Barrett Rainey’s Second Thoughts

There’s no other way to start this than by admitting I’m totally confused and need your help. The more I try to understand the facts in some recent news stories, the more at a loss I am to explain them. Certain elements just seem to run against all common sense and everything I’ve ever learned.

Here’s one. JPMorgan Chase – one of the largest banks on the world – lost $2 billion speculating in world financial markets a few days ago. But, at a shareholders meeting this week, the top guy responsible for running the whole operation was given a $23 million pay and benefits package. Considerably higher than the year before.

Now the financial gambling his minions were doing was apparently well-known in higher echelons of the company. Also recognized was it violated the spirit – if not the letter – of the Volcker rule which is meant to stop banks from using our dollars to invest for their profits. The investment officer in charge of that division was fired along with several traders. But the boss – responsible for running the whole empire and keeping things on the up-and-up – gets $23 million and goes right on with this privileged life.

What the hey?

Then there’s that Zuckerberg kid and his beardless cronies. Some eight years ago, they came up with an idea while sitting around a Harvard dorm room. Sort of an interactive college yearbook but with the ability of classmates to put up pictures of themselves and chat with each other using computers. One of the original “thinkers” said later he was really only concerned about finding more dates.

Now, Zuckerburg and several of his friends are multi-millionaires before reaching their 30th birthdays. And if a stock offering goes as planned one of these first days, Zuck and some others will matriculate to billionaire status while still in their 20′s. Without doing more than they’ve already done.

What the hey?

Here’s another. There’s a story this morning about the glut of oil on world markets. As I sit at the keyboard, crude oil prices are at their lowest point in over a year. $94 and change. But overnight, gas prices downtown went up 12-cents to sit at about $4.16 a gallon!

What the hey?

Then there’s this in the day’s headlines. Ol’ John Boehner – Speaker of the U.S. House of Reps – says we’re about to hit the debt ceiling again and it’ll have to be shoved up a notch. But not, he says, without bi-partisan agreements on “massive cuts in federal spending and no tax increases.” The old “cut-our-way-to-better-times” argument that’s been discredited by everybody from Donald Duck on up the economic brain chain.

So, the people we sent to Congress to do our business won’t do our business the way our business needs to be done while they ignore the professional counsel of economists and other experts who say it can’t be done the way they want to do it.

What the hey?

A common element of these stories is that each of them deviates from rules, laws, common business practices and even common sense when viewed from the perspective of us average citizens.

In the banking scenario, why does someone with the sole responsibility of keeping the affairs of an international company lawful and profitable personally make millions of dollars when what he’s responsible for runs into a ditch and loses an amount of money few of us can comprehend? That just seems to run counter to sound business fundamentals. Not to mention common sense. Risk and reward. Doing the right thing. You know.

The Harvard kids. In about eight years, Zuckerburg and friends have gone from sleeping two-to-a-room to billionaire status. How do kids who aren’t old enough to shave regularly go from mac-and-cheese dinners to international corporate status in eight years? How do those of us who’ve worked a lifetime for food on the table comprehend the making of obscene amounts of money by kids just trying to re-invent the old college yearbook?

The petroleum rape at the pump. When knowledgeable economists tell us $95 a barrel crude should result in no more than $1.50 a gallon gas, why does today’s $95 crude result in this morning’s $4.16 a gallon downtown? How did oil companies get so big and so independent that laws of economics – much less laws of government – don’t apply to them? The old rule of supply and demand has become demand and supply. At any outrageous price they want to charge.

And finally, Mr. Boehner and his politically-impaired Tea Party constituency. They’ve already cost this nation the best-in-the-world credit status we earned over the years. They’ve stalled, mutilated or killed any and all attempts by better-thinking members of congress to address any of this nation’s problems that don’t involve a uterus. They’ve been unresponsive to repeated polling showing their actions are not only opposed by most voters but their in-action has damaged large portions of our economy and families coast to coast and border to border.

Congress has perverted the constitutional system of checks and balances by simply doing nothing Economic and social harms inflicted over the last three years will leave permanent scars on not only our political history but also on millions of Americans whose lives have been adversely impacted by gridlock, arrogance and stupidity.

A common thread running through these four activities of our lives this day is that the old rules don’t seem to apply. A guy who oversees a bank’s gambling loss of a couple billion dollars is rewarded with new millions of his own. Kids with laptops becoming kings of industry – while still in late stages of puberty – as a nation struggles to keep itself afloat. Petroleum companies holding this country hostage while making obscene profits in the hundreds of billions of dollars as a political system greases their appetite for even more dollars through tax shelters and incentives. A congress expressly ignoring the needs of it’s constituency despite repeated proof members are at odds with a majority of voters on nearly every major issue.

I keep trying to understand. To apply the rules learned growing up that successfully applied to my life and the nation . Looking for systems of government and business to operate in ways we’ve always known. In ways that worked.

But – what the hey?

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We have some awfully good neighbors. Their home has lots of curb appeal. The outside greenery is always well-kept. Well-behaved kids – mostly grown and off to college or careers. We chat now and then. They have many friends who visit often. We always get a friendly wave when outside or driving past their home. Really good folks.

Now, let’s consider these questions about our neighbors:

## Are they practicing Protestants, Catholics or agnostics?
## Are they vegetarians?
## Did either or both attend college?
## Are they planning on having more children?
## Do they drive American-made vehicles or foreign?
## Are they married or simply in a long-term relationship?
## Are they gay or straight?

The answers to those questions – rightly or wrongly – help define our neighbors in our society. Some answers even help us chose our friends. That may not be a good way to base our opinions about the value of people. But it’s what many of us do when – in reality – the answers to those questions are none of our damned business. Including the answer to that last one. Especially that last one.

Yet the issue of an individual’s sexuality has become an overriding topic in our national political world. In our lives in general. It consumes miles of newsprint and seemingly endless hours on radio and TV. It should not.

Looking back on a long life, I’ve tried to remember why certain people meant more to me than others – why some relationships developed into lengthy friendships across years and miles – why keeping up with some has been important while losing track of others didn’t get a second thought. In no instance – not one – has sexual preference been important.

I look at people in my life today – most recent acquaintance of church, service clubs or other relationships. Most I respect, would help in an instant and am glad to call them “friend.” But none of that personal attitude hinges on whether each is gay or straight.

Running some small businesses over the years, I’ve valued customers loyalty and their repeat use of our services. Nearly all were long-term customers who kept accounts current and were a joy to work with. Not one comes to mind because of the sex of a life’s partner. Theirs or mine.

I’ve even tried to think of the names of many who’ve crossed my path over the last five or six decades and who’ve faded from my life. Close once but, due to separations caused by relocating, taking a different job or joining a different activity, they slipped away almost unnoticed. None of those relationships ended because of anyone’s sexual orientation. Not one.

All those life circumstances involve literally thousands of people not chosen by – or kept close by – their sexual makeup. All. Not one exception. Why, then, has the issue of homosexuality become such an overriding concern? If we devalue it or ignore it so much in our own lives, why is such attention being paid to it in the media and by certain groups?

I find no basis to make this a religious issue. It’s human rights issue. The structure of a person’s domestic arrangement is a personal decision. Attempts to insert outside opinions – based on religious or any other societal practices – are unwarranted. For people who want less governmental or any other outside influence in their personal lives to attempt to use that same government to intrude in someone else’s private life is pure hypocrisy.

All people in my life have a right to every opinion they express – every vote they cast for whomever – every decision they make regarding how they and their families will live – every faith-based decision – even not to practice any particular faith. I can honor their choices, make my own and still find common cause on which to base a relationship.

We pride ourselves as living in a country where we value our freedoms of every kind. We’ve fought wars for no other reason than to allow people to live free of criticism or oppression by others – freedom from unwanted intrusion in their lives – freedom to worship any God as that God appears to them – freedom to worship no God at all.

Yet we are currently engaged in arguments and heated debate over whether two people – any two people – can live together in whatever societal arrangement they chose. Am I alone in seeing the hypocrisy here?

Our decisions – our values if you will – make us who we are. Most of us are lucky enough to have our own life experiences based almost entirely on the decisions we’ve made for ourselves. And if conditions formed to change our lives, we’re the ones who made new decisions of how to adjust based on those altered conditions. That is to be valued. Greatly!

But your right to make a decision affecting my everyday life, my thinking and my decisions ends about two inches in front of my nose. Past that point, the only one responsible is me. And those I chose – for whatever reason – to include. That is as it should be.

The President’s decision to honor the rights of gays to marry is his decision and his alone. As is Mitt Romney’s or any one else to believe otherwise. No one – presidential or otherwise – has the power to force their thinking on any of us. The choice each made by those two gentlemen should have no bearing on election day. Especially when considering current polling on the subject is split nearly 50-50. And moving rapidly to the acceptance side.

If you look at factors inside that polling – the demographics of who thinks what about gay marriage – you’ll find folks under 40 much more supportive than folks over 60. What that says to me is this subject will become more of a non-issue in years to come as the “againers” die off and the “approvers” age. And that’s good. To more than half of us, it’s irrelevant in our daily lives already.

Of course, that’s going to force some folks to change – to evolve – to come to new decisions based on that new environment. If that lessens suspicions, division and hatred, that’s all good, too.

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Where were we? Oh, yes. CNN’s “Breaking News” bulletin of the engagement of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie who’ve been “living in sin” for years while creating a “family.” (See post below “Too often “Breaking News” is broken news.”)

