Incompetence?

So the fact that the DEA has seized twice as much weed in 2009 than it did under the last year of the most merciless, and intrusive President probably ever, GWB, makes me wonder: What the fuck is up with our fucking President!? And also: Why can't he getting his fucking shit together?!

The guy who called the war on drugs "an utter failure" and supported marijuana decriminalization when he was running for the Senate, and who promised to call off the DEA's medical marijuana raids when he was running for president, has sought an increase in funding for that utter failure, ridiculed the very notion of marijuana decriminalization, presided over a doubling in marijuana seizures, nominated a hard-line Bush administration holdover to head the DEA, and continued to let the DEA raid medical marijuana dispensaries and grow operations without regard to whether they are following state law, despite a written Justice Department policy to the contrary.

The author leaves out the fact that this is the same guy who joked about his own marijuana use like it was no big deal.

But this startling statistic really raises a bigger issue of whether or not Obama is truly competent. This was the big knock on Bush, and the evidence certain supported the concern: the guy fucked up everything he touched, and his bad decisions were made worse by a lack of preparation, and ideological blindness (see Iraq, the War in). But no one has seemed to raise that at all about Obama... yet. This might be the most tangible example so far, but it's a fair question as to how exactly the President could fail to implement his agenda in an area like this where he has essentially total control over who the leaders are at the DEA and what they are going to prioritize.

Alternative explanations abound: a) Obama doesn't give a fuck about draconian and unjust drug laws; b) Obama doesn't want to open himself up to being "soft on drugs" in an election year, c) Obama was lying to get elected like he was apparently lying about a host of other issues. These make sense superficially, and may all be true in small parts, but all of them have their own problems. With a) of course Obama isn't getting daily updates on the tonage of marijuana being seized, but he is asking for a bigger DEA budget, and surely he must have had a discussion with his new Drug Czar about what he wanted the priorities to be and these stats to look like? If not, then that goes to competence. For b) the problem here is that a moderately-skilled politician would realize that no one gives a fuck about marijuana, politically speaking. Polls show people favor it being decriminalized, or available for sick peopel, if not downright legalized, by significant margins. Surely a modest decrease in enforcement statistics as compared with the Bush admin wouldn't have provided much in terms of Republican ammo. On the flip side, Obama's base will be pretty pissed at doubling down. And c), well that sort of ties into a) and b) in that Obama believes what he campaigned on only to the point that he's willing to put effort into it and doesn't find it too politically costly (see Liberties, Civil). c) is only different to the extent we believe Obama "lied" in the sense that he actually believes the exact oppositie of what he campaigned on - that he truly believes we need to do more to get weed off our streets. That's just too silly, and dishonest even for a craven and calculating politician such as the President.

So, these explanations hardly eliminate the question of competence. Can Obama get his people to do what he wants, and/or does he know how to get what he wants? The lack of overall accomplishments that don't involve throwing money at the problem, the contantly changing tunes out of the DoJ on terrorist trials and other War on Terror issues, and the total failure to get Congress to pass anything with even a slight bit of controversy help to paint a larger picture of a guy who might be out of his depths. Of course Obama is not the C-grade brain, or intellectual sloth that Bush was, but that's not the only measure of incompetence. Indeed, it was the rare occassion that Bush's people were not doing what he wanted, and executing his priorities. Say what you will (I'll probably agree) about Bush, but his people marched in pretty straight fucking lines. And, Say what you will about Obama, but his people seem to serpentine... a lot.

"You can never have too much firepower"

When I read a story about police officers barrelling into a home in full-on body-armor-riot-gear with assault rifles at the ready, I think back to the hilarious (though thankfully fictitious) Detective Billy Rosewood, from the Beverly Hills Cop Movies, played excellently by Judge Reinhold (who, holy fuck!, is 53!!).

Remember, Rosewood? He had an arsenal expansive enough to arm a militia of African freedom-fighters ceremoniously scattered around his small apartment. The dude liked guns. He was good-natured and honest, but he loved the shit out of some guns.

When I see stories like the one above out of Missouri, it makes Rosewood appear less like a caricature in a buddy-action-comedy-cop flick, and more like a character study in police behavior patterns.

I mean how else do you explain this type of conduct by cops? Given that this type of crap happens all the time , can anyone honestly say this is a matter of sound policy judgments? Anyone? Or is it far more likely that instead of Rosewood being the weirdo who's "gotta talk" to his fellow officers, Taggart and Foley, many cops love guns and gear and awesome stuff even more than Reinhold's Billy.

Granted: Guns are fucking cool. I have a little bee-bee gun from when I was like 12 years old (long story) and sometimes I just hold it and point it at my tv. It's harmless, and kinda fun - a good way to de-stress. A bad-ass assault rifle, combined with head-to-toe body armor?! I get it. I get the fuck out of it. But christ on a bike, killing dogs!? Smashing into homes with kids inside!? I don't get that. And even if I did, it's not smart, safe, or anywhere in the ballpark of rational thinking.

This story, and its non-aberrational nature, should truly make every American meditate on the question of exactly what kind of society we are living in, and whether or not we "gotta talk" with the Billy Rosewood that is our regime of law enforcement policies.

