MEMO TO HOWARD DEAN: SMALL STATES DON’T ELECT THE PRESIDENT. BIG STATES DO.

I have great concerns about the future of our country and our world.

I have these concerns because I believe that John McCain stands a very good chance of being elected President, and, should that happen, we will be knee deep in the big muddy.

I have those concerns because I believe that the Democratic Party has been controlled by people who seem unable to get out of their own ways for so long that winning may be next to impossible.

I am concerned because the chairman of our party doesn’t seem to know how to control the party.

And, most of all, I am concerned because the two remaining candidates in the Democratic Party’s presidential stakes are so busy killing each other off that they have forgotten, or nearly forgotten, the forest for the trees, the trees being the presumptive Republican candidate, the aforementioned Senator McCain.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing the man who should have been President, former Vice President Al Gore, speak. He was outstanding, and that’s an understatement. Sadly, he made it very clear that he has little or no interest in running for President. It wasn’t an “If nominated, I will not run, and if elected, I will not serve” statement, but it was very firm. Listening to Gore, I came to the realization that he simply does not have the fire in his belly that one needs to assume the challenge of the campaign.

So let’s look at what is going on and stop dreaming about what might have been, and let’s talk about the realities of today.

First and foremost, Howard Dean is not really getting it. It is not his place as chairman of the DNC to tell the Democratic voters of Florida and Michigan that their primary votes will not count. It is, instead, his job to figure a way out of the primary mess that currently exists and, perhaps, it is his job to find a to move toward some sort of national primary. It is also his job to slap party leaders upside the head and develop a single set of rules for these contests. No more barbeques masquerading as caucuses. No more states that have primaries followed by caucuses. And, most of all, no cross party voting. It simply doesn’t work the way it is, and it needs to be fixed.

The other day I heard Dr. Dean tell us that the system is great because it gives small states an early voice in deciding the eventual candidate.

Memo to Howard Dean:

Small states don’t elect the President. Big states do. I know you’re from Vermont, dude, but, face it, the state only has 3 electoral votes and it doesn’t decide anything. Why should anyone give a tinker’s damn about who the good people of Vermont want to be President?

It takes the votes of 270 Electors to win the Presidency. Votes in the Electoral College are allocated on a winner take all basis, by state. Therefore, to win the Presidency with exactly 270 votes, a candidate needs only to win in New York (31), California (55), Texas (34), Georgia (15), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Illinois (21), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Washington (11), Michigan (17) and Florida (27). Notice that none are Vermont, New Hampshire or Iowa. Yet these states have a disproportionate influence on who receives the nomination, and that is, to be perfectly blunt, idiotic.

Here’s why. While Senator Obama has won the primaries/caucuses in 26 states and Senator Clinton has only won those contests in 19, at the end of the day, the states in which Obama has been victorious account for only 177 electoral votes, nearly 100 less than those needed to win the Presidency. Senator Clinton’s, on the other hand, account for 277 votes, 7 more than are needed for victory. Obama has only won two bigger states, his home state of Illinois and Georgia. Clinton has won New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Texas, California, Maryland and Massachusetts plus some of the smaller states. So, Obama’s claim of winning more states than Clinton becomes somewhat irrelevant when taking into consideration the overall number of members of the electorate in the states won by Senator Clinton.

And Obama is going to have the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. dogging him throughout the general election. Make no mistake about this. No matter what words come out of John McCain’s mouth decrying those nasty Reverend Wright ads run by the North Carolina Republican Party, they will pop up over and over and over again if Senator Obama is the candidate. Although that won’t be good for the country it will be perfectly fine with the good Reverend who, as it turns out, may actually prefer it if Senator Obama loses.

After all, if an African American wins the Presidency, won’t that blunt Reverend Wright’s firebrand sermons just a bit? On the other hand, if the Senator from Illinois loses, can you just imagine those sermon he will be giving all over the country about how America rejected the Black candidate? Reverend Wright, as it turns out may be more interested in his own ego than in the Presidential aspirations of one of his congregants.

Yes, folks, this election has The Pundit very worried.

As they say in Dixie, “You can’t win for losin’ ”

And if the Democrats don’t think very seriously about winning, that may be exactly what they are saying all over the country come January 20 when John McCain is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

HENRY A. HONIG-THE PUNDIT

FRIENDS, THE TIME FOR SERIOUS ACTION IS NOW

The bad news – and to be honest, what else is there when people in the know gather to discuss the environment - is that while millions of us have been working hard to reduce our carbon footprint, eat healthy, and lead environmentally sustainable lives, there are many times our amount, both here in our country and around the world, who feel that it is their god-given right to squander, hog and plunder the planet’s finite supply of clean air, potable drinking water and toxin free food. Many times our amount for whom the fears of environmentalists that planet earth is each day creeping closer to an environmental day of reckoning is just another distraction forced upon them by elitists to keep them from getting what is rightly theirs.

Fueling this stupidity, though it is hard to argue with those who feel that they have been passed over at the trough, are the so-called people of science – their term, not mine - who continue, sprouting mountains of scientific sounding mumbo jumbo to dispute the existence of Global Warming, and to minimize the part that man and his corporate doppelganger, the corporatocracy, have played and continue to play in is worsening.

One can only wonder what it will take to convince the nonbelievers, many of them sincere individuals, that the life that they ascribe to, or have recently, as in the case of many of the citizens of China and India, recently attained, is destructive to us all. What it will take for these same folks to acknowledge that no one, no corporation or country, has the right to bring about another’s demise, much less the end of life, as we know it, which is certainly a description of what will happen if what remains of the polar ice disappears as it is projected to do in the next decade?

