How about a real government for the people?

By Distributorcap

We thought it was bad when Bush was in charge, but just look at the simpletons running the House of Representatives now. It's Titticut Follies meets Duck Soup.

Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, and the entire new crop of teabagging dingbats like Rand Paul and the freshmen reps give new meaning to the Peter Principle. Face it, we have a completely broken government put in power by a completely broken electoral system.

It is really time Americans took a hard look at our system and organization of government (which we won't) and change the things that are driving us into the cesspool (which of course we won't). For over 200 years we have basically followed the principles and doctrines of the founding fathers -- Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and all the other 18th-century scholars. Stability in the process of law has been our strength. It might now also be one of our greatness weaknesses. Plus, it is the 21st century, and most Americans are barely treated as 3/5 of a person.

The Amendments

So grounded are we in NOT changing, there have only been 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution in over 200 years. Of the 27, some are not really laws to govern by but rather corrections to flaws and issues stemming from the original document.

The 18th and 21st amendments deal with prohibition (which in reality had nothing to do with government) and negate each other. The 23rd (electoral representation for D.C.) and the 19th (giving women the right to vote) are corrections to obvious flaws. One can argue the 20th (which deals with term-end dates), the 24th (poll taxes), and the 25th (presidential succession) are really just clarifications of early laws. And finally the last amendment, the 27th (congressional compensation), has nothing to do with the rule of law. That leaves 19 amendments that have dealt with shifting times and a more complex country. One could even argue that the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery, is not an amendment to govern but a correction to a horrible mistake. Many racists Republicans are gunning to get rid of the 14th.

And guess what, with so few changes to an ideology established in a period that bears little relationship to an era of instant information in a shrinking world, our government continues to detract from its original aspiration and devolve into an incredibly dysfunctional body. Sure, a large chunk of people (like the right wing and others) will say our Constitution is the single greatest document laying down the basis for the single greatest political system ever (it is not; it allowed George Bush to be elected). So how dare we tinker with it. Well, arrogance knows no bounds from people unwilling or unable to adjust to the world as it is. That attitude and a quarter gets you more worthless American currency and more Congressmen like Jim DeMint and Louis Gohmert.

Here is my two cents: The Constitution (and the political process) ain't working. It needs an extreme makeover. Think Joan Rivers. There are those who do not want change: those in power (who are more and more looking like a bunch of less and less intelligent media whores) and the (allegedly non-ideological) media, both of whom have very little incentive to alter the structure that put/keeps them in power in the first place. Almost anyone in government today (from all political bents) would poo-poo any suggestion of major constitutional rewrites. But to survive as a viable and thriving society in a world of diminishing resources, floundering leadership, and increased divisiveness, we must consider moderation to the very fundamentals that brought us to the place we are at. Change or die. Survival of the fittest.

Here are some of my thoughts – food for discussion. They are not wrong or right, just some ideas on improving a broken (yes, broken, dilapidated, and now dangerous) system.

Elections

First I will say that I wish we had the parliamentary form of government like Canada, Britain, or Australia, where the party in power chooses the leader of government and can also fall from power before the end of the term. There are tons of pluses and minuses to this form of government. But for now I will work within the basic confines of the current government structure.

All elections should be held on Sunday (don't give me the lame excuses of Church or religion or the day of rest -- almost every other nation in the world votes on a weekend, and most churches today are political hotbeds anyway), so yhat people could vote and not worry about the kids at school or getting time off from work. Or if that doesn't suit you, have a two-day election Saturday and Sunday. EVERY polling place in the nation has the same equipment, all with paper trails. If you want early mail-in voting, fine. For the presidential elections, all polls close at the same time, 12 midnight ET, 9 pm PT, 6 pm in Alaska and Hawaii -- one day every four years is not too much to ask of a late-night election. This Tuesday nonsense is, well, nonsense and utterly ridiculous.

The campaigns go on way too long – they really become more of a turnoff and often evolve into a mudslinging anger-fest right out of As The World Turns. The 2012 campaign has been in full force for nearly a year (just watch any cable show and the handicapping is in full bloom). Stopping candidates from early or long campaigning is impossible and fraught with free speech implications, but you can limit advertising and debates to a narrow period of time. (I realize there are major freedom of speech issues with this as well, but what is more important, an honest debate or permanent campaigns to ensure pundits have a job?) The primary process sucks. It is long, expensive, and cumbersome. It should be divided into four regional super-primaries instead of a six-month drawn-out media party. The primaries should be about the candidates and issues, not about what the media wants in terms of covering the candidates and the issues (there is a big difference). Plus, it is expensive. We complain about all the money in politics, and all the donations. When you have a six-month primary system done on such a local-local level, it is bound to get very pricey.

(This issue of money and elections is a whole post unto itself.)

Presidential Election

The Electoral College needs major reformation or to be junked completely. My belief is to ditch the bitch -- get rid of it. It is an anachronism, developed (in my opinion) for arrogant and snobby reasons. The presidency is the only political office in the country that is elected by the entire country, and the current bizarre system allocates votes based on a lopsided and unfair weighting system. This is an electoral system that puts the states (or federalism) above the people (or populism). Votes in Alaska count much more than votes in California. It is a ridiculous and dispiriting procedure. And it is expensive. It is not one man, one vote, and it seems to me to be more Soviet-style than democratic.

