Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

I suppose that if I were up for reelection in a state where one might find the second busiest train station in all of North America, I would probably think twice about voting against restoring funding to Amtrak. Then again, I suppose I’ll never quite get Rick Santorum.

An effort to defy the White House and back continued subsidies for Amtrak passenger rail service failed in the Senate on Wednesday.

The chamber defeated an amendment to budget legislation proposed by Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, to provide the beleaguered service with $1.4 billion in aid for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The measure failed 52-46.

Now if I were to be so bold as to vote against an amendment to provide funding to Amtrak, and the state I represent in the United states senate happened to house the second busiest train station in North America, I would be damn sure to have some sort of bold, dynamic proposal ready to replace the “beleaguered service” on which so many of my constituents rely. I don’t suppose that Rick Santorum has a proposal of that sort.

I’m not going to pretend that Amtrak doesn’t need serious reform. I’m more than willing to concede that, as currently organized - with rail lines and infrastructure strewn across sparsely populated regions of our country in order to satisfy congressional whims - that Amtrak will never be a profitable enterprise. As if interstate highways will ever be profitable. But what, exactly, is the alternative? Before you allow a service whose service and infrastructure is vital to several of our nation’s largest cities and economies to die, shouldn’t you really have some sort of feasible alternative at hand? This isn’t just Amtrak, it’s SEPTA, New Jersey transit, Metro North, MTA, and any number of other local transit systems who rely heavily on Amtrak’s infrastructure.

[update] Here’s a decent article on Santorum’s sell out and some of the potential fallout for PA. (Via Will Bunch)

A little financial wisdom and foresight from President Bush’s nominee to head the World Bank:

“We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,”

-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testifying before congress on March 27, 2003. He was referring to Iraq.

For reasons yet to be determined, 50 Senate Republicans, including everybody’s favorite dog lover Rick Santorum, voted against this Sense of the Senate Amendment:

It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should reject any Social Security plan that requires deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt.

I wonder if anybody is thinking about gearing up a few campaign commercials about how Senator X voted for deep benefit cuts or a massive increase in debt? I wonder if they were nice enough to giftwrap their votes?

Via Kos

A good rant is like oxygen…a many splendid thing…

Steve Gilliard:

We use our tools against the GOP and will split them and win. The Bible Thumpers will always be with us, and after a while, people get sick of them. They did in the 20’s and they will now. The GOP has one fucking thing holding them together, power. In 2007, a lot of fiscal conserrvatives are going to find their nominess for president are a high grade of wacko, like Rick Santorum. People who are too crazy to win, but because the Jesus freaks control the GOP street game, they will have to decide what to do. Just like we listened to Jim Carville four years too long, the GOP will curse the name of Karl Rove for letting the Jesus freaks think the GOP is God’s Own Party. Personally, I plan on handing them anvils and watching the fucking bubbles hit the surface.

Via Mithras

John Bolton

This Krugman piece is everywhere this morning:

The push to privatize Social Security will probably fail all the same - but such attempts at accommodation may limit the Democrats’ political gain.

Meanwhile, the party missed a big opportunity to make its case against increasing families’ risk by acquiescing to the credit card industry’s demand for harsher bankruptcy laws.

As it happens, Mr. Lieberman stated clearly what was wrong with the bankruptcy bill: “It failed to close troubling loopholes that protect wealthy debtors, and yet it deals harshly with average Americans facing unforeseen medical expenses or a sudden military deployment,” making it unfair to “working Americans who find themselves in dire financial straits through no fault of their own.” A stand against the bill would have merged populism with patriotism, highlighting Democrats’ differences with Republicans’ vision of America.

But many Democrats chose not to take that stand. And Mr. Lieberman was among them: his vote against the bill was an empty gesture. On the only vote that opponents of the bill had a chance of winning - a motion to cut off further discussion - he sided with the credit card companies. To be fair, so did 13 other Democrats. But none of the others tried to have it both ways.

It isn’t always bad politics to say things that aren’t true and claim to support things you actually oppose: just look at who’s running the country. But Democrats who engage in these tactics right now create big problems for a party that has been given a special chance - maybe its last chance - to remind the country of what Democrats stand for, and why.

