What a Glorious Day

American taxpayers are on the hook for $9 trillion, but homosexuals can now kill Muslims without hiding their sexual orientation.

Liberals Vote Without Acting on the Evidence Too

I read a blog post on Balloon Juice discussing a Rolling Stone roundtable with Matt Taibbi and David Gergen. During the roundtable Taibbi said the Tea Party supporters are crazy because they vote without "acting on the evidence".  From my reading of the Balloon Juice blog post, my interpretation of the phrase "acting on the evidence" is Tea Party supporters ignore facts and evidence when voting. But Tea Party supporters aren't the only people who ignore facts and evidence when voting. Liberals who voted for Obama ignored facts and evidence too.

If you paid attention to Obama's campaign, you found plenty of evidence Obama was not a liberal. Here are some examples.

• He threw Reverend Wright under the bus.
• After the House voted against the bank bailout, Obama stopped campaigning, went back to Washington, and strong-armed House Democrats into voting for the bailout.
• He promised to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
• His proposal to end the Iraq War left 50,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely.
• He supported giving immunity to companies that helped spy on Americans illegally.

Do those seem like the actions of someone a liberal would want to be President? I would say "No", yet liberals voted for Obama. If they based their votes on facts and evidence, they would have voted for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney. But they voted for Obama in spite of the evidence he did not share their interests.

Every Day Is Military Day

Children sometimes ask their parents why there's a Mother's Day and a Father's Day but no Children's Day. The parents' response is every day is Children's Day. I feel that way about the military. Every day is Military Day in America, and I see no end in sight.

Democratic Partisans Blind to Their Own Hypocrisy

Democrats have an amazing ability to detect Republican hypocrisy. Read the Daily Kos and Huffington Post or watch the Daily Show to see examples. The latest example is Rand Paul campaigning against earmarks, but after getting elected saying he would try to get Kentucky its share of earmark money. There's nothing Democratic partisans like more than pointing out the flaws and hypocrisy of Republican politicians and their supporters.

As great as Democrats are at detecting Republican hypocrisy, they're amazingly blind to hypocrisy on their own side. Let's take the Employee Free Choice Act as an example. That act would make it easier for workers to organize unions. Democrats in Congress supported the act and campaigned on it in 2008. After getting elected, they shelved the Employee Free Choice Act. The Democrats only supported the bill when it had no chance of passing. When they had large majorities in the House and Senate, they showed they don't care about helping workers organize unions. Bring up this example to a Democratic partisan, and you most likely will face a personal attack from this person.

A second example is the impeachment of George W. Bush. In 2006, when the Democrats were in the minority, 100 members of the House signed on in support of impeachment. The Democrats won control of the House in the 2006 election and took control in January 2007. After taking control of the House, the Democratic leadership took impeachment off the table. Dennis Kucinich offered up Articles of Impeachment against Bush, but the articles died in the House Judiciary Committee. You would think Democratic partisans would be enraged by the evil Bush getting away with his crimes, but they didn't show much anger because it was Democrats shirking their constitutional duties. It's easier for Democratic partisans to offer up excuses for Democratic failures and attack anyone who brings up these failures than to face up to reality. There's little difference between Democrats and Republicans on the most important issues.

Obama Didn't Prevent Another Great Depression

The new talking point of Democratic politicians and apologists is that Barack Obama prevented another Great Depression. Unfortunately what they claim Obama prevented is still going strong. Two statistics show the current economic downturn is not ending soon: the unemployment rate and the number of people on food stamps.

The government says unemployment is at 10%, but the government changed the way they report unemployment to make the unemployment rate look better than it really is. If you use the statistics that were used to calculate unemployment during the Great Depression, the current unemployment rate is around 20%. 20% unemployment is Great Depression territory.

Moving on to food stamps, 1 in 6 Americans use food stamps. If there were no food stamps program, you would have millions of people in soup and bread lines, which would look a lot like Great Depression times. 1 in 6 Americans are on food stamps, and Democratic politicians are bragging about what they've done. And the Democrats are supposedly the political party that cares about the poor, the party that's in touch with the needs of the poor and working class.

Independence

I don't know about other countries, but Americans like to think of themselves as independent and self-sufficient. But modern society is set to make true independence and self-sufficiency nearly impossible.

To most people being independent means they have a job and their own house or apartment. But that definition of independence makes you dependent. If you have a job, you're dependent on your employer for the money to pay your bills and for health insurance. If you're self-employed or own your business, you're dependent on your clients and customers.

Most Americans are dependent on other people for the necessities. If you buy your food from a supermarket, you're relying on other people to make your food and transport it to the supermarket. If you buy your clothing, you're relying on other people to make it. You most likely depend on the government for drinking water. If you live in a cold-weather climate, you depend on someone else to heat your home in the winter.

If you drive a car, which most American depend on to get to their jobs, you're dependent on oil companies. American society is highly dependent on electricity. Without it, you probably wouldn't have your job. You wouldn't be able to store food, watch television, listen to music, or go on the Internet. I wouldn't be writing this without electricity.

In modern American society being dependent on other people is a good thing. Being independent and self-sufficient would be a big pain. You would be spending most of your time finding food, preparing it, making your clothing, gathering water, and getting wood for heating and cooking. There isn't enough land in America for over 300 million people to live like that. For most of us, being dependent is superior to being independent.

