Blog @ MoreWhat.com

More evidence of politics as usual is surfacing day by day. Let’s
not waste any more time paying attention to constituents. The mid
term elections are over and all politician sound bites will be formed
for their respective agendas.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This ought to impress independents who voted for Lieberman.
Lieberman: Call Me A Democrat
Sen. Joe Lieberman, who won re-election as an third-party
candidate a fter a hard race against challenger Ned Lamont,
has a message for his Senate colleagues in the next Congress:
Call me a Democrat.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Chafee May Defect From GOP
Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who lost his re-election bid, said he
is uncertain as to whether he will remain a Republican in the
future. He noted that he hopes to stay active in public life.

It’s a lot cheaper to be Deputy Majority Whip and the party
may not be pleased by his other political aspirations.
Feingold Won’t Run For President
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold announced that he has decided
against seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
Feingold is an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, the Patriot
Act and other Bush administration policies.

Republicans fear stem cell research as a loss of lobbyist money
from the pharmaceutical companies and medical community. Will
the Democrats figure this out and balk also?
Congress’ Sci-Tech Agenda To Shift?
For clues to whether bipartisan cooperation in Washington will
take root or disappear from the table, watch how some key
science and technology issues play out. Divisive topics like
embryonic stem-cell research are on the Democrats’ early agenda.

Outgoing US Congress must deal with spending bills,
tax relief to …
International Herald Tribune -
AP. WASHINGTON: Before the new Democrat-led Congress
takes over in January, current members of the House and Senate
have to finish up with the year’s legislative business, whether
they won re-election or not.

Much in the blogosphere today rehashing political events of the
past week and before. The best we’ve seen claim Limbaugh and
Hewitt are party faithful and defend the GOP to the death, right
or wrong. Is this a joke? What’s the big revelation about any of
the talking heads having an agenda? On the other side, how about
Al Franken or Air America? An agenda, ya think? The sad part
is no one seems to admit that politicians are party faithful as well.

If you believe that there is no agenda in the photo ops with Pelosi
and Bush, then you were born yesterday or more likely early this
morning. Reid, Durban, Biden, etc., etc., all making nice. Notice
by many Democrats that the public has spoken and Dems intend to
do what the American people want is certainly subject to careful
interpretation. Our interpretation is Dems will seize the next two
years doing what they want in as much as their majority will allow.
The party versus party blame game will continue as well as lobby
dollars and corruption. If you think everything will get better just
because the other major party won political advantage this week,
your birthdate may not even exist yet or the turnip truck you will
fall off of is still on the drawing board.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Bush, Mexico’s Calderon to work on immigration
Reuters -
… W. Bush and Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon
pledged on Thursday to work together for a comprehensive
solution to curb illegal immigration from Mexico …

If it was not a plot by both Houses of Congress to introduce
HR4437 knowing it would never get through the Senate, then
the fine new Senate of the 110th Congress should be able to
finish strong reform starting in January 2007. Similar to the
fact that Immigration Reform of 1986 was never enforced, in
their grand wisdom, politicians have improved on their deceit
by creating a better strategy. Work together just long enough
to satisfy mutual goals and fool the public in believing you really
give a damn. Like Democrats conceding Presidential 2004
elections by nominating John Kerry when John Edwards wsa a
much more viable candidate. Kerry was a sacrificial lamb and
the only one who did not know it was Kerry. He still doesn’t.

We hope all you smiling Democrats are enjoying your victories.
We hope all you Republicans are understanding your arrogance
that led to this. And we hope you both as well as all of America
is prepared for a continuation of porous borders, unrestricted
immigration and a complete breakdown of national security.

If you haven’t noticed, the resignation of Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and previously mentioned items absolutely elated the
Muslim world. Al-Jazeera and the rest have been celebrating
since November 7th, 2006. Thank you one and all. NOT!

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Some immigration news provided as elections near.

With all the corporate influence through lobbyists, both parties
wanting cheap votes from anyone and anyway, the American
public is probably screwed after the mid terms regardless of the
outcome. The political process in this country is so out of line
that one election won’t change it. But if the voting public would
remove all or most incumbents and do it every election at least
term limits would be working. Then maybe politicians would
start listening to the public and we could slowly change things
for the better. But that may only be a dream. Sad if it is.

A story about Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman today is making more
noise than it deserves. Or the noise should be over stupid campaign
politics or not that Lamont and Lieberman had an opinion on all the
“misbehavior” of President Clinton while in office, but the fact that no
one ever seriously held this President accountable.

The reason this story rates as stupid campaign politics is that every
account either blames Lamont for lying based on an earlier email to
Lieberman or defends Lamont as one post at the TPM Cafe does.
The TPM Cafe post by Greg Sargent displays what is described as
the “key part” of Lamont’s 1998 email. Why not show the email in
its entirety and let the public decide? There is no way to determine
if this is the email and not seeing all of it does not help. It seems that
no one else is showing the email either. Enough about Lamont, let’s
get back to Clinton’s bad behavior.

Whether or not any other Presidents are guilty of this Clintonesque
type of behavior is not relevant since other scandals are not readily
on the minds of the public. The fact that President Clinton chose to
engage in activities he described as “I did not have sex with that……”
is bad enough, based on marital status, but showing lack of respect for
the office he held, the people he represented and to dishonor the history
of the whitehouse itself is reprehensible and simply unforgivable. Why
his former President status is not shunned by others is puzzling. Maybe
it is another indictment of power, influence and politics in this country.
Similar to the item in the beginning of this post but certainly much more
relevant and important.

The problem with party politics is why so many solutions that
should be forthcoming never see the light of day or are in the
holding pattern, not cleared for landing and running out of gas.

In an almost constant trek thru the blogosphere to find proof
of life of public debate, it has become clear that every or nearly
every discussion displays symptoms of partisan mudslinging.

If we start at the top of the poli-sphere, we find President George
Bush and his staff enrolled in pre-med for their doctors of spin
degrees. Their mantra can be best characterized by the following:

From Bing Crosby and…

(Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen)

You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

If you find that amusing, stop laughing, it’s not funny. As for the
laughing, if you oppose President Bush, here’s a newsflash for
you. He’s not the only one spinning. Everyone down the line is
guilty of excessive use of spin. Partisan spin, closely related to
media spin, serves no purpose but to muddy the waters, as in
mudslinging, and further frustrate an already apathetic public. It
is certainly apathy for those who do not engage the process or
at least vote.

Can we please stop talking about Pluto, Islamofacism, macaca,
name calling, other insults and slurs then return to honest talk of
the issues that matter. Some examples are healthcare, national
security, immigration, social security, real government ethics and
a host of others.

Related post at Daily Kos

One last repeat before this turns into a full-blown rant. Earlier we
mentioned a peculiar group of comments posts at Blog for America
only to cruise to the GOP blog to find an equally troubling state.
The Dems had what appeared to be a rather solemn post followed by
a coment section that that suggested those posting comments had no
idea where they were. The GOP blog offered counter stupidity for
requiring a potential poster to become a local team rep and recruit
for the party. Either of which we found unfortunate if a political
party intends to be sensible and accountable.

We really don’t mind making this non-story Lieberman thing a story. From one of two political parties that try to tell all what is American, or offensive, or insensitive, or worse yet un-American, you have a vindictive manner for expressing your disapproval.

Yes, we’re talking your reaction to Senator Joe Lieberman’s recent decision to run as an independent. The wonderful Blog for America site published “Lieberman’s having trouble finding tech support” today at 145PM written by Sheri Divers. So we wondered who this person was. One google and after numerous hits from Blog for America, the title DFA Communications Dir. is displayed. Your attitude is reminiscent of that held by organized crime when someone tries to discontinue membership.

All the marketing, promotion and speeches describing the many attributes of the Democratic Party’s virtues. Yet when someone leaves the fold, regardless of reason, you get vindictive. An offense that your membership will likely ignore based on their blind loyalty to empty promises. What a hose job.

Hillary is helping Lamont. That’s one thing we’ve always liked about Hillary. Always willing to help. We’re just a little bothered (still) about are characterization of the Connecticut race, specifically, Joe Lieberman, as the biggest non-story of the year. But “cheap to cover” stories always get a lot of press. And we violated are own assumption by mentioning this now for the third or fourth time.

We’re waiting on word from our friends at Blog for America. Okay, we don’t have any friends at Blog for America. But Stanford left some helpful information and comments last night to help them run the party. My guess is that we will be lambasted or ignored. Okay, we’re small. It’s ignored.

From Blog @ MoreWhat.com, we stated in an earlier post that the Joe Lieberman candidacy for re-election in Connecticut was the biggest non-story of the year and the title was “Don’t Care”. Although we still don’t care, it may have another angle we can consider. If one agrees that the strongest political parties in the United States emerged during Andrew Jackson’s “reign”, it may be that Joe Lieberman is borrowing from this historic playbook.

Andrew Jackson was the focal point of the Democratic party and made the presidential veto famous as well as earning the name of King Andrew I for his tendency to “overshadow” Congress. Does this sound familiar? The Natiional Republicans mainstay was opposition to the president’s king-like presence.

This too may be familiar if not backwards. Later on, the Whigs in second place of power to the Democrats, got William Henry Harrison elected with an absurd or at least, creative cmmpaign, and he promptly died in office. Tyler then followed and he was a Democrat who opposed Jackson and had been run out of the Whig party.

Although not a mirror image of the present Lieberman situation, this historic account has some strange similarities we believe were worth mentioning. Alternate theories are welcome.

One poll shows Lamont and Lieberman in a “dead heat” as they are separated by two percent with a margin of error +-3%. Lieberman, the incumbent, recently defeated in a primary election against Lamont, has been referred to by some as acting like a Republican. Is that because of the cheap kiss photo? Not the band, that lip thing where you wrap ‘em around something.

Let’s see. Lieberman was a Senator for three terms as a Democrat, was defeatted by a Democrat, refiled as an Independent and is referred to as a Republican by Democrats. Serious identity crisis. The Republicans seem rather quiet about this development. Oh, maybe it has something to do with their candidate in this same poll capturing a whopping 3%. Does he have a large family? 3%!! This state should be blue. Unless the Republicans are buying that Lieberman switched camps. Oh ya? Then why is Joe an Independent rather than a Republican on the ballot?