Stupidiocy / 10-21-10

Today, 2010 Elections Class, we learned:

That Rand Paul and Jesus Christ are the same dude.

That fearing random Muslims is profitable.

That answering questions is an optional exercise for Senate candidates.

Let's do these in reverse order, because oh my, the Paul one is so juicy, I have to make it this post's dessert.

So the appetizer first: Joe Miller is running for Senate in Alaska. After beating the incumbent in the Republican primary over the summer, why should he have to deal with the press at all? Better to handcuff reporters when they get too frisky. Better to not honor interviews.

Yeah. When 40 fellow Alaska Republicans are asking you, in an open letter, to get your act together, and calling your campaign out for "unacceptable" behavior and "not a winning strategy," you should probably not say things like "We've drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask me about personal issues -- I'm not going to answer." But what do I know? I'm not trying to lose a practically unlosable election.

Entree time. Juan Williams. Ahem.

Visiting with Bill O'Reilly recently, Williams, an NPR reporter, generously offered this up: "I mean look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

I totally believe Williams. He isn't a bigot. He's just a guy who gets irrationally afraid that because there are Muslims with different-looking outfits on his flight from Atlanta to Chicago, the plane might end up crashing into the Pentagon instead.

That sounds sarcastic. And it is, a little, but it also isn't. It's very, very difficult to begrudge someone for admitting that the Different makes them nervous. Lots of people struggle with that. When I'm walking down a dark alley at night (one of my favorite activities!), I don't want the three guys I cross to all be 6'6", 320 pounds, with prison tattoos across their knuckles. I just don't.

(Hey, did I mention Williams is black? Not that I have a great deal more to say on that count.)

At the same time, it's worth remembering a couple things.

1. The 9/11 hijackers were wearing jeans and T-shirts.

2. Women in burqas have successfully piloted zero planes into tall New York buildings.

So I can safely pencil Williams in for irrational behavior and poor timing when it comes to honesty... but probably not much more. NPR fired him, by the way, after hearing of the remarks. I'm supposing they felt he had seriously harmed his objectivity and/or his credibility.

In any event, all's well that ends well for Williams. His friends came to his rescue.

Mike Huckabee: "It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR."

Sarah Palin: "NPR defends 1st Amendment Right, but will fire u if u exercise it. Juan Williams: u got taste of Left's hypocrisy, they screwed up firing u." That might be one of her tweets, or that could also be how we're doing transcripts for her nowadays.

And then, just found out that Fox News has offered him something marginally better than an unemployment check: a 3-year, $2 million contract to join them. Good for him. Now we all know what the reward/punishment is for misunderstanding other religions (and I'm being charitable). Glad to have that out in the open.

Hope you left room for the grand finale.

KY Senate candidate Rand Paul, earlier today: "In my entire life, I've written and said a lot of things. I've never said or written anything un-Christian in my life."

Now after months and months and months talking constantly in the public spotlight, under the constant stress a campaign like Paul's surely brings, people are apt to say things, that upon further reflection, they wish they could take back. Either they misspeak, they take an analogy too far, they forget which group they're speaking to, they make up facts, they stretch the truth, they say too much, or they outright lie. (Politicians do this? Whoa.)

But I pay pretty close attention to politics, and most of those instances are explainable. The candidate thought he could get away with a falsehood. The candidate embellished a story. The candidate was on the spot, and made up some numbers. The candidate said she can't tell Latinos and Asians apart. (Go ahead, click the link. I couldn't make stuff this good up if I tried.)

Oh yeah, what Paul said. Let's get back to that. It's hard to even give him credit for what he could have and should have said, which, naturally, is "I am a Christian and always have been. I've made lots of statements, oral and written, and I've always wanted to be Christlike in everything I say and write. For my opponent to imply otherwise is tasteless and vile." He missed that perfect response by a light-year or two.

Instead of crafting a sensible retort, he claimed perfection. Not recent perfection. No no. A lifetime achievement award. Not a single word against Christian principles. In his life. In other words, godlike flawlessness.

