May
30
Truth?
Filed Under American Politics | 21 Comments
Heh!
Pravda in Russia is reporting on the U.S.’s descent into socialism.
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
This “descent” isn’t just an Obama phenomena though:
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.
However:
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama.
It’s a sign of the times when a Russian newspaper describes a move towards socialism as being a “descent” and a “collapse”. I wonder how a British or American newspaper would refer to it.
It must be true, Pravda of course is Russian for truth.
May
30
A Brave New World For Democracy!
Filed Under American Politics | 14 Comments
Do you remember this incident on election day in Philadelphia when members of the Black Panthers intimidated voters entering a polling station.
Bartle Bull, a longtime civil rights activist and former aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign does, he witnessed it:
In my opinion, the men created an intimidating presence at the entrance to a poll,” he declared. “In all my experience in politics, in civil rights litigation and in my efforts in the 1960s to secure the right to vote in Mississippi … I have never encountered or heard of another instance in the United States where armed and uniformed men blocked the entrance to a polling location.
So, from someone who knows, and a civil rights campaigner to boot, this is one of the worst cases of voter intimidation in modern American history. It is clear that the full force of the law should be brought to bear as an example that such attempts to usurp the democratic purpose are unacceptable, yes?
Well it seems no. The Washington Times reports that:
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.
How can members of the Obama administration justify such a move? Well it’s not clear from their statement:
The Justice Department was successful in obtaining an injunction that prohibits the defendant who brandished a weapon outside a Philadelphia polling place from doing so again. Claims were dismissed against the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law. The department is committed to the vigorous prosecution of those who intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone exercising his or her sacred right to vote.
So an injunction on one of the three and not even a terse word for the others. This is unacceptable. America has a spotty reputation anyway when it comes to polling integrity. Surely it is in the best interests of any administration, particularly the Obama administration who claim to champion the interests of the people, to act decisively to prevent voter intimidation. In this instance it seems, they have failed miserably.
And then of course there is the obvious what if question. What if this had been the KKK in the deep south intimidating voters? Would the Obama administration have been quite so lenient? Hardly. There may be a perfectly good explanation for the dropping of the case, although the statement doesn’t mention what that might be, but without that explanation, it seems that this incident and the ongoing ACORN saga will not put to rest the prevailing sense of a thugocracy walking the corridors of power in D.C.
May
29
According to Nate Silver, yes they can
It is a long piece with a number of different electoral combinations and I’m not going to go into it in too much detail here so I strongly advise you to read the piece. However, Nate Silver is saying that the Hispanic vote did not put Obama over the top in the election, it was his stronger showing amongst white voters that made the difference. He goes on to say that the GOP could effectively give up on Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico with their strong Hispanic presence and target whiter states like Indiana, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Florida. Now I know that Florida has a strong Hispanic makeup, but Cuban Hispanics are more Republican than Peurto Rican and Mexican Hispanics (John McCain won 43% of them in 2008).
Andrew Gelman at the same site expands on the role of Hispanics in the election:
The removal of the Hispanic vote wouldn’t have changed the election outcome in any state (although New Mexico, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina are within 1% of flipping, and small changes to the model (for example, using exit polls instead of the Pew surveys) might cause some of these to flip)
The bottom line: Hispanics were not a key component in Obama’s win. However, this is not to say that the Republicans should not try to contest the Hispanic vote. As the last scatterplot above shows, further losses of Hispanics would make the Democrats competitive in Georgia, Texas, and Arizona. In some sense this is no big deal, at least at the presidential level: If the Democrats remain at 53% or 54% of the vote, they’ll win nationally in any case. If we imagine a national swing of 3% or so toward the Republicans, so they’re competitive nationally, then their big risk if they lose Hispanic votes is to no longer be viable in Florida (where we estimate McCain to have won 43% of the two-party vote among Hispanics in 2008). That’s the state where Republicans really can’t afford to abandon the Hispanic vote.
So the Sotomayor matter may not affect the GOP too dramatically, if the Republicans keep their Hispanic support at the level it is now and can effect a 3-4% swing amongst white voters, they could win in 2012. Of course that’s all easier said than done.
