Clarifying a Question: WHY Are There So Many Candidates Running On the Republican Presidency Ticket?

(Update: hello to the Crooks and Liars visitors from Mike's Blog Round-Up!  Welcome back, hope you enjoy stopping by to read my offerings.  Please stick around, and I wanna mention I just finished writing my take on the likelihood of a rigged GOP convention this coming July 2016...)

Screen-captured from Wednesday night's GOP debate (via Adam Baldwin):

I wrote a little earlier about "why" we have so many candidates - still about 16 even with Rick "Oops" Perry dropping out - on the Republican roster for the 2016 primaries.  I focused on the mechanics of "why": the simple fact that the Citizens United ruling makes it possible for fringe candidates to survive longer during a prolonged campaign than ever before.  I focused on the practicalities of "why": as long as you're a candidate on the list, people are paying attention to you, inviting you to the Talking Head shows, and creating a foundation of keeping yourself on the speaking circuit gravy train for life.  There's also the fact that as long as there's no clear front-runner - or the front-runner is so reviled by the party leadership (Hi, Donald!) that the party will block him from ever winning - it's in everyone's favor to stick in the race (wow Rick Perry did you screw this one up) and vie for the front-runner spot or at least a spoiler spot that guarantees you a seat at the money table.

I didn't really get into the psychology of "why" there are so many candidates this time around.  Or the politics of it.  Let me try here.

So, let's re-ask the question: Why are there so many candidates among the Republicans running for the Presidential nomination for 2016?

It's more than just making a cynical play for prestige, recognition, money.  There has to be even a sliver of belief among the candidates that each of them thinks he/she has a legitimate shot at winning the nomination and thence a shot at winning the biggest job title of all.  Even the ones who aren't doing a good job of it - Hi, Jeb! Hi, Scott - are running because a lot of people within their circle (themselves included) convinced them they had a shot.

It has to do with intra-party discipline.  And how now there is no longer much of it.

A political party forms when enough people of a like-minded persuasion organizes around shared beliefs.  Historically, our two-party system founded around two economic viewpoints - mercantile vs. agrarian - with differing positions on which takes priority - the mercantile/business class preferred a strong federal government, the agrarian class preferred more state/local powers that protected farmers' interests.  Other issues - foreign policy, social policy, technology, theology - coalesced around them as the Democrats and the Federalists/Whigs/Republicans became the two parties we know today.

It helped that our elective system - a winner-takes-all for Congressional districts and an Electoral College for Presidents that answered to winning states over the general population - encourages to this day only two parties to thrive.

Thing is, even within a party there are factions: certain issues that take priority over other issues; or internal debates over how exactly to resolve those issues (in a liberal, moderate, or conservative way).

For Republicans, the factions (up until the 1990s) mostly hewed to:

• Pro-Business (few regulations, free markets, praise to the allmighty CEO),
• Foreign Policy (a realist, trade-oriented stance with other nations, albeit with an isolationist - or Monroe Document - bent),
• Social conservatism (small-c conservatism that viewed a paternalistic status quo based on non-Evangelical Christian beliefs).

What kept these factions in line with the party - both of them - was the overall moderate or centrist viewpoints of the party's leadership that played to the liberal or conservative leanings on certain issues at one time but not another.  Back when both Democrats and Republicans had active liberal and conservative wings, this helped maintain the balance (and it helped with bipartisan legislation over the decades).

Other methods of maintaining party loyalty - doling out favors, controlling who got nominated for offices at state and congressional levels - were also used.  In Congress this used to mean control committee assignments, and of the purse-strings for pet projects/pork barrel spending.

In the Republican Party, at least this modern (post-1992) incarnation, a lot of those rules changed as the power of the factions changed.

With the hunt for "soft" RINOs (AKA Republicans-In-Name-Only) after the end of Bush the Elder's tenure, the conservatives within the GOP removes one half of the balancing act within the factions making up the whole party.  They drove out anyone who didn't agree to cut taxes across the board; they drove out anyone "liberal" or "un-Christian" on social issues like abortion and gay rights; they drove out anyone with a multinational view of diplomacy, in favor of a foreign policy that revolved around an aggressive unilateral stance against foe and ally alike.

A seemingly honest reform effort in the 1990s - by the new Republican leadership that rose in response to Bill Clinton - to end certain acts of favoritism such as committee seating assignments took away a major carrot party leaders in Congress used to control their back-benchers.

The Republican Party no longer handles discipline, in some respects they haven't since 1994: they've given that power over to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.  As a result, the elected officials most likely to stand as party leaders pay allegiance to Roger Ailes and Rush: those two un-elected men - among others - who control the messaging for conservative dogma, and dominate the audiences those elected officials need to garner votes (and keep their cushy jobs).

As a result, the factions that make up the Republican Party tilted exceedingly Right-Wing to the point where there are no ideological differences within the party itself.  Certain figures may speak or act on specific issues disparate from the GOP party line, but it's usually on just that one (pet project) issue.  Everybody toes the party platform because that's how Fox News can sell it every night.

And with the homogenization (unity) of the message, it suddenly made it harder (yes) for one specific person to become a standard-bearer with the factions within the party.

When the factions had to bicker over the issues, it made it easy to rally members around leaders on that issue and allow those leaders - who tended to be charismatic or well-informed - to personalize the debate, make it easier for voters to identify the person to the party.  This method also created a form of meritocracy where seniority of an effective politician translated into leadership.  Someone who'd gotten elected multiple times arguing well on that issue earned that leadership role.

As a result, the Republicans were able to over the years raise significant leaders to control the party both at the podium and behind the scenes.  Sometimes it would boil down to just one person (say, Robert Taft in the 1940s), but often there were several at one time: someone strong on foreign policy, someone strong on domestic issues, someone strong on finance, and often someone else on each topic arguing a different tack to provide honest debate (say, Goldwater vs. Rockefeller in the 1960s and 1970s).

When it came to Presidential primaries, those leaders would be the likely candidates (or a proxy who ran with that leader's blessing): as a result, most of the campaigns would orbit around four to six of them, making it easier to determine which candidate (and which issues) would win that election cycle.  It was rare to see more run in any given election cycle: 1980 was packed up to ten candidates due to incumbent President Carter's weakness and the awareness of the nation's mood shifting to a post-New Deal conservatism.  And even then, it was a clear two-candidate race between Reagan and Bush the Elder.

But today for 2016, lacking any genuine differences between candidates on the issues, it means ANYONE can stand up and declare him/herself a standard-bearer not just on specific issues but for the whole party.

Worse, it means that anyone within the Republican Party itself that's not even an elected official - hi, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson and Donald Trump - can rise to claim the standard-bearer role without ever proving themselves capable of winning any election in the first place.  The entire meaning of merit - of experience and leadership on politics and issues - no longer has value.

And once again to note: the Citizens United ruling about uncontrolled campaign spending by third parties (SuperPACs) made it so that candidates no longer have to rely on the party for financial help: a candidate can rely on a single uber-rich backer who wants his special issues solved his way (which may harm the Republicans' overall popularity with regular voters).  Candidates can also rely on nation-wide fund-raising efforts that don't have to go through the party.  At this point, the RNC is a vestigial organ, much like the earlobe or the appendix: it's only real value is that they allow the candidates the means to get their names on the ballot.

As a result, we've got the most number of candidates running for the Republican ticket that has ever been seen (when Perry was in it, that made seventeen (!) names on the list).  And while some of them are clearly nowhere near an honest chance of winning, as long as they can pay their bills they are in this thing muddying the waters and adding to the noise.

Let's look again at the natural factions that exist within the Republican Party, although now there's four instead of three:

• Pro-Business (has changed the least, still pushing for deregulation and tax cuts, essentially what passes for the Establishment leadership today)
• Foreign Policy (now a neo-conservative fringe that seeks an aggressive stance to the point of unilateral wars against "enemy states")
• Social Conservatism (now a Big-C Conservatism that follows an absolutist evangelical approach to Christianity)
• National Populism (a mixing of various elements from the other three factions that created its own Nativist and anti-Establishment world-view)

Rather than having one or two prominent figures in each faction, there are several in each.  Making it worse is that as the Republicans merged every issue into a broad conservative agenda, the candidates have to pander across the board like never before: they cannot indulge in being "just" a tax-cut candidate or a "Praise Jesus" candidate (back in 1988 for example there were clear distinctions between George HW Bush and Bob Dole and Pat Robertson) they have to be both (even when those issues really do not blend well).

As a result, nobody can just say that Jeb! Bush is a Pro-Business candidate because he's also deep into the Social Conservatism range (think Terri Schiavo) as well as the Neocon Foreign Policy stance (due to having to defend his brother George W.'s debacles with the War on Terror and an unneeded Iraqi invasion).

And none of these candidates are willing to step down and back a more charismatic figure to ensure their issues hold sway.  (Also because, honestly, few of these jokers are charismatic enough to pull it off)

And this means there is no one true standard-bearer around which the party can rally.  Not even the clear Establishment name in Jeb!, who is right now drowning in the shallow end of the candidate pool in single-digit polling numbers.

