Our Insane Defense Budget

From the inestimable Spencer Ackerman, a Defense Analyst of Excellence, a look at why we push so many $$ down the DoD rathole...

My favorite quote:

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say we don’t use combat aircraft in the wars we’re fighting. You have to come up with a baroque set of Michael Bey-esque geopolitical calculations by which we would use combat aircraft in any conceivable war. The U.S.’s area of combat-aircraft dominance is called Planet Earth. No Air Force is going to challenge ours. No actual U.S. adversary has an air force, and the list of real-potential U.S. adversaries that do starts with Iran and ends with North Korea, neither of which are remotely stupid enough to test us in the air. The most likely scenario for using combat aircraft in a U.S. war is an alien invasion.

and summed up...

But by all means, freeze spending on school lunch programs and Head Start and shit like that.

Maureen Dowd Goes There

Normally, MoDo annoys me, but today she went there. When Maureen Dowd notices the problem that the GOP has with a Black man as president, the GOP has a BAD problem...

I’ve been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer — the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other, a foreigner, socialist, fascist, Marxist, racist, Commie, Nazi; a cad who would snuff old people; a snake who would indoctrinate kids — had much to do with race.

I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids — from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton.

But Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

You follow the Southern Strategy...it leads right THERE. And it doesn't even take a detour.

Fringe Beliefs

Via Matt Yglesias I find this.

Legalizing Marijuana is a ridiculous notion. The "love that dare not speak it's name" could speak it's name in rural Montana sooner than major political figures suggest ending our wonderful Weed Dealer Subsidy (aka, the Great Big War On Drugs).

There's a few things more fringe than legal weed though. Check out the approval rating graph:


Discuss.

Stimulus Package Shenanigans (Adult Supervision Required)

This should be interesting. On the one hand you have a group of people, the House Republicans, who after 8 years of Bush think "bipartisan" means you do what they want and they smile instead of mooning you. On the other hand you have a group of people, liberals, mainly blogger type, but let's just admit, liberals; justifiably annoyed at our treatment by Republicans over the last eight years.

Now that the former have shown that in many ways they are deeply unserious, the latter have made calls for Obama to put everything and the kitchen sink back in the stimulus package now that the Repubs did what Repubs do. The Repubs haven't met us half way? Fuck 'em and the horse they rode in on for the next eight years. Let's see how the fat white fucks like bending over and taking it rather than dishing it out. And there's a HUGE part of me that wants to join in.

I even know EXACTLY what I'd put into the stimulus package. Worried about how we're going to pay for the spending? OK. Bend over cause I'm about to lay some pipe, you noobs. Let's take the top marginal tax rate back up to 39% right NOW rather than waiting until after next year when it happens automatically. Hell, bump it to 45%.

"Wrong time to raise taxes"? Well I'm not talking about everyone, just the 500K and up crowd. And they, my friends, aren't hurting. A few who did something monumentally stupid, like let one guy run all their investments, are but not most of 'em.

"You'll disincentivize them, they won't be as inventive as they would be otherwise"? Given what this crew invented over the last few years in the financial sector, I find that I can face the thought of a buncha Wall Street types getting in touch with their inner Goth, all emo and depressed, better than thinking about what else they'd do if they were all perky. That's not a bug, that's a feature.

But we shouldn't do it. Why? Well one, Obama really DOES want to govern pragmatically and get past the partisan tit for tat, which means someone, somewhere, has to be the adult here. Lord knows it won't be the Repubs. And like not torturing people, what's right should also turn out to be more effective. I harbor a sneaking suspicion that if the stimulus as currently packaged is as attractive to America as it seems to be, and the Repubs find themselves unable to do anything other than claim that their ideas (you know, the ones that got us INTO the mess...a neverending cycle of deregulation and tax cuts) are the only ones they can support, eventually it'll get noticed.

Then there will increasingly be three types of Repubs; dead enders, ones about to be voted out, and pragmatic moderates.

There's always going to be an Orange County, CA, so there will always be dead enders. Like herpes, they just never go away completely and the question is always, "Can you control it most of the time?" Increasingly though, either the Repubs will get it, or they'll go completely Palin and they'll be replaced with something that kind of looks like the kind of Republicans MomPedant remembers, whether they call themselves Tories or Whigs or Bull Moose.

People who are pissed about Obama being willing to genuinely compromise need to realize that there are two idiotic beliefs that people engage in every four years. Every four years we're told by Repubs that the Democratic candidate is the most liberal politician short of exhuming Che Guevara. The two idiot beliefs? One, Repubs believe it. Two, Democrats believe it too.