I Didn't Realize 9/11 Truthers Were Controlling Things

When Jon Stewart announced his Rally to Restore Sanity on the Daily Show, he mentioned that 70-80% of people are reasonable and could come up with acceptable solutions to problems, but that solutions are hard to come by because the conversation and process is controlled by the other 20-30%. He gave examples of these other 20-30%. One example was 9/11 Truthers, people who don't believe the official story of 9/11.

How can Stewart say 9/11 Truthers are controlling the conversation and the political process? Television news networks mostly ignore 9/11 Truthers. When the networks talk about Truthers, all they do is ridicule them. I haven't heard a mainstream American journalist question the official story, probably because journalists know they would lose their jobs if they questioned 9/11. Bill Moyers never questioned 9/11. Keith Olbermann never did, either. Matt Taibbi ridiculed Truthers in one of his books. Bill Maher had audience members removed from his show when they questioned 9/11. Moyers, Olbermann, Taibbi, and Maher are considered liberals, people who supposedly hated Bush and wanted him to look bad. These are the people who would be most likely to question the official story, and they won't go anywhere near it. Show me an example of 9/11 Truthers dominating the conversation on cable news, Jon Stewart.

Moving on to Truthers controlling the political process, if Truthers control the political process, why hasn't there been a real investigation of 9/11? Why haven't Bush and Cheney been prosecuted for 9/11? If Truthers controlled the political process, there would have been investigations and prosecutions by now.

The political process is controlled by people who believe the official story. The only member of Congress who questioned the official story was Cynthia McKinney, and she was voted out shortly after her questioning. When Debra Medina ran for governor of Texas, her opponents attacked her by calling her a 9/11 Truther. If Truthers controlled the process, only candidates who question the official story would hold political office, and that's obviously not true.

Land of the Free

Barack Obama extended the state of emergency that was declared on September 14, 2001 for another year. Thank God we elected Obama or we might have been subjected to Bush's third term.

How can America call itself the land of the free when it's entering its tenth year of living in a state of emergency? Why haven't our military "heroes" stopped this assault on our freedom? I thought the military's job was to protect our freedom.

The Fair Tax

The Fair Tax is a proposal that is picking up steam. It calls for replacing all federal taxes on income (income, payroll, estate, capital gains, and gift taxes) with a 23% national sales tax. Anything you would buy in a retail store would be subject to the tax, including food. If you live in a state that has a sales tax, anything subject to your state's sales tax would be subject to the Fair Tax. Lower income people would get a rebate (they call it a prebate) each month so their basic needs are met without completely impoverishing them.

Determining if the Fair Tax is a good idea depends on your goals. If you want to end the excessive consumerism in American society, the Fair Tax is great. Slapping a 23% tax on everything people buy will get them to buy less things. Buying less things would have environmental benefits as well. I can see environmentalists and people who hate America's consumer culture advocating the Fair Tax.

But judging from the material on the Fair Tax website, most of the supporters of the Fair Tax don't care much about the environmental or social benefits of having people buy fewer things. Their main concern is eliminating all taxes on income. They feel income taxes punish successful people. A sales tax taxes people's lifestyle choices. But the proponents of the Fair Tax ignore make three false assumptions, which could lead to huge economic problems.

Assumption 1: Income and Sales are not Related

Fair Tax advocates assume people's income exists in a vacuum. But in the private sector, people's incomes are directly or indirectly tied to sales. An auto worker's income depends on people buying new cars. A Target cashier's paycheck depends on people shopping at Target. If people stop buying new cars and stop shopping at Target, the auto worker and the cashier will eventually be unemployed, no matter how good a worker they are.

The major problem with the Fair Tax is it's a job killer. Proponents of the Fair Tax probably believe repealing the Bush tax cuts is a job killer. But a 23% national sales tax would kill many more jobs than repealing the Bush tax cuts. When you raise sales taxes, people buy fewer things. When people buy fewer things, companies make fewer things. When companies make fewer things, they need fewer employees so workers lose their jobs. But at least the unemployed won't have to pay any taxes on their $0 income.

Assumption 2: Spending Habits Won't Change

In making their calculations on the effects of the Fair Tax, Fair Tax proponents assume people will spend as much under the Fair Tax as they currently do. They don't take the possibility of reduced consumption into account. On their website they have a graph that shows consumption has been more stable than income over the past 35 years. This graph is their proof that consumer spending won't change much. But in the past 35 years there hasn't been anything like the FairTax that increased the price of everything by 23%. There's no evidence that says consumption will stay the same when prices increase. The chances are much greater of people buying less when the price of everything increases.

With a 23% sales tax, people's spending priorities will change. They will still spend money on necessities like food, clothing, and medicine because necessities are by definition necessary. You can't choose to not eat. But with the price of necessities rising, less money is available for other things. Add in the sales tax and people are going to delay buying big-ticket items like furniture and appliances, which will hurt companies that produce those items.

The Fair Tax would be especially devastating to the automobile industry. Who would buy a new car under the Fair Tax? A $20,000 car would have an additional $4600 in taxes. Used cars would have no tax under the Fair Tax proposal. Most people would buy a used car or keep the car they have instead of buying a new car. New car sales would plummet and auto workers would lose their jobs.

