Politics As Usual

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
To answer you and Ty -- no such implication taken. I'm an old skool GOPer, so I do think (like Kerry, who is also old skool on this one) that the issue should be left to the states.

I also don't believe that bringing a bill, or an amendment to the floor, even with a slim chance of passage, is a frivolous activity. First off, vote counting is imperfect--I don't want to see only bills that will pass brought to the floor. And as a citizen we shouldn't see only the dead-bang winners. Second, it is important for everyone to see exactly how much (or how little) support the FMA really has. I want a straight up-or-down vote to show both the right wing of hte republican party and its supporters that they're out of the mainstream on this one. And having chickenshit abstentions doesn't help.

Do you think it's better for the amendment to die at this procedural stage, or to go on to a full discussion?

I mean, maybe Kerry wants it to get to a debate so he can make some fiery, deeply inspired and impassioned speech against using the Constitution to enshrine discrimination and to detract from the states' rights to decide issues of social moment.

On the other hand.....

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I could ask a third time, but why make you duck the question again? I think I have your answer.

Who died and made you the No "There" There Kid?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Who died and made you the No "There" There Kid?

Penske and Slave, respectively, but it was more to do with Penske's socks dying or something.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Can any of you explain the 99-1 vote on the FCC fines. It can't be political cowardice. Teddy isn't afraid to vote his own way, plus the Iraq war vote had like 10 "nos" didn't it?

seriously, any explanation?

Senators are old and stodgy (mostly). Senators don't much like public "indecency" -- and don't see it as a big free speech issue. Their activist constituencies generally don't support Howard's right to be grossly vulgar -- or at least, see nothing wrong with setting limits on his exercise of that right.

It also is due to the sort of attack politics we play today. Who wants to be on record voting against a fine for, e.g., broadcasting simulated sex occuring in a cathedral during services, or a graphic discussion of cunnilingus? The concerned parents/fuddy-duddy vote really outweighs the youth/free-speeach activist vote.

S_A_M

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Who wants to be on record voting against a fine for, e.g., broadcasting simulated sex occuring in a cathedral during services, or a graphic discussion of cunnilingus? The concerned parents/fuddy-duddy vote really outweighs the youth/free-speeach activist vote.

Indeed. Plus, the geographic nature of the Senate is such that it results in lopsided votes even when the country is split a little more closely (as, I think, it is in the case). If the country were split 51:49 against Howard, but the distribution of anti-Howard voters was perfect among all states, the Senate vote could be 100:0 as a result of the "electoral college" effect in the Senate. Think Reagan v. Mondale. 59:41 popular vote, but 525:13 electoral.

Commence Slave's start blaming the Dems for having an inefficient distribution of voters to counteract the GOP Christian social agenda.

[Sidd Finch]

Amazing -- I ignore Hank for weeks and he talks shit about me every day. I respond to him head-on, and he has nothing to say.

Since we're talking about anti-Semitism* and the appropriate level of government response to same, I took a look at stats for hate crimes in the US. The FBI has an annual statistical report that shows, for 2002, an average of over 3 crimes a day against Jews -- far more than against any other religious group.

Can someone tell me the last time Bush condemned an attack on Jews? That Chirac-ist bastard.



*defined by that numbskull Webster as "Hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group" -- which is really interesting because I invented using the term in that fashion.

[Not Me]

http://www.votenader.org/contribute/index.php?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Indeed. Plus, the geographic nature of the Senate is such that it results in lopsided votes even when the country is split a little more closely (as, I think, it is in the case). If the country were split 51:49 against Howard, but the distribution of anti-Howard voters was perfect among all states, the Senate vote could be 100:0 as a result of the "electoral college" effect in the Senate. Think Reagan v. Mondale. 59:41 popular vote, but 525:13 electoral.

Commence Slave's start blaming the Dems for having an inefficient distribution of voters to counteract the GOP Christian social agenda.

I wonder if Howard listeners would tend to vote with the Christian right on non-Howard like issues.

I wonder more if Howard listeners vote much at all. Is he pushing a get-out-the-vote drive now?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Not Me
http://www.votenader.org/contribute/index.php?

Has he gotten on any state ballots yet?

If he doesn't, can he turn over his campaign funds to the Kerry campaign? Or just run a bunch of anti-Bush announcements?

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Amazing -- I ignore Hank for weeks and he talks shit about me every day. I respond to him head-on, and he has nothing to say.

I think you and Hank need to get together and have a grudge fuck. You can flip a coin to see who will be the pitcher and who will be the catcher.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
Who died and made you the No "There" There Kid?

McSweeney's is waaaay too smug for its own good.

Now back to bedlam....

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I wonder more if Howard listeners vote much at all.

Other than Club, I think most Howard listeners are too stupid to figure out how to register to vote.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Marshall responds to the Taranto opinionjournal piece:

Originally posted with internal links (omitted here) on http:talkingpointsmemo.com
A Republican lobbyist friend just sent me a link to today's Best of the Web column at the Wall Street Journal's opinionjournal.com. There James Taranto goes on a long and detailed series of responses and criticisms of things I've written over the last few days about the Plame controversy.

First (or rather last in Taranto's piece) is the answer to the question I asked yesterday. That was, if the decision to reveal Plame's identity creates no political or legal problems for the leakers, why don't they come forward?

The answer, Taranto says, is that doing so would expose them to further vilification from sites like TPM.

I think that explanation speaks for itself.

Then there's the matter of legal jeopardy for the leakers. Taranto seems to believe that it is legally significant whether the White House officials revealed Plame's identity to damage her personally or to damage Wilson's credibility by alleging she played a role in sending him on the trip -- thus making her collateral damage.

Taranto's point is that the White House was just trying to damage Wilson politically, albeit with what Taranto believes is a valid criticism. They didn't have any particular desire to expose Plame's identity. It was just that it was necessary to expose her identity in order to attack Wilson's credibility.

This, as we noted earlier, is the imagined 'need to attack the credibility of political opponents' exception to the law in question, which pretty clearly doesn't exist. The Wall Street Journal must have some in-house attorneys that Taranto could discuss this with.

It may be that these two valiant worthies could only serve the cause of the higher truth by breaking the law, a sort of oddly insider form of civil disobedience. But they were still breaking the law.

What would be a defense is if the leakers, for whatever reason, did not know Plame was covert. But, as we noted late last year, a careful analysis of both the language Novak used to describe Plame and that which he's used in past columns to describe other covert CIA employees makes it pretty clear that Novak knew quite well what her status was. And the only reason he knew is because they knew and they told him.

Taranto even still argues about whether Plame was even covert. But this is the silliest of arguments for the following reason. Plame's status is the predicate of the whole case. If she's not a person covered by the law then there's nothing even to investigate.

Yet an investigation into the matter has been going on for almost a year; and the quasi-independent Fitzgerald investigation has been underway for more than six months.

If Plame wasn't covert, the CIA never could have made its referral to Justice. If they did, that would have been the most obvious of reasons for Justice to decline to investigate. And surely Fitzgerald wouldn't have spent these months dragging members of the White House staff before a grand jury without satisfying himself that the first and essential legal predicate of the entire case (Plame's status as covert) was valid -- a factual matter that could have been nailed down in rather less than a day.

My apologies to regular readers for all the back and forth. But occasionally it's necessary.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Amazing -- I ignore Hank for weeks and he talks shit about me every day. I respond to him head-on, and he has nothing to say.

You should post more often.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
You should post more often.

So are you saying my grudge fuck (NTTAWWT) idea wasn't a good one?