Barack Hussein Obama is not now, nor has he ever been, a doctrinaire liberal. He has shown every sign of preferring to go with what works. I find that comforting. I may (or may not) be more liberal than Obama, but I have a high degree of confidence that if my belief in one of my deeply held theories is right then he'd do what I want, and if I'm wrong, he won't. And where I'm wrong, he shouldn't, whether the idea is liberal or not.

Liveblogging The Election

OK. Butt firmly in chair. Watching MSNBC (CNN has clearly decided to court conservatives, so fuck 'em) and getting TPM and fivethirtyeight up. Buckle up. Much beer, Scotch (Laphroiag...I don't share my damn scotch) and champagne on hand. Monitor my spelling over the evening.

5:25 CST
Talking Points Memo saying Exit Polls breaking strongly for Obama, with all the usual caveats.

5:54
Indiana is still damn close. 3% in. Not good for McCain. Dole is doing badly in NC against Hagan. I'm begining to get optimistic. One of my bellweather points is breaking Obama's way. Cautiously optimistic. 1st Sam Adams opened.

6:38
Jeez. What's with Virginia? Still only 3% reporting. Indiana still too close to call. I want my instant gratification.

7:01
MSNBC calls Pennsylvania and New Hampshire for Obama. And now, Virginia, Florida, Missouri and Indiana are too close to call. Allright. We're now close to being able to break out the Champagne.

7:17
Jeanne Shaheen takes the Senate seat from Sununu. Take that you phone bank jamming bastards. (A major Repub operative was convicted of illegal vote tampering in an election where NH went Kerry pretty hard...the jamming was almost CERTAINLY directed at keeping Shaheen from the Senate seat).

7:43
Hagan takes Dole's seat. +3 Seats for Dems. Still waiting on VA, IN, FL, MO. It may take until CA before Obama goes over 270.

8:02
Wisconsin goes Obama. Colorado too early to call. Ohio too early to call. One of these former Red States has to fall into Obama's column. Right now, it looks like NC or FL (!!) will tip earliest. Gahh. I'm increasingly certain that this will end well, but I was hoping that FL or VA would tip early and we could just do victory laps.

8:17
fivethirtyeight calls New Mexico's Senate seat for Udall (the other Udall). If this comes in at 7 or 8 I'm going to do my "Little Superior Dance" a la the Church Lady. If you guys are lucky, The LATMP will take a film of that and I can post it. (It wouldn't be lucky for you, really...acid won't be able to scrub it from your memory and you'll assuredly have PTSD).

8:23
FINALLY!! Obama just took Ohio. He just flipped a state Bush took in 2004. This is going to take longer than I'd like, but it's looking MUCH MUCH better. The LATMP just heaved a great sigh of relief.

8:33
New Mexico goes to Obama. Another Red State flips. More relief in the Pedant house.

8:46
As expected, James Inhofe (R-Crazy Town) was reelected. Expected, but depressing. The Paternal Pedant was from Oklahoma and I'm resonably sure he's happy we cremated him, so he doesn't have to spin in his grave yet again.

9:13
One restart later and I can post that Iowa went Obama. BTW, Dell laptops suck big hairy donkey balls. I'm going to guess that Indiana may well go Obama, which will please EnviroMom no end.

9:23
fivethirtyeight is showing that Obama is likely to win 353 electoral votes, out of all called, safe, likely and lean states. If both toss-ups, Indiana and Missouri, go to Obama that's another 22 electoral votes, and that puts Obama at 375...a "landslide". It might be enough for us to elect the first black President, but if he also wins by a landslide...

9:31
Half an hour and California, Oregon, and Washington polls close. At that point we should be able to formally call the election for Obama. I'm sure Hawaii and Alaska are used to voting long after the election is called. I guess its the price of either a) living in paradise or b) being fucking nuts enough to live on the set of Northern Exposure.

10:00
Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. Free at last.

10:17
Colorado, Virginia, and Florida have gone Obama. If we get Missouri and Indiana...

10:19
McCain concedes.

'Twas The Night Before...

OK. What the fuck am I going to do with my time, now that the campaign is ending?

Well, likely there will be cabinet pick decisions to look at and pontificate about. There's the ever popular, "What on God's earth will Bush do in the final three months to screw the country up further?" (Hint: "Executive Orders"...it's gonna be Christmas in...um...well...December...for every business group and right wing anti-science group).

