Friday Mashup Part One (9/24/10)

1) It seems that “Governor Bully” is going to be appearing on “Oprah” shortly today (probably has already by now); as noted here…

The Oprah Show, which flashes on Garden State screens in just a few hours, features the Oprah-adulation of (Newark Mayor Cory) Booker you expect (she’s given millions herself to…Newark), but also features a warm hug from herself to the Governor. Makes me wonder if her people prepped her to understand that while we’re talking $100 million, he just pulled a $400 million dollar rug out from the rest of New Jersey’s kids.

Also, I thought this post (cross-posted from Blue Jersey) had some interesting thoughts on that state’s public employee pension crisis, particularly the following…

…I say we call his bluff.

If Christie’s “reforms” go through, the NJEA (that state’s most influential teacher’s union…not sure if there are any other such organizations – ed.) ought to turn to him and say: “OK, in that case, we’re out. You are on the hook for all current obligations – but our members are no longer going to contribute. Everyone not vested gets their money back with interest; no one contributes anything more into the system.

“Instead, WE”LL run the whole thing. We’ll move to defined contribution if we have to, but it will be better than the raw deal you’re proposing. We’ll take over all retirement benefits from now on, and we’ll be overseen by members, a public board, and federal regulators – certainly better than what we have now. So you don’t get to touch our money any more – you’re out.

“And we’ll negotiate employer contributions with the districts. Try to stop that and we’ll see you in the Supreme Court.”

In many ways, it would be his worst nightmare. ALL obligations would have to be met by the state’s contributions and investment returns. I’d love to see him weasel out of that one.

Well, I can dream…

No word on whether or not Christie would be amenable to this; as noted here, he’s been busy confronting hecklers at GOP campaign events, among other non-NJ-related events (and just what on earth is he doing traveling across the country campaigning for other GOP pols anyway?).

2) Also, I’ve noticed our corporate media suddenly paying attention to American Crossroads, the Karl Rove/Ed Gillespie-fronted GOP fundraising outfit relying on a few well-off donors and corporations (as this tells us, they raised $2.6 million in August).

That’s not bad, I’ll admit, but as noted here, Act Blue raised about $6.7 million in July and August; split the difference at about $3.35 mil apiece, and that still beats what American Crossroads did over the same period.

Yes, I know I shouldn’t get preoccupied with the “horserace” political stuff either, but all I’m asking is that you remember this the next time you find yourself hearing more than you’ll ever want to know about Republican party activism (particularly those zany characters with their funny hats and racist/violent signs – more on them in a minute) and next to nothing about what is going on with the other side.

3) Finally, if you’re like me, I’ll bet you’re just chomping at the bit, as it were, when it comes to finding out whether or not the core constituency (or so they think) of the Republican Party supports “Contract on America II” unveiled this week (and I’m talking about those “values voter” “fundies” – here)…

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released a statement Thursday morning on the House Republican leadership’s “Pledge to America.”

“While I have some disappointment that the pledge to honor the values issues such as traditional marriage were not more clearly defined within the document, this is a significant improvement over the 94 Contact with America which was silent on the moral issues. The Pledge is not exceptional, but it is satisfactory, as it does lay a foundation to build upon, and it moves Congressional Republicans to a place of public acknowledgment that values issues are to be a part of the conservative way forward.”

And I guess it should be thoroughly unsurprising to note that Perkins has said that gays should be allowed to serve “if you want a military that just does parades” (here).

Despite that somewhat tepid endorsement, Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition stated as follows (here)…

The agenda embraces time-honored values like traditional marriage and ending taxpayer-funded abortion as well as lower taxes and reduced spending. The message was unmistakable: we will not be divided by a false choice between fiscal responsibility and strong families. We will fight for both, and indeed we must do both if we are to restore America’s promise.

And I thought this was particularly funny from Reed…

Pro-family candidates are the most likely to be fiscal conservatives, and Tea Party candidates are the most likely to be pro-life.

No word on whether or not their “pro-life” bona fides extend to those with whom they disagree of course.

In a related note, some of our lower life forms are gathering at Shady Brook Farm in Lower Makefield, PA apparently to re-enact “Lord of the Flies,” which should begin any moment (here) – my kingdom for the EPA dome over Springfield from “The Simpsons’ Movie.”

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/17/10)

1) This story in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer tells us the following…

Peter DeStefano says he’s just an “average Joe,” working voters at Wawas, diners, and beaches to get elected to the House.

But to Republican nominee Jon Runyan, the former Eagles tackle in a tough race to unseat Democratic Rep. John Adler, DeStefano is an irritant who could prove toxic.

The little-known DeStefano, a picture framer from Mount Laurel, is running as an independent candidate under the NJ Tea Party moniker in the Third Congressional District, which runs through Burlington and Ocean Counties and includes Cherry Hill in Camden County. The tag alone could draw votes away from Runyan.

