Changes

You may notice a few changes around here as time goes on. Since this is election-coverage.com, and the election is over, it makes sense to me that I move in a different direction. And in that spirit I will go to covering the government in general, be it legislation, supreme court rulings, executive decisions, and news-worthy events that are either affected by, or have an effect on our democracy and it’s governance.

Another thing you may notice is that the regular 5:30 am postings are going to alter a little bit. The constraints of a regular 5:30am posting, with my schedule as it currently exists is a bit much. I will be posting later in the day, and will in all likelihood not post as frequently as I have in past. I may, in lieu of just regular news also post some pieces on political philosophy…I am sure you noticed something of that bent in my character anyway, and I am going to give it more voice. This will make for, I think anyway, longer pieces. I hope my regular readers don’t mind these changes too much.

In that spirit, I am going to go off on a tangent here for a bit. I am going to talk about something near and dear to a great many people, liberals, conservatives, and myself as well. Being a left leaning libertarian, I find the concept of Small government a truly beautiful one, but utterly impossible in this day and age, and i will show you why.

Government, to my mind, is something that should be small enough to not be overly obtrusive, yet strong enough to protect the public from the predations of an unscrupulous world preying upon the people. I am not a true minarchist, a true government minimalist, because I do in fact think that there are things that the government should do for the betterment of the citizens.

But what is a (by and large) Pro-Small government believer to do in this day and age? The fact that our Government is perhaps the largest single employer in The United States, should tell you about what our government believes about “Small Government” Almost 20 million people work in government agencies on one level or another. That is HUGE. To shrink a bureaucracy that large without seriously damaging the economy is to my mind impossible. This is going with the latest figures i can get my hands on, from 2006.

The Numbers themselves are of only slight interest. The government actually employed more people in 2001 than it does now, but it seems the cuts were on the local level, not state or federal. There was no drop in that period for federal or state employees. The numbers were, at that point, approximately 20.9 million total employees. With the exception of those local losses in 2001, and overall that paring down was relatively small, there has been no paring down in any way of the size of government, employee/infrastructure wise, since WWII. In fact it has more than tripled in size since WWII.

But I digress. Numbers themselves are not the point, though they do work effectively to illustrate a point. Numbers almost always skew up, not down. And that makes sense, seeing how a growing population will have greater need of existing programs and government agencies, due simply to increased population, and government, needing to keep up with demand, would, by necessity, need to increase in size to meet demand.

Which brings up a question. What exactly is the need for existing government agencies and programs? Are there not programs that we could do away with? “HELL YEAH!!!” I hear you say. And I would throw a few programs out that would meet my personal idea of what is wrong with government, and I could name several, but i will not….not today anyway. I will argue here that there is no way to just cut a program out without cutting thousands of people from all walks of life deeply and making their lives more difficult, and in some cases unlivable. And what of those employed in the food stamp program? How many jobs would be lost? How much damage to the economy, both on a local and national level?

Sure, cutting programs would minimize the size of government, and reduce the amount of annual expenditure on government, but I must ask you, at what price? Yes cutting (to pick one program at random) Food stamps would no doubt cut billions of dollars in government expenditure, and no doubt force those who cheat the system to find an honest way of getting by, but for every cheat burned by cutting this, how many single mothers do you burn as well? How many widows living on a pension that wasn’t large enough to make ends meet when the “breadwinner” was still alive. For every bad person you burn, you burn 20 people who are simply down on their luck and who have need of such help.

Now I know that, in the view of some, government is not in the business of charity. But I would point to the preamble of the constitution. Do the words “Promote the General Welfare” mean nothing? What do you think they meant by “Insure Domestic Tranquility”? Do you think they gave themselves the power to tax so they could prop themselves up? No. It was meant for the good of the people. All the people, as delineated in the Constitution. And the size of the government is a direct result of the interpretation of these and other concepts within the documents put forth by our founding fathers.

True, their is in no place within any of our great documents which say government must insure the health and well-being of all it’s citizens except in the spirit of it, as I previously mentioned. But should the government be heartless? How long would those voted in to lead us last in office if they were? They like their jobs and know it is a popularity contest, and will not fight the will of the people unless they know that can win. And I don’t think they can win a fight like this, and by their actions, neither do they.

