Heineman: Dumber Than Palin?

PF had no idea Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman was being advised by Dullard Diva Sarah Palin, but it sure seems that way based on some of his recent comments concerning Nebraska's electoral college system. Nebraska and Maine are the only two states to have rejected a winner-take-all system of allocating their electoral votes in favor of a system partially allocating them based on congressional district. Republican Heineman opined that Nebraska was "disadvantaging itself" and that the electoral system was "designed to protect small states and we should be winner-take-all like 48 other states...." Heineman went on to offer this "football game" analogy: "You don't get a point for winning every quarter," Heineman said. "It's the final score that counts."

WTF??? That sounds like a Bush or Palinism that is supposed to reveal some kind of Joe the Plumberish folksy wisdom, but in fact makes no sense at all. I think Heineman was daydreaming of poodle skirts at the drive-in during his logic class at Andrews Hall on this one...

Of course you don't get a point for winning every quarter, but the points you do win don't get erased at the end of the game either. And of course more importantly, we're not talking about simply a contest to determine the superiority two teams where the sole and final object is winning for present praises, but rather a process to elect a leader who has significant future responsibilities to govern a complex society, including a constitutional obligation to represent all of the people.

What (Republican) Heineman is of course concerned about is not that Nebraska is being disadvantaged, but rather that his Republican Party (potentially) is by a system that allows those Nebraskans who don't robotically vote anyone with a (R) behind his/her name into office, but want another alternative now and then, rather than a system that distorts results by giving 100% of the power to whoever gets 51% and ignores everyone else.

Heineman is of course silent on how Nebraska's system "disadvantages" small states, except for the possible reason that the current electoral college most certainly gives unfair greater advantage to smaller states in general. Just like small-staters ride the backs of larger urban states in generally getting far more back in federal dollars than they put in with their federal taxes, small states get far more representation (and therefore political clout) than their meager populations would ordinarily get (or ordinarily deserve if we truly believe that each person's opinion is no more valuable than anyone else's). Ironically, it's the same folks who are always whining about powerful "elitists" elsewhere who continue to bray for the continuation of a system that unfairly gives them far more federal dollars and political clout than their numbers justify and that fairness dictates.

Whatever truth there may be to the pro-electoral college argument that the Framers wanted to protect the interests of smaller states, that truth is more that outweighed by the reality of elections in which the person who gets the most votes somehow doesn't get the office. That result mocks the most basic ideas of equality and democracy, which the last time I checked are supposed to be the foundations of America. There's a reason that the US is the only current example of an indirectly elected executive, and I'm not particularly excited to learn that the short list of other countries with electoral colleges for parts of their government include Burundi, Estonia, India, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Pakistan and Nepal (and the Senate of France you freedom-fry lovers!)

The reality is despite arguments about intentions of the Framers, the Framers were practical men with an experimental attitude about government. The reality of modern presidential electioneering is pretty simple: candidates go places where they see a potential advantage in terms of gaining additional votes. Not existing reliable votes, but potential new votes. Nebraska with a winner-take-all system will be ignored by both campaigns like Ugly Betty at the school dance. It is only Nebraska's unique split-system that created an electoral vote "in play" such that Obama (and eventually Palin, which may be an argument against splitting electors) even imagined visiting the Cornhusker state. The current electoral college system doesn't preserve small state power any more than any other system unless the small state is a swing state.

Taibbi on Palin

PF's fav gutter-brawler Matt Taibbi nails it again, this time not just that Palin is dumber than an Alaskan snowball, but what her "candidacy" if you can it that says about America. The zinger:

In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

Ouch. Time for a drink.

Redistribution of wealth: Nebraska style

McPalin have jumped all over Obama lately as a "redistributor of wealth" and how his nefarious schemes will lead to the next USSR here in Amerika. But of course the hypocrisy of this line of argument stinks more than a field-dressed Alaskan moose. Palin's Alaska is #3 in states getting wealth redistributed back to them: $1.84 back for every $1 paid in taxes to be exact (see also here). So apparently Alaska is America's most socialist state ('guess that makes since they are so close to Russia with Putin rearing his head, etc.)

But I digress. We need not head to the Klondike for a heaping bowl of hypocrisy. Little Crawford, Nebraska (population 1107) just received a "big dose of federal dollars to help educate students in remote areas of Nebraska." $217,000 to be exact. There to present a ceremonial check was Nebraska's own Adrian Smith, never one to miss an opportunity to lecture the people on the GOP virtues of small government, why government shouldn't be interfering with the economy, etc. Unless, apparently, the redistribution of wealth tends to redistribute a little pork back into one of the troughs within his district. Nebraska, by the way, ranks #25 in taxes paid/benefits received ($1.10 benefits received for each $1 paid). In fact check out the ranking of states and see how many GOP-friendly red states are ones that receive more federal $$$ than they pay in taxes. Maybe they call them "red states" because they are red in the face with shame and embarassment at lecturing others about wealth distribution while pocketing most of that redistributed wealth themselves... ?