But we just got a look at final polls by way of fivethirtyeight.com. It's coming down to Obama +7, and McCain has to run the fucking table just to have a longshot. They're calling it at 98.1% chance of Obama victory now. On the all important Electoral Outlook:

Far more important, of course, is the race for 270 electors. It appears almost certain that Obama will capture all of the states won by John Kerry in 2008. Pennsylvania, while certainly having tightened somewhat over the course of the past two weeks, appears to be holding at a margin of about +8 for Obama, with very few remaining undecideds. Obama also appears almost certain to capture Iowa and New Mexico, which were won by Al Gore in 2000. Collectively, these states total 264 electoral votes, leaving Obama
just 5 votes shy of a tie and 6 of a win.

Obama has any number of states to collect those 5 or 6 votes. In inverse order of difficulty, these include Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri and Indiana. Obama is the signficant favorite in several of these states; winning any one of them may be fairly difficult for John McCain, but winning all of them at once, as John McCain probably must do, is nearly impossible

So what to do?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Last week I found a DELIGHTFUL site called tvtropes.org. The name is a little disingenuous, as it also covers written fiction, comic books, movies and so on.

Anvilicious? Didn't know it. Don't know what I'd do without it now.

Dropped a Bridge on Him? Marvel claims to do it all the time, only to be followed with bringing the character Back From the Dead.

You can spend HOURS on this site.

As for the election? I plan to blog while watching the results tomorrow. Check in for updates. Or to send nasty-grams in the comments.

Donkey In Da House

So I promised to talk about the house. Now at 435, I'm not going to list every race...mainly because not only do I not have a break down, but I couldn't even BEGIN to tell you what freaking congressional district I and the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Pundit live in (ed: WI-5...the Intertubes are a wonderful thing) let alone all the rest of the 434 yahoos. So I really don't have a race by race breakdown.

However, current count is 235 D, 199 R, 1 I (Bernie Sanders, VT, caucuses with the the Dems). My guess is +10, leaving the new House at 245 D, 189 R, 1 I. Why the piddling count improvement? Gerrymandering. Both parties make safe districts for themselves, and Repubs held a crap load of statehouses shortly after 2000 (the Census year). So they packed districts. But not in a really crude, "as many Repubs as we can cram right in there," way.

Here's what you do, if you're a typical Repub state legislator. You optimize. You wall off as many Dems as geography can possibly allow while maintaining the safety of Repub seats...say 60-40 splits. Thus creating, voila, an institutional bias in favor of Repubs in the House. Which they did. It's a testament to the TOWERING incompetence of the Bush Administration and the unpopularity of the Repub brand that the count is where it is, but is also means that we're reaching the point of diminishing returns.

I just don't think that there just aren't that many districts left out there that are even marginally reachable for Democrats that they don't already have. Now this isn't based in any way on poll numbers or a district by district look. I'm sure there are people who's job it is to do that, and report up their party chains. They don't put that on the net. If they're winning they don't want to tip their hand, and if they're losing they don't want to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

+10 is a guess, but it's a reasonably educated one. Dems picked up a crapload of seats in 2006. They ran the table that year, folks. But running the table in 2006 means there just isn't that much left to pick up.

If Dems pick up more than +15 to +20, I think that means it will be a good day indeed for Obama.

On a side note: other bellweathers to look for? Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia. Their polls close early. If Obama is ahead in all of those, or if they get called for Obama, you might as well crack the champagne early. The metro districts take longer to get counted. If Obama is ahead or if he's so far ahead that the news orgs actually call it, that means he's winning the RURAL vote. If he does that in those three states, you might as well say the fat lady is singing.

Whither Lieberman?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Although I really, REALLY want Obama to win, I'd like to take a look down into Congress. Even if Obama loses, we're picking up major Congress coin. First up...the Senate.

Ezra Klein and Steve Benen (at the Washington Monthly) are posting about the possibility of 60 votes. Fivethirtyeight shows the chances of that occurring at roughly 25%.

I just don't see it...my call is +7 at this point. I think Stevens in AK goes down, along with Gilmore in VA (to Warner), Pearce in NM (to Udall), Schaffer in CO (to the other Udall), Sununu in NH (to Shaheen...again!...and won't THAT piss him off), Dole in NC (to Hagan) and, the wild card is...Coleman in MN (to Franken!!) rather than Smith in OR. I think Smith stays alive to fight another day. Although it wouldn't shock me for that to break the other way

The pickups necessary to get to +9 are too outlandish. In addition to Smith, you'd need to pick off: one of Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky or Texas. Rii-iiiight.