People's spending habits staying the same is a major assumption the Fair Tax proponents make in getting their numbers to add up. 23% of current consumption is what's needed for the federal government to take in the amount of money it currently does with income and payroll taxes. But if people cut their spending because of the Fair Tax, the federal government takes in less money, which will mean higher deficits. Remember that the Fair Tax has to bring in enough money to pay senior citizens' Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as everything else the government funds. Baby boomers are starting to retire, which means the federal government is going to have to shell out more money in retirees' benefits than it currently does. Couple that with lower consumer spending, and you run the risk of massive deficits.

Assumption 3: Wealthy People Spend a High Percentage of Their Income

One common complaint people have with the proposed Fair Tax is that it would be regressive. Wealthy people spend less of their income than lower income people so the 23% sales tax would hit the poor and middle class harder than the wealthy. The prebate would ease the sting on the poor, but Fair Tax proponents assume the wealthy spend a large percentage of their income.

In one of their examples they have a billionaire spending $10 million a year. Maybe entertainers and athletes spend that kind of money, but most people don't get wealthy by spending all their money. With a 23% sales tax, the wealthy would hold off on buying things like luxury cars, yachts, and jewelry. A more accurate example of how the Fair Tax would effect the wealthy is someone who earns $1 million a year in income and spends $200,000 of it on goods and services. Under the Fair Tax, the person would pay 4.6% of their income in taxes.

200,000 * .23 = 46,000
46,000 / 1 million = .046 = 4.6%

My example shows what the flat tax is really about, reducing the tax burden on the wealthy. The Fair Tax is about eliminating the taxes that affect wealthy people more than everyone else (income, capital gains, and estate taxes) and replacing them with a tax that affects wealthy people less than everyone else.

A Campaign Promise Possibly Kept

If Keith Olbermann is to be believed (He's an Obama shill so he's not 100% trustworthy), Obama's 19-month withdrawal from Iraq is complete. Obama technically kept a campaign promise. I'm shocked.

50,000 troops are still in Iraq, but Obama never promised to pull all troops from Iraq. That's one of many reasons why I couldn't vote for him. His escalation in Afghanistan offsets most of the troop reductions in Iraq so there's not much reason to celebrate. His campaign promise wasn't much, but he kept it. I figured he would come up with some excuse to leave more than 50,000 troops in Iraq.

Calling for Others to Resign

Whenever a political figure is involved in a scandal, there are calls for the person to resign. Initially the calls come from the other political party, but if the scandal is big enough and goes on long enough, politicians in the accused's party call for him (or her) to resign. If the political figure holds national office, the calls for resignation become a big part of the news cycle.

The calls for resignation are a sign of arrogance. You have to be full of yourself to tell other people to quit their jobs. But if people are going to call for the resignation of others, I have a list of people who should resign.

I call for Barack Obama and Joe Biden to resign. You didn't leave Iraq and you escalated the Afghanistan conflict. You didn't restore habeas corpus. You didn't end domestic spying. You ordered the assassination of American citizens. When the American people wanted change, you gave us Bush's third term.

I call for all members of Congress to resign. You let Presidents go to war without a declaration of war, which is unconstitutional. You funded the wars. You didn't restore habeas corpus. You bailed out the banks when the people were opposed to it 100 to 1. You place Israel's interests ahead of the American people's interests.

I call for all nine Supreme Court justices to resign. You illegally installed George W. Bush as President. You said corporations are people. You place the interests of corporations and police officers over the constitutional rights of individuals.

I call for all members of the CIA to resign. You have committed numerous crimes in the past 60 years, too many to list.

I call for all members of the military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to resign. You are not keeping the American people safe. You are illegally occupying two countries that did nothing to America. Your resignations are the only way to end these criminal acts.

I call for all members of the Federal Reserve to resign. You destroyed the American middle class with your economic policies. You create money out of thin air and loan it to the American government at interest. This debt cannot be repaid because more money is owed than exists.

I call for everyone involved with what gets reported in the mainstream media to resign: reporters, editors, and corporate bigwigs. You covered up 9/11. You reported the Bush's Administration's lies that led to the Iraq conflict. You didn't even learn from your Iraq mistakes because you're doing the same thing with Iran. You ignore the crimes committed by the American and Israeli governments. You suck up to authority instead of standing up to it.

That's enough of a list for now.

Question About Obamacare Supporters

Is it possible for someone who likes Obama's health care bill to argue for it without talking about pre-existing conditions? I don't think so.

Our Fair Justice System

This post shows how fair our "justice" system really is. Let's look at two cases of people who pled guilty to crimes in Cuyahoga County. For those of you who don't know, Cuyahoga County encompasses Cleveland, Ohio and surrounding areas. Two cases in the same court system. Two guilty pleas.

First, lets look at the case of Gerald McFaul.  McFaul was the sheriff of Cuyahoga County for over 40 years. He pled guilty to two felony counts of theft in office. He stole money from his campaign fund and forced his employees to sell tickets to his political fundraisers. McFaul faced up to 10 years in prison. What sentence did he receive?

He received one year of house arrest and five years of probation. McFaul is 76 years old and in failing health so the judge showed mercy on him. Fair enough. But now let's look at the case of Malcolm Bryant.

