October 26, 2006
Republicans Don't Want To Be Republicans In 2006
We're seeing it all over the state. After years of muscle-flexing conservatism and in-your-face politics, our Republican friends and cousins now want to talk about how bipartisan they are.
Funny how the national meltdown of the Republican Party and a highly popular Democratic governor have combined to make our local right-wingers ready to change their tune.
Of course, during the 2005 legislative session these same guys fought Governor Schweitzer tooth and nail. They were against pretty much everything he was for. Education, health insurance, alternative energy, tax policy, you name it, if Schweitzer was for it, they were agin' it.
But now that their elections are threatened, they are claiming to be bipartisan. Up in the northeast corner of Montana, Karl Waitsches, who is a leader in the Republican House caucus and powerful chairman of the taxation committee, is running on a bipartisan platform. His opponent Julie French is rightfully calling him on it.
Here in Bozeman, first-term legislator Bill Warden is pulling the same trick. Whe it was time to vote, he lined up with the rightwingers who run the Republican caucus time after time. Back home and running for reelection, he's judging which way the wind is blowing. His opponent JP Pomnichowski, like Julie French, is holding him accountable.
There is nothing wrong with being partisan, in my opinion. Legislating is a team sport. But you shouldn't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in when you're talking to the voters.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2006
Republicans Propose Tuition Cut They Can't Possibly Deliver
You have to admire the sheer gall of these guys. Yesterday, a covey of Republican legislative candidates appeared with Congressman Rehberg over at MSU, promising to cut tuition by five percent when the Legislature meets this year.
Wow. Talk about promising something they can't deliver.
These guys better check the Montana Constitution. The Legislature doesn't set tuition, the Board of Regents does. In fact, because of generations of micromanaging and political vendettas carried out by politicians with an intellectual axe to grind, our 1971 Constitution expressly removed any kind of U-system oversight from the Legislature and gave it to the new Board of Regents, to be appointed by the Governor.
It's the Regents who have complete control over the U-system budget. Salaries, hiring and firing, expenditures, and yes, tuition.
Never mind that tuition has gone up every year for 15 years in a row due to the exact same conservative policies that our Republican campaigners believe in and vote for. Never mind that 16 years of Republican-appointed Regents carried out the conservative dictum that everybody is on their own in a cruel world, and if kids can't pay or take on a fat debt, they're just out of luck.
Never mind that Pat Davisson, the chairman of the Regents during the '90's when tuition was skyrocketing, spent a bunch of time insisting on ever lower taxes for his stockbroking clients at the same time that he was voting to jack up the student tax, a.k.a. tution. Never mind that Davison himself has been indicted for running a $9 million Ponzi scheme at the exact same time that he was running for Governor two years ago.
For these guys to promise to lower tuition now is like some yahoo crashing his pickup through your living room wall, then jumping out of the truck and giving you a pitch. "Hey, looks like you got a problem here. I'm a contractor, let me fix this for you, whaddaya say?"
Would you let him pull out his hammer and saws? No way!
Same deal with these legislative wannabes. It was their philosophy that broke the system, and until they're ready to face up to that, they ought not to be making promises that they can't keep. In this case they don't even own the hammers and saws. And the rest of us should know enough of our own history to know that.
If the Regents aren't on board the tuition-cutting train, then it ain't leaving the station. And they aren't.
Not that something isn't being done about tuition.
What the Regents have committed to with Governor Schweitzer is this: if the Legislature puts up $50 million in new money, they will hold the line on tuition next year. That's the deal that's on the table. It's the first time in over a decade that there has even been a discussion like that, with the responsible parties making public commitments.
How to fix tuition in the long run?
1. Admit that the conservatives are wrong. Higher education is a public good, and deserves the support of the taxpayers for the common good of all.
2. Change the governance of the system to make the Regents accountable to students, parents, and taxpayers. That requires tinkering with the Constitution.
3. Require the Regents and the Legislature to stop paying poker with the U-system budget. Everybody puts their cards on the table and we enact long-range planning. The Legislature commits to a definite funding level, and the Regents commit to a long-term tuition schedule instead of the year-by-year mystery game we have now.
4. Put limits on the size of the system. The presidents of the big schools have been growing their gardens out of control for years. When do we start talking about pruning the garden?
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 08:19 AM
October 07, 2006
Republican Congress Murders Bill of Rights, Nobody Notices
Lost in the media feeding frenzy about the pediphile scandal in Congress is the news that just before they adjourned eight days ago, the Republican Congress murdered the Bill of Rights. And our echo-chamber media and freedom-loving conservative friends have been completely silent.
That's right, the Republicans jammed through the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gives dicatorial powers to George Bush. He can now declare anyone (including US citizens) to be an 'enemy combatant', and have them thrown into a military prison forever, without charges, attorney, or trial. And they can be tortured, too.
That means that the right of habeus corpus has been flushed. That's the one that says you can't be held in prison without reason. It dates back through 800 years of common-law rights to the Magna Carta, which was the first step on the long road from rule by despots to rule by the people. The power of indiscriminate imprisonment is the hallmark of kings and dicatators.
And it means that our cherished ideals of freedom for all and rights for the accused, have been thrown into the dump.
Can you imagine what our freedom-loving conservative friends and cousins would have done if Bill Clinton had tried this? They'd have pretty much gone ballistic, would be my guess.
Conservatism has failed, is my belief. How did 19 Saudis with box cutters turn the United States into a police state with 300 million people under surveillance, and a leader of questionable character who can now order anyone into a dungeon?
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2006
This Is Your Family Values Party
In addition to Congressman Mark Foley, who resigned last Friday after being exposed as a pedophile, we have the Congressional Republican leadership, who knew about Foley for at least nine months and did exactly nothing about it.
For those of you who are keeping score, here is a list of 40 Republicans from around the country who pleaded or were convicted of child sex crimes.
Here in Montana, we have the following family values Republicans:
Representative Rick Maedje of Fortine, currently a candidate for Lincoln County Commission, was arrested in May on suspicion of partner assault, meaning that he allegedly beat up his wife.
Tom Opre from the Swan Valley, who is running for the Montana House, was charged in August with misdemeanor partner assault, which means he allegedly beat up his wife.
Representative Jack Ross of Absarokee was sentenced in March for misdemeanor DUI.
And finally we have Pat Davison, who ran for Governor two years ago, being charged in August with defrauding his securities clients for a million two. The charges were later expanded to running a Ponzi scheme for a cool six million, while he was running for governor.
Until July, Davison was the co-chair of Senator Conrad Burns' finance committee.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2006
Republican Leadership Protects Pedophile Congressman
Unbelievable. This Republican congressman from Florida, Mark Foley, resigned Friday after being exposed as a pedophile. And now we hear that the Speaker of the House, 3rd in line to the presidency, knew about it for months and did nothing.So does Mr. Speaker get busted for being an accessory?
Like I posted last week, conservatism has failed. These so-called conservatives really believe they are above the law. Had enough? Vote democratic on November 7.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2006
Conservatism Has Failed
Conservatism has failed. After 21 years of being governed by conservatives (yes, even under Clinton), we now have the most corrupt federal government in the history of the republic. And that's saying something.
We're conducting a war based on a pack of lies, living under a police state, and struggling with an economic regime dedicated to shipping our jobs overseas and turning millionaires into billionaires, and devil take the hindmost.
How is it that the conservative philosophy, which was supposed to bring us smaller government, lower taxes, and less regulation, has instead produced a huge bureaucracy to spy on us, trillions owed to Chinese dictators and Saudi sheikhs, institutionalized bribery, and requires us to take off our shoes and unbutton our pants to get on an airplane?
Simple. Conservatism isn't about smaller government. It's about self-appointed moral superiority, which has produced immoral results every time it's been tried.
It started back in the 60's when they said that liberalism produced immoral results. Then in the 70's they started saying that conservatism was a philosophy based on morality and that liberalism, as a philosophy, was immoral.
In the 80's they took over with the election of Ronald Reagan. They got rid of the FCC fairness doctrine and amped up what we now know as talk radio and cable tv shouters. They started saying, loudly, repeatedly, and without discussion that liberals were themselves immoral and therefore to be blamed, shamed, and ignored. Finally, they got to the point where they could claim or imply that since conservatives based their beliefs on a moral philosophy, they must be innately moral.
And that, my friends, is when we crossed the great divide and hit the slippery downward slope to the swamp we're in now, where conservatives find themselves defending the indefensible. Torture, international kidnapping, peddling a pack of lies to justify invading and laying waste to far distant countries, looting the federal treasury, and spying on every American citizen in the name of freedom, just to get started.
Because when you see yourself as innately moral, as having a special connection to God, you can justify just about anything, because if you are doing it, it must be right.
That's the same recipe we humans have used down through the ages to cook up all manner of exploitation and repression. We simply convince ourselves that if we have our boot on that other fellow's neck, it must be for his own good. It's the logic of the Inquisition and the Holocaust, of slavery and robber baron capitalism.
It's not a failure of individuals that has produced the corruption, the incompetence, the daily ration of lies, and the deliberate political polarization. It's the philosophy. Conservatism has failed. It is intellectually and morally bankrupt. The claims of moral purity that support the whole structure have proven as fake as a hooker's smile.
The consensus (phony as it was) by which we have governed ourselves for the past 25 years has fallen apart. Our task now is to find a new consensus, a new vision for the future.
Stay tuned.
Posted by Brady Wiseman at 02:37 PM