The Political “Long Term” is Barely 5 Years Out – Weekend Open Thread

by

wj

It’s been too long since we kicked off a new Open Thread, so here we go.

Since 1984, turnout in presidential elections has ranged from 49 to 57 percent of eligible adults; since 1986, turnout in midterms has ranged from 36 to 39 percent. What does that mean for US politics and policy? Basically this: Legislative and Congressional districts are, in most states, drawn by the state legislature.

When the state legislatures which do the drawing are elected in mid-term elections, they tend to be more conservative (which, today, means more Republican) than when they are elected during Presidential election years. And 2020 is a Presidential election year –- with the state legislators elected that year doing the drawing which will be in effect for the next decade.

For the past couple of decades, the Democratic Presidential candidate has regularly managed to pick up more popular votes than the Republican candidate. And demographic trends, combined with the current direction of the Republican Party, suggest that 2020 will see that trend continue.

As a result, we will likely see more state legislatures with Democratic majorities doing the next round of redistricting. Which, in turn, almost certainly means more Democrats elected to Congress. Maybe even to the point where the House majority changes hands.

So if you are a die-hard conservative (i.e. more fanatical than almost any of us here), you basically have 5 years to get as much of what you want as possible. And getting that means compromising your principles in order to get half a loaf on various issues, rather than deciding that it is more important to maintain absolute purity than to make US law even somewhat more conservative. After that, no matter how hard you wish and believe, your chances drop significantly.

177 thoughts on “The Political “Long Term” is Barely 5 Years Out – Weekend Open Thread”

  1. Among those things they want, keeping as many actual and potential Democrats as possible from voting in 2020 seems key.

  2. Unfortunately, from my point of view, Republican control of state legislatures is pretty firmly entrenched. The same geographic demographics (Democratic voters more concentrated in cities) that contributes to Republican over representation (by vote share) in Congress has an even greater effect in the state legislatures. Nationwide the numbers for state reps favor Republicans 55% to 43%, you can see the state by state breakdowns here:
    http://ballotpedia.org/Gubernatorial_and_legislative_party_control_of_state_government
    Add to that many states don’t have some or all of their state seats up for grabs in presidential election years, but in off- or even odd-year elections, and the obstacles to Democrats picking up more than a few state legislatures are pretty high. Absent some major unforeseen events, muddling through seems like the best that can realistically be hoped for, even after 2020.

  3. “And 2020 is a Presidential election year –- with the state legislators elected that year doing the drawing which will be in effect for the next decade.”
    Except when the control switches in the following midterm election, and some legislatures decide that they want to do an “extra” redistricting.

  4. That we have somehow managed to stick with equal representation in the senate this long astonishes me. It is undemocratic and verges on a violation of basic human rights, ISTM. California has nearly 66 times the population of Wyoming. But the same representation in the Senate and a 53-1 advantage in the House. All by historical accident, it seems.
    Also on Presidential elections – the GOP has won the popular vote once in the past 6 elections (although managed to “win” the Presidency twice). At what point do we abandon the Electoral College? Gore got half a million more votes than Bush in 2000. If, say, Hillary gets 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, but Trump wins the electoral college, is that problematic? What if it’s 5 million? 10?
    You can say that if the rules were different then perhaps the vote totals would be closer as the candidates would employ different strategies (e.g., advertising strongly in California might make sense for the GOP), but at some point that’s not going to hold, if we haven’t reached that point already.

  5. You can say that if the rules were different then perhaps the vote totals would be closer as the candidates would employ different strategies
    Yes. But you might also see candidates taking different positions. Romney got about 5 million votes in CA to Obama’s 8 million. Increasing that by 5%, to 5,250,000 gets him more votes than were cast in total in Wyoming.

  7. Maybe Democrats need to start colonies in thinly populated red states to increase the power of their votes. Those places tend to have nice scenery, too, so it’s a win-win.

  8. That we have somehow managed to stick with equal representation in the senate this long astonishes me. . . . All by historical accident, it seems.
    Actually, no. A deliberate decision for each state to have equal representation. The senate was intended to represent the states, not the population of the states. And without a house with equal representation to protect their interests, the smaller states would have refused to ratify the Constitution.
    If you want to argue for “historical accident” it would have to be that the 17th Amendment (popular election of Senators) didn’t include having the number Senate seats per state determined by population.

  9. wj – yes of course. I guess by historical accident I meant it is too hard to change and I don’t think the drafters of the Constitution recognized that. In fact, it will never change unless the biggest states get together and threaten the small ones with being kicked out of the Union if they do not agree. Which also will never happen.

  10. Changing the representation of states in the Senate, without their consent, is the one thing that is explicitly forbidden in the Constitution to be changed even by Constitutional amendment. So that immutability seems to be a feature rather than a bug.

  11. Matt, so what you are saying is that an Amendment to change the representation of states in the Senate would have to also change the provision which forbids changing that?

  12. As for electoral/popular vote splits, I think we might see some action the moment the Electoral College bites a Republican candidate with a popular majority rather than a Democrat.
    Which could happen; in fact, the statistical modeling I’ve seen for the past few elections suggests that a Republican popular/Democratic electoral split is very slightly more likely than the reverse.
    It’s close to a wash, because the Republicans have the small-state advantage of the electoral votes they get from their Senators and the minimum of one House member, but the Democrats have the large-state advantage of winner-take-all elector allocation in nearly all states. (If a Republican state government ever succeeds in flipping a large Democratic-leaning state to proportional or district allocation, it could give them a powerful advantage in presidential elections for quite some time.)

  13. @wj: Yes! And it’s not clear that that’s even possible, since if a phrase that says “you can’t change that other bit even with an amendment” can itself be amended away, it would seem that it’s completely meaningless. (Maybe it is, though.)
    If that’s not possible, then it basically means that a wholesale change to Senate representation has a threshold of ratification by all the states rather than just three-fourths.

  14. in fact, the statistical modeling I’ve seen for the past few elections suggests that a Republican popular/Democratic electoral split is very slightly more likely than the reverse.
    …In fact, it very nearly happened in 2004 (if Ohio had gone for Kerry, which it nearly did, he could have won without a popular plurality).
    And, even in 2000, people were talking about this as a real possibility, and the Republicans were gearing up to contest President Gore’s legitimacy in popular opinion if it happened that way around.

  15. Maybe the solution is to create a third House. State representation would be proportional to population but members would be elected at large. Many of the Senate’s powers could be transferred to this new body, and legislation approved by the House of Representatives and our new House could be sent to the President and become law without the Senate getting involved.
    Actually, I’d settle for members of the H of R being elected at large from their states, without the gerrymandering and other nonsense that districts involve.

  16. if Ohio had gone for Kerry, which it nearly did

    Which just goes to show you: there’s no accounting for bad taste.
    But: it’s Ohio, so maybe there is.

  17. By the time redistricting rolls around in 2021, more states will have adopted non-partisan commissions to do the job. That’s especially likely to be true for the West, where ballot initiatives are much more common. I expect the big push to come in 2018.
    Combine that with likely switch in Arizona and California by then of universal vote by mail, and elections in the West are going to start looking quite different than in the rest of the country.

  18. Michael, are there any states where you can see the state legislature voluntarily adopting non-partisan redistricting commissions? That is, without being forced into it by some kind of ballot initiative.
    And I seem to recall that there are a lot of states which don’t even allow ballot initiatives. Not really sure exactly how the states that do have them managed it. Or how the people of some state might manage to force it thru today.

  19. It might even be worse than that insofar as many states have modeled their legislative branch after that found in the Constitution, i.e., two chambers. Thus you see an over allocation of seats to rural interests in the “upper” chamber.

  20. if you think of the US as a collection of states, then both the Senate and the electoral college are sensible.
    if you think of the US as a people, they area not.
    we keep trying to be both. it’s been a problem for us for about 240 years.

  21. bobbyp, look up Reynolds v. Sims, SCOTUS 1964. Held that all state legislative bodies must have equal-population districts. Special deals for state senates ended right there. Of course, it’s possible to gerrymander things to give the rural areas a slight advantage, at least in some states, but there are limits to how effective that can be.
    wj, there was a huge Progressive wave across the western US around the turn of the last century where the voters rose up because they believed Eastern moneyed interests were buying off the western legislatures. With a considerable amount of justification for that belief, it should be said. A legislature will accept desperate measures when it is clear that all of the members will be voted out if they don’t.

  22. “Open thread,” you say?
    Most times, “open” threads stay more on-topic than the normal ones, so I might as well mention the “compact” whose aim, forlorn or not, is to use good federalist principles to render toothless the never-to-be-abolished Electoral College.
    Having done my civic duty, blog-comment-wise, I will now start in with some Kinsley-type gaffes.
    Kevin McCarthy is too stupid to be let out in public, never mind be Speaker of the House.
    Papa Francesco got rolled by his American “nuncio” shilling for a twice-divorced public non-servant.
    If Carly went “from secretary to CEO” then I can say with equal justice that I have gone from paperboy to owner of an engineering firm. A firm, moreover, which has never laid anybody off or lost even a single billion dollars.
    Speaking of which, anybody who uses the phrase “baby body parts” un-ironically deserves Carly for POTUS.
    Last mass shooting, or maybe the mass shooting before that, I declared that my contempt for “responsible” gun owners was likely to grow. It has.
    “Now is not the time to talk about guns,” is a convenient line, isn’t it? Given the frequency and regularity with which “not the time” rolls around.
    Some idiot called in to “On Point” (a locally-produced NPR talk show) this morning to say that America’s problem is permissiveness, loose morals, and declining religiosity — not guns. Heh.
    Federal or Confederate, no government of The People, by The People, and for The People can ever be better than the average of The People. It can only be worse.
    –TP

  23. Russell,
    Why should anyone think of the United States primarily as a collection of states? I know it started out that way, but history has made that sort of an anachronism.
    Few of the states have any significant history as cohesive, independent, sovereign entities. Most are arbitrary geographic areas. They are creations of the federal government, not the other way around.
    Yes, we’re stuck with some notions that are held over from colonial days, when what became the first states had some degree of individual identities. But to pretend that treating the country as essentially a collection of states is a sensible way to organize things is foolish, IMO.

  26. “Why should anyone think of the United States primarily as a collection of states? I know it started out that way, but history has made that sort of an anachronism.”
    that’s my point of view also.
    my point wasn’t really to advocate the whole “federation of states” thing, but just to note that it’s there, and is often in conflict with the idea of the US as a polity comprising people, rather than subordinate states.
    a lot of the structure of the US government was created as a compromise, to satisfy the particular interests of one group or another, and to get buy-in for the constitution itself.
    some of that stuff we’ve gotten rid of. senators appointed by state legislatures, for example.
    other stuff, we havent, and probably wont.
    we don’t really operate under a single, consistent understanding of the basic nature of what the polity is.
    it creates problems.

  28. “Why should anyone think of the United States primarily as a collection of states?”
    Mostly, because they’re pissed off that black people theoretically have civil rights.

  29. Why should anyone think of the United States primarily as a collection of states? I know it started out that way, but history has made that sort of an anachronism.
    One topic where state/local politicians still think of it that way is in the western states with large federal land holdings. Based on my experience as a legislative staffer, I can guarantee you that in every one of those states, during each legislative session, the legislature will want to do something that is trivial for other states, but that becomes difficult-to-impossible because of those large land holdings. In most of those legislatures, BLM has been a nasty term for decades; all of them have to pause and think, “Oh, you mean Black Lives Matter” when they hear it these days. About every 30 years there’s a big upturn in pro-federalism opinion in the western legislator population. The last one was the Sagebrush Rebellion, and we’re seeing the beginnings of another wave now. Arizona and Utah have both recently passed nullification laws regarding federal land use.

  30. Arizona and Utah have both recently passed nullification laws regarding federal land use.
    How is that supposed to work, exactly?

  32. Michael,
    Could you give an example of, “something that is trivial for other states, but that becomes difficult-to-impossible because of those large land holdings.”
    I’m honestly curious.

  33. Las Vegas has the problem of being landlocked because it’s almost completely surrounded by federal holdings.

  35. “Las Vegas has the problem of being landlocked because it’s almost completely surrounded by federal holdings.”
    This is why the western states will lead the way into space.

  36. Funny, I don’t understand quite hoe time has turned one of the foundational premises of of country into an “anachronism”. Because you want it to be different? This is a recurring theme here, I suppose it comes up other places too. Why is it that thr states should cede their rights to the feds? Why is it “different” now?

  38. Why is it that thr states should cede their rights to the feds?
    They wouldn’t be ceding their rights to the Feds. They would be ceding them to the other states. Or, to be precise, to the citizens of the other states. Who, be it noted, are also citizens of the same nation — and, given how people move around in this country, quite possibly previously residents of those states.

  39. Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists go right back to the start, Marty. This “foundational premise” wasn’t any such thing, it was a compromise deemed necessary to reach 9/13ths consensus.

  40. “Las Vegas has the problem of being landlocked because it’s almost completely surrounded by federal holdings.”
    that’s an odd choice for an example. Las Vegas would not exist in anything like it’s present form without the help of the feds, because absent the hoover dam and lake mead it would be a moonscape.
    so, two sides to that story.
    “This is a recurring theme here,”
    it’s a recurring theme in the history of the country, beginning before it even was one country.

  41. As an example, I give you Daniel Webster on the topic of nullification.
    When the Constitution was written, the House was considered to be the people’s representative in government, and the Senate the state’s. See the Connecticut Compromise. That concept was reflected in how Senators were originally chosen for office – they were selected by state legislatures, not by direct election by the people themselves.
    That was changed by the 17th Amendment.
    Webster’s argument in the piece I cite above is that the feds and the states have their separate spheres of authority, but the constituents of *both* are the people. Webster’s claim is that the states, per se, ought to have no direct say or control over the federal government, because that government is constituted by *the people*, not the states.
    I agree with Webster, and therefore agree with the changes made by the 17th Amendment, and other changes.
    There are a number of things that the states are currently responsible for that I would very much like to see located with the feds.
    Defining the qualifications for voting in any federal election, for example, as well as defining the procedures for carrying out the election, and in fact the actual implementation of those procedures. That stuff should not belong to the states.
    Likewise, defining Congressional districts. The states should have nothing to do with that, as I see it.
    I would very much like to see the Electoral College go away. Or, at least, that we have proportional allocation of electors, the way that Maine and (IIRC) Nebraska do it.
    States shouldn’t vote for federal officers. People should.

  42. It’s not supposed to “work.” It’s more of a cry of protest.
    I can understand that.
    But, it’s one thing to argue that the feds hold too much land in your state, that it creates intolerable problems for your state, and that the feds should cede some back to you.
    It’s another to simply refuse to recognize federal authority because it creates problems for you.
    One is legitimate, one is not.

  44. byomtov: Severance or property taxes — the feds make, entirely at their discretion and at levels they set, “payments in lieu of taxes”. Placement of roads or high-voltage transmission lines — the feds can designate (and have) a new wilderness area and screw up long-standing plans for such construction. In parts of the West, alternate routes may have to go a hundred miles out of the way. Water use planning, in a region that’s mostly semi-arid — the SCOTUS has held that the feds may make whatever diversions they need to meet their purposes whenever they want without regard to what it does to other public or private land owners.
    A historical note — the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which said that the western states would never get control of those public lands, was passed without a single aye vote by any member of Congress from the western states that would actually be affected by it. I don’t recall another instance of regional solidarity like that since the run-up to the Civil War.
    I’m not taking a position here, but can honestly say that the political class in the West has a surprising amount of animosity towards the federal government as a result of this kind of thing.
    russell: Thanks! I used to drop in regularly and somehow drifted away.

  45. Marty,
    We do not live in a country of small farmers. We live in a highly industrialized country, whose economy is driven by large companies, many of which operate in all or most states and many foreign countries. To regulate that on a state-by-state basis is absurd.
    We operate on the basis of a national currency, not gold coins or privately issued bank notes. That requires a central bank.
    The federal budget is large enough to influence economic activity.
    Our armed forces are not an assembly of state militias but a large professional force relying on advanced technology. They require unified command and organization.
    We live in a mobile society, where people move from state to state often and freely. Some uniformity of rules is highly desirable.
    The states themselves are, for the most part, arbitrary geographic areas subdivided by the federal government. Few have any significant individual histories as separate entities prior to becoming states.
    The issues that Congress deals with are national in scope. The states qua states don’t have much to say about them. The people do. It is absurd to think that states as states should have a voice in say, matters of war and peace. An individual citizen of Wyoming ought to have the same voice, no more or less, than an individual citizen of California. This is true of all national issues, of which the number and complexity have grown dramatically in the past 225 years or so.

  47. Michael Cain, I’d be curious to know your thoughts on what a productive way to address some of the issues you raise might be.
    One thing I will say is that water use is, very simply, a problem in much of the west, full stop. Whether the feds are driving the bus or not, it strikes me that there is, straight up, more demand for water than there is water.
    And most of the significant watersheds cross state lines.
    So, for instance, the Colorado River Compact involves seven states. If some state upstream decides they need more, and don’t want to release more downstream, who sorts that out, absent the feds?
    For the record, how to manage and distribute natural resources that could reasonably be considered a commons is not a problem unique to the west. In my area, it shows up in the form of fish.
    We do not live in a country of small farmers.
    Whereas, the farmers did. Many of them were.
    We no longer live in an economy where private individuals function at anything remotely like a self-sufficient basis.
    Hippies and preppers, maybe. Other than them, not.
    Jefferson’s yeoman farmer no longer exists, in anything like sufficient numbers.

  49. The book is about much more than this, but the point I’m remembering in the context of the current discussion is that the western states have always insisted on demanding their ever so precious rugged independence from the federal government, except when it’s time for the handouts, which they have, as it happens, always relied on for their economic viability.
    For that matter, their’s also a lot about the continuity of the history of the borderlands that would be relevant to another recent discussion.
    Readable, fascinating book, in any case.

  51. JanieM: The economic relationship between the West (my West, the 11 contiguous Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states) and the older states is… complicated. It’s a subject about which reasonable people can disagree. I acknowledge that I have a western bias.
    There is a viable argument that absent California gold, the Union would have been unable to finance its victory in the Civil War. Granted that the western states would not have been able to borrow the cost of the big dams that were built during the Depression — but have, by the terms of the enabling statutes, paid all of that off through local user fees. By any sane contemporary measure, the West as a region is a net tax donor relative to the rest of the country. So’s the Northeast; the big sink as a region is the Southeast. How much would it cost the federal government to buy off an eastern state, close to all of those eastern nuclear reactors, to put in a spent fuel repository? A hundred billion? Two hundred? Versus simply announcing that Nevada gets screwed. “We screwed Nevada” is a direct quote from the Congressional committee chair who did that deed. Note that a big eastern repository and a small western one was the original DOE plan, as it was the plan that made engineering sense.

  52. “The states themselves are, for the most part, arbitrary geographic areas subdivided by the federal government. Few have any significant individual histories as separate entities prior to becoming states. ”
    I’m not sure that “for the most part” is accurate, and it carries a lot of the weight In your view. The laundry list of things the federal government deals with is pretty accurate, I think they should do gun control too. None of that should lessen the importance of the agreement that the various States, many with significant histories, joined a Union of States, in most cases by a vote of the people in the state.
    Trying to redefine that agreement or change it IS changing the fundamental structure that the people in those states agreed to, whether the argument is 225 years old or 10. And the purpose of the redefinition is to impose a majority view on a minority. Which is, the explicit argument for the current structure, all 225 years.
    Texans don’t want to live like people in Massachusetts. Never did. Shouldn’t have to.

  53. None of that should lessen the importance of the agreement that the various States, many with significant histories, joined a Union of States, in most cases by a vote of the people in the state.
    Trying to redefine that agreement or change it IS changing the fundamental structure that the people in those states agreed to
    What agreement do you think people are trying to change?

  55. Didn’t Rick Perry travel to Massachusetts some time back to try and convince Massachusettanians, or whatever they call themselves, to not only become more like Texans, but to set right down on the horse and live like Texans?
    Does a barbecue sauce bib come with the welcoming swag bag?
    I guess the Bush family is hedging their bets by keeping the place in Kennebunkport.
    I hear tell George W. Bush drops the fake drawl when he’s in Maine and says things like “Nor’easter due soon up heah. Someone pass me that last lobsta roll. You know, in Texas, where ah say ah come from, some of them install “decorative” wrought-iron bahs on the windows of their homes and businesses. Must be the Spanish influence, heh, heh, heh. In Maine, we don’t lock our doors and we let the sea air in at night through open windows.”
    Some Coloradans, not me, whine about Texans and Californians buying up real estate and land in Colorado.
    I kid.

  56. None of that should lessen the importance of the agreement that the various States, many with significant histories, joined a Union of States, in most cases by a vote of the people in the state.
    Yes. They joined a union of states. But I see that as a little less significant than you do. It’s not like they had the choice of joining a country with a stronger, or weaker, central government. They took what was on offer.
    Texans don’t want to live like people in Massachusetts. Never did. Shouldn’t have to.
    Well, that depends I think on what it means to “live like people in Massachusetts.”
    Also, I don’t see some huge change or redefinition. The Constitution has a lot of language that can be interpreted in varying ways. So we have the freedom to act in ways that are suitable to modern exigencies, and that accord with the current state of our understanding of the world.
    This has always been one of my complaints with those who say, “The framers never intended….” “No one ever thought…” We don’t know, can’t know, what intentions were for situations that they likely never thought about in any meaningful, informed way.

  57. Yes. They joined a union of states
    What does this “union of states” mean, exactly?
    Is the United States a government formed of states, or of people?
    This is not an idle question, because it is the basis of issues like the legitimacy of nullification, the prerogative to secede at will, etc.
    The feds have a sphere of responsibility. What doesn’t belong to them, belongs to the states, or to the people.
    The feds’ sphere is quite broad, and includes virtually all responsibilities that belong to sovereign states in any international context, as well as most or all things internal to the nation that cross state boundaries. In addition, states are required to respect the public acts, records, and proceedings of other states.
    I’m trying to understand what “fundamental structure” was agreed to that you think is under threat by any of the comments in this thread.

  58. One of the reasons the South seceded was because the federal government was allowing northern states to get away with nullification.

  59. Trying to redefine that agreement or change it IS changing the fundamental structure that the people in those states agreed to, whether the argument is 225 years old or 10.
    Current understandings of what those states agreed to is by no means the same as what was understood when some – but not other – states made said agreements. See e.g. incorporation, to pick a fairly drastic example. The understanding is not what it once was, and the various states agreed to various understandings. Should each state be allowed to argue in perpetuity for the understanding that was contemporary at the time of their individual ascension?

  60. Some liberals in Austin, Texas don’t want to live like the rest of Texas does, but gerrymandering shut that down pretty tight.

  61. russell: Who is trying to make Texans live like folks in MA?
    Amazon? Apple? Google? Microsoft? Asked the other way around, certain media outlets and most GOP hopefuls.
    Marty: …whether the argument is 225 years old or 10 …
    “The people” of the states who voted to join the Union are all dead, with the possible exception of a few Alaskans and Hawaiians. To say that the people of present-day Texas voted to join the Union is akin to saying that the New York Yankees are the team of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Yogi Berra.
    –TP

  62. One of the reasons the South seceded was because the federal government was allowing northern states to get away with nullification.
    What, no link?

  63. i’m not sure the northern states’ opposition to the Fugitive Slave Acts is going to be seen as a negative by many people.

  64. What, no link?
    […]
    Moreover, northerners’ use of defiance and nullification helped embolden the South to secede from the Union a decade later. Americans recognized that they were the ultimate defenders of their own liberty, and as such many believed that the next logical step after defiance and nullification was secession. The Fugitive Slave Act hastened that secession and helped bring on the most terrible war in American history.
    Nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act

  65. What about Mickey Mantle?
    Arizona types constantly complain they don’t want to live like anyone else.
    Then get to it and give me my goddamned f*cking Rocky Mountain water back.
    Kansas and Oklahoma moan about Denver’s air pollution and ozone levels and Colorado’s coal-fired power plants sending plumes of guck into their precious lungs.
    Hey, face East and breath and then shut yer gobs.
    Jeb Bush said the Keystone Pipeline approval is a no-brainer (he’s definitely qualified) and would happen his first day in office.
    Tell that to the armed conservative Republican landowners in the states the thing passes through who don’t want it crossing their lands for Houston’s and Canada’s benefit.
    We can do this all day.
    I just returned from Utah (Dinosaur National Park; I recommend). Crossed the state border twice, coming and going; in fact, got out of the car and looked down on the ground and tried to see it, to no avail.
    I hopped from one side to the other a couple of times like Walter Huston in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” doing his little celebratory jig after the gold was blown away to the four winds, and couldn’t tell the difference
    Except for the lack of alcohol I was forced, I say, FORCED to live under in Utah.
    Now THAT is a mockery of a travesty.
    A wall, I say, a WALL!

  66. “i’m not sure the northern states’ opposition to the Fugitive Slave Acts is going to be seen as a negative by many people.”
    Give it time. Still months to go in the Republican primary.
    By the time it’s done, and us too, Ben Carson will shackle his feet and hands together and turn himself (as stolen property) into the Governor of southern state to be sold to the highest bidder to a plantation owner, and when someone expresses outrage, probably a former Siamese twin, he’ll accuse them of the awful political correctness that has been ruining the country since Lincoln was elected.
    When given a choice of being lynched or enrolled in Obamacare, he’ll choose the former.

  67. I will answer the key question “who is asking Texans to live like etc.”
    It is asking everyone in the US to live the way the Northeastern states, plus the Peoples Republic, live every time the proposal is to change the makeup of the Senate to representation by population.
    Despite the objections here, the agreement between the incoming states and the Federal government, and the other states, was often a negotiation and compromise to protect, where necessary, the states rights and way of life. The Senate was the sales tool for that. You, as a state, will be equal to all of the other states.
    I can’t get rid of my land in Colorado.

  68. “Arizona types constantly complain they don’t want to live like anyone else.”
    Especially those retired and living on the public dole, who spent their lives in Massachusetts, until they picked up stakes and moved last Spring.
    They’d have chosen fun in the sun in Florida, but for the alligators and the Cubans.
    Who wants to live like that?

  70. Texas wanted to enter the union as a slave state. But slave states weren’t allowed to have any territory north of the 36°30′ parallel. Texas gave up a slice which, in due time, became the panhandle of Oklahoma.

  71. I will answer the key question “who is asking Texans to live like etc.”
    It is asking everyone in the US to live the way the Northeastern states, plus the Peoples Republic, live every time the proposal is to change the makeup of the Senate to representation by population.
    I somehow missed how having some variable number of senators affected my lifestyle. When one of the senators dies in office, does that change my accent? The food available at the supermarket?
    Or is it just the proposals that would make me live like someone somewhere else? Does it matter if the proposals are just ignored, seeing has they have slightly less chance of passage than a USA/Iceland political union?
    Methinks thou dost complain too much.

  73. It is asking everyone in the US to live the way the Northeastern states, plus the Peoples Republic, live every time the proposal is to change the makeup of the Senate to representation by population.
    and living the gun-stroking Texas lifestyle is getting us a mass shooting every two weeks, a school shooting every 6 weeks. and we have to live this way because we’re currently interpreting another bullshit Constitutional compromise in an absurdly a-textual way. but it’s what “conservatives” demand. so here we are.

  74. …the agreement between the incoming states and the Federal government, and the other states, was often a negotiation and compromise to protect, where necessary, the states rights and way of life.
    cite?

  75. One of the reasons the South seceded was because the federal government was allowing northern states to get away with nullification.
    STATES RIGHTS!!!!!!
    hahahahahahahahahahahahah…….

  76. “Texas wanted to enter the union as a slave state. But slave states weren’t allowed to have any territory north of the 36°30′ parallel. Texas gave up a slice which, in due time, became the panhandle of Oklahoma.”
    No doubt the would-be slaves objected to living like Texans did.
    Actually, the reason the panhandle became part of Oklahoma, eventually, is because Massachusetts didn’t think it was fair that Texas might end up with TWO panhandles.
    For a time, that piece of land was called “No-Man’s Land”, which I wish was the name of at least one state still.
    And settled only by women to this day.
    How does the gentlewoman from No Man’s Land vote on the legislation?
    That’s for me to know and you to find out.

  78. How does the gentlewoman from No Man’s Land vote on the legislation?
    That’s for me to know and you to find out.

    I needed that laugh today. Keep the land.

  79. It is asking everyone in the US to live the way the Northeastern states, plus the Peoples Republic, live every time the proposal is to change the makeup of the Senate to representation by population.
    First of all, “the Northeastern states” don’t all live the same way.
    NY ain’t Maine. Never mind Maine, NY ain’t even just one thing. Go to NYC, then go almost anywhere north of Albany, or west of the Catskills. Never mind Albany, anywhere north of Nyack. Or, maybe, Yonkers.
    Secondly, Texas, all by itself, has twice the population of, not just the good old People’s Republic, but all of New England combined.
    So, whatever.
    California is the big dog, population-wise, but California is also not even remotely one kind of place.
    Despite the objections here, the agreement between the incoming states and the Federal government, and the other states, was often a negotiation and compromise to protect, where necessary, the states rights and way of life.
    The rights that are guaranteed to the states, and protected by the Constitution, are the ones that are discussed *in* the Constitution.
    The process of any given state joining the US quite often did involve negotiation and compromises of various kinds. Especially during the slavery era, but also after.
    And, once they were in, they were in. They were thereafter entitled to exactly the same collection of obligations, rights, and privileges as any other state.
    A given state’s “way of life”, like any other place’s way of life, is subject to conditions that are far beyond the capacity of any national government to control.
    Seriously, I’m at a loss as to what you’re on about.
    You appear to believe that The Northeast, however that is defined, is imposing its lifestyle on poor beleaguered Texas.
    What the heck are you talking about?

  81. Moreover, northerners’ use of defiance and nullification helped embolden the South to secede from the Union a decade later.
    LOL.
    I belong to a church that was first assembled in 1629.
    During the pre-Civil War days, when the Fugitive Slave Act was in force, bounty-hunters would come north to “return property to its proper owner”.
    Oftentimes, they would grab a few free blacks while they were at it, just to sweeten the pot.
    Our minister at the time kept a revolver in the pulpit. Harass anyone in the congregation, or probably even within his line of sight, and he’d shoot your @ss.
    So, yes, defiance and nullification.
    Folks should always be careful what they wish for.

  83. It is asking everyone in the US to live the way the Northeastern states, plus the Peoples Republic, live every time the proposal is to change the makeup of the Senate to representation by population.
    I take it that demanding that those elsewhere live like Texans when it comes to gun laws is totally acceptable. But not demanding that Texans like like those elsewhere when it comes to other issues. Glad to have that clarified.

  84. As an anecdotal aside, I’ll also say that, as a northeasterner, and especially, for 30+ years, a New Englander, it often strikes me as odd when folks from other parts of the country talk about their “long-standing traditions”.
    McK, in another thread, talks about not wanting Houston to turn into northern Mexico.
    About 170 years ago, Texas *was* northern Mexico. Some of the folks who live there now are the descendants of people who lived there when it was Mexico, and just never left.
    Why should they? They were there first.
    A lot of, maybe most of, the West was permanently settled by English-speaking people less than 200 years ago. In a lot of cases, much less. Excluding forts and other military installations, some places weren’t really settled until the early 20th C.
    Where I live, and where I grew up, the 19th C is not very long ago. Buildings built then are not considered to be particularly old, most towns and cities were already 100 or 200 years old then. Northern New England was in the process of re-foresting itself, after the great-grandkids of the first settlers got sick of farming rocks and either moved to the cities for a factory job, or moved to Ohio where there was actually some topsoil.
    Among other things, my grandfather was born in 1879.
    It just doesn’t seem all that long ago, to me.
    What seem like “long-standing traditions” sometimes might not be.
    Different perspectives.
    Plus, you know, times change. Frontier days are over.

  85. My guess: Guns.
    FWIW, if I recall correctly Marty is on record as being fine with stronger gun regulations, and at the federal level.
    So, I doubt his thing is guns.
    Plus, as far as I know, the state of MA has had absolutely zero effect on gun regulations in TX.

  86. some of the western and southern states with high murder and suicide rates and high gun possessions don’t want to die like those from Massachusetts do — from mostly natural causes
    We die from traffic-induced apoplexy. If we survive that, we die from shoveling snow.
    If we survive that, we die of old age on an Registry of Motor Vehicles line.
    If I were in TX, I might not want to live like MA either.
    To each, their own.

  87. Russell, don’t be so literal. The concept that the industrialized states want to have more say over the southern and western states by making the senate population based is the attempt to get around a constitutional protection for those states with smaller populations.
    There is in this thread that old chestnut brought back to life. Yes Texas has the population, but the intent and result would be that the coasts, and I was referring to the peoples republic of california not Cambridge, would run the country.

  88. “As an anecdotal aside, I’ll also say that, as a northeasterner, and especially, for 30+ years, a New Englander, it often strikes me as odd when folks from other parts of the country talk about their “long-standing traditions”.”
    You can buy an old wagon wheel in Colorado from probably 125 years ago. We have a long-standing tradition of calling crap like that an antique and selling it to unsuspecting Easterners who just got off the Mayflower.

  89. Marty is on record for better gun regs, so this isn’t for him:
    But, yeah, it’s the guns:
    No wait, it’s the women:
    http://www.donotlink.com/framed?787340
    Do your part, men, and stand up and shoot, That’s your natural inclination. Don’t be stymied.
    And if you are, you know who to blame — your Mommy, your Aunts, your female grade-school teachers, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, your first girlfriend, the Statue of Liberty, that feminizing harridan, and who to shoot next.
    See, the writer of that article ( who claims to be gay, with the proviso that the article might be a ruse; I don’t know, does Breitbart do funny?) fits my rule that the conservative movement is a big tent that accepts anyone from any racial, sexual, religious, real estate developer, or interplanetary category, as long as they are the biggest as*hats that category has to offer.
    They don’t settle for any of your run-of-the-mill a*shates. Only the worst will do.

  90. If I recall correctly, that famous saying went, “Of the People, by the People, and for the People”, not “of the states, by the states, and for the states”.
    However, I dare say that if things were reversed and states like Oklahoma and Kansas were the centers of “progressivism” (like they actually were in the 1890’s)the shoes would be on opposite feet.
    Such is politics.

  91. Nacogdoches, the oldest city in Texas, was founded in 1779. Nothing on New Amsterdam I guess. Although there’s evidence that it has been a settlement, perhaps not continuously, for 10,000 years.

  93. the intent and result would be that the coasts, and I was referring to the peoples republic of california not Cambridge, would run the country.
    On behalf of those living in the Peoples Republic of California, let me say that many here would be delighted if Texas (and the rest of the Old Confederacy) decamped. Then we wouldn’t have to keep paying the taxes which support them. (Not to mention which pay for things like aircraft that the military doesn’t even want, but which provide jobs across every Congressional district there.)
    I think the response here would be “Don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.”
    (I should probably note that there are lots of fine people in Texas. And all the rest of those states. But they seem to be outnumbered, at least among the voting public, but the reactionary nut cases. Not conservative, mind, but reactionary — albeit longing for a past that never was.)

  94. “Nacogdoches, the oldest city in Texas, was founded in 1779. Nothing on New Amsterdam I guess. Although there’s evidence that it has been a settlement, perhaps not continuously, for 10,000 years.”
    Yes, but those were migrant immigrants who followed the fauna and the pollen where it was headed. It wasn’t like they were Puritans or anything, seeking a place where their narrow-mindedness could seek refuge from others’ narrow-mindednesses.
    I understand you can get some primo, antique (in the Spanish cathedral-style from 16th-Century Spain imported by the conquistadors), wrought-iron decorative (wink, wink) window coverings down thereabouts for a pittance.
    A steal, I should say.
    As Cortes said to Moctezuma: “We bring you syphilis and wrought-iron window coverings to exchange for your gold and your women. If you don’t like those principles, we have others. By the way, if YOU Aztecs had thought up wrought-iron window coverings, we wouldn’t have been able to rape and pillage you, would we?”
    Slightly alternative history brought to you by fractured fairy tales by way of Bullwinkle, as exceptional American comedian.

  95. I want Southwestern Pueblos to live like we do here in New Jersey, only because their long-standing traditions have yet to be disrupted.

  97. The concept that the industrialized states want to have more say over the southern and western states by making the senate population based is the attempt to get around a constitutional protection for those states with smaller populations.
    I don’t really have a big problem with the Senate being two per state, and the House being proportional.
    The net result is that rural areas – places with relatively low populations – are represented to a degree greater than their population would otherwise support.
    As a practical matter, that keeps them from basically being run over by everybody else.
    That doesn’t just help places like the mountain West, it helps places like VT, ME, NH and RI. By land area, most of New England.
    So, the way the Senate is set up *today* – post-17th A – is OK with me, as a practical matter.
    What I don’t agree with is the idea that states *per se* should have control over, or an ability to override, the federal government.
    I agree with the 17th Amendment, because IMO *people* should elect their representatives directly, not via intermediaries at the state government level.
    I’m against the electoral college as currently constituted, because *people* should vote for national officers, not states.
    I’d be happier with the electoral system if electors were allocated proportionately to votes within the state, like they do in Maine and Nebraska, and that would still retain an advantage for small-population states.
    That would also encourage people running for POTUS to campaign everywhere, instead of just in the bigger states and/or swing states.
    But I’d really prefer all national offices to be a matter of straight-up popular vote.
    What I’m absolutely against is the whole nullification BS. The folks with the authority to interpret the Constitution are the SCOTUS.

    In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

    Article III, Section 2.
    The SCOTUS. Not the Solons of South Carolina, not Rick Perry, not some county sheriff, not some dude who just anointed himself or herself a “sovereign citizen”.

  98. ” The concept that the industrialized states want to have more say over the southern and western states by making the senate population based is the attempt to get around a constitutional protection for those states with smaller populations.”
    Yeah, it’s just insane how MA has the option of splitting into four states, quadrupling its representation in the Senate, any time they feel like messing up the south.
    Oh, wait.

  99. Nacogdoches, the oldest city in Texas, was founded in 1779.

    Colonel Antonio Gil Y’Barbo, a prominent Spanish trader, emerged as the leader of the settlers, and in the spring of 1779, he led a group back to Nacogdoches. Later that summer, Nacogdoches received designation from Spain as a pueblo, or town, thereby making it the first “town” in Texas

    I’m not sure that makes the point you were hoping to make.
    does Breitbart do funny?
    Not intentionally.

  100. The concept that the industrialized states want to have more say over the southern and western states by making the senate population based is the attempt to get around a constitutional protection for those states with smaller populations.
    Well, yes. But I don’t quite the problem with that. This is because I don’t think it makes much sense to say that “states” should have a voice in national policy as states. I think the people in the staes shoudl have a voice, and right now that voice is wildly unequal. So I don’t get why it’s desirable to give “Wyoming” the same voice in the Senate as “California” when that automatically means a random Californian has vastly less voice than a random Wyomingite(?).
    IOW, let’s say some issue is up for debate. Whether to invade Iraq, say. Californians are against, 60-40. Wyomingites are for, 60-40. How can it possibly make sense that these count the same?
    Who’s going to pay the bills? Where are the troops going to come from? And most important, why should the judgment of a few hundred thousand people in Wyoming count as much as that of millions in California?
    The answer that “They are both states” simply begs the question. It’s saying it should be that way because it is. That’s not enough.

  101. Whether to invade Iraq, say.
    the House could, presumably, refuse to fund such a war.
    not that it ever would.

  102. They’re on the constant look-out for a war to fund so they can defund most of the domestic budget, ex-defense.

  104. why should the judgment of a few hundred thousand people in Wyoming count as much as that of millions in California?
    That is a pretty good point.
    The population ratio of CA to WY is about 66 to 1.
    I understand the desire to not have rural interests overwhelmed by those big city folks.
    But 66 to 1 is a lot.

  106. I had a latte in Wyoming once, so don’t think the commie, limp-wristed, hippie, granola California lifestyle ain’t making inroads among the turquoise and silver belt buckle set up Laramie-way.
    It wasn’t at Starbucks.
    They have drive-in StarBuckingBrahmaBulls up there.
    What you do is when you order is when the server asks you what you want, if you calf-tie him or her by the ankles in less than three seconds and then raise your hands in the air real quick-like, a rodeo clown comes out to your car and feeds you a latte through the flower on his lapel.
    The he says you’ve got ten minutes to get out of Dodge, which is just a way of making sure you get caught in a speed trap before crossing the state line, since the taxes are so low, the cops need to have a ticket-quota to afford pants.
    Let alone expensive home security systems and assorted automatic weapons (upgraded from the decorative rebar window treatments the less fortunate are stuck with) to keep the mexican immigrants and the one black guy living up there from stealing their saddle soap.
    I hope no one thinks it politically incorrect of me to generalize from the particular.

  107. Ben Carson’s new Christian martyr-twist on the Oregon shootings is sure to go places.
    It’s almost as if he’s happy Christians are being targeted, though not so happy that he would attend a black church service in South Carolina, in case there might be other parameters his pig-f*cking demagogued mob uses when they go on shooting sprees.
    Shooting black Christians in their church might offend his politically-correct sensibilities.
    You’d think a reasonable nine-year-old would note that non-denominational schools seem to be the target, but then I’m not arming incoherent sh*theads.
    Someone run out and bring me a nine-year … never mind .. they’ve all been given voter’s cards marked Republican.
    And then there is this:
    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/reactionaries-with-bullet.html
    This Republican primary may result in the largest body count of any since 1864, given recent trends.
    These “people” want to kill and be awarded martyr and victim-status as well.
    What a gig they’ve got going.
    More guns.
    More guns.
    A whole sh*tload of guns is what the doctor ordered.
    You know, Hitler …
    Need I go on.

  108. To some extent you might be able to justify it on the basis that sparsely-populated, conservative rural areas have different interests from heavily-populated, liberal urban areas, and that in a legislature with purely population-based representation, only the latter would have any effective representation at all. So giving states a voice provides some balance to avoid eliminating representation of the minority interest entirely.

  109. I had to do business leasing property for the Census Bureau in Casper and Cheyenne a few years ago and in my meetings with tooled cowboy booted, spray-on dungareed reps, I wasn’t sure whether they wanted to sign a contract or brand me.
    I kid, they were great, good people and hospitable, except for one lessor who copped an attitude about my, and my colleagues’ … umm .. Fed status, and thought maybe we’d bail him out of his long-time-unleased property (this was 2009 and oil was at $30 bucks a barrel and the Feds were the only money in town — Casper), but his building was a piece of sh*t and so was he.
    We found better accommodations to everyone’s mutual benefit, including the taxpayers, not that those ingrates would know any better.

  110. Matt, if you going to argue that way, wouldn’t it make more sense to ignore state borders, and just allocate Senators by square miles?

  111. To some extent, Matt, you might have a point:
    The Supreme Court is over-represented by Catholics.
    The House has way too many attorneys.
    Both the House and the Senate don’t have enough women.
    And just about every legislator has a pretty hefty net worth, as opposed to regular folks.
    Blacks? Hispanics? Haha. Don’t make me laugh.
    But yes, by all means, its all about those poor misunderstood rurals sucking off the government teat to an extent that only a decades seasoned lobbyist or Wall Street banker could fully appreciate.

  112. Not often that I disagree with Russell, but allocating electors by Congressional district would make Electoral College results more likely to be skewed from popular vote totals. The total votes for Democratic candidates outnumber votes for Republican candidates, and the result is a solid Republican majority in Congress; presidential election results would turn the same way.

  113. Just wanted to note that Count’s 6:35PM comment is a thing of beauty, rodeo clowns and all.

  114. “I had a latte in Wyoming once, ”
    my wife once did an on-site consultation with a client some whew in the wilds of one of the dakotas.
    the nearest breakfast place was a truck stop. they were offering fluffy cakes and cappucino.
    its true, we multicultural coastal types are, little by little, taking over. it’s a long march through the nation’s alimentary canal.
    my wife and I are headed to southern utah in a couple of weeks. while we’re there, I’m going to scout locations for an artisanal kimchi joint.
    we’re coming for your jerky next.

  115. To some extent you might be able to justify it on the basis that sparsely-populated, conservative rural areas have different interests from heavily-populated, liberal urban areas,
    But this is generally true of any minority. By “minority” here I mean not necessarily, or even primarily, racial or ethnic minority, but rather a minority in lifestyle terms.
    I don’t actually know what the differences you mention might be, which is not to say there are not any, but my guess is that they have little to do with the way those who live in rural areas are treated by the government, and more to do with their political views.
    Finally, I think it’s worth noting that the urban-rural conflict is often as much an intra-state political battle as an interstate one.

  116. My most enlightened Wyoming Census lessor of all was in Cheyenne and had a brand new space powered almost completely by solar and wind energy.
    Things worked out great at that property for the taxpayers since the energy bills were minimal, but I got word that Wyoming-native Dick Cheney commissioned a huge black cloud, the only cloud in Wyoming (there is no “why” in Wyoming), directly from his furrowed Zeus forehead to block the sun directly and only over that property for two years because the very idea of solar power conjured images of homosexuality, ISIS-sympathies, and Obama brain washing in his brittle, wrinkled mind, and so the heating bill was a little high during the winter months.
    He would similarly blow hot air on the building during the sweltering summer months to offset the energy efficient air conditioning.
    Unfortunately, we couldn’t deduct the extra cost from his massive Federal Pension and oft-used federal retiree health plan to offset the difference.
    Dick Cheney, always one heart attack short of the Big One.

  117. To some extent you might be able to justify it on the basis that sparsely-populated, conservative rural areas have different interests from heavily-populated, liberal urban areas,
    But this is generally true of any minority. By “minority” here I mean not necessarily, or even primarily, racial or ethnic minority, but rather a minority in lifestyle terms.

    FORTRAN programmers should get two senators of their own, because those Java dudes are ‘WAY over represented.
    DO 10 J=1, INFTY
    PRINT *, “Life is unfair!”
    10 CONTINUE

  118. Maybe urbanites want to force rural people to have abortions and marry within their sex. Or, worse yet, say “Happy Holidays” at Christmastime.

  119. Snarki, that’s Pandora’s box right there. Next the Lisp programmers will want representation, then they’ll realize they can double-dip by demanding representation as Emacs users, and then come the holy wars, blood, and ashes.

  122. Talking about net donors and net takers from the federal bucket:
    Wallet Hub says SC is #1 when it comes to federal handouts.
    $7.87 back for every $1.00 paid in. Nice work if you can get it.
    South Carolina – the nation’s problem child.

  123. If Obama approves any kind of Federal aid, including FEMA money, to bail out South Carolina, I won’t vote for him when he announces he’s running in 2016 for a third term as President.
    Has Trevino suggested abandoning Charleston to the flood waters yet as a show of self-reliance on the victims’ parts and an example to be made of parasites on America’s part.
    Something along the lines of maybe 20% of the residences and businesses destroyed in the area (among the hundreds of thousands gone) have Federal flood insurance.
    Obama should order the government to renig on the 20% who have flood insurance as a budget cutting move.
    Meanwhile, I hope to see a photo op of Lindsay Graham smooching the tip of Obama’s signing pen when the latter hands over my money to Graham’s constituents who probably can’t wait to get back to their normal lives of sandbagging every other decent thing the federal government accomplishes for the Others.
    I’m hoping Ted Cruz will forget that his state accepted Federal money after their devastating floods a year or two ago, and tells Graham to suck on his boat rescue pole, you socialist you.
    In Graham style, I’m now going to forget I ever wrote this comment and if asked about it’s provenance, I’m going to blame ISIS and move quickly away from the microphone.
    Subhuman filth is what Graham and company are and we should all aspire to and emulate his example for our children’s sake.

  124. For the record, I’m fine with sending SC whatever aid they need. Floods suck.
    I just wish they’d get with the “e pluribus unum” program.

  125. Matt,
    Let me ask you what I asked Michael Cain. What are those interests exactly? And how does or might the federal government unfairly infringe on them?
    My impression is that traditional western economic interests involve mining and timber. Is ranching still important?
    Where mining is concerned I’d say there is a legitimate federal interest in various environmental matters. And logging – not to mention grazing – on federal land – surely is a legitimate federal concern.
    But I admit to being somewhat ignorant of the issues of concern. So help me out.

  126. yep. give SC what they need.
    then send every one of them a detailed invoice, marked “Paid in full, courtesy of the rest of the US”.

  127. Our old friend and bugbear Brett Bellmore lives in South Carolina, I believe. Does anybody know if he came through the storm OK?
    –TP

  129. I just wish they’d get with the “e pluribus unum” program.
    Don’t be ridiculous. That slogan is in Latin, which is a foreign (worse yet, European) language, not proper English. And therefore un-American.

  131. “Has Trevino suggested abandoning Charleston to the flood waters yet as a show of self-reliance on the victims’ parts and an example to be made of parasites on America’s part.”
    Bootstraps, people! PULL ON THOSE BOOTSTRAPS!
    Will the flooding be a ‘learning experience’ for the RWNJs of SC? Magic-8 ball sez: NO.

  133. I’ve seen Brett posting elsewhere. So, I guess he has at least a dry spot, electricity, a computer and Internet connection.

  135. I’m glad Brett’s OK, but I do have to admit that the thought of FEMA rescuing him did have a bit of wicked appeal.
    No doubt he would reciprocate if I complained about some silly government rule.

  136. It all comes out:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/matt-drudge-interview-obama-isis-issa
    I hope this becomes a trend. Other suggested names for ISIL/ISIS:
    Cruzamaniacs
    Carsonagenic Deviants
    Bushadisiacs
    Grahamaholics
    Satyrs For Fiorinacating
    PedaTrumpaphiles
    Perverts for Paul
    Jindalascatologicalogicians
    GoataH*ckabeeewannabees
    Diddling Infantile Walkerites
    AutoRubionecrophiliacs
    Straight, Boring Murderers for Kasich
    Maybe the next election will be thrown into the House of Reprehensible Putinista Political Buggery

  139. And in today’s breaking news, House Majority Leader McCarthy has just dropped out of the competition for Speaker of the House. Apparently he decided that life is too short to spend part of it dealing with the crazies in the Republican caucus.
    As if things were not interesting enough already in the Congress. I was particularly taken with Rep Dent’s comment that it might be necessary to form a bipartisan coalition in order to elect the next Speaker.
    I’m thinking it may be time to short Treasuries. Since the nut cases may decide to refuse to raise the debt limit, and send the US government into default, it might be a smart play.

  140. Apparently he decided that life is too short to spend part of it dealing with the crazies in the Republican caucus.
    sounds like it could be even juicier than that.

    North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones (R) sent a letter to the No. 4 House Republican saying any candidate for leadership who has committed any “misdeeds” since joining Congress should “withdraw” from the contest.

  141. wj,
    I’d be willing to take the other side of that bet. It would be irresponsible for the President to not do everything possible to avoid a default. Trillion $ coin, here we come!
    What you and other reasonable Republicans need to do is bolt the party and help elect Nancy Pelosi to the speakership. 🙂
    You could call yourselves the Centublicrats.

  142. ” Apparently he decided that life is too short to spend part of it dealing with the crazies in the Republican caucus.”
    He’s one of them. If he had resigned his seat and then committed suicide on the House Floor, I’d be more convinced of his sincerity about not dealing with crazies.
    The President should begin preparations for declaring martial law.
    After all, that’s what the pigf*cking subhuman Republican base dream of so they can begin the wholesale killing of decent Americans:
    http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/wnd-martial-law-obama-second-term

  143. Bobby, since my Congressman is a Democrat, I don’t really have a lot of influence over the coming election.
    I suppose I could write various other members of Congress who are Republicans. But with a California return address? How much attention would I get . . . especially for something suggesting taking the path of sanity?
    The bomb-throwing anarchists have taken over the party. And there doesn’t appear to be much I can do about it from here.

  147. This guy steps aside too:
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/daniel-hamermesh-ut-austin-guns
    Also, the former high ranking military combat officer, who knows whereof he speaks, and who is head of one of big Texas Universities has come out strongly against the new law permitting concealed carry on campuses (mandated, natch, for the state run schools, voluntary choice for private pigf*cker colleges).
    See, I think they are both cowards.
    In the first place, the econ professor should remain in his post and when the new semester starts, he should draw his weapon and fire off a couple of rounds above his students’ heads just to quiet them down and place anyone on notice with hostile thoughts about the dismal science that the bounds of conversation are now f*cking circumscribed.
    In the second place, when the retired military officer now college president testifies in the Texas House about the new law, he should show up in full military regalia with a big honking military weapon in tow, throw it on the witness testifying table, and say to the assembled reprehensibles: “Thank you for taking my testimony, ladies and gentleman and pigf*ckers. Any of you want to f*ck with me?”

  148. What, you think maybe he and Erick Erickson’s goat may have had relations?
    it would explain why E.E. is leaving RedState.

  149. Michele Bachmann started her new career as Republican Party weather anchor (Station call letter: RPVOMIT) the other day and immediately murdered 17 innocent people in South Carolina.
    She claimed it was the black guy and the Jews, but don’t let her five hours in make-up fool you.

  150. Putin’s cruise missiles were right on target:
    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/10/oops-putins-cruise-missiles-still-need-little-work
    Forty .. scratch that … 39 House Republicans (another poisoned one showed up dead) and eight Republican Presidential candidates called a quick press conference and shirtlessly, to a woman, praised Putin’s leadership and added defensively that the missiles first went directly, on camera, through the window of a hummus factory in Syria before veering wildly off course and landing in Iran, kind of like our missiles in Iraq 13 years ago, which made a round trip and are still providing blowback up America’s fundament as we speak, and besides, it’s only another one of the “I” countries, and what’s a few dead innocent Muslims in a country, any country, name a country.
    Mexico.

  151. It’s not a dumpster fire but a dumpster inferno!
    It would be nice to have a better yield on short-term treasuries than 0.1% though.

  153. Barring any revelations about my checkered past, let alone my paltry identity, give me ten minutes of blathering my crazy-ass mimicking true conservative nonsense into a microphone about how I plan to ruin the country and show real Americans what-for and I’d have 30 of the 40 crazy caucus votes for Speaker right off the bat (“Now diss guy is our kind of nuts”, they’d rave. I’d punctuate each of my platform bullet points by shooting off a real bullet.) and a decent chance of a last minute rogue nomination for President at the Republican convention as the Trump/Carson ticket bickers over whether the Donald’s hairpiece should sit with him at the dias or Carson should do the politically incorrect thing and frisbee the stuffed marmoset out over the assembled audience like a bridal garter at the marriage of Satan.

  160. From Newt’s Twaddle feed:
    “Newt Gingrich ‏@newtgingrich Oct 4
    Mental illness is a major problem and a key reason we need an all out brain research project.”
    Yeah, we do.
    I suggest that he donate his crazy organ to science and let me drop on the lab floor (schpltt!) and kick it a few times and come up with a diagnosis.

  161. I hear talk that there is a fight for the soul of the Republican Party.
    The last time something like this happened Linda Blair and two other poor sods in the movie exhibited ultra-360 degree neck flexibility and the props department ran out of projectile-vomited pea soup.
    They may find their soul soon and it will be shirtless with perfect male abs and nipples and invading the Ukraine.

  162. The “dumpster fire” meme (Mork and Marty would be proud) ugh referred to above and mentioned bond-wise by wj metastasizes to Wall Street:
    “Chaos in the U.S. House of Representatives makes an already scary autumn even more uncertain for Wall Street with debt limit and shutdown fights looming and no one clearly in charge. […]
    “We will not mince words—this is the political equivalent of a dumpster fire,” said Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities. “We are increasing our odds from 30 percent to 40 percent for some kind of accident that would keep Congress from raising the debt ceiling in time due to brinkmanship, procrastination, or political gridlock.”
    Guggenheim is a fairly big mutual fund and ETF house.
    Not Marxists. Maybe a little Chico Marxist on exploiting the main chance.
    Quoted by Daily Kos by way of Harpo
    Honk.
    There should be some mincing, but not of words.

  163. This is like the time a Jew in 1933 Germany said: “Hey, Hitler, he’s a schmuck, but we’ll live. He’s a passing thing. I will say, he’s got the delivery down.”
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-hispanics-woman-stage
    Do they have trains all the way to Columbia?
    I suggest the girl invest in some some decorative wrought-iron window coverings and expensive electronic security trappings for her U.S. residence when the government goons come calling.
    Guns too.

  164. We will not mince words—this is the political equivalent of a dumpster fire
    The Wall Street folks hate uncertainty.
    And who can blame them?
    How can we be sure we’re going to get our risk premium when everything is so uncertain?

  165. How many Republican traitors can fit in one of these:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429515/-Detroit-police-excited-about-SWAT-vehicle-costing-700-000-Meanwhile-Detroit-is-bankrupt
    When Obama declares martial law, once the debt limit is violated and every covenant guaranteed by US bonds in pensions, mortgages, and weapons systems is violated and as Republicans have predicted and oh so want, he’s going to need a million units.
    Park em in the hot sun for processing into Guanotown.

  166. Any Republicans willing to call on these hopeless romantics to call it off.
    Bobby Jindal, anyone ..?
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429420/-Various-stains-on-humanity-to-organize-armed-anti-mosque-protests-this-weekend
    I hope the Mosques respond in kind and shoot all three of these losers in the head.
    Respond like a Republican would who looked out his bay window and noticed a bunch of fat f*cks bearing weapons of war in his driveway.
    Unless they were white, and then never the f*ck mind.

  168. I’ve been reading the various reactions and commentaries on the current state of the contest for Speaker of the House. One thing seems to gleam through the darkness: the never-compromise rebellion in the ranks is not going to fade over time.
    It is therefore all too likely that one of the three current frontrunners for the Republican nomination for President will actually get it. No reverting to the GOP tradition of flirting with rebels before going with an establishment candidate. The base wants someone who has never held office precisely because, at heart, they distrust and dispise anyone who has political experience.
    What does this mean? I suspect the biggest impact may be on the Democratic Presidential contest. If they were going up against a GOP establishment candidate (Bush, Rubio, etc.), the Democrats needed someone who could contest for the votes of the center. But against Trump et al, those moderate voters are not going to buy into the anarchist far right’s views of the world.
    Which means the Democratic primary voters can go with their hearts, not with raw pargmatism. And that means that Sanders’ candidacy just got a whole lot more viable. Democrats are OK with Clinton, but not enthused. They would likely have embraced her as a necessity to hold on to the Presidency. But if that necessity is gone, and it rather looks like it may be, then….

  170. There are 11 mosques in Denver.
    Hey, for the festivities this weekend, why don’t we compete among ourselves to see how many mosques we can visit in our locales and show up and cackle at the anti-American pig vermin.
    Maybe go up to them personally and put your finger on their fat f*ck sternums and when they look down, flick their pig noses.
    Probably the local constabulary will be there to protect pussies with weapons of war from liberals bearing ridicule.
    America: deserving of ISIS.

  171. Count for Speaker!
    They could pick someone from outside congress to be speaker though, I guess, it’s never been done.

  173. Which means the Democratic primary voters can go with their hearts, not with raw pargmatism.
    Is there some kind of post Tammany Hall pragmatism theme that I am not aware of? I need to know since, as a good Democrat, I vote early, and I vote often.

  176. It’s a true zombie lie that gets resurrected again and again however often it is put down. Those who spread it can rely on it that their target audience is unable to read the German laws and regulations in the original and thus will fall for the deliberately edited or outright falsified/made-up English translations. The same rubes fall for the claim that Hitler introduced universal healthcare in Germany as first step on the way to the Holocaust (=> death panels) or that the Nazis were a 100% gay movement (=> pink swastika).
    Nice anti-gun system that teached its kids shooting and throwing hand grenades at school, made membership in paramilitary organisations mandatory and worked with slogans like ‘The German boy’s fingers are not at the German girl’s tits but at the trigger of his small calibre rifle’ (no, I did not make that one up). After both world wars it was the task of the Allies to collect all those privately held firearms and to impose much stricter laws and regulations concerning private ownership of them.

  177. Bobby, depending on where you live, even voting early and often might not be enough. A contest of, for example, Sanders vs Bush might not go your way. Whereas Clinton vs Bush would, I think, have at least a slightly better than 50-50 chance for you.
    But if the GOP goes with one of the non-politicians (or with Cruz, Jindal, or one of the other extreme options), either Sanders or Clinton could win it for you.

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