Semantic Blockage

Holy Shit

2007-01-11T22:41:00.000-06:00

Did the president seriously just declare war on Iran and Syria? That's been the buzz since last night but I chalked that up to people taking the extreme definition of the Bush policies as what is actually happening. I think President CooCoo bananas has really gone insane this time. His team trying to claim the American Throne for his majesty must have assured him that there is literally nothing anyone can do to stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants. Digby goes for the frat boy analogy calling him, "the typical spoiled rich kind, alcoholic style that is born of someone who has never had to deal with the consequences of their actions."

But the situation is a little more serious than the usual "Bush is a pawn with delusions of grandeur." There is some serious shit about to happen.

Greenwald says that "The President's Intentions Towards Iran Need Much More Attention" and makes an argument that Israel is planning on going to war with Iran, with America as its ally. That makes sense since the Coalition of the Willing is dwindling as even our British mates abandon this catastrophe. Whatever Israel does is their business. They have been fighting a war since the creation of the modern state and will continue fighting wars ad finitum. There is no way around that. Still, that doesn't mean we should get involved with their skirmishes and let them dictate our foreign policy. Israeli goals happen to sort of coincide with the aggressive fringe wing of the minority party so that we can make that section of the world mad at us to prove that section of the world is mad at us.

Tony Snow claimed that the election of Democrats into the Senate and House were a call for Bush to invade Iran and escalate troops in Iraq. Even if it was a very decisive factor in the election (it was), Snow claimed that what the American people and Congress want doesn't matter because "The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way".

Wrong. 100% Exactly Wrong.

If the people think the President is acting the wrong way (which he is) they have an obligation to dramatically change the political landscape he operates from, which they did. Not the other way around. Despite all the claims to the contrary, this administration has hardly been known for listening skills.

CooCooBananas 1/1/06
"As the Iraqis are able to take more of the fight to the enemy, our commanders on the ground will be able to make a different assessment about the troop strength. And I'm going to continue to rely upon those commanders, such as General Casey, who is doing a fabulous job and whose judgment I trust ..."

But after Abizaid and Casey rejected an increase in troop levels as a solution to the problem this administration got us in, they were both replaced. Now, Lincoln replaced his Generals many times during the Civil War but that was dependant on their performance not political stances. Bush made it clear more than ever that if you stand with him you are doing a fabulous job but if you disagree...

It doesn't matter what credentials you have, which the authors of the Baker-Hamilton commission found out right recently. Before the report came out Bush is supposed to have called it a "flaming turd". The administration decided that the most batshit crazy thing for them to do was do exactly the opposite of what the experts were recommending:

During White House deliberations, "How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.
"As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton."
And: "In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take."

WTF??? Are we dealing with children who need to be reverse psychologied into making correct decisions?

Instead they formed their own study group to look at their options that resembles an actual study group much along the lines of what the Gitmo war tribunals resemble a real court. As with everything this administration does, they formed their opinions and need people to justify it with cyclical reasoning and baseless conjectures instead of facts.

Despite the ground Generals assessment of the situation and the Iraq Study Group's recommendation to pull out all troops by 2008, the White House has opted to send in more troops. Despite the ongoing call to engage Syria and Iran to help secure the region, the White House had begun picking a fight with them.

Glenn Greenwald has been documenting the rhetorical build up to war noting:

Increasingly explicit advocacy by neoconservatives in the U.S. for a war with Iran, as reflected by the recent Washington Post Op-Ed by Joe Lieberman in which he really did declare that the U.S. is already at war with Iran ("While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran");

in the later stages of 2006, the President's most prominent neoconservative supporters becoming increasingly explicit about their advocacy of war with Iran;

The transparent and deliberate use by the President throughout the last several months of 2006 of highly threatening and accusatory language towards Iran that is identical in content and tone to the language he used towards Iraq in the months immediately preceding the U.S. invasion -- often verbatim identical.

Rhetorical talk aside, there is mounting evidence for a build up to another assault on some other country in the region. Patriot missles are being shipped over there, the standing fleet waiting, promotion of a Navy guy to lead ground operations, as well as this increase in troop levels and raiding Iranian and Syrian consolates (an act of war)

U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran's consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members, a state-run Iranian news service said.
The U.S. soldiers disarmed guards and broke open the consulate's gate before seizing documents and computers during the operation, which took place today at about 5 a.m. local time, the Islamic Republic News Agency said. There was no immediate information on whether any of those detained are diplomats.

The raid follows a warning yesterday to Iran and Syria from President George W. Bush in his address to the American people on a new strategy for Iraq. Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding the movement of ``terrorists and insurgents'' in and out of Iraq and said the U.S. will ``seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.''

Then there is this little gem

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

Does that sound unconstitutional? Joe Biden thinks it does.

"That will generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate, I predict to you,"

Holy Shit

2007-01-11T20:37:00.000-06:00

During White House deliberations, "How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.
"As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton."
And: "In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take."

Increasingly explicit advocacy by neoconservatives in the U.S. for a war with Iran, as reflected by the recent Washington Post Op-Ed by Joe Lieberman in which he really did declare that the U.S. is already at war with Iran ("While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran");

in the later stages of 2006, the President's most prominent neoconservative supporters becoming increasingly explicit about their advocacy of war with Iran;

The transparent and deliberate use by the President throughout the last several months of 2006 of highly threatening and accusatory language towards Iran that is identical in content and tone to the language he used towards Iraq in the months immediately preceding the U.S. invasion -- often verbatim identical.

U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran's consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members, a state-run Iranian news service said.
The U.S. soldiers disarmed guards and broke open the consulate's gate before seizing documents and computers during the operation, which took place today at about 5 a.m. local time, the Islamic Republic News Agency said. There was no immediate information on whether any of those detained are diplomats.

The raid follows a warning yesterday to Iran and Syria from President George W. Bush in his address to the American people on a new strategy for Iraq. Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding the movement of ``terrorists and insurgents'' in and out of Iraq and said the U.S. will ``seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.''

Then there is this little gem

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

Does that sound unconstitutional? Joe Biden thinks it does.

"That will generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate, I predict to you,"

Gobble Gobble

2006-11-23T12:04:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving

Setting the Record Straight

2006-11-22T16:27:00.000-06:00

The White House likes to put out these "Setting the Record Straight" releases whenever reality contradicts their spin. Today's Edition: America's Wage Growth Is Steady And Strong

Real Wages Have Risen 2.8 Percent Over The Past Year, Which Means An Extra $1,687 For The Typical Family Of Four With Two Wage Earners. This data is specifically for production and non-supervisory workers, about 80 percent of the workforce – the supervisory workers who tend to earn more are not included.

The National Unemployment Rate Has Dropped To 4.4 Percent – The Lowest Rate In More Than Five Years.

Over The Past Three Months, America Has Added 470,000 New Jobs, For A Total Of More Than 6.8 Million New Jobs Since August Of 2003.

What they are arguing here is things are starting to get to Clinton era levels. They fail to mention that median family income dropped almost three percent in the last six years. The method of taking averages glosses over the fact that job growth does not reflect quality job growth. Averages might be up because the top percentages are making money but the middle and low end as usual are stagnant or losing out.

Consumer Prices Fell For The Second Straight Month In October

Chinese brand televisions for all!!!

Energy Prices Fell 7 Percent In October

After a most incredible increase. Gas around here is only $2.50 so I should be thankful to this administration.

At the end of the day, the editorial they were trying to refute ("The Wage Picture – And What It Says About The Economy – Is Still Cloudy") seems to be an accurate assessment.

I'm not trying to be a gloomy gus and say that we are all doomed and everything is terrible but ignoring the problems we are facing and calling out anyone that questions where we are heading does not do us any good.

True but...

2006-11-22T14:59:00.000-06:00

USNews & World Report

The degree to which the new Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill despises Vice President Dick Cheney is a big plus for President Bush. Consider why incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid scrapped an idea to impeach Bush: "Two words: Dick Cheney," he says, joking that it would vault the veep into the Oval Office.

