This election is supposed to be all about jobs and the economy. But judging from the news coverage, those words may be important in the context of the campaigns, but they aren’t important enough to actually talk about meaningfully. So, what say we catch up on how we’re doing.

The unemployment rate has been slowly coming down, in fits and starts. In December, it hit 8.5%.

Unemployment rate for the last 12 months

Unfortunately, there is a long way to go.

Unemployment rate for the last 5 years

There is particularly a long way to go when you get past some of the nuanced definitions that go into the “unemployment rate” and consider how much of the population is employed now compared to how much was employed before the collapse. What this shows is that what little employment growth there has been, has barely kept up with population growth, if at all. It may also show that a whole, huge wave of baby-boomers have exited the workforce permanently, due to the recession. Whatever the detailed causes… this is one of the most horrifying tidbits of data you’ve never seen in the news.

More bad news on the unemployment front. The length of time people who lose their jobs remain unemployed, has continued to increase over the years since the recession. Which means job losses have not been temporary. They have, to a large degree, been permanent. This should be, basically, considered to be such a disaster as to push everything else off the front pages until it is fixed.

Average weeks the unemployed stay unemployed

What is terrifying about that graph isn’t so much the increase in average length of unemployment from about 17 weeks before the recession to 40 weeks now. What is terrifying is how it compares to anything we’ve ever experienced in our recorded history.

Unemployed people stay unemployed longer, by a catastrophic amount, than ever.

Not quite as catastrophic, but certainly not good, is that new unemployment claims have jumped in the last few weeks.

New unemployment claims

As you can see, this number bounces a lot, and it comes out weekly. To smooth it and take some of the noise out, we usually like to look at a four week “moving average.” The increase has been enough to raise that too. Despite the alarming increase, it is still at a lower rate than it has been all year. We’d like to think this is temporary.

New unemployment claims, 4 week moving average

Put in context of the last five years, new unemployment claims are still higher than they were before the collapse, but the overall trend is improving. Slowly.

New unemployment claims, last 5 years, 4 week moving average

An alarming possibility, however, is that this recent uptick in unemployment claims it a symptom of an unfortunate turn on the global scene. If you think it has been a while since you’ve heard blood curdling shrieks from the Ron Paul / inflation panic people, there’s a good reason. The dollar has been gaining strength since last summer.

Trade weighted dollar index, last 12 months

This is the main reason gas prices came down this Fall. Global oil markets have been trading based on the Euro for several years, so when the dollar falls against the Euro, gas prices go up. When the dollar strengthens, gas prices go down. Until we start poking Iran with a stick, anyway.

Gas prices, last 12 months

Since what matters is how the dollar and the Euro (and other major currencies) compare to each other, strengthening in one is indistinguishable from weakening in another. The strength in the dollar since last summer has more to do with the Euro collapsing because of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, than any particular US economic improvement.

Anyway, while the inflation hawks like to see a strengthening dollar, it makes imports more attractive compared to our domestic production, and our exports less attractive to the rest of the world. We’d expect to see a stronger dollar result in a slowing of export growth and a widening trade deficit. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.

Exports are weakening with the strengthening dollar.

As the dollar has gained strength, exports that had been growing nicely have levelled off and even pulled back a little. And the trade deficit, which had shown improvement for five months, reversed course and grew.

Trade deficit grew in November, more even than was forecast.

None of this bodes well for jobs in the near future.

Of course, if we’ve seen anything since the crash, it is that economic growth and American jobs are no longer as tied together as they used to be. Our gross domestic product [GDP] continues to be positive, although extremely slow, at well less than 2%.

GDP growth is positive, but very low

For what it’s worth, the leading indicators show more of the same. Slow economic growth, enough to hopefully keep us from sliding back into recession… but not enough to fix our devastating unemployment crisis.

Leading indicators show continued positive, but very sluggish, economic growth

The time to end the death penalty in Kentucky has come.

A report released earlier this month on a two year assessment conducted by the American Bar Association [ABA] found that Kentucky’s death penalty system is so broken and unfair that the state should declare a moratorium on executions. A moratorium would be a good start, and if Kentucky voters have any say in the matter, one will be imposed sooner rather than later. A survey conducted right before the report was released showed that strong majorities of likely 2012 Kentucky voters support a death penalty moratorium, and these majorities go across party affiliation, gender, and even geography within the state.

