Partisan Free Politics

If you were to ask Grover Norquist, Spencer Overton, David Keating, and Hendrik Hertzberg what values they shared in common, you might be shocked. Grover after all, is the man who is fighting for his right to “drown the federal government in a bathtub”. The left vs right divide does not get any more drastic. Nevertheless, when it comes to partisan free issues, these candidates found that there was a lot of common ground they could share. Transparency. They all emphatically agreed that some form of ReadTheBill ought to be passed This would mandate that all bills be made available online and to the public for a mandatory period ranging from 3 to 7 days, before Congress ...

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With all of the Buzz about third party candidates coming in to save the disenfranchised minority from Guiliani or Clinton, I thought that this may be an interesting time to say that I'll be at the Claim Democracy conference this weekend. This blog is being move to a new server, next week as part of a technological overhaul.

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It isn't easy to walk in another man's shoes, granted.  But of all the most senseless misguided professions to unionize, Hollywood writer's have to take the cake (or at least finish a close second to actors, and just ahead of directors.)  In this day in age, with the rise of blogging ushering in thousands of new could-be wordsmiths, it seems like the "professional" writers have little advantage in the market outside of their old-boy's club union (yes, the same "professionals" that gave you titles such as "Prison Break," flood the nightly airwaves with rehashed Monica Lewinsky jokes, and pen the endless forensic banter for all the 16 different CSI shows.  And yes, the same guys that single-handedly ruined the ...

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Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of attending a taping of Hardball with Chris Mathews. The guest was none other than Sam Waterston of Law and Order. He was talking about this new movement called Unity 08. I was excited, I wanted to help, to jump on board the Unity 08 express and shake the two-party system to the core. After months of offering my services I have attended a Jungian marketing session with Cloitiare Rapelle, started a DC based Unity 08 meet-up group, helped create the “New American Agenda”, attended an online ballot access discussion – but still, I have no damned clue what Unity 08 is doing. On its face, Unity 08 is the ...

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Flipping between today's Republican debate and other Main Stream Media, I heard something more disturbing than Tom Tancredo's isolationist trade policy. It seems that the state of Michigan has moved it's primary past the date of no return, violating the Democratic Party's "four state plan", which says that no state shall hold primary contest before: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Why does that bother me? The DNC has already threatened to take Florida and Michigan's right to a voting delegation (In plain English it means that neither state will have a vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary of 2008). There are three camps in this interesting debate. The first is the overwhelmingly partisan argument offered by the DNC it basically ...

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The post-Colbert Bump is working its magic yet again. The mainstream press (and even some of the blogosphere) has been having a virtual Huckabee love-fest, from the this article in the NYTimes, to this one in the Washington Post. The story goes that this Southern Baptist preacher is sincere, affable, plays the guitar, likes the Rolling Stones, and yes, is pretty funny. Plus he's for environmental regulation, believes in cleaning up the prison system, and takes other stereotypcially "liberal" positions (although he is pro-life). Basically, from all the media hype he appears to be the dark horse favorite; an evangelical who can win "the base" but not alienate moderate voters. I must admit, I too am loving Huckabee, ...

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Part of my wonky nature, is my interest in the systemic components of democracies (wow, I know that sounds exciting, doesn't it?). There is a battle raging between the local politics and the DNC and RNC. It seems that citizens in states like Florida, New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan and South Carolina and others are tired of the primary process (read the NY Times article here). It is unclear what the outcome will be, but the national parties have threatened various sanctions including denying the states ability to seat a delegation at the parties nomination conventions. A DNC spokeswomen has already brought up a 25 year old supreme court case, which allows the parties and not the states to decide their nomination ...

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I seriously love democracy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/15/AR2007071501108.html (I'll get around to learning how to make hyperlinks and such eventually, right now I don't have time to work with the series of tubes and such that makes the internets...so there you go.)

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