Taxing “Right”

As part of the lame duck session of congress that has been thankfully concluded, an extension of existing tax rates was passed to avoid what would have been the largest, as a percentage, tax hike in US history. The reason this piece of legislation went unresolved until just about the last minute (tax rates were set to increase 1 January 2011) was because there was argument about which tax rates to extend and which to raise. With both houses of congress and the presidency controlled by democrats the usual class rhetoric was employed to gin up support for raising taxes only on “the rich”. Much has been said in regard to the “progressive” tax system in this country (the more earned the more as a percentage is paid) and the dangers in increasing the differences in brackets and the reasons for why democrats did not vote to raise taxes with so much control, what was striking about the argument was the way in which democrats insisted on how “right” they were about raising taxes on only “the rich”.

In announcing a “compromise” the president was at his meandering best, calling the extension of tax rates a compromise and the right thing to do then bemoaning the extension as a “giveaway” to “the greedy rich” and “morally wrong”. The president continued to note that he knew he was right because the majority of the public was on his side. In this, the president demonstrated the folly of only listening to people who agree with himself. National polls have shown time and again that a majority in the United States supported the extension of tax rates at all levels. That result is in and of itself miraculous as nearly half of the country’s working adults pay no income taxes at the federal level. Those who describe the extension of tax rates as a “giveaway” are the type to make claims on the incomes of others by believing that the earnings of “the rich” belong to the government first. Who’s greedy again?

Another line in the same theme is the idea that the extension of tax rates cost the government too much. Again, more claptrap assuming that the government’s claim on income comes first. The first thing ignored by proponents of raising taxes is that all of this “revenue” is completely theoretical based on projections. Obscured by politicians was the fact that in their theoretical fantasy land, the extension of tax rates on the other brackets actually “cost” the government more than the extension of the highest bracket. Never discussed is that these projected numbers are completely theoretical. Because our tax system is a monolith of holes and legalese spread over thousands of pages nothing is certain. And what is certain is that there is a relationship between rates and revenue raised where rates can only get to a certain level without actually lowering revenue. The point is that higher rates on “the rich” or anyone for that matter may not actually bring in greater revenue. One certainty is that “the rich” have the resources to better understand and use the holes in the tax system to ensure that revenue does not increase and kudos to them.

In the rhetoric of a democrat politician, they’re always right and “the rich” never pay their fair share. It’s advantageous that their righteousness relies on the unknowable and that class warfare works to their benefit by giving voters a distraction from their shoddy shell game policies. There is no true “right” way to go about taxing, circumstances are always changing. How making claims on the success of others, punishing those despised for no good reason is “right” escapes logic.

Disservice in Tidbits

Every half hour there is a news update on both major news-talk radio stations in the Albuquerque area. I count only 770 and 1050 AM, and not NPR because government “news” from don’t-call-it-National-Public-Radio-anymore is not really news. 770 uses ABC News and 1050 uses Fox news to provide brief national updates while the stations themselves provide local news.

I wonder to how many these brief tidbits is their only source of news. From the news wires, brief bits of news are a disservice that leads to an utter misunderstanding of much of the news because they only inform a bit, leaving almost all detail out. The worst type of news bit to listen to is on legislative matters. A typical news wire brief on new legislation often goes something like this:

The president will today sign the happy talk, sunshine and rainbows act of 2010 on a near party line democrat vote in both houses of congress. The bill will provide funding for a study of the positive effects of happy talk, sunshine and rainbows. Republicans say that sunshine is too expensive.

This kind of tidbit not only demonstrates a democrat bias from the news wire but also laziness in not informing the public properly. This laziness involves taking the title and summary of the piece of legislation at face value. Never mind that every piece of legislation coming from the Unites States congress is made up of hundreds and often thousands of pages comprised of legalese, unreadable by most of the population.

If legislation was as simple as they seem from a news radio tidbit they would not need hundreds and thousands of pages. And the problems with legislation both explicit and unintended amounting to an assault to freedom and liberty cannot be described in five seconds. Legislation is often written by unaccountable parties and debate on it in either house of congress is often done behind closed doors leading to a severely truncated time frame in which ordinary citizens cannot be made aware of what is being done in their name. This problem is the result of the “get things done” attitude.

It’s bad enough that much legislation is sold on false premises and with the aid of human props. Legislators mock those who point out that their work should be read and understood before enacted and too often only care about how their actions look from a public relations perspective. Consequences are never pondered and the legislator only worries about how to identify victims within their constituency who will “get something” from their work.

News services do their listeners no favors in presenting legislation in the same way as propagandists in congress do. No matter the intention of a bill or act, if the elements that make those intentions possible cannot be explained or even introduced along with those intentions, mentions of it should be limited. The stated intentions should also not be referred to as happening before it is even passed. Too much legislation never actually works as intended and only succeeds in helping drain the treasury. If the news were to mention a piece of legislation by name and then its intention as, you know, an intention, the user can then do the work of learning more about it if the news won’t tell them. This method will inform the listeners instead of cheerleading big government.

Random Thoughts...

I learned from a caller into the Bob Clark show on 770 KKOB this morning that Bill Richardson vetoed a bill specifying veteran preferences in state contract awards. Finally, something that Richardson did that I can support. Veterans deserve our gratitude but no one should be favored in any state contract for any reason other than having a superior bid and/or solution.

It’s an ugly habit to assume that the ill-defined “rich” should pay more for government just because they can and it is assumed that they won’t even notice. How can that statement even be verified and how is it not greedy? Our current government is made up of narcissists lecturing in class warfare to hide their own greed. Give a legislator a dollar and they’ll spend three every time.

What is it with the size of shopping carts at Sam’s Club? It’s understandable that some customers buy a lot at that store but it makes the store difficult to traverse when a single cart takes up an entire aisle.

The caller into the Bob Clark show was commenting on Richardson’s legacy as a politician in New Mexico as his gubernatorial tenure is nearing its end. Many of the positive comments centered on what Richardson “gave” people and “amazing” work he did as a diplomat. This means that he’s good at giving favored constituencies and friends goodies at the expense of taxpayers. As a diplomat it seems that he has presented himself well on the international stage, while nothing tangible has ever happened good or bad from either his freelance diplomacy or tenure at the United Nations. All that means is that Richardson is a good useful idiot to horrible despots like North Korea’s Kim Jong Il.

In all the discussion about the new START treaty, a nuclear weapons containment treaty with Russia, no one seems to be able to explain why it’s such a big deal. Is it 1981, did the cold war not end? I don’t recall Russia being much of a threat over the last twenty years. Perhaps the government wants us to be reminiscing of Rocky 4 instead of actual threats of nuclear proliferation from countries including Iran and North Korea.

What about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? What does its repeal mean? I have no clue. The language behind the actual law tied to the acronym, DADT, is much more complicated and as someone who is neither gay nor in the military I’m not sure about it. I do think that the consternation surrounding the law, as a horrible atrocity, was overblown. Hopefully its repeal will not hinder the military in any way.

I find myself often rooting for public figures that drive some people irrationally nuts. No one objects to shunning mass murderers but the way that Sarah Palin and Michael Vick are treated is laughable. Palin talks about reading C.S. Lewis and is derided as dumb and childlike. Vick says that he would like to have a pet dog some day and he’s immediately treated as though he wants to start a Shih Tzu fighting ring. Someone needs to get these critics the ability to play back in their heads what they are saying, along with a clue.

The Self Promotion Governor, Part 10,000,000

Social amnesia as a result of ignorance seems to be on display in our great state today. There exists a myth that New Mexico territorial governor Lew Wallace once offered a pardon to the criminal Billy the Kid, real name William Bonney, for his testimony in a murder trial and reneged on that promise after Billy kept his side of the deal. There is no evidence whatsoever of this deal being made other than an impossible to validate letter in which Billy wrote the governor to volunteer his services in testifying if he were to be pardoned.

Current (thankfully not for long) governor Bill Richardson floated the idea of pardoning the long dead Bonney to make headlines for something not related to his administration’s rampant cronyism under the auspices of making right on Wallace’s “promise”. It seemed as though Richardson heard plenty of negative feedback on this absurd proposal as it disappeared from the news.

That line of thinking was wrong. As the story slipped from public consciousness, Albuquerque Attorney Randi McGinn, wife of Richardson State Supreme Court appointee Charlie Daniels, “volunteered” to “research “ the issue as an interested party who comes from Alamogordo, near Lincoln County, where Billy the Kid operated. The result of this “research” was a petition to pardon Billy the Kid on December 14th from McGinn’s office in the murder of Sheriff William Brady.

Billy the Kid was shot and killed in July 1881 by Sherriff Pat Garrett. He was a thief and a killer. Part of his legend is that Garrett was dishonorable in shooting Bonney in the back, but that’s a matter of opinion. When a criminal is wanted dead or alive, it doesn’t seem to matter how it gets done. Because of stories, legends and movies, Billy the Kid exists in today’s world as more of a myth than as a real person. Many of these movies are complete works of fiction that have the express purpose of romanticizing a criminal within the framework of the “wild west”.

