JUSIPER
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Remembering Oliver Sipple
Who?
Says Michael Musto:
I have another tidbit about a gay who got screwed: In case anyone's way prematurely preparing a glowing eulogy for GERALD FORD, let's not forget that, though ex-Marine Oliver Sipple saved Ford's life by helping deflect a bullet aimed at him, Ford adamantly refused to meet Sipple or invite him to the White House and wouldn't even send him a thank you note until a huge fuss was made by politico Harvey Milk. Why? Because Sipple (who later killed himself) was gay! Charming! Let's have no more gays helping presidents, OK?
11:26 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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SOTU II
Bush cannot summon his powers of eloquence, such as they are, when he talks about domestic policy. The best prevaricators believe their own lies. That might be why Bush's words on terrorism can be so effective.
But Bush knows that he has no real plans for health care, unemployment, or AIDS. A speech this hollow is unlikely to move his numbers upwards for more than a day or two--if at all.
11:09 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Best SOTU moment so far
Democrats give a standing ovation when Bush announces his Social Security plan was not passed.
10:47 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Very strange poll
Is the American Family Association hawking John Cornyn as a potential presidential candidate? Its online poll lists several Democratic candidates and only four Republican ones: Rudy Giuliani ("two gay men and a shi tzu"), John McCain (evangelicals have long memories, and he burnt his bridges in Virginia eight years ago), Bill Frist (pro-stem cell research and SEC roadkill), and Texas troglodyte John Cornyn. No George Allen, no Sam Brownback, no Santorum to spread. What gives?
5:44 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The "left" blogosphere
Proof that it was never all that liberal: the top three candidates for President on Daily Kos are Warner, Feingold, and Clark.
Two of the candidates supported the war in Iraq. All three are pro-gun. One is a political cypher with no history of elective office. But the blogosphere has never picked its candidate based on policy positions.
John Kerry, hero of the week for a filibuster attempt that only half his Democratic colleagues joined, is farther to the left of these candidates on health care, poverty, race, gay rights, and gun control than he was of Howard Dean.
Not that it matters; in the end, the rich, largely white, overeducated Daily Kos membership will vote for Hillary against George Allen--even the ones who voted for Nader in 2000 in order to make future Democratic Party candidates "truly left-wing."
3:36 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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U.S. announces new coalition with Iran
I'm late on this one; Human Rights Watch put out this press release nearly a week ago:
In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, a coalition of 40 organizations, led by the Human Rights Campaign, Human Rights Watch, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called for an explanation of the vote which aligned the United States with governments that have long repressed the rights of sexual minorities.
“This vote is an aggressive assault by the U.S. government on the right of sexual minorities to be heard,” said Scott Long, director of the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. “It is astonishing that the Bush administration would align itself with Sudan, China, Iran and Zimbabwe in a coalition of the homophobic.”
In May 2005, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, which is based in Brussels, and the Danish gay rights group Landsforeningen for Bøsser og Lesbiske (LBL) applied for consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. Consultative status is the only official means by which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world can influence and participate in discussions among member states at the United Nations. Nearly 3,000 groups enjoy this status.
States opposed to the two groups’ applications moved to have them summarily dismissed, an almost unprecedented move at the UN, where organizations are ordinarily allowed to state their cases. The U.S. abstained on a vote which would have allowed the debate to continue and the groups to be heard. It then voted to reject the applications.
“The United States recklessly ignored its own reporting proving the need for international support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “The State Department’s ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices’ show severe human rights violations based on gender identity and sexual orientation occur around the world.”
I suppose this action shouldn't surprise us; as Riverbend has pointed out, the return of the veil will be one of the primary effects of our current war on behalf of Shiite clerics in Iraq.
Check out our latest coalition:
In voting against the applications to the NGO committee, the U.S. was joined by Cameroon, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Votes in favor of consultative status came from Chile, France, Germany, Peru, and Romania. Colombia, India, and Turkey abstained, while Côte d'Ivoire was absent.
Yes, that's right, we are to the right of Turkey, India and Romania, and we side with Fidel Castro and extremist Islamic governments all around the world.
“It is an absolute outrage that the United States has chosen to align itself with oppressive governments – all in an effort to smother the voices of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “It is deeply disturbing that the self-proclaimed ‘leader of the free world’ will ally with bigots at the drop of a hat to advance the right wing’s anti-gay agenda.”
