Ricardo J Gonzalez for a Better America

Yesterday I went to Bluesfest in Grant park, and one of the announcers said something that bothered me. During his introduction to B.B. King he said that the City of Chicago had been "Giving us Bluesfest for over 30 years", which brought loud applause from the audience. I like the Blues Festival, and the other large events that are held in Chicago's Grant Park, but the idea that it's a "free gift" from the government is one that bothers me.


According to Melodytrip.com the Chicago Blues Festival is "the largest free-admission blues festival in the world". While the admission to the event is free, the cost of putting it on certainly isn't. From what I can gather from the City of Chicago site, this and other events held around the City are organized by the City of Chicago Mayor's Office of Special events. According to the 2008 Preliminary budget for the City of Chicago (page 23), this office of the Mayor is receiving $6 Million dollars this year. While the cost of the events subsidized by corporate sponsors, the budget of the office organizing the events is paid for by tax-payers. Anything that you have to pay for, is hardly a free gift.

As the government grows in size and scope I keep hearing about more things that are "free" services from the Government. It bothers me that so many people just accept this at face value: Free parks, free festivals, free schools, free health care. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and this is especially true when referring to the government. The source of the governments revenue is always taxes and fines, which are paid for by citizens. Therefore, when anything the government does is called "free" what they really mean is "funded by taxes". If we accept this language of "Free" as being appropriate, we're accepting the idea that the Government is a benevolent donor that "gives" us things, and that we should be thankful for these gifts. The truth is that any time the government "gives" something, it first had to take from someone. In the case of the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the bill is footed by the Hotel Operator's Occupation Tax:

The State of Illinois Hotel Operators' Occupation Tax is imposed on receipts from the occupation of renting, leasing, or letting rooms to individuals occupying such accommodations for less than 30 consecutive days.

So rather than thanking the government for its generous donation, we should be thanking the tax-payers that were forced to pay an additional 6% on their hotel bill for these events.

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Would you take profits from McDonald's to subsidize White Castle? What about from the Bellagio to subsidize the Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas? Apparently the Illinois legislature would, and has done something very similar: it is requiring that Illinois most profitable Casinos give parts of their profits to subsidize the state's horse racing industry. Illinois' Supreme Court agrees, stating that "casino gambling has hurt horse racing revenue in the past two decades". The question I would want to ask is "So what?".


There are few things more un-American than punishing people for their success over the competition. What the government is doing here is essentially guaranteeing the privilege of certain companies, of their choosing of course, to profitability at the expense of the competition. The bill, which was signed in May of 2006, was described by Gov. Blagojevich:

“These bills will help protect the jobs of thousands of hardworking people who depend on the horse racing industry for their livelihood. They will also create a more level playing field that will allow the horse racing industry to remain competitive in Illinois,” said Governor Blagojevich.

I don't understand how punishing those who are successful levels the playing field, it simply tilts it in favor of the failures.

She swallowed a spider to catch the fly...

But here's the kicker: the reason the racetracks are unable to compete with casinos in Illinois, like they are in almost every other state with both forms of gambling, is because Illinois wont allow them to have slot machines. The Illinois Horse Racing Strategic Council offered this as an alternative to the burden placed on casinos, but it was rejected. If the real concern was to allow the horse racing industry to thrive as an economic booster for the state, then why choke them with one hand while feeding them with the other?

This is yet another example of the government abusing their power to solve problems they created to begin with. In not allowing Illinois racetracks to have slot machines, the government ensured that they would not be able to compete with other gambling establishments in the state. To solve the problem they created through this restriction, they're now punishing casinos (but only the most successful ones).


There was an old lady who swallowed a horse. She's dead, of course.

When hearing stories like this, I can't help but think of the old nursery rhyme: She swallowed the Spider to catch the fly, I don't know why she swallowed the fly.

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Will McCain pick an ultra-conservative governor half his age to be his VP? Now that we know who the presidential candidates are, I thought I'd focus on learning a bit more about the possible VP Candidates, starting with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal is the American born son of Indian immigrants. He's had a fairly successful career in politics, including being a Congressman and Governor of Louisiana, and he's barely 37 years old. So what are his policies and what would Gov. Jindal bring to the table for the McCain campaign in November?


For starters, Jindal would help bring the ultra-conservative right wing of the Republican party back to John McCain, who is often accused of being too liberal by this constituency. Gov. Jindal might be able to help fix all that. While McCain gets a rating of 66% from the National Right to Life Committee, a pro-life lobbying organization, Gov. Jindal scores a perfect 100%. On many of the issues McCain is shady on, Jindal is willing to tout the standard party line: Pro-guns, Pro-Life, against flag burning, in favor of making the patriot act permanent, against gay rights, tax reform, and others. He has the view that Intelligent design should be taught in public schools schools. His positions on these issues has ultra-conservatives chomping at the bit to get him on the ballot, with incredibly positive reviews from Americans for Tax Reform, the Catholic League, the Christian Coalition, and even Rush Limbaugh who called him "The next Ronald Reagan".

