So Help Me

You may have heard about the atheist who, for the third time filed a publicity-seeking lawsuit to remove 'So help me God' from the end of the Presidential oath of office, onto which it is traditionally tacked. I'm very much in favor of secular government and church-state separation, but I don't think this lawsuit is doing the cause any favors.

I'm no lawyer, but here's why I think the suit doesn't make sense:

- The words 'so help me God' aren't officially in the oath of office, so it's difficult to imagine a situation where Obama would face legal difficulties over not saying them.

- But it's true that having the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court recite them, and then declining to recite them back is a bit awkward.

- However, there's no rule that it HAS to be the Chief Justice. Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his father, whose only qualification was that he was a Notary Public. No one batted an eye at that, and anyone can become a notary public. Therefore, anyone can administer the oath. I'd be happy to do it, and would certainly make myself available.

- SO, there's no basis for exercising what amounts to prior restraint in order to prohibit John Roberts from saying 'so help me God'; Barack Obama can request that Roberts say or not say the words; if Roberts feels constrained to do it one way or the other, Obama can get, say, Gore Vidal.

These sort of fights to resecularize government symbols and ceremonies are enough of an uphill battle, without this sort of shaky legal basis. Why doesn't Michael Newdow, after filing this same suit three times in a row, come to share my conclusion? 

Happy New Year!

American troops in Iraq celebrated by handing over the Green Zone to the Iraqi Army. Russia celebrated by shutting off Ukraine's gas supply. The Common App website celebrated (prematurely) by slowing down, thereby freaking out untold legions of college applicants and their even more nervous parents. Penn State, apparently, is celebrating with a defensive performance in the Rose Bowl that makes me feel a lot better about the Packers' last season. I celebrated by jumping into Lake Michigan. However you celebrated 2009, a very happy New Year to you!

New Year’s Eve Pop Quiz!

Today, three actors are celebrating their birthdays: Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, and Tim Matheson.

What politically-related thing do these three have in common?

The Idiot's Guide to Creating the Worst Political Press Conference of All Time

Step 1, The Setup: Get elected Governor of a state, and then get caught trying to sell an open Senate seat. After saying that you would let the voters fill the seat in a special election, make a surprise appointment. Make sure to leave enough time before the conference so that Senate Democrats and your state's Secretary of State can renounce the appointment and say they won't recognize it even before you get a chance to speak.

Step 2, The Preparation: Make sure there is none. Have your appointee open up the floor for questions, but be careful not to give him talking points on the most obvious questions that will be asked. When he's asked if your misdeeds will taint him, hopefully he'll say something like "This is the appointment by the Governor of a state, and based on that I have no relationship with that situation," and when he's asked about the $14,000 he recently donated to you, hopefully he'll just come right out and say "That was money well spent, wasn't it?" Short of that, "How much did you say? $14,000? Well I have to check my records because I didn’t think it was that much" will do fine. Basically, you want to create the impression that these legitimate questions matter so little to you and your appointee that you didn't even bother to come up with answers.

Step 3, The Race Card: This is the most important one. At a random point during the conference, call up a Congressman from your state to the podium. Make sure you have no idea beforehand what he's going to say. Then, stand beside him nodding as he implies that anyone who opposes the appointment, especially members of the Senate, is racist. Bonus points if he specifically names your senior Senator, who has already announced his support for a special election, and double bonus points if he pounds the point home by asking people not to "hang or lynch" your appointee.

Step 4, The Parting Words: As your handlers try to rush you off the stage following Step 3, make sure to let it be known that you thought the Congressman's speech was "excellent," and then turn straight to the cameras and say "Feel free to castigate the appointor, but don't lynch the appointor."

Step 5, The Rebuttal: Make sure your Lieutenant Governor is standing by to hold his own press conference, five minutes after yours, in the same exact room, during which he denounces you again, calls the pick an "insult," and seems 50 times better prepared than you or your appointee.

Put it all together and here's what you get. Watch it all. It's chaos at its finest.

Boxman for President!