We should have a national election where the winner is determined by a plurality of the popular vote, period. Sure, the "get to know the candidate" in more remote places will go away, but to my mind that is a small tradeoff for having every person count the same. Besides, with social media and invasive cable, every candidate is everywhere, everyday. Hand-to-hand campaigning would still be necessary, as would local stops. Right now a Republican would barely venture into New England or New York, a Democrat avoids the places like Kansas or Idaho -- that all would change. The Republicans in Massachusetts would have to be courted, just as the Democrats in Utah would have to be. Diehards would hate this, but too bad -- who cares what the diehard traditionalists think? The upside of this change far outweighs the downside, since the current system is ALL downside.

There is really no valid reason to keep the Electoral College other than tradition and the excuse that James Madison knew more than we did. Sure people will say it protects states' rights, minorities, and the two-party system. Protecting the two-party system is the last thing we should want. But is the presidency about the federal system or about representing the people of the nation?

Three times -- in 1876, 1888, and 2000 -- the candidate with the most popular votes lost to someone with more electoral votes. That is clearly not the will of the people but rather the will of the states. Why should someone in Wyoming have more say that someone in Oregon? The Declaration of Independence should be re-written to start "we the states" rather than "we the people" if that is what we really want from the presidency.

More importantly, we all know first-hand what happens when someone ignores the will of the people -- you get the idiocy of the self-anointed and power-hungry King George (yes we could have dumped him in '04, but if logic prevailed he should not have even been there for dumping). Plus, a little-revealed fact, the current Electoral College setup basically allows the electors to vote for whomever they want to. They do not have to vote for the candidate chosen by their state. While 24 states have laws to punish this, only ONE (Michigan) has the power to actually cancel that "faithless" vote. So in some surreal setting, a candidate could win the popular vote and the electoral vote and still not be elected president. Unlikely, but theoretically possible. This is not democracy, it is lunacy. To me, almost anything is better than the current Electoral College.

I go back and forth as to what would be best with regard to term limits for the president. As currently -- two four-year terms? One six-year term? No limit? I am not sure, but I lean towards one six-year term.

And oh, the Supreme Court cannot stop recounts, and if a justice fails to disclose his wife's income he is automatically impeached.

Congress

The District of Columbia either becomes or is treated just like a state for national political purposes. Zero discussion on this. The fact D.C. residents have no Congressional representation is ludicrous. They're held hostage by the Republicans since over 80 percent of all voters in D.C. are Democrats.

The House of Representatives continues to be population-based. I don't know what the magical number of reps should be, but for argument's sake I would up the number to 565, which is taking the U.S. population of 309,000,000 in 2010 and dividing it by the population of the smallest state (Wyoming at 545,000). Of course, you wouldn't want to change the number of reps every year or even every ten. Just keep it at the base of 565. Frankly, the larger number, the more unmanageable an already unmanageable body would become. Under this algorithm, New York would have 34 reps, while Colorado would have nine.

There should be no gerrymandering of districts -- districts should ONLY be reassigned if the state gains/loses a House seat every ten years after the Census. Districts should be redrawn by bipartisan committee, with strict guidelines, not by state legislatures (no weird shapes to get in certain groups, minorities, or parties in certain districts). You cannot keep all politics out of districting, but it can and should be limited.

Reps should be required to be present for a certain number or percentage of votes or else are admonished, fined, or kicked out. Terms should be increased to three years (these two-year terms practically require reps to start campaigning the day the are elected). One-third (188) could be elected every year, keeping a rotation.

The Senate should be adjusted for some population-based figures. Having two senators from Alaska and two from California is plain stupid and unfair. I propose the top 17 states get three senators, the next 17 get two senators, and the bottom 17 (remember D.C. is added) get one senator. 102 senators, voted by their full state. In addition, three senators are elected by the entire country, essentially stateless senators, for a total of 105. The party with the most senators is in charge. Six-year terms remain, with 1/3 up for election every two years. Same deal on the minimum number of votes as for the House. NO FILIBUSTERS unless the senator actually does his best James Stewart.

If you think that basing both Houses on some sort of population count will really tilt the Congress towards the big states too much, then let's go with the Senate remaining with two senators from each state (102 including D.C.), plus three at-large senators elected either regionally or nationally. These senators would not answer to any one state. Total: 105 senators. There is nothing magic about 100 senators other than the round sounding of the total. Before 1959, there were 96 Senators.

Both bodies should be required to remain in session a minimum of 230 days/year. NO DISCUSSION. This is not a country club. That still leaves six weeks vacation for all Congressmen and plenty of time for Boehner to play golf.

Supreme Court

For this body I have absolutely no issues with term limits -- there should be. These are not elected officials answering to the people, they are appointed, and appointed with politics squarely in mind.

