For Republicans It Wasn't Any Sin

Over the weekend we had a Republican candidate for Missouri Senator, Todd Akin, make some damn idiotic statements about "legitimate rape" and general failure remembering any high school biology he apparently slept through:

"First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in a clip posted to YouTube by the Democratic super PAC American Bridge. "If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Let's get the problem he has with biology out of the way first.

Human women do NOT have a hormone or secretion that stops an unwanted pregnancy from happening.  Not from a forced rape.  Not under any circumstances.  If women DID have that ability, then abortion itself as a medical practice would never have been developed.  The birth control pill would cease to be.

Akin is basically repeating a sick old meme among anti-abortion Republican politicians dating back to 1988.  If not earlier.  These guys - and it's mostly idiot guys saying it - simply do not know human biology.  Worse, they prefer to live with their ignorance because it fits their worldview.

The other, more unsettling thing that Akin stated was that "legitimate rape" phrase.  Like as though there is a distinction between any kind of rape.  There may be stranger rape, date rape, statutory rape, but they all boil down to the same thing: RAPE.  And rape is a hideously vicious crime.  But Akin and his ilk want to make that distinction between what they consider "legitimate rape" (what they tried calling "forcible rape") and what they would consider "she was asking for it" sex.  Basically, their attempt at blaming the rape victims if those victims have the misfortune of "dressing inappropriately" or "being in a bad environment" or "getting pregnant when they should have used their hormones to protect their virginal selves."

But those two tidbits pale in comparison to the biggest problem of all.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW REPUBLICANS THINK ABOUT RAPE AND PREGNANCY.

From an article in Slate:

The statement was actually intended to soften Akin’s absolute opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. Why bother to have loopholes for such conditions when they’re going to be so rare, goes his thinking? As Talking Points Memo notes, the Congressman has long suspected that rape and abortion laws are less likely to protect women from abuse than to allow them to be abusive:

Akin’s past includes praising a militia group linked to anti-abortion extremism in the 1990s and voting against creating a sex-offender registry in 2005. Back in 1991, as a state legislator, Akin voted for an anti-marital-rape law, but only after questioning whether it might be misused “in a real messy divorce as a tool and a legal weapon to beat up on the husband,” according to a May 1 article that year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via LexisNexis).

From an article in Balloon Juice:

The Republican party officially takes the same position he has:

The Republican Party is once again set to enshrine into its official platform support for “a human life amendment” to the Constitution that would outlaw abortion without making explicit exemptions for rape or incest, according to draft language of the platform obtained exclusively by CNN late Monday. “Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” the draft platform declares. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

Akin’s real sin is letting people really understand how truly insane the Republican party is.

Just try to remember this: Akin is currently in the House, and alongside current wingnut heartthrob Paul Ryan they co-sponsored a 2011 bill called "The No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act".  This was a major bill the Republican House wanted on the floor in a big hurry.  This is the same bill that attempted to redefine rape as "forcible rape", which would have narrowed down to exclude rape victims who simply didn't have a knife to their throats.  It wasn't that Ryan and Akin and the rest of the House GOP wanted to tighten the definition: they wanted to cut back the number of women who could get medical help and get abortions.

That's what's really important to these ignorant clueless guys.  The fetus.  They don't care about women who are raped, who suffer from incest, who may have a medical emergency of any kind that would force the painful choice.  They just don't want those fetuses aborted.  And you can't call these guys "pro-life" like they want to because if they really were pro-life, these guys would be the first to vote for more financial aid for poor families to raise all these extra newborns, they'd be funding more pre-school and public school programs to get those newborns educated.  But the GOP wants to cut back on all that kind of social community spending just so they can give billionaires more tax cuts.  They only care about the fetus: once you're out, they don't give a sh-t.  Unless you promise to vote for them, probably.

Like John Cole said, the biggest sin Akin committed was highlighting just how truly insane the Republicans are right now: how scientifically ignorant they are, how blase they are about the complexity of living in the real world, how vicious they aim to be in making people who don't travel within their circles suffer just so the elite can enjoy themselves.

For the LOVE OF GOD.  Do NOT vote Republican.

Lest We Forget: WOODSTOCK

Not about to let another year go by without a Woodstock reference!




The song ends just as the sun rises on the Sunday morning of the festival. After this, The Who would stage it during concerts to have a sunrise effect as they finish this song.

Three Problems With Paul Ryan As GOP Veep

Lo and behold, post about veep selections and ye shall receive.

Mitt Romney goes and selects Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) to be his Vice Presidential ticket balance.

Why this is a problem for the Republicans in three easy observations:

1) Ryan is coming from a state that is currently polling well for Obama, with no guarantee that Ryan's selection will turn the tide.  Not to mention that Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes isn't much of a prize compared to larger electoral states like Florida, Ohio, or Pennsylvania which are considered toss-up states (although currently polling well for Obama again) and from which Romney could have tabbed more voter-friendly partners.
2) Ryan is coming from a U.S. Congress (112th on record) that is generally recognized as one of the worst Congresses in American history.  It is certainly the least popular Congress ever.  Everything people hate about Congress will reflect on the people who lead it.  And Ryan is one of the key leaders of the Republican party leadership in charge of the 112th Congress: He is chair of the House Budget Committee, responsible for pushing annual budget plans that hew closely to the party ideology (tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to social programs and education, and vague unprovable justifications that it will all create budget-balancing revenues which ten years of Bush the Lesser Economics have proven impossible).  He's been touted since 2004 as the Idea Wonk Guy for the House GOP.  You can't separate him from the Republicans' economic platform.  To put him on the main ticket this election cycle - rather than keep him in a safe Congressional seat run (which he can still do under election laws) - puts him and his economic ideas front and center for the whole party.  Which leads to...
3) Ryan's budget proposals - especially his proposals to turn Medicare into a voucher program, privatize Social Security, and cut Medicaid into little pieces - are massively unpopular, and nearly everybody who pays attention knows it.  Obama's campaign is already on the attack, and the evidence is pretty solid that a lot of populations that rely on all three major social safety net programs - the elderly, the poor, the middle class families struggling to care for their own - are going to turn against such ideas and the party backing them in a big damn hurry.  There's a reason why Romney's campaign was quick to claim that Ryan's budget plan will NOT be Romney's budget plan...  But Ryan's budget plan - and the slavish worship the wingnut base had towards both the person and the plan - was what made him Romney's pick for the Veep spot!  You can't have it both ways, people.

I'd throw in the fourth reason why Ryan is a problem pick - he's a fanboy of Ayn Rand - but that's more of a personal peeve I have towards Objectivist utopian hacks.  But you never know, a majority of Americans can come to feel the same way about Objectivism being a destructive political-economic ideology...

I'd like to think this will make it easier for voters nationwide to reject the Republicans and their tax-cut, kill-government ways.  But then there's the problem of voter suppression efforts in key swing states, and the fact that in our Citizens United world of unlimited campaign money the wealthy wingnut crowd can possibly buy this election cycle outright...  I'm still worried that Romney/Ryan could win.  And then it will be the Bush the Lesser years all over again.

For the Love of God, people.  Don't Vote Republican.

At What Point Can We Have an Honest Debate About Guns?

There has been another mass shooting, this time at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.  Seven dead reported for now.

Can we finally, please for the Love of God, discuss the possibility that the Second Amendment - written in an era when there was no standing army, when it took days to travel from one end of a state to another, when the frontier was open and the need for immediate local responses were higher, when state-formed militias made sense - is an outdated amendment that needs revision and recognize that the need for civilian-owned firearms isn't there anymore?

We've got closed borders now.  We've got 24/7 police and law enforcement service.  If we're gonna get invaded by Aruba our military response will be in minutes, not weeks.  The need for "well-regulated militias" isn't there anymore.  The fantasy of needing civilian soldiers against some nefarious government plot of epic doom is just that: a FUCKING fantasy.  The right of an individual to own a firearm needs to be balanced with everyone else's right TO NOT GET SHOT AT.

