Bang, Bang - Another PA Gun Bill Is Dead

Here are some of the gory details from the Philadelphia Daily News…

TO FULLY appreciate state Rep. Dave Levdansky's courage, you have to compare him to House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, who earned his leadership position in part by providing a hiding place for the cowardly lions of the state Legislature.

Levdansky, D-Allegheny, a sportsman and avid hunter, was the prime sponsor of an amendment to require handgun owners to report, within three days, if their weapons were lost or stolen.

He stood up to withering questioning and attacks from the National Rifle Association and its surrogates in the House to strike a blow for gun-regulation sanity.

His measure, soundly defeated by a vote of 127-76, was backed by law-enforcement agencies, city councils and district attorneys in every region of the state.

Its purpose was to discourage straw purchasers who buy large numbers of handguns for resale to people who can't buy them themselves because of criminal records or other restrictions.

So, as opposed to fighting the lethal threat of straw gun purchases, the PA “Lege” caved again in the face of carping and whining from noisy gun owners who opposed a legal stipulation for the practice of missing a reporting gun, something they would (or should) do anyway?

Yep, that’s about it. And by the way, concerning O’Brien…

…when the votes were recorded and the opponents were finally flushed out, (the name of O’Brien), who has distinguished himself as the only lawmaker from (Philadelphia) to vote against the amendment (appeared first). He was joined by Stephen Barrar, R-Delaware; Paul Clymer, R-Bucks; Gene DiGirolamo, R-Bucks; Robert Godshall, R-Montgomery; Art Hershey, R-Chester; Bob Mensch, R-Montgomery; Scott Petri, R-Bucks, and Thomas J. Quigley, R-Montgomery.

(As you’ll see later in this post, though O’Brien is completely bought and paid for by the NRA, he has actually done good work in other legislative matters.)

And the Courier Times tells us more about the three votes from our esteemed Repug legislators in Bucks County here (glad to see they got that case of Geritol after all)…

DiGirolamo bought the innocent citizen argument. He also said laws are on the books regarding illegal gun sales. We don't need more. Plus, people who legally sell or transfer a gun they suspect will be used in a crime already face criminal charges.

He said the real problem is drug and alcohol abuse. That's what fuels gun violence, he said, and he pointed to legislation he's authored to attack that problem.

Clymer said we need fewer gun laws and more “traditional family values.”

Thanks, Paul.

Petri called the measure ineffective, but also said it was flawed. Something about how selling or transferring a gun that's used in a crime would be a lower-grade crime under the defeated measure than it is now if the accused claimed the gun was lost or stolen and if it was a first offense.

Got that?

We're still trying to figure it out.

And Petri also had this to say (from here)…

“We all knew this was a bad vote,” Petri said. “If you voted "yes,' you were potentially criminalizing normal innocent people. If you voted "no,' then you would be seen as soft on guns.

“I already can picture some of those grainy photos and campaign ads that use this vote to label me as pro-gun,” he added.

WAAAAAHHHHH!!!! Sorry, Scott, but that’s the deal – and maybe if, in a campaign ad, you’re labeled as “pro-gun,” it’s because you are “pro-gun.”

And as far as those who did the right thing, kudos to State Reps. John Galloway (D-140), Chris King (D-142), Tony Melio (D-141), and our own David Steil, (R-31), who, amazingly enough, has managed to earn an “A” rating from the NRA (which will probably get knocked down a grade as a result of this, which Steil should wear as a badge of honor).

And speaking of King and Galloway, they wrote the following Guest Opinion that appeared in the Courier Times on Monday March 31st…

Just over a year ago, we were members of a new class of state legislators. Elected by a public unhappy with business as usual in Harrisburg, we vowed to make state government more responsive to the needs and desires of our constituents.

We saw a need for more open state government, investment in our energy future, and assistance to ensure all Pennsylvanians could see a doctor when they were sick or hurt. We have accomplished those challenges.

Within the first months of this legislative session, House Speaker Dennis O’Brien formed the reform commission to rewrite the rules of the House to allow greater public access to state government. We didn’t stop there. With the help of other freshmen lawmakers, we achieved a new open records law that takes Pennsylvania from having some of the worst open records practices in the nation to having one of the best.

The momentum to facilitate real change for the people of the Commonwealth was palpable and we took advantage of that momentum to address the energy crisis that is knocking at our door. In just a few short years, energy rate caps will expire and many of us could see our electric bills double or even triple. Clearly new ways of lighting and heating our homes must be found.

We crafted a comprehensive package of bills known as the Energy Independence Strategy that not only addresses the pending hikes in power costs, but makes smart investments in the alternative energy industry in Pennsylvania. These are investments that not only would help to find affordable, renewable alternative energy for our residents and businesses, but also create thousands of jobs to grow our economy and make Pennsylvania a leader in this industry.

As the cost of health care rises and the economy slows, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to offer their employees health-care benefits. As a result, there are thousands of working Pennsylvanians without health-care coverage. This is a complicated problem with no easy solution, but also too important to ignore. We are tackling the health-care crisis head on. We amended S.B. 1137 to create PA ABC, Pennsylvania Access to Basic Care. This plan would give lower-income working individuals and businesses that employ low-wage workers the opportunity to purchase affordable, quality health insurance.

This plan gives hope to those who, right now, have no access to insurance. It would also help to lower insurance costs for everyone because it reduces the number of people forced to use the emergency room as a primary care physician, which exacerbates uncompensated care costs.

We look forward to keeping the momentum going as there is much more work to be done. We must address our aging roads and bridges. We must pass the Keystone Opportunity Zone legislation to help boost economic development. And we must alleviate the property tax burden.

And finally (back to the gun bill), this word for Dennis O’Brien; if you choose to extend holiday greetings to your constituents again as you did here, please make sure you also remember to pray that they all make it through the year due to your legislative subterfuge.

A Lawless Environmental Assault

The New York Times says it very well (from here)...

To the long list of things the Bush adminis- tration is willing to trash in its rush to appease immigration hard-liners, you can now add dozens of important environmental laws and hundreds of thousands of acres of fragile habitat on the southern border.

On Tuesday, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, waived the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and other environmental protections to allow the government to finish building 700 or so miles of border fence by year’s end without undertaking legally mandated reviews of the consequences for threatened wildlife and their habitats.

Will this stop or slow illegal immigration? No. Long experience has shown that billions of barricade-building dollars will simply shift some of the flow to more remote parts of the 2,000-mile southern border. And no amount of border fence will keep out the 40 percent of illegal immigrants who enter legally then stay too long.

It will be a disaster on the ground. One example of what’s at risk is the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. It runs in checkerboard fashion along the 200 miles of the Rio Grande before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. When the fence is finished, most of the refuge’s 95,000 acres — and the ocelots, jaguarundis and other rare species that live there — would wind up on the side of the fence closest to Mexico, virtually impossible to monitor and protect. Other sensitive areas in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas would also be affected.

Though environmental groups are planning to go to court to stop the Chertoff plan, a surer remedy lies on Capitol Hill. Congress created this mess by giving the secretary waiver authority in 2005. Then, in December, it gave itself an out, requiring that before the Department of Homeland Security receives any funds, the secretary must show that he has properly consulted with local officials and landowners. He must also provide a detailed justification for each separate segment of the fence.

