Category Archives: Politics

Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow

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I catch The Colbert Report every once in a while, but after reading this article about Colbert's (real) Super PAC and the way he's using it as a kind of grand performance art experiment/exploration of our current political environment, I think I need to add him to the old DVR list.  This is just brilliant:

In June, after petitioning the Federal Election Commission, he started his own super PAC — a real one, with real money. He has run TV ads, endorsed (sort of) the presidential candidacy of Buddy Roemer, the former governor of Louisiana, and almost succeeded in hijacking and renaming the Republican primary in South Carolina. “Basically, the F.E.C. gave me the license to create a killer robot,” Colbert said to me in October, and there are times now when the robot seems to be running the television show instead of the other way around.

“It’s bizarre,” remarked an admiring Jon Stewart, whose own program, “The Daily Show,” immediately precedes “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central and is where the Colbert character got his start. “Here is this fictional character who is now suddenly interacting in the real world. It’s so far up its own rear end,” he said, or words to that effect, “that you don’t know what to do except get high and sit in a room with a black light and a poster.”

In August, during the run-up to the Ames straw poll, some Iowans were baffled to turn on their TVs and see a commercial that featured shots of ruddy-cheeked farm families, an astronaut on the moon and an ear of hot buttered corn. It urged viewers to cast write-in votes for Rick Perry by spelling his name with an “a” — “for America.” A voice-over at the end announced that the commercial had been paid for by an organization called Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, which is the name of Colbert’s super PAC, an entity that, like any other super PAC, is entitled to raise and spend unlimited amounts of soft money in support of candidates as long as it doesn’t “coordinate” with them, whatever that means. Of such super-PAC efforts, Colbert said, “This is 100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.”

 

Christmas and Flying Spaghetti Monsters

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Remember our little local dust-up about flying the Christian flag at the veteran's memorial in King?  Imagine how nutty folks around here would get if, like Leesburg, VA, we had the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster vying for space with the traditional manger scene.

For the better part of 50 years, a creche and a Christmas tree were the only holiday displays on theLoudoun County Courthouse grounds.

Then came the atheists. And the Jedis. And the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – each with its own decorations. A skeleton Santa Claus was mounted on a cross, intended by its creator to portray society's obsession with consumerism. Nearby, a pine tree stood adorned with atheist testimonials.

Flying Spaghetti Monster devotees are scheduled to put up their contribution this weekend. It's a banner portraying a Nativity-style scene, but Jesus is nowhere to be found. Instead, the Virgin Mary cradles a stalk-eyed noodle-and-meatball creature, its manger surrounded by an army of pirates, a solemn gnome and barnyard animals. The message proclaims: "Touched by an Angelhair."

Given our recent debates about the Christian flag and the controversy over the right (or not) to carry concealed weapons in local parks, there's a little part of my brain that would love to see what would happen around here if we had a similar setup to Leesburg's.  In that juvenile little part of my head I picture this scene:

Bible-quoting sharpshooters taking aim at spaghetti-eating atheists and agnostics who dive for cover, sending sauce and meatballs skyward during their panic, asking Mama Celeste for help since God's out of the picture until their own contingent of pistol packers can get their firearms unholstered and de-trigger locked to return fire.  Thankfully no one's hurt since none of the participants ever served in the military and thus never received truly effective arms training, although two bullets do somehow hit something – one Christian is saved by the lucky (divine?) presence of a condensed pocket-sized King James and one innocent bystander who picked a wildly inopportune time to squat for a meditation is spared when his tattered copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes a direct hit. Eventually cooler heads prevail when the Occupy Wall Streeters, who were minding their own business in their designated protest box, step across their chalk line to broker a truce in which the atheists and agnostics provide a spaghetti supper for everyone at the park free of charge, the Christians put on their Christmas production, collection plates are passed and everyone splits the proceeds.

I'd pay to see it.

