Oh...this is one to watch.!

[Grins]

Today’s Washington Post has a story about the Bush White House struggling over a pending Supreme Court case to get rid of state laws on buying wine over the Internet.

Representing the wine industry is - Ken Starr! And the “other side” (if you can call them that) is represented by - Miguel Estrada! Yes, that Estrada.

The “other side” that Starr has to face is not only Estrada, but also happens to be Bush’s other base, the right-wing evangelicals (“National Association of Evangelicals”, “Concerned Women for America and American Values”) that the Repukes have courted for years, and whose “values” they have tried to ram down everyone’s throats. They are against changing the laws, not for tax reasons, but for “Family Values” because, "Underage youth are purchasing alcohol at alarming rates…and "Anything that undermines the progress that has been made on keeping underage kids away from alcohol is bad."

Republican corporate interests vs. Republican Family Values! All in a court dominated by daddies pals. God, I love it!

What is interesting about this is that when the government put out – or tried to – a warning about underage drinking, and was considering PR campaigns to try to keep kids (and young adults) from drinking, the industry fought back. And with good reason. A SIZABLE portion (like 20%) of their gross revenues comes from selling booze to those illegal (gasp!) underage drinkers, so to hell with them and their lives!

The guy leading the charge for the wine industry is Robert P. Koch. This is the same Robert Koch that just also happens to be George W. Bush’s brother-in-law! He’s married to Bush's sister, Doro, and he’s the president of the industry group that hired Ken Starr.

Bush’s brother-in-law and the industry tried to stop the report dead. When the job of Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism came open, what better way to thwart the report/recommendations than by putting in one of your guys into the top job?

No, Bush did not make him Director. But, just as bad - he nominated Koch to the search committee to find the new director - for an agency that aims to regulate in some fashion the industry Koch is working for! What better way to keep them in line than with a little “Manchurian Candidate” all your own?

Once again, Bush puts an industry lobbyist into a government position.

See why this case is so interesting? This is one I’m going to keep an eye on.

Cheers!

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21966-2004Jul28.html>

[displacedtexan]

1. That's hilarious!

Hm.

WWSDOD?

What will Sandra Day O'Connor do?

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I love it...it will great to watch. Anyone betting on the outcome?

[napi21]

4. I'll bet on Starr!

I HATE what he did to Clinton, but he's a bulldog that bites and doesn't let go. If he accepted the case, he'll fight for his clients and he's got a lot of experience with the SC. I can't remember Estrada having any experience there at all.

Wonder if this is why that Bush atty (I can't remember his name, but his wife died in the plane crash into the Pentagon) quit a few weeks ago. Nobody seemed to know why.

[Grins]

6. Ted Olson

Ted was Bush's Solicitor General. Quit this month.

Don't know if this was the reason. My thought was he figured out Chimpy's days are numbered, he'd be out of a job a couple of months after the election, so why stick around.

Good riddance. Hope our next Ag goes after him for perjury.

[AwakeAtLast]

3. Hmmm.....

*'s daugters were 2 people out of that 20%. What kind of values is he using at home? Must be the opposite of what he is trying to push off on the rest of us!

[shimmergal]

5. Sounds like an interesting case, but . . .

I get a little tired of the knee-jerk reaction of being horrified at the idea of anyone drinking "underage." It smacks of hypocrisy to me.

I wonder, how _many_ DUers NEVER touched an alcoholic beverage until they turned 21? I'll bet the percentage is low. The Fed government forced a uniform drinking age thru blackmail with the highway fund money. IMO it's one of those things that should be left to individual states anyhow.

Driving drunk, or even drinking and driving, are something else entirely and should have heavy sanctions against them. But a uniform age-21 drinking law is just another area where young people are being scapegoated by our subliminal Puritan morals.

Old enough to fight, old enough to vote, old enough to get married or have sex; then you should be old enough to drink too, IMO. Sensibly and moderately, one hopes. But under-21s aren't the only people who overindulge with alcohol. The worst DWI accident I was ever close to, with two people dead and the third left severely injured for life, was of a friend's father and his two buddies, all men in their 40s, who were speeding and outrageously drunk.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Uh....that's not the point of the original post.

[Grins]

8. Reaction...

I can see some of your points, but I'm not sure how your comment on three men in their 40's has much to do with teenagers. My intent was not to get into a discussion on drinking to which there are many viewpoints, only to show that the Bush administration is now in a bind - in an election year, and it serves them right. And where were the Evangelicals when Bush pulled this dirty little deed with his brother-in-law last year? Too busy beating up Congressmen over AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases and adolescents research at federal labs, and trying to cut their funding? (See Bob Herbert, NY Times, 03 Nov 03)

When you ask how many of us ever had a drink as underage teenagers, you tend to think of yourself as a college freshman or sophomore. The real battle is with early and mid-teens who are not only drinking more, but far more. You will not eliminate it, but you could reduce it, and that was the governments objective.

What I did not mention was the source of the story (it’s below). That article also said, “… alcohol is the most dangerous drug to young people. Far more than any illegal drug, alcohol is linked to the three main causes of teen deaths: accidents, murder and suicide. It kills 61/2 times as many American youths as all illegal drugs combined.”

It then asks, “So why do we have a national youth anti-drug campaign and not a national anti-underage-drinking campaign?” Phrased another way, why would the Congress so enthusiastically embrace a $1 billion campaign to get kids off illegal drugs, but defeat a $500,000 proposal for those same kids because it includes alcohol? The author answered his own question, "Simple: Alcohol has a better lobby.” They finally settle on a lousy $500,000, a ”study”, but even that pissed off the booze industry.

The industry went nuts and, being very powerful, were able to get a letter signed by 138 members of Congress sent to the National Academy of Sciences president, warning him that the $500,000 appropriation “…was not intended to produce policy changes that would adversely affect the alcohol industry” – they guys the study was about!

Later, “…(a Bush) Health and Human Services administrator wrote to the study's program officer asking that the alcohol industry be allowed to peer-review the report before it was released. Such a bold request on behalf of an industry with a clear financial interest stunned the research community. Had the program officer allowed this unprecedented intrusion, which she didn't, it would have compromised the scientific integrity of the report and tarnished the entire NAS research process.” Heard of that tactic by this administration before?

The article ends with, “…the idea of a national campaign against what the American Medical Association calls an epidemic in every community will just die quietly.

Source: “The Booze Lobby vs. America's Youth”, By Jim Gogek, Washington Post, Monday, July 14, 2003

[TankLV]

9. It was 18 when I was 16 - & I never did.

I actually preferred milk w/spaghetti.

Never stole nothin.

Never did anything the repukes accuse "everyone" of doing.

And neither did any of my friends.

Smoking was the exception. Hated it the first time I tried it and never got the habit - but sure almost got it during the past 3 1/2 years!