The End of Blagojevich
The Tea Party no longer trusts establishment Republicans. And maybe the blue collar Democrats have stopped trusting the Democratic establishment. Both parties have now become the party of incumbency. But it’s not helping anyone. Not only are one in ten families out of work, but one in five families are working as hard as possible and still unable to pay the bills. This is creating the pressure to find alternative ways of doing things.
To show their anger with some of Hatch’s votes over his 34-year career in the Senate, Kirkham and FreedomWorks planned to march on the National Republican Senatorial Committee today to protest what they see as support for Hatch. …
At a press conference featuring posters reading “Retire Hatch,” FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe said voters have “given up” on Hatch for supporting efforts like TARP and the auto bailout. David Kirkham, spokesman for the state party, added that Hatch’s more conservative votes since the party helped oust former GOP Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010 haven’t changed his view that Hatch is a big government Republican.
Just today, the health care compact passed both the Texas lower house and the upper house. The health care compact, readers will recall, is an idea based around moving power away from the federal government back to where voters can more easily get at the policy issues. It’s going national and that says something.
What it says, I think, is that the “mainstream” by its failures has worn out its welcome. Jena McGregor, writing in the Washington Post, notes that Chris Wallace’s question to Michele Bachmann — “are you a flake?” — is likely to boost her popularity. “Mark my words: The evangelical feminism that’s inspired by Bachmann, as well as Sarah Palin, is sure to get a boost from Wallace’s condescending query.” But it isn’t a feminist backlash that will drive the rebound. It’s the ironic demonstration by Wallace that he, not Bachmann, is the flake, an argument Andy McCarthy seriously makes.
That would surprise Wallace. He still thinks that the narrative carefully constructed in the late 1990s is normative and normal. It isn’t. That old narrative is hanging in tatters and is barely credible. Barack Obama is the epitome of the perfect media candidate and he is as strange as a man from Mars. What propels Bachmann and Palin’s popularity isn’t so much the content of their politics (though it does) as much as the possibility that the public now trusts plain folks far more than the badged Ivy League/media product. The old elite has gotten so precious that it is now the Other. That distrust of the establishment is going to fuel a widespread search for alternative solutions to current problems. Nobody’s going to wait for the Fitz to clean up Chicago. They know he’s not going to do it.
That means the search is on for some other way for the public to do it themselves. Who knows if they’ll succeed. All that is clear is that the old ways aren’t going to do the job.
Blagojevich was convicted of fraud for attempting to sell Obama’s Senate seat because there was nothing in the seat.
Behold the seat! the Blago cried
So hardly ever used
The Senator in question voted
Present or Excused
The Senate seat for Illinois
Is mine, and it’s for sale
And don’t you fret your little head
I’ll never go to jail
And ‘cause that nerdy guy Hussein
Was never there to vote
The bidding starts and closes at
A clean, crisp five pound note
Me thinks Blago will go to the top of the list of potential pardons.
Hopefully in Jan 2013
The Blagoevich thing is small potatoes compared to the likely spectacular levels of corruption that may eventually surface from this administration. The question is: will we find out before or after November, 2012?
An added question is: will Americans even recognize it as corruption when they see it?
The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which lobbied for ethics changes following Blagojevich’s arrest and impeachment, said the jury’s verdict ratifies the “sense of millions of Illinoisans, that Rod Blagojevich was a pox on Illinois’ political system.”
Pox is a disease characterized by purulent skin eruptions that may leave pockmarks. I’d say that Rodney was just one of the purulent eruptions rather than the complete infection. Plenty of other guys have left their own pock marks on Chicago and Illinois and are bound to produce fresh eruptions in future. It’s just a question if anyone cares enough to give them the same treatment as Blagojevich received.
When corruption is a feature, not a bug, it’s hard to fix corrupted machine language if you refuse to use bent code.
I am glad that Illinois politicians will now have to walk around like Joe Pesci in “Casino,” only talking outdoors while holding newspapers and cigarettes over their mouths so the feds can’t see enough to lipread their conversations.
That being said, where was Rezko? Inquiring minds want to know.
Why didn’t the feds let the dirty deal go down, and then swoop in? Inquiring minds want to know.
The guilty verdict will not affect Illinois’ wretched politics. As a conservative Tea Party Republican living in a western suburb of Crook, I mean Cook, County, I can say with complete confidence that the Democrat Party that has comprehensively misruled my state for decades will retain power and continue in its corrupt ways. The Machine cannot be defeated. Soon redistricting will take place and the Democrats will gerrymander the Congressional districts so as to further reduce the already negligible Republican presence and thus increase their strength. Illinois has plenty of conservatives and Tea Party people but they are rendered effectively powerless by the Democrats’ machinations. In last year’s gubernatorial election all but four of Illinois’ 102 counties voted for the GOP candidate, but Cook County–with its unions, minorities, and liberals–voted for the Democrat, Quinn; hence, Quinn won.
Blago doesn’t mean anything. He was a gnat on a monolith. His fate has no bearing on the monolith’s towering strength.
The ironies and coincidences abount. And speaking of the pox, I wait to see who gets a positive report back on their Wasserman-Shultz test.
Considering the Establishment GOP vs. Tea Party a Dire Straits song always comes to mind:
Now you and me go parallel, together and apart
And you keep the perfect distance
And it’s tearing at my heart
But you never feel the distance
Because you never try to cross that line
’cause its another dirty river
And another dirty scar
And I don’t know who’s kissing you and I don’t know where you are
So far from home
Do you ever think of me sometime?
If I’ve been hard on you, I never chose to be
I never wanted no one else
I tried my best to be somebody you’d be close to
Hand in hand like lovers are supposed to…
Supposed to be.
Will the star-crossed lovers get together in time for the 2012 election? Stay tuned dear listeners…….
“Why didn’t the feds let the dirty deal go down, and then swoop in? Inquiring minds want to know.”
To point out the obvious, Who is the top Fed?
“Why didn’t the feds let the dirty deal go down, and then swoop in?”