After reviewing the 200-plus signatures on DeStefano’s nominating petitions and finding he had more than enough, Runyan’s campaign has continued to dig, looking for something to knock DeStefano off the ballot.

The campaign is considering a lawsuit alleging that those who signed may not have known that DeStefano was unaffiliated with a formal tea-party group, according to Runyan’s campaign consultant, Chris Russell.

Gee, I would call that a rather pointless distraction for a campaign that probably can use all the resources it can muster.

The Runyan campaign did uncover something a bit interesting, however, as the story tells us…

Marshall Spevak of Cherry Hill signed one of DeStefano’s petitions. Spevak lives just doors from Adler, and was active in Adler’s freshman House campaign in 2008. His father, Eric, has contributed to Adler campaigns and is an administrative law judge for the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

Sounds like Runyan is alleging that DeStefano is trying to pull a “Jay Russell” as it turns out, based on this (i.e., a third-party candidate who has the potential to screw up an election…the last noteworthy item I heard about from the NJ-03 contest was this “taxing” matter concerning Runyan).

And this June Inquirer story tells us the following about the Runyan campaign (which, apparently, is trying to embrace some of Baby Newton Leroy Gingrich’s Contract on America)…

“It’s back to the future. I’m seeing this all over the country,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who keeps an eye on federal races. “Republicans are hoping it’s 1994 all over again for two reasons: They sense a Republican wave and just as in 1994, they have a third force in politics.”

…

“Things like term limits (supported by Runyan but not Adler) have a permanent appeal,” Sabato said. “In fact, it has more appeal today than in 1994 because we have 50 additional scandals, maybe 100.”

Of course, Sabato doesn’t take time to name those “50 additional scandals, maybe 100,” a typical tactic for someone who once said that the “Swift Boat” liars were telling the truth in 2008, along with claiming that it would be “a national disgrace” to continue “the Clinton/Bush dynasty” (in an effort to attack Hillary Clinton…I always thought that was an idiotic construct) and the Democrats are the “mommy” party while the Repugs are the “daddy” party (all here).

Getting back to DeStefano/Adler/Runyan, yesterday’s Inquirer story also tells us the following…

In addition to his unhappiness with rising fuel prices and a barely regulated mortgage market, DeStefano said, he opposed the war in Iraq, which he believes was “started on a rumor.” He also is against the war in Afghanistan, which he said was helping a corrupt regime. He supports the military, he said, but believes the United States should be taking care of domestic problems.

After the 2008 general election, DeStefano switched to the Democratic Party. But “it didn’t take me much longer to find out it was worse,” he said.

“As far as I’m concerned, they are both full of crap,” he said.

He doesn’t have kind words for local tea-party organizations, who have made it clear from the start that they did not sponsor his candidacy.

The groups endorsed Justin Murphy over Runyan in the Republican primary. But last week, the West Jersey Tea Party, which has members in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties, endorsed the former Eagle.

They’re “shills” for the Republicans, DeStefano said.

That statement about DeStefano definitely intrigues me, I should add, though he has no shot at winning the general election, unfortunately (and I wouldn’t mind if he posed enough of a threat to Adler to make him remember that Democrats are supposed to have spines).

2) Also, Joke Line concocted more puffery here today on the Kentucky Senate race…

Welcome to Campaign 2010. This is going to be a Republican year, perhaps a big one. The question of how big will be resolved in states like Kentucky, where mainstream Republican candidates were defeated in primaries by Tea Party sorts like Rand Paul, and the public will have to decide if the GOP is too loony to rule.

Conway, the other guy in the race, is almost an afterthought, but a solid test case. He’s wicked handsome, moderate and Kentucky’s attorney general, which is perhaps the best office a Democratic candidate can hold these days. He has spent the past three years doing real-world populist things like suing pharmaceutical companies and cracking down on crime and drug abuse, which is epidemic among eastern Kentucky’s impoverished hill-country youth. Such activities are far more acceptable than voting for bank bailouts and stimulus packages, the burden that most incumbent Democratic members of Congress carry. But Kentucky is a fervent Republican state these days — Barack Obama is about as popular there as Tennessee — and Conway’s staffers admit they wouldn’t have a chance if a standard-issue Republican had won the primary. Paul, by contrast, is a fat target, which became apparent in Conway’s Fancy Farm speech.

By the way, here is a link to Conway’s speech.

And at this point, I hope our media just keep repeating over and over that this will be a big Republican electoral year. I honestly do. That way, they’ll look even stupider than they already are when this country realizes that we’re talking about a political party more concerned about mosques in New York City (more on that shortly), “terror babies,” and a nonexistent rise in Arizona immigrant crime than they are about trying to solve our country’s genuine problems and acts accordingly on Election Day.

