In case you somehow missed it, Barack Obama gave an incredibly moving speech today on race, politics, and the future of America. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly suggest you spend the next half hour watching it. It is time well spent.

Fearmongering is, for those that might not be familiar with the term, the use of fear to advance one’s own opinions and agenda towards some end. Most recently, it has been used in election campaigns and as a tool to enter an unjust war. It was long ago perfected by McCarthy-era politicians playing on America’s fear of communism. Since this time, the Republican party has embraced the strategy, and all of America should fully expect this as an ongoing campaign tactic of the Republican party. Fear of terrorism was essentially George W. Bush’s campaign strategy in 2004. Sadly, however, history shows time and time again that the masses buy in to it. Sure, it’s sickening to watch, but it’s become a mainstay of partisan Republican politics. Until now. One presidential candidate, who I would have hoped was morally above using one of my most loathed political tactics decided to make the use of fearmongering bi-partisan.

Hillary Clinton’s newest campaign advertisement that has been airing in the upcoming primary states (Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont) explicitly uses fearmongering to scare up some extra votes. Don’t believe me? Watch it for yourself.

Whoever the final nominee of the Democratic Party ends up being, it sure would be tough to support someone who uses the same dirty tactics that helped elect George W Bush.

I consider myself rather politically conscious. I watch and read the news, I’ve watched many of the debates of both parties. I do not, however, see any of the candidates seriously talking about any issues that I feel would truly benefit the United States. Sure, healthcare and the war in Iraq are important, but there are more than just two issues. So, because no one else seems to be talking about them, here are a few campaign issues that I would like to see debated and discussed.

• Solar Power – This is pretty much the only energy source we have on this planet that is completely inexhaustible and it is, by far, the environmentally cleanest option. Even if we do somehow manage to exhaust the Sun as an energy source, we’ve got bigger problems, because we’ll all be dead. There are two things that the government should absolutely be doing to encourage the use of solar energy. First and foremost, there should be tax breaks for those willing to install solar paneling on their home or office building. It’s clean, it reduces the requirements for coal or nuclear power, and excess energy can even be sold back to the grid for others to use. The government should also be funding research towards improved efficiency. Instead of blowing billions of dollars in a quagmire, spend some money on research that will actually help our country and, in the long run, improve our country’s image in the world. If enough money is put towards the research, I have no doubt that solar paneling could become even more efficient and potentially lest costly to produce.
• Cellolosic Ethanol – If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then you already know I’ve talked about this before. Before I continue, I have to point out that there is only one declared candidate that I am aware of who has mentioned this publicly and talks about it on his web site: John Edwards. For that, I applaud him. Current ethanol products that fuel cars are exclusively sugar-based ethanol. This means that it is created using plants high in sugar, such as corn or sugarcane. It is inefficient and raises the prices of these crops when used as food. Cellulose, however, is found in high levels in all plants. Because of this, even the parts of the plants that were previously disposed of, such as corn stalks and leaves, could instead be used to produce fuel and the corn and sugarcane could go back to being grown for food. Not only would this hugely benefit America’s farmers, but we could rapidly become a fuel-independent country and potentially even an exporter of fuels. With government funding, cellulosic ethanol would completely replace the less efficient sugar ethanol and America could wean itself off of oil within a generation.
• National Infrastructure – If you watch the news, read the news paper, or listen to the radio, you’re aware that the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis recently. I no longer live in Minneapolis, but this was a bridge that for many years I lived only a few blocks away from and drove over to get to work several times a week. The state of this country’s interstate highways and railways is an embarrassment. I am completely failing to understand why a country the size of the US does not have a high speed rail infrastructure to rival that sprawling across Europe. Money of course needs to be invested not only in the upkeep of the existing infrastructure, but the serious funding should go towards the planning and construction of an improved national highway system and a brand new state of the art high speed rail line connecting the major cities and regions of the country.
• Election Reform – No, not campaign reform, that’s horse has already been beaten to death. I’m talking about true election reform. The electoral college is outdated and, as clearly seen in the 2000 presidential election, flawed. The current election type highly favors only a two party system, limiting the spectrum of views of a large portion of the united states. I will readily admit that I do not know enough about the different types of elections used throughout the world, so I cannot form an intelligent suggestion for how it should be fixed, but it does need to be fixed. In 2000, America voted Al Gore in to the white house. Flawed ballots, corruption, and a lazy Florida supreme court stole this honor away from him and instead gave the Presidency to the man who has done more harm to this country’s international image and wracked up more national debt than any previous president. This should not and cannot be allowed to happen again.

