Cleavage

David Horsey's column from Friday notes the nervousness GOP leaders are feeling with respect to the ongoing presidential nomination campaign. So far there have been three winners in the first three contests, but that's not what worries them. What worries them is that one of those winners is Newt Gingrich, a man who appears to be gaining momentum.

After Gingrich, former speaker of the House, hammered the former Massachusetts governor in the South Carolina primary, many Republican members of Congress began to fear for their jobs, or at least for their chance to hold the House and take the Senate in the November election. Gingrich’s negatives are so high and his reputation for erratic behavior so big that they are convinced he could not beat President Obama and would drag down many Republican candidates with him.

Gingrich is not well-liked by many of the people he worked with in Congress. In fact, loathing may better characterize their feelings. [Emphasis added]

It's long been clear that Republican leaders expected Mitt Romney to have an easy time of it. It's also long been clear that this was the preferred outcome. That's understandable. Almost everyone in the nation suspected Gingrich was simply in the race to promote himself and his books. He'd make a few speeches, a few appearances, and then he'd go away after getting trounced by the main candidate. Apparently we all forgot what happened in 2010: the grassroots on the right was tired of business as usual and turned out to elect people more in line with what the Tea Partiers wanted.

Gingrich might lose in Florida tomorrow, but he's not going away anytime soon, according to his comments on Saturday:

On the weekend before the pivotal Florida primary, Newt Gingrich vowed Saturday to stay in the race for the Republican presidential nomination until the national convention this summer even if he loses Tuesday's vote. ...

..."You just had two national polls that show me ahead," he said. "Why don't you ask Gov. Romney what he will do if he loses" in Florida.

Yes, this is typical Gingrich braggadocio, but he has a point. He's doing just fine right now, and he has access to some pretty deep pockets to help keep his campaign up and running. Citizens United has been a boon to him and will presumably continue to work in his favor. Why should he quit now?

Mitt Romney has had to change his approach to campaigning by turning to attack ads and speeches, which gives Newt an opening to do the same. As a result, the two men are making President Obama's job much easier. The Republican candidates are so busy ripping into each other, pointing out flaws and flip-flops, that they are doing the opposition research for the enemy. And that might very well cost Republicans not only the White House, but also the Senate and House of Representatives.

It's a long time to November, but it might very well be the most fun lefty wonks have had in a long time. I know that I've been enjoying myself, although I've had to cut the butter and salt I've been using on the popcorn for health reasons.

Sunday Poetry: Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Bird With Two Right Wings


And now our government
a bird with two right wings
flies on from zone to zone
while we go on having our little fun & games
at each election
as if it really mattered who the pilot is
of Air Force One
(They're interchangeable, stupid!)
While this bird with two right wings
flies right on with its corporate flight crew
And this year its the Great Movie Cowboy in the cockpit
And next year its the great Bush pilot
And now its the Chameleon Kid
and he keeps changing the logo on his captains cap
and now its a donkey and now an elephant
and now some kind of donkephant
And now we recognize two of the crew
who took out a contract on America
and one is a certain gringo wretch
who's busy monkeywrenching
crucial parts of the engine
and its life-support systems
and they got a big fat hose
to siphon off the fuel to privatized tanks
And all the while we just sit there
in the passenger seats
without parachutes
listening to all the news that's fit to air
over the one-way PA system
about how the contract on America
is really good for us etcetera
As all the while the plane lumbers on
into its postmodern
manifest destiny

--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Sunday Funnies

(Editorial cartoon by Lee Judge / The Kansas City Star (January 27, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC. Click on image to enlarge.)

Bonus Critter Blogging: African Grey Parrot

(This photo was snagged from here. This is NOT the picture I wanted to post.

What I wanted to post was a photo of Tlaz's African Grey, Koga, also known as the Kogasaurus. Unfortunately, I couldn't download that photo, but you can check it out by clicking on this link. I think you'll find it worth the effort.

Here's what Tlaz has to say about Koga:

Koga is a subspecies of African grey, called a 'Timneh'. The full species name is Psittacus erithacus timneh. They are smaller and darker grey than the nominate species (which is commonly called a 'Congo'). Timnehs also have maroon tails instead of the bright red ones, and their top beak has a pinkish stripe on it, while the Congo African grey's beak is all black. The different subspecies come from slightly different, though somewhat overlapping, areas of Africa, the Timneh's distribution being more in the northwestern part of the range, and the Congo coming more strictly from throughout the Congo River basin.


Koga had her name when I got her, when she was about 6-7 years old as best as we can tell. It is the Cherokee word for 'crow.' I've had her now for almost 21 years, so she is probably at least 26 years old.)

