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Policy 
Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 07:39:02 AM MDT
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Dad, Uncle Otho, Uncle Kenny, all died before they were 70, Mom and my mother-in-law are both likely to die before that age as well. They all died relatively young for various reasons, but none of them lived to see the retirement age radical Republicans like Minority Leader John Boehner and his economic hit man Rep. Mike Pence want to make the new threshold for Social Security benefits. The specious argument that the tanned man and the ghost of budgets passed make is that if we don't do something about Social Security spending the program will not be able to pay the (meager) benefits that are promised. It has exactly no basis in fact, like most radical Republican policy ideas it is not designed to address a problem but to advance a political agenda, this time to dismantle a program that has been loved by the public to the long term credit of the Democrats.
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Sun Aug 08, 2010 at 13:58:59 PM MDT
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( - promoted by Fong)
For me, there is something a bit amiss when our political conversations become focused on individuals, and not on the purposes that they serve. There are really two fundamental questions all of our political discourse should be ultimately anchored in: What are we trying to accomplish? and, How can we best accomplish it?
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Wed Aug 04, 2010 at 07:47:38 AM MDT
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The new Director of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (OEMRE) (sheesh!) Michael Bromwich said yesterday that the Obama Administration is looking at the possibility of ending the deep water drilling moratorium "significantly" earlier than the Nov. 30 expiration date. This is in response to the uproar from Gulf State lawmakers (most from the radicalized Republican Party) that it is killing jobs.
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Tue Aug 03, 2010 at 07:53:23 AM MDT
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Let's start with an issue that comes up every time I do one of these Bodineism in the Republican Party posts, the complaint is I am doing Jethro a disservice by comparing him to the radical Republicans. I love Jethro. He is gormless in the extreme and while his lack of self-awareness and intelligence gets him in a peck of trouble, it is never ever done out of malice. That said, the ability of radical Republicans to spout the most blatantly stupid lines and say them with a straight face has no better analog in pop culture than dear old Jethro, hence the term Bodineism.
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Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 07:43:10 AM MDT
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( - promoted by Fong)
Republicans have a real problem. Well, they have a lot of them but we are not talking about moral, genetic or hygienic problems, we're talking about a political problem. They pulled a fast one with their double round of tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. At the time we were told (against all evidence, and common sense) that if we cut the tax rate for the ultra-wealthy, if we allowed them to pass on their enormous wealth to their heirs without taxing it that there would be a robust economy, that millions and millions of jobs would be created. It was the old trickle down economy idea, dressed up for the big time.
The thing was even their own numbers showed that any positive effect would be wiped out in 10 years and then it would become a major problem in terms of budgets. So rather than face the music and the voters with this news, the Republicans put a sunset provision in the bill. It would only last 10 years, then revert to the same level of tax that the Clinton economic expansion had. This all looked pretty sweet to Republicans. They would be able to move the burden of paying for government to from wealth to work, and would have a whole decade to get these cuts made permanent.
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Tue Jul 20, 2010 at 07:25:24 AM MDT
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One of the quirks of my personality (yes, I know you thought my whole personality was the quirks) is that I tend to think that nothing I do well is particularly unique. I am under the impression that everyone can write, that baking is a merely a matter of reading and that if people took the time everyone could analyze stacks of data and come to a rational understanding of how inputs and process interact to determine output quality. These are all skills that I have spent a little time and effort to develop, so I figure anyone could duplicate what I have done.
Where I don't expect people to be like me is in what they think. I assume that people are going to be of a different mind on some issues than me, we are all different in experience and temperament, so how in the world could we be similar in our views, even in large numbers? Yet the Republican base and many of its elected officials can't seem to get their heads around the idea that most of the nation does not agree with them and their agenda.
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Thu Jul 15, 2010 at 07:44:20 AM MDT
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There a many reasons why 2010 will go down as a record year, the amount of oil spilled, the historic legislation that was passed, the hottest average temperatures ever observed in the US. All these will be indicators of a year that in the words of the ancient Chinese curse were "interesting times". This morning we have another looming on the horizon. So far this year foreclosures are running at 10 times their average.
In any given year in the United States there are around 100,000 foreclosures. This year Reality Track, the folks who keep track of the numbers of foreclosed houses, says that there have been 528,000 foreclosures so far, if this pace continues then the end of 2010 will see one million family homes foreclosed on.
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Wed May 05, 2010 at 07:47:24 AM MDT
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One of the canards we hear about immigration reform is that before we can work on the issues of the 12 million or so informal immigrants inside the United States we have to secure the border. This seems imminently reasonable, as long as one does not dig too deeply into what that means. It is a nice, simple and clearly intelligible idea, "Secure Our Borders". Let's talk a little bit about what that would actually mean.
The southern border of the United States is 1,969 miles long. The northern border is 1,538 miles long. These are just the land borders of course, the shoreline on the East and West coasts are bigger still. If we are to "secure the border!" then we have to guard, just on land more than 3,400 miles. These miles, both North and South snake through some very rough country, but they also cut through ranches and Native American nation reservations. The line includes cities and towns which have grown up on the border to take advantage of the fact of the line between nations.
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Mon May 03, 2010 at 08:38:08 AM MDT
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A quick hit from the Republican Bodine-ism files. The Hill newspaper is reporting on their blog that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) is insisting the White House continue to allow new oil leases in the Gulf, even though his state is about to be ravaged by millions of gallons of crude oil.
Sen. Vitter (infamous for being at the same time a family values Republican and a known client of at least two separate prostitution rings) said the following on Fox News:
"I don't think that there's any argument that we should just start shutting down activity now, or even start shutting down new activity that's planned. Clearly there have got to be changes made because of this incident. But we certainly shouldn't start shutting things down."
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Mon Apr 12, 2010 at 08:00:00 AM MDT
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In my professional life (such as it is) I am a 6 Sigma Black Belt. For those who don't know (most of you probably) that is a process improvement project manager. One of the tenets of Six Sigma is that you have to design the process to meet the needs of the customer, whoever that is. It is simply summed up as starting with the end goal in mind. This is applicable and important when we are talking about politics as well.
In the middle of policy fights, it is easy to get narrowly focused on the minutiae of the policy itself, while losing sight of the overall goals. This is even more of a problem when one does not have an overall set of goals in the first place.
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 07:46:15 AM MDT
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Contrary to what you might think, the Senate actually did some work other than the Vote-a-rama on the sidecar reconciliation bill yesterday. In the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee they unanimously passed the long awaited Cybersecurity Act. Senate bill S. 773 (you can read the text of the whole bill here) has been being worked on for more than a year, but it is moving to the floor of the Senate, finally.
This bill is really quite important, but also presents a really thorny problem of governance. As anyone reading this will know, the internet has become a huge part of the American economy. It is the backbone of an enormous amount of commerce and information sharing. Anyone who does any research these days starts with the internet. You want to know what the capital of Botswana is? Google it (its Gaborone). You want to know what your house is worth; there are about twenty sites that will tell you that.
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