But even if we get +9, that leaves Lieberman the filibuster killer. Now in the unlikely event that we do get to +9, I think Reid leaves Holy Joe unmolested. I think that would be a mistake. Yglesias makes what I think is a valid point: 57, 58 is as good as 60. If you can get to 58, you can pressure a couple moderate Repubs to vote for cloture. WHICH Repub depends on the issue being voted on, but on almost anything you can cherry pick a couple to carry you over.

Besides I really, really want to screw Lieberman over. But not in that crude, "get the fuck out," way you might be thinking. No. Here's what my twisted vicious brain has cooked up: regardless of how the Senate ends up, I think we pull Lieberman out of EVERY committee assignment he has. We stick him in inconsequential and entirely domestic committees and subcommittees. Agriculture. That Little Tag On New Mattresses Subcommittee. That sort of thing.

Make Holy Joe painfully aware that, as long as he's a Senator caucusing with Democrats, he will never, ever, ever have access to a committee responsible in even a tangential way for Israel. He would be told to not even slow down and listen to Foreign Affairs or Defense hearings. He would be utterly impotent to affect how the Congress funds aid to Israel. Cooperates (or not) with Israeli Intelligence. Provides military equipment and assistance to the IDF.

My retribution for Holy Joe's perfidy? Make HIM make it clear why he's now caucusing with Republicans: because Israel is 100 times more important to him than Connecticut. Whom he at least nominally is supposed to represent.

Joe Klein Goes in the Tank...On The Side Of The Angels

Coupled with Apology NOT Accepted Klein's latest piece completes a Klein rehabilitation for me. Best of all? It's in the "Dead Tree" version of Time. Non-blog trollers will see this one.

The Thrilla In Ole Missilla

OK. Post-debate time.

First, my own opinion: It was a push, but a push is a win for the leader and that's Obama. Also, he pretty clearly showed that he has the cool and gravitas to run the country. I kept waiting for McCain to turn into McNasty, but I was disappointed that we didn't see Mt Saint Helens...more like Mauna Loa, a slow flow of anger and contempt from McCain, but it's getting general play.

Snap polls, with all the usual caveats, seem to be giving this one on points to Obama, despite my thinking.

On the other hand, this was (eventually) the foreign policy debate. If McCain can't take Obama on foreign policy, what IS he going to take him on? Economics? I just don't see it. And I expect the Palin/Biden debate to be nothing more than a train wreck after that Couric interview...sweet Jesus, I'm no longer certain English is that woman's first language.

If the last debate is economic and McCain continues to assert that the way to solve a 400 billion dollar deficit is to focus EXCLUSIVELY on 18 billion in earmarks he's gonna flunk Electoral Math.

Republicans And Love Of Country

Basically, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Obama is making a patriotism speech where basically he says that he won't let anyone impugn his patriotism.

Which McCain has, if not in so many words. Has the man never heard of the Intertubes?? He says outrageous shit and then simply denies he said it. This may be the first year in which YouTube is used more to debunk a lying politician than to check out Leeroy Jenkins.

OK. Plug your ears and lock up the kids. I'll wait...


WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH REPUBLICANS?!?!?!?

Seriously.

Did you somehow become fucking convinced that only YOU love your Country(TM)? News flash assholes, not only do you NOT have a monopoly on loving America, I'm still not convinced that upwards of 90% of you ACTUALLY love America. Sean Hannity dry humping the country (and one sort of envisions that happening to Florida...like a little rat dog humping a leg) notwithstanding, what Republicans ACTUALLY do is TALK about loving America.

I'm going to give you a little hint. Republicans (in the main) don't love America, they love themselves. The reason they spend so much time talking about loving America is that they figure that America is the country most likely to allow them to love themselves with the least amount of interruption or inconvenience. If another country, say Albania, made them a better offer...they'd be on a plane in a second, all those country and western songs notwithstanding.

How can I say this? Simple. If, when discussing taxes, your first words about taxes are something on the order of, "It's MY money, how dare they tell me what to do with it," you love yourself.

If you are terribly concerned with a terrorist attack on American soil...putting YOU at risk...without regard to whether an attack is an existential threat to the country? You love yourself.

Are you concerned with what "Teh Gay" is doing to our moral fabric (LINK WARNING: Shower before and after clicking on the link)...mainly because it makes you feel icky (or even worse, vaguely titillated)? You love yourself.

