Washblog

I got a weird little story about my friend Blitz Krieger to bring to you today.

He's had a crazy car problem, he has, and over the past few months he thought he had found a solution - in fact, he thought he had found the solution of his dreams - but in the end, he's discovered that the things you dream about often don't go according to plan.

The way it's worked out for him so far, it's been a lot of anticipation followed by a sudden wave of frustration, but I feel like he's a lot better off having his particular problem with his car...because if he'd had cancer instead, he'd surely be dead by now.

I don't feel very good about this country this morning, and as so many of us are I'm thinking of how Troy Davis was hustled off this mortal coil by the State of Georgia without a lot of thought of what it means to execute the innocent.

And given the choice, I'd rather see us abandon the death penalty altogether, for reasons that must, at this moment, seem self-evident; that said, it's my suspicion that a lot of states are not going to be in any hurry to abandon their death penalties anytime soon now that they know the Supreme Court will allow the innocent to be murdered.

So what if there was a way to create a compromise that balanced the absolute need to protect the innocent with the feeling among many Americans that, for some crimes, we absolutely have to impose the death penalty?

Considering the circumstances, it's not going to be an easy subject, but let's give it a try, and see what we can do.

Once again The Fates have come our way to provide a story, and once again, we have a contender for the "Ironic Story Of The Year".

It's got everything you need for serious irony: an irascible comedian who mocked religion at every opportunity, a city that loved him, and the rich coincidence of his having been born at the crossroads of New York City's communities of religious education.

And that's why, today, we'll be talking about the effort to name the street right next to Manhattan's Seminary Row...Carlin Street.

(And before we go further, a language warning: we'll be quoting George Carlin liberally, and that means there may be present today certain of the seven words with which he created one of his best known routines. You are now officially warned.)

I took a break to enjoy the holiday, as I'm sure many of you did, but my inbox kept busy, and on Friday came a doozy, courtesy of the Washington Post.

You remember that little bit of a banking crisis we had a couple of years back, where banks around the world might have possibly, maybe, just a little, conspired in a giant scheme to package toxic mortgage loans into Grade A, investment-ready securities instruments, which then blew up in everyone's faces to the tune of a whole lot of taxpayer bailouts?

Well all of a sudden, it looks like an agency of the Federal Government is looking to do something about it, in a real big way.

Last Friday the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced they're suing 17 firms (I'll give you a list, bit it's pretty much all the usual suspects); depending on who you ask the Feds are seeking an amount as high as $200 billion.

As Joe Biden would say, it's a big...well, it's a big deal, anyway, and that's why we're starting the new week with this one.

We gotta grow some jobs, and that's a fact, and we probably aren't going to be able to do it with big ol' jobs programs funded by the Federal Government, what with today's politics and all, and that means if this Administration wants to stay in the jobs game they're going to have to find some smaller and more creative ways to do it.

They are also going to have to come up with ideas that are pretty much "bulletproof", meaning that they are so hard to object to that even Allen West and Louie Gohmert will not want to be on record saying "no no no!"; alternatively, solutions that work around the legislative process entirely could represent the other form of "bulletproof-ery".

Well, I have one of those "maybe bulletproof" ideas for you today, and it has to do with how "Made in USA" the things are that our Government buys.

It was just a couple of nights ago that Keith Olbermann was challenging us, in one of his "Special Comments", to rise up in the streets and take back this country.

He pointed out that the only way those on the left were going to be able to fight against those who are looking to get all "Tea Party" is to be as angry and as organized and as aggressive as the Tea Party community, and if we're smart, we'll take him up on that challenge.

But if you really want to push "professional" Democrats to the left, most especially this President, and you want to do it in time to impact the '12 cycle, the only way to do it is to run a candidate in primary contests that either moves the conversation your way...or leaves you with a surprising new Candidate.

And right here, right now, we actually have a chance to do exactly that - and that's why, in today's discussion, I'm going to challenge Olbermann right back.

I have not been talking about the insanity around the debt ceiling and debt and deficit and the efforts of Republicans to drive us all off the cliff, but I am today - and I'm going to do it by allowing you to grab ahold of this problem and see for yourself just how unbelievably bad this manufactured crisis is going to be.

You will hear a lot of conversation about the consequences from others; today, however, you are going to get the chance to be both the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, and you will get to decide for yourself exactly what bills the Federal Government should and should not pay as the cash runs out if a deal is not made by the time borrowing authority runs out.

