The View From the Sinister Side of Life
February 27th, 2006
That word? Celebrity:
Monday’s scheduled events included the arrival at the Mississippi River front of Rex, King of Carnival, capping a day of riverside concerts; and the annual Orpheus parade, a spectacle of fiber-optic lit floats led by native son Harry Connick Jr. and featuring actor Steven Seagal as this year’s celebrity monarch.
[Emphasis added]
Not to mention “actor.”
Categories: Culture | 2 Comments
February 27th, 2006
Glenn Greenwald has a good essay on Specter’s FISA proposal, and why it may be beneficial to support it. Hint: Because the current administration would almost certainly oppose it, which would only serve to further underscore their “we don’ need no steenking oversight” position.
UPDATE: Glenn clarifies his position at length. The jist is that he doesn’t think the proposed law is a good idea (and indeed thinks it’s a very bad idea); he simply thinks that because it has virtually no chance of actually being enacted, and because the debate surrounding it could shine a light on the above-the-law ambitions of the administration, supporting it for the express purpose of driving that debate into the open might be advisable.
Categories: Legal Issues, Politics, Privacy | 6 Comments
February 27th, 2006
One-upping Oliver Willis, Publius thinks that the pro-choice movement has been playing defense too long, and needs to take an offensive strategy:
I would ask every single Republican candidate up for re-election in 2006: “Do you support imprisoning doctors for performing abortions following rapes, as South Dakota’s new law demands?” If they hid behind the rape exception, then you could follow up with Oliver’s question about whether doctors should be thrown in jail for performing abortions more generally.…snip…
The South Dakota law provides a perfect opening for this sort of offensive political strategy in 2006 and beyond. South Dakota’s new law was, in my opinion, an overreach – especially its failure to include a rape exception. Public support for criminalizing abortion in cases of rape is less than 20% – which I’m guessing is entirely Republican. So, why not ask every Republican up for re-election this year to take a position on South Dakota’s criminalization of abortions following rape. You don’t lose a single Democratic vote and you alienate a decent chunk of the Republican base. Another benefit is that raising the profile of this draconian law shines a light into the shadows, so to speak, and shows soccer moms the extreme positions held by parts of the GOP base. The national GOP does a good job keeping this group out of the public eye (note Bush in the debates speaking in code; pro-life speakers at the GOP convention ). But when things like Schiavo and the South Dakota law come to light, it freaks people out. Tying South Dakota’s extreme law around the necks of the GOP nationally would also result in pressure from the party hierarchy to refrain from passing these sorts of extreme laws.
But even if you leave off the rape demagoguery, GOP candidates across the country should still be asked to take a position on South Dakota’s more general effort to criminalize abortions and imprison doctors. Again, in most states and districts, no matter what the GOP candidate says, it can’t be good. If they agree, you can run emotionally-charged commercials talking about doctors and women being arrested. If they disagree with the law, it wedges and depresses the base.
That leads into the second point – the pro-choice movement needs to make a concerted effort to get this debate out of the clouds – it needs to be a debate about criminalization and the real-world effects of the laws this group wants to pass. It’s one thing to have an abstract debate about privacy or when life begins. But it’s quite another to see the actual, concrete reality of criminalizing abortion. I suspect that many nominally “pro-life” people would recoil when they saw doctors and young women getting thrown in jail.
Keeping the debate abstract also allows politicians to avoid some of the baggage of the more extreme pro-life position. Compare, for instance, the following two statements: (1) “I am pro-life”; (2) “I support imprisoning doctors and women for abortions.” The reality of #1 is usually #2, so that’s what the debate should be about. Politicians shouldn’t be allowed to get off by saying they’re pro-life. That’s not enough – one can be pro-life, but not necessarily pro-criminalization. Candidates should be asked point-blank – do you support imprisoning doctors for performing, and women for having, abortions? Given South Dakota’s overreach, people can no longer say that this is an absurd hypothetical. It’s about to become state law.
Bottom line – the South Dakota overreach can and should be used as a political weapon. But it should be part of a bigger strategy to fight in the political sphere offensively and to make that debate about the concrete consequences of criminalization.