There is no denying that mankind and the planet that we occupy are already a good ways down the path to destruction. For proof, one needs only to look to the devastation created both here and abroad by recent weather phenomena so severe as to leave death and destruction of untold proportions in its wake. Still unsure, then consider for a moment the extreme severity of Hurricane Katrina, a hurricane, which destroyed one of our better known cities, and cost hundreds of lives, though the exact number remains unknown.

But while these events are dramatic, far more dangerous is the recent unsettling news that all three major greenhouse gasses, that’s carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane for those keeping score, all of these substances, which had been on the decline in recent years, are now, once again, accumulating in our air in record amounts, and even more terrifying, there is zero indication that this situation will reverse itself anytime soon.

Sadly, this institutionalized shortsightedness does not end with the pollution of our air. Elevated toxicity levels have also been observed in our waterways, as corporate arrogance and political corruption have allowed many of our precious oceans, rivers and streams to be used as de facto dumping grounds for raw, unfiltered sewage.

This has, of course, not only had a devastating effect on many of the plant and animal species that depend on clean air and water for their survival, but has started to affect our health, as well.

But this is all old news and is definitely not a surprise to regular readers of this page. So this time we are going to do things a little bit differently. This time it is not enough to point out things that are amiss and leave it up to you, the reader, to decide the best course of action in any given situation. This time, I am going to climb up on my soap box and offer want I feel are some concrete suggestions, in the hope that by fueling a discussion with you the reader, we may be able drive home the information that the environment is more than the just the latest fashion trend to be observed.

So sit down, pull up a chair, crack that collar or belt and relax. The time has come to talk the future - all of our futures.
But before we can accurately hope to do this, we need to spend a few minutes looking at the politics of our present. This will allow for a better understanding into what is preventing our society from moving toward a more environmentally sustainable way of life.

FIXING WHAT’S WRONG IN AMERICA

The answer in a nutshell is money, or more accurately the greed that is exhibited when one is in wanton pursuit of money. But the problem goes so much deeper than just the desire for the Benjamin’s. Specifically, it goes to how our corporations are structured and what powers and privileges that they have been accorded by generations of bought and paid for political sycophants in Washington and in similar seats of government around the world.

Corporations, at least the multinationals, are all about making money. Your life, your livelihood and everything else come second. Spending money, however, this is a different matter. Generous corporate disbursements are nowadays usually only sanctioned when the money in question is earmarked for dividends for shareholders, compensation for corporate officers, or to smooth the corporation’s passage past one regulatory hurdle or another. Money to comply with reducing a company’s environmental footprint, sadly, is not one of these priorities.

Nor apparently a priority anymore for many US based companies is the research and development of new products. Much of this is on account of laziness as it is easier to let others do the time consuming product development and then either copy the finished product, license it, or, as Microsoft is famous for doing, buying the developing company and the developer, outright.

This long-term shortsightedness is one of the principle reasons why forward thinking Japanese automakers, Toyota and Honda, lead the world in alternative fuel vehicles and their European and American counterparts are just now struggling to catch up.
But then, why should corporations fund such a boring costly process as research and development when there are far too many governments willing to use the people’s money to underwrite such expenses? Case in point, Ronald Reagan’s, Star Wars fiasco, where the old cow puke gave billions of the people’s dollars to his friends in aerospace to develop a product that twenty years later still does not exist.

This nursing at the corporate teat has the corporatocracy spoiled. To insure that the handouts keep on coming, these captains of industry have been forced to spend freely buying the loyalty of generation after generation of ethically challenged politicians, despots and dictators. Moreover, they have been forced to underwrite the Beltway’s notorious network of lobbyists, who when they are not writing legislation for the Bush administration, function to move the cash between the parties in these slightly south of legal transactions.

But then, what are a few slightly bent laws when one is rewarding the loyalty of friends, particularly friends who come to the table bearing gifts that keep on giving.

Several of these gifts, specifically those with seemingly innocuous sounding names such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and GATT, are gifts that keep on giving as they threw open our borders, eased import restrictions and taken in Toto, have led the charge to devastate the American middle class in ways that the robber barons of the early twentieth century could only dreamed have dreamed of doing.

The tendency, particularly among liberals, is to blame the Republicans for this, as most attacks against the middle class usually are their doing. After all it was Republican patron saint, Ronald Reagan, who first moved against the unions while his vice president and successor, George H.W. Bush, pushed for and obtained fast track authority for the President in matters of trade. Not to be outdone, his slacker son, George W. handed over to corporate leaders and their lobbyist alter egos, responsibility for the drafting of legislation, which his Republican allies in Congress merely rubber stamped into law.

The younger Bush, it seems has never met a corporation who could not stand a handout of a few billion bucks, which is why in this the era of record oil company profits, many of these same companies are still receiving aid stipends to help with their search to find new sources of fossil fuels, rather than for the same money to be invested into the development of wind, water and solar power, as would be the conscious thing to do. But then, these guys are not what I would call conscious people.

But it was the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, no slouches themselves when it came to rewarding corporate loyalists, who dismantled the previously referenced trade regulations, as anyone who has lost a manufacturing job to a third world country in the last decade or so can attest.

This opening of our markets removed any impetus to manufacture in this country, let alone to deal with those nagging little annoyances such as labor unions, pensions, and health care. Overseas labor was not only cheaper, but factories are for the most part unregulated, both as to safety issues for employees and for the integrity of the products manufactured.

The downside of this is that little if anything is manufactured in this country anymore. If you do not believe me, take a trip to Wal-mart or any of other big box store and count the products that still say ‘Made in the USA’.