"Remember When the Democrats Used Their Huge Majority to Effect Any Change" OR "Cue Tea-Partiers' Big-Government Outrage in 3,456,285...3,456,284...."

Pretty Much

Marijuana Raids

I'm a little late on this, but, it seems clear that we have to reduce Obama's list of accomplishments down from one to zero.

A Fit of Rationality?

The heavy booing notwithstanding, Ron Paul's popularity with "conservatives" could be a harbinger of doom for Democrats.

Paul himself is not a great politician, and almost surely won't be the Republican nominee in 2012, let alone have any chance of beating the President in a general election, but if more Republicans started campaigning on limited government, and Constitutional principles (without sounding like absurd hypocrites) and kept away from the whole pro-torture and anti-gay line of attack, they would doubtless be swept into power in Congress, and probably maintain healthy majorities for years to come.

This would happen for two reasons: 1) Republicans love to play the fear/terrorism card to their base. It works... with the BASE. But, to a good chunk of everyone else, they sound a little angry, reactionary and even crazy. Similarly, Democrats play the "I'm not crazy" card to their base. This is where the Democratic politician, usually some lame, unprincipled and relatively unremarkable clown plays up the fact that she stands for some basic policies that sounds eminently reasonable to your average voter: tough regulations on Wall Street, Healthcare for kids, investing in education, bringing our foreign wars to a responsible end etc. This goes over pretty well, especially compared to a Republican cut from the Sarah Palin mold: railing on about gays getting married, or salivating at the thought of waterboarding someone of Arab descent. Democrats have to win on ideas, and judgment because they can't win on bravado and soundbites, and I like to believe that independents are eventually swayed by the appearance of rationality.

But what if Republicans suddenly started making sense without using fear? What if they could put something substantial on the sound judgment scale? What if they sounded credible while doing it? Just imagine the debate:

Democrat: I will plan to invest in education to help the children, because children are great, and we should help them all get super smart and be awesome!

Republican: Well, I have always valued education as a parent, but I think education is best served by giving power to parents, teachers and communities and taking it away from the federal government. Besides, the Department of Education is wasteful and inefficient, and it's frankly not producing results. Let's send the money back to the taxpayers so they can invest it in their children's education the best way they see fit

I'm guessing, with this approach, Repubs would kill in elections where voters were already leaning away from Democrats and recognizing the inherent dysfunctionality of the federal government.

2) Small government and Constitutional principles, put to work would likely also create good government. Which, if attributed to Republicans' majorities in Congress, would allow them to maintain power. In other words, if a majority (or at least a substantial portion) of politicians in DC were Ron Paul disciples, Americans would see their government become more restrained, less corrupt, less fiscally absurd and therefore more effective. They would like this. They would vote for whom they thought was responsible for it.

But, alas, this love affair is complete and utter bullshit. Soon, conservatives will start saying "I love Ron Paul and all, but I disagree with him on [Drug policy; Foreign policy; Civil Liberty issue X; you name it]." Familiarity with Paul's actual views will breed some serious contempt amongst people who, almost intrinsically, hate civil liberties, love foreign wars, are ok with corporate welfare, and who only use "freedom" as a punchline when talking about lowering taxes.

In the end, Paul is nothing if not principled, and converting (Republican) politicians to a set of actual principles, will be a lot like getting your 70 year-old uncle to stop smoking cigarettes.

"Pizza-Butt"

Andrew Sullivan indirectly makes a very good point here about the pernicious and unintended effects of government regulation an their being unavoidably intertwined with corporate preferences.

Surely few people would object to federal regulations about car safety, and many think that federal regulations could be the solution to environmental problems, by raising emissions standards. But, here we see that government regulations - as insisted on by powerful corporations - are actually obstructing serious progress in the area of more efficient, and enviro-friendly transportation. Unintended consequences are everywhere, and corporations and government are, once again, predictable bed-fellows.

Minus 26

This is pretty dead-on, generally speaking. In sum, Obama's first year scores a minus 26 in terms of restoring the rule of law, according to the ACLU. They reached that score after adding up all the decisions Obama has made and whether those were positive (Plus 1, or Plus .5) or negative (Minus 1, or Minus .5) with respect to that issue, and then added up the total. That means Obama made at least 26 more lawless, non-transparent, or torture-protecting decisions than not.

This number is especially noteworthy considering how oeven-handed and, really, forgiving the ACLU's analysis is. In reading the report I found myself flabbergasted that they only gave out Minus .5s for some decisions, and actually gave pluses for very insignificant things. For example, they gave Plus 1 for things entitled "Guantanamo" and "Future Detainee Policy." Of course nothing has really changed on these fronts, but they gave him credit for setting (missed) goals and setting up commissions or whatever to examine these issues. They also gave out a Plus .5 for the actions entitled "Administration brings charges against ‘enemy combatant’; refuses to give up the power to hold people indefinitely." I'm not sure what in there is supposed to be a positive thing, especially since Obama has now claimed the power of indefinite detention, but here we see that this scorecard is likely just a direct comparison to the Bush Administration. So I guess a lack of blatant disregard for the law altogether gets you a pat on the head.

Which brings us full circle to the idea of just how fucking awful a job you have to do to get a score of Minus 26, when you are being compared to 8 years of Fuck-up Magee, the most lawless President in American History. Did I mention how much I agree with this report?