There's an interesting perspective on GLBT political power here, and everyone should go read (365gay.com keeps close watch on politicians and homosexuality and comes recommended by The Village Voice). Although it's been clear that gay and lesbian voters are strongly Democratic, I was amazed to learn how critical they have been to the Howard Dean campaign:

"Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s record-setting fund raising first took off in large part because of an outpouring of support from the gay community," wrote Thomas Edsall in the Post last week. He went on to note that some Democratic fundraisers estimate that "at least" 10 percent of the money now coming into the party and its presidential nominees is from gays and lesbians. (Gays accounted for four percent of the overall 2000 presidential electorate, the equivalent of the Jewish vote.)

"With just one exception," the article continued, "every fund-raiser Dean attended outside Vermont in 2002 was organized by gay men and lesbians, as were more than half the events in the first quarter of 2003, according to Dean advisers…This early backing provided a foundation for Dean to expand his core support to include voters opposed to the Iraq war, angry at President Bush, embittered by the outcome of the 2000 election and discontented with what they saw as a Democratic Party establishment without backbone."

Of course there's FAR more to Dean's campaign, but just as Gephardt has Labor and Edwards has trial lawyers, Dean has his own base of support with a powerful political voice. Evidence shows that the gay community is actually pragmatic in its political decisions:

In the 2000 primary in California, for example, gays and lesbians voted for Bill Bradley in only slightly higher numbers than the rest of Democratic voters, this despite Bradley’s startling, bold promise to change the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment to include gays, as well as his early support of domestic partnerships, which Gore backed only after Bradley’s announcement. (No one was calling for civil unions at that time, let alone same-sex marriage, which shows you how far we’ve come in only four years.) Similarly, support for Ralph Nader in the 2000 general election was only slightly higher among gays, 25 percent of whom voted for Bush.

Of course, it doesn't matter which Democratic candidate (except Braun, who dropped out today, and will be endorsing Dean). Any one, even self-righteous Joe Lieberman, will be painted with the same broad, Pat Robertson-esque brush during the general election; queer-lover, crazy leftist, etc.

Also, I know this is a few days old, but everyone who's shouting about the sky falling on this election ought to read Mark Shields' plea for historical perspective. I didn't know that Dean is far closer to Bush II right now than Clinton was to Bush I at this time of year.

Morgan
- posted by Tom @ 6:15 AM

 
Today's New York Times contains a fascinating article, "Study Disputes View of Costly Surge in Class-Action Suits," which at least partially debunks the popular "wisdom" about lawsuits. While we take it on faith that lawsuits are a large and growing burden on American corporations and doctors, the Times writes:

A new study has concluded that both the average price of settling class-action lawsuits and the average fee paid to lawyers who bring them have held steady for a decade, even though companies have said the suits are driving up the cost of doing business, hurting the economy and lining lawyers' pockets.

Of course the facts won't stop crusaders, like the US Chamber of Commerce, from attempting to shut down average people's single best remedy against abuse, fraud, and corporate malfeasence. Often, courts provide the only recourse for the injured: it's been two years and there have yet to be any indictments regarding Enron's "largest bankrupcy in US history" (are you listening John Ashcroft?)

I always prefered the option involving greater corporate and medical responsibility. Corporations that behave rationally and at least pretend they give a damn about people are much less likely to become the target of a huge lawsuit that acutally goes somewhere. Doctors are so busy defending a small minority of their ilk, which is responsible for an inordinate number of malpractice claims, that they fail to realize that they should be policing their own profession.

In fact, the GAO (registration reuqired) found recently that there's no evidence linking malpractice insurance rates to higher costs of care, according to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin:

Congressional investigators have found no conclusive link between high medical malpractice insurance premiums and increased health care costs, unnecessary diagnostic tests and physician frustration, thereby dealing a blow to the chief argument behind a growing national movement to limit the amount patients can recover in lawsuits.

Yet again, the competent and professional part of the US Government proves George "The Only President We've Got" Bush wrong -- he claims:

Bush said the doctors' fear of litigation has compelled them to order expensive and unnecessary medical tests to protect themselves from being accused in court of not doing all they could for their patients. These needless tests drive up health care costs, Bush said.

WRONG -- according to the GAO -- who do you trust?