That's one thing that has always bothered me about the Bush election is that people were also electing Cheney who is not just manipulatable but a truly truly bad and selfish man. The only way impeachment would work would be to impeach them both. I'm sure whatever George could be tried for, Cheney could be tried for.

But people might not want to see the big fuss and the Republicans get to blame Democrats for George's mistakes. It would have been better to do it two years ago.

Shays Blames Democrats for Iraq

2006-11-22T12:50:00.000-06:00

ThinkProgress has a transcript of Republican Christopher Shays already trying to lay the blame for the screw up in Iraq on the yet to take power Democrats:

We went into Iraq on a bipartisan basis and we’re gonna have to find a bipartisan solution, and the Democrats may not want to own Iraq but they own it now as much as this President.

This has been anything but bipartisan. It is terrible that so many Democratic hawks voted for this war but since the war has been so mismanaged and completely disregarding any Democratic input, they are calling for a change. I'd prefer a withdrawal but I'm willing to compromise.

Let's also not lose sight of the recurring theme Bush stuck with throughout this war:

As president, I'm responsible for the decision to go into Iraq

Best Serving the Interests of Veterans

2006-11-22T11:14:00.000-06:00

Remember Tammy Duckworth? The one who lost in Illinois' 6th District to extremist Peter Roskam. The one whose helicopter was shot down in Iraq which she still managed to land safely. The one who had to have both her legs amputated because of this incident. The one who served in Iraq. The one who still somehow didn't get the VFW endorsement who base whether or not to endorse a candidate on a questionnaire and not service, reputation, or history.

That Tammy Duckworth was just nominated to head Illinois' Department of Veterans Affairs.

From the words of partisan Salvatore Capirchio, head of the VFW PAC:

Our endorsement was about who was going to best serve the interests of the 40,600 veterans who reside in the Illinois 6th District.

Duckworth will do 100 times more for veterans than Roskam ever will pretend to. The fallout from the VFW PAC endorsement of Peter Roskam is just starting. Veterans and members of the Illinois Veterans of Foreign Wars 19th District is voting on dismantling the VFW PAC.

The resolution calls for the return of the PAC’s funding to the state department’s general fund and a written apology to all veterans...

“It’ll never happen,” conceded Past District 19 Commander Bill Wolff of Bloomingdale. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask for it and tell them how we feel.”...

“First, they need to apologize for not consulting us on our feelings and needs in this race,” Wolff said. “Then they need to apologize for turning their backs on Duckworth, who is a VFW member in good standing.”...

“What…does the (national VFW) headquarters in Kansas City) know about Peter Roskam or Tammy Duckworth?” said Tioga VFW member Bill Burde. “This endorsement does nothing but hurt the reputation of this organization, and they need to know that.”...

“There are some pretty unhappy people in the post, so Sunday should be interesting,” Chuck Yacullo said. “Members wish they had at least been given a chance to comment or a heads-up before reading about the endorsement in the paper.”

Sounds like a ringing endorsement of Peter Roskam. He is starting out his term with this hanging over him. He will continue to support the failed leadership of the war while Duckworth looks more and more like a hero.

Fringey and Foolish

2006-11-22T10:52:00.000-06:00

Yglesias on the coalition to move the center away from the middle (aka: McCain/Lieberman):

Just because mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats both reject something doesn't make it centrist; it could just be fringey and foolish.

Hippies Still Trying to Ruin Country

2006-11-21T11:20:00.000-06:00

That's the title of an article from a Kentucky paper. The whole thing is a joke and easy to dismiss as the rantings of a highly indocrinated wingnut. It is a shame that it is published in the paper but in our current "he said, she said" state of media today, this sort of thing passes as civil discourse. In the vain of Malking, Coulter, and Pam Atlas she begins with calling for the death of all liberals.

America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias.

Ok...maybe she disagrees with long haired anti war radicals and not all social progressives.

The flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

I see. So according to Jeneane Mcbrearty, the only liberal is a dead liberal. That is a good place to start from for civil discourse to try to solve our problems.

She continues her tirade by setting up strawman liberal talking points without attributing them to anyone in particular, without giving any example to backup her claims, and with no point of reference other than willingly ignoring reality and what is being said. The point of the article is to advocate prowar policies...or at least to demonize those against the war without actually taking on any antiwar arguments. With prowar hacks like her arguing for continued presence in Iraq, it is no wonder support for the war is continually deflating.

They still want utopia and it wouldn't be worth mentioning except that their naivetŽ has aged into a persistent denial of reality that may have devastating consequences.

Actually it is Bush and his PNAC supporters who have flawed visions of a utopian, democratized middle east that loves America. Bush is the one who wanted to "transform a troubled region" and who claimed "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." It is this very simplistic and false utopian goal of American Empire that the people of America are railing against. This continued denial from the radical right of the lack of justification for the Iraq war and refusal to acknowledge that the war has been a complete failure any way you look at it. The people to blame aren't the troops who are doing what they are told but the leaders who, much like Jeneane, repeatedly refused to recognize the facts of what was happening on the ground. This "persistent denial of reality" has already had "devastating consequences" in terms of instability in the region, Iraqi deaths, American deaths, and the stretching of our army to be unprepared to face any real threat that comes up.

For example, consider their continued belief that America's armed forces are neo-Nazi stormtroopers who delight in burning babies to further the aims of imperialistic corporations.

Source? I'm assuming she is referring to a protorture stance and denouncing the Geneva Conventions and international law that we have been violating. But she also starts to confuse the issue in claiming falsely that there is a "hate the troops" movement when it is actually a "the leaders are evil" movement. Her apologizing for war profiteers is also disturbing as well as dishonestly ignoring the fact that a lot of the fighting on the ground is being done by mercenaries.

Such nonsense, now treated as legitimate by the left-leaning media, denigrates the patriotic values and sincerity of half the nation.

Ummm...the latest poll shows that 63% of Americans support leaving Iraq while only 33% support staying there. That is hardly half. But calling for the leaders to take responsibilty for their false justifications for a failing war is hardly denigrating patriotic values and sincerity of the supporters. Jeneane, criticism of the administration and people in charge has nothing to do with their public supporters. I may think you are absolutely wrong and an ignorant sap whose loyalties lie more with a party than with the country but that is another story. Keep calling for the death of all liberals and squeeze all that hate into your keyboard and maybe people will take you seriously. Please don't hold your breath, though.

It undermines the war effort, insults the dead and the survivors of battle and their families, and supports the aims of the enemy. Translated into immigration or national defense policy, it is an invitation to the world to destroy our country.

Which Democratic Party member, left wing pundit, or even liberal blogger has come out in support of the "aims of the enemy"? Exactly zero. This sentence of course comes right after her claim that liberals are denigrating the patriotic values of GOP party supporters. Calling for the US to abide by international law and Geneva Conventions are exactly that. How she misconstrues that to mean liberals want America to be invaded by foreign powers requires a blinding faith in the GOP and an intake of Limbaugh hate three times a day. Our country ratified these treaties and followed these policies for years but to her a radical change of this policy is unpatriotic.

Yet, this Vietnam-era ide fixe about the military, despite 40-plus years of proof to the contrary.

Not sure what she is arguing but I'm going to call shannanigans and ask for the source of this proof.

To renounce their military fictions would mean facing bigger, more important truths: Marxism doesn't work. Love is not all you need. Western culture is worth defending because it protects freedom, tolerance and the greatest material good for the greatest number. Government can't solve every problem. The American taxpayer has no obligation to support the rest of the world's exploding population.

So many fictitious and leading statements passed off as fact in one short paragraph. First, who is the Marxist that she is complaining about? I haven't heard anyone in a long time espouse the benefits of Marxism so we'll disregard that statement. She goes on to promote hate. 'Love' could be a poorly thought out metaphor for diplomacy in which case she is going to have a very very difficult time proving that diplomacy was an iferior course of action as opposed to the chaos we brought to Iraq. Fighting in Iraq had nothing to do with defending ourselves. There was no imminent threat from that country as well as no possible way that country could have ever posed any real threat to western culture. She continually defends the actions of our government only to tell us the government can't solve every problem. Our government sure proved that it can creat problems though and she proves that she can defend them. It would also be a good time to remind her that the war in Iraq is projected to cost around a trillion dollars. In taxpayer money. To support another part of the world (that we wrecked). Other than that, I'm not sure what she is arguing with her exploding world population line. Is she arguing we annhilate people because we sure are giving a lot of money away for free. All while cutting domestic spending and increasing our deficit to unsustainable proportions.

