Newty Gingrich set the stage and the tone for the rise of the Radical Religious Right. Tom DeLay is his offspring — perhaps The Hammer will be the VP candidate? Now, Gingrich has been gone long enough to return as a noble elder statesman. I’d rather they dig up Nixon. mjh

Gingrich May Run in 2008 If No Front-Runner Emerges By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Staff Writer

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) expects to run for president in 2008 if the contest for the Republican nomination still seems wide open late next year, he said yesterday. …

Gingrich’s entry would shake up a Republican presidential field that now includes Sens. George Allen (Va.), Bill Frist (Tenn.) and John McCain (Ariz.). Many Republicans still revere Gingrich for engineering the GOP’s takeover of Congress in 1994, though members of his own party pushed him to resign in 1998 after his drive to impeach President Bill Clinton cost them seats in that year’s election.

With ineptitude on full display, the party’s over for Republicans – baltimoresun.com By Garrison Keillor

People who live in mud huts should not throw mud, especially if it comes from their own roofs. As Scripture says, don’t point to the speck in your neighbor’s eye when you have a piece of kindling in your own.

I see by the papers that the Republicans want to make an issue of Nancy Pelosi in the congressional races this fall: Would you want a San Francisco woman to be speaker of the House? …

Running against Ms. Pelosi, a woman who comes from a district where there are known gay persons, is a nice trick, but it does draw attention to the large shambling galoot who is speaker now, Tom DeLay’s enabler for years, a man who, judging by his public mutterances, is about as smart as most high school wrestling coaches.

For the past year, Dennis Hastert has been two heartbeats from the presidency. He is a man who seems content just to have a car and driver and three square meals a day. He has no apparent vision beyond the urge to hang onto power. He has succeeded in turning Congress into a branch of the executive branch. If Mr. Hastert becomes the poster boy for the Republican Party, this does not speak well for them as the Party of Ideas. …

Meanwhile, the Current Occupant goes on impersonating a president. Somewhere in the quiet leafy recesses of the Bush family, somebody is thinking, “Wrong son. Should’ve tried the smart one.”

This one’s eyes don’t quite focus. Five years in office and he doesn’t have a grip on it yet. You stand him up next to Tony Blair at a press conference and the comparison is not kind to Our Guy. Historians are starting to place him at or near the bottom of the list. And one of the basic assumptions of American culture is falling apart: the competence of Republicans. …

So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a costly war and getting nowhere, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the GOP can offer is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently stupid.

It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do.

We can take some comfort in how quickly the recent push against gay marriage died. You see in the process the declining power of the Religious Radical Right. I believe this ‘get out the base’ tactic will fail this fall after succeeding so well in 2004. Be sure to note the conservative argument FOR gay marriage below. mjh

Bush Re-Enters Gay Marriage Fight By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush plans to wade back into the emotional debate over same-sex marriage for the first time in his second term beginning today with a pair of speeches pressing the Senate to approve a constitutional amendment next week defining marriage as the union of a man and woman.

Bush, whose opposition to marriage between gay partners helped power him to reelection in 2004, has remained largely silent on the issue since, much to the consternation of conservatives who complain he has not exerted leadership. Now, with midterm elections approaching, [Bush] is returning to a topic that galvanizes an important part of the Republican base. …

In one North Carolina congressional district, for instance, Republican challenger Vernon Robinson has aired a radio ad attacking Democratic Rep. Brad Miller with mariachi music playing in the background: “Brad Miller supports gay marriage and sponsored a bill to let American homosexuals bring their foreign homosexual lovers to this country on a marriage visa. If Miller had his way, America would be nothing but one big fiesta for illegal aliens and homosexuals.” [mjh: while they wage war on Christmas and burn the flag!] …

In 2004, 63 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and 30 percent approved. In March, 51 percent opposed it and 39 percent supported it. [mjh: more of that Bush magic; in 3 years, 100% will support anything he opposes]

Can Gay Marriage Help GOP? By Debra Rosenberg, Newsweek

Bush himself had been mostly mum on gay marriage since his re-election. But now, with his poll numbers in a nose dive and even his most enthusiastic supporters grousing, Bush took up the cause in his radio address Saturday; an amendment is needed because “activist courts have left our nation with no other choice,” he explained. …

Though Bush himself has publicly embraced the amendment, he never seemed to care enough to press the matter. One of his old friends told NEWSWEEK that same-sex marriage barely registers on the president’s moral radar. “I think it was purely political. I don’t think he gives a s–t about it. He never talks about this stuff,” said the friend, who requested anonymity to discuss his private conversations with Bush. White House aides, who also declined to be identified, insist that the president does care about banning gay marriage.
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[mjh: David Brooks, conservative, wrote the following November 22, 2003.]

Op-Ed Columnist: The Power of Marriage By DAVID BROOKS, NYTimes

You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity. But instead, many argue that gays must be banished from matrimony because gay marriage would weaken all marriage. A marriage is between a man and a woman, they say. …

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn’t just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. …

It’s going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage.

mjh’s blog — ‘Where in the Bible…?’

mjh’s blog — Expanding Freedom

How closely do Bush’s priorities match yours?
Not at all 58%
Very 24%
Somewhat 18%
Total Votes: 125,143

How would you rate his overall job performance?
Poor 60%
Good 18%
Excellent 12%
Fair 11%
Total Votes: 126,917

Where should gay marriage fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the bottom 67%
At or near the top 19%
In the middle 15%
Total Votes: 124,858

How would you rate Bush’s handling of gay marriage?
Poor 61%
Excellent 21%
Good 11%
Fair 7%
Total Votes: 125,004

Where should illegal immigration fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 53%
In the middle 37%
At or near the bottom 10%
Total Votes: 73,387

How would you rate Bush’s handling of illegal immigration?
Poor 53%
Fair 25%
Good 15%
Excellent 6%
Total Votes: 74,132

Where should the war in Iraq fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 89%
In the middle 6%
At or near the bottom 4%
Total Votes: 70,972

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq?
Poor 67%
Good 14%
Fair 11%
Excellent 8%
Total Votes: 72,218

Where should the war on terror fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 78%
In the middle 18%
At or near the bottom 3%
Total Votes: 68,988

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the war on terror?
Poor 54%
Fair 17%
Good 15%
Excellent 14%
Total Votes: 70,086

Where should the economy fall on Bush’s priority scale?
At or near the top 78%
In the middle 21%
At or near the bottom 2%
Total Votes: 67,065

How would you rate Bush’s handling of the economy?
Poor 61%
Fair 14%
Good 13%
Excellent 12%
Total Votes: 68,603

Bar group will review Bush’s legal challenges – The Boston Globe By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office. …

Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined. …

William Sessions , a retired federal judge who was the director of the FBI under both Reagan and President George H.W. Bush , said he agreed to participate because he believed that the signing statements raise a “serious problem” for the American constitutional system.

“I think it’s very important for the people of the United States to have trust and reliance that the president is not going around the law,” Sessions said. “The importance of it speaks for itself.” …

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, promised to hold a hearing on Bush’s use of signing statements.
—–
See mjh’s blog — Stealth Vetoes

A Fishy Policy
The Bush administration’s big chill on speech isn’t limited to global warming.

YOU’D THINK THE Bush administration would have learned its lesson with James Hansen and global warming. Apparently not. Mr. Hansen, you may recall, is the NASA scientist who was muzzled — by a 24-year-old résumé falsifier, no less — in his efforts to warn about the dangers of climate change. Mr. Hansen, it turned out, wasn’t alone: Other employees working on that issue at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been chastised for speaking out and answering media questions.

Now it appears that this chilling effect isn’t just for global warming. According to a report in Wednesday’s Post by Blaine Harden, NOAA has directed that questions about endangered salmon — which the agency is responsible for protecting — are to be answered only by headquarters, and then only by three officials, all political appointees. Scientists and other agency officials who actually work on the salmon studies aren’t supposed to answer reporters’ questions.

This latest crackdown came — coincidentally, officials insist — the day after a Post article quoted a NOAA spokesman in Seattle as making positive comments about decisions by a federal judge and federal scientists that ran contrary to Bush administration policies on salmon protection.

With the Orwellian cheeriness that has become a Bush administration specialty, NOAA headquarters spokesman Jeff Donald explained that the change was made because “some folks were trying to consolidate a little bit and make sure everything we were putting out was accurate and as up to date as possible.” That’s the kind of helpfulness we don’t need.

The Death Tax Nonsense says much about the Radical Right. Here is an issue that concerns a tiny minority of the richest Americans. Still, the Radical Right spins it — as they do all taxes — as something to frighten everyone with. This issue alone would show how out of touch Republicans are with the majority and how their true constituency is Wealth (though many of the super-rich see the fairness of the tax). It makes “the party of ideas” look like the vandals sacking Rome. mjh

Sioux City Journal: Grassley sees hurricane recovery costing up to $200 billion

“On the estate tax, it wouldn’t surprise me if nothing is going to happen in the year 2005,” said [Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa]. “It’s a little unseemly to be talking about eliminating the estate tax at a time when people are suffering.”

Repeal/Reform of the Estate Tax – Center for American Progress

At the core of this debate is a simple American principle: we do not believe that because of accidents of birth one group should have unrivaled economic power. Efforts to completely or virtually eliminate estate taxes on even the nation’s most wealthy estates offend basic American values that have long held that economic success should depend on hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and merit rather than one’s original station in life. In the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.” …

Currently, less than 1 percent of estates pay any tax—with the vast majority of the population owing nothing. In 2004, this translated into an estimated 18,800 estates.[4] Under current law, this number will decline even further as the estate tax exemption rises. By 2009 (when the law will allow a couple to pass $7 million and an individual to pass $3.5 million of any estate to their heirs tax free), less than 0.3 percent of estates will owe any tax.

Sample Chapter for Graetz, M.J. and Shapiro, I.: Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth.

Mt. Rushmore and a History of the Estate Tax by Jim Grote

It is ironic in a country as devoted to individual liberty and free enterprise as ours that the most ardent promoters of a federal estate tax have been some of our fiercest patriots and richest capitalists: Thomas Paine, Andrew Carnegie, Theodore Roosevelt and Warren Buffet to name a few. Reviewing the thinking of these four men can only add clarity to the current ideological debate over estate tax reform. One might think of these gentlemen as comprising the Mount Rushmore of the estate tax edifice.

FairEconomy.org – A History of the Estate Tax

Many Progressive Era (1900-1918) reforms resulted from this period, such as: child labor laws, voting rights for women, and the establishment of an income tax, which required the extraordinary step of amending the constitution. The estate tax was another one of these reforms. Those who made the case for the estate tax advanced arguments that are vital to the contemporary debate. …

A second belief was that society played a significant role in the creation of individual wealth and therefore had some claim upon the wealth of the very rich. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed a federal inheritance tax, saying, “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” Roosevelt recognized that wealthy citizens benefitted particularly from government protection of wealth and property rights.