Graceless and Spiteful

We should not be surprised that cynical liars, like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, reacted abominably to the election. Likewise, we can expect delusional and manipulative entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to feign all manner of cover stories.

Whether the inane, illogical and in some cases vicious response was a defense mechanism is irrelevant. We, and I hope our re-elected POTUS, have to keep in mind two points:

• Republicans lost this election at the top of the ticket and in Congress
• the winners must dictate the terms going forward

On a personal note, I was kind of hoping that FB chums, some of whom I've known for decades from high school and family, would have the civility to look for pro-America solutions that will require reason from GOP Congress members. Likewise, small statements, even muttered, of congratulations, maybe a little contrition, and acknowledgement that the majority of the voters want Obama's policies are in order.

Particularly on Facebook, the emotion and vitriol were startling before the voting. The nasties have been mute since.

I managed not to respond to even the worst of the lies in the new memes, those "photo" messages, mini-posters. They presented and restated disproven, desperate slanders on the President and other Democrats.

In fairness (the Dem and progressive weakness of showing kindness to the malicious), I admit that my side did engage in insulting Romney, Ryan, Rove and in particular the absurd GOP party platform. Honesty and reason were generally on our side in contrast.

Yet, as we heard in the post-election statements of Speaker of the House Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell, they have no intention of working for the good of the nation. They would let Americans founder to prove their repudiated points and viewpoints. Both have made it plain that Obama needs to bring out the big brass ones to cow them into doing so.

He did that with equal pay for women, DADT and most notably healthcare reform. Doing so seems to be all that the current GOP leaders understand and respect. Compromise, to them, means doing only what they want.

One would think, if one thought, that they would recognize after the election that they would lose their Congressional power and likely the 2016 election if they do not help America to economic recovery. This time in attempted voter suppression and in the previous redistricting in Republican-led states after the 2010 elections to overcome demographics. That was an even bigger failure than the inability to put Romney in during a gimme year of terrible economic times.

Come 2014 when Obamacare kicks in and when the recovery continues over GOP unwillingness to help, Republicans are certain to lose control of the House. Likely too if filibuster reform does not beat them to it, Dems are almost certain to get a supermajority in the Senate.

So there we have the elephants honking away in the wild as though their side hadn't gotten skunked. Boehner and McConnell both blustered that Obama had to forget the policies that brought re-election and support theirs that voters rejected. Get real!

For their supporters, the pretense is that each party is equally as obstructionist and uncompromising. I'll join the chorus of Dems, nonpartisans, and ordinary smart people in calling BS on that. The POTUS' mistake in his first two years was to give in too much to clowns who had no intention of doing anything they were not forced to.

I'm looking forward to the too-often-timid Obama staring down the bad guys.

Obama, Warren, and No-Vote, Yes, Yes

Gosh, the never-ending campaign in ending. Praise to all gods!

My big endorsements can't be any surprise:

Barrack Obama for President.
Sure our economic recovery is slower than anyone, including the POTUS wants. Yet with all the GOP Congressional rejection of his jobs plans, we are ahead of the rest of the industrialized world and on the right path in jobs, securities markets, and housing. Taking a flyer on Romney/Ryan with no specifics and endless deceit would be self-destructive beyond all reason. Obama's nowhere near progressive enough to suit me, but there is no comparison here. Obama next week.

Elizabeth Warren for US Senate.
Sen. Scott Brown now has the record he lacked as a do-nothing state rep and senator. It reeks to high heavens. He has voted with the Dark Side on all important bills, stymieing recovery, and trying to do the same with equality, women's rights, and hard-won liberties. In his campaign, he refuses to discuss his record, makes incredible personal attacks, and lies without shame or cease. Warren has already shown her heart and (much, much brighter) head are in line with MA values. She has accomplished more with her advocacy in Washington without even the power of elected office than Brown has or can promise. For God sake, let her get to work and help us and the nation. This one is even easier than the POTUS. Warren.

MA ballot question 1 — Do not vote.
This is the trick on the ballot. On its face, a yes vote makes sense, to allow anyone including service stations not affiliated with a particular car company access to all the computer repair codes and related information. If at least 70% of voters ignore this, it will not have any effect even if nearly 30% approve it. That's the way of ballot questions. The legislature recently passed a law which the governor signed that does all this, on a slightly different schedule than the ballot question. If it passes, the legislature will waste time undoing its law and aligning its efforts on a new version. Ignoring this choice would be good for all concerned.

