VA Gov Endorsement

Tomorrow in the VA Democratic Primary for governor, I'll be voting for Creigh Deeds.

Between the three contenders, I think that he offers the best experience, and will appeal to both Northern Virginia and the rest of the state.

Chas Freeman

Chas Freeman, who withdrew as nominee for the National Intelligence Council.  He claims that he was opposed mostly by the Israel lobby.  Andrew Sullivan is up in arms:

It is a minor appointment, but even minor appointments in the president's own staff cannot proceed if the appointees question the p.c. line on Israel. The enforcement of this orthodoxy even in minor appointments - to the extent of character assassination - is what makes this a news story. And the repercussions of that orthodoxy for future foreign policy, especially with Iran, are enormous.

Thankfully this was just a minor appointment.  But this brings up larger points:

1. Unless you are being appointed ambassador to Israel, your support that country does not matter.
2. Nominees are not rejected for criticizing Iran, China, Russia, India, Mexico, and many other countries.  Israel does not deserve special treatment, especially after the mess they made in January.
3. We've been supporting Israel since the beginning, and look how much the situation has improved.  Right...

I'll close with some more remarks from Andrew Sullivan, who I think has quite nicely summarized it:

This is Freeman's cardinal sin among his critics: to blame Israel, even in part, for the plight it finds itself in, and to ask that US foreign policy be more neutral with respect to the parties in the Middle East. This is the third rail no one is allowed to touch and have access to real power in Washington. Even when the horrifying Gaza assault was going on, it became evidence of anti-Semitism to find the civilian casualties morally repellent and the siege itself counter-productive. This kind of intimidation must end.

GOP Needs to Chill Out

The GOP is doing whatever it can be as partisan as ever. President Barack Obama has made overtures to the republicans in congress, including appointing them to his cabinet. Senator Gregg, a republican from New Hampshire, said yesterday:

"We need a robust [stimulus package]. I think the one that's pending is in the range we need. I do believe it's a good idea to do it at two levels, which this bill basically does, which is immediate stimulus and long-term initiatives which actually improve our competitiveness and our productivity."

That was yesterday. Today he withdrew his nomination, because it is clear the republicans will stop at nothing to fuck over President Obama. This is partisan politics at its worst.

Seat 'em both

There are still some unresolved senate seats lingering.  I'm going to skip NY for the moment, since there's no clear declaration if Caroline Kennedy will be appointed (I hope not; as her experience is non existent).

The two other seats are in IL and MN.  I think that both Al Franken (D-MN) and Roland Burris (D-IL) should be seated as United States Senators.

Let's first look at Franken's seat.  The MN State Canvassing Board has certified results that show Franken winning the seat by 225 votes.  He actually was down with the first results, but the recount shows him a clear winner.  The result was the direct consequence of shrewd lawyering, but that is a moot point.  He is the winner, and deserves a 6 year term.  The Republican who holds the seat for a few more days, Norm Coleman, plans to file lawsuits challenging this result, but given our litigious nature and the possibility for lawsuits to last for a sustained time, Franken should be seated now.

Now we move to the most interesting seat, Barack Obama's old seat in IL.  The governor, Mr. Blagojevich, has appointed Roland Burris to the seat.  Burris has already called himself Senator.  We all know that Blagojevich allegedly tried to sell this very seat.  However, he has not been indicted or convicted of any offense.  As his is presumed innocent for the time being, this appointment is legal.  The only hiccup is that the Illinois Secretary of State did not sign the appointment.  But it would be quite unprecedented for the Senate to refuse to seat him.  I think for the time being, he should be seated.  If Blagojevich goes to jail or is indicted, the Senate can then decide if it wants to remove Burris.

Vinegar Joe Endures

Two years ago, I wrote Joe Lieberman's political obituary, but today he has pretty much proven that even scoundrels can stay on.  This guy completely betrayed the party that elected him to the senate many years ago, but Barack Obama has shown his principles of unity in action by letting Joe keep his posts in the senate.  

