LET THE GAMES BEGIN

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will force law makers to remove the public option from their health care legislation! It’s a sly move that will allow the public to see who is responsible for no public option!
by Charlie Leck

Put the public option in the health care reform legislation and make Senators and Representatives who don’t like it make their moves to take it out. Let the public see who it is that moves against the public option.

National polls have clearly shown that a majority of Americans want the public option included in the legislation. Senators like Chris Dodd (CT), Harry Reid (NV) and Charles Schumer (NY) understand that. Schumer would rather lead with the public option than try to work it into a bill that doesn’t include it.

Over in the House, Speaker Pelosi’s claim to have enough votes to pass a bill with the public option is just a bluff.

In both houses the leadership wants the public option in the bill so the public can see who it is that moves to take it out. When you do something like that against the majority will of the people, as an elected official you are going to sustain damage. This is true, for instance, of Maine’s Olympia Snowe. A majority of Maine’s citizens want the public option in. It will be interesting to see if Snowe shows leadership in getting it removed. It could place her in trouble in the far northeast.

See the NY Times article on this subject.

PUBLIC OPTION IS NOT QUITE BUT ALMOST DEAD

It’s flopping and flipping around, but there’s still a bit of life in it!
by Charlie Leck

Harry Reid, the top-dog Senator may drag a health care reform bill to the floor of the Senate this is close to death but not quite. Reid’s bill will include the public option that many progressives are demanding.

Here’s a NY Times Blog, Prescriptions – Making Sense of the Health Care Debate – by Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn that explains what Reid is up to. If you, like I, are intensely interested in this issue, go take a look.

Reid’s plan gives individual states the right to opt out of such a health care option. I’ve not made up my mind on it yet. More tomorrow.

It’s Between Obama and Me

The President’s approval rating has taken the largest third quarter slip in history!
by Charlie Leck

According to a Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating dropped nine points from where it stood in the second quarter of 2009 to where it is now in the third quarter – from 62 percent down to 53%. It is the largest quarterly drop in approval rating in the first year of any elected President since these things have been measured. Harry Truman had a thirteen point drop between his second and third quarter in office (1945-46), but he was not elected to that term.

The pollsters found that the dominant issue involved in this dramatic drop was health care reform.

Don’t take that to mean that all those displeased folks don’t want health care reform; for, in fact, many of us who disapprove of Obama right now seriously favor health care reform. In other words, among that nine percentage point drop are many progressives who are seriously disappointed with Obama’s proposed health care reform package versus what he promised us in his campaign.

Does that mean we think Obama is less of a good man? Hardly! We think he is not as strong a President as we hoped he would be. The “Yes We Can” side of Obama has become more of a “I Don’t Think We Can” attitude in the current White House. Obama probably sincerely believes that his major compromises will still get us a good health care reform package.

Progressives don’t agree. What we’ll get will be very expensive and it will not be reform. The big pharmaceutical houses and the giant health care providers and the mega health care insurers will still be sitting in the cat bird seat. The American people will still be without a guaranty of total coverage at a reasonable and sensible cost.

It simply isn’t fair. It has cost the President our support.

Add to this a war in Iraq that appears to have no end game and a war in Afghanistan that is calling for 40,000 more troops and you have a recipe for a disastrous first term for a man we all thought would usher in a new era in American politics and history. I am too old a man to be fooled by these things. I remember Vietnam too clearly. I remember Richard Nixon too perfectly.

It’s the same old same old; and it will cost Barack Obama a second term. He will be haunted by chants from the other side: “No you can’t!”

I can remember no President in my life time who so wasted the ammunition he took with him into office.

Rest assured that I do not say this lightly. It makes my heart ache to admit it.

Fighting Untruth and Distortion

How to lead a local election campaign and get done all the other little things one must do!
by Charlie Leck

The city election, here in my town, is now two weeks away. I’m trying to lead this campaign for one of the candidates and help, as much as I can, another person who deserves to be elected.

Two city council seats are up for grabs. This whole thing has become very personal with me. I believe deeply that our adversaries do not deserve to be elected. More emphatically, I believe the two opponents would be dangerous in office.

What turns out to be so difficult to counter is the distortions of the truth that the opponents use to gather support. It isn’t just a matter of counter attacking and trying to get the truth out to voters who’ve already become convinced to vote against us, but it is the boiling anger that these untruths and factual distortions cause to rise up inside me.

