Author Archives: Rob Porter

Horse Race Journalism

When I was 11, I loved horses, and often watched horse races on TV (beyond everyone’s obligatory viewing of the Kentucky Derby). It was always helpful when the broadcasters would provide commentary like “Sea Biscuit’s in 4th but moving up strong,” which would help make sense of the seething mass of identical brown horses. I suppose that’s what today’s journalists and political pundits think they’re doing when they provide their daily (or hourly) accounting of who’s ahead in the presidential primaries—along with endless theories of why. We’re treated to interminable discussions of candidates’ hairstyles, lapel buttons (flag or no flag? disease ribbon?), verbal missteps, and the fact that were seen shaking hands with someone whose neighbor once said he thought Muslims really weren’t so bad. And the sole context for these discussions is the horse race commentary “Michelle’s in 4th place in Iowa now, will this help her with left-handed voters who hate cats?”  

But the thing is, the sole point of a horse race is to see who wins.  There is no larger meaning of any kind, whereas, in politics, the race exists only as a means to an end—selecting someone to guide the nation. (To be fair, there are certain similarities, to wit that the winners of both types of races get to make more money and mate with larger numbers of desirable females). So how about we spend a little more time thinking about the end than the means?

 What do I mean? Well, I suggest that these on-screen “journalists” spend the months leading up to an election exploring in depth the consequences to the country of a candidate’s statements and positions rather than the consequences to the candidate. Wouldn’t you like someone smarter than you (or at least with more time to research the topic than you) to help figure out this kind of thing? This is such an alien idea, something so outside our everyday experience with TV “journalism”, that I’d better give an example. Here’s a random one: This morning, reading a typical horse race commentary, I noticed a writer mention in passing that Mitt Romney suggested we deport all 11 million “illegal aliens.” Ok, that’s certainly a concrete proposal (i.e., not “let’s keep America Number One,” or “I support our troops”), and is one that has been voiced in various forms by a number of Republican candidates. And immigration is certainly a very important issue. But to the pundits, the only importance to a candidate’s plan to remove 11 million workers from the country seems to be in how it might hurt his chances with Hispanic voters vs. help him with covertly racist voters in border states. What nonsense! I want someone with the time, money, and clout to access data and expert researchers (not partisan mouthpieces) to explore the consequences of this plan and explain them to me! What do I mean? Well, a number of questions come readily to mind:

  • If we deport a large number of people who are employed in low-wage jobs, who will do these jobs?
  • Are there people to take those jobs?
  • If so, will they have to be paid more than the illegals? And presuming they will (since if there were legal residents willing to take the jobs for less money than the illegals, the illegals wouldn’t be working here in the first place) how much more will it cost?
  • Who will pay these costs and how will they affect the economy?
  • Will increased costs drive anyone out of business?  
  • If the illegals aren’t replaced, what work will not get done and how will that affect us all?
  • How much will it cost to identify and deport that many people and where will that money come from?
  • What are alternative proposals to deal with the issue of illegal immigration and what are their consequences?

 It took me a good 3 minutes to think of these questions, and I’m sure in 3 minutes you could easily add more sensible ones. And that’s just on the one topic. One passing remark by a candidate. What if we did that for all the major policy positions of the different candidates and parties? Invade this country? Bomb that one? Raise taxes? Lower taxes? Regulate trading of derivatives? What are derivatives, anyway? Gee, that would be hard! It would take a long time! Well, it would take too long for a 2 minute horse race, but not for a 2 year political race. Why not use the 24/7 “news” cycle for something helpful rather than entertaining? Bring back investigative journalism that focuses on something other than sexual scandals! Maybe we wouldn’t always have to be so surprised by the consequences of our country’s actions if we thought about them a little bit beforehand.

