Entries Tagged 'Politics' ↓

Thanks for all the great responses to my gay marriage article. Keep ‘em coming!

I’ve been thinking a lot about the gay weddings in San Francisco over the last few days. To me, they’re an amazing victory. It’s one of the biggest instances of civil disobedience to happen here in the U.S. within my lifetime. Mayor Gavin Newsom won’t have the long-term relevance of Rosa Parks, but it’s still good to see someone standing up and challenging injustice with such force.
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Today’s Washington Post contained an interesting article predicting that President Bush plans to significantly increase the U.S. committment to space exploration. Next week Bush is expected to call for a manned settlement on the moon, using that as a stepping stone for a manned mission to Mars.

In the meantime, the Congressional Budget Office announced today that last quarter’s budget deficit was $126 billion. If that rate continues, the entire deficit for fiscal year 2004 will be about $500 billion. A half trillion dollars in one year.

I’m all in favor of space exploration. Hell, I went to Space Camp when I was 11. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone!) I think a permanent colony on the moon would be damn cool. But does Bush have any sense of priority here? Bush reminds me of the college student that ends up with $20,000 in credit card debt… or the lottery winner that blows $18 million in 8 years.

And where are all the “conservatives” who were up in arms about supposedly reckless budgeting under Clinton? The deficit started at $255 billion — half the 2004 deficit — during Clinton’s first year in office, and declined every year after that. If Republican voters were so outraged at the size of that deficit, shouldn’t they be even more outraged now?

I just found out that the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection is J. Howard Beales III, one of my professors at GW. I’m not at all surprised. He taught a course on Business-Government Relations. The material was actually really interesting, and he was quite an expert on the subject. But at the same time, he often inflected his political viewpoint into the lectures. His pro-business/anti-government views sound like they made him an ideal candidate for Bush’s executive branch…

There’s a new article profiling Howard Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi. It’s a long article but really impressive. It does a great job of explaining just why Dean’s strategy is going to be so successful.

Oh my. Pat Robertson seems to have advocated using nuclear weapons to blow up the State Department.

Please don’t — my office is about a half-mile away and I don’t want to get radiation sickness.

There’s a new development in today’s Washington Post about the White House leak of a CIA operative’s name from July. Apparently in the process of researching the leak, domestic journalists discovered the name of a CIA front company. This intensifies the situation for two reasons. First, it establishes that Mrs. Plume has indeed worked undercover in the last 5 years. Second, it shows that the leak of her name has snowballed into the release of additional classified material. The press found this in a week, who knows what else they’ll find.

On Nightline last night, they interviewed a few former CIA agents about this. All were registered Republicans, all had voted for Bush — but they all were incensed that this could have taken place. Specifically, it becomes a nightmare when recruiting new agents and securing cooperation from foreigners. They think, “Why should I help your government, if there’s a chance that your government would turn on me and put my life at risk?” Plus of course it prevents our intelligence agencies from gathering the most reliable intelligence possible, because they’re likely to ignore intelligence which contradicts the “party line” for fear of repurcussions.

What a mess. Isn’t Bush wonderful?

Well, I may not vote for him, but I just made another contribution to Howard Dean. If you’ve been thinking about contributing, the deadline for the quarter is in three and a half hours, so you should do so now. But even if you read this after the deadline is up, feel free to contribute later!

UPDATE: The “albino frog” statement actually has some context! There is a unique pond in Mr. Delgaudio’s county, which provides a perfect habitat for a rare species of albino frogs. For three days I thought Eugene Delgaudio was nuts. But with this new article, now I can understand just how concerned he is for Loudon County’s welfare.

Friday night, my friends Josh and Jeff organized a fundraiser for Doug Reimel, a candidate running for a local Virginia county board race against the extreme right-wing Eugene Delgaudio. I went to the event; I’d say there were about 30 people there or so. My friends did a great job organizing the event and it turned out very well.

Apparently Mr. Delgaudio heard about the fundraiser, and felt the need to comment. Here’s what Mr. Delgaudio had to say:

My opponent held a GIANT fund raiser Friday night, after the deadline, in Dupont Circle to get Washington Money from liberal Pacs and radical leftist treasuries. I will not underestimate the amount of money liberals will donate to spread lies and disinformation to Sterling residents. These weird wonks, and my strange opponent, want tax rates of 60 per cent, like France, in order to fund all their “needed” projects (albino frogs, dark skys, foot free open space, car-less roads, gardens atop roof-tops, mandatory mass transit, density packing of high rises in Eastern Loudoun,etc.) .

You can tell why they want him out of office so badly. What a nut!