There are plenty of other issues I can talk about here, but in my eyes, the above are among the most important. Hopefully, some of the trailing candidates can realize that talking solely about healthcare and Iraq isn’t going to get them anywhere and that these issues deserve their voice.

As you might already know, I’m fully in support of Al Gore getting reelected for President in 2008. I frequent a few different websites to keep tabs on my ideal presidential candidate in hopes that news will arise of his candidacy. Sadly, however, he has not (yet?) declared himself as a candidate. In defiance of this, the America for Gore Coalition has decided to take matters in to their own hands and started a “My Two Cents” campaign. I think its a pretty neat idea, so I’ve decided to promote it here as well, in hopes that anyone that may read this does what I’m about to suggest.

America for Gore is asking anyone in support of Al Gore to mail him two pennies along with a letter urging him to run, while also stating that the real financial support will come when he accepts that challenge. The hope is that the mountain of pennies that will soon pile up in his office will be a constant reminder to him that America needs him and is ready to support him. Sound like a good idea? Then go dig through your couch or car seats for two pennies, get an envelope and a stamp, type up a quick letter urging him to run, and send your two cents to the following address:

Office of the Honorable Al Gore
2100 West End Avenue, Suite 620
Nashville, TN 37203

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the DHS is the government agency better known as the Department of Homeland Security. This Cabinet-level department of the federal government is charged with the duty of protecting the United States from terrorist attacks and responding to natural disasters. The latter half of that statement is clearly a joke. I regularly watch the news on television, read it on the Internet, and listen to it on the radio, and I’ve never once heard the DHS even remotely mentioned in relation to any of the devastating natural disasters that has befallen the nation in the last few years from hurricanes to tornadoes to floods. It’s bad enough that the government can’t even take care of it’s own people when a natural disaster strikes, but on to what really scares the shit out of me.

It’s not that we don’t need a government agency to protect our citizens from terrorist attacks domestically (What ever happened to the FBI, CIA, and National Guard?), it’s the way they do it. In order to protect this country, the Bush administration for some reason feels that the absolute best way to do this is to strip us of our rights and use scare tactics to convince the large portion of the nation that is dumb and/or ignorant enough to be scared in to believing that this is the best way of going about homeland security and that the propaganda which consistently spews from the mouths of Bush administration officials is true. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, but it still needs to be said: Warrantless wiretapping, email filtering, and holding someone for questioning for extended amounts of time without charging them all violate basic constitutional rights.

The money that is flooded in to this department is of ridiculous proportions, is not required, and could instead be used for something that actually would benefit the country, such as research and development of alternative fuel sources, planning and construction of a nation-wide high speed rail line, and any number of other programs which would benefit society instead of scare it in to supporting war. Instead of funding peaceful and economically beneficial programs, the money instead goes towards fear tactics and new toys that allow the Department of Homeland Security’s gestapo-eqsue agents to better violate our rights.

What kind of toys, you ask? Wired is reporting of a new LED flashlight which temporarily blinds and incapacitates it’s victims (or, if you use the Bush administration’s term of choice, “Enemy Combantants”). Of course, this evolution in policing technology makes sense. Why stop someone, question them, intelligently profile them, read them their Miranda rights, and arrest them in the traditional legal way, when you can just blind and disorient them allowing you to cuff them and take them in for questioning without an arrest warrant? The president of the company being subsidized by the DHS to create this “flashlight” really summarizes the true purpose behind a weapon like this best: “With this, they don’t need to know English to comply.” As if this thing weren’t scary enough, Wired also points out that “the tool could be scaled up to make a light bazooka that could subdue a crowd”. If the DHS has weapons like this in the works, who knows what else they’ve got up their sleeve or in development to violate your rights, subdue you, and/or get the information out of you that they want.

Not only does this extremely powerful department of the federal government trample the constitution on a daily basis, but the Bush administration has allowed it to grow so immensely since it was first created after 9/11 that it is now the third largest cabinet department in the US with over 200,000 employees, only slightly behind the Department of Defense and The Department of Veteran Affairs. No one agency should be allowed to have the kind of power that the DHS has and that is what scares the shit out of me, but then again, isn’t that what they want?

