Whatever you want, about whatever is or isn’t happening…

7:00 PM Obama draws first blood. MSNBC just called Georgia for Senator O, and if the exit polls are right, he may well have pocketed two-thirds of the delegates. His win looks like it was that big.

7:40 Some national exit poll data leaked… … and the numbers look good for Obama (except in California), but they’re probably raw, unweighted data, so they should be considered unreliable given how close they all are. Interesting, though.

7:45 Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!

8:10 Illinois for Obama, Mitt takes Mass, McCain wins CT and IL Sounding like Obama may not have padded his delegate count in Illinois by as much as some in his camp may have wanted to… numbers still coming in, though. Johnny Mac finally gets on the board – he’ll dominate the night, of course, but doesn’t seem to be doing as well as expected. Huckabee still leading in GA. ALSO: NBC retracted their projection of a Clinton victory in Oklahoma, as its too close. Doofuses. (A close race in OK? That one looked solidly in the Clinton column…. hm.)

8:15 Clinton takes Tennessee easily. AND Oklahoma. The world makes sense again.

8:30 Clinton and Huckabee take Arkansas. Duh.

8:55 Clinton cleans up in Mass. Despite Obama endorsements from Kennedy, Kerry and Gov. Patrick. DE and NJ go for McCain on the GOP side. This is my last update for a long while… have fun!

10 pm: Hillary Clinton: New York, Tennessee, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arkansas

              Barack Obama: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Alabama, Kansas

10:15 pm: ABC News calls it for Obama in North Dakota

10:25 pm: CNN calls it for Obama in Connecticut

10:54 pm: Daily Kos and ABC News calls it for Obama in Minnesota

11:00 Thanks to whoever did the 10-11:00 updates. Going into the 11:00 hour, it looked like a pretty even split i terms of delegates, with Clinton doing better with most of the big ticket states, but it looks like Clinton is taking California by a more lopsided margin than expected, as exit polls showing (as expected) women and hispanics breaking hard for Clinton, and making up a disproportionately high amount of the turnout, suggesting that Obama may have been beaten on the ground game,

Clinton will have more delegates, but it will be far from decided, and Obama has a lot to look forward to in the upcoming states – plus, given recent fundraising, he’ll likely be able to outspend Clinton, barring a big shift.

And guess what? Our votes in li’l ol’ Vermont may well matter after all.

Gone virtually unnoticed by the media was a true rarity: a Bush power grab, pushed through by the previous Republican Congress actually rolled back.

And yes, it took dragging the appropriate Democratic leadership into action – in this case, the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Here’s the GMD diary from back in early 2007:

Of the many disturbing things this President and his GOP Congress did, this was one of the more chilling. Passed and signed into law in a very hush-hush manner, the law opens up the door for Bush to use the National Guard and other military forces domestically for almost any purpose he might deem appropriate.

The “Insurrection Act Rider” was pushed by then-House Chairman Duncan Hunter, and the GOP leadership in the Senate picked it up. Leahy made a lot of noise about it at the time, but the Republican lockstep was in full play.

At the time, the public support for Leahy was not nearly loud enough, even though he was working with Governors and National Guard leadership. It’s not an issue that got enough ink, picked up by only a few B and C list blogs (like us) and given perfunctory notice in traditional press outlets. To large extent, that was probably due to outrage fatigue. Whatever the case, with little outcry, Bush acquired unprecedented, direct control over individual State’s National Guards. From a FAIR article by Richard Kubey:

News coverage of these significant changes in the law has been virtually nonexistent. At nearly every stage when it might have received coverage, the news media have completely ignored the story: When the NDAA was debated, when it was passed in the House on September 29 and in the Senate on Sept. 30, 2006, when it was signed into law on October 17, and even when Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) introduced his own bill on February 7, 2007 to overturn the Oct. 17 measures, mainstream media have provided no news coverage. Only on April 24, 2007, when the first hearings were held on Leahy’s bill, did a handful of mainstream media reports appear.

What could happen under the new law? As just one example, let’s say hundreds of demonstrators in Boston engaged in civil disobedience, sitting-in on the Boston Common to protest the country’s policies in Iraq, and traffic ground to a halt. Under the new law, the president could order in the Massachusetts National Guard to clear out the protesters even if the Massachusetts governor opposed this.

Indeed, the president could order the Guard of any state into any other state-even if the governors of both states objected.

