The WAWG Blog

Federal Election Commission Tells Tom Delay to Return Campaign Contributions That He Received After He Quit
(Originally found on brazosriver.com)
http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?_26039193107+0

George Allen Didn’t Disclose Stock Options
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20061008/D8KKJ9I81.html

James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Daniel Henninger (Wall Street Journal), Matt Drudge (Internet) and Michael Savage (Radio) say that the sexually explicit communications that Rep. Mark Foley allegedly engaged in with former congressional pages were “sort of a joke” or a “prank[]” on the part of the former pages.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200610060004

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) suggests that the Foley scandal was engineered by Democrats for electoral advantage, but cannot cite any evidence
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/08/mchenry-pelosi/

Fox News viewers are more ignorant about world affairs than any other category of news consumers, and also have a stronger belief than anyone else in how well informed they are
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1816822.ece

Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) Knew of Foley Messages to Pages Six Years Ago
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800855.html

Republican Senate Candidate Corker Won’t Release His Tax Returns
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_94204.asp

Republican Senate Candidate Kean Turns His Back On Iraq Soldier’s Mom
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/09/gop-senate-candidate-kean_n_31281.html

Karl Rove’s Resigned Chief Aide Supplied Inside White House Info To Abramoff
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/07/MNGH9LKM2R1.DTL

Republican Senate Candidate Tries To Distance Himself From Bush by Saying, I Didn’t Agree With The President, “The President Agreed With Me”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/10/08/gop-senate-candidate-trie_n_31235.html

Regards,

Jim

On October 3, 2006, the five member National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled by a 3 to 2 vote to ‘clarify’ the definition of a ‘supervisor’ to favor employers and oppose employees. The vote had three Bush appointees supporting the definition of a new class of worker and two Clinton appointees dissenting. (As dissenters, would Bush consider them traitors too?)

The issue involves the current board’s interpretation of certain phrases in Section 2 (11) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which defines a “supervisor”.

In Section 2(3) of the NLRA it states that a supervisor is excluded from the definition of the term “employee.” In Section 1, it states that, “Experience has proved that protection by law of the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively ….” In other words, anyone classified as a supervisor is not an employee and can’t join a union.

Here is section 2(11) with the phrases being ‘clarified’ by the NLRB highlighted in bold.

The term “supervisor” means any individual having authority, in the interest of the employer, to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if in connection with the foregoing the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment.

According to one report on this NLRB decision, “The board’s ruling essentially enables employers to make a supervisor out of any worker who has the authority to assign or direct another and uses independent judgment. They ruled that any worker can be classified as a supervisor if he or she spends as little as 10-15% of his or her time overseeing the work of others. Under current Federal labor laws, supervisors are prohibited from forming unions. The ruling could deny up to 8 million workers the right to choose union representation.”

According to the above report, the NLRB accomplished this through the following clarifications for the phrases highlighted above:

Assign – the act of “designating an employee to a place (such as a location, department, or wing), appointing an individual to a time (such as a shift or overtime period), or giving significant overall duties, i.e. tasks, to an employee.” Further, to “assign” for purposes of the Act, “refers to the . . . designation of significant overall duties to an employee, not to the . . . ad hoc instruction that the employee perform a discrete task.”

Responsibly to direct – “If a person on the shop floor has men under him, and if that person decides what job shall be undertaken next or who shall do it, that person is a supervisor, provided that the direction is both ‘responsible’ . . . and carried out with independent judgment.” The Board held that the element of “responsible” direction involved a finding of accountability, so that it must be shown that the “employer delegated to the putative supervisor the authority to direct the work and the authority to take corrective action, if necessary” and that “there is a prospect of adverse consequences for the putative supervisor” arising from his/her direction of other employees.

Independent judgement – The Board defined the statutory term “independent judgment” in relation to two concepts. First, to be independent, the judgment exercised must not be effectively controlled by another authority. Thus, where a judgment is dictated or controlled by detailed instructions or regulations, the judgment would not be found to be sufficiently “independent” under the Act. The Board further found that the degree of discretion exercised must rise above the “routine or clerical” in order to constitute “independent judgment” under the Act.

