Bennet Kelley2013-06-19T14:04:22-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=bennet-kelleyCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Bennet KelleyGood old fashioned elbow grease.Boston Needs Your Helptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.34434772013-06-14T18:08:53-04:002013-06-14T18:09:01-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
Massachusetts Governor Patrick and Boston Mayor Menino have set up the One Fund, a victim assistance fund which has raised over $47 million to date. Distributions will begin on July 1st, but there is a serious concern that even such a bountiful sum might not be sufficient given the number of victims who will have to rely on prosthetics which are very expensive and must be replaced often.
Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about Boston and its fabled teams, knows that they are as legendary for the times they fell short as they are for their championships. For every Bobby Orr Stanley Cup winning goal or Adam Vinatieri Super Bowl winning field goal, there are images of a scrambling Eli Manning or a ground ball by Mookie Wilson that haunt us. Even the Boston Marathon is famous for its "Heartbreak Hill," the hill at the 20-mile mark that has crushed the dreams of many marathoners. We cannot let this happen in this case.
Fortunately, the victims have something that Yaz, Bird or Brady never had -- a nation eager to help. People like Marc Platt, a Los Angeles performer who was so moved by the fact that Bostonians' first instinct was to run towards the victims and not away from the blast that he wrote a song -- "The Best in America."
All proceeds from song downloads go directly to the One Fund.
As the Boston Bruins continue their epic playoff run and the spotlight shines of the Cradle of Liberty, let us take that opportunity to dig into our pockets one more time so as not to leave the victims stranded on Heartbreak Hill but instead show them the very best in America.
P.S. -- Go Bruins!]]>Why I Am Not Voting for Eric Garcetti for Mayortag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31703592013-04-29T14:46:33-04:002013-04-29T14:46:42-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century. It may come as a surprise to some, however, that I am not voting for him in the mayoral runoff against Wendy Gruel.
My decision is not because I view Eric as a "wonky idealist" as the LA Weekly dismissively calls him. There is no question that when we first me, he was a university professor and uber-wonk, but this was in the twilight of the Clinton years when it was still hip to be a wonk.
The reality is, however, that when the people of Echo Park, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Little Armenia and the rest of the 13th District elected Eric over former mayoral candidate Mike Woo in 2001 (and reelected him twice), they did not elect the wonk but the neighbor who knocked on their doors and listened to them.
Few of us thought Eric would win at first, but he did. That's called having vision and courage, qualities not easily found in politics. When the new city councilman decided to use one of the city's electric cars for transportation long before the emergence of hybrid chic, we chuckled at Eric's quirky idealism but that is what leading by example is all about.
What is so wrong with idealism anyway? It inspires and motivates people to get involved and do great things. Isn't that what is sorely needed in Los Angeles today?
My choice also has nothing to do with the fact that Eric does not have business experience or has not held elective office outside of the City Council like City Comptroller Wendy Gruel. I seem to recall that Mayor James Hahn also was a city comptroller, so the office is hardly a harbinger of success as mayor.
Having also studied urban planning as Eric did, I have found that the great American mayors, like Baltimore's William Donald Schaefer, were not just technocrats who cared about every little detail but individuals who wore their love of their city on their sleeve. Twelve years of walking the neighborhoods of Los Angeles has transformed Eric from the wonkish professor into an evangelist for the City of Angels. Those of us in the tech community, for example, applaud Eric for his enthusiasm for the emerging Silicon Beach tech hub, promotion of the "T-expo" corridor and using mobile apps to connect with constituents.
My choice also has nothing to do with the concern that Eric may be destined for greater things and that the mayor's office may be just a launch pad to the governor's mansion or even Washington. I too believe that Eric is one of the party's rising stars because of his vision, leadership and passion but these are the same qualities that would make him a great mayor. Any concern about his future ambition should be tempered by the reality that his political future would be tied to how well he performed in serving his hometown.
The reason I am not voting for Eric is more fundamental. I live in neighboring Santa Monica and not Los Angeles and (are you reading this Ann Coulter) it would be illegal for me to vote in a race where I am not a resident.
But if you live in Los Angeles, I hope you will vote for one of the most promising candidates of this generation and a true leader who is ready to make Los Angeles the American city to watch - Eric Garcetti.]]>Return of the Kamikaze Congresstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23746562012-12-28T08:20:20-05:002013-02-27T05:12:02-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/Miami Herald responded to House Republicans' intransigence by noting "[p]artisanship and precipice met in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday, and the Republican majority leapt into the abyss." Similarly, the Detroit Free Press explained that the vote was a victory only for "blind zeal and base politics."
Neither editorial, however, mentioned Speaker Boehner by name since these editorials were from 1998 when the Republicans came back to Washington following an electoral rebuke and voted to impeach President Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal. The last Washington Post pre-election poll showed 71 percent opposed impeachment, but the House went ahead anyway, as Speaker Newt Gingrich famously said, "because we can."
That was the moment that ideological extremism metastasized within the party so that dogma drowned out ideas and talking points trumped reason. Since then Republicans have only grown more intransigent with disastrous effects. They have clung to sound bytes regardless of facts or reason. "Tax cuts pay for themselves." "Government cannot create jobs." "Global Warming is a hoax." "Guns don't kill people."
The current "fiscal cliff" debate centers on allowing tax rates to return to relatively historically low levels in place during the Clinton boom years, before enactment and extensions of the Bush tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were promised to create millions of jobs and pay for themselves but instead yielded few jobs and today (along with the concomitant decision to put the costs of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the government credit card) accounts for half of our debt.
Faced with a choice between the path of reason and the road to ruin, Republicans cling to ruin rather than adapt. That is the difference between ideas and talking points. Ideas evolve with new information, while talking points are static.
As a result, polls now show a majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party is simply too extreme -- including one in five Republicans. The first Kamikaze Congress faced similar disapproval over the impeachment vote but it was wildly popular among Republicans.