(I guess the lie he told by making that statement, that lie must have been his first. Bummer to ruin a good streak like that, on a technicality no less.)

To be fair, Paul was baited. His opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, just put out an ad exposing a college escapade Paul took part in during his days as a member of an anti-Christian club. (The story came out in a recent issue of GQ. Take that for what it's worth.) In the ad, Paul and a buddy stand accused of tying up a woman and forcing her to worship something called the Aquabuddha.

The ad's in terribly poor taste. It's inconsquential to the issues at hand, and irrelevant at best. It's nasty and full of innuendo. It misleads. But Paul's response tells so much more than Conway's sleazy move. It tells us that when the full-court pressure is on, in the heat of the closing weeks of a contentious campaign, the Republitarian political newbie folds.

Man, election season makes people do stupidiotic things.

Massacrechusetts / 1-23-10

No, I didn't work for Martha Coakley's campaign - I KNOW how to spell the state I live in, and even a few of the other ones. (What's that now you say about Tennesee?)

After Massachusetts voters replaced Teddy Kennedy this week with some dude who vowed to help tear down what Kennedy spent a lifetime trying to achieve, some despondency may be allowed among Democrats, or people who could use health care but can't get it, or people with kids, or people with compassion, or people who think the Republicans deserve more than one year in the wilderness for trying to bankrupt the country, or people with souls.

Well, I'd like to offer the mature response to losing that race. Right after I offer the juvenile one. (Notice I've already started with the juvenile name-calling portion. But on with it.)

I hate you Scott Brown! I hate you Massachusetteritianites! I hate you Martha Coakley! I hate you MA legislature for messing with the process! I hate you George W. Bush! (Just for old times' sake.)

Rage levels back to normal. Mature response in 3, 2, 1...

I. Brown will not last as a MA Senator with a hard-right agenda. He'll get booted. Ben Nelson survives in Nebraska only because he's a very, very, very centrist Democrat. Bluer-than-the-sky Rhode Island kept Republican Lincoln Chafee around for a long time because he liked to split the difference between the parties, and voters will respect that. Heck, Maine has two GOP Senators, somewow. (That last word was supposed to be "somehow," but I like the typo better.) So if Brown lasts for two-plus years - his term ends in 2012 - then it's not precisely the end of the entire whole wide wide world. He can't be a filibuster machine and keep his seat.

II. Democrats had better start fielding some decent candidates. Coakley failed to campaign after winning the primary, failed to connect with voters, took them for granted, and screwed up important stuff like Red Sox history. I'm completely serious, that's not OK in New England. Despite the fact she got herself elected AG not too long ago, she self-destructed, managing to lose a state Obama won 62-36 and where he still enjoyed a 15-point positive approval rating AMONG VOTERS WHO CAST BALLOTS ON TUESDAY.

III. This comes on the heels of Democrats losing two governor's races in November; one of those they had no business winning, that being Virginia, and the other one they had no business losing, that being New Jersey. But both times, the candidates were deeply flawed. In NJ, Jon Corzine's entire campaign seemed to be "My Opponent Is A Fat Slob," which might have been factually accurate, but was only serving the purpose of concealing Corzine's own past as CEO of Goldman Sachs... and in the throes of the financial meltdown and its aftershocks, he might as well have worn swastikas while happily sodomizing a statue of Lenin.

Over in Virginia, Craigh Deeds sucked. I don't want to elaborate. Seething might resume.

The last three Democrats to seek high-profile elected office have been complete stooges. It's really, really, really past time for that crap to come to an end. Really, Democrats? Really? Really??

IV. Some have called Brown's victory a referendum on health care. Balderdash. For one, Massachutypes already have universal health care, as set up by their Republican governor, once upon a time. Furthermore, if the President is viewed favorably by a strong majority of voters there, choosing a guy who'd clearly pledged to poke his finger in Obama's eye, that choice can't be about health care as much as everyone says. No, this was about the two candidates in the race, in large part. Of course, that's easy to say for the anti-Brown crowd.

