Mullings

By the Numbers

2010-04-02T06:03:00.001-07:00

From Newport Beach, California

For those of you who may have missed the class on political polling here's the basic rule:

You treat poll numbers like we used to treat Olympic figure skating scores. You knew the French and the East Germans were cheating so you threw out the highest and the lowest scores and whatever was left was probably an accurate reflection of the skater's performance.

Polling is the same way. Not that anyone is cheating, but if you look at a list of polls on the same subject, taken at about the same time, throw out the high and the low you probably have a pretty good idea of what is going on.

The polling for President Obama since Healthcare passed the House on March 21 is instructive.

The Quinnipiac poll shows the President's job approval at 45-46 which is the lowest approval number among the seven polls listed on the RealClearPolitics poll summary page this morning.

The best approve-disapprove number is from the Washington Post poll which has the President at 53-43 (plus 10) telling me the poll was done among the reporters who happened to be hanging around the city room that day.

I know that isn't true, but it is just after 4 AM here in California and I needed a smile.

The worst approve-disapprove number is from the Rasmussen poll which as of Friday morning was at minus 6 (47-53). Although Democrats' eyes roll and their chests heave heavy sighs at the mention of Rasmussen (because they believe it tilts toward the GOP) it is the only poll among those listed which measured Likely Voters as opposed to Registered Voters (Marist, CNN and Quinnipiac) or Adults (Washington Post and Gallup).

Every polling company has its own method of determining whether someone is a likely voter or not. This is called the "screen" and as we get closer to the mid-term elections, which will be held exactly seven months from today (all of which save April and June hath 31), you will hear that word in a phrase like "they use a very tight screen" to determine who is likely to vote and who is not.

As long as we're doing a general overview of polling, other than choosing the respondents, there are several factors which can influence how a question will be answered. The first is its position in the poll.

A good polling firm may ask early in the poll, "Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is handling his job?" (or some variant). Then they will ask about how he is handling specific issues: the economy, jobs, foreign policy, energy, and so on.

At the end of that series of questions they may ask the job approval question again to see if, after thinking about individual issues, there is a change in the overall approval of the President.

The major bit of skullduggery that can occur in polling is now the question is asked. Asking what a respondent thinks about how the President is handling his job is far different than asking: "On a scale of one-to-ten, do you think President Obama is doing a good job as President or do you agree with the Tea Party and Sarah Palin that he is doing a poor job?"

That is why almost all public polls done by any legitimate firm will not only publish the results of the poll, but will let you read the actual questions.

Finally, there is the matter of looking deep into the polling numbers (words like "cross-tabs" will be tossed about) and this is not for the faint of heart.

For an excellent example of how to do this properly look at the essay Newsweek's Howard Fineman published earlier this week on the dangers facing Democrats in November based upon his looking at a number of different polls on health care.

Last thing about polls today: When someone says to you: "How can they ask 500 people a question and know what the whole population is thinking?"

You might say, "Last time you went to the doctor for a blood test, did the technician take out all of your blood, or just a small vial or two which represented the rest of it?"

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the RealClearPolitics page, the Rasmussen page, and to the Fineman essay. Also another Mullfoto proving the arrival of Spring and a really interesting Catchy Caption of the Day.

Odds & Ends

2010-03-30T20:22:00.001-07:00

I need a break from the Health Care aftermath.

This edition of MULLINGS has nothing which will cause you to paint a sign and stand in front of someone's Congressional office chanting things like:

Hey, hey;

Ho, ho;

H.R. 3590 has got to go

Which, while technically correct, seems to lack a little something in connecting to the people.

March, it turns out, is one of those "hath 31" months. We name each of the "30 days hath" months, and we make a special case out of February which stands alone, but those "hath 31" months are just lumped together.

You don't have to memorize the "hath 31" months and you can't recite them without writing all the months and crossing out the "hath 30s" and February.

Go ahead. Try it. Try to name the "hath 31" months.

Good bar bet, though.

This is another one of those self-inflicted LeRoy Jethro Gibbs head-slaps deals that I inflict on myself: Every college has a nickname. Marietta College's nickname, as you probably already know, is "The Pioneers" because … well, it just is.

During the course of the NCAA basketball tournaments (men's and women's) I keep hearing and reading about the University of Connecticut Huskies. Why, I wondered, did a team from Connecticut choose the nickname "The Huskies?"

After 63 years of following college sports, it came to me.

The University of Connecticut is known as UConn.

Yukon.

Huskies.

Head-slap.

Speaking of self-inflicted head-slaps, Carly Fiorina is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in California to run against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer in the Fall.

In the way of campaigns trying to show they are so sensitive to every minority, the Fiorina campaign e-mailed a Passover greeting to Jewish supporters - the holiday celebrating the Jews' escape from Egypt in, I think, 1734 - which began at sundown Monday night.

A reeeeeaaaalllly big part of the Passover tradition is to forego eating anything which contains a leavening agent (like yeast) in remembrance of the Jews having high-tailed it out before the bread they were preparing had a chance to rise, leading to the tradition of eating matzoh during the eight days of this holiday.

The rule? No bread.

Carly sent out an e-mail which said:

This week, as we break bread and spend time with our families and friends, I hope we also take a moment to say a word of thanks for our freedom and for those who have given their lives in freedom's name.

Slap.

On Monday I drove from Alexandria, Virginia to New Jersey where I joined with my brother and my mom for the trip to the traditional Passover meal (the Seder) hosted by my Aunt and Uncle at their home on eastern Long Island.

Getting from New Jersey to Suffolk County, New York entails a trip along the Long Island Expressway. Having to endure the L.I.E. during rush hour is one of the two ways God reminds us of the difficulties our forebears encountered during their 40 years in the desert.

The other is the aforementioned matzoh.

Dear Ms. Fiorina: If you really want to show your interest in Passover, please charter a helicopter for me to get to next year's Seder.

I can't find out why, in that pesky H.R. 3590, of all the things the Congress could have chosen to tax to help pay for the 30 million additional people to be covered by health insurance, they decided on … tanning salons.

According to CNN the tanning salon tax "is expected to generate $2.7 billion over ten years."

Ok. Big bucks. But the tab for the health care bill - by Democrats' accounting - is going to be $940 billion.

Even someone mathematically challenged as I am knows that, at $270 million per year, it will take 3,481 years of tanning to pay for health care.

Put another way, health care will be fully funded by the year 5,491.

Sounds like a Zager and Evans song.

I wonder if anyone in the intra-mural Democrat negotiations with Speaker Nancy Pelosi ever suggested taxing Botox injections to raise money.

Now that would have been worthy of a chapter in the next edition of "Profiles in Courage".

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the text of the health care bill (which you've probably already read and annotated), to CNN's analysis of the tanning salon tax, and to Zeger & Evans.

Also, a pretty cool Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Recess Appointments

2010-03-28T18:50:00.001-07:00

I know the Conservative ecosystem is in a tizzy about President Obama's making 15 recess appointments as soon as the Senate packed up for its Spring recess, but it is allowed by the Constitution and was utilized by President George W. Bush.

From Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

One of the most famous recess appointments made by President Bush was that of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations. Democrats had filibustered Bolton's confirmation, so the President waited until the beginning of the August recess in 2005 to appoint him.

Ambassador Bolton was not likely to win Senate confirmation when his recess appointment expired, so he resigned effective the date of the adjournment of the 109th Congress in December, 2006.

After the GOP lost control of the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) prevented any further recess appointments by simply not having any recesses. When the House and Senate were on a break, one Democratic Senator would take the floor every three days to conduct a pro forma session during which no business was transacted, but no recess appointments could be made.

One person who did not receive a recess appointment was the President's second attempt to get an administrator of the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) confirmed. This time the guy was a retired Army two-star general named Robert A. Harding.

Seems that MG Harding (Ret.) had a company which won contracts with the Pentagon totaling as much as $200 million. One of them, according to Politico.com, was a "$54 million contract to provide the Defense Intelligence Agency with civilian interrogators."

Ok. He knew something about that kind of work, so maybe the contract was legit.

But then, according to the Politico piece by Kasie Hunt:

The government terminated the contract after only a year and ultimately paid Harding's outfit about $6 million, triggering an audit that revealed the company had overbilled the government by at least $860,000.
When the firm appealed the audit … negotiations resulted in Harding Security Associates repaying an additional $1.8 million to the government - a total worth more than one-third of the total contract cost."

Getting fired after one year and failing at least one audit wasn't what got my attention.

This was: According to a Washington Post piece yesterday, Major General Harding "as the owner of Harding Security Associates received a consulting contract worth almost $100 million from the Army after certifying he was a "service disabled veteran" as part of a set-aside for firms owned by service disabled vets.

That's good, the government giving preference to disabled veterans. Who could be opposed to that?

Oh. His disability? Swallow your coffee first.

Ready?

Sleep Apnea.

Over 37,000 American service members have been killed or injured in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. How many, do you suppose, were send home because of sleep apnea?

And, in any case, how could sleep apnea possibly be defined as a service-related condition?

Turns out sleep apnea is a little more serious than what I shouted when I read the headline in the Washington Post yesterday morning:

"He got $200 million in contracts because of being a heavy snorer?"

Which scared the cat, awoke the Mullings Director of Standards and Practices, and so was not a good way to start a Sunday in any conceivable dimension.

Harding would have skated on his bad bookkeeping on that $54 million contract, there would have been sixteen recess appointments announced last weekend, and every TSA office in every airport in the land would have been sent a color photo of Major General Robert Harding (Ret.) as the TSA's new leader.

Alas, Harding bailed at the end of the week after that difficult hearing and, according to the Post, "after The Washington Post raised questions with the White House on Friday about his disabilities status."

Who's vetting these people, Michaele and Tareq Salahi?

Remember that questionnaire that everyone was supposed to fill out before they could be considered for a job in the Obama Administration during the transition? The final question was:

"Provide any other information that could be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-elect."

Maybe they ought to put that one back in.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Congressional Research Service explanation of Recess Appointments, and to the Politico and Washington Post stories about Major General Robert B. "Snorey" Harding (Ret.).

Also a Mullfoto that may confuse you as much as it did me and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Be Strong but Civil

2010-03-25T20:19:00.001-07:00

The discussion about health care reform began to take on an edge last summer during those town hall meetings which became the "August Story." In district after Congressional district, Democrats who had been sent home with a vague theory of a new way to handle health insurance were shouted down and fed up.

As we noted at the time, a cardinal rule of politics is: If you don't define yourself or your issue, your opponent will do it for you.

And, boy, did the opponents of a federalized health care system define it for the Democrats.

Those Democrats who realized they had been outflanked by said that the people who attended those town hall meetings had been organized and turned-out by the GOP.

In just a few weeks the Republican Party had gone from being a defeated and dysfunctional organization (which was on the cusp of not just being the minority party; but a minor party) to a highly efficient political juggernaut which could identify, organize, and turn-out hundreds of people at town hall meetings all over the nation.

According to Democrats and the press, the GOP had gotten really good, really fast.

