Tuesday, May 31, 2005

TX-Senate Dem. Candidate

Never heard of this Radnofsky lady before but she's got a good Web site. Apparently she's already declared for Kay Bailey's seat and rumors are that it's going to be an open seat very soon.

I found her site through a post on MyDD.com that has got to be one of the most delusional things I've seen in a while. I'm all for putting a positive spin on things but saying that "[Randofsky] is, I am convinced going to be Texas' next US Senator" (sic) doesn't make me think you know shit about Texas politics.

Friday, May 27, 2005

Ask Dr. Frist

Looks like the Tennessee Kitty Killer is doling out medical, relationship and spiritual advice on the internets. You too, can now Ask Dr. Frist his opinion.

Perhaps inspired by Diagnose me, Dr. Frist!

.

DeLay Gets Punked By Law and Order...

...and then cries about it. This article doesn't go into the details of the show, but on the latest Law and Order Criminal Intent the cops are chasing down two guys who have been using a sniper rifle to murder/assassinate judges. That's when the obligitory sarcastic quip comes - the female lead of the show "suggest(s) putting out an all points bulletin for 'somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt.'"

Now that's pretty funny and when I saw it I chuckled. But DeLay's response is even better:
"I can only assume last night's slur was in response to comments I have made in the past about the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary, as prescribed in our constitutional system of checks and balances."
Yeah, the Constitution definitely says that judges who disagree with TomTom will have to "answer for their behavior." It's in Article 17, I think.

Mad props to Law and Order executive producer Dick Wolf for his response:

"Every week, approximately 100 million people see an episode of the branded 'Law & Order' series. Up until today, it was my impression that all of our viewers understood that these shows are works of fiction as is stated in each episode.

"But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

What's next, DeLay attacking Leno, Letterman, and Jon Stewart?

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Slate declares Lockhart home to greatest BBQ in the world. We all already knew that, of course.

The brisket, black and almost crunchy outside, was moist inside—a perfect mix of fat and salt and meat. The sausage—made with nothing more than beef, pork, salt, pepper, cayenne, and smoke, was incredible


Another domino falls...

Judge rules that DeLay's PAC broke the one campaign finance law in Texas. From the Statesman:

State District Judge Joe Hart ruled Thursday that Texans for a Republican Majority violated state campaign law when it failed to disclose more than a half-million dollars in corporate contributions during the 2002 state legislative elections.

Hart, however, said the plaintiffs could only collect for damages in their campaigns. He awarded $196,660 to the five Democratic candidates who lost in 2002. Included in that total was an $87,332 award to formerstate Rep. Ann Kitchen of Austin.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

On the compromise

"It seems a little like Dems are celebrating the fact that someone stole their girlfriend but they won the right to keep dating."

from Hotline's Last Call

How Propaganda Becomes "Truth"

Great post from Arthur Silber on Newsweek, propaganda, White House control of the media, etc.

All the major points advanced by the war propagandists—and that I identified in my very first post about the Newsweek story—are included: the riots and deaths that came after the Newsweek item in time were caused by the magazine’s story, and whether that contention is true or not need not even be addressed; Newsweek retracted the story, so whether the U.S. and/or its troops have shown disrespect toward Islam or the Koran, and what the results of such policies might be, need not be considered ; and all the rest.

This is how popular mythology is created and how war propaganda becomes so common, because it is repeated so often and questioned so rarely, that it is widely accepted as “truth.”

Monday, May 23, 2005

This is a fucking deal?

NYT reports:

The judicial showdown that has preoccupied the Senate for weeks in bitter dispute was to many a foreshadowing of what might occur later this year, if there is a Supreme Court vacancy. There were varying interpretations of how Monday night's agreement might restrict lawmakers during what is anticipated to be a drawn-out battle. On the one hand, Democrats view the pact as containing an understanding that would forbid the Republicans from trying to vanquish the filibuster in such an instance, while Republicans asserted last night that they could still move to change the rules if Democrats violated the agreement.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the No. 2 Republican, said, "The way I read it, all options are still available with the timing to be determined."


So:
* They get the three worst nominees through,
* Frist and McCain get to take credit for being moderate,
* And they explicitly reserve the right to go nuclear on a Supreme Court nominee?


Clearly euphoric and relieved, Mr. Reid said a message had been sent that "abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over."


Uh, no, Harry, those attempts aren't over. Did you listen to what kitty-killer Frist said?

"The moment draws closer when all 100 senators must decide a basic question of principle whether to restore the precedent of a fair up-or-down vote for judicial nominees on this floor or to enshrine a new tyranny of the minority into the Senate rules forever," said Dr. Frist.


ADDENDUM:

There is word circulating this morning that Reid never had the votes. If that's true, then perhaps this crappy deal is the best we could have gotten. In which case, anger should be directed not at Democratic Senate leadership, but at spineless R moderates, and maybe also the American electorate.

News From the World of Texas Online Politics

The Kinkster has a new Web site - perhaps the only male candidate in the world who could pull off a pink color scheme in Texas. While I like the new site's color scheme, and think it's a pretty decent site, I have a few beefs:
  • The contribution page still has Kinky's old design up making it look like you're leaving the site to make a contribution. Donors get a little freaked when you pull stuff like that.
  • The Forum and Online Store have the same problem. And what's the difference between the forum and the blog anyway? Aren't those basically the same thing?
  • The video on the homepage is only available in one size and one format (Windows Media). Isn't Kinky supposed to be independent? How about some love for Mac users?
  • And finally, the email I got announcing Kinky's new site said this:
1) Contribute: As Kinky says, "A journey of a thousand miles always starts with a cash advance." We hired the best in the business, now we gotta pay 'em.

