President George Bush has yet to veto a single Congressional bill. But his office has issue more than 750 signing statements. Rather than veto laws passed by Congress, Bush is using his signing statements to effectively nullify them as they relate to the executive branch, writes John Dean, former counsel to President Richard Nixon.
If you ask what it is she has done.
When the police called out for her son.
Who’d stolen and ravaged,
His sweet mother he’d savaged.
She’ll answer I told him to run!
— Contribute to the Limerick Of All Mothers Contest
That’s the way I’m starting to feel about Hillary Clinton as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in 2008. She’s polling well with Republicans. Karl Rove has anointed her. Rupert Murdoch held a fund raiser breakfast for her. Do they like her or hate her? Do they want to fool Democrats into voting for the candidate they can stomp?
I don’t know anymore.
This morning Slate’s John Dickerson explores the Democrat Republicans love and he knows he preaching heresy. So much so that half way through his piece he steps outside the story to write:
By now a certain number of readers are hoarse from yelling at the screen. They are already typing pointed denunciations. For some activists, this tale of calculation and maneuvering to the middle represents all that they hate about politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular.
They not only curse Hillary but Bill Clinton as the evil progenitor of third-way, accomodationist politics that ruined a once great party. The fact that Republicans approve of what Hillary is doing may very well cause someone to throw their keyboard. Please put the keyboard down.
Is Hillary a DINO? Is she Republican Light? Is she the Manchurian Candidate? Feck, is it any wonder Americans hate politics?
My Soundtrack: Son Of Sam by Elliott Smith on WOXY.
[Update — 0941, 12 May — The full text of Harri Hursti’s report is now available as a 12-page PDF. ]
Here’s something to make you wonder. Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable it, redistribute votes or alter its performance in myriad ways.
Five bloggers cover everything there is to know about Ohio. That’s what Business Week Online thinks of our McBlog. Heather needs to get out of the office, or at least out on the long tail. Want to read what Ohio bloggers say? Read something other than cookie-cutter tripe. Want to know what we think? Read George Nemeth and Tim Russo.
A mother”s a mother because of a dad,
A drop-in donation and then she”d been had.
But the good ones who stay
When they hear she”s that way.
Prove that for most their honor”s no fad.
— Contribute to the Limerick Of All Mothers Contest
Forty-six years ago today, the United States Food And Drug Administration approved the use of Enovid-10, developed by Gregory Pincus and Dr. John Rock. It was the first medication so approved by the FDA that did not cure an illness or relieve pain. It was also the first drug to be called simply The Pill.
Said Clare Boothe Luce: Modern woman is at last free as a man is free to dispose of her own body.
Or at least until the Christianists take the freedom away.
Andrew Sullivan’s quote of the day is from Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said:
I cannot imagine any development in human history, after the Fall, that has had a greater impact on human beings than the pill. It became almost an assured form of contraception, something humans had never encountered before in history. Prior to it, every time a couple had sex, there was a good chance of pregnancy.
Once that is removed, the entire horizon of the sexual act changes. I think there could be no question that the pill gave incredible license to everything from adultery and affairs to premarital sex and within marriage to a separation of the sex act and procreation …
Sullivan’s response: Access to contraception of all kinds is the next target of the Christianist right.
Are you ready for your bedroom cam?
Cleveland’s Limerick Savant is hosting a blogosphere Mothers’ Day event this weekend. I like the idea of a chance to demonstrate that not all bloggers are cold, soulless political hacks who will do anything for a free mea or at least a bottled beer. Some of us even carve darling pascal lambs out of butter. Limerick Savant proposes…
…a sort of Carnival of Moms to be hosted at this blog. Many of you will probably be posting wishes of the day on your own blogs and I ask that you send me the URLs so that I may post a link and a comment. For those of you that are not yet blogging, (why not?) please send me your Mothers’ Day thoughts and I will post them as well.
