The Singin Senators, featuring former Senator Larry Craig in better days (for him):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW1Mpp0HZVI[/youtube]
Which, but the way, was added to youtube by Myleftnutmegger. This may not stay up long, considering Comedy Central’s scorched earth policy re: youtube.
Know your rights
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeWSpB_7w4[/youtube]
Must reading at firedoglake. Bush-Cheny want a war with Iran, and the Democrats have played right into Bush’s hands:
Throughout this inexorable march to war, the Democratic Congress has done worse than nothing. They’ve voted for resolutions condemning Iran without having the factual basis for knowing what Iran is doing or intends, relying only on neocon and Administration propaganda. They’d listened to dishonest and crazed warmongers like Joe Lieberman, for heaven’s sake. They’ve voted for resolutions that would support regime change, but they’ve refused to pass resolutions or amendments that would require the Administration to seek new authorization to start a war with Iran. Most of our Democratic Presidential candidates — Kucinich and Gravel excepted — have pretended to be “serious” people by refusing to rule out military strikes against Iran, even nuclear strikes. These are not serious positions; they are seriously irresponsible.
This is a war that, at this point, upwards of 75% of the people in this country would oppose, yet it’s likely our Democratic Congress will do nothing to stop it. As for Bush, it’s almost as if he was trying to take vengeance on this country for turning against him by doing the maximum harm possible in the time he has left.
The incomparable Krugman points out what many of us in the internet wilderness have said at one time or another :
There’s a powerful political faction in this country that’s determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from the Katrina debacle — namely, that the government always fails when it attempts to help people in need, so it shouldn’t even try. “I don’t want the people who ran the Katrina cleanup to manage our health care system,” says Mitt Romney, as if the Bush administration’s practice of appointing incompetent cronies to key positions and refusing to hold them accountable no matter how badly they perform — did I mention that Mr. Chertoff still has his job? — were the way government always works.
And I’m not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause.
The Democratic candidates can’t win, or can’t govern once they win, unless they push back against this sort of thing. By definition, you can’t push back with timidity. The Republicans have handed the Democrats a perfect opportunity to be the party of optimism and old fashioned American can-doism. How hard could it be to fashion a message around the concept of rebuilding, or better yet, taking back America. At this point, if we aggressively offer hope against a message that implicitly denies the possibility of improvement through sound governance, we can’t lose.
When Dukakis ran for president he started his convention speech with the claim that the election was about competence, not ideology. The message didn’t work then, largely because of the way it was packaged. But packaged right, particularly after eight years of monumental incompetence, it can’t lose. We should be prepared to deliver the steak, but sell the sizzle. Dukakis was all steak.
But this implies an ambitious agenda, not the sort of incrementalism Democrats have pushed in the recent past. We don’t need, for example, to hear about tinkering with the drug benefit; we need to talk about Universal Health Care. How about, for another example, being aggressively in favor of tolerance and human rights, instead of soft pedalling our support for those values. Those things can sell, if packaged right. People are tired of hate. Given the choice they will vote for someone who gives them hope over someone who will tell them that the decline they see all around them is a permanent feature of the American scene.
Maybe I’ve missed something, but it appears not a single Republican hypocrite has been exposed today. What’s the world coming to? Perhaps it’s the calm before another storm. Ah well, it’s probably be best if the next person to crash and burn waits until after the holiday.
There’s really not much grist for the mill, and I’m not interested in repeating myself, so I’ll confine myself to passing this along:
British artist Jonathan Yeo had every reason to be offended. The Bush Library in Texas had yet again rescinded a commission it had given him to paint a portrait of United States President George W. Bush. In the end, though, the artist decided to go ahead with his artistic portrayal of the 43rd president, even if he wasn’t getting paid for it — and created a portrait of Bush using a collage of pornographic images.
According to Yeo, he did the picture for fun. The article, from Der Spiegel, says that the overseas Republicans are offended that an artist would choose to depict a war criminal and sociopath in such a way. Here’s the picture (click to enlarge).
It actually takes a bit of work to discern the pornographic images. It’s far easier to perceive the obscenity depicted by the sum of those parts.
Fall starts in a little less than a month, according to the astronomers, but most people would agree that, like summer, autumn starts emotionally about a month ahead of its technical arrival. Like it or not, fall is busting out all over. On the whole, I like it. The only problem with autumn is that it precedes winter.
Fall’s imminence was brought home to us today as we sat on our patio, drinking beer and eating our dinner. We noticed a noise that sounded a little like intermittent rain. It took us a while to realize that it was the sound of acorns falling from a nearby oak tree. Based on an extremely unscientific sample (one tree) and the knowledge that, despite a dry July, we had a fairly wet summer, I make bold to hazard a guess that there will be a plentiful acorn crop this year, followed by an uptick in the squirrel population in the spring.
Our squirrels (not to mention chipmunks and groundhogs) seem to be totally absorbed in finding ways to live off the leavings of the bird feeder. Hopefully, they will now eschew the liberal welfare state, since the acorns are such easy pickings, and start hoarding for the winter. I’d hate to think we two liberal do-gooders had undermined their work ethic and doomed them to the fate of the fabled grasshopper.
Another sure sign of autumn was the result of today’s game between the Red Sox and Yankees. Was there a single Red Sox fan out there who didn’t see this sweep coming? In Redsoxville pride goeth before a fall and fall inevitably bringeth declining pride.