It’s Not the Committee, It’s the Republicans

Yes, I know there are always 2 sides to every question (sometimes more). But the failure of the supercommittee—the supposed grownups in the room—to reach a budget deal is a one-sided failure. The standard public and media response to blame both sides for not working together is flat out wrong. The responsibility for the failure of the supercommittee falls on the same Republican shoulders as the failure of Congress to do anything constructive.

Partisan rhetoric? Well, I’m certainly partisan, but that phrase makes sense only when the conclusion is wrong. And I’m not wrong. Simple proof: absolutely everyone knows what “working together” means, it means “I’ll give you some of what you want, if you let me have some of what I want.” Any disagreement here? Show of hands? I don’t think even Michelle Bachman could deny this particular segment of reality. Give a little to get a little is not only the core of politics in a democracy, but it’s the way we negotiate through our interactions with everyone—family, friends, work, etc. “Ok, we can have Thanksgiving at our house, but you have to pick up mom and bring dessert and drinks.”

So in this supercommitte failure, who was willing to give a little to get a little? If the answer is “neither side” then I’m engaging in partisan Republican-bashing. Well, let’s see. In short, the biggest bone of contention comes down to this: Democrats want to preserve social programs (eg, Medicare, Social Security) and raise taxes on upper income people, and Republicans want to cut social programs and not raise taxes on anyone. Did the Republicans offer to accept some increase in taxes in return for less severe cuts to social programs. No they did not. Did the Democrats offer to accept cuts in their favorite social programs in return for some increase in taxes? Why, yes they did. Not only in the supercommitte but for the past entire year of the budget debate.

So, the evidence is clear that Democrats have continually been trying to practice normal political (and human) interaction and the Republicans have not. This is a unilateral failure on the part of Republicans to participate in the democratic (small d) process. They want to come over for Thanksgiving and have you cook, serve them and clean up while they sit on the couch watching the game and drinking your beer. They scowl if you ask them to move their feet so you can clean up the crumbs they dropped. Blaming both sides is simply a cop-out, a failure to think clearly in the face of an obvious problem. Come to think of it, that’s the Republican failure as well.

Bite the Hand That Feeds You—Feed the Hand That Bites You

Bloomberg Businessweek just reported that Newt Gingrich received between $1.6 and $1.8 MILLION dollars in “advisory” payments from the mortgage lender Freddie Mac over a several-year period in the past decade. Now first of all, it would be interesting to see just what kind of “advice” is worth that kind of money. Unfortunately we can’t see, because no one at Freddie Mac seems to have any white papers or even a brief Powerpoint presentation of Newt’s pearls of wisdom. Or at these prices, perhaps we should say diamonds of wisdom. Nor has Newt produced any such documents. He doesn’t even say that he wrote something but he lost it, or forgot to turn it in, or the dog ate it. I guess for only $1.6 mil you can’t be bothered to write stuff down. Or it was secret (like Nixon’s nonexistent “secret plan to end the war” that was key to his ’68 election campaign). Or it was simply a little bit of payola to a prominent politician to provide some favorable spin to his colleagues.

Republicans taking payoffs from corporations! Yikes! Yawn. Why even mention it? Well, it’s a little more interesting because, in the apparently now mandatory display of hypocrisy by Republican candidates, Newt subsequently turned on his benefactors, joining the chorus that blamed Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae (and a Democratic Congress) for the financial meltdown. A pretty big chomp of the hand there, Newt. Good thing your “think tank” has been collecting $10s of millions for other “services” (see Washington Post article) so you don’t need to put your snout back in Freddie’s trough.

Now most of us would say that people should be a bit leery of electing someone who turns on his benefactors (read voters) so quickly. However, Newt’s not worried. Biting the hand that feeds you is actually a key part of the Republican and Tea Party message. They want us all to think that the government that has ensured that people can retire before they die and still have access to health care without having to live on dog food is an evil intrusion on our right to die in squalor. They clearly want us to bite the hand—and rip it off, spit it in the gutter and dance around our decaying infrastructure in glee. The corollary message is even more important. The real key to Republican domination is getting everyone to “feed the hand that bites you.” Cutting taxes on corporations that move jobs overseas and on individuals who make millions in the Wall Street Casino is practically the only reason the Republican party exists. Oh, and sending your children to die in foreign countries in the name of “defense.” Feed that hand baby, it’s still got a lot of biting it wants to do.

