Democrats Win! Again

Democrats are ending the year with another exclamation mark:

Former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez completed a stunning political turnaround Tuesday with an upset win over incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla that topped off the Democratic takeover of Congress.

[...]

After slowly working his way through the crowd to the stage, he declared victory — which came on the heels of two Democratic primary defeats in 2004 and earlier this year in the neighboring District 28.

"I think we have a real mandate," he said. "We needed to make sure we worked on raising the minimum wage. We’re also going to take care of prescription drug costs. And, by God, we’re going to do the right thing by our veterans."

The election sends Rodriguez back to Congress after a two-year hiatus prompted by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature redrawing of the state’s congressional districts in 2003.

His victory leaves Democrats with 234 seats in the U.S. House, Republicans with 200. A seat in Florida remains contested with the Republican candidate ahead and expected to win.

Tuesday’s runoff stemmed from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last June that Texas Republican leaders breached the Voting Rights Act by slicing 100,000 Hispanics from the district in their 2003 remap. A three-judge panel answered by removing several largely Anglo Hill Country counties and pulling heavily Hispanic South Bexar County into the district.

Chris Matthews is a Tool

Chris Matthews, or Tweety, as he is affectionately known in the liberal blogsphere, is a total tool… just listen to him as he fawns and trips all over himself just before going on-the-air to “interview” the disgraced republican congressman Tom Delay. Man, any farther and Tweety, err, Chris Matthews, would’ve had his entire pumpkin head too far up to see the light of day ever again:

This video was originally posted at HuffingtonPost.com, by Harry Shearer.

Of course, as Harry Shearer points out, the money quote from this brief video is Tom Delay saying: “Nothing worse than a woman know-it-all,” in response to a comment by Chris Matthews on a focus group in which Hilliary Clinton did not do well.

Republicans on Impeachment

I came across the original post over at DailyKos.com. The Bulldog Manifesto asks:

Back when former President Clinton was being impeached, many of our current Congressmen and Senators were involved in the process. Men like Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and Henry Hyde, among others, came out strongly in support of the impeachment of Clinton based upon the highest standard of “rule of law.”

Today, as impeachment makes its way back into the American vernacular, this time related to George W. Bush, the following quotes become quite illuminating.

While reading them, perhaps ask yourself, ‘What happened to the “rule of law?”

The Bulldog then provides us with these gems:

What Did They Say When Clinton Was Being Impeached?

Tom Delay (R-TX):

“This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.

No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That�s the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.”

Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.):

“I suggest impeachment is like beauty: apparently in the eye of the beholder. But I hold a different view. And it’s not a vengeful one, it’s not vindictive, and it’s not craven. It’s just a concern for the Constitution and a high respect for the rule of law. … as a lawyer and a legislator for most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human spirit.

The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door.”

James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI):

“What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don’t accept the responsibility for them.”

Chuck Hagel (R-NB):

“There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America–one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?”

Bill Frist (R-TN):

“I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail.”

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas):

“When someone is elected president, they receive the greatest gift possible from the American people, their trust. To violate that trust is to raise questions about fitness for office. My constituents often remind me that if anyone else in a position of authority — for example, a business executive, a military officer of a professional educator — had acted as the evidence indicates the president did, their career would be over. The rules under which President Nixon would have been tried for impeachment had he not resigned contain this statement: “The office of the president is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States.”

You can find the Bulldog’s blog here: http://bulldogpolitics.blogspot.com/

So it Begins: Republicans Aim after Democrats

Well, it looks like the political landscape is about to be littered with bodies — in spite of what the news headlines read like. Just yesterday House Republicans reversed themselves by repealing changes they had made to the House Ethics Committee, which Republicans adopted to protect their Majority Leader — Tom DeLay (NY Times - April 28, 2005 ):

House Overturns New Ethics Rule as Republican Leadership Yields
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, April 27 - In a rare retreat, the Republican-led House on Wednesday overturned contentious rule changes made to the House ethics process, with Republicans saying they surrendered to the Democrats to try to restore a way to enforce proper conduct in the House.

[...]

One of the most immediate effects of the House’s reverting to the old rules will be the opening of an investigation into persistent questions about Mr. DeLay’s overseas travel and his relationships with prominent lobbyists. His fund-raising operations are under investigation by a grand jury in Texas, and some of the lobbyists’ roles have come under increasing scrutiny by federal investigators in recent months. While Mr. DeLay has not been named as a target of those investigations, the attention paid to his troubles has proven disruptive in the House.

[...]

The vote marked another pivot in a politically charged ethics tug-of-war expected to persist in the House. Lawmakers of both parties said they expected the resolution of the standoff to lead to calls for ethics inquiries into not only Mr. DeLay but also other members, including Democratic leaders.

As the NY Times article explains, the immediate effect will be to start the investigation into Tom DeLay’s alleged corruption violations, which “Tom DeLay’s House of Scandals” does a good job of cataloguing. The key point, however, is listed in the third paragraph above. So, while on its face Republicans’ reversal on the Ethics Committee changes may seem like a retreat, it in fact is the opening of a new front: Republicans are about to go after Democrats in the House.

The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress exclusively, has a lot more background information on the tit-for-tat ploy that Republicans are about to engage in:

Republican lawmakers who met yesterday to discuss a proposal by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to reverse changes to House ethics rules said it is inevitable that their colleagues will file complaints against Democrats once the ethics panel is again operational.

Republicans said that not one of their colleagues has volunteered to file a complaint against a Democrat but that they have no doubt that will in fact happen.

Some GOP legislators are upset that they were forced to back down on the ethics rules, handing House Democrats a huge political victory. Others, including Hastert, believed that keeping the rules in place would have inflicted significant, long-term damage on House Republicans.

Clearly, Republicans are not interested in getting to the bottom of the corruption allegations under which Tom DeLay continues to exercise his leadership over House Republicans; instead, Republicans merely aim to muddy the waters by going after Democrats by fishing for any charge that’ll stick against any one of them.

As always, LiberalOasis provides some of the best commentary and analysis on the Republicans’ strategic retreat:

As you can see, scrapping the new ethics rules intended to block an investigation into Tom DeLay is not a retreat.

Just a change in strategy.

They’re tired of playing defense for DeLay.

So now they’re gearing up to play some offense.

[...]

While they can’t fully bump DeLay off the front pages, they can potentially muddy the waters, turning the narrative into an “everybody does it” kind of story.

Now, this is very much a high-risk strategy for the GOP.

A steady stream of “everybody does it” stories can create an anti-incumbent “Throw The Bums Out” dynamic, as the House Bank scandal did in 1992 (43 congresspeople were defeated, another 52 retired.)

While the GOP margin in the House has been fairly slim for several years, Dems have never been given much change to regain control, because incumbency re-elections rates have been so high.

A Throw The Bums Out dynamic, while possibly stinging some Dems, may well be the party’s best chance in 2006.

Read the entire post at LiberalOasis, there’s a lot of great insight and advice in the entry.

Democratic Agenda for America

This is brilliant, while Republicans are running around destroying the principle of “Separation of Church and State” and, too, threating to permanently alter long standing Senate rules on debate, which Republicans have called their “nuclear option,” Democrats have put forward a much needed agenda for reform — originally posted at Daily Kos:

As a matter of comity, the Minority in the Senate traditionally defers to the Majority in the setting of the agenda. If Bill Frist pulls the nuclear trigger, Democrats will show deference no longer.

Invoking a little-known Senate procedure called Rule XIV, last week Democrats put nine bills on the Senate calendar that seek to help America fulfill its promise.

If Republican’s break the rules Democrats will use the rule to bring to the Senate floor an agenda that meets the needs of average Americans, such as lowering gas prices, reducing the cost of health care and helping veterans.

“Across the country, people are worried about things that matter to their families - the health of their loved ones, their child’s performance in schools, and those sky high gas prices,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. “But what is the number one priority for Senate Republicans? Doing away with the last check on one-party rule in Washington to allow President Bush, Senator Frist and Tom Delay to stack the courts with radical judges. If Republicans proceed to pull the trigger on the nuclear option, Democrats will respond by employing existing Senate rules to push forward our agenda for America.”

Democrats have introduced bills that address America’s real challenges. (Details attached)

1. Women’s Health Care (S. 844). “The Prevention First Act of 2005″ will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions by increasing funding for family planning and ending health insurance discrimination against women.

2. Veterans’ Benefits (S. 845). “The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2005″ will assist disabled veterans who, under current law, must choose to either receive their retirement pay or disability compensation.

3. Fiscal Responsibility (S. 851). Democrats will move to restore fiscal discipline to government spending and extend the pay-as-you-go requirement.

4. Relief at the Pump (S. 847). Democrats plan to halt the diversion of oil from the markets to the strategic petroleum reserve. By releasing oil from the reserve through a swap program, the plan will bring down prices at the pump.

5. Education (S. 848). Democrats have a bill that will: strengthen head start and child care programs, improve elementary and secondary education, provide a roadmap for first generation and low-income college students, provide college tuition relief for students and their families, address the need for math, science and special education teachers, and make college affordable for all students.

6. Jobs (S. 846). Democrats will work in support of legislation that guarantees overtime pay for workers and sets a fair minimum wage.

7. Energy Markets (S. 870). Democrats work to prevent Enron-style market manipulation of electricity.

8. Corporate Taxation (S. 872). Democrats make sure companies pay their fair share of taxes to the U.S. government instead of keeping profits overseas.

9. Standing with our troops (S. 11). Democrats believe that putting America’s security first means standing up for our troops and their families

“Abusing power is not what the American people sent us to Washington to do. We need to address real priorities instead — fight for relief at the gas pump, stronger schools and lower health care costs for America’s families,” said Senator Reid.