The Spencerian

Almost Friday Double Take Edition

Rudy Giuliani is running for the Senate.

Seriously.

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Obama has nominated Dana Perino to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Seriously.  Also.

To be fair, there is a law stipulating how many members of the Board can be of the president's political party, so he needs a Republican.

Hm.  Somehow I am still saddened by the fact that Dana Perino got a call for a job in the Obama Administration before I did.  [sigh...]

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I'm not ready call for Obama to pull the plug on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.  Yet.

My hope is, now that he and Larry Summers have bailed out their cohorts on Wall Street, they'll take a hard look at, you know, everyday Americans.  Especially those that are having a tougher time in this economy, the ranks of whom are growing.

If Summers and Geithner won't be thinking about them this Thanksgiving, I hope you will.

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Draft Bob Hackworth for Florida House District 54. 

He was the Dunedin Mayor when he ran for Congress against Bill Young.  Check out the Facebook page here.  Mayor Hackworth would be great -- help him out if you can.

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I swear to you, if I see this bumper sticker on some wingnut's car, it'll cause me to fly into an uncontrollable, full-hot, road-rage spastic fit the likes of which my much-abused but much-beloved Subaru Outback has never seen.

h/t to Jonathan Turley.

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My favorite holiday is just next week, the weather is beautiful, my sister and brother-in-law will be here as will my father-in-law, and life is pretty good.  Double down on everything. 

And enjoy one of the greatest guitarists of all time: Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble. 

Free Political Talking Points: Choices Edition

Two things you should know about this edition.  First, without boring you too much with inside baseball-type stuff, there was a fairly interesting back-and-forth on the Florida Progressive list-serve recently on the issue of the Stupak Amendment and whether or not an elective abortion represented "healing."  (Yes, it was pointed out that those two things are almost wholly unrelated to one another.)  Reading some of the very good responses -- and reading back on my own -- reinforced what many of us already know: that preserving the right of a woman's reproductive choice is as sacred to Democrats and progressives as it is a divisive issue in this nation.  It further reinforced for me that when it comes to this most important issue, I barely know what I'm talking about.

The other thing is this: I don't want to write this post.  It's not that I'm pro-life (I'm not), or pro-choice (I am).  That's not it at all. 

My wife is 28 weeks pregnant.  Perhaps you'd heard.  I recognize that the emminent arrival of my daughter has nothing at all to do with the difficult choice made all the time by women to end their own pregnancies.  Still, something in my gut goes sour when I think about it.  I recognize this as a selfish, self-centered response to a gravely important issue of public health and public policy.  

I don't want to write this post.  Yet I feel a dual responsibility as a humble contributor to the FPC blog, and as a very lucky father-to-be to provide you with your Free Political Talking Points for People Who Need More Facts on Reproductive Health Policy. 

 --  Total abortions in America in 2005: 820,151

 -- Total abortions in Florida in 2005: 92,513

 -- For 2005, the highest percentages of reported abortions were for women who were known to be unmarried (81%), white (53%), and under 25 years old (50%).

 -- Percent of teens ages 15-19 who have ever had sexual intercourse: Females 47%, Males 46%.

 --  The rate for teenagers 15-17 who got pregnant dropped steeply, by 46% -- 77.1 per 1,000 in 1990 to 41.5 in 2004.

 -- Nationally teen childbearing costs taxpayers at least $9.1 billion a year.

 -- "Abstinence‐only” programs have received more than $ 1.5 billion in federal funds since 1982.

 -- The costs of childbearing are greatest for younger teens. In Florida, the average annual cost associated with a child born to a mother 17 and younger is $3,652.

 -- Of the total 2004 teen childbearing costs in Florida, 52% were federal costs and 48% were state and local costs.

 -- Florida is a state that has expanded eligibility for coverage of family planning services under Medicaid, as of November 6, 2009.  Expiration date for coverage: November 30, 2009.

 -- Opponents of choice have directed more than 5,800 reported acts of violence against abortion providers since 1977, including bombings, arsons, death threats, kidnappings, and assaults, as well as more than 143,000 reported acts of disruption, including bomb threats and harassing calls.

 -- Attitudes about abortion are closely divided.  Thus, politics will always play a role in this volatile national issue.

Cross-posted at the Florida Progressive Coalition.

Off the Radar: The Day Late, Dollar Short Edition

Note: I meant to have this published last night, but Typepad was doing something funky so it never happened.  Sorry. 

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You may not know this about me, but I'm a gamer.  Nerdy?  Yes.  Dorky?  Yes.  Geeky?  Sure.  But I make no apologies for the love I feel for my PlayStation 2.  I've had Gran Turismo in there for weeks -- maybe months.  I've mastered a number of first-person shooters, including Star Wars: Battlefront, God of War, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.  

I know -- kind of awful and violent, but it's something I sort of enjoy, and it doesn't bother anyone else*.  

So Chris Sullentrop's surprising review of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 really interested me.  It's one thing to shoot at Darth Vader or an imaginary gang member in a made-up neighborhood.  It is entirely something else to play the role of -- basically -- a terrorist.  Not sure how I feel about that, to be totally honest about ti. 