This unfortunate circumstance has led to whatever public support and interest in this subject that exists. Many do not understand New Mexico history and know Bonney only in legend and not by his crimes. McGinn, with her loose ties to Lincoln county and direct ties to the governor is only interested in the same thing as Richardson, publicity. Richardson has proven over time to be a shameless self promoter and this hollow gesture is just the latest in a long line of examples.

It might be said that this issue doesn’t matter much. Pardoning a man who has been dead for nearly 120 years on a single crime, out of many, won’t really affect anyone. It may be true that Bonney can no longer terrorize and murder but that is not the point. It seems that a main reason that this pardon is being considered is because to many, Bonney is not a criminal but some kind of historical bad boy type figure. And some flimsy at best historical promises from a territorial governor of which actual documentation does not exist. Truth is, it is contemptible to our history as New Mexicans to go down this path which will only further the myth of Billy the Kid while obscuring the reality of William Bonney.

This initiative is of such high importance to Governor Richardson that there is a state web site, http://www.governor.state.nm.us/btk.php, an email address, btk.comments@state.nm.us and a person, Eric Witt, tasked to it. It is contemptible to the taxpayer that there exists a person in charge of, a web page for and email address to monitor this frivolous effort. Certainly there are more important things that the state has on its plate than the pardon of a criminal in the name of publicity?

Confounded by Responsibility

According to sports writer Jason Whitlock, who is known for his large size as much as his inane opinions, McDonalds is a criminal enterprise comparable to a drug dealer. In a recent column about himself while deriding capitalism he wrote:

Most Americans have no idea Ronald McDonald is killing their kids. No clue… You can spin the argument like you’re doing it for the good of the country. No different from Ronald McDonald standing on every corner slanging your 5-year-old a Happy Meal.

A mom in California apparently feels the same way about McDonalds and is seeking the courts to do something about it:

we have to say ‘no’ to our young children so many times, and McDonald’s makes it that so much harder to do. I object to the fact that McDonald’s is getting into my kids’ heads without my permission and actually changing what my kids want to eat.

Pondering these opinions and the resulting lawsuit I wonder how it is that I made it to adulthood. When I was a child I ate at McDonald’s regularly and almost always had the same thing, a cheese burger happy meal with fries and orange drink. Plus a toy guaranteed to break within a week. If it had been my choice I would undoubtedly have eaten McDonald’s much more often than I actually did but my parents *surprise* did not find it overwhelming to be parents and determined how often I could indulge in a happy meal.

I no longer frequent McDonald’s, mostly because I find it bland. I have many friends that still enjoy McDonald’s and I often make fun of them for it but it is without malice. I don’t care what anyone else chooses to eat. None of them are obese.

As the father of a toddler I know that soon my son will like McDonalds, often request it and sometimes I will take him and sometimes I will say no. And he may act out and I will respond by sticking to my decision, regulating his behavior so that it is not over the top and hopefully encourage perspective. Happy Meals now have many more options than when I was young even including fruits and juices. I do not need or want some government entity “helping” me with the decisions relating to my son’s diet.

And that’s the point. Because Whitlock seemingly ties his large size and likely lack of self-control to Happy Meals consumed as a youth and a mom in California is overwhelmed, both think the government should control what children consume because he has to blame someone other than himself for his problems and she either can’t or won’t make decisions for herself. We live in a wishy-washy kind of society now where many people act helpless and cry out for government oversight to help in their specific issues. The problem is that they are pushing the government to make those same decisions for others who are not helpless.

It is often said that if the government subsidizes a certain activity or commodity (think long term unemployment or ethanol) we will get more of it. The same goes for overbearing nanny like oversight. And while the government can be incredibly inefficient, the one area in which it is always expeditious is in delivering hard to understand rules and regulations telling everyone how to live, robbing all of us of freedom.

Miscommunication

When I was a teenager and worked at a local dairy queen one of the mistakes I made involved misunderstanding a customer’s order. When I started at the place I was told that a value meal could be made of any main menu item, so a customer could either choose from the pictured combinations on the menu or select one of the other items listed to the right and append it with fries and a soft drink. One day I didn’t quite understand the customer and thought the order was for a two cheese burger meal when they meant two cheese burger meals. Recognizing the mistake I obtained the extra fries and drink for the customer when it came time to deliver. Fortunately my manager didn’t care as it was almost a negligible cost and while I wasn’t an exemplary employee I didn’t screw up all that often and showed up on time.

I was thinking of that experience from more than sixteen years ago when I had another instance of misunderstanding a customer recently. Being at the end of the year a lot of companies purchase services for next year now. Last week someone from a large company called to purchase what I thought was a single quantity of something my company sells. The customer was in a hurry, calling at the last minute within their company’s billing cycle needing an immediate invoice. I asked some follow-up questions to ensure I knew as much as I could in order to complete the sale.

It happened that my company’s billing department, on the east coast, was out for a holiday party the afternoon I needed the invoice so it was delayed and we got it out just a few hours before losing the sale. As soon as it was out the customer wrote back to inform me that they intended to purchase a grouping of our products. Fortunately our billing department, now in, redid the invoice in a few minutes. It was a good mistake as the grouping meant that the sale increased ten times from the way I understood it. So instead of losing the cash from some fries and watered down soft drinks some serious cash was made.

I went over in my mind the sales call and I remember asking questions specific to the single product. Perhaps it was timing related, the customer was in a hurry. English is a fickle language and after so many years I still find myself learning.

The Middle Unicorn

Many words have been written recently about this “no labels” group and the ideal of transcending the ugliness of partisan politics and just getting the people’s work done. Some proponents of this claptrap have labeled “no labels” as a moderate counterpart to the tea party movement. Which may as well be a way to define the “no labels” group as a liberal progressive counterpart to the tea party, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but if one follows the liberal progressive movement they learn that liberal progressives have undergone more rebranding efforts than General Motors.

While there have been politicians from both major parties involved in this “no labels” re-branding efforts those from the Republican side often espouse what are, absent the r next to their name, typically liberal progressive positions. Some, like former Florida governor Charlie Christ left the Republican Party in a failed senatorial bid that defined Christ as a crass political opportunist.

It seems apparent that when Election Day comes most everyone is annoyed with the tone, volume and abundance of campaign ads. In line with this tone are political talking points expressed by pundits and politicians expressed in fifteen second snippets on political shows on cable news networks. Neither of these outlets really rises above hot air, making them a good generic target for “no labels”.

No one can really understand the intricacies of a politician’s policy stance from a television commercial where Martin Heinrich accuses Jon Barela of being a lobbyist because he worked in business relations for Intel, or Anthony Weiner screaming at the top of his lungs about how millionaires and billionaires are greedy robber barons not paying their fair share. Many politicians, including both above, do not really have any policy ideas beyond general talking points and based on the way they are often regurgitated by many in casual conversation these talking points work.

So, is it interesting that many deride the exact thing that they base their own politics on? Not really. The center in contemporary politics is mythical in the sense that there is no perfect central position that would truly work for everyone, taking ingredients from left and right and mixing into a delicious pie of legislation. Almost in every instance there is a liberal position and there is a conservative position and they are antithetical in every way. And everyone knows that when you mix blueberries and pepperonis the result is something no one likes.

The real center is made up of undecided folks that base positions based on whatever sounds better at the moment. There is nothing really wrong with this except that these decisions are often emotionally based without much thought involved. These kinds of people are what “no labels” wants to attract and they will fail because in reality “no labels” is made up of finger wagging, no it all liberal progressives who label everything and annoy undecideds as often as they attract them.

Strained Analogies

When politicians and partisan supporters of legislation resort to analogies to describe why an intrusive law is legal and warranted citizens should take that as concrete evidence that it is not. Yesterday a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the health insurance mandate in Obamacare is unconstitutional on a suit brought by the attorney general in that state as opposed to allowed under the Commerce clause regulating interstate commerce. This ruling should be indisputable by the fact that the rule mandates that presumptively free citizens purchase health insurance.

Supporters of the mandate have three justifications. Members in congress apparently believe that the federal government can force US citizens to do anything. Big government advocates point to costs associated with uninsured consuming health care resources as justification for it. The intellectually lazy justification, really just a talking point, is that because motorists are required to carry automobile insurance then the federal government has authority to force citizens to purchase health insurance.

Fortunately with the recent ruling by the federal court in Virginia the idea that the feds can say because we said so, citizens will not be forced to purchase a federally outlined commercial product. There are costs associated with the uninsured using a lot of services and is due almost entirely to big government regulation. Because of regulation, no one understands how much health care actually costs and must use services that they might not if given an actual choice. Health care is expensive and it is a good idea for people to subscribe to some sort of health plan but when there is no choice involved because users are forced to get something that is outlined by government making its cost artificially inflated there will be people that forgo it.

The analogous way of seeing things, comparing health insurance to car insurance is just stupid because they are completely different things and the authority and justification for insuring automobiles is different in every way. Because roads are built and maintained by the state, cars which use them must be licensed within the jurisdiction where they are located when not in use. As a condition of use on the roads built by the jurisdiction they are to be insured in order to protect anyone that is harmed by the insured. There is a minimum requirement in auto insurance and the purchaser may customize based on their own needs. If one does not want to purchase auto insurance they can take mass transit, a bicycle or some other way not to drive. The health insurance mandate affects anyone by virtue of existence and forces them to purchase something they may not want designed without their personal interests considered.

