Looks like Randy”Duke” Cunningham is going to plead guilty to … A Whole heck of a lot of bad doings.

This despite never having smoked a marijuana cigarette. (The kids call it a “joint”, but Randy Cunningham is so unaware of illicit narcotics, his drug of choice being lavish gifts from Lobbyists.)

I guess this is a victory for the House Ethic’s Committee — headed by the esteemed Doc Hastings, because you have to figure that since they have a House member in their midst who now is an admitted crook, they had to have played a role in uncovering much of Randy Cunningham’s corruption. Right?

Er… No. I guess not.

In Doc Hastings’s defense, the House Ethics Committee has been quiet and non-functioning for the last decade, in a bi-partisan truce. In fact, the only reason Doc Hastings sits at the head of that committee now is because, by some weird fluke, the prior House Ethics Committee head admonished Tom DeLay. So…

Let our retro-fit Gilded Age continue unabetted!

I can’t help but think that the 16-year old Doc Hastings fan is going to end up writing a piece in her school newspaper about her online crash-course into a middle-level snarky liberal political blog.

I was wondering what her follow-up to this mild debacle would be. I guess this is it.

Bemusing as this may be:

OMG!! Y R U PPL LIKE MAKEING FUN OF TEH YOUNG CONSERVATIEVS MORE MUSLAMO_FASCISTISM FROM THE FAR LEFT I GUESS?!?! WHY DON”T U PPL GO AND FIGHT WITH UR BROTHERHOOD AL QA’AE’DA?!?!?!?! OMG!! FROWNY FACE!!!!!
extremebushsupportdude88

Or… I was picking on Doc. I think she is exceptional.… Except I’m struggling to figure out where the original post “picks on Doc”.

I already went through what makes up the political life of a typical student body. Come to think of it, I can think of a couple other ignoble examples. Middle School brought the Student’s battle to suck on pacificers. (It warranted no news coverage.) High school brought with it a strangely pointless fight over a slightly strengthened enforcement to get the kids’ pants somewhat higher up on their waists. This, apparently, warrented local tv news coverage. It was embarrassing viewing watching a selection of student’s sound off on their right to drop their trousers, replete with footage taken at a curious angle that spotlighted just how big these pants are of smirking teenagers — my thought being “Just Pull your goddamned pants up.” As these things go, there was no discernable change in students’ dressing fashion within a couple weeks and for the duration of my high school career, and the slightly strengthened enforcement against falling pants faded away. But something odd happened with the video footage. A few months later, a sad death of a fellow student occured (shot at a party) — and the station recycled the footage of the baggy trousers with the grinning teenagers. The effect was jarring.

I blinked a lot, and forced myself to trudge through the absurdity and smallness of this self-contained world that evaporates within four years.

Which, to be sure, was the mindset I had when I tossed up a website on geocities. But today I ponder this: The past few years have certainly seen a marked increase in youth adoption of internet communication tools; this has been the case since the onset of the web, and will probably be true for many years to come. We can assume that IM, blogs, Livejournal, MySpace, Friendster and the like are all helping support local relationships among kids, but to what extent are they allowing them to escape their hometown? When teenagers feel trapped, oppressed, and ultimately fatalistic, to what extent do they now turn to a kindred spirit somewhere far away? My guess is that today’s youth have even more solidarity than they have in the past, but it is certainly a topic that needs further exploration.. Good, for the most part… though in my case… my site was my site was designed to be random, a little anonymous, and a bit puzzling. I suppose in the earliest moments of that website, my biggest concession to something concrete about myself was a series of travel stories about a trip to Russia my parents and I had gone on. (And I gratuitously tossed out the place “Kargasok”, as a weird message in a bottle to the couple from Kargasok who veered us into relatively remote Siberia.) But had someone picked it up and trashed me, the only way I would be able to properly respond would be through some weird dadaist murmurings.

Livejournals are a different creature, and by design are… well… diary-like. Write one entry mumbling on a politician, and a section of the politically-active blogosphere will be able to pick up on it… and pounce on it. And I’m not sure a 16 year old shouldn’t be picked apart, at least with regards to any politics they may throw up. It’s… politics… (Actually, I believe one reason this 16 year old’s blog was “picked up” by a mid-level liberal blog was because of the scarcity of blog entries on Congressman Doc Hastings. This seems to be the end all and be all of blogging on Doc Hastings, and in guesting “Jesus’s General” — he wanted to “do” something — anything on DOC HASTINGS.

