Independent Caucus

Florida and Michigan and Someone Who Makes Sense

Sometimes, I just don't feel like writing.  This is one of them.  Many things more important than getting out this post today, and yet here I am writing it, and yet already feeling better about it, not that how I'm feeling is of any blogging interest or import, but in the interest of full disclosure.  And if the post should seem a little off, then, well, perhaps it is.

Florida and Michigan and someone who makes sense.  I know, you already saw the title.  So who is the someone?  Well, it's Joel Ferguson.  Who?  Joel Ferguson.  Not a household name, but a long-time politico in Democratic politics going back to, I think he said, McGovern.  He's also an African American and member of the Michigan DNC, which is making its case today to the national DNC (Democratic National Committee) Rules and Bylaws Committee for seating its delegates, which were stripped when Michigan moved up its primary.

Here's his position, which he put forth in a letter to his fellow Michigan DNC members.

• The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee action, whatever it is, must abide by DNC rules.
• The election is a matter of state law, not the DNC, so an election was going to occur as a matter of law, and it was up to the DNC to decide how to handle the outcome of that election in assigning delegates; at the time, the decision was to strip all delegates.
• The Obama and Clinton campaigns have reached no compromise for the Rules and Bylaws Committee to consider in seating Michigan delegates.
• There is no precedent or rule which allows for delegates, assigned proportionally based on the popular vote (the current rule), to be assigned any differently, either 50-50 or in any other proportion besides what was indicated by the popular vote.
• There is a rule, apparently, which gives the Rules and Bylaws Committee the authority to seat all, none, or some fraction of the total state delegation.
• The DNC, after Michigan moved up its election date, drafted a resolution which all the candidates signed, agreeing that they would not campaign or advertise in Michigan.  The additional action which 4 of the 8 candidates took to remove their names from the ballot (Obama, Edwards, Biden, Richardson) was their discretionary decision in an election which was going to take place regardless.
• "Uncommitted" - the only ballot choice available to supporters of Obama, Edwards, Biden and Richardson, though Biden and Richardson had officially dropped out of the race prior to the election - is and always has been a "candidate" in the Michigan election, in that delegates are chosen from among those who voted "uncommitted", and "uncommitted" delegates are sent to the national convention as such.  At the convention, they can vote for whomever they wish, but are expected, as with other delegates, that they will vote for the uncommitted candidate they originally supported, unless that candidate has since dropped out of the race.

So his point is, then, that Clinton and Uncommitted delegates have already been chosen, and are probably buying plane tickets and making hotel reservations for Denver.  It's up to the Rules and Bylaws Committee to send some, none or all of them, or to send all of them but at the convention only recognize each vote as a fractional vote - 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, something - as a punitive sanction for having moved up their election date.  Under the rules, what they cannot do is allocate Michigan delegates between Clinton and Obama in any other proportion than what was indicated by the popular vote, and in fact cannot call the Obama delegates "Obama delegates", but, under the rules, rather "Uncommitted delegates", most of whom, of course, are defacto Obama delegates, and will vote that way in Denver.

Any other decision is beyond the Rules and Bylaws Committee, i.e. extra-ruled.

I believe the DNC Credentials Committee, which meets at the convention, has greater latitude, and in the way that the Supreme Court can overrule lower courts, I believe the Credentials Committee can overrule the Rules and Bylaws Committee.  But as that latter committee's name would suggest, it must rule on the rules, and according to Joel Ferguson, its popular-vote-based representation or nothing.

Committed Delegates Not Really Committed?

Hillary's campaign had a teleconference yesterday with journalists from around the country, a sort of progress-report on the campaign.  And during that teleconference, one of Hillary's campaign team said an interesting thing - that there is no such thing as committed delegates.  I don't recall the particular staffer's name, but I'm familiar with these kinds of calls from my time with the Biden campaign.  Basically, it's only the high-level staffers, usually just a couple at such a meeting, who lead the meeting and do the talking.

This particular staffer told a surprised media person that since the 1980 Democratic Convention, delegates have been free to vote for whomever they wish, even on the first ballot.

That's rather astonishing.  Why traipse to the polls to cast your vote if delegates assigned based on popular vote don't have to vote that assignment, at least on a first ballot?

