By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 3:50 PM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
Check out the following link to get a preview of one of the better Monday Night Football games in a while. (You almost feel sorry for ESPN and the terrible games they scheduled). [Yahoo! Sports]
Are good loses good for a football team? This is always the debate when a team flirts with going undefeated in any sport. Can taking a regular season loss actually help? [CBS Sports]
The Football Outsiders have an interesting weekly post where you can read their running commentary during the Sunday NFL games. [Football Outsiders]
On MMQB Peter King writes about the playoffs and the Green Bay Packers finally picking up a loss. [Sports Illustrated]
Take a second to read Brian Billick, a coach who was fired not too long ago, write about the reasoning for firing a coach during the season. [NFL.com]
By Sandra Moon, RP Staff, on Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET
The Politics of Faith
In Saudi Arabia, a woman has been executed for practicing witchcraft and sorcery. [BBC]
According to Jesse Jackson, Jesus was an occupier. [MSNBC]
A partnership of Christians, Jews and Muslims in Omaha seeks to build a tri-faith religious campus. The hope is to provide “an opportunity not only to learn to tolerate people of different backgrounds and beliefs and aspirations, but to find ways to even celebrate all we have in common, to learn and grow precisely as women and men and children who experience God in different ways and call God by different names.” [Huffington Post]
By Patrick Derocher, on Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 12:30 PM ET
US House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has been implicated in a far-reaching report about Ohio Republicans' redistricting practices.
Something is afoot in Ohio, and a report last Monday showed as much. According to a document compiled and released by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting, which includes the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Ohio Citizen Action amongst other groups, redistricting conspiracies may have actually occurred in that state involving Speaker of the United States House of Representative John Boehner. The report, which uses public records for many of its sources, says that Boehner was working behind the scenes to help guide a redistricting effort that heavily favored Republicans, and that two Republican legislative staffers were paid some $210,000 for three months of work. Moreover, the group alleges that $10,000 in taxpayer money was used to pay for a hotel room in which to do redistricting work in secret. Ohio Democrats are calling for a large-scale investigation. [Columbus Dispatch]
The saga continues in Wisconsin, as Scott Walker’s campaign and the state Republican Party are suing the non-partisan Government Accountability Board, the state’s election watchdog. The Board was created in 2007 to replace an overtly partisan elections board whose members were appointed one apiece by the governor, the speaker of the Assembly, the Senate majority leader, the Assembly minority leader, the Senate minority leader, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the state chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties, with the occasional addition of a third party. The change was made in response to allegations that the elections board was giving unfair advantage to then-incumbent Democratic governor Jim Doyle in his reelection effort. The great irony of all this? Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a Republican, voted in favor of the GAB’s creation in 2007, and is now working to dismantle it in favor of the old system. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
Not all hyper-partisanship leads to a totally broken system. In Illinois, legislators have spent the past year learning to work together, and though the state has some major budgetary hurdles left to jump, both Republicans and Democrats are willing to admit that progress has been made. Amongst other achievements, Illinois tightened Medicaid eligibility to ensure its further survival, abolished the death penalty, enacted education reform, and legalized same-sex civil unions, all with bipartisan support. Perhaps most importantly, the state’s budget was written in a much more public manner, while Republicans softened their rhetoric on House Speaker Mike Madigan when it came time to work with him on these issues. [Springfield State Journal-Register]
New York’s own unique redistricting issues continue, as Upstate Republicans file suit in the state Supreme Court over a 2010 law that mandates prisoners be counted in their last known address. In the past, prisoners have been counted as living in their jail cells, and most of New York’s are in sparsely-populated Upstate congressional districts, while most prisoners are coming from New York City and other points downstate. The official reasoning behind the Republicans’ complaint is that prisoners who do not provide a valid non-prison address would not be counted at all, thus leading to inaccurate apportionment of districts. [Albany Times Union]
They haven’t had a pay raise in over five years, but Florida’s state legislators have found another way to reward themselves for a hard session’s work by taking off December 23. Ostensibly a way of cutting back on state expenses, Governor Rick Scott has given legislators this break partially in recognition of the lack of cost-of-living salary increases. [Miami Herald]
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Dec 19, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
The American Bar Association recently recommended that KY indefinitely halt all executions after a study showed a high rate of convictions being reversed.
I think this is an excellent idea.
When I was secretary of state I was put in a position to sign off on death warrants ordered by the state. I talked to law professors and attorneys involved with the cases and couldn’t bring myself to sign off in my on hand. I let the office signature machine sign my name. Although my signature was just a formality that the order had been received and filed–not a policy decision I could impact– the symbolism of signing jarred me. The death penalty was no longer an interesting hypothetical question. It was happening and my job was step in the process, albeit administrative only.
I’m not yet willing to say the death penalty should be abolished altogether. But I hope this moratorium brings fresh insight and information to a stale debate on an important criminal justice option available in the Commonwealth—aimed mostly at deterring rather than punishing our most heinous crimes.
Unfortunately for Democrats, when you take into account money, organization, and candidate discipline in addition to polling, Romney was really never not the frontrunner.