……………………
*Today I hear calls for a more universal college enrollment — which strikes me as an excuse to bump some things to college that should be covered in high school, a disturbing-enough trend that has our society prolonging adolescence, and a depressing doubling requirements to join the job market in proper fashion… what, with the out-sourcing of jobs creeping faster and faster up the pay-chain. If you toss in the call for universal pre-school, I’m not sure we’re heading in the right direction.
…………………….

I once saw in the comments of politics1.com some comments from a high school student who was posting away on his lunch break… somewhat effusive Democratic Party cheerleading. Some other commenters came in, saying “You’ve gotta be the weirdest high school student I’ve ever met”, and “Shouldn’t you be more interested in high school dances?” The student defended himself somewhat — saying that he was with his friend at the time. I didn’t really understand the derisiveness toward the political geek. Civics mindedness… better sooner than later. Should they not heed some of Mr. Weatherbee’s commentary?

Once upon a time back in high school, I noticed a flyer (located in a place I rarely had reason to look at, and likely a day or two past the point where it would be relevant) for a “thing with Doc Hastings”. I didn’t think much of it — which is to say, it didn’t really even warrent a “hm”. I did not like Doc Hastings (oddly enough, considering it fits right into an issue raised by the 16 year old blogger that is for good or ill the subject of this post, for much the same reason as my Independent but Republican-leaning parents). Despite not having any good candidate to vote for he was the first candidate I voted against… but I did not consider him to be terribly relevant to my day to day life. (Oddly enough, so can the blogger Katey, who you will see is a Doc Hastings backer.)

Perhaps it is a key problem with the Internet that a 16 year old who usually blogs on subjects of no interest to anyone past the age of majority — and for that matter, of no interest to the 16-year old me — blogs a political opinion just once — and that can easily be picked up the partisan blogosphere. Is this comment a little bit mean?… Honestly, the thought of anyone over her age looking around her blog beyond the politics angle is creepy, and honestly, in the case of this robbery — the circumstances suggest that her help is not needed in apprehending the brazen robbers.)

So, I guess Jesus General has “Doc Hastings” logged in as a key search at his blog-congealer, because I don’t see how else he would find the blog of the young Wenatchee High School student named Katey. Is this comment a little bit mean?… (In the case of this robbery — the circumstances suggest that her help is not needed in apprehending the brazen robbers.)

So, stick to the political entry. In the end, I’m stuck at one reference point… “went to the thing with Doc Hastings today” where she observed the difference between the “conservative kids” and the “liberal kids”.

That does not compute. Is there that huge a difference between late Clinton era – Mid-Yakima Valley and mid-Bush era in the burning metropolis of Wenatchee? Have the kids today suddenly become political, and more than political, partisan? (I guess it’s the goddamned Iraq War. Which is a bit funny… any Democrat nominee who would have had a theoretical chance of winning the fourth congressional district in 2002 or 2004 would have been a backer of the Iraq War, like it or not. Geez Louise… at a Doc Hastings event circa late 1990s — what contentious topic would I be yelling at him about? There’s nothing like the Iraq War that is on the radar screen back then.)

As a teenager, I guess I was more politically aware than most. Heck, I listened to talk radio. (And if my listening habits tended to sway toward Art Bell, you have to consider the reality that the whole of talk radio consisted of your Rush Limbaugh echoes. I was a fan of Jim BoHannon, who at the time I thought of as remarkably Centrist and today view as small “C” Conservative.) And I read the various political magazines in the school library. (I liked Harpers. I don’t think the school library had The Nation — it was National Review, Mother Jones, and The New Republic.) But I can’t say that there was much of a hotbed of political discussion amongst the student body… and what of it there was tended not to go into “Donkey versus Elephant” land.

Freshman year. A couple of pot-heads (of sorts) talking up material likely dredged up from NORML or High Times Magazine (likely procurred at the store that advertised on the radio as “a place for the cigar conoisseur to pick up — er — various artifacts”, in a faux-stoner version of an intellectual manner… which was shut down by the DEA a number of months after opening) about how safe marijuana is. This is in Art Class, and our Art teacher shakes his head and throws out “the facts” of marijuana. And we’re off and running. I’m not going to say that this was the focal point of politics at my high school, though to the degree that a small handful of students took the issue of the legalization (or “decriminialization”, if you will) of this herb seriously, it was a thin veneer toward conversations about easy it iss to get pot past their parents.

