Garance Franke-Ruta of the American Prospect’s weblog misunderstands David Brooks’ New York Times column on the Iraq surge. Here’s Ms. Franke-Ruta’s criticism of Brooks first…
I had to read this column a couple of times before I could get what exactly David Brooks was trying to say, but as far as I can make out he’s mad at the Democrats for not having yet figured out a way to save America from Bush’s lies and folly, despite the fact that the president ignores everything they and many members of his own party say. Brooks is also mad at Democrats for not coming up with a strategy for staying in Iraq that’s different from the president’s strategy for staying in Iraq, when that’s not, in fact, what they want to do.But Brooks does not criticize Democrats for not coming up with an alternative plan for staying, he criticizes them for not presenting a convincing plan for withdrawing…
The liberals who favor quick exit never grappled with the consequences of that policy, which the Baker-Hamilton commission terrifyingly described. The centrists who believe in gradual withdrawal never explained why that wouldn’t be like pulling a tooth slowly. Sen. Joe Biden, who has the most intellectually serious framework for dealing with Iraq, was busy Wednesday, at the crucial decision-making moment, conducting preliminary fact-finding hearings, complete with forays into Iraqi history.But the case for withdrawal is prima facie convincing, you say? Then why haven’t the Democrats convinced themselves of it yet? If withdrawing from Iraq is what the Democrats want to do, as Ms. Franke-Ruta implies, then why haven’t they re-introduced the Kerry or Reed-Levin amendments or, even more directly, rescinded the authorization to use military force in Iraq, now that they control the Congress?
It is fair to characterize the position of many anti-war Democrats within government as wanting to create conditions that will force the US to surrender in Iraq, but take no responsibility for it, and that is the position that is bothering David Brooks. [Open full post]
Here are few notes on Marc’s earlier post on Senate Democrats trying to kill the earmark reforms passed by the House of Representatives. Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse both voted against the reform package.
It appears that Senator Whitehouse, as feared, sees himself less as a representative of the views of ordinary Rhode Islanders, and more as a Rhode Islander whose job is to go-along-to-get along with the elite governing culture in Washington D.C.
Senators James Webb and John Tester voted in favor of serious earmark reform, so the vote was not simply a matter of freshmen Senators having to obey the established party leadership. Maybe there really is something to the idea of the new Democrats being more conservative than the old-guard of the party. And if I wasn’t voluntarily embargoing any commentary about the 2008 Presidential election until June, I would note that Barack Obama voted in favor of earmark reform, while Hillary Clinton did not. (New Democrats being more conservative than old-line leadership again?)
UPDATE:
The strong version of earmark reform has been approved, so the paragraph below no longer applies. Details available in Marc’s post immediately below.
{Be aware: the new disclosure rules have not passed the Senate yet; the vote taken yesterday was only on whether to table a final vote on the reform or not. Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid is going to try to offer an alternative proposal, which according to Senator Tom Coburn (via the Associated Press), would have required full disclosure on only 534 of the 12,852 earmarks in Senate bills last year.}
Ah yes, see how much has changed! Looks like the House Democrats earmark reform bill is being supported by most Senate Republicans and a few Democrats….but the heartiest opposition is being put up by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (via Glenn Reynolds). TPM Muckraker has one report and Andy Roth at the Club For Growth kept a running commentary on the goings on. Roth also posted a follow-up, which included this bit:
Senator Jim DeMint offered strong reform to the most egregious spending abuses in Congress-a proposal that was sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and that passed the House just last week. After trying, and failing, to kill the DeMint proposal, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senator Ted Kennedy and other Democrats used stall tactics to delay a final vote. Ultimately, the Senate was forced to postpone it.
I had heard that some local “new media” outlets sympathetic to the Democrats were starting up some countdown or something to track all of the “change” that was going to happen. (Funny, I checked them out and haven’t seen anything about this yet. Maybe they’ll get around to it. That is, of course, once they work out how to frame it as a positive for “their side.”)
Which gives me an opportunity to offer a little advice for those new to the porkbusting/earmark reform movement in particular. You’re either “all in” by going after anyone of either party who is a roadblock to said reform or you’re not “in” at all. That means that you really, truly have to hold people accountable, even if, you know, you really, really like them, and all. So, yes, you actually have to put the pom-poms down every once in a while and throw a “boo” and “hiss” their way. Or you can just keep being a Party cheerleader.