I’m so disgusted with the way that the Libby trial has been run and, moreso, the fact that Bush just commuted his sentence that I’m not even sure how to start this. First and foremost, no one had the balls to actually charge Libby, Cheney, and/or Bush with the charges that should have been filed in relation to the leaking of Valerie Plume’s identity: Treason. Leaking the identity of an undercover operative, ruining her career, and blowing the cover of the entire false company that had been set up to conceal her and her coworkers is no less treasonous today than an American citizen spying for the soviets was during the cold war and should be treated exactly the same way. Whoever was involved, whoever leaked her name, and whoever helped cover it up deserves a treason conviction and nothing else. Here is how treason is defined in United States Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 115, § 2381:

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

If leaking the identity of an undercover operative and exposing her to our own nation as well as the rest of the world doesn’t qualify as giving our enemies aid, then I’m reading the above law wrong and Libby deserves his commuted sentence. Treason was, however, committed in the leaking of her identify. Libby, Cheney, and probably also Bush deserve a new trial on treason charges and should, once convicted, be immediately removed from office, as per the final part of the above code. This of course, would have probably already happened if the judicial branch of the government weren’t just as corrupt as the executive branch.

I realize that the above fantasy is never actually going to happen due to the aforementioned corruption, so on to Libby’s actual conviction: Four counts of obstruction of justice. Martha Stewart served 5 months in prison for a single count of obstruction and paid a fine of $195,000 for a stock sell-off that only saved her about $45,000. Libby however, was convicted of 4 counts and was fined only $250,000 and sentenced to 30 months in prison for leaking a CIA operative’s identity, ruining her career, and potentially compromising national security – all to get back at her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for “talking shit” about the Bush administration in an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times. Based on the severity of the crimes, I’d say that Libby got off easy. At the very least, his sentence was on par with Martha Stewart’s. The President, however, has “concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive”. Based on previous convictions of similar charges, this is a ridiculous statement for him to make, as sentence was in fact fair based on the counts he was convicted on. What is even more amazing to me is that in a single sentence Bush was able to use such large words as “concluded” and “excessive”. Three syllable words are tough for him to begin with, but two in one sentence! I’m astonished. It’s almost as if millions of our tax dollars have gone to speech lessons for the President (Conspiracy theory!?).

Hopefully, the next time that charges are brought against a member of the Bush administration, the powers that be will actually make them stick and the perpetrators will get what’s coming to them. I have yet to see corruption like this in my life time and I hope that when this current administration is kicked out or voted out, whichever comes first, that the next administration can begin to fix all of the damage that Bush and his cronies have caused.

I haven’t blogged about the upcoming 2008 presidential election yet, so here’s the first of what will likely be many posts building up to the next election. I was looking through a ton of polls taken in the last month and a half regarding the democratic candidates for 2008 and one thing consistently stood out at me: Al Gore hasn’t declared himself as running – he’s even said he won’t – and yet he’s still named by about 10-15% of the people polled as their first choice of the current candidates, with Hillary in the lead at about 40-45%. For someone who has not even declared a bid for the presidency, 15% is damn good. That being said, I would love to see him officially toss his hat in to the ring. I think an outspoken environmentalist is what this country needs, and he certainly has the experience. He’s was the VP for 8 years, spent the 8 years before that as a Senator, and another 8 years before that as congressman. That’s more experience as an elected official (on a National level, none the less) than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton combined. If that’s not enough, he’s been touring internationally for a few years to help combat global warming (Or do they call it “climate change” now? I lost track..) in such an effective manner that it earned him the honor of a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I’m clearly not anywhere close to the first person to say this, but I’m going to say it anyways: I would like to see Al Gore on the ballot in 2008.

I know, I know, this documentary has been out for a while now and it already won an Oscar. Well, I just had the opportunity to watch it because they were airing it on Showtime last night. Here’s a nice short review for those that don’t wan’t to read any further: I was very impressed.