Further, researchers also say that the "studies" so often cited by proponents of medical tort reform are basically bunk, having too small and unrepresentative sample, or being totally anecdotal.

There's lots more here -- the GAO basically shoots down the ENTIRE arguement for tort reform. Check this out for great evidence against those who would steamroll the vast majority of Americans for the benefit of a few (already-wealthy) Americans -- sort of a trend these days.

Morgan
- posted by Tom @ 4:56 AM

 
Good Afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

I'll begin with a brief of the day's news... and then I'll give some commentaries. I'm still trying to find a way that I can put things up here that will let people ask questions on positions and views. Should you have questions... please direct them to trbenton@bsu.edu ... and damnit... not junk mail.

1. Yesterday, Vice-President Cheney announced that should President Bush propose a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage, he would support it. This coming from a man whose daughter is a lesbian.

2. Also yesterday, Paul O'Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury, who was fired by Bush, released 19,000 documents stating that the current Bush Administration starting devising an Iraqi war plan days after he took office. He disagreed with the "pre-emptiveness" of the war and wanted to offer proof. Then, today, the Treasury wants to probe O'Neill's papers that appeared on '60 Minutes.' Especially the one that said "Secret"

3. Ukranian troops fired into the air to disperse Iraqis that were rioting for food and jobs.

4. A new, permanent, 25 foot wall was placed on the edge Jerusalem. It runs right down the middle of a busy road in Abu Dis. It replaces a smaller barrier that slowed, but didn't stop, people and goods.

5. Kathleen Blanco was sworn in as Louisiana's first female governor. You can read more about it in Morgan's entry down below.

6. Mexican President, Vicente Fox, which has a really cool name might I add, hails Bush's immigration plan, which would give legal status to immigrants from Mexican workers.

7. In the latest poll, Howard Dean keeps the lead in Iowa.


Vice President Cheney is a moron as far as I'm concerned. He favors the President of the United States over his own daughter. I'm not saying that the man can detest Bush's policy, but he sure as hell doesn't have to pre-emptively endorse it.


I'm not sure what to think of Paul O'Neills actions on the documents he's showed showing that President Bush started planning this war days after he took office in 2001. I'm going to need to study the situation more before I can really comment on it.


The war in Iraq is starting to go downhill. The United States and all of her 'Coalition Forces' can't get food and water to the region. We invade the country, make it hell for them for a long time, and we don't even feed the people? That's pathetic and Bush and his war-time advisors should be ashamed of themselves.


The new wall in Jerusalem is a new Berlin Wall. It needs to be dealt with quickly and decisively. It needs to be taken down immediately and no barrier should be put up. Of course, Bush won't let it get into the press cycle. They'll make sure his former treasury secretary will be in the cycle, because no one wants to have a second Berlin Wall in the world.


I'm very glad that Kathleen Blanco was sworn in to office as Governor of Louisiana. I look forward to reading about her successes in the State of Louisiana with balancing a budget and all.


Of course Vicente Fox would be glad about the immigration policy that Bush wants to implement. They come over here, make money, send it back to Mexico, which makes Mexico's economy better. Granted that does have an effect on the world's economy. I don't like the policy that Bush wants to implement. I'll write a more lengthy position on that later tonight.


I'm glad that Howard Dean has remained the front runner in Iowa. The Iowa Caucus is on the 19th. That's very soon. If Dean wins that will give a good start to the campaign that will nominate him as the democratic nominee for President of the United States... and hopefully MAYBE beat Bush in November.



Now I'd like to comment on Bush's comment to the New York Daily News. I can't believe that Bush actually said that. Bush is forgetting about Presidents such as Madison, Lincoln, Kennedy, FDR, Truman, and the list goes on and on. The fact that he even SAID that he's done more than any other president in the face of human rights shows that he's not fit to be president. He can't even feed the people of Iraq. He suspends the writ of habeus corupus for people that are suspected of terrorism. How is THAT for human rights?

Well... I must go eat and then get to my constitutional law class.