I really wish Klein had spent just a few more words describing how, as noted here, Paul is totally out to lunch on the issue of Kentucky’s drug problems, as noted here (marijuana is that state’s number one cash crop, which to me is an even stronger argument for decriminalization at the least).

And to help Jack Conway, click here.

3) Finally, I regret to return to the mosque issue once more, but based on this, I believe I must…

Dear American Taxpayer,

You are paying for the Ground Zero Mosque.

Chances are you’re in not in the 20% of people who support the blasphemous Ground Zero mega-mosque. But guess what? You are currently paying for the Imam who wants to build it to visit Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar to raise money for it.

Uh, no – as noted here…

The right-wing media is attacking Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s upcoming State Department trip to the Middle East to “discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance,” by falsely claiming he will use the trip as a “taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt” to finance construction of his Islamic cultural center in New York City. In fact, the State Department has made clear that fundraising of any kind is prohibited during the trip, and Rauf has previously participated in this program, first under President Bush.

And when it comes to wingnuttiness on this issue, I think you have to go a long way to find something crazier than this.

8/18/10: You know, just go ahead and call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but given the trillions spent on Dubya’s idiotic tax cuts and his war of choice in Iraq, I have a hard time getting worked up over “16 large” for this story (here).

Monday Mashup Part One (7/12/10)

1) Based on this post from J.D. Mullane’s wretched blog, he apparently believes that animals don’t deserve any spiritual benefit from the guidance of a benevolent creator (with him calling anyone alleging that animals have souls a “neo-pagan crackpot” – Mullane apparently isn’t satisfied with wingnuttia in the temporal world and aspires for metaphysical wankery also).

Well then, I guess it would be surprising to consider this heroic individual as a “neo-pagan crackpot” also.

2) Also, the New York Times decided to write a puff piece on Chris Christie today (here)…

The governor has repeatedly used his powers more confrontationally than his predecessors, wading into school budget fights, freezing the actions of semiautonomous public authorities and breaking with tradition by refusing to reappoint a State Supreme Court justice.

Gee, I would say that more than a little bit of context is missing; as nj.com tells us here…

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today nominated attorney Anne Murray Patterson to the state Supreme Court to replace Justice John Wallace.

Wallace is the high court’s only African-American. He is the first sitting justice to be denied tenure, though there have been those who resigned to avoid a renomination battle.

Christie said his decision was more about reshaping the court than about Justice Wallace, whom he said he had “great respect for … personally and professionally.”

Apparently, Christie had so much “respect” for Wallace that he decided to deny him tenure and try to replace him with a product liability lawyer (who usually takes the side of corporations) instead.

Oh, and by the way, would it have been too much trouble to also tell us the following (from here)…

All seven members resigned…from a Judicial Advisory Panel that recommends potential judges to New Jersey’s governor, in protest of Gov. Chris Christie’s decision not to reappoint Associate Justice John Wallace Jr. to the state Supreme Court.

Memo to “The Old Gray Lady” – next time, try reporting (and in addition to the items mentioned above, here is more “fun” with Christie).

3) Finally, it seems as if the bogus deficit-reduction commission is floating some “trial balloon” recommendations to see which ones will get shot down (here)…

Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction…

Oh, brother, here we go again (no wonder Atrios calls these jokers the “catfood commission”).

On the one hand, this tells us that the home mortgage deduction costs about $131 billion.

On the other hand, this tells us that the first tax cut of Captain Clueless in 2001 alone cost $1.35 trillion (and there is plenty or argument raging back and forth as to whether or not we should allow that and the cut in 2003 to expire).

But I’m a reasonable person, so I’ll tell you what – allow both Bush tax cuts to expire and end both wars, bring everybody home (because we’re not going to be able to remake Afghanistan in our image – we’d need a draft to legitimately fight the Taliban for any serious duration, and I most definitely do NOT support that) and cut the defense budget in half, to the point where we’re outspending the rest of the world, oh, maybe three times as much as our nearest country as opposed to five or six times…do that, and I’ll relent on the home mortgage interest deduction, OK?

And by the way, I heard about this story from the paper version of The Philadelphia Inquirer that was delivered to our door step today, presumably by accident.

Memo to the Inky – we’re never going to subscribe again. And if you’re going to give us a free copy, at least be smart enough not to give it to us on a Monday, when you publish Krauthammer and his weekly Obama-bashing.

Update 7/15/10: Hat tip to Atrios for this (a “know-nothing sociopath” indeed)…

Monday Mashup Part One (6/7/10)

I have some leftover items from last week I couldn’t quite get to until now.

