Anyone Watching the Convention?

I’m a cable cutter, so it’s hard for me, but I found Fox had the best HD feed over the Internet. The conventions are pure political theater, and they are meant to be, but political theater can have its place as long as you’re putting on a good show. I only saw part of Ann Romney’s speech, which was pretty good. She’s pretty polished as a public speaker, and the speech was well written. Chris Christie is better off the cuff, I think, than he is scripted. For a while I was concerned they put him up there to give a fluff speech with no meat in it. There was some meat, but more fluff than I think was suitable for his personality.

One thing is for sure, with the convention going on, there’s not going to be as much happening on the gun news front, but we’ll try to cover. Especially if the Republican manage to say something about guns at their convention. For once, all I really want from the GOP is a good Supreme Court justice to make the votes 6-3, so we can afford to lose a justice and still win.

Quote of the Day

Tam’s comment on the FAA reviewing policies on electronics use on planes:

While I’m sure it’s possible that playing with your vaccuum tube tester in the smoking section of a Convair 600 would mess with the LORAN-A receiver something fierce, it’s getting harder to buy into the whole idea that the tiniest electrical impulse in the cabin will send a modern jetliner veering wildly out of control to crash into the nearest orphanage or oil refinery when the pilot’s approach plates are on a frickin’ iPad.

We’d almoset have enough to run this experiment here at SNBQ. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a LORAN receiver in Jason’s basement, and he probably has a vacuum tube tester somewhere down there too. Unfortunately, the smoking section on a Convair 600 is probably not to be found even sunning itself in a desert somewhere.

Government Ammo Purchases

Both NRA and NSSF seem to be trying to quash rumors about the government preparing for civil unrest (the charitable rumor) or building Obama’s army for him to seize permanent power after the election (the less charitable rumor). NRA’s fact sheet on ammo purchases can be found here, which is also echoed in NSSF’s release. The summary is that the ammo purchases are not that unusual, and aren’t ridiculous if you actually want your agents to do live fire training, which after seeing the NYPD shoot up midtown, I think we can all agree is important. The message here would seem to be that we want our people preparing for an election, not for a civil war.

Note the Reaction of the Social Conservatives

I’ve generally found their are two types of social conservatives. There are ones who are mostly dedicated to the ideas of smaller government, and restoring fiscal and regulatory sanity, but are also personally religious and are generally on board with many of the socially conservative planks in the GOP platform, such as opposing abortion and gay marriage. But mostly their public activism is motivated around reducing the size and reach of government. The other type are the people who have come to politics purely through their social conservative values. They might offer lip service to smaller government, but their ultimate objective is to advance socially conservative ideas though the use of government. Their patron saint is Mike Huckabee. I believe the distinction between these two groups is perhaps the start of a rift within the Republican coalition, and that rift has never shown itself more strongly than with the recent Todd Akin affair.

The former group, the personal SoCos, joining with many non-SoCos (which I’ll call the National Review types), have pretty roundly condemned Akin, and joined the chorus demanding he step down from the race. The latter group, the political SoCos, now represented by their patron saint, have largely stood by Akin. See, Akin apologized, and Christian forgiveness being what it is, they have decided it is time to move on. But politics isn’t about Christian forgiveness, and no amount of that is going to overcome the fact that Akin is now down in the race he was once ahead in, and it’s looking like his dumbassery is even hurting Romney in Missouri, a state that has generally been getting more red as of late.

I bring this up because I think it’s possible for the Republican coalition to survive and thrive with the former type of social conservatives in it. We mostly all want the same thing, and while they’d probably have difficulty joining a coalition in a party that supported abortion rights and gay marriage, that’s largely not what drives them toward political activism. The latter type I think is hazardous to the coalition, because it’s their social conservative values that are driving their political activism, and they are less concerned about jeopardizing the goal of reducing the size of government. Indeed, they may even be fine with big government provided that it is controlled by social conservatives to serve socially conservative ends. I think in the long term, the big tent that the GOP would like to represent is going to have to have a moment of reckoning with the Huckabee branch of the Party, and the Akin controversy may provide the vehicle for that to happen.

