We have a podcast for you today! In it you will hear….

A quick congratulations to Mark Begich on his victory over Ted Stevens.

A plea from me to Hillary Clinton to stay in the Senate. This plea is based on the Idea that I have that she will do more for herself and America if she stays in the senate than if she takes the Secretary of State Position.

A few thoughts from me about the bailout. I in fact have a great many other thoughts on this subject, but due to time constraints and other considerations kept them to a minimum.

I was going to be flippant and silly about this blog, but I just can’t. I’ll tell ya why. I am just not comfortable with my speaking voice, and frankly I flub lines when I speak a fair bit and not at all when I write… well, maybe i should say only very rarely, I don’t want to give the impression that I think I’m that good. When I write I have time to think about what I say and the tone and inflection I want to put out, when I speak, when I do these Pod-casts I tend to very much fly by the seat of my pants, and You can very much tell that by listening. It is very short on Logic and long on emotion.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that, but I tell you, and most people who read my writing and listen to me, are surprised, by and large, that it is the same person doing them. I hope you don’t mind the podcast….

…Or the stammering.

I’m taking a well earned day off from Blogging on Friday, but I will be back with the usual happiness on Monday. I’ll See everyone on Monday. Enjoy!

Uncle Mikey

These are the notes I took of the Banking Committees meeting with The heads of the Big three automakers on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

According to the testimony of Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan:

Toyota asked for 56 billion dollars from Great Britain. No talk of if the loan was granted.

The Army depends on a Chrysler engine for power generation in several vehicles. A marine general was quoted as saying the failure of the auto industry could affect the armies ability to operate.

Losses have been across the board in all auto companies. Toyota sales have dropped, as has Hyundai, in numbers, by percentage, comparable to the losses of the American automakers. Korea gave us 700,000 cars last year, we sold them less than 7,000. There are many factors that have made the mess that the auto industry is in.

Failure and bankruptcy is not an option. Even if bankruptcy hits one of the big three, it could cost as much as 2 million jobs. Bankruptcy would cost Americans total 276 billion dollars in revenue, and cost the government an additional 110 billion dollars. Bankruptcy would help through restructuring, they say, but Detroit has been trying to, and it has not worked. They have done all they can. The UAW has cut wages for new employees by 50%. Name one other industry where that has happened.

Labor costs have been cut by 50% at GM. There has already been restructuring. Bankruptcy could well cost millions of people their jobs.

We need to make sure that these companies stay afloat. We have a dependence on foreign oil. I think everyone would agree with that. Do you want to add to that a dependence on foreign manufacturing, for both our personal vehicles, and our military vehicles? That is the price we would pay if we let the big three go bankrupt, and if one goes, the other may well follow.

Ron Gettelfinger, UAW Union President: The UAW, in mid contract has cut out pay increases to help make the industry more competitive. And have cut out cost increases in their contract to help the industry. GM has already lost 47 thousand union jobs in the last 3 years to help be competitive.

Alan Mulally, President of Ford: 51,000 jobs already cut at Ford. Ford has increased production of hybrid vehicles, and is putting out a few new cars that more than compete with the Japanese hybrids. Production has been cut, raises and bonuses have been cut, jobs have been cut. Ford would be hurt by any other of it’s competitors failing. They are interdependent on the other two members of the big three.

Robert Nardelli, Chrysler Chairman: Chrysler has liquidity issues, but says it is part and parcel an issue based on the entire economy. Bankruptcy will cause sales to plummet. When the company told customers it would divest some portion of the company(unnamed), sales dropped by 37%. The industry has no confidence that it will survive through bankruptcy. Cerberus, Chrysler’s owner, will forgo taking any profit that it makes from the bridge loan it gets. Chrysler has dropped it’s fixed costs by over 2 billion dollars, and have cut over 37,000 jobs.

Each company has claimed it has big vehicles out there in the next few years, and Chrysler is no different. They have two new ones coming out in the next two years.