NLRB Members:

• Chairman Robert J. Battista,
• Member Wilma B. Liebman,
• Member Peter C. Schaumber,
• Member Peter N. Kirsanow,
• Member Dennis P. Walsh,
• General Counsel:  Ronald E. Meisburg

Back in 1995, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek confirmed that Tom Delay, as House majority whip, had a little black book as part of doing business in the House. In October 2005, Alter wrote about it in Tom DeLay’s House of Shame, “A decade ago, I paid a call on Tom DeLay in his ornate office in the Capitol. I had heard a rumor about him that I figured could not possibly be true. The rumor was that after the GOP took control of the House that year, DeLay had begun keeping a little black book with the names of Washington lobbyists who wanted to come see him. If the lobbyists were not Republicans and contributors to his power base, they didn’t get into ‘the people’s House.’ DeLay not only confirmed the story, he showed me the book.”

Alter went on to write (bold added), “… Congress over the years has seen dozens of sex scandals and dozens of members brought low by financial improprieties. But never before has the leadership of the House been hijacked by a small band of extremists bent on building a ruthless shakedown machine, lining the pockets of their richest constituents and rolling back popular protections for ordinary people.”

Now put Tom’s black book in the context of the Foley sex scandal. Did Tom know about Foley’s inclinations for young males? Did Tom use it to get Foley to vote a certain way? What else did Tom know about is fellow Republicans? Would Tom have kept this sensity information in his little black book? Even if he didn’t, was there anything that would have kept Tom from using it as part of his “ruthless shakedown machine?”

On September 22, Professor Jordan Paust of the University of Houston Law Center provided the guest column for JURIST: “Unsafe Harbor: The GOP ‘Compromise’ on Detainee Treatment”

Professor Paust teaches the following courses:

• U.S. Constitution and Foreign Affairs
• International Criminal Law
• International Human Rights
• International Law
• Jurisprudence
• Use of Force and Terrorism

According to Professor Paust, and despite the “compromise” between the moderate senators and the authoritarian Republican Executive, there is a possibility of placing “the United States in violation of common Article 3 and other provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions …, not to mention similar provisions in several other international treaties and instruments and customary international law. Those who would authorize, abet, or implement the “compromise” language in violation of common Article 3 … would be subject to criminal and civil sanctions outside the United States in any foreign forum and in certain international courts. No Act of Congress would change this result.”

Professor Paust references specific legal rulings on why this could happen:

He [Supreme Court Justice Kennedy on the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case] then noted that common Article 3 “is part of a treaty the United States has ratified and thus accepted as binding law.” As noted also, every violation of the law of war is a war crime, punishable here or abroad in any country and in international fora presently operative or created in the future under the principle of universal jurisdiction. A denial of the rights and protections under the Geneva Conventions … is a violation of the Conventions and a violation of the Conventions is a war crime. Certain violations of Geneva law are not merely war crimes but are also “grave breaches.” These include “torture,” “inhuman treatment,” and “wilfully[sic] causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health.”

Another provision of treaty-based laws of war that also reflects customary international law is quite relevant …. It is set forth in Article 23(h) of the Annex to the 1907 Hague Convention No. IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which reads: “it is especially forbidden … [t]o declare abolished, suspended, or inadmissible in a court of law the rights … of the nationals of the hostile party.” Similarly, as part of the law of war, a violation of the Hague Convention is a war crime and acceptance of the Republican compromisers’ draft would do just that.

Addressing Article 4 of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which incorporates all violations of common Article 3 and lists several of its proscriptions (including torture, mutilation, outrages upon personal dignity, humiliating treatment, degrading treatment, rape, and any form of indecent assault), the Trial Chamber in The Prosecutor v. Musema (2000) ruled that the list “is taken from Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II” and “comprises serious violations of the fundamental humanitarian guarantees which … are recognised as customary international law” (emphasis added). Thus, if Congress wishes to focus on “serious” violations, all of those listed in common Article 3 are among them.

