The modern day Anti-Federalists

Tea Partiers would seem to have a special affectation for the U.S. Constitution seeing as how they are always saying they want to “get back to it” and the way they like to accuse President Obama of “shredding” it.
But the great irony, I think, is that if these same Tea Partiers had actually been around back when the Constitution was first written, they would most likely have been opposed to it.
The philisophical underpinnings of the Tea Party movement, that which there are, are rooted not in the words of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, but rather in the words of those who opposed the Constitution and fought against its ratification — the Anti-Federalists, as they were known.
Like the Tea Partiers today, the Anti-Federalists were opposed to having a strong central government. They wanted a system of government where the federal part would be equal to or lesser than the sum of its parts. They wanted the states to have the final say in most matters and feared that a strong central government led by a strong executive branch could result in a dictatorship or a new monarchy.
There was something to be said about their concerns at the time and that is why Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers. It was their response to and argument against the points being raised by the Anti-Federalists.

Ode to Delwin Jones

The runoff elections the other day had both good and bad results.
On the good side, Francisco "Quico" Canseco, the two-time loser, won the Republican primary race to face Congressman Ciro Rodriguez in November. I wanted Canseco to win because I believe he was the weakest of the two runoff candidates. Will Hurd, a former Texas A&M student body president, seemed to have an enthusiastic support base that included the San Antonio Express-News which had endorsed him and written several glowing articles about him. Hurd had also been endorsed by his other primary rivals after the election, so having him fall short in the runoff was a lucky break. Now, perhaps, there may even be a slim chance that the Republican-endorsing E-N might even skip this race.
More good news was the victory of the relatively moderate Republican Deborah Lehrman for a Supreme Court seat over right-wing Tea Party nutjob Rick Green.

Unfortunately, Republicans in my former hometown of Lubbock did not show the same good sense in two state rep. runoffs. Most disappointing for me was the loss of Republican State Rep. Delwin Jones to Tea Partying novice Charles Perry (who no doubt picked up a lot of votes because of his last name) in the District 83 race.
Delwin is 86 and was first elected to the Texas Legislature in 1965, the year I was born. He was a Democrat back then and lost when the Republican tide swept the Panhandle in the early 1970s. He made a comeback in 1989 as a Republican and had held the seat ever since. But during that time, Jones was clearly more interested in representing the best interests of his district rather than doing the bidding the Republican Party in Austin. So when he backed South Plains Democrat Pete Laney for Speaker over Republican Tom Craddick it created a lot of animosity. That animosity carried over after Craddick finally persevered in becoming Speaker only to have Jones throw his support to moderate San Antonio Republican Joe Straus in a successful coup at the beginning of the last legislative session.

So it was no surprise that these developments led to having the wingnut faction of the GOP placing a big target on Jone's back for his most recent election. And this time it worked.
Jones is 86 years old and I'm sure his wife is happy that he will be stepping down even if he is not. My wife's aunt and uncle live down the street from the Jones and have been good friends with them for years. When I worked at the local paper in the late '90s I had several opportunities to meet and interview Delwin and I could not help but like him. He was honest, straightforward and dedicated to his work. I'm sure that Delwin wanted to serve at least one more term so that he could once again chair the redistricting committee. Now the decades of institutional knowledge - especially with regard to redistricting - will be lost.
It is a sad turn of events for Lubbock.
At the same time, another wingnut Tea Partier won the District 84 seat being given up far-right wingnut Carl Isett. So no change there.

When I first moved to Lubbock in 1995, they had two relatively moderate Republican state reps. - Delwin Jones and Robert Duncan. But when then-state Sen. John Montford was tapped to become the chancellor of Texas Tech University, it set off chain reaction of races as Duncan and the then-mayor of Lubbock faced off for the senate seat and a moderate Democrat and wingnut Isett faced off for the District 84 House seat.
I remember that the Democrat in that House race had the backing of all the major power players in Lubbock and a big financial advantage - unusual even then for the Republican-dominated city - and I was naively confident that the Democrat would pull it off. But then shortly before the election I saw Delwin and asked him what he thought about the race. I remember that he just shook his head and said the demographics just weren't there for a Democrat to win no matter how many endorsements he piled up. Too many straight-ticket Republican voters, he said. And he was right. And that was too bad for Lubbock because Isett was a particularly awful representative and now they will be getting a double-dose of that kind of representation in the next term.

