Arizona's First Political Blog

E-mail Anonymous Mike at zonitics4-at-yahoo.com

By Anonymous Mike, pseudonymously.

 
Holy Week Continues....

I am sure Father John wouldn't agree with this, in fact he could probably organize an ecumenical beat-down on me for suggesting this.

However I must say it.

I must say that Easter doesn't conclude until at least the day after the blessed day when all the Easter candy goes 1/2 price. In fact, here's where my beatdown is going to come from, there is almost something spiritual about it. On Monday before I went in, I stopped by a Wal-Mart and joined 4 other people who were busy scooping up 25-cent Cadbury cream eggs. We all laughed as we discussed how much of the candy was going to make it home to the kids (none) and what happened to all the peeps (none available.) The best part was when one person left with their stash and called out "Same time, same place next year!"

Yeah baby.

If you're really gutsy you can try waiting another week for the prices to get to 75% off. Years ago at the old Smith's grocery at Alma School & Warner, three weeks after Easter they still had a shopping cart full of peeps at 10 cents a box. Man that was a find.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 8:54 PM

 
ASU and Obama

Hey ASU, just give the President an honorary degree. After all you gave some government minister from China one, why not President Obama?

There seems to be alot of confusion about the purported decision to not award an honorary degree. Was it because he was a sitting politician and ASU has a policy that prohibits such awards? Was it was because he hadn't yet completed his "body of work"? Was it just a bureaucratic snafu with the commencement people and the honorary degree people not on thee same page?

Okay here's some thoughts....

First, if you invite the President to give the commencement address and the commencement speaker usually gets an honorary degree, then not giving him one is insulting. Best to not have him speak in such role at all rather than snubbing our nation's head of state.

Second, honorary degrees are a racket ginned up by universities in order to derive some sort of implied pro quid pro or to bask in the reflected glory of the person. Like Hall of Fame elections, better to keep such moments too rare rather than too plentiful, I mean better that than say giving a degree to Robert Mugabe. ASU pursued the President for commencement speaker because it would derive benefit; my guess the President accepted because he's going to get his own political benefit from the trip, probably pitch immigration reform. I seriously doubt he came to visit Sparky the Sun Devil.

Third, take your pick whether he's not getting a degree because of his "body of work" or is it because he's a sitting politician but now would be a nice time to make an exception. In fact, it seems that there will be a reversal giving the perception that ASU is getting its arm twisted.

To top it, ASU will rename one of its major scholarship programs after the President because... why? He has no ties to the state or the university, in fact for all I can figure next month's speech will mark the first time he's been on campus. He also has no tie direct tie to the scholarship program or has no active yet initiative for higher education. So by all means let's start renaming things after him... how about Wells Fargo Arena?

Yep thanks to ASU what should have been a moment of pride for the state has instead turned into a farcical show of backpedaling, bungling, and kowtowing.

My predictions:

1) ASU will end up giving Obama a degree

2) In addition to the degree and the scholarship program, I expect ASU will also provide some sort of other trinkets.

3) ASU will throw some people under the bus , think of ASU Media Director Sharon Keeler as a burnt sacrifice of atonement.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 9:23 PM

 
Three Levels of Fame

There are 3 levels of fame when it comes to the Internet punditocracy (right-wing version)

First there are those like Hugh Hewitt, Mark Steyn, and William Kristol whose reach extend to all sorts of print and electronic media.

Then there are those bloggers who those forementioned people think highly of and thereby gain international recognition. Like Arizona's own ExUrbanleague

Then are those who are able to say that have drunk beer and eaten nachos with the those internationally famous bloggers who the likes of Mark Steyn, Hugh Hewitt, and William Kristol think highly of... that would be me.

Mom taught many life lessons but I don't think basking in the reflected glow of certain bloggers is one of them. You know what though? It's hard to find a more talented group of guys than the ExUrban boys and I know you cannot find a better group of people anywhere. So hats off to them for good work and if you haven't read their posts on pirates or on Vikings than why haven't you?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 8:28 AM

 
HOA, Arizona

After my post earlier this week regarding Arizona cities and Jack in The Box someone reminded me of similar behavior in the Valley of the Sun, or more specifically Mesa.

Back during the Krispy Kreme craze, the local franchisee wanted to open a store in Mesa, I believe out by Power Road or Red Mountain area. Krispy Kreme has a fairly unique color scheme which is almost tacky but it works for them because they serve... donuts. Well if I remember correctly the City of Mesa wouldn't let them put the color scheme the franchisee wanted, not enough earth tone.

If you live in the Phoenix metro area for any length you notice two things about the buildings. First there is no lack of earth tone in the color of buildings, in fact you can drive for miles and not see anything but browns and tans. Second while it is a fine place to live, the words "Mesa" and "upscale community" aren't often used in the same sentence. Why Mesa felt it needed to act as an HOA in terms of colors of retail establishment seems like a poor use of public resources and an intrusion of private property.

Moving on to another fine example of Mesa and intrusions on private property....

On the southwest corner of Main and Country Club, across the street from a more famous business, there now stands a coffee shop. However a few years back that building used to be a Winchell's donut shop. Now I don't know what it is with the City of Mesa and donut shops, but apparently this donut shop ran afoul of the City because of the amount of signage in the windows. To the surprise of the average citizen, not only did Mesa have an ordinance which restricted the amount of window space that could be covered with commercial signage but they actually had inspectors on the street who would measure the signage in windows. Well Winchell's had too high of a percentage of its windows with signage, thought to be honest it might have been stuff painted on the windows, and rather than dying of public embarrassment Mesa pressed its case.

Nice to know that at a time when many of its agencies were struggling for funds, Mesa found the funds to enforce window signage in donut shops.

I am sure there are plenty of other examples and in more cities than just Mesa but that sort of gives you a flavor. Somebody once said along that a government that had the power to give you everything you wanted had enough power to take away everything you had. I guess a corollary to that is that a government that had both the will and resources to function as a HOA is a government that has gotten too big for its britches. Something to consider with all the government budget cutting going on.

Oh and the famous business on the other side of Main Street from Winchell's? That would be Bailey's Brake Shop.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 8:42 PM

 
The Guns of Binghamton

From CNN.Com, Police Defend Response to Mass Shootings:

Authorities defended the timeliness of police response to Friday's massacre at an upstate New York immigration services center as funerals were set to begin Sunday for two of the 13 slain.

"No decisions by the police had any bearing on who died," Broome County District Attorney Jerry Mollen told reporters Sunday.

The first officers arrived at the American Civic Association about three minutes after the first emergency calls were made Friday, according to a timeline by the Binghamton Police Department.

Officers did not enter the building for about 40 minutes, police said.

"No one was shot after police arrival, and none of the people who had been shot could have been saved, even if the police had walked in the door within [the] first minute," Mollen said. "The injuries were that severe."

I am sure (or hope) there will be a full investigation as to the 40 minutes delay but the question that quickly comes to mind is how did the police know without entering the building that none of the people who had been shot could have been saved? From the media accounts I have read, there was no police presence, no officers or equipment, inside the building until the SWAT team entered after those 40 minutes. So how were they so sure without the ability to eyeball the victims?

Everytime there is one of these shootings, there are the inevitable calls for furthering restricting private control of firearms (yes there is the 2nd Amendment but there are ways around that.) These calls are predicated on the assumptions that not only is it better for law enforcement agencies to have these weapons than private individuals, but that those enforcement agencies are able to protect us and willing to put their lives on the line to do so.

The reason why you still see people, more than 7 years after the fact, wearing "FDNY" hats and shirts is because on that September day all of those New York firemen looked up and saw their death in those burning buildings and went in anyway.

I hope, really hope, that the Broome County DA was right but I still don't how they came to that conclusion until it was too late.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 8:33 PM

 
Catching Up on Sports

Various things from the sports world that happened during my 2 -week "furlough"....

Jay Cutler. For background on the schmuck check out his Wikipedia page but let me try and bottom-line it for you. Cutler wanted out because he felt dissed by management for trying to trade him. In his favor, he's a 3-year professional QB who threw for more than 4,000 yards last year and went to his first Pro Bowl. You would also think from the press coverage of this story that he's the second coming of Marino or Elway.

The truth is he played last year for a pass happy coach and for a team that had such a lousy defense that it had to score in bunches just to stay competitive. In fact is you look at his game log, you see that his performance was far from stellar during the last part of the year when his team nosedived. Good player? Yes but right now he's accomplished as much in his career, with his 17-20 lifetime record, as Scott Mitchell. Scott who? Exactly.... enjoy your new life in that aerial juggernaut known as the Chicago pass offense.

Other news....

