Sunday School 3/20/11: Reactions to Operation Odyssey Dawn

On Fox News Sunday, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen notes that the no-fly zone over Libya was  implemented successfully. “We’ve had a very significant impact very early in establishing this no-fly zone,” Mullen said; he wouldn’t say whether Gadhafi would be removed from power, but he did refer to the ‘limited’ mission.   

On This Week with Christiane Amanpour (ABC), Gadhafi’s son referred to President Obama as “a friend of the Arab world” and accused us of supporting terrorists, in a reference to the rebels. He also cautioned that “one day we’ll wake up” and realize we supported the wrong people. 

Mullen again (he was all over the airwaves today) noted that the missiles took out Gadhafi’s radar and that there was no sign of large-scale massacres of Libyan citizens. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John Kerry (D-MA) echoed that this is a limited action, not a ‘war’ and that Obama is firm on that. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) didn’t seem convinced, falling more on the too little, too late side of the fence.

Similarly, on Face the Nation (CBS), Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN) noted that “we really have not discovered who it is in Libya that we are trying to support.”   

Meanwhile, here are some of the headlines from around the country and the world – I’ll leave it to you to determine which are US papers and which are not. All are courtesy of The Newseum:

• Allies Unleash Attack on Libya; Gadhafi’s forces decry ‘crusader aggression,’ say 48 people die in first day of bombings.
• Libyan defenses attacked; Gadhafi issues pleas, threats to West
• West Hits Libya in Support of Rebels; Jets, missiles hit Gadhafi forces; civilian deaths not verified
• Allied jets in Action as Gaddafi hits Benghazi; Military intervention begins; Thousands flee besieged city
• World Battles a Tyrant; Canadian, French fighter jets in the skies over Libya
• Gadhafi defiant despite attack; US, British and French hit multiple military targets
• Qaddafi forces in Allies’ crosshairs; West after our oil, says Libyan envoy at OIC
• Broad Western coalition launches air strikes against Gadhafi’s forces in Libya

Here's hoping that this will be limited, with no soldiers on the ground, and that the people we are supporting are in fact worthy of our support.

Shots Fired: Alexandra Wallace and Jimmy Wong

There’s been a lot of talk about civility in our political discourse, certainly since Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot back in January at a public rally. Folks famous and not have commented on how mean we are to each other, or how mean our political symbols are, and how there’s all this bullying going on. I’ve posted on it myself – and it’s not just political speech, it’s pretty much any article or event or thought or new item that can ‘inspire’ vitriol, spite, hate, and just general lack of respect, and to me that’s a shame. I think we can do better than that.

Some folks react by getting rid of the symbols, as politicians removed ‘targets’ from their websites (Sarah Palin’s PAC, most famously); some react by getting rid of the people who express opinions that don’t stay within expectations (Juan Williams, also famously), and others react by simply removing the comments as if they were never made.

This happened to me not long ago. A friend removed some links to articles on insanely stupid shootings as Walmart stores that I had posted in response to a pro-gun post of hers. I was within my rights to put them up, and she was clearly within her rights to remove them (and I'm glad she did). What we didn’t do, to our credit, was digress into a shouting match, calling each other names, arguing red-faced in front of friends and family and carrying on like a couple of politicians... er, uh cable news pundits, er, uh, um, idiots. 

The latest famous casualty of the firing process is Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of the Aflac duck. Aflac, which I read does something like 75% of their business in Japan, was not even remotely tolerant of a tweet or two that Gottfried made after the twin disasters hit a week ago. Clearly it’s too soon to be making tsunami jokes, and clearly when you’re the spokesvoice of a company, you should know who you quack for and have some understanding of what that company would consider reasonable behavior. Or, maybe he just was tired of the role and wanted out – who knows.

But there is another option, other than shouting or firing or pretending the issue doesn't exist, and this video exchange is a priceless illustration of that.

In the first video, a blond American girl, UCLA student Alexandra Wallace  posts her thoughts about the "hordes of Asian people" that attend UCLA, their families and weekend habits. She then kicks it up notch and complains about them talking on their cell phones in the UCLA library – as she’s “on the verge of an epiphany” in her Political Science studies – presumably to family members in Japan about the "tsunami-thing." She also describes herself (accurately) as not being very politically correct but also as being well-raised.  She displays a sing-song, generic Asian dialect (ching-chong, ting-tong, ling-long and so on) to imitate the students on their phones.

Now don’t get me wrong, folks shouldn’t be talking on their cell phones in a library –she’s right on that point. The rest of it – well, maybe not so much.

In the second video, a young Chinese musician named Jimmy Wong responds via song to Alexandra, in what can only be described as hysterically creative and scathing. He mocks her Asian stereotypes, he mocks her studying (his line about her epiphanies is a beauty) and then translates her fake Asian words into a love song, complete with harmonies and instrumentation. Through his use of her own words, he turns the whole thing  around on her.

