Merry Christmas

Replace "jolly" with "sneering", and "bringing presents and holiday cheer to all the boys and girls" with "taking food and medical care away from poor kids" and we're got ourselves a hell of a Santa Claus story.

Dick Cheney flew back into D.C. to cast a tie-breaking vote on a budget bill that will, among other provisions devastating to low income families, cut $844 million in food stamps. That means 300,000 Americans will lose their food stamps, and- wait for the heartwarming Christmas twist- free or reduced price school meals will be taken away from 40,000 children.

It's cool, though, because we won't have to hear about the consequences of malnourishment on the health of these kids, since the budget bill also cut a whole bunch of foster children off of Targeted Case Management rolls, restricting their access to medical care and social services.

Think repossessing Tiny Tim's crutches four days before Christmas. If Tiny Tim had been in foster care.

An impressive show from a united Dem front and a couple of warm-blooded GOPers brought the vote to a tie, leading to Cheney's Anti-Claus stunt.

Usual snide denouement fails me- replace "sarcastic" with "heartbroken", I guess.

Eugene McCarthy (March 29, 1916-December 10, 2005)

A moment to appreciate Gene McCarthy: principled liberal and unabashed intellectual, defender of a more democratic Democratic party, and and an example more timely than ever, what with all this calculating discussion over potential Democratic 2006 gains over the failures of the Iraq war...

"This is, I say, the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country."

Now as ever.

He'll be missed.

Weatherholtz Redux

Further proving that Virginia bigots never die, they just get reincarnated...

Delegate-elect Matt Lohr, Glenn Weatherholtz's successor to represent Harrisonburg in the GA, has outline his planned bills to introduce when the session starts up in 2006- at the top of the list is a resurrection of one of Weatherholtz's pet projects that was too staggeringly homophobic to get through the State Senate last session (although it did make it through the HoD, the body with the spotless record on keeping "the queers" in their place).

Anyway, Lohr's bill, just like last year's, will "give school boards the discretion to block clubs that they think promote sexual activity by unmarried minor students." Yeah, there wasn't an Unwed 'n Underage Sex Club at my high school, either- Lohr (and Weatherholtz's) beef is with those subversive Gay Straight Alliance types of organizations, which we all know actively promote homosexual sex (and oh, hell, man on dog sex, too, right Rick?) and homosexual sex exclusively- not support, not acceptance, just lots and lots of gay sex.

The irony of it all is that Gay Straight Alliances (which, incidentally, have probably saved the lives of hundreds of LGBT teenagers, a demographic that represents 30% of all teen suicide) are one of the best ways to make sure that future generations don't grow up to be as intolerant as the bigots in the GA who push anti-gay legislation like the Commonwealth's future depends on it. Which means that the succession (regression?) of Lohr to Weatherholtz's seat will just be repeated ad infinitum...

Encouraging.