I've criticized Bill O'Reilly on more than a few occasions, so it's only fair to give him props for actually keeping his promise to apologize if no WMD were found in Iraq. O'Reilly appeared on "Good Morning America" and offered his apology, noting also that he is more skeptical now about the Bush administration that he had been previously.
I'm still not a fan by any stretch, but its good to see him honour his promise. Thanks, Bill!
While the Texas redistricting battle has gotten most of the attention, it's not the only state in which Republicans were trying to push a new redistricting plan through that would favour Republican candidates. They had also pulled a similar stunt in Colorado earlier this year. According to the Washington Post, however the Colorado State Supreme court has held that the redistricting effort is unconstitutional as the Colorado constitution specifies that redistricting will occur once every 10 years in response to new census data.
In addition, the Court criticized the strategy because of the impact it might have on elected officials if they know their districts could be changed at any time.
"If the districts were to change at the whim of the state legislature, members of Congress could frequently find their current constituents voting in a different district in subsequent elections," Mullarkey wrote. "In that situation, a congressperson would be torn between effectively representing the current constituents and currying the favor of future constituents."The Colorado decision will not have any direct impact on the redistricting disputes underway in other states, as it deals only with the Colorado state constitution. It is possible, however, that other justices may be influenced by the reasoning the Colorado justices used in regards to the public policy aspects of mid-decade redistrictings. There is also a case pending before the US Supreme Court that has the potential to "try to define how large a role pure partisan advantage in a state can play in drawing election maps."
Robert Novak reports on the strong-arm tactics used during the Medicare vote to try and convince at least one Republican congressman to change a "no" vote to "yes".
WASHINGTON -- During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.In other words, he was offered a bribe - in the form of support for his son's campaign - to change his vote, and then met with threats - against his son's campaign - when he refused.Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.
I'm not even sure why such tactics would be considered legal. If a lobbyist had paid for Smith's vote by donating $100,000 to his son's campaign, I believe there would be criminal charges that could have been brought against both the Congressman for accepting a bribe and the lobbyist for paying one. While Smith obviously rejected the bribe, it still seems to me that the other Congressmen who offered it to him should be eligible to face charges on at least attempted bribery - though I suspect it might be difficult to obtain proof. Somehow, given the current climate in the House, I'm not sure if anyone else would be willing to stand up and admit to having witnessed the bribe offer or the threats being made.
Novak notes that Rep. Smith was "still reeling" after having had his son's career threatened by his colleagues, but notes that when Rep. Smith spoke to his son, "Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience." Good for them! I'm glad to see Rep. Smith stick to his guns, and I think it speaks well of his son that he would want his father to hold firm rather than try and protect his nascent career.
It should also be noted that, traditionally, when a vote is held on a bill, there is a 15-minute time frame in which Congressmen are allowed to enter their votes. Once the 15-minutes have elapsed, the vote is closed and the results made official. There's no rule, however, that requires that the time-period for voting be only 15 minutes long. The rules say only that the Congressmen must be given at least 15 minutes in which to enter their votes, but voting can remain open for however much longer than that the leadership desires. As I said, though, traditionally, the leadership allows only 15 minutes for the votes to be cast.
When it came to the Medicare vote, however, the leadership decided to break with tradition, and ended up keeping the voting open for considerably longer - long enough, in fact, to find enough votes to pass the bill, which would have failed had the 15 minute time limit been adhered to as it has in virtually all other Congressional votes since electronic voting was introduced.
The Medicare bill was pushed through the House only after a supposed 15-minute vote was held open for nearly three hours as Bush, top administration officials and House GOP leaders cajoled and intimidated a handful of wary Republicans to switch their votes and reverse what would have been a stunning legislative defeat for the administration.And, of course, we all know what would happen if Democrats were pulling stuff like this....
The League of Liberal's "And then...." takes a unique look at the Republican Senate sleepover in protest of the Democrats only approving 168 of Bush's judicial nominees instead of all 172.
Imagine that you get a phone call from the office of a nationally-known politician, saying that they want to give you an award. You'd likely call back, right? Even if you weren't too sure what, exactly, they were giving you an award for?
Apparently, that's what Tom DeLay and his office are hoping - and all you have to do to claim your award is make a suggested donation of between $300 and $500 to DeLay's campaign.
Air Force Chaplain James Helton says he was flabbergasted when he first heard the news from his wife. “She told me you’ve been selected for a national award by Congressman DeLay, and they really want you to call the office.”
Helton wondered why a powerful Republican leader would want to honor a humble Air Force reservist and quickly returned the call. He was so upset by what he heard that he invited NBC News to record the conversation when he called back a second time.
First there was a recorded message: “This is Congressman Tom DeLay. I’m asking you to serve as an honorary chairman on our business advisory council, and you will be recognized with our national leadership award.”
Then, a telemarketer came on the line: “You’d be invited to private dinners with congressmen and quarterly strategy sessions in Washington.”
In the call, Helton was also promised an exclusive black-tie president’s dinner and his name in a newspaper ad.Then came the pitch from the telemarketer: “We’re asking each chairman for a one-time gift of $300 or $500 for the ad. Can we count on your support?”
Helton replied: “That’s pushing my budget a little. Does it have to be paid all at once?”
“Would $100 or $200 be any better for you? And I could even split that down into two payments as well,” replied the telemarketer.
You know, I get annoyed when I get mailings from different groups telling me I may have "won" something and would I like to give them a contribution in return, but generally, I can spot those things a mile away just by the **CAR-RT SORT** label, and I don't recall having gotten any such pitches from any politicians. They may tell me they want my greatly valued opinion on matters and, while I'm at it, would I care to maybe give them a few dollars to help defray the cost of their processing it - but they've never said they were going to "give" me an award.
This kind of thing is just sad. It's not really a "trick", per se, from what I can tell, but it sure is walking close to the edge. I just hope most people have the sense to realize that unless you've done something that's gained other attention, odds are that a well-known politician isn't going to be giving you an "award" - and if it IS a genuine award, they're sure not going to be asking you for a donation in connection with offering it to you.
And before anyone asks, yes, I'd be just as upset if this was a democrat as I am with it being done by a republican. Slimey tactics are still slimey either way.
I posted earlier about Ed Gillespie's desire to "review" the upcoming miniseries "The Reagans" that CBS is preparing to air, to ensure that it is "historically accurate."
Michigan Congressman John Dingell (D) decided that he, too, feels the movie should be historically accurate, and sent the following letter to CBS with a few helpful suggestions of what someone should include.
Dear Mr. Moonves:I certainly hope that Mr. Moonves will take Rep. Dingell up on his suggestion, and I would agree that these are important facts that need to be presented for the Reagan story to be complete.I write to you with regard to your upcoming mini-series "The Reagans." I share the concerns expressed by others that it may not present an accurate depiction of the Reagan administration and America during the 1980s. I trust that CBS will not be a party to a distorted presentation of American history, and that the mini-series will present a fair and balanced* portrayal of the Reagans, the 1980s and their legacy.
As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scan
I hope you find these facts useful in accurately depicting President Reagan's time in office.
*Copyright and Trademark of Fox News Corporation
From Atrios comes word that the RNC wants to fact check an upcoming miniseries.
The Republican National Committee Friday asked CBS to allow a team of historians and friends of former President Ronald Reagan and his wife to review a miniseries about the couple before it airs.Oddly, the RNC showed no such concern over the historical accuracy of the recent "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" movie made by Showtime, which portrayed George Bush as being much more decisive and "heroic" than reports have indicated. As Mark Jerkowitz noted in his Boston Globe review of the film:Republicans have expressed concern that the miniseries, titled "The Reagans," may inaccurately portray the couple.
[...] [RNC Chairman Ed] Gillespie said that if CBS denies the request, he will ask the network to run a note across the bottom of the screen every 10 minutes during the program's presentation informing viewers that the miniseries is not accurate.
[...] Gillespie said that if CBS rejects both requests, the RNC would to sell tapes and DVDs on its Web site that would present "the real Reagan record."
If "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" could ever be cut down to a bite-size portion, it would make the best presidential reelection ad ever conceived, one that would force every Democratic challenger to abandon the chase for the White House.One of the complaints about the Reagan miniseries is that one scene in it shows Reagan talking to his wife Nancy about AIDS and saying "They that live in sin shall die in sin". Gillespie objects to the line because there's no evidence that Reagan ever said it. Yet the Washington Post reports that "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" likewise attributes words to Bush - "If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I'll be at home, waiting for the bastard!" - that he never said.[...] This Showtime "docudrama" promises to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the administration's machinations and deliberations in the days right after 9/11. Instead, it proves a slick piece of propaganda that deifies the president and portrays the wheels of government as turning with well-oiled precision in the face of the gravest crisis to confront the country in a generation.