Supreme Court unlikely to change

There is absolutely no good reason why replacing John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court should generate a fight with Republicans. The court currently has a conservative majority and replacing Stevens, who is considered to be the leader of the liberal wing, with another liberal would not shift the balance on the court one iota.
And yet, Republicans are already talking about filibustering any nominee put forward by President Obama, unless, I assume, he were to pre-approve his choice with Republicans first. As the minority party that lost the last two elections, Republicans are in no position to be dictating to Obama who his Supreme Court pick can or cannot be. But it shouldn’t matter, because as I noted, he can’t change the makeup of the court with this pick regardless. Unless, of course, he were to pick a more moderate replacement and thus make the court that much more conservative than it already is.
It should be no surprise that Stevens has decided to step down. He is by far the oldest justice on the court at (nearly) 90, and as a liberal, one would assume he would want a Democratic president to choose his replacement (even though, oddly enough, he was appointed by a Republican - Gerald Ford).
The next most likely justice to step down is yet another liberal, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who is the second oldest justice at 77 and has had health problems recently. So, concievably, Obama could make three Supreme Court selections during his first term without altering the ideological makeup of the court one bit. His first choice of Sonia Sotomayor replaced liberal justice David Souter.
The only way the balance on the court could shift would be if one of the older conservative justices - Antonin Scalia (74) or Anthony Kennedy (73), both Reagan appointees - were to suddenly experience health problems and step down unwillingly. Then one might expect a fight as the ideological balance of the court would be at stake.
But as it is, things are not likely to change even though Republicans are promising to put up a fight as if they were.
Last time I guessed correctly that Obama was going to choose Sotomayor. This time I have no clue, but I am betting he will pick another woman - possibly Elena Kagan or Diane Wood.

The Art of Non-compromise

President Obama's recent announcement that he will open up portions of the Atlantic coast to offshore drilling, coupled with previous announcements about funding construction of new nuclear power plants, is his first step in laying the groundwork for a broad, comprehensive energy bill that will put this country on track to reduce carbon emissions that are contributing to global warming.
It is Obama's hope, I imagine, that these moves will help peel away a few Republican votes so that climate change legislation can overcome the inevitable Republican filibuster.
The sad thing is that it may not work. Republicans have perfected the art of the non-compromise as demonstrated during the year-long debate over health care reform. Even though Democrats incorporated many Republican ideas into the final package - so much so that it closely resembles the Republican alternative to Hillarycare proposed back in 1994 - not a single Republican in the House or Senate cast a vote for the bill in the end.
And that is the way it has gone for most of Obama's presidency. The Democrats are willing to barter and trade and do whatever it takes to get legislation passed that will be beneficial to the country. Republicans, on the other hand, have taken a rigidly partisan, ideological approach where they refuse to accept anything short of "my way or the highway." It is all-or-nothing for the GOP these days. If you give them 99 percent of what they want, they will fillibuster the bill because they didn't get that last 1 percent. Their idea of bipartisanship is for the President and the Democrats to give them everything they want and get nothing of what they want in return.
So instead, Democrats have been forced to go it alone and pass legislation in the face of unprecendented minority opposition. We essentially have two political parties today - the Grown-up party that is tasked with the responsibility of governing the country; and the Whiny Spoiled Child Party that pouts, throws temper tantrums and refuses to compromise on any issue.
Republicans today do not concern themselves with governing. The worse the government functions, the better as far as they are concerned because they are the anti-government party whose base is the radical Tea Partiers who claim to love their country in theory but hate every aspect of it in reality. They love the symbolism but hate the substance.

Pop culture touchstones of my youth

You can't escape the influences of pop culture. How much are we shaped and defined by this stuff that makes its first impressions on us during our youth?
Here are some of the things that made an impact on me during the first dozen or so years of my life...

Topps baseball cards
G.I. Joe
Elvis Presley
Scooby Doo
The Big Red Machine (Cincinnati Reds)
Apollo astronauts
Godzilla
Silly putty
Evel Knievel
Harlem Globetrotters
The Flintstones
The Jackson Five
Speed Racer
Walt Disney
Bugs Bunny
Skateboards
Cub Scouts
Mad Magazine
Star Wars
KISS
Disco/Bee Gees
Peanuts/Charles Schultz
Happy Days/Fonzie
Carol Burnett Show

Overlooked Rock Hall of Famers

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its newest members the other day. You can see a list of the current Rock Hall members here.

The new inductees included Abba, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and The Stooges.
Needless to say, I was rather underwhelmed by this group. I like Genesis OK and agree that they are deserving but I was never a big fan and never bought any of their albums (To be fair, I did record one of their albums from a friend). Likewise, I can appreciate ABBA and I do have a greatest hits collection of theirs. But I am completely unfamiliar with Jimmy Cliff who I believe is a reggae singer and I have never been interested in Iggy Pop and the Stooges.
So 2 out of 5 isn’t too bad, I suppose. Last year the Hall inducted Jeff Beck, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Metallica, RunDMC and Bobby Womack. I can honestly say that I don’t own any albums by any of those artists.
What is most striking to me about these inductions is when you consider the group of eligible artists who have NOT been inducted. There was a bit of a fuss in recent years about the fact that KISS has not been inducted, but just look at who else they have to share that status with:
Peter Frampton; Stevie Ray Vaughn; Hall & Oates; Boston; Cheap Trick; Heart; Rush; J. Geils Band; Deep Purple; Def Leppard; REO Speedwagon; Journey; Electric Light Orchestra; Styx; Bon Jovi; Steve Miller Band; Bachman Turner Overdrive; Jim Croce; Neil Diamond; Los Lobos; Cat Stevens; The Cars; The Go Gos; Billy Squier; Yes; INXS; Devo; Steppenwolf; Pat Benatar; Loverboy; Rick Springfield; KC and the Sunshine Band; The Doobie Brothers; Tears for Fears; Eddie Money; Peter Gabriel; Huey Lewis and the News; Cyndi Lauper; George Thorogood....
And the list goes on, including some long-neglected older acts like Humble Pie, The Faces and Paul Revere and The Raiders. And then there is the Red Hot Chili Peppers who were first eligible last year and not selected.
I could easily cull out five deserving nominees from that list who I would put in the hall before any of the acts selected over the last couple of years.
Some acts are not in the Hall yet simply because they are not eligible yet. The current rule is you have to wait 25 years after your first song is published to be eligible. Assuming they do not change that criteria by shortening it to 20 years (which I believe is being considered) here are the artists I would consider shoo-ins for induction over the next half dozen years based on their popularity with both the masses and the critics:

