It's Been A Long Ten Years

Given the events of the past decade, I thought I should check in to see if I still have any followers... and if so, to probably alienate them.

It has been an eventful ten years since my last post in 2012.

The Republican Party is off the rails. I never was a Republican (as readers will no doubt recall) but often voted for them. As it stands now, I wouldn't vote for a Republican for dogcatcher. The TEA Party and then Donald Trump tore the heart out of the conservative movement and replaced it with tribalism (a trend already in progress when I semi-regularly posted here, to my dismay both then and now) and a reactionary instinct akin to the very ideologies I dedicated my political life to opposing throughout my young adulthood. In short, I look at the Republican Party today and I see the beginnings of fascism.

This is a serious charge, and I make it in utmost seriousness. (I also know that I'm far from the first, and that I used to make fun of people who called us fascists at protest crashes with PW circa 2005. I look back and wonder if they maybe had a point, even then.)

The TEA Party made opposition to the Obama administration dogmatic and reflexive, rather than issues-based, something I noted in my last post. It has gotten worse since. Donald Trump has been undermining our elections since shortly after his first run, baselessly alleging fraud and attacking election workers and administrators. As readers may recall, I was a poll worker myself in the 2008 primary. I have served in that capacity (never again as inspector, but several turns as both clerk and judge) many times since, and I can assure the reader of one thing: It is impossible to steal an election at the precinct level. We keep constant tally, and their are both Democrats and Republicans in the room, either of whom would scream bloody murder if the others tried to tamper with the votes - and everyone who signs up to work the polls (at least until recently, thanks to Trump) is committed to the democratic process and would do no such thing to begin with. Now we're under threat - both physical danger for poll workers because of Trump's lie that we stole the election (I'm in less danger than some because Trump unfortunately won my state, but I feel for election workers in Georgia and Arizona), and in terms of the integrity of future elections, with would-be officials running for positions that oversee elections with an eye towards putting a thumb on the scale next time. I solemnly swear I will continue to serve and do my duty to the utmost to ensure that does not happen, but the power of a precinct judge is extremely limited in the face of a crooked Secretary of State, should such a person be elected.

Needless to say, this sort of behavior does not behoove a party that purports to be loyal to the Constitution and the Republic. But there's more. Donald Trump, while in office, subverted and obstructed justice, committed gross abuses of office, and attempted to use the power of the Presidency to extract favors and quash oversight. He did everything he could to obstruct the Mueller probe, as the Department of Justice memo released today reminds us. He attempted to withhold military aid duly appropriated by Congress from Ukraine to extort President Zelensky to announce a sham investigation of his election opponent, with consequences we see today. Volumes can be, and have been, filled with other misdeeds by the former President, so not to belabor them, we'll get to the big one.

The Capitol insurrection. When I rallied with Protest Warrior, I thought the people we were counterprotesting were misguided, but with few exceptions I never believed them disloyal or traitors. But on January 6th, 2021, the then-sitting President of the United States unleashed a mob - a mob he knew was armed - on the United States Capitol, urging them to stop the certification of an election he had duly lost and egging them on against his own loyal Vice President, who to his credit did his Constitutional duty despite first pressure and then threats by the President. Trump only called off his dogs when it was clear the gambit had failed. For some time it appeared that they might succeed, but to the credit and through the sacrifices of the Capitol Police no members of Congress were caught. Bare yards separated Vice President Pence from a howling mob screaming for his head. It could have been much worse than it was. It failed, but I fear that unless serious consequences are levied soon it may occupy the same place in our history that the Beer Hall Putsch does in Germany's.

And in the failure of his scheme, Trump has been laying the groundwork for the next one. He has endorsed candidates for office who pound on the lie of a stolen election - and many are now nominated for positions that will let them at least try to steal elections. After all, if you believe the only way you could lose is fraud, why would you not "correct" the vote when you lose, if you can?

Meanwhile, despite the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Biden is still pursuing the interests of security and democracy abroad, killing Al Qaeda's leader (funny how Republican Presidents since 9/11 haven't managed to pull that off, but both Democratic Presidents since have) and supplying Ukraine's defense against Russia's naked attempt at conquest (which Trump, I reiterate, held hostage in the interests of coercing foreign aid in his own reelection campaign).

Ironic as it might be coming from a blog with this one's record, I call on all readers to vote for Democrats. Until the Republican Party comes to its senses, if it can, we cannot afford it to be anywhere near the levers of power. Our very republic is at stake.