Some Welcome News

Another provision of "Obamacare" is about to kick in. It's not as dramatic as required coverage for pre-existing conditions and the opportunity to cover children over 18 on their parents plan, but it is still a very helpful one. It's also one that didn't get much publicity at the time Congress was considering the bill, although I am sure the lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies were busy trying to scuttle it. Fortunately, they failed.

The provision requires that pharmaceutical and medical device companies report most of the gifts and payments made to doctors. Free samples of medication are excluded from the reporting requirement, but free lunches and free trips to exotic places for "seminars" are not.

From a Los Angeles Times editorial:

The proposed regulations, which are going through a period of public comment, are appropriately strict in ways that would both protect patients and reduce medical costs. The payments and gifts would be available on a searchable public website. Free samples of drugs would be exempt from reporting, but otherwise, anything worth more than $10 total for the year would have to be disclosed. ...

Physicians who received research funding and other payments from pharmaceutical companies have sat on advisory boards for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and have recommended drugs made by those companies. A survey published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2010 found that 71% of doctors had accepted food from drug companies, and that doctors who took payments were more likely to prescribe those companies' expensive brand-name medications rather than cheaper generics. ...

The provision does not ban such payments outright, but it does require reporting, which is a very healthy beginning. Even if patients don't flock to the website before making their decisions on a newer drug or a particular device, it's at least available.

In other words, the website will be a force for good even if few patients examine it. Watchdog organizations and news reporters will use it. For many doctors and pharmaceutical companies, the knowledge that their actions will be held up to public light is enough to curb the potentially troubling behavior.

Exactly so.

And the change is long overdue.

Friday Cat Blogging

"What? I'm busy right now."

Not A Bad Week, All In All

President Obama, now in campaign mode, had a pretty good week, all things considered. His State of the Union address struck a populist note, thereby mollifying some of his base. He's continued that populism as he's toured several states and the messages seem to have been well-received. Even the rather strange incident on the tarmac with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appears to have worked in his favor, although David Horsey suggests in his latest column that Brewer got in her licks as well. She may have indeed scored points with her conservative constituents, but as Horsey's cartoon illustrates, she did come across as a bit of a harridan to the rest of us.

Horsey does note one important thing about that incident: the days of the imperial presidency are over.

The time is long passed when U.S. presidents could expect much deference from anyone, especially from a member of the opposition party. Between appearances with Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey and the general nastiness of partisan politics these days, the presidency has lost much of its aura of majesty. Presidents now are more like British prime ministers -- open to confrontation, even during an airport greeting.

I think Horsey is right in that respect, especially during an election year. Will that work against the president? At this point, I doubt it, especially since the Republican candidates for his job are making things ever so much easier for him, as Doyle McManus points out his brief response to last night's GOP debate in Florida:

Gingrich seemed a little hesitant to climb into the ring. Asked about his statement earlier this week that Romney “lives in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island bank accounts,” the former House speaker said the charge didn’t merit repeating in the solemn dignity of a CNN debate.

That gave Romney an opening. “Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations someplace else that they weren’t willing to defend here?” he asked. OK, Gingrich replied, have it your way. “I don’t know of any American president who had a Swiss bank account,” he said.

The winner? There wasn’t one -- not onstage, at least. Rick Santorum turned in a good performance, criticizing both Romney and Gingrich for their past support of government-mandated health insurance, but he’s running a very distant third in Florida. Ron Paul slammed both front-runners, too, but he’s running fourth. The polls in Florida show Romney and Gingrich neck and neck. If anyone won Thursday evening, it may have been Barack Obama.

Like I said, for President Obama it was not a bad week, all in all. Of course, November is still a little over nine months away.

That reminds me: I need to pick up some more popcorn.

In The Cross-hairs

(Picture found here.)

Yesterday, Arizona Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords made her last appearance at the House of Representatives. According to all accounts, it was an emotional occasion.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords returned to the House floor one final time as her colleagues approved her bipartisan border security bill on the day she officially stepped down from office.

Friends have said the Arizona Democrat has never been one to tackle her goals halfway. It was fitting, then, that she closed out her career with a legislative victory.

The day was bittersweet as emotional colleagues said farewell to the well-liked congresswoman, described by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) as an "extraordinary daughter of this House," who announced she would step down this week to focus on her recovery.

House Speaker Boehner accepted her formal letter of resignation with tears in his eyes, although that in itself in not unusual. The accolades from both sides of the aisle were, however, unusual, especially for this Congress. It's clear that Rep. Giffords was indeed well-liked and well-respected, no mean feat in the bitterly partisan 112th Congress.

