Author: Archangel M

Allison Kilkenny muses about how Hillary Clinton might just turn off enough voters in the general election to have them stay home, which is kind of the argument Barack Obama, his wife, and their supporters have been encouraging.

There is a deep divide in the Democratic party between Progressives and the traditionalists, like Hillary Clinton, that helped sell the rest of us down the river. I’ve heard from many people that they would loathe seeing another Clinton in the White House, and so I wonder what will happen come election time if Hillary is indeed our presidential candidate. Perhaps this is all talk, and once the cold feet set in, liberals will sprint to the voting booth, and vote Hillary in, nonetheless.

The anxiety is palpable in the Democratic party, which is why Howard Dean, as usual, gave the game away with his complete ineptitude of maintaining a serious poker face. What was once considered an easy Democratic victory now seems up for grabs, so he’s eager to work something out quickly. Maybe he plans to cajole one of the front-runners into taking a V.P. nomination, though I can’t see Barack or Hillary taking second place at this point.

Mitt Romney’s resignation from the campaign trail is indicative of the Republican strategy for victory: unite at any cost, even if you hate the bastard representing your party. Though everyone from Coulter to Limbaugh are busily chastising professional old bastard, McCain, they’ll surely vote for him at election time. However, Democrats have a hard time voting against the consciences like that. If voters hate Hillary, they may simply stay home come November.

Brian Rothenberg also has serious misgivings about the implosion and fracturing of the Democratic Party this year.  But his column isn’t about animosity toward Clinton, it’s about what’s going on in Ohio as state secretary Jennifer Brunner tries to fix our state’s broken electoral system.

Matt Damschroder is a likeable guy, a Republican who somehow remained as Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections even though the position usually changes over and mirrors the party of the Ohio Secretary of State, who is now a Democrat.

He has done so, in part, because Denny White, former Ohio Democratic Party Chair and Deputy Director, is phasing out his long, successful career and inching toward rumored retirement. But there are loud grumblings that White remaining in the junior deputy position signals that Democrats may be sleeping while Rome is burning. Our election system calls for balance to keep Ohio elections immune from party politics, and emails reveal that Democrats aren’t offering the needed counter-balance to Damschroder.

The emails of Mr. Damschroder demonstrate the ease and familiarity he has with people of both political parties and the media. And it is that genial behavior that masks what the emails reveal: An agenda to preserve Ohio’s now scientifically proven flawed election machinery.

There are some heavy partisan scars inflicted by Mr. Damschroder’s role in Franklin County, the most obvious being the well-documented voting machine shortages resulting in long lines for Franklin County’s minority precincts in 2004.

This is yet another reason why having two massive egos slugging it out until convention for the Democratic nomination is so utterly bad for both our political party and the nation.  No matter who wins come August, that candidate must face serious threats to electoral integrity coming from the GOP.  Remember that it was election-rigging in Ohio under then-state secretary Ken Blackwell, a Republican, that helped keep the shrub and his gargoyle in office another four years despite voters clearly preferring Democrat John Kerry for president.

So what happens when the Democratic nominee must wait until August to be crowned, badly bloodied from an extended primary fight and strapped for cash having spent the bulk of it throughout, while John McCain gets to spend the time between now and then building support, finances and strategy?  In a word: Disaster.  The nominee, no matter who it is, shall be focused on trying to win the general in a mere two and a half months (give or take) against a foe who has had plenty of time to rest and prepare.  Helping to make sure states like Ohio aren’t compromised by Republican electoral fraud won’t even be on our candidate’s mind.

This by no means is an endorsement of Barack Obama, who is as unfit and unlikely to win in November as Hillary Clinton.  But the animosity toward the Clinton clan for helping to weaken the Democratic Party for nearly fifteen years is real, and it may result in a larger electoral loss in November than the one that would occur with an Obama candidacy.  The GOP knows this, which is exactly why has been counting on a Clinton or Obama candidacy, but clearly preferring Clinton as the Democratic nominee.

The continuing battle for the Democratic nomination couldn’t have been a bigger or better gift to movement conservatives, who began this year having resigned themselves to a four-to-eight year Democratic presidency.    Whether we can take that away from them before August — perhaps, as Howard Dean foolishly hopes, during the Spring — is anyone’s guess.

With Mitt Romney now out of the Republican race for president, John McCain is much, much closer to locking up his political party’s nomination.  What does this mean for Democrats?  Bad news, and here’s why.

McCain now has less to worry about going into November.  Mike Huckabee might yet pose a serious challenge, since he has the backing of the religious far right.  But this assumes that Huckabee manages to win most states in the remaining primaries and caucuses.  And there’s no reason to think this shall be the case.  The most likely scenario is that McCain continues to do well, and there will be no brokered Republican National Convention.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are essentially tied for delegates, both are likely to go to the Democratic National Convention to settle who shall be the party’s nominee for president.  Obama has a slight advantage of money; Clinton has had to lend her campaign money from out of pocket, and have her paid staff go without their salaries for a while.  But since Super Tuesday, both Clinton and Obama have managed to raise roughly equal amounts of campaign money.

