AP Reading

After a day of work, I think I'm leaning towards protesting the new AP exam, though for different reasons.

The new exam is more than a little dumbed down.

Why Is Marty O'Malley Running?

Marty O'Malley is trying to run as the liberal alternative to Clinton.  But with Bernie Sanders in the race, where is the oxygen for him?  He has a decent reputation as a left of center technocrat.  He doesn't exactly have an abundance of charisma either.

And then there is Baltimore.

O'Malley is probably best known as being the inspiration for a character on The Wire. And that character was part of the data driven policing that The Wire exposes as being a fraud.  Add on to that Freddie Gray's death and the turmoil over police tactics and it's tough to see where he can stand apart from Hillary.  If Clinton is vulnerable, it is because of the basic legacy of the Clinton '90s.

In the '90s, the Clintons had to tack right because that's where the country was.  But that makes her complicit in some of the failures that the left sees in the Clinton Legacy: welfare reform, too cozy with Wall Street, too hawkish, triangulation.

Right now, economic populism is a popular stance with the "Warren Left," and everyone is clamoring for that.  But Clinton is staking out that territory and Sanders lives there.  O'Malley can't run to Clinton's left on race, and Sanders equates race with economics.

The only real space on Clinton's left is foreign policy and I'm not sure that will be as decisive as it was in 2008.

The Hastert Rules

Pretty vague at the moment as to what the former Speaker was trying to cover up.  It would seem to be from his time as a high school teacher and wrestling coach.  That's a little different from public malfeasance.

It seems pretty clear he broke the law - that he helped pass - regarding bank withdrawals.  And then he lied about it.  If he lied, the question immediately becomes about what.

Hastert was largely considered the least corrupt, least dogmatic possibility for Speaker.  He wasn't Tom Delay.  If he was covering up some sordid fact from his past that's one thing.  But if he was engaged in public crimes as a House member or Speaker, then that's quite another.

I can only say it so many times: One party sees government as a tool to improve the common weal.  One grand old party sees government as a source of enrichment for them and their friends.

UPDATE: Turns out it was creepy sex stuff.  How sad in so many ways.

Who The Hell Is The Frontrunner?

I know we're a long way from even beginning to winnow the field for the GOP nomination, but there isn't anyone we can plausibly call a frontrunner.  It's obvious that HRC is the Democratic frontrunner.  At this point in 2008, we had her and Rudy Giuliani as frontrunners.  In 2012, it was Mittens.

But right now, it's just a ridiculous free for all.

Jeb "JEB!" Bush has faltered badly on basic political competency and may have already lost the critical "Fox Primary."  Rick "Don't Google Me" Santorum should have the claim as "runner-up from before."  But he's mired in the single digits.  Rand Paul is simply too much of an apostate.

I kind of thought Scott Walker was going to sneak in based on his unoffensiveness to the base.  He hates unions and science and government, so they can ignore his basic charisma deficiency.

Now it turns out he has a major corruption scandal brewing.  This is completely unsurprising, as Walker's entire political career is based on renting out government to private enterprise.  Walker is one of many exhibits of the fundamental dysfunction at the heart of conservative political philosophy.  But outright corruption could be a deal breaker.  It's already sunk the Outlaw Jersey Whale.

OK, Marco Rubio... It's your turn in the spotlight.  The hot, hot spotlight.

Don't forget your water.

Den Of Thieves

The US is going after the organized crime syndicate known as FIFA.

This is a good thing.  The US is powerful enough and soccer agnostic enough to take on this swamp of corruption and bribery.

Maybe go after the IOC next?

Ash Carter Steps In It

The Secretary of Defense just screwed up.  I'm not sure what compelled him to say that, but the last thing America needs to do is:

A) tear down the ISF.

and

B) provide any more grist for the War Party's mill.

ISIS took a town it had been besieging for months.  It's a defeat.  Defeats happen. The overall war isn't going well for ISIS, however, and Ash Carter - of all people - should know that.

Lindsey Graham Is A Dickweed

Senator Huckleberry Closetcase really needs to shut the hell up.  He is now spouting a bunch of racist nonsense about Iranians that doesn't begin to pass any sort of sniff test.  Here is the nut 'graph:

“The Iranians cheat and they lie. They are a radical regime," he said. "They want a master religion for the world; the Nazis wanted a master race."

Ok, Huckleberry, stop with the vapors and retreat to your fainting couch.  His logic is based on the fact that Iranians are liars because he worked in a pool hall and a bar and the Iranians were liars.  So the problem is that the Imams who run Iran - who don't tolerate gambling and alcohol - are the same as whoever the hell were these Iranians living in South Carolina when Lindsey Graham was a lad.  And Iranians don't want a "master religion."  They want Muslims to live under Muslim law.  That's pretty much it.  Oh, and they are our allies against ISIS, you dipshit.

At this point the pathology of the War Party is so pronounced as to be slightly embarrassing.  It's like the revered old vicar who gets plastered on a cup of sherry and then starts talking about the thighs of the ladies in the choir.  Everyone gets really nervous and tries to change the subject and hope he falls asleep soon.  

That's the way I feel about those who lust so greedily for Muslim blood, that they will go to any lengths to create more dead Muslims.  And that this comes on the heels of a Memorial Day when we (hopefully) paused to remember and reflect on the over 4000 dead Americans that were a direct result of this sort of thinking makes it all the more obscene.  