The NRA and gun nuts out there are gonna scream and kick and throw tantrums and whatnot to make sure we don't even have a goddamn discussion about this.  And even though we're not in a warzone, we're gonna have a body count in the United States about as bad as some war-torn Third World nation.  All because a small, very vocal minority of citizens worship some hunks of metals more than they care about peoples' lives.

We have sensible restrictions on a lot of things that can hurt people.  We restrict car ownership and driver's licenses with regard to public safety.  But the automobile came after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, so the car doesn't have an amendment allowing its free open use for any drunken incompetent who could plow into a school bus full of kids.  Yes, that still happens anyway with car accidents, but at least we have laws and a method of enforcement to reduce such a deadly risk.  We can't for guns.

And innocent people get shot because we DARE NOT consider even the slight possibility that we don't need a Second Amendment to protect the frontier anymore.

Madness.

Probably Should Get The Veep Distraction Out of the Way

There's a couple of things I want to write about Romney's floundering Presidential campaign, the one of least value ought to go first and be done with it.  Romney's quest for a Vice Presidential co-campaigner.

My earlier viewpoint about the unnecessary Veep selection process - the need of a Vice President really isn't there anymore - still stands: we have a succession process in place if anything should happen, and the Vice President in theory/practice - save for the anomaly that was the Dick Cheney regime - is pretty much a useless cog in the Executive Branch's system.  The only value of a Vice President - tie-breaker vote in the Senate - could be altered with a simple Constitutional amendment re-working the makeup of the Senate (different blog post to go in greater detail later).

But for now we're stuck with it, and so the media speculation about whom Romney should pick for "balancing the ticket" is getting into a fever pitch with the Tampa convention mere weeks away.

So who's on the short list for Romney's ticket?  And how much trouble is each possible choice?

For starters, there are a few people - Jeb Bush and Condi Rice are the most mentioned - who have very direct ties to the George W. Bush administration: Jeb as Dubya's brother, and Condi as one of Dubya's biggest personal allies.  Here's the problem: George W. Bush is still a very unpopular ex-President, and a solid majority of voters still blame Bush the Lesser for the weak economy.  If Romney picks anyone from Bush the Lesser's administration or anyone from the Bush clan, he is directly linking himself to that previous ruined regime.  Not a good idea, ergo don't expect it to happen.

Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, gets name-dropped on a regular basis for a lot of reasons: the hope he can flip Florida from "Leans Obama" to "Leans Romney"; as a prominent Hispanic Republican, he could keep enough conservative Hispanic voters from fleeing an otherwise hostile party towards "illegals" (which keeps coming across as anti-Hispanic ranting); he's popular with the Far Right base, which doesn't like Romney (still); and he's young for a party whose leadership is visibly aging and needs someone like him to be a standard bearer by 2016.  But even Rubio has problems: he's not as popular in Florida as the GOP would hope - polling on the possibility shows no change in voter trends, so he's not going to swing this state to Mitt - and Rubio's lack of national political experience makes it harder for the Republicans to argue about Obama being "inexperienced" and "not properly vetted yet".

There's been arguments made that Romney wants to do the exact opposite of what McCain did back in 2008 when Sarah Palin was selected as Veep.  Which means two things: not taking a woman, but taking a staid white guy who is not a major boat-rocker.  Which pretty much covers a lot of Republican elected officials at the moment but pretty much narrowed down to the likes of Tim Pawlenty, Senator Rob Portman, Senator Jon Kyl, Senator John Thune, Gov. Bob McConnell, and (insert bland Congressperson from key swing state here).  Big problems with any of these choices: they won't boost the ticket with any enthusiasm, and they represent either small electoral states or states already heavily favoring Republicans (save for Portman from the key state of Ohio, which is why he's got a better chance than most).

Alternatively, there's the argument that Romney HAS to take a woman candidate to blunt the trend of women voting for Obama and the Democrats (as well as change the image of the Republicans as a bunch of stuffy old white men eager to make contraception/birth control illegal, pushing female income inequality, destroying cheaper access to health care, and other well-documented sexist actions).  That brings to the list the likes of Michele Bachmann (crazy evangelical currently spewing anti-Arab sentiment) or Jan Brewer (crazy anti-immigrant from Arizona that's giving whacked-out wingnut places like Florida and Texas a run for Teh Craziest State In America title).

Which brings up the other list of potentials: the wingnut celebrities of the GOP.  While Romney has the Republican nomination locked up, his unfavorables even within the GOP itself are too high.  That has to do with the fact that most of the Teabagger Far Right wingnuts still do not trust Romney (being a habitual flip-flopping liar is a big reason why).  The odds that Romney will have to add to his ticket someone pleasing to the Far Right - which goes against common sense as Romney NEEDS moderate/independent voters in November - are pretty high.  Which is why Bachmann, Brewer, budget-killer Paul Ryan, Rick "Do Not Google" Santorum, Herman "Mike Tyson Did a Damn Good Impersonation" Cain, Nikki "Does the GOP Really Want to Run a Candidate From an Openly Pro-Confederate State" Haley, and Chris "Anger Management" Christie are on the list.  Hell, even Donald "Bankruptcy Court" Trump and Newt "Divorce" Gingrich are possibilities at this point.

To be honest, this might be a good time for the Republican Party to start arguing the need to trade out the Vice President spot for changing the Senate make-up to have the tie-breaker vote handled by a separately elected National Senator.  Ah, SPOILERS for that constitutional amendment idea (TBD), retroactively...

Seriously, I expect Portman to be the sensible common-sense pick.  However, VP selections RARELY go the way people predict (did anyone have Dan Quayle on their radars back in 1988?  Geraldine Ferraro in 1984?  Or Spiro Agnew in 1968?) so don't be surprised if a completely-out-of-the-blue name gets selected (if it's a wingnut celebrity, start laughing and vote Democrat).

Tragedy July 20 2012

To the families and friends who lost people last night in Aurora, Colorado, my prayers and sympathies are with you.  These are weak words, they always are, compared to the suffering you all are going through right now.

These people went to the movie theater to be entertained.  Instead, they received pain and sorrow because of a sicko with a gun and with hate and fear in his heart.

These Questions Are Retroactive

These are my questions about Mitt Romney's role at Bain Capital, and Bain Capital in general:

1a) If you, Mitt Romney, were not really CEO of Bain Capital from 1999 to 2002 as you claim today, then who was CEO during that time?
1b) Can we speak with that person to verify that he or she was CEO of Bain Capital, and/or the person responsible for most business decisions?
1c) Was there a press release given to the business media back in 1999 or between 1999 to 2002 that announced who this replacement CEO is/was?

2) If that other person was CEO during that time, why did the company's SEC filings still list you as CEO?  And why were you still signing that paperwork as well as other business filings?

3) If you had retired from Bain Capital in 1999, why were you still receiving a base salary of at least $100,000 well into 2002?  Most retirement plans I've known do not work that way.  Were you receiving a salary for a no-show job?

4) If you had cut all ties from Bain Capital as you claim on your 2011 campaigning forms by 1999, why did you tell Massachusetts election officials under oath in 2002 that you were still regularly involved in Bain's business dealings to justify your residency requirement to run for Governor?

'Cause I'm with Andrew Sullivan on this one:

But responsibility for Bain? Think about it. No one disputes that Romney co-founded Bain, hired most of its staff, and honed its methods and strategies from 1984 to 2002. No one can dispute that he was paid at least $100,000 from 1999 to 2002 for being CEO. There is no massive difference between the kind of strategies Bain pursued from 1984 to 1999 when Romney was managing full-time and from 1999 to 2002, when he was managing part-time and by his own lawyer's assertion that his Bain activities "continued unabated just as they had." Is Romney saying that nothing that happened at Bain after 1999 is his responsibility but that everything that happened after January 2009 is all Barack Obama's fault?
Yep, that's what he's saying. It's a pathetic double standard argument from a suddenly pathetic and panicking campaign...

Romney's had the image problem already with being a habitual flip-flopper; getting nicknamed as the "Etch-A-Sketch" candidate whose ideology/talking points can change with a shake of a toy; of neither being conservative or liberal or even moderate, that he simply has no core belief and says whatever he needs to say at that moment to get what he wants.  Now he's trying to avoid responsibility for something that he claimed with pride back in 2002 to run for Governor, but now refuses to acknowledge as it's embarrassing as hell in 2012.