Terrorism is tortuous for them only because it forces them to pursue the political goals that will allow them to redistribute America's wealth by pulling the nation together and relying on the hated military for protection.

What? That makes no sense whatsoever. The antiwar left and the antioccupation majority of Americans do not favor continued military presence. These aren't homeless people going into the military. A lot of them are professionals that are being pulled away from their job that helps support the American economy.

Thus, lefty loonies deny that terrorists have declared war on America, while insisting that we can win the war through negotiation. They seem to believe the terrorists will spare them because they are nice.

No. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Saddam didn't attack us. Osama attacked us and our pullout of Afghanistan to support a war in Iraq let him escape. Bush failed to catch the man that attacked our country and increased terrorism and anti-American views of the region. Hammas is now a legitamite, democratically power because of the wave of anti-American sentiment directed at Bush.

The truth is that there is no way out of our modern warfare dilemmas.

Because we should never have gotten into our dilemma. (as the antiwar people have repeatedly said)

Is it possible to protect non-combatants, given modern weaponry in total war?

It is possible to avoid total war with countries that don't attack ours.

Are people who make weapons innocent citizens of their warring governments, or integral non-uniformed soldiers and legitimate targets?

I think she is advocating terrorist views here.

Must we surrender our country to our enemies because our weapons are too terrible to use?

WTF?

Whose life is more important: the 12-year-old Iraqi firing an Uzi or a soldier from Kentucky?

Haven't heard this story yet. She is really off topic at this point, failing to recognize still that we have no reason to be in Iraq and that crtisicm is aimed at officials not soldiers dying. War critics are arguing for troops to come home out of this unwinnable situation while people like her are arguing to keep our troops there dying for no reason

Do we want a military strong enough to protect our homeland?

Yes. Tell the Bush administration to stop using up all our resources.

It's crucial that we come to terms with war questions because we will have war with Iran and North Korea.

She hasn't addressed any war questions brought up. All she has done is argued that we don't need to take the high ground anymore and should pitch our morals aside as we attempt to annhilate races. War is not inevitable. War will not happen with Iran because there is no reason to go to war against them and our military isn't physically capable of fighting another war. War will not happen with North Vietnam because China won't be happy

For aging hippies, it's easier to keep blaming old enemies than to confront new ones, especially the young and ruthless. Hating a military-industrial complex is safer and less tiring. It's less complicated -- and less dangerous.

Yes, she is complaining about aging hippies blaming old enemies. Take a moment to let the irony sink in.

It's less complicated and dangerous for her to fight those wicked strawmen than to take on any real issue and debate it honestly instead of creating making up arguments from the other side. It is easier to follow the leaders blindly without question and blame internal enemies than to acknowledge that maybe our leaders sent thousands of troops to be maimed and killed in Iraq for no apparent reason.

Abstract institutions neither bleed nor shoot back.

Is she referring to her attack on strawmen?

They are a lot more fun and allow the fiction of activist moral superiority to persist.

I guess so.

Their BAWL (Buddha-Allah-Wicca-Lenin) is better than some old Judeo-Christian God.

That would make us bloggo-buddhi-islamo-witcho-commie-fascists who hate her because she loves God. That is 63% of Americans she is calling that.

In their heart of hearts, lefty loonies do want America to lose in Iraq and every military theater.

Source? Who on the left said this?

They want outside enemies to accomplish quickly the demolition of American capitalism, using the violence the lefty loonies are too old, too scared and too well-invested to use.

I better end this quick because my computer keeps giving me "logic errors" whenever I type anything from this column.

After all, lefty loonies want their social justice and their pensions, too.

Damn Justice!!! And Damn Pensions, Too!!!

Just don't vote for them in 2008.

Reality: Americans rejected this platform resoundingly in 2006 and will reject it in 2008. The GOP lost because of their corruption and war stance. Things will only get worse with the war and the information that comes out will only undermine the prowar arguments further.

Thanks for the entertaining opinions, though!

Not Getting It

2006-11-21T09:39:00.000-06:00

Conservatives have hated Jon Stewart and the string of successful comedians/actors that have come off his show. They consistently tried to demonize the Daily Show unsuccessfully for years while supporting the propaganda arm of Fox News. What they didn't understand was that The Daily Show was the only outlet for any sort of non-conservative news since for years they were the only ones who reported critical of the Administration and Congress while the debate on other cable and network news shows centered on the degree of awesomeness this President is so awesome at.

It is basic supply and demand. With ABC's clinton-did-it-umentory and CBS's extremely right leaning news show with Couric, everyone is trying to outdo Fox. Fox News debuted successfully but has been slumping recently. Whether that has to do with shows immitating the Fox format or whether it has to do with the direct correlation of Bush's approval ratings to Fox News viewers, is up for debate. The point is that Fox found something conservatives like (angry conservatives being angry at liberals) and ran with it successfully for some years.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report are successful because there was that end of the market untended to (no such thing as liberal media) and because liberals have a sense of humor. Conservative humorists include the bland What About Raymond? and the not even mildly funny, and extremely derivative Mind of Mencia. This would mean that there is an open market for Conservative humor except most conservatives don't have the sense of humor that would draw them to a "conservative Daily Show" show day after day. Dennis Miller tried it briefly and very unsuccessfully. Fox News is going to debut a conservative Daily Show soon, though.

Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a "Daily Show"-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show.
The half-hour show would take aim at what executive producer Joel Surnow, the co-creator of "24," calls "the sacred cows of the left" that don't get made as much fun of by other comedy shows.
"It's a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel," Surnow said. "It would tip more right as 'The Daily Show' tips left."...
Surnow said it's not going to be strictly conservative but more in the spirit of the old and rebellious "Saturday Night Live."
"It's not going to hit you over the head with partisan politics," Surnow said. "It'll hit anything that deserves to be hit."

So much to digest there. It is being promoted with much anger at the left but it isn't going to be strictly conservative or partisan.

This aside, Surnow doesn't understand that humor doesn't come from partisan politics but from...people having a talent at making people laugh. Stewart, Colbert, and the group of comedians that move through the show are very talented at mocking the right leaning news broadcasts that attempt to portray themselves as center. I have a feeling this conservative version is just going to immitate Fox News with jokes like "Pelosi is a woman..haha" "Billary....haha" "Defeatocrat surrender monkey....haha".

The Daily Show's success didn't come because they were the laughing show of some left leaning network, it came because there was no way to get news without an ultra conservative spin...and because everyone on the show was extremely funny and talented.

The right has too much righteous indignation frothing from the mouths and minds of O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, etc. to effectively switch gears to some sort of funny take on politics. There are no funny right wing blogs and no funny right wing comedians. The Hillbilly comedy tour was successful but it would be a stretch to label that as funny. What it comes down to is that there is just no market for rightwing humor. What are they going to make of? The fact that they had control of every branch of government for the last six years and screwed everything up really bad? Deficit...hilarious. War...haha. Cronyism...bust your sides humor. Multiple Republicans being indicted and under investigation with an alarming number of White House officials going to jail...haha...those damn liberals.

They have their indignation but that is it. We'll see how the show goes though.

109th Congress Fails Again...and Again...

2006-11-21T08:51:00.000-06:00

The Republicans of the 109th Congress will go down in history as one of the most incompetent legislative bodies to ever represent America. They refused to act on anything that wasn't a media circus. They will be the Congress known for having special hearings to know if baseball players used steriods and calling special sessions to proclaim they don't agree with doctors and feel they should intervene in personal lives. Meanwhile, they refused to provide any sort of oversight at all over the President's unconstitutional programs such as domestic wiretapping. To justify its existence, most sited reasons that terrorists needed to be spied on and promptly shot down any suggestions that non-terrorist Americans would be monitered. Predictably that wasn't the case as military documents suggest Bush was spying on personal enemies rather than enemies of the state.

