Centerfield

UPDATED: The People Want Some Rebellion, Congress!

UPDATE: The Texas Lege is way ahead of you, Congress.

The Congress is massively unpopular.

Shouldn't we be seeing more discontent with leadership in Congress? I mean, shouldn't politicians be unhappy with being so unpopular?

I'm afraid we'll lose several seats in '10 when the GOP's out of power, and Congress' still unpopular if we don't get better leadership. I'd also like, well, better leadership on the issues affecting the country.

Accountability's Just For Democrats

Bush took office saying big things about how even Presidents must be accountable for their actions, presumably talking about Clinton, and later talked about how even the powerful must be held accountable when the Enron scandal broke.

Except, especially after 9/11, he governed the complete opposite of that standard, and most (certainly not all) Republicans seem to me to have followed his leadership on unaccountability. Foolish, corrupt mess after corrupt mess happened on his watch without mistakes being widely admitted or anybody suffering consequences except to the absolute political minimum.

Too many of you are still unwilling to hold him or other corrupt party members accountable, or even apparently think much about where he or the party messed up. So many of you're blaming us Democrats for the economy when even the single ridiculously stovepiped econ issue you're willing to look at is clearly shared blame since you're blaming Congress and you held the majority for four of the years involved. Far fewer Democrats, I think, were in denial over Clinton's sins; of course, they were far smaller and needed less digesting.

Here's a Vanity Fair article on some of those mistakes. Righties may find it easier to go via the centrist-right Dan Drezner's thread on the subject; he gets my respect for facing up to this, as hard as it is for his side.

Obama has said he'd hold hold high officials accountable for crimes as opposed to policy, and Holder has talked about some Bush Admin activities he thinks are probably crimes. That will keep Bush' worst bits in the public eye a good, LONG time.

This hurts you politically because, right now, you're the Bush party of grand screwups. Clinton's open last-day corruption turns out to've been strictly small change. Your party will, I believe suffer a handicap in the next several years except for those who are willing to talk about his mistakes seriously. The rest of you, we'll be wondering about - is that politician running for office just envious of what he got away with? Or does he think torturing people, ignoring that annoying truth stuff, and major failure and open corruption are good ideas? I think many of you'd feel better for coming to terms with it, too.

Football open thread

As a person who loves football, the best week of the year started yesterday. A dedicated thread seems appropriate, and it is open for anything from thoughtful analysis to mindless trash-talk. Here are some possible topics for discussion, but the floor is open.

Have New's Year's Resolutions Helped You?

I hope you've all been having merry New Years.

For some reason, I've never been able to make myself believe in New Year's resolutions. So, now, I'm curious - am I missing out? Have they helped you?

Bwa Ha Ha!

A fun video.

Obama's First Big Mistake?

President-elect Obama advocated for the Employee Free Choice Act while running for President. Recently, he has nominated Representative Hilda Solis of Califonia as Secretary of Labor who has been a proponent of the act. Sometimes presidential candidates say things that they wisely reconsider after the election. Obama should do the same on this issue.

The Employee Free Choice Act would all but abolish government sanctioned elections in order to determine whether a barganing unit is created. Instead, the only requirement would be that 50% +1 employee sign the same card that is now used to determine if an election takes place. In other words, a union representative can show up on the door step of an employee, say anything he or she wants, and without any other point of view being presented, ask the employee to make a final decision on becoming a member of the union.

Over the last several years, the Department of Labor has reported that the unions have lost over 4,000 elections. Under the proposed law those elections would not have existed. This means that the employees involved would all be union members without any opposing voice being allowed to present their case. In effect, this is exactly the opposite of what the labor movement used to stand for... the right to be heard. The unfortunate result will be the biggest increase in political power for one special interest group in the history of this country. In my view this would make all of Obama's rhetoric about favoring people over interests an unkept promise, and would be the kind of political pandering that he promised us would not exist in his administration.

The law also would give the authority to professional arbitrators to unilaterally make decisions in regards to disputes between management and labor on issues such as wages, benefits, and leave packages. In other words, they would be making operational decisions on behalf of private business owners. It seems to me that this would lead companies to flock to right to work states like Texas, Arizona, and Georgia, or overseas in an attempt to avoid costly strikes, labor disputes, and bloated economic packages.

This issue is to Barack Obama what guns were to Bill Clinton. It will single handedly lead to billions of dollars from the business community being dumped into the Republican Party. Overnight, fiscal conservatives will have their issue, and Democrats will lose election after election. All of those problems John McCain had exciting economic libertarians would evaporate for whomever is the Repblican nominee in 2012. Mark my word.

Obama should listen to liberals like George McGovern who oppose this act. He should follow his gut instinct and seek balanced domestic policy solutions to our current economic problems. Rewarding labor unions for their support with reckless legislation could be his first big mistake.

Drunkblog: Much Terror Disappointment

I had hopes up for Pakistan and India, because for once we had a Pakistani government that had reason to see state support of terrorism as against their interests. They were dashed by India, not Pakistan. Because, following recent attacks, when Pakistan asked India for a list of those they believed responsible, they simply gave exactly the same list they'd given in the previous crisis, which included some ganglords as well as terror suspects. That led Pakistan to feel like a hunt for usual suspects rather than those who'd done the work was afloat, and now the chance seems hopelessly lost.

I had no such hopes deployed for Israel and Palestine, but I'm still disappointed at yesterday's appalling instance of the perpetual cycle under way and today's demonstrated redoing of the occupation of Gaza, since it was so effective the last three times it was done. One interesting item about it is that the bombing happened on the Sabbath; some holy work, eh?....

Here's why I'm so disappointed with Israel. First, of course Hamas is being evil to shoot rockets into Israel, and deserves discouragement like any other political murderers; Israel's right, I think to do SOMETHING in response to terrorist attacks, but only to the degree that it's done within nonracist human rights standards and isn't being totally stupid about swinging at catspaws like Lebanon attacks have been.

What do you think would happen to your neighborhood and your particular way of thinking if the authorities started dealing with murders there by launching missile attacks in response? What about if an innocent buddy or relative or significant other were hurt badly or killed? Launching attacks and taking other actions that hurt populations instead of individuals has already failed to sap anybody but the Palestinian and Lebanese moderate political centers for decades now.

That way of thinking does make sense if you're racist and believe that no Arab or no Palestinian can be trusted. Both senior Israeli political (notice Barak talks about "Palestinians", a group, not wanting peace, not their leaders or a majority) and media rhetoric and the unfair life lived by both Israeli Arabs and even Jews who look Arab make it clear that way of thinking is very much a real and powerful part of Israel.

One better alternative open to Israel is to nab INDIVIDUALS whom the Palestinian Authority doesn't touch for more than a few months and whom they have evidence against and send them to Israeli Court with the same kind of way Israelis are sent.

It looks like terrorism will be much healthier on two fronts this coming year than last year. I hate it when things just get worse. I hate it even more when it's democracies doing the stupids like this.