1) To begin, I give you the latest in the slow-motion train wreck that is the NJ gubernatorial administration of Chris Christie (here)…

All seven members of an advisory panel charged with reviewing nominations to New Jersey’s Superior Court resigned Wednesday, with six saying they objected to Gov. Christie’s decision not to renominate Justice John Wallace Jr. to the state Supreme Court.

The members, all appointed by former Gov. Jon S. Corzine, had letters hand-delivered to Christie’s office.

“The panel has understood a judge serving honorably and effectively, with competence and integrity, will achieve tenure in judicial office,” states one letter signed by six of the members. “This understanding is supported by the intent of the framers of our constitution and is firmly grounded in our traditions and history, and has been followed consistently for over 60 years by all governors of both political parties.”

“You have expressed publicly a profoundly different view of the governor’s appointive responsibilities,” the letter continues. “This was exemplified by your actions and remarks in refusing to reappoint Justice John Wallace to the Supreme Court, a jurist who indisputably exemplified all the qualifications for honorable judicial services. It is a view that is inconsistent with an independent judiciary.

“Because of our abiding commitment to the independence of the judiciary, we cannot in good conscience continue to serve on the Judiciary Advisory Panel.”

The six members were retired state Supreme Court justices James H. Coleman and Stewart Pollock, the cochairmen, and Alan B. Handler and Deborah T. Poritz; a lawyer in private practice, Carlos G. Ortiz; and a university professor, Susan Lederman.

The seventh, retired Appellate Division judge Harold B. Wells III, a Republican, sent a brief, separate letter saying he had resigned for “personal reasons.”

This is kind of interesting I suppose, given that Christie, a former U.S. attorney, is assumed to have a respect for the functions of the judiciary over that of partisan politics. Clearly, though, the latter holds sway with him, which should be no surprise I know.

Oh, and did you also know that Christie wants to put the State Commission on Investigation’s budget under the Office of the Comptroller, thereby putting the state’s investigative agency, which should be independent, under Christie’s purview (here)?

Lastly, this Inquirer editorial tells us today that Christie and his State Education Commissioner Bret Schundler brokered a deal with the New Jersey Education Association that addressed key issues – such as merit pay, which the union has long opposed. However, that deal is now off the table because Christie and Schundler apparently weren’t “on the same page,” which could end up costing the state millions of dollars in federal education funds.

I hope all of those Democrats who sat on their hands during the NJ gubernatorial election last year are proud of themselves (to say nothing of Repugs and independents who supported this thug).

2) Also, I tried really, really hard to avoid saying anything over the Gore divorce last week (I mean, it’s not like there isn’t a whole bunch of more important stuff going on), but it just got so thick that I had to weigh in (one pundit somewhere said something like divorce may be a defining “baby boomer” moment, or something…as Atrios says, our discourse is ruled by fools).

And this column by Linda Chavez was the proverbial last straw…

I know it’s wishful thinking to hope that the Gores will reconsider their decision. But they have already survived many ordeals that would challenge even the strongest of marriages — their son’s near-fatal accident, myriad political campaigns, including the 2000 presidential election whose outcome dragged on forever, Tipper’s battle against depression and who knows what private disappointments, slights, and pains.

…

The Gores, like most couples, made a vow when they married to remain together “until death do us part.” Couples make those vows in front of family and friends and with the blessings of religious institutions and the state. They are not private promises; they are public affirmations. So if the Gores decide to break those vows, they’ve hurt all of us, not just each other, and they’ve chipped away at the very institution of marriage. Let’s hope they don’t move from separation to divorce, for all our sakes.

Oh, please…

What is sad here is that Chavez actually makes some good points about the effect of divorce on kids, but for her to claim that the Gore’s divorce “hurts all of us” is pathetic.

Well then, do infidelities of public figures “hurt us” also? What about David Vitter (who, for some reason, always seems to get a pass on this subject even though he’s been “busted” at least twice)? John Ensign? Mark Sanford? Mark Souder (for whom Michael Gerson unctuously asked for “grace” here)? And yes, to be fair, John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer (and of course, Bill Clinton)?

At least the Gores realized that it was time to part, and they have done so. There are a myriad of reasons why couples stay together and a myriad of reasons why they don’t. And as long as moral scolds like Chavez feel like it’s their duty to pass judgment, how about giving the Clintons some credit for enduring all they have and raising a daughter for whom they should be proud?

This is all beyond a joke anyway when you consider that Chavez, as noted by Bob Somerby here, once said that Gore gave a “confusing” speech in 2002 in which “Gore said that a unilateral War on Saddam (Hussein) would hurt the ongoing War on Terror, because it would alienate various nations on whom we must rely for intelligence” (and fellow Beltway hyena Mort Kondracke dutifully echoed Chavez also).