While they differ in their choice of religion, George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden now share a common social agenda. This fact probably would not bother most Americans, but it wouldn't hurt if they knew it.
1:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, January 30, 2006
Profiting from the Bush years
I guess Someone has to:
Exxon Mobil Corporation said today that its 2005 earnings totaled $36.13 billion, an increase of 42 percent from the previous year. The amount is the largest annual profit ever for an American company. [...]
The fourth-quarter performance capped a record year for oil companies driven by a surge in crude oil and gas prices. Crude oil prices rose 40 percent last year, driven by rapidly rising demand from economically rising countries like China and India and production problems in oil-producing countries like Nigeria and Iraq.
1:14 PM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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Sunday, January 29, 2006
Fax numbers here
Blogosphere activism against Alito. Good to see.
3:26 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Friday, January 27, 2006
Slow fourth quarter growth
Just 1.1% in the fourth quarter. ABC news adds a link to a related story: "Why are the Rich Getting Richer??"
Increased investments by businesses, which many forecasters had expected to help bolster the economy in the absence of strong consumer spending, increased by 12.2 percent but could not make up for the 17.5 percent drop in consumer spending on durable goods like cars and trucks. The government's spending on national defense also fell 13.1 percent.
And a 9.1 percent surge in imports, which serves as a drain on economic growth, served to pull down growth by more than 1.18 percent.
For American workers, the quarter did hold some positive developments as inflation-adjusted disposable personal income rose 7 percent, after a decline of 0.2 percent in the third quarter. For the full year, disposable income increased 1.4 percent after last year's 3.4 percent gain.
Once again, the last year showed conclusively that about 55% of white voters were more or less unaffected by images of the bodies of dead poor and black people floating in the streets of a major metropolitan area--one that was wiped off the map due to federal negligence. But about 15 of those 55 do care about the economy and the price of gas. The composition of the 110th Congress will be in their hands.
12:07 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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NYT Poll
Congressional approval:
January, 1994: 30-58
January, 2006: 29-61
3:56 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Oprah
Quite an integrity moment for Oprah yesterday. But if you think that's showing class, you must have missed January 20th's episode:
A former child TV star reveals her biggest mistake. Then, parents who hired a stripper for their son's 16th birthday—that was just the beginning!
And just days earlier:
Born with two heads—doctors were baffled. The miracle baby you'll want to meet. Then, a missing girl, a bizarre dream and a psychic "twist." Plus, 36 years ago, someone saved this woman's life. For the first time, they reunite.
3:49 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Economists bearish on the dollar
Geithner, Setser, Feldstein. A brief excerpt from the last of those:
The very large current account deficits are now being financed by bonds and shorter term fixed-income funds. Some of this has recently come from OPEC governments and other oil producers that are temporarily placing revenue in dollar bonds and bank deposits until they can spend those funds on investment or consumption. Much of the inflow in recent years has come from Asian governments that wanted to accumulate foreign ex-change to eliminate the risk of speculative attacks of the sort that hurt those countries in the late 1990s. A large amount is coming from China and other Asian governments to stop a falling dollar reducing their net exports. If they decide to buy fewer dollar bonds, the US current account deficit could not continue to be financed at current exchange rates and interest rates.
The US current account deficit increased ... in the first three quarters of last year and is widely predicted to move much higher in 2006. This unprecedented level is equal to 6.4 per cent of US gross domestic product. Experts estimate that the real trade-weighted value of the dollar must fall by at least 30 per cent just to shrink the trade deficit to a more sustainable level of 3 per cent of GDP. Much larger dollar declines are also possible. ...
The current small interest rate differences in favour of US bonds are not nearly enough to compensate investors for the fall in the dollar that is likely over the next few years. ... The dollar must fall faster than these small interest differentials in order to prevent the current account deficit from increasing more rapidly than GDP. ... At some point, that will trigger a shift away from the dollar. Private investors and the governments ... will inevitably shift at some time from dollars to euros or yen ... That that has not happened already reflects investors’ belief that it is still possible to benefit from the interest differentials before the dollar depreciates. That sanguine belief may, however, reflect a serious misunderstanding of the magnitude and nature of the capital flow to the US.
