Category Archives: politics

12/3/12

Cliffhanger

They’ve dubbed it the fiscal cliff. The simultaneous expiration of the Bush era tax cuts and decreases to critical government spending. It would result in higher taxes for nearly everyone and almost certainly a new recession, say the experts.

To reduce the deficit and avoid the cliff, the President wants to increase taxes for the wealthiest two percent.

Republicans, however, want to freeze taxes for everyone and instead make more dramatic spending cuts.

So now the White House and Congress are deadlocked in a staring contest to see who has the greater political pain threshold. In thinking about it all, I was reminded of our national defense budget.

Apparently we spend some $700 billion dollars on defense annually.

This is a pretty startling sum. And, as it turns out that is more than the defense budgets of the next 17 countries COMBINED. Do you know what countries that includes? China, Russia, India, Israel, Great Britain, France. These are the most militarized places in the world.

As a general rule, I’m strongly in favor of strategic proliferation and armament. I want us to have more, and more powerful, things that shoot, than anyone else. It’s the old karate quip: if you can, maybe you won’t have to.

But, you know what happens when you want a big national defense? Well, for starters, you spend a whole bucket load of money. Maybe even rack up a deficit. Who knows. But, something else interesting happens too. You suddenly feel obligated to justify the expenditure. In other words, you want to use the stuff you bought. I’m not talking about down at Ricky’s Ammo and Shootin’ Range, either. Like, on battlefields and in other people’s countries. That sort of thing. And, this brings karate back to mind. The more people learn self-defense techniques, the more likely they are to conveniently “discover” the need to defend themselves.

Guns and money are the same in this respect. Whatever you have, you use. No cliffhanger here, folks. I’ve seen this one before.

So in our search for a compromise, cuts to the defense budget seem a really efficient start because they serve two ends: (1) improved financial health and (2) decreased incentives to fight.

Probably, too logical, though, right? I know, I know. I’ll keep brainstorming.

[P.S. Speaking of cliffhangers. You saw the mid-season finale of Walking Dead tonight, right? Just as a heads up. If ever I get a glass shiv in the eye, I'm going to be out of commission for a while. Probably not rallying the troops in the center of town.]

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced dj transform.

Today’s blong here:

No Suspense

11/12/12

Dishonorable Discharge

Way to ring in Veterans’ Day, Patraeus.

I suffer this weird bipolarity with our military. I have had the luxury of becoming mostly pacifist. But, I also have this great guilt and reverence for their service. Much of my family has served honorably, even through the conflict in Iraq. And, as trite as it is true: we are free for their sacrifice.

And, so I’m rabidly in favor of veterans’ benefits. Precisely because we live in a time where some serve the interests of all, our indebtedness to them is incalcuable.

If I’m president for the day (and if roughly 64,023 federal employees die it could happen), then I would propose the following. If someone serves in our military, for even a minute, they would get everything. House, car, healthcare, food. Now it’ll be something like a 3 bedroom, Kia Zoom, and Hungary Jack. But, if you so choose, you wouldn’t ever have to lift a finger again.

Because, whether or not a soldier ever sees conflict in an actual theater of war, and whether or not he/she personally had any volitional “choice” in joining the military in the first instance, they were subjected to the potentiality of the highest risk of all:
their life lost.

They accepted that risk, in some sense or another, and went in my stead. Which is the critical point because there was no way in the world I was going. I have asthma and small capillaries. Any military base above about the 38° latitude, and I would have required especially designed glove wear. And, nobody wanted that.

So all the while, I’ve just been playing baseball and going to school and buying video games and starting a family and writing news raps and generally just loafing around. You know. The whole “rising and sleeping under the blanket of security” thing.

The Patraeus scandal is not a good lens through which to reflect on the contributions of our military. (Hopefully, he won’t commit the counterpart gesture to what this guy did, to win back his wife.)

But, long before this weekend, some dissident voices had already begun to call into question his presumed heroism and choice of tactical strategies in the middle east and the ultimate effectiveness of the surges he requested and/or oversaw in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those people are typically viewed as either communists or “bastards” or Oliver Stone.

