They'll pick one of them up. At least a couple of them are going to have to come back home at some point. Being Democrats, it's easier for them to abandon their families, but they'll still need changes of socks.

Here's something not_steve_in_hb suggested: They're probably all set up for direct deposit payroll payments. The governor can (I'm thinking) stop direct deposit payments and start writing physical checks, which have to be picked up in person.

That won't help for a while, but screw it, it's fun. (I know someone's going to say Hey stop paying them altogether and I guess I'll have to say -- yeah, that's even more fun.)

I really like Walker. I think a lot of the time people don't understand what I mean when I say "moderate in temperament." Like, I like politicians who come off calm and "just doing the people's business" and stuff. That doesn't mean you can't be a hard-core conservative ideologue -- Walker isn't flinching here at all. But he is doing that more-in-sadness-than-anger thing that sells, projecting the idea that he's just workin' for the people and above partisan spats. (Video after the jump.)

Partisans tend to love very partisan-sounding politicians because such politicians give voice to their beliefs and feelings. And not very partisan sounding politicians are often derided as squishy.

But at the end of the day it's the guy who doesn't sound partisan, but is unflinching on principle, who actually gets things done. This is the genius of Christie's act; this is what made Walker seem, well, presidential.

I've been saying this for like four years. Rush Limbaugh is great and maybe you want a Representative or three who talks like him but you don't want a Senator who talks like him and you definitely don't want a presidential candidate who talks like him. Thinks like him, sure. Talks like him? No.

So many times a Republican politician, like Boehner or McConnell will say, "Of course I want to work with the President and hear him out and figure out where we can move forward with shared principle" and people will yell about it, like this is a big sell-out, and what they should say is "I hope he fails." Or whatever.

No. Not for a national leader. A leader's supposed to say stuff like "of course I want to work with the other side" even if he's frankly lying, or even if (most likely) by "work with the other side" he means only I want to work with the other side so long as they concede everything to me and basically fall in line.

Which is what Obama meant when he said it.

Obama, by the way, was denigrated by the left during his run as a "squish." Kos, for example, denigrated him for always "accepting the premise and framework of conservative arguments" when he talked. Like, Kos wanted him always to scream that the conservatives were lying about everything.

I thought Kos was insane. I thought Obama was doing exactly what was needed to get elected, and I was pretty sure he would get elected if he won the primary. (Hence my prayers that Hillary would win it, a more clearly partisan and polarizing figure.)

Anyway, this is my real problem with the idea of Jim DeMint, for example, for president. It's not his ideology -- he's right on it. It's that I fear he's become too associated with a partisan movement to ever be able to credibly say "Oh yeah, of course, I want to be a healer or uniter or whatever the fuck I'm supposed to say to please the ninnies." Honestly, I'd like a stealthier version of Jim DeMint. Maybe Jim DeMint can actually make himself a stealthier version of himself; I don't know.

But a lot of people don't seem to like this "stealth" idea, because it's dishonest, but probably more because if the candidate isn't a firebreathing partisan ideologue in his public declarations, you can't be sure he'll vote that way.

I don't know what to say to that, except that voters need to be flattered some. There is 12% or so of voters who lean right but do not identify as conservatives, because they want to think of themselves as independent, and also because, probably, they think the conservatives are wrong on some issues. I don't know how you pick up that 12% with a candidate who says to them "You're wrong, conservatism is right on everything." I think they'll flee that message because I know they've already been fleeing it all their lives: If they believed that, they'd just self-identify as conservative and always vote to the right. That is, they'd be part of the base already.

Since they're not part of the base, they don't like that message. And I do not for the life of me get the people who say "Just use the message they've already explicitly rejected for 15 years; it'll work this time."

Anyway, this is what I'm usually talking about in these purity wars sorts of arguments. I don't mind politicians who think like Rush Limbaugh. I just don't want them talking like him in public. Unless they're in a super-red district, in which case, fine, we can always use a dozen bomb-throwers. But anything national or statewide? It just doesn't work.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:59 AM | Comments (301)
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The previous thread is getting a little gamey.

Have at it.

Be sure to check out the oft updated headlines section on the right side of the blog.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:53 AM | Comments (24)
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Oh, yes, Mr. President, it really is a new era.

The amendment, offered by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), specifically targets Obama’s “climate czar” by blocking funding for the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the position's official title. The amendment would block funding for the 'czars' through the end of the fiscal year, when the spending bill would run out. The underlying bill also includes a provision to block funding for the position.

