Kymo Hates 2008

Annnnnnnnnd we're back

2007-11-02T09:18:00.000-07:00

Lets jump right in, shall we?

I wanna start off with the Congress, since my classes study it a lot, and it interests me more than the presidential race at the moment.

For starters, hats off to DOD Secretary Robert Gates. The Judiciary Committee can't get a straight answer out of the Attorney General nominee about waterboarding. He won't answer, they won't vote, and Bush reminds them to do whatever he says, because after all, we're at war! It's every damn day with this guy, isn't it? Anyhow, they keep fighting back and forth on it, and finally Gates jumps up and says, "hey folks, I'm pretty high up in the military game, and I say no waterboarding period. It's not in the field manual, it's not authorized." While he didn't really answer the question at hand (whether it was legal) he did a lot to clarify the situation by saying that it doesn't matter, it can't be used anyhow.

Personally, I don't think Mukasey is all that bad of a choice. Ironically enough, he would've been confirmed by the Senate before when he became a Federal Judge - you would think that they knew a little about this guy.

The SCHIP thing has kept me going for over a month now. It is the funniest thing I've seen this Congress. Let me give everyone a little story on what I think this is - While to the normal observant, Democrats are liberals that believe in extra spending in health care. They go over budget in renewing this program, but hey, it's for kids right? They send it up with some bipartisan approval, and Bush, in all ironies, decides "you're spending too much" although I'm sure that it came out grammatically incorrect and vetoes it.

Here's the first funny thing - Bush is hilariously inconsistent. He still claims that he's a fiscal conservative, and criticizes that damnable Nancy Pelosi for spending too much. Oh hell that's funny.

Funny #2 - Congress Democrats got the Republican Party to look like asses. Not all of them, mind you, just the ones who whine about spending while simultaneously voting for outrageous spending bills for another country. To be honest, this could all be a political trick, and I think it is. I think the Dems knew Republicans would reject this, but they're using the GOP playbook, in which I'm sure is a large chapter called "Won't you please think of the Children!" It's surprising that they missed their own tactic in reverse, but I guess when you're busy scouring your office to rid any ties to Sen. Craig and his people, you don't pay much attention to anything.

Funny #3 - They're doing it again! They can't override the veto, so they just proposed it again, and it passed, again, and it'll be vetoed. . . . again! It's so funny to me, because it keeps Bush in the news as a war lovin child hater.

In all seriousness, I'm surprised that the votes in the House cannot meet the override threshold. They are sticking to the party line, and they're allowing Bush to continue setting that. The GOP needs to find a new leader now if they want to hold onto any seats in 2008. They have little shot at the Presidency, if any, and they should recognize this loss and focus on not losing a great deal of congressional influence. Many of the higher up Republicans are retiring, and the Democrats are already trying to find good candidates for their seats. The Republicans need to admit that the 2006 elections are over, they lost, and their President has little political influence. They need to get people in trouble districts right now and start campaigning 2008.

Ok now back to the main event - the race.

Finally, this thing is going to become nasty. The Democrats are starting to get angry with each other, and Obama and Edwards are starting to understand that Clinton is, in most places, killing em. Obama breaks tradition by attacking a fellow Senator, and she isn't, but is pointing out that he's contradicting his own campaign philosophy of positive politics. I think that if she can push this message enough, she's the winner. It all comes down to who we'll believe more.

Is Senator Clinton playing dodgeball? Sure she is. They're trying to pin her down on Social Security and illegal immigrant drivers licences - but here's the funny thing on the latter. The Presidency has no say in drivers licence procedures - that's a complete state function. She chose her view carefully, as it's a real hot-seat thing in New York right now. Nobody's a fan of illegal immigration lately, but she can't betray the Latino voting block, so she's playing politics and saying "I choose not to choose" and lets the others hang themselves. Obama's flaw is that he's a beginner in a professional event. Hillary is good at this, she's been at national level politics for fifteen years, plus plenty of time at a state level. The bottom line is, she knows exactly what she's doing when she doesn't know what she's doing.