Richard Wagoner, GM Chairman: Gm employees 96000 people, and there are well over 100000 other people who work in ancillary companies. there are 750000 people who have invested in the company. Fixed costs have been cut by 9 billion dollars, and will cut labor costs by 2/3 by the time 2011 comes around. GM has addressed as well as they could the future of the industry, as they see it. Money is being cut across the board as it has been with the other of the big three companies.

GM does not agree that the issue is their long term strategy, it is the credit crisis. Without the credit crisis, they claim they would be fine. They are doing everything they can. The cost of letting the auto industry fail would cost significantly more than the 25 billion that they ask for now.

Pete Morici, the University of Maryland Economist on the panel that is against this loan. He claims that the industry has fallen victim to foreign protectionism. The Costs are not as low as they are in Japan. He thinks that if we give the 25 billion, they will be back and ask for more later. Toyota and GM make the same amount of vehicles, but it costs gm more to make them, so they make less money, so they then have less money coming back.

Wagoner: If They go out of business, suppliers would go out of business, bankrupt, with millions affected. State and local governments would be affected by bankruptcy as well.

Nardelli: Of it’s top 100 suppliers, 96 they have in common with the other two of the big three, they would be hurt by any one of the big three going under. Financial companies would be at risk if any of these companies get liquidated.

Gettelfinger: If one of the big three goes belly up, it will may well take the other two with them.

A question was asked about what mistakes were made. Nardelli says they found 4 cars that were being made for Europe that were being sold here. They immediately stopped making them. They said that the customer wanted the bigger gas guzzler, and simply gave them what they wanted, instead of being more adaptive, and finding what they needed and that is why they had issues. Wagoner says credit was a real issue, as was the structure of GM itself, but they have moved to make changes there. Sales of gas guzzlers hurt them. He seemed less than up front with saying it was GMAC’s fault, but understands that there was a Culture that let these issues pop up. Ford did not offer easy credit, but Wagoner said the low Interest rate and other factors added to the making it easy to get the big gas guzzler.

And all of this before the major grilling by the Banking committee took place. Time for a little commentary on what has transpired here.

If the numbers each of these companies have given is accurate, and there have been as many cuts in workforce as they say, with over 135,000 jobs cut out in the last 3 years, there isn’t going to be all that much fat to cut. Production has been cut, much has been done to make sure that these companies stay healthy. But with credit just not being there for them, that has hurt them significantly. If the credit crisis did not exist right now, these three industries would be fine, or so it seems. But the credit crisis is here, it is real, and it is crippling the auto giants, and making them less competitive.

The most pertinent question is, how realistic is the need to give 25 billion dollars to all three? Should there not be a way to target more precisely the needs of each one of them individually? I thought it was the best way to go to give them this loan initially, but now I am not entirely sure. If these companies can be saved with specific individual loans when they are actually needed, rather than a large loan to all three at once, why wasn’t this kind of idea floated? But the legislation is already on the floor of the senate. There is no way to change that. I will have to look at the proposed legislation under a microscope and see what exactly it says.

If I have enough time to go through all the legislation and report on it here, I will.

How realistic do you think is the need for a large blanket loan to save the entire industry? How would you handle this particular issue? Would you give them the money? Are they pushing this thing through too quickly? Drop me a Line and Let me know!

Uncle Mikey

Sometimes I go through the news, combing through it, looking for out of the way stories, that have, or can have impact on politics. I found two on friday that I thought would be of some interest.

Justice for sale. That is the implication in the story of one West Virginia justice Brent Benjamin, and the curious tale of his involvement in a case that involved his biggest campaign contributor, Donald Blankenship.

The name of the case is Caperton V. Massey Coal.

It seems that Mister Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Co. had a case in W.V. court that went against him, in the form of a judgement against him for $50,000,000. Hugh Caperton, President of Harman Mining, the litigant, claimed that Massey, with Blankenship at it’s head, had pushed Harman out of business by committing fraud in the form of buying the sole buyer of Harman’s coal and then sharply reducing the amount of coal purchased, and plunging them into bankruptcy. The lower court agreed, and Massey, as is their right, appealed. This is where the impropriety took place. Justice Benjamin sits on the Appeals court, and twice was the swing vote in this case and ruled in favor.

