Political Tidbits

It looks like the Republicans just don't learn from past mistakes. Four years ago, Senator Trent Lott [R-Mississippi] resigned from his Senate leadership position because of some racist remarks he had made. Yesterday, the Republicans returned Lott to a Senate leadership position.

In a close 25-24 vote, Lott beat Senator Lamar Alexander [R-Tennessee] for the position of Minority Whip. This is the Republicans' second most powerful post in Senate leadership, behind Minority leader Mitch McConnell [R-Kentucky].

I would have thought the Republicans would have looked at the recent elections and saw that America wants a more centrist position from its government. But evidently the right-wing fundamentalists still have a strong grip on the party. Maybe they want 2008 to be a repeat of 2006.

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Jack Abramoff arrived at a Maryland federal prison at 6:30 this morning to begin serving a six-year sentence. Abramoff is the former K-street lobbyist who spread corruption through much of the Republican delegation in Congress. In fact, along with Tom Delay, Abramoff was a poster boy for government corruption, and his illegal actions are part of the reason the Republicans lost the Congress this last election. Now it's time for him to pay the piper.

You'd think that members of both parties would see the voters' unhappiness with the corruption, and do something to fix it. But I'm not going to hold my breath.

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At 7:00 this morning Texas time, Al-Jazeera began English-language broadcasts. They say they want to give people an alternative to the western-driven media. Most of Europe and the rest of the world have access to these broadcasts, but people in the United States do not. The major U.S. cable outlets [Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, Charter] and the satellite services [Dish Network, DirecTV] are not carrying the Arab news channel at this time.

News reports said the U.S. outlets were taking a wait-and-see attitude. Personally, I think they're afraid they will be punished by the Bush administration if they air the broadcasts. I don't blame them. The administration has already shown they don't care about human rights or privacy rights -- why would freedom of the press be any different?

I do hope the carriers work up enough nerve to begin showing Al-Jazeera soon. It would do Americans a lot of good to see the news from a different point of view.