The sands may be shifting for current Republicans, as a majority of Republicans now believe that Obama has won a mandate to raise taxes. At the same time, this is the same party that nearly half believe the presidential election was stolen by ACORN and 44 percent either want their state to secede or aren't sure if they want their state to stay part of the Union. As long as these are the Republicans that turn out at town meetings and party functions and/or are a major source of their funding, the party is unlikely to yield.
This is especially true as long as their leadership will not even entertain the notion of compromise because they are afraid of the base. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has the worst in-state approval rating of any member of the Senate and was sufficiently spooked by the primary defeat of long-serving Senator Richard Lugar in neighboring Indiana to a Tea Party challenger that he has hired Tea Party Senator Rand Paul's campaign strategist for his 2014 reelection fight. Speaker Boehner also fears a leadership fight after this failed "Plan B." As a result, neither leader can be expected to exercise any real leadership and convince their caucus to compromise. With McConnell up for reelection and Republicans retaining control of the House in the new Congress, these types of false crises and brinkmanship are certain to continue -- at least until Republicans begin to face primary challenges from the center.
While many in recent years have raised the difficult question of how to remove the corrupting influence of money from politics, maybe a more realistic and timely question may be how to return reason to politics. Until then, Republicans likely will continue to illustrate Oscar Wilde's maxim that
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason
.]]>Why Obama 2.0 Is Good for Innovationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20045232012-10-23T15:43:11-04:002012-12-23T05:12:01-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
On the one hand there is President Obama, who may be the most tech-oriented president in history, having established the position of U.S. Chief Technology Officer on his first day in office while also adding a Cyber Command at the Pentagon and launching the Startup America initiative. Obama's challenger is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney whose experience with Bain Capital has some appeal to tech executives.
The two have clear differences when it comes to the government's role in innovation. Governor Romney takes an ideological view that "government does not create jobs" period, end of discussion. That may have appeal as a slogan but it is a view that simply is not supported by history.
A recent study by the Breakthrough Institute reviewed the role of government in critical technological breakthroughs from the railroads to the Internet and found that "government support was critical... in the development and deployment of these technologies."
President Obama believes that the government has a role in stimulating the economy and creating jobs and his stimulus plan did just that, adding or saving 3.3 million jobs according to the Congressional Budget Office. Tech executives might have heard how one city used $112 million in stimulus grants to leapfrog over the rest of the nation and become the fastest Internet city in the country at 1 GB per second. The roll-out of this new capability has led businesses to relocate there and even venture capital firms are traveling from Silicon Valley to Chattanooga, Tenn. to take advantage of this ultra-broadband capability.
The Chattanooga grant was just part of $7 billion in stimulus funds spent on broadband initiatives. The president has been aggressive in promoting broadband deployment, which grew from 92 to 94 percent in his first two years in office, a significant jump considering that a recent study found that each percent increase is estimated to increase employment by 300,000 jobs.
Tech leaders frequently express concern about the need for more graduates in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and called for reforms in education and immigration to address this. President Obama has doubled funding for Pell Grants for college students and has changed immigration rules to make it easier for STEM graduates to stay in the United States.
In addition, anti-competitive practices can frustrate and stifle innovation. President Obama has moved forward with net neutrality regulations designed to prevent Internet providers from stifling innovation by discriminating against applications or content, which the Republicans in Congress vehemently opposed.
In comparison, Governor Romney offers a proven economic plan with his 20 percent across the board tax cut. The only problem is that it has been proven to be a failure, as under President George W. Bush such tax cuts yielded very few jobs and left us with a substantial deficit. President Reagan's budget director, David Stockman calls the $5 trillion Romney-Ryan plan a "fairy tale" that will "do nothing to reverse the nation's economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse."
Like every Republican nominee since Reagan, Romney hopes to seduce voters based on the chimera of painless tax cuts. The reality is that like every "free lunch," the Romney "fairy tale" ultimately is paid for somehow. In this case it will mean slashing funding for education, research and others areas vital to innovation and economic development. Just as Ronald Reagan's tax cuts were followed by multiple tax increases by Reagan, President George H. Bush and President Clinton to reverse the fiscal hemorrhaging, the Bush-Romney tax cuts will eventually have to be paid for by all of us.
Governor Romney has also stressed his disagreement with Obama's promotion of green technology and put forth an energy plan that is a return to the fossil fuel-driven approach of the Bush administration. While not only is this likely to be bad for the environment, but it will cede U.S, leadership in this emerging sector to China, Germany and India, and stall a rapidly growing segment of the job market.
It is said that innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity and not a threat. President Obama came into office as the nation teetered toward depression and set a new course that emphasized and rewarded technological innovation. Romney, on the other hand, wants to return to the false comfort of the past. Obama's efforts are starting to bear fruit, while the wreckage of Romney's approach lay all around us.]]>Romney, Marx and the GOP Brandtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19653922012-10-16T15:19:18-04:002012-12-16T05:12:02-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/Obama Zombies and documentaries like The Obama Deception, which contend that the election of Barack Obama was the result of a brainwashed electorate.
If that were the case, then one would think conservatives would relish the few hours of live televised debates as their only chance to reach voters unfiltered by the black magic of the liberal media. One would expect this to be the moment when they make an impassioned plea for conservative principles.
So when Mitt Romney took the stage in Denver to debate President Obama, this should have been the moment when the former governor made the conservative case for his agenda. Instead, Romney turned to Marx -- Groucho, not Karl -- and adopted the "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes" approach to questions about his agenda.
Romney could not run fast enough from the details of his plan which all facts to the contrary suddenly did not (a) have a $5 trillion tax cut proposal; (b) which reduced taxes for the wealthiest; (c) raised taxes on the middle class; and (d) exploded the deficit. Nope, not his plan, we must be thinking of some other guy running for president.
In debating health care with the president, this was not the moment when he planted the flag for free market solutions, but rather, he claimed to have a plan that competed with Obamacare and even covered pre-existing conditions (which his staff later conceded was untrue).
This was nothing new, as George W. Bush took the same tact when debating Al Gore in 2000, contending that his tax plan primarily benefited lower brackets and assuring voters that that he would use half of the surplus toward Social Security. This could not have been farther from the truth.