3:21 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Musto's Oscar rundown
With quite a preface:
And the Emmy for the gayest upcoming awards show goes to . . . not the Tonys this time, but the Oscars, which will finally have the theater queens out-bitched and out-swished! Yes, this year's Academy Awards—just like the Globes—will be a lavender-tinted celebration of homo love, even if the cowpokes are gloomy, Capote barely touches his boyfriend, and the transsexual doesn't get too sexual. (She's a straight woman anyway.) It was a gay-for-pay year peopled with actors who are on the road to golden glory, especially since in actuality they're totally, certifiably—we're told for sure—straighter than the line to the Kodak Theatre. That makes their performances oh so brave and committed, don't you know, while the gays who play straight all the time (like certain movie stars in their everyday lives) don't ever get recognized for all the challenging work that takes.
8:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Deus caritas est
Benedict XVI's first encyclical has arrived, and even with the blessings of no less a man than Hans Küng.
7:22 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Livingstone: Not Flynted but Delayed?
Cindy Adams' blockbuster, via Josh Marshall:
Jack Abramoff's partner Mike Scanlon admitted to digging up former Congressman Robert Livingston's private life. Set to become speaker, Livingston then got sidelined for Tom DeLay's man Denis Hastert. Prosecutors now checking if Abramoff and Scanlon took Livingston down at DeLay's behest.
5:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Charlie Cook
In this week's "Off to the Races":
In any "normal" election year, the micro-political, race-by-race method is clearly superior, since those are the kind of races that late House Speaker Tip O'Neill had in mind when he said "all politics is local." But there are years, most notably 1958, 1964, 1966, 1974, 1980, 1982 (in the House only), 1986 (in the Senate only) and 1994, when politics was anything but local. In those years, the political laws of gravity were effectively suspended, causing large numbers of seats to change hands. In those elections, the inherent advantages of incumbency eroded significantly.
In some cases, inferior candidates beat superior candidates and weak campaigns often beat strong campaigns. While few would argue that 2006 is likely to be a "normal" election, a vigorous debate is certainly waging over whether a Democratic wave will be big enough to force a change in the majority of either chamber.
In the Jan. 17 issue of the Rothenberg Political Report, my good friend and competitor Stu Rothenberg upped his House projection from a 4- to 6-seat Democratic gain to 5 to 8 seats. But he also noted that there was a "bias toward even greater Democratic gains," meaning that he thinks the most likely outcome is that Democrats pick up between 5 and 8 seats
but that the likelihood is greater that the number will be higher than lower. Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report's specialist on House races, puts it a bit wider at 4 to 8 seats, but agrees with Rothenberg that there is more upside than downside risk for Democrats. Chuck Todd, editor of The Hotline, puts his range at 6 to 8 seats.
Rothenberg's latest Senate projection was a 2-4 seat Democratic gain, precisely the same numbers that Jennifer Duffy, editor of The Cook Political Report and specialist on Senate races, has. Todd is at 3 to 4 seats. No one disagrees that the building blocks for bigger Democratic numbers exist, but with nine months to go before Election Day and with most House campaigns still in their infancy, it is premature to predict those big changes.
12:19 PM | Post or Read Comments (2)
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Canada II
1. Gay marriage should survive the next government given the Tories' tepid victory and what appears to be a progressive majority of at least 170-140 on that issue (BQ+NDP+Liberals minus, say, 15 reactionary "conscience" votes--and that's assuming solid Conservative opposition).
2. The agenda for governance will have to be very limited; it now appears that the Conservatives will need support from both the BQ and the NDP to achieve a parliamentary majority.
3. The Green Party's 4.5% of the vote netted 0 seats.
12:37 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bush administration screws seniors again
Yikes:
• A senior who makes a charitable contribution or helps a grandchild pay for college could inadvertently delay her eligibility for months or even years.
• Someone who owns a home that has increased sharply in value could find himself unable to qualify at all, even if the house is his only asset.
• People who bought annuities to protect their assets might instead lose everything to their state's Medicaid recovery efforts.
The changes are part of the $40 billion budget-cutting bill that the House is expected to approve, and President Bush to sign, after lawmakers return from their break Jan. 31. Senior advocates, including the AARP, are trying to block the legislation but concede their efforts are probably in vain.
