I doubt it but it's fun to dream while there's still time to*.

Democrat Barbara Boxer's quest for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate may give Californians a chance to pass judgment on Washington in the Obama era: Do voters approve of the early performance of the Democratic president and Congress? Or is it time to restore more power to Republicans, in this case to a controversial former Silicon Valley CEO making her first run for elective office?

What looks increasingly likely is that Boxer will be in for the re-election fight of her career. While she has yet to announce her candidacy, all signs point to a run by Republican Carly Fiorina, the charismatic ex-chief of Hewlett-Packard who was ousted from her job in 2005 and last year served as a top surrogate for John McCain's presidential bid.

Fiorina would bring a combination of traits to the race never faced before by Boxer: She is a woman with the wherewithal to pump millions of her own dollars into her candidacy and probably raise millions more from others. And historically, the election after a president first takes office has not been kind to the party in charge at the White House. Exhibit A is 1994, when Democrats lost control of Congress halfway into President Bill Clinton's first term.

On a statewide level, California is as blue a state as there is but there are some interesting things that might help Fiorina if she runs.

First, the state is a mess and Change! might be on the agenda, especially if things don't get better locally and nationally.

Second, a challenge to Prop 8 isn't going to be on the ballot next year which may help keep turnout lower. Odds are what Republicans and persuadable Democrats there are will be more motivated to turn out than if interest groups are ginning up the liberal machinery.

Third, Meg Whitman is running as a Republican for Governor. Aside from her being another woman (for whatever that's worth, not much I suspect) business competency will likely be at the forefront of the campaign. I seem to recall Fiorina having some issues at HP but if the environment stays the same, business experience may look pretty good compared to political hackery and celebrity.

Fourth, there's Boxer herself. She hasn't been in a competitive race in awhile. Any sort of serious challenge is likely to produce an embarrassing outburst by her. Even if Fiorina doesn't win, that alone would be worth the campaign.

As unlikely as it is, sending Mrs. Boxer home next year would be sweet. Hell, I'd settle for making her sweat one out.

*The link is via Drudge so it may be getting slammed and hard to load.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:42 AM | Add Comment
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As I guessed, they're blaming this on their overly-enthusiastic cultists, claiming they did nothing wrong, except trust too much.

Advocacy groups and partisans, they claim, were signing up emails not their own.

We only have their word for that. There is a chance they had an email vaccuum fishing addresses out of their fishy-reporting snitch headquarters -- grabbing the emails of everyone there, including emails forwarded as "fishy" -- but of course they're not going to admit that or allow us to inspect their story.

Now, this makes me very suspicious: the flag@whitehouse.gov address is now non-funcitonal. Emails bounce from there, and you get this message:

The email address you just sent a message to is no longer in service.We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via:http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck

Now, supposedly, the White House is tightening up the lax sign-up procedures that allegedly lead to citizens being spammed by its government.

But when I go to that new address, there is a simple sign-in with no warning about signing up other people. Furthermore, I signed up a new email I made myself to test what would happen -- would they send me a confirmatory email asking me if I had intended to sign-up? To make sure this is not a bogus sign-up?

It's now been a half-hour and thusfar no such confirmatory email. I wasn't warned not to sign up someone else; I only had to enter a zip code (which was false, buy the way); and so far the only message I've gotten from them is "Thank you for signing up." Clarification: This message popped up on the website; it was not an email sent to me.

It seems odd to me that if phony sign-ups were indeed the problem, they have so far added nothing to prevent this, and furthermore, whatever new protections they plan on adding could have been added to flag@whitehouse.gov.

But they were not.

Which makes me suspicious that the problem here was flag@whitehouse.gov, all along, and that they are not busy diabling and deleting its functions. Why is the snitchline being changed at this moment if it has nothing to do with the spam?

Correction: There is a Warning: I signed up on the right sidebar (for updates) on this page,where I didn't see any warning.

However, if you then go to the "contact" page here, there is a warning, or, let us say, guidance:

Please refrain from submitting any individual's personal information, including their email address, without their permission.

But, like I said, I first landed on the front page where I was invited to sign up for "updates" and received no caution and was subject to no verifying-type questions. And 40 minutes later, I still haven't gotten the most basic confirmatory email, something everyone else in the world has, and which usually takes 30 seconds or less to receive.

So, the Fishy Information snitch page tells you not to sign up other people, but the main page doesn't.

And look, come on, simply telling Obama's cultists not to harrass conservatives is... unlikely to produce the supposedly-sought result.

Test Two: I signed up as "Xtian Xtremist," with a false city and so forth, and the message "Please harrass me with your propaganda. I love it."