This is exactly correct. The pro-choice movement in general, and Democratic candidates in particular, have been far too afraid to openly defend legal abortion and attack the consequences of criminalized abortion. As Publius points out, by focusing on the more extreme elements of the “pro-life” movement, you could drive a wedge in GOP support without significantly alienating potential Democratic voters.
Look at the poll numbers on abortion. Two-thirds of Americans consistently oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. Nearly 60% According to a December, 2005 ABC News poll, 57% believe abortion should be legal in “all or most cases.” Even in the most pro-life-seeming polls, only roughly 20-25% of Americans claim to support criminalization. This issue is a winner for progressives and Democrats, and they shouldn’t be afraid to use it as such.
UPDATE: The top poll on the link, a CBS News poll, seems to indicate more “pro-life” support, but when you look at all the polls given and compare them, that one seems to be the anomaly. With abortion polling, how you phrase the question seems to be extremely important. Taken in total, about the only place where public opinion consistently resides with the “pro-life” position is concerning parental notification when minors seek abortions. And even this doesn’t criminalize abortion — not even for minors — it just requires a parent to know about it. Hardly a slam-dunk win for the “pro-life” movement.
Categories: Politics | 9 Comments
February 26th, 2006
So, the name pre-school is apparently Greek for “vile house of disease”. Eldest boy has been in pre-school for a week and he has already brought home the Bubonic Plague. Regular blogging will continue when I have the energy to care about something other than how long it is until I can get my next hit of Tylenol Cold, probably in a day or two.
I expect that Tom and KTK will be around to amuse and annoy you until then.
February 24th, 2006
Every now and again, someone comes up with the idea that we ought to replace the federal income tax with some sort of “flat tax.” Usually, some will propose a less-than-flat tax, with some sort of standard deduction after which a non-progressive, single tax rate is charged. 20% is often bandied about, but I haven’t seen such a scheme that actually retains anywhere close to current funding. Others insist that there shouldn’t be any deductions whatsoever, just the tax on every cent of income. Still others (whom we generally refer to as “lunatics”) insist that we should just divide the federal budget by the number of taxpayers, and that’s everyone’s tax bill.
Generally, liberals (including myself) oppose such proposals, in large part because it shifts the majority of the tax burden onto those with the lowest incomes (or, in some schemes, onto the bottom end of the middle class).
But I have a flat tax scheme I think we liberals can get behind: Let’s not tax income at all. Let’s tax net worth.
Think about it. I bet you’d only need to charge at most a flat 1% of everyone’s net worth in order to match current receipts. To ensure a constant flow, you could collect 1/12 of 1% each month. A truly flat tax. Absolutely everyone is paying the same rate: 1% And wouldn’t you rather pay 1% than the 28% you pay right now? I would!
Wait, what’s that you say? A large proportion of Americans have little or no net worth? Why worry about that? It is, after all, a truly flat tax! It’s totally fair, because everyone pays the same rate!
(The depressing stat? In 2003, Bill Gates’ federal tax bill would have been $407 million. I’m guessing yours would have been substantially less.)
Categories: Economics, Libertarian Problem Solving, Weekend Flame Bait | 13 Comments
February 24th, 2006
Yet another typical story about this continuing clash:
On her way into the church where the funeral was to be held for her 23-year-old son Thursday morning, Deirdre Ostlund approached six men and women waving signs against gays and America and told them in a cold fury: “I’m Andrew’s mother, and I want you to know you are truly hateful people.”
As Ostlund turned away, Shirley Phelps-Roper taunted her: “Adulterer! You can’t admit you sent your own child to hell! If she does not heed this warning, she will look up from hell with him.”
Her small group continued to sing “God hates America.”
But across barricades, crime-scene tape and police officers, 20 flag-waving men and women countered with the original, “God bless America, land that I love … ”
This ritual, unfolding across the nation outside military funerals, arrived in Anoka on Thursday an hour before the funeral for Cpl. Andrew Kemple, who died in Iraq Feb. 12.
