Political Irony

Rarely do we get such an obvious example of how the media loves a dramatic political narrative, even when the facts don’t fit it. In this case, the political narrative is that the Democrats are in deep trouble and that the upcoming midterm elections will be a repeat of the election that swept the “contract with America” Republicans into power during the Clinton administration.

For example, when Chris Dodd (D-CT) recently announced his retirement from the Senate, the media reacted as if it was the last straw for the Democrats. But the reality is that Dodd was very likely to lose that election, so his retirement means that the much more popular Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is all but guaranteed to be the next senator from Connecticut. So rather than being a disaster for the Dems, Dodd’s retirement turned a likely loss into a sure win for the Democrats. But that didn’t stop the press from sticking to the narrative that the Dems are in trouble and would be hurt by Dodd’s retirement.

The media is fixated on the four Democratic senators who are retiring this year, but doesn’t seem to notice that even though there are far fewer Republicans in the Senate, six of them are retiring this year. Who’s in trouble now?

What I’m curious about is whether this falsely negative press for the Democrats will hurt them, or ultimately help them. While negative press reports surely depresses poll results when people are asked whether they approve or disapprove of the job the Democrats are doing, in reality all politics is local, and the same people who express their disapproval in general may happily vote for their specific Democrat to represent them in Congress.

Above all, the deciding factor in midterm elections is turnout, and if the bad press helps mobilize Democrats to turn out in greater numbers, it could ultimately help the Dems. And besides, just because people might disapprove of the Democrats, most of them think even worse of the Republicans.

Of course, the conventional wisdom says that the president’s party loses congressional seats during the midterm election, but that’s another political narrative. It is going to be an interesting year.

I don’t know how many of you know about the new anti-piracy law in France, which takes a “three strikes” approach to copyright infringement. For example, if people in your house are accused of three acts of copyright infringement, your whole household is cut off from the Internet for two months to a year. You don’t even have to be convicted of anything, just suspected, in order to get your internet access blacklisted.

Well I’d call this irony, except that you knew that something like this was bound to happen. Hapodi, the new French agency responsible for enforcing the new law, rolled out their new logo, and it turns out that they pirated the font in it. The font is named Bienvenue, and it was developed by designer Jean-François Porchez and licensed exclusively to France Telecom/Orange.

Which only goes to prove what a mess the world of copyrights is, and how easy it is to become a pirate, even unwittingly. I think it also shows that despite the protest of record labels and movie studios, the biggest pirates out there are corporations.

What I really want to know is, will Hadopi cut off its own internet access for a year for such a blatant violation? They may have to, because the designer is suing. Meanwhile, Hadopi is busy trying to find similar fonts to license to replace the illegal ones in their logo. Hopefully too busy to go around cutting off people’s internet access.

Two interesting pieces of news concerning the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay:

The first is a report from the Pentagon that about one in five detainees who have been released from Gitmo have joined (or are suspected of joining) militant groups like al Qaeda. This includes two released prisoners who went on to help plan the Christmas day underwear bomb attack.

So, if 20% of the released prisoners “go back” to belonging to a terrorist organization, does that mean that 80% of the “terrorists” at Gitmo are innocent? Or even worse, was Gitmo’s main outcome the creation of new terrorists?

But the second article is the real stunner, about a macabre reunion of sorts after a former prison guard at Gitmo, Brandon Neely, contacted two former prisoners to apologize after he was haunted by their poor treatment. The BBC invited Neely to fly to London, where he met with the former prisoners (who are both British subjects) to ask for their forgiveness. Says Neely:

The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place, like ‘they [prisoners] were treated so great’. No it wasn’t. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages.

The reunion will be televised tonight on BBC Two.

Conservative Ted Olson makes a strong case for why gays should be allowed to marry, and he does a better and more eloquent job of it than many liberals. He and David Boies are arguing the case in federal court that is attempting to overturn California’s Proposition 8.

While acknowledging that many conservatives are strongly against gay marriage, Olson points out that “Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation” and “The fact that individuals who happen to be gay want to share in the vital social institution is evidence that conservative ideals enjoy widespread acceptance. Conservatives should celebrate this”.

I am glad to see that gay marriage doesn’t have to be a conservative versus liberal issue.

From Newsweek.

Way back in September, we reported on wing-nut Michelle Bachmann telling people to not participate in the census, saying that she didn’t trust ACORN with her personal information (never mind that ACORN has never collected census data), and that the government was trying to gather information about people’s mental health.

But now, the largest newspaper in Bachmann’s state of Minnesota is warning people that if they don’t participate in the census, the state stands to lose a seat in Congress to another state. The main purpose of the census is to determine how many representatives each state receives in the House, and other states like Texas and California are growing faster than Minnesota.

And irony of ironies, if they do lose a seat, the district that is most likely to be dissolved and merged into the other districts is … wait for it … the Sixth District, currently represented by Bachmann. In order to stay in Congress, she would have to run in another district, against an incumbent.

Curiously, Bachmann has not said anything against the census lately.

Are you upset about the Wall Street Banks that are “too big to fail”? You know, the ones that brought our economy to the brink of financial disaster and then sucked up our tax money in the bailout?  Yes, the bailout that was sold to us as a way to increase credit in order to get the economy moving, but then the big banks took our money and actually reduced credit, and instead used that money — our money — to buy up smaller banks and become even bigger (increasing their too-big-to-fail-ness). You should be upset!

Don’t just get mad, get even! Vote with your wallet by moving your money out of the big banks (like JP Morgan/Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America) and into a smaller, community bank or credit union. Who knows? If enough of us move our money out of a bank that is too big to fail, it won’t be as big anymore. Not only that, but moving to a smaller bank might even save you money, since smaller banks don’t typically employ predatory tactics like excessive fees and penalties. Smaller banks also tend to lend money locally, helping your local community, and they are less likely to make those risky investments that almost killed our economy. You’ll be helping yourself and your country at the same time.

Can this become a movement? It already has a website, called Move Your Money, and they have tools that help you find a community bank or credit union in your area. They also made a short video that is a take-off on the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” — apropos since that movie was all about the struggle between a small community bank and a larger, greedier bank.

Thanks to Huffington Post.

UPDATE: Cenk Uygur (host of the video blog “The Young Turks”) invites Tea Partiers to join the fight against the big Wall Street banks.