At the Michigan protests: "I was sucker-punched 4 times on camera, without retaliation, choked..."

"... and the AFP tent is torn to the ground with women and children inside of it. Extremely violent footage."

Union thugs... in broad daylight, on camera. Are they stupid... or do they know something about the willingness of the authorities to enforce the law?

"The Republican-led Michigan legislature approved a pair of right-to-work bills..."

"... sending them on for the governor's expected signature, as thousands of union activists continued protesting outside the state capitol."

Passing a right-to-work law in Michigan comes as a deep blow to unions, especially in a state the United Auto Workers union calls home. They see right-to-work as political payback for unions' traditional support for Democrats.

Check out the slide-show at the link, especially the view of the Capitol Rotunda at slide 4. Skimpy compared to the Wisconsin protests of 2011.

"Large numbers of out-of-state protesters are expected to join those from Michigan."

"Plates bearing Florida, Indiana and Ohio license plates were among those in the parking lot of the Michigan AFL-CIO in Lansing this morning."

We covered the pro-union protests here in Madison in 2011. They were just down the street. It's a bit of a drive over to Lansing. 6 hours. Meade could do it. What do you think? You'll have to instigate and incite him.

"A Reverse Wisconsin."

"In Michigan, unions try to enshrine union power in the constitution."

ADDED: Excerpt:

The proposed amendment text would make the "rights" to organize and bargain collectively a constitutional guarantee, and any state law that would "abridge, impair or limit" collective bargaining would be repealed. Last Monday, the Michigan court of appeals ruled that the measure could appear on the ballot, and the state Supreme Court heard arguments on the case Thursday....

The ballot measure is being pushed by a Who's Who of national unions, including the Teamsters, United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Teachers. Collective bargaining is already legal in Michigan, but the union goal is to block reforms of the kind that passed last year in Wisconsin. Taxpayers would be put at a permanent political disadvantage, regardless of future economic conditions.

What is Obama pointing at?

The Drudge headline says "Unrelenting," and the link goes to "Unrelenting Obama jabs at Romney's job record."

But look closely. X marks the spot. There's pointing, and there's an X:



Right under the links about the 29-year-old Obama campaign worker who collapsed and died, there's a photo with a prominent X, the shadow cast by a cross. "UPDATE: Cross-Bearing TX Teen Arrives in DC After Month-Long Journey..."

“I felt God put this in my heart, and it’s something I felt so strong about, to just pick up my cross and carry it....”

Said one Junior Garcia of Oasis Church in Saginaw. I think of Saginaw, Michigan. But this is Saginaw, Texas. Did you know Paul Simon wrote his song "America" — which mentions Saginaw — in Saginaw, Michigan?

Bob Dyer, a former Saginaw disc jockey and organizer of Y-A-Go-Go, a concert series hosted by the Saginaw YMCA, 1915 Fordney, booked Simon and Garfunkel to play three months before “Sounds of Silence” became a No. 1 national hit in 1966, according to Saginaw News records.

“I asked Paul Simon if they were still charging the $1,250 we paid them to play and he said they were getting about four times that much then,” Dyer told The Saginaw News in 2004. “Then I asked him why he hadn't pulled out, and he said he had to see what a city named Saginaw looked like."

At the link there are photos of spray-painted Simon lyrics on decrepit buildings:

"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America...

It took Junior Garcia a month and a half to drag his 12-foot-long cross along the back roads of America from Saginaw to Washington.

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why..."

Junior is probably aching but not empty, but how about the rest of America? Why is Obama pointing? We get the evocation of Uncle Sam...



But what does Obama want from us? Nothing. We will be receiving. Somebody else — those rich people somewhere else — will be giving. He's "unrelenting" tormenting Mitt Romney, poking and prodding him about Bain. He's trying to be the bane of Mitt Romney's existence. He's toying with him, teasing him...



Photo animation by Chip Ahoy, who can show you how to make a salad with a fish.



But what is Drudge trying to say? He's just toying with us, teasing us...

Primary results, Michigan and Arizona.

Let's watch!

7:18: Gingrich is running on about a tree falling on a house. I came in in the middle and he seems deranged.

7:21: Hoosiers beating the Spartans, 43-27.

7:22: Meade has the remote.

7:24: Romney winning in Wyoming. Did you know Wyoming was happening today?