V. Special elections are weird. Sh!t happens. The Republican dropped out and endorsed the Democrat in a congressional race in upstate NY last year. If one thinks one knows what's going to happen in one of these hastily arranged shindigs, one should rethink one's presuppositions. Just saying.

VI. It's not a good time to be an incumbent. Coakley was viewed, fairly or not, as the incumbent, due to party affiliation. Timing sucks sometime. She might have managed to eke out a win, warts and idiocy and all, this coming November. Or the previous one. Hard to say.

VII. The health-care bill was nothing special, from a traditionally liberal viewpoint. No public option, not even a public option with an opt-out or opt-in mechanism for states. No employer mandate. Lots of help for the poor and uninsured, but kind of a bummer for folks who don't want coverage. Granted, forcing insurers to insure everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, that would have been a step in the right direction, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with blah blah blah cliche blah blah blah (I'm such a piss-poor bad Taoist right now), but the bill was extremely incremental. To lose it sucks, but we're not dismantling Medicaid or anything drastic along those lines.

Wish I could say I felt better. At least I feel more grown up.

(I apologize profusely for the total lack of links in this post. I'm trusty. You can believe me when I say there are no glaring factual errors here; I saved them all for my other posts.)

Take 5 / 12-07-09

(First things first: Apologies to Dave Brubeck for the headline.)

Here are five quick takes on the three topics that are legal to discuss on this blog. By the way, that holy trinity is comprised of politics, sports and spirituality. In case you hadn't noticed.

I. Health care reform

A bill reforming health care will clear the Senate. Sometime this month or next. It may or may not be a good bill. What's a good bill, you ask? Something that addresses the unethical number of uninsured Americans and something that provides for an avenue for certain folks to purchase government-issued health insurance in certain states; in other words, something that brings down long-term costs to society by accomplishing those two goals.

A great bill would be Medicare For Everyone. That's not on the table, sadly. But with incremental progress, we can get there, and this bill would appear to represent incremental progress in that direction. Just because it doesn't go far enough doesn't make it a bad bill, just a placeholder.

The opposition will not muster the 41 votes necessary to filibuster the bill, whatever form it takes. Filibustering, for the political novices out there, is the act of NOT ending debate on a bill. Debate must end, by a 60-40 or greater vote, for a piece of legislation to be considered for passage. (Even more parenthetically, it is FALSE and UNTRUE and INACCURATE that a bill must receive 60 votes to clear the Senate and head to President Obama's desk. It only needs a simple majority of 51 votes, or failing that, 50 plus Vice President Biden's.) So a very determined group of 40 or more Senators can keep legislation from ever COMING to a vote by filibustering it, but it takes 51 to vote it down once it clears that hurdle. Yes, I'm done with caps lock for a few paragraphs.

In short, not that I have any brevity-ability whatsoever, too many individual Democrats have too much to lose, and by "too much" I mean any position of privilege or leadership or committee chairmanship, by filibustering a bill brought to the floor by their own party. A number of D's may elect to vote against the bill after it clears the filibuster, but they will not commit political suicide by snubbing their self-interested noses at the party leaders. And if one of them does (yes, I'm glaring at you, Joe L.), Obama will pick off one of the Maine Republicans to break ranks.

II. TARP refund

Apparently, of the approximately $97,245 quopthrillion earmarked last year for the bailing out of financial institutions, the government will receive a refund of $200 billion. (Yes, the first figure is a slight slight slight tiny little tiny exaggeration. The second number is accuratish. Truthy, even.)

Early speculation had Obama laundering that money into a jobs bill. Because there seems to be a rumor out there that unemployment is high. Well, BHO said today he's gonna use a chunk of it to pay down the projected budget deficit instead.

This move is either shrewd, concessionary (not an actual word), morally responsible, or a combination of all three. (Always my favorite. The large supreme sans olives.)

Shrewd because it appeals to independents for whom the mounting deficit is alarming. Concessionary because Republicans have hypocritically been clamoring for excess funds to be applied to the gaping budget hole. (This despite the fact that their presidents practically invented the deficit.) And morally responsible because a good way to screw our kids and grandkids over is to leave them with a crippling national debt. We should be teaching them loads and loads of Mandarin, by the way. Just in case.