As much as it pains me to say it, there is no way that I can see that a major and effective paring down of the government can happen in this day and age. The needs of the people, mixed with the will of the government to help those in need, to be humane, while keeping themselves in their jobs, has brought together a toxic, yet necessary largess to government.

If you want smaller government, you will have to legislate it in. You could try to pass laws forcing the government to keep to a particular size and strength, or outlawing some particular type of entitlement, or all of them, but I am not sure you would get any legislator to pass it. Every program you cut would kill of thousands off jobs, and further damage an already damaged economy. The only way I can see to do it is to have a constitutional convention, as stated in article five of the constitution. This is something that could be a remedy to this particular situation, but only if enough dreamers like myself and other minarchist-types who have been set adrift in a sea of large government would populate the convention.

Good luck with that. I would like to see it, but I won’t hold my breath.

I’ll See you all on Monday. Tell me what you think of the changes. Tell me what you think about the size and effectiveness of our government. What would you change? Cut out? Leave in, and maybe even grow? Drop me a line and let me know, America!

Uncle Mikey

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John McCain has given up on Michigan. A few points is all that separates John McCain and Barack Obama there. There are several polls which have John McCain either Tied or with the 3 points margin of error in Michigan. So, why give up? Well, a few reasons. One, there are other polls that have Barack Obama with something of a sizeable lead in the state, the last two polls out, PPP and Detroit Free Press, have Sen. Obama leading by 10% and 13% respectively. Two, this will free up resources for him to tackle other states where he feels the races are closer and he has a better chance of winning. Three, he may finally be beginning to understand that he cannot succeed with a 50 state strategy. John McCain can still pull this election out, he can still win, but to do so, he may have to focus on places he thinks he can win.

But thinking about it from a different angle, one has to wonder, If he’s willing to give up on a state the size of Michigan, how many others is he willing to give up on, because he’s behind in the polls? How many more millions of people is he going to leave out in the cold? How many Republican candidates running for congress who would like to have John McCain with them out on the trail for at least a photo op, but are now going to be left behind because there are other states he can win? The cascade of negativity from this one event will send ripples down through the McCain campaign and the country until Novermber 4th and beyond.

Two More points: There is a measure on the ballot in Washington state, called Initiative 1000. The Death with Dignity act, or, if you an opponent of the bill, The Assisted Suicide Initiative. This is a thorny issue, but one which I think needs more widespread national attention. The bill calls for terminally ill patients who are mentally competent to request and self-administer a lethal overdose of Medication. Read more about it here. If this bill were here in New York, or were a National referendum, I would vote for it.

Would you willingly make those who are already dying suffer needlessly for your selfish wants? Make them pay for thousands of dollars in medical expenses that would be made, with this bill, unnecessary? No. I cannot. To cause those who are dying more pain for your morality is wrong on a great many levels. I will touch on this subject in a more in-depth manner at a later date.

One last thing….

Another ballot measure, this time in Colorado, called the “Colorado Equal Rights Amendment” or CERA, is not what it sounds like. This bill is a measure designed to define exactly what a person is under the laws of Colorado. The actual ballot question reads as follows:

Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution defining the term “person” to include any human being from the moment of fertilization as “person” is used in those provisions of the Colorado constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law?

Meaning that the state of Colorado wants to effectively outlaw abortion by claiming that an egg is a person, and that any form of birth control that would hinder fertilization could conceivably be called murder.

This is nuts. This is an invasion of privacy of the highest order. This is a legal mangling of the term person. Doctors working on women of reproductive age would be at risk for lawsuits and possibly even jail if they did anything that could conceivably harm an egg.

There are, I am sure, many ways to measure when a person becomes a person. But an egg? THAT’S pushing the Envelope too much. There is a great deal of foolishness in this particular concept. Let’s hope the people of Colorado have more sense than to let this pass.

Elections aren’t all about The President, ya know! Are there any big votes coming up around your way that you want to talk about? Drop me a Line and let me know!

Uncle Mikey.

Opening again with a quote from www.demconvention.com

On Thursday night, the DNCC will throw open the doors of the Convention and move to INVESCO Field at Mile High so that more Americans can be a part of the fourth night of the Convention as Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination. Obama will communicate the urgency of the moment, highlight the struggles Americans are facing and call on Americans to come together to change the course of our nation.