(Disclaimer: I never inhaled; nor did I exhale.)

For the purpose of a “debate” project in an English class, I was part thrust with and partly chose the issue of “school prayer”. My two partners ended up derelict, and even though one of them was recused from his in-house suspension to join me in class — he had nothing. Largely because I was alone, and had some conviction to my belief in the seperation of church and state that maybe the other side lacked, I destroyed them in the debate.

A number of conversations with a fundamentalist Christian about the “debate”(?) between Evolution and Creationism, and various items of what passes for “social issues”. These were always fun. I can’t see that these converstions went anywhere near resolution (how could they possibly?) — though I’ll always be glad to know that there were dinosaurs on the Ark. He also had biblical explanations for the debate on the Normalization! (You know, the Body is a Temple.) I once slid him a print-out of this Onion piece, which aggrivated him to no end. Later, I found out he had tossed it in the back of his truck, and while driving around with his youth pastor, his youth pastor found it and he had to explain the thing to him. Funny stuff… amusing story… good times… Misty Water Colored Memories of the way we were.

The Election of 1996. DECA teacher teaching how Political polling fits in the field of Market Research. The teacher puts up the three candidates — Clinton, Dole, and Perot — and goes through the Gallup poll on “which candidate best fits your opinion on the issue of — [fill in the blank]”. Somebody calls up, saying “But there are more than those candidats in the voting pamphlet.” The teacher says, “Yeah, but it’s like anyone’s going to vote for the Libertarian candidate!” Chalk this one up a defeat for the third – party movement, I guess. (I personally would not have voted for any of those three candidates, and probably should have not rasied my hand when asked the final question of “Who would you vote for?” — and if asked why I’m not raising my hand, simply state that I’m leaving the ballot blank.) The final polling results through the various classes were all over the map: my class chalked up a narrow victory for Clinton with no support for Perot, another class had a modest victory for Dole, and still another had a landslide for Perot. How the heck did Perot pull that one off?)

Beyond that. We shuffled through opinions on the Clinton Impeachment Effort. We had to. In any number of classes. My take was fairly contrarian and left everybody with a confused look on their face: I was mostly upset with Clinton’s apology, because I believed it violated the post-modernist construction he had created where everybody knew he was lying, but he had to go straight ahead as though they made any sense in order not to unsettle the delecate political and legal issues at play here… and to apologize would be to throw up another funny looking-glass mirror, and this is one looking-glass mirror too many… the symmetry has been destroyed.

There are students who were obviously Republicans (like their parents) and others obviously Democrats (like their parents.) Okay… there was one student who was obviously a Republican, and another who was obviously a Democrat. And I never understood who the student who was obviously a Republican was talking about when she said that “I even know some hard core Democrats who are just tired of Clinton and the whole thing.” Because the girl who was obviously a Democrat wasn’t tired of Clinton, you see.

And so one of these politically activist parents comes in for voting education and takes over two of my classes (though in the case of the partisanship matters not one iota, so much as the fact that she obviously cares about the civics part of the equation… two classes because they could both be used for the same required course), in large part as an underheaded way for the school to get students out to vote for a school bond measure. The second time around, she invites me to teach the thing, which really can be shortened to “Pull the level.” I decline. The first class was large enough (a collection of a few classes) that we didn’t actually do anything with the ballot. The second time was small enough that we “voted”. the ballot in the machine is for some funky King County contest of a couple years past — and features a member of the “Socialist Workers Party”. I play along, and loudly and proudly vote for him… muttering about the Imperialist Jackals, and how it’s time for the Proletariat to rise up and throw their boots at the Bourgeoise Jackals. On second thought, I should have taught the thing… see, this way, I can veer off topic and also teach Voter Intimination — ordering everybody who comes up to the booth to vote for this Socialist Workers Party figure.
……………………

Come to think of it, I note that I’ve seen political figures do this civic-requirement “thing” with the youth of America on C-SPAN. Bernie Sanders came across particularly well, not talking down to the kids he was talking to. (As Matt Talibi’s book suggests, Dennis Kucinich was just as good, discussing Ghandi and such with the kiddies.) Other politicians come across as pareening yahoos when talking to teenagers… the “Future” and “Tomorrow”.

