http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 9 May 2006 08:31:03 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/09/083103.php Ashley TateBrewster's Millions is one of those silly B-comedies you must learn to love young or not at all. Still, there's some ageless charm in the tale: it's been remade at least five times since young Cecil B. DeMille's original 1914 celluloid production. In the 1985 version, "Monty" Brewster (black actor Richard Pryor) is a minor-league baseball pitcher who discovers he's the sole heir to a long-lost (white) uncle's $300 million fortune, but there's a catch: Brewster must blow $30 million in 30 days, with no tangible assets to show for the money, to inherit the full fortune. Brewster finds some clever ways to waste the money, such as buying a rare stamp for several million and using it for postage. But my favorite gag is when Brewster declares himself a last-minute candidate for mayor of New York City, runs television commercials around the clock in every state declaring his opponent foolish and corrupt, and adopts the campaign slogan "Vote None of the Above." Until the United States Congress adopts term-limits, I plan to follow a slightly modified strategy and vote "None of the Incumbents." I've almost written this piece a half-dozen times over the past couple of years as I've grown more and more frustrated with the legislative fecklessness of Republicans. I won't rehash their foolishness here. If you're conservative, you've heard the litany; if you aren't it'd be meaningless anyway. From steel tariffs and Medicaid to Social Security reform and agricultural subsidies to overall spending, Republicans have utterly abandoned conservatism.I was a college senior in 1994 when Republicans wrested control of the House and Senate from Democrats. The wise words of my faculty adviser, Dr. Marvin Folkertsma, have returned to me many times since. He agreed the Republican takeover was one of the most remarkable and unexpected political events of his lifetime, but cautioned that it wouldn't change much about how Washington works. He was dead right.I believe that time spent in Congress is, in its own way, just as perceptually corrupting as being a famous actor, athlete, televangelist, or any other of the perpetually dysfunctional celebrities among us. That's why I think it's a disgrace that the Republican congressman for whom I was an intern, Frank R. Wolf, recently celebrated his silver anniversary in Congress and is now the senior member of Virginia's delegation. I'd like all congressmen limited to a single term and their staffs, perquisites, and pay cut in half. Serving should constitute a huge sacrifice with no incentive for careerism at that level. Not only would this reduce the direct attraction of public office to candidates motivated by self-interest, it would reduce the value of ex-congressmen to lobbyists (there'd be a lot more exes with a lot fewer connections) and thus the indirect attractions of public office as well.What finally brought me to this point? The oil price-gouging legislation and demagoguery were the last straws. Republican leaders are spouting rhetoric that undermines the very foundation of American prosperity and fosters economic ignorance -- already an overly plentiful commodity. All that distinguishes our economic policies from those of the degenerating powers of Europe are a few population points of economic simpletons; cultivate a few million more such larcenists and we'll slip to the level of a South American banana republic like Bolivia or Venezuela.Each time I've begun this piece, Democratic leaders immediately did or said something so childish and irresponsible that I changed my mind and decided voting against Republicans wasn't worth the chance of Democratic rule. Not this time. I've now realized it's time to "reload" and try again with a new Republican majority a few terms down the road. That's why I'll be doing my best to see that incumbent Republicans lose both houses of Congress in 2006. I'll no longer financially support the Republican Party and I'll only support Republican challengers, not incumbents in congressional elections. Politics47472@blogcritics.org Tue, 9 May 2006 08:31:03 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/09/084030.php Ashley TateLike many conservatives, I was stunned by President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The only plausible point in Bush's favor is that he believes Miers to be a reliable conservative who can be confirmed with a minimal expense of political capital, giving him time to flog languishing legislation on social security and a host of other issues early in his term. But he may have underestimated conservatives' deep desire for a political battle royal over judicial nominations and constitutional interpretation.Frankly, I'm tired of supposedly conservative office-holders who shy from defending the eminently defensible view that constitutional interpretation should be based on what the Constitution actually says. The central function of the Constitution is to serve as a buffer against vicissitudinous political opinion&#8212a function that directly conflicts with the constitutional origami of leftist judges.That's not a difficult point to make. But rather than proudly defending that point when, for example, a nominee like John Roberts comes under fire for his Federalist Society membership, Republican leaders instead downplayed his involvement.Here's some perspective on just how cowed are conservatism's Republican representatives: Consider that those who oppose abortion in all circumstances (21% according to this 2005 Harris poll) outnumber U.S residents who are black (13%), hispanic (14%), or liberal (18%). They are statistically tied, with the 23% who would allow abortion in all circumstances. Consider that abortion is consistently one of the single most important issues among Republican voters. And consider that majorities of both conservative and liberal constitutional scholars believe that Roe v. Wade was a horribly reasoned case.And yet, while Democratic senators candidly make support for Roe the sine qua non of judicial mainstreamism, Bork-wary Republicans scrape and scrounge for nominees who are closet-conservatives at best. Despite controlling Congress and the Presidency for several years Republicans have failed to end partial-birth abortion&#8212which is opposed by a huge majority of Americans. Nor have they seriously made the case for blaming their failure on Roe or linked it to Democratic obstruction of judicial confirmations.So when will conservatism have won in America? When a Republican president unashamedly nominates Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ultra-conservative American Center for Law and Justice, to the Supreme Court. I'm not joking. And the fact that you think I'm joking shows how firmly the left still controls political debate in America.Sekulow has argued nine cases before the Supreme Court bench. He's been named one of National Law Journal's "100 Most Influential Lawyers" and one of The American Lawyer's top 45 public-sector lawyers. His post-academic credentials are nearly as impressive as those of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the last Democratic nominee to the court, and the justice who is most nearly Sekulow's polar opposite.Ginsberg, confirmed with a 96-3 Senate vote, was a director of and general counsel for the ACLU before becoming a Federal judge. National Review's Edward Whelan summarized Ginsburg's pre-confirmation opinions thusly: Let's assume, for example, that this nominee had expressed strong sympathy for the position that there is a constitutional right to prostitution as well as a constitutional right to polygamy.Let's say, further, that he had attacked the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts as organizations that perpetuate stereotyped sex roles and that he had proposed abolishing Mother's Day and Father's Day and replacing them with a single androgynous Parent's Day.And, to get really absurd, let's add that he had called for an end to single-sex prisons on the theory that if male prisoners are going to return to a community in which men and women function as equal partners, prison is just the place for them to get prepared to deal with women.Let's further posit that this nominee had opined that a manifest imbalance in the racial composition of an employer's work force justified court-ordered quotas even in the absence of any intentional discrimination on the part of the employer. But then, lo and behold, to make this nominee even more of a parody of an out-of-touch leftist, let's say it was discovered that while operating his own office for over a decade in a city that was majority-black, this nominee had never had a single black person among his more than 50 hires. ... The hypothetical nominee I have just described is, in every particular except his sex, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the time she was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993. When a Republican president nominates a judge who is as open and unabashedly conservative (or even libertarian) as Ginsburg is liberal, with virtual certainty of his confirmation, we'll know conservatism controls the battlefield of political debate. But for now our elected leaders are still afraid to join the fray. Read more commentary at Bilges... ed/Pub:NB Politics37611@blogcritics.org Sun, 9 Oct 2005 08:40:30 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/21/214851.php Ashley TateNEW ORLEANS - President Bush announced today that Hurricane Rita, likely to make catastrophic landfall near Houston, was his "mop-up operation to finish exterminating poor and black New Orlinians who fled to Texas."Bush, aka God, said it saddened him to do this to his home state, but "the people of Houston knew there would be severe consequences for attempting to thwart [his] judgment by harboring Superdome refugees."When asked why he hated poor and black Americans Bush said, "I have no malice toward any American. Poverty numbers are up and this is part of my plan for getting them back down."When asked why the government didn't help the poor by simply giving them the billions to be spent on Katrina relief, Bush laughed and said, "That's where my omniscience comes in handy. I already know they'll just spend it on drugs and booze. And we wouldn't get back much tax revenue that way because the poor don't pay taxes in America. Your way would cut a bunch of government agencies and contractors, like Haliburton, out of the loop. And I still owe my supporters a huge debt for helping me steal the 2000 election. My plan will stimulate the economy and keep this recovery on the move up."Bush said he was comfortable admitting to being selected, not elected, in 2000 because "there are no witnesses to testify against [him] now that [late Supreme Court chief justice William H.] Rehnquist has been called home."Bush promised to be more open about his future machinations. "Now that the secret of my divinity is out it's no fun pretending Karl Rove is the brains behind everything any more," Bush said.Bush also disclosed that Senator John F. Kerry did once possess a magic hat given to him by a cherub posing as a CIA agent in Cambodia. The hat was part of a complex plan to discredit Kerry's 2004 presidential bid."Are you sure you aren't the devil?" asked one member of the Whitehouse press pool.In response Bush smirked, winked, and said, "Well, we have a sayin' back in Texas that one man's God is another man's devil," before ascending into the clouds.Contributed by Ashley Tate at Bilges Pub:NB Politics36610@blogcritics.org Wed, 21 Sep 2005 21:48:51 EDT