Going against the grain is rare in American politics. I was reminded of this by seeing “Capitalism, A Love Affair,” Michael Moore’s most recent film. I didn’t get to see it in the theaters but saw it on DVD, and I cheered as Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., spoke truths that no one wanted to hear.

I am from Ohio and although I left when I was 14, I always return there with a sense of pride knowing that Ohio folks have a special ability to touch on the values that are important to all Americans. Kaptur’s speech deserves a Profile in Courage Award because what she said was quite bold, even if it went unnoticed by most of the press.

When the first part of the bailout occurred, Marcy Kaptur’s speech on the floor of the House went right after former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. “Instead of prosecuting those who stole from us, Secretary Paulson wants us to reward his former colleagues for their bad decisions, abusive and unlawful practices,” she said.

Kaptur continued, “While my constituents are struggling to pay their gas bills, we should recall fondly the record annual bonuses Secretary Paulson’s alma mater, Goldman Sachs, gave less than two years ago. In 2006, that investment house alone paid $16.5 billion in compensation to its employees averaging more than $600,000 per employee. In fact, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got $53.4 million that year. And Bear Stearns chief executive officer, the company that the Fed just bailed out with our money, James E. Cayne, got a stock bonus that year worth $14.8 million. Merrill Lynch chief executive officer Stanley O’Neal, he got $35.4 million. Think about this, America.”

Kucinich also weighed in on the bailout, pointing to the fact that helping out people with their mortgages would have made a huge difference (and would most likely have saved the banks at the same time). “The public is being led to believe that Congress has reconsidered its position because we have before us a better bill than we had a few days ago. It is the same bill plus hundreds of new pages for hundreds of millions of tax breaks. What does this have to do with the troubles of Wall Street?

“Driven by fear we are moving quickly to pass a bill, which may produce a temporary uptick for the market, but nothing for millions of homeowners whose misfortunes are at the center of our economic woes. People do not have money to pay their mortgages. After this passes, they will still not have money to pay their mortgages. People will still lose their homes while Wall Street is bailed out,” said Kucinich.

Sanders went against the prevailing wisdom, saying, “While the middle class collapses, the richest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top 0.1 percent now earn more money than the bottom 50 percent of Americans, and the top 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.”

These three members of Congress said things that were quite shocking for elected officials to say during the worst financial crises this country had in decades. It took guts and courage. This week should bring forth both speeches and votes that take political courage. This will not be easy to do but necessary for the American people and our democracy.

Ellen Ratner is the White House correspondent and bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service. She is also Washington bureau chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a news analyst at the Fox News Channel.

I remember my interview with the general quite well during the Democratic National Convention of 2004. He was then a surrogate for candidate Kerry. I am known by Democrats and Republicans alike as being a fair interviewer and not given to gotcha tactics. Gen. McPeak did not like me and did not like my interview, including my questions about gays in the military. He got up and rocked the table. I then asked my Air Force friends about the general, to find out that people disliked him so much during his tenure that they left the Air Force and went into civilian life. Gen. McPeak’s arguments in the New York Times about gays in the military focused on the issue of unit cohesion, an issue he seemed little interested in during his time, preferring instead to focus on high-cost follies.
This is the guy who is known for spending taxpayer money in ill-conceived ventures when he was chief of staff of the Air Force. Some of his more notable decisions when he was in that position include changing the uniform for military personnel. The change was despised, and after he left was quickly changed back.

He is also known for instituting total quality management in the Air Force, a technique that has been successfully used in business, but in the form he instituted was not suited to Air Force structure. Quickly, his total quality management became known not at TQM but as “To Quote McPeak.” There was an even worse name for it, but I’m not going to put it in print. Many in the Air Force believe that this cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, although I’ve not seen any studies backing this.
Next, Gen. McPeak came up with an idea to create a bonus for pilots but make them sign up for an additional five years. Many of those who did not sign up for the bonus could not fly and found themselves in desk jobs in the Air Force. An interesting analysis of this and other management decisions by Gen. McPeak was written by William J. Dalonzo for the Air Command and Staff College in 1999. He titled his paper “McPeak’s Follies, A Comprehensive Look at Rates Management in the 90s.” In another management decision, Dalonzo says, “In just four days McPeak created a pilot bank which would grow to encompass 1,100 deferred pilots.”

It wasn’t enough that McPeak caused so many problems in the Air Force. He also signed up to be one of then-candidate Obama’s military advisers. I had the opportunity during the campaign to say to Susan Rice that Gen. McPeak was going to be a big mistake. She dismissed my comments, but shortly after, McPeak got himself in some trouble on the campaign trail. Gen. McPeak, referring to Hillary Clinton, said that Obama doesn’t go on television and have crying fits. It was then that some of his more notable quotations were found. He had said that if things would work right, we would be in Iraq for a century, and he also said that we should not hope for a democratic Iraq (the Oregonian).
Another interview was dug up where he inferred Jewish influence on American policy, saying that “we have a large vote, New York City, Miami … and no politician wants to run against it.” Needless to say, McPeak’s dreams of getting a big Obama administration job did not come true. But like many of these guys he is now resurfacing, commenting on what would work well in the military when he couldn’t make the military work well.
As his arguments in the New York Times on gays in the military focused on unit cohesion, perhaps he should stay with that issue. He ought to know about cohesion in the military because he probably most single-handedly increased unit cohesion when he was in charge. The cohesion was a force like no other against his policies.

Similarly, when we speak of God’s will, we seek to describe something beyond our understanding, yet apparently true to God’s nature. This revelation helps me to stop being resentful when the world turns out not to be designed for my satisfaction. It becomes clear that I need to simply cooperate with God’s will and celebrate the blessing that I was created to have a unique intimacy with God.

When all else fails; when you seem abandoned; we always can turn to faith. It seems whether it is writing, artistic endeavors, athletic events, or more importantly everyday life we hit a wall. The wall stares us in the face and we cannot go over it or around it. Our energy empties into a silence that is beyond words.

It is during these times we need to trust (have faith) in those deep plunges into quiet and stillness. They end up being fruitful in the long run if we avoid panic. It is time to allow these times to force us back into a discussion with God. Not that answers will be forthcoming, but we learn that God’s presence is there for us and understands. When we hit that wall in life God is saying, “be quiet, be still, relax, and let’s talk.”

Lent is the ultimate time to engage our senses on our faith. Have faith that it will be fruitful in the long run.

I am not a big fan of using the word suffering. It seems to be overused and exaggerated. However, today’s passage rings true. Perhaps we can use a different word but if we fear something it in some ways controls us. If I fear that I have an unknown health issue, for example, then that fear consumes my existence and health. If I fear the loss of someone close to me, then I am already losing that individual. There are a million examples. The psalmists ask God not to eliminate their problems but to take away for their fears for a reason. Jesus says, ” Fear not.” for a reason.

This Lent let us concentrate on the elimination of our fears not our problems. Talk to God about those fears and God will ease them.

March 4, 2010 | 0 comments | View Post

Think of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel mural. Mighty muscular God stretches God’s full arm’s length to one fingertip and brings Adam into being. What Michelangelo doesn’t depict is what comes next, nor do we know ourselves, but we can surmise. God withdraws and although the spark of light given us by God remains; we are on our own to use it as we deem fit. There is a space now as God takes his arm away that a void requires us to fill.

We can continue to reach out to God or we can move our arm in a different direction. The choice is ours. We may go in another direction, but later return our finger seeking out God later. No matter what, that initial spark, that initial touch, remains with us forever.

One hearing this week was conducted by the House Veterans Affairs committee and looked into the relationship between medication and veteran suicide. Chairman Bob Filner, D-Calif., said that with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, and Traumatic Brain Injuries, or TBI, being the signature wounds of the current war in Iraq and Afghanistan, mental health issues have “taken center stage.”

The hearing focused on the two different viewpoints on psychiatric medications and suicide. Indeed, there have been articles in the popular press this week dealing with just that topic, but they’re unrelated to the hearings taking place in Congress. The Veterans Administration said Rep. Harry Mitchell, R-Ariz., has been proactive with veterans and overturned its self-imposed ban on television advertising as a method to encourage vets to get to help. Rep. Mitchell said that what began as a small Washington, D.C., area pilot program has been expanded nationally. They now have a hotline for veterans that received nearly 225,000 calls, and Mitchell credits this hotline with saving 7,000 lives.

There was testimony during the hearing on both the pro and con sides on the issue of antidepressants. One psychologist testified that treatment consisting of both psychotherapy and medication far outweighs the observed risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. He said that for high-risk suicidal individuals, medications can be very effective in managing symptom severity such as sleep disturbance, agitation and anxiety even during periods of imminent risk. He believes that with medication and crisis management and with a concerted effort to engage at risk lives of veterans can be saved.