What a frustrating experience this will be. But then frustrating isn’t the half of it when one considers the poor quality of much of the ‘outsourced products’, or the fact that many of these same items have been proven to make their end users sick. In an attempt to cut costs, many of these offshore companies substitute substances long ago banned from the manufacturing process in this country. For this reason, we have dog food, Vitamins, toothpaste and other personal care products from China containing the same active ingredient as is used to make antifreeze, and led paint and miniature magnets being used in the manufacture of children’s toys.

But sadly, we do not need to find an outsourced product to be concerned about quality and safety. Food and water, once constants for purity and consistency here in the lower forty-eight, too often today are neither.

For this we can thank George W. Bush who in his zeal to eliminate all federal oversight has decimated the ranks of our nation’s food inspectors, leaving in his wake many unhappy people and thousands of cases of e-coli and other food borne illnesses. But what are a million instances of food poisoning as long as the corporations are happy and keep expressing that happiness with their generous contributions?

Ludicrous thought isn’t it, satisfying the corporations at the expense of those that they were created to serve?

Well regardless of how much the cynic in me enjoys a good laugh, we as a nation can no longer allow this to continue. Contrary to what they would like you to believe, corporations have no rights in this country, only privileges, chief among them the privilege to be allowed to incorporate and conduct business for profit. But like all privileges these come with responsibilities as well, most importantly, to respect those who they were created to serve. And that is ‘We the People’, not their stockholders or their corporate hierarchy, in spite of what they would like you to believe.

ACTION PLAN

In fact we need to rethink all of the ways, which we deal with the corporations starting with the subsidies, which for some reason, even in the best of times, they think that they deserve.

The best way to do this is to eliminate all corporate subsidies, unless the corporation in question is engaged in the development of environmentally friendly technologies.

This means financially cutting off the energy companies, the airlines, the insurance companies, the drug companies and virtually every other unnecessary drain on our economy that has managed to find its way onto the Government tab since President Ronald Reagan first declared war on the American people.

With the money gone, we then need to examine more closely the ways that these same corporations conduct business. The best way to do this would be to create a corporate tsar and charge this man or woman with the means of taking these companies to task for violations against the American people. This means charges, with the leaders of the companies held legally liable for their actions in the corporate suite. Perhaps if we slap a few of these SOB’s in prison for their actions, it would go a long way toward cleaning up how the multinationals do business, at least in this country.

Next we need to rescind NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT and reinstate our market protections. If it became more expensive to manufacture in India or China products for the American market, we would see the return of that sector to this country.

Such initial changes, when combined with the repeal of this country’s usurious personal bankruptcy laws, the end of the ill fated ‘War for Oil’ and the permanent rescission of the Republican Party’s tax breaks for the wealthy, would in the short term, give the USA the financial wherewithal to put its economic position ad would eventually return our land to a place that rewards creativity and welcomes bold new ideas, no matter their source.

A more long term course correction would be to require that any new technologies developed, or made better by research paid for by ‘We the people’, a significant portion of these would become the property of the commons, and those wishing to build products or services using these discoveries as underlying material, would have to obtain a license and pay royalties to do so.

It is unethical, not to mention immoral, for technologies developed with the people’s money to inure exclusively to the benefit of any entity other than ‘We the people’. Corporations are most certainly entitled to participate in that which they develop but that’s participation, not ownership.

But these changes that I have outlined above will not happen without a significant change of leadership on Pennsylvania Avenue and in both houses of Congress. For too long the American people have not had an advocate in the White House. He has been corporate America’s man, bought and paid for and charged to do their bidding and not ours. The result is we have a climate that puts the interests of a few over the many.

Correcting this is going to take time and more than a few new laws, including those governing the way politicians approach their jobs. Currently the system rewards political hacks who do the corporations bidding. This needs to change.

For the USA to reverse its present tailspin, we need to know that our elected officials, regardless of their ideology, are doing the public’s bidding. So first we need laws that would make it easier to punish politicians who betray the public trust. Right now, the impeachment laws on the books are too unwieldy to be much good to anyone. These need to be simplified, with civil and criminal penalties established.

We also need to stop talking and finally do something about campaign finance reform, which would not only decide how campaigns are financed but would also take the power away from the lobbyists by making it a serious crime for any elected official to take any gratuity, no matter how small, to influence the passing of legislation.

But our job does not end with just cleaning up the financial and political mess here in this country. As one of the world’s largest and most powerful economy’s, we need to start using our impressive financial muscle to pressure our global neighbors to be more responsive to environmental matters, particularly when their ill conceived actions threaten those outside their own borders.
But before we can do so, we need to make change happen at home. Hillary Clinton will not make these tough changes. Neither will John McCain. Obama is the only presidential candidate with the stomach to oversee such change.

For this reason he needs to be our President.

LIB

IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO RUNS ON THE DEMOCRATIC LINE. IT ONLY MATTERS THAT THEY WIN

In the 1970s, Neil Diamond wrote and performed a song called Done Too Soon. It began,

Jesus Christ

Fanny Brice

Wolfgang Mozart

Humphrey Bogart

Allen Freed and

Buster Keaton, too

As each name was sung, the listener soon realized that each person named was no longer living. At the end, Diamond got to his point that no matter when we die, we are done too soon.

I recently saw a bumper sticker that read, “Had enough? Vote Democratic in ‘08” That got me to thinking about all of the ongoing parts of the Bush Administration that are still around in one way or another, or, to put it in a different way, weren’t done soon enough.

