Electoral College: WTF?

Yes, we are all as confused as you are

Many of us have been confused and upset about the outcome of Tuesday's Presidential election. How could Donald Trump be elected when a majority of Americans voted for Hillary Clinton? Well, it's that time again when we all start to discuss how silly and quaint we find the Electoral College system to be in this country. In case you don't know, that is the system by which we actually elect our presidents, whereby each state votes separately in a winner take all arrangement. Each state's electors (actual people somehow appointed to that post) then cast their ballots for the candidate who carried his or her individual state. The practice dates back to the 1700's and was apparently a way to avoid the chaos of normal, everyday people casting actual binding votes for president. Certainly it is an antiquated system that, in today's world of instant communication, is completely unnecessary.

Until recently, the electoral college wasn't that controversial. In the first 200+ years of elections, only three times did the winner of the popular vote go on to lose the Electoral College. Recently however, in an increasingly divided country, this system has become more problematic. After Tuesday's result, two of the last five presidential elections have now gone to the loser of the popular vote (Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000). If the Electoral College is getting it wrong 40% of the time, that's a problem. If it's always getting it wrong in the same direction (to the GOP), that is a problem.

In addition, electoral votes are supposed to be allotted according to a state's population. Directionally, they are, but proportionally, they are not. This means states with higher populations do have more electoral votes, but not necessarily as a proportion of a state's population. States with smaller populations generally require fewer people per electoral vote (I'll call this PPEV). In fact, the bottom 10 states in population have about 300,000 PPEV. In contrast, the 10 most populous states have an average of about 650,000 PPEV. So, simple math tells us that, even if we thought the electoral college was a good way to elect a president, we still have larger states where an individual's vote is worth HALF of what it would be in a smaller state. This is a serious threat to democracy that goes completely unnoticed by most people.

That brings us to 2016, a particularly troubling case of the Electoral College going off the rails. With virtually all votes counted, it is looking like Hillary Clinton will win the popular vote by somewhere in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 votes (or about 0.2%) over Donald Trump. That's a victory of 47.7% to 47.5%. Not exactly a landslide, but a victory nonetheless. However, in the Electoral College, if we call the outstanding races for the current leaders, Trump will wind up beating Clinton 306 to 232. Trump will have won 57% of Electoral College votes compared to Clinton's 43%, completely out of line with the popular vote.

Of course, the popular vote and electoral vote are frequently out of proportion, but generally this disproportion is not meaningful.

· In 1960, John F. Kennedy topped Richard Nixon in the popular vote by a mere 113,000 votes, less than the margin in 2016. Kennedy, however, won the Electoral College by a healthy margin of 303 to 219 (58% to 42%). While this was a bit out of proportion with the tight popular vote, at least the two votes converged on the same candidate.

· In 1984, Ronald Reagan won the popular vote 58.8% to 40.6% over Walter Mondale. In a popular vote, that is seen as a landslide. But it is nothing compared to the landslide victory Reagan achieved in the Electoral College. Reagan took 525 of the possible 538 electoral votes, a 98% to 2% thrashing of Mondale. So while disproportionate to the outcome in the popular vote, it was a landslide either way and thus insignificant.

· Looking at a much more competitive example, the 2000 election was a nail biter both in the popular vote and the Electoral College. While Al Gore won the popular vote 48.4% to 47.9% over George W. Bush, Bush took the Electoral College 271 to 266, as the election swung on the votes in one state. So, while the Electoral College failed to capture the will of the people in 2000, it really came about as close as could reasonably be expected.

2016 is a rare example where the Electoral College system not only got it wrong, but by a wide margin. Because of the electoral buffer Trump enjoyed, it is entirely possible that Clinton could have won the popular vote by even more, say 2% to 3% (2 to 3 million votes) and still have lost the election. That scenario is clearly absurd, but not out of the realm of possibility. It now appears that our entire country has become gerrymandered to benefit one party.

