For over a year now, our Congress has subjected this country to a grueling and often times heated debate on the status of legal immigration and the question of what to do in response to the millions of people who have streamed into this country over the years. After passing two versions of immigration-reform measures — one vehemently opposed by Latinos, which favored enforcement and implementation of felony status to undocumented immigrants, and another which imposed a series of fines and other steps that led to eventual citizenship — the extreme right wing of the Republican Party set out to stifle debate and gum up the conference committee process to a stand still, preventing the bill from coming up for consideration before the 2006 Congressional elections. Extreme right-wing Congressmen, who knew they would have to compromise with the more moderate Senate, even held useless public hearings in border cities across the country in a pointless attempt the further "research" the issue.

The country wisely through the Republican leadership out of power in November and once sensible leadership had returned, Democrats gave the conference committee process the proper attention it required and produced the compromise bill the country deserved. Certainly it had its issues. It wasn't a right-wing bill or a left-wing bill, but a measure which made concessions on all sides. It funded the border fence Congress approved last year and it provided an alternative to undocumented immigrants living in the shadows to come into the country legally by either paying the government fines or re-entering the country as part of a guest-worker program, which has been championed by President Bush.

Frankly, I don't really care that much about the bill. The debate is of no personally significance to me, though I do feel the answer to the country's immigration problem does not lie in aborting 12 million from this country. That's not possible. I do believe that this country deserves for this bill to receive a fair hearing in the Congress. The House and Senate should have every member on record because our country deserves a resolution to this debate. What happened today is an injustice to all Americans:

Immigrant Bill Dies in Senate; Defeat for Bush
By Robert Pear and Carl Hulse
New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 28 — President Bush’s effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy, a cornerstone of his domestic agenda, collapsed Thursday in the Senate, with little prospect that it can be revived before Mr. Bush leaves office in 19 months.

The bill called for the biggest changes to immigration law in more than 20 years, offering legal status to millions of illegal immigrants while trying to secure borders. But the Senate, forming blocs that defied party affiliation, could never unite on the main provisions.

Rejecting the president’s last-minute pleas, it voted, 53 to 46, to turn back a motion to end debate and move toward final passage. Supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to close the debate.

Mr. Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning. But members of his party abandoned him in droves, with just 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the important procedural vote that determined the fate of the bill.

I have been reading with great interest many of the right-wing blogs that have gone to war over this bill. I find myself amazed at the effort expended all in the pursuit to snuff out a bill that may not serve the aims of the extreme right wing but instead serves the will of the center. Conservatives pride themselves on the myth that the majority of Americans are conservative and are likened to their agenda. While past elections (with the exception of the last one) have lended themselves to that opinion, I don't see why that should in any way give politicians the impression that the country will be best served caving into the extreme right wing on an issue like this.

This bill is a largely conservative bill. I think the whole reason it died a slow and painful death in the Senate is that the only vocal base willing to come to bat to axe this thing to death was right talk radio and the red blogs. Every other constituency felt largely indifferent to the bill because it was aimed to the center.

Thanks to conservative gas bags like Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and other right-wing nutjobs, the immigration bill was not defeated on its merits, it was bottled up by a mere cloture vote. How pathetic. This coming from the same idiots who cried bloody murder for any filibuster by Democrats when they were in the minority. It's ridiculous.

So where do we go from here? Liberals bask in Bush's defeat? Conservatives start shaking their empty tin cups for funding for their super fence? Meanwhile, ordinary Americans are left shafted by a political system that seems only to serve the fringe interests. Absolute garbage.

Posted by Nick at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am so happy to say that I was wrong. Not only did Democrats ride the wave of voter discontent that the media had been foretelling for months, they have wrested the needed fifteen House seats and six Senate seats from Republican control needed to command a majority in Congress. I don't think voters could have done a better thing for America. This is exactly what our government needs: politicians who are not afraid to buck the Bush administration and its policies. It's about time we had a check on Bush.

It was an exciting night yesterday in the newsroom. Though Schwarzenegger soundly beat the snot out of Angelides, I can't feel too bad about it. He's not a horrible governor, and just as Congress checks the president, I suppose Governor Schwarzenegger should keep an eye on the Democratic State Assembly and Senate.

I hope everyone's Tuesday was as fun as mine. And if you're up for a chuckle, be sure to visit all those red blogs today. It's funny to watch an elephant walk around with its tail between its legs. And I have admit, Michelle Malkin's blooper reel was pretty funny.

I'll be sure to chime in later!

Posted by Nick at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's that time again. Midterm elections. And this is the biggest midterm election. Well, since the last one.

Everyone in Washington is going nuts over this election. It's been on all the pundits minds since the first few days of January 2006 — hell, even the first few hours on Wednesday, November 3, 2004, the day after the last national election.

