Where Do We Go From Here? - Part Deux

Continuing from my previous post on the impending Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, if you haven't heard by now, there is one issue of great importance, and near-immediate salience to the Tea Party movement, that will surely make its presence known very shortly into the 112th Congress, and it is this:

The current statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion will be reached some time between February and June 2011. At that point, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the federal government can no longer borrow any money, and can no longer pay its bills or service its existing debt, the government will be in financial default.

And on top of that, the government will reach that ceiling based on already passed current spending and debt service, meaning that no band-aid of cutting a few programs of discretionary spending here and there will prevent the ceiling from being reached. It could postpone it by a few weeks, hence the somewhat wide range of expected target dates.

Think about that for a moment.

There's a whole metric assload of brand new freshly minted Republicans and tea partiers storming in to Washington on a platform of "NO MORE DEBT", "STOP THE SPENDING", "CUT TAXES FOR THE MILLIONAIRES", etc., etc., etc., who will soon be forced to take a stand on a bill that will either allow the government to take on another trillion or two in debt, or cause all government borrowing to stop, the government to default on its existing loans, and immediately push the world banking system into panic, likely sending stock markets down 50% overnight.

There's no middle ground there, it will have to be one or the other.

To paraphrase, Whatcha Gonna Do when Debt-a-mania runs wild on you?

This brings us to a fascinating dilemma for Mssrs. Boehner and McConnell, as well as the entire new incoming class of Republicans, and their likeminded predecessors (Demint, Bachmann, Ron Paul, Issa, etc.). No extension to the debt limit can pass in 2011 without significant Republican votes. Same goes for the Senate.

Here we have an entire subset of Congress who adamantly refuses to add on to the debt. Well, here comes your chance to prove it. And just to add to the intrigue, to see how tightly you'll cling to those principles, a smart House minority leader (it won't be Pelosi) will tell his caucus to vote against it, thereby forcing the new House majority's hand. The Democrats may have learned a lot from watching two years of the Party of No...perhaps they put those lessons to use, putting the new far right on the ultimate spot.

So, you're the Republican-led House of Representatives. Do you want to be the party responsible for plunging the free world into an instant depression and worldwide bank panic when the United States defaults on its debt? Or were all those Tea Party friendly sentiments just more of the same common campaign lies, with you willing to sell out all those who believed you when you were preaching your "END THE SPEND" in front of your grassroots gatherings of a couple dozen folks? Are you willing to put yourself on the 2012 Tea Party hitlist like Scott Brown has already done? Are you willing to turn your back so quickly on those who got you there? Or, do you dance with who brung ya and stand by your principles and shut down the entire free world economy to prove a point?

If you're Rand Paul, you're already declaring "no compromise" in your victory speeches. Okay....goody gumdrops.

If you're Harry Reid (or the next Senate Majority Leader, please), let's put Rand to the test. No raise in the debt ceiling can pass without a lot of Democratic votes, but one can pass with the votes of all Republicans and a wee couple of Democrats. First thing you do is, you don't even schedule a vote on it until after the House votes. If the tea partiers in the House do show their backbone and vote down the higher ceiling, then you don't even have to risk anything....but if it passes the House and comes to you, just make sure you get about 46 "no" votes, and there you have it. The Senate Tea Partiers will be held to the ultimate test...and America will be able to see in very short order how strongly they hold their alleged core values.

I, for one, can't wait to watch this play out.

Now, this is true, even if the most hard core Tea Party members all vote "no", and the Democrats in the House vote no, a "yes" vote by the remaining Republicans in the House could still put such a bill at the 218 votes necessary for it to pass. Maybe. Depends on how you define "hard core". But then that makes vulnerable all of those who do vote for it to being put on the Tea Party 2012 hit list, as well, and there are plenty who won their 2010 races by slim enough margins that they won't take that chance.

From an Associated Press article via Huffington Post today:

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, planning to take over as speaker now that Republicans have won the House, said that over the next few months he'll look at ways to work with his new tea party caucus to pass legislation they will oppose like increasing the debt limit.

Of course, there are already plenty of indications of how this is going to work out, given how some of the Tea Party stars are already showing their stripes. After having campaigned as the ultimate Washington outsider, who does Rand Paul hire as his chief of staff? From the same article:

Tea Party hero Rand Paul moved immediately to name an insider as chief of staff for his Senate office. Doug Stafford, a longtime GOP operative in Washington, has been his top political consultant and is vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and as a consultant to the Campaign for Liberty.

So much for bringing a fresh outsider's perspective to Washington. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Personally, I'm banking on the Tea Partiers caving in to Boehner and McConnell's demands, for the most part, in exchange for some really sweet committee assignments and earmarks. You know, business as usual. Much like how Rick Scott led one of the greatest Medicare frauds in history and now runs on a "cut government spending" platform. Ambitious folk will say anything to get elected. But when the rubber meets the road, the newly minted members of Congress will lose their moral bearings the very moment the Armey/Koch troops come in to demand legislative repayment for all the attack ad funding that got them their seats in the first place. And so it goes.

Really, it's no different than their insistence on maintaining the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts for the top 2% wealthiest Americans, who are anything but middle class, and eliminating the estate tax which already affects less than 1% of the entire United States population, both of which scenarios are unpaid for and add to the federal debt precisely because they are unpaid for. But it's what the deep pockets that funded Crossroads GPS and the Tea Party Express wanted, so those are the positions you get.

This is not to dimish the serious nature of our rising debt at all. It is a major issue, and it needs to be tackled. We can start be eliminating all existing loopholes in the tax codes...you know, the ones that let companies shift all their costs to U.S. subsidiaries while shifting all their assets to subsidiaries in tax haven countries, so they can pretend they're not profitable here for tax purposes while they continue to make money hand over fist. There's a recent wonderful article about the phenomenon here.