The only reason why the mandate exists is to raise concerns about it so that it serves as a step towards government run health care. To implement, taxes will be raised to pay for all health care and it will be buried with all other taxes. Citizens will not have an insurance premium or a mandate; they will have access to something they pay for anyway. It’s just another statist method to force onto the country more government. And the health care system will get worse.

Everything is like Something Else

Listening to President Obama’s hissy yesterday in regard to a compromise framework on the extension of current tax rates I learned something; I cannot stand to listen to a person who is both a drama queen and speaks almost entirely in analogies. That is our President, a man who cannot speak in plain language who is always reaching for some over the top analogy that perfectly explains the nonsensical.

Yesterday’s whine fest was as grating as it was educational.

It appeared that the media was able to show its liberal progressive political inclinations based on the questions asked. For a media used to fawning over a person sold as a messianic figure that would heal political divides and provide true bipartisanship, questions asking about the Presidents true core when he is announcing the only thing he has ever done that could be called bipartisan was strange.

The President himself seemed to convey that he is the President of some of the country, those who agree with him. He stated that most of the country was on his side in regard to raising taxes only on “the rich”, which polling shows is not true. He stated that the Republican’s financial policy was to ‘give’ money to the rich. He likened Republicans to “hostage takers” and “bomb throwers”, and that’s the current lame duck congress, not the incoming congress which features a lot more Republicans.

It is puzzling to understand that the President believes that he can bully business into creating jobs just because while attacking them as greedy. The President’s understanding of reality is lacking while his understanding of the imaginary as defined in his own mind is superb.

These are not tax cuts being discussed. What is being discussed is an extension of current tax rates. There are several tax rates based on income levels, it is progressive meaning that as income grows the tax on it raises. So, besides the already obvious fact that those with higher incomes pay more taxes, they pay more as a percentage as well. Widening the gap between the differing tax thresholds is abhorrent because it will never be enough for some people and as a weapon of class warfare creates divides in our country.

The President, and those who agree with him, believe (plainly, through their statements) that the income of American citizens belongs to the country first and to its earners second. This is a morally bankrupt concept and is in no way fair, to anyone. The President’s petulant attitude and thin skin when it comes to actual compromise and not just his assertion of Republican priorities demonstrate that a mistake was made in his election. With every policy statement like this it becomes clearer that the goal of our country must be to deny him re-election.

A Requiem for a fired coach

One of the first things that I thought about after Josh McDaniels was hired as coach of the Denver Broncos was in regard to his age. Being only a couple years older than myself McDaniels symbolized a coming of age for myself as I was approaching an age where NFL coaches became about my age and younger. Other than that I was hopeful for the future. Mike Shanahan had won two Super Bowls and many games over a more than decade-long career but the team seemed to have stagnated into an also-ran state. It seems that no matter how effective a coach is, there is a shelf life in terms of effectiveness.

Starting 6-0 in McDaniel’s first season I was ecstatic and hopeful for the future. The Broncos proceeded to finish 2-8 and middle of the road again. The problem seemed to be with a defense that had begun the season as a dominant force regressed badly. Still optimistic I thought good things were coming and was pleased with the draft even though the top end concentrated on offense rather than what has seemed to be a perennial need on the defensive line.

This year the Broncos started unevenly as opposed to undefeated like last year and it seemed to be that they were competitive and would at least have the same record as last year if not eek out one or more wins. Today, Denver is 3-9 and in the worst stretch record-wise in forty years. Instead of showing any improvement the team just can’t seem to win. Watching the game this past Sunday I was struck by how little they could do in the red zone. Knowshon Moreno had some fantastic runs with the passing game basically non-existent but once they were in scoring position they could do nothing. It was sad to watch, especially as they had more than a few chances to score a touchdown which would have led to a win.

I wanted Josh McDaniels to be successful as coach of the Denver Broncos for the simple reason that I want the Denver Broncos to be a successful football team. It seems that hiring a coach in the NFL is often a crapshoot and there is never a guarantee but if the right coach is hired a team can get better in a hurry. Josh McDaniels was not a successful football coach and as such is unemployed right now. While some commentary is bitter and wishes our now ex-coach ill will, I refuse. Perhaps McDaniels wasn’t ready to be a head coach in the NFL, perhaps he is meant to be a coordinator or something else. I don’t know and I wish him luck in his future endeavors.

Go Broncos.

Rock, meet Hard Place

If a policy of placing the cart before the horse were a discussion topic, a recent kerfuffle involving alcohol, sports, high school students and a certain highly funded high school nails it. La Cueva football coaches were recently suspended because students were caught drinking on a school bus trip back from Las Cruces. For the most part nothing outside of those facts is known and a heated discussion ensued this morning on KKOB radio. The discussion mostly centered on responsibility, its placement and lack thereof from just about everyone involved.

The range of discussion was from demands for the coaches to be hung in the public square to those who don’t see anything wrong at all. Personal opinions tend to be that way but in the end the only thing that matters for those involved is the rules of their school and the laws of the state of New Mexico and city of Albuquerque.

The most intriguing part is that, outside of those involved, no one knows anything about what actually happened and whether or not there is any culpability towards any of the parties because of what actually happened. A caller mentioned that this kind of thing, high schoolers drinking on a school trip on the bus, is common and that the adults aren’t numerous enough or dispersed throughout the bus in an effective manner that would discourage such behavior. I thought that was a reasonable assessment.

Of course, this is in the absence of some important facts such as, who purchased the alcohol? After the adults on board learned of the behavior, what happened?

Some of the callers were just silly. Once caller stated that they knew the coaches personally and that the issue was completely a fabrication of the media because these coaches would never have done something like that. Really? Does this caller know more than anyone else? Probably not. What if the coaches actually did obtain the booze? Reminds me of the parents in high school who provide alcohol for their children and friends in order to better monitor their behavior, sounds reasonable, but is still illegal.

Another opinion involves the idea that because it involves La Cueva, a well funded high school in an affluent area of Albuquerque, this story is being swept under the rug and the perpetrators are being handled with kid gloves. It’s my opinion that anything to do with any sort of actual or perceived malfeasance in any public school is often glossed over in order to hide problems with a big government cash cow. In this case there is still an investigation going on making this charge incomplete at best.

The problem is that this kind of story brings with it public outcry and demands to ‘do something’ while investigations take time for a number of reasons. I know that I cannot say definitively what happened or exactly what laws may or may not have been broken. If I was a parent of one of the students I would be paying much more attention and learning as much as I can. Sadly, it seems doubtful that what really happened will ever be learned because of faulty memory or outright lying. What to do?

Word of the Day

I don’t remember the first time that I heard the term ‘squish’ to describe a person but when I did in context it was just perfect. Scouring the interwebs and settling at the most logical location, Urban Dictionary, for a proper definition I was disappointed to find that in 4 pages of entries the closest that I could find was:

Someone who is extremely disproportional or just unattractive in general.

One thing that is great about Urban Dictionary is that users can add definitions so while disappointed I was also heartened to learn that I could define it just right. So, who exactly is a squish?

I am lucky to know someone who fits the definition to a squish perfectly. My first definition for a squish is for those people who never think about it that way but use a common turn of phrase:

A squish is a person who is often described with the caveat: (But) they are a nice person.

This caveat is inevitably preceded or followed by the description of an unattractive quality of that person. Imagine the type of person who has never grown up but not in the quaint Peter Pan lost boy kind of way, but in the pathetic kind of way. The type of person who is of an adult age but has never learned to be self reliant in any way shape or form. The kind of person who resents anyone else for their ability to be self-sufficient. A person who suffers from such low self esteem that any comment, compliment or criticism towards them is rebuted with a sissyish and immature response because that person cannot differentiate comments and believes that everyone views them in a negative light. The type of person who is completely dependent on another person, be it a parent or a significant other and resents that they have no decision making authority but has neither the desire nor will to do anything about it.

Basically, a squish is the perfect description for the pathetic loser of a person who honestly believes that their miserable lot in life is entirely to blame on nebulous circumstances or they who keep them down. They are everywhere and most everyone knows one. I have lost my patience recently with a squish. They can be nice people but it gets to a point where pathetic is and will always be the best way to describe the person.

More Excuses

One Charles Rangel makes me as a voter very angry. It could be said that he doesn’t matter to me as he represents Harlem, New York, a district thousands of miles from where I live. That’s wrong because Rangel, as a 20 plus term incumbent, is a very powerful member of congress and has most recently served as the chair of the House ways and means committee, the committee charged with oversight of the tax code. Representative Rangel, while representing a part of New York, directly affects us in New Mexico.

Rangel makes me angry because he committed tax fraud and his punishment is censure, an admonishment of his crime by the speaker of the house in a session of congress. This is less than a slap on the wrist and everyone knows it. There is a kabuki theatre of various congressmen making noise about the punishment being harsh and even unwarranted which makes me even angrier.

Rangel’s incoherent and inconsistent statements have varied from him not knowing that what he did was wrong to that he did not personally benefit from his crimes to that his long tenure should exempt him from the law. Never has he apologized with the closest being the equivalent of saying, if I offended anyone I apologize for their misunderstanding of me doing nothing wrong.

