F-Bombs for everyone!

Via "Just Karl"

Full Decision: Thanks to Gabe.

Basics of Decision [ace]: Two statutes discuss residency, one for voter eligibility and one for candidate eligibility. Voter eligibility can be proven by "constructive" residency-- that is, you're not really residing in the area, but you maintain a home there and intend to return to it. This is a more lenient standard.

Another statute requires a candidate to "reside in" an area (Chicago, here) for a full year before seeking to be eligible to hold office there.

Rahm Emmanuel argues, basically, these statutes say the exact same thing and the test of whether or not he's a candidate should be the exact same as the test for determining if he can cast a valid vote for a candidate.

The court finds that's not right, because, in the test for candidate eligibility, it specifies first that the candidate must be eligible to cast a vote and, further, that he must "reside in" Chicago for a year before the election. The court finds it makes no sense if that Part 2 of the test simply means the exact same thing as the Part 1; it must mean something different, they figure, since the test consists of two separate parts.

So they find that second part requires genuine, bona fide residency and not mere "constructive" residence for voting purposes. And there they find Emmanuel fails the test, easily. He clears Part 1 of the test (he can vote there, because he has constructive residence there) but not Part 2, which requires, they say, actual residency. Or else, again, why have a Part 2 at all?

Posted by: DrewM at 09:01 AM | Comments (314)
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Obama has a new op-ed praising Reagan's sunny disposition. This is his attempt to show he's trying to "change the tone." See, he's willing to praise Reagan.

But praising the dead is pretty cheap theater, because the dead cannot run for election nor campaign for candidates nor write op-eds in response. (Reagan, were he alive, might have mentioned to Obama that it wasn't all about his messaging, but rather the substance of his policies, which generally worked and worked well.)

This is of a piece with liberals' dishonest comparison of all living, active politicians to the previous generation's dead or inactive ones -- and of course the current crop is always the worst ever. Praising the dead is simply a rhetorical gimmick to purchase some unearned credibility -- see, I can praise my opponents, so that means I'm objective and fair-minded and should be listened to in my other judgments.

But they only have praise for the safely interred.

Has Obama any praise to offer Paul Ryan? I doubt it.

Further, Byron York digs into Obama's past (now there's an idea) and finds that, when Reagan was alive, he had an entirely different take -- he urged the defeat of Reagan and his "minions" and their "dirty deeds," and also said that Reagan's sunniness was a mask to hide his dark actions.

So is this "civility" then? Dishonesty and hypocrisy and manipulation, and all of a cheap and shabby sort besides?

Posted by: Ace at 08:47 AM | Comments (94)
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A few days ago Slu wrote a great post about the stupid bipartisan seating plan for the State of the Union. Since then the movement has only gotten more absurd. I'm pretty sure Kirsten "The Hot One" Gillibrand and John Thune are going to be elected Homecoming King and Queen.

What I really hate about this is that the parties were never supposed to get along (ok, technically the founders hated the idea of parties but they were an inevitable part of America from Day 1). The entire American system is based on competing power centers limiting each other. The Constitution is a deft piece of political engineering where forces are set against each other in tension to create a rigid and durable structure. Remove some of those tensions and the whole system weakens.

Our two party system is less well designed, it was never really designed actually, but it also serves an important function. By constantly competing for broad swaths of the electorate (unlike a multi-party parliamentary system where minority parties can wield undue influence), American parties are forced to play within a fairly narrow band of options. This usually works well because the federal government isn't designed to do the kind of big heroic things that give Tom Friedman and David Brooks erections. They and other liberals see this as a bug, I see it as a feature.

Other than matters of war and peace (and even that's more theoretical than reality), I don't want the parties working together. When they work together things get done and experience shows that's when the trouble starts.

The system really breaks down when one party (almost inevitably the Democrats) gets too much power or help from the other. They then can bend the political branches of government to their will. At that point, it becomes possible to do something really big and stupid like Social Security. Toss in a complaint judiciary and you have the roots of today's fiscal crisis. Had there been an effective opposition in the New Deal and Great Society eras, they could have stopped feel good but ruinous programs.

In fairness, Republicans did oppose those programs but the Democrats had them out numbered and the will of the voters was done. That's nice and all but those people only voted themselves the goodies, while leaving their posterity, us, not "a more perfect union" but an unsustainable level of spending and debt. The limitations on majorities to wreak such havoc on future generations is supposed to be a benefit of the limits on the constitutional reach of the federal government. The concept stands...too much political agreement often leads to disastrous results.

The problem now is gridlock plays into the hands of those who created the mess. If we can't build an overwhelming coalition to undo what liberals have wrought, they win by default (until we run out of places to borrow money from). Part of building that coalition to undo the worst of the excesses means affixing blame and punishing those who enable the system (including Republicans like Robert Bennett when a viable replacement is electable). We aren't going to create the environment where hard choices can be made if we soften the distinctions between the parties.

Democrats aren't going to "work with us" to fix the problems they created, so what's the point in courting them?

Posted by: DrewM at 08:40 AM | Comments (50)
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Here's the Next Media Animation bit. It's so-so. They use a joke that's going around the rightie blogosphere at the end. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:03 AM | Comments (38)
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There's a bit of gloating going on as liberals contemplate what Obama should say in tomorrow's State of the Union speech. Ezra Klien rounds up some of thinking which basically comes down to the idea that liberals won the question about whether government should be providing certain things like pensions and health care and we are only left with fighting over how to pay for them.