The election analysis fround in the Tri-Cities Herald after the 1996 election victory of Doc Hastings over Rick Locke for Congress:

It was a well-matched and yet curious campaign. The last two elections in the 4th Congressional District were decided by margins almost as slim, and the closeness of the score showed the 4th is truly a “swing district” that can favor either side.

When looking over Doc Hastings for a college class I had once, (I pretended to be Doc Hastings for a term), I found a quote from Rick Locke, as he looked into running in 1998, and shifting through the poll numbers. To paraphrase from memory (he had connections to the Tri-Cities, though didn’t live there): “I don’t know what the Democrats did to these people, but it must have been bad.”

To explain the difference between the cycles of 1992-1998 (when a Democrat did reasonably well) and 1998 onward (where if you look at the map for political meaning you simply gaze over this district, shrug, and mark it a deep red shape… and thus Gordon Allen Pross can become your party’s nominee) is the job of anyone in that district who gives a damned. The district fairly obviously represents the stratification and entrenchment of one-party domination in most American Congressional Districts. (Fun fact: the British House of Lords has more turn-over than the American House of Representatives has had in the last half dozen elections.) You have one chance to dislodge a Representative, unless scandal breaks out, and that is after his/her first term. An entropy hits after that, and s/he’s there until s/he decides to retire… at which point, if you can find someone who fits the district and get lucky (1992 was a bad year for Washington State Republicans) … more power to you.

Beyond that… I suspect part of the problem is found from a small nugget I saw in a summary of the 2002 debate between Craig Mason and Doc Hastings. A caller (or person in the audience, I don’t know how the debate was set up) actually asked Craig Mason, “Are you an atheist?” That may be a bit uniqute a situation — Craig Mason was (is?) simply a well-meaning Community College Professor… and therein we see the anti-elitist and anti-intellectual bias of some people.

Do I dare chime in with a profile of Jay Inslee, Rick Locke, Gordon Allen Pross, Jim Davis, Craig Mason, and Sandy Matheson?

(Jim Davis photo can not be found. )

1992, 1994: JAY INSLEE. 51%, 48%.

1996: lost 52% to 48%. 1998: Gordon Allen Pross: 25% against Doc’s 69%.

2000: Jim Davis, 37% against Doc’s 61%. : mine this.

2002: Craig Mason, 33%.

2004: Sandy Matheson 37%.

Aaaaaaaagh! To think that we had a decent human being and intelligent
thinking human being in Jay Inslee whom we traded in for Doc Hastings
apparently to punish Jay for being the deciding vote on the assault
weapons ban. For the love of God, will someone please run against him? I
mean, someone with some charisma? Please?

Eventually I’m going to compile a profile of the 5 Democratic candidates who have run against Richard “Doc” Hastings in the general election. (A google search of the 1998 candidate shows that my page picks up him as #1, and thus I guess I am the foremost expert on the political career of Gordon Allen Pross… undoubtedly the most obnoxious of the batch of Hastings candidates.) Actually, I think [partisan] political blogs should do that: ie: dig into the political history of their local (or, in my case, I have a connection to the locality) of their political representatives and fill in that vacuum of lack of information.

Jay Inslee factoid of the day: my father voted for Jay Inslee in the 1992 primary for the bizarre reason that his law firm supported local broadcast of PBS’s Mystery. (Inslee is currently the Representative of an area of Washington more conducive to his politics… he was nationally noted in 1998 for winning a race where he explicitly campaigned by making a stand against Bill Clinton’s Impeachment a central issue of his campaign.)

…………..

People are nuts. It’s like these people don’t realize that Larouche is screwed for eternity. Sure, Bush may be insane, but do something WORTHWHILE to remedy the problem, not advocate somebody everyone is shunning!

Great. From my Doc Hastings Watch to my Lyndon LaRouche Watch! Okay… I note a small bit of disjointation with seeing Ann Coulter representing this fellow’s “Worst Right-winger” and LaRouche as his “Worst Left-winger”… I don’t really know how to classify LaRouche, and will point to his hatred of the 1960s as the downfall of American culture as a signage pointing to his rightwing nature.

