Hypocritic oath and an ignored reading

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

U.S. Constitution, Article VI

Somehow, we have a Congress that gave an oath to the Koch brothers and made sure they passed the religious anti-tax test of Grover Norquist.

Every year the Senate has a public reading of George Washington’s “Farewell Address” and the next day they ignore what he wrote.  Maybe many of them stayed away during the reading or slept through it.

"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.  Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?  Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

"In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim."

Who has the U.S. become beholden to either as a friend or as an enemy: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Cuba .

Deliberate deception from “The Greatest Deliberative Body”

Speak up about the usurpation of legislation by the few.  See “It’s Time to Worry about Health Care in the Senate”, David Leonhard, New York Times, 2017-05-23.

My own letter to HealthReform@finance.senate.gov was

Just over two months ago, the Senate "listened" to Washington's "Farewell Address".  Have you already forgotten his warning about factions?

The Senate has been called "the world's greatest deliberative body".  It has now become the deliberate mouthpiece of the Koch brothers and their ilk.

Be sure to send a copy of your email to your own senators, regardless of their party.

Is Donald Trump a black swan?

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" in 2007.  Is Donald Trump such a black swan and for whom?  Is he an unexpected creation of the Koch brothers?  Has the intransigence of Congressional Republicans created an opening for the likes of Donald Trump?

Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats can seize this opportunity to increase governance in this country that works for the people, not the corporations or the billionaires. 

“Conservative vs. Liberal” is a misleading view of politics

I saw “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right” by Jane Mayer reviewed in the New York Times and decided to buy it.  Once I started reading it, I found it very depressing.  It just has too much about how the Koch brothers have inserted their pseudo-conservatism into our state and local governments.  Even the inside cover is depressing – hundreds of thousands and even millions given to dozens of organizations that support the Koch brothers views.

You can find a review at “Inside the List” by Gregory Cowles, New York Times, 2016-01-29, “Attack the Messenger”.

Every time I blow my nose or dry my hands at Essentia Health, I think how the Koch brothers benefit from the thousands and thousands of tentacles with which they have gripped our society.  Every box of tissue and every towel dispenser is labeled Georgia Pacific, a Koch brothers company.

I can’t help but wonder if the Koch brothers have the Benedictine values of Essentia Health. Essentia Health’s mission is “We are called to make a healthy difference in people’s lives.”  Its values are quality, hospitality, respect, justice, stewardship, and teamwork.

You decide.

“Conservative” and “right” are very misleading terms.  Some who call themselves “conservatives” are rather “liberal” with the idea of conservative.  For example, how can anyone who extracts resources without any consideration for the consequences be called “conservative”?  These extractors are being rather “liberal” with the resources.

Some who call themselves “liberal” are quite conservative in use of resources.  Except when they fly all over the world or drive hundreds of miles to attend conferences on being more “conservative” with resources.

Some who call themselves “conservatives” because they oppose abortion as murder of innocents seem to be quite “liberal” in supporting those who would wage war, which is almost always murder of innocents.

Some who call themselves “liberal” can be quite “conservative” with whom they will allow to speak in public ceremonies.  A real liberal would allow the invitee to speak and either stay away or sit quietly without applauding.

Sometimes I think the last great conservative was Edmund Burke (1729-1797), a British politician and author.  “He was a great political thinker.  Viewing English policies with something of the detachment of an alien [Burke was Irish], he was able to diagnose the situation with an imaginative insight beyond the range of those immersed in the business of the day and bound by traditional habits of mind.” The Age of Revolution, Winston Churchill.

Burke’s enemies accused him of being Catholic, a pejorative that presumed he was unfit for office.  Have we heard another religious “pejorative” used in our times?  Burke correctly predicted that the French Revolution with its chaos would lead to a military dictatorship.  He also supported the grievances of the American Colonies: “Again and again, revert to your old principles—seek peace and ensue it; leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself.”

The whole idea of “right vs. left” is one-dimensional. I submit that political thought is four-dimensional.  Besides Conservative vs. Liberal, we also have Generous vs. Greedy, Rigid vs. Flexible, and Simplistic vs. Thoughtful.

Generous vs. Greedy

One can be generous by being willing to pay the taxes necessary for a civilized society.  That includes having enough food and shelter.

One can be greedy by working to get legislation that puts themselves at an advantage regardless of the cost to others.

Rigid vs. Flexible

We are seeing a lot of rigidity lately in that several candidates are trying to outdo one another in showing how well they promote “Conservative” orthodoxy, even at the cost of depriving others.  They also must regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance and then work to deprive others of “liberty and justice”.

We don’t see much of flexible in politics nowadays.  It seems that so much political literature and writing contains “demand”.  No matter the party, it seems it wants us to demand something that is in their party orthodoxy.  One of the ironies is that the Coffee Party, which was founded as a civil alternative to the demands of the Tea Party, often demands some action.

Simplistic vs. Thoughtful

Simplistic always reminds me of the Tea Party member who said she could understand the Constitution by reading it.  The original Constitution is about 30 pages in an iBook version; the Federalist Papers to explain it are over 900 pages; and I don’t know how many thousands of pages Supreme Court Justices have written to interpret it.  Furthermore, the Supreme Court rarely has unanimous decisions, and what one Court rules could be overturned by a different Court.

As I thought about this article, I remember that years ago the Utne Reader had published a political map that had four axes: Liberal-Conservative, Freedom-Order, Decentralization-Centralization, and Equality-Liberty.  It was devised by Eric Selbin and Ron Steiner.  It has eighteen groups around the edges with representative literature, music, food, and personalities for each.  It was included in the November/December 1991 Utne Reader.  I was able to find an online copy at “Exploring the Dynamics of Polarization” by Tom Atlee at www.tomatleeblog.com/archives/175327148.  If you would rather see the map in color, try the Duluth Public Library (or your own local library).

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-02-18 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/02/18/6746_conservative_vs_liberal_is_a_misleading_view_of.

Rogues, clowns, politicians, and statespersons

Whether in government, business, unions, or any other human activity, we can find people who are rogues, clowns, politicians, or statespersons.  And sometimes a person can be any of these at various times.

Rogues are those who are only for themselves.  They may merely be selfish or they may work to destroy others.  Clowns are those who have no connection to reality.  Politicians are those who try to work with others to accomplish something they can’t do by themselves.  Statespersons are those who have a vision for the common good and succeed in implementing some portion of that vision.

Richard Nixon was an example of someone who was all of the above as candidate and President.  He was a rogue in his first campaign for the Senate when he misrepresented Helen Gahagan Douglas as a Communist.  He was a rogue when he authorized the Watergate break-in.  He was a clown when he said “I am not a crook.”  He was a politician in that he did work on legislation that was supported by many in both parties, for example Marshall Plan funding.  He was a statesman when he looked beyond his anti-Communism to visit and recognize China.

The genial Ronald Reagan was certainly not a rogue.  He was a clown in that he thought the Laffer Curve showed that decreasing taxes would increase prosperity.  He was a politician in that he did get legislation passed that had significant bi-partisan support.  He was a statesman in that he worked with Mikhael Gorbachev on a nuclear arms treaty.

A good portion of the current Republican candidates are clowns and at least one is a rogue.  They are clowns in their continued attacks on President Obama, including continuing to label him as a Muslim.  They are clowns in their continued belief that giving more money to the rich will make the general public richer.  Their schemes will make the whole country poorer with an even more rapidly deteriorating infrastructure and more rapidly warming climate.  And they don’t seem likely to be good politicians because they seem incapable of compromise to get something done.  As I looked at a picture of them in the Star Tribune of 2016-01-17, I thought that the only gray matter was their gray uniforms, I mean gray suits (“Give candidates a little time to think and a little time to speak – you know, kind of like presidents have.”, Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg).

As for the current Democratic candidates, they may be politicians working with others, but I don’t see them as statespersons.

Rogues in business include those who ran Enron (into the ground) and those who gave misleading information to get people to sign mortgages they couldn’t afford.  The Koch brothers are certainly rogues in that they buy a lot of legislation at the state and local levels that is advantageous to them and detrimental to the people.

The rogues in Oregon do not represent the people.  Those “patriots” occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are only after some Ayn Rand “freedom” to do what they please rather than the freedom to govern ourselves.  The Tea Party types seem to completely ignore the General Welfare clause of the Constitution and the establishment of a Congress to provide laws.  If law enforcement doesn’t bring these rogues to justice, it will be our misfortune (malheur in French).

The magical thinking of the anarchists in Oregon is of the same ilk as another set of rogue anarchists: the so-called Islamic Jihadists of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram.  These “Islamic” rogues no more represent Islam than the Bundy anarchists represent the American people.  Consider that there are only about 100,000 “Jihadists” but 1.6 billion Muslims

As a measure of how non-Islamic these rogues are, consider that they may not even have copies of the Qu’ran. “Because it has nothing to do with the Quran. They didn't even have the Quran; they didn't want even to give us a Quran.” - Al Arabiya News, 2015-02-04, reporting on Didier François’ interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

If you want a better sense of Islam, see www.trueislam.com.

But “Islamic” rogues are not the only misusers of “religion”.  If we are a Christian nation, why do some “Christians” call for the expulsion of Muslims?  Why do some “Christians” call for bombing women and children because there are “Islamists” in an certain area.  What kind of Christian nation would have nuclear weapons that would indiscriminately kill thousands of innocent citizens?

On the one hand, we had the rogue Fred Phelps whose Westboro Baptist Church would picket veterans’ funerals as a protest against gays.  I couldn’t confirm this memory but I did find a long list of non-Christian behavior.  On the other hand, we have the Christian statesman, Martin Luther King Jr., who eschewed hate and worked hard to spread Christian love, even against those who would hurt him.

We don’t get to choose many of our rogues, but we can choose many of our politicians and statespeople.  But to do that, we have to show up at each and every election.  If we stay away, we bring on the clowns, and the rogues, too.  Every vote counts and your vote counts only if you cast it.

Also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2016-01-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/01/22/6588_rogues_clowns_politicians_and_statespersons.

From my clippings file

Every so often, I email an article to myself for future reference, often with the idea of writing a blog entry.  Most likely I don’t get around to it.  So, since I don’t have a hot topic in my head this week, I thought I’d muse about some of these clippings.  Don’t worry, I won’t write about all 59, just enough to fill a Reader Weekly page.

One apropos to the attempts to take some auditing work from the State Auditor was a letter to the Duluth News Tribune by Paul and Susan Schurke of Ely.  They praise Rebecca Otto for pointing out that nobody knows what the potential cost to taxpayers of new mines will be.  Is it any wonder that the corporate-lovers in the Minnesota legislators want reduce Otto’s authority?  Strange that this same crowd complains about taxes.

“Otto’s common sense mining position can unite us all.”  Duluth News Tribune, 2013-12-09.

Pete Seeger wrote long ago that we have the best politicians: “We elect them again and again.”  One of the reasons we elect them again and again is that a plutocracy finances too many elections.  Plutocracy is government by the rich.  “Capitalism vs. Democracy” by Thomas B. Edsall (http://nyti.ms/Msy71t) asks “Is deepening inequality inevitable?  The case for a global wealth tax.” - New York Times, 2014-01-28.  It is a review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”.  Edsall quotes Piketty’s assertion “when pay setters set their own pay, there’s no limit”.

A reverse on a wealth tax is offered by D. J. Tice in “There’s no pot of gold for the working poor”, Star Tribune, 2014-02-09.  His first suggestion is “to stop raising their taxes.”  He also suggests expanding both the State and Federal Earned Income Tax Credit.  He also writes that any hike in the minimum wage will probably result in fewer workers over the long term.  Think of how you once bought an ice cream cone.  Somebody bent over the freezer and scooped your choice into a cone.  Now you can go to Chilly Billy’s and fill your own cup with your choice of frozen yogurt.

My answer to when pay setters won’t set their pay is when the sun sets in the East.  Joe Nocera wrote about all the gimmicks that CEOs and their boards use to keep raising the CEOs pay to ridiculous levels.  See “CEO Pay Goes Up, Up, and Away”, New York Times, 2014-04-14 (http://nyti.ms/1erLn2H).  Shareholders can vote against boards that grant obscene pay, but they will probably be outvoted by institutional investors who exercise “fiduciary responsibility” by voting in management’s favor.  Even if that responsibility were directed at reducing executive pay, current law says that “Say on Pay” is only an advisory; management doesn’t have to honor the shareholders vote.

Have you considered that the wealthy wield much more power than kings of old?  Except they don’t need armies of soldiers to stay in power, just armies of lawyers and lobbyists.

You can know that things are out of control when a “conservative” columnist calls attention to the inequalities.  My favorite “conservative” columnist, Ross Douthat, wrote  “College, the Great Unequalizer”, New York Times, 2014-05-03 (http://nyti.ms/1kzuuRQ).  He says that the Party Scene at many colleges benefits the well-heeled student and sucks in the “lower-status” student.  The well-heeled can rescue those who practice an excess of vices, but the less-well-off can’t.  The well-heeled will go on to social or economic success regardless of their performance.  Others will rarely join that social class.

And the upper-class is finding many ways to get their way no matter the cost to the rest of society.  It is well-known, to those who care, that the Koch Brothers through their American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are writing our laws in cahoots with Republican legislators.  One of the current examples is “right-to-work” laws.  Many of the laws are almost identical to what ALEC proposed.  “Wisconsin’s law was a virtual copy of the 1995 model bill promoted by” ALEC.  See “Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union”, New York Times, Dan Kaufman, 2015-06-12.

The article points out how the upper-class minions don’t care about much more than keeping their masters happy.  The accident rate among workers is higher in right-to-work states.  Scott Walker promised the president of the state-wide union of heavy machine operators that the “right-to-work bill” would not make it to his desk.  Walker got his contribution and the labor guy lost Walker’s commitment.

How the Republican Party has changed!  The 1956 Republican Party platform included “The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower administration.”

And it even gets worse.  See “Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General”, Eric Lipton, New York Times, 2014-12-06.  The attorneys general are sending letters of complaint about air pollution to the Environmental Protection Agency that are almost duplicates of letters written by the lawyers of energy companies.  These attorneys general are getting huge campaign contributions from energy companies.  Thanks to these contributions, 27 of the states’ attorneys general are Republicans.  Who was it that wrote, “We have the best government money can buy”?

Or to blaspheme Abraham Lincoln, “A government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations shall not perish from the earth.”  Or should it be “shall destroy the earth”?

We the People Lost; They the Corporations Won

The election results are in and I am very disappointed.  Not in who won and who lost, but in how few bothered to even vote.  Those who didn’t vote gave the election away to those who were determined to vote.  And many of those who didn’t vote, if they had voted, might have flipped the results the other way.  This is probably true of both those who normally favor Democrats and of those who normally favor Republicans.

Too many claim they don’t like to choose the lesser of two evils.  Well, guess what?  If you don’t choose the lesser of two evils you might get the “worser” of two evils.

Many in Duluth are proud that they had one of the highest turnouts in the country at a bit less than 60 percent.  I think it is not something to be proud of because a bit more than 40 percent of registered voters didn’t even bother to show up.

Who makes up these no-shows?  Are they people that don’t even care about politics?  Are they people who have other priorities, like Dick Cheney?  Are they people who don’t think their vote counts?  Are they people who don’t think their candidates have a chance?  To those who think their vote doesn’t count – of course it doesn’t, you didn’t cast it.  To those who think their candidates don’t have a chance – of course they don’t have a chance, you didn’t vote for them.

I hope that those who did win have a bit of humility by realizing that most registered voters didn’t support them.  Most registered voters didn’t support them?  Well if 40 percent didn’t show up and a candidate received 60 percent of the vote of those who did, then only 36 percent of the registered voters supported them.  Hey, that’s a lot better than Ronald Reagan’s “landslide” with the support of less than 30 percent of the registered voters.

Let’s look at two races familiar to many in Duluth – 8th District for the U.S. House and 7A for the Minnesota House.

Let’s take the closer race first - 8th District with Stewart Mills, Rick Nolan, and Skip Sandman.  Only 266,081 of the 389,425 registered voters showed up.  Less than four thousand votes separated Mills and Nolan.  Nolan had a plurality of 48.51 percent vs. Mills’ 47.11 percent.  Nolan did not win a majority of the votes cast.  But if we look at the candidates’ support among registered voters, the support is even less.  Nolan received the support of about 33 percent of the registered voters and Mills was close behind with a bit more than 32 percent of the voters.

Next let’s look at the more lop-sided race – District 7A with Becky Hall, Jennifer Schultz, and Kris Osbakken.  Less than 16 thousand of the over 23 thousand registered voters showed up.  Schultz had 62.1 percent vs. Hall’s 33.3 percent.  But Schultz did not have the votes of a majority of registered voters; less than 41 percent of the registered voters cast a vote for her.

You can find the data I used at on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s pages at http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/ENR/Home/20.

I didn’t go through all the Minnesota races, but I think you’ll find this lack of majority support in most, if not all races, in Minnesota and throughout the country.  For example, Sen. Al Franken may have had a clear majority of the votes cast, but he received the support of less than a third of the registered voters.

It is easy to blame corporate interests for the big gains by the Republicans across the country, especially when the New York Times has headlines like “Business Leaders Cautiously Expect G.O.P. Win to Open Some Doors” (2014-11-05).  Given the statements by some Republicans, one could expect a floodgate of legislation that favors corporations over the environment and public health.  It is easy to blame the Supreme Court for letting corporations have all the rights of people that led to huge amounts of money spent on attack ads.  It is easy to blame the Koch brothers for manipulating legislation and public opinion to their benefit.

It is hard to remember that this has been going on in politics for over two centuries. 

Newspapers in the early Nineteenth century often were libelous in their attacks on politicians they didn’t favor.  Corporations lobbied for their pet projects.  Remember “Honest Abe” was a railroad lawyer and, as President, even called for doubling the subsidy for building a transcontinental railroad, a corporate give-away if there ever was one.

For over 100 years the turnout of the voting age population has been “dismal” in presidential elections.  The high was 73.2 percent in 1900, the low was 48.9 percent in 1924, and average since 1900 have been 57.0 percent.  Interestingly, Bush I and Bush II had 50.3 percent turnout, Bush II did better in his second election with 55.7 percent turnout.  Then Obama did better and better: 57.1 percent and 59.3 percent turnout.  Hope does increase turnout.

Will the turnout continue to climb in 2016?  It depends on you.

Mel voted and hopes you did, too.

This article was published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-11-13 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/11/13/4345_we_the_people_lost_they_the_corporations_won.

Political speech or bribery?

If I give money to a politician or a bureaucrat to get him or her to do something for me, it is called bribery.  Said bribery can result in a fine or a prison term, for both me and the politician or bureaucrat.

However, if I give money to the political campaign of a politician, in the expectation that he will act in my interests, it is now called "political speech".

A real Republican's Senate career was ended when it was revealed that he was given a Minneapolis condo at discount rates.  I don't remember the details, but I think it was a shame that real Republicans like David Durenberger, Bob Packwood, and Edward Brookes went down in flames because they did things that were small misdeeds compared to the shenanigans that go on now in both parties.

Remember that those who throw millions at elections so far have just as many votes as you do – one!

Please also pass on to all your friends:

Always vote because all votes count.  The only votes that don't count are those not cast.

Too much money or too few voters?

The best antidote to too much money in politics is larger turnouts.  If you don't show up, you are increasing the power of too much money.  If you don't show up and vote then you are increasing the likelihood you will be next on the list to be disenfranchised.

Remember that the aim of most political attack ads is not to get the viewer to vote for a given candidate but to get the viewer to not show up.

If you want to make a difference, don’t watch TV, always vote, and always vote what you believe.

Also, remember that the turnout in Afghanistan was over 50%.  Many of those people showed up at the risk they might come under a terrorist attack.  Can’t we do much better in the U.S. where our only risk of going to the polls is an auto crash?

Who decides elections?

Somebody out-of-state spending millions on attack ads,

Or millions of in-state voters spending a few minutes to vote for what they believe.

Dollars don’t vote.  People who show up do!

Second quote of the day - health care

"[W]ho do you trust more, the company that is answerable to a few shareholders or the government all citizens can choose to elect or choose to fire?"
- "Real Doctor Smacks Down Koch Brothers Obamacare Ad (Video)", Egberto Willies,

Another thought, who elected the Koch brothers or Grover Norquist to make public policy.  Aren't they among those who "live by profit" and "deceive and oppress the public."

Plutocracy and democracy

Someone on a facebook page asked what is plutocracy.  I don't remember whether it was about all the money in politics or not.  I answered that plutocracy meant rule of the wealthy.  We certainly see it with the Koch brothers and Michael Bloomberg.  The greatest danger of plutocracy is that it drives out participation by ordinary people, the essence of democracy.

I looked up plutocracy on Wiktionary and found this wonderful quote by G.K. Chesterton:

"Modernity is not democracy; machinery is not democracy; the surrender of everything to trade and commerce is not democracy. Capitalism is not democracy; and is admittedly, by trend and savour, rather against democracy. Plutocracy by definition is not democracy. But all these modern things forced themselves into the world at about the time, or shortly after the time, when great idealists like Rousseau and Jefferson happened to have been thinking about the democratic ideal of democracy."

Solyndra loan, just the facts, ma'am

The Republicans have been jumping all over the Obama administration for the collapse of Solyndra; Paul Ryan accusing the Obama administration of "crony capitalism".  Guess which administration actually approved the loan?  The Bush administration!  The loan was not actually made until Obama was in office.  See "Clean Energy: Obama Says It's the Future, Paul Ryan Calls It a Fad", Stacy Curtin, Daily Ticker, 2012-08-16.

Meanwhile, the Republicans don't seem to notice the subsidies to oil, gas, coal, and nuclear.

Ryan also said, "We want to get Washington out of the business of picking winners and losers."  He seems to forget that the last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, was very much in the business of picking winners and losers and providing subsidies.  What would this country be like if he hadn't pushed the Transcontinental Railroad with "subsidies" of bonds and free land?

BTW: one of the commenters asked where Paul Ryan called clean energy a fad.  Given how quotes of any kind get distorted and go viral, it is hard to find sources for a supposed quote.  What Ryan said was "fads like Solyndra" on "60 minutes" with Bob Schieffer.  I can't find a direct quote from 60 minutes, but dozens of repeats by many sites, each with its own particular bias.

Whatever, the fact is the Bush administration approved the loan.  Now the Republican Party has morphed to promote only fossil fuels and nuclear energy and to disparage any alternate sources of energy.

Republicans and reality; the only thing they have in common is starting with RE

As a former Republican party activist, I am so disappointed with the Republicans since Reagan (another name starting with RE).  The latest disappointment was the attitude of Minnesota Republican legislatures towards light rail, specifically the Southwest line out of Minneapolis.  See "Critics rail about state money for Southwest light rail line", Pat Dole, Star Tribune, 2012-03-09.

Despite many businesses saying that light rail aids development, the state Republicans are still opposed to the light rail line.  Hey, I thought Republicans were pro-business.  I think they are more pro-Koch and pro-oil than anything else.

The most egregious comment was by Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, "We like our independence and having our own car to drive where we want and when we want."  He also said. " I think buses…are working very, very well."  Excuse me, is anyone telling him that he can't drive?  Oh, yes!  The Republican Party is not "pro-choice".

He is so wrong on two counts.

Once I drove out of Chicago on I-90 towards O'Hare airport.  It was on a Sunday(!) and stop-and-go.  In the middle was a commuter train.  The highway traffic would stop, and a train would catch up.  The highway traffic would stop, and a train would catch up.  The highway traffic would stop, and a train would catch up.  Eventually the train pulled ahead and was gone.  So much for "when we want".

As for the efficiency of buses, for two years I drove a suburban bus into the Twin Cities from Maple Grove!!!!  Rare were the times it was a steady 55 mph from Maple Grove to downtown Minneapolis.  Sometimes I had to drive on the shoulder.  What was my supposed maximum speed?  35mph!  What does light rail go?  I don't know, but probably better than 35 mph between stations.  And the light rail drivers generally have all the green lights in their favor.  I had to slow down for merging traffic.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton promises to veto ALEC-sponsored bills

The Coffee Party Facebook is all abuzz about Gov. Dayton's promised veto action. See http://news.coffeepartyusa.com/p/1247743475/minnesota-gov-calls-out-corporate-front-group-alec-vetoes-its-bills.

I sent Gov. Dayton a thank you at http://mn.gov/governor/contact-us/form/.

Thanks for vetoing ALEC's bills.

Those who cite Adam Smith's "invisible hand" often ignore the rest of his cogent observations, including:

"It is by this superior knowledge of [the merchants and manufacturers] own interest that they have frequently imposed upon [the country gentleman's, often a member of Parliament] generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public."

From "Political manipulation - begging the question"
--------

I posted the above on Facebook as well as the next: Cookbooks in German are Kochbücher. Does this mean that legislators who enact ALEC drafts are Koching by the book?

Who's taking whose freedoms away?