Now he's on record as being a liar, either lying in 2002 to get what he wanted (Governor of Massachusetts), or lying now in 2012 to get what he wants (President of the United States).

And making it worse for him is the fact that the campaign forms he signed to run for President in 2011 carry with them a penalty of perjury... which is a felony at the federal level.  How long will it take for someone in a position to do so file a criminal complaint to have his signed statements investigated?

These questions aren't going to go away with the next news cycle, Mitt.  If you don't answer, people will assume the worst.  Unless of course the answers are somehow worse...  In which case, the Republicans need to start looking for another candidate...

All I Remember From High School Band Is That I Have To Roll My Feet

For your consideration on this day of celebration:


And to all Americans I wish you a safe and festive Fourth of July!

Flood

I've been flooded out.

My home sits relatively high to the street and all, but the access roads are definitely rivers by now.  May not get back in until Friday.

Meanwhile I'm reporting in from temporary shelter.  Will let you know what happens.

I blame Romney.

UPDATE: A bit late as this is July 4th I'm reporting back in.  The flooding in my area didn't last too long - was out only a day - but other surrounding neighborhoods had it worse (one mobile home area near Anclote River was underwater for two more days that I know of).  It wasn't so much a powerful storm (Debbie Downer was merely a tropical storm) but a slow-moving one that used the geography to its advantage.

Incumbency

This is something that I've wanted to post for awhile, decided to get around to it today.  I'm not sure if anyone else has ever thought up this observation, but:

A first-term President who's popular with the general voting public tends to get re-elected to a second term.

I mean, when you look back on the history of one-term Presidents, the consistent pattern between most of them is that they were unpopular, at least unpopular enough within their own party to be snubbed by the power-brokers in the backrooms when the next election rolled around.

John Adams?  Wasn't as well-liked as Thomas Jefferson.  John Quincy Adams?  He actually lost the popular vote, but won in the runoff in the House of Representatives... essentially riling up Andrew Jackson and his supporters to turn out in droves the next election.  Van Buren?  First sitting President to suffer a major economic panic, so yeah pretty much unpopular.  The Whigs are especially screwy one-termers: each Whig winner - Harrison and Taylor - DIED in office, leaving their unpopular Veeps - Tyler and Fillmore - serving out those terms.  Both Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were one-termers due to the ongoing slavery issue that made any Democrat sitting in the White House hugely unpopular in the North.  Lincoln won re-election even in a divisive war because he stood on a more popular platform - Finish the War - than his opponent.

The next one-termer was Chester A. Arthur - fitting in for the assassinated James Garfield - who actually was well-liked (and not too bad a President) but wasn't the guy the party bosses wanted anymore.  Grover Cleveland is an interesting case.  He won the popular vote on his re-election effort but lost the Electoral vote, which almost makes his violate this hypothesis: except that he ran again and won a separate second term, the only President to do so.  So he still fits.

Teddy Roosevelt really does prove my case (twice).  Before him, Veeps who assumed the Presidency on the death of the President - poor McKinley, who was popular enough to win two terms - tended to be unpopular with either their party bosses or the electorate.  Roosevelt became so popular with the voters - and so effective in shutting down his bosses - that he won his own term, the first to do so.  The second time he proves my case is with Taft, his successor: not too happy with his administration, Roosevelt ran on a third ticket, effectively splitting the Republican vote... while Taft finished third.

Coolidge was popular enough to win his own term of office replacing Harding.  Herbert Hoover was a one-termer for a very obvious reason: the Great Depression.  FDR basically ran against Hoover three of the four times he ran for office, which should tell you how unpopular poor Herbert was.  FDR's successor Truman ran a surprisingly effective campaign against an unpopular Congress and reticent Dewey, leading to the biggest electoral upset in American politics.  When Truman's own popularity tanked during the Korean War, he quickly figured out he couldn't run for re-election and opted not to.

Eisenhower was the inverse of Hoover: incredibly well-liked, incredibly popular.  Even having Nixon on his ticket didn't put a damper on things.  Kennedy was more likeable than Nixon in 1960.  Johnson was more likeable (believe it or not) than Goldwater and was running off of JFK's legacy.  By 1968, Nixon was more likeable (I know, scary) than LBJ's replacement Humphrey (if the Dems stuck with Eugene McCarthy, they could have eked out a win) and Wallace.  By 1972 it didn't matter who was running as the more popular candidate because Nixon's crew was sabotaging the Democratic primaries (hello, Watergate).

Carter was more likeable than Ford.  Carter's unfavorables by 1980 hurt him compared to the well-liked Reagan.  Reagan was still well-liked in 1984 when Mondale ran against him (which is one of the reasons Mondale only won Minnesota and DC in the Electoral votes).  Bush the Elder's re-election efforts in 1992 were hurt by a hard recession, making him vulnerable to the smooth styling of Clinton (and Perot's third party vote losses).  Bush the Lesser was still riding off of his huge popularity boost after 9/11 to eke out a win in 2004 over the stiff Kerry.

So where is this going?

Well, we're in a re-election year for Obama, coming off a rough first term.  How do his re-election chances stack up?

Pretty good, actually.  More people are hopeful about the economy now than they were in 2008.  A current poll shows Obama with a 13 point lead over Romney, even as that poll shows Obama getting low marks for handling the economy.  One thing to note in that article: Look at Romney's favorable-to-unfavorable numbers.  Romney is 39 percent favorable to 48 percent UNfavorable.  Being that un-liked a candidate bodes ill.

As long as Obama keeps his favorable numbers above Romney's, Obama has a good chance of winning re-election.  Which is probably why we should expect a hurricane Category 5-level amount of mudslinging negative ads from now until DECEMBER 2016 for God's sake by the Republicans in order to drag Obama's favorables down.

So remember, Stay Sane and Vote Obama...

Organizing For America

In my free time I volunteer with the Organizing For America grassroots campaign.

Stay Sane And Vote Obama.  :-)

My Vote My Power

Following up from the last post about Rick Scott and his underlings breaking voter rights' laws, the papers are saying the voter purge is all but over because the county elections supervisors - the ones who have to do the heavy lifting - are united in saying the lists are flawed and illegal:

The 67 county elections supervisors — who have final say over voter purges — are not moving forward with the purge for now because nearly all of them don't trust the accuracy of a list of nearly 2,700 potential noncitizens identified by the state's elections office.
"We're just not going to do this," said Leon County's election supervisor, Ion Sancho, one of the most outspoken of his peers. "I've talked to many of the other supervisors and they agree. The list is bad. And this is illegal."
So far, more than 500 have been identified as citizens and lawful voters on the voter rolls. About 40 people statewide have been identified as noncitizens. At least four might have voted and could be guilty of a third-degree felony.
The eligibility of about 2,000 have not been identified one way or the other..

Just take a look at the numbers: so far 500 that were kicked off the polls didn't deserve to be kicked.  Only 40 were identified as non-citizens.  At least four (!) out of the 2,700 on the original list may have broken the law.

Only 4 possible violators.  Compared to 500 citizens who didn't break the law who still suffered.  And compared to the 11 MILLION registered voters out of 18 MILLION state residents.

If Rick Scott and his buddies think they are fighting some massive criminal conspiracy... THEY ARE CLEARLY NOT.  Four out of 18 Million is... do the math people... my Windows calculator says 2.2222E-007, thanks Rick Scott you BROKE MY CALCULATOR TOO.  (seriously, it's less than a percentage of a percentage of 1 percent!)  This is not worth denying the honest-to-God rights of 500 honest citizens (and even more if those 2000 voters ever check their mailboxes).  If this is crime-fighting, it's akin to stopping drunk drivers by blowing up all the roads!

