Friday round-up

• Utah is bound to get another seat, either in the next couple of months, or in 2012. However, under current projections, it wouldn't get a 5th seat in 2022. But don't loose sleep yet. "We have confidence in the projections we produce," Robert Spendlove, manager of demographic and economic analysis for the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget, said. "However, this is 15 years away and there is a wide margin of error ... when you're talking about tenths of a percent." By the way, Spendlove is a terriffic name for a guy working in a budget office.


• Jon Huntsman Jr. is backing McCain, but Jon Sr. is backing Romney. Romney needs the Huntsman's money men given the cash gap between McCain and the rest of the field (which he created with his Campaign Finance Reform by favoring members of congress over governors). It will be interesting to see if Jon Jr. comes back to Daddy or continues to assume that McCain will win it all. Someone wants to have a cabinet post after all.


• Great lede by the Tribune, pointing out the utter hypocrisy of what Rep. Bishop and his Republican colleagues say: "Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, say[s] Democrats are shutting them out of the legislative process, but their protests do not appear to match the record of the GOP-run House. ...Bishop served as a member of the House Rules Committee, which under Republican control brought more bills to the floor under "closed rules" than any previous Congress.
  In 1994, as speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, Bishop criticized proposals to open the legislative process, specifically the Rules Committee meetings, as shallow, and compared them to taking the doors off bathroom stalls." There's a lovely image.

Mitt "Multiple Choice" Romney

The DNC's blog has a scathing list of quotes by Mitt about his position of the day on hot button issues. Here they are, for your enjoyment:

Romney’s Position On A Woman’s Right To Choose Is:

A. Abortion Should Be Safe And Legal. “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country… I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice.” [Romney Kennedy Debate Transcript, 10/1994]

B. Not Pro-Choice Or Pro Life. “I've never used either title, pro-life or pro-choice, in the past. I said I don't favor abortion.” [Fox News, 2/26/06]

C. Firmly Pro-Life. “I recognized that we had so cheapened the value of human life, through the Roe v. Wade mentality, that I could no longer stand on the sidelines, if you will. I had to take sides. And I call myself firmly pro-life.” [CNN, 10/17/06]

D. All of the above.

Romney’s Position On A Constitutional Amendment To Ban Same-Sex Marriage:

A. Full Equality for Gays and Lesbians. “As we seek to establish full equality for America's gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent [Ted Kennedy].” [Boston Globe, 10/17/94]

B. Against Constitutional Amendment to Ban Gay Marriage in Massachusetts. In 2002, Romney condemned a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban both gay marriage and domestic-partner benefits in Massachusetts, despite the fact that his wife and son supported it. [Boston Globe, 3/22/02]

C. For Federal Constitutional Amendment To Ban Gay Marriage. “Massachusetts is the front line on marriage, but unless we adopt a federal amendment to protect marriage, what is happening here will unquestionably enter every other state.” [“Transcript of Romney Address to Liberty Sunday,” EvangelicalsforMitt.com, 10/16/06]

D. All of the above.

Romney’s Position On The Bush Tax Cut:

A. Refuses to Publicly Endorse Bush Tax Cuts. Romney refused to endorse tax cuts at the heart of President Bush's economic program in 2003. Romney’s spokesperson said that it’s “just not a state matter.” [Boston Globe, 4/11/03]

B. Brags About Support for Bush Tax Cuts. During a November 13, 2006 press conference held in Arizona, Romney outlined differences between himself and McCain. Romney said “he was quicker than McCain to endorse President Bush's tax cuts.” [East Valley Sun, 11/14/06]

C. All of the above.

And now, for super-duper double bonus points...

Romney’s Governorship Was A Failure Because:

A. Goals Unmet. “Romney himself admits that a number of his goals remain unmet. His inability to lower the nation's highest unemployment insurance rate, to secure merit pay for teachers, and to reinvigorate the Republican Party were among the frustrations he listed.” [Editorial, Boston Globe, 12/26/06]

B. Highest Property Taxes in 25 Years. Romney’s cuts to local aid forced Massachusetts property taxes to their highest level in 25 years. [Quincy Patriot Ledger, 12/16/05]

C. 3,000 Jobs Lost. Romney oversaw a net decrease of more than 3,000 jobs in Massachusetts. [BLS, Seasonally Adjusted Employment Statistics, 12/2002 – 10/2004]

D. All of the above.

If you guessed (D) All of the above you can go to the head of the class!

Is there something in the water in Massachusetts that gives statewide politicians Foot-in-Mouth and I-was-for-it-before-I-was-against it diseases? At least John Kerry waited until after he got nominated before taking such idiotic multiple stances.