Like almost everything else Al Gore has said, the passage of time has proven these words to be damn prescient as well. And Chavez’s ridicule has “hurt all of us” a lot more than the Gore’s divorce ever could.

3) Finally, I give you the late Irving Kristol’s boy here…

So the one part of government the Obama administration—which is spending unprecedented amounts on every domestic department of government—has decided to squeeze is the military. This is outrageous and pathetic—taking money out of the already inadequate baseline defense budget to pay for a domestic spending spree.

The linked New York Times story from last week tells us the following…

The goal is to force all of the Defense Department agencies and organizations, and all of the armed services, to save enough money in their management, personnel policies and logistics to guarantee 3 percent real growth each year, beyond inflation, in the accounts that pay for combat operations.

Current budget plans project growth of only 1 percent in the Pentagon budget, after inflation, over the next five years.

“Given the nation’s fiscal situation, there is an urgency to doing this, rather than shifting more of the nation’s resources toward national defense,” William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense secretary, said in an interview.

(Defense Secretary Robert) Gates’s spending orders offer a considerable incentive to the armed services. Each dollar in spending cuts found by a military department would be reinvested in the combat force of that branch, and not siphoned away for other purposes.

Senior officials acknowledge that powerful constituencies are expected to line up in opposition to cuts of favorite programs — with criticism anticipated from the defense industry, Congress, military headquarters, Pentagon personnel and retirees.

“We will need to address the reasons things are in the budget in order to be able to reduce overhead,” Mr. Lynn said. “We are going to have to be engaged in dialogue with industry, with Congress, with other agencies, with the White House and inside the Pentagon — all the stakeholders.”

The new directives are aimed at three distinct areas of spending.

The first is management and personnel, overhead, logistics and base operations, and support missions.

The second is the war-fighting accounts themselves. Major targets for the next fiscal year already identified by the Pentagon leadership, and supported by the White House, include canceling a program to buy an alternative engine for the F-35 warplane and ending production of the C-17 cargo aircraft. Officials said a range of lower-priority programs would also be under review.

The third area is Mr. Gates’s own Defense Department staff and agencies.

And in case you were wondering how much this country spends on defense, this tells you that this country’s spending isn’t even close to any other in the world.

There is only one good thing I can say about Kristol Mess’s post, and it is that he uses hyperlinks effectively (would that the Philadelphia Inquirer decided to follow suit one of these days).

Update: And heaven forbid that this falls under the “budget axe” also…

Wednesday Mashup Part One (5/12/10)

In local election news “across the river,” I should let you know that Tony Mack won the right to run against either Eric Jackson (public works director under outgoing Mayor Doug Palmer) or at-large Councilman Manny Segura in the Trenton, NJ mayoral election on June 15th, as noted here.

And in news involving someone who may end up as a candidate for a Darwin Award, mayoral candidate and author/activist Shahid Watson took over somebody’s house for the purposes of setting up campaign headquarters and will subsequently face charges (here…and just for the record, let it be known that Watson actually received 200 votes; maybe those are other award nominees…?).

And in news closer to home, this article from The Hill tells us that 15 out of 18 members of PA’s congressional delegation “signaled their support” for an NBC/Comcast merger; those who didn’t sign the letter favoring the deal were Joe Sestak (D), Mike Doyle (D) and Paul Kanjorski (D).

What a shame that none of those signatories have anything approximating the spine of Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who gave Brian Roberts the upbraiding he deserved here (apparently, Comcast is surpassed only by the NRA in the Keystone State when it comes to wielding political clout).

Finally, as noted here by U.S. House Repug Joe (“You Lie!”) Wilson of South Carolina, today is “Jerusalem Reunification Day.”

For a somewhat different perspective, I ask that you read this.

And to commemorate the day further, a full page ad in the NYT from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Fund claims that former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “gave his life for his country.”

That’s true, but not in the way you would commonly understand it; as Wikipedia tells us here, Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a radical right-wing Orthodox Jew who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords with PLO Leader Yasser Arafat.

Chris Christie, Friend Of The Environment

(And yes, I’m being sarcastic.)

I suppose it’s progress that Christie, at least, didn’t compare anyone trying to clean up NJ’s air and water with using “drug mules,” as he did with the state’s teachers here.

When it comes to “going green” with Christie, that means rewarding campaign contributors and their dollars, not taking steps to curb pollution and vehicle traffic that would make New Jersey a healthier place to live.

Wednesday Mashup Part One (4/28/10)

1) There aren’t too many issues where I split with my lefty brethren, but the Cape Wind development project in Massachusetts is most definitely one of them.

And we all heard the news today, oh boy (here).