But don’t be fooled by Romney’s above-the-fray tack last night. For the next three weeks, Romney will be savaging Gingrich (and anyone else who is rapidly rising in his campaign’s internal polling) on TV, radio, and in the mailbox.
The name of the game for Romney will be to project as positively as possible in his own appearances while, underneath the seemingly placid surface, his ad campaign and his surrogates will be as nasty as necessary until he regains his lead in national polls.
By Chris Schulz, RP Staff, on Fri Dec 16, 2011 at 1:30 PM ET
Receding ice in the Arctic reveals columns of methane gas being released. Scientists believe that this is a much bigger threat to climate change than CO2. [yahoo.com]
Globalization in Madagascar has led to a decrease in Taboos about eating lemur meat, and because of this the lemur population is suffering. [bbc.co.uk]
An increase in domestic gas drilling leads to issues over property rights between communities and drilling companies. [nytimes.com]
No vacation to China would be complete without a visit to what would have been the largest amusement park in Asia. Only it was never completed. [yahoo.com]
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 16, 2011 at 12:00 PM ET
Grandparents and grandchildren have a special bond.
They share a common enemy. Today’s hovering helicopter parents have, in their zest to simulate the perfect developmental environment, forgotten some important ingredients to creating a whole and fully functional child.
Sometimes, if we are lucky, a contrarian grandfather (who still hasn’t gotten around to reading Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare – or anything written since on child rearing) can be just what is needed to help create a well-rounded child. My 13 year old daughter and 17 year old son spent time with my 78 year old father earlier this week, and helped bring this lesson home for me. And so, with that, I offer this appreciation…..
Here’s to grandfathers, especially the fun ones.
The ones who never realized there was a time to stop rebelling, exploring or experimenting.
Who in the eyes of some never quite finished growing up…but upon closer observation merely never forgot how to have fun–or listened when told “You’re too old for that.”
The ones who are maddening enigmas on the bad days but wonderfully surprising on the be…tter days.
The ones who live close to the heartbeat of life because they don’t know how to live any other way….who showed up one day in their childhood at the local carnival and think they never left.
Who feel retirement is as about as appealing as taking an extra AP course in high school.
And who, when out with two teenage kids, can make the teenagers question their personal sense of coolness and how they view the world.
Who give surprising answers that ring true to conventional questions with conventional answers that ring hollow.
And who know that sometimes all a 13 year old and a 17 year old need to make them feel good about their world is a 78 year old with the right attitude.
Those grandfathers don’t always get the credit they deserve in our media and literature…but they have a lot to teach us. They possess a lot of important wisdom about, as Thoreau wrote, how to suck all the marrow out of life…and do it with gusto and a grin.
Thank goodness for the grandfathers who teach us the things we need to know. But thank goodness, too, for the ones who teach us what we want to know– but may not know how to ask. The skills that some scoff at but the wiser know are the AP equivalents of life courses that will take us farther than even advanced chemistry—and possibly even farther than Calculus III.
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Dec 16, 2011 at 9:15 AM ET
Chicago Bears WR Sam Hurd has been arrested on federal drug charges. He is alleged to have been attempting to buy large amounts of cocaine and marijuana from a supplier in Texas. It is reported that Hurd stated he is an established distributor in the Chicago area. It is unfathomable why an professional football player would see any reason or value in dealing drugs on the side, but here we are. [ESPN][Filed Court Complaint]
By David Snyder, on Fri Dec 16, 2011 at 8:30 AM ET
I am not involved in the political arena – never have been, never will be. That doesn’t mean I don’t follow what is going on, take an interest in the issues and exercise my constitutional right to vote each year. Of course I do all of those. So from one outsider’s position, I can offer these thoughts about how I view the state of our political system.
It seems to me that most of our country resides near the political middle – some leaning left, some leaning right, but basically the majority of our country is not so fanatical to realize the real value of compromise and the need for proper discourse of the issues to reach workable resolutions. So why is it that the extremes control our political culture? Clearly the loudest voice seems to get the attention these days and it is those extremes who have raised their voices. Because of this loud voice, it feels to me like the extremes are a much bigger contingent than is truly the case. But I honestly believe the middle has the power, but perhaps simply does not know how to use it. To put it mildly and bluntly, something is really screwed up.
Do you think our country’s forefathers thought that our Representatives and Senators would constantly be concerned with re-election, and therefore always pandering to the loudest voices who appeared to be the ones with power to keep them in office. I don’t. I believe they had much loftier goals in mind. Clearly the Senate was to have more power, given the 6 year terms, but the House was to be the voice of the people. So what went wrong?
Look at the Constitutional Convention – some of the most respected and opinionated individuals our country has known were in attendance, and it was quite clear there was no love lost between many of these men. Further, there was a huge difference of opinion over most, if not all of the issues; yet what resulted was a well debated, true compromise that created a governmental system that has shined as an example to many a nation over the past 225 years (not lost on this author is the fact that clearly these men did drop the ball and showed the lack of vision on the issues of slavery and gender equality).
Read the rest of… David Snyder: On the Outside Looking In
