The divine right of incumbent Congresscritters

Happy Indigenous People’s Day (Berkeley only).

The LA Times says that of California’s 53 Congressional seats, exactly one is even close to being a competitive race (and that one isn’t very close). Also, 2 out of NY’s 29, 1 out of Florida’s 25. “We’re getting back to the divine right of kings,” says alliterative Rob Richie of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Which explains why members of Congress so often seem like the result of generations of cousins marrying cousins.

Kerry tells the NYT, “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives but they’re a nuisance.” Even when he’s right, you just want to slap him, don’t you? Although from the look of his face, that would probably hurt your hand more than his face.

Saudi Arabia will have municipal elections in February, its first elections of any kind since the 1960s. And no, women won’t be allowed to vote. The voting age is 21.

Tom Coburn, the asshole running for Senate in Oklahoma, says (said, actually, on 8/31/04, and we’re only hearing this now?) “lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that’s happened to us?” Us? Spend a lot of time in girls’ bathrooms in schools in southeast Oklahoma, do ya, Tom?

Coburn also has an ad out which “shows images of Hispanics and dark hands receiving welfare payments,” echoing an old Jesse Helms ad, which I’ve been unable to see. It’s not, for example, on Coburn’s website, although many other of his ads are. If anyone’s seen it online somewhere, drop me an email.

And given that he’s running racist ads, it occurs to me to ask how many of those under-age girls he sterilized were non-white.