For those of you who are unfamiliar with tropical wildlife, those are ibises, including a juvenile (the one in grey), along with their squirrel guide.
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Saturday, November 07, 2009
Backyard Visitors
I'm having some people over this evening -- about 100, to be exact -- so I'm grateful for any help in cleaning up...
For those of you who are unfamiliar with tropical wildlife, those are ibises, including a juvenile (the one in grey), along with their squirrel guide.
Fetch more...
For those of you who are unfamiliar with tropical wildlife, those are ibises, including a juvenile (the one in grey), along with their squirrel guide.
Fetch more...
Stop That Noise!
Tropical Update
Tropical Storm Ida is regaining strength and might hit parts of Florida.
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Hasta La Vista, HP
I got the word from the good guys at National Tech Express: my HP laptop is dead. Last time it was the hard drive; this time is was the motherboard. Fortunately I have a 500 GB external drive, so last night after dinner I went with Bob to the local Best Buy and looked at new laptops. After checking out several brands with a variety of bells and whistles, I settled on a Toshiba Satellite L505 with a 3 gig memory and 320 gig hard drive. It has a nice monitor, which doesn't really matter to me since I plug it in to a bigger one, and it has Windows 7. The whole thing, tax included, was less than $600.
It was a breeze to get it up and running, and since I had all of my data on the external drive, I had no trouble getting everything back to where I had it before the HP Pavilion died, and it only took one phone call to GoDaddy to remind me of the settings for my e-mail accounts on Outlook 2007. It immediately found my wireless network, printer, wireless keyboard and mouse, and compared to Vista, it zoomed through the installation and set-up of programs like Quicken and Office.
The computer came with Norton already loaded and ready to be activated, but I've been down that lonesome road before and chose to go with the free Microsoft Security Essentials based on this review by the Washington Post's tech guru Rob Pegoraro. Whereas Norton is a huge memory hog and an annoying pest for updating and renewing, you barely notice this program.
Quite a few people suggested that I look at Apple, and I did consider going over into the Light, as my brother implored me. But there were a couple of issues that kept me in the PC world, including incompatible software like File Maker Pro 6 and my current version of Office 2007. I know they are available for Apple, but I don't have the luxury of time (or finances) to replace them. And then there was the expense. Apples cost more than PC's. I'm sure that you get what you pay for, but in my case, you get what won't max out your Capital One card.
What also is impressive is how fast and big these little laptops are getting to be at the inverse ratio of cost. In 1997 I bought a Gateway PC with a 2 gig hard drive and monitor for $2,500. Twelve years later I am on my third computer since then and the price has gone down by 75% for a machine with 160 times the memory and warp speed. As I said to Bob as we left the store, five years from now I should be able to buy a computer that can run NASA for $200.
Anyway, here I am again on a new computer, and I hope this one lasts as long as my last Toshiba -- five years -- as compared to the HP Pavilion which barely made it past two.
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It was a breeze to get it up and running, and since I had all of my data on the external drive, I had no trouble getting everything back to where I had it before the HP Pavilion died, and it only took one phone call to GoDaddy to remind me of the settings for my e-mail accounts on Outlook 2007. It immediately found my wireless network, printer, wireless keyboard and mouse, and compared to Vista, it zoomed through the installation and set-up of programs like Quicken and Office.
The computer came with Norton already loaded and ready to be activated, but I've been down that lonesome road before and chose to go with the free Microsoft Security Essentials based on this review by the Washington Post's tech guru Rob Pegoraro. Whereas Norton is a huge memory hog and an annoying pest for updating and renewing, you barely notice this program.
Quite a few people suggested that I look at Apple, and I did consider going over into the Light, as my brother implored me. But there were a couple of issues that kept me in the PC world, including incompatible software like File Maker Pro 6 and my current version of Office 2007. I know they are available for Apple, but I don't have the luxury of time (or finances) to replace them. And then there was the expense. Apples cost more than PC's. I'm sure that you get what you pay for, but in my case, you get what won't max out your Capital One card.
What also is impressive is how fast and big these little laptops are getting to be at the inverse ratio of cost. In 1997 I bought a Gateway PC with a 2 gig hard drive and monitor for $2,500. Twelve years later I am on my third computer since then and the price has gone down by 75% for a machine with 160 times the memory and warp speed. As I said to Bob as we left the store, five years from now I should be able to buy a computer that can run NASA for $200.
Anyway, here I am again on a new computer, and I hope this one lasts as long as my last Toshiba -- five years -- as compared to the HP Pavilion which barely made it past two.
Fetch more...
Short Takes
Today's number -- 17.5%. That's the real unemployment rate when all the people who are out of work in taken into account.
Today's the day of the House vote on healthcare. A vote on an amendment on abortion could get interesting.
Car buyers are coming back to the showrooms.
There was another shooting, this time in Orlando.
Blogging from Cuba can be dangerous.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R) criticized Rush Limbaugh for comparing President Obama to Hitler. Start the Craven Apology watch.
If you can't take the heat, Tom Tancredo....
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Today's the day of the House vote on healthcare. A vote on an amendment on abortion could get interesting.
Car buyers are coming back to the showrooms.
There was another shooting, this time in Orlando.
Blogging from Cuba can be dangerous.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R) criticized Rush Limbaugh for comparing President Obama to Hitler. Start the Craven Apology watch.
If you can't take the heat, Tom Tancredo....
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Friday, November 06, 2009
Happy Friday
It's going to be a little quiet from here today. My home laptop, which has a tenuous record of performance, decided not to cooperate when I got home last night. It would start to boot up, then stop, shut down, and start to boot up again, then stop... you get the idea. It never even got to the point of starting up the monitor. Fortunately I have a back-up, and I have all my files on an external drive (and was able to find everything I worry about, such as my writings). But that also means my schedule is disrupted before I even get to the office, so bear with me. I'll let you know when things get back on track, which, I hope, will be later today.
Yes, I'm seriously considering a Mac. HP has let me down once too often.
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Yes, I'm seriously considering a Mac. HP has let me down once too often.
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Short Takes
The suspect in the shooting at Fort Hood survived. The death toll is twelve.
Afghan troops are in bad shape.
The deal to end the standoff in Honduras is in trouble.
The House votes to extend jobless benefits.
The Democrats are working to keep as many of their party on board with the healthcare bill as possible.
The teabaggers made quite a scene on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Bernie Kerik pleads guilty to lying to the government during his vetting process to be Secretary of Homeland Security during the Bush administration.
Charlie Crist may have forgotten about his support for the stimulus plan, but we've got the tapes that show his enthusiasm for it last winter.
Tropical Update: Ida goes from hurricane to tropical depression after hitting Nicaragua.
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Afghan troops are in bad shape.
The deal to end the standoff in Honduras is in trouble.
The House votes to extend jobless benefits.
The Democrats are working to keep as many of their party on board with the healthcare bill as possible.
The teabaggers made quite a scene on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Bernie Kerik pleads guilty to lying to the government during his vetting process to be Secretary of Homeland Security during the Bush administration.
Charlie Crist may have forgotten about his support for the stimulus plan, but we've got the tapes that show his enthusiasm for it last winter.
Tropical Update: Ida goes from hurricane to tropical depression after hitting Nicaragua.
Fetch more...
Friday Blogaround
Here's the week as seen by the Liberal Coalition.
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- A Blog Around The Clock: Feed on these.Remember the veterans.
- archy on Fort Hood
- Bark Bark Woof Woof: As Maine went...
- Bloggg: College watch.
- Dohiyi Mir: NTodd writes to Congress.
- Echidne Of The Snakes begins to celebrate her sixth anniversary of blogging.
- Florida Progressive Coalition Blog: Five stories to read.
- ...I Am A Tree has a great picture for autumn.
- Iddybud Journal on Huffington on Obama, Plouffe, and the Media.
- Left Is Right and the UN's vote record on Cuba.
- Pen-Elayne on the Web gets elemental about dessert.
- Rook's Rant on the Republicans undoing Reagan's success.
- rubber hose survives the Philly transit strike and tells the tale.