To prevent an environmental disaster, Congress should use that oversight power to block the project, then move rapidly to rewrite a fundamentally bad law.

And by the way, if you’re wondering how Chertoff was able to skirt 36 federal laws while constructing this portion of his fence, you need to follow the odious trail back to the happily-long-gone 109th Congress.

Section 102 of the Real ID Act (the “fundamentally bad law,” so correctly termed by the Times) states as follows…

Amends the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) to authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security (the Secretary), in the Secretary's sole discretion, to waive all laws as necessary to ensure expeditious construction of certain barriers and roads at the U.S. border. Prohibits courts, administrative agencies, and other entities from reviewing the Secretary's decision or from ordering relief for damages alleged to have resulted from such decision.

The person responsible for the entire Real ID monstrosity is former House Repug Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (a prior post on REAL ID appears here).

And as a result, Chertoff will now try to build his “fence” which won’t do a damn thing to keep out illegal immigrants, but it will create an ecological disaster, as the Times states.

Here’s a link to contact your House Rep and Senator to tell them to put a halt to Chertoff’s monstrosity. And if anyone reading this lives in Wisconsin, ask yourself why you would even imagine voting for Sensenbrenner again this fall.

A Corporate Media Missile Misfire

It looks like our dear cousins working for the news organizations with initials for names are coming up with interesting new ways to prop up George W. Milhous Bush.

The AP reports the following here…

BUCHAREST, Romania - President Bush won NATO's endorsement Thursday for his plan to build a missile defense system in Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile tracking site for the system in their country.

My goodness, could it be that Captain Clueless actually has a reason for that timelessly ridiculous smirk of his?

Well, maybe…

At a news conference in Bucharest on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwartzenberg announced that negotiations with the Americans have been successfully completed and that a deal would be signed in early May. No U.S. official was in attendance, but the Czechs distributed a joint U.S.-Czech statement that said, "This agreement is an important step in our efforts to protect our nations and our NATO allies from the growing threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction."

The Poles have yet to agree to the plan.

But then again, maybe not; apparently, based on this report, the only NATO country that has agreed to the plan is Czechoslovakia – also, how weird is it that “no U.S. official was in attendance” for the announcement?

Well then, the Czech signoff would be a big deal. I say “would be” because, as it turns out, the Czech-U.S. missile defense negotiations were regarded as “complete” over two months ago.

So exactly what is the grand, glorious news for Dubya, then? That he’s taking a bow on April 2nd for negotiations completed on January 31st?

Yeah, I guess that would be it, then, wouldn’t it?

I’ll tell you what – if you want to read an account of this story that gives you an idea of how it’s playing “across the pond,” here’s the link to the Times of London. Aside from proclaiming our ol’ buddy Vlad Putin as the winner over the issue of accepting Georgia and the Ukraine into the U.N. "the bosom of the NATO alliance" (stupidly forced by Dubya in typical fashion), here is what it has to say about Dubya’s wonderful missile “victory”…

President Putin is in Bucharest and is due to speak at a meeting of the Nato/Russia Council tomorrow. He is also being joined by President Bush at the Black Sea port of Sochi on Saturday when the issue of Ukraine and Georgia, as well as America's missile defence plans in Europe, will top the agenda.

…

The (NATO) communique (about Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro joining the alliance) also contains a strong statement about the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and the need to include the whole of Europe under the umbrella of America's missile defence system.

That’s it. No mention of an “endorsement” for Dubya on missile defense; if anything, it sounds like negotiations for such an “endorsement” from NATO are still very much in progress.

I guess this type of reporting on this matter (once dubbed “Star Wars” under The Sainted Ronnie R) is appropriate. Make-believe reporting fits in a way when the subject is a make-believe (and ridiculously costly) means of protection from our deadliest threats.

Update 1: I know there are times when I'm not "the sharpest knife in the drawer," but I'm reading the Times account here, and I have the same reaction as I do to the AP version.

Update 2: Glad to see the meeting is going so well (what an embarrassment that this yutz actually represents this country - h/t Atrios...and now as always, take a bow, you '04 "values voters" who reinstalled this nematode for four more years).

Wednesday Stuff

Elizabeth Edwards is interviewed on "Morning Joe" and talks principally about health care and pre-existing conditions (McCain vs. Obama vs. Clinton - she also debunks that story about Obama being snippy with the Edwardses that I linked to a couple of times; glad to hear that)...



...and leave it to "The Onion" to provide aid to those non-gay, non-Muslim, pro-life, antiterrorist, left-handed, Bush-loving famine victims of sub-Saharan Africa (truly commendable).

Not The "Right" Type Of Bucks County Voter?

(A hat tip to senior correspondent JW for this – totally “flew under my radar”…)

The Courier Times ran an editorial yesterday noting the following (no online link available)…

For more than 30 years (voters at the Creekside Apartments in Bensalem, PA voted at a site in their apartment complex). The site was moved last year after two letter writers, citing crime at the sprawling complex, expressed safety and parking concerns.

As a result, many Creekside voters stayed home on Election Day (last year). This was a shameful development, because most Creekside residents are naturalized Americans who worked hard to become citizens and cherish the right to vote.

But because many of these new citizens are elderly or disabled and don't drive or own cars, they couldn't get to the new polling site. That's why residents asked the board of elections last week to move the polling place back to Creekside. The board refused (voting 2-1).

Before trying to understand that decision, you should understand this: The county commissioners are the board of elections. And while two of the three commissioners are Republicans, most of the voters at Creekside are Democrats.

And those two commissioners would be Jim Cawley and Charley (“I Have A Semi-Open Mind”) Martin. And the Courier Times editorial tells us that, according to Dem Commissioner Diane Marseglia (the sole vote in favor of moving the machines back to the apartment site), both of the Creekside letter writers “are or were GOP committee members.”

And here’s more on the petition filed by the Creekside residents to move the voting site back to the apartments (the turnout at the polls from the residents was historically very high until the move - there's your first clue)…

Russian-Americans and Indian-Americans at the Creekside Apartments filed a second petition with Bucks County Monday (3/31), once again alleging voter disenfranchisement and demanding a closer polling place.

The petition was signed by 23 residents of the apartment complex on Knights Road in Bensalem, according to attorney Kathryn Boockvar, who filed it on their behalf.

Deena Dean, director of the Bucks County Board of Elections, said changes to the voter district would be impossible before the April 22 primary.

Oh, but Dean had no trouble acting with haste to move the machines to begin with, didn’t she (and do I even need to mention that Dean is a Repug)? And Dean also tells us…

Other neighborhoods and retirement communities have asked for their own voting districts, but all have been turned down, Dean said. Federal law mandates that voter districts conform to census block lines from the most recent decennial census, she said.

That’s no excuse for not moving the machines back as far as I’m concerned; the worst that could happen is that the machines would be moved back to the site where they presently reside.

I’m not a lawyer, but if Cawley and Martin continue to obstruct from doing the right thing, then I think we have a potential violation of the Voting Rights Act (noted here). But of course, any enforcement actions would have to be executed by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department (that is, the Bushco Justice Department – sigh).

Given that this tactic is of the same odious variant as poll taxes and voter ID disenfranchisement, it looks to me that we now have a fourth Bucks County commissioner in addition to Diane, Cawley and Martin, and that would be Jim Crow.

And somewhere, Jay Russell smiles (and how ironic that the party that alleges voter fraud so frequently is so adept at actually practicing it).

