TRYING TIMES

Not sure where we're going with this, but...
One would believe that the J-Curve argument is an argument against the "originalist" arguments put forth by certain supreme court members. This is because the J-Curve arguments shows that the real power and legitimacy of the United States is just as much in her staying power and ability to stay in Union as her original constitutional framework. One can look back at the creation of democratic institutions at the beginning of her existence as the root cause of this stability and growth. However, One cannot ignore the real sacrifices of the people in the name of progression that helped to maintain her during moments of institutional crises and all out civil-war. Lincoln was motivated to save the Union in part because of its proven track record not only for Democracy but for change and development as well.

And so, we have another article bemoaning the Democrats for not taking on the Bush Administrations entire war on terror to their liking. There's always this or that strategy that would supposedly win. We at Trying Times are convinced that the voters will never be convinced. Perhaps it is time that we admit that the axiom that fear always wins these types of political battles. There are too many Right Wing Supporters who believe in their ideology, and can appeal to the people in ways the Democrats can never match. Their ideology of fear will always beat the misguided faith in the reason of humankind. The GOP will continue to successfully paint the Democrats as appeasers and traitors. Trying Times believes its time to throw in the towel. Dems should give up. We should shut down our party and let the Republicans run this country into the ground. Let them fight their wars. Let them curb the rights of Gays. Let them turn most of the working people into a class of modern-day serfs. Let them blow up Iran. Let them go on soliciting young pages. Let them go on creating more members of Al-Queda in Iraq by needlessly staying the course. Let them keep giving Israel more guns to fight pointless skirmishes with Hamas and Hezbolah. Let them continue Money-Laundering in order to scam elections they could win anyway. Continue to ride in your gas-guzzling trucks and SUV's. Please, my fellow Americans, keep on voting for lower taxes on the rich. Keep on lobbying the government to keep your guns so you can kill animals for sport. Keep on cutting money for police officers who claim to cherish. Keep on feeling content to merely put bumper stickers on your cars to proclaim your support of the troops. Go ahead and do not bother explaining what you mean by that phrase. Don't join the Army. Keep allowing companies to pollute our air. Keep buying huge houses in the Suburbs so you can forget about the wretched and meak of our society. Keep throwing sick drug addicts in jail so they can learn to become better criminals. Nevermind that fault for the twisted fate of us all lies squarely with you, the voting and non-voting sychofants of this country. We give up. You guys win. Good Hunting.

Please tell us that the news media will soon pick up the story of the "purge" of a moderate Republican in Rhode Island. The silence of the media on this issue is deafening. Why isn't the Mainstream Liberal Media ranting about the horrible nature of modern partisan politics when a moderate voice on the right is on the verge of losing his seat? Where is the David Brooks column demanding we stand for a Unity government? Where are the calls for civility. It reminds me of the time when Republicans were trying to purge our former president Clinton with impeachment proceedings and the Mainstream media stood for Unity and civility instead of a partisan "withhunt"...Oh wait a tick, that Mainstream media was allowing to gestate and/or pushing the Clinton Penis story and feeding the American public a nasty brew of wacko partisan zealot BS inuendo stew that ended up being a failed land deal and a cum-stained dress.

Regarding the politics of high gas prices...
To begin with, Trying Times will concede that the Democrats plan to give consumers $500 rebates because of soaring gasoline prices is mostly politics and definitely bad policy. However, to hear Rick Santorum say that Republican Lawmakers are "putting together a plan that is almost exclusively focused on increased supply and conservation" can only induce a hearty scoff. Precisely how is the idea of "increasing supply" a long term solution? Are we going to breed some new dinosaurs in the hopes that future generations will reap some oilly windfall? One can only assume that Republicans mean to open up other reserves, like, say, the Arctic National Refuge in Alaska. Yeah, there's a long term solution. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski describes calls for a rebate of this sort "short term; it's not a fix". We agree. The only real way to deal with this in the long-term is for government to get involved and force Americans not only to conserve but to use new energy resources. There in lies the dilemma for Republicans. Government intervention is the antithesis of their ideological worldview (at least when it comes to economics; put aside for the moment their need to tell us when to have babies, sex, use drugs and medicine, etc.). This ideology is precisely why they should not be in charge of our country right now. Certainly not to the extent of controlling all 3 branches of government, anyway. What we need is 2 party rule (remember the 90's?) when we had a government led by a Democrat with good ideas policed by a Republican congress to watch that those ideas don't get out of hand. Our energy problems will never be solved while one party rule is maintained. Democrats, if given some power, would hopefully call for higher nation wide emmision standards (something we already had during the Clinton years!) and reengagement in a world wide effort to conserve energy and develop new energy resources. We have the strength and will to create a new world no longer dependent on oil and the messed up political region from which that energy source emanates. We simply have to let government take the lead, which will never happen if Republicans stay in power.