Biostatistics professor Andrew Leon suggested that depression increases the risk of suicide, and to reduce suicidal risk clinicians must carefully monitor veterans with depression, whether they are treated or untreated. He said that a cause-and-effect relationship has not been established between antidepressants and suicide. Donald Farber, retired attorney for the U.S. Navy, said antidepressants did cause suicide and that manufacturers would not secretly settle wrongful death suits for large sums it did not have a cause and effect. He was concerned that the VA needed more structured monitoring of antidepressants. He said he believed the VA and the Department of Defense would be doing members a disservice if risky drugs are administered without safeguards patients in private practice receive at the recommendation of the FDA. He believes the VA should have independent monitoring of the risk of suicide for veterans taking antidepressants.

Another hearing that went unnoticed this week took place at the House Committee on Energy and Environment. The title of the hearing was “Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in Drinking Water: Risks to Human Health and Environment.” Briefly stated, the problem is that although naturally occurring substances can be endocrine disrupters, too much of what goes into our water table has long-term effects. They have shown that even a low-dose exposure of BPA can effect brain development structure and function in rats and mice. The potential health effects can be linked to non-cancer abnormalities of the reproductive system, precocious puberty and disorders of fertility. In addition, they believe diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease can also be influenced. Chairman James Moran, D-Va., said this problem of disorders of the human endocrine system is seriously undermining the health of our nation. He said disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder, obesity and diabetes began to noticeably increase in the 1970s when the first generation exposed in the womb to post-World War II synthetic chemicals reached maturity.

What does all this bad news mean? It means that all the back-and-forth arguing we saw at the health summit was a ridiculous waste of time. We can spend and spend and spend on health care, but unless we do the basic science, it is pouring money down the drain. That drain may be filled with toxic chemicals. My dear friend, Jim Pinkerton, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, came up with an idea for what he calls “serious medicine.” His view is that our health-care money should not go to making sure people can get a sprained ankle fixed in the ER but to more serious issues that will have a great impact at reducing disease. He believes that we need to take a look at the very serious problems that are occurring in health care and find a way to solve them. Pinkerton says polio and antibiotics were all the result of serious medicine. I disagree with Jim that we don’t need universal health care. However, he’s right that we can have all the universal health care in the world, but it will be for naught if we don’t solve the serious medicine problems and get to the root cause of major health-care issues. It’s a shame these two hearings were overlooked this week because it really points to the larger, more serious problem for which we need initiatives such as Jim Pinkerton’s “serious medicine.”

Ellen Ratner is the White House correspondent and bureau chief for the Talk Radio News service. She is also Washington bureau chief and political editor for Talkers Magazine. In addition, Ratner is a news analyst at the Fox News Channel.

I am not a biblical scholar but the glory of the Psalms is their universal accessibility, so you do not need to be a professor to read and love them. These often breathtakingly beautiful poems build on layers of meanings and moods. Psalm 8 is a poem of awe. The writer goes outside and realizes without the benefit of a telescope just how vast the universe it is. Overcome by this emotion, the psalmist has an appreciation of what it must have been like for our world to be brought into being. The poet’s awe is twofold. The first part focuses on the Creator who made it. That is soon accompanied by the self-consciousness of what it means to be an appreciative human being, someone who has been given the power to respond to our vast universe and its designer.

This Lent allow yourself some “Wow” moments. They go beyond language. They give us words for amazement at what God has done.

What factor brought on this change?

Perhaps I was changed as a result of the outrageous acts that intelligent and apparently cultured people continually do to each other. As one national and social outrage followed another, I began to doubt that looking only to human models as the source of values could or should guide us. I needed to be open to the possibility that some Ultimate Source of value ( God) should direct me, if only I would pay attention.

I attend Church now, not for social interaction predominantly ( although a Sunday brunch after the service is a gift from God); but for a thoughtful sermon about our relationship with God. I want the music and mood to touch me, and to leave a feeling that I have been in the presence of God.

Lent is a time to examine why we need God’s presence and pray that it occur more and more.

I wondered this morning why such a small disturbance could bring on such emotions. More serious disturbances are greeted with thoughts of “nothing I can do to change…” and/or “ such is life.”

I sometimes think of Lent as a “decluttering” or “cleaning out the closets.” We need to occasionally remove things that have been building up that just get in our way to a better relationship with God. There a little things in our lives that seem to disturb us and put us in a bad mood. We can use Lent as a time to remember to enjoy life’s commute.

Credentials are so much our society. We need to know where you went to school, where have you worked, in DC especially one’s credentials are critical in where one can work, what you can speak about, and your place in society. Who you are, is more important than what one actually has to say.

This is not unique to the current generation. Christ was not accepted in his own home. This Lenten season let us all try to be a little more accepting to individual without the appropriate resume’. The individual whose has learned through experience how to be a professional may teach us more than the individual who occupies the building.

The poverty, of course, was overwhelming. But the sheer magnitude of the damage does not convey on television. There is street after street of earthquake damage and rubble with no hope of any quick relief. Modern technology saved so many people via their cell phones as they were able to call for help from under the concrete they were stuck in. There were many others who used their cell phones to call for help, but there was no way to dig them out of the rubble without heavy equipment that could not arrive.

Like a scene from “Planet of the Apes,” the presidential palace, supposedly built to earthquake standards, looked like something blown up for a Hollywood movie. It is hard to believe that 35 seconds could do so much damage. There was what was clearly and amazingly beautiful Catholic church that was completely wrecked but which had a huge cross with Jesus welcoming worshipers still standing. Everywhere there were signs of life and death next to each other.

What was amazing was how people worked together, showing the very best of the human spirit. Israeli planes with supplies were being unloaded next to planes from Arab countries that won’t allow Israeli citizens in their states. Chinese planes were unloaded with the guidance of the U.S. military. No one cared. Everyone worked together to provide relief.

Religious groups worked together without much care about their theology differences. Scientologists emptied bedpans at the hospital set up by the University of Miami. Catholics worked beside atheists, or even locals who have one foot in the voodoo world. Medical professionals gave up a week of their vacation time to volunteer.

The problem is that Haiti is going to need a lot more than perhaps the world is ready to give. It is going to take years, not months, to get the country operational. Approximately 400 schools were destroyed and the middle class was virtually wiped out. They were the teachers at universities and managers at banks and buildings that crumbled. Their equivalent of the Supreme Court was demolished with 200 employees inside it.

Haiti’s government has never been solid and has had monumental changes from Pappa Doc and Baby Doc to Aristide. The current government is well liked but considered ineffective. Fortunately, there has been progress before the earthquake. Police considered poorly trained and often brutal are getting a better reputation, thanks to an international training program using forces such as the New York City Police Department. International organizations such as Partners In Health and Cross International have been working in Haiti for years before the earthquake.

It is going to take concerted effort and coordination by countries such as the U.S. and France to make the difference needed. It’s going to take medical volunteers giving up their vacations, not just this year but in future years, to deal with a country that had little and has even less now.

Basic problems – such as how to get Florida Dade County’s donated classrooms to Haiti and set up on land with proper drainage – need to have leadership so the donations don’t go to waste. This is hard to do in a country where problems have gone unsolved for decades and its leaders have the added difficulties of stress and loss to cope with.

The only solution is to keep the pressure up for people to stay involved and not to write one check and feel they have done their deed. Haiti is a mirror that we can hold to look at the richness of America and how we can make the world a better place with our efforts.

It is not surprising that after he left Congress and the governorship he decided to make education his life’s work. He is now the president of the Alliance For Excellent Education. A recent study from the Alliance showed that every school day more than 7,000 students become dropouts, adding to about 1.3 million students who will not graduate from high school with the class they started out with in first grade. The numbers are quite shocking. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census’ statistics released in 2006, a high-school dropout would have an average annual income of $17,299. A high-school graduate would earn an average income of $26,933. If they continued on in a community college, they could earn and average of $36,645 by obtaining an Associates degree.

The Alliance’s study also pointed to the fact that when an economic downturn hits, dropouts are much more likely to be unemployed. High-school dropouts have faced the most difficulty in finding a job during a downturn in the economy. The unemployment rate for dropouts in July of 2009 was 15.4 percent, compared to 9.4 percent for high-school graduates and 7.9 percent for people with some college.

With data that will shock the objective observer, “The Harsh Truth About Public Schools” explains why more Americans are yanking their kids from the government system

The statistics for low-income families also are not pretty. The Department of Education found that high-school students of low-income families dropped out of high school at six times the rate of their peers who were from high-income families. Achievement also is part of the mix, with nearly one-quarter of the lowest-achieving students having a whopping 20 times the dropout rate.

