Everything Changed Today

So I woke up today to this stuff getting posted in Bluesky Social, but because I haven't figured out how to embed those posts into this blog I went to Twitter (fuck you, Elon, it's not X) to do this:

Aaron Sorkin published an op-ed in NYT this morning that calls on Democrats to nominate a Republican in place of Pres. Biden next month at the convention, specifically Mitt Romney. For real. Don't click on it. Don't read it. I promise you ain't missing anything.

Parody has died. pic.twitter.com/Ricu3sjIJE

— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) July 21, 2024

"I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS" times infinity.

It case the tweet goes bad, I screen-captured:

This? This is what you get when you think
quoting the HMS Pinafore all the time makes you smart.

I did read it just to see if it's as bad as Clymer says, and Gods yes it's terrible. Sorkin's idea of a unity candidate is - get this - going for a Republican candidate... Mitt Romney.

MITT FCKING ROMNEY?!

Not only is it offensive to suggest the Democrats have to roll over and take a REPUBLICAN on their ticket, but to go with Romney whose sole objective running - and losing - in 2012 was to get a massive tax cut for the rich. Never mind the reality that Mitt is opposed to most things - unions, abortion rights, immigration reform - that the Democratic voting base supports. It's like these so-called "liberal elites" - the pundits, the "actively engaged" celebrities, who are pulling in six-figure incomes where the rest of us are struggling around $35k a year to survive - don't give a damn about the millions of primary voters who happily re-nominated their incumbent President for a second go.

So here I was for most of the morning, putting this blog article together to tear Sorkin a new one when by 1:00 PM... everything changed.

pic.twitter.com/RMIRvlSOYw

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024

I had to go off to one side and rant for a couple hours after that bombshell. I've calmed a little, but I'm still at the LIVID stage.

Livid and angry towards the goddamned Beltway media - especially that godforsaken rag the New York Times - that were beating the drums to get Biden to drop out. Angry at the Right-of-Center Democrats like Joe Manchin kneecapping any party unity that was needed for the upcoming convention this August. Well, congratulations you sons of bitches, you got your scalp.

If there is any good news from this announcement, it's that Biden openly supports his Vice President Kamala Harris to take over the campaign for him. Running now on their administration's legacy of job growth, infrastructure investment, debt forgiveness for tens of thousands of Americans, and financial reforms. Harris in particular has been touring the nation campaigning against the Dobbs ruling and the Republicans who are working to deny women their basic rights (not just abortion but their right to divorce, their right to work, their right to get education, their right to live).

But those buzzards are still circling. The likes of David Axelrod are complaining that Harris didn't get "vetted" by the primaries - ignoring that she was part of Biden's ticket at the time, and that she's got years of experience in the Executive branch already - and are demanding "an open convention" where the goddamned special interest factions - backed by billionaires that had been funding this anti-Biden effort - will try their best to return to the "smoke-filled backrooms" of power brokering to force an unpalatable pro-business / anti-tax candidate on the Democratic base.

At a moment when the Democratic Party needs to unite behind a standard bearer - be it Biden or be it Harris - we still have these corrupted factions still looking to sabotage it all and let the likes of trump and his Republican hacks steal their way back into the White House.

Goddamn them.

This is an open call to every Democratic and Independent voter I know. Ignore the haters. Focus on what matters. The Democratic Party is the one thing standing for our American democrat-republic institutions and way of life. We got 81 million people to vote for Biden and Harris in 2020 and we can do that again for Harris and whomever she picks to stand as her Vice President. 

We need to stand for women's rights, we need to stand for the good jobs at good wages Biden and the Democrats have brought to us, we need to stand for a future where the uber-rich oligarchs don't decide our fates, we do.

For the LOVE OF GOD AND COUNTRY, do NOT vote for that convicted felon and sex offender donald trump. Do NOT vote for the Republican Party that has surrendered to his greed and his Id.

Elections always matter. Get the vote out for Harris and the Democratic Party across every seat across every county across every state. 

Do not let Joe Biden down, people. He's counting on US to secure his administration's legacy.

Update: What, NOW Sorkin regrets his bullshit?!?! /rage

I've Taken The Crazy Pills, Haven't I: July 2024 Edition

WHAT DID I JUST SAY?

Jesus. Even in the moment of donald trump's self-crowning - with an oversized bandage on his ear and every lapdog at his feet - at an overtly racist and sexist RNC, the Democratic Party cannot get out of their own way.

WaterGirl over at Balloon Juice is feeling the same frustration I am about the Dem party leadership buying into the mainstream media freakout and getting caught in more rumor-mongering to force Joe Biden to step down from the 2024 re-election bid:

I am heartsick at the spiraling anxiety, and angry at the own-goals.  This madness needs to stop – if not in the media, then at least in Balloon Juice threads that I put up.

So until something changes, this will be my last post related to “Biden, will he or won’t he, should he or shouldn’t he”.

We are wasting so much time and energy on this, at a time when there is so much work to be done. There is so much work to be done.  So much work, and so little time.

I’m sure there will still be plenty of Balloon Juice threads where anyone who wants to can continue to endlessly hash this out, with both sides endlessly repeating the same things, over and over, sincere people and trolls, alike.  But I’m done.  And I’m pretty sure the other side is laughing...

This panic - which echoes a lot of the Dem panic from 2004 when they worried Howard Dean was more vulnerable than John Kerry all because Karl Rove made them second-guess themselves - isn't doing them any favors. It's feeding into the Beltway narrative of "Dems In Disarray" and is going to upset / discourage millions of primary voters who already sided with Biden as their choice.

If anybody is thrilled to the idea of an "open convention" this August, please punch yourself in the face. This 2024 primary season didn't present the party with any strong alternatives to Biden, and such a convention between up-and-comers like Governors Newsom or Whitmer or some third person suddenly flush with questionable dark money will turn bloody and divisive, which once again favors the goddamn trumpsters.

Anybody thinking that things will get easier if Biden steps aside for his Vice President Kamala Harris need to remember just how racist the mainstream media let the Republicans play it when it was Obama as the candidate in 2008 and 2012, and will just as easily allow trump and his cohort to attack Harris over the same goddamn racist dog-whistles bullhorns. And Harris is going to face the same kind of sexism that Hillary faced in 2016, by the same mainstream media that cannot overcome their own misogyny when dealing with "ambitious women" as candidates. You know how many reporters are itching to jump on the stories that came out during 2020 about the bad blood within Harris' primary campaign back then, eager to pull that same shit if she becomes the ticket headliner?

We've gotten 81 million voters to side with Biden in 2020 and a supermajority (90 percent or more) of primary voters to stick with Biden against the likes of Dean Phillips (a conservative congresscritter who got talked into undermining party incumbancy), and yet the Democratic party leadership is getting brow-beaten by a hostile Beltway media desperate to keep their horserace and "Dems in Disarray" narratives going until November.

There's a reason why I've got "Democrats Are Cowards" as a blog label, and you're watching it as it happens. Goddamn them.

Man up. Support Biden, here and NOW. Get the vote out. Get those 81 million voters back. Get every man and woman who supports abortion rights. Get every man and woman who opposes even one tidbit of that hideous Project 2025 agenda. Get every American voting for a unified Democratic Party.

For the LOVE OF GOD. Turning on each other now does not help.

The Beltway Freakout

Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter.
-- Duma Key, Stephen King

I had to block Stephen King today.

Biden won the primaries in convincing fashion. An overwhelming majority of Democratic voters support him then AND now. But here you are, listening to a panicked biased media having a meltdown over one bad debate. You're not paying attention. And I'm blocking you for this.

— Witty Librarian 2024 (@PaulWartenberg) July 8, 2024

What the hell happened?

Well, that CNN debate I didn't want to watch ended up being a down performance for Biden, which unfortunately flared up all the damn "he's too old" takes between the New York Times and every other media outlet.

It's gotten to where the mainstream media - and then slowly a number of backbencher Democratic congresscritters, and then the avalanche of social media names like King and Rob Reiner - kept calling for Biden - who has already secured the 2024 Democratic nomination - to drop out of the Presidential race "for the good of the country."

Which is, of course, a total bullshit move.

This is after Joe Biden's campaign fund-raised far more than what trump's did. This is while Biden's polling regained their numbers - and upticked in several battleground states - after the immediate aftermath of the debate.

I've complained about this rump media - sitting in judgment of the Democratic Party and never focusing on the public sins of the Republicans - before. They get a narrative going in their own circles - such as this "Biden is now too old and will lose to trump" and there's no shaking it. Worse, they start digging for "sources" to reinforce that narrative using anybody they could claim is "inside the room when it happens" such as a "former senior official" who probably was a six-month intern in the West Wing washroom two years ago. And when they get any facts wrong, these pundits refuse to re-evaluate their mistakes and double-down on the scalp hunting.

