Health Summit/Law Class

President/Professor Obama called on senators and representatives alike giving input as to what he thought were good ideas, what were bad ideas, what was relevant, what was not relevant, and cut people off if he thought they were going too far...just like a professor. When counting how much time alotted he did not count himself because he is the President/professor. If you do add his talk time in, the Democrats talked for over 4 hours, Republicans talked for barely 2 hours. Obama spoke for well over two hours, more than all the other democrats combined, and more than all the republicans combined.

There were sob stories about women sharing dentures, Jesus the restaurant owner, there were jabs at silly alarmists talking about this whole reconciliation thing, and there was anger at bringing the actual bill (a giant 2300 page pile) to the Summit. God forbid you actually bring the fucking Healthcare Plan to the Healthcare Summit.

It was contentious but Republicans stayed respectful (I was hoping they would express more frustration and ask what as the point?), did not get rude by talking over anyone and did not make any direct attacks on the President. The President took a shot at McCain, Alexander, and Paul Ryan. Democrats angerly invoked all the right-wing nut jobs that think this is socialism and all other sort of random things.

To summarize: Republicans came to talk about their problems with the bill and make their talking points for the 5000th time. Democrats wanted to slam the Republicans for not voting for the bill and for being so knit-picky about portions of the bill. Obama won the election, the democrats won the election, so you should do what we want because we won! The election is over John, I won, so stop getting in my way. People don't care about process John, when the election is over, the loser should shutup and just go away.

It was a massive waste of time with no negotiation, it ran like a law class for bad lawyers, it was incredibly boring so much so that networks dumped it quickly, even the news networks started to bring in guests and commentators rather than actually hear what was being said.

And in the end, Obama stated they are going forward anyway, that Reconciliation is on the table and that really they don't need any Republican input...so why did we have a Summit? What was the point of all this? How can we conclude anything other than it was just a political gimmick?

This is the Hope and Change 53% of the country voted for. I hope your happy with your change.

America from the perspective of a twenty-something

The 21st century is going to see some changes in the world and in this country. A period of prosperity unrivaled in history and our role as the dominant superpower was not going to last. The rest of the world was bound to catch up a little. Inside the United States we also knew things were going to change. The baby boomers were going to retire in mass, and the overall age distribution was going to shift from a very old population in the first half of the century to a much younger one in the second half. The ethnic composition was going to change as well, there would be no more majority race. It was expected that whites would still be the biggest group but no longer more than 50%. Things were going to be different probably as soon as 2025 (when first baby boomers hit the average life expectancy). There were also going to be flying cars, colonies on the moon, and new intelligent robots that we would one day have to fight in a great war.

But there is something more now. Thanks to the reckless and irresponsible policies of the current generations in power, we will inevitably see a sharp fall in the relative wealth and prosperity of this country. The great prosperity of the second part of the 20th century will not extend far into this century. As someone who is part of the generation that will be taking the reigns of leadership in the next 10-20 years, it has made me very angry.

Lets start with the most recent. The Federal Stimulus Package went to "save" jobs of union workers, middle management, and experienced government employees. It went to help States pay their bills so they could honor their bloated pension programs. It is not clear how many jobs it actually created, but we know for damn sure it did not create 3 million jobs as promised. Even more importantly, if you were to divide up among the age groups who got the real benefits of it, I guarantee you that the 18-29 age group got a very small piece of that pie. Almost no new jobs have been created, and millions have been lost. So when there are openings at businesses, they can choose from one of the millions of experienced workers available pushing my newly graduated generation to the bottom of the list. New jobs and new businesses are essential for my generation because the older generations seem unwilling to give up the current ones.

What about Cap and Trade and Healthcare? Cap and Trade puts off the real strict carbon emission controls for 10-20 years down the line and the nasty ones for 30-40 years down the line. The current government is hoping we can figure it out and if not, we can pay for it. The Healthcare plan would almost assuredly freeze innovation in its place, increase cost, and force rationing of care. Not exactly something one wants to inherit.

The massive debt currently in place will take so long to pay down, that there will be no money left for discretionary programs like defense, homeland security, and others. Instead it will be toward the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Draining wealth at a big rate from the younger generations.

What are your solutions? Currently there are no serious attempts to reform these mandatory spending programs because God forbid older generations have to make tough choices. Deficits are massive and all those that have been in government for the past 8 years are responsible. From the federal government straight down to the States. Many states will have to raise taxes to pay for their cadillac pension funds for public employees. Good to see they were all looking so far ahead to the future. Guess how many job openings there are for new graduates in government? The same as before the Stimulus, very few.

So, we have an economy where very few new jobs will be created in the next year or two, the relative wealth of the country is declining, we have done nothing about the trillions we owe the older generations, but hey at least we "saved" jobs for older people.