These are scary numbers, but even scarier is what happens in terms of the drain on local and state economies. States with high dropout rates can’t collect as many taxes, they have to spend more on the social safety net, and it is harder to attract business with a population that does not have the skills businesses need. The Alliance For Excellent Education also found some other startling statistics. According to their study, high-school graduates are less likely to be teen parents and less likely to commit crimes or rely on government health care. High-school graduates use less public services such as food stamps or housing assistance. It is well-known that it costs almost double to keep somebody in prison for a year than it does to pay for a year of solid education.

President Bush made education a centerpiece of his administration and raised awareness of the need for educational standards. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests have been able to track changes in educational achievement. It has been a good start, but there is not enough money and early childhood education put behind this effort. It has also has focused on elementary and middle grades and not enough about the higher grades.

Way back in the ’60s, film director Fred Weisman made a documentary called “Hight School.” Watching the documentary, you see students being completely turned off to the educational process. This should have been a wake-up call – and although the documentary has stood the test of time, our educational policies have not.

Gov. Sarah Palin and the tea-party people can talk all they want about how great this country is and can be; however, greatness takes real work and real money. If we do not put our resources behind education and make our high schools responsive to students and to our country’s needs, we will lose our place in the global economy. Gov. Wise points out that 30 years ago the United States was the world leader in both quantity and quality of high-school and college graduates, but now the United States’ 15-year-olds have fallen to 15th of 29 OECD countries in reading literacy. In mathematics literacy, American 15-year-olds ranked 24th of 29 in OECD countries. This is shocking and shameful, and no matter what the rhetoric, without laser-beam attention to this problem we will continue to lag behind other industrialized countries and lose our competitive advantage as a nation. We can’t afford not to put all our efforts behind improving our high schools.

Shining the camera lights on the president’s speech and the questions he took gave a rare glimpse into a discussion that is really quite different than one at a standard press conference. Someone even suggested that the questions were so good and detailed that perhaps the press should yield their seats to the president’s political opposition and let them ask questions at the daily briefings and press conferences.

The president not only came out swinging, but also showed that he has an in-depth knowledge of the concerns that Republicans have. He also proved that he has read their legislation. President Obama took the jobs program and the stimulus package head on and was able to quote a current CNN poll saying “Americans disapprove of stimulus but like every policy in it.” President Obama then said, “If you broke it down into its component parts, 80 percent approved of the tax cuts, 80 percent approved of the infrastructure, 80 percent approved of the assistance to the unemployed.” The president also did not let the Republicans paint him with the job loss. He knew the numbers and was able to articulate what happened right before he took office and in the two months after. He defended the stimulus plan by quoting statistics that exposed what numbers would have been like if there had not been a stimulus package.

Always the orator, Obama was also able to poke right back at the Republicans on issues such as what happened with infrastructure money that many of us know as “shovel-ready projects.” He ribbed at the Republicans saying, “A lot of you have gone to appear at ribbon cuttings for the same projects you voted against.” He did not take the bait when asked if he would consider supporting across-the-board tax relief as President Kennedy did. He offered to take a look at what the Republicans were proposing and said that what they may consider to be a across-the-board tax cuts could be greater tax cuts for people who are making $1 billion. He said he might not agree to a tax cut for Warren Buffett.

The White House press corps was admonished for bringing up the issue of not having coverage of the health-care bill on C-SPAN. The president took down and hit that out of the ballpark by saying that so many of the hearings on the health-care bill were broadcast. He also stated that, as president, he took responsibility for not having structured the discussion in a way that it took place in one setting where it could have been filmed. The performance of the president made me wish he would come out daily and answer questions. Perhaps the questions would be tougher, but the answers would come directly from the horse’s mouth.

On the health-care issue, the president was well-versed. He had read H.R.3400 and said it was important to put any bill to the test. Lowering health-care premiums, tort reform and selling insurance across state lines had to really work, not just be boilerplate fixes. He also pointed out that purchasing insurance across state lines might result in cherry-picking, leading to the healthiest being able to purchase insurance and others somehow getting left out of the process.

For policy wonks and average citizens, we were treated to something that you don’t see in a presidential press conference, a State of the Union speech or in the spin room afterwards, and you certainly don’t see in the daily press briefings at the White House or in the Congress. We ought to ask for more of these, just like the British do during prime minister’s questions. That’s the time when people making the laws get to ask direct questions of the government. We saw how it worked Friday, and hopefully we’ll be fortunate to view much more of this. If at least two of our three branches of government have a lively and honest discussion, then just maybe our great democracy will become richer in the process.

Every president has his portrait painted early on in his first term. The figurative portrait of President Obama the public sees is the gilded orator who can give a great speech but fails to produce the necessary action. It doesn’t matter if that is the full truth about the president it is how he has been painted by public opinion. President Obama must address that perception in his State of the Union speech on Wednesday night. His address needs to be an action speech.

The president must outline his plan to get America working again. It has to be bold and specific. He must acknowledge that while the stock market has begun to rebound there are too many people under-employed or unemployed. He needs to propose legislation and then tell the Republicans that if they have a plan, it cannot be just a “cut taxes and wait plan,” but it must be a real plan. He ought to announce that he will be holding office hours at The White House over the next four weekends. He should then invite Republicans to come over and present any plans and legislation they have.

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This week changed the American landscape considerably. On Tuesday, the nation witnessed a Republican score a come-from-behind, five-point win in Massachusetts for the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. It was an unexpected win for the Republican Party. Then on Thursday, the Supreme Court decided a case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that should have a profound effect on elections in this country.

Examining Scott Brown’s win is not so easy. It was, in some respects, a perfect storm. I have spent more time living in Massachusetts than in any other place, and I feel I have a pretty good handle on what makes Massachusetts tick. First, it tends to vote for national office in a very Democratic way. However, Massachusetts residents believe in fiscal responsibility and divided government. From the early days of the Pilgrims to the idea of a Boston common, Massachusetts has always gone its own way.

People read gay marriage as being on the left side in Massachusetts. That is definitely a wrong read. It has much more to do with individual liberty and the Yankee go-your-own-way when it comes to personal relationships. This is also true of New Hampshire, where gay marriage became legal in January, and where the state slogan is “live free or die.”

Almost 50 percent of the voters in Massachusetts are registered independents. It is not uncommon to see these folks vote for a Democratic member of the House or Senate, and then vote for a Republican governor. Since most people in Massachusetts have health insurance, most residents are wary of a federally controlled health-care program in which both costs and the details have not yet been ironed out. The good people of Massachusetts have also been concerned about jobs going away in addition to runaway federal spending. Massachusetts has never been wildly liberal when it comes to fiscal responsibility. Michael Dukakis once became a popular politician there for pledging to take a meat cleaver to the budget.

The other reason Brown won Massachusetts is because he operated like President Obama did during the campaign. He talked to everybody as he drove around the state in his truck. His opponent, Martha Coakley, didn’t even want to go stand outside Fenway Park and shake hands. She reportedly took the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. For her, that time would’ve been the perfect opportunity to spend with families who have lost their jobs. She completely blew her chance of convincing Massachusetts voters that she would go to Washington to fight for them.

Here’s the lesson President Obama needs to learn from the Massachusetts election: Americans want jobs; they don’t want to see their president vacationing in Hawaii (even if it is his home state) while they are having trouble putting food on their tables. Imagine if Obama had taken his Christmas vacation and spent time with various families in high unemployment states who are having trouble making it.

The other problem for Democrats is that Obama is being seen by many as caring about large banks, but not small mortgage holders. It doesn’t matter that much of these rescue policies we’ve seen lately started under President Bush. If you are sitting at your kitchen table wondering how you’re going to pay your mortgage, and then watch as large bonuses go to executives whose companies have been rescued by the government, you’re not going to be happy.

From a public-relations standpoint, the Supreme Court ruling in the campaign finance case was another small victory for Republicans. It has allowed them to argue that the decision will restore free speech rights to more Americans in that corporations are regular people, just like you and me. Many of the conservative talk show hosts I report for believe the net effect of the ruling will be that corporations will soon gain an upper hand on the unions. They equate giving corporations the freedom to spend unlimited money on campaign ads with true free speech.

Conservative talk-show hosts can tout the ruling as much as they want, but the pendulum will wind up swinging back after America gets a taste of corporate ads directly influencing elections. What the Supreme Court failed to point out is that corporate boards have a fiduciary responsibility to spend money only when it produces results. Therefore, placing ads that support specific candidates means that corporations will want to get a certain result from elections. If this is not legalized bribery, I don’t know what is.

