PANDORA’S BOX

            After the election, I took a news hiatus—a vacation from the news, if you will.  I visited with friends and family, bought a new smart phone, promptly discovered Pandora and floated effortlessly into a few days of music of every genre for every mood.  When I awoke from this Rip Van Winkle-type vacation, I learned I had missed my deadline for this column last week.  Fortunately, I felt no guilt as the deadline had come early due to Veteran’s Day, and since I am a Vet… well, you see where I’m going…

            Having returned from my self-imposed news blackout, I’m tempted to crawl back into Pandora’s Box and escape back into the music.  No, I must face the new reality, (or is it really new?) of the remainder of this Congress and the beginning of the next.  I’m not a scholar and perhaps I should take a quick review of Greek Tragedies before I make this observation, but to find Senator McConnell unabashedly re-iterating his adamant position that his #1 job going forward is to make sure President Obama is a one-term president, while playing “bad cop” to soon-to-be Speaker John Boehner’s new persona of  “good cop”; President Obama seemingly once again negotiating away the most widely supported position of not adding another $700 billion to the deficit by renewing the tax breaks for the wealthy; and lastly, more-clueless-than-even-I-ever-thought-possible former President Bush admitting, on camera in front of all the world, that he committed war crimes.  Does that not a Greek Tragedy make?

            When you break it down, none of it is really new.  I mean, other than John Boehner changing personalities on us all of a sudden. Ol’ Mitch (bless his heart) is living proof that what your mother told you when you were little about your face freezing that way was most definitely true.  No real surprise there.  And, I’m sorry President Obama, I’d like to give you a swift kick—is this going to be the same as with Health Care Reform?  Are you going to give away the store, before we even get to the table?  They are not going to negotiate with you.  They have been pretty clear.  (I think we all know who “they” are.)  As for George W. being clueless?   Clearly, there was no big "Stop the Presses" headline there.

            What does take my breath away, though, is the depth of his cluelessness.  It apparently has no bottom.  Beginning with the world-changing tragedies of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, continuing with the man-made tragedy of the War in Iraq (where “man” in this case being an actual man, Geo. W, himself) and, as yet, no end to the young American lives lost in the wars that were authorized by him; but strangely, the thing that gave him the most pause during his presidency was Kanye West accusing him of not caring about black people.  If this doesn’t show how completely out of touch from reality this man was and is, then I don’t know what possibly could.  The pain that was unleashed upon the citizens of this country and around the world, some of which can be traced directly back to his door, not to mention the near-collapse of the world economic system—again some of which can be traced back to his policies—but none of these are the things that stand out in Bush’s mind, no, in fact, he claims to sleep well at night.

            If it weren’t for the missing family members, the broken hearts of the families of our lost heroes, all the above could almost be amusing.  But I can’t laugh.  No, not knowing there is a mother somewhere looking after her young, maimed son who was strong and full of life and can no longer feed himself.  Nor can I laugh when I think about the little sister who has to visit her brother’s grave, or the newly widowed, young mother-to-be who will give birth to the fallen hero’s baby.  But, I haven’t even gotten to the really bad part yet.  A former U.S. president has now admitted to committing war crimes by authorizing torture.  From what I can tell, the only defense he gave for authorizing water boarding was that not being a lawyer himself, his lawyers told him that water boarding was legal.  Am I wrong, or is that not similar to a soldier being accused of a criminal action and him putting up an “I was just following orders” defense?  If I’m not mistaken, that has never been a successful defense to a soldier committing a war crime.  Again, I’m no attorney, myself, but if I was president, and I was told that some particular action “was legal or not torture”, my next question would be, “Has it ever been tried as a war crime in any world court and was it successful or not?”  Wouldn’t that be the very least you would ask?  For God Sakes, Man, it’s not like you are paying your attorneys by the hour!  It is my understanding that war criminals in past wars, including WWII, were successfully tried and convicted for water boarding as a form of torture.  I admit that I have not personally researched this myself, but if true, it would stand to reason that water boarding would still be torture and Bush, therefore, has admitted to torture in violation of the Anti-torture Act and the Geneva Convention.

            I am not saying all this because I necessarily think Bush should be prosecuted for war crimes, although I do.  I’m just saying that right now, we have more immediate things we have to face and deal with and I don’t want my congressional representatives to waste their time and our money with long, drawn-out hearings and so forth.  The focus MUST be on jobs, the economy, the deficit—anything else at this moment in time would be a dereliction of duty, as far as I’m concerned.  Let’s have that adult conversation that Republicans are mentioning every time a microphone is put in front of their faces lately.  We ARE ready.  We’ve been ready.  So far, though, I’ve yet to hear a single one of them explain how we are going to pay for extending the tax cuts to the wealthy or where they will cut the budget.  Not yet, not from even one.