I seriously doubt that Gov. Jindal would be the next Reagan, but the comment does show how enamored conservatives have become with Bobby Jindal. It seems to me that if he doesn't get this nomination, he's on the fast track to becoming the Republican Obama, going from virtually unknown to national political superstar in only a few years. I don't agree with Jindal on many of his stances, but after seeing some clips of him, he does seem to share that Obama charm, and he has quite a resumé, most notably including the reform of Louisiana's Medicare system.

Some people worry that Jindal's lack of Federal experience will undermine the claims made by McCain about Obama's unpreparedness. Other's seem to believe that his youth will help ease the concerns about McCain's age. For me, it is a question of whether his ideas and experience in reducing the size of government and the corruption within it, which he has had some success with in Louisiana, is enough to make me forget that he is about as socially conservative as one can get. In my experience, albeit limited, is that regardless of political rhetoric the size and scope of government is going to increase, not the opposite. This was true even with Reagan who is lauded for being a small government advocate, yet still increased the size of government by 60%. If not even Reagan could do it as President, I wonder if Jindal would have any effect from the VP's office. So are promises of smaller government, which probably can't be delivered, worth promises of less civil liberties? On the other hand, having Jindal in the White House might help lead to alternatives in the National health care debate that don't include a complete socialization of our health systems.

Will Jindal be chosen? It seems likely right now that he will. He's been actively campaigning for McCain and there hasn't been much effort to quell the rumors of his selection. His selection would probably be a small victory for economic freedom, and a huge blow to civil liberties should he make it to the White House.

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The loooooooong primary season is finally over. Today Obama is guaranteed to reach the number of Delegates and Superdelegates needed in order to receive his party's nomination. He will be the first African-American nominee for President of the United States from any "major" party. So what's in store for us in the up-comming months as Obama and McCain battle it out?


First off, we should be hearing lots of claims about who will be the VP candidate for both parties. There are so many rumors about the Obama-Clinton dream ticket, but I can't see it happening. Hillary is going to have to do a lot of work to backpedal after all the negative comments she had about Obama in order to help him win the Presidency, and this might make her a liability. I can see the phrase "His own candidate for VP said he was ..." being uttered over and over, with small room for rebuttal. This would be an easy target for McCain's campaign. While many Clinton supporters have said they wouldn't vote for Obama, I doubt most will follow through when they're presented the option in November. Would she jump on the chance? Probably. Will she be offered it? I doubt it. The Obama campaign would probably benefit more from having a less known VP candidate, like Bill Richardson, or a less vocal one like John Edwards, than they would with Hillary because they wouldn't have to cope with the baggage of such a hard fought primary.

In the national election Obama is going to have an advantage over McCain, albeit a small one. With the current state of the economy, and no signs of improvement, I would side more with the candidate of "change" than one of "experience". McCain is trying hard to prove that "experience" doesn't equal more of the same policies, but for most voters I think that they're going to want as big of a change from George W. Bush as possible, and McCain doesn't offer that. McCain is going to continue to hammer away at Obama's lack of experience, and accuse him of bad judgment in international affairs. While McCain has a valid point about giving people like Amedinajhad a global stage being a bad idea, most people are saying they prefer the idea of trying diplomacy before we get into another war. So while McCain keeps saying "he's wrong" people keep saying "I agree with him", and there's no way this is helping Sen. McCain.

While I still haven't decided how I'm going to vote, I predict that Obama will be the next President of the United States. I think the election is stacked against the Republicans and McCain, there's too many people angry at the Republicans because of the perceived failings of Bush. I don't buy the rhetoric that McCain will be a third term, I think his voting record in the Senate, where he often votes against the party, proves that, but I think it will be a very strong argument in the minds of many Americans that have felt like the government has let them down in the past 4 years. At the end of the day my decision will be made on the basis of what I believe will lead to more liberty in my lifetime, be it voting for Obama, McCain, or maybe even Bob Barr. I will be looking more in depth into the two candidates in the weeks to come as I form my decision, so stay tuned.

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When Sen. Ted Kennedy says that he wants working families to receive the same level of health care coverage as "member's of Congress provide for themselves", does that include and-picking the best doctors in the nation? That's what Sen. Kennedy did today after his recent diagnosis with malignant brain tumor two weeks ago. According to the Boston Globe, "Kennedy and his family conferred with a constellation of top national cancer specialists" and chose Duke University's Dr. Allan H. Friedman. While Sen. Kennedy is recovering from his successful surgery, I have to wonder about the kind of treatment he would be able to receive under socialized medicine.

In the UK, who has had socialized medicine in some form for 60 years, the average wait time for a CT Scan would be about two and a half weeks. For a MRI, it's 7 1/2 weeks. In Canada the wait times average more than 4 weeks for a CT Scan. So, two of the countries that are often lauded for their "public health care", it would take from 2 weeks to a month to get a CT Scan to diagnose a Glioma. In contrast, a listing of Chicago area imaging services (MRI, CT, Ultrasound, etc) shows most businesses making claims of no more than 48 hours to get your appointment. This is just for one of the first steps in diagnosis of the tumor. The Fraser Institute reports average wait times of 18 weeks in Canada for "non-emergency" surgery. Sen. Kennedy waited less than two weeks.

