No Dems on Recall Ballot
(from
Mark A. R. Kleiman) McAuliffe says that there will be
no Democrats on the California recall ballot"I want the folks here in California to know that we are not going to have another Democrat on the ballot. I think that is the single biggest message I can give today," DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe said at a downtown news conference.
"So if you're a California voter and you want to vote to recall Gray Davis, you are not going to have an option but a bunch of right-wing conservatives on the ballot," McAuliffe said.
I think the CA Governorship is Nader's for the taking. Get started on establishing residency, Ralph!
Boston Sucks
Ok, another one for Western Mass -- watch Red Sox Nation July 22nd @7pm on Northampton Community Television (NCTV), Channel 15. They are running a contest to name an ice cream flavor for the Red Sox. My girlfriend and I (being displaced Yankee fans) submitted the following entries.
- Bucky Dent Crunch: Mint ice cream with Nestle Crunch pieces (commemorates the Dent homer over the mint-green monster in the '78 playoff game)
- Curse of the Bambino: Butter scotch ice cream with Baby Ruth pieces (Babe Ruth loved to drink scotch and eat butter)
- 1918 Praline: Vanilla ice cream with pralines (1918 is the last time the Sox won the series)
- Ted Williams' Head: Frozen coconut ice cream with blueberries and splendid splinters of chocolate (Ted Williams' Head was frozen after his death by his son -- I assume his head is now blue -- he was known as The Splendid Splinter)
- Pudge Ripple: Mint ice cream with fudge ripples (to commemorate Pudge Fisk's homerun over the Green Monster in game 6 of the '75 series)
- Boston Sucks: Red Bean ice cream with lollipop pieces (Bean = Boston and Lollipop = Sucks)
If we win we get free Bart's ice cream all year. I think that maybe
Pudge Ripple has a chance, even though I picked him because he was the last Sox player
who didn't choke (although they lost the series the next day).
Genius!
This sums up why I like Dean (
Joe Rospars commenting on his own post on Not Geniuses)
Howard Dean is out there playing offense for the Democratic Party. He's out there shaming the other side, not triangulating it. Health care is a "moral issue" and we need a foreign policy consistent with "high moral purpose" that reflects "American values".
Clinton got by co-opting GOP policy initiatives when it suited him. Dean is the next step in dismantling Republican majorities and taking over the center: he's co-opting their rhetoric and world view, and showing the extremeness of their policies.
No one has been playing effective offense for Democrats in a truly partisan way for a long time. That's Howard Dean's appeal to the left.
I don't care that I don't agree 100% with Dean because a President Dean will get more of my agenda done than anyone else running for President. Dean can inpire people who don't agree with him on everything, and that's the essence of electability.
Only 33 Lobbyists
Yesterday, on
Lawrence Lessig's Blog, Howard Dean (guest blogging) wrote:
There are now 33 lobbyists for every member of congress. How do we change that?
But, the problem is the number of lobbyists is too low. James Madison wrote in Federalist #10
"Extend the sphere and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens...."
And Howard Dean is doing that better than any candidate has in recent memory. Since I started volunteering for Dean I've joined many "factions" (MoveOn, DNC, Lambda, and many others). By adding your voice (and money) to the causes you support, you are taking power away from those 33 lobbyists.
Shocked, Shocked
I don't understand how
this is news:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — While only a freshman, Maurice Clarett emerged as a star tailback last fall and helped lead Ohio State to an undefeated season and the national championship. But Clarett's work in the classroom was not as assured as his moves on the football field, and he received some unusual assistance to pass one of his courses.
Clarett walked out of a midterm exam last fall in an introductory course in African-American and African studies without completing the exam. He never retook the midterm and did not take the final exam. But he passed the course after taking oral exams instead, an Ohio State official said.
For one, the idea of a "student"-athlete getting special treatment being a new thing is just so crazy and out of touch with reality that it's hard to take any of this seriously.
But it started to get me thinking about
this Calpundit post from yesterday.
The uranium story is important not because it was a linchpin of the administration's argument for war, but simply because it's a smoking gun.
In 1987, with Iran/Contra closing in, Ronald Reagan and his advisors were genuinely afraid of the possibility of impeachment. And why not? After all, no one seriously doubts that Reagan knew what was going on. But in the end, John Poindexter took the fall, no smoking gun was ever found, and the Democratic Congress never brought charges.
Flash forward to 1998. Conservatives had been convinced for years that Bill Clinton lied and abused his position relentlessly. But their furious assaults went nowhere until they found a stained dress. Then, despite the fact that sex with an intern was surely the least of all the charges against him, impeachment became a reality.
Still, I think it's silly to pretend that star-athletes who play for colleges are there for a degree. Also, taking a makeup oral exam hardly seems out of line. I went to a small engineering school with no sports program and we had the concept of a makeup exam.
