This is, to coin a phrase, a hell of a way to run a country.

It is also a bipartisan problem. Both parties do this when they're in power in Congress. Republicans were in charge last year, when no budget passed at all. Democrats are in charge now, and it is over two months since the due date and not much progress has been made yet. One bill passed and was signed. One bill was passed and vetoed. The other ten bills have yet to get out of Congress.

This is pathetic. Passing a budget is the number one responsibility of everyone in Congress. If "Member of Congress" had a job description, this would be the first item on the list. And yet they fail, year after year, to get it done in a timely manner. This means they are failing to perform one of the key functions of their job.

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Back in the old Soviet Union, official groups both large and small always had at least one "political officer" in them, to guarantee that whatever the group did was in step with current Party ideology. The Bush White House, taking its cue from this Soviet-era practice, decided that this was a good idea, earlier this year (after the Democratic takeover of Congress in last year's elections).

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We're now about a month away from the first caucus in the nomination race for president. The Democratic race in Iowa is currently neck and neck and neck. Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are all roughly even in the polls, and it's anybody's guess who will emerge the victor. This is partly due to the bizarre caucus rules in Iowa, it's partly due to the notorious instability of the state (victors often emerge late, in the last few days before the caucus), and it's partly due to the possible overestimation by all three candidates on who will actually turn out on caucus day.

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Welcome back to the weekly roundup of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and (as always) my humble suggestions of things Democrats should say in media interviews this weekend.

Because I've been away for a few weeks, I have to apologize in advance if I've missed something obvious this week (I'm still getting back up to speed on the American political scene). Hopefully I won't have missed too much!

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Eileen Sullivan of the Associated Press wrote a shocking story this week, to which little attention is being paid. That's a shame, because it details how the effort to fight "terrorism" in America is being morphed into something else entirely. Federal dollars which are supposed to go to anti-terrorism are being used by the states pretty much any way they feel. The Bush administration gave the money to the states with no guidelines as to how to spend it, so it's really not even the states' fault that they decided to use the money how they saw fit.

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[This is one of a continuing series of candidate speech transcripts from all the Democratic presidential campaigns. Please see the introduction to this series for more information.]

Mike Gravel

http://www.gravel2008.us/index.php

Stepping Back From Imperialism:
Redirecting American Foreign Policy

St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire
11/1/06

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[This is one of a continuing series of candidate speech transcripts from all the Democratic presidential campaigns. Please see the introduction to this series for more information.]

Dennis Kucinich

http://www.dennis4president.com/home/

[Note: The Kucinich campaign was unable to provide a speech transcript from Congressman Kucinich for this series. A campaign official told me that Kucinich always speaks "extemporaneously" without notes, therefore they had no speeches available. I decided to relax the rules to allow their campaign to present me with something from Kucinich, so I am reprinting a position paper from the Kucinich website here instead of a speech. If you follow the link above and click on "Audio/Video" there are Kucinich speeches available for viewing or listening to on their campaign website.]

Strength Through Peace

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[This is one of a continuing series of candidate speech transcripts from all the Democratic presidential campaigns. Please see the introduction to this series for more information.]

Hillary Clinton

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/

Remarks at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

Des Moines, Iowa
11/10/07

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[This is one of a continuing series of candidate speech transcripts from all the Democratic presidential campaigns. Please see the introduction to this series for more information.]

Bill Richardson

http://www.richardsonforpresident.com/home

Hard Choices:
The Responsible Way Forward for Iraq and our Military

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
10/4/07

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[This is one of a continuing series of candidate speech transcripts from all the Democratic presidential campaigns. Please see the introduction to this series for more information.]

Barack Obama

http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

A Change We Can Believe In

Spartanburg, South Carolina
11/3/07

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