The Sunday Drill, Vol. 4, No. 12

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles remind you not to be a dumbass (when it comes to the federal debt). Although I really wish Simpson would have taken President Obama to the woodshed for putting his political welfare over the need to make tough choices.

BREAKING: Obama didn’t just smoke pot in high school – he smoked a lot of pot! This complete waste of time brought to you by unauthorized biographer David Maraniss.

Obama calls on Congress to extend green tax credits for the sake of jobs. After Solyndra, these may prove to be the least popular non-artistic tax credits ever.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) seems to have the comprehensive energy strategy everyone has longed for. For everyone who is worried, I assure you that she doesn’t view “Drill, baby, drill” as a comprehensive anything.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA), or at least his spokesperson, says birtherism has no place in his presidential campaign. He then told high-profile endorser (and birther) Donald Trump to shove his hairplugs up his ass. Guess which sentence is true.

House members campaigning for the Senate learn that their Washington experience is more of a liability than an asset among voters. I like to think that people just don’t trust House members with a more sober office, but perhaps that’s overly optimistic.

The Pentagon: “We don’t want or need those extra tanks.” Congress: “Too bad.” Dysfunction, ladies and gentlemen.

Congress adds Israel to the list of countries whose citizens are eligible for E-2 visas, which allow foreign investors to come into the country to help develop businesses into which they have invested. Given Israel’s technology industry, I am honestly stunned that they weren’t on that list a decade ago.

State Rep./congressional candidate/pastor Ted Vick (R-SC53) gets a DUI with a co-ed in the car. And that was the end of that.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird calls Syrian violence “very disconcerting.” You know what else is very disconcerting? The fact that everyone forgot how to speak bluntly. Just call it evil.

Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi promises Sharia law if he is elected. The sad thing is that a lot of Egyptians will probably want to take him up on it.

Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega blames the global financial crisis (the one Greece is causing?) for a lower-than-expected economic forecast in his own country. Yeah. It’s all their fault.

OMG MEGHAN MCCAIN IZ FAT LMAO

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by everyone who personally attacked Meghan McCain on Twitter this week over what she said about the late Andrew Breitbart. Before we begin, though, I want to add a couple of disclaimers so I don’t have to later:

• I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with what I’m posting. Both McCain and Breitbart are/were deeply polarizing figures for their own reasons, and I myself will always prefer one over the other. (Guess which one. Go on, guess.) So, if any of the other party’s rabid fans wish to issue me a corrective, don’t waste your time.
• I really do wish there was a less obvious fail this week, but we don’t have all the facts about Seal Team Six talking to filmmakers yet.

Anyway. In her role as an MSNBC commentator (a role which, ever since Ann Coulter was fired from that position, is one of the surest-fire ways to get hardcore right-wingers to loathe you), McCain, guesting on The Al Sharpton Show (and that’s another way), talked about how she and other moderate Republicans have been feeling squeezed out of the party lately. She went on to name Breitbart, along with Michelle Malkin, as avatars of the dominant Republican strain. I’ll let you read her tweets for examples of what happened next.

It’s one thing to slag her for speaking critically of Breitbart three months after his death, although I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on that sort of thing. It’s also one thing to wonder why she keeps talking about this aspect of her political career, as opposed to her thoughts on policy issues. But just look at what these people are saying! An attack on her weight here; a snide remark about her boobs there; a jab at her father’s capture in Vietnam over there (OH NO YOU DID NOT). I’d hate to think that Breitbart would have just sit back and let the fur fly if he could have seen this.

If you think anyone to the left of you is automatically left-wing or a secret Democrat or whatever, that’s your damage. But do these people really have so little reflexivity that they can’t see how bad these attacks make them look? They make McCain’s comments look like a eulogy in comparison. Good job giving her all the ammunition she’ll ever need. And good job helping people see Breitbart fans her way.

