How Can You Lose What You Never Had?

There's a lot of talk about job losses this year. Mayor Bloomberg, who always puts Children First, wants to help them with another innovative "reform"--to wit, firing 15,000 of their teachers. After all, city teachers only teach 34 kids at a time, so why the heck can't they teach 60 and just suck it up? Perhaps part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten will offer it as a concession and get a fifty-dollar bonus for all teachers. Who knows?

But actually, according to newly-elected RNC chairperson and general deep-thinker Michael Steele, you don't have a job to begin with:

"You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government -- federal, state or local -- has never created one job.

So I guess I am unemployed, along with 80,000 other teachers here in Fun City. Those trips I take every morning must be an illusion, and I must not have been cursed out yesterday by the young woman who was mortally offended by my thoughtless suggestion that she was late to class. And the police officer I saw outside doesn't have a job either. The bus driver who whizzed by, and the firefighters whose sirens interrupted me in the trailer...even the custodians who don't clean or repair the trailers are unemployed. The military, the National Guard, right up to the President. None of them have jobs either.

So with this vast unemployment, what are we going to do before postal workers find out they don't have jobs either and begin shooting up the joint? Well, it's hard to say. Mr. Steele's doing his bit for job creation:

Steele is also facing a distraction -- a federal inquiry into allegations that his 2006 Senate campaign paid a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed

Sweet. Why must I, then, as an unemployed government worker, keep showing up every day? Well, on the positive side, I do get these paychecks for my nonexistent job, so I really should stop complaining. After all, part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten established a sixth class that is not a class for most teachers in 2005, so why shouldn't we be able to handle a job that isn't a job? It ought to be child's play for us.

What else does the GOP have in mind, besides labeling government workers, a huge portion of the national work force, as unemployed?

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) suggested last week that the party is learning from the disruptive tactics of the Taliban, and the GOP these days does have the bravado of an insurgent band that has pulled together after a big defeat to carry off a quick, if not particularly damaging, raid on the powers that be.

Well, as a teacher, I can attest to the need for role models. Odd the things those guys aspire to, though.

Pardon me, but I'm off to the job the government never created for me.

What A Day!

Well, Heckuva Job Bushie is back in Texas, DeadEye Dick has been wheeled to his crypt in Virginia and President Obama is running the country.

If you were listening carefully, at about 12:01 PM, you could hear this enormous wind sound as 72% of America let out its collective breath after holding it for, oh, the last eight years.

Unfortunately, Heckuva Job Bushie left quite a mess to clean up.

Anybody see what happened to the markets today?

The Dow had its worst Inauguration Day ever.

Now you could say its just the GOP-sympathetic investor class selling/grumbling over a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress now running Washington.

And that could be.

If it is, it's pretty ironic, since Heckuva Job Bushie is the first president in the last five to leave office with the market levels lower than when he took office.

Bush was good for business?

Ha! That's like saying Bernie Madoff was good for investors!

That said, the big sell-off today could also signify really bad problems coming down the pike.

For instance, Citigroup's stock now stands at $2.80. The bank itself is insolvent, so frankly I don't care if any shareholders still stupid enough to be holding Citigroup stock lose everything, but guess what group of people will be taking on the cleaning up of the Citigroup financial implosion when it comes?

You got it - the American taxpayer.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see Bank of America follow suit in quick succession.

And again, guess who will be asked to clean that mess up?

Uh, huh.

And remember, the U.S. doesn't actually have any money. We're either printing it or borrowing it from the Chinese, if they're still willing to lend it, that is.

Pretty bad space to be in where two of the country's three biggest banks are insolvent and in need of a fire sale.

But that's where we're at.

Heckuva job, Bushie!

All that deregulation, the wink-wink at Enron-style business ethics, the cronyism, the celebration of debt in the form of real estate purchases and consumer purchases - it has brought us to a very, very bad place.

So as Bush slinks from town and heads back to obscurity in Texas and as Barack Obama takes office, remember that when all the hype, all the noise, all the parties and pomp and circumstance are over, we are still up #$%^'s creek as a country after these last eight years.

It's going to suck cleaning up the mess the Bushies left.

It's going to hurt.

A lot of people are going to feel the pain.

Hell, a lot of people are already feeling the pain.

But as President Obama has told us, it's going to get worse before it gets better and we have to be ready for that.

I just hope that the people responsible for this mess - the greedy hedge fund managers, the bankers, the brokers, the credit card companies and all the rest of the parasites who made a bundle of faux dough during the "Bush boom" - feel it too.

But I'm dubious about that

Prove me wrong, Mr. President.

Please, prove me wrong.

Now let's get to work and start cleaning this mess up.

I'll get the mop.

How a Lie Begins

On this, the day our nation commemorates the birth of Martin Luther King, we can reflect on some changes for the better that have taken place in our country. But certainly teachers, regularly vilified for the unforgivable offense of accepting pay for teaching children, know that a lot of things have stayed the same.

Thus, after a few less-covered but false press reports, the weasels at Fox News spread a story about how Barack Obama's inaugaration would cost over three times that of GW Bush. O's ceremony is estimated at 150-160 million, but GW's at a mere 42. The Obama figure included security and transportation costs incurred by the federal government and DC, but the Bush figure did not. When the costs are added to GW's figures, his inaugaration cost 157 million, almost exactly what will be spent for tomorrow's ceremony.