An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks against military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations, newly disclosed documents show.

One tip in the database in February 2005, for instance, noted that “a church service for peace” would be held in the New York City area the next month. Another entry noted that antiwar protesters would be holding “nonviolence training” sessions at unidentified churches in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

This should be shockingly big news but it is something I came to expect in the last few years. The article goes on with DOD officials claiming they had to monitor peaceful groups that adovated non-violence because their events where likely locations where violence break out. It wasn't a problem with agitators who came to the events to deliberately provoke a violent response (there are very few cases of violence breaking out at these) but the problems with the groups themselves. That means the violent people weren't monitored, only people that dissented with the Bush doctrine.

Whose fault is it that this happened? Higher ups couldn't say "not mine" fast enough.

Mr. Baur said that those operating the database had misinterpreted their mandate.

That's why there is supposed to oversite to these programs and it is why the 109th Congress will go down as a failure. Their claims that no one would monitor anybody but international terrorists has been proven wrong along with their assertions that the program didn't need to report to Congress. To be fair, it was mainly the Bush administrtation who kept saying this but the Republican Congress time and time again refused to put up any resistence so they are just as guilty.

Instead of protecting the American people they chose party loyalty. The political games of this deeply corrupt Congress will continue long after many of them find themselves unemployed next session. Their reckless spending and failure to help balance any budget will leave a deep scar in America that won't heal for a long time.

This time it goes beyond that. This time they are giving a massive half trillion dollars of spending bills that were supposed to have been authorized, to incoming Democrats. It is a political stunt played at the tax payers and constituencies expense.

Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills...

The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years...

Under a formula dating back to 1997, Medicare payments to doctors for office visits will drop an average 5 percent on Jan. 1 - unless Congress steps in...

Driving the decision to quit and go home rather than finish the remaining budget work is a determined effort by a group of conservative Republicans to prevent putting a GOP stamp on spending bills covering 13 Cabinet Departments...
Republicans also look forward to using unfinished budget work to gum up an early Democratic agenda that includes raising the minimum wage, negotiating lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries, cutting interest rates on college loans and repealing some tax breaks for oil companies.

"Other stuff may get pushed off the table," said GOP lobbyist Hazen Marshall, a former longtime Capitol Hill aide. "It kills (Democrats') message."

Hopefully, voters will remember this stunt in 2008. This is the type of scorched earth policies Democrats will deal with for the next two years. Republicans continue to choose their party of American interests and it looks like they will attempt to stonewall any helpful legislation.

Laesch on Grassroots vs. BlueDog Illinois Politics

2006-11-18T17:00:00.000-06:00

John Laesch in a question/answer forum at FDL:

Nobody wants a repeat of IL 6th...

TeddySanFran @ 25

John Laesch, many GOP Congresscritters were defeated in their elections because not only was their Speaker toxic and thus dis-invited to their campaigns, but Denny had to spend his own money right at home to defeat a progressive, grassroots first-time candidate. I hope your IL-14 supporters who gave your campaign its 40% recognize their contribution to the national Blue Wave.

High-fives all around! John Laesch in 2007!

=======
Who’s Next?
=======

We will make this well-known. I have to wait for H4C to file his final report before we know exactly how much $$$ he spent in IL 14th, but I am guessing it is near $1M. That amount could have swayed votes in one or two other target districts...

Howie Klein @ 30

John, have you had any communication with the DCCC? Is there any chance they will support you in a bid to take IL-14 when Hastert resigns? My understanding is that Pelosi appoints a new DCCC chair next week.

Not yet, but it will happen in the near term. Durbin is the first hurdle to cross in Illinois...
Laesch: "On the campaign trail I talked about the 5,000 people who contributed to JDL 2006 vs. the millions that Hastert took from special interest groups. “We can’t change a republican party for a Democratic Party - we have to change the system.”"

This is the list of potential challengers that I would take seriously. Hastert does not like Lauzen and a battle between Hastert pick (Schmitz) and Lauzen would be IDEAL in a special election scenario.
We also know that at least three other candidates have contacted the IL State Board of Elections and we are staying tuned for the exact rules that will apply.

Before departing, it occurred to me that I could leave some things that need to be done. I know Hastert like a book b/c I have read his book. I do not know much about some of the potential GOP opponents and we could use some research help. My guess is that Lauzen will win. Lauzen by the way wrote a bill that would ban women from breast feeding in public… further right than Hastert, but opposed to Hastert’s highway (the real issue for the GOP).

Here are some things that we need from the Blog Community:
1) Opposition research on Chris Lauzen
2) Opposition research on Patricia Lindner
3) Opposition research on Tim Schmitz
4) Opposition research on Steve Rauchenberger

Research needs to be:
- Where do they get their $$
- What votes make them vulnerable?

H.W.'s Baker and Gates for the Bailout

2006-11-18T15:56:00.000-06:00

From Tom Englehardt:

The ten key ISG members, in fact, are largely not military strategists or geopolitical thinkers of a sort who might be expected to offer Iraq solutions. They are instead a who's who of establishmentarianism, extending back to the Reagan era. Is this a major shift in Washington? You bet. How big remains to be seen. But here's the real question: Can the new crowd -- even if the President bows down to Daddy's Boys, which is hardly a given -- get us out of Iraq? Do they even want to?

It is a great article that Alterman recommends:

You'll find discussions of the return of Baker, of the way he has been conducting his own off-shore foreign policy, of a possible purge of some of the last key neocons in the Bush administration, and of the attempted isolation of the vice president. You'll also find a clear-eyed discussion of what all the "redeployment" and "phased withdrawal" plans now floating around Washington really add up to; and, perhaps most important of all, a consideration of two key aspects of our Iraqi venture that the mainstream media essentially have not cared to cover: our permanent bases in Iraq and our use of air power in heavily populated urban areas of that country.

Roskam in USAToday

2006-11-18T13:24:00.000-06:00

Peter Roskam:

"Republicans were just discouraged about the (federal) spending" being out of control.

How does he plan to curb federal funding? As a supporter of the war in Iraq and with tax cuts. Errr...that's what he used to win the election.

Roskam refuses to be critical of Bush and continues to flaunt his Republican bonafides while claiming he doesn't like the federal spending. Republicans have overseen the five largest deficits in American history with the current President presiding over the top four. As a fiscally responsible Republican he should be against this but as a member of Republican business as usual in Washington, he won't.

Roskam blames fiscal recklessness as the reason his party lost control of the House and Senate last week and why, instead of joining the majority party, he now must settle for minority status.

This man supports tax cuts which helped create the current budget crisis, the mishandled war on terror which ballooned the deficit more, and the Iraq War which secured our status as a super-debtor country. For some reason he sees himself as Mr. Smith when his party's corruption and mismanagement is the reason they are the minority party. It is possible for him to be a reformer and a Republican but that is not the platform he ran on and does not match his history. Socially he is one of the most conservative elected members of the incoming Congress supporting the most radical agendas such as no gun control of assault weapons, against human rights for the gay, against minimum wage hike, against embyonic stem cell research, and of course wants rape victims to carry the child to term. As for his fiscally responsible credentials, they include repeated investigations into fundraising irregularities and supporting a local Republican political machine illegally raise funds.

Roskam was an aide for the indicted Tom DeLay and for the 16 term serving Henry Hyde. He his anything but an outsider and prefers Republican business as usual over helping out the general population. The reason he gives for his victory center on him being a native of the district.

"If you're running for Congress, being in the Lombardian is where you want to be," he said. "I knew that (and) it worked."

This of course completely ignores the fact that every single local paper supported Duckworth. All Roskam had to run on was the fact that he was part of the crumbling Illinois Repulican machine and even that barely helped him win the district with a mere 2% edge over Duckworth. When Hyde was in office, he routinely carried the district by wide margins with the closest competitor being Christine Cegelis who closed the gap to 11% before her grassroots campaign was booted in favor of Rahm and the Blue Dog's failed attempt to take the district.

