Contributors

Monday, February 15, 2016

Undeserved Poverty, Self Serving Wealth


"The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth." 

(Franklin D. Roosevelt, Third Inaugural Address. January 20, 1941)

The Man Who Makes No Mistakes


"The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything." 

(As quoted by Jacob A. Riis in Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen (1904), chapter XVI A Young Men's Hero)

Internationally Minded


"No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations." 

(Harry Truman at Chicago, 17 March 1945, as recorded in Good Old Harry)

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Things Just Crazier For 2016

With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, the political world has been thrown into more than just its usual upheaval. The Supreme Court is now drawn even at 4-4 and will likely vote that way on most of the incoming and most controversial cases. SCOTUS Blog has the best coverage available for exactly what it means in terms of these pending cases before the court.

President Obama has said that we will name a replacement quickly and expects the Senate to confirm his nomination. Mitch McConnell has said that such a nomination should be delayed a full year until the new president takes office. This tack was echoed last night by all candidates (save Jeb Bush) in the GOP debate. I guess the president's last year isn't exactly going to be calm.

Honestly, it's a lose-lose situation for McConnell. He stalls and the sheen that is on a somewhat productive Senate goes away during an election year. He allows a vote to go forward and the president gets to install a vote that will surely side with the four liberal justices thus tipping the balance. I think he's going to ride out that first choice as long as he can.

I hope he does:)

Saturday, February 13, 2016

A Stew of Resentment and Victimization

From a recent, wonderful piece on Salon.com...

But what was most obvious in the long, long list of grievances that Fry, Anderson, her husband Sean, and the fourth person, Jeff Banta, was that these were people steeped in the muddled and reactionary right-wing politics that have turned the base of the Republican Party into a stew of resentment and victimization. 

These were people who have spent years being told by conservative media that everyone is out to get them and everyone is stepping all over them while minorities and liberals and immigrants and jackbooted federal officers steal their jobs and their guns and turn America into a giant, sharia-ruled suburb of Tijuana.

Sounds to me like a cult...:)

Or a gun blog...same thing...

The Trump Rally

The responses about China/Mexico and ISIS are pretty fucking hilarious.

 

Friday, February 12, 2016

What I Saw on my Winter Vacation

I just returned from a trip to Florida. We drove through Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and north Florida. Along the way we saw a lot of billboards. We watched local TV stations at night when we stayed in motels.

In Wisconsin and Illinois the billboards and TV commercials were pretty much the same as in Minnesota. But when we got into the Southern states, things started to change. There were a lot of billboards for porn shops, strip clubs, gun stores, Jesus, divorce lawyers and personal injury lawyers (ambulance chasers). There seemed to be a porn shop, strip club or gun shop every 20 miles or so along the freeway in the South. They don't outnumber the churches, but they're advertised a lot more.

Where we stayed in Cocoa Beach there was a "gentleman's club" called Cheaters across the street from a Catholic grade school. How do Florida parents explain to their children that the men who go there aren't cheating on their tests?

We have these things in the North. Porn shops and strip joints are usually buried the seedier areas of town. We have divorce lawyers and ambulance chasers, but they advertise on low-rent cable channels or late at night.

During prime time in Minnesota every other TV commercial is for cars. In the South, every other commercial is for personal injury lawyers. (No wonder Republicans are constantly yapping about tort reform -- they're constantly suing each other for car accidents.)

Now this seems counter-intuitive. The South is where Christianity is strongest. People are constantly yapping about God, and pushing their religion in everyday life (cashiers constantly order God to bless their customers). Conservative Republicans have a total lock on state governments in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. They're always bitching the moral collapse of society, as evidenced by pornography, divorce, frivolous personal injury lawsuits and so on.

But based on the prevalence of vice in these states, they do seem to be more morally bankrupt than the "godless" Yankees.

The statistics bear this out: the South has more violent crime -- with only a quarter of the population, the South has 41% of the violent crime. The divorce rate is higher in the South. Even per-capita traffic death rates are higher in conservative states (partly because population density is lower and people drive further).

The question is, why? Do Southerners want more guns because there's more violent crime, or do they want guns because Southerners are more prone to violent crime? Are Southerners drawn to religion because of moral decay represented by high divorce rates, strip clubs and pornography, or this moral decay due to the hypocrisy inherent in a conservative religion that promotes the objectification and denigration of women?

Frequently, one of the best ways to get kids to do something is for their parents to tell them not to do it. Based on the outcomes, conservative Christianity seems to be the worst nagging parent ever...

And Then There Were Six

Jim Gilmore has just suspended his campaign. I realize this comes as shock to three people in the United States but they're just going to have to muddle through.

This leaves us with Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Kasich, and Carson.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Ted Cruz Is The Face of God




Just let them talk....

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

New Hampshire Fallout

The political universe is "stunned" at the results in New Hampshire last night. Hillary Clinton is in trouble, I guess? I have to admit that even I was surprised at how handily Sanders beat her in the popular vote. Of course, with the super delegates added in they still ended up splitting the delegate count 15-15. There have been reports that Bill has been pretty pissed about how the campaign has been organized. I would be too and said as much  last August. They should have made changes a long time ago but, obviously, with the South coming up, they are likely not too worried.

On the GOP side, Trump won to no one's surprise. As I predicted, Kasich came in 2nd and Rubio lost all of his momentum from coming in 3rd in Iowa due to his debate performance. How can he possibly go on now? Christie and Fiorina are out as of today. That leaves Trump, Cruz, Bush, Kasich, Rubio, Carson, and (why?) Jim Gilmore. Maybe Gilmore is hoping that if he hangs around long enough that it will be down to him, Trump, and Cruz and somehow, the establishment will fall in line behind him.

Next up is South Carolina for the GOP and Nevada for the Democrats!!

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

New Hampshire Predictions

Bernie wins on the Democratic side by around 10 percentage points....

Trump wins on the GOP side with Kasich coming in 2nd, Bush 3rd and Rubio 4th. Christie will have a strong showing as well. Rubio's debate performance hurt him and he's going to pay for it in New Hampshire.

Monday, February 08, 2016

Sasquatch?


Sunday, February 07, 2016

The Contrast

Juxtapose the Democratic Debate last Thursday with the Republican Debate last night. See any stark differences? The former showcased two adults having an intelligent and vigorous debate that spoke to the ideological core of the Democratic party. The latter looked like a food fight at a middle school with Marco Rubio being the kid that everyone picked on.

As Steve Benen and Tegan Goddard recently noted, the big winner of the Democratic debate was...the Democrats.

“The real winners were Democratic voters,” Goddard wrote overnight. “Anyone who watched learned a lot. It made the Republican debates look like over-produced game shows.” 

I think that’s both true and important. I don’t doubt that Clinton’s and Sanders’ backers can make spirited cases why their candidate prevailed, but I hope they won’t miss the forest for the trees: for two hours, Americans saw two very capable candidates engage in a deeply substantive, engrossing discussion that mattered.

I'd add that Bernie Sanders has been exactly what the Democrats needed at this moment in time and he knows it. For too long, Democrats have succumbed to a sort of faux compromise where the Republicans (really, the Tea Party...now fully absorbed into the GOP) stake a claim so far on the right side of the field that any consensus inevitably ends up being a conservative (see also: non functional in objective reality) solution.

Now with Sanders on the scene, he pulls the party in the far left direction and any sort of compromise ends up where it should be...in the fucking middle. 

He makes Hillary a better candidate and so does the press...beating up on her from everything to her emails, to her Wall Street speeches, to her "lackluster" campaign and especially to her honesty gap. I say get all that shit out there now so she can get her game together for the fall. Force her to go farther left on some issues that she may feel comfortable with so the nation can benefit.

Because it's pretty clear the nation isn't going to benefit from any of the GOP candidates. Take a look at how the debate started off.


What a fantastic metaphor for the GOP in 2016. It only got worse from there.

Marco Rubio has been rising the polls these last few days but he really looked out of his league last night, repeating himself over and over again.


\

Wow.

The rest of the night showed 7 little boys sniping at each other that honestly reminded me of my 8th graders. Actually, I take that back. My 8th graders are more mature than these guys.

I'll have my predictions for New Hampshire on Monday night.



Saturday, February 06, 2016

And Then There Were...Nine

As the Republicans take the stage tonight for another primary season debate, there will be a couple of less contenders with which to deal. Rick Santorum has dropped his bid for president. When you take his exit and juxtapose it with Mike Huckabee, it really seems like the evangelical wing of the GOP is dead. Sure, some of them voted for Ted Cruz in Iowa but on a national level, they have lost an enormous amount of their power with conservatives. Maybe it has something to with less people in this country identifying as Christian.

Rand Paul is also out but that's not really a surprise. If he had stuck to his libertarian guns rather than the guns of battleship (where he made his announcement that he was running), he might have fared better. Instead, he came off like a muddied candidate that no one was sure where he stood.

So now were are left with Trump, Cruz and Rubio in the top tier...Bush, Christie and Kasich hoping for some NH love and craps...Carson, wondering wtf happened...and Fiorina and Gilmore still hanging around for God knows what reason.

I'm still laughing about Rubio's speech that he stole from the president. Why was it a victory speech when he came in third?

Friday, February 05, 2016

Bias On Drudge?

I had a friend of mine tell me that the Drudge Report wasn't in any way biased. It was merely a site with a bunch of links to other news sources. Then I showed him this.














He stopped talking after that.

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Monday nights caucus losers brought about a few changes. On the Democratic side, Martin O'Malley dropped out of the race leaving Hillary and Bernie to duke it out the rest of the way. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee called it quits. Rand Paul just announced that he is suspending his bid. With the New Hampshire primaries next Tuesday, I expect there to be more winnowing one week from today.

The Republicans have Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Carly Fiorina, Rick Santorum and Jim Gilmore left. I'm not sure why Fiorina, Santorum and Gilmore are still in the race. What are their campaign people telling them?  Take a look at Fiorina's after party in Iowa.

No candidate. No people. Wow.

And, honestly, what are Bush, Kasich and Christie hoping for? I know they are sticking around for some sort of lift in New Hampshire but they need to face the facts. This is now a three horse race. 


Aw, snap!



Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Trump the Loser

After leading in the polls for months, Donald Trump came in second to Ted Cruz. He beat Rubio by a scant margin. He had polled as much as 10 points higher than Cruz, but in the end he lost by four.

In other words, Trump is a loser.

In 2013 Trump famously quoted Walter Hagen: "No one remembers who came in second." This time, though, will be different. People will remember that the big blowhard came in second to the man Trump said everyone hates.

Why did Trump lose? Chickening out of the last debate might have a lot to do with it. Caucus goers who decided at the last minute broker for Cruz and Rubio in a big way. Hearing Trump whine about how unfair it is to be asked questions by a girl may not have impressed a lot of voters.

But the two bigger reasons were organization and a misunderstanding of how political campaigns work. Trump thinks that running for office is like having a top-rated TV show: if your ratings are high, you'll win. But that's not how you get elected president.

Trump's campaign ridiculed other operations in Iowa for running their own polls. "Why do your own polls when the media does it for free?" one of his operatives said in a tweet.

The reason, as anyone who's mounted a serious campaign will tell you, is that by running your own polls you identify people who will support you. You can call them back and remind them to go vote. You can ask them for money later on. You can ask other questions that will help you refine your message. You can engage in "push polling," putting ideas in voters' heads that will make them reconsider their support for someone like Trump, and vote for Cruz instead.

Finally, winning the nomination isn't just about getting the most buzz on national TV. It's about recruiting delegates for the national conventions. These are the actual people who will show up at the nominating convention next summer. Some of these people are selected in a long drawn-out process through caucuses, primaries, district conventions and state conventions. But a lot of these people are "super delegates," party bosses and office holders who actually cast the votes on the floor of the convention. These people have a lot of sway over the other, less experienced delegates.

Ted Cruz knows how that system works. Donald Trump doesn't. He still thinks he's on a reality TV show.

In 2012 the Republican campaign had a different leading candidate every month: Cain, Gingrich, Santorum. But they all pooped out because Mitt Romney owned the political machines in the various states, and recruited the super delegates by contributing tons of cash to the reelection campaigns of office holders in critical states.

If Trump were to win outright majorities in the primaries, it would be hard for super delegates to support other candidates at the convention. But it doesn't look like that will happen. If Iowa is any indication, there will be three or four candidates in contention for the long haul. And because of the incredible amount of Super PAC money floating around from billionaires who want to own their own presidential candidates, some non-viable candidates (Bush, for example) may hang on for much longer than they might have had the Supreme Court not screwed up the American political system with their catastrophically stupid Citizens United decision.

If there's no winner on the first ballot at the Republican convention, a lot of the delegates who were committed to Trump because of primary results may be quick to desert him. They will have no allegiance to him, because he isn't a real Republican or even a real conservative. He's just a two-faced big-mouthed New Yorker who insults everyone.

The idea of a "brokered convention" is the slim hope that establishment Republicans have been holding out for someone like Rubio or Bush winning the nomination.

In the end, a huge part of politics is about loyalty. Trump does not inspire it, and he does not practice it. He will tell Megyn Kelly she is a fabulous interviewer one day and then whine that she's a bitch the next day. He will say Ted Cruz is a great guy one day, then contradict himself the next.

With Trump, it's clear that the only person he cares about is himself. Cruz suffers from the same problem, but at least he's been a real Republican for his entire career. Both Cruz and Trump have a history of screwing people whose support they could use in the future.

Guys like Bush and Rubio have burned fewer bridges, and in the end that may mean the difference between being a winner and being a loser.

Batting 1000

Looks like the Hilz took it for the Dems and Ted for the GOP. I guess I'm batting 1000 so far.

I wonder how much New Hampshire is going to change in the next 8 days.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Iowa Predictions

With little more than 24 hours to go before the Iowa caucuses of 2016, it's time for some predictions and prognostications. 

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton will win, besting Bernie Sanders 50% to 43%. I base my prediction on two pieces of data. The first is the last five polls which show her ahead of Sanders. The second is Nate Silver's polls plus model which gives her an 80% chance of winning. Bernie may have surged late last week and earlier into this week but he appears to be dropping a bit right before the voting.

The Republican side is a little trickier. Even though Trump has been ahead in the last few polls and Silver has him with a better chance of winning than Cruz, I still say it's going to be Cruz. The evangelical vote in Iowa is very strong and most of them are supporting Cruz. Cruz has all the makings of an Iowa winner...staunchly conservative, as far right as the 1 yard line on the right side of the field, deeply religious, direct appeal to old, white values voters. In addition, the unaffiliated will flock to him over Trump when their caucuses are too small to be viable. 

Hillary Clinton. Ted Cruz.