Michele Leohart is an administrator in the DEA and, maybe, she is stoned and that is her excuse for her ridiculous answers. But I doubt it, I think the real reason is the Washington culture that actually prevents honesty and introspection. In this case, thanks to Congressman Jared Polis for doing what our Congresspeople should actually be doing.
Category Archives: Politics
Everything I believe about inequality is wrong
Every time I read about the rich getting richer and everybody else slowly getting poorer, I get pissed. Every time I read about Bain Capital buying a company – say KB Toys, worth $302 million by putting up $18 million and borrowing the rest – driving it into staggering debt and, then, bankruptcy, and walking away with a an $85 million dividend taxed at a special low rate, I get hot, sweaty, pissed. It seems so unfair, first the making of money by closing down a company, by eliminating jobs, and then, to compound the unfairness, to pay less taxes than the people who work for a living.
It is unfair, but when I drive by Pyramid Lake and see the RVs crowding the shore, I am beginning to think that the unfairness may be better for the planet. Actually, I know it is better for the planet and I am just beginning to admit it.
In 2005, because of a long drought and for other – more endemic – reasons, the lake level of Lake Powell dropped low enough to expose the Cathedral in the Desert. Michele and I went to Lake Powell to go see it. We were blown away, but I was even more blown away by the long line of 4wheel drive trucks towing elaborate ski-boats at the boat ramp. It was an early weekend in May and the line to get in the lake must have been longer than a mile, one 4X4 after another each with a trailer carrying a heavy duty skiboat. Each rig owned by a middleclass American living the Dream.
When I hear about Scott Walker busting unions, I get enraged, but I am starting to think he is right. Union people, the vaulted and abused middle class of the American Dream, make too much money – well, to be more accurate, they don’t make too much money, they spend too much money, they buy too much shit – and it is not good for the long term, health of our planet.
In the Scott Walker case, it is not like the state workers will starve. They will still have jobs, they will just get paid less and get a smaller – maybe much smaller – retirement. Yes, they might not be able to have a big 4X4 and a skiboat, but they will still be wealthy by almost any historical measure. The tenants of modern trailer parks live in more, real, luxury than Roman rulers. Every one of them has access to unbelievably good health care, they all have cars, they all have televisions and heated houses, and – probably – air conditioning. Even after their Unions have been busted and the American Dream is dead, the workers Scott walker went after will be living a life of almost unimaginable wealth by even 1960’s standards.
That is not to say that Scott Walker isn’t a asshole; he is, after all, commanding others to sacrifice without having to sacrifice himself, asking others to sacrifice while probably enriching himself. If the test of a moral assertion is where its burden falls, Scott Walker flunks. That is my problem with conservatives, they are always demanding change that makes life harder for others, never for themselves. But that doesn’t change the basics; we can’t continue to live like this.
“even Jimmy Carter would have given that order”
Obama is using the anniversary of SEAL Team Six killing Osama bin Laden in a campaign ad and it seems to be driving the Republicans nuts. They say he shouldn’t be politicizing it. I can understand that argument although bragging about one’s successes seems to be fairly standard political fare. Romney, in trying to discount President Obama’s call on ordering Team Six into Pakistan said “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order” as if it were nothing.
I am not a big Jimmy Carter fan, I don’t think he had the right personality to be president – certainly not at that time – but Romney’s offhanded, even casual, slur against Carter pisses me off. Carter has more military expearance – ten years as a officer on Nuclear subs – than Romney’s whole family – about ten years more – and a much better idea of the risks involved. Cater’s call was gutsy and failed – it was close to working according to Mark Bowden in The Desert One Debacle – ruining Carter’s chances of reelection.
Romney will say anything in his effort to get elected. What an asshole.
Romney, Bain Capital, and the amorality of business verses Santorum, righteousness, and the immorality of being certain
Following the Republican primary has been both fascinating and scary. Fascinating because the players seem flawed to the point that the race sometimes seems like fiction. Scary because one of these guys could be the next president of the United States; unlikely, in my opinion, but possible. Of the two main players, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, Romney seems like the best bet because – as the conventional wisdom has it – he is probably just bullshitting and would be more moderate than he is pretending to be now. Maybe….I guess.
Romney is a businessman and business is, usually, amoral. Not immoral, just amoral as in morality is not really a factor. There are exceptions when the founder has a vision of a product or service that he or she wants to get into the marketplace, but I have never heard of a business that was founded to provide jobs. A business has to make money to survive and business, done right, becomes about making money. Even Apple, under Steve Jobs, which was one of the most Vision driven companies in the marketplace, moved its production to China to make more money. It is axiomatic; the better the business is run, the more money it makes.
A business that invests or takes over other companies doesn’t even have a product, it is only about making money. A couple of months ago, The New Yorker had an article about the Stella D’oro Biscuit Company, a Bronx bakery that was bought by a private-equity firm like Bain Capital in 2006. It makes for fascinating reading and I suggest you follow the link, but the gist of the article is that a company that had taken great pride in its product and the way it treated its workers was destroyed after it was bought out by a company that did not share that vision.
The private equity firm, Bain Capital, founded by Mitt Romney was founded to make money. Not to hire people, not to produce a great product, only to make money. They go where they think they can make the most money like surveillance cameras when the Chinese government spends multibillions in an effort to blanket the country with devises to watch their citizens. Bain has bought in because they think they will make a profit. The morality of China spying on its people is not a factor, the profit is. Jobs is not a factor, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, 22 percent of the companies in which Bain invested wound up either in bankruptcy or shutting their doors entirely. But Romney made money from them; apparently he is very good at making money.
I suspect that Romney would be pretty pragmatic as president. I wouldn’t like his appointments to the Supreme Court1, I wouldn’t like his Secretary of the Interior, but I doubt that he would be another George Bush the Younger attacking random countries. Maybe a Nixon foreign or Clinton foreign policy and Bush the Elder domestic2 policy.
Rick Santorum, on the other hand, seems like a True Believer. 3 Somebody who would rather be right than President and, to misquote a former Speaker of the House, Thomas Reed, hopefully for the country, he will never be either. Unfortunately for the country, he is and, seemingly, will be an influence. To see what kind of influence, check out this latest ad fro Santorum. Notice the subliminal flashing of Obama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at about the 40 second mark. The Santorum ad does its best to dehumanize Obama and when we dehumanize the other, the deranged take their cues. I think he is very scary.
1. Which is probably an understatement.
2. Or do I have to say heartland, now?
3. The True Believer is a book by San Francisco’s own Eric Hoffer on fanaticism.
The Obama I expected and didn’t get until now
When Michele and I started working on the Obama Campaign in 2007, I was drawn to Obama by his message of change. The idea of change that he represented and promoted. During the primary, he said We can’t change the way Washington works unless we first change how Congress works. and It’s not just enough to change the players. We’ve gotta change the game.
In December of 2007 in Des Moines, he said We can’t afford to be so worried about losing the next election that we lose the battles we owe to the next generation. The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. And that’s a risk we can’t take. Then he got elected and chose the same Washington players and pretty much got the same results.
But yesterday, Barack Obama nominated Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim to be head of the World Bank. He is Change we can believe In. Way to go Obama. And, if you have any doubts, check out his resume and video below (starting at about 2:00 for the impatient).