As president, Bush continued this same pattern, leading a number of bloggers such as myself to catalog with astonishment the hundreds of lies emanating from Pennsylvania Avenue. As John Dean would explain in his book Worse than Watergate, the Bush administration had elevated mendacity to public policy with all major initiatives cloaked in deception.
After his re-election Bush tried to "cash in" the political capital he believed he had accumulated to achieve a longtime conservative dream -- privatizing Social Security. Once the proposal was subject to the cold sun of public scrutiny, the major policy initiative of Bush's second term died a quick death despite a nationwide campaign by the president.
Far from being embraced by this fictional conservative nation, the Bush administration and Republicans instead faced a public backlash. In the aftermath, one Republican Congressman conceded that the Republican brand was "in the trash can" and that if it were a dog food it would be taken off the shelf. Recent polling suggests that this view remains unchanged.
The Republicans know they cannot win on the strength of their ideas, but rather must rely on hijacking the democratic process to frustrate the true will of the people. "Hijacking" no doubt is a strong word, but what do you call purging thousands of legitimate voters from the voting rolls and erecting barriers to combat "voter fraud" that they admit never occurred?
What do you call using millions in unregulated campaign funds to sell the American people dog food by telling them it's something else? That is precisely what happened in Denver, as Gov. Romney rebranded his entire platform.
Romney lacked the courage to push his party to adopt an agenda that the country could embrace, so now he must convince the country that his agenda is not really dog food but a Taco Supreme. In doing so, it is clear that Romney understands one important point that the conservative zombie theorists refuse to recognize -- it is not the Democrats but the Republican Party that must rely on the electorate's suspension of disbelief to win in November.
This brings us to the great irony of this race. The Romney family's presidential ambitions, which ran aground after George Romney claimed to have been "brainwashed" into supporting the Vietnam War, must now rely on his son's attempt to brainwash the American people into believing that his agenda is anything but what he has said it was these past two years.]]>Romney and the Calamitous Republicanstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19099322012-09-25T12:42:39-04:002012-11-25T05:12:01-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/Peggy Noonan's statement that the Romney campaign is a "rolling calamity." Such a focus on the individual candidate's tactical ineptitude obscures the larger point that the Republican Party is just as calamitous on a substantive level, as their agenda is openly adverse to the principles upon which this country was founded.
Let us start with Governor Romney's latest disaster -- his "47 percent" remark in which he divided up the electorate into two main groups. The first, whom he does not worry about, are what he views as government dependents that primarily support the president, while the second consists of taxpayer stakeholders who he believes primarily support him. It is ironic that when President Clinton succinctly sums up the Democrats' position these past four years he receives universal acclaim, but when Romney does the same for the Republicans he is disowned.
This "47 percent" philosophy is significant in the way it manifests itself in Republican thought and strategy. As the party of the "stakeholder class," Republicans increasingly view themselves as the only rightful holders of the reins of power. This strain of thinking is at the root of the strategy of Congressional Republicans to, in essence, become the political equivalent of a guerrilla movement and obstruct President Obama at every turn (even for proposals Republicans once supported). It also has fostered, in an institution that depends on compromise to function, an outright rejection of deviation from dogma regardless of whether it is to accommodate such difficult things as facts or to substantially achieve their own objectives.
In his farewell address, President Washington reminded the citizens that respect for the authority of the new government was a fundamental part of liberty. He also warned that:
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle [and designed to frustrate] the delegated will of the nation.
The ugly seed that Washington feared has blossomed in the dark recesses of Congress, with the Republicans likely to set a record this Congress for filibustering (most recently blocking a jobs bill for veterans) and refusing to act on judicial nominations despite the judicial branch's declaring a "vacancy crisis."
The most shameful and calamitous aspect of this mindset is in the rash of new voter suppression laws pushed by Republican governors and state legislatures. Nowhere is this more blatant than in Pennsylvania, which adopted a voter ID law drafted by Republican Daryl Metcalfe ostensibly to combat voter fraud that could prevent over nine percent of registered voters from voting. Since its passage, Pennsylvania has conceded that there is no evidence of voter fraud, while the House Republican leader told a partisan audience the measure was intended to help Romney win Pennsylvania.
After the "47 percent" story broke, Metcalfe said that if the government dependent class is "too lazy to get up and... get the ID they need... the state can't fix that." Metcalfe simply ignores the fact that many of those affected are elderly, disabled or poor who lack access to transportation or who cannot afford the fees involved for supporting documentation which can range from $10 to $345.
Metcalfe apparently believes that the other 47 percent does not deserve the vote. This is the mindset that has driven Republicans in Pennsylvania and 15 other states since 2008 to impose voter identification requirements or adopt other measures such as questionable voter purges, eliminating early voting the Sunday before the election when many African-American churches bus citizens to the polls and making voter registration more difficult.
It is telling when distinguished journalist and Nixon biographer Elizabeth Drew finds this open campaign of voter suppression to be "more menacing" than Watergate. Indeed, it is shocking that only two generations after the murder of Freedom Riders in Philadelphia, Mississippi and the enactment of the Voting Rights Act that followed that such actions could be taken without outrage or political consequence.
So while Republicans lament their nominee's frequent self-inflicted wounds, the true calamity in this race is that a political party has adopted a strategy that involves a refusal to govern and a frustration of the will of the majority. This strategy is an open assault on the principles of national unity and majority rule upon which this nation was founded and a growing cancer which the American people can no longer abide.]]>Mitt Romney: The "Us the People" Candidatetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16756992012-07-17T11:33:11-04:002012-09-16T05:12:12-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
While the ghosts of fascism and communism are never far away, Berlin today is booming and Germans are confident and proud. In contrast, a recent Rasmussen poll showed that a plurality of Americans believe that our best days are behind us -- something that would seem unthinkable to what we have called our "Greatest Generation."
These are different times and it seems that the notion of "We the People" is over. Unlike World War II, where citizen and soldier each were vital to the war effort, in the last decade we have fought our two longest wars yet no sacrifice was ever asked of the citizens. Far from it in fact, as we cut taxes during wartime for the first time in our history.