If I had to break down the candidates by faction, it wouldn't be a clean break for most:

• Pro-Business: Jeb! Bush, Scott Walker, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry
• Foreign Policy: Lindsey Graham, Jeb! Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul (interestingly not as a neocon that dominates this issue nowadays)
• Social Conservatism: Jeb! Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio (except on immigration), Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry
• National Populism: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz

Not a single stand-out figure for any faction, save for Donald Trump: the only candidate polling in double-digit leads over everyone else.

It is telling that the candidates right now in the Republican lead - Trump, Carson, with Fiorina nearing the top of the pack - are the ones with least experience and merit within the party ranks.  They are the ones pandering best to the primary base, all because the party platform itself - drawn up and marketed by a conservative media more interested in creating outrage to generate ratings over actual governance - ignores and despises such expertise.

This is a problem for the Republicans and not the Democrats by the by because the Democrats did NOT go through any ideology purge like the Republicans did with their RINO hunting.  As a result, there are clear distinctions between factions among the Democrats now to where only a handful of candidates - Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb, Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and maybe Joe Biden - have a clear reason to run.  And right now the race is clearly a two-choice race between Hillary and Bernie.

For the Republicans, you are not going to see any clear distinctions any time soon.  Not even when the primaries kick in for real and candidates actually start winning and losing votes.  We may see another low-tier candidate fail out due to lack of funds, but none of them really stand out as an obvious to-fail name.  Right now, all of them profit by staying in the race just a little bit longer... and a little bit more...

'Cause the candidates aren't really running for the Presidency.

The candidates are running for the next Fox News hosting gig.

So What Did We Learn From the September 2015 GOP Debate?

1) That we shouldn't be having these debates more than a year away from the actual election.

Seriously.  I have been harping on this for more than a decade now.  Our election cycles have become non-stop circuses in which these tent shows blur into one another until people can't make heads or tails of anything.  In which the freakshow performances of the candidates - desperate for attention and struggling to establish dominance - disguise the actual issues that need answering.

And yet we are so far away from an actual tangible event - the primaries themselves where people finally put their votes in - that these carnival acts can continue unless the "performers" have to drop out due to lack of funds... which in this Citizens United era is going to be rare.  Just Rick Perry has dropped so far, while low-tier hangers-on barely clinging to three to five percent voter support (hi, Bobby!) are threatening to stick it out until March 2016.

2) That having any debate last longer than 90 minutes should be grounds for the cable network hosting that debate to lose their FCC license.

Having the main event go so long - three hours? - is like putting an endurance test inside of a triathlon.  Whereas people getting smashed using the drinking game rules would have wiped out their livers somewhere around the 45-minute mark, everyone sober would have wiped out from general fatigue around the 60-minute mark.

Granted, it's not entirely CNN's fault (or even Fox Not-News from last month).  It's the fact that there's 11 main candidates - with 4 others stuck to the Kids' Table debate earlier in the afternoon) - each requiring at least a minute to answer, retort, bicker, flail, whimper and moan over the allotted time limits.

The Republicans should have installed a more stringent set of requirements for debates, or at least developed stronger inter-party control to stop half of the candidate wannabes from flooding the market.

Stringing out the debate was that the moderators showed little control of their forum.  Questions led to answers that went off on tangents and dragged in extra arguments from opposing debaters to where the closing words on that argument had no relation to the original question.  What should have taken three minutes to answer spread out to ten minutes of gibberish.  People following the drinking games couldn't keep up with what rule they had to abide by to imbibe.

3) With regards to actual winners and losers...

Right off the bat, we should note that Trump does not lose.  Well, technically he could (and has, hello bankruptcy court!) but in his own mind - and campaign bubble - Trump always wins.  He can come out of a bear pit mauled half to death and claim victory because the bears attacking him finally died from the toxicity of Trump's inhuman blood.

So while the debate watchers may note that Trump got hurt often in this debate - and that he stumbled far too often to impress any "serious" people - we're not going to confirm that he lost - merely "got bloody" - until the polls show a deep slide of support.  Considering that Trump's fanbase despises conventional wisdom, I doubt it.

As for the overall debate, let's ask David Graham at The Atlantic:

First, viewers learned that the presidential contenders are delighted to take swipes at each other all night, if given the opportunity.

Second, they learned that the performance that elevated Carly Fiorina from the happy-hour debate in Cleveland to the main stage at the Reagan Library was no fluke—she’s a skilled speaker.

Third, they learned that the listless performance Jeb Bush delivered last time around was no fluke either. The wounded former frontrunner once again seemed unsure how best to handle the crowded stage or the slugfest the debate became.

Most of last night's Twitter feed seem to reflect that.  Even for the left-center people I follow - and some of the right-center people who peek through due to the hashtags - the consensus was that Fiorina performed like she belonged on the stage and made the most of her time punching the crap out of Trump.

From post-debate reviews, it's clear that pundits have their favorites - those who went in liking Rubio thought he did well, those who went in like Rand Paul thought he did well, those who went in liking Jeb! Bush were crying into their beers - and that for the most part nothing has really changed for them.  The real answer comes with any of the reliable polls this weekend.

Of course, on the policy arguments they made, IMHO all the candidates were shilling snake oil.  So there.

4) That these debates do little to highlight significant difference in policy positions between the candidates.

Oh, granted, on some points one or two of the candidates will speak against the Far Right orthodoxy.  Incredibly enough, Trump speaks out against the standard Republican canard of "flat tax" or mass tax cuts for the rich.  And yet he still does well with the base, which points up how tax cuts matter for the GOP Establishment (AKA the deep pocket rich guys) but they don't matter for the actual voters (most of whom share the American view of taxes as a civic virtue).  Rand Paul spoke well about mass incarceration over the War on Drugs against poor people, and Kasich warned against going after Planned Parenthood.  But for the most part, the candidates were in agreement over most of the issues (or at least most of the candidates were, leaving the lone wolf figures on any particular stance seem lost).

What was really at stake was everybody's egos on the stage.  I won't doubt the Democratic debate in October is going to be the same way, even with the Democratic front-runners Hillary and Bernie taking significant stances on issues.

5) The drinking rules I drew up for the September debate (around 900 views) just didn't catch the fire the way the August one did (6000 views and counting).

What happened I figure is that people Google-searching for drinking games kept getting referred to the August one as a popular page and the September one just couldn't get out of its shadow.  I may have to move everything to a static Page on this site just to keep one set of rules going, and refresh/add to those rules as circumstances warrant.

Did everyone's livers survive last night, by the by?

About the Constitution: It IS a Feature, It IS a Bug In the System, It ISN'T Fatal

One of the blogger/editors you need to read often (and who doesn't publish often enough) is The Atlantic's Yoni Appelbaum.  When he publishes something, it's a well-researched, citation-backed article delving into a particular issue and breaking down the arguments in a concise, readable way.

Appelbaum's current article is on a topic I hold dear: our nation's history and the founding of the Constitution that makes the United States of America (and its three branches of federal government) what it is.

To Appelbaum, it's a flawed and fragile jewel of sorts, one that the Founding Fathers failed to design as a durable foundation:

The system isn’t working. But even as the two parties agree on little else, both still venerate the Constitution. Politicians sing its praises. Public officials and military officers swear their allegiance. Members of Congress keep miniature copies in their pockets. The growing dysfunction of the government seems only to have increased reverence for the document; leading figures on both sides of the aisle routinely call for a return to constitutional principles.

What if this gridlock is not the result of abandoning the Constitution, but the product of flaws inherent in its design?

He's getting into the Checks And Balances aspect of our government, and primarily into the splitting of power between a President (executive) and Congress (legislative).  (The Judiciary's role as Judge/Arbitrator between the other two branches in this matter is limited)  He focuses on the Presidency in particular, a game-breaking political force that could (and has) wield remarkable unilateral authority when needed.

When, in 1985, a Yale political scientist named Juan Linz compared the records of presidential and parliamentary democracies, the results were decisive. Not every parliamentary system endured, but hardly any presidential ones proved stable. “The only presidential democracy with a long history of constitutional continuity is the United States,” Linz wrote in 1990. This is quite an uncomfortable form of American exceptionalism.

Linz’s findings suggest that presidential systems suffer from a large, potentially fatal flaw. In parliamentary systems, governmental deadlock is relatively rare; when prime ministers can no longer command legislative support, the impasse is generally resolved by new elections. In presidential systems, however, contending parties must eventually strike a deal. Except sometimes, they don’t. Latin America’s presidential democracies have tended to oscillate between authoritarianism and dysfunction...

To Appelbaum, the flaw is that there exists the possibility of deadlock.  The Founders did intend, from what we've read of their arguments on the matter, to use deadlocks as a means of putting the brakes on reckless legislation or executive actions that would otherwise occur in a parliamentary system.  Also, to use the threat (or reality) of deadlocks to enforce compromise between the sides to ensure enough people are satisfied (or dissatisfied, which also works) with the results.

The flaw for Appelbaum is allowing those deadlocks to evolve into outright obstructionism.  Something we're seeing today as one branch of government - the Legislative - collapses in on itself in a wave of obstruction over partisan rancor.