Although my list is far more extensive, let me share some of them with you. You won’t be able to sing it to Diamond’s melody for two reasons. Most of you have never even heard the song, and those of you that have, will realize that the words won’t fit into the pattern of the melody. So, I ask you to pretend I actually have some musical talent and consider the following:

The war In Iraq

The first time In the Modern Age our country was attacked on its own soil

An over stretched military

Stop loss

A national surplus turned into the largest deficit in our history

Theocracy

Abu Ghraib

Guantanamo

Water Boarding

Extraordinary rendition

Post traumatic stress syndrome

Removal of veterans’ benefits

4,000 + dead

G-d knows how many wounded

Stolen elections

Karl Rove

Paul Wolfowitz

Jerry Bremer

General Petraeus

Condoleeza Rice

No Child Left Behind

Antonin Scalia

Clarence Thomas

Samuel Alito

Anthony Kennedy

Chief Justice John Roberts

Attempts to overturn Roe v Wade

The right to die

The death penalty

Recession, depression and Inflation, all at the same time

$4.00 a gallon gas

Home heating oil prices

Outsourcing

Newt Gingrich

Dennis Hastert

Trent Lott

Global Warming

The failure to ratify Kyoto

Free Trade

Immigration Failures

September 11

The environment in New York City after September 11

The sub-prime crisis

Pollution

Crime

Dick Cheney

George W. Bush

Each one there, have some things they share.

They are all part of the Bush Administration’s America

They all are changing our way of life in ways we would never have considered eight short years go.

And they can’t be done soon enough

It doesn’t matter who gets the Democratic nomination. It only matters that they win, because they won’t ever be done if John McCain becomes our President.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HOW TO GROW PORK, CHICKEN, AND BEEF THROUGH CELL CULTURE IN VATS

Wouldn’t it be kinda nifty if it were possible to have all of the pork, chicken, and beef that anyone would ever want to chow down on, without the environmental and ethical consequences created by the outdated and barbaric process of raising and slaughtering cattle for food?

Well, thankfully the lab coat and pocket protector set think that this is as important as I do and have figured out a way to do something about it.

Their discovery, a procedure, known as Cultured Meat Technology, while still in its infancy, will in the years to come eliminate the need for most of the feedlots and slaughterhouses scattered around our world today, by making it possible to produce ample supplies of different meats through cell culture in vats.

Besides the fact that this new procedure will allow scientists to produce products high in beneficial nutrients and low in heart-debilitating fats, it will make it possible for us to eliminate several of the most prolific sources of methane gas production in our world today. A colorless, odorless gas, methane from cow belches and lower gastric discharges is a potent, greenhouse gas, as it traps 21 times more heat within our atmosphere than carbon dioxide, our most common and best known greenhouse gas.

To help wrap you mind around the scope of the methane issue and how important this discovery is to our continued existence on this planet, it’s important to understand that the methane released by the 1.3 billion cows alive on our planet today, (100 million in the US alone), is more harmful than all of the carbon monoxide fumes generated by all of the cars, trucks and planes in use today.

This does not mean that if we fix this problem, we can all run out and order without consequence, a three-ton gas-guzzler. No way, Jose! What it does mean is that, perhaps, we have bought ourselves a little time-out in our rush to destruction, time, which hopefully we will not squander with distractions, as has been our society’s ongoing MO.

The time has come when we as a civilized people can no longer allow the poorer nations of the earth to bulldoze large swaths of rain forest land to make way for cattle grazing as our society struggles to produce enough meats to supply the needs of the almost 9 billion people who currently call this planet home. Now why they cannot eat more meat substitutes, more tofu, tofutti, tempeh etc., is beyond me, but that is a topic for a different discussion.

-LIB

CONTINUE READING - -

THAT DOESN’T MEAN I WON’T VOTE FOR SENATOR OBAMA IF HE IS NOMINATED. I WILL!

I am preparing to have a minor medical procedure. In the course of my preparation for this, I am presented with a choice of surgeon, sort of like the choice I might be offered if I were a contestant on Let’s Make A Deal.

Behind Door # 1 is grisly old Doctor McCain. He’s been practicing medicine for 40 years and has probably forgotten more than the other two have learned. That’s the problem. He has forgotten more than the other two have learned and basically does the procedure in the way he first did it 40 years ago. Sometimes, he forgets the basics of that procedure, and it can be positively frightening to speculate on the results of his memory lapses.

Behind Door # 2 is young Doctor Obama. Now, he’s been practicing medicine for about 4 years. He was a top student at Harvard, but is only skilled in the most modern, cutting edge, techniques. He wouldn’t know when or whether it was appropriate to go back to the tried and true method favored by Doc McCain because his professors never gave him that insight. He thought he could and told that to everyone who would listen, but he only could when there was someone there to show him the way.

And behind Door # 3 is Doctor Clinton. She isn’t as old as Doc McCain and isn’t as green as young Doctor Obama. She has learned from her experience about the tried and true old ways. Yet, she knows that progress is being made every single day, and that in order to do the best for her patients, she needs to understand when it is right to use the old ways and when the new ways are appropriate.

So, now that you know what’s behind each of the doors, what ya gonna do, boy?

My dad was in the electrical supply business. His clients were builders, electricians and contractors. He taught me a very valuable lesson, my dad did. He said that when you need a job done, you should always get three estimates. The person who gave you the high estimate was probably trying to rip you off. The low bidder either didn’t know what he was doing or figured that he could add a few extras in along the way. It was invariably the middle bidder who would do the best job at the right price.

It’s funny how we don’t always realize how smart our parents are. When we’re 16, we really think that they are dumb. When we are 30, we are amazed at how much they have learned in the intervening 14 years.

As I have watched our current political season unfold, I have been reminded of my father’s logic in picking the people he hired to work on his home. It is a logic that I, too, used when I had a place of my own. When I haven’t, I have found things often didn’t work out to my liking.

Thus the story of the three doctors behind the doors, and the Presidential candidates they represent.

But with this story there is a caveat.

