monumental petulance

Last week, the President was greeted the incoming class of lawmakers on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House. One of them, who had be assiduously avoiding having his picture taken with the miserable failure, was Senator-elect Jim Webb of Virginia, former Secretary of the Navy and Vietnam veteran. Webb's son is a Marine lance corporal currently serving in Iraq. Bush went out of his way to go to Webb and ask him: "So how's your boy doing?" Webb replied, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," "That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"" Webb, struggling to control his urge to deck Bush, responded "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President,"

This as Bush's own children are busy ignoring their Secret Service details and threatening to cause riots in Argentina. I think I know a place that could use the services of those able-bodied young Americans. It is well known that Webb refused to talk about his soldier son during the election. This was an attempt by Bush to be the alpha-dog, the schoolyard bully, on par with his penchant for nicknaming people. No doubt, Webb will be known as "Hard Ass" to W now, providing another manufactured excuse for him not to work with the incoming Congress. His question is kind of sinister, like a little kid asking, as he hangs a puppy by its hind legs out of a second-floor window, "How's your dog?" (Just nod your head Jimbo, or he'll be walking point in Ramadi for the rest of his tour.)

This as Bush shrugs of the sober "centrist" advice of Bush family fixer James Baker and their non-binding middle-of-the-road suggestions for how to extricate ourselves from the biggest foreign policy blunder in our national history.

Meanwhile, Bush is building a monument to his failed administration: a presidential library which will cost a staggering half-a-billion dollars. Who is lining up to pony up for this staggering atrocity? Various oil-rich autocrats from the sheikdoms of the Middle East, including Oman, Morocco, Qatar and Dubai in the UAE. One wonders what exactly this library will feature, considering the number of classified documents multiplying. The jokes, inaugurated here by Arianna, are the only good thing to come out of this news:

Will visitors to the Iraq War Wing be handed rose-colored glasses before entering and having flowers thrown at their feet? Or will they don blinders as they stagger forward, sinking deeper into a man-made quagmire?

Will there be exhibits on waterboarding, illegal wiretapping, and the quaintness of the Geneva Conventions? A room devoted to the nobility and greatness of the Hanging Chad? A holographic image of Osama bin Laden (try and grab him and he slips right through your hands)? The Abu Ghraib Game Room (must be over 18 to enter)?

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

america the ugly

(Editorial comment: this is my first post made using my new MacBook laptop, truly the best computer I have ever owned, and I have had a computer since I was 3 and built a number of them from scratch. if loving something inanimate this much is wrong, i don't want to be right)

Ugly Betty not only the most watched show of the new fall season, it is also the most socially subversive primetime show in recent memory. Technically it is two shows: one about Betty Suarez, a frumpy but bright and determined Latina who has become executive assistant to the new editor-in-chief of Mode magazine (a thinly disguised Vogue, complete with a not-quite-dead Anna Wintour type); and the other show a more soapy and dramatic Americanization of the original Colombian telenovela.

The most poignant of these dramatic storylines came with the revelation that Betty's father, Ignacio, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Thus Betty, as the child of an illegal, is exactly the type of strawmexican bashed by nativist politicians like Pat Buchanan as taking college tuition and jobs away from more deserving Anglos. It just illustrates how susceptible we are to the divide-and-conquer class warfare tacitly perpetrated every time the issue of illegal immigration is brought up. The characterization is all about contrasts, such as between glamorous Wilhelmina Slater (played with diva elan by Vanessa Williams) and Betty, or between Betty's functional but impoverished family in Queens and her boss Daniel's highly dysfunctional family back in Upper Crustington. Even Wilhelmina, the daughter of a senator, finds herself trapped by the nepotism that made the son of the boss the new EIC, over her, even though the show demonstrates how much more immensely qualified she is for the position.