We are - thankfully, hopefully - in the middle of a discussion about the decisions of 2002 and 2003 to invade Iraq, thanks to Jeb "JEB!" Bush's stillborn presidential campaign.  His inept handling of a basic and unavoidable question questions the idea that he's the "smart one" in that family.  But it also has forced the GOP field to answer the question, too, and they have all seemed to come out and say, "No, bad call."

Except Huckleberry... standing before empty rooms, caterwauling for more blood, more dead and more white crosses decked with flowers on languid May afternoons. 

Because he worked in a pool hall once.

Fury Road

I just saw Mad Max: Fury Road with Thing One.

That movie is bonkers.  Unlike so many movies today, it didn't FEEL CGI.  It felt gritty and real, but also surreal.

What was interesting was that there really was a feminist theme to the movie, despite its pyrotechnic action scenes.

Worth a see in the theaters, maybe even in 3D.

Class Of 2015

Well...another group has left.  And another one readies itself in the wings.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

But we need to change our Senior spring so that all the nice things we say about the Seniors at graduation doesn't feel forced.

Erin Go Ahead And Get Married

Ireland's referendum legalizing same-sex marrage is striking, precisely because it's Ireland.

It is difficult to think of a more Catholic country, including Italy, but they voted overwhelmingly against the stated position of the church.

I have to think that the scandal of sexual abuse by priests over the years - a scandal that roiled Ireland more profoundly than any other country - was probably decisive in making the Catholic church's position untenable for politicians in Ireland.  Simply put, the Irish Catholic church has no more moral authority on issues of sexuality.

Pope Francis clearly understands this in a way that his predecessors did not, and he is clearly trying to move the church in a different direction.  I hope he succeeds, because the world needs a religious organization that is mobilized for the poor and not against certain sexual preferences.

But when an organization whose authority rests on its moral legitimacy, how does the Church recover that after it's lost?

This REALLY Matters

All of the GOP Governors kurrently krowding into the Klown Kar to run for President have huge budget shortfalls.

This should come as a surprise to no one who has a rudimentary understanding of addition and subtraction.  If you slash taxes as much as they have been doing, you are going to have to make that up somehow.  You will either have to essential end the existence of some public goods, raise more revenues or run a deficit.  Since it is illegal in some states to run a deficit and Republicans cannot under any circumstances raise taxes because it would make the Baby Reagan Jesus cry, the result are draconian cuts to programs.

This should be the most important story of the 2016 primary and general election season.  This is a real-world application of the policies that a Republican President - working with a Republican Congress - would put into place.  Marco Rubio wants to cut taxes in a way that is frankly insane and innumerate.

How the winner of the Presidential election would actually govern is what an election "season" should be about.  Here we have really important data points - and you can throw in places like Kansas, too - to demonstrate what GOP fiscal policy looks like.  In some ways, having a Clinton lead the Democratic ticket is a great opportunity in this regards, because after Clinton raised taxes, the economy took off.  Obama has raised taxes and the economy is growing again.

But in the states where they have pursued the logic of Grover Norquist's pledge, they are staring at fiscal disasters.

It's not that hard, but I have zero faith that our news media will make this clear.

Two Reasons For This

There are two reasons why legislators think that their constituents are more conservative than they actually are.

The article correctly identifies the proximity of wealthy donors to legislators.  If you are running for office, you need money and the money at the state level is most likely to come from the sort of entrepreneurial characters that make up the Main Street Republicans.

But I think the other reason has to do with the vocal nature of conservatives.  They write their local newspapers.  They call into talk shows.  They astro-turf their representatives offices.  Check out the comment thread of a local newspaper or even Yahoo!

I have no idea why conservatives tend to be disproportionately vocal, but it's likely tied to their increased presence in the midterm elections.  Whether it is because they feel under siege or feel their positions more strongly than others, they are certainly more visible.

To My New Readers...

Welcome.

Now go away...

Boobio

Jon Chait has noted that Marco Rubio has decided to run a Neo-Con campaign of fear mongering.

He notes within that Rubio is good at finding the popular positions within the GOP and quickly jettisoning his own beliefs to adopt to the preferred positions of his base.  And I guess running on a combination of Ted Cruz's "The world is on fire" and Huckleberry Closetcase's "I will kill you with a drone for thought crimes" isn't a TERRIBLE idea.  Rubio is one of the least obviously insane GOP candidates, so if he can take a safely insane idea (unlike his idea to eliminate all taxes on wealth) like killing scary people, he could seize the nomination.

At this point, finding a credible presidential candidate in the Klown Kar is pretty hard.  Nobody seems to like Jeb "JEB!" Bush, NOBODY likes the Outlaw Jersey Whale.  Nobody like Ted Cruz...

At this point, Scott Walker's strategy is simply to not shoot himself in the face.

But running on fear seems inevitable these days.  Hillary will run on the fear of the repeal of Obamacare.  I do hope she finds a positive theme, however, because fear works better on the Right than on the Left.

And fear makes you stupid, but I repeat myself.

Crazy Days

This time of year, there is no rhythm to the days.  My classes meet infrequently and there are a hundred little fires to put out.  There are simultaneously too many things to do and too much time to force me to do any of them.

Spending two days doing professional development and curriculum work doesn't help.

But I guess it's better than writing about how Christie is doomed and Bush is right behind him.