One thing that I have noticed in the past two years is the media's obsession with the Democrats and their supposed return to power. Since the beginning of this year, after Republicans lost traction on their legislative agenda in 2005, the Democrats fared well in the offterm election and the response to Hurricane Katrina sowed discontent in the minds of the electorate, the media has framed this election in favor of the Democrats. I credit this with the prevailing conception that Republicans will be on the defensive on election day.

After being burned two-straight years in a row, I'm not going to be duped this time around. I believe that the Democrats will make gains on election day, and they may retake the House of Representatives, but they will not pull off a "blue coup." Election Day will be a victory for some Democrats, but it will always be a stark reminder of the voting power of the Republican majority that has twice in recent memory relegated Democrats to second string.

Think about it. After the 2002 midterm election, Democrats lost two Senate seats, dropping from 50 seats to 48. In 2004, the election proved even worse for Democrats, when their minority was widdled from 48 to 44 seats. Now, Democrats are carrying on about how they may be in striking distance of a Democrat majority in the Senate. I find that hard to believe.

After two election cycles — straight losses for Democrats — do they really expect to be handed Congress on a platter? As crucial as this election is to Democrats, President Bush and his miserable failure of a war in Iraq are not on the ballot. Local politicians from across the country are, and they exist in microcosms that are often very different from the national debate that rages in our country. Democrats will fare better in this election, but Republicans will not do too bad either.

Republicans have performed very well in the Maryland Senate campaign, where an open Democratic seat could have been an easy win for Democrat Ben Cardin. Instead, moderate Republican Michael Steele has managed to put the race into serious play. Basically, as they have proven in the past two election cycles, Republicans put on a great campaign. Democrats have a lot to make up if they are going to catch up to the Republican machine.

I'm so excited for tomorrow, I love elections, they are always so very interesting. Also, at the newspaper, we get pizza.

I will probably vote for Democrats when I fill out my ballot tomorrow. Mostly because I feel the only way we're going to change direction in this country is if we elect politicians that won't function as a rubber stamp for the Bush administration. We'll see how much good it does in Tulare County.

Posted by Nick at 11:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are the moments you want to savor. You wish time would stop so you could live them over and over again:

Evangelical leader says he bought drugs
By John Holusha and Neela Banerjee
New York Times

The Rev. Ted Haggard, the former president of the National Association of Evangelicals and one of the nation’s most influential Christian leaders, admitted today that he had purchased the illegal drug methamphetamine from a gay escort in Denver, but denied that he ever had sex with the man.

Mr. Haggart resigned as president of the evangelical association and stepped aside as senior pastor of the New Life mega-church in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Thursday after Michael Forest Jones, a self-described former gay prostitute, accused him of having a sexual affair for three years and using the drug, commonly known as crystal meth, during those encounters.

Though the story is throughly lurid and very damning for evangelicals, I was very pessimistic about its truthfulness. The man who is leveling the allegations is a male prostitute and we are merely four days from an election. And his explanation as to why he's coming forward now is not convincing:

"People may look at me and think what I've done is immoral, but I think I had to do the moral thing in my mind and that is expose someone who is preaching one thing and doing the opposite behind everybody's back," said Jones.

OK, I get the whole "doing the moral thing," but he cashed the checks, took the cash for years! I guess it's only immoral in an election year (But even if that were true, it seems like it would have been much more immoral in 2004, considering what was at stake). I'm sure we'll take what we can get, though.

Despite all the questions, this whole situation is freaking awesome. You can't tell me this guy just took a massage from the prostitute and tossed the meth. He was so having sex with the guy, and he's one of the most important evangelicals in the entire country. He talks the the President and his advisers every Monday! This is huge. This is better than Christmas! I can't wait to see what happens.

I know all the most popular blogs are posting it, but I just had to do it. It's from my soon-to-be-favorite documentary, Jesus Camp, about crazed evangelicals. You have to watch the trailer.

Posted by Nick at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the fallout of the disclosure of the SWIFT banking surveillance program expands, more right-wing conservatives are jumping on the band wagon and bashing the news organizations that published the story. One of my favorite conservative blogs, the California Conservative, blasts the Los Angeles Times' recent op-ed by Times editor Dean Baquet and New York Times executive editor Bill Keller as failing to address the central grievance against the publication of the story in question.

In the op-ed, Baquet and Keller discuss the role of the press when breaking sensitive stories like the SWIFT banking surveillance story, the NSA domestic surveillance story and even the historic Pentagon Papers case which then Justice Hugo Black said abolished "the government's power to censor the press ... so that the press would be forever free to censure the government."

The California Conservative breaks down the op-ed, line-by-line, ridiculing much of Banquet and Keller's points, eventually arriving at their point:

The decision to publish an article about an effective program that the NY Times says doesn’t break any laws because it’s “in the public’s interest” is a flimsy excuse to publish such a valuable program as the TFTP (terrorist finance tracking program, as best I can estimate).