We can also start by ending all farm subsidies now. Why the hell should your tax dollars (and mine) go to a direct handout, right? Sure, that will drive up the cost of food products, and probably put some U.S. farms out of business. But hey, no more government handouts, right? Though it's rather ironic how much of tea party country is in rural, farming America, ain't it. But I digress....

We can also stop with all these science and technology grants to companies where, you know, you build your 30 person design shop here, we'll waive all of your taxes and pay your infrastructure improvements with local tax dollars while you offshore the 1,000 employee factory that actually builds what you design, but in India. We can also stop buying future ultra tech weapon programs that we don't need today and aren't effective against small mountain terrorist insurgencies. Those are all places to start. I'm sure there's more. Beyond, of course, bringing back our entire expeditionary military from Iraq and Afghanistan and South Korea right now. That will save hundreds of billions per year.

But then, even if all of the previous two paragraphs were to come true in the next few months, none of it will prevent us from hitting that dreaded debt ceiling in spring of 2011, which brings us right back to the impending dilemma.

Time to go buy some microwave popcorn. In bulk.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So the 2010 elections are pretty much in the books, pending a few likely recounts, and what did it all mean? What did we learn, and what lies ahead of us now?

Well, the most obvious takeaway is that the Democrats got their hats and asses handed to them on a paper plate. Nationally, the Republicans pretty much wiped the floor with the Democrats on every level, from U.S. House and Senate races, to governor races, and certainly in state legislative races. I wouldn't be surprised if electoral earthquakes were felt at the county dog catcher level.

The Democrats lost the narrative, and they very clearly lost the outside expenditure battle by a factor of about 37452 to 1. More notably, they failed to accurately portray the obstructionist nature of the minority party in the 111th United States Congress. The filibuster tactic was employed in the U.S. Senate more times since January 2008 than in any other Congress ever. Ever. The Republicans managed to filibuster more judicial appointments (and continue to do so) than at any time in previous history, and have acted in a manner completely contrary to their own position five years ago that holding up presidential judicial appointments is unconstitutional.

However, Harry Reid has also been an abject failure as Majority Leader, in my opinion. Faced with such a record number of threatened filibusters, he failed to actually require the Republicans to go through with their threatened filibusters by actually filibustering a bill. You know, by actually having to get up on their feet and prattle on for 96 hours straight about nothing in particular until you either give up or convince the majority to withdraw the bill. This candy ass tactic of pulling bills back without actually making the minority filibuster the old fashioned way allowed and further encouraged McDonnell in his obstructionist game.

If the Democrats learn anything from yesterday's elections, I hope it's that Harry Reid has no business continuing to serve as majority leader, because he sucks at it. His and Pelosi's lack of congressional leadership have at least as much to do with yesterday's failure as the Obama administration's failure to highlight the things they actually accomplished, that a majority of Americans would consider as good things (and yes, those accomplishments actually do exist).

I would have rooted for Reid's electoral defeat entirely, had Nevada Republicans not nominated such a batshit crazy basket case to represent them. Which brings me to my next subject: What of Sarah Palin, and what was the real value of her endorsement?

Patient Zero Mama Grizzly handed out endorsements to a few dozen candidates nationwide, in U.S. and statewide races. And how did things turn out? Well, approximately half of her endorsees won their electoral battles. This doesn't sound too shabby, right? But think again. This was an election Sarah Barracuda called an "earthquake". A greater number of House seats changed hands than at any time in the last 62 years. The Democrats were running scared and dropping like flies on the side of the road. This was the most encouraging environment for Republican candidates in decades, and yet Sarah's preferred candidates won only about half their races.

More notably, some of her highest profile endorsees (Christine O'Donnell, Tom Tancredo, Sharron Angle, Carly Fiorina) all went down hard. And it appears Joe Miller's candidacy is crashing, as well, though results won't be official there for a while. What does this all mean, other than the fact that she can't even get a candidate elected in her own home state?

It's instructive to take a look at her actual endorsees, some of whom ran effective campaigns and stayed away from some of the most outrageous sentiments expounded by those who lost. Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio...in each case, these individuals managed to present themselves as thoughtful, bright candidates without a history of hypocrisy, and they campaigned on platforms of conservative-friendly policies, but without the most extreme rhetoric, without the most extreme positions, and without Palinesque levels of vitriol and vindictiveness.

In other words, people such as Haley, Martinez, and Rubio were just plain old-fashioned good candidates and most likely candidates who, in the current electoral climate, were perfectly capable of winning their races with or without Palin's endorsement and did not even need it. And those candidates who probably "benefited" the most from Palin's endorsements (O'Donnell, Miller, Angle) still lost either in spite of, or because of, those endorsements. Why? Because they were bad candidates. Either their own actions betrayed their candidacies, or they simply proved their own lack of qualifications. Ultimately, Sarah Palin will likely pay a higher price for those misplaced endorsements, as she as seen as even less unqualified as a presidential candidate than she was viewed in 2008.

That said, my contention all along is that she actually has little to no interest in (or stomach for) the two year presidential election process. Rather, the entire "will she or won't she" narrative is about keeping her in the public eye while the speaking engagement checks continue to roll in. It's all about the filthy lucre for Clan Palin. But hey, that's the New American way...prove your lack of job qualifications, but get yourself on TV and quoted often enough, and there's a seven-figure commentating gig for you on FNC. The ink's probably already being laid to O'Donnell's new daytime talker as I write this. The 2008 presidential campaign was the most financially successful reality show starring role. Lauren Conrad probably wishes she'd thought of it first.

