“Destroying Democracy”

According to some Republicans, making sure that every vote is counted amounts to "destroying democracy":

Republican Vern Buchanan made a rollicking, rambling appearance on Hannity and Colmes last night, during which he accused Democrat Christine Jennings of "destroying democracy" by contesting the election results.

The issue in the race, of course, is that electronic voting machines failed to register a vote in the congressional race from more than 13 percent of Sarasota County voters — a rate far higher than other counties and absentee ballots. That statistical aberration or "undervote" has led experts and other reasonable people to declare that something went wrong in the race.

Republicans… Planting Legislative Land Mines

Via TalkingPointsMemo.com, the Wall Street Journal Reports:

Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month.

Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. And the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), has been demanding that the Democrat-crafted 2008 budget absorb most of the $13 billion in costs incurred from a decision now to protect physician reimbursements under Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly and disabled.

The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute "pay-as-you-go" budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing.

"I think we’re trying to get an accommodation," said Speaker Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.) last evening. "You’re digging a hole now and filling up with money from ‘08," he said of Mr. Thomas’s demands. "He says he’s trying to move away from that."

Corrupt Bush Administration Officials

After the folks behind the rightwing blog Powerline claimed that they could only "remember" one Bush administration that had resigned due to some "scandal," Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com decided to put a cheat sheet together for the folks at Powerline blog. Here’s the first draft of the cheat sheet, Our Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials.

At last count the list included the following Bush administration officials that have resigned because of corruption or similar criminal charge: Lester Crawford, Carl Truscott, Joseph Schmitz, Brian Doyle, Claude Allen, David Safavian, Steven Griles, Susan Ralston, Dusty Foggo, Larry Franklin, Janet Rehnquist, Roger Stillwell, Ken Tomlinson, George Deutsch, Richard Perle, Frank Figueroa, James Roche, Darleen Druyun, Marvin Sambur, Philip Cooney.

Re: Foley | Murtha: Leadership… Must Resign Immediately

It’s important for any "opposition party" to be flexible, current, relevant, visible and vocal — as is often remarked, "90% of success is just showing up." Over the long term, yes, "It’s About Iraq, Stupid." However, at the moment, the Republican Predatorgate scandal (aka., Mark Foley preying on teenage boys) throws in sharp contrast the differences between Democrats and the scandal ridden Republicans. That’s why it’s important that our nascent Liberal Noise Machine continue hammering the Republican Predatorgate scandal; because it’s one more nail, of many, in the coffin of corrupt Republicans.

This is an important moment. We’ve heard a lot about the potential electoral repercussions of Predatorgate against Republicans. In fact, our own in-house Republican, MC71, provides some anecdotal evidence illustrating the impact of this scandal on his party — when asked when it was that he lost faith on Republicans, he wrote:

There are moments. Moments that nobody will ever forget when they realized that the whole thing cannot be supported any longer.

There were three for me (and I believe many Republicans share these)

1. By far the largest was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina was the largest government failure in modern history. This party wants to move 12 million people who want be in America out of the country. It couldn’t evacuate the thousands who did not want to be in New Orleans.

2. The nomination of Harriet Miers. Conservatives put Bush in office to nominate intelligent Conservative judges. Bush put some buddies in a hat and chose Harriet. It was a complete disrespect to the people who elected him, and many woke up then. (Once again, I state this not as an endorsement of any philosophy, but as a means to understand a situation).

3. This week, when Mark Foley resigned. There are scandals and then there is this. I’m almost frustrated that Democrats are not paying more attention to this. Nobody can support this in our government.

(Emphasis added.)

This is why it’s important that our Liberal Noise Machine continue hammering the Republican Predatorgate scandal: because this has gotten the attention of people that would not otherwise be listening.

And this is where Rep. Murtha comes in. MC71, if you’re reading this, here’s one Democratic Representative that is listening to you, and he agrees: nobody should tolerate the Republican leadership’s cover up of Predatorgate, period.

Over at The Huffington Post Rep. Murtha posted the following:

Like many of you, I’ve been watching the disturbing news reports about the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Congressman Mark Foley. It’s horrifying enough if these interactions occurred, but if allegations of a cover up by the Republican Leadership are true, it’s unconscionable. Their first obligation should have been to protect these young people who come to Congress to work hard and learn the legislative process.

[...]

There is absolutely no excuse for allowing something like this to go on, especially if they had even a hint of a problem months ago. If there was any sign of wrongdoing, a red flag should have gone up, and a thorough investigation should have begun immediately.

It is imperative that we hold people accountable for failing these young people. They are children who have been entrusted to the care of Congress. If the Congressional Leadership had knowledge of these disgusting and appalling emails and did nothing to stop it and to protect all of these kids, they must resign immediately.

I’m glad that Rep. Murtha has stepped forward to call for the immediate resignation of anyone that covered up the preying on of teenage boys by Republican Mark Foley; and I sincerely hope that more Congresspersons of conscious, whether Democrat or Republican, will come forward to do the same. Enough is enough.