Conservatives have blasted the papers on this point, wiping away the arguments of the papers with a single string of words: "The story compromises our national security." This is a powerful argument but I don't think this debate can accommodate it anymore. At least not until we acknowledge certain things.

The public editor, Byron Calame, for the New York Times wrote a great piece on the subject, exploring for himself the Times' decision to publish the story. One aspect he pointed out was that the Administration has only recently disclosed the program to Congress once they received word that it would be exposed by the media (this was also espoused by Think Progress in a recent entry):

Eric Lichtblau, one of the two reporters who wrote the Swift story, told me the administration briefed a limited number of Congressional leaders — apparently from both parties, but not the full intelligence or banking committees — toward the beginning of the program. It wasn't until the Treasury Department learned that The Times was working on the story, Mr. Lichtblau said, that the administration apparently briefed all members of the intelligence committees.

That alone, he says, is reason enough to publish the story. He also hits on the heart of this question posed by the California Conservative that I believe we will all have to address in the coming years — whether the surveillance programs employed by the Administration are temporary executive acts in a time of war or permanent shortcuts for enforcement:

Temporary emergency measures cloaked in government secrecy can too easily become permanent shortcuts. That's why oversight is important. It is also a reason to publish the article. The reservations expressed by some of the 20 current and former government officials and industry executives who were disturbed enough to talk to The Times were based on this concern: "What they viewed as an urgent, temporary measure had become permanent nearly five years later without specific Congressional approval or formal authorization," in the words of the article.

Is this program a temporary measure employed in this war on terror or is it a measure the executive will for years purport to have authority to maintain in the endless fight against terrorism? If the latter is assumed, this program needs Congressional oversight and approval, period. The Constitution is not a doormat, I'd like to think it still means something in this country.

I also take offense to many points of this debate. By simply spitting out those ominous string of words, you know, the whole "national security" argument, is never supported by facts. The press has addressed national security in publishing these articles. Baquet and Keller point out that mundane details that could be vital to terrorists were omitted because they did not deserve the public's interest. Not to mention the fact the the program has already been publicly alluded to for years (a fact routinely swept away by the California Conservative).

Baquet and Keller even point out the the writers of the Washington Post's secret prison story, which prompted an EU investigation, had the names of the countries these prisons operated in but declined to publish them. If the press had a vendetta against the Bush Administration and, as some pundits like Michelle Malkin purport, were jonesing to aid the terrorists in attacking us, don't you think the New York Times would provide full disclosure?

This debate is very serious and it should not be staged in a partisan way. The press holds a very important role in our society and it is an essential freedom that we are supposedly fighting for in this war on terror. As Baquet and Keller point out, "If freedom of the press makes some Americans uneasy, it is anathema to the ideologists of terror."

Posted by Nick at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There has been a lot of talk this week about the New York Times and its publication of an article discussing the details of a government program that monitors the international wire transfers of Americans suspected of being terrorists. Republicans on Capitol Hill are considering taking legal action against the Times, which in the past year has exposed legally-questionable Executive programs that have not been legally verified outside of the Oval Office or a closed session of a select Congressional committee.

I understand the argument posed by critics that say revealing programs like the NSA's domestic spying initiative and the Swift financial records program causes irreputable harm to national security, and the New York Times does as well. This was put forth in a very excellent editorial in today's edition of the Times:

Patriotism and the Press
New York Times Editorial

Over the last year, The New York Times has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well — from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the time when the government tried to enjoin The Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers.

... But any argument by the government that a story is too dangerous to publish has to be taken seriously. There have been times in this paper's history when editors have decided not to print something they knew. In some cases, like the Kennedy administration's plans for the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, it seems in hindsight that the editors were over-cautious. (Certainly President Kennedy thought so.) Most recently, The Times held its reporting about the government's secret antiterror wiretapping program for more than a year while it weighed administration objections.

Our news colleagues work under the assumption that they should let the people know anything important that the reporters learn, unless there is some grave and overriding reason for withholding the information. They try hard not to base those decisions on political calculations, like whether a story would help or hurt the administration. It is certainly unlikely that anyone who wanted to hurt the Bush administration politically would try to do so by writing about the government's extensive efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to wire large sums of money.

From our side of the news-opinion wall, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.

I think the Times took sufficient ethical steps in its decision to publish their stories and I view any government official's criticism of the Times to be very dubious. Appealing to the fear of endangering national security has become a favorite of this government, and it's getting old. I just hope people will start catching on.

Posted by Nick at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, I know I'm going to get some flack for this, but I think I have a thing for Michelle Malkin. Yeah, I know, I know. She's positively ghastly. There's not a commentator out that that is more disgustingly neo-con, with the exception of the deplorable Ann Coulter (a blond I could never admire). I'm not saying Michelle Malkin is my ideological match by far, I'm just saying I don't hate her.

If you know anything about me, you should know that I'm a moderate. As a journalist, and as an extension, a citizen of the United States, I refuse to look at one party for all the answers. I believe each issue facing this county deserves a vigorous debate and no party platform provides all the answers (or any in most cases). While some of my favorite blogs are left-leaning, I do find myself treading on the dark side. When I'm playing in the dirt, you're most likely to see me mudding it up with Malkin.

About a month ago, I saw a video blog by John Aravosis over at PoliticsTV. He runs an interesting blog, AmericaBlog, that mostly spits out the day's top stories along with some liberal bitching and moaning. I go to the blog often, but I can only take so much unabashed Bush bashing. His video blog, Monday Morning Blogger, is even more annoying. Actually seeing the guy parading around like some arrogant would-be broadcast journalist is sometimes too much to bear.

Anyways, he pointed out a few weeks ago that commentator Michelle Malkin had copied his brilliant video blogging idea (yeah right, John, you weren't the first one). So I checked out Malkin's video blog, Vent at HotAir.com. And I have to say, aside from abundance of nausiating neo-conservative fumes, it's much more even-tempered and well done. Malkin does the blog daily and she has quite the face for broadcast. You have to admit she is adorable (even if that cute smile hides a devil within).

One Vent I enjoyed was her rant on conservative commencement speakers. I thought she made a good point. It's ok for Jodie Foster to make a political statement when she delivers a graduation speech (and acts like a complete fool singing an Eminem rap), but when conservative speakers come up to bat, they are ridiculed, protested and booed. I'm not a big fan of Condolezza Rice or John McCain, but they are elected officials in our government and they do deserve a little respect. Not much, but just a little.

I don't always agree with Michelle. Sometimes her video blogs can be kind of scary. During her first full week of video blogging, she covered the upcoming United 93 movie release. She discussed the fact that the film came out to mostly decent reviews (though she disturbingly highlighted that Rush Limbaugh called the film "powerful" -- because that's the first guy I go to for movie reviews) She goes on some diatribe against Universal Studios and its Web site for United 93. But the most disturbing thing about the video blog is the ending. After making her point, she says farewell, and adds, "Never, never, never forget," after which she flashes a few disturbing scenes of 9/11. Ok, what is it with neo-conservatives always invoking 9/11 to make their point? America will never forget, but we will certainly move on. We don't know to be reminded of it every five seconds.

So, as I venture for more balance to my blogging, I will always head to Michelle Malkin for a good Vent. I mean, someone needs to balance out the liberal hotheads. (But, just so you don't think I'm really turning to the dark side -- Michelle Malkin is cute but Markos is cuter ;-)

Posted by Nick at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (1)

Last Friday morning, while I was still getting over the sniffles, I considered calling in. The day before I was supposed to run 20 miles for my marathon training and I didn't want to feel miserable all day Friday just to wake up the next morning to tackle a tremendous run. As I sat there, reaching for the cell phone, one man was reason enough to jump in the shower and race off to work: Karl Rove.

When I told my co-worker what had got me into work that morning, he told me that it seemed only me and a bunch of Democrats thought that stupid CIA leak story was of any interest. It got me to thinking: why am I so obsessed with the forthcoming indictment of Karl Rove? What did the Pillsbury Doughboy every do to me?

I don't really know. I never really had anything against the guy. I mean, conservatives aren't all that nasty. Granted, we have a few fundamental differences, but that doesn't mean I want all of them busted for perjury.

Every since the whole Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper tug-of-war, most of us news buffs have been trying to make out heads or tails of what's going on in Patrick Fitzgerald's head. What was the motivation to leak Valerie Plame's name to the media? Whodunit? If it really is this neo-con conspiracy to discredit Joe Wilson after he criticized the Bush administration, why would a Bush-controlled Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to take down, dare I say, the "Architect" himself. It just doesn't make sense to me.

And we've all heard the buzz the last few weeks. After Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury, everyone was wondering why he did it. The word on the street is his lawyer requested the additional testimony to give Rove one last chance to plead his case. If that's the case, then did Fitzgerald buy it? I want to know!

We are supposed to know very soon what the outcome of the investigation will be for Rove. I guess you could say I'm on the yay-indictment side of thinking. I have a sinking feeling this innocent looking doughboy has gotten himself into some seedy stuff while at the top of the ladder. If he's not going down for Plamegate, what about those Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads back in 2004? Congress doesn't have the balls to take down their beloved Bush, we have to look to the special prosecutors to do it for them.

Basically, I feel Rove has been caught taking too many cookies from the cookie jar and its time for a time out. As we kooky Democrats and other interested parties wait with baited breath for news, I just hope something interesting will come around to take my attention. These NSA stories are just so boring.

Posted by Nick at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)