So....okay. Given the jobless nature of this nascent, teetering economic recovery, and given the nature of midterm elections, the Democrats were likely going to lose a lot of seats. And they deserved to.

And now?

The next two years are going to require actual Republican contributions to any and all legislation that passes. They no longer get to be the Party of No. After all, they'll have the majority in the House, and no legislation can pass the Senate without the support of at least, at a minimum, no less than four members of the party not driving the bill, and that's just to get to 51 votes. It will take at least nine Republicans to get to a filibuster-proof majority on Dem-sponsered bills, and thirteen Democrats to get to a filibuster-proof majority on McDonnell-approved legislation.

This means Obama will not be dictating any sort of congressional agenda for the next two years (and given the watered-down nature of both the health care law and the Wall Street regulatory law, it's arguable how much he ultimately dictated those bills). It also means the Republicans have to actually be productive members of Congress and no mere procedural obstructionist roadblocks.

You wanted a chance to come off the bench and swing the bat? Now's your chance. Batter up. Prove you can actually legislate and not just bloviate. We're waiting. But beware, there's some pretty big traps out there, the biggest and baddest of which I'll address in my next post....

"Do As I Say, Not As I Do"

"I don't think Americans should be pitting Americans against each other," - Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), while trying to justify $700 billion in non-offset spending directly into the pockets of the wealthiest 2% of Americans.

That's right, Jon, you're all against your self-styled concept of class warfare....that is, except when you're trying to punish those long term unemployed because...well, they're not in your class.

"[C]ontinuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," - Sen. Jon Kyl in justifying his party's six week filibuster of extended unemployment benefits.

That's right, you're only against helping those who are probably too poor to donate to your endless campaign PACs. I get it. I understand. It's hard for those without any class to avoid either class warfare or hypocrisy or, in your case...both. Simultaneously. It's really hard for your most moneyed supporters to host fundraisers for you on their new yacht when they won't get that second yacht until they can get the working class to pay for it.

I've got your new campaign slogan, for when you need it:

Jon Kyl, taking bread out of the mouths of babes to feed caviar to investment bankers since 1986.

How about:

Jon Kyl, helping to subsidizing shipping jobs out of America since 1986.

Hmmm...maybe lacking a bit of pizazz, but not missing any truthfulness. Note to self, hire Peggy Olson away from SCDP to come up with ten better taglines in the time it took me to write this post.

Hmm, Jonny boy, if you're so against this perceived "class warfare" would you care to explain why you've voted at least three times against raising the minimum wage in this country? Oh yeah, because subsistence wage dollars don't go into your PACs...

Yeah, if there's a hell below, we're all gonna go. You too, Jon, you fucking hypocrit.

Feels Like Forever

So goes the summer, I do suppose.

I haven't played much in the way of poker lately, and except for one horrendous marathon session (which ended badly), it's been pretty much a break-even proposition. Still having somewhat more consistent results in the various Omaha variants than elsewhere, but just not a whole lot going on.

For at least 7-10 days, I've been dwelling on the idea of writing an uber-post of sorts, detailing my thoughts on the proposed Islamic cultural center at Park51, Cordoba, whatever you want to call the location. Certainly, a couple bloggers I consider friends have written well thought out and articulate pieces on the matter. Both of which I disagree with (for differing reasons), naturally, but both are writers I respect and enjoy.

But then, for a while it seemed that anything I could possibly contribute to the discussion has already been better articulated by others. That, and I'm still lazy. And that I spent four days in hotter-than-ass Austin, and wasn't going to spend that time blogging...and I'd already spent enough time and words and energy debating this issue with friends in their Facebook comments, and in other forums.

At least I felt that way until the recent LOL-worthy highlarity over on Fixed News, where, in some rather ignorant, mean-spirited, misguided, and completely stepping-in-your-own-shit manner, the morning douches over there attempted to create some mythical guilt-by-assocation conclusions that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf somehow both supports terrorism, and is directly connected to some shadowy Saudi benefactor, and therefore, cannot be trusted or believed:


Yes, it's true, the "shadowy figure" funding the imam is none other than Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal....the SECOND LARGEST SHAREHOLDER of News Corp, the parent company to Fox News. C'mon boys, follow the money!! Really, if you actually think the proposed cultural center at Park 51 is to be a bastion for future terrorist training, because of the source of its funding, then you clearly have no other choice than to shut down Fox News, as it's clearly funding by terrorist sympathizers, and profits from terror, no?

The most awesome part of this is after Fixed News complained for months about how no one else would cover the supposed ACORN scandal (which was actually manufactured by intentionally misrepresented video editing), and how only Fox News Channel will actually go after the hard news, they're far too chickenshit to even name the person they're accusing as being a shadowy terrorist financier of Iman Rauf, even those that very same person is their own boss.

C'mon, Fox, keep following the money, that's right. I guess perhaps one could say that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal does support terrorism...after all, he financially supports Doocy, Kilmeade, O'Reilly, and Beck. Maybe Fox News should relocate out of Manhattan, after all, dem dere's some turrists.

Really, if that's the level of intellectual honesty that comes from the portion of the media driving the anti-Park 51 bus, that's all that needs to be said, for now.

Good luck on the felt, y'all.

Let He Who Is Without Hypocrisy Cast the First Stone

(WARNING - The post below does contain NSFW language, and opinions that are likely to offend the sensibilities of at least a couple of my friends. This is a rant against certain political hypocrisies, fear-mongering, and hatred, and is not intended as a personal insult to anyone not specifically mentioned by name, read at your own risk. Carry on.)

There's nothing quite like the hubris and hypocrisy of a twice-divorced man who cheated on his second wife, and divorced his first wife while she was in the hospital fighting cancer, now carrying the mantle in sacred defense of marriage.