Guns N Roses (2011)
Public Enemy (2012)
Nirvana (2013)
Green Day (2014)
Smashing Pumpkins (2015)
Pearl Jam (2016)

That leaves four open slots each year to consider the neglected artists listed above - not to mention the dozens and dozens of other acts which will come eligible with each passing year. At this rate, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for getting a lot of my favorite overlooked artists in the Hall because I am also certain based on past experience that there will be many more acts that I disagree with that will be chosen before mine.

Glenn Beck and the Greedy Old Party

It was once explained to me that it was unfair to call conservatives greedy and uncaring because they oppose welfare and other government programs to help the poor. You see, it was not that they did not care about the poor... they were just expressing a philisophical difference over the proper role of the government. The care of the poor should be left up to the churches, they said. That way people could choose how much to give and what kind of programs to support, rather than having those decisions foisted upon them by the government.

But now, we find conservative icon and rightwing hero Glenn Beck denouncing churches that practice "social justice" and advocating that people abandon churches that do so.

Senate reform proposal

Election day

I cast my vote today in the Democratic primary. Most of the excitement seems to be taking place on the Republican side and I was somewhat tempted to cross lines and cast a vote for moderate Republican Tim Tuggey in the Board of Education race just to get that lunatic Ken Mercer off the board.
I voted for Bill White for governor and it was no contest as far as I am concerned. Farouk Shami may have good intentions, but he is just another wealthy businessman who thinks he should start at the top rather than working his way up through the system. Bill White is clearly the most experienced and best qualified candidate to take on Governor-for-life Rick Perry.
Kay Baily Hutchison is toast.
She is also a liar. I don’t believe for a second that she is going to give up her Senate seat. I’m sure that shortly after she gets smoked in the gubernatorial primary she will announce that Texas needs her back in Washington and then slink away. That will be a real shame because Texas could sure use a good person in the Senate like John Sharp.
Our other U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, just demonstrated once again how much of an extremist, rightwing, teabagging nutjob he has become by defending the mentally unstable Senator from Kentucky Jim Bunning in his abuse of the filibuster rules to block a temporary extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits for out of work Americans.
The only real choice I had to make was in the Lt. Gov. race between former Austin DA Ronnie Earle and labor leader Linda Chavez-Thompson. I went with Earle largely because he didn’t blow off the League of Women Voters Guide like Chavez-Thompson did. Bad move Linda.
I am very much interested in the Republican primary race for the 23rd Congressional District where about a half dozen Republicans are vying to take on Ciro Rodriguez this fall. I halfway expect Quico Canseco to win because he has run before and has the benefit of name recognition. Will Hurd, a 30-year-old “retired” CIA agent, made the Express-News editorial board swoon and won their endorsement. But the one I am watching the closest is Dr. Robert Lowry, whose biggest claim to fame is that he received the endorsement of CPAC straw poll winner Ron Paul. Lowry is a far-right socal conservative with some Libertarian tendencies (he favors legalization of marijuana, for instance) and we are polar opposites on almost every issue, but he is in my Sunday School class at University United Methodist Church and I’ve gotten to know him and his family during the past few months. So, while I think he is a little bit out there (OK, a WHOLE LOT out there), I at least know him to be a really nice person and if anybody were to beat Ciro (God forbid) it might as well be him. Still, if he loses then at least I won’t have to feel guilty about voting against him in November.

Top Liberal Journalists

Interesting list of the “Top 25 Liberal Journalists” from The Daily Beast.


Jessica Valenti - Feministing
David Rieff - NYTimes Magazine
Eric Alterman - Altercation
Deborah Solomon - NYTimes Magazine
Adam Moss - New York Magazine
Katrina Vanden Heuvel - The Nation
Matthew Yglesias - Think Progress
Christiane Amanpour - CNN
Jane Hamsher - Firedoglake
Franklin Foer - New Republic
Ezra Klein - Washington Post
Thom Hartmann - Radio Talk Host
Steve Coll - New Yorker
Josh Marshall - Talking Points Memo
Rachel Maddow - MSNBC
Jonathan Chait - New Republic
Hendrik Hertzberg - New Yorker
David Leonhardt - New York Times
Frank Rich - New York Times
Markos Moulitsas - Daily Kos
Fred Hiatt - Washington Post
David Shipley - New York Times
Arianna Huffington - Huff Post
Paul Krugman - New York Times
Jon Stewart - Daily Show


A little "New York" centric, No? Especially considering that The Nation and The New Republic are both published there.

But the first thing that jumps off the list is the inclusion of the neocon Fred Hiatt who helms the now conservative editorial pages at the Washington Post. An influential liberal??? Oh, but wait, the author protests, he is still liberal on domestic issues! Yeah, right. That's what they said about Joe Lieberman too.