Recently, with all of this going on, Rangel was re-elected with about 80 percent of the vote in his district. It is astounding to me how someone like Rangel could win with the cloud of corruption like this. It is unsurprising that he would not even show a hint of contrition for his guilt when all he gets is an admonishment and is re-elected so resoundingly.

It is a sad commentary when the excuses flow. Because of his position, why wouldn’t Rangel work to make the tax code more understandable for everyone? It is overly complex and I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t harbor some anger at having to pay almost a hundred dollars a year in order to pay taxes in accordance with the law. And is ignorance of tax law an excuse for any member of the public? Of course not. Rangel’s punishment is a joke to anyone over the age of ten and it’s no wonder why the public has lost confidence in its representative body as a whole.

Corruption and Consequences

This morning on the radio a corrupt sheriff in New Mexico, who was selling departmental goods, including body armor, on eBay was the topic. This sheriff, who was on his way out anyway by way of the election of someone else, has admitted what he did and resigned. He is not in jail yet and whoever is in charge of that sort of thing is working on a case that may possibly lead to criminal charges.

Read that last part of the sentence, possibly. That is pathetic and it is illustrative of our government today that this person is not behind bars at this moment. His excuse was personal financial hardships and some hold the opinion that he should be a sympathetic character because he was in dire financial straits and because the items he sold had little value or were to be destroyed.

Nonsense. First, it is not acceptable that a public servant steals and profits from stolen items because they cannot manage their personal finances. No one else can get away with stealing because they have financial hardship. Since when are public servants above the law?

The next assertion is the worse of them, excusing this thief because some of the items that were stolen were of little value or were meant to be disposed of. That does not matter in any sense. If this sheriff had stolen and re-sold a pencil he would still be stealing and should be sent to prison.

A sheriff is supposed to lead law enforcement and it is in part an indictment of the public who elected this person twice to a position of such stature. From the news, it seems as though it was not much a surprise that this sheriff behaved in such a way. He is nothing more than another democrat crook that deserves to rot in a jail cell.

Empirical Dancing

The funniest story this week involves some person somewhere who shot his television over the elimination of someone other than Bristol (daughter of Sarah) Palin on TV’s Dancing with the Stars. This news was accompanied by many other stories on the subject of Palin’s worthiness to remain a competitor on the show. Many of these stories push the idea that dastardly tea party types are at it again, mucking things up for other, more worthy dancers.

Palin is mostly degraded because her celebrity stems from being the daughter of a politician, who happens to be an evil Republican, and the former fiancé and co-parent of an idiot. Most ridiculous is all the consternation focused on a call-in show judging the completely subjective. Think trying to explain the definition of a strike zone in baseball is difficult; imagine doing the same for dancing. Having a mirror I know how to identify bad dancing but for the most part, anything from halfway competent to professional look the same to me.

Second, like American idol or any other call-in and vote show, it’s a popularity contest. Perhaps the fact that Palin has been treated so poorly by so many who don’t even know her has led to viewer empathy. It’s not like she forced her way on to the show, she was invited like everyone else who participates and given the opportunity, who wouldn’t take it?

Sometimes not everyone else agrees with who you think should win. It’s no reason to freak out. I didn’t vote for the President, or either of the last two congressmen from New Mexico. I think they’re horrible at their jobs and I will continue to not vote for them, the majority of citizens disagreed and that may or may not change. The key difference is the people voted into office can directly affect our lives. Can a contestant on a dance show? Perspective.

Knowing the Unknowable and the Ubiquitous PR

It’s impossible to really know what anyone truly believes because there is no way to actually get into someone else’s mind. The best way to guess when it comes to a politician is to take what they have ever written or said in addition to the policies and priorities taken in office. Before running for Commander in Chief, President Obama’s associations, two autobiographies, history in community organizing, record in the Illinois and United States Senate pointed to a left wing politician. This is part of the reason why the hope and change campaign the president ran in 2008 was so jarring, because it could be construed to mean absolutely anything and in the context of that election it was used to convey rainbows an lollipops. It was a charade masking the policies favored by the President.

Nearly two years in to the Obama Presidency it seems as though his policies, once demonstrated, have led to a rebuke illustrated in this month’s elections. The basic point to me is that many agree that government is too big and does not do many things well when it attempts to shape decisions for everyone. It has been opined that when the President uses a bitter clingers or distribution line, it’s some kind of slip but it is more in line with his actual record that the nonsense from his campaign.

Speaking of that campaign it is still meaningful to many, from an article on Salon by Sasha Abramsky titled “Obama’s toughest task: Make us believe again”:

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama fashioned an appeal to independent voters and young adults based in large part not on specific policy pledges but on his promise to end the culture of hyper-partisan hyper-bickering that was poisoning the country's political well…Obama believes in good government, in moderation, in a smart, worldly, calm approach to politics. He believes that government can, and should, act on behalf of ordinary people to protect them from the vagaries of an unregulated market and also to smooth out the rough edges created by boom-bust cycles, inequality, and the twists and turns of history…Unfortunately for him, and for his broader progressive political agenda, conservatives have spent the last 30-plus years demolishing any notion that government can ever be a force for good in the social and economic arena.

That’s a ton of inference from hope and change. It seems that the Author’s belief in government and of conservatives is the actual view put forth in this piece.

On the first assertion, the ending of partisanship in politics. The only political system that has no partisanship is a dictatorship in which all of the people living under it agree to live under said dictatorship. Those clamoring for bi-partisanship aren’t looking for any actual agreement; they are looking for people to capitulate to their view of government.

On to the good big government tripe. Boom-bust cycles happen in any economy that promotes freedom and the only kind that sidesteps this are those in which everyone is miserable, all bust. Government has tried many times to help ordinary people and in some very limited ways has helped albeit at enormous costs. The reason why many people view big government as bad government is because many of these programs have failed to deliver at an inflated cost.

The last notion, that conservatives have spent the last 30 plus years demolishing the idea that government can ever be a force for good in the social and economic arena. This rubbish assumes that conservatives have ever been a force in forming public opinion, which just isn’t true. Conservatives don’t promise to solve everyone’s problems, don’t promise to stop the rise of the oceans and don’t believe that government should make every decision for every citizen. Because progressives always promise the impossible and can never deliver on the impossible they always get elected on inflated hope and then are shown the door when it all falls apart.

Tone Deaf and Confident

Even during hard times when voters are asked, if you knew that your money was going to education, would you agree to increase taxes or something like that—they always say yes

That is a quote from Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein responding to warnings from Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Winston Brooks cryptically warning of further education budget cuts.

Worst-case scenario, we could be looking at cutting $64 million ... all of those numbers are estimates right now. Please do not take any of them as gospel

No one knows with any certainty what the future holds for the school district’s funding and the union leader has no qualms with sticking it to the taxpayer to shovel more money into the furnace that goes by the blanket term ‘education’.

The only answer that the taxpayer can provide that may actually lead to an improved APS is a shut wallet. Scare tactics from a bumbling superintendent are only meant as a hedge to game the public into more funding as desired by the teacher’s union. Both of these statements are complimentary and outline the same tactic that has failed education time and again, more money.

More money is not the answer and that conclusion is supported by the fact that as taxpayers have been more than generous over and over again as acknowledged by AFT president Bernstein, nothing has changed. ‘Education’ has not improved for the children that are used as a cudgel to guilt citizens into throwing money at the same old same old.

The reason why is that more money only grows the same failing system and that system is a growth of programs meant to solve problems by endless study and moving around students into various school activities that are not in any way tied to education. This is the same ‘try something’ charade that never does any good because adding to a wasteful system while not honestly addressing the actual cause of issues within the public schools does nothing. And these new programs once established, never go away and always want more.

Teary eyed politicians always want to ‘keep money in the classroom’ and ‘in education’ and the problem is that as the schools add more and more programs and studies, each requires more and more management which have nothing to do with any actual education. The problem is that the money is not literally spent on the classroom but a gigantic, out of proportion support system whose only goal is to feed it and grow ever larger.

Since inception the public schools answer to its many problems has always been more funding and they have always been granted more funding only to deliver worse results every time. It is more than past time to try real reform, to force the school districts who insist on digging into our pockets to be fully accountable. The public should know every program, every employee and every purpose of our funding. As the public we must hold administrators, school board members, teachers and every employee of the public schools accountable and determine what programs actually work and which teachers actually teach. It is time to rid ourselves of anything that is not directly tied to real, actual education within APS.

The Answer Isn’t More of the Same

In the bad idea of the day department there is a group calling itself ABQPass that is currently pushing splitting Albuquerque Public Schools in two with a new district comprised of existing schools that dot Albuquerque west of the Rio Grande. The prime justification for this initiative is the state of New Mexico’s poor ranking in education nationwide.

The idea behind the idea is noble, that providing the children with the best possible education is paramount to prosperity. Nothing controversial there, however, splitting APS in two is a bad idea that will only serve to exacerbate the problems within the district. ABQPass should instead concentrate its efforts on bettering the district as it already exists.

The creation of a second Albuquerque school district immediately doubles the problem with the existing district because it creates a second entity encompassing the same problems. The problem with APS is the size and reach of its bureaucracy. APS as it exists today is the perfect demonstration of the failure of big government. Every year, the APS school board and administration makes excuses for the poor performance of their system and insists that the solution is more money. We rubes in the public pony up and nothing changes.