            On the other hand, if someone decided to start investigating (What’s to investigate?  He’s already confessed!) Bush for war crimes, then I wouldn’t be opposed—especially if soon-to-be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor gets his way.  Three days after the election he was ready to tackle the big issues—no, he didn’t come up with a jobs plan or ways to slash the deficit.  No, he is ready to make sure that “... Republican-led committees will devote more time investigating and exposing lapses by the Obama administration and problems with its programs, including bringing critical oversight reports to the House floor for very public debates.  Rep. Eric Cantor wants every committee chairman to investigate administration programs to make sure taxpayers are getting their money's worth. He's proposing a featured "oversight" hearing of the week. He's even ready to limit naming of post offices to one day a month, so that committees can spend their time on investigations.”*

Yeah, if that happens, then why not start the Bush war crimes investigation?  There won’t be any significant work being done in Congress for the good of the people anyway.

            I’m going back to my Pandora world of music for a little while…

*Taken from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/4/917500/-Finally,-Eric-Cantor-lays-out-what-the-Republican-majority-will-do

Good Night and May God Bless…

            Like everyone, I’m glad the election is over.  Dr. Rand Paul is our Senator-Elect and I wish him well and I pray that he is guided by God’s wisdom in his next 6-year endeavor.  I do feel sorry for the little old lady patient appearing in his ad who won’t be able to rely upon him as her doctor.  She seemed sweet and now she will need a new eye doctor.

                I find the election of Senator Reid in Nevada an interesting election.  I think it is a small commentary on Americans that he retained his seat so handily in spite of the narrow lead Sharron Angle had in the polls.  It says something about us as Americans.  Once Americans, whether natural-born or naturalized, we insist on exercising our rights as Americans immediately.  And that’s what the Hispanic vote did for Harry Reid in Nevada—that, along with the obvious ridiculous-but-always-entertaining Sharron Angle gaffes and sound bytes.  No matter how unpopular Harry Reid was in Nevada, the voice of reason still prevailed.  So, those middle-aged white voters—independents, moderate Republicans and center-leaning (Blue Dog?) Democrats along with the Hispanic vote pushed Harry Reid to victory.  Bravo!

                I, too, cringed when I first saw Jack Conway’s “aqua-Buddha” ad.  It’s always fascinating yet repelling, when we see otherwise intelligent candidates do something to implode.  But, Jack Conway is not finished.  He is a young, energetic, smart man who will have his time.  No doubt, we will be hearing and seeing more of him in the future and I wish him well.  For now, let’s see what you can do, Rand Paul.  But, I don’t think Kentuckians and the rest of Americans, including the Tea Party is going to put up with a totally do-nothing Congress for two years.  I, for one, plan to hold your feet to the fire Senator-Elect Paul—along with President Obama and the rest of the Dems.  We have nothing to be ashamed of.  It’s time to rally our base.  Stand up for what we believe in and don’t give away the store.  The Republicans have made it clear that they have no intention of compromising.  They’ve said it over and over again, starting with the admission of Senator McConnell as to his goal and plan for the Republicans for the next two years and continuing on with Speaker-Elect, Tan Man, John Boehner saying, “Now is not the time for compromise…”

Americans are smarter than that.  If we  are still hurting in 2012, we’ll see another wave and I don’t think the “just say no” Republicans or even the tea partiers will like the results.

McConnell Finally Reveals Secret Republican 2-Year Plan

     It’s always so refreshing when a politician lets slip a little nugget of truth without really intending to do so.  It is especially refreshing when this rare event happens right before an election.  Mitch McConnell, our august Senate Minority Leader of all politicians, revealed his party’s real plan for the next two years after the landslide victories they predict they will be celebrating on November 3^rd.  In an uncharacteristically candid interview with the National Journal magazine, Senator McConnell said

“THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING WE WANT TO ACHIEVE IS FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA TO BE A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT.”

Of course, being aghast that he had let slip the secret Republican plan for the next two years, Senator McConnell’s office immediately tried to walk his statement back, by putting out releases saying that he meant to say that it was the single most important “political” goal.  The only problem with that explanation is that in the same National Journal interview, McConnell also let slip the following nugget of truth:

“OUR SINGLE BIGGEST POLITICAL GOAL IS TO GIVE OUR NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT THE MAXIMUM OPPPORTUNITY TO BE SUCCESSFUL.”

