Charlie Rose

NeilMacCallister  09/08/2010 03:17 PM Report

Perhaps Krugman, Obama, and Reid did not "intend" jobs to die, John, ..but that is what you always get when you take money away from business owners and operators, both directly and indirectly using taxes and deficit spending.

Upon the Denver stage of Presidential candidate Obama's 2008 nomination extravaganza, the future President informed this nation that "providing jobs is the responsibility of the business community".

The next day he was on the street with Joe-the-Plumber telling us how he was going to tax money away from those "rich" businesses and business-people, and use that money for government expenses.

Government expenses have tripled, while 8 million jobs have died of starvation.

JohnGelles  08/28/2010 07:20 AM Report

Sewell Avery ?

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933315,00.html

Change first line to read:

Paul Krugman last night, i.e., Fri nite 27 Aug 2010, explained that nobody, not Neil, Win, John or La Quinta lady, nobody alive, CHOSE to have millions of proven good workers go without jobs for so long. Not even to go without a job for a day.

JohnGelles  08/28/2010 07:09 AM Report

Paul Krugman last night, i.e., Fri nite 27 Aug 2010, explained that nobody, not Neil, Win, or John, La Quinta lady, nobody alive, CHOSE to have millions of proven good workers go without jobs for so long. Not even to go without a job for a day.

No Neil is so full of erroneous thought he has no right to a keyboard-- or even a glass of water.

Our current inability to pay for the work not now being done is not the result of design. Nor is it the result of desire by Malcolm Forbes to cheat La Quinta lady.

The mismatches between monetized DEMAND and SUPPLY on hand and between SUPPLY on hand and desperate NEED, is, according to Krugman and John Gelles, the direct result of Bernanke's and Obama's lack of intelligence, feeling and honor, to throw the kitchen sink, by way of forced food financing, at all the unmet major national needs that Obama listed to get elected and promised to attend to. These were in the economic output areas of energy, education, infrastructure, health, security, and R and D.

Were America to be spending the TRILLIONS these areas require, every workshop would be humming, all hands would present and working, hydrogen would be produced and stored, schools and learn at home nets would be hyper-active, bridges and viaducts would be under construction, nurses and doctors would be graduating, global security would be taken for granted, and we would be researching how to keep Neil off the road to serfdom, Win from not loving dogs who love children and old people, and John from having to go every 2 hours every night to the room next to the room with the keyboard.

We would be developing Keynes without Debt, and explaining hyper-mass production to the heirs of Hayek.

Yeah, we can get into countless spitting and writing contests. And our products here on Charlie Rose can earn flunking marks-- as Krugman and Niall Ferguson get passing grades. But the bare fact remains that the day after a real leader is elected, the arsenal of democracy will re-awaken, the Sewell Avery's of this world (Neil MacCallister's) will be silent, and money will mirror output not debt, choice will have meaning, and Charlie Rose will earn his keep by taking sides with God and real people not the Devil.

NeilMacCallister  08/27/2010 08:04 PM Report

WINTER (LIBERALS): "Don't give me self determination", ..pleeeaaase!

EVERYONE ELSE: "Please! ..Give me self determination!!!"

***

"Freedom of choice, is what you got,

Freedom from choice, is what you want."

[Casale/Mothersbaugh (Devo)]

winter  08/27/2010 06:58 PM Report

After all is written there will always still be that little lady at the La Quinta who changes the sheets and pulls your salesforces hair out of the drain, works her tail to the bone and barely gets by with no hope of her income ever coming in pace with inflation. While the scion of sociopaths like Malcom Forbes rail against their taxes being raised and from his fluffy cradle vilifies the first African American president in history for attempting to make the playing field level. Don't give me self determination when somebody out there will always be the greater fool in this musical chairs opportunity Sadie Hawkins all you can eat buffet. Who's going to get the bags. You don't expect that overfed birthday cake dripping from her return from Cartier to lift them. Stop stroking yourself and make the global juxtapostions that verify that mankind in the aggragate is a dog.

JohnGelles  08/27/2010 05:07 PM Report

..... We all need to take care of, and develop ourselves! ..Who knows our talents, inspirations, and goals better than we do? ..and nobody else has the time to do it for you, anyway. ..... and, take good care of YOURSELF

..... ..... Thus spoke Neil MacCallister

1. Neil speaks not alone. Not for one in many. Neil speaks for almost all the human race.

..... That race may get away with it. In which case-- die when you will, your curious fellows, it is true for more than a decade-- we ARE at the end of history:

===== begin Wikipedia:

..... "The End of History and the Last Man is a 1992 book by Francis Fukuyama, expanding on his 1989 essay "The End of History?", published in the international affairs journal The National Interest. In the book, Fukuyama argues that the advent of Western liberal democracy may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government."

===== above from Wikipedia =====

Gelles continues:

2. If Fukuyama and MacCallister have it wrong, the autistic first and last man may bring it all to an end too soon. Instead of taking good care of ME, it may be that there is no ME in fact: there is only US.

..... If this is the fact, MacCallister narrow view must be dismissed as KoolAid for for the LOST not the LAST man.

..... FDR left us the idea that there were economic rights--which, failure to strictly enforce, would be met with premature death of the decent inheritance Lincoln offered at Gettysburg.

3. You can go with MacCallister. Or you can love Lincoln so much you will stay on his side so long as you breathe.

NeilMacCallister  08/27/2010 03:49 AM Report

Sorry, winter, ..the middle class may sadly be expiring, but it is not being "massacred": Tonight's news highlighted a report on how several companies have advertised to hire machinists, and yet they can't find anyone with skills!

To see your life as a "prize" that someone else desires to consume is a ridiculously incorrect waste of time: Please notice that Maslow's highest goal was "self-actualization".

We all need to take care of, and develop ourselves! ..Who knows our talents, inspirations, and goals better than we do? ..and nobody else has the time to do it for you, anyway.

Ted Nugent had the guts to put himself out front, hanging a sonic sculpture in front of many thousand critics at a time. I'll bet he would say that it is your own confidence to try and produce the wildest of your imaginings, which is the critical element in the realization of the greatest of your productions.

Stop worrying about our President's success (..see your entry below, 08/23/2010 11:15 PM) ..Mr. Obama is smart, he will be fine.

What is more important, and sorry if this sounds like that other hated physical reality which is often called "social Darwinism", ..but please, take good care of yourself!

You deserve success, too!

winter  08/26/2010 03:08 PM Report

The middle class is being massacred like indians during Manifest Destiny, Blacks during slavery, Asians during WW2

And other ethnic doormats throughout history. The powers

and insatiable ambition have run out of ethnicities and are now coming to feed on the middle class. Seems almost like Natures Course afterall, its only natural that the weak be eaten so that the strong can have more. It happens like gravity, not immediately perceptible but nevertheless a law of physics that humanity hasn't overcome. Ted Nugent would surely approve ...we have to have something to hang on the wall after we've taken care of survival need. I think thats one of Maslows more intermediate levels.

NeilMacCallister  08/25/2010 10:16 PM Report

Dear winter,

The coffers of those "Business Privateers" were "filled to the brim" by the $2.4 trillion dollars which our President Obama, and our Democratic Congress, gave to them last year.

Whose fault was that?

***

As far as your other complaints:

What percentage of American dollars are actually being invested overseas?

Of the money which is being invested overseas, what is the "extortion" demand you say is being made upon Americans by these "extortionists"?

Does that "third world" laborer working for "a cup of rice a day" produce as much product each day as you would? ..If they do, why would you want to deprive them a meager cup of rice for their efforts?

And when you go buy a shirt, ..a cantaloupe, ..or a box of nails, ..don't you usually buy the cheapest one?

***

I will strongly agree with you though, if you say: "Any company which accepts American taxpayer subsidies or 'bailouts' MUST invest at least twice that amount (..to cover the lending costs) per year within the United States before being allowed to invest overseas (..the penalty could be that the subsidy or bailout amount becomes immediately due).

winter  08/25/2010 04:25 PM Report

Call it what it is; extortion. Business Privateers with their coffers filled to the brim telling the American worker they're not worth the risk, their investments will get better returns from third world labor where they'll work for a cup of rice a day afterall ...Cody wants a pony.

JohnGelles  08/25/2010 07:42 AM Report

Neil~

Discussion hogs will one day find their comment has gone out only to their own address. Everyone else on the audience list will receive only stuff from people who are not hogs.

Like you will never get what I send.

Comments with less than obvious PROFOUND wisdom and meaning will get the same treatment.

Like I will never get what you send.

Seems like a Mexican stand-off.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Mexican standoff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Mexican standoff is a slang term defined as a stalemate or impasse, a confrontation that neither side can foreseeably win. In popular culture, the Mexican ...

JohnGelles  08/25/2010 07:30 AM Report

Niel Mac ~

You Have a good point Neil.

What OTHERS write must be short. It can be stupid. But MUST be short.

What we write can be LONG.

The Wikipedia excerpts I usually enjoy-- anybody's.

NeilMacCallister  08/25/2010 06:18 AM Report

Thank you, JohnGelles, for demonstrating how the filibuster works to absolutely crush thought.

Your schizophrenic reading from wikipedia has brilliantly driven every living person out of these chambers.

You surely have a future in politics!

(Please contact "Organizing four Americas" at barackobama.com)

JohnGelles  08/24/2010 08:53 PM Report

The following is an entry in Wikipedia on Arab Nazi collaboration. It is followed by an effort by the Stern gang to solicit Nazi cooperation.The two items prove that Wikipedia and Tony Judt have a lot in common-- a poor sense of proportion and a deficiency in inside their psyches.

.

Palestine

Arabs

A Palestinian Arab nationalist and a Muslim religious leader, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammad Amin al-Husayni worked for Nazi Germany as a propagandist and a recruiter of Muslim volunteers for the Waffen SS and other units.

On November 28, 1941, Hitler officially received al-Husayni in Berlin. Hitler made a declaration that after "...the last traces of the Jewish-Communist European hegemony had been obliterated... the German army would... gain the southern exit of Caucasus... the Führer would offer the Arab world his personal assurance that the hour of liberation had struck. Thereafter, Germany's only remaining objective in the region would be limited to the Vernichtung des... Judentums ['destruction of the Jewish element', sometimes taken to be a euphemism for 'annihilation of the Jews'] living under British protection in Arab lands.."

The Mufti spent the remainder of the war assisting with the formation of Muslim Waffen SS units in the Balkans and the formation of schools and training centers for imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units. Beginning in 1943, al-Husayni was involved in the organization and recruitment of Bosnian Muslims into several divisions. The largest of which was the 13th "Handschar" division of 21,065 men.

In 1944, al-Husayni sponsored an unsuccessful chemical warfare assault on the Jewish community in Palestine. Five parachutists were supplied with maps of Tel Aviv, canisters of a German–manufactured "fine white powder," and instructions from the Mufti to dump chemicals into the Tel Aviv water system. District police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi later recalled, "The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers."

.

Jews

Jewish underground Zionist group Lehi, also known as the "Stern Gang" offered cooperation to the Nazis in sabotage, espionage and intelligence and up to wide military operations in the Middle East and in eastern Europe anywhere where they had Jewish cells in return for full recognition of an independent Jewish state in Palestine, an ability to emigrate to Palestine for all Jews, with no restriction of numbers.

This offer of collaboration was sent in 1941 to the German Naval attache in Ankara and forwarded through German embassy to Berlin but found no response from the Nazis.

============= end Wikipedia ==============

How disgusting can these things get (the Wikipedia editors and Judt at his densest):

..... ..... "sometimes taken to be a euphemism for 'annihilation of the Jews"

Gelles asks these types-- what else is the murder of Jews sometimes taken to be?

The German Arab collaboration was real, large and criminal. The Stern Gang sent a feeler to the Naval Attache. The feeler was nuts to begin with. Yet Wikipedia compares these two items because it too is nuts. There is no sense of proportion in Tony Judt's attitude toward Jewish Nationalism and the experience of the 20th Century.