It’s a “given” absentee ownership of broadcast media has contributed to news coverage that’s more limited in scope, is in the hands of many who can “read” the news but not “report” it, and is less in both quantity and reliability. The Annenberg Foundation and other reliable groups have found ‘tis so. I won’t argue.

In this vein, NBC Political Director Chuck Todd – one of the best – has opined national media – including his own – have become the source of “manufactured controversies” which are denying us coverage of real news. Especially in reporting on our current presidential political campaigns. He cites three: Etch-A-Sketch, the ‘hot’ Obama microphone and Hilary Rosen.

In order: Etch-A-Sketch was a comparison – made by a Republican on his own staff – of Mitt Romney who seems to change his positions on political issues more than he changes his shorts. Like an Etch-A-Sketch on which you draw words or a picture, shake it a couple of times and it disappears.

The “hot” microphone was when President Obama said something he thought was private and personal to Russian President Medvedev while in range of an open media microphone.

The Hilary Rosen brouhaha was after she said Romney’s wife had “never worked outside the house” so she couldn’t understand the problems of women who do. What Rosen meant to say was that a mother in a family with a quarter-billion-dollar personal fortune could not know the problems of a mother with an annual income of $25,000 or so. That’s not what she said but later said that’s what she was trying to say. It also should be factually noted that Rosen has no official connection with the White House or the Obama administration. Though she and the President are both Democrats. Didn’t keep the media kids from wasting time trying to connect dots that didn’t connect.

Todd rightly points out none of these three “stories” deserved the huge media coverage that went on ad nauseam. And ad nauseam. None were important. None were newsworthy. The relentless repetition by ALL national media was “manufactured.” And it was done so while other stories of real news value were shunted aside or not covered. In my view, this gay marriage overkill is more of the same.

I follow national news pretty closely. But I don’t know actual details of Romney’s current position on national defense, specifics of foreign policy or much else. He’s damned the administration for this-that-and-the-other while saying he wants to “return America’s greatness.” What the Hell does that mean? 1776? 1945? 1963? Don’t ask the national media. ‘Cause they haven’t asked him.

Todd also points out Romney called the President “incompetent” after North Korea had it’s fireworks show and blamed Obama for the launch. But no media types questioned the baseless charges. They just “reported” what amounted to nothing. The incompetence, as Todd said, was North Korea’s. As for the charges, Todd noted real experts in American foreign policy – in both parties – were alarmed at Romney’s knee jerk reaction and lack of anything coherent to say about this country’s relationship with North Korea. Either what it is or what it should be.

On Obama? I don’t know what he wants to finish from his first term and in what area, what he wants to undertake in his second four years and what his plans are if he has to deal with the same congressional mess he has now because this country can’t take another four years of political stalemate. But we’re getting an overload of B.S. about his personal support for same-sex marriage.

I’m a harsh critic of Fox News. From a professional journalist’s perspective, I believe rightly so. But CNN, MSNBC, the Associate Press, Reuters and the rest are just as guilty of this same “manufacturing” crap. While important facts we should know, and information necessary to create a more capable and better informed electorate go unrecognized, we get hours and hours of the same file footage over hours and hours of the same blather about “he said – she said.”

This country’s national political affairs are suffering because a lot of voters went to the polls two years ago and elected a lot of know-nothings who didn’t have a clue about the workings of government. Still don’t. But people were pissed. It was a case of an angry electorate – far too many unaware of how our civic affairs are conducted – electing other angry people similarly handicapped who turned out for the most part to be opportunists looking for new employment. I lay a lot of blame for that at the feet of the media. And a system of public education that has failed to require all of us understand the basic civics of government operation most other democratic countries obviously do more effectively.

Our Constitution talks of an “electorate.” It makes no mention of an “informed” electorate. That’s our individual responsibility. We have an educational system that has failed to assure we are informed. And we are saddled with a media inhabited by too many “professionals” who are equally as stunted in matters of government operation to further inform. Might say “they don’t know what they don’t know.”

Given those related failures – and the sad congressional proof thereof – it falls to each of us to do the homework to undertake the self-education to change things in our country. Answers are out there. And it has fallen to each of us to find them for ourselves.

The failure of our two trusted institutions of media and education have given us a third and a fourth – an incompetent and unworkable congress elected by a largely uninformed populous.

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If there is a common trait among most state Republican primaries this year it’s this: the far-right operators of those disparate elections have made a major mess of things. Demonstrating- once again – on their climb to take over the party nominating apparatus during the last 25-30 years, they were so intent on winning they failed to learn how to work the machinery.

Taken to the next level, the same applies to those Tea Party types sent to Congress. They won. But most of ‘em are following the deep, Sarah Palin theory of political success: “I won – I’m here – I don’t need to know what I don’t know. Let’s do it.”

Romney won Iowa – the most publicized GOP primary so far – and largest administrative mess of the year. No, wait. Santorum won Iowa. Yes, that’s it. Santorum. No, wait! Paul may have won Iowa. They’re checking again. Then, to top it off, the guy who ran the most fouled up Iowa primaries ever resigned when it was over to become state party chairman.

