Bush-appointed FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith is not a big fan of McCain-Feingold.  He would love to have everyone believe that free speech equals the right of any anonymous donor to funnel millions into any campaign they want. 

But the left loves McCain-Feingold.  So how to get them to hate McCain-Feingold?  Imply that you are going to start to try to shut down free speech and bloggers on the Internet because you are being forced to do so by those hateful Democrats on the Federal Election Commission.  The best way to do that?  How about an interview at CNET entitled "The Coming Crackdown On Blogging." And people ranging from Atrios at Eschaton, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, and Armando at Daily Kos seem to be falling all over themselves trying to make alliances with right-wing bloggers to try and stop the "new law."

People, this is a transparent power play.  There is no new law.  Its just a few off-hand comments one Commissioner made to a reporter at CNET.  Just because Bradley Smith implies the Commission is going to go that way doesn't make it so.  Even the smallest drop of knowledge about First Amendment law would tell you that such an interpretation has probably one of the steepest climbs in all of jurisprudence.  Smith wants to make an end-run around the other members of the committee by undercutting their support.  But they don't need support.  They don't take orders from anyone.  Why would Brad Smith think this?  Because he does.

So before you go and submit a torrent of E-mails to the Democratic members of the FEC, stop and think.  Am I really doing the right thing by reflexively doing the will of the Republican chair of the FEC?

This husband and wife team from The Amazing Race won't win this year's contest. Why?  Bad luck.  He worked for Enron and she worked for WorldCom.

What Americans hunger for now is leadership.  Bush claims to provide this by taking strong stances on issues.  Indeed much of the conservative gains of the last quarter century amongst White males can be seen not as a steady move rightward by that segment of the electorate, but an emotional reaction to uncertainty by moving towards the party with the more strident, unequivocal, and black-and-white position.

Essentially it isn't about issues or even personality, but about tone.  We need to build our confidence in ourselves and keep to whatever message we choose relentlessly.

This also explains the failure of the Lieberman faction.  As long as they appear as mere "me-tooers" they cannot win the respect or votes of those who long to see those at the top of this country provide real direction.  Thus, you can't just put a soft face on rightist positions and hope to garner the votes of the electorate.

I think we have begun to take the right steps in this direction.  Both the newly-confident tone of the grassroots of this party and the break-the-mold maverick style of Howard Dean appeal to those who seek real leadership from those who would aspire to reach the highest offices in the land.  We need to become more "Brand Democrat" as Oliver Willis would say.

Once upon a time, young and forceful leaders such as the Kennedys and old powerplayers like LBJ inspired the respect of those who wished to be led.   The more our leaders take real stands and fight for what the party thinks is right, the more people will be drawn to our standard.  American needs leadership today more than ever.  The Democratic party is poised to provide that leadership.  All we must do is roll up our sleeves.

This Google search for "Dennis Rader" wichita comes up with quite a few hits.  Church President, Supervisor of Park City Kansas.  But all the pages are inaccessible.  Maybe this is why.

A Bush voter jumps ship.

 

p.s. don't ask me how all of these "punk" people could be "punk" and for Bush, the preppie, frat-boy son of a U.S. President.  You need to sit down with Ian.

DO NOT DRINK LIQUIDS AND VIEW THIS LINK--LAUGHTER WILL CAUSE THEM TO COME OUT YOUR NOSE.

Sean Hannity has a dating service.  Republicans--they always overreach.  WARNING--NOT A PARODY.

A feud is brewing between wingnut heavies Powerline blog, and young upstart Pharyngula.  PZ Meyers, the blogger behind Pharyngula argues that Powerline is out of the mainstream because they believe in creationism.  Powerline counters:

[T]his is the state of so much of today's left -- unwilling and/or unable to argue political issues (or scientific ones, as far as appears) on the merits. Under leftist logic, the fact that one of us doesn't believe a piece of scientific orthodoxy demonstrates, what, that our attacks on liberal political orthodoxies, falsehoods, and forgeries shouldn't be taken seriously?

Naturally, the Iron Mouth editors were compelled to respond via E-mail:

Big Trunk, I see that you assert ("Call Me Stupid"), that the Left is "unwilling and/or unable to argue political issues (or scientific ones, as far as appears) on the merits." I beg to differ.

First, since the efforts of religious conservatives to discredit the theory of evolution in school text books is certainly a political issue, discussion of it definitely has a place in the poltical discourse. Furthermore, I think its safe to assume that a professor of biology like the blogger you mention, who spends a huge amount of time on his blog discussing evolution, (indeed the very name of the blog indicates that evolution v. Creationism is the main topic of the blog), isn't going to go into the details of his position on the subject in a single post on the blog.

Indeed, the post which prompted Prof. Meyers to post on the subject is simply conclusory--there is no evidence to back up the assertions about evolution other than: "I think that Darwin’s theory of macroevolution is plainly wrong, on strictly scientific grounds." Much like the post of Prof. Meyers which you singled out for criticism, the statement on evolution in your post was conclusory.

Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to support evolution. First, it is clear that evolution does occur in the natural world now. There is a reason the doctor tells everyone to take all of the antibiotics which they are prescribed--because otherwise, a resistant strain of bacteria will evolve out of the non-resistant strain the patient is infected with.

The only question is whether or not that process also created the forms of life we see today. It is clear that there are fossil records of extinct life forms almost everywhere on Earth, some of which can be dated using objective scientific methods--dated to millions of years in the past. These forms are different from our own.

Creationists like those on www.Powerlineblog.com would have us believe that a process proven to occur in the world today to result in changes to the forms and genetic code of living beings simply did not work in the past. This statement is hard to swallow for most people with science backgrounds, as well as for much of the general public. It seems to go counter to Occam's Razor, which calls for the most parsiminous explanation to be credited.

The fact that bloggers on your site support creationism without providing any real evidence for it does call their judgment into question. It seems to indicate that they do not do their homework and operate on belief rather than reasoning. Rob W

We await a response.

Hunter S. Thompson, dead at 67.

 Mr. Bush also repeatedly worried that prominent evangelical Christians would not like his refusal "to kick gays."

Really?

Rove Denies Gannon Connection.

This just in: Rush Limbaugh to visit the troops in Afghanistan.

In other news, Opium production skyrockets in Afghanistan.

Who to blame in the NHL debacle?  The man who started the fight--Gary Bettman.  Remember, this wasn't a strike, it was a lockout. 

From BBC4, The Donald Rumsfeld Library of Quotations.

Right-wing National Review Online commentator Ramesh Ponnuru on Republican's claims that Howard Dean is a racist for commenting that "the GOP couldn't fill a hotel ballroom with "people of color" unless they brought in the hotel staff:"

Give me a break. Dean is saying, hyperbolically, that there aren't many blacks or other nonwhites in the Republican party. He's right. I've been to many, many Republican dinners where most nonwhites present have been serving the food. (Or giving the keynote.) If Republicans are bothered when people make that observation, they should try to make it less true.

Score one for the man.