Archive for politics
Did Warren Buffett really say THAT?
Posted by: | CommentsWell, it turns out he did.
What did he say? Hang on. I’ll get there in a sec.
First, I’ve been silent here for a while (holy crap, I haven’t posted since Jan. 31!) – my only excuse is that I’ve started blogging for clients, and ran out of words. Not really, but that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Back to our programming already in progress: Did Warren Buffett really say THAT?
WHAT DID HE SAY?
Well, he said this (on CNBC in July last year), kids:
“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
No Labels. Not left. Not right. FORWARD.
Boo-yah! This is essentially what my buddies at No Labels have been saying since they released their 12-point plan to make Congress work back in December. #1-with-a-bullet of those 12 points is No Budget, No Pay. Which, by the way, had a subcommittee hearing earlier this month. Progress. It’s a game of inches, but we’re racking up those inches.
Speaking of fighting for inches, the healthcare reform act – or Obamacare, whatever your radio tells you that you should call the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – is in oral-arguments phase in front of the Supremes this week. I’m on record as thinking that this iteration of healthcare reform isn’t anything but an attempt at healthcare *payment* reform, but that’s not why I brought this up.
If you care about controlling healthcare costs – your own or anyone else’s – you must read e-Patient Dave deBronkart’s latest epic opus on what happens when a healthcare consumer tries to find out what something costs. The insurers don’t know, the hospitals sure as **** don’t know, so what’s a patient to do? Keep asking. Keep demanding answers. Keep it up until we all get healthcare to post its rates clearly, and in public.
I promise not to go quiet again. You can guarantee that by leaving a comment, or sharing this post.
Ready, set … GO!
FDA paranoia – who knew?
Posted by: | CommentsIn its rigorous search for food & drug safety, the FDA added searching through the personal emails of agency employees who questioned FDA decisions.
That would be an oops – for both sides of that story.
(c) PBS | Frontline
Here’s the lowdown: on Sunday (Jan. 29, 2012) the Washington Post reported that the FDA was being sued by staffers – scientists and doctors charged with testing medical devices – for harassment and wrongful dismissal as a result of the agency’s surveillance of their personal email accounts. That email surveillance revealed that the FDA staffers were contacting Congressional staff with whistle-blower complaints about FDA approval of devices that the scientists and docs thought were a risk to patients.
Hue and cry! Bad FDA!
Actually, I agree that the snoopy surveilling of personal email accounts is creepy, even wrong.
However, here’s the rub: the FDA staffers were accessing their personal email using computers at work. At the FDA. Within the Federal government IT infrastructure. You know, the people that oversee other stuff like Echelon. And the Pentagon. Gee, FDA guys plotting whistle-blower campaigns on work computers – stupid much?
On the FDA side of the story, we have creepy fascist tactics deployed by an agency that should be all about making sure that no pharmaceutical, no medical device, no food product makes anyone sick. Or worse, dead.
The record there? Not so stellar. Can you say Vioxx?
On the outraged-former-employee side of the story, we have some folks who thought they were veryvery smart (scientists and MDs always think that, trust me), but who played veryvery stupid on the interwebz.
Accessing personal email on a computer that belongs to your employer is pretty dumb if you’re doing or saying anything that casts a shadow on the hand that feeds you. Yes, that means you become the bad dog, and that’s not a great role to play. Because “no-no-bad-dog!” translates to “your ass is fired” in this scenario.
Even if you’re on your own computer, and you’re using your employer’s network or VPN, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
It boils down to this: just like anything else on the web, don’t put anything on it/through it unless you’re willing to either have it on page 1, above the fold, of the WaPo or the New York Times. Or your boss’s desktop.
The saddest part of this story is that the FDA really does need a total tear-down. It’s become too obstructionist to what could really improve public health, and too easy-peasy for big-money players who want to make the system work for Citizen Corporate, not Mr./Ms. Every-patient.
This lawsuit could become quite the precedent-setter, if it gets past the lower courts with its plaintiffs intact.
Stay tuned for further developments. I sure will.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
It’s the education, stupid …
Posted by: | CommentsThe headline on this post is inspired by both the 1992 Clinton campaign meme, and by my personal belief – shared by many – that education in the U.S. is in trouble, and will sink us if we don’t act decisively and quickly to change a broken system.
(c) OnlineEducation.net
The infographic tells the story. You can click it to open up the source in a new tab, and get the full weight of the problem broken down pretty darn well.
Some high(low?)lights:
- only 30% of U.S. students in K-12 are grade-proficient in math and reading
- 70% (that’s SEVENTY PERCENT, my friends) of 8th graders can’t read at grade level
- Every 26 seconds, an American kid drops out of school (can you say “brain drain”?)
- There are only 50 million skilled workers in the U.S. – there are 123 million skilled job openings (still wonder why jobs get outsourced?)
- In Finland, South Korea, and Singapore, teachers are drawn from the top 1/3 of college graduates. In the U.S. they’re typically from the bottom 1/3 of college graduates. Looks like the old cliché “those that can’t, teach” might be true?
- Newly-minted lawyers in the U.S. make, on average, $115,000 per year more than a newly-minted teacher here. Newly-minted engineers and lawyers earn less than teachers in South Korea and Singapore. Is that math you can understand?
- The U.S. comes in at 30th in math, 23rd in science, and 17th in reading when stacked up against global competition.
Is the picture starting to become clear to you? We’re in trouble, not just right now, but our future’s looking pretty dim, too.
If we can’t educate our children at a level that makes them – and our society – competitive globally, we’re looking like Rome after the lead poisoning set in: bleedin’ dim, and getting dimmer.
Dim and dimmer, that’s us!
The fix should be to put more muscle – in time, in talent, in treasure – behind education. But you and I both know that our fiscal cupboard is bare, and there’s little will in Congress – or money floating around on K Street – for teachers when defense spending is so much more … fun. I mean, education money doesn’t buy sexy new fighter jets, or aircraft carriers to keep those Somali pirates in line. Boo yah!
Uh, guess what? We’ll run out of money to build fighter jets and aircraft carriers if we don’t educate our kids to figure out better ways to build them.
That’s just one industry: defense.
What about healthcare, the hottest topic of the last decade? Rising costs there are bankrupting families, and could bankrupt the country, if we don’t have the smarts to solve the problem
Our middle-tier rankings in science and math education spell doom there, too.
If government isn’t going to take up the challenge, due to budget constraints and broke-ass-ness, who will? Is it time to evaluate a non-public option, and invite American enterprise to invest in charter schools across the U.S. to help us get back to the top of the Best & Brightest List?
Weigh in now. It’s almost too late, kids.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Does voting still matter in the wake of Citizens United?
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s [still] the silly season – which seems like it’s been going on forever, even though it’s only been a little over a YEAR now – and the field of Republicans jockeying for the chance to run against Barack Obama in November is shrinking by the day.
Off the list are Tim Pawlenty, Gary Johnson, and Herman Cain, who all bailed before there was an actual voting opportunity. Michele Bachmann dropped out after coming in dead last in her home state’s caucuses, and Jon Huntsman drop-kicked himself today (Jan. 16, 2012) after a down-in-the-pack finish in Iowa and New Hampshire. Still in the hunt are Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry.
My question, driven by what seems to be a very short selection process:
Does voting still matter?
I worry that the answer has drifted no-ward, particularly since the Bloviating Herd (so effectively tagged by Calvin Trillin as the Sabbath Gasbags) shove endless streams of drivel at us 24/7 about projected winners in the days, weeks, and months leading up to a primary or election. The fact that they then, day-of, become so very Caesar’s Wife about not calling anything until all the polls close is … laughable.
The actual citizens I hear talking about voting and candidates often say they vote their wallet. That’s a human reaction. My human reaction is to vote my humanity, not my pocketbook.
I’m sure that puts me in the Crazy as a Shithouse Rat column for many people, but here’s my reasoning: I’d rather vote with an eye on human history – past, present, future, all of the above – instead of for someone who solely promises to put more money in my hands. Or at least take less out of them.
Because the sad truth is they’ll all cost us money in the end, particularly at the national-office level. Whatever they say to achieve office, and whatever they say once they’re in office, I’m not so naive as to think that they’re actually serving citizens. They’re more interested in the Citizens United gold-rush cash that drives the political action committees (PACs) who buy more ad time than the campaigns themselves.
Which brings us back to my vote-human rule. My philosophy certainly puts me in the Don Quixote – or the shithouse-rat-crazy – column, since there’s no way I can outspend GE, or the Koch Bros., or Walmart. I can only participate in groups like No Labels (sanity! who knew?), and march to the polls every time to register my human choice.
And then watch as Citizen Corporate runs off with whoever wins, leaving me jilted. As usual.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Throw bricks in the comments. Ready … set … GO.
Make Congress work? I’m in!
Posted by: | Comments
After spending [redacted] years in network news, covering every Presidential race from 1980 to 2004, my level of exhaustion and cynicism when it comes to politics is … epic. I vote in every election, because dammit-that’s-my-right-as-a-citizen, but often it’s a case of holding my nose and doing the best I can with the (rotten) choices I’m offered.
When I was invited to Capitol Hill last Tuesday, Dec. 13, to be in the room when a new Make Congress Work initiative was announced, I accepted with some of that exhaustion and cynicism. But like the old news warhorse I am, I saddled up and rode up I-95 to see what I could see.
What I saw made me feel like someone who’s been wandering in the wilderness for … ever, who stumbles upon a tidy little town that welcomes the weary wanderer with open arms. And gives her a job: help spread the news about the tidy little town. Help it grow into a big ol’ city.
So think of this as metaphorical political tourism. You can come along on the trip and enjoy the scenery with me.
Oh, come on, work with me, people. I’m a writer, and sometimes a comedian. I’ll bring this all home, I promise.
Here’s what happened: over 400 people showed up in the Caucus Room at the Cannon House Office Building to talk with, and listen to, a literal parade of bipartisan leaders from all points of the political compass.
The point? To break the chains of gridlock that have the folks we elected to represent us in a constant state of get-nothing-done.
That point was tidily contained in a 12-point plan to literally make Congress work. For its pay, for its privileges, and most importantly for the CITIZENS THAT ELECTED THEM TO OFFICE.
OK, I’ll stop shouting. I just get excited at the idea of those do-nothings actually doing something.
Here are the 12 points:
- No budget, no pay. [This is a personal favorite. If I don't produce for my clients, I don't get paid. Why should Congress?]
- Up-or-down vote on Presidential appointments. [Must vote within 90 days. No vote? Confirmed by default!]
- Fix the filibuster. [Sentimental memories of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are Hollywood fiction. What really happens is a process hijacking. It has to end in order for the business of our country to move forward.]
- Empower the sensible majority. [Simply stated: don't let the wing-nuts run away with the game.]
- Make members come to work. [Love this one. They quote Woody Allen: 90% of life is just showing up. So ... SHOW UP.]
- Question time for the President. [Britain's Parliament has Q&A sessions, in public, with the Prime Minister. As should the President and Congress. Just sayin' ... ]
- Fiscal report to Congress: Hear it. Read it. Sign it. [The Comptroller General should give a where-we're-at report annually. With real numbers. What a concept.]
- No pledge but the oath of office. [LOVE THIS. Grover Norquist and his ilk can go sit down and shut up.]
- Monthly bi-partisan gatherings. [It's harder to demonize or vilify someone you actually know. 'Nuf said.]
- Bi-partisan seating. [Sitting next to a member of the opposition makes you a little less likely to call him/her a dirtbag. Really.]
- Bi-partisan Leadership Committee. [No more R or D pep rallies. Leadership means making progress, even when the going gets tough.]
- No negative campaigns against incumbents. [What this means is that Senator Whoever with an R after his/her name can't campaign against Senator Whichever with a D after his/her name. Stop the attack-ad insanity.]
Want to come hang out in the tidy little town? Join the No Labels movement. Share the message on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, skywriting, cave painting, whatever.
Let’s make this tidy town a bustling city. And get Congress to work for US for a change.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Paranoia: American as apple pie. And gunpowder.
Posted by: Mighty Casey | Comments (0)Yesterday (Monday, April 2, 2012) the US Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision on the legality of strip searches in jails and prisons.
Which leads me to reflect on the fact that it appears that the more open and social global society becomes, the more paranoid some sectors of society in turn become.
Look at the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin incident in Sanford, Florida. Would Martin have been in danger of being pursued and shot by a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer if it were not for some serious societal paranoia that drove Zimmerman to feel that he needed to wander the streets strapped with a 9 mil?
Full disclosure: I’m a gun owner. Additional full disclosure: if someone breaks into my house when I’m there, they run a risk of getting a face-full of lead. However, I don’t walk in paranoia when walking the streets of the city where I live. And I didn’t on the streets of New York City for the 27 years I walked there, even though I often found myself in dangerous places because of my work in TV news.
The Kinks song “Destroyer” says it all:
As a culture, I think we need to take a long hard look at how we view our fellow citizens, and how we react to their presence in our vicinity. How do you tell if someone “belongs” in your community? Is it based on clothing, demeanor, skin color, language, the car they drive, what?
If your negative-perception radar is pinged simply because someone looks different than you, or different from what your definition of “normal” is, what does that mean about you? Does it mean you’ll shoot a dwarf who walks down your street because s/he is different?
Think about it. Your behavior could lead to a strip search … of you.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …