Too many things to vote on

I agree with Yglesias. We need fewer things to vote on.
Today we have too many elections for too many offices that people could care less about. And many are not even for positions which are desgined to be representative. Think about it.

Who represents you?

Can anyone name all the people who are elected to represent them in various forms of government?
Let’s start from the top and see how well I do:

President Barack Obama
Sen. John Cornyn
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison
U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez
Gov. Rick Perry
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst
State Sen. Carlos Uresti
State Rep. Frank Corte Jr.
County Judge Nelson Wolff
County Commissioner Kevin Wolff
Mayor Julian Castro
City Councilman W. Reed Williams
School Board Rep. Karen Freeman

Those are just the direct representatives and I’m sure there are others. There is the Texas State Board of Education, the Railroad Commission, the River Authority, the Underground Water District, and the Hospital District and who knows what all else? And then there are the other positions we are forced to vote on which are really not representative positions such as the State Comptroller, the Agriculture Commissioner, the Land Commissioner, the Attorney General; the County Tax Collector, the County Clerk, the District Attorney, the Sheriff, the Constables, the Justices of the Peace and, of course, all the myriad judges at every level.
It is far, far, far too much for the electorate to have to deal with. Do you want to know why we have such a low turnout in most elections? This is why. Too damn many things to vote for that people can’t keep up with.

We need to eliminate many of these from the ballot and make them appointed positions. The state and county governments are the worst offenders. They should follow the models set by the federal and city governments. We don’t elect the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense or any of the other federal cabinet positions. Why do we elect them at the state level? Let the governor appoint those positions.
Likewise at the county level. Why do we elect a County Clerk or a Sheriff? These positions should be hired by the county commissioners just like the City Council hires the chief of police and other city executive positions. And it would also eliminate problems such as this, where unqualified people are being elected to positions that they have not business being in.
And, of course, the judges should be appointed as well, just like the Supreme Court and all the other federal court positions area. It is ridiculous that we vote for these offices today. Nobody knows who most of these people are and whether or not they are qualified or if they do a good job. Only in a few rare cases where there has been a scandal does it ever come into play.
We need to clean up our ballots and only vote on the direct representatives who would then be tasked with filling the other positions through appointments or hiring. Then if they make bad choices we will hold our representatives responsible. That is the way it should work. Once we do this then we can get a lot of this political money out of the system which leads to so much of the graft and corruption.

SBOE bans Bill Martin Jr.

"Brown Bear, Brown Bear" is one of my kids' favorite books growing up. Now the far-right conservatives on the State Board of Education have voted to remove it, and all the other works by that author, from our public school classrooms. Why? Because they stupidly confused his name with that of another author who wrote a book titled "Ethical Marxism." So first off they acted impulsively, which is typical of rightwing reactionaries, and failed to do their homework.

But to understand further how stupid this is, you have to understand that they were not voting to remove what they thought was a book about Marxism from a 3rd Grade curriculum, which would have been somewhat understandable. They knew very well that they were voting to remove "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" which has nothing to do with political or economic theories. They voted to remove all books by Bill Martin because they mistakenly thought he had written a book about Marxism at some time, which they admit they had not read, and was not being distributed to public school classrooms.

So, they are essentially trying to enforce a rigid ideological purity by purging any works by authors who might hold views contrary to theirs, irregardless of what their books are about. But in this case at least they screwed up because they were too stupid and lazy to figure out that there might be more than one author with the name Bill Martin.

I just hope they don't figure out that Dr. Seuss was a liberal before we have an opportunity to vote these idiots out of office later this year.
One of the far-right idiots who voted to ban "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" is Ken Mercer, a former Republican state representative who represents the San Antonio area where I live.
Fortunately, Mercer is being challenged by a more moderate Republican - Tim Tuggey - in the primary and then Democrat Rebecca Bell-Metereau in the general.

Save Democracy! Kill the filibuster!

Matthew Yglesias makes a good point about the filibuster's negative effect on the whole legislative process:

A minority of 40 or fewer Senators can, by engaging in filibustering both a motion to proceed and the bill itself can cause it to take about a week between when the majority rounds up its 60 votes and when the bill actually passes. First you need to file cloture on the motion to proceed. Then it takes about a day for cloture to “ripen.” Then there’s the cloture vote. Then a 30 hour waiting period. Then the vote on the motion to proceed. Then, even if there’s nothing left to debate, you need to do the whole thing over again. File for cloture. Take a day for cloture to ripen. Then the cloture vote. Then 30 hours. Then you vote.

One consequence of this is that if you have 100 small ways to improve the health care system, each of which piss off some small interest group, you can’t do the sensible thing and just bring each small idea to the floor separately and pass it. The sheer amount of time it takes to overcome some random bloc of Senators’ opposition makes it not worthwhile for most members. To get an idea enacted into law over determined opposition, you not only need at least 60 Senators to agree with it, you need them to be enthusiastic enough to let your pet plan eat up all this time.

Consequently, if you want to do something, the smart way to do it is to fold it into some larger endeavor. And that’s why you get things like a 2,000 page health care bill or a monster omnibus or weird things attached to appropriations bills.

This is crazy. It is absolutely nuts. These Senate rules have got to be changed. First, you should only be allowed to filibuster actual legislation, not a bunch of procedural motions, so that they can't force half a dozen votes requiring a supermajority each time for one single bill. You get ONE cloture vote and that is it. End of story.

Furthermore, the filibuster was never supposed to be about killing legislation. It was about extending time to allow for more debate. So Sen. Tom Harken's proposed rule changes make perfect sense. If the minority wants to have more time to debate, then they filibuster and the first effort at cloture needs 60 votes. But then one week later the threshold drops to 57 and then one week later down to 54 and finally, one-week later the bill could be passed on a majority vote of 51. By that time the minority would have had plenty of time to make their case and get their views expressed, but they would not be able to hold things up indefinitely and thus thwart the will of the majority which is intrinsically undemocratic.

The Harken bill would require 67 votes to pass and I don't see that happening because Republicans are more concerned about regaining power by any means necessary than they are with fixing a dysfunctional legislative system that is unable to govern. Republicans are essentially anti-government radicals today, so they don't care if the government can't function.

But at the start of the next legislative session, after the mid-term elections, if the Democrats are still in the majority they will have one last chance to change the rules to something more like what the Founding Fathers intended and do it by a majority vote.

A very sad day

This has been an absolutely horrible, sad, depressing day. First, House Leaders announce that they don't have the votes (with a 40-seat majority) to pass the Senate version of Health Care reform. If it goes back to the Senate with any House chanages, it will face yet another Republican filibuster and will be dependent on a Republican defection to pass.
Why is it that the Democrats can have control of the White House and huge majorities in the House and Senate and still be unable to accomplish their agenda?

Steve Benen sums it up well...

If a majority of the House and a majority of the Senate could approve legislation -- if, in other words, Congress could function the way it used to and the way it was designed to -- Democrats would have finished an ambitious heath care reform bill months ago. The stimulus would have been bigger and more effective. The prospects for a climate bill and reform of Wall Street would be excellent. The progressive productivity of this Congress would rival that of the New Deal and Great Society eras.

But that's not the legislative dynamic we're dealing with. Instead we have unprecedented obstructionism from a right-wing minority, which tries to block voting on literally every bill of any significance -- a situation that has never existed before in American history -- and a small handful of Senate Democrats -- including Mary Landrieu and her "wing" -- willing to help them.

The principal hurdle, in other words, standing in the way of the party delivering on its agenda is a dysfunctional system that empowers a small congressional minority to kill the majority's agenda -- and creates an electoral incentive for the minority to do just that.

And then, as if all of this wasn't bad enough, the Supreme Court comes down with its decision to cede our elections to the corporate interests for the next several generations.

And Conan O'Brien's last show is tonight.

And, to top it off, I just learned that Air America (which wasn't broadcasting in San Antonio anyway) is going bankrupt and ceasing broadcasting today.

The Supreme Court decision will haunt us for years to come, but I think the most discouraging thing right now is what is happening in the House. I just can't watch as they screw this up. It's like watching a Spurs game when they are playing horribly. I just have to turn off the TV and quit watching. It is less painful just to read the score in the next day's paper.

Worst Supreme Court Decision Ever

Or at least one of the worst.

By a 5-4 vote, the Reagan/Bush wing of the Court has very likely screwed our democracy for a generation or more. As if we didn't already have enough corporate special interest money in politics, they have now opened up the floodgates to unlimited spending on election campaigns by allowing unlimited corporate spending on campaigns.
What this means is that within the next 10 or 12 years, every politician in Washington will either be wholly owned and paid for by the corporate interests, or will be subservient to them for fear that they might dump money into their district in opposition.
Oh, so what else is new, you say?
Trust me, it can and will get worse.
They may not always win every election, but they will be able to set the terms of the debate.

