Justice Scalia is a douchebag

Okay. My beef is with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. His outburst today concerning gay rights just makes me sick. How is this guy still on the court?

Today he said... "O.K., could we just stop talking about this stuff now? I've told you all how I feel about this topic, and I don't understand why we're going on and on about it unless you all hate me."

He continues... "For two days, it's been gay this, gay that. You're all just talking about this stuff as if it's normal thing in the world. Well, it's not, O.K.? It's weird and it's wrong. And just talking about it like it's O.K. and whatnot is making me angry."

Do I sense a lack of professionalism from Justice Scalia? Why, as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, would you say such hateful comments? Should Justice Scalia resign over these insesnstive comments? Yes, I agree so. He is a douchebag and not a Justice of the Supreme Court...

Instant Karma's Gonna Sequester Ya

I have a friend of a friend. Let's call her Jenny. Jenny is a school teacher, who has worked in a district without a contract for the last two plus years.  Jenny is a Republican, both in an economic and religious sense of the word. And a union member. So right away, the cognitive dissonance she has to use to get through the day leads her to the more than occasional migraine.

 If you put two people that make the same amount of money in the same room, one a Republican, and one a Democrat, odds are very good you'll be able to unearth that one understands that their actions, for better or for worse, impact those of others, and so they should use the spirit of cooperation to help build the infrastructure of support to help the less fortunate and others around them, and that they understand that without the hard work and sacrifices made by those before them, some of whom earned more, some of whom earned less, they wouldn't be where they are, and that the other feels that people are trying to steal from them or are free riders. You can sort out who ideologically falls on which side of the aisle.

I tried to politely engage Jenny once on the subject of what Planned Parenthood means to women's health for rural residents. That turned out to be a mistake, as that conversation quickly turned into nonsensical vitriol on lobbyists and abortion, facts be damned. I mean, why should a woman who lives in a rural area care about the reproductive health of other women who live in rural areas, right?

On the subject of the cognitive dissonance it takes to be a Republican union member, through this article we come across this gem of a quote, uttered by someone so utterly confused it will make your head hurt, just so you're warned (sourced from here):

In the smoky bar, ideological lines get blurred. Somers is a union guy but not an Obama fan. He wants cash to keep flowing to the large military contractor that employs him, but he opposed the auto bailout. He needs Washington but feels manipulated by it.
“They spend our money like a drunk sailor. . . . ‘We’ll give you a little bit of something, a little piece of cheese.’ Dangle that cheese. We’re pawns, that’s what we are,” he said.
But Somers has four kids and ultimately, he said: “I’m willing to accept anything to turn the country around. If it takes me getting laid off, so be it.”

At least this guy is willing to put his money, and his kids health and well being, apparently, where his mouth is, I'll give him that much. But this idea that "I'm essential, but you aren't", (better expressed as 'I should get mine and Fuck You') this idea that the pie is limited and we have to fight with each other over the scraps, autoworkers versus shipbuilders, and that people like the person above should hate themselves for being on the government teat, even though they earn the same living essentially the same way as an autoworker does (only, it should be noted, for higher pay and with better benefits), and that they should then wish ill upon others, is utterly asinine.

On the heels of the passing of Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, another one of my friends, a police officer, remarked at how unjust it was. Then, in the next breath, he said "man, I hate spending tax dollars on government programs." At which point, I rather bluntly reminded him that he was a government program.

The school district in which Jennifer works is part of a community of people with her attitude toward teaching and teachers. They make too much money. They work 7 hours per day and have summers off. The school system is poor. The people are "overtaxed". That school district is facing what is likely to be a long strike beginning Monday.  The gentleman at the center of the Washington Post story is facing a layoff, and the police officer I mentioned above is facing a furlough.

