Little will be fixed before we fix Congress.

Newsflash: Congress is broken.

Yeah, I know, this is not exactly breaking news, but from the tech/legal/academic front comes an effort to address it. A list of what's broken about Congress would be long, but ultimately most of them comes down to one thing: Fuckin' money.

I know it's simplistic, but...

• It's why we're in Iraq.
• It's why almost nothing has been done by the U.S. on global warming.
• It's why our healthcare system is broken.
• It's why George Fucking Bush got elected.

Professor Larry Lessig, a prominent Stanford law professor and widely read blogger on technology and the law, has launched change-congress.org, a new effort to reduce the influence of money in politics.

In essence, he is asking for public pressure to get candidates (incumbents and challengers) to agree to four basic principles:

1. promise not to accept PAC or lobbyist contributions;
2. commit vote to abolish "earmarks" permanently;
3. commit to vote to support public financing of public elections, and;
4. commit to compel complete transparency in the functioning of Congress and the government.

Many on the right are stridently against public financing of elections and contribution limits (limits free speech, they say). Lessig makes a strong pitch to them:

(from David Weigel's post in the libertarian rag Reason)

"The most interesting part, so far, has been Lessig's argument to conservatives for why we need public financing. First, the idea he semi-endorsed is not full public campaign finance. It is public financing for incumbents, an idea he credits to Paul Begala and James Carville. Incumbents would be prohibited from raising any money, at all, period. Their funds will come from the U.S. Treasury and be a function of how much their opponents raise. If Challenger Jones raises $1 million, Congressman Smith gets a check for $800,000.

"Why should conservatives and libertarians support this, given that Lessig accepts a $2 billion estimate of the cost? 'Why is government so big?' Lessig asks, rhetorically. 'Because Congressmen must get elected. The insidious relationship between the desire to regulate and the need for congressmen to get re-elected drives the expansion of government.' Compare that $2 billion cost, Lessig suggests, to a radically shrunken (and less busy) FEC and the diminishment of loopholes and handouts."

I find Carville and Begala's idea to be worth close examination. Think about it. A challenger could raise as much money as he or she wants. The incumbent's campaign would get a check for the same amount from the government. Once elected, a member of Congress would never have to ask anyone for money again.

If you are frustrated that Congress can't seem to get anything meaningful done...look at the fuckin' money.

And sign up at change-congress.org.

Doesn't The Moon Look Beautiful Tonight, Honey? Hey, Do We Have Any Beer In The Fridge?

If Rolling Rock’s ads are to be believed, guerilla marketing will leave its earthly confines this week when the brewery tries projecting its corporate logo onto the moon’s surface with a laser beam. Is this for real? Is it a hoax? Do they really have the technology to do this thing? Will we need a telescope or can we enjoy the show with the naked eye? And most importantly, can the whole thing be stopped??

I thought the nightmare of high tech advertising was the retina scanning portrayed in “Minority Report,” where people couldn’t go anywhere without being scanned, identified, and then bombarded with personal ads based on their recorded purchase history. But that nightmare is reserved for the future, a bleak future in which a heavily-armed Tom Cruise flies around in a jetpack. The laser beam plan is here and now, and it’s so brilliantly simple. Make the boring old moon a huge cosmic billboard for corporate America to light up nightly with ads for Target or Ford or Pizza Hut (because, if successful, little Rolling Rock will be quickly elbowed to the side by bigger companies with bigger laser beams). Beautiful logos just shining there for the entire hemisphere to enjoy. Is that a “Harvest Moon?” No, it’s a “Harvest of Values Moon,” from your True Value Hardware Store. Sea of Tranquility? That’s what awaits you at America’s Best Western motels.

According to their website, Rolling Rock will also be beaming messages, or has already been beaming messages, requested by pretty much anyone who asks. Here’s one by Joe from Buffalo, New York, that was aimed at the Crater Plinius: “Let’s go Sabres! Buffalo Sabres Rock!“ I am not making this up. Some of history’s greatest poets like Byron, Shelly and Coleridge, have written a beautiful verse or two about the moon. Now we have Joe from Buffalo. Writing on the moon.

America doesn’t own the moon, even though we personally planted a flag on it long ago (in part so that MTV might one day have something cool to use for its logo). And according to Wikipedia, the U.S. and Russia signed a treaty that places the moon under the same jurisdiction as international waters, and restricts its use to peaceful purposes. Unfortunately, a second treaty, one that deals with lunar property rights and forbids one nation from exploiting the moon’s resources, has not been signed.