It is folly to believe that the creation of another school district, more government will alleviate the problems within APS. All that it will lead to is another corrupt and burdensome government entity that is always crowing for more money from the public they are supposed to serve inevitably disappointing but never having to improve once entrenched.

The Event Center that will not Die

It is difficult for me to understand exactly why many Albuquerque city council members continue to insist on building a new Downtown event center. In his first State of the City address, Mayor Richard Berry made the following statement:

I'm not saying 'no, never.' I'm saying now isn't the time

This simple statement is a practical way to look at the proposed event center. It may one day become a reality but now really isn’t the right time. A new event center in downtown Albuquerque is estimated to cost nearly 400 million dollars, where exactly is that money supposed to come from? Accompanying the mayor’s position statement was news that city owes nearly 20 million dollars on renovations made more than a decade ago to the existing convention center. Where is that money and when is the existing convention center, operating at less than capacity going to come from?

One of the arguments in favor of the new event center is the construction jobs that will ostensively add to the city’s labor base, stimulating the economy. There are a lot of problems with this position. First, these jobs would only be temporary. One of the ill effects could be an artificial inflation in the city’s construction labor base; companies may bring in workers from other economies that leave after the work is complete or may have to lay off many local employees once the work is complete. This is an example of unsustainable. The city may as well employ a hundred hole diggers and a hundred hole fillers working on a split shift in perpetuity.

Another argument is that an event center will lead to a revitalization of the city’s downtown area. The first step to any city revitalization is taking care of crime. Albuquerque already has a modern convention center with much useful space that is across the street from a mostly empty beautiful civic plaza, why would another event center do any better? Part of the event center plan involves a hotel. There are already many hotels in downtown Albuquerque with much vacancy. What reason is there and do we really want the city to get into the hotel business? The city does not need to enter any private industry and should first concentrate on finding tenants for existing city properties and take care of crime on those properties and throughout the city.

The most laughable reason given for an event center is the idea that the city could conceivably attract a professional sports team, most likely an NBA team. Put simply, Albuquerque does not have the population base necessary to support a professional basketball team. Second, smaller cities with NBA teams are bankrupt thanks to those teams. I doubt the NBA would support a team moving to Albuquerque because of woeful attendance at the area’s NBA developmental league team’s games. There are sentimental reasons for this, making it a point of civic pride to call Albuquerque a major city because it’s a budget busting NBA team’s city. It isn’t worth it.

I just don’t get it. Any reason that can be given for the city to create a new event center when one already exists and many other venues dot the metro area can be easily refuted. Now is simply not the time to even consider this idea. Over the last few years Albuquerque has lost several major private sector employers. The city should concentrate its efforts on making the city safer which will help make it a city people want to move to and encourage businesses to move here by improving taxes for them. This event center is a distraction. Any city councilor who supports it can’t be bothered to solve actual problems and are probably running for mayor in three years.

Defining a good job down

Yesterday I characterized the re-election of Martin Heinrich to the US House of Representatives as demonstrative of the power of the democrat brand, especially in the state of New Mexico. While New Mexico is a right to work state, there are two teachers unions that have a strong presence in the state. New Mexico has a larger percentage of state employees as a percentage of the general population than many other states. Many of these state employees live in the Albuquerque area (witness the existence of the rail runner) and therefore in Heinrich’s district. In Albuquerque their exists Sandia National Laboratories, many federal DoD offices employing civilians at Kirtland Air Force Base, Federal, State and District Courts, an FBI presence, other Federal agencies and the University of New Mexico. Basically, Albuquerque is a giant hub of public sector employment and trends show that all of these groups overwhelmingly vote democrat as a brand and not at a 51/49 split, closer to 70/30. Knowing this it is amazing that any republican can win any elected office in this city. Yet, Jon Barela came close.

Martin Heinrich has a resume as thin as can be and in two years in Washington only distinguished himself by honoring the UNM Lobo’s basketball team in session. Other than that, Heinrich can be considered to be a straight ticket democrat vote. Jon Barela has a much more impressive resume, with actual Private sector experience, has campaigned as an independent thinker that would work for New Mexico first and performed well in debates. He came close but he lost to someone who has only distinguished himself as getting along with the democrat agenda.

This morning on Bob Clark’s 770AM morning show he had a “centrist” political blogger who may as well call himself Captain Hindsight in his political analysis. The point of this blogger and several echo callers was that the result of the election to New Mexicans is that Republicans must moderate and that Heinrich won because he did well by his constituency. This caused me to ponder exactly what each of these points meant.

The first tell of a liberal is that they identify themselves as something else and this blogger was no different. Every “moderate” plank identified by this “moderate” that Republicans must co-opt was a liberal policy. In politics, Republicans describe policies, policies meant to bestow freedom on citizens while democrats push programs meant to keep constituents dependent on their benevolence. With that stark a difference it is difficult to identify a truly centrist position. Dishonest liberals like this blogger, thinking themselves righteous, have co-opted the term “moderate” to hide liberal and progressive memes.

On to Heinrich doing right by his constituents, part of the blogger’s claim stemmed back to his time as a city councilor in Albuquerque. On that question the answer is it depends. Which constituents? This kind of trick is taken because this blogger, being a liberal, paints the entire district with a broad brush and assumes everyone shares the same values and views of government. The constituency that is served well by Heinrich is the kind that is either a recipient of government largess or approves of that method of governance. Plainly, Heinrich is good at giving out other people’s money. It is probably correct that Heinrich won thanks to this trait, that doesn’t mean that he does a good job.

It’s easy to be pessimistic when a candidate like Jon Barela can only get close against a hack like Heinrich but it seems to be the way things are in this district. The only reason why Richard Berry's the Mayor of Albuquerque is because it was a three way race against two democrats who may as well have been clones. The big government agenda put forth by Martin Heinrich and supported by many voters in Albuquerque is unsustainable and the benefits are an illusion, if this kind of candidate continues to win it might be time to take that transfer to Florida.

The Day After

There was some good and some disappointing news from the election yesterday. Something I learned last night both in New Mexico and nationally is just how powerful democrat as a brand can be. As the results poured in, locally and nationally, it was a very good night for Republicans but there were many races that just left me a bit let down.

Early yesterday afternoon my wife sent me a text message that she was attempting to convince a friend to vote for Susana Martinez, Jon Barela and Matt Chandler. This friend is very smart and sensible, and the reason why they voted straight ticket democrat after all was due to the nature of their work in renewable energy. In that sector and many others, these employees are told that their jobs depend on democrats in office. Such is the price of big government picking winners and losers in the economy. And democrats are big government and when democrat government picks winners, that same government becomes the best interest of those winners.

Susana Martinez won a resounding and pleasantly early victory. Martinez is a great candidate that the State deserves to learn more about over the next four years. My bet is that she will be a very good Governor. Steve Pearce won the seat in congress that he previously held handily, more so that the predicted toss-up. Dianna Duran won in a landslide (15 points!) for Secretary of State over Incumbent and embarrassment Mary Herrera.

Jon Barela (US House), Tom Mullins (US House) and Matt Chandler (Attorney General) lost close races against mediocre at best incumbents. Was it name recognition or was it the democrat brand? Or both, which may be the same thing? I think it’s the later. Barela ran a good campaign and was a good candidate but never could establish himself. Mullins is an excellent candidate and ran a great campaign considering his district but still lost. Chandler is also an excellent candidate who ran very well against the well established King democrat brand in New Mexico, hopefully he’ll be back.

Nationwide, California and Nevada prove the strength of the democrat brand. Sharron Angle was a great candidate, running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada and lost by a much larger margin than predicted. California sent back know-nothing Barbara Boxer to the Senate and elected re-tread Jerry Brown as their governor against well qualified businesspeople. These results are disappointing because all three of these candidates had low ratings in their districts, but even with all of the problems their districts resoundingly went for more of the same. It is what it is. At least California went against the idiotic proposal to legalize marijuana.

There is now a lot of work to do. There were a ton of great Republican candidates and hopefully the freshman class in both houses of congress will do great things. Electorally, while there were disappointing results in some races, there is something to build on. Voters are more educated than ever and can only mean better candidates and better representation.

Grüezi Mitenand!

is Swiss German for "Greetings, everyone". A lot has happened between the last time I posted and now, both in the realm of national/state/local politics and for me personally. As the 5 people who read this blog know, I moved to Switzerland a year ago, so I can blog with a bit of a Euro slant on American politics. Sometime I'll blog about how my views have changed or not, but for now - let's talk about what just happened.

[Keep in mind that the above was written right after the election, I am a lazy ass and didn't finish.]

Hello gridlock! I love it. When politicians are pissing on each other in DC, then they aren't pissing on us. The encroachment upon our individual liberties grinds to a halt when the wrench of gridlock is thrown into the machine of Leviathan. What remains to be seen is if Obama can adjust like Clinton did. I'm not holding my breath. Obama is a genuine douchebag with a superiority complex. You can see it in how he reacts to criticism.

Speaking of Clinton, I suddenly found myself missing the ol' boy. We hated him, but honestly - he was a consummate politician, so he did some good stuff. The semblance of fiscal responsibility that Newt & Co. foisted upon him was nice, and we need it again.