What's interesting is that the GOP isn't going after the utterly indigent as it ordinarily might, but against elderly voters with some assets--folks who are likely to vote.
12:30 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Ignatieff wins in Toronto
A victory for carpetbaggers everywhere.
12:24 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Canada
Conservatives win but with far fewer seats than expected--their breakthrough was in Quebec, of all places. The left-wing NDP, meanwhile, is rewarded despite for bringing down a progressive government and screwing the Canadian poor for years to come.
12:10 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, January 23, 2006
While we await results from Canadian elections
Here's some other news from the CBC.
6:29 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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John "Courage" McCain
He was in Spartanburg, South Carolina last week and he gave, and let's be fair here, a pretty impressive speech to local GOP activists. He lost that part of the state 2-1 in 2000. So he made sure to mention that Alito was a great judge, and that he would do all he could to confirm him.
Now comes news that the Supreme Court is about to revisit McCain-Feingold, which passed muster 5-4 on December 11, 2003. O'Connor was the deciding vote. If McCain has his way, Alito will be on the Court just in time to eviscerate campaign finance reform.
4:18 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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ARG: Bush at 36
A tie with November for his lowest ever. The poll was taken between January 19 and 22. Other polls seem to be confirming a drop over the last week or two, which only confirms me in my belief that strongest factor explaining variations in Bush's approval rating since June has been neither Iraq, Katrina, impeachable surveillance, Libby nor Abramoff and corruption but simply changes in the price of gas.
ARG's polling for Bush's handling of the economy has been relatively stable at about 35% for the last six months. But look at the table for "National economy a year from now," which shows enormous pessimism: 62% believe it will be worse a year from now. That's the highest ever (In November it was 61%).
The price of oil hit an all-time high after Katrina and Rita and started decreasing in late October. The crisis in Iran has made the price return to near-record territory. Iran may determine the fate of Bush's second term not only because of its power over Iraq and its nuclear weapons grab--which given Iraq, Bush can do little about.
No, Bush's ability to remain in office without the specter of impeachment depends on the stability of the economy. That stability is not in his hands but in the host of crazed nations that control oil supplies and China and Japan, who buy our debt. If you watch CNBC-World you will see analyst after analyst warning international investors to beware of dollar denominated assets and even companies whose profits depend on exports to the U.S. There's a reason for gold's irrational rise: there are a whole lot of people who aren't betting on us anymore. Let's hope they are wrong; it would be a shame for Bush to take the country down with him any more than he already has.
Essential reading: Brad Setser and Nouriel Roubini: "Our Money, Our Debt, Our Problem"
1:52 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Disgusting
Further details of political influence on the Justice Department's voting section in today's Washington Post.
Many current and former lawyers in the section charge that senior officials have exerted undue political influence in many of the sensitive voting-rights cases the unit handles. Most of the department's major voting-related actions over the past five years have been beneficial to the GOP, they say, including two in Georgia, one in Mississippi and a Texas redistricting plan orchestrated by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) in 2003.
The section also has lost about a third of its three dozen lawyers over the past nine months. Those who remain have been barred from offering recommendations in major voting-rights cases and have little input in the section's decisions on hiring and policy.
"If the Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Division is viewed as political, there is no doubt that credibility is lost," former voting-section chief Joe Rich said at a recent panel discussion in Washington. He added: "The voting section is always subject to political pressure and tension. But I never thought it would come to this." [...]
The 2005 Georgia case has been particularly controversial within the section. Staff members complain that higher-ranking Justice officials ignored serious problems with data supplied by the state in approving the plan, which would have required voters to carry photo identification.
Georgia provided Justice with information on Aug. 26 suggesting that tens of thousands of voters may not have driver's licenses or other identification required to vote, according to officials and records. That added to the concerns of a team of voting-section employees who had concluded that the Georgia plan would hurt black voters.
But higher-ranking officials disagreed, and approved the plan later that day. They said that as many as 200,000 of those without ID cards were felons and illegal immigrants and that they would not be eligible to vote anyway.
One of the officials involved in the decision was Hans von Spakovsky, a former head of the Fulton County GOP in Atlanta, who had long advocated a voter-identification law for the state and oversaw many voting issues at Justice. Justice spokesman Eric W. Holland said von Spakovsky's previous activities did not require a recusal and had no impact on his actions in the Georgia case.