I never dreamed a little campaign for 600 or 700 votes could be so time consuming and wear so on my nerves and energy. I lay awake at night trying to dream up some way of communicating to the entire village that the opposition is using disgusting scare tactics to garner votes.

They especially like to hearken back to an Open Spaces Study that was conducted here in town by a volunteer committee. It was a worthy task. It just didn’t turn out well because so many people didn’t understand what it was. It was meant to be a tool to provoke discussion about how we could set aside large sections of land in our town and protect those spaces from future development. Unfortunately, the plan included a map that showed one possible example of what might be done. Public trails were drawn into the map, showing my property and many neighbors’ property being crossed and cut up by these hiking and biking paths.

Now, the opponents in this campaign refer to this study as an attempt to grab land away from residents without either permission or compensation. Those who are now saying this know it is darn-well not true. There was never any idea of taking land from people, with or without payment. The idea was presented by some eager and enthusiastic residents of the community in order to look at one possible way our community could look in the future.

The two candidates I support had nothing to do with the plan. They were never in a position to vote on the plan because no vote was ever taken. The Planning Commission in the community shelves the whole idea as too ambitious and expensive. The plan was never presented to any official body for a vote. Yet, the entire community was riled up by this idea of a “land grab.”

Nevertheless, ouropponents in this campaign have taken this unsuccessful study and they are trying to attach it to the candidates I support. They do this knowing it is entirely untrue. No land in the community – mine or anyone else’s – was ever under threat from eminent domain. It is an absolute lie to now insinuate that it was.

I can think of nothing worse for a community than to elect to office a couple of out and out liars. And that is exactly what these guys are.

And, they are worse! Both are selfish, paranoid and warped individuals. One – the incumbent – can be seen on video tape, in council meetings – making the most outlandish and ridiculous statements that leave the audience both aghast and tittering at his foolishness.

The other has a history of lying to the city about development plans on his property and doing things to the land that were flat-out unlawful. He has no concern for the community at large, for his geographic neighbors or for the health and vitality of the land on which he lives. His behavior has shown him to be an ultimately selfish person.

Just this morning, a friend sent along a copy of a letter he is submitting to the local newspaper about these candidates who I so disfavor.

Dear Sirs:

On November 3rd, Independence will fill two open Council positions, choosing from four candidates.

Brad Spencer and Lynn Betts have proven themselves to be dedicated public servants. They were willing to appear at a candidates' forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and submit their positions to public scrutiny.

By contrast, the other two candidates refused to appear, resulting in the forum's cancellation.

Lance Gyllenblad has proven himself unworthy to hold representative office, as evidenced by his outbursts in City Council meetings, fueled by conspiracy theories and captured on video for all to see on the City's web site. Chris Stephans has a history of flouting City ordinances and resorting to litigation against the City when held to account. The example he has "set" has cost Independence taxpayers thousands of dollars in enforcement costs. His candidacy is a mockery of representative government, save for anarchists.

Voters should remember that the election of local officials has more impact on their day to day lives than any other choice at the polls. I urge everyone to vote on November 3rd and to support candidates with demonstrated experience in promoting the public good who are not afraid to be judged on the merits.

Vote for Spencer and Betts.

Sincerely,

Here are five claims the opposition is making among voters that are absolutely false. Here also is the truth about those claims:

1. West Hennepin Public Safety (WHPS) has part time employees receiving full time enefits. FALSE. 10 full time authorized, 9 full time officers employed (1 is deployed to Iraq so actually 8 working) 2 admin full time staff/ NO PART TIME OFFICERS.
Benefits are prorated if would have PT. When we did have a part time officer, no benefits were paid and their hours capped at 1040 per year.

2. The cost comparison vs. Sheriff number quoted at $3.75/month savings (May 12, 2009 City Council meeting minutes) was for a home of about $500K value, Brad Spencer used “less than $50/year for an average 500,000 home in Independence” in my letter. Opposition saying the number is bogus. Here are the numbers, and we'll send them to anyone who wants to argue them. Chief McCoy calculated that number.

3. We are paying more than our fair share of the WHPS cost (versus what Maple Plain pays). Interesting argument that has never before been an issue to our knowledge. The formula is pretty standard, calculating call history, size of patrol area, number of homes, etc.. We would argue the split look s pretty fair to us but should the objector have a specific rational for their argument we'll look into it.