I know things are bad in Michigan and Michigan State had a good run and all but by half-time of last night's NCAA championship game I was sick of hearing about how everyone in Michigan was being taken on a magical carpet ride away from their troubles. I know sportscasters look for angles they can beat into the ground, but that was a little much. Win or lose, you still wake up to tomorrow.

Finally and somewhat related....

When I watch sports, I am taking a break from the world. Sports, even on the level of high school baseball, provides for great competition and story lines but overall it's not the real world. The game ends, we go home or turn off the TV, and the world is the same as we left it. The world would be an easier place to understand if there was a rule book, you enemies wore uniforms, and somebody kept score but reality is messier than that.

Sports provides a diversion, an escape. So when sportscasters and writers, who making their very living by describing this diversion we call sports, try to bring real world events into their commentary in order to push a pet political position I have to object. If I wanted reality, I would stick to the front section of the paper. If you the sportswriter could write on weighty social issues, you would be writing for that front section. No instead you are consigned to write about grown men making millions playing the same game as my kids. Bless your hearts, I love what you guys do but please leave issues like the Binghamton shootings alone. You hear me Peter King?

My 2 cents about Mr. King's opinion that the shootings demonstrate that there are too many guns on the streets? I have a feeling that some of the people trapped in that building wished there was at least one more gun in the world and in their hands.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 6:24 PM

 
War Against The Clown

The average citizen has limited, if any, contact with their city government. Outside of library, park, or the emergency services it's pretty mysterious. So if you are not involved in a crime in some way, have your house on fire, or need a copy of "My Pet Goat" city government is just some distant thing that tends to hold their elections at wacky times.

That is until you want to to do something crazy... like build on your property or open a business. Then you enter some strange some circle of Hell. Coyote Blog has a number of posts on the subject, from what it takes to serve coffee to remodeling his pool.

Then there is Jack in The Box

Now not all go for the power of Jack, but the food has helped me meet my business travel budget and I like the ads. Years ago when I lived in Chandler, the local franchise at the corner of Chandler & Arizona Avenue won a special place in my heart for resisting the power of city-backed developers.

Then I read this:

Those flat-roofed, chunky Jack in the Box restaurants built in Valley downtowns during the 1960s and '70s have been thorns in the side of urban redevelopment since disco balls went out of style...

... Phoenix and Mesa forced the chain's downtown spots to rebuild and move or leave.

Municipal officials have complained that Jack in the Box restaurants that went up when hippies were groovy don't fit in with modern multi-story clusters of upscale condos, shops and restaurants.

I think that's sweet that private businesses, ones that apparently are doing well enough to remain in business since "disco balls", have been forced out of their prime locations because local city officials want to replace them with visions of Richard Florida's new urbanism. So it's not enough to jump government hurdles to start a business, but then you have to remain in the good graces of local bureaucrats to stay in business. Note the article doesn't say the Jack in the Box restaurants had health or business problems, they were simply tacky and in the way.

Then lo and behold guess which Jack franchisee is causing problems again...

The 30-year-old Jack in the Box in downtown Chandler was supposed to be demolished and moved years ago after city planners decided in 2000 that a restaurant represented by a huge white head with a pointed nose and party hat "does not meet the intent of 'dining' within the City Center District designation."

May I never get on the wrong side of a city government's intent.

Darn city officials, probably all milkshake hating extremists
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:02 PM

 
A Kind Word For Janet Napolitano

Homeland Security Secretary (and former Arizona Governor) Janet Napolitano is getting heat from the right for these comments made during an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Some have remarked that this places terrorism on the same level as obesity or car crashes. In all fairness, I took it a different way. After 10 years of Napolitano holding high-level state office here in Arizona, I have noticed she combines the charm of pit bull with a tendency to indulge inpolicy wonkiness. You see the wonkiness in the part above, you see the pit bull in the part below:

SPIEGEL: This sounds quite different from what we heard from the Bush administration. How will the new anti-terror policy differ from the previous one?

Napolitano: Our policies will be guided by authoritative information. We also have assets at our disposal now that we did not have prior to 9/11. For example, we are much better able to keep track of travellers coming into the US than we were before. The third thing is to work with our international partners and allies to make sure that we are getting information and sharing information in an appropriate and real-time fashion.

Leave aside the fact that the information sharing and entrance screening she refers to were initiated by the previous administration she so derides, that's just the pit bull talking. The key is the elaboration of "nuance" with a healthy dose of supervisory systems and cooperation. Terrorism won't be forgotten by Napolitano's department, it will just be managed like any other program.

Now if there isn't a terrorist attack under Napolitano's watch, or at least for a decent interval afterwards, then she gets off scott free for the "man-caused" remark. If we get hit, then that remark will become her political epitaph. Actually Homeland Security is a pretty thankless job; much like a baseball umpire if you are doing well nobody notices you but if you screw up you end up with you picture next to Michael Brown's in the history book. However that's the price Napolitano was more than willing to pay to bail out on the fiscal crisis she helped create in Arizona.

So anyway I'll let the remark go and hope (and pray) that I'm given no reason to resurrect it in the future.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 6:39 PM

 
Newspaper Bailouts, AIG, and Art

The one great reminder of the whole AIG bonus controversy is what happens when government, whether bureaucrats or elected officials, start to get involved in the operations of private organizations. You take bailout money, whether through acceptance or by force, and all of the sudden your inner operations are thrown open to all sorts of meddling and grandstanding.

If you go back a few decades, remember the controversy over how grants were being used by the National Endowment for the Arts? With all the meddling and grandstanding about people wondering why taxpayer dollars were being used to fund projects that they considered obscene? People cried censorship, I wondered why such free thinkers and boundary pushers wanted federal dollars to begin with.

Keep that in mind when the next group starts pawing around, crying in distress for some federal funds to help them through a tough time... like newspapers. They don't even necessarily need money to become compromised, maybe just a little bending of the rules.

I especially enjoyed the plea for all sorts of federal subsidies from that former bastion of free thought, The Nation. Seriously, if we provide anti-trust exemptions and tax credits for newspaper subscriptions what happens the next time The New York Times blows the cover on a top-secret national security program? What about the chairman of a key congressional committee dealing with such newspaper subsidies?

Common folks, you accept taxpayer money you are going to be subject in some way to government influence and control.

(h/t Coyote Blog)
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:53 PM

 
Ships Passing in The Night

This year I filled out my first NCAA bracket and my interest is the lowest it has been in the nearly 30 years I have been following the tournament.

Go figure
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:51 PM

 
A Run on Whiskey and Revolvers

Well judging from my e-mail, yesterday's post caused a stir so here's a little bit more

The other week, Senator Grassley caused a stir by stating that he would feel better about the AIG bonus fiasco if the executives involved either committed suicide or resigned; while he was talking about the Japanese way of leaving I think he would have been satisfied if the people involved simply retired to a room with a bottle of whiskey and a loaded revolver.

The suicide part of Grassley's comment is what caused the public uproar but if you take it in the context of the overall statement with the words of "resign" and "or" you can see that he was talking about a lack of accountability in the business culture. AIG executives, who I seriously doubt are still employed, drove the company into the ground while making a pretty penny in salary and bonuses and whose only punishment, social or criminal, is to while away their copious free time spending their even more copious dollars. To take Grassley's comments and apply them retroactively, such people should have (after they cleaned out their offices) handed that revolver and whiskey and asked if they wanted to do the right thing.

Now let's turn the accountability one step further and apply it to the political arena.

There's a gross lack of accountability when it comes to politics and the AIG bonuses. Not just in terms of who slipped in the bonus language into the "stimulus" bill or who suggested it in the first place or the fact that the very same legislators who are screaming the loudest about are the ones who voted for it last month. Nope, I'm talking about bigger fish. I'm talking about societal accountability.

For various reasons, right and wrong both, we decided to bail out certain companies rather than allowing them to proceed to bankruptcy. Both the wrong and right reasons centered around the notion that such companies were too important to allow to fail. Once we started pouring money into them, politicians and the media began to see them as government property and started to look askew at how those bailed-out companies were spending money on large salaries, meetings, and other perks. Right or wrong, that sort of attention was inevitable.

The problem with that attention was that it distracted public debate from the critical question, which was what we were going to do with those companies. The prevailing notion was that these bailouts were a temporary step; they would be cleaned up of their toxic assets and put back onto the street as going concerns. If that was to be the case, then the companies would need smart management and smart management in those industries tend to get paid outside of the GSA wage scale.

