More Ukraine Results

I found the election results straight from the horse's mouth.

Results for Viktor Yanukovich

Results for Viktor Yushchenko

Basically, what these results mean is that for example, if you click on the Yanukovich result, you see that he got 96% of the vote in the Donetsk region. 96% of the vote. John Kerry only got 90% of the vote in DC. I was totally wrong about the Ukraine being totally divided. If these results aren't the end-product of election shenanigans, then there should definitely be talk of secession and civil war. I don't know if there's any sites I could pull historical US election data from, but I doubt if the US ever had any region/state that had 96% of the votes go to one candidate over another. And no, Reconstruction doesn't count since Democrats were all but banned from running down there. And no, uncontested seats in gerrymandered districts don't count either. I'm talking about national elections in the US. I'm really beginning to think there will be some kind of bloodshed if the country is really that divided.

One thing that this does do is that it puts US elections in perspective. Talking heads liked to say that the election showed how divided the country was, but in reality, it's not like New York went to Kerry for 90% of the vote while Texas went to Bush for 94%, like what happened in Ukraine. If that happens... then there are some serious issues that would need to be resolved. But that's the beauty of federalism. You need to propose national candidates on national parties in order to win. If we were to switch to say... abandoning the Electoral College and elect the President on a straight popular vote count, then candidates would focus their energies on regions or population blocks, which would be much more divisive than trying to run a national campaign and then focusing on "swing states".

Ukrainian Craziness

The New York Times > International > Europe > Parliament Says Votes in Ukraine Were Not Valid (Registration Required)

Irony is at hand here. I spent the previous week in Florida, the scene of the most recent act of American political shenanigans. Then there's the craziness that's been going on in the Ukraine. Not to go off on a tangent, but this reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and Neuman were playing Risk. There was a scene where they were playing in the subway when this quote happened:

Kramer: Or is it because I've built a stronghold around Greenland? I've driven you out of Western Europe and I've left you teetering on the brink of complete annihilation.

Newman: I'm not beaten yet. I still have armies in the Ukraine.

This comment perks up the ears of what appears to be a Russian immigrant.

Kramer: Ha ha, the Ukraine. Do you know what the Ukraine is? It's a sitting duck. A road apple, Newman. The Ukraine is weak. It's feeble. I think it's time to put the hurt on the Ukraine.

Ukrainian: I come from Ukraine. You not say Ukraine weak.

Kramer: Yeah, well we're playing a game here, pal.

Ukrainian: Ukraine is game to you?! How about I take your little board and smash it!!

The Ukrainian pounds the game board, destroying it and sending army pieces flying.

Ok, that scene still cracks me up whenever someone talks about Ukraine. But back to topic at hand. The hard part about the whole thing is that the two candidates are named Yushchenko and Yanukovich, making it very difficult to follow the story as written in the Times. And both candidates' first name is Viktor. It would be like if the Democrats nominated someone called George Busch for President. Then people would be asking who you'd support and you'd say George Bush or George Busch and people wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about. Somehow, I don't think the Ukrainian people have that problem.

But in terms of geopolitical action, this story is huge. Not so much for the United States but for Europe versus Russia. There's already been some tensions over the expansion of NATO and the EU and this could be divisive issue between the two sides. As for the United States, the best issue would be to try and play peacemaker but under no circumstances take a side on the issue. After all, there's already talk greater autonomy or secession in certain parts of the country, which is never good. Both sides are going to want the US to take a side on the issue, but the best policy in this case is that of just sticking to the law that is at hand. Of course, if the law was broken, then the Ukrainians should be able to figure out a solution that will make both sides happy. Look what happened in the United States following the Florida fiasco. Sure, unhappy Democrats made complaints that President Bush wasn't elected, but that was just sour grapes and for the rest of the country, people accepted that President Bush won the election and moved on.

Unfortunately, Ukraine doesn't have the democratic foundation that the United States had in 2000. Ukraine is just a fledgling democracy without any kind of basis for rule of law. That's why there's all these protests and calls for general strikes. That's something that is counterproductive and something that will divide the country. Not good things I tell you.

I think that there will be a new election, or at least there should be. If the guy who won the first election wants any kind of legitimacy, then he'd better hope for a fairly won election. Otherwise, he'll have half of the country and a good chunk of the world doubting whether he can rule fairly or not.

Off for the next week

I'm going to be spending some quality time in Florida with the family, so the updates will be far and few between. At least by me. Hopefully, Dan will keep you all updated with tales of political whatnot. And if not, then you can just wait until I get back in a week or so.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Economist.com | Italy's chaotic politics

Economist.com | Italy's chaotic politics

There aren't too many similarities between Italy and the United States, at least politically. Let this serve as a warning to anyone who tells you that (insert political party here) needs to be more inclusive. I think the great aspect of the two party system is that it internalizes identity politics. If the United States was like Italy, then there would be one party for the South, one for the West Coast, one for the Midwest, etc. Heck, there could also be identity parties, like the Greens or a party for blacks. That would make running the country that much more harder and would end up with each member of the governing coalition being in essance bribed to govern. At least with this system, you know what to expect with each party and there doesn't have to be any "bribes" to create a government.

