Mine and Mind

There’s an old joke about how you can tell when a lawyer is lying – his lips move. Can the same thing be applied to politicians? Oops – most politicians ARE lawyers!
Is the public’s increasing apathy towards politics partly due to the perception that politicians can’t be trusted to give it to us straight? Have many of us become so jaded that we assume it’s normal for politicians to lie? Where does “spin” end and outright lying begin? Is silence on an important issue the same as lying about it? And why do politicians fail to discuss these issues with us in a frank and thorough manner?
Global warming may be the number one issue on which politicians lie. The scientific facts of global warming and its predicted adverse impacts are accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists. Opponents of taking action on the issue are using a few scientists who still have doubts – or who find financial advantage in having doubts – to try to keep global warming in the “no clear evidence” category as long as they can. But there IS clear evidence of a long-term warming trend, and the consequences of continued inaction may indeed be globally catastrophic.
Unfortunately, those who call global warming the “greatest hoax of all time” are not alone in the Global Warming Liars Club. Even those politicians who are courageous enough to fight for action on the issue are not telling us the whole truth.
The Kyoto Protocol, whose implementation was rejected by the US Senate 94-0, would have required the US and other industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 5% below 1990 levels by 2012. Given the amount that emissions have grown since 1990, that may seem like a daunting challenge. But the problem is really much worse than that, and it causes all but the bravest politicians to lie.
The Kyoto treaty, while a step in the right direction, is vastly insufficient to reverse the climate change trend. The global reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions probably needs to be more like 50% to have the desired effect, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later. Even tougher is the fact that developing countries claim the current problem has mostly been caused by industrialized nations and that their developing economies should not have to be constrained to their current low levels of fossil-fuel use.
Given the seeming hopelessness of the challenge and the level of sacrifice that would appear to be required of the US to be part of a truly effective global solution, it’s easy enough to understand why most politicians would rather hide from the issue in general or cast doubt on it, and why even the politicians who do publicly support action on global warming are loath to discuss the whole truth.
But the potential effects of global warming, such as increased bad-weather events, coastal inundation, and – most seriously of all – disruption of global food production, are all likely parts of the future that will be faced by our children and successive generations if we don’t fix the problem. The challenge to finding solutions is one of leadership – leadership that will devise programs to:
1) replace our CO2-producing cars and power plants with clean technologies;
2) reduce sources of methane (another leading greenhouse gas) by confronting the issue of large-scale animal farming operations;
3) eliminate chemicals that cause global warming and replace them with non-problematic alternatives;
4) devise innovative programs to reduce the loss of forests (which serve as “carbon sinks,” thus keeping substantial amounts of CO2 from getting into the atmosphere).
Politicians and technologists will be needed to devise and implement solutions to global warming, and we consumers will have to be supportive with our dollars and our votes. But to get there, politicians must lead, not lie.
We saved the world from waves of Nazi stormtroopers, from hordes of Red Communists, and from the very ugly, unfriendly aliens in “Independence Day.” Surely we can also save it from a few kazillion tiny greenhouse gas molecules!

As the 2008 Presidential Election goes into high gear, people from cities such as Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla in San Diego to cities such as Laguna Beach, Anaheim, Irvine and Yorba Linda in Orange County, from Santa Maria to Santa Barbara to Ventura and Oxnard, to Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana, Ontario, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Fullerton to Indian Wells, Palm Springs, Palm Desert and La Quinta both individuals and candidates are having questions about campaign election finance laws and are looking for a California campaign election finance lawyer who can advise them.

In the world of political campaign finance law, in the past few elections, the most important issue has been soft money. Today, soft money is still important, but it ranks with the money being raised and spent by national party committees and with the greater use of the internet, 2008 has brought individual contributions to a higher level of importance that ranks in importance with soft money and national party money.

While soft money or unregulated money can be spent for any advertising that stops short of expressly advocating the election or defeat of an individual, it is that broad definition that allows it to still be used in advertising that goes so far as to allow the advertising to mention a candidate, and virtually call him or her out for their position on an issue. Such advertising is in many cases blatant negative advertising.

Corporate and labor PACs raise money from restricted individuals. Labor PACs raise money from their union employees, corporation PACs from managerial employees and stockholders and their family members.

In the last 60 days before a federal election, PACs hands are untied and they can not only advocate political issues but also mention federal election candidates in their in their advertising.

Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, an organization becomes a political committee by receiving contributions or making expenditures in excess of $1,000 to influence a federal election.

A 527 Group (which falls into the category of soft money) avoids regulation by the Federal Election Commission because they allegedly use and raise money only for the advocation of issues. Because the line between issue advocacy and candidate advocacy is so thin, the use of these groups is a source of heated debate about soft money. These Groups are not bound by the same restrictions on PACs.

