Maggie Mahar, who contributes many thought provoking posts here, has an article about Senator Baucus's plans for universal health insurance which very subtly suggests a political problem hidden in any such proposal.  Note the following statement in that article, "An estimated 80 percent of heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes and 40 percent of cancers, could be prevented if Americans stopped smoking, adopted healthy diets and became more physically active."

If we are going to share in everyone's health care costs, as a universal health care program requires, don't we have to work to reduce those costs in any way we can?  Surely we can't continue to allow tobacco products to be marketed in this country when they increase health care costs that much.  The government currently bans many food additives, fearing that they might increase cases of cancer by a few percent a year.  We ban many drugs because the cost to society is too great if those drugs are abused.  Think of the pressure on government to enforce healthy life styles on all of us if we have any form of universal health care.

I'm not bringing this up because I think government shouldn't ban tobacco and greatly increase the pressure on us to change to more healthy life styles.  In fact I think those things should be done in any case.  We have no individual right to live dangerously when all of our citizens have to share the cost of the consequences of our living that way.  And, even now we share some of that cost.

Isn't this a can of worms?

I was opposed to Proposition 8, and voted against it.  In my opinion any reasonable reading of the equal protection clause of the US constitution prohibits government from granting more rights to some citizens and fewer to others.  That means, if government offers any "rights" to married couples, everyone has to have the opportunity to marry whom ever they wish.  And, government certainly does offer more rights to married couples, from income tax filing to inheritance rights to adoption rights.

But, I am bothered by the attempts to overturn the decision made by California voters to define marriage as being limited to one man-one woman partnerships.  Our voters have every right to do what they did last Tuesday, unless doing that was a violation of either the state constitution or the US constitution.  It can't be a violation of the state constitution since it was an amendment to the state constitution, so the only way that what the voters did was legally wrong was if it violated the US constitution.  And, that decision has to be made by the courts.

There are currently waves of public demonstrations against Proposition 8.  The only effect these demonstrations can have is to demonstrate to the courts that the public believes that the US constitution prohibits Proposition 8 from ever becoming law.  But, why would the courts believe that even a 100,000 person demonstration was meaningful when the people voted decisively that Proposition 8 become law?  So, other than being an outlet for the rage of those who support gay marriage, the demonstrations seem pointless.

Far better to challenge proposition 8 in the court, and this is already underway.  The courts will know where the people stand - against gay marriage - but will have to decide whether the US constitution trumps the will of the people.  It does, of course, but courts are known to ignore simple facts like that, especially right wing courts such as we are now cursed with.

I am not planning to take part in any of the many demonstrations against proposition 8.  I hope this explains why.

As my vast readership knows, I recently posted about McCain's moral shortcomings as a president.  Now it has become glaringly obvious that his mental shortcomings are far worse than his moral shortcomings.

This leads me to ponder a hypothetical situation:  Let's say one of the major parties nominates a person for their candidate for president who is obviously utterly senile, but is still extremely popular with voters.  Is there any process by which that candidate can be forced out of the race?

Clearly, if the Democratic Party were the one nominating such a candidate the press would raise a huge outcry about the danger this candidate poses to America as well as to the world.  That would prevent that candidate from winning a single state in the election - problem solved.  But, if the Republican Party were the one nominating such a senile candidate the press would simply hide that information from voters.  So, what can be done?....Uh, I mean in the theoretical situation, what could be done.

I can't see anything in the Constitution that would cover this, probably because the founding fathers couldn't even conceive of an American group nominating for president an utterly incompetent candidate, and even more so, they couldn't conceive of the "free press" being complicit in trying to foist such a candidate off on the nation.  But, of course, the Republican Party and today's "free press" didn't exist at that time in our history.

It is time to look at John McCain without the rose colored glasses.  This is a man who was able to get into the US Naval Academy only because his father and grandfather were navy admirals, which caused the academy to give him a free pass for his bad high school grades.  Once at the academy he was only able to rise above 6 others in his class - he was one of the 7 worst students at the academy.  That should have ended his chance to be a naval officer, but a special exception was made for him, allowing him to become a naval aviator.