Welcome to the age of "Us the People" in which the interests of select groups trump the interest of the greater good. In pursuit of the Republicans' stated top priority of making President Obama a one-term president, Congressional Republicans have opposed initiatives such as a payroll tax break, cap and trade and an individual mandate for health insurance all of which they once supported.
Republican governors have cut spending and laid-off government workers making their states a drag on the recovery with GDP growth at half of the national average. Now they are opting out of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion even though it is 93 percent paid for by the Federal Government and would save states millions in costs relating to uninsured care. Even worse, they are also implementing voter suppression measures despite any evidence of voter fraud in order to ensure that only "us" and not "we" are at the polls in November.
Then there is Mitt Romney, the perfect candidate for "Us the People" as he hides his money in overseas tax shelters and Swiss bank accounts since "only the little people" pay taxes after all. That such a person could be elevated as nominee of a party reflects the fact that today sacrifice is a dirty word.
Consider for a moment the fact that, during World War II, Ford and General Motors converted their factories to military production to help with the war effort. This would be anathema to Romney and his fellow vulture capitalists at Bain who purchased American businesses, sold off their assets and then shipped jobs overseas.
Romney survived a GOP nomination process that clearly defined who was not included in the Republican definition of "Us" -- African and Hispanic Americans, Muslims, gays, women and the poor. Romney's economic proposal contemplates more tax cuts and other benefits for "Us" with the cost and burden to be borne by the poor and others not fortunate enough to be "Us."
World War II had a unifying effect long after Japan's surrender on the USS Missouri. I recall former Democratic Senator George McGovern talking about teaming with Republican Bob Dole on child nutrition issues. He explained while many viewed the two men by their respective partisan labels, they saw each other as fellow veterans and heroes.
In contrast, today you have Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh questioning the valor of his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee veteran of the Iraq War.
Republicans refer to Democratic Presidents Clinton and Obama as "your president" or "not my president" and reject compromise. It is ironic that the party that obsesses over including the term "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, could ignore the rest of the language about being "one nation" "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The salient question in this upcoming election is whether we are to move forward as one nation as "We the People" or instead as the collection of tribes the GOP includes in "Us the People." The longer we indulge the perfidious tribalism of "Us the People," we risk allowing its seeds of disunity to take root and ultimately yield a bitter harvest of decline. But when we act as "We the People" there is nothing we cannot do and I am certain that as one nation our best days lay ahead of us.]]>Right-Wing Judges Seek to Close the Courthouse Doors to Public Interest Claimstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16253092012-06-27T17:26:22-04:002012-08-27T05:12:06-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/Brown v. Board of Education on behalf of the NAACP, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall instead had been forced by pro-Jim Crow judges to pay substantial penalties for "grossly abusing the judicial process" by asserting what they deemed to be frivolous arguments. Had that been the case, how long would the father of two children risked bankrupting his family by taking on additional cases and who would even replace him?
Imagine an America without the Brown decision or one in which Jim Crow was able to maintain its death grip on the south for another generation. Imagine an America in which lawyers dared not challenge the mightiest no matter how egregious their offenses may be for fear of financial ruin. No Thurgood Marshalls, no Ralph Naders and no Howard Shankers.
Howard Shanker is an Arizona environmental lawyer who has won a string of major environmental cases including a ruling that helped preserve the natural beauty and air quality of the Grand Canyon National Park by thwarting construction of an environmentally unsustainable and unsuitable commercial retail development on the southern edge of the Grand Canyon National Park.
Shanker also has worked pro-bono on behalf of Indian groups to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's permitting a ski resort to use reclaimed wastewater to make snow in the San Francisco Peaks north of Flagstaff because it involves sacred tribal lands and potential human ingestion of water containing known carcinogens. In February, an all Republican panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Shanker's arguments as a "gross abuse of the judicial process" (even though a different Ninth Circuit panel of judges had initially ruled in favor of his clients). Last week the same panel imposed sanctions on Shanker, ordering him to personally pay the ski resorts' costs throughout the litigation.
The San Francisco Peaks decision was rendered by Judge Milan Smith, the son of the founder of Smith Frozen Foods ("SFF") and brother of former U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) who ran SFF prior to taking office. It turns out that SFF has a long history of wastewater violations (including a 1991 incident that killed thousands of fish) and Senator Smith's environmental record in the Senate was not much better.
Earlier this month, Judge Smith launched a political tantrum in dissenting against the holding in Karuk Tribe of California v. United States Forest Service in favor of Indian tribes challenging mining operations on the Klamath River. Smith's dissent, which includes a drawing from Gulliver's Travels, rails against recent Ninth Circuit decisions upholding and enforcing environmental laws against businesses as akin to Gulliver being tied down by bureaucratic Lilliputians causing "economic chaos, shutter[ing] entire industries, and caus[ing] thousands of people to lose their jobs."
This is consistent with his approach to the San Francisco Peaks litigation where, in writing the opinion denying the appeal, Smith goes on at length over the number of jobs involved and the perceived economic burden to the ski resort in having to delay snow-making capability while such trivial things as environmental safety and Navajo religious rights were adjudicated.
As Gary Marchant, the Lincoln Professor of Emerging Technologies, Law and Ethics at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, explains:
there is no question that [the San Francisco Peaks case involved] a valid set of claims that could have been decided either way [and] therefore is clearly not a case where sanctions would be appropriate or warranted.
More importantly, Marchant adds,
[a]pplying sanctions in a case such as this would have a chilling effect on the willingness of qualified counsel to take on controversial and important public interest matters of any type.
This is not a theoretical risk. For example, the American Bar Association reports that recent changes in bankruptcy law imposing sanctions on lawyers for inaccuracies in client financial statements has led many firms to cease pro bono bankruptcy representation altogether.
That is precisely the result Judge Smith wants. Unable to convince his colleagues to adopt his anti-environment ideology, Smith instead is doing the next best thing by sanctioning Shanker which is to close the door to the courts to the Lilliputians altogether.
