A buddy of mine just forwarded an alert from the American Family Association.

According to the AFA:

We have come down to the final days and hours in the fight for our destiny. Now is your last chance to have input into the filibuster fight.

Call your two Senators today and ask them to vote to kill the filibuster. If they do not, only those nominees who would become a liberal activist judge will ever get a vote on the Senate floor.

Got it? If Frist and the Republican members of the Senate do not break Senate rules in order to eliminate the use of the filibuster, then only liberal activist judges will ever get a vote on the Senate floor. Apparently, the AFA is telling us that the 95% of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees who have been confirmed are, in fact, liberal activist judges. Who knew?

Kos has a short analysis of the GOP “nuclear option” described by the above linked Washington Post article. But basically, it goes like this:

Democrats have used the filibuster to block a handful of Bush’s judicial nominees. The filibuster is permitted by Senate Rules. It takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. The Republicans don’t have 60 votes, they only have 55 votes.

Getting rid of the filibuster requires a change in the Senate Rules which requires a 2/3 vote. Republicans don’t have 67 votes, they have only 55 votes.

Republicans will argue that they are not changing the Senate Rules, they are merely “interpreting them” to say that the filibuster is not permissible for use to delay a vote on judicial nominees. (Nevermind the Republican filibuster of Abe Fortas, LBJ’s nominee to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court).

Setting a precedent requires only 51 votes. However, to proceed in this fashion, they have to ignore the nonpartisan analysis of the Senate Rules of the Congressional Research Service and ignore the interpretation of their own parliamentarian both of which state the obvious — prohibiting the filibuster with regard to debate on judicial nominees would be a change in the Senate Rules.

Drunk with power these guys are. How do the Greek tragedies go? Something like hubris, nemesis, catharsis. We’ve got the hubris in spades. I just hope the American Republic doesn’t get hammered too badly in the nemesis part of the equation on the way to catharsis.

HBO: Real Time with Bill Maher – New Rules:

New Rule: The people in America who are most in favor of the Iraq war must now go there and fight it. The Army missed its recruiting goal by 42% last month. More people joined the Michael Jackson Fan Club. “We’ve done picked all the low-lying Lynndie England fruit.” And now we need warm bodies. We need warm bodies like Paula Abdul needs…warm bodies!

. . .

Now, I know you’re thinking, but, Bill, I already do my part with the “Support Our Troops” magnet I have on my Chevy Tahoe. How much more can one man give? Well, here’s an intriguing economic indicator. It’s been over a year since they graduated, but neither of the Bush twins has been able to find work. Why don’t they sign up? Do they hate America or just freedom in general?

And that goes for everybody who helped sell this war. You’ve got to go first. Brooks and Dunn, drop your cocks and grab your socks! Ann Coulter, darling, trust me, you will love the Army. You think you make up shit!

Curt Schilling, b-bye! You ended the curse on Boston. Good. Let’s try your luck in Fallouja. Oh, and that Republican Baldwin brother, he’s got to go so that Ted Nugent has someone to frag.

But mostly, we have to send Mr. And Mrs. Britney Spears. Because Britney once said, “We should trust our president in every decision that he makes, and we should just support that and be faithful in what happens.” Okay, somebody has to die for that.

I haven’t seen any of the footage yet, but I’ve been reading about MP George Galloway’s testimony before a U.S. Senate Committee regarding the UN Oil for Food program. (A write up from the BBC is ) I have no idea about the substance of the discussion, but it seems pretty clear that as far as debating skills goes, Galloway just crucified the Senators, particularly Committee Chair Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN). Which isn’t surprising — Members of Parliament get constant training in thinking on their feet and debating opponents. U.S. politicians always hide behind scripted photo ops.

Some highlights:

“I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns.”

“I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and American governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.”

“You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq.”

“The biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians,” he said, “the real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own government.”

“I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do, and than any member of the British or American governments do,” he told the committee.

It was Republican Mr Coleman who bore the brunt of the attack in one of the Senate’s most flamboyant confrontations. “Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong,” he told the chairman, whom he labelled a “neo-con, pro-war hawk”.

Update 5/18/05 John Nichols provides us with more from Galloway. He declares Norm Coleman a fool for giving Galloway a forum. He says that Coleman made the mistake of confusing Galloway with an American politician who doesn’t have much to say and says it poorly. Galloway comes from the rough and tumble British Parliament.

(More in the extended entry)

The member of parliament tore through Coleman’s flimsy “evidence,” issuing an unequivocal denial that began, “Mr Chairman, I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone been on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf.” He accused Coleman of being “remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice” and pointed out error after error in the report the senator had brandished against him.

For instance, Galloway noted that he had met Saddam twice — not the “many” times alleged by the report. “As a matter of fact I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times that (Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld met him,” said the recently reelected British parliamentarian. “The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns.”

For good measure, Galloway used the forum Coleman had foolishly provided to deliver a blistering condemnation of Coleman’s war.

“Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life’s blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies,” Galloway informed the fool on Capitol Hill.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

“Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

“If the world had listened to (UN Secretary General)
Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to (French) President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq’s wealth,” argued Galloway.

Then the Brit turned the tables on Coleman and steered the committee’s attention toward “the real Oil-for-Food scandal.”

“Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq’s wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq’s money, but the money of the American taxpayer,” Galloway said.

“Have a look at the oil that you didn’t even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.”

Compare that with the report from the discredited New York Times “reporter” Judith Miller. (You may recall that Miller was one-time stenographer for the lies of Ahmad Chalabi. She was instrumental in getting the American public worked up about Iraq’s formidable Weapons of Mass Destruction and their imminent nuclear program.) Anyway, Miller takes pains not to quote Galloway at any length, largely confining her quotation marks to “scare quotes” around terms Galloway used that were derogatory to proponents of invading Iraq.

Another update (5/18/05) Uncorrelated linked to this entry as an example of a lefty blog commenting on Galloway. I suppose in terms of national politics generally and the Iraq War in particular, its fair to characterize me as a lefty. (Though, I personally see myself as centrist with the national Republicans moving ever further to the right.) On matters of state & local finance, on the other hand, I regard myself as a fiscal conservative. For example, I’ve been very pleased about Mitch Daniels committment to balancing Indiana’s budget. I’m not happy about his choices in budget cuts, but that’s the trade off. At least he isn’t doing to Indiana’s budget what he had a hand in doing with the federal budget — blowing up our national debt as Bush’s budget director.

But, as to Uncorrelated’s specific comment:

Lots of lefty blogs enjoyed it too. I think a lot of these guys are setting themselves up for a fall in not being critical enough of Galloway–what will they do when its proved conclusively that Galloway took the money? Masson’s Blog is just one example.

I, for one, will be unfazed if Galloway is shown on tape in one of Saddam’s “pleasure palaces” taking a big wad of cash from Saddam himself and subsequently goes to jail because of it. I don’t know much about Galloway — really nothing before yesterday — and don’t care much. What I enjoyed was the fact that he was calling the U.S. Senators on the carpet for being so wrong about the Iraq War in the first place and for being disingenous and hypocritical about where they choose to look for corruption. The American run Coalition Provisional Authority is apparently unable to account for 8 billion dollars. That makes the UN Oil-for-food amounts look like chump change. Not to mention that Texas oil businesses are apparently being caught with their hand in the Oil-for-food cookie jar.

Sure, I guess I’d prefer the message come from an American politician who was pure as the driven snow. But, at this point, the message is of interest to me, not the messenger.

Update 5/20/05 I just came across this mention of how Galloway’s speech was covered in the U.S. press versus the British press. From Jefferson Morley in the Washington Post:

Virtually every British news site quoted Galloway’s riposte to the committee’s published allegation that he had met “many times” with Hussein. “As a matter of fact,” Galloway said according to the Times of London’s transcript, “I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns, and to give him maps the better to target those guns.”

Galloway was referring to two trips that Rumsfeld made to Iraq in 1983 and 1984. As a special U.S. envoy, Rumsfeld offered financial and military incentives to Hussein to reestablish diplomatic relations with the United States at a time when U.S. officials regarded Iran — with whom Iraq was engaged in a devastating war — as a greater threat.

(A telling difference between the British and American press: The Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times chose not to mention the Rumsfeld line in their coverage. Rumsfeld’s friendly overtures to Hussein 20 years ago have been reported before.)

Conservative radio host Michael Medved denied Indiana Congressman Chris Chocola was a member of Congress during a discussion of President Bush’s support for privatizing social security:

RIEMER: Well, here’s one politician who said this: “Bush’s plan of individual investment of 2 percent of the money is a start. Eventually, I’d like to see the entire system privatized.”

MEDVED: And who said —

RIEMER: That was Chris Chocola.

MEDVED: Who?

RIEMER: Chris Chocola.

MEDVED: Who is that?

RIEMER: Member of Congress from Indiana.

MEDVED: Chris what?

RIEMER: Chocola, C-O — C-H-O-C-O-L-A.

MEDVED: Okay, I don’t know that particular member of Congress, I’m not even sure he is a member of Congress.

David Sirota finds a timely quote from President 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, 11/8/54

Since I spent a chunk of my last blog entry crabbing about the war in Iraq, I thought I’d link to a story on a war that I think was a good idea — even if we haven’t given it the attention it deserved: the war in Afghanistan. The Christian Science Monitor has an article entitled: Kabul’s must-see TV heats up culture war in Afghanistan. The Christian Science Monitor, by the way, is a great source of foreign news. Another hallmark of the paper is its independence. It doesn’t tend to follow the journalistic pack in the way that so many papers do.

The linked article is about Tolo TV:

in a pop culture as barren as the mountains here, Tolo’s mix of MTV-style shows and hard-hitting news programs has turned the up-and-coming network into an entertainment oasis.

Today, it’s a kind of must-see TV that has government officials leaving work early to catch their favorite show. But it’s also a lightning rod for Afghan critics who see the station as a threat to the country’s Islamic values.

Here is a disturbing story. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Church members say they were kicked out for being Democrats.

Nine members of a local church had their membership revoked and 40 others left in protest after tension over political views recently came to a head, church members say.

Some members of East Waynesville Baptist Church voted the nine members out at a recent scheduled deacon meeting, which turned into an impromptu business meeting, according to congregants.

Chan Chandler, pastor of East Waynesville, had been exhorting his congregation since October to support his political views or leave the church, said Selma Morris, a 30-year member of the church.

“He preached a sermon on abortion and homosexuality, then said if anyone there was planning on voting for John Kerry, they should leave,” she said.

Kevin Corcoran, for the Indy Star, in an article entitled Governor approves higher speeds, reports that the higher speed limit law –allowing 70 mph on interstates outside of urban areas– has been signed and will go into effect July 1. There was some discussion of whether officers would give speeders the same kind of cushion they did when the speed limit was 65 mph. But what struck me was this quote from Indiana State Police Lt. Scott Beamon:

““Some officers will adjust what their tolerance is,” Beamon said. “I imagine that adjustment would be downward. That’s left to their discretion.

“The only thing we don’t allow discretion over is seatbelt violations. Those are zero tolerance.”

I thought it was interesting that seat belt violations went from being only secondarily enforceable (that is, the police couldn’t pull you over solely because of a seat belt violation) to being “zero tolerance.”

As a general rule, I like to stay away from national politics, since it is covered much better elsewhere. But today’s Lafayette Journal and Courier has an opinion piece that I think deserves a brief response. Specifically:

The piece Critics scoff at Bush’s contention that Social Security will be flat broke by 2041, about the time today’s 28-year-old hits 65 and about the time the system is projected to pay out 74 percent of the expected benefits even without a fix. Still, hand that 26 percent cut in promised benefits to today’s Social Security recipients and see how it goes over. Sounds like a system of diminishing returns to us.

That’s not to say President Bush’s private accounts are the total answer.

A couple of points:

If Social Security is able to pay out 74% of projected benefits then it is not “flat broke.” Part of what Bush’s detractors object to is his descriptions of the problem which are both deliberately frightening and wrong. An ad campaign by the AARP likens Bush’s approach to tearing down the house because one has a clogged drain.

Bush’s privatization is not the total answer. It’s not even part of the answer. Bush’s people have used a rosy set of numbers to show how well private accounts will perform (something like a 3.4% per year growth in the economy) while using a grim set of numbers to show how badly Social Security needs a fix. Private accounts do nothing to fix the projected social security shortfall that warrants the problems creating private accounts would cause — either borrowing money to cover the gap caused by the cut out used to start up private accounts or raising taxes sufficient to start the program.

This problem was supposedly addressed when Greenspan’s commission obtained a steep increase in the payroll taxes in 1983.

Bush shouldn’t even start worrying about Social Security until he’s fixed his addiction to deficit spending. At least Social Security is solvent currently. We can’t say the same for the general fund which is actually borrowing from the Social Security trust fund to pay for current expenditures. Those huge deficits are a problem that are both clearer and more present than any problems with Social Security. Before the J&C demands detractors to recognize a potential problem for Social Security, it ought to require the Bush administration to acknowledge that any such problems are small in comparison to more current fiscal problems.

For an exhaustive discussion of why Bush’s proposed social security solutions don’t fix the problems he alleges, be sure to read Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.

I just came across a quote from Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union Address. This passage sounded as though he could have been refering to the anti-judicial noises being made in some quarters in the wake of the Schiavo issue:

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.