Tom DeLay? Indicted? What the World Needs Now is Someone to Blog About It, because it appears nobody else is!
The real time news-streaming of the Internet is in effect.
Kos at Wed Sep 28th, 2005 at 09:03:27 PDT:
I’d still wager we won’t get indictments of DeLay, but this is an incredible turnaround from a few months ago.
Kos at Wed Sep 28th, 2005 at 09:49:10 PDT:
Holy fucking shit.
And we’re off to the races. Apparently Speaker Dennis Hastert’s first choice for the position of “interim House Majority Leader” is a “Gay American”. And I can point to various posts made by various bloggers that stated categorically that this closeted Homosexual (wryly referred to as “Closeted Heterosexual” due to what is apparently the numb-minding obviousness of David Dreier’s sexual proclivities) was indeed… the new House Majority Leader. (In a relatively unsafe seat, mind you.) He wasn’t, and thus we get to see the Internet bloggers spoil over themselves in rumour and innuendo that used to be reserved for the big 3 networks or the major Cable Channels. Majority Whip Roy Blunt is our new smuckoid. Roy Blunt has his own proclivities, supposedly… but the reality is aside from probably Dennis Kucinich and Ron — I imagine that label pretty well covers everyone else. Roy Blunt has the advantage of not being gay.
I’m in full bullshit mode here, by the way. I have no clearer grasp of what is happening than you do. This works as a sort of “That’s what happened” piece If you want the bottom line, I give you a comment made at the reason blog:
So many democrats around just got erections so fast that my ears popped.
Here’s the thing about Bush’s 2004 election and the RNC’s victory. I’ve stated over and over again that the Senate seats were won because of a favourable GOP terrain: Oklahoma, Alaska, North and South Carolina, Louisiana, South Dakota — just re-elect Jefferson Davis and be done with it. (I have also stated repeatedly that the Democrats have an uphill climb anyway: 50-50 nation with a 30-to-20 state deficit.)
The Republican Party picked up three seats in the US House. AND: Of the seven gross seats the Republicans gained, five can be attributed to a special redistricting plan in Texas led by Republican Representative Tom DeLay. His redistricting plan was put into action, turning five Democratic seats Republican. A mid-decade redistricting like this was unprecedented and controversial. Not only “unprecedented and controversial”, but it was actually deemed unconstititutional. Throw that out, the Democratic Party would’ve gained two seats, which is merely a psychological cartharsis, albeit a minor one.
All of which is to say this, and what was the silver lining of the 2004 election: it is much better to see Bushism and DeLayism defeated in definite fashion than in indefinite fashion within extremely narrow margins. Who cares about the figures of Bush and DeLay — I’m much more concerned about the ismistics. For whatever reason, the American public was not ready to pull the shot-gun on our abysmal and obnoxious cronyistic bossist (and dare I say “BIG”) ismistic government in November of 2004. Perhaps they will be ready in 2006… and it at this point that I show you how the Senate picture (which is much easier to get a grip on than the House picture due to the size of the elective body) is shaping up:
In the Senate, though, Democrats need a net gain of six seats to win the majority, so logically they need to put six GOP seats in play.
They have accomplished that; in fact, seven Republican-held seats are now in play. They are the seats held by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.
Democrats have credible candidates in all but one of those states, Ohio.
It appears likely that their nominee will be Paul Hackett, the lawyer and Iraq War veteran who came close to picking off a special election in Ohio’s 2nd congressional district against now-Rep. Jean Schmidt.
If GOP Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi retires, as many expect he will, that would set up yet another competitive Republican-held Senate seat, bringing the total to eight.
Not that this is the end all be all of All That Would Save America from the Ravages of “WTF” Government. Political Hacks abound everywhere, and at every time. Do what you must with them.
(ismistic?)