Remember in the modern journalism era among the Beltway elites, there is no punishment for being wrong. There may be punishments for the low-level elected figures in the Democratic ranks buying into the media-inflicted panic, but that may have to wait until this election cycle is over.

Everything Biden has been doing the last two weeks post-debate has been to stay on-message and campaigning, even as a group of self-appointed "saviors" in the papers, cable shows, and congressional back rooms dreaming of their own fantasies are trying to kneecap him. They're going so far as to convince the upcoming convention delegates to toss aside Biden's primary victories - where Biden won with full support of the Dem voting base - and force an open convention.

Never mind the chaos and destruction that move would inflict on the entire Democratic Party, weakening themselves by alienating an electoral base fully backing Biden. And all of this much to the delight of both the Republican Party as well as the media elites who push the decades-old "Dems In Disarray" narrative.

While the media and the party leadership distract themselves over this noise, the same Beltway talking heads can avoid discussing more relevant and vital matters, such as the fact that the Republican Party's presidential candidate is a convicted felon and confirmed sex offender. Even as the GOP's platform is coming up before their convention next week, with a horrifying "Project 2025" agenda just barely getting on the radar for the voting public to recoil from it.

This shouldn't be a distraction. This shouldn't even be an issue.

Most Democratic voters may have these concerns, but they've overlooked them to focus on the reality that Joe Biden's administration has been mostly a success for the nation. The Dem voters may worry about Biden's age, but they understand there's an existing system in place - the 25th Amendment, and VP Kamala Harris - that will take care of it.

What worries most Democratic voters I know is the fact of donald trump's entire existence, and the real threat he poses should he get anywhere near the White House again. In spite of the polls which we've learned are skewing too rural (and too Republican) - in spite of all the fearmongering that the mainstream media is spewing for their own enjoyment - there is still a fighting mood with the party base to stick with a candidate in Biden they know beat trump in 2020. They're not about to abandon a good incumbent now.

This is - for anyone who lived through 2016 - the same kind of concern-trolling bullshit we got out of the New York Times and the rest of the Beltway when they freaked out over Hillary's private server and fretted over "but her emails." Back then, they begged for her to step aside for - get this - Biden. This is also the same freakout we got out of the mainstream media when Obama suffered a bad debate night against Romney in 2012, and they begged Obama to step aside for someone better like - get this - Hillary.

The Democratic voters - and the indy voters who sided with Biden in 2020 - need to get past this noise and get the damn vote out. The election still matters: OUR VOTES STILL MATTER. We had 81 million people turn out for Biden and Harris in 2020 and we can do that again this 2024.

And So Manchin Burns the Nation

I've said this before: There is nothing more dangerous and destructive to the United States than a self-serving arrogant tone-deaf Senator.

Yes. This means Senator Joe Manchin out of West Virginia just shot his own Democratic Party in the collective foot again. From Russell Berman at The Atlantic (paywall): 

With a few short sentences on Fox News, Senator Joe Manchin today dashed the dreams of Democrats by coming out firmly against President Joe Biden’s signature legislative proposal. “I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” Manchin said of the $1.75 trillion bill that the House passed last month.

His opposition after months of negotiations adds to a hellish winter that followed a brutal autumn for Biden, who is presiding over yet another resurgence of the pandemic, stubbornly high inflation, and an electorate that has soured on him. Now, Manchin has seemingly demolished the centerpiece of the president’s economic agenda in Congress, validating the warnings of progressives who for months held up the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill because they feared the West Virginia centrist—who, in a 50-50 Senate, essentially wields a veto pen among Democrats—would do exactly what he did...

Anyone wanting to blame Progressives in this fight ought to punch themselves in their own faces. The Far Left held up their end of the bargain only to have Manchin - posing as a Centrist but in reality he's a crass opportunist hiding his personal greed behind the excuse of bipartisanship - pull his card out of the castle to let it all tumble down.

I'm a self-proclaimed Moderate (not a Centrist) and even I can't understand why Manchin is pulling these stunts other than to keep his own pockets lined with lobbyist cash while his own state of West Virginia slides deeper into poverty.

I have to refer to West Virginia resident John Cole at Balloon-Juice, who has long seen Manchin up-close in action and has loathed the corrupt Senator's behavior for years:

Yes, Manchin knocked bunch a bunch of beers on his houseboat last night, woke up this morning and drove his Maserati to the tv studios, and opened his piehole. It’s more of the bad faith bullshit, and I don’t know how much of it he will walk back or if he even will, or he is just setting the stage for his colleagues and the WH to shit on him so he can peace out and join the Republicans or go Independent. I don’t know, and I don’t really care any more, the man is dead to me...

I don’t know why this is so hard for Joe to explain. I’d think it would be pretty easy to explain extending the child tax credit, black lung benefits, lowering prescription drug prices, expanding medicare, providing home health care for the elderly, and so on to West Virginians. Especially considering that West Virginians are some of the poorest, sickest, and oldest Americans, as well as having a large community of miners with black lung...

The only ones profiting from Manchin's stubbornness has been Mitch McConnell and his fellow upper-class warriors of the Republican ranks. They're reveling in the self-immolation between Democrats all the while making sure that our nation never does ANYTHING to address poverty, hunger, suffering of families, and reconnecting millions to the American Dream of good jobs, safe communities, and a future for our children. And they don't even have to lift a finger: Manchin is doing all of the dirty work for them.

There is still a chance the Democrats will go back and repackage the major parts of Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda, and still a chance they could pass something short-term to placate the likes of Manchin, but I doubt it. Manchin is strutting here like a god-emperor Corrupt Senator of the Gilded Age, unconcerned with the damage he leaves in his wake while heading to his expensive racecar en route to his personal yacht.

Gods help us. This is how we're rolling into 2022.

The Moment Democrats Must Simplify This Nation

(Update: Thank you again to Batocchio for including this blog on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up!)

Riddle: How do you know when Democrats have slim majority control of both Houses of Congress?

Answer: When Republicans are happily playing a game of Chicken with the national debt ceiling. Again.

More details from Kelsey Snell at NPR:

Congress has fewer than 10 days to pass legislation to prevent another partial government shutdown, and Democrats hope to use the deadline pressure to force Republicans to help them pass a critical suspension of the federal borrowing cap.

Republican leaders have flatly rejected that plan, leaving Congress in a familiar political standoff over spending and debt that could have serious economic consequences...

The House voted on the bill Tuesday evening, passing the measure on party lines — 220 Democratic votes in support and 211 Republican votes against.

Democrats had sufficient votes to pass the legislation without Republicans in the House. But the fate of the bill is far less certain in the Senate, where GOP leaders have vowed to oppose it over objections to Democrats' broader spending ambitions...

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said Republicans would support a spending bill that includes basic government funding paired with disaster funding and money for Afghan refugees — but not if the bill addresses the debt limit.

"We do not have divided government. Democrats do not need our help," McConnell said in a statement. "They have every tool to address the debt limit on their own: the same party-line process they used to ram through inflationary spending in March and already plan to use again this fall..."

Mitch however is making a subtle Lie of Omission here: What he's NOT telling the media is that the Senate Democrats may have a 51-tiebreaker vote with VP Harris, this debt ceiling and budget vote currently both fall under the Cloture rules where the Republicans are threatening to filibuster and deny a straight up-or-down vote.

Back to the reporting from Snell:

This latest political fight over the debt is infuriating Democrats like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Democrats voted to increase the borrowing cap under then-President Donald Trump even as the debt ballooned when Republicans approved costly tax cuts and partisan spending priorities.

"It is quite rich coming from a party, and the party of Trump, who did $1.5 trillion in tax cuts and didn't pay for a penny of them," Gillibrand said in an interview with NPR.

Democrats have said Republicans need to take ownership of the debt they helped create — both through partisan legislation and when Congress voted for bipartisan COVID-19 relief spending under Trump...

There IS one way the Democrats can get around McConnell and his GOP Senate buddies' obstructionist plan: They could amend the budget they're trying to pass along with this debt ceiling hike through the Reconciliation process, which avoids the Cloture process and allows an up-or-down vote. However, it would force the Democrats to give up their biggest agenda items, it would limit the time frame any tax increases would work, and it would alienate the Progressive caucus in the House to where they could refuse to vote for the Infrastructure bill that had passed the Senate and needs passage in the House. 

There is an even easier way the Democrats can get around the GOP obstruction: Just fucking kill the Filibuster and the Cloture rule that forces these shenanigans every fucking time the Republicans are in minority the last 15 years. Sadly, if the Democrats try to do that, there are two self-serving "Centrist" Dems - Sinema and Manchin - who would refuse to do that because without that filibuster their lobbyist buddies are screwed they lose their importance as "independent Senators" in that august body.