Following From in Front

Haven’t we all seen a cute video of a small town parade where a little kid (usually a boy) jumps out in front of the band and marches ahead of them, waving his arms? He thinks he’s leading them, but of course he’s just staying ahead of them as they go wherever they were planning to go in the first place. He’s really following from in front.

Following from in front is what passes for political leadership in the country these days (and pretty much the whole world, for that matter). The Republican candidates for president, all the little boys and little girls, have jumped in front of the Tea Party band. They aren’t really sure where that band is marching, but they hope that it’s to the White House. And when it gets there, they’ll be in front. Or at least one of them will. It would be kind of cute to watch them elbow and shove each other to be first except that we don’t know what any of them will do when they get there. We don’t know what little Michelle, Herman and Ricky will do because they haven’t a clue themselves. We don’t know what Mitt and Newt will do because they keep jumping in front of different bands and it’s not clear which one it will be when they get there.

Real leadership is something very different. It is not giving people what they want. That’s called managing. Don’t get me wrong, managing is important. We all want the trash picked up, the roads cleared of snow, etc, and thus need mangers who will see that these things are done. But leadership is getting people to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do, something they don’t want to do but need to—committing time, money, and perhaps their lives for the collective good. Real leaders are definitely not following from in front. Oh, p.s., we also want leaders who use their powers for good (say, protect the environment) rather than evil (say, the Iraq war, enriching the wealthy). Not seeing a lot of these right now.

Red Card for Herman Cain

Herman deserves a red card (immediate ejection from the playing field, for the non-soccer-aware) for misplaying the Red Card in a Monday interview on PBS (see this report from the Huffington Post). While engaging in generations-old Republican scare tactics over the “Communist threat,” he announced that

“[China] indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability.”

Since of course China has had nuclear weapons since 1964, it confirms what we’ve already suspected: Herman Cain has been clueless for his entire adult life. Someone this ignorant of world events wouldn’t get hired as a legislative assistant by a Democrat, but of course the Republicans, with their bottomless disdain for facts, think he’d make a wonderful president. Much as I’d love to see Obama run against this pizza bumpkin, this ignoramus who prides himself on not knowing the names of foreign leaders such as “the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan,” patriotism requires that our country not embarrass itself any further. Herman Cain, go to the locker room…you’re disqualified.

PLATFORM FOR PROGRESS(IVES)

Goodness knows I, like the OWSers, protest enough about the current “system.” Outside of the 1%, is there anyone who is happy with the way things are? Not too many. So what to do? Well, the Tea partiers want to take us back to 19th century robber baron capitalism on the idea that…well it’s hard to say what the idea of that is. How about us progressives? Given that we are dealing with the well known cat-herding paradigm, almost by definition, there’s no progressive platform. But I bet that a good three quarters of us support something along the lines of the following. They’re in no particular order except that for any of them to happen, the first bullet of the first point must be done—elimination of private funding of politicians. Then, anything can happen.

I’ve left out the rationales for all the platform points, as it would take thousands of words and more patience than our readers possess. Feel free to add points and rationales.

