So I was reading news again today. It was fairly depressing, which is not too unusual unfortunately. But I saw this article on the Huffington Post and was inspired to write one of my periodical letters to the White House. I know the President never actually sees anything I write, but I figure someone adds up the numbers of supporters and/or commenters about various things, so I can at least make my opinion known.

Then I thought, well, I can also let my opinion be known other places, so here is my latest missive to the man in the Oval Office.

I see in the news today that Press Secretary Gibbs said that it looks like Senator Enzi has given up on bipartisan healthcare reform and walked away from the table. I believe this statement is incorrect. In order to give up on something, you first have to want it to happen. It has been apparent since July that very few Republicans in office have any desire for healthcare reform to happen, especially in a bipartisan manner, so they can hardly give up on that now.

Gibbs also says, “”It looks like Republicans are stepping away from seeking a bipartisan solution. It is bad for this town but it’s worse for this country.” Again, this in not correct. While it would be better for everyone in Congress to work together to make the best bill possible, that is not what has been happening. They have been using the cover of bipartisanship to do their best to delay and stop any kind of reform from happening. If that cover is finally wearing thin and falling away, then that is very good for the country. Now you just need to corral the cats (i.e. Congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans like the 2 ladies from Maine) and pass a bill that really is good for the country.

A single-payer system like Canada’s may be out of reach, but the HELP committee’s bill looks pretty solid to a layman, and is at least a good starting point. Republican’s want to force the responsibility for reform on the Democrats? Well they did that 40 years ago with Medicare and that seems to be pretty popular these days. I say the Democrats should say thank you and get on with passing it.

Well, the news of the day seems to be about the current attempts to get healthcare reform through Congress. Not surprising, it affects pretty much everyone in the country to some extent, which means all the news channels know they have an audience. And there are those doing everything they can to bring even more attention to it, using any method they can think of.

I have no problem with people wanting express their views to their representatives in Congress. That is one of the most basic foundations of how our system works, and it is necessary to truly have a government by and for the people. No matter how much I agree or disagree with someone’s views about something, they have every right to express them, especially to the government. And I think the proverbial town hall meeting is a great way to do just that.

Unfortunately, there are those that seem to think that matters of how our government works should not be determined by looking at all options and working out what is best. Instead of coming up with better ideas, they want to pack the town halls and prevent others from disagreeing with them. If this succeeds, they can make it look like their position is in fact the overwhelming majority, no matter how big it really is or isn’t.

Rachel Maddow had an excellent segment on it last night:

It is a rather long segment, but has some excellent points.

There are also the people out there that are being less then honest about the current healthcare bills in Congress. There is apparently one of the ubiqitous emails floating around full of many of the lies being spread. It has been effectively refuted by Polifact.com but of course, those spreading the lies discount that, after all the words of the bill mean what they want them to mean, not what is actually written. Always an effective debating technique, change the meaning of the words.

One of the biggest lies and scare tactics showing up in the various ads and news stories is how horrible the Canadian single-payer system is. Of course, the vast majority of Canadians do not think so, and they even have real facts (as opposed to the “facts” reported on most US news) to back up their support for their system.

So if reforming healthcare is supported by most Americans, and the actual facts about the bills and how the reforms would impact our lives and economy are so favorable, why is it so hard to get the changes made? I am afraid that the answer to that can best be explained by Keith Olberman, on his #1 story last night, a Special Comment on healthcare.

And that is the real crisis facing our healthcare system. The outright purchase of the Senators and Representatives that should be taking care of the people in their states and districts, not the corporations that give them the most money. One Senator, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, has even pretty much admitted this is true in a phone call to one of his constituents. He is all for a public plan, which he says will be better for the public, as long as it doesn’t hurt the profits of the insurance companies. He seems to have forgotten why he is supposed to be there.

I was getting my morning news when I came across an article about the Senate and the “Cash for Clunkers” program funding. I didn’t like what I read, so I wrote the following email to both of my Senators here in Ohio. I expect at most a form letter in return, but maybe it will nudge them in the right direction.

I am reading the news online and see that the Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate are going to oppose more funding for the “Cash for Clunkers” program. I hope you are not one of the people that will be doing so.

Senator DeMint seems to think that the program is just helping car dealers and ignoring other small business owners. If you interpret the program as narrowly as possible, then he is right. If you look at the practical effects, it is much more than that.

Those dealerships are continuing to employ people, who will have money to spend at other businesses locally. The cars are made by factories all over, which will be able to employ people, who will also remain employed and have money to spend where they live. And of course, all of the money gets taxed on each change of hands, helping maintain the tax base of each school district, city, county, and state that those people live in. And of course, all of those people that remain employed, and the people they help keep on employment by spending their earnings, are not on the unemployment rolls, yet another money savings to states.

The people buying the cars are saving money, both on the sale and by using less gas. Which means less pollution, which leads to less healthcare costs.

