Where's the Apology?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 30, 2004 New York Times
America's credibility has been badly damaged — and nobody is being held accountable. But that's standard operating procedure. As far as I can tell, nobody in the Bush administration has ever paid a price for being wrong. Instead, people are severely punished for telling inconvenient truths. And administration officials have consistently sought to freeze out, undermine or intimidate anyone who might try to check up on their performance.
Friday, January 30, 2004
Thursday, January 29, 2004
America as a One-Party State
Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.
By Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 2.1.04
America has had periods of single-party dominance before. It happened under FDR's New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century "Era of Good Feeling." But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.
In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest.
We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI.
Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year (and that's before the recent Republican super gerrymandering). What once was a slender and precarious majority -- 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats (including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats) -- now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever.
Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.
Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation. Am I exaggerating? Take a close look at the particulars. "
Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.
By Robert Kuttner
Issue Date: 2.1.04
America has had periods of single-party dominance before. It happened under FDR's New Deal, in the Republican 1920s and in the early 19th-century "Era of Good Feeling." But if President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself. The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged. This would be unprecedented in U.S. history.
In past single-party eras, the majority party earned its preeminence with broad popular support. Today the electorate remains closely divided, and actually prefers more Democratic policy positions than Republican ones. Yet the drift toward an engineered one-party Republican state has aroused little press scrutiny or widespread popular protest.
We are at risk of becoming an autocracy in three key respects. First, Republican parliamentary gimmickry has emasculated legislative opposition in the House of Representatives (the Senate has other problems). House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has both intimidated moderate Republicans and reduced the minority party to window dressing, rather like the token opposition parties in Mexico during the six-decade dominance of the PRI.
Second, electoral rules have been rigged to make it increasingly difficult for the incumbent party to be ejected by the voters, absent a Depression-scale disaster, Watergate-class scandal or Teddy Roosevelt-style ruling party split. After two decades of bipartisan collusion in the creation of safe House seats, there are now perhaps just 25 truly contestable House seats in any given election year (and that's before the recent Republican super gerrymandering). What once was a slender and precarious majority -- 229 Republicans to 205 Democrats (including Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who votes with Democrats) -- now looks like a Republican lock. In the Senate, the dynamics are different but equally daunting for Democrats. As the Florida debacle of 2000 showed, the Republicans are also able to hold down the number of opposition votes, with complicity from Republican courts. Reform legislation, the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), may actually facilitate Republican intimidation of minority voters and reduce Democratic turnout. And the latest money-and-politics regime, nominally a reform, may give the right more of a financial advantage than ever.
Third, the federal courts, which have slowed some executive-branch efforts to destroy liberties, will be a complete rubber stamp if the right wins one more presidential election.
Taken together, these several forces could well enable the Republicans to become the permanent party of autocratic government for at least a generation. Am I exaggerating? Take a close look at the particulars. "
Friday, January 23, 2004
Thursday, January 22, 2004
I couldn't say it a smidgen as well. Thank you Molly Ivins:
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate - 01.22.04 "Meanwhile, Bush was running the same old plays in his State of the Union Address: fear, threat, danger, terror, war, enemies. He even trotted out the weapons of mass destruction again, just as though they had actually existed. And the media accuse Howard Dean of being negative!
President Bush's speech contained so many outrageous distortions -- on No Child Left Behind, Pell Grants, the PATRIOT Act, job training, the deficit, on and on -- it takes the public interest groups pages just to correct the most blatant disinformation in the speech.
My favorite line was, "Jobs are on the rise." Not a hey or a howdy to the 9 million unemployed Americans, just a flat lie. Piece of work, isn't he? "
Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate - 01.22.04 "Meanwhile, Bush was running the same old plays in his State of the Union Address: fear, threat, danger, terror, war, enemies. He even trotted out the weapons of mass destruction again, just as though they had actually existed. And the media accuse Howard Dean of being negative!
President Bush's speech contained so many outrageous distortions -- on No Child Left Behind, Pell Grants, the PATRIOT Act, job training, the deficit, on and on -- it takes the public interest groups pages just to correct the most blatant disinformation in the speech.
My favorite line was, "Jobs are on the rise." Not a hey or a howdy to the 9 million unemployed Americans, just a flat lie. Piece of work, isn't he? "
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Again Bush acts with complete DISREGARD of the constitution. We do not need or want a dictator....
Bush Seats Judge, Bypassing Senate DemocratsBy NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: January 17, 2004 - New York Times
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush on Friday used the Congressional recess to install Charles W. Pickering Sr. in a federal appeals court seat from which he had been blocked twice by the Senate because of Democratic opposition.
In using a president's power to make appointments during Congressional recesses to fill vacancies, Mr. Bush was able to skirt the Senate confirmation process, which Democrats have used for three years to block not only the Pickering nomination but also those of several other Bush judicial nominees."
Bush Seats Judge, Bypassing Senate DemocratsBy NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: January 17, 2004 - New York Times
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 — President Bush on Friday used the Congressional recess to install Charles W. Pickering Sr. in a federal appeals court seat from which he had been blocked twice by the Senate because of Democratic opposition.
In using a president's power to make appointments during Congressional recesses to fill vacancies, Mr. Bush was able to skirt the Senate confirmation process, which Democrats have used for three years to block not only the Pickering nomination but also those of several other Bush judicial nominees."
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