While this is just one portion of the entire debate, it's easy to see that perhaps the ideal of "health care for all" is not as great as it sounds. Although almost 16% of American's lack health coverage, the average American is waiting 1/14th of the wait time of the average Canadian, where everyone is covered. It is because of our lack of a publicly funded health care system that we have this much quicker response, not despite it. For the vast majority of Americans that are covered by health care providers, we can already enjoy much the same level of service that Sen. Kennedy does. While we probably lack the resources to pick the best doctors in the country like Ted did, we still get a much higher level of service than our neighbors to the north, who deal with many hardships in trying to get services that we can take advantage of because they are practically forced to use the government's system.

While I mostly oppose government entitlement programs, such as one that would give health care access to the 16% of the population that lacks it, I can understand why people consider this to be a "basic need". However, I would be much more comfortable with a plan that helped those people get access to a private insurer, rather than forcing the entire country into a public one. One of the things that makes our health care, and our country for that matter, so great is the abundance of competition and the freedom of choice. When the government gets involved in health care, as it happens when it gets involved in anything, the available choices are likely to decrease. The government will inevitably be forced to cut the quality of health care that the top 10% are receiving in order to subsidize the quality that the lowest 16% receive. It also brings weight to the liberty-crushing argument that if the government is "paying" for your health care, then the government has the authority to force you to live a more healthy life.

I believe in the power of money as a great equalizer. It doesn't matter who you are, what you do, or what you look like; if you have money, you can get service. A free economy provides ample opportunities for people to get more money, be it through loans, charities, working harder or smarter, etc. By taking things like health care out of the realm of money, the only currency available to improve the quality of your services received is clout. You can't get a clout loan, or a clout job. You can't wash cars in parking lots with your church group to gain more clout. This means that people like Senator Kennedy will continue getting the best services in the country, while the people at the bottom edge of the clout spectrum, which I bet are the same who are uninsured now, will continue to get the worst.

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If you've been reading and enjoying the blog, I have a few things to ask of you.

Leave comments! Even if its just a comment on this thread saying hello, let me know you're out there. There's nothing more encouraging than knowing people are out there reading what I write. Let me know what you think of different pieces, when I get it right, let me know, when I miss the point entirely, definitely let me know. I would like this blog to continually improve, and one of the best ways to do that is by hearing from you!

Give me your story ideas. If you hear about something interesting, and you want to hear my take on it, send me an e-mail, or contact me though AIM:cyberkrack. I'm always looking for new ideas and topics to write about, so please give me your thoughts

Share this blog with others. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please help spread the word about this blog to your friends, family, co-workers, or even by screaming the info on street corners! Anything you can do to get the word out about the blog is great. The goal is to have 3000 visitors a month by the end of august, and I need as much help as I can get to reach that goal.

Thanks for your help,
Ricky

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In an update to my very first post here at FaBA, the Texas Supreme Court has ordered state officials in Texas to return the more than 400 children to their families starting next week. The Judge asserted that Child Protective services "failed to show an immediate danger to nearly all the children swept up from the ranch", which is pretty much exactly the argument I made here. Kudos to Texas, and hopefully now they can focus on persecuting those who are guilty of crimes, instead of the dozens who aren't.

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Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary for the Bush administration, published a book called What Happened about his experience in the White House. McClellan has a scathing review of the Bush presidency, and accuses the President and his staff of many things including dishonesty and propaganda about the Iraq war. The reaction has been obvious: Ad Hominem attacks from everywhere, and succinct denial of everything in the book. The Fox News Channel coverage of the book is as dismissing as possible, while other Networks are talking to the man and asking difficult questions like "Are you a hypocrite?" because of his statements while working in the whitehouse about other "Tell-all" books.

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Brazilian officials have released photographs taken from an airplane of an isolated tribe living in the jungles near Peru, almost completely unconnected to modern civilization. This is one of approximately two dozen such tribes that are being threatened by illegal logging and the general encroachment of civilization. I find it amazingly interesting that tribes like this still exist in our day, that are so disconnected from modernity that they were firing arrows at the airplane taking the picture.

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The employees at Caterpillar who are unionized under United Auto Workers are protesting a decision by the Caterpillar company to make all of its properties 100% smoke free. The move was made by the company after the smoking ban was put in place in Illinois, where most of its factories reside. The company claims that the policy is in place to "ensure that everyone who works on or visits Caterpillar property has access to the healthiest and safest work environment possible". It appears that the employees were perfectly happy being unhealthy, and that they would prefer if the company stayed out of their business. The UAW has stated that there will not be a strike over the policy, but that it will definitely be discussed at their next negotiation meeting.

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Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and commentator, is declaring a Jihad against scarves. The AP reports that Dunkin' Donuts pulled an online ad featuring celebrity Chef Rachael Ray because of Ms. Malkin's complaint that the scarf resembled a Keffiyeh, which she describes as "Hate Couture". The company responded by pulling the ad and apologizing.