McConnell is pretty much trying to force the Democrats to turn on each other just when they need to unite.

And the Democrats are letting him.

We're facing another Long October Shutdown. And while it WILL BE the fault of McConnell and his wingnut buddies, the Democrats are going to be the ones forced to pay the costs.

Simplify your world, Democrats. Get rid of the fucking Filibuster. Stop letting Mitch pull his obstructionist shit.

The Game Of Politics Where You Shoot Your Own Party In the Foot

There is nothing more dangerous to the American body politic than a self-absorbed self-destructive Senator. Forget Representatives, forget Governors, forget corrupt judges, forget most Presidents (Nixon, Harding, and trump are the exceptions, and remember Nixon and Harding earlier served as Senators).

Via Allan Smith at NBC news:

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that he will not vote for S.1, known as the For The People Act, the massive elections and ethics reform package Democrats have proposed.

The announcement immediately imperils the bill, which is universally opposed by Republicans and would require elimination of the Senate filibuster to be passed. The legislation was passed in the House this year.

"It's the wrong piece of legislation to bring our country together and unite our country, and I'm not supporting that, because I think it would divide us more," Manchin said on "Fox News Sunday." "I don't want to be in a country that's divided any further...

In an op-ed published Sunday in the Charleston, West Virginia, Gazette-Mail, Manchin argued that any federal voting legislation must have bipartisan backing, and he said he would not vote to kill the legislative filibuster, as some have said is needed to pass voting reforms.

"The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen," he wrote. And in speaking to West Virginians, "I cannot explain strictly partisan election reform or blowing up the Senate rules to expedite one party's agenda."

So because the Republicans are the sons-of-bitches who refuse to be bipartisan and work with Democrats to pass meaningful legislation, Senator Manchin has decided... to side with Republicans and screw the Democratic Party.

And he's going to get away with it because the Democrats can't secure enough votes to hold a simple majority vote to get rid of the Cloture/Filibuster rules to make it harder for Republicans to obstruct, and because the nature of the Senate makes it difficult for party leadership to rein in the "mavericks" who enjoy making a mess without having to pay the consequences.

You might understand why a lot of Obama-hating Republicans despised John McCain when he killed their effort to nuke ObamaCare back in 2017. But in that situation, those same Republicans failed to give McCain - or the rest of the country - any sane alternative to replace what they were about to destroy.

What Manchin - alongside Arizona Senator Sinema who also doesn't seem to get the crisis - is allowing to happen here: He's preventing the Democratic Party from passing laws that would override and stop the Republicans at the state level from suppressing voter turnout that would otherwise favor Democrats. He says he'll support the John Lewis Act which is also up for consideration, but he doesn't seem to get that the Republicans will pull the same obstructionist stunt against THAT bill and talk Manchin into dismissing it as "too partisan" as well.

All it takes is one Senator holding up the whole thing. Where a President is a singular office and thus answerable to the national voters, where the House is so large a body with a basic majority vote policy that trouble-makers most times either quit after a few terms or have little impact on stopping things, just ONE fucking Senator can filibuster or hold or delay everything and never face any punishment because the state they're from won't hold them accountable for their sins.

And so we're back to where things won't get done. Again. Things like alleviating college loan debts or raising the federal minimum wage or job protection laws or anything that would actually HELP Americans here and now.

We're also back to the high risk of Republicans rigging the 2022 midterms, making sure that just like in 2010 they are able to seize at least partial control of Congress and ensure a Biden Presidency enjoys no further success. Denying "victory" at the expense of people's lives.

Only this time, it's the entire electoral process at risk, one thing that could directly affect the Democratic Party - Manchin's own fucking party - in the near future. It won't be to another era of inertia, it'll be to a darker round of Republican misrule with even harsher tax cuts for the rich, even harsher anti-abortion laws to hurt women, and more attempts to kill off any affordable health care.

And if the Republicans have their way - without Manchin and Sinema or any other self-serving Democrat stopping them - the Democrats the American people will never see an honest and fair election ever again.

Goddammit. This is why I can't go full Democrat. There's too many fucking cowards running the party that's also ruining the country.

Just Kill The Filibuster

So that bipartisan investigatory commission into the January 6 Insurrection died a partisan death thanks to just enough Republican Senators to say NO and just enough Democratic Senators to not give a f-ck. Via Steve Benen at MSNBC:

It was emblematic of how the process unfolded. Republicans said they were open to the creation of an independent commission, but only if their demands were met. Democrats, willing to pay high prices in the interest of governing, met those demands, only to have House GOP lawmakers balk anyway.

Today, Senate Republicans did the same thing...

I can appreciate why the procedural details may seem boring and unimportant, but it's worth emphasizing that this was technically not the vote to create the Jan. 6 commission. Rather, this was a procedural vote on something called a motion to proceed -- which in practical terms means Republicans blocked a Senate debate over whether to create the Jan. 6 commission.

For those unfamiliar with congressional procedures, it's probably also worth noting that the gap between the opponents and proponents was less important than it might appear: proponents of the bipartisan plan needed 60 votes. Period. Full stop. The fact that most senators supported the proposal is, thanks to the filibuster rules, irrelevant. In fact, if only 60 senators showed up for today's vote, and 59 of them voted "yes," the one "no" vote would prevail...

This procedure basically forms part of what's known as the filibuster, an internal procedural process wherein just one Senator of either party makes clear their intent to delay a vote by talking as long as possible to prevent a bill or an appointment being made (certain votes have deadlines attached to them). The talking itself isn't even necessary: All the Senator has to do nowadays is THREATEN to filibuster, and a Cloture motion has to be voted on it, and that requires that bloody 60 votes.

And this is where I bitch about the Democrats being cowards, because they have the means of rewriting Senate procedures right now and can easily get rid of this debate blocker, to get rid of filibustering altogether and require simple basic majority (51 out of 100) votes on everything so they could end Republican obstructionism here and now... and they won't.

/headdesk

I've been complaining about the filibuster all the way back to 2009, when this was a different blog: 

Worst of all is the filibuster rule. What was once an obscure rule is now an impediment on getting anything passed in the Senate (the House has no filibuster and so can pass laws by majority vote more quickly) because the filibuster can't be stopped (Cloture) unless two-thirds of the Senate votes to, which means you need 60 votes nowadays to ensure Cloture. Problem is where the Republicans are organized to a fault to where their own party is consuming themselves, the Democrats are disorganized to where each Senator can (and does) act like their own party and vote however they want...

And I wrote that back when the Democrats had 59-60 seats and could have overridden every Cloture procedure and forced the Republicans to eat their own failures. Instead, they kept faltering over passing major legislation that could have shortened the economic recession during Obama's tenure, all because enough Democratic Senators wanted their egos as "Centrists" stroked. And not enough Democrats pushed to end the Filibuster/Cloture rule altogether to ensure simple majority votes. Gods, it was frustrating then and it's frustrating now to watch the Democrats shoot themselves in their own cowardly foot rather than get rid of an unwanted and self-damaging rule.

Ezra Klein wrote this at Vox back in 2015: 

Today's filibusters simply paralyze the Senate until the majority either finds 60 votes to proceed or gives up and moves on to another piece of business.

The filibuster is no longer about ensuring that minorities can make themselves heard on the floor of the Senate; rather, it's about forcing the majority to find 60 votes to pass anything...

Some political scientists argue that the idea of individual filibusters has become outdated; they say the Senate now operates under the filibuster's 60-vote requirement as a norm, and it's anything that requires a simple majority that's the exception. In other words, in the modern Senate, almost everything is filibustered...

This speaks to a crucial fact about the filibuster: though a filibuster can only be broken with 60 votes, the rule that powers the filibuster can be changed, or even eliminated, with 51 votes. The filibuster is a minority protection that exists at the pleasure of the majority.

This is the fundamental tension of the filibuster: it gives the minority the power to obstruct the majority, but if the minority pushes that power too far, the majority can end the filibuster entirely...

That last part is something that the Senate Democrats - clinging to a super-slim majority of 50-50 with VP Harris as the 51st tiebreaker vote - can do, they could vote on eliminating the debate procedure and shut down filibustering as a tactic. They could break the Minority Rule the Republicans have been forcing on the United States for 20-plus years.

The Democrats could vote to end a filibuster process that has routinely been used as a racist override of legislation: The filibuster is a "Jim Crow relic" interfering with Civil Rights and voting bills, and above all blocking anti-lynching bills that we haven't been able to pass as far back as the 1920s. Christ, Rand Paul filibustered against an anti-lynching bill just last year!