Professor Paust then cites additional legal definitions of serious violations:

More particularly, the Trial Chamber ruled that humiliating and degrading treatment includes “[s]ubjecting victims to treatment designed to subvert their self-regard,” adding: “motives required for torture would not be required.” “Indecent assault,” the court affirmed, involved “the infliction of pain or injury by an act which was of a sexual nature and inflicted by means of coercion, force, threat or intimidation and was non-consensual.” … For example, while addressing five British interrogation tactics used in the 1970s (wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink), the European Court of Human Rights affirmed that inhuman treatment occurred with respect to a combination of some of the tactics that “caused, if not bodily injury, at least intense physical and mental suffering.” …

A U.S. court has also recognized that “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment includes acts which inflict mental or physical suffering, anguish, humiliation, fear and debasement” and that being “forced to observe the suffering of friends and neighbors … [is] another form of inhumane and degrading treatment.” As documented in my article, the Committee Against Torture … affirmed that seven interrogation tactics are either torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment criminally proscribed by the Convention: (1) restraining in very painful conditions, (2) hooding under special conditions, (3) sounding of loud music for prolonged periods, (4) sleep deprivation for prolonged periods, (5) threats, including death threats, (6) violent shaking, and (7) using cold air to chill.

In closing, Professor Paust points out the failures of the Republican compromise:

First, several definitions in the draft are limited to others that are found in prior legislation, even though the Committee on Torture noted that prior U.S. legislation is inadequate and, thus, this scheme will not protect U.S. interrogators.

Second, contrary to some of the standards noted above, some of the definitions in the draft are far too limiting and, thus, do not adequately warn U.S. interrogators regarding what the actual international legal standards are.

Third, the draft attempts to abet this problem by requiring that “[n]o foreign or international sources of law shall supply a basis for a rule of decision … in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated” in the draft.

We must chose …

Between being feared as a warmonger nation and condemned around the world or regaining the respect of at least our allies.

Between fighting the terrorist threat endlessly or winning it through an international law enforcement program and major changes in our international diplomacy.

Between embarrassing visiting foreign dignitaries or treating them with dignity and respect, and garnering their support.

Between disrespecting and dishonoring our international commitments or recognizing that others will support our struggles when we honor those commitments

Between trying to force democracy on a country that may not have the internal fortitude to maintain it, much less create one, or securing our wide open borders and ports of entry.

Between maintaining a training and breeding ground for more terrorists or capturing Osama.

Between being sucked deeper into a crusade by Osama and promoting peace in the middle east.

Between sacrificing our rights for unreasonable threats or accepting that we can hold the high ground and still win.

Between a intolerant, mean-spirited, single-party government or one that is open, pragmatic and willing to figure out the best solution for the country as a whole.

Between a future theocratic dictatorship or getting back to what our dissident founding fathers established and put in our care.

Between signed laws that are voided by signing statements and laws that are respected and validated by the signer.

Between fear-mongering leaders or leadership, honesty, and integrity from elected officials.

Between what is easy to do with unchecked power or doing what is difficult and will assure that our grandchildren will be proud of what we did for them.

Between keeping a Congress that either rubber stamps or fabricates disputes with the executive, or electing a congress that should seriously question executive authority.

Between a congress who’s members can’t stand to be in the same room with the other party or a congressmen that respect the beliefs and seniority of their coworkers.

Between K Street keeping incombent Congressman in place indefinitely or replacing poor performers before they turn Capitol Hill into a perpetual country club of rich Republicans helping other rich Republicans get richer.

Between using truthiness to govern or government action based on knowledge and reason.

Between a leadership where dissent is equated with treason and you are part of the problem or where everyone is seen as a potential contributor and given a fair hearing.

Between a judiciary immersed in personal beliefs and popular opinion or one grounded in the rule of law.