Holland denied a request to interview von Spakovsky, saying that department policy "does not authorize the media to conduct interviews with staff attorneys." Von Spakovsky has since been named to the Federal Election Commission in a recess appointment by President Bush.
1:48 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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"You can't legislate away demand"
Methamphetamine has become the red state drug of choice. Restricting Sudafed did put a dent in home-cooked meth but ended up resulting in a new supplier: Mexico.
Sometimes called ice, crystal methamphetamine is far purer, and therefore even more highly addictive, than powdered home-cooked methamphetamine, a change that health officials say has led to greater risk of overdose. And because crystal methamphetamine costs more, the police say thefts are increasing, as people who once cooked at home now have to buy it.
The University of Iowa Burn Center, which in 2004 spent $2.8 million treating people whose skin had been scorched off by the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine at home, says it now sees hardly any cases of that sort. Drug treatment centers, on the other hand, say they are treating just as many or more methamphetamine addicts.
And although child welfare officials say they are removing fewer children from homes where parents are cooking the drug, the number of children being removed from homes where parents are using it has more than made up the difference.
"It's killing us, this Mexican ice," said Mr. Van Haaften, a former sheriff. "I'm not sure we can control it as well as we can the meth labs in your community."
The influx of the more potent drug shows the fierce hold of methamphetamine, which has devastated many towns once far removed from violent crime or drugs. As Congress prepares to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine ingredient that is used to make methamphetamine, officials here and in other states that have recently imposed similar restrictions caution that they fall far short of a solution.
"You can't legislate away demand," said Betty Oldenkamp, secretary of human services in South Dakota, where the governor this month proposed tightening a law that last year restricted customers to two packs of pseudoephedrine per store. "The law enforcement aspects are tremendously important, but we also have to do something to address the demand."
Here, officials boast that their law restricting pseudoephedrine, which took effect in May, has been faster than any other state's in reducing methamphetamine laboratories. Still, when Mr. Van Haaften, director of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy, surveyed the local police, 74 percent said that the law had not changed demand, and 61 percent said supply had remained steady or increased.
In a survey of treatment professionals, 92 percent said they had seen as many or more methamphetamine addicts; the state treated 6,000 in 2005 and expects to treat more than 7,000 this year, based on current trends. Some health officials said abuse among women, typically the biggest users of methamphetamine, was rising particularly fast.
1:56 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Sunday, January 22, 2006
Ugh
The Conservatives will likely win a plurality victory tomorrow in Canadian elections. With any luck they won't win a majority. C-SPAN has done an excellent job, providing CBC broadcasts in the runup to the parliamentaries.
"Seismic shifts" in ideology can be triggered by decidedly nonideological issues like corruption or personality. In 1980 most Americans didn't think they were voting for a dismantling of the welfare state or a massive redistribution of income to the wealthy. In 2000 (and maybe 2004) they didn't vote for it and got it anyway. The issue in 1980 was a sense of malaise and national weakness, and in 2000, Bill Clinton. In both cases the move was to a different party, but the trigger for radical change was a decidedly non-radical issue.
Most democratic elections are decided by non-ideologues--puzzling and frustrating to true believers of all stripes, but nonetheless a fact. In this one respect, Canada is no better than any other nation: its fate is still decided by the 10-20% who put their fingers to the wind before voting.
4:43 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Majority for impeachment over wiretapping charges
Huge:
By a margin of 52 to 43 percent, citizens want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of Pres. Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International.
The poll found that 52 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
Of those contacted, 43 percent disagreed, and 6 percent said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percent. [...]
Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 76 percent of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 50 percent of independents and 29 percent of Republicans.
Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion. 70 percent of those 18-29 favored impeachment, 51 percent of those 31-49, 50 percent of those 50-64, and 42 percent of those older than 65. Among women, 56 percent favored impeachment, compared to 49 percent of men. Among African Americans, 90 percent favored impeachment, compared to 67 percent of Hispanics, and 46 percent of whites.
The new Zogby poll shows a major shift in support for Bush's impeachment since June 2005. In a Zogby poll conducted June 27-29, 2005 of 905 likely voters, 42 percent agreed and 50 percent disagreed with the identical statement asked about in this recent polling.
