d2's blog

Mitt-the-Ken-Doll Romney, in an op-ed for USA-Today:

In a time of national crisis, we look to our president to acknowledge, as Harry Truman did, that it is at his desk where the buck stops.

President Obama, two weeks before Mitt Romney's op-ed:

I am the president and the buck stops with me.

Dunno about the rest of you, but I particularly enjoy Mittens Romney invoking Democratic president Harry Truman two weeks late. Then again, The Man With the Fisher-Price Hair is so up to his earnest pursuit of presidential gravitas that he'll deny anything: He deplores his own healthcare initiatives now that they're done on a national scale. He's abandoned moderate stances on making abortion safe/legal/rare. He wore his religion on his sleeve, then had wander the news circuit denying that southern Bubbas voted against him for being Mormon.

And let's not forget RNC chair Steele's description of Romney:

“Yeah, but let me ask you. Ok, Jay, I’m there with you. But remember, it was the (Republican) base that rejected Mitt because of his switch on pro-life, from pro-choice to pro-life. It was the (Republican) base that rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism. It was the (Republican) base that rejected Mitt, because they thought he was back and forth and waffling on those very economic issues you’re talking about.” (interview on Bill Bennett's radio show, May 2009)

Frankly, in the last 2 years, Ken-Doll Romney has cravenly sprinted rightward from his centrist record while Massachusetts governor as he courts his party's base (aka Teabagger) votes. And it's not a statistically-noteworthy sample, but my own family members that liked him are disgusted by him after watching this, but he's still tacking toward the right. What the hell is up with this? Did I miss the poll where 'Waffling, 'Spineless', and 'Pretty boy' test as very presidential traits amongst Republicans?

h/t: brooklynbadboy at dkos

"Why would everybody be getting married if it didn't do anything?"

Prop 8 supporters successfully kept media coverage out of the Prop 8 trial in California. In response, two filmmakers found actors to reenact the entire transcript. Most of us lacking 55 spare hours, interest hasn't grown virally. So they're trying it in bite-size pieces, including this powerful 20-minute segment of lead plaintiff Kristin Perry's testimony, reenacted by Marissa Tomei:

"It symbolizes perhaps the most important decision you make as an adult."

Trout gotta fly, osprey gotta swim, and Wayne Hoffman's gotta weasel.

Mister 'My donors are too fragile to be named!' has grabbed ISJ's reporting on a closed ISU parking board meeting. Hoffman's presented an open-meetings complaint. Alas, his legal research leaves a bit to be desired. Hoffman's botched the section of statute he was quoting (section 67-2345(5) in the Idaho Code doesn't exist).

As for the handwavy view that a parking committee is subject to open meetings laws because they make policy decisions depended upon by a public agency, Doesn't that sound a lot like the Idaho Republican Caucus' method of legislative decisions?

I mean, if we're going after public policy planning that blatantly violates the spirit and intent of Idaho's public meeting law, let's go after the big dawg, Wayne. Or are you just going to sit there piddlin' on the porch?

The good news is people stopped talking about Vaughn Ward being a Carpet-Bagger this week.

But if you ask me, carpetbagging ain't so bad-- Idaho's easy to love. And as nicknames go, C-bagger has to poll better than two-faced plagiarizing R.I.N.O.

 read more »

Someone called tonight, asking political survey questions. As luck (and globalization) would have it, my interviewer was hampered by an unfortunate accent and evident lack of familiarity with the region. It was a challenge to understand at times, but I couldn't stop the interview.

I couldn't stop them because they kept pronouncing our esteemed governor's name as "Boosh Odor". No, I'm not exaggerating... I kept wishing I had a way to record the interview, it was so deliciously wrong.

As the clown-car that is Idaho's governmental leaders rule any reexamination of 2006 'off the table' and race Idaho around the tent, not every conservative is buying the schtick.

The Twin Falls Times-News editorializes that Utah's educated workforce is a key deciding factor. At 28% of residents having a college degree, Utahns rank at the top in the west. Idaho's lower than all neighbors at 21%. And this stat is a doozy:  read more »

Dunno about Bwah and Moscow, where I heard there were teabaggers afoot, but wife told me over morning joe (the caffeinated beverage, not the helmet-hair Faux glamdoll) that the local teabagger gathering, along the river across from the Westbank, was up to 2 news trucks and 10 people at 5:15pm. That seems a bit low for any movement not involving singing a couple bars of "You can get anything you want..."  read more »

While we're toying with dire mystical sevens, this headline on the front page of Reddit made me LOL -- woke up the kids.

