Politics

“Because I Could”

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I have often contrasted how elated I felt the day Bill Clinton was elected (dancing the night away at the Hilton in DC) with the hit-by-a-truck shock of watching him admit that he had lied to the nation about the Lewinski affair. I literally was nearly sick at that moment and still resent him for … Read more

Open Primaries in CA?

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Rick Heller of Centerfield is linking to a John Fund article regarding the possibility of California becoming an open primary state. Short version: Fund is profoundly leery of any voting system that could easily reproduce results like the 1991 Louisiana Senate or the 2002 French presidential races. It’s hard to blame him, although I would note that in both cases the electorate did not end up electing the lunatic. Still, Rick wants to give it a shot, seeing as he’s even less worried about kooks getting elected and he’s tired of not having enough centrists* in office.

I’d be much happier with gerrymander-proof Congressional districts, but that’s just me. At any rate, I doubt that this will make it past the courts. Granted, Louisiana’s did, butthen Louisiana doesn’t have 55 Electoral votes. I know that this is cynical of me, but honestly, the existing political parties in CA are happy enough with the status quo – they ought to be; they designed it that way – and thus not in the mood to rock boats. I also believe that this proposal would make Californian elections a bit more complicated, yes? I seem to recall hearing people complain about that sort of thing already, although I could be misremembering…

Moe

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Liberalism, Abortion and Stem Cell Research

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This Crooked Timber post reminds me of something that has annoyed me recently: the idea that from the liberal perspective abortion arguments and stem cell research are closely linked. The post is technically about the idea of Kerry being denied communion because of his pro-choice and stem cell research stances. I’m not Catholic, so I … Read more

The Stepford Vice President

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So here’s a theory. Dick Cheney is actually a robot. Back in the early days of the Bush Administration, when he underwent “heart” surgery, he was actually Stepfordized. Admittedly, this theory has a few loose ends (mostly in that he’s certainly not any better looking now), but at least it offers a feasible explanation for his insistence that Hussein had ties to al Qaida (i.e, there’s a fatal error or short-circuit in his data access update loop or something like that).

From Marshall’s Gaggle report:

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What’s next? Delay/Pelosi slash fiction from the NYT?

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There were, like, a lot of actual things happening in the last few days, folks. I just want to know: what story did you spike to make room for a piece about how Paramount Photoshopped Condi Rice’s and Hillary Clinton’s faces on cheesecake shots for a movie trailer? (pause) Oh, it’s part of a column. … Read more

There was a rumor

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I have listened to Kinky Friedman’s music precisely once. I was 24 at the time, and was over a friend’s house – well, there were a bunch of us, and we didn’t have anywhere to go that weekend, and there was a neighborhood bar right next door, just in case we got tired of drinking … Read more

An open letter to the Media…

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…That’d be the so-called ‘conservative’ media, the so-called ‘liberal’ media or whoever the hell’s supposed to be pulling your strings this week. Please direct your attention to what Senator McCain said – again – about him being the Veep candidate for Senator Kerry: he said “no“. It’s not confirmed that Senator Kerry even asked; frankly, … Read more

Things we need and things we don’t

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Kevin Drum and Mark Kleiman, in full schadenfreude mode, wonder “Is the Abu Ghraib scandal about to break wide open?” (Drum.) Indeed, there has been a bit of a drumbeat of late, pounding away even as Reagan’s body has lain in state. Among other things: — The steady drip-drip-drip of the torture memoranda. — More … Read more

Fishes.

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A stunner in the case against Padilla, the U.S. Citizen who has been locked up for the last two years without judicial review as an “enemy combatant”: [A]dministration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention—that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific … Read more

Premature Again…

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They just can’t wait to tack up those “Mission Accomplished” banners, this White House… Via Barry at Bloggy.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` April 29, 2004, the Bush Administration released a report called “Patterns of Global Terrorism” which indicated that the number of annual terrorist attacks had dropped. And not only dropped, but dropped to its lowest level in … Read more

Just How Bad Is US Intelligence?

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Digging around in the basement to find and dust off…ahhh, here it is: Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists. —Dr. Rice, March 22, 2004, Op-ed … Read more

Voting Patterns Among the Poor

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On Chicago Boyz there is a very interesting post about voting habits among the poor. An oft cited fact (search the Calpundit archives or Matthew Yglesias archives for examples) suggests that many poorer areas tend to have Republican voting patterns. The general explanation is that these people are voting against their own interests. They have … Read more

Never has so much been asked of so few

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As Tacitus wrote last Friday, there are rumors that the DoD would begin activating significant portions of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) to meet our needs for more troops. As Tacitus pointed out “an IRR call-up is supposed to be an exceptional event,” such as the Chinese invading Oregon. In today’s New York Times, Andrew … Read more

Fun with Statistics

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UPDATE: Constant Readers Phil and Slartibartfast took all the fun out of this by revealing that this data has (have?) been thoroughly debunked (see here and here), thus rendering this little more than petty partisan wishful thinking. Feel free to consider this an open thread then in which to get out any snarky comments you’ve been holding back (bearing in mind the posting rules).

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Heading this off at the pass?

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Ted Barlow has a straightforward suggestion about how to make personal attacks against the Bush daughters, now that they’re joining the Bush campaign: don’t. He thinks that it’s not nice (Ted always was a big softie) and not smart politics (being a big softie doesn’t mean that you have to be dumb). Considering the unfair crap that got slung* against Chelsea Clinton, I’d have to agree, on both counts.

Of course, he still has to convince everybody else – certain of his commenters are, um, resistant to the idea – so I’ll sweeten the pot. I hereby swear that I shall make no cheap shots at Senator Kerry’s daughters for as long as Ted Barlow makes no cheap shots at President Bush’s, and I encourage bloggers from across the spectrum to follow my lead. Let us have something about this election that isn’t war to the knife, no matter how small it may be.

Moe

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The United States of Sparta

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I know that headline may immediately turn off a portion of the readership (“Good God, not another anti-war diatribe, can we just get over it?”). To those folks, I’d ask you read a bit further. It’s not what you think. The Belmont Club’s Wretchard writes a breathtaking thesis on the future direction of war in “The Global Battlefield.” His central argument is “Wars will no longer be fought between armies. They will be fought between societies.” He builds his argument around the ideas that

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Budget Cuts Are Coming

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There’s been a bunch of chatter recently about John McCain’s question about the War on Terror: ‘Where’s the sacrifice?’

Well, it’s coming folks. If Bush is re-elected, there’s good reason to suspect that we will see significant budget cuts in 2006 in “virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs, including education, homeland security and others that the president backed in this campaign year.”

Administration officials had dismissed the significance of the proposed cuts when they surfaced in February as part of an internal White House budget office computer printout. At the time, officials said the cuts were based on a formula and did not accurately reflect administration policy. But a May 19 White House budget memorandum obtained by The Washington Post said that agencies should assume the spending levels in that printout when they prepare their fiscal 2006 budgets this summer.

Now nothing’s chiseled in stone yet (least of all that Bush will be in office then):

J.T. Young, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the memo, titled “Planning Guidance for the FY 2006 Budget,” is a routine “process document” to help agency officials begin establishing budget procedures for 2006. In no way should it be interpreted as a final policy decision, or even a planning document, he said.

But, there are folks on both sides of the political aisle suggesting these cuts would happen should Bush win (i.e., if Kerry doesn’t win and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans):

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A Sinking Ship

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So, you know it tears me up inside to be the bearer of bad news for the Bush campaign, but there’s little other news to pass along these days. First it was the Muslim Americans, now the Cuban Americans: Bush’s support among Cuban-Americans in south Florida—about 80 percent of whom backed him in 2000—shows signs … Read more

Need to Know Basis Only

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/snark on/ Right hand, meet Left Hand… Pentagon surprised by Bush pledge to destroy Abu Ghraib: report I know he’s the boss and all that, but the President might have at least IM’d the Pentagon that he was going to announce this…a text message, courier pigeon, something… Pentagon officials were caught by surprise by President … Read more

I’ll say this for Kerry…

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…he ain’t this guy*: Gore says Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet should step down NEW YORK (AP) — Al Gore delivered a fiery denunciation Wednesday of the Bush administration’s “twisted values and atrocious policies” and demanded the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and CIA director George Tenet. Raising his voice to … Read more

Well, that’s a relief.

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Senator Kerry will be accepting the nomination at the Democratic convention after all, thus rescuing it from a fate… not much different than it would have been anyway. It’s not like either party’s is going to be particularly surprising, tasteful and/or memorable. Then again, ‘surprising’ and ‘memorable’ may not be all that positive conditions. As … Read more

OK, now the pollsters are just getting silly.

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Or maybe bored: Poll Shows Voters Prefer Bush at Barbecue. Do I really need to quote further, here? Oh, wow, he’s also ahead on ‘running the family business’ question and tied on ‘teaching your children’. (Rolling eyes) Yup, we got this election sewn right up, folks: the Democrats might as well just pack up and … Read more

The Dream is not Dead

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Fouad Ajami laments in the NYT today that “Iraq May Survive, but the Dream Is Dead“ Let’s face it: Iraq is not going to be America’s showcase in the Arab-Muslim world. The president’s insistence that he had sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, “not to make them American” is now — … Read more

Police Your Own

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I believe one of the major failings in Western society is a failure to police your own. If KKK members weren’t protected by their towns this world would have been a better place. If pro-life groups policed their own we wouldn’t have abortion clinic bombings screwing up the debate. If Muslim groups policed their own … Read more

Muslim-American Voters Abandon Bush

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Via LionelEHutz’s Diary on Kos ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All snarkiness aside, this completely surprised me. In 2000: Of the 100, 000 Muslim Americans in Florida, at least 60,000 have voted in this year’s election. As estimated in a telephone survey of 350 Muslim Floridians, 91% have voted for Gov. Bush, 8% for Ralph Nader, and 1% for … Read more

Sgt. Stryker has a pretty clear idea…

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…about the coolness factor of political conventions, and it ain’t pretty*:

In the hierarchy of coolness, politics sits at the absolute rock-bottom. I would rather be caught wearing a hooded brown robe and casting a 10th Level Spell of Enchantment against a chaotic good half-elven Ranger, than be standing in a sea of uptight dorks and declaring to the world, “Mr. Chairman, the Great State of Nebraska, home of the Cornhuskers and latent sexual frustration, nominates John Kerry to be the next President of the United States!” And the crowd goes wild! No, no one actually says, “And the crowd goes wild!” because there’s no decent color commentary for political conventions. It can’t be that hard. If a couple of schmoes from ESPN can make the NFL draft seem exciting, surely hiring the likes of John Madden and Pat Summerall could make any political convention more appealing than a local Shriner’s gathering at the airport Hilton.

Also, I don’t want to over-quote, but non-Republicans please note: what he says about Republicans and the American flag is damn funny (the phrase ‘like a star-spangled burrito’ was used). Read the whole thing, as we Reynolds zombis say.

(Via Dean)

Moe

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Fanservice.

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What the hell: everybody else seems to be linking to the Axis of Eve, so I might as well. There’s a lot of sadness going around with this one. First, we have these activists themselves, who are indeed demonstrating all the maturity, sophistication and good taste one normally associates with high school manga. Also, while … Read more

Don’t Mention the Holocaust

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Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid stepped over the line today and fury ensued. His offense? He voiced sympathy for “an old woman on all fours looking for her medicine in the rubble of her home” and noted that it made him think about his grandmother during the Holocaust. The problem with this act of empathy … Read more

Point of parliamentary procedure, Senator…

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Senator, you have recently gone on the record as considering the suggestion that you delay your formal acceptance of the Democratic nomination for a time, in order to avoid having to dip into the general election public funding a month before President Bush. While I am sure that you have been well-advised on this matter, … Read more