” are unlikely to enter the legitimate marijuana business, but they will find an increased market for harder drugs, given the legal availability of such an excellent gateway drug.

There is no need for this proposition. Under the present policy in California, all you need is a doctor’s note and you can buy your “medical” marijuana. Most people who buy medical marijuana don’t actually need it. Ask around. In the past, I have used a doctor who would give me a “note” for the price of a beer. As it happens, not one note was for pot, but had I wanted one, he would have written it.

Meg Whitman’s Housekeeper

What is the typical politician’s reaction when he is caught out? Deny, lie, shift the blame. This appears to be Meg Whitman’s strategy when the story came out that she had fired her housekeeper of nine years for being an illegal immigrant. Whitman had taken the stand that employers of illegals should be held accountable, so then she had to get rid of the evidence that she was one of those employers. When her dirty little secret came out, she began to deny, and apparently lie (in the face of evidence), and she blamed the housekeeper and her lawyer, and her opponent, at having conspired to make political capital out of her actions.

How much effect this incident will have on the campaign is not easy to predict. The Whitman camp has doubled her ads on Hispanic television in an attempt to counter negative effects. I believe that the fact that she hired an illegal immigrant is not the main issue. What is the most important aspect of this incident is how she treated her housekeeper of nine years. That part is clear. She fired her without compassion, told her that she never knew her, cast her off like one would throw away garbage. Then it was cover up time until the word got out, and the strategy changed to deny, lie and blame others.

Whitman would have been much better off to have taken the initiative in the first place, admitted to having made a mistake, and given some hope to the dismissed housekeeper, perhaps even helping her attain legal status. That is what a compassionate person would have done. We know now what Whitman is not.

Tax Cuts for the Rich

Republicans are pushing for the continuation of the Bush tax cuts for the rich. On the one hand, they criticize the present administration for the size of the budget deficit, yet on the other, they want the tax cuts to continue. They say that we can’t afford $20 billion dollars in assistance to the unemployed, but we can afford the $650 billion in tax cuts for the rich.

How can they defend that? Well, according to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, “There is no evidence that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.” This is complete hogwash! President Clinton left office with a surplus. When the Bush tax cuts took place in 2001, the surplus turned into a deficit, and we have had a deficit every year leading up to the crash.

We already know that this economic concept does not work, no matter how “vibrant” we may limn it to be. President Reagan said the same thing, that his tax cuts would reduce the deficit. Instead they blew out the deficit to three times the amount.

Now Republicans are insisting that the tax cuts are an essential tool to increase employment. We have had nearly ten years to see if increased employment is a benefit of the tax cuts. What do we find? Since the tax cuts were instituted, there has hardly been any job growth, and, of course, in the last couple years with the economy in its inevitable decline, the tax cuts have done nothing to counter the loss of jobs and the severe decline in family income.

There is absolutely no evidence that the continued gift of $650 billion to those who need it the least will produce one single job. We are better off putting that money back into revenue.

A Christian Cretin

About that Florida minister, Terry Jones, who is about to create havoc with the burning of the Quran, I agree with everything others have said about his selfish and precipitous intention, including the Rev. Pat Robertson, whom I criticized in a previous post (“Misplaced Reverence”, January 18th, 2010). There is no need to repeat the condemnation from so many others in this post.

But on his own religious terms, Jones should go back to praying and ask himself, to whom did he listen when he decided on this action. Was it God, or Satan, or his own vanity (which in Christian terms is the same as Satan)?

Consider the discord he is creating, the future danger to our soldiers in Afghanistan and to all Americans overseas, and the increased likelihood of attacks to this country from terrorists. Consider the encouragement of hate in people who have bought and sent him copies of the Quran. (They certainly did not have them lying around at home.) Consider the feelings of hate that are churning inside him. Yes, it is pretty clear that he is acting in the interests, not of God, but of Satan.

The sad thing is that his own vanity (the sin of pride, Satan’s sin) won’t let him back down. And, no doubt to the joy of the Evil One, the rest of us will have to suffer.