At least nine states went pretty much the same troubled way. Winners crowned then uncrowned. Numbers sworn to on election night had major changes in the daylight. Winners became losers. Losers won. Weeks later.

But wait, Virginia! Even if the last GOP primary were already over, it ain’t over. What couldn’t be won at the polls or through balloting is now going to be challenged by trickery and deceit. And purity testing. Idaho is already Exhibit “A.

Romney won all 32 delegates in the primary. But there’s a state party convention in June. During primary voting, Paul people quietly picked up a good number of those “unimportant” precinct committee jobs while everyone was concentrating on the big picture. Now they’re going to be delegates to that state convention. Voting delegates. Not all national delegates Romney won will be the state gathering. But voting Paulies will.

One of them – Ryan Davidson- says “If two-thirds of those delegates are Paul people, we can vote to suspend the rules, disregard the primary results for Romney and give all the delegates to Paul.” Makes no difference what everybody agreed to before the primary. This is war. Take no prisoners. As Davidson adds, “I’ll do the scorched earth if I have to.”

While that battle plan may sound implausible, it’s being conducted in just about every state in which a Republican primary has been held and will be in each state until the voting is over. Regardless of who won. Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Georgia. Romney and Santorum may have won the election but those precinct victories down-ticket mean votes on the state convention floor. National, too.

If Paul can pull this off in just five states, he gets his name placed in nomination at the national convention. Then he can have significant input developing the national platform. And, unlike so many previous years when the party platform disappeared after the convention, the Paulies will squawk and scream each time the eventual nominee goes off-message before November. They’ll keep the feet in those expensive Massachusetts loafers firmly to the fire. Which means Romney had better tilt right.

What does that mean? Well, how about abolishing the federal reserve – going back to the gold standard – destroying the Department of Education, Health and Human Services – EPA – Homeland Security – taking away your vote for seats in the U.S. Senate? You think Romney wants to conduct a general election campaign on that? Well, my friends, if all of this works out the way the Paulies think, he’ll either support those things or he can go home and play with his garage elevator.

While the Republican National Committee is taking a dim view of all this Paul plotting, it could happen. If I were running that Tampa Bay gathering, I’d be looking for a parliamentarian the likes of George Patton!

Stay tuned.
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ONE MORE THING:

At last count, there are 18 Republican “birthers” running for Congress this year. Seven are incumbents. Another two call the President a Communist. One thinks there are 80 or so members of Congress carrying Communist Party membership cards. He’s a nut case incumbent, too.

Goofy – and somewhat dangerous – as they all are in my view, they don’t hold a candle to Roland Sledge who’s running for Texas Railroad Commissioner. His first TV campaign ad is getting lots of viewers.

The central figure is a man peeing on an electric fence. Got the picture?

The voice of Sledge is heard saying “Isn’t it about time we elected political leaders that have enough sense not to pee on an electric fence?”

For those of you who wonder why I have so much trouble with the current Republican Party, these are exhibits A thru S! “S” for Sledge.

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“BREAKING NEWS FROM C-N-N” - Accompanied by their children, long time couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie today announced their engagement though they did not set a specific date for their wedding.

Given my very low professional opinion of nearly all broadcast news over the past decade or two, I shouldn’t have been surprised by those words coming from my television. But I was. Stunned and damned mad!

TV and radio networks – and a couple of thousand local outlets – have cheapened the words “Breaking News” over the years. Those words used to be saved for assassinations, plane crashes, earthquakes, floods and the like. But that’s only a symptom of what’s wrong.

The basic problem is nearly all broadcast ownership is no longer in the hands of broadcast professionals. Thanks to 30 years of presidential appointments of the wrong people to the Federal Communications Commission, the industry is being run by bean counters and other management types who are solely responsible to boards of directors, shareholders and private investors.

Clear Channel Communications is one of the largest radio owners with more than 850 stations. It amassed nearly all of them in the 1990′s when the F-C-C changed rules of ownership and radio licenses became just so many Monopoly board properties to be acquired by big bucks investors. No matter how small the local market, stations were snapped up by Clear Channel and others at prices not supported by their sales income. This became all too apparent when Clear Channel and a lot of other “investors” eventually wound up in bankruptcy proceedings. Television outlets suffered much the same fate though nearly all belong to groups with far less holdings than most radio ownerships.

Why is this important and how is it connected to my outrage with CNN and it’s “Breaking News” prostitution? The upshot of all this – regardless of radio or TV – is that it has become strictly a “bottom line” business with faceless owners disconnected from – and too many times ignorant of – actual operation, demanding profits on investments no matter how badly made years ago in the purchasing.