And among the snubs and oversights is Keith Olbermann, whose success paved the way for Rachel Maddow.
Other egregious oversights include
Glenn Greenwald - Salon
Joe Conason - Salon
Thomas Frank - Wall Street Journal
Steve Benen - Washington Monthly
Duncan Black (Atrios) - Eschaton
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones
Andrew Sullivan - Daily Dish
Michael Kinsley - Washington Post
E.J. Dionne - Washington Post
And, since they left out anyone of color, how about:
Eugene Robinson - Washington Post
Bob Herbert - New York Times
Clarence Page - Chicago Tribune
and Leonard Pitts - Miami Herald

Newspaper endorsements go unheeded by Repubs

What does this say about Republican voters?
So far, Kay Bailey Hutchison has swept the field on newspaper endorsements across the state.
All the major papers have endorse Hutchison, and yet she is trailing Gov. Rick Perry badly in the polls.
On the other hand, all the same papers also endorsed Bill White in the Democratic primary and he is leading in his primary race quite comfortably.
So does this mean that newspaper editorial boards have more influence today with Democratic voters rather than with Republicans?
I think so to a degree. But I also think that in general most people are less influenced today by newspapers in favor of other mediums such as TV, Internet, social media, billboards, mass mailings, robo-calls, etc.
Which is also one of the main reasons why I want to see a lot less so-called "democracy" in this country where we depend on uninformed and indifferent voters to select judges, constables, state board of education members and many other offices that would be better served by a system of appointments.

Rewarding idiocy

Great column by Michael Kinsley taking on the charge that liberals are condescending to conservatives.

Everybody thinks what they believe is correct or else they would not believe it. Likewise, they will also believe that anybody who disagrees with them is incorrect and there are three possible reasons why (assuming they REALLY are correct and ther other person is mistaken) and those are:

"...that they are misinformed, they are thinking poorly, or they are blinded by self-interest. Or, to put it crudely, they are ignorant, stupid or selfish."

Of course, "ignorant, stupid and selfish" are the terms that first come to my mind when arguing with wingnuts, so does that make me condescending?

Moving on...

Steve Benen makes a point today that fits in well on this topic about the general public's tendency to reward idiocy...

By most measures, Republicans have spent the last year acting like children -- reckless, disturbed children who fiddle with matches and take pleasure in playing in traffic.

For nearly 13 months, GOP officials on the Hill have engaged in unprecedented abuse of the political process, blocking good legislation, offering insane ideas to major national challenges, rejected their own ideas when embraced by Democrats, and generally being an embarrassment to themselves and the country.

Naturally, then, Republicans are making major gains in the polls.

Republicans have significantly narrowed the gap with Democrats on who is trusted to deal with the country's problems and have sharply reduced several of President Obama's main political advantages, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The survey paints a portrait of a restless and dissatisfied electorate at the beginning of a critical election year. More than seven in 10 Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, and as many say they're inclined to look for new congressional representation as said so in 1994 and 2006, the last times that control of Congress shifted.

Asked how they would vote in the November House elections, Americans split evenly -- 46 percent siding with the Democrats, 46 percent with the Republicans. As recently as four months ago, Democrats held a 51 to 39 percent advantage on this question.

Dems still enjoy an edge on problem solving, but the margin has shrunk considerably. When asked, "Overall, which party, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you trust to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?" respondents preferred Dems, 43% to 37%. It's the closest margin in four years.

President Obama is still more trusted than the GOP to handle every polled area of public policy -- the economy, health care, budget deficit, combating terrorism, and creating jobs -- but the president's lead over Republicans is the smallest it's been since he took office.

Reality should suggest the opposite. As Republicans grow more irresponsible, and become less coherent, their numbers should drop. But as the economy continues to struggle, and congressional Dems prove unable to govern in the face of obstructionism at levels unseen in American history, the public has soured on those trying to clean up the messes Republicans left in the wake of the Bush/Cheney fiasco.

But let's be clear: literally the only way for Republicans to shake off their madness and grow up would be for them to face an intense backlash from the public. Poll results like these send the opposite signal -- Americans are encouraging the GOP to keep up the bad work.

Senate not bound by past screwups

This story in the WaPo today scared me because it seems to say that the only way the Senate can change its rules is by a supermajority vote...

Under long-standing resolutions, the Senate considers itself to be a "continuing body" whose parliamentary rules remain in effect unless a two-thirds supermajority votes to change them.
The more authoritarian House, whose entire membership stands for election every two years, sets its rules at the start of each Congress by a majority vote.

Based on that I feared the worst. If that is the case, then we are screwed and have no way to fix our broken Senate and our dysfunctional government. In other words, we are going to go the way of the the Polish legislature, the Sejm, as Paul Krugman warned today.

But then with a little more research, that the WaPo reporter obviously did not do, I was reassured that such is not the case...