Hey Newt, "Which one of your multiple marriages was the most sacred to you?"



(found and shared on Facebook)

You know, I can respect that opinions on this matter run wide and deep in this country. I really can. There are a lot of passionate arguments to be made in this matter, though I note that passionate argument does not equate to argument based on law and facts, one does not necessarily equal the other.

However, there are two fundamental arguments against marriage equality, that come from two different sources of people, which underscore the fact that for these two groups, their positions are truly rooted more in fear, bigotry, and ignorance than anything else.

The first is this -- all those who base their arguments on the principle of "marriage is under attack", or some other description rooted in a position that the sanctity of marriage is somehow vulnerable here. Well, if you've ever divorced your spouse, than fuck you, you don't get to make that argument, because you didn't give a flying fuck about the sanctity of your own marriage, so you forfeit the right to preach to others that marriage is sacred. Because it sure wasn't for you. And if you divorced because you were unfaithful to your spouse, like Newt Gingrich was (the 2nd wife, you know, the one he left his cancer-ridden wife for, in the first place), then that goes doubly so.

And second, there's the argument that Judge Walker somehow violated the constitution and is a "judicial activist". Never mind the fact that Judge Walker is a Republican named to the bench by the right-wing's hero Ronald Reagan, and has shown himself over the body of his work to be anything but a judicial activist. It should be noted that nowhere in the United States Constitution does the word "marriage" even appear. The Constitution is utterly silent on the subject. So no, gay marriage is not unconstitutional.

What is unconstitutional, however, is a state initiate designed solely to deprive basic citizen rights to those who already have those rights. In California, gay people had already obtained the right to marry, and Proposition 8 was intended solely to take away a right that already existed in state law, and that is clearly unconstitutional. Think about it. If California voters passed an initiative that took away a woman's right to vote, would that be any different? Of course not. The will of a state population to violate the United States Constitution does not make that violation constitutional.

Which brings me to my point. Many of the same far right dittoheads who claim that either gay marriage or Judge Walker's ruling, is unconstitutional, also claim to be "strict constructionists" when it comes to the Constitution. In other words, their normal argument is that the Constitution is to be read on its face, and not to be interpreted in any fashion. Except now, those same people want to claim that the Constitution somehow doesn't apply here, or says something it does not say. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Sharron Angle and Sarah Palin (among others), who after decades of claiming yourselves as strict constructionists, now to apply a completely different standard to Judge Walker's ruling. You don't get it...you no longer get to make that argument. You forfeit the right to argue against your decades-long positions of strict constructionism just because you don't like a ruling that actually strictly follows the Constitution.

If your argument against marriage equality is based on either of the above two positions, and you've ever been divorced, or cheated on your spouse, or even if single participated in a relationship with a partner outside *their* marriage, or even one time carried the mantle of fighting "judicial activism", or even once used the the argument of strict construction to support, say, the NRA...then fuck you, you don't get to make that argument now, because it makes you as intellectually dishonest as a newt. Or a Newt.

Of course, now there's the mud rising to the surface of those claiming that Judge Walker should have recused himself because he is gay (allegedly), and thus impartial in any situation involving gay rights. Really? Is that what you really think? Do you honestly think that a woman cannot judge a case involving, say, workplace harrassment, or a black man is de facto barred from judging a case involving alleged racial discrimination or profiling? Bullshit. You didn't stand up when Justice Clarence Thomas voted in the recent Massachusetts firefighter promotion lawsuit. You know why? Because you don't actually believe that, except when it comes to the gays.

Judge Walker shouldn't have recused himself anymore than a straight judge should have recused himself for the very same reason. One's sexual orientation isn't a basis for recusal anymore than the color of a judge's skin, or the form of their genitalia.

Obviously, the legal battle is far from over, for both sides of the argument. This was only a United States District Court ruling, there are certainly appeals to follow. And really, no one knows how this is ultimately going to turn out. I'm no lawyer, and I certainly don't know how this will end up, though I am extremely curious to see how the issue is ultimately decided, and the impact on the American legal landscape.

I do think it speaks volumes that one of the two lead counsel for plaintiffs in the case is none other than Ted Olsen, he of impeccable conservative credentials, even serving as President George W. Bush's Solicitor General.

But one thing is for certain. The usual windbags on the right are going to have to come up with a new toy to talk about this time, because on this, they're going to have to actually live by the same words they've preached to us forever. In fact, they may want to wear longer pants, be careful, their bias is showing.

On the Nature Of the Role Of Government...

...brought to you by a graphic I came across today (original author unknown, at least to me).



Now clearly, not nearly every broad-based program the federal government has gotten behind has worked out in the most efficient or effective manner. In areas as diverse as food safety, fuel economy standards, and gosh knows online poker transactions, there's an awful lot that can be improved upon.

But to those who would simply parrot the standard issue Palin/Beckisms of "the government's taking over your lives, ZOMG death panels!", I would cordially invite you to skip out on the benefits enjoyed in all other areas of your lives where the government has actually made a positive difference -- perhaps a fresh coat of lead paint in your bedroom, or just rip out the seat belts and air bags in your car and hope you don't have a highway accident (because such equipment only reached the ubiquity of becoming standard equipment thanks to government regulation).

I'm not suggesting the recently-passed health care legislation is perfect. Far from it. The failure to pass some form of drug reimportation is saddening, when Americans have to pay exponentially more for the same medicine from the same manufacturer, than Canadians do (as well as those of other countries).