3) Tell your friends about the campaign using our form.

3) Collect names: Find out who else wants Kinky on the ballot and sign 'em up. Download the Lone Star Pledge kit and start signing people up today!
For a candidate that might face some tough questions about whether or not he's qualified to serve as Guv, it might help if he could count to three.

In related news, Kinky has brought on former Nader, Ventura, and Wellstone consultant Bill Hillsman to do his ads.

Imagination and beer

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's 35th anniversary dinner sounds like it was hilarious. How could it not be, with Molly in attendance? As Editor and Publisher reported:
Ivins accepted her award with a funny, impassioned speech on the difficulty of fighting for press freedoms and civil liberties in the George W. Bush administration. "What you need to do is talk to a Texas liberal," she told the crowd. "We know what it's like to be outmanned and outgunned." Ivins spoke of her work on behalf of First Amendment causes, noting that for the last 15 years she has given one speech a month, for free, on behalf on free-speech issues. She doesn't give these speechs in places like New York or San Francisco, but in places without a lot of liberals. "You don't know what courage is," she said, until you sit in the basement of an Alabama Holiday Inn with "seven local heroes, led by a librarian, fixing to start a chapter of the ACLU."

Sharing the lessons of being an outgunned Texas liberal, Ivins said, "One of our rules is that things are not getting worse -- things were always this bad." But she acknowledged journalists are in a particularly tough spot right now. "If you're not scared," she said," you should be." But she encouraged the audience to continue fighting the good fight, and to continue having fun. "In Texas," she said, "we recommend imagination and beer."
Gotta love the guy (and this crack) but is Al Franken really candidate material?
Then he turned toward The New York Times table in the front of the room, where sat Judith Miller, best known these days for two things: her articles on weapons of mass destruction that didn't quite pan out and the possibility she will go to jail for not revealing sources in the Valerie Plame case. "Judy,"" Franken said, "maybe you can find some WMD in your cell." Silence. "OK, I shouldn't have told that joke."

The Whip In

Whether it was a 12-pack of Lone Star cans on the way to a tubing trip, or a sixer of some hipster Idaho-brewed IPA, you were always there for me. The best convenience store ever, the Whip-In, is expanded and online.

They even have a blog with tasting notes. Whip-In, I will visit you soon.

Texas set to embarrass us again.

The lege is putting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the November statewide ballot. The State Senate approved it Saturday, after what the Statesman called an "emotional and sometimes fiery debate that cited slavery and the Bible."

Yet Another Way We're Getting Screwed

Think BushCo and corporate America care about average workers? Yeah, right. Slate has a great piece today on how corporations are lining up to rip off hardworking Americans by 'cramming down' pension and retirement plans. The basic M.O. is that a large corporation will promise it's workers a decent pension, work them like dogs for 30 years, and then announce that they've been underfunding their pension plan and employees are S.O.L.
Corporate America has been systematically setting up its employees for United Airlines-like cram downs. Nearly a year ago, the PBGC reported that there were 1,050 companies that had an unfunded pension liability of $50 million or more. (Collectively, their plans were underfunded by $278.6 billion.) That's up 15 times from the $18.4 billion total in 1999. The PBGC estimates that the total shortfall among all the 31,000 plans it insures is significantly higher.

[...]

Meanwhile, the PBGC itself is in deficit. As of last September, it had only $39 billion in assets to cover the $62.3 billion in guaranteed pension benefits it owes to more than 1 million workers. In other words, it doesn't have the resources to meet even the crammed-down plans. Oh, and the PBGC, which insures pensions for 44 million workers in 31,000 plans, is bracing for more pension failures.
That's 44 million workers that might not get the full pension and retirement money promised to them by corporate America. And it's not just because the economy is bad or a particular industry has done poorly:
And even when they're flush, many healthy companies simply fail to take the steps necessary to fund the benefits. According to another study by Wilshire Associates, 81 percent of corporate pensions are underfunded. American corporate managers have collectively decided not to adequately fund the pensions and post-retirement health benefits that they promised to employees or negotiated with unions.
That's an outrage. But the real kicker is that BushCo is doing the exact same thing to American workers:
Indeed, the mother of all cram downs is shaping up this decade in Washington. For the past four years, as Americans have gone to work, played by the rules, and paid their taxes, Republicans in the White House and Congress have engineered a fiscal disaster. . . It's not that Congress and President Bush can't adequately fund Social Security. It's that they just don't want to. Instead, they want to cram us down.

I don't think the Pentagon will be sending out any press releases on this story

Tillman's Parents Are Critical Of Army
Family Questions Reversal On Cause of Ranger's Death

"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

[...]

Mary Tillman says the government used her son for weeks after his death, perpetuating an untrue story to capitalize on his altruism -- just as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was erupting publicly. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall. She again felt as though her son was being used, something he never would have wanted.

Friday, May 20, 2005

from another Texas liberal

Bill Moyers gave a great speech last weekend, "A democracy can die of too many lies." It's mostly a speech about journalism -- a great, incisive speech, worth the read -- but this passage sings:

"I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

"Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart's affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother's picture on my lapel to prove her son's love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

"So what's this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

Yeah, if only Newsweek hadn't run that Qur'an story, they'd love us.

NYT: In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him...

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time...

One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.

Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.




A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

I like to shoot guns as much as the next guy but...

...what is about the Right that they have to make such a fetish out of it? Hutchison pines for her handgun reports the DMN.

"I have always had a handgun in the drawer next to my bed, and I would certainly
again have one if it were legal in D.C.," Hutchison said.


And Cornyn boasts:

Cornyn's office said he has several types of guns and rifles and keeps them in
an "undisclosed location."


They're really just one step away from the cliched gansta rappers brandishing MAC-10s for a publicity photo.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

A great win

Villaraigosa Sweeps Past Hahn in Historic Victory

Antonio Villaraigosa romped past incumbent James K. Hahn to make history Tuesday, winning election as the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since the city's pioneer days.

[...]

A Mexican American child of City Terrace, a largely immigrant community on Los Angeles' Eastside, Villaraigosa was raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family. He grew up in poverty and has said he saw his father beating his mother.

After bouncing in and out of high school, he went on to graduate from UCLA and earn a law degree at People's College of Law. Villaraigosa became a teachers union organizer, then won a state Assembly seat in 1994.

His outgoing personality and skill at raising money served him well in Sacramento; he won the powerful job of Assembly speaker in 1998, then spent much of the next two years preparing his first run for mayor of Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa kicked Hahn's ass by almost 20 points, which was especially sweet considering Hahn's vicious attacks.

More than anything else, Hahn painted his rival as soft on crime. The mayor's goal: to build support among white Republicans and conservatives, many of them in the West Valley, and the least likely of the city's voters to side with Villaraigosa.

In a TV interview last weekend, Hahn pressed the point by saying his foe took "the side of the street gangs" when Villaraigosa was a leader of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

"He really doesn't enjoy stiff sentences against criminals," said Hahn, who closed his campaign with ads hammering the challenger for voting against tougher penalties for child abusers who kill children.

Congratulations to former union organizer, ACLU president, and now Mayor Villaraigosa.

Mountains of Ice

As a friend pointed out, it was sad to watch Norm Coleman humiliated yesterday and realize we lost Paul Wellstone only to get such a fool.

I wish Wellstone were on the floor right now debating the nuclear option and the filibuster. Here's an excerpt of a speech he gave in 1998 at a union hall for your inspiration.
I finish by posing a question for you – this is the fire that’s burning inside of me. I do not understand how it can be that in the United States of America, which is a country I fiercely love. Boy, when you are the son of an immigrant it is true (as some of you may know): it makes you so patriotic. I love this country. I give no ground on that. But how can it be that in the United States of America today – the richest country in the world, at the peak of our economic performance – we’re still being told that we can’t provide a good education for every child? How can it be that we’re still being told we can’t provide good health care for every citizen? That we’re still being told that we can’t at least realize the goal that every kid comes to kindergarten ready to learn – that she knows the alphabet, he knows how to spell his name, she knows colors and shapes and sizes, they’ve been read to widely and they are ready to learn! We’re still being told that people can’t expect to find a job at a decent wage. It is unacceptable.

[...]

Wendell Philips was an abolitionist – he was speaking in the 1840’s, gave a speech abolishing slavery. Wendell wouldn’t equivocate, gave a fiery speech, and said that slavery was unconscionable, it was an outrage and it should be abolished. He finished speaking and a friend came up to him and said “Wendell, why are you so on fire?” He turned to his friend and said “Brother May, I’m on fire because I have mountains of ice before me to melt.” We have mountains of ice before us to melt. Thank you.

Senate R's Say Mr. Smith Can Go To Hell

In light of the Republican attempt to go 'nuclear' on the filibuster I thought it might be appropriate to quote from one of my favorite political movies of all time, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In the movie's climax Jimmy Stewart, a regular guy who gets appointed to the Senate, uses a filibuster to fight back against corrupt Senators that have blocked his attempts to create a boys camp:
Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That's what you'd see. There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that's what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again! (Emphasis mine)
Here's hoping we don't lose sight of the great principles our country has fought so hard for.

Bush's Budget Turning America into Argentina

More great stuff from Today's Papers:

The other nuclear scenario... With the media packs settling down to enjoy the filibuster fight, Post quasi-columnist Dana Milbank notices that a conservative think tank and a liberal one joined with the U.S.'s comptroller for a press conference to raise the alarm about the "nightmare" that is the future budget. "The only thing the United States is able to do a little after 2040 is pay interest on massive and growing federal debt," said the comptroller. "The model blows up in the mid-2040s. What does that mean? Argentina."

Milbank notes:

There were no cameras, not a single microphone, and no evidence of a lawmaker or Bush administration official in the room—just some hungry congressional staffers and boxes of sandwiches from Corner Bakery.

My only complaint about Milbank's column is that it's contrasted with the filibuster drama instead of Social Security. When BushCo holds a press conference about Social Security going bankrupt it's broadcast nationally in the middle of sweeps, when two think tanks that never agree on anything and the country's comptroller have a presser on the entire government going bankrupt all they get is a few staffers looking for a free lunch.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Rumor 2 of the day

From a labor source, SEIU is gone from the AFL-CIO. They've already pulled their lists from the AFL's databases. Also, AP reports Unions Criticize AFL - CIO Leadership.

Rumor 1 of the day

From a Republican source, Frist wants one more weekend before things blow up, plans to start debate on the nuclear option tomorrow, and then push for a vote next week. McCain and the moderates have no chance.

Pro-choicers marginalized

So EJ Dionne begins his column entitled Centrist Courage On Abortion like this:

Nothing is more hopeless or courageous in politics than seeking an authentic middle ground on the abortion issue. That makes Thomas R. Suozzi a hopeless case or, as I would insist, one brave politician -- and especially so as the United States Senate tears itself apart over judicial nomination battles in which discord about abortion has played such a central role.

The 42-year-old Nassau County executive is a churchgoing Catholic who believes that abortion should remain legal. He is also a Democrat who thinks that government should take concrete steps to make it easier for women to choose against abortion.

You're really expecting something bold, or new, or inconoclastic, huh? And what is Suozzi's proposal?

Suozzi runs a county government, so more is asked of him than just a string of nice words. He has put $3 million in county funds on the table to support homes for single mothers, to promote adoptions and to provide information on all forms of family planning, including -- to hold the culture warriors at bay -- contraception, "natural family planning" and abstinence.

Uh, that's pretty much been the agenda of Planned Parenthood (whose clinics are targeted by domestic terrorists) for 30 years now. That's not an "authentic middle ground" as Dionne calls it, but is essentially the position of the entire pro-choice left.

In Real Life, a Power We Shouldn't Have

One of the paradoxes about conservatives and the death penalty is the same people who think government is incompetent to do anything right (even trash collection should be privatized!) has complete certainty that our arcane criminal justice system works well enough to not accidentally execute the innocent.

Richard Cohen makes that point in the Washington Post today.

Whatever the case, no execution is a private act. Every time the state executes someone, it threatens the rest of us. The power to take life is too awesome to be given to government. It's not just that it has been abused throughout history, it's also that governments are incompetent at it. After all, the same government that assured us that Iraq bristled with weapons of mass destruction also guarantees that there is nary a slip between the cup and the lip when it comes to executions. Lately DNA testing has given the lie to that. Mistakes are still being made. Sorry.


I know there are at least 119 people who very much agree with Cohen.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Oops

Walmart to apologize for Nazi ad

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.

The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.

DeLay provision in energy bill to benefit Saudi chemical company in Sugarland

What do you get when you mix Tom DeLay, millions in lobbying expenditures by the Saudi Royal Family, the chemical MTBE, and the House Energy Bill? Another toxic mess, courtesy of the former exterminator from Sugarland. The Boston Globe has all the sordid details:

“A company largely owned by the Saudi government has spent more than $1.5 million since 1998 lobbying Congress to shield the chemical industry from liability for damages caused by MTBE, a potentially cancer-causing gasoline additive…

“[Tom] DeLay is the chief proponent of a provision in the sweeping federal energy bill to relieve the MTBE industry of most liability for cleanup…

“The Saudi company, SABIC, is a leading maker of MTBE. It faces loss of business and potentially heavy cleanup costs if Congress does not protect the industry from lawsuits. The company, which has a member of the Saudi royal family as its chairman, has an office in Houston and a research and technology center in Sugar Land, Texas, DeLay's hometown and political base.”


Saudis lobby to limit liability on additive

Legless puppies, the cement plants of Midlothian, and Joe Barton

They're all connected, and Tom Boyle, a Republican, tells the frightening story of how in a D Magazine article that begins, "My wife and I wanted a place in the country to raise our kids, so we moved to Midlothian, the cement capital of Texas. Then our neighbors started getting cancer, so we had to figure out why."

Expect to be sickened after reading about kids with cancer, Down's syndrome clusters, horses that won't breed, and yes, puppies born without legs or tails, all around the Ash Grove, Holcim, and Texas Industries (TXI) cement plants. Toss in Congressman "Smokey Joe" Barton's successful efforts to shield the companies from federal environmental standards, and you have a classic Texas story.

Though it feels bad to laugh, the story actually has some funny parts, like when Boyle describes his disbelief that he, a rock-ribbed Republican, finds himself associating with -- ghast! -- environmentalists.

"We were Mormons, for heaven’s sake," he writes. "I was a scoutmaster and Julie was a room mother. She had never knowingly voted for a Democrat. Ever. I may have, but I couldn’t remember when or why. It’s not that she suddenly wanted to open an abortion clinic or host a gay wedding, but she was starting to sound a little too much like something I knew we were not: Democrats."

Today Boyle and his wife run the Midlothian Family Network. No help yet from their Congressman, but Erin Brockovich is on the case.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

wisdom from Eisenhower

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things . Among them are ... a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

Smokin'

As a smoker I'm a bit biased when it comes to anti-smoking issues. Sure I should quit but that's my decision, not anyone else's. So you can imagine this article from USA Today made me pissed off enough to go light one up:
More companies are taking action against employees who smoke off-duty, and, in an extreme trend that some call troubling, some are now firing or banning the hiring of workers who light up even on their own time.
The articles cites a few examples of companies that have you-must-never-ever-smoke policies:
Weyco, a medical benefits provider based in Okemos, Mich., this year banned employees from smoking on their own time. Employees must submit to random tests that detect if someone has smoked. They must also agree to searches of briefcases, purses or other belongings if company officials suspect tobacco or other banned substances have been brought on-site. Those who smoke may be suspended or fired.
Not a smoker? Don't really care what happens to people who smoke because it doesn't affect you? You might want to start paying attention:
And legal experts fear companies will try to control other aspects of employees' off-duty lifestyle, a trend that is already happening. Some companies are firing, suspending or charging higher insurance premiums to workers who are overweight, have high cholesterol or participate in risky activities.
That's some fucked up stuff - insurance companies are basically telling companies who they can and can't hire based on the possibility that they might one day get sick. Will Gattaca-style DNA tests be next?

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

OK, the floor is open for nominations!

"People focus too much on colors. It could be numbers, it could be animals" -- ex-DHS Sec. Tom Ridge (Newsday, 5/11).

I say it should be drinks. Low threat level? Have a mimosa. Slightly elevated -- switch to Miller Lite to be safe. Medium? Move to gin and tonic. As things get worse, you progress to tequila shots and eventually just slugging Old Crow from the plastic bottle waiting to die in the dirty bomb attack.

The Onion takes on the Texas Cheerleader Crackdown

Yeah, it's hilarious.

Taunting?

Not sure if Kos has some sort of insight into what's going on in the Senate or not but thought this post was interesting:

Hey Frist, how about a vote?
by kos
Wed May 11th, 2005 at 08:46:31 PDT

Well, Tuesday went by without a vote on the Nuclear Option. And we all know darn well that Kitten Killer Frist would've done the vote if he had the votes.

Reid called his bluff yesterday, yet no vote. Frist can't even keep his caucus together with a six vote majority (including Cheney tie breaker), and he wants to be president?

Let's have a vote!
I'm all for taunting Frist and the Rs but is the implication here that we have the votes?

A model for Texas?

Read this piece, and every time it says "LA" mentally insert "Texas". Granted, the labor laws aren't nearly as conducive to this sort of organizing, but I believe there is much to be learned from what Contreras accomplished.

The Man Who Changed L.A.

When Miguel Contreras became leader of the Los Angeles labor movement back in 1996, he inherited a set of time-honored axioms about life and politics under the Southern California sun.

The first was that nobody actually worked in campaigns -- walking precincts, making phone calls. The state and the city were too big for anyone to mount a significant field operation. Campaigns consisted of fundraising and advertising: money in, message out, no activists need apply. The second was that it would take years, perhaps decades, for the wave of Latino immigrants sweeping the state to have an impact on its politics. Republican governor Pete Wilson's Proposition 187 two years earlier, which denied public services to undocumented immigrants, may have riled the Latino community, but the payback, if any, would be a long time coming. And the third
was that the labor movement, in Los Angeles as everywhere else, was shuffling off to Jurassic Park -- a dinosaur incapable of saving itself, much less affecting its environment.

None of this came as news to Miguel, but it somehow never occurred to him that these were realities set in stone. The son of immigrant farmworkers, he had gone to work at 17 for Cesar Chavez's union, where he learned that every so often improbable social transformations were all in a day's, or a decade's, work. Miguel had a decade -- not even, just nine years -- to transform Los Angeles when he died last Friday, at age 52, of a sudden heart attack. The smog and the traffic remain unchanged, but politically the place is unrecognizable.

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Frist to go nuclear Thursday?

Semi-credible rumor circulating: Frist will launch nuclear option this week, presumably Thursday, in order to get out front of any Trent Lott-engineered compromise.

"We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn..."

Why I Love Today's Papers

As some of you may know in a past life I did 'the clips' for a Texas-based public affairs firm. Back in my day the clips process involved taking the hard copies of the major national and Texas newspapers, reading through them looking for relevant stories on the firm's clients, cutting out the important articles, and then photocopying them into massive tree-killing 40-50 page packets. All before 8:30 in the morning when the head honchos strolled into the office.

While it was generally a pain-in-the-ass intern-type job it was an incredible way to see how the daily news plays out, get a true sense of what the term 'pack journalism' means, and learn some of the subtle differences between the major dailies.

For my money, nothing comes closer to giving you the same broad view of what's in the news (without getting newsprint all over your hands) than Slate's incomparable Today's Papers. On most days TP's rotating crew of writers gives you get a great dose of how the majors are covering the day's top stories but occasionally you get the kind of insight that only a true clip monkey can appreciate. Exhibit A from today's TP:

The main thing to keep an eye out for in dispatches about military offensives isn't anything in the stories themselves. It's the datelines. The LAT is the only one of the Big Five filing from the Marines' battle. The difference in coverage is stark.

With their reporters presumably stuck in Baghdad, the other papers basically channel military spokesmen accounts. Skepticism does not abound, nor does careful sourcing. "MARINES KILL 100 FIGHTERS IN SANCTUARY NEAR SYRIA," announces the Post. That figure has issues. As you might notice, most of the papers' stories actually cite "as many as" 100 insurgents killed. (Kind of like TP is "as much as" 6ft. tall). Then turn to the LAT, which quotes the commander in the field puzzling over the hundred figure and saying "a couple of dozen" insurgents were probably killed.

That's only the beginning of the differences.

So unless you had the time to read the top Iraq stories in the WP, NYT, WSJ, USAT, and LAT you probably wouldn't have realized that everyone except the LAT is just publishing Pentagon press releases.

Not only does Today's Papers give readers a nice view of how the dailies stack up, on rare occasions we also get a nice bit of sarcastic editorializing:

Newish NYT op-ed columnist John Tierney bemoans the overwhelming coverage of suicide bombings in Iraq and elsewhere:

If a man-bites-dog story is news and dog-bites-man isn't, why are journalists still so interested in man-blows-up-self stories? I'm not advocating official censorship, but there's no reason the news media can't reconsider their own fondness for covering suicide bombings. A little restraint would give the public a more realistic view of the world's dangers.

There were three car bombs in Baghdad yesterday, killing at least six people. The NYT gives the attacks the most attention. That is, it mentions all three—devoting a single sentence to them.

Hats off to Today's Papers for consistently providing us former clip junkies with enough of a fix to avoid going into withdrawal.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Drummers on a Sunday afternoon

The other weekend, after wandering around town on a gorgeous, sunny day, I wound up in Malcolm X Park in Columbia Heights, heard some music and followed it to the Malcolm X drummers.

There were maybe 20 drummers, with all sorts of drums, percussion instruments, one girl with a cowbell, loosely gathered on benches and stools under a tree, jamming together in the sun.

As soon as I sit down on the grass, an old lady who easily could have been 80 walks up and leans down to hand me a flyer for a protest against the Bush administration later in the month. As I'm sitting there enjoying the music, head down, hand tapping on the ground, I hear a horn. I look up and some guy with a small silver trumpet has walked up, and jumped right in. A little while later, a another guy with a flute adds to the horn section next to the trumpet player.

Between passing out flyers to passerby, the old lady is getting down, dancing barefoot in the grass and I think -- I really hope when I'm her age this is what I'm doing. People walk up, or ride up on their bikes, stop and listen for a half hour and then meander off.

According to a guy named William, who’s been coming to the drum circle since 1969, the group started playing at the Park around the time of the King March on Washington in 1963. He tells me the group is a mix of veterans, a few since the beginning, and new players just learning. In recent years, there's been more of a mix of Latin and African beats. And the group leader, the guy in the middle of the circle occasionally giving instructions during breaks, played drums for Gil Scott-Heron for a dozen years.

William warns that the neighborhood is yuppie-fying, to which I am certainly contributing, but believes the culture won’t let it. Let’s hope he’s right. The drumers are out there every Sunday the weather is good from 3-9 pm.

Austin Election Roundup

In case anyone missed the results from Austin's local election this past Saturday:

  • A smoking ban passed that will make it illegal to smoke "almost everywhere in Austin, including bars and live music venues."

  • Leffingwell and (former Campaign Momentum client) Dunkerley won Place 1 and 4 seats on the city council.

  • Place 3 is still up for grabs and headed to a run-off. Margot Clarke and Jennifer Kim will battle it out in a June 11th run-off. Notable losing was MAP client Mandy Dealey who ended up in 4th place with just 11.2% of the vote.

Full results can be found here.

A huge loss for labor and the left

Miguel Contreras, the head of the LA County Federation of Labor, died on Friday. Under his leadership, LA had the largest growth in union membership of any area in the country. He ran a genuine grassroots political machine that would take out bad Democrats in the primary while at the same time broadening labor's coalition. His success in California was praised as a potential organizing and political model for labor nationwide.

I was lucky to briefly work with him; though I did not know him well, he was a friendly, funny guy who made everyone in the room feel like they belonged and brought new people into the fight for workers' rights and social justice.

Leader Who Restored Labor's Clout in L.A. Dies
Miguel Contreras, the son of migrant farmworkers who grew to be one of Los Angeles' most powerful labor leaders and a dominant force in city politics, died late Friday evening of an apparent heart attack.

Contreras, who worked the arid fields of the Central Valley as a boy, re-energized a sputtering Southern California labor movement struggling to regain relevancy.

[...]

In 1994, he was tapped as the federation's political director and immediately sought to reshape the unions' role. Contreras applied himself to winning over the often-quarreling local union leaders and insinuating himself into the city's power structure.

At a time when the national labor movement has struggled, Los Angeles' unions have racked up a remarkable number of victories: securing a living wage ordinance in the city, winning substantial wage increases for workers and beating back a state initiative aimed at limiting the collection of union dues for political purposes, among other measures.

Since Contreras was elected secretary-treasurer of the federation in 1996 — becoming the first nonwhite to win the seat — the unions' ranks have grown by 125,000 to more than 800,000, an increase fueled mostly by the city's burgeoning Latino immigrant population."

People across the country look at L.A. as a model of success," said Anna Burger, of the Service Employees International Union.


Krugman Spells Out How Bush Is Screwing Us

Paul Krugman has a great piece on Bush's Social Security plan and how it ties into Bush's tax cuts:

Let's consider the Bush tax cuts and the Bush benefit cuts as a package. Who gains? Who loses?

Suppose you're a full-time Wal-Mart employee, earning $17,000 a year. You probably didn't get any tax cut. But Mr. Bush says, generously, that he won't cut your Social Security benefits.

Suppose you're earning $60,000 a year. On average, Mr. Bush cut taxes for workers like you by about $1,000 per year. But by 2045 the Bush Social Security plan would cut benefits for workers like you by about $6,500 per year. Not a very good deal.