It's a perfect response, and one I wish we all had the creativity to dream up.

Sunday School 3/13/11: Nuclear Reactors and Budget Reactions

Most of the shows had segments on the evolving situation in Japan, with a focus on the nuclear reactors losing power and possibly facing meltdowns, the expanding evacuation zone (now officially twelve or 13 miles but maybe as many as 50 miles according to some reporters there), and what it means for any expansion of nuclear facilities here.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.  Asked about whether his cautious support for nuclear power changed, Schumer noted "Well, we're going to have to see what happens here...the bottom line is we do have to free ourselves of independence from foreign oil...Prices are up; our economy is being hurt by it or could be hurt by it (the situation in Libya). So I'm still willing to look at nuclear. As I've always said, it has to be done safely and carefully."

On the budget, Schumer offered that "We should make significant cuts, absolutely, we need to, but we can't cut into our seed corn. We can't cut into the things that help America grow and great jobs like education or cancer research or food safety, things like that." And, in reference to the White House, he noted that "...I talk to the White House every day...we're not always on the same page, but we usually are. And the overall goal, again, cutting waste, using a smart short scalpel but not a meat axe."

Seed corn?  Meat axe?  I'll be looking for these two to make their way into our growing political lexicon.

Others talking about the Japanese nukes were the folks at ABC, on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Ploughshares Fund expert Joe Cirincione pointed out that "Nuclear reactors are built to withstand crises, and even multiple crises. But it's very hard to build a nuclear facility than can withstand this", pointing to the massive earthquake, the aftershocks, and the tsunami. 

Reporter Jake Tapper noted that "...if this crisis had happened here in the US, the government would be turning to Japan for help. These are the top people in the field" but he also mentioned that in cases like this, sometimes what the government says isn't all that there is to say.  

ABC's Martha Raddatz noted a conversation she had with a “senior administration official (who) said that's one of our major concerns, how this will affect nuclear power in the future. I think there were already demonstrations in Germany. I think you'll see here in the US, we will surely take a look at our nuclear facilities and have Japan as a - as a bad model there in what can happen that you haven't planned for." 

Geographically, I think our situation is different, or at least I hope so – we wouldn’t like consider building reactors on a fault line, or in low-lying coastal areas. I hope.  

The sanity of the morning was surprisingly on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.  Among his guests were Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Mark Warner (D-VA), who discussed their plans to help solve our budget problems.  Here's a sampling:

• Chambliss: "It's imperative that we put everything on the table for discussion. I don't know where we are going to wind up. We're not there yet. But if you look at the debt commission report, you have to address spending... You've got to address entitlements...And you've got to look at revenue and reform our complicated tax code in a major way. And when you do that, everybody does have that skin in the game and everybody gets their score just a little bit."  
• Warner: “You've got to put everything out. That means Saxby and I are probably going to take some arrows -- ...because we're taking, willing to take on reforming some of these entitlement issues. But every day that we punt, every day that we don't act, we add $4 billion to our national debt. At some point, we're going to have to pay that back.”
• Chambliss: "Well, Chris, first of all, what we've got to do is when we see an increase in revenues coming in to Washington, we've got to make sure that Congress doesn't have the ability to spend that, because history dictates to us if we have revenues coming in that are uncontrolled, that's what's going to happen.”  
• Warner: "We've been saying, listen, we've got to do this. We shouldn't allow this work of the debt commission, the so-called Simpson-Bowles commission to go for naught. We're willing to kind of link arms and we have other colleagues who are working with us. I think you are seeing a whole lot of other members in both parties say we need this long-term solution. “

I share these thoughts, also Warner's, in response to Wallace's question about when they might get some action on their proposals. "If we get into next year, you get into a presidential year and this whole issue would probably be punted until 2013."  

Sadly, that's fair and balanced. We cannot afford to wait.

Sunday School 3/6/11: A mixed bag

On Fox News Sunday, the daughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church (who is also the lawyer who successfully argued their First Amendment case), told Chris Wallace that we could call her church a cult or anything else we wanted to, as long as we talked about them.  In a fun exchange, she advised that she has ‘no objective indicator otherwise’ that the Supreme Court Justices - all nine of them – are going to hell.  When Wallace asked if the president was going to hell, her response was “Absolutely on the president. That’s a big 10-4…he is most likely the Beast spoken of in the revelation.”  

On CNN’s State of the Union, former Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM) related the story of how his campaign manager outlined the steps taken before Richardson made his run for President in 2008. “Three out of the six were can we raise the money to do it” he said. The others? Paraphrasing, can you stand the personal and professional intrusion and scrutiny, what’s the theme of your candidacy, and finally, where do you fit in with the other candidates, what’s your niche, and is your family behind you. 