Is the same thing true of electors?  Though electoral votes are assigned in a presidential election in winner-take-all fashion based on the state popular vote, are the actual people behind those electoral votes - the electors themselves - free when the time comes to cast their electoral vote for whomever they wish?

So, then, for any state democratic party, and set of democratic candidates hoping for their election chances to be advanced by that state, it becomes critical in choosing the actual delegates to choose people who are staunch advocates of a particular candidate, in order to best guarantee that an assigned delegate actually votes that assignment on the first ballot.  Well, it's very difficult to see into someone's soul with that level of accuracy - just ask George W. Bush with regard to Vladimir Putin, or ask any former president with regard to his Supreme Court picks.  The truth is, regardless the amount of care, questioning, research, thoughtfulness put into any selection, people are people, and in this country, free people, and that includes the freedom, regularly exercised, to change one's mind.

So now I'm curious how nearly first-ballot votes since 1980 have come close to what was known to be the count of assigned delegates for each candidate prior to the vote.

"At first I was with Richardson, but then I went to Obama." "I was with Hillary, but I really think we need a change, so now I'm with Barack."  "I was with Barack, but I think Hillary has a better chance of beating McCain, so I switched to her."  If that stuff can happen with ordinary voters, it can certainly happen with delegates.  I have to think more and write later about the implications of this, but I know I was happier and more content under my misinformed view that assigned, committed delegates were in fact committed on the first ballot.  As close as the Democratic contest is, can anyone be left wondering why Hillary keeps on keeping on?  She's not just trying to change the mind of super-delegates, but all delegates, any single one of them.

A Few Thoughts on Popular Vote

Hillary is going around saying she's won the popular vote.  This is not a good idea, unless she is sure she actually HAS won the popular vote, then it might be something to trumpet as a means for wooing super-delegates only, since it's the delegate math which matters.

I heard this morning there are no less than 4 ways to compute popular-vote totals; according to the source I heard on C-SPAN this morning, Barack has the popular-vote lead in 3 out of the 4, with Hillary having something like a 150,000 vote lead in the fourth.  There are probably even more than four ways of counting.

I just did some historical digging.  I'm violating my own "Independent Caucus rules" of not including the links, because I don't have time right now, but someone hold me to it, or I'll try to remember myself, and provide links later.  But the investigation was around whether Democratic Party rules regarding the Michigan primary stipulated that candidates must not campaign there - which it did, and all candidates acceded to this - and also stipulated that they remove their names from the ballot - which it did not, and spokespersons for both the Dodd and Clinton campaigns at the time indicated they saw no reason, effectively, to further slight Michigan voters with the removal of their names from the ballot, when the penalty already was that their delegations would not be seated at the convention, at least, one would have assumed, for any kind of first-ballot vote of committed delegates and super-delegates.

I did some more digging to hear how the state Democratic Party in Michigan reacted to Obama and Edwards removing their names.  Supporters of those candidates, both those who were members of the party apparatus and other supporters,  went on radio, television and print, to tell Michigan voters that they should select "Uncommitted" on the ballot if they wished to vote for one of those candidates.  In a poll taken prior to the election of 300 Michigan voters, when given this choice (a ballot with Hillary's name and "Uncommitted"), chose Hillary 40-some percent to high 20-some percent.  The actual vote was ultimately closer:  55% Clinton and 40% Uncommitted.  A 15-point win for Senator Clinton, though a somewhat greater margin than that over Senator Obama, since some small percentage of the 40% would have been for Edwards.

My point is, this whole thing got lots of media coverage in Michigan prior to the vote.  And people really turned out in large, enthusiastic numbers to cast their vote.  The only popular-vote math which counts, in my view, is this math:

• To Hillary's popular-vote totals in other states, add her vote totals in Michigan and Florida;
• To Obama's popular-vote totals in other states, add his vote total in Florida and the "Uncommitted" vote total in Michigan (this errors on the high side, given that some portion of those votes were for Edwards);
• Acknowledge that there are four of the, I don't know, some number greater than four, caucus states which don't report popular-vote totals at all, just the number of delegates, and that no popular votes can therefore be included in the overall total for those states since they simply don't exist, and this is as true for Hillary as Barack.

