Whats your addiction?

Let's try a word association; If I say "Addiction" what is the first thing that comes to mind?  I'm guessing there are lots of different kinds of drugs.  Cigarettes, alcohol, heroine, cocaine, meth, crack, acid, ecstasy, PCP, caffeine, marijuana, salvia, ketamine, peyote, steroids, inhalants, bath salts, barbiturates, benzodiazepines etc. If you are suburban middle class you might have though of different kinds of drugs: Amytal, Phenobarbital, Valium, Xanax, Ambien, Lunesta, Zoloft, Codeine, Robitussin, Roxanol, Methadose, Sublimaze, Oxycontin, Percocet, Darvocet, Demerol, Dexedrine, Adderall, Ritalin, Vicodin, Soma, Ativan, Fentora, Klonopin, Suboxone, and on and on.  Okay,  but the question I posed in the title is about your specific addiction, and you don't abuse drugs, does that mean you're off the hook? Hardly.

Scholars and scientists recognize many different types of addiction beyond mere substance abuse.  How  about gambling for instance?  There are other rather disturbing addictions, Kleptomania (compulsive stealing) and pyromania (compulsive fire setting) come to mind.  But what about self abuse like cutting yourself, pulling out your hair, popping your pimples, biting your nails, etc.  You might be addicted to sex, shopping, pornography, video games, exercising, or even pain seeking.  Virtually everything that Americans eat is addictive: soda, cheese, fat, salt, sugar, and certainly for me at least, goldfish crackers.

Our addiction to the internet is almost unbelievable there is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Tumbler, Reddit and so many new fads I can't even begin to keep up.  Moreover, how many of you would feel comfortable going out for even a few hours without your cell phone, how about you laptop or tablet.  Can you go a day without watching any TV if you really tried?  Don't even get me started on video games, World of Warcraft is very much like crack-cocaine.


"I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money." - David Lee Roth

"Reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle drugs." - Robin Williams

There are somewhat less harmful addictions: you could be a political junkie or a sports fiend, you might be addicted to celebrity gossip or fashion.  If you are like Monica from the TV show Friends you are probably addicted to  cleaning.  You might be addicted to having children.  Maybe you can't help but being apathetic, critical, judgmental, or narcissistic.  Even reading can be addictive, though far from the worst thing on this list. As a country and a world it is easy to see that we are addicted to Oil, sloth, power and greed.  Addictions run the gamut from personal to social, from destructive to benign, from historic to modern; there is no easy way to classify addicts.  When we judge another for their vices, we are asking them to judge us too.

The question I need an answer to is this: Why do we incarcerate those of us who are addicted to substances but ignore the rest of our addictions?  Even among substance abusers we only seem to care about certain drugs, especially if it appears (rightly or wrongly) that they are used more frequently by minorities.  In what world can we justify decades long mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug addicts.  Addiction is itself defined as an action that we no longer have control over, so why would we punish people instead of helping them, or at least leaving them alone?  If we forced every politician who votes to penalize drug addicts to prove that they themselves were addiction free these laws would be overturned overnight.  I defy anyone to claim that they have no addictions.  The mere thought of that is outrageous.

Let he without addiction lock the first cell...

Republican Problems are Actually an Asset

When House Majority Leader (R-VA) Eric Cantor was defeated in his primary on June 10th by the obscure Economic Professor David Brat the Democrats didn't shed a tear.  They consider this another sign that the Republican Party is split and that this fracture will eventually lead to their demise.  Some even seem to think this has already happened and that the GOP has no legitimate chance to win the 2016 Presidential Election.  Obviously this is an overly optimistic prognostication, but this also belies the fundamental advantage Conservatives have through the Tea Party wing of the conference.  Instead of rejoicing at the infighting that permeates the Republican Party, Democrats should be weary of how this affects the perceived "center" of American politics.

It seems all too simple and easy for the Democrats: continue to propose and vote on popular legislation in the Senate then watch while Tea Party Republicans respond with grenade launchers to any thought of Bi-Partisan compromise.  Spend the rest of your time castigating the GOP for failing to pass anything  and watch while voters respond by sending more Democrats into office in future National elections.  There are many problems with this logic but before I get into them lets begin with the notion that infighting is actually a problem for Republicans.