Bryant was harassing two employees at a discount store. The store security guard told Bryant he was under arrest. Bryant spit in the guard's face and ran. Some police officers helped the security guard chase Bryant. One of the officers chasing Bryant suffered a heart attack and died. What sentence did Bryant receive?

He received a four-year prison sentence. Four years for being an a-hole at a store and running from a security guard. I feel safer already knowing he'll be behind bars. You may think the sentence was harsh, but that's life in a police state. A law enforcement official gets no prison time for felony theft, but an average citizen gets four years in prison when a police officer dies of natural causes.

One Month To Go

As of today, Barack Obama has been President for 18 months. That leaves one month for him to finish his 19-month withdrawal of "combat troops" from Iraq. I don't see him reaching his goal, but it doesn't matter to his supporters. To them wars are only bad when Republicans are in charge. The wars become complex and necessary when Democrats are in charge.

Thoughts on LeBron Leaving

I'm pissed. He stabbed Northeast Ohio in the back and set the Cavaliers franchise back ten years. Now I get to watch crappy basketball instead of good basketball.

LeBron was the only athlete worth watching in Cleveland. Now there's nothing worth watching in Cleveland, which is especially bad for younger fans.

Why are you so upset about an athlete leaving? There are more important things to get angry about.

While it's true that there are more important things in life than sports, LeBron going to Miami isn't going to improve those more important things. His going to Miami isn't going to end the wars, stop the torture, help the poor, help the sick, or improve the environment. Present-day America is a pretty depressing place for a lot of people. Sports can provide some joy and relief to those people. Now there's less joy in Cleveland.

LeBron was free to choose where he wanted to play. You have no right to be upset with his choice.

It was his right to leave, but It's my right to be upset about it.

Dan Gilbert should not have written that letter about LeBron. Now no big-name free agents will come to Cleveland.

No big-name free agent would have come to Cleveland, even if Dan Gilbert threw a parade for LeBron. In the 40 year history of the Cavaliers franchise, no good player ever came to Cleveland voluntarily. They never came when the Cavaliers had LeBron. I wouldn't expect to see them come without him.

What should the Cavaliers do?

They should blow the team up and start over. It's the only way to build the championship team Gilbert guaranteed. To have a championship team, you either need a franchise player like LeBron (Examples include Michael Jordan's Bulls, Tim Duncan's Spurs, and Kobe Bryant's Lakers) or you need 3-4 All-Star caliber players (Examples include the 2004 Pistons and the 2008 Celtics).

The Cavaliers currently have no All-Star caliber players. The best way to get All-Star players is to draft in the top 5. The only way to ensure drafting in the top 5 is to lose a lot of games. The losing will be painful in the short term, but it's the only way to build a championship team in Cleveland.

Unfortunately, the Cavaliers organization isn't planning on rebuilding. They're trying to win now in a desperate attempt to keep season-ticket holders. The Cavaliers forced season-ticket holders to renew their tickets for the 2011 season before LeBron decided to leave. They think if they can make the playoffs in 2011, the season-ticket holders will renew for 2012.

The Cavaliers organization is in for a rude awakening. They are going to lose at least half their season-ticket base in 2012 unless they can manage to win at least 55 games, which they have no chance of doing. They could win 40-45 games and lose in the first round of the playoffs, but that's the best they could do. If they take on bad contracts to try to win in 2011, they are going to lose a ton of money in 2012. The team should trade their three highest paid players, Antawn Jamison, Anderson Varejao, and Mo Williams, while they can. Get rid of the bad contracts now before they're stuck with a high payroll and low attendance in 2012.

Blame Jim Paxson

After Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wrote a letter to fans blasting LeBron James for leaving, it's becoming fashionable among the national sports media to blame Gilbert for LeBron leaving. Gilbert failed to put a good team around LeBron so Gilbert has no one but himself to blame for losing LeBron. Leaving aside the fact the Cavaliers went 127-37 the past two seasons, Gilbert did the best he could, which you can learn more about in my Defending Danny Ferry post. If you want to blame someone for sabotaging LeBron's chances of winning a title in Cleveland, blame Jim Paxson.

Who's Jim Paxson? He was the GM of the Cavaliers from 1999-2005. The Cavaliers missed the playoffs all six seasons he was GM, which tells you all you need to know about how good a GM he was. Outside of drafting LeBron, which I couldn't even trust him to do, his reign as GM was a disaster.

Terrible Drafting

Paxson did the most damage to the organization through his horrendous drafting. Here are the names of some first round picks made by Jim Paxson:

1999: Trajan Langdon (11th pick)

2000: Chris Mihm (8th pick*)

2001: DeSagana Diop (8th pick)

2002: Dajuan Wagner (6th pick)

2004: Luke Jackson (10th pick)

* Technically, the Bulls drafted Mihm 7th and traded him to the Cavaliers for Jamal Crawford, who was picked 8th, and cash. But since the Bulls could have just drafted Crawford with their pick, I'm calling Mihm the 8th pick.

Five terrible lottery picks. While the Cavaliers may not have been in a position to draft LeBron if Paxson had drafted well, his atrocious drafting left little talent around to help LeBron.