Glimpses of Latino culture, from Ignacio's flan to the problem Betty's effeminate nephew Justin has with his macho father, lend a crisp authenticity to what at other times tends towards slapstick comedy. In its initial weeks, the show had to endure endless comparisons to The Devil Wears Prada, whose protagonist had a much worse boss and much better fashion sense. Clearly, this is the right show at the right time. For a country that still proudly touts that it is classless, more and more the superrich is becoming divorced from even the merely rich, as society goes ever toward the pyramidal model of a very few on top and everyone else stuck on the bottom. Betty gives us all hope that despite not having won the genetic lottery of beauty and money, with the help of family and loyalty to those who deserve it, we can all succeed.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

gratitude

Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays: there are no heroes to be commemorated; no religious sentiments; no cards to be bought; and no political message. It is the one day Americans are encouraged to stop pushing themselves, to relax with friends and family and to share their food with others. It is the least commercialized of any holiday, despite its boon to many agricultural niche products. Although it is not well known outside of North America, the fourth Thursday in November is a day in which 95% of the households in the USA serve the same food. Beyond cooking and eating, most households will also be doing other similar activities: arguing over this year's elections, watching the Lions and the Cowboys, reheating food later tonight and planning the Winter holidays which are another month away.

Many any angry radical has pointed out that the day marks the beginning of the genocide of the indigenous people of this country, but you could make a much better case that Columbus Day marks that genocide better. Thanksgiving marks the cooperation between the two cultures, a moment of multicultural hope, that was sadly squandered by subsequent generations. But then as today, it should be the Native Americans that we honor and thank, for they were the agents and initiators of today's feast. The country is 99.9% of immigrant stock, but those original settlers would not even have any descendants were it not for their generous allied native neighbors. But there's no way this is going to become a national day of mourning from its current celebratory state. We should not forget the crimes of past generations, but the best we can do is hope for the future.

For this reason, I would like to propose that we reverse the staggering rudeness with which we have been treating people coming to our country since 9/11. Many of the nicest people in the world have been disgusted by the gauntlet you are now forced to run through upon arrival here. We should give thanks for them coming and bear in mind that such a journey was not always so easy.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

if at first you don't succeed

Rather than comment on tomorrow's secret ballot for the Majority Leader position between John Murtha and Steny Hoyer, a literal 'lesser of two evils' between a defense industry-funded pro-life unindicted Abscam co-conspirator and a pro-Iraq War DLC shrill owned by K Street, let's look at the big issue undergirding the political moment: Iraq.

Everyone is holding their breath waiting for the vaunted 'bipartisan' wizards of the Baker-Hamilton Commission to reveal their magic bullet for gettin beyond 'stay the course' and 'cut-and-run', but as one wit said, "all the Gates and all the Bakers couldn't put Humpty-Dumpty together again." It seems that Bush, according to this article in the Guardian, has not only given up on working with the Democratic Congress to find a way out of his Iraq debacle, but hasn't learned a goddamn thing from the electoral 'thumpin'. He's set up a parallel policy review timed to have its report released concurrently with the Iraq Study Group's so that he can get the recommendations he wants to hear, like ones not including any reductions in troop levels.

Clearly he's still in denial. He's got Henry Kissinger, that unconvicted war criminal, whispering in his ear about how this is all a matter of 'political will'. His strategy is to have one last futile push at making chicken soup out of chickenshit. This would consist of four points, all of which seem to have Cheney's greasy fingers all over them:

• Increase troops by up to 20,000
• Bring in 'friendly' Arab regimes like the Kuwaitis and the Saudis to negiotiate diplomatically. Including Iraq and Syria in this regional summit is still being resisted.
• Try to bring the Shia and the Sunni together
• Get more money for equipping and training the Iraqi army and police.

More of the same tired old shit, in other words. And too little, too late. Of course, any more troops and you would need a draft. Good luck with that... Oh and umm forget what we said about democracy and all those high-falutin' ideals. This past week, the US commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, gave a piece of Bill O'Reillyesque advice, saying more troops weren't necessary but neither was withdrawing any troops, just that the Iraqi army needed more pressure to do its part. All of this is to give the GOP cover for the 2008 campaign. Expect withdrawals to begin in the fall...finally.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

what now?

Now that the bubbles in the champagne have all popped, it is time for some sober reflection on how best to use the opportunity given to the Democrats in last week's election to change the course of the ship of state. Some may be already looking for an excuse to dismiss the Democrats with a 'pox on both their houses' dismissal of the entire political process or just some good old-fashioned librul demonization. Of course, the 110th Congress is bound to be not radical enough for some and not conservative enough for others, but that begs the question of what is the right balance to strike. The right plan would weigh a variety of concerns, such as getting legislation which is popular enough to get past the veto pen, reducing intra-party squabbles between the progressive and 'centrist' caucuses, and setting the stage for a retaking of the Executive Branch.

