Okay, now what?

Hi there Democrats. How’s the hangover? Feel up to speed yet? Good.

The honeymoon is over.

Get to work.

You now control both houses of Congress, and you don’t have any excuses anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Conservatives still control two of the three branches of government. Heck, if you include the mainstream media, they are three-for-four, but NO WHINING! You can no longer claim that you’re sitting on the bench. You’re back in the game, and you need to get in there and make things happen. Make what things happen? As you get older, you realize you need to start making lists. Here’s a dozen things for the Dems to keep in mind as 110th Congress gets ready to roll.

1) Remember: You didn’t win. The Republicans lost. As any sport fan knows, there’s a big difference between getting beat and losing. As a Detroit Tigers fan this year I know that difference all too well. The Cardinals didn’t beat the Tigers in the World Series. The Tigers lost it. How it happened doesn’t change the outcome, but it does change how the losing side reacts. The Tigers will come back next year with real fire and hunger. So will the Republicans. Guess what Democrats, you better be prepared because you are in for a fight.

2) Keep your nose clean. If you trust exit polls, one of the most important issues to voters last week was government corruption. It was a big part of why the Republicans took charge of Congress twelve years ago, and it’s why the Democrats are back in charge now. The Dems will justly find themselves out on their collective ass (forgive the pun) in two years if they let themselves feed off the trough too much. Punish ALL corruption that you uncover regardless of party affiliation. Some good, old-fashioned Puritanism would be a good thing up on the Hill right now.

3) It’s about the war, stupid! Number two on the voters' “why should we throw the bums out” list was the war in Iraq. Deal with it head on. Force BushCo to deal with it. You’ve got two years. There had better be MAJOR improvements or an exit strategy by then, or you’re going to be in deep donkey doo-doo. In two years it won’t matter how we got there, but it will matter what we are doing there.

4) Don’t obsess over impeachment, but don’t ignore it either. It would be political suicide to give the appearance that impeachment is a high priority. Be very public about doing other work first. However, conduct the necessary investigations. If there’s smoke, hold the necessary hearings. If you touch a nerve, Bush and/or Cheney will flinch. Remember, Congress and most of US people were not interested in impeaching Richard Nixon until special prosecutor Archibald Cox touched a nerve. Nixon flinched on Saturday, October 20, 1973 by dismissing Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. The infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” enflamed public opinion and started the machinery of impeachment. Just keep the pressure on. When they flinch, pounce!

5) Reclaim the ground ceded to the White House by Congress over the past six years. Remember separation of powers? Trust me, it’s a good thing. The Congress has essentially abdicated it’s responsibilities over the past six years and has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for the White House. BushCo has pushed Congress around like a bully on the playground. It’s time to push back. Reclaim your ability to check and therefore balance the power of the Executive Branch. Outlawing Presidential signing statements would be a good first move.

6) Don’t forget the little guy. Folks are sick of the rich getting all the breaks. Folks are sick of large corporations writing legislation that screws the average guy. Most of the candidates that upset Republican incumbents preached a populist ethos. It’s high time good governance was a priority again. FDR had the goal “to make a country in which no one is left out.” We’ve had 26 years of “personal responsibility.” It’s time for some social responsibility.

7) Fix bad laws right away. Don’t waste any time. Here is a list:

1. Rewrite the prescription drug bill so that it provides drugs to the people and not corporate welfare to the drug companies.
2. Fix the bankruptcy law and enact some serious reforms on the credit card industry.
3. Fix the Patriot Act to allow law enforcement agencies to do their jobs while protecting all of our civil rights.
4. Work on the tax code. Repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Eliminate the marriage penalty (for real this time). Lower the threshold for the earned income tax credit. Reinstate the estate tax with exemptions for family farms and small family-owned businesses (which, by the way, were never actually impacted by the old law).
5. REPEAL, REPEAL, REPEAL the Military Commissions Act of 2006. We don’t need it. It doesn’t make us safer. It puts our troops in peril by lowering the bar on the treatment of prisoners internationally. Most of all, it seriously undermines the Constitution.

8) Talk about health CARE for everyone and not health INSURANCE for everyone. The insurance industry is a huge part of the problem with our health care system. Health insurance and health care are not synonymous. What we need is a system that provide health care, not a system that provides yet another dose of corporate welfare to the insurance industry.

9) Don’t get baited by non-issues. Talking heads call them wedge issues. They are issues that split some part of the electorate nearly in half. The classic examples are abortion and gun rights. The new wedge issues are gay rights and stem cell research. They tend to be emotionally charged issues that force other issues, like war and economics, off voters’ minds. The Republicans have been using them like scalpels to carve out electoral victories. Stick to boring old populism. Stick to rich versus the rest of us. Don’t get baited into wedge issue debates. You need only say two words to diffuse just about any wedge issue: States Rights. That’s it. Punt to the states. Don’t touch them.

10) Create a vision of hope to combat the specter of fear. The Republicans have been hammering on everyone’s fear buttons ever since September 11th. The specter of fear won two elections for them. It’s time for a new vision. Remember Democrats, you are the party of, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Embrace that tired old cliché and breathe some new life into it.

11) Don’t be afraid to call, “BULLSHIT!” The Republican M.O. for the past dozen years has been the same: Accuse the Democrats of committing precisely the heinous acts that they themselves are committing. A corollary has been their practice of using Orwellian double-speak by giving legislation titles that imply the exact opposite of what they actually do. Don't let them get away with it anymore. Just call, "BULLSHIT!" when try that game, and expose them for the hypocrites they are.

