Anderson@Large

Party Poopers

It’s been said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. So when President Bush delivers his State of the Union address tonight, he's expected to stay the course in Iraq, and offer permanent tax cuts for the rich and dubious tax benefits for the uninsured.  Blah, blah, blah (and here).

To celebrate Bush’s, ahem, consistency, Republicans are holding house parties to “bring together people who support the President and the Republican ticket.”

Polls (here and here) show that for most Americans, it ain’t that kind of party. According to CNN:

A majority of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate in November's congressional elections who opposes President Bush, and 58 percent consider his second term a failure so far....

Fewer people consider Bush to be honest and trustworthy now than did a year ago, and 53 percent said they believe his administration deliberately misled the public about Iraq’s purported weapons program before the U.S. invasion in 2003, the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found.

I plan to join the party poopers in Times Square, where folks will gather and make noise to drown out Bush’s lies (here and here).  Similar protests will be held across the country.  If you want to add to the cacophony, click here.

Dialing for Justice

Last week, I attended a conference organized by the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. The event, “New Orleans: Rebuilding the Musical City,” brought together scholars, city planners, architects, musicians, Katrina survivors, and activists to discuss how music can inform the rebuilding process.

Regular readers know the role that music plays in my life.  So, for this policy wonk to attend a ripped-from-the-headlines conference with music as the focus was beyond rapturous; it was inspirational. Indeed, the discussion was followed by a jam session that included Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Allen Toussaint and New Orleans vocalist Juanita Brooks.

Beyond the music, the stories of failed leadership (and here), hardship and abandonment belie President Bush’s and Laura Bush’s claims that “a lot progress” has been made. With tens of thousands of hotel evictions and mortgage foreclosures looming, things ain’t so easy in the Crescent City.

If you want to make some beautiful sounds on behalf of Katrina survivors, you can start by ringing the phones off the hook at the Capitol switchboard.  Concerned citizens are asked to call Congressional leaders on January 31 and send an S.O.S. (Save Our Survivors):

• Katrina and Rita survivors need a comprehensive plan of action.
• Housing, job, income, and food security must be assured on a large scale.
• Support H.R. 4197, the only comprehensive bill designed to provide for the recovery of the Gulf Coast region and for the reunion of families devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
• Support H.R. 4100 (and here), a bill to speed the economic recovery of southern Louisiana by establishing the Louisiana Recovery Corporation.

Americans United: The Sequel

Following the money, Americans United for Protection of Social Security, has morphed into Americans United whose goal is “get America moving in the right direction again.”

Americans United says it's “building on a foundation of success.”  What it doesn’t say is the foundation was laid largely by AARP, which went toe-to-toe with President Bush over his scheme to privatize Social Security.  But to borrow a phrase, success has a thousand fathers while failure is an unfunded orphan.

Though the group claims to be nonpartisan, the Associated Press reported that Americans United was launched “with strong backing from the top Democrats in Congress.”  Their plan “to engage millions of Americans and provide important air cover for on-the-ground activities” sounds a lot like America Coming Together’s sure thing.  And we all know how well that worked out.

The Day the Music Died

It’s been 150 days since Hurricane Katrina (and here) made landfall and there remain more questions than answers. But one question has been answered: former FEMA director Michael Brown isn’t as dumb as he looks. Brownie reportedly warned the White House, as well as state and local officials, that Katrina “is a bad one and a big one" (and here).

Though President Bush promised to “lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong,” the White House is stonewalling a Senate investigation into the federal government’s sluggish response. During the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's hearing, Sen. Joe Lieberman said:

There has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation that we have a responsibility to do.

Fortunately, folks outside the Beltway march to the beat of a different drummer. So, I’m going to spend the next couple of days attending a conference on how New Orleans' rich musical and cultural heritage can inform the city’s rebuilding process.  As for those discordant notes in DC, well, that’s just the sound of politicians playing the blame game.

Bad Company

With Judge Samuel Alito poised to join Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, I decided to prepare myself for the loss of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s crucial swing vote by seeing “How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)."  The film chronicles the life of Melvin Van Peebles, the anti-Thomas (though they both have a jones for white women).

