St. Newt

The president and the GOP congress have an approval level of about 35%, which proves that only 65% of American households have television sets.

It is interesting to hear discussions among Republicans about how the party went wrong, and how they abandoned the core beliefs that made it a great party. On an intellectual level there is a lot to be said for a philosophy of government that has a few simple tenets: fiscal responsibility, shifting government power to the State level and protection of individual rights.

I think that there is a lot of that philosophy that lies in the common ground of American political discourse. However, beginning in 1994 it seemed to me that these tenets were a smokescreen for what has eventually blossomed here with the current regime in Washington.

The Gingrich Revolution, and subsequent Bush/Delay administration, did not appeal to our better instincts or reason to promote their core beliefs. They clawed their way up by appealing to our baser instincts.

The call for welfare reform was not about abolishing poverty, it was about cutting them free. The clear implication to Joe Sixpack was that the reason his life was so hard was because a bunch of poor people were leaching off of him. If it wasn’t welfare mothers having hundreds of babies at taxpayer expense, then it was unqualified minorities taking all the good jobs and making whites the most oppressed segment of the country.

Poverty wasn’t really the problem, it was the poor who were the problem.

The rise of the “right” (a descriptive term that seems comically ironic these days) was organized and lead by people who lacked real morals. The unfortunate thing is that all the conservatives of conscience and principle went along for the ride. They traded their concerns for the budget deficit for power. They traded their concerns for the common good of the citizens for majority status. Smaller government only applied to policing industry. Individual rights have become a synonym for cowardice in the face of terrorism. They sold out their interest in economic justice for the whining of the rich.

I suggest that, despite many honorable Republicans, the GOP was taken over by cruel, dishonest scoundrels in 1994. In the 12 years since then many of the old guard of moderates have retired or left public service to be replaced by people in the mold of the leadership.

And so, I think the current problems in the Republican Party are the natural result of letting the Gingrich Revolution come to bloom. In my heart of hearts, I believe that people who so vocally blame the afflicted for the problems of society are naturally more prone to corruption because they subscribe to a corrupt philosophy.

However, it is my sincere hope that scapegoating, shameless public policy will have the necessary result in the long run of being the ruin of the Republicans for a while.

I have to believe that there are consequences for their actions. And if some honorable conservatives get swept up in the backlash, so be it. They didn’t stand up for their values before. Why on earth should anybody believe that they have got the message now?

Let us pray that the American people are worthy of our traditions of freedom and throw the Republicans out of office on the national level, if for no other reason than because the GOP has had their chance to run everything and they have blown it in virtually every conceivable way.

Balding men of the world unite!

I think that my people are divided unnecessarily on a number of issues, and that has lead to our persecution and self-recriminations.

The most egregious culprits, without a doubt, are lawyers.

I was walking to work this morning, and I saw a man with among the worst comb-overs in modern history. His hair was fuzzy and teased out so it had maximum “coverage.” And that hair, what there was of it, was combed all the way from his neck and ears to “cover” the top of his head. The kicker was that he was wearing a very expensive suit and carrying a briefcase, so there is no doubt that he was a lawyer.

Come on, guys, you have the least to lose by being exposed as bald. You’re already rich. All your half-assed cover-ups do is embarrass you, and the rest of our people by making thinning hair seem like something to be ashamed of.

So, here today, I am making the following call to arms: Gentlemen, we’re not fooling anybody. If you are over the age of 25 and employing a comb-over of laughable proportions, give it up. If you are under 25 years of age, then that’s just a bummer and you get a special exception to the rule.

But, gentlemen, we can’t do this alone.

Ladies, we need your help. Guys try to pretend they have hair because you demand it. Let’s face facts, if dressing like a chicken got guys laid, we would all be doing it. Patrick Stewart and Sean Connery can top the list of “sexiest men,” but they are the exception. I call on women to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Join my crusade against the comb-over and hair replacement. Accept bald men!

All ye of exposed scalps, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Just be careful in the summer. Sunburn up top is a pain.

GOP film festival

I am going to make a bold prediction here: Somebody in the GOP will introduce the idea of charging terrorists for their detention and any intelligence subcontractors used to catch or interrogate them.

