Someone over at CNN is an Idiot...

Huffington Post broke the following story about Barack Obama and his statements at a recent fund raising event.

To put his language out there:

So, it depends on where you are, but I think it's fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people are most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre...they're misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to 'white working-class don't wanna work -- don't wanna vote for the black guy.' That's...there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it's sort of a race thing.


Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What is the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- to close tax loopholes, you know, roll back the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background -- there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

The editors over at CNN felt it was necessary to sensationalize a portion of this text, namely:

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.

Lets look at this for a moment. The argument against Obama's statements, and comments clearly meant to start a pro-Clinton row, presents the speech in a light that suggests Obama is stereotyping small-town America.

You could call this the worst kind of contextual political hyperbole that has little to no merit.

In reality, Obama is highlighting the trouble any political candidate will have connecting to the those who live in small towns ravaged by the policy of the federal government over the last 25 years. This isn't a stereotype, this is the unfortunate truth. Obama made a statement about the way our federal government has harmed middle America. These circumstances, created by two Bushes, a Clinton, and a Reagan, are what needs fixing in this country. Obama used the truth as an example of how he hopes to change things in this country.

It is unfortunate that CNN had to take a decent speech out of context in order to make political news.

A moment on Inflation...

I have commented on the inflation and the state of the economy in the past, however, this particular post will focus on how we can fix the systemic problem plaguing our economy.

I don't characterize the problem as systemic lightly. We need to look at the history of the nation to really determine how we got here. In reality it all seems to have started with the Great Depression, and then was exasperated with the rise of social programs in the 1950's. The demise of the gold standard was only the start of the problem.

Monetary Inflation comes from an increase in the availability of liquid currency. The current situation in Zimbabwe and in Germany between 1914 and 1923 are examples of extreme inflation, also called hyperinflation. These situations resulted from the government printing money to subsidize the cost of their debt, social programs, or militarization. Interestingly, something similar is going on in the United States.

Currently, the national debt stands at just under $9.5 Trillion. Much of this deficit comes from the creating of funds through securities to other countries like China. Until recently, the greenback was the favored international currency because of American economic dominance. However, this is no longer the case, pushing the government to the edge of hyperinflation, something every American should be concerned about.

Debt is really the problem. Historically, the amount of debt has steadily increased. As debt increases, so does the availability of liquidity. Applying basic principles of supply and demand, the increase in availability typically means a decrease in value. The net result of there being more money available for everyone to spend means the decrease in the value of the greenback.

While debt is the problem, it doesn't seem like personal debt is really the issue. Security, as extended by credit companies, theoretically operates to insure the continual operation of the economy by making what is hard to get a hold of easier to attain by the average individual. However, when this tactic is employed by the government, the result is a devaluation of the dollar, and the increase in the value of everything dependent upon that currency.

In the United States, this seems to have created a compound problem. The government has outrageous debt, and to keep up, the average American has to have an equally outrageous amount of debt. All of this money in the air lead to a spike in the number of security instruments available, e.g. mortgage notes, credit card debt, etc. Like the value of the dollar, the value of these securities is contingent on their availability. The increase in the transaction of security instruments, and their increased availability would ultimately lead to their devaluation. However, the value of security instruments didn't seem to decrease in value like everything else in the market. The only reason I can think of is that they aren't real commodities. The only value a security is tied to is the value of the currency that supports it and the currency that supports it and the potential interest that will accrue on the debt.

Lets put the entire economy into perspective for a moment. We have a remarkable increase in the value of property, driving largely by inflation. We have an increase in the transaction of mortgage based securities and other debt securities as a way to create derivative income for large lenders. We have smaller banks getting involved in the business of securities as a way to leverage their business. However, everything is reliant upon a steady value of the dollar. Now, throw current inflation into the mix. The net result is a substantial devaluation of all of these securities. The only way for the debt based economy to keep pace is to issue more debt. Personal debt layered upon the exponentially increasing national debt only adds to the push toward the downward spiral of hyperinflation.

The ultimate question is whether there is a solution. Some have proposed switching back to the gold standard. This is idea is fundamentally flawed because the overnight revaluation of the dollar would make every household rich if they were permitted to retain the money they currently possess. The only way to implement this change would be to redistribute liquid assets to every individual based on their actual gold worth. For example, your $1000 bank account would end up only having a total balance of $25. No reasonable human being would be interested in such a situation.