The voter fraud fraud

Another expose by AJ (actual journalist) Greg Palast proving yet again that the GOP is light years ahead of the Dems when it comes to the hardball tactics of winning elections. In a nutshell: the whole ACORN business is largely if not entirely a fabrication intended to keep the attention of the Sheople and the McMedia while the GOP feverlishly works to purge voter rolls and suppress votes. A sample:

Certainly ACORN collected some bad signatures. But despite McCain's claims, now morphed into media theology, none of ACORN's actions will have any impact on any election. ACORN hired 13,000 canvassers to register new voters. A small number of these workers defrauded ACORN by handing in phony registration forms using names they had invented (e.g. Mickey Mouse), or copied from phone books. In one case ACORN canvassers used cigarettes to bribe a homeless man, now a Fox News regular, to register 17 times. None of these activities constituted voter fraud. It is no crime to register 17 times; only the final registration counts. His multiple registrations would not allow the tobacco lover to vote 17 times. Nor is there any evidence the phone book registrants will cast multiple ballots. ...

ACORN took pains to screen its registrations and cull out those it considered dubious. However, federal laws make it a felony for voter registration groups like ACORN to discard registrations even when it believes them fraudulent. So ACORN flagged the forms it considered doubtful and handed them in to the registry. Ironically, it was those flagged forms -- the fruits of ACORN's diligence -- that have been flogged by Republicans as their best evidence of widespread election fraud.

The piece ends with some advice on how to make sure your vote is counted, including a 1-800 number for legal assistance. Well worth reading, and more proof that an AJ like Palast is worth 100 talking hairdos on CNN, Fox, etc. pretending to be journalists...

NO on Cali's Prop 8

For better or for worse (most times better), Cali is the tail that wags the rest of the US dog, from environmental standards to progressive social legislation. CA became a lightning-rod for bigots following its support of same-sex marriage rights. Now the bigots are seeking to amend CA's constitution to eliminate same-sex marriage rights. The implications extend far beyond CA, which is why the bigots are receiving national and international financial support. Particular shame to the Mormons, who are responsible for 40-70% of the financial backing of the measure. You would think that a group with a history of repression and discrimination like LDS would have a bit more empathy, but victims of past injustice seem to have a tendency to dish it out as good as they got when they get the reins of power. Make a contribution if you can, and get the word out to help defeat the bigots.

Don't let up

Obama-supportive ad...amateurish but fun :)

Hot, Flat and Crowded

Wow...this is about the most interesting 25 minutes I've heard in some time. Scientific American interviews Pulitzer-winner Tom Friedman who touches on the main ideas of his new book Hot, Flat and Crowded, in which he argues that a perfect storm of human overpopulation, human-induced global warming and a rising global consumer class has created the need for FAST action by the US to lead the world in creating non-carbon based energy sources. 'Nothing particularly revolutionary in this, but Friedman has a knack for explaining the complex in compelling, common-sense language. PF sure hopes Obama has this guy on the short list for some kind of cabinet post...good stuff!

McNews

It's the competence stupid

A thoughtful and common-sense analysis from former Reagan-era policymaker Ken Adelman on why he's backing Obama and not McCain. The crux:

Granted, McCain's views are closer to mine than Obama's. But I've learned over this Bush era to value competence along with ideology. Otherwise, our ideology gets discredited, as it has so disastrously over the past eight years.

McCain's temperament -- leading him to bizarre behavior during the week the economic crisis broke -- and his judgment -- leading him to Wasilla -- depressed me into thinking that "our guy" would be a(nother) lousy conservative president. Been there, done that.

(emphasis added). Exactly. 'Not sure why more conservatives can't bring themselves to recognize the obviousness of this idea.

You've done it again Cunningham!

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

"Real" America

'Nice thoughts on this crass GOP recent talking point from LA Times columnist Rosa Brooks.

Palin's bad hair day

Check out this enjoyable video collection of Palin's previous hairdo's. PF likes the early 80s look with the t-shirt "broke but not flat-busted..." You betcha! ;)

The financial collapse explained

This article by Josh Holland does as good a job as I've seen explaining the main causes of our economic meltdown, in a nutshell the greed of the investment banks and their practice of "leveraging," a scheme largely unregulated by a Congress duped by anti-regulatory ideology and investment bank lobbying.

Nebraska's hayseed bandwagon

'Don't know about you, but PF is sure relieved to know that public servants like Dave Heineman and Jon Bruning have all of their day work so well in hand that they can find the spare time to monitor the speaking engagements of UNL and offer their sage advice on the matter. I don't much care for Bill Ayers' political views or certainly his violent past, but I thought part of the "freedom" of Toby Keith videos and red-state USA means the freedom to speak and hear people with differing views. And of course Ayers wasn't invited to talk politics, but rather education.

