Massachusetts Democrats: soft on Communism, adultery, spitting

I cannot overstate my outrage at seeing this local news item:

BOSTON -- Massachusetts residents could spit on the sidewalk, give a tattoo, even commit blasphemy or adultery without fear of a fine or jail time under a bill being considered on Beacon Hill.

The bill would repeal nearly two dozen so-called "blue laws" -- laws that often deal with moral or religious issues...

One of the laws mandates a $300 fine or year in jail for anyone who "wilfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world."

[...] The bill also would eliminate laws declaring the Communist Party a subversive organization, making adultery a criminal offense punishable by three years in jail or a $500 fine, and barring anyone from "acting in a suspicious manner around any steamboat landing, railroad depot, or any electric railway station." [...]

The bill's sponsor, state Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston, said there's more than just legal house-cleaning behind the legislation.

"There was a feeling that we shouldn't have laws that we never use," he said. "And there were a few laws that could be used and shouldn't."

Yeah. Good job, DEFEATOCRAT Byron Rushing. Way to give the terrorists unfettered access to our steamboat landings and electric railway stations! What will you say when Osama bin Laden and his henchmen arrive at the Old Colony House in Hingham, spitting and blaspheming (as terrorists do) with impunity, and our police are powerless to stop them? What will you say then, Byron Rushing?

(Via Dave Barry).

Brains! BRAAAINS!

Rudy, on global terror strategy:

This cannot be like a horror movie. You know, in the horror movie you kill the monster, and the hand re-emerges. And if you're not looking, the hand grows back and then the monster's there again. That cannot be allowed to happen.

At this point I envision Giuliani's aides slowly backing away saying "Yes, Mr. Mayor. Whatever you say," before they break out into a full sprint.

Good Lord this guy is the frontrunner.

(h/t: Greg Sargent)

Obama on American Foreign Policy

This Robert Kagan article and the Barack Obama speech that he refers to are mighty interesting. His comments on the Iraq echo a point I've been trying to make (as you can see here, here, and in the upcoming Blue Line). That is, withdrawal is not an end in itself. Peace and stability in Iraq is. Some withdrawal may help but the American military still has a role to play. Looking beyond that, American power, both military and otherwise can and should be used for good around the world.  

I suspect many of you will disagree, but if that's what Obama's saying, it's points in my book. Read the Obama speech if you have time. He says it better than I could and makes a lot of other interesting points as well.

Bush "eager" to veto Iraq withdrawl plan

Does anyone else find it strange how excited Bush appears to be to veto the bill passed by Congress that requires that withdrawl begin by October 1? It seems to be one of those things that one should not get overly excited about...

That aside, I find it unacceptable that Bush is still saying that a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq is not good policy. At this point, the situation in Iraq is only getting worse and worse, and I am afraid there is no good solution. However, withdrawl is a better solution than remaining continually in the country without an exit strategy. Our presence is only inciting more terrorism and causing more anti-American sentiment. Withdrawing from Iraq will not result in it immediately becoming a peaceful, democratic country, but it is a better solution that just continuing on our present path of failure.Congress is representing the will of the American and Iraqi people by demanding a prompt timetable for withdrawl. it is a shame that Bush is ignoring the will of the people in his excitement to veto any solution to the current debacle.

(Check out the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/washington/01cnd-policy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)

Roundup -- Get It Off! Get It Off Me!

It's around this time -- the last real weekend before Reading Period comes to take our souls away -- that everyone on campus basically turns into a blithering idiot. YardFest, which helpfully caused everyone to go around singing Third Eye Blind songs uncontrollably for hours, did not help in that regard. At the moment, after spending hours today cleaning bathrooms as part of the Dorm Crew Day fundraiser (executive summary: "Eww! Hair!"), my body's limp and my brain feels like a boiled cabbage that's been repeatedly mashed with a fork. So I'm going to forego my usual discursive introduction and dive right into LINKS FOR YOU. Enjoy.

--The Stand For Security movement is picking up steam and needs everybody's support. (The backstory is basically that Harvard security workers are being screwed in their contract negotiations and they need our help.) First, if you haven't signed the petition, do that, and if you're a stronger person than me you can join the fast on Monday and Tuesday. But generally, we should do everything we can to help this campaign before the end of the year. These people put themselves on the line to protect us every day; at very least we owe the same back to them.
---UPDATED (2:00 AM): There is a sit-in or protest of some kind today at 1:30 outside University Hall. Also I'm told there's a big rally planned for Wednesday, 2:30, at Holyoke Center; and if after those events the demands are not met, a hunger strike starting Thursday is in the works. Keep an eye on this developing situation.

--Garrett linked to an amazing clip from that Bill Moyers documentary we've all been hearing about; turns out you can watch all 90 minutes of it, in excellent quality, at PBS. When you find the time, please do; it's a powerful look at how deeply fucked-up our media really is.

--In non-fucked-up-media news, the Indy has launched a blog! Awesome! Those who don't read the Indy are missing out, it's often hilarious. (Also fill out their annual sex survey, it'll make you think.)

