The headline of this post from OpenLeft says it all:
Democrats would gain 10 Senate seats by eliminating the filibuster
It’s not about gaining seats, of course. It is about allowing the majority to do what it was elected to do.
Bay deal looks logical
If this nugget from today’s NY Post piece on the Jason Bay signing is accurate, the contract actually looks pretty good.
Bay’s deal includes a full no-trade clause and an $8.5 million signing bonus, according to The Associated Press. He will make $6.5 million in salary this year and $16 million for each of the ensuing three seasons. His option would become guaranteed if he reaches 600 plate appearances in 2013 or 500 plate appearances in both the 2012 and ’13 seasons. The contract’s total value could reach $80 million.
I’m not crazy about full no-trades, but the vesting clause sets the bar high enough that this deal can only go to five years if Bay remains productive. If not, there is little chance that he will hit the plate appearance marks needed.
So we shall see.
At the moment, I’m cautiously optimistic.
Time to vote or get off the pot on marriage equality
This is how democracy is supposed to work, right? Post the bill, debate it and vote on it so everyone in the state of New Jersey can see where each of our 40 state Senators stand on the marriage equality issue. There is a good chance, unfortunately, that it will fail, but it will “out” those who refuse to see this as an issue of civil rights.
Don’t buy war bonds
Sen. Ben Nelson, the conservative Democrat from Nebraska, is pushing the idea of funding the war in Afghanistan by selling government bonds — borrowing an idea that worked well during World War II.
But as this piece points out, the economy has changed, making the bond sale problematic.
More importantly, the Afghan and Iraq wars are not very popular; any funding mechanism based on a voluntary contribution is going to fail.
If we believe these wars are necessary — they aren’t, but if we want to fool ourselves into believing they are — we should be honest and pay for them out of our budget the way we pay for everything else.
Illustrating history
I found this piece on the late, great David Levine interesting, if only because the illustrators/cartoonists mentioned — his peers and followers — are the great left-liberal illustrators of our day, drawing for The Village Voice, The Nation, etc.
Levine was a great illustrator with a keen eye and his impact on the somewhat staid New York Review of Books cannot be underestimated. He will be missed.