I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. Malkin seems to be dedicating a bit of time to this issue, and on her website she has a page dedicated to shaming celebrities wearing these Keffiyeh's. In some cases it seems justified, such as with Ricky Martin incident, where he was found with one inscribed with the words "Jerusalem is Ours" written in Arabic. It is not a big leap to say that this particular case is referring to the rallying cry of many terrorist organizations, as Ms. Malkin claims. What really irks me about this entire situation, is not that she's attacking people like Martin, who ignorantly display slogan's they probably didn't understand. I have taken up the same issue with people wearing Ché shirts in the past. What bothers me is not that she would take issue with these symbols of hate, which she would be correct in doing, but that she would go out of her way to mis-categorize and convert a traditional Arabic headpiece, into a symbol of terrorist support. I can't think of a clearer example of someone's prejudice and bigotry finding fire where there is no smoke. The logic that leads to the conclusion that Malkin comes to can only look something like:

1. Some terrorists wear Keffiyeh's.
2. Rachel Ray wore a Keffiyeh
_____
Thus, Rachel Ray supports terrorists.

which is akin to claiming that anyone with an Asian symbol tattoo, must be a supporter of the Triads. What's next, is she going to accuse algebra teachers of being terrorist supporters? Certain symbols do have meanings, and to and it is important that people understand them because what to you might be a "Cool symbol" to others might be an endorsement of genocide, or hate. One of the wonderful things about freedom of speech is that it allows us to call people out who are knowingly, as is usually the case with swastikas for example, or unknowingly, as is probably the case with Ricky Martin, using these symbols to further messages that we find distasteful. But with the Dunkin' Donuts example it's simply not the case. The case is that Malkin is manufacturing controversy where none exists, most likely to try and find out how much power her pulpit holds.

The immediate submission of Dunkin' Donuts to this bullying is just saddening. If the keffiyeh had hidden messages supporting terrorists like Ricky Martin's did it would be one thing, just as if she had been wearing an armband with a swastika, but in it's current state the only thing that Dunkin' Donuts was guilty of was of a cosmopolitan fashion sense. If the company wants to take an active stance on national political issues, like it has with illegal immigration, they have just missed an excellent opportunity to say "we do not agree with the fear-mongers' suggestion that the use of Arabic fashion implies a support for terrorist extremists".

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On Memorial day Obama retold a family anecdote, about his uncle coming back from World War II after being one of the first troops in Auschwitz. He told this to a small group of Veterans he was meeting with in Las Cruces. Aparently, the uncle was actually his Mother's uncle, Obama's great-uncle, and the camp was Buchenwald not Aushwitz. This wasn't in a debate, or even a major speech. From the video, it doesn't even seem like he's speaking to more than a dozen people, but it was taken as an opportunity to call him a liar:

"Obama's frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief,"

said an RNC spokesman.
On Politico.com, we have an entire article dedicated to attacking Obama's possible health because, even though his physician says he's in good health, he did smoke cigarettes up until last year. Apparently this is also a crime against the American people, and something that we should all be concerned with.

With McCain, there seems to be more discussion than is warranted on his age. He's the oldest man to ever run for President, and a website titled Things younger than McCain is a particularly entertaining way to make that point. This is a joke that he himself has brought up (see SNL clips). It's funny, and to a certain extent it is relevant, as his age increases the chances that he'll have health issues while in power, but is it really what we should be focusing on?

It's unreasonable to expect the voters to be completely informed on every "issue" and the candidates stance on it. Most people are not going to dedicate a significant portion of their day to compare and analyze the specifics of the various policies. When people are dedicating 15 or 30 minutes of their day to catching up with the news about the campaign, wasting 5 of it with this kind of irrelevant nonsense is borderline irresponsible, and it helps push the election cycle further from a discussion of the merits of policy alternatives, and more towards American Idol: Politics Edition. Our acceptance of this kind of nonsense as news disempowers us as voters, as the campaigns focus less on coming up with better policy, and more on which color ties to use.

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While most of the news is focusing on Memorial Day, I have been listening to archives of one of the better "talk-radio" format podcasts that I've found, Free Talk Live. The show got a call from a disabled veteran who told a "horror story" about his latest purchase at Best Buy, which ended up with the General Manager of the store allegedly telling him that "If we went out of our way to make all of our customers happy, we'd go out of business". If this manager actually takes this stance, he will surely be out of a job soon; either because he gets fired, or because this sort of policy will lead Best Buy down the same road that Sears, Montgomery Ward, and others have gone through. In their failure to adjust to a business world with seemingly infinite competitors all willing to go a little further to serve their clients, their business would dwindle down to nothing.

Certain segments of the corporate world have not had to make these adjustments, because they enjoy government imposed monopolies and competition limitless. In Mexico many of the essential services were, and some still are, run by means of a Government enforced monopoly. As is the case with most government enforced monopolies, they had the attitude of "you'll take what we give you and you'll like it". Customer service was virtually non-existent, because it didn't need to be. You either payed Telmex, or you didn't have phone service. This type of egregious abuse of consumers can only be accomplished with the help of the government, because without its intervention entrepreneurs would swiftly move in to fill the service gap created.

The media & entertainment industry in this country enjoyed to a certain extent the same sort of government enforced monopoly. You had to purchase the rights to the airwaves, be it radio or television, and the steep price meant only the largest of companies could compete. These companies didn't suffer the big blow of internet competition, because the bandwidth wasn't really available to stream their content in real-time, so they continued with the "You'll take what we give you" mindset.