Mark my words.

Doesn’t it make sense that these oil-rich Saudis who are trying to kill us should pay for part of the war? Wouldn’t it be only fair if the American tax-payer was freed of some of the cost of The War Against Terror by charging the actual terrorists?

Wasn’t Saddam’s oil bonanza supposed to pay for the invasion of Iraq and the reconstruction?

Wouldn't it be great to confiscate every penny from the family of Johnny Walker Lindhe to defray our nation's costs?

Isn’t this the ultimate in the ownership society?

I wish I could take credit for such a horrible idea, but it actually comes from the 1985 film “Brazil.”

The movie is a futuristic comedy/tragedy about a bureaucratic society that is fighting a brutal, never ending war on terrorism. It is a very dark film starring Jonathon Pryce and Robert DiNero, directed by Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python and “The Fisher King” fame) and co-written by Tom Stoppard.

If you haven’t seen this movie, I urge you to do so while it is still satire. The clock is running out on that.

Boo!

In the Simpson’s Treehouse of Horrors, advertising icons come to life and rampage through Springfield after Homer steals a big metal donut from the “lard lad” statue. The icons kill until an advertising guru reveals the power to killing them: Ignore them, and the annoying ads will go away.
Thus through the cunning use of Paul Anka, the people learn to ignore the ads, which kills them all.

“To stop those monsters, one-two-three,
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble-free.
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...
(Guarantee void in Tennessee.)
Just don't look. Just don't look.
Just don't look. Just don't look.
Just don't look. Just don't look.”

The parallels between that and our current situation are stunning. They go far beyond President Homer who also stole something (2 elections). Both Homers cultivated terror.
The Republican Party has launched an ad that will air only in a few places. In this ad, you see film of bin Laden (remember him?) and friends threatening America. All you hear is the ticking of a clock… or possibly a time bomb.

Check it out, it’s a hoot.
http://www.rnc.org/

OK, if you have seen it and are not scared enough to vote for the GOP maybe you are just a terrorist.

Actually, the issue of national security is a valid one. And if we consider this rationally, the Democrats win easily. Who has made us LESS safe over the last 6 years? Who has let bin Laden run wild and free since 9/11? Who refuses to admit that even the handling of the war in Iraq has been a disaster and we need at the VERY least a new strategy? Who has let the craziest despot on Earth get the bomb? Who has so far bungled Iran? Who has stretched our armed forces so thin that we can not respond to a new threat if a real one happens to come along?

I think my new hero, Keith Olbermann (not to be confused with my new holy figure, Steve Irwin) said it best the other night. He said that Bush and company have done what the actual terrorists could never do: Made us scared beyond reason.
The terrorists only win if we are terrified. If we don’t give-in to fear, they lose.

So, whether it's bin Laden or Bush, listen to Paul Anka and it will all work out.

Just don’t look.

Cartoon Peril

My childhood (which some might say has not yet ended) haunts me. And on that note, let’s get this out in the open: I hate “The Shirt Tales.”

This is not the ordinary hate, like one might have for the New York Mets or people who still have “W04” stickers on their cars. This is the kind of hate that creeps up in the middle of the night and stalks your dreams.

As children we are supposed to believe that this collection of little tiny animals are crime fighters. We are also supposed to believe that they have this “secret identity” as a collection of ordinary park animals. This is the kind of pre-9/11 mindset that has ruined many of my fellow Democrats.

First of all, these animals are mostly not native to the area they live, and that should be a BIG tip-off that something is up. Secondly, they can talk. In my experience few pandas, raccoons or orangutans can speak. And finally they are bipeds with opposable thumbs.

(On a side note, the villains on this show are in serious need of reminding about their second amendment rights). This would make them dangerous mutants at the very least.

Even George Tenent would be able to connect the dots here.

So, join me in saying “NO” to this kind of massive intelligence failure being played out on our TV screens. Say “NO” to teaching our children not to be alert to the potential danger posed by inexplicably anthropomorphic animals.

We live in an age of unprecedented danger. Our children need to be taught the right lessons.