United Republic

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Although I think United Republic would be a great name for a band for the purposes of this post it refers to a new organization that wants to get big money out of politics.  While I'm somewhat sympathetic to the Occupy movement, and very skeptical as to its actual effectiveness, I think that groups like United Republic offer more promise to actually do something to help fix our political system. Here's a short video featuring Larry Lessig talking about the new coalition:

Lawrence Lessig Welcomes Rootstrikers to United Republic from Rootstrikers on Vimeo.

 

Adams (or someone like him) in ’12

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Scott Adams, the dude behind Dilbert, says he's running for POTUS as an Independent in 2012.  You have to believe him because he wrote it in his blog which, as we all know, is how you know you're dealing with someone serious.  Even if he doesn't run I'd like to have a candidate who thinks like he does:

On the budget, I propose a plan to cut every Federal government expense by 10% and increase every Federal tax by 10%. I'd call that the default plan, meaning I prefer a better plan, but I wouldn't expect anyone to come up with one. The advantage of this plan is that it's bad for every American. That's a little something I call "fair."

I'd also call a public debate on the topic of supply side economics, to end once and for all the question of whether lowering taxes increases government revenues. I would host the debate myself, with a Judge Judy sort of approach, and decide the winner. If it turns out that my proposed 10% tax increase would reduce government revenue, I'd cancel that part of my plan the same day.

I'd propose capping the amount any one person can inherit per death at $50 million. Estates can choose to donate the rest to charities, distribute it to stockholders, or give it up in taxes. $50 million is more than enough to turn any offspring into a lazy, self-absorbed, drug addicted, douche bag. Any more would be a waste. That plan needs some fine tuning, but you get the idea.

As President, I would remain deeply committed to flip-flopping. If new information or better thinking changes my opinion, so be it. That's how brains are supposed to work.

I can also promise that I won't try to remember the names of other world leaders, federal agencies, or even my own staff. Only an idiot believes a president can remember all of that stuff. 

You Know You’ve Ticked Them Off When…

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You know you've ticked off the voting public when two candidates for village council seats win via write-in and the mayor almost loses to a write-in.  Voters in Clemmons were sufficiently teed off at some of the candidates on the ballot (it had to do with a bond referendum and what appears to be a rift between a "new guard" and an "old guard") that they voted in two people who weren't even on the ballot, and narrowly missed voting out the incumbent mayor with a write-in campaign.  That's what I'd call a motivated voting populace.

Over in Lewisville things were much more sedate. I had the pleasure of serving on the Planning Board with two of the town council's newcomers, Sandy Mock, who garnered the most votes and Ed Smith who wasn't far behind in the vote count.  I think they'll do a great job for the town.

13% Ain’t So Bad

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So Gallup says that Congress' approval rating is at 13%, tied for an all-time low.  You might be tempted to think that this bodes ill for the current members of Congress, but I'd like to point out a few things that may help explain why low approval ratings probably won't translate into a lot of carnage for Congressional incumbents on Election Day 2012:

  • I bet if you did a separate poll for each member of Congress that asked his or her constituents how they were doing you'd get numbers showing a much higher approval rating.
  • I bet most of us think we do a fine job selecting our own Congresscritters, but the idiots in other parts of the country are TERRIBLE at selecting theirs.
  • The vast majority of incumbents will be facing off against people who are no great shakes themselves, and who are likely to be running poorly funded campaigns.  We tend to vote for the folks who spend the most to buy our love, so this doesn't bode well for challengers.

Sadly I don't have much hope for getting an improved Congress because I don't have a lot of confidence in the rest of us demanding one.

 

 

Independence

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I've never belonged to a political party and although I understand why belonging to political parties is attractive to some folks I just can't see affiliating myself with a group that I know I'm going to disagree with on a healthy percentage of issues.  Let's just say that in my lifetime I've been profoundly disappointed by both of the major political parties in America and amused/frightened by all of the fringe parties I've come across.

On the other hand I'm scared crapless of a no-party system.  Can you imagine how hard it would be to get anything done without the parties?  They do provide a structure for negotiations; people who are philosophically aligned on a majority of issues agreeing to negotiate through a representative with another group that is likewise made up of people who are generally in agreement on most issues.  So yes, I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I do appreciate what the party structure provides but I'll be damned if I'm going to be a member of a party.

