ConservativeDemocratNews

Democrats' 100-Hour Agenda Advances Smoothly

2007-01-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

The 110th Congress, the first in twelve years under Democratic leadership, continued today to push its much-lauded 100-Hour Plan. The House of Representatives, pushed by newly-elected Speaker Nancy Pelosi (the first woman to ever hold that office), passed yesterday morning a piece of legislation giving extensive federal funding to stem-cell research.
The bill, which would overturn a 2001 Bush Administration ban on such scientific activity, gives a tremendous boost to the controversial experimentation that has been at the center of the moral values debate since nit emerged onto the cultural stage some nine years ago in the late 1990's. Proponents of stem cell research argue that the science offers great promise to those suffering from spinal cord injuries (and the accompanying paralysis), blindess, most types of cancers, spinabifida, Alzheimer's, and a score of other diseases. To deny funding for such potentially life-giving treatment, they say, sacrifices medical advance and human health for the sake of ideology.
Critics of stem cell usage counter that, in creating and destroying embryos (which are used for in vitro fertilization), scientists are playing God with human life. One such person was Senator Sam Brownback (R, KS), who said of the Democratic measure, "We all want to find cures and treatments for the many diseases and maladies that affect millions of Americans, but there are better options than research that kills nascent human lives."
Mr. Brownback has the support of many other prominent Republicans, including President Bush, who has threatened to veto the act if it passes the Senate. Mr. Bush cast the first veto of his presidency in August of 2006, shooting down a nearly identical bill that had enjoyed bipartisan cooperation in both houses of Congress.
While the Senate will likely give narrow approval to the House's proposal, the draft seems to be headed for defeat; the vote in the lower chamber was 253 for, 174 against, short of the 290 needed to override a presidential veto. This problem is compounded by the fact that Democrats have a mere one-seat majority in the Senate and almost certainly would fail in any override attempt (assuming that such an effort made it out of the House).
An equally divisive bill came through the House this morning, this one requiring the federal government directly negotiate lower drug prices for Medicare patients with major pharmaceutical companies. Under current regulations, a noninterference clause prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Michael Levitt) from engaging in any such talks with the private drug industry.
President Bush has also threatened to veto this new law, saying that natural economic competition among insurance agencies should and will ensure the lowest possible costs for American consumers.
A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 81% of U.S. seniors supported direct bargaining between the government and drug companies, with 67% "strongly" wishing for the bill to be enacted.
While stem cell research and Medicare costs have created ire on both sides of the aisle, other aspects of the Democrats' ambitious plan have gone more easily. On January 5th, the House implemented a new "pay-as-you-go" policy, requiring that any federal tax cuts be met with tax increases in other economic sectors or reductions in government spending. A response to the historic deficits that have accrued under the Bush Administration, this effort has been widely praised.
Another Democratic action that has proven popular was the January 9th vote to implement the recommendations made by the 9/11 commission, which convened in the summer of 2004 to study the time leading up to September 11th and conclude what could have been done to prevent the attacks. If the legislation passes the Senate and is signed by the President (as it is expected to), all air and sea cargo entering the United States will have to be inspected before being unloaded onto American shores. Under the laws now in place, less than 5% of cargo reaching the U.S. is searched for hazardous materials. This provision will become fully effective within five years.
By far the most popular Democratic measure to date in the new Congress was lobbying reform initiated by that party on January 4th, which prohibited lawmakers from receiving gifts, going on trips, or taking flights paid for by interest groups. The act passed the House by 430 to 1.
On January 10th, the House voted 315 to 116 to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour within the next twenty-six months. The wage increase seems to be a solid piece of legislation, and is forecast to easily pass through the Senate. A Democratic effort to pass a similar bill last year was fought and eventually extinguished by conservative members in the then-Republican chamber.
Within the next week, Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leadership intend to continue advancing their agenda, with votes scheduled on legislation that would halve interest rates on college loans and end multi-billion dollar federal subsidies to large oil companies.

Some Numbers...

2006-05-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

President Bush's approval rating, as of May 18, 2006?

29%

This makes him one of the most unpopular presidents in the history of polling, now behind only Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon (he tied with his father when he reached 29%). With Democrats favored over Republicans by fully fourteen percentage points in the polls and the election still six months away, our unfortunate President could well find himself with the lowest approval ratings ever recorded.

Some Numbers...

2006-04-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

President's Bush's approval rating has reached a record low of 32%, less than a third of the American people. This is according to a CNN poll conducted earlier this week. Even Fox News, that safe haven of network conservatism, rated Bush's performance at only 33%.
The most optimistic of the polls rated him at only 35%. All the same, the CNN poll seems to have gotten the greatest consensus, and is an onimous sign for an increasingly tenuous Republican as the 2006 Congressional election looms just six months away.
Should the President's and Congressional Republicans' approval ratings continue to sink at their present rate (or, indeed, should they even remain where they are), it would spell out a very optimistic prospect for the Democrats this November.

Some Numbers...

2006-03-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

34%: Overall job approval rating for President George W. Bush, the lowest he has ever had.

36%: Overall job approval rating of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, at the height of the Watergate scandal.

52%: Percentage of Americans supporting impeachment if the President's wiretapping program is proven to have been illegal.

0: Number of Senate hearings being held to investigate the legality of the wiretaps.

What does this say to you?

Vice Presidential Hunting Accident

2006-02-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

For the record, I invented this joke and am taking full credit for it.

"My opinion of the Vice President has changed."

"Oh, yes? How?"

"I used to think he was a liar. Now I can see he's a straight shooter."

This was literally the first thing to pop into this Editor's mind when he learned that the Vice President had accidentally shot a 78-year-old companion in the chest and head while quail hunting. We all have our faults.
The victim, who had a mild heart attack several days ago because of a bullet in his chest, is recovering in a Texas hospital.
The Vice President was criticized for not having his office make the information public until a full day after the incident took place. Some of this anger seems to be misguided, as the Vice President did have a friend of his make a public statement and did not actively attempt to conceal the accident.

2006 State of the Union Address

2006-02-02T08:27:00.000-08:00

President Bush delivered his sixth State of the Union Address to a joint session of Congress this Tuesday, giving a largely general speech at a time when the country remains bitterly divided. The Address was marked, for the first time in this President’s history, by a lack of confrontational, controversial, or wide-ranging proposals. President Bush acknowledged his conservative base, issued the same standard calls for morality in the fields of science and public policy, and then went on to say essentially nothing for about an hour.
The President opened his speech by noting the loss of Coretta Scott King, wife of civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., who died the morning before the State of the Union was given. He called briefly for the spread of democracy in the Middle East and remarked that American soldiers were doing good in the world, whereupon he directed the attention of the packed House to the parents and sibling of a recently fallen U.S. serviceman who had been stationed in Iraq.
Many of his statements during the speech were so soft, so neutral and so watered-down, that virtually anyone would have agreed with what he was saying. However, criticism of Democratic policies, though veiled and indirect, was there. Lamenting the growing discontent over the Iraq war, the President declared that, “The decision to withdraw troops will be made by generals on the ground, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.”
This exclamation drew thunderous self-righteous applause and a standing ovation from the Republican half of the floor, whereas the Democratic side of the Chamber remained still as a statue, coldly looking on as the President smirked from the lectern at the front of the room. Like so many insults against the Democrats on Tuesday, this one was implied; the “politicians in Washington, D.C.” were of course the Left, who, it was to be understood, are removed from what “real” Americans think and whose criticism against the war is as “irresponsible” as it is elitist.
This statement was, however, misleading; very few Democrats have called for the immediate withdrawal of troops, and most are united around the fact that the American military must stay in Iraq until that country can govern itself. The opposition being expressed by the majority of the Left is not to American troop presence in Iraq, but rather the intelligence failures (or manipulation) that led to that presence in the first place. The idea that Democrats wish to pull the Army out of Iraq is a Republican myth propagated by conservative officials, whose constant reiteration that “immediate withdrawal is not the answer” leads many to believe that there is actually a faction seriously proposing that U.S. forces vacate the country, when in fact there is no such political movement within the mainstream Democratic Party.
The misrepresentation of Democratic intentions was not the only half-truth uttered in the State of the Union. The disaster in New Orleans was virtually skipped over, meriting only a few sentences in the entire speech. Even when acknowledging that something had gone wrong in Louisiana, President Bush merely addressed it in terms of the American people being “concerned.”
He also urged, for his fifth State of the Union in a row, that Congress invest more money in alternative energy sources like hydrogen to power cars, and said Americans must put a stop to this country’s “addiction to oil.” This marked perhaps one of the most ironic and telling portions of the speech, as it illustrated not only this nation’s perilous energy situation but also the consistent disconnect between what the White House says and reality.
For, despite having asked for five years in a row that Congress take steps to ease America’s dependence on foreign oil, the President continues to sponsor enormous tax cuts for the nation’s largest oil companies, granting them government subsidies at a time when they are already reaping in record profits. Indeed, the President’s initiatives have actually contributed to foreign oil dependence, which seems to lead one to the conclusion that President Bush is doing almost the exact opposite of what he says he will do. While earnestly portraying himself as an environmentalist who cares about the preservation of our nation’s natural beauty, he is simultaneously attacking environmental restrictions and attempting to have endangered species reclassified so that wealthy developers can build in their habitats. The difference between what George W. Bush says and what George W. Bush does has never been starker than it was last night. He is a man who espouses middle class values but feeds upper class corruption, a man who claims to represent the working people but whose tax cuts (for the wealthy) have hurt the poor before all others. A candidate who promised to return honor to the presidency, he has desecrated it by leading our country into war under false pretenses, repeatedly violating our Constitution, and using the name of our Lord to forward his despicable agenda.
All in all, the impression that one got of the State of the Union Address was that it was muffled. President Bush was like a rambunctious dog, that, having been boisterously wild in days before, has been trained through repeated lashings with a whip to be still. The President seemed as if he wanted to say more, but could, for fear of that political whip. All of President Bush’s other State of the Union speeches contained broad reform initiatives, especially last year’s, which acted as the starting point for his failed attempt to privatize Social Security. When the President noted that, “Congress failed to act on my Social Security initiatives,” the Democratic side of the floor burst into a cacophony of clapping and cheering. The President, visibly angered, wagged his finger at the Democratic legislators before continuing with the Address. It could not possibly have been more apparent that President Bush’s “political capital” has long since dissipated. He understands (or at least his speechwriters do) that he does not have the same kind of overwhelming support, even within his own party, that he once commanded. The 2006 State of the Union Address reflected a President whose many mistakes have made him a political pariah, an object of scorn for the majority of the American people, and, increasingly, a leader who simply cannot get things done. President Bush has two more State of the Union Addresses to deliver before he leaves office in 2009, but it seems that he may already beginning to walk down Lame Duck Lane.

An Endorsement of Impeachment: The Only Answer

2006-01-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

For the last three years, President George W. Bush has authorized, without Congressional consent or the power of established law, illegal surveillance phone taps on thousands of innocent Americans.
The very fact that such wiretaps have proceeded without the consent of the specially appointed FISA court is extremely alarming, and the idea that those who authorized the illegal actions could continue to hold power is simply abominable, contrary to everything we know in this land about Constitutional supremacy and equality before the law. It is because of this most egregious of violations that we here at ConservativeDemocratNews are now officially calling for the impeachment of our nation’s 43rd Chief Executive, United States President George W. Bush. We extend our endorsement to all other democratic (lower case intentional) organizations advocating the legal removal of this President and the protection of that most sacred of documents, the United States Constitution. Mr. Bush, upon his accession in 2001, took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He has now violated the terms of the agreement by which he became the Commander-in-Chief of this country, and no longer has the legal right to hold that office.
His usurpations of power have become too great, the danger to our Republic too real. Impeachment is the only remedy. The rule of law in the United States must be preserved.

Gore's Incredible Address

2006-01-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

In recent days, key members of the Democratic Party have come out hard and heavy to harshly criticise the Bush Administration and the Republican majority as a whole for the wave of scandals that have engulfed the nation since the start of 2005.
Chief among the Democrats' laments was the domestic spying program that the Administration has implemented through the National Security Agency (NSA) since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton accused House Republicans of running the lower chamber of the legislature like "a plantation," going on to say, "And you know what I mean" before a group of 2,000 African-Americans.
Mrs. Clinton finished her speech with the conclusion that the Bush Administration would go down in history as "one of the worst that has ever governed this country."
Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, was asked on CNN's Situation Room what he thought of Mrs. Clinton's comments.
Looking on from Jerusalem, Kerry responded with firmness, "I agree with that. Definitively, definitively."
By far the most moving Democratic backlash of the day, however, was a speech delivered by former Vice President Al Gore. In it, Gore boldly condemned the Administration’s NSA wiretaps, saying that, “At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently.”
Gore further went on to decry a “disrespect for America’s Constitution which has now brought our Republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution.”
Gore passionately called for a recommitment in this country to “the rule of law,” warning against the serious threat posed by an Administration that grants itself powers without consulting Congress or the Supreme Court. He spoke of American citizens imprisoned indefinitely without being charged, of foreigners kidnapped and placed in CIA prisons to be savagely tortured. The speech was well-written, well reasoned, and well-argued. Unlike recent Democratic lambastes against the President, it used as its premise solid fact, based on a bedrock foundation of judicial and Constitutional decision. Pieces of wisdom from George Orwell, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and former Supreme Court Justices, among others, lifted their heads from times long past to affirm the noble position that Mr. Gore is taking: the Constitution of this country must be absolutely upheld, at any cost. Never before than right now has that been clearer, and such an eloquent entreaty only serves to reinforce the value of our liberty in American hearts.
Albert Gore is a man whose message is as simple as it is beautiful, as poignant as it is frightening. His petition for resistance to executive encroachment, voiced as only he could voice it, should be required reading in all civics classes. He is reminding us why we elected him in the first place.

109th Congress Returns With a Bang

2006-01-04T05:28:00.000-08:00

Though the 109th Congress will not return to Washington until January 31st of this year (they assembled yesterday as is required by the Constitution but then adjourned for a month-long extension of their Christmas vacation), its exploits have already electrified the political scene and made for a scandalous start to 2006. Yesterday, high-powered lobbyist Jack Abramoff plead guilty in federal court to conspiracy, tax evasion, and fraud. Abramoff now faces up to eleven years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution payments.
Among other things, the disgraced former Washington insider admitted to corrupting members of Congress and defrauding his (primarily Native American) clients out of a whopping $25 million of their own money. While Abramoff's guilty plea isn't much of s surprise to anyone who's been following the whole DeLay crowd, the implications are still bigger than perhaps anyone realized.
As people faced with time in federal prison so often do, Abramoff cut a deal with prosecutos by which he would reveal the names of others involved in his seedy dealings in exchange for a reduced sentence (before the plea he had been looking at a maximum thirty-year sentence).
Abramoff is expected to implicate a total of roughly six lawmakers, almost all of them certainly Republican, who participated with him in activities that were illegal. One of these men, Representative Bob Ney (R-OH) has already been identified to the public. In the court documents, the lawmaker in question is identified as simply Representative 1, but there is really no one else it could possibly be. The papers reference a Congressman who took several bribes that included a lavish golfing trip to Scotland, a trip that Ney actually did go on (at the time, Abramoff declared that the money used to finance the vacation had been donated to charity).
What does this mean for the Republican majority? Well, it certainly can't be good.

Continuing story

Lifelong Democrat Turns 42

2005-12-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

Michael D. V., a Maryland native and liberal since his teen years, recently celebrated his 42nd birthday. Michael was born on December 22, 1963. He voted for the first time in the 2004 presidential election, casting his ballot for John Kerry as his teenage son, himself too young to make such a choice, looked on proudly.
Unbeknownst to Michael, that same son has maintained this site since March of 2005, writing the very articles that Michael has so enjoyed.
Happy birthday, Dad. It killed me not to tell you that I was behind the political literature that you were coming to really enjoy, but I wanted to wait and surprise you around your birthday. Remember that time in the kitchen when I went on a rant against President Bush and you accuse me of getting my ideas from this site? Now you know why I laughed. I love you.

Christmast Vacation

2005-12-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

Just a note to our readers: We will be taking a break until after after the New Year. We wish you all a happy 2006, and we will resume our political coverage promptly in the first week of January.

Congressman Duke Cunningham Resigns

2005-11-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

In the latest of a barrage of scandals besieging the Republican Party, California Congressman Duke Cunningham announced his resignation from the legislative body on Monday after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraudk, and tax evasion.
The investigation began in 2003, when Cunningham sold his California home to a defense contractor for the highly inflated price of $1.6 million. Using this money, Following the initial purchase, the defense contractor, whose company Cunningham had lobbied for, resold the house for $700,000.00 less that what he had bought it for. Cunningham received further bribes in the form of jewelry, antique furniture, and cash. Prosecutors estimate that the Congressman took a total of $2.4-2.5 million in bribes over a period of two years, enabling him to purchase, among other things, a yacht and a suburban Washington condominium.
The plea, already damaging to a Republican Party that has seen its top members under legal fire for the better part of 2005, threatens to become an even larger problem, with rumors circulating Capitol Hill that Cunningham will implicate other corrupt members of Congress in a deal with the prosecutor. If that happens, the Republican Party could face significant losses in its leadership. The debacle only adds fuel to an already growing fire surrounding the 2006 Congressional campaign.
Many Republicans are ominous about next year's elections, predicting that their party could lose control of both houses of Congress. That, coupled with a President whose approval rating is 35% and a strong pool of Democratic candidates for 2008, bodes ill for the Right and only too well for the Left.

A Message To Our Readers Regarding Debate Coordination

2005-11-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

ConservativeDemocratNews has entered into a partnership (of sorts) with the blog Republican and Proud (republicanandproud.blogspot.com), a conservative website dedicated to the Right Wing. We have done this to encourage healthy political debate and discourse between our readers. As such, we urge all visitors to this site to also visit our sister site and give their opinions about certain issues to a conservative base. The articles that the two sites run are coordinated to focus on roughly the same topics.

Democrats Win Big Victories

2005-11-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

In a surprise gubernatorial sweep, Democratic candidates have retained governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. The elections, held on November 8th, came as a sharp message to many incumbent Republicans facing their own reelection campaigns in 2006. The New Jersey race, bitterly fought and noted for its unprecedented amount of character assault and brutal mudslinging, was won handily by Democratic U.S. Senator John Corzine, who defeated Republican businessman Douglas Forrester by a wider margin than had been expected.
More eye-opening, however, was the triumph of Democrat Tim Kaine in the gubernatorial race of one of our nation’s Reddest states, Virginia. Both sides had polled a statistical dead heat and were calling for a razor thin victory, but in the end Kaine won over Republican Jerry Kilgore by 51%-46%, a significant margin.
The political tides in Virginia bode ominous for an already beleaguered Republican Party and have served to efface any doubt as to the attitude in the nation as a whole. If even Virginia, that rock of conservatism that stood solidly behind George W. Bush in 2004, is rejecting Republican candidates, the incumbent party is in trouble. Perhaps adding insult to injury, President Bush’s appearance in the state in the last days of the campaign seems to have weakened rather than strengthened Kilgore’s effort to win the Governor’s Mansion. The embarrassing experience seems only to confirm the President’s growing inability to effectively lead, his essential impotence in the alarming political affairs of the country, and the fact that he has become a liability to his fellow conservatives.
This is a President whose Administration has sunk, and, with a 35% approval rating, things don’t seem like they will be getting better any time soon. Really, the Virginia race is a statement about America, about an America that is coming to fully understand and to fully repudiate the policies of the Republican Right. Today, Ohio, the crucial state that handed President Bush his victory in the 2004 Election, is more liberal than neighboring Illinois.
In California, where Arnold Schwarzenegger sailed into the Governor’s Mansion on a wave of popular approval in 2002, the public has rejected all four of his key policy initiatives. Even the Reddest of the Red States, discontent is fomenting. Across the country, those who were once stalwart supporters of the Bush Administration now speak out against it.
“I’ve become an Independent,” they say. “I just can’t support this Administration anymore.”
“The President claims to represent Christians, but he is so corrupt,” the remark despairingly.
“I’m voting Democratic for the first time in my life,” they tell delighted poll workers.
More and more, the 2006 Congressional elections are beginning to look like a Democratic sweep, and many analysts have cautioned that the Republican majority could well lose both houses of Congress next November. Still others are already looking to the 2008 presidential race.
“ ’08! ’08! ’08!” came the thunderous roar from the Virginia throngs as Governor Mark Warner yielded to podium to his successor at Kaine’s acceptance speech. The Governor just smiled and waved his hand dismissively as the Governor-Elect began to address his ecstatic supporters. The sentiment, however, is irrepressible and will likely make for watershed votes in 2006 and 2008. We can only wait.

UNDER FIRE: LEWIS LIBBY INDICTED

2005-10-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

In the last twenty-four hours, a whirlwind of the political upsets has swept the nation's capital city and left the Bush White House scremabling to pick up the pieces. Just yesterday afternoon, beleagured Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination. Minutes ago, meanwhile, former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was indicted by a grand jury on charges of purjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements in the CIA leak case. Today is not a good day for the Bush Administration or the Republican Party. Karl Rove, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, has escaped indictment for now but remains under criminal invcestigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. ConservativeDemocratNews will have more cfommentary in the coming days as these historic events unfold in Washington, D.C.

Washington Waits

2005-10-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

As the federal grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame leak case prepares to expire on Friday, the nation's capital city is abuzz with speculation about the actions that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will take. The general consensus seems to be that someone will be indicted, but who, and on what charges?
Among most political observers, Karl Rove is a given, with Lewis Libby not far behind and the Vice President becoming an ever more likely target. News on the matter is expected to break at any hour, and ConservativeDemocratNews will keep you posted on what happens.
We will soon be publishing an article dealing with the possible repurcussions that these troubles could have on the Bush Administration.

919-250-9110

2005-10-22T11:25:00.000-07:00

This is the personal telephone number of a one Dr. Kabon at the University of North Carolina, who recently advocated the extermination of the entire white race as a "final solution" to the racial tension in the United States. Mr Kabon believes that all whites are evil. Give him a call and let him know what you think.

Another Scandal?