All three of these people, along with tens of millions of others, are learning a hard lesson. We are all interconnected. We all need each other, and need to support each other. We all rely on each other. The roads don't pave themselves, the streets don't clean or patrol themselves, the kids don't teach themselves, the ships don't build themselves. And until these people experience an adequate amount of pain and suffering at the hands of others with the same attitudes as them, they, unfortunately, are never going to learn.

It's a basic lesson of life, shared across nearly all of the world's religions. Do good to others, and they do good to you. Do bad to others, and bad things happen to you. It's karma. And it's a bitch.

Let's Talk About Guns

Have you ever shot a gun?

No, seriously. Did you ever go out to the gun range, rent a handgun, take it out and just start shooting at a target? Perhaps you had relatives that lived on a farm and had guns and, on a holiday visit, took you out back to shoot at empty bottles.

I'm not going to lie. There is a visceral thrill to picking up, handling and shooting a gun. It has an excitement that very few things can match.

But guns, as we all know, are serious business, and as we've learned recently, if not managed responsibly, or even if they are managed responsibly, the sole purpose of a gun is to be used as a tool of destruction, regardless of the motivation of the person using it.

The tragic events in Newtown, CT, Aurora, CO and suburban Portland, OR, along with the exceedingly violent series of deaths that are plaguing inner city Chicago, may have finally tipped the scales of civil discourse in the United States in the favor of those who seek to impose some degree of limits on the process of acquiring a gun, what types of guns people really need to own and how they should be permitted to use guns in defensive situations.

As with the voting rights issue, discussing Gun Control is a complex and multi-layered issue. So my hope here is to start to peel back the onion on the issue and provide a framework for discussion.

Gun Control

What does this mean? Well, whatever you want it to mean, by and large.So let's start with guns.

By some estimates, there are 280,000,000 guns in private ownership in the United States. At the current rate of gun acquisition, there will be one gun for every person in the U.S. by the year 2020. We are already approaching an era where, statistically, every American is armed. From this, I think we can conclude the Swiss solution isn't practical.

When we talk of guns, we really need to approach guns in three different categories. There are tactical/assault weapons a ban upon which expired in 2004. There are handguns, which these rulings more or less permitted people to own, and there are hunting rifles.

Absurdities

If you have a liberal friend who thinks we're going to gather 280 million guns up and melt them down, thus solving our gun violence problem, ask him why he left Rhea Pearlman. Certainly, governments at all levels can create incentives for people to voluntarily do so, in the form of tax credits, and this is a worthwhile course to pursue. But the idea that we can eliminate guns by melting them all is silly.

By the same token, the idea that arming everyone will solve our gun violence problem is equally absurd. Beyond the anecdotal evidence that armed people panic in live fire situations, the limits of this situation can be expressed by the story of what happened earlier this summer when all nine bystanders in a shooting near the Empire State Building were wounded by the NYPD. And these are officers trained in the most dense urban area of the United States. Not random CCW license holders.

Let's express, and dismiss, the foolishness of arming everyone with a cost-benefit analysis. The NYPD estimates it's hit rate, the rate at which officers who use their firearm to hit an intended target, as 34%. Which means that, 66% of the time, they miss. But for argument sake, let's assume that everyone is as good as the NYPD, and none of the bullets that miss their intended target cause any collateral damage whatsoever.

The UK ban on handguns administered after the 1997 Dunblane shootings resulted in a 40% decline in the number of handgun related homicides over the subsequent 10 year period.

So even an equally absurd, best case scenario can't top the effects of a simple ban, where none of the existing weaponry was taken from the population at large.

Hunting Rifles, and Bridging the Urban/Rural Divide

The trick to winning support from conservatives and responsible gun owners, in my opinion, is to make clear up front that hunters are not the problem. There's a story that says that while the President and First Lady were campaigning in one of the Dakotas, Michelle remarked to the President "You know, I could understand why you'd want a gun if you lived out here."