The Tea Partiers did not start not with health care. They started after an on-air rant by CNBC's Rick Santelli over the way the Obama administration was planning to bail out people who couldn't pay their mortgages.

SIDEBAR

The Obama Administration is, today, announcing a yet another series of programs to bail out people who can't pay their mortgages. This time it is aimed at those who are suffering because unemployment is at 9.7 percent and is likely to stay in that range for the foreseeable future.

END SIDEBAR

Random groups loosely affiliated themselves into an organization called "The Tea Party" and created a national voice of opposition to one of the many versions of the Democrats' health care reform bill.

Republicans in the House and Senate - cut out of the process by the large Democratic majorities in each Chamber - embraced the Tea Partiers and, indeed, came within three votes of stopping the entire process.

On Sunday, it was widely reported that, while walking from the House Office Buildings to the Capitol, Black Members of Congress had been spat at and had been assaulted verbally.

I don't believe it. There is not one cell phone picture, not one second of Flip camera video, not one digital photo, not one anything that corroborates any of those stories.

I am convinced that Democratic Members invented those stories to call the people who were protesting against the health care reform bill into disrepute.

If evidence comes to light to prove me wrong, then we'll revisit this.

The quickly declining state of political civility in the nation was not helped yesterday by President Obama's campaign-style appearance in Iowa City yesterday in which he employed a tone which was mocking and disrespectful.

The President's spoke of how good this bill is going to be for business. In fact, he challenged Republicans who want to run on a platform of "repeal" in November to "go for it."

Last night the Associated Press released a short analysis of how this bill will affect American companies. This is the exact text as cut-and-pasted from the New York Times website:

COSTLY CHANGE: The new health care law will make it more expensive for companies to offer prescription drug coverage for retirees because companies will receive smaller tax deductions for those benefits in the future.
TOUGH TO SWALLOW: One study estimates that U.S. companies could lose as much as $14 billion this year because of the tax law change.
SIDE EFFECTS: As many as 1.5 million to 2 million retirees could lose the prescription drug benefits their former employers provide because of the tax changes.

I agree with the President. If Republicans want to run against a bill which imposes $14 billion in new costs to American businesses, and causes and 2 million retirees to lose their prescription drug benefits they should "go for it."

It wouldn't hurt if both sides took a break from the hypertensive rhetoric and let America catch its collective breath.

Democrats are attempting to turn the attention of independent voters away from their opposition to the health care reform bill, to aversion to the protesters and Republicans who support them.

The GOP needs to be careful not to be seen as inciting physical harm to public officials. Dropping the decibels will help.

Republicans are on the correct side of this debate. They can afford to be strong, but civil.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the video of the Rick Santelli rant (which, if you've never seen it is worth four minutes of your time), to the AP's reporting on the new mortgage relief program, and to President Obama's appearance in Iowa.

Also a pretty funny Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Forget About Repeal

2010-03-23T19:53:00.001-07:00

I have received a couple of thousand e-mails from people and organizations who want me to donate to the cause of repealing the health care legislation which the House passed on Sunday night.

Forget it. Ain't gonna happen.

President Obama signed the bill into law yesterday at the White House complete with Vice President Joe "Potty Mouth" Biden dropping the F-bomb in the President's ear, in the White House, in front of an open microphone.

That Biden. What a frat-boy.

SIDEBAR

Remember when Vice President Cheney used the F-word on the hallowed floor of the U.S. Senate during a conversation with Sen. Patrick Leahy back in 2004? It only became known because some Senate staffers showed themselves to be the weenies they truly are when they raced up to the press gallery to tell all.
The next day the Washington Post assigned not one, but two reporters to get to the bottom of the outrage which was generally condemned as the end of civilization as we know it.
Cheney said shortly after the exchange: "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it."
I feel better just writing about it.

END SIDEBAR

No matter what happens to the reconciliation bill in the Senate - and I think it will pretty much sail through - the underlying bill is now law. Full (as the British say) stop.

The only way to repeal a law is to enact a new law cancelling the first one.

The only way to enact a new law (as we all re-learned last week) is for the House and the Senate to pass identical bills which are then combined, signed by the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate, sent to the White House, and signed by the President.

Except …

Even if Republicans were to win control of both the House and the Senate in November the House might pass a repeal bill, but such a bill would need 60 votes in the Senate, which would not happen.

Even if the repeal got 60 votes in the Senate it would still need the signature of President Barack Obama, which would not happen.

President Obama would veto such a bill and it would require 2/3 votes in each the House and the Senate to override the veto.

Which … Would … Not … Happen.

So, before you sign a check to help some group which claims it will help get the health care bill repealed, consider just how difficult that will be.

NEW TOPIC

I am officially changing my search engine from Google to Bing. Why? Because I , er, Googled myself on Bing.com and got this result:

1-10 of 3,170,000 results

If Microsoft can find 3.1 million entries for me, I'm their guy.

BOOK PLUG - You, Me, and the U.S. Economy by Stacy Carlson

Now that President Obama has reformed health care, he and his pals in Congress are turning their attention to reforming the financial system, although one reform is already one too many for most of us.

As you may know I'm still cranky about the paying off AIG's counterparties at par (I only know what that means because of Stacy's book). Reform is probably necessary but not as a synonym for more government control and larger government bureaucracies.

In September of 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, I wrote some pretty good stuff explaining why, even though we all hated it and Wall Street, the bank bail-out was a necessary evil.

Here's an example:

As far as I'm concerned Moe, Larry and Curly couldn't have done any worse than these Wall Street jerks with their slicked back hair, tailor-made shirts and suits, custom-fit shoes, gold cufflinks, and Hermes ties.
And that's just the women.

Mull-Pal Stacy Carlson was Hank Paulson's speech writer at Treasury and was in the building the whole time. She has written a book about it that was simple enough for me to understand, with humor, and with a handy crisis glossary.

"You, Me, and the U.S. Economy" available at Amazon.com. Take a look by clicking HERE.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A link to the Washington Post's breathless coverage of the Cheney-Leahy Senate debate, a Mullfoto which shows why Easter Break is the worst time to be in DC, and a pretty funny Catchy Caption of the Day.

The Health Care Bill Has Passed

2010-03-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

I am not breaking my arm patting myself on the back. I've been doing this long enough to know that when it comes to predictions, I am correct precisely 50 percent of the time.

The end of the fight to defeat this health care bill came at about four o'clock Sunday afternoon when the President promised Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) that he would sign an Executive Order banning the use of Federal money to fund abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.

When Stupak agreed to the langue in the Executive Order as an acceptable safety net for the pro-life Democrats in the House, the issue was resolved. [A link to the text of the Executive Order is available on the Secret Decoder Ring Page HERE]

There are several steps left to go before this is done.

The Speaker and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate have to sign the official copy of the legislation which will then carried to the White House where it will be signed, with justifiable flourish, by President Obama. That satisfies Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution which provides that,

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it …

But, the bill which the House passed was the exact bill which was adopted by the Senate - including the Cornhusker kick-back and a tax on so-called "Cadillac health care plans" which many in the House don't like.

Dear Mr. Mullings:

This is where my head begins to hurt. Why did the House go through all this? Why didn't they just pass the bill they wanted and come up with a bill both Chambers would accept in a Conference between them?
F.I.L.I.B.U.S.T.E.R.
With the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) in January, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev) lost his 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. That meant that a bill passed by the House which was not identical to the bill already adopted by the Senate would be effectively killed by Senate Republicans.
My head doesn't hurt any less. So, what's with this whole reconciliation thing?
I'm on shaky ground here, but the main point is: Budget resolutions and bills which "reconcile" spending to fit within a budget resolution are not subject to filibuster and so need only a majority of those voting (51 Senators if everyone is working that day).

Here's what the Senate's glossary page says about the reconciliation process:

A process established in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 by which Congress changes existing laws to conform tax and spending levels to the levels set in a budget resolution. Changes recommended by committees pursuant to a reconciliation instruction are incorporated into a reconciliation measure.

Which makes my head hurt.

Anyway, the Democrats are claiming that the fix-it bill coming back from the House is really a budget reconciliation bill and thus needs only a simple majority.

Senate Republicans, as you might imagine, are in hearty disagreement with this theory.

The Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the reconciliation bill can't be presented to the Senate until the President has signed the underlying bill - there has to be something to reconcile. So, the Senate will wait to take up the fixes until after the signing ceremony at the White House.

Here's where I think the plan fails: If I have to buy insurance to drive a car, that's fine. I don't have to drive. I can walk, ride a bike, take the bus, whatever.

If I have to pay an airport tax to help defray the costs of the TSA, that's fine, too. I don't have to get on an airplane. I can walk, ride a bike, take the bus, whatever.

This bill says that I have to purchase health insurance. I don't have to drive or fly, but I do have to live, so that that seems to be a government seizure forbidden by the Fourth Amendment.

If I was on shaky ground on the reconciliation thing, given the single Con Law class I took from Professor Robert Hill at Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750 I might be on quicksand on this one, but there you have it.

At about 10:48 last night, the vote was gaveled into history and the bill was adopted 219 - 212 - three votes to spare.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: The text of the President's Executive Order on abortion funding, a link to the Senate's glossary page, and the text of the Fourth Amendment.

Also a gentle Mullfoto of the season's first daffodil, and a pretty good Catchy Caption of the Day.

Health Care Will Pass

2010-03-18T20:44:00.001-07:00

I think that the health care bill will be adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives on Sunday. It may need that screwy "having deemed to have passed" nonsense that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has up her sleeve or it may pass on a straight up-or-down vote.

SIDEBAR

In 2003 the House printed 550,000 copies of a document titled: "How Our Laws Are Made."
(A)None of them apparently made it to Speaker Pelosi's office because,

(B) a word search did not turn up a reference to a bill "deemed" to have passed without an actual vote.

END SIDEBAR

How do I know the health care bill is going to pass? I don't. I'm not rooting for it, but I think that is what will happen.

And on Monday … guess what? The sun will come up. The Earth will continue to spin on its axis. America will not be officially renamed: France; neither Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, nor Haile Selassie will not have come back to life; and Tiger Woods' return to competitive play will set an all-time record for viewers of the Masters.

Here's the point: The Democrats are only doing what Democrats do when they have the power to do it. If Republicans hadn't done so badly at the polls in 2006 and 2008 this wouldn't have happened.

Let's review the bidding: In the 109th Congress (2005-2007) there were 232 Republicans, 202 Democrats and one Independent. The GOP had a comfortable majority.

Too comfortable, it turned out, because following the election of November of 2006, the 110th Congress went to work in January of 2007 with 233 Democrats and 202 Republicans. Democrats had just a comfortable a majority.

A majority to which they added in the election of 2008 by picking up an additional 24 seats to go into the 111th Congress with a margin of 257 to 178.

That's far from the worst deficit the GOP has found itself in. When I first came to Washington in 1977 (post-Watergate) the split was 292 to 143. Because you will run out of fingers and toes I did the arithmetic for you. Democrats had a margin of 149 seats.

Even that wasn't the worst. Since the House went to 435 Members in 1913 the lowest number of Republicans was … 88 in 1937 which was the result of the election of 1936 - the beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term.