I don't care what any of those whack-job liberals say, the US still has the best government in the world, even with all its minor flaws.

Arafat's Legacy (washingtonpost.com)

Arafat's Legacy (washingtonpost.com)

Charles Krauthammer agrees with me, or at least has the same view point that Yasser Arafat was a man with one goal in mind, the destruction of Israel. Then there's this beauty of a quote:

The man who murdered more innocent Jews than anyone since Hitler died an international hero.

As well as:

while Arafat's death does open a first chance for peace since he took over the Palestinian movement four decades ago, that chance remains remote. Why? Because the revolution continues. Arafat made sure it would survive him. He created Palestinian nationalism and shaped it in a revolutionary mold that will take years, perhaps decades, to undo.

I couldn't have said it better myself. And this is a person that many in the international community hail as a statesman. Some statesman, perhaps these people who call Arafat a hero should look at the condition he left Palestine in before they pass judgement.

Arafat's Dead

The weekend was a busy time for me so I wasn't able to make any updates. However, the big story is that of Yasser Arafat dying. I'm not going to shed any tears over his death, mainly because of all the people, Palestinian and Israeli who have died over the years in his quest to stay in power.

Arafat's power drew from the fact that he was the leader of a struggle and without that struggle, he wouldn't have the power base that he held onto for so long. He rose to power as the leader of the PLO, a terrorist organization that grew into the role of the de-facto voice for the Palestinians. And as a result, Arafat had to start playing by international rules. Of course, international rules would mean that he had to at least TRY to create some peaceful coexistance with Israel. Thus, you get the Oslo Accords and a Nobel Peace Prize for Mr. Arafat.

Then the infatada starts up in 2001. It had always been within Arafat's power to stop suicide bombers from destroying the peace process. Or maybe he wasn't as strong as previously thought. Perhaps he was too sick to be any kind of effective leader, letting the terrorist groups like Hamas destroy peace in Palestine because he couldn't effectively control the group anymore.

In any case, the Nobel Prize that he won was a crock, but the Nobel committee doesn't retract their awards. At least I don't think they do. Arafat will probably go down in history as the person who started the creation of the Palestinian state. That doesn't mean that he shouldn't also be remembered for being a terrorist leader. Arafat should not get a pass from creating such a mess in the Middle East when there was a possible deal that could have created a viable Palestinian state. But a viable Palestinian state would have clashed with Arafat's reputation as a leader of an uprising. George Washington he is not.

Flat Tax

Over on The Sports Economist, Dr. Skip Sauer has a post up about the possiblities of a flat tax coming back in style. Here's the nice quote from his post:

Presidential commentary: In my view, Clinton's otherwise superb record on economic policy was compromised by his eagerness to litter the tax code with gimmicks for favored programs. Bush has a chance to play a bit of catch-up here.

Now my feelings on President Clinton in terms of economics is that he did best when he did least. It's a very good thing that he didn't get Hillarycare passed. He didn't meddle as much as he could in the economy. Yes, he did litter the tax code with all sorts of special favors, but he did have the Republican Congress for 6 of his 8 years along for the ride. It would be nice if the Republicans could right that ship by installing a flat tax or even better a national sales tax.

The problem is that President Bush has only a certain amount of political capital in the tank. If he pushes for a flat or at least flatter tax, then he's going to have to give up something in return. Thus, I give you

Mike's Top Five Policies President Bush Should Push for in His Second Term

5. Strengthen Free Trade with select countries (Australia to start)
4. Flatten the Income Tax or Enact a National Sales Tax
3. Social Security Reform
2. Medicare/Medicaid Reform

And the Top Policy President Bush Should Pursue in his Second Term...
Getting strict constrictionists on the nation's courts

I should really stop talking about lawyers and the legal system so much, but they're playing a greater and greater role in the way our nation functions. And that's not a good thing. So by putting strict constrictionists in the federal courts, there can at least the start to getting our nation back from the grips of trial lawyers.

More on Arlen

Since Dan brought the topic up, I'll also give my two cents.

Right now the debate that I'm following is whether to "reward" Arlen Specter with the chairmanship of the Senate Judicial Committee. There's two sides to the argument pro and against. The editors at the National Review are on the con side. Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt and Jonathan Last are on the pro-side.