So, Mr. Gillespie, would you care to explain why you are so insistent on making sure that Reagan is portrayed accurately, but showed no concern whatsoever about accuracy of a movie about Bush?
Docudramas always take liberties - that's to be expected. Its one reason you can't take them as an accurate reflection of the truth. I also don't have a problem with trying to make a movie as accurate as possible. What I do object to is an organization wanting to review a movie to ensure "historical accuracy" when they didn't give a flying fig about accuracy when it was making their guy look better than he actually is. I'm not surprised, though - this kind of double standard is about par for the course.
Calpundit has a post referring to the following quite from a Wall Street Journal article. [No link available for the original article that I am aware of.]
House Aviation panel chairman [John] Mica, scrambling to pass a proposal allowing privatization of some air-traffic control towers, tells Republicans he would exempt those in their states in exchange for votes. "I have a bill to pass," he says; the proposal is in a larger bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration. Democrats aren't given the same offer: "They want to scuttle the bill," a Mica aide says.In other words, this guy has a bill he wants to see get passed. He wants it badly enough that if your state's Republican congressmen vote for it, your state may not even have to follow it!
What the hell kind of logic is that? If it's a good law, shouldn't Mica and the congressmen voting for it want to have whatever benefits it offers apply to their state? Talk about up-is-downism! It's almost like a threat - as if Mica is saying "Vote for my bill or your state will be subjected to it." That's just nuts!
I'm reposting this article that I initially wrote back in June because I've begun seeing more and more references to the Business-Standard and Rediff stories that the Republicans [often taken to mean specifically the RNC or Bush campaign in repostings I've seen around the web] are hiring a firm in India to do some fundraising for them. As a piece of propaganda, it's almost irresistable, demonstrating as it does the apparent disregard that the Republicans have for Americans and creating American jobs.
As noted below, I've had a very hard time finding much reporting beyond repeated repeated references to the original stories, and since writing this in June, I've found nothing yet that specifically identifies which "Republicans" it is that contracted for this service. It's a tantalizing bit of information, but is probably best used with a certain amount of caution.
From June 14, 2003
This is a story I've been hearing about for a while, but hadn't been able to track down an actual source for until now.According to Business-Standard.com, the Republican party has hired HCL eServe, an Indian telemarketing firm, to do fundraising for Bush's presidential campaign, giving 75 jobs to people living in a different country, rather than hire actual Americans to do it for them.
HCL eServe, the business process outsourcing arm of the Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies, has bagged a project to undertake a fund-raising campaign for the US Republican Party over the telephone.This isn't a story that's been widely covered, however, despite the potential it carries for creating a great deal of outrage. I've only managed to find 4 other sources for it, two of which carry denials from the Republican National Committee that they've done any such thing.This is the first time such a project has been handed out to a company outside the US. The market research and public relations companies engaged by the party usually undertake such projects.
HCL eServe has put in place a team of 75 people to work on the project out of its call centres in Noida and Gurgaon. According to industry sources, the number of seats could be ramped up depending on the success of the campaign. These operators are required to call up people in the US seeking their support for President George W Bush and a donation for the Republican cause.
[...] According to the sources, the calling process involves high degree of automation in order to limit human intervention. “The process is designed in such a way as to limit human intervention. The company wants to complete the process using the integrated voice recording technology, which allows navigation using voice responses,” said the source.
The Republican contract comes on the heels of a successful anti-abortion campaign run by HCL eServe for a US politician.
The initial tip-off I got was in Newsweek's "Letters to the Editor" column a week or so ago, when a reader wrote in, responding to an article Newsweek had carried a week or two before that. The Newsweek article is available only if you pay for an archived copy (which I did, so I could read it for myself), and is focused more on the general phenomenon of companies hiring Indian IT firms to handle their telemarketing, customer service and "help desk" operations. It refers to the Republican Party's hiring of an Indian firm do to fund-raising for them only in a single line ["Indian citizens have even started handling phone-based fund-raising for the Republican Party."]
The story was also carried by Buzzflash with a link back to the Business Standard article. Personally, I don't find Buzzflash to always be the most reliable source, which is why you don't find them referenced very often in this blog. In this case, however, they seem to be relying entirely on the Business-Standard.com (also published on Rediff.com), and containes a later update referencing a UPI article in which the RNC denies that they are the ones who've hired HCL eServe to do telemarketing work for them.
The Republican National Committee, through spokesman Kevin Sheridan, completely denies the allegation, telling UPI, "Any report that the Republican National Committee has hired HCL eServe -- the firm mentioned in the original Business Standard article -- is a case of bad reporting, bad business practices or both. The RNC has no affiliation with HCL. Any inference to the contrary is flat out wrong. The RNC has informed both HCL and rediff.com of the inaccuracy of this report."Buzzflash, however, notes that neither the original Indian article, nor their story on the situation mention the RNC specifically, and the RNC denial does not rule out that a consulting firm or other political group working for or with them may have been responsible for giving HCL eServe the contract.Lastly, the Washington Times also reported on the story, noting both the original story from the Business-Standard.com (published via Rediff.com) and the RNC's denial that they are the ones who have hired the firm.
However, Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, tells Inside the Beltway that the national party has in no way, shape or form enlisted the Indian company to conduct fund raising in the name of Mr. Bush or any other nationally elected Republican in Washington.[Like Newsweek, this story is only available via an archival purchase, which I did, so I could read their story first-hand also.]"Who are these Republicans?" he asks. "They are saying they are fund raising for Republicans, but we (the RNC) don't know who these Republicans are. It's certainly not the Republican National Committee. And I will add that we don't appreciate the inference."
So, what's the deal here? The story itself referrs to the "Republican Party", which many will probably assume means the "Republican National Committee". The RNC, however, denies it. I've found no retraction, however, of the entire story, nor have I found any stories claiming to "debunk" the entire situation. So it appears that someone, representing a group of Republicans - though apparently not the RNC itself - has contracted with an Indian company to do telemarketing.
Whether it's the RNC itself or another group trying to raise money for Bush's campaign, however, the principle is still the same -- rather than hiring Americans to do work towards raising funds for Bush's re-election, these Republicans think it's in their best interest to hire people in another country to do the work for them. This, in spite of the poor economy - due largely to Republican economic policy - and the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who are in need of a job.
Yes, a lot of American firms are hiring people overseas to do basic phone work for them. As with other jobs that have been outsourced overseas, it's cheaper. I don't like it, but in a capitalistic system, it's bound to happen - companies will find the cheapest way they can to obtain labour so they can make the most money possible.
For a politically-oriented group, however, that is having people call American citizens to give them a pitch on donating money to a Presidential campaign, to hire overseas workers to make those calls just rubs me the wrong way. Even if it's not a group representing the RNC, it reflects the Republican attitude that making money is more important than employing Americans.
MoveOn.org is throwing their weight behind the Democratic Senators from Texas who are fighting to prevent the Republican redistricting plan from being passed. One of those Senators, Rodney Ellis, has written a letter and essay explaining the background of the dispute and what's at stake if the Republicans win. One thing he mentions points out why this is truly a national issue, and not just a matter for the Texans.
If the Republicans succeed in redrawing the Texas Congressional lines to guarantee the election of five to seven more Republicans, it will ensure that Republicans hold the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the entire decade and will likely result in Tom Delay becoming Speaker of the House.(6)To help give some perspective to the issue, he provides some background information:[Footnote 6] Republican party activist Grover Norquist, head of the Washington D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform, was quoted as follows in the August 17 Fort Worth Star Telegram: "Republicans will hold the House for the next decade through 2012 if Texas redistricts…It depresses the hell out of the Democrats and makes it doubly impossible to take the House and probably depresses their fund raising…Anything that helps strengthen the Republican leadership helps DeLay become speaker someday if he wants it."