So we have seen that the Electoral College doesn't weigh votes equally, and sometimes fails to capture the will of the people. But perhaps the most troubling side effect brought about by Electoral College is rampant voter apathy.  In theory, voters who live in a state where polling shows a wide lead for one candidate will be less enthusiastic to vote, or may "throw away" their vote on a symbolic third-party candidate. Looking at 2016 election data, this theory appears to hold true. Of the top 14 states in terms of voter turnout, 9 of them were in "swing states" where the outcome was ultimately decided by a 5% margin or less. In total, 12 states were decided by 5% or less and these states had an average voter turnout rate of 45.8%. In contrast, all other non-swing states had an average turnout of just 36.5%, nearly 10% less. Doing away with the Electoral College would mean every state is a swing state, thereby increasing voter turnout across the board. Most people feel more voting is good for democracy, but not everyone (See GOP voter suppression and intimidation efforts).

So what if we did away with the Electoral College and every state was in play? What would the 2016 election have looked like?

Let's assume that every vote counts and that voter turnout in every state reached the 45.6% level seen in the 2016 swing states. If we take every state's actual votes and weight them up to match the 45.6% voter turnout, Trump obviously still wins in the Electoral College format, but Clinton's popular vote margin increases significantly. Where, in reality, Clinton beat Trump 47.7% to 47.5%, the adjusted vote count given the higher turnout % gives Clinton a margin of 48.4% to 46.8%, an increase of more than a full percentage point over the actual margin of victory. Her vote margin of 200,000 to 300,000 now becomes 2 to 3 million, all because we made every state equally valuable to the outcome of the election.

Regardless of your party affiliation or who you supported in this election, shouldn't this be the goal to which our democracy strives? If your only defense of the Electoral College system is "That's how it's always been," that's not a real reason. It's time to actively and aggressively push to abolish the Electoral College in the interest of true representational democracy. No more winner take all, no more voter apathy, and no more elections in which a candidate is elected on a technicality. We can do this people, we just have to demand it.

What do you know, another Republican a-hole

"Testing...testing...is this thing on?"

Perverse sex scandals are becoming the norm for Republican politicians of late. It seems like almost every week, Americans are treated to a fresh story of some womanizing, adulterous conservative, likely elected on a campaign of "family values." From South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford's hot South American tryst to Senator John Ensign's affair with and subsequent payoff of a campaign staffer's wife, GOP sex scandals are starting to become commonplace.

But not this one.

Yesterday, KCAL-9 in Los Angeles reported that Michael Duvall, a Republican state assemblyman from Orange County, admitted - during a state assembly meeting - to having an elicit affair. This piece of human excrement bragged to a colleague about several women he was sleeping with (neither of whom was his wife, it appears). Oh, but it gets better. Duvall was speaking into a live mike without knowing it and the conversations were recorded. ThinkProgress has coverage of it here.



In addition, the two women were allegedly lobbyists for a utility company. Duvall was vice chairman of, you guessed it, the utilities committee. Duvall bragged openly about spanking the women and gave descriptions of their underwear. As you might expect, Duvall has been described by supporters as one who has voted "time and time again to protect and preserve family values in California."

Evidently this behavior was neither novel for Duvall nor surprising to many of his colleagues. KCAL-9 reporter Dave Lopez stated in the piece that:

According to sources, he loves to talk about his 'sexual conquest.' The source goes on to say "it makes us all feel very uncomfortable, but it's very difficult to get him to change the subject.''

I tried to find some good hypocritical "family values" stuff on Duvall from his own website before it was taken down, but alas, I was too late. All that remains of his campaign website is a one paragraph resignation statement:

"I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I have come to the conclusion that it would not be fair to my family, my constituents or to my friends on both sides of the aisle to remain in office. Therefore, I have decided to resign my office, effective immediately, so that the Assembly can get back to work."

Unlike fellow Republicans Ensign (w/ an employee), Sanford (w/ Argentine lady), David Vitter (whore) or Larry Craig (random airport restroom patron) , at least Duvall had the common decency to resign his office when his sexual indiscretions were exposed. If a double standard exists between Republicans and Democrats on this issue, it is for good reason. To my knowledge, John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and John Edwards didn't campaign with "family values" as a central issue, nor did they almost exclusively court these values voters. But apparently, as far as values voters are concerned, you can sleep around whenever and with whomever you want, but if you support a gay person's right to marry or believe in evolution, well, then you have no values.

