Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

So far, Palin hasn’t said anything that the Republicans haven’t been saying for the last eight years. She’s proving herself to be little more than a parrot for the same old policies that have been given a nice little mask.

And after all the prep she’s had, they never told her the word is pronounced nu·cle·ar?

With all the talk about Sarah Palin and her latest question-evasions, I thought the economy has been getting less than it’s needed share of coverage. After all, just a couple of days ago the stock market was in a crisis, the DOW dropped around 400 points in a day, AIG pretty much went bankrupt, and gold set a record for most gain in a single day by ground from around $740 bucks a troy ounce to $860 a troy ounce.

More Americans are focusing on the economy, a place where John McCain has admitted he sucks at and Sarah Palin has established herself to be incapable of balancing a budget.

So for this crisis, what is Bush’s solution? Set aside 700 billion dollars to buy shit assets without a plan to have that money paid back.

Here, I’ll let you read for yourself.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers 33 minutes ago

The Bush administration asked Congress on Saturday for the power to buy $700 billion in toxic assets clogging the financial system and threatening the economy as negotiations began on the largest bailout since the Great Depression.

The rescue plan would give Washington broad authority to purchase bad mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions for the next two years. It does not specify which institutions qualify or what, if anything, the government would get in return for the unprecedented infusion.

Democrats are pressing to require that the plan help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and to condition the bailout on new limits on executive compensation.

Congressional aides and administration officials are working through the weekend to fill in the details of the proposal. The White House hoped for a deal with Congress by the time markets opened Monday; top lawmakers say they would push to enact the plan as early as the coming week.

“We’re going to work with Congress to get a bill done quickly,” President Bush said at the White House. Without discussing specifics, he said, “This is a big package because it was a big problem.”

The proposal is a mere three pages long, but it gives sweeping powers to the government to dispense gigantic sums of taxpayer dollars in a program that would be sheltered from court review.

“It’s a rather brief bill with a lot of money,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., the Banking Committee chairman. “We understand the importance of the anticipation in the markets, but we also know that what we’re doing is going to have consequences for decades to come. There’s not a second act to this — we’ve got to get this right.”

Lawmakers digesting the eye-popping cost and searching for specifics voiced concerns that the proposal offers no help for struggling homeowners or safeguards for taxpayers’ money.

The government must bail out the financial system “because if we don’t, it will have a tremendous impact on American consumers, homeowners, taxpayers and the rest,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in San Francisco.

But, she added, “We cannot deal with this unless this bailout helps families stay in their homes.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. said “we cannot allow ourselves to be in denial about the threat now facing the world economy. From all indications, that threat is real, and the consequences of inaction could be catastrophic. Every single American has a stake in preventing a global financial meltdown.”

The proposal would raise the statutory limit on the national debt from $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion to make room for the massive rescue.

“The American people are furious that we’re in this situation, and so am I,” the House’s top Republican, Ohio Rep. John A. Boehner, said in a statement. “We need to do everything possible to protect the taxpayers from the consequences of a broken Washington.”

Signaling what could erupt into a brutal fight with Democrats over add-on spending, Boehner said “efforts to exploit this crisis for political leverage or partisan quid pro quo will only delay the economic stability that families, seniors, and small businesses deserve.”

Bush said he worried the financial troubles “could ripple throughout” the economy and affect average citizens. “The risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package. … Over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

He added, “People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it’s important to have confidence in our financial system.”

Neither presidential candidate took a position on the proposal. GOP nominee John McCain said he was awaiting specifics and any changes by Congress.

Democratic rival Barack Obama used the party’s weekly radio address to call for help for Main Street as well as Wall Street.

Their language reflected a tricky balance that politicians in both parties are trying to strike, just six weeks before Election Day: Back a plan that doles out hundreds of billions to companies that made bad bets and still identify with the plight of middle-class voters.

Besides mortgage help and executive compensation limits, Democrats are considering attaching middle-class assistance to the legislation despite a request from Bush to avoid adding items that could delay action. An expansion of jobless benefits was one possibility.

Bush sidestepped questions about the chances of adding such items, saying that now was not the time for posturing. “I think most leaders would understand we need to get this done quickly, and you know, the cleaner the better,” he said about legislation being drafted.

Treasury officials met congressional staff for about two hours on Capitol Hill on Saturday. Discussions centered on how the plan would work, and Democrats proposed adding the executive compensation limits and new foreclosure-prevention measures. Details of those changes were not available Saturday, as staff aides worked to draft them. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson conferred by phone for about 20 minutes in the afternoon, gauging how the negotiations were unfolding.

Among the key issues up for negotiation is which financial institutions would be eligible for the help. The proposed legislation doesn’t make it clear, leaving open the question of whether hedge funds or pension funds could qualify.

The proposal does not require that the government receive anything from banks in return for unloading their bad assets. But it would allow the Treasury Department to designate financial institutions as “agents of the government,” and mandate that they perform any “reasonable duties” that might entail.

The government could contract with private companies to manage the assets it purchased under the rescue.

Paulson says the government would in essence set up reverse auctions, putting up money for a class of distressed assets — such as loans that are delinquent but not in default — and financial institutions would compete for how little they would accept.

I understand the need for quick action in a case like this, but trying to rush through a bill of 700 BILLION dollars with only two days of debate and thus far no assurances that John Q is gonna be able to keep a roof over his head and little or no stipulations as to getting the money back aside from Bush’s word that “we’ll get a lot of it back over time”? Yeah, considering his track record I’m less than reassured.

Actually, I’m horrified.

Oh, I just loved the part about the national debt. From $10.6 trillion to $11.3 trillion if the bill passes. Whoopie.

In other news; 40 people in a Pakistan hotel were killed by a suicide bomber.

Woo hoo! The more I look at Sarah Palin’s political record, the more it looks like a political fun house… or a mad house, maybe.

Now it turns out that Irish blogger Maman Poulet managed to catch Sarah Palin in a big fat lie that the mainstream media never even bothered to check out.

Sarah Palin said that she had lots of foreign policy experience because she had been to Ireland, Germany and Kuwait. Better revise that, GOP. It seems that Palin wasn’t being honest about the Ireland part.

Maman Poulet discovered that Sarah Palin’s supposed trip to Ireland consisted of a layover of an hour or two in a sequestered part of Ireland’s Shannon Airport when her plane on the way to Kuwait stopped for refueling. Does that count as visiting Ireland, and having foreign policy experience there? Sure, if you’re running for Vice President of the Wasilla High School Student Council.

It’s a shameless padding of Palin’s resume that indicates more about her lack of experience than about her qualifications to succeed John McCain and become President of the United States.

The Republicans say that Sarah Palin should be elected Governor because she has executive experience - although it’s in very small communities. Sarah Palin has had experience running a business, however. She was the partial owner of a car wash in Anchorage, Alaska. Together with her husband, she held 40 percent of the car wash’s ownership.

And how did Sarah Palin do with the executive experience of running a small business? Lousy. She ran the business into the ground because she couldn’t be bothered to keep up with paperwork. Sarah Palin failed to file legally required reports or to pay the state licensing fees for the business, and so the car wash was shut down.

In addition to the car wash, Sarah Palin was the owner and operator of a marketing consultancy with the odd name of Rouge Cou. Rouge Cou is a rough translation into French of the American phrase redneck. Actually, the French translation should have been Cou Rouge. Sarah Palin couldn’t even get that right, and the consulting business closed after it failed to get even one client.

With this record of executive failure, why should Sarah Palin be given the position of Vice President under the elderly and most-likely-to-die-in-office President in American history, John McCain?

Sarah Palin is no friend of small towns in America.

How many small town main streets across the USA have died when Wal-Mart parked its trucks on the outskirts of town and built a big box store, stealing all the customers that small business relied upon? Those big box stores can offer low, low prices because they sell stuff made in sweatshop factories in countries like China and India, and because they have powerful lobbyists working for them in Washington D.C.

Big box stores ruin small towns.

So, what did Sarah Palin do as mayor of the village of Wasilla? She welcomed the big box stores to set up shop on the edge of town. Practically rolled out the red carpet for them.

Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny says of that when she was mayor, Sarah Palin, “turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.”

If you want America to turn into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots, then Sarah Palin is your kind of politician. If not, then you need to take a stand now and join with those Americans working to make sure that Sarah Palin is never placed within a heartbeat of being President of the United States.

Flag, flag, flag. All Republicans seem to talk about these days is flags. Which candidate loves the American flag more than the others? Which candidate has the most flag lapel pins on their jacket? Which presidential candidate has licked the flag out of adoration, and had flag pudding for lunch?

The flag is an obvious symbol for love of country.

So, the question is this: Why are Republicans so concerned that they people might not love America? Why do they think that America isn’t worthy of being loved?

I think it’s because they don’t understand what makes America worthy of love. They know that they’re supposed to love the flag, and the national anthem, and the Fourth of July and all that, but they don’t know why.

That’s because Republicans don’t understand that what they’re supposed to love are the principles upon which the American nation is founded, not the symbols that represent those principles.

Because the Republicans don’t understand the principles, they get obsessed with the symbols. Ironically, the Republicans attack the principles of the American nation in order to protect the symbols.

Republicans don’t love America. They just love the flag, and the national anthem, and the Fourth of July. There’s a big difference.

The moral character of the Republican Party is revealed in a shameful state by its consideration of Condoleeza Roce as a vice presidential candidate.

