Will AG Abbott Sue Countrywide?

Via a new blog, Foreclosure Buzz, by Texas Rural Legal Aid attorney Robert Doggett, the question is posed with regard to lawsuits against mortgage lender Countrywide, “Is Texas Next?” Quoting the Forney Post in North Texas, Doggett notes that groups like Public Citizen are asking why AG Greg Abbott hasn’t piled on yet:

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Margaret Spellings: Extend ‘No Child Left Behind’ To Universities

I’m sure there are days when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings wishes she had just stayed in Texas and worked to screw up Texas public schools.

But, now that she’s President Bush’s right hand woman on education, she has more than just the Texas Legislature and Texas Education Agency breathing down her back.

That’s especially true now that she wants to extend “No Child Left Behind” into America’s colleges and universities.

Oh, but wait. She says she’s really not proposing that. She’s flip-flopping faster than an Alaskan Rainbow Trout thrown in the Rio Grande River:

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Bill Frist: A Real Life Cat Killer

As you are no doubt aware, I rarely—if ever—delve into national political stories, especially those about potential Republican presidential candidates.

However, the revelation that one of these candidates—Bill Frist—is a real, live cat killer is one I cannot pass up mentioning.

As the old saying goes, the only thing that can really kill a politician’s political career is being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy, so I’m not sure how Frist’s cat killing will actually play out in the future.

But, let me say this: this is one of those things that you read about and start to think, “Jesus, that guy is a cruel bastard:”

He fessed up in his 1989 book, “Transplant,” to adopting cats from shelters when he was in medical school, treating them like pets for a while, and then using them in his research experiments. Maybe in hindsight, Trent Lott should have seen it coming.

[...]

Bet Frist wishes now he’d refrained from giving out too much information in his first book. He made his case in “Transplant” for saving lives by learning through experiments with animals while at Harvard. It’s the part where he kept them as pets first that is bothersome.

“Desperate, obsessed with my work, I visited the various animal shelters in the Boston suburbs, collecting cats, taking them home, treating them as pets for a few days, then carting them off to the lab to die in the interests of science. And medicine. And health care. And treatment of disease. And my project.

“It was, of course, a heinous and dishonest thing to do, and I was totally schizoid about the entire matter. By day, I was little Billy Frist, the boy who lived on Bowling Avenue in Nashville and had decided to become a doctor because of his gentle father and a dog named Scratchy. By night, I was Dr. William Harrison Frist, future cardiothoracic surgeon, who was not going to let a few sentiments about cute, furry little creatures stand in the way of his career. In short, I was going a little crazy.”

Mother of God! Now, I have no problem with animals being used for legitimate necessary medical research when it is done humanely (and, preferably, after the animal died of natural causes). I recognize that sometimes, infecting a poor little pig with bladder cancer will save lives. I’m not totally in agreement with some of my colleagues here on the left when it comes to animal testing.

BUT HOUSE CATS?? CATS THAT WERE SOMEONE’S PET? The thought of that happening literally baffles me, almost as much as the fact that Frist admitted to going crazy (or almost going crazy).

Truly, though, my greatest hope is that this was an isolated lapse in judgement by Frist. Please tell me that animal shelters everywhere aren’t being stalked by medical students looking for their next ‘patients.’

Like Bob Barker always said, “Help control the pet population; have your pet spayed or neutered.”

Otherwise, their offspring might end up as a medical school experiment.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go outside and find Ellie, who I adopted from a shelter, and give her a great big hug.

Encyclopedia Of American Conservative Movement

Will a 997-page encyclopedia help American Conservatives return to their “small government” roots?

I doubt it, but if enough fiscal conservatves are willing to shell out $35 bucks for it, I guess we’ll see.

I find it amusing that American conservatives would need—or want—an encyclopedia to trace their “movement.”

Of course, when one of the supreme accomplishments of any movement is that someone actually compiled a 997-page encyclopedia about it, it should be crystal clear that the movement has accomplished little.

Do Democrats/Liberals need an “encyclopedia” to trace the successes and movers and shakers of our “movement?” The answer is clearly, ‘no.’ Our accomplishments—from Social Security to the FHA—are so dominant today they are part of our cultural lingo; those who made the biggest impact on our movement like Roosevelt (the New Deal) and Johnson (the Great Society) are household names along with others like Wellstone, Kennedy (Ted), and (yes) Clinton.

Conservatives need a 997-page book to tell the world what their “accomplishments” are because, in reality, they’ve had so few.

Can anyone point to any sweeping reforms or social programs initiated by Republicans that have been as successful as the New Deal and Great Society programs? Or have had such a profound affect on peoples’ lives like the Family and Medical Leave Act of the Clinton Administration?

No, they can’t. Some will no doubt argue that there are some. But, there are far more failures (most of the Contract with America comes to mind, especially term limits) to reach any substantive goals with conservative/Republican movements than there ever have been with liberal/Democratic ones.

And, you can go back to the earliest days of the Republican movement in America to figure that out. Our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves. But, it took a hundred years until a Democratic president (Lyndon Johnson) forced passage of and signed legislation (over opposition of some in his own party) that finally returned to African Americans rights they should have had all along. Did Republican votes help pass the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, etc? Sure. But, it took a Democrat to make it all happen.

For decades (if not for over a century), Republicans have taken a “let’s finish the job half-way” approach to governing, leaving Democrats to clean up their messes.

I’d love to know what this “conservative encyclopedia” has to say about that.