So here's the lack of accountability part. Apparently some people in Treasury knew that the AIG people would need to get paid, if not to keep them from heading for the door then for contractual reasons. That's why it looks the language was inserted. Perhaps the politicians that be, going back to the previous administration last fall, should have arranged a different structure for the bailed-out companies but they didn't... this was the game they had chosen to play, turning them into quasi-public entities. However in their attempt to run Wall Street from Washington, it never occurred to the people in the Bush and Obama Administrations or in Congress that things work differently in New York than in Washington.

In other words they didn't have the guts to explain to the public, to take the political heat, that the people on Wall Street that they had grouped as a single class and dehumanized as villains would have to still be employed and paid a very handsome (though reduced) compensation if these bailed-out companies were going to be righted and sent back out onto the Street.

If you in Washington cannot do what it takes to bail-out companies, then maybe you shouldn't have taken that route. Maybe you should have thought through the implications of your actions and the fact that you tack to the political winds before you started pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the private sector. Nope you didn't, you spent first and then started looking for the political pinata later which just makes everything worse.

So where's the accounatbility for Washington?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 2:43 PM

 
Congress, AIG and Confusion

I am trying to understand this whole political firestorm about the AIG bonuses.

The so-called stimulus package, Obama's signature legislation and passed by the Democrats, contained a provision that would ensure that the AIG bonuses would be paid.

So when those AIG bonuses were paid, as authorized by law, the same Democrats who passed that law suddenly go ape poop and scream how outrageous it was that something that they had authorized actually occurred. Their solution is to go pass what amounts to a bill of attainder to punish people who benefited from what the Democrats so specifically authorized.

Huh.

So what am I supposed to conclude about this? I guess I have a number of options...

1) I can conclude that no one actually read the massive "stimulus" bill and that it contains more ticking political time bombs and fiscal cluster f***ks that are just waiting to go off. I mean how funny it is that Congress and the White House is getting so uptight about something that is so clearly spelled out?

2) I can conclude that given that Dodd inserted that AIG bonus language, that the good Senator from Connecticut seems to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the financial industry, and the way he slipped the language in that the $800 billion "stimulus" package is just an invitation to more political graft and corruption.

3) I can conclude that given the way the Obama Administration and the whole Congressional leadership is running around trying to find anyone, just anyone, to be a scapegoat that there seems to be more concern over an amount of money equal to Mark Teixeira's new contract with the Yankees than getting $800 billion in spending right.

So let's see in choosing among political incompetence, fiscal incompetence, and political corruption I can conclude that the AIG bonus issue is all three!
posted by Anonymous Mike at 9:52 AM

 
Dropping the Hammer

Around the time of the election, I posited that in any future battles between an Obama White House and a Democratic Congress it would be the latter that would win. After all the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Obama even launched his campaign and they could claim they made him rather than the other way around.

At first I wondered a bit if I made the right call. Right after the election, Obama selected Congressman Rahm Emmanuel to be his chief-of-staff. Emmanuel not noly was a congressional critter, but he was the brains behind the Democrats taking the House in 2006. Combine that with his past experience in the Clinto White House and I thought that he might be the man to help Obama control Congress.

I guess not.

First indication of what was going to happen was when Obama allowed Congress to write his administration-defining legislation, the stimulus bill. Between his inaguration and the bill's passage, the man who got elected to the world's most powerful office on the platform of hope and change basically acted as the chief majority whip on a bill essentially written by David Obey.

Now you have Obama's presser on earmarks and the omnibus bill.

Keep in mind the omnibus bill everyone is so worked up on is this year's budget bill, not next year's. Pelosi and the gang has kept government going on continuing resolutions for the past 5 1/2 months so they could get bypass the Bush Administration and land this sucker on Obama's desk. So for the past 4 1/2 months, since his election, Obama has known the day would come when he would be tested on this bill regarding his earmark pledge.

So what did he do?

He called the bill old business left over from the previous administration, despite knowing that the bill was designed for his signature, and promised to work on earmark reform after he signed it. If you remember after he signed the travesty of a "stimulus" bill he promised the country a future of fiscal restraint.

Less than 2 months into office and he's already getting pushed around by the likes of Pelosi and Obey. How embarassing. I cannot wait until years from now when the stories come out of how the critters up on Capitol Hill dropped the hammer on the Obama team and told them how things were going to work.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 1:31 PM

 
Perhaps Not The Wisest Choice

From the East Valley Trib:

Indicted Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley has been appointed by the White House to a task force to help implement the economic stimulus package signed last month by President Barack Obama, and wants a judge's permission to travel to its first meeting next week.

I know Stapley is the current President of the National Association of Counties and I have doubts about those indictments, but with all the problems the Obama Administration has had with its nomination process (with the tax cheating, corruption probes, conflicts of interest) you would think they would pick someone uhhh you know... less inidcted.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 8:18 PM

 
The Bear and NATO

Alot of things after the past week but perhaps one of the most troubling and least publicized was what exactly is the Obama Administration doing in Europe?

There were alot of chuckles after Secretary of State Clinton's gaffe with the Russian Foreign Minister, with the gift of a button that said "overcharged" instead of "reset, but the idea of "resetting" relations with Russia needs to be put into the larger context of Administration and Russian actions.

First Russia is a declining power. Its demographics are in the tank with a population that is both shrinking and growing less ethically Russian. Its recent economic turmoil should remind us that any Russian economic strategy is tied to commodities and not any information-based or manufacturing sectors; its recenet stability has been resting on theonce pricey fumes of crude oil and little else.

Second, Russia may be declining but it has chosen to reclaim its role in its former sphere of influence in both the "near abroad" and Eatsern Europe. Witness its invasion of Georgia, its computer warfare against Estonia, and threats against both the Cezechs and Poles over missile defense. In many ways the situation is analogous to the one we faced in the late 1980s as we tried to manage the decline of the Soviet Union except this time the Russians will probably not go into the good night like the Soviets did. To also being back the 80's, Europe is now even more tied to Russian energy.

So you would think with the last stand of the agressive Russian bear that the Obama Administration would want to keep its NATO powder dry. Perhaps countries in the Russian near abroad like Georgia and Kygyrstan are beyond help, but certainly not Europe.

Okay Europe is a region in decline and NATO has shown itself to be pretty toothless as an expeditionary force, but the key parts of NATO are pretty formidable and those parts are Britain and "New Europe"- the Czechs and the Poles. The Poles and Brits have sent troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan and they, unlike those from other NATO countries, fight. The Czechs and Poles have both, despite withering pressure from the Russians, agreed to host the key elements of the US missile defense system.

These countries are our staunchest allies in what soon may be a troublesome region. So what does the Obama Administration do? First after the Poles and Czechs stick their necks out for us, both understand that Russia is much closer than the US, we then turn around and offer missile defense as a bargaining chip. If that didn't get them worried in Warsaw and Prague, we then make a stunt of some corporate knick knack offering to "reset" relations with Moscow. Both Waraw and Prague understand what it is like to be a bargaining chip when great powers meet and wish to reset things.

The was the curious story of what happened when the head of government of the other pillar of NATO came to visit President Obama. British Prime Minster came bearing gifts for Obama that showed the rich history of cooperation between the two countries; a history that spanned the bequest of American civilization, multiple wars, and a joint stand against the greatest tyrannies in history.

In return, Obama gave DVDs of American movies and in general gave the perception that he couldn't be bothered.

Now in fairness to the President, his people claimed he was "tired" due to his laser-like focus on the economy but it's not like Washington has a pucity of staff drones. You would think if the White House really sort of cared, it would have delegated the planning of the British PM's visit to some assistant deputy associate secretary of something; somebody who would have actually cared to do a good job. So I'm not buying the tired thing... a president needs to multitask; instead I'm buying the theme of malign neglect.

So at a time when Russia is acting like a general pain in our back side our approach is to kiss up to them while at the same time pissing off the key members of our anti-Russian alliance?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 6:34 PM

 
The Washington Cash Cow

There's been alot of inked spilled about the growing centralization of power and resources in Washington at the expense of the rest of the country, but it really didn't hit me until this morning when I was reading the sports pages (web pages mind you.)

The Redskins just signed DT Albert Haynesworth for a 7-year, $102 million contract. Yeah I know the length and total dollar amounts of football contracts are just play numbers given that such contracts are guaranteed but then key in on the important number... the guaranteed money. I have read the contract will pay a guaranteed $41 million overall with an estimated $33 million coming in the first year. On top of it Washington signed a cornerback for $22 million guaranteed.

That's alot of money and makes you think, with the financial tsunami about to wipe out a big chunk of professional sports, who all is paying for the luxury boxes and premium seats at Redskin games?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:28 PM

 
For a Few Clips More

After watching President Obama's speech last night and going back and reading the transcript, I've found it a rich deposit of YouTube clips to mine for later political gold. So which statement do you think Obama will regret the most?