I have a theory that it is Roosevelt's first two terms upon which President Barack Obama has chosen to model himself. In those eight years Roosevelt forced through, among other programs, the following:

- Civilian Conservation Corps

- Federal Trade Commission

- Agricultural Adjustment Administration

- Securities and Exchange Commission

- Tennessee Valley Authority

- Works Progress Administration

- Social Security

- National Labor Relations Act

- United States Housing Authority

- Fair Labor Standards Act (minimum wage)

Nevertheless, the economy remained intractably awful. Throughout the New Deal the median jobless rate was 17.2%.

Adding to Roosevelt's woes, the U.S. Supreme Court kept blocking many of his programs saying that too much power which the Constitution reserved for the Legislative Branch was being usurped by the Executive Branch.

Roosevelt came up with a scheme to add six Justices (the legislation called for one new federal judge or Justice to be appointed for every sitting jurist over the age of 70). That plan was defeated by Senate Democrats but it showed that Roosevelt was willing to do anything he needed to do in order to get his legislative programs operational.

That is a lesson not lost on Barack Obama.

There is no record of FDR, during a State of the Union message, having pointed an accusing finger at Justices of the Supreme Court sitting 20 feet in front of him during the New Deal as President Obama did earlier this year.

That bit of theatrics might cost Barack Obama a great deal because it may well be that the current Supreme Court, and not the House Rules Committee, will have the final word on the scale and scope of national health insurance.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Very excellent links including "How our Law are Made," a short history of FDR, a closer look at the Court Packing Scheme, and Party Divisions in the U.S. House going back to 1789. Also an extremely rare VIDEO Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

A Better Place to Be

2010-03-16T20:36:00.001-07:00

From Global Strike Command Headquarters

Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana

I know you are expecting a screed about the Democrats' decision to use the "deemed passed" parliamentary trick to pass the healthcare legislation without a direct vote, but that will have to wait until Friday.

Today, I want to share a few minutes with you of how I spent my day yesterday in Bossier City, Louisiana which, along with being the location of a bunch of casinos, is also the home of the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command Headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base.

I was invited to speak to a conference of public affairs personnel - enlisted and officers - about why what they do is really, really important.

I was invited by the head of the public affairs shop, Lt. Col. John Thomas with whom I served in Iraq, and then again in Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina.

Most of these service members were in their late twenties or early thirties. I told them about my Army National Guard career - a six year ordeal for both me and the military during which I rose to the rank of sergeant for about 90 minutes before being busted back to E-4.

I told them that I was in the Guard when mules were the principal form of propulsion. Hyperbole, but not by much. I suspect of the roomful of airmen not more than a handful were even born when the Vietnam war was being fought.

I told them that back in the day it was suggested we go to our National Guard drills in civilian clothes, and change in the armory. I pointed out the difference between those days and these when, very often, someone in line at Starbucks will order their Grande Mocha and then, pointing to the man or woman in uniform behind them, will say "and whatever he/she is having."

For those who may have come in late, I spent about six months in Iraq back in 2003 and 2004. Hard to believe it was that long ago. I was a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, but I formed a strong bond with the men and women who have chosen to make the military a career.

The public affairs activity in the military is a far, far different animal than the press or communications function in politics or government. For one thing, if we shade the truth to a reporter it is often put down as "good spin." In the military lying to the press (and, by extension the American people) is actionable by court martial.

Yikes!

The folks I spoke to on Tuesday are all assigned to bases in the United States. But, judging from the head nods when I recounted stories of derring-do in Iraq (some parts of some of the stories were actually true).

What most of us know about the military is either in heated action (now in southern Afghanistan) or when something goes horribly wrong (like the terrorist who opened fire at Ft. Hood).

What these folks have to do, I suggested, was to look for ways to promote the value of the military to work-a-day folks outside the boundaries of the base.

In the war-zone days if Iraq my job was to help bring non-combat news back to local U.S. markets. With the help of excellent deputies like Tom Basile (now the executive director of the New York GOP) we got footage of American service members and USAID employees rebuilding schools, fixing water plants, helping stand up the various ministries, and generally helping the Iraqi people get back on their feet.

It was easy interviewing a soldier in Mosul helping city officials restart services to their constituents and sending the tape to her hometown TV stations in Schenectady, or where ever. It is tougher to ferret out good stories of military personnel stationed in Louisiana, or North Dakota.

But, I suggested, it is no less important because what the uniformed service members do every day - Marines at Camp Pendleton, California; soldiers at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina; Navy personnel at Norfolk, Virginia; Airmen at Barksdale; or Coast Guardians just about everywhere - is completely devoted to allowing their fellow citizens to go about their daily routine safe from foreign attack.

I could have been in Washington on Tuesday in a projectile sweat about the Democrats' plot to pass healthcare without an up-or-down vote; but I was in a much better place.

With some really good people.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A link to the Barksdale AFB webpage, an interesting Mullfoto and a really good Catchy Caption of the Day.

Beware the Ides of March

2010-03-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

Today is the Ides of March. We remember all too well that Julius Caesar was warned of the dangers of this date (Julius Caesar, Act I; Scene 2 for those keeping score at home).

We are down to the end game on Health Care legislation. It won't come to the House floor on the Ides of March, but it won't miss by much.

President Barack Obama has told Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he wants a vote this weekend, postponed his trip to Indonesia and Australia by three days; and is no longer taking Mrs. Obama nor the children along to demonstrate just how serious he is.

The second most interesting discussions over the weekend in Your Nation's Capital (behind which men's basketball teams would be seeded where for the NCAA tournament) was: How many votes does Pelosi have?

Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) said on "Meet the Press" yesterday that he doesn't believe there are enough votes to pass the bill yet but, according to the Associated Press, Clyburn "says he's confident that the legislation will pass."

That matches what a Republican leadership staffer I spoke with told me. He thought the Democrats might be one or two votes short right now, but by the time the vote is taken enough twists of enough arms will occur to pass it.

It seems disturbingly obvious that not very many of the people whose arms are in peril know what "it" will ultimately contain, but that is a small detail for the Democratic majority hell-bent on getting this thing behind them.

In fact, according to ABC News' David Kearley:

"To retain votes in the Senate, the White House is now backing away from its ban on special deals for individual states, which was a promise the president made after the 'Cornhusker Kickback' was revealed - giving Nebraska extra Medicaid money to win Sen. Ben Nelson's vote."

Let's assume the bill passes - this will be the Senate bill, remember - which still has the bribe money for Louisiana and Nebraska which was proffered for the votes of Mary Landrieu (D-La) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb).

Republicans are saying that any Democrat who is running in a marginal seat - that is a District which is not a lock for either party in November - is being forced to walk the political plank by voting in favor of the bill.

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said on ABC' "This Week" that if the Democrats use reconciliation to "fix" the Senate bill,

"There will be a price to be paid to jam a bill through. The American people don't like using a sleazy process."

I'm not so sure.

My long experience is that regular people - not people who read MULLINGS or watch Cable news - but people who wake up every morning hoping they still have a job when they come back home; who work with their kids every night to see that their homework is done; who base the family dinner menu based upon clipped coupons and items on the grocery store shelves which are on sale they have already given up on this process.

Reports that players on both sides are preparing to spend up to $1 million a day on television advertisements for or against this bill is unlikely to produce a groundswell one way or the other.

The staffs in House and Senate offices know who the "pen pals" are and where they are likely to fall on any particular issue.

Great numbers of Americans who have not already done so, are not likely to be moved to call or send an e-mail expressing their position on health care because they are forced to sit through a gush of TV ads.

There may be a price to pay on November 2 when we go to the polls to vote. If there is a general "throw the rascals out" mood" that will help the GOP because there are more Democrat rascals available for tossing.

But, even if the GOP runs the table and takes control of the House, the leadership would be wise to look for ways - quickly - to not repeat the mistakes of the Democrats in this Congress.

On this, the Ides of March, they would be wise to remember the warning of Cassius in the same Act and the same Scene of the same play:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

They will be underlings again, if they don't learn the lesson that, in the end, it costs more to take it all, than it does to give a little to the other side.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the vote-counting process, the President's trip, and the Ides of March. Also a Mullfoto showing the flooding in Old Town Alexandria yesterday and a Catchy Caption of the Day which isn't very good.

The Heavy Weight of Scandal

2010-03-11T16:46:00.001-08:00

From Viera, Florida

Spring Home of YOUR Washington Nationals

Republicans were fired from their control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the election of 2006 for a number of reasons. Spending too much generally was one of them. Bloating appropriations bills with "earmarks" to reward friends and supporters was another. Iraq was certainly a major contributing factor.

But, what weighed House Republicans down like an anchor around their collective necks was: Scandal. Duke Cunningham's written menu of acceptable bribe amounts. Jack Abramoff buying Members and staff like heads of romaine lettuce at Whole Foods. And the father of all the scandals, Mark Foley.

I won't regurgitate the whole sordid Foley story here (there is a link to the Washington Post's coverage on the SDR HERE) but it involved the Florida Republican having inappropriate text-message conversations with a 16-year-old male page; the House Republican Leadership knowing about it; and nothing being done.

The implication was that Speaker's office thought it was more important to protect the GOP brand than to protect a teenaged page from the predations of a Member of the House.

Foley became the shorthand for everything voters disliked - hated - about Republicans in the House. Cunningham trading votes for furniture seemed odd. Other Members trading votes for golfing trips just seemed stupid. Preying on a child - that, they understood. Protecting the predator - that, was punishable by death at the ballot box.

It is important to remember what that felt like, four long years ago, because House Democrats find themselves in much the same position.

The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is one of the most powerful people on the planet. He writes the tax laws. A semicolon in the tax code can save (or cost) a multinational corporation tens of millions of dollars every year. For 100 years the tax code has been used to nudge, or force, Americans into a particular behavior. Want people to smoke less? Tax cigarettes more. Want people to buy houses? Make interest on mortgages deductible. And so on.

Charles Rangel had to give up the chairmanship of Ways and Means but not before Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended him, then waffled, then had to watch as the Committee Members tossed out the guy next in line and voted for Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich).

Rangel is not out of the woods. The Ethics Committee is still looking a charges of tax evasion, influence peddling, and misuse of rent-controlled apartments in New York City.

The big deal this past week was the Eric Massa mess. The Ethics Committee closed its investigation into what Massa did, said, or tried to do and with whom because he resigned and they no longer have jurisdiction over him.

House Republicans, though, forced a vote on a resolution to force the Ethics Committee to decide whether it should reopen the case to look at what members of the Democratic House Leadership knew and when they knew it.

Things have gotten so bad that one of the principal advisors to the Obama Presidential campaign, Steve Hildebrand, went to the White House to tell Obama's senior advisor, David Axelrod that "there is a real shot we [Democrats] are going to get slaughtered in elections this fall if we aren't leading the efforts to reform Washington."

In one of those surreal Washington moments documented by CNN's Ed Henry, Hildebrand went to the "White House on Wednesday for a quiet meeting with … Axelrod, to express a fear that Republicans are seizing the high ground on cleaning up Washington."

