Taking One For The Team

In the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Conn., along with the shootings in Aurora and Oregon, the topic of gun control has once again raised its weary head.  Gun owners (with some reason), and gun dealers (with a lot less reason), feel defensive and maybe a bit angry.  After all, they didn't shoot any kids!  And, in some earnestness they are making the same kinds of arguments as before - all sorts of weapons can lead to death; there's no particular reason to single out guns, etc.  All of these arguments have been made before, but mass killings are continuing on a record pace.

The shooter in Newtown drove to Sandy Hook, shot his way through the school doors, killed six school administrators and teachers, and then began a rampage through the school, killing 20 first graders.  When the police arrived, he shot himself in the head.  He did all of this, alone, within four minutes.  And the reason he was able to inflict such carnage in such a short time was because he was armed with guns with high capacity magazines.  If he had a knife, he would never have gotten through the door.  If he had a bomb, he might have been able to enter the school, but, of course, explosives are illegal.  No, instead he had guns that did exactly what they are supposed to do - enable the user to hunt down and kill lots of people very quickly.  And that's a problem.

So to my friends who are gun owners, I have this to say - you're going to have to take one for the team. I know it sucks, I know that taking one for the team may even be of questionable legality (2nd Amendment and all), but simply put, this can't continue.  Now, if we had good mental health care, we might be able to take of the problem without taking away guns, but we don't (at least not until Obamacare goes into full swing).  Going the other way, and arming everyone is also a bad idea - in stress situations, normal people tend to be bad shots (without training).

That leaves us with banning guns. When Australia had a  rash of mass shootings, it banned assault weapons and hasn't had an incident since.  Now, this didn't help other types of homicides, necessarily, but it wouldn't.  Again we're trying to prevent a very specific type of homicide (which, by the way, a terrorist organization could easily employ), we are looking at a very specific type of weapon.

At the same time, I can appreciate that owning a firearm, particularly a military-style assault weapon, is pretty badass.  I can also appreciate that shooting off a couple hundred rounds is a great way to blow off steam, feel empowered and whatnot.  With that in mind, I'd go with the following compromise - you can own an assault weapon, but you have to leave it at the firing range.  Sorry, but these weapons are too dangerous in the wrong hands.  Also keep in mind that when it comes to suicidal behaviors (as these mass shootings are clearly), even slight inconveniences make all the difference (look at the section on suicide).  There are other, broader gun control measures, like licensing gun owners in a manner similar to drivers, and requiring that gun owners be insured, but this is a good first step.

So, what constitutes an assault weapon?  The devil is in the details, of course.  My guess would be a semi-automatic firearm with a magazine capacity of more than 10 bullets, but I'm not a gun person, and can be persuaded one way or the other.  That leaves shotguns (good for hunting and home protection), hunting rifles (hunting, obviously), and many handguns.  All of which, you can use for your out-of-the-firing-range needs.

Oh, and for those of you who think you need guns to keep away the government, keep this in mind - the government has tanks, helicopters, jets, and heavy artillery.  Soldiers wear armor that can protect them from an AK-47 fired at point blank range, and if that wasn't enough, there are unmanned drones that can kill.  If you decide to fight the United States, a country which spends more on military armaments than the rest of the world COMBINED, your assault rifle will not help you.

Oh My God. . .

The title here is not meant in its usual, profane/blasphemous way, that marks my profanity-ridden website (one I should really update more often).  Rather, this title is part of the prayer I've been saying in my head since the early morning:

Oh my God, please let this news be true.  Please let it be a hoax.  Don't let those children die, don't let the survivors live scarred lives. Please. . .

Of course, the news is real.  Over twenty people have died, many of them children.  An entire classroom is still unaccounted for.  To the families of all of those who have died, I am sincerely heartbroken for your loss.  But, of course, I will be fine in a few hours or a few days; my life will go one.  I will not pretend to understand your loss, and your pain.  Just know that there are plenty of people like me who, for this moment, feel for you, even 3,000 miles away.

But I am 3,000 miles away, and like so many others, my mind turns on how to prevent such things from happening again.  Because it has happened, over and over and over again.  And it is human nature, indeed the very essence of humanity itself, to try and figure out how to fix things.  Our ancestors used to be subject to fatal attacks by animals, so we built fires and shelters and weapons to protect ourselves.  We don't just throw up our hands and say there is nothing to be done.

Is gun control the answer?  Maybe.  While it is true that "guns don't kill people," some guns allow people to kill lots of other people very, very quickly.  In fact, that's the actual purpose of a fair number of guns.  Sure, there are other purposes for guns, but the whole basis for their existence, their whole purpose, is to make killing easier.  Compare this shooting with the crazy guy in China who stabbed a bunch of kids.  It should not be at all shocking that someone occasionally uses them for this very purpose.

Now, of course, the 2nd Amendment, which traditionally has not applied to states, just the Federal government, stands in the way, somewhat.  But the interpretation that the 2nd Amendment prevents any form of gun control is simply absurd.  There is no right under the Constitution that is an absolute right.  No one can shout "Fire" in a crowded movie theater, human sacrifice is outlawed, and the police can search you and your home without a warrant under certain circumstances.  There must be something we can do.

With that said, gun control is not the only issue at play here.  There is also a mental health issue. To shoot up a school where the oldest kid is at most ten, is beyond my comprehension.  It does appear that these massacres are perpetrated by suicidal men looking to go out in a blaze of "glory."  So while we think about limiting the access to firearms, we should also try to insure that the mentally ill are receiving treatment.

What we can't do is simply throw up our hands and say that nothing can be done.  We owe it to ourselves and to the fallen to do more than that.

To All the Conservatives Out There

Despite the glee expressed in my last post, I'd like to reach out to all my conservative friends (or now, former friends) out there.  Its been a tough election, and an even tougher election night for you.  As much as you think that you are alone, or that no one knows how you feel, trust me, I do.

You see, eight years ago George W. Bush, a President I despised and thought was a disaster for this country, was reelected over John Kerry.  And as I will detail below, the parallels between 2004 and 2012 are absolutely striking.

In 2004 and 2012, the incumbent President faced a politician from Massachusetts with a reputation of being an elitist and a flip-flopper.  The bases of the opposition were energized, and found new ways to spend soft money like never before (we had the 527's, you had the Super Pacs).  Both challengers did extremely well in the first Presidential debate (I, for one, haven't forgotten about Poland), with the President making a comeback in the next two debates.  And both times, the losing side was sure, absolutely sure, that they would carry Ohio (2004 - the exit polls, and 2012 the unskew guy).   And, of course, both times, despite extreme enthusiasm by the challenging side, the incumbent President won because he was able to get his supporters to come out to the polls in large numbers.  

When Kerry lost in 2004, I was devastated because I realized that there was nothing more I, or any other Democrat, could have done to stop Bush from winning.  Our leadership just wasn't smart enough to beat Karl Rove, and there was more Republicans in the country than Democrats.  Sound familiar?

Despite all the jokes about Karl Rove blowing $390 million (!!!), and whatever can be said about Mitt Romney, you, my conservative brethren  did everything you could to win this campaign.  You spent more money than the President.  You had election officials in key states who shamelessly did everything they could to prevent Obama supporters from voting.   There was no stone left unturned.  You left it all out on the field, and for that, I salute you.  

In the next few months and weeks, you are going to hear a lot of excuses by the Republican Party leadership about why Obama won and Romney lost.  I've heard Limbaugh say that Romney was running against Santa Claus, and O'Reilly saying much the same thing.  I've heard Rove say that Obama's negativity discouraged Romney supporters from voting, and there will be plenty of bullshit out there, peddled by the people who said that Romney was a shoe-in, and that the polls were biased.  Do not believe them.  No, you lost for the same reason that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards lost to Obama in the 2008 primaries - Obama went out and found more voters. 

And these voters did not vote for Obama because he promised them free stuff - but because he had a plan that is kinda, sorta, working.  Because he represents a turn away from policies of George W. Bush, who, as you might remember, had an approval rating in the twenties when he left office.  Romney never articulated how he was going to be different - instead he looked like a plutocrat.  Most importantly, though, these voters came to the polls because Obama reached out to them in ways that Romney could not and did not.

Okay, I'm sorry to sound like I'm piling on - I don't mean to.  You worked your ass off, and damn if you didn't come close.  But you need to accept reality.  If you ran a campaign against Obama the man, as opposed to the Kenyan anti-colonial communist you think Obama is, you might have won.  Trust me, I know.  We Democrats kept running against Bush the idiot, instead of Bush the actual guy.

So, you might ask, why the hell am I writing this?  Its because America needs conservatives and conservatism just as much as it needs liberals and liberalism.  Neither side has all the answers, and we both have our excesses.  We need each other for balance. 

Lastly, as someone who got over the pain of 2004, here's my advice to you - take a walk.  Get some air, play some music, catch up on some old hobbies and/or chores.  Put politics aside for awhile.  Turn off Fox News (who's more interested in selling stuff than Republican wins).  Trust me, 2016 is a lot closer than you think.