However, as bandwidth started increasing, so did internet radio stations and on demand video streams. Any one of us can now get radio stations that are extremely specialized to our own personal tastes, and watch exactly the show we want, when we want to watch it. The case of the radio is particularly interesting, because past copyright laws allowed these net radio station to deal directly with artists, many of whom are not on "major labels" and work out agreements that would allow them to broadcast their music to small specialized groups for very low costs. It benefits the artists, who are unlikely to get played on traditional radio; it benefits the net radio stations, who can offer a huge variety of content to their listeners; and it benefits the listeners, who can now choose from huge variety of music, instead of whatever the top 40 is.

What is shocking, or maybe not so shocking, is that these titans of the radio industry instead of realizing that this is the trend of the future, and figuring out how to use their extreme resources (when compared to most net-radio businesses) to find a way to make it even better for the listeners, are doing everything they can to shut down these new net radio stations, by lobbying to increase the amounts of royalties these stations have to pay by between 300% and 1200%, according to Savenetradio.org, an organization created by net radio companies trying to fight the changes that would put them out of business, and force consumers back to the same stale top 40.

It astounds me the lengths that these companies are willing to go to to avoid change, and to avoid giving their customers better service. I'm pretty sure that whatever budget these companies have to fight change, far exceeds the budgets that the change-makers have for operation of their organizations. NBC's is one of the Television broadcasters that has embraced change, showing most of its major shows for free, in high quality, streaming on the internet. It shows what these large companies could do to offer their customers a legal alternative, that ends up being much better than the illegal choice. Clearchannel et. al could probably offer thousands of customized radio-stations, with a music catalogs extending far beyond what something like Soma.FM could have, and probably in better quality, but instead they choose to stick to their old ways, and expect that the government will do what it's always done, and protect their business.

They need to learn the new mantra of the internet age: "If we don't go our of our way to make each customer happy, we'll go out of business".

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Yesterday I made the claim that Hillary would be ahead in the popular vote if Michigan and Florida were added to the count. Turns out that's what she's saying, but not true. Something so small as the truth isn't going to get her down over, and over.

In order to get the numbers that Sen Clinton's campaign is saying about the popular vote is only by including votes from Michigan and Florida (which don't count), and NOT including any of the caucuses (which DO include states where Obama won easily).

I admit that that I have been very harsh on Hillary in the past, but she constantly reminds me of the reasons people hate politics. When Clinton was ahead by a large margin, she was graceful, calm, and magnanimous. "Obama would make a great VP", she would imply condescendingly. She signed a pledge not to campaign in Florida and Michigan when there was no risk to do so, and so on.

As Obama slowly but surely started chipping away at her lead, she became vicious in her attacks (4am call, Rev. Wright), whiny (which is annoying), borderline racist (which is not fine),and has now resorted to full scale lying and underhanded tactics (which is just sad). The first job of a politician is to get elected, but Hillary's tactics for achieving this goal are more and more unpalatable.

If the campaign is supposed to be any indication of the way the candidates would act in office, I can see a strong comparison between the widespread criticisms of George Bush and the way she's running her campaign: Get what you want, at any cost.

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In the past two days Sen. Clinton has been doing more of what she's been doing for the past few weeks: whining a lot. On the heels of yet another irrelevant primary win in Kentucky, which of course Clinton claims as a huge victory that proves she should keep going, Clinton has begun aggressively campaigning for the votes of Michigan and Florida to be accepted into the primary election.

The reason these places weren't included to begin with, is because they went against party rules and changed their primaries to be the first in the country. They were warned that if they did so, their votes wouldn't be accepted, and the Dems followed through. All of the candidates, including Clinton, pledged not to campaign in that state.

So what has changed since then? Well, in Gallup polls done between August through September, around the dates they signed this pledge, Clinton led Obama by 47% to 25%. There was, in her mind, no risk in making this promise because she was the "inevitable" candidate. Boy was she wrong. Her new strategy, and her only hope of winning it seems, is to fiercely promote these states "right" to be represented in the primary. Now Clinton is comparing it to Bush V. Gore and calling the Florida and Michigan voters "disenfranchised". If accepted, Clinton would be ahead in the popular vote, and seems to believe she could make a stronger claim for the superdelegates to vote for her in the convention. She will of course forget to mention that Obama never campaigned in Florida or Michigan, like she did, and that Obama wasn't even on the Michigan ballot.

I for one can't get over the feeling that she's fighting dirty and it's confirming all my suspicions that she is out for power, in any way she can get it. The Democrats for those states made the decision to defy the party, and they made it knowing the consequences. The Candidates signed the pledge, and followed it. The fact that Clinton didn't ever consider the idea of losing, doesn't make it ok for her to go back on her word, and risk dividing the party even more. Her tactic now seems to be "win at any cost", and I can't imagine this will bring her any good will with the superdelegates, or in the general election.

For McCain's response to the whole thing, see this video of him on SNL.

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Sen. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, the particulars of which I'll spare you, but essentially odds are against him. It seems that most of the media outlets have started to eulogize him, focusing on his life, his legacy, and his "passing of the torch". Since Sen. Kennedy has been one of the greatest supporters of Obama, everyone with a left-of-center political bent is rushing to say that Obama is the next member of the "Kennedy Dynasty".

While I am too young to have lived through the heyday of the Kennedy years, JFK and Bobby Kennedy, I still grew up with the idea of Kennedy. I call it the 'Idea of Kennedy' because I very much doubt that it paints the whole picture of them, and for all I know is not even historically accurate.
Whether it's true or not is unimportant, but the idea of Kennedy is roughly as follows:
-A Kennedy is a racial groundbreaker, bringing together Blacks and Whites in times of extreme racial tension.
-A Kennedy is an incredibly charismatic orator, giving goosebumps to even his fiercest critics when they hear him speak.
-A Kennedy is the American Dream incarnate, the children of immigrants that went from poverty to de-facto American Royalty in just a few generations.
-A Kennedy knows how to party and relax, it's almost expected of them, so when they do you can't get mad, you just shrug and say "Oh, that's our Kennedy!" as if in a 1950's sitcom.

These are the images conjured in my mind when I think of what it means to be 'a Kennedy'. This is also why every left-leaning pundit in the country will be rushing forward in the next few days to say that Ted Kennedy, the last of the REAL Kennedys, has "Passed the Torch" to Barrack Obama. They want to make sure that when you think of Barrack Obama, you think of the Idea of Kennedy, and get that same warm and fuzzy feeling everyone gets while talking about JFK. They also seem to be quick to point out, that Ted never chose to pass that torch to Bill Clinton, who has been the only Democrat in the Whitehouse in 25 years. Obama is the next Kennedy, not Hillary.

However, it's also important to remember the other than the Idea of Kennedy, there's much to be said about the reality of Ted Kennedy. He's been in the Senate for nearly 50 years, which clearly doesn't speak to the idea of groundbreaking change in Washington that Obamaniacs chant. He's about as left-wing as a Democrat Senator can be, consistently voting for bigger government projects, increasing the minimum wage, strong supporter of gay rights and immigrant rights, and all other things left-of-center. While no one can doubt his Charisma, the Chappaquiddick incident, might be cause for questioning his integrity.

While it's difficult to lump everything he's done into possitive or negative, I think the Obama campaign might be a bit too hasty in accepting the torch its being passed. For many of the undecided voters who lean towards the Republicans but are considering Obama, or the white, poor, uneducated people that Clinton is so vocal in claiming would never vote for him, an endorsement from Ted Kennedy, if presented in the right light, could be the kiss of death for the Illinois Senator. I don't think it would take much more than listing the most controversial of Kennedy's votes and implying Obama would do the same as president to turn many voters away.

But for now, at least the Obama campaign is taking a gamble that the Idea of Kennedy will be more powerful than the reality of Ted.

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It seems I can't go anywhere on the internet recently without hearing about Bob Barr, who is running for the Libertarian Party nomination. Everywhere you look, from left to right, everyone has something to say about Bob Barr.

While Barr himself has done very little since his announcement, mostly some nagging at now-irrelevant Gov. Huckabee, everyone is scrambling to figure out what effect he will have on the general election. The Weekly Standard's bloggers think he "seems likely to siphon votes from Obama, not McCain". Over at the Daily Kos, blogger Steven R. makes a strong case for "Obamaniacs" to donate to Barr's campaign, in order to defeat McCain, after all, it's what some Republicans did with Nader.

So who's right? Well polls seem to agree with the Barr-for-Obama camp. The Rasmussen Reports, which has daily poll results on the Presidential election, finds that if the election were held today with only Obama and McCain on the ballot, McCain would win by 45% to 44%. However, when you toss in Bob Barr (and Ralph Nader, since he's become inevitable it seems), the results look much different:

In a four-way race, Obama earns 42% of the vote, McCain 38%, Bob Barr 6% and Ralph Nader 4%. Given those options, 11% were undecided.

While this is all likely to change, and I'd be surprised if any third party got more than 3% of the vote or so, it does show an interesting trend. Obama voters will probably vote for Obama regardless of what the other options are, where McCain loses quite a few votes to Bob Barr.

The effect of Bob Barr is likely to diminish in the coming months as more people get to know him and the specifics of what a vote for Bob Barr stands for. Rasmussen Reports states that "Most voters don’t know enough about Barr to have an opinion of him", and I feel this is more likely to benefit Barr than hurt him. What I think it does show is that the Republicans have alienated a lot of voters that would usually not even consider voting for any other party, either through their dislike of the Bush Presidency, or because, as in my case, it seems difficult to see any evidence that they're actually the same organization that gave us Reagan, Goldwater, and even Newt Gingrich. The question is, will McCain be willing to make concessions to this voting bloc in an effort to stop Barr from being a spoiler, or will he continue with the de-facto policy of dismissing "third-party voters" as lunatics that should be ignored?

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In an attempt to share some of the spotlight with the Democrats, McCain gave a sort of "Back to the Future" speech where he looked forward the the changes his Presidency would like to accomplish by 2013. I will try to give this some more in depth analysis soon, but it seems to be at least a novel idea. Politicians usually try to prevent giving out any specific goals or ideas for fear that it would turn away some of their potential voters, and its refreshing to hear someone outline something a bit more tangible than "improve the economy" or "get more jobs". Among the things listed were a reduced military presence in Iraq by 2013, a tax-reform and potential "flat-tax", as well as others. Stay tuned for more info on the speech and on McCain next week.