Source: Lake Research Partners survey of 405 likely November 2012 Kentucky voters, Nov. 30–Dec. 4, 2011, margin of error (±4.9%)

But a moratorium doesn’t go far enough. The time has come to end the death penalty in Kentucky once and for all. (If you agree, sign this petition that will be delivered to Governor Beshear and members of the Kentucky House and Kentucky Senate.)

While the report credits Kentucky with taking some important steps to improve the quality and fairness of its death penalty process, the shortcomings are enormous. The ABA made dozens of recommendations that included passing new laws, funding facilities for preserving biological evidence, training of law enforcement officers and prosecutors, developing accountability and disciplinary measures for investigators, upgrades to the state’s crime laboratories, policies and disciplinary measures to prevent prosecutorial misconduct, an overhaul of the defense services provided to capital defendants… the list goes on for page after page after page. Numerous recommendations include the phrase “provide funding for…”

A sampling from the report of what Kentucky would need to fix:

• Kentucky laws and procedures do not sufficiently protect the innocent, convict the guilty, and ensure the fair and efficient enforcement of criminal law in death penalty cases
• Evidence in criminal cases, including capital cases, is not required to be retained for as long as the defendant remains incarcerated, despite the possibility of wrongful conviction. Kentucky law and practice also permits destruction of evidence in a variety of instances, including, in some cases, when the perpetrator remains at large
• While the Commonwealth’s post-conviction DNA testing statute permits post-trial testing of biological evidence prior to execution under some circumstances, the problem of lost evidence significantly diminishes the utility of the statute
• …some of the Commonwealth’s largest law enforcement agencies have no policies that are consistent with the ABA Best Practices on eyewitness identifications and interrogations. In those agencies that have adopted policies, the policies are not uniformly enforced.
• Kentucky does not require the accreditation of its forensic laboratories (and only three of its six have voluntarily obtained accreditation), MEO, or any of the 120 county coroner offices. Other KSP Laboratory branches or smaller law enforcement agencies conducting limited forensics are not accredited by any national accrediting body. Kentucky also funds its medical examiner and county coroner systems at levels far below the national average. Testing backlogs persist at KSP Laboratory causing delays in all criminal cases
• …there is no mechanism in place to guide prosecutors in their charging decisions to support the even-handed, non-discriminatory application of the death penalty across the Commonwealth
• All Kentucky public defenders handling capital cases retain caseloads that far exceed national averages and recommended maximum caseloads. In some cases, Kentucky public defenders provide capital representation while carrying caseloads of over 400 non-capital cases each year. Support staff members, including investigators and mitigation specialists, are routinely overworked and underpaid, carrying caseloads ranging from twelve to twenty-five capital cases at any given time. A 2011 study found that Kentucky public defenders who handle death penalty cases make 31% less than similarly-experienced attorneys in surrounding states constituting the lowest average salaries of examined jurisdictions. Furthermore, the hourly rates and maximum caps on compensation available for contract counsel in death penalty cases are inadequate to ensure high quality legal representation and are far below the rates available to attorneys performing contractual work for the Commonwealth on civil matters
• At least ten of the seventy-eight people sentenced to death since 1976 were represented by defense counsel who were subsequently disbarred. While Kentucky’s public defender agencies seek to enforce internal standards governing the proper provision of counsel in all death penalty cases assigned to their agencies, Kentucky has not adopted any statewide standards governing the qualifications and training of attorneys appointed to handle capital cases at trial, on appeal, and during post-conviction proceedings
• When an execution date is set prior to the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations imposed for filing a post-conviction petition, it has the effect of significantly curtailing the time that a death row inmate has to prepare and file his/her petition
  for post-conviction relief. Inmates not under a death sentence do not face a similar time constraint. Kentucky also does not authorize discovery in state post-conviction proceedings and prohibits inmates from using the Kentucky Open Records Act to obtain materials possessed by law enforcement that may be essential for establishing a death row inmate’s constitutional claims. The lack of discovery during post-conviction review makes it all the more likely that death row inmates will be unable to develop viable claims of constitutional error in light of the truncated time period in which they must prepare their petitions. Furthermore, Kentucky post-conviction courts typically do not authorize any funding for mental health experts to assist potentially mentally retarded death row inmates to accurately determine and prove their mental capacities
• A disturbingly high percentage of Kentucky capital jurors who were interviewed by the Capital Jury Project failed to understand the guidelines for considering aggravating and mitigating evidence. For example, 45.9% of jurors failed to understand that they could consider mitigating evidence at sentencing, 61.8% failed to understand that they need not find mitigation “beyond reasonable doubt,” and 83.5% of jurors did not understand that they need not have been unanimous on findings of mitigation
• The Kentucky Supreme Court cannot engage in meaningful proportionality review to determine if a death sentence is proportionate in comparison to similar cases and offenders. It does not appear that the relevant data on capital charging practices has been maintained to permit the Court to undertake a searching proportionality review
• Without a statewide entity that collects data on all death-eligible cases in the Commonwealth, Kentucky cannot determine the extent of racial or geographic bias in its capital system