Until recently, American politicians have generally made the compromises necessary to govern. The trouble is that cultures evolve. As American politics grows increasingly polarized, the goodwill that oiled the system and helped it function smoothly disappears. In 2013, fights over the debt ceiling and funding for the Affordable Care Act very nearly produced a constitutional crisis. Congress and the president each refused to yield, and the government shut down for 16 days. In November 2014, claiming that he was “acting where Congress has failed,” President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration. House Republicans denounced him as “threatening to unravel our system of checks and balances” and warned that they would cut off funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless Obama’s actions were rolled back. For months, the two sides faced off, pledging fealty to the Constitution even as they exposed its flaws. Only at the 11th hour did the House pull back from the edge.

Strikingly, in these and other recent crises, public opinion has tended to favor the president. As governments deadlock, executives are inclined to act unilaterally, thereby deepening crises...

Appelbaum is correct in that our current political malaise is based on the structural flaws of our Constitution: there are no emergency powers to override one branch of government when one party driven by reactionary dogma controls that branch and abuses the rules into a paralyzing gridlock.

As a side note: It's interesting that Appelbaum is arguing about the disproportionate powers of the Executive branch in times of deadlock, but that the causes of our current deadlock woes are all on a one-party-rule Congress refusing - including excessive vacationing as outright job avoidance - to do its job.  I can see where he's concerned that the President in these circumstances could say "to hell with it" and go into Full Dictator mode like a Caesar of old, but the core problem is still with a lazy and broken Congress... Again, I digress.

However, I disagree with Appelbaum on one point: the flaw in our government's Constitution isn't fatal.  It's a serious weakness, granted, but it's one that can be fixed.

It can be fixed because as much as things change, there is always (except for one exception, hello 1860) some moment or some twist in the ongoing historical narrative that is the present day that breaks the gridlock.  I'm not talking some kind of Deus Ex Machina, but about an external or internal shift of events that "wakes up" the political elites - the patrician class that holds the real power in the nation - into making the necessary reforms to end that crisis and ensure future crises do not return.  I'm thinking back to such moments as the Progressive Era at the start of the 20th Century which was a response to the decades of Gilded Age greed and social inaction on women's rights; back to the New Deal era reforming federal government into a regulator of our fiscal and business needs; back to the Civil Rights reforms in the 1960s to end a century of Jim Crow segregation.

It can be fixed because when this happened before - when the system broke down enough during the Civil War - the majority of Americans still worked for repairing and rebinding the nation back to what it was.  Partly to rub the salt in the wounds of the secessionists who lost, but mostly because Americans saw (still see) America as a whole and unified nation despite the disagreements.

And it can be fixed because our nation's Founders were smart enough and hopeful enough to establish the means to Amend the Constitution itself.  That is a step of Last Resort, of course, and difficult to manage.  However, if the crisis becomes that obvious, our nation has shown in the past it is capable of making the effort to amend the flaw and get government working again.  That the amendment process even exists is an example of faith: the men of power 200-plus years ago trusted future generations to see to making repairs when they were needed.

There will come a moment when the gridlock ends.  The causes of this current crisis - the unresponsive House designed by rampant gerrymandering, a Republican Party consumed by hardening Far Right ideologies against women's health rights and immigration - can't last forever: simple demographics will see to part of that by 2020, and a growing state-level push for election reforms will see an end to gerrymandered "safe" districts sooner rather than later.  The restrictive limits of an obstructionist faction historically have a habit of collapsing on themselves (the purity purges), and we are getting signs of the Far Right Republicans about to implode over their inability to compromise even among themselves.

There is going to come a point when the need for reform is so obvious that every level of society from rich to poor will agree to its passage.  And the ones who refuse to see it either remove themselves from the equation to ensure its passage or else pursue a destructive course that ends up hurting themselves (although others can get hurt in the process).

A lot of this doesn't even involve the Amendment process, although once reformers gain power in Congress and the White House (and enough states) they are likely to codify their reforms with an appropriately-worded amendment to ensure the safety of our nation's well-being to future generations.

Future generations who will likely complain about the deadlocks in government they're facing when it's their turn to question what's broken in the Constitution and what needs to be done about it.  Heh.

I'm not being flippant about what Appelbaum writes: he is correct in that our current political woes are due to failings in the Constitution and that there's a possibility these failings can get worse.  I'm noting we've been able to fix and reform the Constitution before and that we're able to do so again.

I'm just saying there are alternatives to letting it all fail: I'm just saying we need to start fighting to get those fixes in place, and removing the blockage of obstructionism causing damage to our nation.

I am, again, saying we need to stop voting into office the party responsible for all this obstruction in the first place.  Yup.  Please please please, stop voting Republican.

Anniversary for Nine Eleven 2015

It pains me that I can't remember the names of the two ladies I was working with at the Broward Library's technology center that Tuesday morning, going over the new training materials for the Groupwise email system we were deploying for our county library system.  I am lousy with names, and I didn't work with them often enough to retain that knowledge.

I do remember Barbara's name, my former supervisor at North Regional, who was also at the Main Library in downtown Ft. Lauderdale that morning for a different meeting.  I bumped into her on the Second Floor lobby area where they set up a television with lousy antenna reception to broadcast the news about the planes hitting the Twin Towers.

She was the one who told me about the second tower.

The rawness of that day remains with me.  So much has changed since then but I still remember where I stood, how I felt, what it was like to drive back to Northwest Regional to await more bad news, the parking lot of the blood bank at night where a hundred people stood with me waiting our turn to donate blood because there was nothing else we could do but cry and pray.

I feel bad still because this is all I can do, just sit here and repeat the same story, unable to change the past and in no position to fix the present outside of my own meager rants and political activism.  I'd like to be able to take the rage and sorrow I have and convert it into solutions and salvation.  But 9/11 is a reflection of a human sin that both saints and tyrants struggle against with no honest solution in sight...

Syria Refugee Crisis

We as a nation need to do more than offer to take in 10,000 more refugees from the Syrian Civil War.

We need to send more aid.

We need to resolve the fighting and that means getting Russia and Syria and Turkey and Israel and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan AND Iran to the diplomacy table and stop the goddamn bloodshed.

IT HAS BEEN FOUR YEARS OF BLOODSHED AND IT'S GETTING WORSE.  A majority of Syrians no longer live in Syria because of it.  The refugee centers are now the size of small cities.

We need to isolate ISIL more effectively, cut off their supplies of funding better, cut off their manpower.  By getting every major nation in the region involved, that could work.  But it needs to happen now, and like it or not it means the United States is going to have to commit troops.

This isn't some delusional hunt for imagined WMDs, and it's not some plan to make Dick Cheney richer.  There is a legitimate threat to global security and stability operating in Syria, and the overall instability of Syria threatens the entire Middle East.  A sane, well-planned military operation is needed, with clear goals and strong allied backing among all members.

In the meantime, help the families and children of the Syrian dispossessed.

Because House Republicans Never Paid For Their Sins Of Shutdowns, Here Comes Another Round

It's the autumn season.  Congress is back in session and the annual budget is on the table.  That means we're facing yet another threat of Shutdown by the "Let's Drown Government in Grover's Bathtub" Party, AKA the Republicans.

I mean, why not?  We've had threats of shutdowns and actual shutdowns over the last twenty years - we're facing the 20-year anniversary of a major shutdown in 1995 - by Republicans, and after all few of the people sitting in office today ever paid for a single one of them despite the damage done.

An interesting twist in this year's Shutdown Showdown is that there IS a Republican facing the likelihood of paying for it.  Thing is, the person whose head is under the Sword of Damocles is the Speaker of the House Boehner.  Per Matt Lewis of the Daily Beast:

If Boehner makes even a minor misstep in the next few weeks, he will likely face a challenge—and sources indicate it would be a very close vote. In fact, right now I’d put the odds at about 50-50 that he goes down. That’s because the real goal of House conservatives right now isn’t to defund Planned Parenthood or shut down the government—their goal is to get rid of Boehner.

The rebels are going to wait to see what Boehner does regarding defunding Planned Parenthood in the next continuing resolution. He will have to make a choice between keeping the government open and pleasing House conservatives, and neither of these options are very appealing. Shutting down the government could only hurt the GOP, but Boehner’s own political survival is at stake if he appears to be capitulating to the Democrats.

On that last point, Lewis is wrong: shutting down the government before - in 1995 and 1996, and in 2013 - never hurt the GOP.  It may have cost them prestige among the Beltway media - who nonetheless seemed willing to forgive and forget - but House Republicans in particular have yet to answer for their costly hostage attempts that ended up winning them few tangible gains.

But now there's a simmering backbencher revolt that could - if carried out - cause a massive shift in power in Congress.  Boehner may be unpopular among the Far Right elements of an already Far Right party, but he has his supporters and a power base you shouldn't sneeze at (nobody becomes Speaker in a vacuum: people owe him some huge favors).  If the rebel factions do succeed in No-Confidence voting Boehner out of the Speakership, he's not going to go quietly and his allies are going to figure out ways to make the usurpers suffer.