Between the Massachusetts election and the Supreme Court decision, Republicans are high-fiving it this week. However, they’d better beware as neither the Massachusetts nor the court decision represents a paved road to Republican dominance. Voters will eventually smarten up and demand government that is responsive and smart. It might take years to overturn the Supreme Court decision through either legislation or new blood on the bench, but it will happen. Scott Brown had better vote independently in the Senate, or he will be gone in 2012.

That was Gibbs’ response to my question at Wednesday’s White House briefing about the results of the Massachusetts Senate election. It’s a surprising and disturbing admission.

I suggested in my question that it’s surprising that the President is surprised. He’s the head of the Democratic Party. He’s presumably aware of the state of politics in the country. I pointed out that the losses in New Jersey and Virginia had already been bad for the Democrats. I asked why he is surprised. Is he a little out of touch with what is going on in the country? Is he not being adequately briefed?

Gibbs said more. He said the surprise and frustration happened over many days, and that when people are asked does the President care about people like you, 70 percent of the people say yes.

I don’t want my president to be surprised by political developments in his own party. I want him to be informed. I want him to be briefed. I want him to be in touch with where the voters are.

Also surprising was a reply Robert Gibbs gave to a question asked in a gaggle last week. He was asked why liberals are less enthusiastic or less inspired than they were in 08. He said:

“I don’t know (long pause) why some segment of political observers don’t seem to be as motivated.” He went on to give a long answer about “going forward with new ideas for economic recovery and creating a new foundation, or going back to some of the policies that caused this type of economic devastation to take place”.

But it was “I don’t know (long pause)” and what followed that struck me as his first, most natural response. He really didn’t know.

If President Obama is going to be surprised, then a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti should be about the only thing that should do it.

The President seems to have thought about his administration’s disconnect with the American people because in his interview with George Stephanopoulos, he said “I think, you know, what they ended up seeing is this feeling of remoteness and detachment where there’s these technocrats up here making decisions. Maybe some of them are good, maybe some of them aren’t, but do they really get us and what we’re going through?”

The answer is that he’s partly right; people didn’t think he got them last year, but communicating better to the American people, which is what it seems the White House thinks it needs to do now, is not the whole answer. They’ve got to be able to hear from the American people, and right now they’re not even understanding what motivates their base.

If the White House hadn’t wasted half the year trying to be bipartisan (i.e. one vote) on health care, they could have had it long before the Massachusetts election.

Lesson: Washington in 2010 is not a bipartisan town. Three senators working on energy is not tripartisanship. Give it up. The country’s not interested, and it will drain time and resources. Focus on jobs, deficit reduction, the economy and bank regulation. Be passionate.

The White House lost liberals because they gave up the public option, escalated in Afghanistan, seemed cozy with Wall Street, followed Bush on national security decisions, etc.

The President was surprised. Robert Gibbs was surprised and didn’t know. Was Rahm Emanuel surprised? What did David Axelrod know? If the Democrats don’t turn this around and salvage something in November, then what did the President know and when did he know it will take on a whole new meaning.

This reporting requirement is small solace given that we will now see BILLIONS of dollars flooding into the 2010 election seasons with Internet, television, newspaper and radio ads.We learned today from the Supreme Court that corporations have the same First Amendment rights that as you and I do and that Congress can’t put special restrictions on corporations. The majority said that “when a government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information…it uses censorship to control thought.”

Read the full article at FOXNews.com

Having seen the devastation firsthand after Hurricane Katrina, I know that it takes years to rebuild. Right after Hurricane Katrina, the Methodist bishop of Mississippi said it would be 10 days of emergency, 100 days of relief and 1,000 days of recovery. Most of what the bishop said has been true, although it has taken more than 1,000 days of recovery. The Hurricane Katrina disaster happened in our country, with relative wealth compared to Haiti. It is very clear that the emergency phase is going to be more than 10 days. The emergency phase will be more like 100 days. Relief will take many months. Recovery will take many years.

Many of us know how very long it has taken to rebuild one small patch of New York after Sept. 11. We know about the stories of loss and pain that families have had to endure. People in Haiti have to attend to rescuing who they can and, at the same time, deal with loss of friends and family. Having to function at that level, given the amount of loss, is a testament to human strength.

Because of how busy our lives are, we may forget Haiti relatively quickly. Having witnessed on a month-by-month basis recovery of our Gulf Coast, it will need concentrated effort and giving by many of us who have resources and those of us who don’t have many resources at all. What is different about this disaster, because of the poverty, is that every little bit helps.

Getting people food, shelter and clothing is one piece of the current emergency work. Helping people to recover emotionally is something that is not being talked about. Post-Katrina, it has taken years for emotional recovery. The Lutheran Church came to the Gulf Coast the summer after the storm and made a huge difference in children’s lives. They sponsored Camp Noah, which encouraged children to tell their stories to a stuffed animal they had chosen. The process of telling their stories allowed the staff at the camp to be able to find children who needed immediate intervention. Most of the staff were not trained in mental health or caring individuals from the community. It was relatively easy to find children who needed help and intervention to get their lives back on track.

What concerned Americans need to do now, is to raise money and send supplies, clothing and whatever else is needed. What needs to happen in the long run is that Americans, who care about our brothers and sisters in Haiti, come up with creative and long-term solutions. From a Camp Noah type of intervention to helping develop quick housing and perhaps micro-enterprise solutions, we need to develop ideas that can help the Haitian people. We have so many people out of work in this country that perhaps there is a way of taking some of their time and energy and having them spend time in Haiti developing the kinds of solutions that can make a difference.

Almost every faith-based group in this country has a volunteer effort. Unemployed people with skills can offer their help. Families can give up their vacations to help in Haiti, and even little children can have their lemonade stands send a few dollars to our southern neighbors. Americans are compassionate. With our understanding that the Haitian recovery is going to take years of our help and ingenuity, we can show the world how great America really is.

Rush Limbaugh pretends to be a populist, a man of the people. Pat Robertson pretends to be a man of God. Both are nouveau aristocrats.

Limbaugh claims President Obama is using the relief effort to gain points (”burnish their, shall we say, credibility”) with the African American community. “It’s made to order for him.” With the exception of Michael Steele and Armstrong Williams, didn’t the African American community vote for Obama?

He suggests that because Obama has directed people to the White House’s web site, maybe your money might not be going to Haiti, and your name might end up on a mailing list. So on the one hand, Obama is sending masses of military might to actually help Haiti, but on the other hand, he is secretly squirreling away donations from kind and distressed Americans (somehow – not clear how, as the money goes to the Red Cross) for – ?

Limbaugh’s most obscene, astonishing comment is “Besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti. It’s called the U.S. income tax.” Limbaugh talks disparagingly about the liberal elite, but this is where he betrays himself as the true nouveau aristocrat – rich elitist, jingoistic, cruel. Give him powder and a wig. Tumbrils, anyone?

As for Pat Robertson, he claims the Haitians made a deal with the Devil, (who said OK) to get out from “under the heel of the French”, “uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever”. He goes on to say “the Haitians revolted and got themselves free.” Hello. If the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, then ipso facto – and I’m going by what Robertson says – then they did not need the Devil. Apart from the idiocy of this, it is ignorant (see Juan Cole’s piece in Informed Comment), but all of a piece with his disgusting perversion of religion.

Robertson blamed September 11 on the United States: “because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us”, and among other things, because the Supreme Court had insulted God. As for Katrina, it was a good thing for John Roberts who was coming up for confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. It might intimidate Democratic senators into not asking questions about abortion and other conservative issues.

A nouveau aristocrat, Robertson has had no problem in the past aligning himself with human rights violators Charles Taylor of Liberia or Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Gold and diamonds shimmered in the shadows.

Stay tuned for Limbaugh’s next inevitable aristocratic swill. Because there is only one airstrip at Haiti’s airport, because the roads in many places are almost impassable, and because civil authority has virtually collapsed, Limbaugh will attack the Obama administration’s
aggressive, and so far well coordinated response as incompetent, ineffective and a rip off of your good will.

God only knows what Robertson will say.

When you dig deep down into the actual statistics of the 12 percent, some of it is by youth on youth, but the majority is by staff on youths. The big shocker in the statistics is that 95 percent is victimization of male clients by female staff. Of the youth who had been victimized by staff, about 40 percent was by force and 60 percent was without force or threat. However, the phrase “without force or threat” can be somewhat misleading as youth are very dependent on staff in a facility. An older staff member can be very seductive, offer favors, or just be kind to a frightened and emotionally disturbed adolescent. The older staff member can also give the perception that if the victim does not go along with the incident, life can become difficult inside the facility. Therefore, some of the intimidation can be for favors or some can be to just survive without problems.

