Sunday News

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Hope you survived the holidays. So far. If you’re visiting family, drink up. If you’re dealing with just your household, you’ll need another batch. The picture above is of the red room at the White House this year. What, your holiday preparations don’t look that neat. Join the club. Later in the week we’ll do some year end lists and all around looking back. Today let’s just toss up a bit of news to start the conversation. If you have a moment between drink and dealing with family, add to the collection of what’s going on. Or just say what’s on your mind.

So let’s see what’s what. Oh yea, Rahm Emanuel got a pass and is allowed to run for Mayor of Chicago. And with that, we got the first bit of drama:

Rahm Emanuel is a resident of Chicago and eligible to run for mayor, city elections officials ruled Thursday, removing the primary obstacle to the former White House chief of staff’s bid to lead the nation’s third-largest city.

The decision of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners was followed a few hours later by the surprise withdrawal from the race of state Sen. James Meeks, who said the remaining African-American candidates must rally a “divided and splintered” black community in Chicago to beat “the front-running, status quo candidates” — a list presumably topped by Emanuel.

Meeks’ decision to exit and urge the city’s large African-American community to rally around a unity candidate tightens a still-large field of people seeking to replace retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley.

It could also provide a boost to the chances of the two other leading black candidates, former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, both of whom trail the well-known advisor to President Barack Obama in polls.

Presumably Meeks wants people to either rally behind Braun or Davis. But, but, but, I thought Obama’s guy was anointed. I’m so confused. Now here’s some news that will irritate many, apparently Bill Clinton is going to campaign for Rahm. Yea, that’s what I said. WTF:

Clinton is scheduled to headline a public event that highlights Emanuel’s role in passing a crime bill that put 100,000 more cops on the street nationally.

The visit is expected to be Clinton’s first in the new year and election cycle.

Who the heck knows what’s going on behind the scenes here. Your guess is as good as mine. WTF…

A few days ago Obama did his fake evolution on gay marriage dance:

Nearly two months ago, President Obama told a blogger that his position on gay marriage — he publicly supports only civil unions — was something that he was “wrestling” with. He even strongly hinted that he would reverse his stance in the future. Of course, since Obama was actually for gay marriage all the way back in 1996, until he ostensibly wasn’t, and since he opposed Prop. 8 and is for gay equality in every other aspect, it’s fairly obvious that his position right now is that he supports gay marriage.

That interpretation and wishful thinking is just a riot. Seriously people, ever notice who he surrounds himself with, what he wrote in his autobiographies, what his main advisors have said recently regarding it’s just a lifestyle, etc. But at least they noticed enough for this bit:

Notice the very first sentence. It’s not that there is no news to make, only that Obama doesn’t want to make it yet. Will he wait for the presidential campaign, apparently under the belief that it’ll be a net political benefit for him? Or will he keep it in his pocket for the next time he compromises with the GOP and his liberal base complains that he’s just like George W. Bush?

So even their very best rose colored classes interpretation has Obama triangulating and using their issue only if and when it has political advantage. Inspiring.

The reason for mentioning this is because Biden just opened his mouth on the subject:

Vice President Joe Biden is predicting that the evolution in thinking that will permit gays to soon serve openly in the military eventually will bring about a national consensus for same-sex marriage.

Changes in attitudes by military leaders, those in the service and the public allowed the repeal by Congress of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, Biden noted in a nationally broadcast interview on Christmas eve.

“I think the country’s evolving,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And I think you’re going to see, you know, the next effort is probably going to be to deal with so-called DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).” He said he agreed with Obama that his position in gay marriage is “evolving.”

Funny thing is, DADT was repealed largely because of the effort of the log cabin Republicans and the efforts of Joe Lieberman, among others. I don’t think Obama and the main New Dems wanted it repealed right now. Obviously because Obama could have stricken it from day one. But the noise we’re hearing now is that Obama won’t be able to do it because the Republican House won’t let him. Um, what about that last two years? And so, you guessed it, we’re talking about a campaign issue for 2012. Used and abused, right out in the open. Wonder if anyone will catch on?

In related news, of course DADT is still the law of the land and in effect. If you tell, you’re still out:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is warning troops that the law allowing gays to serve openly in the military is not officially in effect yet.