MA ballot question 2 — Yes.
The death-with-dignity question, dubbed assisted suicide by its opponents is a sensible and well constructed version of the law in effect in Oregon for the past 15 years. There it has been proven effective in helping terminally ill patients stop suffering and having their lives prolonged against their will...and dignity. It has numerous safeguards, as in multiple physician consultations, evaluations and delays. This is humane.

MA ballot question 3 — Yes.
The medical marijuana proposal is simple enough. Several states have already approved and implemented it. The rationale is to provide palliative options for those with conditions not easily or well treated with stronger, harsher, more expensive chemicals. In states where this has been the law for years, some people game the system to get pot. They can and do get it illegally now. As well as helping those who need it, I see this as a solid step toward aligning marijuana sales with those of alcohol, taxed, regulated and controlled. We should drop the early to mid-20th Century reefer-madness mindset.

Too-Clever-by-Half Brown

Sen. Scott Brown is finally willing to gamble. He's betting that running from a debate with Granny Warren will let him hold his seat.

By any objective measure, this is pure cowardice, flavored only with his regular voter manipulation.

From the moment he won the special election for the seat nearly three years ago, Brown has played dishonest and dishonorable games with constituents. First, he announced with every vote that he was the extra vote Republican Senators would need to block health reform or this or that major bill. In  other words, "Look at me kids. I'm king of the mountain!"

When he realized after a little over year that he would have to win a full term, he got more clever. He choreographed a Congressional dance, in barn jacket or suit instead of pink tutu. The conceit would be and has remained that he would put his hand over the (R) next to his name. He'd pretend to be independent, voting on each bill's substance and effect instead of political party support.

Not surprisingly, wingers have joined in the fantasy with him. They like his bipartisan ballet. You have to be pretty craven or alas dull witted to buy into this. Search on the net to see thousands of links debunking this pretense. ProgressMass offers a succinct PDF file of the difference in his rhetoric v. reality as well.

The undeniable (except by Brown) facts are that he figures he's gamed the system. By picking bills where his vote makes no difference, he has felt safe in the past year plus in voting against the obstructionist Republicans in the Senate. Thus, his party overlords still get what they want and he tallies up more proof of what he alleges is bipartisanship and independence.

He even goes over the line many times with this ploy. In debates with Elizabeth Warren, he said repeatedly that his or that bill was a bipartisan rejection or passage. He never noted that it would be only a few of the most conservative Dems who'd join his side. Bipartisan? Like hell!

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No Stinkin' Debate

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So to the debate that should have happened this week, he's flat out chicken. His website has a tricksy statement in which he claims:

• he couldn't find any time from "a long-planned bus tour" instate to prepare for and participate in a debate
• he's "pleased to have participated" in three debates, and
• super-cheap shot, Warren didn't agree to two early-campaign events, neglecting to mention that they were winger-talk-radio ambushes and nothing like debates

So he's counting on low-info and easily deluded voters. He seems to have, to allude to cliché, tiny 'nads.

He's advanced his deceptive, dishonorable and dishonest positions. Confronted by the slight, 60-something grandmother and legal expert with real accomplishments, he has fared poorly. He never addressed his multiple awful votes and has stuck in ads and at the podium to personal attacks.

Brown doesn't seem all that bright, particularly in contrast to Warren. His lack of courage and other standard virtues also should put him way down anyone's voting list.

Yet it comes down to whether his sleazy attempts at being clever are enough. The polls have been surprisingly close. I'm  betting Brown coasted through a lot of school and personal interactions with cleverness instead of reasoning and knowledge.

This election will test the limits of that kind of shallowness on a larger stage. Brown is dancing as best he can for one more week.

Franken Carries Liz' Portfolio

Al Franken, no longer funny guy but still stand-up in the other sense of the term, stood in for Elizabeth Warren today in Cambridge. Yeah, he was still funny, even though he's seriously the U.S. Senator from Minnesota.

Truth be told, a friend and I intended to have a pint across the street from the Warren-for-Senate HQ on Mass Ave. out of Harvard Square before the sked announced she and he would appear there about the same time. We're both pinkos about her age, so we were delighted.

Cambridge Common is a fine place for reasonably priced brews, particularly IPAs. I doubt that is why Warren's campaign planted her office directly across the avenue. However after increasing our wisdom, we were ready for the scrum.