If the vote against Boehner garners him enough backers... There's a 58 seat difference between Republican and Democratic control.  All Boehner needs are over 30-35 Republicans in personally safe districts (likely Blue/Purple states) to drop out of the GOP (even as Independents) and caucus with the Democrats, effectively ruining the radicals' plans of ruling in the first place.

And that's one scenario, where revenge would be sweet.  There's another scenario where the Republicans implode, although a lot of collateral damage would kick in.  The "You Get What You Wanted And It's a Hell of a Git You Got" scenario.

One of the reasons why the Republicans never paid for their sins of shutdowns was because their House leadership had enough sense and political savvy to work out deals that would allow them to retain some dignity.  The Far Right guys may decry such leadership, but it covered their asses so far.  With that cover gone...

If the Far FAR Right congresscritters succeed in their plan, they are likely to put into the Speakership someone with attitude and anger but no legal skill (Gohmert comes to mind).  Someone who would pursue every fantastical "theory" and "game-changing" act the Far Right desires.  A legislative program that basically goes all-out: A massive anti-immigrant bill that would be a real-world logistical disaster; massive cuts to every social safety net including Medicare and Social Security; massive deregulatory acts; a straight-up abortion ban without exemptions.  Things that would drive real-world moderates and centrists right into the arms of the Democratic Party.

Worse than that, the new Speaker is likely going to go Full Birther/Anti-Obama.  Granted, Boehner has been dissing Obama as a weak and even illegitimate President for years.  The replacement Speaker will prove his bona fides by going into full Impeachment mode.  He'd HAVE to: the Far Right has accused Obama of committing illegal acts - think about that still-pressing lawsuit against Executive Orders - for so long they are now expected to do SOMETHING to stop him.  This is why Boehner loses his control in the first place: he's been seen as "weak" on confronting Obama even with the moves he HAS made.  Impeachment - considering Obama will veto every harsh Republican bill that Congress sends him - is the last major weapon they've got left.

The likelihood of Impeachment increases with the likelihood of Boehner's ouster.  The charges will likely not make any legal or logical sense, nor be based on a genuine scandal or outrage.  The radical Republicans will likely seize on what THEY consider a scandal - Benghazi tops the odds - and simply vote on that.  And when the Senate votes against it, the House will simply issue another Impeachment (there are no limits) charge.  And again.  And again.  For them, it's all win-win: they appease their voting base and they make Obama look weak. See, historians!  He was impeached!  WORST PRESIDENT EVER...

In the meantime, nothing gets done.  All other needed legislation dies because the House's radicalism prevents them from passing sensible bills: anything they do pass will be so extreme Obama can easily veto and give solid argument doing so.

In the meantime, this Congress gains the reputation for being obsessive compulsive maniacs to the point of inaction.  People who take governing seriously - moderates and centrists - will not take any Republican from Congress serious at all.  While this has been said before, and Republicans were able to get away with it, this time around...  This time, their grandstanding will get old real quick.  Some of their media cheerleaders will fall silent, they will have to, unable to stick to the old narrative of "both sides do it" because clearly only Republicans do act like madmen.

In the meantime, the Republican Congresspersons lose whatever meager popular support they have with general voters.  Hint: it's currently around 14 percent, which means in a two-party electorate (50/50) AND in a three-wing ideology (33 percent liberal, 33 percent moderate, 33 percent conservative) this Congress has a lot of fellow Republicans HATING IT.  And they're doing this during an election cycle with a Presidency topping the ballot, something that generates a large enough voter turnout (over 50 percent) to where even gerrymandered "safe" districts run a risk of turnover.  This group of Republicans will be behaving very badly on issues - birth control and women's health, immigration - that hurt them before in 2012.

This Congress - once again one of the WORST EVER - is running into the genuine likelihood - at long last - of paying the price for their obstruction and "destroy the government" mindset.

I don't know which version of the coming insurrection would be more satisfying.  Letting these Republican extremists fall on their own swords would be most pleasing, but a lot of innocent people could get hurt along the way.  Letting whatever sane Republicans are left block the radicals from self-immolation would likely save our government and our Constitution and our citizenry, but will let the Far Right off the hook by letting them play the victim card one more time and blame "traitors" for ruining their gameplan.

Either way, we're heading into another messy September and another Long October.

Honest Bumper Stickers 2016, Part VII: The Force Awakens for an Absentee Ballot

Just when you think I was gonna coast this month on just having a September drinking game set-up, here I come at ya with another round of brutally honest bumper stickers!!!

Have to start off the the Republican Party et al.

Thing is, the Beltway media is still all abuzz about Biden throwing in, but he's still on the fence about it and I don't blame him.  Just in case though...

 Meanwhile, there's the inevitable:

And there's the hypocritical:

And then there's the horrific:

And there's also the outside chance of a game-breaker:

And not much else to say for a guy who's slid off the map:

And what's this?  David Graham over at the Atlantic has to document any newcomer to the race, and here's Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig starting up a campaign PAC to put his hat in the ring for campaign finance reform!  ...uh, yeah, the irony is unavoidable.

If anything, it gives me a reason to create this bumper sticker:

But it also brings up this issue for me:

So, in the interests of fairness:

Hell, I need to form a SuperPAC just to pay for the new Star Wars toys that came out this weekend!

Now I understand why they put election season so close to Halloween.  ARE YOU SCARED YET, AMERICA?!  Muhwa-hahahahaha...

Some Thoughts About 2016 While It's September 2015

For your consideration:

1) Neither of the Establishment candidates expected to do well - Jeb Bush and Scott Walker - are actually winning the early rounds of polling and campaigning.  Granted, this is the early stage portion of the horse race where the wild and wacky fringe candidates or White Knight "outsider" figures tend to stir up the extremist fanbase among the Republicans.  However, last election cycle's Establishment guy Mitt Romney was still a viable-looking candidate, sticking to his script and keeping his head above the metaphorical waters.

You cannot say the same for both Jeb and Scott: As of the first week of September they have both fallen into single digits in the polling.  And the political media is full of stories about Jeb! and Scott The Union-Buster struggling to find momentum or a winning narrative.

There may be still time for the "Establishment" big players to readjust and use their overwhelming money advantage to simply swamp over voters into either voting for them or else just get disgusted with the whole thing and not show up at all.  But the window of opportunity is shutting fast: if both Jeb! and Walker are polling in single digits by the end of October, might as well stick a fork in both of them and serve them up next to the Thanksgiving turkey.  Because that is a clear sign they've lost too many voters to win any of them back in time to dominate the primaries.

2) While Fiorina slid into a tie for sixth place in the polling, two of the top five in the GOP race are Trump and Carson.  Essentially half of the top candidates getting serious consideration right now lack any elective experience whatsoever.

The media is starting to pick up on how the Republican voting base views the entirety of politics altogether: with utter disdain and distrust.  They've been told since the Clinton years that the Democrats are a threat to "their" nation (some of this animus goes all the way back to Carter and LBJ) so there's the part where the GOP voters hate that half: what's becoming unreal is how a sizable (over a quarter at 27 percent) faction among Republicans are hating/mistrusting their own party.

The rush towards Trump and Carson as anti-politicians may explain their rise to the One and Two spots in the polls.  The question is, will the fervent anti-Establishment mood carry well into the actual primaries, or will the primary voters "wise up" and vote for "sensible" candidates that could, you know, actually win over centrist/moderate independent voters who look for such things as competency and experience?

I'm not betting on it.  As long as there's fifteen candidates duking it out into the early rounds, it's a good bet nobody will be securing enough delegate wins to develop the needed "momentum" to convince later voters to back the "winning" name.  There's enough anti-Establishment outrage there to have enough voters back either Trump or Carson or even Fiorina well across all fifty states (plus territories).  Even if one drops out, the likelihood is that the other non-pol becomes the favored flavor of the month: I doubt Trump backers will switch over to Jeb if Trump quits/gets blocked.

3) One of the oddest things I've noticed so far is that few if any candidates are openly pitching any economic policies.  If they are, the media's done nothing to tout them.

We've only just now gotten Trump's position on economic policies - other than his trade war with China and border wall with Mexico - and he's open to the idea of taxing the rich.  Which is total anathema to the Republican party leadership.

As for taxes overall, there's barely a peep about tax cuts, one of the bread-and-butter issues that (used to) get the Republicans stoked.  We've kind of reached Peak Tax-Cut Rhetoric in a way: the Republican dogma (sans Trump, who doesn't give a rat's ass about the party ideology) is so affixed to supply-side Laffer Curve trickle-down tax cuts that there's almost no need for the candidates to stake a claim on the issue.  It's just a given that the Republicans will slash taxes for the rich and corporations as soon and as often as possible.

Update (9/10): Spoke of the devil and the devil appeared.  Jeb! finally came out with a tax plan that has gotten the media elites to comment on it... and it's the same dredge of massive cuts to tax rates for the upper incomes.  Jordan Weissmann at Slate.com uses the phrase "magical thinking" to describe it, and it's an accurate epitaph because like all previous GOP tax-cut plans it operates on the belief that these grand tax cuts to corporations will immediately transform into investments and job growth.  (Hint: they don't.  Tax cuts to lower incomes families, however, DO translate into more jobs...)