I don't think her act is going to play out. The media is portraying her as crying "poor me, I'm the only woman." First, this isn't happening outright. She's an outright supporter of womens rights, and surely wouldn't back down from a gender contest. There may be subtle messages that she is trying to express this to win female voters. The media has also come out with "close campaign stragetists" who say that yeah, this is the plan, to portray her as the poor little woman against all these men. I don't buy it. I think the media is turning against her. She wants to tout her experience, not some gender weakness and "they're picking on me" attitude. I think her real plan for this phase of the campaign is to remain as non-controversial as possible - people will find something wrong with Hillary just to bitch about her, and she's got to be completely aware of this.

Education

2007-06-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

During the past few months, my attention has been drawn to the American educational system. My knowledge of it sort of proves my point - it's rather poor. I was educated in the public school system, as is the majority of the United States. I feel well-served by my time there. I also feel that I was lucky. I attended very nice public schools throughout my education, and although my high school was afforded lesser luxuries than others around it, I still was a lot better off than a student in an inner-city program.

Over the past few decades, it's become apparent that children in foreign countries are "smarter" than American students. In a world increasingly driven by technology, we doing horribly in the sibling fields of science and mathematics. These systems need to be reworked. I believe that math courses are taught on a one-size-fits-all system. I think we need to be researching alternative methods of teaching kids these skills.

Sex education is a must. My parents didn't teach me about safe sex. My family was not the kind where you talked about that kind of thing, and I don't blame them. It is highly preferable for a few parents to be outraged that their kids are going to be taught about condoms than to have to teach a 16 year old girl how to care for her newborn. Kids are having sex. Abstinence only programs are protecting the few, not the many. I believe it should be a well scheduled lesson, and parents should have the full ability to opt their kids out of those lessons, so long as it is reasonably assumed that their child has recieved the basics of sexual education.

Family and parental involvement is completely lacking. As single parents are now about as common as two-parent households, we've got to find someone concerned with a child's education. Many times, it's not that they don't care, it's that they really don't have time. I pose this question: What the hell do school counselers do? I think my high school had six or seven. I spoke with mine several times, and I think she helped me, but the majority of their time is taken up in the most useless shit ever. They kept asking me what kind of career path I was taking. I was a teenager. I wanted to be a movie star. Now, just four years after the last time they asked, I want to be an attorney. Sure, it's nice we thought of this, but the stupid paperwork aspects are useless. Teens don't know what they want to do, we should encourage them to try out different things. Universities force this on undergrads, and we should be moving it more into the high schools.

Educamication on iRack

2007-06-01T13:18:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd share this with you - it's funny, and I think it's right

The Public Relations Factor

2007-05-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

I realize that I've been a bit lazy about updating this - in truth, it's difficult for me to start a new habit without a babysitter for a while. I have been reading Hillary Clinton's "Living History" and am planning on reading a book written by a Vanity Fair reporter, Gail Sheedy, called "Hillary's Choice." Once I'm done with those, I'll most likely move on to Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope."

As I focus my attention on Hillary, I find myself defending her at all the negative comments. It's amazing what kind of jokes/stares people will give you when they see you holding her book. Is she really so awful that carrying her writing is the equivalent of holding the Devils Bible or Mein Kampf? The more I think about it, the more it seems that people's sever dislike of Hillary is nothing more than a bandwagon campaign. People can't seem to come up with any better reasoning in hating her than "she's cold and calculating," "she started her run for the White House in 1992," "she doesn't inspire any likability," "look at her marriage," etc.

To address these, what objections, if any, are these?

People see her politics as being well planned out, opportunistic, calculated, etc. They find her to be overreaching I suppose. What is it about this that's wrong? Should she be doing everything at the last minute, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, kind of operation? I guess that's what America wants - no planning. Don't we call this the Bush Administration? Planning out your political ambitions and placing yourself in the right positions to achieve them is plain good politics, and everyday life in business and careers. If you want a promotion, do just just write one good report out of nowhere? Hell no, you make friends with the right people, tout your good performance evaluations, etc. The difference here is, a politician is answering to their constituents. I see nothing wrong with Hillary planning things out before she goes after them. We should desire that highly in an American President, as we're talking about the Chief Executor of the United States of America. We should desperately cling to someone that can say "hey, lets make a plan before we start throwing money around!"

