Second Presidential Debate Thread!!

Round Two tonight! Will Obama come out swinging? I would think so. Does he know how? I kind of doubt it. Look for a nasty, nasty affair tonight. One of the theories about Biden's last performance was that he acted went full-jackass intentionally in the hopes of making Obama look better when Obama tries to go half-assed tonight. No, I'm not kidding.

So what do you think will happen tonight? Also, feel free to treat this like an open thread until the event itself.

OT: If anyone hasn't reviewed my books yet, I could really use the help! Even just a few words would help. Thanks! LINK.

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Fact Checking Biden? Really?

I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m going to point out some of Slow Joe Biden’s lies. Good grief. Wasn’t it enough to point out that when the man’s lips are moving he’s lying? Apparently not. There are too many whoppers. Oh well, here goes.

● Biden Voting Record Lies: Biden claimed to vote against both the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War and he claimed to vote against the Bush Tax Cuts. He then blamed the deficit on those. First of all, he voted FOR all three. So that is a blatant lie. Secondly, the deficit charge is false as the deficit can be traced to domestic spending wanted by Obama for his cronies, i.e. stimulus, TARP, jobs bills, and the increased baselines caused by that spending. In the government, once a baseline for spending is established, it grows automatically. That’s why the deficits remain about a trillion dollars and will continue.

● Catholic Lies: Biden claimed, “no religious institution, Catholic or otherwise” will be forced to provide contraception or insurance for contraception. “That is a fact. That is a fact.” Actually, that’s a lie, and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops debunked this after the debate. Under Obamacare, the Obama administration is forcing Catholic and other religious groups to provide contraception and abortion drugs through their insurance policies. Obamacare contains a “narrow, four-part exemption for certain ‘religious employees’.” But that does not apply to the organizations themselves. Basically, it’s things like priests. And the very hospitals Biden mentioned as exempt have been declared not-exempt by Obama’s HHS. That is why the Catholics and several other religious groups have all sued alleging a First Amendment religious freedom violation.

● AARP Lies: In the first debate, Obama claimed AARP supported his healthcare plans. AARP shot him down harshly, claiming they are non-partisan and saying that they don’t endorse. Despite this, Biden repeated the claim which AARP itself has debunked. Also, as an aside, it should be pointed out that AARP plans to make between $55 million and $166 million from selling private insurance when Obamacare kills Medicare Advantage, so they are hardly impartial as Biden claims.

● Millionaire Tax Distortion: Joe kept saying that the Bush Tax Cuts Obama wants to let expire are on “millionaires and billionaires.” They are in fact on anyone earning $250,000 a year. That includes small businesses. It is also not an asset tax, it is an income tax, so it gets productive people not “the idle rich” as liberals often claim.

● Medicare Lies: “What we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back – applied it to Medicare.” Wow. Totally false. Obama yanked $716 billion out of Medicare’s budget and called it savings. But no specific savings have been identified. This is simply a budget cut and Medicare has been told to find the savings. This is like saying “I’m going to spend $10,000 less on food next year” and then calling yourself frugal today for finding “food plan savings.” Also, the money was then used as an accounting gimmick to fund Obamacare by reducing the price of the government’s healthcare efforts overall. The money is gone. It is not a saving, it was not re-applied to Medicare as Biden claims. And when you cut $716 billion from a program that is already paying so little that doctors won’t take it anymore, you will destroy the program.

● Palin Prognostication Fantasy: Joe claimed that he and Sarah Palin argued over “death panels” in their 2008 VP debate. The “death panels” weren’t first mentioned until 2009, a year later.

● “Death Panel” Lies II: Joe categorically said that the 15 member “death panel” would in no way cut people’s care. He tried to call them a “best practices board.” However, their function is to impose cost controls, not raise practice standards. That means they will cut types and quantities of care.

● Benghazi Lies: Biden claimed the administration wasn’t told that the Embassy in Libya wanted more security. This was debunked at Congressional hearings the day before the debate. The State Department repeatedly turned down requests for more security. When asked to “clarify” Biden’s comments, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that Biden wasn’t speaking for the administration. So who was he speaking for?

● Ryan Record Lies: Biden claimed that Ryan “cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for.” First, the Ryan budget never became law. Secondly, Ryan’s budget never addressed embassy spending, it called for a 19% cut in non-defense discretionary spending. To get the $300 million figure, Biden assumes an across-the-board cut even though the cuts would in reality be targeted on other programs, like stimulus and green loan programs.

● Iranian Fantasies: Somehow, Biden claims that even though Iran is working on the fizzle material for a bomb (the most important part) they somehow “aren’t working on a bomb.” This is ridiculous. This is like saying you aren’t working on a car just because you haven’t started buying tires while you complete the engine. Secondly, there is no reliable intelligence to support this claim. Third, they can get the bomb itself from North Korea by AllahFedEx overnight. Fourth, they don’t even need a “bomb” if they make a dirty bomb. Biden is acting like you need an ICBM to deliver an atomic nightmare, he’s lying.

● Syrian Fantasies: When it came to Syria, “foreign policy” expert Biden first wrongly claimed that Syria is five times larger than Libya (Syria is actually ten times smaller), that the US has not tried to work through the UN (which is a total lie – Turkey even blasted the UN yesterday for moving too slowly), and he bizarrely claimed that the Obama Administration has been training Syrian rebels, something which is not only emphatically not true, but also highly provocative. If Romney had made such a stupid statement, Team Obama would be screaming bloody murder.

● Ryan’s Entitlement Reform Lies: Biden claimed that “not one Democrat” endorsed Ryan’s entitlement plan. The plan was create with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin. Both now claim they don’t support it, but they did at the time.

● Obama Record Lies: Biden scoffed at anything Ryan said about Obama’s record, from the unemployment rate to the size of the deficits. He never specifically called these lies, but he did so generally twice when he said that nothing Ryan had said was true. He also said “not a single thing he said is accurate” when Ryan pointed out that Obama failed to speak up for Iranian protestors in 2009 and that they called Syria’s Assad a “reformer,” both of which are true.

● Military Cut Lies: In one of the more bizarre moments, Biden claimed the Republicans (Paul Ryan specifically) want to cut $1 trillion from the military, while simultaneously claiming they want to spend $2 trillion more. Neither claim is true. The automatic spending cuts were the idea of Harry Reid and were adopted by Obama – the Republicans opposed those. Obama has refused every attempt to change those and has now been forced to go into damage control, illegally claiming he will compensate defense contractors if they wait until after the election to lay people off.


Finally, it is interesting to note that Joe interrupted Ryan 85 times during the 90 minute debate (and that doesn’t count the smirks). If you factor out the time the moderator spoke and the roughly ten minutes for opening and closing statements, you are looking at more than one interruption a minute. It’s no wonder his bad manners became the takeaway... and that the MSM would rather focus on that than his lies. But what do you expect from a man who regularly uses racist and sexist quips, who regularly exploits his wife’s death for political sympathy, and who not only lied about his own personal background but who plagiarized it from another politician, see Bidenisms.