If Hillary has more popular votes under that math, then I'd be willing to say she leads in popular votes.  If her math is any different than that, to me, it's suspect, and she'd be wise to keep quiet on the subject.

Barack, Don't Let McCain Out-Change You

Barack, don't look now, or rather, you better look, because John McCain is trying to out-change you.

Can we all agree this is a "change" election?  That with both presidential and congressional approval ratings at historic lows, what the electorate is saying, clearly and loudly, is "anything but this."

Barack sensed that sooner than any of the other candidates, to his credit.  I don't think he just took the temperature of the electorate sooner and more accurately, I think he had and continues to have that feeling himself - anything but this.  It's why he will be the nominee, and not Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, who, to her credit, has made an incredible run, if a little late, and was too polarizingly unpopular in places where Obama was popular, and more than the reverse, but who also got a late start tapping "change" sap, spending, rather, her early time tapping a sap of inevitability.  Hubris?  Over-confidence?  A little arrogance, perhaps?  There's got to be one or more Greek tragedies in there somewhere for Hillary.

Well, Barack tapped into it well before John McCain, too; but McCain has gotten the message, and is stepping on the accelerator, and cut into whatever car-length lead Barack had on him with his recent speech in Columbus, Ohio.  Now, the speech has been scoffed at plenty, and with good reason.  The speech was given as if it were 2013 and McCain had just completed his first term; and it was his description of what America and the world would look like, largely, one is left to conclude, due to America's good sense in having elected John McCain president in 2008.  The speech provoked enough eye-rolling in me that I probably put at risk other motorists on the road with me at the time.  So, I'm not here to laud the speech - overall.  I am here to point out that, in my view, it's apparent from the speech that McCain has gotten the "change" message, and is prepared to be creative and compete aggressively for the change vote.  And if Obama makes Hillary's mistake, and considers himself to have the iron lock on the change vote without having to pay much attention to McCain, then, well, the general election could be a very ironic replay of the primaries.

Here are some of the "changes" McCain proposed (they start out slow, but get better):

• To have Democrats in high positions within his administration.
• To want solutions, and to not care where (which party) they come from, on our most pressing problems, including getting off oil, availability of health care, the debt, disease.
• To not take part or participate in, and in fact to be openly critical of something which has been all too common for 30 years now, and the American people are sick of, which is legislation or amendments to same constructed specifically to embarrass one party or the other, by scoring or costing it political capital; rather, per the previous bullet, to work energetically with anyone of either party with good ideas for solving the nation's key problems.
• To sign bills WITHOUT issuing signing statements.
• To have weekly press conferences (no one has come close to such a level of press access, since, I believe, Kennedy).
• To regularly do as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and come before a joint session of Congress to take questions (anyone ever listened to "Prime Minister's Questions" on C-SPAN?..fascinating stuff, and fascinating to imagine our president doing that!).
• To veto any bill with earmarks, until Congress functionally eliminates them themselves (that would mean, for certain bills, having the nerve to shut down the government, as President Clinton did once).

Now I don't know if that's just so much strategic, cynical, political blather intended to get him onto the "change" playing field.  But make no mistake, those are real change items.  A few of them are historic.

McCain is signaling, among possibly other things, that he is not going to be a sideline player in competing for the change vote in this country.  He's a smart guy, with a lot of political experience, and not short on courage.  If Barack doesn't advance his, for some time now, and in this blogger's view, somewhat droning and high-level "change" message to tangible and significant change (besides a different list of policy priorities from President Bush, agreeing to talk with the President of Iran is the biggest change item I've heard; I've heard it for a while now, and it wasn't that interesting the first time), then he risks pulling a Hillary - believing that his perch on the change mantle is beyond threat and inevitable.

The daggone Greeks.