I'm still not convinced Jeb! is going to win over the voters he's lost with a shiny tax cut package: it's become a moot point behind the red-meat issues of hating immigrants and dissing women.

4) Watching the second-tier names like Christie, Huckabee and Cruz fight over the table scraps may be fun, but in the meantime they're putting out policy ideas and fear-mongering outrage that will hamper honest dialog about our need for serious reforms well past the September debate and into the 2016 primaries.

Oh, and one more thing:

5) This is still way too f-cking early to have people running for the Presidency.  We've got all these f-cking months of gaming out this horse race with nothing really tangible to worry about until January 2016.  We'd all be better off capping elections to just the f-cking year said elections are supposed to take place.  No f-cking ads, no f-cking fundraising emails, no f-cking debates and suck-up events, just no.  We gotta fix this damn thing first before we can fix anything else broken in our federal government.

Fury Road: Best Picture (w/ Update)

(see Updates below)

Labor Day is more than a time to honor the needs and rights of workers, and is more than just a long weekend off from work (except for the emergency services people, and restaurant/grocery workers).  It's also the start of college and pro football, it's the last leg of baseball's regular season, it's kids back in school and Halloween supplies in stores.

It's the end of the summer movie blockbuster season.  Traditionally it starts Memorial Day, peaks on the Wednesday before the 4th of July, and ends Labor Day.  Granted, the market's shifted to where the blockbusters can get out in mid-April (Easter) and impact the early weeks, but Labor Day is a given end (the market dries out because the middle-high schoolers that buy the entertainment tickets are distracted with homework).

With that, on this Labor Day I wanted to look back at this summer, yet another round of mindless sci-fi laden thrills, some that worked - Jurassic World - some that surprised - Ant-Man was all set to be a bust but it proved well-sized (pun intended) to its ambitions - some that brought emotional heft - Inside Out is the best movie about emotional angst of ALL TIME - some that equaled expectations - Age of Ultron and Minions - some that fell short - Tomorrowland - and some that crashed and burned like the unwanted debacles they were - Sigh, Fantastic Four reboot.

And there was one that blew them all out the water.

Mad Max Fury Road.

It wasn't the box office winner - Jurassic World proved people want to see badass Dinosaurs eating people - but Fury Road was the most-talked-about movie the second it was released.  The reviews for it put it in the masterpiece category.  The fanbase among sci-fi / fantasy / comic-book geekery exploded with fanart and fanvideos and cosplay.

Even sports geeks got into it: (be warned this is all in CAPS LOCK)

THAT'S WHERE THIS STARTS. THERE'S NO 'OH, REMEMBER WHEN THINGS WERE GREAT,' NO, NO, NO: YOU JUST ROCKET RIGHT INTO THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF HELL FIND THE ELEVATOR AND MASH THE DOWN BUTTON UNTIL YOUR THUMB BLISTERS.

...AND YES THERE IS A POLITICAL MESSAGE IN HERE THAT MOST MEN ARE STUPID AND BAD AND WOULD RATHER KILL THE ENTIRE WORLD KIND OF AS A DEFAULT MISSION STATEMENT AND THAT'S ENTIRELY ACCURATE AND NOT AT ALL SUBTLE BECAUSE NOTHING IN THIS FILM IN SUBTLE AND THAT IS FAAAAAAAANFUCKINGTASTIC IN EVERY WAY. THERE MIGHT BE SIX PAGES OF DIALOGUE IN THE SCRIPT. MAYBE TEN IF THEY WROTE OUT TOM HARDY'S GRUNTING. IT'S GOOD GRUNTING, DON'T GET ME WRONG BECAUSE MOST OF TOM HARDY'S WORK HERE IS DIALOGUE WITHOUT DIALOGUE. MAX SAWS AT THE BACK OF HIS MASKED HEAD WITH A NAIL FILE SO FAST AND WITH SUCH INSANE ANGER THAT IT BECOMES A LINE. YOU COULD HAVE TOM HARDY COMPLAIN ABOUT HIS FACE BEING STRAPPED INTO A METAL MASK, SURE, BUT IT'S SO MUCH BETTER TO HAVE THIS HEATHEN OUTCAST GRUNTING AND TWITCHING AND PULLING AT EVERYTHING FOR THE FIRST 45 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE LIKE HE'S A STARVING RACCOON LET LOOSE IN A RESTAURANT WALK-IN FREEZER.  HE SAYS HIS NAME ONCE AND I CRIED WHEN HE DID EVEN THOUGH I'M PRETTY SURE HE KILLS LIKE 80 PEOPLE FOR JUST DOING THEIR JOBS AS RIPPED ALBINO DEATH RIDERS.

I MEAN, IT'S A JOB, MAX. THE CITADEL'S EMPLOYMENT INDICATORS ARE SHIT AND THE BENEFITS INCLUDE FREE BLOOD WHICH IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW PERSONALLY.

BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN THE MOST BADASS PART OF THE MOVIE. THE FIRST MOST BADASS PART OF THE WHOLE BY-DESIGN SUPREMELY BADASS MOVIE IS CHARLIZE THERON AS FURIOSA THE WAR RIG DRIVER. SHE GETS A SMOKY EYE EFFECT BY SMEARING GREASE FROM THE WAR RIG'S STEERING COLUMN ACROSS HER FACE. SHE HITS DUDES IN THE BRAINPAN WITH A SNIPER RIFLE IN ZERO LIGHT FROM EIGHT HUNDRED YARDS AWAY WITH EASE. AT ONE POINT SHE USES MAX AS A RIFLE MOUNT. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE HOW HARD IT WAS NOT TO HOOT OUT LOUD IN THE THEATER WHEN THE MALE PROTAGONIST OF A FILM WHO HAD JUST COME BACK FROM A FRACAS WITH DESERT VILLAINS WAS TOLD TO CHILL FOR A SEC WHILE CHARLIZE THERON USED HIM AS A PIECE OF MILITARY FURNITURE BECAUSE MAX, IT TURNS OUT, IS A LOUSY SHOT WITH A SNIPER RIFLE.  CHARLIZE THERON'S EYES ARE EASILY HALF THE DIALOGUE IN THE MOVIE AND MOST OF THE LINES THEY SAY ADD UP TO SOMETHING LIKE "I'M ONLY GOING TO USE ONE BULLET ON THIS SHITPILE OF A WORLD BECAUSE THAT'S ALL IT DESERVES AND ALSO ALL I NEED TO KILL BECAUSE I AM THE MOST LETHAL TWO-HEADED LIZARD PROWLING THIS CURSED EARTH." SHE SHOULD GET AN OSCAR. I AM NOT KIDDING AT ALL.

OH AND THERE'S ALSO A PACK OF MOTORCYCLE-RIDING GRANNIES WITH SNIPER RIFLES AND PURSES WHO ARE THE GRANDMOTHERS I NEVER KNEW I WANTED. I HAVE INVENTED AN ENTIRE NEW BIO WHERE THEY ARE MY FAMILY. THEY ARE NOW MY FAMILY AND I'M GOING TO GO SEE THE MOVIE AGAIN TO SEE THEM AND SAY HELLO AND MAYBE TEAR UP WHEN I LIST MY TRIBAL AFFILIATION TO THEM.

THE SECOND FIRST MOST BADASS PART OF THIS ENTIRE MOVIE IS THAT IT FUNCTIONS COMPLETELY ON A LIMBIC SYSTEM LEVEL. THE NEW YORK TIMES GETS A LOT OF THINGS WRONG AND THEIR STYLE SECTION IS WRITTEN BY ALIENS AND EVERY OPINION WRITER THEY HAVE IS STRAIGHT TECHNOCRAT TRASH BUT A.O. SCOTT SEEMS LIKE SOMEONE WHO NOT ONLY LIKES FRIED CHICKEN BUT UNDERSTANDS YOU HAVE TO EAT IT WITH YOUR HANDS. HE SAID FURY ROAD WORKS ON THE LEVEL OF A ROAD RUNNER CARTOON AND OH MAN, IS THIS ACCURATE BECAUSE THIS FILM IS A SYSTEM AND THERE IS NO REACTION WITHOUT AN OPPOSITE AND EQUAL REACTION IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. THE WHOLE MOVIE GOES ONE WAY AND THEN BACK... 

...BUT THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED WHERE THE RHYTHM AND PACING AND RELENTLESS KINETIC VIOLENCE JUST PRYS ALL THAT META-SHIT OFF AND BEGINS TOSSING YOU AROUND THE THEATER BODILY. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THEY CHOREOGRAPHED ANY OF WHAT HAPPENS IN THE LAST 30 MINUTES OF THE FILM BUT YOU HAVE TO BE BORDERLINE OCD AND FASTIDIOUS TO THE POINT OF MENTAL ILLNESS TO CREATE ANYTHING AS COORDINATED AND YET COMPLETELY CHAOTIC AS THIS FILM. YOU LIKE TO THINK YOU ARE A VERY SOPHISTICATED PERSON WITH DEFENSES AND THE ABILITY TO PROPERLY DISTANCE BUT THIS MOVIE SAYS NO NO, YOU ARE NOT, AND THE PROOF IS THE 10 OR 15 MINUTES OF ACTION TOWARDS THE FINALE WHERE YOU CANNOT SEE ANY WAY EVERY PERSON YOU MIGHT CONSIDER GOOD WILL FIND ANY WAY OUT OF AN OBVIOUS ROLLING DEATHTRAP.