Nine justices, 18-year term limit. Every two years one justice steps down as his/her term expires. This way every president would get to nominate at least two justices (resignation and death would cause an immediate refill of the seat, regardless of the term order, and the appointee would fill the remaining term). The president continues to nominate and the Senate continues approval. This way you would not be stuck with a Scalia or Thomas for a lifetime. The politics of the Supreme Court could change every two years depending on the rotation and the president. In today's court you can predict the vote on every case almost to a tee. There should be strict ethics and guidelines for justices with respect to politics and even the appearance of impropriety. No lunches with the Koch boys.

Chime in. Am I that out to lunch?

More mods comming :D

Comming mods tomorrow:
XM8: 100%
G36C: 100%
G36E: 100%
AN-94: 100%

Picture Effects

These pictures was taken by my children during our family bonding last thursday.

Picture Effects

These pictures was taken by my children during our family bonding last thursday.

Brilliant plan or petty scam? Republicans repackage Democratic budget ideas

By Nicholas Wilbur

Taking credit for someone else's work is called plagiarism – unless you're in politics, in which case it's called bipartisanship.

With Republicans vehement in their opposition to the Democratic Party's plans to merely shear the sheep, and with Democrats equally obstinate in their disregard for the Republican Party's plans to behead the beast, a Congressional showdown over federal spending quickly evolved into a seemingly imminent government shutdown. Even a short-term fix appeared impossible as Republicans proved unwilling to entertain any temporary plans that didn't include spending cuts while Democrats proved unwilling to accept any such budget Band-Aids that did include cuts.

From ToonRefugee.com

But then, as if by magic or some divine intervention, the stars suddenly aligned, the Potomac parted, lions began hiring lambs as anger management counselors, and the two parties put aside their budget differences and began working as one body dedicated not to corporate or ideological interests but to the people who hired them.

With a week remaining before the government ran out of money, and with no agreement in sight, Republicans proposed a plan to fund the government another two weeks as negotiations over a more permanent fix continued.

Fearful of reliving the bare-knuckle beat-down they suffered over similar budget woes in 1995, Republicans decided to avoid the backlash of another government shutdown by proposing what The New York Times described as "a carefully calibrated stopgap measure" that would fund the government for two weeks while the two parties negotiate a more long-term budget resolution.

As promised, Republicans included significant spending cuts to the short-term stopgap measure. But, as the Times noted, "[t]o make it harder for Democrats to object to the temporary plan, Republican architects of the proposal tried to make the cuts relatively painless."

As it turns out, the cuts, totaling $4 billion, weren't so much "relatively painless" as they were pleasurable. Reversing course on their insistence earlier in the week that they would not support a proposal that included any cuts, "Senate Democrats indicated they would be willing to go along with the proposal," the Times reported. Looking at the source of the proposed cuts, it isn't terribly difficult to ascertain why they had a sudden change of heart. From the Times:

(Republicans) came up with the $4 billion by ending eight education, transportation and other programs that President Obama had previously sought to close down, a savings of almost $1.2 billion. They also reclaimed nearly $2.8 billion set aside for earmarks in the current budget; both the House and Senate have agreed to ban such pet projects.

I can't decide if this is utterly brilliant or completely retarded.

It seems as if Republicans have killed three birds with one stone.

First and foremost, they quelled a potential revolt of House Tea Party members by giving them a nice, big, round number which they can throw out to their anti-government constituents as evidence of their hardline stance against excessive federal spending. It was the Tea Party, after all, that accused senior Republicans in the House of going soft on their campaign pledge to slash government spending. Four billion dollars in a two-week funding package more than does the job.

Second, Republicans needed to propose something that Democrats would support. What better way to entice Democrats to back a Republican bill than to use ideas Democrats themselves proposed? As the Times noted, the $1.2 billion in cuts originated from the president's own proposal.

Knowing that the Tea Party could squabble about a puny $1.2 billion, they cut another $2.8 billion slated for earmarks even though both parties already agreed to end the use of earmarks, and even though the president already promised to veto any legislation that landed on his desk with earmarks attached.

Republicans essentially repackaged the president's own ideas and inflated the spending cuts with earmarks that nobody was allowed to include in a budget package anyway.

If it sounds similar to mining for gold in your neighbor's backyard and selling him bullion coins at a discounted rate, it is. Stargazing is free – like breathing oxygen, blinking, and flipping off the IRS building when you drive by – but that doesn't take away from its bipartisan popularity.

This is either the masterpiece of a genius or the scheming plot of an amateur scam artist.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Duke Snider (1926-2011)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm much too young to remember the playing days of Duke Snider, the great Hall-of-Fame outfielder for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers (1947-62) whose career ended in 1964, but I remember well his many days as one of the voices of the Montreal Expos, from 1973-86.

As a huge Expos fan growing up in Montreal, his was one of the key voices of my childhood. I was still much too young in 1973, but by 1978 and '79 I was listening regularly to Snider and partner Dave Van Horne (the latest winner of the prestigious Ford C. Frick award), and they were wonderful together, at a time when the Expos were a competitive and successful franchise.

Not showy, not flashy, not sensationalist, they were true baseball men, and they knew their stuff. The fact that I'm still such an enormous baseball fan today owes a great deal to them both.