There are, in fact, plenty of plans more extensive than the 100 hours wishlist, but the biggest factor is time: not everything can be done simultaneously. Some of the more massive initiatives, like universal health care, will have to wait. The majority is more ideologically spread, being in what other multiparty governments known as a center-left coalition, encompassing everything from socialists to well, Joe Lieberman and his party of one. The more tightly conservative Republicans will be looking to keep legislation under the veto-proof threshold by remaining intractable or peeling off Democrats. Already bush is talking big about working together while pushing through John Bolton as UN ambassador and immunizing himself aginst all that eavesdropping he's been up to. Thus strategy would require a number of highly popular measures which the GOP can't afford to oppose. That said, here is a multi-stage annotated plan:

1) Ethics reform is the most important thing to begin with since judging by the exit polls, it has the broadest base of popular appeal. Not only that, it is bound to hurt the other party structurally more than it hurts the majority and it will preempt any poisonous 'same old tax-and-spend' critiques that have already been taken out of many a pundit's rhetorical fridge to defrost. Right now we are witnessing a number of ethical complaints from spurious to credible about the incoming party leadership, especially vis-a-vis the race between Steny Hoyer and John Murtha for Majority Leader, which is starting to distract from the unified message which brought the current electoral success. Hoyer is likely to resist this key step and establish a power center away from Speaker Pelosi (a reason why she is backing Murtha). Thus, to change the subject back and maximize political capital, the Democrats must quickly pass a reform of political lobbying, earmark distribution (including that of the new popular perk, homeland security funds) and that of Congressional ethics. Oh and throw in some sort of electoral reform, like requiring a paper trail for every vote. Increase penalties for elction fraud, including deceptive robocalls. Try to avoid giving ethically-challenged members like Alcee Hastings and Allan Mollohan, major committee chairmanships. There won't be another chance to do any of these things. With the slate wiped clean by the aforementioned, investigation will have a more justified power to it.

2) Ramp up the investigation slowly, as C-SPAN can only cover so many hearings in a day. I joke, but a bit of research and legwork will be needed to circumvent the more slippery members of the Administration in their chicanery, for even if they actually convinced themselves they would have a permanent majority, I'm sure the paper shredders are at full speed now. Investigations need to be serious, with no Joe Biden mugging for the camera or wild accusations, but yet through and relentless. Clearly, there are no shortage of oversight to be done, particularly in regards to Iraq, but there should be a schedule. Someone suggested a 'bombshell a month' which sounds about right in regularity.

3) The next legislative actions should be undoing the horrible legislation of this decade. Begin with the most unpopular: the inability of the government to negotiate drug prices due to Medicare Part D. Next, raise the minimum wage (with COLA!) triumphantly. If they are truly daring, they could attempt reform of immigration with severe employment sanctions as a funding source for better border enforcement...oh and no physical fence. Find some time to revisit...oh say, the torture bill and the whole issue of wiretapping without a warrant.

4) With the easy stuff out of the way, Bush can be isolated by investigations and nullified with a one-two combination of 'bipartisan' measures which will separate him from his party and other 'bipartisan' measures which can separate his party from him. This rather cynically plays into the press desire to approve of 'reasonable and bipartisan' action. But really give Bush plenty to veto as well, since you'll be accused to extremism no matter what you do. Bush's likely reaction will either to act as-if and continue to push his agenda or to take a page out of Clinton's playbook and try to put the GOP brand on a progressive initiative like alternative fuels. In particular, Democrats should be very wary of any and all attempts to reform Social Security...more of a job for some blue-ribbon commission to make recommendations on, then some divisive and unnecessary battle. Also any and all judicial nominees need a more through vetting. Repeal the archaic DADT policy for the armed forces.

