2009-05-15 Morning pixels
Election Commissions: From the Tennessean this morning:
Lynn Greer, chairman of the Davidson County Election Commission, said it isn't likely that Republicans would seek to oust Metro Election Coordinator Ray Barrett.I'm not OK with this. Let's get over it. These are political appointments. They knew this when they got the job. Unfortunately, they've had them so long they've forgotten that and expect job security where there isn't any. It's like acknowledging the Republicans own the house but let a Democrat hold the keys and reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor's character in "Elephant Walk". Shouldn't happen. Do we own it or not? It has nothing to do with competence or honesty. It's politics remember? Republicans need to take full advantage of the opportunities we've got. We need merely look at our national and state legislatures for plenty of examples of where being nice and accommodating got us a knife in the back.
"I'm OK with that," said Greer, a Republican who has been on the commission for seven years. "He's a good man to work with. He's honest."
Civil Disobedience: AC Kleinheider at the Nashville Post points folks to a NY Times article where Earth Father Al Gore hasn't ruled out civil disobedience in regard to combating new coal plants.
"Yesterday, he said that he didn't think his time would best be used in such action, even as he said his friends have been out there and he has "not ruled out" the possibility of joining in."Does he mean ELF eco-terrorism civil disobedience or does he mean a photo op of him being charged with merely trespassing, being cuffed and later released and he'll leave the heavy lifting to his pawns? Seems to me he valued his own property rights so highly they included the air above his own home. Now he's considering violating the property rights of others? He's come a long way from the VP oath of office.
Army of Activists v. Christian Soldiers: From that NY Times piece on the Gore faithful's pilgrimage to Nashville:
"An organization he founded, the Climate Project, is holding a weekend summit here to train a new army of activists to..."Military terminology in this case is OK but "Onward Christian Soldiers" = the next Crusades?
The Truth is its own defense: CM Pam Murray (District 5-East Nashville) is cleaning up the mess she created and amended her disclosure forms. If she can't remember if she's self-employed or getting a paycheck then she's not fit to help run the city. District 5 citizens need to keep pushing.
Truth II: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is stumbling her way through life these days trying desperately to remember the truth and finding it inadequate to cover her backside. This is painful to watch.
These women are setting a terrible example and they actually harm legitimate advances women have made in politics. They've squandered the efforts of women who've gone before them. It's shameful behavior.
4 comments:
The real question is, why in the world are our elections commissioners treated as political appointees? Obviously, that's the easiest way to fill the position, and I'm sure elected officials love having that extra area of control.
But maintaining voter registration files and running elections shouldn't be a partisan business, especially not when both sides love accusing the others of election fraud. (And, of course, when each side presumably believes that the other is committing fraud.)
It would make more sense to remove the partisan factor from the equation as much as possible, either by making commissioners' terms significantly longer, mandating an equal, partisan make-up of the commission, or just replacing the appointees with civil servants under state oversight.
Also: "civil disobedience" is, by definition, not terrorism. Conflating the two is pretty ridiculous.
And as for Nancy Pelosi - I think she, along with a lot of the rest of the House leadership, is pretty awful. She's probably third on my list of Congressional Democrats I don't like, behind Reid and Frank.
But all the conservative blogs that are more concerned with her confusing public statements about the torture issue than they are by the issue itself are pretty disgusting. If they don't actually care whether we tortured people, why do they care whether Pelosi knew about it?
I won't mention the fumblings and unintentional non sequiturs of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. On second thought, maybe I will. But as I've said before and will say again: idiocy and corruption isn't inherent to only one political party.
I think your comment about women setting an example took a step forward today with the nomination of judge Sotomayor. It's women like these we should see as examples - top of her class at Princeton, Yale law grad, and most federal judicial experience of any incoming Supreme Court nominee.
A far cry from Sarah Palin who took 6 years and 6 colleges to struggle through a Bachelors Degree. Pathetic.
Well let's see if she gets the boxing or kid glove treatment from Congress and the press. We'll know more then.
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