As reported by DHinMI, Howard Dean is trying to get the two prima donna candidates to make some sort of deal to avoid a brokered convention.  The chairman of the Democratic National Committee knows why a brokered convention would be bad for the party; while McCain uses the time between now and his party’s convention to shore up support, raise money, and form a general election campaign strategy against the Democratic nominee, we’ll still be fighting the nominating process out until August.  That means whoever the nominee is shall go into the general election exhausted from a drawn out primary fight, and having expended much of his or her financial resources.

So the advantage clearly goes to McCain, if Clinton and Obama insist on staying in competition for the Democratic nomination until convention.  And this is where Dean’s attempt to make the two prima donnas reach some sort of deal shall fail.  Because their egos are so huge, neither Clinton or Obama is willing to accept second fiddle status as vice president.  And the fierceness of the campaign so far has taken a publicly visible toll; at the shrub’s last SotU liefest, Obama gave Clinton the cold shoulder as she moved to shake hands with Senator Edward Kennedy — who endorsed her rival.  Obama’s latest ‘Harry and Louise‘-style attacks on Clinton’s health care plan (which is pissing off a lot of progressives, including economist Paul Krugman), strengthens the likelihood that there will be no Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket.

So while many are cheering Romney’s departure from the Republican race, it also presents a serious problem for Democrats.  The opposition now has less of a reason to worry about its chances in November, while we have plenty to worry about.  Howard Dean’s attempts to get the prima donnas to shelve their differences and reach some kind of deal are a public acknowledgment of this problem.

Which makes it all the more sad that John Edwards and not Clinton or Obama was the one to call it quits.  Had he won enough early states to be the likely nominee, all this would have been settled and we would be able to stand a chance in November.  But now, with Obama and Clinton duking it out until convention, we have once again shot ourselves in the foot by sticking our party with a fundamentally weak candidate going into the general election.  The Democratic Party, as usual, has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  And that is bad for all of America.

We now know what did in actor Heath Ledger: an accidental overdose of prescription medications, according to MSNBC.  The combination of drugs in his system took their toll on the physically and mentally exhausted young man, and killed him.

John McCain — again, according to MSNBC, has pulled into a clear lead over his rivals on Super Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain seized command of the race for the Republican presidential nomination early Wednesday, winning delegate-rich primaries from the East Coast to California. Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama traded victories in an epic struggle with no end in sight.

And:

McCain’s own victory in the Republican race in the Golden State dealt a crushing blow to his closest pursuer, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

I guess given their options, Republican voters decided that Romney — like Rudy Giuliani — is just too creepy a motherfucker to want in the White House.  McCain’s a motherfucker too; all the Republican candidates are.  But he’s a known quantity, predictable, semi-sane.  None of the other jerks can boast such a perception.

And how did Clinton and Obama fare yesterday?  As the New York Times reports:

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama carved up the nation in the 22-state nominating contest on Tuesday, leaving the Democratic presidential nomination more elusive than ever. Mrs. Clinton won California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and her home state, New York, while Mr. Obama took Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota and his base in Illinois.

And:

Mrs. Clinton won 584 delegates in Tuesday’s vote, bringing her total to 845, according to a count by The Associated Press. Mr. Obama won 569 delegates for a total of 765, The A.P. reported. A candidate needs 2,025 votes to win the nomination.

So Clinton is ahead on the delegate front, but Obama still has enough to remain in contention and make it a brokered convention in August.  Super Tuesday may have come and gone, but there are still a lot of states to go before the primary season has finished.  And both Clinton and Obama have demonstrated their willingness to go for the jugular — against each other.  As Paul Krugman blogged yesterday:

I really, really wish he would stop this:

Obama likened Clinton’s health care mandate proposal to eliminating homelessness by requiring everyone buy a house.

The Clinton plan does every bit as much to ensure affordability as the Obama plan. This is just grotesque.

Add: There are no excuses this time. You can’t say that it’s the work of some staffer. This is unscrupulous demagoguery from the candidate himself.

Speaking of Paul Krugman, I’ve seen a lot of attacks on him from Obama supporters that range from unfair and ignorant to unfair and blatantly dishonest.  So let me, dear reader, point out a few things.

1.) Krugman is a self-proclaimed liberal, writing about his beliefs and stating his opinions.

2.) He is a very knowledgeable economist who has done extensive research on the Long Gilded Age, the Great Depression, the New Deal and its effects, its decline and collapse, the Republican counterrevolution and rise to power.  He has also maintained his position as an observer of recent history and current events.  So he knows what he’s writing about.