Ha ha ha ha ha! No offense, but it is to laugh. You don’t what your dealing wih here. Corruption, incompetence, and most of all a desire to contain the “incident” and isolate Blago–that’s what kept the feds from letting the deal(s) go down and swooping in.
Forget about it, Jake, it’s Illinois.
“That means the search is on for some other way for the public to do it themselves. Who knows if they’ll succeed. All that is plain is that the old ways aren’t going to do the job.”
I see two(2) choices. Am Article 5 convention or a civil war. Hopefully somebody else will find a 3rd choice that will work.
L3′s interstate compacts is like changing the lug nuts on a Yugo with 229,000 miles on it. When you are done you have a Yugo with 229,000 miles and new lug nuts.
I want a NEW car.
Well judging from the news about “flash mobs” of “teenage youths” rampaging in the ritzier areas of Chicago and the continuing foot voting of various industries and people moving out of the city and the state, it could be that Blago has kind of receded to a back burner position in the media.
It pretty much appears that the police of Chicago have lost control of the black gangs and can no longer contain them in their NHI areas.
It always struck me that Chicagoans traded corruption for security (The City That Works)and now they have the corruption but no security, or jobs.
“Chris Wallace’s question to Michelle Bachmann, “are you a flake” is likely to boost her popularity.”
Absolutely, for the old adage states the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The old media, as part of the failing political class, is part of the enemy.
Our “New Aristocracy of Merit” is becoming the subject of humor – the people are laughing at them. Blago was already a comic figure.
Sorry for stealing a thread, but has anyone read the name of the driver in the Amtrak’s California Zephyr wreck? (I had been a passenger on that train in May.) We’ve been told his trucking company has prior citations and that there were skid marks and that the feds will be looking at his drug use.
But no name – how odd.
I’d give it a 20% chance that “Muhammid” or variant is part of his name.
A corrupt Democrat politician…in Chicago? That’s news? What’s that make it, two Illinois Democrat governors in a row sent to prison?
The people of Illinois and Chicago — the Greeks of the mid-West — cannot forever ignore the fact that the money is gone; their tax base is rapidly disappearing; they’re are in debt up to their ears.
# 13,toadold:
Good analysis. Accurate, except:
The problems are not caused by black youth gangs, but gangs of black youths. This is a distinction with a difference. The youths in question are not grouped in organized gangs–that wouldn’t be as bad as what is actually the case. And what is actually the case is that ad hoc swarms of black kids are coming up from their South Side inner city neighborhoods to terrorize people in the Loop, on Michigan Avenue, and along the lakefront. It’s a Clockwork Orange kind of phenomenon. It’s an indicator of the moral degradation of black inner city society; and it’s scary precisely because it isn’t organized but because it’s just groups of terminally screwed-up kids who’ve discovered that violence can be great fun and that they can commit violence anywhere, anytime they want with few if any consequences. They don’t think they’ll get caught and so far they’ve been right about that. And even if they do get caught they’re not afraid of the consequences, because the consequences are negligible.
The situation reminds me of the Japanese in Nanking. Yes, I know that’s a gross exaggeration. But the specter of violent, savage, undisciplined young men roaming the streets, doing whatever they want and that no one can stop them … well, I think you get my drift.
BTW, the Mexican youth gangs are, if anything, more violent than the black gangs, but so far they keep pretty much to their own neighborhoods. But for how long, I wonder?
Also, Chicagoans didn’t trade corruption for security. We’ve had corruption shoved down our throats. There was no choice in the matter. The Machine could not be defied.
What I have told you here is the unvarnished truth.
“The people of Illinois and Chicago — the Greeks of the mid-West …”
Oh, screw you. We’re not like the Greeks. We’re more like downtrodden French peasants during the reign of the Bourbon kings, or serfs in old Russia. Or Saxon peasants under the heel of crude and brutally oppressive Norman warrior-aristocrats. Chicago is positively medieval in some respects–in terms of governance. Instead of Norman invader-thugs in their castles we have corrupt ward bosses in their storefront HQs.
Also–and this needs to be said–Chicagoans traditionally have been very hard-working folk. “The city that works”; city of broad shoulders, and all that. Work your ass off in a steel mill or factor or in a crappy office job so you can afford a modest Midwestern bungalow in a decent neighborhood and make a better life for your kids. Pay your tithe in some form to the corrupt political bosses and get on with your life. Look the other way when the bosses and their minions screw you over because, really, there’s no other way to look. Whaddya gonna do? Move to the ‘burbs eventually–if you can sell your house.
Mayor Bilandic was ousted because he didn’t clear the snow from the streets, which meant that Chicagoans couldn’t get to work. Chicagoans put up with corruption but not THAT. And that’s a fact, my friends.
Roughcoat,
“I can say with complete confidence that the Democrat Party that has comprehensively misruled my state for decades will retain power and continue in its corrupt ways.”
Don’t be so sure. I daresay if you’d told any loyal Romanian apparatchik on January 1st, 1989 that, one year hence, Nicolai Ceaucescu would be taking a dirt nap and the entire Party apparatus would be swept away….he’d have laughed you out of the room and then reported you to the Securitate.
S*** happens…and it often happens quickly.
That would surprise Wallace. He still thinks that the narrative carefully constructed in the late 1990s is normative and normal. It isn’t. That old narrative is hanging in tatters and is barely credible.
Wallace is very nearly as dim as Obama.
He thought he was Charlie Rose when he put the question to Bachmann – or else Wallace was maneuvered into the question by increasingly left-leaning Fox news bosses.
What from the 1990s is today normative and normal? I dunno. Maybe kids born that year and just now turning 21. Sure isn’t my 1987 Honda or the 20mhz PC I was using back then.
But as for Bachmann her own self … I dunno. She’s a little too much like Sara Palin for my taste. Geez, these Republicans. Come on, Christie. Or Jeb. Or … both together? Hmm.
“The Tea Party no longer trusts establishment Republicans.” Not ‘no longer.’ Substitute ‘never did.’
