Stuff

• For some reason there seems to be an argument whether Reagan used the ‘Southern Strategy’. It’s obvious that he did:

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

Congress overrode the veto.

Reagan also vetoed the imposition of sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. Congress overrode that veto, too.

…

To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.

Here’s another place to look.

• Bush makes a funny:

“The Congress now sitting in Washington holds this philosophy,” Mr. Bush said, according to a prepared text of the speech. “Their majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it is acting like a teenager with a new credit card.”

“This year alone, leaders in Congress are proposing to spend $22 billion more than my budget provides,” the president said. “Some of them claim this is not really much of a difference — and the scary part is that they seem to mean it.”

He is all for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are now predicted to cost $1.5 trillion.

• Wal-Mart seems, under pressure, to be actually trying to do better (go to the article to see graphics that show it better and also compare the healthcare coverage at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, and Costco–by far the best):

The company, according to data available for the first time, is offering better coverage to a greater number of workers. Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, provides insurance to 100,000 more workers than it did just three years ago — and it is now easier for many to sign up for health care at Wal-Mart than at its rival, Target, whose reputation glows in comparison.

• Columbia, also under pressure, seems to be doing better:

Even as he made the rounds in Washington last week with statistics on how violence against labor leaders had dropped dramtically, Leonidas Silva, a member of a teachers union, was shot dead in his home in eastern Santander Province. And as the vice president returned from his lobby trip to Washington, Jairo Giraldo of the national fruit-workers union was gunned down in western Valle del Cauca province.

The killings bring to 23 the number of union members killed so far this year, which is down dramatically from the peak in 1996 of 275 murders.

More than 2,534 union members have been killed between 1986, when records began to be kept, according to the ENS. About 98 percent of those cases are unsolved.

• The NY Times still shows that they can be funny:

In this same centrist camp sits Bjorn Lomborg.

Lomborg is in the ‘centrist camp’ when it comes to global warming? Stop, you’re killing me.

• Here’s an even-handed article about Iran and nuclear weapons. It notes that many of the things said about Iran were said about China in the early 1960s–China did get nuclear weapons, but it has not invaded anyone since then and has never used nuclear weapons. This type of quote shows why Podhoretz should not be in the government:

Podhoretz said during a PBS debate that with Iran under the control of clerics and the “religious fanatic” Ahamadinejad “there’s no assurance that self-preservation or the protection, preservation of the nation, will deter them.”

• Hmm, sexism does seem to still be alive:

Her hands were full of legal papers when the judge — a former high school athlete who is more than 6 inches taller and at least 100 pounds heavier — asked for a hug.

She told him she didn’t think that was appropriate, but reluctantly approached.

The judge grabbed Mc-Broom, pulled up her blouse and her bra and put his mouth on her breast. Then, Kent forced her head down toward his crotch.

As McBroom struggled, Kent kept telling the married mother of three what he wanted to do to her in words too graphic to publish. The papers fell to the floor. The pet bulldog Kent kept in his chambers began to bark.

The incident was interrupted by the sound of footsteps from another staff member in the corridor, and the judge loosened his grip. As she left, the judge said McBroom was a good case manager and then made suggestions about engaging in a sexual act.

So far the Judge has only been reprimanded and reassigned, but members of the US House Judiciary have called for an investigation.

Hmm, as I look at my list, I note that three of them (Wal-Mart, Columbia, and the investigation of Kent) probably would not have happened without pressure. We can make a difference.