This may well be my final entry into this blog, simply because it's an obsolete if not dying format, but I had to get that off my chest in it lest the views I held in my 20s define it forever. We shall see.

Conservatives and President Obama

Long time no post, but I've been musing on something lately. Writing helps me order my thoughts, and as long as I'm writing on this topic, it might as well go on the ol' blog. This is much in the same vein as my post on conservative opposition to John McCain four years ago.

I've noticed something about the Obama administration since 2009. Republicans in general tend to hate the man (see my point on party loyalty being the ultimate factor in the post on McCain), of course, but at least the neoconservative wing of the party, marginalized as it is presently, really shouldn't.

Why? They (we, I would have said a few years ago, though I've changed ever so slightly since) are basically getting what they want out of him. Osama bin Laden is dead at the hands of the American military, the Iraq war is being honorably ended according to the schedule President Bush agreed to with the Iraqis without a precipitous withdrawal, the Afghanistan campaign has been robustly supported (more so than it was under Bush, I might add) with substantial measurable progress, the United States is standing up to Iranian threats regarding the Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear program, democracy is indeed sweeping across the Middle East, and American and NATO assistance has helped to overthrow one of the most noxious dictators of Northern Africa in the person of Muammar Gaddafi without having to put a single boot on the ground. In short, the neoconservative position, that American power should be used in furtherance of liberty throughout the world, is being more or less obliged by this President, and good on him for that. (As I said, slightly.) Since neoconservative philosophy properly referred to is a foreign policy philosophy, without regard to domestic issues, this should be making that part of the Republican establishment essentially headed by Dick Cheney and the (now largely defunct) Project for the New American Century extremely happy; I daresay that Obama has been more effective at implementing their policies than Bush, who it must be said did a deeply flawed if enthusiastic job of it.

It won't, though, because Obama is a Democrat. Party loyalty, you see. This is why I've been a lifelong independent; I don't have to feel obligated to anybody's tribe over the issues. But that's another rant.

Arlen Specter switches parties

Wall Street Journal, MSNBC

Well, the news broke barely five minutes before I started writing this (hey, I think that's a new record on me covering something in this space), and already the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun. Senator Arlen Spector, R-Pennsylvania is now Senator Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania, and I saw the complaints starting even before I had read enough to be able to open this tab and write about it.

My analysis: This is powerful symbolism, but ultimately it doesn't matter in practical legislative terms. Cloture will remain the same as it was before; Specter won't suddenly vote down every Republican filibuster because he's now registered as a Democrat. If he'd have done it before, he'd do it now, and if he wouldn't have, he won't. It really just doesn't change anything.

I really don't have a whole lot more to add, but thought I'd better get my (very small) voice of reason in anyway. Beyond the political ruckus, I don't care who's got what letter behind his name in media reports on Congress. Our representatives and Senators are individuals, and should be judged and elected as such. I know that's not what happens, thanks to both the primary system and the large proportion of the electorate who simply vote their party line when it comes time to go to the ballot box, but hey, I can dream.

Indiana's Primary Elections

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a precinct inspector for the Indiana primary on May 6. I'm sorry this report was not written on the 6th as I'd promised; I was held up for so long at the courthouse afterwards that all I wanted to do was go to bed.

Setting up the polling station was simple enough; the biggest problem was the fact that the legs didn't want to stay in their sockets on one of the voting machines. The same machine caused problems later in the day because it had a dark spot on its screen that made it hard to see one of the ballot entries.

It is against Indiana election law to campaign within 300 feet of a polling place. When I arrived at the polls, there were campaign signs stuck all over the ground outside the building; I had to remove and confiscate them when the polls opened. After that, though, there were no further problems with electioneering.

After that, the day was mostly long and boring. Voter turnout for my precinct was about 35%, which is high for a primary in this state, since we usually don't matter for the presidential election.

Since the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's law requiring photo identification at polling places in order to vote, my job mostly consisted of asking for ID at the front door. Voters kept cracking jokes about being illegal immigrants and/or having fake ID, but other than that, it went off without a hitch in my precinct. (Some nuns in South Bend were turned away for not having proper ID; I'm not clear on whether they were permitted to fill out provisional ballots as is required.)

There was one interesting thing: With the exception of the presidential ballot (for some reason, Huckabee, Romney, and Paul are all still on the ballot) all the Republicans ran unopposed. They didn't have enough candidates to go around, apparently; they were not contesting the judge's seat, and were only running two candidates for the county council (when the ballot allows voters to vote for three).

Voting was busiest at the end of the work day, as expected, but it trickled off well before closing time. We had one voter at the end of the polling time; there was nothing like the rush we were told to expect before closing.

All in all, it was a good day, and a new experience. I'd do it again if asked, though I couldn't resist informing the Democratic chairwoman of the irony of her choosing me to do it afterwards, so I don't know if I'll be asked again.

Indiana primary coverage tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm going to write a report on the Indiana primary from the perspective of a precinct inspector and post it on this blog. I won't be able to do ongoing updates, since I won't have Internet access at the polling station, but I will keep notes and write a full account. Watch this space tomorrow night.

Well, I'm a poll inspector now

With only a few days' notice, I've been tapped to be a poll inspector for the Indiana primary on Tuesday. The precinct they've put me in charge of is a small one, but this is still an incredible responsibility. I have the voting machines in the trunk of my car as I write this; I'm responsible for their security from now all the way until I turn them in at the end of Election Day.

I'm deeply honored to be entrusted with this, but it's funny at the same time. I was called by the head of the county's Democratic Party Committee to do this because my mother is on the committee; I suppose she assumed everyone in the household was also a Democrat. I am, obviously, not, but it doesn't matter; I'm committed to the integrity of the electoral process and will execute my duties to prevent voter fraud and other shenanigans the very best of my ability, and that's all the job requires. It's just highly ironic that the Democrats would unknowingly tap a Protest Warrior to run the polls.

It's also kind of unnerving that so little security goes into choosing who will run the polls; it would have been easy for them to have asked someone who is both less than principled and has a stake in the primary. I suppose we're simply fortunate that they did not... this time.

The Conservative Opposition to John McCain

As should be perfectly clear by now, Senator John McCain of Arizona is set to be the Republican nominee for President. As should also be perfectly clear, a lot of the Republican Party hates him.

Why is this? Well, ask and you'll get many reasons.

McCain-Feingold, for one. Hey, I didn't like it either when the Federal Election Commission tried to apply the rules meant for big advertisers to private bloggers, but we came through that all right. Still, it's a sloppy piece of legislation.

McCain-Kennedy for another. Amnesty for illegal aliens? Get out of here, and take your bill with you.

Then the opposition to Bush's tax cuts. John McCain opposed the tax cuts, it's true. But let's look at why he did it: There were no spending cuts to accompany them, which means that he was opposing cutting revenue while not cutting outlays, i.e. going further into debt. Is this not a fiscally conservative position?

However, the same commentators who lambast McCain tend to love George W. Bush. So for comparison's sake, let's talk about Bush's positions on these same issues that conservative pundits are taking exception to.

First, campaign finance reform. Fine, McCain pushed it and it can be seen as an infringement on freedom of speech. However, these same pundits love the PATRIOT Act, which Bush fervently supports and if anything is a larger infringement on civil liberties than campaign finance reform could ever conceivably be.

How about the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill? Oops. Bush pushed that same bill harder than John McCain ever did.

And sure, Bush cut taxes, but he did absolutely nothing to curb federal spending; in fact, he increased it to higher levels than any other post-Cold War President. And yet, for all this, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the other big-name talk radio pundits love the President.

No, the real reason is none of those. It is this: Look at the other names on the bills I mentioned above. Notice anything?

Yes. Kennedy and Feingold are Democrats. And that's it right there. This is not about the issues, it isn't about conservatism, and it isn't even about McCain himself. It's all about party loyalty. McCain will occasionally cooperate with Democrats to get things done on Capitol Hill, and to the hard-line Republican wing, this is an unforgivable sin greater than any of the many non-conservative indiscretions Bush has committed in office. Sure, he shot the national debt through the roof, signed the PATRIOT Act into law, and did absolutely nothing to curb Congressional pork spending (it took the man how long to veto even a single bill?), but he never cooperated with Democrats on any meaningful level. So he's good.

What does it say about American politics when party loyalty is the determining factor in an election, rather than the candidates' positions on the issues, capability to act, or even political skill? (For the record, the ability to cooperate with Democrats across the aisle marks McCain as a consummate politician; someone with the ability to exercise great influence in Washington. If anything, it should be a qualification.) There's nothing wrong with opposing McCain based on the issues (despite writing him in as a protest vote in 2004, I do), but doing so simply because he will actually execute his legislative duties when doing that requires being civil to a Democrat is an ideologically and intellectually bankrupt position to take.

The U.S. primary elections: Super Tuesday, late voters, and Party shenanigans

CNN, BBC

Yesterday was the biggest primary election day in United States history. Twenty-four of the fifty states held their primary elections on that day, popularly dubbed "Super Tuesday."

Hillary Clinton edged out Barack Obama, though just barely. Neither one yet has a majority of the Democratic convention delegates, meaning that far from deciding the primary as was widely expected, Super Tuesday has left the race still open, making the primaries of states that have late primary dates still relevant, a rarity in U.S. politics. (Incidentally, this is why I advocate simply holding all primaries on the same day; more on that below.)

Similarly, the Republican primaries on Tuesday gave John McCain a lead in the number of delegates, but he still only has a little over half of the necessary delegates to guarantee him the nomination. His lead has many conservatives running scared, since his popularity among the conservative wing of the Republican Party is not high, to make an understatement. A separate post on my take on McCain will follow this one.

The upshot of all this is that primaries in late-voting states (such as my own) might actually matter this time out. As I said a couple paragraphs above, this is rare; usually by the time the latest primaries come around in May and June, there have been enough delegates assigned by earlier primary elections to some candidate or another that the primary results in those late states are completely irrelevant to the outcome, causing candidates to neglect the concerns of the voters in those late states, since their votes cannot influence the nominating conventions.

The primaries are staggered the way they are to deliberately give some states more clout in comparison to others. Namely, Iowa and New Hampshire go first because doing so supposedly gives "small states" a say in the race. Which is completely wrong; it does not give "small states" a larger say in the race; it gives Iowa and New Hampshire a larger say in the race. That the Democratic Party is refusing to seat Florida's delegation to the convention because they dared to hold their primaries earlier than they were "allowed" to in order to uphold this fiction is abhorrent and a massive violation of Floridians' right to equal representation. (Incidentally, allowing Florida's delegates to be seated might bring on a result that I really don't want to see; namely, their support for Hillary Clinton's candidacy, since she won the Florida primary nearly uncontested because the other candidates did not bother to campaign there, but it doesn't matter; their rights to representation trump any such considerations.)

In fact, I'm not even sure just why it is that the political parties get to dictate primary dates to the state governments. The parties are not supposed to have that kind of authority, or indeed any authority of their own over the governance of the nation. This is different from politicians who are members of political parties running the governments; this is the party committee itself telling a state government that no, it may not exercise its Constitutional authority to set the date of the election, which is just wrong. The current rush to hold elections first is stupid, but denying entire states their representation for it is inexcusable.

Hugo Chavez to try to remove term limits on his office

Seattle Times, Bloomberg

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, recently won reelection with 63% of the vote, giving him his second, and under Venezuela's current constitution final, six year term in office.

But that's not good enough for him. He's following through with his pre-election threat: He is now moving to remove term limits from Venezuela's constitution so that he can be reelected continuously.

I don't care whether you're left, right, up, down, or center; screwing with your country's constitution to suit your needs once in power is an idiot, power-grabbing thing to do, especially when done as a step towards implementing a failed economic and political system. His efforts are failing already, if a move to devalue the bolivar again is any indication. When you have to actually make a law banning your citizens from buying foreign currency to prevent outflow of capital, then maybe it's time to rethink your economic situation.

Lopez Obrador goes and claims Mexican presidency

AP, via Yahoo News

Well that's just great. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has gone and proclaimed himself President of Mexico after losing the presidential election, demanding and getting multiple recounts, a ruling against him from Mexico's election court, and a massive political temper tantrum wherein his supporters jammed the streets of Mexico City with protests on his behalf. He has set up a parallel government to compete with the legitimate and duly elected government of Mexico in a bid to take de facto control of the country.

I don't know whether this illegitimate parallel government will gain any traction or not, but if it does, it could tear Mexico apart; they may even be facing another civil war. And it'll be happening on the doorstep of the United States. More on the situation as developments warrant.

Update: I missed this on my first reading of the news story. Obrador has vowed to stop the December 1st inauguration of the winner of the election, Felipe Calderon. I don't know what he means by that, but it can't be a good thing no matter how he plans on making sure it doesn't go forward.

Update 2, 11/22/2006: International Herald-Tribune

I can only say that it's a damned good thing Obrador lost, if this is his idea of policy. Instituting government price controls and basing those controls on matching prices in other markets with different market conditions is a recipe for economic disaster. The Mexican government might be able to mandate that businesses not charge more than they do in the U.S. for delivering the same service with greater difficulty, but they can't mandate that those businesses stay in operation when the costs start to sink them. No one runs a business when it's no longer worth it to him.