3:35 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Worse than even I thought
There is little evidence of a wave right now--much less a tidal wave, according to Zogby, and that doesn't even count conflicting Maryland results.
If the election were held now, the survey found that, of the 33 U.S. Senate races on ballots around the country this year, Democrats would pick up a net gain of one seat. They could knock off Ohio Republican Mike DeWine, a two-term incumbent moderate who has angered his home-state base by going against President Bush on judicial nominees, and Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, a staunch conservative who is running a tough race for re-election this year against the son of a very well-known Democratic icon. Familial politics works in the favor of the GOP in New Jersey, however, as Republican Tom Kean, Jr. the son of a popular governor there, polls well against his Democratic opponents, including Bob Menendez, who was recently appointed to fill the senate seat vacated by Jon Corzine, who resigned after winning the race for governor in November.
Democrats are leading in the Senate races in Minnesota and Maryland, while Republicans appear ready to hold onto their seat in Tennessee.
Bush has had a relatively good two months, even though Zogby has his approval rating back at 39%. That state of affairs is not likely to last much longer.
3:33 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, January 21, 2006
God bless John Conyers
For running an incredible hearing on domestic surveillance last Friday. The video is up at C-SPAN.org.
It would be wonderful to get the Senate back, particularly given its power to confirm judicial nominees. That said, Democrats did little to block Bush's judicial nominees even when they controlled it in 2001-2002.
The majority has far more power in the House than it does in the Senate. And the ranking members of House committees right now are far to the left of the country (and, incidentally, much of the blogosphere on domestic class issues--but more on that some other time): John Conyers would chair Judiciary. Charlie Rangel would chair Ways and Means. Henry Waxman would chair Governmantal Reform. Barney Frank (!) would head Financial Services. Juanita Millender-McDonald would replace inmate Bob Ney in House Administration. And Louise Slaughter would replace the self-loathing David Dreier in Rules.
Because members of Congress are increasingly drawn from districts that are either safely Democratic or Republican, the body is extraordinarily polarized. That works to the detriment of the nation right now. There is no tidal wave visible now in the way there was one two months ago. But the necessary elements continue to be present. And the price of gas is skyrocketing once again.
3:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Best reality show you won't see
Welcome to the Neighborhood.
12:14 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Friday, January 20, 2006
Google didn't cooperate with the Feds
But why did AOL, MSN and other corporations? EPIC West points to this quote by Susan Crawford in the New York Times:
Susan P. Crawford, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, said she could understand why the companies complied. 'There's this real perception that if you're not with us [law enforcement] you're against us,' she said. 'So the major companies will cooperate with enormously burdensome requests just to avoid future vengeance being wreaked on them' by the Justice Department.
8:42 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Jack and George
Via Josh Marshall, The Washingtonian reports the existence of at least five pictures of the two together.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan admits that the White House has been on a search mission for any photos showing President Bush with toxic lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with the Justice Department on its investigation of a wide-ranging lobbying scandal.
At a press conference, McClellan said if there were pictures, which officials hadn’t found, they might have been taken at a Christmas-party line, where the President poses with hundreds of people. “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him,” McClellan said.
The comment about searching raised images in the press room of a “White House plumbers” operation looking for incriminating photos.
If the White House can’t find the photos, prosecutors already know where to look. The Washingtonian has seen five photos of the President with Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist’s native-American clients.
Abramoff was named a “pioneer” in the Bush presidential campaign, collecting more than $100,000, in $2,000 maximum increments, for his campaign in 2004. Bush has returned $6,000 of Abramoff’s contributions, the part that would represent the legal limit for Abramoff; his wife, Pam; and a client.
Sources say the photographs are being kept safe. Abramoff would tell prosecutors, if asked, that not only did he know the President, but the President knew the names of Abramoff’s children and asked about them during their meetings. At one such photo session, Bush discussed the fact that both he and Abramoff were fathers of twins.
6:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Baltimore judge strikes down MD law against gay marriage
You've got to figure the biggest smiles were at Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's office; between this and Lott's re-election announcement, chances for a Democratic takeover of the Senate have dropped from slim to eensy-weensy.