No confirmatory email, asking me if I really want to be harrassed. (In fairness, I already claimed that's what I wanted.)

They've really tightened up the system. It takes three seconds to get a confirmatory email from everyone else, but apparently they're willing to take my interest on faith.

Kind of like they were willing to take it on faith that all those millions of donations coming in from overseas were really from American citizens, who just happened to live in France, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Posted by: Ace at 08:00 AM | Comments (1)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:50 AM | Add Comment
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And by shocking, I mean, of course it is.

But don't worry, just because they can't process a few hundred thousand claims for this program it doesn't mean they won't do a bang up job with millions and millions of health insurance claims. They are the government after all.

The federal government has only reimbursed auto dealers for 2 percent of the claims they've submitted through the popular "cash for clunkers" program, a Pennsylvania congressman said, calling on the Obama administration to help speed up the process.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., called for "immediate action" to address the problem in a statement Sunday, after writing a letter to President Obama Saturday expressing his concerns.

In the letter, Sestak said only 2 percent of claims have been paid and that four of every five applications have been "rejected for minor oversight."

Gee, what could go wrong with turning over health care and about 15% of the US economy to these guys?

Meanwhile, the US Postal Service emails to say, "How's my ass taste now?"

Posted by: DrewM at 07:04 AM | Add Comment
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Trial balloon, not white flag.

An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president’s view, the most important element of the reform package.

....

A third White House official, via e-mail, said that Sebelius didn’t misspeak. “The media misplayed it,” the third official said.

Ah, that media, always makin' trouble for Obama.

Sometimes compromises are simply not possible. One side demands something the other side refuses to grant, and no amount of vague language and unrelated payoffs can bridge that gap.

Michelle Malkin links Heritage's The Foundry giving its blessing to a certain kind of "co-op"...

If by health care “co-op,” Congress means allowing private associations to collectively buy health insurance for their members or operate a health insurance exchange, or allowing people to buy health insurance from a non-profit, member-owned private insurer, then those would be positive, pro-consumer developments.

However, simply slapping the word “cooperative” onto a new “insurer,” but then specifying that the government — not the policyholders — picks the board of directors (as Sen. Schumer wants), or that taxpayers will subsidize it, or that it has to pay doctors and hospitals at Medicare rates, would just be an exercise in trying to disguise a “public plan.”

Like my take on individual mandates, while I can conceive of a plan I would approve of (or at least not oppose), what I can't conceive is that this White House would suggest anything close to such a plan.

Or they'll claim it's the version I could support, while of course the language of the actual legislation creates the forbidden system.

A congressional source told me Democrats are particularly good at this, and Republicans particularly bad. Democrats load up bills with booby-traps and language they know will be interpreted in ways they like. They also tend to write the concessions they make to Republicans in intentionally unconstitutional language, knowing the courts will strike those sections -- and thus undo the "compromise," leaving the Democratic plan standing untainted by concilliatory limitations -- within a year.

And Republican Congressmen are particularly bad at discovering this stuff, until it's too late.

Since only like fifteen legislative aides are apparently reading this stuff at all, I guess that's easy to do. Which suggests...

This is another argument in favor of posting bills in their final form online for a considerable period of time before voting on them, or before they're signed into law. Crowdsourcing by people who have experience wading through the parentheses and em-dashes might at least help decipher some of the mess to get a clearer picture of what it all means. As it stands, we're left with the few politicians who helped craft the bill saying, "Just trust us."

But they won't do that, of course, because most of the compromises and deals they make at the last moment are intended to have obscured meanings. Some Congressmen are counting on the hidden meaning; meanwhile the hidden meaning is, well, hidden from those opposing that meaning; and a great many Congressmen may understand the hidden meaning, but they want plausible deniability on having voted for it when they face reelection. They want to be able to tell constituents, "This is not the bill I thought I knew."

And for some reason, voters are willing to excuse this sort of incompetence at the basic tasks of the job. And feigned, dishonest, deliberate incompetence at that.

Posted by: Ace at 06:59 AM | Comments (1)
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So says Marc Ambinder’s source at the White House who claims HHS Secretary Sebelius “misspoke” yesterday when she said a public option wasn’t a necessary part of a deal.

Truth or misstatement, combine it with Sen. Kent ConradÂ’s statement that a public option was dead in the Senate and Sunday was a bad day for Obama.

Some are speculating Sebelius might have been launching a trial balloon. If thatÂ’s the case, consider it shot down.

A healthcare reform deal abandoning a public (or "government-run") option for consumers could cost as many as 100 Democratic votes in the House, one House Democratic lawmaker warned Monday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) asserted that rumored compromises on a Senate bill to win centrist votes would torpedo healthcare reform's prospects with liberal members of the House.