The only reason Roskam won was because Duckworth ran a weak campaign despite the massive amount the money spent on her behalf. It had nothing to do with Roskam being the more favorable candidate but it looks like he is already moving on something analogous to Bush's 2004 "mandate".

Since the 110th Congressional session hasn't even started it is too early to tell exactly what Roskam will be like. From his history, how he ran his campaign and how he is talking now, it looks as if he is leaning towards being another yes man to failing Republican policies that continually do a diservice to the Ameican public's needs.

Welcome back to Washington Peter Roskam.

Filed Under O for Obvious

2006-11-17T19:09:00.000-06:00

(*Update Below)
I'm glad to see that reporters are finally losing their fear of reporting reality but it would have been nice to see this earlier:

The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.

Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.

Having these guys in charge of a radical conservative agenda was like, well, putting Mark Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. Indeed, Foley was elected in the Class of '94 and is not an inappropriate symbol of their regime.

As much as I'm glad Foley is the one who helped bring this particular class down, I'd rather see them remembered for their ultra-partisan, lie-infested, corrupt politics. But like they say, Capone was brought down on Tax evasion. Hopefully, reporters won't be afraid to criticize the GOP anymore.

For 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do...This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize.

Apology accepted. Do your job.

That is just one man at CBS News so I don't want to pile all of the lopsided reporting favoring the GOP on him. Most of the prominent media aren't even fair weather fans, but GOP hardliners. They never called bullshit on the morale majority that the Newt Republicans ran on but continue to pick up every single talking point offered by the GOP. Even after the affairs, mistresses, pedophile solicitations, wife beating, and who knows what else, the media continued to offer up the GOP as representing the moral majority.

"The media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do." They sure as hell weren't against calling a blowjob a blowjob. They weren't afraid to offer up fallacious claims that Democrats support terror. They were, however, afraid to question a misleading president. They weren't afraid to trumpet the Iraq war as a postive for the nation.

It continues today with Time magazine cover referring to the GOP's capture of the House in 94 as stampede but the current cover referring to the Democrats sweep of both the House and Senate as a victory for the middle. No matter what the outcome of the election would have been they would have proclaimed it a victory for the Republicans so their opinions are rather invalid at this point.

The big worry on the rightwing blogs has been that the media will give Pelosi a "honeymoon" period where they won't write anything critical about her. But as she is a woman representative from California, the pundits could only wait a week and a half. Wolf Blitzer compared her to an unfaithful wife or whoring woman who has been around the block with an onscreen question asking if she was "Damaged Goods". (refer to artist rendering of MediaMatter's CNN screencap)

The "bad wife" analogies continue with the Time's "The Honeymoon Is Over" by Mike Allen. Most of the quotes come from anonymous Democratic Aides and officials who have nothing but foreboding statements about the Democratic Party.

"We had a great deal of unity last week and encouraging Murtha to run against Hoyer really threatens to fray that unity at a time when we want to project an image of being strong and together," said one Democratic aide. "It doesn't bode well for our first 100 hours. To be a majority party, you have to bring disparate groups together, and she's been given credit for being very good at that. If she departs from that record or that approach, it's harder to stay a majority."...

"People were surprised that she would so publicly endorse Murtha, particularly because it could end up hurting her," said a Democrat not aligned with either side. "She could lose her first big fight, which is not good for her leadership."...

"She wants to purge the leadership of people who disagree with her," said a Democratic official with a front-row seat. "It's about people she can personally control."

The gist of the article is that Pelosi backing Murtha is sowing dissent in the Demcratic Party which has a hard enough time to stick together as it is. This is the same bullshit analysis that kept Bush from any oversight for years. It implies that any debate or alternate opinions are signs of defections and sedition to the US or the party.

Pelosi backed Murtha for House Majority seat because she worked with him in the past and they work well together. He didn't win. The Democratic Party isn't in turmoil because of this. She wanted someone and everyone else didn't - the majority one and democracy works. Hooray.

There are so many conflicting reports about what the Democratic Party is supposed to be right now that it seems best to leave the know it all pundits out of this. The GOP claims Pelosi brings some elusive San Francisco values to the table but supports conservative Democrat Murtha. The new breed of Democrats are supposed to be very conservative yet they overwhelmingly voted for Hoyer. Pelosi is here to rule the Democratic party with an iron fist to destruction but since she can't get Murtha elected she is a failure and her tenure as speaker is already sunk before it began.

Sometimes it seems as if pundits are racing towards being the first to accurately predict the Democrats demise and which scandal will break them. Digby has a fantastic post about "these catty little MSNBC snots enjoying their full-on Demo bitch fest." As most Digby posts are, it is a recommended read:

Norah O'Donnell, Lawrence O'Donnell, Mary Ann Akers and some other person I don't know have just spent half an hour discussing the fact that Nancy Pelosi ruined her own honeymoon and now it is really quesionable whether she can lead...

After a thorough discussion of how hapless the Democratic nerds have already proven to be, Mary Ann Akers whispers that reporters all over town are "loving" this story. It's so much fun! All the kidz squealed like schoolgirls at prospect of the merciless going-over they are preparing to give these totalbigfatlosers. ("We're so not being mean or anything cuz they like totally deserve it cuz they just don't get it, ok?")...

(The problem is) that the patented 90's style smug, juvenile, derisive Kewl Kidz tone is once again ooozing through everything they say...

It's as if all these unpleasant events of the last six years never happened and we are back in the days of endless cable bitch-fests filled with sniggering about unauthorized blow jobs and earth tones and "grown-ups" who eat PB&J's and travel with their favorite pillies...

They were certainly enjoying themselves tonight. Rolling their eyes and laughing and even snorting a time or two at the completely absurd sight of Democrats in power. I expected to see Yoohoo spray out of Norah's nose at one point. It was just so, like, awesomely super-fun!

The questions arise about whether or not the in-crowd treated the Newt's Contract with America in the same doubting, snide fashion. It must have been funny to see these angry white men going off about about moral superiority and running on a vague set of principals instead of a set plan. The Contract with America surely must have been met with the same doubts and derision that the first 100 Hours have been met with. Newt surely must have been criticized as much as Pelosi. Digby pities you for being so naive:

It's worth noting that the last time the House turned over, in 1994, Tom Delay beat Newt Gingrich's handpicked choice for majority leader and somehow the whole town didn't interpret that as Newtie's waterloo. As a matter of fact, the press was giving him such wet slurpy blowjobs they could hardly come up for air...

There are no honeymoons for Democrats. Remember that. And "moral authority" is about haircuts and Hollywood, not torture and illegal wars. It is not merely a fight against the Republicans or a fight over politics and policy. It is a non-stop battle with the press to cover events with seriousness and responsiblity. For some reason, when Democrats are in power the press corps immediately goes from being merely shallow to insufferable, sophomoric assholes.

Mike Allen agrees that there should be no honeymoons for Democrats criticizing the workings of the party as signs of divisiveness at every turn. Every possible scenario can be seen as a victory for the GOP as long as debate between Democrats is highlighted while disarray and confusion within the Republican party is downplayed.

Republicans have their own tense leadership battle going on, but the Pelosi letter provided a respite from all the adulation for the Democrats.

Tense leadership battles like Trent Lott winning the Senate minority whip by one vote. But of course Democrats are the ones who are breaking apart. His whole article seems to be eerily similar to a statement made by Minority Whip, Roy Blunt:

Each time we hold our team together and force the Democrats to vote like Democrats, we’ll be taking one more step toward recapturing our majority in 2008.

One-hundred-forty-nine Democrats demonstrated yesterday that they are willing to buck Nancy Pelosi.

Backing friends made George Bush loyal and decisive. Nominating John Bolton was a strong and bold move considering no one wanted him before and no one wants him now. Pelosi backing Murtha however shows signs of disfunction.

