"Radical"

So the latest garbage to spew from the twitching undead corpse of the Breatbart defamation empire is an effort to "vet President Obama." On the theory that after spending two years as a US Senator and presumptive presidential candidate, six months as the primary target of the Clinton political machine, six months as a major party nominee for President, three months as President-Elect, and two years as actual President of the United States, no one before has ever thought to look into his background.

Their latest revelation is that once, twenty years ago, when he was a student at Harvard, he introduced Harvard professor Derrick Bell at a rally on campus. I don't really have any substantive response to any of that, Breitbart didn't even deserve substantive responses back when he was still alive, but I was struck by a passage in this article from the Heritage Institute. The author has discovered that that self-same Professor Derrick Bell, or at least someone with the self-same name as Professor Derrick Bell, visited the White House in January 2010. In his post he describes Prof. Bell and his views several times as "controversial," but doesn't explain any of those views until the final paragraph, which includes this statement:

Bell is widely credited with pioneering the field of Critical Race Theory, a radical school of legal thought that holds that the American legal and political systems are inherently racist.

"Radical."

Hmm.

Is the US legal system inherently racist? Well, consider this:

• What percentage of prison inmates in the US are African-American?
• What percentage of death-row inmates in the US are African-American?
• What percentage of white cops caught on video murdering African-American men are convicted? Okay, cheap shot, but come on.
• How do the sentences given to white and black defendants accused of similar crimes compare?
• How do the conviction rates of white and black defendants accused of similar crimes compare?

Is the US political system inherently racist? Well, consider this:

• What percentage of Senators are African-American? Oh, I know this one: Zero.
• What percentage of all Congressional representatives are African-American? 7.7%
• How many African-American senators have there ever been in the history of the United States? Six.
• What percentage of US Presidents have been African-American? 2.2%
• What percentage of US Supreme Court justices have been African-American? 1.8%

And yet it's considered radical to suggest that the US legal and political systems are inherently racist? Really? I thought it was common knowledge that the US legal and political systems were inherently racist.

But I guess not in ConservaWorld.

So there was a CT-Sen Democratic debate last night...

MLN has the video. I came away from this debate the same way I went in, I'm still basically behind Chris Murphy until something changes my mind. All three seem fine on the issues, for the most part.

Tong and Bysiewicz spend a lot of time reciting canned attacks on Murphy that are tangentially related to the question asked. The worst example being when Tong literally said in response to one Murphy statement, "That's not what Chris said at the last debate, I don't have a response to that but here's a long rebuttal of what he said last time." I get they have to take shots at Murphy because he's ahead, but it felt really forced.

Chris Murphy saying a primary would be a bad thing is really stupid. Didn't we learn anything from 2006 and 2008?

They keep going on about their plans. This is my plan, I have a plan, That's not really a plan, My plan is better than his plan, etc, etc, etc. News flash: You're running for senate, not president. No plan from any of these people is going to be worth a damn thing after Jan 1, 2013. Seriously, who thinks we're going to enact a financial transaction tax in this country because the freshman senator from Connecticut has one in their plan? I don't care about any of these people's plans, I want to know how they'll vote on things that will actually come up for a vote in the Senate.

Susan Bysiewicz says she admired the role Olympia Snowe played in the health care reform debate in 2009-10? Seriously? Olympia Snowe, who spent a year dangling her vote in front of Democrats on the end of a stick but who would up being less open to compromise than Joe freaking Lieberman? By the end of that process Lieberman was changing his policy positions daily just to piss off liberals, but he still wound up being a more gettable vote than Olympia Snowe, who never broke from the Republicans' unanimous lockstep opposition to health care reform at any time on any vote. I think Bill Tong just jumped to number 2 on my depth chart.

And a quick aside to close, if you're watching the CT senate race you'll want to know what exciting candidate is back for another run!

A Manifesto In Search Of A Name

On the ESPN two-guys-yelling-at-each-other-about-sports program Pardon the Interruption, they have a segment called "What's the Word?" in which the hosts are asked to select the perfect single word to describe various subjects. Let's try one together:

What's the word for a political philosophy centered around promoting maximum individual liberty for all people?

I have to admit, I'm stumped. If we've learned anything this week, it's that the answer is absolutely not "Libertarian."

For years, I've called myself a "small-l libertarian." I used the word libertarian because my political philosophy is based on the belief that an individual's liberty should be limited only by the need to avoid infringing any other individual's liberty. And I used the "small-l" modifier because, as we all know, the big-L Libertarians believe nothing of the sort, they merely want to enable corporations to do whatever they want and could care less about the liberty of anyone who isn't a CEO, though they occasionally pay lip service to some civil liberties issue that's too egregious to get away with ignoring, like the drug war or gay marriage, just to try to distinguish themselves from big-R Republicans.

