Tom Cole opened with four points that need be recognized, and all of them had to do with Iraq...so the resoultion should be rejected because it's about the "global war on terror."

Democrats need to restrain themselves and not dog Republicans qua Republicans...but count the number of Republicans that try to jack Democrats in their statements. You get to close with something like "160 Republicans spoke and 125 of them made the specific point of attacking Democrats. They've advanced a political point without advancing a military or diplomatic one. Our friends being intelligent men, I think we can easily deduce their intent from the results."

(No, I'm not live-blogging the thing) 

This is a Republican speechification opportunity. I think you may want to let them have their day.

I would pick one really tolerant and patient Representative to speak for the Democratic side. Your opening statement will let folks know he has no speakers other than himself and reserve your time entirely for your closing statement. Send everyone else home. They really don't need to be there because a resolution has no force. You DO need staff taking notes on the various Republican speechifications. You may want to add responses to a couple of points to the closing statement.

And since I enjoy rhetorically poking people in the eye once in a while, I suggest a little sympathy for the Prez:

Farmers know you're not supposed to eat the corn you need to plant next year's crop. We need more farmers in Congress.

"We've got to keep our priorities straight," said Representative Ralph Regula , an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the appropriations panel that approved the cut. "You're going to choose between giving a little more money to handicapped children versus providing appropriations for public broadcasting."

Priorities my ass. You're the same guys that want to cancel the estate tax. PBS is the one universally beneficial thing to come out of television technology in this country.

Trust me, you don't want to lose the Sesame Street Effect. Seriously, how many folks have the time and skill to teach their kids all Sesame Street taught them? How many of those left have the money to hire a tutor?

GOP takes aim at PBS funding
House panel backs budget reductions
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | June 8, 2006

One of the sillier statements to come out of the last election cycle was the idea of Black folks voting Republican to teach Democrats a lesson about ignoring us. Mr Jacoby demonstrates why it's silly.

Though the conservatives' exasperation isn't new, it was muted after Sept. 11 to preserve a common front in the war on terrorism. But now the pot is boiling over. Conservatives are shifting into Howard Beale mode: They're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. Many may simply sit out the election this November, even if that means letting Democrats take over Congress.

Notice: he is NOT talking about Conservatives voting Democratic. Abstaining is enough to punish the party while still refusing to validate the other party. But it has to be willful abstanance, vocal abstanance. Your party must know what will make you abstain. You have to be heard.

The crumbling GOP base
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | May 31, 2006

LIKE A LOT of conservatives, I won't be voting Republican in the congressional elections this fall. Admittedly, I won't have a choice -- in Massachusetts, Republican candidates for Congress generally spare voters the trouble of defeating them by not bothering to run in the first place.

Chris Bowers is...

As we look for ways to motivate voters in November, we need to remember the powerful role that identity plays in political decision-making. As progressives, we shrug off concepts such as the "battle of civilizations," but if you look closely at demographic data, maybe it is a battle of civilizations taking place after all. We may very well be living in an era of identity politics. Who knows, maybe every era of American politics is an era of identity politics.

So, so obvious.

One of the reasons for the disconnect between statistics and most people's quality of life is where prices rise and fall .

Most everybody these days can point to their own list of rising expenses. Electricity, air travel, medical care and even staples such as diapers cost more. Rents are jumping as the housing boom cools, just as property taxes are soaring to reflect the price appreciation of the hotter days.

Plus, interest charges are rising on credit card balances, home-equity lines of credit and adjustable-rate mortgages.

This is how it feels when the days of cheap energy and easy money give way to $70 barrels of oil and ascending interest rates. The economy may be strong, but many people are feeling pinched.

I wasn't going to comment on White Guilt and the Western Past because you weren't messing with Black folks' head for a change.

But I must say, I am impressed.

You started like a true fan of Prometheus 6.

It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West--like Germany after the Nazi defeat--lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority.

...like any blogger in the world has a leg to stand on in that regard...but I got notice of this in the email just now.

THE CASE FOR LOSING.
Long-term Investment
by James Forsyth
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 05.02.06

Even the most cautious Democrats must be beginning to believe that they might win back the House or Senate this year. Gas prices are rising almost as fast as George W. Bush's ratings are falling, GOP corruption scandals turn more lurid by the day, and Democrats have a double-digit polling lead while Congress's approval rating is a mere 22 percent. The nagging fear of blue America, though, is that its bête noire and the architect of Bush's reelection, Karl Rove--whom the recent White House shuffle placed firmly in charge of 2006 strategy--will somehow engineer another Republican victory, or at least deny the Democrats a clear-cut win. Then again, maybe that's exactly what Democrats should be hoping for.

Yeah, you have to write something to get paid, I suppose.

Of course, the Democratic Party isn't the only collective where folks take issue with Black folks' issues.

Blac(k)ademic:

i am guest blogging over at alas, a blog, which is a VERY different space than my own blog. i have encountered a few white feminists who disagree with my postings and who view patriarchy as the root of all oppression, which shows in my "this is not tawana brawley" posting with the comment by a reader who claimed that "gender trumps race."

hmm...now, why does this statement bother me so?

because it is ridiculous to lay claim to the idea that all women are oppressed on equal terms, simply because they are women. obviously, oppression is more complicated than that and i personally think that gender does not trump anything. instead, there are interlocking systems of oppression that women face based on gender, race, class, sexuality, religious background, nationality, citizenship status and so forth. it is very naive and very, very 2nd wave-ish to say, "well, gender trumps race." i can't even understand how one can come to such a conclusion.

I need a tag...this might become a series.

When I wrote up an actual consideration of Party in Search of a Notion last night, I was "inspired" by E.J. Dionne's editorial, The Left's Big Ideas.

What has become clear in recent months is that the impatience on the center-left with the hopeless endeavor of waiting for workaday politicians to come up with ideas -- Godot would deliver faster -- has spilled over the barriers of conventional politics. The brooding, musing and, yes, thinking since President Bush's victory in 2004 is starting to show results.

The biggest change is that moderates and liberals have begun to accept the fact that they cannot simply adjust to conservative dominance of the political debate and alter their ideas to fit the current consensus.

I finally got around to reading Party in Search of a Notion...that article in The American Prospect that I got a bad taste in my mouth over based on a extract.

Michael Tomasky reminds me too much of Joe Taylor...Open Source Politics is void now or I'd link you directly to his ignorance...the text of the OSP post is also here; I think I saved the original OSP post with comments.  I suspect Joe was a college freshman at the time...I suspect (assuming he's still politically active and actually trying to learn something) he would reach the point where he was capable of writing something like Party in Search of a Notion.

Courtesy of Liberal Oasis.

Here’s the list of Dem and Independent Senators who backed censure for Clinton (S. Res. 44 in the 106th Congress) and have yet to back censure for Bush:

Daniel Akaka
Max Baucus
Byron Dorgan
Dick Durbin
Dianne Feinstein
Daniel Inouye
Jim Jeffords
Ted Kennedy
John Kerry*
Herb Kohl
Mary Landrieu
Carl Levin
Joe Lieberman
Blanche Lincoln
Barbara Mikulski
Patty Murray
Jack Reed
Harry Reid
Jay Rockefeller
Chuck Schumer
Ron Wyden

The four GOPers who backed censure for Clinton are:

Pete Domenici
Mitch Mcconnell
Gordon Smith
Olympia Snowe

*LiberalOasis was told by a Kerry staffer that Kerry supported the Feingold resolution, yet Kerry has not made any formal statements and he ducked reporters’ questions about it yesterday.

For the record, it's here. But that's not what this post is about.

Everything you ever wanted to know about how our government and media work

This Feingold Censure Resolution is unmaking the hideous underbelly of almost every Washington institution as vividly as anything that can be recalled. Each of the rotted Beltway branches is playing so true to form that the distinct forms of corruption and dishonesty which characterize each of them are standing nakedly revealed. As ugly of a sight as it is, it is highly instructive to watch it all unfold.

...So, to summarize what our survey reveals: We have Democrats running and hiding, afraid to stand up to the President even when he gets caught breaking the law. We have the media mindlessly reporting GOP talking points even when they are factually false and when the falsehood could be easily verified with about 60 seconds of research. And we have Republicans accusing those few Democrats who are willing to criticize the Leader of being on the side of Terrorists, while the media passes along those false accusations without comment and Democrats run away and hide some more, never showing any offense or anger at all from watching Republicans accuse them of treason.

That's our system of government, in a nutshell. These events over the last 24 hour news cycle, by themselves, would be sufficient to teach a Civics class how our national political institutions work right now.

In Time Magazine, Michael Duffy asks the musical question

Can Hillary Join the Club?
The Senator is laying the groundwork for a possible presidential run in 2008, but is she too polarizing to win it?

No. I much prefer she follow in Ted Kennedy's footsteps as the person everyone assumed would run but got smart at the end.

Good.

The ideal response would be to ignore that crap, don't run...and use that fat bank account to support a candidate. I don't want to vote for Mrs. Clinton.

But this is a particularly nasty show ol' Chris has orchestrated.

Something has been gnawing at me since Senators Spector and DeWine submitted their bills intended to excuse the president's domestic wire tapping programs.

First, the relevant part of Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution:

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

There's a bunch more, but they are cleanly severable.

Next, the definition of ex post facto

Formulated, enacted, or operating retroactively. Used especially of a law.

For a textualist or strict constructionist, that should be enough to make the case. For you pesky folks need an explanation,  a bit of discussion about the meaning of "ex post facto law" in Constitutional law.

Justice Scalia gave a talk this past Tuesday about using foreign law as precedent in Constitutional cases at the American Enterprise Institute. He's a kinda boring speaker, entirely apart from the subject matter. The audience is full of students trying to catch Scalia on current political issues.

This was not a good idea, people. Not like I like Scalia-the-judicial-philosophy at all But good lord, you can't bridge the gap between topics as widely sepearted as "foreign law as precedent in Constitutional cases" and "what do you think of Bush's reason to invade Iraq?" Frankly, even questions about the unitary executive excuse, though a Constitutional topic, is off topic enough for you to look silly as hell as he blows you off.

You're not goin

He tries to be "even handed"

Gonzales, in his testimony, made an effective rhetorical point by citing examples going back to Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt of presidents ordering interception of wartime communications -- on their own authority.

...and he actually succeeds

Sleight of Hand
Bush buried detailed Social Security privatization proposals in his budget. Can the surprise move jump-start bipartisan reform?
By Allan Sloan
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2006

Feb. 8, 2006 - If you read enough numbers, you never know what you'll find. Take President Bush and private Social Security accounts.

Last year, even though Bush talked endlessly about the supposed joys of private accounts, he never proposed a specific plan to Congress and never put privatization costs in the budget. But this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.

Quote of note:

the cuts they want to extend the most — special low tax rates for investment income — overwhelmingly enrich the rich and will be even harder to justify in the years to come, when, by all reasonable estimates, the country's financial outlook will have deteriorated further.