-Tom

- posted by Tom @ 3:03 PM

 
Raging idiot alert of the day:

George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

This according to the New York Daily News. I'm beyond incredulous. This guy is so amazingly stupid, so unbelievably out of touch with anything even closely resembling reality, that I'm almost at a loss for words (write this down, people). Apparently, George "The Only President We've Got" Bush did more than Abraham Lincoln, James Madison (who basically wrote the constitution before being elected), FDR and Truman, who liberated Nazi prison camps, or Kennedy and LBJ, who ended institutional segregation in the United States. Now, i'll grant that all of this happened a long time ago, but has Dubya also forgotten Reagan and his own father, who presided over the end of Soviet communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall? Maybe he can't remember all the way back to Lincoln, but there's people in his administration who served the government back in the days just after LBJ.

OR maybe the president knows he'll basically get a free pass from the media, and that nobody actually reports what he says anymore? I mean, this is only in the NY Daily News, which is basically a People Magazine for NYC.

Seriously, this is so far beyond the pale I'm stunned.

In other, happier news, Kathleen Blanco (whom you may remember from earlier posts) was sworn in as Governor of Louisiana today, in both French/Creole and English. The AP reports she said that this is the first time, "that an honor such as this has been earned by a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother" in Louisiana. Watch to see if she's successful in dealing with a massive budget shortcut and a divided body politic.

Morgan

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."

HH the Dalai Lama
- posted by Tom @ 2:05 PM

 
I'm back after a long, holiday and ski-induced break. I only have a minute, so I thought i'd clear up a few issues from below -- it takes only 51 votes to confirm, but it takes 60 to overcome a filibuster, which is what any far-right, strict constructionist, Scalia-style nominee's going to get.

I somewhat agree about other candidates attacking each other -- i think there's quite enough to attack on the GOP side, without hitting each other. All the candidates (except maybe Lieberman) are on the same team and I'd choose any of them (except maybe Lieberman) over GW.

That being said, there's likely to be little effect long-term from these attacks. First, it's unlikely that Bush is going to be using the words of John Kerry and John Edwards in the general election -- because they'll be endorsing Dean, if he's the nominee. They'll suggest that Bush took their words out of context, starting an unnecessary fuss. Bush already has all the foreign-policy ammo he needs...see "Mission Accomplished" landing/PR stunt in May of last year (remember that???). Secondly, nobody's actually paying much attention right now anyways...I challenge any of our readers to quote one criticism of Dean (e-mail me at mtillema@indiana.edu).

Plus, Dean's not the nominee yet. NOBODY has voted for him, or anyone else, yet. The convention is a long way in the future yet. So, we might see Gen. Wesley Clark as the nominee, and the whole "attacks on Dean" issue is a non-issue.

Morgan

"Democracy is not a spectator sport."
Randy Schutt
- posted by Tom @ 5:13 PM

 
It is Tom again... with an entry at 1:30 in the morning. So... it might be kind of a weird one, but bear with me anyway.

Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton need to just drop out of the race. They're taking up valuable Associated Press coverage. The Democratic Party is NOT going to even THINK about nominating ANY of them. So, why waste their time and money? The day that Kucinich, Braun, or Sharpton get nominated for the office of President of the United States is the day I move to Germany.

Now... the remaining candidates running for the nomination of the Democratic party are just shooting themselves in the foot and slowly working their way up their leg. People are going to hear PLENTY of arguing between the republicans and the democrats, why would they WANT to hear it INSIDE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?! They're ALL attacking Howard Dean and while they're doing that they're making themselves look worse and making Howard Dean look better. People make mistakes... Howard Dean has made some... he fixes them the best he can and he moves on. People have said that Howard Dean has put his foot in his mouth several times. Alright... let's count how many times the current president has put his foot in his mouth. Not to mention all the times that the current president has put his foot in his mouth when the public can't even UNDERSTAND what the hell he's even TRYING to say. They're attacking Howard Dean... making them not only look partisan... but tyrannical inside their own party. They're dividing the party... which is not what the party needs. Why can't they see what they're doing?! I don't understand it. They're practically GIVING Bush a second term.


The next president is going to have a big opportunity, I think, to put a few justices on the Supreme Court. I think Rhenquist, O'Connor, Breyer, and MAYBE Ginsburg will be retiring in the next 4 years. Yep... that's 3... MAYBE 4 justices that would have to be replaced. Which... is NOT good if Bush gets another term. Because he can't get re-elected... so, why the hell would he care who he nominates? He'll get an opportunity to stack the bench... and he'll never have another political position anyway... so, who cares? It's not a good thing. I don't think. Plus... the republicans hold the majority in the senate. And, I think that's all you need... 51 votes. I could be wrong... to confirm you might need 2/3 of the senate... so, that's 67. But... I dont' think that'd be too hard. All the republicans... plus a few conservative democrats can vote and the next thing you know this country has gone to hell in a hand-basket. That's my greatest fear for the next 5 years.

Well, that's all for now. Just a few political spewings from my mind. I'll put another entry in in the next few days. Goodnight.

-Tom

- posted by Tom @ 11:48 PM

 
Good Morning my loyal readers. Once again I, Tom, will be making another entry into the joint-venture liberal blog between Morgan and myself.

I had a great experience tonight. Well... technically it was last night, but who gives a damn. I went to a Howard Dean House Party. It was a lot of fun. I was in a room with tons of democrats... all of them liberal democrats. Although... I was the youngest one in the room. At first I was worried that all the people in the room weren't going to take me seriously about politics since I am only 18. Even though I didn't disclose my true age, and simply told them I was a political science major at Ball State. For all they knew, I was a senior in college. But still, I was worried they wouldn't want to hear what I had to say... but that's not the way it was at all. Everyone there was very friendly and glad that I came. Very nice people... all of them. We got to listen to a conference call with Tipper, Al Gore, and Howard Dean. They were all pretty good speeches, and also very good questions. Afterwards we got into a discussion about Howard Dean and the issues in the campaigns. I was nervous to say anything at first, but I started saying a few things, and by the end of the night I believe quite a few people were impressed that not only did I know what I was talking about, that somone so young knew what they were talking about. It was a great night. I hope to have another one in the future, and maybe even host one at Ball State sometime.

Well... I'm dead tired for some reason... so, I apologize for making this such a short entry, but, I need to get to bed because I have a lot to do tomorrow... and I'll be up WAY past this tomorrow. Goodnight to all, and of course... Happy New Year!

-Tom Benton
- posted by Tom @ 11:04 PM

 
Hello loyal readers! It is I, Tom, once again with an entry into Morgan's and my liberal blog. It's good fun, and you know it.

Well, it finally happened. Saddam Hussein was captured by American soldiers. He was captured in/near Tikrit. Which is quite interesting actually, that's where he is from. The day that it happened there was "much rejoicing" I guess you could say. At least in America there was. However, the next day, disagreements and arguments started cropping up here and there.

Governor of Vermont and Democrat Presidential Nominee hopeful, Howard Dean, stated that the country isn't safer because of the capture of Saddam Hussein. And actually one senator, whose name unfortunately has slipped my mind, believed that it was almost planned by the Bush Administration to capture Saddam Hussein about this time. Not necessarily THAT weekend, but around that time. Which, of course to many people is absurd, and is to me as well.

I think it's good that we captured Saddam Hussein. But, I do agree with Howard Dean. Frankly, America isn't safer because of the capture of Saddam Hussein. The safety of America came when he was ousted from power. Our safety was simply 'secured' I guess you could say with the capture of Saddam Hussein. They're fine points, I understand this, and while I agree with Howard Dean's opinion, I don't agree that he should have said it. This is the primary, and Howard Dean has more sense than that.

Now I'd like to get into what should happen with Saddam Hussein. I don't think that the United States of America has the right or the jurisdiction to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity or war crimes for that matter. Any sort of charges of 'war crimes' should be dealt with by the International War Tribunal. However, the crimes against humanity need to be dealt with very seriously. The United States doens't have jurisdiction over this, and neither does an International Tribunal. The citizens of the nation of Iraq, however DOES have jurisdiction over trying Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity, because the crimes were against them and their fellow citizens. However, the United Nations needs to oversee the trial to ensure that it's conducted in a fair manner, but without persuasion upon the verdict or the sentence.

I don't think that the United States government, or the press for that matter, has been very professional about the capture of Saddam Hussein. From things such as, "We got him" to "Good riddance." The former said be a high ranking official in Iraq, the latter said by President Bush. One must remember that this is a serious matter, this isn't time to be unprofessional about things. I think the government and some of the press should be rather shamed at the way they've been acting lately, and needs to be much more professional about this whole capture thing.

That is all for now. I'll be making an entry probably on Friday. Thanks for reading.

-Tom
- posted by Tom @ 12:34 PM