Anderson@Large

Return to Sender

I want to share with you an e-mail message that I received from Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman:

April 19, 2005

Dear Faye,

         

Liberal Democrats in the U.S. Senate are threatening to shut down the Senate if they don't get their way on judicial nominations. Instead of working to make sure our Constitution is protected and the people's business is done in Washington, Democrats are, in the words of their leader, Sen. Harry Reid, "going to screw things up" and obstruct the will of the people.

            

Instead of giving all of President Bush's judicial nominees a fair up-or-down vote, the Democrats intend to block final votes on these qualified nominees. For more than 200 years, judicial nominees with majority support have been given an up or down vote. Under the Constitution, the Senate is obligated to vote on the President's nominees, but Democrat leaders are rejecting their Constitutional duty and threatening to shut down the Senate if we do not give in to their demands.

         

The U.S. Senate should not force a choice between the Constitution and the people's business. You can stop these liberal Democrats and support President Bush at the same time. Call your Democratic Senator and tell them to do their job and give the President's judges an up or down vote!

         

Call Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at 202-224-4451 and Senator Charles E. Schumer at 202-224-6542 right now and tell them not to shut down the Senate and tell them to follow the Constitution and allow an up-or-down vote on all judges.

         

Sincerely,

Ken Mehlman
Chairman, RNC

Rather than call Sens. Clinton and Schumer, I'll send them a shoutout:  Shut the mother down!

Thou Should Not Perpetrate

Bishop Harry R. Jackson brought his “moral values” crusade to New York last week and had low impact.

             

Jackson claims his High Impact Leadership Coalition “will empower High Impact leaders to make a grassroots influence in our communities, states, and, nation.”  But his “summit on marriage and other moral values” was not convened in a black church.  Instead, it was held at The King’s College, whose “parent organization” is the Campus Crusade for Christ.  Located in the Empire State Building, King’s College has 239 students, only nine percent of whom are African American.  The college is locked in a battle with the Board of Regents to renew its accreditation.

The crusaders gathered to ponder two questions:

• What are the pressing issues regarding family and marriage in New York?
• What should pastors, church leaders and parachurch organizations be doing about it?

Now, Lord knows I’m no expert on marriage but one pressing issue is almost half of the black men in New York are unemployed.  And as any baby-mama knows, these men are not exactly marriageable.

As for what church leaders should be doing about it, they can help black men find jobs and focus on issues of importance to the black community.

Walk This Way

To relax after finally getting my taxes done, I decided to take a walk, an urban hike, as it were.  I put on my Timberland boots and headed for the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan, where I had lunch.            

I then walked along the Hudson River, passing Chelsea Piers and the Intrepid before turning on 55th Street.  I passed the AOL Time Warner Time Warner Center and continued up Broadway.  I finally reached my destination, Lincoln Center, the citadel of highbrow performing arts.  But I went there for decidedly lowbrow fare, namely, an exhibition on loan from Seattle’s Experience Music Project, Disco: A Decade of Saturday Nights.

 

The music, artifacts and videos take you back to a time when divas like Donna Summer, Patti LaBelle, Gloria Gaynor and Sylvester reigned, and it was raining men.  And keeping it “mighty real,” one could get down without worrying about who was on the down low.  When burn, baby, burn rocked rather than caused one to roll in pain.

 

For more information on the exhibition, click here.

On the Road Again

Tomorrow, President Bush is scheduled to be in Ohio, where he'll peddle his Social Security privatization scheme that would shred the social safety net and further bankrupt (and here) the U.S. Treasury.  Though polls show growing opposition (and here) to private accounts, taxpayers are footing the bill for these invitation only campaign-style events.

As Bush, um, waxes poetic about “the power of compound interest,” Rep. Henry A. Waxman has asked the General Accountability Office to:

assess whether the Bush Administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda and lobbying.  Currently, no one in Congress or the public knows the full extent and cost of the federal resources being devoted to promoting the President’s Social Security agenda.  This is basic factual information that is essential to an evaluation of the legality and appropriateness of the Administration’s actions.

It's getting pretty congested out there.  This weekend, the NAACP will launch its "Save Our Social Security” national tour, which will hit seven cities across the country.  NAACP Chairman Julian Bond told BlackAmericaWeb.com:  "Rather than playing the race card to set Americans against Americans, we urge the administration to address the long-term problems the system faces now.  Recognizing the shorter life expectancy of people of color is commendable, but placing them further at risk is no solution."

Race Matters

Does the race or ethnicity of a blogger matter?  That was the question some black and Latino bloggers kicked around recently.  While race is the prism through which we blog, it has no bearing on the accuracy or quality of our posts.

But race does have a bearing on the content of our blogs.  A lot of us are motivated by the desire to fill in the gaps in the mainstream media’s coverage of issues of importance to African Americans.

            

Race also determines who has web cred and makes it onto the “A-list.”  If you don't link to the top 100 blogs (read: white men), well, you don’t matter.  This of course begs the question: Why would I link to the so-called “A-list” when my readers (that would be you) have different interests, concerns and sensibilities? 

What really matters is the determination to maintain white male dominance (and here) even in the Blogosphere.  Pardon my French, but plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Hammer Time

As the ethics investigations mount, Republicans continue to stand by their embattled leader--at least for now.  It remains an open question whether there’ll be a delayed reaction to DeLay Inc. (and here).

         

I was in Madrid on a junket with a group of House Republicans and lobbyists when the boom was lowered on then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Newt Inc.  Hey, Hammer, you may want to have a food taster present at that "tribute dinner" that some lobbyists are reportedly organizing for you on May 12.

Gay Old Party

I nearly spilled my coffee this weekend when I read that a longtime GOP political consultant, Arthur Finkelstein, had married his male partner of 40 years.  Mind you, Finkelstein is no ordinary consultant.  He was the Karl Rove (and here) of the 1980s and ‘90s, who destroyed Democrats with a single word:  Liberal.  Or phrase, including “liberal, liberal, liberal” and “too liberal for too long.”

Finkelstein was revered by GOP candidates and activists for his political attack ads.  For a while he was joined at the hip with the homophobic Jesse Helms.  And he is up to his old tricks as he gears up to try to unseat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year.

Though Finkelstein’s homosexuality was an open secret, it was still shocking to have it confirmed in the New York Times.  He joins a growing list of GOP luminaries who are eligible for membership in the Log Cabin Republicans or PFLAG.  Parents of gays include Vice President Dick Cheney, Alan "Mary Cheney is a sexual hedonist" Keyes and Phyllis Schafly.