Big Sky Cairn

Lamnidae makes an interesting point about Roy Brown asking for debates from Hollywood Brian Schweitzer. Brown asked for 18 debates - and Lamnidae wondered why he didn’t ask for more.

She’s got a point. 18 is a pretty arbitrary number.

But then, so is five - the number of debates that Schweitzer countered with. One could just as easy ask, why five debate? Why not one? Or zero?

I will say this. For the voter, more debates are better. Debates flush out issues, focus the campaign on stated positions and allow people to make literal side-by-side judgments of the candidates. While I understand the impetuous impetus of an incumbent to deny their opponent a stage from which to boost name recognition, it’s usually not something they brag about and asking for more debates is usually not something that is considered smart ground for an attack.

The suggestion that poor Schweitzer just can’t fit it into his busy schedule is also pretty ridiculous considering he’s raising campaign money in San Francisco, New York or some other state almost every weekend.

Schweitzer is feeling the heat: two non-races at the federal level that were supposed to grab the headlines evaporated and now he finds his race - and his worthy opponent - the big ticket race in the state. He’s never been challenged by the media so the prospect of having to explain his policies in a hostile environment has got to be daunting. I’d be a little nervous to debate Roy Brown too - especially considering the focus on energy policy (drill, drill, drill!).

Consequently, remember in The West Wing when liberal paragon Jed Bartlett wanted more debates and it was his challenger that fought for fewer? Interesting how the liberal writers of that show suggest that debating less is somehow a platform of conservatives and not of incumbents from both parties.

As previous posts might suggest, I proudly exercise my right to keep and bear arms. Thus, I will be up early tomorrow to find out how the Supreme Court ruled in the case District of Columbia v. Heller.

There is much speculation that Justice Antonin Scalia will be writing an opinion for the Court. However, it is important to remember that even though Scalia is a conservative, this does not mean that the Supreme Court will decide in favor of Heller. Some SCOTUS watchers are speculating that Heller could be decided using the seldom utilized “plurality opinion.”

A plurality opinion is the opinion from a group of justices, often in an appellate court, in which no single opinion received the support of a majority of the court. The final decision is determined by the opinion which received support from a mere plurality of the court. That is, the plurality opinion did not receive the support of half the justices, but received more support than any other opinion.

So, what is a plurality opinion?

It takes five votes for an opinion to become a binding “Opinion of the Court.” When there is no one majority opinion, the Court has generally embraced what is known as the Marks rule, after Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188 (1977). The Marks rule is (essentially) that if there is no one majority opinion for the Court, the controlling opinion for future cases is the narrowest decision in favor of the winning side. As the Court put it in Marks, “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgment on the narrowest grounds.”

There isn’t any one “opinion of the Court” in such cases, but the lower courts must follow the narrowest opinion for the winning side as if it were the majority opinion. And in recent years, the Justices themselves have largely treated the controlling opinions under Marks as if they were majority opinions for purposes of stare decisis.

Can I get an example?

For example, on Monday the Supreme Court decided United States v. Santos, a case where the Marks rule applies. In Santos, a money-laundering case, the Court divided with four Justices on either side of the issue, and a concurrence by Justice Stevens in the result of Justice Scalia’s opinion, whose opinion was supported by three other Justices. In this case, Justice Stevens’ concurrence formed the narrowest basis for the decision, and thus under the Marks rule, is effectively the controlling opinion, even though all eight of the Court’s other Justices did not share his legal reasoning on the issue!

So, from what I can tell, a plurality opinion is not the binding f-off to the District that many NRA supporters would like. But it is also not the end because lower courts will use the majority opinion or the concurrence to decide future cases. And if said cases come before the Supreme Court, we might be able to get the five we need for a controlling decision.

Again, we do not know it will be a “plurality opinion” but there is a chance, so be forewarned. And I will be back at 10am EST tomorrow morning with the good/bad/indifferent news!

It wouldn’t be right to say “new” since I think these blogs have been around for awhile, but MT Pundit is back with a new crew of authors, cranking out some sweet material - complete with attributions of authorship this time.  I’m assured that young Hagen is not involved in the project and is in fact no longer in Montana.  Head over and give them a read.

The University of Montana College Republicans - a brave group of young people with a keen understanding of the herd mentality - have a new author or two as well.  There’s some really good stuff over there, and hopefully with their introduction to the blogs we can get some right-wing activism going in the old blogosphere.

Oh, and I’m taking bets on which site will be called “astroturf” first by the left (the line is 2:1 for MT Pundit) and who will be the first to levy that accusation (5:1 for Wulfgar; 7:1 Mark T; 15:1 Jay; 250:1 for glass-house-Lamnidae).  The term “astroturf,” by the way, is lefty-speak for “please don’t read that right-leaning blog because they regularly kick my ass and I’m embarrassed.”