West Virginia..Doesn't Matter

Wow.  Hillary won by 40 points (nearly) in W. Va.  That's just nuts. That state went to W each of the last two elections.  Talk about showing your centrist to center-right crossover strength.  That's the first vote that has made Obama look like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, which is to say the left, liberal, black candidate with little draw beyond that particular constituency (only a small black population in W. Va.).  And yet, following that, Edwards throws his support to Obama, and four additional super-delegates commit to Obama, just like after her come-from-behind win in Indiana - the first Illinois border state Obama lost.  Her win in W. Va. kicks the crap out of his win in NC.  So that leaves Indiana, which she won!  And yet super-delegates are still falling to Barack, and more and more folks are asking/telling Hillary to drop out.  Politics, as with people, can be very counter-intuitive.  But what makes Barack the intuitive choice for many, many people, I think, and the very, very, very....very, very bottom line in this election, may be that people are so sick and tired of Washington (I don't recall when both presidential and congressional approval ratings were so low), and want a change so desperately, that their support is dedicated to the candidate who seems like the greatest change agent, and that partly means not having as much direct connection to Washington.  Clearly, Hillary can never fit that latter bill as a former First Lady.  She can't take off those clothes (pardon the visual)..ok, she can't rub off that tattoo..and I think it's that fact which may keep her out of the White House this election.  I think it's that, and that the Democrats assign delegates in each state proportional to the popular vote, whereas the Republicans assign delegates the way electoral votes are assigned - all or nothing.  I haven't done the math yet, just as an exercise of curiosity, but Hillary has won, among other states, these:  California, New York, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey.  If delegates were winner-take-all, I'm curious to know what the delegate math would look like.  An exercise for some quiet evening.

What Now?

Well, it's interesting.  Hillary had been polling at something like 6 or 8 points down in Indiana and she wins by 3, a 9 to 11 point turnaround.  And she loses North Carolina handily as expected.  Barack Obama, himself, before Pennsylvania, predicted that Hillary would win PA, he would win NC, and IN would "be the tie-breaker."  The election results, then, from those three states would seem to favor Hillary - a 2/3 win, with one of those in the so-called tie-breaking state.  Yet, even more people called afterwards for Hillary to stop, and even more super-delegates committed to Barack.  Just goes to show you, the electorate will do what it wants, and are beguilingly immune to all predictions, you know, like, say, Rudy Giuliani being the nominee, or the nomination being Fred Thomson's if he wants it, or Hillary sewing things up by Super Tuesday.  We've known for some time that the political analysts are bad predictors, and now it simply shows that candidates themselves are little better.  Hillary tried and is trying to trumpet that she won the tie-breaking state, and also PA, but it's falling ever more on deaf ears.

So, what now?

Well, if you are Hillary, you have to keep going, and keep going literally until there is a nominee, because consistently it's her doggedness, her refusal to just throw it in, to keep getting back up (Joe Biden's dad's favorite phrase and advice, "Get up") that voters view as one of her greatest strengths and qualities.  She almost has to "get up" because that's what she's known for at this point.

And if you are Barack, you keep doing pretty much what he's doing - be gracious, be confidant, and be careful, and hope very much for no surrogate flare-ups.

Hillary will try her damnedest to win West Virginia and Kentucky.  Obama has already predicted she will, for whatever that prediction is worth, although the candidates have in fact been reasonably accurate in those kinds of predictions.  If she does, she will have won the last 7 of 13 contests, and in that lot, all the big states but North Carolina.  Big-state-wise, then, she will have won 4 of 5 - OH, TX (popular vote, very close in delegate count), PA and IN, while losing NC.  And this, of course, perpetuates and does nothing to temper her argument over the last several months, that she can deliver in the big states needed for an electoral win over McCain.  Barack will have won the other 6 - VT, WY, MS, Guam, NC and Oregon, which is the same day as Kentucky, and generally considered Obama country.  This perpetuates his argument that he can win around the country (north, south, west, middle of the Pacific), and his front-runner standing by continuing his lead in delegates.