However, all the fear-mongering in the world, most loudly by those who stand to financially benefit from fear (Limbaugh, Beck, et al.), only reflects how out of touch with reality a person can be. See, Limbaugh and Beck don't actually care that much about policy -- their riches come not from policy one way or the other, but solely from inciting and stoking fear and anger, because it builds ratings. And without ratings, they have no portfolio at all.

LOL Fake Outrageaments

I wish Barney Frank were my Congressman. I'm all about the 1st Amendment, because only in America would we allow this nonsense. "Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table."

Frankly, I think ...the poor woman simply can't stop confusing socialism with Nazism, which is odd, because she doesn't *sound* uneducated. She only carries herself as if she were.

I really don't mind that a lot of the rabble-rousers at these town hall events are actually organized plants of various far right groups. I mean, that's the American way, and that's their 1st Amendment right to be there and speak up. That's part of the American political process and, in fact, part of what actually separates us from totalitarian parties such as the Nazis, the Taliban, the North Korean Communist Party, Ahmendinajad's party, etc. The debate is healthy. Hell, I'm a big Obama supporter and I'm hardly 100% convinced of the wisdom of all the aspects of his plan.

But if you do want to exercise your 1st Amendment rights (as I encourage you to do) in a manner that reveals your abject ignorance of the most basic truths, don't be alarmed when your bald faced stupidity is reveled in by everyone else. I mean, that's a lesson Sarah Barracuda keeps having to learn nearly every week, no?

LOL Fake Mustache On A Photoaments

Sometimes the Cows Do Come Home to Roost

Ahh...not much to say this week poker-wise. I did stumble into a 4th place finish in a Limit O8 MTT last Thursday, but the night was still a loser overall. Mostly due to the O8 MTT being a $5 buy-in, while busting short of the money in an $11r, a $20+2, and giving up five buyins in a $5r...but I digress.

Likely no poker at all this week, since my band has a gig tomorrow night. Which reminds me, please visit our site and check out our new recording "Horse".

What I really wanted to stop by for was to share a lil' bit of ye olde schadenfreude, and one of my favorite recipes, at that.

See, for most of this entire decade, those on the right have been defending, and mightly so, I must add, the former Bush administration's warrantless secret wiretapping and eavesdropping of American citizens. And yes, you can be on the right of a lot of issues and still be a member of the Democratic Party, because in the end, if you're a politician, you're more likely to be a member of whichever party is most likely to help you get elected.

That's why legions of Texas politicians from the end of the civil war, through 1980, were Democrats. It ain't because they were libruls, that's for sure. But after the Civil War, you couldn't get elected in the South for 100 years if you were a Republican. Which brings us to today's hero goat, Jane Harman. Essentially, Ms. Harmon's been, for all intents and purposes, a complete Republican through and through when it comes to toeing that party's line on matters of dollars and cents, but is too far to the left when it comes to abortion to be electable as a Republican.

Jane, you see, is not only one of the wealthiest members of Congress, but also the Democratic Party's most vociferous supporter of the warrantless wiretapping program. She's been quoted as saying, "I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities." And when the press blew up the secret program, she not called the whistleblowers "despicable", she argued for curtailing freedom of the press under the 1st Amendment.

Well, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday on Salon, it's funny what happens when the shoe is on the other foot.

I asked Attorney General Holder to...investigate whether other members of Congress or other innocent Americans might have been subject to this same treatment. I call it an abuse of power in the letter I wrote him this morning. . . .

I'm just very disappointed that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I'm one member of Congress who may be caught up in it, and I have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I'm thinking about others who have no bully pulpit, who may not be aware, as I was not, that someone is listening in on their conversations, and they're innocent Americans.

NOW, Jane Harman is against wiretapping? NOW, Jane Harman wants a full government investigation, now that SHE is the one being taped? Taped under a court-issued warrant, I might add?

Hey Jane, go fuckin' drown in the bathtub of your own hypocrisy, why don't ya. You're FOR warrantless wiretapping, yet you claim yourself to be a victim of a "gross abuse of power" when you were tapped under a fully court-approved warrant. I've got a better idea, why don't we ship YOU got Guantanamo, since you seem to think you're no longer subject to the same laws as the rest of us Americans.

The Future, Yes It Is Here

What a speech, what a speech. Not too rah rah, firm enough, and certainly somber enough for our times. Definitely a candidate for the ten best speeches of all time, even if it didn't hang on a single catch sentence. Now, let's see if Congress can make the same hard choices that our new 44th President says we need.

I do think one specific moment during Barack Obama's speech was worth additional mention. Specifically, I believe it was the moment when he said, "But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed." At that moment, the Fox cameras panned off to Bush 43 for a reaction, and were rewarded with something akin to a casual sneer. As if he still didn't get it.

The fundamental problem with our last president is not so much that the economy went to shit, or that bin Laden's still running around, or that No Child Left Behind has resulted in "A" students who can't do simple addition in their head. It's that he came into office in the first place with no actual agenda other than trying to get family vengeance on Saddam Hussein, and he walked into the White House eight years ago truly looking to do nothing more than to find an excuse to do just that.

But that is now in the past -- it is up to the new administration to lead America into a restoration of its place in the eyes of respect of the world for its actions. It is up to the new administration to show through action and deed that their word can be trusted, unlike the previous band of cronies. It is up to the new administration to govern for the benefit of all Americans, and not simply Halliburton and Blackwater board members. It is time, and time will tell.

I'm anxious to see all the video and photos the Good Doctor Mondo took from the National Mall today. Alas, she's now off to Boston for the next few days, but for now, I can only imagine how much more energy of the day will leap off the first person work than it did through the TV in our firm's training room.