Suppose, finally, that you're making $1 million a year. You received a tax cut worth about $50,000 per year. By 2045 the Bush plan would reduce benefits for people like you by about $9,400 per year. We have a winner!

I'm not being unfair. In fact, I've weighted the scales heavily in Mr. Bush's favor, because the tax cuts will cost much more than the benefit cuts would save. Repealing Mr. Bush's tax cuts would yield enough revenue to call off his proposed benefit cuts, and still leave $8 trillion in change. (Emphasis mine)

BushCo has tried to talk Social Security in a vacuum - mad props to Krugman for stepping outside the SS box and looking at the big picture. It's an intentially complicated shell game that Krugman adeptly explains in a way that just about anyone can understand.

Holland Youth Show Up US Press Corp?

Someone on the Bush advance team screwed up and let some kids in Holland ask Bush questions that even the American media doesn't get to:

At home, President Bush regularly travels the nation for "conversations" with hand-picked audiences who routinely shower him and his policies with praise. But abroad on Sunday, some youths in Holland had a rare, unscripted opportunity to ask questions that some Americans might want to pose if given the chance.

My favorite question from the piece:

She said she had recently received a brochure seeking donations for poor people in the United States and asked Bush: "What's the balance between the responsibility to the world and the responsibility to your own people?"

How pathetic is it that there's direct mail fundraising for the American poor... in Holland?! Of course the Bush advance squad eventually regained their sanity and got the media out of there. Wouldn't want the Prez to be embarrassed by tough questions from the Dutch school children.

Media were then asked to leave, though the meeting, held in a window-lined room at a glorious chateau near Maastricht, went on for another half-hour.

That last half hour was, predictably, scrubbed from the official White House transcript.

Friday, May 06, 2005

College Republicans are so lame

So the kids at Princeton come up with this great piece of political theater (Saul Alinsky would be proud) with their Filibuster Frist demonstration. They've been filibustering against Frist's plan to nuke the filibuster for ten days now, and getting great press coverage on it.

And, as reported in the NYT, the best the College Republicans can come up with is

The scene turned rowdy on Tuesday when 20 students from the College
Republicans showed up with anti-filibuster signs and a cardboard cutout of
President Bush. For two hours more than 100 students crowded around the
filibuster, demonstrating their views with signs and chants, like "Five, six,
seven eight, Bill Frist is really great!"


Of course it makes sense, when you realize their leader was a cheerleader.

King would be so proud

From a WP article on the congressional investigation into Merck's deceptive marketing of Vioxx:
Merck and other drug companies say their "detailers" act as neutral educators to guide physicians in prescribing drugs, but the more than 20,000 pages of documents released yesterday showed that Merck's representatives were coached to be aggressive salesmen.

They were trained how to smile, speak and position themselves most effectively when talking with doctors, and were exhorted to sell Vioxx and other Merck drugs using the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) read from a Merck training manual that directed instructors to play a recording of the speech and then say to the sales force: "King was someone with goal-focus -- he kept getting shut down but kept going. . . . Just as with a physician, you must keep repeating the compelling message and at some point, the physician will be 'free at last' when he or she prescribes the Merck drug, if that is most appropriate for the patient."

FDA scientist David Graham estimates as many as 55,000 people died of Vioxx-related heart attacks -- that's more people than die in a year from auto accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.

Merck even produced a document called "Vioxx Dodge Ball" which explicitly instructed its reps how to "dodge" questions for physicians about the health risks of Vioxx. It's available at saferdrugsnow.org.

Social Security Lies

Mad props to Brian Montopoli at CJR for calling our president exactly what he is, a liar:

So little Rachel learned in grade school that she'd never get any money from Social Security. If Brock is now 26, and she waits until full retirement age to start receiving monthly Social Security checks, the year will be 2046 and she will be 67. True, if the system is not altered between now and then, Social Security will be in the uncomfortable position of taking in a little less than 75 cents for every dollar due to be paid out to retirees. So each month, the system would go further into debt, or the now-retired Rachel would only get three-quarters of what she assumed she would. But that's not the same as saying there won't be any money available in the federal retirement program by the time Rachel Brock retires. In fact, money will still be pouring in every week from payroll deductions. Upshot: Rachel was lied to as a child. Just as she was essentially lied to by the president yesterday, when she was told the system would be "bankrupt" in 2041.

On a slightly different note, does it strike anyone else as a ridiculous that Bush is so damn concerned about Social Security going into debt but he doesn't seem give a rat's ass that we have a $400-plus billion dollar budget deficit? It'd be a little easier to buy his Social Security rhetoric if he wasn't spending our tax dollars like a drunken sailor. Why should we trust him to put Social Security in the black after he squandered Clinton's surplus? And, perhaps more importantly, why hasn't the media called him on this somewhat glaring inconsistency?

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Ugh.

WSJ: Big Honkin' Horns Hit the Highway

Some SUV Owners Install
Loud, Costly Air Horns;
The Noise-Law Loophole


Jim Stevenson bought a Hummer H2 a few years ago because he liked its "Tonka Toy on steroids" look. Everything about it was macho -- except for the horn.

After a bunch of boys on a street corner signaled to him to honk, and were clearly disappointed, it was the last straw, says Mr. Stevenson, an Orlando, Fla., real-estate agent. "You have this big beast, and you hit the horn, and it sounds like Mike Tyson talking," he says. "It's truly embarrassing."