One would hope that Lieberman would remain loyal after being given such a pass.

PJ's Manifesto

PJ O'Rourke, one of the best libertarian/conservative humorists of all time has written a great manifesto against the GOP, in only the way he could do it.  Recommended for all.

Isn't there a clogged toilet to fix?

Sam the tax evading, non-licensed toilet plunger has his own website now, unless it's some type of joke.  This sad, sad man is obviously trying to make the most of his 15 minutes and has managed to turn it into 15 days.  Apparently he's got a book coming out, and you can buy a subscription to his website for $15.  I guess that will help him pay his back taxes.

Michigan Republican Freaks Out

""He's a general who left the battlefield in the middle of the fight."
"I'm disappointed in his behavior; he's thrown a lot of good Republican candidates under the bus."
"...our commander has raised the white flag..."

-L Brooks Patterson, Oakland County, MI Executive on John McCain's decision to cede Michigan to Barack Obama.

Patterson is afraid, and he should be. With McCain effectively dropping out in MI, many republicans will not vote. It is very possible that Joe Knollenberg or Tim Walberg will be defeated. Currently, Knollenberg is down by 4 pts in the polls, and with McCain dropping out its not going to get any better.

McCain: Worse than Bush?

Hopefully we will never know the answer to the title of this post, but in order to inform the undecided, we need to visit this issue.  Would a McCain presidency be worse than Bush?  

When George W. Bush was first elected president in 2000, we were at the peak of the internet boom.  The business cycles has since been on a downward spin, most likely because we have not had a positive technological shock since the dot.com boom of the late 90's.  Whether we will have another such shock in the next 8 years is anyone's guess, but it is likely as these cycles run over 15-20 years.  

No matter if Bush or Gore was elected president, we would likely have faced a minor recession sometime over the past 8 years.  What would not have been predicted, however, is the massive cost of the Iraq War, which has been a major factor in the spike in oil prices, the fall of the dollar, and the loss of our rights to privacy, jury, and other freedoms.  

How would John McCain or Barack Obama confront such issues?

When it comes to the Iraq War, currently McCain is more gung-ho about it than even George Bush.  While the White House has recently flirted with the idea of setting a vague timetable for withdrawal, McCain remains steadfast that we should maintain permanent bases in Iraq, against the wishes of the Iraqis and more than 50% of Americans.  McCain's wishes would likely lead to at least a $1,000,000,000 level of spending over his presidency, from this issue alone.  

When it comes to oil prices, McCain favors "offshore drilling" and not much else.  Offshore drilling was already allowed, oil companies did not choose to partake in it.  All Bush just did was open up some more areas.  That point is moot, since we do not have enough refineries to keep up with this, so even if we did strike oil (this would take 5-10 years), we would have to have it made into gasoline by another country and then re-import it.  Even conservative oil-man T Boone Pickens does not see oil as the future.  Instead, he proposes we use a combination of wind power and natural gas.  I also think that geothermal power, nuclear power, and solar power have to be added to the first two to be our new backbone of electricity, which could power a new generation of vehicles.  McCain talks about alternative energies, but seems to be continuing Bush's legacy of paying lip service to alternatives while just drilling for more oil to further fuck up our planet.

McCain worse than Bush?  Maybe, but hopefully we will never know the answer.

DC Gun Registration

Registering your gun in DC is such a pain that if I happened to live there I'd likely skip the whole process for now and wait a couple months for the permanent rules.  You need to complete a safety test, get fingerprinted, and kiss the Mayor's ass.  Maybe that last part is a joke, but they do seem to have a lot of discretion.  

The worst part?  A vision test.  So if you have trouble seeing, you cannot own a gun.  This would seem to violate many existing laws, such as the ADA act.  Just because someone is visually impaired does not mean they are prohibited from owning a gun.  Per federal law, only criminal acts and mental illnesses are barriers, not disabilities.  Make all the jokes you want about blind people and guns, but if you believe in the Constitution, they should be able to own them.