7:31: CNN has 16,093 Santorum, 15,942 Romney, in Michigan. Totally close, but Blitzer keeps exclaiming things like "Even in Mitt Romney's home state!"

7:53: Me: "What's more important to you: Romney in Michigan or Hoosiers beat Spartans." Meade (immediately): "Hoosiers!"

7:58: Hoosiers win! 70-55.

8:00: CNN projects Romney as the winner in Arizona with 44%. Santorum 37%. No projection in Michigan. With 17% of the vote in Romney in the lead by about 3,905 votes.

8:05: CNN polling shows 33% of moderates/liberals voting for Santorum. You know what that means. Operation Hilarity.

8:16: Romney's ahead in Michigan now by 9,238 votes, 3 percentage points.

10:52: I'm back. Romney won. Santorum has lost his momentum. Does this mean it's over now?

Mitten-gate.

Michigan insists it's the state that looks like a mitten. Miffed at Wisconsin's horning in on the mitten iconography.

"Between the Law School and the Ross School of Business you’ll find Dominick’s... which has been serving students and the area’s aging hippie population ever since the ’60s..."

From a NYT "36 Hours in Ann Arbor" piece. As an aging person who really did frequent Dominick's in the 1960s when I was a young hippie, I'm glad to know it's the first place an outsider dropping in for the essence of Ann Arbor ought to eat.

I haven't been back to Ann Arbor since the 1970s, but I spent an awful lot of time in the geographic zone around Dominick's. I didn't go to the law school, which is right there. I went to the School of Architecture and Design, which used to be right next to the law school, and I lived in East Quad for 2 years. And just over to the left is Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger. I worked there.

It's cool to see that Krazy Jim's is still around:

Now serving the 5th generation of Blimpy Addicts, we grind our own beef fresh from choice Western chuck. Then our friendly, personable staff throws the rounded balls of meat onto the grill, smashes them flat with a spatula and cooks your burger to crumbly perfection.

Ha. I remember when Jim used to grind up a huge vat of meat and we stood around in the walk-in refrigerator using ice cream scoops to transform it into those meatballs. Krazy Jim's didn't make it into the NYT's recommended 36 hours. Who knows why? Some kind of rule against greasy food?

The death of Borders.

"Borders Group Inc. said it would liquidate after the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain failed to receive any offers to save it."

I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1971 when the first Borders opened there. Before then, we browsed for books at Centicore. Whatever happened to Centicore? I don't know, but Borders went big, and back in the 1990s, I loved the big Borders in Madison, Wisconsin. I went there almost every day, usually with one or both of my sons. Many times we left with a stack of books — usually after spending money in the café. Then came the day — in the late 90s? — when I asked at the information desk if they had WiFi. The guy manning the station gave me an attitude-filled "WiFi?" — as if I was looking for something stupid.

There was a narrative arc to Borders, and my own life followed that arc... up until the point where it diverged.

ADDED: I am reminded of my January 23, 2009 post "Despite shrines to Obama, the bookstore was nearly deserted."

Where is everyone? It's about 5:30 p.m. here at Borders, and I feel as though I've stayed until after closing time. I used to like to go here to browse alongside myriad strangers and to run into people I knew. Now, there's zero "town square" ambiance.

Here's a title that made me feel good about the way my reading about current politics has, in the past few years, migrated nearly completely on-line:



"What Obama Means." Spare me. Whatever is in that book can — I will bet you — be skimmed and understood in less than one minute.

"Finally, Mississippi and Alabama get a room!"

Ha.

And: "Panhandle Alert." The epidemic spreads.

There's nothing Wisconsin-related in those New Yorker cartoons about state maps. I remember seeing a hand-drawn cartoon in that State Street liquor store window that used to be full of funny signs. It had a map of Wisconsin and writing that said something like: "The Upper Pennisula! WTF? Did we lose a war or something?" That was many years ago. It still makes me laugh. I mean look at the map:



That is ours, baby. It's like that mitten is reaching up there an yanking off our manhood. And speaking of manhood, I think, if we had that peninsula that is rightfully ours, the politics of Wisconsin might shift from Mommy Party to Daddy Party.

"McCain in '08! McCain in '08!... No-bama! No-bama!"

Shouts shouted as the DNC resolved its Michigan-Florida problem.