Not A Solution I Recommend

Something for Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO to discuss with Khaled Meshal of Hamas, assuming they ever speak to one another…

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Brandishing "the sword of Islam," a Palestinian boy stabs President Bush to death in revenge for American and Israeli actions in a new puppet show for children aired by Hamas-owned television in the Gaza Strip.

The show, part of a series called "Exceptionals," first aired Sunday.

In the episode, Bush, a hand-held puppet dressed in a green uniform and wearing boxing gloves, is shown talking to a Palestinian child.

The child, with tears in his voice, accuses Bush of killing his father in Iraq, his mother in Lebanon and his brothers and sisters in Gaza with the assistance of the Israelis.

"You are a criminal, Bush, a despicable man. You made me an orphan. You deprived me of everything," says the hand-held puppet.

And just for the record, this is the same bunch of psychotics who broadcast a kids’ show a year ago where a Mickey Mouse knockoff encouraged kids to fight Israel “in the name of Islam.”

Of course, it’s not like we and Israel don’t propagandize using kids as well, though not to kill anyone, at least not in so many words (here).

More Work For Our Man Arlen

The latest, from People for the American Way...

Senator Arlen Specter claims to be pro-choice, although it would be hard to know it based on his record of supporting President Bush's anti-choice judicial nominees. But now, Sen. Specter has another chance to show where he really stands.

The nomination of Richard Honaker to the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming is awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Sen. Specter is the Ranking Member. Honaker is a staunch anti-choice activist.

Please call Sen. Specter's office now and urge him to prove he is pro-choice by OPPOSING the confirmation of Richard Honaker.

202-224-4254

Richard Honaker has worked vigorously to undermine women's reproductive freedom. Mr. Honaker has written that abortion is "wrong, and no one should have the right to do what is wrong." As a Wyoming state legislator, Mr. Honaker in 1991 introduced a bill entitled the "Human Life Protection Act" that would have prohibited abortion, except to protect a woman's life or in cases of incest or rape, but then only if the victim had reported the crime within five days of its occurrence -- a highly unrealistic requirement in many instances.

He has a disturbing record on government neutrality toward religion and a legal philosophy that threatens church-state separation. Mr. Honaker believes that the Bible is "true in law," and has publicly disparaged non-"Judeo-Christians" as unable to sustain "political liberty."

Mr. Honaker is a longtime board member of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) -- an extreme right-wing, anti-gay organization that, despite its name, has taken liberty-restricting positions on a range of matters that have nothing to do with home-schooling. A report in Salon quoted one observer of the Christian right as noting that "HSLDA and similarly motivated organizations . . . are major players behind recent efforts to mandate creationist curriculum and attack environmental education, sex-education, and multicultural classroom material." And HSLDA has created an "army of eager teen activists . . . called Generation Joshua," to "help defeat the giants of abortion, same-sex marriage and judicial activism."

Please call now and urge Senator Specter to OPPOSE the confirmation of Richard Honaker in Committee.

202-224-4254

You can let us know how the call goes with our online call report form from here.

Why should you care about a federal judge in another state? As a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, Honaker's bad decisions could be looked to by judges in other states as persuasive precedent, and thus could affect all Americans. Women's rights advocates in Wyoming as well as leading national women's rights organizations, including NOW, the National Women's Law Center and NARAL Pro-Choice America, also oppose Mr. Honaker's confirmation, as do many other groups, including Americans United For Separation of Church and State and the Alliance for Justice.

-- Your Allies at People For the American Way

P.S. for more on Richard Honaker and source material for the statements contained within this e-mail, please see PFAW's letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Mr. Honaker's confirmation here.

And I'm still waiting to hear about that book deal, by the way.

Heckuva Job, "Pauly?"

(Knowing Dubya's propensity to assign idiotic nicknames to his underlings, don't be surprised if that's Paulison's actual "handle.")

McClatchy tells us here that R. David Paulison, the head of FEMA brought on after Mike Brown departed, will follow his predecessor out the door by no later than 1/20/09.

By the way, I know that Brown was redeemed somewhat by information that emerged subsequent to the Katrina debacle that he was more active in rescue efforts than we first believed. However, he remains every bit as culpable for the abysmal performance of his agency as does his boss, Mike (“City Of Louisiana”) Chertoff and of course Dubya himself.

The one point I will give Paulison, though, is that, as former Administrator of the United States Fire Administration, he at least has experience that is somewhat relevant to disaster management.

Still, though, this Washington Post story tells us that FEMA knew “since early 2006 (from) warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of (formaldehyde) 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers.”

The story also tells us…

Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) decried what he called FEMA's indifference to storm victims and said the situation was "sickening." He said the documents "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance" and added that "senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said FEMA had obstructed the 10-month congressional investigation and "mischaracterized the scope and purpose" of its own actions. "FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency's litigation position," Davis said. "FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety."

…

In his appearance at yesterday's committee hearing, FEMA Director R. David Paulison apologized and said "in hindsight" FEMA should have tested trailers earlier. "The health and safety of residents is my primary concern," he said. But he depicted the 200 or so complaints as voiced by a small fraction of the number of families in trailers, and he said more research is needed to determine why some trailer residents have become sickened and what level of formaldehyde is unsafe in homes.

Paulison promised to consult with half a dozen U.S. health, environmental and housing agencies and with trailer manufacturers. He also acknowledged that concerns of environmental toxins in trailers go beyond formaldehyde. "There is an issue inside the trailers, but I don't know if it's formaldehyde, mold, mildew, bacteria" or something else, Paulison said.

So why did it take an appearance before a House oversight committee to get Paulison to acknowledge the contaminated trailers approximately a year after FEMA’s field workers first notified the agency’s management of the problem?

Also, though I don’t know that FEMA’s fake press conference last October was his idea, Paulison should have been out in front decrying it and disciplining those responsible, as opposed to his boss (anything that gives Chertoff the opportunity to look like he actually has a spine is particularly galling).

And finally, this SourceWatch link tells us the following about Paulison (the quote was discovered by none other than Keith Olbermann around the time Paulison was first appointed to head FEMA)…

"Paulison brings an extensive resume to the post," Olbermann wrote. "He ran fire operations for Miami-Dade County in Florida, and was past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. But in light of the response to (Katrina), another comment he made at the time of the Duct Tape announcements (re: the DHS warnings from former agency head Tom Ridge) rings especially loudly. Paulison said in February, 2003, that in the first 48 to 72 hours of an emergency, many Americans would likely have to look after themselves."

Bushco, “Working For You” as always…

Yes, Paulison was definitely an upgrade from Mikey (“Arabian Horsey Time”) Brown. But his tenure at DHS is an improvement only because he thus far has not yet faced a Katrina-like disaster to demonstrate that FEMA has actually improved under his watch.

Update 4/3/08: Well, at least they got this right.

A Bushco Survivor Returns

I didn’t want to let too much time go by without acknowled- ging the interview Deborah Solomon conducted with former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

O’Neill weighed in as follows…

Do you think it was appropriate for the Federal Reserve to lend a helping hand to Bear Stearns and save a private investment company from its own bad decisions? I would say they didn’t save Bear Stearns. They saved the financial system from a panic collapse. I reject the notion that they helped Bear Stearns. Bear Stearns was destroyed.