Utah's public ed: still terrible

There is a new story out in today's Salt Lake Tribune that has Utah at the 20th in the country in overall "offering children a chance at success" rather than looking at hard numbers like test scores, class size per pupil spending, something we lag far behind the rest of the country on.

Instead of repeating past analyses on K-12 practices, this year's report compared hurdles kids face long before school-age years, as well as opportunities available as adults.
Factors such as parental education, employment, income and English fluency were considered. So were the percentage of adults statewide who hold college degrees, work full-time jobs and earn above-average incomes. School factors such as preschool and kindergarten enrollment, reading and math skills and graduation were also compared.
[...snip...]
Utah scored well above average for home conditions kids experience before school. The state scored below average for preschool enrollment and about average for kindergarten enrollment. Elementary reading skills were above the national average and middle school math achievement was on par with the nation.
High school graduation rates were well above average, but after that, Utah's scores fell. Attendence and graduation from college were about average. But the percentage of Utah adults making average salaries and holding full-time jobs was below the national norm.

Utah parents do the best for their kids as they can. Our streets are safer than most other states, and the LDS Church's focus on family pushes families to prioritize their children. Yet, college graduation and attendance is going down, incomes are down and education's share of the budget is too.

Huntsman will supposedly push for a major increase in spending this year, and if true, I support it. But we saw that his first priorities are to cut taxes for his wealthy friends (and himself) as well as spend money on construction projects rather than his state's public education.

We need to build more schools and classrooms, hire more teachers, build up respect for the teaching profession and for education in general. Maybe we need to even build a new University so that folks who go to the U of U don't feel like a number and slip through the cracks...although that will probably be a couple decades down the road and Utah State could probably pick up the slack if they were properly funded.

Is Utah's 4th back?

This AP report seems to indicate that the same bill will be passed in the next couple of months by the Democratic House.

More when I know it.

Cannon: fodder?

What me, govern?

It looks like Chris Cannon, fresh off a tough primary challenge in the summer, is already being seriously challenged. And the best part is, Gov. Huntsman is (to a degree) behind it.

Jason Chaffetz moved to Utah as an agnostic Democrat.
Now, more than 20 years later, the former chief of staff to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. wants to run as a Mormon Republican for Congress
[...]
The 39-year-old businessman said he is a "frustrated conservative" who is "hungry and excited" about winning over voters by going back to Republican values and principles.

What are those principles pray tell, because it seems like Republicans in Congress have none.

Chaffetz said the Republicans, who lost control of Congress to the Democrats in November, "had a chance to make some major changes and they didn't do it."
"The country saw the Republicans acting in an unethical way, and the country made a change," he said. "It was the fault of how Republicans acted, and we'll pay the price."

So I guess he wants Republicans to be ethical, something we all can get behind (except Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, the CA GOP delegation, etc.) But what about being the party of small(er) government, of fiscal responsibility, being tough on crime, good at foreign policy. I count no on all of those thus far.

"Chaffetz said he and Cannon have very different views on immigration, nuclear waste and education. But he declined to go into any details on his policy ideas, saying he'll be talking about them along the campaign trail."

We all wait with baited breath. This just goes to show that Republicans in Utah smell blood in the water. "If a crazy man like Jacob can get 44.2%, imagine what I, a sane competent Republican can get against Cannon?!" Now that big brother isn't watching over him at the state party convention, watch the sparks to fly in 2007-8.

Iraq is a hard place

First off, I wanted to say Happy New Year's and Merry Christmas etc. to everyone and to apologize for not writing over the last week. It was really great to just stay away from the computer and hang out with family and friends. This vacation really recharged my batteries. During the break, I watched episodes I-III of a documentary called "Off to War" about a small town National Guard Unit from Clarksville, Arkansas.

The camera work was not that great, but the story was incredible. If you had shown this to people around 2000, they would have been blown away. Here were patriots who grew increasingly frustrated with the futility of their mission. They all realized that they were pissing Iraqis off, they were empathetic of the people, yet angry at Iraqis when their colleagues would be injured or killed by mortor attacks of their base.

A couple of my classmates in law school have served in Iraq and I have had a chance to briefly talk to one of them about what it is like. He told me about how they lived in their bases, only met interpreters, and saw other Iraqis only from the gun turret he was stationed at. He seemed to be in favor of either the Bush/McCain/Lieberman escalation or outright withdrawal. He told me that right now it isn't working and either we need to step it up and finish the job or get the hell out of there. He believed that either way we are damned. That leaving would be disastrous to stability of the county, but that our presence wasn't really helping matters at the moment.