And despite the optimism of the Tampa Bay Times reporting, I guarantee you Rick Scott and his Sec. of State Ken Detzner are going to figure out a way to press on with their purge.  They have an ideological belief that "voter fraud" is real (it's not: most evidence points to such fraud as basic record errors!  And it's miniscule: less than a percent of a percent of a percent for God's sake!), and that belief cannot be stopped or denied.  They've already tried flipping the argument about by accusing the Dept. of Justice of failing to help them access federal databases - especially Homeland Security's illegal immigrant databases - they need to use to push their purge further.  This is even though the original Sec. of State Browning discovered the purge list is hugely flawed and resigned rather than implement it.  This is even with Attorney General Holder stating publicly that Scott is breaking the law by pushing this voter purge.

Scott and Detzner and the Republican Party as a whole will keep pushing this non-scandal until and unless the handcuffs are clapped on their wrists and they get dragged off for violating voters' rights under both state (Florida Statutes 104, specifically 104.0515 and 104.0616) and federal laws (1965 Voting Rights Act and 2003 Voter Registration Act).

Those 500 Florida residents who got booted off the rolls and had to press to get their rights back - rights that SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN TAKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE - have a legitimate legal grievance against Rick Scott.  Charge him.  Even just one of you has a case against this bastard.  Protect your rights, people.  MY VOTE is MY POWER.  It's yours too.

Now Available

UPDATE: I realize that trying to figure out the numbers - 4 divided by 18 million - for determining the percentage of people committing actual voter fraud is a bit tricky since every calculator I've tried using can't reduce the decimal count that low.  So I decided on the opposite route: figure out the percentages of people who are honestly voting out of the 11 million registered in Florida.  So basically 11 million minus 4 is 10,999,996 honest voters.  Now THAT I can divide by the total voter count of 11,000,000 and that gives me .99999963 roughly speaking.  Converting that to percentage and that is 99.999963 percent of honest voters out there.  Meaning the amount of fraud is .000037 percent, give or take.  It's nowhere near even a percent of 1 percent (which would be .001 percent).  Basically, it means actual voter fraud is close to ZERO when compared to honest voting.  So why the obsession with voter fraud?  There are ten thousand more serious crimes taking place in Florida and/or the nation on any given day: why voter fraud, when there's practically NO FRAUD taking place?

I Think Rick Scott Is Breaking The Law

UPDATE: see below.
Specifically, I think he's violating people's civil liberties by pushing a purge of eligible voters off the election rolls (copied from ThinkProgress):

Initially, the state created a list of over 180,000 purported “non-citizens” by comparing their list of registered voters to the state motor vehicle database. The state forwarded about 2700 names from that list to local officials to remove from the rolls. Yesterday, in the face of mounting problems with the limited effort, Scott administration officials made it clear they were just getting started:

Chris Cate, a spokesman for the state Division of Elections, defended the state’s actions. “It’s very important we make sure ineligible voters can’t cast a ballot,” he said in an email to the Herald on Tuesday.
He said the state continues to identify ineligible voters, saying the state Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has agreed to update information using a federal database that the elections division couldn’t access directly.
“We won’t be sending any new names to supervisors until the information we have is updated, because we always want to make sure we are using the best information available,” Cate wrote. “I don’t have a timetable on when the next list of names will be sent to supervisors, but there will be more names.”

It’s unclear how the new procedures alluded to by Cate will solve the systemic problems with the voter purge list. There have been several individuals targeted by the list that have been citizens their entire lives. Therefore, there seems to be a major problems beyond outdated citizenship information.
Moreover, the entire process of database matching to remove voters is problematic. The Fair Elections Legal Network, which is challenging the purge, noted that database matching is “notoriously unreliable” and “data entry errors, similar-sounding names, and changing information can all produce false matches.”
The first list was also created with information accessible to the state motor vehicle administration, which the former Secretary of State Kurt Browning considered so unreliable he refused to release. Browning resigned in February.

Why do I think Scott and his underlings are breaking the law here?

For starters, denying a citizen's right to vote without any kind of judicial review or right of defense is a major problem.  It violates federal constitutional standards in the Fourteenth Amendment, First Section:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Bold highlights mine.  This "voter purge" is depriving eligible honest-to-God citizens their life and liberty, expressly their right to vote that is a key and necessary right.  The right to vote is SERIOUS BUSINESS.  Anyone working in legal guardianship/power of attorney stuff will tell you that determining a person to be "incapacitated" requires a full review by licensed doctors and presided over by judges.  And one of the rights at stake in issuing guardianships is the Right To Vote, alongside the Right To Marry, Right to Form Contracts, etc.  When you lose that Right To Vote, it's viewed as a major loss of self-determination.

Let's be clear: voter fraud may happen, but it is not happening on the scale that the Far Right is screaming about.  Most cases are just regular people failing to update their residency status, or else felons who failed to re-instate their voting rights, or immigrants going through a naturalization process jumping the gun too early.  It's not thousands of zombie "voters" through whom political bosses are faking to stuff ballot boxes.  Out of the MILLIONS who are registered to vote, only tens of cases - not even hundreds of cases - are there any evidence of outright fraud taking place.  This voter purge is over an over-hyped "scandal".  This ain't ACORN, people.  And even ACORN was overblown nonsense.

And the ones getting purged seem to be the minorities and poor people.  Which reeks of the Jim Crow "deny the votes" attitude that harms this nation's reputation as a home of liberty and justice for all.  What's really going on is that the Republicans are going after the voting groups that will tend to vote Democrat, in an effort to reduce the risks of a big turnout this election cycle of angry Democrats pissed off about what's been happening here in Florida (and other states pushing this purge crap) since 2010.

To anyone getting purged by Rick "HaHa I Was Never Convicted" Scott, I think you have a serious case of filing a civil rights charge against him.  I'll leave it to the actual legal experts if there are any reading this blog to suggest which actual statute is being violated: I think it's a federal jurisdiction in terms of the civil right being violated, and I think it's 42 USC s 1983 that is the relevant law, unless there are more specific laws in the US Code.

UPDATE EDIT: This night the Talking Points Memo site is reporting that the Department of Justice has sent a letter to the Florida Secretary of State (the one in direct charge of overseeing elections) demanding that the state stop the voter purge:

DOJ also said that Florida’s voter roll purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, which stipulates that voter roll maintenance should have ceased 90 days before an election, which given Florida’s August 14 primary, meant May 16.

Five of Florida’s counties are subject to the Voting Rights Act, but the state never sought permission from either the Justice Department or a federal court to implement its voter roll maintenance program. Florida officials said they were trying to remove non-citizens from the voting rolls, but a flawed process led to several U.S. citizens being asked to prove their citizenship status or be kicked off the rolls...

For Everyone Looking to Shop Til They Drop

As mentioned yesterday, Mrs. Coates wanted a t-shirt logo, and what Mrs. Coates wants Mrs. Coates gets.

So now, at Cafe Press, we have the I Heart Metrosexual Black Lincoln store, complete with t-shirts, drinking glasses, tablet covers, one hat, some wall decor, and a keychain.

As a refresher, the front logo is this: 

Additional items to be added in the future.

By the way, I need to add links to the Lost Battalion merch store and maybe my ebook locales...

For the Benefit of Mrs. Coates

Somewhere on the Twitterverse, Ta-Nehisi asked for a t-shirt logo for "I Heart Metrosexual Black Lincoln" in response to the aborted wingnut attempt to insult Barack Obama for being Pro-People.

In response, I crafted both a front design and back design for a t-shirt:

To your left, the logo for the front t-shirt.


















To your right, the message for the back t-shirt.

I need input.  Does this look good?  Readable?

I need suggestions of possible improvements, maybe something more concise to say on the backside of the tee.

I hope to get this up in a new CafePress store by tonight.

Let me know!

A Reminder for 2012 Voters

Keep this handy, please:

Everybody Chill!  He's Got This!

You Can Leave Comments If You Want

One thing about managing a blog site is, you know, getting feedback on what you write.

I suffer a bit (okay, a LOT) from writer's block, and part of the reason for that is that when I do write something and publish it... I get little back in the way of commentary, critiques, etc.