Condoleeza Rice was already infamous for deceiving Congress about the nature of the briefing given to George W. Bush just before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Now her name will be forever linked to torture.

At a meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell that was approved by George W. Bush himself, Condoleeza Rice gave her strong endorsement to the use of torture by CIA agents against prisoners.

Rice told the CIA, “This is your baby. Go do it!”

What kind of sadist would refer to torture as a “baby”? The Condoleeza Rice kind of sadist.

If John McCain chooses Condoleeza Rice as his running mate, we’ll know that he is that same kind of sadist as well.

How clean is John McCain? For that matter, how clean is the news media? Bloomberg news, which as a telecommunications company is mixed right up in the very telecom lobbying business it purports to report objectively upon, has quoted “a senior adviser to John McCain” as saying that John McCain is not inappropriately influenced by the large number of lobbyists that he associates with. This “senior adviser to John McCain”, Charles Black, is quoted as saying that “John McCain does no favors for, nor gives no special treatment to, any lobbyists — even if they are a friend of his.”

The thing is, Charles Black isn’t exactly a neutral, objective source in the matter. Charles Black is a top official in the John McCain for President campaign, but what’s more, Charles Black is a lobbyist himself.

Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a powerful lobbying company. Here’s what BKSH itself has to say about its lobbying work “BKSH’s capabilities encompass a broad range of economic, social, domestic and international issues. Our professionals have managed “front-page” issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. Our mission can be as targeted as securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation, or as broad as strengthening the bilateral relationship between a foreign country and the United States.”

Charles Black runs a lobbying firm with the goal of “securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation”. So, what is he doing serving as a top adviser of the presidential campaign of John McCain, a member of the U.S. Senate? Why is John McCain forming close political alliances with lobbyists who have openly declared their intention to help their corporate clients manipulate congressional legislation?

Furthermore, why does Bloomberg News cite Charles Black, a lobbyist who is professionally dedicated to influencing legislation in Congress through contact with politicians like John McCain, as a credible source to reassure Americans that John McCain does no special favors for lobbyists?

To use lobbyist Charles Black as a source on this story, Bloomberg reporter Edwin Chen makes himself appear either incompetent and naive or as corrupted by the influence of media business lobbyists as John McCain.

The real moral values of the Republican Party are demonstrated in brutal, sadistic form in the last federal budget proposed by George W. Bush.

The federal budget President Bush proposes for 2009 begins a program of cutting 196 billion dollars from Medicare health care benefits for the elderly and extremely impoverished Americans.

Why would the Republicans do such a cruel thing? Well, part of that money taken away from Medicare will go to pay for policies that make rich Americans even richer.

But, some of the money the Republicans will save by cutting Medicare benefits for senior citizens will go to pay for something even more inhumane. The Republicans propose using some of the money taken away from Medicare to pay for a new generation of nuclear bombs.

What do we need new nuclear weapons for? Terrorists cannot be defeated with nuclear missiles. Nuclear weapons are designed to kill civilians by destroying entire cities, vaporizing them, melting them, burning them into nothing more than radioactive cinder and ash.

These are the moral values of the Republican party: Less medicine for the sick, and more nuclear weapons to kill people by the millions.

This isn’t about getting tough, or being fiscally conservative. It’s inhumane. It’s just plain insane.

The Republican Party agenda, led now by George W. Bush, and to be continued by John McCain, leads on a path of fear and destruction.

America can do better. We must do better.

What in the world will poor Mike Bloomberg do now? He was all ready to buy the 2008 presidential race with his billions of dollars, on the premise that only a billionaire could fairly represent the American people. The idea, set up for him with the Unity08 public relations machine, was that there just wasn’t any room for a vigorous contest for the Democratic and Republican party nominations. As Unity08 used to whine, Iowa and New Hampshire get to determine who the presidential candidates are, and we all just have to sit back and take whatever they give us… so it would be far better to take a candidate instead that would be picked for us by the Unity08 cadre of PR hacks and lobbyists.

With the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire, it became clear that the Democratic nomination would not be decided by Iowa and New Hampshire. Now, with the Michigan primary giving a victory to Mitt Romney, Bloomberg and his Unity08 toadies can’t claim that Iowa and New Hampshire have a stranglehold on the Republican Party either.

For both political parties, it seems that the nomination process won’t be decided until Super Tuesday, February 5, and quite likely not even then. So, Michael Bloomberg sits on the sidelines, waiting, finding that the American people are not clamoring for him after all.

Don’t be sad, Mr. Bloomberg. You can always go buy yourself an island, or something.

Rudolph Giuliani just said, in the Republican presidential debate, that “America is not moving in the wrong direction.”

So, Giuliani thinks that an increasing disparity in income between rich and poor is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that gas prices at around $3.50 per gallon, and crude oil at $100 per barrel is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that increasing temperatures and regional water wars is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the housing crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the credit crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the exploding federal budget deficit is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the shrinking Bill of Rights is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that two wars going on for years and years with no plan to get out is the right direction?

What kind of idiot would say such a thing? Is Rudolph Giuliani so out of touch with the current American reality?

Here’s a great indication of the difference between the current state of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: During the Iowa caucuses, the web site of the Iowa Democratic Party is running smooth and fast. The web site of the Republican Party of Iowa, however, is running as slow as slugs, taking minutes to load, when it loads at all.

Take note, voters, of which political party is better able to execute a plan.

Ron Paul has his own religious beliefs that lead him to oppose abortion, even of a fertilized egg. That’s his right to believe things like that, but when it comes to government policy, the fact is that Americans have the legal right to get an abortion. The problem with Ron Paul’s attitude is that he wants to use the power of government to enforce his own particular religious beliefs about abortion.

For example, Ron Paul is intent on inflicting his religious beliefs about reproductive health on Peace Corps volunteers. Peace Corps volunteers are among the best that our country has to offer to the rest of the world, but Ron Paul wants to force them to accept second rate health care for the time of their service. Ron Paul has introduced legislation into the House of Representatives that would forbid the government from transporting Peace Corps volunteers to receive abortions, essentially forcing them to give birth, even if they have been raped, if they are serving in a country where abortion is not available.

It’s shameful for Ron Paul to abuse the sacrifices made by Peace Corps Volunteers by withholding health care services from them in the midst of their sacrifice.

(Source: Library of Congress)

Mitt Romney is so obviously a phony that even Republicans admit that his political speeches are nothing but a load of bull. Check out what Mike Huckabee had to say about Mitt Romney: “What Gov. Romney has said is off the charts in terms of being inaccurate and not just inaccurate, but being blatantly untrue.”

Well, if even the infamously corrupt Mike Huckabee can see the dishonesty of fellow Republican Mitt Romney, why should any of the rest of us trust him?

Mike Huckabee loves to tell people about how he is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. What he has been more reluctant to share is that he took tens of thousands of dollars from a cigarette company while he was Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas.

Forty thousand dollars is more than what many Americans make from an entire year of work, but it’s what Mike Huckabee got for making just one speech in front of the group representing a secret source of money, which was in turn funded by a cigarette company. Huckabee claims not to have known about that, but witnesses place him meeting with an executive from the cigarette company about the fund and where its money came from.

Taking money from big corporations while he was in public office was no big deal, says Huckabee. If that kind of payoff is okay with you, then Mike Huckabee for President may just be your favorite campaign. If not, vote for a clean, progressive candidate for President instead.

(Source: Newsweek, December 17, 2007)

Ron Paul has personal religious beliefs that lead him to the theological conclusion that human rights begin in complete form from the moment that an egg is fertilized - even before the fertilized egg implants itself in the womb. The idea of a fertilized egg floating around in a fallopian tube being a full person is odd enough, but Ron Paul has odder ideas too, and seeks to spread those ideas using the power of government.

For example, Ron Paul has on multiple occasions introduced legislation to forbid any federal program from spending any money on family planning programs. The reason? Ron Paul seems to have something against contraception. If a married couple has limited resources and can’t afford to provide for additional children, or if a single person doesn’t want to make a child without a stable family situation, contraception is a responsible choice. However, though the government will lose quite a large amount of money providing services to assist families in raising children, Ron Paul is opposed to helping families make the relatively unexpensive choice of when to start pregnancy and have children.

Abortion is not the issue. The legislation that has been introduced by Ron Paul forbids all family planning services, not just family planning services related to abortion.

Whatever Ron Paul has against families using contraception on his own personal basis, it is uncompassionate, socially unwise, and economically unsound for him to work to restrict American families’ efforts to make responsible choices about when to expand their families.

(Source: Library of Congress)

I’m not a Republican myself. I’m a Democrat’s Democrat. Yet, I can recognize that many Americans are dedicated Republicans, and they have their needs too… needs that can be served by a good Democratic leader like Hillary Clinton.

Over at New York Newsday yesterday, there was a great story about a woman named Shannon Mallozzi. Mallozzi has been a Republican all her life, but she’s campaigning for Hillary Clinton now.

Republican Rupert Murdoch is supporting Hillary Clinton for President too. Plenty of Republicans supported Bill Clinton. If they supported one Clinton, they can support another.

I know that it’s supposed to be a political taboo to cross party lines and support someone on the other side. Haven’t we all had enough of those kind of rules now?

At long last, America can finally breathe a sigh of relief and come together. I think it’s time. Time for Republicans to support Hillary Clinton for President.

