Chris Christie knows what he's doing

Calling for a special election in October, when there's already going to be a general election in November, is an expensive hassle that will annoy voters and pundits alike. That's probably the best that Christie could have hoped for. The worst-case scenario for him would be going up against the Cory Booker GOTV machine, simply because the biggest obstacle to his reelection is the likelihood that Democrats will simply mob the polls in this off-year election.

When you look at it that way, it's worth $24 million to Christie to call for an October vote. It's terrible financial stewardship for crass political purposes, but they're really important crass political purposes.

Harvard Law, folks! Let's give them a round of applause.

I'm beginning to wonder if the GOP might not be making an attempt to undercut the President's legal background by having some of its own HLS grads act like complete idiots.

First example: Congressman Cotton of Arkansas.

Sure, I'm obligated to point out how obliviously unconstitutional the Cotton Amendment was. But stunning stupidity aside, there's something really depressing in his follow-up:

“I sympathize with their plight if they are harmless, innocent civilians in Iran. I doubt that that is often the case.”

He seems to be suggesting that it's more likely that people from a country governed by a domestically oppressive, murderous regime are coming to America in order to attack us than that they're coming to seek shelter and aid from us.

Setting aside the rest of the offensively paranoid racism, that's a really sad--and very unpatriotic--sentiment to hear from a Congressman. I tend to think people from countries that murder demonstrators in the streets who come to the U.S. are probably more interested in taking shelter in our freedoms than attacking them. When the world looks up at the Shining City on a Hill, does Rep. Cotton really believe they're thinking "hey, a shining city on a hill! Let's attack it!"?

Next we have someone who I don't think will ever run dry as a fount of entertainment (unless he's actually elected and put in a position of power, in which case I don't think anyone will find it funny at all): the GOP nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, E.W. Jackson, who doesn't think federal disaster relief is constitutional, says that the idea of GLBT Pride Month "makes me feel ikky all over," and, of course, this:

In an April 28, 2011 statement while he was a Senate candidate, conservative minister and lawyer E.W. Jackson held up the three-fifths clause as an “anti-slavery” measure. The context of his statement was to attack President Obama after a pastor at a church service he attended referred to the three-fifths clause as a historical marker of racism.

“Rev. [Charles Wallace] Smith must not have understood the 3/5ths clause was an anti-slavery amendment. Its purpose was to limit the voting power of slave holding states,” Jackson, an African-American, said in his statement.

The Three-Fifths Compromise was the way that the South was able to dominate American politics until the Civil War. It's why more than half of Presidents before Lincoln were Southern slave-owners. It's why the list of Speakers of the House before the Civil War is dominated by Southerners and slave-owners. To claim that it was an "amendment" is bad enough for someone from HLS (the sort of mistake we expect from the laity), but to claim it was "anti-slavery" is stupid beyond all mortal ken.

Good News in Gay Rights

France legalized gay marriage.

Rhode Island is about to pass gay marriage.

Delaware is getting close as well.

We live in interesting hopeful times.

Senatorial Misfire

As expected, the Senate failed to move forward on any firearms legislation.

The most popular proposal--toughening penalties for straw purchasers and weapons traffickers--failed by a vote of 58-42, with only Republicans voting against it.

The second-most popular proposal--a Republican plan to gut states' rights by mandating reciprocity for concealed-carry permits issued in any state, whether that state required an extensive training course or that the applicant collect three box tops from Remington products--failed 57-43.

The weakened background checks proposal from Sens. Manchin and Toomey, which was already a compromise of a compromise, failed 54-46.

Reinstating the ban on high-capacity magazines failed with no Republicans supporting it. Same with the Assault Weapons Ban.

No matter how the issues may split us, we are all united in the common belief that Congress is overpopulated with cowards and idiots.

Also, what he said:

Tragic irony strikes again.

This time at the NRA 500.

A medical examiner says a man who died in the infield during a NASCAR’s NRA 500 race at Texas Motor Speedway shot himself in the head. The event was the first NRA-branded race in NASCAR’s premier series.

The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office on Sunday said the death of 42-year-old Kirk Franklin of Saginaw was a suicide.

Fort Worth police have said a man who was camping in the infield died of a “self-inflicted injury” after getting into an argument with other campers. The incident happened late in the Sprint Cup race.

In related news, an 11 year-old carried an assault weapon at a rally at the New Hampshire state house, and a gun nut who declared he was "gonna start killing people" if gun control passed had his concealed carry permit restored after its previous revocation.

But at least the King of England can't come in here and push us around.

Manchin-Toomey: A major misfire

The AP reports that, an hour from now, Sens. Joe Manchin (Sad about being a D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) will present their compromise on background checks. If the details that have leaked thus far are accurate, it's nowhere near acceptable:

The emerging deal would expand required background checks for sales at gun shows and online but exempt transactions like face-to-face, noncommercial purchases, said Senate staffers and lobbyists, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks. Currently, the checks are required only for sales handled through licensed gun dealers.

Though many details of the emerging agreement were unclear, Manchin and Toomey are among their parties’ most conservative members and a deal could make it easier for some hesitant senators to support the background check measure, at least for now.

Some Republicans might vote to begin debate on the legislation but eventually oppose the measure on final passage. Other parts of Obama’s gun effort already seem likely to face defeat, including proposed bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

This might be useful for breaking a filibuster, but it's pretty useless otherwise.

I accept that the assault weapons ban is dead on arrival (and said as much to Time Magazine), and I'm resigning myself to the idea that the high-capacity magazine restriction is probably going to be defeated as well. After all, those measures only enjoy around 58-59% public support.

Universal background checks--criminal history and mental health checks for every gun purchase, whether made at a dealer or a gun show or out of the back of a Subaru--consistently poll around 90% support. I can't think of any active legislation that's more popular.

Yet here come Manchin and Toomey, exempting a huge number of face-to-face transactions. I could live with exempting gifts between immediate family, but to say that I can sell a gun to a stranger in a parking lot and not have to run a background check is to leave one huge goddamn hole in the background check system.

Years ago, people conflated the "gun show loophole"--a rule that allowed licensed dealers to move inventory into their "private collections" and then sell those guns at gun shows without conducting background checks--with the problem of face-to-face sales conducted by non-dealers. So now, all Manchin and Toomey have to do is include sales at gun shows in their bill, and people will think the problem is solved.

It isn't. This might be useful for getting past the filibuster, but this would make terrible, weak law, in an area that's begging for real reform. Every sale needs a check, and any bill that falls short of that is inadequate.

Article 3:16

I can't wait until the North Carolina legislature tells us the proper interpretation of the 13th Amendment, too!

A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.

...

House Bill 494, a resolution filed by Republican Rowan County Reps. Harry Warren and Carl Ford, would refuse to acknowledge the force of any judicial ruling on prayer in North Carolina – or indeed on any Constitutional topic:

"The Constitution of the United States does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional; therefore, by virtue of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the power to determine constitutionality and the proper interpretation and proper application of the Constitution is reserved to the states and to the people," the bill states. "Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion."

...

The bill goes on to say:

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

The North Carolina General Assembly may assert that if it wishes, but then the North Carolina General Assembly will affirm it's run by witless, illiterate buffoons who should by all rights be drafting legislation with Crayolas on construction paper.

Someone needs to remind these fine Southern scholars that, when it comes to the federal-state relationship, the courthouse they should be remembering is Appomattox.

Bachmannia!

It still amazes me that Michele Bachmann was, at one point, a front-runner for the Republican nomination for President. I have a very hard time imagining how people look at her and think "There's someone I want representing me!"

Here she is running away from Dana Bash while trying to dodge questions about false information in a speech she gave.

Henceforth, this shall be known as the "Bana Dash"

And here is the Washington Post fact-checker pointing out another massive lie from the same speech:

Indeed, the 2013 budget documents submitted to Congress by the Agriculture Department, which manages SNAP, shows that less than 6 percent of the program is spent on administrative costs. Only 166 people manage the $82 billion food-stamp program — many outside Washington — and the budget document says that staff salaries amount to one-third of 1 percent of USDA’s budget for food and nutrition programs.

Considering such statistics are easily available to a member of Congress, let alone his or her staff, it’s a wonder she never bothered to check. She just assumed “government bureaucrats” were consuming funds reserved for poor people.

A Bachmann spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Bachmann made two key errors here. First, she misinterpreted Tanner’s point. Then, she blithely assumed the ratio was applicable to the Food Stamp program when budget data show she’s off by more than a factor of 10 (or a factor of 200, if you just count salaries.)

I really can't figure out how she stays in office. I can only assume the people that keep voting for her like to look for interesting shapes in their bowel movements and say their favorite food is "puh-sketti," and somehow a lot of them ended up clustered in one general area.

"No, Michelle! Over here!"

Did Rep. Bachmann's cameraman forget his squeaky toy or something?