2005-10-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

If you thought things couldn’t get any worse for the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, you thought wrong. Of course, with the President’s approval rating at 36%, half of the Administration under criminal investigation, and the Democrats expected to make a historic, 1994-esque sweep just next year, your incredulity would be justified. It was also, however, be misplaced.
The U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C. has announced that it is investigating, in conjunction with the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Education, payments that the Bushy White House made to conservative media pundit Armstrong Williams in exchange for his public praise of the Administration’s largely unpopular No Child Left Behind Act. Congressional auditors already looking into the case on the behalf of the GAO have determined that the White House, through the Department of Education, had engaged in illegal, “covert propaganda,” not altogether surprising given this Administration’s almost unprecedented mastery of spin and staged photo-ops. That veneer has, due to separate criminal investigations of such figures as Karl Rove, begun to fall away, further revealing the corruption and disingenuousness within. This is, after all, the same White House that forbade journalists from photographing the coffins of fallen soldiers coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scandal and Corruption: The Election of 2006

2005-10-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Republican majority in Washington continues to be torn apart as more and more major Republican figures fall to the scrutiny of our nation’s judicial system. This morning, the news went public that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been subpoenaed to testify before the Securities and Exchange Commission amidst allegations of insider trading regarding the Senator’s sale of HCA stock just days before the company announced unsatisfactory earnings. HCA was co-founded by Frist’s father and brother. Frist, if indicted, will almost certainly surrender his post as Senate Majority Leader, making him the second nationally known Republican to be forced out of an office by his own illegal (or, at any rate, immoral) dealings.
Frist is not the only conservative under the public microscope, nor is he the only one to be facing charges in the very near future. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser, is expected to testify for his fourth time today before a grand jury investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. Thoguh no accusations against Rove have been officially leveled, the frequency with which he now appears in court is a sign all its own.
“No one wants to be that close to a grand jury,” remarked Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist under President Clinton, on CNN’s Situation Room (a grossly distorted, largely vapid substitute for Judy Woodruff’s brilliant, “Inside Politics”). Begala went on to say, “My friends [the former President and First Lady] went before a grand jury, and it’s not pretty.”
The grand jury’s terms expires on October 28th after a two-year investigation, so any indictments to be handed out will likely come within days. Anonymous officials say that the White House is preparing for what is thought to be an “inevitable” series of charges from the office of zealous and efficient prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald (who, it should be noted, recently indicted the top aides to Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Richard M. Daley).
The most likely target of indictment will certainly be Karl Rove, but many have hypothesized that Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby and even possible Vice President Dick Cheney himself could be hauled into court. While the Vice President’s indictment seems highly unlikely, Lewis Libby is in more danger than anyone in the White House would like to admit.
The numerous testimonies by Karl Rove has been a public relations disaster in its own right, and even in the unlikely event that charges aren’t brought up, this bit of nastiness will remain in the public mind for years to come. Given the extremely acidic political climate in the United States and the current disfavor that many feel towards President Bush, just one indictment of a White House insider could bring down the entire Bush presidency. Rove is by far the most important adviser the President has, and he is also the most likely to be indicted. Rove’s removal from his position as Bush’s top political analyst would cripple this White House, further contributing to the already startling pace at which the Republican Party seems to be losing its footing.
Tom DeLay, meanwhile, will soon appear before a grand jury, and his defense team is frantically trying to have the case against the former House Majority Leader dismissed before it can proceed fully onto the public stage. Today, DeLay’s defense attorneys subpoenaed Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle, who brought formal charges against DeLay in September. DeLay’s team is seeking to release the grand jury from its oath of secrecy so that its members can testify about Earle’s alleged illegal doings to effect the DeLay indictment. Supposedly, Earle browbeat the grand jury into charging the Congressman, an accusation that will be difficult to prove, especially as one grand juror has already come forth to say that the assertion is, in his own words, “bullshit.” The bottom line of it is that no matter how the White House spins its mythical adherence to “moral values,” the party that came to power in 1994 promising Congressional accountability has very much become an immoral majority. If things continue as they have been, it is not unrealistic to think that 2006 will be a Democratic heyday.

On the Verge of Collapse

2005-10-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

September 21(October 4), 2005
As the 2006 Congressional campaign dawns on America, the Republican Party, as recently as several months ago the unchallenged titan of U.S. political power, finds itself under assault from all directions. Last Wednesday, on September 28th, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury on conspiracy charges stemming from his involvement in the transferal of corporate money to Texas state campaigns. The move, illegal under Texas law, could earn DeLay a two-year prison sentence and a $10,000.00 fine. Jon Stwart, who joked just weeks ago on the Daily Show of DeLay being a convicted felon, could now find his jests strangely prophetic.
And the hammer of justice has come down a second time on the Hammer of the House today, as the same grand jury that charged him less than a week ago with conspiracy has now indicted him for money laundering (an action that he calls, “an abomination of justice.”) Despite DeLay’s assertions that the prosecutor (who has indicted twelve Democrats and only three Republicans in his career) acted on political motivations, the accusations are a burden from which the former Majority Leader will likely not recover. No one speaks of reelection; reelection is at best a dim possibility in this Congressman’s very bleak future. DeLay aides and Congressional insiders freely admit that most of his energies will be spent on what promises to be an exhaustive legal defense. The general consensus in Washington is that, even if acquitted, Mr. DeLay will simply not have the resources (financial or otherwise) to salvage his political career.The effective incapacitation of the legislative bull on whom it has depended for so long is only one of many political upsets that are plaguing the Republican Party. In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist could very well face an indictment similar to Mr. DeLay’s should an SEC investigation into his financial practices reveal that he is guilty of insider trading. That charge was leveled after the Tennessee Senator sold a significant portion of his stocks in HCA, a healthcare company founded by the Frist family, only weeks before the corporation announced unsatisfactory quarter earnings. The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently looking into the matter to find if anything illegal was done.
The scandal and corruption extends beyond Republicans in Congress, however, reaching to the highest executive power in our nation, the Oval Office. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Vice Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis Libby have both been implicated in a plot to take political revenge on former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA agent. Matters have been made even worse by the President’s seeming inconsistency regarding the actions of his staff members, first saying that he would terminate anyone involved in a crime, then saying he would terminate anyone indicted on charges, and finally saying that he would terminate anyone convicted of charges. The general impression seems to be that the President has no intention of quashing the dishonesty and perhaps even outright illegality that seems to flourish in his Administration.
This all comes as the President’s approval rating hovers around 40% and questions regarding his motives for the Iraq war grow louder and more persistent.

DISINTEGRATION: Tom DeLay Steps Down

2005-09-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

September 16(29), 2005
In a stunning development yesterday morning, a Texas grand jury charged Congressmen Tom DeLay (R, TX) with counts of conspiracy to violate electoral fundraising laws. The offense is a felony, and, if convicted, Mr. DeLay could face up to two years in prison and a $10,000.00. Yesterday, in accordance with House ethics rules, the Congressman “temporarily” resigned his position as House Majority Leader, though not his Congressional seat. He leaves one of the most powerful offices in the United States government. The House Majority Leader, in conjunction with the Speaker of the House and the Majority Whip, acts to round up votes on key legislative issues, broker compromises (or take a hard line) with the minority party, and coordinate essentially any issue that comes through the House.
It has been an incredible rise and an equally incredible fall for a man who started out as an exterminator and whose Congressional tactics often mirrored the standards of his first profession. Nicknamed, “The Hammer,” for his aggressive legislative and fundraising styles, DeLay became one of the most powerful people in the country, a man who, whether you loved or hated him, you had to concede was a political genius.
Mr. DeLay was the chief engineer of one of the most ambitious political coups in American history.
After coming to Congress in 1984 and overseeing the Republican takeover there a decade later, DeLay became determined to increase his party’s already substantial majority. Returning to his home state of Texas, he formed a political action committee (Texans For A Republican Majority) to bolster Republican influence in the Texas general assembly. At the time, many wondered why DeLay, a member of the U.S. Congress, was focusing on a state legislature. By 2002, however, his plans became clear.
With an overwhelming number of Republican lawmakers in Austin, DeLay orchestrated a redistricting overhaul that remains controversial in its own right, irrespective of seedy financial dealings. The redistricting, when it was done, disenfranchised a number of Texas Democrats, dividing them into districts with primarily Republican populations. The result was that, in the 2002 Midterm Election, Republicans captured a large amount of Texas Congressional seats and added to the national influence of the Right. Using this new legislative muscle, DeLay passed through the House a flurry of bills that favored business interests and the wealthy.

Continuing Story

March on Washington

2005-09-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

The Washington area was jammed on Saturday with thousands of protestors who converged on the capital from all parts of the country. 100,000 men and women poured onto the National Mall, addressing their grievances to a silent and uncaring White House. President Bush, away in Colorado to supervise hurricane recovery efforts, did not acknowledge what amounts to the largest protest in D.C. since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
The enormous crowd seemed to mirror the dissatisfied masses of a nation, both in sheer size and in the diversity of the participants; in addition to the inherent leagues of college students with their Polo shirts and ponytails, the pristine white walls of our finest public institutions were besieged with nuns, parents of killed soldiers, former veterans, and regular American citizens (the “Heartland” voters who gave Bush a second term in office) who were protesting for the very first time.
It is the legions of ordinary people who make the most powerful statement, not the flaming liberals with their fiery signs and colorful attire.

Continuing Story

Skewed Priorities

2005-09-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

It seems like a simple answer to a very complex problem. One feels that, both fiscally and logistically, it just makes sense. When there is a problem and the government is in need of more revenue, what is to be done? The traditional solution has always been, “Raise taxes.”
This was the avenue advocated by former President Bill Clinton (whose economic record was sterling) while being interviewed on ABC’s “This Week,” by George Stephanopoulos. “They [the Democrats] should continue to oppose it,” Clinton said, referring to the hundreds of billions of dollars in Bush tax cuts going to the wealthiest 1% of Americans that continue to burden the foundering U.S. economy and national budget. “And they should make it an issue in the 2006 election, and they should make it an issue in the 2008 election.”
Indeed, it seems that they certainly will. With thousands dead in the Gulf, another hurricane on the way, a federal government blatantly incapable of responding to any major crisis, an unpopular war in Iraq that is draining billions of dollars from relief efforts, and a President whose approval rating has hit a stunningly low 40%, the Democrats are faced with a nearly ideal situation, if only from a political standpoint. The fact that Mr. Bush has declared his tax cuts “off the table” in terms of paying for Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath has enforced the view among many ordinary Americans that he is an elitist who cares for the whims of the upper class above everyone else. Even the typically smooth and refined Bill Clinton was flustered by what is largely perceived a callous and irrational stance.
“Tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to my income group. I’ve gotten four tax cuts. They’re responsible for this big structural deficit, and they’re not going away, the deficits aren’t.”
Clinton went on the vehemently criticise the Administration for borrowing foreign money to finance the Iraq war rather than looking practically to things that could be adjusted at home, saying that such a policy had “never in our history,” been implemented before. “We’re pressing the Chinese now, a country not nearly as rich as America per-capita, to keep loaning us money with low interest to cover [the] tax cut.”
Is it worth it? That is a question that has been on many Americans’ minds. Are these breaks for the wealthy worth sacrificing our national integrity, worth cutting funding to programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and inner city institutions that essentially give the poor the hope they need to live from day to day?

President Bush Takes Responsibility for Relief Fiasco

2005-09-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

President Bush, in a move of political necessity and public appeal, broke with his own White House's tradition today and openly accepted responsibility for the disaster that recovery operations in the Gulf states have been.
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't do its job right, I take responsibility," he said, abandoning previous political maneuvers with a touch of honesty and humility that the public has rarely seen from this Administration. Its sincerity has come into question, however, particularly in light of the President's falling approval ratings and the fact that, as recently as yesterday, Bush was deriding all attempts at establishing liability as Democrats and journalists playing, "the blame game."
"I'm not gonna play the blame game!" our Chief Executive has exclaimed on numerous occasions since the hurricane struck. Indeed, the term has become yet another of the Administration's tired catch-phrases, along with "freedom," "fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here," "supporting the Constitutional option," and "appointing judges who won't rule from the bench," among others.
This time, however, the American people are in no mood for empty rhetoric or meaningless platitudes designed to distract attention away from the titanic shortcomings of the current government. The average person will tolerate such evasiveness with regards to an Iraqi war that is taking place thousands of miles away. They will tolerate it with Supreme Court nominees who seem far removed from their every day life. They will tolerate it with regard to Democratic presidential nominees who are supposedly "flip-flopping" but they will not tolerate it when disaster knocks on their front door.
With a large portion of the American South in ruins and thousands dead, the electorate want answers, NOW. On this issue, at least, all of the Administration's traditional tactics and fallbacks are null. Michael Brown's long needed resignation is the first of many. Now, this Administration will have to answer to its own public.

Completely Unprepared

2005-09-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

In its handling of the hurricane disaster, the entire federal government has proven itself disastrously ill-equipped to manage any sort of large-scale crisis. The President, while not personally responsible, bears a bit more blame than we here at ConservativeDemocratNews (and Americans in general) initially thought. The problem lies with Michael Brown, the man who Mr. Bush nominated to be the head of FEMA in 2003. In what seems to have become a disturbing trend in the Administration, many high level government positions are filled with people who are either unqualified or unscrupulous, while anyone with even an ounce of all-around credibility and talent is discarded (Colin Powell). Michael Brown is not the first, but he is certainly among the worst Bush appointees, among whom are included:
*Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, who has advocating torturing terrorist detainees
*Karl Rove, the President’s chief political adviser, who leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent to the press
*John Ashcroft, former Attorney General of the United States and a key architect of the Patriot Act
*Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Chief, whose response to Hurricane Katrina had been pitifully inadequate
*Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, who has been accused of ignoring the recommendations of military commanders in favor of politicking

Brown, however, is now coming under more scrutiny than anyone else in the Administration (excluding, of course, the President himself) for apparently falsifying records on his resumé, exaggerating previously held positions and in some cases even outright lying about what his qualifications are. That the fact Brown had essentially none of the experience needed to run an agency like FEMA is just coming out now is indicative of the general state of incompetence and chaos in which this Administration finds itself. Mr. Brown’s fabrications should have been detected long before he ever came before the Senate for a confirmation hearing, not after the worst natural disaster in our country’s history. Indeed, when one takes even a cursory glance over everything that Brown did not do, one wonders why in the world President Bush would have nominated him in the first place.

A Final Blow

2005-09-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

There are some things that one would believe are above politics. A tragedy as enormous as that of Hurricane Katrina would rightly be considered to be among these few, but, unfortunately, it is not. Whether President Bush deserves it or not, whether he is personally at fault or not, whether the government discriminated or not, this hurricane has become a political firestorm much larger than Katrina itself, a raging inferno of anger and accusation that is on the verge of permanently sinking an already beleaguered Administration. In the week that it's taken the Army to fully occupy New Orleans, Mr. Bush has been accused of racism, of deliberately ignoring the suffering the hurricane victims simply because they were black.
The idea that a U.S. president, no matter how reactionary, incompetent, stupid, or even outright unscrupulous, would intentionally stand by while thousands of his own citizens died is preposterous and a disgrace.
Rappers such as Kanye West (who declared anrgily at the VMA's that, "George Bush does not care about black people.") are quick to cry racism, when in fact they themselves are the racists for categorising most whites as intolerant and for meeting any criticism of their culture whatsoever with exclamations of, "Discrimination!"
The only racial issue that needs to be addressed in New Orleans is why so many of the looters (that is, those taking things other than food and water) are black.
Of course, it does not matter that Mr. Bush did not do these awful things. What matters is that the public perception has been firmly fixed by an scandal-hungry media that invented the issue and a community of racist African-American intellectuals who seized on yet another opportunity for exploitation and indiginity.
This is not to say that the Administration's response wasn't slow, that FEMA performed inadequately, because the reaction was hopelessly insufficient. This is to say that lack of organisation, rather than racism, was responsible for the sluggishness of the federal agencies.
Whatever actually went on, the American people have had enough. The President's approval rating is at 31% and dropping like a stone. All of his other mistakes (and they are many and grievous) have been at once magnified by this, the ultimate failure. It is one thing to see images of ruin in Iraq; it is quite another to see it here.
The Administration, like New Orleans, has sunk, and the back of the Republican majority has been broken.
Even prior to this, Democrats were expected to make fairly significant gains in 2006. Now, it would not come as a terrible surprise if they gained a majority in Congress, and that a Democrat will win the White House in 2008 is a near certainty (discounting, of course, a run made by a moderate like John McCain).
The United States on the verge of a dramatic political realignment. The majority now in power owes its existence to nationwide constituencies that are largely evaporating. Any type of mandate is gone. All we can do now is wait and see.

UNIMAGINABLE HORROR

2005-09-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

As time goes on, the situation in New Orleans seems to degenerate further and further, getting much worse before it can get any better. The Big Easy is a truly a city stricken, placed in such dire straits that its current condition can be compared only to that of Manhattan after 9/11 and London after World War II. Even these powerful allusions, however, fail to capture the nightmarish situation that has descended on the metropolis. If ever there was a Hell on Earth, Louisiana would certainly be that place.
These are the places and these are the times that are romanticised, villified, or reflected upon by all human beings, for these are the places and these are the times that define what humanity is. These are the places and these are the times that evoke passion, despair, empathy, and heroism, as well as savagery and disgrace. New Orleans is what makes every movie, every poem, every story strike a chord in someone's heart, for it is mankind at its barest. This is what we are, and even in humdrum America, we are not immune from it.
What we know now serves to hearten as well as to distress. The city of New Orleans is 80% underwater, flooded in many places to a depth of fifteen feet. "Thousands," in the worlds of Senator Mary Landrieu (D, Louisiana) are dead, and still thousands more remain trapped within. Patients in New Orleans hospitals are dying because the electricity needed to power their ventilators and the water needed to keep them hydrated are simply not there.
Looting, meanwhile, has exacerbated an already awful situation and created even greater suffering. Attempts to evacuate the Superdome, where 20,000 refugees were stranded without food or water, have been delayed because shots from the crowd were hitting incoming rescue helicopters. To make matters worse, two massive fires are now blazing in New Orleans, one in the French Quarter and the other in the Superdome itself, were the tossed and torn masses have been forced out into the submerged streets to wait for busses that will take them to the Astrodome in Houston, Texas.
The African-American community of New Orleans has shown true audacity, exploiting the monumental tragedy for all it's worth and looting everywhere they can, carrying off big-screen televisions that won't turn on for want of power and jewelry that is effectively worthless as the city's most valuable commodity becomes food and water. Not only that, these delinquent thugs have gotten ahold of firearms and are now shooting at the very soldiers sent to protect them. They are a shameful display and insult decent Black people all across the United States with their barbarity.
These supposedly "oppressed" men and women have shown their neighbors (both black and white) inconceivable callousness by contributing to the chaos and terror in New Orleans. Their selfishness and rampant materialism are now taking lives, as police officers have been diverted from rescue operations to put down the looting.
Seldom have so many been victimised by so arrogant, careless, and hypocritical a segment of society as have the people of New Orleans been victimised by these hordes. The governor of Louisiana, furious, is giving her National Guardsmen authorisation to use, "any means necessary" to restore law and order, and well she should.
At the same time, there are rays of sunshine, like the story of a person who stole a school bus ("The Rogue School Bus"), picked up stranded refugees throughout the city and then drove to the Astrodome independent of authorities. What a kindhearted, good individual.
May God help them all.

President Bush Makes a Good Call

2005-08-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Following the utter devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush made the decision two days ago to cut short his Crawford vacation and return to Washington, from where he will personally coordinate the distribution of emergency funds to the ruins of what once was New Orleans.
In this time of national crisis, the image of the President, however embattled, taking the helm in D.C. is one of comfort and reassurance to millions, particularly in the aflicted areas.
The President also made the wise choice of opening up the emergency federal oil reserves to help lessen some of the economic impact that the storm is expected to have on gasoline prices, which some experts have predicted will climb to $4.00 a gallon.
In this instance at least, President Bush has made it clear that he will stand up for the American people and do everything he can to help.
The President should be commended as well for his restraint in not visiting the storm area. Such a high-profile trip would only create additional headaches for local officials who would have to accomodate for the President's security needs and would thus be distracted from their already pressing jobs. If President Bush handled most matters of state as he has this one, the country would be much better off.

A Summer of Politics

2005-08-30T09:18:00.000-07:00

Between the unprecedented recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., the rising price of oil (even without Hurricane Katrina), the growing unease with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, and President Bush's shockingly low approval rating of 36% (lower than Richard Nixon's at the height of the Watergate scandal), there is a lot to talk about and a lot that will be happening this Fall.
Here at ConservativeDemocratNews, we will be sure to cover it all with the best insights that we can manage. Congress is back in session on August 24th(September 6th), and then the games will begin.

An Update

2005-07-26T12:10:00.000-07:00

Conservative Democrat News will not be posting for the majority of the summer, but we will resume our regular coverage in August. The site has not shut down, and will return in the Fall.

Downing Street Memo: An Impeachable Offense

2005-06-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

June 4(17), 2005
The Downing Street Memo, which in its first weeks of release received disturbingly little media attention in the United States, has more than made up for its initial inconspicuousness by exploding into the U.S. mainstream media with a vengeance. After years of escalating political acrimony with Democrats and the strenuous efforts of such people as Richard Clark and John Kerry to discredit President Bush, the two-page memo alone is the single most damning piece of evidence against the Administration.
Circulated only among the highest levels of the British government, the document concerned a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s national security council in July of 2002. During the meeting, the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy was a key point of discussion. The British intelligence officers had concluded that, fully eight months before the invasion of Iraq (and fully six months before President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address), the Americans regarded an Iraqi conflict as being, “inevitable.” The memo went on to say that intelligence, “was being fixed around,” the Administration’s Iraq policy.
Such callousness reminds one of the "Maryland Experiment," conducted by a group of German sociologists between 2001 and 2003. During the experiment, young children were given the idea of forming their own civilizations--and then tore each other apart. It is that kind of viciousness and disregard.
The revelation has caused a storm in the United States, where Representative John Conyers (D) and six other House members are leading a petition to demand a White House response to the controversy. So far, more than 556,000 Americans have signed the petition. It was delivered to the White House gate yesterday by members of Congress, who gave it to White House aides with the instruction that President Bush see it. Whether he will is doubtful, and whether he would care is even more doubtful.
Republican leaders in the House, anxious to draw attention away from the occurrence, scheduled eleven major votes on the same day of the forum that was being led by Democratic lawmakers.
Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Baghdad last year, said, “We have not been told the truth. If this Administration doesn’t have anything to hide, they should be down here testifying.”
Through all of this, impeachment has hung like a cloud in the air, like an “elephant” (pardon the pun) in the back of the room.
“Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the President has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a President has to make, going to war,” Rep. Charley Rangel of New York said. Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, as many have been quick to note. One thing that seems quite apparent is the comparison between the Bush and Clinton controversies. Many ordinary Americans find it hard to justify that President Clinton was impeached for lying to the public about his extramarital affair, yet President Bush has not been brought to call for lying about weapons of mass destruction and intelligence information, thus getting thousands of innocent Americans killed.
If anything, President Bush’s pre-war vow that he would only go to war as a last resort have been shadowed by recent events. “The veracity of those statements has—to put it mildly—come into question,” Rep. Conyers said. Downing Street is certainly worthy of investigation, especially when one considers the tremendous human cost that his been taken due to the faulty intelligence that led to the war. When President Clinton lied about his sexual activities, there were two casualties: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton. President Bush has now deceived the nation, and the toll is much higher: 1,700 Americans dead. Under the circumstances, impeachment would be quite appropriate.

Downing Street Memo Confirms War Critics

2005-06-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

May 31(June 13), 2005
An internal British memo leaked to the press several weeks ago that has gotten little news coverage in the United States is now finally beginning to stir anger and outrage as members of Congress are pressured to launch a formal investigation. The startling memo was written in preparation for a meeting of Blair’s staff on July 23, 2002. Fully eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the head of the British intelligence community was quoted in the document as saying that war with Iraq was, “inevitable,” and that President George W. Bush, “wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
The memo went on to say that the United States National Security Council had, “no patience,” for the UN and that the case for war was, “thin.” Not only that, it questioned whether the invasion would even be legal under international law. President Bush responded to the memo by saying, “Somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to use military force to deal with Saddam. There’s nothing farther from the truth.” Unfortunately for the embattled Chief Executive, the evidence has cast a cloud over his credibility. The memo only seems to confirm accusations made by such people as Richard Clarke, a former White House counter-terrorism expert whose book, Against All Enemies, made a nearly identical charge but was widely denounced by conservatives.
In the immediate aftermath of the memo’s release, eighty-nine members of Congress sent the President a letter requesting an explanation. Remarkably, all eighty-nine were Democrats. Not a single Republican member of Congress was capable of overcoming their partisanship long enough to question the judgement of their leader, even in the face of definitive evidence that blatantly contradicts almost everything the Commander-in-Chief has said.
The memo also said that, “little thought has been given to the aftermath and how to shape it.”
While most Republicans have proven to be loyal to party over country, some on the Right have had enough. Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina will introduce legislation this week that will call for an exact timetable of US troop withdrawal. When asked to explain his change of heart (Mr. Jones voted for the war in 2003) he said, “When I look at the number of men and women who have been killed -- it's almost 1,700 now, in addition to close to 12,000 have been severely wounded -- and I just feel that the reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there."
Jones’ defection has caught the entire Republican Party off guard. A solid conservative and one of the Iraq war’s staunchest proponents, he led the effort to ensure that the Congressional cafeteria served, “Freedom Fries,” instead of, “French Fries.” Apparently his conscience got the best of him. He said that the turning point came in 2003, when he went to the funeral of a sergeant killed in the conflict and heard the man’s widow speak.“That really stayed with me,” he said.

Howard Dean Makes Controversial Comments

2005-06-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

May26(June 8), 2005
Howard Dean has always been an outspoken political figure, a man never afraid to speak his mind and tell people exactly what he thinks. This is a trait that many politicians do not exhibit, and a trait that gained him many of his supporters (the zealous, “Deaniacs,”) during his failed presidential run in 2004. Unfortunately, in the world of Congressional power plays and in a country more polarized than at any other time since the Civil War, it is also a trait that frequently lands the chairman of the Democratic National Committee in hot water.
Recently, Dean angered a number of Right-Wing loyalists when he said that the Republican Party was a, “white Christian,” party. Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the GOP and a practising Jew, remarked dryly that, “a lot of folks who attended by Bar Mitzvah,” would be surprised that he heads a “Christian” party. Indeed, many Democrats are surprised to hear any Republican say the same thing.
While it is true that there are some minorities in the Republican ranks (among them Tom DeLay’s infamous lobbying cohort, Jack Abramoff and a rising number of Hispanics), Dean’s assertion is really not that far off base; the overwhelming majority of Republicans are still white Christians. As Dean has said, the Democratic Party is unquestionably the more diverse of the two. There was nothing wrong with this comment.
Dean, however, does have a penchant for hyperbolic rhetoric, and his next statement was unfair. He told a group of progressives that most Republicans, “never made an honest living in their lives.” While this was an ugly generalisation, it certainly pales in comparison to the outlandish statements made by one of the Right Wing’s must volatile proponents, Anne Coulter. Her vitriolic comments about minorities and liberals have led many moderates and virtually the entire progressive bloc to regard her at best as a hate-filled racist bent on stirring violence among the white populace and furthering the political divide in the country. Whatever his faults, Mr. Dean cannot be accused of that.
We live in a time of extremes, a time when suffocating political correctness is overcome only by bursts of white-hot enmity, loathing so intense that it is frightening. Howard Dean made a slip-up, and the political community should move on. It certainly should not take precedence over the pressing political issues facing us. As Mr. Dean has said, “This is a diversion from the issues that really matter: Social Security, an adequate job opportunity, strong public schools, a strong defence.” Both Republicans and Democrats need to realise that they are not little children whose feelings are hurt every time a colleague makes a comment they don’t happen to like. As adults, they do not require apologies when this happens. They agree to disagree, and they get back to business. Unless someone is so violently antagonistic that they are causing serious harm, they should not be put through the flames each time they open their mouth.

Deep Throat Revealed

2005-06-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

May 20(June 2), 2005
In a surprising twist of fate, Vanity Fair magazine has released the identity of, “Deep Throat,” the legendary, almost mythical anonymous source who leaked sensitive information to Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein. After a delay of several days, the two journalists confirmed that Mark Felt was indeed Deep Throat. He came to the two at great personal risk in the 1970’s and was able to provide information that greatly contributed to the downfall of the Nixon White House.
At the time, Felt was second in command at the FBI, and some have speculated that he contacted the Washington Post only because Nixon hadn’t given him the top job at the agency. These critics say that he was nothing but a blatant opportunist who betrayed his country and his President. Others think he is a hero, a man who should be awarded the Nobel Prize.
Republicans are particularly furious with the very warm public reception that Felt has met, with some saying that he ought to be prosecuted (Mr. Felt is now 91, and cannot walk without assistance).
There are those out there who say that, as a member of the government, Felt should not have disclosed the information he knew. However, the reality of the situation is that President Nixon was pitting the intelligence agencies against one another, using the CIA to hamper the FBI, and sending spies to observe and sabotage his political rivals. It should not be forgotten that the entire scandal erupted when Nixon’s henchmen were caught trying to place bugging devices in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Many Republicans, while condemning Felt, have yet to repudiate these actions. Perhaps domestic spying is acceptable when being used against Democrats, as everyone knows they’re traitors.
While Felt did break the law, there is something that must be taken into account; under extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary actions are necessary. Had it not been for Felt, Nixon may have gotten away with his plot, and he may have been able to set a precedent of Chief Executives abusing their powers to monitor whomever they wish (aka, John Bolton). Felt’s reasons may not have been right, but his actions were. That is what is truly important. His contribution to this nation is invaluable, and he should be honored.

Prelude to WAR! Emegrency Compromise Delays Showdown

2005-05-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

May 12(25), 2005
In an emergency meeting yesterday evening, seven Democrats and seven Republicans reached a compromise to avert a Senate showdown of historic proportions. The deal came as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist moved within hours of initiating the nuclear option, a move that would trample the rights of the Democratic minority and pile drive Republican judicial nominees through Congress.
While Republicans retained public solidarity with Frist, a number of the more seasoned lawmakers were gravely concerned with the situation, and their qualms led to the unlikely coupling of West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd (D) and Virginia Senator Mark Warren (R ).
“We’ve got to do something about this,” Byrd pleaded with Warren. “We’ve got to stop this.” Warren agreed, and he began a series of high level talks with Byrd and other Democratic leaders. Several moderate Republicans have put their careers on the line, risking rejection by violently extremist Red districts, to save the Senate as a unique and independent institution. Among these courageous men were Senator John McCain (already reviled by many Republicans for combining conservative social values with ethical legislative ones) and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who remarked, “A lot of people at home are going to be really mad at me…but I’m willing to vote for this, because it’s bigger than me.”
In that, Graham is certainly correct. The filibuster has been an honoured institution in the Senate for countless decades, and, indeed, is one of the primary differences between the Senate and the House, the difference that gives the Senate much more power. The Founding Fathers wanted a reasonable minority to stonewall majority efforts to garner greater power. What, is, however, a reasonable minority? Could one miniscule group of senators be able to derail the will of hundreds of millions of American citizens?
Most people are surprised to learn that the answer is, “No.” The Founding Fathers were flexible men. They knew that if protecting minority rights infringed upon majority rights, democracy was not truly working. Therefore, they added a provision to the filibuster that both parties have made use of numerous times: if a faction has an overwhelming majority in the Senate (called a, “supermajority,”), showing that a vastly greater number of the American people support them than support the closest minority, the filibuster may be overturned.
In the 100-member Senate, 60 votes can end a filibuster. Therefore, if a party, say, the Republicans, commanded incredible support from the people, their will could still be done. Unfortunately for the Right, Republicans only control 55 seats of the Senate, five short of the supermajority at which the closest minority party becomes an unreasonably small faction not entitled to shoot down the majority’s legislation.
Because, under current Senate rules, Republicans could not overcome a Democratic filibuster, Majority Leader Bill Frist has decided to overturn the regulations, much the same way that Republicans changed House ethics rules to keep Tom DeLay in his position as House Majority Leader when it seemed that he was about to be indicted by a Texas grand jury. Needless to say, the idea has caused great distress. If it was to go through, the Senate as an independent institution would become effectively null, merely an extension of the autocratic House.
Republicans, of course, have shown very little respect for precedent since George W. Bush stole the presidency in 2000. If the rules fir their own political agenda, they are enforced with the most stringent firmness. If those rules do not fit the Rightist agenda, they are antiquated and must be discarded. Hypocrisy aside, the consequences for both parties and for the Senate will be far-reaching and dire. The prestige of the Senate will certainly be reduced, as will be its ability to stand up to the President (whose influence will undoubtedly be increased, as the serving President is almost always the leader of his or her political party).
Perhaps most perplexing, Senator Frist seems completely oblivious to the fact that his changes will eventually haunt Republican legislators when that party is again a minority (a day that, given Republicans’ recent approval ratings, may not be long in coming). Maybe he is arrogant enough to believe that the Right will stay in power forever, a prospect that many hypothesize could be the ultimate goal of his alterations. In an interesting development, the release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, has coincided perfectly with the political upheavals in the United States. The film, about a rogue senator in the fictitious Galactic Senate who changed parliamentary rules and then is able to establish a dictatorship, has been alluded to be numerous political observers (and even some senators in the true Senate) as being paralleling the current situation in America. None less than George Lucas, the film’s director, has stated that he believes the movie makes a political statement.
One senator recently brought a poster of the evil Emperor Palpatine (the aforementioned rogue senator) into Congress and exclaimed, “This is what these changes will lead to.”
That prospect is what has so many anxiously awaiting the outcome of the current crisis. Many are now cheering the compromise as a victory for America, but the deal should be looked upon with caution; as Howard Dean has said, the true test of its durability will be when a vacancy appears in the Supreme Court, which, in light of Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s current medical problems, is likely to happen within months. This compromise has not ended the fight; it has pushed it back temporarily. Bill Frist, expressing disappointment with his more moderate colleagues, has said that he will still continue to pursue what he calls the, “Constitutional Option.”If the vote to change the rules goes to the floor but is defeated, it would be a catastrophic political blow to a Republican Party that has already fallen dramatically in public opinion polls since the 2004 Election. If the vote goes to floor and actually gets through, it would set a terrible precedent for all future minorities and would disable the Democrats until at least the next election in 2006. Either way, both sides have a lot to lose. The bottom line is: this isn’t over.

Democrats Finally Have a Social Security Plan

2005-05-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

May 4(17), 2005
At long last, a Democratic member of Congress has stepped forth with a comprehensive, well thought out, and practical plan to handle the social security problem. As President Bush made his way across the country to (unsuccessfully) lobby the American people around his proposed Social Security privatization plan, Democrats called out passionately against the idea.
Privatization, they say, would effectively create an entirely new system, ripping apart the old Democratic innovation that has become a staple of so many Americans’ later lives. Unfortunately, the Democrats were struggling to put together a solution of their own, which led top Republicans to label them, “The Party of, ‘No.’” The Republican line of reasoning was, “Privatization may be unpopular, but it’s the only thing out there on the table.” A mythical Social Security, “crisis,” has been used to feed a feeling of urgency concerning the issue, and it is likely that panic alone is responsible for the few Americans who support privatization in the first place.
Naturally, Republicans would have loved a chance to dismantle Social Security; what better victory could there be for laissez-faire policy than to strike down a cornerstone of the Democratic modernization of America, an institution that has helped innumerable poor elderly make ends meet and maintain their dignity?
Just this last week, Senator Robert Wexler of Florida unveiled a plan to manage the future Social Security shortfalls and ensure that the fund is preserved for many more generations. The Democratic senator proposed a 6% tax increase on incomes of $90,000.00 a year or more. The slight increase in taxes would affect only a small percentage of the population and would raise considerable revenue to be used in the maintenance of Social Security and other much-needed government programs.
Senator Wexler deserves enormous praise for his industriousness and ingenuity in formulating an entirely plausible and workable proposal. This could very well be the key to the Social Security problem.
Senator Wexler described the plan, saying “It's the lifting of the taxable earning cap. That certainly is. It will raise substantial money. And the reason for doing it is to avoid benefit cuts, to avoid privatization schemes, to avoid having to increase the retirement age for Americans. What we see on the one hand is the president offering a plan which requires significant benefit cuts. And what I wanted to show the American people was that we could resolve the Social Security shortfall without benefit cut, without raising the retirement age and without engaging in risky market privatization projects.”
Touché.
He was then asked his opinion on the current Democratic Congressional policy of not negotiating Social Security at all with President Bush until the Commander-in-Chief took privatization off of the table. This is really quite a stubborn and inefficient line to take, a position that is rather Republicanesque. Democrats have criticized President Bush for refusing to negotiate with Kim Jung Il of North Korea until the rogue nation promises to abandon its nuclear weapons program, but everyone knows that such a thing will never happen. Similarly, it must be common knowledge among groups with even a rudimentary understanding of politics that no headstrong Republican, much less the same arrogant president who engages in foreign wars for purposes of economic gain and personal bravado, would ever dream of acquiescing to such a narrow Democratic demand.
In all honesty, most Democratic leaders probably wouldn’t take kindly to a similar request from a Republican. It is amusing to picture Harry Reid’s furious reaction in a reversed situation.
Wexler was diplomatic, remarking simply, “I don't think the American people win if the Democratic Party by default does not address the Social Security shortfall. We have spent months showing the American people that the president's plan will require benefit cuts, it requires a risky privatization scheme, it diverts one-third of Social Security's revenue away from Social Security. And I think we add to our credibility by offering an alternative, particularly one that does not require benefit cuts. The American people want to know, how do the Democrats stand on Social Security. And now that Congress has begun its hearings, I think it's important that Democrats speak up.” How very well put.

Some Numbers...

2005-05-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here are the most recent polling numbers, gauging the opinions of the American people concerning a variety of issues.

President Bush's Job Approval Rating: 43% (an unprecedented low for a wartime president, or for any president at such an early point in their second term)
Approval Rating of Democrats in Congress: 39% (showing than Democrats are being too weak and are not doing enough to stand up to the Republicans and put forth good ideas)
Approval Rating for Republicans in Congress: 35% (showing that the American people don't like their extremist policies or their shameful exploitation of religion)

In the words of one CNN correspondent, "2006 is going to be an interesting year."

Many are looking even further ahead than that, to the 2008 presidential race. One Democratic strategist was moved to remark yesterday that, "After three more years of this [the Bush Administration], the country is going to be so screwed up that people are going to be ready for a change."

If current trends continue and the president's approval rating maintains its downward spiral, the Democrats may be right.

Will the Filibuster be Done Away With?

2005-05-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

April 27(May 10), 2005
In Washington and around the country, the filibuster debacle grows with every day. As tensions continue to grow over judicial nominees, both sides are gearing up for a Congressional battle of historic proportions. Increasingly, however, the Left and Right (with the exception of a few members) seem more polarized than ever, and a showdown has thus far been averted only by the heroic efforts of individuals like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
“There ought to be enough moderately intelligent senators to come up with a solution,” Democrat Ben Nelson lambasted yesterday on CNN’s, “Inside Politics,” with Judy Woodruff.
Charles Schumer, a Democratic member of the Senate, cautioned that the revocation of the filibuster would, “dramatically change the way that the Senate functions.” He is certainly correct in that assertion. The Senate is the upper house of the legislature, and, as such, the Founding Fathers intended it to have more stringent standards than the House of Representatives. The majority vote legislation to come out of the House could often be (and many times still is) deeply partisan, with the slant of the bills depending on whichever party is in control of the lower chamber. Today, it’s the Republicans, who also hold the Senate, White House, and Supreme Court. Therein lies the key.
It was for this very situation that the filibuster was created in the first place. To prevent single-party rule or a takeover of the whole government by any one group, the framers of the Constitution wisely bestowed upon Senate additional stipulations and privileges that the other house of Congress did not have to adhere and was not privy to. One of these, the filibuster, allowed for a reasonable minority to stall (and eventually kill) legislation that it found disagreeable. A very large majority (sixty senators) can override the filibuster, although this technique (donned the, “nuclear option,” by melodramatic Democrats and the, “Constitutional option,” by Republicans who want to downplay the partisan nature of their own attacks and the significance that such a legislative action would have) has been used quite sparingly in American history.
In a period when federal institutions are already coming under an alarming amount of influence from extreme right wing religious organizations, the majority of the American people feel that eliminating the filibuster would not be the wisest course to take. Not only that, but most feel that this is not just an issue of Democrats being bullied by Republicans; as Republican Senator Hutchinson notes, “We stopped sixty of Clinton’s judges,” using the filibuster during a period when the legislative and executive branches had come under the sway of the Left. Perhaps Senator Hutchinson is right, and the filibuster should be preserved for all minorities, regardless of party. Americans, in any case, seem to think so, and generally are not taking kindly to Republican assertions that, “President Bush’s nominees deserve an up or down vote.” Given that a huge number of President Bill Clinton’s nominees (judicial and otherwise) were never even given a committee vote, it is not just Democrats who find this to be a bit hypocritical.

Some Numbers...

2005-05-04T10:08:00.000-07:00

April 21(May 4), 2005
How Average Americans Feel About…

President Bush’s Overall Job: 48% Approve, 49% Disapprove
President Bush’s Foreign Policy: 45% Approve, 49% Disapprove
President Bush’s Economic Policy: 43% Approve, 53% Disapprove
President Bush’s Social Security Policy: 35% Approve, 58% Disapprove
President Bush’s Energy Policy: 34% Approve, 52% Disapprove
President Bush’s Actions to Curb Gas Prices: 27% Approve, 67% Disapprove

Continued Use of the Filibuster: 52% Approve, 40% Disapprove

And what about Independents, those Centrist voters who often swing an election? After all, 2008 is right around the corner. Well…

President Bush’s Job Approval Rating Among Independents: 39% Approve,
57%
Disapprove
Wow. A sign of things to come?

Democrats Win Victory in House Ethics Brawl

2005-05-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

April 21(May 4), 2005
In a monumental development in the ethics debacle that has held the whole of Washington entranced for weeks, Democrats have claimed an enormous triumph. Following accusations that Congressman Tom DeLay had engaged in questionable activities, Democrats were eager to see him investigated by the House Ethics Committee. The instant that they realized the House Speaker might be held accountable for his misdeeds, Republicans rushed to change the House ethics rules. Prior to the alteration, if an issue could not be settled by the bipartisan committee within forty-five days, said issue would automatically be opened to an independent investigation.
The new regulations allowed the ethics complaint to simply be dismissed after the forty-five day mark, thus making it possible for either party to deadlock the committee and thus prevent an investigation of any person whom they favored. Incidentally, Republican leaders stepped forth shortly after this egregious new restriction was placed around the committee’s neck and proclaimed their willingness to see DeLay investigated. Democrats knew however, that if his case went to the committee, it would merely be stonewalled and then, when no decision could be made, quickly forgotten. As such, the Democrats brought the committee to a deadlock that they said would remain in effect until the old rules were reinstated. Bowing to tremendous political pressure from their constituents around America, the Republicans finally gave in and were forced to resurrect the old, fair rules. We can expect to see more of this in the future; Republicans doing whatever they think will get them votes, and not letting their consciences act as an impediment. Now, as DeLay becomes an increasingly disliked figure, the right will slowly begin to withdraw, all the while professing their superior, “moral values,” and the Democrats’ supposed lack of.

Controversial Bankruptcy Bill Passed

2005-04-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

April 13(26), 2005
One week ago tomorrow, President Bush signed into law a new bankruptcy bill that will severely limit how citizens can clear their debts. There are two different kinds of bankruptcies most commonly filed for in the United States, Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 bankruptcy (which accounts for over 70% of all filings) allows for non-state exempted assets to be liquidated and distributed equitably among one’s creditors, who are then legally obligated to drop the remaining debt. In this way, credit card companies lose billions of dollars every year, a figure that rests primarily on the shoulders of the risky spenders whom those corporations so aggressively target. A number of legislators are upset that, after using tactical practices designed to put people in their debt, the credit card companies themselves are now suffering financial losses.
Chapter 13 bankruptcy requires the filer to pay back their debts over a period of five years. Under the new law, most people will have to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy than will be allowed to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Democrats say that this is wrong, because credit card companies often deliberately create debt through incentives to younger customers who aren’t streetwise enough to resist the urge to spend. For many in deep poverty, Chapter 13 bankruptcy would be inadequate, only prolonging financial ruin instead of erasing it. While credit card companies will see roughly $1 billion in profits from the legislation, very few average people will be positively affected.
The new law will subject filers to a two-part income test. Exempting completely essential expenses like rent and food, the government will determine if you can afford to pay 25% of your non-essential income towards debt. After that, your income is compared to your state’s median income. If one’s income is above the median, they will be required to file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy and will not have the option of using the Chapter 7 provisions. For many, this will result with a situation in which they barely have enough to put food on the table every week, a miserable way to spend five years.
The “median income,” clause seems practical, but first looks are deceiving. What if you live in a state like, say, West Virginia, where the average income is extremely low? You could easily make more money than the median person but still live in relative poverty. The law also reduces the power of the courts (a cornerstone of the Republican agenda, anyway). Before, a court had large influence in determining which type of bankruptcy a person could file under, and often took specific circumstances into account. Now, no such option exists. In addition, the exemption that states are allowed to provide for assets had been sharply curtailed. Because of the more complicated regulations and restrictions, bankruptcy attorneys are likely to charge more. In the end, all that this does is create a good deal of both headache and heartache for people already going through a rough time. While the idea of holding people responsible for their debt (if they are abusing the system) is a good one, it needs to be perfected). Specifically individual predicaments really ought to be considered. Without this, the bankruptcy system can be neither efficient nor judicious.

Bolton Nomination is in Trouble

2005-04-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

April 8(21), 2005
John Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations seems to be in jeopardy as Democrats mount an ever more extensive attack on the embattled official, delving deep into his government history. Bolton, whose contempt for the United Nations is as blatant as possible, came as a shock to many Democrats who couldn’t believe that the president had the political ineptitude to nominate such a man. At the same time, a number of people have argued that his intense dislike for inefficiency is just what an organization like the UN needs. The international body has been plagued in recent months by a host of eye-opening scandals that acted to expose the group’s impotence.
Most Congressional Democrats would likely shoot down the nomination for that reason alone. Conservative Democrats, based solely on Bolton’s reform platform, would probably be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. There are other issues, however, that cannot be overlooked. Startling evidence has emerged that Bolton, in his capacity as an intelligence officer, used excessive bullying to manipulate intelligence reports by threatening to eliminate subordinates’ jobs.
“This man is trying to get people to tell him what he wants to hear,” levelled Senator Barbara Boxer on CNN’s Crossfire. She said that such a method of workplace intimidation within the intelligence community posed, “an imminent threat.”
When she was accused by the show’s conservative co-host of participating in a witch hunt, she questioned, “I’m sorry, are you a Republican talking about a witch hunt? I find that funny.” The senator’s statement was greeted by enthusiastic applause from the crowd.
While Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman asserted that Bolton, “will be confirmed,” and that he’ll be, “an outstanding ambassador,” other Republicans offered a picture that was not so rosy, one grounded in firm reality.
“I’ve heard enough to know that I don’t feel comfortable voting for Mr. Bolton,” remarked conservative Republican Senator Voinivich of Ohio in a surprise revelation. He went on to say that some of Mr. Bolton’s tactics made him, “very uncomfortable.” He also described what he called a , “kitchen test,” which essentially asks, “Would you feel at ease sitting down with this person to have a conversation at your kitchen table?” With regards to Mr. Bolton, Senator Voinivich said that the answer was most certainly no. If such a test were used to screen all public officials, the government would likely work much better. Senator Voinivich should be commended for having the courage to stand up against a party majority that often treats its own dissenting members just as harshly as its most avowed political enemies on the left. It is sometimes hard to stand up for what you believe is right and follow your heart instead of your wallet, especially in today’s Republican Congress. Certainly, it’s much more politically acceptable to disagree with party policy if you’re a Democrat; indeed, that is the nature of the party (this whole website could be considered as divergent from Congressional Democrats). When you finally get down to it, Mr. Bolton just doesn’t seem like the kind of man who belongs in a sensitive diplomatic situation. Perhaps President Bush should begin making appropriate appointments (though that is unlikely). And unless the Republicans manage to trample on democracy by suspending the filibuster, Democrats will continue to block unqualified nominees to all government positions that require Senate approval. Conservative Democrat News will be writing more about the filibuster situation in the coming days.

DeLay's Doings

2005-04-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

April 1(14), 2005
It’s hard to turn on a television these days without seeing something about Tom DeLay, a politician who is now under a constant attack from the Democratic Party and many ethical persons on both sides of the aisle. The besieged House Majority Leader has been cited three times by the House Ethics Committee for violations of Congressional rules. This makes Mr. DeLay the most cited member of the current Congress. With all of this commotion, what has Mr. DeLay been accused of, and what, if anything, has he done?
Despite claims to the contrary, by DeLay and by other Republicans, the senator has clearly violated several portions of the House ethics code. For example, DeLay has taken several overseas trips to South Korea since 2001, all of them paid for by a foreign agent and all thus in conflict with Congressional rules. Incidentally, the agent, Korea-U.S. Exchange, has the same address as a prominent Washington lobbying group that just so happens to be run by Ed Buckman, DeLay’s chief of staff.
DeLay has also been accused of using illegal fundraising methods to bolster his Texas campaigns. Similarly, the role that DeLay played in redrawing Texas congressional district lines has come under scrutiny, and a grand jury in that state is considering indicting him. Organizations in which DeLay has a hand have also been implicated in the ongoing inquiries against him.
For example, the National Republican Congressional Committee, a body to whom DeLay’s services have been invaluable, paid a $280,000.00 fine last year for improperly transferring over half a million dollars in campaign money that was used to run radio ads against the Democrats. DeLay’s wife may have also been involved; she and her daughter received approximately $500,000.00 in pay from Ed Buckman’s Alexander Strategy Group between 1998-2002.
Jack Abramoff, a close aide to DeLay who arranged ethically questionable foreign trips for the Congressman, is now under investigation for defrauding Indian tribes that hired him as a lobbyist. Abramoff recently declared that, “DeLay and those S.O.B.’s knew everything” about the alleged illegal doings. This, of course, contradicts DeLay’s statement that he thought his foreign ventures were financed by non-profit conservative groups.
Even the most staunchly conservative Republicans are hard-pressed to deny that DeLay’s activities at least merit further investigation (though they somehow persist in defending him), and a truly neutral observer could easily see that this man is nothing more than an enormously corrupt public official who has misused the trust placed in him by the people of the United States. It seems unlikely that Mr. DeLay will maintain his current status beyond the next few months. Republican Christopher Shayes is the first of what will soon become many Republicans to turn on DeLay as he becomes too politically hot to handle. That certainly hasn’t been the case up until now, though. When, several months ago, it appeared that DeLay would be charged, Congressional Republicans took swift action in changing House ethics rules so that the Majority Leader would not be forced to step down. This caused such a public outrage that the move was soon retracted. Many felt, however, that the debacle made a statement about the GOP’s fundamental nature; if existing laws don’t benefit their members, those laws will be shamelessly gutted so as to better accommodate government corruption on the right. Indeed, the current conservative clamor over Democrats, “disregarding the Constitution,” by opposing the nuclear action is rendered laughable by the DeLay scandal. Perhaps Democrats should convene meetings to reshuffle Congressional restrictions the next time that one of their own is in political trouble. If Democrats tried to distort ethical regulations to protect Nancy Pelosi, the religious right would be incensed, no doubt ranting that the nobility of Congress as an institution had been inalterably desecrated.
They would be right.

Republicans Begin to Turn on DeLay

2005-04-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

March 31(April 13), 2005
In a long anticipated move, the Republican withdrawal from Tom DeLay’s camp has now begun in earnest. Republican leaders pledged to stand by the embattled leader, but as the scandal grew it became clear that dong so could cost many of them their constituent support. Many moderate Republicans, already troubled by the serious questions surrounding DeLay’s ethical conduct, may be moved to take action. One honorable Republican, at least, has finally spoken out.
Senator Christopher Shayes, a moderate Republican from Connecticut, said that, “DeLay is an embarrassment to his party and he should step down.”
Truer words were never spoken. Among Mr. DeLay’s ethical violations are three overseas trips he took that were paid for by partisan lobbyists. Though the House Majority Leader claims to have had no knowledge that his bankrollers were lobbyists (he says that he thought they were, “non-profit conservative organizations”), a close aide to DeLay has said, “That S.O.B. knew everything.”
Even ultra-conservative Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum said, “DeLay has to come clean. He has to lay out what he did, why did it, and let the people judge.” The Wall Street Journal, that bastion of conservative laissez-fair business policy, says that DeLay has come to embody the worst aspects of big government and bis business that he purported to hate. We will be running an article within the very near future that details what Mr. DeLay is accused of.

Terri Schaivo Memo is a Republican Disgrace

2005-04-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

March 26(April 8), 2005
She may be with God, but the enormous debate that the Terri Schiavo case sparked continues here in Washington. A fervor was sparked several weeks ago in Congress when a Republican memo was leaked to the press. The document urged conservative lawmakers to pursue to Schiavo case because it would, “excite the pro-life base,” and because, “this is a tough issue for Democrats.” Following the uproar over the memo, Republicans derided it as a Democratic trick, something akin to the fraudulent National Guard documents that 60 Minutes aired during the 2004 Election season. Democrats insisted that they would never do something so despicable as plant an incriminating memo (the National Guard incident, annoyingly referred to as, “Rathergate,” was an honest mistake anyway and Rather apologized when he realized his error), and they have now been proven correct.
This week, the memo was identified as originating with Bryan Darling, a senior staff member to Republican Senator Mel Martinez of Florida. Darling has since resigned. Confornted with the reality of the memo scandal, most Republicans merely shrugged it off and try to downplay the issue of their own ethical shortcomings as much as possible. Bay Buchanan, a Republican activist and participant in the recent Minuteman Project on the Arizona-Mexican border (a legitimate and understandable reaction to an Administration that absolutely refuses to take responsibility for border security), referred to darling as a, “political hack.” She also claimed that the memo had only ever been read by, “this one guy,” implying that no one but the author had seen the document before it was leaked.
According to Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and an altogether well-mannered and sensible woman, said that this was not so.
“This is another attempt at lowball tactics,” she said, while asserting that Mel Martinez and, “many other senators,” had received the memo. She concluded by declaring that the American people thought, “Congress should butt out of these issues.”
And, indeed, it would seem that Ms. Brazile is correct. A recent Wall Street Journal-NBC poll found that fully one-third of Republicans (over thirty percent) thought that Democrats should stop President Bush from going too far in imposing his own values on the country. Considering the nine-tenths of registered Republicans voted for President Bush in the last election, this is a considerable decrease in support. Added, another poll also finds that 51% of the American people feel that the country is going in the wrong direction, as opposed to only 34% who believe it is heading in the right direction.
“The American people are getting a good glimpse of what Republicans stand for, and they don’t like it,” Brazile said.
Most Republicans would rather just dismiss these statistics than face the reality of what they represent. Robert Novak, the co-host of CNN’s Crossfire, thought that Democrats were referencing these figures because, “Maybe they’re worried about losing the Catholic vote to the Republicans or the political success in Iraq.” Indeed, we’re certain that the resounding successes in the Iraq war, what with the progressive new government, the unified constitution, and the complete lack of insurgent activity are what has the Democrats so riled these days.

Report Confirms Baselessness of Iraq Conflict

2005-04-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

March 19(April 1), 2005
In a report released yesterday, the a federal commission has confirmed what many of us already believe; that the entire basis for the initiation of the Iraq war two years ago was in fact flawed and that the supposed weapons of mass destruction (or even plans to build weapons of mass destruction) were non-existent. The report choruses the assertions of many scientists and military personnel; that Iraq didn’t have technology even remotely advanced enough to begin enriching uranium, and that Saddam Hussein’s regime likely had no intention of trying to obtain said technology.
The commission gave President Bush seventy-four recommendations that he could implement easily and without the permission of Congress, advising that he take their measures to heart and carry them out as soon as humanly possible. However, given Mr. Bush’s response to the findings of the 9/11 Commission (months after that body published its discoveries, the president has not yet acted on any of its requests), there is doubt as to whether he will take the necessary action and if he will do so quickly enough. To his credit, President Bush did order the commission’s formation following growing evidence last year that Iraq’s weapons of mass destructions were figments of the intelligence community’s imagination. Whether the president made this decision so as to sincerely find the truth or whether he did it to stave off rising political tension against him remains to be seen (the commission was formed near the 2004 Election).
The commission advised President Bush to concentrate more power in the hands of John Negroponte, the newly appointed Director of National Intelligence, and to fervently resist any challenges to Mr. Negroponte’s authority from within the intelligence community. The commission was adamant that turf warfare between the CIA, FBI, and other affiliated agencies not come between what it called, “true integration.”
One of the commission’s most controversial proposals is the merge of the counterterrorism and counterintelligence bureaus into one office, which some say may create an internal police within the United States. Eventually, it will be how that power is harnessed that will determine whether or not it violates Americans’ civil liberties.
While some provisions of the commission’s findings have already drawn criticism, the body is firm about the Iraq war.
“The intelligence community was dead wrong in almost all of its pre-war judgements Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,” the report said bluntly.
“We simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude,” came another harsh assessment.
The president has already violated one of the commission’s tenets; the commission urged President Bush that Negroponte should not be the man to give the president his daily briefing and that he should not be summoned from important intelligence work to witness that briefing. The commission’s logic held that if Negroponte is made to focus too narrowly on day to day intelligence, he could be prevented from piecing together the fragments of a larger puzzle. President Bush has made clear that Negroponte will continue to brief him, an arrogant and dismissive choice from a president with a long track record of ignoring well-informed and knowledgeable advisers. All the same, it can only be hoped that some of the “dramatic change,” that the commission says is necessary to salvage our intelligence networks will actually be implemented.

Arlen Specter: The Right Man to Chair the Senate Judiciary Committee

2005-03-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

March 10(23), 2005

When Arlen Specter was nominated to head the Senate Judiciary Committee, his candidacy faced an immediate avalanche of protest from the mainstream Republican right because of his moderate status on many issues and his generally sensible nature. The red party seemed quite a bit scared by a person whom they knew was not a religious reactionary, but in the end their paranoia and slander was not enough to stop this well-qualified man from becoming the chairman of the committee.
Specter's opinions and actions have already proven that he wil make a good chairman. With regards to the Supreme Court, Specter has gone against President Bush and against part lines by saying that, should the current Chief Justice step down, it would be important to replace him with someone who could reach across ideological lines. He reminisced about Earl Warren, the Supreme Court Chief Justice appointed by President Nixon who made the famous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, reminding us that, "Nobody would have predicted that Earl Warren would have been able to do that."
When asked whether or not he opposed changing Senate rules to block Democratic filibusters of Bush's court nominees, Specter responded that, "I think it would be an abrupt change that would cause problems with the Senate and the committee."
He also said that, while he thought the Patriot Act should be renewed, certain provisions ought to be changed or at least reviewed.
"I think that getting access to private records like library books without the traditional showing of probable cause needs to be reexamined. People on both right and left agree that there are civil liberties questions involved."
All in all, Arlen Specter seems like just the kind of level-headed moderate that a body like the Senate Judiciary Committee needs in hese crazy and frightening times.

Terri Schiavo Case Goes to Federal Court: Congress Pushes Legislation in Bold and Controversial Move

2005-03-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

March 8(21), 2005

In a landmark legislative decision, Congress met last night to pass an emergency bill forcing Terri Schiavo's case to the federal courts. Members of Congress flew back to Washginton from all over the country on Palm Sunday to vote on the measure late in the night, and President Bush himself took a jet to the White House, leaving his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
To counter claims that the passage of the bill could have longterm effects on the American legal system by setting the precedent of Congress intervening in private family affairs, members who backed the legislation said that the bill had been crafted specifically to accomodate the Schiavo family and that it would have no widespread implications. And in that very explanation lies the problem; it is illegal in this country to create laws dealing with specific people. Governor Jeb Bush of Florida found that out just a short while ago, when his own effort to maintain Mrs. Schiavo's life support, called, "Terri's Law," was struck down by the Florida Supreme Court as being unconstitutional. Following that decision, Terri's feeding tube was removed, prompting last night's legislative session.
The Florida Supreme Court's conclusion will undoubtedly be considered by the federal judge now ruling in the case. The federal law signed by President Bush in the late hours of the night on Sunday treds constitutional ground that is shaky at best. The United States Congress is a debative, legislative body. It is almost unheard of that such a body would overturn a judicial decision from a court as distinguished as the Florida Supreme Court. Based on those grounds, the law could be found unconstitutional, which would essentially guarantee that Mrs. Shiavo's current condition (without her feeding tube) would remain in place until it effected her death.
Most important to the case, however, is the question of Terri's rights. Her husband (and others, many of them Democrats) have argued for her right to die. Mr. Schiavo has repeated said that his wife would not have wanted to live out her life under such circumstances as she now finds herself. Indeed, if it was Terri's wish to die, she should absolutely be allowed to in accordance with her desires. Congress has no right, no place at all, in infringing on a citizen's personal ability to choose whether or not they are kept alive through extraordinary means.
Conservatives have pointed out that Mrs. Schiavo did not have a living will, and have asked that a person's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be remembered. Terri's life cannot be ended, they say, unless she has had due process. Unfortunately for Republicans who would see Mrs. Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted, it is likely that any federal judge would find the media and judicial circus that has surrounded the case due process enough.
And the case is further marred by the growing body of evidence suggesting that many of the Republicans voting for the measure have been motivated by political goals. A number of Republicans have gone out of their way to designate themselves as, "pro-life," as opposed to the Democrats, who, it is insinuated, are anti-life or some other rubbish. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has remained virutally hidden from the media following rising concern over his ethical conduct, is suddenly front and center, slamming Democrats as those who voted to, "kill Terri Shiavo," and allow her, "to die of thirst."
Representative Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat who went against party lines to vote for the measure, was moved to remark that, "We are all pro-life." He went on to say that he was upset by the comments of many Republicans.
An internal Republican memo that leaked to the press certainly hasn't helped matters. The memo said that Republicans should support the Shiavo measure because, "the prolife base will be excited and this is a tough issue for Democrats." The fact that this helpless woman's life (or death) is being used to energize a political constituency is callous, to say the very least. While Robert Novak, the cohost of CNN's, "Crossfire," remarked that Democrats came out of the conflict looking, "legalistic," a number of people seemed to disagree with him. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, said that Republicans were voting solely with, "the upcoming election in mind." He also remarked that religion had nothing to do with the reasons behind the votes. Certainly, the right wing's blatant exploitation of this very personal case has disgusted many, including, it seems, the American public.
An ABC poll conducted yesterday found that 60% of the public was against the legislation, 75% felt that Congress's intervention was inappropriate, and 67% believed that the Republicans were politicking. Less than 20% believed that the Congress Republicans genuinely cared for Mrs. Shiavo's welfare.
In the end, it is what Mrs. Schiavo (or anyone else in her condition) would have wanted that should count. If someone chooses to stay on life support, that wish should be carried out. Similarly, anyone who would not want to be kept alive in such a manner should be allowed to die peacefully. An overwhelming majority of the American public (75%) say that they would prefer death to life maintained by extraordinary means.
The conservatives do have one thing right, though; the way in which these deaths are facilitated is terrible. None among us would choose to starve to death, but that is the fate that invariably awaits Mrs. Schiavo, should it be found that it was her will to die. In the future, those who express a clear desire to die rather than live off of a machine should be able to pass on in a quick and painless fashion. Should it be in their will, a person choosing death over life support should be euthanized, not starved. Euthanization of irreversibly damaged patients, those people who will never live independent of a machine, is an option that needs to be made available to those who wish to take it.

Why ConservativeDemocratNews is Here

2005-03-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

The primary purpose of the site is to report the political news of the day. Above all, as the title implies, ConservativeDemocratNews is a news organization that relays the latest Washington developments to readers across the country who care to listen. This news will be delivered specifically to an audience of conservative Democrats.
And what is truly significant is not what is reported, but who is reading it. For political stories come a dime a dozen and a dozen a day, but the conservative Democratic base is constant and an overwhelming force of good in our country. We are the group that you don't hear about in the press, the significant majority of our party that is skipped over by Republicans wishing to paint us all as dangerous radicals who would overthrow all legitimate order.
Indeed, we desire nothing of the kind. We are mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts. We are men and women who love our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, who would die to protect our children, who are fiercely devoted to our spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, and significant others. We are good, kind, hardworking, and honest people. We are Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Barbara Boxer. We are disgusted by the disenfranchisement of our fellow citizens, horrified at an administration that lies to its people, and deeply saddened by a democratic system that has been unspeakably violated in two highly questionable elections.
We do not want to abolish marriage, legalize public prostitution, kill babies, advocate treason, or institute communism, despite Republican claims to the contrary. We cherish the home and the family as much as we cherish protecting the environment, maintaining Congressional and executive ethics, and making sure that not one American soldier ever has to die in vain.
We are the massive bulk, the rock of the Democratic party. We wring our hands as we watch daily reports of boys as young as eighteen being brutally murdered in a faraway desert, for no other reason than so Halliburton executives can take home a bigger paycheck. We fight valliantly to protect our planet against indutrialized encroachments against it, so that our children and grandchildren might have a safe and healthy Earth on which to live, that they might be able to breathe in good country air and watch the sun set over a western horizon. We fume when we hear Republicans talk about the, "godless party," while extolling their own moral values. We go to church and pray for our loved ones, who, because they are stricken with Alzheimer's, can no longer recognize us. We hope that one day stem cell research will be able to save them, to restore what's been so tragically lost.
And we wish, every single day, that our country may be delievered safely through the tumultuous times that it now sees. The Clinton years now seem like a faraway dreamworld. The economy was booming, the environment was under adequate protection, social security was still a given, and terrorism was a foreign nightmare, something that never intruded on our lives.
Things have changed. We live in a different reality now, one in which the president of the United States is not the legitimately elected leader of the people, one in which nothing is certain and everything seems to be in an awful, terrible mess. We love our soldiers. We want them to come home. During these troubles, we lean heavily on God and on our Christian faith. It is our love of America, our love of God, our love of our neighbors, and our love of the family members with whom we sit down to dinner every night that has facilitated the creation of this site. The life and the liberty that we hold so dear is slipping. An immoral, frightening group of men have succeeded in transforming us, in the public eye, into traitorous atheists. Because of this, many feel alienated from the Democratic Party. But we are still here, the same as we always were. People have just had a hard time seeing our true side. Well, this is it. This is reality, this is the actual Democratic party, not what the Republicans in power have told you about. So read on, step into this world. Whether you're a Democrat, a Republican, black, white, Hispanic, or Asian, maybe you'll see that we're a lot more alike than you ever would have thought.

ConservativeDemocratNews is Online

2005-03-20T15:38:00.000-08:00

March 7(20), 2005
ConservativeDemocratNews is online and will soon begin posting stories.