Turns out that Warren must have been at another locale. Franken appeared and charmingly carried the afternoon. I was fine with that, having met her numerous times as well as hosting her on the Left Ahead show. I'm decidedly one of her groupies and my wife has been canvassing and phone-banking for her. When we went to her West Roxbury office opening, she threw her arm around me and said, "I love this guy!" My wife allowed as she did too. It was all good.

Lackaday, my chum, who is also a Warren supporter, had not and still has not met her. We tried to get the tap puller to join us, but she pleaded work duties. Just as well...

Al Franken was in town and around for four or five events promoting his potential colleague. He did well.

The room was astoundingly deep for a Cambridge storefront. We packed it with several hundred very decided voters.

Oddly enough, the speakers who prepped the crowd for Franken's arrival were all women and concentrated heavily on LGBT issues. Obviously, this blog has long been gay-rights/marriage-equality oriented. Yet, it was strange that as far as Marjorie Decker (Cambridge City Councilor and candidate for state rep) and Denise Simmons (Cambridge Vice Mayor) and others were concerned, Warren's LGBT positions were start, middle and end. They didn't talk about equal pay, jobs, the economy or the other big issues in play. Meh.

Franken arrived jolly but coy. He stood by his claim that he did not criticize colleagues, as in Sen. Scott Brown. However, he did note the facts about interactions with Brown. Specifically, he cited a bill, the Student Non-Discrimination Act,  he introduced and collected 39 cosponsors for that would provide anti-discrimination for LGBT teens. This would protect kids like the ADA does for the disabled and Title IX does for girls and women. He said he asked Brown to join the cosponsors. Brown said he'd get back with him, which turned into his staff saying no.

Franken preferred to gush rationally about Warren. He noted that control of the Senate is at stake this year and that "is so important." He added that "Elizabeth Warren is so great."

Then he blended his two public personalities to urge those in the room "get off your butts" for the next two and one half weeks before the election. He said that they might have jobs and families, but that they should forget them for the next 18 days.

He joked that 8-year-olds were perfectly capable of using a microwave, while their parent(s) were canvassing or calling for Warren. He added that the 8-year-olds could also teach the 4-year-olds, and that kids really like being on their own for dinner.

He concluded more seriously that you don't want to wake up on November 7th thinking that you could have and should have done more to elect Warren.

Yes-vember for Gay Marrigage

OK, kiddies, voters in four states get the right to reverse the elections of fear and confusion about marriage equality. In three states, they can reinforce same-sex marriage (Maine, Washington and Maryland) and in another (Minnesota) they can tell those who want to constitutionally ban it to get lost.

This AP piece has a fine recap of these states' particulars.

One of the few facts the anti-equality folk like the National Organization for Marriage use is that all the states that have put SSM to popular vote have rejected it. That's 32 of 32.

Of course, the NOM sorts do not mention that nearly all of these were in the scare-mongering period just before and after Vermont legalized civil unions and Massachusetts SSM. Given dishonest, dishonorable bluster about the dreadful certain outcomes of letting homosexuals also marry, voter confusion was certainly understandable.

It isn't any more.

Here in New England and the larger Northeast, voters have seen years of only benefits from a slight expansion of marriage. Coupled with single and paired folk coming out on porches, at work and elsewhere, they virtually all know homosexuals hindered, harmed and hampered by denying them the option of marriage. They see there is no redefinition, to use the MA Family Institutes's most common lie, of marriage. They have learned that there has been only societal good and the type of respect and compassion that the major religions preach.

Come November 7th, it's almost certain that the anti-gay/anti-SSM will reframe their we-always-win game. They have built on this mythology despite legalization of marriage equality by legislative and judicial action. All they have left is plebiscites.

We have a dreadful history of denying shared civil rights — to women, African American, Asians and other. We unquestionably share the human failing of being willing to punish those we think of as not like us. Honestly, most of us know better. Fortunately, more and more public speakers make it plain that we should never vote on civil rights.

So, say the count on November 7th is 32 to 4 or 34 to 2, feel the hard breeze from the spin by the Dark Side. Even so, know that this shameful pattern is about to reverse.

Stomping in Lowell

We did learn quite a bit about Scott Brown last evening — despite his clearest intentions to prevent that. He certainly did not convert any undecided voters, but his claque loved every dodge, every smirk and every personal snipe.

As the last debate-like-event, the moderator had a decided sensationalist bent and was not at all a liberal. In Lowell, David Gregory, a conservative, allowed Brown to avoid answering questions from him, Elizabeth Warren, and the students. He also let Brown bully him into a time advantage. That was all predictable.

C-Span has the whole debate available here.

