I’m at the Convention on Modern Liberty in London today, you can follow me on twitter!
Despite the large support from excellent groups like MySociety there unfortunately isn’t any wifi here so i won’t be able to provide too much during the day.
Update: I got a bit bored / frustrated at Twitter and in a knee-jerk reaction deleted my account. sorry! (there’s an aftermath post here).
From the Huffpost:
According to CNN, Steele was then praised by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.
As Steele concluded his remarks, Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann — the event’s moderator — told Steele he was “da man.”
“Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man,” she said.
So awkward! Just think, we’ve got until the mid-terms for Republican Hip-Hop re-styling to gain full swing, Bachmann’s office-style moment is only the start.
Bernard: Well the party had an opinion poll done and it seemed all the voters are in favour of bringing back National Service.
Sir Humphrey:Well have another opinion poll done showing the voters are against bringing back National Service.
We all use polling but recently two issues stood out where we ought to be more careful in their use. The first is a false interpretation of what the data shows, the second is the flaws of using polling data on a complex issue to support your argument.
Washington D.C. has long had a bizarre constitutional status. A “district” largely carved out of territory ceded by Maryland in 1790, it has had little control over its own destiny. Congress still retains most powers that a Governor would normally enjoy, which is why you see bizarre school voucher experiments (and today’s gun law tactics) in a city where 90% of residents vote for the Democratic candidate for Mayor, President or (non-voting) Congressional representative (currently the inestimable Eleanor Holmes Norton).
Non-voting representative no more, however. Very soon, the District of Columbia will no longer complain of ‘taxation without representation’. The long-awaited follow-up to the 23rd Amendment (1961) which gave Washingtonians votes for President may now have belatedly arrived. Yesterday, the Senate voted 61-37 for a D.C. voting rights bill, expected to be quickly followed by the House and signed by President Obama, which will extend voting rights to the legislature. There are, of course, constitutional issues at play when considering the notion of full congressional representation for D.C. The Bill is likely to face legal challenges, which will probably make it all the way to the Supreme Court (perhaps, one speculates, finally giving the Supremes a chance to make up for Bush v Gore).
For Chris Bowers, that the constitutional status of the District is back on the agenda is a signal that a national conversation should be opened about the statuses of other anachronistic US territories, especially Puerto Rico, which, as we were reminded of at the time of Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in the island last June, remains largely a colonial entity. The US should indeed be wary of the potential for unrest during the recession. In an escalating crisis, Europe’s biggest remaining colonial power, France, is being reminded of the awkward relationship of modern colonialism and economic crisis in its Caribbean territories, Martinique and Guadeloupe. American hypocrisy over D.C., Puerto Rico and the rest of its overseas territories is rarely something that is openly discussed, but yesterday’s Senate vote is an encouraging sign that Obama’s America is beginning to live up to Bobby Kennedy’s call of “really mean[ing] it when we say all men are created free and equal before the law.”
As a quick follow-up to my last post on Obama’s State of the Union address, I want to briefly talk about the Republican response to the President’s speech. I say briefly, because I couldn’t watch more than thirty seconds of it since it was clear that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s decision to give it in a bizarre rapid-fire, sing-song delivery was a cripplingly embarrassing one. However the transcript of his speech shows that the content was just as embarrassing – inherently flawed and politically deaf criticism of the stimulus package combined with a complete lack of alternative solutions. How very Republican… Excitable journalists like to talk up the thrilling prospect of a Obama v Jindal showdown (no doubt thinking about the endless “Black President vs Indian candidate: how historic!” articles they could reel off). Hopefully, then, his pathetic response to Obama’s stunning address will dampen the media frenzy around him. And if you believe that, then you’ll believe me when I say I’m off to sit in my solid gold chair and smoke some hundred pound notes. Being a billionaire is fun!
