Woodstock's Cranky Aftermath

Talk of “Freedom” was in the air at Tea Party Express rally for Steve Lonegan’s Senate campaign at the New Egypt Speedway on Saturday.  Add Richie Havens and some Jefferson Airplane and you are close to a veritable Woodstock, minus the idealism, marijuana and thankfully, public nudity.
Many of the people at Saturday’s rally in Plumsted Township were part of The Age of Aquarius, but they’ve traded weed for Lipitor, worry about fiber intake and sometimes need a good place to sit.  Their folk singer at the rally is lamenting government spending, high taxes and Obamacare.
The Tea Party likes to think it challenges the establishment and conveys much of the rhetoric of getting government off our backs and challenging the system.  They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore, to borrow the phrase from Howard Beale in “Network.”
The Tea Party is the product of the politics of disillusionment.  They make an easy target for their opponents who write them off as “kooks” and “crackpots.”
Tea Party members have some legitimately overlooked grievances about President Obama and the federal government.
·         Is the government’s ability to gather my text messages a good use of resources in the name of fighting terror?  Why should they be entitled to breach our privacy?
·         Is the mandate to buy health insurance fair?
·         Why should the government bail out big businesses?
·         Do we have any business bombing Syria?  (Diplomacy may carry the day here.)
·         Why should our country continue to compound additional debt beyond the $17 trillion outstanding?
Politicians have capitalized on this disillusionment with great effect.  Saturday’s rally had its share of political double talk.

Sarah Palin, Alaska’s former governor and Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 Presidential election, lamented the disservice to our veterans by closing national landmarks and a few breaths later urging the House to hold the line on the government shutdown.
Steve Lonegan, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator, speaking about maintaining our nation’s strong defense and the importance of the navy to protect shipping lanes and warned about the mounting debt.   Nothing was said about how defense spending – as well as entitlement spending – fuel the deficit.
To be fair, liberals have their own share of opportunists and double talkers that fail to account for the cost of expanded programs or new taxes to pay for them, when on the stump.  Also, political rallies are the last place where you’d expect candor about solving the nation’s problems, since the tone of political discourse has as much coherence as a pro-wrestling rant.
If conservatives -- or any politician in the political spectrum -- wanted to be honest and steer us away from a “socialist path” and tame the biggest risks to our government’s solvency, our seniors would lose their Social Security and Medicare. 
That would make the Woodstock generation, who spent a lifetime paying into these programs, much crankier and even more disillusioned.

Why Chris Christie won...

In a nutshell, this is why Chris Christie defeated N.J. Gov. Jon S. Corzine:

• Taxes -- Jon Corzine didn't address the property tax burden during his tenure, even after raising sales and income taxes. New Jersey manages to have high sales, income and property taxes. This is sending the middle class to the exits and has stifled job creation in the state.
• Corruption -- If Attorney General Anne Milgram made a significant arrest for municipal corruption outside Atlantic City, Chris Christie's big advantage would have been blunted. Arrests in Atlantic City don't count in this category. Mr. Magoo can spot municipal corruption there. You can set your calendar by elected Atlantic City officials being indicted.

Jon Corzine's a decent man with good intentions. I'd like to have him as an uncle. However, the Star Ledger precisely summed up his role in NJ politics and the state's Democratic Party: "Corzine is the chaplain on a pirate ship, not really its captain." He wasn't beholden to the power brokers in state government, since he paid for his own campaigns. However, the party bosses -- at least the ones out of legal trouble -- still hold a lot of power. Corzine ceded a lot of authority to them.

Chris Christie won a tarnished trophy in this election. He's going into the Governor's office in January with a projected $8 billion budget deficit, a rotten business climate, and Democrats controlling the legislature. Most NJ resident's disagree with Christie's conservative social views (anti-abortion), but this was an electon primarily about pocketbook issues. He's pledged to lower taxes, but has been scant on details about how to pay for tax cuts. The legislature holds the purse strings and I don't see them crafting budgets that will cut urban aid, education or health care. I'm expecting a standoff in the next budget cycle and would not be surprised if there is a government shutdown. Corzine had a standoff against the legislature in 2006 and they're in the same party. Christie has much more different budget priorities that appeal to his suburban backers than the Democrats. His interests might be best served if he provoked a budget fight and shut down state offices. The public might realize that the world won't end just because Trenton is idled for a few weeks.

A workable solution to America's health care troubles...

Politicians of all stripes have been bickering over health care. Who's going to get health care and how are we going to pay for it? We're already spending $2.3 trillion on health care in this country. That's greater than all the goods and services produced in the United Kingdom, not exactly an economic lightweight.

So what does this spending -- about $7,000 every year -- for each man, woman and child in the United States get? Sub par health care quality with a ranking of 37th worldwide. Woo Hoo! We're number 37!

So we don't do health care very well. As a country, we need to focus on our competitive advantage. At least, that's what Adam Smith tells us to do in "The Wealth of Nations."

As a country, we don't make much of anything anymore. So it is incumbent on our policy makers to focus America's competitive advantage.

We need to abandon health care. We do a crappy job at it. It's a financial sinkhole and we all die in the end anyway. So why bother?

We need to channel our resources where we excel -- entertainment. We don't know the names of the eight chambers of the heart or how the larynx helps us digest our food, but we do know what "Jon & Kate Plus Eight" are having for dinner or Britney Spears' favorite coffee. It's a matter of our priorities.

Policy makers should allocate our resources accordingly. So here's my solution to health care reform: We spend nothing on the sick. We take all that money and dedicate it to fun.

This is how we solve this dilemma:

-- Force every man, woman and child to spend $7,000 a year on entertainment. It can be devoted to consumer electronics, movie tickets, circuses, sporting events, video games, theme park admissions, the theater, and time shares. Not one cent can be spent on health, since it is not economical and doesn't fit with America's competitive advantage.

-- Hospitals will be turned into resorts to reflect our nation's drive to be a fun economy. Hospitals kill more people than theme parks, so theme parks must be better for our nation's health. Society can swap out go the machines that "go ping" in the hospital and replace them with video games. Amusement parks are a better investment than the lousy profit margins offered at health care facilities.

-- This reform will require us to dramatically reshape our workforce. We'll need to retrain our nurses, doctors, pharmacists and other clinicians for new jobs. Our government will have to build a national chain of clown colleges to meet the demands of our new "fun economy." Instead of learning about anatomy & physiology, our clinicians will have to learn how to juggle. Administering an IV becomes a passe' skill, while trapeze work becomes a valued art.

So that leaves us with a dilemma about what do do with the sick. In our new fun economy, sick people won't go the the hospital. They can behave like Super Bowl winners:
They can go to Disney World!
###

A day when I wished I was in journalism again...

New Jersey's air just got a bit cleaner after the FBI's corruption sweep led to 44 arrests two weeks ago. The stench of corruption is a part of life here. Prior the busts, more than 100 elected officials in the state have been arrested since 2001. Unfortunately, nobody is surprised about the arrests, the question is usually a matter of "Who'd they get this time?" The angle about the rabbi charged with selling kidneys on the black market, however, adds a unique twist to the usual garden variety shakedowns and bribery in municipal corruption cases. It was a day that I wished I was in journalism. A newsroom can be an electrifying place when there's a big story to pursue. You always want to know what happens next.

Here are some of the thoughts that I had about the arrests:

-- Kudos to any reporters who worked the organ selling angle into the lede of their stories. Bribery in New Jersey is not too shocking, but black market organ selling is sensational and needed to be high in the story. Yes, 44 people being arrested is a big deal. Yes, the Hudson County political establishment and the Syrian Jews in Monmouth County took a big blow here over these allegations of scuzzy behavior. You have to figure that more than 100 officials have been arrested in recent years. A rabbi dealing kidneys and marking them up by 1500 percent is a shocking charge. The writers of The Sopranos would have been hard pressed to come up with that twist.
-- A lot of the coverage was chasing NJ 101.5 at first, and they were first with the detail about human organ trafficking. Some other news sites were hesitant to run with that detail until after Thursday's press conference when the indictments were made public. I think the station's friendliness to Chris Christie helped their reporters here.
-- It was disconcerting to see that the Asbury Park Press, the hometown paper for Deal, resorting to using the AP to cover "the insular Syrian Jewish community at the New Jersey Shore." Alesha Williams Boyd's article captured the reaction at the temple where Rabbi Edmund Nahum, a rabbi accused of money laundering, worked. It was a missed opportunity for the paper to send a few people from the Neptune office to talk to people at the temples or even the coffee shops on Norwood Ave to provide additional coverage. I used to work in the town, when I was a floor layer. In my observation of Deal, people flashed a lot of money around, drove expensive cars, and put a lot of stock in social status, but I wouldn't call the Syrian Jews insular. It's also one of the most picturesque communities in Monmouth County and probably one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country. Where was the color to really illustrate what happened here? Alesha had two bylines on the web today, so she doesn't deserve any of the blame. Couldn't an editor have picked up the phone or left the office to help out? Could the paper have pulled someone from the other Monmouth bureaus? Why not send the reporters out to gather the information and have a sharp rewrite guy take their notes to make the stories sing? To the Asbury Park Press' credit, they identified Dwek very early in the proceedings as the cooperating witness.
-- Dwek! If this guy was damaged goods to begin with, why were people so eager to do business with him?! Would you want to do business with a guy who tried to pass off a $25 million bad check? There really aren't many IQ tests in politics or wealthy communities?
-- Joe Doria stepped down from Corzine's cabinet after his house was raided. This guy was a long time Democratic staple in state politics-- a former Assembly Speaker! No charges have been filed. Media reports are saying he met with Dwek.
-- "Political Consultant' Jack Shaw died shortly after criminal charges were filed in this case. Authorities haven't made a final determination on the cause of death but they are not ruling out suicide. That definitely will leave many wondering what secrets he kept with him or what secrets he told the authorities. He was also not in good health, according to media reports.
I really hope justice is served here. New Jersey's political culture is a swamp that needs to be drained. We're all paying for it with politicians handing off sweetheart deals to their friends. Sadly, the 44 arrested is probably just the tip of the iceberg. Let's hope the guilty do some real time and wake up the rest of the political establishment to mend their ways.

A Kennedy gives tips about winning friends in politics

When a Kennedy gives advice about politics, you have to take notice.

Edward M. Kennedy, Jr., the son of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and president of Marwood Group, gave a primer on how to be a lobbyist/advocate at a health care industry conference in Orlando in mid-May.

Despite the influence of money and high powered lobbyists in today’s politics, Kennedy said a commitment to an issue dispels the need to costly lobbyists to make your case to legislators. That should not be confused with eschewing politics, since any organization should have a political strategy.

“What really matters is authenticity. You can hire a slick consultant, but there is no substitute on being able to speak on your own behalf or for members of your group,” Kennedy said.

A simple letter to your local legislators or an invitation for coffee at your office could be all that is needed to get the ball rolling.

“Politicians love to look like they are doing something,” Kennedy said half in jest. “They love to be seen and they love to have things to do.”

“Having a coffee session with voters or helping them (the official) get a picture in the paper is another way you can be helpful without writing a big check,” added Kennedy, whose brother is a Congressman from Rhode Island.

Ideally, Kennedy said you want to be in the position of becoming your legislator’s unofficial “cabinet” to comment on issues that are of particular interest. Kennedy said it is impossible for legislative offices to become experts on every single issue and it is important to become part of your local office’s rolodex so they call you for input, making it important to become friendly with your local legislators’ staff.

One word of advice Kennedy provided was that you should not be insulted if your legislator has arranged for a bright, 23-year-old legislative aide to listen to your concerns.

“They are the ones really running our government.”

Don't bail out the carmakers: The Economist

Politicians, business and the unions all want a bail-out of Ford and General Motors. That would be a mistake. Chapter 11 was made for situations like this. As article says: Bailing out Detroit would be a bad use of public money. It would be bad in principle, because it would be an open invitation to companies everywhere to apply for aid to survive the recession. Banks qualify for help because the entire economy depends upon their services. They are vulnerable to sudden collapses in confidence that can spread to other banks that are perfectly solvent. A good car company does not face the same threat. And although Detroit employs a network of suppliers, which would suffer if production shuts down, nothing would sap a recovery and job-creating enterprise like locking up badly used resources in poorly performing companies.

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Fox News: Palin didn't know Africa was a continent

Republicans are sharpening the knives and chop blocking any chance of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin from running for president in 2012. Unnamed sources go to Fox News, the outlet of choice among Republicans, and release damaging details about tantrums and her being ignorant about basic civics and geography (Is Africa a country?). It's scapegoating at its finest. It also shows something about the lack of vetting within the McCain campaign. She was not ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency and that became clear to many conservatives. That's obvious enough, but the folks in the McCain campaign were thinking of a short term pop in the polls regardless of long-term consequences. I think Gov. Palin is a gifted politician who knows how to engage a conservative audience. I don't think she's stupid and she could have spent the next three years brushing up on her glaring weaknesses before running in 2012. Even before I heard this report, I thought Sarah Palin should study to gain a firmer grasp about foreign policy, health care, economics, defense, law enforcement and other weighty issues. As governor, she could work toward testing conservative solutions that could be used for national problems. I didn't and still don't think her political career is over. However, she has to do more than offer a beauty queen wave to the crowd and some stock lines to get conservatives excited. But the McCain campaign is going into ass covering mode. His handlers are trying to save their own necks and blame the running mate they actually helped select. The same conservatives that propelled her and demonized the "liberal media" for questioning her qualifications are now the ones most aggressively carving her up. Politics is a deceitful business.

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Trenton's a swamp that needs to be drained

Ballot questions in N.J. are often overlooked when people vote. Most of the time nobody pounds the pavement about them or advertises a point of view on tv (except in California where many things go on the ballot). However, their impact ends up being felt years later when people wonder "How the hell did we get into this mess?" This year, New Jersey had two ballot questions and they were ingeniously unclear. Here's Question 1:

QUESTION
Do you approve the proposed amendment to the State Constitution which
provides that, after this amendment becomes part of the Constitution, a law
enacted thereafter that authorizes State debt created through the sale of bonds
by any autonomous public corporate entity, established either as an
instrumentality of the State or otherwise exercising public and essential
governmental functions, such as an independent State authority, which debt or
liability has a pledge of an annual appropriation as the ways and means to pay
the interest of such debt or liability as it falls due and pay and discharge the
principal of such debt, will be subject to voter approval, unless the payment of the
debt is made subject to appropriations of an independent non-State source of
revenue paid by third persons for the use of the object or work bonded for, or are
from a source of State revenue otherwise required to be appropriated pursuant to
another provision of the Constitution?

Yep, that's what we were able to vote on. Believe it or not, it can impact our states finances, which are a mess from all the debt on its books ($3 billion a year in debt service). The newspapers also didn't have much to say about it either. Therefore, I had to go to the League of Women Voters to get a true interpretation. See page 3 for the implications. Where are the reporters in New Jersey to write about this stuff? Isn't it their role to interpret complex material and improve voter understanding?

Unfortunately, our politicians are not being held accountable either. This is an act of intellectual dishonesty. If our politicians cannot be up front with the public, what good are they. It just leads me to say, Trenton is a swamp that needs to be drained.

A few of my favorite things

Everybody knows how I like to preach the gospel about The Wire. Here's some other stuff that I like:
www.accuradio.com Listening Post and Future Perfect Radio



How can you hate Robert Duvall's performance here. It's inspired lunacy. "You either surf or fight...If I say it's safe to surf this beach, it's safe to surf this beach." Apocalypse Now Redux (a longer version) has more footage about him pursuing Capt. Willard and Lance for stealing his surfboard.

Does God really protect the stupid? Watch this video:



Some people go out of their way to prove Darwin right.


Yeah, I'm voting for Obama. I want us out of Iraq. I tend to agree more with the Libertarians. Take a look at its platform here. Zimmer and Lautenberg are not getting my vote for Senate -- Jason Scheurer is.


I like news shows that take the piss out of Bush. See Keith Olbermann's Countdown.

--30--

McCain-Obama debate -- McCain overplays his hand

Debate 3 Observations...
-- Sen. McCain gave his best performance and actually won the first half hour of the debate.
-- Sen. Obama remained cool. A CNN commentator said Obama's performance reminded him of a boxer who was ahead on points in the 15th round. He didn't allow himself to take many risks, because he knows he's ahead. He went in low key and stayed Presidential.
-- Sen. McCain is not terribly convincing when he tries to go negative. My college roommate, a Pat Buchanan fan, is more convincing and cutting the way he criticizes Obama. Attack ads are a Bush strategy and reflect the Bush-Rove-Atwater way of doing things. McCain built a career fighting politics as usual. Unfortunately, he wedded himself to them during this campaign. He's a lousy actor when he tries to use them. I wish the McCain of eight years ago was running against Obama. He went negative and played stuff that resonated with the Fox News and talk radio crowd, but Obama's connections with Acorn and Ayers were adroitly deflected as non-issues.
-- Joe the Plumber fell flat. Sen. McCain tried to play that card and it didn't resonate with regular folks. It created a bit of a media stir, but there's not a lot to it. I'm not surprised by a plumber making $250K a year, because there's plenty of work there. However, someone making that much money is not going to generate a lot of sympathy. Obama is addressing health insurance, the economy, and the financial crisis as his issues. McCain tried to pull the Reaganesque approach to connect with folks by personalizing an issue to justify reducing taxes. However, reducing taxes is not necessarily the solution to our nation's financial problems.
-- Sen. McCain was way too callous when he dismissed the "health" of women as a factor in the abortion debate. He probably alienated a lot of independent women voters with his air quotes gesture. He's playing to his base, but that's not going to win him this election.
-- Bob Schieffer did a great job with the questions asked and threw in enough tough ones to keep me happy. He had the sense to ask about the growth of deficits under both candidates' plans. CNN posted the actual question that was asked to show when the candidates were drifting off topic.

That's all for now. My favorite candidate was Ron Paul, but it's a shame he's not running. He would have generated a real debate on the issues and the role of government and taxes.

Future Grandmother, Gov. Sarah Palin

Originally posted Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Gov. Sarah Palin is bound to get bruised in this process of running for national office, since every move will be scrutinized. The issue with her daughter's pregnancy is the news du jour. Another 48 hours it will be another issue. It's unfortunate Sarah's daughter and the dad-to-be got dragged into the spotlight.
The boy in this matter was not smart enough to realize that parents, who are lifetime members of the NRA, take the notion of shotgun marriages to a literal meaning. He might be fortunate that one of them is running for national office. I wish those two good luck — they'll need it as teenage parents.
The right -- including Gov. Palin -- is blind to a lot of realities. One of them is that young people have sex and unplanned pregnancy is one of the consequences. That might account for the tone from many commentators, which has ranged from smug moral superiority ("my child would never get knocked up") to shrill accusations of hypocrisy ("a lot of good that abstinence teaching did ya"). Those commentators fail to recognize that families don't always fit neatly into ideological beliefs and those who are too critical are just being cheap shot artists.
I wish no ill will toward the Palins and the young man. I only hope the Palins remain in Alaska and Sen. McCain enjoys a dignified retirement. I disagree with many of Gov. Palin's ideas and those in her party. However, the Palins don't deserve any scorn. They're very much a typical American family.

The NFL Blows and Call Me when the Election's Over

Originally posted Nov. 30, 2007

The NFL blows and call me when the election is over... Current mood: tired Category: News and Politics

I'm tired of the 2008 election and it's not even 2008 yet. I like Ron Paul the most of the bunch, but nobody takes him seriously and I won't join the Republican party to vote for him in the primary. After that, I'd vote for either Obama or Edwards. Yeah, there isn't much in common between Paul or the two democrats. But I tend to side with libertarians on social issues and the democrats are the lesser of two evils when it comes to the major parties on social issues.

... The McGreeveys deserve each other. I think the family court judge should find away to confine our former governor and his estranged wife to a cell together. I can't believe our former Gov. took up court time over a kid's birthday party. We wonder why our legal system is so screwed up, but it's because we get the government we deserve. In this case, we go to court over the slimmest disagreements or when we face the slightest hardships. The judge should also sanction the attorneys involved for allowing it to degenerate to this point. If you have courts in a better position to threaten attorneys for frivolous cases, attorneys will find themselves to be in a better position to say "You're wasting your time, your money and the court's time" to a client. At least the judge was sensible enough to ridicule the parents.

...The NFL in its infinite wisdom took one of the best games of the year and reserved it for their own TV network despite the billions they get from their TV partners at ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS. The NFL is overplaying its hand. It's bad enough that they stretch 1 hour of playing time into three and a half hours of TV time filled with commercials. Now the NFL is actually hoping to aggravate its fans into complaining to their cable operators so the public will pay for their channel. Screw the NFL. They're as bad as the Yankees. The masters at the NFL should learn the lessons from boxing. A sport that once showed title fights on Wide World of Sports on Saturdays took more and more of their fights to pay-per-view -- effectively narrowing their audience to the highest bidder. Now nobody cares about boxing. I can't name one title holder. The coverage is relegated to inside the sports section -- somewhere after high school sports and before equestrian events. The NFL should watch its step here, because their long term interest should be focused on the product on the field -- not the pipeline of delivery to the fan's home ...

Now that the Mets traded Lastings Milledge, what's the over/under in the number of seasons it takes for him to become an All-Star? I'm figuring the 2010 season. The Mets inevitably find a way to do this.

That's all for now. Just some rambling before I call it a night...

Random Thoughts on a Saturday night

Originally Posted Sept. 1, 2007:

I'm just hanging around on a Saturday night. I haven't written a blog in months and I don't feel like writing the book that's been in my head for years. My brain comes up with a lot of random useless ideas, but it's nice to share. Here they are:

I miss the Uncle Floyd show. It used to be on NJ Network in the 1980s and it was way ahead of its time. It influenced Howard Stern's channel 9 show with its low budget production values and crew members cracking up off stage. It's an iconoclast among tv variety shows with its great piano playing, campy skits, satire -- making it unlike any network comedy/variety shows.

This month and next month baseball will be on the brain. God, please get the Mets into the post season! Why can't Chipper Jones go 0-for-12 in a four game series against the Mets? He's dashed the hopes of Met fans for over a decade with clutch hitting. God likes to test the faith of Met fans. Yankee fans don't get tested this way because God doesn't care about them.

Does anybody really care about politics? I don't like anybody running for president in 2008. Does anybody know what we're voting on in November? Maybe it's a good thing the campaign this year is limited to after Labor Day.

Is there a more annoying song than "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats?

Van Halen and Bruce are on the road again... Both are on tour. Van Halen is looking for a payday by bringing back David Lee Roth with tix selling for $50-$150 (Washington DC show). Bruce tix are going on sale for different spots starting September 8. I've always been less satisfied with big arena shows than catching a band in a club like the Stone Pony, the long gone Green Parrot in Neptune, and last but not least City Gardens in Trenton.

Arena shows with big bands are predictable, right down to the encores. I get more satisfaction watching the Stone Pony cutting the electric on Graham Parker after he played two encores at 2:45 a.m. That was pretty cool for $10 at the door for a spot 15 feet from the stage. How can the energy from the stage diving at a Fishbone show(performers included) be replicated by anything Bruce, Van Halen, or U2 in a big arena? What about the Vans Warped Tour with its 5 stages and 50 bands for less than $30. The musicians will even meet the crowd at their booths after their performance. When's the last time Mick Jagger spent time with fans? I'll probably pick up Bruce's new album (the first single reminded me of something The Smithereenswould do).

Good nite for now... Feel free to post equally random thoughts.