Between letting the evangelical authoritarians control our election results or electing officials that have a conscience.

I close with this quote from John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience, “time has run out, and the next two or three national election cycles will define America in the twenty-first century.”

According to the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the U. S. government, “In 2005 the price of crude oil averaged $50.23 per barrel, and crude oil accounted for about 53 percent of the cost of a gallon of regular grade gasoline. Taxes (not including county and local taxes) account for approximately 19 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Refining costs and profits comprise about 19 percent of the retail price of gasoline. Distribution, marketing and retail dealer costs and profits combined make up 9 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline.”

Also available from the EIA are the historical crude and gasoline prices. The chart below displays these EIA data from 1978 to 2006. All prices are adjusted to 2005 dollars. The red line represents the average annual U. S. domestic crude oil cost. The blue line is for the average annual cost of retail gasoline – all grades. The numbers for 2006 are an estimate based on 2006 data from the EIA.

Click on image for full view.

Note that the prices for crude oil are for one tenth (1/10) of a barrel to provide scale.

Do you see the correlation and that maybe gasoline prices could have been much higher if the correlation was tighter?

In this twelfth survey of the web, The WAWG Index category group average was up by 194.7 percent from August 2006. Of the fourteen categories tracked, 2 were down slightly, 12 were up quite a bit, and 0 were unchanged. The cumulative change for the index is up 259 percent since October 2005, and at a new high.

By far, the largest change for September, at 1,648%, was for “obsession with crime and punishment”. The next largest increase was for “rampant sexism” at 192%. In third place was “obsession with national security” – 178%.

The largest drop for the month was 31 percent for “fraudulent elections.”

A random sampling of the search results for those items up by triple digits, appears to be the result of many postings of Lawrence W. Britt’s 14 characteristics of fascism, which helped lead to the creation of this site.

Maybe this index is taking on a new meaning: an awakening to the single-party trends that have been happening for years as opposed to trends sliding by unnoticed.

Many insist on calling our efforts to fight a relatively small group of individuals a war. I think this national endeavor is giving the terrorists far too much credit and we are only empowering them to have more control over our lives by doing so. The phase “war on terror” and the various al-Qaeda videos are being used to scare us out of reasoning and manipulate us both from within and from without. It is time for a little perspective about what war means, what its use has allowed to happen to this nation and how best to combat this new threat.

On December 7, 1941, we were attacked by a force far more formidable than the 19 terrorists of 9/11/2001 and their brothers in arms hiding in Afghanistan/Pakistan – the Japanese Navy. Japanese funding and military power far exceeded that from al-Qaeda.

The Japanese hit America with between 150 and 200 planes from several aircraft carriers. The Japanese attack struck at almost the entire Pacific fleet. Pearl Harbor contained eight battleships, seven cruisers, 28 destroyers, and five submarines. Nineteen of these 48 ships were sunk or severely damaged. The attackers also destroyed 177 Navy and Army aircraft.

Unfortunately, there is just one fact that is comparable between these two vicious attacks on America. Just like 9/11/2001, there was the tragic loss of fellow Americans. The losses for the Navy and Marines were 2,117 killed, 960 missing and unaccounted for and 876 wounded. For the Army, 226 were killed and 396 wounded. Civilian casualties included 49 killed and 83 wounded. The total killed or missing and presumed dead was 3,352. (Encyclopedia Americana, 1953, volume 21, page 437.) Wikipedia has more and slightly different details, but it is still obvious that the Japanese were much more of a threat than al-Qaeda can ever hope to be.

To put this war(?) on terror in further perspective relative the the attack by the Japanese, it will help to look back at how Americans responded to this loss of 3,352 Navy, Army and civilian brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. What did they do? What did they sacrifice? How many joined the military to help defeat the enemies? How much of the economy went to support the war. What became the goal of every worker?

For answers to some of these questions and what it takes from a nation to fight a real war, here are some quotes from Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation: (Emphasis and current related data added.)