Six of the facilities looked at by the Justice Department had abuse rates of 30 percent or more. Some of the youths who had experienced sexual assault, either by another youth or by a staff member, had actual physical injuries. One in five youths were injured by their sexual assault. Youth-on-youth sexual assault took its toll on young people who were not heterosexual, and their rates of abuse were much higher, as were youths who had a history of sexual assault. We know from the abuse literature that adults and children who have been sexually assaulted are often targets for increased sexual abuse. This may be that they do not notice cues or that the abuser somehow picks up on their vulnerability.

As a society, we must be concerned about what happens in our juvenile facilities. Without proper treatment and care, we will only be making more hardened children who become hardened adults. The cost to society in terms of crime, mental health needs and destroyed families cannot be calculated. I spent years before I became a journalist working with men and women who had been abused in their youth. In fact, I became a journalist as a result of a book I wrote a book on recovery from child abuse. “The Other Side of The Family, A Book For Recovery from Abuse, Incest and Neglect” was written before much of the research had been done on the effects of sexual abuse on the brain. This current research shows that what is going on in our nations juvenile facilities has long-term effects that not only alters the lives of individuals but also has a monetary cost to our entire society. Society has to come to terms with not only the human side to this, but also the fact that you pay now to try and correct this or society monetarily pays greater costs later.

Professor Martin Teicher, working at the Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, has found that abuse of all kinds leads to significant changes in the brain. His research has shown there are areas of the brain that actually become smaller from abuse and can mimic epilepsy. Brain scans have found that there is reduced activity in the part of the brain that deals with attention and emotion. There is also decreased blood flow, which has an effect on emotional stabilization.

In another study, Dr. Vincent Felitti of Kaiser Permanente found that women who had been sexually abused were 27 percent more likely to be abused. What we now know about the long-term effects of abuse cannot be denied. It not only wrecks a child’s life, but also has a dollar cost to all of us.

What can be done? The Justice Department study found that smaller facilities had a lower rate of abuse and facilities where youth were held for shorter periods of time also had less abuse. Youth in private facilities fared better than in state-run institutions.

With the governor of California wanting to take money from prisons and put the money into education, the possibilities of making changes in youth detention programs diminish. That is short-sighted planning. Countries like Norway have a minimum two-year program if someone wants to work as staff in their penal systems. We often have employees who are not educated and live close to the edge themselves in our society in terms of education and employability.

Our youth who have had run-ins with our legal system deserve a chance. They don’t deserve abuse. The Justice Department must take action on its report. We all deserve better. The youth who are incarcerated, and society that must pay for their care in the short term and long haul, can and must do better.

1. Health care passes the House and Senate within a week of the State of the Union address. The plan might be to get it done before the State of the Union, but it will be passed within a week in either direction of the congressional speech. The president’s address will be used as the rallying cry.

2. The November midterm elections will have the Democrats losing a maximum of 23 seats in the House, but not more. They will lose three seats in the Senate. This loss will prompt the Republicans to once again see this as a mandate and move to the conservative wing of the party. Unless Newt Gingrich rises to the top as the potential nominee, the party will begin to support right-wing candidates who do nothing except increase President Obama’s chance for re-election.

3. We discover more water on other planets and even see the precursors for life on some of these. The possible discovery of water on the moon and Mars has increased the chances of sustainable life in many far away lands. “That we are not alone” is becoming more and more of a reality. Not exactly the bar scene from “Star Wars,” but on a microbe level we are not the only actors.

4. We impose sanctions on Iran. I do not need to be a soothsayer to predict this, but all indications lead to imposing sanctions. The trouble is that without the help of some of the Arab countries that trade with Iran such as UAE, there is not much help that sanctions could work.

5. After the sanctions are imposed, there will be a significant, internal change in Iran, which will make the Obama idea of possible communication a reality – although the neo-cons will be furious.

6. Consuming less and giving more becomes the consequence of the poor economy. As Americans have less and reassess their values, blatant consumerism will reduce. Charitable giving will increase among middle-class donors.

7. Americans will become more aware of the drug trade from Mexico. It has been something that has been lost in the immigration debate. Mexico as a “failed state” will become more of a headline.

8. Afghanistan will calm down, and it will look like Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s plan is working. The Taliban will be waiting for its moment and will wait us out. We will declare victory and with the exception of few headlines down the line when the Taliban and the warlords take back their territory. By that time America is on to new concerns and does not even register a blip.

9. Meg Whitman wins the race for governor of California. Former Gov. Brown and San Francisco Mayor Newsom don’t make the final cut with the people of California.

10. Prevention in health becomes the buzzword. The insurance lobby, freaking out that it can’t drop subscribers, turns to the only thing it knows works: getting Americans healthier. It works with governors and states to help fund tobacco prevention and healthy diet programs.

11. Unusual state taxes get voted on. California will tax medical marijuana, and other states find ways to tax Internet purchases and develop sin taxes.

So there you have it readers. I invite you to send me yours, and we will look at my track record in a year! Have a wonderful New Year and may God bless you and your family.

I was in Southern Sudan less than eight weeks ago and saw the daily pain and suffering of former slaves and people who eat only every other day. It is hard to block people out of your mind when you have interacted with them. Southern Sudan, as I have written before, had a 22-year civil war with Northern Sudan. Southern Sudan is primarily Christian, and Northern Sudan is Arab Muslim. The tragedy is that due to oil reserves and a vote on independence scheduled to take place in 2011, Southern Sudan is again on the brink of war.

Fortunately, there are thoughtful people with real ideas about achieving peace in far-flung places like Southern Sudan. I encountered one of these great thinkers this week. Dr. David Hamburg is the recipient of the presidential Medal of Freedom and the author of “Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps Toward Early Detection and Effective Action.”

Dr. Hamburg has laid out what he calls the “Pillars of Prevention.” He calls for the following:

* Proactive help for troubled countries with early recognition of inter-group tensions. He points out how the potential for mass civil war was avoided in Kenya last year by negotiating early in the process. Hamburg also points out that there are often clear warning signs such as “media excitement” and hate speech on radio, television, pamphlets, etc. “This,” he says, “takes place over years, not days and weeks or even months.” Bad governments always cite sovereignty as an excuse, and that excuse allows governments to get away with violating human rights. It is important intervene as soon as possible and not wait until a government is overwhelmed by civil unrest.

* Fostering indigenous democracy. This means also preparing the people for democracy and not expecting that it will be welcomed with open arms. Hamburg gave Gaza as an example of a place where the population was not ready for democracy and had no idea how to handle it.

* Fostering equitable social and economic development where wealth is not concentrated in the upper 1 percent of the population. Hamburg also underlined the importance of using modern science (new techniques for irrigation, energy development, and clean water) to make development available for all.

* Education for human survival. This means not just math, science and technology but also education for conflict resolution and mutual accommodation. In societies that have seen war, are mainly tribal, and where there are scarce resources basic ways of communication and problem solving must be taught as much as hard academics. We have had more than 200 years of democracy. It is difficult to learn communication skills overnight.

* Having the international community involved in justice to preserve and protect human rights. Without various sanctions and interference by important development and trade partners, there is little incentive for bad governments to protect and abide by basic human rights standards. Having a strong policy by those that have influence with a particular country can bring a human rights violator to justice.

* Training and supporting people around the world in preventive diplomacy. Just like nutrition was not taught in medical schools until recently, preventive diplomacy has not been top of the curricula in schools focusing on training foreign service officers. This is changing, and the change has the potential to make more people capable of working with governments on a local as well as national level. International Centers for the Prevention of Mass Violence and Atrocities have also been established. These need to be supported by not only the United Nations but also by individual democracies as well.

It is great to wish for peace this Christmas in places like Southern Sudan, but we should keep in mind that peace does not come as a result of a wish and a prayer. Peace comes from hard work and effort. Just like in interpersonal and family relationships, peace between countries takes time, vigilance and skill.

If so, she would’ve been mistaken, for this has been going on for decades, and was indeed very prevalent in the 19th century.

It was not uncommon at the turn of the last century for people to learn yoga, pay attention to their horoscope, communicate with spirits and go to traditional churches at the same time. Way before there was a telegraph or a telephone, people gathered at their town greens to hear lectures on clairvoyance and hypnosis. One of the most popular books in the late 1800s was a book on comparative religions titled, “Ten Great Religions,” written by Unitarian Minister James Freeman Clark in 1871. A “World Parliament of Religions” took place at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and a conference facility called “Green Acre” was set up in Eliot, Maine, to serve as a forum for the comparative study of religions. One of the most popular self-help writers at the time, William Walker Atkinson, used the name of Yogi Ramachackra so he could sell more books!