Basically, what we have is a group of people who are like an abusive boyfriend. As long as America puts out, in whatever kinky way these Republicans want it to, they'll let America occasionally go out to the mall or see friends. If the bitch crosses them though? She'll be sorry.

So spare me your patriotic chest thumping. Go play with a tub of butter or something and leave those of us who actually care about her take her to the ER and have the broken bones looked at.

Shall We Play A Game?

For those of you, like the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Pedant, who are too freaking young, that refers to this:



It's also a brief look back at those halcyon days of the early 80s, when we could count on our adversary acting in their own rational self-interest, for what it's worth. But rather than Global Thermonuclear War, I'd like to talk about avoiding Democratic Thermonuclear War.

Hillary's campaign has put out internal guidance to not plan any further appearances after Wednesday's speech in front of AIPAC. While the Clintonites were quick to say that this was by no means the end, I think we all know it's the end. As I've stated before, Hillary pushes this past tomorrow and she'll be luck to run unopposed in the NY Senatorial campaign. Hell, she pushes much past tomorrow and I'll give money to her opponent for Chappaqua DOGCATCHER if she decided to run for THAT.

So what the fuck (that's for you, Really Mad Professor) IS she up to?

Let's play a game. Let's call this game, "Hillary wants to be a Veep." God alone knows why, but let's suppose. She's misplayed her hand up to this point in my opinion, but lord knows Bill is undisciplined enough to be a one man gaffe factory if this is actually her goal. This by the way assumes, not without some degree of justification, that some of the Hillary staffers look more to Bill than her (by the way; NOT because of sexism...by all reports Bill has BY FAR the fouler temper).

So here we have a goal, "Become the Veep," not entirely supported by the tactics of the Clinton Campaign, but not conclusively obviated by it, and a means: "Come in a close second, with an option to drag everything down with her." Not historically unprecedented.

Now, it is possible that Hillary can deliver the cracker vote (aka, Voters So Far Back Up In The Hills They Have To Import Daylight) to Obama. And he needs it, at least the Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania versions thereof. Because while he can (and SHOULD) craft an Intermountain West Strategy (the Democrats version of a 40-Years-Later "Southern Strategy"...a way to pick off traditionally Republican votes cheesed off by the current incarnation of their party) and put states like Colorado in play (way to go EnviroMom...and yes, you have your own blog-du-plume now that I have decided to file all the serial numbers off all your IDs out there)...it's mathematically "fun" to work out how he wins the Electoral College. Best to avoid the whole exercise and BURY the Sons'a'Bitches in November. Hillary CAN help there, I believe.

Maybe that's her motive, but just in case, perhaps Obama should pull her aside. And now, let's pretend we can put words into his mouth:

"Hillary, I need you as VP. It heals a party divided, and moves quickly to uniting the country. But let me be perfectly clear. I will be the President. The first time we have a policy disagreement and I read about a leak that even THEORETICALLY can be linked to the Vice-President's office? You will spend the rest of your days in the Old Executive Office Building waiting for somebody semi-notable to die so you can do SOME kind of job. There will be NO reprieve from the Siberia I put you in. You will write The Gulag Archipelago Two before I let you so much as watch a Cabinet Meeting on CNN. Just so we're clear."

I don't think she wants the job. I think she wants to finish out the whole primary season so she can say, "A woman went the distance and damn near won." Hell, if that's what she says sometime this week or next, I take back every nasty thing I've said about her, because she'd be right. But as long as we're playing games...

How about a nice game of Chess?

For God's Sake, Can We Just CALM DOWN?

The primary season's waning days have me thinking.

Well, that, and a raft of what one hopes are misstatements and the rantings of out of control staffers coming from the Clinton Campaign. Let me preface all this by saying, the reason the somewhat unhinged statements are coming from Sen. Clinton's and not Sen. Obama's campaign are twofold. First, she's lost and both she and her supporters know this; the difference being that some of her supporters seem unwilling to...well, see the title. Second, she has Bill on her campaign, and while Bill was an excellent President, his will to win regardless of cost actually exceeds hers and because he has a sense of grievance exceeded only in some Republican circles which seems to have taken hold. Thus he's lunging around like an untethered cannon on the HMS Victory. (Just click the freaking link...I can't be you guys SOLE source for unwarrantedly obscure military history)

Let's start with Hillary And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. As reported in the New York Times Blog, it seems as if Hillary really wasn't, you know, suggesting someone might do what hundreds of white supremacist's have expressed an interest in doing. Nevertheless, as Olbermann points out: for the love of GOD, you invoked Kennedy's assassination to justify staying in the race, even tangentially? Are you nuts?!?