-----

I'm not sure what she planned to accomplish with a last minute backing of Murtha over heavily favored Hoyer just like I'm not sure what she is trying to accomplish with her backing Hastings instead of ranking member Harmon. To a novice like me it looks like she is trying to let people know she wants things done her way. It sounds like both of these nominations are long shots so it may be her telling the Democrats that she doesn't want it to be business as usual and that the status quo or what was previously acceptable is open for review. However, her backing different members of the party for positions is not a sign of failed leadership.

(*Update)

Ok...this isn't going to turn into a "rehash Greenwald blog" but once again he outhshines everyone else writing about this.

Why she supported Murtha:

It is painfully obvious that Pelosi supported Murtha for one very simple and extremely common reason -- because unlike Hoyer, with whom she has a tense and uncomfortable working relationship and with whom she has worked at cross-purposes in the past, Murtha is her ally and supporter.

To put this into perspective:

The Bush administration has spent six years completely obsessed with personal loyalty to the President and intolerant of the slightest independence. The entire Congress was kept strictly in line for the last five years. Every official who showed the slightest independence was replaced by obedient Bush loyalists. Yet Pelosi does nothing other than support an ally rather than an opponent for the position immediately underneath her, and that makes her some out-of-control egomaniac consumed by personal vanity and emotional impulses.

He notes that Beltway "common knowledge" is that Pelosi hates Harman because they wore the same dress one night. More substansive and logical reasons why Pelosi would oppose Harman:

Personally, I think Harman -- who was one of the most aggressive defenders of the President's warrantless eavesdropping program ("both legal and necessary," she repeatedly chimed) and is currently under investigation for her work on behalf of AIPAC...She has been far too sympathetic to the administration's excesses and far too eager to serve as a Democratic shield publicly defending the President.

He covers why it is important to note that above all, it was an election and how it pales in comparison to the Republicans fighting viciously for every little seat they have left. Mostly, though, his post deals with the ridiculous nature of the punditry already proclaiming the Democratic House under Pelosi hopelessly divided, complete with links to specific columnists and why they are dead wrong in there "smart boys" assumptions.

I have no idea whether Pelosi will be a good Speaker, but I'm going to withhold judgment until she actually at least starts, and Americans are obviously doing that as well.

Let's hope The New Republic, Slate, The Washington Post, CNN, and anyone else with premature mischaracterizations (her tenure as speaker hasn't even started yet) will do the same. Obviously, that is not going to happen.

Malkin Gets It Wrong Again

2006-11-17T15:45:00.000-06:00

Michelle Malkin gripes about the bad press she is getting because one of her loyal followers ("I worship Michelle Malkin") sent fake anthrax letters to prominent comedians and pundits he didn't agree with. Her claim is that someone that worships her and then goes and commits terrorism is old hat and not her fault. The crux of her argument rests on the incident where Keith Olbermann made a joke in poor taste that in order to beat Bill O'Reilly in dancing with the stars he would have to cut O'Reilly's hamstring and promptly apologized, then apologized again saying "But...it's beyond the pale. You shouldn't, you can't joke about physical stuff no matter what you think of somebody politically, broadcasting-wise, reputationally. It's just beyond the pale. I apologize. You know, we gotta draw the line somewhere and the line is: You wanna criticize, be critical, be humorous, be sarcastic, yell stuff, great. But physical stuff is out of bounds. Even joking about it."

Of course, no where in her complaining about Olbermann does she apologize for inciting such hatred in her worshipper. Keep in mind that Bill O'Reilly's hamstring is still intact. Instead of owning up to the fact that she has a history of inciting violence, she blames liberals and their attacks as old hat. (Ironically her piece is called "Pot Meet Kettle".)

When a Chancellor at UC-Santa Cruz committed suicide soon after Malkin placed the Chancellor's contact information on Malkin's blog, Michelle still refused to admit that perhaps doing so was in bad taste. No stranger to irony, even after the Chancellor's suicide Michelle still had the audacity to call her an anti-war "thug". In Malkin's response to calls for her to apologize for posting personal information about this lady, Malkin mocked critics saying "Weigel attacks me for not saying anything about Denton's suicide... Weigel wants me to "apologize"".

What a classy lady.

Why she still is paid to write is a mystery to me. Her responses don't reflect the issue at hand, merely resorting to character attacks on her critics so that she doesn't have to ever face responsibility. The fact that readers connected with her have a history of harassment and terrorism is obscene and refusal to acknowledge this is disgusting.

To further show she wasn't in the wrong about one of her faithful being a terrorist, she points to a deranged individual sending an anthrax hoax to President Bush. Despite what Malkin is trying to insinuate, this man did not publish anything saying he worshipped Keith Olbermann. There are nutjobs out there, which is why Olbermann was quick to point out that threats of physical violence are uncalled for.

Nowhere in her post does she denounce what her worshipper did. She mentions the incident at the beginning of her unfocused tirade but never refers to it negatively nor does she try to assure her readers that she does not promote violence. That is the heart of the argument and which she just doesn't get. She is supposed to be one of the centers of the neocon movement as a popular apologist and attack dog.

The fact is that the man who is accussed of domestic terrorism named her as a pundit he worshipped. The fact is that she has yet to denounce this type of violence. Instead of owning up to these facts she characteristically points to the left to say that they are the ones to blame so stop blaming her.

Another one of the right's intellectuals. She is yet another example of why the neocon movement is flawed and wrong.

Divorce Imminent

2006-11-17T11:20:00.000-06:00

George Bush and reality have never seen eye to eye which is why I expect him to file papers soon for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. He knows his legacy rests on this stupid damn war but he refuses to face the truth about what is going on, opting instead to go with lines like:

"We'll succeed," Bush added, "unless we quit."

The unconventional weapons caches that were supposed to be there have disappeared. The region is in chaos. Osama is still at large. Hamas gained legitamite power in the middle east because of Bush. Global terrorism is up. We are so hated over there that as long as we remain in the region the area will never settle down. It is a shame that we messed up the region so badly without having a plan to fix it but our current strategy has not been working and will not work. As long as we stay there the situation will only get worse.

Meanwhile, Senator Inhofe is following suit and and looks to be filing divorce papers with reality soon. Maybe, I'm not reading it correctly though. After all, it could just be another front of the war on reality. That seems more apt since he is following the way we were led into the war in Iraq with hand picked intelligence, ignoring leading experts, and blaming a figure head that has nothing to do with the current fight.

Hand picked, misleading "facts":

Inhofe: "We still have these natural changes, and this is what’s going on right now...They said the warming is due to the sun."

Ignoring leading experts that don't agree with his position:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body which involves thousands of scientists from over 120 countries who develop detailed reports on climate change, produced a report in 2001 which was reviewed by more than 1,000 top experts, including so-called “climate skeptics” and representatives from industry. The report stated, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”

Most recently, the National Academy of Sciences has unequivocally concluded that natural causes cannot explain the unprecedented warmth over the last 400 years. Rather, “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming,” the report states.

Blaming a figure head that has nothing to do with the issue:

Inhofe: "The other side, the far left, the George Soros, the Hollywood elitists, the far left environmentalists on the committee that I chair — all of them want us to believe the science is settled and it’s not."

101st Keyboardists Attack

2006-11-16T14:40:00.000-06:00

(*update below)

In the last few weeks right wing fanatics who get boiled to a frenzy by Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, et. al. have been disappointed by the rejection of their extreme politics. The elections were a travesty to them, to be sure, but what really bothers them is that any dissent to their opinion is possible.

Chad Castagana, a stay at home seether and proud member of the 101st Keyboardists, was indicted for sending out 17 letters to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, and David Letterman (among others) filled with white powder and notes with such literary gems as "Death to Demagogues", "CUNTFACE. IMPEACH THIS", and "All of you are poisoning the well! Time to give your kind a taste of your own medicine". The terrorist Castagana was a blogger at the Free Republic where we proudly says, "Ann Coulter is a Goddess and I worship Laura Ingraham and Michele Malkin."

Ann Coulter is the voice of reason who wondered whether we should impeach or assassinate then President Clinton, execute people to intimidate liberals, and who was dismayed that right wing terrorist Timothy McVeigh did not blow up the New York Times building.