The effects are everywhere. Have you noticed, for example, that CNN and Fox are no longer “24 hour” news operations? Have you watched weekend “news” and the pablum that fills the hours? Budgets have been drastically cut, staffs reduced, bureaus closed, satellite time pared to minimal levels. Stories such as there are get endless and inane “reporting.” Does the name Treyvon Martin ring a bell? Does groundless speculation beyond the basic facts sound familiar? Way too familiar?

One major reduction in both quality and reliability at news networks is the firing of long-time professionals – with higher contract salaries. They’ve been replaced by new, younger faces with minimal experience and much less access to newsmakers which only comes with years of development. But their contracts cost much less.

As a result, we viewers/listeners are getting more “news release” chaff published by politicians, government agencies, corporations and others. Few “reporters” go beyond that stage so “news” has largely become whatever is in the handouts. Without such freebies, local broadcasts would have little to fill the newscasts. Fact is, many of them show no embarrassment at all when saying “…according to a news release.”

Under Ronald Reagan, his appointees even removed the requirement of most local broadcasters to carry local news. Operation “in the public interest” became just so many words on a license application. Local programming has been replaced on many stations by three-hour blocks of “talk.” Followed by another three-hour block of “talk.” And even some of them are recorded and reused. Many music stations no longer originate programming, subscribing instead to satellite broadcast operations in New York or California or Chicago. Much cheaper cost.

My wife often tells visitors to our home, “Don’t get him started.” Well, it’s too late. Check back in this same space in a few days and there’ll be more on the same sorry state of America’s broadcast “news.”

“Breaking news” as it were.

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When I periodically fill this space with some of the weird political goings-on in my Oregon neighborhood-in-the-woods, I nearly always get the same response: “You’re making that up” or “That can’t be true” or “Damn!”

Well, Virginia, I’ve never written anything fictional about the fringy political world of Southwest Oregon. It’s all real. Too real at times. Scary. And here’s another one.

We’ve got a county clerk election here in the trees. In January, the longtime clerk resigned so her deputy could take the job and run as the incumbent clerk. Nothing new or really strange about that. In fact, the deputy – now the clerk – is a right smart lady with four years of on-the-job experience. Seems like keeping her would be a no-brainer.

Speaking of no-brainers, the lady now has two challengers. From their public pronouncements thus far, well, let’s just say they offer no reason for change in that particular office.

One has run several times: Fourth District Congress four years ago. She lost. Ran again two years ago – lost to a backwoods, flat-earth pHd home-schooler who makes money selling – among other things – racist-tinged home school materials and posits public education is a crime against kids. Used to be when people ran for something the first time, they started low and worked their way up. All that changed when the Republican party hierarchy around here seemed to decide experience could be a handicap. Clinging to that goofy policy, I doubt she’ll triumph this time, either.

But it’s the third face that has my attention. A former Californian, he began a couple of moderately successful small businesses hereabouts a few years back – sizeable and well-run coin laundry; a bottled water company A solid citizen in many ways. No previous political experience to live down, either.

What sets Jock apart from almost anybody else running for county clerk in any county in America is he wants to dismantle – yea, destroy – the very workable computer system that’s the heart of the clerk’s office. Yep, his platform is hire more people, give ‘em lots of pens, pencils and paper and go back to “business-as usual” – if by “business-as-usual” you mean 1954.

Says Jock, “Computers are subject to upgrades, hacking, worms, viruses and power failures.” My response would be that “humans are subject to heart attacks, strokes, measles, mumps and whooping cough.” Oh yes, worms and power failures, too. But – no mind.

Over the last 25 years or so, our local county clerk’s office has become a paragon of backwoods efficiency, thanks – in part – to a computer system that’s occasionally upgraded. The incumbent clerk is gradually ridding the office of bound books, maps, marriage and divorce papers, and all the other assorted paper documents by going fully electronic. Just like the big guys.

But Jock says he just doesn’t trust ‘em. He points out – in a lone voice – that “all this electronic storage will last only 50 years” and he wants to avoid that disaster. So, too, I would guess, does the State of Oregon, the federal government, General Motors, the Pentagon, Wall Street and Dish Network. It’s just that they don’t seem as upset about it today as Jock.

Jock says he actually has a little computer in his business – just one. But he doesn’t like “modern technology. Doesn’t trust it.

In some ways, I share Jock’s wariness of my own little machine, the confounded keyboard and occasional memory lapses. I don’t trust the damned thing, either. But, as my teacher-of-teachers wife points out, my handwriting is so bad and I do it so slowly when compared to typing that I could never work in the county clerk’s office Jock envisions. Sort of a Charles Dickens atmosphere without the oil lamps.

Frankly, the politically weird nature of this part of the state is gradually become more acceptable to me. And I even found myself thinking that maybe ol’ Jock was more of a prophet than I thought. Until I did a few loads of laundry at his establishment.