Maybe it’s time to revisit that issue. I know Congress has other priorities, which is how it should be, but this is a long-term problem in the making. If the Rolling Rock experiment is successful, it’s going to be uber-cool. For about 10 seconds. And then the prospect of never seeing the moon in its natural state again will sink in. And then it’s going to suck.

I don’t know what the mysterious “33” on the Rolling Rock bottle stands for, but for me it’ll represent the number of times I’ll want to kick Ron, Rolling Rock’s congenial marketing spokesperson, in his ass if this thing leads to a permanent orbiting ad campaign.

Client 9 Broke Commandment 7. Thank Heaven The Feds Are Here To Restore Moral Order.

I don’t live in New York, so I’ll assume for argument’s sake that the governor’s sex life really is the state’s most pressing issue, just as President Clinton’s sex life was once America’s most pressing issue. But I’m still a little unclear as to what Governor Spitzer did that required his resignation. Did he miss important meetings or fail to sign important legislation because he was too busy getting laid with an extremely over-priced prostitute? ($5K for one woman for one hookup? She looks hot in those photos, but she isn’t exactly Heidi Klum.)

Was he expected to be moral leader? If so, what kind? It may be my twisted sense of morality, but I find it immoral when, for example, a government leader orders a first-strike invasion of some tin pot dictator’s country and baldly lies about having "slam dunk" evidence of weapons of mass destruction and ties with a terrorist group that carried out an attack on U.S. soil that rivaled Pearl Harbor. That’s the kind of thing that provokes yawns from our Puritan elders, most of whom are members of that leader's political party. I have the same apathy: I just can’t work up any outrage over where Elliot Spitzer put his dick.

I’m not saying he didn’t break any laws, but for now it appears he resigned because he got his rocks off with someone who wasn’t his wife. No, I don’t live in New York, but I do live in the U.S., and I’m wondering if prosecuting adultery is really the best use of federal law enforcement resources. If it turns out Spitzer used public funds or campaign money for these trysts, well that’s something entirely different. But that has yet to be determined. With any luck, the FBI will spend thousands of man-hours and millions of tax dollars finding out.

Apparently, it wouldn’t be the first time. I once heard that during the height of the Clinton impeachment, up to 200 FBI agents were investigating the President’s infidelities. I don’t know if that’s really true, but it certainly sounds true. After all, it may have been Clinton’s Justice Department but Congress controlled the money, and that particular Congress had only one priority: Get Bubba. This was uncomfortably close to the time we know that Al-Qaeda members were in the U.S. setting up cells and laying the groundwork for the 9-11 attacks. How many FBI agents were investigating that situation? Were they even aware of that situation, or were they concentrating on other top priorities?

The last time I checked, names like Osama Bin Laden and Whitey Bulger still sit near the top of the FBI’s most wanted list. I guess that’s the equivalent of the “wish list” option you find on shopping websites; you put the diamond necklace and the 60 inch flat-screen on the wish list, but the reality is that you’re going to order the vacuum cleaner. And it’s not going to be the deluxe model you wish you could buy. The Emperors Club VIP is the FBI’s second-rate vacuum cleaner, and catching its madams and Johns is the best they can do for now.

I think Bruce Springsteen summed it up best (as he often does) during a concert I saw in October 2005. The Boss was joking about his recent travels, telling us he’d just spent some time in the Twin Cities partying on a boat with members of the Minnesota Vikings. He was talking about a scandal involving players who had brought prostitutes from other states onto a charter boat for a little more sightseeing than the brochure promised. Bruce was clearly mystified that charges were being brought. “I’m just not sure what those young men are being prosecuted for,” he said. “When did fucking become illegal?”

There's no "us" in US Capitol

Have you noticed how Congress has done nothing to secure the borders of this country yet they have spent untold millions of YOUR tax dollars building the U.S. Capitol property (the Capitol and approximately 16 surrounding city blocks) into a hardened facility with access control and Capitol Police in patrol cars and on foot everywhere? So they won't do what the public demanded for the public, but they'll take care of themselves within that area they fail to make safe. I think that's just about what I'd expect from Congress. Niiiiice.

Boo

Boo to Bill being wrong.

Once again, America seems to lack courage. And, of course, heart.

Not for Nothing....

I have to make this prediction: Obama sweeps all four contests tonight. It is a reach, and I am nervous about the call, but the high levels of turnout just can not be explained by a sudden infatuation with Hillary. There are not that many new women of a certain age, or of labor, and Hispanic votes will not have as much bang-for-the-buck (the Texas system) as they should.

Maybe I just "have a crush on Obama".