At that point you'll be able to see what's coming for yourself - and once you do, you won't need me to tell you what ugly is going to look like.

(FNS - Washington, New Germany, April 17, 1947) America's new Führer, Adolf Hitler, announced today that his official War History would in fact acknowledge that one of the biggest contributing factors to the defeat of the Allies was the insistence of the former United States of America on sticking to its Balanced Budget Amendment, which left them unable to fund the wartime conversion of the US economy for the benefit of the Alliance.

"All those ideas Mr. Roosevelt spoke of", said Hitler, "Lend-Lease, modular shipbuilding, War Bonds, secret weapons...in the end, all of them were just words, since the Americans' Congress was never willing to allow the country to fully fund its war effort."  

So I disappeared for a full week, right in the middle of what should have been a busy writing schedule, and I have to claim some "personal days" to cover the time we missed here at the blog - but it won't be time entirely wasted.

Instead, I'm going to jump into my own personal life for today's story, and I'm going to do it so that we can stimulate some thinking about where we really need to go to if we ever hope to make some sense out of the crazy way we deliver health care in this country.

Since this appears to be the weekend that a lot of decisions are either going to be made about the future of our "social safety net"...or they wont; we're entirely unsure...let's talk about how it actually works for a lot of us - and how it could work a lot better.

OK: so I've been working what is, on one level, a Jay Inslee story (Inslee is the Congressman from Washington's 1st District, now running for Governor in '12), and, on another level, a story of why Democrats are having all kinds of problems with what should be "natural" constituencies - and why those problems might not be going away anytime soon.

I thought the two elements of this narrative would come together last Monday, when I attended the "announcement event" that marked the beginning of the Inslee Gubernatorial Campaign, and in fact they did...but it wasn't in a way I would have expected, and that's why we have something to talk about today.

I reached out to some helpful outside voices, including Inslee himself; all of that will be brought to the discussion - and as another news organization famously offers to do, I'll report, and leave you to decide.

So I thought I was going to have another Jay Inslee story for y'all today, but it turns out that I'm going to have to do more research before we can "come to press" with that one.

But that's OK, because the world's been busy doing a lot of other things - and while many of them get media coverage, some don't get a lot of notice at all.

And of course, there are also those stories that look one way at first glance...but look a lot different when you dig a bit deeper.

We'll hit a few of those today, have a bit of fun doing it, and get ready for what promises to be another busy week of strategically not doing things in Washington.

To make things even better, some of the stories will be real, and some won't.

We'll see if you can tell the difference.

Congressman Jay Inslee (WA-01) announced his candidacy for Governor of the State of Washington in Seattle Monday, and Your Erstwhile Reporter was present.

The candidacy was announced with a speech that focused on "process improvements" and the invocation of new technology jobs as an economic engine for job growth (and in fact the event took place at the headquarters of a company that has developed seed-derived biofuels that have been used to power military and commercial aircraft).

But that's not the part that's going to be the most interesting for the civil-rights supportive reader.

The most interesting part is that Inslee was quick to offer his support for full marriage equality in the State of Washington, should he find himself elected.

In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much that guy's spending on gas", those who look at their own pump down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much I'm spending on gas" - and those who are doing both at the same time.

Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?

What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?

To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?

The local papers have published the announcement about DSHS authorities coming to South Bend next Monday evening to discuss the proposed closure of the South Bend Community Service Office.

Closing the local DSHS office is a significant event in the life of this community and the impact cannot be overstated.

The consequence of having no local recourse when a phone call to the agency just will not do - or when the call centers are too busy to answer promptly - will be that local residents can either give up trying to get an issue resolved, or they can pay out of pocket to travel to Aberdeen, Long Beach or Chehalis to speak to a live body.

Just about 40 seconds after (Yes, He's Actually The) President Barack Obama brought forth his Certificate of Live Birth unto the world Donald Trump was accusing Obama of somehow sneaking his way into some University or another.

If Trump's to be believed, Obama was a terrible student at a College, and then he somehow snuck his way into a University; after that he basically grifted his way into becoming the President of the Harvard Law Review.

Trump would tell you that he's a hustler, that Obama is, and we've got to do whatever it takes to figure out what kind of semi-illegal shenanigans Obama's University experience was all about.

But here's the thing: Donald Trump has his own history of semi-illegal University shenanigans--and it appears that some of his semi-illegal shenanigans continue to this very day.