Looking back, I can recall that the grown-ups all seemed to have a sense of purpose that was evident even to someone as young as four, five, or six. Whatever else was happening in our family or neighborhood, there was something greater connecting all of us, in large ways and small.

Indeed there was, and the scope of the national involvement was reflected in the numbers: by 1944, twelve million Americans [9.1% of the 1940 population] were in uniform [In 2002, there were 1.4 million (0.5% of 2002 estimated population) in service to America.]; war production represented 44 percent of the Gross National Product [In 2005, the budget for the Department of Defense was about 3.6 percent of the nation’s GDP]; there were almost nineteen million more workers [13.6% of 1945 population] than there had been five years earlier [From January 2001 to December 2005, job growth was a little over ten million workers, or 3.4% of 2005 estimated population], and 35 percent of them were women. The nation was immersed in the war effort at every level.

… more than a million men would go into uniform immediately … [From Mourning Has Broken ; “in the two years since September 11, he [President Bush] has not once publicly urged young people to join the military, nor has he called for increasing the active-duty roster. “]

If we are in a full fledged high-demand war, why wouldn’t the president be asking for more enlistees? Why aren’t we buying war bonds? Why isn’t there gas rationing to help fuel our military machines? Why aren’t we recycling scrap metal and rubber to provide for the troops material needs? — Why are we shopping and going to the movies like there is no war?

I am not saying Americans did not respond to 9/11/2001. We all did. However, except for our service men and women and their families, most of us have not made any significant or long term serious commitment as was done by The Greatest Generation. Why is that? Because this is not an endeavor that requires the effort of the entire nation.

In WWII, this nation took on, with the help of friends we no longer have, and defeated two large well-prepared enemies in less time than has already been spent on President Bush’s war(?) on terror. But that kind of commitment is not what we need now.

Robert Dreyfus put the current terrorist threat this way:

Compared to the Al Qaeda of 2001, this new generation of terrorists is mostly amateurs, less likely and less capable of pulling off truly spectacular acts of violence. Though they can cause significant casualties from time to time, counter-terrorism officials say, they are more like a low-grade viral infection — life-threatening only if left unattended. “There is a relatively small number of people who are out there trying to hurt us,” says James Steinberg, a deputy national-security adviser under President Clinton.

If the national commitments and real threat for this war(?) on terror are so small compared to WWII, what is there to be so scared of? More importantly, if this is not a war, what are we doing giving up our civil rights, turning our back on our international friends, taking preemptive actions and and lowering our moral standards?

Maybe we should be responding to the attack on 9/11/2001 more in terms of the response to Timothy McVeigh and the “deadliest terrorist attack on US soil prior to the September 11, 2001.”

This is a law enforcement issue, not a war, that requires the cooperation of citizens, and local, state, national and international intelligence organizations. So stop letting the social dominator authoritarians scare you and consider voting them, and their intolerant, narrow-minded followers, out of office so we can attack this national endeavor the right way – with intelligence, citizen vigilance, law enforcement and valid actionable information.

Are you tired of being scared? Maybe a little perspective would help?

Do you fear dying from heart disease?  700,142  Americans were kill by it in 2001.

Do you fear dying from cancer?   553,768  Americans were kill by it in 2001.

Do you fear dying from an accident of any kind?  101,537  Americans were killed accidentally in 2001.

Do you fear dying from suicide?  30,622  Americans took their own lives in 2001.

Do you fear the loss of a infant?  27,801 infants died in 2001.

Do you fear dying from homicide?  17,330 Americans were murdered in 2001.

Do you fear dying from a work injury?  5,431  Americans were died at work in 2001.

Do you fear dying from drowning?  3,247  Americans drowned in 2001.

If we don’t fear most of these causes of death, then why should we fear dying at the hands of a terrorist. It is less likely than any of the above. On the other hand, if we are in a state of fear due to the constant drumbeat from the authoritarians in the Republican party, how reasoned are any decisions we might make?

