On Cynthia, Gallup, And Crap Being Everywhere

In todays news, besides a partiular congresswoman having an incident with the Capitol Police in DC (and the story I link to here makes me think both of one of the reasons why I left that city, the overtones of race being put into everything, and how crappy journalists can be, the article puts an explanation of Matt Drudge's use of USCP in parenthesees, as if it is part of his original, rather than brackets. So they are effectively misquoting him. My English professor would have had words with me if I had done that.) is that... wait, that was a lot of ranting. Let me start again.

In todays news, more Americans are calling themselves Democrats than Republicans. As a conservative republican dittohead turned feisty moderate over the past three years I can understand why. Unbalancing the budget, limiting essential freedoms, and taking less money from people who have it are among my reasons.

The only reason I haven't completely turned sides is because I realize that the Republican marketing strategies are not Republican at all. For example, Republicans did things like stop talking about the "estate tax" and start talking about the "death tax" solely to manipulate the public into approving of its removal. Estates are something that the general public does not understand. Death is. Not everyone thinks of themselves as having an estate, even though they do and most wouldn't have been taxed, but death is as certain as taxes so why tax it? (I've told some people about this manipulation who don't believe me. Back in 2002, though, I saw a program with an interview of the market researcher who told them to make the change! It really was a conscious effort to market a product to the public.) Another example is the whole Karl Rove "go for the religious right and we'll get the power" thing.

Anyway, the Republican marketing machine isn't unique to the Republicans, it's just more visible there because the Republicans happen to hold the power. I can read, say, Bob Casey campaign e-mails and see the Democratic marketing machine at work, wheels spinning. If we had a Democratic president and congress we might have changes in policies but we'll still have the same crap spewing to affect weak minds. So I don't list crap spewing, I mean marketing, as a reason to dump the Republicans.

I bring this up because I suspect, with no hard numbers to support me, that the marketing is a factor turning some people off. It shouldn't, becasue the alternatives are simply more of the same, but oh well.

[4/3/06-- It seems like the link to the post about Cynthis McKinney is journalism of the worst kind. They keep updating it without leaving old copies around. What it looks like now is nothing like what it looked like when I first read it.]

Proposed FEC Rules

For what it's worth. People who post political messages on blogs need to keep up with such things. It would be a shame to suddenly do something illegal. And for once the FEC might be making some sense.

Minimum Wage Debate

I just sent my representative an e-mail thanking him and telling him I was proud to have him as my representative. My representative, up in the Scranton area where I still vote, is Congressman Paul Kanjorski. He is one of 5 Pennsylvanians who voted for House Resolution 614. If a majority of members (218) sign, a debate on the
Fair Minimum Wage Act will be forced.

Is it just me or is it weird that they have to vote to have a debate? I bet in England, Parliament just gets drunk and starts debating topics without voting on whether or not to debate them. Does anyone know?

Why I Would Vote For Lindy Scott

I don't live in his district, but I would vote for him.

This is to some extent bandwagoing in action. With endoremnts from the likes of Peter Walhout, Evvy Campbell, W. Jay Wood, Alan Savage, and everyone's favorite Tom Selleck look-alike Peter Walters, how could the man be wrong? The fact that most of you have no idea who these people are just enforces the theory that I'm bandwagoning.

Besides that, though, Lindy wants balance in the government. Compassionate conservatism has failed to be compassionate, so maybe some compassionate liberalism will do the trick. And he's also a good Christian man.

What do he and I have in common? He holds to a viability concept to defend his pro-life stance. He even says:

For those who oppose abortions on religious grounds, I urge that we follow the example of Jesus. He seldom appealed to laws and their earthly punishments as a way to change human behavior. His preferred methods for bringing about change included clear moral teaching, forgiveness of failures, communities that would be supportive of people, and the offering of alternatives for people who were trapped by the system or by their own mistakes.

I find this a compelling approach because it isn't just about abortion, it's about living our lives. And this from a Democrat, people!

He also supports raising the income cap for social security tax. Currently only the first $90,000 is taxed at 6.2% and the rest is untaxed. Also, reinstating the estate tax, something else that only affects those who have money to give up, would give us a lot more money for the system. And he's also a big supporter of the environment and of education. In fact, he thinks that No Child Left Behind sucks for the same reason I do-- it puts the blame on the teachers and schools, not on everyone involved in a child's education.

So I like Lindy Scott. The primary election is tomorrow. May he win.

it is too relevant!

What I found in the "Free Checkout" video shelves at the downtown library: "William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Celestial Navigation Simplified." Proof that conservatives can like science. Buck's son Christopher Buckley, the satirical political novelist [please please please read his book Florence of Arabia, if only for the puns. And go dig up those old back issues of The Atlantic Monthly for his short fictions.] went to sea at age 19 and wrote a nice book about it. Not that liberals don't make good seamen; Bill Clinton, so I hear, is handy with a sextant.

Patriot Act Includes Crackdown on Meth Use

Our government is cracking down on meth use through the Patriot Act.

Overall, I'm pretty much in support of making all drugs legal, at minimum marijuana. From what a certain physicist tells me, it's less damaging and less addictive than both alcohol and cigarettes. I don't know for certain that this is true, but I am fairly certain it is less likely to cause cancer than cigarettes.

Regardless, I think our government needs to take a stand and be consistent. Either make all drugs illegal on the basis that they only hurt ourselves (and close ones, of course, as do all decisions that hurt us) or take the moral high ground. Make all things that are "bad" for us illegal. Cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, caffeine, twinkies, and all those other harmful things in which we should not be choosing to indulge. I think violent television and video games desensitizes us and makes us prone to violence, so we should cut those out too. Actually, low-cut shirts on women kind of provoke impure thoughts. Those should be banned. I think those crazy Muslim countries may have some good ideas into which we should look.

Seriously though, it doesn't make much sense to me why cigarettes and alcohol are legal, but marijuana is not. Just in case anyone suspects me of having ulterior motives, the only drug I have more than once a month or two is caffeine. I have alcohol maybe once every couple or more months. I never have and never will smoke either cigarettes or pot and I'm not into any other drugs. I'm messed up enough as it is without adding to it with drugs. It just doesn't make sense to me why we can smoke ourselves to lung cancer and drink ourselves into a blackout, but we are not allowed to smoke pot.

That's just something that confuses me on a regular basis. Regarding making meth use more difficult, I am actually in support of that, in spite of thinking drugs should be legal. Why you ask? From what I know, which is not a whole lot, meth labs are pretty dangerous, run in people's homes, and often explode causing nearby houses and families to be injured or to die. I am kind of against blowing up neighbors' houses for the most part.

What confuses me about this though is that it is part of the Patriot Act. I though, and maybe I have been wrong, that the Patriot Act was supposed to protect our freedom from terrorists by taking it away. I don't support that whole concept, but taking that to be the case, I see that our government is taking away our right to buy tons and tons of sinus medications (a right we all deserve), but I can't even fathom a ridiculous pseudo-reason as to how this is protecting our freedom from the terrorists. Is their new plan to open meth labs throughout middle-america, get them even more addicted to drugs, and explode some houses along the way in an effort to attack middle-american? I guess it makes sense since there aren't a whole lot of New York Cities or Los Angeles'.

On Pay Raises

Our pal Bob Casey makes the news.

This time it's over his involvement in the state salary debacle of 2005. I'm glad he's taking the high road here. As a named defendant in a lawsuit on the matter (he is a defendant because the state treasury writes the paychecks) he has said that the raises were illegally granted and accepted. And even if it's not illegal (I think it is, too, or at least should be) it's totally backhanded and skunky.

local politics as usual

This article gives a good summary of state politics here in TN. The 'platform', of course, is inseparable from the scandals of the moment. A few other contentious decisions of Bredesen's career include the startup of The State Lottery over vigorous Baptist opposition (which a local columnist described at the time as "a tax on people who can't do math"); and presiding over cutbacks in the state piggybank-for-painkiller-addicts: TennCare.

However, the interesting race this year will be for Bill Frist's Senate seat, pitting some Republican against Harold Ford, Jr. HFJ is the Barack Obama prodigy child of the Memphis Ford family, who are in turn a southern form of the Kennedys. And HFJ's Uncle John who looks like the pimp from a blacksploitation flick, is the chief renegade from this state's biggest contribution to political corruption in 2005: the "Tennessee Waltz" illegal kickback investigation. In all, the FBI nabbed 7 state legislators.

Statement From Catholic Democrats

Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) released this statement yesterday signed by 55 of the 72 Roman Catholics who are House members. I wish that an official press release would have better proofreading, as there are some typos, but I do have a comment.

Abortion is one of the issues where Democrats have jumped all hyper-left and, in doing so, have helped along the polarization between conservative and liberal that has led to many people feeling like this (as peter mentioned a few posts back). I'm not enough of a cultural creative to go jumping at the idea that everything must always be in moderation so the liberals and conservatives are necessarily wrong (and I'm not a cultural creative that dismisses religion either; in fact, I'm wondering why their website is soo odd), but a high degree of polarization betwen liberal and conservative does leave nothing in the middle as an option. The right way is not necessarily directly in the middle, but it's probaly not on the ends.

Overturning the two-party system that is the government structure of our republic is probably not a realistic goal. We do not need more poles on opposite ends of different spectra. What we need is room for more moderate people to have a place in the current system.

This Just In To The Fake World

The real world is keeping us all from posting.

Cursed real world.