RIP Sen. Ted Kennedy

I just find it too bad one of the last pieces of legislation he was aiming for was getting rid of the 2004 Massachusetts law he supported. Hopefully even though he's passed away, the Massachusetts legislature won't do anything as shamelessly hypocritical as to wipe away their old 2004 law.

Before a legislator votes on anything, he should ask himself, "Would I be okay with this law regardless of who is in power?" If the answer is "No" then their vote should be "No."

Intelligent Health-Care Debate

On one side, the Democrats wants to pass universal health care. On the other side, the Republicans want to keep government out of health care. Now the best thing for Americans to do at this time would clearNAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! GOEBBELS!! NAZI NAZI SWASTIKA!!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!!

Whoa, okay that person sat down. Now we live in a society where health care costs are rising, premiums are rising, and yet we keep NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!!

Excuse me. I realize to show up to a debate, it helps to have passion, but the passionate ones on both sides are the fringes. Can we reasonable people try to actually solve this NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI SWASTIKA GOOSESTEPPING BROWNSHIRTS!!!

Oh, I've run out of time.

Sen. Kennedy wants to change his own law

Ted Kennedy wanted Massachusetts succession law to be what it is now because he was worried then Republican governor Mitt Romney could appoint a Republican senator for Massachusetts if Democratic senator John Kerry won the 2004 Presidential election. But it seems lawmakers aren't willing to rewrite the law back and forth every few years.

Millions of fringe Americans

Let's play fast and loose with some numbers. The last paragraph in Kuhn's article on fringe partisans rang true for me. I have friends I would consider fanatic Democrats and fanatic Republicans. So if 34% of voters call themselves Democrats and 24% of voters call themselves Republican, and 35% of those Democrats are fanatics (Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand, Glenn Beck is evil, etc.), and 28% of those Republicans are fanatics (Obama was born in Kenya, Chris Matthews is Satan). Now if there were 100,000,000 voters (I'm probably way-off there but let's keep it round and simple), 34 million are Democrats and of them, that makes 11.9 million fanatic lefties. These are the people who wouldn't mind Sarah Palin dying in a plane crash, who visit DailyKos every day, believe everything MediaMatters says, watch Keith Olbermann every night, who think Dick Cheney is more evil than Joseph Stalin, and are quick to hate anyone with an (R) by their name. Of the 24 million Republicans, 6.72 million won't miss Sean Hannity, get all their news from Newsmax and WorldNetDaily, think Obama secretly wants to turn us into the Soviet States of America, that the government will play eugenics on old people if the health care bill passes, and are quick to hate anyone with a (D) by their name. And both of them are quick to see the mote in the eyes of their brethren across the aisle without noticing the beam in their own.

So based on these flimsy numbers, we have a lot of crazies. But if almost 19% of the electorate is extremist, is it really crazy? Is it really fringe? Maybe this lends some light as to why so many communites online that deal with politics are so mean-spirited and nasty. And I go back to this paragraph:

A few years ago, an Emory psychologist scanned the brains of self-described partisans. Partisans were able to notice the hypocritical statements of the opposing candidate but not the inconsistencies of their preferred candidate. Ideology, it was determined, showed effects similar to drug addiction.

Now there is an ebb and flow to power, and also party affiliation. The Democrats gained in 1992, and lost in 1994, gained in 1996, lost in 2000, lost in 2004, gained big in 2006 and 2008.

Remember how lost and disorganized the Democrats seemed in 2004? Then they found a leader they could rally behind in Obama (and benefitted from Bush's failures with Abu Ghraib, Katrina, and the recession). The Republicans are now where the Dems were in 2004, except their 2008 might not happen until 2012 or 2016 or 2020, depending when the good leader emerges.

We Need a Bipartisan Lottery

This would be one of my dreams. I absolutely, whole-heartedly believe our country would be better off if we adopted this.

The first week of December 2010, the Democratic and Republican chair-people schedule when their primaries and caucuses are going to be. Not where, but when.

Let's say they set it up this way:

First Week of January 2011 - one state

Second Week of January 2011 - one state

Third Week of January 2011 - one state

Fourth Week of January 2011 - three states

and then from there, have one state on Monday and then Super Tuesday the first week of February 2011 with seven states, and it goes from there.

Then do a lottery. And every four years, the lottery happens again, to determine the state order. The order's determined a year in advance so states can get ready. And this way, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina will stop picking the presidential nominees each year, and our entire energy economy will not be based on corn.

Examples:
I just put 2011 through a simulator and got this order:

1. Connecticut
2. Texas
3. Utah
4. Oregon, Washington, West Virginia
7. Wisconsin
8. (SuperTuesday) - New Mexico, New York, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Vermont, Wyoming

And for 2015, this order:

1. Virginia
2. Louisiana
3. Vermont
4. Montana, Nebraska, West Virginia
7. Connecticut
8. (SuperTuesday) - Alabama, Connecticut, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah

So, it may be some states appear in the top seven two election cycles in a row, but that's different than now, when it's the same states dictating every four years what the rest of the country is going to do.

How dare Sarah Palin be normal!

Politico's Roger Simons assesses her sins.

My 2-1/2 Cents on the Weekend in Politics

MY 2-1/2 CENTS ON THE WEEKEND POLITICS

Cent #1 - Unemployment is now at 9.5%. Joe Biden said everyone underestimated how bad the economy was. (Not everyone...) The stimulus package saved government jobs and created new ones, but the private sector is getting decimated. Yes, Pres. Bush got this thing rolling. Yes, Hank Paulson did his buddies at Goldman Sachs a favor by letting their competitor Lehman Brothers fail. Yes, the Republican Congress failed to act like republicans and enabled Bush on his spending spreee. But after a while, the Obama Administration needs to stop blaming the past when it's doing nothing to help our present and future. Obama's tripled, almost quadrupled the deficit, in the name of "saving" jobs; meanwhile Congress is passing laws that'll increase the size of government but lose more private-sector jobs. And if unemployment hits 11%, they'll report that Obama has "saved" 89% of the jobs in America.

Cent #2 - Sarah Palin is quitting as governor of Alaska in the middle of her first term because of "country first" saying that all the erroneous ethics charges her opponents are throwing at her are wasting the time and money of Alaskans. So her enemies got their way. This seriously damamges her chances and credibility of a 2012 presidential run. The worst thing that could've happened to her was for John McCain to pick her as his vice-presidential running-mate. If he hadn't, she'd still be the most popular governor in the union; she could finish out her term as governor, and then get the ball rolling for a 2012 bid. As is, she was thrust in the limelight, demonstrated she wasn't ready (her Katie Couric interview was her own fault; just name a freaking newspaper!), and she was castigated by her enemies with rare zeal.

But again, her enemies got their way. She's only making Mitt Romney look more presidential.

Cent #2-1/2 - I'm already over Michael Jackson's death. Yes, he was huge, but there were times where I wanted to see what the latest was on Iran or Honduras, and there's someone interviewing Corey Feldman or MJ's former nurse.

Hope you had a good Fourth of July!

Two 2012 GOP hopefuls cheat

Nev. Sen. John Ensign and SC Gov. Mark Sanford have both had to admit to extramarital affairs this week.

So Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Eric Cantor, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, etc., pay attention.

You are Republican.

Do. Not. Commit. Adultery.

And Newt, you're done. Please don't run.