John Ashcroft was governor of Missouri when I lived there for a time during the 1980s. He was a classic right-wing zealot, and he hasn’t changed a bit since he went to Washington as one of the state’s U.S. senators. Now he’s George W. Bush’s nominee for attorney general.
The press is falling for Bush’s deceptive marketing of his appointees. Naming social moderates like Christine Todd Whitman to run the Environmental Protection Agency and Colin Powell as Secretary of State means nothing when it comes to making social policy. Bush expects Whitman to undermine the environmental enforcement that has taken place during the past eight years. He knows Powell is a hard-liner on military issues. That is why they were chosen.
Ashcroft will work to undermine abortion rights. He has an unbelievably bad record on civil rights and civil liberties. Just what Bush wants, no doubt, but just what America does not need.
So much for compassionate conservatism. So much for being a unifier, not a divider.
ISPs and Spammers
Ed Foster (Infowordl): UUNet seems to be biggest spam haven. “This isn’t a case of not knowing they’re doing it — UUNet has now made a policy decision that it will continue to host and hence profit from the supply of spam services,” Linford says.