Message to Rush Limbaugh: If you go to jail, it means you were arrested. It doesn't matter how much time you spend there. Your parsing of the english language by calling this trip to jail "voluntarily processed" is, shall we say, Clintonesque, to use the common vernacular. Trying Times would suggest that although you claim to have "won", your "sobriety" begins when you surrender to the fact that addiction kicked your ass. What you've "won" is a lifetime of treatment centers, N.A. meetings, and mediocre coffee.

Trying Times would like to posit to all those looking for reasons why the Republicans failed policies have led to record setting low approval numbers need look no further than...the Republicans failed policies. The tide of public opinion against the president isn't because of media and spin, its despite media and spin. While there can and should be debate over the validity of Democratic alternatives, there really is no doubt that after 6 years of basically uninterupted Republican power we finally have a clear window to view their failed ideology. Preemptive war? Whatever one's argument for the morality of bringing Democracy to other regions, we can see that the actual logistics of such measures are perhaps beyond the scope of America's power and will. Lower taxes? Well, we have a decent economy, but its worth examining what we really want out of our economy. The highest possible job production is something both conservative ideologues and Trying Times could agree on. But America's job production is no higher now than the Clinton years, when taxes were higher. The other main goal of an economy should be to produce a wide and inclusive middle class, something that the Republicans ideology of tax cuts at all costs does not seem to produce. It appears that after six years, the American people realize that what we've got is a system that's headed mostly in the wrong direction, and is almost singularly the responsibilty of the Republican Party. The point here is to stress that in an abstract sense promoting Democracy sounds good in campaign stump speeches and touting a lean, efficient business sector looks good on an Economics professor's Power Point presentation, in the real world people get lost. The Republicans basically fell trap to the same utopian, moralitic thinking that led to the downfall of the Democratic Party. Instead of the end of poverty and racism, it was Democracy for all! Jobs for everybody if we just stop paying taxes! Please. They might as well have sang Kum-bay-Ya. Realism will win out, as it always does. Realism requires compromise, which is something the Republicans failed ideology will never embrace. More importantly, realism requires an honest assessment of what we can actually accomplish, which is way outside the bounds of today's political discourse. Republican Utopianism won some elections, and perhaps will continue to do so. But its a political strategy that requires bad policy. War in Iraq just to win a Republican Majority, for instance. So, as the right continues to look for "reasons" they are not doing well these days (The Liberal Media? Democrats? Hippies? Immigrants? Gays? The Liberal Media?) they will continue to ignore the fact that government without compromise is doomed to failure (the beauty of democracy). Meanwhile, the rest of us can look for Nicole Simpson's real killers...

Its hard to determine which possibility would be worse concerning the latest revelations of incompatency to eminate from the diaries of our current presidential administration: The situation where Bush decides to declassify information that was used simply to damage a political opponent, or the other probable scenario, wherein he claims he didn't know what information would be used and for what purpose? If he did know what the information was and how it would be used, then he is the leaking culprit he's been trying to find. What a relief it must be to find that foul leaker no further away then the lincoln bedroom mirror. If this scenario is correct, then he was a willing participant in using classified information to attack a fellow American who disagreed with his false assertions about Iraq's nuclear capabilities. If he didn't know what was being declassified, and he simply allowed Libby and Rove to use information they wanted at their own discretion, then how could that info actually be declassified? Doesn't the president have to know what information is being declassified in order to declassify it? Can he just say "sure, use whatever info you need, its declassified, I just don't want to know what it is or how you're going to use it"?. That seems like gross incompatence, not to mention highly unlikely. Surely legal scholars will weigh in on this subject, in both opposition and defense of the president's odd and deceitful behavior. In either case, however, we should remind ourselves that the president either declassified a National Intelligence Estimate simply to discredit Joseph Wilson's assertions (which turned out to be correct), or he negligently handed out a highly classified NIE briefing without knowing what it was or how it was going to be used.