This story was then picked up by MSNBC, and who knows how many lazy journalists will go with this, without a whit of due diligence? This is precisely what demagogues like Joel Klein count on, as they traipse about the world pushing "reforms" that hurt working people but fail to help the overwhelming majority of schoolchildren. Sure, it looks great when you give a few charter schools reasonable class sizes and decent facilities--but the lie only works if you can get the media to thoroughly ignore the conditions in typical schools. Sure, when you cherry-pick the kids who take a few dumbed-down tests it looks like you're doing a great job. But only if you ignore the NAEP exams, the ones you have no control over.

I don't suppose we'll see merit pay for journalists who report the truth anytime soon. But those who don't are not journalists at all, and ought to find work more suited to their talents. Perhaps they could sell bizarre cooking utensils on infomercials.

Fooled Again

President-Elect Barack Obama's pick for Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, received Harriet Mieresque praise from both Republicans and Democrats when he faced senators at his confirmation hearing today.

The Chicago Tribune described it as a "kumbaya moment" as Duncan took tough questions like this one from Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn):

"President-elect Obama has made several distinguished Cabinet appointments. I think you're the best."

Or this one from Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska):

“My first impressions are very strong and very favorable,” Senator Murkowski told Mr. Duncan. “I’m glad to see that your boy is there reading books instead of playing with an electronic gadget.

Duncan didn't actually say anything of import at his hearing other than the usual reform pablum about how NCLB needs to be funded, teachers need to be held accountable for student achievement, charter schools are wonderful things and the high school drop-out rate needs to be decreased at the same time that access to college is expanded.

Duncan, Obama's basketball buddy and the current chief of the Chicago school system, didn't say how he would do any of these things.

But judging by his record in Chicago, you can bet the emphasis on testing won't go away anytime soon.

Heck, how else can teachers be held accountable for their students' achievement?

Ironically, at the same time Uncle Arne was holding hands with Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski and singing "It's A Small World After All", Federal Reserve Chairman Helicopter Ben Bernanke was explaining during a speech at the London School of Economics that the boys running Citigroup, BoA, AIG, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions, having already received more than $350 billion dollars in taxpayer funds as part of the TARP program, will need hundreds of billions more to keep them afloat. Of course he didn't say that in English, but here's his quote anyway:

“More capital injections and guarantees may become necessary to ensure stability and the normalization of credit markets."

Though the Fed chairman acknowledged that people in many countries were “understandably concerned” about pumping government money into the financial industry while often turning a cold shoulder to other sectors, he defended the effort as unpleasant but necessary.

“This disparate treatment, unappealing as it is, appears unavoidable,” he said. “Our economic system is critically dependent on the free flow of credit, and the consequences for the broader economy of financial instability are thus powerful and quickly felt.”

Got that now?

Teachers must be held accountable for student achievement, financial CEOs and Wall Street Masters of the Universe must be bailed out because, you know, the world might implode if the boys at AIG didn't get to take taxpayer funded junkets to Arizona spas and the boys at Citigroup didn't get to retire with golden parachutes, even though they were the ones who helped make all the financial mistakes in the first place.

Sigh - meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses.

Oooh! Ooooh! Call on Me, Uncle Dave!

Governor Paterson has a big problem right now. Unlike Chicago's Governor Blagojevich (who sounds more and more like a cartoon character, Daffy Duck perhaps, with every new revelation) he doesn't appear to be selling our US Senate seat to the highest bidder. So who will be the next junior Senator from the great state of New York?

Well, he could pick Caroline Kennedy. She's certainly got the name for it. And she's done something or other for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch Democrat, Republican, or Independent (depending which day you catch him). However, Mayor Bloomberg's endorsement suggests to me there must be something amiss with Ms. Kennedy. I don't know what it is, but I'm not remotely anxious to find out.

Or he could pick part-time UFT Prez Randi Weingarten. She's ready to do the job. Plus she could probably do it in her free time, when she's not being President of the UFT or AFT. Or perhaps she'd give up her part-time job as UFT Prez, which would leave us with a chance of negotiating a reasonable contract sometime in our lifetimes. Conventional wisdom, though, suggests Ms. Weingarten would find someone equally impotent to take her place, and that no change whatsoever would take place for either kids or teachers in the Big Apple.

However, the official NYC Educator US Senate endorsement goes to actress Fran Drescher, former star of unwatchable sitcom The Nanny. But NYC Educator, you ask, why would you want an actress like that representing you? Well consider the classic Drescher whining voice. She'll stand up and demand what New Yorkers want, and she'll ask again, and again, and again.

What will GOP Senators faced with the prospect of hearing Ms. Drescher yet again do? Well, they're human after all, and my guess is they'll fold immediately just to avoid further abuse of their eardrums. Forget about Alaska getting all that pork. Let's make New York City pork city, and we'll start by having the Feds fund reasonable class sizes for the city, rather than bailing out gazillionaires who've made bad bets.

Who do you think should be NY's next US Senator?

Our Tax Dollars at Work

Workers at Republic Windows and Doors were given three days notice that their factory was closing. By law, they're supposed to get 60. And that wasn't all. They were told, sorry, but you don't get your severance or vacation pay either. Too bad, but we just don't have the money we've promised you.