Frankly, the only people that I can figure would not be happy about the entire program are the oil companies, since they will sell less oil. But since, for example, Shell Oil’s profits for last quarter were $2.3 billion dollars, I find it hard to believe cries of hardship from them.

So there are a lot of reasons and benefits to continuing the program. Yes it does mean increased spending, but frankly, $2 billion dollars is a drop in the buck when dealing with Federal spending. Better to spend the money on a proven and successful program, with huge secondary and tertiary benefits then using it to do something like start a foreign war.

It is a day of bad news for various states around the country. California is so far in debt, it is starting to shut down, Kansas is keeping tax refunds and can’t pay workers Friday, and Alaska is suddenly facing a huge budget shortfall. And all of these situations have something in common. They are being facilitated by the Republican Party.

In California, the minority GOP will not vote for a budget that includes $15 billion in spending cuts, because it also includes $14 billion in tax increases. There is an argument to be made about raising taxes in a recession being a bad thing. The federal government  has avoided that in the just passed stimulus package, by deficit spending. But states that can’t do that are much more limited in their responses to these things.

The Republicans in California, in a time when their state already have high unemployment rates, seem to think that shutting down the state and increasing the number of people on unemployment, from both state and private jobs, is the best way to handle things. I admit, I am not Paul Krugman, but this does not really seem like a good idea to me.

Kansas is slightly different. They actually have the money, but it is in the wrong accounts. This happens, the town I live in just had the same problem, they worked through it by passing an ordinance to use some of the money from the other places to deal with budget shortfalls. This is not a long term fix, but it will get them through this year at least, maybe long enough for things to start turning around.

But they can’t do it. The Republican legislature will not pass the needed measure, apparently in an attempt to blackmail the Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius into signing a huge bill of spending cuts that recently passed. I have no opinion on the merits of the spending cuts, and the governor has not made any statements to this point about whether she would sign it or not. Her message to state employees indicates she can’t sign it, it has yet to get to her. Again, the Republicans are putting their goals ahead of the people they are supposedly serving.

And then there is Alaska. Sarah Palin was very vocal about the money she was able to give to state residents by taxing the oil companies. Especially the extra $1200 per person she got passed. Every politician loves to be able to tell voters he gave them money when it is election time. But it might have been more fiscally conservative to save that money, for times when oil prices are down and the state is facing a budget deficit.

They are not as badly off as California, or even Kansas. They did save money for just this kind of situation, which shows some prudence. But that savings could have been larger, and the Governor would rather cut more spending rather than tap those savings. Which will again, put more people out of jobs.

Add all of these to the Congressional Republicans fight against the stimulus package and it kind of leads to one question. What is it about the Republican Party that makes them hate people that work?

Well, that is not really fair. There are actually quite a few Republicans that do not feel that way. Unfortunately, these days they do not seem to be the majority. I hope that changes over the next few years. A healthy democracy needs a healthy debate, which we do not have today.

The Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) has been having a bit of a tiff with the Republican Party the last month or so. They keep insisting that too many people are wanting to do radical things like vote in the General Election. Unlike her predecessor, she keeps telling them that, well, that is allowed, even if the voters are probably Democrats. So the two sides went to court until the US Supreme Court said the GOP was not actually allowed to go to court over the issue.

Since they were not allowed to bring suit, the GOP decided to pull out the big guns. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) asked President Bush and the Department of Justice to investigate, saying that otherwise “there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted.” He is correct to a certain extent, there will be unlawful votes cast and counted in the upcoming election.

But that will happen no matter what is done. Expecting that out of the millions of votes that will be cast in Ohio all of them are legal and that nobody in the entire state is trying to vote illegally is naive. But trying to say that there will be enough illegal votes cast to have any kind of affect on the outcome of the race is disingenuous. Increasing the work loads of the various county Boards of Elections and the poll workers (and since I have volunteered to be a poll worker, this has a direct effect on me) along with the possible disenfranchisement of thousands of legal voters, makes this a very bad thing in my opinion.

There is good news for people wanting to vote in Ohio. As reported in the New York Times, the Justice Department will not be pursuing any litigation before the November 4 election. They do not way what will happen after November 4 (If I were a conspiracy theorist I would worry about that.) but at least this should end the court battles for a week or so. Not that it will stop the GOP from innuendo and other attacks.

Speaking of GOP attacks, TPMMuckraker has a listing of what is going on around the country with regards to attempts to suppress or intimidate voters. I do not see any Democratic organizations trying to do any of the suppression. But the only Republican that seems to be making it easier for people to vote is Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida. He is supported by some of the state Republicans, although some of them just seem to realize that trying to fight his move would not be a very good idea politically.

The two stories that bother me the most are the ones from New Mexico and Colorado. The New Mexico story because these are new citizens, exercising their rights and getting intimidating visits because of it. Welcoming new citizens, and giving them the same rights as those born here is one of the foundations of our society. I don’t like it when that is threatened. The Colorado story bothers me because it is somewhat like what happened in Ohio in 2004. A Republican Secretary of State making decisions that constantly take away the opportunity of people to express themselves in the voting booth.