POLITICS

  • Public financing of elections—no direct personal, or corporate (incl. lobbyist) contributions
  • Instant-runoff elections or other alternative voting methods which will encourage 3rd and 4th party candidates
  • Direct presidential election (eg, National Popular Vote movement)

FINANCIAL SYSTEM

  • Reinstate Glass-Steagall to re-separate investment banking and commercial banking
  • Increase regulation of derivatives (eg, credit default swaps), including requiring transparent pricing and increased capital reserve requirements
  • Increase regulation of rating agencies (eg, Moody’s, Standard and Poor)
  • Eliminate speculators from commodity trading
  • Regulate or eliminate computerized, high-frequency trading
  • Investigate and prosecute those who helped cause financial collapse
  • Break up financial institutions that are too big to fail

TAXES & the ECONOMY

  • Remove all Bush tax cuts
  • Implement simpler tax code (including taxing hedge fund managers’ fees as regular income)
  • End tax breaks for moving jobs overseas

HEALTHCARE

  • Medicare for all

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT

  • Shift from fossil fuel (eg, coal, oil, methane) to renewable energy (eg, wind, water, solar, geothermal) within 18 yrs (“clean and green in 18”) by instituting a carbon tax and switching subsidies from oil companies and ethanol to renewable, non-carbon energy
  • Strengthen the EPA

MILITARY

  • No more foreign wars and entanglements
  • Cut military and spying spending by half

FREEDOM & theAMERICAN WAY

  • Stop domestic spying
  • Habeas corpus for all citizens
  • No more rendition and torture
  • End the drug war and repeal laws against other victimless crimes

What Would Make YOU Take to the Streets?

My friend’s daughter has been in OWS for over a week (though we’ll see what happens with the weekend’s snow and rain). Is this “class war?” Those who bandy this term about most are those who think everything’s just dandy now, thank you very much. They are those who think that Wall Street’s switch to a casino economy in which a select few make fortunes by betting which way other banksters’ bets will go is the glory of free America. They are those who argue with religious zeal against any attempt to regulate what banks can do with your (not “their”) money. They are those who think the unfortunate among us uniformly deserve their fate. They are those who have engaged in class warfare for 25 years—and won. What would make you take to the streets?

10 Years in the ‘Stan—the 10th Anniversary of the Afghan War

Oct. 7, 2001, 10 years ago today, the war in Afganistan commenced (see New York Times editorial). We’re still there, trying to win their hearts and minds. How’s that going, anyway?

Well, I think the results of a Taliban attack back in August sum it up pretty well. Do you remember this one? Couple of guys sneaked into the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and opened up with assault rifles and mowed down a few unfortunates. Afghan police were on the scene and RAN AWAY. Didn’t shoot back. Didn’t pass Go, didn’t collect $200. Just boogied. They’re probably still running right now. Great.

 How come we always get stuck with these guys? I know kids today don’t play pickup ball like we used to, but a few of you remember it, right? Somebody always had to take the clumsy skinny kid, who couldn’t catch, couldn’t run and cried when the ball hit him. So why is it always us? Remember the Vietnam war? The other side would live in tunnels for months on a handful of dirty rice and still fight like pit bulls with hemorrhoids. We showered our Vietnamese “allies” with equipment and they would cower in villages and lie about having gone out on patrol. Couldn’t get them to fight for their country for anything. Same thing inAfghanistan. We suffer suicide attacks all the time. Did “our” side ever have ONE guy who hiked over the mountains on a pocket full of stale bread to blow himself up in front of a Taliban headquarters? Hardly. Are there even any who will go out and fight? Oh, wait, they need more “training.” Yeah, right. 10 years of training and they don’t even shoot back! What kind of training fixes chicken shit?

 The Taliban guys don’t have any training. At least nothing like we give “our” side. What they have is desire. Motivation. But they came to the camps with that. People without desire and motivation will never defeat those who have it, however they are “trained.” Nobody can be trained to be willing to die for their cause. And virtually none of our Afghan partners are willing to, yet most of our opponents are. We are on the side of losers, and that is what they will do, whether we pull the training wheels off now or 10 years from now. Ten years is plenty. It’s time to go.

Where Do You Get These People?