This may be what takes her down. The only way she walks back from this, frankly, is to go through June third, and then bow out. There's no way she ends up with a Veep shot after Friday. Not that that seems to have been her idea. And if she pushes this thing all the way to the convention, the highest office she'll ever hold will be senior senator from NY. She gets out of the race and stays out after June third, maybe she gets majority leader, maybe she gets plum committee chairs, maybe she gets a shot at the White House again in 2016 or if the Dem's (god forbid) lose this year, in 2012.

But the only way she has a play this year, at this point, is to deliberately upset the applecart. I don't know if the excitement lately has been with or without her consent (with Bill it seems to have been without), but the RFK comment clinched it. RFK, Jr. can excuse her. The party can't. Either she or Obama lose in this of all years after she does something like that and she'll be lucky if she's allowed to run unopposed in the NY Senatorial Primary in 2012.

Now, let's go to the great "sexism" debate. Look, I get it. I may have a penis, but I know a lot of women, and the ones who are Hillary supporters want this to be about sexism, rather than say...she ran a crappy campaign or she has negatives out the wazoo. Hillary's in trouble because of sexism. Therefore, people who don't vote for Hillary are doing it out of sexism.

Only thing is, you can make the exact same argument for Obama and racism. In other words, if you accuse those who never preferred Hillary of sexism, then if you never preferred Obama it's because you're a racist. You simply cannot have it both ways.

People don't vote for Hillary for a lot of reasons: because 20 years of Bushes and Clintons is enough (my personal reason), because with regard to obsessive secrecy she's second only to George W Bush, because you don't particularly trust her word (Mrs. Pedant's reason), or possibly because you're sexist. It could be any NUMBER of reasons, only ONE of which is sexism.

And finally, for the argument that sexism is worse that racism in this country, I have to say, I have no freaking idea. To me, it seems like an argument about whether drowning or burning is a worse way to die. For the love of god, they're both horrible. Trying to parse out which one is marginally viler is ridiculous. I suspect that women think sexism is worse, blacks think racism is worse, black women no doubt split about equally on which is worse and black lesbians KNOW that homophobia is worse than either sexism or racism. Who CARES?

I do understand. There are a lot of women who want a woman president for what are blatantly obvious reasons. Some of them are old enough and smart enough to figure that the odds of getting another woman candidate before they die are greatly lessened if Obama gets the nomination and wins. After all, if he wins, it's 2016 before another woman runs (since if he wins he is the nominee in 2012 so win or lose in 2012 the next time a woman has a shot is 2016 because it will be a LONG FREAKING TIME before the Repub's run a woman rather than a white dude), and who other than Hillary is available in the short term? So it's "OMFG, Hillary's a victim of sexism and Obama would never be where he is unless he were black." Which argument, by the way, is as foolish as saying OJ got off because he was black (true story...I once heard a guy say that)...all those whites disproportionately jailed proves that theory. (Hint, that's SARCASM.)

Let's put it this way...until the 2004 convention, only Illinois residents knew about Obama. I can think of a couple female governors and senators that might run well off the top of my head. What do you think the odds are that someone somewhere we haven't even HEARD of can come out in 2016 and make a run? Because I want a woman president someday soon. I'd like to point the Wee Pedant to a real flesh and blood figure.

I'd just prefer that the flesh and blood female President I point to not get impeached for the high handed way she continued the Bush secrecy fetish while alienating half the country with her "win at all costs" public style.

Sex and the Unitary Executive

Well, THAT got your attention.

OK, now that I have proven my marketing expertise with the equivalent of "Live Nude Girls" at the header, let's discuss what I alluded to in a previous post: ways in which to contain an out of control President from within his (or her) term.

First, let us dispense with, as my brother assumes, the ability of Congress to send out the Sergeant At Arms and arrest persons who display Contempt of Congress. While IN THEORY this might be effective, in practice...not so much. Any attempt to arrest, say Karl Rove or John Yoo to make them testify about who exactly gave the order to fire the US Attorneys, or what exactly was the expression on Dick Cheney's face when he ordered people tortured (glee, unbridled malice or some combination of both), would of necessity run up against either the FBI (Justice Department) or the Secret Service (Treasury Department) or both.

While a running gun battle between an aging federal pensioner and some FBI HRT gunslinger might be amusing (in a morbid curiosity sense) the obvious outcome to the standoff is...a trip to the Supreme Court. With the Justice Department lawyers (answerable to the EXECUTIVE branch) as Congress's lawyers. Yeah, I'm willing to bet they'll get RIGHT on that case...

