That Other Political Blog

I'm sure you've all been waiting with bated breath for me to weigh in on the meaning, import, and consequences of the recent election.  Well, I'm not gonna.  (Except to agree with what my friend Jana says in her excellent blog, that the world is a safer place with Christine O'Donnell at home.) I think our politicians have collectively lost their way -- at least the ones at the congressional level, both federal and state.  In my state, the Democrats kept the senate but lost the house.  The new house minority leader said his highest priority for this session is to regain the majority. Really?  Well, that sucks.  Because it means you intend to play politics instead of doing the people's business. That's exactly what the Republicans did for the last two years.  It worked for them politically -- they gained quite a lot of ground in this midterm election.  But at what cost?  The ugliest, most divisive political rhetoric in decades.  The vilification of a good m

Thank you, Katie, for giving me the perfect title for today's blog post. I have moments of wondering if I'm living in the same world some political figures are talking about.  I had one of those moments this week, reading about Newt Gingrich's speech at the Values Voter Summit.  Here are a few choice tidbits about Newt's own version of McCarthyism. "...on the other front we have radical Islamists who would fundamentally change this country into a system none of us in this room would recognize." "We as Americans don't have to tolerate people who are supportive of violence against us, building something at the sight of the violence."  "This is not about religious liberty, they want to build that mosque in the South Bronx, frankly they need the jobs," he said. "But I am totally opposed to any effort to impose Sharia on the United States, and we should have a federal law that says under no circumstance, in any jurisdiction

I promised yesterday I'd post about campaign money today. This is one of those issues I'm always "fired up" about! With the Supreme Court handing out individual liberties to corporations like I hand out Halloween candy, the time has come for our legislators to address the issue of campaign finance once and for all. I have some common-sense recommendations for them. My friends tell me they are entirely too reasonable, so there is no chance they will ever become law. Hey, a girl can dream, right? 1) Public funding of campaigns. I don't think campaigns should be solely funded by tax dollars, but there should be some sort of matching so that campaigns get an amount consistent with their level of support from individuals. Perhaps $X match per unique contributor to a campaign. The reason I like this idea is that I am not willing to publicly fund dozens of candidates in a general election. To qualify for public funding, a campaign should have to be viable, an

I usually have to get fired up about some political issue to write a decent blog post. It's difficult to come up with potent rhetoric when I'm just lukewarm about something. I'm also one of those people who gets mad, then gets over it -- so I generally have to strike while the iron is hot or I can't muster enough energy to do my topic justice. But there are some perennial issues I'm always passionate about, and a few of them have popped up on my radar over the last several days. In no particular order, they are: 1) Don't ask, don't tell, and don't DREAM. DADT has already been ruled unconstitutional by the 9th Circuit, and it is on its way out. Even the highest-ranking military officers want it gone. Over 60% of the population supports its repeal. It resulted in the firing of 14,000 military personnel over the last 10 years, when we are having huge recruiting challenges. But its repeal is getting stuck in a filibuster today. (A local aside

In Colorado, the right fringe has all but handed the gubernatorial election to the Democrat on a platter. The mainstream republican lost in the primary to a "Tea Party" candidate, Dan Maes, and then our resident nutjob, Tom Tancredo, threw his hat in the ring, too, running under a last-minute nomination as the Constitution Party candidate. (If you don't remember him, he is a former US congressman who had an abbreviated presidential campaign, and said that undocumented immigrants "need to be found before it is too late. They're coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren.") Maes, the Republican candidate, also has some really weird positions and history. He opposed itemizing taxes on utility bills because if they are itemized, people are more likely to express an opinion about them. (?) Also, he got a lot of attention for criticizing a bicycle sharing program (promoted by the Democratic candidate, John Hickenlooper, who is the mayor)

I was discussing the phenomenon of political "trash talk" with some friends recently and one of them said, "I think we all love America and want what is best for our country -- we just all have strong opinions about what that is." I think she is mostly right -- except I would add some nuance to her statement. We each love our individual perception of an idealized America, but the reasons we disagree are that our perceptions of what America represents, and our goals for what America should become, differ -- sometimes dramatically. For example, if someone were to ask me the best things about the United States, I'm pretty sure my list would disagree completely with someone like Phyllis Schlafly or Michele Bachmann. The same would be true if the question were, "What is the ultimate promise of our nation?" I think what makes America unique and exceptional is her Constitutional guarantee of equality; of equal protection under the law, of due process.

This is the the month of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. It's a time when Muslims all over the world focus on their faith through daytime fasting, prayer, time with loved ones, and charitable works. While reading about Ramadan, I stumbled across a hate-filled, ugly blog whose sole purpose is to criticize Islam, Muslims, and anyone who is accepting or tolerant of them. The author continually refers to the "war against Islam." It's hate-mongering at its worst. I can't imagine spending all that time and energy just to promote hatred. What a waste! Imagine if that blogger spent an equal amount of time and energy promoting acceptance, or at least tolerance and respect. Is it just me, or are the voices of ugliness louder these days? I won't pretend that all Muslims are peace-loving supporters of the United States. Certainly there is a nasty element of fundamentalism in Islam, just as there is a nasty element of fundamentalism in Chr

Before I start my rant, a quick shout-out to Judge Walker! Freedom to marry begins Wednesday. Any of my California friends planning to camp out for a license? Okay, I know -- anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I'm generally a fan of Democrats. You might even say I am fond of them. So why I am saying they are stoopid? (I'll even spell it correctly: Stupid.) Because Democrats do the right things and then let the spin machine turn on them, turning good stuff into bad stuff. Here's a prime example: Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are being investigated by the new Office of Congressional Ethics. This is an independent panel, created by a Democratic congress to bring independence and transparency to the ethics process, as opposed to the House Ethics Committee which operates in secrecy. So the charges against Rangel and Waters are a victory, not a defeat, for Democrats on the ethics issue. (But boy, you sure won't hear it that way in the media.) If

Apparently, it is no longer enough to have a majority in both houses of Congress and the Presidency in order to accomplish anything. Last week, a bill to provide health care funding for rescue workers who have health issues related to the 9/11 attacks was defeated. It had a majority in the House -- but the Democrats used a rule requiring a 2/3 majority for passage, and the bill did not (incredibly!) reach that threshold of votes. It's bad enough that the Democratic majority in the senate has buckled under even the most innocuous threats of filibuster so that any legislation passed now requires 60 votes. (Does anyone remember a significant piece of legislation passed by this Senate with fewer than 60?) But does the House have to play, too? The Senate has ground to a screeching halt, with filibusters and secret and Senatorial "holds" stopping legislation and nominations at every turn. There's a step in the right direction coming soon. Senator Claire McCaskil

Here's what the AFA has to say about the Prop 8 ruling: Yesterday (August 4), U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker single-handedly overturned California's Prop. 8, which elevated protection for one-man, one-woman marriage to its state constitution. In doing so, he frustrated the express will of seven million Californians who went to the polls to shape their state's public policy on marriage. Since marriage policy is not established anywhere in the federal Constitution, defining marriage, according to the 10th Amendment, is an issue reserved for the states. Judge Walker never should have accepted this case in the first place. Under Judge Walker, it's no longer "We the People," it's "I the Judge." In addition, Judge Walker is an open homosexual, and should have recused himself from this case due to his obvious conflict of interest. What can be done? Fortunately, the Founders provided checks and balances for every branch of governme

Now, THIS is interesting. Apparently, the Republican Party is reeling from the defections of its moderates as Tea Party candidates stir things up in the primaries. They are so afraid of the implications of these defections that they are making their candidates take the pledge! Get this -- if you want to run as a Republican, you have to promise that if you lose, you won't run against the Republican nominee, and you won't endorse anyone else, and if you don't actively demonstrate having imbibed copious amounts of Republican Kool-aid, you must return any campaign donations from the RNC -- or anyone else who asks for a refund. (Hmmm... there's something interesting in that. I sort of like the idea of a political warranty. If I donate to someone in the primary who loses, can I have a refund? Does this work if the candidate gets elected but I don't like the way he or she votes in Congress? Or what if the campaign promises just aren't kept?) I've often

Regarding those of you upset by this ruling, I wonder: How does it feel to be on the trailing edge of progress, or, if you will, on the wrong side of history? For those of you old enough to remember, how did you feel about the legalization of interracial marriage? Or school integration? Or public accommodations being required to serve people of all races? Conservatives opposed all of these changes, blaming them on an "activist judiciary," and predicted dire consequences. Do you believe now, decades later, that those enormous changes in "what was and always would be" have disintegrated the fabric of society? Do you believe the apocalyptic changes predicted by their opponents have taken place? Conservatives, by their very nature (and by definition ), desire to preserve the status quo. I can think of three underlying reasons for such a desire: 1) Fear of the unknown. (Things may not be great now, but at least we KNOW how they are -- but if we change some

"Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement..." With those words, (and a whole bunch of others -- holy cow!), Judge Vaughn Walker declared it to be unconstitutional to prohibit same sex marriage. Here's a website with links to the entire ruling. Here are a few highlights: " Proponents did not, however, advance any reason why the government may... need to take into account fertility when legislating." "Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians." "The tradition of restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples does not further any state interest. Rather, the evidence shows that Proposition 8 harms the state's interest in equality, because it mandates that men and women be treated differently based only on antiquated and discredited notions of gender." And maybe the

It's amazing how the folks using the "Tea Party" moniker are shaping political discourse in the US today -- and successfully distracting us from the important issues. Today, what stories should be all over the media? President Obama signed sweeping financial reform into law. Secretary of State Clinton announced new sanctions against North Korea. What IS all over the media? Shirley Sherrod might not want her job back even if the White House offers it to her. So the NAACP criticized the Tea Party folks for some of the "elements of racism" within their ranks. A couple of Tea Party folks got their noses out of joint and decided to "prove" that the NAACP was being hypocritical, because it was welcoming racists of its own. Enter Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger who gets FAR more attention than his ideas merit. He posted a heavily edited video of a USDA regional coordinator giving a speech to the NAACP that made it seem as if she were admitting to

This president -- this presidency -- is amazing. Obama has been in office for 14 1/2 months, and the world has changed for the better! Nuclear Weapons Today, President Obama and Dimitri Medvedev signed a "New START" treaty that will reduce all the nuclear weapons in the world by nearly one third. Obama said he would work toward a world without nuclear weapons. I think this is a marvelous accomplishment in Month 15. The Economy In this case, a picture is worth far more than anything I can say: Maybe I should add this one, too: Less than a month after he took office, Obama signed the stimulus bill into law. Four months after he took office, he signed credit card reform into law. In March our economy added more jobs than it has in three years. I realize the economy isn't perfect. But what I hope Americans will realize is that the Recovery Act and other stimulus measures the Obama administration and Democratic congress put in place began to work almost immediately. Inst

No, I'm not talking about a kidney stone. Today the House passed the Senate version of health care reform, plus a bill to amend it. I'm pretty sure a kidney stone would have been easier to pass. Now it's time to start providing some political support to Democrats in tough districts (like the one I live in) who voted in favor of the bill, and to find primary challengers for the 34 who voted against it. It's not perfect. It might not even be good. But it's a far cry better than nothing at all.

I saw someone prove Godwin's law the other day. We were talking about how undocumented residents are people, too. The poster then said it is irrelevant that illegals are "people" (yes, she used the scare quotes and the word "illegals") and that so is (sic) Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, etc. The post was ugly, made me sad and wasn't worth debating. So I said so. Apparently that indicated that I, too, can "relate to Hitler" and that I "support terrorism participators." Is there any place one can go today for civil political discourse? I want someone on the right to argue with who's sharp, quick-witted, keeps me on my toes, and can still be civil and realize that it is possible for people of good conscience to disagree. Instead, I'm surrounded by tea partiers ("Why do you think Obama is a fascist?" "Because he IS!"), rabid partisans, and those who think Sarah Palin might actually have something, there. They

Rachel Maddow had a segment about C Street on her show . When politics and religion overlap, there is trouble.

Today I called my representative about the health care reform bill. It's not perfect. In some ways, it's not even good. But once it is passed, health insurance companies won't be able to take your money for years and then dump you as soon as you actually get sick, or pretend that the acne you had when you were 14 is a "pre-existing condition" that makes you uninsurable when you get cervical cancer 40 years later. I don't see how passing this can be, on balance, a bad thing. Then I went to said representative's Facebook page, and was appalled. For the last few days, the majority of posts were certainly in support of a yes vote (which would be a change, since this Congress-critter voted "no" in the last round). But those who didn't support it were impassioned, angry, terrified, and horribly misinformed. I've argued politics regularly with some of the same people for about a decade. The recent rhetoric is the least grounded in fact an

I am annoyed, and that's all there is to it. Every day I hear about another piece of absolute nonsense from the loony right, and I'm tired of it. Does anyone really believe the stuff they're spouting? Are we that gullible? Or are we just that disaffected as a society? Every day I hear about another failure of the party in power to accomplish anything worthwhile. Mandate? Squandered. Constituents? Ignored. Achievements? Minor. Opportunities? Missed. I don't remember Democrats completely managing to obstruct the Republican agenda for the 8 Bush years, even when they had a much smaller majority than Democrats do today. When did the simple majority in the Senate disappear completely? Let's all pray the Democrats discover the beauty of the reconciliation process.

This morning, I heard a story on NPR about the C Street Center, a place where some of the most notoriously "bad boy" fundamentalist Christians in congress live when they're in Washington. The Center's tax status is in question, because it doesn't actually perform any of the functions of a church, but claims to be a church for tax purposes. C Street is or was home to folks like South Carolina governor Mark Sanford of "Hiking the Appalachian Trail" infamy, Chip Pickering from Mississippi whose wife has filed an alienation of affection lawsuit against his mistress, and John Ensign who had an affair with a staffer. These three men are part of a growing number of fundamentalist Christian men who are better known for their philandering than their accomplishments. They range from these politicians to religious figures like Ted Haggard and even Jerry Falwell. What's up with this? Even if you're not bothered by the affairs, you have to be astounded at

Well, it's time. I've had this blog's name saved for many moons, while I decided whether I should take the leap and create a political blog. You see, I'm not a politician. I don't have a degree in economics, or political science, or foreign affairs. There is nothing in my background that qualifies me to pontificate on political topics with the gravitas of a William F. Buckley or the humor of a Molly Ivins. I'm not a lawyer or a Constitutional scholar. So why bother? Because I have something to say. I have opinions based on years of being an involved citizen, keeping up with current affairs, and being a political junkie. I am a policy wonk wannabe. I've always said I don't want to be a politician, but I wouldn't mind owning a couple. (Insert tongue-in-cheek HTML tag here.) I think I am representative of thoughtful, reasonably well-educated citizens who take an interest in government and participate in the political process. You probably won&#