Usher Blogs

Consultants rake in $1.78B in 2004 cycle - Yahoo! News

Link: Consultants rake in $1.78B in 2004 cycle - Yahoo! News.

...I am appalled.  Not that this kind of money is being spent on politics (we're all grownups here and have known this is the sad reality for too long).  No, I am appalled at the quality of media advice the dems got for $150MM.  Seems that kind of cash just doesn't buy what it used to.

All Signs Pointing to Persia?

I'm just an amateur without any inside knowledge but I think Porter Goss' resignation, the (justified) snub of Russia by Dick Cheney followed by his longer-than-expected (and scheduled) meeting with Kazakhstan's President, the snub of Hu Jintao at the White House, and recent briefing of Gulf allies all point toward pending military action against Iran. 

I think Goss wasn't willing to support the President on this and did the right thing, resign.  I think Cheney's speech on Russia yesterday was a direct statement to Russia that we've already given up on diplomacy so have no need to mince words with you any longer, same with the treatment Hu Jintao received.  I think the retired generals were all speaking out at once because they see this coming too.  Hold on tight because I think its going to be a rough ride this summer (though with what this will do to gas prices you're not going to drive anywhere.)

PR Offensive

We (US) are losing the "war for the hearts and minds" of the Muslim and Arab world for a lot of reasons, but very near the top is terrible PR. 

It always struck me as odd that in Iraq we didn't flood the Arab and Western airwaves with images of Saddam's brutality.  Yes, the American media sucks at reporting and didn't cover it enough, but I don't think our government made a very solid PR push either.  That meant forcing the mass graves in front of the cameras as we did in Europe in 1945. 

Reading Nicolas Kristof's opinion in the NY Times today  on the crisis in Darfur and potential remedies reminded me of this.  Kristof points out that:

A no-fly zone and a U.N. force are among the ways we can apply pressure, but another essential element is public diplomacy. We should respond to Osama by shining a spotlight on the Muslim victims of Darfur (many Arabs have instinctively sided with Sudan's rulers and have no idea that nearly all of the victims of the genocide are Muslim). [emphasis mine.]

The White House can invite survivors for a photo-op so they themselves can recount, in Arabic, how their children were beheaded and their mosques destroyed. We can release atrocity photos, like one I have from an African Union archive of the body of a 2-year-old boy whose face was beaten into mush. President Bush can make a major speech about Darfur, while sending Condi Rice and a planeload of television journalists to a refugee camp in Chad to meet orphans.

We absolutely should do this in Darfur. We must also refresh our PR strategy in the whole Middle East to focus on only three things.  1) The death that muslims are bringing to other muslims in Iraq and elsewhere.  2) Our desire to champion the rights of ordinary people and leave them *soon* to a better future of their own determination.  3) That the other side offers only death.

Right now I'm guessing too many people believe both sides only offer death, and that has to change.

Insulting

Hu Jintao was roundly insulted today.  Dana Milbank is more thorough than I can be.  This was done for a reason and I don't think it was just payback for President Bush's inability to find the door. 

No, there's more and it seems an odd strategy when you need China as a diplomatic partner with the geo-strategic and -economic interests in North Korea and Iran to help us peacefully resolve those Nuclear tensions.   

Treating the Chinese with respect when they are our guests does not remove any options from the table.  It does not tie our hands with North Korea, or Iran, or anyone else, least of all the Chinese.  Slapping them publicly probably removes options, I think this was a mistake. 

Decider in Chief?

"I'm the decider and I decide what's best," is what President Bush said in regards to SecDef Rumsfeld and the decision to keep him at his post. 

That statement just feels freakishly sci-fi (and paternal), something out of an original Star Trek episode or Logan's Run.  (In a computer-amplified baritone) "Bring it to the Great Decider" or "Let the  Great Decider decide."

On the one hand, I'm glad to see that the military is very firmly under civilian command (essential to liberal democracy), on the other...I think those generals know what they're talking about and I think they're concerned that as we head towards a showdown with Iran that the current deciders don't always make very good decisions. 

I'm looking forward to making my own decisions in the next election.

Making Enemies

Peggy Lamm is both the first politician to personally ask me for money and the first to whom I gave. Peggy, who is running to be my Congresswoman (Colorado’s 7th CD) gave me a call because I responded to an email blast from their campaign (I’m pretty sure I know who they bought their list from!) I admit to being flattered that she called, even though I think we agree about as much as we disagree.