The six are members of a church in Topeka, Kan., that espouses the belief that God is killing American soldiers because they fought for a country that tolerates homosexuality. The 20 on the other side are affiliated with the Patriot Guard Riders, a rapidly growing nationwide movement organized to counter that very message.
“We’re just trying to show honor and respect for families,” said John Lutsch, a St. Cloud resident who heads the Minnesota branch of the Patriot Guard. “I was appalled when I read about these protests, that they’d use a solemn occasion like this as a forum for their views.”
He was interrupted by Steve Drain, who bellowed across the divide in front of Zion Lutheran Church that God hates gays, their enablers and “so therefore God hates the U.S. military.” For nearly an hour, the Kansans chanted a steady stream of crude homophobic slurs.
Phelps-Roper, the coordinator of the Kansas protesters, is the daughter of Fred Phelps, the pastor of the nondenominational Westboro Baptist Church, He has railed against homosexuality for decades. By his own count, church members have conducted 22,000 picketing demonstrations.
During the 1990s, church members were known mostly for picketing funerals of AIDS victims, but since they have shifted to military funerals, they have raised the hackles of politicians. Minnesota is one of at least 14 states where laws are being considered that would make funeral protests illegal. . . .
The Rev. Tim Johnson watched the dueling protests from the sidewalk in front of his church as Gov. Tim Pawlenty entered Zion Lutheran, shaking his head at the spectacle.
“As a pastor, two things make me mad,” Johnson said. “One, that he [Phelps] actually is a pastor, and two, that people would follow him. They pass themselves off as Christian, but all this talk about God hates — it’s just a contradiction in terms.”
It’s certainly good to see someone standing up to Phelps, the most loathsome of the Christian haters. But the telling point in the story is this: “church members were known mostly for picketing funerals of AIDS victims, but since they have shifted to military funerals, they have raised the hackles of politicians“. That in fact is the case: Phelps and his band of vicious perverts (most of them members of his own family) have been harrassing people at funerals of gays for years - they kept trying to install a hate-filled marker on Matthew Shephard’s grave - they have shown up at gay-themed events across the country to spew the most vile hatred . . . and nothing whatsoever was done about it. Only after they realized nobody was paying attention did they switch to harassing people the public actually cares about, and only then did anybody step in.
There have been no barricades of Patriot Guards to protect families of gay people. No Christian pastors turned out to denounce Phelps or talk about how God doesn’t hate, when it was only gays being hated. No politicians rushed to shred the First Amendment to protect gay citizens’ feelings. Now they fall over themselves at the wrongness of the same behavior directed at veterans or other “good” citizens that they were perfectly OK with when it was gays in the crosshairs. Apparently Phelps is right: God only rejects some kinds of hate.
Categories: Church & State, Culture, General, Politics, Religion | 7 Comments
February 24th, 2006
From KnightRidder:
AKRON, Ohio - If an Ohio lawmaker’s proposal becomes state law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.
State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to “introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents.” The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship. . . .
Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.
“We need to see what we are doing,” said Hagan, who called Hood’s proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill “homophobic.”
Hood’s bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
To further lampoon Hood’s bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that “credible research” shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.”
However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.
Just as “Hood had no scientific evidence” to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.
Categories: Culture, General, Politics | 3 Comments
February 24th, 2006
A couple of days ago, I posted my critique of a Kevin Baker post concerning the effect of the “welfare state” on culture — in particular, poor, inner-city African-American culture. His response to my critique is here (but his response seems to have been formulated prior to Kevin T. Keith’s addendum).
Given the fact that something like three whole people read my original critique, I think I’m going to let Mr. Baker have the last word on this. Besides, he informs me that I am apparently one of “the Anointed” (whatever that means, and quite to my surprise), and that based on my “hubris,” it would probably be beneath me to respond anyway.
Categories: Culture, Libertarian Problem Solving, Politics | 1 Comment
February 23rd, 2006
Publius thinks that the UAE port gaffe is evidence that Bush’s creation (in this case, muddled public understanding of Middle East politics) has turned against him. Give it a read. The punch line:
Bottom line - you can’t consistently scare Americans and deliberately blur important distinctions between Muslims and then expect those same Americans to go along with a port deal involving a country whose name includes the word “Arab.” You can’t subtly (or not so subtly) encourage nativism for four years and then suddenly put it under wraps when it becomes inconvenient.