Curious to see what anyone out in blog-o-land has said about a relatively minor figure in the current Republican melt-down, Representative Doc Hastings of the fourth Congressional District of Washington, I scanned down the Washington listings at leftyblogs.com, the fifty state localized politics index, found herehere.

I have to be honest here. I have no idea what $5,930 adds up to in the scale of the House of Representatives. I really don’t.

From “Blue Washington”:

To describe Hastings career up until now as “low profile” would be charitable. During his decade in the House, Hastings has earned a well-deserved reputation as the quietest member of our state’s congressional delegation… a do-nothing attitude that probably plays well with some of his “small government” supporters in WA’s largely rural 4th District. But as Ethics Chair, the chronic torpor that rendered him relatively harmless as just another congressman, totally undermines what little institutional integrity and effectiveness the committee has left. Which of course, is exactly why DeLay gave him the job in the first place: what better way to assure that ethics investigations grind to a halt than to mire the committee with a chair who is not only reliably partisan, but who favors a parliamentary style that borders on the inert?

The Ethics Committee’s year-long dormancy under Hastings’ putative leadership, combined with his ill-considered public statements in defense of DeLay, is not only an embarrassment to Congress, but to the voters of WA’s 4th District. The Yakima Herald-Republic also chimes in with an editorial today, and while I don’t quite understand their assertion that Hastings has acquitted himself by clarifying his position on DeLay (unless by “clarify” they mean “contradict”… am I missing the sarcasm?), they are clearly sending a message that they will hold Hastings responsible should he fail to follow through on his responsibilities.

On to Doc’s defeat… except, um… we get to the political reality: Indeed, if not for the fact that Democrats have such a weak bench in Eastern WA – they hold only 6 of 63 county commissioner seats – Hastings would be vulnerable to the corruption and incompetence fueled political storm surge that threatens to deluge Republicans in 2006. Well… you do realize that Doc Hastings would once again become meaningless in a minority party situation, right?

Actually, there’s more comments regarding this comment here…

Take One: Hastings is putting WA’s 4th Cong. District on the map as a bunch of country hicks. Take Two: DumbDoc, who failed to complete his college career at CWU, is incapable of independent thought. HIs drool cup runneth over. His voting record is the most partisan of any of Washington’s representative. He is nothing more than DeLay and Bush’s bitch. He has no business playing any part in making the laws that govern all of us. Having grown up in his district, I know there are plenty of Brian Schweitzer-types there who could give DumbDoc a serious run. By the way, how about Schweitzer for president? That’s, like, the third time Brian Schweitzer’s name has been mentioned here. Maybe we can bus Brian Schweitzer over in from his Montana governorship and have him run for the House seat of the 4th Congressional District of Washington State? Take Three: I’m embarrassed for my sister who lives in Kennewick … even if she isn’t. Funny comment, and it doesn’t even have to involve politics of any kind. Take four, just for bemusement let’s keep stock ofthe most entertaining of the trolling going on: Richard Pope: These LEFTIST PINHEADS are Stalin’s Useful Idiots. They want all righties indicted immediately incarcerated without a trial just like in commie Russia under Stalin. I agree if DeLay is convicted he should visit Dan Rostenkowski. Take Five, and reality seeps in: Douglas County PUD Comissioner Jim Davis ran against Hastings in 2000. He’s a gun-toting pro-dam wheat farming veteran moderate Democrat. Friendly, personable, straight-talking. Raised a fair bit of money. Seems like the perfect profile. Davis fought a hard campaign and got beat very very badly for his effort. Honestly, we aren’t going to get this seat until Hastings retires. Hastings has got inertia and that nice harmless quality that people never have good reason to *not* vote for him. Goldy, as a side note, always refer to the Congressman as Richard “Doc” Hastings. It drives his Chief of Staff up. the. wall. Hm. Richard “Doc” Hastings you say? Duly noted. Take Six: I don’t resent eastern Washington their congressman-for-life. After all, we have Jim McDermott. But I sometimes wonder if the 4th Cong. Dist. voters have been exposed to too much radiation, which does funny things to the brain. Ideology aside, Jim McDermott is a much more interesting personality / individual than Doc Hastings. Take Seven, and really the bottom line here: Doc Hastings is a dozy turd. Sorry, I just can’t muster anything more intelligent to say about him. I have been his constituent, and all I could really determine about him was that he seems to enjoy his franking priveleges. That’s about it. From talking to my neighbors, it seemed to me that a lot of people voted for him just because he had an “R” next to his name on the ballot. What a way to waste your voting franchise… sadly, a lot of people do it.