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The Catholic Church announced that it is OK for Catholics to believe in aliens. To summarily dismiss the possibility would be to "set limits on the creative liberty of God." according to Rev. Jose Funes, who is the director of the Vatican Observatory. I agree wholeheartedly with the premise, and I believe that too often people love to set their limits on God (hello, creationists!), I wonder if the official permission of the Vatican was needed. Were there really that many Catholics afraid to believe in the possibility of extraterrestrials because it might be a sin?

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President Bush, trying to fulfill as many cliché's as possible before his Presidency ends, is on his official peace-in-the-middle-east tour. Well, sorta. The President is in Israel for the 60th anniversary of the country's independence, and during his visit he hopes, as always, to promote the idea of peace. While giving a speech, it seems that he might have likened Sen. Obama to those that would try to appease Hitler. Although he never mentioned Obama, or Hitler for that matter, it was implied that he meant both. Or did some people just interpret it that way? Either way, the President it getting accused of taking advantage of Israel's independence celebrations in order to play partisan politics.

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On the heels of the Myanmar cyclone disaster, China had a massive earthquake from which it is still recovering. As of today the Chinese were still finding survivors in the rubble. The consensus is that the Chinese government is dealing with the disaster incredibly well. It should be interesting to see what sort of discussion comes of this in the future, comparing the Chinese response to the American response during Katrina.

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In California today, Supreme Court for that State overturned the ban on gay marriage. San Fransisco allowed it, law makers outlawed it, and now the court is saying its OK again. Just when you thought the madness would stop, it seems that many predict this will only last for a few months, until a ballot initiative to change the state constitution to ban gay marriages goes through in November.

While this would be a great opportunity to discuss the sides of the gay marriage debate, I find that overdone and uninteresting. In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I generally agree that the Government has no business telling consenting adults who they can or cannot marry, be it because of their race, or because of their sexuality. That being said, I want to discuss what I find to be the more interesting topic at hand: so called Activist Judges.

Activist Judges is a term thrown around a lot, mostly by conservatives, to describe judges they don't like under the idea that they are interpreting laws and the constitution incorrectly. While I have no numbers to support it, I would guess that it's used to refer to left leaning judges more than the opposite, but in general I think it applies to anyone who makes a decision they don't like. As someone who generally agrees with the idea of a checks-and-balances form of government, I absolutely despise this term.

Each of our States, much like our federal government, has as the foundation for all of its laws the State Constitution. This Constitution exists because the citizens of each state gave some of their power to the government, which is to say other citizens, and placed some restrictions on the power that these governments were to have. The Supreme court is essentially charged with being the living advocate for this document, in charge of deciding whether the actions of the other branches, legislature and executive, are following the rules that the citizens set. They use as a basis the collection of information they have from the previous Constitutional Spokesmen, along with their own interpretations to make their decisions. This is why why the judges write their opinions down, not only to explain them to the citizenship, but to help future Judges to understand their decisions in the hopes that they will make better, more informed rulings in the future.

If our Judges are truly "activist judges" interpreting the Constitution in whichever way suits them in order to bring about change, then we as citizens have not only the right, but the responsibility to remove them from their job. However, if we allow them to be accused of this when it is not true, to be denigrated for doing their job and defending the rules that we have set forth to limit the power that our elected officials have over us, then we are giving away our power, and there is no need for the Judicial branch at all.

I have the highest respect for our Constitutional Judges, and I do not envy the difficulty of their position. I do not always agree with the decisions they make, but it is their responsibility to make them to the best of their ability. It is their responsibility to tell those that are in power that they are wrong, that they don't have the authority to do this or that, and because of that I am sure they are not endeared with our politicians, and in fact, I would be very concerned if they were. Next time you hear talk of Judicial Activism, remember that judges are their to protect your rights, not the rights of the government.

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I was watching the news this morning and I saw a headline that caught my eye. "DNC Delegate Sells his Vote for $20 million", or something of that nature. While at first I expected some sort of interesting controversy about an idiot superdelegate trying to profit from the highly contested primary, what I found out was actually quite different, and quite interesting.

Steven Ybarra's role as a superdelegate, as far as I can find, comes from his work in the DNC Hispanic Caucus, where he currently works as "Chair of the Committee on new citizens' outreach and voter registration for the DNC Hispanic Caucus and is the Pacific Regional Director for the DNC Hispanic Caucus". Quite the lofty title. As for the purpose of the $20 million he's demanding for his vote: Mr. Ybarra wants the money in order to setup concerted efforts to court the Mexican-American community of eligible voters, something that according to him, both Democratic candidates have largely ignored.