And like the guys in the film, my classmate was doing a job he had never really been trained to do. I just don't get where McCain will get these extra troops that will supposedly be able to solve all our Iraq problems. Many service members have gone on multiple tours of duty, they have reduced the age intelligence and psychological barriers to entry, yet recruitment is at a extreme low. It is incredibly dangerous out there, and Guardsmen don't get the same protections and benefits that even reservists get.

In the film, they were welding rusted metal plates on to their 1970s trucks and stuffing old flak jackets in the doors when they ran out of metal. they were stuffing sandbags and placing them inside their cars and around their trailers at the bases.

As it went on, the film made me prouder of those men and women that serve over there and angrier at the folks that put them over there. Despite their poverty and lack of education, these young men and women quickly figured out what was going on and were given an impossible task to do. Can you imagine a foreign army toppling the government of California, and having to deal with race riots that makes the Rodney King reaction look like tea party on a daily basis? Oh and with only 140K troops.

A solution can only be achieved politically, and we have squandered 3,000 US troops and untold thousands of Iraqis trying to solve it militarily. The Iraqi "government" is unwilling or unable to take control of much of anything in their country and the whole place is starting to look like one of those war torn African countries. I highly doubt that adding 20-30K troops will do much of anything and while Iraq will spiral out of control more without us there, it can't get much worse without the US in the cross hairs.

The whole movie just illustrates the utter insanity of the whole war. It reminds me of World War I, a bloody drawn out conflict which had no real purpose and accomplished nothing other than dead bodies then and more dead bodies later.

the (holy) blog wars

As many of you know, I used to work for the DLC. I agree with some of their philophosy, but I can't say that I agree with every tenant of their platform. I consider myself a Democrat, but I don't consider my party's platform to be akin to a religious dogma. One can believe in transsubstantiation, so to speak, and still be a good Episopalian.

So I feel the need to defend Will Marshall of the PPI/DLC from attacks from MyDD/DailyKos/SwingStateProject folks when they talk about the need to "excommunicate" the DLC from the Democratic party. Sure, Will was dead wrong about Iraq. When we argued about it in the fall of 2002, he said it was "all about the weapons of mass destruction" that we couldn't stand idily by while someone acquired such weapons and threatened their neighbors. We agreed that Afghanistan was already mismanaged and that it was his job as a war hawk to stay vigilant to prevent the Bush Administration from mismanaging Iraq. But I didn't see the threat as imminant.

And we may disagree about free trade to some degree. I think it needs to be fair in order to be effective. Just opening up one side of the market without worrying about fundamental unfairness, social, environmental, or labor conditions is a mistake.

But that doesn't mean he deserves to be banished from the party. Like I have said before, Lieberman needed to be primaried not because he was too conservative but because his political instincts were dead wrong and listening to him would be disasterous to the Democratic party.

Will Marshall is a smart nice man, and it is perfectly fine to disagree with him. But it is quite another to be setting up minimum standards for who deserves to be in the party. That is elitism if I have ever seen it.

Saturday round-up

We got a dog! (see above) We haven't given him a name yet. Ideas welcome but we are thinking of something German, French, or English (i.e. Spaezel, Minion, or Dudley). Anyway, my wife and I are very excited...we adopted him in Lehi this morning.

• If you thought our dog we cute, check out a sneezing baby panda!

Quote of the Day

If that's the kind of people we got over
in Iraq, maybe we ought to get out. I
suspect that's not the case. I suspect there
are good people, just like everywhere else in
the world. Mr. Alfatlawi is not one of them.
He is a criminal of the worst kind. He preys
on people that are minding their own
business. He robbed a store where a lady was
trying to make a new store work, in the
middle of the night. They took advantage of
a widow in the Cove area, who went out . . .
to try and give assistance, and they
terrorized her. A man coming home, unloading
his baggage in his home, they robbed. A
young woman walking down the street, who was
out of gas, in the night, coming home from
work, they attempted to rob her. She didn't
have anything, so they couldn't take it.
Random acts of violence, for example, on [one
of the victims]. This is just outside the
pizza store on 13th there. They pull up and
point a gun at him and demand money. He only
has five dollars, but he gives it to them.
And on and on and on.
This is the kind of guy that ought to be
off the street for a long period of time, as
long as I can make it. Considering his
attitude, if the Board of Pardons let's [sic]
him out in other than a box, they are nuts,
because he will do this again. It is too bad
we can't deport him back to Iraq. If I had
any say-so about it, that's exactly where he
would go, and he can deal with the situation
over there. He would last about 20 minutes,
with his attitude.
But, in any event, Mr. Alfatlawi has
earned and he gets from me a consecutive
sentence on each one of these. They all run
consecutively. By my count it is 70 years to
life. . . . This guy deserves to be in
prison for a long, long time. Commitment
forthwith. You can give him the good news,
Mr. Simms.
. . . .
. . . . Tell Mr. Alfatlawi to have a
nice life.