Disposal Day #123: The gloves are off starting . . . now

STORY #1: Blue-state blues

It just occurred to me that aside from routine sniping about Romneycare, the only person who really targeted former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) about his record as governor of Massachusetts was former Gov. Jon Huntsman (R-UT). He frequently made hay out of the fact that Massachusetts was ranked #47 in job creation while Utah was ranked #1. How that doesn’t get more airplay, I can only attribute to ad budgets. But President Obama’s re-election campaign is ready to make the same attacks.

This is going to be where they can land the most punches. Romney rarely speaks of anything he accomplished as governor, except for appeals to states’ rights when defending Romneycare (and he’s always on defense about it). He left office after one term, for which opponents can either credit opportunism or giving up. And since people like that Romney has business experience, even if it’s not necessarily good business, they will need to know how he operates as a government executive. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

STORY #2: 触发器

According to Babelfish, the above characters are what happen when you translate the English word “flip-flop” into traditional Chinese. (Translated back into English, they mean “trigger.” Fascinating.) The question is, did Romney do that when he promised to get tough on China for currency manipulation? The Obama campaign charges that his book No Apology castigates them for tariffs on certain Chinese products, even though the label of “currency manipulator” would lead to sanctions, which are more punitive.

Perhaps what Romney meant is that tariffs aren’t tough enough and don’t compel the Chinese to clean up their act as sanctions might, while at the same time running the risk of shutting American manufacturers out of that market. Or perhaps he just hasn’t connected the dots between tariffs and sanctions. I’m actually more inclined to go with option #1. But if he thinks sanctions are going to solve much, well, HA.

STORY #3: It’s all about meeeeee!

Are you shitting me? “Mitt Romney says that if elected Congress should wait until he takes office to block automatic spending cuts and to keep tax cuts from expiring.” Meaning: “Hey, guys, can you wait a couple of months to do your job? Ann hasn’t picked my drapes yet.” Does he think this is Canada? In which there basically is no government until the prime minister settles in? I really hope the Obama people bring the mockery over this absurdity, because he sure needs it.

160 shipmates and no captain

The last couple of times I’ve written about the United Nations, the theme has generally been as follows: Yes, it’s full of countries who can’t be trusted and will exploit their seat at the table for all sorts of negative gains, but it’s better for the U.S. to have a seat of their own than not, in order to keep a legal eye on them. This is the same reason White House officials and leaders in military and business are calling on the U.S. to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Who’s thwarting their efforts in Congress? Guess.

The above-noted proponents are making essentially the same appeal to diplomatic opportunity that I made. The opponents – mainly Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), big surprise) – aren’t swayed. They are certain that signing the treaty “would undercut U.S. sovereignty, force a redistribution of wealth and stand in for the Kyoto Protocol on climate change that would allow foreign countries to regulate U.S. energy.”

It is true that the treaty would establish general environmental obligations on the high seas. But keep in mind that one essential component is the definition of which parts of the ocean belong to individual countries. The treaty gives sovereign rights to a country’s continental shelf within 200 miles. If the environmental damage happens within that limit, wouldn’t this sovereignty override any regulatory demands from the UN?

Other arguments from Inhofe: The new International Seabed Authority, which would control the ocean outside those 200-mile limits, would have the power to “levy a global tax” on mining companies therein (but is that actually what they’re planning?); it would not permit foreign boarding if the ship being boarded is carrying illegal weapons (isn’t that a problem for security at the destination country?); it would regulate the airspace over territorial waters (so? We regulate the airspace over territorial land); it would subject companies hoping to mine the seabed to new fees and bureaucracy (they don’t seem bothered by that).

In at least one way, this treaty could do more for U.S. ocean sovereignty than Inhofe thinks. The fisheries in Canada’s Maritime provinces used to thrive much more than they do now. Since then, overfishing by foreign ships has been blamed for their downturn. If Canada and other trustworthy nations were to join the U.S. in signing the treaty, we could have more muscle to flex in telling those foreign companies to get out.