As a naval aviator he was best known for crashing his aircraft, once because he was too indifferent to read the manual for the aircraft.  On assignment to an aircraft carrier his first brush with fame was to be at the center of a disastrous on-board fire that nearly cost him his life, and did cost the navy billions of dollars in damages.  By then his father was the admiral in charge of all Pacific operations, so the inquiry into the cause of the fire found that McCain was not to blame - just as he was found qualified for the naval academy in the first place in spite of his bad high school record.  Having your daddy in charge of the whole operation can be an advantage.

After he entered combat, flying a ground support aircraft noted for its agility, he managed to get shot down, and was taken as a  prisoner of war.  Much is made of his courage as a POW, but even he admits that if he had known that he wouldn’t be rescued for many years, he wouldn’t have turned down his chance for early release by the North Vietnamese.  His next brush with fame was when he made propaganda films for the North Vietnamese, something that seems to have been forgotten by the news media.  After the war it was time for him to settle down into the obscurity he deserved.

Instead, he began an affair with a woman much younger than his wife, who had been in a bad accident that left her less attractive to John.  He obtained a marriage license to wed his mistress, before even divorcing his current wife.  Clearly the attractiveness of his mistress was enhanced by her hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth.

Using his new wife’s wealth he ran for the US Senate in a solidly Republican state, and won easily.  As a senator he began to use his new wife’s wealth to cultivate the press, and finally found something he was good at.  Over the years he became the darling of the press, which was always on the take for parties, good transportation, and other perks that McCain handed out readily.  Thus, his undeserved reputation as a maverick and an independent thinker.  His legislative centerpiece is the McCain Feingold campaign finance law.

Once he began his run for the presidency last year he immediately began to violate his signature law, by unilaterally dropping out of public financing, after using that as collateral for a loan, and finding unexpected success with fund raising.  His “maverick” image went out the door when he selected a campaign staff made up almost exclusively of lobbyists.

Now, as an obvious loser to Obama he picked Palin as his vice presidential candidate in spite of her total lack of qualifications for that office.  And, because he selected her without any form of vetting, he ignored her corrupt past in Alaska.  Republicans, being somewhat  intelligence challenged were so taken by Palin’s looks and ability to speak in complete sentences, that McCain is now poised to win the presidency.

But, winning isn’t at all certain, since McCain has no agenda, beyond more wars and more neo-con nonsense, so Karl Rove’s henchmen are now being allowed by McCain to run a campaign based entirely on lies about Obama.

A good argument can be made that the only thing driving McCain right now is his desire to do something that will make him a success comparable to his daddy and granddaddy.  Not only does he not put America first, he puts only John McCain first, as his whole life demonstrates.

Can there be any doubt that John McCain is morally unfit for any public office?

It is time to look at John McCain without the rose colored glasses.  This is a man who was able to get into the US Naval Academy only because his father and grandfather were navy admirals, which caused the academy to give him a free pass for his bad high school grades.  Once at the academy he was only able to rise above 6 others in his class - he was one of the 7 worst students at the academy.  That should have ended his chance to be a naval officer, but a special exception was made for him, allowing him to become a naval aviator.

As a naval aviator he was best known for crashing his aircraft, once because he was too indifferent to read the manual for the aircraft.  On assignment to an aircraft carrier his first brush with fame was to be at the center of a disastrous on-board fire that nearly cost him his life, and did cost the navy billions of dollars in damages.  By then his father was the admiral in charge of all Pacific operations, so the inquiry into the cause of the fire found that McCain was not to blame - just as he was found qualified for the naval academy in the first place in spite of his bad high school record.  Having your daddy in charge of the whole operation can be an advantage.

After he entered combat, flying a ground support aircraft noted for its agility, he managed to get shot down, and was taken as a  prisoner of war.  Much is made of his courage as a POW, but even he admits that if he had known that he wouldn’t be rescued for many years, he wouldn’t have turned down his chance for early release by the North Vietnamese.  His next brush with fame was when he made propaganda films for the North Vietnamese, something that seems to have been forgotten by the news media.  After the war it was time for him to settle down into the obscurity he deserved.

Instead, he began an affair with a woman much younger than his wife, who had been in a bad accident that left her less attractive to John.  He obtained a marriage license to wed his mistress, before even divorcing his current wife.  Clearly the attractiveness of his mistress was enhanced by her hundreds of millions of dollars in personal wealth.

