Sense and Nonsense

Crushed and Broken

That's what Americans are, beaten down by consumerism and a corporate-government partnership.

Idiocy

See here.

Washington, DC: The Nation's Cesspool

It's where elected officials -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- go to bicker, snipe, obstruct, and splash around in their unproductive, fetid twaddle. Ugh.   See Gerald Seib's column in today's WSJ.  A pox on both their houses. 

Perversions of Democracy

The huge donations that corporate lobbyists pump into the campaign coffers of members of Congress make a mockery of basic democratic principles such as political equality.  You can find fresh evidence of this in the newspaper almost every day. Today is no exception. 

From the New York Times, we get this story about a physician-owned hospital in a poor part of Texas that has managed to protect itself from unwanted provisions in pending health-reform legislation by slathering legislators with a thick spread of campaign cash.

And from the Washington Post comes an article that begins with this:

The Democratic-controlled House is poised to give the Pentagon dozens of new ships, planes, helicopters and armored vehicles that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says the military does not need to fund next year, acting in many cases in response to defense industry pressures and campaign contributions under an approach he has decried as "business as usual" and vowed to help end.

Scumbags.  All of them.  Lobbyists and legislators.  The lowest of the low, sucking each other constantly to maintain the steady flow of dollars.  (How's THAT for righetous indignation -- not to mention really fine writing?!)

Ever Vigilant

Congress Sucks

I hate the U.S. Congress.  It is full to the brim with self-interested hypocrites.  Perfectly valid arguments could now be made that the United States would be better off without the U.S. Congress. The same is true of state legislatures. 

What prompts this latest iteration of this view, often expressed here?  The article in today's Wall Street Journal headlined "Legislators Framing Climate Bills Hold Energy Stock."   Similar articles appeared in the news over the weekend about members of Congress responsible for crafting health-care reform legislation holding financial interests in big health-care companies such as pharmaceutical giants and health insurers. For example, see this article from Saturday's New York Times.  

This morning's article in the WSJ notes:

It is legal for lawmakers to own shares in companies affected by their legislation. House and Senate ethics laws allow members of Congress to hold a financial interest in a company unless a law they pass would benefit only themselves. [emphasis added'

Righto. Of course it's legal.  Of course the "ethics laws" allow it.  That's because Congress routinely exempts itself from requirements they impose on others.  Congress hypocritically requires executive-branch officials to divest themselves of financial interests in companies related to their work.  

I hate the U.S. Congress.  I hate every member of the U.S. Congress.  I really do. They're all self-interested, self-important, self-infatuated scum.

A Dysfunctional Process

My old political-science colleague, Paul Light, sticks it to Senator Robert Byrd (and the Senate itself) in a sharp op-ed piece in this morning's New York Times.  Byrd had been critical of Obama's use of White House "czars" -- officials beyond the reach of the Senate confirmation process -- to coordinate broad policy areas. 

Light ripostes that the Senate itself is largely responsible for such presidential maneuvers.  The Senate confirmation process has become a nightmarish labyrinth, subjecting presidential nominees for top-level departmental positions to a level of scrutiny that very few people (including, I suspect, most members of Congress) could ever navigate successfully.  Even departments lucky enough to have a confirmed Secretary in place are still awaiting confirmation (even awaiting nomination) of deputy secretaries, undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries.  This is deplorable.  The vetting process has become totally dysfunctional; the financial-disclosure requirements, a Kafkaesque hell.

Light urges the Senate to get its act in order. He's right.  And the White House is not free of blame in all this either.  Presidents are going to have to push to reform this whole nomination and confirmation process or nobody with any experience will ever go to work for the federal government.  I can understand the reluctance.

Hey, Paul Krugman! Where Are Ya, Man?!

So, when you read Paul Krugman's column in the Times, as I do, you may think, as I often do, "This guy is really smart.  Too bad HE's not in the Administration!"  [Take his column this morning, for example.]

(On the other hand, there was that unfortunate period last year when he was a big Hillary Clinton supporter, so he's got some screws loose SOMEwhere!)

Anyway, there are other people out there who wish that Krugman wasn't just sitting around with his thumb up his ass, blogging and writing for the TImes.   THIS guy, for example:

Note Who Is Missing . . .

. . . from the top 15.  (No surprise, at least to me.)

The Expectations Gap

Few things plague a new president like that gap between what we come to expect of a new president and what he is able to deliver.  The aura and anticipation surrounding a president-to-be typically diminish quickly once the glow of the inauguration itself dissipates.  Barack Obama faces particularly stiff winds, which are likely to disperse that glimmer even faster than usual.

In this piece from tomorrow's New York TImes Magazine, Matt Bai provides us with a fine anemometer to register the force of the prevailing winds.  Here's a taste of the great writing in this article:

[T]he transition is also very much about this process of forestalling reality, perpetuating the notion of the outsider who has arrived with pick and chisel to breach the ancient crypt of Washington and release its musty air. It is an interregnum of suspended hopefulness, the period after the outsider has asserted his dominance over the system but before he has had the opportunity to become identified with it. His power lies in being perceived, for as long as possible, as a transitional figure, a reformer among insiders; once the transition ends, so, fairly or not, does his lack of accountability for chaotic situations and intractable bureaucracy.

It's well worth reading in it's entirety.