1) "Now, let me be clear. Let me be absolutely clear,..... If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, a quarter-million dollars a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime."

Really not one single dime? I mean when the George H. W. Bush said the "Read my Lips" hyperbole he was in the middle of an election campaign, what's Obama's excuse for overpromising? He's after all and "I repeat", "absolutely clear"

2) And that's why I've asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort, because nobody messes with Joe.

You can come at this two ways. First I doubt anyone on this side of the Almighty and my Mother would be able to lead a "tough, unprecedented oversight" of that stimulus package let alone a gaffe-prone, 35-year Washington insider who hasn't run anything bigger than his campaign staff.

The second way is by having the President emphasize "nobody messes with Joe" it means just the opposite; it's like having your parents call out the neighborhood bullies. Mr. Biden may very well be the first Vice President to be found someday hanging from the flagpole by his underwear.

3) "In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry."

Okay this is probably the least likely thing to get clipped but as I have written before, the building of the transcontinental railroad really didn't being until after the Civil War had ended.

One final thing. At the gym this morning, they had CNBC on next to CNN on the bank of TVs. CNN showed the results of a poll that something like 90%+ of respondents were some degree of positive on the President's speech while at CNBC it showed the market dropping like a rock.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 10:36 AM

 
Steve Kerr and the Taking of Vienna

I know the NBA is dead to me but this is just too good pass up...

For most of the past 4 seasons, the Phoenix Suns had been playing an up-tempo form of basketball; "seven seconds or less" to get up a shot. It was fun to watch, the Suns tasted success, and all were happy.

However as any kid who ever played organized basketball on the East Coast could tell you, such an approach doesn't win championships. It seemed every kid I ran into heard the same lecture as I did from my coach, the Denver Nuggets of the late 70s and early 80s were fun to watch but they weren't going to win titles The Nuggets with Issel and English were an early forerunner of the approach the Suns took, fast-paced offense with little desire to go into the half-court, no defense, and most importantly no championships.

This time last year, that's where the Suns were going. Under Coach D'Antoni, the Suns were successful but there was no way they were getting past the conference championship, let alone taking the title. Suns GM Steve Kerr had one of three choices to make: ride the current approach and taste regular season success but another early playoff exit as the window on the team closed, get on with blowing-up the team and rebuild a possible NBA championship from scratch, or try to tinker with the current approach by adding some muscle and defense in order to stretch the current window another year or two.

As we know he went with option 3, trading Marion for Shaq in order to position the Suns with enough muscle and toughness to get the remaining nucleus posied for a championship run. It didn't work as the Suns went out of the playoffs early. It then seemed Kerr went to option 2 by letting D'Antoni and his run-and-gun approach go to New York and hiring a more deliberate, defensive-minded coach in Terry Porter.

The problem was the team's personnel was still built around D'Antoni's system. Steve Nash, while entertaining on the break, cannot defend a wet noodle at the other end. Amare's game is more focused on space and found it hard to operate in the new, more deliberate half-court game with Shaq taking up space in the paint. So with personnel mismatched to the coach's style, you figure something had to give and given that the coach was new, you figured it would be the personnel; the front office would show some patience with the team and let Porter have a chance to work through the growing pains.

So here's the feckless part...

Steve Kerr, less than a year after doing one U-turn with the team turned around and executed another U-turn instead. The players revolted against Porter and he was fired, to be replaced on an interim basis with Alvin Gentry who was to reimplement the more wide-open style Kerr had abandoned and try to salvage the season. In turn, there were strong rumors that the Suns were heavily involved in trade talks right before the deadline but not to get tougher and more defense-oriented in order to continue building for a championship. The strongest rumor was that the Suns were going to deal Shaq, who they got a year ago for his toughness and defense. In fact the word is the only reason the trade with Cleveland didn't go through was that the Suns wanted Szczerbiak whose contracted expired this year as opposed to Ben Wallace whose contract expire next year.

There's an old saying, attributed to Napoleon that went something like "If you are going to take Vienna, take Vienna." In other words the worst thing is to do is start do something and then change your mind midway through the process and try to race back to the status quo ante. If Kerr kept the team together for another year and let it flop in the first round in the playoffs again, he would have had the juice to blow up the team and rebuild in the mold he wanted. If Kerr wanted to rebuild the team around the toughness/defense angle, then he should have known that there would be teething problems and been willing to suffer through them.

No, instead he blew up the exciting "seven seconds or less" and then when that decision proved unpopular and the team struggled for half the season he chickened out.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 2:04 PM

 
For the Help of Peachy

Wretchard has an excellent post on some of the strategic dilemmas facing the Obama Administration with its decision to escalate the Afghanistan War. The post covers some of the main themes that Wretchard has been writing about for the past year

1) As Obama seeks to escalate the war, he is also escalating the difficulties in supplying the troop presence int hat country. As the old maxim goes"amateurs study tactics while professionals study logistics."

The problem in Afgahnistan is that all routes into the country cross touble spots. To the west lies Iran, to the east lies Pakistan, and to the north lies countries who not only have a mixed record on human rights but also lies within Russia's historic sphere of influence. As the route across Pakistan becomes more problematic, Russia has put the squeeze on the northern route by bribing Kyrgzstan to close its main air base to Americans. This leaves Uzbekistan, with whom the Bush Administration cut ties with after its government killed hundreds of civilians. So to fight the "good war," Obama will have to start by cutting deals with some very bad people

2) Each of the three players mentioned above have other interests in regard to the United States that they can use their proxmity to Afghanistan to gain leverage. Russia and Pakistan have interests on its NATO border and with India respectively and Iran of course has its nuclear program and ties with terrorist groups. By escalating the war, Obama will give each of those powers an ability to levy a toll on the US for its good behavior.

3) After you add up the costs of the first two points along with the fact that the Taliban has the strategeic advantages of a local opium economy and an international border to shield them, you have to ask is this really worth it? To answer that depends on whether you think the center of gravity in the war against radical Islamic terrorists lies along the Pakitsan-Afgahnistan border or in the Arab heartland.

Well I'm sure Richard Holbrooke has it all figured out.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:52 PM

 
Playing the Mystic Chords of Memory….Like a Kazoo

Before I begin this rather lengthy piece, I would like to make one thing clear. Politicians have been wrapping themselves with the events and figures of the past for as long… well perhaps as long as there have been politicians. So when President Obama continues to wrap himself with the legacy of Abraham Lincoln well I usually just roll my eyes and let it go.

However in reading what the President said at Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield on the 200th birthday of the Great Emancipator, I must strenuously object. Obama has not just wrapped himself in the glory and aura of Lincoln which is in part his due given the day and his position, but he has distorted the man’s legacy in order to use it as a club to beat his current day enemies.

After some opening remarks about the significance of the day and the man who he has come to honor, Obama provides a statement that Lincoln was purported to have written in 1854.

"The legitimate object of government," he wrote, "is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, by themselves.

Obama then asks where did Lincoln’s devotion to Union, to which he gave his last full devotion to, come from?

But he also understood something else. He recognized that while each of us must do our part, work as hard as we can, and be as responsible as we can – in the end, there are certain things we cannot do on our own. There are certain things we can only do together. There are certain things only a union can do.

Only a union could harness the courage of our pioneers to settle the American west, which is why he passed a Homestead Act giving a tract of land to anyone seeking a stake in our growing economy.

Only a union could foster the ingenuity of our farmers, which is why he set up land-grant colleges that taught them how to make the most of their land while giving their children an education that let them dream the American dream.

Only a union could speed our expansion and connect our coasts with a transcontinental railroad, and so, even in the midst of civil war, he built one. He fueled new enterprises with a national currency, spurred innovation, and ignited America’s imagination with a national academy of sciences, believing we must, as he put it, add "the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery…of new and useful things."

I will come back to this in a moment because the money graph is coming:

But in recent years, we’ve seen the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction. It’s a philosophy that says every problem can be solved if only government would step out of the way; that if government were just dismantled, divvied up into tax breaks, and handed out to the wealthiest among us, it would somehow benefit us all. Such knee-jerk disdain for government – this constant rejection of any common endeavor – cannot rebuild our levees or our roads or our bridges. It cannot refurbish our schools or modernize our health care system; lead to the next medical discovery or yield the research and technology that will spark a clean energy economy.

Only a nation can do these things. Only by coming together, all of us, and expressing that sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility – for ourselves and one another – can we do the work that must be done in this country. That is the very definition of being American.

It is here that the recent re-incarnation of President Obama is on full display; where we no longer see the promised bi-partisan healer but rather a warrior on the attack against the unnamed other who would put the nation at risk in order to line their pockets.