It’s perfectly acceptable for Inhofe and his fellow opponents to point out certain aspects of the treaty they find worrisome. But it comes down to this: You may sign the treaty and still not be as influential as you’d like, but if you don’t, it’s certain that you won’t.

Dumb-ocracy in America

Someone else can feel free to pinpoint exactly when this trend began, but the trend is of liberals/Democrats in Congress accusing conservatives/Republicans of being stupid, and conservatives/Republicans accusing liberals/Democrats of being supercilious (or, as they might say, “a superior sumbitch“). If either side wanted more ammunition, they just got it thanks to a new, fascinating, but ultimately kind of pointless study by the pro-transparency Sunlight Foundation. (Not that everyone else is anti-transparency; Sunlight just cares more.)

Using a Flesch-Kincaid reading level test to determine the results, the study shows that the average reading level of congressional speech has dropped from level 11.5 in 2005 to 10.7 this year. The very lowest of those levels is the Republican one, an interesting departure from the mid-90s, as you’ll see in the accompanying line graph. You may also notice that the disparity between parties is larger than it used to be; that new members rank lower than veterans; and that both the highest- and lowest-ranking individual members are Republicans.

This is all very interesting, but what does it mean? Even Sunlight senior fellow Lee Drutman admits he doesn’t consider the results either good or bad. When I first became aware of this study, most of the reaction sounded something like “Ewww, look at how stupid Congress has become.” If this was definitely the case, I would be just as alarmed. The one place you want people smarter than you is the government, even if they don’t always sound that way.

And that’s the crux of the problem: Sounding less intelligent than your predecessors doesn’t mean you are. Watch as the exact same thought is expressed at completely different reading levels, shown in parentheses:

I believe you would be glad to know that a pizza delivery has just been effected. (8)

I ordered a pizza. (6)

By the way, for those who recognize that first sentence: I saw it on a snarky blog. Don’t judge me. Anyway, this test is primarily based on the length of a sentence and how many syllables the words are. Sure, it’s a safe bet that someone who has a big vocabulary is smarter than someone with a small one. But how do you know how big someone’s vocabulary is until you give them a more accurate test? And for anyone who wants to do that, don’t waste your money.

Nobody in America doesn’t believe Congress is full of idiots. We can tell by their refusal to put aside ideology and accept the reality of what they need to do to get the country moving again. No post-graduate reading level can cure that.

Booker v. Washington

If you’ve never read Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s tweets, you should; the man is endlessly entertaining and never short of an opinion on national issues. (Keeping his options open?) That became a negative for his Democrats yesterday. He has a problem with President Obama’s re-election campaign taking shots at former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) past at Bain Capital. Republicans love that. All Booker has to do is say “Fuck off” to the GOP and he’ll win my seal of approval. (UPDATE: He did.)

The quote:

I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America. Especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people invest in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses.

Not very articulate, but the point is made. The trouble is that it’s not at all below the belt to question how Romney’s history at Bain makes him an economic savior. Maybe Obama administration economic adviser Steven Rattner is correct in saying that it was never Bain Capital’s job to create jobs, but to generate profits. But what good will that do for a president? Given Massachusetts’ 47th-place ranking while Romney was governor, does he know how to help businesses without outsourcing, automation or slashing salaries and benefits?

That’s prong one of my argument: The substance of Booker’s argument does not stand. Prong two is how the Obama team responded. Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod insisted that Booker was “talking about the general tenor of the campaign.” That was certainly a part of it, but it’s pretty evident from the above quote that Booker was also coming to the defense of Bain-style private equity. How can you miss that?

Axelrod does himself and his campaign no favors by jumping on every Democrat who criticizes a strategy or policy of theirs in public. The two-party system has always allowed for more ideological diversity than multi-party system (trust me, I’m Canadian – I know), and thus you’ll never have a completely coordinated message. I’d be more inclined to give Axelrod a pass for this if I didn’t think the conditions (i.e. Obama’s record) were ripe for this to become a habit.