A short apolitical break to wish Serephin the happiest of birthdays. I hope your birthday was/is/will-be graced with the proper trinity: good food, good people, and a bottle or three of something fitting.  read more »

Listening to The Tea Party Party (tm) rant about corrupt politicos and corporations, I've always been amused to think how sensible 1960 republicans would have sniffed disapprovingly at this motley crowd of reactionaries: If one overlooks the eliminationism, racism, religiosity and a fair helping of definitely-not-christlike 'tude, (and is that REALLY all that much to overlook?) Teabaggers are 21st-century hippies, which makes this all the funnier.

MATTERA: It's always a delight to participate in CPAC. This is like our Woodstock. Except, unlike the left gathering, our women are beautiful, we speak in complete sentences, and our notion of freedom doesn't consist of snorting cocaine.

(...lurved that word as a kid)

Senator Brent Hill of Rexburg (do I even need to put an R after his name, given where he's from?) recently had a Post Register op-ed where he talked about Idaho's dire financial situation -- after the big three (we educate, medicate and incarcerate), 94% of our budget is spent. And this year, state tax revenue is down 20%.

Still, going back and fixing the financial train wreck our one-week shrimpy Gnome-governor Risch inflicted upon Idaho in '06 isn't an option. Ditto the tax breaks and boondoggles given to companies that have long since slashed Boise-area jobs.

Why is that, again?

Turn on the teevee, my Boise friends. They're running a marathon, ginormous self-inflated telethon for that provincialism I tease y'all about. What channel!? *ALLOFEM!!!!111! Watch DC huff and puff as if nobody else in the world has ever been, er-- uh-- snowed in. Oh the humanity. Oh the beauty of nature. Oh give me a break.

It's cute when a toddler or someone from the tropics freaks over a blizzard. These folks have all been to Aspen, though. WTF.

Great state of Ada, meet 'Center of the Universe'.

She's all yours. Well, yours and the teabaggers.

Apparently the Westboro Babblist Church went to San Francisco to protest Twitter, and was pwned. Counterprotestors showed up with Lady Gaga on the boombox and a dada-licious variety of signs that:

• blended Twitter and Westboro themes ('God hates #Tags', 'These Rails don't Scale'),

• protested the absurd ("God Hates Ponies"),
• went tautological ("I have a sign"),
• preached love ("God Loves the delicious taste of Kraft macaroni and cheese"),
• asked 'How could got hate this cute little face'
• or just mumbled to the side ("I was promised donuts").

The donut sign was confiscated by police -- well, actually it just handed over upon request so an officer could prank her Sargeant with it. The imagination and variety is remarkable; someone even showed up with a campaign sign from Patrick McGoohan's Prisoner -- "Vote for No 6". (Side bonus: one Kossack linked to AMC's Prisoner site, where you can watch all the original episodes.)

A planned second protest (at a theater performing Fiddler On the Roof) was cancelled by WBC, but the counterprotesters stuck around, paraded their signs and Rick-Rolled confused theater-goers. Bravo! Encore!

(more links):
Asylum (one of the best, most-detailed writeups),
DailyKos,
Photobucket,
a rick-rolling set.  read more »

This state makes me crazy.

I'm not gone; I'm detoxing. It ain't helping, FWIW.

In a move fascinatingly reminiscent of Larry Craig's 'guilty but not really' plea walkback, Blake Hall has pushed for a jury trial in the civil suit that says he's a lewd rude dude.

Yes, you read that right; after pleading guilty to charges associated with his stalking his ex, Idaho's most powerful behind-the-scenes Republican wants us all to get detailed, daily stories of how he:

• Didn't cry in public. Twice.
• Didn't beg a woman to give him another chance. Certainly not in a mall.
• Didn't throw used condoms on her yard.
• Didn't piss away all that power and prestige.