And the Supreme's, who last bestirred themselves to alacrity in Gore v. Bush, will no doubt be inclined to let the lower courts have their way first. At length. For ten or fifteen years.

This is not a solution. It's a very long running Abbot and Costello routine ("Who's sued first?" "Exactly!")

Let us also dispense with, "Waiting until the bastard is voted out." Bush has shown us, among all the OTHER things he's done (signing statements, signing bills with Takesie-Backsies, claiming CinC powers confer the ability to not have to even listen when everyone around you says your idea is the dumbest fucking thing to come down the pike since Prohibition), exactly how QUICKLY you can pack the Voting Rights Office with Young Republican Lawyers of the opinion that Blacks and Poor Folk have NO voting rights.

Makes it kinda hard to elect Democrats when two groups routinely shat upon by Republicans can't, y'know, actually VOTE. Eventually God-Emperor McCain or Romney or whoever the hell it is will, like Gaius Octavian Caesar before him, decide to dispense with the troublesome need to even PRETEND to go through an election.

Now, and this is IMPORTANT because I don't want to wade through emails (all three of them) saying, "That's unconstitutional," what I am about to suggest will require amendments, because I must, perforce, screw with the current constitutional balances BY DEFINITION.

One: If Congress is to have the "Power of the Purse" then they need to have the fucking Power of the Purse. CONGRESS should set Department internal budgets, rather than giving the Executive the power to slosh one big honking wad of tax dollars around any way he sees fit within the 13 Appropriations Bills Congress approves. The goddamn President doesn't need a line item veto...CONGRESS does.

If they want to defund Iraq, under this scheme, then they just line out all the requests related to Iraq and the President can't shitcan all VA benefits to then restore funding for Iraq. This one, is at least arguably constitutional. The Constitution is pretty much silent on internal budgets for the various Departments of the Executive.

Not so much for my next suggestion, phrased in the form of a question: Why, in the name of Beelzubub's Big Brass Balls, is the JUSTICE Department part of the Executive Branch rather than the JUDICIAL Branch? Yes, yes. I know: "The President shall ensure that the laws be well and faithfully executed."

Is it the Framer's fault that we elected a Texan, who judging by the number of inmates he sent to "Ol' Sparky" while he was the Governor, has one, and ONLY one, definition of "executed"? Well, no.

But since Bush has shown us what it looks like, I think maybe we should take the lawyers in charge of enforcing laws governing the Executive away from an Executive who thinks laws controlling the Executive are an annoyance, rather than say, the only thing differentiating us from Zimbabwe...now that we eighty-sixed the whole, "Doesn't attach electrodes to political prisoner's balls," thing.

Yes, the Supreme's are annoying. But there's NINE of them. With about as much common purpose as a room full of cats. Plus one loud rabid nutjob of a dog, whose name rhymes with Frito. Seriously, even most of the conservative nutjobs at least care about the law, except for Thomas who, judging by how active he is on the bench during oral arguments, is mainly interested in a NAP, and Frito, I mean Alito, who's mainly interested in how many different ways you can screw the country while remaining at least arguably within the framework of the Constitution. Kinda sorta. If you squint just right.

That still leaves seven people who care about the rule of law. Who might receive a contempt of Congress citation without viewing it as another in a long series of opportunities to expand Executive authority without regard for the other two branches. Or reason. Or decency. Or anything other than an overwhelming desire for power. Unlimited, unfettered, unequaled remorseless force.

That one does require an amendment. And a respect for the principle of good government. Which is why it'll never happen.

Well, If THIS Isn't Depressing...

Over at Yglesias' site I find this tidbit and link. Basically, it turns out that Gresham's Law applies to political discourse; over time bad discourse will drive out good. As it happens, if someone has a position about a candidate's favorability, and then adverse information, real or made up, becomes known to that person it will negatively impact their favorability. If the information later turns out to be false or incomplete, the favorability improves, but not all the way back to the point it was at before.

Also, how much your opinion moves depends on your position in the partisan spectrum. Informed that Hillary Clinton is a man-hating power hungry dyke moves Repubs much further towards disliking her than it moves Democrats. The converse, being told that Mitt Romney is a goat fucker, moves Dems further away than Repubs (many of whom have probably fucked a goat or two in their time, so who would want to cast the first stone).