Luke Mitchell wrote an article back in March 2004, the last time fear was used by the Republican authoritarians to short circuit our brains. Luke Mitchell began his article with this, “Terror, like ecstasy, tends to magnify perceptions. Just as affection becomes adoration in the physical act of love, so too does vigilance sometimes become morbid obsession in the face of spectacular violence. To be effective, this normal function of survival must also be temporary. It is now more than two years since our own national incident of spectacular violence, however, and although the United States remains obsessed, it is not unfair, or even insensitive, to begin considering the events of September 11 from a more detached perspective.” (Mitchell’s article provided the above statistics.)

In the “Legitimizing Authoritarian Conservatism: The Ugly Politics of Fear” section of his book Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean concluded with, “In short, fear takes reasoning out of the decision-making process, which our history has shown us often enough can have dangerous and long-lasting consequences.  If Americans cannot engage in analytical thinking as a result of Republicans’ using fear for their own political purposes, we are all in serious trouble.  I am sure I am not alone in worrying about the road that we are now on, and where the current authoritarianism is taking the country.  I only wish other people would talk about it.”

Ted Galen Carpenter of the CATO Institute, put it this way, “Compared to the lethal menaces of the twentieth century, the strategic threat posed by radical Islamic terrorists is minor league. On September 11th, 2001, the terrorists killed some 3,000 people, and subsequent attacks in Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, London and Mumbai have killed hundreds more. Tragic as those deaths are, they pale in comparison to the nearly 100 million deaths of the two world wars.”

Our job, according to Bruce Schneier of Wired magazine,

is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. … Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show’s viewership.

The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn’t make us any safer.

Please keep the fear of terrorism in perspective and think about doing what is best for this country and keeping us from being scared into a single-party authoritarian state.

As I said in Failed Single Party Nations of the Past – Where Are We Going Now?, “Nations run by a single party (political, army or dictatorship) tend to become intensely nationalistic, racist, militaristic and imperialistic. They are supported by the ‘masses’ but not necessarily the majority of the national population. Support for this system is enhanced by identifying an ‘enemy’ and its ‘supporters’, labeling them with prejudicial adjectives and urging the masses to support violence against them.” That article was about the past. This article, and the three that follow, are about the initial stages of converting our Democracy into a single party system. They are about high-level authoritarian leaders from a “single party” and the right-wing authoritarian followers that are the “masses.”

In the previous article, I concluded with, “So, who are these Leaders that we need to get out of public office before they turn this country upside-down?” I have come to believe that they are the Double High authoritarians as identified by John Dean’s review of the situation in Conservatives Without Conscience. They are listed in this series of four posts along with their identified authoritarian traits and the infamous deeds they have used, and will continue to use, to bring us to a single party system of authoritarians. I have added some family history, but there is no proven relationship between this and the other information presented here.

Please note: Not all conservatives are after this single party goal – only those with authoritarian personalities.

John Dean provided a little perspective to this threat, “Political Authoritarianism in America still pales in comparison with that in countries like China and Russia ….” However, under the heading of “Authoritarian Origins of Social Conservatism” John Dean asserts that, “Any representative list of the major players in launching this movement should include J. Edgar Hoover, Spiro T. Agnew, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich.” John later adds, “Christian Conservatives’ primary tool in reinforcing authoritarianism is preaching fear, and no one does so more than the head of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson.”

I leave the details of those authoritarians to John Dean’s words and go on to a more current list of Social Dominators, their families, their traits and their deeds. I need to point out here that what follows just barely scratches the surface of how the Republicans plan, according to John Dean, “to build a permanent majority in America, and a one-party rule”.

John Dean started off the chapter on these single party authoritarians with, “While authoritarian conservatism was growing in force in Washington for a decade before Bush and Cheney arrived at the White House, their administration has taken it to its highest and most dangerous level in American History. It is doubtful they could have accomplished this had authoritarian conservatism not already taken hold on Capitol Hill …. … it is difficult to think of anyone who has done more to poison national politics … than Gingrich and Delay.”