And as for Booker: The way a candidate’s economic worldview was shaped is kind of important, especially when recovery is so anemic. I wouldn’t trust Romney to help anyone outside his base, and so far he hasn’t provided any reason to believe otherwise.

Everyone has a woman problem

Everyone, meet Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), currently Vice-Chairman of the House Republican Conference and thus the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress. The highest-ranking Democratic woman is still House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), if anyone cares. But we all know Pelosi well; she’s standard-issue when it comes to crafting her party’s message for women. McMorris Rodgers is not. As you’ll see, it’s actually a priority for her.

The profile spends a lot of time on her efforts to appeal to female voters with free-market rhetoric and “pocketbook issues” including jobs, health care and family policy. Like many Republicans and a few independent women who dislike pandering (like me!), she’s not fond of the Democrats’ belief that women need government at all times, most recently exemplified by The Life of Julia. The difference is that McMorris Rodgers (who I’m calling CMR from now on) sees a political opportunity more clearly than her male counterparts.

Let’s use Julia as our example of the ideal Democratic woman. She took Head Start as a youngster; she went to a public school, as do her kids; she paid for her college education with some state aid; she uses her parents’ health coverage; she is not closed off to suing for equal pay; she has student loans, but pays them off steadily; her health insurance covers everything concerned with childbirth, including contraception; her own small business depends on certain tax cuts; and she uses both Medicare and Social Security. All with the Obama administration’s help.

Now, based on CMR’s talk, let’s develop an avatar for the ideal GOP woman. We’ll call her Natalie. (I’m watching Star Wars prequels as I write this.) Her own small business depends on certain tax cuts. Everything else is up to the free market and what she decides to buy and sell from it. Also, she definitely has or will have kids. Done.

Do you see the disconnect? It’s not just that Democrats see a bigger role for government and Republicans see a smaller one. CMR throws around the words “family” and “children” much more often than single, childless/childfree women might like. Say what you will about Democrats and birth control, but at least they acknowledge that some women don’t want children at any given moment, or perhaps at all. Paternalism is the Democratic woman problem; natalism is the Republican one. Either you marry a father figure or vote for one.

Once CMR can capture this segment of the female electorate, her goal will be met. The only thing all women have in common is the desire for respect for our choices, and space to make good on them.

The Sunday Drill, Vol. 4, No. 11

In the wake of the JPMorgan scandal, President Obama demands implementation of banking regulations he signed two years ago. How much better would the government look if they stopped having that long of a grace period to do their job?

Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to sabotage the economy to hurt Obama’s re-election hopes. If that’s what they’re doing, they’d better hope Americans are too dumb to notice when Congress is being ridiculous. (They’re not.)

Joe Ricketts, the man behind the leaked Obama/Wright ad campaign – I call him the Ten-Million-Dollar Asshole, named for the amount of money in that campaign’s budget – donated to everyone in the GOP presidential race. Want proof that wealth doesn’t guarantee job creation? Here it is.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett demands verification of Obama’s birth certificate, on the grounds that “a constituent” doesn’t believe it’s real. If you asked Obama, do you think he’d want to be on the ballot in Arizona?

Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) promises greater engagement with NATO partners, while offering no specific policy promises beyond reversing automatic defense cuts. Hands up, anyone who trusts him on foreign policy. Anyone? Bueller?

Romney also vows to approve the Keystone XL pipeline the second he becomes president. In fact, he’s so serious about getting it built that he will hire his own illegals to build it.

A profile of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the top-ranking Republican woman in Congress. I like that she has found a way to appeal to women with free-market rhetoric, but it would be nice if she understood that some of those women don’t or won’t have children.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) agrees to revisit a rule that would exempt cargo airlines from rules preventing pilot fatigue. Because a tired pilot who carries stuff risks an accident less than a tired pilot who carries passengers? Dumb.

Shit gets real in Quebec, where protests continue and the government has obviously run out of options. And this is why the rest of us act Canadian and not European.

A European bank approves 1 billion euros for reconstruction efforts in Arab Spring nations. Odds that most of it will fund something less than reconstructive? Five to one.