For more information on the Shirt Tales, see the following site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirt_Tales

Terrorists should love us now

If, as the president absurdly proposes, the terrorists hate us because of our freedom, then we are about to have a new group of friends.

The new military tribunal law includes the power of the president to declare anyone (U.S. citizen, or otherwise) an enemy combatant. Once this is done, there is no right to habeas corpus. Without this right, we are at the mercy of the president to determine who can challenge their detention by the authorities.

The right to challenge imprisonment is what separates us democracy from tyranny.

This is truly a sad day.

Bush disses Jesus-freaks; we pay the bill

It turns out the Bush people hate the religious right as much as we do. According to a new book, the entire religious right was used by the GOP for power, but there was no intention of actually doing anything "Christian." In fact, the whole thing used public money to swing elections.

This is not just another liberal hack job, the book is by David Kuo, the former second in command at the White House's "Faith-Based Initiatives Office." This is a "MUST READ"
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15228489/

Nothing I could editorialize would speak better on this than the words of this former Bush appointee.
Lets hope that this story gets big play!

Freedom is on the march

According to a new study of the Iraq war, since the Iraq war began, more than 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the fighting.

For comparison sake, here are some numbers I found on American casualties in wars we have fought.

Conflict               Combat deaths          

Revolutionary War      4,435

War of 1812            2,260

Mexican War            1,733

Civil War: Union       110,070

        Confederate    74,524

           Combined    184,594

Spanish-American War   385

World War I            53,513

World War II           292,131

Korean War             33,651

Vietnam War            47,369

Gulf War               148 

If you do the math, the grand total of American combat deaths in every war we have ever fought is less than the recent estimate of dead Iraqis since the fall of Saddam.

I am trying so hard to be reasonable here, and not fall into a stream of obscenities, but in what way is Iraq better off now than with Saddam?

There is widespread torture (by us and militias on all sides of this civil war), death of combatants and non-combatants alike are through the roof, Iran is poised to have a big ally, there is now a large al-Qaida presence (this one I am taking the president’s word for, but it seems pretty obvious), the infrastructure is shot, unemployment is out of control and there is no end in sight to the foreign occupation or the fighting.

I am no fan of Saddam, but if this estimate is even overstating the death and destruction by a factor of 2, then we have gone way beyond fiasco and tragedy to catastrophe.

Those who still think the war was worth it and those who think we should keep our troops there really need to explain their position in a way that acknowledges the near apocalyptic scale of how badly things have gone wrong and how we are going to do things in a completely different way.

We CAN NOT shoot our way out of how badly this has gone.

Victory in North Korea

If I was a conspiracy nut, I would suggest that our failure to dissuade the North Koreans from testing a nuclear weapon was an intentional ploy to justify all the money we are spending on the “Star Wars” Missile Defense System.

Heaven knows that this incarnation of Star Wars is only marginally more of a waste of money than George Lucas’ recent prequel.

If I was a conspiracy nut, I would say they were calculating ways to let foreign policy problems boil over so that they could justify solving these problems with military force once and for all. (Iraq, North Korea and look out Iran)

But I am not a conspiracy nut. I think what is happening is not a cunning ploy but once again gross incompetence.

If our goal was to deny North Korea nuclear weapons, well then, mission accomplished. And let me be the first to applaud the president for sticking to his guns and refusing one-on-one talks with the North Koreans. The six-party talks have been such a glowing (radiation glow?) success that to abandon this line would be silly.

It is not hard, even as a casual reader, to know a few things about the North Korea situation.

First off, the North Koreans are run by a crazy despot. Provocative action on our part is likely to result in disproportionate responses on theirs. For example, if we alternately ignore and insult the North Koreans, they might do something rash like, say… oh, I don’t know, test a nuclear weapon.

Secondly, we have nothing in the world to lose by talking one-on-one with North Korea. While it is true that the broader region needs to be a party to making lasting peace and stability, one-on-one talks would not undermine that.

Thirdly, going to the U.N. for sanctions is silly now. They already have the bomb, what do we gain here besides making the people of North Korea suffer more? They are already starving. All new sanctions can do is make them do something rash (see point 1). This is all just another effort by our administration to undermine the credibility of the U.N. by setting it up to fail.