Neither Obama nor anyone else has been able to pick one Republican of any stature who has displayed “this constant rejection of any common endeavor,” such commonality would presumably include national defense and that massive pork-laden transportation bill a few years ago. Americans of different partisan stripes may disagree on the type and extent of common endeavor but only the most isolated libertarian has claimed that there is no need for “any common endeavor.”

There is much to parse here. Note his depiction that that the “next medical discovery” and “research and technology” can only come from the effort of government; despite the fact that my local pharmacy is lined with medications that were all produced by the private sector. Note his contrasting of those who would reject government and would rather it be “divvied up into tax breaks, and handed out to the wealthiest among us” with “only by coming together, all of us, and expressing that sense of shared sacrifice and responsibility…. That is the very definition of being American.”

So where does Obama get off by constructing a strawman and then exhorting us to burn it like a Salem witch? Where does he get the idea that government is needed to create all things good and common?

By using and distorting Lincoln’s historical legacy.

Let’s start with his citing of Lincoln at the beginning… “"The legitimate object of government," he wrote, "is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, by themselves” The rest of the quote is this:

There are many such things---some of them exist independently of the injustice in the world. Making and maintaining roads, bridges, and the like; providing for the helpless young and afflicted; common schools; and disposing of deceased men's property, are instances.

But a far larger class of objects springs from the injustice of men. If one people will make war upon another, it is a necessity with that other to unite and cooperate for defense. Hence the military department. If some men will kill, or beat, or constrain others, or despoil them of property, by force, fraud, or noncompliance

So while Obama was using Lincoln's quote to justify all sorts of national programs and to involve itself in the minutiae of its citizens daily life, what Lincoln was mostly after was to defend the population from enemies and criminals. If you subscribe to the view that the $800 billion “stimulus” package, funded by debt, amounts to intergenerational theft then you will be amused by the “despoil them of property” part.

However the misuse of Lincoln does not end there Keep in mind that Lincoln often wrote and spoke about “union” but did so in the context of American nationhood, citizenship, and the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. He didn’t speak or write of “union” as a means of collective action through government bureaucracies or the involvement of the national government in the details of its citizens' lives. Keeping mind that through the early part of the 20th Century the primary contact most people had with the federal government was the post office, I think Lincoln would have found the notion of “union” that Obama puts in his mouth rather strange.

Let’s go back to the section I cited above and look more closely at what President Obama said:

Only a union could foster the ingenuity of our farmers

Sort of Clinton’s “It Takes a Village.” I never knew it took a country to foster to ingenuity of 19th Century farmers

Only a union could speed our expansion and connect our coasts with a transcontinental railroad, and so, even in the midst of civil war, he built one.

Uhhhh no, the railroad wasn’t “built” until 4 years after Lincoln’s death. In fact except for some road work in the Sierra Nevada, major work didn’t even begin until 3 months after his death.

He fueled new enterprises with a national currency, spurred innovation,

The national currency and spurring innovation bits didn’t just emerge because Lincoln thought they were good ideas to stimulate the economy; they came about because of the needs of the Civil War economy.

...and ignited America’s imagination with a national academy of sciences, believing we must, as he put it, add "the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in the discovery…of new and useful things."

I missed the part of how the NAS “ignited” 19th Century America’s imagination, probably right up there with the feds fostering ingenuity. Perhaps I need to re-read Edison’s biography. The key part here is “the fuel of interest to the fire of genius…” which had nothing to do with the creation of NAS in 1863 but referred to remarks Lincoln made 4 years earlier regarding the need for intellectual property law so that innovators could make money from their invention. The "fuel of interest" wasn't lighting up little schoolchildren's eyes with the magic of science (see Arizona Science Center) but rather making moolah for inventors.

It's like Obama created some sort of Zombie Lincoln, making Old Abe say things and do things he really didn't. No doubt during next year's Lincoln Birthday celebration, Obama will drag up some quotes claiming that the 16th President was really in favor of nationalized health care and carbon credits.

A few closing remarks here.

A politician should always be careful about using a ceremonial function to make partisan political attacks especially when such attacks involve untruths and gross distortions.

A politician should be careful when making such partisan political attacks to avoid using icons of the party he is attacking

A politician should avoid distorting the record of one of the country’s greatest heroes (Lincoln would have been in favor of the stimulus bill?) in order to push a current piece of legislation.

The staff member who thought giving a speech like was a good idea should be found out and banished to the deepest basement of the Fargo Federal Building.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:01 PM

 
Criticizing Michelle Obama

When I have the radio on in the car, I'll often listen to NPR. Mind you there is always something in the programming that gets my blood pressure up a few notches but I find it useful and somewhat informative (though for not always the obvious reasons.)

I have always felt that NPR's programming is geared toward the bien pensant for the left; yeah they may haul on a Kristol every now and then but their idea of a normal conservative point of view is to bring in David Brooks. Well that's okay, I know it's "public radio" and has taxpayer support but I think conservatives have managed to build competing media institutions like talk radio so you sort of factor all of that in and just shrug the shoulders with it.

So what to think of the recent Juan Williams-Michelle Obama problem?

Juan Williams has been a fixtures on NPR for a number of years and under contract with Fox News for even longer. Say what you want about Fox but it is at worst of the same ideology-driven formula as NPR, appealing to a certain sector of the spectrum while still claiming objectivity in its news reporting. Apparently Mr. Williams said on Fox:

"Michelle Obama, you know, she's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going," said Williams. "If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine [Ham, a conservative blogger] is suggesting, her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim. If that stuff starts coming out, people will go bananas and she'll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross."

To which Bill O'Reilly replied.... "She's not going to do that."

Well apparently that caused alot of hubbub with the NPR listenership which generated a shocking 56 e-mails to the NPR ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. Ms. Shepard goes on to inform us that this isn't the first time that Mr. Williams has offended the NPR faithful as she received 378 e-mails last year from listeners who thought he "dishonors NPR" and is an "embarassment to NPR" for his comments on Fox. Ms. Shepard tells us that by comparison she received only 6 complaints so far this year regarding Cokie Roberts, though I wonder how many she received last year ... probably based on the prose of Ms. Roberts "Founding Mothers" I would hazard to say the howls of complaints reached into the thousands.

Now I know this what ombudsmen do, respond to reader complaints, but NPR has an estimated 20 million listeners over the course of a week so getting 376 e-mails over the course of a year shouldn't be a trigger for alarm; sort of like tracking the national mood based on letters to the Arizona Republic.

To Ms. Shepard's credit, she states that she feels much of the criticism comes from the fact that Mr. Williams appears on Fox. She allows Mr. Williams to state his case which is what he said about the First Lady has been reported elsewhere in outlets such as The Atlantic and Politco, hardly mouthpieces of the right-wing conspiracy. Good for her and I think she is doing her job in an admirable way. However she then mentions the action that NPR management took in response to what Williams said:

As a result of this latest flap, NPR's Vice President of News, Ellen Weiss, has asked Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on O'Reilly.

Why? Because of 56 e-mails or because of something else? Is it because Fox and O'Reilly are icky? Is it because who he criticized or where he did his criticism? If either is the case then what does that say about NPR?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 4:10 PM

 
Blacklisting Myself (From Sports)

Let's see what's going on in the world of sports...

Brett Favre retired, again. I cannot talk about that because I banished him to the outer regions when he was unreitiring last year. So I cannot talk about that.

The NBA All-Star game is coming to town this weekend. Good for Phoenix but I've already declared the NBA dead to me for holding cities hostage for new publicaly-supported venues, so I cannot talk about that either. I see that the Grizzlies may on the move again after leaving Vancouver for Memphis. Given the ongoing search for new arenas by moving to smaller and smaller markets, I'm taking bets on when the NBA will return to Sheboygan and Waterloo

So it's true that steroids were taken by A-Rod? Thank g*d. Cannot stand him so I won't talk about the story.

And that was the week in sports
posted by Anonymous Mike at 1:49 PM

 
The Indispensable Man

I know this is being said right now in more high falutin' places than this but allow me the honors to chime in.

Geithner, with his tax cheating and all, was confirmed for his cabinet post while Daschle had to withdraw because we were told that El Tim was "indispensable" for correcting the financial woes that threaten to plunge the world into a cross of the Bronze Age and Age of Disco.

So after his first big policiy initiative not only does he get laughed at by a bi-partisan group of lawmakers but the Dow then proceeds to drop by 4.6%
posted by Anonymous Mike at 4:52 PM

 
Seeing the Doctor for Ideological Blockage

I loved the term "ideological blockage" that President Obama used during his press conference last night. Like concerns about the spending and tax package that are grounded in differences in policies and outlook are problems to be cured through either a doctor or a plumber rather than normal aspects of a healthy democracy.