Senator McCain, the wizened old grandpa of the Republican Party makes us forget his true political stances on many issues. He sees us staying in Iraq for decades, if not a full century. He is absolutely against a woman’s right to choose. And he has freely admitted that he is in the dark about the economy. John McCain is an old school Republican conservative politician out of the school of Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley. Both were men I admired for their honesty and who frightened me because of their right wing politics. Yes, McCain has been on the right side of some issues, as in the McCain Feingold Bill to reform campaign financing. But his positions on the two most important issues we are facing in our country today, the war and the economy are way out, well, in right field. Far right field, if you will.

Senator Clinton, my choice, has the experience and is right on most of the positions about which I care. And she is not afraid to admit when she is wrong. She knows that her vote on the Iraq War was based on misinformation provided by the Bush Administration, and now she is firmly committed to righting that wrong. She understands that her husband’s stance on free trade may be the cause of at least some of our economic woes, and she has gone so far as to fire members of her campaign team for not supporting her stand on that issue over that of former President Clinton.

Yes, she has had missteps, like the Bosnia gaffe, but nobody ever claimed that she was perfect. Nor should she be perfect.

And that takes me to Senator Obama.

On the issues, I am in agreement with Barack Obama most of the time. I just don’t like the way he deals with a lot of things.

I reject his recurrent comment that he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning. Sorry, Senator, you were not in the Senate when the vote took place, and you did not have the information that was given to the members of Congress by the Bush Administration. Get over it. You don’t know how you might have voted had you gotten that information, and neither do we.

I am concerned that you speak with hesitancy in your tone when you are asked questions. Your prepared talks are great, but I don’t know who wrote those. I do know that you always seem to be ill prepared when you speak off the cuff, and, frankly, Senator, that scares the living daylights out of me.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t vote for Senator Obama if he is nominated. I will! And if Senator Clinton receives the nomination, those of you who support Senator Obama’s campaign should vote for her.

Some friends have indicated to me that they will vote for John McCain if their choice for the Democratic nominee loses. That is simply wrong headed. Both Clinton and Obama are right on the issues. Senator Clinton is just better prepared.

I don’t believe that it is specifically either of their time. Yes, Senator Obama represents a minority that makes up about 20% of the population, but Senator Clinton represents one that makes up over half, not really a minority, but treated as one nonetheless. And, yes, it would be nice if we could break either the gender or race barrier in this election, but that is not the most important thing to worry about.

Senator McCain is the wrong person at the wrong time. In fact, he is the wrong person at any time. He may be far more dangerous in many ways than the current President because his version of Conservatism is based on political not religious or financial ideology. Beyond that, he is not a good old boy neo-con with the IQ of a flea. He is a real Conservative with a brain, and that notion is something that should give us all the cold sweats.

And don’t even think about voting for Nader.

Remember, when asked what his feelings would be if his votes cost Al Gore the Presidency, Nader responded that it would be what America deserved. Well, a couple of states did actually go to George W. Bush as a result of Nader being on the ballot. Had they not, it would never have come down to Florida, and we might be living in a far better country, in fact a far better world, than we are now. Ralph Nader does not give a damn about you or this country anymore, if he ever did in the first place. What he cares about is Ralph Nader, and a vote for him will be a wasted vote.

There are two doctors behind those doors who I would trust to do my surgery.

Dr. Obama does have some grasp of the new, but needs a bit more seasoning and experience with the old. He also has the experienced team of Democratic physicians he needs available to him to help him understand what he doesn’t quite know well enough. He would be a better choice in 8 years, but if the choice were to be between him and Dr, McCain, there simply is no choice. It would be Doctor Obama who would be the one to make us all better.

Dr. Clinton, the doctor I would choose, can handle both the old and the new with the skill of Ben Casey and Dr. Zorba combined.

Dr. McCain just needs to retire.

Let’s help him do that.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

OK, SO HERE’S ANOTHER INTERESTING THING ABOUT THE REPUBLICANS

Once again, your friendly neighborhood pundit has decided to share a few of his random observations about the wonderful world of politics with you, our loyal readers.

Ever notice how Republicans are always elected on a platform of lower taxes and then fool us by raising fees and fines? Here in the Big Apple, we have a mayor who couldn’t get nominated by the Democrats so he switched his party and bought the Republican nomination. Billionaire Bloomberg told us all that he would not raise our taxes, and he didn’t. Instead, parking meters, which cost a dollar an hour when he came into office, have just begun rising to twice that amount after several interim raises. When Bloomy took office, marriage licenses were 15 bucks. When I got married in 2005, we paid 35 for ours. A parking ticket back then was $65. It’s now as high as $125, depending on the offense.

And then there’s congestion pricing, which has just been defeated by the New York State legislature.

This gem of an idea is supposed to lessen our traffic jams by charging drivers 8 bucks to drive their cars in Manhattan below 60th Street. The Mayor claims that a similar system worked in London. Of course, he ignores the fact that they had to increase the fee several times before drivers got the message. Then he adds insult to injury by asking the rhetorical question, “Who can’t afford eight dollar?”

There is an answer to that rhetorical question, Mr. Mayor, even though you might not want to hear it. Every lower income person who has to drive into the city because their homes are too far away from public transportation can’t afford eight bucks. That’s their lunch money. That, Mayor Money Bags, is who can’t afford eight dollars.