So what does that mean? Counter punching in response is, over time, a losing move. Obama's campaign has made much of the fact that they have not initiated any of the Clinton/Obama tiffs, but they have not stood aside when it's happened...that they counter punch. I had thought that that was more than adequate. What this study shows is that I was wrong and that isn't good enough. Over time, your positives inexorably erode relative to your goat fucking opponent, whom you have not been adequately slurring. It's why negative campaigns work.

So, it's not enough to simply stand up and fight back (and it's DISASTROUS to "not stoop to their level" as the Kerry campaign incompetently did in 2004). Your ass has to be down in the mud, slinging fast and furious, frequently and with vicious glee. You already see the narrative that the Rovian Repubs are getting ready to trot out; "Hillary is a man-hating, ultra-liberal, vagina dentata destroyer of American Virtue (who had Vince Foster killed)", "Barack Obama is a closet Muslim, trained in radical Madrassahs who will willingly invite jihadis to rape good Christian women", and "John Edwards is a closet fag".

It's going to happen. It is happening, it has happened, it will continue to happen. If we love our country (and with all the torture and human rights violations the Repub Party is "OK" with, I'm beginning to think my four years in the Army were an UTTER waste of my time) we can't just fight back, we have to get down and dirty. We have to say things about our goat fucking opponents FIRST, with two goals; first, to raise their negatives so swayable undecideds go for our guys (or gal), second, (and more importantly) so tar the Repub candidate with nastiness that many Repub voters simply stay home.

That second point provides some degree of Schadenfreude, at least in the anticipation. Because to get Repub voters to sit down, we have to sling slurs at them such as "Rudy is a closet fag." In other words, kill the candidates with the prejudices they've spent 30 years perfecting. Say, "Mitt Romney is a Christian hating cultist," or "Fred Thompson is a Hollywood slut who hops beds with the frequency of a cheap ham radio."

Mike Huckabee is the hardest to get in this way, so I propose that in the (unlikely but possible) event that he receives the nomination, we go the other way. He's a Christo-fanatic who wants to take away birth control, let alone abortion, and who believes the world is 6000 years old. For the Repub base, these are ADVANTAGES. But he's a damn likable guy, so lets just strip off every independent or moderate Repub (presuming there IS such a creature) even marginally concerned about their kids growing up in the Republic of Gilead.

All we have to do is record him speaking, pull out some Young Earth Creationist zaniness, and imply strongly that maybe falling waaaaayyyy behind in technology, science and knowledge isn't exactly the way to go about global competition. We could probably pull every state in the Intermountain West, other than Montana (State Motto: "At least our cows aren't gun toting loons!") and maybe Wyoming.

But...make NO MISTAKE...we have to actually DO it. You might not like "stooping to their level." Tough. I'd rather respect my country than respect myself in the morning. After eight years of Bush, we can't AFFORD ethics. It is indeed time to get nasty.

So You All Talked Me Into It

All right, all right. Friends, and not a few victims of my righteous rants, have talked me into this. From time to time I have been known to send out emails, usually after I've seen something online that makes me crazy. Some of them have verged on the poetic, if I do say so myself, as long as your definition of "poetic" includes "obscenity laced with a lot of caps".

Assuming that for some reason, far be it from me to fathom, you don't already know me, let me tell you a bit about myself. I have a Bachelor's in Anthropology and a Master's in Business Administration. Try and wrap your brain around THAT one. I'm a former combat arms officer in the United States Army, which means that my left of center politics are somewhat unusual and my penchant for potty language is endemic. So, if scatology and blasphemic utterances bother you: Stop fucking reading this goddamn post, shitbird...in fact clear the fuck out right now and never return. Nothing makes me crazier than someone who thinks torture is just fine but gets the vapors when confronted with four letter words.

Other than that, I'm a Red Sox fan. I like baseball and could care less about football. An obsession with football and George W Bush are two of the many things Texas owes the rest of us for. I read, mostly geeky SF, so that may pop up from time to time, not to mention a fairly toxic videogame obsession. And as a card carrying member of Gen X, I'm not above the occasional pop culture reference.

So there you have a few things you might see here...in descending order of frequency: Posts on politics from a left of center perspective, a fair amount of "So and so is an overrated hack of an author" or "Let me tell you about why Halo 3 is teh timesuck," and appreciation of bad 80s movies.

Oh, and if you want to comment, feel free. I'll feel free to call you a fucktard if you approve of anything Bush has done, up to and including his latest bowel movement, but have at it. I've always wanted to find a Repub who's willing to stand up in some forum other than Dittoheadland. Surprise me.