All three of the above, in 40-25-35 proportions, seems about right.

III. Merriners ad newe thurd basemen

Seeattle whill sine thurd basemen Chone (prunounced "Schawn") Figgins tuah 4-yeer, $36-miliun kontrakt tudde'.

Two out of the last 20 words are spelled right... Yes, Mr. Figgins spells his name so it'll rhyme with scone, just not the way you're necessarily used to saying "scone" unless you're from London, Manchester, Sydney, or North Uppitycrust. Parents are interesting people sometimes.

Anyway. Figgins is awesome. Ichiro-lite with the bat, only with more walks, and a good defender to boot. The M's will annoy their way to many wins this season with those two dudes at the top of the lineup. I look forward to many 32-pitch first innings from the opposing pitcher. Hee hee.

IV. Tiger

Newsflash: Tiger Woods has a penis.

V. Copin' Hagglin'

(One of my best/worst recent puns. Admire it.)

Obama hosted Al Gore in the Oval Office as worldwide climate change talks in Denmark began. Other than providing Fox "News" with a chance to put two of their favorite villians (where was Hillary!?) in the same picture without having to use Photoshop, the meeting was uneventful... except to remind us that for all of Obama's compromising with Republicans, he is committed to addressing climate change from an orthodoxically liberal point of view.

To clarify that hideous sentence, he might ditch the public option, he might work a bunch of tax cuts into a stimulus bill, he might drag his feet on closing the Guantanamo prison, but he's holding the line on climate change. 17 percent cuts in CO2 by 2020 is his short-term goal; that climbs to 83 percent cuts by 2050. This is another reason he has a chance to be the most important/successful President in recent history.

P.S. I had fun with some of the links. Enjoy. Also, I'll try to not go a month between posts again. But no guarantees.

Filibuster Parfait, Part 2 / 6-30-09

With Al Franken set to be sworn in to the U.S. Senate as early as next week, the D's will outnumber the R's 60-40 in that hallowed chamber. That's a filibuster-proof majority.

So, as every living human with cable news will know within two weeks' time, Franken's arrival gives the Democrats carte blanche to ramrod every existing piece of legislation they can dream of through Congress, sending bills authorizing the annihilation of America to the Oval Office, where President-Dictator Barack Karl Lenin Hussein Zedong Castro Kim-Jong-Obama will sign them gleefully before dancing naked atop a tattered, slightly singed, crumpled-up Old Glory. Do I smell weed?

The reality is somewhat different.

Some moderate Democrats are going to balk at bills that sway too far to the left. Some moderate Republicans -- there have to be a few left, the EPA probably has a list somewhere in its Endangered Species files -- will straddle the fence.

As Franken himself said today: "Sixty is a magic number, but it isn't, because we know that we have senators who -- Republicans who are going to vote with the Democrats, with a majority of Democrats on certain votes, and Democrats that are going to vote with majority Republicans on others. So it's not quite a magic number as some people may say. But I hope we do get President Obama's agenda through."

What WILL happen a lot is, Democrats will vote along party lines for the little stuff, the stuff that doesn't break through the force field of "Michael Jackson: Still Dead" 24-hour coverage or through continuous "Brett Favre: Still semi-almost-unretired! Or not! Haha!" loops on ESPN. The little stuff includes things like hundreds and thousands of confirmations of federal court judges and low-level administration appointees. You know, the stuff that needs to happen for the government to function, but is being presently blocked out of spite and childish game-playing.

"Oh, John, you're such a hater. Republicans aren't that petty. They save the filibuster for the big stuff, the controversial bills they need to stop for the good of they country." Except they don't. As the Democrats did from 2002 to 2006, the R's make the majority party fight for every last inch of territory, no matter how insignificant. For better or for worse, that's how the game is played nowadays. Only the GOP lost one of its game pieces. Oops.