The added financial grab here is that the feds promised the city $350 million if they passed this nightmare of a plan. It’s about the money, and only the money. If they really wanted to help with congestion, there are several steps that could be taken before charging people to drive in the city. Eighteen wheelers could be banned from the streets of Manhattan. Deliveries on main thoroughfares could be restricted to the hours between midnight and 6 AM. Double parked vehicles, a major source of traffic jams on major roads, could be towed and fined more frequently. Sanitation trucks could be made smaller and their drivers told not to diagonally block streets while collecting garbage. Street sweeping machines could be replaced by folks with barrels and brooms who would undoubtedly do a more efficient job that those monsters that suck dirt in their front ends and spit it out their rears. Alternate side of the street parking, which forces drivers to move their cars so that those inefficient street sweeping machines can get through, could be eliminated.

All of these could be done, but that wouldn’t bring in the cash, and the cash is what this was all about.

So, here’s an interesting question.

When the phone rings at 3 AM, will President Obama answer with “Yes, we can,” and will it have about as little meaning then as it does now? Or will he answer with what, sadly, might be the truth, No I can’t?

OK, so here’s another interesting thing about Republicans.

It seems that one of the major tenets of the right is their belief in less government. Yet, they want to take control of women’s bodies. They want to make sure that schools teach doctrines in which they believe, even if the teaching of those doctrines (you know, like their religious beliefs) is in complete violation of the Constitution.

Funny thing about those guys on the right. They say one thing, and mean something completely different.

And for my next question.

What exactly did Bill Richardson get for stabbing the people that made him a national figure in the back?

And by the way, when the phone rings at three in the morning and President McCain goes to answer it, will his eyes be too weak to find it, or will his age prevent him from remembering who’s on the other end? “Vladimir who?”

Yes, those Republicans are really a funny bunch. They tell us that because of their superior military policies, we have not been attacked since September 11, 2001. They neglect to tell us that we hadn’t been really attacked before that since, oh let’s see, The War of 1812. Yeah, that’s the ticket. They seem to forget that it was the insanity of President Bush the elder, who told Sadaam Hussein that he could attack Kuwait that started this whole thing. Bush wanted bases in Saudi Arabia, and he so scared the Saudis as a result of that attack, that they allowed us to build them on what the Wahabi Islamists considered to be holy land. That led to the meteoric rise of one Osama bin Laden, and we know where that led. Sure is great that we haven’t been attacked again in the last 7 years. It’s just a damned shame that nobody is mentioning that it was the policies of the Republicans that came before that got us attacked in the first place. The sins of the fathers were certainly visited on the sons in 2001, and the major sinning father was George H.W. Bush.

So, what the hell got into Randi Rhodes? Did you hear that embarrassing diatribe she delivered in San Francisco? Whether or not you are an Obama supporter, that cursing and her comments were wholly inappropriate.

And by the way, she wasn’t on her own time. She was representing Air America at an affiliate event. She deserved to be suspended, just as Don Imus deserved to be fired.

The defenses I have seen on the Air America website are bull. There is no defense for calling a former First Lady, who is also a Senator and a candidate for the Presidency, a whore. There is no rational reason to use that term when describing a former Vice Presidential candidate and member of Congress.

And by the way, Representative Ferraro was right. Had Senator Obama been some random White Illinois legislator running for the U.S. Senate, no matter how good his oratory was, he would never have been snatched from the crowd to give that speech at the Democratic convention in ‘04.

And had that random White legislator won the nomination and the election for the U.S. Senate, he would never have been plucked from the crowd after only 4 years of service to be considered as a legitimate Presidential candidate.

That’s not racist. That’s the truth, and maybe, sometimes, the truth hurts. But that’s the problem with those in our party who reside on the far left. They would rather lose than be perceived as not picking the most liberal candidate for the Presidency. That’s how we ended up with George McGovern as our candidate, and that’s how we might end up with Barack Obama. Howard Dean would, it seems, rather be perceived by history as the guy who was DNC chairman when we nominated the first Black candidate than as the guy who took back the Presidency from the Republicans. History has shown that while candidates from the far right can win the Presidency, candidates from the far left can’t. It doesn’t speak well of our country, but it’s the truth.

Speaking of Air America, nobody can seem to figure out what has been going on with them here in New York. Two really popular shows on their air have disappeared and been replaced by what appear to be lease time health shows. Maybe the time has come for Air America to find a better outlet in the Big Apple.

Oh, by the by, did you read that the Clintons did release their tax returns, They we to be worth about 40 times as much as the Obamas, but that’s not what caught my eye. They also give about 9.5% of their income to charity as opposed to 4% for the Obamas. Yes they can!

While we’re at it, did you see Doonesbury this past Sunday? In it, Garry Trudeau pointed out that 70% of the national debt of our country in its entire history has been accumulated during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. It makes sense given that their policies aren’t that far from those of their idol, Herbert Hoover, who took us into the Great Depression. Depression? Recession? Do the terms really matter? Elect a Republican from the right and you get economic policy that benefits the rich in the short run and screws the country in the long run. So much for tax and spend liberals. That seems far better than borrow and spend neo- cons. At least it does to me!

And one last question:

When that phone rings at three in the morning, and President Hillary Clinton answers it, won’t you feel far more secure knowing that she actually will know how to handle the situation?

She won’t stumble looking for the right words or stumble out of bed looking for a Depends. She’ll just be there to do the job that needs doing and get it done the way it needs to be done. That’s what we need in a President.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

THE BILL, VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED BY THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY, WOULD GRANT THE FDA POWER TO REGULATE CIGARETTE ADDITIVES, WHILE NOT ALLOWING THE AGENCY TO BAN NICOTINE

“The bill would lead to sweeping changes in both the FDA and the tobacco industry,” according to an article in todays Wall Street Journal. Moreover, the bill would codify ideas championed by former FDA Commissioner David Kessler in the 1990s, ideas later struck down by the Supreme Court.