"I think this sends a strong signal to the president that we are tired of him running this shadow government, where they have got these czars that are literally circumventing the accountability and scrutiny that goes with Senate confirmation," Scalise said after the vote.

It also defunds the czars for ObamaCare implementation, green jobs, auto policy, urban affairs, TARP, Gitmo, and diversity at the FCC. Of course, this is the same spending bill that Obama has already said he would veto. Anyone else suspect that he'll be even more bent out of shape by having cronies denied jobs than by the $100 billion in cuts?

By the way, the vote for this was 249-171, which means that several Democrats voted for it. Instead of calling it a bipartisan vote, though the Hill headlines it "the GOP voted..." and fails to mention the Democrats anywhere in the article. Okay, I guess it's not that much of a new era after all.

UPDATE: Also on the chopping block: Last night, in another bipartisan vote (though with only two Democrats), the House voted to forbid the FCC from using any funds to implement its December net neutrality order.

FCC issued the order in December even though Congress rejected net neutrality legislation and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals already rejected previous FCC net neutrality rules. It was typical Obama Administration end run around the Constitution.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:17 AM | Comments (390)
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FRIDAY!!!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:00 AM | Comments (129)
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Where WeÂ’re Going; Where We Come From

From John Derbyshire at The Corner comes this link to a Forbes interactive map showing where people are coming from and going to at a county-by-county level.

It shows how Americans move from county to county. It shows direction (are they going or coming), location (where do they go or come from), and relative net volume of those moving (dark black = heavy inflow; dark red = heavy outflow). This probably shows where the jobs are.

I noticed that people in metro areas come and go from far away, but people in smaller towns donÂ’t move very much or very far from or into a town. Compare Louisville, KY (Shelby Co.) vs. New Albany, IN (Floyd Co.) across the river. Compare Boise Co. ID vs. Salt Lake Co. UT. And by the way, people are leaving California in droves.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:47 PM | Comments (757)
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Sometimes, of course, a climate of hatred is politically useful. And fun!

Hopper has received threatening phone calls and e-mails. These are threats of a physical nature. “We are working with law enforcement in my district. They are watching my home and my business.” Other Republicans have had their homes and businesses threatened, too. The unionists have demonstrated outside those homes and businesses.

A menacing old phrase comes to mind (and has been used by others, in talking about events in Wisconsin): We know where you live.

Taranto notes that the New York Times is ratcheting up its Climate of Hate campaign again, this time about some lawmaker saying he wants to put activist judges on the "endangered species list." It's a joke, made because those judges refuse to allow states to take the not-endangered-but-thriving-and-pest-ish gray wolf off that same list. The Times has kittens, of course, and Taranto notes how stupid this is.

But don't expect the Times to note that union goons are threatening lawmakers. Or the climate of hate on display at the days of rage (already noted by DrewM. in his earlier post): more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:41 PM | Comments (288)
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Allah had this first. His headline was upbeat so just to be different I have to be different.

Anyway: On the one hand, they're trying for some grand compromise, and out and proud liberals like Dick Durbin, and rock-ribbed conservatives like Tom Coburn, are in the mix.

On the downside, this is framed as again a "start of the conversation," and that "conversation" is like most other "conversations," that is, a bullshit session. There is a difference between action and "conversation," of course.

We need presidential leadership on this issue and of course President Present has fled the capitol so that we have no quorum. Just like (despised) 1990 Bush Tax Deal could not have happened without the president leading the charge, neither can this happen with President Present deciding to take a wait-and-see attitude until after the elections.

Obama's Deficit Reduction Panel was just a delaying tactic on this point -- he created the panel to buy time, so he could avoid questions while they "had a conversation" on the issues. When they finally presented their work, he again refused to endorse it. He did, however, say that we should "have a conversation" about the conversations the panel had already had.

So now we have another attempt at a conversation. 40 other senators, we are told, are interested in this conversation. One element of the conversation will be a panel that rewrites and reforms the tax code for two years (having a two year conversation about that), and when they're done with their work, presumably we can have a conversation about that. And then, I suppose, we can also have a conversation about the other elements, slashing spending and reforming entitlements.

It seems everyone in Washington is ready to "have a conversation" about spending cuts and entitlement reform. What they are not willing to do, however, is have a vote.

