Melder's Musings

Republicans, now that they're in the majority, are having to deal with a few mavericks.

In Texas, House Republicans that don't like the Governor's tax plan (because it raises taxes on everybody and cuts school funding), fear he'll show negative TV spots in their home districts. The Dallas Morning News reports.

In Washington, Senate Republicans are having to delay a vote on UN Ambassador-Designate John Bolton. It seems he may not make it out of committee, as at least one Republican now sides with the Democrats after new reports of scandal emerge. Bloomberg.com reports.

You can read the latest on one of my favorite new blogs.

"But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors."

Here's who said it:

John Cloud of Time magazine, the author of the current issue's glowing article on every conservative's (well, not the self-hating gay conservatives) masturbatory fantasy, Ann Coulter.

You can read the article it came from here. Even though Cloud manages to refute one mistake attributed to Coulter in the WorldNetDaily article just linked, consider this.

Even with today's selection of Benedict XVI (and in part, because of that selection), I believe the Catholic Church still has a long way to go before it will carry any moral authority. It may not ever again have moral authority.

Why? I'll give you three of my concerns:

• Benedict XVI, formerly known as the Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was a member of the Hitler Youth. Yes, that service was compulsory, but his predecessor was active in resisting the Nazis. Pope John Paul II didn't join them.
• Speaking of John Paul II, a criminal presided over one of his memorial masses. Cardinal Bernard Law did not actually abuse anyone (as far as we know), but he most certainly aided and abetted those who did.
• The church continues to hide priests accused of and confessing to sexual abuse. In spite of major steps forward by American cardinals (except for Bernard Law) in bringing these criminals to justice, the church in Rome continues playing a shell game.

The Catholic church is a really big glass house, and they like to throw stones.

Yes, I'll even criticize my fellow liberals when I think they deserve it.

Today, it's Air America Radio. The executives at AAR recently signed a long-term deal with XM satellite radio. When that deal goes into effect, AAR will no longer be available on XM's rival, Sirius satellite radio.

I am a Sirius subscriber. After debating for months over which service to purchase, I chose Sirius partly because of AAR's availability. Sirius currently maintains a second channel (in addition to AAR) targeted at lefties like me.

On XM, AAR programming is spliced with other liberal shows on only one channel. That will not change with the long-term agreement.

AAR is putting the screws to me, other Sirius subscribers, and themselves.

For those that like to label the Washington Post "liberal," you'll actually enjoy Thursday's glowing, fawning recount of Trent Lott's "little bump."

It is anything but liberal.

In the absence of both sides of the story, and with everybody already familiar with what Lott said in December 2002 (which generated today's story), here's a brief rundown of what the Post left out.

• In 1998, Lott's connections to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) were revealed by several mainstream media outlets. The CCC is the successor to the notorious white Citizens Councils, whose history dates back half a century to the 1950s when the groups were referred to as the "uptown Klan." In December 1998, Lott denied any personal knowledge of the CCC, falsely claiming through a spokesperson that his links to the group amounted to a single speech made over a decade before he'd entered the Senate. But the facts showed otherwise: In 1992, Lott praised the CCC as the keynote speaker at its national convention; in 1997, he met with top CCC leaders in his Senate office; his column appeared throughout the 1990s in the group's newsletter, which once published a cheerful photo of Lott with CCC members who were also his close relatives. Lott was also the guest of honor at a 1982 banquet hosted by a Mississippi chapter of the old white Citizens Councils.
• Lott's legislative record demonstrates that his connections to the CCC were no fluke. In 1978, then-Representative Lott was behind a successful effort to re-instate the citizenship of Confederate President Jefferson Davis (Associated Press, 6/2/78).
• In 1981, Lott prodded the Reagan administration into taking the side of Bob Jones University and other segregated private schools that were suing the Internal Revenue Service to restore tax exemptions withdrawn a decade earlier because of the schools' discriminatory racial policies (Washington Post, 1/18/82).
• In 1982 and 1990, Lott voted against extending the Voting Rights Act, the law passed to insure that minorities-- especially Southern blacks-- had access to the voting booth.
• In 1990, he voted against continuation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the crown jewel of civil-rights legislation that desegregated education and public accommodations.
• In 1983 Lott voted against a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., and in 1994 he voted to de-fund the MLK Jr. Holiday commission.
• Lott's 2002 support for Thurmond echoed a statement Lott made in 1980: "You know, if we had elected [Strom Thurmond] 30 years ago, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today."

None of this history is mentioned in the Post's profile of Lott, whom the paper calls "one of most of the colorful figures in the Senate." In an interview on CNN (4/14/05), Lott called it "a very nice article."

Indeed, it's hard to see anything in the Post's profile that Lott would find objectionable.

My thanks go the folks at FAIR for keeping the truth on the table.

Monday Night Football is moving to ESPN.

After 35 seasons, an American institution is leaving ABC, as is reported by the Washington Post.

Both ABC and ESPN are owned by Disney, so the same rich guys will keep getting richer, but I'm still sad to see the change.

NFL officials say they've lost much of their audience over the last few seasons on ABC, but I don't see how moving to ESPN will do any better. If you don't have cable, or if your cable system doesn't carry ESPN (as sometimes happens when Time Warner and Disney don't get along), you're screwed...and ratings won't improve by cutting off an entire section of your audience just because they still get their TV for free over the air.

Sunday Night Football will move to NBC, leaving ABC without any football. Perhaps they'll pick up arena football from NBC, or maybe Desperate Housewives and the Bachlorette will merge into some kind of 5-night-per-week mega show.

Today's Republican sickness doesn't come from the Terri Schiavo circus. It comes from Senator Rick Santorum via the Washington Post.

"In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb.

Upon their son's death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen's parents' home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2."

Not only does this article at least suggest that Santorum isn't all there, but it should also point out an important piece of medical information to the anti-abortion crowd. This fetus, at 20 weeks old, could not survive outside of the womb.

Last year's release of the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report was bad for the Bush Administration.

According to a story in the Seattle Times (carried on the wire services): "...the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq... ."

As we also learn in the above story, the Bush Administration will no longer publish the report. It seem that at the White House, no news really is good news.

It looks like we're losing the war on brown people...oops...I meant the war on terror after all.

"The court has become increasingly hostile to Christianity, and it poses a greater threat to representative government -- more than anything, more than budget deficits, more than terrorist groups."

Here's who said it:

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, claiming that the U.S. Supreme Court is more dangerous to the United States' security than even al-Qaeda.

You can read the article it came from here.

Bad brakes may stop Amtrak service in the east, but nothing will stop Republican Hypocrisy here in the south, least of all any true commitment to morals.

As the New York Times is reporting today, following discussion over the weekend by various radio shows, it turns out that uberconservative Ralph Reed (you may remember him from the Christian Coalition) was fighting Indian casinos here in Texas not because of his self-proclaimed loathing for "sinful" gambling, but because he was being paid by rival Indians running rival casinos in Louisiana.

D'oh!

"For years, activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the ACLU, have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms. Whether it was the legalization of abortion, the banning of school prayer, the expulsion of the 10 Commandments from public spaces, or the starvation of Terri Schiavo, decisions by the courts have not only changed our nation's course, but even led to the taking of human lives."

Here's who said it:

Tony Perkins, head of the religious-right Family Research Council,
writing on the organization's Web site.

You can read the article it came from here.

Yesterday it was the Austin American-Statesman. Today it's the Houston Chronicle (via the AP).

For my Texas readers, Frank Melton is a sometimes-Texan, sometimes-Mississippian (sort of like me) running for the Democratic nomination to be mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.

For all readers, here's some information you're not seeing on other blogs.