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MTA v. The First Amendment

Who knew that the only thing standing between our First Amendment rights and the American people was a little pink spray paint! Well that and the threat of violence over...a subway advertisment.

The horror! The madness! Seriously.

In late September, Iranian President Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket [see: Commentarama-nary for definition] before the UN General Assembly calling for destruction of Israel and other such mischief, the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) in New York was brought to its knees. Not by terrorist threats or UN protests, but over the above advertisement bought and paid for by Pamela Geller, writer, blogger, and leader of the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and the same person who lead the protest against Park51 - the proposed and now defunct "World Trade Center" mosque.

She decided to run this ad to be display in about dozen subway stations throughout New York City in reaction to the 9/11/12 attacks on our Embassies and the ongoing Iranian threats to Israel. At first the MTA rejected the ad because they thought the language was "demeaning". Geller took it to the Federal courts where a judge upheld her ad on First Amendment grounds and the MTA was ordered to place the posters as contracted. Needless to say the posters received a ton of press even before they went up. You would think that the poster had a cartoon of Mohammed or a photo of an 32oz sugary Big Gulp with the furor it caused. Along with physical threats to Ms. Gellar and to the MTA, many of the posters were damaged, torn down, and one woman took it upon herself to deface each poster with pink spray paint in the company of a NY Daily News photographer. The MTA Board was horrified, not at the threats of violence that were directed at Ms. Gellar, but horrified that this ad should be allowed at all.

So horrified were the MTA Board members that they held an emergency meeting to "update" its rules so that it would be clear that the MTA did not approve. At first it was reported that they would just add this disclaimer to all such ads:

This was to protect the Board much in the same way the Obama Administration added their own disclaimer about a certain film that had nothing to do with...well, you know. But that was their public face. As we all know, the devil is in the details. What they really did was change the rules and added this new clause to the official guidelines of ads that will no longer be displayed if:

...The advertisement, or any information contained in it, is directly adverse to the commercial or administrative interests of the MTA or is harmful to the morale of MTA employees or contains material the display of which the MTA reasonably foresees would incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace, and so harm, disrupt, or interfere with safe, efficient, and orderly transit operations. [emphasis added]

Maybe it is just me, but this new guideline is much more dangerous than Ms. Geller's ad could ever be. Now, all that has to happen is for some overzealous, politically-correct bureaucrat to see potential insult or racism in the word "apartment" to shut down our most fundamental right - to disagree.

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The Great (film) Debates vol. 57

Many of you have asked for this, so here it comes. Let's talk about music today.

Who is your favorite soundtrack/score composer?

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Commentarama-nary - A Works in Progress

You know those times when you go to the Merriam-Webster or Roget's Thesaurus and you just cannot find just the right word to explain some concept (and that concept is usually related to Joe Biden) Well, search no more. Today we start a new chapter in our War of Words. I would like to introduce you to...

Commentarama-nary Noun - a compendium of descriptive ad hoc words and phrases created to describe political, moral, ethical, or just plain idiotic situations or persons where the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary versions just will not suffice.

You get the idea. If you need a word in need of a definition, or you have a definition in need of a
word, let us know. Help your fellow Commentarama-ian and make like Merriam and Webster starting today.

First entry into our newly formed Commentarama-nary is:

alcohol Noun \ˈbüz\ - 1. a fluid which aids in the viewing of presidential debates and state of the union addresses 2. what comes out if you prick a Kennedy;

Bidenism Noun - 1. anytime Joe Biden lips are moving; 2. gaffe.

bulsch Noun 1. alternate and shortened spelling of manure from an adult bull; Others Uses: has added benefit of passing many censor bots.

insaninine Adj - 1. simultaneously stupid and crazy as in "Joe Biden is just plain insaninine", 2. combination of the words "insane" and "asinine" [Blog-ese]

Chicago, or Chicago-style Noun 1. Method of winning political campaigns by blackmailing, framing, and/or threatening one's opponent. 2. Adj deep dish style pizza. See also Rahm Emmanuel.

Loonion: Noun 1. Union supporters/backers/members who become crazed/enraged whenever Right to Work legislation is mentioned or proposed., 2. thugs.

Obamatopia Noun 1. the state of suspension of disbelief and/or the rational time/space continuum where there are 57-60 US states and Syria is larger than Libya; 2. a place or state of being where all things are equal and just.

ouch-orrific Adj 1. an action or event too painful to watch.

skeptomistic Adj 1. The act of being both skeptical and optimistic at the same time, in other words, a confused independent.

psychophant Noun 1. a person who acts obsequiously to the point of derangement 2. a show host on MSNBC 3. a mad elephant

Famous Names -

Debbie "WTF"* Schultz - Esteemed Member of Congress and DNC Chairperson Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D/FL) *WTF stands for Win The Fight...really.

Dingy Harry - Esteemed Member of Congress and Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D/NV)

Joe "Plugs" Biden - Esteemed Vice President and all around nice guy Joseph Biden (D/Mars)

San Fran Nan - Esteemed Member of Congress and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D/Venus)

Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket - President of Iran and generally scourge of humanity Mahmoud Amadinajad (or however you spell it. It doesn't matter. He's a jerk and doesn't deserve to get his name spelled right).

Rahm Emanuel - 1. Mayor of Chicago where violence and unemployment have shot up since he took office; 2. also former Chief of Staff for President Obama; 3. brother of Ezekiel Emanuel, godfather of euthanasia and death panels. a/k/a Swearin' Rahm

Let's get creative with those words or phrases and add to our Commentarama-nary. I will keep an ongoing list. Wow, I wonder if this is what Noah Webster felt like?

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In Memoriam Larry Hawk (aka Lawhawk)

With a couple days now between us and the news that Larry has passed, I wanted to take the chance to say a few words.

I first met Larry at Big Hollywood. That was the first political blog I ever got involved with and I started participating there because something had gone wrong with conservatism, and that seemed like the place to start fixing it. It didn't take long for Larry and I to bump into each other. Soon we were having a grand time adding what humor and insight we could, combating trolls and getting to know many of you.

After a while we realized that we needed to create our own place so we could talk about issues that BH didn't cover. So we created Commentarama. Over the next three plus years, we set out to enlighten, to explain and to befriend our fellow conservatives, and in the process we found all of you, whom we consider friends. I'm not sure people realize how much work these articles are or how much time this blog consumes, but Larry tirelessly turned in his articles every single day. He often told me that despite the heavy commitment, he kept going because blogging made him very happy. He loved speaking his mind and he loved hearing from each of you.

In my time blogging with Larry, I always found him to be bright, funny and friendly. He was a strongly principled man with a deep reservoir of wisdom who was always up for a debate and always open to new ideas. He was also a great friend. Over the years, Larry and I had hundreds of long conversations most of you never saw about various issues, about our hopes for the future, and about the things we loved about this country. He loved his friends, his family, Niko his dog, his new home, and all of you. And he loved the idea that we were changing the world, one article at a time.

