In a Washington Post article on the "spiritual struggle" of Democrats (about which more later), Jim VandeHei quotes the DLC's Ed Kilgore on the importance of religious language: "Natural use of scriptural language and allegories connects with people of faith," Kilgore said. A week earlier, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in occupied Iraq, provided a fine example of how not to do this. In response to the latest audio tape purportedly carrying a message in the voice of... Read more
It's sleazy — but is it illegal? Friend of mine works for a large corporation, the identity of which I will delicately avoid mentioning. Like most big corporations, they offer a decent benefits package. And like most big corporations, they can be incredibly miserly. The company policy is that anyone who works at least 21 hours a week qualifies for benefits. My friend works four days a week — 28 hours. But she doesn't get benefits. Her human resources office... Read more
Ten easy steps to change the world 1. Go to http://www.fec.gov/votregis/pdf/nvra.pdf and print out pages 2-5. (This is a .pdf file, page numbers refer to the Acrobat reader pages.) 2. Scroll down to locate the specific voter registration instructions for your state. Print the page listing the instructions for your state. (State-by-state instructions are listed in pages 8-32.) 3. Go to Kinkos or go to work and wait for the boss to leave. Make one double-sided copy with the registration... Read more
Ethanol, the gasoline substitute produced from corn or wheat, seems to be an outlandish boondoggle. While promoted as a clean, efficient source of energy, it seems in fact to be a colossal waste of energy and a massive source of air and water pollution. Ethanol exists only because of taxpayer subsidies. It is a purely political creation — something no market would ever demand or sustain. To produce ethanol, you have to grow corn. A lot of corn. And the... Read more
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reminds us, in The Los Angeles Times, that President Bush's environmental record is a disaster. I've rearrayed some of RFK's main point in a numbered list: 1. American waterways are getting dirtier… for the first time since passage of the Clean Water Act; 2. Administration policies have driven automobile fuel efficiencies to their lowest levels in decades. 3. Superfund cleanups for millions of Americans in tainted communities have been halted … 4. Any prospect of dealing... Read more
I draw your attention to this local story from The News Journal (Del.) to highlight one particular detail. It seems a routine story of run-of-the-mill small-time political corruption. A local builder admits having paid $5,000 to a county councilman to ensure the approval of a new housing development. Confronted with the evidence, the councilman cuts a deal with prosecutors and admits to receiving $4,400. Did you catch that? What happened to the other $600? Apparently the going rate for a... Read more
Delaware, a state with a population smaller than that of nearby Baltimore, is in somewhat better fiscal health than most states. This is mainly due to the First State's position as the whore of corporate America. The old system of kickbacks for irresponsible incorporation is now a slightly more legitimate system of corporate taxes and fees that helps to keep Dover in the black. Thanks to this unique source of revenue, Delaware is in much better shape than its neighbors... Read more
Via the Sideshow I read Dave Neiwert's detailed analysis of the right-wing funding behind groups like the Institute on Religion and Democracy. So IRD has resurfaced and reinvented itself yet again, this time around hoping to ride the media wave of the backlash against the consecration of an openly gay Episcopal bishop. IRD has a history that ought not to be forgotten. It's most disastrous accomplishment came in the mid-1980s, when Dianne Knippers — now the group's president — was... Read more
"Did you treat Kermit the Frog like this when he was on your show?" Triumph the Insult Comic Dog asked NPR's Terry Gross last Thursday on "Fresh Air." After Gross suggested that his use of the word "bitch" was controversial, Triumph went off on an extended spoof of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's infamously scripted "outburst" on the show. I can't get the audio to work at the NPR site, but hopefully you'll have better luck with that so you... Read more
Jim Rutenberg reports in The New York Times on an upcoming Republican TV ad which attempts to portray President Bush as a bold fighter against terrorism, and thus any who would oppose him/criticize him/run against him as spineless, weak, pro-terrorist, etc. The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the... Read more
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