Ron Paul’s answer to the question, “What do you see as the role of the Environmental Protection Agency?”: He said, “You wouldn’t need it.”

Really? You wouldn’t need the EPA? So, we don’t need the work the EPA is doing to stop arsenic and PCBs and mercury and raw sewage from entering our rivers? We don’t need the work that the EPA is doing to control acid rain, or smog? We just don’t need it?

I suspect that what Ron Paul meant to say is that big corporations wouldn’t need the EPA. That’s precisely why we don’t need Ron Paul as President.

(Source: Grist, October 16, 2007)

Had cancer? Got multiple sclerosis? How about diabetes?

If you’ve had any medical troubles in the past, and we get a Republican elected President in 2008, then you’re out of luck. People with pre-existing conditions just wouldn’t be covered under the health care plans proposed by the top Republican presidential candidates.

“People with preexisting conditions would not be able to get coverage or would not be able to afford it,” says economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “Unless it’s in a state that has very strong consumer protections, they would likely be denied coverage.”

George W. Bush and his Republican followers love to talk about the value of good hard work. They hate people just sitting around unemployed, they say. Their message to Americans having hard times is: Get a job!

It’s an odd thing, then, that Republicans actually oppose programs that help people get work. In the federal budget the Republicans have proposed for 2008, the funding for vocational and technical education programs is cut in half.

Those programs help give students the skills that will make them valuable to employers, keeping the economy strong. The programs encourage and enable people to get a job, just like Republicans say everybody ought to.

Republicans may talk about the value of hard work, but they don’t back up their talk with action. They show the low regard they have for working people in the funding cuts they hurl at the pro-work programs in the federal budget.

‘lo and behold, what do I find when I wake up and log into Yahoo this morning?

(link)

Bush vetoes water projects bill
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him.

Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides money for projects like repairing hurricane damage, restoring wetlands and preventing flooding in communities across the nation.

This level of opposition virtually assured that Bush would have a veto overridden for the first time in his presidency. He has used the veto very sparingly for most of the time he has been in office, but has made more use of it recently.

“When we override this irresponsible veto, perhaps the president will finally recognize that Congress is an equal branch of government and reconsider his many other reckless veto threats,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“More than two years after failing to respond to the devastation and destruction of Hurricane Katrina, he is refusing to fund important projects guided by the Army Corps of Engineers that are essential to protecting the people of the Gulf Coast region.”

The $23 billion water bill passed in both chambers of Congress by well more than the two-thirds majority needed to vacate a veto and make the bill law.

Bush objected to the $9 billion in projects added during negotiations between the House and Senate. He hoped that his action, even though it is sure not to hold, would cast him as a friend to conservatives who demand a tighter rein on federal spending.

But Bush never vetoed spending bills under the Republican Congress, despite budgetary increases then, too. Attempting to demonstrate fiscal toughness now, in the seventh year of his presidency, carried the risk being criticized for doing too little, too late or as waging a transparently partisan attack against the Democrats who now run Capitol Hill.

The president took the gamble, making it part of a broader effort to more pointedly and frequently take on Democratic leaders.

The legislation originally approved by the Senate would have cost $14 billion and the House version would have totaled $15 billion. Bush and a few Republicans complained that the final version was larded with unneeded pet projects pushed by individual lawmakers — sending the overall cost of the bill much higher.

“Only in Washington could the House take a $14 billion bill into a conference with the Senate’s $15 billion bill and emerge with a compromise that costs taxpayers over $23 billion,” said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

She also said Bush vetoed the bill because it is “fiscally irresponsible” and falls outside the scope of the Army Corps’ mission.

Critics noted that the bill piles more work on the Army Corps of Engineers, which already has a backlog of $58 billion worth of projects and an annual budget of only about $2 billion to address them.

If Bush is overridden, the measure would give a green light to projects in virtually every state. It only authorizes the projects; the actual funding must be approved separately.

The authorizations include:

_$3.6 billion for major wetlands and other coastal restoration, flood control and dredging projects for Louisiana, a state where coastal erosion and storms have resulted in the disappearance of huge areas of land;

_nearly $2 billion for the restoration of the Florida Everglades;

_nearly $2 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to build seven new locks on the upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers;

_$7 billion for various projects related to hurricane mitigation in Mississippi and Louisiana, including assuring 100-year levee protection in New Orleans;

_hundreds of smaller dredging, wetlands restoration and flood control projects across the country.

The Congressional Budget office says the bill includes projects that, if fully funded, would cost $11.2 billion over the next four years and $12 billion in the decade after that. The bill also calls for increased oversight of the Corps, requiring an outside review of water construction projects.

The veto was Bush’s fifth. Four of those have come since Democrats took over Congress in January, but this one was unusual because it also pits the president against a sizable number of lawmakers from his own party. Previous Bush vetoes include two of bills allowing expanded federal research using embryonic stem cells, and a spending bill that would have required troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Last month, Bush vetoed a major expansion of a children’s health insurance program, also over objections from some Republicans. But he has far more partisan unity on that issue than on the water projects bill. It was the first time Bush went into a veto knowing it was a futile effort. This turns the tables somewhat on him, as he has been criticizing Democrats almost daily for wasting time by passing legislation they knew he would not accept.

Isn’t it funny that now that there’s a Democratic majority in Congress Bush is finally taking the packaging off his veto pen? Ain’t it also funny that Bush considers things that will cost around 14 billion over the next 14 years to help fix some badly needed things is “fiscally irresponsible” and yet I just found an article that report economists are speculating that the war in Iraq could balloon to over $1 TRILLION dollars. Whether that is true or not that same article is reporting that the daily cost is over $200 million a day.

Which is fiscally irresponsible? Adding in things to help protect American citizens from natural disasters and restore the environment for $14 billion, or continue an occupation of a foreign nation that serves as nothing but a black hole for the economy and is turning this into the most expensive military campaign in American history?

You want to be fiscally responsible? Pull troops out of Iraq and STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO COMPANIES FOR OUTSOURCING AMERICAN JOBS!

I really didn’t think they could be this out of touch with the American people.

GOP Rivals Argue Who’s Most Conservative

GOP rivals argue who’s most conservative
By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press WriterMon Oct 22, 6:31 PM ET

Republican front-runners Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney defended their conservative credentials in the face of pointed attacks from campaign rivals Sunday night in the most aggressive debate to date of the race for the White House.

“You’ve just spent the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don’t want you to start fooling them about mine,” Arizona Sen. John McCain bluntly told Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Former Sen. Fred Thompson made Giuliani his target, saying the former New York mayor supported federal funding for abortion, gun control and havens for illegal immigrants.

“He sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues,” added Thompson, referring to the New York Democrat who leads in the polls for her party’s presidential nomination.

The clashes in the early moments of a 90-minute debate prompted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to say he wanted no part of a “demolition derby” with others of his own party. “What I’m interested in is fighting for the American people.”

Whatever their disagreements among one another, the eight rivals agreed on one issue. They took turns criticizing Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.

Asked whether she was fit to be commander in chief, Romney replied, “I’d vote no.”

Giuliani said he agreed with one thing the former first lady said recently. “I have a million ideas. America cannot afford them all,” he quoted her as saying as laughter filled the debate hall. “I’m not making it up.”

McCain said Clinton had recently tried to spend $1 million on a Woodstock Museum, commemorating perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.

“Now my friends I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,” he said.

“I was tied up at the time,” he deadpanned, and the audience rose to applaud the reference to the five and a half years McCain spent as a prisoner of war during Vietnam.

The debate was the first since Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas dropped out of the race, winnowing the field. The remaining rivals stood on a stage at a resort 10 miles from Walt Disney World, fielding questions at an event broadcast by Fox News Channel.

The leadoff Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 3, 2008, for Republicans. In their most recent debate, Oct. 9, Giuliani and Romney swapped charges with each other, vying for primacy in the race.

This time they largely ignored each other. Instead, Giuliani’s lead in the nation polls, as well as Romney’s perceived strength in early voting states, made them obvious targets for McCain and Thompson.

The first question went to Giuliani, asked whether he was more conservative than Thompson. “I can’t comment on Fred,” the former mayor said.

He then added that he had brought down crime, cleaned up Times Square, cut taxes and eliminated the city’s deficits. “I think that was a pretty darned good conservative record,” he said.

Giuliani took a more conservative position on gay marriage than he has thus far, saying he would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if states begin to legalize it.

Giuliani lived with an openly gay couple after separating from his second wife, Donna Hanover, and one member of the couple said at the time that Giuliani promised to marry them if gay marriage was ever legalized.

Attacked by the former Tennessee senator moments later, Giuliani fired back at his antagonist. “Fred has problems, too,” he said. He said Thompson was the “single biggest obstacle” in the Senate to legislation limiting the ability of individuals filing lawsuits to recover unlimited damages.

“He stood with the Democrats over and over again” on the issue, Giuliani added.

Thompson said he believed states should decide whether to limit lawsuits in their own states.

Republicans in Congress tried for years to pass legislation that would cap damages in lawsuits, but never succeeded before losing their majority to Democrats in 2006.

Romney was asked about McCain’s earlier claims that he had shifted positions on a number of issues to appeal to conservative Republicans.

The former Massachusetts governor responded that he was proud of his record, particularly since the state had an overwhelmingly Democratic Legislature. “I fought to make sure we kept our taxes down. I fought for pro-growth strategies. I cut taxes,” he said.

