1hundredsixty8

I have pointed out the confiscatory practices of the wirelesss carriers in prior posts. In today's NY Times, Nick Bilton points out additional practices the industry employs to extract as much as possible from the consumer. Would you believe the carriers make a 4000% profit on text messages?

Please add to the Politcal Glossery the phrase "the American People." I am driven to apoplexy every time I hear a politician utter these words as a pretext for some policy position, as in"the American People did not send us to Washington to ...". The question that  pops into my mind is invariably  "How do they know what the American People want?" Are they talking about a measurable majority in a poll result? Or, are are they referring to sampling of letters, emails and phone calls from constiuents? The true meaning of "the American People" when spoken by a member of (or a candidate for) Congress, is the  donor class who support that member (or candidate) and have made clear the posititions and policies that the member/candidate should espouse.

CPAC, the big conservative hootenanny came and went this weekend. I watched some of the speeches on C-SPAN, so my personal sampling is very incomplete. I was struck by the mostly negative tone of what I heard- the derivenesss, the usual Obama bashing, the prominance of zinger applause lines. What I did not see- again, in limited viewing- was an affirmative presentation of ideas. Marco Rubio delivered a stump speech and he did have an idea- "America". I am still scratching my head over that one.  Senator Rand Paul was also in full-campaign mode and has obviously replaced his father as the darling of  Young Libetarians. We did get a full-dose of Sarah Palin's homespun pandering (with the requisite amount of dropped "g's".) Mostly, I got the feeling I was watching a pep rally. This is more than a little disappointing to me because it does not bode well for the near- and mid-term health of the Republican Party. The Right is doing damage to our politics by not presenting pragmatic policy ideas. Essentially, by hunkering down in its own bubble, the Right is giving the Democrats a free pass, a ready-made excuse for their own lack of realistic policy perscriptions. Slogans and name-calling are not alternative policy positions.

March madness is upon us in so many different ways. There is the NCAA Basketball Tournament for which I cannot muster much interest. It must be an aging thing. There is the madness of the battling Federal budgets- the Ryan, the Murray, the still-to-be-seen Obama and even the House Progressive Caucus. The weather is madness here in the Northeast: We had snow flurries sporadically over the weekend and snow is again predicted tonight. Hard to believe Spring will be here in a few days.