During the 2001 session of the Texas Legislature, the legislature was unable to pass a Congressional redistricting plan as it is required to do following the decennial Census. A three judge federal panel was forced to draw the plan. Neither Governor Rick Perry or then Attorney General John Cornyn, both Republicans, objected to the plan, which was reviewed and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.Josh Marshall also notes that there's more to this story that many have known. He points to a Dallas Morning News article about Bill Ratliff, the one Republican Senator who is opposing the redistricting, who says that he was approached while he was acting-Lt. Governor in 2001 by Tom DeLay about the redistricting plan.The 2002 Congressional elections, the first held under the new redistricting plan, resulted in a Congressional delegation from Texas consisting of 17 Democrats and 15 Republicans. However, five of the 17 Democrats prevailed only because they were able to win the support of Republican and independent voters. All statewide Republican candidates carried these five districts. Most experts agree that the current plan has 20 strong or leaning Republican districts and 12 Democratic districts.
Meanwhile, the 2001 redistricting of Texas legislative seats (which was enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislative Redistricting Board, after the legislature again gridlocked in its efforts) resulted in wide Republican majorities in both the Texas House and Texas Senate. Now Tom Delay has made it his priority to force the Republican-controlled Legislature to enact a new redistricting plan to increase the number of Republican-leaning Congressional districts. Republicans believe they can manipulate the districts to elect as many as 22 Republicans out of the 32 member Texas Congressional delegation. They achieve this by packing minority voters into as few districts as possible and breaking apart rural districts so that the impact of independent voters will be reduced and suburban Republican voters will dominate.
Mr. Ratliff, who had declined to comment on the redistricting fracas until Tuesday, also disclosed that in the summer of 2001 he was asked by Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land and current U.S. House majority leader, whether he, as acting lieutenant governor, would suspend the Senate's two-thirds rule so the GOP could push through a favorable congressional redistricting plan during a special session.In other words, DeLay has been planning for this since the redistricting was initially addressed two years ago, even though no one objected to the court-supplied redistricting map at the time it was enacted."I said, 'No,' I would not agree to that," he said, adding that the subject was not brought up again while he was the state's No. 2 officeholder.
With Colorado and Ohio also pushing Republican-oriented redistricting measures, it becomes even more important that people all over the country stand up to this attempt by Republicans to diminish the voice Democrats and independents in our Democracy. Sen. Ellis also outlines what the Democrats need to help with their fight:
The Democratic Senators currently in Albuquerque have two critical needs. The first is to generate increased public awareness of the situation. By all reason, every day the Senators are out of the state this story should get bigger. Instead, news media have gradually lost interest in the story. The California recall has dominated the attention of the national media, and the Texas media has largely lost interest in the story -- out of sight, out of mind. Without public attention to this story, the Republicans have all the leverage -- if it does not cost them politically, it costs them nothing(8) to continue calling special sessions until the Texas 11 are forced to come home.Keep in mind that the Republicans are doing more than just redistricting to try and grab power wherever they can - and historically, the Republican party has shown that there are few, if any, limits to how low they will go to keep whatever power they can get.The second critical need is funding. The cost of hotels, meeting rooms, staff support, and public relations efforts is mounting. In addition, the Senators must defend themselves legally against Republican efforts to compel their return, while also filing legal claims against the Republican power play. The Senators are actively raising money for the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus Fund to offset these costs and prepare themselves for a stay of indefinite duration in Albuquerque.
Keeping Nixon in office was the whole point of everything surrounding the Watergate scandal, during which Republicans were doing everything from two-bit "pranks" like changing reservations for Democratic meetings or forging scandalous letters and attributing them to Democratic candidates, to using the FBI and CIA to not only keep a lid on their activities but to also keep track of those whom the President considered his "enemies". Getting Clinton out of office was whole point of the Whitewater investigation and impeachment. In the Florida debacle, the Republicans used a wide variety of tactics - including flying in a group of paid Republican staffers to stage a fake demonstration in order to intimidate the Dade County election board into stopping their recount. And now they've financed a recall election in California in order to overturn the legitimate election of a Democratic governor. The redistricting schemes fit in nicely as part of their overall patter.
The important thing to note, though, is that they neither want fair elections (else why try to rearrange the districts of the state to your advantage after having already accepted the results of the required redistricting following the census) nor do they care about the will of the voters. Tom DeLay is one of the worst of the breed, and this Texas redistricting plot could help make him the Speaker of the House - third in line for the Presidency (and if a Democrat is elected in 2004, what do you want to bet he and his Vice President come under heavy fire or threat of impeachment if DeLay manages to get himself into that position? Maybe that sounds a bit paranoid, but I honestly wouldn't put it past him to try and pull a stunt like that).
Visit MoveOn.org today and do what you can to help support the Texas Democrats. They're not just fighting for their jobs - they're fighting for our Democracy.
MSNBC is reporting that many who were directly affected by the 9/11 attacks are putting the Republicans on notice that they will not sit idly by if the GOP tries to turn Ground Zero into a political backdrop during the 2004 Republican convention which is being held in New York City.
Ever since her sister, Lorraine Lee, died in the World Trade Center 23 months ago, Patricia Reilly has lobbied to preserve the Ground Zero site as a memorial. In that time, she has come to resent politicians who make promises and use Ground Zero as a backdrop but who appear to lose interest once the cameras have gone. So when Reilly heard that the Republican Party had chosen New York for its presidential convention in September 2004, she was outraged. “I and other 9/11 family members will do picketing if the Republicans use Ground Zero for political purposes,” she says.Nor, presumably, would they want it used as a political base for the Democrats, but that's a whole different matter.Survivors say they are concerned about rumors that the party intends to schedule some kind of political event at the site during the convention, which will take place a week before the third anniversary of the attacks.
Neither the Republican National Committee nor the New York City host committee, headed by former Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, would comment on the rumor. But Reilly and others like her are taking no chances, registering their concern with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democrat who represents lower Manhattan, city council members and other local officials.
"We have heard complaints from constituents about this," says Jennie McCue, an aide to Nadler. "Tens and thousands of our constituents were affected by 9/11 and they do not want Ground Zero to be a political base for the Republicans."
Something I found in this article, though, that I found very interesting was the following statement:
While it is not clear if the Republicans would actually use Ground Zero or any of the downtown 9/11 symbols during their convention, there were complaints about the timing of convention when they announced. In early May, the Republicans responded to the criticism saying that they only wanted to avoid a clash with the 2004 Olympics, which is to be held in Athens, Greece from Aug. 11-29.And it may well be that they did make this claim in early May. In late April, however, the Republicans were making a different claim - one that shows exactly why the families and survivors of 9/11 have just cause to be worried. In an entry dated 4/27 entitled "Exploiting 9/11" I wrote about the following quote from an article I'd found in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
The president is planning a sprint of a campaign that would start, at least officially, with his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, which is now set for Sept. 2.The P-I story has disappeared behind the archive wall, but I was able to find this same story in the Charlotte Observer, still available on the net at: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/5686610.htm.The convention, to be held in New York City, will be the latest since the Republican Party was founded in 1856, and Bush's advisers said they chose the date so the event would flow into the commemorations marking the third anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Bush's role in combating terrorism, Republicans said.
That's right - before anyone had complained about the idea of politicizing the 9/11 commemerations, the Bushites had no problem admitting that they deliberately chose the date so they could capitalize on the proximity to the anniversary of the attacks. It looks like the May claim that they "only wanted" to avoid a conflict with the Olympics is a bit of that good old "revisionist history" that Bush so deplores.
Amusing (to me, anyway) story: I had remembered reading at one point that the Bush Admin had admitted they were timing the convention to coincide with the 9/11 commemerations, so I did a Google search to see if I could find any reference to it. The first two that came up weren't really relevant (I was using a fairly broad set of search terms) - the third was my own entry on it. Doh!
You know, it's bad enough that the Texas Republicans are trying to force this redistricting map idea of theirs through, but now they're getting ridiculous. Apparently, they're planning to try and levy fines against the Democrats that have taken flight (to prevent a vote from being taken on the redistricting), even though technically, there's no rule on the book at this time that allows for such fines, and they're supposed to need a quorum to make any changes to the rules.
Keep in mind, the whole point of the Democrats leaving the state is to prevent a quorum, so no votes can be taken. So, if there's not enough Senators present to take a vote on the redistricting proposal, there's also not enough Senators present to vote on rule changes.
The Democrats say they feel pretty confident that the fines can't be enforced, though some of the Republicans are now saying that if the Dems won't pay the fines, they'll just take it out of their postage and travel budgets, and there's also been talk of refusing to allow the Dems to use conference and meeting rooms, cutting off their state-provided cell phones and eliminating their parking priveleges, among other restrictions. Basically, if the Dems won't pay the fines - which the Repubs most likely don't have the authority to impose in the first place, the Repubs are planning to pretty much make it impossible for the Dems to do their jobs. I can't remember where, right now, but I read that there has at least been talk of even refusing to allow them to vote - as punishment for their refusal to come back to the capitol to vote. There's a certain irony in that, I think. I also have to admit, I find the fine proposal rather amusing in its own way - the fines start at $1,000 per day and keep doubling until they reach $5,000 per day. Just think about the math for a second...
On top of that, the Republicans are now taking about possibly postponing the - get this - primary elections next spring, if the Democrats don't come back and allow the redistricting to go through. Apparently, some of the Democrats had hoped to be able to hold out enough that any map approved by the Republicans (because even if all the Dems vote against it, there are enough Republicans to get it passed anyway) would go through late enough that the Department of Justice wouldn't have time to approve it for use in the upcoming primaries.
"I don't know whether there is a practical deadline or not," Gov. Rick Perry said, reiterating his intent to call as many special sessions as it takes to get a new map. "There are so many options on the table relative to moving primaries so that you can get the DOJ's approval."The current plan, apparently, is to just keep calling special session after special session until the petulant Republicans get their way, and if they don't, they'll throw a major-league hissy and not let the people of Texas hold their primary elections until they do.
I think I'd prefer that they just hold their breath until they turn blue and go stomping off like the little children they seem to be imitating.
Link via dailyKos
If Texas State Senator Bill Ratliff sticks to his guns, I just may send the man a fruit basket. As of now, he is the main hurdle to the Tom DeLay pushed Republican-oriented redistricting in Texas that the Democrat State Representatives fled Texas earlier this year to prevent.
After the "Flight of the Killer D's", as it's been called, Governor Rick Parry decided to call a special summer session to try and force the issue again. This time, the Dems stayed in the state. The plan, however, has to go to the Senate as well, and that's where Senator Ratliff comes in.
[Sen. Bill Ratliff (R-Mount Pleasant)] today issued a statement saying he is adding his name to a statement signed by 10 members of the Texas Senate stating "their unalterable opposition to any motion to bring a congressional redistricting bill to the Senate floor."Why is Ratliff against the redistricting? Believe it or not, he actually is listening to his consitutents, plus he doesn't feel that it's in anyone's best interest (something rather remarkable for a politician of any stripe these days). Tom DeLay is all hot and bothered for the redistricting because he wants to make sure that Republicans are able to keep the majority in both houses that they currently have, which is unusual in Texas.The rules of the Texas senate require a two-thirds vote of the 31 members - or 21 votes - to suspend the rules and bring legislation to the Senate floor for debate.
If the 11 senators who signed the statement stick to their guns, a congressional redistricting bill headed to the Senate floor is DOA.
In his statement, Ratliff noted that Senate Jurisprudence Committee Chair Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) has reported to the Senate that at statewide hearings, "the overwhelming majority of citizens appearing at these statewide hearings are opposed to such redistricting," and said those numbers include "many local activist Republicans and locally elected Republican officials."Of course, if the redistricting doesn't go through, Tom DeLay isn't going to be happy, so there's talk that if Ratliff kills it for this session, the Governor may call yet another special session, and some are even considering changing the rules in the Senate so that it wouldn't take so many people to bring an item to vote - essentially to get around Senator Ratliff. If they do that, however, it should clearly show just how far these people will go to get what they want.Ratliff said maps produced so far have indicated "a total lack of concern for the communities of interest in rural Texas." He said those driving the redistricting effort clearly have "no knowledge of, or regard for, the representative balance between the urban/suburban power base and the diminishing influence of the rural/agricultural community."
The Mount Pleasant Republican said the current congressional lines produce 20 Republican seats, 19 with GOP strength of at least 55 percent. He said the majority of both parties in the Senate have indicated "that the costs associated with this effort are not justified by the marginal gains to the Republican congressional delegation."
He said members also anticipate a huge financial burden on the state for litigation they feel "is sure to follow." However, he said their biggest concern is the level of "animosity and distrust" that will ultimately be harbored for members of the Senate as a result of "such a vitriolic battle."
What's said is how everything about this episode says that. Essentially, the whole plan is for the Republicans to change the rules of the entire districting process in mid-game by doing a redistricting now, just two years after the last redistricting was done. While there's nothing that requires them to only do redistrictings following a national census, redistricting in non-census years is very rare in any state. Most people have felt that redrawing the district lines once ever 10 years is enough.
But its not enough for Tom Delay who wants to ensure that as many districts as possible lean strongly Republican so that the Democrats can't win back a majority of the State Congress anytime soon.
The Democrats, desparate to stop it, fled the state to prevent a vote from beinga ble to be taken in the House - a tactic that the Repulicans had previously used themselves, back in the 70's. The Republicans, in turn, called in the state Department of Public Safety (which has since been determined to have been an illegal use of the DPS by a Judge brought in to examine the situation), which contacted a division of the Homeland Security Agency and the Federal Aviation Agency. As noted a couple days ago, there are still questions about the use of the FAA.
Since none of that worked to get the redistricting passed, now they want to change the rules by which a vote can come to the Senate floor - just to get this through (and echoing the threats made by Republicans in the national Senate about changing the filibuster rules to prevent Democrats from being able to use them to quash some of Bush's judicial nominees.)
The whole thing has been a disgusting, disgraceful mess, but even in all that, Senator Ratliff deserves recognition for his willingness to stand up to his party and do what he believes is right - not just to get attention or to promote his own career (indeed, he may have sunk it - as a Republican at least) - but because he believes it is the right thing to do. Glad to see there's at least one left (and yes, somedays, I do wonder).
The New York Times is reporting that the search by the Texas Department of Public Safety for the missing Democratic representatives during the original redistricting dispute was illegal.
Texas law "limits the role of D.P.S. to enforcing the laws protecting the public safety and providing for the prevention and detection of crime," [Visiting] Judge [Charles] Campbell [of State District Court in Austin] wrote in the ruling.Other aspects of the search are still being investigated. One review has said there was no wrongdoing in the use of a Department of Homeland Security agency to obtain informatio on the location of the plane, but there are still questions about the FAA's role in the search.The judge said state law overrode a House rule allowing for absent members to be arrested by the sergeant-at-arms or an officer appointed by him.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Texas has called a special session to try again to push the redistricting legislation through.
An article at the New York Metro.com about how the Republicans seem to be able to politicise the September 11 attacks with impunity, but no one else can pointed out where the sorce of that mysterious reference to the "Freedom Tower" (aka the new WTC) cornerstone being laid during the Republican convention in the NY Times a month ago came from.
If you'll remember, back in June, I had posted about the story the NY Times published in their print edition and (for a short time) on the web about how the "Freedom Tower" planners were trying to push the environmental review quickly so that they could break ground during the Republican convention next summer. Not long after it was posted, the headline, which had referred to the groundbreaking, and the mention of the groundbreaking plans, were removed from the web copy of the article, and the next day, a correction was published indicating that, while the developers had contemplated the idea, they had decided against it.
It turns out that the initial reference to this plan was in the May 2nd New York Daily News. The full article is available only at cost via the archives, but here's the abstract, which says that the story came from the building's leaseholder and that according to him, the idea came from the governor's office.
Leaseholder Larry Silverstein, who has vowed to pay for the tower, said yesterday that the governor had a more immediate goal: "He wants to lay the cornerstone of the foundation of the Freedom Tower at the Republican National Convention," Silverstein told a group of Daily News reporters and editors.In today's article, New York Metro.com had this to say about the incident:
On May 2, the Daily News’s excellent ground-zero reporters, Greg Gittrich and Maggie Haberman, broke the story that Pataki was “apparently” getting set to lay the cornerstone at ground zero in a ceremony to be held during the Republican National Convention here in the city next year—a ceremony, they noted, that Bush would be certain to attend. They had to throw in that “apparently” because they got the scoop in a slightly backhanded way: Ground-zero leaseholder Larry Silverstein was speaking to reporters and editors of the News, and it was he who released the cat from its bag, as it were. Their story noted that a gubernatorial spokeswoman declined to comment, and PR pasha Howard Rubenstein called the paper to “clarify” Silverstein’s comments and assert that maybe the developer misunderstood something Pataki had told him.It was about 6 weeks after the New York Daily News story that the New York Times picked up, printed the story, deleted it from the web and then issued their retraction.Lots of journalists seem to feel compelled these days, what with patriotic fervor and all, to take politicians at their word; it’s a sort of opposite Woodward-and-Bernstein effect, where the motive is now to invest leaders with credibility they may or may not in fact have (see “Iraq, imminent threat to U.S. of”). But trust me on this one—experience teaches that in this town, when a gubernatorial spokeswoman declines to comment and Howard Rubenstein calls unprompted to “clarify” remarks, the story is true.
From what I can tell, the Republicans have given up on the cornerstone-during-the-convention idea, but it's good to know where the story originally came. It appears that the idea was, at the very least, given some serious consideration and may have been a part of their actual plans, until the Times story came out and prompted a fairly loud outcry in a fairly short period of time.
Letters soliciting funds for any political cause are always filled with bullshit, but sometimes you'll find one that manages to go above and beyond the call of duty. A great example is the e-mail from Dick Cheney on behalf of Bush/Cheney '04 sent to Talking Points Memo. No, not to Josh Marshall, the author of Talking Points Memo, but to Talking Points Memo, itself, asking it to be a grassroots leader for them in Talk, Alaska.
It gets better.
The letter points out how President Bush has kept his word to bring "dignity and honnor to the White House and change the tone in Washington", and talks about how he's "worked with Congress to pass tax cuts that are vital to economic growth, a major education reform package, important strengthening of our armed forces and our intelligence capabilities, and vital upgrades in our homeland defenses." That they neglected to include funding for many of these things in the federal budget apparently isn't worth mentioning.
My favourite paragraph, however, is this one:
Your support is especially critical over the next few months, as President Bush must devote his energies to his duties -- fighting the war on terrorism, continuing to strengthen our economy, reforming education, and working for Medicare reform and prescription drugs for our seniors.So, does this mean he won't be doing any fundraisers for the campaign, so that he can attend to these duties of his? Oh, wait - that's what he's been doing most of this week, isn't it? Raising money, of course, not devoting his energies to his duties.
If you have a second, be sure to read the whole thing. It's a good, quick reminder of why - aside from the whole Iraq mess - we really need, and deserve, someone much better.
Bob Harris at "This Modern World" has located a correction published by the Times, which attempts to explain the changes made in the story about the rebuilding of the WTC and why they're in such a rush to get the environmental studies done.
A Lexis search on the Times story headlined "Goal Is to Lay Cornerstone at Ground Zero During G.O.P. Convention" brings up not only the article -- with the headline intact -- but the following correction, appended at the end:Check out his site for some interesting questions he think the NYT editors should be asked about this incident.CORRECTION: An article yesterday about rebuilding at the World Trade Center site misstated the goal of development officials in setting an aggressive environmental review schedule. It is to start construction next summer, not to lay a cornerstone for the first tower during the Republican National Convention. (State officials had considered that at one point, but they recently decided not to do so, a spokeswoman for Gov. George E. Pataki said yesterday.)
Hmm. So this horrifyingly shameless exploitation of 9/11 actuallly was "considered" at some point, albeit by unnamed "state officials," which conveniently gives the White House deniability.
[Earlier reports on this story, with links to scans and screenshots can be found here and here.]
Personally, I would love to know how the reporter initially got wind that anyone was even considering having the cornerstone laid during the GOP convention, and how it got into the story and past the editors without any kind of supporting quotes, paraphrases or other indications of a source for the claim.
From everything I've seen so far, the reaction to the idea of laying the cornerstone during the GOP convention has been very negative, and I'm sure the strong response is part of why the Times ended up having to alter the story. I have to say, though, it makes me wonder if whomever gave the tip to the reporter did so with the expectation that it be "floated as a trial balloon" in order to get an idea of the public's reaction to it.
It's not at all uncommon for politicians and others to give reporters a "head-up" on something of this nature - an idea that is under consideration, but which may be somewhat controversial. Usually, it's juicy enough for a reporter to want to include it in a story, but is given to them with the understanding that they won't publish anything to identify who the "tip" came from - often in the form of a supposed "leak". Then, if the reaction to the story is good, those who were considering the idea can feel safer to go ahead with the plan.
If the reaction is bad, however, as it was in this case, the person or group who was considering the plan can claim that they never really serious considered such a thing. Then they rail at the "unknown source" who leaked the story and at the paper for publishing unverified clap-trap, demand retractions and otherwise play at being outraged, thus distancing themselves from the idea in general.
In this particular case, state officials did note that they were considering having the cornerstone laid during the GOP convention, but had "recently" decided against it. This doesn't invalidate the idea that the information in the story might have been a trial balloon, however - it tends to reinforce it. While the idea is an outrageous example of how even something like the 9/11 tragedy can be exploited for politica gain, the reaction wasn't so over-the-top negative (especially among conservatives) that the state officials felt a need to distance themselves completely from it. They could acknowledge that it had been considered and dismissed without too much damage to themselves, and with no damage at all to President Bush or the Republican Party at all.
Of course, I'm aghast that they would even think about trying to do something like this - I think that the reconstruction of the World Trade Center should be handled with dignity and with the utmost respect for those who were killed at the site, and I absolutely abhor the use of the September 11th anniversary by the Republicans as part of Bush's re-election campaign. If they had gone ahead and done the cornerstone laying during the GOP convention... I don't know if I have the words for how much that would have bothered me. I'm just glad that there was enough of a negative reaction that, if they hadn't previously decided against doing so, they have now.
I had posted yesterday about an article that appeared in the New York times, originally carrying the title "Goal is to lay cornerstone at Ground Zero during GOP convention", but then changed to "Officials plan speedy Ground Zero environmental review". I had also posted links to three different screenshots to try and help show that a change was made to the healines (links to the screenshots are in the initial post if you want to check them out.)
Bob Harris, posting at Tom Tomorrow's "This Modern World" had also posted about it and asked if anyone had screenshots or scans that would help show what happened. Mike from Hoboken was able to get a scan of not only the headline itself from the print edition of the paper, but a scan that shows - clearly and readably - the entire text of the article, making it easy to compare the original print version to the altered internet version. Bob posted a link to Mike's scan at his Yahoo Briefcase, but I've had a great deal of difficulty with getting images at Yahoo to load reliably, so I've pulled a copy of it and posted it here to make it easier to access.
This is a story I've been hearing about for a while, but hadn't been able to track down an actual source for until now.
According to Business-Standard.com, the Republican party has hired HCL eServe, an Indian telemarketing firm, to do fundraising for Bush's presidential campaign, giving 75 jobs to people living in a different country, rather than hire actual Americans to do it for them.
HCL eServe, the business process outsourcing arm of the Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies, has bagged a project to undertake a fund-raising campaign for the US Republican Party over the telephone.This isn't a story that's been widely covered, however, despite the potential it carries for creating a great deal of outrage. I've only managed to find 4 other sources for it, two of which carry denials from the Republican National Committee that they've done any such thing.This is the first time such a project has been handed out to a company outside the US. The market research and public relations companies engaged by the party usually undertake such projects.
HCL eServe has put in place a team of 75 people to work on the project out of its call centres in Noida and Gurgaon. According to industry sources, the number of seats could be ramped up depending on the success of the campaign. These operators are required to call up people in the US seeking their support for President George W Bush and a donation for the Republican cause.
[...] According to the sources, the calling process involves high degree of automation in order to limit human intervention. “The process is designed in such a way as to limit human intervention. The company wants to complete the process using the integrated voice recording technology, which allows navigation using voice responses,” said the source.
The Republican contract comes on the heels of a successful anti-abortion campaign run by HCL eServe for a US politician.
The initial tip-off I got was in Newsweek's "Letters to the Editor" column a week or so ago, when a reader wrote in, responding to an article Newsweek had carried a week or two before that. The Newsweek article is available only if you pay for an archived copy (which I did, so I could read it for myself), and is focused more on the general phenomenon of companies hiring Indian IT firms to handle their telemarketing, customer service and "help desk" operations. It refers to the Republican Party's hiring of an Indian firm do to fund-raising for them only in a single line ["Indian citizens have even started handling phone-based fund-raising for the Republican Party."]
The story was also carried by Buzzflash with a link back to the Business Standard article. Personally, I don't find Buzzflash to always be the most reliable source, which is why you don't find them referenced very often in this blog. In this case, however, they seem to be relying entirely on the Business-Standard.com (also published on Rediff.com), and containes a later update referencing a UPI article in which the RNC denies that they are the ones who've hired HCL eServe to do telemarketing work for them.
The Republican National Committee, through spokesman Kevin Sheridan, completely denies the allegation, telling UPI, "Any report that the Republican National Committee has hired HCL eServe -- the firm mentioned in the original Business Standard article -- is a case of bad reporting, bad business practices or both. The RNC has no affiliation with HCL. Any inference to the contrary is flat out wrong. The RNC has informed both HCL and rediff.com of the inaccuracy of this report."Buzzflash, however, notes that neither the original Indian article, nor their story on the situation mention the RNC specifically, and the RNC denial does not rule out that a consulting firm or other political group working for or with them may have been responsible for giving HCL eServe the contract.
Lastly, the Washington Times also reported on the story, noting both the original story from the Business-Standard.com (published via Rediff.com) and the RNC's denial that they are the ones who have hired the firm.
However, Kevin Sheridan, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, tells Inside the Beltway that the national party has in no way, shape or form enlisted the Indian company to conduct fund raising in the name of Mr. Bush or any other nationally elected Republican in Washington.[Like Newsweek, this story is only available via an archival purchase, which I did, so I could read their story first-hand also.]"Who are these Republicans?" he asks. "They are saying they are fund raising for Republicans, but we (the RNC) don't know who these Republicans are. It's certainly not the Republican National Committee. And I will add that we don't appreciate the inference."
So, what's the deal here? The story itself referrs to the "Republican Party", which many will probably assume means the "Republican National Committee". The RNC, however, denies it. I've found no retraction, however, of the entire story, nor have I found any stories claiming to "debunk" the entire situation. So it appears that someone, representing a group of Republicans - though apparently not the RNC itself - has contracted with an Indian company to do telemarketing.
Whether it's the RNC itself or another group trying to raise money for Bush's campaign, however, the principle is still the same -- rather than hiring Americans to do work towards raising funds for Bush's re-election, these Republicans think it's in their best interest to hire people in another country to do the work for them. This, in spite of the poor economy - due largely to Republican economic policy - and the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who are in need of a job.
Yes, a lot of American firms are hiring people overseas to do basic phone work for them. As with other jobs that have been outsourced overseas, it's cheaper. I don't like it, but in a capitalistic system, it's bound to happen - companies will find the cheapest way they can to obtain labour so they can make the most money possible.
For a politically-oriented group, however, that is having people call American citizens to give them a pitch on donating money to a Presidential campaign, to hire overseas workers to make those calls just rubs me the wrong way. Even if it's not a group representing the RNC, it reflects the Republican attitude that making money is more important than employing Americans.
First comment: Is everything going to be renamed with the word "freedom" in it now? Apparently, the new WTC is being referred to as the "Freedom Tower". I don't supposed I'd mind it so much if those who are running the country these days actually placed some sort of value on our freedom - aside from it being a commodity that can be exchanged for "security". We can't let people forget that it was George Bush who - when confronted with a satrical website about him - said "There ought to be limits to freedom". Thanks to him, John Ashcroft and the Republican dominated Congress, freedom is now a lot more limited than it used to be.
Now, onto the main point of this post. An article in the New York Daily News includes what many will see as a refutation of the NYT headline claiming that the cornerstone of the "Freedom Tower" would be laid during the GOP convention:
In another development yesterday, Pataki insisted he doesn't plan to lay the cornerstone for a 1,776-foot spire at Ground Zero during next year's Republican convention.Note that it only says that Governor Pataki has said he does not plan to lay the cornerstone during the GOP Convention. It leaves open the possiblity (though it can't be said at this point how likely it is) that someone other than Pataki may be the one laying the cornerstone.The comments came after a published report suggesting that rebuilding officials were pushing to break ground for the so-called Freedom Tower during the convention, which will be held in the city in August 2004.
Yes, that is betting nitpicky, but, sadly, just as we did with Clinton, we sometimes have to parse what is said very, very carefully to understand what also isn't being said, and avoid fill in the gaps with the kinds of assumptions you're expected to use.
This is one more story that will be interesting to watch. It may be that the reaction to the earlier headline was enough that any plans to lay the cornerstone during the GOP convention have now been scrapped. I hope that's the case, but we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.
Paul Krugman has an article today about Tom DeLay, and why moderates and liberals need to take a much stronger stand against him.
Most of us are familiar with the Texas redistricting/disappearing Democrats incident, in which DeLay led an effort by the Texas state legislatures Republican majority to redistrict the state for a second time this decade. (Typically, states only redistrict once per decade - shortly after the census - which Texas did in 2000.) When it became obvious to the Democrats that the only way to stop the redistricting was to prevent a vote from even being taken, they left the state until after the deadline for voting had come and gone. While they were gone, however, DeLay became involved in the search for them - and may even have tried to get the Department of Homeland Security (intended to fight terrorists - not Democrats) into the act.
This is just one of the more well-known of his escapades. More recently, it has come to light that he may have been involved in a "donations-for-legislation" scheme with Westar Energy. So far, Republicans have denied that there was any "quid pro quo" involved, but emails found at Westar show that specific donations were requested in exchange for "a seat at the table", and the legilsation they wanted was put into an energy bill.
DeLay also shows a great deal of arrogance, informing someone who complained that he was smoking on government property that he "is the federal government".
There are, of course, many more examples of his thoughtlessness, arrogance, willingness to abuse his position and power, among other questionable activities. Krugman, however, makes note that one of the gravest dangers from DeLay and his associates is their desire to establish as lose to a merging of church and state as possible.
Above all, expect to see the wall between church and state come tumbling down. Mr. DeLay has said that he went into politics to promote a "biblical worldview," and that he pursued President Clinton because he didn't share that view. Where would this worldview be put into effect? How about the schools: after the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay called a press conference in which he attributed the tragedy to the fact that students are taught the theory of evolution.Hopefully, sometime soon he will either cross too far over the line, or solid evidence that he already has will come to light, and his career - along with the threat he poses - will come to a swift end.
About the Senate bill I mentioned earlier, that would give low income families a child-care tax credit?Check out Senator Trent Lott's response to the bill as he voted for it.
Although almost every Senate Republican voted for the bill, some clearly were unhappy at having to do so under what they considered public pressure from liberal groups and Democrats. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi voted for the bill, but as he did so he stuck his tongue out, put his finger in his mouth and made a gagging sound, indicating his apparent distaste for the bill.Boy, Mississippi must be feeling really proud of their Good Ol' Boy right now.
I write to my Senators and Representative quite frequently. I figure since they're supposed to be working for me and on my behalf (not exclusively, I realize, but the concept's there), then they need to hear what it is I want from or expect of them.
I generally get the usual nice, semi-generic, form response that tells me in polite terms that either they agree with what I have to say or that they don't, but that they're glad (as always) to hear from me and to keep in touch. I can then rest assured that whichever memeber of their staff actually read my letter marked down a little tick-mark in the appropriate column so that my Senators and Representative will be made aware of my feelings as part of their regular summary of the mail.
Sometimes, though, the responses I get are so incredibly generic that they don't manage to communicate a thing to me about what these guys actually think. Probably the most egrarious examples of this are the letters I got back from my Republican Senators in response to my comments about Senator Rick Santorum and his statements about regulating sexual behaviours between consenting adults. The point I made in my letter focused less on his specific comments about homosexuals and more on the idea that there is no right to privacy and that states should be able to regulate sexual activity to protect families and basic "moral values". I figure it must have taken quite a while for someone to figure out how to write a response that would cover all of the various comments people would have to make about Senator Santorum, and still provide absolutely no information about where the Senators themselves stand on the issue, while being as inoffensive as possible about it.
That said, I present - for your amusement - the Great Neutered Letters, courtesy of Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS):
Roberts: Thank you for writing to share your thoughts about recent comments by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). I appreciate hearing from you.I suppose I should be glad to know that Senator Brownback believes in human rights. I was a bit worried there, you know. I also love how his list of rights "retained" by homosexuals doesn't even come close to addressing the issue of whether consenting adults - of any sexual persuasion - have a fundamental right to privacy, and thus a basic right to do to each other in the privacy of their own homes whatever they want and agree to.The issue Senator Santorum commented on is one about which many individuals feel strongly. This is reflected in the fact that the Supreme Court is set to determine whether to uphold or overturn Texas law prohibiting consensual sex between individuals of the same sex. I have received comments from many Kansans, both in support and opposition to Senator Santorum's remarks. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will rule on this issue soon.
I share your concern that basic moral values make up the foundation of our great nation and will continue working hard at every opportunity to see that Congress and the federal government assists -- not hinders -- our work toward that goal. Rest assured, I will keep your concerns in mind as Congress considers legislation affecing our nation's moral fabric.
Again, thank s for getting in touch with me. Please keep me updated on yoru views affectin both Kansas and the rest of the nation.
With ever best wish,
Sincerely,
Pat Roberts
Brownback: Thank you for contacting my office regarding recent statements by Senator Rick Santorum. I genuinely appreciate hearing the views of my fellow Kansans.I believe in human rights. I believe,like Jefferson, that we are all "endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights." These rights we possess by virtue of our humanity; our government recognizes and protects them because we are citizens. Homosexuals, of course, retail all the rights, privileges and immunities of citizenship including the freedoms of speech and religion, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures and the taking of their lives, liberty or property without due process of law. I have spoken with Senator Santorum, and will keep your thoughts in mind should this matter arise again.
Again, thank you for expressing your concerns. Please do not hesitate to contact my office again in the future, and in the meantime, I encourage you to visit my website at http://www.senate.gov/~brownback for additional information on other issues on which I am working.
Sincerely,
Sam Brownback
United States Senator
I'm also grateful that Senator Roberts was able to help educate me about the Supreme Court. I wasn't aware that if the Supreme Court is considering a case, it would be indicative of a lot of people having strong opinions about the matter. I thought it meant that there was a complicated legal issue involved that required the highest court in the land to determine how that issue should be handled in accordance with the Constitution. Silly me, huh? (Yes, yes, I do know that when the Supreme Court is considering a matter, more often than not a lot of people will have strong feelings about it - but the idea of saying the Supreme Court considering an issue is reflective of many people having strong opinions on it is, well, just too funny, really.)
These letters remind me of a scene from "All the President's Men", where Ben Bradlee is complaining that all these people the Washington Post has published stories about are issuing "non-denial denials" - statements meant to sound like they're denying the story without ever actually saying that theyre denying the story. These letters are "non-response responses" - intended to make it sound like the Senators are responding to my letter without actually saying anything. (Well, except that Senator Brownback believes in human rights. That's a big risk he's taking there, you know.)
As much as I am offended and disturbed by Senator Rick Santorum's belief that there is no right to privacy and that the government should be able to regulate what goes on between consenting adults in private, if the GOP's decision not to rally behind his anti-gay comments leads to a large part of the Christian Right abandoning the Republican party, well, I may just have to send him a letter of thanks. That would simply be one of the best things that could happen to this country.
Leaders of the Christian right are thinking of bolting the Republican Party in 2004. Such a move would deal a severe blow to President Bush's re-election effort.Please, do reconsider!Though Christian voters played a pivotal role in electing Bush in his razor-thin victory over Al Gore, NewsMax has learned that major figures in the evangelical movement are talking about withholding support from the Republican Party.
The issue came recently to the fore because of comments made by Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based public advocacy organization founded by Dr. James Dobson and affiliated with Dobson's Focus on the Family.Recently, Connor, as a guest on Dobson's national radio program as well as in a newsletter sent to Christian activists, openly questioned the Republican party's commitment to social issues Christians are concerned about.
"If Republican leaders cannot mount a vigorous defense of marriage, then pro-family voters perhaps should begin to reconsider their loyalty to the party," warned Connor.
While having the Christian Right break away from the mainstream of the Republican party could open the door for them to form a viable third party, by themselves, I don't believe they'd be nearly as powerful as they are combined with the Republicans - and without the Christian Right, the Republicans would be considerably weaker. This would be a very good thing. I'm not sure how likely it is, since someone is bound to realize that, separately, neither the Christian Right nor the Republicans are going to be as strong as they are together, but it's sure a nice fantasy!
Last week, I'd written about the Republican plans for their 2004 Presidential convention - including their plans to exploit the 3rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks at the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Because they want to be able to use it as a patriotic backdrop to hype Bush's re-election plans, the Bush administration is trying to make sure that information about what they might have known prior to the attacks stays secret.
As part of these efforts, the Bush administration is not only keeping a significant amount of information contained in an 800 page report prepared by a joint congressional inquiry "classified", but they are even trying to re-classify material that was presented in public hearings so that it cannot be re-released.
The tensions over the release of 9-11 related material seems especially relevant -if not ironic - in light of recent reports that the president's political advisers have devised an unusual re-election strategy that essentially uses the story of September 11 as the liftoff for his campaign. The White House is delaying the Republican nominating convention, scheduled for New York City, until the first week in September 2004 - the latest in the party's history. That would allow Bush's acceptance speech, now slated for Sept. 2, to meld seamlessly into 9-11 commemoration events due to take place in the city the next week.If anything, I'm finding that I feel even more cynical about the Republicans plan to use 9/11 to help get Bush re-elected. Odds are good that they'll be able to keep secret a great deal of the information they don't want released - there have been very few occasions (if any) so far where they've wanted to keep info under wraps and weren't able to do so.
Some sources who have read the still-secret congressional report say some sections would not play quite so neatly into White House plans. One portion deals extensively with the stream of U.S. intelligence-agency reports in the summer of 2001 suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning an upcoming attack against the United States - and implicitly raises questions about how Bush and his top aides responded. One such CIA briefing, in July 2001, was particularly chilling and prophetic. It predicted that Osama bin Laden was about to launch a terrorist strike "in the coming weeks," the congressional investigators found. The intelligence briefing went on to say: "The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.”[...]
That issue is now being refought in the context over the full report. The report names names, gives dates and provides a body of new information about the handling of many other crucial intelligence briefings—including one in early August 2001 given to national-security adviser Rice that discussed Al Qaeda operations within the United States and the possibility that the group’s members might seek to hijack airplanes. The administration “working group” is still refusing to declassify information about the briefings, sources said, and has even expressed regret that some of the material was ever provided to congressional investigators in the first place.
Sometimes, someone will do something so shameless that it just makes you have to stop and catch your breath. This is one of those times.
Before we get main event, though, The Advertiser, an Australian newspaper, has a report today on how the New York State government and New York City's City Hall, are proposing legislation that would ban vendors from the Ground Zero site, in an effort to recognize the "sanctity" of the site. This fits in with the general tenor of how people have, for the most part, tried to avoid exploiting the September 11th attacks as a sign of respect for those who died that day.
The Republicans, however, don't seem to feel any need to follow suit. Instead, they've decided to make the most of 9/11 when it comes time for their convention and Bush's push for re-election next year.
The president is planning a sprint of a campaign that would start, at least officially, with his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, which is now set for Sept. 2.I certainly expected the events of September 11th and it's aftermath to play a significant role in Bush's re-election campaign - but somehow, the thought of them scheduling the convention in New York City and specifically timing it to coincide with the rememberences of the tragedy to boost Bush's re-election chances is just astounding in its arrogance. "We're here to remember those many people who died on this spot three years ago, and to remind you of what a great job President Bush has done since then to... blah, blah, blah"? "Crass" just doesn't quite cut it. Hopefully, this kind of exploitation will do more to turn people off, offended by it the way so many have been offended by the sales of trinkets, hotdogs and other items at Ground Zero, that it'll just blow up in Bush's face.The convention, to be held in New York City, will be the latest since the Republican Party was founded in 1856, and Bush's advisers said they chose the date so the event would flow into the commemorations marking the third anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
The back-to-back events would complete the framework for a general election campaign that is being built around national security and Bush's role in combating terrorism, Republicans said.
Right now, I'm liking John Kerry very much. Not just for having said that maybe we need a regime change here in the US (a phrase he backed off of somewhat once the criticism starts - though he's not backed down on the idea that Bush needs to be replaced), but for actually pointing out that if the Republicans want to criticize him for speaking out against the war or against the Bush administration, they'd better not try to question his patriotism - since he actually fought during the Vietnam War as opposed to the many conservatives who found ways to avoid going.
Kerry is someone I'll have to watch as the Presidential campaign gets underway, but so far, so good. He's had his inconsistancies - such as voting to give Bush the authority to start the war and then complaining that we didn't spend enough time to really let diplomacy work - but, sadly, I expect that from a politician.
One thing I do find amusing about the way the Republicans are working themselves into a lather over Kerry's comments is that they seem to be outraged at the use of the word "regime" - as if that only denotes some kind of undemocratic government (ignoring, of course, the irony in that, given how Bush wormed his way into the Presidency). Yet as Eschaton and Ornicus point out, during the Clinton years, many conservatives used the term "regime" to describe the Clinton administration. How soon they forget.
The whole flap about Kerry does, however, bring up one other concern. For the last month or two, I've seen several suggestions from liberal bloggers that the Bush administration may find a way to cancel the upcoming elections so as to protect his ability to stay in power. While I wouldn't put much past them, I've always sort of felt that concerns about them cancelling the election were closer to paranoid than possible. Yet, whether he intended to or not, Mark Racicot has just made the situation worse, by making it sound as if war could be used as a justification to avoid the risk of replacing Bush. In responding to the controversy over Kerry's comments, issued a press release with the following statement [emphasis mine]:
Senator Kerry crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander-in-chief at a time when America is at war. Critical analysis offered in the best interests of the country is part of a healthy democracy. But this use of self-serving rhetoric designed to further Senator Kerry's political ambitions at a time when the lives of America's sons and daughters are at stake reflects a complete lack of judgment.
You don't have to be much of a conspiracy theorist to follow the reasoning there to its extreme conclusion. Now I just wish that some Democrats would have the courage to speak up and question exactly what he means by that - begin a debate on just how far this supposed "line" extends, and what happens if next November we're still at war? The first few to bring it up will be ridiculed horrendously, but if enough ask the questions, the more seriously they may be taken.
At the end of last year, blogs helped push the issue of Trent Lott's racism to the forefront of national debate. This may be another issue we want to work on pushing until it, too, is more widely discussed. Pointing out now whenever the Republicans make statements that imply that replacing Bush is somehow a bad idea - in the sense that even suggesting we should elect a new leader (which is all Kerry was doing) is "over the line" - may be the best way we have of waking up others to the possibility and thus defusing it. It's worth a thought, at least....
Over at Eschaton, there's an interesting comment thread about why 9/11 attracts so many conspiracy theories. One comment in particular, however, jumped out at me. In it, Robbo points out how much the right has gained from 9/11, regardless of whether there was a conspiracy involved or not:
I don't believe in any 9/11 conspiracy theory, but every bit of evidence supports the notion that the radical right jumped on 9/11 to jump-start the drive to get America into precisely the jam we're in this very moment.
Deep breath. The entire nation, along with most of the disapproving world, is preoccupied with a dumbass war against a former client state of the U.S. -- a war that's looking dumber and more dangerous every day; the public is "rallying around the flag" right on cue, despite the well-publicized litany of lies repeatedly told by Administration officials to sell us this war; we have turned our back on the international court of law and several important international treaties; our steel tariff was just declared illegal by the WTO, meaning that another international institution may have to be relegated to the junk-heap already occupied by NATO and the UN; the nation is not having open debates on any of a number of other serious issues facing the country; Dick Cheney and a crew of reactionaries are holed up in a fortified bunker somewhere undoing the nation's regulatory framework (e.g., exempting military bases from the Endangered Species Act); the media have few correspondents left to follow up on a variety of massive corporate scandals that left Wall Street reeling (how's your 401K?); the military budget is pushing $400 billion/year even before massive war/reconstruction costs, which we will bear the brunt of this time because of widespread international horror at our actions; Bushco's major campaign contributors are receiving fat no-bid contracts to re-build the country our military is systematically dismantling; John Ashcroft is busy writing PATRIOT Act III in between busting head shops and outlawing abortions; the Republicans shoved through massive cut taxes (primarily for the wealthy) at a time when federal and state budgets are hemorrhaging, thereby ensuring that government services and regulatory structures will become ever weaker and less able to constrain amoral corporations; and the U.S. Freaking Congress has responded by issuing a resolution directly the President to designate a day "recognizing the public need for fasting and prayer in order to secure the blessings and protection of Providence for the people of the United States and our Armed Forces."
These are irrefutable facts. Who needs conspiracy theories? Wake up.
Bleak as it may be, sometimes its good to look at the whole ball of wax in one shot like that - an important reminder of what we're up against.
Why I feel sorry for the people in Washington's 3rd District
I suppose the guy who filed for - and drew - unemployment benefits after losing his non-political job, even though he was still drawing a $32,000 salary for his work as a state Senator is probably the worst of the two, though the other guy doesn't seem like he's all that great - at least not in the brain-strength department.
Inside Politics
from the Seattle Times
Sometimes a banana is anything but a banana: U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, explaining the role politics didn't play in his vote against President Bush's Iraq resolution last week:
"I decided when this started that this would be a decision solely based on my best judgment of what was right for this country, what would in the long run provide the greatest security. I talked to my wife and my campai — ah, my, ah, my congressional staff, and everyone else and said that this is not in any way about politics."
More 3rd District politics: Baird's opponent is state Sen. Joe Zarelli, a Republican from Ridgefield, Clark County, who has been battling news that the state wants him to pay back unemployment insurance he improperly took while collecting his state Senate salary.
His unemployment news was followed by other jobless statistics. Slow fund raising pushed Zarelli to furlough his campaign manager and turn his political director into a volunteer, according to The Olympian.
And Zarelli has come up with the perfect answer to questions about his unemployment claims. We already loved his self-sacrificial statement that if his scandal meant bringing attention to the plight of the unemployed in the 3rd then it was all worth it. But even better was his statement to The Olympian, "I don't want to talk about this issue any more. It's getting far too much politicized."
Bad Roads or Twin Towers: Which Is Worse?
Here in Kansas, we've got ourselves a real winner in Kathleen Sebelius, who compared driving on neighboring Missouri's roads to the attack on the Twin Towers. Yeah, you read that right. She said that driving on Missouri's roads is:
"much more terrifying to me than the attacks on the World Trade Center, because I really think my life was far more at risk."
Wisely, she did apologize for the remark, but I have to wonder about the suitability of any candidate who would make a statement that would so obvoiusly be considered insensitive and likely to start more than a bit of controversy - whether the statement itself is true or not (and Missouri's roads are pretty bad).
Dirty Tricks
There are reports that there have been at least 2 instances of someone - generally presumed to be affiliated with the Republicans, though that can't be proven - trying to convince some people not to vote.
KSHB-TV in Kansas City reported on their 10pm news that many senior citizens are receiving recorded phone calls telling them that their absentee (or "early voter") ballots won't be counted and that the voting machines in a certain area are not working. The calls purport to be from the Election Council, but are not, and now they're just trying to get the word out that the story is false. (As of the time I'm posting this, they have not added the story to their website, but I'm providing the link in case they do add it - kj)
Baltimore's Sun newspaper reported this weekend about a flyer being distributed in some African-American communities, pubicizing not only the incorrect date for voting, but implying that before someone can vote they need to have all parking tickets, moter-vehicle tickets, overdue rent and any warrants taken care of. (Copy of the flyer provided by the Talking Points Memo)
No article to quote from this time - just a basic rant.
Campaign commercials are beyond annoying. I've found that I pay very little attention to them, because I seriously doubt the veracity of what they say - whether they're boosting their candidate or trashing the opponent. Either way, the statistics, quotes, records and other information has, in all liklihood, been chopped, blended, folded, spindled, and pureed beyond recognition.
Now, I'm finding, even more than the mutilated "statistics", the basic pattern of the ads is getting on my nerves. They all start out the same - ominious music, and a harsh voice snapping out the horrible things the opponent has done, building up to a point where suddenly the "sunlight" music breaks in, softer, now, more friendly, and the voice become gentler, extolling how their candidate is so unlike the opponent, leaving the ad on a happy, upbeat note that you're supposed to associate with the candidate.
It's sad to think that these crude tactics seem to work year after year. I'd like to think that, as a whole, we're smarter than that. What I find really sad, though, is how many people profess to hate negative ads, but how effective they still seem to be. It leaves the impression that people either know they're being manipulated and don't like it, but still fall for it anyway, or that they say they don't want to be manipulated, but don't take enough care to see if they are before buying into the message.
There's one guy here where I live who either uses very few negative ads, or the ones he does use aren't terribly good, becuase I don't remember any of the bad things any of his opponents are supposed to have done. The ads of his I do recall focus on him and on what he's done - and he has one set of really geeky ads that feature him playing a guitar and making corney little comments tied to the style of music he plays a snippet of - for example, he plays a bit of country music and then talks about how proud he is of the country. Dorky as all getout, but comparing that to his opponent who does little other than talk about how bad the other guy is, it's not only refreshing, but leaves me feeling much better about supporting him. So far he's won election to the House twice. Maybe someone will notice, someday, that attacks aren't required to win.
Ok, well, hey, I can hope, can't I?
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