#15 Whitehall
Truck driver’s name per AP via Yahoo News:
“Records from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles revealed Monday that truck driver Lawrence R. Valli, 43, of Winnemuca received four speeding tickets since 2008, including three for driving a school bus over the posted speed limit in California in a 10-month period. [snip] Records show Valli was issued a commercial driver’s license in Nevada on May 6 of this year, said Tom Jacobs, spokesman for the Nevada DMV.
The records show Valli’s school bus violations occurred July 6, 2008, Sept. 9, 2008 and May 12, 2009. It was not immediately clear where those citations were issued in California and whether children were in the buses. He was also ticketed on in August 2008 in California for not wearing a seat belt while driving a commercial vehicle.
Valli also received a speeding ticket on Sept. 22, 2009, in Alabama for exceeding the speed limit by 11-20 mph.”
The trucker’s sister is also a professional truck driver, per the article: http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110627/ap_on_re_us/us_amtrak_truck_crash
So it doesn’t look like Sudden Jihad Syndrome, at least in this case. The real question would seem to be why Nevada didn’t look into his record more carefully before giving him a commercial driving license last month.
Thanks, PA Cat.
There have been numerous mentions in the press of Jihadist threats to Amtrak over the last few months. “Trains” magazine had a piece last month of a dustup between TSA and Amtrak police where TSA swooped into a station with armed agents without authority and then tried to disarm Amtrak’s hostage release team.
The California Zephyr wreck sounds like a reasonably random traffic accident but it shows how easy it would be to do as a suicide. Amtrak is already looking into enhance track integrity monitoring equipment since at least one wreck was deliberated caused in Arizona a few years ago by pulling up the spikes and pulling the rails apart. They already have systems to ensure that there is electrical continuity down each rail but so breaking a rail joint is detectable but pulling spikes isn’t.
I live in TX yet I hadn’t heard of the passage of the health care compact bill—and of course, it originated (so to speak) right here on this very site via Mr LL3. Doubtless the current national government will not allow it but if the idea catches on elsewhere, it could prove very important in many congressional and senatorial elections.
Bravo!!
s @ 12: An Article 5 convention or a civil war. Hopefully somebody else will find a 3rd choice that will work.
twitter?
or maybe a non-civil war, when Chinese troops land in Tijuana and strike north, and then are totally defeated by the entire US blue population surrendering immediately, until the Chinese treat that the way they should, the way they’ve always treated their own people when resources run short.
#25 Whitehall
I saw those news items about Amtrak too– must say I was also wondering about the background of the truck driver in this latest accident. My home town is on the Main Line of what used to be the Pennsylvania Railroad, a good many locals still take the train to commute to work in either Harrisburg or Philadelphia, and one of those commuter trains would be an easy target for a suicide truck bomb.
This thread is starting to prove Wretchard’s point about lots of bad things just squashing together.
All that is clear is that the old ways aren’t going to do the job.
Actually, the old ways are going to do the job. If we can get back to them.
It is the more recent inside the Beltway ways (wheeling and dealing among self-designated power mongers whose only real loyalty is to their own positions & egos) that aren’t going to do the job.
As for Chris Wallace, with all kinds of people he interviews, his attempts at gotcha can be really annoying,
#18 Roughcat:
Black youth unemployment is 50%.
This is what happens when an entire group — class if you will — of young people realize that they have no future. They should be getting their first jobs and learning a trade, but they are wasting away their youths in permanent, grinding unemployment and poverty. There are no jobs waiting for them, and the teenagers of 1998 are now entering their 20s, having never held a job, and will be effectively permanently unemployable. Their beloved black President, whom they bet the house on, has told them that this is the new normal. This is what they have to expect for their entire adult lives. It’s just the way it has to be. Sorry.
What is their American Dream? Barack Obama WAS their American Dream, and now that they’ve bought and paid for it, the curtain is pulled away and there is nothing for them but a desolate wasteland. No house in the city or suburbs. No way to support a family. No advancing up the jobs ladder. Nothing but welfare and food stamps, slums and crime for the rest of their lives, and their hero spits in their faces by wiling away his presidency in one continuous game of golf and whoring for “campaign contributions” with white millionaires while the lives and futures of his followers turn into drier and drier dust.
When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. What do they have to fear? Why should they care if they get a criminal record? It’s not as if they feel that they have a chance of ever getting a job anyway? At least sacking a Walgreens gets them something concrete — they get to keep whatever they can steal. It’s a shabby substitute for having a future, but for the moment it’s all they’ve got.
Well, I have to admire the highly effective Illinois term limits policy.
Limit governors to two terms:
One in office
One in jail.
Black youth unemployment is 50%
Plenty of black youth are carving out futures for themselves. It’s not a foregone conclusion that your future is, necessarily, bleak.
The school dropout rate in Chicago has exceeded 50% for a very long time, something like decades, despite millions thrown at the school system, despite Obama and his sidekick Billy Ayers pouring literally millions in Annenberg foundation money into programs.
There’s just no substitute for hard work, no government program, no throwing millions at a “problem” is going to fix jack sh!t, despite all the Left’s efforts to make it otherwise.
When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose.
I guess the only alternative for those poor deprived souls is to organize on Facebook and do “flash mob” attacks at Walgreen’s and Sears.
That’ll help.
Victor Davis Hanson writes bitterly about how much better everything has become, all the way up until things completely collapsed:
It’s sad that what doesn’t stop socialism is memory. Memory fades. Memory is corruptible. Memory is corrupted intentionally. One day, not long from now there will be a Rod Blagojevitch memorial highway or something running from Chicago to Obama City. Socialism is above all a joke, and the laugh’s on everybody.
When you associate (unwillingly or otherwise) with that class you hear slogans like, “Fools work!”, “Work is for suckas.” They just have dufferebt values totally aliien and uncivilized.
Why didn’t the Huns settle down and tend crops and breed livestock instead of pillaging and looting. Or the Visigoths? Or other savage tribes that have developed across time? The Romans were serious fighters when need be, but the Vikings fought for fighting’s sake.