Well now, know what? He’s got 50 or 60 commercial washers and huge dryers in there. Big ones. All over the place. And you know what? In all of ‘em – every spit-and-polish one of ‘em – there’s a computer. A little brain box that runs all the cycles and timers. Every damned one!

Well, Jock’s lost my vote. Just another wannabe politician with feet of clay. “Do as I say – not as I do.” I really thought he was different. He is. But he isn’t. Well, you know what I mean.

Oh, one more thing. My Oregon election ballot came this morning. The name of the previous clerk who resigned in January is still on it. Maybe Jock’s right. Damned computers!

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Some of my more conservative friends – and even a nut or two with whom I have friendly relations – will likely take offense at the musings herein. I know they will because they have before. And I’m sorry when they do. But their knee-jerk criticism is always the same: “Well, what about Obama?”

When I’ve taken a verbal swing – or even the slightest shove – critical of some Republican, one or the other of ‘em comes up with that challenge. Not as a question that must be answered. No, it’s more a defensive reflex in lieu of thinking through what has been said. Or written. Like this.

A writer for CNN Money analyzed what four of the Republican presidential candidates have spent on their campaigns up to March 1st. The numbers are startling, thought-provoking and a source of my renewed anger directed toward the U.S. Supreme Court and its terrible decision resulting in unlimited and anonymous corporate campaign contributions.

To March 1st , the Romney campaign and its PAC partner had spent $76.6 million. Not only is that an all-time record, it’s more than the Gingrich, Santorum and Paul campaigns. Combined!

And what did Mr. Romney get for that obscene amount of money? He got 4.1 million votes and 607 delegates. Put in shocking perspective, that’s $18.50 per vote and $126,000 per convention delegate! Those numbers – at least to me – are mind-blowers.

In comparison, the Gingrich campaign spent $10 per vote and $150,000 per delegate won; Santorum spent about $6.50 per vote and $71,000 per delegate; Paul $32.50 per vote and $485,500 per delegate.

In an effort to keep my friends well-informed, I sent several of them the original story, hoping they’d not only be enlightened about the cancerous effects of that SCOTUS decision but also alarmed at the amount of money being wasted which could go to other, far more purposeful needs. Boy, was I disappointed in the next few minutes.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Three emails hit my desk. “Well,” they asked, “What about Obama?” “What’s it costing us for Air Force One and all his entourage?” “Why should the taxpayers foot that bill?” What I thought would be an eye–opener for them turned out to be yet another reflexive effort to drag the President of The United States – a Democrat – into a story where he wasn’t even mentioned.

Before getting to the original subject of outrageous spending, we’ll divert a moment to take care of the faux angst. Many years ago – many presidents ago - the feds and the two major political parties established an agreement. When the president – any president – is campaigning, direct costs of the trip will be billed by the government – the Federal Election Commission – and reimbursed by the campaigns. In fact, passenger travel costs are reimbursed at first class rates!

The Secret Service determines how the president will travel and what sort of security and equipment are necessary for the president, staff and others in the entourage. Presidents have nothing to say about it. Because a president is always a president, a certain amount of expense is always official. But if he flies from the White House to Chicago to campaign for example, a formula exists to bill his campaign treasurer for that portion of travel deemed electioneering – by the F-E-C. He doesn’t decide; the party doesn’t decide. The federal agency decides. Always.

Now, back to the outrageous amounts of money spent so far. When SCOTUS granted corporations all the rights of citizenship as individuals – the Citizen’s United decision – that allowed them to make unlimited campaign contributions. The floodgates opened. Using so-called “independent political action committees” (IPACs) as vehicles, any corporation – or foreign country – could funnel unlimited amounts of money to candidates. The “independent” requirement was all but ignored as former staff members of candidates lined up to run the “independent” PACs.

Many lobbyists use a line: “Best government money can buy.” That’s now been expanded to absurdity by our Supreme Court.

At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna to my conservative friends, I think wiser heads in both major political parties are seeing the corrosive fallout of that decision and it wouldn’t surprise me if the next congress came up with some ways to either rein in the deluge of bucks or challenge the decision some other way.

On the other hand, new legal challenges may come from the private sector – with or without the blessings of the two major parties. As these campaigns wallow in greenbacks, more people are seeing the terrible effects of what has been wrought. Santorum and Gingrich, for example. Thanks to having a billionaire in his pocket, each was able to defy loses at the polls and continue stretching out failed candidacies to an end that was apparent – and which should have come – months ago.

Finally, to my very conservative friends, I still love you. But my every challenge to something Republican does not deserve a swift “What about Obama?” Come up with a G-O-P candidate for president who’s got some ideas – some valid proposals – a vision – a plan for how he’d govern and a history of steady, well-chosen positions on major subjects and I’ll say something nice about him.

Maybe 2016?