Say what? Richard “Doc” Hastings’s “Issues” page is “Under Construction”? Can’t he just copy and paste the RNC’s book, and toss in something about Hanford, and be done with it?

I’ve about reached the end here.

Ladies and Gentlemen… the Man in Charge of the US House Ethics Committee… DOC HASTINGS!!!

“Anyone suggesting that I have publicly defended Rep. Tom
DeLay, expressed any personal opinion on the substance of charges pending against him in Texas, or indicated the slightest reluctance to investigate fully — at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way — any matter properly before the Ethics Committee is utterly mistaken. I have absolutely no predisposition concerning this case. I can’t say it any more plainly than that.”

Said as he rubbed the dark Insomniac-like rings under his eyes.

“If you look at Ronnie Earle’s background, he’s done these things. The majority leader has said this is a political vendetta.”

You know, call me crazy but I can envision a scenario where Doc Hastings becomes House Republican Leader. For the curious political power-ebbing games of political positioning, Witness:

Yesterday’s political fallout also could damage Hastings’ chances for the one congressional job he has coveted for a decade: chairmanship of the House Rules Committee, one of the four A-list committees in Congress.

But by late afternoon, after a session behind closed doors, Republicans voted to make Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who outranks Dreier, majority leader at least until the end of the year.

Imagine a Republican wash-out in 2006. Say goodbye to DeLay. Say goodbye to his clone — Roy Blunt. Dreier is a semi-closeted gay man and is in a relatively vulnerable district. Why not reward Doc Hastings for his loyal service to the cause of Republican Hackdom?

The only practical result would be a fully funded Hanford — and perhaps the insanity of a move toward nuclear power, added money to research practical uses of radioactive tumble-weeds, Nuclear Sludge donated to the National Endowment of the Arts for sculpting purposes(*)…

Craig Mason for Congress. I’ve always been curious about the trajectory of Doc Hastings’s opponets for the House. Jay Inslee beat him narrowly in 1992; Hastings narrowly beat Inslee in 1994. Hastings narrowly beat some smuck in 1996, and then… the bottom fell out, and while this man is the biggest joke he faced and the candidates the followed Gordon Allen Pros are legitimately sane, they didn’t fare much better than Doc Hastings.

I read that the 1996 candidate looked at the polls before opting not to run in 1998, and asked “I don’t know what the Democratic Party did to these people, but it must have been pretty bad.”

So, in the spirit of the question “What’s the Matter with Kansas”, I ask: What’s the matter with Central Washington?: The Seven Eleven is now just a Seven?

(*) Circa early 1990s, there was this local tv news story in the “Human Interest” final slot about a Seattle Artist attempting to procur some Hanford Nuclear Sludge waste for the purpose of his sculpture. Why the heck not???

I feel as though I oughta say something about the member of Congress who replaced the head of the Ethics committee due to the concept that the former admonished Tom DaLay and the latter is… well, he’s Doc Hastings.

He’s a curious footnote to the whole Tom DeLay ordeal. When mentioned by Democrats and liberals nationwide, the other two new Ethics committee appointees (the two who donated money to the Tom Delay Legal Defense Fund) will be mentioned… no mention of Representative Doc Hastings, fourth Congressional District of Washington State.

He was the first man I voted against. A curious statement, as in 1998, his two opponents were this — er– Democrat and a Perot-era Reform Party candidate. I voted for the third party candidate.

My parents are more or less Republican. My mother doesn’t terribly like the man, saying only that he’s “shifty”.

What he looks like (or did last time I saw him), and this isn’t terribly relevant to anything other than pure political theater, is an Insomniac… bags perpetually under his eyes. This is really only a detriment should he run for Senate, which can only possibly happen if Eastern Washington and Western Washington split up into separate states.

His only jump into the national fray was as a footnote to the James Trafficant affair. He, apparently, headed what amounts to an Ethics sub-sub committee that pushes ethics issues here and there and shuffles papers into and out of the Ethics committee. This has lead blogs to see him as the “least obnoxious of a bad lot” of Republicans on the ethics committee (that is to say, to break a 4-4 impasse — he’s the best hope)… hence the very fact that that an ad is being run over in the Fourth Congressional District of Washington State.

