For the smile.

Was it a thought worth thinking or just a brain fart to ignore?

Besides the Gov race there are going to be some good races in the assembly and senate that could use all the assistance possible. The Wis legislature is way too red and we need help to turn more of those seats blue.

The state is also going to have a very important state supreme court race that could shift the  balance of the court from conservative to progressive. Given the tilt of federal courts to the right, this makes the state courts even more important.

So much of the Iraq war "debate" has been in the sterile confines of press rooms with Rummy and his underlings serving up the daily bullshit for the press to package and regurgitate. The Sheehan protest makes the emotional connection to this war that has found little air time or print space until now.

What is surprising is the  inability of Rove, et al to accurately calculate the political pros and cons of Cindy Sheehan's meeting request. Right now, they are backed in a corner where they are trying to slime her through the right-wing noise machine, which seems unlikely to play well in all but the "Bush is God" living rooms and avoid the strong-arm arrest option that will go over with a huge thud if implemented. In the meantime, Bush looks like a cowering politician too weak to have a conversation with one mom.

 

In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886) Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced before the court even took oral argument: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." Thus, the court extended the constitutional concept of person to non-humans. Do you think this decision is consistent with the concept of person at the time the constitution was written by the framers and, if so, does this mean the constitution's concept of person also includes a fetus and, if so, to what degree?

I guess I was thinking that the Schiavo event has a longer shelf life than most things, but maybe not.

Yup. Except I see a good opening currently for this position in light of the Terri Schiavo debacle.

I think each of the items on the list represents important intersections between our government and our society, which is why I think they resonate so well for republicans despite the exploitable weaknesses in the positions they have taken on them. Accordingly, I do not think we can avoid any of them without risking some serious political turf to the other side. Our  strategy then is to draw a clear and easily repeatable distinction between our tax position/philosophy and theirs and repeat it over and over until "fair taxes [meaning not only fair burden but fair distribution]" is synonymous with Democrat.

Why not use their construct with reframing to strike a clear contrast between their ideas and ours?

Them:

Strong defense

Free markets

Lower taxes

Smaller government

Family values

Us:

Smart Defense (could we have a better time to run on the argument that stupid defense [i.e., stupid leadership and management] is not so good for  national and international security?)

Honest Markets (free markets create corruption and imbalances -- honest markets create strong economies and protect worker's rights)

Limited Government (the contrast here is made with the point that even a conservative "small government" that is willing to intervene in the most private and personal human decisions [see Terri Schiavo] is still bad government)

Fair Taxes (lowering takes in ways that create disproportionate benefits for the wealthy is not fair)

American Values (honest vs dishonest, justice vs injustice, freedom vs intolerance, democracy vs theocracy, rationalism [public education] vs dogma, environmental stewardship vs greed, etc.)

Note that these frames provide nice gateways for running on a "reform democrat" platform that makes good sense to me.

I really like the frame "culture of corruption" and its political potency.

What is even more astonishing about the Rove mess is its continuing contribution to the Bush admininstration's singlehanded success at weakening every part of the Republican mantra of: limited government (see Terri Schiavo and No Child Left Behind), lower taxes (see huge tax breaks for the wealthy with widening economic gap, economic doldrums and financial insecurity for the non-wealthy), traditional family values (see compulsive lying and deception across the board by Rove, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al and political corruption by Delay, et al) and strong national defense (see screwed up situation in Iraq).

I think the impulse to villify resides in some dark mental compartment that tells today's right-winger that his/her position is beyond critique and cannot be questioned or challenged. Therefore, absolute conformance to their view is essential and required to be worthy of respect. Every person who fails this political extremist test can and should be villified and ridiculed with abandon since their nonconformance clearly shows they are obviously some undesirable form of life.

This poll only confirms my intial gut reaction that the Schiavo overreach was gonna be a little too close to home for a lot of folks.

Dems have made the "Republicans want government interfering in your lives" argument before in connection with abortion, etc. I may just be blowing smoke out my ... but it seems that there might be a natural tendency to try and disassociate yourself from the abortion context and, hence, the inability to make this argument stick to the republicans.

That kind of dismissal to government action that intervenes into an end of life event is a lot more difficult. I heard somewhere recently that there are 35,000 people in America in a persistive vegetative state. There are a lot more who are in end-of-life circumstances and require medical decisions be made by spouses or family memebers. So, it is a whole lot tougher for the average Joe/Jane to convince themselves that they don't have to worry or be concerned about the Delay's and Frist's who want to reach into their personal lives and start making life and death decisions for them based on their "culture of life" morality.

Now, everybody grab a hammer and keep whacking this wedge day after day, after day, after ....

Seems to me that an important key to the education process is finding the right message for our barker to call out to the passersby to get them into the tent for the education lesson. Economic populism? Something else? Who knows for sure. The first step is understanding that some movement must be facilitated to get the unconverted to stop long enough to listen to the lesson.

"We can do anything we need to do to pass any bill that we need to pass."

Sounds like a perfect summary of the hubris we have seen so recently from the power-intoxicated right wing nut circus. Self-destruction should follow shortly.

I tend to agree, assuming judicial conservatives adhere to their demand for government neutrality. However, legal clarity is not a description that applies to the current establishment clause framework in the courts, nor is consistency.