Many candidates and commentators complain bitterly that the "government" is taking our freedoms away. These same people also want a large military to "protect our freedoms". However, they never seem to recognize that their own positions threaten our freedoms.

They also think that the Revolutionary War was fought to gain the various freedoms of speech, assembly, and so on. No, it was fought for the freedom to govern ourselves rather than being governed by a country three thousand miles away.

Now, these same candidates and commentators want to take the freedom to govern ourselves away, and they often consider themselves patriotic because they support a strong military, pledge allegiance to the flag (including "under God"), and wear flag pins. How are they taking away freedom to govern ourselves? By raising the false specter of "voter fraud" and hoping to keep away from the polls people who might not vote for them.

I've written about many of them being hypocrites in religion; they are hitting a double by being hypocrites in patriotism.

Protect your freedom: VOTE!

Government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich

If you still have any belief that our politicians are for the people rather than certain special interests, here's a couple of dream busters for you.

"Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, Conservative Political Donors, Hold Semi-Annual GOP Business Retreat In Vail, Colo." The reputed purpose is "is to develop support for the kind of free-market policies and initiatives that can get our country back on the path to economic prosperity and sustained job creation." Yeah, free market as in free to do what they damn well please.

Meanwhile, in New York, President Barack Obama, supposedly a liberal politician, had a $35,000/plate dinner. He also had several similar dinners earlier. Just do a search on "obama 35000 dinner".

What we have are the plutocratic party and the ultra-plutocratic party.

In the past, I've voted for "third party" candidates who I thought made some sense, the best being John Anderson in 1980. However, I'm leaning to the notion that the Republican Party should get a resounding defeat and then maybe the Republicans who were in the New England, pre-Reagan camp could re-emerge. Then we can give a resounding defeat to the current Democratic Party and maybe a more truly populist party would emerge. Ouch! I crossed my fingers too tightly!

I guess all I can say if you don't vote in November 2012, don't blame me for the results.

Little bucks demonstrations vs. big bucks advertising

Mark Jeneson wrote "Make change with money, not protests" as a local view in today's Duluth News Tribune. Online it's titled "Create change through spending, not Wall Street protests".

Jeneson argues that taking all one's money out of the big banks will bring about more change than protests. However, these little private acts will only be known by a few people and may or may not spread. These little acts have a small chance of making major headlines.

To make headlines, most people need to demonstrate. They don't have the big bucks to advertise like the Koch brothers and their surrogates. Think of demonstrations as middle-class political advertising. If the cause is popular, more people will take part and more headlines about the cause will be made.

Let's kick the Koch-Cain habit!

Who decides the government of the United States? We the People or they the money?

Who decides the government of the United States? A well-informed populace of high-turnout voters or a secretive group of manipulators who only want their "people" to vote?

I thought I had a new revelation of how manipulated we are when I read "Pizza Magnate Herman Cain Has Extensive Ties to Powerful Koch Group", Huffington Post, Ryan J. Foley, 2011-10-16.  I started playing around with Koch being the start of Kochaine and then thought, oh, Koch-Cain.

Well, I was late to the party again. I found about 16,800 results for "Koch-Cain" as a single phrase. The first two were "Billionaire puppeteers at it again? Exploring the connection between Koch brothers and Herman Cain", and "Does GOP Cocaine = Koch-Cain? Are Koch bros Buying GOP Pres Nomination by Supporting Herman Cain?"

I haven't seen anyone writing this yet, but I have a feeling that besides Cain being a puppet of the Koch brothers, he is cynically being used as their "black candidate" against Barack Obama.

If you don't like this cynicism and manipulation, if you would rather have democracy than plutocracy, be sure to vote in every election, especially in November 2012. Please put in VOTE in capital letters on your calendar for November 6, 2012. Please ask all your friends and relatives to do so. To avoid any manipulation, be sure you have registered well before and have a valid ID.

Are our two "major" parties misnamed?

From what I see, the Republicans no longer believe in governing a republic, not in the sense that the writers of the Constitution envisioned. The Democrats don't get overwhelming support from people who call themselves Democrats; these people don't show up at elections. You can't have a democracy without the demos (Greek for people).

Maybe we should call them the Gung Ho Corporate Party and the Lukewarm Corporate Party. And maybe we should call the Tea Party the Kool-Aid Party because of the poison they are drinking given to them by the Koch brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and other non-elected organizations sponsored by corporate interests.