Use of the death penalty is plummeting

Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and author of The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report, notes that the nation as a whole is backing away from the death penalty.

This year, the use of the death penalty continued to decline by almost every measure… Executions, death sentences, public support, the number of states with the death penalty all dropped from previous years. Whether it’s concerns about unfairness, executing the innocent, the high costs of the death penalty, or the general feeling that the government just can’t get it right, Americans moved further away from capital punishment in 2011.

The death penalty isn’t for victim’s families, either

Ben Griffith recently wrote a letter-to-the-editor that was published by the Frankfort State-Journal. In it he said this.

To make the leap that murder victim families are united in wanting a death penalty continues the critical oversimplification of “paying a price commensurate with their crimes” and the pathetic use of a grieving family at a parole hearing to justify another murder. I belong to two different organizations of murder victim families (thousands of us) that feel victim survivors are victimized yet again when murderers are given the gallows. My brother was murdered in 1986 and his murderer was poisoned to death in 1997 by the state of Missouri. That is why I work as a board member of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Don’t lay the need to continue executions down at victims’ feet. (You don’t know the voices of all of us.)

What’s Next

Legislation that would ban the execution of people with severe mental illnesses, as well as legislation to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky completely, is expected to come before the Kentucky General Assembly within a few weeks.

There is a petition demanding an end to the death penalty in Kentucky. It will be delivered to Governor Beshear and all members of the Kentucky legislature, with results being broken out by district for representatives in the Kentucky House and Senate. You can sign it and then share it on Facebook, Twitter, by e-mail, etc.

You can also find your state senator and representative, along with their e-mail address and phone number, at Project VoteSmart.

Mitch McConnell: Houston… we have a problem [The Arena].

With Democrats like Ben Chandler, who needs Republicans? [The Arena].

An economic tsunami washed over the economy in 2008.  We should have all been standing in a foot of water in 2009 and 2010.  Instead, 90.4% of us are cozy and dry while 9.6% of us are drowning in water that is hundreds of feet deep.  Several million people are carrying our load for us, and it is killing them.

Of course I am speaking of those who are unemployed as a direct result of the financial collapse and ensuing recession.

To understand why, realize that unemployment is deflation in disguise.

“Huh”, you ask?

Think about it.  What happens when the overall demand for goods and services is greater than the economy’s ability to create them?  As in all shortages, the goods and services get more expensive.  There is inflation.

We hear all the time how terrible inflation is.  In reality, inflation isn’t terrible for everybody.  High rates of inflation take money from people with cash savings and fixed incomes and puts it in the pockets of people who have borrowed money or who make fixed payments.  So while inflation is terrible for people who are well off it can be quite lovely for people with mortgage payments, car payments, student loan payments, and other payments for fixed amounts.

Deflation is just the opposite.  Deflation is awesome for savers and people on fixed incomes because their money goes further as prices fall.  Deflation is terrible for borrowers who end up paying off loans of cheap money with payments of expensive money.

You might expect that as the business cycle rolls along sometimes we would have inflation and sometimes we would have deflation.  Sometimes savers would win and borrowers would lose, then later savers would lose and borrowers would win.  But it doesn’t work that way, does it?

Some amount of inflation is accepted as a fact of modern life but we very rarely have any deflation.  We never seem to find ourselves in a vicious cycle of going to the store week after week only to find lower prices every time.  There is a reason for this.

It is much easier to produce less than to produce more.  In order to increase supply factories need to be built, ships need to be commissioned, employees need to be trained, raw materials have to be acquired… a lot goes into growth and it takes time.  It is easy to produce less. Factories are shuttered, stores are closed, ships are docked, employees are laid off and voilà!  Overnight supply comes crashing down to meet demand.

Since supply rarely exceeds demand for very long, prices never fall very much.  We rarely experience much deflation.  We get unemployment instead.  All those laid off people, shuttered factories, and docked ships — all those unemployed resources are great holding tanks of deflation.

This is where the unfairness of unemployment rears its ugly head.  During inflationary times everybody with cash loses a little.  Almost all of us lose at least a little.  During deflationary times everybody with debt loses.  Almost all of have some debt.  But we rarely have deflation because we put it into these holding tanks called unemployment.  Instead of all of us losing a little, those few who end up unemployed lose a lot!  The rest of us just “ride it out”.

While this unfairness cannot be blamed on us as individuals, it also cannot be blamed on those who are forced to carry our burden.  We can’t believe that we, the strong, are surviving while they, the weak, are dying.  It’s not like we swam and they sank.  The water just went around us and hit them.  It could as easily have gone around them and hit us.

Some people, however, are to blame for at least some of the unfairness.

Our deflationary period that has become a period of high unemployment didn’t happen because supply suddenly zoomed out ahead of demand and had to be cut.  The financial collapse caused demand to plummet overnight. When that happened prices of everything should have collapsed, but they didn’t.  They don’t.  Instead, supply decreased to meet it the new, lower level of demand.  Millions of people lost their jobs.  Mothballed cargo ships lined both sides of some rivers for miles.  Tens of thousands of businesses ceased to exist.

It didn’t have to be this way.  Crashing supply to meet demand was not our only choice.

We can build demand up and limit unemployment by having the government buy things when no one else will.  If we choose what it buys wisely, such as having government invest heavily in infrastructure that will benefit our entire economy for a hundred years like programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority did, we can limit the destruction caused by unemployment while getting something useful in the process.

To be fair, the Obama administration’s $780 billion stimulus package was intended to do just that.  And it did.  Without the stimulus package unemployment would have been even higher.  At the same time, the administration, fearing the reaction of conservatives, did not ask for enough money to avoid millions of people becoming unemployed and being drowned in the pain that should have been all of ours.  Then as the plan made its way through Congress, conservatives cut it by hundreds of billions of dollars more.

At the heart of both the administration’s timid request and the conservative cuts were a concern over inflation.

Remember that unemployment is a holding tank for deflation.  There are still enormous deflationary pressures out there and we know this for the very reason that we can see the unemployment!  The amount of stimulus it would take to increase demand so much that this massive deflationary pressure actually became inflationary pressure would be huge almost beyond comprehension.  More to the point… so what if it did create some inflation?

The few million people who are carrying our entire collective burden are drowning!  They are being destroyed!  They are literally dying.  Neither inflation nor deflation is fair, but converting deflation that should be shared among all of us to unemployment for a few of us and life as usual for the rest is beyond unfair.  It’s diabolical.

The thought that solving the problem might cause a hundred million of us or more to stand in that foot of water is very unpleasant.  But we should be demanding to have that unpleasantness thrust upon us to save our friends and neighbors from drowning.  A foot of water won’t kill us.  The hundreds of feet of our water the unemployed are drowning in will kill them.

When I bring complex or troubling issues home with me, my principles instinctively apply themselves. In natural surroundings and familiar circumstances, I find my heart and the answers I need to work around talking points, campaign rhetoric, corporate double speak, and baseless opinions. Then, with my principles in check, it is much easier to leave the small world of home and consciously apply those same principles to the complex and troubling issues in the huge world outside.

For example, when someone comes to my home thirsty, hungry, cold, sleepy, or in pain, I offer drink, food, a sweater, a pillow, or an Aleve™. When I look someone in the eye, I do not wonder if he has a sandwich in his pocket that he is too lazy to pull out, or assume his pain is fake, or that it is punishment for failure to properly worship some god. I don’t smack her down and tell her to grab a bootstrap and find her own drink. I don’t begrudge a Coke, a sandwich, or an Aleve™, or cry over the hard-earned sixty-five cents I wasted on someone who isn’t me. When I bring it on home, I want everyone to be comfortable.

If I take those same principles out the door and into my community, I donate time and resources to food drives and shelters. I check the winter-help box on my utility bill and pledge a dollar toward heating a low-income home. Beyond the community, my country awaits my contributions through awareness, taxes, and action and my world provides agencies that will bring ‘me’ home to others when I can’t get to them.