What is surprising about a survey released this week by the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion and Public Life is how many people not only have these beliefs, but also actually attend church at other religious institutions. According to the survey, 24 percent of people actually attend services at multiple places not associated with their own faith. This number does not include weddings, funerals, etc. This means that a whopping one in four people go to multiple religious institutions. When you consider the fact that 28 percent of people say they seldom or never attend services, it means that half of those that go to some kind of services go to religious services other than their church. A full 39 percent who attend services weekly attend services in other places and denominations.

These numbers amaze the “experts” who think religion is stagnant and unilateral in our country. Twenty-two percent of Christians believe in reincarnation, and nearly half the public says it has had a religious or mystical experience, which the study defines as “a moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.” Almost 30 percent say they have felt in touch with someone who died. Again, this is not surprising given that in the mid-1800s, Spiritualism took the nation by storm. At one point in Boston during the late 1800s, there were more than 200 Spiritualist circles taking place weekly so that people could contact deceased loved ones. Although the Pew survey found that the number of people who have had religious or mystical experiences is higher than surveys taken in 1962, it may be due to the fact that people are more willing to admit those experiences to a stranger than before.

William James detailed these experiences in his turn of the 20th century book, “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” Bill Wilson, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, read James’ book for confirmation of what he had experienced when he saw the white light in his hospital room after his last drink.

Most people are unaware that American icon Johnny Appleseed was a devoted student of Emmanuel Swedenborg, who not only believed in extrasensory experiences, but wrote a book on heaven and hell, expounding on it being not a place, but a state of mind that continued after death. Swedenborg was read widely in the 1800s, and there is evidence that Abraham Lincoln was familiar with his work.

On the Christian side, there were huge camp meetings – one was reported to have been attended by 50,000 people – where people would go to pray and take part in healings. They were definitely not part of the mainstream churches at the time.

Daniel David Palmer, founder of Chiropractic Medicine, considered himself a magnetic healer, and the founder of osteopathic medicine, Andrew Still, was known to have experimented with Spiritualism.

Mary Baker Eddy, who repudiated it later in life, was also known to have had contact with the Spiritualists.

So what eventually became mainstream was often founded on the edge of religious experience early on.

It is rather eye-opening that this recent study by the Pew Center seems to conclude that this is all “new information.”

In reality, Americans have been sampling other cultural experiences brought here from visitors, slaves and the builders of the early railroads from Asia. Native American culture also contributed to religious experimentation.

Religious melding and blending has been a part of America since its inception. It is as American as apple pie.

The facts are well known at this point. Somehow there was an argument at the Tiger Woods home in a gated community in Florida. Tiger Woods was outside of his car and looked quite bruised. His car windows had been smashed with a golf club. After this happened he made a few appointments to talk to the police and then failed to keep them. Radio listeners wondered whether Tiger Woods canceled the appointments to protect his wife. Florida is a no-tolerance state, and there most likely would have been a 24-hour cooling off period in jail for the alleged perpetrator of the domestic abuse. In this case, it would have been his wife. Obviously, whatever their fight might have been about, a mistress or an affair, Tiger Woods did not want his wife taken to jail for even 24 hours. So far there have been no arrests and only a statement by Tiger Woods about needing his privacy.

Privacy is another concern. Does Tiger Woods deserve his privacy? The first argument is that this publicity causes pain for his children. That is completely true, and no child wants to go to school having their classmates gossiping about their parents’ dalliances and fights. The other argument is that we are all human and deserve our privacy. It is amazing to me that many of the people taking this point of view are the same folks who had no trouble with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marital problems making the headlines. Very few people thought of what Chelsea Clinton had to endure at school and with her friends.

Then there are those who believe that when someone such as Tiger Woods makes his living off the public trust (most of his money comes from endorsements) that he needs to behave as role model. That view says that affairs with other women do not sync with being a role model. It is at this point, says that contingency, that privacy is not yours and that the gain you get from being a celebrity wipes out total privacy.

Affairs do not justify domestic violence, and the question remains that if this were not Tiger Woods, would his wife be cited for what happened to him? Most likely, if the facts are what they seem, she would have spent 24 hours somewhere in a Florida jail. It is this part of the drama, not just the affair that has captured the attention of many Americans.

In an interview I did with Attorney General Eric Holder this week, he stated a startling statistic, which is, that one in four children are exposed to some form of family violence in their lifetime. Holder went on to say that this can cause many difficulties including learning problems. He also stated that there are a known half million victims of non-fatal abuse of adults by intimate partners and that 2,000 women and men are killed by intimate partners yearly. Considering the costs to society in law enforcement and children’s overall adjustment, this kind of family violence should be recognized as a public health problem and not just something to deal with after the fact. Programs such as “Start Strong,” which encourage healthy dating and real discussions about teen dating and Liz Claiborne’s ” Love Is Not Abuse” and “Time to Talk Day,” have raised awareness of this huge problem.

It is not going to go away. What happened in the Tiger Woods’ family proves that domestic violence is a problem that invades every income category and that no family is immune from it. Did Tiger Woods act on his sexual urges and not use his head? The answer is clearly yes but it does not give his wife permission to act out her rage with violence. Unbridled rage and anger in a family setting is something many of us have seen up close and personal, and it needs to stop. Only a combination of prevention, education and tough law enforcement with no exceptions for celebrities will make the difference.

- Ellen

Many people were so hopeful a year ago when President Obama took office. The news about the economy was front-and-center, and the middle-swing voter was hopeful that this president would have answers. Unfortunately, the problems that are facing our country are bigger than one man, one president. It is going to take massive changes to make a difference and create jobs.

Joseph Stiglitz, who was chief economist at the World Bank and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, said in October that “figures on gross domestic product are ‘very good,’ the numbers would be ‘miserable’ without stimulus measures enacted by the Obama administration.” When we look at if workers can get jobs, if they can work full-time, if businesses are able to sell goods they produce, in those terms, we are nowhere near the end of recession. The U.S. job market is still “in very bad shape.”

You don’t need a Nobel-Prize-winning economist to know that the U.S. job market is in “very bad shape,” and from my conversations at Macy’s on Friday morning you don’t need a lot of economists to find out how to create more jobs. There are many good and solid ideas to move our economy to solid growth. A few of the ideas include:

Tax holidays for job creation. Spencer Ante writing about a study on job creation by Robert Litan suggests that start-ups have created most of the new jobs both recently and in the big recession of 1980-1983. This study was done for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Litan’s idea is to give a payroll-tax holiday to new start-up companies. Although he says that large companies create 10 percent of new jobs, most of those jobs are created by these corporations acquiring smaller newer start-ups.

Health care is one-sixth of our economy, but the guilds and professional societies want to protect their turf. It makes perfect sense as the years and years of training it takes to be a physician need to be reimbursed given the amount of loans that most medical students take on. One sure way to make sure there is job creation in a field that is going to experience rapid growth with the passage of any health-care bill is to develop more training slots for physician residencies for American students. We also need to develop more health-care training opportunities. In one year, almost 10 percent of newly licensed registered nurses were from foreign nursing schools with a net job number of 10,000, and that was before health-care reform.

If you expand those numbers to physician assistants, lab technologists, etc., it becomes clear that we must make an investment in educating our own citizens.

Infrastructure jobs: The current stimulus bill was laden with highway jobs and other projects to update our current infrastructure. It needs to be done as we have seen crumbling bridges and schools, but, as I said in a recent column, we need someone to think not just of the repairs needed but to think more broadly about what is going to make this country move again. Two projects that would take broad thinking and broad cooperation are innovative transportation solutions and innovative broadband solutions. Two possible ideas are to find areas that have highway and airport congestion and develop bullet trains in those areas. We do not have one bullet train in the United States. We also do not have a real national grid for broadband. Broadband is piecemeal, and there is rancor between private companies and municipalities that want to increase broadband.

There are many other job-creation opportunities, and we have all heard about green jobs among other ideas. All of these are possible, but the overall question is if the political will exists. That is only a question that your local friendly member of Congress can answer. I suggest you ask them.

The fourth king introduced the idea of gross national happiness in 1972. At that time, Bhutan was an absolute monarchy. Later, the king abdicated in favor of his son and voluntarily made his country a constitutional monarchy – no bloodshed, no coups, just a peaceful transition to democracy.

The king was a very forward-looking man, and based on the principle of gross national happiness, true development of human society takes place when material and spiritual advancement complement and reinforce each other. The king believed that every change must be developed and evaluated to ensure that it will lead to happiness, not just development, and that it is important to harmonize economic progress with the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of the people.

Bhutan takes modernization quite seriously and did not legalize television until this new century. However, they are not backward in any way when it comes to very modern hotels, Internet and filmmaking projects for students. They have moved from a closed kingdom to a modern country in very short order by what they call the four pillars of gross national happiness.