This is a classic example of judicial activism. While courts normally tread carefully in this area citing the potential chilling effect sanctions could have on future pro bono representation, this court merely says "you're lucky we didn't sanction the client too" as apparently one member of the panel wished to do.
Shanker is appealing the order to the full Ninth Circuit, whose ruling will have an effect on public interest litigation nationwide. Imagine a world without Thurgood Marshalls -- for it may soon become a reality.]]>Bridging the D.C.-Silicon Valley Divide in Napa Valleytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15824992012-06-11T12:02:59-04:002012-08-11T05:12:07-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/ Tech Policy Summit held in serene Napa Valley highlights the very Silicon Valley-Washington divide which it seeks to bridge. While the SOPA fight, the passage of the CROWDFUND Act and greater tech engagement on Capitol Hill are major signs of improvement, the divide was glaring at the conclusion of the two-day event when a panel on the 2012 election focused more on technological platforms and processes (which is consistent with Silicon Valley's role as a facilitator) rather than particular policies to be advanced by Silicon Valley as members of the body politic.
Summit participant and C-PET President Nigel Cameron aptly summarized the divide as a "shared myopia." As one who has played the role of translator on both coasts, I left the Summit believing that what feeds the divide is the extent to which neither community speaks nor fully understands the language of the other. The passage of the CROWDFUND Act and the recent introduction of the bipartisan "Startup Act 2.0" are signs that progress is being made, which is critical since Cameron correctly points out that both communities are vital in defining the future of this nation.
The Startup Act 2.0 is intended to respond to Silicon Valley's persistent concern over the inability to recruit or retain works in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics ("STEM"), by permitting immigration authorities to grant permanent residency to graduate students actively engaged in STEM areas (the bill also provides R&D tax credits and a capital gains tax exemption for startups). This, however, is merely an interim solution. Overlooked, to an extent, was the fact that the Summit began on the 34th anniversary of the passage of the seminal anti-tax measure -- Proposition 13 -- which has brought about a steady decline in California education (dropping from seventh to nearly 30th in per pupil spending) and the long-term solution may not be more visas but increased investment in our home-grown talent.
As the Summit began, the Internet was buzzing over LinkedIn being the latest major company to experience a significant hacking event, but consensus on how to deal with cyber security remained elusive. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which recently was passed by the House of Representatives despite strong opposition from many in the Internet community, remained a divisive issue; but, surprisingly, panelists were flat-out dismissive of any governmental effort to require the private sector to improve the level of security despite acknowledgement in the tech sector that current investment in security is insufficient.
While Silicon Valley is largely Democratic, what few appreciate is that there is also a strong libertarian streak in the community that makes them very distrustful of government intervention (which is not uncommon among western states). This is especially the case when the process is shrouded in secrecy as was the case with the now-failed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Thus left and right unite in opposing efforts by foreign governments to gain greater control over the Internet via treaty in order to prevent a mass uprising as we saw with Arab Spring. Neither left nor right, however, commented about repressive regimes' use of technology developed in Silicon Valley to suppress Internet speech and/or the tech community's success in boycotting Pakistan's invitation to bid to supply such technology.
The biggest divide in the room, however, may not be between Sand Hill Road and K Street, but between Silicon Valley and Hollywood as a discussion over copyright battles proved to be the most contentious of all the panels. University of Southern California's Jonathan Taplin, a veteran of the film and music industry who has worked with the likes of Bob Dylan and Martin Scorcese, sounded a conciliatory note by conceding that the Motion Picture Association of America's rhetoric during the SOPA debate had been "poisonous." Taplin, however, did not exactly set a different tone as he seethed with contempt for Techdirt's founder Mike Masnick throughout their debate over intellectual property rights in the post-SOPA world.
The lack of consensus on a tech agenda, however, should not discourage either party from attempting to articulate a tech agenda. President Obama has been aggressive in pursuing tech initiatives from a Democratic perspective from net neutrality and broadband deployment to a privacy bill of rights, while Republicans have also sought to claim the mantle of leadership in this area with the CROWDFUND Act and Start-Up Act 2.0. These initiatives demonstrate that while the divide between Washington and Silicon Valley still exists, the two camps clearly are communicating more than ever no doubt due in part to events like Tech Policy Summit.]]>A Hatchet Job and California's Hottest Assembly Racetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15438392012-05-25T13:33:45-04:002012-07-25T05:12:18-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/The Nation, has weighed in on one of California's hottest Assembly races just before the June 5th primary. Unfortunately, Hayden's column appears to be nothing more than a machine hatchet job, which is both a disservice to California voters and the journalistic legacy of Mr. McWilliams.
Hayden opens his column by praising first-time candidate Torie Osborn (including a link to her campaign website, a courtesy he does not extend to the other candidates mentioned), who was an aide to Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa and is the former girlfriend of termed-out Sheila Kuehl who represented much of the area for 14 years in the Assembly and Senate. Once anointed by the Kuehl-L.A. machine, Osborn and her supporters like Hayden have expressed an unseemly peevishness over those who question the wisdom of their choice.
Osborn tries to spin herself as a grassroots champion citing a number of local Democratic groups' endorsements, but these endorsements often were bought or involved irregularities which moved one local commentator to ask "where are Torie Osborn's ethics." In addition, Democratic Party Vice-Chair Eric Bauman (who has not endorsed a candidate) finds Osborn's spin as the grassroots champion to be "laughable" since Kuehl is the "ultimate insider" and Osborn's camp is full of insiders. Even worse, the well-funded Osborn has buried the district in direct mail pieces, the second of which had the audacity to include a big warning label to ignore attacks against her by the "special interests."
Ms. Osborn's opponents include Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, who has strong progressive credentials and Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, who was so feared by the likes of Anthem Blue Cross, AIG, BP and Philip Morris that they spent an unprecedented amount on a smear campaign to defeat her in the Democratic primary when she first ran and was elected two years ago.