Moments later, though, McCain personally turned on Romney.

“Governor Romney, you’ve been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don’t want you to start fooling them about mine,” he said.

Saying he would run on his record as a conservative, McCain added, “I don’t think you can fool the American people. I think the first thing you’d need is their respect.”

Coming up next, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain debate the looming threat of of a domino effect of the Red Menace. Stay tuned!

Bush veto of child health bill sustained
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago

House Democrats on Thursday failed to override President Bush’s veto of their pre-election year effort to expand a popular government health insurance program to cover 10 million children.

The bill had bipartisan support, but the 273-156 roll call was 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority that supporters needed to enact the bill into law over Bush’s objections. The bill had passed the Senate with a veto-proof margin.

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program now subsidizes coverage for about 6 million children at a cost of about $5 billion a year. The vetoed bill would have added 4 million more children, most from low-income families, at a cost of $7 billion annually. About 600,000 adults also participate in the program.

To pay for the spending increase, the bill would have raised the federal tax on cigarettes from 39 cents to $1 a pack.

“This is not about an issue. It’s about a value,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said just before the vote. “For the cost of less than 40 days in Iraq, we can provide SCHIP coverage for 10 million children for one year.”

Forty-four Republicans voted to override Bush’s veto; that was one fewer than the number of GOP members who voted Sept. 25 to pass the bill. Only two Democrats voted to sustain Bush’s veto, compared with six who had voted against the bill. The two were Reps. Jim Marshall of Georgia and Gene Taylor of Mississippi.

“We won this round on SCHIP,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said. She said a million-dollar lobbying campaign by several labor unions and advocacy groups to turn enough Republican votes for a successful override did not work.

Bush, anticipating that the veto would stand, has assigned three top advisers, including Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, to try to negotiate a new deal with Congress.

“It’s now time for us to get to the hard work of finding a solution and get SCHIP reauthorized,” Leavitt said. “We also have a larger task, to provide every American with the means of having an insurance policy.”

Republican opponents of the bill said it would encourage too many middle-income families to substitute government-subsidized insurance for their private insurance. The bill would have given states financial incentives to cover families with incomes up to three times the federal poverty level — $61,950 for a family of four.

“That’s not low-income. That’s a majority of households in America,” said Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.

The bill said that illegal immigrants would remain ineligible for the children’s program, but Republicans seized on a section that would have allowed families to provide a Social Security number to indicate citizenship. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said it is too easy to get a false number, which would give an opening for thousands of illegal immigrants to enroll.

But Democrats said the bill’s original focus remained intact. States would earn bonuses for signing up low-income children already eligible for the program but not enrolled.

“Under current law, these boys and girls are entitled to their benefits,” said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. “Continuing to not provide them with coverage is a travesty.”

Bush has recommended a $1 billion annual increase, bringing total spending over five years to $30 billion — half the level called for in the bill that he vetoed.

Some public opinion polls indicate support for expanding the program. Sixty-one percent said Congress should override Bush’s veto of a bill expanding the program, according to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released Wednesday. Blacks were more likely than whites to favor overriding Bush’s veto.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, H.R. 976, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/

(This version CORRECTS in the second paragraph `two-thirds that majority supporters’ to `two-thirds majority that supporters …’)

Yeah, here’s a surprise.

I still find republican hypocrisy rather amusing. It’d be downright funny if it didn’t harm so many people.

Bush: Kids’ health care will get vetoed

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 4 minutes ago

President Bush again called Democrats “irresponsible” on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children’s health insurance program.

“Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed,” Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. “Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point.”

At issue is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state-federal program that subsidizes health coverage for low-income people, mostly children, in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private coverage. It expires Sept. 30.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers announced a proposal Friday that would add $35 billion over five years to the program, adding 4 million people to the 6.6 million already participating. It would be financed by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents to $1 per pack.

The idea is overwhelmingly supported by Congress’ majority Democrats, who scheduled it for a vote Tuesday in the House. It has substantial Republican support as well.

But Bush has promised a veto, saying the measure is too costly, unacceptably raises taxes, extends government-covered insurance to children in families who can afford private coverage, and smacks of a move toward completely federalized health care. He has asked Congress to pass a simple extension of the current program while debate continues, saying it’s children who will suffer if they do not.

“Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage — not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage,” Bush said.

The bill’s backers have vigorously rejected Bush’s claim it would steer public money to families that can readily afford health insurance, saying their goal is to cover more of the millions of uninsured children. The bill would provide financial incentives for states to cover their lowest-income children first, they said.

Many governors want the flexibility to expand eligibility for the program. So the proposal would overturn recent guidelines from the administration making it difficult for states to steer CHIP funds to families with incomes exceeding 250 percent of the official poverty level.

You heard it, folks. Bush keeps flappin’ his gums about how important the kids are but when it comes right down to it what is his message?

Fuck the little bastards.

What kind of Republican values are these, that when one Republican brings out a valid criticism of another Republican, the critical Republican gets censored?

This week, a web site critical of Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign was shut down, so as to avoid upsetting the Republican orthodoxy. Apparently, Republican Party leaders did not want to allow any criticism of Fred Thompson, even valid criticism, on the off chance that Fred Thompson could become the Republican presidential nominee.

PhoneyFred.org, created by a Republican, pointed out the obvious: Fred Thompson’s record of one and half terms in the United States Senator was sadly mediocre. The site’s creator wrote, “You’re probably in the same boat: You can’t get the theme to ‘Law and Order’ out of your head, but can you name one thing that Fred did during his eight years in the United States Senate?”

Fred Thompson was not competent enough to do much in the Senate, and he isn’t competent to serve as President of the United States. Unfortunately, the Republican Party wants its followers to pretend not to see this obvious truth. They’re willing to sacrifice honesty for the sake of power.

PhoneyFred.org is now offline. The truth is still the truth.

When it comes to freedom, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul seems to think that it all comes down to one thing: Money. He believes that property rights are the foundation of all rights. In other words, Ron Paul believes that, if a person doesn’t own anything, they don’t have any rights.

For this reason, Ron Paul proposes giving special tax breaks to wealthy estates. Paul writes,

“If you truly own your property, you have the right to dispose of it any way you wish. You can sell it, give it away, or direct who will receive it when you die. This control is the essence of property rights. If you can’t control what happens to your property, you don’t really own it. That’s why the estate tax is so destructive”

The problem with Ron Paul’s defense of tax breaks for wealthy estates is that there is no such thing as a legal right for people to spend money however they wish. The Constitution does not contain the phrase “property rights”, and does not establish the concept of general property rights in any language at all. People do not have the right to dispose of their money in any way that they wish. They cannot buy nuclear weapons, for example. They also do not have the right to dispose of hazardous materials they own by just dumping them in the nearest river. In the United States, people may have property, but they also have a responsibility to other people.

That’s why we have government, and it’s why the government has the constitutionally-established right to gather taxes in order to sustain itself. Government is the collective creation of all citizens, through democratic participation and through the contribution of money. Government mitigates between individual desires and the needs of society as a whole, protecting individuals from each other.

Ron Paul’s proposal to abolish estate taxes encourages selfish irresponsibility. Money is not, after all, just property. Money is an embodiment of what people can expect from their government, and from each other. People may own what they buy with money, but society as a whole is what makes money valuable.

What Ron Paul forgets when he defends abolishing estate taxes is that the taxes are not paid by the people who die and leave their estates to their inheritors. Estate taxes are paid by the inheritors. Wealthy people have the right to accumulate massive estates, and to direct certain people to inherit those estates, but once the inheritance takes place, they’re dead, and they don’t get to direct their money as if they’re alive. The dead do lose control of their property. That’s a natural part of death, and there’s nothing Ron Paul and his libertarian supporters can do to stop that.

Inheritance is a form of income, just like wages in compensation for work, and it ought to be treated in the same way. It is unjust to make people who work for their money pay income taxes on that money, while giving people who inherit their money a special loophole that allows them to keep all of their income.

Estate taxes are necessary because the accumulation of the power of property is destructive to society as a whole. If people like Paris Hilton, who gain substantial property just through their luck of being the children of extremely wealthy families, do not have to pay their share to support the government, then non-wealthy citizens have to give a larger share of their own property to keep the government functioning.

(Source: Sierra Times, June 14, 2006)

It seems that J. Clifford here at Irregular Times isn’t the only one who finds Ron Paul’s political philosophy bizarre and illogical. I found an interesting old article from the St. Louis Riverfront Times about Ron Paul’s attendance at a conference of politicians demanding that the United States withdraw from the United Nations.

The date of the article: July 11, 2001. Two months to the day before the attacks of September 11, 2001, Ron Paul was advocating that the United States pull out of efforts to cooperate with the other nations of the world. That doesn’t show the best of judgment, does it?

The writer of the article, Ray Hartmann, attended that conference as a journalist, and observed Ron Paul, among other politicians. Here’s what Hartmann observed about Ron Paul’s behavior at the time:

Two weeks ago, Peregrin Wood noted that Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a professional lobbyist who has promoted political agendas because he has been paid to do so. That seems to put Fred Thompson in a nasty ethical position in which it won’t be clear, if he’s elected President, who he is really working for - the people, or the clients who are paying for his campaign? For a lobbyist like Fred Thompson, there may not be that much difference.

However, Fred Thompson’s position as the top lobbyist candidate for 2008 is being challenged by John McCain. The Chicago Tribune reports that John McCain has more lobbyists on his campaign staff than any other presidential candidate. John McCain is has so many corporate lobbyists working on his presidential campaign that one could easily question whether the McCain 2008 campaign is really a presidential campaign or just a public relations campaign used by lobbyists to promote the political agendas favored by their clients.

So, which one would you identify as the top lobbyist candidate of 2008 - Fred Thompson or John McCain?

It’s beyond me why so many Democrats are falling for the idea that Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is some kind of progressive knight in shining white armor. The truth is that Ron Paul is far from progressive.

Just take a look at how Ron Paul’s campaign for President is dealing with the environment… or rather, how the Ron Paul 2008 campaign is not dealing with the environment.

Ron Paul doesn’t even seem to understand that the environment is an important issue at all. The Pentagon has identified global warming as a threat to America’s national security at least as grave as terrorism, but Ron Paul hasn’t gotten the news.

On the issues page the Ron Paul campaign has put up on its web site, the following issues are discussed:

There’s just one qualification, unless you count being a Washington D.C. corporate lobbyist or Hollywood actor a qualification, that Fred Thompson has for becoming President of the United States. There’s the one and a half terms in office he spent as a senator.

What kind of senator was Fred Thompson? I decided to find out by taking a look at the height of his Senate career, five years after entering the Senate, and four years before he decided to quit serving the public and go back to being a corporate lobbyist and an actor on television. This is the time when Senator Fred Thompson ought to look the best. It’s the time when we ought to see Fred Thompson at work on the political issues that are at the core of his career.

So, I went back and took a look at the issues that Fred Thompson actually had listed on his web site back in his web site. These are the issues that Senator Thompson thought were the most important at the time:

Kosovo
Independent Counsel Reauthorization
Tennessee Valley Authority
Campaign Finance Investigation
Social Security
Federalism Enforcement Act
Tennessee Preservation
Regulatory Reform
Term Limits
Biennial Budget
Fort Campbell
Vacancies Reform Act
Campaign Finance Reform
Year 2000 Computer Problem
Govt. Waste, Fraud & Abuse
Oak Ridge
Tennessee Tourism & Travel
Satellite & Missile Technology
Computer Security
Great Smoky Mountains

The biggest impression is that most of these aren’t really the issues that were at the heart of what America had to deal with back in the 1990s, and they’re certainly not at the core of what America is dealing with today. These are mostly second tier issues without much of a vision to unite them.

The war in Kosovo was an important issue at the time. No arguments against that. But it was a war, for goodness sakes. What kind of senator wouldn’t have an issue statement on that?

Campaign finance reform, I will grant, is also an important issue, as is government fraud, waste and abuse. These are perennial problems, however, that require maintenance. They don’t reflect any great underlying vision or leadership.

But the rest of the issues? Middling, unremarkable, mush. A huge number of the issues that Fred Thompson identified are really just pork barrel for his political supporters in Tennessee. For goodness sakes, it seems that Senator Thompson even fell for the whole Y2K hoax.

Attention to these sorts of issues is necessary for the functioning of the government, but Fred Thompson’s focus on them does not reflect a mind that is capable of leadership at the Presidential level.

From his work in the Senate, as reflected in the issues that he actually worked on, Fred Thompson seems like the sort of person who functions best not working in top leadership, but at two or three levels down, in mid-management. Fred Thompson is the kind of guy you want attending committee meetings, hashing out the nitty gritty details, plodding along at the daily grind.

Fred Thompson is just not presidential material. Maybe, if a Republican were to win the White House, he could be Secretary of Transportation, or something like that. Maybe.

Fred Thompson’s record in the Senate was just plain unremarkable. That suggests the following motto for the Fred Thompson for President campaign: Fred Thompson - Ho Hum 2008.

Earlier today, Green Party presidential candidate Alan Augustson challenged Republican candidate Ron Paul’s call for the dismantling of the International Criminal Court. Auguston called Paul’s opposition to the prosecution of war criminals “really disturbing”.

Auguston then reiterated his own support for the International Criminal Court, saying, “One item, central to my plans for building peace, is for the US to become a signatory to the Rome Accord, submitting thereby to the jurisdiction of the ICC in The Hague.”

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are, jointly, the strongest threat to Republican dominance in a generation. So it should come as no surprise (CNN) that frustrated conservative students are plotting to kill Hillary Clinton, and that Barack Obama has had to get a Secret Service detail. Some Republican Party members cannot deal with the fact that the Democratic Party and its idealistic vision for America are ascendant — and so, like they did with Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Republicans are planning to kill Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Any such attempt will only more openly expose the Republicans for the hatemongers they are.

To say that I’m indignant over this bit of news would be an understatement. I support a woman’s right to chose under any circumstances, and I find the idea that there’s not even a provision for a woman’s health to be…deplorable, to say the least.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_abortion

Justices uphold abortion procedure ban

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 9 minutes ago

The Supreme Court’s new conservative majority gave anti-abortion forces a landmark victory Wednesday in a 5-4 decision that bans a controversial abortion procedure nationwide and sets the stage for further restrictions.

It was a long-awaited and resounding win that abortion opponents had hoped to gain from a court pushed to the right by President Bush’s appointees.

For the first time since the court established a woman’s right to an abortion in 1973, the justices said the Constitution permits a nationwide prohibition on a specific abortion method. The court’s liberal justices, in dissent, said the ruling chipped away at abortion rights.

The 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

Siding with Kennedy were Bush’s two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, along with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The law is constitutional despite not containing an exception that would allow the procedure if needed to preserve a woman’s health, Kennedy said. “The law need not give abortion doctors unfettered choice in the course of their medical practice,” he wrote in the majority opinion.

Doctors who violate the law could face up to two years in federal prison. The law has not taken effect, pending the outcome of the legal fight.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court.”

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the Bellevue, Neb., doctor who challenged the federal ban, said, “I am afraid the Supreme Court has just opened the door to an all-out assault on” the 1973 ruling in Roe. Wade.

The administration defended the law as drawing a bright line between abortion and infanticide.

Reacting to the ruling, Bush said that it affirms the progress his administration has made to defend the “sanctity of life.”

“I am pleased that the Supreme Court has upheld a law that prohibits the abhorrent procedure of partial birth abortion,” he said. “Today’s decision affirms that the Constitution does not stand in the way of the people’s representatives enacting laws reflecting the compassion and humanity of America.”

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Abortion rights groups as well as the leading association of obstetricians and gynecologists have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although Kennedy said alternate, more widely used procedures remain legal.

The outcome is likely to spur efforts at the state level to place more restrictions on abortions.

“I applaud the Court for its ruling today, and my hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation’s laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life,” said Rep. John Boehner (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio, Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

Jay Sekulow, a prominent abortion opponent who is chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, said, “This is the most monumental win on the abortion issue that we have ever had.”

Said Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: “This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women’s health and safety. … This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them.” She had argued that point before the justices.

More than 1 million abortions are performed in the United States each year, according to recent statistics. Nearly 90 percent of those occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and are not affected by Wednesday’s ruling. The Guttmacher Institute says 2,200 dilation and extraction procedures — the medical term most often used by doctors — were performed in 2000, the latest figures available.

Six federal courts have said the law that was in focus Wednesday is an impermissible restriction on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

“Today’s decision is alarming,” Ginsburg wrote in dissent for the court’s liberal bloc. She said the ruling “refuses to take … seriously” previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion.

Ginsburg said the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.”

Ginsburg said that for the first time since the court established a woman’s right to an abortion in 1973, “the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman’s health.”

She was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens.

The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman’s uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.

Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method — dismembering the fetus in the uterus — is available and, indeed, much more common.

In 2000, the court with key differences in its membership struck down a state ban on partial-birth abortions in a challenge also brought by Carhart. Writing for a 5-4 majority at that time, Justice Breyer said the law imposed an undue burden on a woman’s right to make an abortion decision in part because it lacked a health exception.

The Republican-controlled Congress responded in 2003 by passing a federal law that asserted the procedure is gruesome, inhumane and never medically necessary to preserve a woman’s health. That statement was designed to overcome the health exception to restrictions that the court has demanded in abortion cases.

But federal judges in California, Nebraska and New York said the law was unconstitutional, and three appellate courts agreed. The Supreme Court accepted appeals from California and Nebraska, setting up Wednesday’s ruling.

Kennedy’s dissent in 2000 was so strong that few court watchers expected him to take a different view of the current case.

Kennedy acknowledged continuing disagreement about the procedure within the medical community. In the past, courts have cited that uncertainty as a reason to allow the disputed procedure.

“The medical uncertainty over whether the Act’s prohibition creates significant health risks provides a sufficient basis to conclude … that the Act does not impose an undue burden,” Kennedy said Wednesday.

While the court upheld the law against a broad attack on its constitutionality, Kennedy said the court could entertain a challenge in which a doctor found it necessary to perform the banned procedure on a patient suffering certain medical complications.

The law allows the procedure to be performed when a woman’s life is in jeopardy.

The cases are Gonzales v. Carhart, 05-380, and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 05-1382.

It’s been a tired refrain of the knee-jerk pro-war right wing of American politics that “we have to fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here”. There, in this statement, refers to Iraq. Here refers to the United States of America, or as the right wingers prefer to call it, The Homeland.

This slogan in favor of war disintegrates like cotton candy in a rainstorm when it is realistically evaluated. The most obvious problem is that there was no threatening terrorist activity in Iraq until the invasion of Iraq by the USA inspired it there. Every year that the American military does its work in Iraq, there are more terrorists there, not fewer. So, by being over there, the American military is creating more people who would like to hurt us here.

The right wingers insist that this isn’t so, despite the evidence to the contrary, but they acknowledge the existence of the problem in their continued obsession with keeping foreigners from crossing the border into the United States. Take, for example, the statement by Republicans congressional candidate Keiran Michael Lalor, who states on his campaign web site,

“Kieran has seen the necessity of a muscular defense. He knows that confronting terrorists on their turf is essential to thwarting attacks on ours. He also understands that fighting them over there while letting them in over here is a deeply flawed policy. According to Kieran, true homeland security requires protecting our borders and prosecuting illegal immigrants and those who hire or enable them.”

Mr. Lalor’s justifications for the love of war and for the hatred of foreigners run so fast together that they end up contradicting each other. First, Lalor says that we have to fight terrorists in Iraq so that we don’t have to deal with terrorist here in the United States. Then, in the very next breath, Lalor says that we have to fight against terrorist infiltrators here in the United States.

If Lalor really believes that fighting a war in Iraq prevents the need to fight against terrorist infiltrators in the United States, then why is Lalor proposing that the American government fight the war in Iraq AND fight the threat of terrorist infiltrators here in the United States? If Lalor believed the words coming out of his own mouth about Iraq, he would say that we don’t need to worry about terrorists infiltrating the United States. The war in Iraq would prevent them from coming here, by Lalor’s own theory.

The problem is that Lalor doesn’t really have an actual theory of war or a theory of terrorism. All Lalor has is an ideology that promotes war and promotes a Security Cult of the Homeland. Neither the war nor the Homeland Security system are founded in rational needs. Rather, they are founded upon the thrill some people feel in the thrills of hunting and fighting.

Let them get their thrills in the private sphere. Let them go turkey hunting, and train to fight in the boxing ring, if they’re looking for an adrenaline rush. Their blood lust should not be allowed, however, to direct the American identity.

Bush does it again. Everyone remember when King Shrub II got John Bolton jammed into the UN? Welp, he’s repeated his antics only this time with Belgium. Let’s read, shall we?

Bush Bypasses Senate to Name Ambassador

Bush bypasses Senate to name ambassador
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress, where Democrats had derailed Fox’s nomination.

The appointment, made while lawmakers were out of town on spring break, prompted angry rebukes from Democrats, who said Bush’s action may even be illegal.

Democrats had denounced Fox for his donation to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign. The group’s TV ads, which claimed that Sen. John Kerry exaggerated his military record in Vietnam, were viewed as a major factor in the Massachusetts Democrat’s election loss.

Recognizing Fox did not have the votes to obtain Senate confirmation in the Foreign Relations Committee, Bush withdrew the nomination last week. On Wednesday, with the Senate on a one-week break, the president used his power to make recess appointments to put Fox in the job without Senate confirmation.

This means Fox can remain ambassador until the end of the next session of Congress, effectively through the end of the Bush presidency.

“It’s sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate,” Kerry said in a statement.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he plans to ask the Government Accountability Office to issue an opinion on whether the recess appointment is legal.

Recess appointments are intended to give the president flexibility if Congress is out for a lengthy period of time, such as the four-week adjournment in summer. But Dodd said the law was not intended to circumvent lawmakers’ approval.

“This is really now taking the recess appointment vehicle and abusing this beyond anyone’s imagination,” said Dodd, a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. “This is a travesty.”

Bush also used his recess appointment authority to make Andrew Biggs deputy director of Social Security. The president’s earlier nomination of Biggs, an outspoken advocate of partially privatizing the government’s retirement program, was rejected by Senate Democrats in February.

Presidents since George Washington have made appointments during congressional recesses to fill positions in the executive and judicial branches. Bush has used the authority more frequently than some — but not all — of his most recent predecessors, making 171 so far, compared with 140 for President Clinton over two terms, 77 by his father in one term and 243 by President Reagan during two terms.

Some of Bush’s more notable recess appointments include John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton arrived at the U.N. in August 2005 after being appointed during a congressional recess because he twice failed to be confirmed by the Senate. Still unable to get Senate backing, he stepped down in December.

Others include include William Pryor and Charles Pickering (news, bio, voting record) as federal appeals court judges, in 2004, and Otto Reich as an assistant secretary of state, in 2002.

Fox, a 77-year-old St. Louis businessman, gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat group. He is national chairman of the Jewish Republican Coalition and was dubbed a “ranger” by Bush’s 2004 campaign for raising at least $200,000. He is founder and chairman of the Clayton, Mo.-based Harbour Group, which specializes in the takeover of manufacturing companies.

Fox has donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since the 1990s.

In answer to questions about the Swift Boat donation, Fox has said he gives when asked, insisting he was not involved with the writing of the ad scripts and never saw them before they aired but had been aware of the general thrust of the group.

Fox issued a statement saying he is “delighted and honored” to accept the ambassadorial appointment.

“As the son of a man who fled Europe to find freedom and a better life, I am especially humbled by the opportunity to return to that continent as this nation’s representative,” he said.

While Mitt Romney could only get $20 million in contributions, Rudy Giuliani had just $15 million and John McCain had to settle for a paltry $12.5 million, Hillary Clinton dominated with $26 million in campaign contributions. Hillary Clinton is simply dominant. And what is much more impressive than even that is that Senator Clinton managed to collect her $26 million in contributions with 80% of donors giving just $100 or less. These 80% — some 40,000 donors — represent the American heartland, not some bigwigs, and they will be able to give again and again and again as Senator Clinton needs the money without hitting campaign contribution maximums. The numbers alone show that Hillary Clinton is on her way to an impressive, dominating presence in the 2008 campaign. The big boys of Republican politics have nothing to show compared to Hillary Clinton.

A post was made here earlier today at the Irregular Times Diaries by someone calling herself lilmiss. Lilmiss wrote that we ought to vote for John McCain for President in 2008 because McCain is a man “who will stand his ground”.

Stand his ground? John McCain? Sadly, Senator McCain is more like a man who ground his stand.

Senator McCain’s stand used to be that he was against torture. Sadly, in 2006, John McCain ground that stand to a pulp when he voted for the Military Commissions Act.

John McCain did a classic flip flop when he supported the Military Commissions Act. You see, John McCain was against it, before he voted for it.

First, John McCain made a big deal about how he could never support the Military Commissions Act because it legalized torture, and he would never, ever support that. Then, he Mccain met with George W. Bush to negotiate an acceptable compromise. McCain emerged with what he said was a compromise that would not allow torture, but then, over the weekend, the Senate Republicans changed it all right back so that torture would be legalized by the new law once again.

Then, John McCain voted for it anyway. John McCain voted for torture.

John McCain talks about principles, and doing what’s right, but talk is cheap. Watch what John McCain actually does. When the going gets tough, John McCain grounds his stand.

John McCain is electable, but he is more than that. John McCain is a war hero. John McCain was tortured, but he didn’t break. John McCain could have left his VC prison cell early, but he chose to remain behind with his unit rather than betray them. John McCain knows what sacrifice is. John McCain stands his ground. Do you want a president who will stand his ground? Vote John McCain for President!

Visit the official John McCain 2008 website and do your part by contributing a donation today! Mr. McCain suffered for this country! The least you can do is open your wallet to help this fine man and help our nation find truly courageous leadership again.

I have had it with you people. You think you are so clever. But now I have your number. The self-important losers at Irregular Times who have been heaping criticism on Unity08 are PARTISAN dividers! Read their words:

“I am a Democrat”
I am a Democrat because the Democratic Party does the best job representing my values at the local, state and national level.”

Well, I am a Unity08 supporter because I believe in moving beyond rancor, beyond pointless disagreement, beyond stage-show politics to real solutions for real people by real people who care about people. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Who is paying you to do this? The Democrats, the Republicans, or both?

Arizona Senator John McCain has started to fall behind in the race for the Republican nomination for President in 2008, and so he has begun a desperate campaign to remake himself as the most rabid right wing radical in the race. Over the weekend, Senator McCain declared that he does not just oppose Roe v. Wade in theory, but actively wants to work to see the Supreme Court decision overturned, and would work to do so as President.

McCain said: “I do not support Roe vs. Wade. It should be overturned.”

What’s next? John McCain already supports George W. Bush’s insane vision of an escalation of the Iraq War. So, in order to appear really, really pro-war, will McCain next declare that he supports pulling out of Iraq, and then invading all over again, to start the war out nice and fresh?

John McCain has gone off the deep end.

If you’re having a faith-based campaign for President, it should be no problem to fail miserably as governor of a large state and yet continue to harbor presidential aspirations. This is the path charted by George Pataki, who leaves Albany this year as one of the most unpopular governors in New York State history. Pataki is so unpopular that he didn’t even try to run for re-election this year. What’s a Pataki to do? Run for President, of course!

Pataki is one unsavory character. In his attempts to gain right wing support for a campaign for President in 2008, Pataki took many radical steps, such as vetoing legislation that would have improved access to the morning after pill as a form of emergency contraception. Pataki claimed that if he didn’t veto the legislation, teenagers across New York State might come to harm. To harm from what? Harm from not getting pregnant while still in high school? The veto was given after pressure from right wing religious groups, whom Pataki apparently regards as part of his political base.

Now it appears that Pataki’s long political maneuvering was all for naught. The Republican base doesn’t seem interested in supporting Pataki’s campaign for President anyway. Apparently, just being from New York State is reason enough not to get Republican support.

Jeff Kramer of the Syracuse Post Standard lampoons George Pataki’s rapidly sinking presidential fortunes of the Pataki for President idea in an article entitled, Support for Pataki in Iowa up in smoke. The new Republican Party chairman in New York State, Joseph Mondello, refuses to support the Pataki for President campaign.

On the blogfront, Hoffman’s Hearsay advises Pataki, “Don’t bother man, just ride off into the sunset like a good boy.” The Rock Town Blog comments, “Rumors of New York State Governor George Pataki’s larger ambitions are nothing new and have swirled for years. The real news would be if he actually had a chance.”

From the way it’s looking so far, I’d guess that George Pataki will drop out of the presidential race before he even gets the chance to throw his hat in. However, self-delusion has always been one of Pataki’s dominant personality traints, so keep an eye out for Pataki, just in case.

If the Senate Republicans were to read tea leaves for the American voters, they’d probably come out with an interpretation such as, “You are sleepy alll the time, because you refuse to drink hot caffeinated beverages.”

It’s this kind of backwards thinking that leads the Republicans in the United States Senate to return Trent Lott to a high position of power as Minority Whip. The Republicans see that they’ve lost many seats to the Democrats in the Senate, so what conclusion do they make? Do they conclude that they’ve been too extreme in their ideology, and give a relative moderate, like Olympia Snowe, the Minority Whip position? No, no. They decide to put another Southern right winger, one who has mourned the loss of forced racial segregation, into that office.

I wonder what will happen if they lose another seat to the Democrats in 2008. Will they start a special Minority Senate Office for the Prevention of Miscegenation?

Some people just can’t win for losing, can they? When I saw this on Yahoo News I was about to go to sleep, so I figured that if it wasn’t mentioned when I woke up I’d post it.

So here it is:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061021/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_detainees

U.S. jailed man once tortured by Taliban

By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 21, 8:11 AM ET

Abdul Rahim insists he’s an apolitical student who fled a strict father. But he’s fallen into a black hole in the war on terror in which first the Taliban and then the United States imprisoned him as an enemy of the state.

Arrested by the Taliban in Afghanistan in January 2000, Rahim says al-Qaida leaders burned him with cigarettes, smashed his right hand, deprived him of sleep, nearly drowned him and hanged him from the ceiling until he “confessed” to spying for the United States.

U.S. forces took the young Kurd from Syria into custody in January 2002 after the Taliban fled his prison. Accusing him of being an al-Qaida terrorist, U.S. interrogators deprived him of sleep, threatened him with police dogs and kept him in stress positions for hours, he says. He’s been held ever since as an enemy combatant.

Rahim’s story is one of several emerging from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay as defense lawyers make bids to free their clients while the Bush administration tries to use a new law to lock them out of federal courts.

After the Supreme Court overturned President Bush’s plans for commissions to try detainees, Bush obtained a new law from Congress barring federal courts from hearing appeals for release by any alien “properly detained as an enemy combatant.” The Justice Department told district and appellate judges this week they no longer have jurisdiction to hear dozens of such pending cases.

A court fight over that is certain.

Calling the move to strip jurisdiction “a direct attack on our constitutional structure,” Federal Public Defender Steven T. Wax in Portland, Ore., said, “We will litigate that as hard as we can in whatever forum we can find, because they are wrong.”

Other detainees whose lawyers filed new evidence in U.S. District Court motions this month include:

Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese charity worker arrested at 1:30 a.m. July 18, 2002, in his Peshawar, Pakistan, apartment. Co-workers swear he was a hospital administrator with no connection to terrorists. A dissenting U.S. Army major on the panel that reviewed the unclassified and secret evidence against him called it “unconscionable” to detain him because some employees of the same charity may have supported terrorist ideals.

Nazar “Chaman” Gul, a 29-year-old Afghani who thought he was working as an armed fuel depot guard for the Karzi government installed by U.S. forces. The man who hired him swears that was the case, but he is accused of being a member of a terrorist group. The lawyers say he has been mistaken for a commander of that terror group, named Chaman Gul, also held at Guantanamo.

All three are represented by Wax and his assistants. Wax’s staff traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates to gather dozens of sworn statements from co-workers, relatives, fellow inmates and people who knew these detainees but haven’t spoken to them in years. These newly filed accounts substantiate details of the detainees’ denials that they were terrorists.

“These clients are not enemy combatants,” Wax said in an interview. The new law “does not apply to people who are not enemy combatants,” he said.

Wax said it would be unconstitutional to apply the jurisdiction-stripping bill retroactively to existing cases. And he said the Supreme Court has ruled before that it has the final say over its jurisdiction in these so-called habeas corpus petitions for release from custody. Following President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus for prisoners of war, the high court in 1866 set a man free after finding he was not a prisoner of war, Wax noted.

The government feels differently about Wax’s clients.

“Multiple reviews have been conducted since each detained enemy fighter was captured, including for these three individuals,” said a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon. “There is a significant amount of evidence, both unclassified and classified, which supports continued detention of these detainees and others at Guantanamo.”

Now 28, Rahim, buttressed by testimony from friends and relatives, says he wound up in Afghanistan in a bid to escape his father, a strict teacher of Islamic education who objected to his borrowing money outside the family for a college trip. With his father holding his passport, he tried futilely to get from his home in the United Arab Emirates to Europe or Canada.

Finally a friendly diplomat got him deported to Afghanistan where he and others say he hoped to be declared a refugee and moved to Europe by international aid agencies. He says the Taliban conscripted him and sent him against his will to the Al Farouq terrorist training camp. When he tried to leave 18 days later, they imprisoned him, he says.

In spring 2000, Abu Dhabi television broadcast a video of a tearful, fidgeting Rahim saying a U.S. agent recruited him to find Osama bin Laden. “I deserve to die … but if the Taliban let me live, I want to spend the next 22 years fighting for jihad,” he said.

On Jan. 17, 2002, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft said U.S. forces found five videotapes in the ruined Afghan home of bin Laden aide Mohammed Atef — one of the men Rahim says directed his torture. Ashcroft said the tapes show young men delivering “martyrdom messages from suicide terrorists” and identified one as “Abd Rahim.”

Rahim’s attorney Stephen Sady said any Taliban tapes of Rahim “were the product of torture” and no different from false confessions Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made to stay alive in a North Vietnamese prison.

“After two years the Americans came and saved me from the prison,” Rahim told U.S. officers. “I told them about the videotape the Taliban made of me … it created confusion to the point that the Americans believed I was working with al-Qaida.”

He added: “Nothing changed in my life. I was taken from prison to prison.”

Welcome to the United States of Fear, ruled by King Shrub II.

Robyn Blumner is a columnist for my hometown newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, and she always has something interesting to say. But in yesterday’s column, she shook me to the bones with her essay on the end of “The Great American Experiment in Liberty.”

E Pluribus Unum be damned. Here’s America’s new motto: If we can’t pronounce your name, we don’t care what happens to you. Now let us get back to our Happy Meals.

How was your lunch?

The more time passes on in politics, the more I want to vomit. All I see is corruption by all parties and it never seems to get better. So, I have an idea on how to get the kind of government we want.

Keep the three party system, but no longer give republicans and democrats and guaranteed spot on any ballot. Maybe if they actually had to work to get a spot on the ballot, they’d shape up and quit looking out only for themselves.

On one of my other commonly visited web-sites I posted an artical after reading this post by Peregrin Wood and it has sparked off a debate on terrorists and torture.

One of the members, whom I disagree with (to put it nicely and under a heaping helping of sugar) and whom is a conservative (but not a republican, oh no, perish the thought!) said he thinks torture should be illegal but is just fine with “extreme tactics.” This statement got me thinking about an anti-smoking commercial I once saw.

Tell me, if I take a rabid, vicious, snarling, snapping, growling German Shepherd named Fang and rename him “Fluffy”…is anyone gonna want to pet him?

That’s all they’re doing now. It’s not torture, it’s “extreme tactics!” Torture is immoral and illegal! We’re not doing anything illegal; we’re just using “extreme tactics.” That’s a mighty thick coat of veneer and sugar.

A pile of shit by any other name is still a pile of shit. If I call it mud, will the kids want to play in it?

The latest silly explanation for why Republican Senator George Allen is calling people of non-European descent macaca monkeys: They say that the term macaca doesn’t refer to a monkey at all, but that macaca is a Republican“neologism”.

In Peregrin Wood’s post earlier, the question was asked;

Are the right wingers hoping for Armageddon?

I have to answer that question.

Yes, they are hoping for Armageddon.

I’m not being a smart ass, I really think they are. It’s the most logical explanation for the reasons behind their actions. Let’s look at this long and hard. Many christians and, most recently Star Jones, have said that atheists can’t be trusted because we don’t feel that we have to answer to a higher power. However if you look at the track record of the religious right in power they have become the most amoral people on the planet. They have started Holy Wars and are now looking to start fighting even more nations.

Someone once said that Bush thinks Armageddon is coming anyway so he doesn’t care how many things he fucks up while in office. I think whoever said that is right.

I would trust an atheist with an atomic bomb a lot quicker than I would a christian and I don’t say that because I’m an atheist myself.

Atheists know that this is the only life we’re going to get so we better do it right the first time.

On the flip side, christians think that no matter what they do, so long as they don’t mock the holy spirit, all they’d need to do is ask for forgiveness and they’ll get into heaven. And then everything will be all sandy beaches and umbrella drinks.

So sit back and take a long look at what’s going on in office. Holy wars, civil rights violations, power grabbing, money hoarding, and now possible expanded wars. This is what you get when those in power think the world is going to end anyway. This is what you get when christian fundamentalists get into office.

This is what you get when those in power think all they have to do is say sorry to god to make everything better.

Over at Pursuing Holiness, Laura cuts and pastes a piece of an IMAO post she admires:

Iran will talk, but they say they won’t give up their “nuclear rights.” What? First, it was a “right” to free healthcare and now it’s a “right” to nuclear missiles. Stupid liberals. They’re going to get us all nuked and then we’ll have to wait two weeks for a doctor to see us about our horrible radioactive mutations.

Oh, come on, Laura and IMAO. Name a real, honest-to-goodness “stupid liberal” who says that Iran has “a right to nuclear missiles.”

The leader of Iran, the man who is actually making this claim, is a religious conservative.

Pop quiz for Laura: who was the American president who distributed a big, whopping load of weapons to Muslim extremists? Was he a liberal?

These people are being really unreasonable, and it undercuts the moral authority they so highly prize.

The NSA’s program of collecting our phone records is worth the slight effect it has on our so-called “right to privacy.” This war will be won by sacrifice, stamina and new technologies. I am particularly impressed by new methods of monitoring the internet use of private citizens.
[Frank Mullen votes Republican]

Web Data-Mining–“WDM”–is a powerful tool for enhancing homeland security. For instance, it allows the government to keep track of the URLs of websites visited by internet users.
[Frank Mullen supports prayer in schools]

WDM’s sophisticated cross-referencing algorithms identify the authors of online content.
[Frank Mullen is a Christian Fundamentalist]

Web Data-Mining doesn’t just read sites with up-to-date content. Its archive-exploring subroutines can dig up old postings that were written before Americans realized the government was watching.
[Frank Mullen did not do drugs to excess at Franconia College]
[Franconia College is an Assemblies of God seminary]
[Frank Mullen was kidding when he said that appointing John Bolton as ambassador to the UN is like putting Jesse Helms in charge of the NAACP]

Web Data-Mining’s software operates much like internet search engines. It looks at online documents and identifies keywords according to frequency and proximity.
[Frank Mullen big Bush donor]
[Frank Mullen glad sacrifice freedom speech]
[Frank Mullen Focus on Family]

The system is so efficient–and constitutional– that Bush’s people don’t bother to inform you whenever they’ve accessed information by or about you. (That’s just an observation, not a complaint. After all, this is America, where you can trust your government to be discreet with your personal data.)
[Frank Mullen women barefoot pregnant]
[Frank Mullen no abortion not even rape incest]
[Frank Mullen support school prayer AND execute children AND low taxes rich people]

I mean, imagine what an untrustworthy government could do with information about its citizens.
[Frank Mullen accept Jesus Christ personal Savior]

Remember Nixon siccing the IRS on his enemies?
[Frank Mullen donate large sums Pat Robertson]

How about J. Edgar Hoover forwarding names of suspected radicals to the Selective Service?
[Frank Mullen Young Republican]

And they didn’t even have digital databases back then!
[Frank Mullen Campus Christian Crusade]

It’s a good thing those days are over
[Frank Mullen small potatoes]
and power is now in the hands of Godly leaders of probity,
[Frank Mullen minor-league nobody]
character,
[Frank Mullen third-rate non-entity]
and integrity.

Not that I personally have anything to worry about.
[Frank Mullen oppose affirmative action AND oppose mollycoddling criminals AND oppose homosexual marriage]

 

Let me be frank. The Democratic Party is riding an anti-Bush wave so high that only an idiot could fail to gain victory from its surge. Every damn congressional district in the United States of America should be up for grabs, and there’s only one reason that it ain’t that way:

The leadership of the Democratic Party is the most lily-livered, spineless, cowardly, scaredy-cat, crass and lazy asses bunch of bastards America has ever seen!

The only reason that the Democrats stand a fair chance of retaking Congress this year is that the Republicans are even worse than the Democrats. The Republicans are a bunch of crazy, trigger-happy, Bible-thumping, spiritualist, theocratic, hate-baiting, greedy, corrupt pigs.

The Democrats hope to just ride the surge of populist rejection of the right wing radical agenda. The Republicans are such blind fanatics that they’re actually trying to swim against the tide.

I’m a god-damned liberal, and I don’t care who I offend by saying it, ’cause it’s the bald-butt truth!

Here’s what The Nation has to say about the sudden resignation of Porter Goss and the rapidly expanding sex scandal known as Hookergate:

“Goss may be the first casualty of the expanding investigation into Duke Cunningham, otherwise known as Hookergate. Cunningham’s indicted co-conspirators, defense contractors Brent Wilkes and Mitchell Wade, provided suites at the Westin and Watergate (sound familiar?) to entertain Congressman and other DC players. According to Ken Silverstein of Harper’s, “party nights began early with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a “frat party” scene–real bacchanals.” The FBI is investigating whether prostitutes were involved. The Watergate has received multiple subpoenas.

Goss’s #3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo, has already admitted to attending “poker parties.” Silverstein, one of the best investigative reporters in Washington, revealed last week that “those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees–including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post.”

Goss certainly fits that bill.”

Yesterday, Senator John McCain was giving a political speech in front of the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, when he blasted American workers as lazy, ungrateful people incapable of doing a good day’s work

Senator McCain said it was necessary for farmers to employ illegal aliens because American workers are too lazy and wimpy. McCain thought that he was being clever when he rhetorically offered to pay anyone in the audience 50 dollars an hour to pick lettuce.

McCain was surprised when members of the audience took him up on the offer, saying they’d be happy to work for that kind of pay. McCain then pulled back and refused to honor the deal, saying that American workers just can’t hack it. “You can’t do it, my friends,” he said to the audience.

Jeez, what a jerk. We’re supposed to support John McCain for President when he runs around insulting American workers like that? What’s next? Is he going to call American mothers a bunch of stupid whores?

Keep it up, Senator McCain. Soon, no one will have to bother campaigning against you.

Senator John McCain is running hard to earn the affection of radicals among the religious right. He’s giving Jerry Falwell, of all people, a big kiss on the cheek, and agreeing to give a speech friendly to religious radicals at Liberty University.

John McCain says that he wants Christian fundamentalists who oppose the teaching of evolution and favor mixing church and state to have a major role to play in Republican politics. McCain is now working in coordination with Jerry Falwell, to help Falwell advance his agenda. “We agreed to move forward,”, said McCain.

Thanks to Paul Krugman at the New York Times for bringing this story to light, but thanks for nothing to the New York Times for placing that article in a “select” category of news that readers have to pay a special cover charge to see. The New York Times - all the news that’s fit for people with money.

Yesterday, I wrote about the embarassing fawning of Republican John McCain over George W. Bush last weekend, and McCain’s increasingly weird support for the scheme to hand over operations of American ports to a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates. John McCain’s recent actions, I concluded, suggest that he may not be a moderate after all.

Then I took a look at Senator McCain’s broader legislative record, and what I found astonished me. In our legislative scorecard of the US Senate, Senator McCain is shown to have supported progressive legislation only 8 percent of the time, while McCain supported right wing legislation 75 percent of the time. That’s not a moderate record. It’s a record of right wing extremism.

It turns out that we’re not the only ones catching on to the fraud behing the John McCain moderate hype. Over at the Down With Tyranny Blog, there’s a good discussion of the issue of McCain’s false moderation, which is then amended by a comment carrying an op-ed column by Paul Krugman published in the New York Times yesterday, coming to the same conclusion. Krugman calls McCain The Right’s Man.

It’s a coincidence that three separate people came to the same conclusion about John Mccain on the same day, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Just a tiny bit of digging into the substance of John McCain’s political career makes it clear that McCain is every bit as much the right winger that George W. Bush is.

For that reason, we’ve added a new section to our No Republicans for President in 2008 political shop. It’s called, simply, Not John McCain for President in 2008. We’ve just started adding to our selection there this morning, but it’s growing fast, so check back soon for more anti-McCain items.

In response to my first irregular diary entry, Jim asks the question:

“…perhaps it’s time to stop voting Democrat.
Gall, what do you have in mind?”

Oh, good question.

Yes, and no. I think it’s time to stop accepting the partisan frame of politics. We need to stop looking at politicians according to whether they are Democrats or Republicans, and look at them according to how they vote.

Imagine if we could group politicians according to their votes, right wing or progressive, and then give those groups our own labels, and identify ourselves according which group we feel most affinity with - then work with politicians in that group, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans.

This would have to be a totally grassroots effort to reject the dominant political party framework - going even more alternative than the third party efforts by groups like the Greens.

So, we vote with the group of politicians who votes our interest, and whether they’re Democrats or not is as irrelevant as whether they’re members of the Rotary Club.

What do you think?

I was thinking that you could use something like the resource you’ve developed with your progressive scorecard for the House to do this.