It is surreal because only in Washington would someone go to the WH for a "quiet meeting" and do an interview with CNN (or Fox or anyone else) before hand. I guess a "noisy meeting" would have included dressing up like a snowman and holding a sign while marching back and forth in front of the White House in Lafayette Park.

It is too early for Republican Leader John Boehner to start measuring for drapes in the Speaker's suite; but I might start thinking about buying options on cardboard boxes for all those Democratic Committee and Subcommittee chairs and their thousands of staff members who may have to pack up and make way for their incoming Republican replacements.

Democrats are swimming upstream and scandal is a heavy, heavy weight to bear.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Ed Henry piece about Hildebrand and the Wash Post report on Foley.

Also a link to the Nats Notes from Nationals' spring training, a Mullfoto in which I defend the 2nd Amendment and a Catchy Caption of the day.

A Massa Dirty Laundry

2010-03-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

From Viera, Florida

Spring Home of YOUR Washington Nationals

The biggest question I have about former Rep. Eric Massa is: How have we missed this guy for so long?

For those of you who have been hanging around the teacher's parking lot smoking cigarettes for the past week instead of sitting in class, there is this guy, Eric Massa, who, until Monday, was a DEMOCRAT Member of Congress from Western New York.

Massa resigned on Monday saying he was being forced out of office by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer because he was going to vote "No" on the health care bill when it came to the floor.

Without Massa, the number of votes needed for an absolute majority in the House goes down to 216 because of vacancies for one reason or another.

It appears Massa was going to vote "No" not because he is a moderate Democrat, but because he refused to support the bill without a public option.

Massa maintained that his was the deciding vote - that by voting with the Republicans the bill would have been defeated. That is like me claiming I cast the deciding vote in the Virginia race for Governor last November. If Massa was correct about that, then the bill would have been on the floor yesterday.

It wasn't and it isn't going to be any time soon because now that Sen. Mary Landrieu (the Louisiana Purchase) and Sen. Ben Nelson (the Cornhusker Kickback) have shown how much the deciding vote is actually worth, we have been witnessing a headlong rush by members of the House Democratic Caucus to stay undecided as long as possible.

The proximate cause for Massa's resignation was a complaint that he sexually harassed a male member of his staff. His explanation is not much better than whatever visions just ran through your head. Massa says it stopped at "ruffling" the hair of the staffer (while they were at another staffer's wedding) after Massa suggested he was more interested in the male staffer than in any of the bridesmaids.

Don't know what the bridesmaids looked like so, in fairness, we cannot not accurately judge the choice.

Massa resigned saying he wanted to avoid an Ethics Committee investigation which would go back to the day he was born and said he is a "deeply flawed and imperfect person" which may be, could be, might be, construed by some people of a harsher temperament as something of an understatement.

Wait! There's more! According to Dana Milbank's Washington Post piece, on a radio show over the weekend Massa described an … encounter … with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel in the shower in the House gym:

"I'm sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest. . . . Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?"

Well, no. Can't say as I do.

The House Democratic Leadership decided it better get in front of this story, so to speak, so they allowed it to be leaked that Massa was also being investigated for actually, sexually groping a male staffer.

With all this swirling around, Glen Beck decided Massa would be a great guest for his Fox News Channel program and booked him for the full hour. Beck asked Massa about the new charge.

Again, according to Milbank's column:

"Now they're saying I groped a male staffer," he volunteered. "Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday."

Oh. It was a BIRTHday party. Well, who wouldn't celebrate their Big Five-Oh that way? I mean, really.

The good news, is that the GOP will probably win that district. Governor David Paterson, who is under siege himself, will probably call a special election fairly quickly if only to irritate the White House which would rather the seat remain vacant for the time being.

Massa has a mass o' dirty laundry of which, I suspect, this is only the first pair of gym socks.

I promised I wouldn't load you down with info on the Washington Nationals but if you are interested in the first two columns from Florida, you can find the links on the Secret Decoder Ring page by clicking HERE.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Milbank column and to Stu Rothenberg's thumbnail sketch of NY-29. Also those links to the Nats columns, a Mullfoto which will make you wonder, and a really scary Catchy Caption of the Day.

Stephen Stratsburg's Debut

2010-03-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Nationals Notes

from Space Coast Stadium

Viera, Florida

Tuesday March 9, 2010

It's STRASBURG DAY! The ballpark, indeed the entire East Coast, maybe all of Western civilization is abuzz with anticipation.

In the press box at Space Coast Stadium the National's press staff is busily putting place cards in front of chairs for reporters who have called in advance that they want to be here for this once-in-a-millennium event.

I remember when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I was in OCS in the Ohio National Guard and we were told we had to go to bed. I said that a human was only going to walk on the moon for the first time once and tonight was the night and if I had to quit to stay up and watch it, I quit.

A serious consult among the Tac Officers ensued and they saw the wisdom - or at least the logic - of my thinking and we were allowed to stay up.

Today is going to be the first time - forever - that Stephen Strasburg will throw a pitch against a full slate of opposing major league hitters and there are a lot of reporters here to watch it.

For those who have not followed the off-season activities of the Washington Nationals, let me review the bidding:

Two years ago the Washington Nationals had the worst record in baseball with 102 losses and, thus, had the first overall pick in the amateur draft. They couldn't make a deal with their number one pick which cast a pall over the Nationals' front office generally and the Lerner family (principal owners) in particular. The player, Aaron Crow, still hasn't made it to the majors, but is now in the Kansas City Royals organization and is hoping to make the jump this year.

Then came the 2009 draft. The Nationals had 103 losses and were again rewarded with the number one pick.

This kid Stephen Strasburg has been attracting attention since he started playing catch with his dad and a beach ball in his backyard at about two-and-a-half.

By the time he got to San Diego State University, he was tabbed as a potential high draft choice and in his senior year he was a lock for number one.

The Nationals went to the well and gave him a $15 million contract - the largest for any amateur athlete in history. Since the day he was signed, he has been treated like he was a $15 million property.

Sports writers flew to the Nationals' training facility here last year to watch Strasburg take his first practice pitches as a professional. In the Arizona League his every outing was covered like he was pitching in the World Series. Since training camp opened here, every practice pitch to every catcher with or without a batter in the box (the batters were instructed not to swing) has been duly reported with accompanying quotes from players who had also stopped to watch.

Which brings us to today. Stephen Strasburg day. Early this morning the press box crew was suggesting that perhaps he could be carried to the mount by two of the larger members of the Nationals. Someone else said they should flood center field and let Strasburg walk on the water to the middle of the infield.

The scoop is, he appears to be a good kid who has his head on straight - or on as straight as a kid in his early 20s with 15 million in the bank can have it.

More on Taiwanese right hander Chein-Ming Wang. Once again the press box was jammed with reporters, camera men, photographers, and producers speaking what I think was Chinese. Adding to that the number of out-of-town baseball writers who are in for STRASBURG DAY today and I got tossed out of my seat in the press box.

Members of the Baseball Writers Association have first dibs on press box seats, and even with the overflow areas which the Nationals' press staff had organized, there wasn't any room for me. The Nats press staff took it seriously, though and I ended up in the Nationals' executive suite overlooking home plate one deck above the press box.

Please don't throw me into the briar patch.

Here's the shot from a balcony down the first base line, of Strasburg's first pitch:

This is how Bill Ladsen (writer for MLB.com) saw Strasburg's first inning facing major league batters:

Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 First-Year Player Draft, made his Spring Training debut against the Tigers at Space Coast Stadium on Tuesday afternoon and pitched two scoreless innings.
In the first inning, Strasburg retired the Tigers in order. His pitches were clocked no lower than 96 mph.
In the second inning, Strasburg faced the tough part of the order. He threw two 81-mph curveballs to Miguel Cabrera before striking out the slugger on a 98-mph fastball.
The next hitter, Carlos Guillen, grounded out to Ryan Zimmerman on a 97-mph fastball. After giving up consecutive singles to Don Kelly and Alex Avila, Strasburg regrouped and struck out Brent Dlugach looking on an 81-mph curveball.
Strasburg threw 27 pitches, 15 for strikes.

In the end, the Nationals lost the game, 9-4 but it was a great day for the franchise.

---

More tomorrow.

Arm Twisting

2010-03-07T18:28:00.001-08:00

From Viera, Florida

Spring Home of YOUR Washington Nationals

Last week was not a good one in the Obama Administration's drive to have one more crack at a health care bill in Congress.

First: Of the six national polls measuring President Obama's job approval taken over the past three weeks only one is over 50 percent. None of the others have him over 48 percent.

To successfully twist arms on the Hill, any White House needs political leverage which is measured by public approval (or, in the case of the Obama team, public adoration). With the President's approval ratings under water, using the real or implied threat of Presidential unhappiness is not likely to gain many votes among recalcitrant members of the Democratic House Caucus on the health care bill.

Second: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel has rolled-out a full-scale "None-of-This-is-My-Fault" PR campaign which, in Washington, is always viewed as the precursor to a resignation ruefully submitted and regretfully accepted.

If Rahm is on his way out, or people believe he's on his way out, he is not useful as an arm twister.

David Axelrod is the most Senior of Advisors at the Obama White House. In a NY Times piece yesterday, Emmanuel and Axelrod were compared this:

"Recent news reports have cast the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, as the administration's chief pragmatist, and Mr. Axelrod, by implication, as something of a swooning loyalist."

Can't send a "swooning loyalist" up to the Hill to twist those arms. No Independence Avenue cred.

A couple of months ago, President Obama called in his campaign manager, David Plouffe, to work out of the Democratic National Committee offices and oversee the 2010 House, Senate and Gubernatorial campaigns.

According to the Atlantic's Mark Ambinder:

Here's the key: Plouffe doesn't report to David Axelrod, or the deputy White House chief of staff; or to the DNC executive director; or to Gov. Tim Kaine, the DNC chairman; or to the White House political director.
He reports to the president. Informally. But this informal channel is Plouffe's and Plouffe's alone. Plouffe is the one who has the power to make the gears move more efficiently.

Here's how this works. Plouffe works out of the DNC but chats on a regular basis with the Democratic House, Senate, and Governor campaign committees. They NEED the President to do mega-events to raise money for those running for re-election in a tough year.

A nod or a shake-of-the-head from Plouffe and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raises 10-15 million dollars at a DC fundraiser; or it doesn't.

Plouffe can - as Ambinder puts it - informally suggest that any House Dem who doesn't vote for the next version of the health care bill doesn't benefit from any funds raised via the President's appearance, image, voice, or signature.

No one would ever admit that had ever happened, but that's leverage in Your Nation's Capital.

Meanwhile, those very same House Democrats are lining up at the House Ethics Committee like s'mores at a summer camp color-war kick-off bonfire.

At the beginning of the week, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York City, had to "temporarily" step down from his post following an Ethics Committee finding that he allowed private entities to pay for his travel, and a slew of pending ethics investigations into his fund-raising, tax-paying, and influence-peddling activities over the past years.