Instead, a better solution would be to reduce the national debt, increase interest rates, and for the average American to spend a substantial portion of their disposable income. This will result in the constriction of the availability of liquid assets while insuring that the economy keeps pace from a consumer perspective. As the Federal Government and the population restrict the availability of the dollar, we will get back to a point where inflation turns to deflation, bringing the value of the dollar up and the price of everything else down. The steady process would eventually reach a point where the value of the dollar effectively hits the gold standard on its own. At that point, steps should be taken by the federal government to normalize its policy to prevent the situation the United States economy is currently in by developing sound economic policy.

However, the gold standard shouldn't be the goal. Rather, if we can get back to a point where we are close to parity with major international currencies, still have reasonably available consumer credit, and very strict governmental economic policy, we will see a market that returns to being driven by the consumer and not the Government.

That should really be the goal, a healthy and consumer driven market not reliant on the whims of government spending. Instead, the market would permit flexible valuation of commodities based on production, insure that workers receive a livable wage, and result in greater prosperity for all of us.

A Moment For Iraq...

I haven't touched on this subject much because the war, while still raging, has been in a bit of a stalemate while the political process has attempted to create a more stable Iraq.

Leave it to the politicians to screw things up!

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, decided to disregard the cease fire between the Sadr militia, also known as the Mahdi Army, in favor of a new offensive to weed out militants at the end of last week. Unfortunately, United States and British forces have been dragged into the fray. Those on the ground fear this is the start of an Iraqi Civil War.

At the very least, this should be cause for an American military withdrawal from Iraq, with due haste. The Iraqi government has now taken affirmative steps to govern itself, and pursued a policy objective wholly separate from the aims of any U.S. Military operation. The Iraqi government has disregarded our help, and it is time for them to deal with their decision, and our mistake. There may be a smart way out, contingent upon the election of a Democrat for President. We can only hope. Imagine what the budget for the war would do for our economy or our educational system.

This is proof that the powers that be don't care about the results. Why not let them lie in the beds they have made.

In a word...Quixotic...

Those who watch this blog with some regularity (who I appreciate to no end), probably noticed that it has been some time since an update. This is due to circumstances of life as well as circumstances of content. Realistically, the news these days seems absolutely unpredictable and irrational. In a word, quixotic.

I wanted to take some time to step back and let things percolate. I had a need to see what would happen with things like the FISA amendment debates (more in the future), with the situation in Iraq, or the fallout from the mortgage foreclosure debacle before I could continue to opine in these pages. In the interim, crazy things have been happening. The House, while not passing the Senate FISA bill, did pass its own abomination. The Iraqi government unilaterally broke the cease fire with the Mahdi Army. Bear Sterns is the most recent casualty of the American credit crunch (also consider yourself warned going into Presidential election season of the connection between John McCain and the guy who got us into this mess).

Strangely, this isn't the weird stuff. No, instead we have a new attorney general who is equally as incompetent as the old one, demonstrating a propensity to use party line fear-mongering in unrelated debates concerning things like intellectual property piracy. That high school kid subject to the RIAA's extortionist litigation tactics is probably not supporting terrorism, but Mukasey sounds like he wouldn't mind sending the kid to Guantanamo for spring break.

It gets worse. Some nut case seems to think that the new particle accelerator going on line at CERN will destroy the world. For the record, it is impossible to create a quantum singularity using an atom smasher. Just ask this guy, who, I am sure, would know a thing or two about the possibility of a world-ending catastrophe. As a side note, who is the idiot lawyer who took this case and why did they think subject matter jurisdiction exists, even in a Hawaii federal court? I hope the retainer is huge, with sufficient disclosures regarding the unlikelihood of succeeding.

On a completely unrelated note, Hillary Clinton is an ego-maniacal habitual liar hell bent on destroying American Democracy.

So, yes, the state of our union just under three months into the year is clearly evincing some problems in recognizing reality. Why aren't we more concerned with interesting breakthroughs in nanotechnology or bio-technology that could lead to finding new energy sources, or realizing the precipice on which we, as a world population, currently stand? We need to wake up and get focused on finding solutions to real problems!

Amazing Ignorance and Idiocy...

I think the title of this post is sufficient to describe Senator Steve King's recent comments about the prospect of an Obama presidency.