Today's news brings two stories that I think highlight the pros and cons of our party systems.  Here in North Carolina the General Assembly just voted to override the Governor's veto of a controversial abortion bill.  One member of the Senate Republican caucus originally voted against the bill before it was vetoed by the Governor, but when the override vote came along he abstained, which in effect enabled the override.  Here's what Doug Clark wrote in the Greensboro News & Record:

"He said the Senate Republican caucus made this abortion vote a 'caucus issue,' a vote where members would face sanctions if they voted out of line with other Republicans. Such sanctions could range from everything from being tossed out of the caucus or losing committee chairmanship to facing party-sponsored opposition in a primary."

Bingham yielded. He didn't vote yes or no, but simply took a walk. Without his opposition, the Republicans captured the necessary number of votes of "those present" to override the veto…

This kind of bullying — and it goes on in both parties — clearly is effective, but it wouldn't be if enough legislators would stand up for what they truly think is right. If the rank-and-file break ranks, the power of the leaders erodes.

Good legislators have backbone, and good legislation is not likely to be achieved by the threat of discipline.

I agree that legislators should always vote their conscience, but I also think that when you commit to a party you're committing to upholding the party's position and it would be difficult to turn the party for support on a bill you're sponsoring if you don't support the party's position on other bills. I'm not saying it's right, but I think that's one of the problems inherent to political party membership.

The other news item is the increasingly frantic debate in Congress about raising the debt ceiling.  The news du jour is that the Republican Speaker of the House can't get his party unified behind a Republican proposal in the House.  It seems that members of the conservative Tea Party segment of the Republican party, a group that swept into the House in last year's mid-term election, are refusing to budge from their own philosophical ground and are refusing to play ball with the Republican party leadership.  In other words they want to vote their conscience and they're being beaten up by the party bosses for it:

A frustrated House Speaker John Boehner had a blunt message Wednesday for his cavalier Tea Party colleagues: "Get your ass in line" behind the GOP's debt ceiling plan…

Boehner believes Senate Democrats will cave if Republicans in the House can rally behind his nearly $1 trillion proposal to raise the nation's debt limit ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury will run out of money to pay all its bills.

So "get your ass in line," Boehner demanded.

His spanking of rank-and-file Republicans came after it looked like an all-out war was erupting within the House GOP, which has nearly 100 Tea Party fiscal hawks.

Many Tea Party-backed conservatives insist Boehner's debt plan is too soft.

The infighting has forced Boehner to postpone a vote on his proposal until Thursday.

When you think about it from the individual legislators' perspective they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.  Defy the party bosses and vote their conscience?  Well you're gonna be skewered by the party and risk losing their backing when you need it.  Toe the party line even if you don't agree with it on a particular issue? You risk being seen as a party hack who's more loyal to the party than the country (or state or county) and you could lose favor back home.  That, in a nutshell, is why I could never see myself belonging to a party.  Heck, even as a rank and file member I'd spend all my time defending why I was not with the party on particular issues and, even worse from my perspective, the minute people see that "D" or "R" next to my name they're going to assume I agree with the party's position on any given issue. I can't stand the thought of being labeled like that.  

Sunlighting the Lobbyists

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The Sunlight Foundation and the National Journal are trying to crowdsource the identities of lobbyists:

On May 11, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee held a hearing on the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger. Titled "Is Humpty Dumpty Being Put Back Together Again?" the hearing was concerned with possible antitrust issues, questions of competition, access to wireless service, rising costs and the loss of jobs.

Of course, Washington lobbyists had their own concerns and not surprisingly, the room was packed. In concert with National Journal, we at Sunlight decided to turn the cameras around 180 degrees to see who was watching the hearing. Our hope is that you can help us identify D.C.'s power brokers and assorted lobbyists who have an interest in influencing the Senate's view on the proposed merger.

Something tells me that RayBans and hoodies are going to be popular at Hill meetings in the near future.