May
29
Asta La Vista, Baby
Filed Under American Politics | 10 Comments
By Ronnie
I’ve been reading that the State of California is suffering badly in the financial crisis, bordering on bankruptcy, and that Governor Schwarzenegger may be coming to the end of his political career with many of his initiatives running into the sand.
What do our Republican friends think of Arnie and his strange political odyssey in their party? Is he ’one of us’ or a RINO?
May
29
Buyers Remorse
Filed Under American Politics | 23 Comments
Crystal Wright at NewMajority.com (the site David Frum writes for) is experiencing buyers remorse over her Obama vote.
Admittedly, I was one of the moderate conservatives who was wooed by Obama during his PR campaign to become the country’s next president. Sadly, even though I was still unsure of my vote until the week before the election, I know better now. I truly had no idea he would turn out to be the radical tax and spend liberal he’s revealed. Since the beginning of his presidency, Obama seems more interested in making policies and decisions that grab headlines than those in the best interests of the country. The announcement of his whopping $3 trillion budget, trailing the $800 billion bank bailout, was shocking and yet the media seemed to rally around him. The president wants to do everything at one time, national healthcare, economy, taxes (wealth redistribution), clean energy, infrastructure, education and more. He acts very king-like, expecting Congress to endorse everything he floats their way, but his high octane PR strategy–loaded with smiles and good oratory may be fading.
please note “I truly had no idea he would turn out to be the radical tax and spend liberal he’s revealed.”
Now who could she have to come to for sage advice? How about An American and I. We both said that he was a tax and spend liberal (well OK, An American likes the socialist line but they’re pretty much the same). I am still amazed that people who profess to be of the right still see Obama as some sort of moderate bordering on conservative President. It’s not like he hid his liberalism under a bushel. On increasing taxes for the wealthy, attacking business, foreign policy and Supreme Court picks based on their ‘empathy’, he revealed it all during the run up to the election. The only thing we didn’t expect, were his u-turns on national security matters and on his no lobbyist policy.
She goes on to say:
These recent events, the planned closing of Gitmo and “CIA-gate”, have made the president look very inexperienced and unpolished in his ability to lead the nation
A two year senator with no executive experience is inexperienced? Gosh, who’d have thunk? I have no problem with the liberal vote, even the moderate vote for Obama – If they felt that change was needed then fine, vote away. But it is those of the right who claim innocence over Obama’s left leaning ways that frustrate me. The evidence was clear, these are people swayed by TOTUS’s* rhetoric and the fanciful belief that Obama was bringing “change” to Washington.
So how long until David Brooks, Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan and even James Forsyth and Alex Massie at the Spectator see the light?
*TOTUS – Teleprompter Of The United States
May
28
Is Sotomayor A Racist?
Filed Under American Politics, Identity | 13 Comments
That’s what the usual suspects, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are suggesting. Here the now infamous quote that is causing the uproar:
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Now the obvious point to make is that if that was reversed with the richness of a white man’s experience enabling a better conclusion than a Latina’s, the cries of “racist” would be deafening.
But is that fair? Just how far does (or should) a Judge’s life experience direct their judicial deliberations? I can certainly see that a Judge with the life experiences of Sotomayor will view life and even the law through a different prism than an Ivy League educated, Hamptons raised Judge So and So III.
Rod Dreher quotes some context for Sotomayor’s statement:
While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum’s aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases.
I believe that the law should be an absolute. Interpreting the law in favour of select groups whether deliberately or through empathy is an abuse waiting to happen. I admire Sotomayor’s aspiration to work towards integrity based on the reason of law but am concerned that she seems to feel that it is an unachievable goal. A Latina should not be treated differently under the law just as a a white person should not be treated differently. There is racial inequity in the American legal system but that is not caused by white judges, it is caused by access to legal representation and it is that which should be fixed, not having judges that rule in favour of ethnic groups based on shared ethnicity.
Sotomayor referred to a generic white man. She didn’t qualify the comment and that certainly suggests that that comment at least was a racist one, but to call her a racist is disingenuous. She is a person shaped by her circumstances and that lends her some authority to speak on the circumstances of Latinos and their interaction with the legal system. She should just check that authority at the door of whichever court she is sitting in.