Or to put it a bit more bluntly, this is the night everyone finds out what change really means. And he is going to showcase that change in front of 70,000 screaming Democrats at Invesco field thursday night. This will be the night when one of the best speakers in America speaks what will clearly be the most important speech of his life. Not just saying it’s time for change, but delineating that change for all the world to hear, not just showing what he plans to do as President, but by speaking to the heart, and telling the people that, yes, there is a better way, a better road to travel down than the one we are going down now with the Bush administration. If he does this right, it won’t just be “When I am President I will lower your taxes” it will be “This day is the dawning of a new day in America, when Liberty and Freedom will regain the meaning our founding fathers meant them to have”. It should be good.

A speech to the heart, One that Barack Obama needs to give, and America needs to hear.

Last night we got to hear the rip roaring screaming and shouting that is the actual count of delegates that made official Barack Obama’s nomination. I don’t know about you but I have been watching this since I was a kid, and I get a kick out of it. Just hearing the ” In the name of the Great state of _____, with the Greatest _____+_____ on earth, and the land of ____, we are proud to cast our 54 rootin tootin delegates for Barack Obama, and 2 for Hillary Clinton” It might sound funny, and it definitely looks odd, but it is a quintessential piece of Americana that no person should miss.

It was a real class move by the Democratic Party that allowed the New York Delegation, led by Hillary Clinton, To summarily suspend the rules, and move to Unanimously nominate Barack Obama as The Democratic Party’s Nominee for the President of the United States.

The speeches, in general last night, were besides the “More of the same from McCain” were very well crafted speeches by the bigwigs in the party most of which got almost no real coverage. Evan Bayh? Untouched by the networks. Madeline Albright? Not even a hint of her on CNN or MSNBC. John Kerry? Not that I saw, and i was flipping back and forth between the networks and C-span. If you didn’t watch C-span, you missed most of the coverage, to listen to people tell you what was going on, despite the fact that they were talking to you and not paying any attention to what was actually being said. Maybe CNN and MSNBC have wall to wall coverage on-line, I haven’t looked there, but as for their Television coverage, It has been nothing short of weak and pathetic for the entire convention. If you want to see the speeches, you are actually better suited going to the Youtube C-span channel after the fact than any of these useless networks.

On a lighter note, I Hope the weather’s nice tonight. I don’t think they can have a rainout. It is supposed to be nice, highs in the 80’s, lows around 60, but forecasts change. A piece of advice to the delegates. Just in case, bring an umbrella. It can’t hurt, can it?

What impact do you think Barack’s speech will have on The democratic base? On those who have backed Hillary Clinton? On the undecideds throughout America? What do you think the Overall effect of these conventions is one the general public? Can the Networks get the coverage right for at least one day? Are these goofballs even capable of providing anything more than mediocre coverage? Drop me a Line and let’s talk about it!

Uncle Mikey

Instead of giving my take here of all things green, at least up front, I think I will simply give them the floor, and let the green party speak for itself. Each quote will be directly from the Green party website, from it’s 2008 platform.

The Green Party of the United States supports divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized.

The Green’s call for :

Full withdrawal of US military forces, civilian military contractors, and corporate interests on the fastest possible timetable consistent with the safety of bringing home US troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other states of the region.

Re-formulate all international trade relations and commerce as currently held by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), (Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), and the nascent Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The new formulation must be Fair Trade and the creation of a level playing field. It must protect labor, human rights, the environment and grow the local economy of receiver nations. Especially local agriculture and water supply must be protected from foreign corporate control and domination.

I have chosen to focus on foreign policy because my mind has been turned to it by the events in South Ossetia, and the Russian Invasion of the nation of Georgia. The economy is a regular focus of mine.

I believe in peace. I believe in doing our best for ourselves and the rest of the world. But I have to say that what I see, in the Non-violence espoused by the green party as a main part of the party platform, is unfortunately, not enough in this intensely war-like time. I think we do need to get out of Iraq ASAP, because the war is wrong on just about every level. I do think that we need to go after, hunt and kill Osama Bin Laden and Al-qaeda, and that we need some kind of force in the Area to assist in that hunt, which means, by necessity, a force In Afghanistan.