Just a friendly reminder to stock up on your canned goods, water filters and ammo.

There’s a lot riding on the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller scheduled for tomorrow, and you might be fighting for the Independent Nation of Montana.

I wonder which side Max Baucus would fight on…

At the same time that Montana Democrats are going after Republicans for a lack of unity, Democrats are dealing with a split personality of their own resulting from a long, drawn out primary between two powerful candidates.

As their presumptive nominee shifts into General Election mode, he’s also going to be moving to the political center, which will alienate a lot of the wing-nuts who gave him the edge over Clinton. That’s going to create even more rifts within the Democrat Party.

Now, I’m not one to claim that McCain is a perfect conservative candidate either. In fact, I think there are plenty of Conservatives in Montana who frankly don’t like him. So I find myself agreeing with something that Wulfgar wrote:

It is my opinion that it is well passed the time for Democrats to wake up to few realities. No candidate will embody everything you want and more. The realities of politics are not such that each person gets what they want. Seemingly since Ronald Reagan, Americans have carried a national delusion that our President needs to be just like us, and give us everything that we ask for, or that person is unworthy of our support. Our sense of individualism appears to overridden our reason, at which point all we have to hang onto is our idealism. That is a national zeitgeist custom made for Republican victory and service to those most well heeled to manipulate that idealism. The reality is that we are not special little snowflakes. We won’t get everything we want, and our desires for ourselves cannot trump the good of the country as carried out by the candidates we elect. Speaking personally, I don’t want politicians who ‘feel my pain’. I want politicians who will do something about it … for all of us. Those are the people to whom I will give my whole hearted support.

Wulfgar hits the nail on the head, but he describes a bipartisan problem. Republicans are just as guilty of expecting their candidates to agree with everything they believe and unforgiving when necessary differentiation occurs.

The trouble is, the reality that we are not all beautiful or unique snowflakes (thank you Tyler Durdan) flies directly in the face of the GOTV efforts that are aimed at convincing every single voter that their vote and their vote alone is the most important in a given election. That’s one of the great fetishes of Democracy - the delusional belief that each vote matters against the sheer mathematics of a large-scale election.

The lesson to learn is that if one’s political ideologies are outside of the main stream, one must accept the fact that short of shifting the populous as a whole, no candidate can match those ideologies and get elected at the same time. That’s advice that I can use, and it’s also advice that Wulfgar should heed himself.

In February 2007, Barack Obama petitioned the Federal Elections Commission for a bi-partisan compromise that would ensure that both candidates would accept public financing for the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama “argued in his filing with the commission that the public financing system had insulated candidates from a corrupting dependence on big donors.”

Then the primary happened, and Obama learned that he could raise $100 million dollars in a month. NBC News predicts that Obama could handily raise $300 million dollars to spend on the general election. That’s almost four times the amount of money that would be available to him if he kept his promise to accept only public monies.

But when you can raise hundreds of millions of dollars and crush your opponent under the weight of your money bags, who needs a paltry $84 million in public financing?

Apparently, a promise is only a promise until a better offer comes along. And even some of Obama’s strongest supporters are upset by his decision to pass on public financing.

McCain-Feingold co-sponsor Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) said that Obama had not made a good decision. Feingold argues that while the system does need to be updated, the system for the general election is not broken, as Obama claims.

But for my part, Obama’s flip-flop is not the most upsetting part of his decision to pass on public financing.

I’m not a rich person. I’ll never drive a Mercedes or fly on a private jet. I struggle with increasing food and fuel prices, and like a lot of people I live month to month. So, when I hear that a candidate who talks about change and supporting the little guy is preparing to spend THREE HUNDRED MILLION dollars on an election, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Not only does it sound like Obama is trying to buy the election, it sounds like he has lost perspective.

Some Governors from the liberal coasts - whose populations expend more energy than the interior states as a result of their larger populations - have stated opposition to off-shore drilling in their back yards.

Governors in some coastal states promised to fight attempts to tap offshore petroleum reserves, citing concerns about the environment and tourism. Others agreed with President Bush’s call to lift a 27-year-old federal ban on offshore drilling but said states should decide whether to allow it.

The tree-hugger governors, pockets lined with tree-hugger dollars, are worried that a bunch of oil rigs off-shore will spoil the scenic perfection of the American coast. Here, now, with the magic of Photoshop, I give you a before and after perspective of the pristine California coast looking over the Pacific Ocean.

