This is a photo I took of Sen. McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky at the Fancy Farm picnic last summer. Of course, Paul wasn't elected yet, but he is now. Since I just wrote about McConnell, I thought I'd post the photo. MD
This ought to be good. The republicans are taking the position that in order to raise the debt ceiling, the democrats have to agree to all these budget cuts without even being able to bring up the issue of governmental revenues. This shows just how dumb the republicans are.
But remember the Michael Moore movie about George W. Bush? Remember the clip of Bush addressing a bunch of superrich people? He said something like, "some people call you the elite - I call you my base?" Well the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Don't the republicans understand that the rich people are just a small minority of people, and the overwhelming majority don't make a lot of money and need a little help from the government to get by? Of course, those on the left don't really trust Obama anymore to hold the line on these kinds of things, but here, he has such an advantage, that I think he will. Let's see how the day goes.
People are not well educated about the national debt. We've had national debt pretty much since the beginning of our country. Yes, we've accumulated a lot lately, but it's been both parties that have contributed. A good analysis of the last century of national debt can be found at http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html.
A poll I saw recently found that 41% of americans don't want to raise the debt ceiling, while 38% said it was ok. That leaves 21% who don't know. But for those that don't want to raise it, what are they basing that on? Do they think that the U.S. can just default on our obligations and not cause havoc in the world? The markets are rocked these days by the possiblities of debt restructuring in such countries as Greece and Portugal. These are not giant economies. What do you think would happen if the U.S. says that it's going to default, or have to go through some kind of major debt restructuring?
Actually, I do believe that eventually the whole world is going to have to go thru some kind of planned debt restructuring. Unless we can get our wars and environment under control that is. That's the only way that it can be avoided, in my opinion. But if it's done in an ad hoc way, the consequences could be significant.
But let's get real here. While Obama has run some large deficits, and that needs to be addressed, this isn't the only problem we face by a long shot. As many economists have pointed out, if the debt problem is so bad, why is U.S. debt being readily bought by investors each time that it is put up for sale? If there was serious worry about our ability to pay over time, would people still be investing?
It's silly politics with little basis in fact. And, in the long run it's a loser for the republicans. But I full well expect McConnell to make statements today about how unreasonable the democrats are to suggest that the wealthiest interests in the country chip in a little more to help with our debt. And he will drive the republicans further down each time he says it.
While president Barack Obama is home, Michelle is off to South Africa, making photo ops and good press. Whenever anyone appears with Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, it usually is positive. When it's Michelle Obama, it's off the charts.
But the prez hasn't been twiddling his thumbs. Not only does he seem to be bucking the generals on Afghanistan policy, he's aggressively on a campaign to lower gas prices. It's an ingenious strategy that is frustrating the republicans - they don't know what to do about it.
If you remember, a month or two ago, Obama directed the Dept. of Justice to investigate whether or not unseemly and perhaps illegal speculation was going on in the oil markets as gasoline climbed toward $4/gallon, a figure which really hurts about everyone, especially now when money is so tight. It's a tax of sorts that doesn't go for the common good - it goes for the profits of mega international conglomerates like Exxon.
Obama actually spoke publicly about his directive to the DOJ to go after these speculators that were unnecessarily driving the price of gas up. The news media and the republicans shrugged it off as a publicity stunt, basically.
But today, after Brian Williams, host of NBC Nightly News, reported that Obama had, today, surprisingly, ordered a relatively modest amount of oil released from the national strategic oil reserve, he mentioned that speculators weren't speculating on oil at the moment. Oh really? I wonder why? Could it be because they were laying low trying to avoid getting arrested?
And Obama's "out of the blue" action of releasing this oil from the reserve just coincidentally came right at the right time to keep the prices of gas supressed through some of the heaviest driving times of the summer.
It's really quite smart for Obama to do this. There is no single way to stimulate the economy at the moment any better than keeping gasoline prices down. This is money that we, the average people, well, even the not so average ones, are already spending. So getting any relief from that puts money in our pockets and relieves a little stress.
And late today, the news media is reporting the republicans have pulled out of the debt ceiling talks with VP Biden because those dastardly democrats keep saying that budget talks have to include a discussion of governmental revenues. And the republicans can't agree to that?
It could be one of the shortest majorities in the House of Representatives in history. One has to wonder just how dumb some politicians are. It's hard to imagine but unfortunately, seems to be true.
If the debt ceiling isn't passed, and there is economic turmoil, most US citizens are going to blame it on the republicans for not having a serious conversation with the democrats. My gut feeling is that it won't get passed before the deadline, but will get passed shortly thereafter as global economic conditions continue to deteriorate and other countries begin to realize that some contact with the US is better than none. Conditions on the ground will get so intense that even the hawkest budget hawk won't be able to stand the pressure. One has to wonder what is in store.
I'd like to share a little thinking I've been having lately. I don't even know exactly how this is going to come out in the end, but I'm going to give it a try in writing it down. I'm just writing this, for the most part, off the top of my head, without references. Just my opinion. Well - here goes.