If, like Me, you simply read the 2008 platform of the party, you get the impression that they are, well, a bit more interested in what we do for the world, and much less what we do for ourselves. And while I am very happy to see their Anti-corporate stances, I do not entirely get their stance on universal basic Income, or the realistic-ness, for lack of a better term, of their Corporate control, and their Banking and Insurance reform seems just a little undo-able and frankly, with the shape of of the economy right now, a little dangerous to the long term economic strength of The United States. But that’s just me.

A video for you, of the Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney accepting the Nomination of the Green Party.

What do you think of the Green Party platform, and the Green party in general? Is their 2008 Platform viable, given the current economic and political circumstances this nation finds itself dealing with? Drop me a line and let me know!

Uncle Mikey

Myth: America is the land of Freedom and Tolerance. Reality: Freedom? Yes. Tolerance? Not so much.

If it is the land of freedom and tolerance why do you still hear this? Barack Hussein Obama.

He was, and is, accused of being a “Muslim” as if it were a capital crime. It isn’t. This is America. We are still free to choose any religion we care to and pray to whatever god we feel a need to pray to. It’s outrageous. Yet it is taken seriously. Seriously enough where you can search for and still find reports about him being a Muslim that are just as untrue as the first ones that surfaced early last year. For the record, He is a Christian.

OK, He did attend a Muslim school in Indonesia. He attended that particular school for 2 of the 4 years he spent there but it is not a madrassa, a “Radical Muslim school” but a regular Public school that admitted people of other religions, something that a would not happen at a madrassa.

The fact that the accusation ever made it to air is proof that religious intolerance is apparently alive and well in the U.S. of A.

This land was built upon the Bedrock of religious freedom. The pilgrims came here hundreds of years ago to escape religious intolerance and were hounded for their beliefs until they came here. It was that experience and others like them that brought to early American settlers from Europe a liking for our religious tolerance. It brought us fame world-wide as a place where anyone could pray to God as they chose. It was placed at the heart of our Constitution. But things have changed. We don’t respect other religions like we used to.

Let‘s speak of another matter.

Jeremiah Wright.

The man that almost toppled Barack Obama’s Presidential bid. His outlandish rhetoric is, on the face of it, so ludicrous as to be unbelievable. But that is not illegal. But because this land is less then fair in its judgments in terms of religiosity, The words of a pastor became as important as those of the Candidate himself. If it had merely been a friend of Obama’s and not his ex-pastor who had said the things Wright did, do you think it would have had the effect on America that Wright’s words had? Nope. He probably would have been called a crackpot, and it would have ended at that, maybe a few late night TV jokes and that’s about it. Maybe a call to reject and repudiate. But because there is a great deal of Religious and racial intolerance in the hearts of Americans of all stripes, It was unnecessarily blown out of proportion.

Wright dared to be African and strident and loud. This is apparently a crime in certain circles. I don’t see it that way. I see his words as an affirmation of the rights of American citizens to speak there minds. I do however also see this incident as a use of America’s Inherent Religious and Racial intolerance by those that wanted to see Obama fall. The One feeds the Other. Racism feeding religious intolerance, and religion feeding racial intolerance, turning much of America into a Bigot’s buffet.

So Wright thinks HIV/AIDS was spread by the Government to kill black men and thinks other crazy things. That doesn’t mean Obama does. So Wright is a preacher in a church that teaches Black Liberation. So what? That doesn’t mean that Barack Obama is a Black Panther or something Insane like that! He would not have made it to the senate or this close to the nomination if he only cared about black people.

Wright has the right to feel how he does and to say what he likes. But we have turned right on its ear here. Americans tried to Use race and religion as a weapon. It was and is wrong.

Obama is a good American and a good candidate. His church doesn’t matter. His race doesn’t matter. Not to me, and it shouldn’t to you.

Disagree? Drop me a Line and we can talk about this at length.

Uncle Mikey

Ok, maybe they aren’t watching you, but they will have the right to, and sooner than you think. Wanna find out how? Then READ THIS!

For those of you who brought your sanity with you and decided to maybe just give it a glance you probably saw that the 114 page document attached is quite possibly one of the most confusing documents ever put out. I am, along with reading this document, looking up various salient terms, and finding out to the best of my ability what the hell is going on here precisely.