There should be no doubt that nominating poor candidates cost the GOP several seats during the 2012 Congressional elections (legitimate rape anyone?).  Still, there are very real and tangible benefits that far outweigh the paltry loss of a few legislative seats.  The most important of these benefits is the shifting of the center of American politics to the right.  Let's take a look at what the so called "socialist radical Democrats" are proposing: the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was actually the conservative response to the liberals push for a single payer healthcare system (what every other industrial nation on earth has) in the 1990's, the Senate passed immigration bill includes tens of millions of new dollars to "secure the border" and has an arduous years long path to citizenship, proposed gun legislation grandfathers in all the guns currently floating around this country, the proposed minimum wage hike is still less than what it was decades ago if inflation is counted, cap and trade legislation is another Republican idea that was supposed to be the capitalist approach to dealing with climate change; Democrats are showing up to the bargaining table with what used to be compromise bills between Liberals and Conservatives.  Even when bills are passed and Democrats claim success there are Conservatives secretly rejoicing at how conservative these "bi-partisan" bills have become.  The Farm bill included millions of dollars in cuts to food stamp programs, the VA bill cracks the governments monopoly on Federally covered VA healthcare coverage (not necessarily a bad thing, but I'll save that for another post), and most importantly the routine funding of our governments basic operations was held hostage for deep and indiscriminate cuts to our budget (sequestration, though this has since been remedied by Obama's firm stance and a painful and unnecessary government shutdown).

Furthermore, this infighting has actually invigorated the GOP base for state and local elections.  Eric Cantor was defeated by a relative unknown candidate who garnered less than 40,000 votes.  This election is just a microcosm of what is happening in Republican elections.  The extremely Conservative  base is invigorated and they show up to vote.  These votes matter least during Presidential Elections but play significant roles in smaller local and state elections.  Across this country state legislatures are becoming dominated by Republicans of the Tea Party variety; and more and more this is where the most important legislation is being passed.  The plan is actually entirely genius, elect super conservative state legislators who will do anything to ban abortion and eliminate taxes and pensions and whatnot, then prevent federal legislators from passing anything.  In other words, Washington is doing nothing but Conservative states are making it easier to carry guns and harder to access contraception and abortion.  Democrats can claim victory in Presidential elections and even maintain one of the two houses of Congress, but the only meaningful legislation being passed is in Conservative Statehouses.

Democrats are completely failing to see the big picture.  They think that Republicans will nominate unelectable candidates which would be good news for Democrats, except that most of these "unelectable" candidates end up winning anyway.  This theory sort of works in the Senate but is certainly inaccurate for the House.  Liberals don't seem to get that there are virtually no contested congressional districts anymore, they are quite obviously gerrymandered for one party or another.  The GOP could nominate Vladimir Putin in Eric Cantor's district and he'd win the general election by double digits as long as there is an "R" next to his name.  The question I have, then, is why don't Democrats follow the Republican lead and elect more progressive candidates?  Why didn't we throw out the incumbents who voted for the Iraq war, or who bailed out the banks but left main street hung out to dry?  Why don't we have candidates advocating marijuana legalization and sensible drug laws?  Why are there no candidates who make massive infrastructure investments a key part of their platform? What about a livable wage? Student loan forgiveness? Public works projects? Why are there no climate change absolutists who are willing to shut the government down over what is actually the most pressing challenge of our day?  Why don't Democrats have to fear legitimate primary challenges?  Why are we content to let our platform be "at least we aren't crazy like the guy i'm running against?"  Do Democrats stand for anything or are we just the party of Not-Republicans?

Democrats don't seem to get that sometimes you have to lose a battle or two to win the war.  As long as this attitude continues, Republicans will continue to win at politics… even if they lose elections.

Clinton's new book: This should be top story, but isn't...