Maybe this isn’t the day to say it. But we have to be able to criticize and scrutinize our military without fear for our own reputations in loyalty and patriotism. Our politicians can be mercilessly satirized scapegoats but our military personnel are somehow sacred cow. For the same reasons government must be subject to public critique, all the more so our military.

Although it most certainly is for his wife and family, the Patraeus scandal is not about sex. For the rest of us it’s mostly about transparency. Transparency in our bureaucracies and in the White House. National Security interests obviously make only so much transparency realistic.

But our heros are flawed and our most altruistic stratagem failed. And, to me, there is nothing more patriotic than to be able to say so.

To hold our military to account is precisely to honor our veterans.

By the way, I have a personal source on the Patraeus scandal and Paula Broadwell, specifically. I feel almost like a journalist. Except with a velour Starbury tracksuit on. I assume those are strongly discouraged in the presidential press junket, right?

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced dave santos.

Today’s blong here:

Digital Camouflage

11/6/12

Color My Map

My wife couldn’t get over John King’s hands. (King, along with Wolf Blitzer, is one of CNN’s main electoral analysts on election night.) They were frozen in a sort of claw position no matter the gesture. I told her, “Uh. Everyone knows the molded action-figure-finger is the optimal hand positioning for manipulating the Magic Board.” Sheesk. She knows nothing about politics.

On another night where only “swing states” really mattered, John King’s crippled hands and political analysts, cable-wide, were literally swinging around digital states like misshapen blue and red pucks on ice. Grided counties and precincts and swirling percentages and exit polls and actual votes. It was like a math team had exploded.

This just in: I nailed my Montana prediction. Again.

The candidates have been campaigning relentlessly in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Florida and Colorado for the chance that those states would swing to their ledger. Tonight Romney was only able to pendulum Virginia and Indiana and North Carolina, however. That was never going to be enough.

[For those of you keeping score at home, I went Obama, Romney, Obama on my predictions. Best 2 out of 3. Consider it "nailed."]

I don’t mind the political striation of our country. It’s pretty amazing really. America is not comprised of drastically red and blue states, although such creatures exist. I mean, places like Florida and Colorado are literally split down the middle 50/50. And, that’s a real impressive thing. Our political differences live on top of each other. Don’t let the map and King’s hobbled hands fool you. It’s not red in the middle and blue on the edges. It’s a puzzle of both throughout.

I’m thankful for the mad theater of our national presidential race. It’s like the Super Bowl and Family Fued all rolled up into one. It creates real democratic energy and I believe we will see that turnout was up again for a fifth straight election.

My wife also wondered out loud whether John King was married for his incessant breathless and auctioneer style talking. Surely not. And, she vowed that she would certainly call to tell me to stop if I were ever in his position. Did I mention she plainly knows very little about politics?? Incessant talking like a precious treasure.

Congratulations to President Obama. I believed he had earned a second term. And while I don’t publicly endorse, I had privately hoped. As I indicated, we would have been in capable hands either way. But, I’ve always sensed in President Obama a discretion that I could trust even over policy I could not.

Forward.

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced djclutch.

Today’s blong here:

Swing State

11/6/12

Nail Biter

This is my electoral prediction for tonight. I’m predicting a Romney upset in Ohio and Virginia but that President Obama holds onto Pennsylvania and Colorado, and the White House, barely.

Ohio and Virginia (and PA) are places precisely where voter energy and turnout has been overestimated in Obama’s favor. I do not think that Obama will enjoy the same coalition of voters that made signficiant victories in those and other swing states possible in 2008.

11/4/12

What it tis it taint and what taint it tis

There is a quantum principle that says you can’t know the velocity and the location of a subatomic particle at the same time. You can know one attribute or another but not both simultaneously.

And they (as in smart theoretical physics dudes) swear it’s not a technological issue. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is an immutable quantum attribute. Smarter people and better equipment will make no difference.

Although I learned about it in school and have since read it’s description countless times, I couldn’t swear that what I’m about to say is actually true of it. But, I believe that the reason the principle is immutable is that particles of that size are necessarily affected by observation. They are so small and “influential” for lack of a better word that to “see” them is to necessarily change them.