No it wasn’t. It was purchased by JPMorgan, which will keep it alive. They’re going to keep the book alive. But the institution of Bear Stearns has been destroyed. They’ve gone from $158 to $2 of equity. It’s wallpaper. It’s not even good wallpaper. It’s butcher paper.

It’s so hard to understand how the subprime mortgage crisis has triggered a financial crisis of global proportions. If you have 10 bottles of water, and one bottle had poison in it, and you didn’t know which one, you probably wouldn’t drink out of any of the 10 bottles; that’s basically what we’ve got there.

Instead of helping Bear Stearns, why doesn’t the Fed help out homeowners? It’s too late now. Going back a year ago, if the Fed and the Treasury had set out to help the institutions provide clarity and differentiate between good loans and bad loans, we wouldn’t have gotten to this freeze condition.

I'm don't agree with that - just remember, though, that O’Neill was fired by Bushco because he opposed their tax cuts. And speaking of that…

Do you feel bitter about your service for the Bush administration? No. I’m thankful I got fired when I did, so that I didn’t have to be associated with what they subsequently did.

And as for the election…

How do you feel about John McCain, who claims to be a straight talker? I don’t want a straight talker. I want a leader. And a straight talker is one dimension of a leader.

McCain recently confessed in public that his grasp of economics is limited. Yeah. That’s a great place to start from, isn’t it?

Tee hee (no word on what he thinks of the Dems, though, to be fair).

Have you seen Dick Cheney since he fired you? I have been to a few events where the vice president was there, but we both did our best to ignore each other. You know, I was a pallbearer, and he was a pallbearer, too.

You mean at President Ford’s funeral? Yes.

And you didn’t say hello? Nope. It was a good time to be alone together.

God, it would have been so neat to have O’Neill around lobbing spitballs as these clowns; might have actually kept them from making some of their catastrophic decisions (I know O’Neill is a conservative through and through, but he built a successful company, Alcoa by name, which is more than I can say for anyone else in our ruling cabal).

And finally…

How did you first get involved in government? I went to Washington in 1961 because I believed what Kennedy said. If you want to make a difference, come here. It sounds corny, but it’s true.

It still is (corny perhaps, but no less the truth then as now).

Today's Inky Errata (4/2/08)

I haven’t said anything about this even though the problem has existed for some time because I didn’t want to waste valuable posting space on it, but I’ve finally reached my limit; apparently, Philly.com is incapable of performing basic quality assurance on its own website.

This link to Attytood from the philly.com home page looked really interesting, so I clicked on it….

…and was immediately linked to an Attytood/Will Bunch post from December 2007 (sorry the image decomposed slightly when I reduced it).

But remember, boys and girls, the REAL problem with the web site is that, according to Dick Polman, I misinterpreted data about the average length of time visitors view/read the site, as noted here (though, upon rereading my post and Polman’s response, I really didn’t break the issue down to the level of granularity Polman alleged, so basically I apologized somewhat for something that really wasn’t my fault – cannot find the original E&P story to confirm that, though).

Sorry to waste your time with this – carry on.

Update 4/3/08: I just checked, and the link is fixed.

A Morning Meditation

Sun is shining, birds are singing, not dealing with the nonsense yet so in the meantime, here's Patty Griffin singing "Heavenly Day" to a great slideshow by YouTuber davidj570...



...and Tom Lehrer, the funniest math professor who ever lived, brings us "Poisoning Pigeons In The Park."

Again Getting Played on "Free" Trade

This Op-Ed column in last Saturday’s New York Times by Edward Schumacher-Matos argued in favor of a free trade agreement with Colombia, and I should tell you from the start that I oppose free trade agreements since they have never provided worker safeguards and I have yet to see such agreements generating reasonably well-paying jobs with respectable benefits in this country (if someone can make that case to me, feel free to try – I’m sorry, but with our economy in the tank, I’m not terribly concerned about generating jobs anywhere else in the world).

The author stakes his claim based on the following…

All sides agree that trade-union murders in Colombia, like all violence, have declined drastically in recent years. The Colombian unions’ own research center says killings dropped to 39 last year from a high of 275 in 1996.

Yet in a report being released next week, the research center says the killings remain “systematic” and should be treated by the courts as “genocide” designed to “exterminate” unionism in Colombia. Most human-rights groups cite the union numbers and conclude, as Human Rights Watch did this year, that “Colombia has the highest rate of violence against trade unionists in the world.”

Even if that is true, it was far safer to be in a union than to be an ordinary citizen in Colombia last year. The unions report that they have 1 million members. Thirty-nine killings in 2007 is a murder rate of 4 unionists per 100,000. There were 15,400 homicides in Colombia last year, not counting combat deaths, according to the national police. That is a murder rate of 34 citizens per 100,000.

Oh, and by the way, Iraq is safer than Philadelphia, just to let you know (God, am I sick of nonsensical statistics such as that…how about a rate 4 murders per 100,000 former Wall Street Journal columnists per year? Somehow I don’t think you’d be singing about that; I should note, though, that Schumacher-Matos is more sophisticated than your typical wingnut, and unlike many of them, he has actually served this country in the military with distinction).

Also…

(Colombia’s) two main guerrilla groups have an avowed strategy of infiltrating unions, which attracts violence. About a third of the identified murderers of union members are leftist guerrillas. Most of the rest are members of paramilitary groups — presumed to be behind two of the four trade unionist murders this month. The demobilization of most paramilitary groups, along with the prosecutions and government protection of union leaders, has contributed to the great drop in union murders.

Oh, so it’s the fault of the unions themselves that they face death in unacceptable numbers, is it?

This prior post tells you that the paramilitary groups working under the drug cartels “intimidate the workforce to the point where workers are scarce and wages are suppressed.”

And a comment to this AFL-CIO post tells you that, in addition to the fact that Colombia has squandered the money we sent them to fight the “drug war,” which is nothing but a slogan in this country particularly under Bushco (because those funds have padded the lifestyles of the rich and prosperous in that country)…

Colombia is a different world than the USA. It is difficult for reporters to even understand without living there. One must remember that 20% of the population has over 60% of the wealth. The 20% control the government and for them the FTA as written is excellent. However over 50% of the population lives below the poverty level. The disparity between rich and poor in the country remains one of the largest in the world, some reports have put it as high as 58 times. In order for there to be a market for American goods there needs to be people who can afford them.

Indeed the treatment of union members is important. Even more important is the need to eliminate fear in workers for exercising their right to organize. There are hundreds of thousands who work in terrible conditions and would like organize, but don’t for fear of death. It is bad enough that the government linked paramilitary is said to be responsible for the majority of murders of union members, but a U.S. State department report has even said Colombian military troops are responsible for some.

And the AFL-CIO post itself states the following…

All the Colombian union leaders told the (U.S.) delegation they oppose any free trade deal between the United States and Colombia until the government takes strong action to stop the violence against trade union members and ends the government’s assaults on union rights. They emphasized that the trade agreement in its current form will create more economic insecurity in their country and hurt workers more.

Gee, it sounds to me like the Colombian unionists care more about their livelihood and their lives than stimulating economic growth and jobs, contrary to what Schumacher-Matos tells us.