The world will miss you, Larry.

Rest in peace.

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The Ryan and the Jackass

Joe Biden is a vile human being. He’s a liar, a fool and he won’t stop exploiting his dead wife. And last night, his plan was to lie and throw as much fake mud as needed to make the entire debate incomprehensible. In that, he was successful. Nothing of substance will be remembered from this debate. Sadly for Joe, what will be remembered is his crapulence.

● Likeability: Between his constant interruptions and the whirlwind of bullsh*t he unleashed, Joe Biden basically made it impossible to take away any substance from this debate. Unfortunately for him, his performance was a disgrace. He smirked, snarled, scoffed, interrupted and condescended all night. He came across like a jackal. I have never seen a debate where one participant acted this shamefully. His behavior was honestly beneath the dignity of the office.

What’s even more bizarre are the things he laughed at. He laughed at Iran getting a nuclear bomb. He laughed at Ryan talking about Romney helping a family in need and giving money to charity. He even abused the moderator the one time she asked him a hard question and basically accused her of bias: “you be straight with me.”

His bad manners was all the talking heads talked about, and early polls suggest that it cost Biden the debate. CNBC has Ryan winning 56% to 36%. CNN’s poll has Ryan winning 48% to 44%.

● Ryan’s Failure: I don’t see Ryan as the winner however, so much as he’s just not the loser. Ryan’s made four mistakes. First, he essentially brought a textbook to a “yo’ mama so fat” contest whereas he needed a strategy to call out Biden on his lies and his disgraceful behavior. Secondly, he let the biased moderator push him around. He needed to stop letting her cut off his good answers mid-stream. Third, he lacked a unified theme to give the audience something to take home. Fourth, he needed to connect more dots to exploit his victories. For example, when Biden lied about Catholic hospitals being happy with Obamacare, Ryan countered with “then why are they suing Obama?” This was excellent, but he failed to press this point and explain it clearly. Never make the audience think!

● Stop Criticizing Jim Lehrer: I saw virtually no bias out of Jim Lehrer. Raddatz, on the other hand, was bias incarnate. She gave Joe free rein of questions, tossed him softballs, and advocated for Obama while throwing harsh, biased questions at Ryan. More importantly, she interrupted Ryan every single time he got on a roll. She also took attacks Biden made and demand Ryan answer those, but never once questioned Joe about anything Ryan alleged. This was an unbelievably prejudiced performance.

One particularly amazing example of a biased question was when she started her question on Afghanistan by claiming that Obama had succeeded in defeating al Qaeda, had all but wiped out the Taliban, had stabilized the country, and had basically won the war. Then she asked Ryan why he wanted to keep troops there indefinitely in light of that. The problem is, none of that is true, nor is Ryan advocating keeping troops there.

● Some things Slow Joe said: If Joe’s lips were moving, he was lying, and I mean that. He used fake numbers. He invented events. He claimed personal knowledge of things that didn’t happen and denied things that are on tape. He invented policy positions for Romney and attacked his own straw men. Here is what he said:

● Joe scoffed at the idea that the Democrats ever controlled both the White House and the Congress.

● Joe blamed Obama’s conflicting lies on Libya on the intelligence community. The same community he swears will tell us the precise moment Iran is ready to build a bomb.

● Joe said Iran isn’t building a bomb. Even the IAEA disagrees with this. His “logic” was that they are only making the radioactive material needed for the bomb, but not the bomb itself. That’s a logical and factual pile of crap. Joe also laughed when Ryan said that if Iran isn’t stopped, others in the area will try to build the bomb as well. This has long been acknowledged as true on both sides of the political spectrum.

● Joe said that they got the toughest sanctions ever on Iran (ignore all those tougher sanctions on Cuba and the Soviet Union). He laughed at the idea that Russia watered them down, which they did. He pretended that this would stop Iran from selling oil, even though they are selling directly to China.

● He promised Obama would get whoever killed our ambassador to Libya, which sounded extremely hollow and like fake bravado when he said it. And he actually claimed that Romney didn’t want to see Obama bin Laden killed.

● He said Israel was lying when they claimed Obama’s policies differed from theirs.

● He kept accusing Romney of wanting to start a war in Syria before claiming that Romney’s policy was exactly like Obama’s and that Romney couldn’t identify a single difference. When Ryan identified differences, Joe ignored those and falsely accused Romney of wanting to send ground troops.

● He claimed Obamacare does not force religious institutions to fund or provide contraception or abortion, even though it does and even though those same institutions have sued Obama to stop it. This was right after saying that Ryan wanted to force his views on other religions and claiming he would never do that. He also tried to attribute the comments of Todd Akin about there being different kinds of rape to Paul Ryan.

● Joe kept repeating the 47% line, which Romney has explained and disowned. He blamed Bush for Obama’s failures, and refused to address a single point in Obama’s record.

● He kept trying to scare seniors by claiming Romney wants to privatize Social Security or Medicare (something Romney is not advocating).

● He exploited his dead wife, as he shamelessly does in every debate he’s ever been in.

● He kept using long debunked claims about Romney wanting a $5 trillion tax cut. He lied about Obama’s own tax numbers, claiming Obama only wants to tax millionaires. He lied about the waste and fraud in the “green jobs” loans Obama made. He lied about Ryan passing budgets to slash education (education spending went up, not down).

● Joe kept claiming he spent his life fighting for Main Street against Wall Street, even though he used to be scoffingly referred to as the Senator from MBNA for his efforts to help big banks squeeze the middle class on fees and to make it harder to discharge credit card debt in bankruptcy.

● On the one trillion in automatic cuts coming from the military, the moderator first tried to take those off the table to help Joe, but he blundered right back into them. Then he bizarrely claimed that the Republicans asked for those (even though it was Obama/Reid), that Ryan even claimed “I’ve been looking for this moment a long time,” that Biden would never agree with those cuts and wanted to stop them, but that they were necessary and the military wants them because they want to be “smaller and leaner” and thus Joe supports them. . . but Ryan is evil for proposing them. Good luck figuring that one out. He also simultaneously claimed Ryan wanted the trillion in cuts while also wanting two trillion in new military spending. Hmm.

● Some things Ryan said: Ryan made some solid points, but I don’t think any of them will be remembered because they were buried in Biden-grade bullsh*t. Here is what he said:

● He said that we are seeing the unraveling of Obama’s foreign policy all across the Middle East. This is something even the left is admitting. Indeed, Der Spiegel had a run down of everyone making this point recently and it was a huge list. Unlike Romney, Ryan did not elaborate.

● Ryan said Obama has done nothing to slow Iran from getting the bomb. He said that taking the military option off the table, putting distance between us and Israel, allowing Russia and China to water down the sanctions the Congress wanted (fyi, a bipartisan bill), and granting 20 waivers on those sanctions has sent a green light to Iran to continue.

