Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Deep Doo Doo: Feces is Feces

Molly Ivins has a way of getting right to the heart of things:
While we understand that the Bushies believe it is the function of the courts to do whatever Republican presidents wish (they don't want conservatives on the bench, they want obedience from the bench), it was refreshing to see the several appeals courts insisting on, ahem, the law. Turns out an appeals court also finds weakening the Clean Air Act by executive order is not constitutionally kosher. Hope that's not too controversial for our friends in the "original intent" camp: The president of the United States cannot go about unilaterally changing the law. Egad, what will they think of next?

Weakening the Clean Air Act was Bush's ugly little payoff to the utilities industry at the expense of public health. Speaking of which, is anyone actually surprised to find mad cow disease among us? I was amused to hear a television pundit conclude that mad cow is "not a political issue." What he meant was, "not a partisan issue," in that R's and D's can be found on both sides of the efforts to prevent this very thing from happening. I assure you, this is profoundly political. Mad cow disease is exactly about how our political system is corrupted by special interest money. It is also a perfect example of how greed leads directly to bone-headed stupidity.