November 21, 2012

Tolerating the Intolerant

Credit: Eva Rinaldi
Although he may get some flack for this, I think Russell Brand struck the right chord with the representatives from Westboro Baptist Church. He managed to treat them with respect (that is, in the context of his zany style) but managed to hit home that their message is a total perversion of Jesus's. If having a civil, public conversation with these folks makes your average born-again Christian want to run in the opposite direction, it's worth it.



November 19, 2012

What Drives Executive Compensation?

Per ThinkProgress, nineteen executives of the Hostess company may be awarded bonuses as part of a bankruptcy agreement. The bankruptcy has come to pass because Hostess would not or could not pay its unionized bakers an acceptable wage and consequently the union advised its members to seek employment elsewhere.

Why would a company wish to reward its executives with bonuses, when they oversaw its demise? In trying to find an answer to this question, the following assumptions seem safe to make:

  • A union's demands from a company on behalf of its workers can't be a bluff if it advises those workers to find other employment rather than accept the status quo.
  • Those demands can't be frivolous if the union is willing for their workers to lose pay or even jobs fighting for them.
  • An executive's pay can't be based on the productivity or profitability of their company if they get a bonus when the company goes into bankruptcy.
  • Executive compensation is meant to reward accomplishment.
So, since the only thing that these executives do seem to have accomplished was capping workers wages, is it possible that this in and of itself is worthy of compensation? Has our free enterprise system become so twisted that managerial talent is focused: not on creating more and better products, selling more of them to more customers; but rather on reducing labor costs so as to funnel a greater share of profits from current sales to shareholders?

Free enterprise is not inherently good or bad. It can serve the greater good or the cynical desires of a crafty elite. I think the latter prevailed in this instance.

Anonymous Thwarts Election Theft?

According to a public letter from the hacker group Anonymous, they prevented a second group of hackers organized by Karl Rove from stealing the 2012 Presidential election. These alleged election thieves were purportedly working covertly through Project ORCA, which was established by the Romney campaign as a key part of their get-out-the-vote campaign.

Karl Rove (l.) and Anonymous (r.) (Wikimedia Commons)
Although Anonymous' tactics are questionable, I have never heard them misrepresent their accomplishments. I think this situation bears watching, because if some sort of digital fingerprints of this attempted election theft can be traced back to the ORCA project, we could have a huge scandal here.

November 16, 2012

Obama as Svengali

Source: abbasj812 on Flickr
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has obtained a video capturing a briefing on October 11, 2012 held in the Georgia Capitol building for Republican state senators. The briefing indicates that Obama is using mind-control to sway the public to his side on a UN initiative for sustainable development, which it purports is actually a secret agenda for collectivization.


Agenda 21 Full Video from Bryan Long on Vimeo.

It goes without saying that this is bonkers. What evidently doesn't go without saying is that people who are bonkers should not hold public office.

(The senators who attended and gave credence to this theory are hereby awarded the second Tomheader Award.)

Gerrymandering to the Nth Degree

It has been a long time since my last post. I think that is due to the fact that the political climate leading up to the election has been so poisonous and surreal that I was truly at a loss for words. However, now that the election is over and data has been gathered, congealed, and crunched, one particular fact has presented itself that must become a primary topic of our political discourse -- gerrymandering is determining the composition of the House of Representatives. The following chart from Mother Jones clearly demonstrates that Congressional districts in states governed by Republicans were re-drawn in 2010 to favor Republican Congressional candidates.


It is absolutely insupportable for this misrepresentation of the popular will to continue. We should as a nation institute policies that inhibit these anti-democratic tactics. Yes, there are spoils that come along with winning elections. But those spoils should not include being able to rig the system so that you can continue to win.

September 04, 2012

Madison, the 'Socialist'

Conservatives have fetishized the Founding Fathers selectively, warping them into theocratic, laissez-faire capitalists. So, to remind us all that these men were cultural, political, and economic revolutionaries, I offer the following quote. James Madison argued in 1792 (emphasis in italics and clarification in brackets are mine):

"In every political society, parties [i.e., interest groups] are unavoidable. A difference of interests, real or supposed, is the most natural and fruitful source of them. The great object should be to combat the evil:
  1. By establishing a political equality among all. 
  2. By withholding unnecessary opportunities from a few [people], [which allow them] to increase the inequality of property, by an immoderate, and especially an unmerited, accumulation of riches. 
  3. By the silent operation of laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort
  4. By abstaining from measures which operate differently on different interests, and particularly such as favor one interest at the expence of another. 
  5. By making one party a check on the other, so far as the existence of parties cannot be prevented, nor their views accommodated." 

So, Madison, the Father of the Constitution, argued not only for absolute political equality, but also for a high level of economic equality, i.e. he was a big old wealth re-distributor. He actually believed it was government's job to reduce inequalities of wealth.

If you are a Conservative, take note. If you are a Liberal, keep this one in your back pocket.

August 24, 2012

Birtherism Is Not a Joke

The birther conspiracy theory is part of the hysteria that passes for politics these days. Today, Romney demonstrated his willingness to surf this wacky wave while pretending that he's just joking.


Source: MeetTheCrazies on Flickr
Birtherism is no joke. There are crackpot public officials out there that are threatening to take up arms if the 'un-American' Obama is re-elected. For them, his 'questionable' birth is the heart of his illegitimacy. If Romney doesn't apologize for this joke and unreservedly renounce birtherism, he is fostering hysteria that will lower our political discourse down so far, that a back-alley knife fight will seem genteel in comparison.

August 22, 2012

The First Tomheader

A judge in Texas, Tom Head, believes that if Obama is re-elected he will sign treaties with the UN ceding our authority to them. In response to that, per Head, real Americans will rise up and, in response to that, Obama will send in UN troops to quell the dissent. This entire theory was brought to light as the judge was being interviewed about a proposed 1.7% property tax hike. (This tax hike will in part fund the extra law enforcement resources necessary to fight the UN invaders.)

Source: www.co.lubbock.tx.us
So, as you are scraping your jaw off of the floor, I will urge you to begin thinking of American politics in a new way -- as a conflict between the hysterical (and no, I don't mean funny as hell) and the reasonable. We almost don't have any room for reasonable Liberals and Conservatives to disagree among each other -- the proliferation and, indeed, the mainstreaming of hysteria is too dangerous a trend for such luxuries and could lead to a complete breakdown in our political discourse.

Based on his impressive foray into utter lunacy, I believe that Tom Head is the perfect poster child for this burgeoning hysteria and, consequently, I would like to propose the term 'Tomheader' for someone espousing his level of 'take our country back' hysteria. Spread the word.

August 11, 2012

A Stark Choice

Source: businessinsider.com
Source: Wordpress.com
So, now that Romney has chosen Ryan as his running mate, the choice in November is starker than it has been in recent memory. Ryan, the aficionado of Ayn Rand, has hanging around his neck his dramatically destructive budget proposal, which replaces Medicare with private insurance vouchers. These vouchers don't necessarily cover the costs of premiums and may in fact be worthless since insurance carriers will not be obliged to offer coverage.

So, the choice for American voters is now between:
  • Obama/Biden, who say we're all in this together and we have to cooperate and help each other to succeed. 
  • Romney/Ryan, who not only philosophize about everybody watching out for themselves, benefiting from the misfortunes of others, and the strongest surviving (Ryan), but have actually implemented that philosophy (Romney).
I do not believe that Americans are a heartless people and, faced with this choice in November, I believe they will choose righteously.

August 10, 2012

Freedom = Freedom for Me

Source: Wikipedia
...and yet another example of the shameless, tribalistic myopia of some proponents of "freedom" and "tradition." Just as Thomas Jefferson shamelessly (or obtusely) stated that "all men are created equal," while in his head excluding black men, Louisiana state representative Valarie Hodges is shocked that Governor Jindal's new voucher program could be used to send children to Muslim schools, not just schools promoting "the Founding Fathers' religion." I wonder if Hodges truly didn't realize that words actually mean what they say or if it just didn't enter her mind that "religion" could actually apply to more than just Christianity.


Mandatory Pregnancy Tests

The Delhi Charter School in Delhi, Louisiana makes young women take a pregnancy test if someone even suspects they are pregnant. The only way she can stay in school is to take the test and for it to be negative, otherwise she's out.


July 25, 2012

The Tea Party: the New Anarchists

Source: Wikipedia
Wikipedia defines Anarchism as "the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority and hierarchical organization in the conduct of human relations. Proponents of anarchism, known as 'anarchists,' advocate stateless societies based on non-hierarchical voluntary associations."

If you remove the references to hierarchy and change 'stateless' to 'weak-state,' you essentially have the Tea Party. Since an extremely weak state is the closest manifestation of statelessness that can be achieved, the difference on that issue is purely theoretical, not practical. With respect to hierarchy, my perceptions are that the Tea Party has a frail alliance with Big Business (and their love of hierarchy) and, were it not for their common Liberal enemy, they would turn on each other post haste.

So for now, I think it may be useful to think of of the Tea Party as burgeoning Anarchists. 

July 23, 2012

Gun Debate Dysfunction

AP / Damian Dovarganes
Regarding the latest tragedy that one might think would lead to a debate on gun regulation, but has not so far, I have come to a sad conclusion. I believe that Liberals have to step back and allow Conservatives to discover for themselves that restrictions on gun ownership are not an expression of burgeoning governmental tyranny but indeed are a necessary component of a civilized society. As long as Liberals continue to advocate for stricter gun control, most Conservatives will instinctively recoil from it.

Those who have followed my blog are likely aware that I am convinced that modern American Conservatism is better characterized as a reaction to American Liberalism -- Anti-Liberalism, if you will -- than an organic analysis of the human condition that developed independent of any other philosophy. (There are certainly Conservative thinkers, e.g., Edmund Burke, that could provide a strong basis for a true Conservatism, but they are rarely quoted by politicians or pundits.) The conversation on the right side of the aisle with respect to gun regulation is completely dominated by the NRA. The tack of this organization is purely reactionary -- they do not actively advocate for any restrictions but sometimes concede to them when pressed. This approach pushes the inertia of the debate towards a zero-regulation mindset.

Therefore, I think the President and other Liberals are wise to pull back from this debate. As these sorts of tragedies continue and increase in frequency (the statistics do support this sad conclusion), Conservatives will be forced to take ownership over this problem and propose common-sense regulation instead of wasting their energies demonizing Liberals.

July 05, 2012

Inconsistent Individual Mandate Logic

Source: Wikipedia
Once again, leading Conservatives (e.g., Mitt Romney) are promoting internally inconsistent positions. Their party line is that John Roberts made the wrong decision when he agreed that the Individual Mandate was a tax. (In fact, they are going so far as to accuse him of dishonorable motivations.) However, they are now crowing that, because of this ruling, Obama has raised taxes. One of the ways that Conservatives feel that they resolve this cognitive dissonance is to say something like this:
"No, I myself don't believe that this is a tax, so Roberts ruled incorrectly. However, since the court ruled that this is a tax, then I can honestly say that he raised taxes because the official ruling is that it's a tax. Therefore, it is completely consistent for me to say that the Individual Mandate is not a tax, but that Obama raised taxes by imposing the Individual Mandate."
It's sad to have to clarify for people how to advocate with honesty and integrity. Unfortunately, it is called for too often these days. So, here goes: Your positions need to be consistent with your opinions. If you take a position on Topic B based on your position on Topic A, you can't take a position on Topic C based upon a contradictory position on topic A. It's irrelevant whether others have taken that position -- it's your position on the topic that matters.

June 29, 2012

Individual Mandate: Tax or Penalty?

Source: Wikipedia
The dissent in the ACA Supreme Court case advances the following arguments against the majority's ruling that the penalty for non-compliance with the Individual Mandate is, for Constitutional purposes, a tax:
"Against the mountain of evidence that the minimum coverage requirement is what the statute calls it—a requirement—and that the penalty for its violation is what the statute calls it—a penalty—the Government brings forward the flimsiest of indications to the contrary. It notes that '[t]he minimum coverage provision amends the Internal Revenue Code to provide that a non-exempted individual . . . will owe a monetary penalty, in addition to the income tax itself,' and that '[t]he [Internal RevenueService (IRS)] will assess and collect the penalty in the same manner as assessable penalties under the Internal Revenue Code.' The manner of collection could perhaps suggest a tax if IRS penalty-collection were unheard-of or rare. It is not.
"The last of the feeble arguments in favor of petitioners that we will address is the contention that what this statute repeatedly calls a penalty is in fact a tax because it contains no scienter requirement. The presence of such a requirement suggests a penalty—though one can imagine a tax imposed only on willful action; but the absence of such a requirement does not suggest a tax. Penalties for absolute-liability offenses are commonplace. And where a statute is silent as to scienter, we traditionally presume a mens rea requirement if the statute imposes a 'severe penalty.' Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600, 618 (1994). Since we have an entire jurisprudence addressing when it is that a scienter requirement should be inferred from a penalty, it is quite illogical to suggest that a penalty is not a penalty for want of an express scienter requirement.

"And the nail in the coffin is that the mandate and penalty are located in Title I of the Act, its operative core, rather than where a tax would be found—in Title IX, containing the Act’s 'Revenue Provisions.' In sum, 'the terms of [the] act rende[r] it unavoidable,' Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 448 (1830), that Congress imposed a regulatory penalty, not a tax.

"For all these reasons, to say that the Individual Mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it. Judicial tax-writing is particularly troubling. Taxes have never been popular, see, e.g., Stamp Actof 1765, and in part for that reason, the Constitution requires tax increases to originate in the House of Representatives."
So, in plain English, the dissent says the penalty is not a tax, because:
  1. It is called a penalty in the statute. 
  2. The fact that the IRS collects it does not make it a tax, because the IRS collects other monies that are also described as penalties. 
  3. Just because the statute does not explicitly exempt those ignorant of this law from having to pay additional money to the IRS if they don't have health insurance, doesn't mean the penalty is a tax. 
  4. The penalty is not in the part of the statute where a tax "should" be.
I'll accept that the dissent's third criticism is valid, since I'm no lawyer and this requires a pretty heavy understanding of legal precedent. However, the other three criticism all center on nomenclature -- the definition of a tax vs. a penalty. The underlying logic of the first and fourth criticisms imply that a thing is whatever a statute calls it, not what it actually is based on its characteristics. (I cannot believe that anyone would argue that if a law calls a duck an alligator, then for Constitutional purposes it's an alligator.) The problem with the second is its implication that since penalties have never been acknowledged as taxes before, they cannot be acknowledged as such now.

It is very clear from this decision (and from the dissent) that there is no clean, clear, and unambiguous definitions for a tax vs. a penalty. It would behoove the Federal government to provide such definitions so that these judicial judgments are unnecessary.

June 28, 2012

Spiking the Football

Credit: Torsten Bolten
As I stated in my blog post from March 26, "there is no substantive difference between paying a non-criminal fine and not being able to take a tax deduction." Not only am I ecstatic that the ACA has been upheld, and that the Chief Justice seems to honor precedent above ideology, I'm also downright chuffed that I called it.

June 22, 2012

JP Morgan Chase: Pay No Attention to the Government Behind the Curtain

Credit: Steve Jurvetson
Anyone who doubts that capitalists love Government welfare, should read this article. The "wizardry" of the "wizard of Wall Street," Jamie Dimon, whom Congressmen guard and Senators sing, isn't quite as wizardly as we all thought.

June 01, 2012

Statistical Deception

Credit: Alan De Smet 
Ed Conard, a former director at Bain Capital, relies upon the presumed inability of people to scrutinize his assertions, when he indicates that the "distribution around the median income is very tight and hasn’t changed that much over time." This is presented as evidence that income inequality simply is not the problem it is purported to be. Well, if I remember my statistics correctly, the median is the middle data point in an ordered array of data points. So, even if the clustering of data around the median hasn't changed over time, that says nothing about:
  1. the distance between the median income and the top income
  2. the percentage of total income clustering at the top
You see, if the incomes above the median are multiplied by any factor whatsoever and the other incomes remain the same -- the median stays exactly where it is. Additionally, if you only do this to the incomes that are above those clustering around the median, i.e., the top incomes, then even the clustering around the median doesn't change. 

We must start challenging those who would mislead us into complacency or resignation.


May 30, 2012

Westboros Among Us

I don't know why my mind boggles when I view this video -- I really shouldn't be surprised. I guess I've known all along that we have large numbers of Westboro Baptist Churches, not just one anomalous example of poisonous hate. (...and if looking forward with joyous self-satisfaction to the day when another group of people will be viciously and incessantly tortured for all eternity while you bask in splendor doesn't fit the definition of hate, I don't know what does.)


This group of people have the right to speak their opinions. (I'm not so sure they have the right to brainwash their children, but that's a topic for another day.) But freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. What these adults are doing to this child is evil -- no ifs, ands, or buts. They are warping this young boy's mind with delusions of self-righteous superiority. You see, he won't have to focus as hard on being a better person, because he can always count on being fundamentally better than another group of people.

May 21, 2012

The Evil Within, cont.

You know, some folks get really upset about the violence that is preached in some mosques and impute that to Islam in general. I wonder if we should treat this little tidbit similarly:


So, again I call on all Evangelicals to denounce and renounce this kind of rhetoric. I call on you to demand censuring of such rhetoric in your congregational meetings, in your evangelical conferences -- everywhere two or more of you are gathered in His name. If you don't stand against those who advocate mass murder, what would you stand against? What would you stand for?

May 18, 2012

Limbaugh Redefines Patriotism

Credit: Brett Tatman
Rush Limbaugh gives us all the evidence we need in order to conclude that he has re-defined American patriotism.

He was discussing today the recent criticism of Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, who renounced his American citizenship late last year (from his current residence in Singapore) to escape millions of dollars in American income taxes. According to the Huffington Post, Limbaugh said today during his radio program,

"If it’s a more favorable tax haven that you can find elsewhere and you go there, why is it automatically that you are unpatriotic?”

If it is not unpatriotic to renounce your American citizenship so that you can avoid taxes, then Limbaugh clearly has a different definition of patriotism than I and most Americans have. Based upon this and the bulk of his other opinions, I am left with no conclusion but that Limbaugh has re-defined American patriotism to be loyalty to Conservative principles.

This may indeed be the key to understanding Limbaugh (and perhaps many of those who fundamentally share his philosophy) -- every time he speaks about America, he is really referring to Conservatism. This is why Liberals are enemies and un-American -- because being American means being Conservative. This is how Eduardo Saverin can remain a patriot while renouncing his American citizenship.

Everything seems so much clearer now.

May 10, 2012

Romney the Bully

Credit: Seth Poppel/Yearbook Library
Ever since I heard about this high school bullying incident, I have been trying to find a way to discuss this calmly. I just can't seem to set my anger about this aside - and maybe I shouldn't. So, at this point, I believe that Romney must
  • specifically and abjectly apologize, 
  • stop minimizing this by calling it a prank, 
  • either stop pretending he doesn't remember or explain why he wouldn't remember doing something so awful,
  • stop behaving as though his being a senior in high school makes this automatically excusable or dismissable - high school seniors go to jail all the time for assault.
His response to this incident's exhumation speaks volumes about his character - and he had better scrounge up a decent, human response PDQ.

May 03, 2012

The Evil Within

Jesus Blessing the Children
by Bernard Plockhorst 
Conscientious evangelicals, who truly believe in the salvation Jesus provides, need to acknowledge the evil in their midst. When they attend sermons advocating violence against children (and 'amen's from the congregation), they should at least walk out if they don't speak out.

People who are particularly concerned about the well-being of LGBT folks clearly have good reason to be suspicious of evangelical churches. In response, instead of feeling defensive or persecuted, evangelicals should acknowledge that these suspicions are warranted and should work within their churches to change attitudes like those exhibited in Fayetteville.

March 26, 2012

Specious Argumentation Against the ACA

Credit: andrevanb
The primary argument Conservatives are advancing in their argument against the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that never before in history has the Federal Government forced a citizen to purchase a private product when that citizen had not already engaged in commerce related to that purchase. The difficulty with this logic is that we have been engaging in transactions like this ever since the first income tax deductions were introduced.

Each one of us has a financial relationship with the Federal Government, where some money is paid and received by both parties. When you engage in certain acts of commerce (e.g. buying a house), the net amount of money exchanged between you and Federal Government moves slightly in your favor, i.e., you get a tax deduction. The impact of the Individual Mandate provision of the ACA is that a citizen must pay money (i.e. a fine) to the Federal Government if they have not purchased a health insurance policy. So, the net amount of money exchanged between that citizen and the Federal Government moves slightly in the Government's favor.

Since there is no substantive difference between paying a non-criminal fine and not being able to take a tax deduction, arguments for the Individual Mandate's lack of precedent are weak -- a matter of terminology rather than substance.

March 20, 2012

Santorum's Indecency

Credit: Gage Skidmore
For those of you who may still be skeptical about my assertion that the conservatism promulgated by Rick Santorum (and many others) is essentially identity politics, tribalism, nationalism, etc., please take a look at this video and notice how Santorum offers no objection to the blatant nationalism articulated by Dennis Terry. If I recall correctly, Obama was castigated for even being a member of a church whose pastor had said some incendiary things about America -- with no evidence that Obama was even in attendance, much less a guest of honor. Here we have the Rev. Dennis Terry making very clear who does and does not belong in America, while Santorum sits in attendance as a guest of honor. A decent person would have walked out of that sermon. Santorum is seen clapping.

March 01, 2012

Marginalize Limbaugh

Credit: Nicolas Shayko
I constantly feel like I am in the position of explaining why comments like Rush Limbaugh's attack on Sandra Fluke are contra-factual, ill-conceived, and disgusting. I'm not going to do that anymore. His comments speak for themselves and should be sufficient grounds for him to be marginalized, as figures like Louis Farrakhan, Fred Phelps, and David Dukes have been.

February 27, 2012

Class Warfare

Credit: Rmbyoung
This weekend, speaking before a Tea Party group, Santorum made assertions that were not only unfounded, but highly revealing of his own philosophy -- which he seems increasingly comfortable displaying. The salient quotes are
President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.
and
Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.
The idea that wanting everyone to have the same opportunity to succeed is snobbery sounds non-sensical on its face until you realize what Santorum is really doing -- he is imputing to Obama the attitude that people with college degrees are inherently better than those without. I am aware of nothing the President has ever said that indicates such an attitude. What I think Santorum is appealing to here is a reverse snobbery among some non-college graduates (which I have seen) because they feel inadequate (which they shouldn't).

The idea that the educational system in the United States is a system of Liberal indoctrination is a standard song in Santorum's repertoire and isn't news. Linking this all up together, though, shows that Santorum is the master of class warfare, just one based on education rather than income.

February 15, 2012

Hypocrisy Matters

Credit: Gage Skidmore
Thankfully, we don't yet live in a country where statements such as "All animals are equal" can be overtly modified to read "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." But the sentiment is seeming to become more pervasive, if still covert. Examples such as Rick Santorum's hypocrisy, are all too common in today's politics. They are manifestations of what I believe are nationalistic/tribal philosophies that un-spokenly but pervasively inform the judgments of some politicians. Generally speaking, in this mindset almost everything is acceptable if "we" do it, but many things may be unacceptable if "they" do it. The only challenge in such a moral/legal system is to define who "we" are. I would propose that this mindset has unavoidably underlain almost every society where stratification is supported by written law or unwritten public policy.

When we see hypocrisy like Santorum's, we need to call it out, condemn it, and clarify to anyone who will listen how malignant it is.

February 09, 2012

The Divine Wisdom of Peace


Source: Wired
According to this article in Wired, some species seem to be 'self-domesticating,' eschewing competition and aggression in favor of cooperation and conciliation. I can't help but be reminded of the scripture:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them....The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock...
Perhaps these 'domesticating' forces are indeed an inexorable push towards a Godly peacefulness.

January 25, 2012

"There is something I know"


Credit: Lauren Victoria Burke
In response to a question from CNN's John King about her reaction to the possibility of Newt Gingrich attaining the Presidency, Nancy Pelosi said:
Let me just say this. That will never happen. He's not going to be President of the United States. That's not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it. It isn't going to happen. There is something I know. The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that's their prerogative. I don't even think that's going to happen.
In the midst of wild speculation over what Pelosi could be referencing, Gingrich shot back in an unwise way:
Well, if she suggested that she's going to use material that she developed when she was on the ethics committee, that is a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it. 
Pelosi is clearly threatening Gingrich, indicating that if he continues to pursue the Presidency, she might reveal some (presumably) disqualifying information about him. In my opinion, that is a very distasteful tactic. However, Gingrich does himself a great disservice with his counter-threat. "If you tattle on me you're gonna be in TROU-BLE!" is what a guilty ten-year-old would say. Gingrich should have said, "There's nothing she could possibly know about me that would be so egregious as to be disqualifying. I'll respond when and if she actually makes a substantive assertion," but he didn't.

Gingrich's response leads me to believe there might be something pretty big here.

January 23, 2012

Republican Establishment, RIP

The Board of Admiralty
by Augustus Pugin Sr. and Thomas Rowlandson
I can't articulate the self-inflicted demise of the Republican Establishment any better than this analysis from Andrew Sullivan:
"Let us now play the tiniest violin for what is called the 'Republican Establishment.' I'm not sure what this phrase means or represents any more - the Chamber of Commerce? John Boehner? The Bush family? But the concept of a responsible, sane, pragmatic party leadership able to corral or coax or manage a party's base is, it seems to me, a preposterous fiction on its face, as we are seeing.

The Republican Establishment is Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, Karl Rove, and their manifold products, from Hannity to Levin. They rule on the talk radio airwaves and on the GOP's own 'news' channel, Fox. They have never quite reconciled themselves to Romney since he represents a gray blur in a stark Manichean universe they have created for more than a decade now. In this universe, there is only black and white. There is only them and us. Anyone who diverges an iota from this schematic is speaking without a microphone in front of a revving airplane engine.

Listen to Gingrich's victory speech. It was completely, fundamentally, organizationally Manichean, if you'll pardon the expression. He limned a familiar battle between independence and dependence, pay-checks vs food stamps, America vs 'Europe,' the American people vs elites 'forcing people' for 35 years not to be American, the traditional America vs the 'secular, European style socialist bureaucratic system.' There is no gray here. There is no nuance. And there is the imputation to the other side of malign motives, secret agendas and foreignness that has been Gingrich's hallmark since the very beginning, when he assaulted the traditions of the Congress until that institution eventually had to repel him.

Listen to Limbaugh, the GOP's chief spokesman. How does a Romney channel that level of viciousness and rage? Listen to Hannity. How does a smooth manager reach a base that wants the same Manichean approach to foreign policy, in which there is only one ally (Israel) and enemies everywhere else (Europe, China, the Arab world, Russia)? Read Mark Levin. There are only two options now on the table, as he sees it: freedom or slavery. And a vote for Obama is a vote for slavery.

This is the current GOP. It purges dissidents, it vaunts total loyalty, it polices discourse for any deviation. If you really have a cogent argument, you find yourself fired - like Bruce Bartlett or David Frum - or subject to blacklists, like me and Fox. You can find Steve Schmidt lamenting Gingrich for very good reasons, and then you realize that it was Schmidt - a moderate, sane, level-headed professional - who helped pick Sarah Palin for the vice-presidential nomination. Because he correctly realized that she would actually add base votes and prevent a total Obama tsunami. In the end, he knew what he had to do. In the end, the 'establishment' knows the party they have created.

This now is the party of Palin and Gingrich, animated primarily by hatred of elites, angry at the new shape and color of America, befuddled by a suddenly more complicated world, and dedicated primarily to emotion rather than reason. That party is simply not one that can rally behind a Mitt Romney. He too knows what he has to say - hence his ludicrous invocation of Obama as some kind of alien being. But it doesn't work. He believes it - since he seems capable of genuinely believing in anything that will win him votes and power. But he doesn't have the rage to make it work. And that rage cannot be downward, as Romney's often is - toward hecklers or interviewers. It has to be upward - at vague, treasonous elites. It has to have that Poujadist touch, that soupcon of contempt, that sends shivers up the legs of the Republican faithful, reared on Limbaugh, propagandized by Fox, and coated with a shallow knowledge of a largely fictionalized past.

This is Gingrich's party; and Ailes'; and Rove's. They made it; and it is only fitting it now be put on the table, for full inspection. Better sooner than later.

Obama is a poultice. He brings poison to the surface. Where, with any luck, it dies."

January 13, 2012

EricJames Borges

There can be no excuses or tolerance for the abuse, persecution, derision, and disrespect endured by EricJames Borges.

 

What man would let his wife or girlfriend be ganged up on and then mocked, ridiculed, harassed, etc.? Why then do we think it's OK for our children to do it to each other? When you see it, stop it. Stand up for people who are being bullied. Despite his brave advice to young people encountering similar abuse, Mr. Borges killed himself two days ago. He was just 19.

January 10, 2012

Three Kinds of Republicans

Credit: Pearson Scott Foresman
Since three of Romney's Republican rivals have criticized him for his tenure at Bain Capital (e.g. Perry has decried 'Vulture Capitalism'), this gaffe brings to a head not only his distance from the 99% (or in his case the 99.9%), but also the ideological rift in the Republican party.

There are actually three primary types of Republicans (all of whom call themselves 'Conservatives'): Libertarians, Nationalists, and Corporacrats.
  • Libertarians (e.g. Ron Paul) sincerely believe that "the government that governs best governs least." 
  • Nationalists (e.g. Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann) view 'America' (by which they mean American citizens who believe as they do) as being under siege from immigrants, Liberals, atheists, the New World Order, etc. Although they frequently decry government in broad terms, they actually have no problem with government being used ferociously to protect their 'America' (e.g. wars, indefinite detention, torture, laws against abortion and homosexuality). 
  • Corporatists (e.g. Mitt Romney) likewise decry government in broad terms, but actively seek (i.e. lobby) government for policies (e.g., tax, trade, zoning) favorable to business. 
I think the profound disarray seen in the race for the Republican nomination for President has revealed this rupture and I wouldn't be the least surprised to see a third party run -- or maybe even two of them.