My wife and I went. The trip was worth it, in the very least to sense and and hear the rowdy crowd reactions. Brown's supporters (each side had 500 tickets — about 10% of the arena, plus the crowd divisions) did not mind at all that he still refused to explain votes favoring huge financial and petroleum companies or repeated dishonest personal attacks. In fact, they cheered those.

Much will be made of Brown's few and acid weapons — Native-American ancestry, and his knowingly false portrayal of two complex legal settlements Warren lawyered in. What I learned instead from his smirks, sarcasm and sidesteps is that he fully expects to continue a content-free campaign. Even with nearly two years of recorded votes, he refuses to let anyone, another candidate much less a voter, hold him accountable.

He also is incredibly indecisive, willfully ignorant, or dishonest about his policies and positions. With the exception of "absolutely" opposing the Dream Act as a form of amnesty, a stance he'd been quoted on numerous times and thus unavoidable, he fudged all questions about how he might vote. It was as though he hasn't thought about whether he'd support the reactionary hardliner Mitch McConnell to head the Senate if the GOP should take it, whether he'd let tax cuts for millionaires and above expire if offset with spending cuts, and anything else substantial.

Instead on one major question after another, he played and overplayed his alleged impartial card (a.k.a. the bipartisan ploy). He couldn't and wouldn't tell us what we'd get by electing him to a full term. He'd pore over each bill's contents, he'd listen to all arguments and only then decide what he believed and would do. While he refuses to call himself a Republican in person or in campaign material, that sounded dreadfully like the Romney/Ryan shtick. They say that their economic plan is too complex to explain, so we need to elect them and let Congress work out the details. Walrus wings, I say!

Amusingly to the intimate gathering of 5,000, we saw differences even during the photo-op before the show, then again during the break and afterward. The self-presenting nice guy was cold and avoided engagement. Warren in contrast tried to chat him up, smiled at him, the moderator and the audience, waved to her husband, and, well, was the nice guy. The difference was she wasn't pretending.

Watching Brown relatively closely was better than on TV, with the many cutaways. I thought throughout of the younger version. He's big on smirking and being pleased with his perceived cleverness. Likely he fell into one of those three classes that teachers and parents praise:

1. Fast answer. Kids conditioned to respond with the quickest reply tend to be partially wrong or shallow in analysis.
2. Deep thought. The big brains tend to take longer but come up closest to truth.
3. Clever. The cute reply, often with a learned grin, may be disarming while really not answering the question.

He often doesn't answer at all, much less quickly. He isn't particularly bright (I'd bet she has 30 IQ points on him). Yet, he obviously has a learned response of going for the light and witty over candid or analytic.

Also, last evening as in the previous kind-of debate it was plain that he does not like being challenged, particularly by a woman. The defining moment was one he clearly had prepared and likely practiced (to the praise of his wife maybe). While he had run long, refused to address the questions the moderator asked, and talked over Warren repeatedly, when she tried to cut in with a point, he whipped out his big quip of the night, "Excuse me, I’m not a student in your classroom."

That was not the only condescension of the 50 minutes, only the most graceless. He actually performed better near the end. She scored first answering an inane hypothetical from Gregory about why it might be that MA has never elected a woman as its US Senator. She said she didn't know, but she was working to change that.

Shortly after, he got in his best of the night by responding to a pointed question about whether she was qualified, as in earned her way, to her Harvard Law tenured professorship. The implication seemed to be an effort to return to the ancestry/affirmative action opening where Brown has yet to show any evidence she got an advantage by listing herself in a directory as having Native-American background. Instead, he made his best feint of the show saying she likely was an excellent professor and he was working to make sure she stayed one. Point and counterpoint.

Unfortunately, Gregory was only a tiny bit sharper than the rumpled of clothes and mind Jon Keller in the first meeting. He too not only opened with the ancestry non-issue, but let it consume over a quarter of the show. We were robbed of substance again.

Throughout what they did get to, Brown assiduously avoided challenges from both mod and challenger. For example, called to task for voting for continued multi-billion dollar oil subsidies when petro companies are hugely profitable, he gave no rationalization. Instead, he said oil companies were going to get that money secondhand from Congressional action or directly from raising prices. He apparently has never considered that stopping the corporate welfare would be the end of it and Congress and President could make sure that was true. Viewing giant industries as masters and unstoppable juggernauts is not the way to go, unless you bend over for their campaign contributions.