Natural is one of those words that humans like. We are a part of nature, whether we like it or acknowledge it or even are aware of it. And nature can be a pain in the ass, especially when mosquitos bite, or tornados flatten cities, or Tsumani's wash away whole regions, or earthquakes shake apart large parts of continents. Oh yeah, let's not forget, war, slavery, exploitation.
But then again, nature creates spring, beautiful flowers, birth, animals, sunsets, sunrises, fogs, snow, beautiful mountains and canyons, and on and on. It creates love, and admiration, and art and excellence.
All in all, most people associate with nature. They want to be natural, feel natural, eat natural, dress natural. And for good reason. To be in tune with nature can be a great thing. It's, well, just the natural thing to do.
Wouldn't you know it, but people wanting to sell things have figured out that people like natural things, and that if their products are perceived as "natural" they can probably sell more of them. Once products started being sold as "natural" and were selling well, the flood gates were open. Now everything is natural, whether it really is or not.
It's bad enough when it deals with food. But, if you are educated about your foods, you can keep from getting duped. For example, a wild blackberry is natural. A box of commercial processed breakfast cereal, such as cheerios, well, let's just say it's much less, regardless of any legal definitions of natural and what companies will say about their own products. Something that grinds up foods and reprocesses them in factories - well, that isn't my view of "natural." And, to tell you the truth, I was never fooled by any fake butter, and I'm sure that "mother nature" wasn't either. But there it is on the box! "Natural!"
To me, when I hear the word natural, my gut reaction has always been to think of something that has come about not because of humans.
A typical example of something natural would be the Grand Canyon. It's millions of years old, but man didn't make it. It was made by the force of time. A typical example of something not natural would be...let's see....how about gasoline? We all use that, and that comes from refineries. That's about as far from natural as you can get.
But it isn't just food where "natural" comes to play. Natural has become an important factor in consideration of management of "public" lands.
There are lots of public lands in the US. They come in lots of varieties. City parks, County parks, State parks, state conservation areas, state natural areas, state forests, state wildlife management areas, national forests, national wildlife refuges, national parks, corps of engineers land, and on and on.
It's hip now to manage your land in a "natural" state. But how can you manage land in a natural state? TVA went so far when it controlled the Land Between Lakes national recreation area as to put in their management plan that a lot of the land was to be designated as "managed natural." I never did completely understand the concept.
In Illinois, my home state, there are designated "natural areas." These are designated under a state law. That state law contains the following language:
"All areas within the State except those that are expressly designated by law for preservation and protection in their natural condition are liable to be altered by human activity. Natural lands and waters together with the plants and animals living thereon in natural communities are a part of the heritage of the people. They are of value for scientific research, for teaching, as reservoirs of natural materials not all of the potential uses of which are now known, as habitats for rare and vanishing species, as places of historic and natural interest and scenic beauty and as living museums of the native landscape wherein one may envision and experience primeval conditions in a wilderness‑like environment. They also contribute generally to the public health and welfare and the environmental quality of the State."
This statement is an acknowledgement that just about all of the state is "altered by human activity" and that the natural areas are supposed to not be like that. They are supposed to be kept in "primeval" conditions. One definition I found for primeval, which is pretty consistent with all of the definitions that I have read, is "Of or resembling the earliest ages in the history of the world."
So what a responsibility the Illinois state legislature put on that land - to resemble the earliest ages in the history of the world. But, we know that isn't possible. The environment has changed so many times since them, that we don't even know what things were like at the earliest ages of history. We've had ice ages, floods, droughts, and who knows what all. And many times with ecological questions, the devil is in the details, and little of that has been recorded - humans didn't even exist! And surely the state legislature knew that. Didn't they?
But on a common sense level, in the most "natural" use of the word "natural," (in regard to "natural areas") it would mean pieces of land that haven't been logged, farmed, built upon, had roads or towns put on them, etc. - a condition where man has not interfered in any major way with the ecological succession of the land. And the Illinois law provides for a process to make it (supposedly) very difficult if not impossible to alter than unaltered condition. And while the act does provide for plans to be developed (a rather secretive process) which include providing for "management" of the areas, the first two words in the phrase in the act describing the overall function of these plans are "preservation" and "protection." Any "management" must be for these purposes only.
It's common knowledge in the lingo of the public land management debate that "preservation" has a certain meaning. It, to an extent, in the lingo, runs opposite to "conservation." Preservation means that you don't do much to the land - just let it go along on it's own. Conservation, on the other hand, means active management to provide products from the land.
Again, this has evolved somewhat since the Natural Areas Act was passed, but there is no doubt that when the legislature used the terms "preservation and protection" as the first two functions of plans for natural areas, it meant to indicate that limiting disturbance is first and foremost.
So how have the governmental agencies dealt with trying to keep these designated natural areas "primeval?" First, they changed the definition of primeval. They arbitrarily determined that "natural" (or primeval) is "presettlement," meaning before European settlement, which, they date at about the early 1800s. The biggest problem with this is that is not pre-settlement. In fact, it's after settlement had already been occurring for many decades.