One of Hillary's strategies is she needs Michigan and Florida.  Very much.  She had really solid wins in those two big and ever-critical swing states.  There were record turn-outs in both states.  In Florida, all candidates were on the ballot.  And in Michigan, though Barack and Edwards had taken their names off the ballot - an odd move given that their promise to the DNC to uphold its "punishment" of those two states (for moving up their primary dates) was simply not to campaign in those states, not to do, in Grinchly fashion, whatever they could to see that no functional election took place - the outcome regardless was very Grinch-like, as folks in Michigan happily turned out in droves anyway.  And if Obama was their guy, they happily checked the box labeled "uncommitted", as it was widely publicized that Obama's name would not be on the ballot, and yet, as I said, the voters came out in droves all the same.  Hillary, if she hasn't already, needs to offer that all the uncommitted votes be used to assign MI delegates to Barack, even though some small fraction of those votes were for Edwards (all the other candidates' names were on the ballot).

Hillary sent an open letter to Barack yesterday asking that MI and PA delegations be seated, and their historic elections count.  If Barack says no to this, at a time when not just their election but their delegation can count, and then after he is the nominee allows for a symbolic, after-the-fact seating of MI and FL delegations at the convention, that will be a move seen as so cynically political that it will both scar his image as a change, different sort of politician, and it will tick off those historic democratic electorates in MI and FL at levels that I know I would not want to risk if I were hoping to carry those states in the general.  They were vastly fair elections with huge turn-outs, handled in the same manner by the candidates in terms of not campaigning in either state.  The entire DNC wants to seat them.  Howard Dean wants to seat them.  Hillary wants to seat them.  It really comes down to Barack giving his assent.  If he doesn't, he'll be seen as the punitive and responsible party by the voters of those states.  And for a "change" politician, will conjure recent elections where presidential candidates tried so hard to see some votes counted and other votes not.  He'll win the nomination, but at the considerable risk of it being Pyrrhic.

So, the nomination keeps on keeping on.  Hillary needs to keep being the Comeback Chick and asking for Michigan and Florida delegations be seated.  Barack needs to keep representing change.  And, I would argue, if he doesn't want his tournament progress to stop at the nomination, then he needs to concur, and ask for Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated.  Those are two huge states which will combine into one very tiny yet glaring asterisk next to his nomination if nominated without them.

Solution For the Democrats

Everyone is talking about this dilemma the Democrats have as respects picking a nominee.  Elements of that dilemma are:

• With the party basically split down the middle between Hillary and Barack, and John McCain someone who historically has faired pretty well with independents, the worry is that the core constituencies of whoever is not the nominee may either stay home or vote for McCain in numbers that swing the election to McCain.
• Hillary has won the states that historically (over the last 16 years, anyway) Democrats have had to win in order to counter and compete against what has just as consistently been the red-state strength of the Republicans, i.e. big. blue states and also key swing states like Ohio and Florida.  Though Barack has more committed delegates (those allocated based on election results, i.e. not super-delegates), popular vote and total states won, Democrats worry his weakness against Hillary in these key states may translate into weakness against McCain, resulting in an electoral if not also popular vote loss in November.
• If party leaders, i.e. super-delegates, conclude that the electoral math favors Hillary over Barack, and throw their support in large numbers and with that the nomination to Hillary in advance of the convention, Democrats are concerned about a contentious, divided convention, and worse, the loss of their historically stalwart African-American support for several elections or possibly for good.
• Democrats worry that this extended primary battle is weakening the eventual Democratic nominee relative to McCain, both in terms of money, image and message.
• Democrats worry that, since Dean, Hillary and Barack have not been able to reach agreement on exactly how to seat delegations from Michigan and Florida, that Democrats from those states may take some measure of revenge in November by voting for McCain or staying home.  They want Florida and Michigan represented, but don't know how to do it.

Democrats are worried about other stuff too, but that's enough.  So, what to do?

Of the various concerns, for some Democrats, not losing or substantially damaging African-American support within the party is the most important thing, more important even than winning in November.  The two are obviously not mutually exclusive.  Barack can and certainly may win against McCain; for but for these Democrats, even if they believe for the 2008 election that the electoral math favors Hillary, and that she represents the Democrats best chance of retaking the White House, they still favor Barack because they do not want to risk rending the party along racial lines, and losing the Black vote for perhaps several presidential elections.  Other party leaders are all about winning in November.  These leaders are favoring one or the other candidate (or remaining uncommitted until they see still more campaigning and election outcomes) simply because they feel that candidate has the best chance of beating John McCain and winning the White House.

