POOR MR. BOEHNER

POOR MR. BOEHNER

John Boehner is near tears, not because he's worried about his reelection as his seat was bought and paid for years ago and is locked up in his safe. What he is fretting about is being Speaker again. If he found it a thankless job last time, woe to the fellow who bangs the gavel in 2013. Little doubt it'll be a Republican as current projections give them 237 seats to the Dem's 195. What scares him is that the GOP caucus will follow Nancy Reagan's advice again and “Just Say No!”

With Democrats in control in the Senate and Obama back in the White House, it's that “deja vu all over again” thing all over again. But with the Tea Party's tea having grown cold and the 2014 mid-terms just around the corner, Boehner knows two more years of obstruction will cost them the House and give the Democrats two years to pave Hillary's way back home to 1600 Pen. Ave.

What John's trying to figure out is how Republicans can cooperate with Obama without looking like wusses. If he's half smart he will hit on the slogan, ”Country First!” And maybe he can talk one of the Tea Party mouthpieces into shouting, “No representation without taxation!” (Fat chance!) But there is another way his caucus can keep the evil Grover Norquist from having a stroke: Don't vote.

Can you hear him announcing the vote to raise taxes of billionaires? “Ayes, one ninety eight, Nays, two. Not voting, two thirty five.”

There is another thought that keeps popping up in Mr. B's head at night. Let Eric Cantor get his hand on the gavel he's long dreamed of, and then he and fifty or sixty other Republicans can go back to their old jobs as plumbers, roofers, and pimps (i.e lobbyists) come the mid-term election and old Johnny B can keep his seat.

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WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Under the Christmas tree in the White House there is a gift box from the Republican National Committee, but there's nothing in it. The gift won't come for weeks, maybe not until Super Tuesday, or the GOP convention. But eventually Obama will opening it to find who the GOP nominee is, and what he finds will be just what he asked Santa for. Meanwhile, back at the campaign headquarters in Chicago, the staff is packing goodies into three boxes. One is labeled Romney, one Gingrich, and one just has a black “? “

These days the polls are looking good for Obama in 2012. In them, he's ahead of Romney or even with him, he easily tops all the others, and the campaign hasn't started. And there is the possibility that multi-billionarie New York Mayor Bloomberg will toss his fedora in the race as a third parry canaidate, which would be a fatal blow to the GOP.. But none of this has stopped the professional whiners from attacking Obama for not giving them what they wanted in their Christmas' stockings.

The latest of these prompted me to cancel my subscription to Harper's magazine. The publisher of that once-responsible magazine, John MacArthur, recently wrote that Obama should not be reelected because he has “lost his moral authority.” It strikes me that anyone who says that has lost his, and his common sense too. Obama got bin Laden, ended Bush's Iraq war, got his health care bill passed, has cut taxes on the poor and middle class, killed “Don't Ask,Don't Tell,” and has restored true “family values” to the White House.

But the MacArthurs of the country, few as there are, will have zero affect on the 2012 vote. Before November of next year it will be Obama versus one man, and whoever that is his campaign is ready to launch block buster campaigns against him. (And it will be a Him now that Backmann has turned to dust.) There will be a southern campaign that reminds Evangelicals of Governor Romney's support of gay marriage and a woman's right to choose; a mid-west campaign that focuses on Romney's record as a jobs killer when he ran Bain, a company that is still paying him; and an east and west coast campaign that focuses on the recently “born again” Tea Party reactionary. All of those Romenys will loose and a truly moral man, who has read the Constitution, will be reelected.

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FAST FORWARD?

Less than a month to the 2016 election and it's all over but the vote counting. Of course it already was the day the Democrats wound up their convention in Phoenix The nomination of Hilary Clinton and Julian Castro cinched the election and the GOP seemed almost to accept the fact. Their once vaunted SuperPacs were now called SuckerPacs, and they had a devil of a time finding

any suckers. By mid-September all the polls agreed that the Clinton-Castro ticket had won and the Republican party was in debt for more than a million dollars. .

When the history of the 2016 election is written, the account of President Obama's speech nominating Hilary Clinton may well be the lead paragraph, and the video of President Bill Clinton's tears will be remembered by everyone who saw it. But those histories will quickly move from the Democrat's victory to analysis of the final days of the Republican party.