The Reelection of Barack Hussein Obama (and Other Observations)

Before I get too far into this exercise of schadenfreude, I have a brief confession to all those who have wondered where I have gone in the political world - for some time now, I have developed a strong sense that I am a jinx, as far as politics go.  The only candidate who I volunteered for, worked for*, or gave money to, and still won was Barack Obama in 2008.  And then I gave money because I despised Sarah Palin's acceptance speech at the RNC.  Every other candidate (and there have been over ten at this point), has lost.  So, while some of my lack of participation was due to the typical things in life - job, girlfriend, dog, etc. - I also desperately wanted to avoid jinxing anything or anyone.  Also, I'm pretty sure that as a jinx, I have to want the candidate to win, so no volunteering for Carl DeMaio or Mitt Romney.

I mention my belief that I'm a jinx so that you can understand how I felt in the days leading this this election - I was terrified.  After all, I strongly supported Barack Obama, hated Mitt Romney, and wrote blog posts about the election. What if my blogging jinxed Obama?  What if I jinxed Bob Filner with my posts on SanDiegoPolitico.com?  Okay, that's really true, I wasn't worried about jinxing Filner.  But I was terrified about Obama.  Oh, when it comes to politics, I am very superstitious.

Politics, particularly American politics, is an amalgam of sport and policy.  Not only do you root for your team, but winning and losing has real consequences.  Obama will most likely nominate at least one more Supreme Court Justice, and will oversee the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare).  The Democrats who are buoyed today, and the Republicans who are depressed today have some reason to feel the way they do (though Obama is a lot more moderate than the Republicans think). Add in the intimacy of Twitter, and politics can get very, very personal.

My own nightmare scenarios included, among other thoughts - the election coming down to New Jersey, and the only voters in New Jersey who could vote because of Sandy were Republicans.  Mother Jones' election coverage, which included a vote machine in Pennsylvania that only recorded Romney votes, and long lines at polling places wasn't exactly helping my paranoia.  The only thing to prevent my panic was Nate Silver's excellent blog.

And let me say that Nate Silver and all the other poll aggregators did have a small role to play in Obama's win.  After the first debate disaster, Democrats like me were dispirited, or like Andrew Sullivan, outright panicked.  In politics, as with war, panic is a death knell.  From ancient times, the first army to break, or flee lost, and lost horribly.  Politics is no different, and if Democrats thought Obama was going down, they wouldn't have shown up at the polls, and it would have been 2010 all over again.  Instead, we had Nate Silver telling us that everything was going to work out.  And he was right.  Which lead to my favorite moment of the night:

When I first contemplated the video (after enjoying the schadenfreude), I thought that Karl Rove anticipated that the Democrats would panic, that we wouldn't show up, and that it would be 2010.  But now, I think that Rove just doesn't understand the numbers anymore.  The electorate has changed from being 85% white (to now just 72% white), with more and more Hispanics/Latinos voting, with Asians becoming a strong constituency for the Democrats (they used to be Republican-leaning), and young voters going overwhelmingly Democratic.

The other thing that has always amazed me is that the Republican Party has a completely different perception of Barack Obama.  The birther thing, the anti-colonialist thing, and all the crazy conspiracy theories about Obama completely miss the point of who Obama is - a shockingly normal man.  As Chris Rock noted:

Yeah, he's black, and yes, his middle name is Hussein, but Obama is, in his private life, incredibly normal.  Romney, on the other hand, was far from normal - his attempts at normal behavior were creepy and weird.  Now, in part, I think that was Romney being the salesman, trying to sell himself as being more conservative (on economic issues), than he actually is.

With that said, Romney wasn't a total disaster.  As candidates go, he looked good on television, could speak clearly (no Bushisms), didn't appear to cheat on his wife, and was reasonably intelligent.  Romney is a B level candidate.   Given that the rest of the Republican field were absolute disasters, Romney really was the best the Republicans could put up.  In 2016, I suspect that the various Governors will fight it out.  I, for one, am absolutely terrified of Brian Sandoval. 

That said, the GOP during the primaries was so conservative, that even a good candidate wouldn't have had any wiggle room.  Rick Perry, for instance, was viciously attacked because he wasn't a total asshole to immigrants, which in turn, turned off Latino voters.  

The other thing that caught my ear was that during the RNC, there was talk about preserving job creators and protecting the entrepreneurial class.  While that has always been part of the GOP platform, guys like Reagan and Bush would talk about expanding the entrepreneurial class.  The message being - don't tax the rich, because you might just be rich someday.  But this time around, the hope was gone.  You don't win elections that way.  

*The term work is loosely defined, as the author was paid a pittance in these "jobs."

Rape, Abortion, and Other Fine Topics

One of the most bizarre things that has occurred over the course of the 2012 campaign is the seeming endorsement of rape by the Republican Party.  Todd Akin talks about "legitimate rape," which he then clarified as "forcible rape" - and states that a woman can't get pregnant from rape (which, of course a woman totally can).  Paul Ryan and the other Congressional Republicans tried to change the Federal definition of rape.  And, of course, the Republican Senate candidate from Indiana, Mourdock, says that pregnancies from rape are "God's will." 

All this leaves me to wonder, what the hell is going on? Well, that's not exactly true.  If you've read this blog before, you know what has happened - the bedrock conservative base of the Republican Party has completely taken over.  So, what was once considered okay - exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, incest, or if the mother's life was in danger, are now fair game.

With that said, I will say that Mourdock's comments regarding rape were far less despicable than Todd Akin's - or at least less misogynistic.  If Mourdock had to say it all over again, I'd imagine he'd say something like:

Rape is a truly awful, horrible, thing, and I hope that the victims of rape get all the counseling and treatment they need.  I also hope that the perpetrators of rape are caught and sent to prison for as long as the law allows.  I do not, in any way, support or condone rape.  But, when a pregnancy results from the rape, I do not support aborting that fetus.  After all, the fetus cannot control how it was conceived, or how it was brought into the world.  It is an awful situation, and all we can hope for is that God has a plan for that child beyond our comprehension.  

Even that statement, which is somewhat sympathetic to Mourdock's point, is still problematic.  Why should a woman be forced to carry her rapist's child to term?  What if the rapist gets out of prison early, does he get parental rights?  But, at least I understand his point.  Rape bad, abortion bad.  So, his concern seems to be preventing abortion because he wants to protect the life of the fetus.  Of course, I could be wrong, and he could be saying that the rape was also God's will (but I hope not).  

Todd Akin, on the other hand, is purely misogynistic.  In his mind, a woman can't get pregnant if she is really and truly raped, and so there should be no exception in the case of rape, because those pregnancies never happen.  Akin's view, in contrast to Mourdock, is that women should carry fetuses to term (whether they want to or not) because they are sluts and should be punished. 

Now, the interesting thing about these two statements by Mourdock and Akin is that they may represent the two wings of the "Pro-Life" (anti-choice) movement.  Akin certainly represents the "pregnancy is God's punishment to sluts" wing, and is the poster boy for what Pro-Choice types think the Pro-Life movement is all about.  Mourdock (and again, I'm not entirely sure of this), appears to represent the actual pro-life, or at least pro-fetus, wing of the pro-life movement.  

Interestingly, though, both Mourdock and Akin hold a position - opposition of abortion even in the case of rape - that is way, way, way, outside of the mainstream.  Most Americans (80-90%), even if they generally oppose abortion, will support the right of woman to have an abortion when she has been raped.  In the long run, I wonder how this will play out.

The Missing Link in the Economic Debate

Sorry to have taken so long in posting, but the older I get, the more responsibilities, etc.  Okay, that's only half true.  The other half is that since the first Presidential debate, I've been in the fetal position, metaphorically.  And Andrew Sullivan's total and complete freak out wasn't helping.  Not. At. All.

Well, we then got to see the VP debate (Malarky!), and the second Presidential debate (Binders of Women!), and everyone on the Left is doing much better.  Plus, Andrew Sullivan is off the ledge, which is helping my spirits on the Presidential race significantly.

Now before I go into my rant below, I want to add one more thing about the debates - I love politics.  I've followed politics the way some people follow sports.  If anything, I think of myself as a former minor leaguer who developed a love of the sport, and never looked back.  With that said, Twitter and the internet have increased my enjoyment of these debates immensely.  The immediate and free-flowing snark, the immediate creation of internet memes (a.k.a. inside jokes), and insight is mind-blowing.

But there is something missing from the President's economic message - why does raising taxes on the wealth raise revenues and seemingly drive economic growth at the same time?  After all, that's what Bill Clinton did, and we had tremendous economic growth.  All Obama seems to say is - look at what Clinton did, and it worked.  But he really has to describe the why it works, and why trickle down economics doesn't.

I've talked about this before, but it bears restating.  Having a higher tax rate on the wealthy drives economic growth because it encourages them to invest their money.  Now, the classic Milton Friedman theory is that if you cut taxes on the wealthy, they use that money to spend on boats, houses, and other crap.  Which, like everyone else, they do.

But wealthy people aren't stupid - and even if they are stupid, their economic advisors are not.  Their first priority with their money is live like Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey (um. . .my girlfriend is a fan), but their second priority is to make sure their kids can live like Lord Grantham, and then their grandkids can live like Lord Grantham. (Okay, I might have watched a few episodes*).

*Editor's note: The author has totally watched both seasons, including the Christmas special.