We ought to have seen an end to the filibuster the minute the Democrats gained control this February 2021... and they didn't because the likes of Joe Manchin (WV) and Krysten Sinema (AZ) still think there's some personal value to be had in stopping our nation's legislative body from passing meaningful reforms and much-needed budget deals.

Because of that cowardice in the party ranks, the Senate doesn't belong the Democratic majority: It belongs still to that goddamned obstructionist Mitch McConnell. And because of all that, our nation is still screwed.

Just kill the filibuster, Democrats. SAVE THE DEMOCRACY YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT.

My Thoughts On the Democrats Dealing Away the trump Shutdown

Shouldn't say I was surprised by this, but yeah the Democrats in the Senate decided to make a deal to end the current shutdown (via Washington Post):

Congress voted late Monday to reopen the government after a three-day shutdown, sending President Trump a short-term spending bill that passed after Senate Republican leaders pledged to act on immigration policy next month.

The House joined the Senate in passing the bill to fund the government through Feb. 8, reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program and roll back several health-care taxes. It passed 81-18 in the Senate and 266-150 in the House.

“I’m glad we can finally get back to work here,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the vote. He called the shutdown a “manufactured crisis” characterized by “damaging partisan theatrics.”

LOOK IN THE MIRROR WHEN YOU SAY THAT MITCH, 'CAUSE THE PARTISANSHIP STARTS WITH YOU.

In the meantime, my Twitter and Facebook feeds are full of Dem voters decrying the fact that their own party's leadership seemed to fold like origami paper.

We are going to have to recognize some sad truths:

• As much as the Far Left wants it, the main leadership of the Democratic Party genuinely believes in actual governance. They don't play the Republicans' extremist game of Chicken to see every car get smashed to hell going over cliffs. The Congressional Republicans had forced a shutdown, threatening the basic functions of government, and the Congressional Democrats knew that meant minor and major offices weren't going to be doing the Public any good. So yeah, Dems will tend to blink first in these Shutdown showdowns.
• The Dem leadership did get at least one thing good out of this: CHIP should get funded now for six years, which takes one hostage out of the equation.
• The remaining hostage in all this - DREAMers, relying on a DACA bill - may be facing hell over the next few weeks, but there's supposed to be a deal on the table where McConnell agreed to bring a DACA bill to a vote before this Continuing Resolution ends some time in March. This still puts the onus on Republicans, who are divided on the immigration issue to where ANY serious attempt to fix things will collapse on A) trump's wall obsession and B) the wingnut base's hatred of immigrants nullifying any proposal.

It hurts, in truth, to see the Democrats fold this quickly on a fight that they had every reason to play out longer than this. For all the rationales for keeping government working, they are doing this by sacrificing the current well-being of 800,000 or so Americans whose only crime was being brought here as kids by their illegal alien parents. They are seeing this - rightly - as a betrayal, with no guarantee that they are going to get to stay in the country they grew up loving and serving.

And this all still depends on McConnell, a man whose personal honor died years ago when he decided to condemn the nation to his partisan bullshit. As that Esquire article I linked to asked, Can you trust Mitch McConnell? His years of obstruction and manipulation make him one of the most evil men on the planet, and his track record of breaking deals and ignoring rules make me think of the only argument why you should NEVER deal with the devil.

Because a Deal with the Devil is no deal at all.

McConnell is bound to cheat, bound to stall, bound to lie, and do everything in his power to put the blame on Democrats again, who've shown a terrible willingness to shoulder such burdens at the expense of disillusioning their own voter base.

Despite all this, I have to argue that Democratic voters need to step up this midterms. Don't get bummed by this. Look at the bigger picture. Look at the son of a bitch sitting in the White House right now.

NOTHING is holding trump accountable to the law, certainly not the Congressional Republicans who are supposed to do their job maintaining Checks and Balances. On this one point alone, you NEED to show up and vote for EVERY DEMOCRAT on the ballot. With Democrats in charge of Congress after this midterms, you can be assured that they will hold trump and his cronies responsible for the laws they are breaking right now.

On that alone, Democrats, GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT. Don't hide, don't despair. Keep fighting.

Otherwise, McConnell keeps winning, and the Republicans keep destroying everything we love.

The Nightmare Scenarios of the 2016 Election Cycle

Here are the thoughts that ought to bother you at 3 AM in the morning.

Trump Wins Republican Nomination

We're now into January of the actual year of election, and Trump is STILL leading in too many early state polls to dismiss this possibility outright.

For all the talk about Trump's supporters are LIKELY Far Right voters rather than ACTUAL overall Republican voters, one has to remember that previous turnout by likely voters weren't that high because they - the Far Right base - didn't have anyone they felt like backing. This cycle, they do (not just Trump but also Carson and Cruz). That may well mean those LIKELY voters WILL become ACTUAL voters this February / March to the detriment of the rest of the GOP.

Even if voter turnout is meager or average for the Primaries, the odds are good the Actual voter turnout will scale accordingly to the Likely polling numbers (the turnout in 2012 in New Hampshire for example played out like that). So if Trump is leading in New Hampshire - I don't count Iowa, the caucusing system is questionable IMHO and rarely predicts the final winner - throughout January and February, he's getting the Actual voters he needs.

This is a nightmare for the party Establishment, and you can tell by the number of alarmist articles coming from the conservative talking heads having emotional breakdowns on their editorial columns.

This is because Trump is winning over the Republican base with open xenophobia, racism, and hostile ignorance. And his success is making it easier for other candidates - Ted Cruz for example - to play that card as well. This makes it harder for the party as a whole to pivot away from this open display of hatred when it comes time post-convention to pander to the more moderate/centrist voters the GOP needs to win the general election in November.

By the by: Anyone who thinks Trump can "tone it down" when it comes time for the general election has not been watching this spotlight hog these last 30 years. And anyone who thinks Trump can win over general voters is overlooking how negative too many people view Trump: his Unfavorable numbers are THE worst of any candidate.

Back to the topic about a toxic platform. Past experience about reaction against this xenophobia is our guide: At the state level, California was a reliably Conservative state that had a steady, well-backed Republican Party in the 1990s. Then the governor Pete Wilson ran a harsh anti-immigrant campaign that backfired, as Digby points out in that Salon article linked earlier:

But California Republicans in 1994 were a lot like Trump voters all over the country are today. That is: They were utterly convinced that a vast wave of immigrants from Mexico were pouring over the border to obtain free medical care, welfare benefits and schooling, even as they stole all the good paying jobs from real Americans. They allegedly did all this while stubbornly refusing to learn English.

The Republicans were so worked up, they put an initiative on the ballot now known as the notorious Proposition 187... But while Republicans were high-fiving each other over their great victory, the court issued an immediate stay of the proposition and the Latino community in California began to protest and organize. And they also began, in great numbers, to vote Democratic. The fallout from Prop 187 and a few subsequent anti-immigrant proposals decimated the Republican Party in California. In 1994 the GOP held 26 of 52 (50 percent) U.S. House seats in the California delegation. Today they hold just 15 of 53 (28 percent). The Republican nominee has not won California in the last 6 presidential elections.

I'd also add at the state level, the California Legislature is now decisively Democratic and is projected to stay safely Dem into the next decade. All because the state-level Republicans pissed off the Hispanic voting base and lost that bloc for at least two - now maybe three - generations.

And now with Trump (and others), the national-level Republicans are poised to piss off the Hispanic voting bloc that can well keep Blue (Dem) leaning states with significant Hispanic populations (California, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico) fully aligned to Democratic turnout, and maybe switch Red (GOP) leaning states with significant Hispanic or pro-immigrant populations (Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, maybe even Texas) to Blue in a big way.

If Trump is the candidate for the GOP after the Cleveland convention, the Republicans could lose Texas in the general election this November 2016. If they lose Texas - currently the largest populated state that the Republicans can count on (having lost California and New York and barely any hope for Florida, Ohio, or Illinois) - the GOP is done as a national party.

The other thing causing night-time jitters for the Republican leadership is how a Trump campaign could affect the down-ticket campaigns for the Senate. A high number of vulnerable seats for Republicans - those who won in 2010 over the Tea Party backlash during a low turnout midterm - are up for grabs in too many Democrat-friendly states in likely-high turnout Presidential cycle. The predictors are currently thinking the Republicans can maintain a narrow hold on the Senate: however, Trump Primary voters may well vote for Far Right xenophobic Senate candidates as well, ones that can turn off certain states' more moderate voters in the general elections.