Hillary Clinton to many is unlikable. I think a lot of people see her as one of those ball-buster kind of gals that seem to be a little too masculine. Think about the times Hillary grew up in - it wasn't exactly winning the women's vote, but it was definitely a struggle for her to get into the Yale School of Law (she was one of twenty or thirty women in a class of two to three hundred). Being a woman 40 to 30 years ago is nothing I would wish for; she probably had to develop some strong arm behaviors to get where she was, and that's alright.

I think this is one arena where Bill is somewhat of a liability. When you put her next to her husband, how in the world could anyone but a professional actor look good? Bill is one of the best communicative presidents of the era of radio and television broadcast. Once these technologies came around, the office of President added a likability factor that hadn't been a big player before. People like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill took this and ran with it. Does that really make them any more qualified? I think the likability factor has taken away from the office. I would rather a strong, intelligent leader, than a likable one.

Bill cheated on Hillary, at least once, but I would guess that it's happened a few times. Hillary stuck with him. For one, why is this even any of America's business? If your spouse broke the ranks of fidelity, would you really want the media involved in all of it? The marriage of the Clintons is up to their family and their family alone. This came up recently with John Edwards campaign when it was announce that his wife had bone cancer. Even Sean Hannity proclaimed that he wished only the best for the both of them, and that this is a matter for only their family - it had nothing to do with America.

I find it ironic that most of the people attacking Hillary for this reason are Republicans who are very quick to raise their banner of Christianity. For the past several years, I've been horrified at the things people will carry out in the name of Christ. I was raised as a Christian, and I feel this gives me some qualifications to comment on it. Marriage is a gigantic part of their doctrine, and it seems that it's become less and less important to keep it (well, unless you're talking about two men or two women getting married, then it moves from a temporary burden to something sacred). I think that Hillary's choice to stick with her husband is respectable, and if she has forgiven him, then I find it the Christian thing to do. Foremost, however, it's none of our business.

Since I started the rant a little, I'll go into it for a minute because it suits me to do so. Gay marriage is a topic used to distract people. The American trend on gay marriage is somewhat unique given the way our society is built up. European nations tend to set the social policies, and we tend to follow them a few years later, after seeing that they didn't bring about the apocalypse, their country isn't in ruin, etc. Largely, even their conservative nations have enacted gay marriage of some sort. Yes, this has changed things for them somewhat. Is is bad or good? Who knows? It's not something you can really measure that I can figure. So far, society looks good though.

Massachusetts has gay marriage. Equal, equitable rights for heterosexual and homosexual couples alike. Has a great sinkhole to hell opened up and swallowed it? No. Has everything collapsed? No. In fact, it's hardly newsworthy, and this is because the news would never function by running a headline that says "Business as usual!" Never happened, never will. Several other states are getting into it, but by and large, it's being outlawed by the states in constitutional amendments. This isn't good. For the most part, legislation is all about copying someone else's work. Rather than drafting your own, you find something similar and replace the variables. Most of the state constitutional amendments are drawn off one that is severely discriminatory, and will not allow for civil unions. Proponents of the amendment claim that it's not true, they just don't want gays to be able to use the term "marriage." That's a lie - it makes it illegal for civil unions, in fact anything that gives the equal or similar position to marriage.

A few years ago, the state I live in passed such an amendment. It was basically passed the day it went into the hopper, but I fought it all the same. The state Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, came out in opposition to it, saying that it was unconstitutional, and that it would be struck down someday in court. I agreed with all of his reasoning. Though my knowledge of legal reasoning is small, I still find them to be in violation of a clause and amendment of the US constitution, namely the Full Faith and Credit Clause, and the Due Process, or equal protection under the law, of the 14th amendment.