AND: Meet the angry white woman:



The whole world is looking at those bruises:



AND: Hillary gets to say she's ahead in the popular vote now, right? But shouldn't the Michigan and Florida votes be divided by 2?

"Bleary-eyed and somewhat bedraggled... five and a half hours... 'felt like five and a half weeks."

That was last night. The real fight is today, as the Democrats struggle to find a way through the Florida and Michigan problem.

"How do you respond to a sociopath like this?"

Asks Andrew Sullivan about... Hillary Clinton. She's a sociopath now? Why?

She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

She's insane because she's fighting for the nomination using whatever arguments are available? If it's such a bad argument, it will lose and that will be the end of it. Obama is making the arguments that work for him. To exaggerate the hatefulness of her arguments and the virtuousness of his is to be too caught up in your personal preference for one candidate over the other. Obama's taking his name off the Michigan ballot wasn't all about some sort of supreme respect for rules and agreements. If he'd thought he was going to do very well, wouldn't he have left his name on?

Here's part of the quote from Hillary that drove Sullivan up the wall:

Now, I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules.

I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted.

Ha ha. That's rich. She is using the buzz words from the 2000 Florida recount (in which each of the 2 candidates made the arguments that helped his cause and acted outraged that the other was making arguments which he'd have made himself if they would have served his end). Clinton drives the point home:

I remember very well back in 2000, there were those who argued that people's votes should be discounted over technicalities. For the people of Florida who voted in this primary, the notion of discounting their votes sounds way too much of the same.

This isn't insanity. It's litigation. Quite normal. If the rules help you, you insist on the importance of rules. If the rules hurt you, they are mere guidelines that must bend flexibly for the sake of justice.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan responds ... but in the form of printing an email from an unnamed reader that makes some incoherent assertions about law.

To use the ligitation [sic] analogy, if you walk in to court espousing the exact opposite position of an earlier stated position, you lose, plain and simple. Your opponent calls it an admission, throws it in your face, and probably moves for sanctions.

What is this person talking about? "Admissions" as an exception to the hearsay rule? If a party says one thing about the facts of the case and then another, it's evidence, to be analyzed as the factfinder sees fit. You don't "lose, plain and simple." You just have a credibility problem. But I'm not talking about assertions of fact. I'm talking about legal arguments — arguments about what the law is or how it is applies in this case. You're allowed to make one legal argument and then another. You can make 2 contradictory arguments in the alternative at exactly the same time.

AND: I should add that what the emailer and Sullivan (and some of my commenters) are doing is also the litigation style — acting as if the argument on the other side is utterly ridiculous. I'm soooo jaded about that sort of thing. I can see what you are all doing. One side or the other will win, and it probably won't be Hillary, but her argument is not insane.

ADDED: An emailer copies me on email sent to Sullivan:

I do not agree with Althouse's comment discussed at this link on your blog (as it unfairly ascribes to Obama the same type of win-at-all-costs mentality exhibited by Clinton). However, the reader response that you highlight for the purpose of knocking down Althouse's view is simply not correct as a legal matter.

The reader believes that "if you walk into court espousing the exact opposite position of an earlier stated position, you lose, plain and simple" on the ground that the litigant has committed an "admission" that would be determinative in the litigation and even subject to sanctions. That is not so. Flip-flops in position -- even within the scope of the litigation itself — are generally not themselves determinative of the outcome, let alone sanctionable. Generally, speaking, a change in position has to meet the criteria of the doctrine known as "judicial estoppel" for a litigant to be bound to the first position and thus prevented from relying on an inconsistent position in the litigation. And that doctrine requires that the litigant take the first position in the litigation itself AND that it be accepted by the court before the litigant is prevented from later raising the inconsistent position. And even then there are exceptions. There are, of course, doctrines that prevent parties from re-litigating cases that have been concluded, but that problem does not arise here because NO litigation has yet taken place let alone concluded.

So, I think it is clear that Clinton could litigate a challenge to what has occurred in Michigan or Florida without being formally prevented from raising positions adverse to positions she posited previously. That, of course, is a different question from whether she would prevail in the litigation. I think the chance of her prevailing in such litigation is remote, let alone in a way that would would alter the Democratic primary season outcome.

What exactly did the Democratic candidates pledge with respect to Michigan and Florida?