Oh yeah, I got back to some online poker last night. Suffice it to say, my roll would have appreciated me not playing. Out of about a dozen events, all I had to show for it was a Tier One token (that I lost to some -65% ROI uberdonk in the $32k guarantee, when he overshoved from the big blind with AJo to my standard button raise with QQ. A on the river, naturally. He said he thought I was trying to steal, but could only muster "A-rag" I asked him "steal with what?". Well...that, and a mincash in the Bodog $5k guarantee, where I was never really in a strong position, chipwise.

Okay, here's a situation where maybe I could use some advice or analysis:

I bubbled the Bodog $5r when a couple hands previous, I'd gone from a final table stack to crippled when my 77 went down to TT on a very dangerous AKss flop. I made a standard late position raise, and called a three-bet from a somewhat aggressive button player. I can't believe how badly I played it post flop, where I called his small flop raise. I compounded the problem when I bet the turn (a 3rd spade), trying to represent a flush. On the river, I was already down to about 5k in chips (had started the hand at 31k, and I did the worst thing possible -- check. Of course, he checks and shows TT behind me. I have a feeling if I shove that river, he folds.

But that's what made the hand such a bad play for me, in that only an A, K, or flush possibly calls a river shove, and if I could put him on one of those hands, I don't make the stupid call on the flop and the needless pot-building bet on the turn. If I put him on an A or K, I fold to the flop raise (and have about 22k chips left). If I convince myself he has neither, then I shove the river to a possible fold. So basically, no matter which way my read is in that spot, it feels as if I bet it as if I had the opposite read. Honestly, I should have folded to the flop raise, and cost myself dearly, since my Bodog roll is down to about $250, and every one of the $5r costs me $15-20 to play. Five spots deeper, and I'm at least up instead of down, and before the hand, I was right at average chips, so I had a strong chance at reaching a final table.

Obviously, I was out a couple hands later when I called a cutoff raise in the big blind with J9 sooted and 1.5BB remaining (ran into KK, gg me). Once his raise went in, and I saw I had an M below 1, I simply said "well, I didn't come here to mincash" and called. Of course, in any rebuy, a mincash really isn't that bad if you're pretty much only in for the minimum.

There were certainly plenty more....I got wrecked in the Stars $3r and $10r, again getting run down from behind post-flop after having raises called by dominated or other non-racing hands. And then I bubbled the PLO tourney at Full Tilt when my flopped TTT lost to flopped AAA. I could have folded my BB on that hand, but he'd been really aggro preflop, and I was double-suited and single connected, and thought it worth seeing a flop with about 18BB remaining and six spots from the money. the ATx flop sealed my fate, gg me.

Another Proud Product of Wasilla, Alaska

I really hope at least some Wasilla, Alaska families can raise their kids better than this. If Wasilla represents the best in family values, I'd be thrilled if Sarah Palin just stays right on up there.

From the Rocky Mountain News:

GRAND JUNCTION — An Alaska woman accused in the death of her newborn has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and is awaiting sentencing in the case.

Twenty-three-year-old Morgan Hite of Wasilla, Alaska cried as she appeared in a Grand Junction courtroom Monday and entered a guilty plea to a charge of child abuse resulting in death. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped several other charges including first-degree murder.

Hite was accused of giving birth to a boy, now called Gabriel, at a friend's Grand Junction home in February 2008. Prosecutors say she then put the boy in a bag, walked to her parents' home and left the bag in a closet.

Hite's parents found the boy's decomposing body in April.

Hite faces 16 to 24 years in prison when she's sentenced March 19.

I suppose she couldn't see the maternity ward from her house.

Leave It To An Illinois Dem...

...to fuck up so much of the goodwill created by Barack Obama's win in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Rod ("I've got nothing but sunshine hanging over me!") Blagojevich, I hope you get a cell right next to Dealin' Dan Rostenkowski and George Ryan, you corrupt fuck.

It's telling that your own party was considering trying to impeach your self-serving ass in the legislature, no?

Shame, shame, shame. Nothing more than a common run of the mill shakedown artist, and perpetrator of (according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald), "the most staggering crime spree in office I have ever seen". In fact, Fitzgerald essentially said he didn't really want to arrest this scum yet (investigation was ongoing), but felt the need to, in order to put an end to the ongoing crime wave.

Wow. No worries, Roddy, in about a year, you're going to be some bad man's boyfriend behind bars. He'll protect you.

Leave No Presidential Library Behind

(NOTE: I have no idea the original source of this...)

Dear Fellow Constituent,

The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages and accepting donations. The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.

The National Debt Room, which is huge and has no ceiling.

The Tax Cut Room, with entry only to the wealthy.

The Economy Room, which is in the toilet.

The Iraq War Room. (After you complete your first visit, they make you to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth visit.)

The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location, complete with shotgun gallery.

The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.

The Supreme Court Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

The Decider Room, complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.

Note: The library will feature an electron microscope to help you locate and view the President's accomplishments.

The library will also include many famous Quotes by George W. Bush:

'The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country.'

'If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure.'

'Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.'

'No senior citizen should ever have to choose between prescription drugs and medicine.'

'I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change.'

'One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'.'

'Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.'

'I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.'

'The future will be better tomorrow.'

'We're going to have the best educated American people in the world.'

'One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.' (during an education photo-op)

'Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it.'

'We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.'

'It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.'

'I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.'...George W. Bush to Sam Donaldson

PLEASE GIVE GENEROUSLY!

Sincerely,

Jack Abramoff
Co-Chair G.W. Bush Library Board of Director

Like Governors to the Slaughter

"This was neat. I was happy to get invited to participate in this. For one, you need a little bit of levity in this job." - Sarah Palin, explaining why she thought it was a good idea to agree to be interviewed in front of a turkey slaughter taking place on camera directly behind her, complete with mechanized bird decapitations.