The workers have now occupied the factory, and they don't plan to leave until they get what they're contractually entitled to. Why is the company in such dire straits that they need to give employees such awful news? Well, apparently, Bank of America, its creditor, will not allow them to pay their debts. It doesn't care for the monthly sales reports.

The kicker here, though, is that Bank of America just got 25 billion from we, the people, in order to bolster its ability to extend credit. And this is what we, the people, are getting in return.

The State of Illinois has suspended all business with Bank of America until they make things right. If you want to know what you can do, PREA Prez Fred Klonsky can fill you in.

Protection of Marriage

I was in DC a few years back, and on the metro there were all kinds of people handing out flyers and going to a demonstration about "protection of marriage." Actually, though, it wasn't about that at all. It was really about manipulating the prejudices and ignorance of the public at large so they'd vote against their interests, for Republicans who'd lower taxes on people making more money than they ever would.

Now there are places where they're concerned about the protection of marriage. Take South Korea, for example. Actress Ok So-ri is looking at an 18-month stretch for the crime of adultery. No scarlet letter nonsense over there, it's off to the hoosegow and we don't want to hear your excuses. Now it's true that this law has been sullied by vindictive partners looking for revenge, and it's true that this appears to be the only sort of instance in which their law is applied.

But if you really want to protect marriage, you need to toss adulterers in the pokey. And to be fair, you can't leave it at that. You have to jail the divorcees as well. True, these measures seem archaic and draconian. But whether or not gay people tie the knot has nothing to do with protection of marriage. What Rosie O'Donnel does or does not do won't affect my marriage and it won't affect yours either.

Measures outlawing divorce and adultery won't be popular, and they won't garner you nearly the number of votes among the ignorant yahoo segment your candidates may require (and no, I don't think everyone who voted for W. is an ignorant yahoo, but without them he'd never have made it, even with his brother's state, his daddy's court, and Katherine Harris).

But if you're for protection of marriage, and you're not willing to jail adulterers and divorcees, you're full of crap.

Private School for the Obama Girls

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have chosen to send their daughters to the Sidewell Friends School, a "prestigious academy that has educated generations of this city’s elite."

I've written before about a notion a right-wing friend of mine had, that public schools would improve overnight if we required that politicians who administrate them send their own kids. Can you imagine Michael Bloomberg or Joel Klein sending their kids to classes of 34? Can you imagine their kids learning in trailers and closets, or running around in buildings stuffed several times their capacity? It's not hard to imagine that would become an emergency akin to, say, building a new baseball stadium.

On the other hand, as President, Barack Obama will not directly administer any public school system. Furthermore, as children of the President, his kids will need extraordinary care and protection. I sincerely hope the school they've chosen can provide it. And were he to have chosen the DC public schools, his children would've become pawns in the union-busting plans of Michelle Rhee. While it would be nice to see the President's children in public schools, it's a good thing that conversation was sidestepped.

Personally, I think he made the best decision under the circumstances. What do you think?

A Worthy Petition...

...courtesy of Pissed Off Teacher, or you can just sign here.

Don't miss the NY Times Blog commenting on the rumors of NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's possible appointment as Secretary of Education. One of Klein's Tweedies trots out the old canard about interests of adults running counter to interests of children. This would be more effective, of course, had Klein and Bloomberg not spent the last half-dozen years packing children in like sardines into trailers, toxic waste sites, and other dreary corners of our fair city. And while Chancellor Klein can certainly lay claim to the accomplishment of making things worse for working people, his spokesperson once again fails to note that working people are what the bulk of NYC's 1.1 million kids will grow up to become.

I've been largely silent on this, as I doubt President-elect Obama really wants to make such a boneheaded appointment. Working people have it tough enough in this country, and I honestly think he knows it. I also think Klein's ascent would produce more scrutiny on his record, which would be damaging not only to the PR myth he and Mayor Mike have been promoting, but also to the credibility of the new President-elect.

However, the petition is well worth signing. I've spoken to some who think moving up the chancellor will give NYC a break. If you believe that, let me assure you Mayor-for-life Mike Bloomberg can always find someone as bad or worse.

What About Joe the Senator (No, the other Joe the Senator)?

From Politico's Arena, some great comments and interaction.

What do you do with a Senator who's been out campaigning against his own party? Do you continue to let him run Senate committees? Do you make him run smaller ones? Do you give him a time-out?

Personally, I have no idea what you do. But here's my favorite comment:

As a Republican, I think that the Democrats should strip him of his committee chairmanship, throw him out of the party, and make very, very clear that they don't want him to vote with the Democrats ever again.

Evil Democrats Push Awful Programs

It appears that Barack Obama may be moving to address the nation's financial woes, but not via the time-honored American approach of tax cuts for gazillionaires. You may recall that during good times President Bush urged tax cuts for the rich, and when times got bad, both President Bush and Maverick Johny McCain urged continuing tax cuts for the rich.

It's well known that giving more money to rich people is the only way to improve a struggling economy. The non-wealthy are generally happier and more productive when they have less money and fewer options. Also, any money left over should be devoted to fighting wars, filling no-bid contracts, and bailing out needy banks and corporations.

Apparently, President-elect Obama lacks these time-tested insights, and is gambling with risky programs like providing health care for children, even if they're poor. President Bush wisely vetoed the SCHIP bill, since it's well-known that poor children contribute far less to the economy than rich parents.