I don't know how we missed this! Posted on October 12 and it has over 2 million views. Probably we were too busy doing useful shit like knocking on doors for Barack Obama (for the uninitiated, Mr. Obama was Boxman's main opponent in the general election after he defeated Bagman in a hard fought primary). This is definitely one of the best youtube videos of the 2008 cycle. Perhaps only the"'You Can Vote However You Like'" can give Boxman a run for his money.

Favorite line (1:05)

Boxman is running for President! Boxman is the very best candidate! Boxman will give McCain chicken pox! Boxman is the only MAN IN A BOX! (emphasis added)

That's right! Boxman is the only man in a box!

Alas, it didn't work out for Boxman. But he does have some thoughts for us on this eve of Christmas eve.

Merry Christmas Dems!

P.S. In case you missed it, Santa Claus was in Washington this week discussing the proposed North Pole bailout package.

You are cordially invited to the party in my (second-hand) pants.

I am still in Cambridge, I am still procrastinating, and I am still easily entertained (maybe even a tad more so than usual).

Hence, recession-inspired pick-up lines.

The NYT's 2008 Buzzwords are also enjoyable.

The News from My Bed

A surprisingly cheery hello from Cambridge, where the snow has finally started falling and it's beginning to look at least a little like Christmas. For those who didn't get the text, FAS offices closed about two hours ago. I'm sure you were all disappointed. Hooray for snow days!

Anyway, since I'm here for semi-inexplicable reasons, procrastinating on the four papers I should be either editing or writing, I figured I'd pass on some links that I found featuring varying degrees of political relevance.

First, despite the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights happening last week, there continues to be quite a bit of debate over gay rights (not just marriage but actually the right to be homosexual) over at the U.N. After an attempt to draft a statement calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality led by France and the Netherlands, a rival statement was created. With almost equal signature counts, the documents will change little. But they do represent an important first step toward de-stigmatizing the issue, discussion of which had previously been taboo.

Next, for all of you who have been partying a little too hard in celebration of winter break, here a couple new hangover cure methods. The NYT suggests either boiled cabbage a la the ancient Greek poet Amphis or sex. For those of you who either hate vegetables or are single, National Geographic offers cow stomach or ...more beer. Who knew the Dutch were such fratstars?

Down south in Florida, the state will purchase 300 square miles of farm land from United States Sugar to be reclaimed as wetlands. Holla, Everglades!

That's all for now. I should get back to the papers.
Hot chocolate and warm fires,
Marianne

p.s. I, for one, am proud of the unusual amount of html used in this post. Unusual for me, at least.

p.p.s. You knew this would happen eventually...

South Korean parliament plays an extreme game of fort

Meet the teams:

Not pictured, we have the majority Grand National Party, hoping to push a trade deal with the U.S. through committee.
Advantages: Their position, blockaded inside the committee room, is superior as long as they can hold the vote before the door is breached. Also, they apparently have a whole lot of extra furniture that they didn't exactly need in tact anymore.
Weapon of choice: Fire extinguishers.

And outside the room is the minority Democratic Party, hoping to block the deal.
Advantages: Public perception? Other than that, it looks like they got pretty well pwned.
Weapons of choice: Sledgehammers and high-powered hoses.

Victor: By technical KO (aka the vote passed), the GNP.

An addendum to Brian

First, read the original post. Then, understand how overjoyed I am to be able to remember George Bush like this:

(Image: New York Times.)

If you can dodge a shoe, you can dodge a ball.

Say what you want about President Bush, but one thing's for sure: he's got some sweet moves.

Don't Blame the UAW, Blame the GOP

So the auto bailout failed, as I'm sure you've heard, after Republicans -- surprise! -- objected to the UAW's insistence that its workers get their full pay and benefits. (That's the GOP for you: Wall Street gets a blank check and the guys on the assembly line get no pension. At least they know their priorities.)

Obviously they're going to try and spin this like the UAW was stubbornly and greedily refusing to cooperate, consequently sinking the deal. The language in the elite media already reflects this meme (from the above article, emphasis mine):

The collapse came after bipartisan talks on the auto rescue broke down over GOP demands that the United Auto Workers union agree to steep wage cuts by 2009 to bring their pay into line with Japanese carmakers.