- Scrutiny Hooligans: "Our weapon is fear."
- Speedkill: heehee.
- Steve Bates, The Yellow Doggerel Democrat, reports on the election in Texas.
- Stupid Enough Unexplanation with a good article from Townhall.
- The Invisible Library notes that it's National Novel Writing Month.
- WTF Is It Now?? with Jon Stewart.
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Thursday, November 05, 2009
Shooting at Fort Hood
From the ABC News:
I hold all these people in the Light.
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Twelve people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting spree at a Texas military base in a murderous rampage that officials believe was carried out by an Army psychiatrist.The story to a lot of people will be that the alleged killer was named Nadal Malik Hasan.
The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Nadal Malik Hasan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, told Fox News that military sources informed her that the gunman was about to be deployed to Iraq. Sources tell ABC News that this would have been his first deployment.
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
Hasan allegedly opened fire and killed 11 people on the base before he was shot dead, bringing the total number of fatalities to 12.
The general said there were "eyewitness accounts of more than one shooter," and the others were tracked to an adjacent facility.
Cone called the attack "a terrible tragedy, stunning." He said the community was "absolutely devastated."
President Obama called the Fort Hood shootings a "horrific outburst of violence."
"It is difficult enough to lose" soldiers overseas, but it is "horrifying that they should lose their lives at an Army base in the U.S.," he said.
I hold all these people in the Light.
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As Maine Went
Yes, I am disappointed that Maine voted down keeping the marriage equality law that was passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor last May. Any time a referendum that limits the rights of people gets a majority of the vote, I'm disappointed.
Beyond the analysis of who voted for or against the measure and what part of the state they lived in, one of the questions that arises is whether or not such a question should even be put to a popular vote. Are there some rights that are so fundamental that leaving them up to the whims and the machinations of the campaign trail puts them in danger? Do you really think that the people of Kansas would have repealed state laws that allowed school segregation in 1954? What would the state of civil rights be if, in 1964 and 1965, Congress had not passed federal legislation that established fair housing and voting rights and had instead left them up to the states? Would Virginia have repealed their miscegenation laws without the ruling from the Supreme Court in 1967? Would women have the right to vote had it been left up to the states like it was in 1920 before the passage of the 19th amendment?
The response of a lot of people is that the voters should have the final say, and if they pass a referendum, that's it. That is a noble sentiment, but that's not the system we have. We have a representative democracy; we elect people to go to the city council, the county commission, the state house, and the United States Congress to do our business for us and to do more than just be a rubber stamp. And we have an equal part of our government in the judiciary that oversees whether or not the laws that are passed by the people or the legislature are fair or are equally applied. Just because a majority of voters cast a vote for an issue doesn't make it right; our history is replete with unjust laws that have been voted through. Case in point, Colorado's odious Amendment 2 that "would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action from recognizing gay citizens as a Protected class." It took a Supreme Court ruling in 1996 to say yes, indeed, in some cases, gay citizens have the same rights as everyone else and can sue for discrimination. In short, the voters can -- and have -- made mistakes. They can be swayed by emotional arguments that have no bearing on the law, and as is the case of marriage equality, fear and loathing of Teh Gay isn't far beneath the surface.
The opponents trot out the old canards such as the "slippery slope" that same-sex marriage leads to all sorts of iterations of marriage, including polygamy; except that even someone whose only legal education is watching re-runs of Law & Order knows that a contract can be legally limited to the number of people in the contract. If the state wants to say only two people can be married to each other at one time or set an age limit to the parties involved, that's legal. What should not be legal is limiting the parties based on something that is innate such as gender identification or race.
They claim that people will be able to marry their dog. However, in order to have a valid contract, both parties have to be able to understand the terms of the contract and sign it. If you can find a dog that does understand the terms of the contract and can write his or her name, then getting married would probably not be a priority; you'd have a talking dog with opposable thumbs, and your next stop would be David Letterman.
They say that allowing same-sex marriage would require that schools teach about all the aspects of said marriage, complete with descriptions of intimate behavior. But since the contents of the public school curricula are left up to the state and local school boards and there are likely very few of them that already teach the granular aspects of heterosexual marriage to elementary school children, the chances are remote that the passage of marriage equality would require the overhauling of school curricula.
They claim that marriage equality would force churches that are doctrinally opposed to such unions to perform them or face legal action. But since churches are already free to not perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples that are not part of their congregation -- for example, the Roman Catholic church can refuse to marry a man and a woman if either one of them is not Catholic -- then they are perfectly within their rights to do the same for a same-sex couple. Besides, having the blessing of a religious ritual is not a prerequisite for a valid marriage. All you need is a license and witnesses. The rest is, so to speak, icing on the cake.
The most insidious argument is that somehow same-sex marriage is a perversion of "traditional marriage." Yet they never tell you what tradition they are talking about. Marriage throughout the ages has been more of a business deal, and to read about it in the Old Testament, it was between a man and as many wives has he could afford to accumulate. In the biblical tradition, fathers sold their daughters off to their friends as a trade-off for real estate (which led to the old Henny Youngman one-liner, "I got a dog for my wife. Best trade I ever made"). Arranged marriages were the norm for all classes of people -- where do you think King Henry VIII got his first wife? -- and in some cultures, they still are. The idea of a marriage based on love alone is both a modern and Western invention that is out of step with history and tradition; it's only Christian chauvinism and capitalism that makes it an inviolable tradition.
As for same-sex marriage being a "perversion," that's based on the theory that being gay or lesbian itself is a perversion, and that, above all, is the unspoken truth of the matter. All of the previous arguments are just excuses; a lot of people still have to overcome their own ignorance and homophobia before they can objectively look at the idea of applying all of the laws, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship including marriage to all citizens. When it comes right down to it, no one has yet put forth a valid reason for denying marriage equality -- or all of the other rights that are by law denied to gays and lesbians, such as child adoption in Florida -- to the LGBT community other than the arbitrary canards listed above. Not one. And yet they are able, by lung power and fear-mongering, to get voters to pass laws that do exactly that.
What the election in Maine proved is that even in a state that is known for its practicality and common sense, people can be swayed by lies, misinformation, and religious dogma. It should be obvious that the next recourse has to be through the courts and a chance to make the case for marriage equality based on the facts, not on the emotions. While same-sex marriage has an 0-31 record at the hands of the voters, it has prevailed in the courts in Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Iowa and made into law. The opponents claim that "activist judges" are making up the law and imposing their will on the people; they should only interpret the law as it is written. Well, here is how the law is written:
Fetch more...
Beyond the analysis of who voted for or against the measure and what part of the state they lived in, one of the questions that arises is whether or not such a question should even be put to a popular vote. Are there some rights that are so fundamental that leaving them up to the whims and the machinations of the campaign trail puts them in danger? Do you really think that the people of Kansas would have repealed state laws that allowed school segregation in 1954? What would the state of civil rights be if, in 1964 and 1965, Congress had not passed federal legislation that established fair housing and voting rights and had instead left them up to the states? Would Virginia have repealed their miscegenation laws without the ruling from the Supreme Court in 1967? Would women have the right to vote had it been left up to the states like it was in 1920 before the passage of the 19th amendment?
The response of a lot of people is that the voters should have the final say, and if they pass a referendum, that's it. That is a noble sentiment, but that's not the system we have. We have a representative democracy; we elect people to go to the city council, the county commission, the state house, and the United States Congress to do our business for us and to do more than just be a rubber stamp. And we have an equal part of our government in the judiciary that oversees whether or not the laws that are passed by the people or the legislature are fair or are equally applied. Just because a majority of voters cast a vote for an issue doesn't make it right; our history is replete with unjust laws that have been voted through. Case in point, Colorado's odious Amendment 2 that "would have prevented any city, town or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action from recognizing gay citizens as a Protected class." It took a Supreme Court ruling in 1996 to say yes, indeed, in some cases, gay citizens have the same rights as everyone else and can sue for discrimination. In short, the voters can -- and have -- made mistakes. They can be swayed by emotional arguments that have no bearing on the law, and as is the case of marriage equality, fear and loathing of Teh Gay isn't far beneath the surface.