Nevertheless, agencies like the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources rely on dates when surveyors laid out the townships and sections, in southern Illinois, about 1804 or 1805 as to what is "natural." Trouble is, the details have been lost or never recorded. But basically, that is what the IDNR and other agencies set forth as their standard for what is "natural." I can't say I agree with that.
And can you believe it, in every case, in the last 200 years since then, the landscape has changed! Wow, what a coincidence. Nevermind what is causing the changes. The important thing is to try and put the environment back to how it was in 1804-05. That's what the thinking is. And wouldn't you know it - the way you do that is to alter nature - the very thing that the natural areas act is trying to protect these areas from.
Some of the changes that have occurred in these natural areas are simply "natural." Trees grow, plants and animals that have been there for a long time continue to survive, and earthquakes, landslides, etc. either have or have not altered the shape of the landscape.
But these areas don't have concrete walls around them that block out all outside influence. In fact, there are no borders in reality. Just air. And so, there is always an influx and outflow of things in any given piece of landscape. I see it on my place all the time. Certain things pass through - don't stay. They mix in for a while with what is here.
But there are cases when new things come in and stay. Plants do it more frequently, but animals do it too. That's been going on forever, but at a much slower rate than now - primarily because humans have mastered pretty rapid global travel which is moving these plants and animals around with them.
Some of these get into "natural areas." No one plants them, (hopefully), they just distributed in some other way - either by animals, wind, rain, streams. Sometimes, there almost seems like there is some magic to it because some species can just show up in mass.
So, when this occurs, you now have a new species which comes in which is not in the 1804-05 chart for what is "natural." Under the rule that only this condition is what constitutes "natural" then those plants must go. But, in order to eliminate them, humans have to alter the environment, something that the Act strongly prohibits.
So some rule has to give in this situation. I don't buy the whole theory that 1804-05 landscapes (whatever the details of those were) are the definition of natural. There is great uncertainty as to what that landscape and indigenous culture was like at that time, so any attempt to characterize the time is going to be filled with much conjecture and personal bias. In addition, environments change, without or without humans. There is no such thing as a static environment, especially in the temperate zone. And, as I said before, the settlement had begun long before that - the landscapes had already begun to be influenced by that. That time period certainly doesn't qualify as "primeval" do you think?
People in control of administering these lands, though, operate by it. They should be operating by the law instead. Remember the Illinois Natural Areas Act? It says that almost of all Illinois is "liable to be altered by human activity" and that natural areas would be "preserved and protected."
This is where the conflict in the law and what the land administrators are doing become very obvious to me. There is no doubt that if you read through the whole act, that the act provides that a plan be developed for administering these natural areas. And the act allows "management." But, the Act already provides, in the very first sentence, that the purpose of "expressly designating" natural areas is for their "preservation and protection." "Preservation and protection" of natural areas is in contravention of lands (most of the state) that are "liable to be altered by human activity."
So, any management has to be for the purpose of "preservation and protection." It certainly shouldn't be a human activity that alters the landscape, at least not one that leaves any kind of noticeable impact.
Yet, these land administrators are burning these areas, with fires started with multiple ignition points, and dozens of active humans carrying out the activity. They cut trees, or girdle them. They even spray herbicide compounds into the environment, even though it takes humans carrying in spray tanks (or who knows, maybe ATVs) and operating them. It also takes refineries to refine these complex compounds that are the active and inert ingredients in these plant poisons. These compounds aren't found in nature - at least until humans put oil and who knows what through refineries.
All of this human activity is occurring on natural areas. It is altering the land. It isn't natural. In many cases, it to try and protect a single species, or maybe a few. No doubt that in a changing environment, species responses will change. Biodiversity is worth recognizing and considering, but first, we have to learn how to define it. Efforts to keep species from becoming extinct have been fruitful in some cases. But, the actions need to be minimal and targeted. As Al Gore used to say (and now Obama has used it), "you shouldn't use an axe when a scalpel is what is needed."
Unfortunately, the same people who are paid to make the decisions to carry about these activities are the same ones paid to carry them or see that they are carried out. That creates a financial incentive to do things. If you "preserve" land, you don't need to do anything. There's a budget incentive to actively "manage", and that is conflicting with sound judgment on just what the purpose of any management of these areas should be.
Agencies like the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources, or the Forest Service, are trying to dupe the public into thinking that they can "manage" "natural areas." They've put a lot of resources into public relations to try and convince the public of that. It's not much different than some company using industrial grown corn and industrial grown palm oil, grinding that corn up into a powder, mixing it with the oil, baking it in gigantic industrial ovens, and then bagging them, would put on their label "natural." It's because we want to be natural, and they are exploiting that desire. They don't fool me. I know what natural is because I live in it. Humans burning, cutting down trees, and spraying herbicides isn't it, I'll guarantee you that. And I'll take the wild blackberry anyday over the Cheerio, even if I might get scratched reaching for it.
In the end, all of the alterations on the landscape that these people are doing will become obvious, and everyone is going to know that they aren't natural anymore. The sad thing is what we will lose in the meantime.
I watched the finals of the French open, both male and female. I guess I'm more inclined to write about the men's final - Nadal and Fedderer. This rivalry is one of the greatest in tennis history.