As for Snider, what can I say? He played on some pretty great Dodgers teams, including some memorable Brooklyn ones in the '50s that would have won more World Series than the one they did win (in 1955) had it not been for the damn Yankees, to whom they lost in 1947 (with Snider mostly in the minors and not playing in the World Series), 1949, 1952, 1953, and 1956. (They moved to L.A. in 1958 and won again, with Snider, in 1959.) He didn't put up incredible numbers by Hall standards (.295, 407 HRs, 1,333 RBI), but he made eight all-star teams (1950-56, 1963) and was a superb player.

Here, watch this:

SPRING WISH LIST

Here are a few things I just can't stop thinking about:

YSL

TIBI

JCREW

RODARTE FOR OPENING CEREMONY

PRADA

GIVENCHY 

TITOPEDRINI

THE ROW

LINEA PELLE

LA PERLA

EMMA COOK

Gunboat diplomacy again?

By Capt. Fogg

It may seem like old news at a time when this morning's Punch and Judy show is already old by lunchtime, but I've been taking a small vacation from blogging and improving my health by not immediately looking at the news every morning. I'm back, but old news is what I have for breakfast today.

I heard Mr. Huckabee lambaste President Obama last week on MSNBC for not parking the Navy off the coast of Libya so as to intimidate Colonel Qaddafi. Do we need any more evidence for the presidential unsuitability of the avuncular mediocrity who doesn't "believe" in science but thinks it's always better to look tough even when it defeats your purpose?

The mad Colonel has made capital out of standing between Libya and the imperialism of America and what better help could we give him in putting out his message that it's either his leadership or chaos?

I have either to think that Obama bashing is sufficient end in itself for Mike to forget about any possible benefit from a move toward liberal democracy in the Middle East, or that waving the flag is all one needs to do to rally the mob, but in either case the pronouncements of Mike Huckabee are all about the candidacy of Mike Huckabee and everything he says or does is designed to further that end rather than to offer any viable solutions to real problems. Just the kind of Bozo America loves to elect, isn't he?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Mayor Mike blows it

By Carl 

This op-ed, to no great surprise, is a bundle of elitist hackery that speaks volumes about how Mayor Michael Bloomberg has handled New York City's finances through two budget crises.

It's not that he doesn't make some points (I'll get to those), but it's the overall tone of privilege, which is sort of funny coming from a billionaire, self-made or no.

To wit:

Across the country, taxpayers are providing pensions, benefits and job security protections for public workers that almost no one in the private sector enjoys. Taxpayers simply cannot afford to continue paying these costs, which are growing at rates far outpacing inflation. Yes, public sector workers need a secure retirement. And yes, taxpayers need top-quality police officers, teachers and firefighters. It’s the job of government to balance those competing needs. But for a variety of reasons, the scale has been increasingly tipping away from taxpayers.

Now, like I said, Mayor Mike has a point: There is an enormous burden on taxpayers to fund budget deficits. In New York City in particular, the budget by law has to be balanced (barring catastrophes) in order for the city to receive state funding. And the costs of pensions and health care are outstripping the rate of inflation, particularly at a time of near-zero inflation.

But... this article smacks of so much hypocrisy that I had no choice but to address it.

The argument you never hear, the argument that Mayor Mike ought to hear and then shut his piehole over, is this: Public-sector workers make MUCH LESS SALARY than their private sector counterparts. A clerk in a bank gets a 10-15% higher salary, plus vacation, plus paid sick time, and may even be eligible for a bonus each year.

Yes, that's right: a clerk at Goldman Sachs can make a bonus that brings his income significantly higher than the private sector premium already paid! The equivalent clerk at the city Department of Finance? Not so lucky.

So what makes people want to serve the public? It can't be the appreciation, a glance at the New York Post or FOX News will show any public servant just how appreciated they are. These outlets lie in wait for some poor soul who hasn't slept in three nights because his wife is due to deliver a baby to fall asleep on a park bench, even momentarily, so they can smear his face across front pages for millions.

Just ask an EMT who has to drive an ambulance down a crowded street to try to pick up a heart attack victim just how much appreciation he gets from motorists stuck behind his rig, lights flashing and EMTs hustling about. Why, the shouted "Hosannas" would make a stevedor blush!

It's not the salary or the awesome potential to make millions, because you know what? No one makes that kind of money in city government.

No, they do it because they get two guarantees: job security in tough economic times and the promise of a pension at the end of the road.

And even in New York City, thousands of civil servants have been laid off by the bushel and now there's talk of 6% of the teachers being axed, most from the poorest schools furthest behind grades... who will then be closed because they underachieve academically. Mayor Mike, with this article, demonstrates that even pensions are not above his vulgar rapacity.

It's a win-win for the billionaires that Bloomberg is kowtowing to! It's a lose-lose for the other nine million citizens who work their fingers to the bone, trying to make ends meet and give their kids some kind of leg up in life.

See, the dirtiest secret of them all is, we wouldn't be in this crisis if Bloomberg and his predecessors, particularly Rudy 9-11 Giuliani, hadn't given away the candy store to companies who even glanced at New Jersey and winked at the mayor. You want to understand why the city's finances are in the toilet? Companies like NASDAQ and Citicorp pay no taxes to New York City, of any consequence, based on sweetheart deals to retain their presences in our fair town.