That was Third District Court Judge Hanson on Azharn Alfatlawi, who had just been convicted of six counts of aggravated robbery and one count of aggravated burglary. I had heard of the judge's comments last year when he was sentenced, but now that the sentence has been affirmed on appeal in a publicly available opinion, 2006 UT App 511, I feel I can share it with you all.

This defendant by the way has a tattoo on his forehead that says "Iraqi Pride," try getting a solid lineup with that. What do you do, draw "Iraqi Pride" and his teardrop tattoo on people with magic marker?

Anyway, I urge my readers to spend time with family and friends this next week as I will be blogging little to none while I do the same. Happy Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus , or whatever you celebrate. I will be having a Merry Christmas. Two relatives who were not going to be here for Christmas Eve will be joining us thanks to that monster storm in Denver. It is happy for us but sad for their children and grandchildren in Denver. Still, the kids of Colorado have lots of snow to play in and probably haven't been at school for days. All this light snow in Salt Lake has me thinking of them. Also, be safe next week and if you have had ANYTHING to drink, just take a cab. I don't want to see you next time I try a DUI.

Thursday round-up

• People in Utah can't find their local liquor stores. Why? Because listing them in the yellowpages is deemed "advertising," which is prohibited by statute. "That's stupid," said Larry Lunt, head of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, said Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the agency that regulates state liquor sales. "People don't normally know to look for liquor stores in the Blue Pages."
  

  Searching online also may be problematic. An Internet check of Salt Lake County liquor stores also pulled up a grocery store and a plumbing supply outlet.

  
  
• This week's sign the apocalypse is upon us: Sen. Orin Hatch's music goes Platinum. Who are these people that like to pay money for stuff you can listen to in the elevator?
  
• I will take lame political christmas songs for $100 Alex: Courtesy of Hotline. I just hope they didn't write it themselves. Feel free to voice your opinion about the song in the comments.
  

  The Mormon Song
  (to tune of Adam Sandler's "Hanukkah Song")
  
  Break out the Golden Plate, here comes 2008.
  So fun to guess the fate of our favorite Mormon candidate.
  
  Mitt Romney has been a Mormon all his life.
  And unlike Giuliani and McCain, he's only had one wife.
  
  When you think like pundits in town who think it can't be done,
  Here's a list of people who are Mormon, Mitt's not the only one.
  
  Harry Reid's a Dem who'll lead the U.S. Senate,
  And then there are Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Ben-nett.
  
  Guess who eats together when Congress is in session,
  Senator Mike Crapo, and Congressman Mike Simpson
  
  George Allen's part Jewish; and he won't run in '08,
  Romney lost a foe because of Macaca-gate.
  
  Now on the war on terror, Mitt Romney won't be soft,
  and he can form a Cabinet with
  Chris Cannon and Brent Scowcroft -- (both Mormon)
  
  So break out the Golden Plate, here comes 2008
  If you go to see Salt Lake, the Marriot sure is great.
  
  O.J. Simpson -- not a Mormon,
  But guess who is, Governor Jon Huntsman.
  
  Romney's got a plan to make it to the fall,
  And if he does, he'll do better than Mo Udall.
  
  You may be convinced that it's not that tough a fight
  If Mitt gets help from the star of Napoleon Dynamite!
  
  Not many Mormons are in the news biz --
  Larry King isn't, but did you know that his wife is?
  
  Go tell Gordon Hinkley, '08 will be here quickly,
  McCain hopes that he'll face Hillary, but hey may not be the nominee.
  
  So stay away from coffee, and better not drink whiskey
  Cause maybe soon we all might see,
  a Republican President named Mitt Romney.

2008 updates

It is amazing how fast and soon presidential politics moves these days. With the most wide-open races in a hundred or so years and a front loaded calendar on both sides, candidates are entering and leaving faster than I can get around to updating the "wannabes" section of my blog (see the bottom of the right side column). But today I got around to it. You will notice that Bayh was moved from "second tier" presidential candidate to first tier VP candidate (wherein he will never be chosen). I also added ex-VA Gov. Jim Gilmore (R), who ravaged the state budget so much that Warner had to raise taxes by over $2 billion to cover the deficits, along with major spending cuts. He sees an opening on the conservative wing of the GOP, given Romney's current troubles. Oh if only the GOP were dumb enough to nominate Gilmore, Romney, Brownback, Tancredo, or Hunter. Any of the Democrats running realistic campaigns could beat them (Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Clark, Richardson).