Of course, Nadal is always the favorite on clay, but Fedderer had just defeated Djokovic, and stopped his 6 month winning streak. One had to wonder if ol' Rog had a great match in him. Besides, Nadal had been doing his usual complaining about how he wasn't playing that well, and he had struggled a bit early on in tournament.
And when the match started, Fedderer was steady and calm, while Nadal seemed like he hadn't woken up yet. Before you knew it, Fedderer was up 5-2 in the first set and looked like he might actually have the stuff to take down Nadal.
Then Nadal started waking up. It isn't that he stormed back to life and started dominating the match. It was more like, they kept playing points and pretty soon the match, which seemed like it was pretty even, except that after a while, Nadal was catching up. And then, pretty soon after that, it seemed like Nadal was winning most of the points, and pretty soon after that, he had come back and won the first set. It had to be completely demoralizing for Fedderer.
The second set started, and it was all Nadal. Several games in, and it looked like Fedderer was toast - had given up. I couldn't believe that he would give in like that, but it sure seemed like he was falling apart and that he would be trounced by Nadal.
But time changes everything. A short rain delay, and the next thing you know, Fedderer has a good chance to win the set. He couldn't pull it off, but it did end up going to a tiebreaker. Fedderer fell apart during the tiebreaker and Nadal took it easily, going up 2 sets to none.
One could forgive Fedderer after such an incredible career if he sort of became demoralized and threw in the towel mentally. That's what happens in matches like this a lot of the time. But Fedderer, give him credit, is too good for that. And low and behold, he got back in the match and took the third set. The tennis was actually decent and interesting to watch. One almost hoped that Fedderer could take set 4 so that we might have a replay of the "greatest match ever played."
But it wasn't to be. Nadal just has the most amazing conditioning. He runs from corner to corner, he gets his racquet on almost everything and has a way of keeping the ball in play. It has to be incredibly frustrating for a good player who is making good shots and here comes the ball back. In the end, Nadal was just too good and Fedderer kind of folded in the 4th set. Nadal deserved to win.
One last comment. Both of them were wearing Nike gear. Come on guys, isn't enough a enough? Haven't you made enough money so that you can be individuals and not corporate mouthpieces? Get rid of the corporate logos. You've earned your freedom.
Well, we finally have phones back at our house, although we still have the same substandard service as always. But at least I might be able to find some time to post a couple thoughts on here. I miss it when I don't get a chance to write more regularly.
I keep wondering if the economic doldrums that we are in could be enough to keep Obama from getting re-elected? It is interesting that the republicans don't seem to be able to coax a serious opponent out into the ring against Obama at the moment. Obama just seems so, well, presidential. He may not have all the answers, but dang, he has energy and he really seems to care about the job and take it serious. Do we really think any of the republicans can do a better job than Obama right now? I don't think so.
Nevertheless, the economy just doesn't seem to be picking up much. Most of it isn't Obama's fault. But, through little fault of his but more because the realities of the world, he's usually seen doing things other than working on fixing the economy. People may like him, but if they think he simply can't muster an answer to the economic problems and put people back to work, they may turn from him. And he's no dummy. I think he knows that.
And of course, that's what the republicans are banking on. They are doing everything they can to make sure that the economy does lag. They aren't cooperating with Obama on much of anything having to do with the economy. They hammer away at the deficit, even though many credible economists say that the deficit isn't that bad, and evidence backs that up. Even though interest rates are at historical lows, whenever the treasury offers up bonds and bills, they all sell. If people were really freaked out about the national debt, they wouldn't buy it for next to nothing.
But there are the republicans, saying that the debt is threatening our national security. But at the same time, they absolutely refuse to discuss raising revenue. I think most people understand that this is an unreasonable position. On top of that, the cuts that the republicans want to make to fund their refusal to raise revenues is to critical services to less than wealthy citizens such as medicare. That's going over like a lead balloon.
Nevertheless, in spite of all of that, Obama needs to show some kind of progress on the economy by the time the election comes round a year and a half from now. He needed a strategy like cap and trade, although I'm not necessarily endorsing that particular idea. But, if that idea or something like it were executed properly, it could create the economic pressures that would force the country to move to whole new energy and transportation modes. This would create a demand that would create jobs - lots of them. But without something like this, there just isn't the worldwide demand for products that require additional people to make them.
And of course, the republicans aren't going to give Obama anything like that legislatively. A improving economy only insures what already looks like a good chance for re-election, and the republicans are loathe to do it. The heck with whether or not it is good for the country. Ask not what's good for your country, ask what's good for your political party!
Obama's political achille's heel is the economy. Just today the stock market fell a couple percent on the basis of bad economic news. Home prices keep falling. Employment is stagnant. The fact is, the average person, just like us, don't have much extra money to spend on anything but the basics. That means that many segments of the economy are either withering away or barely hanging on.
Obama can't forget that the economy is the one thing that could cause him to lose the election. He is, probably inadvertantly, letting it slip to the back burner, at least that could be the impression that one could have. That's not good. He needs to be talking to up day in and day out, and twisting arms, and doing whatever he can to make people want to invest in the economy. Just a little bit of good economic news will go a long way in this climate. But no good economic news could be really bad news for Obama.