Blago typifies the one party machine politics of the State of Illinois. Any time you have a single party dominating any state for decade after decade, ugly things will happen. That goes for the GOP as well. We need a credible, and vibrant opposition party, if for no other reason, to keep our current party in power honest.
This is why cities are moribund institutions where the Democrat party rules. Blow all the money you want on those cities, it won’t fix the problems associated with poor work ethics, anti-religious attitudes, and lousy educations.
We need a vibrant GOP to present a credible alternative in our cities so that the machine political corruption can not take hold.
And I’ve practically forgotten who Chris Wallace is. In fact, I look at so little TV that I really couldn’t care less what they say. I get my news from the Internet.
“But as for Bachmann her own self … I dunno. She’s a little too much like Sara Palin for my taste.”
Really? In what way? That she is an attractive woman? Or is it that she is a Christian? Or is is that she is a (gasp) Conservative! Maybe it is that they both have their own businesses and employ people? Or maybe you think this woman with a post-doctorate in mind-numbing tax law is stoo-oopid?
Oh. You want Christie or Jeb Bush? Oh. I get it. You are a moderate Republican who wants to lose again. Can’t have those damned Christian Conservatives getting into power. They might upset the establishment applecart.
Somehow, I get the feeling that Bachmann isn’t the stupid one here.
Above was directed to Josh @22.
You tell me you went to Harvard, or Yale, let alone law school, you’re done. Guilty. Fork in gullet. Toast. Any, any, random names in the phone book.
Today alone Bachmann stiffed Chris Wallace’s apology, and …
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/white-house-hopeful-bachmann-serial-killer-miscue-215416599.html
OT: the House and Senate in Texas passed the Health Care Compact today. It’s heading to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk for his signature. That makes 3 states (GA, OK, and TX). And a bunch more in the queue.
And there is a LOT more to come – more than just health care, and more than just interstate compacts. Stay tuned…
Stoicheion @12:
Our constitutional republic is no Yugo. Sure, it’s got more than 200+ years and 2 orders of magnitude growth behind her, but I gotta believe the old girl still has some life left in her. Of course, your mileage may vary…
Cheers,
L3
Fascinating thread, but I must say, jms, please volunteer immediately to teach a year in an inner city school. Then write back, please.
The most frightening thing is that similar brawls are happening all over the country, in urban areas, and if you ask me, there is a definite sense of entitlement. Word does get around that cases brought by whites against blacks will no longer be pursued by the DOJ.
Also overheard: that D.C. is in a tizzy with barry embaressing even the Dems, but no one dares act for fear of an urban backlash.
It may be a long, hot summer. I pray daily that somehow, this golf-addict and his travelling wife are removed from power.
(When even your Chicago-boss chief-of-staff tells business leaders that your policies are “indefensible,” you MUST be getting close to trouble, even if you are a…ahem…historic president.)
Oops – forgot to read W’s second page. So I guess I wasn’t OT. Ah well. My commenting has gotten rusty, I guess…
L3
#2 SirWalter
Me thinks Blago will go to the top of the list of potential pardons.
I think that you are not factoring in the New Order. Remember Phil Pagano, the head of Chicago Transit who was about to be fired for “financial improprieties” at Metra? The one who “committed suicide” May 7, 2010 by jumping in front of a Transit train? Or Christopher G. Kelly, Blago’s chief fundraiser, who died of an “aspirin overdose” after being found in a lumberyard in the middle of the night in September of 2009 … days before reporting for at least 8 years of housing in the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Now that he is convicted, Blago is going to want to cut a deal. His only recourse to get minimum time in a Country Club is to roll over. His problem is that his rolling over is going to be on the people who control the prosecution and prisons. He is scrod.
Obama and company do not know what “deadman switches” Blago may have left behind. The safest thing for them is for Blago to have a tragic accident, right smartly. I suspect that the Otdel mokrykh del was already getting warmed up for Kenneth E. Melson at BATFE, so they might just add him to the list.
It saves pardons for those they want to protect.
Subotai Bahadur
@ 15. Whitehall
…
>> Sorry for stealing a thread, but has anyone read the name of the driver in the
>> Amtrak’s California Zephyr wreck?
SF Chronicle:
”
Lawrence Ruben Valli II of Winnemucca rammed his 2008 Peterbilt truck into the side of the California Zephyr at a desert rail crossing on U.S. Highway 95, about 70 miles east of Reno.
“
Socialists prate sanctimoniously about the “Robber Barons” of the 19th century who used unfair business practices and showed little sensitivity to the common worker. These evil swine pale by contrast with the socialists’ own beneficent and generous gifts to humanity. Socialists believe that we, the great unwashed, should prostrate ourselves before them, the self appointed gods of sinister persuasion.
Well before we drink the buffalo piss these conceited southpaws have on offer, consider this list of 25 nasty Robber Barons:
John Jacob Astor (real estate, fur)—New York City
Andrew Carnegie (steel)—Pittsburgh and New York
Jay Cooke (finance)—Philadelphia
Charles Crocker (railroads)—California
Daniel Drew (finance)—New York
James Buchanan Duke (tobacco)— Durham, North Carolina
James Fisk (finance)—New York
Henry Morrison Flagler (railroads, oil, the Standard Oil company)—New York and Florida[5]
Henry Clay Frick (steel)—Pittsburgh and New York City
John Warne Gates (barbed wire)
Jay Gould (railroads)–New York[6]
Edward Henry Harriman (railroads)—New York[7]
Mark Hopkins (railroads)—California
Andrew W. Mellon (finance, oil)—Pittsburgh
J. P. Morgan (finance, industrial consolidation)—New York City
David Horvitz (ex-Black Flag member, coffee)—New York
Henry B. Plant (railroads)—Florida
John D. Rockefeller (oil), Cleveland, New York
Charles M. Schwab (steel) Pittsburgh and New York
John D. Spreckels (sugar)— California
Leland Stanford (railroads)—California
Joseph Seligman (banking)
Cornelius Vanderbilt (water transport, railroads)–New York[8]
Charles Tyson Yerkes (street railroads)–Chicago
Notice that every one of these mean bastards actually did something. They produced oil, steel, fur, railroads in their grasping selfish lives. In fact, between them they vastly increased the stock of tangible wealth in the U.S. This set America and Americans on an upward path to prosperity.
