Ann Althouse.
The Dwindling Party
Bloomberg bolts the GOP:
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Tuesday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation, a step that could clear the way for him to make an independent bid for the presidency.
The announcement was released during a campaign-style swing through California, during which Mr. Bloomberg, 65, a billionaire businessman, used increasingly sharp language to criticize both parties in Washington as too timid to take on big problems and too locked into petty squabbling to work together.
“I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead my city,” Mr. Bloomberg’s statement read. “Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles, and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.”
Even as Mr. Bloomberg continues to say that he has no plans to run for president, his announcement has set off a storm of interest in political circles across the country, where it is being viewed as a signal of his serious contemplation of a campaign. His ability to self-finance a campaign presents him with obvious advantages, including the option of delaying even until next year a decision on whether to run.
Bloomberg was, for all intents and purposes, the real RINO, and conservatism will not suffer with his departure, but the GOP sure was happy to have him around when he was with the party.
The Confused Party
The Bush rebukes continue in earnest:
In a sharp rebuke to President Bush, House Republicans unveiled legislation Tuesday that would bar illegal immigrants from gaining legal status in the U.S., require tamper-proof birth certificates for Americans and make English the nation’s official language.
The measure’s core principles include gaining control of the border and enforcing existing immigration laws. It does not provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as the Bush plan does.
The House bill stands virtually no chance of becoming law, or even advancing, in the Democratic-controlled Congress. Still, it casts in bold relief the split between Bush and many fellow Republicans in the immigration debate.
Meanwhile, the White House, awlays concerned with the monied interests that fuel the GOP, continues their offensive:
Hoping to influence Congressional debate, the White House issued a report on Tuesday saying, “Immigration has a positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born American workers.”
But it acknowledged that some research had found “small negative effects” on the wages of the least-skilled American workers.
The report, prepared by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, says immigrants enhance the productivity of native-born workers and increase their earnings a significant amount, estimated at $37 billion a year.
And there you have it. The Republican Party is now split between several warring factions- the bible thumping God squad whose chief issues are gay bashing, your sex life, and abortion; the monied Corporoate interests who care only about tax cuts and cheap labor; and the redneck wing whose only concerns are a bellicose foreign policy and keeping brown people out of the country. All the sane people have left or refuse to publicly acknowledge they are Republican.
The Ignorance Party
Bush is set to veto only his third bill:
President Bush is set Wednesday to veto a bill that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, a White House spokesman said.
It will be only the third time the president has used his veto pen, and the second time to reject stem cell legislation.
Democrats, who made stem cell legislation a top priority when they took control of both houses of Congress in January, do not have enough votes to override a veto.
In his veto threat, the president accused Democrats of recycling an old measure that he already vetoed and argued that the bill would mean American taxpayers would – for the first time – be compelled to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos.
The decider believes in Gott. The decider therefore believes you should get to enjoy your diabetes.
The Law And Order Party
We can add Cocaine trafficking to the list of GOP sins:
State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted on federal drug charges Tuesday and was suspended from office by Gov. Mark Sanford.
Ravenel, 44, and Michael L. Miller of Mount Pleasant are charged with one count each of conspiracy to possess and intent to distribute cocaine.
Miller already is in state custody on charges of trafficking cocaine. Ravenel is scheduled to appear July 9 in federal court in Columbia for arraignment, U.S. Attorney Reggie Lloyd said.
Ravenel, a Republican, was elected treasurer in November. The charge filed Tuesday said he has “knowingly, intentionally and unlawfully possess(ed) with intent to distribute” cocaine since at least late 2005.
My absolute favorite line from the story is the following:
The charges come the day after Ravenel attended a dinner at an upscale Columbia restaurant. There, he seemed “not to have a care in the world,” said former state Revenue Department director Burnie Maybank, who hosted the dinner at Saluda’s in Five Points. “It’s just a shocker.”
Imagine that- not a care in the world:
Why I Won’t Vote for Hillary
Because the prospect of hearing this song for 8 years is worse than what Bush has done.
Isn’t Celine Canadian anyway? Prolly French-Canadian at that with a name like Celine. Terrorist.
Desperately Seeking Leadership
Obama, Clinton and Edwards all spoke before ASFCME today — and one thing they all appeared to agree upon was that we’ll be staying in Iraq in some capacity for some time to come.
Somebody please explain to me why today, while polls punish the Democratic party for blank-checking Bush’s war, we don’t have a single Democratic candidate with the balls to say what Howard Dean said in 2004. Dean hardly got punished for his sentiments, except by the media, back when the war and our smirking war chief still had a majority following. And as it turns out practically everything that Howard Dean said about Iraq proved right on the money. The war is a hopeless crusade, run by rank nincompoops, that damages American interests every day that it goes on. These aren’t even debatable points anymore, just baseline assumptions that even the surgin’ Kagans recognized when they promoted their policy change.
Dean’s message resonated back when he sounded “crazy.” Now imagine the response when the 90% of America smarter than John Hinderaker more or less takes his position as a given. Americans hate the president and his crappy war. It doesn’t take “balls” to stand forcefully against sending more kids to die in Iraq, it takes balls not to. And yet when our Dem candidates look for inspiration in 2007, four years after Howard Dean’s grassroots phenomenon, every single one reaches for Joementum. Try to grasp how depressing that is.