That’s what everyone (as in the Republican right) is screaming about Nate Silver and his election probability data, which suggests that President Obama has an approximately 85% chance of winning the election. Nate Silver is a statistician with a background in gaming sports lines based on high falutin’ math principles like adding and long-dividing and stuff. His critics say that to make such a lopsided observation about Obama’s chances of winning is to necessarily influence people to vote or stay home somehow.

Considering the vast industry which has formed just around the political “prediction” business it is a strange accusation for any side to scream that Silver, having assigned a roughly 85% probability of an Obama win even as many important states are essentially a coin flip, has somehow unduly “affected” the possible outcome.

Like observing a gluon. To prognosticate is to dictate, apparently, the cry goes.

But, I suspect it’s more about one side not liking that their “guess” is getting less traction than the other guys “guess.”

Luckily, in two days the conjecture will all be through.

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced Sundance.

Today’s blong here:

Permanent Indeterminate

10/22/12

A Win Win: The Final 2012 Presidential Debate

Don’t miss it, America.

If you’re too frustrated or cracking too many jokes or screaming at your TV too loudly, you’re going to miss the most important takeaway of these debates:

Both of these men can run our country.

They have different policies and different philosophies and different annoying mannerisms. The “Excuse me, I’m still speaking . . . .” versus the “Um . . . look . . . .” But, they’re leaders. Differently but comparably qualified. They’re bright, fluent in the important issues of our time, and able to engage with conviction. They strike at fallacies with pointedness but concede some common view. They have executive experience and grassroots.

And this is all new, right? I think we would say that it’s been a while since we felt exactly like that about either or both presidential candidates. In fact, you might have to reach back to something like Nixon v. Kennedy to find any comparable blend of ability and moxy on both sides. It’s usually a dull one and a charismatic one. Or a bright one and a less than bright one. Romney is no Prom King and Obama’s cult of personality has long since dimmed. But, they’re legitimately sharp and full of meaningful energy.

Trust me, the differences matter. And, don’t be fooled by the closeness of position reflected in tonight’s foreign policy debate. It’s hard to be too far apart on issues like, “Is it good to kill bad guys from other countries?” or “Do you think America is worth protecting?” or “Which is your favorite color? Red, white, or blue?” Their Americas will in fact look somewhat different. And, whether you have a job, how much you’re making, and how much you’ll ultimately keep may very well hang in the balance.

But, we should consider ourselves lucky, USA. One of them will lose. But, we really can’t.

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced by djclutch.

Today’s song blog here:

The Adults in the Room

10/21/12

“YOU CAN’T WIN!”

This site doesn’t do endorsements.

Well, except of hair product and mythical creatures. I roundly support both. L’Oréal and unicorns, specifically.

So the following is only a prediction and not an aspiration:

Obama will lose.

I believed a Romney victory was an effective impossibility until the last debate. In fact, I predicted an Obama victory. But, then, last Tuesday, it hit me. In the words of Adrian Balboa to Rocky right after his decision to avenge the death of his friend Apollo Creed by fighting the Russian, Drago, “YOU. CAN’T. WIN!”

“Oh, Adrian. Adrian always tells the truth,” the tired fighter conceded. “No maybe I can’t win.”

One could argue many hours, and we all have, about who is responsible for the last five years of economic ruin and subsequent stagnation. If the housing-market-bubble-securitization theory is to be believed, then really it is all to be pinned on many decades of legislative policy, republican and democrat, both as to securities regulation and mortgage lending. I would be hesitant to accuse any particular administration, Clinton, Bush, Obama, or otherwise.

But, whatever the cause, Obama presided over its consequences. And, it is clear to me at this point that it is simply too easy to criticize the numbers and to imagine what life would have been like if a Republican or really anyone else had been in the White House. For all Obama has accomplished in areas of national security and domestic policy, he can’t prove a negative when it comes to the economy: that things would have been much worse without him.

I long ago, made the case for Romney’s competence. For much of the primary season and into the general election, he seemed to have misplaced it. He has regained prior form in the debates. And that simple demonstration of composure plus a 4-year record of dismal economic activity, on Obama’s watch, all adds up to a loss. People are simply desperate that something new just might work.