● He attacked Obama for letting Russia dictate policy on Syria, for waiting too long to take action and for calling Assad a reformer.

● He attacked Obama for giving a precise timeline in Afghanistan, though he and Romney agree with the general timeline, and for withdrawing American troops while still requiring those who are left to continue the same missions and level of effort. Biden countered that the Afghans are taking over those jobs, but that is not true.

● He said that Obama’s strategy of hope and change had turned into “attack, blame and defame” and he pointed out that Obama and Biden were smearing Romney because they had no record they could run on. And in that regard, he pointed out Obama’s list of broken promises, though he did not do this nearly as well as Romney: (1) no one loses their healthcare under Obamacare, even though 20 million will, (2) middle class taxes won’t go up for anyone earning less than $250,000 a year (“millionaires”), but Obamacare raises 20 taxes on the middle class, (3) healthcare costs will go down under Obama, but they are up $2,500, (4) the deficit would be cut in half, but it doubled in size, and (5) he would unite us. There’s a lot he missed here.

● He explained Romney’s tax plan, which is to lower rates across the board ($1.3 trillion in cuts) but to offset that by eliminating deductions which the rich use ($1.2 trillion) for a net change of zero dollars, with a shift of the actual tax burden up onto the rich and away from the middle class. He was going to explain how this will lead to 7 million new jobs, but let himself be cut off. He said they would not accept tax cuts that (1) increased the deficit, (2) increased taxes on the middle class, or (3) resulted in a downward shift of the tax burden.

● He pointed out that the average tax rate on business in the world is 25% and that Obama wants to raise the tax rate on small business form 28% to 44.8%.

● He pointed out the big lie in Obama’s class warfare rhetoric of “the rich paying their fair share” by noting that if we taxed the rich at 100%, it would only fund the government for 90 days. So when Obama says he will raise taxes on the rich to pay for more spending, he’s lying about the revenue source.

All in all, I think this debate will be forgotten. Joe lost because he was extremely unlikable. But that won’t hurt Obama because no one will vote on the basis of liking or not liking Joe Biden. I think the left will be thrilled at Joe’s boorish behavior and the right will be incensed, and moderates will scratch their heads and wonder why they didn’t watch the football game. The theme I would hope conservative run with from this is the lengths to which Joe and Obama will go to avoid discussing their record.

Thoughts? Anything I missed?

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Film Friday: The Ninth Gate (1999)

Hollywood loves evil. . . cartoon evil. From sulking cannibalistic serial killers to Al Pacino’s devil screaming about being a lawyer, all of Hollywood’s evil characters display uncontrollable sadism and megalomania. They yell and scream and prance around shooting their underlings or kicking puppies so the audience knows they are evil. And every once in a while, a truly sinister one whispers ominously. . . and then prances around shooting his underlings and kicking puppies. The Ninth Gate rejects that. The Ninth Gate is an indictment of Hollywood’s version of evil. It is a warning that we have been so blinded by the glitz of Hollywood evil, that we can no longer recognize the real thing.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Vice Presidential Debate Thread

As we get ready for the Bidenisms to start flying fast and furious, I'm turning the floor over to you, gentle viewer, to lend Slow Joe a hand! Tell us some of the Bidenism you hope to hear tonight! I hear he wants to be very aggressive.

(FYI, I will do my best to provide a summary tomorrow in addition to the film review.)

Also, by request, I've put the "follow" button on the bottom left of the page for those who would like to be able to follow the blog in Google reader.

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Guest Review: The Nude Bomb a.k.a. The Return of Maxwell Smart (1980)

By ScottDS
When the original Get Smart series premiered on Nick at Night in 1991, I was eight years old and at the urging of my mother, I decided to check it out. Five minutes later, I was a die-hard fan. I’ve since seen every episode multiple times… as well as the various spinoffs. Sadly, none of those spinoffs were nearly as good as the series that spawned them. Today, we’re going to take a look at the 1980 box-office flop The Nude Bomb (re-titled The Return of Maxwell Smart for TV).

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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The Death Of The Republican Party. . . again

This came up before the debate, but it's still relevant. Usually, it’s leftist pundits who talk about the civil war within Republican ranks and the death of the party. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that the Republicans were about to split into two parties, leaving the “harmonious” Democrats free to rule forever. Give me a break. Well, it’s back! Only, this time, it’s conservatives making the claim. Arggg!

For some time now, the Republicans have been struggling over the ideological future of the party. But it’s not the struggle you think it is. The truth about the Republican Party is that it is controlled by Neocons and the Religious Right, who have divided the party between them. Foreign and economic policy are controlled by the Neocons, who favor foreign adventuring, unlimited military and diplomatic spending, and anything Big Business wants. Social policy is controlled by the Religious Right. And virtually every party leader respects this division, even as the two sides pretend to be in an ideological struggle to wrestle the party away from each other.

This fake struggle continued in the primaries. What you saw in the primaries was candidates like Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann fighting on behalf of the Religious Right and guys like Newt and Rick Perry fighting on behalf of the Neocons, both claiming the other side was unelectable. But here’s the punch line. . . every one of them held the exact same views. They were all Neocons on economic and foreign policy issues and Religious Right on social issues. Every single one of them favored pouring federal money into Big Business projects, increasing the power of the Federal government over the economy (minus a few minor regulations), muscular military and foreign policy, and banning the menace of gays and abortion from our midsts with Constitutional amendments. Only the rhetoric varied.

By selling themselves as being at war with each other, when they aren’t, they are trying to keep their supporters from noticing that neither of these groups represents conservatism and neither of these groups actually offers a genuine alternative to the other. In effect, it’s clones telling us they are polar opposites.

With that background in mind, here is something Rush said a couple weeks ago that needs to be addressed (and he’s not alone):

“If Obama wins, let me tell you what it’s the end of: The Republican Party. There’s gonna be a third party that’s gonna be oriented toward conservatism. . . I know if Obama wins, the Republican Party is gonna try to maneuver things so conservatives get blamed.”

Wrong. For one thing, there will be no third party. There will never be a third party. That is not how our system works. Being a winner takes all system means that it makes no sense to start a third party because you know you will never supplant either of the major parties – and don’t try to tell me it happened 250 years ago, because this was a very different country then.

Secondly, read the above again. The Religious Right and the Neocons like this arrangement. They whine in public about being outsiders because that’s good for fundraising and avoiding blame, but the truth is they control the party. Why would they leave? The people who would leave are the Tea Party types who showed up in 2009 and found the establishment Religious Right and Neocons to be intensely hostile to their “crazy ideas” of fiscal sanity and smaller government. But the Tea Party people won’t leave because they are smarter than that. They are into results, and they have correctly determined that the only way to get results is to take over the Republican Party and change its direction. Forming a third party only takes them out of the game. So who exactly is planning to leave if Romney loses?

What’s really going on here is theater. Both the Neocons and the Religious Right know that Romney has not been adopted by either of their supporters and they simply don’t want to embrace him for fear of seeming out of step with their followers. Add in the fear that he will lose, and what you have is both sides trying to blame the other side for the loss they are expecting. The idea is to make sure that their own followers do not blame them so they can maintain the status quo without worry. If their followers realized the truth, then it becomes likely their followers would be enticed to the new third group slowly making their way up the ladder – the Tea Party. This blame game is meant to keep each side seeming victimized and their followers angry about that, so that nobody starts asking questions.

This is cynical politics at its worst.

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Things Are Looking Bad For Obama

Things are not going well for Team Obama. The debate was a debacle and liberals are now beginning to ask if Obama even wants to win. Others are joking about him using their donations to buy pot (see, e.g. Bill Maher). Early voting is sending up huge warning signs for Obama, the polls are finally starting to show movement against Obama, and Biden is on deck. Let’s discuss.

● Early Turnout Leans Romney: Turnout is key to winning elections and right now the turnout is telling us that Romney has a significant advantage. Obama won in 2008 with a +7% Democratic turnout advantage nationally. That’s the high-water mark for the Democrats. In certain critical states, the turnout was even higher for Obama. This enthusiasm advantage translated into a large advantage for Obama in early voting, which made Obama's election day job easier. This year, everything is reversed:

● In Ohio, the early voting edge went to Obama over McCain by +14% D in 2008, and Obama won by 4.6%. Right now, the early voting is only +4% D, which means Obama needs to make up around 6% on election day to win the state.

● In North Carolina, which Obama won by 0.3% in 2008, early turnout is favoring Romney by a 2-1 margin, with GOP ballots coming in 44% ahead of the pace in 2008. Again, Obama will need to make up significant ground on election day.

● In Iowa, Obama had a 150,000 advantage in early voting in 2008 and he won by 9.5%. In 2004, John Kerry had a 60,000 advantage in early voting and Bush won by 2.4%. Right now, Obama has only a 77,000 advantage. That suggests a tossup.

None of this means Obama is losing or that he’s lost. What this tells us is that Democratic enthusiasm is indeed way down and Republican enthusiasm is way up. That’s really bad for Obama because this election will depend on turnout. It also means that the Democrats are not running as good of a ground game as they have in the past and Romney is way ahead of McCain in that regard. Indeed, his campaign has already met more people face to face than McCain’s did. So what this ultimately means is that Obama is lagging.

● Polling Bump: Meanwhile the polls are showing a significant bump for Romney following his debate performance.

● In Wisconsin, the famously liberal PPP poll shows Obama’s 7% lead (52% to 45%) falling to a mere 2% (49% to 47%). That’s a 5% bump for Romney. Romney’s biggest gains came among women in that poll.

● Rasmussen shows Romney with a 2% national lead (49% - 47%), for a bump of about 4%. Most other polls are showing a 3-5% bump. Gallup shows Romney with a 5% bounce.

● The Battleground Poll shows Romney winning independents 51% to 35%, Obama won them last time 52% to 44%, and it shows a 13% enthusiasm gap for the Republicans.

● Rasmussen also shows Romney only 1% behind in Ohio and 2% behind in Nevada, but 1% ahead in Virginia, 2% ahead in Florida and Colorado, and 3% ahead in North Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire. And don’t forget, Rasmussen is mixing 2008 turnout with 2004 turnout... not 2010.

This is bad news for Obama because these polls are getting close to the point where they simply can’t be faked enough anymore to make the race appear competitive. When that happens, look for a sharp, sudden break in the race away from Obama. Moreover, this may be an indication of the beginning of momentum. If that’s true, then the race is over. The next couple weeks will be very instructive.

● Biden: Finally, they’ve hidden Joey Biden away for six days to prepare him for the debate Thursday night. Personally, I’m dreading this debate. I suspect the strategy Biden will use will be to avoid trying to meet Ryan on anything statistical or principled, and to instead keep countering Ryan’s points with “arguments” about individuals who will be hurt and with statements like, “man, you’re talking about millions of people who are going to go broke trying to pay for healthcare bills they can’t afford.” That will make for a messy, confusing debate as the two candidates basically talk past each other. Moreover, comments like that are impossible to counter because they are emotional in nature and people will either believe them or they won’t. Hopefully, Ryan will be prepared to handle this.

Personally, every time Biden tries that, I would counter with the identical attack Romney made on Obama’s record and I would phrase it in terms of:

“Talking about people hurting, how about the 23 million people who can’t find jobs, the 47 million on food stamps, the one in six Americans now below the poverty line, the two hundred million middle class families whose incomes crashed $4,300 during your administration, whose health care costs rose $2,500, who saw their gas prices double, who watched your administration double the deficit and waste the money on cronyism to nowhere, and who have no idea how their grandkids are going to pay off your debt. I think you and Mr. Obama have caused enough pain.”

Thoughts?

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Why Obama Lost And Why He Won't Improve

Make no mistake, Obama failed miserably in the debate last week. And he couldn’t have picked a worse time with 67 million people watching on television (over 70 million overall), which is 15 million more than watched in 2008. He hurt his campaign badly. He has energized Republicans, Romney is pulling ahead in the polls in key states, and his side is demoralized. Let’s talk about his failure.

There have been a lot of attempts to explain why Obama failed. Chris Matthews said Obama looked unprepared because he hadn’t watched MSNBC enough and didn’t know how to fight those varmint Republicans. Whoopi Goldberg said he was distracted by his wedding anniversary. A great many blamed liberal Jim Lehrer for letting Romney dominate the debate – which makes Obama look even worse if the President needs a moderator to protect him. Several tried to blame Romney for cheating by trying to look moderate – even though Romney was solidly conservative across the board. David Axelrod claimed the problem was us, i.e. that Obama wanted to “honor the American people with honest answers to serious questions” rather than “dropping particular lines,” and apparently we just aren’t smart enough to appreciate that. Team Obama is blaming John Kerry for not being aggressive enough in the practice debates. Al Gore blamed the altitude.

The most delusional excuse is the idea that Obama did this intentionally. This seems to be morphing into the face-saving meme on the left, even though it’s ridiculous. The idea is that Obama wanted to appear thoughtful, presidential, and above-the-fray. Ok. . . then (1) if he meant to appear thoughtful, why did he look confused and uninformed, (2) if he meant to appeal presidential, why did he spend his time looking down at his podium, smirking like an angry jackass, and (3) if his game plan was to appear above-the-fray, why did he spend almost all of his time attacking straw-man presentations of Romney’s plan?

The truth is that Obama used a bad strategy because he didn’t understand what he was doing. Presidential elections involving incumbents are referendums on the incumbent. The electorate focuses on whether or not the incumbent deserves to be sent back to the job for another four years. . . that's it. That means the incumbent must explain why their record is acceptable and they must point out how they will make things better over the next term. Attacking Romney doesn’t give the electorate any reason to return Obama to office. And when Romney kept repeating the facts of Obama’s record, from unemployment to rising tax burdens to falling incomes to the rising cost of goods and healthcare, Obama needed an answer. He needed to explain how he had made things better and how his plan for the future would continue to make things better. He didn’t. Instead, he spent his time criticizing Romney.

I’ve seen this in court over and over, you need to know what the jury needs to hear from you and you need to deliver it. You can provide all the fireworks you want against the other guy, but it does no good if the jury doesn’t hear what they need about your case.

This is what Obama doesn’t understand because he is a neophyte. Looking at his history, there is nothing that tells me that he’s ever had to prove himself to anyone. Because of this, his debate performance was not unexpected or some freakish mistake, it was exactly what his history would predict. And to give you a sense of how unaware Obama is, which bolsters the case that he is a neophyte, Politico reported that Obama didn’t think he’d lost the debate until his aids showed him the tape. Few experienced, talented public speakers would ever lose the crowd and not realize it.

So what to do next? That’s the funny thing. The advice Obama’s getting now, which he’s apparently taking based on his stump speeches since the debate, are to attack Romney harder. They want to see him attack Romney as hating Big Bird, for the 47% comment, and for Bain Capital, which is the silver bullet they think Obama just hasn’t mentioned enough. //rolls eyes...

Of course, that’s absolutely the wrong advice. If Obama wants to win this election, he needs to do the one thing he’s never done before – he needs to convince a skeptical public that he knows what he’s doing. I see no evidence that he knows how to do that, and even worse, I see no evidence that he intends to do that. To the contrary, everything I see tells me that he and the Democrats are going all-in on the attack strategy.

In fact, the MSM seems to be gearing up for that. Politico has declared that Obama immediately “reset” his campaign and the race is off anew. Others are flat out carrying Obama’s water since they now realize he won’t, and they’re basically running Obama-campaign talking points. You’d be amazed, for example, how many MSM outlets are suddenly running with this 47% thing all over again as if Romney keeps saying it. And dozens of articles are being written about Obama suddenly being “energized.” Little is being said of the polls showing Romney taking a statistically significant lead in the polls these same outlets have been trumpeting for weeks now.

They can hang their hopes on Obama’s new energy if they like, but all the energy in the world won’t help when you have the wrong plan, and Obama has the wrong plan.

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The Great (film) Debates vol. 56

Every once in a while, a film contains a character you just can't figure out. What the heck were they thinking?

Name a film character who perplexed you and tell us what one question would you ask them?


Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Film Friday: Fright Night (1985) & (2011)

Remakes are all the rage these days because they come with a built-in audience. You take a film property with an existing fan base, you repeat the story with some twist to make the film feel fresh, you use new special effects or new story-telling techniques, and you’re guaranteed at least a minor hit. Add in a top-named actor like Colin Farrell and you should be looking at quite a moneymaker. That is unless you really screw it up. Welcome to Fright Night 2011!

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Presidential Debate Re-Cap

Last night was a clear Romney victory. Romney was incredibly well prepared, Obama was not. Romney came across as knowledgeable, professional and pleasant. He debunked all of Obama’s attacks over the past few months and presented a clear vision of what his administration would look like. Obama came across as flustered, angry, and lacking any plan for the future. Here are the highlights.

● Romney Themes: Romney main theme all night was focusing on the middle class and on jobs, and he kept saying, “My priority is putting people back to work.” He did an excellent job of personalizing this too, which made him seem genuinely concerned about average Americans. To create jobs, he proposed (1) energy independence, (2) challenging China on currency manipulation, (3) balancing the budget, (4) cutting taxes on small business, and (5) improving retraining for workers.

● Obama Themes: Obama never really mentioned the middle class. He spent the night attacking Romney for trying to cut taxes on the rich, even after Romney debunked this. He also kept attacking Romney for hiding the specifics of his proposals: “he keeps saying repeal and replace, but he won’t tell us what he’ll replace it with.” At first, this seemed to work. But Obama kept saying it on every issue and it began to sound fake. Not to mention, he would claim there were no details and then immediately attack specific details he’d just told us didn’t exist.

● Romney Attacks Obama’s Record: Romney repeatedly hammered Obama on his record, noting “look at the evidence of the last four years”: (1) 23 million people unemployed, (2) the 37 million people on food stamps when Obama took office are now 47 million, (3) slower economic growth year after year, (4) middle class income fell $4,300 under Obama, (5) gas prices doubled, (6) health care costs rose an average of $2,500 per family, (7) food price inflation and electricity prices are up, (8) Obama said he would cut the deficit in half and he’s doubled it, (9) trillion dollar deficits every year, (10) Obama added more to the national debt than all other prior presidents combined, (11) 50% of recent college graduates can’t find work, and (12) one in six people is now below the poverty line.

At first, Obama tried to counter this by blaming Bush (war, economic crisis, unpaid-for tax cuts), but eventually he just sidestepped these attacks. At one point, he even seemed to ask Jim Lehrer to save him by suggesting they should move on. What’s worse, Obama offered no plan to fix this. All he proposed was taxing the rich, hiring 100,000 more teachers, building more community colleges, and giving a minor tax rate cut to manufacturers.

● Obama Attacks Romney’s “Tax Cut”: Obama kept saying Romney wants a $5 trillion tax cut and an additional $2 trillion in military spending. Yet, at the same time, he claimed the average family’s taxes would go up $2,000 under Romney’s plan. Romney debunked all of this, but Obama kept repeating it, which gave Romney the perfect platform to loudly and clearly deny that he plans to raise middle class taxes – something Obama claims in television ads.

● Whoops: The moment that really unsettled Obama came when Obama tried to demonize the oil industry for getting $4 billion in corporate welfare. Romney flipped this on him by pointing out that Obama sunk $90 billion into green energy companies like Solyndra, which is equal to 50 years worth of the corporate welfare Obama was attacking. Romney then went further and named the bankrupt green companies and mentioned they had been Obama contributors before zinging “you don’t just pick and winners and losers, you only pick losers.” Obama seemed stunned by the entire attack.

Romney later repeated this attack after Obama accused him of wanting to cut education spending. Romney used Obama’s own words about budgets exposing real priorities to point out that the $90 billion Obama sunk into these crony companies could have hired two million teachers – 20 times the 100,000 Obama wants to hire now. That stung.

● Romney the Reasonable: All night, Obama did his best to make Romney seem extreme by claiming he wanted to repeal everything, that he wanted to cut taxes on the rich, eliminate all regulation, privatize social security, cut education spending, etc. Romney forcefully denied each of these claims and made it clear that he wants to fix what is wrong rather than wreck the system. This came across as very reasonable, especially as Romney could identify specific parts of each bill he thought should be repealed or saved. Obama seemed unprepared for this moderate approach and just kept repeating the debunked lines, which seemed more and more desperate as he kept doing it.

● Deficit Plans: To cut the deficit, Romney wants to cut spending. His test is, “is this program worth borrowing money from China to pay for it.” He also talked about combining agencies, cutting duplicate programs, and cutting the number of employees, but mentioned this would be through attrition, which will make this a lot less controversial.