Categories: Iraq, Politics | 2 Comments
February 23rd, 2006
This just in! Mike Modano is a whiner! In other news, ice is cold, water is wet, and the US Men’s Hockey team is old, slow and horribly overrated.
Categories: NHL, Olympics, Sports | 2 Comments
February 23rd, 2006
This is inventive, if nothing else:
San Francisco, a leader in urban recycling, is preparing to enlist its canine population for a first in the United States: converting dog poop into energy.
Norcal Waste Systems Inc., the city’s garbage company, plans to test collection carts and biodegradable bags in a city-center park popular with dog walkers.
A city study found that almost 4 percent of all the garbage picked up at San Francisco homes was from animal waste destined for the city’s landfill, Norcal Waste spokesman Robert Reid said. San Francisco has an estimated 120,000 dogs.
“The city asked us to start thinking about a pilot program to recycle the dog poop in order to cut back adding more waste in landfills,” Reid said.
Dog feces could be scooped into a methane digester, a device that uses bugs and microorganisms to gobble up the material and emit methane, which would be trapped and burned to power a turbine to make electricity or to heat homes.
Seriously, though, it is nice to see people thinking about these issues in un-orthodox fashions.
Categories: Environment, Science | 3 Comments
February 23rd, 2006
With the gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine reduced to rubble, some Shiites lashed out at the United States as partly to blame. (Video: More on the attack)
The violence — many of the 90 attacks on Sunni mosques were carried out by Shiite militias — seemed to push Iraq closer to all-out civil war than at any point in the three years since the U.S.-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Many leaders called for calm. “We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq’s unity,” said President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. “We should all stand hand in hand to prevent the danger of a civil war.”
… The country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, sent instructions to his followers forbidding attacks on Sunni mosques, and called for seven days of mourning.
But he hinted, as did Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, that religious militias could be given a bigger security role if the government cannot protecting holy shrines — an ominous sign of the Shiite reaction ahead.
An hour ago [my Iraqi Shiite fried] recieved a call from Najaf. You know the Najaf boys are losing their heads over what happened.
No wonder. 80 years or so ago their relatives bought some land up there [at Samarra] and established Shia communities around the mosque and in Samarra. So the boys had been working there living there from time to time and some really settled down for good. A month or two ago lots of Shia were expelled, thrown out of town or scared off.
And now this.
They told B. how the demolition was carried out. You see, it was nothing like
a hipshot sneaking up bombing by night. It was meticulous, skilful piece of work,
taking a lot of time, the guards knowing all about what was going on. At least that´s what they told him today.So now they all gather downtown Nejef rallying, preparing a gruesome revenge.
Sistani tries hard to stop them, they told him, but the boys won´t listen. They´re heading for Samarra. ‘
This did not happen out of the blue. The Sunnis have been complaining for some time that Iraqi security forces are just a stalking horse for Shiite militias and have been arresting and murdering Sunni men. The Shiites refused to add more Sunnis to the government, and a Shiite sectarian was recently voted to the Prime Ministership along sectarian lines. And, of course, the Sunni portion of the resistance has occasionally targeted Shiite leaders and civilians. There has already been a low scale civil war happening between the die-hards. Now, it seems, that we have finally reached a tipping point, where tit leads to tat and people are forced to take sides. This is an extremely dangerous moment for Iraq.
Categories: Iraq | 3 Comments
February 22nd, 2006
I’m woefully overdue in writing a response to this Kevin Baker essay (pack an overnight bag, you’ll be reading until tomorrow), in which he sets out to show that the “welfare state” is largely responsible for [add]fueling a culture which exacerbates[/add] the plight of poor urban African-Americans. I’d initially toyed with the idea of not responding at all, in large part because Kevin’s essay isn’t likely to convince anyone not already inclined to agree with his conclusions. But Kevin (our Kevin, and not T. Keith) keeps insisting that I need to address it to a certain extent.
