Thursday, June 28, 2012

Hot Gay Latinos

I was listening to some smart commentary a couple weeks ago about how Obama has (smartly) cherry-picked certain policies to excite an otherwise (very) unexcited base. Gay marriage energizes Hollywood elites and rich benefactors with a personal interest in the matter (even if his support is limited to not opposing states that recognize same-sex marriages). This is important because he needs money. The recent position decision to provide children of illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship energizes the Latino vote. This is important because otherwise these people aren't going to show up. Call it cynical politics, smart politics, bad policy, or smart policy. I'm it calling strategy. He's got the money and the voters, but is missing an essential link - the mobilization effort. This will require the work of either students or greenies. Smart money is on the greenies. If Obama was gonna do something to excite students, it needed to be done a month ago. Now summer break is halfway over and 20-year-olds are already preoccupied with shitty summer jobs and awkwardly hooking up with old high school flings while skyping with their college boy/girlfriends every other night. He'll need them in the fall, but it just doesn't make sense to believe they'll provide support like in 2008.

However, there's a perfect storm calling for the green mobilization machine. Environmentalists have taken a backseat to everyone but the typewriter lobby since the failed cap and trade effort of 2009. They've been grumbling for three years about how every major liberal group got something big accomplished but them. They're not happy. As such, your current Campaigner In Chief needs to do something to get them to go pound the pavement and telephone lines. The weather this summer has been ridiculous, and the time to pounce is probably this week:

(The ten day forecast back home in KS)

Exploit the weather now! Between half the western US being on fire, Florida going underwater, and the enthusiasm bump from environmentalists finally getting some attention, it seems like the thing Obama could pounce on. (Remember kids - always point to peculiar weather events as confirmation/disprove. Both sides love using anecdotal evidence to back up their science.) Plus, as of Tuesday there's less uncertainty about whether the EPA can go forward with regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act after a federal appeals court ruled the EPA was “unambiguously correct” in its legal rationale behind regulating greenhouse gases. Probably highlight the legal triumph and use it to bolster your argument for the new GHG policy.

The flip side of this is that the Obama team recognizes how unhappy the markets will be at the prospect of an energy tax, making economic output sink, and really giving conservatives to rally around and drum up more support from business. With Europe unable to remove itself from one huge clusterf*** and China slowing down, the Dow is just looking for an excuse to plummet back to 11,000. As such, I think it's iffy politics. It'll also be done in a way that's dumb policy. After the SCOTUS ruling today upholding the health care mandate, I don't know if the administration prefers to bask in the glow of 'winning' or would rather divert attention away from an unpopular law. Just don't discount the possibility of a cap and trade announcement coming to a campaign near you.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Building a New Cuckoo Cuckoo Nest

Apparently Anders Behring Breivik (mass murderer from Norway) is getting a psychiatric ward built solely for him. I oppose the death penalty, and I think I can give a pretty enlightened argument to support my position. This, however, is a step too far. The Slate article also discusses how prison officials announced plans to hire "friends" for Breivik because they’re unwilling to restrict him to solitary confinement but also do not want to subject other inmates to him, worried he may try to take hostages. The "professional community" will have tasks that include playing indoor hockey and chess with Breivik. I think it's fair to say society has no use for this man. Without a use for him, there is no reason to maintain him. I won't protest his early retirement from life.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Gettin' Our G-Walk On


I'm referring to gunwalking here, obviously. A couple facts about the Fast and Furious scandal that Republicans need to be made cognizant of:
  • This was a Bush-era program. Obama let it perpetuate, he didn't establish it.
  • If you subscribe to the idea that "if we outlaw guns, then only criminals will have them," with gun ownership being important to defend yourself against criminals who will find ways to acquire firearms regardless of their legality, then we have to acknowledge these crimes probably would've happened anyway. The weapons involved just would've originated elsewhere.
Conversely, what I would like to remind Democrats of:
  • See bullet #1 - your boy was responsible for perpetuating the program. Also, this administration has been a bunch of dicks about it.
This country seems to have a problem with supplying weapons to people and having the supply come back and bite us in the ass. Look to Afghanistan, look to the Contras, just look somewhere (yes folks, Reagan sent a lot more bullets to outlaws down in Central America than anyone who's held the office recently). When you purposefully let terrorists acquire instruments manufactured for the sole purpose of killing people, don't act surprised if it occasionally comes back to bite you in the ass; at the end of the day, you're still dealing with terrorists.

The next paragraph is where I offer my own insightful analysis on how to bring down higher-level traffickers and the cartels they supply without having to rely on gunwalking:


 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Gimme Money (I've an Election to Win!)

Following Neil Munro of the Daily Caller's interruption of Obama and the gleeful support of a segment of 'conservatives,' I've given up on the prospect of civility ever returning to the national political arena. Maybe the answer is for Obama to start taking questions from the press. Actually, scratch that, I gave up when Joe Wilson became a fundraising champion after interrupting the State of the Union (did you know his wife actually admonished whoever yelled out at the President... before she found out it was her husband?). No, scratch that one too - I gave up when liberals squealed with glee after someone threw a shoe at Bush in Iraq. Well, whenever all my hope was supplanted with absolute cynicism, it's time to stop swimming against tide. There's more money to be made as an Olberman or Brit Hume than trying to promote something that isn't harmful to our democracy. So here's my media offering:





I'm willing to make inflammatory remarks about any political party or politician someone else believes is evil because their policy desires don't converge. Now someone give me a radio talk show to blather bullshit for a couple hours every afternoon.