5) Which leads us to Iraq, a mess which needs cleaning up but not the responsibility (hence the importance of those investigations being in progress). Already the GOP is planning to blame the Democrats for what everyone knows is their failed war. That's how they got their 'edge' in national security issues, by blaming the other side for Vietnam. If they get away with this bait-and-switch, we will see more Americans die in yet another forsaken war in a decade. Don’t expect the Baker commission to solve our Iraq problem. They won’t, they can’t. Oh and yes, we are all friends with Israel, but can we stop supplying them with anti-personnel weapons like cluster bombs? Not making a bad situation worse is a good guiding principle in all these things.

6) Having shown an ability to work and get things done, whoever the Democratic candidate in 2008 will be, she (or he) will have a well-researched proposal to get health care for all Americans. Since Bush will veto anything serious, it is necessary to build this into a solid plank. Even if something did pass, Bush would append one of his odious signing statements to it and then proceed to botch it royally. The same lesson applies to climate change. But both must be done, and done by the Democrats.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

looking inside yourself

This past Friday night, before a cracked radiator doomed my weekend, I went to the Boston Museum of Science with a friend to see an exhibit of dead people. Their bodies had been donated to an institute in Heidelberg founded by a controversial German anatomist, Gunther von Hagens, who in 1978 began to perfect the technique to preserving human flesh using plastic. After death but before their bodies decay, they are embalmed and placed in a bath of acetone, which replaces the water in their bodies. Next the acetone can be boiled off and flesh is either infused with polymers, including silicone rubber, epoxy resin and polyester, providing clear views into body parts and systems. The result is part art, part classic sideshow of the bizarre, and part education in the physiology of humanity.

Many of the full-body plastinates were posed in creative positions: some as if to freeze that person in an instant of time, like a ballerina on pointe or a gymnast on a set of rings or a pair of figure skaters; others were in more artistic poses, like the man whose musclature was walking a step ahead of its skeleton or the man whose flesh had been pulled forward in sections like open drawers on a cabinet; others were clinical what-ifs, as in 'what if you sliced a body lengthwise?' or 'what if you showed only the blood vessels?'. Numerous body parts, including ones with deadly conditions like coal miner's lung or an enlarged heart, were on display in cases next to plasticized slices through these parts or systems. Although the pregnant woman with a five-month old fetus was curtained away but displayed with many malformed babies and fetuses at all stages of development, I think we missed a few of the more controversial plastinates shown in the catalogue shown in the gift shop, such as the man holding out the skin on his body like a crumpled suit or the man praying while holding his heart in his hand.

There were some shocking poses there, faces pulled inside out and off of heads to reveal plasticized brains and viscera, all of which made you pause for a second and remember that this was all dead people, wonder about all these people did while living and then think that most people are destroyed after life is over, while these people's bodies will be admired for years in this condition, achieving a sort of immortality reserved only within the proxy making of sculpture in ages past. The donors remain anonymous in name, date of birth or cause of death, the opposite of what we have come to expect from our chiseled stone memorials and other funereal traditions. The array of cancerous lungs, cirrhotic livers and ruptured hearts also delivers a powerful morality by causing viewers to identify these bodies parts with their own body and personal choices. Although you aren't allowed to obvious reasons, you can touch the dead literally in this exhibit, although they do not smell or decay and remain to the most microscopic detail intact. It has been said that, unlike the spiritual immortality of most religious burial rituals, plastination provides 'a uniquely secular, material form of immortality'.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

Lincoln's Revenge and other Post-election Analyses

Pundits have been quick to frame last night's results in their analysis as being a shift rightward for the Democrats. In fact, what was more trenchant was the death of the so-called Rockefeller Republican wing, as moderate Republicans in the Northeast and Midwesst paid a dear price for the extremism of their party, while conservative Southerners survived unscathed. This represents the endgame for Richard Nixon's cynical Southern strategy which sought to build a Republican majority in the South from former Dixiecrats upset about civil rights in the 1960's. The bastions of the Republican party now are made entirely of the states Lincoln fought against, while the more moderate Republicans in the Rust Belt lost to the Democrats. In previously red districts and states like Montana and Virginia, underdog Democrats were swept in by narrow margins. Thus the growing Democratic majority has become more progressive while conversely the shrinking Republican minority becomes more conservative.

