Just POlitics

Schiavo’s life

"I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities," President Bush said in signing the Schiavo bill

Terri Schiavo’s, 41, family won a victory in Congress during a rare Sunday session that passed a special bill handed the question of Schiavo’s starvation death to the federal courts.

U.S. District Judge James Whittemore, who was nominated to the court in 1999 by President Clinton, has set a hearing for 3 p.m. Monday.

Grassley: Social Security

The Hill Reports on an interview with Sen. Charles Grassley and the fate of Social Security reform:

Social Security reform will not happen for years unless Congress gets it done by this fall, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) warned yesterday.

"Either it’s going to happen in the next eight to nine months, or it won’t happen for the next eight to nine years," the Senate Finance Committee chairman said in an interview with The Hill in his Hart Building office.

Grassley also sounded the theme of over-emphasis of discussion on personal accounts:

"Republicans have probably emphasized personal accounts too much," he said, "but we ought to have been talking about the solvency problem as much." This gave Democrats the opportunity to focus their opposition to reform on personal accounts, which many of them argue would violate Social Security’s long-standing role as a social insurance program.

"We’ve let the Democrats off the hook," Grassley said.

Judicial filibuster

George Will has become vociferous against the nuclear option for ending judicial nominees road block. Here is a quote from his article in the Washington Post:

The future will bring Democratic presidents and Senate majorities. How would you react were such a majority about to change Senate rules to prevent you from filibustering to block a nominee likely to construe the equal protection clause as creating a constitutional right to same-sex marriage?

And pruning the filibuster in the name of majority rule would sharpen the shears that one day will be used to prune it further. If filibusters of judicial nominations are impermissible, why not those of all nominations -- and of treaties, too? Have conservatives forgotten how intensely they once opposed some treaties pertaining to arms control and to the Panama Canal?

Iran has missiles

Britain's Financial Times newspaper quoted Ukraine's prosecutor general on Friday as saying Kiev authorities had sold missiles to Iran and China.

The daily quoted prosecutor-general Svyatoslav Piskun as saying 18 X-55 cruise missiles, also known as Kh-55s or AS-15s, were exported in 2001, when former President Leonid Kuchma was in power. But none was exported with nuclear warheads.

The X-55 has a range of some 1,800 miles. Launched from Iran, it could reach Israel.

France: no to E.U. ?

AFP reports that polls show France voting no on the E.U. Constitution which would mean that the E.U. union movement would be nearly dead:

Described by former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius as a "foretaste of the European constitution," the so-called Bolkestein directive would make it possible for service-providers such as architects or accountants to operate across the 25 members.

But opponents say it would lead to "social dumping" as business and jobs relocate to the low-cost economies of eastern Europe. Spotting the political danger, Chirac has himself condemned the directive -- but the issue has played strongly into the hands of his opponents.

Kerry vs. Clinton

A former Clinton advisor, Ann Lewis, took some shots at the Kerry campaign. Word has it that it may be the departure point of the kissy-kissy status between the Sen. John Kerry camp and the Hillary Clinton camp.

Ann Lewis, director of communications for Clinton's political action committee, said in Friday's issue of the Forward, a Jewish weekly published in New York City, that the Kerry campaign had a different message every couple of weeks. She of course was insinuating that the campaign was not well run. This is of course interesting because many of the Clinton staff held key roles in th Kerry campaign at the critical ending moment of the campaign.

So, has Ann Lewis opened the flood gate on Hillary? Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic operative who worked on President Clinton, said, "It'll create more internecine warfare among Democrats, and those who want to take shots at Hillary, who are Kerry loyalists, are now going to do that more than they would have before."

Congressional stalemate

"So far, I'm not real pleased with what I'm hearing the Senate saying," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, Iowa Republican.

The Senate failed to do anything about runaway Medicaid costs by stripping the reduction in spending from the Senate budget bill.

For years now individuals have given away their wealth so that they can qualify for Medicaid payments during their last years in nursing homes. Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare are the fastest growing part of the federal budget and continue to cause this nation to have ever increasing deficits because elected officials do not have the fortitude to deal with their ever increasing expenditures.

President Bush changed all of that following his reelection. Bush called for major reductions in Medicaid in his budget.

The Senate restored the $16 billion cut in Medicaid that the Senate Budget Committee recommended as the House was including a $20 billion reduction in the program over five years.

Media bias

The Washington Times reports on NBC reporter David Gregory's misleading question to President Bush:

"At Wednesday morning's presidential news conference, NBC's David Gregory told President Bush that the idea of personal accounts for Social Security 'remains, according to every measure we have, poll after poll, unpopular with the majority of Americans.'

"In fact, a Washington Post/ABC News survey released on Tuesday found that 56 percent support 'a plan in which people who chose to could invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market,' " the Media Research Center's Brent Baker writes at www.mediaresearch.org.

"But Gregory's misperception is somewhat understandable given that The Washington Post headlined its Tuesday front-page story on the poll: 'Skepticism of Bush's Social Security Plan Is Growing.' "

Rice & the growing power

China and India are the two major powers who are seeking to become competing world powers. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in Asia dealing with the Pacific balance of power. She made strong comments to Europe that their renewal of arms sales to China would be disruptive.

The European arms embargo was imposed to protest the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations.

"There are concerns about the rise of Chinese military spending and potentially Chinese military power and its increasing sophistication," Rice told reporters in Seoul before she flew to Beijing.

"The United States will, of course, maintain and modernize its forces to make certain that the military balance can be maintained in the Asia-Pacific, so that the region can continue along a peaceful path," she said.

However, complicating China’s difficulties are its previous action passing an anti-secession law authorizing the use of force against Taiwan if it moved toward independence.

Also complicating matters are China’s human rights violations. The U.S. recently did not press for the U.N. to site China for its violations. This did not prevent Rice from bringing up the issue with the Chinese.

"We...talked a good deal about the need for China to think about a more open political system that will match its economic opening and allow for the full creativity of the Chinese people," Rice said.

 Republicans raise $20 million

Republicans announced Friday the amount the party raised in February, in addition to $10.2 million raised in January. The GOP had $22.4 million on hand at the end of February.

Making friends

Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) has decided the best way to explore Presidential opportunities in 2008 is to help out Governors in 2006. He has hired B.J. Thornberry, who until recently served as executive director of the Democratic Governors' Association, to run Vilsack’s PAC.