At home, I open wedding invitations and mark my calendar. Sometimes, I think it might be too soon or they are too young. I have even fantasized about jumping out of my seat at that part of the ceremony where we always keep our piece, to say he surely hasn’t thought about how she will nag forever and she’s crazy if she thinks he is going to keep a job. In the end, however, I know the decision to marry belongs to them. The same principle applies to everyone out in the bigger world, regardless of any misgivings or misguided opinions I might have.

At home, I try to resolve conflict through verbal communication and compromise, understanding others, making new rules and promises, and making a rational plea for what I deserve. I would never purposely punish one child for the misdeed of another. I would not (at least willingly) allow people to take what is mine, lie to or about me, and fail to defend myself. I would not fire weapons into my neighbor’s home, kill his wife and children and destroy everything dear to them because I think he might be an abusive husband and have a gun hidden somewhere in the house. The same principles kept me from chanting bomb them back to the stone ages on September 12, put protest signs in my hand before we invaded Iraq, and made me denounce the administration that tortured in my name.

At home, I know my actions and decisions make or break my life. I thank the breadwinner and the cook for my meal. Outside my home, I thank the farmer who grew my food, the people who prepared and delivered it to me, the agencies that protect me from those who would harm me for profit. I am grateful to the doctors who keep me alive, to the people who help me physically, emotionally, and politically. In the bigger picture, I attribute the condition of our world to the humans who protect or destroy it. At home, the words I’m sorry, I love you, and how can I help mean nothing without actions to support them. I take credit or grief for my contributions and failures and expect the same actions – not prayers or promises – from humans in the bigger world, not super-beings in the sky or their imaginations.

When someone claims to like my new couch while propping his muddy shoes on the seat, I know his action speaks louder than his words. When he says he hopes I get well soon but stands between me and the doctor or medications I need, I know he wants me to believe he hopes I get well but he does not honestly wish that. When he says he prays for my safety yet decries funding the agencies and departments that keep me safe, I know he hopes I will transfer responsibility from him to his god. I recognize the same dishonesty outside the home, when Mitch McConnell claims he cares about me and then smears his muddy shoes on every bill that would prove he does.

Stuff happens at home. Sometimes it feels like everything falls apart at the same time, usually when I can least afford to replace or repair them. As much as I hate debt, I know replacing an engine costs much more than a tune-up, and if I don’t repair the brakes I could hurt others, so borrowing money to maintain is wiser than standing firm on my vow to live debt-free. Investing in education and new tools might enable me to increase my income and ease the next disaster period. At home, I realize it is necessary to reconsider and update my vows as circumstances change. Leaving home with this one gets complicated since my principles tell me it is important to maintain necessities and to stay out of debt. However, when I look at what is in the best interest of everyone concerned and for the future, going into collective debt with the people outside my door makes sense.

At home, I feel the consequences of short cuts. The first time I bought cheap toilet paper, I realized I get what you pay for. The same is true outside the home. My government gets what it pays for.

I’ve grown weary of people who talk about values but show little evidence they intend to do anything more than whip out the word or promise to pray for their god to deliver what they are too lazy to think about or do. I want my home filled with friends who appreciate intelligence and honesty, who care and share, and who are not afraid of words like liberal, social, intelligence, and taxes. I want friends who read, discuss, and care about things that matter and who would not criticize anyone for wanting facts or challenging lies, or for caring more about people than things. I want to know that the people I associate with live ethics and morals instead of preaching them. I want to be around people who know that everything in life involves politics and beliefs, so refusing to discuss these topics would only mean they don’t care about life. I want the same things in people I associate with and support outside my home.

I say it is time to stop wasting precious time and energy on the same circle-debate regardless of the issue. Until both sides bring the issues home, attach and own the principles involved, the discussion will go nowhere and will accomplish nothing. If I had my way, the Democratic Party would adopt Bring It On Home as their only campaign slogan. It already has a really cool song to go with it.

Schroedinger explained a central paradox of quantum mechanics with an analogy of a cat inside a box and a situation that boils down to the idea that anything you do to detect whether the cat is alive or dead, kills it.  So you can’t ever know whether it is alive or dead because any attempt to find out, makes it dead.