From Wikipedia:

In 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Ballin that both houses of Congress are parliamentary bodies, implying that they may make procedural rules by majority vote. In 1917, Senator John J. Walsh contended the majority of the Senate could revise a procedural rule at any time, despite the requirement of the Senate rules that a two-thirds majority is necessary to approve a rule change. "When the Constitution says, 'Each House may determine its rules of proceedings,' it means that each House may, by a majority vote, a quorum present, determine its rules," Walsh told the Senate. Opponents countered that Walsh's "Constitutional option" would lead to procedural chaos, but his argument was a key factor in the adoption of the first cloture rule later that year. In 1957, Vice President Richard Nixon issued an advisory opinion stating that no Senate may constitutionally enact a rule that deprives a future Senate of the right to approve its own rules by the vote of a simple majority.[5] Nixon's advisory opinion, along with similar opinions by Hubert Humphrey and Nelson Rockefeller, has been cited as precedent to support the view that the Senate may amend its rules at the beginning of the session with a simple majority vote.

So, thank God there is a precedent for the Senate to still sets its own rules by majority rule. Now we just need to hope there will be enough Democrats left standing after the mid-term elections who will vote to change the rules at the start of the next session.

Gays in the military

It looks as if the stars may be aligning to the point where the U.S. will finally end its ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
It is long overdue.
The other day, the Top military officer in the country, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates both said the ban should be repealed.

The interesting thing about those two, aside from the fact that they are highest ranking authorities in the military today, is that they are both holdovers from the Bush administration and were first appointed by Republicans.
Their assessment was quickly seconded by Colin Powell, another Republican-appointee. Former Joint Chiefs chairman John Shalikashvili, came to the same conclusion several years earlier.

The evidence in favor of allowing gays to serve in the military is overwhelming. But that has never stopped Republicans before, (i.e. Global Warming) and we can be assured that they will do their best to drum up fears and resentments to oppose any changes and/or take political advantage of such changes when they do occur.

If asked, most people who oppose gays in the military would probably cite Biblical passages that denounce homosexuality as a sin. But then shouldn't they also expect anyone guilty of adultery to be banned from the military as well? Or how about people who take the Lord's name in vain?

Here is an interesting exercise:

Check out the list of countries that currently allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military:

Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bermuda
Brazil
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Peru
Philippines
Romania
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Uruguay

Now compare it with the list of countries that do not:

Cuba
China
Egypt
Greece
Iran
Jamaica
North Korea
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Singapore
South Korea
Syria
Turkey
Venezuela
Yemen
United States

Pretty striking isn't it? Doesn't the U.S. look a little out of place in that second list? Most of our NATO allies have ditched their antiquated anti-gay policies long ago. It is time for us to catch up and set an example for the rest of the world.

Popular films return to the Oscars

Expanding the Best Picture nominees from five to 10 worked out well this year, I think.
For the first time in six years we have a Best Picture nominated film that cracked the Top 10 at the box office - actually, we have three of them: Avatar, Up and The Blind Side. And we have five films that have already grossed more than $100 million, with Inglorious Basterds and District 9 joining the three films above.

As I noted last year, that has not been the case in recent times. In fact, not counting the Lord of the Rings films from the beginning of the decade, there was only one Best Picture film during the past decade to crack the Top 10 (Chicago, which was No. 10 in 2002.)

And we still had room for the five films favored by the critics: The Hurt Locker, Precious, Up in the Air, A Serious Man, and An Education.

Without the expansion to 10 films, those bottom five would likely have been the Best Picture nominees this year continuing the Academy's tradition in recent years of snubbing popular films. I suppose there is a chance that Avatar may still have squeaked in to a spot, kind of like LOTR did, in place of say An Education or A Serious Man, but there definitely would not have been room for Up, The Blind Side, Inglorious Basterds and District 9.

As it is, I think there will be much more interest in the Academy Awards this year because they will be honoring films that people have actually seen, and they will be doing it without sacrificing any of the honors due the more high-brow, artsy films. Good news all around.

What do they think "socialism" is anyway?

A new poll by Research2000 of 2,000 self-identified Republicans reveals that 63 percent think President Obama is a Socialist.
Which begs the question - What on Earth do these people think a "socialist" is anway? I would be interested to find out, because I don't think they have a clue.
Socialism is an economic system where the government owns the means of production.
Recently, as a result of the grossly negligent and wrongheaded Republican policies of the George W. Bush administration, the federal government was forced to invest considerable sums of taxpayer dollars into the banking and automotive industries to keep them from collapsing and throwing the whole country into a second Great Depression.
Now the government is trying to recoup its money and get back out of the bailout business as quickly as possible. To call this arrangement - where the government is forced to take extraordinary measures to prop up a capitalist system - "socialism" is astoundingly ignorant.
And yet that is the claim that has been made consistently on Faux News and Rightwing Radio in an effort to tar Obama with the "socialist' label.
But I think a lot of the people on the right don't stop there. They have been throwing around the "socialist" charge long before the Bush/Republican economic collapse of 2008/09. I dare say many of them would label as "socialist" anyone who supports Social Security and/or Medicare. Anyone who supports a progressive tax system and any domestic/social spending by the government.
Apparently, as far as these people are concerned, the United States has been a "socialist" country since Roosevelt's New Deal pulled us out of the first Republican-caused Great Depression.
And so did this sharp turn towards "socialism" result in an economic catastrophe for our nation as they predict? Why no. Instead, our economy grew so rapidly that we became the most powerful nation on the planet - all under what they deem to be a socialist system.
Idiots.