Dumber than Rocks

This poll of Massachusetts voters is very interesting in that it shows that a lot of the people who voted for Brown or who chose not to vote said they did so to protest Democrats not being hard enough on Wall Street.
Also, while some said they opposed health care reform, many others said they voted the way they did because they thought Democrats didn't go far enough with reform and another big chunk said they don't even know why they are opposed.

So, essentially, we have a lot of voters who are dumber than rocks. That is the problem with democracies I guess. Lots of poorly informed, ignorant and, in some cases, downright stupid, people marching off to the polls and voting contrary to their interests.

And that is the secret to Fox News' success. They have learned how to manipulate and take advantage of these people and use their stupidity and ignorance to advance a rightwing agenda.

Liar!

From Political Wire:

A memo from Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), head of the Senate Republican campaign effort, says of yesterday's election result that "voters realize that there is only one party who bailed out the automakers and insurance companies..."

It's interesting how soon Republicans have forgotten that it was actually President Bush who orchestrated the bailouts of both AIG and the automakers at the end of his term.

Oh, please! Cornyn didn't forget! Give the man some credit. He's not stupid. He is simply LYING.

Can't win 'em all

I knew Democrats (or any party for that matter) would not be able to hang on to a 60-vote supermajority for long. That is why it is imperative to reform Senate rules and end this recent abuse of the filibuster where the Republicans are using it to require a supermajority for nearly every single vote.

But I did not expect that it would be Massachussetts that would take the 60th vote away. It is sad and depressing to see the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's lifelong struggle to pass health care reform suddenly imperiled by his own untimely death. Just another Kennedy family tragedy, I guess.

But, of course, health reform is not really imperiled. It has already passed in the Senate and there is no reason for it to go back there again if the House will accept the bill as is. That now seems like their only option since the incoming Sen. Brown will be a committed 'No' vote even though his state already has universal health coverage far more liberal than the bill under consideration in Congress.

The House should pass the Senate Bill as is and send it to Obama for his signature in advance of the State of the Union address next week. Then they can push the things they wanted to change and improve in the bill through on a reconciliation vote which cannot be filibustered under Senate rules. And I would hope that the Democrats will start doing a lot of things under reconciliation rules from now on.

This whole idea that Obama's agenda is stymied now because he ONLY has a 59-vote majority in the Senate is absolutely ridiculous. Ronald Reagan had a Republican Senate during the first six years of his presidency, but never more than 54. And he had a Democratic House to contend with at the same time. Yet he was able to get most of what he wanted during those years because Democrats did not abuse the filibuster rule then like Republicans are doing today.

Imagine if Democrats had treated Reagan back then the way Republicans today are treating Obama. He would not have been able to put any of his policies in place. Most of his nominees would have been easily rejected. But it would not have been right then just as it is not right now.

But back to Massachussetts for a minute. A lot of Democrats are blaming Coakley for her defeat. One site pointed out that she only had 19 public events between the primary and the election while Brown had 66 during the same period. The conclusion - she took the election for granted while he worked his butt off. There is something to be said about that. But there was also a lot of other factors at work as well. Any other year and those 19 events would have been more than adequate.

You kind of have to feel sorry for Coakley too. A few weeks ago it was assumed she would be the next U.S. Senator and now her political career is in shambles. The Bill Buckner of politics, they are calling her. Ouch! But that is really neither here nor there.

Democrats still have large majorities in the House and Senate. Obama will be president for the next three years at a minimum and probably seven. Because I believe the economy will continue to improve and by the time the next election rolls around it will be "Morning Time in America" again. A lot of people have been pointing out recently how closely Obama is tracking Reagan in the popularity polls. Reagan slowly lost favor as the economy soured during his first term, but it turned around just in time for him to win a humongous landslide re-election victory. And that is what I see in Obama's future as well. And that will be good for the long-term health of our nation.

Defining "Tea Partiers"

This is about as good a definition of the "Tea Party" movement as I've seen yet...

"...a well-intentioned, passionate, and deeply confused group of people -- the folks who believe Democrats are "fascists," the president is Hitler, and programs like Social Security and Medicare are socialist, unconstitutional boondoggles that need to be abolished -- who are now intent on dragging an already far-right party over the cliff."

SBOE hearings on Social Studies standards

The Texas Freedom Network has been liveblogging the Texas State Board of Education hearings on setting new standards for social studies textbooks.