I know criticism itself isn't fun to endure - you make something, and hope that everyone likes it - but this is a political blog.  I know there are other people's opinions.  And there is a chance - yes, I admit to it, I am human ergo I am flawed - that I may be wrong, and it takes someone else pointing out and arguing with better-cited facts where I may be a tad off.

The only criticism I don't cater is that of the Troll: the ones who show up to crow or taunt or mock without fact or reason.  The "HAHA youre librul you suck" type.  The "You Morans" type of comment.  Which is why I placed a Moderator system to the Comments section to this blog to filter out the non-serious stuff.  (I also got a ton of Chinese spam on my literary blog, which is a different story altogether.  How the hell did China find my Book With The Blue Cover site anyway?)

The Comment section should allow for people with Google or OpenID or Yahoo accounts to post comments.  I thought I left an option for any non-account people as well, but I may be seeing a different screen than non-users (since I'm doing this through Google account already).

If it doesn't allow for non-accounts, please let me know.  I gots Twitter, find me @PaulWartenberg or use my email p.warten AT gmail.com.  If not, you can usually find me on TNC's threads over at the Atlantic blogs.  Also: If people don't like having the comments moderated, again please let me know.  I'm just not too keen on the wrong kind of traffic, okay?

But please, if you can, Post Comments!  I wanna hear back from the seven of youse.

Now, back to job-hunting...

Our President of the United States Is Pro-People. And There Is Much Rejoicing.

There was a video clip to the ABC News interview with President Obama, but the link is broken now and I'll have to relocate a new video. Update: Found a YouTube clip!

Money quote: "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

For the most part, this doesn't change much in getting voters to switch to Obama's side come November: people who hated on Obama already were also hating on Teh Gay.

But what this does do is excite the Democratic base and independent voters (and disaffected Republicans) who are pro-civil-rights.  It's one thing to be voting AGAINST someone (it's very easy to despise now-established candidate Mitt Romney and the current Republican Party as a bunch of bullying lying scumbuckets), but it's a lot more satisfying to be able to vote FOR someone.

And Obama is making it very easy to vote FOR him.  It's not just for marriage equality: I've been impressed with Obama's move on women's issues such as getting the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed, nominating a sizable number of women to key government positions (including two women to the Supreme Court, bringing that just body to reflect our nation's actual population of men-to-women), standing up for Planned Parenthood when the GOP leadership is trying to outright kill it, getting his Obamacare to lower costs and raise coverages for women, et al.

This is something I've been saying since Obama came out for marriage equality: this isn't so much a pro-gay move as it is a pro-people move.  Obama is Pro-People.

And I'm all for that.

Just for St. Patrick's Day

Irish music:
 

When You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say...

Andrew Breitbart is dead.

All I can say now is that I have to change my banner: quoting Breitbart Delendus Est is in poor taste now...

P.S.: the early report is saying "Natural Causes" but dying at age 43 isn't natural unless there was a serious medical condition.

Welcome To Florida, 2012 Year Of Election

Just as the month ends, I get a blog entry in, with a hopefully subtle insert of my estory available for download from BN.com right in the post title...  :grin:

As I type this, the Republican primary race is counting up votes for delegates right here in the Sunshine State.  Since my last observation about the GOP primaries, there's been a few changes: Perry and Huntsman both dropped out, Newt Gingrich actually won a state that shouldn't have been so surprising (South Carolina...), and even with the state of Florida already projected to go heavily to Romney, there's every sign that Newt is determined to stick in the race well up to the convention.  Partly because he thinks he's got a shot at winning the Deep South/Baptist type of voters like he did in SC, but mostly because of that damned ego of his.  (NOTE: Ron Paul was obviously in this race to the end, like in 2008.  Mostly on principle, but partly because he gets to hang out with libertarian-esque celebrities...)

What's different this year is the money.  The sheer amount of it.  An insane amount of money that can allow a losing candidate to keep running when in previous election cycles anyone stuck behind third place when Florida's primary kicked in would have dropped out for lack of funds.

Say hello to the world created by the Citizens United ruling.  This allowed third parties - deep pocket rich people, corporate lobbyists, unions - to form their own "committee" (PAC) in support or opposition of any candidate.  While they could do this before, laws were passed to cap the amount of money raised and donators had to be identified.  But Citizens United dumped the cap and the requirement to ID the big donors, meaning an unlimited amount of money can now flow into a third party Super-PAC that could aid a candidate.  As long as the Super-PAC and the candidate's official campaign did not coordinate with each other (YEAH RIGHT), it was "perfectly legal".

What this has done has allowed candidates and any campaign for that matter to raise as much money as they can without fear of revealing who is sending in the million-dollar checks.  As long as it goes to that Super-PAC, which can then pay for the expensive television ads, campaign gatherings, etc.

Fund-raising for official campaigns seem to be a bit low (UNDERSTATEMENT) compared to the amount of money the Super-PACs flout.  But basically the problems are right there for all to see (if they want to see it):

• The assumption that candidates will NOT coordinate with their Super-PACs is ludicrous, laughable, or worse (Romney and Gingrich have to know full well what their PAC buddies are doing when creating attack ads against each other);
• This allows the richest of the rich who can afford to toss $30 million at a candidate and not even blink to basically buy the favors of that candidate.  Anyone thinking there won't be any quid pro quo doesn't understand the concept of a bought politician;
• Only the rich can even consider running for office, not because of the seed money to start a campaign but because poor people don't know anyone able to afford $30 million for a Super-PAC;
• This is, simply put, legalized bribery.

The only noticeable effect, the one everyone does notice, is that it can prolong a primary season.  Where I complained previously about how the state-by-state primary system was broken because most of the choices had dropped out by the third or fourth state, making it unfair that only the early states - Iowa, New Hampshire - got to decide for the rest of us, now the opposite problem arises: the possibility of the primary season turning into one long slug-fest between deep-pocket campaigns that will tear each other down to the point that whoever wins the primary will be too unlikeable to win the general election come November.
 
The solution I have about a One-Day Primary for all states is still a good idea.  But first we gotta get the legalized bribery out of our elections process.  We need public financing for elections.

And the Primary results in Florida?  I hope the winner is None Of The Above...

Saturnalia Wish List 2011

Io Saturnalia!

In this time of winter solstice and festive good cheer...  I'm still out-of-work, still job-hunting, still coping with writer's block the size of Wisconsin, and coping with the recent loss of a beloved pet cat... Poor Page...

In this grey mood on a grey day, I realize I haven't yet sent Saturn my Saturnalia Wish List.  I know this is a tad rushed, but here goes:

1. Wishing for a full-time job as a librarian assisting people with research needs;
2. Wishing for an election primary that ends with the Republicans putting up for 2012 the WORST possible Far Right Wingnut candidate... whadda ya mean, Gingrich is slipping in the polls?  Anyway, a GOP candidate so reviled by the moderate and independent voters that massive turnout for Democrats overturn the GOP-controlled House and keeps Obama in the White House for another four years;
3. Wishing that the superhero movies scheduled for 2012 don't suck;
4. Wishing that Mayans return to our world and carve out a replacement calendar so that the doomsayers ranting about Dec. 22, 2012 being the END OF ALL TIME will shut it (dudes, it's the end of the fourth or fifth Mayan calendar: it just means there's no Mayans left to carve out another one!).

There, I hope this helps, O Saturn, in determining just how wacky the next year is gonna be.

Can I get a Io Saturnalia from you seven readers?

EDIT: I TOTALLY FORGOT THIS!  My bad, Saturn, there's one more thing this Unitarian Pagan is hoping fer...

Wishing for the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic!  Oh man, the chance to play a Jedi Knight again... ooooooooooooh yeah...

As Fox-Not-News' War On Saturnalia Continues Unabated

...I mean, seriously, I can't find any Greco-Roman pagans who even know what Saturnalia is, for Athena's sake...

I just wanted to make this observation about the ongoing disaster that is the GOP 2012 Primary race.  All the insane debates, the rise and fall of various wingnut candidates all because Mitt Romney is a flavor most primary voters didn't like the last time he ran in 2008...  I mean, we've gone from Trump to Bachmann to Perry to Cain and now Gingrich of all people is in the lead in Iowa and even now Gingrich's lead may be slipping to where Ron Paul is surging...  All of this, all of the crazy going on, it made me realize this:

Doesn't the 2012 Republican primary race look and feel EXACTLY like Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year decathlon?

