Short takes

State of the Union
I had hoped for a little less subtlety in the president's critique of Republicans, given the density of many of those critiqued, but at least he's finally figured out that seven years of calling for bipartisan cooperation was a waste of time.

"Navigational Error"
Of course those naval patrol boats detained by the Iranians inside their territorial waters were "snooping."  Everybody "snoops" on everybody.  You could tell the Iranians were not especially surprised nor upset because they called it "snooping" rather than "spying," and their prompt release of the ten sailors demonstrates that the nuclear agreement is having a positive impact on relations.

Latest Republican Debate
I didn't watch, but I gather from the coverage that Cruz is trying to contrast himself with Tr*mp in an effort to gain "establishment" support.  I hope he succeeds, because that would be likely to hasten the demise of the Republican party.

Attacks in Cologne
Apparently sharia law has no great hold over young Muslim men in Germany, since the lads out groping German lasses were dead drunk.  Yes, they're pigs.  No, they're not terrorists.

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association
If the Court overturns its 1977 decision which allowed public sector unions to collect agency fees for legally required representation of non-members, it will be an entirely political decision by the conservative majority.  As far as activism goes, the Roberts court makes the Warren court look feeble by comparison.

State of the Union

Obama managed to sound somewhat more like a Democrat last night, and he seems to have given up entirely on his earlier "working across the aisle" mantra.  I like some of the ideas he floated, needless to say those least likely to be enacted into law by our current troglodyte Congress.  Raising the top capital gains tax rate to 28%, albeit only a modest increase, would be a step in the right direction.  "But wait," shout the Republicans, "that would stifle investment and kill jobs!"

Nah.  It's still a lower rate than the rich would be paying if they actually had to work for the income, and since corporations are so astute at avoiding paying taxes, the "double taxation" argument won't hold.  Dumping the inheritance dodge also makes a lot of sense, but I didn't hear anything about closing the "carried-interest" loophole this time around.  Oh well, it wasn't going to happen anyway, so why keep antagonizing Hillary's likely Wall Street donors?

Getting Congress to actively authorize military action against IS makes a lot of sense, because when things go terribly wrong, as they always are inclined to do, the administration gets to share the blame.  Free community college tuition sounds good, but community college tuition is cheap, generally covered by Pell Grants for the poor, as David Brooks pointed out in his NYTimes column a couple of days ago.  He is also on the mark when he observes that raising graduation rates from community colleges is a much more difficult, and a much more important, endeavor than just shuffling more failures through the system.

One area where Obama might get Republican cooperation is in getting fast-track authority for his Trans-Pacific-Partnership.  Will the TPP result in improved labor standards in Asia?  Maybe.  Asian standards just might improve almost to the same extent that US standards deteriorate.

All in all, though, inching to the left, however slightly, is likely to help Democratic candidates in 2016, while keeping what Paul Wellstone called "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party" at bay — and I suspect that may have been a major objective of last night's address.

State of the Union

I stayed awake for some of it.

It did not help that Brooks and Shields and Ifill and Woodruff's lead-in dripped cynicism, hence augmenting my own.  Maybe I should have watched it on Fox, or MSNBC.  They'd have been less cynical and more assertive, one way or the other.

Of course, that might have left me feeling even more cynical.

When I was a kid, somebody gave my mother this little plastic house with two doors on the front.  When the weather was allegedly improving, a little plastic girl would come out one door; and when the weather was getting worse, a little plastic boy (or maybe it was a witch) came out the other.  It was kind of like watching Biden and Boehner behind Obama tonight.  One claps.  The other claps.  Two halfhearted clappings.

Nothing said tonight makes a damned bit of difference, and none of it will change the outcome of the midterms.

I'm trying to find the various Republican responses, but I guess I'll have to go to YouTube for those.  They might be good for a giggle or two,

Assorted stuff for late January

State of the Union

I'll try listening to Our President tonight if I can manage to stay awake.  I'm not expecting much, but I like the idea of compelling new federal contractors to pay a higher minimum wage.  Those contractors may employ as many low-wage workers as Wal-Mart or the fast food industry, so it's conceivable that some honest competition for workers might happen.

Needless to say, I don't expect anything about more aggressive actions against the Thieves of Wall Street.  If you haven't read Matt Taibbi's Griftopia, read it.  It's not at all out of date.

Turkey

Erdogan's putsch against everybody who might prosecute corruption in his government gives us less confidence in the possibility of an actually ethical Muslim government.  Erdogan was the poster child for democratic Islamist governance, but Turkey just is descending into the usual autocracy.