The opponents trot out the old canards such as the "slippery slope" that same-sex marriage leads to all sorts of iterations of marriage, including polygamy; except that even someone whose only legal education is watching re-runs of Law & Order knows that a contract can be legally limited to the number of people in the contract. If the state wants to say only two people can be married to each other at one time or set an age limit to the parties involved, that's legal. What should not be legal is limiting the parties based on something that is innate such as gender identification or race.
They claim that people will be able to marry their dog. However, in order to have a valid contract, both parties have to be able to understand the terms of the contract and sign it. If you can find a dog that does understand the terms of the contract and can write his or her name, then getting married would probably not be a priority; you'd have a talking dog with opposable thumbs, and your next stop would be David Letterman.
They say that allowing same-sex marriage would require that schools teach about all the aspects of said marriage, complete with descriptions of intimate behavior. But since the contents of the public school curricula are left up to the state and local school boards and there are likely very few of them that already teach the granular aspects of heterosexual marriage to elementary school children, the chances are remote that the passage of marriage equality would require the overhauling of school curricula.
They claim that marriage equality would force churches that are doctrinally opposed to such unions to perform them or face legal action. But since churches are already free to not perform marriage ceremonies for straight couples that are not part of their congregation -- for example, the Roman Catholic church can refuse to marry a man and a woman if either one of them is not Catholic -- then they are perfectly within their rights to do the same for a same-sex couple. Besides, having the blessing of a religious ritual is not a prerequisite for a valid marriage. All you need is a license and witnesses. The rest is, so to speak, icing on the cake.
The most insidious argument is that somehow same-sex marriage is a perversion of "traditional marriage." Yet they never tell you what tradition they are talking about. Marriage throughout the ages has been more of a business deal, and to read about it in the Old Testament, it was between a man and as many wives has he could afford to accumulate. In the biblical tradition, fathers sold their daughters off to their friends as a trade-off for real estate (which led to the old Henny Youngman one-liner, "I got a dog for my wife. Best trade I ever made"). Arranged marriages were the norm for all classes of people -- where do you think King Henry VIII got his first wife? -- and in some cultures, they still are. The idea of a marriage based on love alone is both a modern and Western invention that is out of step with history and tradition; it's only Christian chauvinism and capitalism that makes it an inviolable tradition.
As for same-sex marriage being a "perversion," that's based on the theory that being gay or lesbian itself is a perversion, and that, above all, is the unspoken truth of the matter. All of the previous arguments are just excuses; a lot of people still have to overcome their own ignorance and homophobia before they can objectively look at the idea of applying all of the laws, rights, and responsibilities of citizenship including marriage to all citizens. When it comes right down to it, no one has yet put forth a valid reason for denying marriage equality -- or all of the other rights that are by law denied to gays and lesbians, such as child adoption in Florida -- to the LGBT community other than the arbitrary canards listed above. Not one. And yet they are able, by lung power and fear-mongering, to get voters to pass laws that do exactly that.
What the election in Maine proved is that even in a state that is known for its practicality and common sense, people can be swayed by lies, misinformation, and religious dogma. It should be obvious that the next recourse has to be through the courts and a chance to make the case for marriage equality based on the facts, not on the emotions. While same-sex marriage has an 0-31 record at the hands of the voters, it has prevailed in the courts in Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Iowa and made into law. The opponents claim that "activist judges" are making up the law and imposing their will on the people; they should only interpret the law as it is written. Well, here is how the law is written:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.If it is activism to live up to the simple precepts of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, then let us make the most of it.
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Next Stop, Florida
The teabaggers have set their sights on Florida.
On top of the expected influx of craziness, Gov. Charlie Crist has troubles of his own thanks to some of his friends who have been involved in some questionable financial dealings. Justin Elliott of TPM reports:
Then, of course, there will be The Question about Gov. Crist; the one that dare not speak its name. I've already gotten some blind e-mails about his private life, and I'm sure there's plenty of opposition research going on about Marco Rubio, so you can expect to see some stories about him and his foibles popping up between now and the primary.
For the moment, the Democrats are stocking up on popcorn.
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The state's GOP primary for U.S. Senate has all the ingredients for an ideological powder keg. It pits the sitting governor, Charlie Crist, who embraced President Barack Obama's spending plan, against a scrappy former state lawmaker, Marco Rubio, who's become a darling of the conservative movement.Seeing as how well that went for their candidate in upstate New York -- Bill Owens, the Democrat, won the seat from the Republicans for the first time since 1872 -- it will be interesting to see how they avoid the inevitable inter-party fighting and the resentment of outside interference that could play right into the hands of the Florida Democratic Party.
And it's all happening in the nation's biggest swing state, which typically leans Republican but fell for Obama in the 2008 election and has five statewide seats that will be up for grabs in 2010.
Some conservative groups active in a New York congressional race that forced out a moderate Republican say Florida is next on their agenda.
''There's no question that the Florida race is going to be a focal point of the 2010 election cycle, with its classic David-and-Goliath matchup,'' said Mike Connolly, a spokesman for the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that spent $1 million in the last month in New York. ''There's no question that Florida is going to attract and energize conservatives.''
The group is expected to endorse Rubio in the coming weeks, raising the prospect of an anti-Crist media blitz that could cut into the governor's fivefold fundraising advantage. FreedomWorks, a group that led many of the anti-Obama ''tea party'' rallies nationwide, is also setting its sights on Florida.
''The small government activists and the tea party movement is drawn to Rubio with great enthusiasm, and they're going to assert themselves,'' said FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey, a former Republican leader in the House of Representatives.
On top of the expected influx of craziness, Gov. Charlie Crist has troubles of his own thanks to some of his friends who have been involved in some questionable financial dealings. Justin Elliott of TPM reports:
With the accusations this week that Scott Rothstein, fast-living Fort Lauderdale attorney and friend and donor to Gov. Charlie Crist, orchestrated a massive fraud out of his law firm, there are now three Crist moneymen caught up in alleged criminal or extremely shady activity.Besides Mr. Rothstein, two more of Mr. Crist's allies have problems; Alan Mendelsohn, who was indicted in September for fraudulent fund raising, and Harry Sargent, who garnered some attention in the 2008 election with his contracting overcharges on fuel delivery to the US military in Iraq to the point that the McCain campaign had to return his donations. He's also a close friend of Gov. Crist and was the state GOP finance chair until he was forced out earlier this year.
Crist, whose career has been fueled by his skill as a fundraiser, finds himself entangled with the trio of scandals just as his U.S. Senate primary campaign against conservative Marco Rubio is attracting national attention. And there's already talk down in Florida that the Crist-linked scandals may become a factor in the primary contest.
Then, of course, there will be The Question about Gov. Crist; the one that dare not speak its name. I've already gotten some blind e-mails about his private life, and I'm sure there's plenty of opposition research going on about Marco Rubio, so you can expect to see some stories about him and his foibles popping up between now and the primary.
For the moment, the Democrats are stocking up on popcorn.
Fetch more...
Short Takes
The Yankees won the World Series. Again.
Dissidents rally in Tehran on the 30th anniversary of the US embassy takeover.
Dissent in Afghanistan.
The House could vote on their healthcare bill by Saturday.
The Senate has renewed the first-time home buyer credit.
Flu shots -- Everybody wants one, which explains the shortage of vaccine.
The Feds raided the Fort Lauderdale office of attorney Scott Rothstein looking for evidence in their case against him for investment fraud.
Tropical Update: Tropical Depression Eleven is now Tropical Storm Ida and heading for Nicaragua.
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Dissidents rally in Tehran on the 30th anniversary of the US embassy takeover.
Dissent in Afghanistan.
The House could vote on their healthcare bill by Saturday.
The Senate has renewed the first-time home buyer credit.
Flu shots -- Everybody wants one, which explains the shortage of vaccine.
The Feds raided the Fort Lauderdale office of attorney Scott Rothstein looking for evidence in their case against him for investment fraud.
Tropical Update: Tropical Depression Eleven is now Tropical Storm Ida and heading for Nicaragua.
Fetch more...
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Tropical Update
With 26 days to go in the official hurricane season and so far pretty much bupkus for the Caribbean, wouldn't you know that something would start to kick up. Better never than late.
Right now it's Tropical Depression Eleven and gearing up to hit Nicaragua and Honduras with damaging rain later this week, but it might come out into the Caribbean and head east.
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Right now it's Tropical Depression Eleven and gearing up to hit Nicaragua and Honduras with damaging rain later this week, but it might come out into the Caribbean and head east.
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Mr. Smith Goes to Asheville
Congratulations to the Liberal Coalition's own Gordon Smith, aka Scrutiny Hooligans, who won his election for city councilman of Asheville, North Carolina, yesterday.
If you've been following Gordon's excellent adventure through the Friday Blogarounds, you know it's been a pretty wild ride for him, and I wish him all the best for him and his constituents.
By the way, taking a note from the movies, starting out as a city councilman was how Vice President Nance (Ben Kingsley) in Dave got his start. Who knows...?
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If you've been following Gordon's excellent adventure through the Friday Blogarounds, you know it's been a pretty wild ride for him, and I wish him all the best for him and his constituents.
By the way, taking a note from the movies, starting out as a city councilman was how Vice President Nance (Ben Kingsley) in Dave got his start. Who knows...?
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Paging General Custer
Here's the actual headline from the conservative blogger Erick Erickson:
I guess you find solace where you can, even if it's by having your hand-picked candidate beaten by a Democrat in a district that hasn't elected one since Ulysses S. Grant was around. Therefore you have to have the resilience of another Civil War hero, Gen. George Armstrong Custer, who on June 25, 1876, told his troops at the Little Bighorn that we've got the Indians right where we want them.
The teabaggers have now set their sights on Florida and will work to defeat Charlie Crist so that a real Republican -- Marco Rubio -- can run for the Senate. I'm sure that the Democrats are shaking in their boots.
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In NY-23, Conservatives WinIn the real world, Democrat Bill Owens won, beating the carpetbagged and wingnut-approved Doug Hoffman. Mr. Erickson's logic is that the goal all along was to beat the GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava since she wasn't right-wing enough, and they did that; she dropped out last Saturday, backed Owens, and came in third.
I guess you find solace where you can, even if it's by having your hand-picked candidate beaten by a Democrat in a district that hasn't elected one since Ulysses S. Grant was around. Therefore you have to have the resilience of another Civil War hero, Gen. George Armstrong Custer, who on June 25, 1876, told his troops at the Little Bighorn that we've got the Indians right where we want them.
The teabaggers have now set their sights on Florida and will work to defeat Charlie Crist so that a real Republican -- Marco Rubio -- can run for the Senate. I'm sure that the Democrats are shaking in their boots.
Fetch more...
MoDo Snarks Rushbo
Maureen Dowd rips Rush Limbaugh a new one for calling President Obama a narcissist.
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[Years ago] Limbaugh credited his success with being “one-dimensional.” “I’m totally concerned with me,” he said. And that was way before he got a contract for $400 million, so we can only imagine how one-dimensional he is now.Every now and then Ms. Dowd gets off a good one. This is one.
But on Sunday, he ripped the president for having “an out-of-this-world ego,” for being “very narcissistic,” “immature, inexperienced, in over his head.” (Isn’t immaturity scoring OxyContin from your maid?)
It gives new meaning to pot, kettle and black.
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You Call That "Healthcare"?
After more than six months of promising a healthcare reform bill "any day now," House Minority Leader John Boehner trotted out the Republican version. Matthew Yglesias sums it up:
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If you’re uninsured, this won’t help you.Aside from the fact that this bill sounds like it was written by Aetna and UHC, after all the weeping and carrying on about bipartisanship, there's nothing in this proposal that has any of the basic ideas that are in the Democratic bills in either the House or the Senate. Oh, wait... the Republican bill does have the word "insurance" in it. But as Steve Benen points out,
If you’re insured, but you worry that circumstances beyond your control—a global financial meltdown leading to layoffs at your company, say—this won’t help you.
If you’re insured, but you worry that if you get sick your insurer will gin up some pretext to drop your coverage, this won’t help you.
If you’re insured but your premiums are escalating so fast you worry that you won’t be able to afford to keep paying them, this won’t help you.
Instead, Boehner is proposing the de facto total deregulation of the health insurance industry. Starting with the accurate observation that it’s odd to have insurance regulated fifty different ways in fifty states, the GOP decided not to do the sensible thing and create uniform federal regulation, but instead to let insurers sell plans across state lines. In other words, there’ll be a race to the bottom and all insurance will soon be offered under the rules of whichever state is laxest in its rules—goodbye consumer protections!
The result of all this will be a situation in which the health insurance systems works better for people who don’t need health care services, and much worse for people who actually are sick or who become sick in the future. It’s basically a health un-insurance policy.
Several GOP leaders have said they agree with "80 percent" of what Democrats have put together, so the smart course, they said, would be start over and build on those areas of agreement. More recently, Republicans have complained that Democrats haven't sought GOP input, and have instead been legislating "behind closed doors."If you had any doubts as to whether or not the Republicans were serious about anything to do with healthcare reform other than to get on TV, say "No" a lot, and rattle their teabags, this should pretty much put an end to that.
And now what do we see, aside from a truly ridiculous reform GOP plan? A proposal that was written in secret, behind closed doors, without input from Democrats. The "80 percent" of the reform policy that Republicans said they liked? It's gone. Areas on which Democrats have been willing to make concessions? They're gone, too. The GOP desire to advance a "bipartisan" plan? Like sand through an hourglass.
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Make Of It What You Will
Yesterday's election results brought good news and bad news for Democrats and Republicans, LGBT's and their opponents, and the winners will try to make as much of their wins while the losers will try to shrug them off.
The wins by the Republicans in the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey were not unexpected; Virginia switches back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans without regard to national trends or pundit pronouncement; this is the state that gave us Douglas Wilder, the first elected black governor, and it also gave us George "Macaca" Allen. Jon Corzine was behind in New Jersey almost from the moment he announced for re-election, and his campaign ads against Chris Christie, making fun of his weight, didn't do anything to help. And the closely-watched election to fill the vacant House seat in New York ended up handing the seat to Democrat Bill Owens after the Republicans and the Conservatives beat each other up. I would be lying if I didn't admit to being very disappointed with the outcome of the same-sex marriage bill in Maine, but that's counterbalanced with the result in Washington state where the civil unions bill survived.
The news analysts are all saying that this election was a warning to the Democrats: it's not 2008 any more. No kidding; I don't really think anyone in either party ever thought it really still was 2008. Off-year elections are lousy predictors, and I remember a lot of people on the left trying to make what they could out of similar elections after they got their asses handed to them in 1972 and 1980. I don't think it's going to mean a whole lot to the 2010 election where all of the House and one-third of the Senate will be up for election, but that won't stop the wise, the sage, and the Villagers inside the Beltway from picking up that meme and going to lunch on it for the next year.
If there is a message for anyone, it's that the people, regardless of their party, are expecting results, not stump speeches, so now that you've had your fun, get back to work.
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The wins by the Republicans in the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey were not unexpected; Virginia switches back and forth between the Democrats and Republicans without regard to national trends or pundit pronouncement; this is the state that gave us Douglas Wilder, the first elected black governor, and it also gave us George "Macaca" Allen. Jon Corzine was behind in New Jersey almost from the moment he announced for re-election, and his campaign ads against Chris Christie, making fun of his weight, didn't do anything to help. And the closely-watched election to fill the vacant House seat in New York ended up handing the seat to Democrat Bill Owens after the Republicans and the Conservatives beat each other up. I would be lying if I didn't admit to being very disappointed with the outcome of the same-sex marriage bill in Maine, but that's counterbalanced with the result in Washington state where the civil unions bill survived.
The news analysts are all saying that this election was a warning to the Democrats: it's not 2008 any more. No kidding; I don't really think anyone in either party ever thought it really still was 2008. Off-year elections are lousy predictors, and I remember a lot of people on the left trying to make what they could out of similar elections after they got their asses handed to them in 1972 and 1980. I don't think it's going to mean a whole lot to the 2010 election where all of the House and one-third of the Senate will be up for election, but that won't stop the wise, the sage, and the Villagers inside the Beltway from picking up that meme and going to lunch on it for the next year.
If there is a message for anyone, it's that the people, regardless of their party, are expecting results, not stump speeches, so now that you've had your fun, get back to work.
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Short Takes
Election Results: Bob McDonnell (R) wins Virginia; Chris Christie (R) wins in New Jersey; Bill Owens (D) wins in NY 23, and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi (D) wins in another special election to fill another House vacancy in California; Equality loses in Maine, but wins in the state of Washington, and Kalamazoo, Michigan passes a gay-rights law. Michael Bloomberg gets his third term in New York City; Thomas Menino gets his fifth in Boston, and Tomas Regalado wins in Miami.
In other news: More violence in Afghanistan.
Iran's supreme leader rejects talks with U.S.
Retail sales were up in October.
Healthcare reform may not happen this year.
Climate change legislation might happen this year.
Don't plan on taking public transportation in Philadelphia.
This attorney in Fort Lauderdale is going to need a lawyer.
China gets a Disney World.
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In other news: More violence in Afghanistan.
Iran's supreme leader rejects talks with U.S.
Retail sales were up in October.
Healthcare reform may not happen this year.
Climate change legislation might happen this year.
Don't plan on taking public transportation in Philadelphia.
This attorney in Fort Lauderdale is going to need a lawyer.
China gets a Disney World.
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Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Election Night 2009
Results are trickling in, but so far it looks like Virginia has elected Bob McDonnell (R) as the next governor, and New Jersey's race between incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine (D) and Chris Christie (R) is too close to call. The race in NY 23rd has between Doug Hoffman (C) and Bill Owens (D) had some moments of craziness today.
At this writing (9:21 pm ET), the polls have closed in Maine but it's too soon to know if Question 1 -- the vote on rejecting marriage equality -- will be defeated.
As Steve Benen reminded me, there are more elections going on around the country, including mayoral elections in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Toledo, and here in Miami (I didn't vote because I don't live in the city of Miami). And there are five other ballot measures on gay rights in the country outside of Maine.
It looks like it will be a long night, and while I generally don't do open threads like other blogs, if you, dear reader, have news on local elections to report, feel free to share that in the comments.
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At this writing (9:21 pm ET), the polls have closed in Maine but it's too soon to know if Question 1 -- the vote on rejecting marriage equality -- will be defeated.
As Steve Benen reminded me, there are more elections going on around the country, including mayoral elections in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Toledo, and here in Miami (I didn't vote because I don't live in the city of Miami). And there are five other ballot measures on gay rights in the country outside of Maine.
It looks like it will be a long night, and while I generally don't do open threads like other blogs, if you, dear reader, have news on local elections to report, feel free to share that in the comments.
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Sweetness and Light from NPR
National Public Radio did a profile last night on Marco Rubio that portrayed him as this young, vibrant, new face on the Florida scene, and puffed up his conservative credentials.
The report itself was sugary-sweet to the point of insulin shock, and they followed Mr. Rubio as he toured The Villages, a retirement community in central Florida that is wall-to-wall golf courses and creakingly conservative. Mr. Rubio was greeted by the residence like he was the next Pat Boone. It mentioned that Mr. Rubio fit right in with the very conservative crowd; he's opposed to anything the Obama administration -- and Charlie Crist -- is in favor of, and failed to mention that he's also sucked up to the Lower Alabama crowd by not ruling out the possibility that President Obama is an alien.
I realize that NPR is trying to be balanced, but in doing so, they could have mentioned that in his campaign to limit government, Mr. Rubio isn't in favor of limiting the government from taking control of a woman's uterus or stepping in to prevent the horror of marriage equality. Saying he's "very conservative" doesn't give you the whole picture: so is Michele Bachmann.
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If you choose to have a society where government provides you with more, then you must have more government. And you must have more government involvement in your economy. And the more that government is involved in your economy, the less economy there is left over for the rest of us.I'm not sure what he means by "the rest of us." It's as if "We the people" was some alien concept and that government, be it local, state, or federal, was something imposed on us by an outside entity. But that's the paradox of being a Republican: we're outsiders, we hate Washington, so send us there so we can install a permanent Republican majority.
The report itself was sugary-sweet to the point of insulin shock, and they followed Mr. Rubio as he toured The Villages, a retirement community in central Florida that is wall-to-wall golf courses and creakingly conservative. Mr. Rubio was greeted by the residence like he was the next Pat Boone. It mentioned that Mr. Rubio fit right in with the very conservative crowd; he's opposed to anything the Obama administration -- and Charlie Crist -- is in favor of, and failed to mention that he's also sucked up to the Lower Alabama crowd by not ruling out the possibility that President Obama is an alien.
I realize that NPR is trying to be balanced, but in doing so, they could have mentioned that in his campaign to limit government, Mr. Rubio isn't in favor of limiting the government from taking control of a woman's uterus or stepping in to prevent the horror of marriage equality. Saying he's "very conservative" doesn't give you the whole picture: so is Michele Bachmann.
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As Maine Goes...
Most of the attention in today's elections has been on the governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey and the GOP purification rite in the NY 23rd. But there's also a referendum in Maine that could decide the fate of the same-sex marriage law that was passed by the legislature earlier this year. It's on the ballot because the same anti-marriage equality gang that overturned Prop 8 in California last year decided to bring their carpetbags to Maine. It will be interesting to see if Mainers, who are known for their independence and shunning of outside interference, will go along with the idea of taking away a right that was granted by their elected representatives.
The ballot question -- Question 1 -- is a bit confusing: "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?" Therefore, a "Yes" means No to marriage equality, and a "No" means Yes. If the referendum loses, Maine will become the first state in the union to allow same-sex marriage by popular vote; all of the other states have instituted it through legislation or court ruling.
Nate Silver, who has become the guru of American polling, predicted yesterday at his blog FiveThirtyEight that Yes is a 5-2 underdog, meaning that it will lose and marriage equality will stand in Maine. Given Mr. Silver's track record -- he nailed last year's elections within a hair -- there is reason to hope that Yes on 1 will go down in flames. Unlike California, this time supporters were not caught unprepared for the onslaught of fear-mongering and distortions about the horrors of allowing two people to commit their lives and property to each other regardless of their gender, and the proponents of overturning the law basically recycled the same crap-filled ads they'd run a year ago; it was almost as if they didn't really notice where they were. Mainers don't cotton to out-of-staters coming in and telling them what to do and how to think; in fact, most people really don't like that, regardless of the issue.
This is the one election outcome I will be watching.
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The ballot question -- Question 1 -- is a bit confusing: "Do you want to reject the new law that lets same-sex couples marry and allows individuals and religious groups to refuse to perform these marriages?" Therefore, a "Yes" means No to marriage equality, and a "No" means Yes. If the referendum loses, Maine will become the first state in the union to allow same-sex marriage by popular vote; all of the other states have instituted it through legislation or court ruling.
Nate Silver, who has become the guru of American polling, predicted yesterday at his blog FiveThirtyEight that Yes is a 5-2 underdog, meaning that it will lose and marriage equality will stand in Maine. Given Mr. Silver's track record -- he nailed last year's elections within a hair -- there is reason to hope that Yes on 1 will go down in flames. Unlike California, this time supporters were not caught unprepared for the onslaught of fear-mongering and distortions about the horrors of allowing two people to commit their lives and property to each other regardless of their gender, and the proponents of overturning the law basically recycled the same crap-filled ads they'd run a year ago; it was almost as if they didn't really notice where they were. Mainers don't cotton to out-of-staters coming in and telling them what to do and how to think; in fact, most people really don't like that, regardless of the issue.
This is the one election outcome I will be watching.
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Orrin Hatch Is Onto Them
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) is on to them. He's figured out that healthcare reform will actually work and that Americans will like it and they will repay the Democrats by keeping them in office.
So the idea of giving the people what they want and making their lives better is a bad thing? It's a threat to democracy if the government actually works? Right.
Not to long ago, of course, we had a president and his political adviser whose stated goal was to provide us with a "permanent Republican majority." He would do it by making sure that the American people were constantly reminded that government was bad and we must always be fighting against its nefarious attempts to do things for us, like protect us against unscrupulous bankers or keep our air and water clean or provide for good schools and civil rights and all those things that Democrats want us to have, because if we had them, we'd all be happy and keep on voting for the nice people who got them for us. That's not America, though; America is always fighting against things like that because it makes us soft, and we're not soft; we're a nation of go-getters...especially if you've already got it.
Mr. Hatch isn't the first one to discover the real danger for Republicans in actually letting the people have what they want. Back in 1993 when President Clinton was trying to pass healthcare reform, William Kristol said it would be a disaster for the GOP for basically the same reason: it would be wildly popular and America would thank the Democrats by electing them again. That was it; no other real reason was necessary. What that means is that for Mr. Hatch, the worst thing in the world would be for Americans to be happy and healthy.
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And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, “All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.”And they must be stopped!
So the idea of giving the people what they want and making their lives better is a bad thing? It's a threat to democracy if the government actually works? Right.
Not to long ago, of course, we had a president and his political adviser whose stated goal was to provide us with a "permanent Republican majority." He would do it by making sure that the American people were constantly reminded that government was bad and we must always be fighting against its nefarious attempts to do things for us, like protect us against unscrupulous bankers or keep our air and water clean or provide for good schools and civil rights and all those things that Democrats want us to have, because if we had them, we'd all be happy and keep on voting for the nice people who got them for us. That's not America, though; America is always fighting against things like that because it makes us soft, and we're not soft; we're a nation of go-getters...especially if you've already got it.
Mr. Hatch isn't the first one to discover the real danger for Republicans in actually letting the people have what they want. Back in 1993 when President Clinton was trying to pass healthcare reform, William Kristol said it would be a disaster for the GOP for basically the same reason: it would be wildly popular and America would thank the Democrats by electing them again. That was it; no other real reason was necessary. What that means is that for Mr. Hatch, the worst thing in the world would be for Americans to be happy and healthy.
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Truly Desperate
It seems like a day can't go by without someone proving that insanity is just an everyday occurrence. For example, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told fellow members of the House that healthcare reform will be worse than the attacks on September 11, 2001.
We've all gotten used to the extremists using Nazi, Stalin, and Holocaust comparisons to the point that they have become trivial, but it's interesting that some Republicans are now trivializing terrorism, especially since they made such a huge deal over it back when the Bush administration was in office. Everything we did, from fill up our gas tank to buying the right side dish with our cheeseburger, had to be seen in the light of what it did to fight terrorism, making the catch-phrase "...or the terrorists will win" the mantra of the Truly Patriotic. I guess when you're truly desperate, you'll try anything.
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Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened .... I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room — this very room — and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.As has been noted in the past, she's a full-tilt lunatic; among her other charms, including being a deather and a tenther, she also claimed that Matthew Shepard's murder was a "hoax." I know what that says about Ms. Foxx; she's a loathsome and vicious excuse for a sentient being, but what does it also tell you about the people who voted for her?
We've all gotten used to the extremists using Nazi, Stalin, and Holocaust comparisons to the point that they have become trivial, but it's interesting that some Republicans are now trivializing terrorism, especially since they made such a huge deal over it back when the Bush administration was in office. Everything we did, from fill up our gas tank to buying the right side dish with our cheeseburger, had to be seen in the light of what it did to fight terrorism, making the catch-phrase "...or the terrorists will win" the mantra of the Truly Patriotic. I guess when you're truly desperate, you'll try anything.
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Short Takes
It's Election Day -- They're voting in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Maine, Washington state, Ohio, and Miami, and probably a lot of other places, too.
Obama warns Karzai to not be so corrupt.
"Talk to ME" -- North Korea wants direct talks with the U.S.
Ford surprises Wall Street with a profitable 3rd quarter.
Manufacturing was up in October in the US, which is a good thing for the economy.
Bill Clinton is golden in Kosovo.
What do you do with an old jetport site?
Money Back -- FPL is ordered to speed up refunds.
The Series: Phillies stay alive to beat the Yankees 8-6.
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Obama warns Karzai to not be so corrupt.
"Talk to ME" -- North Korea wants direct talks with the U.S.
Ford surprises Wall Street with a profitable 3rd quarter.
Manufacturing was up in October in the US, which is a good thing for the economy.
Bill Clinton is golden in Kosovo.
What do you do with an old jetport site?
Money Back -- FPL is ordered to speed up refunds.
The Series: Phillies stay alive to beat the Yankees 8-6.
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Monday, November 02, 2009
Shorter William Kristol
Just as the sinking of the Titanic was great for the wireless telegraph and lifeboat business, the split between the right and the far right in the GOP is great news.
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That Giant Sucking Sound
Republican Marco Rubio is doing his bit to play to the right wing in Florida by hitting all the right notes in the panhandle, by far the most conservative part of the state.
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''Listening to you makes me feel like there's hope,'' said retired teacher Anne McLemore after hearing Rubio at a Republican women's club in Miramar Beach. She added later, ''He was saying all the things I need to hear.''That would include feeding the birthers.
The former leader of the Florida House [...] declines to venture an opinion on President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship. ''I don't know the answer to that,'' Rubio equivocated when asked at the GOP women's club whether the president's birth certificate is valid.There's something ironic in hearing the son of Cuban refugees question someone else's citizenship, but hey, when you're trying to dance to the tune of the nutsery, you do what you gotta do.
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Random Observation
What better way to prove that Fox News isn't just a shill for the Republican Party than for Chris Wallace to devote thirty minutes fawning over their de facto leader.
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Be Careful What You Wish For
The off-year elections tomorrow have sailed beyond mildly interesting into the the land of quantum politics where the rules of conventional-wisdom tea-leaf (and tea-bagger) reading don't apply and where every little move of the polls becomes a statement of national import for the mid-term elections next year and somehow a reflection on the presidency of Barack Obama. Is the fall TV season really that bad that people have to find something else to entertain them?
The weirdest case is the Congressional race in upstate New York's 23rd district where what should have been a footnote has become a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party both in New York and across the country. You probably already know all the details about who's running -- Bill Owens is trying to become the first Democrat to win the seat since before the Civil War and Doug Hoffman is the Conservative Party candidate who doesn't even live in the district and doesn't really know squat about what's going on in Watertown. Dede Scozzafava was the GOP candidate, chosen by the local Republicans to win the safe seat until Mr. Hoffman started attracting the far right noisemakers in the GOP. It became a pissing contest between the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, and a whole host of other ideologues (people who had one thing in common; they were all losers) who were dragging the party to the right and accusing Ms. Scozzafava of being the most liberal of the three candidates on the ballot.
Ms. Scozzafava suspended her campaign on Saturday and endorsed the Democrat. The right-wing blogosphere went nuts -- not really a news flash there -- and now the polls indicate -- for what it's worth -- that Mr. Hoffman has the lead in the race. Meanwhile, the pundits are all trying desperately to glean what a Hoffman win will mean for the future of the GOP and take on some collateral damage in the bargain; Frank Rich came in for some nasty snipes from the right because of his "hissy fit" over the election and his prediction of doom for a party that is intent on turning even further to the right. (You can pretty much tell that you're getting into silliness when pundits start picking on each other.) Meanwhile, Ross Douthat tries to be the sage in the room when he looks at the larger picture of what third-party candidates can bring to a race and how they add "substance." If by "substance" he means they provide a thorn in the side to the other parties, then he's probably right... until they damage the chances of the candidate he's pulling for. Then it becomes a "stunt." (I wonder if he thought Ross Perot brought substance to the 1992 presidential election.)
The NY 23rd is overshadowing a bunch of other off-year elections, including the governor's race in New Jersey where the polls are close for the race between incumbent Jon Corzine (D) and Chris Christie (R) and the governor's race in Virginia where it looks like Bob McDonnell (R) will beat Creigh Deeds (D). The interesting thing is that in the Virginia race, Mr. McDonnell, a product of the Pat Robertson alternate universe, is campaigning as a moderate and has not attracted the passion of the far-right. But there are also several other elections that could be of interest beyond the bells and whistles in New York, including the mayoral race in New York City and the fate of gay rights in Washington state, Maine, and Kalamazoo, Michigan.
And overshadowing all of these elections is, of course, Barack Obama. The president has had a hand in all three of the elections getting the headlines: he's been campaigning for Gov. Corzine in New Jersey, his political advisers have distanced themselves from the faltering Mr. Deeds in Virginia, and of course there wouldn't have to be a special election in New York if the president hadn't appointed Rep. John McHugh (R) to be his Secretary of the Army in the first place. So whatever happens tomorrow, the results will be the most important election ever for the president; if Doug Hoffman wins, the legacy of Barack Obama's presidency will be consigned to the ash-heap of history. Or something.
The safest prediction is that after all of Wolf Blitzer's breathless coverage tomorrow night (and the special music written just for the occasion), the results will be microanalyzed to the point of disorienting obsessiveness and whoever wins will have their day in the glare; Mr. Owens or Mr. Hoffman will then become the most junior member of the United States House of Representatives and promptly vanish like a puff of smoke. A month from now neither of them will be able to get a pundit to pay attention to them unless they streak the House floor, and all of the considered opinions and tweets will be forgotten.
Well, since everybody else is going to do the pundit bit, I'll give it a shot. If Mr. Hoffman wins, the onus will then be on the Republicans to prove that what they did to both him and Ms. Scozzafava is not an outlier. One election -- local or national -- doesn't make a movement. If the far right and the tea-baggers want to really prove that they have taken over the GOP, they're going to have to do what they did in NY 23 again and again in districts that are far more diverse and larger, and they're going to have to appeal to more than just cranky white guys who think Sarah Palin is hot and Glenn Beck is the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson. But as a lot of people have learned, politics is a lot like show business: the hardest thing to do isn't getting to Broadway; it's getting back there again and again, and most important, be better than you were the first time. (Just ask Neil Simon.) The toughest thing for the insurgent right may be for them to win NY 23rd so they can therefore prove that they're more than just the outsiders clamoring at the gates. Once they get in, they're going to actually have to do something more than just win an election. That's not a lesson entirely lost on President Obama, either.
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The weirdest case is the Congressional race in upstate New York's 23rd district where what should have been a footnote has become a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party both in New York and across the country. You probably already know all the details about who's running -- Bill Owens is trying to become the first Democrat to win the seat since before the Civil War and Doug Hoffman is the Conservative Party candidate who doesn't even live in the district and doesn't really know squat about what's going on in Watertown. Dede Scozzafava was the GOP candidate, chosen by the local Republicans to win the safe seat until Mr. Hoffman started attracting the far right noisemakers in the GOP. It became a pissing contest between the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, and a whole host of other ideologues (people who had one thing in common; they were all losers) who were dragging the party to the right and accusing Ms. Scozzafava of being the most liberal of the three candidates on the ballot.
Ms. Scozzafava suspended her campaign on Saturday and endorsed the Democrat. The right-wing blogosphere went nuts -- not really a news flash there -- and now the polls indicate -- for what it's worth -- that Mr. Hoffman has the lead in the race. Meanwhile, the pundits are all trying desperately to glean what a Hoffman win will mean for the future of the GOP and take on some collateral damage in the bargain; Frank Rich came in for some nasty snipes from the right because of his "hissy fit" over the election and his prediction of doom for a party that is intent on turning even further to the right. (You can pretty much tell that you're getting into silliness when pundits start picking on each other.) Meanwhile, Ross Douthat tries to be the sage in the room when he looks at the larger picture of what third-party candidates can bring to a race and how they add "substance." If by "substance" he means they provide a thorn in the side to the other parties, then he's probably right... until they damage the chances of the candidate he's pulling for. Then it becomes a "stunt." (I wonder if he thought Ross Perot brought substance to the 1992 presidential election.)
The NY 23rd is overshadowing a bunch of other off-year elections, including the governor's race in New Jersey where the polls are close for the race between incumbent Jon Corzine (D) and Chris Christie (R) and the governor's race in Virginia where it looks like Bob McDonnell (R) will beat Creigh Deeds (D). The interesting thing is that in the Virginia race, Mr. McDonnell, a product of the Pat Robertson alternate universe, is campaigning as a moderate and has not attracted the passion of the far-right. But there are also several other elections that could be of interest beyond the bells and whistles in New York, including the mayoral race in New York City and the fate of gay rights in Washington state, Maine, and Kalamazoo, Michigan.
And overshadowing all of these elections is, of course, Barack Obama. The president has had a hand in all three of the elections getting the headlines: he's been campaigning for Gov. Corzine in New Jersey, his political advisers have distanced themselves from the faltering Mr. Deeds in Virginia, and of course there wouldn't have to be a special election in New York if the president hadn't appointed Rep. John McHugh (R) to be his Secretary of the Army in the first place. So whatever happens tomorrow, the results will be the most important election ever for the president; if Doug Hoffman wins, the legacy of Barack Obama's presidency will be consigned to the ash-heap of history. Or something.
The safest prediction is that after all of Wolf Blitzer's breathless coverage tomorrow night (and the special music written just for the occasion), the results will be microanalyzed to the point of disorienting obsessiveness and whoever wins will have their day in the glare; Mr. Owens or Mr. Hoffman will then become the most junior member of the United States House of Representatives and promptly vanish like a puff of smoke. A month from now neither of them will be able to get a pundit to pay attention to them unless they streak the House floor, and all of the considered opinions and tweets will be forgotten.
Well, since everybody else is going to do the pundit bit, I'll give it a shot. If Mr. Hoffman wins, the onus will then be on the Republicans to prove that what they did to both him and Ms. Scozzafava is not an outlier. One election -- local or national -- doesn't make a movement. If the far right and the tea-baggers want to really prove that they have taken over the GOP, they're going to have to do what they did in NY 23 again and again in districts that are far more diverse and larger, and they're going to have to appeal to more than just cranky white guys who think Sarah Palin is hot and Glenn Beck is the reincarnation of Thomas Jefferson. But as a lot of people have learned, politics is a lot like show business: the hardest thing to do isn't getting to Broadway; it's getting back there again and again, and most important, be better than you were the first time. (Just ask Neil Simon.) The toughest thing for the insurgent right may be for them to win NY 23rd so they can therefore prove that they're more than just the outsiders clamoring at the gates. Once they get in, they're going to actually have to do something more than just win an election. That's not a lesson entirely lost on President Obama, either.
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Short Takes
Another bombing in Pakistan kills 15.
Why is Afghanistan bothering to have a run-off election?
We may really get a healthcare bill this year.
Meanwhile, the climate-change bill is struggling for air.
Even with bailout money, CIT Group files for bankruptcy.
More trouble for Charlie Crist: Senate candidate Marco Rubio made an impression on Republican voters in the Florida panhandle, and Jeb Bush's influence on the primary could make the difference.
Somebody is slaughtering horses in Miami-Dade County.
Why did the revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs flop?
For the first time in a long time, an American won the NYC marathon.
The Series: Yankees 7, Phillies 4.
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Why is Afghanistan bothering to have a run-off election?
We may really get a healthcare bill this year.
Meanwhile, the climate-change bill is struggling for air.
Even with bailout money, CIT Group files for bankruptcy.
More trouble for Charlie Crist: Senate candidate Marco Rubio made an impression on Republican voters in the Florida panhandle, and Jeb Bush's influence on the primary could make the difference.
Somebody is slaughtering horses in Miami-Dade County.
Why did the revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs flop?
For the first time in a long time, an American won the NYC marathon.
The Series: Yankees 7, Phillies 4.