The GOP is collapsing into a regional party...the Dixiecons. Nine flipped seats came from CT, NY, PA and NH, while nine more from OH, IN, IA, KS, and MN. Of the 96 Republican-held seats in the Northeast/Midwest, these 18 were reclaimed. Apart from the outlying case of Heath Shuler in NC, the vast majority of winners yesterday were pro-choice, anti-war, anti-Bush progressives who all support embryonic stem cell research and increasing the minimum wage while opposing Social Security privatization. The nascent Senate majority will be 90% non-Southern senators. These Democrats are not 'Republican lite' centrists, despite this man-bites-dog contrarianism. Indeed the most conservative Democrat running in a Senate race, Harold Ford, lost.

The thought that this election was an endorsement of tepid bipartisan centrism can be seen as nothing more than an attempt to paper over the gaping wounds in the GOP coalition. There is a fear by both 'centrist' Democrats and right-wingers that Democrats may govern like, shockingly, Democrats. I say that they they need to realize the Democrats will be in power for at least the next two years and if the country had wanted a continuation of the conservative agenda, they would have voted for it.

Already the Republican spin machine has been revving up to try to find the silver lining in this massive repudiation of their corrupt rule. The most pernicious of these myths was telegraphed by Ann Coulter this week when she claimed there was a historical precedent in the current president's party losing double digit seats in the House in the sixth year of their presidency. We only need to look back eight years to Clinton's sixth year to see how wrong this is, where Democrats gained seats in the 1998 midterms. It has everything to do with representing the views of American voters and nothing to do with some farcical 'sixth year curse'.

A big winner last night was Howard Dean, the DNC chairman who defied political orthodoxy to promote a 50 state no-quarter strategy against the more cautious 'swing state' 'pick your battles' method of maintaining irrelevancy.

One last myth which should be laid to rest is that of the invincible Rove and his Diebold presidency. I'm not saying electronic voting machines are anything but untrustworthy and suspicious, merely that defeatism about American democracy needs to be re-evaluated. Results didn't come from Diebold software in Rove's office nor did Osama rear his head the day before the election. The zombified sheeple of the US didn't lurch to the right upon hearing the dog-whistle of 'San Francisco values' or the exploitation of the recent NJ same-sex marriage ruling or stupid Kerry gaffes. Yes, there are still institutional problems with democracy in America like the out-of-touch national media, voter apathy, policy as propaganda of the Bush Administration, microtargeted redistricting and fundraising shenanigans...but these are not so unsurmountable that we must all give up and move to Canada. The American people can be reached despite all of this and can make a difference.

This is also not to say that there isn't a mountain of work still to be done. Corruption was the number one concern of voters exiting the polls, giving a clear mandate to the Democrats to begin investigate. Who knows whether Bush is even capable of compromise at this point, today's lame duck quacking aside. Just today he announced the long-overdue retirement of Donald Rumsfeld, which both sides of the aisle took as a step in the right direction(the timing itself did not go unnoticed by anyone). It is well worth noting the contempt for the legislative branch inherent in those promoters of the unitary executive theory, which in their mind should be in thrall to the will of the Glorious Leader. The end of one-party rule is the beginning and not the end of the battle against authoritarianism in America.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

never forget, never give up

While I am cautiously optimistic at this point, even after the polls here have closed and hope has triumphed here in Massachusetts at the very least (with Deval Patrick beating back Kerry Healey's nasty gubernatorial campaign), there is a bit of guardedness from having come of political age in the era of Bush.

Not wanting to be Charlie Brown going to kick that football, let's list just a few of the shameless tricks employed by the GOP in the past few days:

• The deceptive robocalls outlined in a post below, where the computer repeatedly calls back, sometimes at 2AM, while representing itself as from the Democratic candidate. More and more of these 'false flag' robocalls have shown up across the country, even as the mainstream media remains mute on this story. In Nebraska, the GOP even used the voice of the Democratic candidate (Scott Kleeb) to deceive voters and suppress likely Democratic votes through shameless harassment.
• In Maryland, homeless (mostly African-American) men were bussed in from Philadelphia, greeted by the wife of the Republican governor and tasked with handing out deceptive 'official voter's guides' in heavily Democratic areas, such as Prince George's County. It urged voters to support the two Republicans, Bob Erlich and Michael Steele, running for governor and senator respectively, while misleadingly identifying them as Democrats.
• In New Hampshire, having been smacked down by the AG in their robocalling of people on the Do Not Call list, the GOP turned to its classic 'caging' technique, sending postcards to registered Democrats and collecting all the cards returned as undeliverable, so as to challenge their votes later.
• In Missouri, the GOP passed a punitive law requiring photo ID from voters, designed to suppress elderly and lower income voters. Even though this law was struck down, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who led the opposition to the law, was repeatedly asked for photo ID, even after explaining this was not necessary.
• In Virginia, the FBI is looking into calls reputed to come from the Allen campaign threatening Democratic voters with arrest if they go to the polls.

With the likelihood of a petulant Bush blocking the victorious Dems from making any legislative headway, Speaker Pelosi (wow, that feels good to say) will need a shovel and not a gavel.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos

From Sunday night's Treehouse of Horror XVII:


Kodos: Colonel Kang, your report...

Kang: Ah well, the Earthlings continue to resent our presence. (Bomb explodes) You said we'd be greeted as liberators!


Kodos: Don't worry, we still have the people's hearts and minds

Kang: I don't know...I am starting to think Operation Enduring Occupation was a bad idea..
.Kodos: We had to invade. They were working on Weapons of Mass Disintegration.

Kang: (contemptous) Sure they were!

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

'False Flag' Robocalls

The 'robocall' is the most useful arrow in the quiver of the modern political consultants. This refers to an automated phone call which plays a pre-recorded political message when you pick up the phone. Here in Massachusetts, I have heard two robocalls this political season, both from Republicans regarding the governor's race: one was a negative robocall about Deval Patrick from a 'victim's rights' advocate and the other was from the prospective Republican lieutenant governor Reed Hillman focusing on...illegal immigration. Modern politics on both sides loves the robocall because it is inexpensive compared to live phone banking, can reach millions of people in hours and get far less scutiny and regulation than ads on radio or tv. People on the ground doing GOTV (get-out-the-vote) efforts in multiple states across the country have been noticing a very malevolent twist to the usual robocall this year.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (or the House GOP campaign)is sponsoring a harassing robocall variation targeting likely Democratic voters and uncommitted with the intent of getting them pissed off. These calls appear to be from the local Democratic candidate (starting with something like "I'm calling with information about [fill in name of Democratic candidate].") and automatically call the same number back as many as eight times each time the caller hangs up. If the caller listens to the whole message, it goes on to badmouth the Democratic candidate. But if the caller hangs up before they reach that part of the message, the computer automatically calls back, making the recipient think that the Democratic candidate is harassing them.

As TPM describes one call from CT-4(Shays vs. Farrell):

Apparently the call starts with something along the lines of "Diane Farrell has some information for you," then pauses, waiting for annoyed people to hang up, and then delivers a negative message about Farrell. The canvassers say the call has hit some people as much as 6 times, and at 5 - 6am as well. Presumably, the intent is to annoy people and stick Farrell with the negative name ID as somebody who keeps robo-calling them.

Also in the 19th District of NY where Democrat John Hall is battling the Foley-coddling Sue Kelly:

When I was handing out palm cards, several people said to me something like, "I WAS going to vote for John Hall, until I got all those phone calls. I got seven or eight, right at dinner time."

The guy from the Republican table, who was a local district leader-- friendly and chatty, actually came over to me and said, "You know, most of those are coming from Sue's office, but don't tell anybody."

Similiar deceptive robocalls have been noted in NH-2 (Bass vs. Hodes); IL-6 (Roskam vs. Duckworth); IL-8 (McSweeney vs. Bean); KS-2 (Ryun vs. Boyda); and CA-4 (Doolittle vs. Brown), as well as many other races. This tactic has reminded some of similiar shenanigans during 2002 New Hampshire campaign from the Republicans.

Once again, Republicans are trying to sabotage an election. I know, shocking. Of course, this is a gross violation of federal regulations which mandate that robocalls indicate clearly their origin, as well as the repetitive call back being a violation of various state regulations. FCC rules say all prerecorded messages must "at the beginning of the message, state clearly the identity of the business, individual, or other entity that is responsible for initiating the call." During or after the message, they must give the telephone number of the caller. But the groups placing these calls factor in the price of whatever fines they may be subject to after the election when the damage has been done.