Ok, so I ask again, what to do?

Before I answer that, allow me one paragraph on why Howard Dean is getting on my nerves.  First of all, he's trying to do two things at once and failing at both.  He's trying to be party policeman by defending his punitive actions taken against Michigan and Florida for ignoring party rules and moving up their election dates, and party strategist, by pressuring super-delegates to decide by June and choose a nominee in advance of the convention so that the party can "unify".  He's such a knucklehead.  If unity is his key concern, then why did he play the tough guy and strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates?  And if adhering to party rules is his concern, then why does he still talk about finding ways to give Michigan and Florida first-ballot participation, and why is he pressuring super-delegates to do anything other than let the process play out?

Here's what I think, and I'll give some props to my brother, with whom I had this discussion over the weekend, and who suggested what is my key recommendation.  If Democrats don't want to rend the party on racial lines, then they shouldn't.  It's that simple.  And only super-delegates have that power; therefore, they shouldn't use it.  They should commit, yes, and for the candidate they like the best.  That simple.  If super-delegates are any reflection of the rest of the nation, then the super-delegate vote will split nearly 50/50 between Barack and Hillary, and going into the convention there will be no nominee, i.e. neither candidate will have enough votes for a first-ballot victory.  The risk of losing the Black vote from majority-white super-delegates throwing their support to Hillary is averted, because they will have done no such thing.  Also, Michigan and Florida delegations are excluded from the first ballot as their penalty for moving up their elections, and consistent with the candidates' understanding back in January.

So then there is a second ballot.  On this ballot, under the rules, all delegates become uncommitted and can vote for whomever they please.  This is also where you seat full delegations from Michigan and Florida.  You haven't ticked them off at all, just saved them some time by not including them in an inconclusive first ballot.  So what's the Hillary / Barack make-up of these delegations?  The candidates agreed they would not campaign in these states, in keeping with the penalty handed down by the party.  They, however, knew full well that with or without their active campaigning on the ground or on the airwaves, that elections were going to take place, if only as so-called beauty pageants.  So it did not behoove the candidates to remove their name from the ballot, and only Barack and John Edwards did, and only in Michigan.  Florida was a regular vote with all names on the ballot including Barack.  All candidates kept their word and did not campaign in these two states.  So, then, the composition of the Florida delegation should mirror the voting results.  However in Michigan, Barack should be given the benefit of the doubt, and assume that all those who voted "uncommitted" were casting their vote for him.  In truth, some fraction of those uncommitted votes were for John Edwards; but as previous primaries had shown, the majority would have been for Barack, so just award him Michigan delegates based upon the full "uncommitted" vote.  So, then, for the second ballot, seat full Michigan and Florida delegations, with Florida delegates split 60.2% for Hillary and 39.8% for Barack (Hillary got 870,986 votes to Barack's 576,214), and 58.0% for Hillary and 42.0% for Barack in Michigan (Hillary got 328,309 votes to 238,168 for uncommitted).  But, though that's how you allow the delegations to compose themselves, on the second ballot they are functionally uncommitted like all the others, and can vote for whomever they wish.

Basically, then, the nation, and more specifically, the national Democratic party, will have given itself the opportunity to choose a nominee without the participation of Michigan and Florida, and without super-delegates "choosing" a nominee out of some party-minded collusion, and by the most unlikely probability will have come up short.  You then let Florida and Michigan join the party (sorry) on the second ballot, and you give Barack the benefit of the doubt on all uncommitted votes, assuming they were all for him and none for Edwards.  And you have your second ballot vote, which is a completely uncommitted vote.  Let's all throw a couple handfuls of salt over our shoulder and hope that what emerges from the second-ballot tally is a nominee.

I think one will emerge.  If it's not Barack, the African-American wing of the party cannot and won't, I don't believe, blame anyone if delegates, once freed of their commitments, freely choose Hillary on a second ballot.  Nor will Hillary blame anyone, particularly with Michigan and Florida delegations seated, if the party chooses Barack on the second ballot.  The only problem not averted is the problem of getting a late start against John McCain.  I believe this is the least of the Democrats' problems.  Americans will tune in regardless and take full measure of both the Democratic and Republican nominees, and maybe even give the Democrats a slight edge out of thanks for a shortened fall campaign.

