I was hoping that the lame duck session would get Congress to forget about politicking and actually do its job, but I guess that was delusional.  I am deeply disappointed that Obama caved on extending tax cuts for the rich.  He had the opportunity to put the Republicans in the light of causing a tax increase for all if they were too intransigent in their support of tax cuts for the rich, but instead put Democrats in that light if they opposed the “compromise”.

Those who thought that the November election was about telling Congress to stop the borrow and spend crap are probably just as disappointed.   The “compromise” consisted of everybody getting all the spending they asked for, while punting the tax rate decision until 2012, where we will play out the same scenario with the same actors all over again.  Anybody expecting different results?  I’m not…

Congressional Democrats recently announced that they were scrapping plans for a vote on a comprehensive climate and energy policy bill, but might bring it back during the “lame duck” session after the elections.  What does this tell us about our legislative branch?

First of all, it tells us that the answer to the question “Are you really that stupid or do you just think we are?” is that they think we are mostly stupid enough to not look beyond the sound bites and edited videos.  Too many people would rather be angry and assign blame than actually be part of solving a problem.  It is much easier to blow stuff up than it is to build a functional, inclusive society that values and empowers everyone.

Second, it shows that the only way to get Congress to do what’s right, to make the hard choices on tough issues, to put the long term survival of our country and our planet ahead of the price of gas next week, is during the only couple of weeks they are not running for re-election.

It is time to force our representatives to focus their energies on doing the job they have been elected to do, and NOT on the next election.   Serving in Congress should be full time job.  Campaigning for it certainly has become one.  You can’t do two full time jobs at the same time, especially when there is a clear conflict of interest between the two.

All elected offices should have term limit of ONE.   No one should ever be running for “re-election”.  Being elected to office should also be treated like military service:  you are committed to serving out the full term unless you receive a dishonorable discharge.  And during that term, you are not allowed to run for any other elected position at any level of government.  You are not allowed to collect even one penny of campaign contributions.

If the only way to free Congressmen from their corporate pimps is during a “lame duck” session, then all the sessions should be “lame ducks.”

Last Friday the ultra-conservative faction of the Texas State Board of Education enacted new curriculum requirements for textbooks on social studies which include an alarming emphasis on ideology over facts.   The same fools who want to claim Genesis is science and Darwin is speculation now want to ignore Thomas Jefferson and anything else supporting separation of church and state.  Another amendment to the curriculum attempts to justify McCarthyism.

This is not education, it is brainwashing.  It is bad enough we have this kind of posturing by the politicians, but to write the posturing into our educational system, which is already devoted to teaching to standardized tests instead of preparing students to adapt to changing world, further sends our children down the path of irrelevance.

And more than just Texans are harmed by this triumph of indoctrination over education, as Texas is one of the biggest markets for textbooks.

America didn’t become great just by preaching it.   We became great by being the place where a free flow of ideas produced more and better new ideas, and where people were encouraged from an early age to be innovators.  If we let the Texas Taliban ideology dictate the content of our students’ curriculum, we are in serious danger of losing our edge at a time where competitiveness on  a world-wide basis has never been higher.

It is once again the Church of the Holy No(t if we can’t take credit for it) versus the Church of the Holy Handout bringing Congress to a standstill.  This time it’s a group of Republican Senators wanting to block stimulus funding of alternative energy because some of the manufacturing will take place overseas.  Rather than address WHY that happens and how to solve the problem, they just want to block it.  And if it keeps us in thrall to Holy Oil, so much the better.

The reason we have not seen the investment we need in manufacturing of alternative energy products in the US is because the investment is not going to happen until and unless there is  stable environment for it so investors can have a reasonable chance of making a return on their money.  Temporary stimulus bucks don’t do that.  A long term plan that prices carbon emissions will.

It is time for Congress to recognize the science side of capitalism as well as the religious one.   Pricing carbon will steer the market forces towards creating a United States that is self-sufficient in energy and can lead the world out of the Carbon Age.  Or we can keep on as we are doing, and eventually manufacturing will come back – as sweatshops where our grandkids and great-grandkids make cheap trinkets for the Chinese and Indian middle class.

John Linder (R-GA) announced  on February 27 that he will not seek re-election to Congress.  Following on the heels of similar announcements from Joseph Kennedy and Evan Bayh, this is an excellent trend.

I have disagreed with Linder on just about everything, and found him such a frustrating person to correspond with that at one point I finally put in a letter to him something I had been thinking about many politicians for years:  ”Are you really that stupid, or do you just think I am?”  He supported laws which trash our Constitutional liberties in the name of delusions of security.  When asked specific questions, he did not respond.

To those who are thinking of running for these seats in November,  I ask the following:

Are you an American first, or a [insert the name of your favorite church or political party]?

If you are not willing to tell the Republican or Democratic bishops that you are voting your beliefs and not theirs, then please do not run.  Better yet, run as an independent.