So here's the latest conversation we're going to have. In like two years or something we can then have further conversations about these conversations.

And meanwhile we will spend, spend, spend, and delay making necessary changes.

The plan would break the task of deficit reduction into four pieces: a tax code overhaul; discretionary spending cuts; changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements; and changes to Social Security, aides said. The Social Security system is on firmer financial footing than other major entitlement programs and raises political sensitivities that lawmakers want to deal with separately.

The proposal builds on the work of President Barack Obama's deficit commission, according to aides working on it.

"We're getting close," said Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D., Ill.), one of six senators working on the plan. "We understand that if we're going to do something that's important, it has to be timely." He said the group hopes to reach agreement "in a matter of weeks, or months."

Who's in the group? Coburn, Durbin, and Conrad, who decided to run no more so he could honestly grapple with the problem.

The problem is, we already knew these three guys were working on it. How about anyone else?

...

The proposal came up in a White House meeting Wednesday among Democratic leaders. A White House spokeswoman said the President is committed to finding "an effective and balanced approach to reducing the deficit" and "beginning a conversation on entitlement reform."

Awesome. Can't wait to "begin a conversation" about something flagged as a ticking time bomb in the eighties.

Yes, the eighties. We've been having this "conversation" about the fundamental problem with entitlements (basically, everything about the spending aspect of them grows far, far more quickly than the population or wealth level supporting them) but okay, I guess now we're going to begin it again.

...

The Senate group's working plan calls for placing separate caps on security and nonsecurity spending, and missing a budget target in one area would not trigger mandatory cuts in the other. The spending targets would follow proposals laid out by the deficit commission, which recommended cutting discretionary spending by $1.7 trillion through 2020. Lawmakers on the spending committees would draft legislation to meet the targets. But if they were not met, automatic, across-the-board cuts would go into effect.

The tax-writing committees would be given two years to overhaul both the individual and corporate tax codes, with general instructions to close tax breaks and minimize or eliminate tax deductions while lowering tax rates. The committees would be given a target for additional revenues to be raised by the new code. The deficit commission's version of tax reform would net $180 billion in additional revenues over 10 years.

If Congress failed to enact the tax code overhaul, the legislation would mandate an across-the-board tightening of tax deductions to meet the higher target.

The article doesn't say, but this to me implies yet another two-year delay in actually having this conversation -- since this is a Grand Bargain, then we won't have an actual vote until the tax reform commission finishes its work, after Obama has been safely re-elected. How convenient.

The effort is mostly just triggers mandating spending cuts if Congress fails to work the stipulated cuts into law. Which, by the way, can always be repudiated by majority vote -- just like we supposedly started cutting Medicare reimbursments to doctors in 1994 or so but every year, without fail, have passed a "DocFix" putting those cuts off.

So yes, please, let's give Obama two years more time to vote present. And let's all pretend that the next Congress will somehow have the will and wisdom do do what no Congress has done thusfar.

We've been talking about this since ALF debuted on TV. But by all means, let's take another two years to talk about it some more, and we'll begin that conversation in earnest in two years, and sure, this time we'll do more than have a nice conversation about it.

I believe that. I'm a spazz. I believe everything.

Let me say it: I'm against it, entirely. All I see here is political cover for Obama. More political cover, I should say. He already had his year-long stall.

I will be very angry if Tom Coburn gives him another two-year stall, just because they're buddies.

That is all commissions are. Stalling tactics. Lies. A commission is a way to avoid action, not take it. That is how they are always used. Always.

If we're not going to take action, then I want the public to know we've decided against the action without the lie (which benefits incumbents, Obama most of all) that we're "beginning a conversation about starting a dialogue about initiating a discussion" about the problem.

There is no voting present. Either yes or no. If you're against spending cuts and entitlement reform, and therefore in favor of bankruptcy and ruin, then vote that way. Stand and be counted. No more hiding behind commissions and conversations.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (211)
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This gets at my claim (which few of the harder-core conservatives are willing to entertain as true) that presidential elections are generally won by someone who seems to be or claims to be unthreatening and promises continuity with small course corrections, rather than the fire-breathing ideological warriors many prefer.

Call it the Small Target theory of politics.

And yes, this is exactly what Obama did. Many of you seem to believe he ran as an out and proud leftist. No, not at all. That's what we knew he was, but that's not how he ran -- for God's sake, a central plank of his platform was that he was promising a tax cut whereas John McCain was proposing none.