IT STARTS AS YOU WATCHING A MAD MAX FILM FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME AND ENDS WITH YOU GOBSMACKED AFTER WATCHING A MAD MAX FILM FOR THE FIRST TIME AND WANTING TO WATCH IT AGAIN IMMEDIATELY ON THE BIGGEST SCREEN YOU CAN FIND WITH THE BIGGEST SOUND SYSTEM AVAILABLE AND DEFINITELY WITH LIKE EIGHT RED BULLS AND NO SNACKS BECAUSE YOU WANT THE EDGE OF HUNGER TO MAKE YOU AS MEAN AS THE BOMB-BLASTED LANDSCAPE.

THERE'S FIRE AND GUNS AND MORE GUNS AND SPEED AND BLOOD AND A FAILED WORLD DOMINATED BY IDIOTBOYS AND CHARLIZE THERON DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN HER PATH AND AAAHHHHH IT'S SO GOOD. EVERYTHING THIS FILM IS DESIGNED TO DO DEPENDS ON IT OVERPOWERING YOU WITH THE MOST BASIC ELEMENTS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE: FLIGHT, PAIN, FEAR AND MAYBE HOPE. HOPE'S A MAYBE. IT'S SOMETHING AROUND THE CORNER AND EXCUSE US BUT BEFORE WE GET TO HOPE WE HAVE TO BEAT THIS MUTANT UNCONSCIOUS WITH AN OXYGEN CANISTER AND SEE IF WE CAN SHOOT THIS BIKER OFF HIS BIKE MID-AIR LIKE SOME KIND OF HUMAN CLAY PIGEON. WE CAN TOTALLY SHOOT THIS BIKER OFF HIS BIKE MID-AIR LIKE A CLAY PIGEON BECAUSE AFTER WATCHING MAD MAX FURY ROAD I FELT LIKE I COULD DO ANYTHING EXCEPT SLEEP OR DRIVE SAFELY.

Okay, I hope your brain handled the high volume noise of ALL CAPS but yeah that's kind of how people reacted to this movie.

On a personal note: I saw the movie five times in the theaters.  Five times.  The most I'd ever done before was catching The Incredibles three times.  The original Star Wars?  I think that was three times too, and that was back before VCR rentals were everywhere and they kept big movies in the theaters for years.  Fury Road?  Five times.  It'd have been more but I'm on a budget.

Fury Road by all rights didn't have to be this good.  It's been in Production Hell since the 1990s.  It had to recast a new lead (Mel Gibson switched to Tom Brady).  The genre that the film is a part of - Dieselpunk, or Used Future Post Apocalypse - hasn't been big on the geek scene since the Matrix rewrote the Post Apocalypse rules.  (To be fair, the other genre that Mad Max belongs to - the Car Chase - has remained popular due to the Fast and Furious and Transporter series.)

It's the latest story in a series of movies from Australian director George Miller that started out as a polemic against road-rage drivers (Mad Max) in the Outback and turned into a dystopian post-apocalypse cultural phenomenon.  Like most science-fiction stories, it took the fears of the era that made it - Road Warrior in the wake of oil wars and a looming nuclear showdown between global powers, Beyond Thunderdome about greed and cultural short-sightedness of the Eighties - and turned them into entertainment.  And Thunderdome was 1985: it's been 20 years now and the underlying fear of Nuclear Death has been replaced by the fears of unending tribal wars.

But here's why Fury Road worked.  Miller is a genuine auteur, someone who films well-crafted stories regardless of genre, who has a meticulous fervor to get the on-screen details as right as possible (he will allow for the unreal as long as it serves the overall narrative).  He's also someone who takes car crashes and explosions serious (Michael Bay can only fantasize he can do it this well).

Fury Road is a believable world.  Not so much that it's a world we can recognize happening in real time - a lot of the sins we see committed by the movie's villains - rape of both women and our resources, the brainwashing of boy-soldiers to fight endless wars - are all too common, but that every conceivable detail has been thrown into this movie with thought and practicality.  Other than Max's opening narration of how the world broke and the people went mad with it, the audience is thrown into this place - Warlord Immortan Joe's Citadel and the surrounding desert of despair - and just by the action on-screen we're able to understand exactly what's happening and how and why.

In terms of production values, Fury Road is insane (in a great way).  Has there been a movie like this that relies so effectively on the sounds, the breakneck editing, the set designs of the vehicles - the Doof Warrior's speaker-truck alone would win Oscars - to dazzle the eye and ear, and affect the mind?

Yes.  Let's talk about Fury Road as an Oscar winner for Best Picture and other major awards.  From The Vulture:

But are any of them better than Mad Max: Fury Road, the out-of-the-teal-blue-sky action spectacular that wowed critics earlier this year and deserves real awards consideration going forward?

That’s the question that’s been on my mind since I saw George Miller’s gonzo reboot last April. It’s become my cinematic high-water mark, the one I’ve been measuring most new movies against. I’ve previewed several of this year’s big fall films, and though some of them have great performances, I still haven’t seen anything that knocked me out like Charlize Theron in Mad Max. This year’s costume-design category will no doubt be packed with period pieces like Cinderella and Carol, but they don’t deserve a trophy over the striking postapocalyptic threads that Jenny Beavan put together for Mad Max. And while most of our Best Director candidates are likely still to come, and could include perennial nominees like David O. Russell, Tom Hooper, and Steven Spielberg, it would be hard for me to believe that any of them wrangled a more difficult and ultimately fruitful production than the 70-year-old Miller.

Talking seriously here about Oscars for other roles as well.  Nicholas Hoult as Nux - the sickly War Boy who changes sides when he finds a genuine cause worth serving (and dying for) - and Melissa Jaffer - the Keeper of the Seeds among the badass grandma bikers that the fans adore - deserve supporting nods for their memorable roles.  Art Direction (the sets), Costuming (could happen), Cinematography, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects (the blending of practical real-world stunts with CGI editing to clean up post-production), hell let's throw in Catering if they honor it.

In terms of the MTV Movie Awards, Mad Max is going to f-cking clean up.  Hands down.  The final 30 minutes of Fury Road alone gets you Best Fight, Best Kiss, Best On-Screen Duo, Best Villain (make it a comeback), Best Catering, all of them.  Nobody else should be nominated for next year's awards.

In a way, Hollywood needs to honor action movies more often.  It's not just that these movies are their bread-and-butter money makers, it's that there's a lot of legitimate craft and talent that goes into a great action movie.  And a great action movie - think Bullitt, think French Connection (which DID win an Oscar), think Raiders of the Lost Ark, think Die Hard, think Speed, think Matrix, think Dark Knight - can set the standards for years to follow.

And yet Hollywood - behind a hidden wall of voting by an academy of voters who tend to be aging and ten years behind the trends - keeps going after the artsy stuff and ignoring the blockbusters that just happen to be well-crafted or ground-breaking in their respective genre(s).  We occasionally get a Western film winning, and War movies are often nominated and sometimes win, but a straight-up Action Thriller rarely wins out.

Fantasy and Sci-fi Action in particular suffer greatly: the one exception - Return of the King - just happened to be a sprawling Epic Movie based on a literary masterpiece that gave Hollywood the artistic pretension to pass along a slew of Oscars.

The reason we've got extra nominations for Best Picture after 2008 (when it capped at five) is because the Academy failed to nominate THE real Best Picture in The Dark Knight, a critically acclaimed movie that just happened to be a blockbuster comic-book action epic (Hollywood also ignored Wall-E for being an animated science fiction Pixar tearjerker despite it being one of the best movies of the year, period).  Now we can get between eight to ten nominees, which ought to provide room for the genres that previously suffered in the shadows come awards season... and yet, we're still seeing great well-crafted genre films like Snowpiercer and the first Marvel Avengers movie get ignored for the major nominations.  Skyfall, arguably the most artistically well-made James Bond movie of all time, deserved a Best Picture nomination (and acting noms for award-level actors like Dame Judi Dench and Javier Bardem) but only received a handful of nominations (with well deserved wins in Best Song and Best Sound Editing) and a major snub for Cinematography (grrrrrrr).

I say no more.  Now is the time.  Fury Road is the movie.  It's not just another post-apocalypse road movie: it's THE action movie stunt-spectacular thrill ride that puts all previous thrill rides - including its grand-daddy Road Warrior - to shame.  It's well-acted, damn you.  It's well-directed, obviously.  It's got great camera work and beautifully filmed vistas and set pieces.  It's about as well-edited as GoodFellas (and THAT deserved a Best Editing nomination too, you damn fools).  It's got a ground-breaking heroine in Theron's Furiosa that will set the standard for action heroes for the next two decades: and Theron is an award-caliber actress so there's no shame in nominating her for Furiosa.  There's no shame in honoring her with the win as Best Actress, for God's sake.