Cheer up, Liberals!

If the video of President Obama taking Republican lawmakers to task last week isn't enough to cheer you up, then consider this:

Things are not as bad as they might seem right now for Democrats. Sure, there have been some setbacks recently, but taken as a whole this has been one of the most productive Congresses since the New Deal era, while giving President Obama the most legislative successes of any modern president...

A very productive Congress, despite what the approval ratings say

...this Democratic Congress is on a path to become one of the most productive since the Great Society 89th Congress in 1965-66, and Obama already has the most legislative success of any modern president -- and that includes Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson. The deep dysfunction of our politics may have produced public disdain, but it has also delivered record accomplishment.

The productivity began with the stimulus package, which was far more than an injection of $787 billion in government spending to jump-start the ailing economy. More than one-third of it -- $288 billion -- came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history, with sizable credits for energy conservation and renewable-energy production as well as home-buying and college tuition. The stimulus also promised $19 billion for the critical policy arena of health-information technology, and more than $1 billion to advance research on the effectiveness of health-care treatments.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has leveraged some of the stimulus money to encourage wide-ranging reform in school districts across the country. There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and a smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. As a bonus, more than $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access, a step toward the goal of universal access.

Any Congress that passed all these items separately would be considered enormously productive. Instead, this Congress did it in one bill. Lawmakers then added to their record by expanding children's health insurance and providing stiff oversight of the TARP funds allocated by the previous Congress. Other accomplishments included a law to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, the largest land conservation law in nearly two decades, a credit card holders' bill of rights and defense procurement reform.

The House, of course, did much more, including approving a historic cap-and-trade bill and sweeping financial regulatory changes. And both chambers passed their versions of a health-care overhaul.

And consider this as well....

The Quiet Revolution

These days, liberals don’t know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan to worrying that, in the wake of Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts, he won’t get any plan through Congress. On other subjects, too, from Afghanistan to Wall Street, Obama has thoroughly let down his party’s left flank.

Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office.

Oh, and by the way, the economy saw its biggest jump in growth during the fourth quarter in the past six years. Expect more news like that in 2010.

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.

2009 Movies recap

2009 was another strong year for the movie industry with 29 films crossing the magic $100 million domestic gross barrier so far (and Sherlock Holmes almost certain to make it 30 very soon). 2008 had 29 $100M-plus films total, so it looks as if 2009 will be the best of the decade in that respect - despite being an awful year from an economic perspective.
I personally cannot take credit for the Hollywood windfall this year. The list of 2009 movies that I have seen so far is quite small:

Up
G Force
Planet 51

That's it. I actually own copies (*) of several more 2009 films but have not had time to watch them yet. Here is the list of 2009 movies that I still plan on seeing at some point:

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
*Star Trek
Avatar
*Monsters vs. Aliens
*Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
*X Men Origins: Wolverine
*Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
A Christmas Carol (Disney)
*Angels and Demons
Terminator Salvation
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Inglorious Basterds
District 9
Watchmen
Public Enemies
Julie and Julia
The Proposal
Blind Side
Sherlock Holmes
Where the Wild Things Are
The Princess and the Frog
Men Who Stare at Goats
Up in the Air
Invictus
Fantastic Mr. Fox


And revisiting my list of 2008 films that I had seen at the end of last year:

*WALL-E
*Kung Fu Panda
*Iron Man
*Horton Hears A Who
*Speed Racer

I can add the following:

*Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
*The Dark Knight
*Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
*Hancock
*Journey to the Center of the Earth
*Hell Boy II: The Golden Army
*Bolt
Burn After Reading
Curious Case of Benjamin Button
*The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The X-Files: I Want To Believe

And 2008 movies that I still intend to see at some point:

*Gran Torino
*Frost/Nixon
Quantum of Solace
*Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
W.
*Appaloosa
*Body of Lies
*The Day the Earth Stood Still
*Valkyrie
*Nim’s Island
*Bedtime Stories
Australia
*The Tale of Despereaux
*The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything
*Space Chimps
*Fly Me to the Moon
*Clone Wars
Tropic Thunder

Paging Art Hall

Some interesting and mostly positive local political developments are currently churning.

My State Rep. Frank Corte Jr. has announced that he will step down and not run for re-election.
This is great news since Corte has been a terrible representative for the district. An ideological rightwinger, Corte's only apparent concern in the Legislature has been to try and strip women of their legal rights to abortion and promote "property rights" as the end-all, penultimate answer to every problem.
Now the bad news is that the 122nd District is so full of wingnutty teabaggers that it is unlikely to elect a good government Democrat. And former County Commissioner and failed Republican congressional candidate Scott Larson has already jumped into the race.
My only hope is that he might not be as bad as Corte. Maybe Larson might even support San Antonio Speaker of the House Joe Strauss rather than serving as a lapdog for paleocon rightwinger Tom Craddick.

Here is hoping that a strong Democrat like former City Councilman Art Hall will jump into the race and give the electorate a legitimate choice this fall.