Political junkie Leland Nichols (who voted for Harry Truman in 1948!) has written that the death kneel of the Republican party was sounded when they adopted what was then called “the southern strategy.” He argues that had they taken a hard look at the nation's demographics they would have taken Horace Greely's advice and gone west, “A party that depended on southern white Evangelical men was bound to starve to death,” he's written. “As the number of Hispanics and non-believers exploded, the fate of the GOP was sealed.”

What Nichols and other junkies now fear is that the currently unified Democratic party will again split as it did in the George McGovern era. As fears of terrorism subside and the economy maintains its up swing, the zealots on the far left will rise up again and split the party. However it seem clear that that will not happen during the Clinton-Castro years. Nichols ended his blog post by saying he was glad he wouldn't be around for the 2024 election.

RADICAL IDEAS

GETTING TO KNOW OBAMA

I knew Saul Alinsky, and – to paraphrase Senator Bentson – Obama is a Saul Alinsky. He spoke at UCLA back in the early fifties and afterward six of us had coffee with him at the cafe across the street from the movie theater in Westwood. One of us, I've forgotten who, asked Alinsky what he could do to make America a better country. The author of Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals said there were only three things; vote, organize, and peacefully assemble to petition the government. That was how to make radical change.

Alinsky is most famous for his work, called the Back of the Yards movement, to improve the terrible conditions under which Blacks were forced to work at Chicago's infamous stock yards. But the trip that brought him to UCLA was supposed to take him to Oakland where he would try to help the growing Black population. The idea that he might be successful so frightened the city that the Council voted to ban him from entering the city – for life.

Obama, like Alinsky, suffered from prejudice. He because of his color, Alinsky because he was a Jew at a time when Antisemitism was more common than a cold, and far more deadly. Obama believes, as Alinsky did, that the people truly have the power, but often must wrestle it from the clenched fist of corporations and entrenched politicians. In his State of the Union speech, Obama called on Americans to wrestle control from Big Oil, corrupt banks, the filthy rich, and from a paralyzed Senate and the House divided against itself, and against America.

The morning-after blogs, paid pundits,”liberal” whiners, and rabble rousing Republicans all found little but fault with President Obama's State of the Union speech, but Saul Alinsky would be one damned proud man as he listened to the radical call to action.

BACK TO COLLEGE

IT'S THE NUMBERS, STUPID!

There is all but universal agreement among pundits that 2012 will be another year in which, “It's the economy, stupid!” But recent polls predict the likely Electoral College vote – the only one that counts (as Al Gore discovered) – give Obama 242 votes from “safe” blue states, so he's only 28 short of the 270 he needs to win. So it's time to start yelling, 'It's the numbers, stupid! These polls also have him picking up the swing states of Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, and Ohio, which add a total of 40 more for a total of 282, 12 more than are needed to give the family dog, Bo, another four years to run around the rose garden. Team Obama also has a good chance of picking up Colorado and Virginia which would have his daughters chanting, “Three-oh-four, three-oh-four, three-oh-four!” Or maybe, “Three-oh-four more years!”

Then, of course, the question of who he'll run against adds an important factor. Most of the polls cited above were based on the assumption Romney would be the (un)lucky winner of the GOP slug fest, but were it to actually be Gingrich, Obama would garner another ten to twenty votes. And the more damage Newt does to Mitt (and Mitt does to himself,) the more it adds to Obama's total. I ought to abide by the dictum “It's too early to predict the outcome!” but a Republican victory in the Electoral College does seem neigh on to impossible.

That conclusion must, of course, be whispered in closed rooms (or sung in the shower,) since it could lead some to decide their votes aren't needed. But as Al Gore and Tom Dewey learned painfully, every one does. One thing Obama could do to snatch many of Ron Paul's young supporters to his side would be to dramatically reduce the Fed's war on marijuana. He doesn't have to inhale, just get the DEA to hold its breath.

WINNER TAKES WHAT?

TOO MUCH or TOO LITTLE?

GOP voters face odd choices. Does Romney have too much money or pay too little tax? Does Newt have too little morality or too many wives? One would think the debate would be about the economy, the threat from Iran, or how to power our country, but those issues are being flushed down the debate toilet. Call Roto-Rooter!