So, basically, McConnell has laid out the entire Republican agenda for the next two years if they take control of Congress and it boils down to this:  The question regarding any legislation that may come up in the next two years is not whether or not this is good for America or good for Americans, or good for the economy, or good for jobs  or good for our national security…no, it will be whether or not this legislation will hurt President Obama and might it help the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.  If this is what is important to you, then you will be pleased with the results you get when you vote Republican on Tuesday.

This being my last column before Election Day, I’d like to say a few more words about the hundreds of millions of secret dollars being spent by anonymous donors to influence our votes.  Washington Post Journalist and Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institute said this past week, “What we’re seeing here is spending of secret political money on a scale that we haven’t seen since Watergate.”  Since August 1^st and October 24^th the three top PACs that take secret money, including the Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity (the billionaire Koch Brothers’ group), and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, had placed nearly 50,000 attack ads against Democrats.  When you go to vote on Tuesday, I hope you will think about what is really important to you and the issues that affect your life the most.  If, like a lot of people in this country right now, one of the most important things is having and keeping a job, then I hope you’ll consider the following:

            “There are legitimate values in outsourcing.  Not only jobs, but work.”  President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed outsourcing as good for the American economy in 2004.  According to the Associated Press on July 1, 2004, Mr. Donohue urged American companies to send jobs overseas.  Donohue said people affected by offshoring should “stop whining…the benefits of offshoring jobs outweighs the cost.”

            During a trip to India in 2004, Tom Donohue assured business leaders, “We are very confident that outsourcing is here to stay…it would be absolutely foolish to try and stop the phenomenon.”

            Over the last few weeks the same U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $100 million on ads that they assure us were not bought by any of the foreign money that comes into their coffers—and that’s all we have—their assurance.  Those ads are primarily attack ads against the Democratic candidates.  For example, one in Connecticut against Richard Blumenthal says, “Blumenthal:  job-killing lawsuits hurting Connecticut families.”  But, according to Campaign Money Watch, a non-partisan watch dog group, Connecticut has lost 87,500 jobs to outsourcing over the last 16 years.

            In Missouri, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running an ad against Democrat Robin Carnahan, “In the past 2 years Missouri lost 120,000 jobs.  So why does Robin Carnahan support card check—an unfair scheme to grow unions.”   Outsourcing claimed 102,608 of those jobs.  And yet, almost entirely all of their ads are focused on blaming Democrats for killing jobs.

            Although the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has taken in at least $885,000 from over 80 foreign companies in disclosed donations – the ones we know about, we are supposed to believe that “Zero.  As in not a single cent” of foreign money has been spent on those campaign ads, according to the Chamber’s Senior VP of Communications, Tom Collamore.  Well, if he says so…

            We do know that the U.S. Chamber receives money from a company in Mumbai, India called Patni Americas (can you believe it, they even use our name!), who calls itself the world leader in IT outsourcing.  They also receive money from Quest Global in Singapore, who says it is a leader in engineering services outsourcing; and Wipro, in Bangalore, India, who claims it is India’s biggest destination for U.S. offshoring.  But, keep in mind this is just a drop in the bucket.  Most of the foreign money they are getting is undisclosed.

            So, why do you suppose this powerful, wealthy organization wants Republicans to win and Democrats to lose?  Is it because these Republicans are looking after the interests of the working class Americans?  Or is it because Republicans support their causes?   I mean, just a few weeks ago the Disclose Act, which would allow American Citizens to know exactly who is funding campaign ads, was filibustered by the Republicans in the Senate so that it couldn’t come to a vote (after it had already passed in the House).  What are they so interested in hiding?  Why don’t they want us to know?

The U.S. Chamber has made no bones about the fact that they think taking jobs from Americans and sending them to India and other places is good.  And it’s an understatement to say they very definitely aren’t trying to hide the fact that they support the Republicans.  It’s pretty easy to figure out.

If you happen to be one of the ones who lost your job to someone in India, well, you just need to “stop whining.”  And see if you can’t scrape together a few dollars to add to Glenn Beck’s $10,000 donation to the Chamber…Oh yeah and one more thing, don’t forget to vote Republican on Tuesday.  After all, these millions of Indian people have kids and grandkids that are going to need jobs soon.