Naturally, I am especially interested in limericks, poems or songs to, or about, mothers; but all submissions, serious or comic, will be accepted. The submissions may be sent directly to me at limericksavantATSYMBOLgmail.com by Saturday, May 13.
Let’s see:
There once was a mother who threw
out her baby and bathwater too.
She lamented her loss,
’twas the luck of the toss,
But she was so sick and tired of the poo.
I know. I can do better
I came across the phrse a pornogrophy of atrocity this morning while reading Sherry Chandler’s blog. Sherry discusses recent poetry and prose in which authors reveal, perhaps, too much and asks the question: is it honesty or exhibitionism? I’m certain that there are more than enough examples of each. Where do you draw the line?
I just finished reading Roldo Bartimole’s Perspective on yesterday Cleveland City Council Finance Committee meeting. And I swear I feel like I’ve jumped back 20 years to when George Voinovich was mayor, George Forbes ruled city council with an iron fist and developers treated the city’s coffers like their personal slush funds.
Does anything ever change in this city? Will the only way these deals stop getting made be for everyone involved to retire to llama farms? Do Cleveland politicians have huge Kick Me! signs permanentl stapled to their cheap suits?
After watching the show, my estimation of Mayor Frank Jackson has diminished considerably. The administration”s due diligence on this financially troubling deal leaves much to be desired.
Further, the once refreshing, now characterless Joe Cimperman, in whose ward the project will be, has now diminished to a hack politician going nowhere good.
[snip]
Sweeney took care to keep colleagues in the dark, releasing a 57-page report to members sometime on Friday, probably after many had left for the weekend. The meeting was scheduled at 1 p.m. Monday.
Sweeney, and his boss, Mayor Frank Jackson, likely figured most – if not all – would not have the time to decipher a 57-page legal document.
They were right.
[snip]
A piece of property to be taken by eminent domain for Phase 2 includes a large parking lot. It will remain parking in the Wolstein development as it is now. That led Councilman Mike Polensek to puzzle…
“Take a parking lot to make a parking lot?”
Slippery Steve Strnisha had a quick-tongued non-answer: “It”s important for single management and ownership” of the property.
Government now serves private interests more than public interests, as this double-dealing deal so well conveys.
This is Roldo reporting and writing at his best. Enjoy.
My Soundtrack: The Worst Taste In Music by The Radio Dept. on WOXY.
[Update –1120 — Beween 1013 and 1114 this morning, 11 of the 26 visits to Have Coffee Will Write have come from the trackbacks to Daily Dish. That means I’ve just increased my traffic by 42 percent in one hour. Wow.]
Andrew Sullivan’s CLs (see below) continue to demonstrate that they are not afraid to push their brand (and the brands of their bloggers) further into the conversation. I’d personally like to see comments so that those without blogs could join in, but a small step is a hell of a lot better than sitting on your butt.
From today’s Daily Dish:
Yes, my corporate overlords have now added [trackbacks].
[snip]
It’s like a comments section, with the entry-barrier of being a blogger yourself. If you want to follow a controversy or discussion raised in a post, click the trackbacks link (the number attached to it represents the number of links), and follow your nose. If you’re a blogger and want to attract readers to your site, linking helps bring my readers to your site – so link away and join the fun. Win-win.
We’re doing it as an experiment. But it’s another little connecting thread between the MSM and the blogosphere. May the conversation blossom.
I’ve linked three of my posts back to Andrew. Let’s see if I can find an uptick in my traffic.
In talking with my webgoddess today this post about Contra-Ception came up and we both wondered where Ken Blackwell stood on the issue. Terry didn’t find any published statement by Blackwell, but she did find some interesting notes on his website concerning those who have chosen to anoint, pay for endorse Blackwell’s candidacy.
The Christianists are gathering their forces.