Giffords, who suffered massive head injuries in a shooting by a crazed young man, might have been better honored if her colleagues had been so moved by the atrocity that they passed some stronger gun and ammunition laws. Alas, they were obviously not that distraught. After all, that would be tampering with the will of the NRA.

Ironically, on the day that the Giffords appearance was taking place at the nation's capital, another appearance took place in Missouri's:

Just hours before Giffords made her way into the nation's Capitol, an unknown provocateur was stalking the halls of the Missouri Capitol, tagging the doors of lawmakers—most of them Democratic women—with images of rifle crosshairs.

The picture which heads this post shows the stickers in question. The stickers are more than a little reminiscent of the symbol used by Sarah Palin in targeting incumbents up for re-election in 2010.

Palin and other conservatives strongly rejected the notion that their imagery and rhetoric had anything to do with the bloodbath in Arizona a year ago. And no one can know what was truly in the deranged mind of Jared Loughner. But common sense says that when enough targeted political vitriol mixes with enough guns, bad things will eventually happen.

Exactly so, especially when the mood of the entire electorate is sour beyond belief. It's clear that we are in for some hard times.

It Could Happen

President Gingrich?

It could happen, according to David Horsey's latest column.

No matter how much money Mitt Romney spends, money can’t buy him the love of conservatives. His awkward and often tone-deaf performance on the campaign trail has brought him close to becoming an object of ridicule – the kiss of death for any politician.

Rick Santorum’s claim to the hearts and minds of those same conservatives was rejected in South Carolina. And, Monday night during the debate in Florida, his glee at the prospect of war with Iran did not come across as tough, it came across as scary.

And Ron Paul? Well, he performs a great service by injecting an occasional reality check into the debates – as he did on Monday night by knocking down Gingrich’s claim to have willingly and nobly resigned from the speaker’s job in the wake of GOP losses in the 1998 election. But Paul’s anti-war libertarianism will never prevail in the party most enamored of the military industrial complex.

And so there is Gingrich. He has become a contender because he is unusually articulate, spouts lots of intelligent-sounding big ideas and channels the anger of the core Republican electorate. For now, they are overlooking or forgiving his many personal flaws.

Mitt Romney is no longer the "given" in the GOP campaign for the reasons Horsey lists and for one he didn't. After finally giving in and providing his tax returns we learn that Mitt and his wife did in fact pay nearly 15% of his income (all of it apparently from investments)in taxes. The total paid: $3 million, which is more than most Americans earn in a lifetime. When that fully sinks in, no doubt with the help of his Republican opponents and the Obama campaign, a lot of Americans are going to be turned off.

There is a chance, then, that absent a brokered convention, Gingrich will be the Republican nominee. That's a scary thought all by itself.

Does that mean it should be a walk in the park for President Obama?

Not exactly. As Horsey points out, a lot depends on the state of the economy come November. If unemployment and underemployment hasn't eased and if Americans sink further into debt with no hope of ever catching up, they will be in a foul mood. And if President Obama can't pin the failure to grow the economy on an obstructionist Republican party, he will justifiably be held accountable.

Last night's State of the Union address shows that the president is aware of what has to be done. The trick will be to get it done, or at least be seen to have made a valiant effort to do so. That means he has to stop his "get along" approach, and I'm not sure he's capable of doing so.

Needless to say, I would love to be proved wrong.

They Did What?

Well, slap my face and call me Fanny. The US Supreme Court issued an opinion which both delighted and surprised me in all sorts of ways. Yesterday's opinion came down on the correct side of the Fourth Amendment.

The Supreme Court confronted for the first time the government's growing use of digital technology to monitor Americans and ruled strongly in favor of privacy.

The court said the Constitution generally barred the police from tracking an individual with a GPS device attached to a car unless they were issued a warrant from a judge in advance. But the ruling could limit a host of devices including surveillance cameras and cellphone tracking, legal experts said. ...

Even the justices who most often side with prosecutors rejected the government's view that Americans driving on public streets have waived their right to privacy and can be tracked and monitored at will. At least five justices appeared inclined, in the future, to go considerably beyond the physical intrusion involved in putting a GPS device on a car and rule that almost any long-term monitoring with a technological device could violate an individual's right to privacy. [Emphasis added]

What is so stunning is that all nine justices agreed that the state clearly violated the Fourth Amendment with the warrantless imposition of a tracking device on the defendant's car. That all nine could agree on anything is something of a surprise; that they would all agree that even defendants in a drug case are entitled to constitutional protections is nothing short of a miracle.

But wait, there's more: five justices seem willing to extend the ruling to other technological monitoring such as cell phone tracking. This decision didn't go that far, but the various concurring opinions seem to point in that direction should the right cases come along.

What a wonderful way to start the week.