I told her I hope she goes to Washington
and makes some enemies. When she said she planned to do just that, she had me hooked and I made the pledge. I sincerely hope she follows through on that promise because what we need most are enemies of the Washington
establishment.

The gerrymandered status quo has 85% of all seats considered safe for one party or another according to Congressional Quarterly.  How can it be that 85% of these morons don’t worry about their job security? If they worked for you *WHICH THEY DO* you’d fire them.

Could Community Banking Save Social Security?

What if Congress chartered a new class of federally guaranteed savings banks that were limited to taking deposits and making loans only within certain defined geographies: zip codes or Congressional Districts perhaps?

 

These savings accounts would be guaranteed to earn at least market rates (by holding a certain percentage of its outstanding loans in T-bills – and depending upon the performance of its other loans, even better. They probably wouldn’t do better than the stock market (they conceivably could), though they would be much safer, and they would certainly do better than the current Social Security system, and that’s the point. The deposits held by the bank would be directed there by citizens paying into Social Security. They are accounts held by the individual that cannot be drawn upon until the point at which that citizen is able to start receiving Social Security payments. Also, the depositor would be limited to choosing to keep their money in banks located within their locale.

 

This seeks to achieve multiple aims:

1) It would help foster the “ownership society,” one of the few good ideas from President Bush (politicians opposed to anything from the other side are tiresome)

2) It would protect grandma’s retirement money, and probably enhance her returns (not to mention my own and those of my three sons.)

3) It would be a boon to entrepreneurial activity as the loans would be targeted to helping small, and especially micro businesses everywhere, though particularly in poorly served neighborhoods

4) If grandma, myself, my children – all of us – are vested in the loans made in our neighborhoods, we can encourage positive social pressure on loan recipients to honor their obligations, lest they harm their neighbors in a very tangible way

 

A lot of details are lacking here, but it is a start. What do you think?

 

What's Going on Here?

From the AP:

"The [Homeland Security] department's inspector general also is investigating the allegations, which say Doyle revealed his name and his employer and offered the numbers of his Homeland Security-issued office and cell phones during the sexual online conversations. Officials were also examining Doyle's office computer for any evidence."

As Krempasky notes "Usher - in my experience, people really ARE that sloppy."  If true (and there's apparently a mountain of evidence) this guy is sick, he is a maximum-security-prison-type of felon, he's stupid (and/or desperate to get caught), he was a fairly high-ranking political appointee of the Bush Administration in an apparently sensitive position, and he's stupid. Did I say stupid twice? 

It is disturbing on so many levels and I'm glad he was caught.  But it raises troubling questions, like how could someone at that level of public information management - when we are fighting a war of ideas - be so careless with information? Could he really have been that stupid, and if so, what does it say about the digital literacy of the team we elected to win the war of ideas?  I have a ton of confidence in the career professionals in the military and homeland defense to execute, but their elected and appointed leaders (all of them, Congress and the Administration) are completely incompetent, appear to be serving self-interest over the state of the union, and should be relieved at the end of their respective terms...except in the cases of many appointees and conferees who should be summarily fired.

Think About It...

The digitization of our lives may in fact be the evil or benign design of aliens or other Intelligent Designer(*gasp*). It will at least represent an amazing historical record for anthropologists in the future. 

 

Whereas historians and anthropologists today crave to understand how people 1000 years ago lived through examining their tools, dishes, and other artifacts, historians 1000 years from now will have a very firm understanding of not only how we lived, but how individuals think.  

 

The search records held by Google and others are an amazing archive of what people are thinking...it is really quite fascinating, and if aliens are watching now they already know an awful lot about you (and so does Google your ISP and coming soon to a courtroom near you, the US Government too!)

Loose Change

Vote for someone else. 

Vote against incumbents, they're the enemy.  Forget about Democrats and Republicans, party labels miss the point. 

90-some freaking percent of our districts are safe seats.  Nobody in the real world has job security anymore, the market is a cruel place. That's not a value judgement, that's just the way it is.  I have to constantly upgrade my skills, my thinking, my abilities, and so does everyone else. 

Congress works for us.  Treat them like the underperforming staff they are and fire them.  Bring in someone else. If they can't do the job, fire them too.  Loose change, vote for someone else.