Here's the list of shame of Nebraska's free speech cowards who hopped on the anti-Ayers bandwagon:

Heineman (nice robotic plug for working in Nebraska government during the Huskers game though Dave)
Bruning (isn't there some spicy Hannah Montana website you could be lurking at?)
Ben Nelson (tool; Nebraska's own Joe Lieberman with a bad hairpiece)
Regent Chuck Hassebrook
UNL Pres JB Milliken (shame on you JB; you're ordinarily more sensible than this)
Adrian Smith (I'm sure he'll be in this fray shortly after he's finished with his daily Palin fantasy)

Props, however, to Harvey Perlman who stood for principle and freedom amidst this conservative clown chorus.

I do however agree with Heineman that UNL's "security cancellation" sounds fishy. Another cowardly move....if you're going to cancel, at least have the guts to come out and say why, rather than hide behind a likely phony "no comment" security pretext.

Election fraud: October (November?) surprise?

I was uneasy about this election fraud angle already before coming across this post by Greg Palast (a journalist actually practicing investigative journalism) talking about voter-purging in nearby Colorado. Similar stories have broke about pivotal Ohio (although a Supreme Court ruling today certainly appears to help matters). Faux News has been hammering the ACORN/voter fraud angle incessantly for days now. Is this the last-ditch GOP/McPalin strategy...blow up the voter fraud issue to a. discredit upcoming (likely Democractic-friendly) election results; b. scare off potential voters (most likely Democratic) and/or quietly pursue the issue behind the scenes yanking voters off the rolls while the McMedia and Sheople trade talking points over Ayers and Joe the Plumber?

Internet vigilantes going too far?

Check out the ethical dilemma presented in this episode of one of my favorite podcasts (This American Life) (the story entitled "hanging in Chad"), which involves the effort of a couple of self-appointed American Internet "vigilantes" who go after people trying to run e-mail/internet scams. The story begins innocently and humorously enough, but as the story unfolds, real questions arise as to the ethics of the actions involved.

"Evangelical Dominatrix...."

In case you missed it, check out Simpsons writer Dana Gould as he skewers Palin on Bill Maher's recent show (go to 9:00 if you're impatient or can't stand listening to Wall St Journal knucklehead Stephen Moore).

Assassination-in-training

Welcome to a sumptuous buffet of "love thy neighbor" Americans respectfully articulating their policy disagreements with Obama...

McCain: a "mean little f*cker"

That was the verdict of one of McCain's ($40,000 private) high school chums, as related in the Rolling Stone expose on McCain below. 'Seems like things haven't changed that much, as this video highlights. As much as I might otherwise kinda relish the idea of a US president flying into a rage at the craps table, I think I'll take a pass on that kind of temperment when we're talking nuke launch codes...

Palin = anti-intellectual "cancer"

A PF shout-out for conservative thinker/columnist David Brooks, somone I've disagreed with for years but respect because he is actually a conservative thinker rather than talking-points babbling political tool. In a recent exchange with Atlantic magazine, Brooks gushes over Obama and characterizes Palin as representing a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party." One can only hope other thoughtful conservatives agree...

Meant to provoke, not to be believed...

I think Bush speechwriter David Frum has got it right on this one--as much as I'd love to see Obama really take the gloves off and go after the bullshit McPalin are throwing his way... Slow and steady as she goes until the election...where hopefully the Stealth Racists won't be voting in significant enough numbers to make these pre-election polls unrealiable...

This emperor-to-be has no clothes...

Wow...talk about an eye-opening piece. This Rolling Stone expose of McCain leaves few stones unturned and lays bare this sham of a man with gems like this:

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

>>>>

"I enjoyed the off-duty life of a Navy flier more than I enjoyed the actual
flying," McCain writes. "I drove a Corvette, dated a lot, spent all my free
hours at bars and beach parties." McCain chased a lot of tail. He hit the dog
track. Developed a taste for poker and dice. He picked up models when he could,
screwed a stripper when he couldn't.

>>>

Dramesi says he has no desire to dishonor McCain's service, but he believes that celebrating the downed pilot's behavior as heroic — "he wasn't exceptional one way or the other" — has a corrosive effect on military discipline. "This business of my country before my life?" Dramesi says. "Well, he had that opportunity and failed miserably. If it really were country first, John McCain would probably be walking around without one or two arms or legs — or he'd be dead."

>>>

If heroism is defined by physical suffering, Carol McCain is every bit her ex husband's equal. Driving alone on Christmas Eve 1969, she skidded out on a patch of ice and crashed into a telephone pole. She would spend six months in the hospital and undergo 23 surgeries. The former model McCain bragged of to his buddies in the POW camp as his "long tall Sally" was now five inches shorter and walked with crutches.