I know both Bloom and Butler well and they are exactly the type of emerging young leaders that The Nation should want to promote. Instead, The Nation has become the platform for Hayden's hatchet job against these two fine leaders. Hayden follows the Osborn talking point that anyone who disagrees with the machine's anointed candidate must be a corrupt stooge of "special interests."
Hayden simply dismisses Bloom as underfunded despite some significant endorsements, but then unleashes on Butler who under redistricting is the incumbent in the race. Prior to her election in 2010, Butler served in the Clinton administration and was a fundraiser for groups such as the California League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Consumers Attorneys of California. Hayden reduces this to simply being a fundraiser, lamenting that this is "the modern way many young activists work their way up the ladder;" implying a lockstep system where top fundraisers are rewarded with legislative positions.
Elected positions, however, must be earned at the ballot box. That is what distinguishes Bloom and Butler from Osborn, as they have been chosen by voters and not just insiders and have an actual record of accomplishment. Osborn literally tries to gloss over this fact, as her first mailer was a vapid 16-page brochure entitled "Decades of Leadership" that included pretty glossy pictures of iconic historical events and leaders she had no association with.
Hayden also attacks Butler for moving into the district, as this is the first election with new districts drawn by the independent redistricting commission, omitting the fact that he used U-Haul for political purposes a few times himself. Other Osborn supporters whine with a sense of entitlement that she was in the race first (before the districts were even drawn), an argument that proved very persuasive for Mike Gravel's 2008 presidential campaign.
Hayden closes with a smear that Butler is somehow a party stooge since she cannot name a hypothetical situation in which she would vote against party leadership. This point is silly because people join a party because they tend to agree with it and no one has a crystal ball to predict future disagreements. It is like asking someone to comment on future Laker roster changes before they occur.
What Hayden and other "Torieistas" need to recognize is that this seat does not belong to Sheila Kuehl, the L.A. political machine or any single group to give to Ms. Osborn. Instead, the seat belongs to the diverse population that makes up the 50th Assembly district who hopefully can do what The Nation has refused to do and that is see through the distortions and nasty attacks and pick a leader that can move the state forward.
This post was originally published on the Santa Monica Daily Press.]]>CISPA, Netizens and the Internet's Coming of Age Partytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14574052012-05-02T16:36:21-04:002012-07-02T05:12:13-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/inaugural class of inductees for the Internet Hall of Fame at a very fitting moment. The Internet is experiencing a coming of age as not only has it surpassed television in terms of daily consumer usage, but it also is flexing its political muscle in capitols across the globe.
It was not too long ago that the tech industry was almost indifferent about Washington. Ultimately when it did engage, as it did in 2006 in its first major public policy skirmish over net neutrality, it ended up being crushed by the telecom industry despite strong grass roots support. The industry's progression from political flyweight to heavyweight was on full display earlier this year in the battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA") which the New York Times called its "political coming of age."
Republicans believed that betting on Goliath (in this case the entertainment industry) in a battle with David was not only a safe bet but they had hoped to score some political revenge by making a "political piñata" out of Google in the process. After the largest online protest in history in which thousands of sites went black, however, 13 Senators flipped from supporting to opposing the bill including SOPA co-sponsors and David once again had felled a giant.
Months later, when Pakistan had the audacity to openly solicit proposals for Internet censoring software, activists again mobilized to pressure U.S. software companies not to participate forcing Pakistan to abandon its plan after no bids were submitted.
As attendees arrived in Geneva, the European Parliament was debating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement which has been characterized by some as "SOPA on steroids" and whose fate was in jeopardy after thousands demonstrated throughout Europe. Across the Atlantic, Washington was abuzz with "Cyber Week" which culminated in a rush vote in the House of Representatives on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act ("CISPA"). CISPA, which would permit online providers to share information with other entities or the government on cyber security matters without prior notice or consent and "notwithstanding any other provision of law," has also been a target of criticism from the net community (aka "netizens").
Unlike SOPA, however, Google, Facebook and other Internet companies support CISPA as it would immunize them from liability for sharing information. As a result, the battle over CISPA was the first test of a new political force in Washington -- Netizens. Netizens are in essence a citizens' brigade connected via social media and blogs such as Ars Technica and TechDirt who are ably mobilized and led by dedicated groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, FreePress and others.
While netizens succeeded in putting CISPA supporters on the defensive and getting the White House to issue a veto threat mainly over the bill's lack of privacy protections, its sponsors would not yield and were able to ram the bill through the House in a rush vote Thursday night. Goliath, after all, rarely loses two in a row (although six sponsors ultimately voted against the bill).
In passing the measure, the House not only refused to address the privacy concerns raised but instead expanded the areas in which information may be shared beyond just cyber security -- a move which is adding fuel to the opposition as the bill moves to the Senate.
There is much to praise in the achievements of the men and women who gathered in Geneva for the Hall of Fame ceremony and who are responsible for the development and growth of the internet. People like Vint Cerf who is considered the "Father of the Internet," Al Gore whose legislation paved the infrastructure for the information superhighway and Craig Newmark who has made a name both as an internet pioneer and e-philanthropist.
As impressive as these feats may be, empowering citizens to speak forcefully in the corridors of power in Washington and across the globe is equally amazing if sustained. When authoritarian despots' greatest fear has shifted from worrying that their enemies might get access to weapons to fearing they will get access to YouTube, you have changed the world immeasurably.
The Hall of Fame ceremonies in Geneva gave us reason to pause and reflect on the achievements of the Internet to date. The debates in Washington and Strasbourg, however, call us as netizens to be vigilant and engaged in defending and protecting this vital tool of liberty.]]>The GOP Declares Bankruptcytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14102322012-04-10T15:36:29-04:002012-06-10T05:12:01-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
The Romney platform is against some of the defining achievements of the Obama administration such as the stimulus, the auto bailout and "Obamacare," while also claiming to be a classic Ronald Reagan conservative who is pro-life, a global-warming skeptic and a life-long hunter who is against banning assault weapons. Who better to carry the GOP flag on these issues than someone who at one point was for the stimulus, the auto bailout, Obamacare, reproductive freedom and addressing global warming; and who in reality had hunted only a couple of times and favored banning assault weapons?
Who better to lead the party of Reagan than a candidate who was an independent during the Reagan-Bush era whose policies he did not embrace?
Who better to lead the anti-government handout charge, than the man whose signature achievement -- heading the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics -- depended on $1.5 billion from the federal government through mostly earmarked funds?
Romney is the ultimate CGI candidate, who like his movie star equivalents, stands in front of a blank green screen that his handlers fill in later. This was evident from the campaign's beginning when his first ad was called "ridiculously misleading" by PolitiFact after he made a 2008 statement of Obama paraphrasing Senator McCain appear as if it were Obama's own words. The ad prompted a friend of mine, who has no love for Obama, to call me and tell me he is supporting Obama based on that ad alone.
The only thing Mitt Romney is genuine about is that he is Richie Rich, the Grey Poupon candidate and proud of it as he has famously demonstrated in his $10,000 bet offer, bragging about firing people and his multi-million dollar home with an elevator for his cars. He is completely tone-deaf when it comes to understanding the other 99 percent as he revealed in Wisconsin by telling the "humorous" story about how his father closed an auto plant in Michigan.
Romney has shown from the start, however, that his objective is not to have a battle over ideas (because that would require that he have or at least hold onto some) but to distort and smear his opponents' record. For example, this means claiming that Obama made the recession worse, when it actually improved or making other false statements about the president.
The 2012 election offered an opportunity for the Republican Party to rebrand itself after the epic failure of the Bush administration and in light of the fact that it has been a quarter century since the Republicans have won a decisive victory in a presidential campaign. While it is a least somewhat positive that the Republicans appear not to have embraced Rick Santorum's push for Christian Sharia or Newt Gingrich's or Ron Paul's racial politics, the problem is that they have instead selected a Thurston Howell III Ken doll that simply repeats Republican dogma.
Wind him up and Mitt Romney will tell you that the solution to the near economic catastrophe that the Bush administration led us into, is to do the exact same thing as Bush. That may make sense to a crash test dummy, but it will not go over well with those who have endured the worst downturn since the Great Depression and are now saddled with the bill for Bush's lost decade.
It is fitting that Romney's emergence comes as Newt Gingrich's think tank files for bankruptcy. For Republicans, whose party is led by a robot and the strongest argument to be made in favor of their policies is that "at least we didn't cause a depression," are already there.
]]>The Difference Between April and November Foolstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13955202012-04-02T19:03:29-04:002012-06-02T05:12:01-04:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
The embargo is estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $1-4 billion each year; and not only has it failed to convince the Cuban government to abandon Communism but it has given the Castro regime a political scapegoat. No wonder former Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz calls continuation of the embargo "insane." Yet the policy continues, not because there is any grand expectation that next year is the year it finally works, but rather because both parties fear the wrath of Florida's Cuban community should they lift the embargo (even though younger Cuban-Americans oppose the blockade).
The Cuba embargo is one of several fixtures in American politics that requires a suspension of disbelief. Another example can be found in the "cutting taxes raises revenue" argument which, while asserted by both Democratic and Republican administrations over time, was elevated to Republican dogma during the Reagan administration.
David Stockman, the architect of the Reagan tax cuts explains that "the simplistic and reckless idea that the way to stimulate the economy is to cut taxes anytime, anywhere, for any reason... has become a religion, it has become a catechism. It's become a mindless incantation."
An incantation that has been flatly rejected by economists who served under Reagan and G.W. Bush. One such economist is Gregory Mankiw, the head of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, who labeled those asserting that tax cuts pay for themselves as "charlatans and cranks."
True believers point to the economic recovery and growth in revenue under Reagan, but Stockman contends that the "morning in America" recovery under Reagan was a classic business cycle recovery and that revenues increased both because of the recovery and subsequent tax increases (including the largest tax increase in modern history).
Rejecting this fiction is not inconsistent with conservative principles -- it just means that if they are to be revenue neutral any such tax cuts have to be offset by spending cuts or other revenue. The problem is, however, that Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by signing Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge which limits their options to either offering potentially unpopular spending cuts or simply continuing the fiction that tax cuts pay for themselves.
A final unfortunate fixture in American politics is that there is a real debate as to whether climate change is occurring. A 20-year study commissioned by President George H.W. Bush, which included the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the Defense and State Departments, concluded that "the warming of the climate is unequivocal" and is primarily due to man-made causes. This is also the view of 32 National Academy of Sciences from nation's representing 75 percent of world-wide carbon emissions including China, U.S., Russia, India and Japan.
As Republican weatherman Paul Douglas explains "acknowledging climate change doesn't make you a liberal" since there can liberal and conservative approaches to solving the problem. Yet it has become dogma among Republicans to deny that even this is occurring. Climate Progress' Joe Romm aptly sums it up when he states that "the entire conservative movement, including pundits, think tanks, and politicians, now appears willing to stake the future of humanity on their willful ignorance."
Not only is this dangerous for our planet but its also dangerous for our competitiveness since a corollary to this mindset is a dismissal of alternative energy in favor of traditional fossil fuels. As a result, the United States, which once was far ahead of emerging China and India in Ernst & Young's Renewable Country Attractiveness Index, is now second to China and India is closing the gap.
April Fools' Day is a day for light-hearted hijinks and foolishness without real consequences. Embracing foolishness as public policy is a far different notion altogether. When the consequences mean a loss of billions of dollars or jeopardizes our fiscal health or even the future of our planet, we should not have to wait for pigs to fly before we eliminate these foolish notions from our body politic altogether.]]>Taxation by Press Release in the Cradle of Libertytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11469092011-12-14T10:48:57-05:002012-02-13T05:12:01-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
The Amazon Tax is an attempt to collect revenue from a legal black hole. Like most states, Pennsylvania has a sales tax under which retailers (both online and offline) are required to collect and remit the tax from all sales. The exception to this rule is for out-of-state retailers who have no physical presence in the state, which is a bright line that the Supreme Court crafted pursuant to the Constitution's Due Process and Commerce clauses. Where the sales tax is not collected, however, consumers are still obligated to pay the tax to their state, which is almost universally ignored or at least forgotten. Pennsylvania estimates that it loses $380 million annually to this black hole.