Bad Trades

Paxson made two disastrous trades as GM: one prior to LeBron's arrival and one after. Prior to LeBron's arrival, Andre Miller was the best player on the Cavaliers. In the summer of 2002, the Cavaliers traded him to the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers offered their two lottery picks in 2002 for Miller, but Paxson turned them down. He traded Miller for Darius Miles. Why Miles? Because Miles appeared in the movies Van Wilder and The Perfect Score. According to Paxson, only star players get to be in movies so Miles was a star in the making. Miles is currently trying to get back in the NBA at age 28.

After LeBron arrived, Paxson started trading away draft picks that could have been used to assemble young talent around LeBron. The worst of these trades was trading a first round pick in the 2007 draft to the Celtics for Jiri Welsch midway through the 2005 season. In the late 1990s, the Cavaliers traded a lottery-protected first round pick to the Phoenix Suns for Wesley Person. The Cavaliers playoff drought meant that pick hadn't been conveyed to Phoenix yet. To get the Welsch trade through, the Cavaliers had to give up their first round pick in the 2005 draft to finalize the Person trade.

The Cavaliers missed the playoffs and would have picked 13th in the 2005 draft. They could have had Danny Granger, who went 17th that year. But instead they had Jiri Welsch. Thanks, Jim.

Other Bad Moves

Jim Paxson's worst move as GM was letting Carlos Boozer out of the last year of his contract. Instead of signing a new contract with the Cavaliers, Boozer signed a huge offer sheet from the Utah Jazz. The Cavaliers could have matched the offer, but they didn't have the cap space to do so. They ended up losing Boozer for nothing.

Another horrible move by Paxson was leaving Jason Kapono unprotected in the 2004 expansion draft for the Charlotte Bobcats. Instead of protecting Kapono, Paxson protected Kedrick Brown, who ended up playing eight more games in the NBA. He has been out of the league for five years.

Conclusion

Jim Paxson did an awful job as GM of the Cavaliers. He caused so much damage that Danny Ferry and Dan Gilbert couldn't undo it all in five years. If you want to blame anyone in the Cavaliers organization for not putting the right pieces around LeBron, blame Paxson. He left the organization with few draft picks and few tradable assets.

If Hitler Were Clean-Shaven

Would every American male be forced to have some sort of facial hair?

The reason I ask this question is because of the furor over a Hanes ad where Michael Jordan has a mustache that is supposedly similar to Hitler's mustache. Apparently in America your facial hair cannot be anything near Hitler's or else you're a racist Hitler lover who supports genocide and hates Jews.

Since having facial hair similar to Hitler's is unacceptable, it's good for American men that Hitler wasn't clean-shaven. If Hitler had no facial hair, American men would have to sport facial hair to avoid being labeled a neo-Nazi.

Lose vs. Loose

The most annoying grammatical error I see in Internet writing is people using the word "loose" when they mean to use the word "lose". This post shows the difference between lose and loose.

Lose is a verb. Some examples include the following:

• Lose a game
• Lose weight
• Lose your keys

Loose is an adjective. Some examples include the following:

• A loose tooth
• Loose-fitting pants
• A loose (promiscuous) woman

 

Defending Danny Ferry

It's fashionable for basketball writers (I'm looking at you, Bill Simmons) to criticize Danny Ferry for not getting LeBron James an All-Star sidekick, the Scottie Pippen to LeBron's Jordan, or a core of young talent around him. Why couldn't Ferry be more like Sam Presti, the GM of the Thunder, who surrounded Kevin Durant with Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, and James Harden? The reason Ferry couldn't do what Presti did was because Ferry had much less to work with. This post shows how little Ferry had to work with.

Put yourself in Danny Ferry's place. It's June 2005, and you've been hired to build a team around LeBron James. There are three ways to improve a team: the draft, trades, and free agency.

Draft

The draft is the best way to add young talent to your team, but the caliber of talent available depends on where you draft. Here's where the Cavaliers have drafted during the Ferry era.

• 2005: No draft picks
• 2006: 25th
• 2007: No draft picks
• 2008: 19th
• 2009: 30th

Ferry's predecessor, Jim Paxson, traded away the first round picks in 2005 and 2007. So in five years, Ferry had only 3 first round picks: 19, 25, and 30. The chances of drafting a star player at the end of the first round are miniscule. Most star players are drafted within the first five picks. Add the fact that the 2006 NBA Draft was weak because it was the first draft after high school players were banned from entering the NBA out of high school, and the chances of drafting a great player got slimmer.

What star player did Ferry pass on? The best player Danny Ferry didn't draft was Paul Millsap, but I don't think Millsap would have been enough to get the Cavaliers past the Celtics and Magic.

Contrast that with Sam Presti, who picked at #5 in 2007, #4 in 2008, and #3 in 2009. I wonder why Kevin Durant has young talent around him while LeBron doesn't. You can get better players at picks 3, 4, and 5 than you can get at 19, 25, and 30? Shocking.