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Sunday, November 01, 2009
Sunday Reading
That's Outrageous! -- David M. Herszenhorn profiles Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), the sometimes over-the-top congressman who has come to epitomize the new style of politics.
Frank Rich on the lurch to the right of the GOP.
Piecing Together History -- Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, historians are trying to reassemble records from East Germany's secret police.
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Continued below the fold.On paper, Representative Alan Grayson, a freshman Democrat from Florida, seems a bit stiff: degrees from Harvard and Harvard Law; a résumé that includes clerking for the United States Court of Appeals under Judges Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Robert Bork; an advocate for the aging.
But in recent weeks, Mr. Grayson has catapulted himself to national renown for outlandish rhetoric and a pugilistic political style that makes him seem less staid lawmaker than a character on the lam from one of his Orlando district’s theme parks.
First it was his comment, “If you get sick, America, the Republicans’ health care plan is this: Die quickly.” Then, appearing on MSNBC, he said of former Vice President Dick Cheney: “I have trouble listening to what he says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he’s talking.” Finally, a radio interview surfaced in which he had called a female adviser to the Federal Reserve chairman “a K Street whore” — a reference to her former job as a Washington lobbyist. That one forced him to make a formal apology.
Mr. Grayson could be the latest incarnation of what in the American political idiom is known as a wing nut — a loud darling of cable television and talk radio whose remarks are outrageous but often serious enough not to be dismissed entirely. Mr. Grayson is the more notable because he hurls his nuts from the left in a winger world long associated with the right.
That might just be the point. House Democratic leaders publicly frown on his behavior and have urged him to tone it down, saying he contributes to an atmosphere of incivility. But the incivility is no accident; nor is the bluster. Such antics are often quickly rewarded in the media-crazed wrestling pit of American politics. One talked-about TV appearance leads to three more; every quotable outburst is a potential pitch, spread instantly by YouTube and blogs to an eager audience that can cheer by way of campaign donations made with the click of a mouse.
Some Democrats also say that Mr. Grayson fills a void, defying their party’s inferiority complex, the constant sense that liberals just are not tough enough. They say that as an attention-grabbing motivator of the party’s base, he could prove hugely useful in getting out the message for next year’s midterm elections.
“There is always a feeling among liberals, a psychology that we are too apologetic; we see six sides to the Pentagon,” said James Carville, the Democratic operative and commentator, who met Mr. Grayson in a CNN studio shortly after the “die quickly” speech in Congress.
“He was smart; he’s not just a crank,” Mr. Carville said. “He wanted to be anything but an apologetic, ‘if I said anything that offended anybody’ kind of liberal.” Mr. Carville added that party leaders will view Mr. Grayson as a “torpedo” they can deploy, especially if Democrats lose important governors’ races this week.
“We need guys like that out there,” he said.
Not everyone thinks so. Mr. Grayson joins colleagues like Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota; Pete Stark, Democrat of California; and Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, in what the decorum-minded see as a bipartisan playpen reserved for political problem children. So for party leaders, the behavior often forces a question: Do you cheer, or wince, or both?
Frank Rich on the lurch to the right of the GOP.
The more rightists who win G.O.P. primaries, the greater the Democrats’ prospects next year. But the electoral math is less interesting than the pathology of this movement. Its antecedent can be found in the early 1960s, when radical-right hysteria carried some of the same traits we’re seeing now: seething rage, fear of minorities, maniacal contempt for government, and a Freudian tendency to mimic the excesses of political foes. Writing in 1964 of that era’s equivalent to today’s tea party cells, the historian Richard Hofstadter observed that the John Birch Society’s “ruthless prosecution” of its own ideological war often mimicked the tactics of its Communist enemies.Michelle Malkin proves Mr. Rich's point by crowing that the "mainstream conservatives have asserted themselves" by driving Ms. Scozzafava out of the race in the NY 23rd district race. If Mr. Hoffman, the animatronic Club for Growth conservative who does not live in the district and is unfamiliar with the issues facing the people there, is "mainstream," then the GOP is in for an interesting couple of election cycles, and not in a good way for them.
The same could be said of Beck, Palin and their acolytes. Though they constantly liken the president to various totalitarian dictators, it is they who are re-enacting Stalinism in full purge mode. They drove out Arlen Specter, and now want to “melt Snowe” (as the blog Red State put it). The same Republicans who once deplored Democrats for refusing to let an anti-abortion dissident, Gov. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, speak at the 1992 Clinton convention now routinely banish any dissenters in their own camp.
These conservatives’ whiny cries of victimization also parrot a tic they once condemned in liberals. After Rush Limbaugh was booted from an ownership group bidding on the St. Louis Rams, he moaned about being done in by the “race card.” What actually did him in, of course, was the free-market American capitalism he claims to champion. Limbaugh didn’t understand that in an increasingly diverse nation, profit-seeking N.F.L. franchises actually want to court black ticket buyers, not drive them away.
This same note of self-martyrdom was sounded in a much-noticed recent column by the former Nixon hand Pat Buchanan. Ol’ Pat sounded like the dispossessed antebellum grandees in “Gone With the Wind” when lamenting the plight of white working-class voters. “America was once their country,” he wrote. “They sense they are losing it. And they are right.”
They are right. That America was lost years ago, and no national political party can thrive if it lives in denial of that truth. The right still may want to believe, as Palin said during the campaign, that Alaska, with its small black and Hispanic populations, is a “microcosm of America.” (New York’s 23rd also has few blacks or Hispanics.) But most Americans like their country’s 21st-century profile
Piecing Together History -- Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, historians are trying to reassemble records from East Germany's secret police.
Martina Metzler peers at the piles of paper strips spread across four desks in her office. Seeing two jagged edges that match, her eyes light up and she tapes them together.Doonesbury -- Women's work.
"Another join, another small success," she says with a wry smile -- even though at least two-thirds of the sheet is still missing.
Metzler, 45, is a "puzzler," one of a team of eight government workers that has attempted for the last 14 years to manually restore documents hurriedly shredded by East Germany's secret police, or Stasi, in the dying days of one of the Soviet bloc's most repressive regimes.
Two decades after the heady days when crowds danced atop the Berlin Wall, Germany has reunited and many of its people have moved on. But historians say it is important to establish the truth about the Communist era, and the work of the puzzlers has unmasked prominent figures in the former East Germany as Stasi agents. In addition, about 100,000 people annually apply to see their own files.
The Stasi, which is said to have had more than 170,000 informers, succeeded in destroying thousands of files, shredding them in machines called "ripping wolves" until the equipment broke down under the weight of the task, then through burning and pulping (the contents, held in buckets in the archive, are known as "Stasi porridge"). At the end, agents tore them by bare hand as the teeming crowds smashed down their doors.
The shredded files, which any good German bureaucrat knows as vorvernichtete Akten or pre-destroyed files -- fill a staggering 16,000 mail sacks that contain about 45 million individual pages, or 600 million scraps. Thus far, the puzzlers are 440 sacks into the process.
"If we carry on at this pace we'll still be here in 500 years' time," says Ernst Schroedinger, a 54-year-old former amateur boxer turned puzzler.
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Short Takes
Drop-outs -- Abdullah Abdullah quits the runoff race in Afghanistan; Dede Scozzafava, the Republican in the three-way race in NY's 23rd district, quits that race; and Gavin Newsom is out of the race for governor in California.
Secretary of State Clinton pushes Palestine and Israel back to talks.
Goldman Sachs made out like bandits on the housing collapse.
Gov. Crist is losing popularity among his fellow Republicans here in Florida.
Six Gitmo detainees take up residence in Palau.
Is signing a petition protected under privacy rules or not?
World Series: Yankees 8, Phillies 5; Yankees lead 2-1.
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Secretary of State Clinton pushes Palestine and Israel back to talks.
Goldman Sachs made out like bandits on the housing collapse.
Gov. Crist is losing popularity among his fellow Republicans here in Florida.
Six Gitmo detainees take up residence in Palau.
Is signing a petition protected under privacy rules or not?
World Series: Yankees 8, Phillies 5; Yankees lead 2-1.
Fetch more...
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