Using his new wife’s wealth he ran for the US Senate in a solidly Republican state, and won easily.  As a senator he began to use his new wife’s wealth to cultivate the press, and finally found something he was good at.  Over the years he became the darling of the press, which was always on the take for parties, good transportation, and other perks that McCain handed out readily.  Thus, his undeserved reputation as a maverick and an independent thinker.  His legislative centerpiece is the McCain Feingold campaign finance law.

Once he began his run for the presidency last year he immediately began to violate his signature law, by unilaterally dropping out of public financing, after using that as collateral for a loan, and finding unexpected success with fund raising.  His “maverick” image went out the door when he selected a campaign staff made up almost exclusively of lobbyists.

Now, as an obvious loser to Obama he picked Palin as his vice presidential candidate in spite of her total lack of qualifications for that office.  And, because he selected her without any form of vetting, he ignored her corrupt past in Alaska.  Republicans, being somewhat  intelligence challenged were so taken by Palin’s looks and ability to speak in complete sentences, that McCain is now poised to win the presidency.

But, winning isn’t at all certain, since McCain has no agenda, beyond more wars and more neo-con nonsense, so Karl Rove’s henchmen are now being allowed by McCain to run a campaign based entirely on lies about Obama.

A good argument can be made that the only thing driving McCain right now is his desire to do something that will make him a success comparable to his daddy and granddaddy.  Not only does he not put America first, he puts only John McCain first, as his whole life demonstrates.

Can there be any doubt that John McCain is morally unfit for any public office?

Let us not pretend our country applies no religious test for prospective presidential candidates.  We do and we always have done so.  Just last summer there was a national outcry over Obama's church, whose pastor was believed to be too outspoken in his sermons about his feelings about our government.  And, there has been a continuous undertow of commentary about the imaginary Islamic upbringing of Obama.  The Republicans always apply religious tests to Democratic candidates.

Well, it is time to apply those tests to the Republican candidates.  Sarah Palin's church  is one that I'm quite sure would not be acceptable to most Americans if they only knew about it.  For sure it is not in the mainstream of religious thought in our country.  A problem with her choice of religions  is that it is one of those that preaches that world upheaval, colossal wars, and other human calamities are good things.  Can our country survive another president who believes that God speaks through him?  Don't be fooled in thinking that Palin will only be vice president, and not president.  Given McCain's age, the fact that his father and grandfather were victims of heart attacks, and his bombastic temper, you would never want to bet that he would survive 4 years in that office.  If we don't want a religious radical as President, now is the only time we can prevent it.

Let us not pretend our country applies no religious test for prospective presidential candidates.  We do and we always have done so.  Just last summer there was a national outcry over Obama's church, whose pastor was believed to be too outspoken in his sermons about his feelings about our government.  And, there has been a continuous undertow of commentary about the imaginary Islamic upbringing of Obama.  The Republicans always apply religious tests to Democratic candidates.

Well, it is time to apply those tests to the Republican candidates.  Sarah Palin's church  is one that I'm quite sure would not be acceptable to most Americans if they only knew about it.  For sure it is not in the mainstream of religious thought in our country.  A problem with her choice of religions  is that it is one of those that preaches that world upheaval, colossal wars, and other human calamities are good things.  Can our country survive another president who believes that God speaks through him?  Don't be fooled in thinking that Palin will only be vice president, and not president.  Given McCain's age, the fact that his father and grandfather were victims of heart attacks, and his bombastic temper, you would never want to bet that he would survive 4 years in that office.  If we don't want a religious radical as President, now is the only time we can prevent it.

Tonight "60 Minutes" broadcast an interview  with a Marine Sergeant, who is charged with the unjustified killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha.  I was only able to watch a few minutes of the interview, before becoming angry beyond belief at the true criminal behind those killings, George W. Bush, President of the USA.

The Sergeant being charged was in his first ever live "combat", when this occurred.  He was trained as a Marine to engage a military enemy, with rules of combat appropriate to that.  He was not trained to do police work.  When the men he was responsible for were attacked and one of them blown to pieces by a bomb, his training took over, and he sought the "enemy".  When he found that enemy, or someone he had to believe was the "enemy", he acted to make sure no more of his men were killed, which is his responsibility.  The subsequent house raids that resulted in more killings of Iraqis can easily be criticized in retrospect, but I doubt that any trained military put in that position would have done any differently.

Of course the real criminal is George W. Bush, who ordered the unjustified attack on Iraq, and has adamantly refused to remove American troops, now that any reasonable goals of the attack have been met.  Bush has not acted as any ordinary human being would if in that position.

