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Category: Politics Page 39 of 73

Friday Notes: Surprise Edition

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On September 26, 2008

In Cycling, DC, Distribution, Law, Politics, Society, Virginia

The surprise, of course, is that I’m actually getting a Friday Notes out.

First, I apparently screwed up the first video in this post about Idiocracy (yes, I note the irony).  Since no one told me about it, that means no one looked at the videos.  I blame you.  You are hereby sentenced to go watch it.

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Do Virginia Republicans do anything but whine about non-existent attacks on them?  Del. Bill Carrico was just on WAMU’s Politics Hour going on about how awful it is that the Fourth Circuit said a state employee can’t use his office to lead a mass prayer to Jesus Christ (in particular.  Non-denoms are okay).  You’d think that the Fourth Circuit was burning Christians at the stake.  More about the issue here (with a similarly overwrought tone) and here (which brings it back to reality).

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A friend turned me on the Fratellis’ Flathead track last week.  Because Universal is still afraid of its customers, I can’t embed the video.  So check it out.  (Warning: this song came to me as a volley in an earworm war.)

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CycleTo – a well-produced site run by a fellow with a lot of access in the sport – picked up some of my shots from last weekend’s ING Direct Capital Criterium.  CycleTo does a lot of original short video interviews (like this recent one with Levi Leipheimer at Worlds in Varese).  If you’re into pro cycling, give them a look.

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Looks like the Associated Press lent the McCain campaign its time machine.

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You’ve probably recieved one of those fear-mongering “don’t wear buttons to the polls!” email this week.  Vivian Paige lays out the law for Virginia residents, and Adam Bonin gives us a national view.

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Sign war amusement.

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It’s often easy to assume that all of humanity’s easy problems have been solved.  This is a reminder that simple ideas can still make a difference.

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I somehow missed the recent skirmishes over the role of the US military personnel on American soil.  If you find it as interesting as I do, this is as good a place as any to jump in.

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What are you do this weekend?  Depending on the weather, I’ll either be at Bike DC or the Charlottesville Vegetarian Festival.

Wait, Am I Cheering House Republicans?

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On September 26, 2008

In Policy, Politics

By all accounts, it’s the House Republicans who stand in the way of a bailout deal.  And you know what?  I think I’m glad they’re doing it.  Now, I don’t give them an ounce of credit for their intentions, but I’m quite happy to let them drag this thing out while we figure out what it is we really need to do.

And just what is it we need to do?  I still feel like I don’t know.  This has been a rather difficult issue to wrap my head around.  That difficulty doesn’t come from an inability to understand what the various parties are saying – it’s just that I don’t know who to believe about the extent of the problem.  And of that group that I should believe, how do I account for their motivations in the proposed fix?  There are things that are easy to dismiss – Paulson’s opaque “trust me”, House Republicans’ reflexive “tax cuts!”, and Democrats’ populist compensation caps.  But after those broad brush issues, the important questions are still unanswered.  Buy what?  At what cost?  For how long?  What if?  *Why?* There *are* answers to these questions, but until we get them, I’m not interested in a deal going forward.

And what are the consequences of not acting-right-now-this-very-moment?  That’s another unanswered question, as far as I’m concerned.  And while it may well have grave consequence, people much smarter than me think we ought to stop and ask that question, too:

A funny thing happened in the drafting of the largest-ever U.S. government intervention in the financial system. Lawmakers of all stripes mostly fell in line, but many of the nation’s brightest economic minds are warning that the Wall Street bailout’s a dangerous rush job.

President Bush and his Treasury secretary, former Goldman Sachs chief executive Henry Paulson, have warned of imminent economic collapse and another Great Depression if their rescue plan isn’t passed immediately.

Is that true?

“It’s more hype than real risk,” said James K. Galbraith, a University of Texas economist and son of the late economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. “A nasty recession is possible, but the bailout will not cure that. So it’s mainly relevant to the financial industry.”

[ . . . ]

Coming out of the White House on Thursday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Alabama’s Richard Shelby, held up what he said was a five-page list of economists opposing the rescue plan.

“This is not me. This is economists at Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Chicago, our leading universities,” an exasperated Shelby told reporters. He called the administration plan “flawed from the beginning.”

So what do to?  Answer the questions before any bailout gets passed.  To the extent that the House Republicans are playing a part in creating the circumstances for that to happen, I’ll be cheering them on.