3.) Krugman’s biggest and most personal issue is health care.  He has stated that he wants single-payer, not for profit health care (Medicare for all, in short).  But he thinks that is politically impossible at this point in time, and not without reason; the GOP is unified in its opposition to it, and the Democratic Party doesn’t have the political will to push for it.  So yes, with only three health care plans to analyze that stand any chance of making it to the general election, he has focused primarily on those three.  And after analyzing the Edwards, Clinton, and Obama plans, he has found flaws in each of them but obviously has his opinion on which would be better if implemented.  Again, health care is Krugman’s biggest personal issue.  And he is going to carry out his analysis based on which of the major candidates’ health care plans most closely matches his preference.  And the result is this:

Kucinich (Who has actually helped draft legislation, HR 676.)

Edwards

Clinton

Obama

Now does this mean Krugman has a preferred candidate?  Not at all.  If we were to go based on Krugman’s stated preference, then by the standards of his more extreme critics one may assume he is a Kucinich supporter.  But logic tells us another story.  What, other than criticizing policy proposals and candidate actions, leads any reasonable person to conclude that Krugman has a favorite in this race?  When Edwards was still in, he obviously preferred that health care plan to those of the other two.  And when it was whittled down to Clinton and Obama, he obviously prefers the Clinton plan to the other one.  But that is not the same as an endorsement of one candidate over another.  If you disagree with Paul Krugman’s assessment of candidates and their policy proposals, fine.  By all means, do so.  But please try to keep a cool head about it.  Criticizing one candidate does not mean one endorses another.

Finally, I saw this posted (I forget where, but I can’t claim credit for discovering it), and it’s worth repeating for those who think either Clinton or Obama can be trusted to look out for us on the health care front.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=H04

Hillary Clinton $349,270

Barack Obama $337,525

According to the Boston Globe, Obama came down on the side of the health insurance industry in the Illinois state senate.

When Barack Obama and fellow state lawmakers in Illinois tried to expand healthcare coverage in 2003 with the “Health Care Justice Act,” they drew fierce opposition from the insurance industry, which saw it as a back-handed attempt to impose a government-run system.

Over the next 15 months, insurers and their lobbyists found a sympathetic ear in Obama, who amended the bill more to their liking partly because of concerns they raised with him and his aides, according to lobbyists, Senate staff, and Obama’s remarks on the Senate floor.

The wrangling over the healthcare measure, which narrowly passed and became law in 2004, illustrates how Obama, during his eight years in the Illinois Senate, was able to shepherd major legislation by negotiating competing interests in Springfield, the state capital. But it also shows how Obama’s own experience in lawmaking involved dealings with the kinds of lobbyists and special interests he now demonizes on the campaign trail.

And:

By the time the legislation passed the Senate, in May 2004, Obama had written three successful amendments, at least one of which made key changes favorable to insurers.

Most significant, universal healthcare became merely a policy goal instead of state policy – the proposed commission, renamed the Adequate Health Care Task Force, was charged only with studying how to expand healthcare access. In the same amendment, Obama also sought to give insurers a voice in how the task force developed its plan.

Lobbyists praised Obama for taking the insurance industry’s concerns into consideration.

Finally:

Obama later watered down the bill after hearing from insurers and after a legal precedent surfaced during the debate indicating that it would be unconstitutional for one legislative assembly to pass a law requiring a future legislative assembly to craft a healthcare plan.

So for those of you who think Obama is the second coming of JFK and that Paul Krugman is somehow doing wrong to criticize his corporate-friendly health care garbage, think again.  Not that this lets Clinton off the hook.  As John Nichols in a recent Nation column writes:

The Clinton plan maintains the current system of for-profit, insurance-industry defined health care delivery. The only real change is that, in return for minimal requirements regarding coverage of those with preexisting conditions, the government would pump hundreds of billions in federal dollars into the accounts of some of the country’s wealthiest corporations. The plan’s tax credit scheme would buy some more coverage for low-income families, which is good, but it would do so at a cost so immense that, ultimately, Clinton’s plan will be as tough a sell as the failed 1993 “Hillarycare” proposal.

Let’s take a look at the bribe numbers again (yes, I know we’re no longer supposed to call it that, but that’s what it is):

Hillary Clinton $349,270

Barack Obama $337,525

Given all this, does anyone seriously believe we shall see true health care reform in this country now that Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards are no longer in the race pushing the two prima donnas on the issue?

By the way, here’s some more health care food for thought:

The mainstream Democratic candidates for President — John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton — have each put forward their proposals for “affordable quality health coverage for all.” The three Democrats’ proposals, while purporting to provide “universal health care”, will not actually achieve this goal:

None of these plans offers a realistic way of containing the rising cost of health care. All will add additional funds to an already too-costly system. None will truly provide universal access to care.

Only a single payer national health insurance program can actually achieve affordable, workable universal access to health care.

And…

The three proposals share a set of common elements:

The private insurance system would remain in place, with no fundamental change in the way it operates. Those who currently have insurance would not experience any change in how they are insured or the coverage they have.

Finally…

What is missing from these plans?

Since multiple payers would remain (even if one of them might be a public payer), few of the savings and simplifications that are possible with a singe payer can be achieved.