And they are now even admitting to this sinister trickery as the Concord Monitor notes:

The National Republican Congressional Committee spent nearly $20,000 on the calls last week. Depending on the rate, that could mean more than 300,000 automated phone calls into the Second Congressional District.

Incumbent Republican Congressman Charlie Bass denounced the calls yesterday and said he tried to get the NRCC to put a stop to them. But a spokesman for the NRCC said the automated phone calls would continue indefinitely.

"The calls will continue as planned," said Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the NRCC, the national group charged with electing Republicans to the House. "They are done independently of Charlie Bass's campaign. He has nothing to do with them."

If pressed these hacks will no doubt say something like "we are just trying to inform voters about so-and-so's record." The good news is that even as these desperate calls continue, observers are starting to notice, but whether Republicans can fudge the election within the margin of theft for their voter suppression and crooked electronic voting machines will remain to be seen.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

rocky mountain hypocrisy

Usually I space out my blog entries, but this was far too delicious not to comment upon: Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the Colorado Springs megachurch New Life Church, was alleged today in a Denver Post/KUSA-9 story to have had a 3-year relationship with a male prostitute. Of course, Haggard denies all charges. Despite preaching homosexuality is a sin, he has been paying a man named Mike Jones for sex for the past 3 years. Jones also claims Haggard used crystal meth in his presence numerous times before engagin in their 'sexual business' relations. Haggard was in Richard Dawkins' documentary on religion called The Root of All Evil, telling Dawkins he was 'arrogant' for claiming there was no God. He also was the leader in the successful fight for an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Colorado constitution and recently made TIME magazine's list of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the country. Haggard is married with five children. The 48 year old former Indiana farmboy has a weekly conference call with the President and claims he has 'direct access' to Bush. No doubt they will have alot to discuss this week.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko

Can't Tell a Joke to Save His (Political) Life

This past Monday, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, trying to make a bad joke about George Bush's intelligence, instead made the following ill-advised comment, repeated ad nauseum by the Republican outrage machine:

"if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make
an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you can get stuck in
Iraq."

Nevermind the metacommentary that it is not the children of the elite who are fighting this war, but mostly the underclass of kids trying to get money for college or with few other job prospects that have not been outsourced to other countries. Keery, one should remember, is both a Yale graduate and a military volunteer, living proff that the educated do offer to serve their country. But the response has been a deliberate missing of the point as well as an excoriation of anybody who actually gets the point, like John Derbyshire over at NRO, as they try to alchemically make willful ignorance into conventional wisdom.

Looking at the broader context, it becomes clear that the person who got 'stuck in Iraq' was Bush, but the comment was taken to imply that it was servicemen and women who were stupid and got stuck in that Mesopotamian hellhole. 105 US troops died last month and countless untold Iraqis were dumped on the streets with Of course, our soldiers are all ubermeschen with MENSA-level IQs and to suggest otherwise makes you guilty of the deathly thoughtcrime of 'not supporting the troops', but one would think our troops would be better supported by not sending them off in ill-defined wars of choice which clearly delineate the limits of American power. While as the brouhaha is pumped up by a desperate GOP, an actual soldier was abandoned in the field as US troops called off the search for a missing Iraqi-American translator kidnapped in Sadr City last week.

Clearly, Kerry handles a joke is like having Dick Cheney shoot an apple off of someone's head. Even in the Massachusetts governor's race featured a call from the Republican candidate Healey for the Democratic candidate Patrick to comment in last night's debate, which Patrick succinctly labeled as 'dumb'. Kerry, not up for re-election this year (or perhaps ever again if he loses another election for the Democratic Party) has since apologized, even as the White House Press Secretary misleadingly claims he has not and this non-story gobbles up a news cycle. This cynical bait-and-switch has yet to cut into the Democratic lead, as the actual harm to US troops comes more from the 'standing fast' (new GOP Iraq slogan) of Bush in his support of failed architects Cheney and Rumsfeld. If Democrats can be thankful for anything from this debacle, it will be Kerry seeing his chances for a Nixon-like electoral return in the 2008 Presidential race evaporate as every surging Democratic Congressional candidate has to offer a denunciation of his poorly-phrased attempt at levity.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko