Arlen Specter (R or D)

What, what, what? Arlen Specter , the 30 year US Senator from Pennsylvania was a middle-republican his entire life, but this morning he dropped the GOP and wants to be a Democrat. I despise political parties and believe they have a tremendous negative effect on progress and democracy. I believe that once elected everyone should be forced to be an independent and not have any political affiliation. And I don’t care if he changes his party, but what is important is whether he changes his politics. It would have been more appropriate if he just become an independent. However, Specter has no interest in fairness, democracy, his constituency, or anything else except for his own ability to get re-elected. He stated, with all honesty, that the only reason he is doing this is because he feared losing the next republican primary. I don’t know why he didn’t learn from Lieberman than he could have run as a Republican and if he lost than run again as an independent.

I believe Specter would vote for anything to preserve his seat in the Senate and that is the very worst that a democracy can become. The democrats could say “Senator Specter was elected to represent the interests of Pennsylvania and of the United States. We hope that he does that regardless of any political party. However, let us be clear that the Democratic Party stands for the people it represents and all elected Democrat officials are public servants and will always put the best interest of the people above themselves. Senator Specter does not seem to value these beliefs and although we welcome his support, there are no seats for people who only care about re-election in our party.” Of course, I give the Democrats too much credit; most of them would do the same thing to save themselves.

How could a US Senator say that this was only about re-elected? It would be so easy to just say “The Republicans are too far to the right and like the new Democrats. They rock and I want to be part of this great, new winning team. “

The more important thing is that this gives the Democrats a potential filibuster proof majority in the Senate. They only need one more seat, which should (eventually) go to Al Franken, the actor/democrat from Minnesota. That race is being contested and will be going to court in June. Now the Republicans may live and die by that race and they have all the incentives in the world to delay the outcome for as long as possible. And unlike Al Gore (who gave up the Presidency because he thought it was best for the country), the Republicans won’t go down so easy. And just thinking about Al Gore conceding make me throw up in my mouth.

This could change the entire landscape of Congress. The democrats could pass healthcare reform and anything else they wanted. This could be two years are tremendously risky and potentially helpful legislation. And the New York Times online put the story on the cover all morning and now the entire story somehow disappeared. The Jets trading up for Mark Sanchez was a bigger story, but alas, that is another story for another time.

Born to be a Politician

"What we require is that those who take office should not be lovers of rule. Otherwise there will be a contest with rival lovers. What others, then, will you compel to undertake the guardianship of the city than those who have the most intelligence of the principals that are the means of good government and who possess distinctions of another kind of and a life that is preferable to political life?" - Plato

Plato explained that our political leaders must first be trained and educated before they ever have the opportunity to be corrupted. That is that our young students should be taught the beauty and usefulness of math, science, history, philosophy, and the arts. The brightest should be chosen to further study economics, governments, law, and diplomacy. The best of those should be chosen to participate in the public sector (even at a young age) to get real exposure to the realities of effective and ineffective governance. The most talented and capable of these young adults will continue their studies and eventually become the politicians of the next generation. Politicians will have a context to understand their role and the experience to do it well. They will be chosen for their abilities and not their actual desire or love of politics.

This goes directly against the current method in which politicians rise to power. Today, those people who are the most power hungry, who desire to rule, who will do anything to get to the top; well those are the ones who end up running our government. And should we expect anything different from a system that encourages the very worst people to be most capable of achieving the most powerful positions in government.

Our “leaders” are not the best and the brightest, they are not our shining light. Some are very dedicated and capable, but almost all of them love to “rule” and do not love to be effective public servant. Here is a portion of the powerful politicians (US Senators, US Congressmen, Governors, and Mayors of large cities) who have been indicted in the past 15 years. Sadly, I couldn’t find a complete and if anything has one, please let me know.

Rick Renzi
William Jefferson
Mark D. Siljanderl

Tom Delay
Ted Stevens
John Doolittle
James Traficanta
Michael Meyers
Rick Renzi

Dan Rostenkowski

Rod Blagojevich

Brian Krolicki

Eliot Spitzer

Don Siegelman

Marion Barry

Joe Bruno

Scooter Libby

Larry Craig

Bob Ney

Tom Delay

William Janklow

James Traficant

Gold

The US Department of the Treasury has 11 Billion dollars in gold. What is this for? Are we just showing off? Shouldn't we sell this instead of borrowing money from other countries or raising taxes? I know it's not that much money compared to the rest our spending, but its something. It's not enough money to be an emergency fund, so why bother having it at all. Plus, what is the cost to house and protect our precious gold. I think we are only a decade away from achieving the alchemist dream and turning lead into gold, making our stash worthless. Start selling now and give the money to homeless veterans, abused children, cancer research, malaria nets, new road construction, or cheaper Yankee tickets.

Justice or Karma

Ted Stevens, the crazy, former US Senator from Alaska was convicted of seven felony counts of ethics violations last year. Based largely on this trial, he narrowly lost his re-election bid last November. Today, the US Justice Department is dropping all charges because they “discovered a new instance of prosecutorial misconduct”. Basically, the prosecutor illegally hid evidence from the defendant.

Now, let me be clear that I despise Ted Stevens. He was a conservative who spent 40 years putting the interests of the Republican party and Alaska above the interests of the United States. Consistently he would drive tax payers’ money (money from all 50 states) to Alaska. Alaska takes twice as much federal funds as it puts in. This is the inherent problem with the US Senate; giving equal power to someone representing 350,000 people and someone who represents 18,000,000 people. And Ted Stevens abused this undemocratic system to the detriment of the other 350,000,000 people in the US.

Anyway…there are two major issues going on here. The first is that the Justice Department is just dropping the charges. If he is guilty then he NEEDS to be prosecuted. It is appalling how public officials are simple above the law. From Nixon to Elliot Spitzer, public officials just go free. These are the people who should be the most accountable to the law, the people that should be examples of justice to the rest of us. And don’t get me started on George Bush, but if he broke the law, that he needs to be help accountable too.

However, let’s say that Stevens was innocent, well then the US Justice Department just changed the election for a US Senator (one of the most powerful position in the country). Not to mention (at the time) a possible filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats in Congress. No matter how much I think the country is better off without Stevens, it is completely unethical that he lost his Senate seat. If the Justice Department was run by Democrats at the time there would be a national uproar, but I say there should be one anyway. This is the kind of crap the CIA would do; fix an election by smearing the opponent. Hell, let’s put him on trial for corruption and hide evidence that could provide his innocence.

Justice, it’s about justice, not Karma.