Jeralyn Merritt has the text of "4 State Pledge":

... I _______________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

Merritt thinks that the exclusion of the delegates is not commensurate with the scope of the pledge:

Now, can people stop saying that Hillary Clinton agreed the votes in Florida or Michigan wouldn't count or to the non-seating of the delegates? It prohibited only campaigning. Even fundraising was allowed.

The exclusion of Michigan and Florida was a penalty imposed by the DNC. In my view, it was an unfair one and should be lifted. The votes should count as is, the delegates should be awarded and seated.

If you think the superdelegates should support the candidate with the most total votes, do you know whether it is Clinton or Obama?

It's only Obama if you exclude Florida and Michigan. Then, Obama is ahead by 598,266. Impressive! But if you throw Florida and Michigan back in, Clinton wins by 30,657. But that's not really fair. Clinton had name recognition that counted for too much at that early point, especially when they weren't supposed to be campaigning, and Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan. Now, there's talk of redoing Florida and Michigan so those states can have delegates, but it's important to see that they will also have an effect on the popular vote totals that will influence the superdelegates.

Another issue raised in the above-linked article (by Blake Fleetwood) is that the popular vote total undervalues the states that had caucuses, since a smaller portion of voters turn out for a caucus. And Obama did so much better in caucuses than in primaries.

I counted the difference:

Using the numbers here, I found that Obama has won 290 delegates in caucuses, and Clinton has won 154. That's 65% for Obama and 35% for Clinton. In the primaries, by stark contrast, Obama has won 1072 delegates, and Clinton has won 1058. (Actually, 1058.5 — she won 1.5 delegates in the Americans Abroad primary.) That's 50% to 50%. You need to go to decimals to show the Obama percentage lead in the primaries: 50.3% to 49.7%.

But if you want to use total popular vote as a basis for argument to the superdelegates, what do you do with this information? You can't say with confidence that Obama really should have more total votes, because it seems to be that Obama supporters are overrepresented among the kind of people who go to caucuses. We can think of some characteristics that may be shared by caucus-goers and Obama-supporters — notably youth and political fervor. So who was "cheated" out of popular votes in the caucus states? Obama or Clinton?

In any event, it's hard to assign value to the popular vote, since the candidates were not playing — at least not early on — for the popular vote. They campaigned for delegates, so they built their strategies on winning a percentage of the votes within any given state. This cumulative popular vote does matter quite a bit more than it does in the Electoral College system in the fall, because these were not winner-take-all states. With the Electoral College, the popular vote is completely skewed, given the huge numbers of people who know their vote won't tip their state one way or another, making the decision whether to vote in California completely different from the decision whether to vote in Ohio.

And yet, the accumulated popular vote seems very important, both in electing the President in the fall and, certainly, in the Clinton-Obama match-up now that we're pitching arguments to the superdelegates. That gives the last few states, including Michigan and Florida if they horn their way back into the process, a whole new dimension of power.

Breasts are not genitalia, and drivers don't gawk at the word "love" — a First Amendment problem.

Remember Ed (Gonzo) Stross, the artist who painted a Michelangelo-style Eve on an outdoor mural and got sentenced to 30 days in jail for depicting Eve's bare breasts? With the help of the ACLU, he won with a First Amendment argument.

I've read the opinion in Lexis, and I see the court — an intermediate appellate court in Michigan — agrees with me that the breasts Stross painted didn't violate the restrictions in the city's variance, because breasts are not "genitalia," but that he did transgress by painting the word "love." Nevertheless, the court held that the restriction on lettering was too broad in relation to the city's interest in not distracting drivers. So the breasts might distract you, but the city failed to proscribe them, and the word "love" — well, wouldn't it be funny if drivers collided as they rubbernecked to look at "love"?

Romney wins... and on to the debate.

NBC is showing 37% for Romney over 31% for McCain and 16% for Huckabee. And now for the debate... the Democrats. I guess Dennis lost his case.

9:06 (times are Eastern): Kucinich lost. Good lord, Hillary is grim and droning as she talks about her truce with Obama over the MLK controversy. Obama sounds normal. (Amazing accomplishment!) And Edwards seems to have a little speech memorized. He lived with the civil rights movement, blah, blah.