To Hollywood, to the Film Makers, to the critics and the money-backers and the street cleaners of L.A.: Fury Road is our Best Picture of the Year, with all appropriate honors for actors and production crew as well.  WITNESS IT.

May you ride eternal, SHINY AND CHROME!

Update 12/10/15: the Golden Globes nominees were listed today, and Fury Road received nominations for Best Director (Miller) and Best Picture (Drama). WITNESS!  However, Theron missed getting Best Actress (Drama) and the Score was overlooked as well. MEDIOCRE.

Still, this is a good sign. The Globes and the Oscars don't always match up, but the Globes are a good predictor of what the more prestigious Academy will look at for its nominations.

Update 1/14/2016: The Golden Globes came and went with Fury Road losing both awards to The Leo DiCaprio Gets Mauled By a Bear movie (boooo). Tody, however, the Oscars came out with nominees giving Fury Road a respectable 10 nominations covering Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Editing, Costume, Makeup, Set Design, both Sound and Sound Editing, and Visual Effects awards.

The Oscars did not, sad to say, nominate Theron for Actress (anguished skyward scream) nor Best Score, both deserving for this movie.

Whether or not Fury Road wins any of the major awards - Set Design and Costume are most likely, the technical awards likely but facing solid competition - like Cinematography, Editing and Director as well as Best Picture remains murky. It is up to us now to call the Academy voters every day, every LOVELY DAY! WITNESS!

Don't be mediocre, Hollywood. Give action movies their due.

Thoughts About The Kentucky County Clerk, Christianity, and Self-Righteous Bastards

Given the Far Right Christian viewpoint opposed to gay marriage being a civil right now, it was inevitable that someone in a position of government - county clerks who are responsible for issuing marriage licenses in particular - would make a damn circus out of refusing to issue such licenses in order to stop gays from marrying.

And so we've got a County Clerk in Kentucky sitting in jail for Contempt of Court, gleefully and happily playing the role of martyred victim for all the world to see.

This is giving the Far Right Christians every opportunity to host themselves an endless series of pity parties, of oh "Woe is us, we are being hated and persecuted for our beliefs."

Problem is, the reality is different from their fantasy Persecution Complex.

To quote Mary Elizabeth Williams in Salon.com:

Just kidding. We’re totally fine. And anyone who says otherwise is a great big crybaby...

...It’s a familiar refrain, this sob story that letting other people exercise their constitutional rights is an assault on their religious freedom. Last month, when actress Ellen Page confronted GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz at a state fair, Cruz asserted, “At the end of the day, what we should not be doing is persecuting people who follow their faith.” 

It would helpful to remember here that Davis is not being “punished” for her beliefs. Davis was found in contempt for refusing to abide by a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. She is being appropriately dealt with for not doing the taxpayer-funded job the citizens of Rowan County elected her to do, for not upholding the Constitution she took an oath to abide by. I know that lots of Christians are used to cherry picking their Bible verses to make their points, but you’re not allowed to be quite so selective with the Constitution. Certainly not if you’re someone whose job involves issuing marriage licenses...

...And as a Catholic, I can quite honestly report that I have yet to be persecuted for my religious beliefs. I get a fair amount of pushback from secular friends who think I’m delusional, and conservatives who say I’m not a real Christian because I support reproductive choice and marriage equality, but I’ll say this — I am not writing these words from a jail cell. You know why? Because American Christians are not being persecuted. And considering that there are places in the world where Christians really are, this boo hoo hooing from people who are astonished that they’re not being given a free pass to discriminate against gay people is pretty damn enraging.

This is all true.  We are not seeing a massive wave of arrests of Christians for going to their churches, we are not documenting the numbers of street preachers getting dragged off in handcuffs for disturbing the peace, we are not engaged in any open warfare between faiths.

Number of churches under assault: several, but they all happen to be Black churches with the attacks aimed at them over race - such as the tragedy of Charleston - not faith.

We've had attacks on Unitarian churches for being targets of conservative hatred towards liberals.  I'm trying to think of a time when a liberal-leaning person did the same against a hard-core conservative church.

This is the United States.  The last time we had open warfare between religious sects was the fighting between Mormons and Protestants during the 1800s (neither side can claim the high moral ground by the by).

One of the genius moves by our Founders was to establish a No Religious Test in our Constitution to prevent one church-going group from gaining majority control of government and using our legal institutions to persecute non-Believers.  The First Amendment's point of confirming Congress not placing one religion over another encourages peaceful co-existence of faiths, and placed secular law separate from spiritual law.

And yet we get these charlatans and Pharisees who love nothing better than to use the excuse of faith to deny civil rights to others: there was a time - and there still are some Far Right Christians who still feel that way - when the likes of Kim Davis would have used her "faith" to stop Whites and Blacks marrying each other.

Davis' argument is that is answering "God's Authority" to deny gays to marry.  Using Leviticus and Romans and other cherry-picked parts of the Bible to back her argument.

This is coming from a woman whose violations of "God's Authority" over Adultery are well-documented.  Hypocrite.  Pharisee.  I have - millions have -better moral authority to label her on those sins than she does passing moral judgment on anyone else.

Davis wants to serve "God's Authority"?  Her solution is simple: go work as a pastor.  Go work in a church as an organizer, a lay person, go and serve God's will caring for the sick and the poor.

When you get elected to a public office, you are serving the Will of the People, of the citizens of your county and your state.  When you are a public official you serve the laws of the land, and if those laws conflict with your beliefs then by the Grace of God quit and find a better job for yourself.  If you want to fight those laws as unjust you have the courts (and they tend to be pretty supportive of church rights and faith in general): if the courts argue that the laws ARE just - and allowing gays the same rights in the law as straight people counts - you STILL have the freedom of your faith to believe as you do... to yourself and to your God.

There is a place for civil disobedience against unjust laws, true: there is still the expectation that those being disobedient still answer to the law and prepare themselves for jail (Thoreau, Rev. King, et al).  The end-game for those disobedience movements were reforms and freedoms for the many who were suffering unjustly.  What suffering was Kim Davis and the other anti-gay forces enduring that requires them to act this way?  Again, as Williams pointed out in her article, there isn't any suffering of the Christian Far Right: they're still free to move about, go to church, pray to God, commit adultery, etc. even as gays - a significant minority of people - are able to enjoy the same legal protections over marriage as heteros.

You do not have the right to impose that faith on others when serving the public trust.  That makes you the bully, the corrupt power in high places.  That's Sharia Law.  That's the sign of the Imposter, the one who does not have the self-confidence of a true religion.

In other news, gay people in that Kentucky county can now get married.

Marriage is supposed to be a good thing: stability, community, love, commitment, and celebration.  Good things.

And God abides.

Labor Day 2015 Weekend Accountability

Did I spell accountability correctly...?  I never do...

Anyway, this weekend I'm gonna use the Three-Day-Novel time period (I did not apply for it, 'cause I need to save up the $50 fee for Star Wars toys!) to pound out a trashy urban fantasy novel.

It should be easy.  Like so:

1) Urban setting AKA The City: New York City by default.  Nearly EVERY city in a U.S. fantasy story is based on New York City.  Los Angeles only if sunlight, surf, or film-making is part of the narrative.  San Francisco if you want quirky hippie Wiccans.  Washington DC if you want everything blown up to serve your political ideology.  If you use Atlanta or St. Louis or Houston or Tampa, what is your problem?  And the capitol of the state of Montana does not count as an urban setting, sorry residents of the state of Montana...

2) Protagonist(s): Sexy vampire.  There's ALWAYS a sexy vampire.  His/her morality will be just off by enough to make him/her excitingly dangerous, yet human enough to enjoy having great sex with.

3) Narrator: A third-person or first-person tale-teller who gets wrapped up in the crazy event who stands in as the Everyman naive newcomer to the Masquerade (aka the Magic World hidden from the Mundane World).  Kinky make-out session with the Sexy Vampire is mandatory: it all depends on if you open with it or draw the story out for UST fuel to the end of the novel.

4) Sword: There should at least be one sword, so it can be wielded by the Sexy Vampire for the book cover.

5) Monsters: Dumb ones.  Easy to kill, and inhuman to allow for a massacre of them without any moral quandaries.  Mooks with swords instead of plasma rifles.

6) Quirky Secondary Characters: they're not as sexy as the vampire but by their wacky habits allows the writer to diversify and show off character-building skills, and these characters can appeal to the readers and turn into spin-off lead figures for later works.

7) MacGuffin: A reason or object the sexy vampire is set against a particular villain.  It needs to be satisfyingly unique to stand out as a doom-worthy artifact or deadly secret that could end the sexy vampire's lifestyle/friendship with his/her equals.

8) Potential victims: the innocent crowds of people in a packed city who ARE NOT AWARE OF THE MASQUERADE and thus need protecting "from themselves!"  This includes the local law enforcement, who would usually have the manpower and firepower to handle most situations in the first place if properly informed.

9) Dead Friend Walking: an ally of the Sexy Vampire or narrator who's a firm friend indeed, and is thus doomed to die in order to make the conflict "personal" and to highlight just how serious the crisis is.