For those of you who are against it, and think that you've stopped it, you're hilariously wrong. Marriage, as far as the law goes, is a special kind of contract that enables hundreds to thousands of rights and privileges given only in this union. Most of them are just things that happen automatically at marriage - the truth is, they can be enacted through a series of complicated but legal documents. Stopping gay marriage doesn't stop gay people. I find it funny when I find someone who thinks that the "trend will die down" once the gays can't marry. Uhhhh -we've always been here buddy, we just hold hands in public now.

Frighteningly enough, a solution I've heard belongs to none other than Bill O'Reiley of Fox News. He stated that he would rather have no marriage altogether, but rather civil unions for any two adults, be it gay or straight. I believe that he sees marriage as a religious term, not a term of the state. I agree with this (although it would be a hard time coming, as people voting on this would thing that if it passed their marriages would dissolve). Also, and somewhat backtracking, allowing gay marriage in no way forces religions to marry gay individuals. That's plain basic civics, the state can in no way dictate the policies of a church. Come on people.

The Clintons

2007-05-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

As I go through news stories on Hillary Clinton from both the Washington Post and the New York Times (both are free online), I'm learning a great deal about her, and the family as a whole.

I've sort of come to think of Hillary as The Six-Million Dollar Woman. She's better, stronger, faster than she was before. Hillary has shown adaptivity throughout the years, and I think this is one of her greatest strengths. For example, she chose to keep her maiden name when she married, I believe to stay her own person, and for the simplicity in the sake of business purposes (Hillary has always been a career woman, not a trophy wife of a governor and president; she was an attorney at the Rose Law Firm before Bill was elected governor the first time) however, the people of Arkansas didn't like that feministic quality. She then went from Hillary Rodham to Hillary Clinton, and I think it made her a whole lot more likable. I don't find it anti-feminist of her, although I could see why some would. It seems more like a personal sacrifice for her husbands campaign, and this is where the Clinton's strength lies - America doesn't elect candidates alone, but that candidates whole family, and in particular their spouse.

Bill Clinton is a force to be reckoned with in terms of fund-raising. Reading Hillary's financial disclosure to the Senate, you can see that he's bringing in all of the cash, and he's doing it on speeches alone. I think the going rate is $125,000, but some are more than twice that for events outside the United States. I believe that Bill is one of the most likable people in American politics today, somewhat like an honorary Kennedy of the sixties - I think America would overwhelmingly reelect him President given the chance again, but that point is plenty moot. It seems like he may become the Ronald Regan of Democrats, but it would be hard to take JFK or FDR's place in that party. For now, at least, he's their Golden Boy.

In the 2000 election, the impeachment and Lewinsky scandal still fresh in America's minds, Al Gore decided not to use Clinton as an asset. Al lost Arkansas, most likely for this reason. Kerry did the same in 04, with the same result. Hillary isn't making that mistake. She's wearing a button that says "Bill for First Lady" and the money keeps rolling in. Bill's role is a tough one though. It has been decided that he wouldn't hold a cabinet position. His campaigning refreshes what we didn't like about the Clinton Presidency. She has stated that he would be, or could be considered, as an ambassador, which I think would be a great job for him. Bill is very charming, and knows how to use the press as an asset and not a check on his behavior.

During his early years at the head of the nation, the Republicans took control of the Congress for the first time in decades. Would Hillary mean the same thing for the party? Democrats have a very narrow lead, particularly in the Senate. I think their "performance evaluation" will have a lot to do with her election consideration.

I think Hillary has chosen well to send Bill off on his own election campaign. For now, everything Bill does is run directly through her, to avoid Bill's micromanagement patterns. They've said that in 08, he may have his own team and travel of sorts. It's the doublemint campaign, double the candidate, double the vote.

Who's Best?

2007-05-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well that's simple, Chuck Norris. He'll solve all our problems and have time to make pie afterwards.

Thankfully, this question has likely been answered, or at least the information has been brought to my attention, by my incredibly intellectual friend Victoria, who will likely end up having to rewrite almost everything I put in here.