We still don't have phones at home, and many many dozens of households both in our exchange and other exchanges in Ohio River counties, are in our situation. Frontier Communications hasn't communicated very well with it's customers.
It's very difficult to keep up on internet things when you have no internet access at your home.
Obama made his speech on the "Arab Spring" yesterday. I only heard part of it while he was delivering it. The pundits were saying that the "Arab street" thought it was too little, and Israel and many conservatives thought it went too far. It's going to be interesting to see how this washes out. Will Obama actually try to push Israel into doing things that it really would rather not do - like give up occupied land? If Obama tries, can he actually do it? He has given up on a few things he promised, like closing Guantanomo prison. So, just because he puts something out as a major goal, doesn't necessarily automatically mean that he will get it done. The devil's in the details anyway.
It's been awhile since I've had a chance to post anything on here. The flood waters have subsided a lot, but the water is still relatively high compared to our "average" floods. We still don't have phone service at our house, and haven't for over 2 weeks. That has made it very difficult to keep up with any kind of electronic communications.
When I am in town, like I am now, I go to a location where I can pick up a signal and basically open my email, and delete messages that I am pretty sure I'm not going to be reading in order to keep my inbox from overflowing and messages bouncing.
I then take care of the most immediate correspondence, and that's pretty much it.
I had to chuckle today when Trump announced that he wasn't going to run for president. The guy is a real flake. "Trump is a Chump" comes to mind as a non-campaign slogan.
I did watch the Sunday News shows Sunday. The most interesting tidbit in all of the shows was a statement by I believe McLaughlin on the McLaughlin group that said that it was reported that Pakistan has sold the tail to the "stealth" helicopter which crashed at Bin Laden's. The tail is supposedly where all the secret, high tech stealth technology was located. I haven't heard that tidbit reported on any of the mainstream news.
Ironically (or not), a Chinese military big shot is coming to the US to meet with our military - first time in 7 years since we started selling arms to Tiawan. My guess is that this meeting was probably part of a much larger deal (which will probably never be made public) that the US struck with China to keep them from vetoing the Libya resolution in the security council.
I do feel really bad for the folks in Missouri that had their land sacrificed to reduce the flooding on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The news media has incessantly reported that the purpose of the purposeful levee breach was to save Cairo, Illinois, but it really was much bigger than that.
The reason that I believe that the Corps did it was that so many levee systems up and down the rivers were under stress already, and projected crest levels were bringing them dangerously up toward the top, that the Corps was terrified that a levee breach that resulted in a catastrophic flooding of a major urban area would revive scenes of New Orleans after Katrina. And it probably would have.
So the Corps decided that it was the safer alternative to do the planned flooding of the large bottomland than have one or more of it's levee systems fail unexpectedly, causing unpredictable damage and another black mark on the Corps' reputation. Nevertheless, this was an exercise of eminent domain - a slightly alternate version of the standard taking of property, but nevertheless, it amounts to taking property without the owners' consent. It's a very questionable power that the government has.
It is amazing and astounding to see the Ohio River at the level it is at the moment. It is blocking roads and causing all kinds of problems that haven't been encountered in our area for many decades. If, in fact, many of the bottomlands that are there to take these kind of flood waters weren't blocked off by levees, the water levels wouldn't be nearly as high. It's the tradeoff for human habitation and development.
I'm posting a few photos from the area that were taken in the last several hours so you can get an idea of how extraordinary this situation is. They will follow this post.
I'm having trouble posting photos, but if you want a birds-eye view of the flooding in our region, check out thep photos at http://www.pbase.com/georgecumbee/532011__flooding
I'll keep trying with the photos.
I guess with all the bad weather and the wars and such, it does feel like a Mayday, but more Mayday like there's an emergency rather than Mayday, let's dance around the Maypole.
I thought that David Axelrod did better than his usual overpoliticized point of view on Meet the Press. He had excellent responses, with great timing, in rebutting republican governor of Virginia McDowell, and mayor of New York City Bloomberg, who were smug in trying to criticize Obama. I thought that Axelrod won the debate. Obama probably will be giving him a high five for his performance today.
The other conversation I want to comment on was on Inside Washington, and involved Charles Krauthamer, in desperate defense of republican extremism in relentlessly questioning everything from Obama's place of birth to his college records, tried to argue that anyone who questioned the legitimacy of George W. Bush's "election" to the presidency.
In the case of Bush becoming president, first and foremost, he didn't win the popular vote - not even close. There is no doubt that at least in Florida, all the votes weren't counted and weren't counted properly. If we are going to hold ourselves up as the shining example of democracy in the world, shouldn't we, as a minimum, be able to guarantee that if you vote, your vote will be counted correctly? Shouldn't that have been the first goal of the supreme court in upholding the constitutionality of the election?
And what really gets me is that Justice Scalia, one of the highly politicized 5 member conservative majority of the supreme court that appointed Bush president, totally abandoned his principles in voting to appoint Bush. Let me explain. Scalia makes a cottage industry out of keeping the ordinary citizen from going to the judicial branch with a case or controvery by throwing them out on "standing," a principle that isn't in the constitution.