While this story might seem like just another "gotcha" moment for the GOP, it really underscores some very serious problems with our government. The fact that at least one of the women was a lobbyist for the very industry Duvall was charged with regulating should not be taken lightly. While it is no secret that lobbyists and their corresponding corporate interests will readily throw money at politicians, throwing pussy at them is something entirely new to me. I can only imagine the board meeting where this was thought up:

CEO: Okay people. We need to have greater influence over the state utilities committee. Let's think outside the box here. Who is on that committee?

Woman #1: Uh, isn't that creep Michael Duvall like the vice chairman?

CEO: Yeah, I think you're right. What do we know about him? He likes to brag about sexual conquests. He's obnoxiously pro-values, so he probably hates his wife. Hmmm....We could send him some hookers, right? But in this economy, who has money for hookers anymore?

Woman #2: Uh, sir... Couldn't WE just fuck him?

CEO: Excellent idea!!! I like the way you think. Now let's get some lunch.

Now admittedly, I don't know all that goes on behind closed doors, but it's a fair to assume that many politicians are already richer that shit, to whom corporate payoffs may not amount to much. It's also not much of a stretch to assume some corporations and lobbying firms maintain women on their payroll to perform exactly this kind of function. If so, it's disgraceful, yet just more evidence that the American political system is gradually being flushed down the toilet.

One final amusing tidbit from the Michael Duvall saga. A source for KCAL-9 claimed that Duvall was overly cautious with what he said or did in Sacramento, saying "you gotta be real careful with what you say up here, because they could have microphones hidden in a salt shaker."

Uh, yeah.... Or hidden in a that microphone in front of your face. Priceless.

Barack Obama: The First Black Nazi

No, no, no, no , no. For the last time, NO!!!

It seems that every few months or so, the right wingers in this country need a world history refresher course. In particular, they keep forgetting that WWII-era fascism was a distinctly right-wing movement, and instead go about attacking Democrats by comparing their policies to those of fascist regimes like the Nazi party. A year ago, when election season was in full swing, these attacks were running rampant, inspiring me to author the post Right-Wing Delusions: The Liberal Nazi, debunking an idiotic viral email that was circulating at the time.

Well, the Right is at it again. President Obama and the Democratic majority in congress are attempting to make some long-awaited and much-needed changes to the country. Unfortunately for Democrats, we live in a country where people don't know their history and can only make superficial historical associations. The above picture, for example, illustrates this concept. Any kind of social reform in the U.S., whether it is welfare, Medicare, education grants, food stamps, or Social Security, is going to be labeled "socialism" by the right. That's just the way it is. The problem is, the righties don't just stop there. Almost a soon as they hear the word socialism, a few tenuously connected neurons in their brains tell them that socialism sounds an awful lot like "National Socialism," i.e. the Nazi Party. "Hey, the Democrats are Nazis! Obama is a Nazi!"

Hold on.

Let's take a brief time-out to re-educate the Right about National Socialism. The Nazi Party was a fascist regime. The party was anti-Communist, anti-liberal, and anti-intellectual. They were characterized by extreme nationalism and militarism, and religion was used as a way to control the masses. The Nazis were also clearly anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual. Hmmm.... Sound like anyone we know? The idea that the Nazis, and fascism in general, were far-right movements is hardly a matter of debate. As the following diagram of political ideology illustrates, fascism was not only a right-wing movement, but a "double-right" movement, residing on the extreme right of both the social and economic axes (and you'll note, fascism is only slightly more extreme than modern conservatism.)