Consumers must purchase insurance, but no limits are proposed on what insurers can charge them.

No regulations are proposed that would assure the adequacy of benefits or that would affect either the restrictions that insurers now impose on the choice of doctor and hospital or the way they handle, and deny, claims.

There is no simplification of the complex and wasteful private insurance system with its copays, deductibles, exclusions, and claim denials.

There is no assurance of a “level playing field” between the public insurance plan and the private ones. Insurance company advertising and targeted marketing will still be used to promote private plans over public and to avoid the poor and the sick. At the same time, the private insurers will surely insist on the additional subsidies they already enjoy in the Medicare Advantage program.

Nothing is proposed that would control the rising cost of health care. (The measures they suggest to achieve savings may well increase costs rather than reduce them. In any case, the possibility for savings is speculative at this point.)

Given all this information, and I know it’s a lot to digest the Morning After Super Tuesday, we see that the two corporate candidates’ health care “plans” are awful, but to different degrees.  So cut Paul Krugman some slack when he writes about the candidates’ health care plans.

I was reading through Paul Krugman’s blog entry from earlier today about Dean Baker being wrong, when I came across the following comment.  I don’t know how feasible such a solution might be, but I do think it is very much worth discussing in this argument about the merits of mandates (or lack thereof).  Follow me below the fold for more.

I offer a suggestion that I think gets around at least some of this…though there may be other ideas at least as good:

Require employers to make a one time cost of living raise…about a dollar and a half an hour, or $3,000 per year. This money goes to the employee and […] is immediately subject to a payroll tax dedicated to health insurance. Employers already paying for health care can simply redirect the money. Employers not currently paying health care would have to stop being free riders (paying a below subsistence wage) but they would, as they keep telling us, pass the costs on to their customers, or restructure their payrolls and suffer no harm.

The government would assign people without regard to prior condition to blocks of insurees and then auction the contracts for detailed management of these blocks to insurance companies, and would oversee the performance of those contracts in a manner analogous to the way highway contracts are monitored by the state.

I think this should solve both the political problem and the actuarial one…but it might take some serious discussion to settle that.

Like I said, I don’t know how feasible this idea is.  But I think it is at least worth debating it on its merits.  What do you, dear readers, have to say?

I post this the day before Super Tuesday, which is tomorrow, February 5th, 2008.  My state, Ohio, holds its primary on March 4th.  As you may already know, I was backing Kucinich for president.  Of all the candidates running for president at the time, his were the positions that most closely match my own on the issues important to America.  On health care, I favor a single-payer not for profit system.  Kucinich has introduced HR 676, which if passed would bring about such a health care revolution.

Follow below the fold for more.
Kucinich’s positions on the environment, on jobs, on ending NAFTA and U.S. participation in the World trade Organization, are also positions I hold.  So my choice, given the options before me, was clear from the beginning. On ending the occupation of Iraq, Dennis’s was the better way — an immediate start to bringing the troops home and getting the United Nations in to help us repair what we have broken even as we begin the inevitable and ultimately necessary withdraw.

I would vote for Dennis Kucinich.

But he, along with former Alaskan senator Mike Gravel, was shut out of the Democratic race for president by a mainstream, corporate media that absolutely will not abide a true Progressive getting anywhere near the White House.  After being shut out from debates, after being excluded from the Texas ballot for refusing to sign a fascistic loyalty oath, and after Cleveland’s corporate interests decided to put up well funded primary opponents for his Congressional re-election campaign, Dennis had to withdraw.

With Chris Dodd — the only other leader on standing up to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and standing up for the Constitution and rule of law — having dropped out of the presidential race, my options were pretty limited.  Of the Big Three media darlings, only John Edwards had positions on the issues that were anywhere near mine.  But now that he has dropped out, having been shut out of the media spotlight to the point where he could not gain enough votes to remain in contention, what else is left?

What are my options, now?  I can vote for one of two corporate Democrats, neither of whom gives any more than mere lip service to addressing the issues important to Americans; I can vote third party, but that would leave me unable to cast my vote for Kucinich in his primary battle; I can simply refuse to vote for president at all; or I can vote for Dennis as a write-in candidate, thus sending a message that the two prima donnas in this race have not earned my vote and must do and say certain things in order to earn it by November.

Given this rather limited range of options, there is only one I can make and still be able to look at myself in the mirror.  So I shall cast my primary ballot for president for Dennis Kucinich.  And before anyone starts in on me about how that is a waste of my vote, I ask you: why?  Is this or is it not the primary season?  Am I or am I not supposed to vote my beliefs?  Are or are you not supposed to vote yours?

I am, and you are.  To hell with what conventional “wisdom” dictates.  Conventional “wisdom” dictated that we vote for anybody but Bush last time around, and we listened, and look what that got us: another four years of an outlaw regime destroying not only Iraq, not only Afghanistan, but America.  Grinding three countries into the ground — all for the profit of a relative handful of greedy, old, overgrown, dishonest, and bestial children with delusions of empire.  THAT is what we got for listening to conventional “wisdom”.