On the Democratic side, I added NM Gov. Bill Richardson, who has made some smart moves, to the board. I told Clark to speak out against McCain's add troops plan, and Richardson did it and got lots of praise from the blogosphere. Blogs will be the invisible primary of 2007. The winner will get lots of cash, loyalty, phone banking, and some actual on the ground volunteers. It will be interesting to see how the field shapes up.

The top of GOP race is currently McCain, but there is plenty of room on the right to run because the conservatives just don't trust him. And as McCain tires more and more to burnish his conservative bona fides, the more his moderate/independent base leaves him, and makes beating him in November easier. I think a McCain/Giuliani would be the GOP's best electoral bet, but I think a red meat conservative will get the Cheney slot.

The top of the Democratic primary is really much more wide open. Atrios sees it as a three way tie between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards. Edwards has the calendar and labor going for him. Hillary has the network of Clintonistas and loyal women behind her. Obama is the media darling, the McCain of 2008. But be warned Barrack, they love to tear down what they have created. I just hope it is McCain and not Obama, who would make an excellent VP choice. All three of these dubbed frontrunners could falter at any moment, so Clark & Richardson have a good shot and squeezing in. Both would also be good VP candidates. Democrats could realistically have a woman/black, woman/hispanic, black/hispanic, hispanic/black,or black/woman(with Sebilius as VP) ticket in 2008 and have all of these tickets with a good shot of success.

how did this happen?

Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who dedicated the rest of his life to hunting down Nazis, was placed on a list of potential posthumous converts to the LDS faith. His foundation got wind of Wiesenthal's name being on the database and raised holy hell.

"We are astounded and dismayed," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center's founder and dean, in a written statement. Wiesenthal "proudly lived as a Jew, died as a Jew and demanded justice for the millions of the victims of the Holocaust. . . . It is sacrilegious for the Mormon faith to desecrate his memory by suggesting that Jews on their own are not worthy enough to receive God's eternal blessing."

The Church reacted properly, but they have a massive problem on their hands.

"In accordance with the commitments the church made in 1995, no church ordinance was performed for Simon Wiesenthal and his name was immediately removed from the International Genealogical Index," said Bruce Olsen, press secretary to the church's First Presidency.

Mr. Olsen and his team need to figure out who put Wiesenthal's name on this list, and make a big stink about punishing them. After all, this isn't the first time it has happened:

In a posthumous or proxy baptism, a living Mormon is baptized by full immersion in water in the name of a deceased individual. Such baptism is essential for eternal salvation, the LDS Church teaches, but it takes effect only if the deceased accepts the ritual in the afterlife.
[...]
In 1995, several Jewish groups became incensed by the practice when it was discovered that Holocaust victims were among those being baptized by proxy. They drew parallels to medieval crusades to baptize them by force. Not wishing to offend, the LDS Church removed 400,000 names...But thousands of the deleted names somehow kept reappearing on the list, prompting more talks between the LDS Church and Jewish representatives... [and] In 2002, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton met with Utah's Sen. Orrin Hatch to discuss the problem, although neither would discuss it publicly.

That would have been a great meeting to be a fly on the wall on. I bet Orin doesn't really hate Hillary as much as he pretends to on TV. Here is another great quote from Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center's founder and dean:

"We believe the only gatekeeper to heaven is a life of good deeds," Hier said. "He was a great Jew and will merit heaven on his own without anybody's help."

Indeed, I think Wiesenthal's deeds and sufferings merit entrance into heaven, even if he doesn't think Jesus was the Messiah. And like I said, the LDS Church has a big PR disaster here that will only get worse if the press find out who did this before Church officials do. It could be that there is some anti-Semite putting these names in the database. Or it could be someone's idea of a big joke. Or it could be a true believer, thinking that he needs to save these souls more than any others. Either way, it is wrong and the Church needs to put a stop to it once and for all. Create a list of "do not post" names of Holocaust victims so that if people try this again (and they will), the Church will be able to catch the wrongdoers in the act.

quitting and taking the ball with you

I had heard about the kerfluffle from wayward Anglican ministries in Northern Virginia that were super-conservative at there dismay that New Hampshire made a openly gay man their bishop, but I never thought they would actually do this:

Truro and The Falls Church, with a combined membership of more than 3,000, will form the core of what is envisioned as a new Fairfax-based mission of the conservative Episcopal Church of Nigeria. The head of the Nigerian church, Archbishop Peter Akinola, has voiced support for a pending law in that country that includes prison sentences for gay sexual activity.