Then, of course, maybe some Democrats supported earmark reform only because it was the GOP running Congress, right? Nah…..couldn’t be that.
UPDATE: Looks like Senator Reid has acquiesced (via CFG quoting a Congressional Quarterly $$ article):
After losing a critical floor vote Thursday and scrambling in vain to reverse the decision, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., found the spirit of bipartisan compromise more to his liking Friday morning.
Reid offered an olive branch to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., agreeing to embrace his amendment to a pending ethics and lobbying overhaul (S 1) with some modifications. DeMint’s amendment, which Democratic leaders tried but failed to kill on Thursday, would expand the definition of member earmarks that would be subject to new disclosure rules.
[…] Reid admitted Friday that he was caught off guard when nine Democrats and independent Joseph I. Lieberman voted against his motion to table, or kill, the DeMint amendment. His effort failed, 46-51.
[…] Friday morning, a chastened Reid said, “Yesterday was a rather difficult day, as some days are. We tend to get in a hurry around here sometimes when we shouldn’t be. Personally, for the majority, we probably could have done a little better job.”
DeMint, who was flabbergasted Thursday by Reid’s maneuvering to change the outcome of the vote, was happy to accept the compromise Friday.
“DeMint has been happy to work to come to a bipartisan compromise that solidifies the reforms done by [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] and House Democrats,” said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton.
Congrats to those on the left, right and center who held Reid’s feet to the fire. Maybe next time, when such hypocrisy becomes readily apparent, even more folks from across the political spectrum will chime in!
[Open full post]Commenter “Greg”, in his inimitably direct (and sometimes frightening) over-the-top style, posed this question about the Providence Phoenix last week…
I don’t understand why this site gives that oversized porn and pot advertisement this much ink.An answer can be found in this week’s Phoenix, where Ian Donnis goes a little further than the rest of the MSM in reporting an important detail about the opening of the 2007 session of the General Assembly…
During the opening day of the House session, Representative Carol Mumford (R-Scituate) offered a poetic ode to Rhode Island politics, saying, “Sometimes it’s a contact sport, sometimes it’s a blood sport, but it’s our sport — and we love it.” But when she then nominated House Minority Leader Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich) for speaker, Watson promptly withdrew his name.The problem with Minority Leader Watson’s answer is that numbers have done the talking in every General Assembly session since at least World War II, yet the Republicans have at least most of the time managed to put up a candidate for speaker. If the party cannot organize themselves for the first, simple, predictable vote of a legislative session, how can they be expected to organize themselves in a way that will have any impact on real legislation?
Asked whether he did this because of concerns that some Republican representatives might have voted for Murphy, Watson parses the question, saying the GOP decided to send “a cooperative signal.” He adds: “That is not to say that Republicans wouldn’t prefer a Republican speaker, but the numbers do the talking.”
And how in good faith can the state GOP ask candidates to run against incumbent Democratic legislators, while at the same time their leader in the legislature isn’t willing to put his name forward in a contest that takes no effort and costs him nothing?
(One other note for Greg. Anchor Rising is a blog. We don’t give anyone ink. We give them electrons.) [Open full post]
1. In case you missed it in the MSM reporting, there is a definite timetable in the President’s Iraq speech…
To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November.This implies that the President is counting on Iraqi army and national police force training to be completed in a little under a year.
2. To achieve the training goal, the President is ordering an increase in the number of American advisers embedded directly into Iraqi units…
In keeping with the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, we will increase the embedding of American advisers in Iraqi Army units, and partner a coalition brigade with every Iraqi Army division. We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped army, and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.I know of at least one respected military affairs analyst (Barry McCaffrey) who thinks an effective Iraqi army can be built up an in about a year, but that it should be done with fewer but more specialized advisers than we are currently using. I know of another respected military affairs analyst (Eliot Cohen) who thinks that increasing the number of advisers is a necessary step forward in building up effective Iraqi forces. Obviously, President Bush has chosen the path suggested by Cohen.