Michelle Malkin is not a girl who likes to be one-upped, so she put on her website the home phone numbers of Dean she didn't agree, resulting in many harassing calls which may or may not have had influenced the woman to commit suicide right after Malkin's stunt.

One prominent conservative blogger he did not deify was Pam Atlas who this week called for the State Department to be bombed.

Accepting Hamas? Perhaps Hamas will blow up State. Someone has to.

“We are looking at creative ways to get around this,” one diplomat said. “I would not call this ‘Hamas lite,’ but if we could get a government of negotiators instead of terrorists we’d take it.”

First, kill all the diplomats (before they get us killed.)

Greenwald goes on to note that the Christian Pat Robertson has also advocated in the past, the bombing of the State Department.

This isn't the cutesy Coulter-thrives-on-controversy-so-let's-put-her-on-the-cover-of-Time, this is serious. This is extremist "demagogues" advocating domestic terrorism with sheeple willing to do what these gorgons want.

The biggest threat right now, though, isn't from the violence they threaten but from the media ignoring this trend. Media Matters notes that the liberal blogger's run in with the Allen campaign was covered extensively to show the blogger in a negative light. Halperin and Hewitt were also quick to agree that Daily Kos and the left wing is a "fever swamp" full of Mary Mapes. With the GOP in another last push offensive against the Democrats to try and paint them as terrorists, the evidence, however, seems to completely contradict the conservative spin.

George W. Bush on November 8, 2006 after Democrats swept the House and Senate, implying that terrorists and Democrats have the same goals:

To our enemies, do not be joyful. Do not confuse the workings of our democracies with a lack of will. Our nation is committed to bringing you to justice. Liberty and democracy are the source of America’s strength and liberty and democracy will lift up the hopes and desires of those you are trying to destroy.

Fox News, Novemeber 12, 2006:

Are liberal blogs sending the same message as terrorists?

And the Fox News internal memo leaked at Huffington Post:

“Be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem controlled Congress.”

Why they choose to ignore reality and allow hardliners in the GOP to falsely imply that liberals advocate terrorism, is not clear when the opposite appears to be true. Greenwald floats a theory that journalists are still stuck in the the mindframe that neo-Nazis are the far right and Communist Sympathisers are the far left.

But right-wing hate-mongering that is fueled by religious extremism (Christian and Jewish) is infinitely more dangerous and significant in the U.S. A strong argument can be made that religious fanaticism constitutes a significant motivating force for much of our foreign policy and certainly for the support of many people for those policies, including -- to one degree or another -- the President himself. Yet that topic makes the media very uncomfortable and it is therefore almost never discussed. It ought to be.

Amen.

*Update
Back in April 2005 there was another string of nuanced threats made by GOP Congressman against judges.

Tom DeLay referring to state and federal judges involved in the Shiavo case:

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Senator John Cornyn blaming the judges for getting themselves murdered:

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have."

The Long Con

2006-11-15T22:58:00.000-06:00

In 2000 and 2004 Bush and Rove used the strategy where they met everything head on and ran their weaknesses as their strengths.

Bush wasn't an intellectual he was a people person. Sure he went to war with Iraq but it was good and just. This plate full of shit is actually chocolate cake. More rovian judo.

It is difficult to put yourself back in that mindframe because so much has come out in the last two years about the corruption and incompetence of this administration. Until recently, any obstacle that came up was greeted head on and an assurance that even the most heinous aggressive attempts to subvert the Constitution and international law were strictly to benefit America.

In the short term this strategy seems to work out because the man looks decisive like he has a secret plan to back up his confidence. If there is opposition then that makes it more legitimite because there is someone to demonize and it pulls the base together while reducing any critical thinking they have to do. The leader is right and they need to follow him because he must have their best interests at heart. The long cons are always the toughest, though.

As Bush's Presidency unravels a little more every day it is becoming more certain that his legacy will be little more than future administrations attempting to clean up his mess. With the GOP in shambles and the "Permanent Republican Majority" Rove was supposed to be ushering in, not only shattered but completely reversed, the current assumptions right now are that Rove was a one trick pony who couldn't pull off the long con. Still, they are persistent and will not back down from a fight no matter how wrong they are. Stay the Course no matter how devastating it is to the country.

Given Bush's seemingly permanent unpopularity that will only dip further and further until right before he leaves office, the results of the last election, and his own base's disillusionment in his brand of conservatism, it would make sense for Republicans to abandon the neocon agenda and techniques just like they did after Nixon was impeached. John McCain would disagree. Rather than accepting reality and moving forward towards a realistic solution, ol' maverick appears to still be having wet dreams about the war in Iraq.

McCain has been, for a while now, calling for increase in troop levels. Lately, the number has been rounded off to 20,000 more troops. Without getting into why this should have been done earlier because Rumsfeld is a failure and stonewalled any of this thinking, it is too little too late. If this many more troops had been brought in and stationed right after the end of the Iraq war it might have been a different story. The borders may have been more secure, infrastructure more heavily guarded, and perhaps we would have a more perceptive Iraqi population to deal with. If we would have thrown that number into Afghanistan Osama might have been caught and George wouldn't have even needed Saddam as a scape goat. But that is all speculation of course because we went in with too few troops and are now paying the price.

Atrios believes McCain isn't abandoning the long con because he thinks he can use this politically in 2008 in his bid for the Presidency. McCain has stood too strongly behind this war for far too long for him to back down now so he is throwing all his chips in with his go for broke strategy. Simply put, McCain is trying to out "Stay the Course" the President and hope that he can fire up enough base supports with his rhetoric. As Atrios says,

(McCain's) gambling that no one's going to take his advice so a year from now he can run against Bush and his bungled war. If Bush follows his advice, that's off the table.

Big gambit by McCain that, judging by these last elections and public opinion, won't work for a 2008 Presidential bid. Someone has to take that stance though I guess and it might as be maverick.

Meanwhile, as Iraqis continue to be swept further and further into civil war and American soldiers continue to die for...well, we still aren't exactly sure why we're there - politicians hear the cries from the people and pledge to do nothing. General Abizaid told a Congressional panel today:

"We can put in 20,000 more Americans tomorrow and achieve a temporary effect," Abizaid said, apparently referring to McCain's call for more troops. "But when you look at the overall American force pool that's available out there, the ability to sustain that commitment is simply not something that we have right now with the size of the Army and the Marine Corps."

He doesn't advocate pulling out troops noting that it could lead to more violence. His plan reflects the failed Rumsfeld plan to sit back and do the same things over and over again. It is beginning to sound more and more like a gambler looking for that big win and betting on the next six months:

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East warned Congress Wednesday against setting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, rejecting the arguments of resurgent Democrats who are pressing President Bush to start pulling out.

Gen. John Abizaid instead urged quick action to strengthen Iraq's government, predicting that the vicious sectarian violence in Baghdad would surge out of control within four to six months unless immediate steps were taken.

"Our troop posture needs to stay where it is."

This supposedly is line with what the Baker Report is supposed to reveal about Iraq. The rumors floating around are that it will recommend a different course for six months then if nothing else goes better, a massive withdrawal. The Guardian notes that this is mostly likely a political move for one last push so that the issue isn't so overwhelming for Republicans in 2008.

"He [Bush] is in a state of denial about Iraq. Nobody else is any more. But he is. But he knows he's got less than a year, maybe six months, to make it work. If it fails, I expect the withdrawal process to begin next fall."
The "last push" strategy is also intended to give Mr Bush and the Republicans "political time and space" to recover from their election drubbing and prepare for the 2008 presidential campaign, the official said. "The Iraq Study Group buys time for the president to have one last go. If the Democrats are smart, they'll play along, and I think they will. But forget about bipartisanship. It's all about who's going to be in best shape to win the White House.