It’s over.

But, Rocky knew that sometimes the fight itself was the winning and that your opponent has to be willing to sacrifice everything in order to beat a man willing, himself, to lose it all:

Maybe the only thing I can do is just take everything he’s got. But, to beat me he’s gonna have to kill me, and to kill me he’s gotta have the heart to stand in front of me, and to do that he’s gotta be willing to die himself. I don’t know if he’s ready to do that. I don’t know. I don’t know.

I have no idea what I’m talking about. I just hope that Obama has a black Lamborghini to drive at top speeds while Robert Tepper’s “No Easy Way Out” plays to a montage of boxing memories — including throwing a motorcycle helmet at a bronze statute of himself and double-time jump roping shirtless — in his head.

Just saying. November 6 will be one for the ages.

Written and performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced by dave santos.

Today’s song blog here:

No Easy Way Out

10/11/12

Below the Barometric Pressure (Live Blonging the Vice Presidential Debate)

I’m feeling pretty under the weather.

Plus, I’m swamped with real work.

Plus, my mother in law is in the next room.

I wanted to live song blog the entire vice presidential debate but I didn’t feel much up to it.
So, I freestyled (made up) one verse as I recorded, with the security portion of the debate playing in the background. I posted it last night.

But, it was a mess. Like Paul Ryan jabbed, “Sometimes the words just don’t come out the right way.”

I probably shouldn’t even have posted in the first place. But, that’s the game. News rap.

09/19/12

47%

Performed by theipoetlaureate. Music produced by pumpkinFoot.

Today’s song blog here:

Boxscore

09/5/12

Pitch Perfect

Bill Clinton was a pretty special capstone to a drudgery of speeches at the DNC this evening.

During his presidency, people we knew would say that Clinton reminded them of my dad. That they talked, even looked similar.

You might as well have said my dad was a mangy street mongrel than to have compared him to Bill Clinton. Of all the people that hated President Clinton, on the right, my dad had to be like No. 1 or 2, right ahead of Limbaugh but maybe just behind Paula Jones.

I never really saw it during most of his time in office – the comparison to my father. But, I remember the tour of the White House Clinton gave for the annual Christmas special. I guess the last one. I remember, at the time, thinking how effortlessly smart he seemed. People had always said it, but I couldn’t get past the alleged infidelities and petulant smirking to ever really give him a chance.

I think the first time it hit me was the Chris Wallace interview, many years later. He was so sharp. Defensive but accurate and lethally persuasive. Perfect recall and detail, albeit his version. And, that’s when I heard it all. The cadence and the passion. The charisma and force of a southern man who knew how to fight with words.

And, now I can’t watch Clinton without thinking about my dad. (Mercifully, he is unlikely to see this post. Rap news isn’t really his thing.) But, if you do, Dad, I mean it for all the things that could ever be said good about Clinton or any man. Adamancy. Conviction. Strength.

I’m proud my dad is pitched so perfectly to Clinton, in intonation if not ideology.

This site is purposely non-partisan, for the ethical demands of my work (job) and out of some philosophical deference to a healthy conversation about politics.

But, I feel moved to say that, as part of a generation of conservative youth raised essentially to despise him, I honestly mourn the missed opportunities of Clinton’s presidency and my chance to have appreciated him. I feel sadly robbed.

I’m a different political person than I was back then. But, my views on Clinton turned a corner long before many of my policy positions began to move. It’s a reminder to be careful in how we view the individuals who we perceive as political opponents.

Clinton said it best tonight: there’s good politics and then there’s real life. Cooperation is what works in real life. Whether your Romney or Obama this fall, don’t let a theatrical hatred of the other, a product largely of modern marketing, blind you to the decent and capable men they both can be. You might be surprised who you see in one or both many years after it will be too late to matter anymore.

There was so much material tonight. My head was going to explode for thinking about all the possible songs, parody and straight. A little about the roll call. A little about Clinton. Updated after President Obama’s speech tonight.

Rally to reasonableness.

Performed by ipoet.  Music produced by a new producer to the site, Dave Santos. Def won’t be the last.

Today’s song blog here:

Rally