Preemptive Surrender
Tue   14 Oct 2008   14:18 by Kevin McGehee 75° and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 3 comments [Asides] [Get Offa My Lawn!]	Seems that a lot of people out there are starting to argue over what kind of condiment is best to put on the $#!t sandwich that an Obama presidency would represent. I assume “mayonnaise” would be a racist choice.

Too Late to Bail Out on the Bailout

Tue   14 Oct 2008   10:21 by Kevin McGehee 66° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 3 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!]

They can’t say they weren’t warned. Just how bad has the bailout plan been for Republicans in the House and Senate? Some senior Senate Republicans aides now believe that it’s not a far out idea that Democrats could gain a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority, while Republicans House members who voted for the bailout are seeing their polling numbers drop in the past ten days. [...] Those Republicans who stood against the bailout bill aren’t seeing similar drops. In fact, some House members who remained against the bailout were seeing five to seven point gains in their district polling. » Bailout Backlash Limbaugh has been blaming 2006 on “macaca” and Mark Foley, but he’s overlooking the contribution of such things as the Abramoff brouhaha (which was somehow “a Republican scandal” despite more Democrats being implicated than Republicans; sound familiar?) and the attempt by the Bush Administration to foist amnesty-by-any-other-name on an unreceptive nation. In 2008, the Stupid Party has once again shot itself in the foot with this bailout bill. If Republicans manage somehow not to be annihilated on Election Day, it will be only by the grace of a forgiving God.

Twelve Good Men and True

Mon   13 Oct 2008   12:52 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Coweta County] [Courting Disaster]

Maybe eleven. Plus me. Starting a week from today. I’ve been called to sit in judgment of some poor schmuck who’s run afoul of the law. I don’t know who or how or whether he did it or not. I’ll find out all that next week, but won’t be able to tell you anything about it until it’s all over—if I actually get picked for the jury. If I do get picked, it will be only the second time. The first, in California 17 years ago, was on a DUI case and our verdict was guilty. According to the instructions the judge gave us on that occasion, it “need not” have been, even though we all found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did drive under the influence. We were told that if we found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we “may, but need not” return a guilty verdict. I took that to mean we had the right of jury nullification, if we wanted to exercise it. Nobody was going to be in a position to second-guess us if we returned a repeat DUI offender to the streets. At least, not legally. Of course, none of us objected to the DUI law, so the question never came up. I’ve seen a lot of arguments about jury nullification, and both sides have good points but I think the integrity of the citizen jury is unduly compromised by making a verdict subject to review based on the jurors’ reasons for voting the way they did—especially if the result is acquittal. I may think the system today goes overboard sometimes in tilting the scales in favor of defendants, but there is good reason why we make it harder for the prosecution than for the defense in criminal cases. Years ago when we lived in Fairbanks I became friends with a local fully-informed-jurors activist who was later convicted of jury tampering. How did he commit jury tampering? He took to standing outside the courthouse handing out FIJA pamphlets. He never referenced particular cases, and had no way of knowing which person he spoke to was a juror on any particular case; the only way for him to do so would be to attend those trials, and the authorities were already preventing that. Either the jury-tampering law in Alaska is overly broad (and thus in need of some jury nullification in its own right) or my friend’s trial was an outrageous miscarriage of justice. It left a bad taste in my mouth about the Alaska judicial system’s view of the citizen jury, and it’s probably just as well I was never called to serve while we lived there. I’ll be very interested to learn how jurors are instructed here in Georgia.

Psy Ops

Fri   10 Oct 2008   9:14 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Get Offa My Lawn!]

Four years ago, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) waited until Election Day to start the panic-mongering among Republican voters, with exit-poll information cherry-picked from certain locations, and false reports of exit polls from others. It didn’t work very well, since the main effect was only on people who hadn’t voted early that morning. Midday voters tend, so I’ve read, to be Democrat voters. Well, in 2008 they’re starting much earlier. The polls are all over the place. Something screwy is going on. On Election Day 2004, having seen comment threads and blog posts reacting to the phony exit-poll numbers—and having nothing to go on but my own sense that something wasn’t right—I wrote: Those early exit poll numbers showing Kerry winning states where Bush had a lead going into Election Day? Ignore ‘em. They’re bogus. [...] Good lord, people—some of us Bush supporters really are Spaniards, aren’t we? Godawmighty, is this what it’s coming to? Wipe your noses and unbunch your @#$!ing panties. Jeez! » What a Mess I’m tempted to stick this post to the top of the front page until all the polls have closed on November 4. Wipe your noses and unbunch your panties, people.