Brits love the monarchy more now than in decades! I can’t tell if these polls measure support or just fascination.

You don’t get to 16 billion in tax savings . . .

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by Facebook. Some of you probably linked to this column after I posted it on Facebook, so you know my perspective on the site as a whole isn’t generally anti. But there are times when their business practices are very worthy of an anti perspective, and their initial public offering yesterday was one of them. Not because it fell flat. Not because social media obsessers believed it was a good investment. Because of this. The company has granted who knows how much money in stock options to its employees – and thanks to a perfectly legal loophole, they will save $16 billion in taxes on it.

Already this week we’ve had to deal with co-founder Eduardo Saverin being accused of timing his immigration to Singapore conveniently enough to avoid paying taxes of his own. (Note to self: Never trust a litigious person with a business degree. Think of how much the Whine-klevosses would have avoided paying if they had an argument!) But these are the people who are living and working in America. I don’t think they set out to bilk anyone; after all, as mentioned, this is legal. They saw an advantage in the tax system and took it. You probably would.

On the one hand, much of the fail is on the shoulders of this stock option tax loophole. I defy anyone to justify this on the grounds of economic benefit. It enables them to take home more money and spend it on products made by other Americans? Ha. These people are buying BMWs and vacationing in Fiji. And I hardly think Facebook skimps on salaries and benefits, given its profits.

So why did I name Facebook as the bringer of the fail? Because, frankly, I have no clue where their valuation is coming from. How exactly do they make money? Selling ad space? Selling information about users to advertisers? Both? They’ve never put a high premium on transparency, so if we do find out, it may very well be at a congressional hearing. I strenuously predict that future historians will scoff at the idea that social media was ever worth investing in.

If you’re going to bother taking advantage of loopholes like this, at least have a real product or service to show for it. As much time as I spend on Facebook throughout the day, ultimately it’s just a distraction from the real world. It’s the businesses that can actually prove their value on paper that deserve to save on their taxes.

Disposal Day #122: Prestige doesn’t buy class

STORY #1: The unexceptional Coffman

I look forward to the day when I can say, in all sincerity, that politicians have evolved beyond attacking each other’s patriotism and perpetuating birtherism. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) did both. While he did backtrack on the statement that carried a pungent whiff of birtherism, he wasn’t all that sorry for the other thing he said about President Obama: “. . . I don’t believe the President shares my belief in American Exceptionalism. His policies reflect a philosophy that America is but one nation among many equals.”

If you think his policies reflect a bad philosophy, go ahead and say so. But watch your mouth if your idea of said bad philosophy is anything less than love of country. Some of you may think love of country has nothing to do with exceptionalism, but in the U.S., it always does. Accusing another politician of lacking it all but eliminates the possibility of a truly substantive discussion of differences.

STORY #2: We’re not that elusive

Reasons we “elusive independents” would never have fallen for this crap:

• We never bought that Obama agreed with anything Reverend Jeremiah Wright had to say about America. He certainly has never given us any reason to believe so.
• We would have recognized the standard-issue attack ad techniques immediately.
• We understand Obamacare enough to know that it’s not actually “government-run health care.” You want that, go to the UK.
• Many of us actually don’t like Obama as much as these morons think we do; we just have more sophisticated opinions of that worldview than this.
• We’re allergic to the word “PAC.”
• Anyone who needs five minutes of airtime for this sort of thing probably has nothing of value to say.
• Two of your staffers worked with former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK). Checkmate.

STORY #3: Refudiated, BITCH

And, at last, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) beats back someone who claims to be working in his best interests but isn’t. Sadly, that beat-back couldn’t have sounded more stiff than if he’d dunked it in liquid nitrogen and sprinkled it with cornstarch. Just say “Sorry, I don’t accept endorsements from idiots” and get it over with! (By the way, for anyone who asks, I am using the term “refudiate” ironically and I am well aware that it’s a Palin-brand malapropism.)