The anti-Israel position that Palestine deserves better is never presented in context that the Arabs have sacrificed millions of young Palestinian lives to keep Israel from being accepted as an independent state.

Judt may have admitted the true nature of these issues-- but what seems to remain on the European mind is that Israel is bad and Palestine deserved better.

Palestine did. It deserved better from its Arab and Muslim neighbors.

JohnGelles  08/24/2010 08:21 PM Report

This is a comment on the interview with Tony Judt, an English/American historian and public scholar--born and raised Jewish--who was critical of the Jewish State (Israel) and had a bone to pick with Jewish Nationalism in the modern world-- where, remember, Disraeli was a Christian convert (from a Jewish family) who became one of the greatest Prime Ministers of England and Rham Emanuel is the American President's Chief of Staff.

Tony Judt is dying in front of our eyes in the interview whose transcript is not yet posted (as I write these words). I knew nothing of him--proving I'm not up to speed on all things intellectual and important.

After watching the whole show twice, I had to turn to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Judt for more information on Tony Judt.

It seems to me that Charlie Rose loved the man more or less as a brother or favorite brother-in-law.

Judt and I share the same political views on Keynesian solutions and on our obligations to people with less economic security than our own.

We have opposite views on the Jewish State. The Arab Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was, I've read, Hitler's equal in hate and wished-for harm to Jews in their time of trial (during the German War Against the Jews). I've also observed their Arab neighbors and gang in the UN happy to keep Palestinians miserable rather than accept and assimilate them in the Arab and Islamic world the way Israel accepted the Jews expelled from Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other nations.

Jewish nationalism cannot be bad when we note the cost of its weakness in the Holocaust and years that preceded that decent into Hell in Europe before liberation in 1945.

Nevertheless Judt and some other Jews see these scenes differently. I'm not naive enough to think every human being will agree with me just because I'm right. Or wrong.

Judt should have believed in and supported the Second Bill of Rights. It sent the right message in 1944 to the post war world-- the world of the 80th American Congress that decided instead to allow low wage ship builders in Europe and Asia kill the middle class high wage jobs in American yards that had saved the lives and freedom of capitalists who had a yen for busting unions.

Judt did the next best thing-- he supported economic democracy in theory.

I rate the total interview very high. Death is all around it. As well as historical meat-- if not the exact dishes I prefer.

May Tony rest in peace with all the other scholars and ordinary people for whom we wanted the best during our tenure here. Tony and I shared much the same thoughts on political action and economy.I met him on this show after he died. I also met his youngest who asked why "socialism" is no longer a welcome word in debate. I think Tony explained to hm how communist rule in the 20th Century had been bad for socialist critiques of capitalism.

That's too bad. Capitalism and corporate law at the moment is ruining lives in America for no good reason at all. Tony Judt and I would have liked to make that ruination illegal and something that had never happened.

JohnGelles  08/24/2010 11:09 AM Report

Winter~

You and I voted for Barack Obama. We may do it again. I agree he is preferable to his current opposition.

But he has been dragged nowhere. He chose to back the bankers and a Geithner program of funneling them money instead of funneling it to working people.

Obama's failures are monumental-- especially his failure to try to rally all who have lost fortunes (large and modest) in the current debacle and who fear the worst is not yet past.

He ought to hang his head in shame. Never has a President had a greater opportunity to promote the Second Bill of Rights -- to promote Freedom from Want -- than NOW!

Perhaps YOU think the millions who died for FREEDOM FROM WANT died in vain. Perhaps you think the ending of the Gettysburg Address is mere rhetoric.

If you do, you ought not to be President. Anyone can go along with a fool like Geithner and his modest effort to bring the American Dream to life. And that is what Obama has DONE.

The man you are defending is letting us all down. He needs to be given a dressing down. No dragged him into a corner. He's hiding there on his own. He still hasn't take a stand on the Second Bill of Rights or Freedom from Want. He seems to believe he was elected for no real reason at all.