Trades

Another option to improve your team is with trades, but to make trades you need players that other teams want. Let's look at the roster Ferry inherited (besides LeBron)

• DeSagana Diop
• Drew Gooden
• Lucious Harris
• Zydrunas Ilgauskas
• Luke Jackson
• Jeff McInnis
• Jerome Moiso
• Ira Newble
• Sasha Pavlovic
• Eric Snow
• Robert Traylor
• Anderson Varejao
• Dajuan Wagner
• Jiri Welsch
• Scott Williams

If you were a GM of an NBA team, would you trade a high draft pick or an All-Star caliber player for any of those players? Without any tradable assets Ferry was left with trading for overpaid players unwanted by their current teams, such as Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace, Mo Williams, Shaq, and Antawn Jamison. Jamison was just overpaid, not overpaid and unwanted.

Free Agency

The last way to improve a team is through free agency, and it is the most difficult way to improve a team. The NBA's collective bargaining rules allow teams to offer their prospective free agents more money, which means star players make more money by staying with their teams. Add the fact that Cleveland is not a hot free agent destination, even with LeBron, and getting a star player via free agency becomes more difficult.

The Cavaliers had a lot of cap room in 2005, and Ferry used the money to sign Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Alan Henderson, and Damon Jones. Those signings did not work well for the Cavaliers, but read the list of free agents in 2005. Who should the Cavaliers have signed instead? Remember that Ray Allen and Michael Redd re-signed with their teams. The best unrestricted free agents I can see are Chris Andersen (Birdman), Robert Horry, and Matt Barnes, none of whom is a star player.

If you say that Ferry should have saved his money and not signed Hughes, Marshall, and Jones, remember the roster Ferry inherited. LeBron's rookie contract was coming to an end. If Ferry stayed with the roster he inherited, LeBron may have refused to sign a contract extension. Would you have taken that chance?

Conclusion

To anyone who says Danny Ferry failed to surround LeBron with good players, what should he have done? What draft picks, trades, and free agent signings would have gotten LeBron the supporting cast he needed? What would have gotten LeBron the same core of young talent Kevin Durant has?

Why People Hate Environmentalists

It's because of environmentalists like Stewart Brand. Watch him being interviewed by Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report. He sounds like a spokesperson for electric utilities.

Brand wants us to stop using fossil fuels to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The short-term solution to Brand is nuclear power. While it is true that nuclear power is currently the cleanest option among the large-scale options in terms of emissions (solar and wind currently aren't large scale), Brand glosses over the problems with nuclear power.

Nuclear waste? Not much of a problem to Brand. Nuclear power generates very little waste so you just store it on-site. If the amount of nuclear waste is so small that it can be stored on-site, why was the government contemplating storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain? Colbert didn't ask so Brand didn't have to answer, but Brand mentioned drilling down 3 miles into the ground and storing the nuclear waste there, with concrete around it.

What about the dangers of meltdowns like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island? Apparently there is no longer any danger of meltdowns at nuclear power plants. And there never could be a problem with a nuclear power plant, right? Same way offshore oil rigs are safe and never malfunction.

After pimping nuclear power Brand shilled for "clean coal". Charles Davis explained "clean coal" better than me.

For starters, take the Kerry-Lieberman proposal’s subsidies for “clean coal,” a P.R. term that refers to capturing a coal plant's carbon emissions and storing them under ground -- though nobody’s actually doing that at the moment -- while passing legal liability for any problems onto to taxpayers. Despite being the leading contributor to climate change -- proponents of the bill would say because -- coal companies stand to reap tens of billions of dollars over the next few decades in direct subsidies for what is the climate policy-equivalent of cleaning the floors by sweeping dirt under a rug – except sweeping dirt under a rug is technically and commercially feasible.

So Brand thinks nuclear energy and clean coal are the solutions to our environmental problems. Is Brand an environmentalist or a lobbyist for the electric utilities? It's hard to tell. Brand's views are identical to the utilities.

The problem with the environmental movement is their single-minded obsession with global warming and greenhouse gasses. Do whatever it takes to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, even if it harms the environment in the process.

Response to Dennis Loo

It's rare that Counterpunch has a sports article, but recently there was one by Dennis Loo entitiled LeBron James and the Culture of Narcissism. He posted the article on his blog at Open Salon, but I didn't feel like signing up for a Salon account just to rebut one article so I'm rebutting here.

Apparently Loo started watching LeBron this past season. If he had followed LeBron throughout his NBA career, he wouldn't have made the following erroneous statement:

How can he be the King when he hasn’t taken his team to even the NBA finals?

LeBron led the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in 2007. I was at Games 3 and 4 of the 2007 NBA Finals as well as Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, when they clinched their berth in the Finals. A quick Google search will also confirm that the Cavaliers played in the 2007 NBA Finals and that LeBron James was on the Cavaliers.

Apparently Loo didn't watch Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals, when LeBron scored the last 25 points for the Cavaliers on the way to a victory in double overtime. If you have NBA TV, Dennis Loo, they usually air that game on December 30, LeBron's birthday. It's one of the greatest playoff performances in NBA history. And I think it qualifies as an example of "take your team on your shoulders and say, follow me."

Loo ends his LeBron bashing with the following gem:

If I were a Cleveland fan, I’d think real hard about whether I wanted him back after this. Not because he lost to Boston, but because of the way he did it.

I am a Cleveland fan, and I want him back because I remember what things were like before LeBron. In the four seasons before LeBron joined the Cavaliers, they lost 220 games. That's 55 losses a season, which is losing approximately two-thirds of their games. The arena was 75% empty on weeknights unless Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, or the Lakers were the opponent. Things sucked pre-LeBron, and they will suck post-LeBron. I know you don't remember how things were before LeBron, Dennis Loo. You don't even know what they were like during his tenure with the Cavaliers.