No one is betting Rangel will ever regain his post.

That was in the beginning of the week. At the end of the week a Democratic Congressman from upstate New York, Eric Massa, announced he would resign effective today rather than undergo an ethics investigation into charges he had sexually harassed a male staffer.

Finally, the Democratic Governor of that fine state, David Paterson, is mired in not one, but two ethical bogs; one involving his being accused, according to the Albany Times-Union of

"interference in a domestic violence case … while a new ethics controversy raises the question of whether Mr. Paterson improperly solicited tickets to the World Series."

Paterson's original sin, of course, was irritating the NY Times by not appointing Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat.

A few more weeks like the last one, and the Democrats will run out of arms to twist.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links upon links upon Links including one which has a recipe for s'mores.

The Mullfoto of the day is the new post-Tiger Accenture airport advertisement. And a Catchy Caption of the Day.

A Dark Could on the GOP Horizon

2010-03-04T20:26:00.001-08:00

Spring Training Alert!

I'm off to Florida on Sunday for a week of watching, and writing about, the Washington Nationals at their Spring Training HQ in Viero, Florida.
For those few of you who do not care about the Nats, I will not be MULLING about them, but I will be providing Facebook and Twitter feeds about the exciting life I will be leading staying at the Melbourne Hampton Inn, driving the two-door whatever I get from Hertz, and dining at the finest sports bars and fast food restaurants in the area.
Both my Twitter and my Facebook IDs are: RichGalen.
I was trying for something in a screen name that was really cool like CryptoThor or BeowulfsDragon, but I kept forgetting what they were.
I still sometimes forget my current screen name.

In Texas on Tuesday a little known woman named Debra Medina ran as the Tea Party candidate and got nearly 19 percent of the vote in the GOP primary for Governor.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison got about 30 percent and Gov. Rick Perry got 51 percent meaning Medina was far closer to Hutchison than Hutchison was to Perry.

In this era of euphoria for the GOP, this result could well portend a huge problem next November.

Here's why.

Medina got about a fifth of the vote in a GOP primary. She would probably have gotten a far smaller percentage in a general election, but that's where I'm going with this.

Primary elections and other nominating processes will be pretty much done by August. A few states go into September, but not many. So, Republican and Democrat nominees will be chosen and running against each other by, for the most part, late summer.

In Congressional District after Congressional District Democrats are fearing for their political lives in the face of an Obama job approval which is stuck at slightly below 50 percent.

Running head-to-head against the Republican nominee is going to be a steep hill to climb - Washington experience does not appear to be a big plus this year.

Most states have a process for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. It usually involves getting some number of signatures from some segment of the population in each county or some similar formula.

Someone is going to figure out that being the Tea Party candidate can get you a significant percentage of the vote, if you can get on the ballot.

Debra Medina got about the same percentage of the vote as Ross Perot got in the Presidential election of 1992. Perot didn't win any electoral votes, but he got enough popular votes to draw support away from George H.W. Bush and allowed Bill Clinton to win the state.

Another example. If Ralph Nader hadn't been on the Florida ballot no recount would have been necessary. Al Gore would have won the state fairly handily and would have been the 43rd President of the United States.

If Tea Party candidates can get on the ballot in close districts, they can easily do the same thing: Siphon votes away from the GOP candidate and throw the district to the Democrat.

Why would they do this? To demand that Republican candidates toe the Tea Party Line - or else.

In most states independents can gain ballot access well after the primary voting period, so they can make the threat stick: Come out against an ever-encroaching Federal government or the Tea Party candidate will get on the ballot and you can go back to your day job.

If I were advising the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, I would tell them to set aside a fund of money to teach Tea Party candidates how to gain ballot access in the 30 - 40 Districts which the Ds think are in most peril.

Republican challengers in Democrat districts can preempt that plot by claiming the Tea Party mantle starting, oh, tomorrow would be just about right.

Republican incumbents won't lose to Tea Party candidates. They might if they were running in a GOP primary in the Northeast, but there aren't very many Republican incumbents in that region so there is not much low hanging fruit.

The power of the Tea Baggers can be best used in weak Democratic districts where they can threaten to get on the ballot and destroy Republican chances to take back control of the U.S. House.

That is a dangerous storm bearing down on GOP hopes for November.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Forget about the links. You will absolutely want to see the Mullfoto which involves a female Israeli soldier and a rifle. Trust me.

The Women's Canadian Biathlon Team is a bunch of bearded, cross-eyed men in comparison.

Also a related Catchy Caption of the Day.

KBH

2010-03-02T22:17:00.001-08:00

From Dallas, Texas

Yesterday was primary election day in Texas.

The biggest race of the night was between incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry and Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Perry won. By a lot.

Long-time Mullsters know that I worked for Sen. Hutchison (who is known by friend and foe alike as KBH) for three months during the summer of 2008 and I remain a huge fan.

It has been clear for a number of weeks that Governor Perry would hold easily off Hutchison's challenge, but I came down to Dallas anyway. As I told one of Hutchison's advisors: "You need to show up even when the news might be bad; you can't just show up for the balloon drop."

The polls closed at seven. The early returns had Perry leading Hutchison about 52 percent to 32 percent. A couple of hours later, at about 9:30 Central, Sen. Hutchison addressed a small crowd made up of loyalists who hung around even when defeat was foretold, and conceded the race to Gov. Perry.

Under Texas law, if no candidate gets over 50 percent then there is a runoff. But it was clear even two hours into the counting, that Perry was going to be some 20 percentage points ahead of Hutchison, so she did the honorable thing and conceded outright. Even if the final tally shows Perry under the magic 50 percent; Hutchison was too far behind to be able to make up the ground in a run-off.

A young man stopped me and suggested that the vote totals might change and she should not concede. I said that in my experience, when the basic split between the candidates is static through a significant part of the counting; that split is likely to maintain.

With 89 percent of the precincts reporting - at about midnight Central - Perry still had 51 percent of the vote to KBH's 30 percent.

I have been doing this for a long time.

The NY Times wrote, in an early edition, that Perry "had courted the Tea Party movement" from the get go, but Debra Medina was the Tea Party candidate and got about 18 percent of the votes.

That surprised me because very often people will say they are planning to vote for a third-party or protest candidate, but when it comes to actually punching out the chad, pulling the lever, or filling in the box; people decide that throwing their vote away on a candidate who cannot possibly win is not a good idea.

There are a lot of Republicans in Texas and about one in five of them who went to the polls yesterday voted for the Tea Party candidate.

I may have to rethink my position.

Perry's election night do was at one of the best barbecue places on the planet, the Salt Lick in a place called Driftwood, Texas.

I grew up on Long Island in New York. There is no town named "Driftwood" on Long Island. It's one of the many things I love about Texas.

The winner of the Democratic primary here was former Houston Mayor Bill White who will face Perry in the Fall. White will not be able to paint Perry as a Washington insider (as Perry did to Hutchison), and will have to make the case that Texas is suffering under Perry's leadership.

Ask KBH if that argument sells.

Texas' unemployment rate is about 8.3 percent compared to 9.7 percent nationally. That's not great, but it ain't Michigan.

Texas has no personal income tax but has a pretty high sales tax to make up for it. That means you are not punished for making money; but you are taxed on how much of it you choose to spend.

I like that.

With voters in a "throw the rascals out" mood, KBH didn't make a good enough case as to why Perry was a rascal who needed to be thrown out. Nor did she make a good enough case as to why she should be the one to replace that particular rascal if, indeed, he should be thrown out.

Hutchison's Senate term runs through 2012. Last night was not an appropriate time to ask her if she would serve out her term, but she needs to announce her decision soon so that the people in Texas who have been bobbing up and down in the political waters waiting to see when (or if) she would step down can plan their lives.

I hope KBH stays in the Senate. She works hard, makes people listen to her ideas, and is a great representative in Washington for the people of Texas.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Dallas Morning News page tracking election results in Texas and to a review of the Salt Lick in Driftwood.

Also a Mullfoto of the sign on the window in my hotel room and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Winter Olympics

2010-02-28T19:13:00.001-08:00

I thought Vancouver and NBC did a great job putting on and covering the XXIst Winter Olympics.

I know the weather was uncooperative and the opening ceremonies had glitches and, I assume, the buses didn't run on time and sometimes the beer was warm but, watching from my couch in Historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia I thought they were just swell.

The only thing that kept the Olympics from being perfect is there were not 17 straight days of Women's Biathlon events. If they would have the women competing in the Super G sling rifles on their backs, that would be excellent on a number of levels (if-you-know-what-I-mean-and-I-think-you-do).

I watched the Women's figure skating because I think they are the absolutely perfect combination of grace and athleticism. The three young women who won, deserved to win. Yu-Na Kim (South Korea, Gold) and Mao Asada (Japan, Silver) are only 19. The winner of the bronze medal was 24-year-old Joannie Rochette lost her mom to a heart attack earlier in the week, but skated, skated beautifully, and won a medal.

For long-time MULLINGS readers you know that I cry at coffee commercials at Christmas, so every time someone recounted the story of Miss Rochette I sobbed.

She carried the home-town flag - the Canadian flag - into the stadium for the closing ceremonies and I didn't just cry … I sobbed.

The final event was the Gold Medal Hockey Game which was between the USA and Canada. The other day I wrote that I hoped we wiped the ice up with the Canadians, but I was just pretending to be macho.

Hockey is the home sport of Canada and they reeeeeeeely wanted to win the Gold. Last weekend a pretty young USA team (every player on both teams are NHL professionals) beat the Canadian team and that set up a really great final.

The Canadians broke to a two-zip lead. The US team fought back to make it 2-1 after two periods. Then, with only 24 seconds left in the third period, the US tied the score.

In the end the Canadians joined their female colleagues (who had won the Gold a few days earlier) by winning overtime.

Men's hockey was the final event and I thought that was a fitting end to a fun games.

That said, I have some technical questions. The USA team won Gold in the Four-Man Bobsled event for the first time since 1375.

I understand what the driver does - he steers the sled.

I understand what the brakeman does - he keeps his hands off the brakes until they get to the bottom.

I'm not exactly certain what the numbers two and three guys do. If their duties include wetting the bottom of the sled when you realize you're going 95 miles-per-hour down an ice-tube, then I think I'm well qualified.

My favorite quote - because it is has so many existential overtones - comes from the Gold Medalist in the Men's Half-Pipe, Shaun White.

SIDEBAR

I'm not much of an X-sports fan but I saw an interview with White in which they had footage of him in third world countries teaching kids how to use a skateboard.
He was asked about his work with children and he said that when he was young he had asked some famous adult for an autograph and the guy blew him off.
White said he has never forgotten how he felt and will never do that to another child.
Pretty good kid, I'd say.

END SIDEBAR

Anyway, after he won the Gold he was so taken by the moment that, when asked for an interview, he said:

"I can't even talk right now. Know what I'm saying?"

Which ranks right up there with my favorite Government Printing Office weirdness:

"This Page Intentionally Left Blank."

