On the Foley front, this thing just can't stay out of the news. The priest who molested him, admits to hanging out with him naked and fooling around, but says it was nothing sexual?!? And of course, he sees no connection between his treatment of the congressman and his relationship with the congressional pages. Yes, there was more than one. And of course, how do republicans respond these days to scandals? More FUD about Terrorism. One thing I found disturbing is that a disgraced Congressman gets to keep his pension. That's right, we get to pay the creepy guy $32K a year for retirement - and Randal Cunningham, convicted of bribery gets $64K a year. The whole thing is getting old. Don't get me wrong now, illicit behavior and bribery are plainly not Republican problems. There is a long history of such across party lines, and even among independents. At what point are we going to demand that our nations leaders actually become decent role models?
This one is a good one. Here's George Bush on national TV saying he's never been "Stay the Course George" - with of course a bunch of links there pointing out what we all know to be the truth.
One thing I am noticing is that a LOT of the tech news sites are showing a lot of anti-republican news, which is why most of this post is slanted to the liberal side. I don't think it's because techies are liberal - in fact, I think most techie's sit on the conservative side of the street. But the republican led congress made some big mistakes and alienated one of the most influential communities on the web during the Bush administration. First off was the Patriot Act - which is the most absurd piece of legislation you could imagine. Next up comes the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and close association with the RIAA, MPAA, and DirecTV - the three of which have accounted for at least 60% of the lawsuits filed in this country over the last 6 years - aimed directly at tech savvy consumers. Others include public statements leaning towards internet taxes, eavesdropping, and the push to regulate the VOIP industry as if it were actually the Telco industry. There have been good things - like freeing up UHF and VHF bandwidth for consumer use, a strong set of Telco legislation, and they have been trying like crazy to provide incentives for the communications industry to improve our broadband infrastructure. They've also sealed up a lot of problems having to do with deregulated energy and large scale corporate fraud. All of the good things, though really get forgotten when you have something like the Patriot Act that shows up almost once a month on big sites like slashdot. The RNC could take a lesson or two from Google. Be nice to the techie community and they'll pay dividends beyond comprehension.
It does look, however, like the Republicans will maintain control of both the House and the Senate. At least according to a few experts. That doesn't stop a few democrats from being giddy with the thought of more power.
Tired of politics yet? I am. No more political commentary until at least 6 months after the election.
A Little Bit of Politics Commentary