If passed in it’s present form, the bill would:

Allow the FDA to set product standards, which could include LIMITING CERTAIN INGREDIENTS in cigarettes;

Tobacco makers would have to turn over to the FDA extensive information and win FDA approval for claims that products carry reduced health risks;

The FDA would get the ability to regulate advertising of tobacco products.”

Best Beltway gestimates, once again, per the Wall Street Journal, are that the bill will pass out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee later this week and be taken up by the full house shortly thereafter. From there the bill is off to the Senate, where in a surprise development, it has the support of all three Presidential candidates.

It is from there, however, that the road gets bumpy, particularly in that the legislation must then be sent to the FDA commissioner, who as might be expected, “has raised concerns about it.”

So, this is where we come in. The Senate and the House, regardless of how much they would like to think otherwise, work for you and I. Truth be told, so does the FDA Commissioner, though with typical Republican Party arrogance, I doubt he thinks so.

As employers it is our responsibility to inform our employees, writing is usually the best way, how we expect them to vote on a given issue, reminding them, when necessary, that not only do we hold the key to their continued political futures, but that the road is littered with has-been politicians who made the mistake of angering the electorate.

Yes my friends, What I am proposing here that we replace the old model where we trusted our elected officials to do what was best for us with a policy where we scrutinize their every step and call them to answer, criminally if necessary, when they loose focus, even momentarily, on the job that they were elected to do.

Maybe by making an example of fifteen or twenty of our least scrupulous elected officials, the type for whom providing for the well being of Mobil Oil, Cargill, and Citibank is more important than looking out for you and I, the balance will start to swing back to the way that our forefathers imagined it. If not, at least we will be doing our part to increase the literacy curve in the prisons these defrocked politicians are sent to.

-LIB

READ MORE….

TWO BILLS, WHICH WOULD TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHTS TO HOLD THE DRUG COMPANIES AND DRUG EQUIPTMENT MANUFACTURES TO TASK FOR SHODDY MATERIALS AND WORKMANSHIP

Throughout most of our country’s history, we as consumers have had the right to bring the individual or corporation responsible for manufacturing a faulty product to task for their carelessness or incompetence. Traditionally this recourse took place in a court of law, where all aspects of the situation would be explored, guilt or innocence established, and damages, when appropriate, accessed. But now, thanks to the Bush administration and their corporation-loving allies in Congress and on the Roberts Supreme Court, these days may be gone forever.

This attack on our rights as consumers began with the Supreme Court decision, several months back, which stripped patients using medical devices of the right to sue the manufacturers of those devices when they fail.

Now, this would be cause for distress at any time, but is particularly relevant at this point in our history when virtually everything is outsourced. While I personally am against most aspects of outsourcing, and believe that we could live quite well without the Wal-Marts of the world with their row upon row of cheaply made, inferior Chinese goods, outsourcing, from the look of it, is apparently here to stay. For this reason, our corporations need to be constantly vigilant in policing their foreign sub-contractors to insure that these organizations maintain the stringent standards for quality and workmanship that Americans are accustomed to demanding of their products. To date they have not done so, and probably will not unless forced to do so by law, a situation, which is unlikely, at least as long as George Bush remains in the White House.

The recent recalls of toxic toys and health care products from China should serve as an unforgettable example of what happens when the corporations stop at nothing to shave prices, but do so without providing for the infrastructure necessary to see that their outsourced products are safe.

Helping the corporations along in their march to irresponsible profitability is the Bush administration, who independent of the above referenced legislation, has spent the bulk of their time in office devastating the ranks of federal inspectors - the men and women who in previous administrations served as “we the people’s” last line of defense from shoddy materials, workmanship and the unchecked greed of our corporations.

Historically, perhaps the most effective recourse we have had keeping our manufacturing sector in check has been our ability to sue, and exact damages for poor quality products. Take this away and the corporate sector will become all-powerful and more out of control than it already is.

And as if the situation was not already bad enough, in the months to come, the Supreme Court is expected to take up Levine v. Wyeth. Levine v. Wyeth, according to a story published in a recent Washington Independent, will “examine the legality of a lawsuit preemption clause quietly written into an innocuous FDA labeling law in 2006”. Should the court side with coporate America as it is expected that it will on this matter as well, you and I would be barred from suing the drug companies when their products kill or maim.

Both of these affronts against the poor and the middle class are in keeping with the Bush administration’s adherence to a series of flawed theories, among them the one that awards to the corporation the rights enjoyed by, and the status of the individual.

Followers of this line of thinking believe that the corporation does not need outside regulation, that the FREE MARKET will force the corporations to self regulate, and innovate as they compete for the taxpayer’s dollar.

I only wish that this was true, but recent American history has shown the fallacy of this line of thinking. As proof of this, you need to go no farther than the damage done to the Medicare system by the Bush administration’s disastrous Part D. Drug Plan.

While this plan, as conceived, does help many of our fellow citizens, at least until they reach the gap of coverage a few thousand dollars in, it has done far more for the drug companies and insurance companies for whom, to be honest, the bill was written.

In one of those Bush administration gifts that keeps on giving, Part D drug coverage legislation prohibits Medicare, the nation’s largest insurer and purchaser of prescription drugs, from negotiating discount prices for the drugs that they purchase. This little throw-away has the net effect of transferring billions of dollars a year from the federal treasury to the coffers of drug companies in a move that can only be considered immoral and unethical.

But morals and ethics are not real concepts for the Bush administration, merely words that can be thrown like raw flesh to the cheering mobs of middle and lower class church goers who have bought George Bush’s ‘holier than thou’ bullshit.

Make no mistake; this administration is about profit, Profit for itself as in the case of Dick Cheney’s burgeoning portfolio of Halliburton stock, and profit for their followers. But this loyalty does not come cheap. Expect to see George Bush and Dick Cheney reap the riches that only a thankful corporate community can bestow when they leave office. This will come in the form of high paid directorships, consultancies and massive honorariums for appearing at dinners and sharing a few grunts.