The Republican party and McCain/Palin campaign have been really hitting things hard with their messages. It is apparent that they are really starting to feel the pressure of the polling numbers that are coming out daily. There is some movement in the polls, including some tightening of the race in the national numbers, but the state polls are not looking good for McCain and it is hurting the down ticket Republicans. Although several of them have managed to shoot their own foot, i.e. Michelle Bachman.

The most irritating Republican talking point is the idea that it is a bad thing to have both the White House and Congress in the hands of the same party. As someone who tends toward the middle of the road, I generally agree with this sentiment. It does help keep the country more toward the center of the road when the President and Congress have to compromise. Unfortunately, it can also lead to gridlock and necessary work not getting done when both sides refuse to compromise.

David Frum, a conservative political commentator at the Washington Post, has written an article with this talking point. He is really afraid of the leftist domination of the Democratic party and what it will do to the country. But Brad Delong, in a very short post called, I Call Bullshit on David Frum, did just that. If it is so bad now, why wasn’t it bad in 2000? or 2002? or 2004?

The interesting part of this tactic is that the Republican Party is using it to push voting for Republican senators and representatives. John McCain is using it to say vote for him. Considering the polling numbers for McCain, unless something really drastic occurs, it is doubtful his use of this message will do much. The Republican senators and representatives may have better luck, probably depending on how closely they have tied themselves to the McCain/Palin ticket.

Carl Huse and David M. Herszenhorn point out in The New York Times that even a veto proof majority in congress does not mean that everything can get passed. Both the major parties are in reality, coalitions of smaller groups that tend to work together. In a parlimentary system, neither would be nearly as large as they are in the US system. Blue Dog Democrats can easily align with fiscally conservative Republicans, with the blessings of their constituents, to block bills they think go too far.

One of the things that has hurt the Republicans this year, especially in the Presidential campaign, is that they seem to have forgotten they are a coalition. McCain/Palin seem to be working hard to pull in the social conservatives, but they are losing the fiscal conservatives and social moderates. And losing the moderates, whether fiscal or social, is a losing strategy in the United States.

Another meme that seems to be flowing through various comment sections on the web is that John Kerry was ahead of Bush in 2004 at this point and McCain can still come back. In reality, Kerry was mostly behind in electoral votes for the last month or so. He had some good polling days, much better than McCains to be honest, but Electoral-vote.com has all of their pages from the 2004 election up, showing that Kerry and Bush were close all through the last month, with Bush usually polling ahead. From the looks of his data, who won was almost random, depending on who had a headache when they got up and decided to skip voting that day.

In comparison, Obama has been leading on the Electoral-vote.com site since mid September just before the economy crashed, with his lead in electoral votes growing steadily. He makes it easy to compare the two campaigns with graphs on this page. Combined with the work that Nate Silver and compatriots have been doing at FiveThirtyEight.com, and it looks like it would take something truly catastrophic to stop Obama.

Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I am more than ready to stop hearing about Joe the plumber. He isn’t running for office and he doesn’t really add anything to the current political atmosphere. If he is really tired of the attention like he says, he is more than welcome to drop back into obscurity in my opinion.

I am also tired of the negative advertisements that keep showing. I know the theory of the Big Lie, and I know it works, but so far this year it seems to be less than completely successful. Maybe the US electorate is finally starting to look beyond the sound bite and trying to find the facts. Well, at least some of them. There are still people that are more than willing to believe the worst about their opponents.

These two videos from the Smith Memorial Dinner are much better advertising for both candidates. They made fun of each other, the audience members, and themselves.

This kind of thing is much nicer to hear about than something like this story about Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) and her views of Obama, and apparently every “liberal”. Why do we have so much trouble in this country with the idea of a loyal opposition? Why are people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, who advocate that anyone that disagrees with them are evil, subhuman, and/or traitors, so popular?

I can understand being passionate about beliefs and wanting to win. Anyone who has ever competed in sports has felt that. But demonizing your opponents, considering them less than you for some reason, is a bad idea in wartime, nevermind during a political campaign. Because, when it is all over, the winners are required to work with each other to get things done.

Even if the Democrats manage to get 60 senators this year, it won’t last, any more than the Republican “permanent majority” lasted. The Democrats will get some blame for the current economy, deserved or not, and they will make some mistakes as they govern. If they do a very good job, without too many mistakes or scandals (Yes, they will have both, they are humans in a position of power. Failing to temptation by someone is going to happen.) they will probably be able to stay in control of Congress until at least 2012. What happens then will depend on just who the President is and how good of a job he does.

But no matter what happens they need to keep in mind that eventually, the Republican Party, or whatever continues in place of the current mess that makes up the GOP, will have the top hand. Ignoring the checks and balances in our system, or trying to dismantle them, just makes things worse when you are the minority again. I think it is very important for the Democrats to remember this, if they manage to win as big as it seems they will right now.