Scalia has reduced significantly the average person's right to use the judicial branch, which is supposed to be guaranteed by the constitution, by repeatedly writing decisions in which he avoids the equity of the parties' complaint, but instead throws them out of court on standing. Standing isn't even mentioned in the constitution. So much for "strict constructionist."
Yet, in Bush v. Gore, Scalia didn't even address standing. If he had applied the same standards he applies to the everyday person that he so scorns, no way Bush had standing. That shows what a hypocrite Scalia is.
So I believe that a person has a perfect right to question the legitimacy of the supreme court's decision in Bush v. Gore, thus questioning whether Bush should have been named president in such a way. To try and equate those kind of questions with those who continually question Obama's birthplace, college records, religion, etc. is totally wrong. The republican's questioning of Obama's birthplace, religion, etc. is personal, flies in the face of the truth, and has nothing to do with any kind of flawed governmental procedures.
So Mr. Krauthamer, I think your argument falls on it's face and has no legitimacy. In fact, I think that our argument is dangerous, and needs to be rebutted in the strongest fashion.
Now the republicans are criticizing Obama because he released the original of the long form of his birth certificate. They must not have any shame - well, they don't. If a majority of the people can't see through that and the immorality that it represents, then our country is in real trouble.
Donald Trump made a fool out of himself yesterday in responding to the release of the birth certificate. He is ultimate in chest thumper. He is totally self-centered. I think he is caught up in the fantasy of his "Apprentice show" and thinks that he is all powerful. I don't think he's all powerful. I think he is, using slang terminology, a moron.
The late legendary, (and republican, too, I might add) president Teddy Roosevelt made famous the saying "speak softly and carry a big stick." It's sad that we have to carry big sticks in this world to survive sometimes, but in general, I think a lot of people in this country think that is the proper posture, generally, that humans should take toward each other - and Roosevelt just carried it out to international relations.
What he meant of course, is to be humble about your power. I was taught all through my conservative midwest, small town and rural growing up (which I'm still going thru) not to be boastful and egotistical about what you can do. You just do what needs to be done at the time that it needs to be done and that speaks for itself. Those that boast and brag are covering up for the fact that they are doubtful that they can do what they need to do when the time comes.
I feel certain that most people are turned off by Trump's arrogance and bragging. He's just another human, and he's made plenty of mistakes. For example, an article in Sunday's New York Daily News documents Trump companies repeated bankruptcy filings. They describe it as
"recurring pattern of Trump companies filing for bankruptcy to dodge creditors and distance him from business failure." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/04/24/2011-04-24_his_hairy... What a great businessman! And he's bragging about that?
He's also had failed marriages. Now that doesn't distinguish him that much from a lot of U.S. citizens, but it isn't something that most people brag about. People who have been through these kind of things usually are humble about such things. For these reasons and probably many other reasons that I don't even know about, Trump has reason to not be boastful, and I think most people know that. The fact that he is over the top with his braggadocio is not consistent with core beliefs of most of the people that I know and have known.
Yesterday I wrote an update about birds I have heard or seen thus far this spring. Since I wrote that, yesterday afternoon and this morning I did hear a wood thrush, and this morning I heard a kentucky warbler. There was a black and white warbler calling in the yard this morning, but they have been around for awhile.
I've been meaning to jot down the birds I've been hearing in time around this area, mostly at home. Since my last report, maybe a week ago, I did hear one scarlet tanager, but it was just passing through cause I didn't hear it again. We have had indigo buntings on our birdfeeder. I have heard a great crested flycatcher, common yellowthroat, black throated green warbler, red eyed vireo (once), tennessee warbler (once), and seen a number of swallows of various kinds driving around. We have had hummingbirds at our place for well over a week.
I hear regularly around our place white eyed vireo, parula, blue gray gnatcatcher, black throated green warbler, black and white warbler, whiporwill, and waterthrush.
I have not heard any cuckoos, any wood or swainson's thrushes, no summer tanager, no eastern kingbirds, and a bunch of others that are probably around by now but I haven't crossed their paths. I'll try to keep writing this down for the record.
The white throated sparrows are starting to call more intensely. They start that and carry on with that for a couple weeks before they take off for their breeding group up north. I always hate to see them go, and am always happy when they show back up for the fall.
The area where I live is under a "historical and catastrophic" flood situation, as the media is calling it. It started raining, with a severe thunderstorm, Friday late afternoon. It has rained heavily since then every several hours. At our home, we have gotten around 6 inches of rain, and it's Monday evening. Of course, we are about to get hit with another very strong storm which will probably deliver at least a couple inches more.
The Ohio River has shot up. It is supposed to get higher than it was in 1997, one of the highest levels in the last 50 years. Just a couple days ago, no one was forecasting such a thing.
The levels are being forecast will be up on the flood wall at Paducah, which means that the city had no choice but to put in fast gear closing all of the gates in the floodwall - some 47. That means that the fear is significant - especially considering that this week and weekend is quilt week in Paducah.
Quilt week is the biggest week in Paducah. Paducah is home to the national Quilt Museum, and one, if not the largest and most prestigious quilt competition and show are held in Paducah every spring. Tens of thousands of people come from all over the world, and the quality and quantity of the quilting that is exhibited is astounding. It's an awesome show. It also happens to be one if not the major economic stimulus activity in the city annually.
But, the quilt show's main exhibit is displayed in the Paducah Convention Center, which, ironically, was built outside the flood wall. Why that was allowed is something that history is going to have to sort out. But now, as the flood gates are, by necessity, to keep the city from being flooded, having to be closed, it means that the convention center can't be used for the show.
So, the city was just about completely unprepared for the situation that has hit - a stalled front that rapidly has poured untold inches of rain relentlessly down on the city and the region enough so to drive the Ohio river to historic levels in just a few days - right when the quilt show is supposed to open.
Yes, the city has come up with contingency plans. It's putting the biggest part of the quilt show in an abandoned Circuit City store building out by the mall. Yuck. Taking a core part of the show out of the downtown area, even while leaving some of it there, is both going to fragment the show, cause a lot of confusion, and hurt the downtown which has come to rely on the quilt show as many stores rely on christmas shopping success for a profitable year.
I'm not second guessing them - there is nothing easy about the decisions they had to make. The founder of the show was quoted as saying that she considered cancelling it, but that it was so late that many people were either here already or in transit, and wouldn't be able to get refunds, and she just couldn't bring herself to cancel it.
I don't blame her, and think that it was a reasonable to decision. I wish they could have found spaces downtown to move the exhibition. But, I don't understand why the city has invested so much in a facility that is so vulnerable to the whims of nature.
There was undoubtedly some corruption in the original planning and implementation of the building of the convention center. There ought to be some accountability, but I doubt if there ever will be. Instead, Paducah's reputation will be sullied a bit and a bunch of taxpayers' money will be squandered. But probably the center will stay where it is and everyone will go along until it happens again - maybe next year, who knows?
Another irony in a bad way is that the Paducah Sun newspaper is one of the worst in the nation at ridiculing anyone who is concerned about global warming and thinks that humans may be the major cause. I mean they are radical in making fun and criticizing anyone about that. But even as the weather makes news more frequently and severely around the globe - now touching their own community.
But they will never admit that humanity is contributing in anyway to these increasing weather extremes. And, undoubtedly, they will continue to be one of the lead skeptics about global warming and critics of those that say it is real. It's really sad, and adds to the irony of the events of the last several days and the next several days to come, because I feel that the increasing frequency and intensity of various weather events in our part of the country in the last decade is connected to changes in the climate.
The deficit and the upcoming congressional extension of the national debt ceiling was the main story of the day and really of the last couple weeks. It really shows how Obama has lost control of the Washington DC agenda. I mean, he put out a budget back a couple months ago and now has completely abandoned that and is acting like that never happened. He's now the big time budget cutter.
It wasn't that long ago that he was arguing for increased government spending - the stimulus - and complaining because it wasn't big enough. And, there are a number of high profile economists out there that say that we are making too big of a deal about the deficit and that what is needed at this point is more government spending. But Obama has abandoned defending that for some reason.
I can understand the argument in favor of more government spending really. In akin to the thinking that one of the ways that you can redistribute wealth is to simply print more money and give it to the people with less. What that does is to devalue each individual piece of money. That causes the wealth of those who have a lot to go down, but for those that don't have much, any little bit helps, so getting even a little bit more is a positive. In the end, what that does, according to the theory, is to even out the money.
However, in today's global economy, where international currencies are played against other, there is a global impact on devaluing your currency too much by increasing the money supply. Oil prices might go thru the roof, and other things could happen which could cripple your economy. But if you just pull the rug out from under the economy by cutting off government spending, there are going to be similar impacts.
So I think the republicans are getting a free ride by Obama jumping on the spending cuts bandwagon so strongly. Sure, budgets are best balanced and paid for, but you can't equate an individual or household budget with the budget of one of largest, most industrialized nations in the world. Especially one that has one of the most extreme gaps between the super wealthy and most everyone else.
But Obama has made the gamble that even though he has angered the left (by necessity he would argue) by compromising on a number of issues important to the left, that enough of them will still vote for him to fill out his election coalition. Maybe yes maybe no. It is true that a lot of the young and minority vote that didn't vote in the midterms will come out to support him, and that he will be hard to beat.
And that brings up another of the big issues that was discussed today - the results of recent polls. The one discussed mostly today was one of the mainstream polls - NY Times - I believe. That showed that most people think that the country is going in the wrong direction and that they are not feeling good about the economy - numbers that would spell trouble for most presidents seeking reelection. But, it seems that more people are blaming congress for the problems than the president. So, he isn't doomed.
But, if gasoline prices and other inflation continue to make it almost impossible for the average person to pay for their monthly expenses out of their paycheck, the more that any good will that the general public may have for Obama will start to wear thin. At least that's what the pundits think. The problem for the republicans is that no one really believes that some republican presidential candidate is going to be able to do anything more than Obama is doing, let alone want to do it. Everyone knows that the republicans are more in the corporations' pockets than the democrats, although not by much anymore.