Testifying were a mix of academics urging the board to not politicize the social studies textbooks, a number of people representing Latino groups urging more inclusion of Hispanic culture and history in the textbooks, and a bunch of ignorant teabaggers ranting about "socialism" and failing to provide any specific examples of their criticisms.

The part I found most interesting was at the end when the board closed promptly at 6 p.m. leaving many people who had waited all day to testify hanging...

6:10 – The board is closing today’s testimony. SBOE Chair Gail Lowe notes that Gov. Rick Perry today made an announcement on federal Race to the Top funding. In fact, Gov. Perry said Texas will not seek the $700 million that would be available through that funding stream.

6:13 – The board is getting angry comments from people who waited all day to testify. They’re demanding that the board continue hearing testimony. (We sympathize. After all, the board isn’t often asked to listen to their constituents on these issues.) A motion to extend the hearing fails on a tie vote. In the chaos, it’s hard to tell how all of the board members voted. But most of the “no” votes appear to have come from the board’s far-right faction. Surprised?

6:18 – Now would-be testifiers are shouting in anger. More chaos. The chair, Gail Lowe, has to break a tie on a motion to adjourn the meeting. Could there be a clearer representation of the indifference some board members have for the concerns of their constituents?

UPDATE: After adjournment, the state board’s five Democrats remained to continue listening to testimony from those who were unable to speak before the hearing ended. Many of the remaining testifiers were Latinos, some of whom had traveled from across the state to the hearing.

2010 = Twenty Ten

I hope that people will start calling this year Twenty-Ten rather than Two Thousand and Ten.
Otherwise, you better get used to using the construction "Two Thousand and ..." for the rest of your life.
Seriously. Nobody today says "I was born in One Thousand Nine Hundred and blah-blah." That would be weird. We say Nineteen-whatever. Much simpler.
So why, then, would we want to go away from that for the next hundred (thousand!!) years?
I understand that you had to say the year Two Thousand at the turn of the Century. And then it just became ingrained to say Two Thousand and One and so forth. But now is the last obvious chance we have to switch over to the simpler construction.
So please! For the sake of your children and your grandchildren and your great-great grandchildren, stop saying Two Thousand and Ten.
It's Twenty Ten.

More good reading

A good read from Kevin Drum at Mother Jones about the lack of accountability for the recent financial debacle of the Bush years.

And Matthew Yglesias makes an important point about the ungovernableness of the United States today due to the radicalization of the Republican Party and their abuse of Senate rules such as filibusters and holds which desperately need to be reformed.

Steve Benen has a comparison of Obama's reaction to the Christmas bomber and President Bush's reaction to the identical shoe bomber case several years ago. In the past two weeks, Obama has addressed the issue half a dozen times, launched a fullscall investigation and has already begun to implement changes. During the equivalent two-week period under Bush, they did diddly squat. AND they got NO grief from the media or the rightwing hypocrites making a fuss today.

AEI confirms stimulus success

Even the conservative "think tank" AEI admits in a recent report that the stimulus helped grow the economy.

The real economy ... responded to the massive stimulus but remained heavily dependent on it. In the United States, growth during the second half of 2009 probably averaged about 3 percent. Absent temporary fiscal stimulus and inventory rebuilding, which taken together added about 4 percentage points to U.S. growth, the economy would have contracted at about a 1 percent annual rate during the second half of 2009.

Imagine how much worse things would have been had the Tea Partiers been in charge!

Happy New Year!

It's my first post of the new year and here is what's on my mind:


Good article in the Washington Monthly on the Texas Board of Education's continuing crusade to indoctrinate our schoolchildren with their far-rightwing ideology.

Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas. When he greeted me at the door one evening last October, he was clutching a thin paperback with the skeleton of a seahorse on its cover, a primer on natural selection penned by famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. We sat down at his dining table, which was piled high with three-ring binders, and his wife, Nancy, brought us ice water in cut-crystal glasses with matching coasters. Then McLeroy cracked the book open. The margins were littered with stars, exclamation points, and hundreds of yellow Post-its that were brimming with notes scrawled in a microscopic hand. With childlike glee, McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin’s theory. “I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” he declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey.” This bled into a rant about American history. “The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principals. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

Sigh. I so with that my fellow Texans would quit electing these insane people to serve on our state school board.

Meanwhile, Andy Sullivan shows how Rasmussen Polling veers far off from every other polling outfit in the nation making it the favorite of Faux News and the NRC.

I hope everyone saw this article in the WaPo last week.

The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation's growth.

And finally a great in-depth article in Chemical & Engineering News about the whole climate change controversy.