Furthermore, the Democrats are looking at tax cuts for the middle class, which would have the effect of giving people making under 250K money that might otherwise go into the pockets of millionaires. It's well-known that people making under 250K are likely to fritter away cash on food, shelter, or other such frivolities, and are therefore less likely to invest in stocks or hedge funds. It's unfortunate that the Democrats will have options to pass proposals simply because more people voted for them than their opponents, but it's unlikely they this problem will be corrected under the incoming administration.

In fact, Mr. Obama is considering broadening health care not only to children of the bootless and unhorsed, but to their parents as well. Healthier parents will be more likely to vote, and thus may contribute to the perpetuation of these awful programs. In fact, their spawn, with their diseases treated, may grow up and also vote to support these horrible programs.

Naturally, Fox News will continue to advise non-rich people of the dangers of being healthy and having more money. Regrettably, News Corps, its parent company, is down 30%, this quarter, and this year does not appear at all promising.

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

Splish Splash John McCain took a bath
all about a Tuesday night,
You betcha Sarah Palin's all wet ya
reject her ignorance and blight.
Bling Blang we fired the whole gang,
Dumped 'em all and found our way,
Tring Tripe Plumber Joe fix a pipe,
Find a real job today...

I don't know about you, but I'm very proud to be an American this morning. Congratulations to Barack Obama, and congratulations to the United States of America.

Apologies to Bobby Darin

Rebranding

I don't know what is going to happen in today's election.

Judging by the most recent polls (the national polls have consolidated into a range of Obama +7 with Barack leading in all the Kerry states from 2004 and a good chance to take 8 Bush states from 2004), it could be a pretty big win for him.

Dems also look like they will pick up somewhere between 7-9 Senate seats and 19-29 House seats.

Back during the 2004 election, GOP strategist and Bush guru Karl Rove bragged about creating a "permanent Republican majority" after that election cycle that would keep Democrats in the minority for a generation to come.

Former House Speaker Denny Hastert used to brag about how the only bills that would pass his House were ones that were supported by "the majority of the majority." In other words, Dems need not apply for any part in the legislative process.

For a while there, after 9/11 when GOPers could be pull the "terrorism card" out of their front pockets and wave it to attract all kinds of voters - from rural southerners to suburban soccer moms to former UWS Jewish liberals now turned neo-cons - it looked like the Rove plan was going to work.

Republicans had streamlined the election process to their own advantage by stoking their base, turning off as many swing voters as they could with negative campaigning and Swift Boat ads and suppressing traditional Democratic voters with all kinds of election schemes including phone jamming of opponents GOTV effort and illegal purging of voter rolls.

Never mind that the Republican effort was essentially undemocratic and dare I say fascist in nature (and yes, suppressing your opponents' turn-out, demonizing your opponent as a terrorist, and stoking your own base with Orwellian-type "Moments of Hate" count as fascist in my book) - the point was to win narrow victories election cycle after election cycle.

After each win, patronage was doled out to keep the base happy and opponents were punished and silenced (think the U.S. attorney scandal when GOP attorneys were fired because they didn't play along with the Bush/Rove election tactics.)

And of course the mainstream media could be cowed into going along with all of this, selling the administration's plans and wars and all of that because Republicans know how mainstream reporters and news outlets hate to be called "liberal".

Plus the GOP house news organizations - FAUX News and the Drudge Report - could be counted on to pass the GOP spin off as gospel.

But then some strange things happened:

9/11 started to fade a little as a political GOTV card;

The Iraq war went on and on and on and casualties got worse and worse and worse and the reason given for the war - Saddam's alleged ownership of weapons of mass destruction - was found to be false and known to be b.s. by the administration even before the war started;

And Hurricane Hatrina drowned a city while President Bush vacationed and raised funds with John McCain in Arizona and people watched horrified as citizens of the United States of America were stranded and starving at the New Orleans Superdome and the federal government seemingly couldn't (or worse, wouldn't) do anything to help them;

And it all went downhill from there for the GOP.

President Bush tried to privatize Social Security but was beaten back by suddenly energized Dems.

The Abramoff and ancillary scandals took down a couple of GOP Congressman.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay had to resign his seat under indictment.

Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter libby was found guilty in the CIA leak case (and then pardoned by his president).

By 2006, when Dems swept to power and retook both the House and the Senate (albeit a slim, non-filibuster majority in the Senate), it became clear that Karl Rove's dream of a permanent Republican majority (and more importantly, a permanent Democratic minority) would not come to pass.

But I always figured Dems would have a hard time maintaining their majorities - after all, they had won House seats in many ruby red districts and the Iraq war was still a divisive issue that split some in their coalition (especially the conservative Blue Dog Dems) and most of the time what happens one election cycle gets reversed a bit the next anyway.

But that doesn't look like it is going to happen this year.

As Charlie Cook noted on MSNBC a while back, tidal wave elections happen only once every ten years or so - think 1974 for Dems, 1980 and 1994 for Republicans - but we are now witnessing two straight tidal wave elections that are sweeping Republicans out of power.

We may also be witnessing a minor realignment in the political body of the country.

Republicans are fast becoming the party of the anti-intellectual (i.e., "Joe the Plumber" and "Sarah the Governor"), evangelicals and southern rural voters.