The latest case in point is Rand Paul, who is such a lover of liberty that he don't think people should be free to buy lunch or ride the bus, let alone have an abortion or get married. By all rights the word "libertarian" should define the exact opposite of nearly every policy position Rand Paul espouses. Yet not only is Rand Paul called a libertarian, but he's called a libertarian precisely because of these positions. "Rand Paul wants to limit people's freedom to marry, limit people's freedom to collectively bargain for better working conditions, wants to eliminate people's freedom to end a pregnancy, and doesn't think it's the government's place to ensure people have the freedom to buy lunch or find a job or use a public building. What a libertarian!"

Reluctantly, I've finally had to admit that the battle has been lost. The Libertarians have defined the word "libertarian" in the public mind, and there's nothing us libertarians can do to change it. But I'm left with the question of how to describe my own beliefs. Now that "libertarian" has been defined to mean "let businesses do whatever they want and screw people over as much as they can," what name do I use for my own liberty-based philosophy?

What's the Word? A political philosophy centered on individual liberty is called _______.

I'm open to suggestions.

What's the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom?

A pitbull pees on the rug.

A hockey mom thinks spilling 5000 barrels of oil per day into prime fisheries and pristine wetlands is only a start.

"Maximally Pro-Choice"

Following up on my previous post, there's a special group of people I want to highlight: There were 64 Democrats who voted for the Stupak coathanger amendment in November - well, there were 219 Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment in November, but that was after it was already inserted into the bill. There were 64 Democrats who voted to insert that language into the bill. Of those 64, 37 went on to support the bill through all three votes in March. In other words, if these 37 Democrats had only found it within themselves to not explicitly make women second-class citizens, they wouldn't be on my list. They are:

Joe Baca CA-43, Sanford Bishop GA-02, John Boccieri OH-16, Dennis Cardoza CA-18, Christopher Carney PA-10, Jim Costa CA-20, Henry Cuellar TX-28, Kathy Dahlkemper PA-03, Michael Doyle PA-14, Steve Driehaus OH-01, Brad Ellsworth IN-08, Bob Etheridge NC-02, Bart Gordon TN-06, Baron Hill IN-09, Paul Kanjorski PA-11, Marcy Kaptur OH-09, Dale Kildee MI-05, Jim Langevin RI-02, Michael Michaud ME-02, Alan Mollohan WV-01, Richard Neal MA-02, Jim Oberstar MN-08, David Obey WI-07, Solomon Ortiz TX-27, Tom Perriello VA-05, Earl Pomeroy ND-AL, Nick Rahall WV-03, Silvestre Reyes TX-16, Ciro Rodriguez TX-23, Tim Ryan OH-17, John Salazar CO-03, Vic Snyder AR-02, John Spratt SC-05, Bart Stupak MI-01, Charlie Wilson OH-06

I understand a lot of people want to forgive and forget this vote, as I did for other votes against the bill in November, because these people voted for the bill in March. SEIU is running ads in six congressional districts to thank those Representatives for supporting health care, and four of the six voted for Stupak. Stupak himself, once he was bought off with the President agreeing to issue an Executive Order just for him, came up solid in speaking against the Republican motion to recommit, which was basically his original amendment from November. Tom Perriello seems to be a particular favorite around Left Blogistan: He's on the short list for OpenLeft's Better Democrats slate of endorsements, and on the We've Got Your Back ActBlue page created by DailyKos's Adam Bonin. Commenters compare him to Alan Grayson, who voted for the health care bill while wearing an American flag tie. (537:20 in this C-SPAN clip.)

On one blog where Tom Perriello was cited as an example of exactly the kind of swing-district Democrat people should be supporting, I commented stating my reluctance after his Stupak vote. Another commenter stated that "you can't expect Dems in red districts to take a maximally pro-choice position." So now allowing health insurance to cover an entirely legal medical procedure is a maximally pro-choice position? Bullshit. Voting no on Stupak is the very definition of minimally pro-choice. Maximally pro-choice would be making free, no-questions-asked abortions available at every post office. Maximally pro-choice would be legislating that no doctor could be licensed in any field unless they were also certified abortion providers and offered abortion services at their practices. Maximally pro-choice would be making the abortion pill available over-the-counter in vending machines and using government subsidies to keep the price down.

Simply not voting to make abortion unavailable to any woman who can't afford an additional rider, or any woman who is prevented from making her own insurance purchasing choices by her employer, controlling/abusive partner, parent, etc. is not anything like maximally pro-choice. It is incredibly minimally pro-choice, and Tom Perriello and these rest of these 37 so-called Democrats, and indeed all 64 D's who voted for the amendment, couldn't even scrape together the guts to stand up for that.

