Consider what his “big government greatness” really amounts to. It's basically a corporatist agenda – it's the collaboration between big government and the big businesses that have powerful friends in D.C. and can afford to hire big lobbyists. This collaboration works in a manner that distorts and corrupts true free market capitalism. This isn't just old-fashioned big government liberalism; this is crony capitalism on steroids. In the interests of big business, we're "investing" in technologies and industries that venture capitalists tell us are non-starters, but which will provide lucrative returns for some corporate interests who have major investments in these areas.I think the anti-cronyism message is what got Sarah Palin elected Governor of Alaska. It did get lost in the "Drill Baby Drill" days of the 2008 campaign. The question is, how big is the constituency for that message in the Republican Party?
Many people watching tonight can probably remember a time when finding a good job meant showing up at a nearby factory or a business downtown. You didn’t always need a degree, and your competition was pretty much limited to your neighbors. If you worked hard, chances are you’d have a job for life, with a decent paycheck and good benefits and the occasional promotion. Maybe you’d even have the pride of seeing your kids work at the same company.I think I've heard that song before:
That world has changed. And for many, the change has been painful. I’ve seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts on once busy Main Streets. I’ve heard it in the frustrations of Americans who’ve seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear -– proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game.
They’re right. The rules have changed.
When I was a curly headed babyThat's an old song, and the truth is that the rules have not changed. There was never a time when you could just walk into a local factory or store and get a job with good pay and benefits for life. That may have happened for some people through hard work and luck, but it's wrong to think it was some kind of norm.
My daddy sat me down upon his knee
He said, "Boy, you go to school and learn your letters
Don't you be a dirty miner like me"
I was born and raised in the mouth of the Hazard Hollow
Coal cars rambled past my door
Now they're standin' in a rusty row all empty
And the L & N
Don't stop here anymore"
We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -– the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny. That’s why centuries of pioneers and immigrants have risked everything to come here. It's why our students don’t just memorize equations, but answer questions like "What do you think of that idea? What would you change about the world? What do you want to be when you grow up?"Perhaps what we have been most deprived of during this last decade is the chance to shape our own destiny. The long wars and the overhanging specter of job loss and economic stagnation have sapped the American spirit. If the President can get us back to shaping our own destiny, there may be some hope for him yet.
"We have to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world."I guess at some point I must have stopped paying close attention and wondered off in the direction of the fridge for a beer. And so, after plopping back down on my couch after as near as I can reconstruct four or five trips, my ears perked as I heard Paul Ryan say the following:
"America's best century will be considered our past century. This is a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency."Now maybe I'm missing something but while the Republican vision is a bit bleak, it does sound like a lot less work. I only have one question. Where do I get my hammock?
"Just the creation of this nation was a miracle. Who's to say that we can't see a miracle again?"Who's to say indeed. Sometime after midnight I received an email from Barack Obama entitled "We do big things." Do? Sigh. Yes, I think I will take the Republican Tea Party approach for the next couple of years and just sink back into my hammock and wait for the miracle.
| Category | Prediction | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Best Actor | Colin Firth The King's Speech | Last year Colin Firth was nominated for A Single Man and lost out to Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. This year Jeff Bridges is nominated for True Grit and will lose out to Colin Firth. Because that's the way Hollywood works. |
| Best Actress | Jennifer Lawrence Winter's Bone | Jennifer Lawrence wins after Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right and Natalie Portman in Black Swan split the lesbian vote, and Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole and Michele Williams in Blue Valentine split the sympathy for falling in love with a Brokeback man (no Tom Cruise, I do not mean you). |
| Best Supporting Actor | Christian Bale The Fighter | Hollywood loves giving Oscars to its boxing movies and thinks they have much to say about America: Million Dollar Baby, When We Were Kings, Raging Bull, Rocky, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Champion, Body and Soul, The Champ, even On The Waterfront would not have been an Oscar contender without the boxing theme. |
| Best Supporting Actress | Amy Adams The Fighter | The third time is the charm for Amy Adams after being nominated for this award twice before for Junebug and Doubt. It's a boxing movie. |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Aaron Sorkin The Social Network | Hollywood still loves Aaron Sorkin for the TV show The West Wing and is no friend to Facebook. The best hack award will go to this entertaining hatchet job of a movie. |
| Best Original Screenplay | Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg The Kids Are All Right | Hollywood really wants you to see this movie about a lesbian couple raising children together so it must win an Oscar. At least it promises to have strong sexual content and nudity. |
| Best Feature Documentary | Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz "Exit through the Gift Shop" | Hollywood also really wants to meet Banksy and is willig to play the long odds that Banksy will show up to claim the Oscar. Again, I am not Banksy. I am available for afterparties. |
| Best Animated Feature | The Illusionist | Even if I have not seen it, I have seen Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon. They weren't awful, they just weren't Oscar. |
| Best Director | Darren Aronofsky Black Swan | This movie also must win one of the major awards, and this is the one I think it will win. Why else would Christopher Nolan be shut out of this category for Inception? Oh right, it's science fiction. |
| Best Picture | The Social Network | Pay attention, this is complicated: The Kids Are All Right cancels Black Swan for the aforementioned reason, 127 Hours cancels True Grit for the how tough are you vote, Inception cancels The King's Speech for the clever Brit vote, Winter's Bone cancels The Fighter for the gritty realism vote. That leaves The Social Network and Toy Story 3. Who wouldn't prefer seeing what multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg did at college than learn about what happened to the childhood toys he left behind? |
"I am not going to sit down, I'm not going to shut up, I'm going to hopefuly be able to help empower others."Could Sarah Palin make a career out of going around the country to help candidates who share her brand of consevative populism? That's got to give the Washington, DC establishment some heartburn, both Democrats and Republicans.