--Loud cheers for our friend Andrew Golis, of Cambridge Common fame, who looks like he's made the jump from being TPMCafe's open-thread slave into a legit writer. And it's a great, erudite post, too, worth a read on its merits as well as for its awesomeness factor.

--Meanwhile at TPMCafe, it's about time someone made this argument: "The Case For Bureaucracy". ...God, I'm such a Democrat.

--From the NY Sun, a charming Mitt Romney story:

"I feel old," Ann Romney told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "You are!" her husband chimed in. The crowd winced. "It's a joke, we're the same age," he clarified.

I repeat: please, please nominate him. Please. (...via James Walcott, who incidentally is absolutely hilarious and should be read regularly. In this same post he compared Fred Thompson, wonderfully, to Wilford Brimley).

--From another excellent Pew poll (click for larger version):

People seem to have the ideological affiliations of Dem candidates exactly backwards. Edwards is way to the left of the other frontrunners on basically every issue; but that perception is not out there in the public yet. How will the structure of the race change as that comes forward?

--Paragraph Of The Week honors go to Whiskey Fire: "Harry Reid is not calling for "defeat." Liberals are not calling for "defeat." We're telling you that the bloody clown show is over. Take off your floppy shoes, doff your giant red noses, and go home."

--Mystery Pollster has wonderful tag clouds for the various Dems at the debate; it's a fun way to see how on-message they are and where their heads are at (if anywhere). You can make your own tag clouds, of anything, here.

--In unrelated debate news, note that when Williams asked candidates to raise their hands if they believed there was such a thing as the "global war on terror", the split was interesting -- Edwards, Biden, Kucinich and Gravel found themselves in agreement that there wasn't, while the other four agreed there was. Myself, I find "war on terror" to be a conceptual impossibility, or at best an absurdity, so I tend to agree with Edwards and Biden (a man who knows his stuff on foreign policy, one must admit). Thoughts?

--I have got to get a copy of Rahm Emanuel's new book, "The Thumpin'", if only because in it he apparently describes Washington as "Fucknutsville". A man after me own heart.

--Band Madness is down to the Elite Eight (thankfully, AFI finally got knocked out). Remaining: Queen, Bowie, the Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, the Who, Pink Floyd, and the Doors. While I'm still hurting over Neil Young (and also, I'm sorry but Queen did not deserve to beat Hendrix), we must soldier on. I'm pulling for The Who, underdogs to the end; who's with me? Voting opens Monday.

And I'll leave you with a quote. Michelle Malkin recently referred to Mike GW and his friends (who got arrested protesting that FBI speech last week) as evidence of liberal media bias, through logic I don't quite follow. In that spirit, I wondered if the Dems had ever been similarly held up by right-wing pundits as examples of evil liberalism. Sure enough -- National Review, 9/25/2001, from future "Corner" celebs John J. Miller and Ramesh Ponnuru:

If there really were a Captain America, he probably wouldn't be a member of the Harvard College Democrats.

We must have been doing something right. Good night everybody. This is an open thread.

Roundup -- So Very Alone

Campus is eerie this evening; deserted, less than a day into spring break. Walked through Leverett and Mather Courtyards without a soul in sight. I thought maybe the world had ended and I'd missed it. (Typical; I'm late for everything these days.) But no, HARVARD LIVES, if only on the Internets; so here's yet another Roundup for you. Since those of us who aren't going to Cancun need something to do, after all.

To begin with, check out this graph to the right -- it's from the huge Pew poll released this week, which contains a gold mine of interesting data. The most heartening one for us is, as indicated to the right, Democrats have a bigger advantage over Republicans in generic support than we've seen in decades; dig further into the numbers and you see slow but certain gains for the liberal position in every single category, from gay rights to military interventionism. The country is moving our way.

--On the Harvard blogfront: Hooray for the return of Immigration Orange! Also, glad to hear Ryan's recovered -- I was very worried after reading he'd shoved a contact lens behind his eye. (Eww.) And once again I'll plug Planet 02138, which is mind-bogglingly useful. (Speaking of which, can we get a blogroll update sometime soon? Anyone? Bueller?)

--I'm sure everyone heard Elizabeth Edwards' sad news, and I don't think there's any need to rehash the subject. However, it's troubling that so many people seem to think that this calls for Edwards' withdrawal from the race, to the point of suggesting he's callously ignoring her needs out of ambition; most of these concerns are genuine. Nevertheless they're invalid. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, battling breast cancer herself, has the best description of them: "condescending bullshit".

--Depending whose poll you check, Iraqis are either completely hopeless or trembling with hopeful joy. It's science!

--Well-established among progressives, I think, is the idea that "you can't win a 'war on terror'". War on an abstract concept is impossible from the get-go. But this Wonkette satire brought to mind an interesting corollary: you can't really lose a war on terror, either...

--John McCain owns a ferret, three parakeets, and over a dozen fish. For his part, Sam Brownback has a dachshund and a fish named "Marvin Three". Meanwhile all we can counter with is Bill Richardson's cat Squeaky and maybe Barack Obama's as-yet-hypothetical dog. One thing I'll say for the Republicans, they have us beat when it comes to awesome pets.

--Speaking of Sam Brownback, I gave him guff in a thread last month for his amateurish web design; if I recall, I compared it to a white-supremacist site from 1996. Well, the Senator's updated his website and has a sweet new logo:
Now, why does this font and color scheme seem so familiar... oh yes:

Zing! Mike Huckabee, you just got very very subtly served!

--Quote of the week is from Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, with a message for the types who are constantly pushing for "unity," and opposing "rancor" and "division":

“If you take a principled point of view and people fall down on one side or the other, you can either be characterized as being principled or being tough,” he said. “Or you can be dismissed as being divisive, and I think if that’s the definition of divisive, we need more people in politics who are divisive.”

Hear hear. (h/t Hit & Run; and I die a little inside every time I approvingly cite libertarians, but what can you do.)

--Tom DeLay has not read his own book. Why doesn't this suprise me at all? (Here's the video, btw.)

--WHY do pundits insist on calling Jim Webb a "centrist"? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HE'S A SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY. Jim Webb is in my wing of the Democratic Party, with Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders and most of Minnesota and the smiling ghost of Eugene Debs. Just because Webb's macho and Southern and straightforward doesn't automatically make him "centrist", you pricks.

...I'll leave you with a thought, found via Band Madness (a fascinating March Madness-style voting competition between every major band of all time. Music fans owe it to themselves to check this one out). Seems commercial hip-hop can sometimes lead to deep existential quandaries, and it falls to the Village Voice to sort them out:

Mims is hot because he's fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one's being fly? You ain't 'cause you not" would seem to clear that up: it would appear that fly and hot are interchangable. If you are one, you are both; if you aren't at least one, you are neither.

Deep, man. (...What is the sound of one hand rapping?)

This is an open thread, but only for the fly and/or hot. Happy Spring Break, everybody.

That'll Help

You know, sometimes I wonder why we're so harsh on conservatives; when it comes to the war on terror at least, I'm glad they're stepping up with plans to resolve it. Unlike liberals, they show a real grasp of the severity of the situation. Two recent examples come to mind.

Exhibit A, Rudy Giuliani:

"We have to say to the rest of the world, ‘America doesn't like war,'" Mr. Giuliani said. " America is not a military country. We've never been a militaristic country," he added, saying national leaders have fallen into an "analytical warp" by defining the battle as a war on terrorism and not, as he deemed it, a "war of the terrorists against us."

Not a war on terror, but a war of terror against us. That... why, that changes everything! We're saved!

(Conservative blogger "Captain" Ed Morrissey, without a hint of irony, writes "Sounds a bit like 'Morning in America' again.")

Exhibit B, Patrick Ruffini of townhall.com:

Counterinsurgency in Iraq has often been compared to a game of whack-a-mole -- secure an area, only to have the insurgents pop up somewhere else. But if we slammed a mallet into the hole, and kept it there, then picked up a new one... and did the same?

This is a new game called Seal-a-Hole, and it has a very different dynamic from Whack-a-Mole: the normal game is one of futility; the game continues until the player gets tired and quits or he runs out of money. But Seal-a-Hole actually has a victory point: when all the holes are sealed, the game is over -- and the player, America, has won.

Even though Seal-a-Hole is not futile, it nevertheless requires a great deal of patience; there are many, many holes, and each hole has a mole who must be whacked. Some of the holes, such as Sadr City, are very big and will require many mallets to properly seal. But if we have the courage and fortitude of our American forebears, we will seal those holes... and we will win.

REPUBLICANS 2008: Sealing Holes With Mallets To Win The War Of Terror Against Us. Powerful stuff. You know, I wish us unserious defeatist liberals would emulate those considerate conservatives more often. We might learn something!

Torture Bill Passes

These people ought to resign for pissing all over our Constitution:

Democrats: Thomas Carper, Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu, Frank Lautenberg, Joseph Lieberman, Robert Menéndez, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, Jay Rockefeller, Kenneth Salazar, Debbie Stabenow

Republicans: Lamar Alexander, Wayne Allard, George Allen, Robert Bennett, Kit Bond, Sam Brownback, Jim Bunning, Conrad Burns, Richard Burr, Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, Thad Cochran, Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Larry Craig, Michael Crapo, Jim DeMint, Mike DeWine, Elizabeth Dole, Pete Domenici, John Ensign, Michael Enzi, Bill Frist, Lindsey Graham, Charles Grassley, Judd Gregg, Chuck Hagel, Orrin Hatch, Kay Bailey Hutchison, James Inhofe, Johnny Isakson, Jon Kyl, Trent Lott, Richard Lugar, Mel Martinez, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Roberts, Rick Santorum, Jeff Sessions, Richard Shelby, Gordon Smith, Arlen Specter, Ted Stevens, John Sununu, Jim Talent, Craig Thomas, John Thune, David Vitter, George Voinovich, John Warner

And why the hell wasn't this filibustered? Even if the final vote was 65-34, weren't there 40 Democrats willing to use a filibuster in its original sense--to extend debate?

...oh, and Chafee was the only Republican to vote against it. Kind of makes me feel bad that we're campaigning against him (although I recognize the necessity of wresting control of Congress from pro-torture extremists.)