Idiocracy: Coming Soon to a Society Near You

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On September 25, 2008

In Politics, Society

I try to keep my natural misanthropy in check, but it’s been a little harder to do in the past week.  I’ve found myself invoking the term “idiocracy” more often.  It comes from a  2006 movie of the same name that was largely forgotten ( on balance, probably a fair fate).  The opening scene was brilliant, however, and something that I’ve recommended to people far and wide.  I’d never been able to find it online until now:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1sE1E3z7jU[/youtube]

Bonus: When searching for the above clip, I found another one, in which President Camacho addresses the House of Representin’ with a three-point plan to save us all by putting one man in charge of saving us all.  Nah, no parallels there:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxJnf5tkfoo[/youtube]

Sarah Silverman’s Great Schlep

By

On September 25, 2008

In Politics

Pure Sarah Silverman advocating The Great Schlep.

McCain Campaign: Straight Talk Express Completely Off the Rails?

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On September 25, 2008

In Politics

I think we’re seeing another demonstration of the “first time as tragedy, second time as farce” maxim with the McCain campaign.  The whole suspending-the-campaign-to-save-the-economy schtick is a naked political ploy.  But it seems he can’t even pull that off without getting caught in bald-faced lies.  The clip below is from last night’s David Letterman, whom McCain cancelled on at the last minute, telling Letterman (personally) that he was “racing back to Washington” and couldn’t be on the show.  The whole 9 minute clip is worth watching, but if you only want the punchline, watch the first minute or so and then fast forward to 6:40.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjkCrfylq-E&e[/youtube]

McCain – just can’t tell the truth when there’s a chance to tell a lie.

McCain Suspension – Run Away, Run Away!

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On September 24, 2008

In Politics

I have to wonder – is it because his campaign staff is needed back at their real jobs?

I have to hand it to McCain, as this strategy of running away – Palin from scruitiny, Davis from the press, and McCain from the campaign itself – certainly is novel. I hope the Obama campaign sticks with the debate on Friday. I’d very much like to hear McCain explain how the approach he and his fellow dereg fetishists didn’t contribute mightily to the present situation.

Update: I knew that McCain was (by far) the most-absent Senator, which I didn’t entirely begrudge (unless he was leveling hypocritical charges about the same thing). I didn’t, however, realize it was this bad:

The prodigal son returns. John McCain has announced that America is finally confronting a crisis that he doesn’t feel he can be absent for.

Some fun facts about John McCain: Of all Senators, John McCain has been the most absent. There have been 643 votes taken in the current Senate session: McCain has missed 412 of them.

McCain has not voted in the Senate since April 8th. Since March, he has missed 109 of the last 110 votes.

He missed votes on the GI Bill, energy policy, and in 2007 he missed “all 15 critical environmental votes in the Senate” — giving him a 2007 rating of 0% from the League of Conservation Voters.  [emphasis supplied]

And *now* he feels like he’s got something to contribute? Heh. Thanks but no thanks.

And Here’s Your Moment of Sad . . .

By

On September 24, 2008

In Personal, Politics, UK

Let me put this on my permanent record: I had more faith in and hope for Tony Blair than I ever did George Bush.  One of the few bright spots that I recalled from the result of 2000 was thinking that at least Blair could help keep Bush in check. There were, as you might imagine, many lessons that came from the disappointment that followed.  I was reminded of most of them when Tony Blair sat down at the Daily Show last week.  In case you missed it:

And part 2:

The McCain Campaign: Lies from Lying Liars

By

On September 22, 2008

In Politics

This just makes me smile:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

[A]s he went on to list a series of stories he thought reporters should be writing about Obama and Biden, in almost every instance he got the details wrong.

Gosh. Who would have thought?

Alabama Voter Caging

By

On September 19, 2008

In Politics

Literally.

(This surprised me in a number of ways.)

Where’s Jim Webb?

By

On September 18, 2008

In Politics, Virginia

Jim Webb’s head just showed up on my TV screen, during the Rachel Maddow Show.  “Finally,” I thought,”He’s going to come out swinging for Obama!”.  Umm,  no.  He was there to defend retiring Sen. Chuck Hagel, in the way of his comments about Palin’s incompetence.  And while that’s a completely honorable thing to do, I still have to wonder – where’s Jim Webb?  He’s the one who was hailed at the great white hope for Democrats in Virginia.  So why is it that it’s Terry Freakin’ McAuliffe that’s going on a tour of Virginia (ostensibly in support of Obama, but mostly to find out that the idea of him running for governor is a complete joke)?  I know Virginia’s Democrats have a tradition of identifying themselves as anything *but* Democrats, but this is getting ridiculous . . .

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