If he had not taken any campaign funds from Mister Blankenship, this would not be an issue. But Justice Benjamin had recieved $500,000 in direct campaign contributions, and the head of Massey had also donated almost $2,500,000 to a section 527 organization that helped get Justice Benjamin get elected to his seat.

The man should have recused himself. Even if there is a whiff of possible impropriety, most justices recuse themselves and bow out, so as not to look like they are judging a case that they have a vested interest in. So they don’t look like they have been bought. Justice Benjamin thought otherwise.

The question before the court, which accepted the case Friday, is whether by not recusing himself, Justice Benjamin violated the Due Process of the 14th amendment rights of Hugh Caperton and Harman Mining.

In 1934, in the case Snyder V. Mass, the Supreme court ruled that it is a Violation of Due Process…:

If a practice or rule offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental

We can’t have even the thought that our judges can be bought, owned, and rule for people who have given them money in any way shape or form, allowed. The Principles of justice require that we have justices of conscience behind the bench. It cannot, regardless of what any justice thinks, have the taint of impropriety that judging a case for someone who has given money to them. At all.

My guess is that the Justices will rule in favor of Caperton and will send the message loud and clear that Justice for America is NOT for sale, and even the appearance of that concept should not enter the minds of anyone entering what should be impartial proceedings.

One other case of interest before the court is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

This is a case where a Movie, “Hillary: The Movie” was to be shown around the country as Hillary Clinton was campaigning for The Democratic Nomination for President of The United States. As I remember it, it was shown in some places, but since it was political speech and it was in the middle of the campaign cycle and did not show who funded it, it was barred from being televised. The F.E.C. said that the group could not broadcast the film without breaking campaign funding laws. The McCain Feingold act forbids corporate-funded broadcast ads that attack a candidate within a month of a primary or general election and requires full disclosure of those who fund ads. The movie in it’s original form had no disclosure of who funded it. I am not sure if that changed in any subsequent showings. And like I said, this was to run while Sen. Clinton was campaigning. A clear breach of McCain Feingold, but….

Citizens United claims that limitations on core political speech rights is unconstitutional. They may have a claim here, and it is no small matter. Free speech is one of the bedrocks of the constitution, and limitations on it are not welcome. But the free speech angle here is a somewhat deceptive one. It was a blatantly biased political film, against one candidate who was at the time on the stump, and it was to be shown at home, and video on demand and such as well as in theatres, clearly running afoul of McCain-Feingold.

The Only way i see a complete victory for Citizens United in this case is if they use as precedent a case that came before the court last year that found:

Limitations on corporate and labor union funding of broadcast ads mentioning a candidate within 30 days of a primary or caucus or 60 days of a general election are unconstitutional as applied to ads susceptible of a reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.

The question then becomes whether “Hillary:The Movie” a 90 minute Anti Hillary Clinton campaign ad can be reasonably be seen as “other than as an appeal to vote” against her. It looks to me like it clearly an appeal to vote against her: Take a look for yourself.

Tell me what you think, America! How do you feel about the Courts? Can they be bought? Are they there for the highest bidder? Can free speech include attacks from nameless faceless individuals on the campaign trail, or should we know where they are coming from? Was Citizens United’s Right to Free speech curbed here? Drop me a Line and Let me Know!

Uncle Mikey

There are voices in the senate and the house that are raising concerns about saving what at least one member of congress has called a Dinosaur, the auto industry, and saying that infusing cash into the system will merely be giving that dinosaur whose day of reckoning is near a few months of life, merely postponing the inevitable. Now, I do not have a problem with calling the industry a dinosaur whose time has come, but to not make the attempt to keep the millions affected by it’s possible collapse, when we have already throw hundreds of billions to save the drowning dinosaur that is financial markets, why not throw 3% of the total amount earmarked to save the wall street dinosaur and save the automotive one?