If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog
Harry Truman
Somewhere, there’s a dog about to be befriended, as Wide Stance Larry Craig has lately learned that Harry had it exactly right. All his old friends, who no doubt knew he was not gay all along, are demanding his resignation. To name a few, there’s John McCain, Norm Coleman, Peter Hoekstra and, in perhaps the most unkindest, if least surprising, cut of all, the Idaho Values Alliance, whose website was until recently festooned with anti-gay articles interspersed with articles praising the not gay senator. Alas, though not from Washington, the Values folks are also not dogs, and they too have abandoned their former friend.
Some of us sitting bemusedly on the side lines are wondering: why haven’t these pillars of rectitude called for the resignation of Diaper Man Senator David Vitter who is apparently really not gay (or at least not exclusively), but has admitted that he frequented prostitutes, an act as illegal as that with which Craig was charged.
I would submit that there are three possible reasons for this disparity in treatment:
1. Republicans believe that illegal sex by a Republican Senator with a person of the opposite sex is okay, while illegal sex (or attempted sex) by a Republican Senator with a person of the same sex is not;
2. Republicans believe that illegal sex by a Republican Senator with any person is sufficient cause to call for a Republican Senator’s resignation, if and only if that Senator can be replaced by a person appointed by a Republican governor.
3. Both of the above.
It is, perhaps, not in our power to determine the answer with certainty. For myself, I incline toward answer 2, inasmuch as it is most consistent with the most predominant character trait of your Republicanas Not Gayus Americanus: Rank Hypocrisy.
Postscript: It should be understood, of course, that the criteria for resignation outlined above apply only to Republican officeholders. We can be sure that our Republican friends would call for the head of any Democrat unlucky enough to just wander into a men’s room while a Republican was tap dancing in one of the stalls.
For myself, I think Craig should stay in office. If it’s okay for the Attorney General to torture innocent people, it should be okay for a Senator to have a little casual sex in a men’s room. Fair’s fair.
Now that I am using WordPress, I can view something called “Incoming Links” in the control panel (Dashboard) that is the first window I see after I log on. Is there anyone out there who knows how this works, or what it means?
I thought it had something to do with folks linking to me, but this article on religion by Spazeboy (with whose sentiments I heartily agree) does not link to me at all, yet it appears on my dashboard as an incoming link.
If anyone can enlighten me on this I’d really appreciate it.
This post will be of interest, if at all, to my readers in Groton.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a member of the Groton Charter Revision Commission. We are charged with suggesting changes to the Groton Charter.
At our next meeting (September 10th) we will be voting on whether the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) should be abolished. I invite any Groton residents with opinions on the issue, pro or con, to send an email to me with their thoughts. Click on contact me in the upper right hand corner of the home page.
If I were charged with creating a charter from scratch for Groton, I doubt that I’d create an RTM. When the charter was adopted in 1957 it replaced a system in which actual town meetings still played a part. The RTM was designed to take the place of the town meeting. While I probably would not include an RTM if I were writing on a blank slate, one can’t ignore history, and the probably outcome if one took such a step in isolation, so I’m against abolishing the RTM.
In my opinion, the RTM has worked fairly well. The RTM is truly representative, sometimes to a fault. There are some excellent, highly intelligent people in it, and there are some who occupy the lower regions of the IQ continuum. As in life, however, so with the RTM-the most capable members tend to wield the greatest amount of influence. The minority representation requirement prevents domination by any well organized faction, including, unfortunately, factions with which one might agree.
The overall result is of a piece with the rest of the system here in Groton. We have competent, if unimaginative government institutionally skewed toward what is often called fiscal conservatism, but not so much as to utterly destroy good government or the school system. I’ve been living in Groton for thirty years, and in all that time there’s been no hint of corruption in town government. Our tax rate is low compared to surrounding towns. Our schools are better than pedestrian, which is about average for this area, at least that’s my impression.
The major function of the RTM is to serve as yet another brake on spending, since it can reduce line items in the budget by a mere majority vote, while it takes a super majority to restore funds cut by the council. I was on the RTM for one term, and I believe the body, as a whole, took its role seriously. I was on the education committee, and I attended every budget meeting of the Board of Education, along with all the other committee members, so we could get a good understanding of the Board’s budget. Other committees boned up on their own jurisdictional areas. Overall, our votes were fairly well informed.
The push to abolish the RTM is a precursor to a call for the institution of a budget referendum. The result would be replacing a flawed system in which the decision makers are reasonably well informed and fairly representative of the citizenry with a system in which the decision makers are poorly informed and, due to the dynamics of referendum votes, unrepresentative of the citizenry.
To be clear on the last point, referendum votes are held in the summer. Many people are unaware they are even happening. Turnout tends to be low, dominated by the highly motivated “cut my taxes at any price, particularly cut the school budget because I don’t have kids anymore” type of voter. A very small minority of voters can effectively control the budget process.
At some point, as time goes on, I may elaborate on my objections to budget referenda. Suffice to say at this point that government is about outcomes, and the outcomes of referenda tend to be destructive. Witness the state of California, which has been almost destroyed by referendums.
That’s my take on it in any event. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone on either side of the RTM issue. I will pass on any communications I get, without editorial comment, to the entire Commission.
I can’t let the moment pass without saying a sincere “good riddance” to Alberto Gonzales.
One more down, so many more to go.