Just think of John McCain in Arizona: he may make it seem as though that state's seat is safely R, but he's getting challenged in the Primary by a Tea Party Trump-lite candidate and is already losing in the polls (something incumbents rarely do).  A more extremist candidate even in Arizona could hurt: unlike House campaigns where gerrymandered districts are safe no matter how extremist a candidate could get, the Senate voting is across a state that has more varied voters able to vote outside the party lines. Just think of the damage Todd Akin and other ignorant candidates in 2012 did to Republican chances then, and change out ignorance over rape and replace it with hostility towards Latinos. That's what Trump can bring to the entire GOP platform.

And yet - despite the likelihood that Trump's race-baiting can turn off voters - if Trump wins the nomination he STILL stands a decent chance of winning the Presidency anyway. Let's be blunt: it's a Two-Party nation and whomever is running for D or R is gonna win the White House. I won't say it's a 50-50 chance Trump wins, but if he's on the ballot in November and enough Republicans stay true to their school and show up to vote the party line while the Democrats don't then Trump wins.

This becomes a national nightmare. Trump will be the least-qualified inexperienced President in recent memory if not ever. Having won entirely on bombast and bullying, that will set the tone of how his administration will behave. The few policy positions he did run on - an insanely expensive border wall, a trade war with China - could be implemented while the Republican agenda - mass deregulation, mass tax cuts, repealing Obamacare - will bring back most of the worst excesses of the Dubya administration.

This is worst-case scenario. Please pray this never happens.

Jeb Wins Republican Nomination

This is a nightmare scenario for a variety of reasons.

For starters, his current polling just don't add up. He's mostly in FOURTH place behind Trump, Carson, Cruz, and/or Rubio (and in one or two places behind Christie). Again, while polling of Likely doesn't translate into Actual voter support, that lack of love among Likely voters is bound to translate into low turnout among the Actual ones.

Another item of note is Jeb's Unfavorables: He's got one of the highest negatives among Republican voters towards a Republican candidate. If he wins enough Primaries it's going to come against the fact too many of his own party's voters just don't like him.

So for Jeb to win the nomination, it's going to have to happen one way: a contested "brokered" convention in July. That means no one got the 50-percent-plus-one delegate count to win outright, or worse someone *cough* Trump *cough* did get enough delegates but somehow they refuse to cast their votes for him, leaving that convention in chaos.

For all of Jeb's failures as a candidate so far, he has one advantage the other candidates don't: that damn Bush family of his happens to maintain a lot of political pull within the Republican ranks. The voters may not like him but the deep-pocket owners of the GOP do.

This becomes a nightmare because the odds are high Jeb won't be anywhere near enough delegates to position himself as the obvious Establishment candidate for the convention to back. He's FOURTH PLACE with no sign he's secretly getting enough Actual voters to win Primaries. He would NOT be the clear choice of the party's faithful, and yet the Establishment will ignore that voter base to appease themselves. The only way this works is if Jeb is in Second: If Jeb gets the nomination while candidates with more delegates are locked out - the way polls are going that would be Trump, Cruz, Rubio and/or Christie (I doubt Carson will stick the whole run) - there will be hell on the convention floor. It will be open civil war between the voters and the party leaders.

Jeb's win would likely come at the expense of Trump, whose threat to leave and run a Third Party campaign is still there and viable an option if he does lead with more delegates (meaning a sizable support base) and still loses the convention. Trump's separate run would break the Republican Party in two and divide enough popular votes to prevent the GOP from winning enough Electoral votes. Any effect Trump would have pulling Dems to him would be less than his effect among Republicans (think Perot's campaigns hurting the GOP in 1992).

And Trump will do that if the convention is rigged against him: his Id (more than his Ego) would compel him to run even if he doesn't win. All he has to do is win Second place in the November election over Jeb and the Republican Party, an act that would embarrass the party Establishment for decades. That does beg the question, why WOULD the Establishment risk alienating their own like that if they rig the convention to favor Jeb? Because if the Bushes - and yes, they are this obsessed with winning - want it, they'll take it. And convince themselves and their backers it was for the greater good. Even if it wrecks the Republican party for another decade.

The other way this is a nightmare is if Jeb wins the nomination AND wins the Presidency despite being a terrible campaigner. Because it will be the Dubya mess all over again.

Cruz Wins Republican Nomination

So let's say Trump fizzles out as the pundits and pollsters predict. We're still talking about someone campaigning with over 30 percent support among the Republican base. Where will all those voters go when they no longer have Trump to lead them and when Jeb is such a wuss?

This is why the chatter about Cruz is dead serious about him likely winning the nomination. He's playing to the same crowds as Trump with essentially the same anti-immigrant racist talking points, doing it with more style and panache avoiding most of the criticisms hitting Trump.

This becomes a nightmare for the Republicans because 1) a Cruz nomination means the party will be stuck with that anti-immigration stance as a platform no matter how hard they try to pander back to the middle. It will be a rehash of why a Trump nomination is troubling; 2) Cruz is one of the least-liked candidates among his own party's elites in ages. He's burned so many bridges in Congress pushing a selfish agenda clearly aimed at his Presidential run that there's chatter the party leadership won't support Cruz if he gains that nomination.

The odds that Cruz can win over the independent or moderate voters needed in the general are not high: his grandstanding in Congress does not play well to those types of voters who prefer "bipartisan" congeniality at that level. The Republicans may think his nomination over Trump would be a dream, but the likely result - losing the White House bid - would still be a nightmare. Not as destructive to the party's overall future, but close.

Rubio Wins Republican Nomination

How does this turn into a nightmare scenario? If Rubio does win the nomination via Primary voters (currently not working), that's a good sign for the Establishment types that one of "their" guys was acceptable to their voter base, and the mainstream media is keen enough on Rubio happening that they will gleefully fall in line to whatever platform he's shilling.

This turns into a nightmare scenario in two ways. First much like the Jeb nightmare, if this happens via that contested convention: despite any Primary wins Trump can claim, a rigged convention (where the Establishment goes with Rubio instead of Jeb due to Jeb's terrible Unfavorables) would cause a similar civil war. The nightmare kicks in when (not if) Trump storms off to run as a Third Party candidate in response to that rigged convention.

Second, Rubio is just not the "safe" candidate his media cheerleading squad thinks he is. He panders to and works with the Far Right as much as Cruz and Trump does, only from the direction of the evangelical rather than open race-baiting (even then he's gone way too quiet on immigration). He's not going to be safe on a lot of the issues moderate/centrist/independent voters look after. And his lack of performance in the Senate will become a fatal flaw: those moderate/centrist voters prefer a candidate who shows up for the job he's been hired to do.

Granted, among the nightmare scenarios this is the one to least bother the Republican party as a whole. But it can happen...

Christie Wins Republican Nomination, Gets Arrested on Corruption Charges Afterward

This has been the only real surprise for me this campaigning preseason, how Christie has stayed in the race as a viable candidate even with all the marks - BridgeGate - against him. The polls are starting to favor him, and the conservative media is at least speaking about him with pleasing tones. If Jeb and Rubio are not the Establishment's preferred choices, Christie will be.

Problem is, Christie is under investigation for a few things not just BridgeGate. There's a series of investigations into how the relief aid for Hurricane Sandy funds had been handled since 2014, and the possibility of either of those inquiries turning into indictments / arrests are plausible enough to create concern. While enough about BridgeGate is out and most of that doesn't touch Christie, there's enough smoke surrounding the Sandy relief aid to consider the possibility of a real fire to this story.

It would be a nightmare to nominate Christie - either with a genuine delegate count or a "broken" convention - only to have the New Jersey legislature or the federal Department of Justice to file criminal charges the next day. Granted the Republicans would raise a stink about it being a "Librul Conspiracy" aimed at "rigging" the general election, but criminal charges are a serious matter and voters won't ignore that.

Of course, Republicans aren't the only ones having nightmares this Primary season.

Hillary Wins Democratic Nomination

The likeliest scenario among all candidates, the one the party leadership can live with - because a lot of them are in her pocket - and yet still one fraught with peril for the Democratic Party.

For all the positives that Hillary can bring to the table, she brings far too many negatives. She has Unfavorable polling numbers equal to either Trump or Jeb. There are enough Far Left voters among Democrats who have grievances with her - that she's too cozy to Wall Street and Big Business, that she's ignored liberal issues for too long - that they can refuse to turn for the general election the way they refuse to turn out for midterms.

Hillary also comes with a big bulls-eye on her back for the Far Right Noise Machine media will aim at 24/7 with a wave of mudslinging unparalleled, likely far worse than anything they've slung at her husband Bill in the 1990s and at Obama in 2008 and 2012. You think the vitriol for Obama was bad among Birthers? Hillary's going to get hit with every conceivable insult and conspiracy accusation dreamed up the last twenty years. Granted, the way the Republicans are today with their Politics of Personal Destruction any Democratic candidate is going to get slimed, but Hillary... hoo boy. The Benghazi hearing was just a taste of what's to come. There are still people accusing her of murdering Vince Foster, and THAT was twenty years and three separate investigations that disproved every conspiracy theory.