In the process, here's hoping we get a glimpse of Helen of Troy and find out what the hell a Surrogate Son is (that's his term for the younger protege that they claim didn't throw the aforementioned spent goalies on any yard, let alone hers). We'll want to team up and liveblog this event, I'm sure.

You might enjoy Robert Creamer's essay on 10 reasons Blue Dogs need to get on the Healthcare bandwagon. He also recommends Americans United for Change's youtube ad.

Idaho Falls has 2 contested races we're watching closely: Ida Hardcastle and Karen Cornwell were both challenged by candidates about as retrograde as Lerch Loertscher and No-no-nononi. These morons attacked because of city-passed childcare standards (after the (R)-dominated state legislature said it was up to local gov'ts to do so), and because our city actually has built up savings enough to pay cash for things like fire engines and road projects, rather than running levys and property tax increases.

Yes, the hyper-conservatives (headed by Pugsley AdamsLarry Lyon) attacked them for being fiscally conservative and not running a deficit. Wrap your brain around THAT one. At less than half the precincts counted, Hardcastle (67%) and Cornwell (55%) are winning, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

In Boise, I've of course heard of TJ's race (who hasn't). Digging for that data now...

In Pocatello, Mayor Chase had a race that was heating up. His opponent is a nice enough guy, and on my cynical days I might even conceed that blowing insulation is remarkably similar to politics. But Chase is to Pocatello what Bieter has been to Boise - a progressive wonk's dream: good for business, better for quality of life issues.

What's anyone hearing?

Note to self: sell some tshirts and buy the bandwidth needed to back this site up correctly and regularly. Now, if you'll all excuse me, I've got a date with a stiff drink.

Note from Serephin: D2's not having a good night, and I ain't feeling so good meself. To make his short story long: We lost all 43rd State Blues posts for the last 13 months. They're gone, expired, dead as a doornail, they're pinin' for the fjords -- they're all ex-posts (and that's a facto).

Apparently, our host provider had some problems with their server, upon which our site has lived for lo, these many years. They thought they had the MySQL database service (which had gone south sometime early Sunday) repaired this morning, and for a few minutes the site seemed to be working fine. However, it now appears the cold weather caused the O-rings on the site to crack, allowing hot data to flow through unchecked and soon thereafter rupturing the entire system, causing a massive data explosion from which there was no rescue.

I say no rescue, because our host provider had no backup, and our own backup of the site was made before Sarah "You Bet'cha" Palin was a twinkle in John McCain's political eye. Why didn't we have a newer update? Complacency. Everything was running fine (up 'til it wasn't), and we just hadn't got around to it. And that, naturally, is the best time to get our asses bit, 'cause we were just beggin' for it.

So, we are awfully, awfully, terribly, truly sorry, but shit happens, and has happened, but the last year + 1 ist kaput. That also means that anyone who has signed up as a member of 43SB since August of last year is no longer signed up, since that part of the database is also singing with the Choir Angelic. If you have only been a posting member for the last year or so, and can't log in, you'll need to sign up for a new account, although you are certainly welcome to use your previous pseudonym.

We may find other, um, interesting surprises as we go along, but so far, the loss of more than a year's worth of posting seems to be the worst of it. Again, our deepest apologies to all our posting members. We'd offer you your money back, but since only a couple idiots pay to keep this rust-bucket above the waterline (most of the time), you're outta luck there, too.

Gotta lurve technology...

East Idaho's second and third major windmill projects were approved in Bingham county earlier this week. The one in Wolverine Canyon ruined delusional bizillionaire Frank Vadersomething's apparent dream to wrest a rich-man's enclave out of a thousand or so acres of Wolverine Canyon's crisscross of dirt ORV roads, crumbly rock, sage-n-juniper arroyos and lumpy foothills. So many people in Idaho Falls appreciate and enjoy looking at the windmills along Idaho Falls' east bench, Vader's expensive NIMBYism is laughable.

Peggy Stolworthy, a rancher who owns the 9,000 acres where the turbines would be located, said royalty payments will help her keep cattle on the land.

One minor worry for Ridgeline or Western (these projects' developers) is that Wolverine attracts that unpleasant firearm-wielding subspecies that leads to every sign being riddled with shotgun and bullet holes. Somehow, that maybe isn't in the maintenance and upkeep budget for tall windmills.