I guess this really shouldn’t be a surprise, since what Congress does even by design is spend other people’s money, but Rep Tom Price (R-GA) is taking this to ridiculous levels. A few months ago, there were robodialing calls made to my family’s cell phones.   After those calls, I used the contact form on Rep Price’s Congressional web site demanding to be removed form his list, and also Rep Linder’s web contact form about it.  No reply was received from either one, beyond the automated “thank you for contacting” email.

Today it was text message spam:

From 969 3
Rep.Tom.Price.mail.House.gov
Do you support the Democratic leadership plan to increase the nat’l debt limit by 1.9 trillion? Support Oppose Opt Out

The really sad thing is we don’t even live in Mr Price’s district. We are misrepresented by Mr Linder.

I sent the following replies:

(1)”Opt Out”
Opt in permission based marketing is the only kind there should be, especially when the message cost is borne by the recipient and not the sender. Particularly sad for a message allegedly protesting the spending of other people’s money.  Typical Congressional hypocrisy.

(2)”I am going to vote a straight none of the above ticket until all 537 of you have been fired.”

(3)”I am glad you are not my Congressman. I am very glad you are not my doctor. Spam sucks.”

I also called AT&T (my cell phone provider) to file a complaint about the spam text messages and also to inquire how Mr Price got our cell phone numbers.  AT&T’s rep insists that they do not give, sell, or rent their customer’s info to anybody.

So how did Congressman Price get the numbers?  He’s not my Congressman, so I certainly never gave any of the cell numbers to him.   I’d really like a straight answer on this.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission just struck down even the veneer of a pretense that there were limits on what corporations could contribute to election campaigns. It totally ignored the reality that money is power and power corrupts.

So I guess we need a new Constitutional Amendment that very clearly states that Corporations are NOT people under the Constitution and have only the rights specifically granted them by Congress or the states which charter them, and that ONLY actual living flesh and blood people are eligible to participate in the political process.

In the meantime, read up on what corporate contributions are made to those who vote against your interests, and contact those companies and tell them you are taking your business elsewhere.

I haven’t written much lately. Not that I was apathetic. It was that I was so disgusted with the PigFest that the Health Care bills (aka the insurance industry bailout instead of the insured citizens bailout) had become that anything I wrote about it would just have been one long string of curses.

Amazingly enough, the Republican Senator from Massachusetts seems to have awakened some common sense in President Obama. This afternoon he called for a scaled down health care bill to cover the following:

• Limit the ability of insurance companies to deny coverage to people with medical problems
• Allow young adults to stay on their parents’ policies
• Help small businesses and low-income people pay premiums
• Change Medicare to encourage payment for quality care instead of quantity

If we just add tort reform (in a separate bill, let’s not run up the page count again) so that we could let doctors just practice medicine and not have to practice law as well, we could take care of all the “DUH”s that should have been voted into law last February and already be in effect.

Now let’s see if the Republicans are capable of doing anything besides playing “You can’t win”.

It looks like the latest excuse for opposing health care reform in Congress is that the illegal immigration issue has not been solved. It really isn’t that difficult to solve – you just have to follow the money. And the money in illegal immigration is the additional corporate profits it generates.

How do you solve that?

1. Stop giving companies warnings of impending immigration checks.
2. Make finding a certain threshold number of illegal immigrants at a plant legally defined as “willful violation” of the relevant laws, and make the penalty for “willful violation” include the immediate forfeiture of the location, its buildings and equipment.

After a few chicken plants or carpet mills are seized, you can bet that corporate policy will no longer reward plant managers who cut their labor cost by hiring illegal immigrants. No tax dollars need be wasted on fences or other ridiculous attempts to convince voters that Congress has “done something” about illegal immigration. No immigration enforcement dollars need be turned into health care dollars. We need to reduce health care administrative costs, not add to them.

There has been an enormous amount of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) spread around by those who want to see the current status quo continue – ie, a few big insurance companies adding 25-30% to the cost of health care for us all. They see a government health care plan as threatening their guaranteed profits, and have somehow managed to convince quite a number of people that corporate profits are somehow more of a “right” than health care.

They would like us to believe both that:

• Government health care would be grossly inefficient.
• Private insurance companies would be unable to compete and therefore go out of business.

How could both of those be true? If the private companies are both more expensive and less efficient than government, shouldn’t they deserve to go out of business?

Next, adding a government option is portrayed as taking away our freedom.

Now, what freedoms does adding a choice take away? The freedom to lose your coverage if you become seriously ill? The freedom to lose your coverage if you lose your job?

If you currently have your own individual insurance, are you happy with the choices you were given? If anyone in your family has any chronic conditions, go shop for your choices if you become unhappy with your current provider. For at least a year, you would be paying both your premiums and the full cost of treating that chronic pre-existing condition.

For anyone currently covered under an employer plan, go try that exercise. Tell me how “free” you feel to quit your job and start your own business.