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So...Can we move on now?

2011-04-27T13:06:55Z

Well, I suppose you can say one thing for Donald Trump, he gets what he wants. The White House, after asking the Hawaii State Department of Health to make an exception to Hawaii law, has posted a copy of President Obama's long form birth certificate. The question is, will this finally make the birthers go away?

President Obama's Long Form Birth Certificate | The White House:

After all, if President Obama truly is the player in a Manchurian Candidate style conspiracy, couldn't this long form birth certificate be a fake as well? What exactly does the release of this photocopy of his "birth certificate" prove? I mean, it's a type-written form with some signatures, which could very easily be faked, right?

I wonder if the Donald knew that this release was coming, might explain why he's changed his tack and started attacking the President's educational record, because apparently graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard doesn't count for anything anymore.

So, do you think this will satisfy the Donald and the rest of the Birther crowd?

End the Electoral College?

2011-04-20T23:00:53Z

Opinion: Bring U.S. closer to a real democracy - Thomas C. Goldstein and Amy Howe - POLITICO.com:

Yet election rules now make it possible that the loser will win the presidency, because almost every state awards all its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote there. And given how electors are allocated, a candidate can collect a majority of electors, without a majority of the votes nationally.

While I applaud Mr. Goldstein's good intentions, as well as the noble intentions of those who support this bill, I honestly don't really see how this is anything but the elimination of the electoral college. I would agree that electoral reform is needed, but I don't agree that we should put an end to the electoral college.

So, what should we do instead to help guarantee that the popular vote and the electoral vote are less likely to be different? Well, in my humble opinion, it's pretty simple and wouldn't require much of a change. We eliminate the "first past the post" awarding of all of a state's electoral votes and instead apportion them by congressional district with the two votes provided for the senate going to the winner of the state's popular vote.

Here's how it would work in Iowa (my home state and the recent loser of an electoral vote after the 2010 census).

Iowa has 4 congressional districts, thus a winner would be determined in each of those districts, more directly apportioning the actual results of the votes in those regions. The two remaining electoral votes would be awarded to the candidate that wins the states overall popular vote. A candidate could theoretically win all of the states electoral votes, but the odds are that the votes would be attributed far more evenly, thus making the overall electoral vote more directly proportional to the popular vote.

Obviously this would be far more complex in the big states like NY, CA, TX, etc... But the system is essentially already in place and would go much farther toward insuring that every vote truly does count.

What do you think, should we move to a system where the popular vote is the only vote that matters?

Vander Plaats continues call for resignation of Justices

2010-12-23T19:17:03Z

The movement to remove Justices Ternus, Streit and Baker was predicated on fear and half-truth, but more importantly, Vandetr Plaats' claim that the people of Iowa have lost "complete confidence in them" is utter hyperbole. The vote to remove the three judges up for retention was not a landslide. It wasn't exactly 50/50, but it wasn't 90/10 either. His equating of a close decision in a midterm election (even one that saw 50+% turnout in Iowa) to a vote of no confidence is simply irresponsible.

The Tea Partys War on Education

2010-12-10T18:00:35Z

How the Tea Party Will Destroy School Reform - The Daily Beast: Across all these issues, “We can’t have government officials coming in and supervising the decisions that fit parents make,” said William Estrada, director of federal relations at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Education reform has been pushed to the background on Capitol Hill as of late what with taxes and equality taking top billing for the lame duck session, not to mention a recession going on. That being said, the Tea Party, and many of it's members who were put into office in the midterms, have not forgotten about it and are ready to wage their own private war on the public education system starting in January.

Tell me Mr. Ryan, what exactly is "limited" government?

2010-12-02T18:08:47Z

Rep. Paul Ryan, Columnist David Brooks Debate 'Limited' Government:

During the rejoinders, Ryan responded by saying that our nation has gone from assuming our rights were derived from God to assuming our rights come from government. "And so, I do believe that the idea of the role of government has changed," he said.

I would contend that "limited government" is an oxymoron. The government is supposed to derive it's powers from the consent of the governed, therefore intrinsically limiting it to what the citizens want it to be.

Putting some sort of arbitrary limit on the powers of government is, in my opinion, antithetical to the nature of our democratic system. The government should not be allowed to create it's own power, but that is not the same as summarily limiting what the government has the power to do. Those decisions are made by the citizens through our representatives in Congress.

Now, whether or not Congress (i.e. Politicians) is bastardizing their role in the governmental process is an entirely different discussion. But I think that for the purposes of this venue, Brooks is right and Ryan is a little too caught up in the semantic argument about the role of government as opposed to it's overall function.

Iowa GOP Leader predicts ouster of more judges

2010-11-11T23:30:53Z

Here's my question for Mr. McKinley and the rest of the gay marriage opponents in Iowa. If a gay marriage ban is put to a vote and fails, will you turn to the courts for aide or, will you accept the will of the people?

GOP Surge leads to business as usual in DC

2010-11-09T18:00:24Z

GOP: There'll be no compromise on tax cuts | McClatchy:

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., who's expected to become the majority leader in the House when the new Congress is sworn in next year, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday news programs that they'd insist on an extension of the tax cuts for wealthy. McConnell said that higher taxes on upper income earners would harm small businesses.