6:34 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Toussaint McCall
Hooray for London Lee, whose soul MP3 blog rescues this old country-tinged soul classic, best known today for its bizarre appearance in the John Waters' exuberant Hairspray. "Nothing Takes the Place of You" would later appear on Isaac Hayes' legendary Black Moses and would be covered by Ruth Brown (yet another Hairspray connection), Koko Taylor and the underrated William Bell. The definitive recording is likely Al Green's, from his 1976 Have a Good Time.
12:14 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, January 19, 2006
Osservatore Romano: PA judge was right
Final nail in the coffin for American Republican Catholics. The Vatican's newspaper of record has published a piece praising the Dover decision.
The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.
"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."
The article was not presented as an official church position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI.
Advocates for teaching evolution hailed the article. "He is emphasizing that there is no need to see a contradiction between Catholic teachings and evolution," said Dr. Francisco J. Ayala, professor of biology at the University of California, Irvine, and a former Dominican priest. "Good for him."
The Vatican is aware of the current and prior popes' complicity in Bush's 2004 campaign. Neither pope would have apologized for it, since under them, the Church's position against (adult-adult) sex has trumped its concern for the poor and its opposition to war since 1978.
My suspicion, rather, is that much of the exuberance with which Rome is hammering creationists is driven by fear and loathing of evangelical Protestantism, which is ultimately as great a threat to the Church as Islam. Expect a lot more of it.
8:06 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wilson Pickett, 1941-2006
The troubled soul legend is no more.
LISTEN: "I'm in Love"
7:26 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Osama confirms the flypaper theory
The first good news neocons have had in ages:
Arabic TV station al-Jazeera has broadcast an audio tape it says is by the al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden.[...]
The speaker on the tape said the reason there had not been an attack in the US since 11 September 2001 was not because of superior US security, but because the group had been engaged in activities in Iraq - and because operations in the US "need preparations".
"The operations are happening in Baghdad and you will see them here at home the minute they are through (with preparations), with God's permission," he said.
US officials have said they believe Bin Laden hiding in a mountainous area on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. [...]
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that in the US the immediate political effect of the tape will probably be to boost support for President George W Bush.
Indeed. Osama's 2004 pre-election TV appearance was surely intended to assist Bush, whose regime has been the greatest gift to Islamism (if not al Qaeda) since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
An appearance in January, however, wins no elections; all it does is give Bush excuse to flog domestic surveillance, which never affected Osama much in the first place.
3:11 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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"Transformational diplomacy"
Not that Condy can capitalize it, but the State Department's new strategic resource placement actually sounds like a good idea. And an important one, because department personnel on the ground may actually have a shot at repairing the damage done to the United States' reputation and security interests worldwide once the Bush Administration is out of office.
"Over the next few years, the United States will begin to shift several hundred of our diplomatic positions to new critical posts for the 21st century," she said.
A senior department official said he did not expect objections to U.S. diplomatic expansion from China or any other country.
Miss Rice said the current deployment of diplomatic resources no longer reflects the relative strategic importance of regions and countries.
The United States has "nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany -- a country of 82 million people -- that we have in India -- a country of 1 billion people," she said. There are "nearly 200 cities worldwide with over 1 million people in which the United States has no formal diplomatic presence."
"This is where the action is today, and this is where we must be," she said. "To reach citizens in bustling new population centers, we cannot always build new consulates beyond a nation's capital." [...]
The phrase "transformational diplomacy," the secretary said, means working "to build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that will respond to the needs of their people and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system."
"We seek to use America's diplomatic power to help foreign citizens better their own lives and to build their own nations and to transform their own futures," she said.
Oh oh. But three years from now, this will be a great aid.
2:29 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Political time bomb part CIII
The Medicare drug program continues to infuriate seniors. "GOP lawmakers invested a large portion of the winter recess trying to calm down their elderly constituents."
Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said a survey in December found that although a plurality of voters favors the program, seniors are more likely to perceive the benefit as complicated and costly.
Nor is there any assurance that the Republicans' rollout will diminish widespread concerns. As the midterm elections approach, Kohut said, "This could be either the one thing that people say either, 'Wow, they really accomplished something here,' or they say, 'Look at what the Republicans have done. They've fattened up their insurance buddies and left us out in the cold.' "
The prospect of a crisis in the Medicare drug program, coming during a congressional corruption scandal and a shake-up of the House GOP leadership, is politically terrifying to some Republicans.