So it was on the books, meaning a repeal would be necessary to change what was now the law of the land. Let’s be clear; nobody up there likes to advocate for these kinds of defense policy changes. It’s rolling the boulder uphill. That opens you up to all the soft on islamofascists/commies/moon-men stuff. As such, there is a lot of inertia in play once a policy like that is in place. Also, as we all know, Bush does not generally give an inch on any of his power grabs. Here s the statement on Administration Policy regarding the repeal attempt:

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

Repeal of Modification to Insurrection Act: The Administration strongly

opposes section 1054, which could be perceived as significantly

restricting a congressionally-granted authority for the President to

direct the Secretary of Defense to preserve life and property and by

limiting the President’s authority to call upon the Reserves. Such a

result would be detrimental to the President’s ability to employ the

Armed Forces effectively to respond to the major public emergencies

contemplated by the statute

Bt Leahy persisted, after its initial passage, in his repeal attempt, despite being rebuffed by now-Armed Services Committee Chair, Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan. With GOP Senator Kit Bond, he introduced a repealer bill shortly after the Dems took over Congress, with few expecting that it would be touched. It was only through dogged persistence that got it done, holding hearings and bringing in testimony and support from the governors and from the Guard community. He also continued to work Levin of the Senate Armed Services and his GOP counterpart, Senator John Warner (R-VA), who chaired the committee when the rider was originally passed.

And in the end, Leahy got the right people front and center before his committee. From Newsday Rogin at CQ:

Upon learning of the change, infuriated governors, National Guard

associations and local law enforcement groups mounted a campaign to

repeal the language, which they say usurps state authority and damages

domestic disaster response.

Spurred by belated public awareness of the law, lawmakers from both

sides of the aisle raised objections.

“This law authorizes the president to essentially strip the control of a

state Guard unit from a state’s governor without consent,” Leahy said

during an April 24 hearing the Judiciary Committee held on the issue.

Bond criticized the secretive origin of the measure.

“Nobody knows where it came from,” he said at the hearing. “I think it

was ill- conceived, unnecessary and dumb.”

Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., introduced a companion bill in the House (HR

869), which was subsequently added to the House version of defense

authorization (HR 1585), passed May 17.

“The changes approved last year constituted a dangerous concentration of

power in the hands of the executive branch,” Davis said.

The National Governors Association has come out unanimously against the

new law and derided Congress for passing it without performing their due

diligence.

“No governor was consulted, no debate, no hearing, nothing took place,”

North Carolina Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Democrat, said at the April

hearing, adding that the law would hurt disaster response.

Ted G. Kamatchus, Iowa president of the National Sheriffs’ Association,

said he feared that the law lowers the bar for the president to

establish martial law.

The repeal went into the latest Defense authorization, and quietly, and with little notice, a Bush power-grab was actually rolled back last Monday. How often does that happen?

So I figure, why not give folks another reason to grumble about this site?

The short answer to the title question, obviously, is that they cheated. But the real problem was the reaction to the cheating; that is, a collective shrug. A big “who cares,” not just from the football establishment (and their ridiculous slap on the wrist), but from the fans as well. In fact, the attitude among many fans was that it somehow wasn’t cheating to break the rules and spy on your opponent, so long as you didn’t get caught – and even then, it’s the loser’s problem, and you’d better not penalize the beloved team, or – gasp – declare the game null and threaten the “historic” unbeaten season.

In other words, the way you might resolve the conflict as a parent is right out.

But what made me want to write about this is the emotional memory. I remember vividly the other times in the last year that I’ve had this feeling. The first time will surprise no one – that is, when Barry Bonds finally crossed Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, despite wide acceptance that he has been using steroids. WIth one juiced-up swing, Bonds transformed the most sanctified record in all of sports into an asterisked irrelevance. It was not a delightful conversation to have to have with my son about his favorite sport.

The second time might seem a little more odd, but bear with me. It was when I went to see the film Fantastic Four: RIse of the Silver Surfer with my son. There’s a point where the good-hearted but misguided Silver Surfer is captured by the US Military, and is taken away to be tortured. While presented as a bad thing, it also felt very matter-of-fact, and certainly unsurprising. In other words, it simply reflected our new institutional attitude towards torture of accused “enemy combatants.” Believe me, that was another delightful parental conversation.

So what was the common theme between our newfound acceptance (even celebration) of cheating in sports, and the casual attitude towards torture? You could say it’s an “ends justify the means” mentality, a “win at all costs” one, or even a blindly accepting “you’re with us or your against us” zeitgeist. But I think it’s deeper than that.

I think the underlying legacy of the Bush era is his completing of the process (which had already begun) of destroying our concept of honor.

The dictionary defines honor as honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. Honor is the pillar of our social contract, and underlies the concept of altruism, whether one’s sense of it stems from religious mandate or an evolutionary imperative. As a parent, honor is the most important concept we try to impart upon our children.

And our President has stomped on the very concept , grinding it into the dirt under his boot. Every institution that honor has been traditionally fundamental to has either abandoned it or redefined it beyond all recognition. It started with business and trade, where anti-trust laws and the right to organize are cast as socialist plots, and unless the word “fair” precedes the word “trade,” we can assume it’s not fair at all.