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For some time now, I’ve opined the Tea Party would eventually go away. Oh, its whining, and that of others equally pissed but unaffiliated, helped make a bigger mess of Congress and have gotten a lot of excessive media attention. But as a force – as a movement – as a meaningful voice for constructive change – it wasn’t – it isn’t – it won’t be. Seems to me it’s very near the grave.

Our little neighborhood group already has one foot there. They had a well-publicized gathering in front of our courthouse the other day. About 300 showed up. And one well-mannered voice of opposition. Horrors!!!

A little perspective here. Our corner of beautiful Oregon is heavily populated by folks calling themselves “conservative” or “ultra conservative” – as others see them “flat earthers.” Seceding from Oregon and starting the State of Jefferson is one of their favorite subjects. Got the picture? Within 40 miles of the courthouse live some 40,000 people. Many easily fit into the description above. A lot of the “media” around here give them too much attention because – well – what the Hell else is there?

So, after many media announcements of the planned gathering – and the 4×8 plywood signs at many intersections – 300 show up. Amounts to far less than one-percent of the available attendance pool. Still, the almost-daily local shopper – masquerading as a newspaper – gave them a picture and full border-to-border coverage above the fold on the front page. Two days later.

The lone voice of opposition was a guy from the Occupy Roseburg movement which – at the moment – amounts to little more than him. Without threats or foul language, he challenged speakers about issues. Made some so mad they called the cops who rushed right over. Now, hold that picture. 300 to one.

Some months ago, a dozen local Democrats had a small, private discussion meeting at a couple of tables in a public park way out in the county. Most attendees over the age of 60. A dozen or so “flat earthers” showed up to picket, shout obscenities, call some of those seated “communists-socialists-etc.” – and proudly videotaped their intrusion on other folk’s liberty for their right-wing web site. When the seniors got in their cars and left, the F-E’ers followed to their new location across town and tried to get on someone’s private property. Hold that picture.

Where these two pictures come together is that many of the foul-mouthed bullies who crashed the earlier senior gathering were attendees and/or sponsors of the courthouse gathering last week. Right there in the crowd. So threatened, it seems, by the lone voice challenging their stand on several “issues” they had to call law enforcement.

This microcosm of lunatic sterility – in a geographic area where their supposed “message” would fall on fertile ears – indicates to me, at least, that whatever glory days the T-P may have had are behind it.

Some special elections across the country in the last year or so seem to carry the same thought. Most T-P-backed candidates have not done well since 2010. Polls indicate a lot of ‘em elected to congress last time are in trouble this time. Partly because they haven’t changed anything in Washington; partly because a lot of the rest of us are sick of ‘em for their unreasoned – and often ignorant – antics there.

Then there are those statehouses where some of their ilk took office in governorships and legislatures. Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Maine, Florida and some others. Funded by billionaire ideologues and furnished with duplicate handouts containing societal changes demanded by those billionaires, the dash to the right in the desire to create more invasive government while gutting its regulatory powers, raised Hell across the country. So much Hell, in fact, that slowly but surely a lot of people – especially women – began to realize what had been turned loose at the last elections. Even started some recall elections.

Predicting the political future is something reasoned people won’t do. So saying, my guess is, while vengeance may be the province of The Lord, something close to it will happen in a lot of states in November. (Dis)organized into many small groups, the T-P’ers don’t have the “fire in the belly” they did 24 months back. And a lot of other folk, who either shared some of their anger or weren’t paying much attention, are taking more notice of what’s been happening. Or, as in the case of congress, what’s not been happening. And why. And who. Or whom.

If the national media – and its local offspring – would give the GOP-TP extreme minority the same nearly nonexistent coverage it does to other small fringe groups, we wouldn’t be hearing much about it. If it got the media attention it really deserves, members would have to buy advertising to be heard. Not a bad idea, that.

“We, the People” have been poorly served by this phony “grassroots” movement. Its membership has waned. Hangers-on are splitting into new groups just as the right wing has done historically for centuries because of the same distrust and fear that brought them together in the first place. The air has gone out of their balloon.

Well, it wasn’t really their air to begin with. Eh, Brothers Koch?

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Much as the fringy right of our national T-publican party makes me feel like bathing more often, when one of their number comes up with something that makes sense, I like to give ‘em their due. Such a rare occasion has happened.

One doesn’t expect something politically accurate – or politically amusing – to come out of the mouth of Rep. Louie Gohmert in the Texas First District. Most of his quotes are pablum for the far right and his attendance in our Congress is thanks to them. Before his move to D.C., he was a judge. For someone whose political opinions often remind one of an intellect 10 points less than moss, his ascension to the Texas bench was a source of amazement. Until reminded of “Judge” Roy Bean. Another Texas “jurist.” Then it became clearer.

Gohmert is a “birther” whose public pronouncements sometimes have a tinge of racism. His grasp of anything political seems filtered through Tea bag philosophy along with his friend and fellow fringer Ms. Bachmann. Still, on this one occasion, in Texas yet, his accuracy was surprising.