4. Lynn Betts is in favor of seizing property from private owners without (or even with) compensation for trails, open spaces preservation, protection or preservation of hardwoods, etc. FALSE. Lynn has never voted in favor of any property acquisition via eminent domain or similar. Much of the “proof” is from maps created as talking/discussion points during the Parks, Trails, Open Space plan that was scrapped several years ago. Also, that poorly labeled DRAFT plan was being created by consultants working with the Parks Commission which Lynn was not on at the time.

5. Consistently hearing about (and in one of “their” candidate statements from The Eagle) a huge pile of debt coming due in the next couple of years that will blow the budget away. FALSE. We could provide the actual debt outstanding and maturity dates as soon as we get them from the budget notes. The city issues serial maturity debt so it comes due in smaller amounts spread fairly equally over several years like most prudent cities do. There are no unusually large principal payments due in any upcoming year.

How am I expected to sleep at night for the next two weeks when the opposition is roaming around town telling whoppers like that? How shall I sleep in the future should these nare-do-wells get elected? How I love my town! How I hate to see selfish people take advantage of it.

And, it is so difficult to get to the other things I ought to be doing, though this morning I decided to take the time to get some short ribs browned and on the stove to cook for several hours. Perhaps a decent dinner tonight.

Top Secret NYC Information Revealed

Each commuter train that leaves NYC for the wider metro area secretly, but purposefully, leaves one-minute late!
by Charlie Leck

The idea is to help “the harried commuter” the NY Times says.

I ask: Where will it end?

Now that that same commuter knows that his train leaves one minute late he has been given another minute. Now the same train will need to leave two minutes late (the second minute will be a secret, of course).

My dentist already uses the same principle with me. If I make a 10:00 A.M. appointment, he figures me for 10:05. Since he does that, I figure I’m okay up until 10:10. After a while, he’ll make a 10:00 appointment for me and figure me for 10:10. That gives me until 10:15.

When I make an appointment with the electrician to come to my home to do some repairs for me, I make it for 15 minutes before I really want him there – 7:45 for an 8 o’clock appointment. He knows all this and figures he’s good to arrive up until 8:15.

So, now what happens when that NYC train pulls out 50 seconds after its scheduled departure time. Does the guy running down the platform, waving his arms and screaming obscenities have any right to complain that his train left before it was supposed to?

Again: Imagine where it will all lead – movie theaters, dinner reservations, voting place closings and Friday night kickoffs at the local high school.

In golf tournaments we have a cherished rule about tee times. If you’re not on the tee at your given time, you are disqualified. In team match play, if you show up within five minutes of that time and have a qualifying excuse (like, your wife had your first child on her way to drop you of at the course), you can join your group, begin play on the next tee. After five minutes, it’s just too bad that you couldn’t have managed your kid’s delivery more quickly because you are out of the event. When we say 5 minutes at these events, we don’t mean 6 minutes. We work by an atomic clock that is absolutely official. Now, however, with what appears to be a NY Times endorsement of the policy, we’ll likely stick a one minute buffer in all these times.

Much to my wife’s consternation, I follow this general principle when it comes to the gas levels on my car. When it “dings” and tells me I am dangerously low on fuel, I figure I have another 50 miles to go. The car manufacturer would certainly have built something like that in wouldn't he?

Of course, if the crew on my cross-country Delta Airlines flight followed the same practice I would be outraged.

I have a friend who follows this general policy when it comes to drinking and driving. He establishes the number of drinks he may have before driving, but always regards that number loosely and gives himself some flexibility. At that point, his friends begin arguing with him about taking his keys, but they have a one minute limitation on such arguments before giving up – and they often reduce that minute to about half as much because they feel harried and must catch the last commuter train to get home themselves, not realizing, of course, that they actually had another full minute to argue with said friend about driving after drinking. It’s all part of the same principle as we’re talking about in NY.

“Our schedule is firm – sort of!”

“We mean what we say – sort of!”

“I wouldn’t ever put you on – well, hardly ever anyway, then, don't you know? You betcha!”