The reason mudslinging is damaging to a general election is because it drives down voter turnout - especially among independent voters - to some degree. No matter if people believe the accusations or not: They tune out and decide the entire process isn't worth the hassle. It leaves the voting to the extremists who vote no matter what, and that can be risky to the Democrats if their extremist Far Left refuses to come out in sufficient numbers for Hillary.

If the general election comes down to it being a choice between Trump - with his high Unfavorables - and Hillary - with her high Unfavorables - we could witness one of the lowest voter turnouts for a Presidential election in history. And that does not favor the Democrats - Dems outnumber GOP voters when they show up to vote, the cowards - and can hurt their down-ticket chances with Senate campaigns much the same way Trump could hurt the Republicans.

Bernie wins Democratic Nomination

This becomes a nightmare for the Democratic Party on several levels.

It would come at the expense of THEIR Establishment candidate in Hillary Clinton, which would cause some disarray and chaos within the party apparatus. While they can rally behind Bernie Sanders if he wins a clean fight, it's an outcome that would cause dread over whether Bernie can win the general election.

Bernie is running as one of the more Far Left candidates this nation has seen since George McGovern or Walter Mondale. And THOSE were experiences the Democrats do not want to experience again (granted, Nixon won in 1972 because of dirty tricks, but still...). Despite evidence that the American electorate is swinging Left again after three decades of the Reagan Era, this is still a relatively conservative nation. There are still moderate/centrist voters who do not think along the lines of socialism that Bernie does. His unflinching stance on Universal Health Care is a tough sell to a nation that's only just starting to like (barely) ObamaCare. While Bernie is showing strength in campaign contributions outside of Big Business, if the pro-business players in the Democratic ranks decide to withhold funds it can hurt the party's ability to keep up with the Republicans concerning ads, staffing, expenditures, etc. These are factors that would give the DNC severe migraines.

The only way Bernie can win in the general election is against a clear Far Right candidate - Trump or Cruz - who can't appeal to those moderate/independent voters. Or against Jeb, because seriously Jeb sucks (and Bernie would break the dynastic struggle between Bush vs. Clinton).

I Win The General Election

If I can get 60 million write-in votes, that would cause nightmares for the Republicans and Democrats. Still, it's doable, right people? Yes? Hello?

Getting The Vote Out EVERYWHERE Matters

I have to say: Finally.  I've been blogging about this for years.

Somebody else is paying attention to the real problem we're having with elections in our country.

The problem we've been having when the Democratic Party ignores its' responsibility to run candidates and challenge seats everywhere at the state and Congressional levels.  Take it, Matt Yglesias at Vox:

...The presidency is extremely important, of course. But there are also thousands of critically important offices all the way down the ballot. And the vast majority — 70 percent of state legislatures, more than 60 percent of governors, 55 percent of attorneys general and secretaries of state — are in Republicans hands. And, of course, Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Indeed, even the House infighting reflects, in some ways, the health of the GOP coalition. Republicans are confident they won't lose power in the House and are hungry for a vigorous argument about how best to use the power they have.

Not only have Republicans won most elections, but they have a perfectly reasonable plan for trying to recapture the White House. But Democrats have nothing at all in the works to redress their crippling weakness down the ballot. Democrats aren't even talking about how to improve on their weak points, because by and large they don't even admit that they exist...

I keep thinking back to when Howard Dean - having been embarrassed off the stage by the mainstream elites in 2004 - got control of the Democratic Party chair and initiated a 50-State Strategy to motivate down-ticket campaigns and challenge more seats.  It energized the base, won a lot of local elections, and helped break Republican control of Congress in 2006.

For some asinine reason, the current Democratic leadership dropped that idea by 2010.  And the nation's been screwed again as more state legislatures were abandoned to Republican control.  I spotted over a third of state legislative seats here in Florida in 2014 were NOT EVEN CHALLENGED.  The rampant gerrymandering might be an excuse, but the failure of nerve by Democrats to even TRY in likely districts is inexcusable.  As Yglesias notes:

The worst part of the problem for the Democratic Party is in races that are, collectively, the most important: state government.

Elections for state legislature rarely make the national news, but they are the fundamental building blocks of American politics. Since they run the redistricting process for the US House of Representatives and for themselves, they are where the greatest level of electoral entrenchment is possible...

Those gerrymanders exist in the first place because Republicans draw the maps and screw the Democrats as much as possible.  It becomes a self-defeating problem because Democrats aren't even directly challenging it.  The party and their supporters may try for other ways to break those gerrymanders, but as long as there's a Republican-held state legislature that profits from their own map-making nothing will get fixed.

Another problem - one that Yglesias does not directly note - is that the Democrats are failing to build up a farm system of young and rising talent that at the state level would build up to Congressional elected officials and higher offices.

And this lack of activity at the state and local elections hurts voter turnout period.  As Digby herself notes:

If 80 percent of life is just showing up, Howard Dean had it right with his 50-State plan. Mark Warner got close when he told Yearly Kos in 2006, "[W]e cannot just go after 16 states and then try to hit a triple bank-shot to get Ohio or Florida." Of course, Warner meant Democrats should field a presidential candidate that could compete in 50 states. What Democrats need to do instead is strengthen state parties and compete down-ballot in 50 states. Dean understands this. If you don't show up to play, you forfeit. While we bicker about Hillary vs. Bernie, the GOP shows up to play in states where the DNC doesn't dedicate resources the way Dean wanted to.

This should be a no-brainer.  It worked in 2006 and the Republicans themselves pursue state-level motivations to win local seats.  But the Democrats keep proving themselves unable or incapable of making the same moves to recruit local talents to run for office and thus encourage local voters to support them.

A perfect example I know was the Florida Congressional District 13.  For 2014, the Democrats could have placed a reasonable candidate to challenge a vulnerable district that covered South Pinellas County with its urban and moderate population.  Yet the state-level party failed to recruit anybody and in fact fought against potential local candidates:

Ed Jany, the Marine and former police officer hailed by national and state Democratic leaders as an ideal challenger to newly elected U.S. Rep. David Jolly, dropped out of Pinellas County's 13th Congressional District race Tuesday...

Jany entered the race at the last minute, after Democrats aggressively moved to keep a prominent African-American minister from St. Petersburg, Manuel Sykes, out of the contest. In a statement, Jany said he realized he does not have the time to run for office...

The 13th Congressional District, which includes much of Pinellas County, is one of the most competitive in the country. But it appears now that Jolly will walk into a second term without a serious challenge...

In one of the other twists noted in that previous article, Jany turned out not to have been a registered Democrat nor a resident of that district at the time the party tabbed him to run.  The party was so desperate to find an appealing centrist candidate that they ignored common sense and tried to push the envelope hoping no one would notice...

It's as though the Democratic leadership is afraid of their base.  Yglesias thinks it's overconfidence at the national level - "hey if we can get Obama elected we can win with anybody for the Presidency and let the Republicans flame out" - that's hurting the Democrats.  I think it's fear.  The party leadership flinches whenever they get bullied by the Republicans and the national media about being "librul" to where they avoid the appearance of pandering in that direction.

There's a logic to that, sad to say.  If you look at the Republicans themselves: with that party, they stoke their voter turnout for local elections by bringing up appropriate Far Right candidates to fill those seats.  While they win those elections, they have the bad habit of promoting crazy-wingnut types who turn toxic at the national level.  There's a reason the GOP House is full of Far Right radicals now looking to tear everything apart.

The Democrats fear their own wingnut faction of Far Left: however, rather than address or confront that fear, the DNC tries to mollify by sticking to centrist-moderate candidates who don't appeal as well to the base, and fail to stir up enough interest to get the voter turnout.  Which becomes the self-defeating problem we as a nation (not just Democrats suffer because of this) face today.

The Democratic party leadership needs to cowboy up, as it were.  They need to trust the local organized voters in their own party to find local candidates willing and able to make the time - and deal with the stresses - of running for those state and Congressional seats.  Even if the best-possible candidates are Far Left tree-hugging pro-people safe-sex anti-war single-payer-healthcare types.

Every race should matter.  Every vote should matter.

Predicting Character: Should I Even TRY To Keep Up?

It's at the point we've gotten campaign roll-outs on a daily basis around here.  I haven't even gotten to a full review of Lindsey "THERE'S A DRAGON UNDER YOUR BED BOOGA BOOGA" Graham - I still have only a basic review from when he first made noise about throwing his hat in the ring - and now there's Lincoln Chafee for the Democrats and Rick "The Third Thing I'd Shut Down Is Pie" Perry from the Republican side.