There is still $410,000,000,000 left in the bailou…err rescue package. Using a mere 6% of that total, you can keep several large contributors in our economy afloat, and all the businesses that depend on or work with the big 3 automakers will be kept going. More on the ripple effect in a few. This bailou…err, rescue package money was meant, on the face of it, to help the financial markets, but in a broader sense, it was meant to help save us from the economic excesses that got us in trouble in the first place. In this instance, Original Intent is trumped by necessity. The areas that the auto industry inhabits would be devastated. You opponents of aid to the auto industry would turn large tracts of America into Ghost towns for your own petty political wants.

It should not surprise anyone that the Senator who made the statement in question, the “Dinosaur” comment, Senator Shelby from Alabama, has several thriving foreign auto makers building cars in his state, Namely Mercedes Benz, Honda and Hyundai. A healthy and robust GM, Ford and Chrysler in Detroit would create more competition for market share, and take a share of Honda and Hyundai’s sales from them. And Sen. Shelby would prefer those jobs stay in his district, so why not stifle competition by cutting off relief to help Detroit?

How much good would you be doing if you left this industry to die, to be liquidated, how many jobs does America lose, at a time it can ill afford to lose them? With Job Losses mounting, opponents of assistance seem to be saying that a few million extra unemployed in America, on top of the losses that have happened, and others that are expected to happen are fine by them. Do they really want to add millions more to that number? Are they TRYING to kill America and American Business?

I can hear the next argument coming. It is socialism to do this. Bankrolling Big Business is tantamount to creating Government run industry, and didn’t we fight and defeat communism? Yes we did, but that matters not one iota here.

Face facts, ladies and gentlemen, we aren’t the 100% free market economy that you think we are. That is a fiction, plain and simple, but we aren’t socialists either. When things are going great it’s winner take all, but as the past actions of the federal reserve, the treasury, and the current administration have shown, we are NOT a free market nation when the chips are down. We are protectionists, not socialists. When it comes down to it, we have as a fallback position, the use of public funds when the well of private funds dry up or freeze. This is not socialist, this is internal protectionism, plain and simple.

Back to the Legislation itself.

The plan here is pretty simple. Take a (relatively) small amount of the Tarp Funds, to help save an industry that has helped shape the face of America for over a century. This industry affects millions of jobs, and has a large effect on the economy, we need to something, and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd thinks this is the best way to save this “dinosaur” and make it relevant again. Yes bad business practices have made the industry falter. Yes oil prices have negatively affected car sales, and they were down even before that. That is no reason to let the industry go the way of the dodo.

There is an alternate legislative direction that can be taken. There is $25,000,000,000 out there, that is earmarked for creating more fuel efficient cars. That money could be funneled to help out the auto industry. I don’t have a problem with this solution, the Bush Administration solution, but this should, to my mind, only be considered if it is certain that the Tarp funds re-allocation will not pass and reach the people in the industry who really need it. We do need more fuel efficient cars, but we need the auto industry in good enough shape to build them before we worry about that. At this point it’s any port in a storm, and if That’s the road we have to take, we take it. It is clearly the second best road to travel, but any road is better than letting the industry rot and die due to mismanagement from within and lack of forethought from without.

Supporters of the Automotive bailout package have even offered to make the package smaller to make it more palatable to those whom they are depending for help.

We “helped” Aig. We “helped” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We “helped” wall street. The least we can do is offer that same “help”, in that same spirit, to the auto industry. Millions of Americans are depending on it. Leaving the Industry to die would be proof that government is more interested it’s friends in The financial industry than in “We The People”.

Don’t let The Auto Industry fail.

That’s my two cents. What do you think America? Do you think it makes sense to save Detroit, or do you think it hurts America to make this bailout happen? Drop me a line and let me know!

Uncle Mikey

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

Why, You of Course! I’m sorry, I should not give away the ending like that, but since you knew the answer before I told you what money I was talking about, I decided to not beat around the Bush/Cheney.

There seems to be no end in site for America’s financial woes. Since last Friday, two banks, including one run by the man who created the Mortgage backed security (there IS justice, see?!) have been bought out by the FDIC, and Circuit city has gone belly up, declaring bankruptcy, and there is much talk of General Motors going the same route. The banks were the 18th and 19th to need such a buyout by the FDIC this year. AIG has needed an additional infusion of cash, above and beyond what was needed initially, due to having to pay off credit default swaps, which ate up most of the money they were initially handed by the Feds.