The GOP overtook the House because it was the will of the people, apparently the will of the people means that it's the GOP way or the highway.

So, with all the talk about change in Washington, on this point at least, we are going to see no change, which most likely means that everyone's taxes will be going up, including the precious "small businesses" that the GOP is apparently sworn to defend at all costs. Why would they do that? Even Boehner admitted that he would vote for a compromise if it was all that was presented, well, at least until he said it out loud and had to immediately retract.

This is a political move. The GOP appears to be standing firm on their principals here, but in reality, they're just trying to build up the case against President Obama for 2012. Problem is, if they refuse to compromise on the tax cuts, they'll actually be more to blame for a tax increase than the Dems. If they won't even consider a compromise that maintains the Bush cuts for 99% of the country, what does that say about them? What does that tell the average voter? Does it say "We don't believe in raising taxes and we'll stick by our guns," or does it say "we'll do anything we can to make sure that the wealthiest 1% of Americans get the benefits of these cuts."

To me it says, we are going to do everything we can to make sure that nothing happens over the next two years, and I can't say as I appreciate the GOP's newfound dedication to obstinacy. If the GOP wants to prove to Americans (and no just the Tea Party) that they are dedicated to change, then they need to prove it by actually changing something, as opposed to allowing change to happen through attrition.

The Party of Obstinacy

2010-11-04T17:00:11Z

White House, Congress poised for battle over tax breaks in lame-duck session:

Republicans, for their part, say they have no incentive to compromise on the tax cuts, citing a mandate from voters to keep taxes low and to begin whacking at a federal budget bloated by spending on what the GOP views as Obama's failed economic policies.

So, not unlike George W. Bush entering his second term, the GOP sees their recapturing of one branch of government as a "mandate from the voters" that they need to stick to their typical line of lower taxes and zero reform.

The most recent polling available has fewer than 20% of Americans approving of the job congress is doing. Granted, those results are from before the election, but we didn't see an 80% turnover in Congress now did we? For the same time period, only slightly more than 31% of people felt that the country was on the right track, yet we didn't see a wholesale reversal of power in Washington.

The only thing the voters said on Tuesday night was that they are upset and that they feel like Congress, as a whole, needs to be doing something differently. Which, at least according to "The Pledge", the Republicans have no plans to actually do. Re-naming a 15 year old agenda and putting it in a pretty new binding does not actually make it new.

John Boehner is 1/3rd of the way into his 4th term as a Rep. for Ohio, and other than cleaning up some bad behavior by House members during his first term, his legislative claims to fame are two bills you've never heard of and No Child Left Behind (which has worked out really well).

This election wasn't a mandate, it was an admonition by the voters. The Democrats were punished at the polls for presiding over bad economic times. This isn't about health care or financial reform, it's about unemployment.

Oh, and not to tip Mr. Boehner's boat, but I'm sure that some of that "bloated" spending comes from the "Freedom to Farm Act" that he championed which simplified direct government purchasing of crops and milk.

The GOP talks an awful lot about cutting spending, yet when it comes right down to it, they have spent an awful lot of taxpayer dollars in 1996, and since they've ruled out any cuts to military, Medicare or Social Security spending, I'll be interested to see what they are actually willing to cut, especially given the sheer amount of cash poured into these elections by private sector industry leaders.

Good luck Mr. Boehner, I'm sure that you'll have no trouble at all fixing, in two years, what it took the Bush/Obama administrations 10 years to break.

Is Sarah Palin toothless?

2010-11-03T17:00:59Z

Palin Proves 'Mama Grizzly' Has Bite - NYTimes.com:Sarah Palin

"As always, proud to be American! Thanks, Commonsense Constitutional Conservatives, u didn?t sit down & shut up . . . u "refudiated" extreme left," Ms. Palin wrote.

Except in Nevada, and California and probably in Alaska.

Except in that not a single "constitutional conservative" was elected last night (almost every one of them would like to make pretty significant changes to the Constitution to make it reflect their "conservatism")

I'm not even going to talk about "refudiate".

Sarah Palin has bite when she backs a candidate that was expected to win (Ayotte, Haley, etc...) but her choices in close races (Scott Brown aside) have been pretty lackluster. Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina both go down in CA., Sharron Angle can't beat someone with a huge disapproval rating and Christine O'Donnell, well, maybe if she was a witch she could have done something to help her chances.

This election is not a vindication of Sarah Palin as a king/queen maker, it shows that she is no more influential than any other GOP pundit. Now, if only the rest of the "lamestream media" would wake up and stop acting like she's important, we could all get back to having useful discussions about policy, as opposed to Mrs. Palin's preferred method of politics, rhetorical crap with no actual substance.

Tea Party says Rove is out of touch...

2010-10-29T17:00:12Z

Levi Russell, spokesperson for the Tea Party Express, implying that Karl Rove has lost touch with the "American people" is just, well, completely asinine. In fact, most of the American people completely agree with Karl Rove.