Now consider this shorter list of modern day “progressives”:
James Johnson
George Soros
Al Gore
Ted Turner
James Cameron
Maurice Strong
Michael Moore
Timmy Geithner
In my view these “progressives” have done nothing but destroy wealth and set America and Americans on a downward path.
It’s a dirty choice between pot and kettle but I think that one mean, grasping, unethical 19th century Robber Baron did more for America than these eight mean, grasping, unethical 21st century Thieving Progressives will ever do.
Westerncanadian:
Good lists, but the second was far too short. I’d put very near the top of that list people like Jamie Gorelick and Franklin Raines, who not only did not produce wealth but actually contributed mightily to the economic disaster we are living through right now are are responsible for our real estate disaster.
The way to fight gerrymandering of the House is to increase the number of voting districts. If the House were increased to 1000 seats apportioned according to eligible voters recorded by the Census, and not just “persons”, the power of the Democrats would dramatically decrease.
The way to decrease the power of the Urban Democratic Party machines to control the states and the Senate is to separate the large cities into new states. Chicago, New York, St Louis, Los Angelas, Oakland-San Francisco, Seattle, and Miami could all be given their own two Democratic Senators each. The remainder of California should also be divided into two new states. This would result in 8 news states. Seven reliably Democratic. That would free the Red majorities within the remainder of the states to form functional solvent governments that would send Republicans to Washington.
If this is combined with a real press on immigration controls and ballot integrity then we would soon end up with permanent Republican super majorities in both the House and Senate and declining Democratic city-states unable to extort resources from the majority of the country.
bftp @ 48: The way to fight gerrymandering of the House is to increase the number of voting districts. If the House were increased to 1000 seats apportioned according to eligible voters recorded by the Census, and not just “persons”, the power of the Democrats would dramatically decrease.
How do you figure? Because more of the counties are red? But as long as you apportion by voters, and the popular vote is close, I don’t see how you much change the distribution.
Would more members be good, since each rep would have a chance to be known by more of his district? Why not something like the Imperial Senate in Star Wars, a giant stadium of 50,000 representatives or more? How does one organize an empire, democratically? Isn’t it easier to corrupt them individually, when there are too many to keep track of?
Just asking. I have no idea. I have no impression that good candidates are falling to bad candidates, my focus is more on the individuals who step forward to run in either party.
Did you hear the one about the former Illinois governer who didn’t go to prison?
Me neither.
#28 PA Cat – IMHO the reason why terrorists don’t attack obvious targets such as the huge queues of people lining up for TSA groping is simply that they are obsessed with spectaculars. There are many, many more effective targets for attack than are attacked, but symbolism rules the decisions, and Islamists in particular are stupid.
The other interpretation is that they are far from stupid, and deliberately avoiding targets that would make the West take the gloves off. As an example, the Buncefield oil products depot was a disaster waiting to happen. By sheer luck, it happened at 6 AM and almost nobody was injured; if it had happened three or four hours later hundreds would have died. There are similar or worse depots, in similarly dangerous places (or even worse) all over the place. Imagine, for example, the effects of a fully loaded LNG tanker docked close to a major city going up.
What would be the effect of such an incident on Western attitudes to Islam?
@ 44. Subotai Bahadur
Obama and company do not know what “deadman switches” Blago may have left behind.
A proper deadman switch goes off if the holder expires. These were initially developed for streetcars. If the holder’s death disables it, it’s useless.
In this context, it’s also useless if a potential attacker is unaware of its existence, or doubts its effectiveness.
It’s a security measure, to ensure that the holder’s death does not have adverse consequences.
(For the record, I do have sufficient ones in place for myself.)
“aspirin overdose”. LMAO Almost as good as that reporter in Arkansas who was investigating the Clintons. He committed suicide by shooting himself 4 times in the heart. Nobody even blinked. The “newspaper” he wtrote for did an obit, he was buried and that was that.
43. Leo Linbeck III
GO buy a new car. That will fix everything. A new car will have 2 windshield wipers that work, instead of the single one on your old Yugo. It shouldn’t leak OIL on the driveway or blow OIL past the rings when you take off from the stoplight. No need to find just the right pothole to hit at just the right speed from just the right angle to get both headlights to work. The muffler won’t drag over speed bumps. Radio works. Air conditioning doesn’t mean cranking the window down.
Part of the Article 5 Constitution will be a requirement to automatically have a new convention ever 100 years. That will come right after the part requiring budgeting in arrears.
Silly republicans are about to give away the bank. The (R)’s, want a balanced budget amendment. The (D)’s will pretend to drag their feet but there is nothing they would like more. For politicians a balanced budget amendment means automatic tax increases. Will the Cronies agree to raising the stealing limits in exchange for the keys to the vault?
“Ya Betcha” as my gryl would say.
The ONLY way a balanced budget amendment would work is if the Revenues were limited. A percentage or a dollar amount. That is what will be sold to the voters. What will be delivered is automatic tax increases. Boner seems to be reasonably honest, for a politician. Dirty Harry and the won will high low him and walk away with everything except his wife’s unmentionables.
@44. Subotai Bahadur and 52. Dishman
Blago went home “shocked” to discuss the result with his wife and daughters… and I’m sure to take a phone call or visit from this or that sympathetic well-wisher. Blago will go to jail. But, Blago will go to jail with the promise his bills will be paid and he will have some sort of future upon exiting. This is the only way to contain such “deadman” switches–coop and freeze the trigger, at least until they can be identified and dismantled, for which his handlers need time. Whether Blago, who is arrogant but smart in a cunning kind of way, will see the necessary moves ahead is another matter. He is, as you say, “scrod”.
On flash mobs:
I wondered when we’d be reaching this point. The failure of the justice system to deter criminals, of the education system to create citizens, and the economy to absorb them (not its fault as a system, I daresay) has long been a ticking bomb. All you need now is a food shock to send ALL the toughs out of the slums prepared for them, and you’ll have more violence than you can shake a Sarajevo at. Absent that, things will ratchet up one notch at a time, until the populace arms itself as a matter of course and the police/judges refuse to prosecute citizens for defense when “afraid for my safety and the safety of others”.
Keep that phrase in mind when questioned, by the way….
On a related personal note, I move back to the midwest after seven years abroad this summer, and the above mobs made me sad to my very bones.
–JC
Congrats Leo. Step by step. Here’s a toast to your and others’ efforts restoring atrophied political muscles.
We need to support these and any and all similar efforts to return power to the people. I also favor the Barnett Federalism Amendment effort. And after that the equivalent effort in every State amending their constitutions to return power back to governmental units no larger than the largest of the original states – say 300K people (an economic unit larger than all but the largest companies) – make them near sovereign and competitive for the affection of the citizens that choose to live there.
These other issues would then work themselves out. And we won’t have 50M+1 deciding for 50M-1 on most things. And most would be able to sleep at night knowing they are only responsible for decisions taken by their neighborhood, not the rest of the country (important to those who still believe democracy means you’re morally responsible for the outcomes of all votes, concurred with or not, as if you were the literal actor).
Not quite the libertarian individual-centered ideal – but given freedom to vote with feet (and a lot shorter distance than moving to Texas, or, as a rising number of our most productive are doing now, offshore), likely as close as we can get to it in terms of self-ownership, responsibility and freedom.
And since our coffers are truly empty and what remains of these obligations are no more and no less than citizen-to-citizen political promises we can declare bankruptcy and let each political jurisdiction figure out how they want to handle the remaining moral obligation given actual resources and degree of civil society. Consider Minot v. New Orleans. One will do fine. The other will mature quickly – or be recycled to something better after abandonment and bankruptcy.
Wait till the “flash mobs” stop going back home at night. Once they start relocating en masse, we will be seeing some really “historical” activities coming loose.
The “reconquista” movement in the SW where I live is starting to make me feel like a Jew in Germany, 1930′s. Starting to think I need to move somewhere else.
In Brief: CHRIS WALLACE IS A CANDYASS SMIRKING SISSY whom Bill Clinton pegged on air from the get go. The only time I ever agreed with a Clinton. Thanks Bill.
Josh 49,
The point of a Gerrymander is that it disenfranchises the minority within a district, even if that local minority is part of the majority within the larger community. Consider a State with a population of 100,000. Almost 60% belong to one group and 40% to another. Our hypothetical State can be considered eligible for 3 districts for my example. In reality both groups are widely distributed and a simple reliance on regularly shaped districts would result in 3 districts controlled by the majority or if the minority population is concentrated in one location then you would get one minority district and two majority districts. If you create one district that is almost purely majority populated then you can get the following distribution.
District | Majority pop – % | Minority pop – %
A 31,085 – 93% | 2,250 – 7%
B 14,415 – 43% | 18,900 – 57%
C 14,415 – 43% | 18,900 – 57%
This yields two districts controlled by the minority and effectively disenfranchises almost half of the majority. If instead of three districts five were created then the fairest empowerment of the minority could yield something like the following.
District | Majority pop – % | Minority pop – %
A 19,750 – 99% | 250 – 1%
B 19,750 – 99% | 250 – 1%
C 19,750 – 99% | 250 – 1%
D 400 – 2% | 19,600 – 98%
E 400 – 2% | 19,600 – 98%
With more districts there are fewer disenfranchised voters. Any effort to give a third district to the minority by diluting the majority from one district would likely fail, and at worst fewer majority voters (approx. 20,000 vs. 28,500) would be disenfranchised. Certainly giving the majority two out of five districts is more democratic (small d) than giving them one out of three.
District | Majority pop – % | Minority pop – %
A 19,750 – 99% | 250 – 1%
B 19,750 – 99% | 250 – 1%
C 6,850 – 34% | 13,150 – 66%
D 6,850 – 34% | 13,150 – 66%
E 6,800 – 33% | 13,200 – 67%
If the number of districts increases then the risk of disenfranchisement falls. The ideal size of a democratic polis should be about 50,000 citizens. That should be the size of a voting district.
Electoral Engineering existed long before computers. Unfortunately we now live in a world where judges are enamored with toys that allow them to indulge their worst tendencies to play God. That was one of the consequences of the introduction by the SCOTUS of poorly understood, and in that case badly constructed, Social Science research in the “Brown v. Board of Education” ruling.
Roughcoat, JMS,
“like downtrodden French peasants ”
“This is what happens when an entire group — class if you will — of young people realize that they have no future”
Let’s mix those ideas up together and let it bake…
Like an avalanche, the producing pesants will realize that those entire groups have no future.
We all know what happens next.
Blagojevich may be off to prison, but mark my words, this is not the end of him. He is one of the biggest attention whores who ever set foot on this planet, which he still thinks revolves around him. He’ll be back as some sort of media figure.
@ #16 Moira
“What’s that make it, two Illinois Democrat governors in a row sent to prison?”
Why stop at two? If things go as usual in Illinois, in a couple of years Democrats will score the gubernatorial hat trick.
“bftp @ 48: The way to fight gerrymandering of the House is to increase the number of voting districts.”
Not only is Blast’s example above correct, so is the idea that the ideal democratic polis should be no larger than 50,000.
Josh, you should know better. You live in LA. The State Senators districts are roughly 1 million, State Assemblymen: 500,000, LA County Supervisors 2 mil plus, and LA City Council jerks roughly 300,000. Has anything good come out of this jerks in recent memory. Don’t think so. No Citizen politician has a chance to unseat any of the above elected officials, because it takes well over a million bucks just to run a campaign. Raising a million bucks against an incumbent is not easy, especially against Public Union backed politician which is the case running against most democrats. Because elected officials are not threatened, voters don’t really matter. Issues are hardly discussed on a local level, with local citizenry. Hell. most people, due to frequent obtuse gerrymandering, don’t even know who there representative is. In many cases, particularly for the State offices, the boundaries are a gerrymandered confection only known to election officials. I know one former assemblyman who told me he didn’t really know exactly where his district was until after he was elected.
In a small district, a politician must confront local voters and no amount of expensive advertising will hide a stinky voting record, or slimy character. Issues are discussed in detail, and word of mouth alone will kill a crook or unresponsive politician at the ballot box.
@ #22 Josh
“But as for Bachmann her own self … I dunno. She’s a little too much like Sara Palin for my taste. Geez, these Republicans. Come on, Christie. Or Jeb. Or … both together? Hmm”
I love how Christie’s kicked union rump & that he’s the closest thing we’ll ever see to a fiscal conservative, but “come on,” he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem w/NJ being a “sanctuary STATE.”
I don’t know that much about Christie, and even Christie says he’s not really ready for primetime. I don’t have any single litmus test for candidates, heck I’d vote for a moderate Democrat if I could find one, and if he/she/it made reasonable, workable propositions even if I didn’t like them much.
I’m just sick of politicians in both parties who can’t talk sense for five minutes in a row without a teleprompter. Yeah the world is complex and the politicians’ main skills are talking well, leading, and yes compromise between many parties but I’ve known good to excellent corporate political types, I know what it looks like, and I just don’t see anything like it anywhere on the ballot. I sort of hoped Christie was in there. Having good “soft” skills does not preclude not being an idiot on quantitative stuff or having a habit of overextending what you do know.
On the redistricting, the size of the district does not dictate that it is not gerrymandered. And if we can’t even find 435 competent representatives, what happens to the quality at 1,000? Maybe that *is* the way to get better quality, you say? I dunno. I see your point and like the cut of your jib and all, but as to whether it would really, truly work that way – I dunno.
Wouldn’t I rather be governed by the first 50 names in the Boston phone book than by the elected officials? Mmm. Not *quite* that easy. I’ve served jury duty a couple of times with semi-random folks, and actually both times it has worked out impressively well. But that is semi-random, there are a couple of levels of selection to get the group. And certainly not all juries serve well.
Prediction — Blago will stay free on appeal until after the 2012 election, when he will receive a pardon from Barack Obama. He played his part and kept his mouth shut, and now they owe him back.
Blago corrupt and greedy, Holder…barking mad, it seems that “Gun walker” firearms are showing up in US crimes.
http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/assault-weapons-linked-to-atf-strategy-turn-up-in-valley-neighborhoods
I’m starting to think that create a crisis to distract from the last crisis is modus operandi…or is that modi operandi of the Obama executive. Blago’s conviction gets lost in all the noise.
Well, after all is said and done, I love the Midwest and I love Midwesterners. The vast majority are good, decent, hard-working folks, with plenty of common sense and little pretension. Down-to-earth, steady, good-humored. That includes people from the cities, suburbs, and the countryside. So we’ve got that going for us. Maybe that’ll get us through.
Both the wife and me feel sorry for Blago and his family. What gives the FEDS the right to wiretap the way they do? What is the problem, really, with a Gov expecting a little payola or recognition for an appointment like this? Happens everyday in DC. How do we reconcile this activity by prosecutors like Fitz: they don’t get the desired result initially, so continue until they do?
68. Roughcoat:
I’ve heard some say that Chicago and Detroit are no longer part of the Midwest in the cultural and political sense. Your opinion on that?
toadold @67
Why not? That is very like Willy Clinton’s strategy of using a new scandal to distract us from the previous scandal.
wc@46: It’s a dirty choice between pot and kettle but I think that one mean, grasping, unethical 19th century Robber Baron did more for America than these eight mean, grasping, unethical 21st century Thieving Progressives will ever do.
Well. I’m not sure it’s a ‘choice’ so much as a balance, but, nevertheless, an entire century seems missing from that analysis.
Journey back through time:
By 1900 America was a tinderbox. Cities were crowded with millions of poor laborers, working conditions were appalling. From the local level to the highest institutions in the land corruption darkened politics. Something had to be done, and the progressive movement was the nation’s response. Although the progressive reformers did not fix everything, little escaped their attention. Since the political powers were unwilling or unable to address the rapid economic and social changes brought about by the industrial revolution in America, the progressive movement grew outside government and eventually forced government to take stands and deal with the growing problems.
……………………….
During the “reckless decade” of the 1890s the impulse for reform was driven by the Populist Party, which was made up of farmers, small businessmen and reform-minded leaders who were willing to confront the growing problems in the country. The situation was summarized dramatically in the Populist Party platform, issued at its convention in Omaha in 1892, which read in part:
The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation: we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling-places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes—tramps and millionaires.
………………………….
We can get a sense of the oppressive atmosphere felt by many Americans at the start of the Progressive Era in the United States by referring to a famous poem written by Edwin Markham in 1899, The Man with a Hoe….
The opening lines of the poem define the mood:
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
In the closing stanza the threat to the stability of the nation is vividly expressed:
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
Markham later reflected on what he meant by the poem. He said that “while all true work is beautiful and holy, it is also a fact that excesses are evil—a fact that joyless, hopeless, endless labor, overwork and under-paid work, tends to break down both men and nations.” The poem thus reflected a feeling among Americans that the appalling conditions under which many people lived were bound to cause trouble if not addressed.
I dont know…I have a bad feeling about this weekend. Between Mumbai type attack warnings, flash mobs and fireworks, who wants to go to town?
Any thoughts about not holding new Black Panthers accountable for their thuggery leading to more thuggery?
# 70 toaold:
Re “I’ve heard some say that Chicago and Detroit are no longer part of the Midwest in the cultural and political sense. Your opinion on that?”
