Upon the Gears

In his State of the Union address, President Bush has proven that if he talks long enough, he will eventually make a good point. Yes, you heard me correctly. Among all of the rhetoric, the jingoism, and the sheer stupidity that has come out of this man’s mouth, he has actually proposed something that may have some merit. I am referring to his plan to fight earmarks.

Ok, ok, so I don’t completely agree with the president’s logic. I would not say that earmarks need to be fought, because many earmarks are beneficial. However, I do believe that the process by which earmarks become part of law needs to be reformed, so our Senators and Congressmen will no longer be able to take advantage of the system.

Before I get ahead of myself, I should probably tell you what it is that I mean when I say “earmark”. An earmark does not have an official definition, but as far as US politics are concerned, earmarks refer to provisions found in bills that direct government funds to be spent on specific projects. Since the Constitution gives Congress the power to direct funds that are drawn from the Treasury, earmarks should not be a problem. Right?

Well…

The problem with earmarks is that they often become laws through shady means. Some are slipped into bills just before a vote, giving Senators and Congressmen very little time to review them. Another common practice is to add earmarks into the “report language” of a bill, instead of putting them in the actual bill. Not only are most Congressmen and Senators unaware of the changes to this “report language”, but they are rarely debated and technically not voted upon. However, if the bill that is being voted on does pass, so do all of the earmarks. In short, earmarks are an easy way for politicians to spend money in secret.

President Bush recently issued an executive order that directs all Federal agencies to ignore earmarks unless they are clearly written in laws that are passed by Congress. This has been seen as an attack on separation of powers by some, but I do not agree. Yes, Congress should keep its power to appropriate funds, and no, President Bush should not tell Congress to stop passing earmarks (which I’m sure he would like to do in the future). Regardless, Congress must be responsible with its power, and should debate and vote on earmarks in the same way that it debates and votes on laws.

As an added bonus, if all earmarks are fairly debated, our fiscally responsible Congress will be wise enough to only pass those that will benefit the taxpayers who are paying for them. This would reduce the number of wasteful earmarks being passed, and make it unnecessary for President Bush to threaten Congress with his veto power.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Welcome back to Constitutional Conventions, where I give you Constitutional interpretations…for cool people.

Today we’ll talk about the above sentence, which contains within it what is popularly known as the three fifths clause.  The clause was a compromise between southern states with slave-dependent economies and northern states without them.  It was decided that for the purposes of determining representation, slaves would count as 3/5 of a person.  Southern planters had more representation because they owned more people.  Between this and the allowance of the slave trade until 1808, our Constitution recognized slavery as an institution.  Just think about that for a second.  Think of all the rights our Constitution grants us, all the things about it we take as sacred writ, and now consider that this same document implicitly acknowledges owning people as a right.  How does that make you feel?

Of course there is no actual use of the words “slavery” or “slave” in the Constitution.  In a way that is even worse.  When our founders decided that they needed to make the peculiar institution official, they couldn’t even find the gonads to say it outright.  In the 3/5 clause, they get away with “other persons.”  The clause limiting the slave trade is a little more complicated.  It refers to “such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit.”  Really?  That’s a little far to go to avoid saying a word.

I know what you’re thinking.  “Alex, this is interesting, but what I really want to know is what does W.E.B. DuBois think of all this?”  Well maybe not, but I do think it is an interesting and important quote:

With the faith of the nation broken at the very outset, the system of slavery untouched, and twenty years’ respite given to the slave-trade to feed and foster it, there began, with 1787, that system of bargaining, truckling, and compromising with a moral, political, and economic monstrosity, which makes the history of our dealing with slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century so discreditable to a great people.

So…what the hell am I talking about?  Why does it matter that the Constitution had these inequities, we fixed them with the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments.  Should the Constitution never have been written?  Should the delegates against slavery have pushed until the Southern delegates left the convention?  That isn’t what I’m saying.  I ‘m saying that it is important to keep in mind that the men who wrote the Constitution were, as the euphamism goes, “men of their time.”  This means that while they did good things, by our standards they were all impossibly bigoted and overall pretty unpleasant, as well as completely unfamiliar with indoor plumbing.  Nothing should remain unquestioned simply because they wrote it down in their power-sharing agreement.  We must always be on the lookout for ways to make our government better, to correct any inequalities the Constitution left uncorrected.  These were very smart men, the ones who put together our founding document.  They were woefully unqualified, however, to govern a country 200 years in the future.

