Regional Party

Ooh, this is going to be great. With their heavy losses in the rest of the country, the power within the GOP is shifting further southward, dooming it to irrelevance as weirdo-values conservatives trump libertarians and pragmatists. Case in point: Trent Lott will return to the leadership as Senate minority whip.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who was ousted as Senate majority leader four years ago because of racially insensitive remarks about America's segregationist past, was elected to his party's No. 2 spot in the chamber today by a single vote.

Anybody know whether it's the incoming Senators who vote? I'd guess that a GOP caucus with DeWine or Chaffee wouldn't have gone for a discredited racist.

Lame ducks not so lame

Looks like the Senate won't be passing Bush's agenda, which includes domestic wiretapping and the confirmation of John Bolton, without a fight:

Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who was defeated in this week's election, said he would block Bolton's nomination.

Chafee, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that he did not believe Bolton's nomination would move forward without his support.

"The American people have spoken out against the president's agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy," the Rhode Island moderate told The Associated Press.

"And at this late stage in my term, I'm not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against."

It's a shame the R next to Chafee's name got him defeated; he sounds like an OK guy after all. With this, maybe he has a political future once he switches parties.

The best day ever

This is shaping up nicely. With Tester prevailing in Montana, we only have to wait for Allen to concede, which I hear is likely if the spread s more than half a percent. The departure of Rumsfeld is a welcome bonus for all our hard work. His kung-fu was strong, but our grassroots-style was stronger.



I'm happy that this obviates a protracted battle for his removal in which Democrats would be cast as pro-insurgency.

This is insane

Keeping with my pledge to stay up until the control of congress is decided, I won't be sleeping until November 27th. Getting lots of sleep. Thanks, Virginia voters.

Pareto fallacy

You know, even though Atrios says it wouldn't really help if everyone knew more economics, his post compells me to learn more about economics. Funny.

GOTV

I'm spending the day in Northern Virginia going door-to-door for Jim Webb. If you don't have access to a swing state or don't have a lot of time, you can still help out with home phone banking, either through the Webb campaign or via MoveOn's Call for Change.

Happy election day

Go vote. Now.

Insanity

This, friends, is the craziest set of numbers I've seen from Ohio since the final reported returns in 2004. Lets hope Diebold doesn't screw it for us.

Time for Rumsfeld to go

So says the Army Times (via CNN).

DHHS: adults should be abstinent too

A recent clarification of the Department of Health and Human Services abstinence-only program will provide funding for states to extend such programs to adults as old as 29. The target, says the department's spokesperson, is the high proportion of unwed mothers in that age group:

Government data released last month show that 998,262 births in 2004 were to unmarried women 19-29, the ages with the most births to unmarried women.

"The message is 'It's better to wait until you're married to bear or father children,' " Horn said. "The only 100% effective way of getting there is abstinence."

Hmm. That may be true. But, given that the National Center for Health Statistics says well over 90% of adults ages 20-29 have had sexual intercourse, I'm thinking an abstinence-only message will be a bit less than 100% effective in preventing all those births.

What's really going on here, though? Why does the government feel compelled to fight the unwed birthrate? Is it really out of control?

Well, unwed fertility is on the rise, but it turns out that it isn't necessarily the result of more premarital sex:

Since 1969, however, shotgun marriage has gradually disappeared (see table 1). For whites, in particular, the shotgun marriage rate began its decline at almost the same time as the reproductive technology shock. And the disappearance of shotgun marriages has contributed heavily to the rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate for both white and black women. In fact, about 75 percent of the increase in the white out-of-wedlock first-birth rate, and about 60 percent of the black increase, between 1965 and 1990 is directly attributable to the decline in shotgun marriages. If the shotgun marriage rate had remained steady from 1965 to 1990, white out-of-wedlock births would have risen only 25 percent as much as they have. Black out-of-wedlock births would have increased only 40 percent as much.

It seems that the marriage rate is what's really more to blame here. But I guess that's not as attractive a problem as dirty, dirty sex.