Atrios comes up with a pretty good laundry list of liberal objectives if Democrats take power. I can get on board with most of this:

1. Undo the bankruptcy bill enacted by this administration
2. Repeal the estate tax repeal
3. Increase the minimum wage and index it to the CPI
4. Universal health care (obviously the devil is in the details on this one)
5. Increase CAFE standards. Some other environment-related regulation
6. Pro-reproductive rights, getting rid of abstinence-only education, improving education about and access to contraception including the morning after pill, and supporting choice. On the last one there’s probably some disagreement around the edges (parental notification, for example), but otherwise.
7. Simplify and increase the progressivity of the tax code
8. Kill faith-based funding. Certainly kill federal funding of anything that engages in religious discrimination.
9. Reduce corporate giveaways
10. Have Medicare run the Medicare drug plan
11. Force companies to stop underfunding their pensions. Change corporate bankruptcy law to put workers and retirees at the head of the line with respect to their pensions.
12. Leave the states alone on issues like medical marijuana. Generally move towards “more decriminalization” of drugs, though the details complicated there too.
13. Paper ballots
14. Improve access to daycare and other pro-family policies. Obiously details matter.
15. Raise the cap on wages covered by FICA taxes.
16. Marriage rights for all, which includes “gay marriage” and quicker transition to citizenship for the foreign spouses of citizens.

And things that ought to be obvious, but aren’t anymore:

1. Torture is bad
2. Imprisoning citizens without charges is bad
3. Playing Calvinball with the Geneva Conventions and treaties generally is bad
4. Imprisoning anyone indefinitely without charges is bad
5. Stating that the president can break any law he wants any time “just because” is bad

The Evansville Courier Press offered an editorial that was mildly critical of the President’s choices with respect to Porter Goss and the CIA. Mainly they went after Goss’s attempts to reward political loyalty over intelligence compentence, which is all well and good. They glossed over the objection that the proposed CIA replacement was a member of the military rather than a civilian. I think that’s a serious concern that merits more attention, but that’s not my beef with the editorial.

What surprises me is that the Courier Press managed an editorial on the abrupt Goss resignation with nary a mention of the criminal investigation into his 3rd in command, Dusty Foggo, a man promoted unexpectedly by Goss to the lofty post. Foggo is the childhood friend of Brent Wilkes, a defense contractor who is at the center of a Congressional bribery scandal that has already lead to the conviction of one Congressman, Duke Cunningham who pleaded guilty last fall to taking $2.4 million in bribes from Wilkes and others in return for federal contracts. The Congressional bribery scandal seems likely to lead to Congresswoman Katherine Harris, and Porter Goss is suspected of being connected to “poker” parties where Wilkes plied government officials with hookers.

I don’t think this is about Goss sacrificing intelligence competence for party loyalty. That appears to be the very reason he was sent to the CIA by the Bush administration. This looks to be like Goss getting his hands caught in one cookie jar or another.

Congressional Democrats are making a stupid choice:

Dems Won’t Call on Jefferson to Resign Democratic insiders said that everyone from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on down would love to see Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) resign from Congress, “although they won’t make an open declaration about Jefferson because of internal party politics.”

The guy is crooked. Throw him out.

Doghouse Riley on Stephen Colbert speaking truthiness to power and the media reaction thereto.

Chris Bowers at MyDD has some analysis of Bush’s latest poll numbers. Gallup has Bush’s disapproval rating of 63% — which is the same as Nixon’s disapproval rating at the height of Watergate (July 15, 1974.) Though I believe Bush’s approval rating of 34% is a bit higher than Nixon’s was. The gap between approval and disapproval (-29%) is within spitting distance of the all time worst held by Carter and Bush Sr (-31%).

Just, for what it’s worth, I’d happily replace George W. with Bush Sr., Carter, or Nixon. Incompetence *and* bad policy is a toxic brew. Dubya’s predecessors mostly seemed to suffer from one or the other but not both.

Taking Down Words requested feedback on the immigration rallies. I left a comment there that seemed like the good basis for a post. In particular, TDW asked whether it seemed like a good political move or whether it would simply “motivate the right-wing conservative base that wants to build a wall around our country.” A couple of commenters noted that illegal immigrants had, by definition, broken the law and that appeared to end the discussion. One noted the political ineptness of the folks who flew foreign flags during the rally.

I responded:

I’m impressed that these other commenters have enough faith in our lawmakers to regard technical compliance with the law as the end-all-be-all of decision making. As for myself, I do not know enough about immigration law to know whether I should regard noncompliance with that law as more like raping a nun or more like straying over the speed limit.

As for the flags — I suppose it was politically foolish. But there is certainly a double standard going on. When right-wingers fly the Confederate flag, while we question whether they’re racist, they usually get off the hook by claiming that it’s a sign of their support for their heritage. We don’t question their patriotism. But we should. After all, the Confederate Flag is the flag of traitors. The flag of Americans who took up arms of against their government. The same can’t be said of the foreign flags at the rallies.

As for whether it will serve to motivate the right-wing Republican base, I think that’s something we have to stop caring about. Some emotional wedge issue will always be found to get those folks into a lather. Democrats have to resist the impulse to be quiet because they’re afraid Republicans might complain. The Democratic Party has become like a battered wife, walking on egg shells for fear of setting off her drunken lout of a husband.

Personally, I don’t know whether the rallies were a good move politically or not. In my opinion, the main immigration reform we need is with respect to wages and conditions of employment. I don’t have any real problem with the immigrants who come here seeking a better life. I think ultimately they give more than they get resource wise. They pay sales tax. Many of them overpay income tax and can’t claim a return. However, their inability to enforce legal rights mean that employers can underpay them with impunity. Absent employers’ ability to underpay illegal immigrants without fear of consequence, perhaps we would not have seen the steady decline of median wages over the past 25 years. But, in that debate, immigration is but one of many issues.

There has been a bit of hubbub about a Spanish translation of the Star Spangled Banner. It’s the perfect issue, really. Lots of emotion over a symbol. Everybody can easily have an opinion. No real knowledge is necessary. So, I have one of those easily held opinions.

What’s the big deal? It does no violence to the original, English version to have a Spanish version out there any more than it does violence to the Bible to have English translations of it. A fixation on maintaining the Star Spangled Banner in its original English strikes me as analogous to the insistence by (some?) Muslims that the Koran is valuable only in its original Arabic. I make no arguments about the validity of that belief for the Koran, but for the Star Spangled Banner, it’s primarily the ideas expressed that matter, not the language of expression.

The Duke Cunningham scandal now has a twist that may make cable news channels take greater notice: prostitutes. The “news” channels can tittilate their audiences with sex talk under the pretext of criticizing corruption by an elected official.

The allegations are that Duke Cunningham, former Republican representative from California, got more than money from a defense contractor in exchange for favorable legislation and consideration with respect to defense spending. Cunningham is also suspected of having received prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites.

He seems to have forgotten the admonition of former Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly Jesse Unruh:

If you can’t eat their food, drink their liquor, f*** their whores – and then vote against them, you have no business being here.

Old Duke appears to have aced the part about food, liquor, and whores, but forgotten the part about voting against them. TPM Muckraker has more of the details which involve hotel suites at the Watergate Hotel of all places.

The FBI investigation into the prostitution allegations apparently could involve as many as a half dozen members of Congress and, lefty blogosphere rumor has it, House Intel-Chair-turned-CIA Director Porter Goss.