Another positive development is that two of the looniest rightwingers on the Texas Board of Education have drawn strong primary challengers from the moderate wing of the Republican Party. Ken Mercer, who unfortunately represents my district, is being challenged by local attorney Tim Tuggey.
And Don McLeroy, the ousted former chairman of the board is being challenged by Thomas Ratliff.

Unless a good Democrat comes along soon, I am inclined to throw my support to Tuggey just to get the loathsome Ken Mercer off of the board and away from any position of authority where he could continue to screw up my childrens' educational future.

Krugman sums up the past decade

The Big Zero

Yikes! A net decrease in private sector jobs between 1999 and 2009!?!
Those Republican tax cuts and deregulation sure did a bang-up job on our economy this past decade.

From an economic point of view, I’d suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.

It was a decade with basically zero job creation. O.K., the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.

It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged “Bush boom,” in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.

Yeah, everything went straight down the tube. I cannot stress enough how much this should be blamed sqarely on Republican economic policies. Republicans were in control of the federal government for the majority of the past decade, and even when they weren't, managed to use veto threats, filibusters and other obstructionist measures to keep Republican policies in place and prevent any kind of liberal reforms.

We have had 10 years of tax cuts, deregulation, union-busting, and other forms of Republican economic wonkery in place, all with the promise that it would lift the government boot off the neck of the free enterprise system and allow it to grow and expand and create jobs and economic opportunities, blah, blah, blah...

And instead we got NOTHING. Squat! Nada! No growth. No jobs except for those in the public sector. No increase in standard of living for middle America. We have all fallen behind as a result and are struggling more now than we were 10 years ago.

Now, if we can just manage a few more reforms to slip by the Republicans' filibuster-fueled death grip - like health care reform - then maybe, just maybe, things can start to slowly turn around in 2010 before the ignorant masses send another wave of rightwing, America-hating morons back into office to screw everything up all over again.

Most entertaining movies of the decade

I like this guy's choices for most entertaining films of the decade.
My list of best films, however, is going to be a bit different because I group them together where applicable rather than trying to distinguish various sequels from one another.

No. 1: At the top of my list, as with the one in the link, is The Lord of the Rings trilogy - absolutely the most incredible cinematic achievement that I am aware of.

In the No. 2 slot I would put the Pixar movies. Starting with Monster's Inc. in 2000, Pixar has had a remarkable record of success with its animated feature films including The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and Up.
The only animated film that comes close to the level of perfection achieved by each of these Pixar films was Kung Fu Panda.

No. 3: Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. The first film in the series was a surprise hit. The sequels got progressively cheesier, but were still enjoyable nonetheless. Johnny Depp almost singlehandedly raised the entire series from the very good to great.

No. 4: The Bourne Identity trilogy. The best contemporary thriller series based on the Robert Ludlum books. Out does the tired, but recently reinvigorated Bond series. Matt Damon is excellent as the brooding superagent. The followup films are as good if not better than the first.

No. 5.: Spider Man trilogy. Raised the bar on the superhero genre and probably paved the way for Academy Award-worthy superhero flicks like Dark Knight and Iron Man.

No. 6.: The Harry Potter series. All of the films maintain a consistent level of quality and credit should probably go to the author of the series. I have yet to see the two most recent films.

No. 7.: Chronicles of Narnia series. The first film was very good. The second fell somewhat short. Hopefully the third will mark a comeback and keep the series going.

No. 8.: National Treasure 1 & 2. The first film was a hoot and Nicolas Cage was in top form. The second film was very derivative and I didn't like how it had to mess up the happy ending from the first movie to give it a setup for the new story, but it was still enjoyable.

No. 9.: Ray/Walk the Line/Capote/The Aviator/The Queen. Call this the Bio-flick category - excellent movies with great performances by people portraying famous historical figures - Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Truman Capote, Howard Hughes, Queen Elizabeth.

No. 10.: X-Men - The first two movies were excellent. The third was a disappointment. I haven't seen the Wolverine movie yet.

Honorable Mentions:
Minority Report, Emperor's New Groove, The DaVinci Code, Night at the Museum, Seabiscuit, Star Trek.

Health Care bill a huge victory

Good article from Jonathan Chait explaining Why the health care bill is the greatest social achievement of our time.
This legislative victory ensures Obama's re-election in 2012 and his legacy in history.
The economy is starting to slowly recover (the Stock Market already has recovered). We are slowly withdrawing from Iraq and will be out of Afghanistan over the next couple of years as well. A lot of the stimulus funds will start to kick in next year and provide a needed boost to the sagging job numbers.
And with all these things happening, the reforms to the health insurance industry will reinvigorate the economy as the pressure of rising health costs is lifted off of businesses like a boot being taken off of their necks.
The next challenge will be climate change legislation, but once again the Republican predictions of gloom and doom will prove to be false. I can only hope that more and more people will finally start to recognize this pattern and quit buying into the garbage being spewed daily by the rightwing radio yakkers and Faux News propagandists.