Though President Barack Obama has signed the law repealing the “don’t ask, dont’ tell” policy, the change is not expected to be in place for a number of months. The Pentagon issued a memo that Gates sent Wednesday night to armed forces branch heads and other officials explaining the timing and stressing that troops can still run afoul of the old law.

I’ll believe it all when I see it. Also, since the law of the land before DADT was that it was illegal to serve if you were gay (and they were allowed to ask, or get it out of you buy any means), what technically happens when the improvement, sadly, that was DADT is repealed? Why isn’t anyone asking that?

When the new congress starts in January, it looks like they’re going to allow mobile devices on the House floor. And you thought they were distracted before. Now instead of paging or texting their underage boyfriends, the old congressmen can have video conference calls with them. Yea, I said that. Well, it will be a large Republican majority. I’ve got my scandal popcorn ready, how about you. OK, back to the story:

Under new House rules, members next year will be able to use their BlackBerrys, iPads and iPhones on the House floor.

Use of the devices was previously banned on the House floor, but incoming Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to ease restictions on the devices.

Wonder if they’ll read any bills on their devices. Yea, right.

And speaking of fun apps, there’s a Cherokee language app:

Nine-year-old Lauren Hummingbird wants a cell phone for Christmas — and not just any old phone, but an iPhone. Such a request normally would be met with skepticism by her father, Cherokee Nation employee Jamie Hummingbird.

He could dismiss the obvious reasons a kid might want an iPhone, except for this — he’s a proud Cherokee and buying his daughter the phone just might help keep the tribe’s language alive.

Nearly two centuries after a blacksmith named Sequoyah converted Cherokee into its own unique written form, the tribe has worked with Apple to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod and — soon — the iPad. Computers used by students — including Lauren — at the tribe’s language immersion school already allow them to type using Cherokee characters.

Finally, news in the Art world is that some Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Fudge prints have been stolen:

“An unknown suspect broke through a hallway wall into the apartment and removed artwork, watches and other jewelry. A video recorder attached to surveillance cameras inside the apartment also was taken,” police said in a statement.

The total haul was worth around $750,000, the New York Post reported, citing unnamed sources.

The lifted Warhol prints were “Superman,” “The Truck” and the eight-piece “Camouflage.” The Lichtenstein prints were “Thinking Nude” and “Moonscape.”

The Carl Fudge painting was “Live Cat.”

Why does this sound like the beginning of a Batman movie where later we’ll see these prints hanging in the hideout of the Joker.

That’s a bit of what’s happening. Chime in with what you’re reading or doing.

The Culture of Cannibalism in US Politics: The Cycle of Corruption

Mark Twain, in “Cannibalism in the Cars,” suggested that cannibalism of the body politic is a logical outcome of the practice of the political values of the elected representatives of the United States, in dire circumstances. What would occur, if such dire circumstances did not require a natural disaster, but became a systemic feature of the political landscape?

The current economic crisis and America’s abject failure to provide economically-efficient, affordable healthcare are two examples of dire circumstances that are systemic features of America’s political landscape. Both crises are the results of bad governance. Both circumstances are direct products of the growth of influence of en-corporated political interests (encorps) in the system of governance of the United States. Bad governance, in both cases, involves a betrayal of the public trust that is manifested in not regulating the encorps in a way that protects the public’s interests, especially with respect to not meaningfully regulating the encorps ability to influence government officials.

The United States was born wary of the power of vested interests to influence public policy. Alexander Hamilton’s comments in the Federalist Papers are an example of this concern. .

In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty.

Unfortunately, keeping the vested interests out is not a simple matter. How can it be when parties themselves are collective expressions of a set of weighted interests? Frankly, it is sensible for people of like purpose to strive together to achieve their aims, and there is nothing necessarily insidious about the practise. In fact, it’s a cornerstone of Democracy and civil society.

It is also, however, the entry way for corruption because the crux of the matter is not that people have differing and competing interests: it’s that they differ so greatly in terms of their power to realize those interests. When the power to realize those interests is used to unjustly deny the interests of less powerful, but equally or more deserving citizens, through a donation that is traded for a piece of unjust legislation, then it can be said that a positive feedback loop of corruption has been initiated.
The overly simple analysis that follows attempts to describe the basic workings of this system.