In other words, rich people don't throw their money away, they invest it in stuff that is safe and gives a reasonable rate of return.  After all, if you have $100 million, a 5% return is $5 million.  The estate becomes something to protect above all else.  And with a low tax rate - a guy like Romney can pay 14% of his income in taxes (which is way less than what I pay, mind you) - the wealthy have every incentive to try to keep their money with their descendants for forever and a day.

But, when there is a high marginal tax rate (rate on the highest income earners), there is more incentive to invest that money to get a higher rate of return.  Let's take a guy who's makes $5 million a year in income.  If he pays a tax rate akin to Romney, he's paying something around $750k in taxes that year.  While that $750k is painful, he still walks away with over $4 million. If, however, the tax rate on that $5 million is 40%, then he's paying $2 million in taxes. . .unless he finds out some way to lower his taxes.

One way of doing that is investing what would have been the $2 million tax bill into a business that has an interesting, but iffy business plan - like 90% of the internet companies in the 90's.  In fact, business losses, which are tax deductible, are almost preferable to gains.  After all, the guy is going to lose $2 million anyway, so he might as well gamble with it.  That gamble, in turn, helps create jobs.

Now, as the Matt Yglesias notes in his post, this positive effect of income taxes only applies to income taxes.  So, if there is a small business owner wondering whether or not to hire more people, the same effect applies - the additional workforce is a tax write-off.  If the owner was going to lose that money to taxes anyway, he or she will be more inclined to spend the money.

The Sinking Ship

Growing up, my family discussed (and still discusses) politics nonstop.  To the uninitiated, the whole thing can be intimidating - we throw out facts and figures, discuss major issues of the day, and editorialize on things we know nothing about.  Anyway, I remember once, during a Presidential campaign going south (I think it was Bob Dole in 1996), my father saying that the race was over, but what was left was to protect the House of Representatives.  Unfortunately for the Republican Party, I think that's what's going on now.  The Professional Republican elite - those individuals who actually make money off of politics - have written off Mitt Romney, and now expect he's going to lose.

Hence - Chaos on Bullshit Mountain

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All this craziness, all this fighting, has nothing to do with Mitt - if he wins, he wins, but right now, he's more unpopular than any Presidential candidate in recent (since 1988) memory.  Democratic voters, smelling a good ole fashioned ass kicking (and really, who doesn't love an ass kicking), are now starting to pay attention.  Republicans, meanwhile, are on the verge of being discouraged.  And discouraged voters don't vote, or don't tell their friends, family and neighbors to vote.  

What's more, the kind of anger and distrust of the nominee has a tendency to splash on the down-ticket races.  Which is why you won't see Mitt Romney campaigning a lot with candidates for other offices.  Of course, that further discourages the base.  Next thing you know, its a wave election, and the Democrats take the House of Representatives.  

So, to prevent this from happening, the GOP has to go all out.  Now, the Democrats could still self-destruct, but so can (and probably will) Romney.  But keep this in mind over the next few weeks - we are going to see Bullshit Mountain get even bigger.

With Candidates Like These. . .

Right now, if I was a Republican who voted in the primary, I'd be pissed.  After all, if I wanted to vote for a candidate who would be prone to saying absolutely stupid things, I would've voted for Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum.  Romney was supposed to be the guy who actually knew what he was doing. . .

Or not.  At a private fundraiser, Romney opened up his big mouth and said that Obama's supporters are all on public assistance so, and so fuck those guys.  Well, he didn't say that exactly, but he did say that he doesn't have to care about those people.  Per the article:
"[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

For a guy who is already wildly unpopular, who's campaign has swung dramatically from one strategy to the next, this kind of statement is particularly problematic.  As I said before, all candidates have prove that they are more than the image the other campaign tries to paint.  Bush could prove he was no dummy by spouting off a few names of world leaders, and Obama proves he's normal by being a normal guy (brewing his own beer doesn't hurt either).  Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it" line confirmed the worst line of attack on Kerry, and Al Gore's sighing at the debates played into the negative image Bush had crafted of him.

Similarly, Romney has managed to prove that he is an out-of-touch elitist who thinks that 47% of the American people are total and complete fuck-ups.  By the way, the 47% figure is something of a canard  - that figure includes people who work but don't pay federal income taxes (but do pay federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes, etc.), and retirees.  And quite few of the "47%" are those tea partiers who carried signs that said "Get your government hands off my Medicare."  Of course, those people don't believe they are on government assistance, and will vote for Romney.

The real problem isn't the 47%, if you will, but the rest of us who hear Romney's comments and think - "Holy shit, what a dick!"  Add that to his comments that people making $250k are middle class, or that he doesn't care about the very poor, or one of his myriad of other tone deaf comments (including last week's smirk), and Romney becomes virtually radioactive.

Now, while it is true that I'm a Democrat, I am also a political junkie.  So while my voting behavior is determined by my own policy preferences, I can separate those preferences when looking at the politics.  So, with that said, my dear Republican friends, I feel your pain.  Believe me, after watching Dukakis, Gore, Mondale*, and Kerry all bumble their way through the Presidential campaigns, I understand what its like to have a candidate who seemingly doesn't want to be elected President.

But while I feel your pain, rememb
*Okay, I don't remember Mondale that well - I was eight years old during the race, after all.  But Mondale actually had a negative bounce out of his convention.  Meaning the more people heard about Mondale, the less they liked him.

A Fucking Smirk. . .

Just hours after my last post talking about the desperation of the Romney campaign, Romney goes ahead and tops himself.  Here's the background - an "Israeli Jew" who is apparently a California real estate developer and is 53 or 56, creates a ridiculously over the top anti-Islam video on YouTube.  People get pissed off, start protests.  Okay, that's their right.  The U.S. Embassy in Cairo releases a tweet that says, "hey, we think this guy is a jackass too," and the protests turn violent in Egypt and in Libya, and an ambassador and five other FSO's are killed.  Romney blasts the Obama Administration (who didn't release the statement) for sympathizing with terrorists while these thugs were KILLING AMERICAN CITIZENS.

Now, the latest rumor is that the violence against the U.S. Embassies was planned in advance, and used the protests against the ridiculous web video as cover.  This makes some sense because the U.S. has a 90% approval rating in Libya (we, after all, helped bring down the former government).  Also, no one has ever heard of the creator of this web video - including the Israeli government who says that it has no record of an Israeli citizen by the name of "Sam Bacile."  All of this, by the way occurs on 9 -11, and shortly after the U.S. kills a high-ranking Al Qaeda member. . .hmm. . .sounds very "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" to me.  Granted, I just finished reading The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco (a great read by the way), so I am a bit suspicious about these sorts of things.

But I digress.  This post isn't so much about what's happening in Libya and Egypt, but what happened in Washington, D.C.  As I said before, Romney attacked the Obama Administration for "sympathizing" with the thugs who attacked our embassies based upon a tweet that was (1) issued BEFORE there was any violence; and (2) was written by a U.S. Embassy employee, and not someone in the White House.  Did I mention that Romney unleashed this attack on September 11, and did so while Americans were being killed.

Oh, and during the whole cartoon blow-up during the Bush Administration, the White House said basically the same thing.  And the White House, along with Secretary Clinton both issued statements that said the guy was a jack-ass, but he has the right to be a jack-ass, and that violence against the U.S. will not be tolerated.  Again, perfectly reasonable.

This morning, Romney then reiterates his attack - that Obama issued a statement supporting the violence against Americans (which again, he most certainly did not).  And the son of a bitch walks off the stage after lying about the President, and politicizing the deaths of Americans SERVING THEIR COUNTRY with a fucking smirk on his face.  A. Fucking. Smirk.

In an astonishing, yet, refreshing change, the traditional media understood what Romney is up to, and they are pissed.  Heck, Ezra Klein writes that Romney's actions reek of desperation.  And he's right.  The safe play, the right play, would be to strongly condemn the attacks, stand up for the freedom of people to say fucking stupid things, and then state that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.  End of statement.  And above else DO NOT FUCKING SMIRK.

But no, Romney had the temerity to accuse the President of not just being weak, but actually sympathizing with terrorists.  Really.  In the "West Wing" - which basically was the show that helped progressives live through the Bush years - there scene where President Bartlett decided he was going to kick his opponent's ass for reelection.  I felt a similar reaction during Sarah Palin's speech at the 2008 RNC - when she decided to denigrate community organizers.  I'm starting to feel that way towards Mitt Romney now.

And I have to say that I am amazed at Obama's ability to get his opponents to do dumb shit like this.  In the past nine years, he eeks out a victory in the Illinois Senate Primary, only to have his Republican opponent blow up in spectacular fashion.  So, Obama gets to run against Alan Keyes (who he slaughters).  He then runs for President, and runs against Hillary Clinton, who's campaign fucks up her messaging, and can't keep a delegate count.  Obama has to fight long and hard, but he wins.  Then he takes on John McCain who, in a panic, picks Sarah Palin, and then tries to suspend his campaign over the Lehman Brothers disaster.  Now, Obama gets Mitt Romney, who is a walking timebomb.  At some point, you have to wonder if Romney actually wants to be elected, or if the whole thing isn't an elaborate hoax.  A fucking smirk. . .

State of the Race - Post Convention Edition

Well, its been a few months since my last post - the demands of the practice of law can be brutal, and this summer was no exception.  But to my defense, there was really nothing to blog about politics-wise once Romney wrapped up the nomination. . .oh, wait, did I blog about his pick of Paul Ryan? No? Crap.