Iraqi Rather Than American Money

Some of these numbers might be wrong.  I heard this from the actors themselves and didn't take notes.  But of interest in any case are not the exact numbers but the attitudinal change which has now brought about a policy change, that is, if the Defense Authorization Bill passes.  "Awwwuhhhhh..hmm."  Yes, I heard your collective yawn.  But this really is interesting.  Really.

What Senator Levin (Democrat, MI) and Senator Warner (Republican, VA) did, in a bipartisan way (I always think that sounds like it's doubly partisan, you know, in the way that biweekly is two weeks, but instead read that as anti-partisan), was to codify a couple key restrictions on the way U.S. taxpayer dollars can be spent in Iraq from monies allocated to the 2008 Defense Department appropriation:

• No money for the construction of permanent American military bases;
• No money for Iraqi infrastructure projects.

And, interestingly, the language expressly omits any "national security" or "exigent circumstances" exceptions, i.e. loopholes by which the administration can bi-pass the law entirely and do as they've grown accustomed, that is, anything they please with their Defense appropriation.

The language for this provision, which Senator Warner read aloud, is very brief, and very, very simple in its reasoning.  Since I can't recall the language, I'll pass along the reasoning, which was this.  Iraq is exporting (again, forgive me if you see different numbers on this tomorrow) - again thats exporting for international sale and very national profit - $200 million a day in crude oil.  Iraq has a national surplus of something like $50 billion.  The United States has a national debt of $9 trillion.  That's it.  End of reasoning.

The two senators were literally presenting it as, and making it, that simple.  The country which is in debt to the tune of trillions, several trillion of which is owed beyond our borders, that is, to foreigners who have loaned us that money, and are happily collecting the interest, has no business, according to their bill, borrowing still more money from those foreign lenders (as nearly all U.S. borrowing is presently, so as to avoid putting pressure on interest rates here domestically, which would then finally make a public which should have been screaming long ago offer a loud, shrill and sustained scream, thereby forcing a change in policy; it's the same reason, by the way, why they have paid and continue to pay for the war on foreign credit, because they fear the shrill scream and the necessary change in policy if they ask you to pay for it, more cheaply and without interest I might add, via tax increase, in the manner we paid for World War II and any other war) to give to a country with $9 trillion and 50 billion less debt than we have.

Finally, finally, something.  A flicker of awareness among our representatives that is a strobe light to the rest of us.  Finally.  Oh, one final thing.  See whether President Bush finds a reason, directly these spending limitations, or some other reason true or made up, to veto this authorization bill, and start the "see who blinks first" game that Bush and his team seem to like so much.  It has been so far a very cowardly Congress who by their performance should otherwise be renamed the House of Blinks and the U.S. Vacillant.  Maybe not this time.  A democracy can only hope...and, oh yeah, vote, write your congressman, protest, organize.  Other than that we're completely powerless. :)

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday, Dad.

Random Thoughts

I heard this morning, on the latest set of international tests, for which I wasn't even aware there was such a test, though fully aware that there are standardized tests school children have always taken, both before and now after No Child Left Behind, but now aware that at least one of those standardized test is also taken throughout Europe and parts of Asia, and if I add another clause to this sentence I'll have to kill myself, that (you thought there would never be a "that", did you?...first time a life ring showed up as a relative pronoun) again American children are not competitive with much of the rest of the world in math and other cognitive skills.  We finished 20 something out of thirty something, and lots of places kicked our butt, including, yes, Lichtenstein, Sweden, Finland, ok everyone in Europe except for, I think, Spain, and Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and just about any place Asian.  I think we beat Sardinia, Bosnia (though give them time), and now, of course, I'm just makin' up stuff, but you get my general point.  How do we change this?  Who gets the tough love?  The kids, the teachers, the parents, the politicians?  Can we all agree someone needs the tough love?  This makes me about as nervous (not quite, but about) as our recent (over the last 7+ years) $5.5 trillion dollar deferred tax increase the Bush Administration and Congress have seen fit to vote for.  Now - different topic, but I said these thoughts were random, and I want to maintain some credibility - in truth, that same President and Congress gave us a 2 trillion dollar tax cut (writing the word "trillion" always scares me).  So, let's see, correcting myself, the net tax increase, for which we can thank the President and the Congress, is a $3.5 tr-tr-trillion dollar tax increase, and counting, of course, since this particular whopping tax increase, distinctly different from the more honest, non-deferred, publicly shared, sanctioned and approved kind, comes with interest!...making this tax increase, just like our mortgages or cars, more expensive the more slowly we choose or are able to pay it off.