On Friday I wrote about some early released information from Hillary Clinton's new book Hard Choices, and singled out what I thought was the most interesting revelation being reported.  Today her book is officially released and the political bashing has begun.  When early reports from her book came out there was something that stood out to me, but didn't seem to gather as much traction elsewhere; Clinton's desire to arm "moderate" Syrian rebels in their uprising against Bashar al-Assad.  This is so interesting because it shows a little friction between her and President Obama, who overruled her desire and refused to send armaments to Syria (at least publicly, cause who really knows right?).  The Neo-Con bashing began immediately, John McCain and Lindsey Graham led the charge. Of course they weren't alone, Mitt Romney supported it, Sen. Bob Corker did too, same with Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.  This, however, only begs the question, if Obama didn't listen to his own Secretary of State or the advice of these Republican (and Democratic) Senators, why isn't this bigger news?

It's all politics of course.  The Democrats have no desire to see Hillary damaged by supporting a foreign policy that is opposed by 3/4 of Americans; nor do they want to show any fractures in what has tended to be a solid and unified foreign policy front.  Republicans have no interests in talking about Syria because it means they have to agree with Hillary Clinton (potentially their big rival in 2016) or they have to take back everything they said and come out in support of Obama's policy (a big no for the neo-cons).  It is almost likely that this story would disappear into oblivion (somehow the media doesn't think this is a story) except there is one man who stands a lot of ground to gain by bringing this story up.  As I mentioned in my first piece (before the book was even released), Rand Paul is the one man who stands to gain from this controversy and I would be surprised to see him let it be forgotten.

Rand Paul himself is often touted as a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and it seems almost certain he will run.  What makes him stand out from a crowded field of Republican candidates is his Libertarian stance inherited from his father, longtime Texas Congressman Ron Paul (and former Presidential hopeful himself).  The Libertarian wing of the GOP stands in stark contrast to the Religious Right and especially the Neo-Cons who have dominated for decades now.  His non-interventionist foreign policy stance stands out in the GOP.  Whats more is that this is actually the preferred position for 75% of Americans, that's why I wasn't surprised to see Rand Paul being the one to actually talk about this issue no one else really wants to discuss.  You can read some comments of his as reported by Burgess Everett of Politico here.  It's buried down at the bottom but he says that "Her eagerness to be involved in war in Syria goes against what 75 percent of the Americans are for" and "That's something she's going to have to explain."  The beauty here is that when he does make her explain this position, he is also going to make Rubio, McCain, Graham, Corker, Romney and  whole host of Republicans explain the same position as Hillary.  This is likely going to be one of the major foreign policy debates leading up to 2016, assuming Rand Paul can deal with agreeing with President Obama on even a single issue.

Follow me on Twitter: @SenBJohnson 

How Will Republicans Handle This?

Hillary Clinton's new book Hard Choices comes out June 10th but already news stories have emerged about some of the revealing details inside.  There is one in particular that stood out to me but does not seem to be getting the same traction as her prediction over the transfer of GITMO detainees for Bowe Bergdahl or anything she has to say about Benghazi.  This little snippet is so interesting to me because it shows a crack in the Democrats' party unity over foreign policy and is an opportunity for Clinton and the GOP to take the same side.

This is why Hillary's claim to have supported arming "moderate" Syrian opposition is so tantalizing.  Obama disagreed with her and overruled her support; deciding instead to provide non-lethal aid and pretty much nothing else.  This, of course, angered the GOP who have spent the better part of 6 years disagreeing with anything Obama said or did.  So here is the problem, since Clinton and Obama disagreed, the GOP is now in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Clinton.  Republicans have exactly zero races left to run against Obama, but potentially 2 presidential campaigns left against Clinton, we can already see that they are moving past the Obama bashing in favor of anything Clinton-Benghazi related.

The question I want answered is: How will the GOP resolve agreeing with Clinton over a foreign policy decision when they are going to want to paint her as weak on foreign diplomatic relations?  Three ideas come to mind, none of which are going to sound too appealing to Republicans.

1)  They can stick to their guns (both literally and figuratively) by arguing that both they and Clinton were right.  Then they can call her a weak Secretary of State for being unable to convince Obama to arm the Syrian opposition.  This, of course, is ludicrous.  Even the highest ranking diplomatic official (Secretary of State) can not overrule the commander in chief (President).  Besides, they are going to want no part of agreeing with Clinton in a potential 2016 presidential race against her.

2)  They could treat Clinton like Obama.  Forget anything you ever said that agrees with something they are in favor of for the opposite approach, no matter how ridiculous and obvious this tactic may be. For obvious reasons this approach won't work either.  They made too big a fuss about Obama being weak in Syria to turn it around and eventually say he was right.  Besides, the neo-cons in the party would not be happy to hear them distancing themselves from anything war related.  The military industrial complex is big money, and a lot of that money goes to the GOP; they literally cannot afford to walk away from being the party of war.

3) They could try to ignore it by doubling down on Benghazi.  This seems like the most obvious strategy for them to take.  They get to continue bashing everything Obama and Clinton without acknowledging any similarities in their own foreign policy positions.  There is just one problem to this plan and his name is Rand Paul.  I think it would be crazy for Paul (assuming he has serious intentions of running in 2016) to allow for this distancing to occur.  He is going to want to play up the fact that his Libertarian non-interventionist foreign policy preferences are diametrically opposed to what Clinton is claiming she supported.  In a race against Clinton, I think he will be happy to distance himself from her in every way possible, even if that means aligning himself up with Obama's stance.  Oh the cruel, cruel irony it will be!  What's more, it might even work.  Obama and Paul's foreign policy approach is actually favored  by the middle class and the "average" voter.  They don't want to see us entangled in dozens of foreign conflicts every presidency.  Paul could actually begin to encroach on the Democratic hold of the middle, rather than just trying to pry the middle to the right (as the rest of the Republicans would prefer).

For the record, I agree with Obama and Paul.  Putting any more weapons out there is only going to make us less safe in the long run.  Anyone remember arming the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union?  The question is whether Paul could capitalize in a hypothetical matchup against Clinton by throwing the rest of the GOP and all the neo-cons under the bus.

Who is your Congressman?

No I'm not referring to the fact that most people don't even know who represents them in the house of representatives.  I'm talking about something far more sinister.  This is about a Supreme Court case that can potentially be far more devastating to our democracy even than the Citizens United case (which opened up unlimited spending in elections from Super Pacs).  It is actually quite crazy that I am just now being made aware of this case since it is already 8 years old, especially since I consider myself quite educated about politics.  The case: League of United Latin American Voters v. Perry.

Ok so a little background is in order.  Every 10 years the Federal Government conducts a Census and then reassign the number of seats each state gets in the House of Representatives according to population changes during the last 10 years.  States that increase their population get more seats and vice versa.  All that is simple enough.  The tricky part is redrawing all the district lines, determining who represents where and whatnot.  This occurs in every state even if they did not change their number of representatives; this is in order to accommodate in state changes such as moving out of rural areas and into cities.  This is not a simple process.  It is one of the most politically divisive, difficult, and contentious activities related to representation.  One big problem is that our Constitution gives each state the right to accomplish this task however they see fit, meaning there is no standard operating procedure.  Many states allow the state legislatures to draw the lines, some (like my home in California) have turned to non-partisan or bi-partisan commissions (often involving former judges) so that the lines are drawn fair.

Ok, so there is no way to determine exactly what is fair.  There is a bunch of legitimate criteria that could be considered fair, some of which is contradictory.  I have spent time studying minority-majority districts and find this to be a perfect example of this problem.  There are legitimate arguments both for and against this intentional race conscious redistricting.  On the one hand these districts are far more likely to elect minority candidates who are then more likely to sponsor minority favored legislation (descriptive representation).  On the other hand, this often requires drawing funky looking districts that pull minority voters out of other districts making them whiter.  The argument here is that there are now less candidates who would favor legislation for minorities.  Furthermore, this process tends to help the Republican Party which, by a wide margin, is not the party of choice for minorities (at least for Southern African Americans).  Basically they claim that the push for descriptive representation actually hurts the minorities it intends to help (substantive representation).  So what's fair?

Well, I think there is one thing that we can all agree is not fair, and that brings me back to the Supreme Court.  In 2003 Republicans took control of the Texas state legislature and decided to redraw the lines again, this time to help out the republicans before the 2004 election.  It worked, the state went from electing 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans to 21 Republicans and 11 Democrats.  All because the lines were redrawn.  But this was no ordinary partisan redistricting; it occurred mid-decade.  That's right, only 3 years after the last time the lines were drawn Republicans decided to do it again.  At the time this was completely unprecedented in modern America.  The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and they ruled that it was within the state's rights to redistrict as often as they like so long as they do it at least once every 10 years after the census.  So in the title when I ask who you congressman is, I'm referring to the fact that at anytime your Congressman can change.  If you live in a Republican state and you are represented by a Democrat who just barely eked out a victory in the last election (that really doesn't happen either since most districts are drawn to be safe for one party or the other, you scratch my back i'll scratch your kinda thing) the Republicans can redraw the district to the next election there is suddenly a 10 point partisan swing in the new district that was represented by the Democrat.

Let's look at how nasty this can get.  In Georgia there is a Democratic Representative in the 12th district, his name is John Barrow.  He is actually the last remaining white Democrat in the South.  Georgia Republicans used a mid-decade redistricting to challenge the vulnerable Democrat (who held on to win anyway).  In 2006 Republicans took control of the Georgia state legislature and, surprise surprise, decided to redraw the lines.  They went after Barrow, even drawing his home in Athens out of his district.  He moved to Savannah and won again anyway- but by less than 1,000 votes.  After the 2010 Census they redrew his district again, this time eliminating his new home in Savannah- while adding Augusta.  Between these two redistricting's the district because far more Republican.  Had it been drawn the way it is now in 2008 McCain would have won it with 58% of the vote, as it was Obama carried it with 54%- that's a huge swing.  Somehow he was continued winning, and has been remarkably placid over all the political shenanigans.  The question remains however, when he eventually loses (or gives up his seat) will a Democrat ever again win in Georgia's 12th.  Maybe if they retake the state house and redraw the lines for themselves...

Wasting Time

I play guitar.  I play guitar everyday.  Mostly acoustic but I also have an electric, a bass and a classical guitar.  It is one of my favorite pastimes, it feels so good to just sit down and play.  I'm not like other guitar players; I've been playing for years but know very few songs.  I don't actually spend time learning other people's songs.  Some of the best advice I got about learning the guitar was this, "if you learn to play like everybody else, you'll end up playing like everyone else."  Of course that can be taken too far, it is important to learn a little bit about music, about chords, about scales and all that jazz; but if you spend all your time trying to learn one generic pop song after another you'll never develop the creative abilities that makes playing guitar so fun for me.

So I had the day off yesterday and didn't do jack.  I literally sat around all day and played guitar, it was glorious but when the day was done I sat back and thought about the whole day I had apparently wasted.  That's when it hit me.  I'm not wasting time, this is what time is for.  This is why I live. We can't spend every waking minute working on some task or some project at the expense of actually living our lives.  Besides, since when is learning a musical instrument a waste of time.  This is what we should be teaching all our children to do.  There are so many studies that show how music education is good for children, not just their well being but also their academic skills.  Playing music sharpens your brain, it is a productive use of time.  I'm done feeling bad about spending my time doing something I love.

I have no illusions about how far guitar playing is going to take me.  Nowhere.  But that fact isn't going to keep me from continuing to play everyday.  That's not why I do it.  I play because it makes me happy.  Being happy is one of only two things I care about in my life; the other being satisfied with my life at my death.  So I have to ask you, what makes you happy?  And when was the last time you enjoyed doing it?  If those are hard questions for you to answer, I think it might be time you re-evaluate your life.  I'm no therapist, but if you can't remember the last time you did something that truly makes you happy, for no other reason than it makes you happy, I feel comfortable saying that it is time for evaluation and change.

I could say more but I'd rather just go play some guitar.  That would make me happy...