The irony is, where the hell would they have gone? If you want to be taken seriously as a player, you have to have your offices in the biggest financial capital in the world (well, except that's now London, but I digress).

Even Lehman Brothers... LEHMAN BROTHERS, who couldn't make money in a market that practically printed it!... got tax incentives to stay here and build a garish headquarters in Times Square. And then went bankrupt.

But hey, Mr. Mayor, you go right on balancing the budget on the backs of the clerks and the firefighters and the teachers and the santitation workers and all the people who voted for you last time out, then hop your little jet to Bermuda to get away from the stench of burnt charcoal and chalk dust and uncollected trash... who needs you?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

A worthy look back at the Oscars

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No real surprises -- where there any at all? -- in what was a horrendously bad show (with some incredibly bad hosting, especially the not-quite-there James Franco and the awkward Anne Hathaway, though it surely had a lot to do with some even worse writing). Maybe the main surprise is that it was that bad, which is to say, even worse than usual.

I amused myself by tweeting excessively.

And that's really all I have to say. I haven't seen all the major contenders yet, but it was, from what I could tell, a crappy year for Hollywood. And that was reflected tonight.

The King's Speech? Okay, fine, but I doubt anyone will look back on it years from now and say, "Wow, that's a historically great film." (Not that Oscars really reward historical greatness, mind you.)

I mentioned my favourite movies of 2010 -- movies I saw for the first time in 2010 -- a while back. I'd still go with Sacha Guitry's wonderful The Story of a Cheat (1936), released in an Eclipse set by Criterion. For "new" movies in 2010, I'd go with the restored, complete Metropolis (on Blu-ray), Fritz Lang's stunning 1927 masterpiece. To that list I'd like to add Michael Haneke's marvellous (and deeply troubling) The White Ribbon (2009).

As for new 2010 movies, I found most of the big ones highly overrated: The Social Network, Toy Story 3, Inception.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a lot of fun, but I'd say Winter's Bone was the best, pending others, like Black Swan and The Fighter (which I highly doubt are better), I'll see when they're out on video.

And that's that. It was a terrible show, and none of the major winners, however genuinely deserving (Colin Firth in particular, with a performance, and a role, that was Oscar-perfect -- overcoming a disability, a lot of emoting), really jumped out for me.

I wish I could say it can only get better from here, but I was also saying that during the show, and then out came Celine Dion.

And now I need to get to bed.

Are Wisconsin Republicans conspiring to kidnap?

Guest post by Publius 

Publius has lived in and spent most of his life thinking about Washington, D.C. He is an attorney, an avid sports fan, and the editor of The Fourth Branch.

(Ed. note: This is Publius's third guest post for us. You can find his first, on George Will and "engaged justices," here, and his second, on conservative support for nullification, here. -- MJWS)

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(Ed. note 2: Pro-union rallies were held around the country yesterday in a wonderful and much-needed show of support for Wisconsin's public-sector unions. We all need to stick together on this to counter not just what Gov. Walker and legislative Republicans are trying to do in Wisconsin but the broader threat to unions, and labour generally, both in that state and elsewhere, with conservatives seeking to undo the right to collective bargaining and more generally to hand more and more power back to the corporate overlords who run the Republican Party and who are so dominant within American conservatism. -- MJWS)

**********

By now, most everyone is familiar with the high political drama in the State of Wisconsin, where Democrats and labor continue to fend off attacks by Republicans to severely reduce the ability of workers to collectively bargain.

Only one parliamentary hurdle stands in the way of a Republican victory on collective bargaining: the Senate quorum requirement. Republicans need 3/5 of all state senators to be present during a legislative day to establish a quorum. There are currently 19 Republican senators and 14 Democratic senators, meaning they are one person shy of establishing a quorum to pass the bill reducing collective bargaining rights.

Under Rule 84 of the Wisconsin Senate rules:

The chief clerk shall immediately call the roll of the members, and note the absentees, whose names shall be read, and entered upon the journal in such manner as to show who are absent with leave and who are absent without leave. The chief clerk shall furnish the sergeant at arms with a list of those who are absent without leave, and the sergeant at arms shall forthwith proceed to find and bring in such absentees.

To avoid the strong arm of the sergeant at arms, Democrats fled from the State Capitol. Not to be deterred, the State Senate majority leader then sent the state police to the homes of the Wisconsin Democratic senators with instructions to compel such individuals to return to the Capitol. The police failed to locate a single Democratic senator, as all had reportedly left the state by the time the police arrived.

The Wisconsin Constitution expressly permits the Houses of Congress to pass rules to compel attendance by absentee legislators. Accordingly, the Wisconsin Senate rules do grant power to the sergeant at arms to compel Senate attendance of wayward senators. No other person or group, including the state police, has authority under the Senate rules to compel attendance.

The jurisdiction of the sergeant at arms is debatable. There is a strong argument that his power is limited to the confines of the Capitol grounds. Outside of the Capitol grounds, the sergeant at arms may be powerless to compel any action.

The debate is moot, however, because Senate Republicans did not use Capitol police under the direction of the sergeant at arms to compel attendance. Instead, they attempted to use the Wisconsin State Police. Unfortunately for Senate Republicans, there is no law or rule which would permit the state police to compel a Democratic senator to return to the Capitol Building. Actually, the analysis is even more concrete: The Wisconsin Constitution prohibits the arrest of any member of the Wisconsin Senate while the legislature is in session. As provided in Article 12, Section 15: 

Members of the legislature shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest; nor shall they be subject to any civil process, during the session of the legislature, nor for fifteen days next before the commencement and after the termination of each session.

The Democratic senators are not committing treason, a felony, or a breach of the peace by avoiding the Senate. There may be political ramifications (including a recall election, for example), but that's a far cry from asserting criminal ramifications.

Without the power to compel Democratic senators to return to the Capitol, the state police could find themselves in violation of Wisconsin criminal laws -- possibly including kidnapping. Under Section 940.31 of the Wisconsin Criminal Code, kidnapping occurs when a person:

By force or threat of imminent force carries another from one place to another without his or her consent and with intent to cause him or her to be... held to service against his or her will.

Each of those elements would seem satisfied if the state police were to force a Democratic senator to return to the Capitol to participate in a quorum call (i.e., service against his or her will).

If not kidnapping, perhaps false imprisonment, which is defined in Section 940.30, as an act which occurs when a person "intentionally confines or restrains another without the person's consent and with knowledge that he or she has no lawful authority to do so..."

Of course, if the police were to be found guilty of a crime, the State Senate Republicans would by extension be guilty of conspiracy in connection with that crime (see, e.g., Sections 939.05 and 939.31).

No, I don't expect any actual criminal charges to be filed, nor do I expect that a state police officer would actually arrest and transport a Democrat to the Capitol even if he found a Democratic Senator within Wisconsin (though I didn't expect the police to go looking, either).

That said, it's fairly ironic that the Democrats are often being cast as lawbreakers in this drama and are being forced to take political refuge in a neighboring state. People may disagree with what Democrats are doing. Some may even consider the Democrats' actions to be cowardly, petty, childish, abusive, dilatory, or, alternatively, brave, valiant, significant, dutiful, or a host of other adjectives. But unquestionably their acts are lawful -- and Republican efforts to compel Senate attendance by using the Wisconsin State Police are not.

(Cross-posted at The Fourth Branch.)

Newt preaches to the lemmings

By J. Kingston Pierce

I didn’t actually think it was possible for me to develop any less respect for disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But then this week he counseled his fellow Republican’ts to follow his disastrous lead and shut down the federal government again “if the alternative is compromising on their budget-cutting promises.”

Did Gingrich learn nothing from his 1990s failures?

Apparently not, because he’s also urging the GOP to race right off another cliff by impeaching President Barack Obama over the administration’s conscientious decision to cease defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, because it’s clearly unconstitutional. Keep in mind, the president did not instruct the Justice Department to stop enforcing that repugnant 1996 law, which defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman”; he and Attorney General Eric Holder have made it quite clear to everybody that DOMA will “continue to be enforced by the Executive Branch.” They’ve left it up to Congress to actually overturn that law. All the administration said this week is that it will no longer submit briefs supporting DOMA against repeal efforts in the courts.

Nonetheless, Gingrich and other right-wing fire-breathers--convinced that their conservative base either isn’t intelligent enough to notice such logical nuances or won’t give a tinker’s damn about them--are now hinting (if not yet outright saying) that Obama should be removed from office, contending that he’s failing to obey his oath to support the laws of the land. This is patently ridiculous, but Newt has never been known to adhere to reason. He’s testing the waters for a 2012 presidential run, and has seen that the kookier and more intolerant a Republican’t is this year (case in point: Minnesota ex-governor Tim Pawlenty), the more publicity he’s likely to generate.

What Gingrich fails to acknowledge, of course, is that the president’s decision to cease defending DOMA is nothing new. As Think Progress points out, “In 1990, then-acting Solicitor General [and now Chief Justice John] Roberts refused to defend a federal affirmative-action law after he successfully convinced the George H.W. Bush administration that the law was unconstitutional. He failed to convince the Supreme Court, however, and the law was upheld. By declining to defend DOMA, the Obama administration is following the exact same approach embraced by Roberts.”

Considering Gingrich’s own abysmal support of marriage as an institution, his campaign to protect DOMA is more than a tad ironic. Whether it will convince his fellow Republican’ts to jump off the same cliff he and the GOP did back in 1996, when they tried to impeach then President Bill Clinton, is a mystery at this point. Republican’ts are anxious to turn the United States backwards and undo all social, economic, and political  progress made during the last century. Are they also anxious to relive the 1990s by launching another coup against a moderate Democratic president, with the likelihood that they will lose public support the same way Gingrich and his right-wing troops did 15 years ago?

Time (and, no doubt, polls) will tell.

READ MORE: “ With One Week to Go Before the Shutdown Deadline,” by Steve Benen (The Washington Monthly).

(Cross-posted in Limbo.) 