RIP Republican Moderates

Froma Harrop, whom I am not prone to quote veru often, had an excellent column today that said much of what I had been wanting to say.
Sen. Olympia Snowe's deeply disappointing antics during the health care debate demonstrated that she is no longer someone who can be considered a "moderate" and has instead thrown her lot in with the far-right radicals who control what is left of the Republican Party today.
There is not a moderate wing of the GOP today. The last true moderate left when Arlen Spector switched parties. Olympia Snowe was the last hope for a Republican moderate, but after going along with the filibuster of health care reform it's clear that there is not much difference between her and someone like Kay Bailey Hutchison. I mean, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman finally came through in the end and Olympia Snowe still filibustered. Pathetic.
I hope that the good people of Maine are just as disillusioned with her as I am. And that goes double for the worthless Susan Collins.

A bad decade?

Steve Benen makes a compelling case:

"Was it really that bad? Pretty much, yes. One barely has to give it much thought to remember what made this decade one Americans don't want to remember: 9/11, the Great Recession, two devastating wars, anthrax, Katrina, Tom DeLay and the culture of corruption, Enron, Madoff, sniper shootings, an explosion of debt, the entire Bush/Cheney presidency. Median incomes went down. Poverty went up. Global warming got worse. Fox yanked 'Firefly' after 14 episodes, while 'According to Jim' aired 182 episodes."

Ouch!! Make it stop!
Yes, canceling Firefly was, I'm sure, the absolute low point of the decade.
However, seeing as how both of my children were born during that decade, it still comes out to a net positive.

Krugman on Senate dysfunction

Krugman is worth posting in full this week.

Unless some legislator pulls off a last-minute double-cross, health care reform will pass the Senate this week. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It’s a seriously flawed bill, we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it’s nonetheless a huge step forward.

It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate — and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole — has become ominously dysfunctional.

After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster — a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule — turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.

Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit. What are the chances that we can do all that — or, I’m tempted to say, any of it — if doing anything requires 60 votes in a deeply polarized Senate?

Some people will say that it has always been this way, and that we’ve managed so far. But it wasn’t always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past — most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn’t like, is a recent creation.

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

Some conservatives argue that the Senate’s rules didn’t stop former President George W. Bush from getting things done. But this is misleading, on two levels.

First, Bush-era Democrats weren’t nearly as determined to frustrate the majority party, at any cost, as Obama-era Republicans. Certainly, Democrats never did anything like what Republicans did last week: G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department — which was on the verge of running out of money — in an attempt to delay action on health care.

More important, however, Mr. Bush was a buy-now-pay-later president. He pushed through big tax cuts, but never tried to pass spending cuts to make up for the revenue loss. He rushed the nation into war, but never asked Congress to pay for it. He added an expensive drug benefit to Medicare, but left it completely unfunded. Yes, he had legislative victories; but he didn’t show that Congress can make hard choices and act responsibly, because he never asked it to.

So now that hard choices must be made, how can we reform the Senate to make such choices possible?

Back in the mid-1990s two senators — Tom Harkin and, believe it or not, Joe Lieberman — introduced a bill to reform Senate procedures. (Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn’t endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.) Sixty votes would still be needed to end a filibuster at the beginning of debate, but if that vote failed, another vote could be held a couple of days later requiring only 57 senators, then another, and eventually a simple majority could end debate. Mr. Harkin says that he’s considering reintroducing that proposal, and he should.

But if such legislation is itself blocked by a filibuster — which it almost surely would be — reformers should turn to other options. Remember, the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority — not supermajority — rule. So the rule of 60 can be changed. A Congressional Research Service report from 2005, when a Republican majority was threatening to abolish the filibuster so it could push through Bush judicial nominees, suggests several ways this could happen — for example, through a majority vote changing Senate rules on the first day of a new session.

Nobody should meddle lightly with long-established parliamentary procedure. But our current situation is unprecedented: America is caught between severe problems that must be addressed and a minority party determined to block action on every front. Doing nothing is not an option — not unless you want the nation to sit motionless, with an effectively paralyzed government, waiting for financial, environmental and fiscal crises to strike.

Busted!

Sen. Ben Nelson came through late last night and now the Republican filibuster is busted! I wonder if Sen. Olympia Snowe will follow suit as well?
This is the final hurdle for Health Care Reform. The House will now bite the bullet and "ping-pong" the bill - approving it as is - and thus not allowing Republicans another chance at a filibuster. Then the bill will go straight to Obama without going back to the Senate.
This has been a good end of the week for Obama. His health care legislation is set to pass and an agreement was reached at the climate talks in Copenhagen.

Health Care Optimism

I am optimistic right now that either Ben Nelson or Olympia Snowe will provide the 60th vote needed for cloture on the health care bill.
At this point I think we are just watching the end of a long, slow dance that has already been choreographed behind closed doors.
Right now if I had to bet, I would say that the best odds are on Olympia Snowe to step up. There is no reason at this point for her to oppose the bill since it is essentially the same as the bill that came out of the Finance Committee which she already supported. The public option and Medicare buy-in proposal that she objected to in the interim period have been stripped away. The question is what would Nelson do at that point? I think once the filibuster is moot, he will vote to end cloture but still vote against the bill. Thus the cloture motion will pass 61-39.
Earlier this morning a final hurdle was cleared when Democrats defeated a Republican attempt to filibuster the Defense Appropriation bill. Sens. Snowe, Collins and Hutchison all broke ranks to support the troops, while the rest of the GOP hypocrites did what they usually do.