May
28
In the Interests Of Fairness
Filed Under American Politics | 4 Comments
Ref the Auto Dealer ’scandal’ I referred to yesterday, Nate Silver has a post up debunking the story.
He has done a cursory search of donor databases using different constructions of the phrase “auto dealer”. His findings are that 88% of auto dealers who donated to politicians donated to Republican ones. Doug Ross has found that 92% of the dealerships closed down donated to the GOP. Obviously, if true, these margins are too small to suggest any malfeasance on Obama or his administrations part.
However, Nate Silver’s search was a general one, not on a name by name basis but I did suggest that:
Now it may just be that Automotive dealers are a uniformly Republican bunch,
This story is not at the “nothing to see here” stage yet but there is going to have to be some pretty compelling evidence to blow this one into the MSM.
I’ve recently been accused of being too partisan. Too which I say “put this post in your pipe and smoke it”.
Have a look at the link and make up your own mind.
May
28
Partisanship – It Makes you Blind
Filed Under Uncategorized | 10 Comments
By Ronnie
One of our most valued contributors here recently called me an enigma. Now, I used to work as a labourer on construction sites and, as you can imagine, I’ve been called many things but an enigma isn’t one of them.
As I write this I am listening to Elgar and very pleasant it is too but I don’t think that my accuser was calling me a piece of music. So what did she mean? I’ve settled on the following explanation, which she can dispute at leisure.
An age ago I decided to stop being active in mainstream politics. This was necessary because, after some years of attending various party meetings, writing pamphlets and speeches for candidates and designing campaign strategies and tactics it became apparent that the commitment to the success of one party required the removal of a significant part of your brain, the part that indulges in independent thought.
It may always have been the case but I believe that the situation has worsened over the past 30 years, to the point where thinking beyond narrow day-to-day political advantage has become impossible for politicians and their spear-carriers in the media. Gordon Brown and his silly thugs are only the most extreme example, in my experience.
I think it is vital that the world as it is makes sense to as many people as possible, otherwise we will fail to understand and then deal with the many complex political, economic, social, military and strategic situations that arise on a daily basis. If we can only see things through the prism of narrow ideological affiliation then we will fail and right now we can see failure all around us.
I’ve said elsewhere that there is no right and wrong in politics but it is possible to have clear sightedness and a breadth of vision that allows us to meet the challenges we will always face. This is not possible through a narrow adherence to Right or Left orthodoxy, orthodoxy that blinds people to a more useful understanding of what has happened and prevents them forming an imaginative vision for the future.
The idea that the ‘Left’ or the ‘Right’ always say this or do that is very unhelpful. However, I suppose it is cosy to be able to label yourself and stereotype others in that way, creating a solid sense of belonging, an ideal and an identity to cuddle in times of uncertainty.
But, is thinking beyond these stifling parameters a problem? It didn’t used to be when political parties were broader in their views and had larger memberships as a result. Now, though, that is not the case as discipline and the fear of being caught making ‘mistakes’ and being ‘off-message’ are of paramount concern. Peoples’ views may only be formed and expressed within the prison of what is acceptable. It seems that people and their views must be nailed down if they are not to be treated with suspicion by the more extreme and narrow-minded elements of orthodoxy.
That is why British politicians like Frank Field have serious problems within their party. That is why we have the ridiculous designations RINO and DINO intended as insults by those whose thinking is dangerously restricted. I say dangerous because the narrower the range of acceptable political thinking within our parties, the closer we come to dictatorship, if the trend continues.
It may indeed be enigmatic to think and express oneself in a less predictable way in the context of today’s political parties. I have also been called a (far left) liberal and I seem to remember Pinko somewhere in the mix, by the same person, and then more recently a true Conservative by Cabbie. Obviously there is confusion.
Good.
May
27
General Open Thread
Filed Under Uncategorized | 9 Comments
Have at it!
May
27
North Korea Open Thread
Filed Under American Politics | 15 Comments
Events in North Korea have been dramatic. Unfortunately I don’t have the time or the requisite knowledge to put up an interesting post on the subject. But if you would like to discuss the situation, I’ve put up this thread for that very purpose.
I will put up a more generic open post later for non North Korea related discussions so please use this post for discussions related to this issue.