Okay, okay, there has been a lot going on, and I haven't said enough.  But just as Bill Clinton can come back and remind us why he was one of the best stewards of the economy ever, I am can actually write a few words on the state of the race (particularly that the conventions are done and we're in the homestretch).

The Paul Ryan Pick for VP: If I had bothered to blog back when Romney made this pick, I would have said - See! See! Romney is beholden to the right-wing, he can never have a Sister Souljah moment! - and I would have been right.  Paul Ryan is an ideologue pure and simple.  And since he's never run for more than a House seat Paul Ryan can be as partisan and ideological as he wants (see Bachmann, Michelle).

With that said, Romney's selection of Ryan wasn't awful - Ryan doesn't have to have his hand held at all times (*cough*Sarah Palin*cough*), he won't say anything that will truly embarrass Romney, or try to overshadow Romney.  So, generally, this would be a good pick-up, except. . .

Bubba Killed It at the DNC: One word everyone - arithmetic.  And with that one word, Bill Clinton destroyed every single argument the GOP made during their convention.  No one, not even Obama, can match Bubba when he gets on a role when it comes to policy.  When Obama is at his oratorical best, he makes you want to follow him into the Gates of Hell, but with Clinton, you end up agreeing with every word he says.  Arithmetic.

The Conventions: Well, given that I'm talking about Bill Clinton's speech, and not Romney's, you can tell that the RNC did not go as planned (and I'm not talking about the chair).  Romney had a three-day infomercial to tell the American people what he would do as President and he blew it.  At best he got a 1% bounce.  Now, keep in mind that the very best polls have a margin of error of 3-5% - meaning that whatever bounce Romney got was statistically insignificant.  Moreover, guys like Chris Christie of New Jersey spent their time talking about themselves rather than Romney.  That's the kind of thing that happens when the speaker thinks there will be an opening for President in the next election cycle (which, if Romney wins, there won't be).

Compounding Romney's woes was Ryan's speech which, instead of being a light of truth, it was light on truth.  Three hour marathon my ass.  Little wonder Romney has started playing the "Obama is a not a real American" bullshit as soon as the RNC was done.

At the DNC, all of Romney's chickens came home to roost - Obama looked human, Clinton was electric, and Michelle Obama rocked it.  Oh, and Sasha's facial expressions once again completely humanized her father.  And ultimately, the "Obama is not a real American" thing never works because Obama, if anything, is more normal than Romney.  He grew up middle class, is a huge sports fan (he even has a fantasy football team, which I do not), and his kids try to weasel out of school when he gives big speeches.

Of course, there's more to it than just Obama is normal - Romney is not normal.  There is a difference between the very, very rich and the rest of us.  Who else buys a horse for "therapeutic" purposes that then is entered into the Olympics?  Who else has a car elevator at his 5th or 6th house? What teams does Romney root for?  I have no idea.

Worst of all, his fucking campaign staff is awful.  Telling a reporter that Romney's positions are written on an Etch-a-Sketch?  Changing what Romney said hours after he said it?  Who does this?  Well, given that Romney went overseas and immediately insulted Britain during the Olympics, Romney doesn't do so well on his own anyway.   The guy can't be trusted to campaign on his own, and his staff sucks.

So, coming out of the conventions, the only thing that can change the tone of the campaign is the debates.  With the assumptions by many Republicans that Obama is an idiot,* the onus will be on Romney to kill Obama at these debates.  But I don't think he can.  Obama may not be as capable of being the Explainer as Bill Clinton is, but he isn't the idiot the GOP makes him out to be.  Either way, the pressure will be on.

*For the life of me, I can't figure out the whole teleprompter attacks on Obama.  Yes, he reads his speeches from a teleprompter - like every other President ever.  The dude went to Harvard Law, and was President of the Harvard Law Review.  Even if he got in due to affirmative action (which there's no proof of), he drops from being super-ridiculously smart to ridiculously smart.

About Those Tax Returns. . .

First off, has it really been a month since I last posted anything? Really?  All shock aside, I've been thinking about Mitt Romney and his tax returns.  Now, normally, I could understand the reticence of a presidential candidate in showing his tax returns, but Mitt Romney is no ordinary candidate.  His father, George Romney, who ran for President in 1968, set the modern standard for releasing tax returns.  Set. The. Standard.  So, its not like Mitt didn't expect this.

But Mittens seems pretty set in his refusal to release any more tax returns.  More importantly, his wife is. So what gives?  What is in his tax returns that scares him off?  Here are my thoughts on the subject, going from the least likely to the most likely (in my humble opinion, of course).

There's something illegal in his tax returns: Um. . .no.  Mitt Romney is the wealthiest man who has ever run for President.  Ever.  He's wealthier than the last five or six Presidents combined.  A guy with that kind of money, who has a J.D., who is as financially savvy to build such a fortune, is going to hire the best and brightest tax preparers ever.  There's no way in hell he did anything illegal.  And if he did, don't you think the IRS would have come down on him by now? 

He paid too much/too little in taxes: This is closer to the mark, but is still missing something.  Make no mistake, Romney paid a lot less in taxes than you or I.  Heck, there were probably years where Romney paid nothing in taxes. And that might piss some people off.  But Romney is hurting himself more by not releasing these tax returns.  And if he was excellent at tax-avoidance, he'll be praised by the GOP rank and file.  He's not a Democrat, after all.  Republicans believe that taxes are evil.  So I don't think that's it.

So, if its not illegality, or tax avoidance, what could possibly be so compelling in his tax returns that even his WIFE doesn't want the information to be shared with the public. . .

Tithing: Given the personal reaction to releasing the tax returns, there has to be something in the tax returns that Mitt doesn't want shared. And to me, the one thing that would hamper Romney, the one thing that's so personal to him, is tithing.  As a Mormon, Romney is supposed to give 10% of his income to the Church.  But I don't think he wants to hide his tithing because in his 2010 tax return, it shows that he gave 10% to the Church of Latter Day Saints.  But what if his tax returns show that his income was A LOT higher than what he reported to the Church?  That would be the kind of thing I would hide and that my wife would want to hide.  What if Romney used the Swiss bank accounts, the Cayman bank accounts, to not avoid taxes, but to avoid tithing?  There are loopholes with Uncle Sam, but I don't think the Church has the same view.  As a high-ranking member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, proof that Romney didn't tithe would be devastating to Romney and his family on a personal level.

Anyway, that's my theory. 

So You Wanna Buy the San Diego Padres. . .

From the look of things, it appears that the San Diego Padres will finally have an owner who actually wants to own the team.  For those of you who don't follow sports, here's a quick rundown:

The Padres are currently owned by John Moores, who purchased the San Diego Padres back in 1994 from the then awful ownership of Tom Werner.  Moores loved owning the team, and the team went to the playoffs on several occasions and had their best team ever in 1998 (and would have won the World Series, IMHO, had they not run into the 1998 Yankees, who were one of the best teams ever).  Moores' efforts lead to the building of Petco Park, the current home of the Padres (which was held up by four years by litigation).  In 2008, John Moores and his wife divorced, and with the team being community property and all, Moores was hurt financially.  So he tried to sell the team to Jeff Moorad, a former player agent who made enough enemies during his tenure as an agent that Major League Baseball refused to allow him to buy the Padres.  So, Moores had to go back to the drawing board to sell the team. On the plus side, the $2 Billion Dollar Purchase of the Dodgers increased the Padres' value somewhat.

So, with the team up for sale, and the team with its expected purchase price to be upwards of $800 million ($600 million for the team, and $200 million for the team's stake in a regional sports network), I figured I'd give a few pieces of advice to the new ownership.  Mind you, I am not a baseball person, but I am something of a rare breed - a San Diego native.  If you want to gain the affection of San Diego, pay attention to what I have to say.

1) Get Fox Sports San Diego on Every TV in San Diego, Riverside, Imperial County and Mexico:  Okay, this is kind of a no-brainer.  If no one can see the Padres on a regular basis, no one will think about the Padres on a regular basis.  So, the fact that only half the City of San Diego can see Padres games is just dumb.  But more importantly, there are over 5 million people south of the border who don't get Padres games, and another 1-2 million people in Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial Counties who don't see Padres games. That's just stupid.  Get the games on TV and compete for the parts of Southern California referred to as "Rivertucky" (*Note: DO NOT CALL THESE AREAS RIVERTUCKY).  

2) Beer, Beer, Beer: While San Diego is an ever-changing landscape and population, there are certain things that once introduced, stick permanently in the San Diego.  For instance, when I saw Nirvana back in 1994, Kurt Cobain mocked our mosh pit because instead of moshing (general violence) we were slamdancing in a circle - a relic of the early punk era.  The thing is, San Diegans never moshed, and always slamdanced.  Anyway, this is a long way of saying, that once we get into something, we San Diegans don't let it go.  Beer, especially craft beer, is a great example.  In the past 15 years San Diego has built and supported over forty breweries.  And that number will, most likely, continue to grow. 