Anyway, I'll try and keep up with things here so Vetes isn't the only lonely poster.

Election Day

Or Happy New Governor Day New Mexico! Whoever wins the election today one thing is for certain, one Bill Richardson will soon be on a path to an uncertain retirement from New Mexico politics. Uncertain because it is would be impossible to guess as to what Richardson will do next. In statewide politics the only option that would not seem to be a demotion would be senator and it is doubtful that Richardson (or anyone) could beat Jeff Bingaman simply because he has been there forever and name recognition still rules in New Mexico. So what next for Richardson? It doesn’t matter, soon enough he will be gone tarnished from a life in democrat politics, good riddance.

What has been striking to me in this election cycle is the welcome quality of Republican candidates. All too often in politics many candidates are re-treads, multi-decade incumbents or flacks who have waited in line for their turn. While there are some Republican candidates who fit this mold (hello Steve Pearce) many are really quality people and I think are prepared for what may be new jobs tomorrow.

It all starts at the top with our likely new governor, Susana Martinez. Contrast Martinez with Diane Denish, Denish has been or campaigned for Lt Governor for the last twelve years. In her Ads Denish attempted to identify herself first as a corruption fighter, with no results, then as the owner of an unnamed small business and a single mother for a period time to an education reformer where nothing changed most notably results. Martinez is a successful DA in Dona Ana County who has been successful for many years in that role with a record that she could run on consistently throughout the campaign.

Notable differences in resume quality continue in House of Representatives candidates. Take Martin Heinrich, what has he ever done that even resembles experience in the private sector? He worked as an engineer at Philips semiconductors for several months and then worked at a camp, then as an unregistered lobbyist and city councilor before becoming a congressman. That’s the best the democrats have to offer. His opponent, Republican Jon Barela worked for a congressman, Joe Skeen, then for a major law firm in Albuquerque, then Intel and then opened his own successful company Cerelink.

Matt Chandler brings a fresh perspective to the Attorney General’s office compared to the legacy Gary King, who may be perfectly mediocre but has proven to be very politically motivated. In the North, Tom Mullins is an engineer who is truly conservative running against Ben Ray Lujan who has an even thinner resume than Martin Heinrich. In the South Steve Pearce is running for a seat he once held against businessman democrat Harry Teague and while this race seems different and one could assume that Teague would be business friendly, Teague has voted in line with democrat priorities (excepting certain politically motivated exceptions) and operates his business in the cartoonish ways his party attempts to paint conservatives.

There are many stories today about how many races the Republicans may win today and the best part is that many of the Republican candidates are no longer just the lesser of two evils but intelligent people that adhere to actual conservative governing principles which I believe will lead to a better state and country.

So who's supported by Texas?

Now, this picture means nothing but in the Tejana and "Texas money" context, you can't tell me this picture from a Corrales roaming vehicle ain't funny...

What is “Our” Side?

“Jon Barela’s not on our side”…echoes one of Martin Heinrich’s increasingly desperate commercial attempts to cling to a House of Representatives seat that he will not acknowledge that he holds to fight for an agenda that he will not admit. Many political advertisements feature some play on the tripe phase “our” side, most of them in support of democrat candidates. What exactly is “our” side and what exactly is in “our” best interest politically?

The answer is as simple as it is confusing because it depends. It depends because not everyone everywhere has the same interests and needs and no one belongs to the same “side” as anyone else. One of the greatest dangers of a large and obtrusive government is that it picks “sides” and to do so implies that big government must pick against another “side”. And while government picking on one “side” may make the other feel better it will almost always hurt the other side too.

Take for example the government’s recent bailing out of bankrupt automakers. As a result unions received large portions of the companies while previous investors were shunned. Former investors and many others may never purchase a car from those companies which will lead to lower sales and what happens next time that the union side needs for the other to be punished for bankruptcy? The unions are on both sides, the next bankruptcy may lead to one or both automaker disappearing for good.

This isn’t the same thing as when the government does something to punish one side for doing something horrible to another side. There is a need for laws and as a society we have to protect unalienable rights; life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. And that’s the point; big government has a problem because it attempts to determine all of the right “sides” and in a relatively civil society the people all have different “sides” and can best determine what those are.

The Tease that is The Onion

Most of the time “The Onion” as a political animal is liberal claptrap but every once in a while there is a surprising story and so it seemed to be with this headline:

Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made'

This headline is similar to many storylines talking about just how “productive” congress has been the last two years in an attempt to control as many aspects of American life possible in two years with time off for vacation and ignoring constituents. And saddle foreseeable generations with debt that they can only hope to pass on, living just long enough not to have to deal with the worst consequences of.

This “productivity” thing is a myth, just because the congress used majorities in both houses and control of the executive branch to pass reams of impossible to comprehend measures doesn’t mean that it was any good and that they were the right things to do. I’m pretty sure I could get up early on Tuesday and knock over one hundred trash cans into the street in less than half an hour but that wouldn’t make me productive, it would mean that I was making a mess for others to clean up.

But I digress, on to the seemingly good article on typical liberal overreach and grandiose narcissism not to mention ignorance of the voters. Nope, I was wrong. Reading the article the democrat’s productivity included:

hard-won passage of a historic health care overhaul, the toughest financial regulations since the 1930s, and a stimulus package most economists now credit with preventing a second Great Depression.

But it doesn’t ask if the health care overhaul is worth it or will even work as designed and that no one will even know until after 2014 when it actually begins. It doesn’t provide a metric measuring the “toughness” of financial regulations (as if such a metric exists). Nor does it mention that following the onset of “tough” financial regulations in the 30s unemployment exploded from less than 7% to over 25% by the end of that decade. Finally, the last contention is the silliest. Did they provide a roll call of all economists and then take a show of hands to prove that most credit he stimulus, which has not even met its claimed goals, with preventing a second great depression which almost nobody people can even imagine as they were not alive then and the schools don’t teach actual history anymore.

Onion, you tease me and then smack me in the head with predictable dribble and you wonder why I only check the site when I’m so bored that I can’t even sleep. If I wanted liberal claptrap I’d go to CNN or MSNBC, I want satire from the Onion damn it!

Negative Political Advertising

It would seem a good bet that if you went out to the street and asked any random person their opinion of political advertising you would likely be told that they are tired of how negative it is. Just a few minutes ago I was listening to the radio and the father of an old classmate of mine who happens to be the Sandoval county election something or the other was talking about how negative the campaign was and how it seemed to be the most negative campaign he has ever witnessed. For someone who is close to sixty years old that is quite a statement. In reality I seriously doubt that any election can really be considered to be the most negative ever mostly because of evolving standards and short term memory.

I will make the bold statement that I have never witnessed an election that was not negative and did not contain an absurd amount of negative advertising on most every advertising medium. Certain races certainly don’t lend themselves to it in any given election, take for instance the perfectly civil and boring race for land commissioner, but when considering an entire election, negativity abounds.

Why is this? Using the assumption from the above thought experiment most everyone at least publicly would disavow negative advertising; one would think that it would be advantageous to not be negative. But that isn’t the case for the very simple reason that negative advertising works, and it works both ways. Thanks to the multitude of ways the internet provides for a user to research, claims can be analyzed and either reinforced or discarded based on a user’s perception. Conversely, negative advertising can be used to create an image of a candidate, to define them in the mind of the uninformed voter; this is very useful in the case where a candidate is not an established quantity.

Take the case of one Jon Barela, running for the House of Representatives. Barela has never run for nor held elected public office although he has experience working for former Congressman Joe Skeen and served as an assistant attorney general. In the 90s Barela worked for Intel as a community and government relations manager. Intel is an international company with operations that span the globe. In his role, Barela worked with (surprise!) government and registered as a lobbyist as a result of some of his work. Incumbent congressman Martin Heinrich and various democrat interests have seized on these jobs to paint Barela as a “Politician” and “Lobbyist” who lobbied to send jobs to other countries. This is their campaign, to create an image of Barela for the public using the fact that Barela once worked for Intel in government communications (for its Albuquerque location) and because Intel hires people in other countries to work at their locations in other countries, Barela is therefore a lobbyist to send jobs to other countries explicitly and is a politician because he served in unelected public sector positions. Get it?

Every claim made by the loose associations presented by the democrat point of view are demonstrably false but because they are loose associations the fact that they are unserious can be downplayed by democrats. Catch-22 time. For democrats, it’s simple to promise not to negatively advertise because they are, in their own words, not guilty of it because everything they say is true because they are on the side of everything right and true. And everything said by a Republican is false and negative because they are evil and wrong. Take Heinrich for example, he is a politician by means of incumbency and attempts to paint his opponent negatively as a politician, the logic is impossible to deconstruct. And I wonder, what will come of Heinrich is he loses? Will he return to a private sector in which he has no experience? He could follow the path taken by other former democrat politicians, and become a lobbyist, but what is the politically correct term for a democrat lobbyist? After all, hearing it from them, they are on the side of right and good so in that affect if a democrat is a lobbyist they aren’t really a lobbyist just like they aren’t really politicians.