Given that there is more than way to skin the cat... er.... use the power of the federal government to "stimulate" the economy why is the President casting opponents of the specific plan in Congress as harmful to the interests of the country. People used to criticize George W. for "with us or against us" rhetoric in regard to international terrorists, but I don't hear many peeps from them on the current occupant of the White House saying that those like me who hate the current bill because it's Daviid Obey's Christmas list essentially want to flush the country down the toilet.

Here's the thing that's most troubling, all of the rhetoric. all of that painting the opposition as the "other" (I never seem to hear specific names of those of who are pushing only tax cuts instead of spending) is just so unecessary.

The spending and tax "stimulus" bill is, contrary to the perception the President gave last night, not being held up in Congress but roaring through. It just cleared the big hurdle in the Senate by meeting the cloture vote. The next big step for proponents is to make sure that the bill isn't loaded up in conference with all things the 3 pro-bill Republicans in the Senate hated. In other words nothing needs to change for the President to win.

Plus what was more bipartisan? The 3 Republicans in the Senate voting for the bill or the 11 Democrats in the House voting against? I guess the Senate by a narrow percentage but you could claim opposition to the bill was bipartisan almost as much as its support.

So why is the President in full campaign-attack mode on a bill that is already well on its way to passage? Is all of this about passing the bill or rather counting coup for developing political capital?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 5:47 AM

 
Howling from Pain

The wife and I went to a Coyote games the other night and we had a good time; hockey is the best sport to see in-person.

When the Yotes arrived in town back in 1996, we already had been told that the Diamondbacks were going to come in a few years so we were on our way to being one of those rare 4-sport towns. I hate to tell you but based on what I just saw at the arena we are probably close to being a 3-sport town.

Ever since they arrived in the desert 13 years ago, the team has lost money. It's been rumored the current ownership group will lose close to $45 million this year alone and more than $200 million total since 2001.

Did I mention this is the third set of owners since the team set up shop here? The first was the group involved in moving/stealing the team from Winnipeg, that squad came Stanley Cup-contention ready. However the team had to play in the Suns' arena which wasn't configured for hockey and in which crucial revenue streams went to the Suns instead of the ice dogs. To top it Colangelo not only controlled the Suns, he also controlled the city-owned arena and refused to make the critical improvements to allow for an effective hockey-watching experience. So the team was sold to developer Steve Ellman who tried to use the prospect of a new arena as an anchor tenant for a new publically-supported real estate development. After playing footsies with Scottsdale for years and turning the Los Arcos shopping mall into a gaping hole in the ground, Ellman was able to cut just such a deal with Glendale.

I should have added that had Ellman not bought the team, there were strong rumors that Paul Allen would have bought it instead and moved it to Portland.

The Coyotes got their new Glendale arena built and opened... right before the NHL went through a year-long lockout. Soon thereafter, Ellman sold the team to the trucking magnate Jerry Moyes.

So let's go through this. That's 3 ownership groups in Phoenix in 13 years, 4 if you include the Winnipeg owners that sold the team right before it was moved. The team's fan base was located in the East Valley of the Phoenix area so when the team moved 19 miles further west to its new arena in Glendale, it core fan base was looking at 75 to 80 mile round trip drives to watch the games with the first part of that trip (30 to 40 miles) in rush hour traffic. Third, not only has the team lost money since 2001, it probably lost money every year since it was here.

Well apparently Moyes is done with the financial red link, not least because his trucking business has fallen on hard times. The NHL has stepped in to keep the team afloat and headlines in the hockey press alternate between investors refusing to take the plunge after looking at the Coyotes' books and "NHL Commissioner dismisses talk of Coyotes' demise." Personally I would love to look at the books if only to learn how a team could lose upwards of $45 million when they play in a league that has a salary cap of $54 million.

However more than the headlines and the past history, you can tell a team is nearing the end when....

1) The announced attendance was 15,229 with a capacity for hockey 17,799; I would say maybe half of those people showed up. Up shot was the lines at the bathroom were short and the ratio of areana staff to fans was extremely high. We were amazed by the skill of the arena cameramen because everytime they showed shots of the crowd up on the scoreboard you could hardly see an empty seat.

2) The only sections that came close to being filled were the two sections located below the concession stands that were part of "free food night."

3) You look at the schedule of upcoming games and wonder if you should buy tickets in advance for games toward the end of the season. Yeah it's that bad... given that there seems to be a massive penalty clause in respect to the City of Glendale if the team actually moves my guess is the team is going to be disbanded sometime in 2009.

The stench of death.

Given the horrid play of the special teams (gave up 4 power play and 1 short-handed goal), I would say the highlight of the evening was a tie between the play of the pee-wee hockey teams during the first intermission and the work of the girls who came out during the television timeouts to clean up the ice - I mean if the Yotes played with half of their efficiency they would be tops in the division.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 10:37 AM

 
No Country for (Those Who Say No) Men

Saw this link from Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion that goes on to equate passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (with "card check" and all) as consistent with the "... big theme within the Hebrew and Christian scriptures."

So the secret ballot is the tool of Satan? Who would have thunk it.

Turning to the New York Times, I see this article entitled "Senators Reach Deal on Stimulus as Jobs Vanish" where the sense of urgency and fear just ooze through every sentence and paragraph. Substitute "stimulus" with "Patriot Act" and "jobs vanish" with "fears of terrorism mount" and you can start to see the gist.

Oh you think I'm tossing around the fear angle in a haphazard way? Look at one of the more responsible Democrats had to say:

“Our country can’t wait another day for another approach,” said Senator Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who is a leader of the bipartisan coalition that worked out the agreement.

So those elected representatives who actually want to read the bill, have serious concerns about it, and want to discuss its merits- you know what we elect representatives to do in a great democracy- are putting the country at risk by not hurriedly passing a bill that wouldn't put most of the money on the street before the next World Series.

The country cannot wait... another day.... for another approach. Or maybe it's President Obama.

So let's add the patriotism angle to pushing a partisan agenda, oh you think I'm going overboard?

Mr. Obama called Ms. Collins and Mr. Specter, as well as Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, another Republican expected to support the deal, to acknowledge they were acting against pressure from their party and, one official said, to thank them for their patriotism in helping advance the bill at a critical time.

Notice the explicit use of the word "patriotism." If you are patriotic for supporting the bill then everyone understands that the the speaker in question implies that those who oppose the bill are not patriotic.

Calls to religion, calls to patriotism, calls to forego democratic debate and oversight in order to come to agreement on what basically amounts to a downpayment on the Democrats' next version of the Great Society (the down payment part was taken from the President himself.)

Now I find all of those calls foolish and somewhat laughable and will file them away as part of my ongoing political education under "political tactics, bare knuckled." However we just spent the past 8 years having the Republicans lambasted for supposedly issuing these types of calls- for God, for patriotism, shutting down the deliberative process in the name of national emergency- and whether you thought they did it or not in order to prosecute the War on Terror or national security. However it only took the Democrats less than 3 weeks to make the same calls in order to pass David Obey's pork-laden Christmas tree of a bill.

So tell me, if you were one of those people who thought that George W. Bush was going to usher in the dark fascist night for America by using God and the threat of national catstrophe to shut down debate, what do you have to say about this? Or does the end justify the means?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 2:21 PM

 
About What I Said Yesterday...

I was reminded by someone that when I wrote that post yesterday about how analogous the operational problems facing the Obama Administration were to those of Clinton, that I had forgotten the most important point. That Clinton started on the upswing not when he got the operational kinks out but when the economy started to do an up-tick and the Republicans gained control of Congress. Not only did Newt and the boys take some shine off the Republican brand during the governmental shutdown of 1995 but by having the other party in control of Congress, it seemed the Clinto Administration was restrained from following through on its worst instincts- like trying to reform health care.

Anyway the basic point holds true, there is alot of time between now and November 2012 so let's not go around with any "implosion" statements.

However...

I watched President Obama's speech to the Dem House retreat and I was shocked by the tone. Yes it was a speech to the faithful but one that was picked up for a national (though limited) audience. He was angry and defensive, trying to paint the Republicans as the ones to blame for holding up the stimulus package and putting the economy at risk. So let's go through this and pick it apart:

1) The Democrats control both chambers of Congress, already won in the House, and are in the process of picking up the few Republicans they need to stop a filibuster (which McConnell has already said he will not do ); in fact a final vote will probably come by Monday. So who exactly is holding things up? Olympia Snowe for not caving even faster?

2) I guess when Obama talked about "bi-partisanship" he meant not reaching common ground with the other party, but rather the Republicans caving-in and accepting every Democratic proposal as is otherwise he would throw a presidential hissy fit.