"If the president thinks he's cutting a deal to get Senate votes, he's probably losing House votes," Weiner warned during an interview on CNBC this morning.

ObamaÂ’s problem (well, one of many) is that he seems to really believe a lot of his own PR bullshit. Remember when Obama was going to be the great healer, the man to span the bitter divisions of the nation? HowÂ’s that working out? It turns out there are things people believe in strongly and arenÂ’t willing to give up (they cling to them, one might say) simply because thatÂ’s what Obama thinks is good for them.

Right now, heÂ’s neck deep in an issue where the vast majority arenÂ’t willing to sign over their future to him and he canÂ’t figure out how to force them to, even with huge majorities in both houses of Congress.

Being President is hard.

BTW- Was Sebelius reported to Flag@whitehouse.gov for spreading false information?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:45 AM | Add Comment
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We are about to enter an information battle almost identical to the one we fought about Iraq in 2006 & 2007. The cries then were that Iraq was lost and we should leave as soon as possible. They came from Harry Reid and Barack Obama in the Senate and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha in the House among others. They were echoed and amplified by the media and led to a very pitched argument about whether to reinforce our new counterinsurgency strategy or to cut & run. Thankfully the arguments of Gen. Petraeus and the fortitude of President Bush prevailed and instead of defeat at the hands of al Qaeda and Iranian proxies, we won.

Now we face an eerily similar choice in Afghanistan, and the cut & run chorus has begun the siren song that we cannot achieve victory. The problem is that President Obama campaigned on the idea that the Afghan war was the good war and that he would kill the ghost of bin Laden in Pakistan if he caught wind of him.That made fine campaign rhetoric, but now the reality has sunk in. This is Obama's war as much as it is America's. He relieved the country commander, put in his own choice and he authorized 21,000+ reinforcements and a new strategy. The question is will the promises he made to get the job, be matched with the resolve to take the political heat he will get for trying to win. He has already eschewed the idea of a classic victory and I have long worried he will not be able to face the heat from his allies on the left. Here they come, with John Nichols, Capitol Times Editor and Washington correspondent for The Nation, who I had many quality arguments with in Madison and who is a well-respected voice of the left.

Members of Congress are using the August
recess to survey constituent sentiments on a host of matters. And
one of them deserves dramatically increased attention: the
misguided occupation of Afghanistan.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 08:10 PM | Comments (4)
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You knew this day was coming. You were warned. You didnÂ’t listen. You werenÂ’t prepared.

So letÂ’s examine the ways in which your life sucks.

Exhibit #1: You are not this guy, and never will be:

”MUKILTEO, Wash. (AP) - Boy-faced and grinning wide, Yevgeniy Timoshenko celebrated the richest victory of his short poker career in April by grabbing four thick bricks of cash, holding them high over his head. The money was just part of his $2.1 million jackpot. The 21-year-old, who lived in Mukilteo with his parents at the time, smiled as the cameras covering the Five Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas beamed his image around the globe.”

Exhibit #2: YouÂ’re reading a popular and edgy political blog at the moment, yet looking at a picture of a kitten. Yeah, thatÂ’s really gonnaÂ’ put you on the fast track for some kind of project manager position when the boss walks by and sees this on your screen. Never mind those nervous glances he throws your way when you two are at adjacent urinals. Those donÂ’t mean anything.

TonightÂ’s sponsor below the foldÂ…
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Posted by: Open Blog at 05:09 PM | Add Comment
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Roger Kimball posts a much-too-perfect letter from a grandfather to his Obama-lovin' granddaughter explaining that, thanks to her vote, he's had to cut back and won't be able to send her the money she's trying to cadge off him.

It's completely, utterly fake -- there's no way a granddad would gloat like this, nor does it seem possible that he just happens to have a liberal grandson who takes pointless trips to the Arctic to study polar bears -- but it is, nevertheless, fake but accurate.

Thanks to OldGuy.

Posted by: Ace at 04:05 PM | Add Comment
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I'm not a doctor, of course. So, um, don't take my advice and sue me. Talk to your doctor.

In addition to having panic disorder, which I mentioned in a post long ago, I'm also an epileptic. Yeah -- I'm the total package, baby. Some men might go to pieces in a firefight; I go to pieces on line at the movies for 17 Again.

I'd like to think my brain burns just too damn brightly for conventional human biology to sustain it, but, uh, I think I just got knocked out one time in football in highschool, because I'm a weenus.

Anyway, a long time ago I went on the Atkins diet because I'd quit smoking and ballooned to weights I had never before imagined were possible.
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Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Add Comment
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