More Pointless Observations

Thu   9 Oct 2008   22:54 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [Asides]

Why pay for a newspaper, or watch ads on TV, when you can get the same caliber of information here for nothing? Anyway… It occurred to me at dinner this evening that 2008 is the first time both members of either party’s presidential ticket came from west of the Rocky Mountains (as defined by where the candidate is registered to vote, or has previously held elective office). When I mentioned this to my wife she asked when would have been the first time even one of the people on a major party’s presidential ticket came from west of the Rockies. I was able to rattle off a number of elections from just the last 60 years in which a California Republican was on the ticket (Nixon five times, Reagan twice), but after some more thought I hit upon this guy, though the Republican Party was not yet “major” in 1856. Next (he said, after some very light research) came 1860, when the Southern splinter of the Democratic Party nominated Sen. Joseph Lane of Oregon to be vice-president. That was the one and only time a Democrat from west of the Rockies was ever on any Democratic ticket. I remember reading somewhere that Herbert Hoover, with his ties to Stanford University, was considered to be “from California” when he sought and won the presidency in 1928, but I can’t find any corroboration without doing deeper research. Next came 1940, when midwesterner Wendell Willkie shared the ticket with vice-presidential nominee Sen. Charles McNary of Oregon, followed by 1948 when California Gov. Earl Warren was running-mate to unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee, New York Gov. Tom “the groom on a wedding cake” Dewey. In fact, from 1940 until now there were only four presidential elections in which someone from west of the Rockies was not on the Republican ticket: 1944, 1976, 1992 and 1996 (unless I’m mistaken, Vice President Cheney’s legal residence has been in Teton County, Wyoming, which is west of the continental divide). Until 2000, only California, Oregon and Arizona had ever offered a west-of-the-Rockies candidate for national office, and only California had ever succeeded. <update and correction> I missed 1988! There was no one from west of the Rockies on either party’s ticket that year either. My apologies. </update and correction>   Also of interest is the number of presidential elections, since either party began holding nominating conventions, that has seen at least one of the major parties with at least one candidate on the ticket being from a then- or former slave state. Democrats have had both members from such states in 1836, 1840, 1948, 1992 and 1996. Republicans, never. The years in which no candidate on either party’s ticket came from a then- or former slave state covers every election year but one (1904) between 1876 and 1924, after which only 1940 has not seen at least one candidate from a former slave state (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri all qualify, though they never seceded. West Virginia, having been part of slave state Virginia before 1863, is also included) on at least one of the two tickets. Yes, Joe Biden is this year’s representative of a former slave state.   And that concludes tonight’s edition of Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, and Were Quite Content in Not Knowing.

Will Anybody Care?

Thu   9 Oct 2008   15:25 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Wackadoodle]

More to the point, will enough people care? So Barack Obama was a member of an extremist political party established by the Democratic Socialists for America, the Chicago New Party, and they cheered his victory in his uncontested run for his Illinois state senate seat as a step away from American values, towards socialism. Does it really matter? » Barack Obama Was Member of Socialist New Party It’s an apt question. The kind of people flocking to Obama’s banner don’t care what the facts may be about their chosen leader. He is their brother’s keeper, and they will follow him wherever he leads.

‘We Have Taken Control of Your Political System’

Tue   7 Oct 2008   9:50 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Media Ochre]

“...we control the narrative. Do not attempt to adjust your thinking except in ways we desire.“ Knowing that the Republicans are attempting to distract voters away from the big issues of the day, “are we in the media going to aid and abet the McCain campaign’s obvious ploy?“ asks the WP’s Eugene Robinson. Even if reporters point out that that the allegations McCain’s campaign makes are false, “writing about them at all gives them wider circulation.“ Journalists “have a duty to avoid being turned into instruments of mass distraction” and must press for answers about the issues that really matter. “The McCain campaign has made clear that it wants to change the subject,“ writes Robinson. “We can, and should, change it back.“ » Drowned World Tour Is it really 1992 all over again? Back then, when George H.W. Bush was fighting for re-election against the media-endorsed Clinton-Gore ticket, a major media denizen was quoted as insisting that his industry would not allow the Republicans to win. The comment was picked up on by conservative opinion media at the time, but the media still got away with it and their preferred candidate was elected. Is 2008 really all that different from 1992? Can a nation be hoodwinked twice in living memory by an actively biased media doing the exact same thing it did before? Only the American people can decide that—but, “Fool me once, shame on you…“ would seem to apply.

Ahnuld to Congress: Giff Us $7 Billion!

Sat   4 Oct 2008   11:58 by Kevin McGehee in Chattanooga, TN 1 comment [Get Offa My Lawn!] [Here's Your Sign]

California is continuing to jockey for a multibillion-dollar emergency federal loan despite Friday’s congressional approval of a rescue plan for the nation’s troubled credit market. “We’re not out of the woods yet,“ Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said. The governor had sent a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warning that the state may be forced to turn to the federal treasury for help if it cannot quickly secure a short-term loan for up to $7 billion. » State may tap feds for loan McGehee to Ahnuld: Get stuffed. The American taxpayer shouldn’t have to keep bailing out the Democrat Legislature that keeps spending your state into bankruptcy—apparently about every four years. I thought the 2004 bailout was okay, but the idea was that you only get one visit to the well. And thanks to the banking bailout, the well’s pretty much dry now anyway.

Today’s Sudden Fiction
Wed   1 Oct 2008   15:45 by Kevin McGehee 1 comment [Humor?]	I am not blogging.

Not Exactly Blogging-Free
Wed   1 Oct 2008   6:46 by Kevin McGehee 0 comments [Asides]	It would be impossible to refrain entirely from blogging through the month of October in a presidential election year, but the activity here is almost certainly going to be light between now and Halloween. Besides, I have fiction to write. Y’all take up the slack for me on that blogging stuff, okay?

Page 3 of 791 pages  <  1 2 3 4 5 >  Last »