If you, dear reader, are not sold on Obama or Clinton tomorrow; if you supported Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, or John Edwards; don’t you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and your country, to vote your beliefs?  Whoever the nominee ultimately is, don’t you know with all your soul that the candidate can, should and must earn your vote in the general election?  What incentive does that candidate have, if you surrender that vote to him or her without making that person do everything reasonable and honest to assure you that your vote shall not be wasted, that the Democratic nominee will run the necessary campaign and on the necessary platform to not only win the White House but actually get sworn in as president?

And that is what it all boils down to, dear reader.  Tomorrow, for better or worse, we shall have perhaps the biggest chance to stand up and make our voices heard.  Instead of throwing away your vote on Obama or Clinton, neither of whom is fit to be president, why not stand up and say to them both with one loud, clear voice, “you want my vote?  You’d better fucking earn it.  And this is how.”

So in my state’s primary, probably the general election, my vote is decided.  I’m voting my beliefs.  I’m voting Democrat.  I’m voting for Dennis Kucinich.  And I am making my voice heard.  If you want to condemn me for that, so be it.  But I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror.  Come Wednesday, come November — come this time next year — shall you be able to boast that?

A lot of people like Ron Paul because he advocates — or seems to advocate — small government.  If only they knew what his fundamentally insane beliefs about “small” government would mean for America today.  For while the original thirteen states required a proportionally small government, and relied upon the individual states for things such as military personnel, the fact is that today’s America is a much larger nation than what the Founding Generation began with — both in terms of land mass and population, and therefore requires a government proportional to its size and population.

What would a Ron Paul administration mean for the American people, in the unlikely event he were to become president?
For starters, a Ron Paul administration would mean — as this web site so eloquently and succinctly put it:

At the root of the Ron Paul “revolution” is the dismantling of Social Security and the Department of Education as well as other basic social programs, and the elimination of worker and environmental protections. Advances like single payer health care? No way. Ron Paul’s message is that you need to take care of yourself, and that there shouldn’t be such government programs, nor such interference with private profit. While he puts forward reasons for not supporting going to war abroad, his domestic policies would ignite civil war at home.

I’ll expand upon this, because the full scope of what would happen under a Ron Paul government really needs to take root in your mind, dear reader.  Imagine you’re sixty-five, and you’re no longer physically capable of working as the younger generations are.  But you can forget about retiring, because you would not have Social Security to help meet your basic income needs.  As CBS News puts it:

According to the AARP, 68 percent of workers currently between the ages of 50 and 70 plan to work in retirement, or to never retire. Almost half of these people say that they plan to work into their 70s.

Once boomers hit retirement age, the number of older employees in the workplace will increase. The economy, Russell says, has already seen a growing number of older workers. The Census Bureau reported that between 1998 and 2000 alone, the number of workers age 64 to 74 increased nearly 14 percent. Some of these are people who simply didn’t retire, others are people who returned to work.

Money is the top reason why boomers intend to remain in the workplace, says Russell.

As an ABC News blog asks, “[a]re we all destined to be 80-year-old greeters at Wal-Mart?”  If Ron Paul were to get his way, the trend we’re seeing now would continue — and continue to get worse.  Because his precious “free market” demands it, and opposes anything government-provided such as Social Security.  In short, we’re already returning to an era not unlike before Social Security, in which people whose bodies are exhausted from a lifetime of labor must soldier on just to survive.  But under a Ron Paul administration, and a compliant Congress, we would no longer have even the weakened social safety net we have today.

Let us now consider education.  Before public education, higher learning was available only to those who could afford it.  It meant that the masses were kept largely ignorant (for reasons I shall explain in a bit), learning only those skills which were necessary to work and produce for the elites in society.  Public education changed all that.  No longer a hallmark of the affluent (relatively or actually), greater access to higher learning in the 1930s and beyond allowed generations of laborers to enjoy a higher standard of living than their parents and grandparents did.  But this is a bit generalized, so here’s a brief explanation of what public education means versus private education.

Public schools are prohibited by the State Constitution from charging state residents any form of tuition or other fees for materials, supplies, textbooks or transportation. Most private schools traditionally impose fees, in addition to tuition, for one or more of these items.

Public school teachers are required to hold college degrees and to be licensed by the state. Private schools have no personnel requirements other than their own.

Public schools must accept any resident student who applies for admission, regardless of sex, race, religious affiliation, economic status or physical or mental handicap. Private schools can be selective in choosing their students.

The right of a public school student to a free education is guaranteed by the State Constitution and the student may not be disciplined in a manner that restricts or removes that right without being afforded due process of law. Private schools are not subject to these requirements and may exclude any student whose behavior is not conducive to the learning process.