A "Voter Fraud" Solution

When Democrats began complaining about Republican efforts to create and enforce voter ID laws I thought that this might be a losing issue for the left.  I mean sure they have the facts on their side but that doesn't make for good campaign speeches or sound bytes.  After all, what is so controversial about making sure that people who show up to vote are actual citizens?  It turns out that there are actually a lot of legitimate American citizens who don't have a photo ID, and those citizens are almost exclusively the poorest and most marginalized citizens; particularly minorities and legal immigrants.  Of course, a majority of these citizens are Democrats (if aligned to a party at all), hence the political and partisan drama.  Many of these people who lose the ability to vote because they can't prove they are who they say they are.  So our efforts to curb a virtually non-existent problem with voter fraud would actually cause much more damage to our democracy than it would help.

So what is a reasonable solution then?  There is a proposal floating around that would put photo identification on social security cards.  This has been sponsored by former Presidents Carter and Clinton and sounds like a pretty genius idea to me.  It would cost about 10 cents per person and would allow every American citizen a free photo ID card, this is helpful far beyond just voting.  Having a valid photo ID is a necessity in modern America and the fact that so many people don't have should be seriously troubling to anyone who cares about our great democracy.  Somehow this proposal has engendered some level of opposition from both sides, lets explore this a little more fully.

Juliet Eilperin and Karen Tumulty's article in the Washington Post points to three critiques of this idea.  Let's start with the most reasonable and work our way down to the more ridiculous.  Rep. John Lewis (D-GA.) points out that this could lead to security concerns surrounding identity/data theft.  If we allow Social Security Cards to be used as valid identification for a whole host of government interactions they would need to be more secure than the current card are.  But lets face facts here, identity theft is already a serious problem, how much would this proposal really add to this already developed problem?  I think in this case we need to make a simple cost-benefit analysis, and there is just no way that I think the costs of this problem would outweigh the benefits of allowing every citizen a free government issues photo identification card.

Dale Ho of the Voting Rights Project at the ACLU has a somewhat different concern.  He argues that this proposal would still discriminate against people at the margin of society.  Relating an anecdote about one ACLU member who had to take an hour bus ride to obtain the necessary hospital records for getting a Social Security Card.  I just can't buy this argument.  Sure we could go to Alaska and find some native Inuit community living in an area that is only accessible by helicopter and make the argument that this would still be too challenging for them, but does that fact mean we shouldn't help the vast majority of the less affluent people in this country obtain a valid ID?  The answer is no.  So I assume the objection here is not that the government would offer these photo ID cards, only that it would be coupled with stricter voter ID laws.  That is reasonable, these laws are not good for the country.  But ignoring the fact that these laws already exist and that people are already being affected by them, and that the courts have shown no interest in intervening, and that more and more they are being adopted by Republican states, and that more people are slipping into poverty as the wealth gap grows and so more people are going to continue to be affected, and that they are effectively having their voices silenced, and that nothing can change unless we get the majority of these people to the polls means we have to act.

Finally, we get to Rand Paul.  "This is a really bad idea…This idea would make it easy for the federal government to convert the Social Security card into a national identification card."  I'm not sure he gets this proposal, it wouldn't make it easy for a national ID card, it would BE a national ID card.  That's the point, we would be enabling people to have a free government issued photo ID card.  I get that he is anti-big government and all, but seriously what is so controversial about a federal ID card?  It would be controversial if we were required to carry it on us at all times or risk being thrown in jail (I'm looking at you Arizona!) but that is not even close to what is being proposed.  Basically this critique argues that the program would work, and somehow that is bad.  I just don't get it, but it'll probably stir up some Tea Party juices somehow.

The reason I love this idea so much is that it exposes the Republican voter ID laws for what they really are, poll taxes that are intended from keeping our most vulnerable citizens from having their voices heard.  In no way is this about voter fraud except as cover for disenfranchising American who don't agree with Republicans.  Never mind all the lessons we learned from Jim Crow era poll taxes and literacy tests.  We might as well return to the early days of the Federation when only white male property owners could legally vote.  This is such a joke I would laugh if it wasn't also so damn serious. So lets all get out that and have our voices heard on this issue, we have to VOTE… if you can that is...