And Bushco and their acolytes have been trying to hand us the “Don’t worry about Colombia, everything’s fine” line for a little while, as Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez did last October, only to be properly slapped down by Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

And this tells us of the story of Chiquita Brands, which tried to do the right thing concerning the paramilitary organizations in Colombia and ended up getting rooked by Mike (“City of Louisiana”) Chertoff (who I guess will endure to the bitter end with this bunch, a moment that can’t come soon enough).

Something Else For Boehner's "Trusted Hands"

It looks like House Minority Leader John Boehner (pronounced bo-ner) is about to end up $1 million richer as a result of a lawsuit filed against U.S. House Dem Rep Jim McDermott (as noted here)…

The case dealt with an illegally intercepted phone call in 1996 involving Boehner that later was handed over to McDermott, who then leaked it to two newspapers.

Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ruled after the Supreme Court in December refused to hear the broader constitutional challenge by McDermott over whether he has legal protection as a lawmaker.

Hogan earlier had found the Washington Democrat violated a federal wiretapping law and ordered him to pay $60,000 in damages to Boehner, along with "reasonable" attorney fees.

It is believed to be the first time a Capitol Hill lawmaker has successfully sued a fellow member.

"Congressman McDermott broke the law, and as a result, he shattered the bonds of trust between our institution and the men and women we represent in the halls of Congress," said Boehner in a statement Tuesday.

Interesting note about Judge Hogan, by the way: he signed the search warrant authorizing the FBI to search the Capitol building offices of U.S. Congressman William Jefferson, the only such search in United States history (he was also appointed in 1982 under Ronnie Baby – just sayin’).

Oh, and one more thing; this tells us that the Supremes, despite a request from Bushco, aren’t going to rule on the Jefferson case, thereby letting stand a lower court ruling that the FBI went too far in searching Jefferson’s quarters (good move, Your Honor).

And oh yes, this gives Boehner such an opportunity to be shocked – yea and verily, truly shocked! – over the behavior of that Democratic ruffian McDermott (truth be told, yeah, McDermott probably should have at least turned the tape over to the DNC and let them make the call so Boehner wouldn’t be able to personally go after him).

But it’s a funny thing – I happened to come across this story from 2005 concerning the Republican Party of Virginia which intercepted two private phone calls by state Democratic Party members. Upon realizing they were caught, the Repugs settled, but…

"Quite beyond the legal question, this is an effort by the Republican Party of Virginia to avoid responsibility for their actions," Arlington Democratic Del. Bob Brink said on Thursday, referring to the recent news that the state GOP is suing its liability-insurance carrier for breach of contract because the carrier said that it would not cover the $750,000 that the party paid to Virginia Democrats to settle their claim.

Brink and three other state legislators who were original parties to the suit charged that the RPV's suit against the Lincoln, Neb.,-based Union Insurance Co. is "an abuse of the legal process," to use Brink's words, because the party had noted in a disclosure statement filed in conjunction with the 2004 legal action that it had no relevant insurance agreements in place at that time.

…

The party's former executive director, Ed Matricardi, and former party chairman Gary Thomson pled guilty to charges related to the intercepted phone calls.

…

"Had we been told that there was an insurance company, and that the insurance company was going to assume the responsibility, and that it would cost the Republican Party of Virginia nothing, I think we'd have been much less likely to have settled," (Lebanon Democratic Sen. Phil) Puckett said.

…

Arlington Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple was more direct.

"I don't like being lied to," Whipple said. "I think that's awful. It bothers me that an important entity like the Republican Party of Virginia would be willing to lie, both to us and the court. I think that's terrible."

So basically, cut out the “holier than thou” act, Boehner. Both sides engage in this stuff from time to time and should be penalized accordingly.

If you don’t get off your high horse, then I’ll bring up your truly cozy relationship with Sallie Mae again, OK?

An Obama Campaign Crisis

I stuck with the one-term senator from Illinois despite what was apparently a brushoff of John and Elizabeth Edwards over whether or not his health insurance proposals would cover all Americans (here). I kept quiet when I heard of the last-minute robocalls in New Hampshire earlier this year (somewhat fair, though, as a response to the “Insult-40-States Express,” I’ll grant you). And to me, the Reverend Wright thing isn’t as big of a deal as John Hagee calling the Catholic Church “the great whore” and Rod Parsley spewing gay hatred all over the place. And I bit my lip and said nothing when he praised The Sainted Ronnie R.

But Senator Barack Obama, I must tell you that my faith in your campaign is now shaken. And I know a lot of other people have beaten me to it on this, but I have to weigh in.

This story (under the oxymoronic banner of “Political Intelligence”) tells us that Obama visited an Altoona, Pa. bowling alley – and bowled a seven-frame score of 37.

A 37?? The young one can bowl a 37 without the benefit of gutter guards!

Well then, while keeping in mind your song parody written for The Gridiron Club on March 11, 2006 (what is it with Washington and these self-celebratory dinners and snobby gatherings…probably embedded with each other the same way that puke-green coloring is embedded in lima beans, I guess), back when you wanted to work with “Straight Talk” McCain on campaign finance reform, I’d like to offer the following (to the tune of “If I Only Had A Brain,” from “The Wizard Of Oz”)…

With the Clintons, ever cheatin’, for the White House we’re competin’
For votes from everywhere
And the bowlers I’d be wooin’ if I knew what I was doin’
And I’d only make a spare (a bowling thing, for the uninitiated)

For a sympathetic tally, I’d wind up in the alley
And toss the ball with flair
I would never be regrettin’ if the pins were all resetting
While I’d only make a spare

Dick Weber would be proud; my name would be a hit
Engraved on my shirt of poly knit
While I knock down that “seven-and-ten” split

And the junk food I’d be gnoshin’, with brewskis I’d be washin’
Down such gross blue-collar fare
Up the PA polls I’d rocket with their votes all in my pocket
If I’d only make a spare

And don’t worry, I won’t comment about what it truly means that some will actually base their votes in this sad display by an otherwise very worthy candidate.

Update 4/5/08: I was only joking of course, but apparently, our dear corporate media cousins were serious.

Yep, Check The Date Again

This just in...

Today in Washington, White House Press Secretary Dan Abrams announced the itinerary for President Kerry’s five-day trip to the Middle East during his morning briefing. The president will travel to Jerusalem to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas to sign the long-negotiated treaty stipulating that the Palestinians will renounce terrorism against the state of Israel and assist a U.N. peacekeeping force in disarming Hamas. In return, Israel will end its occupation of the Palestinian territories and pull back from all territorial gains achieved in its 1967 war against Egypt.

Other stops on the president’s tour include Iraq, where a delegation including Saddam Hussein and other Shi’ite mullahs, installed into office as part of a U.N.-brokered power sharing arrangement, have complied fully with weapons inspectors and human rights activists to achieve full transparency in revealing that country’s biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities as well as reform of its courts and prisons.

In response to a question from the press, Abrams reminded everyone that Hussein’s prison sentence for humanitarian crimes was mitigated in a controversial move by The Hague due to the inability to reconcile Sunnis elements in Iraq with the governing Shi’ite majority, for the purposes of allowing Hussein to join the governing coalition. Hussein’s freedom is contingent upon the achievement of the following benchmarks by Iraq’s government, formed approximately three years ago: a distribution of oil wealth deemed to be equitable by the U.N. oversight board, the implementation and participation of the majority of Iraqis in free elections, and the reduction of that country’s child mortality rate and upgrading of disease prevention methods in compliance with recommendations from the International Red Cross.

Also from Washington, Vice President John Edwards is expected to announce today a new private-government partnership with the Gates Foundation that will launch programs assisting college students dropping out from school due to financial hardship as well as inner-city public libraries seeking funds to develop, maintain and eventually expand Internet access. Tomorrow, the vice president will fly to New Orleans to participate in a ceremony marking the end of the reconstruction of the Ninth Ward, completed with funds from an endowment dedicated to fighting poverty in the U.S.

In other news, former president George W. Bush is currently being treated in a Crawford, TX hospital for as-yet-unspecified injuries sustained in a brush-clearing accident. This is the third such occurrence over the last two months; no word on the president’s long-term prognosis. A representative from his library noted that this will postpone his planned upcoming visit to former Vice-President Dick Cheney at the federal prison camp in Nellis, Nevada where Mr. Cheney is serving a 20-year prison sentence for conviction on charges of money laundering, tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud U.S. and international governments.

I know, we can only wish.

Monday Stuff

This might be the edgiest piece The Onion has ever done ("talking to you is like talking to a goat," huh?)...


9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

...and to get serious, today would have been the 81st birthday of labor pioneer Cesar Chavez (this report has more; I have to say, though, that I think a federal holiday is pushing it a bit, but we'll see)...



...and here is a two-part report from John Gorenfeld on The Reverend Sun Myung Moon (more info here; Part 1 is about 9:24)...



...and Part 2 is about 8:19.

Birds, Bees, and McBush

That “straight talking maverick” exposes his utter cluelessness and laziness on the issues again here…

Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?"

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy."

Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) "You’ve stumped me."

Q: "I mean, I think you’d probably agree it probably does help stop it?"

Mr. McCain: (Laughs) "Are we on the Straight Talk express? I’m not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I’m sure I’ve taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception – I’m sure I’m opposed to government spending on it, I’m sure I support the president’s policies on it."

Q: "But you would agree that condoms do stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. Would you say: ‘No, we’re not going to distribute them,’ knowing that?"

Mr. McCain: (Twelve-second pause) "Get me Coburn’s thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn’s paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I’ve never gotten into these issues before."

What an embarrassment (I assume McCain is referring to Tom Coburn - case closed).

Linda Hahn of Planned Parenthood of Bucks County (from here, in a Guest Opinion spurred on primarily by the recent news that teenage pregnancies rose for the first time in 16 years after a period of steady decline, and the discovery that 1 in 4 - 1 in 4! - teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease)…

There is no evidence that abstinence-only education, which stresses only the failure rates of condoms and prohibits teens from getting life saving information, reduces the rates of infection and pregnancy among teens; yet in the face of this failure, Congress has increased the appropriation for abstinence-only programs year after year.

…

That kind of thinking will land your son or daughter in one of our health centers, with some chance that they will already have an infection, because they might be playing Russian roulette with their health. They just don't know the facts and chances are that you as a parent might not have all the current information to give them either. Besides, even in the most highly functional, loving families, youth keep secrets from their parents. It is part of adolescent development and the separation/individuation stage in their maturing.

However, we as a community can positively alter these statistics. It is within our reach. Unfortunately, instead we have colluded with those who prevent comprehensive sexuality education from being presented in the public schools. In my 14 years as the CEO of PPABC, the number of schools that permit our expert teen sexuality education staff to work with their youth dwindles each year. Why? Because school superintendents and principals are afraid to offend those in the community whose religious beliefs demand that abstinence-only be taught.

God bless Ms. Hahn; every time she writes a column like this, the anti-choice zealots and Stepford Repugs who think that “this can’t possibly happen to MY child” come out in force to absolutely pillory her on the pages of the Bucks County Courier Times, but as a public service, she keeps fighting the good fight anyway.

And speaking of “Senator Honor and Virtue,” we all know how he feels about Roe v. Wade, don’t we?



Update 4/2/08: Would that this were a last-minute April Fools' joke...

How Low Can Joe Go?

Joe Lieberman shouldn’t matter any more.

With all of the positive prospects facing the Democrats for the fall if we keeping doing all we’re doing (and I mean those supporting the candidates as well as the candidates themselves), it shouldn’t matter that Joe Lieberman continues to whine, pontificate, and consort with Repugs at every turn.

But somehow it does; at least to me, anyway, and others I’m sure. And he does so again today (here), and I’m not going to include any excerpts; suffice it to say that he believes his precious Democratic Party has been taken over by a bunch of dirty fracking peacenik hippies who hate the Iraq war, eschew any sense of individual responsibility and, consequently, engage in all manner of illicit personal activities including taking drugs, attending blogger meetups at local watering holes and voting for Ned Lamont, to the point where he tells us with total conviction that the mantle of the Democratic Party of JFK now belongs to no one else but John W. McBush.

Yep, that’s The Last Honest Man, the fly in the mayonnaise jar, the Baby Ruth in the swimming pool, the stink bomb in the middle of the concert recital, your dear uncle who INSISTS on lighting up a cigar on the porch during the humid summertime with the smoke wafting through the screen into the play room where Little Johnny is mangling his little green soldiers under the treads of his motorized tank…

OK, you get the idea.

So what do we do? I’ll tell you what to do, Mr. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

You boot this forever fawning neocon underling off the Homeland Security Committee once and for all, that’s what you do! There are probably other punishments that can be exacted (within the bounds of legal behavior and reasonably good taste, I know), but that’s a start.

And sometime after November 5th of this year, do whatever is necessary to remove the title of “Democrat” from his party affiliation (“Independent Democrat” isn’t enough of a qualifier – actually, no word is sufficient without calling him a “Republican” of one type or another).

And do it live on “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann so it will be enshrined as a You Tube moment forever.

That way, he’ll only be able to turn to the Repugs who I suspect will get tired of his act faster than we have.

Update 4/3/08: Another triumph of idiocy from this asshat (h/t Bill in Portland, Maine @ The Daily Kos).

Lessons In Non-Governance

In the wake of today’s long-overuse resignation of Alphonso Jackson as HUD secretary, allow me to bring to you this editorial from yesterday’s New York Times…

President Bush likes to talk about not being swayed by public opinion, especially the views of Democrats. At a news conference last December, he said the most important criterion for picking a president is “whether or not somebody’s got a sound set of principles from which they will not deviate as they make decisions.”

Unhappily for the country, we have learned that Mr. Bush has no idea when standing on principle becomes blind stubbornness and then destructive obsession. So it goes with his choice to run the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury.

In a lower job in that office, Mr. Bradbury signed off on two secret legal memos authorizing torture in American detention camps. The first approved waterboarding, among other things. When Congress outlawed waterboarding, the other memo assured Mr. Bush that he could ignore the law.

Mr. Bradbury is widely viewed on both sides of the aisle as such a toxic choice that he will never be confirmed. The Senate has already refused to do so twice. Still, Mr. Bush clings to this lost cause, snarling the confirmation process for hundreds of nominees and crippling parts of the federal regulatory apparatus.

The head of the Office of Legal Counsel is one of the most important jobs in the Justice Department, charged with telling the executive branch whether it is acting legally. His advice is supposed to be based on the law, not the party line.

Mr. Bradbury, however, continues to defend his cynical memos, and the odious practices they blessed. In a Senate hearing, he tried to justify the way the Central Intelligence Agency does waterboarding by comparing it with the Japanese military’s World War II practice of forcing prisoners to drink huge amounts of water and then jumping on their stomachs.

Human rights experts say the Bush and Bradbury-approved method of waterboarding — strapping down a prisoner under gushing water to make him fear drowning — puts the United States in the company of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the French in Algeria and the security services of the Burmese dictatorship. There is certainly no comfort in that.

When Mr. Bush refused to withdraw the Bradbury nomination, the Senate’s Democratic leaders decided to stop processing other controversial nominations. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, twice offered to resume confirmations and compromise on candidates if Mr. Bush withdrew Mr. Bradbury — and forwarded the names of six Democrats chosen for bipartisan panels like the Federal Election Commission. The White House refused, and Mr. Reid took to keeping the Senate in pro forma sessions during vacations to prevent Mr. Bush from making a recess appointment of Mr. Bradbury and other objectionable choices.

At this point, according to a review by Politico.com, the election commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and the National Labor Relations Board do not have enough members to do their jobs. Scores of federal judgeships are vacant. The Council of Economic Advisers is down to one adviser.

This is bad for the country. Mr. Bush should withdraw Mr. Bradbury’s nomination, replace him at the Justice Department with someone committed to upholding the law and take Mr. Reid’s offer. The president’s hyperpartisanship and my-way-or-the-highway arrogance is now close to paralyzing his own administration.

And this is barely on-topic, but speaking of the Khmer Rogue, this is an appreciation in the Times for Dith Pran, a Times photojournalist and partner/friend of Times Southeast Asian correspondent Sydney Schanberg who endured “The Killing Fields” of Cambodia in the late 1970s (the 1984 film with Dr. Haing S. Ngor and Sam Waterston told their story).

Time To Kick The Elephant

Allow me to impart some choice items from yesterday’s feature article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about Tom Cole of the National Republican Congressional Committee (here - this describes some of the work Cole has cut out for him)…

Going into the 2008 elections, Cole faces a daunting list of challenges. To date, 29 of his party’s representatives in Congress have retired, an unusually large number, leaving open politically marginal seats that incumbents might have held but which will be more difficult for challengers to defend — Deborah Pryce’s seat in Columbus, Ohio; Mike Ferguson’s in central New Jersey; Heather Wilson’s around Albuquerque; Thomas M. Reynolds’s in Buffalo. Reynolds, Cole’s predecessor at the N.R.C.C., just narrowly held his seat in 2006. Rick Renzi, a Republican congressman from Arizona, was indicted last month on federal corruption charges, putting what was another safe Republican seat in play. These vacancies mean that in a year when, by historical standards, his party would be expected to win back seats, Cole will have to defend many more seats than he will be able to attack (only six Democratic incumbents have announced they are leaving office). His committee has approximately $5 million on hand, roughly one-eighth the amount of cash on hand as its Democratic counterpart, which at latest count had $38 million. Worse still, the National Republican Congressional Committee recently discovered, during an internal audit, accounting fraud so extensive that it had to call in the F.B.I., which is now investigating embezzlement by the committee’s former treasurer. Many conservative activists have become so dissatisfied with the party’s heresies, particularly on immigration and government spending, that as Cole’s staff took over, the committee’s fund-raising pleas were being ignored and, on at least one occasion, returned in an envelope stuffed with feces.

So classy the Repugs are; the "circular file" just wasn't good enough, I suppose.

And what to do in response?

Cole’s strategy is not complicated, but it does contain an essential difficulty: at a moment when Washington is deeply unpopular, he wants his candidates to run as insurgents, but voters still identify Republicans with what they don’t like about Washington — they prefer a generic Democratic Congressional candidate by a margin of 49 percent to 35 percent, according to a March 7-10 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll; in an ABC/Washington Post poll released in early February, they preferred Democrats to Republicans on seven out of seven issues. Cole’s basic challenge is to try to flip the popular perception of the capital so that more voters identify Washington with the Democrats than with the Republicans. He says he wants to use his party’s resources to define Nancy Pelosi as a national character, the face of a Democratic Congress that is once again too liberal for the country. (“Those three little words — ‘San Francisco liberal’ — are just magic for fund-raising,” one of Cole’s staff members told me.)

And oh yes, speaking of fundraising (putting aside that typically idiotic Repug boilerplate for a second), this tells us the following (buried deep in the comments)…

A great deal of (the Democrats’) 2006's success can be attributed to the fact that Dean's 50-state strategy was in place -- he had candidates in FAR more races than was usual, had party assets in all states, and while he didn't create the wave -- he made sure we had candidates to ride it. That wasn't the case in 2002 and 2004, where WAY too many Republicans ran unchallenged.

If you look at the way things are organized and how everything works, there's one unavoidable truth: The GOP is screwed, money wise. On every front. The DNC/RNC area is the only place they have an edge (Everywhere else is total blowouts), and that's a meaningless comparison. Factoring in what the DNC has actually started doing with itself, and even that's not a positive for the GOP.

Lack of money is NOT a problem on the Democratic side. Anywhere.

Good to know (and here’s more on what happened to some of the GOP’s dough, by the way, alluded to earlier; the Times story tells us that when House Minority Leader John Boehner is asked to assess the committee’s fundraising so far, he replies, “It stinks. No other way to put it.”).

Back to Cole (tee hee)…

He has tried, when possible, to choose candidates whose biographies can reinforce the anti-Washington theme, even if they have no real political experience. And he is counting on McCain’s emergence to permit the party to distance its image from that of Bush. Cole might have come up with a grand and unifying policy vision for his insurgents to run on. But Cole is not an ideologue. And with Rove and the party’s other grand strategists having abandoned the field — five of the six members of the Republican Congressional leadership in 2006 have now retired — Cole is now turning to practical answers, to process, and deferring to the politically moderate geography of the battleground areas. “I still think most Americans want their government to be smaller, not bigger, and their taxes to be lower, not higher,” Cole says. “And I still think most Democrats in office think that America is not a force for good in the world, and I think most voters have a different perspective.”

A kinder, gentler way of saying the Dems hate America and love Osama whatsisname, of course (what a creep).

And here’s some true revisionist history (and delusional thinking) from Cole on SCHIP…

…I think they could have got S-Chip [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] done too. But they had the same problem with George Bush we had with Bill Clinton. They hated him too much to get it done.

Once a Repug…

Two moments in the story that were actually funny: the first describes how Cole and the Repugs wooed Indiana prosecutor Curtis Hill only to be shot down by Hill because he didn’t think his prospective Dem opponent Joe Donnelly was vulnerable (Cole wanted to depict Donnelly as “a tool of Nancy Pelosi” and he though that would be enough to compete, but Hill in his good sense wasn’t buying it).

The second tells us what Cole thinks of The Club for Growth (I’ll give the chairman points for honesty here if nothing else)…

Without the money, the party’s power has begun to wane, and with it the usual ability to control the process. Early in the fall, the Club for Growth, the hyperaggressive low-tax lobbying group, chose to run ads attacking Bob Latta, a Republican state senator who was running for Congress in a special election in Ohio, on behalf of another Republican who was contesting the nomination, Steve Buehrer, whom the Club considered more conservative. Cole was damned if he could figure out the ideological difference between the two. “Bob Latta is a straight arrow,” he told me. “Nice guy, conventional Republican. And they go dump a bunch of money into another guy who you can’t tell the difference! Bob Latta’s not going to raise taxes. He’s with them on dividends. He’s a free trader.”

The Club for Growth’s ads had attacked Latta and connected him to the corrupt and convicted former Republican governor of Ohio, Bob Taft. Though Latta survived the primary, his Democratic competitor in the special election began to run ads mimicking the Club’s line of attack. “The problem I have with the club is I think they’re stupid,” Cole said. “I think they’re politically inept. They spend more money beating Republicans than Democrats.” He shook his head. “I mean — Bob Latta! Give me a break!”

Also…

In Ada, Okla., at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, Cole gave a localized version of his national partisan pitch, that the Democrats were out of touch with the country on tax-and-spend issues, when a man raised his hand and asked how he could be expected to believe that line, given the excesses of the Republicans. Cole launched into a disquisition on why the contributions of earmarks to the federal deficit was overhyped but eventually conceded that the man, who turned out to be the publisher of an Oklahoma travel guide, had a “good point.” When I talked to him afterward, the publisher, Bob Rubin, said he was “not very impressed. They are not accepting responsibility.”

And the real capper for the Repugs as described in the story was the victory of Dem Bill Foster versus Repug Jim Oberweis in the special election for former speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat, with Cole telling a reporter that “he wasn’t sure if he would stay in his position for another term, as had been the habit of his predecessors" (as noted here, Cole has already thought of quitting; the little power play in question by Boehner is noted in the story).

So much for Karl Rove’s “permanent Republican majority.” Will the last one out the door please turn off the lights?

A Guest Appearance From "The Invisible Man"

I’ll bet you’re wondering why, with “Deadeye Dick” Cheney lurking and threatening to blow up Iran in front of any media person who will give him the time of day (still too many, sadly), we even have a Secretary of Energy.

Well, that thought has crossed my mind also, but someone does serve in that role, and that would be Samuel A. Bodman; we visited him here some time ago here in an effort to learn more about him, and part of what we found is that his background isn’t so much comprised of oil and energy-related businesses as it is with the “specialty chemicals” industry, notably the element Coltan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where Bodman’s company, Cabot Corporation (according to the UK-based human rights group Rights and Accountability in Development) “aid(ed) the rebels (there) by conducting business...essentially inadvertently aiding a violent conflict that contributed to widespread human rights abuses.”

Also, from this link, we received an explanation as to why gas prices were threatened to soar to about $4 a gallon last year (unfortunately, that may take place this year – the story even discussed the possibility of $6 a gallon in ‘07, if you can believe that)…

Tesoro Corp. of San Antonio, the second-largest refiner in the western U.S., said first-quarter refinery use dropped because oil companies delayed until this year maintenance that could have been done in 2006. The portion of U.S. refining capacity that was in operation in the first quarter declined to 87.3 percent from 88.9 percent a year earlier, according to Energy Department data.

The maintenance was delayed so as not to decrease output in the wake of high prices after Katrina hit, thus maximizing profit.

All of this is actually a long setup to a Letter to the Editor from Bodman that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times (here), and I wanted to focus on this paragraph in particular…

Since the start of this administration, the federal government has spent more than $12 billion to research, develop and promote alternative energy sources. Last year alone, the Energy Department announced more than $1 billion to spur the growth of a robust, sustainable biofuels industry — with a focus on cellulosic ethanol. We also continue to make critical investments in solar and wind power, hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, cutting-edge clean coal plants and advanced nuclear power technologies. And we’re already seeing results — in our national laboratories and, more important, out in the marketplace.

Uh huh…

This tells us the following…

The proposed (2009) budget significantly boosts spending on coal and nuclear technologies and the DOE Science program, with a smaller increase for biomass and biorefinery R&D. However, funding within the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program is cut by 28%, down to $1.256 billion, with the reductions coming mainly from funding for hydrogen technology, solar energy, vehicle technologies, facilities and infrastructure, and the weatherization program.

Also, this tells us the following (from February ’07)…

WASHINGTON -- Weeks after pledging major investments in renewable energy, President George W. Bush is calling for cuts at Colorado's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, drawing complaints Monday from two of the state's Democratic lawmakers.

A centerpiece of Bush's State of the Union speech this year was a 20 percent cut in gasoline use by 2017 made possible in part by increasing the use of renewable fuels.

Colorado's Democratic lawmakers criticized Bush's proposed budget, delivered to Congress on Monday, for increasing spending on fossil fuel and nuclear development while cutting the Energy Department's renewable research lab by 3 percent.

Bush's proposed budget would decrease funding for the Golden, Colo., lab to $181.5 million from $187.5 million, they said. The lab does the nation's primary research on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

"Where is the balance in this budget, and where is the dedication to energy independence?" asked Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo. "The president needs to walk his talk, and if he will not, I will work with the new Congress to increase funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. Energy independence is so critical to our national security, our energy security and our economy that we cannot afford to shortchange programs that will move us forward."

Oh, and by the way, it’s currently about $3.35 a gallon at the Shell station near Le Manse Doomsy, just to let you know.

Will "Debbie Dubya" See The Light?

I know The Daily Kos and others have been all over Dem Florida U.S. House Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz for stating that she “can’t work publicly against Florida House Repugs Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart” (as noted here) so that’s why she had supposedly been supporting their Democratic challengers “behind the scenes.”

This is awful on a bunch of levels that I don’t mean to reconstruct here (where do you start with I R-L, for example?), but I just want to note here that DavidNYC has posted on the recent developments here, with Wasserman Schultz apparently engaged in some halting first steps on behalf of the Dems in question (I don’t know why Wasserman Schultz needed to be prodded into action like this, but there you are).

Also, this New York Times article yesterday communicates that Lincoln Diaz-Balart is caught in the current squeeze faced by so many in Congress, whereby his constituents face foreclosure of their homes in greater and greater numbers while his party “urg(es) restraint, reluctant to commit taxpayer funds to what they say is simply a bailout for greedy lenders and reckless buyers” (and, more than anyone else, this is the mantra of Saint McCain).

So what does L D-B have to say?

“I haven’t studied this sufficiently to commit right now,” Mr. Diaz-Balart said in an interview outside Epworth Village, a retirement community where he spoke to constituents about how to get their payments from the economic stimulus plan approved by Congress last month.

“It’s a very serious problem, and I am not dogmatic,” he said. “I am not going to say there cannot be state intervention in a dogmatic way.”

For constituents like (Juan) Carpio, that is not enough. “I’m very lukewarm about him nowadays,” said Mr. Carpio, who like his congressman is a lifelong Republican of Cuban heritage.

Others were less subtle. “He says a lot of about foreign policy, mainly toward Cuba, which makes no difference here,” said David Carbonell, a former computer programmer and gas station manager now on disability with a heart ailment. “You have people living here at the edge of poverty and he has done nothing to bring anything back to Hialeah or Miami Lakes. He is a party hack. He will vote the way his party votes.”

Sounds like anti-Castroism alone isn’t good enough for your constituents any more, Mr. Diaz-Balart. Maybe it’s time for you to resist the flinty-eyed, curmudgeonly posturing of what passes for your party leadership and practice some actual governance.

And maybe this will spur on “Debbie Dubya” to forego the niceties and confront these three wingnuts head on, something they would not hesitate to do themselves if roles were reversed.

Update: More great stuff on this from kos here...