12) Student loan forgiveness. I like the idea of lowering the interest rates on student loans put forward by soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Personally, I would go one step farther: student loan forgiveness. Do you want to stimulate the economy? How about putting hundreds of dollars every month back in the pockets of recent college graduates? What do you think those 25-35 year-olds will do with that money? That’s right, they’ll spend it. BOOM! The economy is sparked! Everyone other industrialized country in the world offers inexpensive or free higher education to its talented citizens. We can do better here.

I could keep tacking on things (like dumping all of Bush’s incompetent cronies, reinstating the fairness doctrine in broadcasting, ending manditory sentencing in our courts, etc) but these twelve are a good start.

Have at it, Dems. We didn't vote you in because you're cute. We want change. You'll give it to us, or the voters will give it to you in two years.

Brooks gets my goat.

There are few things more futile than writing a letter to the editors of the New York Times. Okay, blogging is more futile, but that's understood. David Brooks consistently gets under my skin with his smug, conservative drivel. Recently he touted the great accomplishments of the current conservative era (1980 to present). I took umbrage. Here's what I wrote.

Hello,

Although I generally agree with David Brooks' assertion in his column titled “The Era of What’s Next” that the US is entering a period of political flux, I do take issue with his list of alleged conservative achievements over the past quarter century.

According to Mr. Brooks the big conservative accomplishments have been:

1) The defeat of communism.

There is no doubt that communism collapsed while conservatives were in power, but it is debatable as to the role that US and conservative politics played in that fall. There is every indication that communism would have tipped over all by itself without the aggressive US intervention that had us flirting with nuclear war throughout the 80s.

2) The reinvigoration of the economy through deregulation, tax reform and monetarism.

Deregulation has left our food less safe, our health care and prescription drugs too expensive, and corporations free to run amok. The tax code has been altered so that those who prosper the most from government supported infrastructure and policies are asked to pay the least, and those who reap the fewest rewards are required to pay the most: a “get rich or else” policy. The net effect has been to steer the US into a new Gilded Age where a few prosper and the vast majority suffer.

3) The rebalancing of the culture to emphasize family, work and individual responsibility.

The so-called ‘rebalancing’ has been in rhetoric only. One economic metric after another shows that families are far worse off after a quarter century of conservative policies. We certainly have been refocused on work. The average US worker spends more time at work for less pay in real dollars than his or her counterpart during the liberal era. How, exactly, does forcing someone – and their spouse – to work two or three minimum wage jobs just to makes ends meet help emphasize the family? Individuals have been held more accountable, but corporations have been allowed to shirk all responsibilities outside of making money by any means possible – which includes buying the conservative government. Thank God, however, that we can now throw all the pot-heads in jail.

The past 26 years have been the pendulum swing of the rich elite reasserting their power over the working class. Conservative vs. Liberal more often than not boils down to rich vs. not rich. One of my favorite definitions of the two sides is: “A conservative is someone who benefits from the evils of the day. A liberal is someone who wishes to install a new set of evils.” The liberals unleashed the ‘evils’ of personal freedom and civil rights and restrained the evils of trusts and monopolies. Now that conservatives have allowed trusts and monopolies to return, personal freedom and civil rights are under assault.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget that whole environment thingy. Deregulation has worked wonders in that arena. As some old codger who has a city named after him once said:

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. - Chief Seattle

The conservatives have indeed run out of ideas, and it hasn’t come a moment too soon. Having bad ideas holds no virtue over holding no ideas at all. Luckily, that choice is not the one confronting voters this November. The liberal ideas and ideals are still there, waiting to be awakened after a 26 year slumber. They are ideas such as applying the rule of law to everyone regardless of status or party; banning torture and anything that even remotely approaches it; and governing with the good of people taking precedence over the good of your campaign contributors. Most of all, it is the ideal that the Constitution is more important than political expediency. Voting for the Democrats this November will be first step in reviving those ideals, but there is a lot of work to be done before we can recover from Mr. Brooks’ conservative achievements.

Ken Bergenham
Seattle, WA

Long time, no blog.

Not that it's been a bad thing.

Too much has transpired since my last post, so here's a bulleted list.

• The Tigers made the playoffs! Wahoo!
• The situation in Iraq has decayed but the White House is in denial.
• The Tigers BEAT THE F-ING YANKEES!!!! Hoody-hoo! ALCS here we come!
• The situation in Iraq has decayed but the White House is in denial.
• The White House denies its in denial.
• The Tigers WIN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE!!! World Series HO! Tigers in 4!
• The situation in Iraq has decayed but the White House is in denial.
• Okay, minor setback, but they won game 2: Tigers in 5!
• The situation in Iraq has decayed. The election is close. White House enters the spin cycle.
• Tigers in 6!
• Tigers in 7!
• The situation in St. Louis has decayed. Tiger fans are in denial.
• Tigers in 2007!! Tiger fans enter the spin cycle.
• Foley... HAHAHAHAHA!
• Limbaugh sticks foot in mouth... media actually pays attention for a change. HAHAHAHA!
• Kerry sticks foot in mouth... media pounces like a cat. Dems send a Dr. John letter.
• Who's Ted Haggard? Oh, THAT'S Ted Haggard! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
• Dems still find a way to lose the election. (Whoops, I was saving that for a later post.)