January 23rd, 2006
Apropos of nothing, what the heck is the justification for not giving statehood to the District of Columbia? It has more people than some Western states and it has the need for local representation on Congress. I know why the GOP doesn’t want to give the District residents self rule - -it probably means two extra Senators and a Congressperson in the Dem caucus. What I don’t understand is why the Democrats aren’t all over his issue. Not only is it the right thing to do (basic decency demands that the residents be given a say in their national government) but it is good politics. The result would be good for the Democrats, but so would the campaign. It would force the GOP to argue that it is fighting for democracy overseas but refusing to grant it here at home. It would also force the GOP to tell African Americans that they are welcome in the new GOP while they simultaneously arguing that a majority African American District doesn’t deserve representation in their own government.
Why aren’t I hearing about statehood for DC at every election?
Categories: Politics |
31 Comments
January 23rd, 2006
Apparently Democratic strategists are trying to convince Democrats that they should stay away from the NSA scandal. They hope that they can run on other issues if they just bury their heads in the sand and pretend that it doesn’t exist. They are idiots. Karl Rove have made it abundantly clear, as he did in 2002, that the GOP intends to run on national security. Just as in 2002, the Dem strategists are hoping that it will all blow over. And just as in 2002, they are missing an opportunity to tear down the GOPs strongest issue.
In 2002, the issue was simple: Democrats wanted to go after al Qaeda, Bush wanted to go after Saddam, a two bit dictator with no real ties to Al Qaeda who posed no threat to the country. The Dems should have spent every minute of everyday driving home this simple point: Bush wants to forgo finish the job with Al Qaeda in favor of going after someone who is no threat and whose defeat will do nothing to advance the war against Al Qaeda. Every interview any Dem did should have been dragged back to the question of why Bush refused to finish hunting down and destroying Al Qaeda, regardless of the topic. If someone asked them what time it was, they should have replied that it was time for Bush to explain why he was running away from Al Qaeda. Instead, they pretended that ignoring the issue was a strategy.
And they are set to do the same thing today. The NSA program is both counter-productive and cowardly. We have already seen complaints form the FBI that the program has overwhelmed them with useless leads that provide no help in finding terrorists. We also know that programs that take place without outside supervision tend to go off the rails as the group mind doe not have to justify itself to outsiders. The geniuses who thought that selling weapons to terrorist-sponsoring Iran was a good idea were working without oversight, after all.
More importantly, it is the action of a coward. The Constitution has kept this country safe and free through foreign invasion, a civil war, two world wars, and the Cold War with an implacable enemy who had enough nuclear firepower to turn every inch of American soil into molten glass. And yet Bush wants to through those protections and liberties away because some thugs sitting around in caves got lucky once. 9/11 represented the worst Al Qaeda could do, he very worst. No one can bring the people we lost back, but our military remained supreme and our economy recovered quickly. Al Qaeda did the worst they could do on 9/11, and its only long term affect was to make us mad.
Except for Bush. Apparently, it scared him witless because immediately after it, Bush threw away the Constitution in the name of national security. He seems to believe that Al Qaeda is so dangerous and such a threat to the survival of our country that we must abandon our way of life or face national extinction. Bush would have us believe that Al Qaeda is more dangerous than the British in 1812, the Confederates in 1860, the Nazis and the Soviets. I cannot even conceive of the level of absolute terror that could lead to such a ridiculous conclusion.
Bush’s explanation for why he had to abandon the Constitution is the explanation of a coward and it is easily explained as the action of a coward. Even today, without an effective counter message campaign, Pew Research reports that 48% think the government should be able to ease drop without warrants for the sake of national security - -and 47% don’t. The country intuitively understands that Bush is acting as if his good sense has been replaced with terror. And yet Democratic strategists think they should avoid an issue that directly attacks the alleged toughness of the GOP on national security. God save us from Washington consultants.
Categories: Politics |
16 Comments
January 23rd, 2006
From Americablog:
NBC is under attack by the bigoted American Family Association for airing a new TV show that - God forbid - includes gay characters and Christian characters who aren’t perfect in the eyes of the AFA. The AFA has called for a boycott of the show’s advertisers, and we cannot afford to have them running around claiming yet another victory, even if this “victory” like far too many of their victories is an outright lie.
You’ll recall that the AFA is the same bigoted organization that launched a so-called boycott against Ford because Ford provides benefits to its gay employees, includes sexual orientation in its diversity training, and because Ford advertises in magazines geared to the gay community. You’ll also recall that AFA is the organization that has a little problem with Jews and Muslims, in addition to gays.
Please contact the NBC CEO Jeff Zucker and NBC President Kevin Reilly and tell them not to pander to extremist bigots. Give “The Book of Daniel” a chance, or the bigots at the AFA will be on their back for the next five years dictating the terms of every single show they run in the future. Not to mention, the AFA will do to NBC the exact same thing it did to Ford. They’ll crow victory so loudly that NBC will forever be marked as the tool of extremist bigots.
CONTACT THESE NBC HEADS NOW:
- jeff.zucker@nbcuni.com CEO of NBC
(I’m working on getting his phone and fax numbers)
- kevin.reilly@nbcuni.com President of NBC,
phone: 818 840 6046, and 818 840 6022
fax: 818 840 6630
MESSAGE: Does NBC agree with the American Family Association that a Jewish upbringing leads you to a life of crime? Does NBC think gays were behind the Holocaust? Does NBC think Muslims breed “faster than we do?” Does NBC think the Jews control Hollywood? Does NBC think AIDS is a “gay plague?”
Categories: Culture |
5 Comments
January 23rd, 2006
The Jack Abramoff scandal is a Republican scandal. Describing it as anything else at this point is inaccurate to the point of lying. Jack Abramoff did not give any money to any Democrats. If you look at the FEC records, you can see that all of Abramoff’s giving has gone entirely to Republicans. Saying that some of Abramoff clients have given money to Democrats is technically correct, but it leaves so much detail out as to qualify for a lie by omission. Many of Abramoff’s clients had pre-existing relationships with Democrats and there is no evidence that Abramoff steered his clients towards Democrats. In fact, the evidence we do have suggests that clients of Abramoff gave less to Democrats after they became clients of Abramoff than before. Implying otherwise is to very close to a lie.
And all of this was entirely predictable. Driving lobbyist money from Democrats and into Republicans is what the entire K Street Project was about. These even bragged about it before the Abramoff scandal broke:
In 1995, DeLay famously compiled a list of the 400 largest PACs, along with the amounts and percentages of money they had recently given to each party. Lobbyists were invited into DeLay’s office and shown their place in “friendly” or “unfriendly” columns. (”If you want to play in our revolution,” DeLay told The Washington Post, “you have to live by our rules.”) Another was to oust Democrats from trade associations, what DeLay and Norquist dubbed “the K Street Strategy.” Sometimes revolutionary zeal got the better of them. One seminal moment, never before reported, occurred in 1996 when Haley Barbour, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee, organized a meeting of the House leadership and business executives. “They assembled several large company CEOs and made it clear to them that they were expected to purge their Washington offices of Democrats and replace them with Republicans,” says a veteran steel lobbyist. The Republicans also demanded more campaign money and help for the upcoming election. The meeting descended into a shouting match, and the CEOs, most of them Republicans, stormed out.
They wanted to drive all the lobbyist money into their pockets and they set out to achieve just that. That someone like Abramoff would take advantage of the fact that the GOP leadership expected lobbyists to give money only to them and hire only GOP approved people for their companies was as predictable as night following day.
Finally, mentioning Abramoff clients and the money they donated to anyone without also mentioning that Abramoff has been indicted for defrauding at least some of his clients also leaves the impression that his clients are involved in his other alleged illegal activity. An accusation like that should be made seriously and with forethought; it should not be made through sloppy writing.
No matter how much Deborah Howell and Lou Dobbs and their ilk want to imagine that the Abramoff scandal involves Democrats and Republicans, the evidence simply doesn’t support that conclusion. Anyone who has paid attention to the investigation, as commentators should be expected to, and anyone who has investigated these matters, as reports should be expected to, knows that this is a Republican scandal. Pretending otherwise either marks you as a poor journalist, a right wing hack, or a person too intimidated by the right wing noise machine to do your job properly. None of the options is something to be proud of.
Categories: Politics |
6 Comments
January 23rd, 2006
A Republican Senator has introduced a bill that would give the RIAA and MPAA — the professional organizations of the corporations that control the production of movies and music in this country — the power to veto any new innovation related to digital media :
The new legislation, being circulated by Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), is the first step down that path (and is eerily reminiscent of the infamous 2002 Hollings Bill). It would impose a broadcast flag mandate on all future digital TVs and radios, much like legislation discussed by the House last year.
We’ve covered the broadcast flag and radio flag extensively in the past. These measures would impose federal regulations on all devices capable of receiving digital television and digital radio signals. What’s worse, the regulations won’t do a thing to stop “piracy,” since there are plenty of other ways to copy these broadcasts.
Sen. Smith’s bill would retroactively ratify the FCC’s broadcast flag regulations, rejected by the courts last year. This effort to impose content protection mechanisms in all future TVs is still just as terrible an idea now as ever.
The bill would also give the FCC authority to regulate the design of digital radios (both terrestrial HD Radio and XM and Sirius satellite). The bill envisions an “inter-industry” negotiation with a preordained outcome — federal regulations mandating content protection mechanisms in all future HD Radio and satellite radio receivers.
The FCC regulations could make room for “customary historic uses of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law.” Presumably, that means you could design a digital device just as good as an analog cassette deck, but no better.
This is a perfect example of how the recording and movie industries are trying to kill innovation and force consumers to get permission before they could do almost anything we take for granted today. It is no exaggeration to say that if this bill had been in existence at the time of their creation, the VCR and the iPod would not exist. This is horrible for consumers, bad for the economy, and even bad for the RIAA and the MPAA. After all, VCRs and iPODs created entirely new channels of distribution and markets that both have profited from. But this bill would stifle such creativity and leave those markets and experiences to consumers from other companies.
This bill is no way serves the interest of the American public at large. It is, in essence, a guarantee of monopoly for two of the most hide-bound, reactionary and short-sighted organizations in the country. It needs to be defeated for the good of the country. You can write your senators here.
As an aside, I hope that some savvy Democratic strategists (if such beasts are not actually mythical) are paying attention to this bill. It is a perfect example of how the Republican Party puts the interests of corporations ahead of the interests of the public. Opposing this bill is both good policy and good politics. It provides perfect shorthand for the problem with Republican governance: after all, who wants to be on the side of people who want to legislate innovation out of the country and deny the American public their TIVOs and iPods?
Categories: Economics, Politics, Science |
8 Comments