I understand if Senator King is making a comment regarding Senator Obama's stance on how to wage the war on terror, but to implicate Senator Obama's middle name in conjunction with his corresponding "rhetoric" stoops to the level of arrogant, ignorant, irresponsible fearmongering. Lets consider what has been going on in recent history. The President, a Republican and supposed conservative, has spent $2 Trillion to wage the so-called war on terror, which has done little to sully the world's opinion of our great country, burned political bridges, and managed to do nearly irreparable harm to two of the largest economies in the world. If this is how we are supposed to fight the so-called global war on terror, a reasonable mind might think it is time for a change.

The name Hussein, though, isn't a bad name. In fact, his name was meant as a tribute to a family member.

The reality of Senator King's comments boils down to little more than xenophobia driven largely by party line ideology. I had hoped that our elected officials would be far more decorous. Clearly I am mistaken.

Senator King, as an American, you should know full well that this kind of worthless rhetoric has no place in United States politics. You should be ashamed of yourself as an American, but especially as an elected official.

Coming back to FISA...

I stated in my last post that I would spend some time discussing the dangers of the proposed amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Last year, Congress passed the Protect America Act, which expired a couple of weeks ago. At the beginning of February, the Senate voted to make the Act permanent. As discussed in a previous post, the Act provides protection for telecommunications companies assisting in the NSA Domestic Surveillance Program by substituting the Federal Government for those companies in litigation against them over the program. Making this law permanent would insulate the federal government, permanently, from repeated violations of the Fourth Amendment. The defense oriented rhetoric coming from the Whitehouse is remarkably abhorrent on this issue, particularly in regard to amendments to FISA.

I find it very interesting that this rhetoric specifically states that the proposed bill would permit the government to use third parties to assist in foreign intelligence gathering without the threat of reprisal. I am amused that the focus is on avoiding the need to obtain court orders for foreign surveillance. Interestingly, FISA doesn't restrict the ability of the President to order wire taps on targets outside of the country. Originally, FISA operated as a check to verify that the President wasn't doing something in violation of an international treaty or the US Constitution. The notion that the purpose of the bill is to empower foreign intelligence gathering is downright absurd. The President already has this power, so an expansion of FISA isn't necessary. Moreover, the only reason to propose these amendments is to side-step the fourth amendment. If the purpose is really to target foreign targets, why is the NSA tapping the phone lines of everyday Americans? Watching Bob Smith on the corner has nothing to do with catching Osama Bin Laden. The administration may argue that this is necessary to root out homegrown terrorism, an fear mongering buzz word recently in the news, however, this kind of problem has always been considered a problem for law enforcement. This new encroachment into personal privacy takes a step well beyond the historical roles for the Federal Government.

The worst part of this whole situation, though, is the Whitehouse's insistence on pursuing domestic surveillance regardless of having Constitutional or Legislative authority.

The House of Representatives was correct in letting this bill die. It should never be revived either. Passage of this bill will only verify for the President that he can continue to violate the Constitution without fear of retribution. Hopefully, the 2008 Presidential election will provide some form of restitution to the American people by electing a candidate who won't so willingly discharge his constitutional oath. If this bill is to pass, it would provide an ample basis to pursue impeachment as the President would be in clear violation of his oath by enforcing a law that clearly abrogates the Constitutional restrictions of the Fourth Amendment.

Impeach the President, and replace any member of Congress who continues to permit such gross violations of the supreme law of the land. That is what American citizens deserve to see happen.

FISA and the slide towards totalitarianism

I have stayed out of this fray this week largely because I wanted to see how things would develop after the Senate decided to authorize the amendments to FISA, also known as the Protect America Act. While I will have a more detailed review of the Senate's vote in my next post, I want to use this post to comment on the President's reaction to the resistance by House Democrats to the Senate's measure. For more on the legal ramifications of this proposed law, see my previous posts on the subject.

For the record, the President stated:

They'll have to ask themselves, 'Do you trust the intelligence community more than you trust Democrats who are beholden to their left-wing?' And that's the debate that this country is going to have.

And:

The American people will find it baffling that on a day that House leaders are trying to put off passing critical legislation to keep us safer from the threat of foreign terrorists overseas, they are spending scarce time to become the first congress in history to bring contempt charges against a president's chief of staff and lawyer. ... The 'people's House' should reflect the priorities of the American people, not the fantasies of left-wing bloggers.

I find both of these comments repugnant. In the last 7 Years we have grown accustom to random statements of absolute incompetence from Mr. Bush, however, this one in particular takes the cake.