Once New England was full of moderate and liberal GOPers - if Chris Shays (R- Conn) loses tonight, there will be not one Republican House member in New England. If John Sununu loses in New Hampshire tonight, only Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine will remain from the GOP/New England Senate contingent.

Note too that Arizona, John McCain's home state, seems to be in play this year because Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly supporting the Democratic Party - a consequence of the Republican Party's emphasis on immigration reform, border fences and deportation (it should be noted that McCain, Bush and Rove all opposed those policies, knowing full well what a growing Hispanic population could do to the electoral map in a few cycles.)

Note also that people under the age of 35 are overwhelmingly voting for Dems this year and consider themselves much more liberal than the Gen-Xers who came of age during the Reagan years.

Also note that after the Bush administration bailed out Bear Sterns, AIG, Fannie and Freddie and spent $2.25 trillion on the nationalization of the financial industry, the charges that Barack Obama is a "socialist" who is going to turn the country "red" hold water only with the dumbest of the dumb - namely the people at Palin rallies with Joe the Plumber signs.

If Republicans are not careful, they may become a "southern party" with their base of operations housed in Mississippi and Alabama - not a good place to be if you want to be come the majority party.

Now does this mean that Republicans are going to be a permanent minority for the next generation like the Conservative Party in Britian?

Of course not - if nothing else, Dems have consistently shown a wonderful talent for snatching defeat from victory and I would argue that no matter what happens this year in the election, most people are simply voting against the last eight years rather than anything else. The wars, the economy, jobs, inflation, disappearing 401(k)'s - that's what people are voting this year. So whatever happens this election year (and it is still not in the books yet), it certianly can be reversed next cycle.

But I would say this. Note that John McCain - a once-proud "maverick" senator who bucked his party on the Bush tax cuts (he voted against them in both 2001 and 2003), global warming (believes it exists, unlike Sarah the Governor), and religion (he once despised the Moral Majority types and they despised him in kind) felt the need to embrace tax cuts he doesn't believe in, oil drilling his doesn't support, and religious bigots he despises (think the Palin pick) in order to get the GOP base to rally around him.

Had McCain run as a real "maverick" - you know, the guy he was in 2000 - this election would be an even bigger rout than it already seems like it is going to be because the traditional GOP base - the evangelicals and the anti-immigration bigots - would have stayed home

So picking Plain and selling his soul garnered McCain some votes. But ultimately these very interest groups which McCain needed to have this year to stay respectable will become an anchor around the necks of the GOP in the future.

How do they appeal to suburban liberal moms who support gay marriage and abortion rights and also to the Sarah the Governor types who think Mr. Jesus is coming back on a white horse in the next few years to send all the abortionists and gays to hell?

How do they appeal to the Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo bigots who want to deport every brown person they see and make English the official language of the country and not scare away Hsipanic voters in the southwest?

Hell, with Hispanics almost 35% of the population in Texas, George Bush's home state could be a swing state in the next election cycle - never mind what Hispanic voters will do to politics in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona.

You can see why Republican Party apparatchiks seem so worried this year.

The Republican coalition put together by Reagan and extended through Gingrich has seen its death knell under Rove and Bush. Perhaps another domestic terror attack would allow the Repubs to exercise power again (and I believe I remember that somebody in the McCain campaign actually said something very similar a few months ago.)

But otherwise they have some sorting out to do. They have to rebrand.

Otherwise they will become the party of Mississippi and Alabama and few other places where they fondly look upon the Andy Griffith Show as "history".

Now it's not my job to help 'em do the rebranding, but I'm sort of hoping in the coming post-election/GOP civil war, the Sarah the Governor/Bill Kristol types beat out the more moderate Bobo Brooks types.

I mean, who wouldn't want to run against the woman who cites living next to Russia as foreign policy experience and calls herself a blue collar hockey mom while spending $150,000 on clothes from Saks and Neiman Marcus? Who wouldn't want to run against a politican so stupid she couldn't name one other Supreme Court decision outside of Roe v. Wade and thinks Social Security and national health insurance are "red" policies that most Americans don't support (polls say otherwise)?

Given the kind of popularity Palin has garnered in the GOP this year, I suspect she will have lots of fans in her party who push her as the leader of the party post-2008.

If that does happen, the Republican Party will be as beholden to their special interests (evangelicals/bigots/stupid people) as the old Democratic Party of the Mondale era was to theirs.

Now if I were them, I would look more toward the populism of Mike Huckabee than that of Sarah Palin - Huckabee refuses to demonize immigrants, doesn't bludgeon people with his religion and genuinely seems to be an inclusive sort of guy despite believing homosexuality is an abomination and creationism science. On the economy, Huckabee speaks to the worries and concerns of middle and working class Americans and refuses to shill for Wall Street.

But I just don't think Huckabee's brand of populism will appeal to that last branch of the GOP I haven't talked about just yet - the "socialists" on Wall Street at Lehman and Bear and AIG and WaMU and Wachovia and all those other Republican-friendly financial institutions that got bailed out by the Bush administration this year.

Those guys hate the Huckster and his brand of populism and that hurts his chances to lead the party (especially since they're the "money" guys and provide most of the campaign financing.)