So Mr. Stevenson went out and installed an air horn in his SUV. The new horn is so loud, he says, that sometimes when he honks it, people applaud.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Don't quote me on this

Jay Rosen has a good, informative post that discusses the ins and outs of the White House press corps' feeble attempt to make the Bush administration stand behind their own words. I'm no journalism professor, and I'm sure their are some instances when background briefings are appropriate, but this is ridiculous:

There is new imagery in [The NY Times article] too: a causal chain from readers fed up with anyonymous sourcing generally, to editors getting the message, and top editors pressing the bureaus, and bureau chiefs pressing reporters, who are supposed to plead with McClellan, and, now, finally, the bureau chiefs themselves meeting with the press secretary.

My take on this is 1) the Bush administration has done whatever it can to undermine the credibility of the press and this is yet another example, 2) BushCo doesn't have the balls to put their names next to their statements, and 3) the press is too scared of the administration to do anything about it. Not that you can blame them too much, McClellan might just replace the entire press corps with male prostitutes.

War on drugs becomes war on pot

WP reports today Marijuana Becomes Focus of Drug War; Less Emphasis on Heroin and Cocaine.

"In reality, the war on drugs as pursued in the 1990s was to a large degree a war on marijuana," said Ryan S. King, the study's co-author and a research associate at the Sentencing Project. "Marijuana is the most widely used illegal substance, but that doesn't explain this level of growth over time. . . . The question is, is this really where we want to be spending all our money?"



Aggravated? Consider contributing to the Marijuana Policy Project.

Then for a look at the effect of the drug war in DC, rent Slam.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

Slate has a nice piece on the current state of the booze industry:
Last week, two leading beer companies reported disappointing results. Anheuser-Busch, which claims more than half the U.S. beer market, announced it was suffering from falling demand and rising costs. The volume of Bud and Michelob sold in the U.S. fell 2.7 percent from the year-ago quarter. Newly merged cross-border beer powerhouse Molson Coors reported a loss, with net sales in the U.S. down 2 percent, and U.S. operating income off by nearly one-third. The most recent trading statement of Miller, the No. 2 U.S. beer brand now owned by SABMiller, showed marginal growth.
Makes me thirsty for a Lone Star.

This is spring?

I saw people wearing scarves and gloves today shivering at the bus stop this morning. WTF? We could use some Texas weather here in DC.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Jesus would be proud

Apparently Patty didn't get Bush's memo on religion being a "personal" matter. From the NY Daily News via DailyKos:

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday. "Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."

By the way, Republican appointees enjoy a national-fabric-destroying majority on 10 of the 13 federal appeals courts.

Faux-Boy Bush

The funniest jokes are the ones that are true. Laura Bush apparently brought the house down at the recent White House Correspondents Dinner (full transcript) with zingers like:
"George always says he's delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He's usually in bed by now," she said to laughter. "I said to him the other day, 'George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later.'"
Nice to know the leader of the free world can get a good night's sleep while American soldiers are dying in Iraq.

The first lady followed that up with what anyone who's really from Texas already knew - G.W.'s bullsh*t Crawford ranch was just a bit of political theatre cooked up by Karl Rove:
And the native of the Lone Star State poked fun at her husband's patrician upbringing: "George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place" near Crawford. "Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program.

"But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse." She paused. "What's worse, it was a male horse."
Too bad the American public bought into his carpet-bagging exploitation of the Texas cowboy archetype. At least we can all laugh about it now. Ha-f*cking-ha-ha.

Public financing, anyone?

Great letter to the editor in WSJ today.

A Slick, Crass Form of Official Near-Bribery

I was enjoying the well-written and informative article on Starbucks ("Legislative Grind: Cautiously, Starbucks Puts Lobbying on Corporate Menu," April 12) when a single sentence literally stopped me in my tracks: "The price of access to meet lawmakers is often campaign contributions." After being taken with the stark, simple honesty of that statement, I became increasingly appalled and then alarmed by it. If our collective attitude toward that fact has become a shrug of the shoulders (and the way it was presented here suggests that very thing), then almost nothing else written in your newspaper really matters. It means that we very well may have lost our republic -- and the democratic values that underpin it -- to a slickly and intricately crafted, but no less crass, pay-as-you-go form of officially sanctioned near-bribery that winks at the law and pretends to be something it's not. Doesn't anyone have a problem with that?

Not to oppose this is to be complicit in it.

John Figliozzi
Clifton Park, N.Y.

###

Maybe someone should forward this piece to this guy:

Awwww, poor Texans

The former managing editor of The Daily Texan, Sholnn Freeman, has an interesting piece in the WSJ today about SUV sales dropping in Texas.

Texans Think Smaller

HOUSTON -- Like a lot of other Texans, Paul Lanier likes driving big pickups and SUVs. But that was before gasoline prices jumped above $2 a gallon.

Mr. Lanier, a 53-year-old high-school football coach and a lifelong Ford truck man, in February traded in his family's Expedition and his own pickup for two Honda Motor Co. CRVs. The small sport-utility vehicle averages 25 miles per gallon in mixed city and highway driving, according to government figures -- 47% better than the Expedition's 17 mpg average.

Mr. Lanier says he feels "a little naked right now" without his big F-150 pickup surrounding him.

[...]

It can cost almost $100 to fill up a full-size SUV these days. That's jolting the loyalty of some of the big vehicles' most die-hard fans: Texans.