Obama is going to have the justice department go after the oil speculators. Good luck. I hope he gets them. Seems like another campaign promise to me - and, he has a record of abandoning many of those kind of promises. So I'm not holding my breath on that one. And, I think that if the public perceives that Obama has made one too many promises that he going to turn his back on, they just might turn their back on him.
US Sen. minority leader Mitch McConnell made a statement today saying that republicans now were leading the agenda and talking points in DC. Sadly, I think he is right. Obama has been too quick to cave in, and now he is just hoping that not that many people are paying attention to the fact that he now is touting the republicans "cut the budget" mantra as his mantra when not that long ago he was trying to more or less justify the Krugman theory, which is that the debt isn't extremely high yet and that we need more spending to stimulate the economy. That was the whole theory behind his stimulus.
But alak and alas, Obama has given up defending that. In fact, it does seem that he now has tried to embrace the republican mantra that now we need to cut the budget. But I can't recall him ever explaining why he has changed his mind.
So that's my criticism of Obama at this point. He gives up too soon. I mean, there are situations where a reasonable person can size up that you are going to lose. But the question then becomes how do you lose, and what do you try to salvage in the loss. Some serious advocacy by Obama for "the right thing" would help to push that kind of agenda for his second term, even if ultimately he was going to lose eventually. But he seems to be accepting loss immediately and abandoning his previous positions, which, in many cases, means his party affiliates. I'm not sure this is his best strategy. He needs to remember that he has a party, and it isn't the republicans.
http://www.ruralthoughts.net/?q=node/504
The link above is to the last entry I made specifically predicting that, even though the two parties had agreed to these short term extensions of federal government spending authorizations, that eventually they wouldn't agree and there would still be a shutdown, which I had predicted in mid-February.
I thought I was going to be right, but apparently at the last minute the republicans gave in and dropped a couple of their demands which the democrats were not going to accept.
In my thoughts, this indicates a loss for the tea party leaders. In fact, Michelle Bachmann voted against it. The tea party folks don't like government anyway, and they didn't mind shutting it down. Apparently Boehner got political cold feet. Any agreement with the democrats is unacceptable to some of those folks, and the fact that the planned parenthood funding got thru as well as the funding to enforce greenhouse gas emissions. There are likely some unhappy tea partiers today.
While I did hear a waterthrush a couple times down at our pond during a warm spell a couple weeks ago, the migration of our songbirds is well into the beginning phases. Just within the last two days I have heard and/or seen northern Parula, blue-gray gnatcatcher, whiporwill, tennessee warbler, and black and white warbler. On the drive home this afternoon from Brookport, I heard a prairie warbler out the truck window.
Soon we will be hearing the sounds of chats, catbirds, tanagers, vireos, cuckoos, and others. It's like old friends that you are glad to see coming home for a visit.
NBC came out with this poll, a segment of which was a poll of republicans'
presidential preference. They were making a big deal out of the fact that Donald Trump had polled tied for second with Mike Huckabee at 17% of republicans polled.
So they let Meredith Viera interview Trump on the Today Show. Trump came off like a raving lunatic, if you ask me. The reason he is polling as high as he is with the republican right is that he has been very vocal lately, using his celebrity to get him publicity, in challenging Obama's eligibility to be president purportedly because he wasn't really born in the US. He connects with a minority of republican voters - the so-called "birthers."
The funniest thing was when Bill Cosby came on with another African-American advocating for better education in our nation. Meredith Viera was with them also. At the end of the interview, Cosby did a little improvisational comment about Trump, in which he basically dismissed Trump as a game player who wasn't a serious candidate. But he did it in such a way as to trump Trump in celebrity brush-off. It caught Viera off-guard.
I don't know if Cosby's commentaries were the impetus, but tonight on the nightly news, they had passed on the job of "fact-checking" some of Trump's Viera interview statements onto Lisa Myers. She hasn't been getting a lot of time lately on the Nightly News. She basically said that much of what Trump said wasn't consistent with the documentation, particularly about the birther issue.
She said she contacted Trump and he said that he stood by everything he said. Trump is a candidate that is going to hurt the republicans overall. I'm sure they aren't thrilled to see him thrashing around in their camp. It's good news for the democrats.
Obama met today with "both parties" to discuss the budget impass and the potential for a "shutdown" of the government after Friday. He is really playing his position as middle of the road, to the extent that sometimes it is hard to tell what party he is in.
That can work OK in some instances, and he isn't necessarily wrong taking that tact up to now...but soon, he has to stand up for his party and take on the republicans or he is going to do unnecessary damage to what are supposed to be his party allies in congress.
The democrats can win the PR battle on this, but they have to be cognizant of the fact that most americans want some kind of discipline on the budget. But, people also want jobs. Obama has a good argument that it is a very delicate time for a government shutdown, and it will hurt in jobs creation at this time. But he also has to make sure that he ties it to democrat policies, or he may find himself not just with a house of representatives that is hostile and republican, but a senate also. A second term under those conditions isn't going to be that great. He will age even faster than he is, and Michelle isn't going to like that!