9:22: Someone in the audience is saying: "These are race-based questions." Tim Russert pauses, and the man shuts up. The debate goes on. But it's leaden. All three of the candidates look terribly weary.

9:43: Sorry for "underblogging" the debate. I'm trying to watch "American Idol" simultaneously. And I'm rather tired of both shows.

10:01: The pandering on economic issues is a huge turn-off for me. A 5-year freeze on interest rates? I'm not an economist, but that sounds terribly wrong. Yet there's not a word of explanation of why that might be a good idea (from Hillary Clinton).

10:17: I'm surprised that Tim Russert pronounces ROTC "Rot C," which I once said on a news show and felt very embarrassed about. I thought that was an old 1960s pejorative pronunciation. But Russert says it and then all the candidates say it. They're answering a question about requiring universities to give the military access to campuses, and the candidate all support it — and I don't hear one word about gay rights.

Tonight on television.

I haven't watched much TV lately, and not because of the writers' strike. I hadn't been watching any scripted shows anyway. I'm just too busy staring at my computer and — occasionally — out and about in the real world. (I went to the opera last night, but I'm too busy to think up a workable way to blog about the opera.)

But tonight, TV is required:

1. Michigan primary results!

2. Democratic debate!

3. New season of "American Idol"!

Or does that sound terrible? Another primary, another debate, another season of "American Idol"?

Am I really supposed to blog every episode of "American Idol" — for the 5th year in a row? It's a tradition here on the Althouse blog. Am I up for it? Do I care? Can I find a way to blog without caring or just to care about blogging? Stay tuned.

Anyway, the Democratic debate is the subject of a hot last-minute legal battle as li'l Dennis fights for respect after MSNBC disinvited him when Biden, Dodd, and Richardson all dropped out. You've got to admit that it's absurd to have Clinton, Obama, Edwards and then just Kucinich. But a Nevada judge issued an injunction, and now there's a last minute appeal in the Nevada Supreme Court. It seems to be partly a contract dispute but partly an argument about NBC's obligation to serve the public interest under the Federal Communications Act of 1934. I don't quite understand that last part, since it's a cable network, he's not talking to the FCC, and the new format seems to suit the public interest well enough. But it does make it all sound juicier as an argument for consumption by the general public.

All this is to say that I'll do some TV-blogging tonight.

ADDED: I hope they keep Dennis out so that there will be some aesthetically pleasing symmetry to the evening: 2 panels, each consisting of a black man, a white woman, and a white man.

Pushing Romney in Michigan to screw up the Republicans.

We've talked about this before — the Kos effort to get Michigan Democrats to vote for Mitt Romney — but there's a video going around that I thought you might want to talk about. Actually, I found it pretty funny, and I like Mitt Romney (as much as any of the other politicians in this crazy election):



At Kos, they're saying: "Michigan, do you want this primary season to be over? Or do you want this primary season to be... hilarious?" The trouble with hilarity is you never know if you're going to get the last laugh.

Matt Yglesias has an interesting comment:

[C]ynicism aside, it really does seem to me that Romney would be a less dangerous president than Mike Huckabee or John McCain or Rudy Giuliani. Voting for Romney in a primary is win-win.

So have your fun, and if he ends up President... enjoy that too.

"Michigan Democrats should vote for Mitt Romney, because if Mitt wins, Democrats win."

Kos incites mischief. But how can he be so sure Mitt is good for Democrats? I'd come to think he would be the strongest choice for Republicans. Kos's theory:

If we can help push Mitt over the line, not only do we help keep their field fragmented, but we also pollute Romney's victory. How "legitimate" will the Mittster's victory look if liberals provide the margin of victory? Think of the hilarity that will ensue. We'll simply be adding fuel to their civil war, never a bad thing from our vantage point.

Because it's all a big game, right? A big funny game.

"Politics isn't a game. It's about people..."

Oh, that's Hillary. You want Hillary, or hilarity? Or maybe both.

Anyway, Kos's theory seems not to be that Mitt is the weakest Republican candidate, but that a fragmented field is bad. But look at last night's debate. All the serious candidates — i.e., everyone but Ron Paul — looked good and made each other interesting. I think if one candidate had a lock on the nomination, we'd focus on him and get tired of him. And the other party would know whom they needed to attack and they'd frame their own choices accordingly. And that guy would receive all the attacks. Really, Kos, are you at all thinking straight?