If we'd elected Dewey, we wouldn't have had all these problems

Coincidentally, the US has released its new military strategy, which involves nuking Iraq if it uses chemical or biological weapons.

Joining Kissinger on the 9/11 Coverup Commission, retired Sen. Slade Gorton. Wasn’t he the guy that really hated Native Americans? And Mitchell is out, and Trent Lott is trying to keep Warren Rudman off, because he might be a wee bit independent and we can’t have that.

Contrary to what I said last time, the Iraq disclosure will be censored, so that we won’t be told what Western corporations sold military-use equipment to Iraq. I was really looking forward to seeing the name Haliburton, and maybe the Carlyle Group, etc.

Trent Lott clearly made a big mistake by speaking the way he did. I mean by apologizing, because the media and god knows the Democratic “leadership” ignored his racist comments completely until then--which is actually pretty frightening; this could quite easily have continued to be ignored. I mean, he was interviewed by CNN right after that speech, and wasn’t even asked about the “slip of the tongue” (like a 61-year old white Southern politician could accidentally make such a remark without understanding its implications). Anyway, this may even prevent him retaining his leadership position, although it would have been better if it hadn’t occurred right before Christmas and the, ya know, war and everything. FAIR gives a bit of his history with the race issue (as does Joe Conason at Salon, although highlighting different things): Of course we now know he made exactly the same comments about Thurmond in 1980 (the Daily Show says in Lott’s defense that he only does this sort of thing every 22 years--he’s like the Halley’s Comet of racism), but he also sponsored restoring Jefferson Davis’s citizenship, pushed Reagan to give tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University (and filed a friend-of-the-racist brief with the Supreme Court in which he argued “racial discrimination does not always violate public policy”), voted twice against extending the Voting Rights Act, once against continuation of the Civil Rights Act, fought the ML King holiday, lauded the Council of Conservative Citizens (who have a website now, check it out), etc etc.

Speaking of Trent Lott, the Supreme Court heard a case on cross-burning today [I am the king of segues, bow down before me!]. Several of the Supes seem literally incapable of telling the difference between a symbol of violence, and actual violence. Souter said, “The cross has acquired a potency that is at least equal to that of a gun.” Tell that to someone who’s been shot. Scalia said blacks would prefer to see a rifle-toting man in their front yard rather than a burning cross. I’m guessing not so much. Clarence Thomas, who actually spoke out loud in the Court, said that the burning cross was a symbol of oppression during “100 years of lynching”. That would presumably be the low-tech kind. And obviously not very efficient, if it...takes...one hundred...years...to... OK, maybe that joke is trying too hard. Or not hard enough. Personally I’d only accept a very, very carefully written ban, and Virginia’s isn’t good enough. Wonder what Trent would think? He’s the guy who argued to the Court in 1981, “To hold that this religious institution is subject to tax because of its interracial dating policies would clearly raise grave First Amendment questions.”

Bush is implementing logging rules that were rejected by Congress. I must have missed hearing about the suspension of the US Constitution. According to the Post, “The new rules will decrease, from 200 pages to perhaps only one page, the amount of environmental impact information needed to approve clear-cutting projects in some areas.” Ironically, this means that there is now only 1/200th of the need for clear-cutting.