Yet that was another benefit of being there. Brown's supporters clapped, stomped and cheered wildly at even his dumbest responses. While Gregory urged everyone before starting not to interrupt with such responses, both sides ended up ignoring him. I listened carefully and figure that perhaps Warren supporters outnumbered Brown ones by 50% or so, at least by oral volume, similar to the crowds outside before it began. Both sides made plenty of noise.

I don't have a whole lot of hope for more substance in the remaining, staged for TV sort-of debates. The format stinks and leads to the shallowness we've seen in the first two, particularly under two lame moderators.

Without question, Warren is smart, knowledgeable and substantive. Brown isn't going to become forthcoming or honest in the next three weeks. We'll continue to have inequality with avoidance on one side.

Shout It, Dems!

Even hanging on an odd hook on the side of the judicial closet, today's SCOTUS affirmation of the Affordable Care Act, is beautiful to behold. This first go at universal health care was many decades in the troubled making.

Now Democrats, including that President Obama one, need to focus and shout.

Even those who claim not to like the health-care reform really do. They want to keep nearly every provision of it. If they don't already benefit, their parents and others they know do.

For God's sake, Dems, don't play Blanche Dubois, depending on the intelligence of voters! Tell them, tell them clearly and repeatedly what they keep and what they stand to lose, depending on who's in the White House and Congress. Don't figure if you say it once on national TV that everyone understands.

For some unfathomable reason, Democratic pols and party officials have not been making their case strongly and plainly. This November election is no time for whispering and implying.

I'll read the big, honking decision a time or two, and wait a few days for the wingers to circle around their bonfire of lies and camp of hyperbole.

My dual takeaways today are:

1. This is a brief breather. There's more to be done, from reelecting Obama, to keeping control of the Senate, to shaming those obstructionists in Congress into meaningful jobs-bills support. Speaker Boehner claimed smugly before the ruling the GOP would not spike the football. I don't care if Dems do, but that should not distract them for more than a moment from the big tasks ahead.
2. We have only a few months to make our case. American voter too often have chosen the fantasy (think guns and butter, or trickle-down-economics [still in play]) over reality. Dems have to, absolutely have to, make it plain that we can recover economically quickly, if the Republicans stop the crap. We have to make as plain that taking a huge, blind leap on a fantasy this time is madness. Even with the GOP fighting all the way, the Administration has improved our lot substantially. It is essential for Obama and Dems to leave no doubt where the path is to a good future. 

We can let the Republican pols and funders sit in their corners muttering and cursing, speaking of how they had a better plan. They should just stay out of the way of those who mean to repair and advance the nation.

PM Update: On the way home from a broken-bone followup, I listened to NPR in the car. It was easy to believe that the news voices kicked around the meaning for the POTUS election. It was nearly impossible to hear one say that the victory today put a huge target on Obama for Romney. What century and continent did Mara Liasson recently emerge from? The winger elephants have been trying and trying to depict this stumbling start at universal health care as something terrible, while nearly all Americans love some or most of its features. Now that the SCOTUS has OK'ed it constitutionally, how can that mean anything other than much more widespread acceptance? Romney is erring in continuing to call the ACA Obamacare, adding the only way to get rid of it is to replace Obama with him. The only worthwhile accomplish of MA Gov. Romney was the nascent version of health-care reform that became the model for the ACA. Tell me how he's going to target this successful program that already benefits millions of us without shooting himself with every arrow at Obama. Lackaday, Mitt, Obamacare is not the pejorative you imagine.

Bring Scott His Brown Trousers

Just when I thought Sen. Scott Brown could not be shallower and sillier, he bottoms out deeper. Word today is that he's doing his best schoolyard bully and simultaneously being yet another Republican who spits on the Bill of Rights, particularly Freedom of Speech.

All reports, as in the brief in the Globe, are that after trying to get any debates with Dem challenger Elizabeth Warren only on right-wing talk radio, he agrees to at least one neutral one. Yet, he soils it like a tom cat marking territory.

Brown asserts that Ted Kennedy widow Vicki Kennedy would be forbidden from endorsing Warren — even after the debate! He also begrudgingly accepts the bland Tom Brokaw as moderator, but only under the condition that MSNBC not be a sponsor of the debate.

Of course, or of coarse, that is outrageous. The current GOP, Brown most definitely included, seems to have missed civics classes or failed them.

Brown wants to censor and stifle even-handed commentary. He'd rob Kennedy of her free speech. He'd determine how dispersed the debate is. In short, he'd be a Republican.

I'd like to feign surprise. I can't.