Negative advertising is rampant because it works. It just does. The people that are turned off by it have already made their minds up mostly and as a result it would take a lot for their candidate to offend them. This election is a mid-term and as such there are both a lot of high profile races and many initiatives on the ballot and only so much time in the day and all of these line items are competing for time and attempting to make an impression. Sometimes negative ads just stick long enough to limp a candidate or idea past the finish line. I doubt much new ground has been recently broken in this realm or that we will one day witness a world with no negative advertising.

Discernable Differences

During Saturday’s evening newscast on local ABC affiliate, KOAT 7, there was a question posed to both candidates seeking to be New Mexico’s next State Auditor. The question was in regard to shrinking state agency budgets and how each candidate would work with this reality. This was an instructive moment in that it proved to be an effective delineation between democrat and Republican governing policies. Republican candidate Errol Chavez’s argument was that the State Auditor’s office must do more with less. Democrat Hector Balderas’ argument was that the state would suffer irreparable harm from current funding to the State Auditor and that it should receive more money.

And that’s it in a nutshell. Gimme gimme gimme, more more more is the sum of democrat policy. Everything is never enough and if cuts come or funding doesn’t increase the apocalypse will ensue and of course police, firemen and the children always suffer the most.

Random Travel Thoughts

I was watching some news special on these new body scanners in which the poor reviewer, in some secret bunker and not anywhere near where the actual scanning is being done, is subjected to vivid depictions of everyone’s private areas and they mentioned that if you go through the scanner you won’t get patted down. This was of interest as I went through a scanner the other day and immediately following was told that I had to be patted down. I want an explanation TSA.

What is it with car rental companies messing with the body type designations of their freaking cars? In my itinerary, the mid size car I was supposed to get was described as a “Pontiac G6 or equivalent”. Pontiac doesn’t exist anymore but a G6 is the exact same car (minus badging) as a Chevy Malibu, which is in the same class as a Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Hyundai Sonata and Mazda 6 among some others. I was rented a Nissan Sentra, what anyone else on the planet would describe as a freaking compact. This is a horribly dishonest practice and all the rental car companies do it, so why don’t they all just be correct, is there some advantage in ticking off customers at first encounter?

Panama City Beach, Florida is a great place to visit and is very easy to navigate. I ensured that I had pages printed with all of my intended destination addresses on it for my GPS and I didn’t need it once. Being a tourist destination the actual beach front is dominated by hotels, making beach and near-beach front property expensive and kind of undesirable.

Flying can be simple or it can be difficult and one of the biggest contributors to the outcome is the awareness of the person sitting next to you on a flight. Larger people are the worst to sit next to. It’s not their fault, they’re just really big people and the seats just are not big enough to contain them. One of my quirks is a need for personal space and I was stuck with an older woman sitting next to me last week from Dallas to Albuquerque with no sense of space whatsoever. It was so bad that it was as if she could have been sitting on me. I’m certain that this woman understood how uncomfortable I was and used that to take up even more space, ensuring that I couldn’t use my right arm to aid holding up the book that I was reading. On approach she stuck out her arm, pointing out the window between my face and my book. What a jerk. These people need to be stopped.

Rental Car Review - Nissan Sentra

Because of the nature of my work I travel regularly and part of that nature includes renting different kinds of small cars labeled as mid size by the rental car company. As a long time reader of many car magazines I have always wanted to do a car review and while I have no experience and no equipment to help in any testing activities I may as well start now.

Last week I was fortunate to visit beautiful Panama City beach Florida (for work?) and the “mid size” car awaiting me was a late model Nissan Sentra sedan. The Sentra was of interest to me because I personally own a Nissan, a 2009 Infiniti G37 sedan. Stepping into the Sentra I was struck by the similarities in cabin size and basic ergonomics, while the Sentra is a very different car from my own I was comfortable stepping into the Sentra because of the familiarity, just about every control was in the same place and similar in operation to those in my own car. The materials were of a less-costly variety compared to the G37 but worked well.

I did not verify but I believe that the Sentra was equipped with a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) mated to a small four cylinder engine. A CVT transmission is similar to an automatic and differs where in place of fixed gears there is some kind of gearing set that allows for nearly infinite ratios, instead of the typical automatic’s four to six total, between a typical low and high gear in a traditional automatic. CVTs work by changing the gear ratio constantly to maintain a nearly steady rpm at most any speed which leads to increased fuel economy. The Sentra seems to accelerate faster than reality would likely indicate thanks to another CVT fuel saving measure which accelerates hard when moderate pedal pressure is applied to an RPM much lower than redline before rapidly changing ratios. This gives the Sentra a sporty feeling.

The Sentra that I rented had about fifteen thousand hard rental car miles on it and there was, surprisingly, almost no noticeable wear throughout the car. Seats were supportive and the manual adjustments were simple, not bad considering I’m spoiled with 12 way power adjustments in my G37. The steering wheel tilts but does not telescope but wasn’t a far reach and has simple radio and cruise controls at 3 and 9. Mirror adjustments were electronic and the gauges were clear and easy to understand. Radio operation was without issue and the sound system was impressive for a car of this price. The interior is very quiet for a compact car on the road with very little tire or engine noise. Front passenger space is ample, much larger than one would guess from the outside. Rear seats are less roomy and knee space could be an issue for taller passengers.

Over the course of two days and almost eighty miles I averaged an almost unfathomable 34ish miles per gallon in all city driving. Excellent for someone who almost always hovers around the city EPA rating in anything and even worse in a rental car, they are the fastest cars in the world after all. Overall I was impressed with the Sentra, it’s a nice car that offers many perks above its basic transportation price and I’m not even upset anymore that it was rented to me as a “mid size”.

Random Thoughts

On the radio this morning were reports in regard to all the work done in congress this past session. I listen to the ESPN affiliate here in Albuquerque, the Mike and Mike radio program and they subscribe to the AP radio news. AP as an objective newswire is a joke as there is neither so-called big government progressive policy nor leftist politician whom they can’t stump for. Anyway, the big news today is how the jus adjourned congress was the most “productive” in modern times. Stupid. It’s similar to how many district attorneys are judged by conviction rates instead of whether or not justice was done. It doesn’t matter how many thousand page bills the House of Representatives passes, it’s whether or not it is necessary and does anything as intended. Basically the rule should be first, do no harm. Taxes are going up. Unemployment is up and the national debt is a black hole.

The president loves to mention that the evil Republicans are counting on “progressives” staying home or some such nonsense. Such is the conceit of a politician who assumes that every correct thinking person agrees with his point of view. It’s amazing that the president cannot envision a world where in someone who disagrees with his policies has a point. Pathetic.

In reviewing the New Mexico gubernatorial debate, Diane Denish’s campaign is summed up by the AP radio news as calling Susana Martinez a liar. That’s exactly what a resident wants in a governor. Martinez has recently begun polling past 50% and all that is left for Denish is to make things up and unfurl personal attacks.

The democrat congressional campaign committee has an ad staring an elderly New Mexican woman ending “I don’t truss theeess Jhoon Barela”. The target is the evil Jon Barela and his support for taking away Social Security. Old habits die hard for donkeys I suppose.

Random Sporting Thoughts

What’s the deal with all the seriousness in sports, second guessing and assumptions in regard to whether or not something done worked or did not based on something that really doesn’t matter all that much? It seems as though sports is taken much too seriously these days and while there are certain aspects that affect society as a whole like drugs and health, the point is that sports are and should remain a distraction. They are an addition to real life and not a substitute nor companion to it.

Tons of commentary on 49ers coach Mike Singletary yelling at QB Alex Smith during the team’s last game. Did it matter? Some commentary focused on the “psychological” damage done to Smith while others praised that it caused Smith to play better. Is either point true? No one can tell for sure. One thing’s certain, QB Smith is not ten years old and probably isn’t all that damaged from being yelled at by another adult and likely has plenty of motivation to play his best. Football, like any sport has its ups and downs and countless things affect play even during a game leading to different outcomes by the minute.

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas is under scrutiny in some circles for taking a game off and later admitting to faking an injury in a preseason game so that his back up would get more minutes. Screaming sports moralists are supremely offended at Arenas for committing some grave sporting sin, faking to get out of a game. A preseason game that he may not have played much of if he had participated is what these moralists are talking about.

Last week on Pardon the Interruption ESPN NFL Commentator Ron Jaworski spoke about his new book and mentioned that it would be beneficial to anyone wanting to succeed in sports or business. The mention of sports I glossed right over but the mention of business piqued my curiosity. A person who has always been involved in sports can really help someone in real world business? Perhaps in motivation but as a whole I seriously doubt it. Jaws is a nice guy and his book may be entertaining but sports operate in kind of a bizarre economic reality. The money in sports may as well be monopoly money wherein the sums tossed about may as well be imaginary to regular people. How can anyone involved in only sports business even contemplate how to provide bananas, grown in Latin America, picked, shipped, distributed and displayed in a local United States supermarket for 50 cents a pound when a ticket to a single football game is pushing 200 dollars?

Random Thoughts

I was searching for something beginning with NM this morning and what caught my eye is that the description of the state of New Mexico website was in regard to the so-called stimulus. I clicked because I was curious and noticed lo and behold the first item on the State’s website is in regard to the so-called simulative recovery act. Is that the best New Mexico has to offer, really?

Also on the page is Governor Richardson’s governing philosophy:

Commitment, hard work, efficiency, accountability: these are the elements in my approach to governing, and my strategy for success.