I know it’s all too fashionable to complain about the quality of the people who run for elected office, but really, where do you Republicans get these clowns? This is it? These are your Pro Bowl players? Your All-Stars? Your Statesmen? These lamesters wouldn’t be first string politicians in a banana republic. You could go to any suburban country club in America, throw a golf ball into the locker room and it would bounce off of at least three people with better character, intellect and sense of social responsibility than anyone in the current Republican contingent that’s been trying to out-mean each other in the recent debates.

What are the Republicans’ big issues? People who want to come here and work really hard at menial jobs that Republicans don’t want at the (low) wages they want to pay—don’t want ’em. People who love each other and want to solemnize a permanent bond with each other—hate ’em, if they’re the same sex. If those same people want to put their life on the line serving in the military—hate ’em even more.

This doesn’t make sense even from the Republican standpoint! These are supposedly your core values: hard work, marriage and fighting dumb-ass Republican wars. But you drop these values like Newt abandons his wives because you’d rather indulge your prejudices against people’s color and sexual orientation.

Santorum is a prime obsesser about sexual conduct. Here’s a transcript  (link includes video clip) from the debate earlier this week. Santorum is responding to a videotaped question from Stephen Hill, a soldier in Iraq on active duty.

HILL: In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was, because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job.

My question is, under one of your presidencies [sic], do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?

 (Booing from audience.)

SANTORUM: Yeah, I — I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to — to — and removing “don’t ask/don’t tell” I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.

We need to give the military, which is all-volunteer, the ability to do so in a way that is most efficient at protecting our men and women in uniform. And I believe this undermines that ability.

KELLY: So what — what — what would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill? I mean, he’s — now he’s out. He’s — you know, you saw his face on camera. When he first submitted this video to us, it was without his face on camera. Now he’s out. So what would you do as president?

SANTORUM: I think it’s  it’s — it’s — look, what we’re doing is playing social experimentation with — with our military right now. And that’s tragic.

I would — I would just say that, going forward, we would — we would reinstitute that policy, if Rick Santorum was president, period.

That policy would be reinstituted. And as far as people who are in — in — I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in — in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was, sex is not an issue. It is — it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it — keep it to yourself, whether you’re a heterosexual or a homosexual.

So forget for a minute that the audience booed a soldier on active duty in Iraq. No, wait a minute, DON”T FORGET THAT. These knuckle-dragging blowhards in the audience who never met a military misadventure they didn’t like are booing a man who’s putting his life on the line to execute one of their policies? Oh, right, he’s gay. Never mind.

So forgetting the booing, wouldn’t you expect someone who’s ostensibly one of the best and brightest of the millions of conservatives in this country to at least be able to make a coherent, fact-based argument? Or is being the brightest conservative like being the tallest midget? How does Santorum build his logical case? Forgive me, it’s hard to see a real logical thread but he opens with a combined falsehood and irrelevancy: “sexual activity has no place in the military.” So hetero soldiers aren’t going to be allowed to have sex during their term of service? That’ll go over well. Oh, Rick, you mean you’re worried gays will force their attentions on heterosexual soldiers in their unit? Well, sexual harassment (quite commonly perpetrated on women soldiers by men) is already grounds for court martial and it wont be any different for gay soldiers. And do you really think gays will force themselves on straights? Do you flirt with gay men? Santorum then goes straight to another falsehood, that repealing DADT gives gays a “special privilege.” Yeah, the special privilege to not be dishonorably discharged. He ends with another irrelevancy—repealing DADT “injects social policy into the military.” Well, duh. That’s the whole point. We inject social policy all the time, like when we integrated African-Americans and women into the military. Santorum winds up by “concluding,” in full Cheney scare-mode, that these pseudo-points prove that gays somehow undermine the ability of the military to defend our country. No evidence presented for that, and Rick, if you think the evidence for climate change is weak, what have you got here?

Rick, let me help you by spelling out coherently what your real argument is: Male gay sex creeps you (and your fellow-travelers in the military) out and you don’t want to be around gay men. Period. That’s it. This is a coherent argument. Narrow-minded bigotry, but coherent. I know you’re not used to speaking or facing the truth but we’d really like to have a leader who tries. It is not you.