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Welcome to the new authoritarianism, Egypt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, that didn't last long, did it? I mean the hope that Egypt, sans Mubarak, would transition peacefully, and quickly, to some sort of sustainable liberal democracy. There may indeed be meaningful change, but it seems that the military is firmly in command:

CAIRO — Tens of thousands of protesters returned Friday to Tahrir Square, the site of demonstrations that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak two weeks ago, to keep up the pressure on Egypt's military-led transitional government.

But by early Saturday, the military made it clear there would be limits to further dissent as soldiers and plainclothes security officers moved into the square, beating protesters and tearing down their tents, witnesses said.

In a day that had begun with equal parts carnival and anti-government demonstration, protesters' called for the quick cancellation of the Emergency Law, which for three decades has allowed detentions without trial, and the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force general appointed by Mr. Mubarak days before he stepped down.

But after night fell, the protest transformed into a tense standoff between protesters and the military, whose neutrality during the uprising, and unwillingness to fire on the protesters, had turned them into popular heroes. 

The military may have been "popular heroes," for a short time (and perhaps understandably so), but it's not like it's really an engine of change, let alone to a new chapter in Egyptian history that would see its power (and economic status) reduced. The military was the one significant institution that Mubarak allowed to remain in place during his rule, and it used its position to acquire enormous power within the structure of Mubarak's authoritarianism, or perhaps despite of it, with an enormous stake in Egypt's economy. (For more on this, see Fred Kaplan's recent piece at Slate on the Egyptian military.)

And, indeed, it may not have fired on the protesters -- and been willing to appear to side with them, giving it enormous credibility in terms of public opinion both at home and abroad (and most importantly with the U.S., where many top Egyptian military officials were trained) -- not because it agreed with them but because it was quietly encouraging the end of Mubarak's regime so that it could take over. As Ellis Goldberg wrote at Foreign Affairs a couple of weeks ago:

Earlier that day, the Supreme Military Council released a statement -- labeled its "first" communiqué -- that stated that the military would ensure a peaceful transition of Mubarak out of office. In practice, it appears that power has passed into the hands of the armed forces. This act was the latest in the military's creep from applauded bystander to steering force in this month's protests in Egypt. Since the protest movement first took shape on January 25, the military has, with infinite patience, extended and deepened its physical control of the area around Tahrir Square (the focal point of the protests) with concrete barriers, large steel plates, and rolls of razor wire. In itself, the military's growing footprint was the next act in a slow-motion coup -- a return of the army from indirect to direct control -- the groundwork for which was laid in 1952.

And so the threat to a democratic future for Egypt isn't Islamism but military rule:

The West may be worried that the crisis will bring democracy too quickly to Egypt and empower the Muslim Brotherhood. But the real concern is that the regime will only shed its corrupt civilians, leaving its military component as the only player left standing. Indeed, when General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed vice president to whom Mubarak entrusted presidential powers last night, threatened on February 9 that the Egyptian people must choose between either the current regime or a military coup, he only increased the sense that the country was being held hostage.

It's no longer being held hostage. The military has taken over.

In the past, the U.S. and others have forged alliances with military dictators all around the world, mostly as a supposed bulwark against communism but also because of a general distrust, if not outright opposition to, democratic movements whose outcomes are unclear. The same has happened more recently, with the U.S. backing dictators as a bulwark against Islamism (or, rather, the threat of jihadism), including in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Given what happened in Egypt this month, with the world's attention focused on the courageous protesters in Tahrir Square and with all the celebrations and talk of democracy that accompanied Mubarak's resignation, it remains to be seen whether the revived military authoritarianism in Egypt will be welcomed by the U.S. -- and whether it will be allowed to get away with this coup -- or whether there will be continued pressure for lasting change beyond this supposed "transition."

I'm not optimistic.

Ignorance stands between Romney and the White House

By Nicholas Wilbur

The 2012 presidential campaign is off to a lackluster and lackadaisical start, and the Republican Party's hopes of finding a legitimate challenger to face off against Barack Obama are just as lacking.

The prospective presidential candidates who continue to top poll after poll are the same faces we saw in 2008, and they're just as polarizing, just as unpopular among the Republican leadership, and just as unelectable now as they were then. Of the top three, two are as loathed as they are loved – and that's on the right, excluding half of the electorate – while the other, though qualified, is as welcomed from within the conservative ranks as a Starbucks convention inside Provo, Utah city limits.

The Palin Factor

Taking third, just as she did in 2008 (behind Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but far ahead of John McCain) there's Sarah Palin, whose current popularity (measured separately from her "attractiveness") has fallen to bottom-feeder levels since she was chosen as vice presidential candidate in the last presidential election. Faced with lawsuits and ethics investigations during and following her entrance onto the national stage, Palin eventually abandoned her governorship in Alaska halfway through her first term in order to pursue a career as a political celebrity, signing on first with Fox News, then launching a reality TV series with TLC.

The formerly unknown "Mama Grizzly" traded in state stewardship to become a Facebook and Twitter icon – amassing 10 times more followers than real Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner combined. She gave up public service to become a millionaire and a celebrity, effectively erasing whatever fantastical images America may have had of her as being a rogue reformer of the Wild Wild West.