The Rev. Martyn Minns of Truro Church, who is missionary bishop of the splinter group known as CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America), said that although the dissident Virginia churches believe that homosexuality is banned by Scripture, they do not support criminalization of gay sex.

Akinola's spokesman and his advocates have said he does not advocate aggressively pursuing the jailing of homosexuals. His advocates say he is trying to navigate an explosive cultural situation in Nigeria and appease Muslim leaders.

So who attends these churches? Truro is a veritable who's-who of Washington establishment conservatives, including Oliver North and SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas. And why do they believe it is necessary to create a schism?

Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church plan to place themselves under the leadership of Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the church.

So why not just join other churches that aren't as amenable to human equality? Its the principle of the thing right? That and the $25 Million the property is worth in Virginia. Yet another round of conservative cry babies acting immaturely. If church doctrine changes from you, you should change churches. Like if you were a racist, and the LDS Church decided that African-Americans could indeed be religious officials in 1978, then you should leave the church. And not take your expensive real estate and go play with a nutbar in Africa. But I guess homophobia and logic aren't necessarily related.

the gift of junk for the political junkie

The New York Times' "blog" has a interesting piece about holiday gift ideas that are politically themed. (Personally, I would rather get a poster of this map to hang in my room).

Giving someone Orin Hatch's Christmas CD, or any of his CD's is a violation of the 8th amendment I believe.

For another good laugh, you could get them a subscription of the Politico, the ultimate in the Washington Establishment set of always wrong pundits/journalists, by a self-proclaimed supergroup of writers who left their jobs at big papers to start this "paper."

Here's a taste, thanks to the New York Observer

The Post “came back with an unprecedented offer for us to stay,” Mr. VandeHei said, an offer that included positions leading the newspaper’s online political coverage.
[snip]
"I think we’ll show that we’re better than The New York Times or The Washington Post," Mr. VandeHei said.

Lastly, the Times suggests getting your political geek a mirror. But better yet would be a mirror with the seat of the office of the president on it. Get it for the Senator on your list.

And really, I am tired of stories talking about the fashion choices of the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Who cares if she wears nice pearls or Armani suits? Why didn't we talk about the gigantic gut of then-Speaker Hastert, or the tacky outfits of other powerful men? It really is demeaning to women leaders, especially since many of it is coming from women reporters. Women are more than their clothes, hair, makeup, and jewelry. But it is hard to tell from the breathless coverage by the MSM. So you have 24 hours to kill on a cable news show--why don't you do in depth reporting on a single topic, or talk about the leading story on the internets, rather than become a national local news show. Do I really need to know about white power given to a teacher in NJ without any context? Do you really need to know the brand of clothes or type of pearls Speaker Pelosi prefers? Do I care?

The reason Anderson Cooper and Keith Olberman shot up in ratings these last years is because they cut through the crap and get to what really interests Americans without going into "Entertainment Tonight" mode.

To me though, the story of the day on the internets is the news that Atrios has become the CW for Democratic primary voters. And I have to say, there is a lot of truth to that. When he makes a point, it ends up sticking in the dialog on the left blogosphere. How ironic that he is now what he despises, David Broder, at least to some degree.

when things don't work out

The whole Sen. Johnson blab-fest on the cable news just shows how DC-centric they are. I am sure everyone is talking about this in Washington, no matter how little they know about A) brain surgery and Sen. Johnson's condition and B) the law on replacing incapacitated Senators. It is the perfect event for such DC folks: there is little hard information going around, it is a small event that could have massive implications for public policy and power, and there is no other political news really to speak of until January 8th, when Romney and all the other 2008 wannabes start announcing.

Washington, it has been said, it is a town that runs on rumors. Nothing could be a better example of this adage than poor Sen. Johnson's current health. It sounds like he could be right as rain in a couple of months and let's all pray for the best.

When thinks for the GOP didn't work out this November, they are left hoping Senator Johnson dies, just like Democrats were waiting on Sen. Thurmond to die or to flip a moderate GOPer (they got Jeffords and Chafee should have joined him).

Matheson's new committee

Being the political nerd I am, I have actually been checking Jim's congressional website to see if he had announced what committees he would be on next congress. With so many more committee seats opened up to Democrats, and the new majority interested in holding marginal seats like Jim's, I figured he would get a plumb assignment.