First, the rumors:

According to solid Democrats (which Melton is not) who attended his fundraiser, a number of young Republicans were in attendance. While at that fundraiser, Melton reportedly told the crowd that he wants two terms, and will groom his successor while in office. Melton also said that he's not worried about drug dealers trying to kill him. He said he's worried about the people who get the city contracts unfairly killing him, because he is going to put a stop to city hall awarding city contracts to cronies.

Now, the facts:

Staffers for Mayor Harvey Johnson (whom Melton is trying to unseat) refute the cronie contract claim. They say the issue was raised at meetings, and the list of people awarded city contracts was made available. That list has over one hundred names on it.

Melton told Democratic state officials that he filed his homestead exemption in Mississippi. Some reports say he even waved a piece of paper while exclaiming, "Here's the proof!" As we now know, his homestead exemption is filed in Texas. To be exact, it's in Tyler, Texas, the same city in which his former company, TV-3, Inc., had a station.

In a recent interview on WAPT, Melton was asked why he didn't attend a Mississippi Democratic Club forum. Melton told WAPT he couldn't attend because of a previous commitment, and because it was being hosted by one of the mayor's former employees. When Melton's former station, WLBT, when asked why he didn't attend the forum, Melton said it was because he didn't find out about the event until after the fact.

According to the club's officers, none of this is true. Melton's campaign told the club he had a ribbon cutting at 9:00 a.m. and that he would have to be at Tougaloo College by 11:00 a.m. That in mind, the club set the forum at a time to accommodate his schedule. The club also maintains they were the host of the event, not any singular former employee of Johnson.

On another matter regarding the forum, one of the moderators was Othor Cain, a member of the club's steering committee. Frank Melton's campaign, Carolyn Redd specifically, told club members Cain was publicly for Johnson, and therefore Melton would not attend if Othor Cain was moderating. When that happened, Cain immediately offered to step aside, leaving a Madison County resident as the sole moderator. Carolyn Redd was informed of this change (another accommodation made for Melton) and said he was reconsidering. Melton still refused to attend.

Club members say they wanted all Democratic candidates available to answer questions. They wanted to perform a public service in keeping with their mission to promote good government. Club members say they had been in contact with Melton's campaign, exchanging numerous phone calls and e-mail for almost 3 weeks prior to the candidates' forum. Most importantly, there are many members of the Mississippi Democratic Club who are (or at least were) supporting Frank Melton.

In a recent newspaper article, Melton was asked about his lack of participation in Mississippi elections. Melton replied, "because of the nature of my position in the media, it would have been unethical for me to support one candidate over the other. I wanted to be impartial and chose to vote in other places."

Melton followed that up by saying he voted in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Records do not support Melton's claims. Jennifer Ballard of the Harris County Clerk's Office in Houston said there is no record of Melton ever being a registered voter there.

An interesting story in today's Austin American-Statesman:

"A Republican lawmaker says Gov. Rick Perry's chief of staff last year urged him to sign a pledge card for Speaker Tom Craddick, a possible violation of a state law designed to keep people outside the House of Representatives from influencing a speaker's election."

Needless to say, this is just more fuel in the fire for the massive investigation into the complicated web around Tom DeLay.

Look for another post soon detailing the latest on DeLay.

This will be a new feature on the blog. It probably won't be a daily thing, but I'll post as my schedule allows.

Here's our first Crap Comment of the Day:


"I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South, and they did great wrong to civil rights and to morality. And now we have black-robed men, and that's what you're talking about."

Here's who said it:

James Dobson, founder and head of the religious-right group "Focus on the Family," comparing the U.S. Supreme Court to the Ku Klux Klan.

You can read the article it came from here.

Terri Shiavo is now in a better place, but the right wing will not let her memory live in peace.

Check out this sickness on Ebay.

"Ray was just surfing the Internet looking for information on an old friend. Instead, he found a gold mine for identity thieves -- a Web site full of documents listing hundreds of student names and Social Security Numbers. It was posted right on the University of Mississippi's Web site, there for anyone to see."

Read the entire article at MSNBC.com.

Liberal Texans should just sit back and smile for the next year. Let the Republicans slaughter themselves. It's already started, and we don't even know who's actually running for Governor yet...at least not officially.

Consider this item from the AP via Yahoo! News.

Any Democrat will tell you that a true primary contest is a sign of party health.

Apparently, that's not so on the Republican side. In another quote from today's Houston Chronicle, the Texas GOP Chair expressed her distaste for primary competition.

"'The primary mission of the Republican Party of Texas is to elect to office those who hold conservative principles and will govern accordingly,' said state GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkiser, of Houston. 'I urge every Republican seeking office to put aside their personal agendas and do what is best for the party, the Republican family and its mission.'"

That's no surprise for a party whose artitect, Horace Greely, was a newspaperman with Karl Marx as his European correspondent.

Rare as they may be, there are some smart words from a Republican in today's Houston Chronicle.

"Dallas lawyer Michael Boone, another Hutchison supporter, said it is Perry's record of catering to that wing of the party that has many Republicans looking for an alternative.

Boone said an element of the Republican Party portrays itself as 'compassionate conservative' and as 'evangelical religious people' while opposing any taxes to pay for public schools or social programs.

'We're headed down the road in Texas where if the anti-tax forces prevail, it will be to the detriment of the long-term future of Texas,' Boone said. 'I'm afraid the leadership we have right now is taking us down that road.'

Remember that smile I sometimes get about the Texas Legislature? That smile of disbelief? It just got a lot wider.

A conservative Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, Gene Seaman (his name is perfect), impersonated a penis on the floor of the House. He also made a lot of bad penis-related jokes.

I have to give credit to the folks at PinkDome for alerting me to this one. I'd also like to thank them for adding my blog to their links.

You can read more here.

Sometimes, the Texas legislature actually makes me smile. On those rare occasions, it's a smile of disbelief.

Rather than fix the public school funding crisis (which has been mandated by the courts...oh...wait...Republicans don't like the courts), Texas Republicans are again taking up legislation that would ban state-supported universities from college football's Bowl Championship (BCS) system.

Now, as a devout college football fan, I'm quick to say there are problems with the BCS. The Texas Legislature, however, is hardly the institution to fix it. Furthermore, by keeping the likes of UT, A&M, and Texas Tech out of the BCS, they'll be causing more harm than good. Schools participating in the BCS make a lot of money from the system, especially when they win. The rights to broadcasting and merchandising bring in lots of cash.

As it stands now, Texas students are already reeling from tuition deregulation put in place by the Texas Legislature in their last session. The state's universities...and their students...can hardly afford to lose BCS money, too.

The very idea that the lack of Texas school participation would somehow hurt the BCS is also extremely arrogant. Yes, the often overrated Longhorns finished the 2004 season at #4 in the BCS standings, but there are plenty of schools willing and able to take their place.

Unlike Republicans, when I realize a mistake, I will admit it.

First, on Terri Schiavo:

After listening to a press conference with an official from the Medical Examiner's office in Pinellas Park, Florida, I now know that Michael Schiavo had nothing to do with the decision to have his wife's body autopsied. It's required under Florida law. That said, I expect the results to still show that (a) he is innocent of the abuse accusations, and (b) she was too severly brain damaged to interact with others. Also, the office in Pinellas Park objects to the use of the term coroner. They want to be called Medical Examiners.

Second, on Joe Jackson:

It wasn't 2002. It was 2003. In the lead-up to Governor Musgrove's failed re-election bid, Joe communicated with me, then-College Democrats President Clay Green, and others in person, over the telephone, and via e-mail. One e-mail included a Microsoft Word document with suggestions on how to get young voters involved with the Musgrove effort.

As Joe is now officially anything but a Democrat, I expect him to continue his denials.