Regarding the specific candidates in the Republican circles, a recent poll showed The Donald (Trump) had a 26% favorable rating, compared to Mitt Romney’s 25%. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), another once-candidate, thought that poll said more about the media than it did about Trump, who in Alexander’s opinion is “famous for being famous.” He agreed with Richardson’s assessment – there may be 14 Reps thinking about it, but when all’s said and done there’ll be two or three, the ones who are ‘willing to start and finish.’

Local boy David Muir, the weekend anchor on ABC News, joined Christiane Amanpour and Diane Sawyer on This Week to talk about goods made in America.  In a pretty interesting segment, they replayed a story from earlier in the week where a family agreed to have everything in their house that was not made in America removed, then replaced with homegrown goods. And they pretty much managed to do it.

Remarkably, according to the report, if everyone would spend just 1% more on American-made products (about 18 cents a day), it would create 200,000 jobs.  In the roundtable related to this segment, they focused on how America is a place of ideas, but then our ideas end up getting built in some other country. But they missed the one thing that always gets missed in this kind of discussion:  we have lost American jobs because we wanted the huge profits we got on Wall Street when all of our jobs were outsourced.  Folks didn’t realize, or didn’t care, that the nice profits and dividends we earned in our pensions, our 401(k)s, and our investment accounts were in part driven by all the savings companies realized by having our ideas built in foreign countries.    If you ask me, greed got us into this mess.  It’ll be interesting to see what gets us out.

Sunday School 2/27/11: Wisconsin Newspaper Front Pages

Here's how the press is covering the scene in Madison, where Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker continues to refuse to negotiate with unions on collective bargaining rights, where Senate Democrats continue to hang out in Illinois and where thousands of protesters, including famous folks like native son Bradley Whitford (notable for The West Wing) and Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary, continue to fight the governor.  All of these front pages are courtesy of the Newseum, a website I encourage you to visit.

The Wisconsin State Journal, in Madison: Anatomy of a Protest: 'It began with a simple march and evolved into a national fight for labor rights. Today we dissect the movement.'  The paper's going in-depth on the whole issue, and also notes that yesterday's protest was the largest yet.

The Wausau Daily Herald:  Protest Numbers Swell. Wausau firefighters, cops join massive gathering in Madison. This paper's 'tag line' for the whole issue is 'Wisconsin in Turmoil'.

Green Bay Press-Gazette: Calling for Change. "These people are not going to go away" is one article, underneath a giant photo of the crowd in Madison. Two other front-page articles are also interesting.  One notes that a recall effort kicked off to remove one of the 14 Dems waiting things out in Illinois - and that opponents and proponents of the recall were present and accounted for.  The other article focuses on Wisconsin being turned into a 'GOP state', with the Reps in control of both houses and the Governor's office.

The Journal-Times, from Racine: Return of Strife? Experts fear teacher strikes if collective bargaining changes. This article and a smaller one reference a teachers' union strike back in the late 70's. On the paper's website, there's one of those instant polls asking "What's your opinion of the Senate Democrats' decision to flee the state?" Over 53% approve, while less than 45% disapprove.

The Herald Times Reporter, serving Manitowoc County: 'Best Opportunity is Now', according to one state Assemblyman (the only Independent), who thinks the Dems should come home and face Gov. Walker and tell him "you're going to win, but here are some things you should consider as you win."  He also indicated he had no idea the Reps were "going to go totally nuclear on a moment's notice" which is how he decided the call for a vote in the wee hours of the morning.

The Oshkosh Northwestern: Protesters will have to Exit Capitol Today, noting that the plan is to close the building late this afternoon and return to normal hours tomorrow.  Another article touches on the difficulties the local schools are facing between the anticipated reduction in state aid and their own issues of overdue building maintenance and needing a new school.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel offers A House Divided, talking about the 'divisive split' across the state on Walker's budget-repair plan. They also focus on how the country has turned its eyes on Wisconsin in an article titled 'Remarkable fight sparks national interest.'

From Fond du Lac, The Reporter references a State of Anxiety, as the Capitol prepares to close. They also have an interview with their freshman Assemblyman, who was hit in the face with a cup of water childishly thrown by a Dem after the vote to approve the bill.

As of now, about an hour after the Capitol was supposed to close, protesters are still present, drums still playing, and it's not clear when people will actually leave.  It's a fascinating story that will be talked about and analyzed long after the battle is over.

Union busting by any other name would smell as bad

I initially found myself a little conflicted on the whole Wisconsin union thing. At first it sort of made sense to me that union members should not be immune to the financial issues the rest of us are dealing with. In fact, tonight at dinner, a friend spoke of being a bit ambivalent, of wanting to see government workers sacrifice as the rest of us have. 

I confess I’m not a union member, and for the most part I think that’s been beneficial to me throughout my career. I’m not in a dangerous profession; I’ve been fortunate to work for companies that provided decent wages and benefits; and I’ve been rewarded as an employee that works hard and does a good job for the company and its customers.