In her book, “Facts about Bhutan,” Lily Wangchhuk explains the four pillars. Equitable and sustainable socioeconomic development includes making sure that any development does not ruin the environment and that service delivery such as health and education is also based on equality so that all sections of society get equal delivery. The second pillar is preservation and promotion of culture, which includes strengthening the family and community, tolerance and cooperation, altruism, compassion and dignity, which they believe impact a low crime rate. It also includes the preservation of the culture, which includes centuries-old practices and rituals. The third pillar is conservation of the environment and is based on the Buddhist philosophy that human beings and nature are inseparable from each other. They believe that nature is a partner in existence and might have been one’s parents, friends, etc., in one’s timeless existence. It is one of the top three countries in the world that has more than one-fourth of its land as a protected area. The fourth pillar is good governance which means real involvement on a local level for all levels of government. They have decentralized choices and have created block committees to plan and oversee development. Neither central committees here nor even the national Congress makes all the decisions.

Bhutan could be a case study in any graduate school of government. It doesn’t just talk about gross national happiness, it measures it. Only 3.7 percent of its population reports being unhappy and it measures its happiness with other countries on something that is known as the “Happy Planet Index,” a product of a think-tank created to improve quality of life and to offer innovative solutions to national and international problems. It was created as part of “The Other Economic Summit,” which formed to address issues such as international debt which was not addressed at the G-20 and G-7 summits. According to the ranking of the Happy Planet Index, Bhutan ranks in the top 10 nations worldwide and is the happiest nation in South Asia.

What I noticed when I was in Bhutan is that everyone feels they have a stake in their country and the wellbeing of others and not in the way of big-brother communism. It is genuine, and people believe that they impact the daily lives of others. It is subtle but is reflected in all aspects of citizens’ lives. Imagine if we suddenly made laws in this country that were the results of concern for people’s happiness. Imagine how the “debate” in the Senate would have changed on Saturday night with that perspective.

Bhutan is not a country that is interested in just reaping the happiness for itself; it’s interested in spreading it throughout the globe. This week there is a conference in Brazil, its fifth International Conference on Gross National Happiness with topics such as holistic management of people and the financial crises as well as economic democracy. Bhutan aims to take its concept to the world and will attempt to get other governments to pay attention to what can make citizens happy in the long haul. I just wish that our Congress had spent the weekend at the conference instead of talking at each other in the Senate on health care; it would have been more fruitful.

Metal detectors. Visitors getting wanded. Backpacks and packages carefully screened. It’s awfully nice of the Chinese authorities to lay on all the extra security here at the Beijing Marriott while President Obama is in town.

They say it’s for our protection, we grizzled war correspondents who’ve survived Iraq, Afghanistan and other hellholes. I for one am scared to death here and appreciate the dainty young ladies with white gloves keeping the bad guys out of this plush oasis. Phew!

I sincerely doubt it’s for our benefit. More likely it’s to make it harder for us to conduct interviews with dissidents, rogue Chinese journalists and others who may have something to say that displeases the regime. We can certainly go out and meet these people in other locations, but the tight schedule we’re on makes it logistically very difficult to get away. Easier for them to come to us, hence the watchdogs downstairs. The authorities know how the game is played.

But Big Brother’s not just down in the lobby. He’s right here in room 9055. He’s blocked me from accessing Twitter and Facebook on my laptop (though they haven’t figured out how to keep me from tweeting on my BlackBerry). And even though this sparkling Marriott is high-tech from top to bottom, the phone on the desk makes some strange clicks whenever I make a call. Maybe it’s nothing, but it reminds me of trying to make phone calls when I worked in the Soviet Union during the bad old days of the KGB.

Indeed, China’s version of the KGB – which, by the way, I can’t seem to research on Google – has apparently been busy clamping down both before and during Obama’s visit. Agence France Presse reported earlier this week that authorities rounded up several dissidents and activists, fearing they could embarrass the leadership.

One person rounded up, says AFP, was a man named Zhao Lianhai, leader of an activist group of parents whose children were allegedly sickened by tainted milk. Zhao’s wife says he was “criminally detained for ‘provoking an incident’.” Another activist group, Human Rights in China, claims Zhao was handcuffed and taken away last week by police officers who also seized computers, a video camera and an address book.

Obama himself has made things easier for the authorities. He hasn’t met anyone who wasn’t prescreened. No free press advocates, no human rights groups, no political opposition. What about Tuesday’s “town hall” in Shanghai? Every student was carefully vetted for their reliability and prepped on how to behave.

Even worse, the White House advance team considered, but rejected a meeting with political activists, only to drop it from the schedule due to time constraints, reports the New York Times. Yet Obama found time yesterday to stroll through the Forbidden City and today visits the Great Wall of China.

It’s the first time an American President has tacitly agreed to be muzzled here. In 1998, President Clinton went on state-run TV and angered his Chinese hosts by discussing human rights, the Dalai Lama and the still-taboo bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. In 2002, President Bush talked about the importance of personal freedom and the rule of law. But for Obama’s visit, the White House didn’t insist on a national platform for the President, and the Chinese never offered him one.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing

Bhutan was a closed community, and until fairly recently the only way to see it was by invitation. It is slowly joining the modern world. In 2000, its government began allowing television to be broadcast in the country. The fourth king of Bhutan abdicated in favor of his son so that the country could transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Bhutan is a member of the United Nations, but, in an attempt to keep from angering China, it has chosen not to have ambassadorial exchange with any of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

My junior high school geography teacher was way ahead of the author of “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as he was a firm believer that geography was destiny. He was certainly right when it comes to India and Bhutan. As our guide led us to a beautiful view of exquisite mountains, he pointed out that the tallest of the mountains was what separated Bhutan from Tibet. Tibet was taken over by China in the late 1940s and the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959. One glimpse of the beautiful mountains and it is clear that Bhutan could be overrun in a nanosecond.

Bhutan rests between China and India. It is to India’s advantage to protect Bhutan, which is why the Indian army patrols the border between China and Bhutan. America does a ton of business with China, but between its human rights record, its Taiwan issue and its refusal to let the Tibetan people rule their own country, the Chinese are not exactly the most popular people in Bhutan and India.

Most of the folks I spoke with in both countries have the same views as people in the United States. They watch American television on their satellite dishes, and they see the same news we see at the same time we see it. When news broke last week of the shootings at Fort Hood, the people in Bhutan and India got the news as people in the U.S. did. Even the Indian language stations were showing video instantaneously. Same view, same pictures, but very different views on what needs to happen for the world to improve.

Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, does not concern them. India trades with Russia and has a good relationship with them. China, on the other hand, is a different story. Most people who engaged in conversation with me had dire warnings for the United States, and they all said roughly the same thing:

1) Get your debt down. All were aware that the sizable debt that the United States has taken on has compromised our policy objectives. It is hard to take on China on Tibet or human rights when America is owned by China to the tune of at least $1 trillion. The Federal Reserve chairman’s advice for healing the U.S. economy is to make more consumers out of the Chinese. If that is the solution for solving our job crisis, then maybe I should teach economics. It is scary to me that this is what our leadership thinks will pull us out of the current mess. Moreover, it is not going to happen at a fast enough rate to change our balance of trade and reverse our economy.

2) Stop your consumption of oil. India gets hydropower from Bhutan and is looking to solar and other alternatives. Oil makes the U.S. dependent on Middle East countries, and the people I talked to view such dependency as fueling not just Americans’ cars, but terrorism in their region of the world. One Indian businessman I spoke with said our reliance on foreign oil was the reason for us getting involved in “silly wars that kill American young people.”

3) Conserve your resources. With the burgeoning world population needing food and water as well as energy, America is viewed as being wasteful. With manufacturing jobs leaving the United States for poorer countries, most people I talked with saw the U.S. as a nation of spendthrifts who will use up more than our fair share of the world’s resources, in the process going bankrupt.

4) Don’t rely on one country to do your manufacturing. China has the United States’ head in a vise, but if American companies spread manufacturing to 20 or more countries around the globe, China would not have the power to control currency and the economic future of the United States.

The bottom line, as one businessman said to me, is America is expecting to live the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to by writing IOUs. But, he added, such a lifestyle will prove to be unsustainable.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Bhutan was a closed community, and until fairly recently the only way to see it was by invitation. It is slowly joining the modern world. In 2000, its government began allowing television to be broadcast in the country. The fourth king of Bhutan abdicated in favor of his son so that the country could transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Bhutan is a member of the United Nations, but, in an attempt to keep from angering China, it has chosen not to have ambassadorial exchange with any of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

My junior high school geography teacher was way ahead of the author of “Guns, Germs and Steel,” as he was a firm believer that geography was destiny. He was certainly right when it comes to India and Bhutan. As our guide led us to a beautiful view of exquisite mountains, he pointed out that the tallest of the mountains was what separated Bhutan from Tibet. Tibet was taken over by China in the late 1940s and the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959. One glimpse of the beautiful mountains and it is clear that Bhutan could be overrun in a nanosecond.