I don’t agree with that, at least where Chicago is concerned. I can’t speak for Detroit. Chicago is very much a Midwestern city, both in its virtues and flaws. And make no mistake, Chicago has many virtues. It is by no means lost, or even close to lost. It still has thriving and eminently liveable middle class neighborhoods–which are also safe, with low crime rates (in many cases, they are safer, with less crime, than some of the near suburbs). The thing to understand about Chicago is that it is a city of neighborhoods. In the past these neighborhoods were ethnically based and this is still true to varying degrees. In the patchwork of neighborhoods you’ll find some neighborhoods that are violent hellholes and some that are quite pleasant and some that are by turns elegant and bohemian. Sad to say, but true, the worst neighborhoods are black and Latino (Mexican and Puerto Rican) and the nice middle class/blue collar neighborhoods are white ethnic; the elegant and bohemian neighborhoods are a mix of yuppies, artists, the rich, and the very rich. Generally speaking if you stay away from the black and Latino neighborhoods you’ll be okay. without bohemian neighborhoods are sort of frontier-ish, great fun but with an element of risk. The white ethnic neighborhoods are the safest because the residents pretty much enforce the peace.
I love Chicago. Great town.
Next time you’re there, go to Johnnie’s Beef, the best damn italian beef sandwich I’ve ever eaten. Order it juicy, without peppers (unless you like peppers, which I don’t). The one I hit is at 7500 W. North Ave, Elmwood Park. The line is usually long but moves fast, and you gotta sit outside, and pay a buck to the pizza joint across the street if you need to use the bathroom, but trust me, it’s worth it. The tamales are also extraordinary.
And don’t forget to get an italian ice – just ignore that they scrape it out of a paint bucket. There’s nothing better on a hot summer day.
L3
“What is the problem, really, with a Gov expecting a little payola or recognition for an appointment like this?”
NOT in America. If you want corruption, move. Lots of places on this world where your sort of thinking is in the majority. Why don’t you move to one?
A Governor should obey the law not auction it off. The fact that you don’t understand this makes me think you are either trolling or recently fell off the turnip wagon. Go back to whichever 3rd world country you came from.
Bla-guilty-vich will most definitely move to the top of Obama’s “People to Pardon Before I Leave Office” list. In fact, I would say if Blago is scheduled to report to prison before 11-6-12 (which I doubt), he may get a pardon w/o having to serve 24 hours.
My vision of Chicago’s former Guv’s timetable: sentencing scheduled months away, then report to prison months after that (you know, so he can get his affairs in order before he goes, along with stocking up on shampoo), perhaps an appeal or two thrown in the mix, and then voila! The tarrying takes us to 11-6-12 and if Obama loses, he can sign the pardon papers on the morning of 11-7-12. Pretty nifty, huh?
Blast From the Past @48 – I heartily agree with you: we need more representatives, and I would increase the number to about 1500 or about 200,000 persons per representative. All the other ideas you suggest may or may not be good ones, but they would require constitutional amendments.
64/carolannie & 22/Josh
re: Chris Christie – he’s rabid anti-gun rights/2nd Amendment
And to those who try to excuse him by saying something like “well, that’s typical or the best we can do for New Jersey”, my answer is tough, I don’t care, it’s a deal-breaker. No matter what other issues or abilities you might admire him for, he’s merely another statist thug with an R after his name.
Why Did It Have To Be… Guns?
Jack in Silver Spring 78,
Your measure of about 200,000 persons per district is not far off from my measure of 50,000 lawfully qualified and registered voters per each district apportioned to a State following the Census. It will probably take an Amendment to correct this error, the use of “persons” rather than “qualified and registered voters” that flows from the wording of the XIVth Amendment. While I am not in favor of an Article V Convention some repair to the Constitution is needed. Another XIVth Amend. problem is the birthright citizenship question. Aside from the terms granted by the XIVth it is up to each State to say who is qualified to vote for the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
The Democrats push for the enfranchisement of convicted felons. Some are surprised to learn that they are not automatically barred from voting. That is a matter of State law. My suggestion is that all convicted felons be disqualified but that each legislator may propose once person convicted at their level to have that disability removed each week that their body is in session. That is that each Representative and Senator may propose each week Congress is in session one person convicted of a federal felony for restoration. Each State Legislator may similarly propose one person per legislative week who has a State level felony conviction.
This would be separate from the Executive’s power to issue Pardons, which IMHO should not restore voting rights. Of course I would allow each State Constitution to modify this provision as far as it applies to their State Legislators. If the Federal Congress is in session for 30 weeks a year and there were 1,000 Representatives and 120 Senators then that would mean a maximum of 33,600 convicted Federal felons could be granted the franchise each year. Worthy candidates should have their rights restored and the unworthy should be denied the vote. In practice it would probably resemble the Pardon process with some bureaucracy doing a vetting. Scandal and corruption will undoubtedly happen. Popcorn will always be a sound investment. What i would really want to word it as is restoration of the right to participate in the Citizen Militia. That should include the right to vote, serve on a jury, obtain government employment or benefits, and bear arms. Under some circumstances non-citizen Nationals (largely from American Samoa these days) and Lawful Permanent Residents may be granted some of these rights, such as the right to serve in the armed militia or be subject to military service. This strikes me as a start to ensuring that the legislators represent the citizens.
“My suggestion is that all convicted felons be disqualified”
Why, I see them as the voters we need the most. You negotiate with enemies, not allies. The goal being making your enemy an ally. Criminals are criminals because they break laws. Allowing them to vote is one way of getting them back in the system. You are not punishing them by denying them the franchise.
“While I am not in favor of an Article V Convention some repair to the Constitution is needed.” Blast, ‘some repair’ is what an article 5 does.
The main difference between regular amendments and the Article 5 is the Article 5 is broader in application AND ( I might have this wrong) it allows States that disagree to leave the Union. Given any state leaving the Union won’t last 6 months without joining Canada, Mexico or one of the pacific rim nations, I don’t see that happening.
While China might make California an offer, that is too far out of the box for me even.