And there is a fundamental lack of communication between Gun Control advocates, who tend to be urban, and view gun violence as urban, and the rural audience of gun owners who, due to their isolation or lifestyle, have a reasonable and respectable right to own a gun that facilitates their hunting related hobbies and self defense.

Bridging this communications gap is the key to enacting common sense gun ownership regulation. Neither a group that is commonly engaged in the purchase and stockpiling of tactical assault weapons, and neither group supports it. But seeing the perspective of both sides, and avoiding regulatory limitations on weapons that are reasonably classified as hunting weapons, is important. This is the role that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin needs to play in this debate.

Tactical Weapons/Assault Rifles

The first order of the new Congress will be to propose and pass a ban on weapons similar to the original 1994 ban. With Newtown fresh in the minds of most Americans, and broad support for such a measure, there is no reason this shouldn't be done by the time you're finished reading this sentence.

Handguns

But passing a Tactical Weapons ban is the easy part. The hard work comes with handguns. Cheap and easy handgun access, legal or otherwise, plagues violence in urban areas. DC v. Heller and Chicago v. McDonald put an end to outright handgun bans in the U.S., although Heller, in particular, left open state and local municipalities rights to place restrictions on gun acquisition and ownership. This is a hard question with no easy answers, and would force the Democratic Party to expend considerably political capital it may not have to address.

Still, there are loopholes that can be closed. The federal government could actually enforce and prosecute Brady Bill violators. The Gun Show Loophole in particular needs to be addressed and closed. In a society with mobile communications and tablet PCs, there is no reason Gun Show dealers and organizers shouldn't be able to perform background checks onsite.

Finally, there's always the Chris Rock Rule. In one of his routines, Chris Rock suggested that guns should remain legal, but bullets should cost $5,000 apiece. And while he was joking, he has a point. The federal government could, in theory, do nothing on guns themselves, but ban ammunition, or make it cost prohibitive. It's a difficult parsing of the law, but a smart way to pursue addressing this issue.

My own personal opinion is this. We will never rid our country of the gun. It is engrained in our culture, the one English speaking culture that was not raised on the British tradition. The political will doesn't exist to do so, and the paranoia inherent in a significant swath of our political sub-culture will never allow it. Regardless, we still need to address the issue proactively around the edges, and the political will exists to do at least this much. Tactically speaking, the issue is a winner for the Democratic Party. So address it.

So Now What?

On the morning after the President signed an executive order allowing those who were brought to the US illegally as children could earn temporary amnesty, I found myself in line at the Dallas Airport. As the news was broadcast on CNN, the white Texas couple in front of me scoffed at the thought that illegals wanting to steal jobs would qualify for "a free ride."

The Hispanic family behind me, on the other hand, was quietly delighted, and began texting friends.

Anecdotes don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but if there's one thing that seems clear now is that the President and Senate Democrats have the high strategic territory as it relates to re-introducing the DREAM Act. If we consider that the Hispanic voting bloc is currently resoundingly anti-Republican, their continued obstructionism in the form of ludicrous suggestions like self deportation only causes more harm, and a pretty face and bilingual stump speeches aren't going to address that. If a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate pass the DREAM Act, an argument can be made that it solidifies the Democratic Party's stronghold on that demographic for a generation.

It is in the best interests of the GOP, then, find a way to reach a high profile compromise that grants amnesty to those who are in the country illegally. This removes the issue from the table, ultimately and frees the parties to address the Hispanic demographic on different ground.

Changing Attitudes and the Ascent of Millenials
Now seems to be a good time to talk about social attitudes. If you pose the question of Gay Marriage to a Millenial, the general answer you'll get is "it doesn't impact me, so what do I care?"

As Baby Boomers and aging evangelicals continue to shuffle off this mortal coil, they are replaced by Millenials that have increasingly Libertarian attitudes on social issues, including birth control and abortion, which are viewed through the prism of individual choice. This bodes well for those who are traditionally persecuted and scapegoated by Republicans. In particular, those states that have anti-gay marriage laws in place will slowly start to see them overturned, provided a Court doesn't wise up and find them in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. It also bodes well for Democrats who, aside from a few notable exceptions aim squarely in the wheelhouse of people with these attitudes. A Republican Party that preaches an overtly faith based message is preaching to a shrinking choir.