This country has been shortsighted for too long. From my perspective it seems they have done an excellent job of putting off big problems and delaying doomsday for another 10 years here and 15 years there. It seems as if the plan is to hold things together until 2025 or 2030 and then let us figure it out.

You will have to excuse me if I have little faith in the status quo. For my part, I am actively supporting candidates in three races in hopes of kicking out three incumbents. I suggest to others my age they find the right kind of people to run and do the same.

Avatar: Dances with Wolves in Space

Avatar is an awesome movie with special effects that are way beyond any other movie. The creatures, plants, and visuals are all very imaginative and definitely worth seeing in 3D. It is a movie made for everyone, kids can understand it, adults will enjoy it, its made so that everyone will want to see it.

Now, since it is made for a wide-audience, it can't afford to be too deep, subtle, or have some divisive or controversial political message. There are a lot of groups out there arguing it is a typical liberal movie that is anti-military, pro-environment etc. But I really don't think that was the intent.

In many hollywood movies there are the typical bad guys, the abusive prison warden, ruthless druglord or mob boss, a crazy rogue general, mad scientist, greedy corporate executive, corrupt official, machines, or just humanity as a whole (like in apocalyptic movies). None of them are politically motivated, they are just using stereotypical film characters and storylines. They are unoriginal and generic.

Take Avatar, there are two generic "bad guys". There is the greedy capitalist pig corporate exec and a bloodthirsty ruthless military guy. Both are so stereotypical, it borders on comical. Then there are the good guys. There is Sigourney Weaver, Jacob Sully, and the Navi aliens. All are compassionate, environment-loving, and have strong principles. Also oversimplified.

Want to know the plot? It is Dances with Wolves in space. It is Ferngully. Pocahontas.

It is an unoriginal story, it is irrelevant to modern day events, and it has just enough depth for middle school students.

If it does have a politically-motivated message, it is so juvenile, generic, and transparent it has no real impact at all. There are no more Native Americans for us to abuse or kill, rain forest destruction is not really relevant today, we are a culture that supports the troops and honors them whenever possible, this is not Vietnam where we view them as inhuman baby-killers that deserve to be spat on. In fact, the whole movie is really from another time. And as you know, James Cameron came up with over 15 years ago when...oh yeah! Dances with Wolves, Ferngully, and Pocahontas came out.

So, if you go to see it. See it for what it is, an extremely entertaining special-effects movie with average acting, a generic plot. Nothing wrong with that. But people should stop assigning causes or political agendas to movies like this.

Did Transformers have an agenda? Did 300? Did Die Hard 4? Did Fast and Furious? What about Saw? Showgirls? Superman?

Obama Healthcare Proposal: Potentially a Massive Disaster

Obama proposes new Healthcare Plan
Obama tries to show some sort of renewed focus on Healthcare with his own actual plan. Can you believe it? An actual Obama plan with pages, words, and ideas. It is not a Democratic Party plan, House plan, or Senate plan, it is actually HIS plan. Unfortunately he still has not learned to provide details on anything. The CBO reports it cannot score the President's plan because vital details are missing. Quite the surprise.

The plan is reported to be a hybrid of the House and Senate bills with more spending and control. It includes a provision limiting premium increases by private insurers. It has loose abortion language, more similar to the Senate plan. In other words, its the same crap with a new name.

It is a plan designed to be a consensus among Democrats. Reid has stated that he will use reconciliation to get past the filibuster in the Senate to avoid a possible Republican block. Obama has indicated he supports the plan. So here we are. Another Democratic plan, that will bypass any bipartisanship. It is unpopular among the people and among the experts. It is a disaster for the country.

Here is the part I think will be the political disaster. He is holding a Summit with Republicans that is televised which focuses on his Healthcare Plan. Couple problems with that. First, he promised to make jobs priority one this year. So far that has not been the case. Second, Obama and the democrats fully intend to use legislative manuevering so that they don't need a single Republican vote. So what is the Summit for? Obama doesn't need their support or their votes. How can he look bipartisan when he uses a shortcut so he only needs 51 votes instead of 60 in the Senate? Third, there is a provision limiting a rise in insurance cost. By adding this provision, Obama is admitting that his healthcare plan will result in higher premiums, higher costs, and that the only way he can control it is through the force of law.

This will hurt Obama's popularity and certainly hurt Democrats in November. Americans consider healthcare maybe the third or fourth priority of the country. They consider gaps in coverage the second biggest problem with healthcare, second to COST! The bill is not bipartisan, they will not pursue it in a bipartisan way. None of this is really in dispute. And yet, Obama is going on television with Republicans to talk about this.

How exactly does this all turn out well for Obama? It cannot. It will damage him further, make him look dictatorial, arrogant, and superifical. The Summit is a gimmick and everyone will see it for what it is.