The Affordable Care Act doesn't make the government much larger as a share of GDP. Rather, it commits the government to guaranteeing something close to universal health care, even if the relevant transactions occur between individuals and private insurance companies. The reason the GOP talks about "repeal and replace" is that they don't think they can persuade Americans to undo that underlying commitment. If they did, they'd just go for repeal.

...This is the fundamental reality underneath Paul Ryan's Roadmap, for instance, which uses the need for long-term cost control as a justification for eventual privatization (even though the privatization schemes are not how his plan saves money). His Roadmap is the most radical salvo in the big government/small government debate that any politician has launched in some time, but it's framed as an exercise in cost control, and it makes a point to avoid questioning any of the government's underlying commitments.

I think there's some truth to this. The idea of doing away with Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare is simply a fringe position at this point in time. A bill to repeal those programs might get both Pauls voting for it but that's about it.

Remember, after years of railing about Meidcare, the Republicans positioned themselves as its great protectors.

Now the parties flipping positions on Medicare last year was a temporary election ploy. The Democrats needed to pretend to cut Medicare to make their fake savings number to pass health care reform. They'll simply never make those cuts but rather just add money to the deficit to keep things moving along.

So in that regard, Klein is right, conservatives lost that argument, seniors want stuff they think they've paid for and no one has the guts to take it away from them.

That's what makes winning Round 2 of the health care fight so important. We need to pull this fiscal and freedom chocking weed out of the ground, roots and all, before it can really take hold.

Liberals may think they've won the debate about whether or not the government should be guarantying everyone health care from cradle to grave but they did so based on a lie (well several whoppers actually).

Health care reform wasn't sold to the general population as a coverage guarantee plan (that was for the lefty base). Most of the general messaging from Democrats to the middle class was based on cost containment.

Only after the law had passed did Obama let the cat out of the bag.

No -- as I said, I haven't read the entire study. Maybe you have. But -- you know, if -- if you -- if what the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that. We didn't think that we were going to cover 30 million people for free.

The health care fight now is to convince people that Republicans are right...this is not only something we can't afford to do but shouldn't do. From one of the links above, look at what Republicans said about Medicare before.

Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]

George H.W. Bush: Described Medicare in 1964 as “socialized medicine.” [1964]

Barry Goldwater: “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964]

Bob Dole: In 1996, while running for the Presidency, Dole openly bragged that he was one of 12 House members who voted against creating Medicare in 1965. “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare . . . because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1965]

I have to say, I like our track record of knowing what will work economically and what won't better than theirs.

We may have to live with only trying to fix liberal fiscal messes like Social Security and Medicare but we can still kill and must kill health care before it's too late.

Of course in the end conservatives will 'win' one way or another. Either we get to do what has to be done or to paraphrase Margret Thatcher, we'll just run out of other people's money and kill them that way.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:02 AM | Comments (166)
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This is a scenario people frequently warn about. Security is oriented towards keeping bombs off planes, but almost none at all is directed at keeping bombs out of the airports themselves, where all those people are bunched up together. (Of course a lot of places of even lower security, like malls, have that property.) Terrorism experts keep warning that terrorism will come in the form of lots of non-spectacular and non-clever but very deadly attacks like this. But for some reason, it only seems to happen this way outside of America.

More than 100 more are thought to have been injured in the blast, which reports suggest may have been the work of a suicide bomber.

Russia's chief investigator said the explosion was the work of terrorists.

Posted by: Ace at 06:07 AM | Comments (270)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:57 AM | Comments (205)
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It is the Sunday. Only a few hours of freedom left for you. Might as well enjoy what's left of the weekend by hanging out with your pretend internet friends here at the HQ. And also pack up and/or pre-mix your secret alcoholic beverages that you'll stash in your desk drawers in order to make it through the day. Here's some Muppets to help you along...

[genghis is having the pus drained indisposed so I added a few items and posted this for him - M]

Mahna Mahna from Heaven:

Take the plunge below the fold...if you dare. Or are bored. more...

Posted by: Genghis at 05:00 PM | Comments (361)
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The other thread was over 1,000 comments.

Please discuss the Steelers-Jets game here.

Oh, and no cheerleaders, the Steelers don't have any.

Update

It's the Steelers and Packers in the Superbowl.

Both teams backed into the Superbowl and put up poor performances in the second half of their games.

Whew!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 03:04 PM | Comments (613)
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The end of free speech. The corporatists have won.

Some of the good ones captured here by Treacher. My fav:

"@KeithOlbermann has saved lives in this country. He's saved sanity for many of us."

Apparently Keith Olbermann kicked Death's ass and I missed it.

via Irishspy and Radishthegreat

I myself have a working theory about the breakup of Keef and MSNBC. What if, and I'm just spitballin here, what if he was, say, a collosal giant dick, and at the same time he wasn't pulling in the revenue like he was maybe two years ago?

Hey, I don't know anything, I'm a moron, but that seems possible.

MORE on my little theory: Schuster takes umbrage. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 12:40 PM | Comments (130)
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