The one area where Hitler shared an ideology with the left was his anti-corporate view that sought to end huge salaries for the wealthy in order to boost the economic fortunes of Germany's poor. Of course, this anti-capitalist ideology was driven in large part by Hitler's disdain for the Jews and what he saw as their hoarding of capital. Hitler was clear to distinguish between this kind of "socialism" and the Marxist ideology of ceding personal property to the state. And Hitler's means of creating equality and high employment was quite unlike modern Democratic Socialist movements. Democratic Socialism (which I will discuss further) is practiced in modern Germany and throughout much of Western Europe today. It seeks to improve economic equality through, among other things, state-sponsored education and health care, support of labor unions and a robust minimum wage. Hitler tried to achieve economic equality by seizing Jewish-owned businesses, encouraging women to stay out of the workforce, and by employing millions in an enormous military and military industrial complex.

Oh yeah. Ever heard of the Neo-Nazis? The unequivocally right-wing hate group dedicated to helping White Aryans prevent the United States from becoming "a wilderness teeming with savages," to quote the website of the American Nazi Party.

Of course the modern Nazi movements aren't so concerned with bringing about economic equality, nor is it Hitler's economic policies that right wingers are hoping to invoke when they compare Democrats to Nazis. The modern Republican Party has become a herd of sheep capable only of making simple associations and knee-jerk reactions. My theory is that when Republican politicians and talking heads continually talk down to their underlings, many of them simply flee the party. Those that remain never realize their intelligence is being insulted. So when Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh equate the Democratic Party with Nazism or fascism, the validity of such a comparison is rarely evaluated. It is simply accepted as fact, even though National Socialism and especially fascism are just about as diametrically opposed to the Progressive Democratic ideology as is possible.

It helps to understand that when Republican Party leaders compare Democrats with Nazis, they know it is a ridiculous claim to make, but they also know that their followers will not question it. What better way to discredit a political party than by equating it to one of the most oppressive, murderous and purely evil regimes in human history. As a political strategy, it is little more than very well-organized name-calling, yet it's surprisingly effective.

As we saw last summer, when the economy was in free fall and the GOP's chances of winning in 2008 were plummeting, Republicans will almost always play the Nazi/fascist card when backed into a corner. Take our current debate on health care reform. I'm certainly not opposed to debate on this issue because it is complicated and it effects many people very differently. However, in any debate, the opposing arguments must first be clearly defined. If President Obama's message is (or should be): "Healthcare costs are out of control," "Insurance companies are profiting by not treating you" and "People being bankrupted by hospital bills is un-American," then what is the opposing viewpoint? Healthcare costs are just fine, thank you? Healthcare-induced bankruptcy makes me proud to be an American? Well, no. Of course those are not the arguments being pursued by the Right. That would be insane. In their place, the right has peddled lies like "Death Panels," "government-sponsored abortion" and "euthanasia." And the Right's weapon of choice: Claims that Obama's rather modest healthcare proposals are essentially America's descent into Soviet-style socialism. What Obama and Democrats in congress are proposing is in reality a compromise between what we have now (a private insurer-dominated marketplace) and what modern capitalist nations like Canada, France, the UK and Sweden already have, a single-payer system. Essentially the current healthcare reform simply aims to extend the current Medicare system to people other than seniors, and enrollment would be completely voluntary.

According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll, roughly three-quarters of Americans feel major changes are needed to bring down healthcare costs and to insure the uninsured. Given that the proposed changes to healthcare are necessary, just, beneficial, cost-effective and popular, righties are again backed against into a corner. Time to play the Nazi card:

• Last week Rush Limbaugh said the Obama health care logo looked eerily similar to the Nazi Party logo. He even posted a graphical representation on his website, which bears the question, "Who's similar to Nazis?" The healthcare "logo" on Obama's website is essentially the standard Obama campaign logo with a caduceus on top of it. Of course the Obama logo just as easily resembles the U.S. Marines logo, but don't expect Rush to be comparing Obama to the Marines any time soon.
  

The Obama Healthcare logo

The Nazi logo from Limbaugh website

Marines logo

• On August 6, Limbaugh went on a diatribe claiming that the Democratic Party, modern Democratic socialism, and the Nazi Party are "all bundled up under the socialist banner."

