Ashcroft Makes Plea for Sentencing

Ashcroft Makes Plea for Sentencing



You won't have Ashcroft to kick around anymore because this is his last press conference:

Ashcroft, who is to leave office once his replacement is approved by the Senate — probably Thursday — also said his greatest regret as the nation's highest law enforcement officer for the last four years was not adequately explaining the Patriot Act to the American people.



He also vowed never to run for public office again.

Hmm. Maybe that's because last time, he LOST TO A DEAD GUY?



Bye bye, Johnny. We'll miss you with the same over the top, what can he possibly say next sense of outrage with which we missed James Watt.



HE LOST TO A DEAD GUY. I really like saying that. Have I mentioned that HE LOST TO A DEAD GUY?



Politics

Party of Lincoln continued

Party of Lincoln continued



Looks like Black History Month is also Republican Shamelessness Month:

Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) is introducing a bill essentially condemning the Senate for filibustering anti-lynching laws earlier in the 20th century. It's a laudable bill – but its author has anything but a laudable record on civil rights and racial issues. According to the Associated Press in 2000, Allen was discovered to have been displaying a hangman's noose and the confederate flag in his law office. As governor, Allen "signed a Confederate Heritage Month proclamation without denouncing slavery." Allen also "opposed a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King" and referred to the NAACP as an "extremist group."

Thanks to David Sirota for the catch.



For all Robert Byrd's statesmanship in recent years, I hope he retires next year so the right-wingers can quit lauding his brief and ugly Klan membership. At least he reformed which is more than can be said for some. Here's a good article illustrating the history of the migration of the segregationists:

Ultimately, the Dixiecrat movement paved the way for the rise of the modern Republican Party in the South. Many former Dixiecrat supporters eventually became Republicans, as was highlighted by Strom Thurmond's conversion in the 1960s...

Which, of course, was good riddance. Maybe the GOP was the Party of Lincoln. But we're the party of Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, not the party of Trent Lott and George Allen. They were the party of Frederick Douglass, but we're the party of Shirley Chisholm and Barack Obama. The modern GOP is living in the 19th century on race in more ways than one.



Politics

I Hate Paper

I Hate Paper



Have I ever mentioned how much I hate paper? You wouldn't know it, looking at my desk and my boxes full of the stuff, but I really don't like getting stuck with information on paper.



Part of it's just that I have horrible luck with printers. They frustrate me, and as a result I get frustrated when people can't grasp information on a screen but can accept the same piece of information if, when, and only when it's printed.



To me, paper is the medium of the Old Millenium and data is Post-Modern. Give me a screen full of data, an e-mailed attachment, any time. Maybe that's why I like blogging better than I liked the newspaper column I had a decade ago.



Last week I did my entire year's taxes and filed them without paper. Calculator pop-up, on-line filing, took less than an hour. I save everything on the external hard drive that's the size of one paperback.

Banning Gay Adoption in Virginia

Banning Gay Adoption in Virginia



From the state that tried to give us mandatory miscarriage reporting:

"'No person under this statute may adopt if that person is a homosexual.'



Legislation proposed by Delegate Richard Black (R-Loudon) would add the aforementioned language to the laws governing Virginia's adoption procedures..."

Another unusual suspect for 2008

Another unusual suspect for 2008



Another day, another trial balloon:

"Friends and supporters of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have established a political action committee that has lavished more than $250,000 on Republican candidates and county GOP organizations across the nation since July, apparently laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run for the Massachusetts politician in 2008."

Is there room for yet another moderate (sic) in the field? Between McCain, Pataki, Rudy, and now Mitt, it's looking mighty crowded.



And how come Massachusetts Democrats can win everything in sight EXCEPT the governorship?



Politics

"Israeli Apartheid Week" at U of Toronto draws ire

"Israeli Apartheid Week" at U of Toronto draws ire



About time someone else drew the South Africa analogy:

The University of Toronto says it will not interfere with a series of events, dubbed "Israeli Apartheid Week," planned for later this month and organized by an independent campus group, the Arab Students' Collective.



The week of themed discussions will feature talks on such subjects as Palestinian and migrant labour in Israel.



"There are different forms of apartheid in Israel," said Ahmad Shokr, an organizer with the collective, explaining the agenda for the week.



"Every day is theme-based — one day is focused on political prisoners; another day is focused on the wall separating Israel from Palestine, another day is focused on refugees, Shokr said.



Banning such discussions, said Professor Dave Farrar, vice-provost for students, would violate the university's responsibility to promote the basic freedoms of speech and association.

Maybe they can extend the one-person-one-vote unitary state analogy to Palestine-Israel too.



As for the naysayers:

The decision was condemned by B'Nai Brith Canada's executive vice-president, Frank Dimant, who said the week of events planned for Jan. 31 through Feb. 4 "is nothing but a thinly veiled hate fest that threatens the safety and security of the Jewish students whose well-being the University is charged with protecting."

Repeat after me, slowly and carefully:



Anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism.

Anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism.

Anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism...



Politics

Think Alford will bench him NOW?

Think Alford will bench him NOW?



This is why I've been cheering against the Hawkeye men the last couple years:

If Pierre Pierce is charged, he's done. The trust is broken. The goodwill of his university, his athletic director, his coach, his teammates, his fans, has been abused.



There's no way he takes the floor at Carver-Hawkeye Arena again, even if the legal system allows for it.



For Pierce to take the court would be an affront to every law-abiding Iowan. And plenty of Iowans are still seething over Pierce's presence on the team following his guilty plea to assault causing injury in the 2002 incident in Iowa City.



The critics who were outraged at the time of the negotiated punishment - a redshirt season and community service - are disappointed more than ever today that their voices weren't heard, or at least weren't heeded.



Their questions then:



Has assault against women become acceptable?

This guy should have been GONE two years ago.



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