Politics

I have seen an interesting political meme a few times of late. It says that third party candidates are always spoilers, and cites the Republican dominance of the Presidency between 1896 and 1932 as partial evidence. The argument is that Eugene Debs pulled votes away from the Democrats, causing them to lose. It also cites other examples, but it’s the turn of the century example I’m going to address here. (Because it’s the one which is wrong. The others are pretty much accurate.) I’m making this post because I spent a while putting together the data and I don’t want to lose it; also because I believe in spreading accurate information, where such is available. My data source is David Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Content moved into the extended entry because it was messing up the front page.

Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, is all about criminalizing gay marriage (original). It’s a pretty odd argument, too. Let’s step closer, shall we? His fear is that “this zone of privacy that we all want protected in our own homes is gradually — or I’m concerned about the potential for it gradually being encroached upon, where criminal activity within the home would in some way be condoned.” That’s a little stumblemouthed on the face of it, actually. If criminal activity within the home was being condoned, that’d be expanding the zone of privacy. Not encroaching upon it. Still, I think you can see what he meant. ...

Jimmy Breslin is pissed off. Who can blame him? He says he’s thinking about getting out of the news business. Hope he doesn’t. This government’s kidnapping of Faris/Rauf violated the laws handed down by Madison, Jefferson, Marshall. A small religious zealot, John Ashcroft, takes their great laws and bravery and using our new Patriot Act, turns it into Fascism. He could do this openly because news reporters go about the government like gardeners, bent over, smiling and nodding when one of the owners shows up. You only have to look at a White House news conference to see how they aggressively pursue your right to know. ...

Showtime is filming a two hour movie based on Bush’s 9/11 actions (original). This might be a good time to refer back to the CCR timeline of his movements on that day. I’m suspecting that since the movie is put together by a White House supporter who describes himself as “a member of the administration,” it won’t really touch on the sense of uncertainty one gets from that chronology. I’m pretty much gobsmacked, here. I’m not big on the “What liberal media?” call, because there are some aspects of our media which are very liberal — and some which are very conservative. However, I can’t believe Showtime is going to air a two hour campaign commercial. You can talk about the media loving Clinton if you like, but man, his movie was Primary Colors.

Now, that’s a truck (original).

The Freepers are getting all excited about stuffing the MoveOn ballot box. They’re so cute! Such a fervent belief in the democratic process! Not. But the priceless bit — I gotta quote the whole thing. Here. FOR THE THIRD TIME: This is not a FReeping opportunity - this is lunacy! These people are COMMUNISTS! THINK ABOUT IT …!! DO YOU REALLY WANT YOUR NAME ON A LIST ASSOCIATED WITH A COMMUNIST ORGANIZATION …?? ...

Phil Carter mused on the Iyman Faris plea bargain over the weekend, to good effect. He’s dug up a claim that the government threatened to declare Faris an enemy combatant in order to get him to plea bargain. Phil explains why this is bad at length. It goes beyond the immediate fact that someone’s either an enemy combatant or not.

Political junkies might be interested in this news (original). Howard Dean’s 17 year old son was arrested for stealing booze from a local country club today. No big deal; the Senate Majority Leader’s son was just arrested for DUI. Rove’ll try and spin it, though.

WMD explanation of the week: they were looted. Sure, several hundred tons of neurotoxins were looted. So effectively and so secretively that we haven’t found even a single looter. Sounds likely. But OK, let’s grant ‘em that one. Let’s also admit that US forces have had no luck finding the “looted” WMD. Isn’t the solution obvious? Bring back Blix’s team; they’re professionals. Let them get back to work. After all, the IAEA found looted uranium a whole lot quicker than we could.

I mentioned Paul Krugman’s piece on liquidity traps last month — I’d link to it again, but the NYT doesn’t have free archives. Pity. However, thanks to MetaFilter, I can show you this paper (original) (PDF) from the Dallas Federal Reserve. It’s a nice clean explanation of liquidity traps along with some speculation about ways to fend off the one we’re about to hit.