Rogue headline: Banana slips out of prison. Link from Kevin W. W
Assuming you "lean more left than right," John offers a thoughtful perspective on how to deal with the next eight years.
I think the Bush administration, consciously or not, has engaged the people who hold opposing views in a rope-a-dope, encouraging them to exhaust themselves and their compatriots, to recklessly burn political capital and accumulated favors, and to gain a reputation for reflexively reacting in a negative fashion to every action of the administration.
John intends to keep his power dry, and look for the whites of their eyes. W
Ashcroft confirmed as Attorney General, Democrites declare victory.
Well, there it was: 12 days and a couple of hours into the new Bush Administration it was handed its first major defeat when the U.S. Senate confirmed John Ashcroft to be Attorney-General.
Now, if the Dems really believed what they said about Ashcroft being unacceptable for the post, why did they back down on the filibuster? Why did they fail to use every weapon at their disposal to block him?
Maybe that 42-vote margin wasn't really the filibuster foundation that Kennedy and Daschle touted it to be. Two possibilities come to find.
First, Senate Democrats really didn't feel that strongly about John Ashcroft but needed to appease the special interest groups that opposed the nomination. Second, Senate Democrats knew that, despite their protestations to the contrary, mainstream America was perfectly happy with the Ashcroft nomination and would not tolerate obstructionist tactics. After all, many of those Democratic Senators come from states who voted for Bush, especially the Great Plains states. Probably some mix of both those factors was at work in the formulation of this stunning Democratic "victory." W
Jason ran into Debb Eaton while he was in Tampa for the SuperBowl. (I'm still unclear on how he gets that gig.) Jason narrowly avoided a marriage proposal since he is apparently unrelated to her in any way. W
Ooooh, Dan is brimming over with righteous anger:
Prove it wasn't the painters. Prove that line was in use the day before. Or shut up about your higher attention to the niceties of law.
As even Dan admits, the only denials from the former Clinton staff focus on the West Wing, while most of the reports of the serious criminal activity emnate from the Old Executive Office Building, just across the parking lot, where most "White House" staffers work.
As far as "prove it" goes, once the Office of Adminsitration completes its survey of the damage, that document will be subject to a FOIA request, and then we'll know exactly how bad it was. And "prove it wasn't the painters?" Well, I suppose they would have to document their work as well, including a damage report if they did anything... so let's add that to the FOIA list too. I'll let you know what I come up with.
By the way, Dan, the column is called Mullings, and the author is Rich Galen. W
Dave Kopel explores the "43-to-1" fallacy of the gun-ban lobby. W
You might think that this remark:
I loved it when we made that football. The Giants had just made a football, and we came right back.
...came from a certain former Texas governor. You'd be wrong. It came from the heir-apparent to the Maryland governorship, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. All you Marylanders who loathe malapropisms, better go vote! W
Quoth John:
[N]one of those things (building power plants included) are the role of the federal government. Check out number 10. It's a little thing called federalism.
Agreed. W
Lyn errs:
Apparently all that whining from the Repugs and their friends in the media about how trailer-trash the Clintons are for taking gifts from their buds as Bill leaves and Hillary takes office is just as hypocritical as most of the other whining that Repugs tend to do.
I haven't heard a single Republican remark on the matter - to the contrary, it was the liberal folks over at the Washington Post who complained the loudest. Even the article Lyn cites clearly says:
No, pundits and reporters were incensed that the president and wife Hillary left the White House with $190,027 worth of personal gifts last year.... But the media's condemnations of the gifts were so swift, so visceral and so personal that they laid bare one last time an unchecked venom many in the political press simply cannot mask. [emphasis mine]
This kind of misrepresentation is what I hope you never see in Medley again. W
Of the 200 groups who lobbied the Senate to deny John Ashcroft's cornfirmation, how many of them did so in violation of Federal law? Mark Levin wants to know. W
Today the Senate confirmed Gale Norton for Secretary of Interior and Christine Todd Whitman for EPA administrator, just as they should have. Whitman breezed by 99-0, and Norton, despite the alarums* sounded by eco-extremists, won solid bipartisan support in her 75-24 approval.
Q: Which clause in the Constitution of the United States contains the famous reference to the separation between church and state?
A: None.
Q: What constitutional provision prohibits the distribution of federal assistance funds to religous groups that provide charitable services?
A: None. W
During a conversation about Steven Spielberg's investiture as a knight, the question arose as to the formal title of a woman invested in a Royal Order - "Dame" - so of course some internet research pulled up The Chivalry FAQ Sheet, an ugly, yet informative site maintained by Lloyd Worley, the Count of Maxalla, of Religious and Military Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. W
Thomas Bray looks at the myth of sprawl:
Never mind that a mere 3% or so of America's 2.3 billion acres, including Alaska, is defined as "developed" in national land surveys. Large numbers of Americans appear seized with fear that the wide open spaces are diminishing--and that America is losing something fundamental to its character.
There are two things Americans hate: sprawl and density. Bray also notes: "The greatest destroyer of family farms and wide open spaces remains not the rapacious developer but the death tax. " Fortunately, help is on the way for that. W
Rogue headline: Banana slips out of prison. Link from Kevin W. W
Lance. Evan. Jason. Jeff Z. Meg. Dineen.
What do all these people have in common? They're panelists at SXSW Interactive 2001 in Austin. Dineen will be part of the final Business panel entitled Post-Napster: The Future of Entertainment Distribution, Tuesday afternoon at 3:30. If you're going to be in Austin, I highly recommend this panel as one you can't miss. W
The Bush administration is looking at some old 19th-century cases to determine if they can undo the pardon for billionaire expat tax-evader Marc Rich. If Mrs. Rich demands the DNC refund her campign contributions, well, that's a double bonus. W
From Jess: I don't know what's scarier, that an Australian couple named their children Kitchen, Bedroom and Garage after the rooms where they were conceived, or that Australian census officals say the names are unlawful: "Sorry, mate, but you've got to pick an approved name. How about Koala or Crocodile?" W
Wanna hear Britney Spears swear up a storm? (As if you haven't already...) W
Tunku Varadarajan on why the White House vandalism rose above mere prankdom to criminality:
But the slashing of phone lines? The gluing shut of desk drawers? The gouging out from keyboards of the W key? The infection of computers with viruses? The redirection of official phone lines, on which the public and government rely? These, I fear, violate the prankster's rulebook. They caused damage; lines, desks, computers and keyboards needed repair and replacement. My money, and yours, was used for this repair.
Most shabby of all, however, was the perpetrators' intent. A true prank--a prank properly defined--is carried out in a jocular spirit. Pranks are escapades, monkeyshines. They're not acts of venom or spite, of resentment or ill-will. If the actor is malefic, he is not a prankster but a vandal. He is, in truth, a delinquent.
I would gently suggest that some liberals who think differently are wrong again. W
The only part of the Superbowl I really enjoyed: the E-Trade ad [warning - live video!] featuring the crying chimp and the imitation Pets.Com sock puppet. That gave me a gut-busting break from scratching my head trying to figure out when the Ravens got so good. W