My close encounters with union members have been pretty typical, I think. Some have been very pro-union, supportive of their union leadership, politically in sync, buying union-made (ideal) or American-made (next best thing). Others appreciated the benefits, but were of a completely different political stripe. Some accepted membership but were not actively involved, taking more of a go-with-the-flow approach. And some, like my Mom and Dad, tried to balance what was good for the union with what was good for everyone else, through their work on negotiating and curriculum committees.

Would they have been better off if they hadn’t been union? Would their work conditions, salary and benefits, and future security have been better or worse, without their respective unions?

It’s hard to say for sure, but I suspect none of them would be happy with what’s happening in Wisconsin. You’ve got Governor Scott Walker pretending that he’s simply trying to balance the budget, by asking for wage and benefit concessions – but he refuses to accept that the unions will make those concessions. He wants to make it impossible for unions to negotiate anything other than wages, which he also wants to cap. And of course there's stopping the automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks, and annual recertification.

Then it broke that Walker had been 'pranked' by a blogger who pretended to be a wealthy conservative donor.  Recordings of the call between Walker and a man he thought was David Koch make it really clear that this is not about balancing the budget; it’s clearly about breaking the unions. 

You’ve got a politician talking to out of state donors at the same time he's complaining about out of state protesters. 

You’ve got a guy complaining about unions spending taxpayer dollars lobbying for more spending of taxpayer dollars – which frankly is no different from the Chamber of Commerce or any other business group that takes our hard earned dollars and spends them freely trying to get deals from governors, senators, and other politicians of all stripes. Including the businesses who apparently are on the receiving end of some healthy tax breaks in Wisconsin.

You've got a governor talking about the tactics he and his party are considering using to scam their way into passage of the legislation, at the same time he's complaining about the tactics used on the other side to prevent passage. 

It's a mess, but I no longer feel ambivalent.

The fact that it was a call from an alternative online newspaper, not from a donor, makes it more entertaining, but no less disheartening. Listen to the recording here, or read the transcript here.

Sidebar: Walker and Wisconsin

How did Scott Walker get elected? Wisconsin’s previous governor, Dem Jim Doyle, did not seek re-election; Walker ran against former US Representative Tom Barrett, and won by a margin of 52-47%.

Not surprisingly, the categories where he had a significant margin over Barrett are the ones you would expect a Rep to win: males, (including men with children); people making at least $50K; folks without advanced degrees; non-union households; Tea Party supporters; and suburban and rural voters.  However, he was handily beaten in Milwaukee County, where he made the same kind of changes he’s proposing now at the State level when he was County Executive. 

Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) indicated Walker was doing exactly what he promised he’d do if elected. According to Graham, Walker campaigned on a promise to “challenge collective bargaining because it…impedes progress when it comes to education. It’s too hard to fire anybody, it’s too complicated. And I’m going to change the system.” To Graham’s point, “in a democracy when you run on something, you do have an obligation to fulfill your promise,” and so Walker is not taking people by surprise. 

As part of the same conversation, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) noted that “If you think this is just about money and the budget, then you might believe that Cesar Chavez was just working to get a couple pennies more per pound for grapes or that Martin Luther King was really working for access to hotels and restaurants.”

There will certainly be more to come on this one.

Sunday School 2/20/11: On Wisconsin

While there continue to be protests for and celebrations of freedom around the world,  we’re undergoing our own dramatic protests here at home in Madison, Wisconsin. While it’s not freedom per se that’s on the line, it is about all of the things that make democracy messy. So today’s lesson is on badgering unions in the Badger State. 

Here's the situation in an over-simplified nutshell. Republican Governor Scott Walker is looking for increased contributions to pension and health insurance from the unions, and he’s also looking to remove pretty much everything other than wages from the collective bargaining process. In addition, he’s asking that union dues no longer be deducted from paychecks, and that there be annual elections to ensure that workers really want union representation. The new rules would exempt firefighters and most (but not all) law enforcement officers, but would apply to others, most notably the teachers unions. In the Wisconsin Senate, the Reps have a 19 – 14 majority over the Dems, but need at least one Dem to have a quorum to hold a vote. The Dems are hiding out south of the border in Illinois. Many teachers have left their classrooms to march on Madison; many unionized workers continue to show up to work. Outside protesters from both sides including the Tea Party and Organizing for America have entered the fray. All the bigwigs and usual suspects are chiming in, but today’s predicted bad weather was expected to put a damper on the protests.

Throughout it all, the Governor professes to be sleeping well at night. He also appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Here are some excerpts from that conversation.

WALLACE: …If it's a money issue and balancing the budget and they are willing to concede on the money issues, why isn't that enough? Why do you also have to take back some of their collective bargaining rights? 