The question generally falls to three people that seem "qualified" to me. Being, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. The problems with each are:

Hillary has a bad rap, for what I generally see to be useless reasons. Her marriage has little if anything to do with the state of the nation. If Bill cheats on her, that's between them, it doesn't involve the American people. Bill did involve the American people only by lying about it publicly. This is why he was impeached - and I've noticed that a lot of people have the wrong idea about that word and process - impeachment is not removal from office, it's more like a complaint or indictment brought against a public official. Bill Clinton was impeached, and it was dropped when he told the truth. If the President is impeached, he is tried by the House of Representatives, moderated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Anyhow, back to Hillary - many don't like one simple fact of her anatomy, she's a girl, they say, and people can talk about equal rights all they want, the fact is, most people make prejudgments about the kind of person she is because she's a woman holding office, same went for Nancy Pelosi, Janet Reno, Eva Peron, etc. No matter their qualifications, a male dominated society continually looks upon women in power poorly. Hillary has sort of become the Wicked Witch of the East as far as most politics have gone - books have already been released that attack her character, call her soulless, etc. Believe what you'd like about her personality, her voting record is that of a centrist, which is typically how America votes for President. I can promise that if all of them seem wacked out to you now, take a good look in April and May next year. Seem different? I'll talk about that later. . . Hillary also shows many characteristics of a Repbulican in matters of national security and foreign politics.

Barack Obama is the idealistic dream of the Presidency. He's young, new to Washington, and captivating. I was very impressed with him this week, when he spoke to people in the auto industry in Michigan, saying that we needed to do something about fuel efficiency in the United States. He then proposed a solution bringing all vehicles up to 45/mpg by 2022 in a gradual, systematic upgrade. I'm not going to go into the effectiveness of the plan, but I can say that this in not typical. He had a plan, possibly a workable plan. He didn't spend time accusing them of getting rich off oil, he was just saying "here's my way to fix it." Imagine that, a President who fixes things - I believe the last one we had got shot in the head. . . Here's the conflict for me. I believe that the founders of the Constitution intended for the common man to serve in government - back then it was a burden, not a career to serve in office. I think Obama is closer to this intent than the other candidates(and by this, I am not saying something about his intelligence, he certainly is well educated and intelligent) - unfortunately, this is not how Washington works today. I find him intelligent enough, and I believe with the right amount of experience and wisdom in his Administration, Obama would be my favorite pick for President. Maybe it's because I'm a young idealist, but that's who I like the best. Maybe it will be better running for him in 2016, when he has the right friends, the problem is, he'd have to make sacrifices to get there, and I'm afraid his idealism will be one of the first things to go.

John McCain is well known, and generally well liked from what I understand pissed a lot of people in the Republican party (which is his own) and that's what attracts me to him.

In the beginning. . .

2007-05-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sadly, my personal affection for the study of politics, great love and respect for America and its principles, and total despise of the current state of politics that began, oh, we'll say, around the Nixon Administration years, have combined into one all-consuming, unnatural force that force me to create this space to bitch.

I am using this first bit to serve as a warning: Much of this will be incorrect. It is my opinion, and I will try to keep it as factually correct as possible. I encourage you to help me keep it that way. If I say something that's wrong, please, please correct me (but cite it, one wrong comment doesn't deserve another). I suppose that will be Rule #1. Rule #2 would be that there's no party-line bitching - except for me, of course. Or if it's funny. I'll say straight out that I tend to favor a Democratic point of view on issues. I'm a liberal, but that makes me a liberal, and not an anti-conservative. They have their good points, the Demo's have their bad. I may make more rules as I go along.