Remember what I said about how education was at one time limited only to those who could afford it?  The above quote explains why this is a bad thing.  One of the ways in which the powerful control the masses is keeping them as ignorant as is conveniently possible.  An educated public is a public that cannot be controlled.  And so it benefits the current system to restrict access to education to those who can pay for it.  If you can’t pay for an education, in Ron Paul’s ideal society you’d be out of luck.  Your ability to obtain and maintain employment would depend largely on the whims of private enterprise.  If it requires unskilled labor, you might have a chance.  But it would be a slim one, and you’d find yourself at the dubious mercy of your employer — who would naturally take full advantage of your relative ignorance to prevent you from asserting your rights.

There’s another reason publicly funded education is vital: the maintenance of some standard of public control and accountability.  Many private schools do not perform thorough background checks on their teachers.  According to the Eagle Tribune:

Between 2001 and 2005, with an average of 18,488 credentialed teachers in the state, the state Department of Education revoked the credentials of 22 teachers. Nine of those involved allegations of sexual misconduct, including child pornography and sexual assault, according to state records, news reports and court documents.

New Hampshire’s figures were gathered as part of a seven-month investigation in which Associated Press reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Across the country, sexual misconduct allegations led states to take action against the licenses of 2,570 educators from 2001 through 2005. That figure includes licenses that were revoked, denied and surrendered.

Young people were victims in at least 69 percent of the cases, and the large majority of those were students.

Nine out of 10 of those abusive educators were male. And at least 446 of the abusive teachers had multiple victims.

And that’s just with public school systems.  Private schools are under comparatively little restriction in terms of screening their faculties.  If Ron Paul were to get his way, there would be no funding or enforcement of accountability standards, because that would interfere with his precious “free market”.

As we learned to our horror, the Bush-Cheney regime has taken cronyism to record-setting lows (or highs, whichever description you find more appropriate).  The mining disaster last year at Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah is but one very public example of why big business cannot be trusted to regulate itself.  Ron Paul would not only refuse to change this, he would go out of his way to eliminate or further cripple the already-weakened agencies now in place to regulate labor health and safety standards.  Only in a well regulated system do we see adherence to safety and health protocols.  But this would interfere with the “free market”, and so under Ron Paul it wouldn’t exist.  Think about that the next time you bite into your next hamburger at McDonald’s or the next time you go into work at the local steel mill.

And you can forget about things such as publicly funded — and publicly accountable — police and fire-fighting departments.  Already we have seen the awful results of privatizing such institutions, as last year’s wildfires in California proved.

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, insurance companies started issuing plaques to show private fire brigades which homes to save–and which to let burn. Insurers organized their own firefighting companies. Not having a plaque didn’t mean your home went totally ignored, but it certainly didn’t help.

Today, a decline in public funding for firefighting services has sparked explosive growth in the private sector. The world’s largest insurance company – American Insurance Group – now has “Wildfire Protection Units” in 150 US zip codes. During the 2007 California wildfires, AIG’s firefighters saved homes in wealthy areas, while less fortunate neighbors were left with rubble. A trade group for private firefighters founded in 2000 now represents 10,000 private firemen.

Rancho Bernardo, a wealthy San Diego community that lost 365 homes during the October fires, has just one fire station for a 24-mile area. The city fails to meet the minimum standards for accreditation recommended by the National Fire Protection Association, which requires a minimum of one station for every nine miles.

In a blistering interview earlier this month, San Diego Fire Chief Tracy Jarman told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the city was left on its own to fight the October wildfires–and was woefully unprepared, despite the fact that some richer homeowners had their own private army. With two fires blazing into Rancho Bernardo, Jarman called Cal Fire to request immediate air support and 150 strike teams from the state: 750 fire engines and 3,000 firefighters.

Cal Fire’s response? Nothing was available.

If Ron Paul were to become president, you can count on this privatization of public services becoming an institution.  Haven’t got the money to pay for a private fire department?  Well, sucks to be you then, if ever a fire begins to consume your home.

These are but a few explanations of the utter nightmare that would occur under a Ron Paul government.  I’ve explained in Part One of this series how his fanatical devotion to the “free market” and scorn for government would have led him to let slavery continue had he been president instead of Abraham Lincoln.  In Part Two, I’ve explained how Paul is in the back pocket of big business.  And in Part Three, I’ve pointed out his spotty record on actually defending the Constitution and how his fanaticism led him to either vote against or take no stand on protecting U.S. citizens.  I hope this series has helped Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters understand what Ron Paul is really all about, and how dangerous he really is.  It’s important to understand what he really represents, and what his administration would do to America if he were to be elected president.

The way he talks about going back to the Constitution, you’d think Ron Paul actually believes in it.  And yet, when the time came for him to actually stand up for that venerable document, he was and continues to be strangely absent.  Consider the case of HR 1955, which amounts to a thought crime bill.  It was a sickening display of cowardice on the part of Democrats, voting for yet another of the shrub’s unconstitutional police state measures.  In ordinary times, no Congress in its right collective mind would be allowed to get away with such a thing.  But we do not live in ordinary times.  But where was Ron Paul, supposedly the champion of the Constitution, in the HR 1955 vote?