But I never dreamt he would get one of the biggies. "Matheson has snagged one of eight Democratic seats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has broad authority and oversees several Cabinet-level departments." The article goes on to say him had to give up his other committee assignments. That is because Energy and Commerce is one of the "exclusive" committees--so powerful that to be fair to the 'losers' who don't get to be on them, you have to not be one ANY other committee.

"It's the most powerful committee in Congress," Matheson told the Trib. "It presents a great opportunity. It affects every American." By that he explained to the Deseret News that the committee's jurisdiction covers "five Cabinet-level Departments and seven independent agencies, including the departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, [and] Transportation [as well as] the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Communications Commission."

On this committee, Jim could very easily block nuclear testing in Nevada and Utah, as well as get his tax-porn and his enforce-video-game-ratings bills onto the floor. If the federal government really could effectively and legally (there's a First Amendment issue to be sure) tax porn, boy that could solve our budget deficit over night. That's because the porn industry is worth about $10 billion!

This just goes to show that it helps to have friends in high places: His chief of staff's husband is the chief in staff to incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

There goes the Senate?

Mere hours after Democrats padded their margin in the House, it seems the narrow hold of the Senate might slip away. NBC's Brian Williams is blogging that South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson, who up until now was the only member of Congress with children serving in Iraq, had a stroke.

The Hotline, as usual, explains the political connotations:

If Sen. Johnson decides he is too ill to continue as Senator, Gov. Mike Rounds (R) would have ten days from the day of Johnson's resignation to appoint a replacement.

Because Johnson's in cycle, his replacement would stay on through the '08 elections.

Rounds was the guy who wanted to outlaw abortions even if the mother had been raped, by the way, and the people of his state voted him down. Don't think that he is feeling particular democratic (or Democratic) these days and would appoint ex-Sen. Daschle or US Rep. Hereseth to replace Johnson. I would pick South Dakotan Tom Brokaw.

The Third Avenue prays for Johnson's speedy recovery. "Bill Press is making a very important point: GWU Hospital has a world-class stroke unit and is full of top-flite professionals," and that we have no idea how bad a stroke this really is. Let's hope it is extremely minor or just a rumor.

UPDATE: The Washington Post version of the story makes it seem like it was a relatively minor stroke.

Johnson had become disoriented during a call with reporters, stuttering in response to a question. He appeared to recover, asking if there were any additional questions and then signing off.

LATE UPDATE: CBS News: Julianne Fisher,a spokeswoman for Senator Johnson, "said the senator did not suffer a stroke or heart attack." Thank goodness. It seems like he started stuttering during the press event, and felt weird, so out of abundance of caution, his staff rushed him to the best stroke place in the area. Hat tip-- Think Progress

Newton's First Law

An object in motion tends to stay in motion. In this case the object or object is my wife and I. Even though I have thoroughly enjoyed being back in Utah after a six-year hiatus, I find myself itching for a change. My wife is eager to move back to DC (where we lived 2002-03) since her parents now live in Richmond.

With the most wide open presidential election cycle in some 150 years, I am excited to get back to our nation's capital too. Only how do I get a job and what do I do? My rules for employment are fairly simple: a law-related job (one where my JD would actually be necessary) that pays more than I earned before law school ($28,500). In theory, that shouldn't be very hard to find.

But in practice, you either have to know someone, or have amazing grades, or know some one AND have amazing grades. I don't know that many people in powerful legal position in D.C., and I don't know if or how they could help. If you think you could, dear readers, I am all ears.

Debby Blumer: 1941-2006

(Boston Herald File photo)
I was shocked and deeply saddened today to learn (two months after the fact) that my boss from my days as a legislative aide in Boston died suddenly while driving home. State Representative Blumer was a tough boss, but rightly so. She demanded that I do the best for her constituents. She sought to listen to every constituent and hear them out, even if they disagreed with her.

During the 2004 Constitutional Convention regarding Gay Marriage, she came out strongly for equal marriage rights for her homosexual constituents. She got lots of hate mail and lots of fan mail too. The letters and emails and faxes and visits were deeply personal, people sharing their lives with her. Debby also fought hard to get as much road projects for her district as possible. And unlike most of her colleagues, Framingham's roads really did need it. She fought with the power and telephone companies to remove unsightly and dangerous polls and wires that were no longer necessary. She fought to increase funding for the poor and disabled's housing, health insurance, and more.