Best thing I can tell you is that the current roster of Republicans are all made up of Active-Negative types and the Democrats are balancing along with a couple of Active-Negatives and maybe a couple of Active-Positives (although I have no idea just exactly what Lincoln Chafee is gonna be because... well, he's off his rocker).

I do not see a single potential Republican candidate who will demonstrate enough wisdom and independence from a worn-out Reagan-Era dogma of tax-cuts, wage-war, crush-social-services, blame-immigrants, kill-jobs ideas.  I do not see any Democratic candidates that can genuinely threaten Hillary Clinton's dominance atop the primaries.

I could go into more details, but from this point on, it's turtles all the way down.  We got what we got.

For the Love of GOD DO NOT VOTE REPUBLICAN.  That's all I can say for now.

I'm close to a milestone blog post: the number 750.  I'll see if I can make it a special one.

A Winter Grayer Than Before

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
 "For hate is strong,
 And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
- "Christmas Bells," Longfellow

Thing about Christmastime, of December and the coming of winter.  It's a season of falling into the Gray Mood.  They call it the Winter Blues but it's really all Gray: the sky is gray, the ground is dead, the people are dour and burdened while the pressure builds to be festive and light-ful.

This year feels grayer than before.

Part of it is due to witnessing yet another disastrous midterm election.  Getting stuck in a state full of partisan morans voting that damn MEDICARE FRAUD back into the governor's office.  Banging my head against the desktop as voter turnout dropped to its lowest level since World War II.

Part of it is watching any semblance of justice in my own nation - land of the free and home of the brave - get flushed down a toilet as violent cops get let off for shooting unarmed teens and using illegal choke holds on guys whose only crime was not submitting to another round of public humiliation.

Part of it is realizing that the current political and economic landscape is about to get darker and nastier.  There's been buzz about a shutdown over Obama's attempts to reform immigration policy via his executive order powers.  There's concerns of a shutdown if there's a fight over a budget proposal that's top-heavy with corporate tax cuts and public sector spending cuts.

There's the growing realization that no matter the injustice of it, the insanity of it, the criminality of it... the Republicans will not rule even if they have the political power, they will ruin all.  They will twist the laws of the states they control to make it harder to vote, harder to complain, harder to stop them commit acts of graft and corruption.  Why listen to the critics or even the experts when there's no accountability for the sins they commit?

It's gray outside right now.  It's going to get darker, and I worry we won't see the sunshine any time soon.

The Angry Moderate Blues

I know it's a fault of myself when I sit here and look at the world and think "what the hell is everyone else thinking when they can't see what I'm seeing?"  I know people will have their own life experiences informing them of what choices to take.  I know people will have their own opinions.

Still.  WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, VOTERS?!

So here I am, fuming at an electorate that damages itself by voting for partisan Far Right hacks, suffering yet another bout of Angry Moderate Blues.

Yeah, Moderates can get angry... We certainly feel the blues.

--

I get the occasional troll on this blog - rare, considering the few comments I ever get - and I got a couple of them during my post of the Sample Ballot for the Florida midterms:

Wow - you are exactly what is wrong with America today. An ideologue that appears to have no clue about what made America great - diversity. Clearly you hate the Republicans more than you love America. Too bad. As an independent thinker, I prefer to vote based on substance not on ideology. Unfortunately neither party has many options when it comes to people of integrity, which is what many of us really want.

Getting called an ideologue is a new insult, but getting accused of not knowing about diversity is a twist. Considering I've posted my support for gay marriage, the free and open practice of all religions, my horror at seeing Blacks and Hispanics and Women getting treated like shit by the authorities and the overlords... Best I can say is that the guy posting that never read the whole of my blog, and thus didn't realize I am all about the diversity. Also, that I *do* love America: he must have missed the posts I add of the 4th of July, the celebration of Gettysburg and Woodstock, the occasional cultural milestone of Americana.  He's the one without a clue (psst, bro: next time READ THE BLOG BEFORE YOU INSULT THE BLOGGER)...

The next one was pretty straightforward:

I'm voting Republican straight ticket you useless liberal.

That's been the standard insult I get from the trolls.  You don't see most of them posting because I do have an administrative setting to filter all Comments.  Not for pure censorship, mind: It's because for a few years I was getting hit with Chinese Spam.  I'm not kidding.  The Chinese were spamming me, and I was like dudes I can't read Mandarin I can't tell what it is you want me to buy, stop it.  Anyway, I have the filter so I see a couple of Comments once in awhile in my Inbox and check them out.  Most of them are Anonymous, which tells me all I need to know about how cowardly they are, and they're pretty much calling me a libtard/librul/marxist/socialist of some kind.  I don't post those because 1) they don't contribute to the debate and 2) Anonymous posters are cowards.  I posted those two above because at least they put a name to the insult.

It's not that I'm bothered by the insults: Hell, I survived Tarpon Springs Middle School.  I've heard worse.  What bothers me is how wrong they get it by insulting me by something I'm not: Liberal.

For one thing, it's not an insult.  It's no more insulting than calling someone Conservative (if you try to insult me as a Conservative I'm going to look at you funny and give you the same retort).  The second thing, I've always considered myself a Moderate:

...Moderates support competency. We support things THAT WORK. If it doesn't work (example: THE WHOLE BUSH ADMINISTRATION) we don't support it. So there... Moderates recognize not so much the NEED for bipartisanship (or compromise) for the SAKE of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship and compromise between opposing factions are welcome when the end result will be something THAT WORKS...

If I look and act like I'm a Liberal, I'm really not. I'm looking and acting like someone who hates the Republican Party, by extension the whole of Conservative, Far Right ideology that has consumed that entire party.

And I hate the Republican Party because I used to be a member:

Actually I'm former Republican and I prefer to consider myself a moderate. I'm one of those dreaded RINOs you and yours drove out of the party. My hatred for the GOP is more despair at how broken and dogmatic it has become.

Calling me a liberal just shows how out of tune and extremist you've become, 'cause everything in opposition to you can only be a "socialist" or a "marxist" or a "liberal". All complexity of issues boiled down to just the hate.

Well, now you know why my ranting here on the blog is so one-sided against Republicans: because I came from there, it's all you had to teach me and I learned it from you. The only difference is I hope my hate for you will protect the rest of the nation and the world from your ruin.

When I first registered to vote I was a Republican.  I came from a Republican household - I've mentioned that more than once, especially about how old-school my dad is about Nixon - and so grew up in an environs of respecting such conservative principles as skepticism, desire for limited government, acceptance of liberal capitalism, and an overall avoidance to any aggressive radical change.

But by 1992 I noticed the party getting meaner and darker.  Not just a response to the rise of Bill Clinton as a political entity but just to nearly every issue.  Social conservatism went from being about compassion and charity and more about ostracism and pushing Christianity as a political force rather than a social foundation.  Economic conservatism went from respect for regulatory protections of the Eisenhower era to mass deregulation and unbridled laissez-faire.  Political conservatism went from diversity of opinions to adherence to dogma.  All of it wrapped into one big package of Fear-Mongering against the Other.

The key moment was Pat Buchanan's speech to the 1992 Convention.  Railing about a "culture war" and that "Clinton and Clinton" - fueling the Far Right fear that Hillary was going to be a Co-President of feminist intent - were going to destroy "God's America," Buchanan created a political identity of Republicans being hard-Right ideologues.

That moment - and the end of Bush the Elder's one-term tenure - began the purity purge against RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) as the extremists began targeting Moderate Republicans to push out and replace with more extreme, more Far Right candidates.

There were efforts to try and stave off the Club for Greed types that backed the purge, such as Main Street Republicans, but by today those moderate groups within the GOP are minorities - 46 Representatives out of 220-plus House Republicans, just 3 Senators out of 52 - within the ranks.  The purity purge by now has pretty much claimed full control of the Republican Party.

I did what I could to stay Moderate within the ranks meself.  I wasn't happy with the party's growing enthusiasms for the death penalty, massive deregulation in spite of historical evidence that deregulation was reckless, a pursuit not for small government but NO government, voter suppression efforts (yes even in the mid-1990s they were pulling that shit), and an eagerness by the leadership to pursue fiscal corruption that would make the Gilded Age look reformist by comparison.  While the Democrats weren't angels either, I loathed what the Republicans were revealing themselves to be.  I wasn't thrilled either by how the Republicans were crafting some fantasy-world dogma revolving around idol worship of Reagan and demonization of non-believers.

By about 2000, when Bush the Lesser became the candidate of choice (and despite his "compassionate conservative" platform he was the candidate of the purist ideologues) I pretty much gave up.  The disaster of the 2000 election results - and watching Republicans riot and get away with it in the Dade County elections office - sealed the deal.  I switched my party affiliation to No Party (I briefly flirted with being a Modern Whig back in 2009, maybe 2010, but that went nowhere).