Really, I'm not sure which side of the issue I fall on. In order to try and clarify the issue, I'm going to answer the questions Hewitt posts on his blog:

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that he would vote for Bush nominees to move from the committee to the floor?
I don't think putting someone else in the committee chair would make things more difficult to move Bush nominees from the Judicial committee to the main Senate floor. The real question is whether the nominating process would be more favorable for a strict-constrictionist with or without Specter as the chair. I think that the nominee would face the same questions and difficulties with or without Specter at the helm.

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that Specter would vote to end filibusters on the floor?
This would be a problem because Republicans still don't have the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. They would need to draw moderate Democrats to support the Republican candidate, or at least support ending the obstructions put up by the Democratic leadership. This is where a happy Specter would be more influential than an unhappy Specter.

Would stopping Specter make it more or less likely that Specter would vote to confirm nominees once they had made it to the floor and once a filibuster had been broken?
If the last question is rendered moot for whatever reason, then the need for Specter's support becomes much more negligable since the confirmation vote will just need to get 50 votes (Cheney's got the tiebreaker), so the need for Specter's vote becomes less necessary.

What would the effect of blocking Specter have on the conduct of his colleagues from the GOP's "center-left" wing, especially Senators Snowe and Collins of Maine and Chafee of Rhode Island? Would blocking Specter increase the likelihood of their opposition to Bush nominees? Can opponents of Specter guarantee that they can have their cake and eat it to, or might these four (and perhaps Hagel of Nebraska) respond by returning fire on nominees?
This is the big enchilada. If people start pissing off the moderates in the party, it makes it very difficult to contain a sizable majority in the Senate. Of course, there are also moderate Democrats that could be of help, but the idea is to make sure that the appointees get through the process relatively unscathed.

Now, I'm initially inclined to oppose someone who was endorsed by Pennsylvania's unions. In fact, I was hoping that Specter would be defeated by whatever schmuck the Democrats ran against him in Pennsylvania. But he didn't and now President Bush has to dance with the one he brought to the dance.

The fact that Specter considers Roe v. Wade to be "involate" is a problem, since Roe v. Wade is the biggest piece of judicial activism in the court's history. There is no "right" to an abortion. The Consitution is really clear on this:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Now that can be interpreted two ways. One, the states have the power to restrict or allow abortion as they see fit. The second is that this power is reserved to the people. The libertarian in me sees that people can do what they will with themselves. The pragmatist in me sees that abortion (as well as drug use and other libertarian causes) have a definite social effect, so the states are well within their bounds to regulate it.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that if Specter continues to take the view that the court can legislate from the bench in such cases as Roe v. Wade, and will oppose candidates who think otherwise, then he shouldn't hold such an important spot in the Senate.

Bush Names Gonzales to Succeed Ashcroft

Yahoo! News - Bush Names Gonzales to Succeed Ashcroft

Well, talk about killing a bunch of birds with one stone.

Ashcroft was probably one of the biggest lightning rods for the Bush administration in the first term. It goes without saying that Gonzales will be confirmed by the Senate when the nomination comes up for a vote. The real question is whether he will be as conservative as Ashcroft without the "religious fundamentalist" baggage that liberals saddled Ashcroft with during his term as Attorney General.

It looks like Gonzales will end up being just as conservative as Ashcroft was. The memo about treatment of prisoners will draw criticism from the left, of course. There's the question of how he stands on other legal issues, such as abortion, gay marriage, and affirmative action.

What this does is it may remove his name from consideration when the inevitable Supreme Court vacancy appears. Or it might not, depending on how his confirmation hearing goes. Gonzales does have two knocks against him (in my book): he's a lawyer and he's a Harvard graduate. You can't avoid the first when dealing with the position of Attorney General, while the second is unfortunate, but what can you do?

I'm surprised that my first post is on lawyers, since I hate the profession so much. But it's as good a place to start as any.

Site Feeds Added

I've added both the Atom feed that goes along with the blogger site and the feedburner feed that will work for everyone who uses RSS.

If you don't know what a feed syndication is or if you want to learn more about it, check out this site:

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/aboutrss

Comments Added

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First Post

Welcome to the next best thing in political commentary on the web. Dan and myself will strive to put our opinions on this blog. That's the only guarantee you'll get. News, opinion, quiz results. If it's political or government related, we'll put it here.

Allow myself to introduce... myself. I'm a grad student at Clemson, looking to get my masters in economics. I recieved my bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech, where I met the other half of this blog, Dan. I managed to get a bachelors in economics and a minor in political science along the way. Before that I spent two years at Georgetown and 18 years living in Connecticut. I'm sure you'll figure out my political leanings by the commentary on this blog. Let's just say there's a reason I'm not living in Connecticut anymore.

I hope everyone out there finds this blog interesting as Dan and I will try to set ourselves apart from your cookie-cutter politics blog. We'll try to not take ourselves too seriously, but provide some good opinion along the way.