Hey Goofy, Sign My Chest!

I will readily admit that many days I am ranting about some stupid, unneeded law the Republicans are trying to pass, but today I am pointing out an area that screams for legislative action but neither party has shown the guts to take the lead. We need a federal law that makes it illegal to charge anyone for an autograph and restricts those who may ask for an autograph to kids age 16 or less. Yesterday, OJ Simpson showed up at a sports memorabilia show in Rosemont near O'Hare and signed 115 autographs at $100 to $125 each before he was told to leave the show. And best of all, do you think he was kicked out by the convention manager because he viciously killed his wife and her friend? No, it was because he was not scheduled to be in the booth that day. How demagnitized does your moral compass have to be to schedule OJ Simpson as a way to make money and how warped do you have to be to want to own something that he actually touched? But autograph buying and selling is a big business, despite the fact that anyone with half a brain realizes that a piece of paper with someone's signature on it has zero intrinsic value; it's only worth what the next sucker is willing to pay for it. Now it's bad enough bothering some celebrity for an autograph, but how empty does your life have to be to PAY someone for an autograph, or even worse to buy an item that someone else got autographed.
How did the autograph process start in the first place? I believe it was because years ago we were a more rural country and cameras were rare. People would go to the big city and meet a "celebrity" and when they returned to the farm, no one believed them. So on their next trip to the big city, after gushing when they meet some actor who just had a hit movie after 10 years of waiting tables, the country bumpkin after saying "I've been your biggest fan forever" would ask for a signed piece of paper as proof for the folks back home. Everyone has a camera on vacation these days. Hell, we even have cameras in our phones. So, snap a shot of yourself with the next famous person you bother and skip the meaningless piece of paper. I mean, grow up!
By making it illegal to charge for an autograph we will wipe out the worthless memorabilia industry, and all those sports shops at the malls can be converted into something useful, like more candle shops. The amount of money currently wasted on autographs could easily erase the national debt. Autographs will then become what they should be, a cherished keepsake for a child who will soon grow out of it. When 10 year old Johnny gets Sammy Sosa's autograph on a foul ball his dad caught at Wrigley a few years ago, that's a great item to put on his bureau in his room. Today, if Johnny's friends need a ball for today's game in the back yard, there's no reason Johnny shouldn't grab that ball because he's grown up, something memorabilia collectors never do.
There is one more clause that needs to be added to this new law. Kids are limited to asking for autographs from real persons. This would be referred to as the Disney World clause. Up until about ten years ago, the lines to have kids meet Mickey and Minnie and have their pictures taken together by mom and dad were fairly short and moved quickly. Then Disney started selling autograph books in the park's shops. Quickly, lines snaked for seeming blocks as some 22 year old kid sweating in a Winnie the Pooh costume tries to scribble Pooh's name in countless books with his overized paws.

Bulletin: Republican Discovers Science!

In a shameless move today, Senator Bill Frist (R-Expediency) announced that he is abandoning his kowtowing to the Religious Right on one issue and will support limited stem cell research. Republicans as a group have been following the Bush "compromise" policy of limiting research to existing cell lines. Now, maybe many Republicans can claim ignorance that this policy will squelch potential breakthroughs for a host of debilitating diseases, but Frist had no such defense. The man is actually a trained physician. To have waited as long as he did to change his position is indefensible. While a shocking rebuke to the Bush administration policy that "science is evil", Frist's move is in keeping with past Republicans who desperately want to be president some day. Many of us remember the Republican primaries in 1979 in which Bush the Adult articulated very sound and supposedly deeply held beliefs on a woman's right to choose that were somewhat progressive, at least for a Republican. When it became apparent that Reagan would win the nomination and was considering Bush for veep, old HW instantly became the most rabid anti-choice politician around. And in the biggest flip flop of all time, after 40 years as a confirmed hedonist, Georgie Jr dried out, became born again, and let Daddy's circle of friends dress him up like a responsible candidate.
Frist went on today to say that he will continue to closely review the potential of a scientific breakthrough against the likelihood that it may gain him some votes in key primaries. "I have directed my staff to talk with my friends in Kansas to see if this evolution theory can be squared with the science of creation as detailed in a 2,000 year old book written by a religious organization. And while I have great doubts about the motives of this Newton fellow and his apple, I am keeping an open mind about the existence of gravity."

