In other news…
The craziness in Pakistan marches on. Bhutto’s supporters are being arrested. Bush is supposed to be pressuring Musharraf but I’m not buying it. We supported this guy. Bin Laden is on the loose and we supported a guy that really didn’t believe in Democracy, freedom or liberty?
Nancy Nord is the acting head of the consumer protection safety commission. She is the one that told democrats that she didn’t need or want additional moneys to inspect imported toys. Ms. Nord was on Capital Hill testifying in front of the House. She got an ear full from Democrats like Edward Markey. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said it was clear the CPSC has not been fully doing its job during Nord’s two-year tenure. “The CPSC once stood for the Consumer Protection Safety Commission. Today it stands for ‘Can’t Protect the Safety of Children,”‘ Markey said. “The reality is CPSC has lost 15 percent of its workforce since 2004. … As the holidays approach, parents should not have to play toybox roulette.”
The Senate, for reasons that aren’t really clear to me, have confirmed Michael Mukasey for Attorney General just a few minutes ago. Why? Saying that you can’t or shouldn’t decide based on one issue is crazy. Torture is more than one issue. It is about executive power. It is about the rule of law. We know what the law says. The administration isn’t following the law and Mukasey has basically said that he doesn’t care if the administration follows the law. I have a problem with that. Unfortunately, 53 senators do not have a problem with that.
BTW, did you see that op-ed over the weekend that was written by a JAG about torture. Outstanding. He discusses the ridiculousness of the waterboarding debate. He gives a little history lesson. Well worth a read.
If you put enough earmarks in a bill, sooner or later you will have something for everyone. That’s exactly what the Congress did yesterday. They were able to override another Bush veto. I’m not sure that this is a formula for success. Maybe it is. The Dems are going to have to do something different to show the American people that they are the answer. They are smart enough to pull legislation past a stick-in-the-mud president. Look for an Iraq funding bill to have similar earmarks.