The day has to come when this criminal gets the justice he deserves.  I hope Obama will be the one to make sure that happens, but the odds are overwhelming that he wont.

I just finished reading Tom Oliphant's book, "Utter Incompetents", a chronicle of the entire first 7 years of the Bush administration.  Oliphant believes that Bush was a very good governor of Texas, but gives no information to support that belief, and he believes that Bush really wanted to do what was best for the country as president, again with no information to support the belief.

These beliefs are behind the title of the book - Oliphant's conclusion is that Bush and his cohorts were simply utterly incompetent at their jobs.  The book takes all of the major events of the past 7 years and points out the gross incompetence that got us where we are today.

Dick Cheney comes in for almost as much criticism as Bush, and is acknowledged to be the real power behind Bush's presidency.

What is missing in the book is any consideration of my theory, that Bush was pushed forward for the office with malice aforethought, by the money men behind the Republican party.  Cheney was there to keep Bush in line.  And, the primary, defining objective of that administration was to transfer as much wealth as is humanly possible to the money men behind the party.  I can understand everything done by Bush and his administration if that theory is correct.

The book is very readable - I read it cover to cover in three sittings, never once bored or distracted.  Many of the horrendous acts of the administration tend to get lost to my memory, replaced by the horror of the Iraq invasion.  After reading this book I have no doubt that GWBush has been and continues to be the worst president our country has ever been cursed to have.  January can't get here too soon.

This has been a historic week for the Bill of Rights.  First the 4th amendment was eviscerated by Congress.  Then the 2nd amendment was misinterpreted by the US Supreme Court.  All that is left is for the remaining branch of the government to mangle another of those ten amendments.  Never fear, we have two more days left in the week.

The 4th amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  It would be difficult, even today, to express this any more clearly.  A search warrant is needed before the government can perform a search of anyone's property, including their electronic communications, and that search warrant must describe what is to be searched and what will be taken.

The FISA law has always been at least somewhat out of the bounds of what the 4th amendment permits, by allowing the searches to take place before the warrant is obtained.  This week's events have still further weakened our protection from illegal searches.  This is one of the amendments that has protected us from despotic governments.

The 2nd amendment says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  This amendment is considerably less clear, but it clearly does give the states the ability to maintain a state militia, made up of citizens who keep the guns they need for their militia duties at home.  Nothing in that amendment is about hunting or self protection.

But, the Supreme Court is now dominated by "conservatives" who are convinced that every person's safety is dependent on them being armed to the teeth.  So, this week's ruling turns the 2nd amendment on its head, and converts it to a hunting and individual self protection amendment.

Since it is the 4th amendment that is so crucial to protecting us from a despotic government, one would expect there would be a nationwide outcry against the FISA modifications which will be passed this week.  And, since a very small percentage of us need guns for either hunting or for self protection, one would expect that there would be at least a shrug of the shoulders at obtaining the right to keep a gun in our homes.   But, one's expectations would be completely in error.

Senator Obama is running on a promise to change the way we do business in Washington.  He has lectured us about the need for more civility in public life, and about the need for more responsible parenting.  So, of course he would oppose the FISA modifications and be upset about the Supreme Court ruling.    But, again common sense loses - Obama favors both of those actions.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, waiting to see which of the first ten amendments the executive branch of our government will demolish in the last two days of the week.  To avoid being wrong again I won't predict which it will be.

This is a good time to start thinking about how the 2012 Democratic Presidential Primary cycle should work.  We certainly should know that this year's cycle is not the best way to do it.  So, I decided to give it a shot myself.

First:  my complaints about this year's cycle.
Iowa and New Hampshire going first -why?
A 6 month cycle - why?
A mix of rules for caucuses and primaries instead of standardized rules.
Too long a "recess" between some elections.
No reason to allow individual states to schedule their own primaries.

My system will be a three month cycle, starting in March 2012 and ending with May 2012.  This means 50 primaries or caucuses in 13 weeks of Tuesdays.  To simplify this, assume all of the primaries will be on Tuesday.  I would break down the schedule to 48 weeks of 4 primaries per week, and one week with 2 primaries. And, no weeks off until they are all done.

There is no logical reason to hold the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary before any other state gets a chance at it.  But, I doubt that there would be support for changing this, so I would hold both of those events on the first Tuesday.