I might have disagreed with her vehement opposition to charter schools, but I respected her conviction and work ethic. She worked tirelessly, both in the district, on the campaign trail and at the State House in Boston.

Although she was not a tall woman, whomever replaces her in the State House will have big shoes to fill.

idiots with power

Ah the brothers Cannon. One continues to carry water for emasculated president and smear Democrats without cause or truth. The other just got himself on the Deseret News editorial board. When the Church gets all defensive about its ties to the Republican party, I think they need to look this one in the face. Why is a Church-owned publication hiring a state party chairman, whose brother is a partisan member of Congress, as an editor?

Anyway, lets go to the idiot quotations.

"As I read the report, it says the president is right," he [Rep. Chris Cannon] said. "Basically, it says the president is a smart guy."
He said the commission rejected a quick withdrawal from Iraq, aiming for 2008, but allowing for changes in conditions on the ground. [Source: Tribune

Utah Democrats claims to have found the first intrusion of Joe on behalf of Chris:

It looks like a pretty little graphic, but what stands out, for anyone with an IQ above room temperature, are Bernick's obviously false and deliberately misleading numbers in the UT-CD3 race. Take a look:

[Bob] Bernick states in the article:

"Burridge spent only $7,000. For his whole race, Cannon spent $1.16 million, a record re-election total for him."

Now, while I recognize that Bernick indicated in the graphic that the dollar figures used in the graphic for Burridge (and Pete Ashdown) features an asterisk noting that the totals are taken from the amount of money the candidates had at State Convention (May 2006) in 3 point font.

For more than a month now, before Bernick gifted this goofy, ill-considered gem to his new boss, anyone could have easily found public FEC information that as of October 18th Burridge had raised $55,000 and had spent approximately $47,000

I don't think this is as sinister. I think Bernick just asked Joe how much his brother spent and how much Burridge spent, never bothering to look it up online himself in 5 seconds. Plus, I think Burridge looks better to have done so well with so little ($7,000) than the slightly more he raised.

"I think what you can expect is, you're not going to get a shill for the Republican Party". said Joe. Sure, that is what a public expects from its editors...but that's not what it is going to get from the bunch that say the ISG report said the president was right.

Anyone who can read besides liars like Tony Snow say that the report is a repudiation of the President's policy. But then again, Chris can't do either apparently.

"You are probably going to have an impeachment proceeding with [Rep. John] Conyers leading Judiciary and you are going to have a raft of . . . legislative inquiries by [Rep.] Henry Waxman," Rep. Chris Cannon predicted on election night.
Cannon said he would be the administration's "go-to guy" to defend President Bush against the mob.
In just a month, he has turned 180 degrees.
The moderate Democrats who gave their party control will force the new majority to govern from the middle, Cannon now says, abandoning his slash-and-burn scenario.

Speaking of the Iraq Study Group, I am tired of these blue ribbon commissions dictating US policy on big issues. If these old folks really know what to do, why not have them actually in a President's administration or in Congress? Why do we even bother to have either if all they are supposed to do, according to the Washington Establishment, is to follow whatever they say.

Have our actual leaders become so incompetent that they can't think for themselves and need people to tell them what to do who aren't staffers? Not to mention the fact that the ISG report is not at all useful or informative. Where were these people in 2002 or 2003 when the war started, or in 2004 when we could have salvaged more?

I may be young and unexperienced in the ways of the world, but with my undergraduate degree in International Relations, somehow I knew before all the wise men of the think tanks and writers of serious books that a) Saddam wasn't a threat, b) he didn't have any serious WMD's, c) Bush would screw up the country post-invasion, d) all of his "experts" were idiotic ideologes.

Maybe you feel differently, but I am tired of giving morons all this power. Why do we allow people like Chris and Joe Cannon to give us the news and write our laws? Why do we allow establishment types without constitutional authority, to write legislation that "has to" be passed? Why is "bipartisanship" so sacred if one side is so dedicated to covering the butt of their partisans? Does this really have to be the way things are in Washington? A Clark would change this. Hillary has become part of the establishment. McCain is the epitome of this wrong-headed thinking (the ISG heads even basically endorsed McCain '08 by perpetuating his imaginary 30K more troops will solve everything "alternative"). Romney is a Janis-faced politician who will say anything to get people to vote for him. [Right wingers, don't worry, he was never serious when he was kissing up to the Log Cabin Republicans.] Obama says he is about change, but he might really be a consensus behind the scenes guy after all. Edwards wants to be president and loved so much, he may get follow High Broderism as well.

I say, let's dethrown these idiots with power and prevent future idiots from power and those who may listen to idiots from having power as well.