Read any news source and you'll find the realization spreading that the United States is suffering from a crisis of profligacy, addicted to spending more than it earns, using more energy than it can produce, and having a culture of "I want for me now" that has gone on for 25 years. We are facing national bankruptcy even as millions are unable to make ends meet in their own homes, and we face an economic depression unless people in other countries, poorer countries with problems of their own, continue to sacrifice and save in order to lend us more and more money each and every day. And yet in their debates and in their campaigns, the two candidates for President have done little but promise Americans that nothing they do needs to change, that there will be an easy way out, that the government will provide it, and that it won't cost them anything. Instead of Commander in Chief, we have two candidates for Panderer in Chief.

All the talk about energy independence in the last debate was a bunch of hot air, just as it has been for the past 35 years. If the next President wants to be a leader and turn this country around, he's going to have to make requests and not promises, and he'll have to convince people to work together in ways that are difficult in the short run to make things better in the long run. And I have a suggestion — one thing that can be done within months rather than years. Dynamic carpooling on a large scale.

With the prospect of a Democratic Party victory appearing more and more likely, many conservatives are looking for a “silver bullet” to snatch victory.

The Wall Street Journal has come up with an interesting idea but I think it probably won’t work.

In an editorial titled, Conservative Canada, John McCain take note, the Journal points to this week’s re-election win of Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper.

A former student of mine called in anger recently. Of course the issue was this pending malevolent attack on term-limits (and probable hijack), by Mayor Bloomberg and a New York City Council majority; via proposed legislation altering the term limits law voted in by the people. The student was livid. 

With typical youthful innocence and idealism, he kept challenging me to make sense of all this. How could a plebiscite be overturned without going back to the voter via referendum? Why were there two referenda on this issue, when the legislators could just come in and sweep away the people’s vote (will) at anytime? And what is to stop them from extending the limit another four years, when 2013 rolls around?  Is this the “democracy” that we Americans love to boast about to the rest of the world? 

As public policy, “Welfare Reform” has been a mixed bag, although it would surely be less so if the Democratic Congress elected in 1992 had not declared the nuanced and moderate proposals Bill Clinton had put forth in his first Presidential campaign as DOA. I am among those who believe that the Gingrich revolution of 1994, and its Contract on America, might have been forestalled, and some of the more draconian aspects of “ending welfare as we knew it” could have been avoided, if Democrats had endeavored to follow through on the effort to make welfare a “second chance” instead of a “way of life,” rather than leaving that effort to the Party which wanted it to be neither.

A politically ambitious young man meets a well-connected (son of the former chair of the local electric company, with a wife who worked at a local white shoe law firm) local activist who lived in his neighborhood at a meeting about education.

Like any smart candidate, the pol wannabe follows up. Both men become heavily involved in an education project sponsored by a foundation headed by a former Reagan administration ambassador.

Later in the year, when the young man runs for office, the activist holds a small coffee for the young candidate at his home. The young candidate wins. Two years later, the City where both lived names the activist “Man of the Year.” Still later, the two men both serve on the Board of a local anti-poverty group and attend about a dozen meetings together over the years. During this time, the activist gives the pol a check for $200, which, given his resources, seems rather stingy. Even after the pol leaves the board, the two men find themselves appearing together in panel discussions at least twice, and say hello to each other when they run into each other.

“Even at this late hour in the campaign, there are essential things we don't know about Senator Obama or the record that he brings to this campaign…

…My opponent has invited serious questioning by announcing a few weeks ago that he would quote — "take off the gloves." Since then, whenever I have questioned his policies or his record, he has called me a liar.

Rather than answer his critics, Senator Obama will try to distract you from noticing that he never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked. But let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician.

The Treaty of the Tycoons between Mike Bloomberg, indispensable Mayor and Ronald Lauder, sperm lottery winner and former patronage employee in the Reagan administration raises some interesting questions about the future Charter Revision Commission.

Lauder’s mouthpiece, Howard Rubenstein told the NY Post on behalf of the toilet water  heir “I will reluctantly support the mayor's legislation to extend term limits to three terms, with the understanding that I will serve on a Charter-revision commission which will place the questions of the number of terms before the voters in 2010."

Now that Michael “Caesar” Bloomberg has disrespected “we” the people of New York City, it is only fitting that we (the little people) fight back. With this in mind, let me announce today, that I am starting a “Draft State Senator Eric Adams for Mayor” initiative. And before you fly off your rockers claiming that I am being somewhat reactionary: let me state just a few of my reasons here. 

To me, the worst thing any elected official can do to the ideals of democracy is disrespect the voter’s will. My ancestors died for the right to vote in this country. My matriarch and patriarch (Amphy and Bashana Jackson) fought in the 1812 War. Many of my kinfolk -in both the Caribbean and North America- gave blood for the democratic cause. It is in their honor that I will strongly oppose what Bloomberg and company intends to do: no matter how much the deck is stacked against me. Overturning term-limits through cowardly legislation is wrong with a capital “W”. This is one of the worst things I have seen in politics anywhere.

Long time readers of this blog may recall this post from more than two years ago, in which I predicted the City Council would sneak a term limits referendum onto the ballot for the November 2007 election, when virtually no public offices were being contested and virtually no one would be showing up to vote. I over-estimated the character of these officials and the Mayor; they have decided not to bother with any referendum at all. I also predicted, over and over, the bursting of the housing bubble, the end of excess consumer spending over and above income, and the detonation of exotic financial instruments like CDOs and managers like hedge funds, with collateral damage for public employee pension funds and thus public services and taxes. To me, and many others, it was completely obvious that all this would have to unravel sooner or later, and it’s amazing it went on as long as it did. Here I underestimated the damage.

Lost in the uproar over Mayor Mike’s back flips over the question of term limits, our billionaire Mayor made another curious announcement over the weekend.

Bloomberg told the Daily News, he won’t tell New Yorkers who he will vote for in the Presidential election.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/10/05/2008-10-05_mayor_bloombergs_got_a_secret_his_pick_f-1.html