3) As far as the emergency aspect of this.... most of the money won't be spent until next year. Alot of people gave in over TARP because they were told that the credit markets would seize up if we didn't start throwing money from helicopters by the end of the week. According to the schedule of the"stimulus" package, not only won't we be throwing the bulk of the money out the window by the end of the next week we wouldn't have cut the purchase orders on the money-showering copters until Thanksgiving.

4) Coyote Blog put it best... how on earth did a newly-elected president who ran on being a transformative figure in American history go to being Nancy Pelosi's chief whip in a matter of 17 days?

So given all of this, it may take more than I thought to make this work.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 10:17 AM

 
Let's Not Be Premature

For all of you who are waiting for the Obama Presidency to implode, let's think about this for a little.

First some historical perspective. Go back to the first several months of the Clinton Administration; the media was rife with stories of how the man was toast. How his people were just either newbie kids dragged in from the campaign team or kitchen cabinet hicks drawn from Arkansas. You know how this story ended, the man went from being toast to a popular two-termer.

Second, there are problems but problems that can be fixed. First you have campaign staff who have been promoted to the White House and aren't cutting it. That press guy Gibbs? Man he is awful, worse than George Stephanopoulus was in those early Clinton months. Next somebody on the senior staff level is giving Obama bad advice concerning the bailout. You just got elected to the most powerful job in the world on the mantle of hope and change and you get Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of probably the lowest-regarded Congress in history, to write your keystone legislation (the stimulus bill)? Whose bright idea was that? Was it Emmanuel or was it Jarrett or Axelrod? I would say the latter two as the Chief of Staff is more of a gatekeeper but Rahm was brought in for his congressional ties and a good deal of the problem right now is Congress. Well I don't see the three of them going but get rid of Gibbs as an example to encourage the others... as they say kill the chicken and make the monkey watch.

Oh and one final thing on the previous point. Get someone in who either doesn't have a Chicago ear for ethics problems or has enough clout to be able to put their foot down when they see one, but the vetting process by the Obama people is comical.

Finally I'm taking wagers on when David Gergen will be called in to take a senior staff position at the White House in order to "save the Obama Presidency." I'm saying May 1. Say what you want about George W., but at least he didn't let that man into the West Wing.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 7:17 PM

 
The Train to Nowhere

Coyote Blog picked up an article that I had missed...

The Mesa Link debuted the same week as light rail. For now, Link involves a fleet of 10 buses. Each $756,000 vehicle carries a transponder to coordinate traffic lights and keep the bus on schedule for a 12-mile run in 45 minutes.

It’s the start of a much more ambitious program.

Over the next few months, the Regional Public Transportation Authority, which coordinates Valley Metro bus service, will build stations and add technology to the Mesa line to give it more of the pace and feel of a train.

As Warren picks out, Mesa Link runs just as fast as the light rail system and at a capital cost of 1/30 the price.

If I remember correctly there is supposed to be some sort of study on the current rail system before more mileage is built. I wonder if this will come up. Even better, with both systems being lit up at the same time, I would like to get the local heavy hitters who backed light rail to answer why light rail was built instead of a more creative alternative (paging Richard Florida.) If the question was posed, I bet the answer falls into one of two categories:

1) "We sold light rail to the public as a transportation system when in fact we saw it as a development project and fancy bus-like contraptions like Mesa Link wouldn't get the development component done...."

or the more likely response...

2) "Light rail is what the feds were paying for at the time..." That's the answer I usually get from such people along with the additional excuse that the federal money had to be used to drum up local support. Leaving aside that hundreds of millions of local tax money was used to match the federal dollars.

So if light rail was the locally supported option, despite its high cost and inflexibility, because the feds were willing to spring the money what does that say about federally funded transportation projects let alone all the capital projects in the massive federal "stimulus" bill?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 12:51 PM

 
Thoughts of The Week That Was

I was asked for my comments concerning the past week while I was away...

First and most importantly, the Super Bowl. You have to do the right thing and congratulate the Steelers for making the plays when they had to; that final touchdown was just real pro and they deserved to win.

However going into the game I thought the Cards had a very good chance. I watched the Steelers play the Eagles earlier this year and Philly whipped them like a rented mule. People, both fans and media, had talked them into believing that Rooney/Tomlin/Big Ben were the second coming but I had a feeling that given the right circumstances, they could be had and they almost were. The difference in the game ended up being that freak interception run back at the end of the first half which was at least a 10 point swing. The Steelers did nothing for the first 27 minutes of the second half in terms of offense; they only scored 3 points during that time and the fact they even scored those 3 was due to a couple of ticky tack personal foul calls.

The other big point is how the Cards played. I hate the term "moral victory" which is usually used when they are about to lower your coffin into the ground. The Cards were 2 1/2 minutes from one of the great Super Bowl victories of all time and instead who has 95% of today's front page coverage? That's what happens when you get close but don't make it, no one cares and deservedly so. Having said that I was very pleased with the Cards, not so much for making the Super Bowl as for the toughness they displayed both in this game and during the NFC Championship. There were times during both games when they looked dead and buried and you just knew the writers in the booth were finishing the Cards' epitaph. Instead of folding and playing the foil to a great stories by the Eagles and Steelers, the Cards crawled out of the grave dug for them and fought back. In all the years I watched the Cards, I never expected to see that spirit and determination and I was surprised and very happy to see it this postseason

The FY2009 budget...

For all the people who are bellyaching about the fact that the budget process was rusghed and done behind closed doors, you have a point and I hope to see a better process for the FY2010 budget. I think everyone, not just lawmakers but also the public, need to understand the choices involved in what promises to be a very bloody and wrenching process.

Having said that, those bellyachers need to keep things in perspective. The FY2009 budget was unbalanced from the day it became effective 7 months ago and the previous governor and the Democrats in the Legislature who wrote it did nothing to correct the problem. I don't know when the point of no return would have been on the budget, the date after which if the budget hadn't been fixed that the state government would have to turn the lights off for part of the fiscal year, but such a date would have become a distinct possibility. The deficit had to be fixed and it got fixed and it took less than 3 weeks under the new legislative leadership (or if you like less than 2 weeks of the Brewer Administration) to get it done.

Finally...

No I'm not going to say anything about the siutation in Kentucky and elsewhere where people are suffering in freezing weather without power and heat and FEMA has yet to arrive except to say that a certain someone we all know here in Arizona now heads the Department of Homeland Security and has FEMA under her superivision. Those of us who remember her response to the gas pipeline break in 2003 that cut off 70% of Phoenix's gas supply or her lack of unflappability whenever things didn't go her away (see her response last month to Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin) shouldn't be surprised. You cannot bully an ice storm or scream at it to get it to do what you want.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 1:58 PM

 
You Thought I Was Exaggerating

The other week I wrote a post entitled "Killing Hope, Puppies, Children, and Kittens" that extended a thought that the Republicans will be pilloried as monsters for trying to close the state budget deficit through spending.

Well I got an earful on that... that perhaps I was exaggerating just a bit. I was told that yes, it will be a point of partisan controversy given that the Democrats proposed closing the gap through smoke and mirrors but I was being hysterical by claiming that the Republicans will be attacked as baby killers.

Oh really?

From one of the lead op-eds in today's East Valley Tribune, Budget Cuts Reminiscent of Ancient Sparta.

Just so we're clear about the Sparta connection, the writer is not talking about standing up to the barbarian hordes and dying a heroic death like int he movie "300" but rather the Spartan tradition of infanticide, leaving babies-to-die.

Republicans as baby killers, in one of the two main newspapers in town.

Leave aside the lack of analysis of whether state revenue, even with the tax cuts the writer pillories, has outpaced inflation and population growth. Leave aside the fact that the writer works at ASU, one of the targets of the proposed budget cuts.

Is this any way to enrich the public debate?
posted by Anonymous Mike at 5:59 AM

 
Can't Anyone Play This Game?

Remember during the campaign when Senator Joe Biden said it was patriotic for wealthy people to pay more taxes?

Remember when President Obama pounded on Wall Street types for pulling down big bonuses while their firms were taking in taxpayer-funded bailouts?

Well Mr. President and (now) Vice President Biden, what about cabinet officers taking in big government paychecks while skimping on their taxes?

So with Geithner and Daschle caught on their taxes right at a time when their party is looking at handing out hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars (well borrowed dollars) to favored constiteuncies? For years Republicans have been cirticized for liking big government as long as they could borrow for it, now I guess we can say Democrats like big government as long as they don't have to personally pay the taxes for it.

Couple of thoughts...

First, take the Geithner and Daschle messes. The only reason we know of them is because they were appointed for cabinet posts, so how many other unppointed tax cheat are out there? Should we take Scrappleface's suggestion and expand the cabinet so it's large enough so we could get more tax cheats to own up?

Second, what's up these cabinet appointments? Cannot anyone vet them? Add in the Bill Richardson fiasco which only a top secret spy or someone who lived in New Mexico for the past few years would ever know about and you have to wonder who approves of these appointments.

Third, what does that say about the tax system? Back as an undergrad a prof made the remark that the difference between the old US and Italian tax systems was that the former had alot of deductions because they expected you to be honest while the latter had few deductions because they expected you to cheat on them... I have the feeling we as a country just found out how rotted out our system is. It reminds me of what another prof said... in an era of big government it's the middle class that gets screwed because the lwoer class doesn't pay taxes and gets government benefits while the upper class learns how to manipulate the system
posted by Anonymous Mike at 1:14 PM

 
The Guns of January

With the all the screaming from the universities and K-12 on the proposed budget cuts, I have a question...

At what point does the FY2009 budget, no matter what scenario, pass the point of no return in terms of balancing it?

Let's look at the facts.

Let's say the FY2009 budget is about $10.2 billion, roll-over adjusted.

Next week is the last week of January, meaning the fiscal year is almost 60% of the way complete. I don't have the latest Treasurer's report in front of me so let's assume (big assumption) that spending is done equally across the fiscal year; that means a little over $4 billion left.

The deficit for this fiscal year stands at $1.6 billion or so and will probably get larger... let's say $1.8 billion to be on the safe side

Cash available... about $670 million or so in fund transfer from tapping Rainy Day Fund and sweeping the other asset accounts. Let's also assume another $400 million (another big assumption) from the feds as part of the bailout (oh the humanity.)

That leaves us about $730 million short, which has to be made up either with spending cuts or tax increases. Let's keep the assumption that no one wants to raise taxes... so we're going to cut the whole amount.

Man I made alot of assumptions but bear with me. Assuming the feds come up with the money, assuming that spending is equal throughout the fiscal year, assuming the deficit doesn't get larger than $1.8 billion, and not counting any interest payments we'll have to make tapping any line of credit to make up for cash flow problems... that means we need to cut about 17% of spending to make the books balance by the end of the fiscal year.

The Republican leadership in the Legislature thinks they can get a budget through by next week, but let's say members of the Republican caucus quail in the face of the pressure brought by those affected by the cuts and slow the process down. What happens then? What happens if we get to February and there's no deal done? Then using the same assumptions, we're down to cutting the same amount from $3.39 billion or 21% cuts.

If they couldn't make it work with 17% cuts, I cannot see them making it with 21% cuts and the longer this goes on the more the pressure will grow for some way to bypass those types of spending cuts in favor of the previous governor's suggestions of liquidating state assets and accounting gimmicks.

That is of course if the budget can even be saved at that point.

So if this going to happen, then it will have to happen quickly otherwise...
posted by Anonymous Mike at 10:04 AM

 
The Pride of Chandler

I knew Eagles QB lived in the Phoenix-area but I didn't know it was Chandler. I'm not surprised because everyone knows that Chandler is truly the reincarnation of the Garden of Eden, the place where "rainbows end." Not like Scottsdale.... nope.

Apparently some local residents decided to show their Cardinals pride by destroying Mr. McNabb's lawn.

Rex Michael Perkins, 37, of Chandler, and Ryan Hanlon, 29, of Gilbert, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage on Sunday after police questioned Perkins about the sign that said: “Go Cards” on one side and “Beat Philly” on the other, Chandler police said.

Perkins and Hanlon also allegedly poured diesel fuel in McNabb’s yard in the 4100 block of South Purple Sage Drive to read: “Go Kurt,” and “Go Cards,” causing an estimated $2,000 in damage, Chandler police Sgt. Joe Favazzo said.

So how were these miscreants caught?

Police were able to track down the pair after they discovered a sticker containing the home address of one of the men on a cardboard sign left in McNabb’s yard.

How sad. How pathetic.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 11:38 AM

 
Killing Hope, Children, Puppies, and Kittens

What did I tell you? Already the media is painting the Republican Legislature as a bunch of child-hating monsters for wanting to cut, in part, education spending in order to balance the massive budget deficit.

First we have Laurie Roberts in the Republic:

OK, raise your hand if you're happy with Arizona's budget plan, the one put out last week by Republican leaders.

Because as we all know everyone is always happy with the options available when trying to cut a budget deficit...

The one that guts one of the nation's most woefully underfunded school systems and debones the universities. The one that eliminates all-day kindergarten and health care for 63,000 kids. The one that slashes services to autistic children and the mentally ill and old people and, oh yeah, abused babies. Applause? Anyone?......

..... A path, by the way, that runs right over the youngest, the oldest and the weakest among us.

Well, considering the bulk of the budget dealt with things such as education and ACHCCCS it only makes sense that many of the cuts will fall on those aspects of the budget. As for the "youngest, the oldest and the weakest" well if there are parts of the state budget that involve giving oodles of money to the "strongest, prime of life, and the strongest" then let's cut that first. Oh there isn't a part of the budget that serves that community, oh, okay.... so basically what part of the budget can we cut that avoids the "youngest, the oldest and the weakest"? Prisons or would it be wise to be cut the budget involving the "strong, malicious, and respect-for-the-law-challenged" among us ?

So if you cannot cut anything, where does that leave us?

On to Republic reporter Casey Newton down at the Capitol...

As a feisty Capitol press corps pressed the leadership to consider tax hikes, Senate President Bob Burns said his top priority was to reduce spending.

Hey did you remember outgoing Governor Napoltano's budgets saying anything about tax increases? Nope, they were filled with what even Ms. Roberts says are "...fund sweeps, borrowing, and other maneuvers..." SSoo why wasn't a "feisty Capitol press corps" getting after the leadership to consider those "maneuvers" from her budgets? Is it because the press already knew such maneuvers were a joke and that her budgets weren't worth the paper they are printed on? Better yet why didn't a "feisty Capitol press corps" get after Napolitano to "consider tax hikes" in those budgets? Oh, it was because she had already left town with a one-way plane ticket to her confirmation hearings in Washington.

If you want to another example of a member of the Capitol press corps full of great ideas and snark for the Republican Legislature, check out Howie Fischer's piece (h/t Espresso Pundit.) Why, Howie asks, cut spending when you can raise taxes? I don't remember him being so helpful to Napolitano.

Gosh it's great the press is helpful and feisty when it comes to tax increases, but where was this great surge of energy, say, last week?

To top it, victims of the budget cut are already making plans to close the Washington Monument. That reference is in regard to a common tactic used by government agencies when threatened with budget cuts; they don't try to find the least essential program to cut first , no instead they'll have to eliminate the most popular programs first. Check out ASU President Michael Crow's threat to close ASU Polytechnic... which just happns to be one of Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce's pet projects.
they proclaim that if the cuts are enacted they'll have to
posted by Anonymous Mike at 10:59 AM

 
Things I Haven't Discussed

I have been asked why I have refrained from commenting on certain issues. So here goes...

The upcoming Obama Presidency. I didn't want to jump on the guy because first he hadn't even taken office, I know there are people in this country who in the past have liked to condemn a man for such things but hey I'm old fashioned, I'll judge a man by what he does not what he says. Second, I think I like the man's cabinet picks better than those who voted for him.

Btw... we'll say a prayer for him tonight and tomorrow. Whether you voted for him or not he will be the president as of tomorrow and right now that isn't a job I'll wish on anyone.

Light rail...

I think I have said it before. Congratulations to Metro for getting the job done on schedule and what looks to be on budget. I will be intersted to see what the ridership looks like say, 6 months from now, especially in comparison with the Red Line bus route which the rail follows. I know that even if ridership numbers are int he pits that it won't stopt he $100 million per extension from going in, heck I know that low ridership will be seen as a justification for expanding the system, go figure.

One question though, why do I have to pay for a separate ticket to ride the rail and the bus? Why cannot there be a common transfer for both? Shouldn't the bus and rail systems be integrated as one?

Photo radar...

All the hub bub about it being used for revenue generation as opposed to safety, the move to get it banned... all old news and I cannot say it any better than others. My point is that when the current Governor proposed the plan as a way to balance the budget, she said it would generate $90 million in revenue the first year and $120 million the second. Now in her recent budget proposals she has given numbers of $50 million the first and $75 million the second. Why do I think the actual numbers will be even less than that? Why do I think the photo radar numbers are as much a mirage as all of her budget numbers?

I know I'm being a cynic.
posted by Anonymous Mike at 1:22 PM