His policy and his political temperament? Straight party-line vote. He’s a loyalist. There’s a reason he’s heading Tom DeLay’s Ethics Committee… and as Hastings takes the spotlight as he heads the committee looking into Tom DeLay’s ethical lapses (under DeLay’s rules of engagement), I have nothing else to say about him.

Gordon Allen Pross, the 1998 Democratic nominee for the fourth Congressional District of Washington State, a 2000 and 2002 Republican candidate challenging the throne of Doc Hastings, has shifted his focus to new and bigger challenges in 2004: he’s running for the Republican nomination for a US Senate seat.

As expected, his campaign website does not disappoint.

Where does he stand on salmon?

TODAY THE COLUMBIA HAS BEEN TAMED NOT UNLIKE OUR AMERICANIZED CULTURE WITH A FORMULA CREATED WAY BEFORE THE FAROS HAD THE BLUEPRINTS TO BUILD THE GREAT PYRAMIDS. MIND MASS AND SOCIAL CONTROL, IT WORKED THEN AND IT CONTINUES TO WORKS TODAY. […] LET US TOGETHER INTRO INTO RE-COMPLEX-ING THE COLUMBIA RIVER, SHALL WE? […] MY RECOMMENDATION IS TO CREATE, UPSTREAM, BEYOND THE REACH OF THE HAZARDS PRESENTED BY THE DAM, AN ARTERY OF WATER 30 FEET IN CIRCUMFERENCE THAT ACTS AS A SO CALLED “CORONARY BYPASS,” AND CHANNEL IT BACK INTO THE COLUMBIA SOME DISTANCE DOWNSTREAM FROM THE DAMS OVERLY OXYGEN RICH SALMON TRAP. AS THE SALMON MAKE THERE WAY FROM THE OCEAN RUNNING UP STREAM AS THEY APPROACH THE NEW BYPASS THEY WILL BE COAXED UP THE BYPASS BY THE PLAYING OF RECORDED AUDIO SOUNDS OF THE FORMER SALMON BEING FEASTED UPON BY THE BIRDS. […]

Where does he stand on the… power issue?

I will introduce the new department of

The one and only nuclear reactor that mother earth cannot live without, our brilliant star that humanity calls “The Sun!”
The (DOLE) “Department Of Lunar Energy” will provide for a clean and perpetual resource to flood America’s electrical power grid with an ergonomic user friendly none toxic means to generate low cost electricity needed to rejuvenate our “Made In America” logo!
Turbine generators will line our American offshore boarders providing yet another layer of defense from the open sea. DOLE will be a fine vehicle for home land security to sink their teeth into. SOS saved by the tide. America’s west coast borders will be secured at sea level, to include all the way from Maine to our distant neighbors in Mexico.

Where does he stand on… watershed?

NOW IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE QUALITY OF THE SURFACE WATER WITHIN THE RIVER IS NOT A DIRECT BAROMETER AND INHERENT INDICATOR OF YOUR PRESENT HEALTH, THEN YOU ARE WRONG MR. AND MRS. SCIENCE!!!

And what is his overall philosophy?

MAKE WAY FOR A REAL PEOPLE’S REPRESENTATIVE THAT IS OVERFLOWING WITH LEGISLATIVE TOOLS TO FIX AND BRING BACK OUR AMERICAN DREAM OF OUR LIVES BEING LIVED AS AMERICAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE PROVIDES! ELECT GORDON ALLEN PROSS CREATOR/POLITICAL RENAISSANCE IGNITED VIA THE RESURRECTION OF HUMANITIES WILL TO POLICY GORDON O4 UNITED STATES SENATOR.

I GORDON ALLEN PROSS AM NOT AN ENABLER, FOR I AM A LIBERATOR. GOVERNMENT NEEDS DO ONE THING WELL. GOVERNMENTS ROLL MUST PROVIDE THE BARE ESSENTIAL NEED FOR ITS PEOPLE. SO HUMANITY MAY HONE THE PROPER TOOLS FOR BECOMING ABLE TO CREATE THEIR OWN WISH LIST, WHILE NURTURING THE MEANS AND WAYS TO RESURRECT THOSE WISHES INTO REALITY SO HUMANITY HAS A VENUE TO PURSUE HAPPINESS.

There you go. Join the Revolution now, one Senator at at time…