And as an added bonus for Republican strategists, odds are that Obama's plan will pass the Senate but odds are strongly against it passing in the House. In the end, it will probably fail yet again on this part of his agenda, effectively wasting 14 months of his Presidency on a single agenda item.

I would've never guessed back in 2008 that Obama would be this incompetent and his party this bad at governing. Odds on Republicans retaking Congress are improving by the day.

The Main Stream Media: don't kick them when they're down

CBS, NBC, ABC News
The big three use to dominate the news. Since cable news and the internet, less and less Americans get their news from these sources. Their ratings are in decline and there are numerous criticisms regarding the bias and their decision to ignore major stories of the past three years. These criticisms are all justified.

How does any news station ignore the Tea Party protests? How do they decide not to cover a demonstration in Washington D.C. that was estimated to include hundreds of thousands of people? How can they be so condescending and vicious in their coverage of Sarah Palin yet did nothing but throw softballs at Barack Obama during the campaign?

I could go on.

But really what are we doing? These news dinosuars are slowly dying. They are out of touch with the conservative parts of the country (which is over 40% of the country by the way), and they can no longer get away with their biases and internal agendas. And then we can look at the laughable Katie Couric and her pitiful intellect. I think we can conclude they are not as important as they think they are. Not anymore.

Cable News
What about CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC? Their ratings have been low for nearly a decade now. Their top anchors are consistently beaten by Fox News shows. Here again, we have big names with no low ratings. They use clever advertising and marketing to look important, groundbreaking, and in-depth but they are anything but. They are generic, unoriginal, and superficial.

Why is Fox News so successful? It is not because they are "groundbreaking" or particularly "in depth". It is because no other news station has opinion-based journalism from the right, and traditional journalism that is more objective and responsive to what is of interest to the non-ideological middle. In fact, Fox News has successfully found the top of the bell curve in this country, which is to the right of center. This country is more conservative than it is liberal. Is Fox News "fair and balanced"? Yes, but not in the way they mean. Are they particularly fair? Not really. Are they balanced? Probably a bit more than other stations but not perfectly balanced. But owhen you add Fox News to the spectrum of cable news stations and the big three (all center-left, and unobjective), it provides balance and a sense of fairness that was missing before. The country is better off having a Fox News.

I hear O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, and others on Fox News continue to slam the main-stream media, but really, why waste so much time on the problems and inaccuracies of other stations? It is like criticizing the Detroit Lions for being an awful football team year after year. It is time we move on because Americans have been persuaded over the past ten years that traditional news is indeed bias, regardless of what they may purport to be. We know that now, and we know the Lions suck. Its not news anymore and not really interesting.

And what about the bias of Fox News? O'Reilly, Hannity, and Beck tell you exactly what they think. They don't pretend that they are objective "journalists" simply reporting the news. So when one accuses them of being right-wing ideologues its not really a shock to their fans. We know who they are and what they believe. Try finding bias on the reporter side of Fox. Does anyone accuse Chris Wallace or Brett Baier of bias? What about Britt Hume? Megyn Kelly? Nope. All they can do is go after the easy targets.

It is bad for a free country to be so suspicious of the press. It is also not good for press organizations to expend time and effort toward criticizing one another. It should not be so divisive. It is my hope that the Fox News competitors adapt to the change in media rather than following the same path into ratings oblivion. It is also my hope Fox News personalities move on from their usual attacks on the main-stream media. They are easy targets.

International Security and Obama's Folly

"It is undeniable that if everyone really desired a "world-state" or "collective security". . . it would easily be attained; and the student of international politics may be forgiven if he begins by supposing that his task is to make everyone desire it. It takes him some time to understand that no progress is likely to be made along this path and that no political utopia will achieve even the most limited success unless it grows out of political reality."

-Edward Carr


There is a naivety prevalent in the Obama administration in regard to its foreign policy. The U.S. approach has seen little structural or substantive change in the past year, instead Obama has appeared centrally focused on changing the subjective posture to one of more empathy and soft persuasion. His speeches have promised to change our foreign policy to a more egalitarian, fair, and accommodating approach that will help persuade the world of our pure intentions and the virtues of our vision of international peace & security. So far, this resulted in the U.S. withdrawal of the missile defense shield from Eastern Europe, a re-run of pointless diplomatic discussions with Iran that have again led to nothing.

What are the positives for the United States? The people of Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East now have a more favorable opinion of the United States. This is exactly what Obama and the liberal democrats wanted to achieve with the new administration. What has it achieved substantively? Absolutely nothing, in fact it is giving aggressive and tyrannical states more room to manuever. The public opinions in foreign countries have almost no impact on international relations.