The closing ceremonies of the Vancouver games ended with a passing of the torch - so to speak - to the host city of the 2014 games, Sochi, Russia. A chorus from Moscow took the stage and sang the same song that the crew on the Red October sang which, I now realize, is the Russian national anthem.

When it comes to being a man o' the world, I am the number three man in the four man bobsled of life.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Pretty good links - the link to the winners of women's figure skating, the Wikipedia entry for the bobsled, the official Vancouver link to Shaun White and a link to the official Sochi2014 page.

Also a Mullfoto left over from Valentine's day and a laugh-out-loud Catchy Caption of the Day.

Wasting Time in Washington

2010-02-25T20:52:00.001-08:00

If you are looking for a reasoned and thoughtful analysis of the Health Care Summit yesterday … you're looking in the wrong place. I did not watch a single minute. And I don't regret it at all.

You may remember that I said I would rather watch three hours of Tiger Woods apologizing than watch this thing. Nothing in the run-up to the event made me change my mind.

I commend to you the trenchant analysis by Susan Page - one of the best reporters in the history of Washington reporters - who is the senior writer for USA Today which is available on the Secret Decoder Ring page.

According to Page's reporting, I was right:

Seven hours and thousands of words later, Obama made it clear that unless Republicans made significant and unexpected compromises, Democrats would press ahead on something akin to the $950 billion, 10-year health care plan he outlined on Monday - presumably by using a parliamentary maneuver that would bypass a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Good use of time.

The best part of the coverage was Vice President Joe Biden being caught on an open mike saying, "It's easy being Vice President. You don't have to do anything."

If true, Biden is the most perfectly suited citizen in the land for that job.

The U.S. doesn't have a corner on the worldwide market for stupid. The Wall Street Journal has a story about Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi calling for a "'jihad' or armed struggle against Switzerland."

Whoa! Check, please!

Switzerland? The guys who dress up in clown suits and walk around the plaza in St. Peter's square at the Vatican? That Switzerland?

Old Moammar said that Muslims should:

-- Go to all airports in the Islamic world and prevent any Swiss plane landing,
-- Inspect all shops and markets to stop any Swiss goods being sold, and
-- Go to all harbors and prevent any Swiss ships docking.

Yeah, well, I don't know much about gee-AH-gruf-EE, but I know that Switzerland isn't generally known as a world shipping power. In fact as search on the phrase "Swiss Shipping" comes up with exactly three - THREE - ships which belong to "Swiss Shipping Line, Gmbh."

Turns out this is the latest volley in a long-running spat between Gadhafi and Switzerland stemming from the time when, according to the WSJ:

Libya detained two Swiss businessmen, after Geneva police arrested Col. Gadhafi's son Hannibal for allegedly beating two servants.

Hannibal? What are his other kids names, Genghis and Charlemagne?

In other news, the Canadian women beat the U.S. women in the gold medal hockey game in Vancouver yesterday. The U.S. women had gone through the tournament beating their previous opponents by a combined score of 46-2, but they lost to Canada 2-0.

Good for them. The U.S. has, as of this writing, won 32 medals (8 gold, 12 silver, 12 bronze). None in women's biathlon.

Canada is in fourth place in the medal count with 16 (8 gold, 6 silver, 2 bronze). Hockey is the home sport of Canada, so I'm glad they won.

Having written that, I will be rooting hard for the U.S. men's hockey team to make it into the gold medal game against the Canadian men and wipe the ice with them.

This North American solidarity ice hockey horse hockey has its limits.

In other good news, lead investigative reporter for the Associated Press, Larry Marasak, is reporting that the House Ethics Committee has found that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel

"knowingly accepted Caribbean trips in violation of House rules that forbid hidden financing by corporations."

Margasak identifies Rangel as "a New York Democrat" (which is sort of a redundancy) and writes that the Committee found that

"Rangel's staff knew that corporate money paid for the Caribbean trips, the committee said, but it could not determine whether Rangel's aides told him about it."

Even in Washington, DC, where the suspension of disbelief is a drinking game, who can believe that Rangel jetted off to Antigua and St. Martin; where he assumedly ate, drank, and slept, but never asked who was picking up the tab?

Remember that pesky Sarbanes-Oxley law which requires that when filing official statements, the corporate officer in charge has the responsibility to certify that,

1. The signing officer has reviewed the report; and,
2. Based on the officer's knowledge, the report does not contain any untrue statement of a material fact or omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which such statements were made, not misleading.

In real life Rangel would be sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to everything plus an amusing Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day featuring a Pakistani fashion model.

Obama's Legacy

2010-02-23T20:25:00.000-08:00

It doesn't take a PhD in history to figure out that the reason President Obama is so closely - make that, utterly - focused on health care reform is because he and his people have decided this will be his FDR moment.

I have no reason to know this is what happened, except I know how people in Your Nation's Capital think. Immediately after the election in November 2008, Barack Obama and his advisors got together to decide how they were going to make Barack Obama's Presidency the most significant since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930's and 1940's.

The election results convinced them they had a plenty big canvas and a lot of paint and they were going to cover it with brilliant colors from edge-to-edge.

There was global warming - which, way back then, his people believed was based on real science and a full year before we would enjoy three feet of snow dumped upon us over a five day span.

There was labor law - card check would reverse decades of labor losses in the private sector, even though public sector labor unions were doing well.

There was America's reputation overseas - shattered by George W. Bush, which Obama would fix by (a) closing Guantanamo Bay; (b) getting out of Iraq; (c) nice-ing Iran and North Korea into submission; and, (d) turning over the governing of Afghanistan to Afghans.

There were also the issues of bailing out the financial system; bailing out the international insurance industry; and bailing out the U.S. automobile industry (see "labor law" above).

The unemployment rate was 7.7 percent in January 2009 but was on the way up and has remained stubbornly above 9.4 percent since July 2009.

And, there was health care, which is the only one left.

The White House along with the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate believed they could use their huge majorities to ram a Social Security-like health care plan through the Congress shortly after Labor Day, 2009 with a signing ceremony which would have rivaled that Obama election night event in Chicago.

Alas, those same legislative geniuses sent the Democratic Members of Congress home for the August recess with the equivalent of a major health care reform bill written in crayon on a three-by-five index card.

What happened? The dreaded TOWN HALLS happened. And whatever forward momentum the Ds had built up on a health care reform bill disintegrated right before their very eyes.

Undaunted, the Congress returned after Labor Day, the Democrats negotiated with themselves in private, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced a bill to the House floor in November. The House passed the Democrats' bill by an overwhelming vote of 220-215 - a five vote margin.

Meanwhile over in the U.S. Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in seven days a week for weeks on end, bought off Mary Landrieu (D-La) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb) with tens of billions of dollars paid for by taxpayers in the other 48 states, and finally got to the necessary 60 votes on December 21.

In January, Scott Brown won the Senate election in Massachusetts and cut the Dems' margin in the Senate from 60-40 to 59-41. No more filibuster proof majority.

Regular readers know how loathe I am to blow my own horn. However, in this case I must take exception to my rule against personal horn-blowing to remind you that way back on December 16 - this would be about a month before the election in Massachusetts - I wrote the following:

Because of the enormous budget implications of this legislation, it is quite likely that Harry Reid (D-Nev) will bring up [health care reform] under reconciliation. Republicans will scream bloody murder. Democrats will sheepishly withdraw to the cloak room.
The bill will pass the House and the Senate and, healthy or not, it will go to the President for his signature.

I got a stack of nasty-grams from senior Congressional and White House reporters informing me that I was an idiot because that simply could not, and would not happen.

Well. Guess. What?

According to yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

Democrats in the Senate are rallying behind the use of a bare-knuckle legislative procedure known as budget reconciliation to push through a separate package of healthcare measures to satisfy liberal Democrats in the House.

Apologies accepted.

Health care reform will pass and Obama's legacy will be secure, but like King Pyrrhus, the price of his victory may well be the loss of Democrat majorities in the House and Senate.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to a cool page showing unemployment rates over time, the House and Senate roll call vote, the LA Times piece on reconciliation, and King Pyrrhus.

Also a Mullfoto of the damage done by a snow plow to an innocent car and a Super Catchy Caption of the Day.

Health Care Theater

2010-02-21T18:21:00.001-08:00

Happy 278th Birthday to George Washington. He was born in 1732 which means he was 57 when he was sworn in as the first President under the U.S. Constitution on April 30, 1789. Pretty old for the day, no?

Speaking of old, how tired are you of the Great Health Care Debate of 2009-2010 and Beyond? President Obama has invited Democrat and Republican leaders from the House and Senate to a meeting at Blair House on Thursday to discuss health care reform. The half-day event will be televised on C-SPAN.

I'd rather watch a three-hour Tiger Woods apology.

Anyone who was expecting a formal Oxford Union debate is going to be disappointed.

The President has made it clear that this is not in any way, shape, or form starting from a blank sheet of paper. It is part of a continuing process of attempting to recover from the disastrous start to this process last August when Democratic Members of the House and Senate ran into the buzz saws known as "Town Meetings" with no idea of what they were attempting to sell, and even less of an idea about how to handle the anger.

In the run-up to the meeting the Administration is scheduled to publish an amalgam of the bills adopted by House and Senate Democrats on the WH web page today.

On the Sunday talkers yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate Republicans would attend but said, "if they're going lay out the plan they want to pass four days in advance, then what are we discussing on Thursday?"

Not only is the President pre-selecting the discussion items, but the Democratic Leadership in the House and Senate has made it known that they are prepared to use the "reconciliation process" to shove a plan through the House and Senate as a budget item requiring a simple majority in each Chamber rather than the 60-vote gauntlet the legislation has had to run previous to this.

It is not clear to me how, by signaling Republicans that no matter what happens on Thursday, Democrats are prepared to torture the rules to shove through a plan they like will be helpful to the fiction that this will be an open and thoughtful debate.

Speaking of bonehead moves, whoever is the head of PR for Anthem Blue Cross (and/or its parent, Wellpoint, Inc.) should be forced to buy their own health insurance for not throwing themselves in front of the bus which was Anthem's recent announcement that it would be raising rates on Californians who have individual (as opposed to group) insurance by 39 percent beginning March 1, 2010.

Even assuming the rate hike is actuarially necessary, is the company in such bad financial condition that the announcement couldn't have been delayed a month or two until they had seen how the health care debate played out in Washington?

According to OpenSecrets.org the total Blue Cross/Blue Shield (which includes more than Wellpoint, Inc.) lobbying tab in 2009 was $22,715,439.

W.A.S.T.E.D.

The House and Senate come back to work today following a week of snow days followed by a week of recess. What do you think the chances for success will be of a BC/BS lobbyist trying to get in to see a Representative or Senator in advance of the Thursday meeting?

If I were a Republican Strategist (which I used to be) and I had been asked what I thought the GOP should do (which I was not) this would have been my idea:

Have some 30-second TV and 60-second radio ads written and produced which simply and directly make the four or five points that the GOP wants in any health care plan.
Leave five seconds at the end for Republican Members of the House and Senate to put their "disclaimer" on it.
Have each Member - whether running for re-election or not - agree to buy some significant, but not exorbitant, amount of advertising in their District or State; and have the RNC make up the difference in states which have little or no GOP representation.