 
I know, I know.  This is awfully Classist of me to wage such bitter, savage rage against a select group of idiots who can't realize their grandstanding on the debate stages highlight exactly how elitist, out-of-touch, and flat-out insane they really are.

And I honestly do not encourage this year's grouping of Upper Class Twits uh Republican Presidential candidates from shooting themselves in order to win the Upper Class Twit award uh the Republican nomination.  Mostly because it would be a waste of bullets when a humiliating Electoral College result (I mean, at this rate the Republican candidate will get only South Carolina, Texas, and Idaho this November) would be more satisfying.

Now I understand why Huckabee and Christie and Daniels refused to sign up this round.

Having typed this, I just want to say to all Greco-Roman pagans out there Io Saturnalia!

As the GOP Primaries Race Toward Destruction...

It's pretty much turned into a two-horse race.

It's a race between Mitt Romney.

And with whomever the Teabagger wingnut division of the GOP likes instead of Romney.

Currently that is, shockingly, Herman Cain.  Which kind of caught me off-guard because Cain's resume was one lacking in campaigning history, campaigning skills, campaigning savvy.  Something he still demonstrates even today.

But a lot of it had to do with how each of the Far Right wingnut candidates - Santorum, Bachmann, Newt, Paul, and then Perry - just flamed out too quickly or never had a serious chance.

I originally thought Bachmann had the wingnut vote all to herself.  But somehow Bachmann failed to win over her own crowd, leaving room for Perry to sneak in and steal her theocon base.  When Bachmann tried to sell a plan where as President she'd cut gas prices down to $2, she lost everyone (seriously, if a President had that kind of power, why didn't Dubya use it back in 2007 when the gas prices went to $5-$6?).

And then it was Perry as "the Savior" candidate (saving the Far Right from Mitt, that is).  But then Perry faltered when it came time for him to do something he'd NEVER DONE BEFORE: Debate.  He came across as more incoherent than Dubya ever did: Considering Perry has to overcome the impression of him being a Dubya clone when a majority of the electorate still hates the Bush The Lesser Years, that was pretty much that.

Newt Gingrich had run a sloppy, lazy campaign from the get-go.  Whatever wunderboy qualities he "had" back in the 1990s (which were overinflated anyway), he doesn't have anymore.  And on the matter of "Family Values" he's a proven hypocrite: all it will take is Bill Clinton making an ad saying "Hey, this boy was committing adultery when he tried impeaching me for adultery!" and Newt will be finished.

Ron Paul has his devoted followers, sure, but like any libertarian cult idol he's only of interest to fellow libertarians, who by the by ARE NOT THE MAJORITY EVEN IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

And I'm pretty sure Santorum never had a snowball's chance in the Flames of Perdition to begin with.

So why not Romney?  Well, I've mentioned it before: Mitt has an electoral history he can't openly support (a health care plan that Obama duplicated for Obamacare); Mitt has a terrible history of flip-flopping so much he could work with Cirque Du Soleil; and Mitt is Mormon in an evangelical-led party that views his religion as a cult.

So it's become a race of Mitt vs. Not-Mitt: simply because Mitt is the party establishment's preferred choice (he's rich, he knows how to campaign, he's not scary to the moderate and independent bases), but he's not the preferred choice for the Far Right voting base that dominates the primary system.

This is where Cain re-enters the stage.  Because what happened a few weeks back, when Cain offered up a simplified flat-tax plan he called "9-9-9".  While the commentators, economists, and sane people reviewed the plan's basic details, they quickly determined it was a tax plan that would 1) make the federal deficit worse and 2) kill the economy.  But for the voting base of the GOP - the Teabagger crowd, the ones who can't cope with concepts larger than what can fit a bumper sticker - that plan struck a chord.  Mostly because it was a plan.  Who cares if it worked?  Cain got his surge by doing something the other candidates hadn't done, and because he was the first to propose a flat-tax plan that could fit a bumper sticker, he's getting all the attention now.

Even though Cain himself has changed the "9-9-9" plan to appease the critics (into something more horrific).  Even though Cain doesn't even know how his tax plan really works.  And even though Cain is now the subject of an erupting scandal surrounding a past history of sexual harassment when he worked for a lobbying firm.

Just try to remember: the "sane" ones in the GOP - Huckabee, Daniels, Christie - stayed out of this race even though they could knock Mitt off the podium inside of 10 seconds.  It's because they know they'd have to cope with the Not-Mitt wingnut candidate as well: and the wingnut base of the GOP is behind the steering wheel, not Karl Rove or the campaign managers.

You know, they say you watch time moving faster as you get older.  But I swear these election cycles are putting the brakes on...

Current Political Mood

I'm just not inclined to think much about politics these days.

Even with the sudden uptick in the Occupy Wall Street news - and the Far Right blowback to something that can successfully counter their Teabagger movement - for some reason I'm neither thrilled nor contemplative.

There's still a lot of protesting and military action going on in the Middle East for example.  Meh.

There's the economic meltdown in Europe still happening in slow motion.  Meh.

There's the anti-voting BS the Republicans are attempting at the state level to suppress minorities, the poor, and college-age voters.  Meh.

Just not feeling connected to the world at the moment, that's all.

Too much outrage burn-out?  Too much stress coping with unemployment?  Dunno...

A Repost of A Remembrance

I posted this back in 2009.  This is the tenth anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11.

I was at the main library in downtown Ft. Lauderdale meeting with other librarians in the tech lab (computers) departments. The library was switching to a new email system (groupwise) and they wanted us to perform the in-house training. Meeting started at 9 am. One of my coworkers was late, coming in and saying there was news a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers...
...When we finished the meeting, we left the classroom and walked out into the foyer area and up the escalator to the library’s main floor. They had dragged out a TV on a cart and was trying to get a signal. For some reason, TV reception was lousy in that building, and they didn’t have cable connection. I saw an old boss of mine who was also at the library for a meeting and approached her, asking what was going on. “Oh my God,” she told me. “There was another plane hitting the other World Trade Center tower.”
It took a few seconds. It took a few seconds to realize that one plane was an accident. Two planes, one right after the other… hitting each tower…
I knew then it meant war...

Not much has changed since 2009.  Except that our fighting in Iraq is lessened now that our military and political presence there has dropped.  The fighting in Afghanistan has increased, mostly through an attempt to finish the nine and a half years we've been there trying to keep the allies of Bin Laden from regaining power there.

A lot has changed since 2001, but most of it is due to political partisan BS that isn't appropriate to note during this somber moment.  The one thing I can note is that Bin Laden is dead, answering for his part in the attacks ten years ago among some of the other sins he'd committed the years before.  It may have been a bloody justice without the courtroom, but this was a man who admitted to his part and sought to commit more acts of war to prove himself mighty rather than decent.  It was a bloody justice but it was done.

We are as a nation today opening memorials at the ground of the World Trade Center, and near Shanksville PA.  There will be remembrances and muted celebrations across the country today.  There isn't much more to do other than mourn the dead and build again...

What I Want To Hear From Obama On His Jobs Speech

Obama is set to appear tonight before a Joint Session of Congress to present a plan for doing something about the horrendous unemployment numbers that are miring our economy in the most prolonged recession this nation's ever seen (it's getting into Depression-type numbers, which is never good).

These are some of the things I'd like to hear Obama say:

"There is growing evidence that businesses and corporations are intentionally overlooking the long-term unemployed.  They are refusing to hire anyone who's been out of work longer than six months.  Even if that unemployed candidate has years of relevant experience.  This is wrong.  This is unacceptable.  It is prolonging our nation's economic woes by creating and expanding our unemployed population and putting more of a burden on our nation's social safety net already facing tight budget restrictions.  This is creating a self-fulfilling belief that the long-term unemployed are unemployable because, well, you're keeping them that way.  We need to look at this as discriminatory hiring practices, and we need to enforce hiring laws to tell corporations they need to hire more people who have been out of work for longer than six months, for longer than a year, for longer than two years.  Hire the long-term unemployed first before even thinking about hiring people who already have a job.  If we catch you hiring people who already have employment over people who've been begging and praying for work for years, we will fine your sorry corporate HR asses so much you'd think filing for bankruptcy will be cheaper."