In response, I give you Sen. Scott Brown from here (yes, I’m serious)…

“I am strongly opposed to the administration’s misguided decision to move forward with Cape Wind. While I support the concept of wind power as an alternative source of energy, Nantucket Sound is a national treasure that should be protected from industrialization,” Brown said in a statement. “With unemployment hovering near 10 percent in Massachusetts, the Cape Wind project will jeopardize industries that are vital to the Cape’s economy, such as tourism and fishing, and will also impact aviation safety and the rights of the Native American tribes in the area. I am also skeptical about the cost-savings and job number predictions we have heard from proponents of the project.

“Instead of forging a coalition and building consensus, this administration has created a deep division that will lead to fewer Massachusetts jobs and more expensive court battles,” Brown wrote. “I am proud to stand with Congressman Bill Delahunt and leaders on both sides of the political aisle who share my concerns with this ill-advised plan.”

(And by the way, I thought Brown was a Johnny-come-lately to this, until I found a story claiming he opposed the project last February…can’t find the link at the moment – and I know there’s political posturing by Brown here, but I – gulp! – fundamentally agree with him).

I am not unsympathetic to the job creation issue for the commonwealth of MA, but there absolutely had to be a better place to stick a bunch of wind turbines than smack in the middle of Nantucket Sound (and I haven’t heard a serious alternative to this plan anywhere).

And yes, I partly blame myself also for not devoting more attention to this over the last few months. However, what had transpired were a bunch of rulings and matters of bureaucratic minutiae, which, truth be told, makes for pretty boring posting material.

2) That being said, I should bring to your attention two more matters of activism where we can be a bit more proactive; the first is described here about an event that transpired yesterday…

It was a silent call to arms: an easy-to-overlook message urging New Jersey students to take a stand against the budget cuts that threaten class sizes and choices as well as after-school activities. But some 18,000 students accepted the invitation posted last month on Facebook, the social media site better known for publicizing parties and sporting events. And on Tuesday many of them — and many others — walked out of class in one of the largest grass-roots demonstrations to hit New Jersey in years.

[snip]

The mass walkouts were inspired by Michelle Ryan Lauto…”All I did was make a Facebook page,” said Ms. Lauto, who graduated last year from Northern Valley Regional High School in Old Tappan, N.J. “Anyone who has an opinion could do that and have their opinion heard. I would love to see kids in high school step up and start their own protests and change things in their own way.”

And as noted in the Daily Kos post, the diarist has started a Facebook page in an effort to get “Governor 33 Percent” recalled (We “see” your Bob Menendez and “raise” you Christie, wingnuts).

Awesome!

Update 5/1/10: And by the way, charming imagery here, Governor…

3) And here is the second…

San Francisco officials on Tuesday will consider(ed) a sweeping boycott of Arizona in the wake of that state’s passage of tough anti-illegal-immigration measures.

A resolution before the Board of Supervisors calls on the city to cancel contracts with companies based in Arizona and halt business ties between city government and the state.

Well, that’s actually a starting-off point for what I’m proposing, good idea though it is. And I got the idea after reading this story, including the following…

HOUSTON — The Oklahoma Legislature voted Tuesday to override the governor’s vetoes of two abortion measures, one of which requires women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion.

Though other states have passed similar measures requiring women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma’s law goes further, mandating that a doctor or technician set up the monitor so the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims.

A second measure passed into law on Tuesday prevents women who have had a disabled baby from suing a doctor for withholding information about birth defects while the child was in the womb.

To me, this is at least as monstrous as the Arizona “illegal-to-be-brown” law.

Sooo…a doctor could actually lie about the health of the baby to the mother with impunity? And that is after the mother is made to watch for proof that the baby is viable?

In a scenario like this, I suppose?

If this isn’t a reason to boycott travel to the state of Oklahoma or impose punitive sanctions, I don’t know what is (and keep telling me that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is fiction).

Update 5/11/10: Want another reason to boycott the “OK” State? Read this.

Update 5/13/10: Troglodytes…

Friday Mashup (4/23/10)

1) Oh noes! It looks like the Dems are in trouble for the fall!

I mean, Little Petey Beinart says so here. And he has to be right, doesn’t he?

NEW YORK – Yes, the Democrats are going to get throttled this fall. But Obama has had so much success that he can afford spending a little time playing defense.

It’s a strange moment in Washington. With the stimulus bill and health-care reform now law, and serious financial regulation gaining momentum, Democrats are witnessing the greatest run of policy success of my lifetime. The victories have been so large that I suspect some liberal wonks are actually having trouble adjusting. As a liberal (not to mention a Jew who grew up rooting for the Boston Red Sox) I know that when you’ve grown accustomed tragedy, and built an entire communal identity around it, triumph can be destabilizing.