No Vote    TX-14    Paul, Ronald [R]

Nay    OH-10    Kucinich, Dennis [D]

For that matter, where has Ron Paul been on voting for any legislation that actually protects Americans and the Constitution?  Here are a couple more interesting comparisons between Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

Ronald Paul missed 666 of 7012 votes (9%) since Jan 7, 1997.

Dennis Kucinich missed 345 of 7012 votes (5%) since Jan 7, 1997.

Ron Paul voted against a bill, HR 2517, which according to the summary:

Amends the Missing Children’s Assistance Act to reauthorize through FY2013, and revise requirements for uses of, the annual grant to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by the Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency Prevention.

Why did he do that?  And why did he vote against HR 3791, which would do the following:

Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act of 2007 or the SAFE Act of 2007 – Amends the federal criminal code to expand the reporting requirements of electronic communication and remote computing service providers (service providers) with respect to violations of child sexual exploitation and pornography laws. Requires such service providers, in reporting violations of such laws to the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (Center) to provide: (1) information on the Internet identity of a suspected sex offender, including the electronic mail address, website address, uniform resource locator, or other identifying information; (2) the time child pornography was uploaded or discovered; (3) geographic location information for the offender; and (4) images of such child pornography. Requires the Center to forward each report which it receives from a service provider to a designated law enforcement agency.

Requires service providers to preserve images of child pornography for evidentiary purposes.

Authorizes the Center to provide images of child pornography reported to its CyberTipline to service providers to enable such providers to stop further transmissions of of pornographic images.

Grants service providers and the Center immunity from civil claims or criminal charges for complying the requirements of this Act, except for certain intentional or reckless misconduct.

Where was Representative Paul on HR 4136?  And for someone who claims to stand up for the Constitution, where was he on HR 3773?  Look at his voting record for last year, and you’ll learn he didn’t cast a vote.  And where was Ron Paul on the impeachment of Dick Cheney, when Dennis Kucinich introduced the Articles of Impeachment in November last year?

Ron Paul joined his fellow Republicans in voting to table the resolution.  Then, when the GOPers in the House decided to suddenly keep the bill alive in order to embarrass Democrats into voting against impeachment, he up and joined his fellow Republicans again.  Finally, when the GOPers decided they’d had enough fun and allowed Nancy Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney to the Judiciary Committee to die, Paul voted aye.

When it comes to protecting Americans, and when it comes to protecting the Constitution, Ron Paul’s record is at best spotty and at worst, indicative of someone who thinks it’s a game.  A game!

I thought I’d take a bit of a break from busting the myth of Ron Paul, and address something I haven’t seen much (or anything) about this week on Daily Kos.  On Tuesday, Paul Krugman pointed out in his blog at the New York Times that the Republicans are prepared to hold the economy hostage to the shrub’s tax cuts to the super-wealthy — even as we’re suffering a recession that is not likely to go away before the year is out.

If this Times report is at all right, Republicans will hold any attempt to help the economy now hostage to yet another try at making the Bush tax cuts permanent — thereby, among other things, crippling future possibilities for health care reform. I suspected that’s what would happen, but thought that maybe, just maybe, the GOP would be sufficiently scared by the prospect of a nasty recession in an election year that it would back off. Guess not.

Krugman provides a convenient graph for our perusal.  Updating his entry the other day, he goes on to say:

Rereading this, I think I could have been clearer. The only way anything useful will get done by way of stimulus in the next few months is if both parties agree not to demand anything that would tie the hands of the next president and Congress — that means no long-term spending plans from the Dems, no long-term tax cuts from the GOP. And it seems that the Republicans are already making it clear that they won’t play it that way; they’re trying to hold any help for the economy hostage to their agenda, which is exactly what happened 7 years ago.

It’s important to know what’s going on here, so we may have a better grasp of the implications.  As Krugman pointed out in his blog entry from yesterday:

Overall, the graph suggests that yes, Virginia, cutting taxes reduces revenue. But it also tells us that stuff happens: the stock bubble inflated revenues in the late 90s, the collapse of that bubble hit revenues thereafter, then the housing bubble did its thing, and so on.

Most of us know that the lie of reduced taxes increasing government revenue is just that: a lie.  There is absolutely no evidence to support such a notion.  Which is why the GOP’s attempt to hold the economy hostage to the shrub’s tax cuts for the super-wealthy is so very dangerous.  Given that we are in a recession, it is sheer lunacy to tie the hands of the government by preventing it from increasing revenue.  But that’s what the Republican Party is all about these days.

P.S.

Here are a couple if eye-opening pieces courtesy of The Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=270622

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=271003

Tomorrow: Busting the Myth of Ron Paul, Part Three.

Part Two of a series.

It was January 28, 2000.  Ron Paul was hellbent on killing “any expansion of OSHAs regulatory authority”. [1]  Giving his speech to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which falls under the House Education and Workforce Committee, he went on a tirade that might shock his more left-leaning supporters today.  What was it, you might ask, that he stated?