• For several days, Glenn Beck has been pushing the eugenics angle. Somehow he has determined that Obama's health care reform will lead to the government essentially weeding out the weaker Americans as a cost-cutting measure. The whole rationing argument is so wholeheartedly stupid and irresponsible that it makes my brain hurt. As if private health insurers just treat anyone at any time for any condition. If anything, a government health program could offer more care because they aren't making a profit on your health. And what would you call leaving the poor, uninsured and underinsured to go broke or die because that's what the free market dictates? I know there's a word for that somewhere, you know, allowing the weakest of the species die off.... Damn! What is that word????!!!!
  

• Taking their cue from Beck and Limbaugh, right-wing protesters carried signs bearing swastikas and other Nazi comparisons, as blogger Motor City Liberal detailed in a recent post.

• A day after appearing on Glenn Beck's TV program, U.S. Rep. David Scott (D-GA) had his congressional office vandalized with a large swastika.

The list goes on and on. All this because Obama and the Democrats are seeking to fix a broken healthcare-for-profit system, for seeking to provide a basic human right. After all, it's illegal to refuse to treat a sick or injured person but it is perfectly legal to refuse to insure them. I'm sure there are elements of the proposed bills that are less than perfect. But to make up things about the bill that aren't there and to compare it's sponsors to murderous, fascist regimes is almost inhuman. Again, there are elements of Nazi Party socialism in nearly every modern socialist movement. But let's be honest. No one remembers Hitler for building the Autobahn or sponsoring great feats of German architecture. They remember him - as he should be remembered - as an egomaniacal, power-hungry propagandist who nearly exterminated a race of people and almost single-handedly started the most violent conflict in the history of the world. It is this impression of Nazism that is indelibly burned into the minds of millions of right-wing automatons when the Becks and Limbaughs of the world belittle the efforts of Democrats to bring about a more civilized America.

I will say this, though. If Obama wants to steer clear of all fascism and personality cult comparisons, he may want to tone down the whole propaganda poster thing.

Bad Day for the Birthers

Where's the birth certificate? Oh, right, there it is.

Last week I documented a right-wing phenomenon known as the "Birther" movement. The fringe, nut-job movement enjoyed about a week of mainstream media recognition. Albeit more about spectacle than legitimacy, they did get mainstream support from CNN's resident xenophobe Lou Dobbs, until Dobbs was instructed to drop the story by CNN management.

On Monday, the Birthers were dealt two severe blows to their already futile cause. First, the House of Representatives passed a resolution containing the provision, “Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii.” The resolution passed by a vote of 378-0, with four of the movement's biggest supporters in congress voting with the majority.

Also on Monday, the State of Hawaii certified the birth of Barack Obama in Hawaii, even though they had already this prior to the 2008 presidential election. Evidently beseiged with requests from media outlets and concerned citizens, the State Department of Health again confirmed that Obama "was born in Hawaii and is a natural-born American citizen."

So the question remains: Will double whammy finally put an end to the Birthers? If I know anything about right-wing nutjobs, I'm inclined to believe they will endure. I think this will probably put an end to the movement's support in congress as well as much of the mainstream media coverage. But the movement's most ardent believers won't be deterred by these latest realities because the Birther movement is not based in reality. The Birthers exist in a right-wing fantasy world, where George W. Bush was our greatest president, Sarah Palin is a rising political star, and Barack Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist from Kenya. As long as people are uncomfortable with Barack Obama being president they will continue support outrageous conspiracy theories in an attempt to somehow invalidate the Obama presidency.

Are you F#!&ING serious, people???

I apologize for the blunt and rather crass title of this post, but enough is fucking enough. Those who inhabit the right side of the political spectrum in this country are seemingly getting crazier by the day. For the first time in 15 years, the United States has a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress hell-bent on actually fixing some of the country's problems, and righty is not happy about it.