Don't assume, however, that Millenials have equally liberal attitudes about taxation and economics. Millenials, particularly the younger half of this generation, have somewhat conservative attitudes on economics, which leave them just as vulnerable to the "for me, but not for thee" economic policies that Republicans increasingly clumsily overtly espouse. The student loan reform bill directly benefits this generation as does credit card reform. Future Democratic politicians will need to find similar types of consumer and economic type reforms to appeal to this demographic.

Toward the Future
What we've seen clearly is that Tea Party Politics has a clear ceiling. In a Gerrymandered Congressional environment with predominately Republican districts, Congressional candidates can, for a time, continue to leverage the rural white portions of their districts to win races, barring a 2006 type wave, for the remainder of the decade.

However, outside of the states that are currently Red, Republican candidates that adopt this platform will continue to lose at the Senate level. The Rural/Urban composition of most Blue and Purple states will see to it that a nut like Tom Smith in Pennsylvania isn't take seriously. And a Presidential Tea Partyesque candidate isn't feasible either.

The next immediate Senate hurdle is 2014. While there is cause for concern, the map does not appear to be as bleak for the Democrats as it was, say, the day before yesterday.

2014 will underscore how much progress the Democratic Party makes in addressing a chronic problem; keeping an engaged electorate enthused enough to rollback the gains made by Republicans in 2010. Certainly there is an outstanding party apparatus in place, but the Party has struggled to utilize that infrastructure to effectively market the Party beyond the President. This advantage, which was such a disadvantage in 2004, is something upon which the Party must leverage more effectively.

So what is the early line on the future of the top of the Democratic ticket? Immediately people speculate that Hillary Clinton, who will not return as Secretary of State, will contemplate a run. Joe Biden has dropped hints that he's interested in running yet again. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley will certainly consider runs.  One name to remember, somewhere on the ticket, is Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, who won re-election in a state that is red and getting redder.

Thinking strategically, while the Democratic Party has a deep collection of African Americans, the pool of prominent Hispanics is not deep beyond the local level. To that end, if you'd ask me for an ideal ticket, it would consist of Hillary Clinton and a prominent African American politician such as Patrick or, in an age in which our population is becoming increasingly urban, Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

But it's a long way from here to there, and four years is an eternity in politics.

About Last Night (or, Electoral Perversity in Chicago)

So, how was your evening? Anything interesting happen last night? Anything good on television?

All kidding aside, let me indulge in a moment of horn blowing and take a victory lap. Go ahead and re-read this and be sure to click the last link. I'll wait.

Why, oh why, did I not play the lottery that day instead?

Where were we? Oh yes. A whole heap of good news awaited those of us who were willing to stay up into the wee hours of the morning as President Obama relatively comfortably earned a second term in office as President of the United States. In addition, the Democratic Party picked up Senate seats in Indiana, North Dakota(!), Connecticut and Wisconsin.

At long last, the arc of the universe finally bent toward justice, with Gay Marriage rights affirmed in Maine (again), Washington and Maryland, with an additional referendum voted down in Minnesota. Marijuana legalization proposals were approved in Washington and Colorado, though the degree to which those have any legal standing relative to federal laws is subject to additional debate.

Beyond that, additional progress was made when Tammy Baldwin won the Senate race in Wisconsin to become the first openly gay Senator. Last night's election ensured that New Hampshire's Governor and entire Congressional delegation would be female, a first.

Amongst the good news is some bad. Though the Democrats gained some seats in the House, unfortunately the Gerrymandering that occurred in the wake of a disastrous 2010 midterm election wave saw to it that the House stayed in Republican hands. Also, Toledo lost at home to Ball State in football and will likely fall out of the Top 25 as a result. But no one wins all the time.

 Grand Old (White) Party

There is a substantial amount of Wednesday Morning Quarterbacking material available that attempts to cut to the heart of the reasons behind the Republicans losing a Presidential race despite a lackluster economy, and failing to capitalize on an opportunity to seize control of Congress entirely. It's a large body of work, analyzed with more depth than I can do justice, but I'll try and touch upon some things that aren't so obvious and move on.

Much is made that the vast majority of African Americans vote Democratic. However, 88% of the Romney/Ryan ticket was white. That is no longer acceptable in a nation as diverse as the United States is. It was stated (in The Atlantic but sadly I can't find the article) that this was the last time a campaign micro targeted to a white suburban/exurban/rural audience could be tried at a national level, and that was proven true. The traditional coalition of white evangelicals, suburban/rural folks and the elderly cracked and sputtered to a halt in the face of changing demographics.

If the thought hasn't occurred to you already, it should: Romney/Ryan will be the last white male ticket you will see from the two major parties in your lifetime.

But to state "it's not the message, it's the medium", and to think that Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz making speeches about the federal deficit and creeping socialism is going to make these races competitive again is a fools errand. The GOP needs to do some serious soul searching as it relates to casting off the evangelical yoke and ridding itself of the Grover Norquists of the world, or the marginalization will proceed apace, though slower than we progressives would like.

If it wasn't obvious already, the GOP has reached the point where the inmates are running the asylum. Referendums that scapegoated gays and Hispanics (2004 and 2006) ultimately led to widespread voter revolt. Even George W Bush, for all of his unending faults, tried desperately through the first six years of his terms in office trying to reach a reasonable compromise on the landed immigrant issue. He understood that, to some extent, demography is destiny, and if you don't reach out to Hispanics they will desert you en masse. Human Rights issues aren't single issues, they are economic, personal, and they cut across every other issue that impacts people's lives.

The Evangelical yoke runs counter to the emerging point of view of Millennials in particular. Public opposition to birth control, reproductive rights and equal pay offend not only younger women but they cut directly across an important Millennial trend that I'll discuss in another article. Regardless, the party's desire to impose Messianic Law on the majority of the population has reached its expiry date.

On The Plus Side

I would talk about what the President accomplished at this point, but if you're hitting this website, you're pretty familiar with those accomplishments already. The good news is that Obamacare is here to stay, with the resulting assurances that, no matter how flawed it may be, people no longer have to die because they can't afford healthcare, or go bankrupt in the event they become seriously ill. With a Democratic Senate, we  are also likely to get Filibuster Reform, and Medicaid and Medicare will continue to exist in a feasible form.

So now that we know where we are, how do we figure out where we're going?

Yay! Obama wins!

Need I say more?

The Taliban is just plain evil...

I am saddened at the shooting of Malala Yousufzai. She was a brave soul that pointed out the evil that infiltrates the Taliban. Rather then looking into themselves to see what is wrong with their extremist religious doctrine, they went out to silence those who oppose them.

It is the decency of humanity to allow all freedoms for all people. Including education for girls. By denying education for your female population, you are instilling the ignorant policies that have plagued the Taliban for years. That is why the Taliban is just plain evil.

How can you act in the favor of God and belittle half of the population at the same time? But in a larger context, this sounds like conversation here in the United Sates too. The Religious right hates gays, hates us liberals, hates Muslims, hates a females right to choose and want to force Christianity down our throats. I see them just as evil as the Taliban.

God does not hate. Love thy neighbor. Embrace our differences. That is the only society moves forward. Have decent respect for your fellow human being. We can disagree, yes, but we should not or ever not force a Religious doctrine on anybody. You Religion is what YOU follow. My beliefs are mine. And you can not change that...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/10/world/asia/pakistan-teen-activist-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_c2