So I’ve decided on a compromise: rather than write my own counter-essay, I’ll just summarize what I think Kevin Baker is getting at (it kind of jumps around a bit, and is hard to summarize succinctly), and then point out where I think he gets it right, where I think he gets it wrong, and why. Along the way, I’m mostly going to ignore the gun control portions of the argument, because I don’t have a horse in the gun control race, and because I think he’s disingenuous in his characterization of the arguments of gun control advocates (he talks as if each point raised by a gun-control advocate is somehow expected to be a “silver bullet,” and that when that point “fails,” the argument then gets “shifted” to some other point), and because there’s really no winning arguments against extremists (be they pro-gun or anti-gun) on that issue anyway.
Despite my attempts to keep this relatively brief, I’ve mostly failed, so continue reading at your own risk.
(more…)
Categories: Culture, Economics, Politics | 9 Comments
February 22nd, 2006
Apparently the State of Tennessee failed to notice that I’m a registered Democrat, and issued me a CCW permit. If the thought of me packing doesn’t make you consider gun control, not much will. 
* Double-bonus points for catching the reference, and Google is cheating.
Categories: I do too have a life | 7 Comments
February 22nd, 2006
I’m a couple days late with this, but Dr. Biobrain has the best President’s Day post:
In honor of President’s Day, I just thought I’d take this opportunity to drop all the pretense and for once be honest about how much I really hate George W. Bush and to finally confess that every word I’ve ever uttered against him was entirely irrational and utterly wrong. Were it not for my intense hatred, I would be forced to admit that he is officially The Greatest President of All-Time, and is the best thing to happen to mankind since Jesus Christ himself walked among us. All of my arguments attacking Bush are made solely to cover the fact that his unending success serves to highlight my constant failure, and the failures of my political party, ideology, and entire way of life. Oh, and it also highlights the failures of the Communist Party, to which my soul is pledged; as well as that of the Islamafascist Terrorists and Gay-Loving Feminazi Secularist Man-Haters, who own the mortgage on my house.Not that any of this is news to you, as I’m sure you’re in the same boat. I just thought I’d use this holiday season to finally be honest about what we all know is going on; and what we would all feel better admitting to, if only we didn’t hate America and ourselves so much. Next year, the War on President’s Day will continue as usual.
Categories: Bloggin, Holiday | No Comments
February 22nd, 2006
Many of you will be aware of the “Stardust” space probe that recently returned safely from a long circum-solar mission (a previous probe impacted at high speed when its parachute failed). The mission was to collect both cometary dust from a comet tail, and also interstellar dust from “empty” space; both collectors used aerogel foams to stop the target particles. The problem is that the interstellar particles are so rare that they can’t find them within the aerogel. They predict that fewer than 50 microscopic particles were collected over a 1-square-foot surface, and now they have to look for them. They’re asking for help.
The interstellar-dust investigators have announced “Stardust @ Home” - a public-participation cutting-edge science project. Obviously modeled on “SETI@home” or “GIMPS” - wherein members of the public volunteer to allow their computers to be used to perform distributed mathematical calculations - this one has an interesting twist. Instead of just letting them use your wasted clock cycles when you’re not even paying attention, in this case the researchers want you to actually participate directly in the project. They are digitally scanning the collector gel into millions of large (highly magnified) image files, and bundling them with special magnification-and-search software (a “digital microscope”). The software will show the images, but it can’t detect the particles itself - real humans have to visually observe each image systematically and spot the particles by eye. They’re asking people with interest and spare time to participate.
It’s serious business: you have to pass an online training and testing course before they’ll let you participate, but if you find a particle they’ll name you as co-author on any papers written from it. Astronomy is one of the few areas in which interested amateurs can still make a serious contribution (most comets are discovered by amateur astonomers). Now you can do so without even going outside! Give ‘em a hand.
Categories: General, Science | No Comments
February 22nd, 2006
I think I like this:
A proposal that would give same-sex couples some of the benefits of marriage has been filed in the Colorado legislature. If adopted it would put the plan to voters in November.
The House late Monday referred the bill to the Judiciary Committee.