"The vast long-term unemployed WANT to work.  They want to make something of their lives.  They want to earn a paycheck so they can feed their own families and pay for that roof over their heads.  There's not a one of them who prefers sitting at home doing nothing and earning unemployment benefits that barely covers the cost of weekly groceries or rent.  If any of you politicians even THINK of accusing the long-term unemployed as drug abusers or welfare queens, I will personally escort you to your district's or state's unemployment offices and have you sit there for six months so you can see how hard-pressed and desperate the unemployed REALLY ARE to find any work."

"That said.  FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU AND YOUR BULLSHIT FANTASIES ABOUT THE UNEMPLOYED BEING LAZY."  (NOTE: Yes, I want Obama to say this.  After the Joe Wilson "You Lie" crap, why pretend civility is a part of Congress anymore?)

"There is no evidence that cutting taxes creates jobs.  There is no evidence that cutting regulations creates jobs.  What we do know is that cutting taxes INCREASES the federal deficits to unsustainable levels.  What we do know is that cutting regulations or ignoring regulations to make profits leads to increased pollution, unsafe work areas, and people dying.  So to my Republicans opponents: STOP SHILLING TAX CUTS AND DEREGULATION AS JOB-CREATORS.  You're selling snake oil, you fuckers."

"What we need in this country is another WPA.  We need to get construction jobs up and running.  We need to repair bridges and roads that haven't been fixed or upgraded in 40 years.  We need to repair and upgrade nuclear reactors that are 20 years past their expiration date, and yes while nuclear reactors carry enormous risk our energy needs rely on them right now, so we need to upgrade them to newer safer models than the old-style reactors from 40 years ago that aren't as safe against earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters.  We need to replace schools older than 20 years, make them compatible with today's technologies, so we can start teaching our children on the tools of today and tomorrow.  We need to get people working: for every one person who was hired back during the WPA of the 1930s, that job created two other jobs in response."

"All we need is a construction-jobs program that hires people across this nation.  The WPA of the 1930s hired 8 million people.  We don't need to go that big.  We can hire 4 million people, and if one WPA job creates two more that can translate up to 12 million Americans getting jobs, cutting more than half of our unemployment numbers right there.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"And we can pay for this new WPA.  We can look at our budgets and make the adjustments needed to make budget room for this jobs program.  We can eliminate some of the tax credits on billionaires that won't hurt their wallets but will pay back into this jobs programs FOR ALL AMERICANS to benefit.  IT WORKED BEFORE AND IT CAN WORK AGAIN."

"Our nation's economy is struggling.  We can't ignore that.  One of the two reasons our economy is struggling is because we lack the jobs to hire the unemployed.  We can solve that with a jobs bill.  But we can't ignore the other reason our economy is struggling, and that is the household debt our citizens are fighting.  And the largest form of household debt are mortgages.  Too many families are struggling at too-low incomes paying off mortgages on houses whose values have gone underwater.  Our housing industry is facing another series of destructive foreclosures and abandoned properties.  Each foreclosure lowers the property values of everyone else's homes surrounding them.  This is making it hard for people to sell their homes if they have to move to new jobs.  This is making it hard for people to pay off their mortgages, period.  And this is shuffling their debts from one thing to another like their overdrawn credit cards or unpaid college loans.  Above all, paying off all this debt is making it impossible for our citizens to pay for anything else like products and services that would boost our consumer-driven economy.  We need to look into resolving some of these debt issues.  Instead of bailing out banks, bail out the mortgage holders.  Help them pay off their mortgages to where their homes are no longer underwater.  Help pay off their mortgages so none of them fall into foreclosure.  By helping them, we free up the banks overwhelmed with foreclosures to begin making safe loans that can stabilize our housing market."

"And again, I cannot stress this enough, FUCK YOU JIM DEMINT.  FUCK YOU SIDEWAYS WITH A CHAINSAW."

"Thank you, God Bless to all the families across our nation, God Bless the United States of America."

A Red Letter Day

August 30, 2011.  I just want to make this official.

Getting a haircut this afternoon for a job fair in Tampa tomorrow, and I noticed that the double-crown at the top of my head is showing more skin than hair.

I have every reason to believe I am finally going bald.  It may take years to fully see the damage done, but I am officially having a mid-life crisis.  Or I would be having one, if I had a life...

Because It's August 20, You Get This

An update to the Republican Primary field for the 2012 Presidential Run!

(What.  I did my homage to Woodstock already.  Stop begging for mercy...)

I previously listed what was in April an already crowded field of wanna-bes and coulda-beens.  Since then, the marquee name of Donald Trump fell flat on his ass when he obsessed too much with Obama's birth certificate and flamed out after the one-two punch of getting mocked at the Correspondents Dinner and having Bin Laden's death overshadow his shtick.  As for Daniels and Huckabee, I was right about Daniels deciding to stay out... and shocked that Huckabee decided to stay out as well (considering the polls had him as the one constant threat to Obama).  It seems that both of them are smarter than they look...  Palin never announced either, but has developed this annoying habit of showing up at caucuses and announcements in some odd attempt to steal the spotlight.

With regards to the primaries, the only major development since April has been the addition of one more major name to the candidate list, one that had been floated earlier but not taken too seriously... until the last two weeks, during which the new candidate burst onto the scene and taken the early momentum (even away from the current pack leaders Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann).  So, to update you all to the terrors that await us:

Rick Perry - Governor, Texas
Positives: Has a long political career, and has a national profile of sorts being the governor of one of the largest states in the Union.  His political and personal (religious) beliefs are shared by the voting base of the Republicans, and especially the Tea Partier faction.  In terms of getting the voting interest of the party base, he outshines the likes of Bachmann and definitely trounces Romney.  If he stays on-message and avoids screw-ups, Perry could win the primary portion of the 2012 contest.
Negatives: While his emergence last week for the Ames Iowa Straw Caucus created a lot of positive feedback from the base, most of the party leadership pushed back (especially the likes of Karl Rove, who hit Perry unapologetically in ways he never attacked Bachmann or Palin), and he's not the savior candidate (New Jersey's Christie still has that mojo) the elites were hoping for.  In a field crowded with Far Right reactionary religious types, Perry isn't helping in the long term when it will come time to appeal to moderate and independent voters who are turned off by Social Conservatism.  Especially considering Perry just finished being the headlining politician at a Prayer Fest.  Perry's political ideas - for example, crippling the Supreme Court, eliminating the direct vote for U.S. Senators, and amendments to outlaw gay marriage and abortion - will be toxic come October-November '12.  While Perry's a two-term governor, his first election was in a four-way race where he won only 39 percent of the popular vote: not exactly a ringing endorsement from 61 percent of his own state (if Perry won in 2010, it's because he was in Texas and for some godawful reason they stopped voting Democrat in that state).  And all of this pales to the biggest problem Perry has: he's a Social Conservative governor from the state of Texas who's primary platform is "faith-based government, tax-cut, and deregulate".  Sound familiar?  I'll give you a clue: one of Perry's supporters called him "(George W.) Bush On Steroids".
Perry is going to be running with the national perception that he is essentially following in Dubya's footsteps.  It doesn't help that Perry (along with the rest of the Republican field) is going to run on the idea that Obama has been worse to America than Bush the Lesser was.  And worse, that Bush's agenda - massive tax cuts, massive business deregulation, massive incompetence - was all good.
Chances: Chances of winning the primary cycle?  Oddly enough, not so good.  While he's got the current vibe of "Savior/White Knight" since he's the latest flavor for the media to drool over, Perry's coming in with some disadvantages: the Party leadership prefers someone else, and all the other candidates - especially Romney and Bachmann, his major opponents - have been getting things in place for months and have a huge head start in fund-raising, ground troops, and political backing.  Perry's best chances depend on Romney failing to win over the Deep South and Religious Right (who still have a bias against Mormons), and on Bachmann doing something crazier than usual and flaming out before the primaries hit Florida.  But if Perry does win the nomination?  ...Remember what I said about "all Obama has to do against Jeb Bush is morph a photo of him into his brother George and Jeb is finished?"  Perry is in the same boat because he has the same background as Dubya, and the same disregards...

