Wetterling on ID

I have confirmation from both my son (who was there) and Eva that Patty Wetterling did address the question about whether ID ought to be taught in the schools in a recent debate. Here’s what she said:

We need to teach the truth about science. Evolution is scientifically accurate. We can’t let our science curriculum to be based on religious beliefs.

Exactly right. That’s not hard to say, you know.

There were a few comments in that prior thread that were trying to argue that, since the 6th district has a conservative population, Wetterling was a bad choice to run there—that the DFL should have tried to find a conservative Democrat for a candidate.

I think that’s insane.

  • Wetterling is running a good, hard campaign. She’s putting up a fight, and she’s made it a competitive race. Why in the world should the DFL ask good, progressive candidates who are willing to work a district to step aside? She stands for our values. We ought to be pushing that, rather than looking for some proxy Democrat with Republican values to run.

  • Just curious, but when was the last time you saw Republicans arguing that they ought to be fielding moderate candidates anywhere? Far right wingnuts seem to be happily seized upon as perfect choices to forward the Republican agenda, and the arguments always seem to be about how to get money and support to their people. (Katherine Harris seems to be the rare exception. There are limits to the insanity and incompetence Republicans will endorse, which is good to see.)

  • It seems to me that putting up strong opposition to Republican extremists is exactly what we ought to be doing. Make ’em have to struggle and bleed a little to win when they put up kooks like Bachmann; better yet, make ’em lose to liberal candidates. Let the Republicans look at these races and decide that they need to field a moderate to get a lock on the district. Make them shift a little closer to the center, rather than always ceding that the Democrats must shift a little closer to the right. That’s how we win in the long run. That strategy of always forcing the races rightward and making the Democrats chase after them is how the Republicans have been winning.

One funny thing about that strategy is that it will even make some Republicans happy to see their extremist fringe kicked in the tush a few times. The voters who would switch to a conservative/moderate Democrat would probably prefer to see the nutjobs who are leading their party marginalized and replaced with centrists—and that would be a net gain for the country.

Watch these!

This morning, I’m off to the Unitarian Church of Willmar to talk about creationism. I’ll be back later, but ’til then, you kiddies can watch some TV. Flea has David Rakoff, if you want to laugh at the inanity of the right wing, while Crooks and Liars hosts the latest Olbermann, if you’re more in the mood for tragedy, in this case the unraveling of the Constitution.

Bachmann profile

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I’ve been reading Thomas Franks’ What’s the Matter with Kansas?(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and then today I read the excellent profile of Michele Bachmann in the City Pages. Yikes. The similarities are terrifying. Bachmann is a clueless ideologue who has harnessed the power of the Religious Right to ride to political power on issues like discriminating against gays and promoting creationism; she’s the kind of candidate who preaches piety while legislating for the abolition of the minimum wage, exactly the sort Franks describes as wrecking Kansas while claiming to save its soul.

She’s in a tight race with Patty Wetterling in Minnesota’s Sixth district—this is the one I’ll be watching in November, and I sure hope this state doesn’t elect such an odious, sanctimonious fraud.

Reminder!

Drinking Liberally is cancelled this week in Morris. If you’re really hard up, you could go to the DL in Minneapolis, but really, why would you want to? We’ve got Al Franken, star of TV and radio, founder of the Midwest Values PAC, and best-selling author entertaining us at a DFL fundraiser here in our little town, so we’re a much more exciting place than that urban mess to the east. I think there are still tickets available, but I know they were going fast a few days ago—call Jeff Lamberty at (320) 585-5646 if you’re interested. Nope, sorry, you were too late. Sold out! Good for the Stevens County DFL!

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Also, on Friday, from 11-2, the Al Franken show will be broadcast from Edson Auditorium on the UMM campus. If you can’t be here this evening, you can catch a little whiff of the Morris mystique (no, that’s not the swine farm or the ethanol plant) by tuning in to Air America tomorrow.

Welcome to the Fascist States of America!

Just read Leiter.

So the record had been mixed, even before Bush & his bestiary of madmen, but describing the U.S. as a nominally democratic society seemed to make some sense.  Yet even that status officially ended last week.  The legislation known as "the Military Commissions Act of 2006" (usefully described by Professor Balkin here)–approved by what might be called, euphemistically, "the supine Congress" and which is sure to be signed by the alleged President (on orders from the actual President, Dick Cheney)–is the stuff of totalitarian societies, pure and simple.  (As Stephen Griffin (Law, Tulane) observes, the law should really be called the "Military Dictatorship Act," because that is what it actually is, all the bullshit to one side.  Or as philosopher Matt Burstein wrote to me:  "these fuckers read Kafka and Orwell as a god-damned manual, not as a critique!")

The full fascist impact of this legislation won’t be felt immediately, of course, but its contours are so clear as to admit of no whitewashing:  the Dear Leader, i.e., the executive, now has the right to disappear anyone, without having to answer to any other branch of government, except, perhaps, officials who serve at the pleasure of the executive.  Hitler and Stalin and Mao had versions of this power; so, too, now does George W. Bush.  If there is a pertinent difference, it is that the public culture in the U.S., at least currently, is still mildly resistant to capacious exercise of this power, at least against the proverbial "white folks" and other right-thinking and right-looking Americans.

OK, read Ivins, too.

In another change, a clause said that evidence obtained outside the United States could be admitted in court even if it had been gathered without a search warrant. But the bill now drops the words “outside the United States,” which means prosecutors can ignore American legal standards on warrants.

The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has “has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Quick, define “purposefully and materially.” One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.

The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.

I haven’t talked about this at home, but somehow the implications are even sinking into the consciousness of sixteen year old girls (a smart 16yog, but still…).

So where are the Democrats leading the charge? Will this be a subject of discussion at YearlyKos, and can we howl at any Democrats who show up? Who else will be joining me at the protest lines at the Fascist National Convention in Minneapolis next September? How can we light a fire under the craven Democrats?

What the heck…now you can even get arrested for publicly disagreeing with Dick Cheney?

Forget civility and decorum. It’s time to impeach these slimemeisters.