The Colorado Domestic Partnership Benefits and Responsibilities Act is a response from Democrats to a Republican backed ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.
The domestic partner measure would give same-sex couples the right to visitation and to be involved in the care of hospital patients and nursing home residents, protection of property rights, including inheritance and pension benefits, access to a partner’s health care benefits and family leave benefits, and the right to take possession of a deceased partner’s remains.
Polls have pretty consistently shown that the public favors civil unions even as they oppose gay marriage. I am not generally in favor of civil unions instead of marriage because I think that separate but equal is inevitably discriminatory. However, an anti-gay marriage initiative is also going to be on the ballot, and this is a good way of countering that. Once the matter of the terminology is removed, there is a good chance that most people will choose not to deny their fellow citizens basic rights. If the issue is only marriage, gays lose. if it is civil unions, they win. Measures like this can help defeat the punitive anti-civil rights measures that the right wing is pushing, and that is a win even if it is not a complete victory. It is encouraging to see civil rights activists learning form the mistakes of 2004.
February 22nd, 2006
George Bush illustrates several of his ugliest and most dangerous traits in his handling of the port-sale fiasco today. First he OKs a stupendously bad plan as a payoff to one of his political cronies who just happened to be a former top executive for the foreign company in question. Then, in a typical display of arrogance and pigheadedness, he stuck to the decision in the face of an avalanche of criticism and evidence that it was just plain stupid. Then, in a typical display of cowardice and childishness, he refused to take responsibility for his own poor performance, blaming underlings for actions that are his responsibility to oversee (he hadn’t been told that the ports were being sold to a UAE entity), while at the same time continuing to defend the decision he was trying to distance himself from!
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.
Bush on Tuesday brushed aside objections by leaders in the Senate and House that the $6.8 billion sale could raise risks of terrorism at American ports. In a forceful defense of his administration’s earlier approval of the deal, he pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement involving the sale of a British company to the Arab firm. . . .
White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed any connection between the deal and David Sanborn of Virginia, a former senior DP World executive whom the White House appointed last month to be the new administrator of the Maritime Administration of the Transportation Department. Sanborn worked as DP World’s director of operations for Europe and Latin America.
“My understanding is that he has assured us that he was not involved in the negotiations to purchase this British company,” McClellan added.
(R-i-i-i-i-i-g-h-t. And Cheney has no connection to the billions of dollars of contracts going to the company that is still paying his salary. These things just sort of happen . . . coincidence, you know.)
Twisted comedian Steven Wright once said he was going to put a humidifier and a dehumidifier in the same room and “let them fight it out”. I often get the impression that’s what’s happening while watching Bush’s mind work - it’s like all his bad impulses get jammed up vying for dominance.
His arrogance and belligerence won’t let him back down from any decision he’s made, no matter how bad it is - but he’s such a child he can’t take the slightest criticism without looking for someone to shift the blame to. So in this situation, he made a bad decision, claimed it was someone else’s fault, stated he didn’t actually know what had happened in the first place, and then declared he wasn’t going to change any of it. But if the decision is worth defending, why shift the blame? Why admit that he doesn’t know what his own administration is doing? On the other hand, why go to such lengths to defend a decision he claims was so trivial he wasn’t even aware of it at the time? There is no rational plan here; he simply can’t be responsible for anything and also can’t be wrong about anything, so he’s forced by his own uncontrollable impulses to go to the mattresses to defend decisions he says he didn’t make and wasn’t aware of.
In fact, he’s caught up in such an ego-storm that he can’t even lie coherently. He was defending the port sale before he announced that it had been OK’d without his knowledge. If the latter were true, don’t you think he’d have mentioned it at the time? Only after the Congressional Republicans got on his case did he just happen to remember that he was somewhere else when the deal was done - the deal he’d been defending for days. Now he threatens the only veto of his tenure in office because he has to have the deal that he claims he didn’t authorize in the first place.
Perhaps worst of all, nobody thinks this kind of thing is strange anymore.
Categories: General, Politics, Terrorism | 3 Comments
February 22nd, 2006
This is interesting:
Sen. George Voinovich, Ethics Committee chairman and a sometime gadfly to Republican leadership, is warming to Democratic-backed proposals for public financing of federal elections.