But to complete the task, the idea has to be discredited across the cultural spectrum. In the military, the idea of “honor” has become more and more about not snitching on your buddy, as opposed to reflecting the “proud soldier” archetype, and the complete deconstruction of military honor has lead to its inevitable result in companies like Blackwater, who now have no compunctions about using gas on civilians (and US Troops) just to clear traffic for themselves.

In government, we’ve all seen in recent years how much of our system is predicated on the honor system, and how easily Bush and the Republicans can simply ignore the law repeatedly with little or no consequences.

And then there’s sports. It’s supposed to matter when somebody cheats to win games and get rich. That’s what we tell our kids. We’re supposed to show that it matters by penalizing cheaters when they’re caught. That’s what we do with our kids.

Instead, cheaters are now routinely celebrated.

Not in my house.

If our kids fully internalize the new norm – if honor as a concept is disregarded or considered anachronistic, or maybe just “kid stuff” – than we are truly, truly screwed when the next generation comes to power. I have serious doubts as to whether a culture without a sense of honor can even survive in the long run.

And so, bearing that in mind:

Go Giants.

You may have encountered this already, as its a few years old and has been in circulation. Thom Hartmann read it on his radio program and posted the text at his blog, so I thought I’d reprint. I guess if Hartmann can do it, GMD probably won’t get in legal trouble, eh (I’ve seen it reposted at another site, so I guess its okay)…

Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

By John Gray Cincinnati, Ohio

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day)  Joe agrees, “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

By John Gray, Cincinnati, Ohio –  jgray7@cinci.rr.com – Published July – 2004

What to say? Artistic inspiration comes from strange places.

An homage perhaps? Discuss:

If elections in Vermont are like games of musical chairs, where D’s and Rs circle the available statewide offices until the music stops on Election Day, why do I feel like nobody started the music back up again this time around?

Granted, the race for Governor is more complicated with Pollina pushing aggressively for the left-wing banner since November – but that wasn’t the case before November. And you still have no race against freshman congressman Peter Welch, and nobody making any meaningful noises about a challenge to Lietenant Governor Brian Dubie. Or Treasurer Spaulding. Or Secretary of State Markowitz. Or AG Sorrell. Has there even been any more hubbub about the potential of a rematch between former Auditor Randy Brock and current Democratic officeholder Tom Salmon Jr.?

We seem to be locked in a sort of partisan equilibrium, here, and it strikes me that the very purpose and function of a major political party is never to let such an equilibrium go unchallenged.

But on the bright side, there’s opportunity. Particularly in the Lieutenant Governor race. This is a low-cost, high-profile affair that could be run in the $100,000 range – and that’s peanuts, relative to other offices and other states. In fact, I can’t help but think a netroots candidate could absolutely capitalize on such an opening. Someone with national blogosphere cred could potentialy raise that kind of money from the greater netroots even before their first Vermont fundraiser (Steve Benen, are you listening…?).

…surrogates of the campaigns have traded accusations of whether the camps of the two leading candidates are trying to make race an issue in the Democratic nominating process.

“Senator Obama and I agree completely that neither race nor gender should be part of this campaign,” Clinton said during the debate

Bill Clinton says race shouldn’t be an issue in the Democratic presidential campaign.

There is a real disservice being done to this country this election season. A service typical of what happens when our national debates play out through the simplistic, self-serving filter of the national media.

Everyone is concerned that race is being made into an issue. Well, guess what? It is an issue. One we continue to avoid like the plague.

What people are reacting against, of course is the attempt to make racism a campaign tool. And that’s a very different charge. But, doing as the traditional media always does, the matter has been rhetorically hyper-simplified so much, it has morphed into something else entirely. The very topic of race is now a hot potato. Talking about race at all has been narratively linked to being racist through this language (or at the very least being anachronistic), and that’s crazy.

But of course, it’s not just the press. White America is replete with rationalizations for avoiding the topic, and is happy to embrace another one provided for them by the traditional media.

And in case you need a reminder about how much of an issue race remains for America, consider that African Americans as a group still lag White America in home ownership, standard of living, age-related mortality rates, access to health care, and the list goes on. And if you’re in denial that this is a systemic problem, consider the fact that hate crimes and hate groups are still a nationwide phenomenon.

Of course race should be an discussed this Presidential election. So should gender. They both remain critical issues across our country. Issues that still make everyone else very uncomfortable.

How absurdly ironic it is that the very fact we have a black man and a woman as viable candidates for the presidency has become our latest excuse to avoid the topic(s).

I’m not happy about this. I’m sure I (and others) will have plenty to say about it, but for now I’ll just excerpt from Josh Marshall at TPM:

Seriously, why should John Edwards drop out of the race? I think his chances of winning the nomination at this point are quite slim. And I could understand if he wanted to drop out. But is there some reason he should?