But while this might be great for them, it does absolutely nothing for us. So what can we do?
First, it is important that we make our feelings known to our elected officials about Levine V. Wyeth, and what it would mean to us if this abomination passes. While there is probably not all that much, which we can do to sway the opinion of the Supreme Court, we can inundate our elected officials with our concerns and force them to address the matter legislatively.

The idea that anyone or anything can cause you or I bodily harm and potential loss of life and we have no recourse after the fact is downright wrong. Let your Congressman and Senator know that you think that this stinks. More importantly, remind them that this is an election year and if they cannot do the job, which you elected them to do, you will find someone who can.

And be vocal when you do this. Politicians do not react to nice talk. Sadly, it is a case of the old squeaky wheel getting action. I wish it was not so, but then, that is why I am supporting Obama.

-LIB

THE PROBLEM IS THAT I CAN’T SEEM TO COME UP WITH VERY GOOD ANSWERS

I have always considered myself to be a pretty bright guy, In fact, one of my less endearing qualities is my lack of patience for people that I don’t consider to be my intellectual equals. Some have even referred to that part of my personality as my snot nosed nature. Guilty as charged. I am an intellectual snot nose, no two ways about it.

Lately, however, I am beginning to think that I am not as smart as I thought I was. Lately, I have been watching the politics of our country and wondering how the hell we got here. The problem is that I can’t seem to come up with very good answers,

I look at the Republican Party and realize that their senior citizen candidate for President is a conservative out of the schools of William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan with the intellectual curiosity of George W, Bush. Yet, in many national polls, Senator John McCain is in a statistical dead heat with either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton. I can’t fathom that, but it is what it is. So, I ask myself, “why?”, but I can’t seem to come up with an answer that satisfies me. That is until I look at what the Democrats are doing, and then I have some clearer ideas about what’s going on.

I look at Senator Clinton, clearly the more qualified of the two Democratic candidates still in contention, and I see a woman who can’t seem to get out of her own way. She should have eaten up Senator Obama and spit him out. Yet, here we are at the end of March, and Senator Clinton is trailing badly in delegates.

I look at mistakes that the Senator has made, and I say to myself, “She should have known better.” Somehow, she just didn’t know that there was nothing to be gained by making up a story about her trip to Bosnia when she was First Lady, but that’s exactly what she did. She must have known that everything the wife of a President does is public record, and that her lies about being caught in sniper fire would certainly be shown for what they are. What was she thinking?

And Senator Obama isn’t much better. How long does he think he can go on talking platitudes with no substance? How long will it be before the public realizes that this darling of the press doesn’t seem to think very well on his feet? How long can he shout change without telling us what that change will be and how he intends to pay for it? How many times can he say “Yes we can.” Without telling us what we can? The answer my friends is apparently not blowing in the wind, because some Democratic voters seem perfectly fine with Obama’s lack of substance. Perhaps someone needs to stand up and ask the Senator, “Where’s the beef?” just as Vice President Mondale did to Senator Gary Hart.

Then there is the whole primary system. Who can take it seriously when there are no fixed rules? In some states there are caucuses that are really nothing more than big barbeques where people vote for the candidate that gives them the best ribs. In others there are primaries in which any registered voter can cast a ballot in any party’s primary. How can we allow those primaries to count? Why should Republicans have any say in who the Democrats nominate? Doesn’t it stand to reason that those Republicans voting in Democratic primaries will vote for the candidate that they think is least likely to win the election? And how can the DNC punish Florida and Michigan’s Democrats for holding their primaries early, when the dates of those primaries were determined by their states, not by their party organizations?

And on top of it all, there are people who say that if the candidate of their choice does not win the nomination, they will vote for McCain. How stupid can those folks be? McCain? A man who thinks that a woman should not have control of her own body? A man who says we need to remain in Iraq for another century? A man who freely admits he knows nothing about the economy? How can anyone even remotely consider that man as being worthy of the Presidency? What really frightens me about those folks is that they are not dummies. They are generally people I consider to be my intellectual equals. They are lawyers, doctors, educators and successful members of the business community. What the hell is wrong with them? Can’t they see the forest for the trees?

Yes, Senator Obama is inexperienced, but he can learn. And, yes, Senator Clinton does rub some people the wrong way, but she is the 16th most liberal member of the United States Senator in her voting record. And does any of this matter when compared to the potential of 4 more years of a Republican in the White House?

When “W” took office, we had projected surpluses for between 10 and 20 years. We are now in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. When “W” took office, we were at peace. We lost our 4,000th soldier in Iraq last Sunday, five years after this President started a war of aggression based on lies, a war John McCain wants to continue. When “W” took office, gas was just over $1.00 a gallon. Do I need to remind you what George W Bush and his petro buddies have done about that? Do any of you seriously think that John McCain will remotely try to change that situation?

Does it really matter that Obama will need some on the job training? Does it really matter that some Democrats think Hillary is too conservative for their particular tastes? Should these things matter in a time when the future of our country, perhaps our world, is at stake?

I have never been able to understand why Republicans tend to vote against their own self interests. They have no jobs and their schools are failing, but all they care about is denying women control over their own bodies and preventing gay people from getting married. I would think that feeding my family would take precedence over whether or not a stranger on life support had was allowed to die peacefully, but apparently to those people it doesn’t. Are we willing to allow them to keep the White House for another 4 years and continue the attempts to limit our freedoms that have become the hallmark of this Bush Administration?

I just don’t get it.

Maybe I’m just not as smart as I thought I was.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT