Republicans Again Oppose The People, Oppose The Republic! If The Scent Of Money Is In The Air; They Want It!
- Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898) –
House Republicans' Stand Against Stimulus Provides Fodder for ...
Washington Post - United States
MoveOn.org and the Service Employees International Union are sponsoring television commercials urging five swing-state senators -- Susan Collins (Maine), ...See all stories on this topic
I Don’t Know What These People Are Smoking. Of Course A Stimulus Package Is Going To Pass. A Lot Of The Objectionable Spending Will Be Amended Out And The Money Re-directly More Constructively On Housing And Job Creation…And Yes The Republicans Will Get Damn Little In Terms Of Tax Cuts For Their Friends. If They Wish “To Stay The Course”, Cater To Their Base They Will Pay The Political Price.
GOP leaders doubt stimulus bill will pass Senate
WASHINGTON – Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday the massive stimulus bill backed by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats could go down to defeat if it's not stripped of unnecessary spending and focused more on housing issues and tax cuts.
The Senate version of the bill, which topped out at nearly $900 billion, is headed to the floor for debate. The House bill totaled about $819 billion and earned no Republican votes, even though it easily passed the Democratic-controlled House. At some point lawmakers will need to compromise on the competing versions.
McConnell and other Republicans suggested that the bill needed an overhaul because it doesn't pump enough into the private sector through tax cuts and allows Democrats to go on a spending spree unlikely to jolt the economy. The Republican leader also complained that Democrats had not been as bipartisan in writing the bill as Obama had said he wanted.
White House Cheat Sheet: Picking Judd Gregg
Washington Post - United States
The radio ads come days after a series of liberal outside groups -- Moveon.org, Service Employees International Union, Americans United for Change ...See all stories on this topic
Support Accountability in the Economic Stimulus Bill Today!
The House voted to include protections for whistleblowers to ensure here is real accountability in the economic stimulus package! But we have to act quickly to make sure the Senate bill has the same strong safeguards!
In Other Matter!
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Robert Gannon, a reporter who has been covering Professor John Yoo at UC Berkeley for the East Bay Express, writes in John Yoo, War Criminal? "The chances that the notorious UC Berkeley law professor will be investigated for war crimes appear to have increased in recent weeks." More at firejohnyoo.org and worldcantwait.org
Are We Civilized Enough To Hold Our Leaders Accountable For War Crimes The World Is Watching
War Crimes Times: To Start the Process, Impeach Bybee
By Kim Carlyle
To Start the Process, Impeach Bybee. Jay Bybee is currently a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge; he was an assistant attorney general in Bush’s Department of Justice. He wrote the “Bybee Memo,” also known as the “Torture Memo,” which ... we feel that the Bush Administration’s blatant and egregious violations of international law demand special attention. The WCT has resolved to see that Bush, Cheney, & Co. are prosecuted for war crimes no matter how long it takes. ...
War Crimes Times - http://warcrimestimes.blogspot.com/
Fodnoter - og Hovedtræk: Ray McGoverns tale til Frank Grevils ...
By Fod
One must make some practical application here in order to explain why Bush and Cheney were permitted to serve out their term. It was the power of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) and the cowardice of an invertebrate legislature that were responsible for the fact that these war criminals were not impeached, convicted, and removed from power—a process for which the provident Founders of our country were careful to provide in the Constitution. ...
Fodnoter - og Hovedtræk - http://fodnoter.blogspot.com/
US Satisfaction Remains Low Under Obama
Gallup.com - Washington,DC,USA
Negative feelings about the economy remain the primary driver of public attitudes about the country, and that is dampening the satisfaction scores of all ...
http://innovation.cq.com/senate2010_map
There doesn’t seem to be any rest for weary Senate Republican strategists, who are trying to plot a comeback in 2010 for their party after two election cycles in which they lost ground. But at least this time around, the GOP doesn't face as great a disadvantage compared to the Democrats in the number of seats it has to defend. As for the Democrats, they will face the next round of elections without three sure-shot incumbents who are leaving the Senate due to the election of Barack Obama, and his choice of Joseph Biden as vice-president and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. The CQ Politics staff takes a first look at the 36 Senate seats at stake in the 2010 election. Click on a red or blue state to learn more about the current members and the open seats.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002994197
In what appeared to be Sarah Palin’s lowest attempt to stay in the public spotlight last Tuesday, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate and current governor of Alaska launched a new political action committee, SarahPAC.
The model, which is an obvious mirror to that of Hillary Clinton’s HillaryPAC, already has people in Washington, and throughout the blogosphere talking about what appears to be Palin’s almost definite 2012 presidential run. The PAC is going to be raising money for Republican candidates, and most likely exploring a winning strategy for Palin in 2012. V
…However, my problem with Palin is hardly personal; it’s just political and happens to be a two-fold disagreement.
First, I can’t understand all of the hysteria and what oftentimes seems like an undying love for a governor that heavily detracted from one of the most deserving Republican candidates in recent memory, Sen. John McCain. I mean, I can’t simply disregard the fact that until she showed up at the scene, McCain was never able to draw the thousands of individuals from all over the country as Palin so easily did. Not to mention she appears to be extremely popular with younger people, as evidenced by her near 500,000 official Palin fans on Facebook, and the cornucopia of Palin-related fan groups on similar site.
Certainly, regardless of political allegiance, nothing of this sort has existed in the Republican Party since Reagan, although I find Palin to be a far cry from the politically-savvy Reagan. I mean, sure, she has the potential in the next four years to be a more adroit and encompassing candidate, but it would be foolish to avoid the obvious reason why more than 60 percent of Americans felt she was not qualified to take office: She reduced herself to consistently regurgitating neo-conservative talking points during countless interviews after her nomination.
Now, it comes to the second part of my problem with Palin, and that is the fact that the 2012 election is too important for the GOP to have a 2008 Palin accepting her party’s nomination. To be very honest, Palin is at the near bottom of conservative candidates that I feel would best restore the GOP to its proper place as the keeper of classical conservative principles such as limited government, maximum individual freedom and opportunity. The fear is that Palin can easily be elected in a GOP primary, regardless of whether she takes the strides to develop into a more credible candidate.
And with a 2008 Palin in a 2012 national election, the repercussions the GOP could face from another disastrous loss could indefinitely hurt the Republican Party…
Obama Selection of Sen. Gregg Worries GOP
GOP leaders are warning that President Barack Obama’s likely appointment of Republican Sen. Judd Gregg to serve as secretary of commerce could finally hand Democrats what they failed to win on Election Day: a 60-vote Senate majority that would render Republicans powerless to filibuster any legislation. Read the Full Story Here.
Life for March
American Conservative Magazine - Arlington,VA,USA
But Kenney’s own political analysis reveals that even the most committed pro-life activists are rarely single-issue voters. Asked whether Bush’s unpopular ...See all stories on this topic
In the age of Obama, the anti-abortion movement has nowhere left to go.
A month before his death, Fr. Richard Neuhaus said, “Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States.” Neuhaus neglected to mention that the pro-life movement has endured for so long precisely because it has failed. On Jan. 22, the March for Life turned 36 years old. In that time, Republican presidents have appointed eight Supreme Court justices, but Roe v. Wade remains law.
The annual demonstration attracts nearly 200,000 abortion opponents to Washington, where the atmosphere on the National Mall shifts between hope and outrage, occasionally tumbling into the macabre. Ray Miller, who drove in from Annapolis, Maryland, wore a black robe and carried a plastic scythe in his right hand. In the other, plastic chains with severed doll parts painted red. From behind his Grim Reaper mask Miller explained in a nasal voice, “I found that this costume most concisely gets across the message that abortion kills babies.”
Nearby, the Sisters of Life, a community of nuns dedicated to protecting the unborn, prayed the Rosary. A choir from Liberty University rehearsed their hallelujahs. Some of the homemade signs were splattered with fake blood, others wryly announced, “Technically You’re Just a Blob of Tissue.” One group passed out buttons asking, “What the FOCA?”—a reference to the Obama-supported Freedom of Choice Act, which would overturn nearly all restrictions on abortion. Parochial schools like Christendom College canceled all classes to allow students to demonstrate.
For the past eight years, George W. Bush has addressed the march by phone, a gesture some activists privately considered offensive but publicly greeted with applause. Under the new administration, injury has been added to insult. Marchers expected the new president to meet their protest with an executive order overturning the Mexico City policy, which prevented U.S. tax dollars from funding overseas abortions. That blow fell the following day.
Yet the speakers and marchers were surprisingly gentle on Obama. Pastors pleaded from the dais for him to reconsider his support of legal abortion. Priests and rabbis quoted Obama’s inaugural rhetoric, saying that the unborn also deserve “the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free” under our laws. Over and over, speeches asked how he could remain true to his commitment to civil rights and deprive unborn children of the right to life.
The effect of this on the conscience of the new president is unknowable. But one member of the Supreme Court has made it clear that the march will never influence his decision. In his dissenting opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which reaffirmed Roe, pro-life justice Antonin Scalia wrote:
I am as distressed as the Court is .. about the ‘political pressure’ directed to the Court: the marches, the mail, the protests aimed at inducing us to change our opinions. How upsetting it is, that so many of our citizens (good people, not lawless ones, on both sides of this abortion issue, and on various sides of other issues as well) think that we Justices should properly take into account their views, as though we were engaged not in ascertaining an objective law, but in determining some kind of social consensus. The Court would profit, I think, from giving less attention to the fact of this distressing phenomenon, and more attention to the cause of it. That cause permeates today’s opinion: a new mode of constitutional adjudication that relies not upon text and traditional practice to determine the law, but upon what the Court calls ‘reasoned judgment,’ … which turns out to be nothing but philosophical predilection and moral intuition.
Protest movements are never dispassionate, and the March for Life gushes with emotion. As it ended near the Supreme Court building, woman after woman came up to explain why she regretted her decision to have an abortion. Their horrific stories brought tears to the crowd; their demands for “real change in Washington” brought nodding and applause.
The ease with which pro-lifers adopt Obama’s words shouldn’t surprise anyone. While the movement is a conservative social movement, dedicated to protecting the family from internal breakdown, it is also a liberal political movement, making the case for equal treatment under the law. This emphasis on egalitarianism draws from the same progressive traditions informing Obama’s rhetoric.
At the March for Life, conservative Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) compared the pro-life movement to the historic liberal campaigns to extend equality: “You are the new abolitionists. You are the new civil-rights movement.” At a Vigil Mass before the march, Philadelphia’s Cardinal Justin Rigali also took an anti-discrimination approach, demanding respect for human life “regardless of age, physical or mental ability, or stage of development.” The embrace of liberal arguments and tactics caused Neuhaus to wonder, “Is it not odd, then, that the pro-life movement is viewed as a right-wing cause?”
As a liberal political movement focused on jurisprudence, activism, and ballot initiatives, the pro-life movement has obtained modest restrictions on abortion that have helped to reduce its incidence in America by nearly 25 percent since 1990. The movement has also limited the moral coercion involved in abortion by restricting the use of tax dollars for the procedure with the Hyde Amendment and protecting pro-life doctors with conscience laws. Yet these hard-fought successes are jeopardized by the new administration’s promise to undo them all with the Freedom of Choice Act.
And as a conservative social force, restoring the habits of the “culture of life,” the pro-life movement is failing. While teenage illegitimacy is down, overall illegitimacy is climbing quickly. Taboos against premarital sex have long vanished. The sexual revolution is advancing to redefine the family in law. Medical scientists largely ignore the movement’s moral objections to embryo research.
For many pro-lifers, there is no separating the two sides of the debate. Last year Kristi Burton led a campaign in Colorado to extend the legal definition of person to include the unborn from the moment of fertilization—a liberal, civil-rights based approach that would criminalize most abortions. The initiative received just 27 percent of the vote. But Burton appeared at Washington conferences throughout the week of the march to sell other activists on her strategy because it provided opportunities to reach people personally. She has heard from dozens of Colorado women who decided not to terminate their pregnancies as a result of her campaign. Burton says, “We put the truth out there, and people’s lives were changed. Lives were saved.”
The internal divisions of the pro-life movement between conservative and liberal approaches can be difficult to untangle. The strident American Life League, which champions Burton’s strategy, is generally considered ultra-conservative, even as it makes “nondiscrimination” and “equality” its primary goals. Meanwhile, the more moderate-seeming incrementalists advocate a conservative, law-and-order approach to the issue, arguing for parental-consent laws and gradually building legal consensus for other restrictions on abortion.
In addition to these internal contradictions and turf battles, pro-lifers are stymied by a complicated, perhaps abusive, relationship with Republicans. The putatively pro-life party hasn’t delivered the goods. Shaun Kenney, the executive director of American Life League, complains, “We had a Republican White House and Republican Congress and the government is still funding Planned Parenthood? After Bush picked Harriet Miers, his popularity never got above 40 percent because he promised pro-life judges.” He insists that pro-lifers are committed to only one goal: “The sole issue is this: we want abortion ended. That’s it. All other issues boil down to practical insignificance.”
But Kenney’s own political analysis reveals that even the most committed pro-life activists are rarely single-issue voters. Asked whether Bush’s unpopular handling of the economy or foreign policy could have grievously hurt the GOP and indirectly set the pro-life movement back, Kenney avers that the “people who didn’t like the war always opposed the president.” If the war caused his unpopularity, Kenney argues, “then the surge, which is a wild success, should have reversed that.” Further, Kenny admits it was understandable that some pro-life legislation was not passed because “obviously, the war on terror takes precedence.”
At 36 years old, the pro-life movement is still energetic and indignant—and trapped. Every year of Republican rule has increased the suspicion that pro-lifers are the GOP’s useful idiots. Planned Parenthood still received federal dollars, and Congress never stripped courts of their ability to overturn parental notification and conscience laws. A human life amendment was ditched for Social Security reform. And just one year of unified Democratic rule in the federal government may undo a generation of small victories for the movement’s incrementalists at all levels. In desperation, pro-lifers may turn en masse to the “Personhood Now” strategy in an effort to impose a “culture of life” that the movement hasn’t built consensus for in the opinions or lifestyles of its fellow citizens.
At the American Life League’s conference on personhood following the march, Kenney admitted, “We’re waiting for a leader.” Unfortunately, Alan Keyes soon leapt to the stage and addressed the audience of about 100 people. He compared Obama to Cain, who killed his brother; to a “bad tree” in Christ’s parables; and to Hitler. The small crowd cheered. Pro-lifers are waiting still.
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