Now, on to the real content of this post. I’ve always been concious of the looming climate issues, but this really opened up my eyes to how fast it is happening and how far beyond regular climate change it is going. I understand his point that this is something that every person can have an impact on, but to really make a difference, this is something where the government needs to step in and really press for change. I think that the absolute first thing that the government can do to really show that it is serious about this issue and is taking the right first steps is to sign the Kyoto Protocol treaty. It absolutely amazes me that this is not something the US would sign, yet at the same time it is not surprising, knowing the current administration. It seems almost ridiculous that our government would be unwilling to sign a treaty that serves no purpose other than to preserve the Earth for our children, their children, and future generations.

Beyond Kyoto, American car companies need to get their act together. We have the technology to really excel and lead the way in the development of low and zero emissions cars, yet all they are doing is dragging their feet with hybrids, hydrogen fuel cells, and electric cars while they watch their companies circle the drain and wonder what makes them different from their profitable foreign competitors. With technology advancing the way it has been in the last few decades, cars that run on gasoline should already be a minority.

I’d also like to touch on energy sources. Alternative “green” energy sources really need to start being put in to place. Specifically, wind and solar. Wind energy is really only feasible in certain parts of the world, where the land is relatively flat and wind speeds get higher, but the Sun is easily the most untapped energy source in the world. Solar panels are expensive at this point, which is why many frown upon their use and don’t see the the long-term benefit, but this is only only because people like George W. Bush feel that our countries tax dollars are betters spent blowing up foreign peoples instead of advancing the scientists and research being held in the United States.

Until we are able to get our act together and start pushing the advances that can help balance out the climate again, I’m scared to see what the climate will be like by the end of my lifetime.

I don’t know if many people are really familiar with this term yet, but Net Neutrality is essentially the reason that the Internet is currently the free place that we know and love. To put it simply, net neutrality forbids your ISP from restricting what you access. They can’t say you can’t access a certain website or something similar just because they don’t like it or, worse off, that website didn’t pay them some sort of fee. All data gets an equal share with net neutrality.

Here’s where it gets nasty: The major telecom companies and a decent chunk of congress are looking to pass an act called the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act (COPE). COPE demolishes net neutrality within the US. With the COPE act, whoever your internet service provider is would be allowed to charge fees to webhosts/websites to allow access. Say, for example, that your ISP is contacted with MSN and not Yahoo, but you prefer Yahoo. Because Yahoo didn’t pay your ISP their fee, it would be perfectly legal for them to lower data transmission priority to Yahoo, which means you might have trouble accessing Yahoo, you might not be able to access it at all, or it might even route you automatically to MSN. Pretty disturbing, right? Well, it gets worse. What if your bank and/or credit card company doesn’t pay a fee to your ISP? Or you use a certain site to get severe weather alerts and they don’t pay the fee? Worse yet, what if you need to find the nearest hospital, but the one that’s around the corner that you don’t know about isn’t on your ISP’s approved list? It even goes beyond just the web. Access can easily be restricted to certain chat rooms, or you might not get emails from friends because they use a competitor’s internet service.

Are you disgusted with the telecom companies and certain (primarily Republican) members of the Congress yet? I am.

Here’s what you can do about it:

SaveTheInternet.com – Sign their petition!
House of Representatives – Contact your congressman!
Declare Yourself – Elect someone who will fight for net neutrality!

Does anyone else watch this show?

I have no idea when it actually airs live, but Jessie and I set up a DVR series recording for it so we get it each week and I gotta say, I love it. It’s intelligent, he has great guests, it’s on HBO so he can get away with way more than he would on standard cable or *gasp* network television, and best of all: it’s hillarious. In my completely unsubstantiated opinion, it’s the best political talkshow on television. Partly because its very left-wing and anti-Bush, but also largely because of how open the show is because of the freedom it gets from being on HBO.

Also, did I mention how awesome the “New Rules” segment is? Because its truely awesome. Here two of my favorites:

1. New Rule: Nobody can use the phrase “our greatest problem” anymore unless you’re talking about global warming. President Bush has been saying we’re in a war on terror, and now I get it. He’s not saying “terror,” he’s saying “terra” as in “terra firma,” as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week.
2. New Rule: You can’t be as tired as we are of you. The latest excuse for Bush Administration foul-ups is that top members of the White House staff are physically and emotionally exhausted. ["aw" from the audience] Hmm. If there was just some sort of stress-relieving activity that could be performed right there in the Oval Office…

   RICHARD BELZER: Great job.

   MAHER: Yeah, well, I’d suggest a nice vacation out in the country, but the last time that happened, somebody got shot.