Stock Prices

Prices are down, popularly blamed on troubles in developing nations hurt by the possibility of economic growth in the USofA and Europe.  Oh, yeah, some also are blaming the "tapering" of bond buys by the Fed.

Essentially, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference.  Your 401K may dip a little, but one way or the other, it won't be enough to support you in your old age.  The big players, of course, continue to have everything they've already stolen, and continue to steal more.

Pete Seeger

He lasted a long time, but I'm still sorry to see him go.  Totally apart from the politics, he was a hell of a good clawhammer banjo player.  Bye, Pete.

Wish List

The State of the Union address is always a wish list.  Presidents get some of what they wish for, but most of their wishes go unanswered.

There were two item's on Obama's list that I consider especially important, but I have powerful doubts about getting them past Republicans in the House.  The first is raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour, and indexing it to inflation so struggling to get future increases through Congress becomes unnecessary.

The second is universal preschool, which has just about as much chance of happening any time soon as a carbon tax, which we also need very badly.  Preschool is the most powerful way to improve the lives of the poor, because children who attend preschool do better throughout their lives.  They enter elementary school with the social and intellectual skills they need to succeed; they are more likely to go to college, and less likely to go to jail.

Needless to say, universal preschool will be expensive, and will result in Republicans hopping around and yelping, "Free market!  Free market!"  Also, since it is a program that won't bear fruit for decades, it will be easy for deficit hawks to attack.  Nevertheless, it would pay for itself in less crime, greater economic productivity, and fewer people relying on government assistance down the road.

State of the Bullshit

Obama got off to a good populist start last night when he suggested taking away the tax giveaways to the carbon companies and using the money for alternative energy development. It went downhill from there.

If I hear any more blather about "competitiveness" I'm likely to go out of my mind. I can't see any way we're in direct competition with China, India, Europe, Russia, Brazil, or any other country. We can't compete against China, our current boogeyman, in any sort of labor intensive manufacturing sector, and they can't compete with us when it comes to our most important industry, finance. Speaking of labor intensive pursuits, I heard the President mention that the United States has the most productive work force of any country in the world. A little later, he went on to say how we had to become even more productive.

Hmm... How did we get so productive? Easy. Our captains of industry just lay off workers, don't replace them, and insist the remaining workers pick up the slack for fear of losing their jobs too. It's getting to look more and more like the age of sweatshops in the American workplace, but calling for even more productivity will not do much for our unemployment crisis.

High speed rail won't happen unless major Republican contributors can be assured of getting all the contracts. The President's other big priority, more money "invested" in his Race to the Top education "reform," won't happen either. Personally, I'm happy about that. Race to the Top forces states to compete against each other for a few extra federal bucks, with most of them (and their unionized teachers) coming up losers. With Democrats like Obama, who needs Republicans?

Paul Ryan's response for the Republicans was described by the pundits as "measured," mostly because he didn't sound nearly as crazy as Michelle Bachman, who also delivered a speech last night. It was carried only by CNN — even Fox wouldn't touch it — so it follows that almost nobody saw it. I watched it, though!

Bachman gave what I guess is her standard Tea Party stump speech. Her delivery reminded me of the teacher's pet running for class president, and her remarks were addressed to a space somewhere above the viewer's head and off to the left. Dick Armey, whose group arranged her appearance, should have hired technicians who know where to place the teleprompter.

Frankly, it all makes me sick. There is nobody speaking for the poor, the unemployed, the exploited, the underwater, or the foreclosed. Anybody too young to remember Lyndon Johnson has no experience of liberal government, and so what passes for liberalism today is anything that wouldn't have qualified as fascism in the 1960s.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm starting to feel more and more sympathy for the Tea Partiers. They're totally ignorant and working against their own self-interest, but they've got good reasons to be angry — even if they're entirely ignorant of what those good reasons are.

State of...

I've been digesting the State of the Union address for a few days, not that there was all that much to digest in it. The most important thing about it, as far as I can see, is that the president came across as likable. It's hard to hate a guy who seems so nice.

Okay, the teabaggers won't have been converted, but those alleged "independents" who've been drifting away from Obama in recent months may be inclined to drift back a bit. In my experience, most "independents" are people who don't know a damned thing about politics or policy, but make their political decisions based on their perceptions of a candidate's personality.

Take, for example, those nitwits in Massachusetts. Brown, you see, was a "regular guy" — while Coakley was, well, Coakley. It didn't have anything to do with health care, or the Democratic party, or anything else the pundits have been prattling on about. It was a matter of personalities, pure and simple.

Want to be elected to office? Smile a lot. Make a few self-deprecating jokes. Don't sound too intellectual. The "independent" vote will be yours.