GOP Priorities

GOP House Reps show where their priorities lie: in scoring political points and playing political games, not making Americans’ lives better:

Democrats are struggling even to pass a middle-class tax cut under the banner of fiscal responsibility. A House plan to shield 21 million mainly Democratic households from the alternative minimum tax, and offset the lost revenue with higher taxes on Wall Street, appears to be unraveling. If it does, so does the vaunted "pay as you go" rule that Pelosi pledged would re-establish fiscal responsibility in Washington after years of rampant Republican borrowing.

Bewildered Democrats have concluded that Republicans simply want them to fail.

[...]

Even Republican moderates are furious. "I think it's disgraceful," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, as she left the Senate after the last vote before the Thanksgiving recess. "Unfortunately, there are not enough people building bridges. There are too many people destroying them."

[To clarify, those “21 million mainly Democratic households” are middle class taxpayers who live in high-tax states like New York and California.]

It’s always just about the politics with the Bush crowd, isn’t it? Well, what do you expect from a group whose sole ideology is that government doesn’t work? They’re right: their kind of government doesn’t work. We certainly learned that with Hurricane Katrina. And is anyone really surprised that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s Gulf Coast recovery plan has favored big-business casino interests over that of the people who lost their homes? It’s the GOP way to put profits over people.

I still fail to understand why anyone would put our domestic policy in the hands of a group of people who don’t believe in government’s ability to work. That’s like going to a doctor who doesn’t believe in medicine.

Now it’s time we stopped trusting these clowns wituh our foreign policy, too. From the above-referenced budget story is this:

The White House seems happy to make the argument that the war should be fully funded, while domestic programs should be contained. The war, now in its fifth year, has killed more than 3,870 American military personnel and wounded more than 28,000, and is estimated to have cost taxpayers more than $800 billion if the current request is approved.

[....]

James Horney, director of fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "My impression is that the White House decided quite awhile ago that it was in the president's political interest to have a confrontation with Congress over budget issues.

"He's not really trying to take stances on the budget that necessarily appeal to the majority of the American public, but stances that will play well with people currently supporting him, and stances that allow him to still be relevant," Horney said.

That sounds about right. Who was it that said President Bush’s job is to serve those that voted for him? Oh yeah, that guy.

This is all such a shame. Because we’re talking about a war that every day takes more American soldiers’ lives. We’re talking about people without healthcare and senior citizens still living in FEMA trailers. This isn’t about President Bush or Karl Rove or political games. It’s about America -- or, it should be. Too bad the Republican Party has forgotten that.

News From Down Under

Slow posting -- Mr. Beale and I are still traveling and I haven’t had internet access in three days. But I did pick up this piece of good news from Australia:

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has suffered a humiliating election defeat and the opposition Labor Party has swept into power.

[...]

Former diplomat Mr Rudd, 50, presented himself as a new generation leader compared with the 68-year-old Mr Howard.

Voters warmed to his promise to pull Australian troops out of Iraq and sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, further isolating the US, which had received strong backing from Mr Howard.

At least where Iraq was concerned, John Howard seemed to follow President Bush’s lead, not the wishes of Australians. I think there’s a lesson to be learned here for American politicians.

(h/t, Salon)

What To Do With Those Leftovers

Mr. Beale and I are still traveling, so I wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving and offer up this novel thought:

San Francisco to Fuel Cars with Grease
Waste Oils Will Power the City's Vehicle Fleet

San Francisco is pioneering another environmental initiative, with the launch today of SFGreasecycle.

The free program will transform used cooking oil into biodiesel that will power part of the city vehicle fleet. It is believed to be the largest such program in the nation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Not only does it provide a useful alternative to ditching old grease (which if illegally dumped can clog sewers) but it offsets the need for petroleum diesel, which is more highly polluting and has to be imported at high cost.

The genius of the program is embedded in its name: cycle. By using waste, rather than disposing of it, it treats consumption as a part of a cycle of usefulness, rather than a straight line from natural resource toward disposal.

I’m not the most technical person in the world so when I learned a few years ago that diesel engines can easily be retrofitted to run on used cooking grease, I was amazed. I actually spoke to someone who transitioned his pickup truck to run on oil he gets free from a local KFC. All that was required, he said, was a $200 part. Then he called around and found a local KFC willing to give him their used grease, which they were more than happy to do since they usually pay a waste management company to haul it away. Now he gets free fuel and his car smells like fried chicken.

This idea has intrigued me, and I love that San Francisco is transitioning their fleet to run on restaurant grease. Imagine if Metro’s city buses smelled like french fries and cheeseburgers instead of diesel smoke--I wonder if obesity rates in the city would climb accordingly?

We in the South have never seen a Fry Daddy we didn’t like. Fried food is a staple around these parts, and it’s hard to find a downtown street corner that doesn’t have a fast food restaurant. Has anyone ever wondered what happens to all that leftover fry grease?

Maybe it’s time to start reusing our cooking grease instead of dumping it. Anyone?

For more information on SF GreaseCycle, check out their website.

California Scenes

Mr. Beale and I are officially on vacation. We’re at the beach in Santa Monica; it’s overcast, chilly, and a little gloomy, which has made for a surreal visit to my hometown.

Probably the oddest thing was seeing Richard Kelly’s “sequel” to “Donnie Darko,” ”Southland Tales,” which coincidentally was filmed almost entirely in Santa Monica and Venice--the very places we had just visited that day. With its post-apocalyptic theme and a storyline involving the rift in the space-time continuum, I started getting this spooky feeling like I had spent the entire day inside a movie I hadn’t seen yet.

I don’t know if “Donnie Darko” fans will like the film, since the two are very similar. But I will say this: Richard Kelly doesn’t like the Republican Party very much! It’s worth catching on DVD, since I doubt the film will come to Nashville.

Today’s a travel day for us, so I thought I’d share some images from the past day, which seem to capture the eerie vibe sparked by the film.

Some graffitti we saw on the PCH underpass:Mitchie Yost surfing in the fog!Arlington West, a display about the Iraq War erected by Veterans for Peace. I saw this while walking down the Santa Monica Pier with my cousin, a Vietnam veteran who still suffers the physical effects of shrapnel he received over 30 years ago. It was quite sobering to tour this exhibit with him.

Each cross represents a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq:

Finally, some grafitti of the "biker rebellion" sort:

Getting There From Here

I know from blaring headlines like this one that President Bush wants to fix our holiday travel mess. And I know from headlines like this that people are so glad the President has resolved to fix something--anything--during his two terms in office, that no one has bothered to ask why he set the bar so low.

But holiday travel snares are what the president set his heart on. And here I am stuck on American Airlines flight 1773 from Dallas to Los Angeles three hours after boarding, and we haven’t even left the airport yet.

No one could have anticipated this.

OK, I can’t blame the president for my travel troubles; we’re grounded by some mechanical malfunction. But the whole thing strikes me as patently ridiculous.

Last night I picked up a friend at our Nashville “International” airport; her flight was 30 minutes late. Today Mr. Beale and I are flying from Nashville to LAX. Boarding for the DFW-LAX leg was already delayed one hour because our plane wasn’t cleaned up from its last service (who knew flights from Honolulu were so dirty?). When we finally taxied down the runway we had to immediately turn around because of a problem with a hydraulic rudder. We’ve been here three hours and no word on how much longer this will take.

Interestingly, Terry Bradshaw is also on our flight. The Travel Goddess hands out her justice to celebrity and peon alike.

Shit happens, which makes me wonder why President Bush made a big show of trying to do anything about it to begin with. I mean really, a live, televised announcement? Are you kdding me? Isn't that reserved for wars and stuff?

I suspect this was his “I feel your pain” moment, though with Air Force One tanked up and ready to go at a moment’s notice, we all know he doesn’t and neither do his fat cat friends scooting around the country in their Lear jets.

Of course, I don’t begrudge the president his plane or the super-wealthy their spoils of privilege. Just don’t try to tell me you understand what it’s like for us plebes trying to get home for the holidays:

"Airports are very crowded, travelers are being stranded and flights are delayed, sometimes with a full load of passengers sitting on the runway for hours," the president said in televised remarks from White House's Roosevelt Room. These problems "carry some real costs for the country, not just in the inconvenience they cause, but in the business they obstruct and family gatherings they cause people to miss," he said.

It took me 12 hours to get from Nashville to Los Angeles today. So what else is new. Trying to milk this to boost one’s polls, however, must be a new low.

Back To The Kitchen, Beeeeee-atches!

1 Update

Via Orcinus:

Lawmakers look for ways to keep moms at home to strengthen families

Task force blames breakdown of traditional family for social ills

Rep. Steven Thayn and his wife, Sherry, raised eight children on their family farm. She stayed home, and they home-schooled several of their children before eventually sending them to local schools.

Thayn said more two-parent homes and fewer working mothers could be both a social and economic boon. The Emmett Republican sees the breakdown of the traditional family structure as the root of societal ills such as drug abuse, crime and domestic violence.

That's why, as chairman of the Idaho House of Representatives' Family Task Force, he and others are considering controversial solutions such as repealing no-fault divorce laws and finding ways to encourage mothers to stay home with their children.

Thank you, Rep. Thayn! The breakdown of society is all women’s fault, eh? Not the fault of the stupid white men who’ve been in charge of everything since, oh, well, forever? There are women clamoring to stay in bad marriages, eh? If only women couldn’t get divorced everything would be so much better, eh? Hey, Rep. Thayn: fuck you.

But it gets better:

The six-member task force was convened this year by Speaker of the House Lawerence Denney and has been meeting with the lofty goal of finding solutions to what they see as the decline of the Idaho family. Controversially, the group is using the typical family of 1950 as its benchmark, though Thayn says it's simply a baseline and not a suggestion that families were perfect in 1950.

I’m sure it goes without saying that their benchmark “typical” 1950s family is white. I think the black or Native American family experience in 1950 was considerably different from what these Idaho legislators are investigating. Just a guess.

I always wonder when this mythic yesteryear was, where women happily lived in servitude to their husbands and families. Memo to Rep. Thayn: “Leave It To Beaver,” “Donna Reed” and “Father Knows Best” were television shows! They were fiction! It wasn’t real.

I love men, and I especially love men who love for women to be free to pursue their lives as they see fit. I do not love the regressive legislators who are convinced we women would be happier and the world would be better off if only we did what we were told.

Face it, Reps. Thayn and Denney, the genie’s out of the bottle. Deal with it. Women will go back into the kitchen when it’s their choice, not some legislated mandate by a bunch of whiny-ass men who want their dinner on time. And I hope the good voters of Idaho know enough to drum these knuckle-dragging troglodytes out of office first chance they get.

[UPDATE]:

From Jack, in Comments, a few residents of Idaho have made their displeasure known with some strongly worded letters to the editor.

Stop Hurting America

To The Media:

Please stop hurting America with insulting fake “debates” (beautifully encapsulated by Digby) and even more insulting “balanced” right/left columns. Hiring insider/architect/Bush Brain Karl Rove as “balance” for ousider/blogger Markos is obvious pandering to the WATBs who complained about the Markos hire to begin with. Just come out and be honest about it.

Frankly, I’d be happy if the news media got out of the opinion business all together. Whatever happened to sticking to the facts? Americans are perfectly capable of coming up with our own opinions, we don’t need Time or Newsweek or anyone else force-feeding them to us.

As for these fake “debates,” try giving the candidates time to formulate an answer, already. The issues facing this country are complicated, the world is not black or white.

And finally, quit focusing on trivialities. That’s what blogs are for. If I hear one more spittle-flecked Chris Matthews panel cover the election like it’s color commentary for an NBA game, I’m officially turning my TV off for good. Enough with the he said/she said nonsense, the stories on John Edwards’ hair or Hillary Clinton’s cleavage or Rudy Giuliani’s cell phone calls from the wife.

Our country is in dire straights. This will be the most important election of my lifetime. This shit matters. Quit acting like it doesn’t.

And oh yeah, do your fucking jobs.

Stifling Dissent, Bridge Club Edition

Haven’t we been down this road before?

[A] team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. “If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition,” he said by e-mail.

The offending message is right here:
Team members have apologized, but in what has become typical of the 30-percent crowd, that simply won’t do:

Many of those offended by the sign do not consider the expressions of regret sufficient. “I think an apology is kind of specious,” said Jim Kirkham, who has played in several bridge championships. “It’s not that I don’t forgive them, but I still think they should be punished.”

Punished? For a “We did not vote for Bush” sign? Take a few totalitarian pills with your Kool-Aid, Mr. Kirkham?

I don’t get this punitive craving from the hard-line conservatives. Actually, scratch that, I do; liberals have been crying for some kind of accountability regarding the Bush Administration’s various crimes and misdemeanors for years. But there’s a huge difference between holding up a sign saying “we didn’t vote for Bush” or making a casual remark about the president at a concert and starting a war based on lies, destroying personal freedoms, legitimizing torture, and letting the country’s infrastructure decay while spending billions on a war of choice. That these actions have stunned people around the world, not just Americans, is no surprise to anyone who travels overseas. I saw it in Italy last year.

Punished? Yeah, someone needs to be punished all right, and it’s not the women of the United States bridge team. But take heart, ladies: if history’s any judge, there’s a racy “Entertainment Weekly” cover in your future.

Hell Week For GOP Candidates

It’s been a rough week for the GOP presidential candidates. Tom Tancredo (hey, he’s still running?) jumps the shark with this ridiculous scare’em ad that was so over the top, it prompted guffaws of laughter at our house.

Fred Thompson scores the coveted National Right To Life Committee endorsement, prompting outrage among Mitt Romney supporters. You know it’s bad when even a major right-to-life group won’t vote for a Mormon.

The endorsement is even stranger, considering National Right To Life General Counsel James Bopp Jr. is working for the Romney campaign. It was also a slap in the face to former Southern Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, now second in the Iowa polls. Some have speculated the Committee made a purely pragmatic choice, feeling Thompson was the most likely to beat pro-life Rudy Giuliani.

If that’s the case, they may regret the divisive decision, now that Giuliani has been rolled into the juicy Judith Regan-Bernard Kerik-News Corp. scandal:

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Publisher Judith Regan, fired last year from News Corp.'s HarperCollins unit, claims her dismissal was part of a “deliberate smear campaign'' aimed at protecting presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.

Regan, former president of HarperCollins' ReganBooks division, sued her former employer for defamation in state court in New York, seeking at least $100 million in damages. She claims in her complaint that News Corp. tried to destroy her reputation because she has information about former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik that would be harmful to ex-New York Mayor Giuliani and his presidential campaign.

“The smear campaign was necessary to advance News Corp.'s political agenda, which has long centered on protecting Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions,'' Regan said in the complaint filed yesterday.

As a sidebar, I’d like to point out that this is a perfect example of why deregulating media ownership is such a bad idea. Rupert Murdoch has far too much power as it is, and I don’t see the free hand of the market doing anything to rein that in. Now this whackadoodle Australian billionaire is picking our presidents?

According to the New York Times, Regan claims in her suit that a News Corp. “senior executive”...

... encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.

[...]

One of Ms. Regan’s lawyers, Brian C. Kerr of the firm of Dreier L.L.P., said she had evidence to support her claim that she had been advised to lie to federal investigators who were vetting Mr. Kerik and who might have sought to question her about their romantic involvement. But Mr. Kerr declined to discuss the nature of the evidence.

Grab the popcornl this one’s going to be fun to watch.

Compare, Contrast

Hillary Clinton is taking a lot of heat for a planted question at one of her Iowa campaign appearances:

The Clinton campaign operation in Iowa was forced to admit that it had set up the question on climate change at a town hall rally in Newton last Tuesday. The meeting had been an important set-piece for Clinton, with several members of the national media present.

After Clinton spoke, a student in the crowd was invited to pose a question. "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?" the student asked.

Okay, I can’t defend this, planting a question when the national media is present is the worst sort of PR manipulation. And this was such a lame setup; Clinton might as well have been wearing an “ask me about global warming!” T-shirt.

But hey, it’s not the worst thing. She wanted to talk about global warming. That’s a softball? It’s not like she set up a phony town hall meeting and filled it with adoring supporters who wanted to know what brand of pantyhose she wears or her favorite lipstick shade. But you’d think she had, judging from the head-spinning rage of folks like Michelle Malkin, who used insults like “crapweasel” and “phony baloney” after the incident.

I don’t recall Malkin having a problem with President Bush’s planted questions or his staged “town hall” meetings that were as scripted as a Tony winning production. (She may have--I’m not, ahem, one of her regular raeders.) Still, wrong is wrong. Let’s hope Hillary has learned her lesson.

That said, let’s do a fun little comparison exercise. Can you spot the phony-baloney crapweasel?

Hillary Clinton:

"As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

And now, President Bush, 2007:

What do you pray about, and how we can we pray for you?

Yikes. Let’s try that again.

Hillary Clinton:

"As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

And now President Bush, 2004

THE PRESIDENT: You got a question?

Q I, too, want to say God bless you, Mr. Bush. My husband and my twins and I pray for you daily, as do many home schoolers. (Applause.) Thank you for recognizing home schoolers.

THE PRESIDENT: Let's see, who've we got here? You got a question?

Q Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President, for visiting Oregon. I've heard through the grapevine that Oregon is one of the most unchurched states in the union, and I really feel like it shows up in every walk of our society. Could you take a moment to pray for Oregon, for us, right now?

[...]

THE PRESIDENT: -- Jack in the Box. Go ahead.

Q -- I want to thank you for everything you did after September 11th. I was in Israel then, and it was hard getting back. And it was very devastating. And you -- no one could have done what you did any better. (Applause.)

Wow, that was fun! Let’s try just one more. Hillary Clinton:

"As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

And now President Bush, 2005:

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir.

Q Thank you. Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock-solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

Okay, who can spot the phony-baloney crapweasel in these examples. Anyone?