Imagine watching the beautiful sunset as sea gulls frolic in the waves and butterflies fliter about. You can almost smell the sea water can’t you? This scene of perfection is the Pacific Coast right now - completely devoid of drilling.

Now, steel yourself for the horrendous consequences of off-shore oil exploration. Heed this warning to click at your own risk. What you are about to see is the result of John McCain’s off-shore drilling proposal.

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During the 2004 Governor’s race, my lefty friends took great pride in the fact that John Bohlinger, Schweitzer’s chosen Lieutenant, was a Republican. They lauded his five terms as a Republican state legislator. They emphasized his ties to the business community and his conservative positions on taxes and the economy. And did they mention he was a Republican?

In their minds, Bohlinger’s conservative street-cred should have been enough to ensure my vote. They believed his place on the ticket proved that Schweitzer was a bi-partisan moderate whose administration would transcend party politics and unify the state. “Brian doesn’t believe in red or blue,” one of his staffer’s told me over an M&M garbage omelette, “he just believes in Montana.”

Well, isn’t that just precious?

Schweitzer’s decision to choose Bohlinger was pure political genius. He had lost his 2000 Senate race by a small margin, and most agreed that choosing a Republican LT would move enough undecideds into the yes column to ensure a victory.  The problem would be finding a Republican who would switch sides.

Bohlinger’s career in the state legislature was admirable, but not stellar.  His name recognition wasn’t terribly high, and certainly there were Democrats who had similar if not better connections to Montana’s business community.  So despite all the rhetoric, John Bohlinger’s only unique qualifications were his party affiliation and his sweet bow ties.  Perhaps, that’s why he lists his party affiliation and not his legislative experience first on his bio.

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Editor’s Note: This is a comment posted by “Parent” on the post Teachers Get Four-Day Work Week. I promoted it to a stand-alone post because it describes the problems with this decision as well as the process by which the school came to its decision. I added the paragraph breaks to avoid the great wall-of-text.

As a Bridger parent, and a stay at home mother who daycare will not be an issue for, I am saddened that our administraion implemented this.

They are not doing it to save money, they say they are doing it for more uninterrupted class time. The athletes are tired because of games on school nights, they have to leave school for various things such as ski days, ad sales for annual staff, they will “try” to get these scheduled on Thursday nights, Fridays and Saturdays. It is really sad that we decided to cut our education time, and they did, so the kids who play sports are not tired at school.

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On behalf of your contributors here at Big Sky Cairn, I Cody hereby challenge a Montana blogger to an online debate of the Resolution:

Resolved: Architects of U.S. foreign policy should be subject to international justice.

I will take the Negative (disproving the resolution or the case presented by the Affirmative). The debate will be hosted here - I’ll give whomever agrees a guest account to post with.

The debate will be structured with specific “speeches” that are governed by word-limits. Each”speech” will be posted as a stand-alone post, tagged as “Debate” and identified in the subject line.

Affirmative Constructive
3000 words max.
The Affirmative makes the case in support of the resolution.
The subject line should start with “1AC”

Negative Cross Examination of Affirmative
10 questions 400 words max
Response 600 words max
Posted as comments of the Aff Constructive, the Negative can ask up to 10 questions which the Affirmative must then answer.

Negative Constructive
3000 words
The Negative argues against the the Resolution.
The subject line should start with “1NC”

Affirmative Cross Examination of Negative
10 questions 400 words max
Response 600 words max
Posted as comments of the Neg Constructive, the Affirmative can ask up to 10 questions which the Negative must then answer.

Affirmative Rebuttal
1800 words
The Affirmative should reaffirm their case, staying within the bounds of discussion established by the Constructives and avoiding brand new arguments.
The subject line should start with “1AR”

Negative Rebuttal and Summation
2400 words
The Negative should make final arguments against the Resolution and summarize their position.
The subject line should start with “1NR”

Affirmative Summation
600 words
The Affirmative should summarize their position.
The subject line should start with “2AR”

A few more ground rules:

Editing of messages more than 20 minutes after their original posting is not allowed and will result in deletion of the messages.

For the sake of continuity and timeliness, each speech should be posted within 72 hours of the prior speech’s posting time. Time extensions, if necessary, should be requested via comments.

Debaters are free to quote evidence, although doing so counts toward the word limit. Hyperlinks are welcome, but material connected to the debate via hyperlink is not considered part of the “text” of the debate for purposes of rebuttal. In other words, you have to include the important points in the text of your argument.

The idea is a civil, but passionate discussion of a relevant issue. The format is based on a bit of a hybrid between several debate formats including Lincoln-Douglas, Policy and British Parliamentary Debate. If this goes well, I would encourage others to host similar debates.

So, who wants a piece of me? Any takers?