And the other "leaders" of the party - St. Rudy (spent $22 million for 1 delegate vote), Mitt Romney (evangelicals think Mormons are "cultists") and Fred Thompson (is he still alive?) all seem too flawed to take over the reins of the Republican Party.

With Tom Delay under indictment, Denny Hastert and Bill Frist in retirement, George W. going back to the ranch to pick brush, DeadEye Dick Cheney going on a permanent hunting trip, Karl Rove at FAUX News and all the others flawed, it seems to me the leader of the Grand Old Party post-election becomes - Sarah the Governor.

Boy, won't that be something.

Maybe they can change the GOP emblem from an elephant to a dead moose?

Sarah the Governor likes moose hunting, doesn't she?

Maverick Johny Takes a Cue from Ms. Weingarten

Lately, we're hearing a lot about how that risky Barack Obama might be (gasp!) a socialist. This, apparently, is a very bad thing. If you're an American as old as I am, raised in the cold war, you were taught that our great enemies were the communists. The communists wanted bad things, like the destruction of America. Now that can't be any good. What is socialism? Well, apparently, it's communism lite. Perhaps it means the partial destruction of America. Well, that can't be any good either, if you ask me.

So when every industrialized country in the world but us has health care for its citizens, people say it's socialism. Not only that, but people have to wait to see doctors (which no one in this country ever has to do), and things are not perfect like they are here in the US of A. Let's not improve on what the other countries do--let's just keep the same crappy system we've always had and screw those 47 million uninsured. Never mind that Americans are literally dying from lack of coverage. Policy experts like Joe the Plumber know better.

Those nasty socialists, now, want to redistribute the wealth. What does this mean? It means that Barack Obama wants to take hard earned cash from Joe the Plumber and give it to poor people. I mean, sure, Joe the Plumber only made 40 thousand bucks last year and he'd actually do better under Obama's tax plan, but that's not the point. It's the principle of the thing. What if Joe wants to buy a 250K business? True, it's rougher for him to get a loan now that our economy has collapsed under the weight of just such loans, but taxpayers could always pay if it didn't work out.

Wait a minute. Isn't that socialism? And didn't Maverick Johny just vote for it?

No, Americans. It's only socialism if we squander our money helping the poor, giving the middle class a tax break, or investing in the health of our citizenry. Covering high-risk idiotic unrealistic loans by short-sighted predatory lenders is just the price of our free market. And while many will say labeling your opponent a socialist (or a terrorist) is bottom-of-the-barrel desperation intended to frighten the ignorant and uneducated, that can't be the case.

After all, UFT President Randi Weingarten, a slam-dunk favorite, didn't hesitate to use that same tactic against her largely unknown, hugely outfunded and out-organized opponent in the UFT election. I mean, she didn't even bother to debate her opponent, Mr. What's-his-name, and still managed to turn out almost 25% of working teachers in the general election. Clearly Ms. Weingarten is not a socialist herself.

But if Ms. Weingarten can play the socialism card when she's way ahead and largely assured of victory, how can we criticize Maverick Johny when he's facing such a discouraging electoral map?

Special thanks to David Bellel for the photo

Common Sense is Overrated

In Spanish they say it's the least common of all the senses. So, if you're like most people, you gotta wonder why you'd put up with the continuation of policies that haven't worked, that have ruined Wall Street, that deny Americans the health coverage enjoyed in virtually every other industrialized country in the world.

Well, maybe you just love endless, pointless war. Perhaps you're glad to pass crushing debt onto your children and grandchildren. Or you think it's fantastic that catastrophic medical emergency is the number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States. Maybe you're overjoyed that a credit card company got to rewrite bankruptcy legislation, or that we arranged a Medicare drug benefit that ensured we'd pay the highest possible price for pharmaceuticals. Perhaps you feel your income will suddenly go from 40 thousand to 40 million, and you're worried a Democratic government will allow you to keep only 29 million. Clearly you need at least 32 to build that chateu in the Ozarks.

There are a lot of reasons to vote Republican, and in case you're curious, here are just a few more:



Thanks to Schoolgal

Education Is A Full Time Job

Last night I found myself in Darkest New Jersey once again. Now Darkest New Jersey is not all bad. For example, I was able to buy gas for $2.35 a gallon. That can go a long way, which is good because New Yorkers in DNJ generally have a long way to go.

But there are drawbacks. Last night a woman confessed to me that she'd had it with the direction this country was taking. She told me she worked for an insurance company, but that her medical insurance was capped at $750 a year. That's three visits to a doctor, she said, and that's it. Also, the recent meltdown had left her 401K in very precarious shape, and she was nervous. She said her investments were very conservative, but that hadn't much helped her.

Her problem was that she had an issue voting for a Muslim for president. We were in a church, and she felt Muslims did not worship the same God that Christians did. She couldn't stand to see Obama Barack take the oath of office on a Koran. I told her that Obama was a lifelong Christian, that she was confusing him with a Senator (correction: it was Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota) who took the oath on a Koran, and that there was zero chance Obama would do this. I told her this repeatedly and eventually she said that not only did she believe it, but that she would now vote for Obama.