Private health insurance is not the new doctors and nurses we so desperately need. Modest attempts to make Wall Street side with a Warren Buffet sense of patriotism is not the same as sitting with Buffet to discuss Import Certificates so that the American People and their Congress reach the truth on what free trade ought to be and how to keep America in the lead -- far ahead of wages that can kill the middle class and make economic democracy impossible.

Sure I may vote for him again. But will such vote count for all its worth?

winter  08/23/2010 11:15 PM Report

Its a shame this country can't recognize a good man when one comes along and behaves with a nationaly embarrasing reaction to his honest efforts to be fair and decent.

The difference between Obama and the right is the difference between wisdom and power. I know Obama gets it. I know Obama is a good man. You can see it when he's around his daughters. How can this father possibly be what Gingrich, Beck and Limbaugh would have us believe he is? His values are in the right place, yet his intentions are expertly distorted by these master sophists who have nothing but the same motivations as Pinkerton guards had to open fire at Homestead-- to serve their masters and get very wealthy doing that. Make the tax code work for the

middle class and you'll return demand for business to again florish. And rescue our President from the alley he's been dragged into by the right daily. Have some old plain civil decency.

JohnGelles  08/23/2010 10:20 PM Report

Many in the Rose audience have not run into the buzz saw that would have cut our financial lords off at the knees-- but for the softies Bush and Obama-- who did not want to see all that blood.

Bush and Obama were in fact pleased to rescue these blood suckers-- who are really in no position to do much more and be happy they are bankers-- and not brick layers.

Now Charlie and his audience are waiting for recovery to be financed by shopping sprees and investment euphoria-- even though the wait is murder on so many who may not get ahead of their bills by this Christmas or the next.

And others in that audience imagine a quick fix they believe is possible if the President explained how Treasury and the Fed would engineer it IF THEIR children's peace of mind depended on THEIR (Geithner and Bernanke's) GUTS-- and their UNDERSTANDING of WW II financing (brought up to date)-- by today's men of the caliber of Mariner Eccles and Henry Morgenthau.

We should be spending trillions on energy independence and rapid reduction in carbon emissions. Likewise-- on robots to sweep away the IED's and fill the sky with eyes and rockets to kill the IED mine-layers before they can catch their breath.

The book, " The Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century". by Phil Terzian, may help. I will have it in my hand very soon.

Here is a review from a book seller and his customer:

..... Elegant, precise and engaging mix of biography and analysis, August 3, 2010

..... Review by customer, Ann Marlowe (New York)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century (Brief Encounters) (Hardcover)

Phil Terzian's pointillist portraits of FDR and Eisnhower are riveting in and of themselves.

They are a model of great learning lightly worn (check out the frightening bibliography). But they are also directly applicable to today's foreign policy dilemmas.

When Terzian writes, "The stated reasons for American participation in World War I ..were legitimate, to be sure, but they failed to define any fundamental American interest in the war's outcome", he might be writing about Afghanistan today.

When he says, "Pearl Harbor...exploded the notion that self-sufficiency and generous impulses were sufficient to defend America" he might be talking of another more recent surprise attack on the U.S..

None of this is heavy handed or partisan, and Terzian has a magical gift for making his ideological points persuasively and with exemplary civility. A small gem.

====== end Ann Marlowe review ======

Note the reviewer tells of an author with a markedly smarter touch than mine.

Anyway, today's Eisenhower and FDR combined can be David Howell Petraeus, Four Star General in the American Army-- IF he goes political at the proper hour.

Or today's FDR can be Barack Obama IF Iran attacks Pearl Harbor.

JohnGelles  08/22/2010 04:45 PM Report

corrections:

bunch of fools

a thousand bucks

Beer Party

JohnGelles  08/22/2010 04:42 PM Report

All of the comments below represent suggestion that would improve our law-making over what it it is. For this we can say thanks to each other. No unreasonable collaborators in sight.

Yet we see that a reasonable forum on the web has no more rapid impact than a bush of fools. Can we change that?

In the past the only way to come closer to the power to change has been to use the power of money. Money is a natural uniter of individual wills.

Each of us here assembled to brain storm what to do, would ask for money to be banked.