WALKER: Well, they aren't because, in the end, they can say that, but that's really a red herring. The same groups back in December, after election, before I was sworn in, tried to ram through literally in a lame duck session employee contracts that would have locked things in before I got there. So, they're not really… I think it is realistic that we make sure that as loud as the voices are in the capital, we don't let them overpower the voices of the taxpayers I was elected to represent and elected to get the job done, which is balancing this budget.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about that. You say this is not about the unions. This is about balancing the budget. But your opposition says this is about union busting. So, let's take a look at what is in your plan because beyond making public workers pay more for benefits, here's what your plan would do. It would allow unions to negotiate only over wages, not benefits or work rules. The state would no longer collect union dues and unions would have to win an election every year to keep representing workers.  Isn't that union-busting? 

WALKER: No, absolutely not. Our belief is that we're going to ask more for health care and more for pension contribution which is, by the way, very realistic. 

WALLACE: But, Governor, I want to talk about the specific things about collective bargaining and saying that unions have to hold elections every year and that's what your critics say is union- busting, not the argument about the money issues. 

WALKER: But the two go hand in hand. If we're going to ask our state and local workers who are doing a great job to pay a little bit more, to sacrifice, to help to balance this budget, we should also give them the flexibility saying that for those members, for those workers, who don't want to be a part of the union, if you don't want that deduction each month out of the paycheck, they should be able to get that $500, $600 or in some cases, $1,000 back that they can apply for their health care and their pension contribution. For us, if you want to have democracy, if you want to have the American way, which is allowing people to have a choice, that's exactly what we're allowing there. People see the value, they see the work, they can continue to vote to certify that union and they can continue to voluntarily have those union dues, and write the check out and give it to the union to make their case, but they shouldn't be forced to be a part of this if that's not what they want to do.

Wallace didn’t ask two questions I wish he had. 

First: Governor Walker, do you believe it is right for a person to get the benefits of union membership including wages, pension and health care, but not be a member of the union that obtained those rights?  

Second: Governor Walker, let’s play this out a few years. Assume that employees don’t vote to keep their unions, what happens to wages, pension and health care benefits, does the state of Wisconsin eliminate the 'union' package and replace it with something more similar to what’s common in the private sector?

I'm not the biggest union fan around, by any means, but it would be interesting to know the answer to those questions.

The simplest gift on Dad's birthday

A friend of mine had an interesting Facebook status the other day. She questioned why our loved ones in heaven don’t give us a real sign, a slap-us-upside-the-head kind of sign, to let us know that everything’s going to be OK. Instead, we’re left with these subtle ‘maybe it’s a sign, maybe it’s really just gas’ kind of things that we struggle to interpret. I thought of that status message again this morning, because today Dad would have been 82.

Dad was never really big on religion - truth be told, he'd probably be wondering why I'm even talking about religion and his birthday in the same conversation. We went as a family, when my brothers and I were kids, to the local Methodist church. I don’t remember when or why we officially stopped going; I do remember attending long enough to get my own bible, but I can’t remember exactly how I did that, I think it was a combination of age and church school, not sure. Although my Mom continues to be very active in the same church, for some reason none of us kids maintained a connection, and neither did Dad. 

To this day, I struggle with prayer – I’m not sure how to go about it, or what words to use, or what to ask for, and in the end I feel so awkward in the process that I don’t do it much. I find a certain peace when I’m in a church, in the music and the architecture and the beauty of old stained glass windows. But I keep people ‘in my thoughts’ versus keeping them ‘in my prayers’ because thinking makes more sense to me, I guess, than faith. Knowing how much Dad loved traditional hymns, Handel’s Messiah, 'Simple Gifts' and the like, I suspect he’d agree. 

But while I struggle with religion, I understand the ‘show me a sign’ concept that my friend Diane was talking about. There are times when we just want to hear from those who’ve left us. We want to know that they’re still out there, watching over us, providing us the same love and guidance as they did when they were here. And that’s how I woke up this morning, thinking about Dad, comforted by those thoughts, and thinking about signs.

Am I doing OK, Dad? Am I on the right path? And am I missing signs that I should be seeing?  I sure hope I’m doing you proud – that’s both the simplest and the best birthday present I can give you. I also hope that if I’m not, you’ll send me one of those unmistakable signs (kind of like you did when I rode my bike into the charcoal grill) and put me back on track.

Happy Birthday!

Sunday School 2/13/11: John Boehner, David Gregory play dodge ball

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) chatted with David Gregory on NBC’s Meet the Press. They talked about Egypt, a concern that radicals don’t end up in charge, and that he, as well as others in Washington, was surprised by what transpired over the past few weeks. On the budget, he believes the House Republicans have met the promise to cut $100 billion in their first year in charge, as promised in the Pledge to America (even though it took some pressure from Tea Partiers and other freshmen to get there). When pushed by Gregory if the cuts are too much for the fragile economy, Boehner answered “David, David, we’re broke…When are we going to get serious about cutting spending?”  He also indicated that there’re more coming, including defense and entitlements, and that there’s “no limit to the amount of money that our members want to cut.”   