Everyday we hear Republicans, or Joe Lieberman, tell us that we are winning the War on Terror, but I don’t think we are. True, we are fighting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and yes, the recent troop surge appears to have reduced violence in Iraq. However, I don’t think these are the most important battlefields in the War on Terror. If we look at our enemies, the radical extremists who are willing to blow themselves up in order to kill us, we will see that they are not motivated by battlefield victories, nor are they deterred by losses. They are motivated by the idea that they are morally superior to us, an idea that cannot merely be defeated by bullets.

Before I continue, I would like to say that I am writing after hearing Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) give a short speech on torture and the War on Terror. Senator Levin is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I have to say that listening to him has caused me to view the war in a much different light than I once did. Although it is important to stabilize and pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, success or failure in these wars will ultimately be decided by how the world views America, and by whether or not we can truly take the moral high ground against terrorists. I am, of course, referring to our policy on torture.

I use the term “policy” loosely here, because technically, according to the Geneva Convention, we are not supposed to torture. However, according to Senator Levin, the Bush administration has been quite lax with rules and regulations for a long time (illegal wiretapping, anyone?)

Anyway, I’m sure there are some of you out there wondering, “Bret, what’s the big deal about torturing terrorists if they do the same thing to our soldiers?” Well, that is a very good question, and it reaches the heart of this debate. There are several reasons why torture is a big deal. First of all, torture is cruel and morally wrong, whether it be physical, mental, or some combination of both. Second, the torture of prisoners by the US is one of the reasons why our enemies torture American prisoners, and why they will continue to do so in the future. In fact, as Senator Levin pointed out, we would like to denounce torture by terrorists or foreign nations, but we cannot do so because our government is guilty of the same crime.

Talk all you want about “desperate times calling for desperate measures”, but the last time I checked, no man, not even the President of the United States, is above the law. So why are we losing the War on Terror? It is simply because our leaders have attempted to go above and beyond the law, and by doing so have managed to bring our nation down to the same level of those we call evil.

We can fight in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next hundred years and kill thousands of terrorists, but we will never be able to defeat their ideas unless we can regain the trust that we have lost and prove to the rest of the world that we are the ones who are morally superior. The best way to do that is to shut down our secret prisons and stop torturing once and for all.

I would like to apologize for this horribly long delay in posting.  It is inexcusable, but we’re here now.  Just in time, it seems, to catch some news from the Gaza Strip.

After being unable to stop the rocket attacks that have been pouring over the border into towns like Sderot, Israel cut off the fuel supplyto the Palestinians, causing the Gaza Strip’s only power plant to shut down.  After receiving condemnation from human rights organizations, they briefly ended their blockade today, letting in food and fuel.  Whether or not Israel is right to do this or not lays beside the point.  They’re doing it.  What is more important is the implications this has for peace between Israel and Palestine.

No matter how much other world powers (read: The United States) may attempt to resolve the conflict between these two governments, it won’t matter unless Hamas realizes that its cause is hopeless.  Israel will not be destroyed.  In fact, Israel is more than capable of destroying Palestine, if it were willing to completely disregard the lives of noncombatants.  It has shown the ability to black out parts of Gaza easily.  If the government of Israel decided to take away the power it supplied directly as well, all of Gaza would be dark.  No other Middle Eastern countries will come to Hamas’ aid.  They’ve already tried, and Israel has sent them whimpering back home.  Look at how Egypt helps with the organization of a blockade of Gaza.  So any actions that are taken must be taken in the knowledge that Palestine and Israel will have to coexist for the foreseeable future.

I remember when Hamas was elected to power I heard the outcry of various Israel-supporters about how this made peace and even talk between the two peoples nearly impossible.  I thought, “This could be an opportunity for Hamas to prove that it is something other than a terrorist organization.  Maybe they could show that they can help their people in peaceful ways.”  They have not done this.  They have earned the scorn heaped upon them by the world.  Even as their people go without fuel for their ovens, 11 more rockets hit Israel today.

With people like this governing the Palestinians, there will be no peace, no coexistence.  All of our efforts go to waste because we cannot help people who don’t want to be helped.  Hamas must either accept the fact that they must reach an accord with Israel or be removed from a position of influence by the Palestinian people.  Then maybe we can try for peace again.

We all know the moment I’m talking about.  We saw the pundits debate it before the election, asking whether it would help or hurt the Clinton campaign.  After the election, they gave this 30 seconds the credit for her win. This video of punditry should give a good indication of the press’s reaction, especially the comparisons to the failed campaign of Ed Muskie (see if you can pick out the Fox News coverage!).  Even the Times couldn’t help itself.

I’m going to have to use the S-word.  This is the most sexist thing I’ve ever seen.  My reasoning is simple, and relies on basic observation.  She didn’t cry.  There was certainly some contraction of the throat.  There was some possible shininess in the eyes.  But I saw no tears streaming down the cheeks, no nose-blowing, no emotional breakdown that I had come in expecting.  There was nothing.  So why are we so preoccupied with this moment?  Because we’re sexist.  How else do you account for a woman showing any emotion at all being labeled as breaking down?

Ah the looks on the pundits faces were something to see when, contrary to the landslide defeat they had expected, Hilary was beating Obama.  Not only were their polls wrong, their analyses of the entire situation were wrong.  This proves something fundamental about the Clinton campaign.  Hillary is having trouble connecting, not with the people but with the media.  Whether it put Hilary ahead or not, her moment of emotion was not received by the people of New Hampshire as a breakdown; it was seen as…a moment of emotion.  The people don’t seem to be nearly as stupid as the pundits.

When Hilary won New Hampshire, the question became, “How the hell did this happen?”  Again, they went to the “moment” that they had used to explain her crack up and this time used it to explain her victory.  It “humanized” her.  They used the word over and over.  Now, maybe this is a crazy thing to think, but once the news organizations had decided Hilary cried, did they then decide that this is the only way she could seem human?  Is it inhuman for a woman not to cry on the campaign trail?  Tell me if this is a stretch, please, but I think we need to take a long look at how this campaign is viewed.  We have running for the Democratic nomination a black man, a woman, a semi-Hispanic man, and John Edwards (who is in a league all his own).  Racism is pretty easy to spot in the media coverage, as is Edwardsism.  Sexism can be insidious.  It can pop up when you least expect it.  When it does, regardless of whom you support, you must pounce on it and keep our Presidential race free from that taint.

The results from the important New Hampshire primary are still coming in, but already, John McCain has been projected as the winner. The represents a huge blow to Mitt Romney, who had centered his electoral strategy around strong finishes in the early states and makes the upcoming Michigan primary, where the polling currently shows a very close race among McCain, Romney, and Mike Huckabee, very important in establishing momentum going into February 5th, which will have 24 separate state primaries.

On January 6th, the five leading Republican candidates debated in New Hampshire for the second time in two days. To mark the restored tightness of the GOP race, I think it would be instructive to examine some of what they said under a closer lens. Let’s start with tonight’s winner:

“For 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for or received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state…”

I’ve heard McCain make this claim several times during the campaign, and it has always sounded suspicious to me. For starters, it seems like something of a dereliction of duty to refrain from requesting any additional funding for your own state. I understand that it has become popular to campaign against excessive earmarks, but in reality, earmarks compose less than 1% of the federal budget. In addition, they do actually produce positive benefits for individual communities, be they educational, economic, cultural, or otherwise. Of course, there are those who game the system and take advantage of government funds (Sen. Ted Stevens’s famous “Bridge to Nowhere” comes to mind), but I’m sure that somewhere in 24 years of Congressional service, there would have been some project at some point in time in the state of Arizona that could have used federal funds for the public good.

And I’d be right. John McCain was lying. Some very quick research turned up this article from the Huffington Post describing two separate earmarks McCain had asked for in just the past four years, one a $10 million project to create the William H. Rehnquist Center at the Arizona University School of Law, and the other a $14.3 million allocation to the Luke Air Force Base. I don’t know enough about the rationale behind these two projects to determine if they’re justifiable (on the surface, they both seem perfectly fine), but the important issue is that a man who has made “Straight Talk” a campaign slogan should know better than to misrepresent his record in that way.

Next up, our second place contestant, Mitt Romney:

Mike Hucabee: “Did you support or oppose the 2002 Bush tax cuts?”

Mitt Romney: “I have never opposed the Bush 2002 tax cuts. I supported them. The first comment I made about the Bush tax cuts was that I supported the Bush tax cuts. I do not oppose them. I support them. Always have.”

You may notice that Romney is very adamant about his support for the tax cuts, saying basically the exact same thing in six consecutive sentences (well, five sentences and a fragment). He was trying to hammer this point home because he and Mike Huckabee had just engaged in a substantial debate over campaign dishonesty, during which Romney made the statements:

• “Facts are stubborn things.”
• “Facts are stubborn things.” [again]
• “Let’s get the facts right.”

and

• “You know Mike, you make up facts faster than you talk, and that’s saying something. So let’s slow it down, and let’s get the facts correct.”