So, I guess we'll get started:

The purpose of this blog is going to be my severe disliking for the current trends of American politics. The wrong people, in general, have the power. I will be using the 2008 Presidential election to serve as a main format for this whining. Mostly, because it shows all sides of America as it is a different kind of election. For those of you who don't remember, before WWII, there was an election situation similar to the one we have currently. It is such that the incumbent President is inelligible for reelection (Thank god - W is on the way out 1 yr, 8 months, 10 days, 3 minutes, 35 seconds) and the incumbent Vice President has no intent to run ("If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve" - VP Dick Cheney - again, thank god, as there is some rise to the question as to whether Cheney will in fact serve to the end of the Administration as there is talk of his impeachment). This situation gives a wide open field for canidacy.

As most of you know, it appears that the main Democratic contenders are Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The main candidates of the Repbulican party is somewhat unclear. In pure fundraising terms, it's Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney. A really handy graphic map using data compiled from the Federal Election Commission can be found here.

In politics, as with life, money makes the world go round. In my crazy, clairvoyant predictions, I believe that if the election were today, either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would be President of the United States. My reasoning comes from simple name recognition, and things associated with the histories of the canidates. Why it wouldn't be a Republican is that the most known is Rudy Guillani (also, I will spell people's names wrong, and frequently. . . you know who I mean). I believe he is unelectable by Republican standards due to his positions on abortion (being pro-choice), gay rights, and his several failed marriages.

Ironically, I also see a trend of people who "submit to the will of the beast" and, heads-down, accept the fate that Hillary Clinton will be the first female president. I think this may create a trend of "joiners" in Republican voters who will just vote with the crowd, or the way they think the crowd is going. . . Many would say "now hold on, Kyle, voters are independent thinkers!" Bullshit. High school continues on through adulthood. In nearly all cases, elections are a popularity contest, not a reasonable judgment based on the ability to faithfully execute the office. I suppose if all the wrong people having power is Problem #1, this would certainly be Problem #2, and I guess would be the "Chicken and the Egg Theory" of politics, did we elect the wrong people in the first place, or did they become the wrong people?. . .

On a sidebar, and I should've mentioned this earlier, a bunch of people, whether they are trusting of my viewpoints, or would like to have a good laugh about what I said amongst themselves later after I leave, have asked me what is becoming one of my most hated questions: "So, who are you going to vote for?" Usually, I have ample time to explain the following, and here it is: In the great state of Utah, where I reside, a beautiful system has been set that does not allow me to vote. That's right. Doesn't allow me, by law, to choose a candidate in a primary election. Why is that? Because I did at the bursting age of 18 what I like to call "registering with the enemy" or "joining Satan's forces." There's no black oath, no sacrifice, nothing at all difficult like that, you simply need to register as a Democrat. In many parts of Utah, this is becoming more and more acceptable, but overall, we fall heavily to the right, and the red, in our politics. Since it is at the discretion of the states to set up election rules, this is the sad truth I live in. I do not agree with this limiting of the primaries, at any level, for any reason. Now, and this is more important, because we're learning, the candidate field will narrow itself during the next year. In early next year, primary election will be held - if you are able to be involved and vote, I highly encourage you to do so. In fact, I just reregistered, so ha. The primaries will determine nominations by the Republican and Democratic parties in August and September 2008 at national conventions. Though I can't say for certain, it's highly highly likely that one of these two people will be elected. This is why I don't waste all that much time thinking about it - people will be chosen. Independent candidates do run, and do get votes, the most notable being ross perot in 92. Usually, however, the Independent candidate is only pulling votes from the ideological side they are on and making it easier for the other side of the spectrum to win. To understand the political spectrum, imagine a line. Everything to the left of the center represents a Liberal, generally Democratic point of view. Everything on the right of the center shows a Conservative, generally Republican point of view. Ross Perot, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton ran in 92, Clinton as a Demo, H.W. as a 'pub, and Ross Perot as a "Green Party" candidate. Perot's views were far to the right, and as such, he "stole" much of H. W.'s vote. Though Bill got less than 50%, he was elected, and there are more examples. The last point being that with the electoral system, the publics vote can be reversed anyhow by faithless electoral voters.

tomorrow, or at some point we'll answer this: "well then, who can perform job correctly?" I hope you don't hate politics as much as I do at this point.