Business school students and entrepreneurs find a similar paradox in business.  Profits are a result of a well run business.  If you focus on running your business better, increased profits usually follow.  If you focus on increasing your profits, they disappear.  This is why, contrary to what every business student thinks as a child, business plan’s don’t start out with the objective of “make money”.

Our political class has not figured this out yet.  When things happen there is a reality of what happened.  At the end of the day there is going to be a public perception of this reality.  The idea of “spin” is born of a desire to manage the public perception of this reality.

The political class has gotten so focused now on spinning the public perception of reality that they have completely lost sight of the actual reality in the first place.  They now make all of their decisions on the basis of the impact it will have on the public perception of reality and, like the physicist who has to see whether the cat is alive or dead, or the business leader who is willing to do anything under the sun to increase profits, they are ending up doing exactly the things that they shouldn’t be doing and they end up damaging public perception instead of managing it.

The Sherrod case at the USDA puts this into stark relief.  When Fox News started pushing the made up story that the White House was incompetent because they harbored a racist, the White House immediately became incompetent by demanding, with no due diligence, with no investigation, with no questions, that this person resign.  They were so desperate to manage the perception of their competence that they actually had her pull her car off the road she was driving on so she could text message them her resignation.

Our entire system of governmental checks and balances exists to protect balance the rights of individuals with the demands of mobs.  But there was no balance at all here.  The mob said they would be considered incompetent if they didn’t fire this woman so they fired her immediately!  Immediately!  This was an incompetent thing to do, and as the incompetence became clear just as immediately when the mob’s information turned out to be patently false.

Now how do they look?  They look incompetent, which is exactly what they did not want to look!  But had they actually been competent, they would have come out of this situation looking competent, because they would have been competent!

This is by no means a unique situation for this administration.  This same dynamic has plagued the Obama administration since the campaign.  They have consistently and persistently reacted to charges of incompetence by becoming incompetent instead of ignoring the charges and focusing on actually being competent!

It isn’t even unique to this administration.  Both Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s entire presidential campaigns were so focused on how the public perceived them that they abandoned all reality of what they were… and ended up being perceived as people who would abandon all reality of who they were to manipulate public perception!

And this isn’t unique… to any of them at this point.  This problem has completely swamped the entire Republican party, and great huge portions of the Democratic party are infected too.

Politicians desperately need to learn that the only way to appear competent is to be competent!

$200 Million GOP Campaign Avalanche Planned, Democrats Stunned.

This is unfortunate, but the dynamics described on the left are pretty accurate, and for good reason.  Unions and the progressive activist base have been focused on issues advocacy and primary challenges over Democratic Party solidarity because the Obama administration and the Democratic Party leadership have made it perfectly clear that they will not advocate for our issues.  At the very least they’ve made it perfectly clear that they won’t advocate for our issues while the bastards we’re waging primary challenges against still cling to power! And they’ve made it perfectly clear that they don’t give a damn about union and progressive issues because after the conservative Democrats we’re challenging in the primaries totally wrecked the progressive and labor agenda… they backed them for re-election anyway!

What was Joe Lieberman’s punishment for stripping healthcare reform of the public option after even the public option that was left had been watered down to practically nothing?  What was Bill Nelson’s punishment for the damage he did?  What was Mary Landrieu’s punishment for the damage she did.  What was Blanche Lincoln’s punishment for the damage she did?  What was Stupak’s punishment for the unbelievable way he sold out two generations of progressives fighting desperately to hold on the gains they’ve made for women’s health?

The answer?  Nothing! They all have the full support of the administration and Democratic leadership.  Joe Lieberman included!

But the administration can’t have it both ways.  If they want the money and energy of progressive activists and union families they have to give us a reason why we should give it to them.  We don’t give a rats ass about their priorities or their careers.  We were unified during the election because they were supposed to be the path to our priorities.  They weren’t.

We are fighting for the same thing we were fighting for before… our issues.  But now we’re also fighting to reform the entire system because if there’s one thing that we’ve learned from our landslide electoral victory and our anorexic legislative victories is that the system ain’t working.  And where are they on that?  Nowhere.  They seem to be fine with the system the way it is.  Whatever.  Everybody makes choices.  Back Blanche Lincoln.  Coddle Joe Lieberman.  But do it without us.  Call us after the elections if you’d like to rethink how you are going to handle the next two years.