If you are interested, the Raw Story has a fairly extensive story on Chuck Pennacchio’s Senate candidacy, as well as the recent snubs by The Pennsylvania State Democratic Party, and the AP. It’s still way too early in the game for me to decide on one candidate or the other. I can only hope that there are still at least two candidates on Election Day.

Democratic candidate for the United States Senate from Pennsylvania, Chuck Pennacchio, wrote some interesting comments about the 2006 race in a diary on MyDD. While I have to admit that I’m not so certain about the pro-choice Republcian ticket jumpers Pennacchio describes, I think many of his points are on target. Here’s a little, but it’s well worth reading the whole thing.

In 2000, the Democrats settled on moderate, anti-choice Ron Klink as their candidate to take on Santorum. This aligned very well with the (still-prevailing) conventional wisdom that the Democrats had to move to the center to win a statewide race in Pennsylvania. Ron Klink had slight success at gaining moderate voters in Central PA; however, this was more than offset by the large number of pro-choice voters who did not cast a vote (over half a million more votes were cast in the presidential election than in the Senatorial election), and just as importantly, did not involve themselves in the Klink campaign. Pro-choice women, a major organizational and financial cog of the Democratic party, sat out the race, and the Democrats allowed a radical right-winger to represent them in Washington.

In 2000, a progressive, populist, pro-choice campaign would likely have defeated Rick Santorum. In 2006, it is the only option to defeat Rick Santorum. Unlike 2000, when the presidential election brought voters to the polls (and some pro-choice Democratic voters “held their noses” and voted for Klink), the 2006 Senate race will be the center of attention. Governor Rendell appears ready to coast to victory, and a sizable bloc of Rendell’s support comes from pro-choice Republicans. These are voters who, if given a pro-choice option, would vote against Rick Santorum. They will not jump party lines to support an anti-choice Democrat.

The thing that strikes me most Pennacchio’s post, is his observation that the conventional wisdom within Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment, is that it needs to run a moderate or conservative Democrat (I’d probably add non-Philadelphian as well), in order pick up Rick Santorum’s seat. What many liberal voters are left with, under those circumstances, is the old, unfortunate choice between the lesser of two evils. I think that, unfortunately, Pennacchio is correct in his supposition that a healthy number of liberal Democrats, particularly from the Philadelphia area, will turn out to pull the lever for Rendell, and then not bother with the rest of the ballot, if a social conservative is the Democratic nominee for Senate. If Rendell is far enough ahead in the polls come election day, they probably won’t turn out at all.

I’m not, however, ready to say that I’m unwilling to support or vote for Casey, as he isn’t the nominee and, to my knowledge, hasn’t produced a single policy paper or stated a single position with regards to the upcoming race. I’ll wait until he has, and then make my judgments based those positions. I’m not altogether hopeful.

To his credit, Casey was remarkably successful in his run for the office of Pennsylvania Auditor General, collecting more votes than any other Democratic, statewide candidate in the history of the Commonwealth. No wonder the Pennsylvania Democratic leadership is salivating over the guy. Combine that with the Casey family name, which still resonates with many Pennsylvania voters, particularly in the Scranton area, and he looks like a shoe in.

Unfortunately for Casey, voters do tend to evaluate candidates and issues differently in local and state elections than they do in federal elections. A candidate’s stance on abortion rights, for instance, has very little bearing on the way a person chooses their commonwealth’s Auditor General. That very same issue often does have a great deal of influence on the way that very same person chooses the candidate they want as their U.S. Senator.

Klink’s run against Santorum in 2000 really ought to have been a lesson to Pennsylvania Democrats. A Democratic candidate for Senate is not going to win anything without enthusiastic turnout in Philadelphia and it’s Pennsylvania suburbs. The numbers simply don’t add up otherwise. Needless to say, Klink’s peculiar choice not to run any sort of campaign in Philadelphia probably wasn’t the best choice he ever made. Live and learn. If I recall correctly, I believe I actually did see him once, at a rally for Al Gore at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, standing somewhere behind John Street and any number of other local politicians, on the Sunday before the election. Gore was even nice enough to introduce him, and some people may have even applauded, as it probably seemed like the polite thing to do.

What a disaster. Really, what an awful disaster. Santorum is so far outside of even the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s mainstream, that he should have been toast five years ago. He should be working for some right-wing think tank in his native Virginia, spouting off his special brand of insanity on cable chat shows, and scaring the general public, but as a private citizen right now. The Democratic party, and it’s nominee, had to do everything wrong, and then some, in order to lose that race, and somehow they managed to do it. They did it and they did it with gusto. He should be toast next year as well, but judging from the Democratic Party’s enthusiasm for an uncontested primary, I’m afraid the die has been cast.

Since he’s only been dead for a litte while, I’ll end this mess with a Hunter S. Thompson quote that seems quite appropriate to me right now.

How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to write off as lame but ‘regrettably necessary’ holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 - and as far as I can tell, we’ve gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same.

Yes indeed, I am! Not that I like the idea, but I posted “Bob Casey for U.S. Senator in PA?” on a Yahoo group to which I belong (see previous post on this blog) and boy, howdy, you would have thought I was committing treason.

Maybe I was.

One of the first comments out of the box was “Most. Moronic. Statement. Ever.”

Goodness, gracious.

This person also went on to talk about how bob Casey was a friend of labor — which may be true. And hey, that’s cool.

For real, for real, people, what other folks do in the voting booth is their business. What I do in the voting booth is my business. I never said “Don’t vote Casey.” I simply said “I won’t vote Casey.” Huge difference.

It appears, however, that saying this is just unacceptable. I suppose that if I said “I disagree with the President’s Social Security plan” that would have been okay, or “I refuse to vote for a Republican” that would have been fine, but “I will not vote Casey” will get you tarred and feathered.

The person who called me a moron was not the only one to express extreme displeasure in what I would characterize to be highly personal terms.

So — I posted again, and pointed out their lack of tolerance (not that I expected to change any minds.) I also let them know that additional personal remarks directed my way would result in $1.00 donations to Rick Santorum’s re-election campaign.

I got this back from the person who called me a moron:

“Get ready to donate big bucks to Santorum, A**H*LE! You have the fucking unmitigated gall to talk about “tolerance” after you send an e-mail stating that you don’t care if Santorum wins by one vote? And that one vote was yours? Moron, idiot, naive and stupid are, quite frankly, adjectives that only the “tolerant” would apply. Call me intolerant, I don’t give a sh*t.”

$1.00 for Rick Santorum.

John Emerson:

I really dread the next four years. I expect the worst from Bush — specifically, war fever plus McCarthyism. There have been a number of positive changes in the Democratic party, but Democrats as a group still don’t seem prepared for what’s going to happen, and it may be too little, too late.

…

The whole “reality-based” slogan is utter crap. Democrats deal with the world as it is, and Republicans deal with the world as it can be made to be. That’s why the Democrats are always blindsided, and why the Republicans always win. The Democrats are yesterday, and the Republicans are tomorrow. “The point is not to understand the world, but to change it”.

And for those who don’t understand it yet, “character” means, among other things, macho. The can-do hands-on do-what-you-gotta-do thing. The academic habit of discussing everything to death is not what you’re looking for in the man in charge. (Macho — Margaret Thatcher had it, Indira Gandhi had it, Golda Meir had it. It’s not just a guy thing.)

The United States has been taken over by a cult — the hardcore 30% who think that nuclear war is a fun idea, that France is an enemy nation, that the Confederacy was perfectly wonderful, that Armageddon is coming soon and is something to pray for, and that the federal government should be starved to death. They’re the bad guys, but the ones who you really have to blame are the ones who don’t bother and don’t care: the cynics, the apathetic, the non-voters, the game-players, the media careerists, and the self-described “moderates”. By the time those guys get the idea, it will probably be too late.

The American people have spoken, and sometimes you end up feeling that the problem is really them.

I already made something of a fool of myself with a sad, drunken ramble about John Emerson’s farewell (maybe) post from Seeing The Forest over in the Liberal Avenger’s comments, so I’ll limit my remarks.

John really strikes a chord for me with much of what he says. I’ve had the sinking feeling, for some time, that liberals, in all too many ways, are the New Conservatives. We spend nearly all of our time playing defense, and not nearly enough time pushing the bar higher. We watch, like helpless infants, as the initiative to create change, in all the very worst ways, is taken by Movement Conservatives while we, and our leaders, propose little and expect even less. Too many of us seem content to simply try to preserve, in some small measure, the progress made by our forebears. For the sake of our nation, this must change.

I won’t go on, as John really nails that feeling in a way I could only hope to. Go read the whole thing.

[Ed Note: I know I really shouldn’t use ‘we’. Sorry.]

Since David brought up the very likely scenario that Bob Casey will be running for Rick Sanorum’s Senate seat in 2006, I wanted to point to this very interesting post by Chris Bowers, calling for a contested Democratic primary. I agree with him on all counts, as there scant evidence to suggest that an uncontested nominee is any stronger, going into the general election, than one who faced several strong challengers. There is plenty of evidence, from the most recent election cycle, that just the opposite is true. The guy who looks like the “can’t lose” candidate, well over a year out, doesn’t always look so fine come election time. The more voting, and the more democracy, the better.

Memo to the Democratic Party:

I will not vote for any candidate for any office that opposes abortion upon demand, without apology.

If the Democratic Party nominates Bob Casey for U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania, I will not vote for him.

If his opponent is Rick Santorum, I will walk into the voting booth and write my own name in. I fit all the constitutional requirements, and I am pro-choice.

If Bob Casey loses by only one vote, that is okay with me. I am fully prepared to accept a Santorum victory and another six years of Rick Santorum.

The Democratic Party is not required to nominate candidates that represent my values, and I am certainly not required to vote for them.

I pray for the best and fear for the very worst. May their dreams of real and genuine independence come true. Peacefully. Should it, I hope they use it wisely, and justly, calling on all of humanity’s better angels. I fear for the very worst.

AP:

Elated at forcing out Lebanon’s pro-Damascus government, flag-waving, singing protesters crowded downtown Beirut on Tuesday, as Syrian President Bashar Assad indicated he would withdraw Syria’s 15,000 troops from Lebanon “maybe in the next few months. ”

Russia joined Egypt and Saudi Arabia in trying to persuade Syria to withdraw all its troops, and Assad told Time magazine that the troops would be out “maybe in the next few months. Not after that.” The troops were originally deployed during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war ostensibly as peacekeepers and Syria has held sway over Lebanese politics ever since.

I found myself perplexed, yet compelled, by David’s discussion of the “Lex Street Massacre” and his supposition that aforementioned street’s residents, and all of their brethren, might have some bearing on Hillary Clinton’s, or anyone else’s, electability in 2008.

That is how it ought to be, right? The plight of the residents of our nation’s most devastated neighborhoods, ought to be at the forefront the discussion about what we are, and what we ought to be as a nation when it comes time to pick our leaders. Broken neighborhoods with broken economies, broken families, broken infrastructure, broken bureaucratic institutions, with a corrupted, broken law enforcement system, which fails, repeatedly, to adhere to the basic principals laid out so plainly in our constitution and legal code, ought to be at the forefront of all of our political discussions. Shouldn’t they? The bloodbath that occurs, daily, on our streets ought to matter. The ongoing, and never-ending, loss of human potential ought to matter. Humanity sold short, and our nation deprived of individual potential ought to matter. Right? The broken, shattered dreams of brilliant, energetic kids really ought to mean something to a nation that yearns to be the greatest in all of human history.

It really ought to.

It really doesn’t.

-This is an unfinished post - I’ll repost, if I ever finish it. Sorry to be so odd but I’m really struggling right now.

Hillary, oh Hillary, must you run? Must you?

The Democratic Party (my party of choice) seems intent on putting Hillary in the driver’s seat for 2008.

Electable? Not a chance.

No, not because she’s a woman — the Republicans could put up Condi Rice and do quite well, thank you very much. It’s not because of Monica (that wasn’t her fault.) And hey, even Whitewater is old news for many.

She just doesn’t pass the Lex Street test.

On December 28, 2000, four gunmen killed seven and wounded three more in a drug-dealing dispute. The crime, dubbed the “Lex Street Massacre” is the worst shooting in modern Philadelphia history. It took place at 816 North Lex Street — not far from where I live.

The next Democrat who wins the White House will need the votes of the people on Lex Street — and of other places like it. These folks have heard politicians promise much and deliver little. They have little to gain by voting, and so much has been taken from them already that they have little to lose by foregoing the process.

Someone like Howard Dean (who was clearly responsible for his own demise) could have won their votes. Dean championed health insurance for everyone, and affirmative action based on class, not race. Kerry, on the other hand, simply brought his war record, which is singularly unimpressive to the folks who live on Lex Street — they live in a war zone, day in, day out.

What use are arguments about Social Security reform, homeland defense, and foreign policy when getting through the day is an almost impossible task? Of what use will Hillary be to the residents of Lex Street? None, I fear, and the results will speak for themselves.

Oh my, do they ever. 2005 is movement conservatism’s 1968, but with real power - say anything, do anything, be a total freak, and fear nothing. Nothing! This is the revolution. This is the “real” thing (nothing better than the real thing). This is the “real” America — No holds barred, fuck it all, and enjoy.

Since I’m on a mydd thing, did you know that “hey-hey, ho-ho, Social Security has got to go!”? Brutal stuff.

Maybe that’s just the new subtle. I must remember that if I’m ever to amount to anything that I’ve gotta keep up with the trends…Gotta keep up with the trends…Gotta keep up with the trends…”Social Security has got to go!”

Since we’ve been speaking of dogs and the postmodern implications of “the dog”, it’s high time we threw a bone to everybody’s favorite dog lover, my senator Rick “Whenever I think of you I think of dogs” Santorum. According to Rick, the president is “like a pit bull and he’s got a pair of trousers in his mouth and he’s not going to let go.” Groovy thought Rick. Now I’m stuck with the mental picture of our Dear Leader with a pair of dress slacks in his mouth, shaking them like some poor dying animal. Thanks for the image Rick but, most of all, thanks for the love.

(Via Will Bunch)

A great Bob Herbert piece this morning. I think this one paragraph says it all:

Any government that commits, condones, promotes or fosters torture is a malignant force in the world. And those who refuse to raise their voices against something as clearly evil as torture are enablers, if not collaborators.

It really is that simple.

Only 36 Senators could bring themselves to cast a vote against confirming Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States of America. Only 36 United States Senators could find it in their hearts to oppose the confirmation a man who will be remembered for the idea the it is an acceptable interrogation technique to cause pain akin to that of organ failure. Only 36 had the moral clarity to cast a vote against one of the primary proponents of an evil policy. We should all be ashamed. We are now, unabashedly, a nation that tortures.

Here are the six Democrats that voted to confirm Gonzales:

• Senator Mary Landrieu
• Senator Mark Pryor
• Senator Ben Nelson
• Senator Bill Nelson
• Senator Ken Salazar
• Senator Joseph Lieberman

There is a special place in hell for all of them.

I wonder if they believe that this was the politically expedient thing to do. If so, they are all the more disgusting. If they believe that their constituents would hold them in contempt for voting against this man, are their constituents even worthy of their representation? What divide is too deep to cross? What act to ghastly?

All Senate Republicans present voted to confirm. I’d like to reiterate something that Atrios wrote a few days ago. Voting against Gonzales if you are a Democrat who opposes torture is not a partisan act. Voting for Gonzales if you are a Republican who opposes torture is a partisan act. Senator Lindsey Graham, I’m thinking of you right now.

Our nation’s record on human rights is everything but perfect, but its history is marked by a steady, if staccato and sometimes violent, march forward in this regard. What the hell happened to us? What the hell are we so scared of that we feel it necessary to abandon what we are and what we should be as a people? Why did it become okay to cower in fear like school children while our government commits acts of torture in our name? Our name. This is on all of us.

I’ve put Minority Leader Reid’s comments prior to the vote in the extended entry. They are well worth a read.
Read the rest of this entry »

“If we fail to oppose an evil as obvious as torture — it is an evil and it is obvious it is wrong–then as President Thomas Jefferson said, I will “tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid prior to the vote confirming Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States of America.