Modern technology, such as e-mail and the Internet, allows employees to be productive members of the workforce without leaving their homes! The option of “telecommuting” is particularly valuable for women with young children or those caring for elderly parents. Using technology to work at home gives these Americans the chance to earn a living and have a fulfilling career while remaining at home with their children or elderly parents. Telecommuting also makes it easier for citizens with disabilities to become productive members of the job market. Any federal requirements holding employers liable for the conditions of a home office may well cause some employers to forbid their employees from telecommuting, thus shutting millions of mothers, persons caring for elderly parents, and disabled citizens out of the workforce!

It was a lie, of course, that last statement.  To date, no one has been prevented from working out of his or her home because of OSHA requirements.

Paul was railing for the “Home Office Protection Enhancement (HOPE) Act, amending the Occupational Safety and Health Act to clarify that OSHA has no authority over worksites located in an employee’s residence.”  In other words, a bill that denied home-based employees the same OSHA protections afforded to employees who work outside the home.  Fortunately the bill, which Paul co-sponsored, never passed.  Nor did two similar bills from that session of Congress, both designed to strip OSHA protections from home-based workers. [2] [3]

On the surface, Paul’s objection to extending OSHA protections to home-based employees might seem valid.  After all, employers cannot control conditions in an employee’s home that might lead to sickness or injury on the job.  But OSHA’s web site explains the need thusly:

Even when the workplace is in a designated area in an employee’s home, the employer retains some degree of control over the conditions of the “work at home” agreement. An important factor in the development of these arrangements is to ensure that employees are not exposed to reasonably foreseeable hazards created by their at-home employment. Ensuring safe and healthful working conditions for the employee should be a precondition for any home-based work assignments. Employers should exercise reasonable diligence to identify in advance the possible hazards associated with particular home work assignments, and should provide the necessary protection through training, personal protective equipment, or other controls appropriate to reduce or eliminate the hazard. In some circumstances the exercise of reasonable diligence may necessitate an on-site examination of the working environment by the employer. Employers must take steps to reduce or eliminate any work-related safety or health problems they become aware of through on-site visits or other means.

Certainly, where the employer provides work materials for use in the employee’s home, the employer should ensure that employer-provided tools or supplies pose no hazard under reasonably foreseeable conditions of storage or use by employees. An employer must also take appropriate steps when the employer knows or has reason to know that employee-provided tools or supplies could create a safety or health risk.

An employer is responsible for ensuring that its employees have a safe and healthful  workplace, not a safe and healthful home. The employer is responsible only for preventing or correcting hazards to which employees may be exposed in the course of their work. For example: if work is performed in the basement space of a residence and the stairs leading to the space are unsafe, the employer could be liable if the employer knows or reasonably should have known of the dangerous condition.

Paul, of course, dismissed this eminently reasonable logic.  Why?  Because his friends in the telecommunications industry were pressuring Congress to do away with even the minimal safety requirements OSHA had in place for home-based employees.  (His contributors include AT&T, and between 1999 and 2001 he had received $2,500 in contributions from telecommunications companies.)  Ron Paul is ever the champion of unregulated business.  But that’s not the only example of Ron Paul coming down on the side of business.  Far from it.  He has opposed increases to the minimum wage, despite there being no evidence that such increases have harmed the economies of states in which minimum wage increases have been passed.

Economic principles dictate that when government imposes a minimum wage rate above the market wage rate, it creates a surplus `wedge’ between the supply of labor and the demand for labor, leading to an increase in unemployment. Employers cannot simply begin paying more to workers whose marginal productivity does not meet or exceed the law-imposed wage. The only course of action available to the employer is to mechanize operations or employ a higher-skilled worker whose output meets or exceeds the `minimum wage.’ This, of course, has the advantage of giving the skilled worker an additional (and government-enforced) advantage over the unskilled worker. For example, where formerly an employer had the option of hiring three unskilled workers at $5 per hour or one skilled worker at $16 per hour, a minimum wage of $6 suddenly leaves the employer only the choice of the skilled worker at an additional cost of $1 per hour. I would ask my colleagues, if the minimum wage is the means to prosperity, why stop at $6.65–why not $50, $75, or $100 per hour?

Such nonsensical claims aside, there simply is no evidence to support claims that increasing the minimum wage would have any significant negative impact on jobs.  Indeed, just the opposite.  [4] [5] [6] [7]

These are but a few examples of Ron Paul’s deference to corporate interests.  Look past his rhetoric of favoring property rights and dig deeper into his sermonizing on the “virtues” of the free market.

Sources for Ron Paul’s speeches: http://www.house.gov/paul/legis.shtml

P.S.

Tomorrow I’ll address a different Paul: Paul Krugman.  In yesterday’s blog entry at the New York Times, he writes that the GOP plans to hold the economy hostage in its attempt to make the Bush tax cuts to the super-wealthy permanent.