All the wannbes are yelling that Obama is the problem, but he has only one wife and he's paid the IRS what he owes. If the contest between their candidate and Obama ever turns to issues that actually matter, Obama will have a very easy ride back to sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. If you doubt that, read once-conservative Andrew Sullivan's article in Newsweek. Following Allan Lichtman's list of the thirteen keys to the White House, (Red his book!) he ticks off President Obama's truly amazing first term successes As Wordsworth put it, “:The world is too much with us, looking back.” What Americans want to know is what's 2012, 2013, 2015 going to be like?

Now that the Newt has beaten the Mitt in South Carolina the old guard of the GOP is looking forward to Tampa as if they already knew another Katrina was going to hit it. There are even whispers, in closed rooms of course, of a brokered convention. That is to say, one where primary and caucus votes are ignored and the masters of the party pick a candidate. Jeb Bush? No, not another Bush. Chris Christie? No, he's too fat. Tim Pawlenty? No, he's got pawlenty of nothin'. Meanwhile Obama's team is sitting around giggling.

I've covered four national conventions and until now I haven't been sorry to miss the more recent ones, but I sure would like to go to Tampa to watch the GOP tamp down Mitt and Newt as they search for somebody who isn't too rich, hadn't paid too little tax, who wasn't a multi-wived philander who took millions from the mortgage giant, and, just maybe, could beat Obama. The smoke in those smoked filled room will have to be weed ti they're going to hallucinate a win in 2012.

PLAY BALL!

VOICES FROM THE RIGHT

The battle for the Republican presidential nomination often triggers memories of lines from the opening of Longfellow's classic Evangeline: “The deep voice neighboring ocean speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.” Or Shakespeare's lines: “Full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.” They talk and talk but I don't learn much.

As much as Romney tries to maintain his performance as a patient teacher confronting of a bunch of ill behaved loud children, he comes across more as the crossing guard holding a Stop sign as the students run back and forth across the street yelling insults at him. Soon, I've no doubt, the class will come to order and proceed to the playground where the game of kick ball will be played. .The final score of that game will be determined by voters who will be forced to chose between Washington and Wall Street. It is, at present, unclear whether Americans dislike Robber Barrons or “bureaucrats” more, and whom the poor, unemployed, and underpaid will blame for the sorry state of the economy. The GOP shouts that the mob should just go get a job, but to paraphrase Patrick Henry, they may cry jobs, jobs, but there are no jobs. .

And, of course, there lurks the ugly possibility that before November 6 events may conspire to make threats to our national security the overriding issue. The Obama campaign is surely not hoping our enemies will attack, but if they were to, the crossing guard better run for cover as his party is no longer viewed as the stronger defender of our freedom. For now, however, Obama's crew in Chicago is undoubtedly planning a campaign that will focus on the sins of Wall Street and Romney's admission that he pays a lower tax rate than the school janitor, or the maids that clean his many houses, makes him vulnerable and it's not clear how he can kick that ball back at the other team.

A SILVER SPOON IN HIS MOUTH

IT'S THE ECONOMY AGAIN, STUPID

The Mitt may have some trouble in South Carolina but by the time the Florida vote's counted he is almost certain to be the Republican 2012 candidate, which means the race is on. And as James Carville said back in '92, “It's the economy stupid!” I'll wager the team in Chicago is now exploring every deal Bain Captial Ventures made from the day it was founded right through yesterday, and has a squad out hunting for every person who lost a job when Bain captured the company they worked for. Obama's campaign has no choice; it's going to be a 99% versus 1% battle right down to November 5. We have Romney, and the Occupy Movement to thank for that.

An African-American Harvard lawyer who turned his back on offers from powerful law firms to help organize the poor and powerless in Chicago running against a multibillionaire who is still reaping profits from a company that ravaged companies it bought is a never-before-in-history contest. It makes the '32 race of Hoover and FDR look like a choice between two members of the same frat for student of the year honors.