That would have allowed the Republicans to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House secure in the knowledge that, at a minimum, their constituents knew what they stood for - no matter what theatrics President Obama and the Dems throw at them on Thursday.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Lots o' Links; to George Washington's official bio, the health care summit, the Blue Cross rate hike, Blue Cross lobbying, and to the Oxford Union website.

Also a composite Mullfoto showing the horrors of global warming on the glacier in front of my house and an Olympic Catchy Caption of the Day.

Just Do the Job We're Paying You to Do

2010-02-18T19:28:00.001-08:00

The President, in an attempt to show that he is still The President, yesterday appointed a National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The colloquial name of the group will be the Deficit Reduction Commission but it should be named the "Throw the Bums Out" Commission.

There are 535 voting members of the House and Senate. For the most part they make an annual salary of $174,000. Members of the leadership make more, but that only makes me more angry.

If you multiply 174,000 by 535 you get $93,090,000. That's 93 MILLION and change. Just for salaries. Add to that health and retirement benefits, taxpayer paid staff (personal in Washington, personal in their home state, and Committee staff) and office space, thousands of hard working men and women who do everything from deliver the mail to clean their offices, assorted perks which include paid visits to France, Italy, London and other important hot-spots; and who-knows-what tax benefits and you see that being a Member of Congress is not all that much of a sacrifice.

In fact, keeping Members of the House and Senate living in the style to which they have become WAY too accustomed will cost us about $4,656,000,000 for FY 2010.

For those who, like me, are comma-deficient, that's a bit over 4.6 BILLION dollars. For one year.

We are paying these Members of Congress over $4.6 billion to, among other things, make decisions on our behalf. That is the working definition of a representative democracy. We don't have to vote on every little thing because we pay - a lot - for these 535 Representatives and Senators to do it for us.

Except the system has gone awry. Incumbent Members of the House and Senate don't want to make decisions. Quite the opposite; they want to avoid making decisions. At any cost. Even if that cost is $4.6 billion.

Thus, the appointment of a Deficit Reduction Commission.

This is not the first time the Congress has bailed out on its responsibilities. Aside from post offices in every ZIP code, the next biggest barrel of pork a Representative or Senator can deliver is a military base.

Over the course of a couple of hundred years, the bases which had been established based upon seniority rather than national defense had become so ridiculous that it became obvious - even to the Congress - that something had to be done to close many of them.

You might think that a serious person could stand before his or her constituents and say that in the interests of national security the military base here in Upper Iguana has outlived its usefulness and should close.

Yeah. Right.

What the Congress did was punt by passing legislation appointing a Base Relocation and Closing Commission (BRAC) which would present to the Congress a full slate of which bases should close, which should stay, and which should be expanded which the Congress could accept or reject in total.

I'm not at all certain about the Constitutionality of this extra-Congressional activity, but its been going on since 1988 and no one has raised the issue.

The 2010 version of the U.S. Congress cannot bring itself to cut any amount from any program whether that program makes sense or not and so they are allowing Barack Obama to appoint people to do it for them.

Here's my suggestion. For every year that the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is in business, every Member of the U.S. House, U.S. Senate; every staff member and every employee of, and contractor to, the Legislative Branch should have their pay reduced by 15 percent.

If that $4.6 billion is correct that will save taxpayers a touch under $700 million a year. Ever year. In an era of multi-trillion-dollar budgets that might be a drop in the bucket; but it will be coming out of the buckets of the people who are supposed to be making the tough decisions, but who aren't tough enough to make them.

If Members of the House and Senate won't do the job we're paying them to do, we'll pay them less to do the job they are doing.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Deficit Reduction Commission, Congressional Staff, Legislative Appropriations, and the history of the Base Closing Commission.

Also, a Mullfoto which puts to rest the issue of Global Warming and a Catchy Caption of the day which asks an important question.

The Evan Doesn't Fall Far From the Birth

2010-02-16T19:52:00.001-08:00

The announcement by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind) that he would not be running for re-election was abrupt, surprising, and as Vice President Dan Quayle put it, stunning.

Bayh's statement that just wasn't much fun to be in Washington anymore would have made more sense if he had made it in January, or even after the early February election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

It would have given Democrats in Indiana a chance to weigh their options, check their bank accounts and their e-mail lists, and make a rational decision whether to run for the U.S. Senate seat in what is looking more and more like a tough year to run as a D.

To be on the ballot for statewide office in Indiana a candidate needs signatures from 500 registered voters in each of the state's nine Congressional Districts. Under normal circumstances that might take a couple of weeks of work by the CD organizations, but certainly not a steep hill to climb for a legit candidate.

But, by leaving only a matter of hours, not weeks, Bayh guaranteed that the Democratic who will run for the open Senate seat in November will be hand-picked by the State Democratic party.

Before the Democrats at the Senate Campaign Committee start doing the "He Went to Jared's" dance o' joy, I have two words: New York 23.

Ok, three words.

In the election to fill the Congressional seat left vacant by the appointment of Rep. John McHugh to be Secretary of the Army the GOP county chairs in the 23rd District picked State Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava to be the Republican nominee.

The GOP lost the seat as conservatives from around the country jumped in and split the vote allowing the Democrat, Bill Owens, to win the seat.

The early betting favorite to take the seat is former Senator Dan Coats who started his political career as the district representative for Congressman Dan Quayle in 1976, won Quayle's Congressional seat when Quayle moved onto the Senate, and then was appointed to Quayle's Senate seat when Quayle was elected Vice President.

Coats easily won the Senate seat in his own right in the special election to fill the unexpired term and then was just as easily re-elected to a full term.

Quayle, for his part, had been elected to the U.S. House against an 18-year incumbent Democrat and served two terms before running for U.S. Senate against Evan Bayh's daddy, Birch Bayh - another 18-year incumbent Democrat.

The election of 1980 was the election in which Ronald Reagan carried enough Republicans running for the Senate into office with him that the GOP took control in January of 1981. Congressman Dan Quayle became Senator Dan Quayle at age 33 (three years over the Constitutional minimum) and went on to win re-election six years later by what was at the time the largest percentage in Hoosier history.

I happened to have been the press secretary on that 1980 campaign and an unknown Congressman from Huntington, Indiana having the temerity to run against Birch Bayh was considered laughable and no one gave Quayle much of a chance.

In 1980 the polls in Indiana closed at 6 PM. We were ready for a long, long night of counting but Quayle had beaten Birch Bayh so soundly on the campaign trail that the race was the first one called by the networks in what became a national wave of GOP victories.

If the election of Scott Brown was a lightning bolt striking the Democratic Party, then Evan Bayh - who was also a Wunderkind, having been elected Governor at the Quayle-esque age of 33 - announcing he is retiring is the functional equivalent Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic caucus being run over by a semi.

There is no way to spin Bayh's departure as somehow good for Democrats. Beating Coats is not a sound bet. Along with North Dakota and Delaware, Indiana now presents at least the third Senate seat likely to switch from D to R in the 112th Congress.

With analysts now seriously discussing Republican takeovers of one or both chambers in the U.S. Congress - neither is likely, but the odds are shrinking fast - it is only a matter of time before Dems running for re-election decide the time has come to begin ignoring - if not actively opposing - President Obama.

Now you understand why the White House and the Democratic Congressional leadership was in such a projectile sweat to get health care, card check, cap-and-trade, and energy legislation done before we got into the even-numbered year.

When Birch Bayh left the Senate in 1980, the GOP took over. It is not out of the question that the same thing will happen when his son leaves 30 years later.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Bios of Quayle, Coats and Bayh. Also an unbelievably cute photo of my cat not enjoying the Westminster Dog Show and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Winter Olympics

2010-02-11T19:12:00.001-08:00

The Winter Olympics begin today with ski jumping qualifications this morning and the opening ceremonies at 6:00 pm local time. I looked this up for you: Vancouver, Canada is on Pacific Standard Time.

The Olympics will end on February 28 with the closing ceremonies. The last medal event? The Men's Ice Hockey finals earlier in the day. I guess we have the 1980 U.S. Hockey team and Al Michaels to thank for that.

The men's downhill should be transferred to Franklin Street in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia which is right outside my front door and on which there has been about 36" of snow this past week. I've bought a cowbell and am prepared to do that "yah-yah-yah-yah" thing that people who watch skiing events do. Or, at least, that's the way it has always sounded to me.

If global warming gets any worse I'm going to have to buy a snowmobile.

My favorite Winter Olympic event? Women's Biathlon. It is a combination of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Why is it my favorite? Athletic, attractive women. In skin-tight outfits. With guns.

If they allowed beach volleyball players to carry side arms I do believe it would be the perfect spectator sport.

Where was I? Oh. The Olympics. NBC has the TV rights again and I found the web page which tells me which events will be televised on which NBC-owned channel (NBC, USA, CNBC, Universal HD or MSNBC) and when. I couldn't find the Women's Biathlon but I'll study it more closely after I've finished this.

One of the best things about the snow in Your Nation's Capital was the Government - including the Congress - has been shut down since Monday. It will be open tomorrow, then closed again Monday for Presidents' Day.

The Congress, exhausted from not meeting this week, will take the next week off to rest up for the five straight weeks of work they will have to do until the two week Spring Recess starting March 28.

Really. How. Do. They. Do. It?

Forever I have hought that Will Rogers said, "The nation never sleeps so soundly as when the Congress is in recess," but if he did, Google didn't find it. I don't think I made that up. Let me know if you find it.

According to the Washington Post, government offices will open two hours late this morning and employees can take unscheduled leave but have to call their supervisors so it can be duly recorded.

The Post piece also pointed out that: "Telework and emergency employees are expected to report for work on time."

Emergency employees, I understand. But how do you know if a "telework" employee has hitched the bow in their bathrobe, stepped into their bunny slippers, come downstairs, made coffee, read the paper, and turned on their TV to start watching Law & Order reruns on USA on time or not?

Dear Mr. Mullings:

Don't you very often work from home? Doesn't that make you a "teleworker?"

Yes. But it's completely different in my case. I don't own bunny slippers. Anymore.

Final issue. This is serious. Consider this a finger being wagged under your nose.

Former President Bill Clinton had two stents inserted into a cardiac artery yesterday. The good news is that he went to the hospital and had the procedure done, which is fairly routine and should allow him to get back to work quickly.

The bad news is, according to some reports, he had started feeling chest discomfort a couple of days earlier.

I know a little something about this. I was diagnosed with cardiac artery disease when I was 39, had a long string of angioplasty procedures, and had by-pass surgery in 1998. I have been told a hundred times by my cardiologist: "Don't deny the symptoms."

President Clinton denied his symptoms and is lucky that he got away with it.

If you are of a certain age, and you feel any kind of discomfort in your chest, back, chin, and/or left arm - get to a hospital. Don't worry about being embarrassed. If it's nothing you don't have to tell anyone about it.

Think about how much more embarrassed you will be if you die of a heart attack.