So make sure that the beer at Petco reflects the beer outside of Petco.  Get the local breweries to produce beer for Petco.  Better yet (and I've given this advice before), get the breweries to produce a beer just for Petco - as in, the beer is only sold at Padres games.  Trust me, they'll do it and the results will be awesome.  Then, we the drinkers of local craft beer have even more reason to go to the games.  Heck, I paid $15 once to get a half-pint of Pliny the Younger (just google it), at an event this year.  If there's some rare and delicious beer that I can only get at the ballpark, I'm going to pay for the ticket.

3) Go South Young Man: As you probably are already aware, there are almost 5 million people living in Northern Baja. 5 million people who are different from other Mexicans due to their close proximity to the Border.  If you want to increase your market share, that's where you go.  Yes, right now, baseball is a minor sport in Mexico - probably about as popular as lacrosse here - but you don't have to change the minds of Mexicans everywhere, just Mexicans in Baja.  And that's totally doable because in places with large Mexican-American populations, such as LA and Chicago, there are large numbers of Mexican-American baseball fans.  Hire a guy like Enrique Morones (who used to work for the Padres and was successful in the Mexico outreach back in then 1990's).  Even if you don't get more Mexican fans into Petco, the key is the TV market.  Since you will own part of the local Fox Sports network, you can grow your audience.  This is a good thing.

4) Hire Local Talent: Right now there are 5-10 active and operating Padres blogs, run by Padres fans. In comparison, there are 2-3 Chargers blogs in San Diego.  These blog writers - and especially former blog writers like Geoff of Ducksnorts - do some very good analysis of Padres players.  Go out and hire one of these guys.  Also, get a local legend - Tony Gywnn, Randy Jones, etc. - to sell the team to the diehards.  

5) Don't Get Discouraged: Even if you reach down to Mexico, have the local breweries produce beer just for you, hire local talent, and plaster your games all over, you may not get the kind of return you hope for.  Be patient.  The thing you have to remember is that Padres fans have had a long, painful history with the team.  You will be the fifth owner of the team, and since Joan Kroc sold the team, each new ownership has come in with high expectations, and then conducted firesales.  So, we're a bit gunshy at first.  But if you keep trying, and the team wins, we'll be there for you.

Future of Proposition 8 and Same-Sex Marriage in California

So the news today is that the 9th Circuit won't rehear the Proposition 8 case en banc.  For you non-lawyers out there, here's a bit of background: there are three levels of appeals when you lose in federal court.  The first level of appeal is the mandatory appeal wherein a three judge panel has to hear what you have to say.  That's the level of the most recent Prop. 8 decision. If you don't like what the three-judge panel has to say, you can ask for an 11-judge panel to rehear the case en banc.  This tends to happen when the judges don't like how the decision was written, or the outcome of the case.  Either way, the appellate court doesn't have to rehear the case.  The last level of appeal is to the Supreme Court, which is also discretionary.  Typically, the Supreme Court takes maybe 0.1% of the cases where people ask for review.  Most people think that the question of Prop. 8 now goes to the Supreme Court.

But I do not.  Given that the decision overturning Prop. 8, and allowing same-sex marriage in California is so narrow, and so well-supported by the facts, I can well see the Supremes deciding to leave well enough alone.  And here's why - every decision by the Supreme Court affects not just its decision-making in the future, but also whether it gets inundated by other cases in the future.  In the 1950's and 1960's, Justice Potter Stewart said that he knew which pornography was obscene when he saw it.  So, the Supreme Court had to go through reams of pornography to decide what was obscene, and what was not.  By watching it.  With people they work with.  And Justice Thurgood Marshall would crack jokes (mostly mocking the conservatives for making everyone do this).

Similarly, if the Supreme Court were to overturn the 9th Circuit and Judge Walker's decision, it would invite a similar disaster because Judge Walker and the 9th Circuit were ridiculously thorough, and Judge Walker made evidentiary rulings based on live testimony, and based his decision on the lowest possible civil rights standard.  Now, the Supreme Court could rule that the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause (which is the basis of the Judge Walker's decision) is meaningless, but doing so would overturn hundreds of previously decided cases.  Or, the Court could determine that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to gay people, also overturning cases - including cases written by Justice Kennedy (the lone swing vote).  Or, the Supremes could decide that they need to hear witness testimony.  Either way, overturning the 9th Circuit would create more work for the Supremes.

Now, the Supremes actually vote on whether or not they're going to hear a case.  For the conservative Justices (Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts), taking the case means that Justice Kennedy will end up writing the opinion, and he might write a more expansive opinion than the 9th Circuit.  That's bad.  If you are a moderate/liberal (Breyer, Ginsberg, Kagan, and Sotomayor), you know that Justice Kennedy might overturn the 9th Circuit, and knocking civil rights back 100 years.  So, both the conservatives and the liberals see some serious downsides in taking the case.

Plus, as I said before, the Prop. 8 ruling is incredibly narrow - limited to California, and to the circumstances of the trial.  Not taking the case means that same-sex couples get married in California but doesn't affect same-sex marriage bans anywhere else (at least until DOMA is overturned). So, my bet is that the Supremes don't touch this case.

Justification by Works Alone. . .

I write this post knowing, or believing that I've written something like this before, but I can't help but think that Martin Luther was completely and utterly wrong about his key break from the Catholic Church.  Justification (whether or not you go to heaven) does not exist by faith alone.  In fact, I have come to believe that faith means approximately dick when it comes to justification (and yes, I just used the word "dick" in the same sentence as faith and justification).  Nope, I have to agree with the old school Catholic Church on this one - the only thing that matters is what you do.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the Catholic Church.  Transubstantiation is a dumb idea.  Its stance on contraception and homosexuality are self-defeating and mean-spirited. . .I really could go on.   But that said, we live in a time where religion, and indeed faith, is being used to justify cowardly and hateful behavior.  There have even been instances where legislators have tried to create loopholes in anti-bullying legislation for people acting out of religious desire.

Luther came to the idea of justification by faith alone by watching the Catholic Church use the "works" argument to justify all sorts of cynical behavior.  For instance, for a price, one could wipe out a multitude of sins.  Further, the Catholic Church figured out that as the key arbiter of what constituted a "good act" and a "bad act," it could justify torture, genocide and all sorts of evil.   But at the end of the day, his belief that people strong in faith don't do bad things simply doesn't cut it.  There are simply too many examples of people using faith to justify evil.

The most recent thing to stick in my craw is the latest Savage Love Letter of the Day.  An evangelical family uses God and the Bible to justify its own hatred of a daughter and a son, both of whom are disowned.  I am appalled, disgusted, and outraged.  But here we see that once again, religion is used as a crutch to allow people to do terrible things.  Little wonder so many claim to be "spiritual" rather than religious.  

No, we have to justify people based on their deeds, not on their faith.  But unlike the medieval Catholic Church, those standards of behavior need not be changed to suit our needs.  Don't harm others (on purpose, at least), don't lie, don't cheat, treat everyone as you want to be treated.  Give to charity, be respectful, don't be judgmental (that's God's job), etc.  We'll all fail to be good all the time, but at least we won't rationalize our own failings onto God.  

   

The Shape of Things to Come

Today, President Obama endorsed the concept of same-sex marriage.  Doing so, the President not only provided hope to the millions of people in the LGBT community, but highlighted an important distinction between himself and Romney.

Romney's response to Obama's groundbreaking announcement has been deemed timid.  But of course it is.  While Obama infuriates his supporters (like me) by leading from the rear, he knows he can move quickly to the front any time he wants to because his supporters desperately want him to do so.  And when he finally takes the lead, it leaves supporters absolutely breathless.

Romney, by contrast, isn't a leader in his own party.  At best, he represents the business wing of the party, but even there, there are people like Paul Ryan who are well out in front of Romney.  When it comes to social issues, Romney has to literally wait and see what other people say.  That's what we're seeing with same-sex marriage. If Santorum or Gingrich was the nominee, they would have moved on the issue immediately - Romney can't because he has no credibility with the base.

As Obama begins to lead the troops (and a fair number of us want to be lead), you will see this contrast over and over again, particularly as it becomes clearer and clearer that Obama can burnish his leadership credentials, while leaving Romney in the dust.

Figuring Out the Campaign Ahead

This took me awhile, but after Mitt Romney's recent cookie flap in Pittsburgh, I've finally come to an understanding about the former Massachusetts governor.  Mitt Romney is an asshole.  Now, I don't say that as a criticism, but rather as a description of the man.  Romney is the kinda guy who's friends tell other people, "Oh, that's just Mitt being Mitt." And in general, Romney doesn't mean to be an asshole, he just is. To his credit, I think Romney knows that he's an asshole, and takes steps to keep his assholedness in check.  That's why he becomes the RomneyBot, and does weird things like comment on the height of trees.

By the way, I don't necessarily think that the asshole thing is a disqualifier for becoming President of the United States (being a rank opportunist, though, is).  In fact, some of my favorite politicians are complete assholes.  The fact that Romney is aware of the problem indicates a level of personal awareness well above Bush.

What does this mean for the campaign? Well, somewhere between a little and a lot.  The Obama campaign is all about building up Obama while also letting Obama connect with voters - he's genuinely a nice guy, loves his family, and a huge sports fan (huuge).  So, in many ways, the Obama campaign in the past has suffered by waiting on the President to make his case.

Romney's campaign won't have that problem.  If I worked for Romney, I'd keep him as far away from voters as possible.  At best, I'm getting the RomneyBot, and at worst, Romney's pure asshole comes out. (his Seamus story, where he strapped the dog to the roof of his car on a family trip, is a great example of asshole Romney - he actually thought it was a good story to put in his book).  Along with his troubles with the conservative base, being unable to build a cult of personality means that Romney will never have a Sister Souljah moment.  Every crazy ass thing that the Republican base wants, he has to deliver because he has no credibility with the base.

Now, if I worked for Obama, here's how I would use this to my advantage - I would run ads highlighting every ridiculous thing Romney said to pander to the right wing in this year's primary.  And I mean everything.  Paint Romney as being "severely" conservative - so "severely" conservative that he is literally poison to moderate voters.  Again, because his base is not secure, Romney will not be able to challenge those attacks.  If he does, Romney faces a backlash from his base.

Romney, by contrast, has to focus everything he has on Obama and on the economy.  Now, here's where things get tricky - the base believes that Obama was never fully "vetted" and that he is a secret Kenyan, Muslim, anti-colonial, Hitler-type person, who wants to enslave us all.  Oh, and that he's also stupid.   Of course, all of that is complete nonsense - not only was Obama vetted (through one of the hardest primaries in recent memory), but faced constant attacks throughout the 2008 campaign.  A lot of the attacks never stuck because outside of the base, no one believed the attacks.  Romney knows this, and wants to focus his attacks on the economy.  If he does, I expect to see a SuperPac stepping up to sling pure mud.  Oh, and the Veep choice will be a bedrock conservative (Mark Rubio).

If, God forbid, Romney does get elected, he will still have to protect his right flank, and so he's going to govern as a bedrock conservative.  If he shows any moderation, it will be in his second term (if he gets one).

On the Trayvon Martin Shooting

For the past several weeks, I have looked on, with some degree of horror, at the investigation of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, and all the circus that this tragedy has become.

And let's say very, very clearly, that this whole episode is a tragedy, first and foremost.  Whatever the circumstances of what happened that night, let's be clear on one thing - there was no reason whatsoever for Trayvon Martin to die.  He was walking home from a convenience store, armed with an iced tea in one hand, and a bag of Skiddles in the other, and spent at least some time talking on his cellphone with his girlfriend.

Now, it is the circumstances of his death, and how they came about, that drives this whole event.  We do know that the shooter, George Zimmerman, took it upon himself to be the neighborhood watch (even though there was a neighborhood watch in place, and that Zimmerman was not a member of that group, and that neighborhood watch members don't carry guns).  We know that Zimmerman thought that Trayvon Martin looked suspicious, and that, despite explicit instructions from the 9-11 dispatcher, Zimmerman followed Trayvon Martin. We also know that Zimmerman called 9-11 quite often about suspicious-looking characters in his neighborhood (not surprising given that he was acting as a neighborhood watchman), and that more than a few of said suspicious-looking individuals reported by Zimmerman were African-American.  These "suspicious-looking" individuals included a 7-9 year old boy.

Here's what we don't know - we don't know how the shooting happened.  Did Zimmerman stalk down and kill Trayvon Martin?  Or, did Trayvon Martin, filled with testosterone-laden confidence of a 17 year old, confront and/or attack Zimmerman for following him?  Zimmerman, of course, says that he was attacked by Trayvon Martin, and that he used his pistol in self-defense.  A video of Zimmerman made shortly after the Trayvon Martin's death doesn't appear to show any wounds.  But, of course, Zimmerman could have cleaned himself up in the intervening minutes between the shooting and the video.  At the same time, Trayvon Martin never had a history of violence, and Zimmerman outweighed Martin by over a hundred pounds (Zimmerman is 250 lbs, to Martin's 140 lbs.).  So if there was a fight, Zimmerman should have been able to overpower Martin.

Unfortunately, this means that the scenarios for this case are: 1) Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin in cold blood; 2)  Trayvon Martin, reacting to what he perceived to be threatening behavior, confronted Zimmerman, and Zimmerman shot Martin during a heated argument/fight; or 3) Martin, reacting to what he perceived to be threatening behavior, sucker-punched Zimmerman, and in self-defense, Zimmerman shot Martin.  Of the three, the second, which would result in Zimmerman committing manslaughter, seems the most likely.   

Now, with that said, the behavior of the people outside of this incident has been pretty crappy.  It appears that several elements of the Sanford Police Department took Zimmerman's side from the beginning (although the lead investigator apparently did not), and the State's Attorney refused to prosecute despite the recommendation of the lead investigator.  Then there are the idiots - conservative blogs like the Daily Caller who are currently smearing Trayvon Martin as a thug, the New Black Panthers putting a bounty on George Zimmerman, Spike Lee retweeting what he thought was George Zimmerman's address (and it wasn't), Geraldo Rivera (a long-time resident of the idiot list) blaming Martin's sweatshirt, and on and on. 

So, for the idiots out there - stop it.  Please, please stop it.  Yes, there was a time when it appeared that the Sanford Police Department (or the State's Attorney) was going to find a reason to not arrest George Zimmerman - a time that has passed.  And certainly, railroading Zimmerman (if he really was attacked by Martin) would be a bad thing too.  But neither is likely to now happen.  So please shut up.  Stop hacking Trayvon Martin's email account, stop stalking George Zimmerman, stop all of it. 

Assorted Thoughts Blogging

Its been awhile since I've addressed more than one topic in a blog post, and today was as good as a day as ever.  If you follow sports and politics (like me), you have to comment on a few of the following:

The NFL blows out the Saints: In the past few weeks, it was discovered that the Saints had a coach-run bounty program, whereby defensive players were paid extra money to take out and injure opposing offensive players.  In response, the NFL suspended the defensive coach (who started the bounty program) indefinitely, the head coach of the Saints for a year, the GM for half a season, fined the Saints and the GM $500K each, and took away two 2nd round draft picks.

There are a lot of issues at play here.  For one, the NFL is currently under the gun on player concussions.  As it turns out, playing in the NFL is, most likely, really, really bad for a player's brain.  Like Alzheimers bad.  And former players (and their families) are suing the NFL for not doing enough to prevent concussions.  So, having a coach-run bounty program where players are encouraged by their organizations to give other players concussions (and probably getting concussed themselves) is exactly what the NFL does not need.

Additionally, the amount of money on the line for the players who are hurt (and the franchises who employ them) is huge - multimillion dollar huge.  And if the NFL can't police behavior, then an organization like the Cardinals, who lost millions of dollars when the Saints purposefully injured Kurt Warner (and ended his career, btw), may take other recourse, like suing the Saints.  The only way to keep those sort of lawsuits at bay was for the NFL to come down so hard that the victims of this bounty program feel they got their pound of flesh. And it looks like they have done so.

The Continuing GOP Primary: You know, every time it looks like Romney has wrapped this thing up, either he, or someone from his campaign, does something to screw up.  The latest gaffe, where one of Romney's campaign advisor states that Romney will take an "etch-a-sketch" to his policy positions once the nomination is won, confirmed the worst suspicions of conservatives.  Now, it might be too late for Santorum and Gingrich to overtake Romney, but they could still get enough delegates to prevent Romney from getting the nomination outright.  And if that happens, Romney has himself to blame.

Seriously, the number of unforced errors by the Romney camp is nothing short of ridiculous.  Santorum and Gingrich are not A-listers by any stretch of the imagination - both are literally GOP castaways.  In fact, the only A-list opponents that Romney faced - John Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry - were either too boring or too unprepared to make Romney sweat.  With Romney's money advantage, he should have locked up this nomination a long, long time ago.

Even when he does lock up the nomination, Romney is going to have problems.  For one, and as Santorum clearly notes, the voters who make up Romney's base are Republican voters who live in Democratic areas (in cities and in the Northeast).  If Romney is going to beat Obama, he has to perform better in the Red/purple States than McCain did in 2008.  If the South isn't sure of Romney (and they aren't), they'll stay home.

Tebow to the Jets, Manning to the Broncos: As a Chargers fan, I am not entirely pleased with Peyton Manning joining the Denver Broncos.  Now, that's not necessarily because I fear Peyton Manning (though I respect his work), but because getting Manning was the right thing for Denver to do.  That means that John Elway is a much, much more competent personnel guy than Josh McDaniels, and so the Broncos have a shot a being good again.  Nuts.

As far as Tebow going to New York. . .I'm a bit confused.  That's all I can say.

Thoughts on "Game Change"

After thinking I had avoided the HBO Movie "Game Change," about the 2008 Presidential Election (and particularly the aftermath of Sarah Palin's entry into the race), I was flipping through the channels on Sunday got sucked into the replay.  Damn.

Now, for those of you who aren't political or TV junkies, the story of "Game Change" is thus - desperate McCain and his staff pick Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, and Palin is such a disaster that even McCain's high level staffers won't vote for the ticket (for fear of putting the former Alaska Governor anywhere near the White House).  McCain loses to Obama.

As far as a movie goes, I think some of the criticisms of the writing and the character development are fair - few if any of the characters show any development movie-wise. That said, some of the performances were dead-on.  Julianne Moore's portrayal of Sarah Palin felt much deeper than Tina Fey's impersonation (obviously), and I was left somewhat understanding why so many people were (and still are) absolutely entralled with the Governor, despite her obvious foibles.

That said, and I hate to defend Sarah Palin (who's acceptance speech at the GOP National Convention inspired me to give money to the Obama campaign), but the movie does her some disservice.  As horrific as a VP choice as she was, the selection of Sarah Palin was not the reason John McCain lost the Presidency.  Rather, her selection, and the ensuing aftermath, were symptomatic of McCain's dysfunctional campaign.

Look, every campaign, no matter what level, is about a core message, the central campaign narrative.  It can be as simple as "Vote for Me!" or, it can be a dominant theme or themes.  Think of Obama's 2008 campaign, and one word comes to mind - Change.  All presidential campaigns need some kind of narrative, but McCain could never find out what his narrative should be.  First he attacked Obama's lack of experience (probably the most dangerous attack, as Obama had to put Biden on the ticket), and then undermined his attack when he picked Sarah Palin (who had less experience than Obama and is about half as smart).  Then McCain practically worshipped "Joe the Plumber" (who is neither a plumber, nor named Joe), and then suspended his campaign to deal with the economic crisis, and lurched one way to another, and another, trying to find some kind of talisman to defeat Obama.

Now, the McCain campaign dysfunction may have been partially the result of Obama's stunning rise.  After all, few DC insiders thought Obama had a shot at winning the nomination.  And so, McCain's strategy was largely designed around running against Hillary Clinton.  Who better to be McCain's running mate than the first Democrat to condemn Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky matter?  When Obama took the nomination instead, McCain and his campaign had no idea how to beat him.

Sarah Palin's selection was a symptom of that desperation.  Not only did her selection completely tank a very strong attack on Obama, but the campaign never looked into her background, and never spent the time preparing her for the role. As a result, everything was done haphazardly on the fly.  Of course, the campaign had no idea that Palin needed the level of hand-holding that she did, but that was something they should have known well before selecting her.  To their detriment, they also had no idea that she would be as good as she was on the stump either.  If Palin wasn't as charismatic, McCain would've lost by an even larger margin.

I also see reverberations of the 2008 campaign in the 2012 campaign.  Like 2008, Republicans and conservatives tend to be utterly focused on Obama's strangeness - he's an African American with a Muslim-sounding name - to stick with Palin's "paling around with terrorists" line.  The other weird attack is something about teleprompters - as if a guy who graduated at the top of his class from Harvard Law School is an idiot.  Those attacks are complete duds.  

No, if I was the GOP nominee, I wouldn't attack Obama's intelligence (really, really high), or his strangeness, but I would attack his normalcy.  He's a 50 year old man who's obsessed with sports (probably more so than any other recent President), plays poker, and loves to golf.  In other words, he is completely and utterly normal.  That is where I would attack - because he is so normal, he is infected with the conventional way of doing things, and failed to go hard enough against the banks, or cut taxes or whatever.  Attack him for failing to think outside the box.  Luckily, I don't see any Republican, save maybe Newt Gingrich, being able to pull off this attack.  

And, I think if you look at the last few Presidents - Obama, Clinton and Bush - you see the opponents going for the obvious attack rather than the best attack.  This was especially true with Democrats and Bush - we kept pushing the Bush-as-idiot line when we should have pushed the Bush-is-an-uncaring-asshole line.  Anyway, when you look at the story of "Game Change," yes, Sarah Palin was a disaster of a VP candidate, but she probably helped McCain more than she hurt him. 

There Is No Big Dog In the GOP Anymore

I've been thinking about the obnoxious filth that Rush Limbaugh has been spreading lately, and wondering if this sort of thing would've gone down during the Bush Administration. . .

And, I don't think it would. If Rush had decided to smear a woman (who, by the way, was testifying about a friend's experience in needing birth control for something other than contraception), someone from the Bush Administration would have, ever so politely, told Rush to shut the fuck up front door.  And then Cheney would get on the phone with Rush, and his producers and would tell them that 1) Rush needs to "apologize" (the infamous, "I'm sorry if I offended you with my totally reasonable remarks" apology), and 2) Rush would shut the fuck up front door about any woman in the future.  And Rush and his producers would politely thank Cheney for informing them of what to do, and then do it.  And Bush would get away with this because he (and Cheney) were the unquestioned leaders of the GOP.

The current debate over birth control is a clear example of the lack of a big dog.  Oral contraceptive, or the pill, is popular, and has been in constant use since 1960.  Think about it - that's 52 years.  So, if women started using the pill at around twenty, then virtually every woman under the age of 72 has used the pill.  Throw in women who started taking the pill in their thirties during the 1960's, their daughters, sisters, friends, cousins, etc., and virtually every woman in the country knows multiple women who take, or who have taken the pill.  Throw in the fact that the pill is not just used as a contraceptive, but used as hormone therapy for women in their 20's to their 50's, and we're talking about something that is common to American life.
 
So, when the Obama Administration mandated that all employers cover the pill, most women probably thought, "about time."  The only way, and I mean the only way,  for the GOP to win this issue is to couch the fight in terms of religious liberty, and not in terms of anti-woman.   If the Bush Administration had been running things, you would've seen a lineup in Congress of all religious women, constant talk about religious liberty, and maybe (and just maybe) you would hear a woman like Laura Ingraham or Michelle Malkin slam feminists as sluts.

What you would not have is an all-male lineup at a Congressional hearing.  You would not have Rush Limbaugh attacking a witness - who was going to testify about the use of the pill for hormone therapy, not contraception - as a slut.  Now, its pretty clear that the GOP isn't defending religious liberty, but attacking women's rights.  But since the Bush Administration more or less decimated the legitimacy of the GOP leadership, no one controls the message.

The other interesting thing is that there are four candidates for President on the GOP side right now, and about 10-15 other guys who think they could run for President, and yet, the only person to denounce Rush's comments was Boehner, who did it weakly.  If any one of the Presidentials (candidates for 2012, or presumed candidates in 2016) came out and strongly denounced Rush's remarks, the press would be very, very favorable.  But they don't because Rush is as close to the big dog as it gets. 

What Happens if Romney Loses Michigan?

Looking over the past several months of the 2012 GOP Presidential Primary, I've learned a few things, had a few laughs, and generally bored the hell out of my readership.  But as we look into the crystal ball for the future, here are a few things I expect to happen:

1) If Mitt Romney Loses Michigan: Romney's father not only was the former Governor of Michigan, but used Michigan as the base of operations for his failed 1968 Presidential Bid.  In other words, losing Michigan is going to hurt.  Now, it won't hurt Romney as bad as losing Massachusetts or Utah, but it will hurt.  Romney's biggest and best argument for the nomination is the electability issue - that he's the best match-up to Obama.  If he loses Michigan, along with his losses in Missouri, Wisconsin, South Carolina and Colorado, Romney shows real weakness in the Midwest and in the South, two areas a GOP nominee has to carry to win.

Now, does this mean that Romney will drop out if he loses Michigan?  Nope.  Romney has a ton of money, has organizational resources, and has been running for President since 2007.  If he doesn't grab the nomination now, he never will.  I expect him to fully napalm the entire GOP field, except for Ron Paul (more on that below).  Oh, and if there's a brokered convention, Romney will do his damnedest to blow the whole thing up.  He literally has nothing to lose.

Santorum, on the other hand, further gains momentum if he wins Michigan.  For a guy who has to rely on contributions, momentum is key.  Big funders are more likely to send money to Santorum, or his Super PAC, and because he's a contender, he gets more free press time than he knows what to do with.  For Newt, he stays in until Super Tuesday to see if his win in South Carolina is indicative of his strength in the South.

For Ron Paul, the status of the race doesn't matter whatsoever.  Paul is sort of like Dennis Kuchinch in 2008 - he's there for his own reasons.  Those reasons, by the way, have nothing to do with libertarian ideology.  Ron Paul may be an ideologue, but he's also practical.  He knows that he has no chance at getting the nomination, but he also knows that, by virtue of running, he's building an organization outside the GOP.  And the only reason to build that kind of operation is to run for President and win.  My guess, is that Paul is laying the groundwork for his son, Senator Rand Paul, to run for President in the future.  In this light, even Paul's reluctance to attack Romney makes sense - why make enemies with the GOP leadership? 

Interestingly, that makes Paul the one guy in the room with something to lose.  Think about it - neither Romney, nor Santorum, nor Gingrich, have anything to lose.  They do not have jobs.  They have few, if any ties to the current GOP leadership, and in the case of Gingrich and Santorum, they know that they have one guy in their corner who will give them employment post-election.  Given that reality, no one will drop out, and no one will go easy on the other candidates (again, except for Paul).  This is going to be a bloodbath.

What to do about Iran. . .

As the drumbeat for war against Iran continues, I figured that I would add my two cents.  Now, by any stretch of the imagination, I am no expert in Iran.  I know some of the main players, I am aware of some of the history, but Juan Cole I am not.  But I have a pretty good understanding of history and politics, and it is my blog, so. . .

I think bombing Iran is just about the dumbest thing ever.  Now, don't get me wrong - the Iranian government is atrocious.  It horrifically tortures its people, it brutally suppresses freedoms, and it sponsors terror groups.  The Supreme Leader Khamenei is an awful, awful person, who hopefully will burn in Hell for his crimes against his people.  Also, notice I don't mention Ahmadinejad?  Yeah, that's because he has almost no power whatsoever.  An Iranian regime with nuclear weapons would be terrible.

But, and this is a big but, Iran would never, ever use nuclear weapons against anyone.  Ever.  The reason is simple - using nuclear weapons is an automatic death sentence.  Israel, the U.S., Great Britain, China, and Russia all have the capability to wipe Iran from the map.  And while some front-line soldiers might be willing to martyr themselves, the powers that be in Iran would never be willing to join in the martyrdom.  Nor would they be particularly interested in having their families join them in the martyrdom.  No, the reality of nuclear weapons is that they are used as a defensive weapon to protect against invasion.  So, if the Iranian regime were to acquire nukes, it wouldn't use them to destroy other countries (like Israel), but would use them to prop up their own power.

The other big reason to not bomb Iran is more subtle.  Every regime in power rules through both coercion and through social networks.  The American Constitution, for example, gives the government the right to use force, while at the same time, gives special interest groups the right to influence the government's behaviors.  And every government has that balancing of the use of force and allowing its policies to be shaped by its people - and this varies by both the amount of force the government is willing to use, and the power of the various special interest groups.  When one interest group dominates, as it is in Iran, more force is needed for control.  But if you diminish the power of the lead group, without diminishing the power of the other factions, you get a change in regime, which is what we want here.

Now, the problem with bombing, and with a potential invasion, is that the bombing is not guaranteed to hit the faction you want.  In fact, more likely than not, bombing will hit the factions that you'd want to support - the democratic elements in Iran.  Bomb Iran, and you take away their capacity to topple Khamenei, which is precisely what you want.  Worse yet, that kind of attack would encourage patriotism, and bolster the regime. 

However, if you can draw the regime into a conflict that would not involve the killing of democratic elements - say fight over the Straits of Hormuz - you can both embarrass the regime, and sap its military prowess, perhaps enough to a new faction to take over.  This is exactly what happened to the Argentine junta in the 1980's.  Like Iran, the junta had no qualms about killing and torturing its people.  Then, it got drawn into a conflict with the U.K. over the Falklands, lost the war, and the junta was overthrown.  Similarly, you could engage Iran in a type of cold war, and slowly strangle its means of production and its economy - a la the Soviet Union.  In this scenario, you'd want to compel Iran to overspend on its military to bankrupt its economy.  That way the economic elites would step in and topple the regime.

Whitney, Santorum, Birth Control and More: Random Thoughts Blogging

Well, its been awhile since I last posted, and great googly-moogly, Santorum is up huge.  Santorum is spreading everywhere, much to everyone's dismay.  Well, it light of the current frothiness, I have a few thoughts that I probably post before the dynamics of the GOP nomination race pops up again (along with a few other thoughts).

Whitney Houston's Passing: Like everyone else, I was shocked to hear that Whitney Houston had passed last Saturday. . .actually, not really that shocked, more like shock-ished.  After all, Ms. Houston's drug problems were well documented, and that sort of thing isn't very healthy.  Still, it was a sad event, even for someone like me who despised all that Whitney Houston wannabes that she spawned.  Seriously, how many "American Idol" contestants sang "I believe the children are our future?" (Yes, I know that's not the name of the song).  What is also sad is that someone like Whitney, who's mother and aunt worked in the recording industry, fell prey to the worst excesses of fame.  Very sad indeed.

Santorum's Surge: My last post noted the inherent weaknesses of Mitt Romney (he matches up to his own caricatures too well), and the last few weeks have demonstrated this problem all to well.  Up to this point, Romney's campaign strategy wasn't to convince GOP voters to vote for him, so much as to convince GOP voters to not vote for anyone else.  He's engaged in mudslinging with Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, etc., and his favorability ratings are in the tank for it.  Santorum, who despite winning in Iowa, was under the radar, has managed to take advantage of this strategy.

Now we all know that negative campaigning works.  But here's the thing, negative campaigning is a bit like chemotherapy - you hope the negative ads hurt your opponent (the cancer in this analogy), than it hurts you.  Now, this works in a 2 person race because one candidate has to win, but in a primary, where there are more than 2 candidates, this gets real tricky.  And there are numerous examples of candidates who ended up winning a primary because two well-financed candidates went purely negative - Gray Davis, for one, was elected Governor, after Al Checchi and Jane Harman duked it out in the primary - and Santorum definitely fits that mold.

The other thing that's going on here is that Santorum's views on social issues are probably closer to the average GOP voter than Mitt Romney's views.  Where Romney can be all over the place, Santorum is consistent.  And although Romney may, on paper, be a better match-up to Obama in the General Election, he has some real weaknesses in the Midwest and the South, both key areas for the GOP.  With Romney's key arguments being a job creator (side-tracked by the Bain experience), and electability (being sidetracked by his own unpopularity), he doesn't have much to offer the GOP.  Santorum does at this point.

Birth Control: When referring to Obama's policies, Andrew Sullivan has written that Obama's greatest strength is getting his opponents to overreach.  Never has that been more true than with the birth control decision.  Somehow, he's managed to paint the Congressional GOP into the anti-contraceptive corner, and now Darrel Issa is holding Congressional hearings on the issue, but not allowing any woman to testify about the Pill.  Um. . .problematic much?  The more this goes on, the worse it gets for the GOP.  People may be ambivalent about abortion because they don't know anyone who's had an abortion, but everyone knows someone who's either on the Pill right now, or has used the Pill in the past. 

Linsanity: Okay people, let's get this straight - Jeremy Lin is NOT TIM TEBOW.  Lin was an undrafted 2nd year player who bounced around and found a great situation with the Knicks.  Not only that, but the kid is playing at a high level every single game.  Oh, and he makes almost no money in NBA terms, and has to sleep on his friend's couch.  Tim Tebow was a highly touted college quarterback who was drafted in the first round, got a big contract, and has managed to win multiple games in the NFL despite not being accurate on short and intermediate throws (but is freakishly accurate on deep passes).  There's a big difference here.  Also, the holes in Lin's game (not able to go left, too careless with the ball) are the kinds of holes that NBA rookies have, whereas the holes in Tebow's game (not being accurate with his throws unless he goes deep), are the kind of holes that end someone's career.  With any luck, Lin will end up as a poor man's Steve Nash, and good for him.

Grading the Should-Be Nominah:

After apparently kicking ass in the last two debates (especially Newt's ass), and then winning Florida by 15-20 points, Romney looks like he will be the nominee.  Of course, he promptly followed up that huge victory by declaring, "I'm not concerned with the very poor."  To which, most of America responded by saying "No shit. . ."

Anyway, the point of this post is a look at Mitt Romney, presumptive GOP nominee.  I remember watching Mitt Romney back in 2007, and was immediately terrified - he's telegenic, has a crooning anchorman voice, was a successful Governor of Massachusetts, and had few skeletons in his closet.  But after watching Romney in the past two elections, I have to say, the more I look at him, the less I'm scared of him.  But if you've been reading this blog, you know that - I've often said that Romney is weird. 

But what has been painfully obvious lately is that Romney has painted himself into the "rich guy who's out of touch" corner.  Now, every Democratic campaign since I can remember has had some element of painting the Republican as the out-of-touch rich guy.  And, for the most part, every candidate has been able to avoid that label.  Nixon grew up poor, Gerald Ford was the football star, Reagan was the man with the humble touch, Bush I in 1988 tied himself to Reagan (then lost in 1992 when he appeared like the out-of-touch-rich-guy), Dole was the war hero, Bush II had the commoner's touch, and McCain was a war hero.  Romney just doesn't have it.

Here's where I find myself in agreement with Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh - Romney doesn't have the lock on electability.  He seemingly can't go a single day without a major gaffe - seriously, today's news should have been entirely about Gingrich's ass-kicking in Florida - and his opponents can use a perfectly reasonable caricature of him that he seems to reinforce at every turn.  And that doesn't include his flip-flopping. 

Now bear with me on this, in the 2000 campaign, the attack on Bush was on his intelligence.  To many people, myself included, Bush was too stupid to be President.  But, as it turns out, Bush is not an idiot - he has some intelligence, and uses his brain when he wants to.  So, all he had to do was show he wasn't a complete moron, and boom, the attack loses steam.  Similarly, in 2008, Obama was attacked for being a foreigner, and all he had to show was that he was pretty normal and the attack lost credibility to everyone who didn't believe it already.  In contrast, in 2004, Kerry was attacked for being a flip-flopper, and then went ahead and said "I actually voted for it before I voted against it."  Kerry's rep was cemented from that moment. 

In other words, a campaign is all about caricatures, both positive and negative.  Positive caricatures, of course, are put forth by the candidate; negative caricatures are put forward by the opposing campaign. When a candidate plays into these negative caricatures, the caricature becomes more than just a caricature, it becomes a narrative.  Right now, the narrative on Romney is that he's an out-of-touch-rich-guy, which wasn't the hit on Romney until this campaign.  It used to be that Romney was called a flip-flopper (and there's plenty of evidence to prove that).

Moreover, and again, I agree with Newt and Rush on this*, Romney will also have problems arguing against Obama's health care reforms because those reforms are based on Romney's health care plan (the only difference is that Romney's health care plan pays for abortions). All this makes Romney beatable.