If, as most economists predict, the jobless rate drops another couple of points and the House continues to block aggressive efforts to pass Obama's jobs bills, the outcome looks safe for the President's reelection. Unless. . And there is a big “unless.” What is uncertain is how independents and “Reagan Democrats” are going to vote. Back in the days of the Robber Barons Americans understood that the 1% had gotten rich at the expense of the rest of the people, but today there still seems to be a persistent view among many that the filthy rich deserve every penny they're hording. To change that, the Obama campaign has to put a face on the 99% and the 1% too.

We're I working in the Chicago office I'd recommend having workers whom Romney fired do video stand-ups in front of some of Romney's houses. I'd also air some spots of the mansion The Mitt was living in in France while supposedly on a Mormon mission to save French souls. And how about a baby picture of Romney with a shiny silver spoon in his mouth. Yeah, I like that.

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THE ENEMY WITHIN

SVENGALI'S BUSY

One of the cushiest jobs in politics is getting to be Svengali, or svengali as it's now okay to write, sort of like Google becoming google. The character from George de Maurier's 1894 novel gets to screw up everybody's best laid plans by worming his way into their confidence, and it's plain as the nose on Romney's face that there's one working his, or her, butt off amidst the GOP, most likely his. One of the sneakiest things he did was talk the Republicans into tacking a provision on to the unemployment extension bill that would deny anybody who doesn't have a high school diploma, or GED, from collecting unemployment insurance. Cleaver, bastard, right? (Hats off to Economist View blog for bringing the plot to screw workers to my attention.)

He figured out that if the GOP did that it would destroy their chances of picking up blue collar “Reagan Democrats,” piss off Hispanics, and make it look like Republicans favored “intellectuals.” All that in a couple of sentences added to the bill! Boy he's good. .I mean, he figured out that people who had to drop out of school and go to work to help support their folks, who were not allowed to go to school because they were third generation “wetbacks,” or who had dyslexia and flunked out but who paid into the government's insurance program for decades will all be screwed, and they will make the GOP pay on election day.

There is, however, the possibility that it wasn't a svengali spy planted by the Democrats but just another example of the how much they really do dislike the ever shrinking working class and the part of America's needy they used to all “welfare queens;” poor women trying to raise kids as single mothers.

The persistent attack on those who are struggling and their unbridled support of those who are gurgling Champagne will not work in 2012. It doesn't take an undercover svengali to figure that out. And now Romney's attacking Obama for not having Wall Street smarts. Gee, maybe Mitt is the Republican's svengali!

FOX'S FRIENDS

LET'S TAKE A BREAK

OK, I've had all the Iowa I can tolerate and he who wins in New Hampshire has a really good chance of winning in Maine, period, so let's explore the world of “progressive” whiners. The blogs were full of them this morning. Most concentrated on Obama's “failures” and how things you've never heard of can cost him the election. Among the latter was the story of the government's deportation of an African-American teenage runaway to Colombia. It was a truly stupid thing ICE did, but I betcha Obama didn't actually, personally, willfully issue the order to deport her and the blog's insistence that the case will hurt him with Hispanic voters gets my Most Stupid Thing of the Day award.

But the Where Do You Get That Crap? award goes to usually smart Truthdig In one article, the writer (no byline) characterizes the president's efforts to reign in Wall Street as “tepid.” And that ran the day after Obama had made the recess appointment to head the Consumer Protection Agency and added three new member to the National Labor Relations Board. And, to make sure they garnered the above named WDYGTC award the piece was titled, “Arms Dealer Obama Will Win by Default.” Arms dealer? I guess they slapped that insult on him for allowing Israel and Saudi Arabia to buy guns and planes from American firms.

It often seems like these self-appointed “liberal” gurus are trying to out fox Fox. One of them accused Obama of acting like he thought he was “King” for making recess appointments when Congress was pretending not to be on recess by holding 45 second daily meetings, and another asserted that he was being kind to Wall Street because it had bought him his 2008 win. The teachers who had these dolts as students must be damned embarrassed. Somehow they graduated without understanding that we have three branches of government and two political parties. The rest of us remember that it was the Supreme Court that gave Wall Street unlimited power to buy elections and the Republicans in the House and Senate who tried to tie Obama's hands so he couldn't protect consumers.

So my advice is, ignore the “liberal” blogs and go straight to Fox News to catch up on the latest attacks on Obama.

THE UNGODLY

THE ANTI CHRISTS AMONG US

A woman told ex-Senator Santorum at one of his campaign events that government shouldn't give the hungry money for food they can't pay back. She began her tirade by describing herself as an Evangelical Christian. Though I am not a Christian, my memory of Jesus' injunction to his followers to care for the those in need for “they are our brothers” is one I try to follow. But as I am not without sin, I can't cast the first stone at the awful woman, but she damned well deserves to be pelted with rocks.

During this seemingly endless season of political pomposity, I have not heard one of the self-proclaimed Christians running for the GOP nomination quote Mathew 29:24. It is there believers are told it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a Wall Street banker to get into heaven. (I've paraphrased the Bible a bit.) The Occupy protestors, on the other hand, are acting as Jesus did when he drove the moneychangers from the temple with a knotted rope.  Reading the words his disciples say Jesus spoke makes it painfully clear that today's arch conservatives are anti Christs.

And that makes me ask, Where are the other Christian ministers? I would like to hear what Catholic Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopalian clergy would say to the woman who would let the hungry starve, to the those who cheered when told more people would die were Obamacare repealed, those who would condemn a woman to death rather than allow her doctor to terminate her pregnancy, and those who deny homosexuals the right to defend their country. Their silence is their shame.

The election of 2012 will not be decided on the basis of religious affiliation, of course, but if the GOP “preaches” the vile sermons of the anti Christs women, independents, gays, and truly moral Americans will vote for Democrats. Oh, and so will atheists and agnostics; the most rapidly growing “faith” in the country.

WHO'S THE ENEMY?

THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND

The old Arab proverb about who's a friend and who's an enemy may be the key to an Obama victory in this year's election. It worked for Truman in '48 and it appears to be the Democratic strategy again. Voters are the “enemy” of Congress and Congress is sure as hell Obama's enemy, so his attacks on both the House and Senate should garner him votes on election day.

Today's papers (Jan 1) report that the GOP campaign will try to use Obama against Obama, picking quotes that contradict. That seems looney to me since the Republican candidate, unless it's Bachmann, can be quoted has having taken six sides on issues that have only two; for or against. But the even greater problem with that strategy is, as noted above, that the public dislikes Congress far more than it dislikes Obama.

All this will become clearer in the next two months as Congress deals with the extension of unemployment benefits, the need to raise the debt limit, and – oh yes – jobs. (Unlike Governor Perry, I remembered the third thing.) And here's where we can all count on the Tea Party fringe to work their butts off helping Obama win reelection. But then there's the economy (stupid.) Most economists predict slow but steady growth but they said the same thing last New Years and it turned out to be only the most minimal growth. Here too, however, the ball is in the Republican's court, and the Tea Party folk seem to be promising to fumble when ever it's in their hands. It's only ten months to the goal line and the Democrats have by far the better quarterback, even if his favorite game is basketball. So let's call it a slam dunk rather than a touchdown.

HOPE IS THE MESSAGE

HAPPY 2012

To win in 2012 Republicans must feed voters' fears, hatred of Obama, and their desire to return to the “good old days” of Bush. Democrats need to convince us the economic troubles Bush caused are being corrected and things are getting better, the country is safer, and Obama is prepared, and eager, to do battle with the lords of Wall Street. The GOP has no choice but to run a negative campaign while the Democrats can, and must, focus on the positive.

What makes it an especially tough year for the GOP is that their convention takes place in Tampa, Florida on August 27.and is followed on September 3 by the Democrats' in Charlotte, South Carolina. The country will have to endure a week of lamentation, hair pulling, and “Obama is the problem!” speeches. A week later the Democrats will throw a party to which we're all invited. The speeches will be upbeat, the music will be lively, and the Obama family (and dog Bo) will smile, laugh, and cheer. (Maybe Bo won't.)

My guess, or prediction, is that Americans are ready to feel good again after a year of tears, struggle, and fear. I think the nation is ready for a truly happy 2012. So let's let auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind as we embrace hope once again.

TRIP TO HELL

IF PEOPLE WERE CARS

When an uninsured driver totaled my car, my insurance company sent me a check for what Kelly Blue Book said it was worth. Cool. In California all drivers are required to have insurance, so the guy who ran into me lost his license. Very cool. Now, if people were cars everybody would be required to have insurance on their bodies like they do on their cars. It's called Romneycare in Massachusetts, and if the Supreme Court doesn't screw things up it will be required in all states soon. Totally cool.

What I don't understand is why some people are screaming that it's socialism, or worse. They didn't have a Tea Party extravaganza to shout down the laws that require car owners to have insurance. Were they asleep, or do they think making tax payers foot the hospital bill for people in ER is okay while getting their insurance company to pay if their car's in ER, also known as a repair shop, is swell?

Rather than further belabor the point, let me reflect on concepts laid out in the Christian Bible and the Qur’an. Both those holy books tell the faithful they must care for those in need or they'll go to hell. That being the case, Ron Paul faces spending a very long time in hell for his demands that we stop all foreign aid and repeal Obamacare. He wouldn't be alone “down below” All the other wannabe GOP nominees agree with most of his Libertarian views. (Which translates: liberty for me and screw you.)

The Good Samaritan saved the life of an injured Jew who was supposed to be is enemy. Other Jews who'd walked by the man had ignored him, the Samaritan came to his aid. That is the lesson all of us must learn. We are all our brothers' keepers. Remind those who don't want to pay for health insurance that can save another's life that it is damned hot in hell. .

POLITICS IS A DIRTY BUSINESS

ELEPHANT POOP

The old joke says the worst job in a circus falls to the one who has to shovel up the elephant poop.That job is now impossible as the GOP elephant has begun to suffer from acute diarrhea. And the shit is hitting all its fans. The brutal Iowa campaign – to win a meaningless victory – has forced the contenders to spit in each others' faces. Racism has reemerged (thanks to Dr. Paul,) wealth is an attack word, and anti-gay and anti-abortion attacks have once again alienated moderates and independents. The one who wins the rigid Evangelicals and Tea Party-ites votes in the Iowa caucuses will almost surely loose in the general election.

But it is even more of a problem for Republicans this year because the local battles have gone national, thanks to the endless string of “debates.” It used to be that what happened in Iowa stayed in Iowa, now it stays, and stays, and stays on Fox and msnbc. Gingrich's praise of Romeny-care will hurt Mitt in the Super Tuesday primaries, Bachmann's attack on Perry's position on immigration will erode the Hispanic vote even more, and Santorum's Christian crusade will reduce the Jewish vote for Republicans in Florida and across the country. And have no doubt, those bits from the Iowa campaign will be the stuff of Democratic TV ads month after month.

I'm not the only one who thinks all this shit can doom the party in November. Recently the conservative National Review and uber-conservative William Kristol have expressed dismay and called on more electable candidates to join the race. Who? Another Bush? Chinless Bobby Jindal? The fatso who rides in a limo because he can't even walk to his kid's ball game? The GOP isn't just in trouble in 2012, they also don't have any strong candidates waiting in the wings for 2016.

Watch where you step, Republicans, the ground is awash in what the elephant can't digest.

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DUMB AND DUMBER

WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE

I read The Nation every week and usually find it informative and agreeable. In the current issue (Jan 3) I ran across a bit that I assumed was a joke so I read on, expecting a punch line. Finding none, I reread the paragraph, hoping to find I'd missread the joke. I hadn't. The author urged, nay, demanded that Obama “move in the direction” of The American Dream Act, an omnibus bill the Progressive Caucus created. It is every thing us progressives could hope for and, of course, has absolutely no chance in hell of passing either house. I doubt it could pass even if Democrats gained control of both the House and Senate.

Switching from that, I prowled through stories about America Elect. It has just gotten on the ballot in California, and a bunch of other states. Its boss insists it is not a political party, but that's how it is described in all of the states where it will be on the ballot in 2012. Their idea seems simple enough: people vote on-line to pick a candidate, who must then pick a vice presidential running mate from the other party. So voters would end up with what. Obama and Gingrich? Or Ron Paul and Michelle Backhmann? Don't those dummies know that the vice presidency is a pot of warn piss, as Vice President John Nance Gardner put it. His (or one day, her) only constitutionally assigned job is to serve as titular president of the Senate. The President tells his veep what else he can do, or can not do. Period.

The bigger question, however, is not why America Elect is so stupid, but who put up the millions it has cost them to pay for all the signatures that got them on those ballots. Do the backers of this bizarre movement have a Koch addiction? AE won't get anybody elected but it has the potential of drawing some independents from Obama, and even some semi-smart Democrats who are weary of the two party system. My guess is that that's what its financial backers had in mind now that there's no Ralph Nader to screw things up.

WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Under the Christmas tree in the White House there is a gift box from the Republican National Committee, but there's nothing in it. The gift won't come for weeks, maybe not until Super Tuesday, or the GOP convention. But eventually Obama will opening it to find who the GOP nominee is, and what he finds will be just what he asked Santa for. Meanwhile, back at the campaign headquarters in Chicago, the staff is packing goodies into three boxes. One is labeled Romney, one Gingrich, and one just has a black “? “

These days the polls are looking good for Obama in 2012. In them, he's ahead of Romney or even with him, he easily tops all the others, and the campaign hasn't started. And there is the possibility that billionarie New York Mayor Bloomberg will toss his fedora in the race as a third parry canaidate, which would be a fatal blow to the GOP.. But none of this has stopped the professional whiners from attacking Obama for not giving them what they wanted in their Christmas' stockings.

The latest of these prompted me to cancel my subscription to Harper's magazine. The publisher of that once-responsible magazine, John MacArthur, recently wrote that Obama should not be reelected because he has “lost his moral authority.” It strikes me that anyone who says that has lost his, and his common sense too. Obama got bin Laden, ended Bush's Iraq war, got his health care bill passed, has cut taxes on the poor and middle class, killed “Don't Ask,Don't Tell,” and has restored true “family values” to the White House.

But the MacArthurs of the country, few as there are, will have zero affect on the 2012 vote. Before November of next year it will be Obama versus one man, and whoever that is his campaign is ready to launch block buster campaigns against him. (And it will be a Him now that Backmann has turned to dust.) There will be a southern campaign that reminds Evangelicals of Governor Romney's support of gay marriage and a woman's right to choose; a mid-west campaign that focuses on Romney's record as a jobs killer when he ran Bain, a company that is still paying him; and an east and west coast campaign that focuses on the recently “born again” Tea Party reactionary. All of those Romenys will loose and a truly moral man, who has read the Constitution, will be reelected.

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AN EASY RIDE?

I AM VERY CONFUSED

Can you help me understand what's going on in politics? What am I missing? I've been studying the Hedgehog Report which collects data from all the major polls and it shows Obama beating Gingrich in the Electoral College by a vote of 426 to 112. That's what is called a landslide victory. And Gingrich is tied with Obama in Arizona and has only a 1% lead in Ohio but Hedgehog gives them to the Republican. The Hispanic vote could tip Arizona to the Democrats and Independents could swing Ohio. That would turn an Obama landslide into a tsunami.

There is, of course, a year to go before election day but one would think those numbers would have Republicans quaking in their Gucci loafers and hunting for an “anybody but Newt” candidate. Why aren't they and what is the GOP thinking? That's my conundrum.

I had one thought. Maybe there's a George Smiley-type agent in the GOP. You know, John le Carré's master spy in Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy. He would have been the one who plotted all their disastrous debates, sought out the women in Herman Cain's past, fed Rick Perry a drug which made him forget what agencies he wanted to abolish, and talked Gingrich into saying Freddy Mac hired him as an historian. Oh, and he convinced Romney that Americans had lousy memories and wouldn't be able to recall what he's said yesterday about gays, abortion, or universal health care.

Their Smiley chap (who never smiles) has also gotten into Karl Rove's head and GOP pollster Linda DiVall's. Rove said the Obama campaign has a “sort-term view” and a very bad long-term problem. Ms. DiVall was prompted to note that the Obama campaign “should not feel in the least comfortable.”

Short term? Don't they read The Washington Post? That sometimes good paper finally noted that the Obama campaign launched the “two Mitts in one body” TV ad with sole objective of helping Newt get the nomination That was damned smart long-range planning and the campaign staff is feeling quite comfortable as they meet in the White House today. .

Or maybe the GOP rigged all the polls and concocted the Hedgehog report just to give the Obama campaign a false comfortable feeling. Now that would really have been a major coup for their Smiley-face. Or they could be echoing the line, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride” to victory in 2012.

THE ONE PERCENT

GREED IS GOD

That is not a typo in the title of this piece. Congressman Paul Ryan and many others worship greed and Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged is their bible. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck also adore the book as do many right-wing Republicans and some, but by no means all, Wall Streeters. In the book, published in 1957, Rand describes the hero as, “Having been born without the ability to consider others.” This is, of course, characteristic of psychopaths, one of whom Ann Rand idolized: the homicidal maniac William Hickman who slaughter a 13 year old girl.

In The Fifteen Biggest Lies About Capitalism author Joshua Holland details Rand's obsession with the concept of a world without empathy, a world in which each of us seeks only to achieve personal wealth and power. She doesn't even invoke Adam Smith's mysterious “invisible hand,”which he said is somehow able to reap a bit of benefit to all from the avarice of the few. Rand's dream of a world without concern for others leads Newt Gingrich into wanting poor kids to map the floor of their school while the well off students mock them, and to Ryan's plan to slice apart the fabric of what is left of our ragged safety net.

I read an advance copy of the book in the spring of 1957 and hated it. But when I was told to go up to the Brown Derby restaurant to interview her I gathered the film crew and headed up the street. She was sitting in a booth along the north wall with men I presumed represented the publisher. When she saw me and my film crew she hissed that we were schwein, (pigs.) I tried to smile as I spoke in my poor German; Ich nicht ein Schwein, Fraulein, ich bin ein Reporter.” The men in the booth laughed. Ann Rand tossed her glass of water in my face. NBC news carried the spot that night unedited.

However it is not the hard faced German's rudeness, nor even her books, that trouble me now. It is the way her philosophy of soulless selfishness has become an acceptable way of doing business in the world today. Recent research has revealed that even rats have empathy. When another rat is trapped the one who is free attempts to chew off the trap. But if the Randites have their way we will abandon all concern for others and serve only the god of greed. I hope her vision doesn't become reality, but I hope to live long enough to see my government boldly act to punish pathological capitalists.

JUDGE'S WORD ISN'T LAW

JUDGE TRASHES THE 1st AMENDMENT

Boston police raided the Occupy site (Dec. 10) after Judge Frances McIntyre ruled that “occupying” constituted “seizing” public property. She made that ruling while occupying a chair owned by the state, while occupying the position of judge, after having occupied a hotel room on occasion, occupying a seat on an airplane, and maybe even flicking the Occupied sign on a toilet door. How that beyond-stupid-woman could have so totally screwed up is hard to fathom. But in doing so she blithely ignored the 1^st Amendment of our constitution which guarantees the people's right to assemble peacefully to seek “redress of grievances.” And the Constitution does not limit that right to assemble where, when, or for only as long as the local authority approves.

I suggest that before the Occupy folks go to court to get her witless ruling overturned they buy her a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of the English language. To justify her bizarre ruling she may want to seize on the Latin root of the English word which combines ob – to move toward, and capere - to seize, but, as noted above, no English speaker (except foolish Ms. McIntyre) uses the word to mean “to steal,” “to take permanent possession of another's property,” or “to lay claim to.”

The dotty Ms. McIntyre is not, tragically, the only one who has ignored the Constitution to shoo Occupiers out of public parks and off campus. Multibillionaire Mayor Bloomberg did it, so did suck-up-to-the-banks Oakland Mayor Quan, and semi-English speaking Chancellor of the Davis campus of the University of California. Linda Katehi. (For whom our Constitution may be “all Greek to her.”)
The Occupy movement began as an effort to call attention to Wall Street's usurpation of power and the tragic effects of the wealth gap in the U.S. But now, due to the violent acts of police and the venality of local governments, it has became a true civil rights movement. Imagine what things would have been like had the McIntyre view prevailed when people marched to Selma. They could have been routed for “seizing” a public bridge, and poor old Glenn Beck's crowd would have been ordered to vacate the Washington mall or face pepper spraying. .