Obama countered by claiming he’d already prepared a plan to save $4 trillion, though Romney wondered why Obama hadn’t tried to get it passed. Obama also claimed Romney refuses to raise taxes and thus is not serious about the deficit. This led to an interesting philosophical argument about tax cuts and the economy. Obama insists that tax increases must be part of any plan to balance the budget. Romney claims raising taxes will depress economic growth and the real answer is to lower rates while eliminating loopholes to shift the burden upwards and then to grow the economy to bring in more revenues. That’s Reaganomics, folks!

Romney also pointed out that Obama said in 2010 that you don’t raise taxes during a recession, so he asked why Obama thinks its ok to raise taxes now, even though the economy is weaker. And he claimed Obama’s tax increases would cost 700,000 jobs. Obama had no answer.

● Oil & Gas Obama: At one point, Obama tried to take credit for oil and natural gas production being up in the US. Romney countered that this was all on private land and that Obama has actually cut the number of permits on federal land by half. He did not mention the Keystone Pipeline, but he did mention that he favors coal, which Obama left out of his list of energies.

● Medicare: Medicare came up repeatedly. Obama is trying to spin his $716 billion in Medicare cuts as savings which make the system stronger – he actually makes that claim in ads as well. Romney was ready for this. He claimed that these weren’t savings, they were simply rate cuts and that 15% of hospitals and nursing homes and 50% of doctors have said they won’t take Medicare patients if this happens.

Obama tried to counter by claiming that Romney wants to privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher system. Romney responded that he wants to create a voucher alternative, so there would be two choices for people. Obama admitted this and backtracked to arguing this would leave people on the voucher system unprotected and would cost them $6,000 a year. Romney denied this, claiming everyone would be fully covered. Obama backtracked again and said this would bankrupt the government system because “clever insurance companies” would steal away healthy seniors, and he kept mentioning his grandmother.

● Obamacare: Obama claimed Romney wants to get rid of all of Obamacare and he rattled off the popular provisions: (1) coverage of preexisting conditions, (2) keeping your kids on the plan until age 26, and (3) no arbitrary caps on coverage. Romney said he wants to keep the first two. Obama countered that Romney’s plan doesn’t keep the first, but then strangely proved that Romney’s plan actually does. Obama also got into trouble when he tried to counter Romney’s mentioning that a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats will decide what kind of healthcare you can get. Obama denied this, claiming instead that they would try to force best practices on all hospitals. He cited the Cleveland Clinic as an example of how great this can work. Romney then flipped it around and noted that the Cleveland Clinic is a private business and thus proves the superiority of the free market to solve these problems. Obama had no answer.

After all of this, Obama tried to claim he copied Romneycare when he made Obamacare. This struck me as stupid because it made Romney the expert. It also let Romney explain where Obama failed to copy Romneycare correctly.

● Who’s A Crony?: Obama kept accusing Romney of wanting to help Wall Street, but this rang hollow because he used it in response to everything from Obamacare to education, and because Romney pointed out that Dodd Frank was a “huge kiss” to New York banks because it designated 15 banks as too big to fail and guaranteed them taxpayer protection. Obama was caught off guard on this and clearly doesn’t know the provision. Combined with Solyndra, this nicely exposed Obama’s cronyism. He also accused Obama of harming the housing market because Dodd Frank penalizes risky loans, but hasn’t defined that term, so lenders won’t lend. This is a sore spot for Obama who faces fire from the left for not fixing the mortgage crisis.

● A Jerk To The End: Right at the end, both were asked to describe their view of the role of government. Obama got down into the weeds and talked about hiring teachers and accused Romney of not wanting great teachers. Romney took this apart by explaining that Massachusetts is the top state for education because of his efforts. He then went on to describe his vision which was both positive and hopeful. He talked about the federal government’s job being the promotion of the values in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He talked about protecting the life and liberty of the public through a strong military, about the right to pursue happiness including protecting those who need help, about preserving religious tolerance and freedom and letting Americans pursue their own dreams. This was Reaganesque. Obama looked petty.

Then the moderator asked them to explain how they would overcome the partisan divide. Romney talked about being governor of a solidly Democratic state and how he found common ground without surrendering his principles. He mentioned that both Democrats and Republicans love America and he said it takes leadership to bring people together. Obama then began his response with a poorly timed partisan swipe at Romney, followed by claiming credit for his own accomplishments and accusing the Republicans of trying to help Wall Street and taking away people’s healthcare. So much for bipartisanship.

● The Reaction: The reaction has been brutal for Obama. All the pundits agreed Romney won and many seemed pretty despondent over Obama’s performance. T-Rav sent us this link of Chris Matthews blowing a gasket: LINK. Bill Maher tweeted that Obama made great points. . . for Romney. And the conservative world is intensely energized tonight.

In the end, what truly stood out to me was just how amazingly prepared Romney is for this job. Assuming he wins, he may be the most capable man to occupy the office in decades. Moreover, I am thrilled that his answers remained fundamentally conservative throughout as he never lost track of the true role of government and the limits on its power. This was a good night.

Thoughts? Anything I missed?

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Toon-arama: Coraline (2009)

by tryanmax
The month of October is upon us, meaning it is time for ghost stories, trick-or-treats, and horror movies! And, yes, there are even a few scary cartoons to be seen. Among them, the stop-animation film Coraline is perhaps one of the most authentic animated horror films, meaning it actually aims to frighten rather than simply borrowing horror elements to place in a comic or adventure setting. The film’s themes and events are remarkably mature and sufficiently disturbing to rank well within the genre. Additionally, the film is a feast for the eyes with the traits of a Halloween classic.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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First Presidential Debate Thread!!

Tonight's debate will be from the University of Denver, and will be hosted by Jim Lehrer of PBS's "NewsHour." Cookies and Obama Phones will be handed out to everyone in the audience. Questions will focus on domestic policy and what kind of tree each candidate wishes he was.

Hmm? Anyone have any idea what "domestic policy" means? Feel free to enlighten us in the comments. Or tell us what kind of tree you think each candidate should be?! :)


As an aside, here's the rest of the debate schedule:

Oct 11: Vice Presidential Debate, Foreign and domestic topics
Oct 16: Second Presidential Debate, Town Hall meeting format
Oct 22: Third Presidential Debate, Foreign policy

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Obama II: The Wish List

Some of you may have heard there’s an election coming up in November. That’s on Tuesday November 6th for Republicans and Tuesday November 11th for any Democrats who may read this. And Wednesday night we will be covering the debate here with an open thread. Bring your friends! In the meantime, here’s something interesting: the Democratic Wish List for Obama’s second term.

This comes from an article in The Hill, wherein they spoke with numerous Democrats to find out what they think Obama will do if re-elected. . . or what they hope he will do. It is instructive:

● Jobs!!: The Democrats know they need to create jobs while “dealing with the debt.” For this, they cite Obama’s ideas last year of boosting infrastructure spending, promoting manufacturing and hiking taxes on corporations that outsource jobs. Forget that they already tried all of this and it all failed. But that’s liberal thinking for you, if at first you don’t succeed... just keep doing it with more money.

● Immigration: The Democrats think that if Hispanics vote overwhelming for Obama, then the Republicans will cave on immigration, but they think the “window” for this would close by the end of 2013. None of them say what they want in this regard, but presumably it would be a general amnesty and funding for the children of illegal immigrants to go to college (DREAM Act). But 70% of the population opposes their plan, including a majority of Democrats.

● Climate Change: The Democrats want to get back on the climate change/global warming short bus by “focusing on energy efficiency” to “create jobs” (read: green jobs) and reduce carbon emissions (read: cap and trade). It’s fascinating that they are so obsessed with this now that the science is disproving all the claims upon which their theory is based: record ice flows, falling temperatures for two decades, fewer hurricanes, and none of the claimed disasters have come to pass. The green jobs thing became a corruption fiasco and hasn’t worked for any country who tried it, so we’d be throwing good money after bad, and the big polluters are ignoring carbon entirely.

● Healthcare reform: The Democrats plan to push to “expand” state-based insurance exchanges by creating a “federal exchange.” Talk about doublespeak! In other words, they want to absorb healthcare to the federal level and create a Medicare-like organization to manage all private insurance. That’s a disaster and the next to final step toward socialization.

Man, it’s like Obama’s first term never happened, isn’t it? They passed several jobs bills, none of which created jobs, so now they want to do it all over again. They passed ObamaCare which was supposed to fix everything but now it needs a fundamental change to fix our still broken system. Not to mention, they could have done this when they had the filibuster-proof majority, but they lost their nerve. They also lost their nerve on immigration reform and cap and trade. What makes them think things will be different now?

That’s where this gets funny, actually. They claim that Obama winning will pressure Republicans to join them on these issues. Huh?

Basically, they claim that Obama has momentum, based on the fake polls we took apart last week, and that momentum means he will have a mandate and the Republicans will need to listen. Yeah right. That didn’t work for Clinton in 1996 or George W. Bush in 2004, and it didn’t really work for Reagan in 1984 either. And why would the Republicans agree to do things that the Democrats couldn’t even do themselves? On moderate things, sure, it’s possible Republicans will feel pressured, but not on the things that gave them an historic victory in 2010. . . things the Democrats won’t even touch themselves.

I find this list cynical. What this represents is an attempt to lie to the Democratic base, to make them believe the party will “fight” for things the party has proven they won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. If you’re a Democrat, I wouldn’t believe a word on this list. . . oh, and don’t forget to vote November 11th.

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Supreme Courtin' It

There’s a lot of buzz suddenly about the Supreme Court possibly changing the course of the election. The thinking is that with the Supremes about to hear several controversial cases right before the election, that could excite one side or the other to turn out. Uh... no. Few people connect the Court to the election. Moreover, the Court won’t be issuing rulings until after the election. Still, there are some interesting cases coming up.

● Case No. 1: Affirmative Action. Fisher v. U. of Texas is an affirmative action case arising out of the admissions program at the University of Texas. Texas uses race as a consideration in its admissions to ensure educational diversity. Nine years ago, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court said this was acceptable, but the Court has since moved to the right.

When it was originally created, affirmative action was approved by the Court on the basis that it would involve discrimination in favor of certain groups to address “prior wrongs.” This meant, it could be used only where there had been prior discrimination. This was meant to justify discriminating against people who never discriminated themselves because supposedly their racial/gender group had benefited even if they hadn’t. Over time, however, it spread to virtually everywhere, and it got the point that it applied to more than 60% of the public including people who had just arrived in America. That’s when the Court began reining it back in.

In this case, Fisher, who is white, claims that she would have been admitted to the school if she had been any other race. Texas counters that diversity is important to them. Obama’s Justice Department has backed the University.

It’s not clear what the Court will do, though Justice Roberts has attacked affirmative action in the past as being “a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas all opposed the Grutter case allowing race to be used at all, and Alito likely sides with them. So it’s possible the Court will end the use of race in admissions and hiring, or at least require proof of direct discrimination. That said, they could also rule much more narrowly by saying that race may not be used where a goal like diversity can be achieved through some race-neutral means (like taking the top X% of high school graduates within the state or looking at family income). Or they could just affirm the present order.

● Case No. 2: Gay Marriage. The Supreme Court is likely to take on two gay marriage cases. The first involves the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA defines marriage federally as between a man and a woman and denies around 1,000 federal benefits (tax breaks, social security benefits, burial services, etc.) to gay couples who have been legally married in their home states. Obama’s Justice Department has refused to defend the law and several lower courts have already ruled it unconstitutional. How the Supreme Court will rule is unclear, but I suspect they will strike DOMA down.

In the past, the Supreme Court has overwhelmingly struck down laws which denied gays the same rights and protections afforded to heterosexuals. In Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, the Court struck down a law making gay sex illegal. In Romer v. Evans in 1996, the Court struck down a Colorado amendment which banned the passage of gay rights laws. It’s likely that the Court will conclude that DOMA illegally discriminates between lawfully married couples and will strike it down.

The Court may also take on the more significant Hollingsworth’s case, which involves California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. Prop 8 was struck down by the Ninth Circuit on narrow grounds rather than on the basis of some right for gays to be married, but the practical effect of that ruling would be to allow California to go forward with gay marriage.

The Supreme Court could refuse to hear the case (deny cert) in which event the law would remain struck down. Or it could affirm the decision or overturn it. If I had to guess, I would say the Court avoids deciding whether or not there is a right for gays to marry and will instead find some technical reason to affirm or overturn the Ninth Circuit’s ruling. My guess is that ultimately (in some later ruling), the Supreme Court will affirm the right of the states to make up their own minds on the issue of gay marriage, and in anticipation of that ruling, it will stick very closely to making sure that each side complied with California’s legal process in this case. Thus, whichever side should have won under California’s election/legislative process will prevail. . . but the issue won’t be decided under the United States Constitution. But you never know.

● Case No. 3: Voting Rights Act. In 2006, the Congress extended the portion of the Voting Rights Act which requires state and local governments “with a history of discrimination” to get advance approval from the Justice Department before they can change their voting rules. Congress extended this law 25 more years and Bush signed it. It applies to Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, as well as some counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and New Hampshire.

When the Court reviewed this provision in 2009, it expressed significant skepticism, but did not rule on its validity at the time. Said Justice Roberts:

“We are now a very different nation [than the one that first enacted the Voting Rights Act]. Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”

With Congress renewing the law but without making any changes, and with these states arguing that any discrimination was in the distant past, it’s likely that if the Court hears this case that it will strike down or significantly narrow this provision. The practical implications of this can be seen in things like the recent Voter ID laws, which essentially need Justice Department approval or need to be litigated in advance. Without this provision, states would be much more free to pass these law and would no longer be presumed to have discriminatory intent.

Thoughts?

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