It would've been great if I could have also had her read this column by Maureen Dowd, but I'm fairly certain that would've been too much for one session. It's odd how certain prejudices seem more socially acceptable at certain times. In 1988, George H.W. Bush (with the help of hapless, wooden Mike Dukaukis) was able to frighten Americans into voting for him by plastering Willie Horton all over the airwaves. Eight years later, with that particular brand of racism no longer so chic, Bob Dole stood up at the Republican convention and announced those awful teacher unions were dead set on destroying the universe. Mr. Dole made a point of saying it wasn't actual teachers but the unions, secure in the knowledge his target audience would not make the connection that teacher unions were actually groups of teachers.

Four years ago I was in DC, watching people march in "defense of marriage." Actually they were marching to protest gay marriage. If they'd really wanted to defend marriage, they'd have protested adultery or divorce. But that wouldn't have garnered much support. More importantly, it wouldn't given Rove and company a sideways opening to tap into prejudices against gays, which was what the whole thing was really about.

It would be nice if we could all look at one person at a time here in the land of the brave and the free. In what promises to be a historic election Tuesday, we may get a little closer. When Tim McVeigh bombed a federal building you didn't hear a whole lot of buzz about those awful white people (and you shouldn't have). Everyone, Muslims, and even teachers, ought to get the same benefit of the doubt.

Back to work.

What Do They Have to Do?

I hang out with a bunch of rednecks most weekends, with people who play banjos, and many who do even worse things. I usually keep my mouth shut about politics because after all, good banjo players are few and far between.

But sometimes I can't help myself. The GOP has had it their way for most of the last eight years, and when the Dems finally took the house back but were limited in what they could get done:

With Democrats clinging to a 51-49 advantage, the Senate became the place where signature legislation went to die. Republican stalling by filibuster became the norm. A record 92 filibusters were conducted this session of Congress.

We've seen what the deregulators could do with the economy. We've seen the rich get richer, while most of us watch prices go up far more quickly than our salaries. We've seen endless, pointless war which costs us ten billion a month we don't have. In fact, the national debt clock, temporarily retired when Clinton retired the debt, now has to be redesigned in order to accommodate the unanticipated extra digit. Honestly, short of bombing our own country, it's tough to imagine what else the neocons could have up their blighted sleeves.

I was heartened, however, that a banjo player of my acquaintance, one who vehemently supported W., has finally come to his senses, saying, "He just doesn't care about people like me and my family." He's going to vote for Barack Obama, even if it means that the uber-wealthy may end up paying a few extra points in taxes. I was also heartened by the picture above (which I filched from Andrew Sullivan).

I'm willing to make that sacrifice as well. I regret I don't make enough that my taxes would rise, but if Ms. Weingarten manages to negotiate a 150% raise next year, I'm willing to do my bit.

Maverick Johny's Target Audience

When I teach kids to write, I always tell them to keep their audience in mind. You can't address your friends the same way you address your English teachers, especially when they're reading your compositions.

So who is it Maverick Johny is looking to impress with his talk about the evils of taxes? Barack Obama has a plan that will reduce the taxes of everyone earning less than $250,000 a year. He doesn't appear to be courting the resentful billionaire segment of our population, and neither does MJ. So who is Maverick John trying to persuade?

It appears he's after the same folks who actually believe Bill O'Reilly is looking out for them, and yes, that includes Joe the plumber. Never mind that Joe isn't actually a plumber, that he doesn't make nearly $250,000 a year, that he doesn't own the company he talks about (or have any realistic chance of buying it), that he doesn't pay the taxes he already owes, or that his first name isn't even Joe (Maverick Johny's vetting process is less than perfect).

Still, some day, Joe the plumber might own this company. In fact, he might become a billionaire. Maybe he'll win the lottery. Or maybe he'll find a machine that can core a apple, produce a successful infomercial, and become wealthy overnight. Hope springeth eternal, and that's the sort of hope Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly want you to foster. Never mind the reality-47 million Americans without health insurance, the flat income, the jobs shipped overseas, or all those folks going bankrupt due to catastrophic medical emergency.

Have Americans finally had enough of their divisive nonsense? It's hard to say. Maverick John is now making robocalls of the same sort he found so despicable when they were used against him. He's given up his integrity and dumped his "straight talk" in favor of whatever desperate nonsense might propel him over that awful Barack Obama.

Has America wised up, or are we still a nation of Ralph Kramdens? I'm hoping for the former, but only time will tell. And the day after Election Day will only be the beginning.

Now Even More Mavericky

Last night Maverick Johny outdid himself. After opposing the GI Bill, the one that granted our military men and women more realistic college benefits (which passed despite his opposition), after voting against GI benefits at least 28 times, he finally found something for them to do. Let's make them teachers, he said, and let's get rid of all that nasty certification and education required to do the job.

It's remarkable how many people think that a six-week course, or no six-week course, or reading a pamphlet or standing on one's head qualifies someone to teach 34 teenagers at a time five times a day. Frankly, I don't think MJ himself is up to the task.

I certainly don't begrudge GIs the right to become teachers, though. That's why, unlike Maverick Johny, I strongly supported the bill that would give them a college education, so that they could become teachers, or whatever else they so richly deserve a chance at.

But the thing that really caught my attention was when MJ spoke about that old "health of the mother" nonsense the liberals kept rolling out. Why would that nasty Barack Obama insist on protecting the health of the mother when there were fetuses to be protected? Can't we just let mothers drop dead so that fetuses can come into the world unblemished?

Because that's what the GOP is all about. We'll stick with you right up until you're born, but from there on in, you're on your own, kid (unless you're an investment bank or something). No health care for you. Unqualified inexperienced incompetent teachers, but let's hope at least they aren't unionized. Perish forbid that nasty Barack Obama should open up the health plan US government employees have to Joe Sixpack, Joe the Plumber, or any of the regular Joes Maverick Johny supposedly pals around with while driving his 13 cars between his nine homes.

But at least we know MJ will stick with ya right up to and including the moment you're born. It's high time we elected a President who cared about what happens next.

Why I Voted for Obama

by special guest blogger Yo Miss! (formerly in Bushwick)

I voted last week. I marked my absentee ballot for Sen. Barack Obama. I stamped it, dropped it in the mail, and listened for the smooth sounds of the wheels of democracy chugging along as it fell into the mailbox. It was a nice moment, as I had been dreaming about voting for Sen. Obama since his game-changing speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Just a moment ago, in fact, I received an e-mail from the campaign telling me that I was one of the first 100,000 people to "own a piece of the campaign," meaning that I was among Sen. Obama's first donors for his Presidential campaign. I was incredibly proud when I read that e-mail, and while I know he's looking for money, I also know that we still have 3 weeks left in a campaign that is increasingly contentious (to put it mildly) and that money is still needed to print signs, drive voters to polling places, make phone calls, and keep the dream of a new kind of President alive. Y'all accept MasterCard, right?

Why did I vote for Sen. Obama? In the four years since I have first become acquainted with the man's beliefs, my reasons have multiplied and developed many times over. His speech in 2004 was a thing of rare beauty--hopeful, honest, and without cynicism--in American politics. Intrigued, I read his first book and was again amazed by what Sen. Obama seemed to offer: moral clarity and courage without ideological blinders, confidence without smugness, and above all an openness and curiosity about himself and the world that will now enable him to hold his ground with anyone else on the world stage. I thought, as surely many others did, "This guy should run for President." We were already staring down the barrel of a second Bush Presidency that would be ruinous in every imaginable sense for our country, and the stirrings in this country for change had begun.

In 2006, I read Sen. Obama's second book, a more overtly political vision of where our country is and where it could be, where it should be. Gov. Sarah Palin has suggested that Sen. Obama hates America, but she clearly never read the man's own words in either of his books. I'm not sure why an America-hater would admire so many American politicians, why an America-hater would want to lift up the political discourse in this country, why an America-hater would believe that American voters deserve better than pandering. Sen. Obama's adult life has been devoted to public service, and while it may not look like Sen. McCain's service or Sen. Clinton's service, I fail to see how turning down six-figure salaries from large law firms to go out and work on the streets of Chicago on behalf of the poor and voiceless is not an example of sacrificial service in the interest of all that is good about one's country.

But my support for Sen. Obama never seemed so urgent or so real until I taught middle school social studies in New York City. In my classroom, there are many students who do not come from "Joe Sixpack" families. They are, like Sen. Obama himself, being raised by single parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings. Or they are immigrants, starting kindergarten speaking Mandarin, Spanish, or Russian. Or they simply don't look like the America some of us grew up with, and against them we may see used the same tactics as those currently being used to smear Sen. Obama. "She's from Pakistan," an opponent might coo, fifteen or twenty years down the road, when one of my students runs for City Council. "That's where the TERRORISTS are from, you know." Never mind that this girl may have lived on a quiet street in Flushing for almost her entire life, reading teenage-girl novels and wearing blue jeans and watching American Idol. Just as Sen. Obama spent most of his life in Hawaii, in Kansas, in California, in New York, in Illinois--a diverse collection of American experience. I hear the anger of my students about how Sen. Obama's life is portrayed as un-American, and it's not hard to understand why: Because if his experience is not American, then neither is theirs. They, too, could be smeared as unpatriotic, as exotic. They would be the subject of the question, "What do we really know about this guy?"

The children I teach need a leader, a hero--not because they are poor, or nonwhite, or immigrant, but because their American experience, their uniquely American experience, is being held up as strange, even wrong. I cannot imagine what these children must hear and subsequently feel when a childhood spent among people of non-Christian faiths, of nonwhite skin, of non-American nationality is looked upon and spoken about with suspicion and denigration, because that, in some respect, is the life of every single child I teach. My children have amazing dreams, amazing life stories, some of them, at the tender ages of twelve or thirteen, and a big part of the American dream is that anyone here can grow up to be President....right?

So, as corny as it sounds, think of the children. Think of the children in American schools--because I can guarantee you that they are watching and listening to this election very closely. They are passionately interested. They hear their parents worrying about paying the bills, or they have watched boyfriends or girlfriends or older siblings go off to Iraq. They can hear the subtle racism and fear-mongering in speeches and rallies. I doubt they will easily forgive or forget the casual disregard of their lives and their American experience by politicians who would do or say anything at this point to win. If you really believe that America is about more than skin color, more than national origin, more than what one's family looks like--if you really believe that America is a collection of ideals, ideals of freedom, fairness, and hope for everyone born here or coming here with thoughts of a better life--then please question what you hear, even from yourself, and consider very carefully what your vote means for the Americans of the future. The Americans that may have been born somewhere else, Americans who may not "look like you," but whose dreams are probably very much the same.