One gets the feeling she would have liked to have been the Abu Ghraib naked prisoner pyramid cover girl.

Oh, if there is a god, please to be ensuring Sarah Palin runs for president in 2012, after spending the next few years watching over Russia from her front porch.

The Big McCain, and an After Action Report

Okay, I'm still a bit hungover from last night.

Some very incredible things happened in our great country. Liddy Dole and Marilyn Musgrave found spots at the end of the unemployment line, as did that shitbird from North Cackalacky, Robin Hayes.

Sadly, that civil liberties hater Michele Bachmann kept her seat in the House, but she'll still be about 4,000,000th in power and authority, and she only pulled 46% in a heavily Republican district.

Even more sadly, virtually every discriminatory anti-gay marriage amendment passed. I never understood all this talk about "marriage is under attack", or "defend traditional marriage", in that if it's not YOUR relationship, who the fuck cares? Do you think that becuase Joe and Steve want to wed, that your kid or your cousin or your spouse is all of a sudden going to get divorced from his wife and become gay? Really?

Perhaps the real concepts "attacking" traditional marriage is quickie no-fault divorces, or stupidity of people getting married before they're mature enough, or rampant infidelity which is at least as common amongst those on the evangelical right as in other parts of society. Perhaps if people like Ted Haggard and Jim Bakker kept their dicks in their drawers, their marriages wouldn't be under attack. Or perhaps it's all just been one huge lie, this concept of a party of "small government", when all they really want is for the government to stay out of every aspect of *their* lives, while they legislate the government becoming involved in every single aspect of yours.

I mean, I've been married twice, and I'm more than reasonably certain that my marriage has never been under attack by a gay man or lesbian. If your marriage is under attack by one, maybe you've got far bigger problems in your personal relationships than worrying about what Joe and Steve want to do with one another.

Colorado Amendment 50 passed, which is GREAT for us Colorado poker players. Not all the hurdles have been crossed yet, but the next ones are basic formalities, and by next June or July, most likely, we'll be able to play real ring game poker in the local casinos. Not no limit, but really, $1/2/100 spread limit should effectively play in most instances similar to a $1/2 game that caps buy-ins at $200-300. Plus, you'll start seeing games such as $4-8 and $10-20 run, if all goes well.

All in all, last night was a real watershed event for this nation. I'm still in awe.

Now the hard work begins, and while I expect this country to be in a lot better position four years from now, I sincerely hope people aren't expecting a 12-month miracle. The economy is certainly going to get worse before it gets better. Even a withdrawal from Iraq starting tomorrow would take 18 months to be done safely. And just because Bush is leaving power doesn't mean North Korea and Iran suddenly drop their nuclear games. But there is great reason for optimism.

But really, what I wanted to share with you is this - The Big McCain.



Some language not suitable for small children and office environments.

Mark it zero.

Nice Election Results Widget

This thing will be updating every two minutes. Thanks to MSNBC, you can put it on your own page of many forms, or just follow along here. Kinda a neat widget, really. You can even put it on your MySpace page.

And on the Ninth Day...

Michael Goldfarb grew a pair. Oh wait, never mind, he didn't. He's just another eunuch with a speech impediment -- that impediment being a complete inability to speak the truth or even say what's on his mind:



This is so awesome. McCain's demanding release of some video that allegedly shows Obama attending an event that was...gasp...also attended by Rashid Khalidi. Now, Rashid Khalidi is certainly a rather controversial figure, in that he's an outspoken supporter for Palestinian rights, and an outspoken critic of Israeli occupation of the West Bank. He's also been accused of being a PLO spokesman, but he denies it, and no evidence has been put forth to support that contention. He's also a long time academic who has taught at Georgetown, Columbia, the University of Chicago, Lebanese University, and the American University of Beirut. To be clear, no one has ever accused him of being a terrorist, but he has been accused of being anti-Israel and holding radical views. But let's accept the fact that at a minimum, he's a flashpoint character.

Does McCain's hypocrisy know no bounds? Or is he just too senile to remember how, when he was chairman of the International Republican Institute he gave over a half million dollars to Rashid Khalidi (see pages 14 and 17 here)? Or, as is more likely, is John McCain simply so desperate, and yet so bereft of any reasons to argue why any one should for him, that he would do nothing else but try to stain Barack Obama for assocations when McCain's own associations with the same people run much deeper?

The best part is that little sleazebag Goldfarb, who's been point person #2 or 3 (right behind McCain and that lil' douchebag Tucker Bounds) in playing the association blame game. He wants to scream out Reverend Wright at the top of his lungs so bad, but knows he can't. Yet he's too chickenshit to say what he believes, and equally too chickenshit to do the right thing.

C'mon, Herr Goldfarb, I dare you to sack up and be the man your parents wished you were, before you left your nutsack at the RNC front door. ONE TIME, dealer!

And On the Eighth Day...

Liddy Dole got PWNED.

Here is that nice dear lady, Elizabeth Dole, just yesterday, speaking about her U.S. Senate opponent Kay Hagan:



The ad wasn't out five nanoseconds before it was thoroughly debunked. Kay Hagan is a long time Presbyterian and former Sunday school teacher, and just about everyone in North Carolina already knows that.

So how does Kay Hagan respond? Listen to the last few seconds...



I thought about blogging about this yesterday, but was hoping for a response. In a year of seriously negative advertising, Liddy Dole's patently false attack (no shades of gray here) reflects a candidate so desperate that they would even violate their own religious beliefs, simply for the sake of a 100% untruthful attack. Frankly, I find Dole's ad to be one of the most shameless pieces of utter shit ever broadcast in the name of politics, even beyond any of the Swift boat crap.