The obvious question is, why give folks like Dennis Kucinich and Betsy Markey a break for their votes against the bill in November and not give the same break to Tom Perriello and Earl Pomeroy? Well, Kucinich et al literally got a do-over; the house had to pass the health bill a second time, and they came out on the right side that time. The Stupakers got no such chance; because of their vote, we got the Nelson abortion language in the Senate bill, and that executive order, and they have done nothing to repair that damage.

If they all helped to pass a bill that, say, removed the Nelson language and repealed the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion services, then I would say fine, all is forgiven. But until something like that happens, good riddance. Either women are full and equal citizens of this country, or they are not, and this group emphatically voted 'Not.' Supposedly they did this because they can't survive in their districts while supporting equal rights for 52% of the population. Great, then this vote should have helped them, they don't need my help.

The HCR Shit List

This is a list of 74 members of the House of Representatives who will get no support from me in whatever race they're running this year thanks to their votes in the recent health care reform effort: (methodology after the list)

• John Adler NJ-03
• Jason Altmire PA-04
• Mike Arcuri NY-24
• Joe Baca CA-43
• John Barrow GA-12
• Marion Berry AR-01
• Sanford Bishop GA-02
• John Boccieri OH-16
• Dan Boren OK-02
• Rick Boucher VA-09
• Bobby Bright AL-02
• Dennis Cardoza CA-18
• Christopher Carney PA-10
• Ben Chandler KY-06
• Travis Childers MS-01
• Jim Cooper TN-05
• Jim Costa CA-20
• Jerry Costello IL-12
• Henry Cuellar TX-28
• Kathy Dahlkemper PA-03
• Artur Davis AL-07
• Lincoln Davis TN-04
• Joe Donnelly IN-02
• Michael Doyle PA-14
• Steve Driehaus OH-01
• Chet Edwards TX-17
• Brad Ellsworth IN-08
• Bob Etheridge NC-02
• Bart Gordon TN-06
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin SD-AL
• Baron Hill IN-09
• Tim Holden PA-17
• Paul Kanjorski PA-11
• Marcy Kaptur OH-09
• Dale Kildee MI-05
• Larry Kissell NC-08
• Frank Kratovil MD-01
• Jim Langevin RI-02
• Dan Lipinski IL-03
• Stephen Lynch MA-09
• Jim Marshall GA-08
• Jim Matheson UT-02
• Mike McIntyre NC-07
• Mike McMahon NY-13
• Charlie Melancon LA-03
• Michael Michaud ME-02
• Walt Minnick ID-01
• Alan Mollohan WV-01
• Richard Neal MA-02
• Glenn Nye VA-02
• Jim Oberstar MN-08
• David Obey WI-07
• Solomon Ortiz TX-27
• Tom Perriello VA-05
• Collin Peterson MN-07
• Earl Pomeroy ND-AL
• Nick Rahall WV-03
• Silvestre Reyes TX-16
• Ciro Rodriguez TX-23
• Mike Ross AR-04
• Tim Ryan OH-17
• John Salazar CO-03
• Heath Shuler NC-11
• Ike Skelton MO-04
• Vic Snyder AR-02
• Zack Space OH-18
• John Spratt SC-05
• Bart Stupak MI-01
• John Tanner TN-08
• Gene Taylor MS-04
• Harry Teague NM-02
• Charlie Wilson OH-06

I put this together more for myself than anything else, to refer back to as we approach the election and I get more and more fundraising appeals. Anyone on this list will get a polite reply explaining exactly why I won't be supporting them this year. Some of these people I gave money to in 2008. Some of these people are running for Senate seats, or running for Governor of their state, rather than running for reelection in the House. The best outcome in every case would be for them to lose a primary to a real Democrat.

I don't buy blue dog excuses about "voting their districts" and how "at least they're better than a Republican." How are they better than a Republican? Being a Democrat is about more than just voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Health care reform was the Democrats' signature domestic issue of 2009-2010, and on that issue, these people were exactly as bad as Republicans. You either vote Aye or you vote Nay, and they stood athwart history and voted Nay. Good riddance.

There were seven total health care votes I looked at, four from November and three from March. They are:

• 2009 House Roll Call 884, Passage of the odious Stupak-Pitts coathanger amendment.
• 2009 House Roll Call 885, Passage of John Boehner's amendment to scrap the entire bill and replace it with a resolution in support of the color orange, or something.
• 2009 House Roll Call 886, Motion to Recommit and send the bill back to committee.
• 2009 House Roll Call 887, Final passage of the House health care bill.
• 2010 House Roll Call 165, Passage of the health care bill the Senate had passed last Christmas.
• 2010 House Roll Call 166, Motion to Recommit on the reconciliation bill of amendments to (somewhat) fix the Senate bill.
• 2010 House Roll Call 167, Passage of the reconciliation bill.