Concerned Women For America and (my favorite)
Eagle Forum, which thinks that National Right To Life is a liberal tool:
A good example of a group actually being counter productive to life is what happened recently in the South Dakota Congress during March, 2004 legislation. It involves shocking action taken by the National Right to Life and its South Dakota Right to Life chapter”s officer, State Sen. Jay Duenwald, an action that will affect thousands of children”s lives. Here”s what took place.
South Dakota”s House of Representatives had just passed the abortion ban bill 1191 by an overwhelming majority, 54 to 14 and was headed to the Senate. Instead of supporting this important piece of pro life legislation, NRL joined forces with pro abortion members of the legislature to defeat the initial bill, which had absolutely no exceptions in it. It was a perfect pro life bill.
NRL then attacked the forced compromised measure, which was still powerful legislation, banning virtually all abortions in South Dakota, making it a felony punishable to 15 years. Even pro abortion lobbyists called the revised bill “the most restrictive anti-abortion measure since Roe v Wade.” Countless children would be saved. It would have been challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, and once there, a viable possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade.
Blackwell has people supporting him who are to the right of the NRL.
And on the issue of contraception, the Eagle Forum continues:
Contraception is the root of the sin of abortion and the main key within the pro life movement. If your pro life group does not oppose all contraception, then your work will always fail.
When parents contracept [sic], it is easily perceived by the children in the family, indoctrinating them into believing that controlled reproduction and abortion are a normal way of life (most contraceptives are murderous abortifacients [sic], meaning they cause the death of a growing child).
Pope Paul VI prophesied that any concessions given to any contraceptives would lead to acceptance of abortion, euthanasia, pornography, promiscuity, divorce, homosexual activity, in vitro fertilization and cloning. The world now sees the Pope was right in each instance.
Pope Paul VI spoke out on cloning before his death in 1978? It’s possible I suppose, but somehow I think the Eagle Forum is stretching things a bit.
My Soundtrack: Lightning Blue Eyes by Secret Machines on WOXY.
[Update — 1057, 9 May — Congo’s Conflict: Heart of Darkness.]
Just read. Please.
If you want to glimpse what all this death has been for, you drive four hours out of the town of Goma, on pocked and broken roller-coaster roads that melt into mud with the rain, until you reach a place called Kalehe. Scarring the lush green hills, there are what seem to be large red scabs that glisten in the sun.
The technical term for these open wounds in the earth is ‘artisinal mines”, but this dry terminology conjures up images of technical digs with machines and lights and helmets. In reality, they are immense holes in the ground, in which men, women and children – lots of children – pick desperately with makeshift hammers or their bare hands at the red earth, hoping to find some coltan or cassiterite to set on the long conveyor belt to your house or mine.
Coltan is a metal that conducts heat unusually brilliantly. It is contained in your mobile, your lap-top, your son”s Playstation – and 80 percent of the world”s supplies sit beneath the Democratic Republic of Congo…
Don’t turn away, keep reading…
[Update — 1713 — lots of other bloggers are all over this like Terry, Sherry and Feminste.]
Emboldened by the appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, the barefoot-and-pregnant crowd are becoming increasingly vocal. How long before they switch from B&P to B&B (old enough to bleed, old enough to breed)? Surely their god doesn’t want all those vital eggs to be wasted?
How about a law mandating that all females be legally married with 3 months of their first period? Think I’m kidding. Read The Handmaiden’s Tale.
From yesterday’s New York Times Magazine:
“We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion,” says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization that has battled abortion for 27 years but that, like others, now has a larger mission.
“The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an anti-child mind-set,” she told me. “So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception.”
These are not nutcases folks. They are earnest people with political clout. Don’t ignore them.
My Soundtrack: Poison/Safe by Controller.Controller on WOXY.
I realized decisively that dogs don’t care
about music and religion and thus have written up this report. This
scarcely makes me the Father of the A-bomb, I thought as I flung the
contents of the full box of biscuits around the room with the dogs
scrambling wildly on the hard maple floor. Let there be happy chaos.
From Science by Jim Harrison.
Today is the 166th anniversay of the birth of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, he who condemmed hundreds, if not thousands, of talented dancers to fling themselves across stages in silly costumers to the delight of small children and dance company accountants. Tchaikovsky, a homosexual, once wrote his brother:
Only now, especially after the tale of my marriage, have I finally begun to understand that there is nothing more fruitless than not wanting to be that which I am by nature.
My Soundtrack: Somersault by Zero 7 on WOXY.
[Update — 1644, 16 May — Bill Callahan adds his voice with Strickland And The Cities.
Here’s the money graph:
But Jackson, Coleman, Plusqellic et al. see things quite differently. They recognize the dubious value of grand promises about jobs and education, coming from a prospective governor who’ll share the Statehouse with a hostile General Assembly that’s just itching to embarrass him.
They know that none of those promises, even if they come true in a limited way, are likely to help them to govern their own cities. They believe — correctly, in my opinion — that much of the governance crisis facing Ohio municipalities is “made in Columbus”.
They want to hear Strickland say that he understands this is true, and that if he becomes governor they can expect the never-ending Statehouse incursions against municipal budgets and home rule powers to abate.]
[Update — 1038, 16 May — Tim Russo weigh’s in on the issue with his usual laser focus.]
[Update –1926 — Abdirissa is having an interesting dialogue with Anonymous (yet another cowardly ODP employee?). Check it out.]
[Update — 1230 — Roldo Bartimole offers his insights.]
Jill has alerted us to an interview with Chris Redfern, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, in today’s New York Times in which he says he’s cautiously optimistic about the fall elections (i.e. send us more money, quick!). What really caught my eye, however, was Abdirissa’s comments to Jill’s post that leads to Hard To Get.
I commented last week that I think crossover could be huge in the governor’s race.
Already miffed at a Statehouse that he believes takes away cities’ home-rule rights while adding guns to their streets, [Columbus Mayor Mike] Coleman said he’s afraid a Gov. Strickland could continue Ohio’s anti-city policies. Until the candidate reassures him otherwise, he’s withholding his support.
And, Coleman noted, It’s not just me.
Indeed, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams-Democrats all-have refrained from jumping on the Strickland bandwagon. Along with Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, the Democratic dissenters make a formidable bunch.
As we discovered in 2004, there are significant numbers of voters in Ohio who will vote their religious interests over their civil liberty and economic interests. Ken Blackwell has the religious agenda down pat. And the idea that he is poised to become the first African American governor of a major state will also be a strong hook for African American voters.
Gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland will not be able to take a whom-else-are-they-going-to-vote-for attitude. As President George Bush demonstrated in 2004 with both African American and Jewish voters, you can get traditional Democrats to crossover in significant numbers if you appeal to the right issues.
In the age of zero tolerance of bullies, we teach students that they should gather to support another student who is being bullied. Bloggers took the lesson to heart this week when they came to the support of Maine blogger Lance Dutson. Warren Kremer Paino Advertising sought to bully Duston with a multi-million dollar federal lawsuit.
Why? Because he had had the effrontery to point out that the agency had placed a phone sex number — 800 MAINE24 — in the above ad.
The outcry from hundreds of bloggers and thousands of their readers bolstered State Representative Stephen Bowen’s (R-Rockport) help for his constituent and against the New York City-based ad agency.
As a result of all this publicity, this action by WKP has the potential to give Maine a black eye nationally, said Rep. Bowen, It”s a case of big business and big government throwing their weight against a little guy who dared to question the effectiveness of Maine”s Office of Tourism. People have the right to question their government.
Working for the state means being answerable to the people, said Rep. Bowen.
Now there’s a concept.
The agency, reacting to the flood of bad publicity for its client, and itself, has decided that being a bully is not all that cool. Yesterday it withdrew its suit and now hopes the storm blows over without too much damage to its image.
Score one for citizens and citizen journalism.
My Soundtrack: Police Sweater Blood Vow by The Fiery Furnaces on WOXY.
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