We would report on how much we received. If we were as "good" as Obama, we would soon have thousand bucks.

We would spend it on ads that asked for more money.

We would soon have ten thousand bucks.

In no time at all we would have a million dollars, doubling every month.

We would have agreed on a very brief platform-- and the Beep Party would off and running-- heading the pack of tea and coffee nuts.

Now YOU must assume all of this has already happened. All we have left to do is TO WRITE OUR OWN VERSION OF THE VERY BRIEF PLATFORM.

In a few days, we will edit and restate all those versions and settle on one or two.

So cut the s--t and get to work.

SheaConaway  08/22/2010 02:41 AM Report

It is unfortunate that the Senate has become a legislative body where nothing can be accomplished without overwhelming majorities. The unique rights of Senators, especially unlimited debate, depends on a respect for the institution and the considerate modification of parliamentary precedent over time. Unfortunately, the current trend of political extremism does not allow this kind of thoughtful deliberation that the Senate was known for in the past.

Barring a radical change in our political culture in favor of moderation, the Senate will probably have to undergo rules changes similar to those that occurred in the House in the late 19th to early 20th centuries that made it a more reliable agent of the ruling party. Examples would be reducing the votes require for cloture and giving the majority leader greater floor privileges. With these changes, the Senate will lose some of its power relative to the House and its unique character. Although this will not revive policy compromise, it will at least make passing laws that address major issues an achievable task, despite their unfortunately partisan nature.

NeilMacCallister  08/21/2010 03:00 AM Report

rob, ..an equal and fair tax structure is not as "impossible" as you say it is: Ten-percent of everything one earns over twice the Federal poverty level, is as easy as pie, ..especially when compared to the 20,000 pages of "loopholes, carve-outs, and subsidies" with which we are currently sandbagged under today's Tax Code!

Let's not quit so easily. Let's actually consider doing things with a purpose!

(..We could'a had Steve Forbes! ..We could'a had Mitt Romney!)

Oh well, ..let's just keep struggling forward from where we do find ourselves! ..America isn't dead yet!!!

(..We could'a had a future!)

robdverity  08/20/2010 05:54 PM Report

winter - spot on!

robdverity  08/20/2010 05:52 PM Report

A flat tax Neil? You must think we live in a no-loop-hole for sale, honest pol society. A flat tax would be good (in heaven?). It would be lobbied out of effectiveness within one election cycle by special monied interests.

Your key word was 'everybody' but also the most naive.

jackscribe  08/20/2010 02:06 PM Report

I'm disgusted that we are being governed by a bunch of career politicians. Term limitations are needed - one eight-year term for Senators, and two four-year terms for Representatives - and stagger the turnover for continuity. To completely neuter the lobbyists, restrict Congress members from joining a lobbyist group or any company that does business with the U.S.A. for five years.

NeilMacCallister  08/20/2010 01:43 PM Report

winter, I feel your discontent, ..but you had to scream your opinion again because nobody rallied behind you the first time you held up your banners for high taxes, welfare, and no jobs.

Your "demand economy" is what produced the housing bubble.

I don't want another bubble, ..a double dip, ..a triple dip, ..and then a death.

***

How about a flat tax, where everybody pays a straight 10%?

Wouldn't that reduce a lot of that "back-room dealing" we both dislike?

And lets bring our taxes on manufacturing and industry down from their world-record level highs.

***

We've hired millions of government employees to count and redistribute the drastically disappearing quantity of money now being earned in the United States.

Our California Congress is now a month-and-a-half overdue with its budget (..we didn't make enough money to pay all that we promised to our government job'ers), and our U.S. Congress has recently added 4 trillion dollars to our national debt, with absolutely none of that going to any purpose which is useful to the family-on-the-street.