One would think that Romney would try to make absolutely certain that the very next thing out of his mouth would actually be a fact. At least, one would think that if one didn’t know Mitt Romney better. A quick Google search uncovered this article from the nonpartisan 2008central.net, which discusses Romney’s failure to endorse the Bush tax cuts when they were announced. He stopped short of a public repudiation of the cuts, but the article cites a Boston Globe story which describes a closed meeting of Romney in 2003 with Massachusetts’s Congressional delegation, where

“Romney told the delegation that he ‘won’t be a cheerleader’ for proposals he doesn’t agree with, ‘but I have to keep a solid relationship with the White House.’”

Even if he did not publicly oppose the tax cuts, it is clear that he never gave any public support or comment as he claims. Even as Romney was trying to claim moral high ground, he was distorting his record for political points.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue this article with a post examining statements from Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, and Fred Thompson.

Well, the results are in, and the winners of the Iowa caucus are Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, of the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. Had I said this a few months ago, people would have called me crazy, but it just goes to show how anything can happen in election season.

Personally, I was pleased to see that my two favorite Democratic candidates, Obama and Edwards, finished in the top two positions, while “inevitable Hillary” finished at #3. I don’t have anything personal against her, but I admit, I like a closely contested Democratic race. I think it will bring out the best in all three of the top candidates, and I am really looking forward to a campaign that does not have a set outcome.

As far as Republicans go, I have mixed feelings. I’m glad to see that Mitt Romney’s millions couldn’t buy him the state, but the fact that he was beaten by a man who doesn’t believe in evolution is troubling. I was kind of hoping for McCain to finish better than he did, since he is the only Republican that doesn’t scare me. However, I won’t let myself get discouraged yet, as New Hampshire promises vastly different results for the GOP.

Well, that’s about it for my little caucus update. I wont be officially picking a candidate until the primaries come to Massachusetts, so for now I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the show. Don’t forget to vote!

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and are meant to reflect a personal endorsement. This is not representative of an endorsement by Upon the Gears or by any other site administrator.

The New Year came two days late in the world of politics.  Yes, January 1st came and went, and everyone’s calendar shifted from 2007 to 2008.  Substantively, however, these past two days have represented the last gasps of the now concluded pre-primary season more so than the ushers of a new political cycle.  Today, we finally can discuss not merely hypotheticals and opinion polls, but actual, solid results, representing the first statement by the voters on who will receive each party’s nomination for president.  Iowa voters will be participating in the statewide presidential caucus this evening, a lengthy, complicated process that will nonetheless show us tomorrow morning who has won the first delegates to the party conventions and, more importantly, who has captured the critical momentum that may eventually catapult him or her to the White House.

Yet, in another very real way, the New Year actually came far too early.  Coverage of the presidential campaigns, which usually only heats up several months before the first primaries, has been going strong for well over a year.  Momentum has been gained and lost, money has been raised in record-breaking amounts, and scandals have broken candidacies and possibly careers.  Iowa has had three legitimate front-runners in the Democratic field and five on the Republican side.  Attacks have been launched and harsh words have been exchanged.  People have pledged to withhold support from certain party nominees.  The attention and passion that has been payed to the political process this early in the election cycle is unprecedented in presidential politics.

Why is this so?  Why should this cycle be so different from every other?  Part of it is due to the expanding reach of the internet.  The average citizen finds it much easier to access political news without a large expenditure of time, and that allows for increased participation in the political world.  Another part is probably attributable the high profile of the candidates running in 2008.  However, neither of these factors on their own is enough to create the unprecedented wave of popularity we have seen over the course of 2007.  Neither would matter were it not for the fact that in 2008, people finally feel that they have a reason to care.

It had become cliche to suggest the we are living in a critical moment in American history, that we are at a crossroads in our nations history.  However, it is not far from the truth.  The United States has suffered through seven years of the most incompetent, short-sighted governing our nation has ever seen, and change needs to start now.  Imagine another four years of anything less than strong, focused leadership with the nation’s best interests in mind.  By that point, it may be to late to reverse the trend of global climate change, to stall the momentum of Islamic terrorism, to restore the American Constitution, or to reestablish the primacy of the American economy.  In short, if steps are not taken immediately to keep the United States healthy and prosperous, we may never have the chance to do so again.

It is here that a man of extraordinary prescience and intelligence comes to the fore.  A man whose political skill has been tested in a national campaign and who has grown to learn from his mistakes.  A man who has the worldwide respect necessary to regain our once lofty standing in the international community.  A man who has shown time and time again that he has found his true calling in life and that the safety and security of the entire planet has become his mission.  The perfect man to lead the United States to regain everything that has been stripped from it by the neoconservative agenda.

Unfortunately, Al Gore decided not to run in 2008.

