Count your money, Bruce

I just sent the following to Senator Chuck Schumer, chair of the DSCC, which channels money to Democratic Senatorial candidates:

I really like the kind of Democrat you usually are, although the Attorney General nomination thing confused me.  As chair of DSCC, you have a tremendous responsibvility and may need more info on one topic.

Word is going around here in Kentucky that you are trying to recruit Democrat in Name Only Bruce Lunsford to run against Mitch McConnell in the 2008 Senatorial race here.  As a lifelong Democratic voter, I would urge you to check Lunsfords contributions and his tantrum in the 2003 Kentucky gubernatorial primary that went a long way to giving the governorship to Ernie Fletcher.  The gentleman is not well-liked here.

Sometimes How Is More Crucial Than Why

On December 5, an angry young man went upstairs in the Von Maur store at the Westroads Mall near Omaha and administered capital punishment to eight other people for what had gone wrong in his life.  For the next several days, all our media darlings wrung their hands and puzzled over why he did what he did.  Newshounds immediately began to dissect all the trauma and tragedy they could dig up in the young man's history.  Why, oh why did he do it?

Strangely, there was very little attention to how he was able to do it.  So far as I am able to tell, Mr. Hawkins stole an AK-47 and two clips of ammo from his step father, from which he discharged 30 rounds of ammo in a period of less than six minutes, hitting at least 11 people and killing eight.  Then he killed himself.  An AK-47 is an assault rifle with a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute on full automatic.

There are many questions surrounding a killing with an assault weapon that I would like to hear asked and answered.  Maybe our elected leaders and NRA officials can give a persuasive answer to the question, "How many innocent Americans should be expected to die so that some Americans can have assault weapons?"  I haven't seen the interview with the stepfather in which the intrepid reporter asks, "Why did you need an AK-47?"  I would like to ask politicians from John Kerry to Mike Huckabee to Dick Cheney if they need an assault weapon to kill a deer, duck, pheasant or if they are preserving the right so that they can overthrow a government the find obnoxious?

The shootings were evidently good news for the National Rifle Association, which had this on its website today.  Curiously, the NRA site had no results when I searched on "Robert Hawkins" or "Omaha Shooting."  

Hillary: The Movie

One might think that anyone who cared enough to make a movie about a person might admire the person and want to promote the notion that the person was exemplary.  Or maybe one would make such a movie because the person is interesting, complex, or controversial.  So when I saw that someone had made a movie entitled Hillary:  The Movie, I assumed the motive was one of these two.

Today I read this and decided these people are not friends of Senator Clinton:  Dick Armey, Tony Blankley, Dan Burton, Ann Coulter, Frank Gaffney, Newt Gingrich, Michael Medved, Dick Morris, Robert Novak, Kate O'Beirne, and Kathleen Willey.  Strangely, the movie did not include Bill Clinton, James Carville, Paul Begala, or anyone else I could recognize a being favorably disposed toward Hillary Clinton.  Why, this movie must be just a filthy hit piece on Mrs. Clinton, the 2008 campaign's first "swiftboating" by the Republican smear merchants.

And the producer of this masterpiece?  David Bossie.  Now, don't I remember this name from somewhere?  What was it George H. W. Bush said about him?  "We will do whatever we can to stop filthy campaign tactics .  .  ."  Nice, Republicans!

Bush's Economy

This article, using Congressional Budget Office data, shows just how successful Bush has been on behalf of those who bought the presidency for him. When the increase in income for the top one percent of incomes is 37% higher than the total income of the bottom 20%, the class warfare right wing talkers inveigh against may well be in order. Class warfare is a term I do not accept, except to the extent that I struggle not to feel morally superior to those who see government as another service they can buy to line their own pockets, who feel no compunction about buying politics to avoid paying their fair share of the missile shield for Czechoslovakia (which they do not want), the war in Iraq (which they do not want), or spying in my email (which I do not want).

Bush's whole speech today was based on fear tactics (Don't raise taxes and slow the economy!) and untruths (I still have trouble calling even an unelected President a liar.) This same fellow who claims making people who, mainly because of tax cuts, increased their income $524 billion during 2003-2005, sees no problem going to optional war on credit. He could have financed this war by investing the tax windfall he got for the rich (which he did not do) and the lives of the children of the poor (which he did do). Scandalous.

Willard Romney on Taxes

Clearly, Willard believes that it is more critical for Caesar's wife to appear to be pure than to actually be pure. As governor of Massachusetts, he opted to increase taxes on hunters, the blind, and the mentally retarded rather than everyone. This passage, which I lifted from the transcript of today's Meet The Press, illustrates why I would think Willard may not be a man of the people, at least 99% of the people:

GOV. ROMNEY: Well, let's, let's step back and get all the numbers right. First of all, it was nearly a $3 billion budget gap that we faced as we came into office, my team and I. Secondly, we raised fees, and we generated about $240 million worth of increased revenue. So of a $3 billion budget gap, we raised fees of about $240 million. Now, these were not broad-based fees. I said I'm not going to go after driver's license fees or automobile fees for registration because these apply to everybody, and any...

MR. RUSSERT: Duplicate driver's license fee.

GOV. ROMNEY: Because, because if they're broad, broad-based, they, they have the--they have a sense, a feeling like a tax.

Gee, Willard, you're a prince!

Michael Vick, Meet David Huckabee

Why is it Michael Vick is doing twenty-three months in Federal Prison for mistreating dogs and this guy's father is the leading Republican candidate for President of the United States? Could it be because Michael Vick is black and this guy's daddy was the Republican governor of Arkansas at the time?

Guess Who Kentucky's New Education Commissioner Is?

It's Jon Draud. Seems like Ernie and his State School Board had to get this one in before Beshear took office. Damn. Beshear might have wanted someone qualified?

Round Up The Usual Suspects

From the folks who lied us into Iraq and screwed it up as soon as we got to Baghdad! He's BA-ACK! Can you sayWolfowitz?

Grounds to Impeach a Republican President

What does it take to impeach this president? Lying us into a war--Iraq-- won't do it! Trying to lie us into a war--Iran--won't do it! Torturing prisoners won't do it! Spying on citizens won't do it! Lying about Valerie Plame won't do it! Ignoring the constitution won't do it!

His daddy and Saint Ronnie didn't get impeached for sending Ollie North to smuggle cocaine into the US to support the proxy war against the elected government of Nicaragua or for selling weapons to Iran.

If we are to judge by the history of presidential impeachment, it is a political tool Republican congressional majorities use against Democratic presidents. On May 26, 1868, a Republican senate failed by one vote to impeach Andrew Johnson, a process that was characterized even by Republican Senator Charles Sumner as "political in character." Johnson was impeached for testing a law specifically passed by Congress to prevent him dismissing officeholders without Senate approval, a law partially repealed in 1887 and found unconstitutional in 1926.

The impeachment of Bill Clinton evidently centered entirely on lying about sex after having been carefully entrapped by the Starr definition of "sexual relations." Both the vote in the House and the vote in the Senate were along party lines, except that in the senate-- five in one case and ten in the other--Republican senators voted with the Democrats to acquit.

This is a either a question about whether Democrats respect the Constitution and rule of law more than Republicans or whether they're jsut a bunch of sissies. Tonight I lean more toward the latter.