And you think some guy on TV is responsible for this??????

winter  08/20/2010 11:48 AM Report

Again, IT AIN'T THE GOVERNMENT. The reason Beck and Limbaugh make tens of millions of dollars is to convince

you that it is the government and not the corporate machine

paying them tens of millions. There are alot of people like Gingrich who's only job it is is to hold the line on populism for the oligarchs to continue to suck the middle class dry. And that happens well before what the tax code will be is ever decided on. Is it a coincidence that over the years we've evolved towards needing two incomes to get by while the number of millionaires and billionaires kept growing? And coincidentally the top tax bracket has been getting lowered all that while. Wealth gets redistributed before your paycheck is ever cut. Its been being redistributed towards millionaires now for decades. Henry Ford wasn't too popular in his day when he decided to pay his employees enough to actually afford to buy the products they built. That stigma is popularized today by Dick Armey, Gingrich and the rest of the "support oligarchs for a living" cabal. Smug Mr. Gingrich surely has an answer to all that but he's been trained to earn his living by nothing but that sophistry. Bring the tax code back to where it was when we only needed one household income and lets try demand-side economics for a change.

JohnGelles  08/20/2010 08:08 AM Report

Our founders design to prevent parliamentary power from oppressing the people who elect them to govern has left us with a Senate an incoming president must bribe to rule. I would change the Senate term from six to four years-- and make it that term coincide wit the president's term. In landslide presidential elections, the whole Senate might be on his side.

The check and balance we need, I would locate in the House of Representatives. I would have its term increased to three years, with one third of the body up for election each year.This would check any president-- because he would have to face a majority in the House of lawmakers elected in off-years.

I oppose all term limits. Age ought to take care of the matter. No elected president, senator or congressman could hold office after his or her 65th birthday. They would be replaced on their 65th birthday the same way they would if they had died.

Also no more TV in the House or Senate.

Finally, incomes from their office and all other sources would be limited while they served to twice the national average.

These checks and balances might really work. Ordinary people's interest would then be aligned with their rulers.

NeilMacCallister  08/20/2010 04:40 AM Report

Why do today's Senators keep their thoughts hid and their discussion chairs empty?

Well, just look at what we did to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Shirley Sherrod, Mike Hurd, and now Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

And look what we are doing to the legitimate issues of Arizona immigration law, mosques at ground-zero, and 'Tea Party' free-speech.

Those senators are cowering from the very anti-society they have demanded!

***

Even outside the Senate, nobody wants to talk anymore: These gentlemen right here at this table want to overlook honest arguments regarding rising national debt and crippling unemployment, and instead focus on some guy on a sidewalk somewhere that they heard muttering something about Hitler.

And then they join together in unison to criticize Republicans and anyone else for not voting to support continued debt-spending and job-destroying taxations.

***

Mr. Cohen reminisces about the past when Senators ended their days in the Senate by dying in office. That "lifetime of luxury" is a HUGE progenitor of "cover your tracks" legislative practice: As long as Senators can "bring home the bacon" to their local friends, without too much scrutiny from the national audience, they'll get to stay in office for a lifetime.

Rob below is right, ..let's have term limits. And maybe the best "term limit" is to cut back the luxurious pay, privileges, and pages which are so enjoyed by our nested Senators.

Would we get a more vibrant and engaged Senate candidate, if our candidates knew they would be riding the bus to work, sitting alongside the rest of us Americans?

Yes, we would!

winter  08/20/2010 02:01 AM Report

Whenever the idea that government is the source of all our problems comes up I'm reminded of Kevin Spacey's lines in Usual Suspects, "the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Where does the money come to rest? Where does any money always eventually come to rest? Certainly not the treasury. Its gotten so finely tuned that health insurers have targeted raises that

policy holders might have got for their premium increases.

And now the wealthy come begging for their taxes to remain where Bush cut them by the cheap tactic of leaving out that 95% of middle class Americans will get a tax break whenever tax reform is mentioned. How pathetic is it to stow away on the burdened budgets of middle class workers yet some shills press it daily -- there is no shame. Over all these decades corporate,their lobbyists and their media whores have made pulling the wool over middle class Americas eyes an art. And it isn't government who sent returning troops opportunities overseas and kept the difference in profit.

charlizecourriers  08/19/2010 08:48 PM Report

Empty chamber, empty suits, empty rhetoric, empty promises, empty treasury. When will these chatterers shut up and listen-then they will hear the beast-moving closer, closer....

robdverity  08/19/2010 03:37 PM Report

Two cogent parries. The glaring elephant in the room omission was term limits - say one eight yr staggered term.

The venality and corruption is corrosive. Our values are so across-the-board skewed to the dollar everything's for sale - especially a mere vote.

Why hell, it's been said a preemptive war can be purchased every whip-stitch as needed to keep the MI oligarchie in Post Toasties. BTW Iraq will need a replacement soon. Iran?

junie  08/19/2010 03:31 PM Report

One issue raised by William Cohen touched on lobbyists and elections. It seems that the costs for elections have become obscene and that promotes much fund-raising energies that more reform in this area is needed. Senators are much more focused on re-election than actual legislation. Perhaps a cap could be placed on elections based on the office sought. That would level the playing field and perhaps eliminate/limit lobby influence. It seems to me that this is a systemic problem that should be addressed first, along with the lack of civility.

EPatrickMosman  08/19/2010 03:10 PM Report

Several thoughts on the 'can't we all just get together and sing kumbaya in the well of the Senate' group of Cohen,Packer and Hunt. First Mr Packer and his if only those unruly Republicans would sit still, be quiet and follow the GOP ladies into the socialist paradise of Obama, Reid, Dodd and Franken, the Senate would be a better place.Followed by the most risible comment, that the press that adores Obama, did not lift a finger to investigate his past or hide what they did know from the voters((Reference: Rose/Brokaw October 2008 interview where both pundits admitted that they knew nothing about Obama after two years of campaigning), while sending scores of reporters to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin, was against him from the beginning. Only now are a few far left liberal media types expressing displeasure because he hasn't fulfilled what they believed him to be. This is known as buyer's remorse after discovering the "pig in a poke' they bought was blank slate on which he alone defines himself or redefines himself as he chooses.It is no wonder that Rose, Brokaw and the media knew nothing about Obama.

Then there is Mr.Cohen decrying those who refer to the President as Hitler today but was not out front when anti-Bush protesters were shown night after night carrying Bush as Hitler signs on nightly news and cable networks.

On Senate rules apparently the filibuster is good when used against a Republican majority but bad when used against the Democrat majority. Perhaps one day Mr. Rose will hold a fair and balanced round table on the role of the state of the Senate.

REMant  08/19/2010 02:29 PM Report

These fellas are really naive. The Senate chamber has most always been empty, the House, too, because ppl can't sit there debating all day. They have work to do in their offices, as well as, committee meetings to attend, and junkets to take. That was true even during the revolution. Political parties are probably mentioned somewhere in the Old Testament.

Thirty, forty years ago there WAS much more agreement, but it was not often a good thing, for instance with respect to Vietnam. Would that we had had this kind of division then, or even in 2003. I'm not enamored either of the idea that we need a Congress like the one that rubber-stamped the New Deal. TV probably is a negative factor, but in the same way so is the Congressional Record, not to mention forays onto the Capitol steps to display signs and placards. The Senate can make whatever rules it wants, but surely that is not an argument for one-party rule.

The origins of the parties lie in the different positions taken on the Constitution, and haven't really changed in more than two centuries, nor do I expect them to. Sure, lobbyists don't help, but I don't think getting rid of them will make much difference. We can do better, but tolerance is not the answer. Log-rolling is tolerance. What we need are answers, and that means we need more competence. As Cokie Roberts observed the committee hearings on Kagan's nomination were pathetic. Frequent elections were put into the Constitution for a purpose, which earmarks, etc have destroyed, not ppl like Joe McCarthy. I think maybe I'll start a Michelle Rhee for President committee.

BTW, FDR wasn't just compared to Mussolini, he admired him, and so did the business community, as well as, among others, Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia, and Sol Bloom, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The NRA was modeled on the Italian mercantilist system otherwise known as Fascism. In foreign policy, when Italy attacked Ethiopia, FDR applied the Neutrality Act, and had it changed to avoid taking sides in the Spanish civil war. And he appealed to Mussolini to persuade Hitler to stop his invasion of Czechoslovakia, leading to Munich.