| Candidate | Facebook Friends | Mutual Friends |
|---|---|---|
| Barack Obama | 17,822,152 | 10 |
| Sarah Palin | 2,606,586 | 3 |
| Mitt Romney | 751,391 | 0 |
| Mike Huckabee | 522,079 | 2 |
| Ron Paul | 283,130 | 0 |
| Joe Biden | 271,971 | 1 |
| Michele Bachmann | 150,467 | 0 |
| Donald Trump | 146,866 | 0 |
| Jim DeMint | 127,177 | 0 |
| Bobby Jindal | 121,977 | 0 |
| Newt Gingrich | 100,489 | 0 |
| John Thune | 74,754 | 0 |
| Tim Pawlenty | 69,985 | 0 |
| Rick Perry | 51,455 | 0 |
| Paul Ryan | 50,908 | 0 |
| Mike Pence | 45,923 | 0 |
| Herman Cain | 42,289 | 0 |
| Mitch Daniels | 39,413 | 0 |
| Mike Bloomberg | 29,862 | 1 |
| Chris Christie | 29,388 | 0 |
| Haley Barbour | 16,854 | 0 |
| Rick Santorum | 12,211 | 0 |
| John Bolton | 5,170 | 0 |
| Jeb Bush | 4,841 | 0 |
| Rudy Giuliani | 1,891 | 0 |
| Fred Karger | 681 | 0 |
| Jon Greenspon | 581 | 0 |
"the Constitution has more in common with the Dead Sea Scrolls than with what we now think of as writing."OK, that jab is actually qualified with the phrase "as an object" so maybe we can't necessarily assume it represents what Jill thinks of the document "as writing." Or maybe we can:
Ye olde parchment serves as shorthand for everything old, real, durable, American, and true — a talisman held up against the uncertainties and abstractions of a meaningless, changeable, paperless age.Jill Lepore is a Harvard history professor and her piece is variously titled and subtitled:
"The Commandments"Jill goes through a long history where the Constitution was invoked for issues like slavery that are now rightly discredited, which leads her to the Tea Party, which she means you to conclude is the current cult. And what makes Americans susceptible to this cult of the Constitution? You guessed it, the Bible:
"The Constitution and its worshippers"
"The cult of the Constitution"
"Originalism, which has no purchase anywhere but here, has a natural affinity with some varieties of Protestantism."So go get yourself of copy of the Constitution as Jill suggests at the "souvenir shop at any history-for-profit heritage site" or take a "heritage tourism" trip to visit the original at its "shrine in the National Archives." Then you can be a Constitution thumper too.
"The United States differs from all other Western democracies in the far greater proportion of its citizens who believe in the literal truth of the Bible."
"Many people are now reading it (the Constitution), with earnestness and dedication, often in reading groups modelled on Bible study groups."
"It was made like a Fiddle, with but few Strings, but so that the ruling Majority could play any tune upon it they please."Some may call that Democracy but Jill has the idea that this long history of majority rule has ultimately tainted the Constitution:
If the Constitution is a fiddle, it is also all the music that has ever been played on it. Some of that music is beautiful; much of it is humdrum; some of it sounds like hell.Which brings us to the phrase "no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood" which is in the treason clause of Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution and which Jill thinks you'll have trouble understanding. The idea is that Congress in setting the punishment for treason cannot revoke the inheritance rights of children or other descendant's in the traitor's bloodline.
"But what we cannot do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other. That we cannot do. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let's use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together."The man who is sometimes described as too aloof showed that as a virtue in dismissing what he called "the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle." And he put in a very eloquent call for civility:
"The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better. To be better in our private lives, to be better friends and neighbors and coworkers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse, let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy -- it did not -- but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud."That got him a standing ovation. But perhaps the high point was a short remark in the middle of the speech:
"We recognize our own mortality, and we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved -- and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better."That's the spirit! Nothing to do wth politics, everythng to do with our shared humanity.
Every American has great sympathy for the victims and the families of victims of the tragic events that took place in Tucson this past Saturday. As we grieve, we must not allow these events to further divide our state and our nation.As a Republican Reagan appointee who, during her twenty-four years as the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, put limits on but recognized a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, Justice O'Connor has come in for a lot of uncivil public discussion over the years.
We must reject violence and hostility and bring civility and rationale dialogue into our government and our community life. This is a responsibility of every one of us as individuals.
Only we, working together, can restore reason and civility in our public speech and actions.
Congresswoman Giffords is a fine example of a public official who brings these efforts and qualities to her meetings and gatherings. May her health be restored and may we all remember the role each of us plays in restoring civil talk to our public expressions.
Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.
Sandra Day O'Connor
January 12, 2011
"But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."The blood libel charge has got to sting, and while no names were named my guess is that the counter-responses will tell who thinks they're in the "you probably think this song is about you" crowd.
"It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today."Just who is being criticized by that statement? Yes, I suspect there will be no more love lost between Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.
President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.Actually, the last election was a split decision, with the Republicans winning the U.S. House and most of the Governorships and the Democrats retaining control of the U.S. Senate. Still I agree the "other party" gets the victory on points.
"The strongest way to rise above would have been to talk about suffering, tragedy, hope, strength and recovery. But instead she followed the more conventional political route and made it about herself rather than the victims."A dog knows when he has been kicked. But the whole point of Sarah Palin being a maverick and going rogue was that the old Republican school needed to be kicked aside.
"[T]he American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon. There are many reasons that a citizen may prefer a handgun for home defense: It is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long gun; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police. Whatever the reason, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home, and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid."Nothing could be clearer from Scalia that than that the government cannot ban handguns (see the Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller, followed up by McDonald v. Chicago). But not so fast, Scalia has more to say:
"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. ... [N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."Scalia is just one of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court, so what makes his opinion so important? Even if the other four conservative Justices do not fully agree with him on the power to regulate, the four liberal Justices who have voted to allow banning of handguns would presumably support him. In the Supreme Court 5-4 is the law of the land.
"The Congress shall have power ... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."And what is this militia that Congress has the power to organize, arm, discipline, and prescribe training for? Scalia says it means all able-bodied men. And now that we let women serve, I would say it includes all able-bodied women too. And I say it potentially takes in all people able to fire a gun, if the defense of the country comes down to that. We the people of the United States, in other words.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."Just two days later on Saturday, Gabrielle Giffords was gravely wounded by a crazed shooter who wounded fourteen people and took the lives of six people:
| Name | Age | Details |
|---|---|---|
| John Roll | 63 | U.S. District Court Judge apppointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush |
| Christina Taylor Green | 9 | born on September 11, 2001 and featured in the book Faces of Hope |
| Gabe Zimmerman | 30 | director of community outreach for Congresswoman Giffords |
| Dorothy Morris | 76 | her husband George remains in critical condition |
| Dorwin Stoddard | 76 | retired construction worker and gas-station owner, shielded his wife who was shot in the legs but survived |
| Phyllis Schneck | 79 | retiree originally from Rutherford, New Jersey |
| District | Representative in Congress | Age | Years | Vote % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Olver, Amherst | 74 | 20 | 60.1% |
| 2 | Richard Neal, Springfield | 61 | 22 | 57.3% |
| 3 | Jim McGovern, Worcester | 51 | 14 | 56.5% |
| 4 | Barney Frank, Newton | 70 | 30 | 53.9% |
| 5 | Niki Tsongas, Lowell | 64 | 3 | 54.9% |
| 6 | John Tierney, Salem | 59 | 14 | 56.9% |
| 7 | Ed Markey, Malden | 64 | 34 | 65.9% |
| 8 | Mike Capuano, Somerville | 58 | 12 | 98.0% |
| 9 | Stephen Lynch, South Boston | 55 | 9 | 68.1% |
| 10 | Bill Keating, Quincy | 58 | 0 | 46.9% |