Bhutan rests between China and India. It is to India’s advantage to protect Bhutan, which is why the Indian army patrols the border between China and Bhutan. America does a ton of business with China, but between its human rights record, its Taiwan issue and its refusal to let the Tibetan people rule their own country, the Chinese are not exactly the most popular people in Bhutan and India.

Most of the folks I spoke with in both countries have the same views as people in the United States. They watch American television on their satellite dishes, and they see the same news we see at the same time we see it. When news broke last week of the shootings at Fort Hood, the people in Bhutan and India got the news as people in the U.S. did. Even the Indian language stations were showing video instantaneously. Same view, same pictures, but very different views on what needs to happen for the world to improve.

Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, does not concern them. India trades with Russia and has a good relationship with them. China, on the other hand, is a different story. Most people who engaged in conversation with me had dire warnings for the United States, and they all said roughly the same thing:

-Get your debt down. All were aware that the sizable debt that the United States has taken on has compromised our policy objectives. It is hard to take on China on Tibet or human rights when America is owned by China to the tune of at least $1 trillion. The Federal Reserve chairman’s advice for healing the U.S. economy is to make more consumers out of the Chinese. If that is the solution for solving our job crisis, then maybe I should teach economics. It is scary to me that this is what our leadership thinks will pull us out of the current mess. Moreover, it is not going to happen at a fast enough rate to change our balance of trade and reverse our economy.

-Stop your consumption of oil. India gets hydropower from Bhutan and is looking to solar and other alternatives. Oil makes the U.S. dependent on Middle East countries, and the people I talked to view such dependency as fueling not just Americans’ cars, but terrorism in their region of the world. One Indian businessman I spoke with said our reliance on foreign oil was the reason for us getting involved in “silly wars that kill American young people.”

-Conserve your resources. With the burgeoning world population needing food and water as well as energy, America is viewed as being wasteful. With manufacturing jobs leaving the United States for poorer countries, most people I talked with saw the U.S. as a nation of spendthrifts who will use up more than our fair share of the world’s resources, in the process going bankrupt.

-Don’t rely on one country to do your manufacturing. China has the United States’ head in a vise, but if American companies spread manufacturing to 20 or more countries around the globe, China would not have the power to control currency and the economic future of the United States.

The bottom line, as one businessman said to me, is America is expecting to live the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to by writing IOUs. But, he added, such a lifestyle will prove to be unsustainable.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

For what has been described in the Wall Street Journal as the “worst bill ever,” Congressional Republicans certainly seem to be padding their list of grievances over the House health care bill with things that are less scary and more, well … sensible.

The House Republican Conference has kindly given reporters a directory of provisions in the bill found to be “egregious, questionable, or potentially absurd.”

Included in this list is a reference to page 872-Section 1433, which, in the conference’s words, “requires the director of food services at nursing facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to hold ‘military, academic, or other qualifications’ as determined by federal bureaucrats.”

Sans the editorial liberty taken to invoke the specter of spooky federal bureaucrats, one is left to wonder what about this requirement is particularly egregious, questionable or potentially absurd. After all, this is a warning from the party that has portrayed seniors as sacred cows throughout the entire health care debate, from threats that Obamacare would pull the plug on grandma to suddenly realizing that Medicare isn’t as bad as it was forty years ago. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the staff that tends dear old granny’s meals be qualified? Especially through an academic or military institution?

When asked for clarification, a staffer for a high-ranking Republican representative simply responded that it is a sign of more government intrusion into the lives of Americans.

Of course, the American people whose lives are being intruded upon by this provision are seniors living in nursing homes funded by Medicare. So to summarize: Medicare is an untouchable institution, but requiring
a director that either directly or indirectly benefits from Medicare funds to be properly trained is an intrusion.

Fair enough, if you perform adequate mental gymnastics. That is, until you consider how closely this resembles a provision included in No Child Left Behind, an act proposed by a Republican President and passed through a GOP-controlled Congress.

According to Part A, Section 119, “Each local educational agency receiving assistance under this part shall ensure that all teachers hired after such day and teaching in a program supported with funds under this part are highly qualified.”

All one needs to do is add “by federal bureaucrats” to the end of this sentence and voila: government intrusion.

In the film Citizen Kane, the character Leland tells Charles Foster Kane “You don’t care about anything except you… you want love on your own terms. Something to be played your way, according to your rules.”

This seems to embody the Republican mentality post-2006. So-called dithering on Afghanistan, appointing high-profile czars or, in this case, requiring recipients of government funds to fit the right
profile is fine if you’re in the right party, but try it as a Democrat and suddenly it’s egregious, questionable, or potentially absurd. It’s a double standard.

Either that, or the Republican Conference is grasping at straws.

Political leaders tend to (as some pundits do) simplify the outcomes of elections. Hence, of yesterday, Republicans will say, ‘Obama is done, his agenda failed, Republicans will rule in 2010.’ Democrats will find a way to spin this in another direction by saying, ‘Corzine called his opponent fat, Deeds was an idiot and ran negative ads, etc,’ and the Republicans and Democrats will actually believe their own B.S.

The elections yesterday, at the end of the day, are not good for Obama. But, elections are like history. I used to ask my students at OU that I taught, a history question. What started World War 1? They answered, the assassination of The Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Well, a lot of other factors started WW1. People will tend to say, just like they simplify history, that Obama caused Democrats to lose in New Jersey and Virginia yesterday.

Obama’s lack of an agenda, not his agenda, hurt yesterday. People wanted change, and although I am not totally comfortable with some of Obama’s philosophy, I would argue that many are and were, and the majority voted for him knowing he was liberal, knowing what he said he would do and expected him to do it. Reagan did what he said he would do, and while some people complained about him, I clearly remember a vast majority of folks saying later, “Well, he did what he said he would do.” As a result, he was successful. It is irrelevant whether or not you liked him, the majority did.

Obama, on the other hand, has done what? Where are the bills that the Majority have passed? Where are his bold changes? How has he stood up to corporate interests as people are economically melting down? I’m not the one posing these questions; this is what I hear daily from folks in Ohio and West Virginia, REAL America, not Washington, D.C. Obama’s lack of action has successfully driven potential Democratic supporters into the unsure.

Conversely, the Republicans will waste no time in blowing an opportunity to be successful. Rush Limbaugh’s comments about the Dede Scozzafava’s of the world – “they are not guided by principle” – are correct. Dede has just delivered a teachable moment for those who lack a keen sense of the obvious. RINOs cannot be trusted. Republicans-in-name-only cannot be trusted. They aren’t principled. You vote ‘em into office and you’re going to get cap and tax, you’re going to get some version of Obamacare, you’re going to get tax increases, you’re going to get TARP bailouts and you’re gonna get amnesty.

In 2010 at least 12 Republicans (RINOs) will be challenged by true conservatives. This will be an internal bloodbath and the party will focus on purity vs. winning. (Newt Gingrich gets this, he is one of a few in the party that understands that you have to win, even with RINOs, to get the majority to be able to affect change). This attitude and viciousness will hurt the party. Some of the Republican leaders would rather have a pure majority of 100 than a “week squishy liberal” Republican majority of 218 in the House.

Next, look at the GOP leadership. John Boehner just released a health care bill that allows insurance companies to deny sick people coverage. The VAST majority of uninsured in this country are WORKING people, not welfare people. They are Boehner and his party’s potential constituency — believe me. Boehner is the second thing that hurts the party; A lack of direction, compassion, and the unwillingness to stand up for the average John and Susie Six Pack instead of the corporate “I want it all and bail me out” Americans.

Boehner is an addicted smoker, he tans, and he golfs, has money AND he has insurance, very cheap I may add. He just doesn’t get it that the rest of America does not function like he does. John does not appreciate his money and does not understand how to use his position to help others. He could do so much more for people, as many who have made it are. His attitude will hurt the Republicans.

So, yes, this is a setback for the Democrats – they need to realize that. But, there is a long way to 2010, and the Republican factors that I mentioned will make this all come out in the wash. There is a lot of time left, a lot of local politics to play out (all politics are local, Tip knew this) and unknown economics. Throw in the fact that Obama’s staff will probably bungle a few things, and 2010 is wide open!

The writer is a former Republican Congressman who represented Ohio’s 18th District. He currently hosts his own radio program on WVLY in Wheeling, W.Va.