I did not look at the roll call vote of passage of the revised reconciliation bill after the Senate parliamentarian edited it down, as that passed rather perfunctorily and everyone who voted against it had also voted against the bill when it originally passed the House. Indeed, even out of these seven, I eliminated three from consideration: Roll Call 885 on a "substitute amendment" offered by Orange Julius, got zero Democratic votes. I decided to throw out the votes on passing the bill in November, 886 Motion to Recommit and 887 final passage, because anyone who voted against that bill got a second chance to do the right thing when the Senate bill was voted on in March. There are six people who benefit from this second chance: Brian Baird WA-03, Allen Boyd FL-02, Suzanne Kosmas FL-24, Dennis Kucinich OH-10, Betsy Markey CO-04, and Scott Murphy NY-20.

There are also three people who would be on this list if they were still House Democrats: Eric Massa NY-29 voted against the bill in November and has since resigned in disgrace. Parker Griffith AL-05 hit the trifecta of voting for Stupak, for the motion to recommit, and against passing the bill, and has since gone ahead and switched parties. Anyone else on this list is welcome to emulate one of these two. Jack Murtha PA-12 voted for Stupak, and sadly he passed away in early February.

A Momentary Decrease in the Net Entropy of the Universe

So MSNBC has replaced Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann with David Gregory as the host of their big-event election coverage. Meh. Color me unenthused. Gregory isn't any worse than a lot of other newspeople I guess, but I have no interest in watching him on TV. The one thing he can do on a show to make me more interested is to get out of the way and let the other people talk.

But I'm sorry to see this change for another reason: The MSNBC coverage of the Democratic National Convention was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The entire thing was such a mess that I couldn't turn away. Look at the combination of factors that came together on MSNBC for four nights:

• It started with Olbermann, who has found his niche - as well as an ever-increasing audience - by sharing his opinions on-air and continues to go with what works for him.
  
  
• This enboldened Matthews to speak more freely of his opinions.
  
  
• Matthews tended to sometimes go on a little long with his opinions, to the point of sniping on-air at Olbermann - and at off-screen producers about a minute before that video begins - when they tried to move the show along.
  
  
• Some genius at MSNBC decided it was a good idea to put them outside, at the train station, leading to prolonged segments of Matthews and Olbermann making faces while a train whistle drowned out anything they might have tried to say, to the point where they couldn't even toss it to someone else because the whistle wouldn't stop long enough.
  
  
• There were also frequent communications problems between the hosts outside and correspondants and guests inside the convention hall, when they did manage to introduce them.
  
  
• Speaking of being drowned out, the Rachel Maddow cheering section frequently interrupted the discusion panel. (You can skip to 1:15 in that clip if you don't care what they're cheering about)
  
  
• Speaking of Maddow, she and panelmate Pat Buchanan don't exactly agree on much, and they had a few contentious interactions during the week, including when Maddow said flat-out that she thought Buchanan hated her (3:30 in) and Buchanan didn't deny it.
  
  
• And if you thought you had Buchanan figured out, in a sure sign of the apocalypse, he showered effusive praise on Barack Obama for his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention. It got him a Maddow-like cheer from the live crowd.
  

So for four nights, we had news hosts spouting their opinions about everything that came up, Matthews and Olbermann sniping at each other, Maddow and Buchanan sniping at each other, trains drowning out the hosts, the Maddow cheering section drowning out the discussion panel (when the hosts managed to introduce them), video problems cutting off folks inside like Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw (when the hosts managed to introduce them). There was open praise for particular politicians and performers spreading like a virus: From Olbermann and Maddow, who that's expected from; To Matthews, who said of Obama's speech "I've been criticized for saying he inspires me, and, ah, to hell with my critics," (and got a Maddow-like cheer); To Michelle Bernard, who wept and called it "The most amazing evening of my entire life," and said she was glad to be alive to see it; To Eugene Robinson, who said Michelle Obama's speech filled him with pride and made him think of his wife, mother, and sister; To as mentioned before Pat Buchanan of all people, who not only loved Barack Obama's speech, but got so swept up in talking about Michelle Obama's speech that he even talked about how much he liked seeing conservatives' devil incarnate Ted Kennedy that night. And all of this is just what happened between 7pm and midnight (Eastern time), let alone what went on the rest of the day.

All of this gave the overall impression that everything was breaking down, like the collapse of normalcy. It was like watching the increase of net entropy in the universe, live on cable TV. It was awesome, almost as good as the speaches. It was enough to keep me from watching the convention on C-SPAN like I usually do.

There was a similar vibe during the MSNBC coverage of the Republican convention, though a bit more subdued with Olbermann not there live, panel lineups juggled a bit, and a somewhat more mixed crowd, politically. Clearly MSNBC was frightened of the compelling television they had created, so they shuffled the lineup, and now they're doing it again. We'll see if the new setup can be as compelling as those four days in Denver.