Quote of the Day

"[Democrats] do appeal more to an upper-middle-class, higher-educated, faster-moving kind of voter."

--Representative Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)

Does this mean the Republicans intend to appear to lower-class, low educated, slow moving voters?  That does not sound like a party interested in a bright future.  

Mugabe Remains in Power

Africa's longest ruling dictator, Robert Mugabe, will remain in power after the opposition leader dropped out of the election, due to fears of violence directed at him and his followers.

Zimbabwe is a complete cluster fuck these days, with inflation in the hundreds of thousands of percents: a meal there costs billions in local currency.  

Mugabe rose to power during the end of British colonialism in what was then Rhodesia.  After taking power he slowly turned his country into a complete cesspool, blaming white people for his problems.  The white Africans owned most of the farms, so he took their land, gave it to black Africans and killed most of the whites who resisted.  The new owners of the farms did not know how to run them, so there are now widespread food shortages.

This asshole will probably be in power until he's dead.

Obama Landslide in November?

Poblano, the pollsters who was closer than the big guys in predicting the primaries, has a website: www.fivethirtyeight.com

A baseball statistician by day, he lives on statistics and looks for movements in the data compared to historical numbers.  He has recently included data from the last 20 or so years into his model.  He then runs 10,000 computer simulations of election days.  Based on this, it looks like McCain is in for some pain.  He predicts a 30% chance of an Obama landslide, in which he would get 70%+ of the electoral vote.  McCain only has 10% chance of that happening.

Overall, Obama wins 65% of the time.  It also looks like my homestate of VA is a toss up, and right now is leaning blue.

The Spin Doctor's Confession

Scott McClellan was one of George W. Bush's Press Secretaries, who have also included Ari Fleisher, Tony Snow and now Dana Perino.  These are the cronies in charge of delivering official statements from the White House and also answering reporter's questions.  

Having one of these guys turn on you is not a good thing, for they often will know where the bodies are buried.  

McClellan has just written a tell all memoir in which he accuses the Bush administration of flat out lying about Iraq.  These are things that those in the media have said for some time, but to hear it from a Republican who has worked with Bush is another.  

Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury wrote a damning memoir a few years ago but was derided as a kook.  McClellan is much more respected and his confession will be taken much more seriously.

Who benefits from this?  Mostly McClellan, because this book is going to put him on the talk show circuit where he'll bring in some money.

Who does this hurt?  McCain.  This year is a very bad year to be a Republican.  Carter won for a reason.  Ford wasn't that bad, but Nixon left a really bad taste in peoples' mouths.  Same thing this year, just different people.

Bob Barr wins LP Nomination

Barr will run as prez, Root as VP.  

Barr definitely has name recognition but he definitely alienated about 1/3 of the party.

Is Hillary Delusional or trying to help Obama?

With all the twists and turns this election has taken, you would think this could be a pitch for a new soap opera.  At least, that's what the media has led us to believe.  Truth is, Obama locked up this win with the streak of victories after Super Tuesday, it's just that the media is finally coming to the reality that every contest has a loser.

Meet the loser.

Many commentators think that Hillary is just plain nuts.  She's lent her campaign millions of dollars, is using Huckabee-esque math to make her case, and says she won't stop til she's in the White House again.  Doesn't matter that the math won't work out, she'll just steal that election, even by including states that broke the rules.  On the surface she sure as hell seems crazy.

But I don't think she's crazy.

For the first time, I actually see a plan within her campaign to unite the party around Obama.  The whole "tie breaker" comment about Indiana was just a cheap jab, I don't think she believes it except in the context that she won 2 out of the 3 last states.

If she drops out now and just fades back into the Senate, her supporters will be left twisting in the wind, especially those in places like WV and KY who haven't voted yet (who cares about PR, they don't count).  Most will reluctantly follow Obama.  But about 25-30% of them will either not vote or vote for McCain.  And many of these defectors are in PA, OH and other swing states.  The Dems really need these states, and possibly FL to win in November.  Hillary knows this.  Obama knows this.  

If she closes out WV and KY, let's those people give her a big win, she at least allows them to feel that they are a part of something.  Her efforts to bring FL and MI back into the mix would bring back some goodwill.  If they are not seated at the convention, I believe that FL will definitely be lost.  If she helps pass something through that gives them some kind of delegate mix (maybe half the delegates) they will at least feel that their party did not let them down.  

After winning WV and KY, getting FL and MI involved in the process, it will be time for Hillary to step down.  This will happen in early June and it will probably be a "suspension" of the campaign, much like Edwards, not a formal concession.  But between now and then she needs to stop all negative attacks on Obama, ramp up her attack dog style attacks on McCain, and gradually fade into an advisor type role to the party.

I think that this is her ultimate plan, because if she does not do this her senate career could be toast.  Destroying Obama will not help her in 4 years, even if McCain wins, but in 8 years she'll still be barely young enough to run for president.  

Or I could be completely wrong: she's nuts and she's taking this thing to the convention floor.  But I hope I'm right.  Is that audacious?  

Obama wins big

NC is going to be a double-digit win for Obama.

Indiana is going to be very, very close.  Clinton and her backers projected a huge win for her here.

Its time for Hillary to drop out.

Ron Paul says Obama best on foreign policy

Today Ron Paul, while speaking to Wolf Blitzer about his book and the current state of the nominations, hinted that he would be more likely to back Obama than McCain.  He said that of the three remaining candidates, “I would think the one who would most likely keep us from expanding the war would be Obama.”  

Ron Paul also said that foreign policy issues were the biggest reason he cannot support John McCain. 

Why the "gax tax holiday" won't help you

Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both preposing a "gax tax holiday" in which the federal gas tax, 18.4 cents per gallon, would be eliminated during the summer.  

This is a complete farce, designed to make those without a background in economics actually feel that the candidates are helping them.  They are not.

There are several issues involved, and I will try to break them down one by one.

1. The average person drives 12-15,000 miles per year.  Let's be generous and say you drive 15,000 miles per year, and that you drive an SUV that gets an average of 17 miles per gallon (the average car gets more than that).  During a 3 month period, you would drive 3750 miles and consume 220 gallons of gas.  The "savings" the gas tax would give you in this not-too-realistic circumstance?  $40.59 cents.  About the price of 1 tank of gas.  

2. But wait, that's just the amount of federal tax you'd save.  Let's say that this 18.4 cent tax is removed and people suddenly start driving more.  There is a psychological effect of a tax break: people will use it to buy things they weren't planning on.  In this case, it may be taking a vacation by car.  Demand will almost certainly go up.  Due to good old supply and demand, given a constant supply, the price of gas will go up like wiping out any savings.

3. Where is this money coming from to pay this?  There are 2 possibilities.  Either we get a cash advance on our Central People's Republic Bank of China credit card, or we take the money from where the gas tax goes to: roads.  That's right, get ready for longer waits on potholes being fixed, jobless construction workers, and maybe even a falling bridge.

Hillary and McCain have both seized on this idea and keep running around screaming that it will help out average Americans.  Will $40 really help out the average American, especially if the price goes up to compensate and it turns into a $10 savings that you much more than lose when you need a new tire after you hit the pothole that wasn't fixed because the federal highway administration didn't have enough money?  Sheesh!

The only candidate who is correct about this issue is Obama.  From the beginning, he cited many of the economic reasons above and called it what it is: a gimmick.  Said Obama, "This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election."

Many prominent economists have also chimed in and they all agree that this would not do a damn thing.  

If the government wants to do away with the gas tax, then take my advice from several years ago and just get rid of the tax permanently.  Of course, that would require cutting spending in something... hmm... what are we wasting money on these days...?  Iraq?

Here's a calculator to help you figure out how much you'll "save" 

Obama on elitism, his suits, and bowling

Pretty funny video, especially when he goes after the press for hanging on every single thing he does, like throw gutter balls.