We the people signed off on one stimulus package to stimulate the economy, to no avail. We the people, signed off on a $700,000,000,000 bailou…err rescue package, and the economy has seen almost no real benefit. In Fact the economy seems to have worsened since this Forced “generosity” of the public was brought to the fore. And now not only is the fed not telling us about an additional 2 trillion dollars in funds that has been handed out, but there is talk of a second stimulus package, and another bailou…err rescue package, this one for the Automotive industry.

One wonders exactly how much affect the countermeasures are having or can really have.

This is how it looks from this writer’s perch. I’m not sure that anything they do will fix the economy as a whole, even if they manage to catch pieces of it as it falls apart. They saved AIG, it was “Too Big to Fail”. Nice, there goes $150,000,000,000. I do not know how much it would have cost to simply let it fail, and let the market pick up the pieces, but i cannot picture it costing much more than that. I would not mind talking to a financial expert or two about this subject here, the more minds weighing in on this the better. The Jobs saved were important, but where was the fed when Lehman went belly up? And what help can over 1,000,000 people who lost jobs get?

The Stock prices on everything are getting positively KILLED, and the bailou…err, rescue plan hasn’t helped, no stimulus plan will make that better anytime soon. The volatility is only amplified by governmental interference, because the market sees that the government, despite it’s best efforts, is just not knowledgeable enough here to do any real good. Sure, they’ll take the money, wouldn’t you if someone offered you a free bank vault full of cash? Why do you think American Express decided to become a bank? It’s because of the FREE MONEY, that’s why!

If the government had only played a more limited role here, i think things would be less volatile now.

What we need is a small but consistent governmental role in this economic crisis. Save GM, like you saved AIG, because 2,000,000 jobs lost and millions of pensions up in smoke if GM goes the way of the dodo would be too large a strain on an already weakened economy. But AIG doesn’t need all the extra cash free and clear from us. The one variable no one thinks of is the strain on the General Public.

If AIG is too big to fail, What about the United States of America? Aren’t we “To Big to Fail” too? Who’s gonna Bail Us out? Who’s going to rescue us? China? The Republicans? The Democrats? Can our government help us, and do they really know what they are doing?

Tell me what you think America! Is the government making things worse through sheer mismanagement? Do they have a clue? Is Big business taking advantage of us? Drop me a line and tell me what you think!

Uncle Mikey

Nope. It isn’t. And you thought it was safe to turn your back on the Senate. Silly person.

I’ve been holding off on this one for a while, in large part because i wanted to see if things in at least one of these Senate races would shake out, but nothing has resolved itself, so that means it now time for a quick overview of the 3 races in question.

Race One. Chambliss(R) Vs. Martin(D) : There is going to be a run-off election on December 2nd in this race, due to a Georgia rule that says thatif the winner does not win with 50% of the vote, there must be a run-off election to declare a winner. Sen. Chambliss won in his bid to defend his seat from challenger Jim Martin, but missed the magic 50% mark by a scant twenty three hundreths of one percent, while defeating Jim Martin by 110,985 votes.

The only reason I don’t think this is a lock is for Sen. Chambliss is that minds changed quickly in the democratic runoff election and the same may happen here. Mister Martin finished 2nd behind Vernon Jones, 6% behind, but due to a need for a run-off, same lack of 50% in the primary, Mister Martin got the support of 20,000 more voters, while mister Jones lost 75,000 votes in a contest where many less voters actually showed up for the run-off to win said primary.

Anything can happen. Don’t be surprised if either man wins. Stay tuned here on 12/02/08 for results.

Race Two. Coleman(R) Vs. Franken(D) Vs. Barkley(I): This race is a case of a third party candidate making a clsoe race closer. Dean Barkley, Former U.S. Senator and co-founder of the Minnesota Independence party, grabbed a fairly high but entirely expected 15% of the vote. This left 85% of the electorate in a tight race to vote between two strong candidates in a very tight race. The votes are being recounted as we speak for a very good reason. 2,885,502 Votes were cast, and as of last check, 206 votes separate Sen. Coleman and Mister Franken. And with that small of a margin and that many votes to recount, it should not be surprising that this recount is expected to last deep into december.