You might notice that in my April listing of primary candidates, I didn't include two who are in it as of now: Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman (there are others, but these two are honestly the more serious candidates).  However, I'm not going into greater detail for either one because:
1) consider "To Google Santorum".  Yes, To Google is a verb (can't wait for the Latin translation).  And if you Google Santorum as a search term, you may run into something akin to "Two Girls One Cup."  And no, I am NOT going into further detail than that.  Santorum's been a national joke for years.
2) consider that Huntsman is A) formerly employed by Obama as an Ambassador to China, B) Mormon like Romney, and C) reasonably sane in supporting evolution and climate change science, and you've basically got a candidate who doesn't have a snowball's chance in drought-ravaged Southwest U.S.

As for the Democrats' situation?  While Obama has been and still is polling negatively for some time, most of that is due to an upset and unhappy Far Left base that's been abandoned during the struggles over the Debt Ceiling fiasco.  Like it or not, the Party will come back to their incumbent... especially if the Republicans succeed in nominating a Social Con like Bachmann or Perry.

As of right now, who's GOP nomination is it to lose?  I gotta go with Bachmann: she's got momentum, solid backing by enough in the Far Right base, and is crazy enough to stay with it until the convention.  To be honest this is wide open: it all depends on if the remaining moderate base of the GOP turns out to support Romney (who has the best appeal to moderates, if any).

We'll see by South Carolina.  That tends to be the breaking point for GOP campaigns.

It's Time For Another Woodstock Post

For some reason, the YouTube I found for this time doesn't have an embed option.  Ah well, here's Country Joe McDonald!

What the hell, here's an embed.  It's Not Safe For Families and God-Fearing Baptists.  God-Loving Baptists hopefully will have a sense o' humor about it.




So how was your summer?

Balanced Budget Amendment Is a Bad Idea

As an amendment-suggesting blog, sooner or later I gotta write about this.  Especially since the House Republicans are obsessed with pushing this amendment idea during the recent "Let's Kill The Government And Blame It On Obama" negotiations.

The amendment is their old ideological card, The Balanced Budget Amendment.  The title makes it sound so sweet and simple, that the objective is to make the government balance their books every fiscal year.  Problem is in the details.

The current form, aka Cut Cap And Balance Act, requires that there be an amendment that spells out requirement of a balanced budget; imposes a spending cap of 18 percent percentage of Gross Domestic Product; and requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress to pass any tax hike.

The first part requiring the balanced budget seems simple but it's not.  One of the rules of government spending that was set centuries ago by Alexander Hamilton himself was that government needed to run on a certain level of debt that can be structured to force government to function towards collecting revenue and paying off portions of debt.  As long as the government operated with full faith and credit (that at some level it can pay off debts as needed), the system should work.  And the deal is, for roughly 200 years that system did work.  The problem came when the anti-tax proponents got in charge and started cutting off regular methods of revenue-gathering (i.e., taxes), forcing the government to borrow more than it had ever done before.  Under these anti-taxers, who promised that cutting taxes would magically generate more revenue because lesser taxation would create more income (it didn't by the by.  It just generated more income that was taxed less if at all), the national debt and massive annual deficits got worse.  But the problem still exists: without other revenue, the government is going to have to borrow and operate with unbalanced budgets.  Suddenly forcing the government to balance the books is going to create more havoc and chaos than ever before, and force future generations to pay for the damage done by this generation that would pass this amendment and then run for cover.

The second part of the amendment idea is even worse: it places a specific cap number percentage on how much government can work with.  GDP is Gross Domestic Product, the market value of all final goods and services produced by a nation... basically how much that nation is worth.  The United States is roughly $14.7 TRILLION as of 2010.  This amendment would cap government spending to 18 percent of that, which is... (breaks out calculator) ...I get $2.6 Trillion based on the 2010 numbers.  Now, the U.S. budget spending for 2010 was... $3.5 Trillion.  You get about $900 Billion you gotta shave off the 2010 numbers.  That's not something you can sneeze at in one year's budget.  And that's the problem you get with a specific cap number like 18 percent.  That gets to be a harsh cap, especially when it depends on an outside value (GDP) that doesn't remain constant, and in times of recession does not constantly go up in value.

The third part is the most unfair: it forces a supermajority to vote for any tax increase.  Ever.  We're talking about government voting habits now.  When you make something next to impossible to vote for, you essentially make it meaningless to even try for it.  The opposite has its own problem.  The amendment does not to make it harder to vote for tax cuts, meaning that in a system where Path Of Least Resistance is the norm you're making it more likely that elected officials will vote for tax cuts more than anything else.  This part of the amendment makes it next to impossible for government to create ANY kind of revenue system to keep its coffers even half-full.  Considering that government pays for, oh, our national defense, our parks, our national highway and rail and airway networks that businesses use to ship goods and perform services, our farm subsidies, a ton of corporate tax credits and subsidies, money that goes to the STATES to pay for such things as schools, clean water and air, state roads and bridges, and a few other things... well, this is going to force the federal government to borrow even more debt to pay the bills. 

Lemme link to Ezra Klein on this one (snippage for space, go read the whole thing):

This isn’t just a Balanced Budget Amendment. It also includes a provision saying that tax increases would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress — so, it includes a provision making it harder to balance the budget — and another saying that total spending couldn’t exceed 18 percent of GDP. No allowances are made for recessions, though allowances are made for wars. Not a single year of the Bush administration would qualify as constitutional under this amendment. Nor would a single year of the Reagan administration. The Clinton administration would’ve had exactly two years in which it wasn’t in violation.
Read that again: Every single Senate Republican has endorsed a constitutional amendment that would’ve made Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy unconstitutional. That’s how far to the right the modern GOP has swung. But the problem isn’t simply that the proposed amendment is extreme. It’s also unworkable.  ...This amendment includes no provisions for recessions, meaning that when the economy contracted, the government would have to contract as well. That is to say, we’re still not out of one of the deepest recessions in American history, and every Senate Republican has co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to make future recessions worse. It’s just breathtaking.  A world in which this amendment is added to the Constitution is a world in which America effectively becomes California. It’s a world where the procedural impediments to passing budgets and raising revenues are so immense that effective fiscal management is essentially impossible; it’s a world where we can’t make public investments or sustain the safety net; it’s a world where recessions are much worse than they currently are and the government has to do more of its work off-budget through regulation and gimmickry. I would like to say something positive about this proposal, say there’s some silver lining here. But there isn’t. This is economic demagoguery, and nothing more. It’s so unrealistic that it would’ve ruled all but two of the last 30 years unconstitutional, which means it’s so unrealistic that there has not yet been a Republican president who has proven it can be done.

One more caveat: the Republicans who push this balanced budget proposal never really seem to push for it very hard when their party has control of the White House.  And when they've also got Congress under their belt, they spend like drunken teenagers with their parents' credit cards.  But when there's a Democrat like Clinton or Obama running the executive branch, all of a sudden a BALANCED BUDGET IS A DAMN NECESSITY.

The Balanced Budget Amendment does nothing but force the federal government to either borrow like mad or drown itself in Grover Norquist's bathtub.  Either way, the nation is screwed.

There are better amendment ideas out there.  This one is a disaster.

Things May Change

For starters, my libertarian older brother may have a freak-out in about two weeks...

For another, you people in Maryland may have a crazy Floridian driver on your roadways pretty soon...

And lastly... damn, are ALL apartments in MD this expensive?!  I'm calling the Property Appraisers office, the land in Maryland is too rich for my blood.  How do you college students cope with off-campus living?  I swear...

For Emily! You wanted a t-shirt in favor of Elves using Tools on Disqus...

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I hope you like!