Jim Screws Up, Jay Walks the Plank

Wouldn't you love to have a job where if you royally screw something up, one of your underlings gets fired? Well, if you can't get a CEO job, the next best thing is congressman from Wisconsin. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) was totally out of control last month, sending a letter to Joel Flaum, the chief judge of the 7th circuit of the federal court. He actually demanded that Flaum do something about an individual case. This action was wrong on so many levels that it makes one's head spin. What makes it even worse is that Sensenbrenner is chairman of the House Judiciary committee that controls the budgets of the federal court system. The obvious bullying intent was "do things my way, or you just might see your budget cut next year." This is so typical of how Republicans have become drunk with power. And what was the heinous case that caused Sensenbrenner to take such a spectacularly stupid action? The trial judge in a drug case decided to give a minor participant in a larger case who possessed a small amount of the total drugs involved an eight year and one month sentence. Sensenbrenner in his letter claimed (later shown to be wrong) that under sentencing guidelines, a 10 year sentence was required. Well, one can see how a difference of 23 months in such an everyday drug case would bring the halls of justice crashing down if not rectified immediately. So, when all this came out in the open, what do you think happened? Sensenbrenner had to resign in shame, right? Of course not! Remember, we are living in Republican Bizarro world. Jay Apperson, chief counsel of the House Judiciary subcommittee who brought the case to Sensenbrenner's attention and who publicly defended Sensenbrenner's action with his ridiculous letter resigned last week. That will teach him! You know, Sensenbrenner's actions were so off the wall and so wrong, I am expecting Bush to pin a medal on him real soon.

Roberts Nomination Withdrawn

In somewhat of a surprising move, the White House announced today that it is withdrawing the nomination of John Roberts to the US Supreme Court. The move was especially surprising as Roberts had been accumulating almost universal acclaim from individual senators as he has been holding a series of meetings with them. Even Democratic Senators such as Joseph Lieberman have had positive things to say about Judge Roberts after meeting with him. White House Press secretary Scott McClennan announced the withdrawal today and was roundly jeered by the White House press corps with chants of "Liar, liar, pants on fire..." However, everyone was shocked when Judge Roberts later met with the press and confirmed that in this rare case, McClellan was actually sent out to tell the truth. Not surprisingly, Roberts was perplexed by the move. "I never got a straight answer from the president on why, Bush mumbled something about not being able to come up with an acceptable nickname for me and then he trailed off." Cheney then told me that my growing acceptance by senators was proof that I did not meet the qualification standard as set by this administration. "We don't nominate anyone for important positions unless they are unequivocally unqualified for the job. Why do you think we put out the word last week that we were considering nominating someone to the Supreme Court who wasn't even a lawyer? Hell, look at me. The only qualifications for vice-president are that you follow the president's lead and that you are ready to fill in if the president should die. Everyone knows I tell Bush what to do and I've got one and a half feet in the grave. We now have a secretary of state who has shown herself to be totally incompetent in running a large organization or in matters of diplomacy. We're trying to ram through a guy to be our Ambassador to the United Nations who has even less diplomatic skills than Condi and is on record with saying that blowing up the UN building would not be a problem. The Energy Department is run by former CEOs of Big Oil. The EPA is run by major polluters. Chris Cox (R-Fortune 500) is our choice to run the SEC after having been our point man in Congress in pushing legislation to weaken any laws that protect investors and to push laws that protect our friends who run companies like Halliburton and Enron. And Defense? Rummy scares ME...the guy makes Dr. Strangelove look like a peacenik." Roberts then related how in a state of shock he asked Cheney how an entire administration can be based on putting the exact wrong person in every important position. Cheney just winked at Roberts and said, "You have met the President, haven't you?"

Cheney the Hutt Emerges

What does it take to get the least-seen official in the federal government to come out of his "undisclosed location"? I have a mental picture that Cheney's hiding place looks just like Jabba the Hutt's mountainside cave as seen in Return of the Jedi. I see a large, dark space carved out of a mountain filled with neo-cons (none of whom ever served in the military...like their leader) strutting around in their battle gear and armor (armor that should have been given to the real troops who needed it), loudly proclaiming how tough they are and how they will bring democracy to the next axis of evil...as soon as Halliburton's balance sheet needs an even larger injection of billions from the federal treasury. And sitting above it all is Cheney the Hutt, smiling as he nods off, while a team of cardiologists monitor his vital signs and a larger team of Wall Street analysts calibrate Cheney's vitals to their investment portfolios.
So what national crisis caused Cheney to rouse from his slumbers, order that his battlecruiser be made ready, and actually make an appearance on Capital Hill? Was the Rebel Alliance trying to amend the Patriot Act? Or were they trying to come up with a real solution to Social Security that would not involve shifting a Trillion Dollars from the US Treasury to Wall Street brokers for setting up "personal" accounts? No, worst of all, it was to thwart an attack from inside the Empire's own ranks. Three well-known "liberal" Senators, John McCain, Lindsey Grahan, and John Warner had the temerity to draft legislation that would no longer allow the military to hide prisoners from the Red Cross (a dastardly organization that apparently strikes fear in the heart of conservatives!), and would prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of military detainees. Cheney can easily see how such crackpot legislation might lead to restoring, in some small way, the reputation of the US in the international community. It might also hamstring a military prison commander who wishes to create the next Abu Ghraib. But most importantly, it would create the first, tiny restriction on the imperial power presently held and used with great vigor by Cheney and his puppet to jail anyone, at any time, at any place with no requirement for ever bringing charges, or even acknowledging that a person is being detained. Certainly no reasonable person has a problem with enemy combatants who were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq being dealt with by the military and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. But is it reasonable for a US citizen to step off a plane at O'Hare and be whisked away to a brig and never be charged with a crime? Is Jose Padilla guilty of attending a terrorist training camp, planning to blow up Chicago apartment buildings and to plant a "dirty" bomb, or did he just make the mistake of visiting Afghanistan at the wrong time? We will never know unless he is charged with these crimes and convicted. To allow any President to have the unlimited power to secretly arrest, imprison, and forget about anyone he chooses is a recipe for abuse, and is a perfect example of why Lord Acton said over a century ago, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Are Republicans Allergic to Ethics?

Has the weight of public scorn heaped on the Republicans for their lies and corruption finally pressured them to stop treating ethics as if it were radioactive? Yesterday, the Republicans finally caved in and allowed the House Ethics Committee to be activated. Why did it take this long? Well, in January as they were being sworn in to a new term, the Republicans in one of their first actions, attempted to impose rule changes to the Ethics Committee that would essentially render it powerless. Then to be on the safe side, the Republicans turned on their own. They replaced committee chairman Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo) who was considered more interested in ethical standards than partisan coverups ,with a new chairman more closely tied to the Republican leadership cabal. Why did they feel changes were needed? Well, the committee chastised Tom DeLay (R-Hades) THREE times last year, and this year he was facing much more serious charges relating to illegally raising money to hijack more House seats in Texas, travelling around the world illegally on lobbyist paid golf tours, etc, etc, etc. This doesn't consider the issue of how can self-respecting office holders allow themselves to be bullied into retaining a leader with such obvious disregard for ethical standards. We all know that Delay's a prodigious fund raiser and funnels huge wads of campaign cash to those House members who remain loyal to him. But don't you sometimes reach a point, Republicans, when simple decency is more important than money? Nah, I didn't think so.
Will the newly constituted Ethic Committee spend all its time investigating DeLay? No way! The party of "Ethical rules, we don't need no stinking ethical rules" has plenty of other bench players ready to move into the starting line up of political corruption. Take Duke Cunningham (R-Military Industrial Complex) a House member who obstensibly represents San Diego. As a member of House committees dealing with defense appropriations he attracted a lot of attention from defense contractors. One defense contractor apparently liked Duke's home in San Diego so much that he bought in from him for $1.6 million dollars. This certainly doesn't seem like an outrageous sum for a home in that area. But what the Ethics Committee might want to look into is that the house went up for sale 9 months later for $900,000. Now, I don't spend a lot of time keeping up with the California real estate market , but I don't recall any crash last year. In fact, I believe San Diego real estate prices were UP about 25%. Maybe there's nothing that stinks about this deal and the defense contractor just made a bad deal, or maybe he let his teenage kids have parties there and they trashed the place. Finding the real reasons for suspicious transactions like this is what the Ethics Committee is for. Investigations by a real committee will find out all the facts, including the fact that Duke lives on a yacht while in DC that is owned by the same defense contractor who bought his house.

John Roberts' Smoking Gun

Once again, the Republican obfuscation machine is running as smoothly as ever. By rushing up the schedule for nominating Roberts, they have taken the criminal antics of King Karl off the front pages. But more importantly, they have framed the issue of Roberts' qualifications in the best light while ignoring the dark side which screams for investigation.
The big issue about Roberts background that is being discussed is his work for the Solicitor General. There is talk about seeing his work papers, especially as they relate to a brief he signed urging that Roe v Wade be overturned. What a smokescreen! The work that he did while working for that paragon of fairness, Solicitor General Ken Starr, was as an attorney... an advocate. He was simply parrotting the openly held position of the mullahs who ran the legal department for the adult Bush that Roe should be overturned. That was his job. His personal opinion on Roe in that situation is not an issue. Would he vote to overturn? We don't know and quite frankly we shouldn't know. Judges should be chosen for their abilities as interpreters of the law, not for their personal opinions. For all we know, Roberts may come onto the Court and render any discussion of overruling Roe v Wade moot by holding a remedial basic law class for Scalia, Thomas and Rehnquist in which he explains the principle of stare decisis. The process of picking a judge should be to pick a qualified person (you know, Bush, it's ok to pick a woman; a country that's 50% women should be represented on the Court by more that 11%) that is fair and judicious. Someone who does not let his partisan feelings interfere with the rule of law. Does John Roberts pass that test? The issue that no one is talking about is that Roberts voluntarily went to Florida in November, 2000 to advise the Republicans in their attempt to quash any investistigation of how Jeb's minions counted the votes. He wasn't an attorney representing his client here. Hell, he paid his own way to Florida and just showed up. Is volunteering to disenfranchise voters a judicious act? Does it show the type of temperment that a judge needs? Isn't this what should be investigated and what any hearings should concentrate on?

WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?

It has been over thirty years since the last totally corrupt Republican administration caused the average citizen to lose all hope that politicians could ever be trusted again to tell the truth. After four and a half years of being bombarded by lie after lie, from Medicare “reform” to Iraq “WMDs”, we now face a potential crisis caused by revelations of the apparent crime committed by Karl Rove and the question of who else in the White House may be involved. While the Republicans try to muddy this issue by trying to make it appear more complicated than it is, the political and legal ramifications are clear cut. On the legal side, the special prosecutor will continue his investigation to show that Rove intentionally outed a CIA operative for purely political reasons in violation of federal law. Given Rove’s past activities, one may have little doubt that the reporter’s notes are accurate and that Rove revealed “Wilson’s wife’s” CIA status as political payback for Wilson’s failure to tow the party line on creating a drum beat for war, when he revealed that the administration was blatantly lying about Iraq trying to obtain nuclear materials in Africa. But that is a legal issue that will be played out in court and we shouldn’t waste our time arguing about it. However, it is amusing to watch the hypocrisy of Republicans who attacked Bill Clinton like rabid dogs for legalisms like “it depends on your definition of is” attempting to dance on the head of a legal pin arguing that because Rove did not use the woman’s actual name, he did not violate the statute.
What we should be talking about is the political issue. Two years ago when the Wilson issue first arose, the White House sent out its spokesman to tell the press and the American people that “it was ridiculous to think” that Kark Rove or anyone else in the administration was involved in the crime of revealing a CIA operative’s status. We now know that this was a lie. Anyone who knew it to be a lie and who repeated the lie under oath to the grand jury investigating this crime is likely to be found guilty of perjury. Anyone who encouraged others to tell this lie would be guilty of suborning perjury.
What should our next steps be find the truth and try to restore some semblance of trust in our political systems that have been decimated by this administration?
First, the American people should pressure their Congressional Representatives, especially Republicans, that Congressional hearings should be held now. This issue is too important to wait for the 2006 elections to play out in which an electorate sick of the lies, hubris and hypocrisy of the party of Tom DeLay will usher in a new House ready to face their responsibility.
Second, these hearings must determine when and to whom Rove revealed his crime. Given the fact that Rove is Deputy Chief of Staff, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he had informed Bush of his culpability. As Scooter Libby (what kind of grown man goes by Scooter?), Chaney’s chief of staff was also involved in these shenanigans, it is not unlikely that Chaney was involved. If that is the case, the House should then vote an article of impeachment for subordination of perjury against both the president and the vice-president. Certainly there will be calls to add articles for the lies relating to the justification for the war in Iraq.
Third, the Senate will then have the responsibility to hold a trial to determine if the president and the vice-president actions are “high crimes and misdemeanors” amounting to impeachable offenses. Only then will this country be back on the road to restoring trust in our federal government.

John Roberts...could (will) do worse.

Is John Roberts qualified to sit with the Supremes? Absolutely, he is a brilliant lawyer and has served competently as a federal judge. Could we do better? Absolutely. Could we have done worse? Oh yeah, big time...and we will! On a personal level, the best thing about the Roberts nomination is that he graduated from law school the same year as me and everyone is commenting on how young he is! Back in the ancient days of my youth, federal judges were generally vetted and recommended by a time honored process run by the ABA. The ABA sent a list of well qualified judges and lawyers to the White House and the President made his choice. While not a perfect process, it did help many of the giants of American jurisprudence ascend to the bench. This started to change under Nixon...surprise! ("Halderman, add these commies from the ABA to the enemies list.") He nominated two ideologues for Supreme Court vacancies (one of whom, as I seem to recall, later was arrested on morals charges) who were rightly rejected by the Senate, and the partisan gauntlet was thrown. Have the Democrats abused the process to keep otherwise qualified judges out for partisan reasons? Yup, but Republicans have made it into a bloodsport. And so, we now have a nominee who can very likely sit on the court for 3 decades who has the basic skills needed for the job but whose main qualification is that he's been a judge for only two years. Such a short term results in a very short paper trail and so little ammunition will be available to those Senators who may want to see a more moderate nominee. This approach backfired on the adult Bush when David Souter, a supposed conservative with a short trail as a state judge in New Hampshire, turned out to be a solid moderate voice on the court. Republicans are not taking any chances this time. Are Republicans worried that Roberts might go over the dark side of moderation? Not likely, the guy clerked for Rehnquist.
Why Roberts? It's a brilliant political move and sets them up for the real firestorm to come. Roberts will be easily confirmed and establishes a safe conservative seat. The next couple openings will likely cut into the moderate side. After all Stevens is 85, and others are past or approching their 70s. All moderates will be replaced by die hard conservative women and/or minorities. Enough Senators will be hard pressed to oppose such nominees given the lack of diversity on the bench. Once these conservatives have taken over the Court, the radical Right will get what they paid for when they got their boy in the White House. As that Court eats away at all the progress that has been made in the past 50 years, the most notable of which will be overturning Roe, maybe then the sleeping electorate will wake up and realize that the Republican party does not represent their values and Democrats will sweep back into power and start the long process of repairing the damage that is to come.