Here we go again

This week in the news:

I'll post links as evidence for what I'm talking about at the bottom. I'm not sure exactly why I all of a sudden have this urge to document my sources -- must be the history major thing coming through.

So the Republicans have decided to reneg on their ethics rules. The story goes like this: if a Representative is indicted, he or she has to resign. They made the rule when the chairman of the Ways and Means committee eleven years ago was charged with ethics violations, to match the rules of the Democratic party. They are changing the rules to protect Tom DeLay (apparently expecting him to be indicted). To me, this smashes the heck out of the Republicans' claim that they're so ethically superior. Read the article; it's interesting.

Is it just me, or do stories with words like "nuclear," "missile," "Russia," "Iran," and "proliferation" seem to be getting a lot more air recently? I mean, now that Bush has outdone his daddy, maybe he feels like he should restart the cold war, on the off chance that he could outdo Ronald Reagan, too. This is, admittedly, a somewhat immature and wholly far-reaching conspiracy theory, but all the same, I don't like all the extra air this stuff has been getting.

As for the EU: Britans are upset with Blair for being too close to us, Chirac and Shroeder are holding a conference on how to make the EU the global focus instead of the US, the price of gold is on the rise, the US dollar is the weakest it's ever been against the Euro, and Bush is still having delusions of grandeur about doing everything that Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Bush Sr. did wrong and nothing they did right (he doesn't even eat Jelly Bellies, to my knowledge).

And then there's Proposition 200. Why people voted for this the first time around is news to me. People tried to warn them that "public benefit" meant everything from welfare to food stamps to ambulance service and police protection, but they wanted to believe that it would keep immigrants from voting and using welfare, and nothing more. Terry Goddard, thankfully, ruled that it did indeed only apply to welfare and voting rights, but a bunch of jerks have decided they want to file a suit to force public officials to deny basic human (not American citizen) rights to immigrants, simply because they aren't from these here parts. In addition, public officials who fail to report illegal immigrants who try to use public services could face criminal charges. That's pretty terrible. Hopefully, the suit will be dropped like third period French, but apparently our state still isn't above bigotry.

In addition to all of this, Ashcroft's replacement, Gonzalez, is a nut job, and Colin Powell (the only sorta moderate voice in the White House) has abdicated his post and given it to Condi Rice (Bush's favorite toady). Republicans are trying to block Arlen Specter from chairing the Judiciary committee, because he's too moderate and not foaming enough. The Democrats aren't doing a darn thing to fight any of this. Gotta love politics.

While all of this is bad, look at the bright side: we've had a good run. The US has been kinda in control of the world since 1917. We almost outlasted the Spanish Empire. If the speculations about voter fraud are true, then maybe Bush will get impeached in the first year or so of this administration, and then there will be enough backlash that all of his henchmen will be forced to resign. I'm not sure exactly what would happen then; I suppose he'd appoint a fairly mediocre, lame-duck president, and then Kerry or Hillary or Dean or somebody would win the next election, and then maybe the EU will ease up on the anti-Bush economic blockades they'll probably set up in the near future. But who am I to predict the future? I'm no prophet. At any rate, I'm still fresh out of ideas on how to fight this from the outside, so if anybody's got any new ones, I'd be happy to help.

Republicans are a bit confused about ethics:
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/20546/

More voting woes:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1118-22.htm

Methinks Bush wants an excuse for new nuclear programs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61079-2004Nov18.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/15/bush.nucleararms.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/11/17/russia.putin/index.html

The EU keeps moving closer to being the new global center of focus:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=583687
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=583998
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=583277

Proposition 200:
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1119Prop200-court19.html