Gohmert was talking to a couple of hundred souls of like mind at a district meeting. He was asked – as a Santorum supporter – if he would endorse the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. In the name of party “unity,” of course.

Gohmert’s answer is one for the ages.

“We should all support him,” he said. “After all, during his campaign, he’s agreed with each of us on at least one issue.” Biddy Bing – Biddy Bong!

Now, that’s what I consider a ringing “endorsement.” If the Romney camp is happy with that, Gohmert could be in the running for Mitt’s Secretary of State. Unless the “black helicopters” stage of his life left him too scarred.

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There’s too much “busy-bodyness” in the world today. Seems to come from a lot of people having too much time on their hands and not enough use of their energy in doing something worthwhile. Some of this nonsense has flowed into my inbox lately and the time has come to deal with some of it.

In recent days, I’ve had emails from a couple of friends and their thoughts on gay marriage. Why it’s suddenly become a topic of their correspondence is beyond me. One talked of the “evils” of it and detailed supposed “harmful effects” it was having on society. The other supported a federal court’s overturning of Proposition Eight which attempted to ban same-sex marriages in California. “Damned good thing,” he wrote. “Oughta be legal for everyone.” In both instances, I was asked my opinion.

I don’t have many thoughts about gay marriage. But, when asked, I’ll speak up. I neither support nor oppose it. Marriage between two people – any two people regardless of anatomical plumbing – is between those two people. As my kids grew up and decided to marry, I was not asked who their partner(s) should be. Nor should I have been. They made selections based on whatever criteria they felt appropriate and not because I had a preference. God love ‘em. And most of them did far better at it than I did. Besides, if I love my dog too much, that’s nobody else’s business.

I do have trouble when someone says “Well, it’s O.K. for people of the same sex to live together but they shouldn’t be allowed to marry.” Should they be allowed to sleep in the same bed? Have kids? Name each other beneficiaries in insurance policies? Eat red meat? Have oatmeal for breakfast? If we decide who can live together – with our approval – where do we draw the line of what they can’t do together? With our disapproval.

Attempts to drag dogs and horses and goats into the conversation by some of the aforementioned busybodies tell me those folks are scared of what’s different more than anything else. As long as whatever cohabitating people do doesn’t affect whatever I do, doesn’t force me to change my lifestyle or interrupt my life, I’m O.K. with nearly anyone else’s marital choices.

Another busyness interruption of late is chatter of why we’re not having a New York City parade for our returning military folks. Some people on the right and left are in a sweat because we’re not throwing tickertape. (With due respect to CNN, MSNBC and Faux News, that word “tickertape” is not hyphenated by the way.) Apparently the Pentagon brass – for reasons unknown at my low paygrade – want to wait until ALL troops are home. Something about terrorism and fairness. New York’s Mayor has acceded to the brassy wishes. Works for me. We’ll get to it.

But the clamor continues. To the clamorers, I’m a Korean vet. No returning parades for many of us because we “lost” a “police action.” “Just come home and be quiet” was much the sentiment. Well, Virginia, we didn’t lose anything. There was a military decision to pack up and leave. And it was a WAR in which thousands of Americans died; not a “police action.” It wasn’t barricades and yellow crime scene tape. It was killing and dying and wondering what the Hell was so important about capturing that next barren hill on which our friends had died taking it twice before.

Viet Nam vets had much the same experience. They hadn’t beaten some other military into bloody submission so they “left the field of battle with their work undone.” The Hell they did! Same damned political decision and same damned message when they came home. Oh, they got a few parades. But it left me feeling somebody felt we HAD to rather than a nation that WANTED to.

You go find a vet. Shake his/her hand and tell them you’re proud of his/her service. For most, that’s all the recognition they want. They served for the service. Not some march down some Main Street when it was over. Nice but not necessary.

I’m getting emails stewing about the price of gas and the “Socialist Obama hirelings” behind it. From ignorant busybodies. Many of the same ones who tell me “If Newt can bring back $2.50 gas, that’s proof Obama’s just keeping the price artificially high for his gas and oil buddies.”

That’s proof of nothing! Except that Gingrich – a disgraceful and disgraced, lying, quasi-intellectual who knows better – was appealing to the unknowing and the Obama haters to back his dishonest political fortunes. Another busybody with his own coffers in mind and not the concerns of his country.

Busy-bodiness abounds in our society. People in politics, media, the grocery store or the coffee shop with time on their hands, concerning themselves with affairs of others of us who have better to do. Telling us what to think or feel about this or that subject. Passing on speculation and faulty information without using some of their spare time to check the facts.

A lot of it comes from the crackpots hollering they want government out of their lives when it comes to decision-making or telling them what to do. Yep, the same ones who are doing the same to us and our lives.

Ironic isn’t it?

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