The thing about becoming NPA (No Party Affiliate).  I still can't bring myself to make a full switch to becoming a Democrat.  It's not that I don't fully support Democrats - I have to, because they're the only actual alternative to the Republicans - it's that having been burned by one party I'm not keen on getting suckered into another.

What you see here on the blog when I rail about Republicans - when I cry all "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN" - this is an act of an Apostate.  Word for the day, kids: Apostasy is the renunciation or denial of a religious (and nowadays political) group that the denier once joined.  It's at the point where anything the Republicans are for - a horrifying Far Right conservatism that is more radical and destructive than actual anarchy - is something I would strongly argue against because I dread the party's true intent (usually having to do with ripping off taxpayers and blaming others for the impending disasters).

I'm at heart still a Moderate.  I don't want Small Government (or the No Government of the Tea Partier mindset), nor do I want Big Government: I want Effective government, one responsive enough to ensure people's rights and safety, yet streamlined without bureaucratic knots.  I want fair taxation (if that means bumping up the rates on the billionaires 2-3 percent and the economic models prove its effectiveness, so be it) based on the burden, not the rate.  I want deficit reduction but not at the expense of massive spending cuts that would harm families and children.  I want government to stimulate the private sector into genuine job growth and wage increases while ensuring that the market doesn't overreact to the costs of such moves.  I believe in Jesus but I don't want to shove Christ into our public schools, nor do I want Creationism - a foolish attempt to make the Bible literal fact rather than spiritual truth - overwhelming our sciences.  I don't buy the War on Christmas because there's still 300 million people in America who are not being forced at swordpoint to celebrate Saturnalia.  I know we need a strong military but I hate the wasteful spending (we bought a fleet of airplanes for billions and pretty much turned those planes into cheap scrap metal!).  I respect our need to forge strong alliances with foreign nations, but we don't need to bomb everybody into submission.

If that stuff makes me "liberal" then you've got a problem with your dictionary, 'cause I'm still Moderate.

I'm just an Angry Moderate.  Which isn't a contradiction in terms.

Note: Rude Pundit pretty much explains why the 2014 midterms went the way it did.  Part of it tribal BS, part of it ignorance.  All of it self-destructive.

We are as a nation voting not for the right reasons.

The Real Voter Scandal Continues: The Turnout Sucks, Florida 2014 Primary Edition

(update: hello to the people linking in via Crooks and Liars.  Thank you Batocchico for the promotion! please check out the other recent articles while you're here...)

So here we are in Florida, 2014, everyone in the state knows what is at stake - GET RICK "NO ETHICS" SCOTT OUT OF OFFICE - and we get our August Primary up and everything.  And there are actual choices for both major parties this primary: Democrats choosing between Crist or Rich; Republicans choosing between Scott (augh), Cuevas-Neunder, or someone named Yinka. (slow pause)  Yeah, well, anyway, there's every reason to think that with choices to be made for the big state-wide vote, we'd see a large number of voters showing up.  We've got 11 million-plus registered to vote, and although the NPA voters couldn't vote in the party primaries we've still got 8 million or so Republicans and Democrats on file available to make their choices known.

And what happens with the voter turnout?

We've have rat farts that made a bigger impact on things.

(copied from the Tampa Bay Times)

Governor - GOP Primary

5802 of 5804 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Name Party Votes Vote % Scott, Rick (i) GOP 833,585 88% Cuevas-Neunder, Elizabeth GOP 100,585 11% Adeshina, Yinka GOP 16,880 2%

Governor - Dem Primary

5802 of 5804 Precincts Reporting - 99%

Name Party Votes Vote % Crist, Charlie Dem 620,689 74% Rich, Nan Dem 214,111 26%

According to the state's Supervisor of Elections page, there's 4,152,489 Republicans, 4,608,759 Democrats (with NPA and third parties at 3,083,202).  I'm counting less than a million voters turning out for Republicans, waaaay less voters turning out for Democrats.  Less than a million for each party.  That's less than 25 percent (a quarter) of registered voters this Primary.  Our turnout didn't even get to the 39 percent failure I railed about in the FL-13 Special election a few months back.

WE ARE NOWHERE NEAR EITHER PARTY MAKING A MAJORITY DECISION ON WHO THEY WANT AS THEIR CANDIDATES.  We are nowhere near a 50 percent of voter turnout, where a solid majority of fellow Floridians can stand up and say "hey, this is who we want representing our interests!"

To hell with the screeching over "voter fraud" (which happens on such a meager scale - less than a percent - to be non-existent), the real screeching needs to be over the FAILURE of registered voters to actually show up and f-cking vote.

Because this is what happens when those registered voters don't show up: their interests will not be addressed.  Their real-world needs such as good jobs at good wages, working schools, functioning roads and bridges, clean water, affordable housing and utility bills... none of that will be properly addressed because we'll end up with elected officials who KNOW that a majority of Floridians didn't even care enough to show up.  Those officials know all they have to do is indulge the voters who DO show up, who always show up regardless, and they'll be able to keep their comfy, full-pension-in-4-years jobs.

And the voters who DO show up?!  They're the wingnuts.  The extremists.  The single-issue crazies obsessing over hating gays, worshiping guns, shooting doctors, and nuking the social safety nets like Medicare Social Security and Medicaid.  This is why abortion remains a major campaign issue even when a majority of Americans don't even consider abortion a Top 10 Topic: it's still red meat for the extremist voters, and the politicians know who they have to pander to.

It may be so easy for a majority of citizens to tune out, to disengage, to walk away from politics because of all the negativity and social warfare (some of it literal).  But that disengagement has a price: OUR NEEDS AS A STATE AND AS COMMUNITIES SUFFER.  They suffer because the needs of the minority (by number, not ethnicity) extremists will be sated at the expense of the many.

Worse, the minority group getting the special treatment above all others tend to be the uber-rich billionaires making themselves richer by getting their cronies they elected to hand over more and more tax breaks and free access to our public funds.  And then people wonder why income inequality has become a huge problem: IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE LETTING THE CROOKS WIN RE-ELECTION.

This is frustrating.  This is insane.

It ought to be illegal.  There ought to be a rule making damn sure no election is certified until a solid majority (I'd love for it to be 60 percent super-majority) of voters available for that election have placed their ballots for counting.  And if that means extending the voting times, so be it (and have the parties PAY for those extensions: it'd be a good way to force them to get better at GOTV efforts).  If people don't like the choices being offered, every election - even the closed party primaries - ought to have a blank space to add a write-in vote.

WE OUGHT TO HAVE OUR ELECTIONS BE BUSINESS AND SCHOOL HOLIDAYS TO GIVE PEOPLE ENOUGH FREE TIME TO SHOW UP AND VOTE (most people don't even realize they have a right to leave work for an hour to go vote, and because they work during election hours few of them even make the effort).  We ought to move elections to Fridays or Saturdays, on weekends: this isn't 1880 when people had to travel during business hours to the county courthouse to file their ballots while they conduct business in-town.

We can do these things: except we can't.  BECAUSE BOTH MAJOR PARTIES PROFIT FROM THE BROKEN ELECTORAL SYSTEM.  Yes, even Democrats.

I remember from a political science class back in college where two professors discussed how political parties figured out a rule: that the fewer people who showed up to vote, the EASIER it got to control that election's results.  Because the ones who always turned up were the single-issue wingnuts, and those were easy to manipulate and control.  If voter turnout grows, the number of more moderate, more complex-thinking voters who can't fit within the square pegs increases to where the campaigns can't dictate the results (which really scares them, 'cause they hate to get off-message).  I'd love to remember what the name of that rule was: I did not write it down then because it was tangent to another topic discussed that class.

And so, nothing will get done.  At least, not by the parties' separate leaderships.

If anything is going to fix this, it's going to have to be from the voters ourselves.  WE NEED TO SHOW UP AND VOTE.  We need to make our voices heard.  We need to get state amendments on-ballot to reform our broken electoral system.  We need to get 8 million voters showing up for Primaries.  We need to get 11 million voters showing up for the General Election.

We need to wake up, and we need to get in the faces of the status quo a-holes running our political parties into the ground.  They need to respect the voters better, and that means showing up and making them aware we are not their puppets.

Dammit, Florida.  GET THE DAMN VOTE OUT.

P.S. just for the Love of God DO NOT VOTE FOR RICK "MEDICARE FRAUD" SCOTT.  I'm serious.  Rick Scott is not running for Governor to work for our state: Rick Scott is running to make money for Rick Scott.  That is all he represents.  Just PLEASE do not vote for him...