Rangel "all in", Harris a deranged crook, and anti-science zealots get the boot in Kansas
Rep. Charlie Rangle, D-NY, a personal fave if for nothing else than his ability to more than hold his own against right wing flacks and hucksters, is banking on the Dems picking up the House majority.
Rep. Charles Rangel, a senior Democrat in Congress and the dean of New York's congressional delegation, said Wednesday he'll retire if the Democrats don't retake control of the House this year.Let's hope Charlie gets another term.
"I'm a poker player and I've had good hands all night long. This is all in," Rangel said in an interview. "I would not put everything on the table if I thought for one minute we would lose."
Rangel, ranking Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee, is 76 years old and has spent 35 years in Congress. The Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the 2006 midterm election to retake control of the House -- a victory that would return Rangel to the chairmanship of the powerful committee.
And from the kharmic justice files, we learn that the increasingly unhinged Kathrine Harris was subpoenaed but sorta neglected to tell anyone on her campaign staff. Oooops.
U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris withheld from her staff for several weeks the fact that she had been subpoenaed by federal investigators probing the activities of a convicted former defense contractor, according to former aides.And finally, on the "maybe they're smarter than apes in Kansas after all" front, enough anti-science, anti-reality fundy's on the Kansas State Board of Education have been voted off to allow reality-based candidates a majority.
Harris' staff learned about the subpoena in June while preparing campaign finance reports that showed her legal fees to the Washington law firm Patton Boggs had jumped from $1,975 during the first quarter of this year to $37,758 during the second quarter.
Harris, of Longboat Key, near Sarasota, is one of four Republican candidates in the Sept. 5 primary for nomination to the U.S. Senate.
A former campaign aide, who asked not to be identified, said the firm's invoice indicated the legal fees were for "discussions with the candidate regarding subpoena."
The existence of the subpoena was first reported Wednesday by The Tampa Tribune, which quoted Glenn Hodas, who was Harris' third campaign manager and who quit in June shortly after learning of the subpoena. Hodas could not be reached for comment.
The seesaw battle over state science standards in Kansas seems to have tipped back a bit in the direction of sanity. In Tuesday’s primary elections, moderates who subscribe to the theory of evolution won just enough races to guarantee them a slight majority on the school board after November’s general election. That should make it possible for them to overturn the benighted science standards pushed through by conservatives on the board last year in an effort to undercut the theory of evolution.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 8/03/2006
1 comments
1 Comments:
Holy Guacamole Dookie, I think the cheese has slipped off your cracker.
Aren't you the one who always takes me to the woodshed for being too "partisan"?? Woah!
You must have not been on your game when you wrote the comment above.
Where do I begin?
First of all, I do like Charlie Rangel, a lot. That doesn't mean I support each and every view he may hold.
Secondly, yes, I can see exactly why Rangel proposed bringing back the draft, and I think it would have exactly the result he thought it would.
The fact is that we have essentially a mercenary military, and a huge proportion is minority, and an even larger proportion are from lower income areas.
The reason Rangle proposed reinstituting the draft was to make the sacrifices equal across all classes.
IF the draft was resumed (it never will be) the fact is that you'd hear all the well off and middle class people who blithly cheerlead this endless cluster-f*ck that Bush has lead us into screaming bloody murder to END THE WAR NOW and bring all the troops home.
There is a very large factor of basic justice in a draft, is there not? (Unless the Republicans, which they very well might, invented some sort of loophole which allowed the well off to avoid it.)
In terms of simple equality and equal sacrifice from all, the draft is obviously the way to go.
And to repeat, if it was instituted, those armchair generals who are gung-ho to "stay the course" would change their tune in a great big hurry when they realized that their little Johnny or Joanie was about to be whisked off on an all-expenses paid trip to sunny Bagdhad.
For that reason, yeah, I support Rangels call to reinstitute the draft on principle, if not literally.
By the way, they bumped up the eligible age for joining the service once again and lowered the physical requirements as well. Pretty soon the only requirement will be if you have a pulse and are willing to risk your life for no apparent reason.
And.... you truly think that Charlie Rangel... one guy... expressing a desire to reinstitute the draft, is going to be the reason Dems don't take the House?
That's not a serious statement.
And after your recent diatribe about my being too "partisan" to even take seriously, you pop up with a statement like "Face it, the left is full of wackos, most of them in Congress"?
Yikes... that made the needle on my hypocrisyometer spin so fast it cooled me off.
Now just who, praytell, do you consider "whackos" on the left?
And if you think the right isn't abundantly represented by whackos, you're not paying attention.
Religious zealots, anti-government radicals, thinly veiled racists, war mongers and servants of the ultra-rich are all abundant in the Republican party.
Hell, the Republican star Ney from Ohio just announced he won't be running again. That couldn't have anything to do with the fact he's in deep with the convicted theif and con man Jack Abramoff, could it? And that dirty snowball hasn't even started rolling yet.
Maybe the thing you're missing is that by my pointing out the criminal, unethical, creepy, unconstitutional, and just plain stupid things Republicans do and have done, I'm not trying to argue that Dems are pure as the driven snow. I'm not some brainwashed zombie.
But I most certainly do think, well not only think, but know, that the right is far more guilty in almost every catagory of political malfeasance, chicanery, lying, rampant fiscal irresponsibility and incompetence. You name the catagory, the Republicans have screwed it up. From education to foreign policy to the economy to environmental protections... a failure across the board.
It'll probably take two presidential terms at the very least to even try to undo at least part of the damage.
I wish the Dems luck. And I hope the voters are able to clean house of all the establishment DLC type Dems as well, or else there's not much chance that things will change in any appreciable way even if Dems get control of some parts of the government.
As long as the Dems keep veering towards the right in the chase after corporate money, and perceived conservative voters, there's never going to be the kind of new thinking that it will take to try to correct the dangerous course the country has been on.
And I've not laughed so hard in a long time at you last line. That's hilarious!
A right winger saying that fear is going to be used as a tactic.
The right have been such incredible fear pimps for the past 6 years. After making the rubes think that a bearded terrorist is hiding behind every bush and each and every one of them on a holy mission to eat the entrails of American babies and take our TVs away, they might have a tough time trying to scare us with "one Dem wants to return to the draft"
Sorry for the length. I know anything over two paragraphs qualifies for condemnation as a "rant" or "screed" or something else.
Just expressing my thoughts on the matters you raise. Take 'em or leave 'em.
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