There is, however, another candidate whose story mirrors Gore’s in many ways and who could fill the void that Gore’s absence leaves.  Like Gore, Johnny Reid Edwards is another former Southern Senator.  Like Gore, he lost his first campaign for the Democratic nomination.  Most importantly, like Gore, Edwards has shown that he is in the middle of a political transformation that has brought him from a moderate, corporate agenda to a passionate, progressive populism and to a unforgiving political will that seems determined to overcome the mistakes of his past and become the transformative force the United States desperately needs.

I would write about Edwards’s life story and positions on issues, but it has already been done for me.  This diary, posted last May at DailyKos, explains better than I possibly could why I support John Edwards for president in 2008.  I encourage anyone who wants to get a full picture of the man John Edwards has become to read it, and I will not even try to outdo the thorough overview of Edwards’s career that it presents.

Instead, I will say merely this.  There has not been a major party candidate endorsing the same issues and speaking for the same people that John Edwards does in many years.  Edwards’s rhetoric pleads not only for the middle and working classes that represent the key voting bloc for any presidential candidate, but for the disenfranchised, the very poorest and most destitute citizens of the United States.  This kind of campaign, focused on those most in need of assistance, has no parallel in contemporary politics.  Instead, we must look back to the Franklin Roosevelts and Robert Kennedys to find historical analogues.  And anyone who feels that having 12% of the population fall beneath the poverty line in the world’s wealthiest nation is utterly inhumane must also feel that it is about time that someone stands up and does something about it.  If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or any other candidate ends up getting the Democratic nomination, I will be proud to vote for them, to work for them, and to live in a nation that they lead.  But John Edwards understands what is necessary more than any other candidate in the race, and he has refused to trim his agenda to seek the approval of corporate America.  As long as he is in the race for the presidency, John Edwards has my endorsement and support.

Well ladies and gentleman, it’s that time of year again. And when I say that time of year, I refer to an event that happens every four years. The Iowa caucuses are upon us, and it just wouldn’t be right for me to allow you to watch the coverage this evening (which I’m sure you all will) without hearing my take on the process and what it will mean for the general election.

We begin with what a caucus is. It’s like a primary vote but instead of voting normally everybody goes to a big meeting in their precinct and people voice their opinions and then elect delegates based on what candidates everyone prefers. Basically it is the most inconvenient possible way to conduct the democratic process. “But Alex,” you are most certainly asking, “if it’s so inconvenient, why does the state of Iowa put its voters through this?” Well, dear reader, it’s mostly because they’re slaves to tradition. The other reason, however, is that it is supposed to better demonstrate a candidate’s organizational capabilities and appeal if they are able to get people to come out and take part in this annoying process.

Next, why is Iowa important? About 100,000 people will most likely attend the caucuses from each party. Why are these people so much more important than we are? Well, Iowa and New Hampshire have been the first two votes for a long time, and the first caucus and the first primary (which New Hampshire holds) are important because the candidate who wins will get press coverage, name recognition, and campaign donations. If you do well in the small election, you get the tools you need to do well in the bigger elections. This means the more obscure and poorer candidates will have to do well in Iowa and New Hampshire if they ever want a shot at the title. The system is organized like this so the primaries are not dominated by big name fundraising giants. That’s what the national elections are for. If the primaries were all held at the same time, the Democratic race, for example, would be between Clinton and Obama in reality instead of only in the media.

So what’s going to happen? Well, I don’t know. Nobody really knows. On the Democratic side, the polls say that Edwards, Clinton, and Obama are just about tied in the hearts and minds of Iowans. The question becomes what groups that haven’t been accounted for will go caucus and what groups that have will stay home? If, however, these three end up tying or close to it in Iowa, things become interesting. The entertaining thing about Iowa is watching every candidate tell you why their performance demonstrates that their campaign will be successful. The logic stretches out a bit as you go further down. With three Democrats at the top, however, the media coverage will be shared and the later primaries will become more contested. New Hampshire will be even more important, because the media will probably decide who the front runner is based on those results.

For the Republicans, Huckabee and Romney are battling over Iowa, but the Iowa race may or may not make a difference. Everything is more or less up in the air for the Republicans, but we can probably expect some of the more minor candidates to drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire (Hunter, Keyes…I’m looking at you). I’d say Ron Paul might drop out, but he’s far too crazy. So unless something unexpected happens, which it probably will, Iowa will not even be close to the end of this presidential race for the Republicans.

Well folks, at this point it’s simply time to sit back and watch the show. It’s going down in Iowa tonight, and the quest for a new commander-in-chief will be one step closer to completion.