Hispanics as a voting bloc are relatively new to the scene. The Democrats have a long established relationship with the African-American community, but these strong ties do not exist with Latino voters. It seems surprising to me to see how little effort they are putting into building those ties, considering the evidence that shows Hispanic voters were a key voting bloc that delivered the 2004 election to George Bush. I would think that a relatively unaffiliated voting bloc, that is large and getting larger, would be a gigantic point of focus for anyone interested in becoming the next President. While Obama and Clinton focus on people that will probably vote for them anyway, namely African-Americans and Blue-Collar European-Americans, McCain is launching an aggressive campaign to court the Hispanic vote. Mr. Ybarra is not trying to get a bribe to vote for a candidate, he's trying to push the Democrats into doing the same, which would be an extremely good idea.

In an extreme exercise in missing the point, a blogger on the Official DNC site says:

Many minorities share democratic values such as social equity and social justice therefore there is vast potential for democratic candidates to gain these votes. Steven Ybarra has blatantly violated these values and may have turned away minority votes by attempting to extort 20 million dollars from other Democrats.

I think the Democrats are making an extremely dangerous assumption in thinking that Hispanics will vote for them simply because they are a minority. The past two Presidential elections have proven that this was wrong. The Democrats have built a relationship with African Americans by listening to their problems, their concerns, their efforts, and working with them to accomplish their goals. Their idea of building relationships with Hispanics is pointing to the Republicans and saying "Those guys want tougher immigration laws and therefore hate you, so you have no choice but to vote for us" while the McCain and the Republicans are knocking on doors, meeting with community leaders, and bringing Hispanic voters to the table. Which approach do you think will help build a strong long-lasting voter base?

While Ybarra's method might be disagreeable to some, he makes a strong point when he says that Democrats cannot afford to ignore Hispanic voters. If either of the democratic candidates actually stop long enough to listen to what he's saying, it might be the best $20 million they will spend. If they don't, Latino's will start to realize that they have more in common with the Republicans than they were led to believe, and I won't be surprised to hear talk in 2012 about how it was the Hispanic voters that helped lock McCain into the Presidency in 2008.

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Now that most everyone has accepted that Sen. Obama has won the primary, rumors are going around that he might choose Sen. Clinton as a running mate. In a Gallup poll asking Democrats if he should choose her, 55% said yes:



I wonder about the wisdom of this idea. Clinton has for the most part been ruthless in attacking Obama, saying he's unprepared to run, attacking him for being disconnected, etc, etc. I would assume that all of these things will come back to bite them in a general election. Can she really be the VP candidate if she believes all these things? If it turns out she was 'just kidding' about every single piece of negative campaigning she did, are we supposed to just accept that?

I sincerely doubt that Sen. Clinton would accept the VP nomination. Not only would she have to eat her words, which I doubt she'd find appetizing, but it would also mean she'd have to try to win in the General Election. It would confirm too many of the ideas that people already have that she's ruthless and completely self-interested, and would do anything for power. The problem with her having to try to win the general election is that if she tried too hard, and actually won, she wouldn't be able to run for President in 2012.

The interesting part is that Clinton supporters seem to be all about having her in the Whitehouse however she can get there. Among them, 73% favor the idea of her as VP. Obama supporters aren't as willing to forget everything she said during the campaign. 52% of them would prefer if he chose someone else. I'm sure they're worried, like I am, that if she got into the White House in any office other than President, she would do her best to take over.

Either way, the Obama vs McCain election should pan out to be an interesting one.

Link to the Gallup poll info here.

Este articulo en español en: http://rickyenespanol.blogspot.com/2008/05/obama-clinton-08.html

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Former Congressman Bob Barr announced his candidacy for President on the Libertarian Ticket today, some several months behind all of the other candidates. Rep. Barr, who is probably most known for introducing the resolution to look into impeachment proceedings for President Clinton, left the Republican Party in 2004 to join the Libertarian Party.

Commentary is already popping up that Rep. Barr is just trying to become a spoiler for Sen. McCain, much in the same way that Nader did for Al Gore in 2000. Prof. Charles Bullock, a Political Science professor at the University of Georgia, Rep. Barr's home state, disagrees:

Even disenchanted Republican voters, once they see how far apart the options being offered them by McCain and Obama are, they're going to conclude that they prefer McCain. He may not be their first choice, but they would prefer him substantially more than Obama, and realizing that McCain's going to need every vote he can get to have any chance of winning.

Whether or not Bob Barr and the LP can get enough votes to make a big difference in the campaign at all is debatable. The Libertarians have shown a history of having no clue how to run a campaign, even though they have some of the strongest ideas on the political landscape. I wonder what the purpose of the announcement this far into the race is however, if it is not to do exactly what they're accused of. If the Clinton years taught us anything, its that Republicans stick closer to their true philosophical roots when there is a Democrat in the White House. Newt Gingrich's Contract with America shows evidence of that. So maybe the goal of getting a Democrat in the White House isn't a terrible one from a Conservatives perspective.

Regardless, we'll keep a close eye on this campaign and see what develops, and how successful the LP is at not embarrassing itself this year. I sincerely doubt that Barr can replicate the success that Ron Paul has had in the primary.

A short clip of his announcement below:


Addendum: Official Bob Barr campaign website at: http://www.bobbarr2008.com

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Probably not. But I found this clip from last night's show that echo's some of my sentiments on Hillary Clinton that I pointed out in my post about the Indiana Primary. Tongue-in-cheek as it might be, I don't think they're too far from the truth.

Clip at Hulu.com

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