By any standard, McCain treated her contemptibly. Whatever his dreams of getting laid in Rio, he got plenty of ass during his command post in Jacksonville. According to biographer Robert Timberg, McCain seduced his conquests on off-duty cross-country flights — even though adultery is a court-martial offense. He was also rumored to be romantically involved with a number of his subordinates.

As much as this tightly-written story is a searing microscoping of the McCain we don't know, it is a much more damning indictment of our McMedia that fails to produce even one hint of anything approaching journalism of this type. Here were are months (years?) into this election cycle. How much time and money have the McMedia spent on fixating on polls, phony-debates, phony-issues (lipstick on pigs) and informational landfills full of similar garbage. And yet here we have the real McCain. And of course its not like this information required a team of DeepThroats to extract. It was there for any "journalist" of moderate work-ethic, drive and curiosity to ferret out.

And (again), much more needs to be said about excellence (oops I mean elitism), mediocrity and failure. The author of this piece somewhat kindly characterizes McCain as "mediocre" for his graduating 894th of 899 at the Naval Academy. That isn't mediocrity, that's a fucking failure. And the only reason McCain isn't in his own personal dustbin of history is becasue--like George W. Bush--he relied upon and beneffited from the only kind of affirmative action conservative whites love....the long-thrown shadow of family legacy, power and influence. "Legacy" programs at otherwise respectable schools like Harvard and Yale are the welfare trains for spoiled fuckups like Bush and McCain. And they provide a undeserved teflon coating for future fuckups as well.

Imagine what folks like McCain and his followers would have to say about some minority who lived the life of McCain: academic failure, gambler, fighter, womaziner, crashes several Navy planes, etc. "Another failure of family values in the __________ [insert minority group here] family." But oh no...not Johnny McCain. Through a combination of egoist ambition and our lazy McMedia, McCain is able to spin and sell a tale of a modern steely-eyed George Washington.

Or consider if Obama had even one or two "chapters" out of McCain's generally piss-poor Book of Life. Can we even imagine him in the running today?

'A shocking but enjoyable read...

PF

Damn it Sam...(a defense of elitism)

...you stole my fire on a blog I was going to do on elitism....oh well...saved me an hour :)

But isn't this so true? His example of neurosurgery is brilliant, but could be applied to any one of hundreds of other instances of daily life where we not only tolerate elites--people who are "better" than us in certain respects--but we demand them. Who on earth would seek out a mecahnic, lawyer, preacher, accountant, doctor or pilot based on the same ridiculous "standards" some of us use to determine a president (an "average person who relates to me" or "someone I'd like to have a beer with"). I WANT something who thinks they are better than me when it comes to me deciding where to put trust in them to do a job I can't/won't do for myself.

I'm no Obama-worshipper. He's not nearly liberal/progressive/radical enough for me on most issues (I wish he WAS in fact the liberal bogeyman McPalin portrays him as...). But the guy was a constitutional law professor at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world for 12 years. Hmmmm...the Constitution....doesn't that factor into the presidency somewhere. Oh yeah I remember...you gotta SWEAR to uphold and defend it before taking office. So being one of the most knowledgeable people about the Constitution might, it would be seem, be relevant in a president right? Yet have we even heard this factor discussed? If at all, it is more evidence of his "elitism" and difficulty relating to the "average American." Well guess what folks, I don't want the "average American" with nuclear launch codes and trying to tackle complex problems from energy independence to market collapse to bioterrorism. I WANT someone who is a lot smarter than me rather than someone who graduated 4th from the bottom of his class (McCain) or took 4 different colleges to earn a fluff degree in communications/journalism (Palin) while instead focusing on winning "Ms. Congeniality" and who now is proud of the fact that her ignorance somehow represents a "fresh perspective" in politics. Since when did we decide that intelligence was somehow a liability in people we choose to run the country....? I thought "Idiocracy" the movie was fun fantasy....now I'm not quite so sure...

Christian outside the box

'Listened to this podcast the other day...very interesting...talk about a Christian who defies easy-labeling...in some ways it's tough to see how he's a Christian in any familiar sense, but he has a number of thought-provoking observations worth listening to--including his assertion that the most important thing we have to do in the next 50-100 years is to convince religious people that environmental sustainability is a crisis that must be addressed (ie they aren't going to become Dawkins-loving atheists overnight...you're going to have sell religious believers largely on their own terms of the idea of global environmental sustainability). Dowd's home page is here; lots of interesting stuff there as well...

This "infidel guy's" podcast is pretty decent by the way. I particularly like his segments with the "Bible Geek" (Robert Price), who always has something interesting and very intelligent to say about Biblical history, issues, etc.