Oh, does someone think I'm mislabeling what you now see that I'm talking about, i.e. the net difference between the increase in the national debt during the Bush administration (from 3.5 to over 9 trillion, i.e. about 5.5 trillion) and the Bush tax cuts?

No, no, no, no.  We are America.  We are not Columbia, Nicaragua, Mexico.  We do not default, and we do not get debt forgiveness.  No, no.  We pay back every bloody dollar.  Just like you do.  That credit card balance you have, which I hope is not too, too bad.  You WILL pay it.  And America WILL pay back that $9 trillion, including the $5.5 trillion (and counting, or I should say, accruing) added during this administration.

So you say, "But that's not a tax increase, dude!  That borrowing.  That's a loan."  Right.  Well, what does the U.S. government use to pay back its debts, or to pay for anything for that matter?  Tax revenues.  Ok, we agree on that.  Well, just like you and your credit cards, if you ramp them way up, at the point where you decide you want to start ramping them down and paying them off, are you allowed, in the midst of and to offset somewhat those higher payments you are choosing to make on your credit cards, to pay less for your other daily, weekly, monthly obligations?  If you are going to pay $500 more per month against your credit cards, can you pay $500 less per month on food, tuition, insurance, mortgage?   No, no, no, no.  You cannot.  You can trim your sails some, can't you.  AH!  But that's painful, isn't it?  It's a sacrifice.  You feel that.  But you have another option.  You can get another job and bring in more money.

Those are the same two options the U.S. government has and will have in paying off the $3.5 trillion in net tax increase given to us mostly against our will, but certainly without sufficient protest on our parts, by Bush and the Congress.  You're saying, "There he goes again."  Still don't believe me, huh?  Well, back to our two options.  For government, trimming sails means not federally funding something that previously was being federally funded.  So, at least I hope you will accept the nomenclature that Bush and the Congress implemented "pain to someone" down the road, when we decide we wish to begin paying off this debt.  But that's just the first choice, and if you live in this country and follow your government at all you know how historically difficult that is to accomplish, that is, for politicians to vote for, not DEFERRED pain, which they have proven very disturbingly capable at voting for, but direct and immediate pain.  The second choice is to make more money.  Now, please, everyone say with me, "TAX...INCREASE!"  Because that's the only way the government gives itself a raise.

Oops, there is one more third way, we could "grow our way" out of debt.  Well let's wake up to the globalized new world of a modern India and China.  That ain't happenin'!  The great American century growth-wise was the 20th, when we had no such competition.  I'm not being negative on the potential for America to compete.  I'm just saying now she really does have to compete.  The opponent may lose 6-2, 6-2, but the difference now is that at least there is someone over there returning serve, and doing it increasingly well.  If you think in the next 10 years that match score is more likely to become 6-1, 6-1 instead of 6-3, 6-4 then you underestimate how desperately China and India want to become developed, advanced countries and economies competitive on the international scene.  I will say this politely, but owing to my Sicilian lineage, "Fagetaboudit."

So, my total count of random thoughts was only two.  I'll try to be more random next time.  But that [gulp] $3.5 trillion dollar difference between the Bush tax cuts and the increase to the national debt over the term of the Bush administration is most likely - since I don't think we will grow our way out, and since cuts to government programs have been historically very hard, cuts anywhere near the required magnitude, at least, and here again I have to stop with the clauses before I go right over a cliff - to be a walloping $3.5 trillion dollar tax increase...at some point...and increasing with interest until that point arrives, making it a size 3.5 trillion shoe waiting to drop, and which most certainly will, and we will pay for when it does, because we are America, and we don't go barefoot.