Congress Isn't Ending the Wars

In October 2007 I wrote a blog post here saying that protests weren't going to end the Iraq war. I wrote the following paragraph to end the piece:

What can the anti-war movement do to get Congress to cut off funding? Put pressure on them. Organize letter writing campaigns. March on each congressional member's local office and demand an end to the war. March on the Capitol on a weekday when Congress is working. These activities are going to do more to end the war than marching on Washington on a Saturday when no one who can do anything to end the war is there. Hell, just writing a letter every day to your representative and senators would do more than a Saturday march on Washington.

Examining that paragraph again, what was I thinking when I mentioned organizing letter writing campaigns? I was under the illusion that Congress listened to the people. I was completely wrong.

It's obvious now that Congress doesn't listen to the people, but in my defense, I wrote the post a year before the bank bailouts. The American people wrote and called Congress, and the people were against the bailout 100 to 1. Congress voted to bail out the banks anyway, despite the strong opposition from the American people.

The bank bailouts showed Congress doesn't care what the public thinks. On March 10 Congress showed they have no intention of stopping the wars. The House voted 356 to 65 against Dennis Kucinich's resolution to leave Afghanistan.

Let that sink in. The vote was 356-65 in favor of continuing the Afghanistan War. 356-65 is not the Republicans and some Blue Dog Democrats coming together to keep the war going. 356-65 is strong bipartisan support for war. Democrats voted 189-60 to continue the war. Over 75% of Democrats, the supposed anti-war party, voted to continue the war. That should be a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the Democrats are going to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will end this article on a positive note. In my original article I said there were two ways to end the wars: the President can withdraw troops and Congress can cut off funding. There is a third option. The military could stop fighting. It worked in Vietnam, but it's tougher with an all-volunteer army. But the military getting fed up and refusing to fight is our best option at ending the wars right now.

Debt Can Get You Canned

I woke up today to see the following headline in the front page of the local paper:

67 DFAS workers to lose jobs due to personal debts

You can read the entire article, but if you don't want to, I'll summarize it. The War Department is firing 67 civilian employees in Cleveland because they have too much debt. They are not being fired for poor performance, but for having too much debt. Because they have too much debt, they are being fired by the War Department, which is part of an organization that is over $12 trillion in debt. Ironic, isn't it?

How are these people supposed to repay their debts if they get fired? Many companies won't hire people with bad credit. No job means no income. And no income means no way to repay their debts. It sounds like the government is trying drive people into bankruptcy.

Why Liberals Should Abandon the Democratic Party

I was reading the comments on this post on Dennis Kucinich's folding on Obama's health bill at A Tiny Revolution. Someone commented that liberal Democrats could learn from Republicans about when to compromise and when to walk away. A commenter named freemansfarm made the following response to that comment (If you read the comments, it's dated March 19, 2010 at 10:03 PM):

Almost all Republicans are conservatives, at the voter and office holder level. Only about half of Democrats are liberal, at both levels. Thus, the conservative "base" has a lot more leverage over "its" party than we, the liberal "base," have over "ours."

Although freemansfarm votes for Democrats, he makes the ultimate argument to not vote for them in the three sentences I quoted. The Democratic Party has no reason to do anything liberals want. Suppose you're a Democratic Party leader and have two options on an issue: Option A, which liberals like and non-liberals hate, and Option B, which liberals hate, and non-liberals like. Which option would you go with?

If you care about winning elections, you'll go with Option B. If you go with Option A, the non-liberals can go to the Republicans, which means you lose. By going with Option B, you get all the Democrats. The non-liberals stay with you because you're doing what they want. The liberals will be upset, but they'll vote for you. They won't vote Republican. They won't vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all because they fear Republicans being in power. Democrats get the most votes by ignoring what liberals want and doing what non-liberals want.

Politicians care about one thing: getting elected. Democratic politicians currently increase their chances of getting elected by ignoring liberals and doing what non-liberals want. They will continue to do this as long as liberals continue to vote for them unconditionally. The only way for liberals to get Democratic politicians to enact liberal policies is to stop voting for Democrats.

Way to Go, Democrats in Congress

You stood up to the health insurance companies by passing the bill they wrote for you. Proud of you.

Who cares if everyone is forced to buy crappy private health insurance? What's important is Obama and the Democrats in Congress look like they're doing something to reform health care. Obama looking good is more important than actually reforming health care.

And a special thanks to Dennis Kucinich for selling us out. Thanks for voting for a healthcare bill you know is a massive giveaway to health insurance companies. And why did Dennis vote for such a terrible bill? So Obama's presidency isn't harmed. We can't have Obama's presidency harmed. If it were harmed, he might not be able to continue the stupid wars, the domestic spying, the torture, and the giveaways to corporate interests. He might not be able to continue giving us Bush's third term.

Union Money vs. Corporate Money

If this article is correct, unions gave the Democrats $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The Democrats have done nothing to help unions, which brings up a question. Why are politicians beholden to corporate money, but not union money?