3. The goal in building up the national Iraqi army, beyond the obvious goal of creating a force that can provide physical security, is to create a powerful, respected and even feared institution within Iraq that possesses a truly national identity…
The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.The subtext here is that it’s time to give up on the existing local police forces, who have demonstrated that they can’t really be counted on to do anything useful, and probably make the situation worse, and place primary responsibility for local policing in the hands of the national government.
The premise is that stability can only come to Iraq when a national army or national police force capable of instilling a sense of discipline and professionalism and national (versus sectarian) pride into its members becomes the institution that attracts the best, most motivated potential soldiers from the pool of Iraqi males. Right now, that’s not happening. Too many young Iraqi men find joining a local militia or working with a foreign terror cell more rewarding than working with the national government. The President is gambling that the beginnings of an Iraqi national army/national police force that commands more respect than Iraq’s sectarian militias and attracts more and better recruits than the militias can be created in under a year, despite everything that has gone wrong over the past three years.
Like many others, my impression of the President’s speech is that is was actually pretty good (not great), but would have been even better if delivered two or three years ago. [Open full post]
Like Rich Lowry, I think that the President’s new Iraq plan (“the Surge”) is “better late than never.” And that applies to more than just changes in the military operations side of things and includes such “hearts and minds” actions as giving ground commanders more walking around money and the implementation of an Iraq Oil Trust (a Glenn Reynolds favorite). Ralph Peters, a frequent critic of the way that the Iraq war has been waged, is willing to give the new plan a chance. In particular, he points to signs that, finally, Iraq President Maliki may be serious about the bi-partisan militia disarmament (ie; even Shia militias, like that of Maliki’s fellow Shia Moqtada Al Sadr, will be told to disarm or else). But Peters warns that there are more obstacles to winning than just the militias, insurgents and terrorists:
And there’s going to be another major problem that will require great fortitude on the president’s part: Destructive fighting lies ahead in Baghdad, and the international media is going to blame us for every broken window and every Iraqi with photogenic wounds. We’ll be accused of atrocities and wanton destruction, and the press corps will trot out the Vietnam-era cliché about “destroying the village in order to save it.”
Our troops can stand up to any enemy. But I’m not as certain President Bush can withstand the onslaught of an enraged media – and any prospect that we might be turning the situation around will certainly enrage them. Media pressure will work through our allies, too.
Senator Joe Lieberman supports the President’s new plan as does Rudy Giulianni. Both called on a scaling back of the partisan bickering that has so characterized the Iraq War, with Giulianni stating, “Success or failure in Iraq is not a matter of partisan politics but a matter of national security. All Americans should be hoping, praying and offering constructive advice for the success of our troops in Iraq and for those Iraqis seeking to create a stable and decent government,” and Senator Lieberman writing:
I know there are deep differences of opinion about what the President has proposed tonight. In the coming days and weeks, we should undertake respectful debate and deliberation over this new plan. But, let us also remember that excessive partisan division and rancor at home only weakens our will to prevail in this war…At the moment, we and our Iraqi allies are not winning in Iraq and the American people are understandably frustrated by the miscalculations, the lack of progress, and the daily scenes of violence and casualties. But, make no mistake – defeat in Iraq would result in a moral and strategic setback in our global struggle against Islamist extremists who seek to strike our interests and our homeland…
Tonight, the President did not take the easy path, but he took the correct and courageous course. We are engaged in a world-wide struggle against Islamist extremism, and Iraq is now the central front. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that we can depart Iraq and the inevitable killing fields and terrorist violence will not follow us in retreat – even to our own shores. That is why it is right and imperative that we recommit ourselves to success in Iraq. Weakness only emboldens our enemy, but united resolution will make our nation safer for generations to come.”
Yet, unsurprisingly, Democrats (and some Republicans) plan to oppose the plan, many for mainly partisan reasons. Yes, many Democrats believe it’s time to pull out and let Iraq stand on its own. Sounds good, and I wish it were true, but I don’t think that anyone really believes that the Iraq military or government is up to the task quite yet. Unfortunately, mostly the Democrats seem to want to “criticize Bush without taking any responsibility” as the Wall Street Journal writes today (via NLT).
So the Democrats want the political mileage of opposing the troop increase rhetorically. What they don’t want is to take responsibility for their own policy choice. Meanwhile, their rhetoric will only serve to reassure the jihadis that sooner or later Democrats will force a U.S. withdrawal.
And Victor Davis Hanson adds:
After listening tonight to Wesley Clark, Dick Durbin, Tom Vilsack, Nancy Pelosi, etc. I still can’t for the life of me learn what they want to do. Not one will support Ted Kennedy’s cut-off of funds. Apparently the party line is that we can’t win, but we’re afraid to pull out in case we do, and so we will equivocate as we watch the battlefield and make the necessary rhetorical adjustments just in time. Just what we saw in the past Reid/Biden/etc. call for the surge, then huff/puff when they got their wish. Apparently the shame of 1974-5 cut-offs apparently still haunt the entire party.
And much of the Democrat (and some Republican) carping may be because so many are trying to position (insulate?) themselves for their 2008 political campaigns (Presidential and other).
But what Mr. Bush didn’t refer to in his 2,900-word speech is what the media have been chewing on the past several days: the political implications of this proposal here at home.
First off, polls showed that the wave that washed the congressional Democrats into power was due in large part to the war in Iraq. In response, Democrats will be holding week after week of hearings on the war.
Democrats also been mulling over legislation that would actually have some teeth — from threats to cut funding for more troops to an idea that Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy proposed Tuesday: forcing a congressional vote any time the president wants to increase the number of troops.
That’s easier said than done, however. So in the meantime, the newly emboldened Dems are eager to get Republicans on the record on Iraq, not just to have the upper hand now — but for the next election as well.
For instance, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated he’s going to bring a non-binding resolution to the floor next week that says the Senate disagrees with sending more troops to Iraq. If it’s non-binding, what’s the point?
“If there is a bipartisan resolution saying, ‘We don’t support this escalation of the war,’ then the president’s going to have to take note of that,” Reid told reporters.
That’s one reason. But it will also put the 21 Republican senators who are up for re-election in 2008 on the spot, giving those who vote against it an opening for their opponents next year.
In fact, four of those senators are on the record already saying they’re not fans of the troop increase: Sens. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Gordon Smith, R-Ore.; and John Warner, R-Va.
The ripple effect of the president’s proposal is also evident in the nascent 2008 presidential race, with the liberal group MoveOn.org going as far as running a TV ad in Iowa and New Hampshire next week against yet-to-announce candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz…Meanwhile, the Democratic candidates and candidates-to-be have been trying to out-sound bite each other with criticism of the Bush plan.
Former Sen. John Edwards has even gone so far to label the president’s plan “the McCain Doctrine” — a dig at the presumed Republican front-runner.
So I’m left to believe that, for too many politicians, even during war, it’s just “politics as usual.” The President may have a new plan, but the Democrats are still reading from their Election-winning script–move the goalposts and carp at every move and look for any partisan political edge they can get–and some nervous Republicans are running for political cover instead of supporting the President.
Again, I say this because I have yet to see a clear, realistic, alternative plan from the naysayers. The President went out of his way to listen to “all sides,” and still it’s not enough. But now we have the final surge and the President is staking his legacy on its success. This is a last chance for Maliki and the Iraqi’s to put up or shut up. If they fail then Iraq will be a weakened, near-failed state ripe for exploitation by radical jihadists. Failure in Iraq will endanger our own security, whether people want to put their head in the sand and ignore it or not. Hyperbole? No. The situation has happened before. Remember Afghanistan?
Via NRO:
The president’s speech was adequate. He said the right things. The question of course is whether or not the plan he outlined can be implemented.
In terms of substance, the president’s plan is not so much a true innovation as an adaptation to the changing circumstances in Iraq. Until February of last year, our operational strategy in Iraq — “clear, hold, build” — seemed to be working, because the main problem in Iraq was the Sunni insurgency centered in al Anbar.
But when Sunni extremists destroyed the Shia mosque in Sammarah, sectarian violence exploded, especially in Baghdad. American and Iraqi troops had to redeploy to confront the new threat, and in doing so, the gains that had been achieved in the war against the Sunni insurgents were lost.