…as others have noted, his campaign has had an effect on this race out of proportion to his poll support in as much as he’s forced the two other leading candidates to grapple with issues they would not have otherwise. And in this race specifically, there is at least a chance we could come into the convention with neither candidate having a majority of the delegates, in which case he might play the kingmaker.

The result in Nevada must have been a sobering wake-up call. But I don’t see where insider know-it-alls get off saying he’s under some sort of obligation to ‘do the right thing’ and pack it in.

…this week, anyway.

At her core, Speaker Symington is a wonk, and she looks at governing from a wonk’s perspective. Senate President Pro Tem Shumlin is more of a podium-thumper and would like to shake things up a bit. Both approaches have limitations, and we’ve seen those limitations play out in sometimes spectacular form in 2007.

Looking at today’s events, though, one wonders if the two legislative leaders, instead of trying to be sure they’re on the same page, may be choosing to stick with their respective pages.

From a press release out of Senator Shumlin’s office:

Vermont lawmakers say Federal authority to call up National Guard for Iraq has expired

A bill introduced today in the Vermont House declares that the 2002 federal authorization to call up the State National Guard has expired,

and would set in motion steps to recall members of the Vermont Guard.

The Vermont bill would limit future Vermont National Guard service to state duties unless properly called into federal service.

In addition to the Vermont legislation, announced at a press conference today in Montpelier by Rep. Michael Fisher and Senate President Pro-Tempore Peter Shumlin, legislators in Maine (Rep. Ted Koffman), Minnesota (Rep. Frank Hornstein), New Hampshire (Rep. Charles Weed), Pennsylvania (Rep. Tony Payton), Rhode Island (Rep. David Segal), are working on introducing similar National Guard legislation. Legislators in six other states, notably Maryland and Wisconsin, are in active discussion about following suit.

And Symington? From the Times Argus (continued after the flip):

A dozen owners and managers of small and specialized Vermont businesses said the state should be taking care of infrastructure, including not just roads and schools, but high speed internet and health care, and leaving business to them.

And despite the cost of living and concerns about taxes and permitting, workers and entrepreneurs will come to the state for good schools and to work at things they believe in, the business owners said…

…Symington, a Jericho Democrat, has been talking over the last year to those who run and own new and mostly small businesses to see what the state is doing right in its approach to economic growth. The “Why Vermont Works” meetings – cumulating in a gathering last Thursday in the Statehouse – is something of a response to complaints by businesses about higher taxes and too much regulation.

I gotta tell you, I like what I’m seeing this week.

On the one hand, you’ve got Symington pitching the benefit of progressive policies to the small business set (such as the potential of government to take some of the responsibility for health care off their backs), bringing them into the process – and getting the message into the press as well.

On the other hand, you’ve got Shumlin advocating loudly and clearly against the war in what could end up being more than just a symbolic way.

In other words, they’re both doing what they like to do, and are inclined to be good at.

Representative Mike Fisher, who is among the most committed, no-nonsense lefties in any political party in the Statehouse has wrestled with Symington about taking on these issues, and had a similar effort shut down two years back. While it’s significant that he’s standing in front of reporters with the leader of the  other legislative body rather than his own (meaning that Symington likely hasn’t changed her feelings on such efforts), it’s equally significant that he’s doing it period – and with Shumlin, giving the effort a serious stamp of leadership-approval.

Is this a sign that the Democratic leadership is feeling a bit more pro-active rather than reactive? That instead of hunkering down hoping desperately to get through the session as quickly and painlessly as possible, maybe the reins are being relaxed, and a broader range of issues and approaches are now being tolerated?

While I wouldn’t want to see a free-for-all,  the demand/expectation that caucus members sing from the same playbook all the time dials us all down to the most timid (and terrified) common denominator.

Letting Fisher be Fisher, Shumlin be Shumlin, Symington be Symington, and other legislators be themselves is not necessarily a recipe for a breakdown of party discipline. In fact, it could be just what we (and they) need.

The final quarter of 2007 was a good one for Entergy Nuclear – even better than the previous one:

Entergy Nuclear earned $141.4 million, or 70 cents per share, on an as- reported basis and $159.8 million, or 79 cents per share, on an operational basis in fourth quarter 2007, compared to $57.7 million, or 27 cents per share, for as-reported and operational earnings in fourth quarter 2006…

…For the year 2007, Entergy Nuclear earned $539.2 million, or $2.66 per share, on an as-reported basis and $557.6 million, or $2.75 per share, on an operational basis, compared with $309.5 million, or $1.46 per share, for 2006 on both as-reported and operational bases.

Woo-hoo! Time to build some more pools in some executives’ fifth homes! Overall, Entergy looks good, but its clear that its Entergy Nuclear that looks financially great. Good thing they’re not worried about making sure the VY decommission fund is adequately funded, or some of those pools might have to be put off a month or two.

Warms yer heart, doesn’t it?