Getting Her Beak Wet

Interesting story on Yahoo! News.

They are reporting that Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is paying his daughter (& her band) several thousand dollars per gig to play at his campaign appearances. (For the record, her band sucks.)

And there you go. That is the way politicians like to legally funnel campaign money to themselves and their associates. It reminds me of this story as another notable example. A little less recent was this one.

Okay, so you may be thinking/wondering: You're right again, Derek Anderson Fan... but why did you return to blogging to notify us of something that happens all the time?

Good question.

The answer is that I could not let this lousy reporting by Yahoo! News stand without comment. Their article states:

Earlier this week, 80's one-hit wonder band "Survivor" sued Newt Gingrich over his use of the song "Eye of the Tiger" at his rallies.

One hit wonder?!?! Excuse me, sir, but check their Wikipedia page. In addition to the #1 hit "Eye of the Tiger", they had other chart hits like "Burning Heart" (#2), "The Search is Over" (#4), "High on You (#8), and others. You can't ignore history, sir! Just because, in retrospect, those songs really suck doesn't mean they were not hits.

And deep down, you have to admit, "Burning Heart" is pretty cool.

Republicans Do Not Understand The Free Market

Or, at least, some of them apparently do not.

I was watching The Daily Show yesterday and they did a segment on "Moneyed-Americans" backlash (or, at least, the conservative media who protects them) over the Occupy Wall Street Movement. In the segment, a gentleman named Peter Schiff (identified as CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc.) was shown lecturing a protestor saying:

If you raise my taxes, maybe I'll just decide to sell my business and fire 150 people.

Or Bill O'Reilly who said:

If Barack Obama begins taxing me at more than 50% - which is very possible - I don't know how much longer I'm going to do this.

By the way, that is, of course, not at all possible. For one, the President does not set tax policy; that is done by Congress. Secondly, President Obama has not proposed anything close to 50%; he has merely suggested we go back to the tax rates of President Bill Clinton (with the top tax rate being 39.6%).

Regardless, for the sake of this post, we will take these gentlemen at their word.

So what happens if Bill O'Reilly quits? FoxNews will not go dark at 8pm - no matter how much many of us would like it to; some other right-wing jack-hole will fill that time slot; staff will be hired and the effect on net jobs would be negligible. Mr. O'Reilly would fade into TV history like those before him and those that will follow. History stops for no one. Not even Tim Tebow.

As for Mr. Schiff, consider first his statement that if he might "sell his business and fire 150 people". You don't have to have an MBA to realize that if he sells his business, it will no longer be his decision as to who is fired and who is retained. (By the way, if Mitt Romney were to buy it, everybody is fired!) If he does not sell, but rather just decides to "take his ball and go home" (i.e. just close the business because taxes increased by ~4%) - as far-fetched as that is - the free market would fill that void; his market share would be taken by some other business (with people employed to take on that business).

So next time your conservative uncle or father or father-in-law warns you about progressive tax policy vis-a-vis job creation. You just tell him that he should have a little faith in the free market!

Republicans and The Mantra Of Al Davis

The Oakland Raiders have long had a mantra associated with them and, in particular, their rather eccentric owner, Al Davis.

Just Win, Baby!

Use that phrase and even casual NFL fans will know exactly what you're talking about. The Raiders - as personified by the late Jack Tatum and the late Lyle Alzado - were a tough, borderline dirty, team who often led the league in penalties.

What does this have to do with the GOP?

Well, let us look to what is going on concurrently Nebraska and Pennsylvania.

It is probably not commonly known that while John McCain won the state of Nebraska by 15 points in 2008, Barack Obama actually won 1 electoral vote by taking the state congressional district which encompasses the city of Omaha. The GOP obviously didn't like this and are using their large majorities in the 2011 state legislature to change this anomaly.

At the same time, about 1000 miles to the east in Pennsylvania, the GOP are reportedly looking to change their rules to go to the 2008 rules of Nebraska. This would be a huge shift in dampening democracy. A review of the 2008 results show Barack Obama with a 10+ pt win over John McCain; yet, under the proposed rule changes, it is likely that John McCain would have taken more electoral votes from Pennsylvania because he won relatively close margins in huge swaths (geographically) of the state - while Barack Obama won huge margins in the densely populated city of Philadelphia and it's surrounding suburbs.


Clearly there is no underlying principle for the GOP beyond the Al Davis Motto. Whatever it takes. The ends justify the means.

It would be one thing to have President Obama fail to be re-elected in 2012 because of a stalled economy, but it is quite another thing to see the Republicans changing the rules of the game to stack the deck against the Democratic base. This is what has already been going on with the campaign finance laws, voter ID laws, voter registration laws, etc. (That's right... I even linked the "etc"!)

Honestly, it pisses me off. Keep in mind though: the Raiders have not won a Super Bowl since 1984.

We can only hope karma will win in 2012.