The latest lunacy advanced by the right is the notion that Barack Obama is somehow not a legitimate U.S. citizen, and thus ineligible to be President. Right-wing muckraker Jerome Corsi and the conservative website World Net Daily have led the crusade to invalidate the Obama presidency. While both sources of this myth appear to be profit-driven (i.e., Corsi's book The Obama Nation and WND's "Where's the Birth Certificate" line of merchandise), they have nonetheless garnered a huge conservative following.

Now bear with me, because I'm not really clear how their argument works. It is so nonsensical and convoluted that it actually hurts the brain. Basically, it goes something like this: Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen, therefore the junior Obama must not be. They also claim that the Obama administration has yet to produce a valid birth certificate. Both of these claims are hysterically false. The citizenship claim is fairly easily debunked by reading the U.S. Constitution. Article 2, Section 1 states that:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment states that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Assuming Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 - by that time a state - he meets all legal qualifications of both a U.S. citizen and a U.S. President. Evidently much of the confusion stems from the a misinterpretation of U.S. law. Snopes.com points out that the citizenship status of Barack Obama Sr. would only be relevant if Junior were born outside of the United States.

But what about that birth certificate? What if Obama wasn't really born in the United States?

Factcheck.org investigated this myth, obtaining the actual birth certificate and posting photos of it on their website. Birth announcements were also placed in two Honolulu newspapers at the time of Obama's birth in 1961. Factcheck.org offers this tongue-in-cheek explanation to further solidify the insanity of these beliefs:

Of course, it's distantly possible that Obama's grandparents may have planted the announcement just in case their grandson needed to prove his U.S. citizenship in order to run for president someday.

So it would appear that the slightest bit of research and a cursory perusal of the U.S. Constitution would have been sufficient to put this myth to rest long ago. To the contrary, the "Birther" movement, as it is called appears to be gaining momentum, or at the very least has warranted the attention of the mainstream press. The website Birthers.org claims that Obama's birth documents are forgeries and that Obama was likely born in Kenya or Indonesia. They even offer as evidence a prank-call style radio interview where a Kenyan official with limited English fluency is tricked into affirming that Obama's "birthplace" is in Kenya. (You really must hear this. It's the height of despicability).

Currently Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require presidential candidates to present a birth certificate and other supporting documents to prove he or she meets the requirements for the office of President. Ordinarily, this type of bill might not seem so extreme. I mean, why not certify the eligibility of the presidential candidates? The problem is that the United States is in the midst of her 44th presidency, and never before has a bill like this been deemed necessary. Hmmmm....What is so different about this President? Oh, right, he's a black man with a foreign-sounding name and a father from Kenya. When looked at in these terms, the Birther movement can be seen clearly for what it really is: a disturbing blend of racism and sour grapes. I don't like this President and he's kinda foreign or something....I know! He's not a citizen! And so it begins.

And so there is really only one more thing to say about the "Birther" movement: If you believe that Barack Obama is legally unqualified to be President of the United States, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary, then you are in fact an idiot. If you think the Democratic Party would squander the very favorable political environment of 2008 by running an ineligible candidate, you really don't understand presidential politics. Certainly the legitimacy of George W. Bush's wins in 2000 and 2004 is highly suspect among those on the left. The main difference between the two is that the left-wing protests are almost entirely based in FACT (mass disenfranchisement of minority voters in swing states, astronomical irregularities in exit polling vs. reported election results). The claim that President Obama lacks a birth certificate is not only not a fact, but it's not even an opinion. It's just wrong. It would be as if a group of people got organized around the idea that Cleveland is the capitol of Ohio (it's actually Columbus). Like the Obama birth certificate, Columbus being the capitol of Ohio is a FACT and a matter of public record. A "Cleveland Truth" movement would not be any more ridiculous than the Birther movement, yet somehow the Birthers endure. With the economy in the tank, jobs evaporating, a broken health care system and two less-than-successful wars going on, Americans don't have time for manufactured conspiracy.

For a timely metaphor, lets compare this fiasco to the current steroid controversy in Major League Baseball. Imagine that a highly successful player for the Boston Red Sox had passed drug test after drug test year after year beyond any doubt. What would you think of someone who still doubted the legitimacy of said player? Exactly.... Must be a Yankees fan.