And there’s some interesting stuff buried in all this crap. Examples follow:

First off, It’s obviously not just a wiretap program, from the language of the bill. ANY information passed from a person reasonably believed to be a, using their language here, “united states person” outside the United States, to anyone can be taken and used by the Department of Justice against them. And it is more than just a wiretap program in another way. They can do Physical searches without warrants on anyone. If they think you spoke to Hassan Al Blowupanamerican, or someone else affiliated with an organization they think might be connected in any way with any organization he’s affiliated with and they don’t like it, they can walk into your house and search it without a warrant.

….And Ladies and Gentlemen, Don’t talk to Terrorists. They want to kill us. Just say no!

Section 703(a-b) says the Government can pick up any and all international communications, and use said information however they please, even if you “United States person” are one of the people on the other end of that communication, without court review of said information.

Section 703(g) says their is no requirement or need of any evidence of any crime or terrorism on anyone’s part for them to watch you, listen in on your phone calls, read your e-mail, etc, etc, etc.

Section 703(h) says their is the potential for stiff penalties for “service providers” who do not go along with the government’s wishes.

Section 703(i-k) says that the fisa court can only intervene After surveillance has begun, and even then will only get to use information handed over by the executive branch to said court.

Fun stuff Huh? And the best part? If this bill passes AS IS, it will be On the books Until 2012.

At least it’s not permanent.

Why put this on election-coverage.com?

Simple. Both Barack Obama and John McCain will vote FOR this controversial measure.

I was going to, but decided not to comment on The Immunity Clause either. Or the Attorney General’s near God-like power in cases involving anything even remotely concerned with surveillance connected with this bill, or the AG’s capacity to kill state level investigations where this law comes into play.

Is it a Good Idea for either of the candidates to vote for this bill? Bad idea? Where do you stand On Fisa? Is it a breach of the Fourth Amendment? Is Security that important that we should give up a portion of the Constituton that protects us from a potentially abusive government to have it?

Are you really that afraid of the Terrorists, that you’ll give up your freedom for them? Let’s talk!

Uncle Mikey

232 Years ago today, The Declaration of Independence was Adopted by the second continental congress. In June 1776, Richard Henry Lee put forth a resolution of independence declaring the thirteen colonies independent of the British Empire. The second continental congress upon hearing the resolution, put together a delegation of five of it’s members to write a document that would become the Declaration of Independence. Those Five were, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Livingston of New York, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, the actual writer of said document.

How much of the Spirit that existed that day exists today? ALL OF IT, Thanks to our founding fathers, who made sure that with the beginning of this open hostility, that they might purchase liberty for themselves and those who came after them. Yes there were flaws. Black men and women here were in chains, they could not vote, Women could not vote. There was much wrong here to be righted. But within this Document were the seeds of Freedom the likes of which had not been seen on this earth.

Little bits of Information for you about this document. Three members of The second continental congress never signed it. John Dickinson, from Pennsylvania was against separation from England, Thomas Lynch from South Carolina was too ill, and One of the Committee of five, Robert Livingston, had to return to New York before getting a chance to sign it.

The Original Handwritten Document no longer exists. Surprised the hell out of me. The copy you and I know as THE Declaration of Independence is actually an Engrossed copy, Hand written by an expert penman, Timothy Matlack, created July 19th, 1776. This however was the copy eventually signed by 56 delegates of the S.C.C. beginning on August 2nd, 1776. The First copies to be distributed only had One signature on it, that of John Hancock. And no, he did not say anything about signing it with that large a signature so that King George III could reading it without his Spectacles. And there is no proof that anyone signed the Original document, which is presumed destroyed in the initial printing process. The First Published Versions of the Document to go out, Like I said, had Only his signature on it, but when the Document was actually signed beginning on August 2nd, 1772 he signed along with those who were there. The signing process took awhile tho, with the last signers not actually getting to it for moths, I believe the last signers of the Declaration signed the Document in november of that year.

The Following is the Introduction and Preamble to The Declaration of Independence:

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Today we are not Republicans. We are not Democrats. We are not Libertarians or Conservatives or anything else.

TODAY WE ARE AMERICANS.

A reading of The Declaration of Independence, By John F. Kennedy, from 1957:

Happy Independence Day Everyone! Stay Safe!!