Disarray

Maybe this is a good sign that the Administration can't keep their story straight. Maybe they're just so used to a hobbled press that they know the real question won't be asked. In any case, there have been many recent calls for Bush to come up with a plan and some dates to try to get us out of Quagmire II - The Sequel. Requests by Republicans are treated with sober thought, while the very same question identifies a Democrat as a traitor who wants Saddam back in power.

Congressional vote on Iraq war withdrawal plans - defeated.

DoD would have none of it - when you're in the middle of a catastrophic success, don't you want to see how it ends up?

But Cheney just recently said we might be there until 2009 - just the time for Bush to dump this mess on the new Democratic president.

I hope the press gets over their sense of awe at the message discipline of the Bush administration - cuz it doesn't exist.

Letting Big Fish Go

Newsweek reports that the recent loss for New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a case of corporate crime may signal the end of the crackdown of the past few years against white-collar crime. I find this disturbing mostly because my question would be, what crackdown? Sure, there were a few cases that made it into the spotlight, but considering the sheer magnitude of the problem and how long it had been neglected, the crackdown needed to be the new status quo, not just a temporary fad. It appears that our country has been so taken over by corporate interests that the legal system will only enforce the laws against the bigwigs when public outrage is particularly heated. Never mind that corporations continue to swindle the common man, in the least by dodging any tax obligation, apparently we need to get back to the important legal business of prosecuting cancer patients who wish to manage their pain with prescribed pot. I guess it all leads me to wonder, has populism died in this country?

A little proposal

Pundits and politicians love to give advice to the other side, usually in the spirit of friendly persuasion. They say "gee, you Democrats, if you just would propose a valid fix for Social Security, including benefit cuts and private accounts, we can all get along with saving the destruction of that wonderful program socialist abomination."

Or "Hey Democrats, we love Howard Dean, keep him as the DNC party chair forever." Their attempt at reverse psychology is truly childish in this case. We know that Howard is kicking ass, otherwise they wouldn't all be so nervous and whiny.

So in that same spirit, I propose that all the following able and patriotic men prepare to join the presidential race in 2008 and take up the mantle of (choose one) Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond:

Tom Tancredo - he can get the racist/nativist vote. Hometown boy, maybe he'll carry Colorado.
Judge Roy Moore - fundamentalists will vote for him in droves. These are the ones who think GWB is a radical (well, he is, but you know what I mean.)
Jeb Bush - Corporate: those Bushes sure do know how to take care of business.
Rudy Guiliani - pro-choice pro-gay marriage voters (hey, there are a few).

This looks to be the biggest crackup in the Republican party in many decades. We'll have George Bush to thank for this.

Lynch Mob

The US Senate recently passed a resolution condemning lynching and their own failure to pass laws to prohibit it. The resolution was initiated by Mary Landrieu, the excellent Senator from Louisiana. The Gazette hasn't reported much on this; they are probably of the "we didn't do it so we have nothing to apologize for" school. I'm sure Colorado Springs was a bastion of civility post-Reconstruction, especially early in the 20th century, as white resentment of blacks for their newly gained freedom was at fever pitch (document here - PDF warning).

The resolution was co-sponsored by most Senators. But on a resolution that should have 100 cosponsors and 100 aye votes, the news is that the vote was held by voice. It seems Doctor Senator Presidential Candidate Bill Frist wanted to maintain some cover for some of the more resolute racist Republicans. Here they are:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Michael Crapo (R-ID)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Kay Hutchison (R-TX)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Trent Lott (R-MS) (now isn't this a surprise? - Z)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Craig Thomas (R-WY)

Does the Republican Party leadership in the Senate have no problem with people who would hang innocent black people from trees by their necks simply for looking at a white woman the wrong way?

Maybe Howard Dean was right after all.

Update: A little more info here -

Twenty lynchings were reported in 1935.

During that time, nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress, and three passed the House. Seven presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a federal law.

But the Senate, with Southern conservatives wielding their filibuster powers, refused to act. With the enactment of civil rights laws in the 1960s and changes in national attitudes, the issue faded away.

Dr. Frist, can you diagnose that? - Z

Outrage Fatigue

In politics there is discussion of donor fatigue, when people have given to enough causes that they just say enough. Certainly, as I am starting graduate school in the fall, my finances dictate that I have to choose precisely what I support in that. However, I find a greater problem for me is outrage fatigue. There are simply so many things to be outraged by that one gets worn out trying to fight.

The New York Times brings news that in addition to giving a strong partisan bias to those in power at Public Broadcasting in favor of the conservatives, the House Republicans are moving to cut federal funding for public broadcasting. Watching one of the last respectable news sources slowly sink into the mire that captured the mainstream corporate news long ago is agonizing, it needs to be fought.

This on the heels of NYT also reporting about a member of the Aministration editing reports on climate change to lessen evidence of human-influenced warming who now after resigning is to work for ExxonMobil. This kind of boldfaced distortion should be causing chaos in Washington, but instead it seems to barely cause a ripple.

With the lies that got us into Iraq, revealed in part by the Downing Street Memo, with the breaking of Valerie Plume's cover, with the blatant propagandizing on the part of the Administration, with the increasing redistribution of money from poor to rich making the gap between the haves and the have nots even larger...there has been so much to be outraged about from the Republicans the past six years and yet they have never been held to account, it is easy to just feel powerless and give up. It hurts too much to care about the state of the country.

However, there is potential light at the end of this cold, dark tunnel. With the Republicans at an historically low mark on popular favor, there is a chance for the Democrats to regain some power in Congress in the mid-terms in 2006. The difference of having power in one of the houses would be tremendous. Instead of having generally ignored panels on the urgent problems of our days as Rep. Conyers and others presently have, the Democrats would have the full force of the Legislative branch behind them to hold the Administration's feet to the fire. Just as the Democrats were able to with Nixon and Reagan (and more trivially, the Republicans were able to go after Clinton.)

So while it may be hopeless to try to put up a fight against individual movements in Washington, Democrats all around the country need to invest full effort into the 2006 mid-terms. We must go after every House seat, especially Tom DeLay's. We must go after every Senate seat that is being contested. The Presidential elections may hold the glory, but now that 2004 has passed, 2006 really is the most important election in at least my lifetime. Locally it wouldn't hurt to grab the Governorship while we are at it so we wouldn't have so much great legislation vetoed.

While I have been suffering from a good bit of outrage fatigue myself of late, thinking about how much the 2006 elections (and Ref C and D this fall) could change allows me to focus my outrage squarely on a limited enough issue that it isn't overwhelming. I just hope I don't have to find out if I could continue to muster outrage were the 2006 elections not to make things better.

[R]'s Decry Bush's "Support"

Well well well, what do we have here?

Republicans are starting to tell the truth about Iraq. Of course Dems have been stating the obvious for months years, but we get called traitors, appeasers, we hate the troops, and we want Saddam back in power (the Republicans sure are proud of that piece of 4th grade logic).

Congressman Freedom Fries: Representative Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, has written more than 1,300 letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and will introduce legislation this week calling for a firm timetable on the withdrawal of US troops, ABC's "This Week" said Sunday.

Lindsay Graham, whom I really like (except for that little impeachment thing): "The insurgency is alive and well. We underestimated the viability of the insurgency," Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on CBS' Face the Nation. He said the administration has "been slow to adjust when it comes to troop strength and supporting our troops."

Curt Weldon: "We can't come back to America and have our people being convinced that the Iraqi troops are prepared to take over, when they're not," he said on NBC's Meet the Press.

[cue the Republican attack machine]