Bailing Out Detroit: Obama's Lose Lose Proposition

President Elect Obama was elected with a tremendous level of support from labor unions and they didn't do that for nothing. Unions have every expectation that their priorities will be addressed, chief among them looming large and in charge on the horizon, a bailout of the Detroit Dinosaur Triad. The Dinosaur Triad wants a $25 billion dollar "bridge loan", basically sidling up next to the Wall Street beggars crying poor mouth and hollering "me too".

From our man on the street perspective, this situation is why you have to ask Obama, why do you want this job? Basically, this seems like a lose lose deal. Do it, and you can bet that the Dinosaur Triad won't be the last industry to come rooting in the taxpayer trough. Where does it stop? And with every industry that gets a taste while the electorate watches friends and neighbor's mortgages one after the other bite the dust when their jobs go puff like smoke, the voter's anger will increase as we ask the reasonable question, "so where's my bailout? I made a bad decision or two, some honest mistakes and now I'm hurting pretty bad. Where's the help for me?".

Don't do it, and a major constituency, labor unions and the working class folk they connect to, take the hit as the Dinosaur Triad burns through its remaining cash in the next six months and begins laying off thousands and shuttering plants at home and abroad. Ditto for the industry of suppliers to the Dinosaur Triad too. The effect will ripple through the economy and across the kitchen tables of Joe and Jamaal Sixpack with the family destroying force of a nuclear blast wave. And with every family that takes it on the chin, flying apart in economic meltdown, divorce and family dysfunction maxed out by financial disaster, the voter's anger will increase as we ask the reasonable question, "so where's my bailout? I made a bad decision or two, some honest mistakes and now I'm hurting pretty bad. Where's the help for me?".

How in the world does Obama thread this needle? Economists and free market fiscal conservatives say, let the Triad die, the Phoenix that will arise from the ashes will be stronger and better, but there is no doubt that letting Detroit and the millions who make their livelihood from that industry implode by inaction would be political suicide as the labor unions and their followers turn and savage Obama like rabid dogs. Liberals and progressives will say save it, but that means our multi-trillion dollar deficit continues to grow like the blob, gorging and gobbling up our fiscal health and insuring our status as a debtor nation to the likes of China and the petro kingdoms continues for decades. I got family that works in the industry and I'll bet many of you do too, so this is personal.

What do we do?

Poem for the Young Voter

Hat Tip - Racialicious

Look Ma, No Hoses or Dogs: Voter Suppression Watch

The Supreme Court recently upheld Indiana's voter ID law against a challenge to its constitutionality and in so doing, enabled an entire category of low intensity voter suppression tactics. I said then that what we would now see is a succession of republican led voter ID legislation efforts copying the Indiana approach by passing voter ID laws to address so called voter impersonation fraud. These laws will be pressed forward on the grounds of protecting the integrity of voting. However, these laws will have the effect of suppressing a portion of the voting public, by making it more inconvenient to become qualified to vote. There is a segment of the population that will be deterred from voting by this inconvenience factor. Republicans will be the only ones pressing for these laws because they believe that the people who are deterred are people likely to vote democratic. Its voter suppression without the hoses and dogs tactics of the old days. More like voter suppression by a million cuts.

As predicted, the first wave of voter id legislation is upon us. In Missouri, legislators emboldened by the Indiana decision are forging ahead with their own plans to enact the same law and once again, cannot produce a single example of voter impersonation fraud. Once again, it is being pursued by republicans and it is simply a way to rig the system by imposing inconvenience on low income and elderly voters presumed to vote democratic.

This kind of legislation must be fought state to state. Where it is enacted, efforts should be undertaken to overturn the law or to liberalize other elements of the voting process such as longer polling hours and voting by mail. More defensive response measures include grassroots drives to ensure that every person in our community has valid photo ID using community institutions like the church, community centers and schools. These laws are being pushed and passed for their voter suppression effects, Period. Full Stop, not to prevent voter impersonation fraud. Any supporter of them who says different is woefully uninformed or quite simply is a liar.

Today its voter ID. Tomorrow it will be some other type of reasonable inconvenience imposed on the franchise. Impose enough of these things and you will begin to get significant voter suppression effects in my view. We're the party of better ideas, but we purposely suppress the franchise to shield ourselves from the competition of ideas. It is the gaming of democracy under the guise of law and order and as a republican, it makes me sick.

The Trouble with Rudy

Giuliani Meets High Expectations - Yahoo! News

Ross Kaminsky, a writer for Yahoo News opines on Rudy Giuliani:

"Seeing Rudy in the room of supporters of which half were women reinforced my opinion that Giuliani has the best prospects among suburban women, soccer moms, and single women because of his focus on security and his ability to couch deep political principle in language that relates well to just getting things done in every day life. The women were at least as interactive with him and as engaged by his answers as the men. Rudy simply does not come across as the same generic power-seeking white-collar male as the other candidates do."

Uhhh, I don't think so. Here's the trouble with Rudy. I'll grant that right now, Rudy looks good. I like him. I like that his thinking appears to be very pragmatic. But we are still quite early. And while Ross seems to think Rudy's got a good shot with women, I think its an achille's heel issue. The conventional logic says that women will vote for the alpha male protector Giuliani as exemplified by his 9/11 image because they want security and to be protected. I'm starting to think this is a lot of wishful male analysis. Because over and over the women I know or talk with (an unrepresentative sample to be sure) count him out with contempt. However favorable their opinion of his 9/11 leadership may be, I've yet to see it outweigh their judgment of a man who moved his mistress into the Mayor's mansion and who's children have nothing to do with him. That says volumes to woman on a score of issue points they care about as well.