News as it happens here. Maybe Minnesota could learn something from Georgia here and institute mandatory run-offs for races this close.

Race Three. Stevens(R) Vs. Begich(D): Love is blind, and apparently votes in Alaska. Ted Stevens, a man known for getting things for his constituents, got himself stuff to boot, did it inapprorpriately, and has been found guilty of it in a court of law, yet the people of Alaska have seen fit to give him enough votes to make this race a dead heat. The vote total at this point shows a 3,353 vote difference in Stevens favor with more than 40,000 absentee ballots that have yet to be counted. Those votes should be counted within the next two or three days, and a winner should, in one direction or another, be decided.

Should Ted Stevens win Re-Election, he will be the first felon elected to the United States Senate.

And here is the kicker, ladies and gentlemen. If the Dems in all three races here win, and there is a slim possibility of this happening, that would give the democratic party a 60 seat Filibuster-proof Majority in the senate for President-Elect Obama, making it much easier for him to get his agenda put in place for the next two years.

If you live in any of these areas, drop me a line and tell me what people are saying, I’d like to know. As for everyone else, how’d the non-Presidential vote go last week? Get everything you wanted? Are you more sure that government is a mess now than ever, or is the ship of state starting to turn in the right direction? Drop me a line and let me Know, America!

Uncle Mikey

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year of our lord one thousand nine hundred and eighteen, the War to end all Wars ended. Veterans day, Initially known as Armisitice day, was meant to serve as a day to pause and reflect on the sacrifices of those who fought and died in that great war. This is the 90th Anniversary of that date.

It has come to be a day to pause and reflect on the sacrifices of all those who have fought and died in all of our wars.

You don’t have to love America to be an American.

You don’t have to respect the Government to live here.

But the one thing you should do is give respect to those who have fought, bled and died for the cause that is the United States of America.

Below is a link to video shot last year at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Tomb of The Unknown Soldier

And Don’t Forget to Salute a Veteran today.

That is all.

Uncle Mikey

A quick and easy three step process. Well, ok, maybe not so easy, but let’s look at it, shall we?

Step One. Understanding your constituency

This nation is not a center left nation. Nor is it a center right nation. It is a nation of Moderates. Why else do you think People left the Republican party in droves the last few years? People left the party because it was taken over by the Karl Rove - Dick Cheney lunatic fringe. Moving away from there is a good start. The Conservatives are becoming more and more fringe as time moves on. Think of the joke Dick Cheney has become. There are about 4 of 5 jokes I could think of, but let’s go with something he actually thinks. He thinks the Vice presidency is part of the Legislative branch, and he even got Sarah Palin to buy into it! What kind of Nonsense is that? Has he not read the Constitution? The Vice Presidency is NOT a part of the Legislative Branch!

Take the party back from the Wingnuts.

I could say much the same thing about Gay Marriage. While it is a sticky issue, it doesn’t seem to resonate (except in California, for obvious reasons) quite as much now that there is a larger crisis going on. Fringe issues do not a political party make. If you want people to vote for you, you have to reach out to them, not the other way around. And reach out to ALL of them.

Step Two. Coherent messaging.

For Those who watched the Republican Meltdown during the last month of the campaign, with messages as varied as “The fundamentals of the economy are strong” and “I’m suspending the campaign to deal with the crisis” in only a few days, denoted confusion and lack of a grasp of the basic issues at hand. That MUST be dealt with before the election cycle. There is an Old Maxim that fits here. “Failing to plan is planning to Fail.” Example: Despite the fact that the economy had been in seriously bad shape for months, no one had thought to focus on messaging here in case of emergency. The lack of coherence made the Democrats look better just because they did in fact look like they had a handle on things.

That was where the Republicans lost the election.

Step Three. Diversity.