The Minnesota Education Gap

This gap must be closed or eliminated!
by Charlie Leck

Here’s the enigma
The puzzling problem was framed this morning by an editorial in our local paper, The StarTribune,

“In Minnesota, the learning gap is substantial. Known for educational excellence, the state has one of the highest overall high school graduation rates in the nation – and simultaneously the highest dropout rates for some lower-income students of color."

There’s a significant social problem that needs solving. Minnesota is a state filled with bright, creative, kind and generous people. If any one state in the nation could tackle this problem and solve it, Minnesota is that state.

Let the challenge go forth – ring-a-ding-ding – and let it be highly rewarded. Minnesota, solve this problem!

Thinkers and Dreamers
You must present the answer to the state legislature. Show them how it can be done. Make it so clear that it would be political suicide not to pass a bill implementing your ideas.

Your reward
You will be rewarded with instant and eternal fame within the great state of Minnesota and, likely, throughout the nation.

Too important a problem to be left to educators
We need advertising geniuses, artists, business executives, engineers, librarians, factory workers, farmers, biologists, medical doctors, chemists and sports personalities all thinking about ways to close the gap to as close to zero as possible.

No problem too big to solve
Those who boast that there is no problem too big to solve, here’s your challenge.

An idea already brewing
And while you’re at it, read the entirety of the editorial in this morning’s paper and you will see there is an interesting idea already brewing.

Rush Limbaugh (Part VI)

[click here to visit the Pabst Photo Blog]

Rush is a Vogon and that explains everything!
by Charlie Leck

A fellow down the street was chatting with my wife on the telephone the other day and happened to wonder why she never listened to Rush Limbaugh. Darling struggled for the correct words to describe her low opinion of the ultimate radio idiot, but such a portrayal is not something that dances lightly off the tip of a lady’s tongue. It takes considerable dalliance with a formidable vocabulary to stammer forth the right, but not too profane, adjectives. Finally, in frustration, she could only ask why in the heck this seemingly clever neighbor ever listened to that enormous blowhard. Why?

I’ve struggled here in the past to try to describe Limbaugh; and each time I’ve walked away with, at minimum, a serious limp. Now that the preeminent professional sports organization in the world has rejected him as a possible owner of a National Football League team, it might be time to revisit the subject and to try a final time to describe the big Rush.

So something draws me back to The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy by Douglas Adams for some assistance. I go specifically to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and I flip through the pages until I come to the author’s description of Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, who was designated by the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council to destroy “the so-called planet Earth.”

Adams tells us that Captain Vogon Jeltz had “a monumentally vile body.” This is some place to begin; however, primarily, one needs to remember always that Jeltz is a Vogon.

“It has been said that Vogons are not above a little bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea in not above the clouds, and this was certainly true in his [Jeltz’s] case. When he heard the words integrity or moral rectitude he reached for his dictionary, and when he heard the chink of ready money in large quantities he reached for the rule book and threw it away.”

The description of the Vogon people so perfectly fits the character of Rush Limbaugh that I am tempted to celebrate my achievement of finally devising an apt depiction of the talking, babbling baboon.

“…the average Vogon will not think twice before doing something so pointlessly hideous to you that you will wish you had never been born – or (if you are a clearer minded thinker) that the Vogon had never been born…. The average Vogon probably wouldn’t even think once. They are simple-minded, thick-willed, slug-brained creatures, and thinking is not really something they are cut out for. Anatomical analysis of the Vogon reveals that its brain was originally a badly deformed, misplaced and dyspeptic liver. The fairest thing you can say about them, then, is that they know what they like, and what they like generally involves hurting people and, whenever possible, getting very angry.”

A Vogon
Yes, that’s it. Rush Limbaugh is a Vogon. He has no sense of the aesthetic. Possibility, hope and optimism are not part of his way of life. Rampant destruction of the possible is primary in the Vogon’s thought pattern. And, the resultant destruction they visit upon people and institutions must, in the manner of the Vogon, be as ugly and disharmonious as possible.

It is not only Limbaugh who has come from Vogon to visit us here on the planet Earth; his fellow Vogonians, James Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, arrived here aboard the very same spacecraft.
It is the Vogon’s total sense of pessimism, hopelessness and negativity that attracts followers in huge numbers; for, you see, it is far easier to think in the black and white, simplistic and absolute forms of the negative than in the dazzling, blazing and colorful structures of the positive. It is easier to destroy the planet Earth than to establish it as a galactic wonder of the Universe.