Category: News & Comment

A headline on the front page of today’s LA Times reads, “2 Issues Straining GOP Grip in Florida.” The article suggests that the confluence of unease among seniors about President Bush’s plans to phase out Social Security and the GOP’s meddling in the Schiavo matter has created a fissure among voters in Florida that may affect elections next year.

On both fronts, President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush are promoting positions that put fellow Republicans on the spot, just before important campaigns that will determine the governor’s successor and the fate of Florida’s lone Democrat holding statewide office, Sen. Bill Nelson.

Polls show the public overwhelmingly opposed to intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose family has been bitterly split over the decision to remove her feeding tube. But the religious conservatives who pressed hard for politicians in Tallahassee and Washington to act to have the the tube reinserted could play a pivotal role in the races for governor and Senate.

At the same time, public opposition has been mounting against the president’s plan to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The president’s proposal is particularly unpopular among seniors, and so candidates in the senior-rich state are especially vulnerable to the charge that such a change could endanger benefits.

“It may be that we tried to load the wagon with too many watermelons,” said Tom Slade, Florida’s former Republican Party chairman. “There’s not … a lot of good news on our side of the aisle at this minute.”

These controversies could put the seats of several Republican members of the U.S. Congress into play. The article cites representatives Clay Shaw, Ginny Brown-Waite and Katherine Harris as being particularly vulnerable to voter dissatisfaction. I would add closeted gay Rep. Mark Foley to the list.

What’s missing from the formula for GOP defeat, of course, is a plausible alternative to the Republican “values” theme from the Democrats. The upshot of the 2004 campaign from voters seems to have been, “We may not like Bush and the Republicans, or their message or their policies, but at least we know where they stand” – which is hardly a ringing endorsement.

If Martha Stewart can sell sheets in K-Mart, Democrats ought to be able to sell the precepts of liberalism – fair play and fair pay – to Wal-Mart shoppers. It shouldn’t be impossible to convince low-wage workers in Red states that voting for the party that is run by the corporations works against their own self-interests.

O.K., I know we’re all sick of the subject, but an excellent column by Lucy Morgan of the St. Petersburg Times talks about how hard it is to be a “moderate” Republican when the wingnuts rule.

What ever happened to that Republican “big tent” that was supposed to welcome those with differing ideas?

Some members of the Florida Senate are questioning where the tent went and why they are being made to feel like lepers by the Christian right wing.

Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, and eight others were the targets of extreme pressure over the past week…

Democrats often say the GOP is in the hands of extremists. The Schiavo case supports that notion.

Instead of winning support for a bill aimed at restoring Schiavo’s feeding tube, many protesters angered senators who were bombarded with obscene telephone calls and death threats…

Jeb only made things worse for all concerned when he impotently hinted he might have the Department of Children and Families finish the job Bo Gritz started.

[Jeb] Bush didn’t do himself a favor when he said he believes he has the authority to seize custody of Schiavo and provide her with treatment…

Finally Bush surfaced briefly Thursday afternoon to say he would not violate court orders that have denied the state access to Schiavo.

By then it was too late to silence the clamor that was rising among vociferous protesters outside the Capitol.

Loudest among them was Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry, who said “there will be hell to pay” if Bush doesn’t intervene.

Somewhere in all of this the rule of law must prevail, or we are all lost. Bush’s brief flirtation with taking the law into his own hands was a serious mistake that could cost the GOP for years to come.

In the short term, a backlash is taking shape. But memories tend to be even shorter.

One by one, Republicans around the state began announcing: “Enough.”

“I am a longstanding registered, voting Republican, but after watching this disgusting display, I am gone,” wrote Ray Snyder of Crawfordville in a letter to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat Friday. “I see the dark ages of the Inquisition being born again. Someone needs a large dose of sanity and common sense, but it may already be too late.”

Asked about the impact of the case on the GOP, Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, says he thinks there will be some temporary backlash but voters will have forgotten by the next election…

No one wins. And once again Florida looks incredibly stupid.

Washington Post:

A California woman has launched a Web site, www.speakspeak.org, meant to counter what she calls the excessive influence of anti-indecency groups, such as the Parents Television Council (PTC), that flood the government with complaints designed to spur fines against radio and television broadcasters.

Speakspeak Website:

Fighting indecency complaints, fighting groups like the Parents Television Council, doesn’t mean you’re advocating for prime-time smut. It doesn’t mean your a pervert. It doesn’t mean you hate America.

It means you believe in free speech. It means you know how to turn your television off. It means you don’t want a group of mobilized politicos to determine what is or isn’t suitable entertainment for you and your family.

In 2004, the FCC fined broadcasters over $8 million for indecency violations. But in recent months, the FCC denied over 40 indecency complaints filed by groups like the Parents Television Council.

In order to give life to this trend of sensible action on the part of the FCC, you need to speak up.

If you don’t, who will?

It takes approximately 42 seconds.

Click here for information on sending a letter to the FCC or your senator advocating the protection of free speech on television.

Planet Out:

A second judge in Cleveland has agreed that the state’s new constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage also weakens the state’s domestic violence statute.

On Thursday, Cleveland Municipal Judge Lauren C. Moore ruled that a man accused of physically abusing his live-in girlfriend could not be charged with domestic violence, because of Issue 1, which voters approved last fall. That amendment to Ohio’s constitution says the state cannot give legal status to unmarried couples.

Moore’s ruling came one day after another Cuyahoga County judge reached the same conclusion. In that case, where a man was also charged with striking his girlfriend, Judge Stuart Friedman reduced a felony domestic violence charge to a charge of misdemeanor assault.

Ironically, while Issue 1 was designed to deny legal status to same-sex couples, the vague wording of the amendment is now affecting heterosexual couples, as evidenced by the two judges’ rulings.

I tried to get this from the Miami Herald site this morning but my online registration had expired so I had to re-up, which took a very long time. When I was done, I still couldn’t log in. So here it is via Talking Points Memo:

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted — but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge’s order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called “a showdown.”

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

“We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,” said a source with the local police.

“The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,” said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. “When the sheriff’s department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.”

The bad news is, the likelihood that we’ll bomb Iran or Syria rises in direct proportion to the President’s sinking poll numbers.

At least, that’s probably what George W. is thinking.

Reuters is reporting our supreme allied commander has extended by two years the time a government panel can take to release their findings on links between the CIA and the Nazis.

The bill approved by Congress would extend the group’s life through March 2007.

The Nazi war crimes act requires federal agencies to provide the working group with all documents pertaining to Nazi war criminals for possible declassification and release.

The CIA, which has already turned over an estimated 1.25 million pages of documents, refused to release hundreds of thousands more — many dealing with its postwar ties to Nazis who have not been accused of war crimes.

The U.S. spy agency relented this month and agreed in principle to release more documents after Republican Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a prominent backer of the legislation, demanded CIA Director Porter Goss explain the CIA’s position at a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Let’s see…any Bush relatives likely to be implicated in anything here? Well, W’s grandfather Prescott and great-grandfather Herbert Walker Bush had assests taken under the “Trading with the Enemy Act” for financing Nazis. And then there are the voluminous links between the Bushes and the CIA, most recently George Sr. heading up the agency.

There’s just too much online for me to track down the best and most succinct on this, but if you’re interested and don’t already know about it, I recommend you start searching. If you’re already familiar with the particulars, go ahead and groan now.

They have really stepped in it this time. Blow back could be huge.

[A new CBS poll found that] just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored. The issue has generated strong feelings, with 78 percent of those polled — whether for either side of the issue — saying they have strong feelings.

And there’s more:

More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a national debate.

Other polls have shown huge majorities casting doubt on efforts to keep the severely brain damaged woman alive.

Bush’s overall approval was at 43 percent, down from 49 percent last month.

Everyone in Florida has been scratching their heads since last summer’s hurricanes at the news that Miami-Dade was getting such a large share of FEMA recovery funds. All four hurricanes pretty much missed that area by miles.

A story in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, headlined, “State records show Bush re-election concerns played part in FEMA aid” sheds some light on the subject.

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