This may be the most difficult part of the three step strategy. The party is seen by a great many people as not being representative of the people simply because there are great swaths of the population that simply do not exist in the Republican ranks. The party needs to make swift and major changes to it’s infrastructure, to allow Hispanics, Asians and African Americans a greater voice, and more importantly, give them face time, and show the Republicans can be more than just the Party of rich white people. The Party of Lincoln needs to become the party of Lincoln again, they have forsaken those roots in recent years.

And one other quick thing. Time. Time heals all wounds. The Party might be down, but it won’t stay down.

That is my quick fix outline for fixing the republican party. If you would like to see me go more In depth, I would be more than happy to throw a more comprehensive version of this out for you.

How do you feel about these recommendations? Right? Wrong? Crazy Populist Nonsense? Drop me a line and let me Know, America!

Uncle Mikey

There really are important things to talk about here, but I want to get something out of the way first.

I have recently run into a barrage of misinformation, which I had honestly though of as dismissed, about our president elect. Talk of his being a Muslim. Talk of him not really being born in the United States. Ridiculous, but let’s look at it once again, just to clear things up once and for all, shall we?

Second point first. Barack Obama was Born 7:24PM August 4th, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to his birth certificate. When the birth certificate was released, there were immediate statements flying around that it was a forgery, that it was fake, even though what was out there was not an Original, but a scanned copy of his birth certificate. In August 2008, a Philadelphia lawyer by the name of Philip Berg challenged in court then Senator Obama’s eligibility for the Presidency o the grounds that he was in fact born in Kenya and was a citizen of Indonesia, and therefor inelegible to run for the Presidency. The complaint was dismissed by district court Judge R. Barclay Surrick. A quote from the philadelphia daily news website, philly.com:

In a 34-page memorandum and opinion, the judge said Berg’s allegations of harm were “too vague and too attenuated” to confer standing on him or any other voters.

Surrick ruled that Berg’s attempts to use certain laws to gain standing to pursue his claim that Obama was not a natural-born citizen were “frivolous and not worthy of discussion.”

The judge also said the harm Berg alleged did “not constitute an injury in fact” and Berg’s arguments to the contrary “ventured into the unreasonable.”

For example, Berg had claimed that Obama’s nomination deprived citizens of voting for Sen. Hillary Clinton in November. (Berg backed Clinton in the primaries.)

Not to mention there was a birth announcement of one Bouncing Baby Barack that came out 9 days later in the Honolulu Advertiser.

You people need to pay closer attention, I’m not saying this stuff again.

Next Up. The Muslim Thing.

Barack Obama is not a muslim. Barack Obama is Not a Muslim. BARACK OBAMA IS NOT A F$#%$% MUSLIM! GOT IT? GOOD! NOW SHUT THE F*** UP ABOUT IT.

Sorry, I was channeling Rahm Emanuel for a second there.

Two facts to chew on. One: He was Sworn in to the U.S. Senate on His Family Bible. Let me repeat that for the ignoramuses out there. HIS FAMILY BIBLE. BIBLE. CHRISTIAN BIBLE. (I’m shaking my head in disbelief that I even have to mention this)

The actual “Obama: Secret Muslim” thing was made up by right wing nutjob Andy Martin about two weeks after President-Elect Obama’s keynote address in 2004. Out of the Blue.

He was heard once when talking to George Stephanopolous, about his religion, and he said “My Muslim Faith”, and he was corrected by George and the conversation went on. People have latched on to this as the clinching proof that Preseident-Elect is a muslim. One word suffices as an answer to this.

PLEASE.

Like I have said numerous times both here and On my personal blog, there is nothing reasonable or intelligent about this. The people who are latching onto this are looking for a reason to dislike and distrust him. I will say the following to you who believe that Obama really is a muslim.

Why search for a reason to hate him? Hate, like love, needs no reason. Plus I think most mature adults know the real reason why peole latch onto this fluff.

The horse-manure never ends with these people, does it?

Do you dislike the President-Elect, and if so, Why, and If not, why not? Do you let reason rule when making political decisions about politicians, or do you, like most Americans, go with gut level instinct and then look to see what they are about? I’m curious to see what you think America! Drop me a Line!

Uncle Mikey