And then things got interesting. Gregory pressed Boehner on why he doesn’t stop talk from his party that President Obama wasn’t born in America or that he’s a Muslim, when Boehner himself is comfortable that neither of those two statements is true.  

Gregory: “As the speaker of the House, as a leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?” Boehner: “David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think. There's a lot of information out there, people read a lot of things...”

Gregory: “I mean, you are the leader in Congress and you're not standing up to obvious facts and saying, "These are facts.  If you don't believe that, it's nonsense."” Boehner: “I just outlined the facts as I understand them.  I believe that the president is a citizen.  I believe the president is a Christian. I'll take him at his word.”

Gregory: “But that kind of ignorance about whether he's a Muslim doesn't concern you?” Boehner: “Listen, the American people have the right to think what they want to think.  I can't--it's not my job to tell them.”

Gregory: “You shouldn't stand up to misinformation or stereotypes?” Boehner: “...But I've made clear what I believe the facts are.”

Gregory: “But is it because it weakens the president politically, it seeks to delegitimize him that you sort of want to let it stay out there?”  Boehner: “No.  What I'm trying to do is to do my job.  Our job is to focus on spending.”

So, spending, in the eyes of the Speaker, is only about dollars and not about sense?

Sidebar: Buerkle Shining Brightly

When Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Regulations asked to hear from businesses regarding "existing and proposed regulations that have negatively impacted job growth”, he got quite a few responses.

• Requiring businesses to disclose CEO pay compared to what the typical worker is paid.  
• Rewarding whistleblowers for alerting the SEC about corporate fraud. 
•  Requiring companies to post notices informing workers of their rights under federal labor law. 
•  Limiting hazardous air pollutant emissions from industrial boilers and solid-waste incinerators. 
• Potentially protect drinking water from hydro-fracking.
• Requiring mining companies to disclose information about mine safety and health standards.

I admit I struggled to make the job-loss connection on a few of these, such as the CEO pay issue.  But then I learned that the Business Roundtable objected to this reg, stating not only would it be hard to determine the ratio, but that "It could potentially cause companies to take actions that result in less employment, such as outsourcing, to produce better ratios.”  

Right.
   

Buerkle Shining Brightly?

A recent article in my local newspaper highlighted Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), who co-sponsored a bill that seeks to allow consumers to continue purchasing incandescent light bulbs, which are to be phased out beginning next year. The phase-out comes from the Energy Independence and Security Act, passed in 2007 during the Bush administration. The bill she co-sponsored is called BULB, or Better Use of Light Bulbs. Not sure where the ‘better use’ comes in, but the name is way cooler than EISA. 

The issue with the bulbs, from Buerkle’s perspective, is that choice is being taken away from those who prefer the old bulbs, and that the government shouldn’t tell us what light bulbs to use. In addition, the Reps in the House are adamant about getting rid of regulations that they feel cost us jobs, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (which they refer to as the Jobs-Killing Health Care Law), which was the highest priority in January.

Regarding BULB, Buerkle indicated “I think the biggest issue with this bill is what it does for jobs.” She adds “If we’re talking about creating jobs and getting our economy back on track, that’s a big piece.” 

The House is insisting that every bill include a reference to what portion of the Constitution authorizes the legislation. That, coupled with their ‘jobs is job one’ prioritization lead me to suggest that in addition to including the constitutionality, they should include the number of jobs that will be created as a result of the bills they pass.

Buerkle also “has been reluctant” , according to the article, to define which regulations she feels should be off-limits from review by the new Congress. Asked whether regs tied to health, the environment or safety should be excluded, she responded (and I’m not making this up) “The key here is not what I think – it’s what the business owners think.” Seriously? “I tell them that Darrell Issa (R-CA, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Regulation) has charged us to go out and talk to people about what regulations are impeding their success.” 

So that brings me to my second question: Can you remember a time when a newly elected representative so quickly abandoned any pretense of thinking for herself?

Sunday School 2/6/11: Ronald Reagan's birthday edition

There was a lot of discussion about the situation in Egypt, as expected, but I thought there’d be a little more about Ronald Reagan, since this would have been The Great Communicator’s 100th birthday. Only NBC's Meet the Press held a little Reagan party. 

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan (the real Great Communicator?), Willie Brown (former California politico) and James Baker (Chief of Staff and former Secretary of State) joined David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell from the newly renovated and updated Reagan Library. Among the highlights of their conversation: Baker thought Reagan would be OK with the Tea Party, but also pointed out that Reagan knew how to reach across the aisle, pointing out that he’d “…rather get 80% of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.”  Doesn't sound much like the Tea Partiers to me, how about you?

Brown mentioned that Obama is a true admirer of Reagan, but didn’t get to show it because of his overwhelming majorities in Congress, but Baker disagreed, noting that Obama didn’t send his own bills to Congress, he ‘subcontracted them out’ to the liberals, and Reagan would never have made that mistake. What Reagan did differently, he put up his own bills, and allowed them to be tweaked by members of his own party as well as by the Dems.  Baker also referenced Reagan’s time as head of the Screen Actors Guild as being helpful in developing his negotiating skills. 

Specifically on Reagan the person, not so much Reagan the president, Noonan recalled the day of the assassination attempt and Reagan’s joke before surgery “I just hope all of you are Republicans.” The doctor, a liberal Dem, answered “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”   

I’ll end with another great Reagan quote: "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." 

He rarely spoke truer words.

Sunday School 1/30/11: Hillary makes the rounds

The focus of most of the talk shows today was the evolving situation in Egypt, and the spotlight was squarely on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. We’ve got excerpts from all of her appearances. 

On NBC’s Meet the Press, in response to David Gregory’s question on whether Mubarak should stay in power: “I believe strongly that we are only at the beginning of what is unfolding in Egypt. I’m not going to go into hypotheticals and speculation, other than to say that President Mubarak and his government have been an important partner to the United States.” 

Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, Candy Crowley asked about Mubarak’s ability to stay in power, even if he reaches out to peaceful opponents, and even given that there are already elections scheduled within the next few weeks, would that be enough?  “Well, no. Much has to be done. And we are not advocating any specific outcome. We are advocating that the government, the representatives of the civil society, the political opposition and activists begin a dialogue to chart a course…”

Bob Schieffer (CBS News' Face the Nation) questioned whether the appointment of a vice president is a step in the right direction: “Well, it’s something that American Government representatives have been urging and requesting for 30 years… So yes, it’s something we have said is absolutely imperative.” 

Not to be left out, on Fox News Sunday Chris Wallace wondered whether Americans should leave Cairo. “Well, we are following the conditions for American citizens extremely closely. This is one of my highest responsibilities, Chris. And we have authorized voluntary departure, which means that we will assist American citizens to leave Egypt. Thankfully, right now, there are no reports of Americans killed or injured.” 

On ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, the host was in Egypt herself. Responding to Amanpour’s statement that folks in the streets were angry at the US and thinking that we were ‘hedging our bets’ by seeming to support Mubarak, “We believe that democracy, human rights, economic reform are in the best interests of the Egyptian people… People are not going to stand by any longer and not be given the opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potential.” 

It will be interesting watching things continue to unfold.

State of the Union Poetry, Part 2

The Future.
We are the nation
of Google and Facebook.
It's how we make a living.

This is our generation's Sputnik moment.
We're not just handing out money.
We're issuing a challenge.

I'm willing to eliminate
whatever we can honestly afford
to do without.

But we're not doing it
on the backs
of our most vulnerable.

It may feel like you're flying high
at first, but it won't take long
before you'll feel the impact.

Our success in this new and changing world
will require reform, responsibility,
and innovation.

The future is ours to win.


Bipartisanship.
At stake right now? Whether we sustain
the leadership that has made America
Not just a place on a map, but a light to the world.

We measure progress by the success of our people.
by the opportunities for a better life
that we pass on to our children.

It is time to move forward as one nation.
None of this is easy. All of it will take time.
And it will be harder because we will argue about everything.

That's the project the American people want us to work on.
Together.


The State of the Union.
And yet I know there isn't a person here
who would trade places with any other
nation on Earth.

This is a place where you can make it if you try.
this is a country where anything's possible.
We do big things.

We are a nation.
I'm not sure how we'll reach that better place
beyond the horizon

But I know we'll get there.
I know we will.
We do big things.

The idea of America endures.
Our destiny remains our choice.
The state of our union is strong.

State of the Union Poetry, Part 1

Tucson.
The debates have been contentious;
we have fought fiercely for our beliefs.
And that's a good thing

Amid all the noise
and passions
and rancor.

We are part of the American family.
We believe that in a country
we are still bound together as one people

We share common hopes and a common creed;
That, too, is what sets us apart
as a nation.

What comes of this moment is up to us.
We will move forward together
or not at all.


Change is hard.
The change has been painful. I've seen it
in the shuttered windows and the vacant storefronts
of once busy Main Streets.

I’ve heard it in the frustrations of
proud men and women who feel
like the rules have been changed.

What do you think of that idea?
What would you change about the world?
What do you want to be when you grow up?


Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
We must never forget that the things
we've struggled for, and fought for,
live in the hearts of people everywhere.

And we must always remember that
the Americans who have borne the greatest burden
are the men and women who serve our country.

And we know that some of them are gay.

The Update Desk: No response from Ann Marie Buerkle

Earlier this month, I sent an email to Ann Marie Buerkle asking about health care reform and the planned vote to repeal.  To date, I haven't heard from her. 

The House did vote to repeal PPACA, as expected, with three Dems joining the Reps.  After the vote, the House vowed to have their committees start working on coming up with some new ideas for health care reform, including many of the ideas that are in the bill they want repealed. 

Over in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) continues to say there's not going to be a repeal vote, but Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists there's going to be one. Suspect if it does happen, it'll be through amendments to other bills, or via some obscure parliamentary procedure.  

Perhaps one good thing has come out of the House vote: there's now some movement on at least thinking about discussing changing some of the things in the bill, such as requiring a 1099 for all $600 business transactions. Pretty committal, I know, but I guess it's something.

What I haven't seen yet, however, is how many jobs the Job-Killing Health Care Law actually killed.  Anyone have the number?  And how much of the bill needs to be repealed before we start seeing jobs created?

Sunday School: 1/23/11

We’ll start with This Week on ABC.  The comment of the day comes from George Will, the baseball historian and conservative curmudgeon. Discussing  State of the Union addresses, Will noted that at times presidents have delivered their report in writing, but that “now we’ve turned this (SOTU) into this panorama in which – in an interminable speech, every president, regardless of party, tries to stroke every erogenous zone in the electorate.” Makes me want to slip into something more comfortable when I watch Obama's address on Tuesday.

NBC’s Meet the Press offered us Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader. He believes that Barack Obama is a US citizen, but didn't express much interest in shutting down discussion on this in the House. Cantor also spent some time trying to explain whether or not they’re going to meet the $100 billion savings this year, and whether or not everything’s on the table in terms of cuts. I think his answer to the second question is yes, but on the first I’m not sure if he said yes or no. He did say this about Social Security: “Anyone 55 and older in this country has got to know that their Social Security benefits will not be changed.  It is for all the younger people, those 54 and younger, we're going to have to have a serious discussion.”  Um, that means me.

Over on Fox News Sunday, another member of the Congressional leadership, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), echoed Cantor’s sentiment that everything’s on the table, saying that he’s told constituents “don’t assume that we can tackle this without impacting something you like.”  When asked about spending cuts, he indicated that they’re going to try and “reduce domestic discretionary spending as much as we possibly can that will get a signature by the President”, I think starting early to point fingers in case they don’t come close to what the Tea Party is interested in, which is a return to 2006 levels. Does anyone really remember what they spent in 2006?

Last this week, let’s check in with CBS News and Face the Nation. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were guests. McCain, after saying some nice things about Obama, talked about spending cuts and I think did a perfect job of illustrating how hard it’s going to be to get anything done.  Host Bob Schieffer referenced Eric Cantor’s statement about cancer research being on the table, and pointed out that he (Schieffer) and McCain are both cancer survivors. Schieffer asked “Do you think that’s something where we can cut back?” and McCain answered “…And frankly, cancer research I think is one of the last things I’d go after.” Imagine that - not wanting to cut something that's personally significant. That kind of attitude is what got us where we are today. 

For his part, when asked the cancer research question, Schumer pointed out that the Republican Study Committee only focused on one part of the budget; logically, if you need to get all of your cuts from one place, you end up cutting thing like cancer research.  He didn't say he wouldn't but there, but it did note that “everyone knows there’s waste and inefficiency in the military budget” and “waste in the military is no better than waste in domestic spending.” Good for Chuck.

Shots Fired: Health Care Reform Repeal

Not surprisingly, there was lots of talking going on today leading up to the vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), and there's of course been plenty since then.  Here are few of the lame, the tame, and one that's truly exceptional.

Mike Pence (R-IN), in response to Dem criticism that the vote was just a gimmick, said "We have another term for it on our side of the aisle: It's a promise kept," he said. "And House Republicans are here to stand with the American people and say with one voice, 'We can do better.' We can do better than their government takeover of health care."

Hometown girl Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), spoke shortly before the vote and said “When our Founders envisioned the legislative process it was to be one in which legislators were deliberative, thoughtful, and respectful of the freedoms of American citizens. Last year, that vision faltered, and Congress failed in its duties to the American people when they enacted the Affordable Care Act.”

Former Speaker and current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): "I think we should send a strong message today with a great vote against this repeal, which is so harmful to the health of the American people, which is so damaging to our fiscal health as well, and to have people know that we want to have what is best for them."

And this from another California Dem, George Miller : "Has anybody, any family in America, any single mother, any spouse, any child, any grandparent met a more bureaucratic system than the American health insurance system? There is no more bureaucratic system."  

But without a doubt, the prize-winner has to be Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who added this gem in his halftime report on the debate: "You know, I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now-popular drinking game of 'You take a shot whenever Republicans say something that's not true': Please, assign a designated driver."  Watch it here.