Mr. Bush, the amendment to FISA you advocate is the most liberal and violent act of proposed legislative fiat seen in this country since the passage of the Espionage Act of 1917. This Bill would permit the Federal Government to tap the phone of any American citizen without the need for probable cause or a warrant. This law would do away with individual privacy on a substantive level. Moreover, this wholesale assault on civil liberties is far from the conservative values to which you claim to ascribe.

Mr. President, it is not the "left-wing bloggers" who are to blame here, it is yourself. This brazen attempt to subvert the Constitution, expand executive police power, and install yourself as a defacto dictator is an act so contrary to the notion of American Democracy as envisioned by this Country's founders that it is virtually impossible for you to continue to call yourself a conservative let alone a United States Citizen. The only kind of conservative you can rightly call yourself, Mr. Bush, is a fascist. You should be ashamed at yourself for rattling the saber of fear at the American people under the auspice of national security. Clearly, this is an act of Presidential insecurity, one that demonstrates how callow you and your administration has truly become it comes to dealing with the American people and your artificially inflated threat of terrorism. How dare you impugn those who are exercising their right to speak and inform the public of exactly how despicable these acts are and the effect they will have on the average American.

Merely Advocating for this kind of law is a flagrant violation of your oath of office. You, sir, should be ashamed of even considering imposing such an unconstitutional amendment on a law that originally operated well within the constitutionally founded notion of checks and balances. At this point, I call for your resignation, and the resignation of the Vice President, or for Congress to take the necessary steps to impeach you and the Vice President for a violation of your oath. A person supporting such an un-American ideology does not deserve to sit at the helm of the Executive branch of this government nor does he or she deserve the support of the electorate.

One More Shot at FISA...

I am posting the following link from the ACLU on FISA. I posted last week about the dangers of the so-called "Protect America" Act. It is really more like the "Protect Corrupt Despotic Politicians From Prosecution" Act. Read up, be aware, CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEN!

One side note, the statement about the purpose of FISA isn't entirely accurate. At its core, the original purpose of FISA was to restrict the ability of the President to wire-tap phones outside of the United States, not wire-tap Americans. However, earlier amendments to FISA made it apply to Americans when it never had before. FISA never applied to Americans before because that is supposed to be the role of the Fourth Amendment. At the very least, you can see how far we have come already, and why further amendments to this bill need to end.

Rights and Telecom Immunity...

Recently, the President and even the Vice President have been stumping for a bill that would provide retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who assisted the NSA Domestic Surveillance Program. To be clear, this portion of the proposed FISA amendment substitutes the federal government for a telecommunications company in civil law suits brought by plaintiffs for the telecommunications company's participation in the Warrantless Surveillance program. However, the proposed amendment also permits the application of any and all defenses, privileges, and immunities available to the federal government. The net result of substituting the Federal Government for telecommunications companies is to permit the Federal Government to utilize the "state's secrets" privilege to bar further litigation of cases that would restrict otherwise unconstitutional action by the executive branch via organizations like the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

There are other beneficial consequences to these proposed amendments, they effectively insulate the present leaders of the executive branch from future prosecution for violations of civil liberties and war crimes by preventing evidence of their wrong doing from coming to life. The fact of the matter remains that the leaders of our country are concerned with covering their own behinds. Keith Olbermann's special comment elaborates on this point. The special comment, though, doesn't really get at the meat of the issue. FISA exists, and has existed since the Nixon administration. The purpose of FISA was to put a limitation on the Executive's ability to spy on individuals outside of the United States. The 2003 amendments to FISA undercut this purpose by unconstitutionally permitting the FISA courts to hear petitions by the Federal Government to tap American Citizens on American soil, something regularly left to a neutral magistrate under the Fourth Amendment. Congress has already rendered FISA useless in pursuing its original purpose.

What is most important about this situation is the realization that telecommunications immunity amendment to FISA only serves to further insulate the brazenly unconstitutional actions of the President and his minions. Pragmatically, this bill would rubber stamp the domestic surveillance program under the law, making it legal for the government to disregard the Constitution. This will further progress the Fascist shift currently occurring in the United States.

If this law passes, we can be sure that Big Brother will be listening, regardless if you have a right for them not to be.

Interesting Thought...

The following YouTube video got me thinking about a lot of things. At the very least it should raise a question regarding the need things like income tax and the CIA. What is more impressive is that this is just one example of where politicians have gone wrong these days. Check it out.