Sorry Bin Laden. Cap-and-trade is the new public enemy #1.

I always kind of thought this was a bad thing

Okay, so what's with the five month layoff, you ask? It was a number of things, really. The post-election Obama euphoria probably dulled my otherwise keen sense for detecting right-wing nonsense. In addition, the very serious economic predicament in which this nation finds itself diminished, in my opinion, the importance of issues like gay marriage and intelligent design for the time being. You might say I'm waiting for the proverbial dust to settle following Obama's first round of economic stimulus, waiting to see if the Left has any clue how to fix this mess before slamming the Right for getting us into it in the first place.

But also, the Right itself became much less prominent after November, lacking any real leadership or focus of message. There was even some talk on the left of the eminent downfall of the Republican Party itself. I'm not so sure about that, but certainly the party of George W. Bush has been much less prominent since his departure from office in January. Sure an episode of lunacy from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would pop up periodically, but not to the degree to stir this sleeping giant. Until Now.

Two stories emerged last week that told me conservatives were still up to their old tricks, thus giving me the green light I've been seeking to pick up the blog once again. Those stories (which conservatives insist are connected) were the highly publicized "Tea Parties," bizarre displays of tax-induced angst that lay surprisingly dormant during the entire Bush era of government waste. The second was last week's release of a Department of Homeland Security report on radical right-wing extremist groups and conservatives' collective huff of righteous indignation and hypocrisy that followed.

I started to blog about both events and about the Right's collective effort to claim that the two events are unequivocally linked. Somewhere between Fox News audaciously claiming that liberal groups are more violent than right-wing groups and idiot righties dubbing Barack Obama a fascist, I just lost it. I got so bogged down in right wing craziness that I just couldn't continue. As with any prolonged layoff, like from exercise or substance abuse, I think I needed to work myself back into form gradually. Hence the following piece, which I came across on Think Progress, and I felt was just too good to be ignored.

I would again like to thank Think Progress and also the Washington Independent for bringing another GOP nutjob to my attention.

John Shimkus is a U.S. House of Representatives member from Illinois. Shimkus has been a global warming skeptic and opponent of greenhouse emissions regulation for some time. Today during a debate on a proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation, Shimkus made the following appeal:

I think this is the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country that I've ever experienced. I've lived through some tough times in Congress - impeachment, two wars, terrorist attacks. I fear this more than all of the above activities that have happened.

Really? Worse than 9/11?

"Cap-and-trade" is a pollution regulation policy that puts limits on the amount of pollutants that can be emitted. Companies or other groups who exceed their allowance may purchase (trade) with others to fulfill their needs, so as the total amount of emission allowed in the particular body (city, state, nation, etc.) remains fixed. If one believes the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the scientific consensus of every industrialized nation, global warming is a serious problem that is almost entirely caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution. Given that nearly the entire industrialized world is in agreement that greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced, how then is an effort in the U.S. to achieve this a greater threat to democracy than 9/11?

To answer that question, one must get to know Mr. Shimkus a little better. This is a man who opposes global warming legislation because he just doesn't feel it would make any difference. Why? That's right. Because God is taking care of it. We've heard this one before, like when Minnesota congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said in August 2008 that we don't need global warming legislation because "we all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet." Not to be outdone, Shimkus read scripture and invoked the creator Himself in a March 2009 senate hearing on climate change:




Not only will the earth end "only when God declares it is time to be over," as Shimkus asserts, but God already flooded the Earth once and promised he wouldn't do it again. ARE YOU CALLING GOD A LIAR?!!!

This is the point where a very lengthy discussion might ensue regarding the separation of church and state and the appropriateness of invoking religion in matters of science. I'll just say this: What a person chooses to believe in is his or her own choice and nothing should come between a person and their faith. Likewise, one person's faith should not intrude on a society's ability to better itself. Employing an ancient book to legislate complex scientific and political issues is reckless at best and at worst a sign of utter madness. I fear Mr. Shimkus is exhibiting more of the latter, and with leaders like this at the helm, it's no wonder the United States is bringing up the rear when it comes to addressing global climate change.