10) A Betrayer: Sometimes it's the Dead Friend Walking who either willingly or by magic force turns against the Sexy Vampire/Narrator.  If it's a complete stranger, it has to be someone directly tied to the MacGuffin to make it meaningful.

11) A Fancy Nightclub That's Way Too Exotic With The Interior Design: Think how Hollywood movies spend a sh-tload of money on cool-looking sets, creating a night club full of lights, chrome handlebars, plush leather sofas, stocked bars, mirrors everywhere (even for vampires - they can use the mirrors to spot Normals), incredibly cute Normals dancing the night away, and a spot where Sexy Vampire and Narrator can make out in public and still not get caught doing it.

12) Overpowered Villain With One Obvious Weakness: His (sometimes Her) Pride.  And that the Artifact-As-MacGuffin can be turned into a stabby weapon shoved into his head for maximum gory deathiness.

13) A Catch Phrase: "Bite me" is too obvious, but what the hell.

I plan on having 18,000 words done by Monday. :)

Didn't Want to Post Today But the Republican Hissy Fit Over Mountain Names Required a Reply

And that reply is "are you f-cking serious?"

Obama goes and answers a request by a majority of Alaskans - especially the native Koyukon population - to change the name of the hemisphere's highest mountain to the original Mt. Denali.  Denali means "tall" in the local language, after all.

So of course, the Republicans have to throw an epic conniption as though it's World War VII all over again:

The greatest outcry against the name change, as my colleague Krishandev Calamur notes, is coming from two groups: Ohioans and Republicans, William McKinley’s two leading constituencies. Ohio Republicans, members of both groups, are particularly apoplectic...

For f-cks sake.

Dear Ohio Republicans: YOU DO NOT LIVE IN ALASKA.  SIDDOWN AND SHADDUP.

You wanna name a mountain after President McKinley?  Find one in Ohio and name it.

President McKinley had 1) nothing to do with the mountain not its mapping or its conservation or its value as a climbers' mecca, and 2) nothing to do with Alaska being a territory or a state.  There's no sane reason to honor him by naming that mountain after him in the first place.

Here's the real reason there's a f-cking fight going on over a mountain name:

It's Obama making the decision to make the name switch.

Nothing more.

This is just one more example of the Republicans undergoing another round of OUTRAGE OUTRAGE HARRUMPH all because our Socialist Commie Fascist Kenyan Draft-Dodging (yes, they went after him for not serving in Vietnam despite his being f-cking FOUR YEARS OLD AT THE TIME) Librul Democratic Secret Muslim Radical Christianist President Obama is siding with an ethnic minority in opposition to Old Dead White Men.

Yet another proof towards my Obama Shoelace Hypothesis: that sooner or later, the Republican Party will attack Barack Obama for the way he ties his shoelaces, even if - especially if - he wears loafers.

Now to get back to writing my X-Files/Orphan Black crossover fanfic.

As August 2015 Ends, Some Campaign Numbers And Observations

There's a rather well-detailed survey from Gannett news services - the Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics - covering the Iowa polling for both Democrats and Republicans during the last week of August.

As always, the numbers are not truly indicative of how the votes will go even in the state of Iowa, and there are always statistical anomalies to consider, but these are the numbers worth discussing:

Obama is there as a measuring comparison (he is firmly popular with the Democratic base).  Biden is a hypothetical popular choice, while Sanders has only gone upward in the favorability.  Hillary has dropped by eleven points but she's still over 3/4ths of the polling numbers.  The only one truly suffering in this is O'Malley: Chafee and Webb never had a chance, but O'Malley did and he's mired at 33 percent favorable (with a massive amount of Unsure).

I had to break the Republican polling down to three screenshots:

Jeb did not improve much... his unfavorable are higher than his favorable, never a good sign, and there's little room to add from the Unsure pile.
Ben Carson's numbers have gone upward to 79 percent at the top of the list: other risers are Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Bobby Jindal.  Huckabee's favorable remains high.  Graham and Christie are going nowhere.

 Kasich's numbers are improved but nowhere near the top tier: he still has too many Unsures not making up their minds on him.
Pataki and Gilmore might as well give up and hope for a Veep offer.

 Rand Paul is the one losing the most in this round of polling by the looks of it.  Walker remains healthy in polling and Santorum is hanging in there.  The marked improvement is with Trump, who switched his unfavorable in May (63 percent) to a favorable in August (61 percent).

This poll is where things get scary: Iowan Republicans' First Choice/Second Choice options, if they really had to get down to a primary vote.

Trump leads in First Choice at a whopping 23 percent.  Carson is next at 18 percent.  No other candidate - not Jeb or Walker or Rubio or even Cruz - breaks into double-digit numbers there.  Second choice is Carson at 14 percent, with Fiorina at 11 percent and then Cruz at 10.  Combined, Trump and Carson tie it at 32 percent, with Cruz in third at 18 percent, Walker at 17 percent, and Fiorina in fifth place at 16 percent.

Let's rehash.  The top two choices for Republicans are candidates who have never served an elected office or an appointed executive office.  Three of the top five never served an elected office or appointed executive office.  One of the remaining top five is a known rabble-rouser who disrupts his own party's political ranks as a neophyte rookie Senator.  The only "traditional" candidate with any campaign/elective experience is Walker (as Governor).

Jeb! Bush is nowhere in the Top Five.  He's not even popular as a Second Choice.  (under normal circumstances a lot of people would be calling on him to drop out of the race to let a higher polling candidate pick up the needed support...)

If you're wondering about the Democrats, here's their numbers for choices:

This is with Biden in the list (not having officially announced yet).  Hillary leads no matter what at 37 as a First Choice and as a combined choice (60 percent) while Bernie is a clear second at 30 percent First Choice and 50 percent combined.  It's pretty much a two-way race.  Throwing in Biden (14 percent First/38 percent combined) does little to change those numbers.  Taking him out of the choices still gives Hillary the lead and Bernie the chaser.

The Democrats do not have any candidate lacking in elected / political experience.

I just want to mention one other thing: as I noted about Moderates/Centrists, one of the consistent values of such voters is respect for experience/competency for the job.  The Republicans may well love the idea of a pure Outsider like Trump or Carson rising up to take the nomination, but will that translate into support for such an inexperienced candidate in a general election where Moderate/Centrist voters are needed for winning?

I ask: which party should be more worried right about now?

GOP Crazy August 30 2015 Edition: Now Our Watch Begins

In the "Yes, Republicans Are Not Thinking Things Through" Dept., we've got this little thing about wall-building that the Far Right anti-immigrant nativist crowd thinks will solve all ills.

As though building a massive 1,500-mile-long border wall between the U.S. and Mexico will stop immigrants from even trying to enter.  Like previous walls were ever effective?  Ask the Chinese how effective the Great Wall (12,000 MILES!) was stopping the Mongol hordes (answer: not that well).  Ask the French if that Maginot Line ever worked out (nope).  Ask the Soviets if that Berlin Wall was good for anything other than incredible graffiti art on the Western side of it.

Build a 50-foot-tall wall and you're pretty much creating a market for 51-foot ladders (two-packs, one for each side to climb up and climb down).  That and a burgeoning tunnel industry.

And now, in order to match the "Trump's Wall" insanity of the 2015 round of GOP primaries, Scott Walker - desperate to fix falling numbers and regain a top spot in the polls - is pushing the nativist agenda to another conclusion: that we need to enforce the U.S. border with CANADA to stop the dreaded Canuck threat from the north, eh?

...Republicans typically take a tough approach on securing the southern border, but few have said a wall should also be built along the U.S.-Canada border.
Walker reasoned that it's about much more than building a wall, arguing, "It starts with securing the homeland."
"It wasn't just about building a wall and securing our borders," he said. "It was also about making sure our intelligence community has the ability for counterterrorism and the ability to go after the infrastructure they need to protect us."

Well, the Canada-United States border is the longest international border between two nations in the world at 5,500 miles long give or take a few meters in that evil metric system.  It's also one of the least-defended, as the United States and Canada have not been at war with each other since the 1870s.  I think.

Granted, Michael Moore - that librul! - has covered this idea before.  We've been inundated with Canadians for generations, with them taking our acting and singing jobs from us (damn us, KIRK IS CANADIAN!) at an alarming rate...

Still, when you consider what it is Walker is actually asking out of us, he's asking for Americans to build a massive ice wall designed to protect us from that most insidious threat from the North:

White Walkers.

Walker vs. Walkers.  Who would win?

To be honest, I doubt the Republican Party would carry through on ANY wall-building project for one simple reason.

Such a project would represent a massive government jobs program.  Even if they sub-contract it out to vendor corporations, such massive construction jobs thousands of miles long and with additional fortifications and barracks for security staff would cost into the hundreds of billions of dollars (just for Trump's Wall to the South).  Given that the Canadian border is three times longer...  Both walls would be a huge expense.  And while the Republicans are eager to waste billions on war, any project of this size would bring up the unavoidable question of who (taxes) would pay (taxes on the middle class and poor) for it (not the rich who will always get their tax cuts).