Return to politics

Below are a couple of today's news stories that I found interesting.

Rove finally given title in US government
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

09 February 2005

George Bush yesterday made official what has been long been an acknowledged fact of Washington life - the involvement of his top strategist Karl Rove not just in politics but in almost every aspect of administration strategy.

Henceforth the senior adviser often referred to as "Bush's Brain" will have the formal title of deputy chief of staff, a post that will involve him in policymaking across the board, from domestic issues to foreign affairs.
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Ex-GOP adviser sentenced in phone jamming

By ANDREW WOLFE, Telegraph Staff
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2005

CONCORD (NH) - A Republican telemarketer will serve five months in federal prison for arranging to sandbag Democratic voter drives in Nashua and several other New Hampshire cities on Election Day in 2002, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Three Republicans have been charged in the scheme with conspiring to make harassing phone calls. Allen Raymond, 37, was the first to plead guilty and be sentenced.

Raymond?s lawyer, John Durkin of Dover, said the former head of the state Republican Party, Chuck McGee, concocted the phone-jam scheme along with James Tobin, the former New England campaign director for President Bush.
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It is kind of scary to know that Rove will have official policymaking status now. Does that mean that there is some kind of accountability that goes along with his new title? No? I didn't think so. So basically he will be doing the same thing--devising schemes to sell the neo-con agenda to the public--only now he's a government employee.

The second story is just another example of GOP hypocrisy. They are the party of family values, morality, the party of Jesus, but they have to resort to illegal means of trying to "win" elections.

I've also started my anti-U.S. indoctrination of my son. This morning the baby and I enjoyed a speech by Noam Chomsky that he gave at the Lannan Foundation a couple of weeks ago. The baby listened intently to the whole speech. The audio of Chomsky's speech is here (Real Audio - Chomsky's speech begins at 18:20)