Now that we understand the kind of person we are dealing with here, let's return to Mr. Shimkus' recent comments regarding cap-and-trade, "the largest assault on democracy and freedom in this country" ever experienced by the congressman. It's unclear to me whether this is an attempt at hyperbole by Shimkus or whether he really is this nutty. I'm inclined to believe he just really is this nutty. One would have to reside pretty far to the right of the political spectrum to believe that governments have no role in sponsoring the health and safety of their citizens. Also inhabiting the lunatic right are those who believe it is every American's God-given right to consume as much fossil fuel as possible, and that infringing on that right is more heinous than the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That said, I've never known a Republican to pass up an opportunity to call someone or something "anti-American," so there's likely some method in his madness.

Mr. Shimkus' antics aside, global climate change is a legitimate concern and America has dragged her feet for way too long on this issue. It has been made abundantly clear that the consumption of fossil fuels is not a viable energy model for the future. Fossil fuels are limited in quantity and they pollute the planet, speeding global warming and negatively impacting public health. Any model of the future that assumes population growth is fundamentally at odds with fossil fuel consumption. If Americans want a future consisting of one oil war after another, fossil fuel addiction would be the way to guarantee that outcome. Right wingers will say that cap-and-trade will cause the cost of oil, coal and natural gas to skyrocket, as companies pass on the costs of cap-and-trade to consumers. Fine by me. Let fuel prices go through the roof. Our society is clearly at a crossroads with regard to energy. Fossil fuels are on the way out, and a dramatic increase in the cost of such fuels may be just the catalyst needed to bring about a more speedy extinction.

Obama and His Big Blue Paintbrush

Last night, Barack Obama won an election of tremendous historical and political significance. As an Obama supporter, I'm certainly very pleased with the victory as well as the positive reception his election has received around the world.

But my celebratory exterior belies the nerd within. I must have spent 18 out of the last 24 hours staring at that electoral map, trying to uncover the secrets behind Obama's lopsided drubbing of John McCain. Certainly, if you are one to believe the pre-election polling, this kind of performance was expected of Obama. In spite of these polling data, McCain's claims of a comeback and the so-called "Bradley Effect" left many on both sides of the aisle uncertain about what would happen on November 4th. As it turns out, the election went almost exactly according to the pre-election polling. Obama even stands to add icing to the cake if he wins either of the two remaining undecided races in Missouri and North Carolina.

So how did he do it? I'll save the hard analysis for another day, but studying the electoral map and comparing it to the 2004 election geography, some very telling facts arise that help tell the story of Obama's victory:

• If you give North Carolina to Obama and Missouri to McCain (as it appears it will go), Obama will end up winning 364 electoral votes, 94 more than is needed to win and 78 more than Bush's 286 electoral votes won in 2004. It is also 26 more than Karl Rove predicted.



• In addition to holding every blue state from 2004, Obama won nine states in 2008 that John Kerry lost: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.



• In addition to the newly acquired blue states, Obama pushed McCain in other traditionally red states. Obama got within ten percentage points of McCain in seven states carried by Bush in 2004: Missouri (-1 point), Montana (-3 points), Georgia (-5 points), North Dakota (-8 points), South Dakota (-8 points), Arizona (-9 points) and South Carolina (-9 points). Bush carried these states by an average of 16.3 points.



• In the 2004 "Bush States," Bush beat Kerry by an average margin of victory of 18.2 percent. In these same states in 2008, McCain beat Obama by an average of only 9.5 percent.



• Obama won his home state of Illinois by 25 points, while McCain won Arizona by only 9 points. (Obama also won his former home state of Hawaii by 45 points.)



• In 2004 Kerry won six states by 3 or fewer points: Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Obama won these same six states by an average of 12.3 points.



• Compared to Bush in 2004, McCain performed better in only two states, Louisiana and Arkansas. McCain did roughly the same in Alaska and Tennessee, and worse than Bush in the remaining 46 states.