Obama has made the primary mistake described by Carr: he believes it is his role to make everyone desire a world state or collective security system. The problem is obvious: he can't and a good part of the world still doesn't want it. Iran is still working towards enriched uranium and eventually nuclear weapons. Russia still is doing business with them and China has indicated a lack of interest in sanctions; the most popular bullet of the current collective security regime. Venezuela still openly anti-American. Al Qaeda is still trying to attack the United States. China is still in the midst of a major defense spending spree. Ukraine has switched from pro-NATO to pro-Russia.

The United States is getting weaker relative to our closest rivals: China, India, and to a lesser extent Russia. They are all adjusting their policies in preparation for a world where the U.S. is not the lone superpower. Given the events of the past two years, this is probably prudent. But as Americans this should cause a healthy level of alarm.

But what will happen in 2012? When American troops are mostly out of Iraq and drawing down in Afghanistan, should any other problems arise, do you think Obama will meet the challenge or seize the opportunity to get out of both countries? What if there is another flashpoint in the world where we currently have no troops? Will Obama actually use military force if necessary? Or will he continue the U.S. pullback from the world and continue to cut into defense spending.

Obama is ignoring the political reality of the world today, replaced with the Jeffersonian notion that the U.S. should not be active abroad and should set a "good example" of popular government, human rights, and peace. He is also irritated at the fact that his extreme domestic agenda of shifting us toward a more socialist system is being hampered by foreign wars and the associated costs.

The United States can only afford this naive and misguided approach for so long.

What the Tea Party Movement is, and what it is not

What it is
It is a grassroots movement of conseratives in the United States, normally uninvolved in politics and current affairs, that are now becoming active. About 40% of the country regards themselves as Conservative, only 29% as liberal, and yet the Democrats are in control. Why? A significant portion of the conservatives in this country are frustrated, apathetic, cynical, and see no difference in the parties. They rarely vote, and do not contribute to any candidate.

They are angry and upset at the political class, at both parties, and the President for their mismanagement and deviation from the founding principles of this country. Their stated principles are limited government, low taxes and spending, and free market principles. The Movement endeavors to become more effective in politics and not just a big protest that ends up doing nothing to change policy in Washington.

What it is not
It is not a political party. It is not a clearly-definable organization or political action committee (PAC). It has no central authority. Bill O'Reilly seems concerned that regular media outlets have focused on the extreme and unrepresentative groups that are part of the Tea Parties. He includes the birthers, a couple truthers, and separatists who want to rebel against the government. He thinks there should be some sort of clearly defined platform and centralized public relations authority. He is wrong.

The Tea Party Movement does not have a defined interest in protecting its image or becoming a public relations titan of any kind. How many protesters do you think care what the New York Times, Newsweek, or any other media outlet says about them? How many people do you think will not show up or support the Tea Party Movement simply because a single woman at one of these events put a swastika on her poster with a cross through it?

A political party or organization will always endeavor to control its image, its message, and have a potent public relations department. A movement does not. It is not a distinct organization and it is more in fact a criticism of the institutions that DO spend so much time on perfecting public imagery and message. They are an attack on the status quo in all of its forms. They have proven successful at recruitment, retention, and in energizing their membership without O'Reilly's help or any other national figure whether media or political.

Going Forward
The Tea Party Movement is learning, or at the very least portions of it are. They have chosen the Republican Party as their vehicle toward influencing national policy. They are now running to become precinct captains, committee leaders, and county chairmen within the State Republican Parties. This is EXACTLY what they should be doing. Start with popular support and sentiment, change the leadership at the lower levels and work your way up within one of the parties. Change out the weak and corrupt portions of the party that still exist. The LA Times recently had a story on this trend. It is beginning to work.

The Movement should also do their homework on candidates and policies before showing up to protest, support, or contribute. In many respects they are doing this. It is important they discern the career politicians so skilled at message and image control - from true principled men and women who will carry out the agenda they support. So far they have shown considerable ability in this area. In Illinois, for example, Ethan Hastert, the party favorite, was defeated by Randy Hultgren, a lesser known and less party-backed name that had the support of grassroots groups and the Tea Party. Hultgren won and now has a chance to unseat democrat Bill Foster.

That is how you change a party. Find new candidates, recruits, and support them in challenging the existing party leadership. Criticizing or voting against the leadership is not enough and leads to what we have now. A weak Republican Party and a dominant Democratic Party. You don't like your choice of Congressman, Senator, Governor, President or other - find a challenger. Don't just sit there and NOT vote, essentially handing a democrat the victory.

That is what the Tea Party is about. Political action rather than apathy and frustration. It is channeling long dormant but powerful sentiment among the conservatives in the country toward activities that will have a more substantial impact on national and local politics. Kudos to them. All they need to do is to continue learning new methods and teach their grassroots group how best to succeed in influence. I think they are doing that. Don't listen to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or these national media types and also do not listen to hacks that are only trying to take advantage of the change in public opinion by calling themself a candidate of the Tea Party.