Ordinarily, what I’ve called the National Review types, have always been uncomfortable with the inclusion of the Huckabee branch of the party, and Falwell’s “Moral Majority,” before that. The problem encountered is that the National Review types can’t win on their own. They can bring money to the table, but they don’t bring enough activists, organizations or votes, so they choose to coalition with the people who are personally socially conservative, the former group in my example above. These folks bring everything to the table the National Review types don’t. The problem is that the former personal SoCos are not all that uncomfortable with the Huckabees being part of the coalition, and thus would unlikely join any movement within the coalition to marginalize them. If Missouri costs the GOP control of the Senate, or McCaskill ends up being a key vote to prevent Obamacare from being repealed, I am hoping, perhaps against hope, that many personal SoCos will see that the cause of small government is being sacrificed on the altar of the Huckabee wing of the party. My hope is that they will see that candidates need to have better qualifications than just mirroring their own religious beliefs, and having the right views on a handful of social issues.

The coalition needs people who can carry small government values, which should be, after all, the best way to promote family values. I could care less if someone has the right religion, and the fact that Huckabee was once a preacher means about as much to me as the fact that Joe Wurzelbacher was once a Plumber. While I’m personally pro-choice and favor civil marriage for gays, I don’t think any of that is going to matter much if the country bankrupts itself, and the rest of us with it. The primary issue is that the government has run out of other people’s money, and facing that, has just decided to switch the printing presses into overdrive. Picking a candidate because he has the right religion, or the right views on abortion or gay marriage, is roughly analogous to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and it seems many of the Huckabee folks in the Republican Party are as energetic in this rearrangement endeavor as the Democrats.

Shooting Olympian to Address GOP Convention

Provided that a hurricane doesn’t interrupt the GOP convention, they have invited shooting Olympic record holder Kim Rhode to speak at the event. In fact, I’m very impressed by the fact that the GOP does not shy away from mentioning her shooting records in her biography. There’s no sugarcoating it, they are straight up talking about Rhode’s accomplishments as a serious competitive shooter. It’s a context that doesn’t threaten people, but makes clear that shooting is an American pastime.

Kim Rhode, the co-host of the Outdoor Channel’s Step Outside program, is the only American Olympian to win five medals in an individual event in five consecutive Olympic Games. She’s the most successful female shooter at the Olympics, the only triple Olympic Champion and the only woman to have won two gold medals for Double Trap. Most recently, she brought home gold in skeet shooting at the 2012 Summer Games in London, equaling the world record of 99 out of 100 clays. When double trap was eliminated from the Olympic Games, she set a new world record in skeet at the 2007 world cup competitions, going on to win the silver at the 2008 Summer Olympics in women’s skeet.

Also, of the 11 Olympians attending, she’s one of three selected to speak.

Gun Group Sues Honolulu Police

Interestingly, this is a First Amendment case. The claim is that the City of Honolulu, engaging in Reasoned Discourse(TM) on their Facebook page, by deleting unfavorable posts, constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. That’s very interesting, and I’m not an expert in First Amendment law, but from what I do know, I think they probably have a good chance of prevailing here.

How the Senate Looks

Jim Geraghty takes a look at the Senate Races, now that the stupid party has just handed McCaskill’s seat back to her on a silver platter. There’s two things I’m looking for in the Senate. One is to avoid confirmation fights, so that we can increase the number of votes for the Second Amendment. Two is to have enough margin to repeal Obamacare. The former is easier than the latter, though some Democratic senators might be able to have their arms twisted to vote for cloture in the latter case if they lose big again in 2012.

More on the Fast and Furious Cover-Up

Dave Hardy has some interesting developments, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one:

It says he’s taking annual leave from the agency (apparently planning to retire once that runs out). This is quite unusual. You can always take your annual leave, but taking another job while on it is another question.

Man, I bet most of us wish our jobs had vacations policies this generous.

Grasping Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

I think the best summary of the Missouri Senate campaign that I’ve seen so far starts with this:

Here’s the thing, if you’re running for the Senate and you have to cut a spot that assures voters that you think rape is bad and you now know that women don’t have a goalie in their vajay-jay to stop sperm in case of “legitimate rape”, you’re in big trouble.

I didn’t think I’d live long enough to see an ad worse than “I’m not a witch” but I was wrong. I regret the error.

I appreciate that the post highlights that this isn’t just about the risk of repeal of Obamacare, losing this seat impacts judicial nominations.

I’ll be honest, as a woman, if I saw Todd Akin’s name on a ballot, I don’t know if I could cast a vote for him even though I realize I would need to strategically in order to see my preferred political outcomes that have nothing to do with abortion become reality. When someone is so out-of-touch that they can’t take a serious look at the issue of a major criminal act, then I don’t believe they should be serving in government. When they are so unbelievably misinformed that they believe there’s some magic switch women can flip when they don’t want to become impregnated during a specific sexual act, well, they shouldn’t have any role in defining education or health policies.

As a female voter, I’m constantly hit with ads telling me that policies dictated by anatomy are ALWAYS AT RISK and that this election will be the one to see my rights DIRECTLY BANNED FOREVER. They stop only slightly short of saying that if a Republican is elected in this country, it will turn into a nation not unlike The Handmaid’s Tale. Needless to say, I tune it out.

Even with that filter in place, Akin’s remarks are simply inexcusable. The things he said aren’t even said in polite company, mostly because polite company probably wouldn’t be able to keep from making faces at the sheer stupidity of his understanding of how reproduction works even if they were left in stunned silence at his dismissal of the impacts of rape.

I truly hope that the women of Missouri get a better candidate later today. With someone like him on the ballot, there can’t be a true debate over the actual issues that women – whether on the right, left, or in the center – might want to discuss when it comes to healthcare and access to services. There won’t be room to make the argument that perhaps taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill to fund everyone’s favorite birth control because with Akin on the ballot, he might just assume that women don’t really need birth control at all since we can apparently just “shut that whole thing down.” It really doesn’t matter what he says now, those will be the arguments that people will hear. And really, is that unbelievable that those arguments might stick with a few folks? It’s less unbelievable than the idea that a 65-year-old father doesn’t know about the birds and bees and wants to make public policy on his misinformation.

UPDATE: I think this is an excellent post from Clayton Cramer on why Akin’s statement just isn’t backed up by data no matter what he claimed as his source. I guess what really disturbs me about that situation is that it’s not just a fundamental knowledge issue, it shows that he’s not remotely serious about his beliefs in order to defend them, and he doesn’t do any basic research at all before taking a position on public policy. Clayton sums it up best:

This is one of the reasons that I try to emphasize to ideologues of all stripes that if you go looking for evidence that backs your position, you will find evidence that backs your position, and you will miss the evidence that doesn’t.

Go read his entire post.

Pennsylvania Dreamin’ on Such a Summer’s Day

You’re starting to hear conservative celebration that the recent ruling in Commonwealth Court, upholding voter ID, is a game changer. It is not. Philadelphia will not enforce this law. Election officials outside of Philadelphia won’t even enforce the law. Voters in Philadelphia, or any other jurisdiction that Republicans think are rife with voter fraud, will easily be allowed to vote without any ID come November. I would put real money on that. This law will simply not be enforced in jurisdictions that are hostile to it.

Anyone who is involved, or has been involved, in gun rights in this Commonwealth should know what the pertinent question is; how are you doing to enforce this law? The law itself, without enforcement and subsequent penalties actually applied, is no better than smudges of ink on parchment. We’ve seen this with the number of local jurisdictions willing to extend a middle finger to the state’s firearms preemption laws, or by local jurisdictions inventing extralegal requirements for exercising constitutional rights. We are well familiar with this.

The Voter ID law will be ignored by those it is meant to target, and they will do this with impunity. Enforcement of election law is done entirely at the local level by poll watchers, and without honest people on the ground, this is never a problem that will get solved. That leads me to believe the solution to this problem lies in creating more transparency, and better reporting and enforcement mechanisms for reporting real voter fraud. One has to address that problem first, before deciding that a top-down solution out of Harrisburg is all it takes to fix the problem.

There are more outlets than ever that accept reports from voters about irregularities and violations. Hell, even the Philly MSM picked up voter reports of one of their incumbent darlings illegally campaigning inside polling locations. In Philadelphia, there’s Committee of Seventy which was gathering reports of voter ID violations on Primary Day. The Daily News published the account about the illegal campaigning by an incumbent Democrat. There’s @electionjournal which publishes accounts of election problems. The internet-only PA Independent might accept reports, as well as Daily Caller for national scale. It’s very handy that most of these can be reached with a simple smartphone.

Of course, if voters witness something egregious, the fastest way to make a real impact is likely to call the local leaders of the opposition party. They have lawyers on call for just this kind of situation.