There has been a bit of hubbub about a Spanish translation of the Star Spangled Banner. It’s the perfect issue, really. Lots of emotion over a symbol. Everybody can easily have an opinion. No real knowledge is necessary. So, I have one of those easily held opinions.

What’s the big deal? It does no violence to the original, English version to have a Spanish version out there any more than it does violence to the Bible to have English translations of it. A fixation on maintaining the Star Spangled Banner in its original English strikes me as analogous to the insistence by (some?) Muslims that the Koran is valuable only in its original Arabic. I make no arguments about the validity of that belief for the Koran, but for the Star Spangled Banner, it’s primarily the ideas expressed that matter, not the language of expression.

The Duke Cunningham scandal now has a twist that may make cable news channels take greater notice: prostitutes. The “news” channels can tittilate their audiences with sex talk under the pretext of criticizing corruption by an elected official.

The allegations are that Duke Cunningham, former Republican representative from California, got more than money from a defense contractor in exchange for favorable legislation and consideration with respect to defense spending. Cunningham is also suspected of having received prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites.

He seems to have forgotten the admonition of former Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly Jesse Unruh:

If you can’t eat their food, drink their liquor, f*** their whores – and then vote against them, you have no business being here.

Old Duke appears to have aced the part about food, liquor, and whores, but forgotten the part about voting against them. TPM Muckraker has more of the details which involve hotel suites at the Watergate Hotel of all places.

The FBI investigation into the prostitution allegations apparently could involve as many as a half dozen members of Congress and, lefty blogosphere rumor has it, House Intel-Chair-turned-CIA Director Porter Goss.

I’ve heard and seen a couple of news reports on Operation Falcon II which was a dragnet by the federal government to apprehend fugitives. Apparently 9,000 fugitives were arrested between April 17 and yesterday, including 200 from Indiana.

My question is “why a dragnet?” Why wasn’t the federal government arresting these people as their whereabouts became known? Is there some kind of economy of scale to arresting fugitives that makes it easier and more cost effective to allow fugitives whose whereabouts are known remain at large for a period of time until the government can arrest them en masse? I guess it makes for better PR anyway.

Another good one from Doghouse Riley, dissecting the right-wing blogosphere’s response to evidence that the CIA has been running secret prisons in Eastern Europe (and the Bush administration’s subsequent reaction of firing the person they think leaked the information.)  It apparently supplanted a story he had planned on re-gapping the sparkplug on his lawnmower. But don’t worry, it’ll keep!

I cannot at all attest to the accuracy of the reporting about parliamentary procedure, but according to this column, there is a provision in the House Rules that allows a joint resolution of a state legislature to initiate federal impeachment proceedings.

This site has some details.

According to Section 604 of the Manual, “[a] direct proposition to impeach is a question of high privilege in the House and at once supersedes business otherwise in order under the rules governing the order of business.”

An impeachment resolution is pending before the Illinois General Assembly. It was filed on Thursday and recommends impeachment because George Bush violated FISA by spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant, because evidence suggest that George Bush authorized violations of the Torture Convention of the Geneva Conventions, because George Bush has held American citizens as prisoners of war without charge or trial, because evidence suggests the Bush administration manipulated intelligence for the purpose of initiating a war against Iraq, because the Bush administration leaked classified national secrets to further a political agenda, and because the Republican controlled Congress has refused to do its duty and investigate these matters fully.

Personally, I don’t want an impeachment. I want subpoenas to fly. And I want the administration to groan under the weight of a hundred investigations.

I agree with the basic premise of this column by Craig Shirley which is that there is a rift between business Republicans who like having the cheap labor that immigrants represent and rank and file Republicans who don’t really like having them here. But these two paragraphs made me a bit nauseous:

Major Republicans have taken to attacking others within their own party as unsophisticated nativists. In a recent Wall Street Journal column, former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie warned populists to cease and desist from promoting “border enforcement first” legislation. “Anti-immigration rhetoric is a political siren song, and Republicans must resist its lure,” he said. And in a recent editorial, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol attacked populist Republicans for not recognizing the danger of “turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party.”

Conservatives see this kind of rhetoric as inflammatory, anti-intellectual and offensive. Far from being driven by xenophobia and intolerance, conservative populists are motivated by a profound respect for the rule of law and by a patriotic regard for America’s sovereignty and national security. Upholding the rule of law and protecting our country’s borders is important to conservative populists and to most Americans.

“Profound respect for the rule of law,” my eye. I don’t see a hue and cry from rank and file conservatives to investigate President Bush for his apparently illegal warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens.

I suspect a lot of them simply don’t like having in their towns a bunch of brown people who talk funny and who are willing to work harder for less money. (Hey, if Mr. Shirley can make sweeping generalizations about what conservatives think, so can I.)

Vice President Cheney, who is about as popular as halitosis, came to Indianapolis today. According to an article in the Indianapolis Star by Mary Beth Schneider, he arrived at the airport at 11, was greeted by Attorney General Steve Carter and “other leading Indiana Republicans,” wouldn’t speak to reporters, was whisked away to the Columbia Club, entered through the back door, attended a lunch and roundtable discussion that was closed to reporters, then left.

Apparently Cheney is a little like heroin, in that there is a certain hardcore segment of the population who will cough up serious cash to be with him but nobody really wants to be too closely associated with him.