And an out and proud leftist was able to win, of course, because he had the liberal/left media swearing on stacks of Bibles that he was a moderate post-partisan centrist pragmatist, even though they knew that was a lie (else they wouldn't have been ga-ga over him), and haranguing Sarah Palin for as much as hinting that Obama might tend a bit to the left.

Obviously we do not have a monolithic media on our side to lie to the public and tell them our ideological crusaders are actually meek fellows who simply want to change one or two things at the margins. So we need a candidate who's able to project that himself.

Not to demean John Thune or Tim Pawlenty, but if it's a generic Republican who seems to fare best with the public, then these two fellers are as close to "generic Republican" as you can get. (Hat tip to Allah who I'm pretty sure just made this point this week.)

Those who want a candidate to promise them Big Changes fail to consider that a candidate who promises you all of what you want is also promising swing-voters relatively little of what they want.

Between Thune and Pawlenty, Thune looks more like a president and is more handsome, which I think is, like, most important. Pawlenty has more substantive and actually was an executive, so he'd be a better president... but that matters less.

Thune's been talking up a run at the presidency. And he's stressing two things that work to his advantage: electability (noting it's all about match-ups, and he matches up well, which seems likely true and also social issues (yes, John Thune is a very pro-life, traditional-values social con candidate).

On those two points, Thune has advantages, which is why, of course, he's determined to underscore them.

He's got two knocks. First, he's just a Senator, without any hard-choice day-to-day decisionmaking that a governor like Pawlenty (or, yes, Sarah Palin) faced. In this respect he can be called untested. He can also be derided as an empty suit.

Second, he comes from South Dakota. The problem here is that the Republican culture of the Great Plains States is incredibly hypocritical. When you think of the Republican stereotype of "Americans should be individualists and not rely on the government, which should be as small as possible, but oh yeah, we want all our chicken-egg subsidies and earmarks out the wazoo," well, that's Great Plains Republicanism. And Thune is a member in good standing.

He's pro-earmark. Or was until quite recently.

Can he fix this? Yes, he can fix it now with honesty -- delivering a mea culpa in which he confesses he was seduced by this hypocritical political culture and convinced himself, as people do, that doing the easiest thing was also doing the right thing. And repudiating that. And vowing to never sin again.

And he must do this now. Now, I say, because he hasn't declared yet. That is, the cameras aren't really on him. He can deliver an honest mea culpa without everyone hearing about it. Until later -- when people bring this up, he can reference that he confessed this and made a vow of chastity in the past.

It's always better to have taken care of these things in the past. Right now, this costs him very little, but will provide great benefits down the road, when he can always say, "oh yeah, I dealt with that aeons ago. Like three months ago. Old news. Let's move on to fresher topics."

If he attempts to claim he didn't sin, he will be in Romney's position of twisting in the wind, having to always defend his actions as good and pure even while millions of primary voters write him off for defending old, bad decisions.

Take care of it now, Mr. Thune. Or you don't have a shot at this.

I stress this is due to the political culture of this area. It's a case where, yeah, everybody does it. If Thune gets right with Jesus now, and seems honest and upfront about it, forgiveness can happen.

If he sticks to his position that earmarking for egg subsidies is Just Good Government, well, I think he'll just be the less-known, less-experienced, less-accomplished version of Mitt Romney.

And we've already got a better version of Mitt Romney available.

Anyway, here's the poll.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (725)
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But they can't pick them up if they're out of state.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a bottle of Mrs. Paul's tartar sauce that I need to dip my balls in.

Police officers were dispatched Thursday to find Wisconsin state lawmakers who had apparently boycotted a vote on a sweeping bill that would strip most government workers of their collective bargaining rights.

The lawmakers, all Democrats in the state Senate, did not show up when they were ordered to attend a midday vote on the legislation.

The proposal has been the focus of intense protests at the Statehouse for three days. As Republicans tried to begin Senate business Thursday, observers in the gallery screamed "Freedom! Democracy! Unions!"

Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but they need at least one Democrat to be present before taking a vote on the bill.

"Today they checked out, and I'm not sure where they're at," Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said. "This is the ultimate shutdown, what we're seeing today."

What happens next? Waiting, I suppose. They must come back eventually, and as soon as one Democrat gets picked up (they only need one more for a quorum) they can proceed.

If I were Walker, I'd also be looking into the state laws about declaring a seat to be vacant -- there must be laws about this. If someone goes missing, will not show up for work, etc.

I also want to point out Gabriel's point -- about how crazy it is that these unions can donate to political campaigns. This is nothing but legal corruption: they are currently permitted to bribe the government officials signing their contracts.

That should be the next step.

By the way, Ohio will be voting on a similar bill soon. (Thanks to Warden.)

And critically, the key vote in Wisconsin's Supreme Court is up for reelection -- the man holding it is a conservative, and he's being challenged. Losing him would mean losing a 4-3 conservative majority for a 4-3 liberal majority.

Since he's running, you can donate to his campaign, and if you're a Wisconsin resident, you had better damn vote.

Update: Tennessee is also proposing busting the teachers union.

Thanks to Drew.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (401)
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This is important, because Obama has vowed to veto the $100 billion in cuts budget (which doesn't go far enough but that's too much for Bam-Bam the Destroyer.)

Which means that the only alternative is a government shutdown, which the GOP is loathe to do because last time (in 1995) they got blamed for it and were hurt politically.

Now, the alternative is that if Obama vetoes, and we have no budget, Congress can pass a Continuing Resolution like the one now in place. But if a CR keeps spending at the same high levels, then Obama has won, obviously -- it doesn't matter if a budget keeps spending at ruinously high levels or a CR keeps spending at ruinously high levels; either way, spending is kept at ruinously high levels.

But Boehner says if forced to pass a CR, that too will contain cuts.

“I am not going to move any kind of short-term CR at current levels,” the Speaker told reporters at his weekly press conference. “When we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips, we’re going to cut spending.”

George H.W. Bush famously said "read my lips" when promising during his successful 1988 presidential campaign not to raise taxes. But the phrase came back to haunt him when, as president, he raised taxes, and he lost his re-election bid in 1992.

This is an interesting play. He doesn't say that the spending would be deeply cut, but let's assume he's smart and it does cut just as deeply: This would be a tactical effort to make Obama either shut down the government himself or accept the spending cuts.

There's a doctrine in law about the Last Clear Chance to avoid a tragedy, and how the person who had that Last Clear Chance to stop a tragedy should bear the costs should tragedy come to pass. (Look, I don't have the details; they're not important.) Boehner may be attempting to engineer a situation in which the public sees Obama had the Last Clear Chance to avoid a government shutdown, and therefore any shutdown is on him.

Now, I have to say something else: At the end of the day we have to be willing to force a shutdown. Otherwise we have no power. None. We have to be willing to do it, and if Obama won't budge, we have to do it.

The big worry here is that we'll lose seats in the House. So be it. I've wanted to make this point for a while: People are talking about expanding or House majority through gerrymandering. We don't need to expand our majority. Expanding our majority will compel us to add moderates, and then, because they're In Our Political Family, we'll have to protect them and all that bullshit. We'll wind up moderating our policies to protect 6 or 8 new House members we don't even need. They will instantly become weak links in the chain, and the chain will be weakened due to them.

Now, if we shut down government, we just may pay a political price. But what price? If it's ten or fifteen seats (which I think is about what it would be, assuming we lose on this issue), we can handle that. We can keep the majority having lost ten or fifteen seats, and that's all that really matters. What matters is having 50%+1, not padding our numbers.

Now I don't know how serious Boehner is. I hope he's quite serious. If a few moderates and squishes wind up joining with the Democrats to preserve their own electability, fine, fine, that's how the Democrats gamed it with ObamaCare, allowing a number of "moderate" Democrats to pretend to vote against it so that the bill passed but the fewest vulnerable members were on the wrong side of that vote. We can do that too. We do not need a unified caucus.

We just need 218 votes. That's all we need. We can afford to lose a few votes. And we can afford to lose a few seats.

But we cannot afford to lose the battle. We cannot afford to lose the principle.

Spending must but cut, and much more severely than is even currently being entertained.

If we can't do $100 billion in cuts, and force it on Obama, even with the political winds more at our back than we're ever likely to have, then we should abandon the entire project, and just start spending like crazy, because we're going to default anyway. If that's what we're going to do, might as well start just planning for our post-apocalyptic positioning.

But we need these cuts. We cannot cut further if we cannot cut just this much. And if that means losing 10 or 15 votes, or 10 or 15 seats -- then that's what it means and there's no point crying about it.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 AM | Comments (192)
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