Things Your Money Can’t Buy

First, a question (showing off new poll feature in blog):

We all talk of the outsized effect the dreaded lobbyists have in Washington. And they do. How else to explain why our “representatives” oppose legislation for things like keeping companies from polluting the water and air, making insurance companies provide easy-to-understand policies instead of pages of legal gibberish, and making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as every other investment adviser (instead of being able to treat their sales commissions as long-term capital gains). All of these top-of-mind random examples are things that many of our “representatives” (and all of our Republican reps) oppose but would be of benefit to absolutely every citizen, rich or poor, liberal or conservative, white or non-white—except for the citizens who own or run the specific companies involved.

 So how is it the lobbyists get our Congresspeople to listen to them? Why would they ever vote for things that benefit only a tiny minority of people in the country (and perhaps even no one in their district)? Simple. People serve those who pay them. Well, don’t we pay the salary of politicians? Yes we do. The annual salary of a US Congressman (House or Senate) is $174,000. However, a campaign for a House seat costs about $4 to $6 Million (and Senatorial campaigns are typically in the 10s of millions), all of which must be raised from private (and corporate) donors. See this Washington Post interactive on campaign spending by parties and interest groups in the 2010 election.

So we-the-people pay a House Rep. $348,000 during their 2 year term, and they-the-donors pay them $4 to $6 million over the same period. Any wonder who they listen to?

 So if we want our representatives to listen to us, rather than private donors, then WE SHOULD BE THE ONLY ONES PAYING THEM. Thus, the only funding for political campaigning should come from public funds.

 But isn’t that restricting our “freedom of speech?” People justify not restricting spending on political ads based the philosophical premise that we should be allowed to spend our money on whatever we want. Well, there are a number of things that you aren’t allowed to buy with your money whenever and however you want—drugs, explosives, machine guns and prostitutes come readily to mind. If we are happy to forbid purchase of sexual services, why can’t we forbid purchasing political services? Clearly, politicians should be added to the list of “controlled substances.”

 Of course we can’t buy politicians, can we? Well, you can’t order one on Amazon (yet), but the whole funding mechanism of our political process amounts to the same thing. If you want politicians to represent big companies, big unions, big wealth, etc., then you let the companies and the unions (and their supporters) and wealthy people fund them. If you want politicians beholden to the people, let the people fund them. Oh my goodness, he’s talking about public financing of political campaigns! Darn right. Anything a candidate does to run for office, including holding or traveling to any event, along with all paid broadcasts and publications (not including op-ed pieces, blogs, etc) that mention a candidate for office, should be funded solely out of the equally-distributed pool of money allocated to that candidate. Third parties of any kind as well as the candidates themselves (i.e. from their personal wealth) could not provide funds for campaigning. Yes, it’s your money, and no, you can’t buy political ads with it, just like you can’t buy heroin. Furthermore, within a certain reasonable period before an election, any paid mention of issues that are identifiably part of some candidate’s platform in that election must be funded from that candidate’s pool. The best way to look at it is that “paid” speech is not “free” speech; if you have to pay money (eg, to a broadcaster, newspaper, event site) to get your speech out, it’s covered by this restriction.

Anyone receiving a given (reasonably high) number of petition signatures would be eligible for modest funding distributed equally from a common pool. “Modest” means just that—not nationwide daily media blitz-level funding.  Where would the funds come from? The bulk of money would be supplied by the political parties, with the contribution proportional to the number of members—and the parties could be funded solely by individuals, not corporations. Primary races would be funded solely by the political parties and general elections would be funded by a combination of party money and public funds. Candidates who don’t belong to a party but who receive the requisite number of signatures would qualify for funds from the pool as well.

 Restricting “free speech?” We do it regularly; misleading and false advertising is not permitted, and drug ads are heavily restricted by the FDA. Besides, will you really miss all those fundraising calls?