This is where the Amazon Tax comes to the rescue by redefining who is an in-state retailer by including out-of-state online merchants (such as online behemoth Amazon.com) which pay commissions to in-state affiliate marketers and thus extending the collection obligation to such merchants. The Amazon Tax has become a popular item of discussion in state capitols the past few years because in theory it generates revenue for cash strapped states without having to actually raise taxes or, stated more frankly, is a gimmick that allows politicians to avoid an honest debate and accountability when it comes to state finances.
Several states have enacted legislation to adopt the Amazon tax, but Pennsylvania is not one of them. While the website for the Pennsylvania capitol explains that "[m]aking law in Pennsylvania is a meticulous process -- and for good reason," Governor Corbett has enacted the Amazon tax by simply releasing a press release saying that existing law includes the Amazon tax. This, of course, begs the question why the Commonwealth left over a billion dollars in sales tax revenue on the table during e-commerce's first generation or thought it necessary to attempt to pass Amazon tax legislation earlier this year. In addition, this expansive interpretation of the tax code flies in the face of Pennsylvania law that tax laws are to be strictly construed.
In reality, the Amazon tax is not quite the panacea advocates portray it to be. In fact, enactment of the tax causes immediate economic hardship as hundreds of online retailers immediately sever their relationship with in-state affiliate marketers who lose as much as 50% of their income as a result. For Pennsylvania's 9,000 affiliate marketers this means an immediate loss of as much as $350 million in annual income (which is more than five times greater than the losses to state businesses due to record flooding caused by Tropical Storm Lee). That may be why "Amazon Tax states" Illinois, North Carolina and Rhode Island have seen little to no increase in revenue as a result.
While this is catastrophic for affiliate marketers, all Pennsylvanians should be alarmed that in this cradle of liberty, a mere forty miles from where Lincoln so eloquently honored those who fought to preserve government of and by the people, the tax laws can be dramatically altered by a mere press release.
Carl Sandburg noted that "[w]henever a people . . . forget its hard beginnings, it is beginning to decay." That is why the bankruptcy that Pennsylvanians should be alarmed about emanates not from Harrisburg City Hall but from the Governor's mansion.
]]>Last Crazy Standing: Is it Newt Time for the GOP?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10893992011-11-12T13:03:03-05:002012-01-12T05:12:01-05:00Bennet Kelleyhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bennet-kelley/
Elected to Congress in 1978, Gingrich believed that Republicans must fight the Democrats "with the scale and duration and savagery that is only true of civil wars." Gingrich relentlessly attacked Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright as the "least-ethical Speaker" of the century with countless charges that even his fellow Republicans dismissed as baseless. Nonetheless, the media prefers conflict over policy and Gingrich quickly became a Beltway star.
Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough, who served with Gingrich, said his modus operandi is to "smear any public figure who fails to share his worldview. His insults are so overblown and outrageous that after the rhetorical dust settles, the reputation most damaged is his own." Newt's famous smears include calling Clinton Democrats "the enemy of normal Americans," blaming Columbine on the Democrats and claiming that President Obama has a "colonial world view."
Gingrich also attacked Republican Congressional leaders who viewed Congress as something more than "a forum for partisan warfare" and actually cooperated with Democrats to get something accomplished; famously calling Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole "the tax collector for the welfare state".
Republican Mickey Edwards, who also served with Gingrich, explains that Gingrich "aggressively pushed Congressional Republicans in a direction in which the pursuit of power trumped all other considerations." Gingrich became the leader of what conservative columnist George Will described as "ideologically intoxicated" Republicans who believe that "Democrats are not merely mistaken but sinful" or as one Republican conceded to journalist Elizabeth Drew, simply feel that "they were totally right and the other side was totally wrong."
As Speaker, Gingrich issued his famous guide to Republican candidates that merely contained a list of approximately 70 insults to hurl at your opponent (e.g., "corrupt" or "traitor") but which said nothing about policy or effective governing. This was Gingrich's style, as John Feehery, a former aide to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, noted "Gingrich likes to make sweeping generalizations in ways that are needlessly polarizing and often irresponsible... as his white hot rhetoric is spoken to inflame rather than inform."
As a Presidential candidate, Feehery believes Gingrich is trying to convince "the hard-right... that he is as crazy as they are." Mickey Edwards dismisses Gingrich's candidacy stating
[a]t some point, people will learn to stop taking Newt Gingrich seriously, [since] Newt is utterly unconcerned with the welfare of the country... He cares about (a) Newt and (b) power for Newt.
Congress is now full of ideologically intoxicated "Newtants" who have no qualms about tanking the economy for electoral advantage or bringing the country to the brink of a financial crisis rather than yield on an ideological point. That is why disapproval of Republicans in Congress is at record levels (76 percent disapproval) and half of the country now believes that the Republicans are intentionally sabotaging the economy for political gain.
If these numbers did not concern Republicans before, the election results on Tuesday showed an emphatic rejection of Republican extremism with the recall of anti-immigrant Senator Russell Pearce in Arizona and the overwhelming defeat of Republican initiatives in Mississippi and Ohio.
Republican primary voters clearly have gotten the message and have, instead, chosen to double down on crazy as Gingrich is now in a three-way dead heat with Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.
Today's voters are angry and want candidates they can measure by results not insults. Were he to emerge victorious from the Republican Convention in Tampa it is inconceivable that Gingrich would be able to restrain his penchant for bombast. As a result, Gingrich's final march would only further fuel the current backlash and make him the mascot for everything Americans hate about politics today.
While Gingrich has compared himself to Napoleon and Churchill, it is fitting that his political finale may not be the Commander-in-Chief position he has long coveted but rather as Piñata-in -Chief, making Seis de Noviembre a joyous fiesta for Democrats.