So the right-wing argument will undoubtedly go "why do the UAW workers want more than the non-union Japanese workers? Greedy union!" But that's bullshit -- read further down in the very same article:

Hourly wages for UAW workers at GM factories are about equal to those paid by Toyota Motor Corp. at its older U.S. factories, according to the companies. GM says the average UAW laborer makes $29.78 per hour, while Toyota says it pays about $30 per hour. But the unionized factories have far higher benefit costs.

GM says its total hourly labor costs are now $69, including wages, pensions and health care for active workers, plus the pension and health care costs of more than 432,000 retirees and spouses. Toyota says its total costs are around $48. The Japanese automaker has far fewer retirees and its pension and health care benefits are not as rich as those paid to UAW workers.

David Leonhardt at the NYT explains this in more detail, but basically -- the reasons the Big Three's compensation costs are so much higher than Toyota's and Honda's are both that they provide better benefits and because they have a massively larger group of retirees to pay (since, obviously, these guys have been operating in the US on a large scale for way longer than the Japanese automakers). So when Republicans ask the Detroit automakers to cut pay, what they're really asking for is either an elimination of benefits or a drop to substandard, sub-Toyota wages. Obviously the UAW isn't going to accept that, especially during a deep recession when their workers are already hurting. And well they shouldn't.

Republicans love to use unions as a scapegoat for economic problems, and we'll hear a chorus of right-wing screeching over the next few days about how unions are destroying the carmakers or whatever. But it's a mendacious lie, part of their decades-long program to discredit organized labor. The UAW has been, if anything, restrained in their negotiations (they already, months ago, agreed to reduce pay and benefits for new workers), and their response to Republicans' insane demands is perfectly justified and reasonable. What needs to happen now is for Congress to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan -- or perhaps, the same plan, but with enough of the Senate GOP moderates tacked on that Mitch McConnell's vendetta against workers doesn't sink it again. But knowing Congress, and the GOP moderates, I am not exactly sanguine about the odds of that happening...

...Oh, and a sidenote: if America, like every other country in the First World, had universal health care / socialized medicine, this wouldn't even a problem (since workers wouldn't have to worry about benefits from their employer). People forget sometimes the immense competitive advantage that comes from national healthcare.

Sarah Palin....ouch.

just watch it, even if you think you have seen it, you probably haven't.

just in case you didn't catch what was said, it was "You just subscribed to Terry's Journal of Pain, and the first issue is free!"

This one is at least somewhat justifiable

So I heard that the Dems had endorsed Flores-McLeod for UC, but I decided to do a little research for myself.

After typing some things into the Google, I came across these interviews from some organization called "On Harvard Time." I was intrigued, because I had never ever heard of "On Harvard Time" before in my entire life. Ever.

Here's what I saw:

If only the Blago thing had happened a week earlier. They would have been able to turn that into so much fodder :(

FAIL

Seriously?

Welcome to Harvard

An event recently promoted on (where else) the Republican Club open list:

*MILLIONAIRES: HOW DO THEY GET THERE?*

Speakers:
Christopher Hale, Field Vice President of Ameriprise Financial Services
Jai M. Dev, Financial Advisor for Ameriprise Financial Services

Join us as we discuss:
-Six steps to wealth accumulation
-How common sense and being committed to your goal contribute to building wealth
-Tips on managing your student loans, personal finance, and building your financial future

Besides gaining free and useful financial advice, you will also help out a non-profit organization. Ameriprise Financial Services has partnered with the India School Fund (ISF) and pledged to donate $20 for every person who attends this seminar. ISF is a MIT-Harvard run organization that provides a quality community-based education to poor children in India in order to empower the youth and break the vicious cycle of poverty.

Here you have everything you need to know about the Harvard mentality. You learn how to become a millionaire! Indian kids get $20! EVERYBODY WINS!

Oh, and if you're curious, "Ameriprise Financial Services" is a company that helps rich investors avoid paying taxes. Real philanthropists, these people.

Above: Harvard University

...six months to graduation...six months to graduation...