Politics

Sixteen words: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Eight words: “I did not have sex with that woman.”

Supporters of the Texas redistricting effort were eager to claim that the Texas Democrats were acting illegally. Proof? Well, the Texas House rules allowed the Texas Department of Safety to hunt missing legislators down, and that must mean that the legislators were breaking the law. The difference between police acting as a favor to the legislature and police acting to enforce actual laws was apparently beyond some. Not, however, beyond a Texas judge. Judge Charles Campbell pointed out that Texas law “limits the role of D.P.S. to enforcing the laws protecting the public safety and providing for the prevention and detection of crime.” ...

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Remember that Iraqi children’s prison? It was a big deal. It was proof that we were right to go into Iraq. It was a noble, shining moment. It was an orphanage. A really bad one (original), but not a prison, and not someplace kids were sent for refusing to join the Ba’ath Party. And hey — if we’re in the business of liberating facilities which treat children horribly, maybe we should start here. It’s run out of Utah (original). We can start at home.

CNN’s headline for this story reads, quote, “Bush: crime of slavery ultimately ‘set America free’”. Which has, to my eye, somewhat questionable implications. In fact, what he really said was “The stolen sons and daughters of Africa helped to awaken the conscience of America. The very people traded into slavery helped to set America free.” The crime itself didn’t set people free; rather, the people we wronged helped set us free. Very different meaning, there. ...

David Neiwert’s excellent series of essays, Rush, Newspeak and Fascism, is finally available as a PDF. He’s asking five bucks as a donation if you download it. It’s worth more than that. Neiwert is further to the left than I am; I don’t agree with the idea, for example, that the government is “the one entity that has the capability to protect them [middle and lower-class workers] from the ravages of wealthy class warriors and swarms of corporate wolves.” But that’s really beside the point. Even if you disagree with his politics, you should read this pamphlet for what he has to say about the effects of Limbaugh and his poisonous ilk. ...

In February, 2002, the CIA asked an old Africa hand to visit Niger and look into the allegations that Niger sold uranium to Iraq. He reported that the allegations were highly doubtful (original). In January, 2003, Bush made those allegations as statements of fact. Said Africa hand, Joseph Wilson, has a nice op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Northern Iraq has been fairly peaceful, despite pre-war worries about Turkey’s reaction to Kurdish freedom. There’s been the occasional skirmish in Turkey (original) and the Kurds clearly still intend to control the northern oil cities, but on the whole matters have gone all right. Unfortunately, the situation doesn’t seem entirely stable. The US just detained 11 Turkish soldiers, who were reportedly trying to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk. It’s a touchy enough situation for Cheney to handle it personally. ...

This is funny. The Texas House is currently in the middle of a special session, trying to get that pesky redistricting done. Unfortunately, the Republicans can’t agree on how they want to draw the new lines. Great stuff. Good times.

The BBC (and others) report that three of the six Guantanamo prisoners who are to face a military tribunal are citizens of US allies. Specifically, Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi are British and David Hicks is Australian. Apparently, while we don’t try our own citizens in front of a military tribunal, we’re OK with trying Aussies and Brits in a closed court. There’s really no excuse for this. In particular, Australia has suffered Al Qaeda attacks — but Australian courts aren’t good enough to try Mr. Hicks? How insulting. ...

Between this post (original) and this post (original), Howard Dean raised over a million dollars from Internet contributions. That’s 45 hours. His total fundraising income for the quarter is over seven million. It’s significant because Dean almost certainly outdid every other Democratic candidate this quarter, and he’s solidly in the top tier because of that. This is a major difference from insurgency candidacies such as McCain’s, Tsongas’, and Bradley’s. It’s interesting because the average contribution was $66.85. By my count that’s around 15,000 contributors. That’s both a lot of eyeballs looking at a political website and not very many eyeballs at all when compared to the number of votes Dean needs. Sort of the first trickle of a dam breaking, I suspect. I don’t see the Internet having an immense effect on this election cycle, but 2008 should be interesting.