House of Eratosthenes

Republicans don’t want to win in November, so now that the Congressman William Jefferson imbroglio has scuttled the “GOP Culture of Corruption” ship, which had been the only ship in the fleet that could carry Democrats to victory — they want to look as unappealing as possible. That’s the only explanation I can produce. Because, it seems, being a Republican means when the executive branch comes gunnin’ for you, it’s okay to let them search things, unless you’re a member of the legislative branch and then suddenly we have to worry about abuse of power, gathering dirt on potential enemies, etc.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert complained directly to President Bush about the FBI’s unprecedented raid on Rep. William Jefferson’s office on Tuesday, while officials said senior Democrats worked to ease the Louisiana lawmaker out of a powerful committee assignment, at least temporarily.

“Obviously we are taking note of Speaker Hastert’s statements,” said White House press secretary Tony Snow after the Illinois Republican spoke with Bush at the White House.
:
The search may have overstepped constitutional boundaries, House leaders said as the congressman under investigation pledged to stay in office.

House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio told reporters Tuesday that the Congress will somehow speak to “this issue of the Justice Department’s invasion of the legislative branch. In what form, I don’t know.”

“I’ve got to believe at the end of the day it’s going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court,” Boehner said.

Hastert said Monday the Justice Department had never before crossed a line that separates Congress from the executive branch by searching a congressional office while investigating a member of Congress.

The search warrant was issued by a federal district judge in suburban Virginia, based on an affidavit from FBI investigators outlining some of the evidence that have accumulated in the case, including video tape of Jefferson accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from an FBI informant, who agreed to have her conversations with the congressman taped.

Agents later found all but $10,000 of the cash ? in marked bills ? hidden in a freezer in one of the congressman’s homes, according to the affidavit.

His homes in New Orleans and the Washington area were searched by FBI agents last August.

“Nothing I have learned in the last 48 hours leads me to believe that there wasn doubt, the filter team will give the documents to a judge for a definitive ruling before giving them to case prosecutors, according to the affidavit.

Hastert said those protections may not be enough.

“It is not at all clear to me that it would even be possible to create special procedures that would overcome the Constitutional problems that the execution of this warrant has created,” he said.

Hey, that’s just who I want to elect. Someone who worries about the White House exceeding its authority when his own office is searched, and turns a blind eye to it when I’m searched. Great plan!

And here I thought Republicans want to win.

Well, it seems the Democrats aren’t wild about winning either. Hillary Clinton, whom I’m told is a moderate senator, wants to restore the 55-mph speed limit. And wait until you read about the rest of her plan.

In a surprise move yesterday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton called for “most of the country” to return to a speed limit of 55 mph in an effort to slash fuel consumption.

“The 55-mile speed limit really does lower gas usage. And wherever it can be required, and the people will accept it, we ought to do it,” Clinton said at the National Press Club.

Before sounding off on the benefits of a lower speed limit, Clinton called for a combination of tax incentives, the use of more ethanol-based fuel and a $50 billion fund for new energy research to cut the consumption of foreign oil 50 percent by 2025.

She also pushed for half of all the nation’s gas stations to have ethanol pumps by 2015, and for every gas station to have them by 2025.

I’ve been noticing this about Democrats since I was a little kid. They’re constantly accused of “not offering a plan,” but there seems to be something mutually exclusive between being a Democrat, and even knowing what a plan is. Cutting consumption of foreign products in half by 2025 is a goal, not a plan. These are just numbers, no better or worse than any other number — until the $50 billion has actually been spent. She might as well have said to cut it by 75% by 2010, or by 99% by the end of next year. Who cares?

It’s as if Hillary is trying to sabotage her party. You could confound a conservative-libertarian guy like me, indulging in the superlative that “Bill Clinton never did anything good” by pointing out that the 55-mph national speed limit was eliminated on Clinton’s watch. It’s been done. You could do that…until Hillary opened her big mouth. And behold, today, the next great hope of the Clinton legacy, wanting the federal overlords to once again tell the states how to do their business. Behold the new agenda, for soccer moms in Trenton, NJ to once again tell cattle ranchers in Butte, MT how fast they should drive.

Nobody’s going to argue that people in New York City should tell people in North Dakota how fast to go — they won’t do that. They’ll just prattle on about “55 saves lives” and claim to know more, compared to the people who actually drive their own cars, about what speed is the best for that car’s use of gas.

So evidently, Republicans would like to remind us they don’t think “little people” have as much need to worry about their privacy, as legislative office-holders. Which may very well be true, but it doesn’t make them very appealing.

And Democrats would like to remind us that they know what’s best for us, and their “plans” will culminate in fuel conservation. And that may very well be true too, but it doesn’t make them very appealing.

Nobody really wants to win in November. They aren’t trying.

I’m oh-so-very tempted towards the “throw the bums out” school of voting, as in throw them ALL out. But, be that as it may, I’m still a single issue voter, and my issue is security, or the Global War Against Radical Islam (Terror). And I cannot, for the life of me, see any Democrat as capable of prosecuting this war in a competent manner.

Still and even, your comments are very well taken, Mr. Freeberg. It’s a race to the bottom.
- Buck Pennington | 05/24/2006 @ 12:16

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Race To LoseWednesday, May 24th, 2006

Race To Lose
Wednesday, May 24th, 2006