Van Peebles' personal preference notwithstanding, he likely shares Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s view that Alito’s ascension to the nation’s highest court is a “nightmare” for anyone concerned that he will "turn back the clock on racial progress."  That concern was expressed in a letter to Frist sent by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Melvin L. Watt and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, CBC Judicial Nominations Chair:

Considering the distance the nation has come on race and the distance still to go, in our view the confirmation of Judge Alito would mark a dangerous step backwards. In our view, no one who reads his opinions can believe that he has the open mind required of a Supreme Court justice. Judge Alito moved from his days in the Reagan Justice Department, where he sought unsuccessfully to get the Supreme Court to restrict discrimination remedies, to the Third Circuit, where he has compiled a striking record as a dissenter, rather than follow employment discrimination precedents.

The evidence is too clear to leave any doubt about where Judge Alito would stand, for example, on fragile 5-4 rulings in which Justice O'Connor has been the deciding vote. Among these cases are the University of Michigan case upholding affirmative action in law school admissions (Grutter v. Bollinger) and other cases where the Court has allowed race to be considered as a factor to rectify discrimination. As we approach reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2007, the Congressional Black Caucus cannot afford to forget that the 5-4 cases also include redistricting cases such as Hunt v. Cromartie.

A critical election year of accountability for the Congress must begin with how members of the Senate vote on this nominee. All that we have fought for in order to secure rights long denied African Americans is put at risk by this nomination. For African Americans, the stakes don't get any higher. Therefore, the members of the CBC are asking you and all of your colleagues to vote against the confirmation of Judge Alito.

To make your voice heard, click here.

Plantation Politics

It’s ridiculous that Republicans have gone on the offense over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton likening their grip on power to a "plantation.”  This is the same party that welcomes under its tent the likes of Star Parker (and here), who wrote “Uncle Sam’s Plantation,” and Clarence Mason Weaver, author of “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation: The New Underground Railroad.”

In both instances, these professional “black conservatives” were referring to the Democratic Party. So, I guess it’s OK to use “divisive and racially charged language” when Democrats are the object of derision.

The GOP’s sudden embrace of “national reconciliation” doesn’t exactly warm the cockles of my heart. After all, President Bush announced his opposition to the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday in 2003.

Mind you, I’m no fan of Miss Hillary. Republicans are peeved because Clinton played what’s supposed to be their trump card.  Indeed, as my friend DeWayne Wickham wrote:

Overshadowed by this din of Republican criticism is what one-time GOP wunderkind Gingrich said in 1994, on the eve of the congressional election that put his party in control of the House of Representatives -- and made him speaker.

”I clearly fascinate them,” he said tauntingly of Democrats. “I’m much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I’m actually willing to lead the slave rebellion.”

If you don’t remember Republicans rushing before microphones to condemn Gingrich’s characterization of the House as a plantation, it’s because they didn’t. Nor was there a loud outcry of condemnation from Republicans two years earlier when Jack Kemp, then the secretary of housing and urban development in the administration of President Bush’s father used a plantation analogy like a slaver’s whip.

In a speech at Hostos Community College in New York City, Kemp said establishment of enterprise zones in impoverished areas of the country would help residents escape the “welfare plantation.” Then in 1994 while serving as co-director of Empower America and contemplating a run for the GOP presidential nomination, Kemp called for a reform of the nation’s welfare system to break poor people’s dependency on “the welfare plantation.”

That kind of talk from Kemp and Gingrich drew cheers, not jeers, from Republicans. But when Clinton employed similar language, she ended up in their cross hairs.

One Year and Counting Down

This is the first anniversary of my blog and I feel no ways tired.  One reason: Blogging is its own reward.  It's an efficient way to organize the bits of information that arrive in my mailbox every day.

That said, it still feels good to be rewarded for my efforts with contributions to my "Tip Jar" (it's to your right) or recognition by my peers.  For instance, earlier this week, I was informed that my newsfeed has been selected as a Top Ten source for civil rights.

The timing of my first post was no accident.  I needed something to take my mind off what was happening in DC.  One year later, more and more Americans are sick and tired of President Bush.  According to the latest Zogby poll:

In the face of rising gas prices, partisan sniping over Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and a resumption of insurgent violence in Iraq, President Bush’s job approval rating has slipped into a post-holiday funk, again dipping below 40%.

Given the givens, including the resurfacing of an apparently alive Osama bin Laden, the president's approval ratings will dip even lower before the Bush Error comes to an end.  Let the countdown begin.