Finally, a jobs program from a Republican. I thought I'd never see one, but out of the blue Sen. McCain today offered to sponsor full employment for anybody who will work in Arizona. And hold on to your hat, but he's offering good wages too.
Some older Democrats, born in the teens and twenties of the last century, who remember the godsend that Roosevelt's jobs programs were, have waited their whole lives wondering whether a Republican would ever deign to follow suit. They'll be gobsmacked by this AP report from an AFL-CIO meeting that McCain addressed today.
Full employment? Impossible? Evidently not. Anybody who wishes to have a job, will get a job, says McCain. But wait, there's more. He promises $50 dollars per hour. And it's good, clean work...picking lettuce. I can't tell you how excited I am by this sudden turnaround by the Senator.
I encountered him nearly thirteen years ago, and from that experience I wrote him off as a lying, manipulative scum. As a phony, a chameleon, a creep. As a louse, really. But mine was a snap judgment, without the perspective that time brings. Now I've seen another side of him, and must revise my hasty assessment. Full employment, for all Americans. It touches something deep down inside me.
We all knew in the summer of 2002 that Bush and Cheney were determined to drag us into war against Iraq. Now we have the proof. The Sunday Times Newspaper reports on a leaked memo from the Prime Minister's office showing that on July 23, 2002 Tony Blair held a war council meeting with his closest aides, a few weeks after Blair's trip to Crawford. Already by that stage, as the memo reveals, both Bush and Blair had decided to go to war, and it was simply a question of finding the grounds and the occasion to do so. The memo reveals that the US and UK leadership was utterly cynical in their plans to create a 'crisis' over Iraq in order to justify an invasion. More on the flip. [Diary resembles one I posted at Daily Kos.]
Monday evening All Things Considered aired interviews with Sen. Charles Shumer (D-NY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) about the nuclear option and use of filibusters in the Senate. This is a measure of just how pathetic NPR has become. The interviewer allowed Cornyn to state repeatedly that Democrats invented the filibuster against judicial nominees only four years ago--without even challenging him on that flagrant lie, much less correcting him (as is well known to readers here, the GOP has used judicial filibusters repeatedly over decades). Nor did NPR air any comments from Shumer stating the truth about GOP judicial filibusters. Nor did NPR mention the many other ways that lone goopers in the Senate blocked many of Clinton's judicial nominees, without ever permitting the Judicial Committee to vote on the nominees. As a report, this was an utter fiasco. Sadly, it was entirely predictable too: He said, he lied. Just when you think NPR has hit rock bottom, they surprise you again.
I've been so busy ignoring earth-shaking stories about steroids and strangers' brain-dead relatives that I overlooked an historical revelation that might just turn into a political football for Bush & Co. (well, ok, nearly everything does with that crowd). Anyway, don't say that you have not been warned. The Times of London reported earlier this month on a new German book by historian Rainer Karlsch, Hitler's Bomb. The author believes he has proven that the Nazi's experimented successfully with a dirty bomb, and were counting on using it in the closing months of WW II. The article summarizes some of the eyewitness evidence that Karlsch relied upon, so I will not give further detail here. Politically, this could become a favorite point of reference for Republicans looking to bolster their arguments in favor of past or future interventions against "rogue" states reputedly or possibly having nuclear capabilities. The idea of Hitler in particular possessing nuclear weapons has always been the historical nightmare par excellence. So I would not be surprised to find this issue making its way into political debate in the US within the next few years.
Do any readers here have thoughts about the candidate Jennifer Mann in the April 5 special election for the PA Senate? I know that she is a DLCer and very popular with local Chamber of Commerce types, which makes me pretty sceptical of her. I'm not aware of any particular achievements of hers. Has she done anything that it would make it worthwhile for me to waste my valuable time helping her campaign? Her GOP opponent, Pat Browne, appears to be something of a sleazeball. For weeks we've been getting his nasty circulars in the mail, with ad hominem attacks on Mann (who always appears in blurry B&W photos), and exaggerated claims about his vague accomplishments in fighting tax hikes and making Pennsylvania better ('In 1994, Pat Browne authored a bill to make PA a yummy yummy happy neighborhood.'). Mann finally responded with TV adds ripping Browne for his multiple DUI convictions. It's a low blow, but hell the creep was begging for it. I have to say Mann's willingness to dish it back to this clown is just about the only thing I know that makes me inclined to support her. Anybody else have any thoughts or info about her career?
Thought this would make a good Friday afternoon diary, for those who have patience for such things:
The following memo, censored in the interests of national security, was released today by the White House as part of the discovery phase in a suit regarding the failure of the federal government to properly regulate the sale of asbestos waffles from 1982 to 1987:
---------------
RE: MOTION TO ADJOURN ONE HOUR FOR LUNCH
Date: ===
From: ===
To: ===
CC: ====, ====, ===, =========
Docs: ===, ===
Regarding =========='s motion to ==== for =============, which ==== ======== as ===
============================== ==== into
======. To be ========, the === =========
=========. According to ====, =====, =====, and =============== ================ ===========
with ===========. ============ ==== =========
=============== ========== === ======= =====,
henceforth ===========.
I cannot fathom why the Supreme Court continues to flounder in debating Ten Commandment cases. The key to the issue is as clear as day to this historian, and yet it never seems to come up in their deliberations:
What has been put on display in Texas and Kentucky is NOT demonstrably the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from the Mount. It is what the Old Testament reports that Moses brought from his reported parlay with God. The Tablets do not exist, if they ever did. The only information about these putative commandments derives from a religious text, written by people who had no direct knowledge of the putative commandments.
Therefore the public inscriptions are displays of a religious text, NOT demonstrably of an actual 'law code' or whatever else one would like to call them. The commandments have no reality unless one accepts the authority of that religious text. By inscribing that text in public, the states are endorsing the authority of the Old Testament in a variety of ways. Seems pretty simple to me.
Some revolutionary, sweeping, and utterly dangerous provisions in Bush's 2006 Budget proposal have gone almost unnoticed in the blogosphere so far. Bush wishes to create two unelected commissions that would be empowered to nullify any federal regulations and eliminate regulatory programs on the basis of two grounds: (a) that the regulations are out of date; or (b) that the programs or inefficient or under-performing. These provisions are of course vague, expansive, and overwhelmingly powerful. They would positively invite manipulation by those who are hostile to governmental regulation as such. It appears to be another front in the Bush administration's campaign to reverse as many of the gains of the New Deal as possible. It is no less dangerous than their war on Social Security, and Democrats absolutely MUST take a stand against it.