Ok. I've got my nitros handy, and I'm going to look for the TV listings for the Women's Biathlon competition.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: LINKS to the Vancouver Olympics official schedule of events, to the Women's Biathlon page, to the final 15 seconds of the 1980 Men's Ice Hockey game, and to that NBC webpage which lets you find what's on and when. Also a link to an animation showing what happens during a cardiac procedure such as President Clinton had yesterday.

Also a really pretty Mullfoto from the snowstorm and an astonishing Catchy Caption of the Day - the Canadian Women's Biathlon team calendar!

Snow Jobs

2010-02-09T18:50:00.000-08:00

I can never remember what the Punxsutawney Phil rules are. Actually, until I typed this, I didn't know that Punxsutawney was spelled "Punxsutawney." I thought it was "Puxatawney." And so did you. Bless you, Bill Gates, for your spell-check.

Anyway, I can never remember what it means if the rodent sees his shadow or doesn't see his shadow in terms of winter's duration. Much like that right-brain, left-brain thing. I can never remember which side does what and, as I am left-handed, I am unsure whether the rules even apply to me.

I have received dozens - perhaps hundreds - of emails from among my 35,000 readers telling me to, in effect, "man up." This, because they live in places like North Dakota or Buffalo or Aspen, or where ever.

I don't care where you live. Twenty inches of snow is a serious snowfall. Ten to 16 inches of additional snow 72 hours later is … grounds to move to Pompano Beach, Florida. And buy a Cadillac. And drive 13 miles per hour. With your left blinker on. As you drive to Herb's Deli for the Early Bird at 4:30 in the afternoon. For the meat loaf.

If you know what I mean, and I think you do.

In other, non-weather-related developments, the U.S. Senate blocked the confirmation of President Obama's nominee to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Craig Becker by a vote of 52-33.

If you are unfamiliar with the NRLB, the Wall Street Journal describes its mission as:

"the independent quasi-judicial federal agency that supervises union elections and referees disputes between employers and employees."

The Senate rules require 60 votes to proceed. Even though 52 votes out of the 85 cast are 61 percent, that doesn't make the grade.

Becker has been a lawyer for the SEIU - Service Employee International Union - which has been the single most aggressive labor union in the nation in terms of organizing and on issues like card check. Appointing Becker to the NLRB making rulings on organizing votes would be like appointing me to the … I can't think of anything I could or should be appointed to, so let's let that go.

Even as a mathematically challenged individual, I know that 15 Senators didn't vote on this nomination. I assume that at least some of those 15 missing Senators couldn't get back to Washington because of the heavily restricted flight operations at Dulles and Reagan airports due to the aforementioned snow.

That leaves some of us to ponder (dare I say mull?) as to why the Democratic leadership called up Becker's nomination yesterday instead of waiting until all the Senators were back (which, given this new snow storm a'brewin' might well be June).

Two Democratic Senators - Ben Nelson (D-Neb) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark) joined with the GOP to block Becker's nomination, but even if they had voted with the Ds he would have fallen six votes short.

So. Why?

It is because of the labor vote in Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago. If you remember, the AFL-CIO paid for a post-election poll which showed that labor households voted for Republican Scott Brown 49-46.

The Washington-based Democrats are tone deaf to the reasons for that vote and believe they can rally an iron-worker in Boston or a brick-layer in Missouri to return home to the Democrats by forcing a vote on Becker and drawing headlines like this from the Wall Street Journal:

Senate Republicans Block Labor Board Nominee

Rank and file union members are not community-organizer-wannabees. They tend to be socially and culturally conservative and, given a choice between voting for a Republican who promises to protect their health care plan and a Democrat who is in favor of taxing them on that health care plan … guess what? They voted for the Republican.

If the old saw that "all politics is local" is true, then there is no more "local" than an individual's paycheck. So long as Obama and the Liberal wing of the Congressional Democrats insist on looking for new taxes to impose on more working people - union members or not - they will continue to fail at the ballot box.

Union members are no different than any other person working for a living: Threaten to tax the income they worked so hard to earn, and they will revolt no matter which political party is doing the taxing.

Most people can recognize a snow job when they see it.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Reuters and the WSJ coverage of the Becker vote. Also a pretty nice Mullfoto of the latest snowstorm and a good Catchy Caption of the Day.

Obama v Palin … Palin?

2010-02-07T18:35:00.001-08:00

PUBLIC SERVICE ALERT

The Federal government is closed today in the National Capital Area. Please let me know if you notice.

END PUBLIC SERVICE ALERT

Here's how you know, if you are the President of the United States, that things are going in the wrong direction.

You have scheduled a speech to the Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington, DC.
It snows about 20 inches in Washington, DC weakening your arguments for cap-and-trade legislation
A car spins into the press van travelling with your motorcade
You do the speech and generate headlines like this one from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:

Obama Seeks to Rally Glum Dems Amid GOP Challenges

Meanwhile Sarah Palin's keynote speech to the Tea Party meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, is covered like your State of the Union Address had been two weeks earlier, leading the chattering class to compare your appearance with that of Gov. Palin.

Palin's speech generated headlines like this in the Nashville Tennessean:

Palin: Tea Party Movement is a Call to Action

Here's a basic rule of political counter-punching: You want your lowest ranking person in a public fight with your opponent's highest ranking person - preferably your opponent.

For example, if you are managing the campaign for the guy running against an incumbent for Congress, you want to have the kid who does the morning clips in a public argument with the Congressman.

That diminishes the Congressman and enhances the clips kid.

Over weekend the losing candidate for Vice President was, for all intents and purposes, treated as the political equal of the President of the United States.

This, if you are in the political shop at the White House, is not good.

SIDEBAR

I am writing this as I am watching The Game.
The Who (of whom I have been a fan in while I was in high school and through lo these many decades) is performing the half-time show.
I am unclear as to why the NFL has an affinity for British bands which have been together for 45 years, even if they have sold 100 million albums which, ironically, is precisely 100 million albums more than I have sold.
That wasn't what got my attention, though. What did, was the level of political-incorrectness involved with the Who beginning their set with an excerpt from "Tommy" whose refrain is: "That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure can play pinball."

END SIDEBAR

The Democrats are going backwards at an increasing rate. For example, during the week, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) said, in a display of classlessness unique even for him, that the new Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown's candidacy was "a joke" because he was sworn in a week early - having buried his Democratic opponent so thoroughly that even the Democratic Secretary of State couldn't find a reason to delay certifying the election.

Everyone in politics knows that if Patrick Kennedy's name were anything but Kennedy he would have long-since been thrown out of office, and rightfully so.

No one poked their head out of the snow to agree with Kennedy, but neither did any Democrat suggest he should zip it.

In New York, former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford is wreaking havoc by sampling the air to see if there is enough oxygen for him to mount a primary challenge against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who was appointed from her U.S. House seat after Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State.

That potentially puts Northeast Dems in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between a Black man and a White woman in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator from New York.

In the first post-primary Rasmussen survey in Illinois for the Senate seat briefly held by President Obama, the Republican Mark Kirk "holds a modest 46% to 40% lead over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias."

How embarrassing, how debilitating, would it be if Democrats were to lose Obama's U.S. Senate seat?

The good news for the nation is, Obama now realizes that he can't govern without the buy-in of the GOP and is asking for a bi-partisan leadership meeting on health care for next week.

Republicans should go.

Just as Sarah Palin is being treated as the political equal of Barak Obama, Congressional Republicans are now the political equals of Congressional Democrats.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the Who and to Patrick Kennedy. Also a Mullfoto of what would be the Mullford if it weren't under 27 feet of snow and a Catch Caption of the Day.

Oh, the Weather Outside is ...

2010-02-04T20:32:00.001-08:00

At 10:00 last night this was the official language from the National Weather Service winter storm warning:

A Winter Storm Warning remains in effect from 10 AM Friday to 10 PM EST Saturday.
Precipitation type: Heavy snow.
Accumulations: Storm total accumulations of 18 to 24 inches.

Now, I know those of my many readers who live in Antarctica or along Prudhoe Bay in the Arctic consider this a mere dusting. But, for those of us who live in normally habitable climes this is a lot of snow!

In Your Nation's Capital and its environs we consider 2-4 inches of snow grounds for schools closing for at least two days, invoking "liberal leave" policies in Federal, state, and local government offices; and gathering up enough bread, milk, eggs, and toilet paper to last the 82nd Airborne Division three weeks; a good three weeks.

The good news about this storm is it is coming over a weekend, just as the 16.4 inches of snow we got from the storm in mid-December. The bad news about this storm is that even at the low end of the NWS' estimate - 18 inches - it would qualify as the third or fourth heaviest snow in DC history.

The top snowstorms have been:

1 - 28" Jan 1922
2 - 20" Feb 1899
3 - 18.7" Feb 1979
4 - 17.3" Jan 1996
5 - 16.6" Feb 1983
6 - 16.4" Dec 2009 & 16.4" Feb 2003

If this storm comes anywhere near what is being forecast, plus the four inches we got earlier this week the snowfall for the winter of '09-'10 will total over 38 inches. That is somewhat higher than the average of 15.2 inches for Washington.

The natural tendency for someone who is in the business of being snarky would be to make the point that we might not need much more evidence than this much snow in one year to support the notion that someone's been fudging the global-warming-climate-change data.

I know … I know. "Climate Change" means that unusual weather events will become more common. That's how the "Climate Change" lobby (previously known as the "Global Warming" lobby) explains these decidedly non-warm kinds of events.

This would be jolly cocktail party fodder if it not for the fact that we are pouring tens of billions of dollars into trying to find ways to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere so as to reverse what used to be known as "Global Warming."

President Obama's 2011 budget, which was released on Monday, calls for $36 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.

Why nuclear power plants? Because if you want to replace the 250 million cars and light trucks in American which are currently running on gasoline (mostly imported gasoline if you believe T. Boone Pickens) with 250 million cars running on batteries, you have to have a whole bunch of additional electricity generation capacity so when those vehicles get plugged in every night there are enough electrons to re-charge them.

If you want to be able to power all those electric cars without pouring even more crap into the atmosphere from more coal-burning power plants, you have to build nuclear power plants.

Nuclear plants tend to need a rather long lead time as the people who live in the neighborhoods in which they are going to be built generally would prefer to have them built in someone else's neighborhood and so they go to court to make this preference clear to all parties involved.

Also, the Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu, happens to be a Nobel Prize winning physicist, not a Nobel Prize winning novelist, so you can see where his interests lie.

$36 billion is really a big slush fund to help off-set a climate which may not be as changing as quickly as we had been told. And I think it is fair to ask if there might not be a better use for those loan guarantees than for the construction of nuclear power plants.

At least here in the Washington, DC metro area, this weekend will be one of those rare occasions when those who are believers in climate change and those who are not will be in absolute agreement.

The weather outside is frightful.

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Links to the historical snowstorms in the Washington area; the official definition of "snarky," and to Sec. Stephen Chu's bio.

Also, a Mullfoto of disappointment and a Catchy Caption of the Day with another "Princess Bride" reference.