AddieStan

...to republish today's post, which seems to have been eaten by Blogger.com. Working on it, though..

While your blogstress, with the rest of America, engaged in the distraction of pontificating on the Schiavo case, elsewhere in the world folks find themselves less concerned with the future of the U.S. Constitution (though they may want to ponder that), or the tragic circus into which Terri Schiavo's final days have devolved, than the implications of two critical appointments made by President Bush to international bodies: that of John Bolton to the post of U.N. ambassador and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to president of the World Bank. It's hard to know which of these is more frightening. Bolton's background harkens back to the bad old days of the Nicaraguan contras--the army of thugs set up in the 1980s by the U.S. to topple the socialist Sandinistas--or Wolfowitz, a believer in the spread of "doable" wars, who has no background in finance or banking. On the Bolton appointment, the Associated Press reports a chorus of concern from around the world ...

Just as yesterday she made note of the 47 Democrats who, on Sunday night, betrayed the U.S. Constitution (and hence, the American people), today your blogstress celebrates the five brave Republicans who, during the House vote on a bill that yanked the Schiavo case from the jurisdiction of the Florida courts, voted in favor of the government created by the Framers: Ginny Brown-Waite (Fla.) Michael N. Castle (Del.) Charles W. Dent (Pa.) David G. Reichert (Wash.) Christopher Shays (Conn.) Most impressive among them is Mr. Shays, who seems to be getting over playing nice, calling it as he sees it. Last night on "Hardball", Shays reiterated what he told the New York Times' Adam Nagourney earlier in the week: "My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a mo...

Today's activity around the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose future her family is famously fighting over, reached a frightening level of absurdity when Florida Governor Jeb Bush stood poised to the sieze custody of Schiavo. Then some sort of sanity ensued when the Supreme Court of the United States, in a cryptic decision, refused to order the reinsertion of Schiavo's feeding tube, as her parents had wanted and her husband did not. Alas, the high court, according to news reports, offered no real reason for its refusal. Your blogstress hopes against hope that it was based on the unconstitutionality of the congressional vote that brought the matter before the Supreme Court for a fifth time. And if that's the case, it's a lesson the American people desperately need to hear. In fact, your cybertrix thinks that a concerted, organized campaign to educate the public on just what exactly the Constitution says is in order, and she would gladly wield a cha...

If you're looking for a bright spot in the maelstrom, consider the several ways in which elements of the GOP appear to be poised for a rift. In today's New York Times , Adam Nagourney tells us that not all Republicans--nor all conservatives, for that matter--are cheered by Congress's trampling of the Constitution in the Terri Schiavo case: "This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative," said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. "When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it's been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked - even if it hasn't given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism." Read Nagorney's piece Several days ago, the Washington Post 's E.J. Dionne, Jr., wrote of another tear in the makin...

WASHINGTON, D.C.--As the Terri Schiavo case wends its way back up to the highest court in the land, the United States Constitution is gasping for breath. But if, like most Americans, you get your news from the broadcast media, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this case, as well as the extraordinary congressional vote that took place on Sunday, was about one family's quest to save their daughter's life. And who can blame them for taking their quest to whatever quarter would hear them? Yet, with Congress's cynical vote to override the jurisdiction of a state court, the crisis of Terri Schiavo's parents has brought the nation to its own crisis. A constitutional crisis. Lest you think your blogstress seized by the hyperbole demon, she asks her gentle reader to consider just what it means when the nation's top legislative body refuses to let an exhausted judicial process stand, simply because it rejects the court's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court, after a...

CHARLES TOWN, W.VA.--This evening your blogstress reports from the Charles Town Slots & Races in a state known to some as Almost Heaven. This is your Webwench’s first encounter with the Mountain Mama, and she sits shielded from the clear, black sky and the silent beauty of the Blue Ridge in a barage of blinking lights amid the relentless, humming din of iniquity. Despite her Jersey heritage, your cybertrix has never been much of a gambler. In fact, she may be the one person in the Garden State who voted “No, dammit!” on the public question that ultimately led to the legalization of gambling there. Your net-tête cannot quite account for her avoidance of this vice. As one who has been forced to quit more things than most people have done, you might think a money jones would have made it onto that list. It’s not naïvité; for her first legitimate, on-the-books job, your blogtress worked at a pizza parlor that made more book than pizza pies. It’s neither heritage nor religion; at ...

From our friend, Deep South, comes this appreciation of Howard Dean’s ascension to the donkey’s throne. Glad you got to see Howard Dean. I am even more glad that someone is taking notice of how the Christian evangelicals have taken over local politics, school boards, etc. These people are driven by an ideology, a vision of the future they truly believe. They immerse themselves in that dogma, and constantly reinforce each other in group Bible study, and are constantly on the lookout for some disillusioned soul they can carefully win over with proselytizing love and smiles. They carry their small New Testaments in their breast pockets. I remember an earlier time, of dedicated leftists, who went to any length, to any third world country, into the grossest poverty of Angola or Alabama, with an ideology burning in their hearts…Until some new ideology takes hold with the same fervor of the new evangelicals, with a brighter and clearer vision that drives its adherents from the couch to the...

WASHINGTON HILTON--Today your blogstress forgoes her usual Saturday brunch with her D.C. famiglia--an assembly of brilliant and charming gay men and one apparently straight child --in order to watch history made at the annual meeting of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). You’ll recall that during the presidential primary, your Webwench pretty much drank Howard Dean’s Kool Aide, and found herself enraged when the regular party tore down the only candidate (that would be Dr. Dean) who seemed to understand that the old ways of doing Democratic politics needed to be banished from the 21st Century. What a difference a year makes. Just about this time in 2004, Howard Dean found himself vanquished in the Iowa caucuses--and written off by the broadcast media (at the bidding of the party establishment) as a serious player in party politics when the doctor’s irrational exuberance on caucus night was cast as evidence of emotional instability. The party establishment went on to prove its...

For those who have wondered just what kind of a woman would raise a blogstress, here's a special treat. Maman de la Cybertrix just returned home from cruising the Caribbean with Papa de la Webwench, and offers this assessment of U.S. foreign policy, as viewed from the deck of The Princess: Grenada is devastated, having suffered Hurricane Ivan last September. Eighty to ninety percent of the buildings have no roofs--or worse. Interestingly, the Japanese government has replaced several bridges (pointed out by a tour guide). Red China is also active there. We were told that Cuba has helped them over the years, even sending Grenadian students to Cuba and Bulgaria on university scholarships. We didn't see any US bridges, though. Must have lost the map to Grenada again. Love, Mom XXXX000

Well, after watching Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union, your Webwench has figured out how just how the Democrats plan to save Social Security: they will bore you to death, hopefully before you're old enough to collect your benefits. Can't wait 'til Howard Dean takes the helm of the DNC and starts kickin' some butt.

With a helicopter droning above the oppo factory (which sits some four blocks from the U.S. Capitol building), the president presented the parents of a fallen soldier, both resplendent in the purplish color reminiscent of the indellible ink used to mark the fingers of Iraqis who voted last weekend. When the mother leaned forward to embrace the Iraqi woman--whose father was martyred by Saddam Hussein--in the First Lady's box, the moment was truly moving. And Bush himself seemed to mist up. Your blogstress did not support the invasion of Iraq, and thinks quite a mess has been made of things there. Nonetheless, she is gratified by the willingness of the Iraqi people to defy death to vote. In America, one must defy the death of the spirit to vote--and depending where one lives, perhaps an obstruction or two--and too few do.

"We have given them training and equipment," said the president of the our men and women in uniform. Just not enough of it. And just not the stuff they need--like vehicle armor. The prison factory in Illinois that makes armor kits for military vehicles hasn't received an order since October.

The Internationalist has joined your cybertrix in the oppo factory, just in time for the freedom riff. The president suggested some nice things that the tyrants of Egypt and Saudi Arabia might do if they wanted to make a pretty democracy. "What is he doing?" asked your blogstress of the Internationalist. "Did he, like, call Mubarak and Fahd and say, hey, I gotta say a coupla things in the speech about freedom in your land. Don't you worry about none of it, though. But that stuff about the Uranium people risin' up against the moo-lahs, well I just might mean that." "He's not saying anything bad [to the ears of the dictators]," the Internationalist explained. "He's just saying things that won't happen."

So now we're expanding the collection of DNA evidence. One wonders whether the collection will be predicated on the accusation of a crime, or just on general suspicion. Your blogstress had wondered just why, for three months last spring, her garbage appeared to be getting special treatment, picked up in the middle of the night while that of her neighbors was collected late in the morning. She liked to imagine John Ashcroft lingering over its contents, muttering incantations over a collection of chicken bones, cigarette butts and sanitary products in their post-sanitary state. After all, what of interest to the powers that be could be found in a Webwench's rubbish? As it turns out, it just may be the discarded contents of her hairbrush.

So we find ourselves at the real sell-job of the speech: the give-away of the nation's retirement program to Wall Street. Call them personal accounts, as the president does, or private accounts, as the more truthful do, we're still talking about opening a hole in a program that works as a closed system, and therefore screwing up the dynamic flows that sustain the system.

As citizens of this country eye each other across what the media have sold as a great divide, the president of the United States has just entered the hall where he will deliver his annual State of the Union message. Beginning with a self-congratulatory nod to the elections recently taken place in Islamic lands, the president elected by those who would deem America a Christian nation was not able to claim this last U.S. presidential election as one more fair and free than that which brought him to office in 2000. Mr. Bush has just assured us, even as your blogstress dons her driving gloves (the better to blog you with, my dear), that his new budget will eliminate a raft of government programs that are wasteful, none of which he specified. However, a look at his last budget should afford us a notion of just which programs the president considers to be "not working". The Veterans Affairs medical benefit program that provides all veterans with health care? Wasteful. In the ...

Your blogstress is pleased to inform her readers that she has received a copy of the GOP playbook, signed by Sen. Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum , for looting the Social Security program. Alas, she is still struggling with the technology that would allow her to place this 120-plus-page book in the Breakaway Republic. (She will figure it soon, she promises. Or, rather, one of those very smart geeks in her thrall will.) In the meantime, should you wish to have a copy, please e-mail the Webwench , and she will happily send it your way.

Though your cybertrix has a torrent of bon mots to offer on this inaugural occasion, she has suffered such daunting technical difficulties while blogging the festivities, that she is giving up until later. Do check in later, though, for some amusing anecdotes.