There's a special place in hell for Elizabeth Dole, already reserved. And it ain't another term in the U.S. Senate.

Liddy, you got the stones to apologize? Or are you more full of shit today than you were yesterday?

I'm Mondogarage, and I approve this message, because self-righteous, self-serving, incompetent, hypocritical, lying fucks like Elizabeth Dole have no place on Earth, much less in Congress.

In Lieu of Telling Friends

JUST GO VOTE!



Vote your conscience. Vote your mind. Vote your affiliation. Vote your ideals.

Just vote.

If you don't vote, you fail to exercise the only real power you have in shaping the nation's future.

And please, vote your entire ballot, national, state, local, county, amendments, initiatives, bond issues, what have you. A lot of blood has been spilled ensuring your right -- so use it, please.

Olive Branches, Of Sorts

Okay, I wrote most of this originally as a response to a comment from lightning36, a poker blogger whom I respect and like on both counts, his pokerin' and his bloggerin'. He's one tough mother at the tables, and a rather thoughtful and well-reasoned dude. I like the cut of his jib.

Anyway, comments to days' old posts tend to go unread, so I thought I'd share a somewhat less partisan view of what the election next week may mean, and what may result.

And sure, it's probably vain as hell to copy and paste from a comment to a comment to a post, into a brand new post, but fuck it, it's my blog, in'nit?

I'll be the first to admit that there's no way any of us can actually know what the next four years will bring, under a presidency of either candidate. At this point, I'm nearly certain Barack Obama is going to win. I think the Dems will come away with 57 seats in the Senate (and can make Lieberman the senatorial eunuch he deserves to be), and the Dems will significantly expand their majority in the House. Legislation will require some measure of bipartisan ship, because there will not be a filibuster-proof majority, and besides, the Democrats aren't exactly a lock-step party that votes on legislation as a single block.

I truly hope that as president, Barack Obama is all that I think he can be. Yes, he is inexperienced on the national stage, when compared to people like Biden and McCain. However, he is extremely bright and intelligent, and I do think he will surround himself with people much brighter than I am, and people who actually have the country's best interests in mind, rather than a small cabal of oil industry friends. I do believe the national agenda will not be set by a few oil captains to whom the administration has been indebted to for their livelihood.

But that's just it, isn't it? No one can truly predict the future, and voting for any candidate involves a certain amount of faith that you're making the right choice.

I've said many times there are certainly valid and legitmate reasons for a voter to support one candidate over the other. I can't ever conceive becoming a single-issue voter (particularly when it comes to some sort of cultural wedge issue that is not determinative of whether the United States continues to exist as a viable nation). But I can grasp that there are people out there for whom a single issue is all they care about, or that to them, a candidate's stance on a single issue tells them all they need to know on how they might view every other issue of significance.

I also think that in this particular case, there are some invalid reasons related to factors such as race-based fear and paranoia, but I don't personally know anyone in my own life to whom I would ascribe that line of thinking. I am pleased to not personally know anyone who is not voting for Obama because he is black, or on the other hand, is voting for Obama because he is black.

In my case, a lot of of my decision on this vote had to do with knowing that we simply can't afford another four years of "my way or the highway" cowboy diplomacy, because like it or not, we do not live in a one superduperpower world. Not when our economy is inextricably intertwined with so many others', not when our military is too far stretched to be able to be solely responsible for imposing world order, not when much of the civilized world feels like they've been lied to by America once too often. I believe Barack Obama will be a big part of restoring the world's faith in America, and not simply our own, which is equally important. I believe that after a Barack Obama presidency, much of our former place of standing in the world will be restored, such that when America calls out to the world that a certain course of action is crucial and vitally important for everyone's well-being, that the world will listen without taking the default position that we're full of crap.

But do I know beyond any doubt that this will successfully take place? No, no one truly can.

I truly hope in four years, America can look back and say they made the right one.

And you know what? If the choice is ultimately not correct, we're just going to go back and go through the whole process again, anyway, just as we have after every presidency in America's past.

Hope to also see you in the Bodonkey!

Okay, I typed "hope" four times in that post, that's a lot of Hope For Change...

Anecdote Appropos Of....?

Okay, so a couple days ago, the Good Doctor Mondo and I are driving through our housing development...

The development is broken up into four quadrants. One is comprised of condos (both single story, and four-plexes). Two are composed of single family homes and garden homes, from the low $200s to around $400k or so. And the last, which abuts a private country club, is entirely custom homes that went from $600k - $1.5m.

The development is recent, with the first construction taking place in 2000, and in fact, our quandrant (the last to begin) isn't even complete.

We noticed something interesting on this drive. Going through three of the quadrants, we noticed lawn signs for Obama and McCain (as well as lower tier races), and it appeared no more than around 60% or so of the signs were pro-Obama.

But when we got to the high end custom quadrant, there were zero Obama signs at all (though I saw lots of golf carts in the open garages pointing directly to the country club). Not to say every yard had a sign, which they clearly did not. But of the 30% or so yards that had signs, every single one of them was a McCain/Palin sign. And I'm pretty certain Joe the Plumber doesn't live in the Starwood development.

So when you think about just who is in line to benefit from a McFailin' victory, just take a look at the yard signs. It's not for no reason that it appears McCain has a much greater amount of his support from those who already have the most, and who benefited from the single greatest transfer of wealth in American history. Just like it's not for no reason that McCain couldn't bring himself to utter the phrase "middle class" even one time in three debates. McFailin' wouldn't know the real working class if he stepped onto the lawn of one of his eight homes long enough to hand his yardman a glass of lemonade.

If McFailin' is truly for the middle class, then tell me this, why is his support nearly universal in the wealthiest neighborhoods, and less than half in the working and middle class developments?