The continuous publicity, needless to say, hasn't quelled any of the skepticism surrounding Palin when McCain introduced her as his presidential running mate. She's still an amateur when it comes to domestic and international policy, she still refuses to grant interviews to anyone in the press who isn't a host at Fox, and she still looks like a dunce in the eyes of any crowd that isn't handpicked from the Tea Party pool of like-minded fanatics. She is extremely popular among the Birthers – those who believe President Obama is a Manchurian Candidate who wasn't born in the United States, and therefore isn't legally entitled to be president – but conspiracy theorist fringe groups don't decide the outcome of national elections, a reality to which the Republican Party is privy.

A "Palin for President" campaign, of course, assumes she would even run. More likely, she's milking a potential White House campaign as a publicity stunt to boost her image, sell some books, and earn a few high-paying speaking tours throughout the Bible Belt. Palin has as much chance at beating Obama in the general election as Fox News has of earning a Nobel Prize for ethics. She knows this as well as anyone. Even if Palin managed to pull off a few primary victories in 2012, conservatives wouldn't dare hand her the country. The Republican Party may be stuffed full of power-hungry demagogues, but they're not politically suicidal.

Nobody Hearts Huckabee

Then there's Mike Huckabee, the Southern Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas, who is utterly incapable of attracting more than a few thousand viewers to his Fox News show, let alone to a campaign rally. Though he may top Rupert Murdoch's list of  presidential hopefuls, Huckabee couldn't rile a pack of wolves with a truckload of filet mignon, which makes him about as plausible a candidate for the 2012 Republican nomination as House of the Dead is of being inducted into the cinema hall of fame.

The Fringe Revolutionary

The Republican Party's wild card, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), continually fails to reach double-digit ratings in national polls, but his supporters show up en masse every year to give him strong presence at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. He is popular among the young and overzealous libertarians but is largely ignored by the media, mainly because his staunchly held ideological beliefs make him incapable of striking a balance between idealism and pragmatism.

After Paul's failed presidential bid in 2008, his status was reduced to author of revolutionary manifestos ("The Revolution: A Manifesto"), and it fell even further when his son Rand ran successfully for Congress in 2010 as a representative of the Tea Party.

The... Mormon

That leaves Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Romney may be the only potential candidate capable of overcoming the triple-dose of fiscal retardation under Reagan and the two Bushes, but he'll fail to make the cut nonetheless, and for the same reasons he was overlooked as a running mate for McCain in 2008: he's Mormon.

Romney is a successful businessman, he's rich, he's more than adept at pulling in campaign donors, he's on point with the core beliefs of conservatism, and he's chock-full of family values – even without having multiple wives.

But therein lies the problem.

No matter how good he looks on paper, no matter how good he looks in the paper – what with his chiseled, "rugged jawline" and his thick Massachusetts mop, which has "gone gray in just the right places" – Romney can't ditch his faith.

Much like the closeted discrimination surrounding Obama's race, Romney's religion, whether admitted to or not, is a drawback that many voters – particularly those within the Republican Party's base – will not be able to overlook. It may be a pock mark on the face of a country that prides itself in diversity and freedom of religion, but his faith nonetheless disqualifies him from office.

In the minds of the American masses, Mormonism is not synonymous with Christianity, and no resemblances between the two will convince conservative voters otherwise. Islam and Christianity share the same God, their followers believe in many of the same prophets, and their leaders preach many of the same sermons, but that doesn't stop the majority of Christians from viewing Islam as the religion of extremist terrorists who hate American freedom and live only to die as martyrs for the anti-American cause. The same rationale, however misguided, will be applied to Mormonism, and to Romney.

To the uninformed, Mormonism is nothing more than a polygamist cult full of pedophiles who marry their teenage cousins, live in isolated desert compounds, and panhandle on street corners in order to fund their way of life.

If not for Romney's established reputation as a successful business man and a respected (though not loved) Republican governor, and if not for fellow Mormon Glenn Beck's popularity among radical fringe groups, the Tea Party already would have lumped Mormonism in with socialism, Communism, fascism, and every other allegedly occult and arguably unconstitutional movement they claim is trying to unravel the patriotic thread that's keeping America tied together.

With an albatross as weighty as Mormonism hanging from his neck, Romney won't be an easy candidate to support, particularly among the ever-more staunchly conservative Christian base of the Republican Party.

If Romney is nominated, he couldn't win the election without dedicating the majority of his year-long campaign to self-defense, explaining to the American people exactly what Mormonism represents and allaying the media-induced fears about incest, polygamy, and the 18th-century roles of women within the church. Such an education lesson would assuage many fears and elevate many voters from the troughs of ignorance, but it wouldn't do a thing to boot Obama out of the White House.

As the primaries approach, the GOP will sit back and hope (and pray, of course) that Romney eventually drops out. After he starts winning primary races in key states, which he will, the GOP will stand up and demand that he drop out.

America showed it was ready to make history by electing a black president in 2008, but the voters who put Barack Obama in the White House were predominantly Democrats.

To expect conservative Christians to elevate the country's first Mormon to such a powerful position will take an act of God, and not even the Republican Party believes America is ready to make such a historic stride on Election Day 2012.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)