That being said, I think if we remember that the stuff on our Sony via PlayStation (or whatever your game console of choice may be) is pure fantasy, we'll be okay.  Let's just not forget that the stuff on our TV via Afghanistan, Iraq, and other tough places around the globe is anything but fantasy.

*Except Duncan, who is frequently patient beyond what I deserve when it comes to video games.   

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Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight says maybe the Democrats should panic.  A little.  He offers some sound thinking:

Certainly, if I were the Democrats, I'd be adopting a fairly defensive posture, putting money into defending seats -- especially those held by non-Blue Dog incumbents -- rather than getting cute and trying to pick off more than a handful of potentially vulnerable Republican seats. I'd also be thinking about policies -- like a jobs package and financial regulation -- that tap a little bit into the populist spirit and might result in somewhat awkward Republican positioning.

I'd be curious to see if Democrats adopt this notion.

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I am a big fan of Balloon Juice, and I think John Cole is a great blogger.  And I'm not just saying that because he was one of the first blogs to link back to a Spencerian post (and still one of my all-time favorite posts, despite the fact that I could never get the graphics right).

Anyway, whether you follow Balloon Juice or whether you don't, you'll want to read this interview with John from the League of Ordinary Gentleman.

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Apparently St. Petersburg Times columnist (and fellow irregular blogger) Daniel Ruth had a heart attack.  This does not make me feel better about the leftover pizza I had for dinner last night.  

Hope you're feeling better soon, Mr. Ruth.

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My brother Adam found this one from David Frum on CNN: Republicans heading for a bloodbath in Florida.  Frum is exactly right to be sounding the alarm to his conservative bretheren:

A few days ago, I was talking to a roomful of young conservatives about the crisis. All agreed in denouncing both the bank bailouts done under TARP and the stimulus. I asked: OK fine, what was the alternative?

There was a short pause, and then somebody laughed: "I guess it's lucky that we weren't in power."

That's not much of a motto for a would-be national governing coalition. If all we conservatives have to offer is oppositionism, then opposition is the job we'll be assigned to fill.

Everybody's all excited with Rubio right now -- but it's because Rubio's the insurgent.  And from a position of insurgency, all you have to do is say "no."  Is it any wonder when pressed on budget-cutting specifics -- some $6 billion worth, not exactly pocket change -- the former Florida Speaker of the House only bothered to offer up "I don't have the budget in front of me."  

Not having the budget in front of you is what got us into the mess we're in today, Mr. Speaker. 

Anyway, my guess is that being against stuff will only carry Rubio so far.  The real question is, how much more damage will he do to the Crist campaign before the primaries, which now seem very, very far away?

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If you're a person who thinks Rubio-style (and Crist-endorsed) slash-and-burn tactics are just fantastic when it comes to our state budget, just remember: this is the kind of thing you end up with.

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Racism and China: an interesting perspective.

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Ghost in the Machine is one of the blogs which inspired me to start the Spencerian.  With all the blogs out in the series of tubes, there are really only a handful of really great one.  Ghost in the Machine is, hands-down, one of them. 

Congratulations on ten years, Kevin.  And here's to another great 10. 

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Action Alert!

Learn about the endangered species on our planet -- and help them out!

 -- More later --

Of Things to Come

I've had a handful of good blog post ideas in my head over the last few weeks -- Afghanistan; service to your country; the state of the economy; energy and the environment; the future of the Republican Party and what it might mean on a local level -- but haven't had time to formulate them very well.

On Afghanistan, I was struck -- as I think we all were -- that President Obama decided not to go with any of the options he was presented by the war council.  This gives me hope that he is forcing his team to think creatively -- mostly about ways to wind this thing down.  I am, generally speaking, not a proponent of war.  I am never a proponent of open-ended war.  So we'll see what happens when he gets back from Asia.

Service to your country is almost more a speech for someone than a blog post.  This idea got going after I read somewhere that the youth vote in this past election was way, way down from 2008.  Not surprising, but no less disappointing.  I still hold out a flicker of hope that Obama -- and frankly other political leaders as well -- will find the Holy Grail of engaging young people and keeping them engaged.  Not for nothing, I think Senator Bob Graham is on to something with this.

The economy is always a good one to talk about -- and will be for some time.  I think it's a good idea for the White House to host a jobs summit.  I'll probably wait and see what they have to say.

With respect to energy and the environment -- which looks like it might be the next big fight after health care -- I think the battle lines are already being drawn.  Can something be done before the mid-term elections next year? 

And with respect to Republicans, it's not so much that I had specific Republicans in mind (though that might be a lot of fun) -- or specific ones locally (though that might be even more fun...).  It's more that I wanted to draw some parallels to what was being dictated by the crazies at the national level and how it was being interpreted on the local level.  The short version is, it's not going well.

Anyway, all of that is bubbling around in my head.  But I won't write about it today, because we are in child birth class. 

You can't write about politics and think about her at the same time:

Every day waiting for her is a new kind of miracle.  We can't wait to meet her. 

Thanks for reading -- and we'll have more later.