Each of the remaining Tuesdays would have a primary or caucus from four different areas of the country, with four different state delegation sizes.  For example, the second Tuesday could be New York, N. Dakota, Alabama and New Mexico.  The next week might have Texas, Vermont,  Missouri and Oregon.  And, on by fours to the end. 

This should greatly limit the pandering that now goes on when a candidate spends a whole month in one state promising the moon to try to win that state.  It keeps the voters interest involved throughout, or until someone has a majority of the delegates.  And, it eliminates the mad scramble of states to be among the first primaries.  Of course the schedule would change each election cycle.

Is there a better way to schedule the Primaries?  And, what about caucuses - should they even be allowed, and under what rules?

What does it take for Senator Clinton to win the majority of the elected delegates to the Democratic Convention?  <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(United_States)_presidential_primaries,_2008”  Wikipedia </a> has a good tabulation of delegates selected so far in the primary process.  To date, the total elected delegates are:  Clinton - 1219, Obama - 1362, with 67 either unallocated or allocated to candidates no longer in the race.  So, Obama has a 143 delegate lead in elected delegates, as of now.

There are still 538 delegates to be elected in the Wyoming, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, etc. elections/caucuses.  (Florida and Michigan not included in the totals.)  Delegates are awarded roughly proportional to the votes each candidate gets.

In order for Senator Clinton to gain 144 delegates on Obama, thus leading in elected delegates, she needs to win the remaining elections/caucuses by an average of 57% to 43%, and that assumes all 67 of the unallocated delegates go to Clinton.  If those are split 50-50, Clinton needs to win by about 63% to 37%.  This is certainly possible.

It is also possible for a comet to strike the Earth next year.

If Obama makes a mistake comparable to endorsing McCain for President, Clinton stands a good chance.  But, Senator Clinton has preempted him in doing that, so even that might not be enough.

If Florida and Michigan are able to get their ducks in a row and select delegates in a manner that complies with the party rules they agreed to, this analysis is slightly different, but unless Clinton wins a huge percentage of the delegates in both states the results are about the same.

We continue to see otherwise intelligent Democrats talking about the “Commander in Chief” job as if it were the most important part of being President.  It isn’t.  There is a single phrase in the Constitution which uses that term, and it does so only to indicate that the military is subordinate to the civilian government.  There is no actual “Commander in Chief” job to be done.

The President doesn’t lead troops into battle, he doesn’t formulate military strategy, he doesn’t participate in military activity planning.  The most he does, as Commander in Chief, is approve overall goals and strategies, as presented to him by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

The single qualification for handling this minor role is good judgement.  The President needs to be able to judge the  motives of his staff in making recommendations to him.  He needs to be able to judge the motives of Congress when a military budget is approved.  He needs to be able to judge the motives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in making their recommendations.  Judgement is the quality that a President needs most for all of his responsibilities, but especially for his responsibility for approving military activity.

Harry Truman could be seen as the archetype of a “Commander in Chief”, given his control over General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. MacArthur wanted to make his own decisions about how to conduct that war, what the objectives were, and how to achieve those objectives.  When Truman saw that MacArthur was motivated primarily by delusions of grandeur, he simply replaced him.  He didn’t argue with him.  He didn’t go along with him.  He acted as MacArthur’s superior and replaced him, even though MacArthur was seen by the majority of Americans at that time as a hero, always right.

Of all the surviving candidates for President today, two of them can be immediately dismissed as failing the judgement test.  Both of those people were unable to correctly judge the motives of President Bush and his administration in driving the nation to an unnecessary war.  A very large percentage of Americans, and most of the world’s citizens correctly made that judgement.  But, Clinton and McCain didn’t.

When President Bush asked for permission to attack Iran, by designating part of the Iranian military as a terrorist organization, those same two were unable to correctly judge Bush’s motives.  But, a very large percentage, probably over 50%, of Americans readily understood those motives.  Hardly a recommendation for either of them to become “Commander in Chief”.

By default that leaves us with only one Presidential candidate qualified to become the new “Commander in Chief”.  Even here, the other two candidates demonstrate their lack of good judgement by failing to acknowledge this simple fact.

Consider that Senator Clinton virtually endorsed Senator McCain as our new “Commander in Chief” today.  Given that she has claimed to be seeking that job herself she once again demonstrated the abysmal judgement that disqualifies her for that job.