The plan outlined last night is a response to these changing conditions. The main reason for the so-called surge is to provide enough troops to provide security for Baghdad while regaining the initiative against the Sunni in al Anbar.
Will it work? That depends on two factors: the Iraqi government and the Congress. The fact is that most deaths in Iraq today are the result of attacks by Shia militias against Sunnis. But until now, these Shia militias have been off-limits. That has to change, and President Bush put Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on notice that this is the case.
Congress is another matter. The Democrats, who would rather see Bush lose than the United States win, can be expected to make life miserable for the president and his approach. Hopefully, the Democratic majority will limit itself to rhetorical opposition, since they have no alternative except withdrawal and defeat. The worst case would be for the Democrats to do what a precious Democratic majority did: cut off funding for the war and leave the Iraqi people to the tender mercies of both Sunni and Shia extremists.
We can only hope that they will be deterred by the recognition that our abandonment of South Vietnam remains the single most shameful act in the history of U.S. foreign policy. So success will depend on whether or not shame is a part of the makeup of the new congressional majority.
The Congress shall have power…To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years; To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces…
— Constitution of the United States of America; Article I, Section 8
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States…In a televised address to the nation tonight, President George W. Bush is expected to call for a “surge” of troops into Iraq. Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, among others, opposes a surge, and wants Congress to pass legislation forbidding any increase in troop levels in Iraq. Our nation is about to embark on what could become a very contentious debate concerning the degree to which Congress can make tactical military decisions once a shooting war is underway.— Constitution of the United States of America; Article II, Section 2
1. Let’s dispose of two extreme poles right away. By the letter of the Constitution and by custom, Congress has the power to do more than simply fund the military and declare war. Consider for example, issues like base-closings or weapons-system acquisition. Congress has never in history said to the executive branch, here’s the money for the army, spend it any way you want. But there are limits to how far Congress can use its power “to make rules for the regulation of land and naval forces”. Does anyone think that Congress had a legitimate right to say in 1944, “We don’t think that landing you’re planning for Omaha beach this week is a good idea; the weather is too bad, so we’re cutting off funds for any operations except a landing at Utah beach next week”? Commander-in-Chief is more than a ceremonial title.
2. However much latitude the President has to act in his role as Commander-in-Chief during peacetime, he has even more during a declared war. That’s part of what a declaration of war fundamentally is, a broad grant of authority from Congress to the President, instructing him to use all resources available to defeat a foreign enemy, hopefully as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This separation between who declares a war and who carries it out is part of the genius of the American constitutional system. The Founders designed most government processes not to be efficient, but to slow things down. However, the Founders also realized that there would be circumstances — most notably confronting violent foreign powers — when decisions would have to be made faster than the deliberative process of Congress would allow. So they created a mechanism (the declaration of war) by which Congress could temporarily increase the power of the executive and made it clear (by designating the President Commander-in-Chief) that the executive was solely responsible for certain decisions until the war was done.
3. Furthermore, the Iraq War Resolution of 2002 explicitly gave the President wide latitude in prosecuting a war in Iraq…
The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and Appropriate in order to–4. Trying to limit troops now would seem to be in contravention of the broad grant of power that Congress already gave the President in 2002. Can Congress contradict itself like that? Legalistically, yes. They only need to write one of those “notwithstanding any other legislation” clauses into a future bill that limits troop deployment or funding.
(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
5. More importantly, the Iraq war resolution can be overridden by subsequent legislation because an “authorization to use military force” is something less than a full-out declaration of war. Congress cannot simply undeclare a war after declaring one. Wars can only end when both sides mutually agree to stop fighting, sometimes with one side surrendering to the other. The same is not true of an “authorization to use force”. An authorization to use military force can be rescinded without a surrender occurring or a treaty being signed.
6. This is good news for the anti-war folks. The distinction between a declaration of war and an authorization to use military force gives them the out they are looking for. The anti-war crowd wants to force what is in effect a surrender, but not accept responsibility for it. Because war was never formally declared, at least in a legal sense, that is an option. Without doubt, Congress has the authority to rescind the authorization to use force, without having to deal with the other side in the conflict. That’s why a proposal like the Reed-Levin proposal, which seeks not to place limits on achieving an objective, but to change the objective, has never been controversial on Constitutional grounds
7. But while the authorization to use force against Iraq remains in effect, Congress is on shaky ground, both legally and morally, trying to make tactical decisions about how to prosecute it. Congress’ power to declare war and to regulate land and naval forces was not intended to allow Congress to send troops into combat, then deny them certain options, even if conditions change. For the reasons outlined in point 2, the Constitution specifically places decisions about prosecuting a war outside the reach of Congress, and in the hands of a Commander-in-Chief in the executive branch who can (and is expected to) react more quickly.
Within our American Constitutional system, the legal and moral course for anti-war Democrats in Congress to pursue is ending the war, i.e. rescinding the authorization to use force against Iraq, and not to pursue measures that allow the war continue but might make it unwinnable. [Open full post]
So, the 100 Hours continue and Speaker Pelosi has gotten her 9/11 Commission legislation through. And though some may think that every one of the 9/11 Commission prescriptions were included (the necessity or wisdom of implementing them all is another discussion), apparently, that’s really not the case (via The Corner).
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who held a hearing Tuesday as the Senate prepared for its version of this bill, noted that one major recommendation — not in the House measure — was strengthening Congressional oversight of intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. “We found it a lot easier to reform the rest of the government than we did to reform ourselves post-9/11,” Mr. Lieberman said. “That’s unfinished work.”
The relevant portion of the 9/11 Report to which Lieberman refers begins here (and I’ve excerpted it in full in the extended entry, below.
Finally, Speaker Pelosi’s 9/11 Commission Legislation contains language making it possible for the federal employees of the TSA to unionize.
The 9/11 commission did not address union rights or personnel rules but urged improvements in airport screening operations. AFGE [American Federation of Government Employees] maintains that collective bargaining rights help smooth agency operations because labor-management contracts provide a structure for addressing employee issues, including job performance.
Peter Winch, an organizer with AFGE, said the union had asked Democrats to put bargaining rights for TSA screeners “on the agenda for the first 100 hours.” He continued, “It does not make sense to keep these employees from collective bargaining rights when other Department of Homeland Security employees have those rights.”
The TSA has said that collective bargaining is not appropriate for airport passenger and baggage screeners because of their national security mission and because the agency requires the ability to make personnel staffing changes rapidly in response to threats. In the law creating the TSA, Congress left it to the Bush administration to determine such issues as union rights for screeners.
The Bush Administration also provided an example:
As an example, officials pointed to the foiled United Kingdom airline bombing plot in August, when new procedures for screeners were put into place immediately.
“This flexibility is a key component of how the Department of Homeland Security, through TSA, protects Americans while they travel,” the statement said.
Then there is this point made by Senator Joseph Lieberman’s office:
“Other security personnel like customs agents and the Border Patrol have the right to collective bargaining, and that has not impaired their ability to protect American security.”
OK, fine. But isn’t this really just an “earmark” by another name? The original legislation that allowed this potential TSA unionization had previously stalled in committee (granted, GOP controlled congress) and NONE of this 100 hour legislation is being debated in–or passed through–committee. Heck, to the victor go the spoils and all that, but for the Democrat led Congress to reward one of their key constituencies–a federal employee union–under the cover of national security smells like business as usual to me.
[Open full post]
An unsigned editorial on thephoenix.com (from which I’ve borrowed that picture) takes the oh-so-tolerant position that disagreement with its opposition to allowing Massachusetts’ citizens to vote on same-sex marriage is simply ugly bigotry:
Bigot is, to be sure, a nasty name. But what would you call someone who denied women or blacks the right to vote? Or said to women and African-Americans, or even to recently naturalized citizens, that, sure, you can vote, but your vote will count as only a fraction of that of a man or white people or those born in this nation. That is the difference between supporting civil unions or full marriage rights.
All these years of arguing this issue, and I continue to be flabbergasted by the nonchalance of (on average) wealthy white liberals as they manacle their fashionable crusade for gay marriage to the true horrors of racial discrimination. Have they no shame? Have they no twang of conscience whispering in their “cannot stop the march of time” ears that they are betraying to all who care to observe that their obsession with the white hood is not a legitimate fear, but a fetish? How gladly they’ll don it, if given the excuse.
[Open full post]