When it comes to politics, however, an arena where Democrats were actually growing comfortable with success after the landslides of 2006 and 2008, things are ugly. President Obama’s approval ratings, which belly-flopped to less than 50 percent over the course of 2009, have been treading water there ever since. Despite some liberal wishful thinking, in fact, Obama and his party’s fortunes now look even worse than before health care passed. On April 12, Gallup recorded Obama’s lowest approval rating ever (47 percent). The next day, it reported that Republicans have opened up a lead in generic congressional balloting (“Which party’s candidate would you vote for if the midterms were held today?”). Intrade now predicts that Democrats will lose seven seats in the Senate and 36 in the House.

In the matter of Obama’s approval numbers (and of the polling I’ve seen, the lowest is 46 percent), that still puts him at roughly twice the number of his predecessor for about the last 2-3 years of his wretched reign. And as noted here, if the 2012 presidential election were held tomorrow – and no, I cannot stomach that at the moment either – he would still handily beat presumptive nominees Willard Mitt Romney and a certain former Alaska governor who quit so she could cash in.

Also, I have hardly seen this Gallup/USA Today poll mentioned anywhere from about a month ago, which shows that those polled favored health care reform by a 49-40 percent margin.

But of course, this is to be expected I suppose from Beinart, who has already blamed Obama for “(failing)” in his effort to be “the nonpolarizing president” here.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the fall, because it’s still a long ways off (we haven’t even made it through the primaries yet, people). Will the Dems lose seats? Probably, but that depends on how much they ignore the dreaded “conventional wisdom” and run on their accomplishments instead.

If they campaign with guts, the losses will be manageable. If they campaign like they’re afraid of their own collective shadow, they’ll lose big. And they’ll deserve it.

2) And in the matter of what happens when an indecisive base sits on its collective hands and lets a Repug seize the momentum and win an election instead, I give you the following on the recent school district votes in New Jersey (here, and once again, I apologize for not getting to this video sooner so I could put it up before the vote)…

(Wednesday), New Jersey voters did something they haven’t done in more than 30 years: defeated a majority of school district tax levies. [Note: I'm calling them "levies" here because that is more accurate. Voters don't really have a say on the spending portion of the operational budgets of their local schools. They only get to vote on the amount in property taxes that the district proposes levying for the year.]

They also turned out in record numbers. The final statewide vote count hasn’t been compiled, but it is somewhere north of 20% of all registered voters. That may not sound like much, but the previous high for school elections, going back to at least 1976, was 18.6%. 1976 was also the last time a majority of school levies failed. That year, 56% went down. This year, it looks like 59% have been tossed out by voters.

A Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll released last week found that 29% of registered voters – if they did vote – would support their local school levies, while 37% would oppose them. Based on a sampling of county returns, it looks like that 8 point margin may hold up in the final statewide vote.

There are some other interesting findings as well. Taking Middlesex County as just one example, compared to the April 2009 election, turnout in this one county was up by 65%. The number of “No” votes went up by 90%. But the number of “Yes” votes also went up, albeit by a lower 40%. In other words, turnout increased on both sides of the issue.

So what does this all mean?

Chris Christie and his supporters have claimed victory, saying that New Jersey voters sided with the governor in his battle with the state teacher’s union, the NJEA. However, the governor urged voters to defeat budgets in districts where the teachers made no concessions – and a good number of these actually passed. On the flip side, in the few districts where teachers actually agreed to wage freezes or other concessions – the districts one would expect to be rewarded if voters were out to show support for the governor – a good number (anywhere between 6 and 13 depending on what you count as a “concession”) of the school budget levies failed.

…

So, here’s what we know about the New Jersey public:

1. They think the size of the cuts in state aid to local schools is unfair.
2. They think the teachers’ unions should be willing to come to the table and agree to a wage freeze and benefit contributions.
3. They don’t want educational programs cut.
4. They don’t want their property taxes raised.

All of these are reasons why Garden State voters voted yesterday. They are the reasons why more people than usual turned out to vote “No.” And they are also the reasons why more people than usual turned out to vote “Yes.”

Anyone who claims with certainty that any of these reasons is the main factor behind a majority of school levies going down yesterday is just blowing smoke.

And all of this has managed to deflect attention (for the moment) from the following about Christie’s budget (noted here)…

Here’s the concern: The federal government pays 65 percent of the tab for NJ FamilyCare. When we cut people from the program, they often wind up in emergency rooms where the cost is picked up by the state and by insured patients. Sen. Joe Vitale, the Legislature’s leading voice on health policy, says this cut will wind up costing New Jersey more than it saves.

Democrats should ask other questions as well. Christie would raid a clean energy fund that subsidizes solar and wind power, and energy conservation efforts. It is paid for by ratepayers on each month’s electric bill, and it’s not clear that the state has the legal authority to grab it for other purposes.

Do we really need to cut money to food pantries now, or can Democrats find a substitute cut?