Fourthly, since our policy has failed to get us what we want, maybe just maybe we need to change our tactics. The definition of madness is doing the same thing time and time again and being surprised by getting the same result.

Finally, we are running out of sticks here. We can’t invade them. Maybe it’s time for genuine diplomacy. Talk and compromise are not a sign of weakness.

And you thought NY was bad

Again, a rare link...

In this story learn about how German trial-lawyers can actually out do their American counterparts.

Yes, in this clip learn how in Germany you can sue the government for damages if you are kidnapped. So this lawyer is looking to recover damages from the governmnet for people who have been abducted by aliens.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1FF3F8A6-DEC1-460D-B58F-C31D45FDFB7B.htm

Is it as bad as it looks?

I just watched another rage filled Keith Olbermann "Special Comment" on Bush.

I share this rage. I realy hope this is above the level of political hackery, but I think we are in a lot of trouble here, and it's not from the terrorists.

The Bush machine has done something that the terrorists could never do. It has changed the way we apply our constitution. Namely, selectively.

Bush has created two classes of humans: Terrorists and Americans.

Americans have rights.

Terrorists have limited rights to habeus corpus. Police (in the broadest sense) don't have to get warrants. Torture is now on the table. And what's more, the man at the top defines who is in what camp.

We are a nation that is defined by a set of ideas. We are the constitution. That's all we have. If we sacrifice this we have nothing.

This is not just dislike for a man's policies. This is about being deeply offended by what he is doing to what I love.

I don't want to be overly alarmist, but this is serious. Freedoms sacrificed are hard to get back. Isn't this serious? Isn't this a real threat to our nation? On the bright side, if the "terrorists" hate us because of our freedom, maybe they will soon hate us less.

Lifting the Tali-BAN

Bill Frist has suggested that perhaps some of the Taliban be invited to join the Afghan coalition government. He is being attacked on all sides for the suggestion.

Here is the interesting problem: We went to war with the Taliban government of Afghanistan because of 911, and its leaders are responsible to a great degree for that attack. However, the basic fact of the matter is that a great number the people of Afghanistan adhere to the Taliban movement because of religion and their ability to bring law and order.

If we refuse to let anyone in the Taliban movement into the government, and continue to fight we risk the possibility that we can’t subdue them.

We can either fight forever, or put more boots on the ground. The former is not appealing, and the latter is impossible because of Iraq.

If we let them join, then we need to resolve the Mullah Omar question. If we let Mullah Omar, and his cadre of 911 era leaders, go then all our fighting in Afghanistan has been in vain.

The other fact that needs to be addressed is that the Taliban are very tied to the Pashtoon ethnic identity. Peace in Afghanistan seems unlikely without this group.

I suppose that the greatest irony is that Frist is saying we should consider making peace with these insurgents, but that Iraqi insurgents need to be defeated.

Maybe (I never thought I would be saying this) Frist is at least partially right, but if he is, then we need to apply this reasoning to Iraq as well.

I just wish that the public discourse was not so toxic so that ideas like this are not even given real consideration and discussion.

Mark Foley: American.

So one of the strongest fighters in the House for laws to take on internet sex-predators looks like he wrote from experience: Methinks the Congressman doth protest too much.

Sure it would be easy to make a lot of cheap jokes here, and on my budget that’s about all you’re going to get, gentle reader. But I think there are two interesting elements that go beyond the actual behavior of the Representative.

First, Hastert and some GOP officials knew of some “inappropriate, but not sexual” emails Foley sent three years ago. They did the equivalent of slapping him on the wrist and telling him to knock it off. Hastert points out that the media had the same info at the time, but did nothing at all.

The issue is this: What responsibility did the Speaker have to follow through and make sure that this behavior did not continue? What responsibility did the Speaker and company have to investigate if there was more going on than just inappropriate email.

The second issue is an angle I have not seen addressed at all, and honestly I don’t know if or how it affects my reaction: namely gender.

How does the fact that it was teen boys affect the seriousness of his actions and the intensity of our reactions?