Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me in DC!

Just bought my tickets for the NPR show Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me for May 14. I always enjoy the show when I catch on my local NPR station, but their following tag announcing the upcoming show was what convinced me to buy tickets:

"The last time we came to DC, we swore we wouldn't come back until there were different people to make fun of. DC - you heard our call!" Then they went on with the details of the show at George Washington University.

Pretty darn cool!

To see if the show is coming near you - look here.

Everytime I Hear a Republican Say They Don't Want "Big Giovernment," I Want to Punch Him (or Her) in the Face

Please. Just be honest. It's not that you don't want "big government." You don't want big government in social services or in domestic issues. You don't want government employees handling the duties needed to make the federal government run.

Instead, Republicans just hire the work out to contractors who do the work for profit. And have lobbyists. The following stats were reported by Morning Edition on NPR in Dec 2008.

-Since President Bush took office, the government has doubled the amount of
contracts with industry. The administration paid corporations more than $400
billion last year to work for everybody from the Forest Service to the CIA.

-The administration has given the majority of that contract money to
companies that didn't have to compete to get it — or faced only limited
competition.

-There are actually more contractors handling the war in Iraq
than American troops.

The current batch of contractors have former President Reagan to thank for kicking off the start of the largest number of contractors working for the federal government. Former President Clinton continued the trend, "And then came President Bush, who said "big government is not the answer" and shattered all the previous records for contracting out [work]" (NPR, Dec 1, 2008).

So really, this talk of no big government is a farce. Sort of like John McCain spouting off about how deregulation of the banking industry is good. Deregulation means less government oversight and therefore "smaller government." Yeah, we see how well that's been working out.

So Republicans, think about the spin you keep trying to put to the American public and jsut be honest about what you want. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the Democrats took the White House this last election. Or just STFU. Either one I'm good with.

Sources:
Obama To Tackle Explosion In Federal Contracts - NPR, Morning Edition, December 1, 2008.
McCain’s Pro-Deregulation History Exposed, Becoming a Major Liability in the Presidential Race - Rob Kellogg, Government Investment Watch, September 19, 2008.

My New Free Toy From NPR

Apparantly, plunking down money on a monthly basis to support NPR here in Washington DC will get you this:

If I'm listening to NPR and hear part of a story, I click the button, and the Radio Bookmark will mark the story. When I get home and plug it into my computer, the Radio Bookmark will automatically find the story and I can listen to the entire piece.

Pretty cool, huh?

Too Bad This Piece Didn't Run 4 or 8 Years Ago

Morning Edition on NPR had an excellent piece on the origins of the Presidential Oath of Office. Did you know it is located in the Constitution and is the only thing in quotes? I didn't! NPR's Steve Inskeep interviewed Marvin Pinkert, executive director of the National Archives Experience. Here are some things I learned this morning:

George Washington and the Founding Fathers made changes to the Oath of Office which included swearing to the Constitution. "That the president is treated as a citizen under the Constitution rather than as the supreme authority of the land says something special about the nature of the U.S. government and the foresight of the founding fathers, Pinkert says."

Here's another: "Among those changes," Pinkert says, "is to cut out the word 'judgment' … and replace it with the word 'abilities,'" which was later shortened to "ability."

I'm hoping President-Elect Obama has studied and taken these words to heart. President Bush's actions while in office (FISA courts, allegations of torture and abuse, using his judgment instead of his abilities), in my opinion, don't reflect the principles the Founding Fathers wanted in a President who took the Oath of Office.