An example of a 527 Group in the 2004 federal election campaign was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth which ran advertisements on television that blatantly attacked John Kerry. The Group was later fined by the Federal Election Commission for specifically advocating the defeat of John Kerry. But by then, the damage had already been done.

Different rules apply to state and local elections. An individual intending to campaign for any elected office needs to know election finance rules and should consult with a political campaign finance attorney as soon as possible in forming their campaign.

All over the world ubiquitous broadband Internet access is bringing countries closer together. It surprises many when they find out that in China the average citizen has access to much faster download speeds and at a much lower cost than the average American. Of course the Chinese have to deal with the fact that they are viewing a censored Internet, but even that is getting better everyday. In Europe a person would be hard pressed to find a place they COULDNâ??T connect wirelessly to the Internet, while in the US users must go to a specific coffee shop or airport to do the same thing. It appears that the United States is behind the curve in offering affordable Internet access to its citizens, and short of socialized services what can be done?

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) introduced the Wireless Innovation Act of 2007 early this year to try and close the gap between the United States and other countries in the area of broadband Wireless Internet penetration within the consumer market. This very closely resembles the Wireless Innovation Act of 2006 sponsored by John Kerry (WINN) which failed to pass the previous year but has been reintroduced as well. Specifically the bill is intended to â??make use of spectrum in the gaps or â??white spacesâ? between broadcast channels two and 51 when the transition from analog to digital television is complete in two years. With the capacity to transmit data over longer distances with less power, this prime spectrum, now reserved primarily for television broadcasting, could support a wide range of innovative wireless devices and services that arenâ??t useable in other frequenciesâ?, says Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) who is also co-sponsoring the bill.

WINN â??07 could be the ticket the country needs to increase the consumer market penetration of broadband wireless Internet, which would of course bring about new products and services both obvious and unknown. This type of legislature is designed to take fast, decisive action and correct an obvious problem. This of course means it will be delayed. So where are our ground breaking bills now?:

H.R.1597 – To require the FCC to issue a final order regarding television white spaces.
Sponsor: Rep Inslee, Jay [WA-1] (introduced 3/20/2007)

Latest Major Action: 3/21/2007 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet.

S.234 – A bill to require the FCC to issue a final order regarding television white spaces.
Sponsor: Sen Kerry, John F. [MA] (introduced 1/9/2007)

Latest Major Action: 1/9/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

It is clear the decisive bill isnâ??t exactly tearing its way through the hallowed halls of the House and Senate. Of course bills take time to pass, and there is a lot of pork to be added to this one yet so we still have time. So why exactly is this bill important to the United States if its just going to let its citizens surf the Internet more easily? John Kerry said, â??The bill would serve communities large and small, enabling the delivery of broadband that will connect business owners with their customers, students with dynamic new learning resources and first responders with victims in crisis.â? With that in mind, the bill seems a bit more relevant to the county as something more than an entertainment device.

No matter where you live, politics probably plays a part in your day to day life. You might not immediately deal with political issues, but you can be sure that politics plays a part in what you do! Whether it is office politics deciding who gets that raise you’ve been hoping for; city politics determining where you are allowed to park downtown; county politics dictating your quarterly property tax or even nationwide politics deciding how your schools are funded, politics plays a part in your daily life.

It is important then that you understand what politics really is. Politics, at its core, is defined by Wikipedia as the process by which groups of people make decisions. At its core, politics sounds quite simple. What makes it complicated are the individuals involved in making the decisions. Because human beings are not perfect, the political system is never going to be perfect. This is something that most people don’t understand about politics. You can put all of the pomp and circumstance into politics that you want, in the end; it is more about human beings getting their way than about the process itself.

It has been said quite often that politics is a dirty business. In the United States Congress, for example, politics has taken on an air of hatred and manipulation. Many citizens of the United States feel that they are left out of the process of politics and that their elected representatives are more interested in scoring personal points than in working toward the betterment of their states and districts. In the last few decades special interest groups have taken on an entirely new role and lobbyists have become particularly vilified.

This disillusion toward politics is nothing new. Plato—the famous Greek philosopher—believed that all political systems were corrupt at their cores and that societies leaders should be chosen from an elite group of individuals who were began leadership training at birth. Aristotle argued that man is inherently political and that personal and political ethics are often the same thing.

One of the most famous political philosophers, Machiavelli advised that leaders of politics be brutal and manipulative and do whatever they could to retain their power. Machiavelli is studied today and his work is considered to be one of the leading authorities on how to behave in politics. Is it any wonder then, that the political systems of so many nations look corrupt?

The heart of politics is good: it is how laws are made and how individuals are judged by the societies that surround them. Without politics, nobody would know what was allowed and what was not allowed when they left the house. Unfortunately, many people view politics as a way to get ahead or to gain some sort of power over the people they live and work with. It is because of these “bad eggs” that politics has become regarded as an evil and ugly business.

For more information on politics, visit http://www.politicsmicroblog.com and http://www.englandmicroblog.com.