What was perhaps most shocking about Jindal’s response was the brazen insanity of it: in the midst of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with Republican stock still at an all-time low, their response is to stubbornly stick to the tired old mantra of “government is bad, tax cuts are good”. The craziness of such a strategy was perhaps best summed up by conservative commentator David Brooks, who eviscerated it in shockingly extreme language (for a Republican), calling it a “disaster”, “insane” and “a form of nihilism” . Watch it for yourself, it’s really quite damning:
Obama’s first State of the Union address was pretty accomplished. And I don’t say that to damn him with faint praise. I could go on about how it was an uplifting speech – and it was. I could go on about how steadfast Obama seemed in the face of economic crisis. And he did. And I could definitely go on about how deftly he mixed the substantive with the personal- the story about the guy who gave his bonus out to his employees was a nice touch, and if you didn’t get a lump in your throat at the mention of that young girl’s remarkable letter then you probably have a model number stamped somewhere on you. But, more than anything, it accomplished what Obama set out to do: that is, lay the groundwork for what is set to be the biggest program of reforms since the Great Society – or maybe even the New Deal. Not only did he put the finishing touches on his case for the recently passed economic stimulus, but he tackled all the big legislative issues ahead of him: the budget; the bank, housing market and auto bailouts; climate change; healthcare reform; education. In doing so he not only framed the debate to come, but deftly rebuffed the objections of the cynics before they’ve even had time to get going. So yeah, I could go on about how it was was uplifting and stirring. And it really was. But what this speech showed more than anything else is that Obama isn’t going to let anything get in the way of the huge, unprecedented reforms that are coming to America this year – he’s going to control the debate and not repeat the mistakes of the stimulus battle.
Here, then, are what I think were the top 10 key quotes from Obama’s State of the Union. These weren’t necessarily the most memorable or stirring of lines – for that, we have the endless analysis of cable tv – but the lines that I felt were most important, at least in terms of the battles to come. (You can read the transcript of the speech here)
A letter in today’s Guardian signed by over 60 high-profile figures from the arts and academia highlights the Government’s new visa restrictions, which will have the effect of curbing the admission of non-EU artists and academics into the UK:
As professionals committed to the principles of internationalism and cultural exchange, we are dismayed by new Home Office regulations which will curb our invitations to non-EU artists and academics to visit the UK. All non-EU visitors now must apply for a visa in person and supply biometric data, electronic fingerprint scans and a digital photograph. Read more…
As a change from my normally more po-faced analysis of US politics, I thought I’d take a look at some of the more crazy comments Republicans have been coming out with over the last week or so. I had been a little concerned that all the “serious” debates about the economic stimulus package had slowed to a trickle the hilarious, weird stuff they tend to come out on a regular basis – but I needn’t have worried. In recent days they’ve been once again feeding at the crazy trough and then some. So, in no discernible order:
- Last week, at a public event in Alabama, the state’s Republican Senator Richard Shelby answered a question from a constituent in a way that suggests he may harbour, uh, some doubts as to whether Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen. No, seriously:
Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate. You have to be born in America to be president.
- Speaking of Obama’s citizenship, long-time crazy Republican Alan Keyes (who lost the Illinois Senate race to Obama back in 2004) has not only been recently fuelling doubts about his natural-born status but also warning the public about the threat he poses to America:
Obama is a radical communist, and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it’s true… He is going to destroy this country, and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.
You can check out the hilarious video here
- Socks, the famous White House cat back when Bill Clinton was president has died, aged 19. Here is a suitably sentimental tribute.
- Oh, for god’s sake, just nationalise Citibank already and stop prancing around the subject. If the bank’s share price is so low anyway, who cares if the shareholders get wiped out? Good riddance to amoral idiots.
- This was a pretty bad year for Oscar-worthy films. Last year we had the likes of No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. This year we get Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire etc… Well it turns out Slumdog Millionaire won big, (best film, director) as did Kate Winslet (lead actress) and Sean Penn (lead actor). Meh. Sympathies go out to Angelina Jolie and Mickey Rourke. The latter’s failure to win lead actor actually probably helps his image of always screwing things up for himself, so he shouldn’t feel too bad. Oscars suck. One consolation was Heath Ledger winning best supporting actor – death or no death that was a performance that makes the rest of the nominees look like jokers, pun intended. Also Penelope Cruz deservedly won supporting actress, and by deservedly I mean “good work on that lesbian snog with Scarlet Johansson”.
- Gordon Brown has won the race to be the first European head to get to visit Obama. Hopefully the US President will remind him that you don’t just have to just focus obsessively on bailing out banks – you are allowed to, you know, actually help those affected worst by the recession.
- File under “crazy”: senile US Senator Jim Bunning predicts death for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
-Finally, there’s always been a disconnect between, on the one hand, all this talk of global warming being the biggest threat to the Earth and on the other the preferred solutions to this threat… i.e. leaving it up to the market via carbon trading schemes rather than actually regulating polluters.
Now we learn that Europe’s carbon trading scheme, thanks to the recession, is now making mega-pollution gloriously cheap. To cut a long story short, the system is meant to make carbon permits expensive by making demand exceed supply, but in a recession where output is low, there isn’t much demand… so carbon permits become bargains and big polluters get to choke out carbon on the cheap
I wonder when the world’s solutions to climate change will stop being ironic and start being… useful.
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