2:30 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Remarkable
The Bush administration asks for Google's search records. And not a peep from anyone, proving once again how little Americans value their freedom.
2:19 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Hardball humor
Chris Matthews starts out with the Hillary Clinton plantation quote. "More on that story later," he said. "But first let's turn to..." Suddenly viewers see a live picture of Trent Lott. The expression on Lott's face says, "He isn't possibly about to ask me about that... is he?" Chris doesn't; Lott's face breaks into a huge smile.
8:05 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Jones v Flowers
And unbelievably, this case has nothing to do with Bill Clinton.
4:01 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Supreme Court assisted suicide shocker
Wow. Oregon's law is upheld. Kennedy writes the 6-3 opinion, Scalia, Thomas and Roberts dissenting.
From Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog:
The Court conceded that the attorney general does have the authority to write rules for enforcing federal laws on illegal drugs. But, it said, federal law "does not authorize the Attorney General to bar dispensing controlled substances for assisted suicide in the face of a state medical regime permitting such conduct."
While allowing doctor-aided suicide to continue when a state allows it, the Court made no sweeping declarations about patients' or doctors' rights. The decision, rather, was based almost entirely upon the Court's interpretation of what Congress had done in giving the federal government the authority to regulate the prescription of drugs by doctors.
In a bow to states' rights, the majority commented: "The background principles of our federal system...belie the notion that Congress would use such an obscure grant of authority to regulate areas traditionally supervised by the states' police power." Thus, the Court said, it was unnecessary to determine whether Congress had made a clear statement of intent to interfere with state authority over medical practice, or whether Congress had intended to preempt that state authority.
The federal Controlled Substances Act "and our case law," the Court said, "amply support the conclusion that Congress regulates medical practice insofar as it bars doctors from using their prescription-writing powers as a means to engage in illicit drug dealing and trafficking as conventionally understood. Beyond this, however, the statute manifests no intent to regulate the practice of medicine generally....Tbe structure and operation of the CSA presume and rely upon a functioning medical profession regulated under the State's police powers."
"It is difficult," the Court added, "to defend the Attorney General's declaration that the statute impliedly criminalizes physician-assisted suicide."
It looks as if the Court really just passed the issue back to Congress:
The decision in the assisted-suicide case apparently settles -- at least for the time being -- the question of whether the Bush Administration can effectively put a stop to doctor-aided suicide. Only if Congress were to enact new legislation, filling the gap that the Congress found on Tuesday, could a new assault be made on that practice.
Coming off Terry Schiavo, that could be a bit of a hot potato for GOP presidential primary contenders. What's a McCain or Giuliani to do when Brownback and Allen trump the Robertson (Roberts?) party line?
12:48 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Hillary's double-messaging
Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. The House "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," said Clinton, D-N.Y. "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard." "We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
This is why she'll win the nomination in 2008. And because she assumes African American voters will be with her, she probably won't push to filibuster Alito.
Amazing, you may say. But there's no reason for a politician to go out on a limb when she doesn't have to.
4:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Guess who wrote his first encyclical?
It's called Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), and the Vatican will be releasing it in a matter of days. Rocco Palmo's sneak previews here and here.
3:29 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Monday, January 16, 2006
Songs of the day
"Martin" by Shirley Caesar
"Stand Up" by Al Green
"Move On Up" by Curtis Mayfield
"A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke
"Love's in Need of Love Today" by Stevie Wonder
"Someday We'll All be Free" by Aretha Franklin
4:09 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Sunday, January 15, 2006
Jane on Kate O'Beirne
Pithy and, as always, on the mark:
If Kate really wants to walk the talk, she ought to go home and start scrubbing toilets with her toothbrush like she counsels other women to do and STFU.
But she'd rather reap the rewards of a law degree and a career made possible by the feminists she's paid to deconstruct, a grand hypocrisy that nobody who allowed her to pimp her book this week on their shows seemed capable of pointing out. And God forbid anyone suggest SHE get one cent less than her male counterparts, she'd unearth that hatchet from the middle of her face and land it in someone's back.
4:18 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Application!
Patriot Boy has retrieved it, the capstone to a brilliant week.
12:37 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Robert Smigel
The only visionary remaining on the once brilliant show, he struck gold again with a Pat Robertson cartoon that opened the show. Will link to video when it's available.
12:33 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)