And can we soften these cuts by reducing the planned state surplus of roughly $500 million? Or by reinstating the income tax surcharge on families earning more than $400,000, which would bring in about $300 million during this fiscal year?

And when asked about the tax surcharge, Christie said the following here…

“They (the Democrats) made a political judgment: it was either raise the tax, or we could have the issue to use against a Republican governor,” Christie told reporters, referring to Democratic Party lawmakers.

“They chose the issue over the revenue,” he added. “Well, they got the issue. They’re not getting the revenue.”

Spoken like a true Repug.

Christie is nothing but a bully looking out for his pals and sticking it to everyone else, people (and let’s not forget this either, by the way…Update from 4/24/10: The AP has since corrected itself and said that Christie’s people make collectively about $440K more than Corzine’s, not $2 million).

3) Finally, yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the ATF raid that took Elian Gonzalez from the home of a Florida relative so he could be reunited with his father in Cuba (as noted in this Wikipedia article, the whole affair generated a truly rare moment of wisdom from the WaPo’s Richard Cohen, among other things).

I don’t have anything particularly brilliant to add here, only to point out that the issue should have been about reuniting him with his father and absolutely nothing more, especially considering the circumstances under which he was taken by his mother from Cuba to begin with.

However, even this story can generate some partisan mythology, as noted here…

More than 300 protesters were arrested in the hours after the raid, and the community’s outrage did not subside. Al Gore, the sitting vice president, lost Florida that November to George W. Bush by a mere 537 votes, and with it the White House. Many pundits said the Elian debacle made the difference.

Watch the movie “Recount” with Kevin Spacey as Gore attorney Ron Klain and take note of the final shot of the movie – namely, all of the boxes of uncounted Miami Dade County votes sitting in a warehouse – and then try peddling that nonsense to me again.

An NJ Teacher Schools The Governor

I’m sorry I didn’t find out about this video in time to put it up before last Tuesday, but I still think it’s important, if for no other reason to show that there are real-world consequences when a Repug mangles a state budget (and leave tax cuts for millionaires alone, of course…audio could be a little better, but it’s OK for now).

A Word On The Repug “Resurgence”

I think that, with the passing of a few months, we can now step back and look at what has been wrought by the Repug “winds of change” that have blown across our political landscape.

Let’s begin in New Jersey, where the following was written about Gov. Chris Christie (here)…

Still, some conservatives acknowledge that they’re still a little wary of Christie, noting that the governor-elect has embraced moderate positions in the past.

Personally, I find nothing whatsoever that is “moderate” about Christie’s first budget, including the following (here)…

To close a deficit that he asserted was approaching $11 billion, Governor Christie called for the layoffs of 1,300 state workers, closings of state psychiatric institutions, an $820 million cut in aid to public schools, and nearly a half-billion dollars less in aid to towns and cities. He also suspended until May 2011 a popular property-tax rebate program, breaking one of his own campaign promises.

Democrats were quick to characterize Mr. Christie’s proposal as falling disproportionately on the backs of the middle class, the poor, the elderly, schoolchildren, college students and inner-city residents, while leaving largely unscathed the wealthy and most businesses.

In a nutshell, I would say that this cartoon symbolizes Christie’s budget priorities.

So what of Christie’s fellow Repug governor Bob McDonnell in Virginia?

Well, this tells us how Ken Plum, a Democratic member of the state legislature, has joined a protest mounted by Virginia’s academic institutions of McDonnell’s directive (though Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli) “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

And of course, McDonnell is a charter member of the “Drill, Baby, Drill” chorus (along with President Obama, sadly), even though such exploration will likely not yield much oil, and any benefit of such an activity would not be realized for years (and of course, no one knows for certain what kind of environmental damage would ensue).

Update 4/6/10: And I suppose white hoods would be optional (here)?

Update 4/7/10: Keep digging that hole, Bob (here).

Update 4/13/10: Add this to the pile also (h/t Atrios).

Last but possibly least, I give you Scott Brown, the third member of this “wave,” whose signature accomplishment thus far, as noted here, is to fundraise off the imaginary campaign challenge of MSNBC TV host Rachel Maddow.

So, while it is still possible for the Repugs to mount a “second wave” for November, it appears that they don’t have much else to campaign on besides values voter-fueled indignation (of course, the Democrats can’t assume anything either, though delivering on health care reform will give them a “push,” IMHO).

I guess I should come up with something of an April Fools’ joke out of this, but to me, the only thing that qualifies is the notion that any Repug politician is anything other than a craven servant of the corpocracy who offers nothing but umbrage at Democrats and the “religion” of tax cuts for the “pay no price, bear no burden” crowd while the “ownership society” leaves everyone less well off ground down even further than they already are.