When corporations give money to political candidates, the corporations get their way. You can see this in the health care debate. Health insurance companies and drug companies gave millions of dollars to candidates. In exchange, the Democrats made sure to cut off any discussion of single-payer health care or the federal government negotiating lower drug prices.

When unions give money to candidates, they get nothing. You would think $400 million would be enough to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. But the Democrats were principled enough to take the money and not let it affect their support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Why can't they be as principled with corporate money?

The Tea Party Movement Has Been Hijacked

Ron Paul is facing primary challenges from people affiliated with the Tea Party movement. I thought the Tea Party movement was about freedom and limited government. If that's the case, Ron Paul would be their ideal candidate. They would want 250 Ron Pauls in the House and 60 Ron Pauls in the Senate.

The fact that the Tea Party people are going after Ron Paul tells you everything you need to know about the current movement. They're not about freedom and limited government. They're about getting Republicans back in power. They're no better than so-called progressives who only care about electing Democrats.

What Men Really Think of Women

Read the comments to this article about a proposed NFL rule change. You'll see that men do not consider women to be equal.

They Don't See the Contradiction

At my church this weekend the congregation recited the following prayer:

Lord God, I thank you today for the gift of my life,

And for the lives of all my brothers and sisters.

I know there is nothing that destroys more life than abortion,

Yet I rejoice that you have conquered death

by the Resurrection of Your Son.

I am ready to do my part in ending abortion.

Today I commit myself

Never to be silent,

Never to be passive,

Never to be forgetful of the unborn.

I commit myself to be active in the pro-life movement,

And never to stop defending life

Until all my brothers and sisters are protected,

And our nation once again becomes

A nation with liberty and justice

Not just for some, but for all,

Through Christ our Lord. Amen!

Two minutes earlier they prayed for the soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. They didn't pray for an end to the wars or for the soldiers to stop killing people. They essentially prayed for them to continue to kill Iraqis and Afghanis. Isn't it a contradiction to "never to stop defending life" and pray for people who kill for a living? Apparently churches don't see the contradiction.

There Was No $5 Trillion Surplus

When talking about the federal budget, a Democratic Party talking point is that George W. Bush converted a $5 trillion surplus to $5 trillion dollars of debt. The Bush years were a disaster, and there was lots of deficit spending. But there was no $5 trillion dollar surplus.

The $5 trillion dollar surplus was a 10-year projection Bill Clinton made when he left office. It was a projection. There was no pile of money sitting in the US Treasury.

Even if Bill Clinton had been President from 2001-2009, the federal government would not have had a $5 trillion budget surplus. There were two recessions, a housing bubble, bank bailouts, a derivatives fiasco, and massive offshoring of jobs. There's no way the federal budget would have remained at a surplus, especially when you take into account both parties' refusal to even consider reducing military spending.

To summarize, Bush stunk, but he didn't squander a $5 trillion surplus.

51 or 60?

How many votes does it take to pass a bill in the United States Senate? Is it a simple majority, 51 or 50 if the VP is in the same party as the party proposing the bill? Or is it 60, the amount of votes needed to avoid a filibuster? Both answers make the Democratic Party look bad.

If you answered 60, I have another question for you. How was George W. Bush able to pass so many bills the Democratic Party supposedly opposed when the Republicans had fewer than 60 seats in the Senate? Bush got Senate approval for the following:

• Invading Iraq.


• Tax cuts for the wealthy.


• Immunity for companies that helped the government read people's emails and listen to their phone calls.


• No Child Left Behind.

The Democratic Party claims to be against all four of the measures I listed. If they had done what the Republicans are doing now to the Democrats' health care proposal, none of those measures would have passed. The fact that all four of those measures passed tells me the Democrats in the Senate supported Bush's policies.

If you answered 51, where are the bills for the causes the Democratic Party supposedly supports? Where's the Employee Free Choice Act? I thought the Democrats were the party for working families. Where's the funding cutoff for the Iraq War? The Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 election by promising to end the Iraq War. They have a President who says he's opposed the Iraq War from the beginning. Why are they still funding it? Where are the environmental bills? Where are the education bills? I thought the Democrats were the party that cared about the environment and education.

The Democrats' actions the past nine years should send a clear message to their base: union workers, environmentalists, African-Americans, feminists, and anti-war activists. The Democrats are not on your side. They went along with Bush and have done nothing you wanted. They take your money and your vote for granted, then they abandon you. Stop enabling them. Stop supporting them.

How's That Iraq Withdrawal Coming Along?

When Barack Obama was running for President, he called for a responsible withdrawal of troops from Iraq: one brigade a month for 16 months. Shortly after he became President, the timeline was extended to 19 months. His plan called for approximately 50,000 troops to remain in Iraq. It wasn't a total withdrawal, but it was a start.

Obama has been President for almost a year, but I haven't heard any news of monthly troop withdrawals. I haven't heard any news of the withdrawal plan even starting. When is the troop withdrawal supposed to begin? I thought it was supposed to start in 2009. Is it going to start this year? 2011? 2012? Is it ever going to start? I'm leaning towards "No" for the last question.

To Anyone Who Supports a Military Draft

Read the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

A draft is involuntary servitude. The government is forcing you to serve in the military. Unless the people being drafted are convicted of a crime, a draft violates the 13th Amendment and is unconstitutional.