Voinovich (R-Ohio) told The Hill that he has met with Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) to discuss collaboration on the public-financing pitch Durbin is crafting with Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), the Rules Committee’s ranking Democrat. Snagging the endorsement of Voinovich, who last year bucked his party by opposing the confirmation of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and has so far taken a supporting role in the GOP’s push for lobbying reform, could give the public-financing concept considerable momentum.
“Maybe it is the answer,” Voinovich said. “Too much of our time is spent raising money, time spent campaigning, time buying TV ads. When everyone’s out there trying to raise money, dialing for dollars … until we deal with this issue you’re going to continue to have problems.”
Voinovich’s enthusiasm for a public financing system, versions of which have been instituted at state and local levels in seven states, comes as Republicans continue to hammer out a lobbying-reform package that can be swiftly marked up after this week’s recess.
Publicly financed campaigns would go a long way to weeding out the kind of pay for play nonsense that lead to the K Street project and the shenanigans of people like Abramoff. It would help make policy more important than campaign donations and is exactly the kind of far reaching reform that has a real chance to change the culture in DC. That any GOP member — even a quasi-maverick like Voinovich — would consider coming out in favor of it tells me a couple of things. First, the GOP is worried by the corruption scandals. Why else would they run the risk of alienating their lifeblood — large, corporate donors — by publicly backing a challenge to the power of their donors? Second, Congress-people must be getting tired of the fundraising rate race. Each year it seems to cost ore and more to keep a seat, and that means more and more time sucking up to people with open checkbooks. The process is demeaning and a huge time sink. It is rapidly getting to the point where fundraising is the only thing a member has time for, and it is only going to get worse. Getting off that treadmill must be tempting. And this public flirtation is another sign of Bush’s weakness. Rove is a big believer in the K street project, from all accounts, and he cannot be pleased by members of his party attacking the underpinnings of that project. It is inconceivable that this would have happened in 2002 or 2003.
Categories: Politics | 2 Comments
February 22nd, 2006
This is not really a surprise. I know that describing the government giving a port contract to a company run by a state suspected of ties to terrorists as unsurprising is going to seem a little bit odd, but it really doesn’t surprise me that much. And my lack of surprise is not entirely a function of the Bush Administration. Yes, members and former members have ties to the company, but this kind of back-scratching is not uncommon in government, particularly on the GOP side. The K Street project is not just a pretty name on the right side of the aisle, it is a way of political life. I am not surprised because nonsense like this is the natural outgrowth of anti-government conservatism.
The notion that port control is outsourced is, in and of itself, pretty stupid. It is hard to over-estimate the importance of port security in an age of asymmetrical warfare. It doesn’t make sense to turn that security over to people whose primary motivation is maximizing profit. Any organization hat has to worry about the bottom line is not going to be focused entirely on what makes the ports safer. They are going to be concerned with how safe and effective they can make the ports while still turning a profit. The conflict is obvious and obviously bad for the security of the country.
But the GOP and the Right are philosophically opposed to the notion that the government can or should do pretty much anything. It is an article of faith that private industry is better at everything. Hence, vital tasks are farmed out. The fact that the Bushies would give the contract to a crony — despite the obvious security issues with handing that kind of responsibility to a country that has a strong al Qaeda presence — is just as predictable. When government functions are for sale, why not award the contract to people that are supporters? Yes, it’s a bit unusual that such an egregiously bad choice would be made, but that choices that favor political patrons would be made is easily predictable. Combine that tendency with an arrogant Administration like Bush’s and this is as surprising as the sun setting in the west.
But just getting rid of Bush will not be sufficient. The next conservative Administration will probably not be so arrogant as to think it can completely ignore common sense when hading out these contracts, but it will still hand out contracts. The philosophy that leads to placing ports into the hands of people who must make a profit and assigning those contracts to political donors will still be in place. And the problem will remain, even if it won’t have the easily understandable, pathetically stupid face of the Bush Administration.
Categories: Economics, Politics | 4 Comments