Not only that, but as I mentioned in a post not too long ago, centrist Democrats are free to vote against bills that they dislike. But keeping the legislation from coming to the Senate floor at all is a different animal. You have to buck your party's leadership to do so; then you're risking even more than re-election. You're jeopardizing your committee chairmanship. Egads! Anyway, the safe political course, as a moderate, is to vote for cloture (meaning the end of debate) then vote against the bill you dislike... even as said bill passes by a 52-48 vote. Look for that outcome to happen plenty of times.

P.S.: Now that the 2008 election season has officially ended, that means 2010 has officially begun... and my money right now is on the D's INCREASING their Senate majority to 63 or 64. That would be true filibuster-proof material. But don't take my word for it -- go to Lord of the Poll Dance Nate Silver. Silver publishes, on his site fivethirtyeight.com, monthly rankings that show the most contested Senate races. And four of the top five races feature incumbent Republicans. Month after month after month. A new ranking comes out any day now. Cheers!

Filibuster Parfait, Part 1 / 6-30-09

A scant 34 weeks after Election Night, the 2008 election season has concluded.

Yes, you can close the books on Minnesota's epic Senate race; incumbent Norm Coleman conceded today. Yes, already. Why the hurry? Well, in the end, the bitter, bitter end, Coleman was deemed to have received fewer votes than challenger Al Franken. Yup, THAT Al Franken. (Oh yes, he is good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, just barely enough people like him.)

Granted, Coleman did own a 477-vote lead the morning after the election. That shrunk to 192 a month later after the hand recount. A phase of ballot-challenging ensued, which flipped the margin to Franken +251 and a final review of those ballot challenges settled on Franken owning a 312-vote advantage.

Messy? Uncertain? You bet. But that's why they have recounts. So you can re-count the votes, even more carefully than before, and guess what? The numbers change when you recount them.

Is the outcome "fair" to Coleman? Probably not... but a Franken victory is just as "fair." If you ran this whole convoluted scenario -- Election Night to tonight -- 101 times on a computer simulation, I get the impression that each candidate would win 50 times and one tie would occur. When the margin of error is in the triple digits in a 2.5-million basket of votes, some shrinkage and leakage and foul play is bound to occur. (I'm leaving out the fact that Coleman's legal team is generally agreed to have been incompetent. In my make-believe simulation, the interested parties hire legal teams of varying skill. It's a very fancy imaginary simulation. Obama still wins every time, though.)

Oh yeah, Coleman's the Republican. Franken's the Democrat. That gives the D's 60 Senators, theoretically enough to quash filibusters. With that in mind, let's hop over to part 2.

Specter dispirited with GOP / 5-3-09

And now, for something completely different: some half-baked political analysis!

A couple things come to mind regarding a certain Senator's party switch. (I speak, of course, of last week's decision by PA Republican Arlen Specter to become a Democrat.)

First, the guy may well have done it for self-preservation, as he admitted himself. That doesn't change the fact that a party that loses moderates is going in the wrong direction. We'll see if this move causes the GOP leadership to reach out more to the center or to move even further to the right. (Assuming that's possible.) In any case, I'm going to write a massive post on the plight of the Republican Party later this month. But that issue needs a lot more mulling first.

Second, the hidden effects of Specter's reDemocratification may be greater than the obvious ones. He'll vote to advance many bills and appointments forward in the legislative process, even if he ends up voting against the bill or the appointment... which will move Obama's agenda forward quite a bit faster. Civics lesson: The U.S. Senate can approve a bill or a presidential appointment by a 51-49 vote, but the minority party can vote against "cloture," or against ending debate, and thus prevent a vote from ever taking place. (The Democrats did this plenty under W., who then just pushed his judges through in recess appointments anyway.)

So a committed group of 41 Senators can block whatever they want for a while. But Specter's defection leaves the R's with a scant 40, which will not be enough when Al Franken is seated later this year as the D's 60th Senator. And Specter is in an enviable position in his new digs. He can vote for cloture with his caucus buddies, then vote against the bill itself and campaign next year on his moderateness. With Obama's promised endorsement. In a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.2 million, yes, million.

(Bonus point: Both of Maine's Senators are moderate Republicans. Keep an eye on them. Just saying.)