Hmmmmmmm…. Richardson took a year off to try to be president, took more time off to be commerce secretary, spent more than any other governor, hired more make work employees than any other governor, got busted exchanging state contracts for presidential campaign contributions ending the commerce secretary bid and travels with a two dozen strong security force packing serious heat…

And another thing on this Susana Martinez “Tejana” thing. As a result of this story I learned that Diane Denish is from Hobbs, a traditionally conservative part of our state. I wonder if she will win the city of Hobbs, as the home town girl. She is the real New Mexican, right. Way to go nativist Denish.

I couldn’t let Heinrich go without a mention either. I wonder, if in his slurring of Jon Barela the people of New Mexico understand how damaging Heinrich’s votes really are. Heinrich blasts Barela for shipping jobs to China with irrelevant paperwork but what does voting for cap and trade which means that energy producers in this country must move (out of this country) if they are to survive, the same result occurs from his support of the idiotic deep water drilling ban and does Heinrich know where lithium (a prime battery material) is primarily mined? China. So, it is conceivable that Heinrich’s support of battery powered cars will send jobs to China instead of the gas tank manufacturers in America. There’s more logic and reality in the previous sentence than in Heinrich’s bogus charges.

The worst Democrat attack point is the constant harping on Social Security. Purchasing government bonds and then spending the contributions is not a trust fund strategy. Those bonds have to be paid for down the line with, you guessed it, tax dollars. The government lies to all of us every year they send out that statement referencing a trust fund. Current estimates show that the program will be completely insolvent around 2038 and every time the estimate is revised it happens sooner. It is shameful for democrats to use our senior citizens in campaign commercials to scare other senior citizens. It is pathetic that the democrats only have on their behalf a government sponsored ponzi scheme that is just about bankrupt.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Michelle Rhee, the reformist school chancellor in Washington DC is expected to resign. Rhee was not afraid to take on the unions and got rid of underperforming (that’s the kind way to describe them) teachers, strengthened charter schools and instituted standards that led to smarter students. Her methods were considered to be draconian and in a move that proves no one really cares about school improvement will be let go.

On Tejanas and Nuevo Mexicanas

The recent political case of foot in mouth award comes to us from New Mexico democrat Lt Governor candidate Brian Colon who has taken to describing Republican Gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez as a “Tejana” or translated from Spanish, a Texan female. The Albuquerque Journal has published an article going through the psychological elements to this term and boils it down to a matter of dividing Hispanics in New Mexico. How typical of democrats. The term, the Journal notes, is meant to invoke images of affluent Texans, invading New Mexico to hunt, fish and ski. In this case, this slur is based on the fact that Martinez was born and raised in El Paso, TX moving to New Mexico in 1986.

There are two points that are not in the well written Journal piece. The first is that El Paso, while now a part of Texas, in colonial times from the 18th century to about the mid 19th was a part of New Mexico and the home of the Lt Governor. Second, I think that the Tejana term is used to disparage Martinez as a dreaded Texan. I often joke that as a good New Mexican I hate Texas. This stems from water rights issues where Texas took advantage of New Mexico by way of Rio Grande water rights contracts in the mid 1800s that are in affect to this day that they refuse to re-negotiate given modern understanding of exactly how much water is in the Rio Grande. Basically New Mexico must provide more water to Texas through the Rio Grande than actually flows naturally which is very bad for a state made up of mostly desert. This is insane and many lawyers in the Las Cruces area have made their careers working to rescind this centuries old injustice.

Anyway, there are a few reasons why the idea of a “Texan” running our state may be unpalatable to many New Mexicans and this sentiment is what the Diane Denish campaign is hoping to put into people’s minds. Logically though, it is difficult to consider Martinez a Texan. She has lived in the state for twenty four years. Twenty four. And she is in her fourth term as DA in Dona Ana country. It isn’t like a certain governor that moved to New Mexico in order to run for congress. It is silly that the democrats think silly games like this will move the people into voting for them while not providing evidence as to why they deserve to be voted for. This kind of thing will not work because people pay attention and the only voters that this matters to are already democrat sheep with no need to be herded because they are already in the barn.

Obama as Delaware Kingmaker...

On his talk show today Rush Limbaugh touted a visit by President Obama to Delaware in order to negatively portray Senate Candidate Christine O’Donnell as proof that O’Donnell is not as far behind as polls may suggest. He’s wrong. It may be true that O’Donnell is not as far behind, polls in small population areas like Delaware often have large margins of error due to small sample sizes.

The obvious reason why the President is traveling to Delaware under the guise of aiding democrat candidate Chris Coons is because of polls illustrating a double digit lead for that candidate. There is no need for presidential help for a candidate up a ton of points in polls the month before the election. This move is aimed at helping the President’s image.

President Obama is often tied to endorsements made in the Massachusetts senate race won by Republican Scott Brown and in the New Jersey Gubernatorial race won by Republican Chris Christie, making his endorsement undesirable. The President’s advisors no doubt understand this perception and in viewing the Delaware race, high poll numbers and a somewhat embarrassing Republican candidate they see it as a sure win and have positioned their man to be associated with it which will then lead to a perception of Obama as kingmaker in their self inflated worldview.

Democrats at the national level believe polls more so than actual election returns and double digit leads are a sweet sweet drug to them. Don’t believe it? Recall in 2004 after President Bush finished off John Kerry in the election? Democrats were inflamed and demanding recounts because of an exit poll in Ohio. Polls are reality to many people and while they can be accurate, that’s more luck than anything, they are not truth.

It would be sweet sweet nectar to myself and Republicans if Obama’s cynical ploy ends up back firing and leading to more support for O’Donnell. His track record as an endorser speaks for itself.

Heinrich, They Took R Jobz!

Martin Heinrich, defender of the People’s Republic of New Mexico from Jon Barela, has graced us proletariat with video evidence that he must be elected to the US House of Representatives to save us poor minions from the evil lobbyist Barela.

In this selfless ad the form picture from the Barela for congress website has its color removed so that we the people can recognize Barels as evil and because that is the only picture available, since Barela happens to be some kind of Dark Lord evading the watchful eye of our hero Heinrich while working for Chinese overlords.

Barela has sent jobs, American jobs! to CHINA! They took our jobs! Jon Barela, brave Heinrich tells us, has spent years and bountiful energy analyzing our work in New Mexico and as a secret Chinese agent has LOBBIED our government, holding hands with BUSHCHENEY to send those jobs to CHINA!

And if you believe that claptrap you deserve a sophomoric hack like Martin Heinrich representing your interests in Washington. Barela has never been in any elected office. Even as a lobbyist, Barela couldn’t vote to raise taxes or send jobs anywhere. The tired xenophobic line about sending jobs to anywhere assumes that the number of jobs in any economy are both fixed and never changed. If that were true we would still be hunter gatherers. It is as simple as that.

Consider the fact that Heinrich is running as a political neophyte, even though he is the incumbent. What have you done for New Mexico, Martin? You voted for Obamacare. You voted for Cap and Trade. You voted for Bailouts. You voted for the Stimulus. All of these actions will only lead to increased taxes and burdensome regulations for New Mexicans. All that Martin Heinrich has proven in Washington is an uncanny ability to vote along the democrat line. Ironic when considering his pathetic attacks on Jon Barela because after he loses, Heinrich will likely end up a democrat lobbyist, after all, that’s what a voting record like his portends.

The Political Purity of Small Business

In the pages of this August, more than once nearly abandoned pseudo politically related blog I have raised certain concerns with one Jon Barela, running for congress against Martin Heinrich, defender of New Mexico and our fine union against Jon Barela. Every time that I make note of some misgiving I always caveat with the fact that I look forward to voting for Barela as I would eagerly vote for the neighbor’s Doberman before letting Heinrich go back to Washington.

It’s not that Barela’s bad, I think that he’ll be a fine congressman and vote mostly favorably it’s mostly that I just don’t think I know enough about what he really thinks and what he would actually do. I think that newcomers to the political spectrum are great and all but it is all too easy to become enthralled only to be disappointed so I go forward with cautious optimism. And, I know what Heinrich thinks and I know (via email responses) what he thinks about what I think so again, a Doberman is preferable to that Pelosi clone hack.

Anyway, with that introduction, Barela has been airing better ads lately with one nit to pick, no fault of his own. In recent ads he has been touting himself and touted as by others as a supporter of small business. This is great but in reality an effective politician should be able to favor ALL business but in this anti-business climate created by many politicians led by our community organizer in chief it is just about impossible. Small business is apparently as pure as the wind driven snow.

All business is good. The UAW does not provide jobs; they take dues from members and use those funds to support democrats. Auto companies that create vehicles that people want is what creates jobs. Often demonized, Walmart employs more than a million people, enables families to afford better amenities and is out country’s best hedge against the Chinese. Think about it, we rely on low cost Chinese goods but just as that’s true, China is just as dependent on us to buy things from them. China needs Walmart.

To the point, ALL business is good. A market based economy is the freest and most prosperous and it is a stupid and ridiculous reality that we live in when a politician cannot acknowledge this truth because of the constant demonizing that has occurred almost constantly since the industrial revolution. It’s too bad but all too understandable that Jon Barela has to use “Small Business”, and it will always be that way because politicians need distractions.