There it is. This war was never about 9/11, Osama, WMD's, or democracy. It was about using war as a political tool to get the country to back one party. When the war helped them achieve their goals it was ok and supportable but as soon as it starts costing them politically, they abandon it. Granted, this hasn't happened yet but they know that if they continue to blindly stay in Iraq for no reason other than we went in (wrongly) in the first place, then they will loose seats and power. We'll see if they are as principled and committed to this war as they postured themselves to be from the beginning. Maybe, they'll just use the Baker Report as an excuse to let them save face so that they can follow the recommendations of a conservative rather than a liberal who is saying the same thing.

David Kurtz from Talking Points Memo describes the proposed Baker four part plan as:

· Increase US troop levels by up to 20,000 to secure Baghdad and allow redeployments elsewhere in Iraq
· Focus on regional cooperation with international conference and/or direct diplomatic involvement of countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

· Revive reconciliation process between Sunni, Shia and others

· Increased resources from Congress to fund training and equipment of Iraqi security forces

It is refreshing to hear someone bringing up new ideas about how to handle this travesty but whether or not these ideas will be taken seriously remains to be seen. One and four go hand in hand but should have been implemented earlier on so whether or not they will affect the war at all is iffy considering the instability of the region and massive influx of non-Iraqis since the war started.

Two has been in direct opposition to the administration's stance since the beginning of the war. Regional cooperation has to do more with Iran and Syria rather than Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. When we went into Iraq the plan was that Iran and Syria would fall quickly into line and democracy would spread through the power of osmosis. When it was clear that wasn't going to happen, the administration refused to talk with Iran and Syria at all.

Three involves abandoning any attempts to westernize the region much to the dismay of leading neocons who believed the magic power of the market would fix all the problems in Iraq. That point aside, it is a tall order to somehow mend the rift between Sunni, Shia and Kurds who are still actively killing each other. It just isn't going to happen because Baker says that's what we should be doing.

I'm glad to see that they are acknowledging that these problems exist but the fixes seem rather flimsy based on wishful thinking (20,000 soldiers might secure the region; kurds, sunnis, and shia should all just get along; Iran and Syria should disregard our hostile rhetoric towards their nations and help us out) and full cooperation from a White House in denial. If anything, Bush and Kissinger will see this as an admission that they were wrong and defeat, which they assure us is not something they are willing to face. As the Guardian article says:

"Bush has said 'no' to withdrawal, so what else do you have? The Baker report will be a set of ideas, more realistic than in the past, that can be used as political tools. What they're going to say is: lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it."

When all else fails lower the goals, claim victory, and move on.

Iran

2006-11-15T17:53:00.000-06:00

So with the elections, Rumsfeld's resignation, and the state of Iraq being what it is no one is denying anymore that things are going horribly over there. There was no plan to secure the region and those that thrive on chaos took advantage of that to bring us to the sad place we are at today. Our troop are stretched thin with more soldiers needed to secure the region and views of Americans worldwide at very low levels. There are so many problems that we have to deal with, internationally and domestically, that could have been avoided that it is difficult to know where to start fixing everything. What is the next step?

Bomb Iran. Eric Alterman, sadly, makes a very convincing case that this is what is going to happen next.

Keyboard Kommandos Attack!!!

2006-11-15T17:09:00.000-06:00

A very abridged version of the latest Keyboard Kommandos Episode:

...

Real Liberals

2006-11-14T23:52:00.000-06:00

The earlier post focused on Glenn Greenwald taking issue with is that what was once hyped as true conservatism is now being dismissed because it was the cause of the loss of 2006 elections for Republicans. The popular excuse is that Republicans didn't win because they aren't real conservatives while the Democrats ran because they focused on more conservative issues. Yes, it is a paradox why anyone true conservative then would be angry at the outcome of this last election.

Meanwhile, Digby and Tristero take a look at the liberal angle. It is true that one of the strengths of American Liberalism is that it is able to accomodate a lot of different views and opinions but the DLC might be taking that a little too far by trying to syphon off some fundimentalists from the GOP. Trying to court and accomodate some of these extremist views of a patriarchal society that rejects birth control of any kind, is in direct conflict of women's rights that liberals are supposed to support. Yeah, I butchered that argument so just listen to Dibgy and Tristero.

The point is that conservatives are trying to shore up their members for another shot at "true conservatism" while some liberal groups are trying to abandon liberal ideals. Voters move left so the obvious move for strategist in both parties is - move further right.

...sigh...

Real Conservatives

2006-11-14T22:53:00.000-06:00

I would like to comment or add to Glenn Greenwald's post about the "the candidates weren't true conservatives" idea that has become the popular excuse why Republicans lost this last election, but once again Greenwald does such a thorough job that he doesn't leave much left to say.

These candidates were all run by the Republican party. If these pure conservatives existed they would have run, and let's face it, the party isn't changing anytime soon with Rove still calling shots and Trent Lott trying to regain leadership of the party.

As Greenwald points out early on, modern conservatism is not based on any consistent ideals other than a Republican who wins. Reagan was a true conservative because he stayed in power and won elections. George W. Bush has been touted as a true conservative because of his victories in the last six years but now his credentials are being questioned because his strategist lost the fight. Now a case could be made that conservatism is defined by conservative values like religious fundamentalism or by fiscal conservatives like Grover Norquist. But there is so much wiggle room in the definition that the term can be stretched to include anyone who upholds the party. Let's face it, the Evangelicals came out in full support of these Republicans that have proven over and over again these past few years just how corrupt and morally deficient they really are. Likewise, anti-big government conservatives' two biggest heroes (Reagan and GWB) are the men who increased the government the most. Bush increased spending while reducing taxes. That doesn't sound very fically sound or conservative unless you are Norquist trying to subvert the American government. What it comes down to is that if you are good for the party you are a true conservative but if you are bad for the party you are flawed and liberal.

Glenn Greenwald:

"Conservatism" -- like "communism" -- has only one real definition, only one definition that matters: "that which 'conservatives' and the leaders they support do when in power." Conservatism is a set of principles about how government ought to function and the policies which political leaders should implement. And those principles can be known not by how they exist in some Platonic form, abstractly enshrined by think tank groups or in textbooks. One knows it by how its proponents -- "conservatives" -- actually govern and by who and what they support.

And what "conservatives" have supported for the past six years -- vigorously, loyally, unambiguously -- is George W. Bush and the Republicans who have controlled the Congress. "Conservatism," in its only meaningful sense, is that which they have done. Just like Fidel Castro and Leonid Brezhnev and Pol Pot and Mao Tse-Tung and Josef Stalin and the whole array of Communist regimes can't be extricated from "Communism," George Bush and his Congressional servants can't be removed from "conservatism." They, and what they have done, are "conservatism" by definition.

There are ways for political movements to eject the leaders they chose in the event that those leaders stray from the "right beliefs." In 1976, Gerald Ford was the Republican President, but conservatives believed he was insufficiently conservative -- not a real conservative -- so they supported the primary challenge of Ronald Reagan...

But George W. Bush, with very rare exception, was enthusiastically embraced by conservatives at all times -- in his 2000 primary fight against John McCain, in the 2000 general election, and again in the 2004 general election. It was conservatives themselves who made George Bush (and the individuals who controlled Congress) the standard-bearer of their political movement for the last six years, and there was no attempt to separate them from conservatism.

Who are the supposed "real conservatives" who were repudiating George Bush and the GOP Congresional leaders? Is it Mitt Romney, who in 2004 hailed the "the courageous and compassionate leadership of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney." Is it Rick Santorum, who solemnly told us: "every generation has but a moment to carry the torch that defines who we are and what we will be," and then made clear who he thinks will do that for conservatives: "George Bush has shown his compassion by advancing his faith-based initiatives, strengthening marriage, and fighting to let the American people define marriage, not left-wing judges."

It is Rush Limbaugh, who, at the time of Reagan's 2004 death, said: "Reagan was right just as George W. Bush is today, and I really believe that if Reagan had been able he would have put his hand on Bush's shoulder and say to him, 'Stay the course, George.' I really believe that." How about James Dobson: "According to Dobson, evangelical Protestants played a major role in re-electing President George W. Bush, giving him a 'great mandate.'"

The leading "conservative" political magazine, National Review, told us this about George Bush and "conservatism" in 2004: "In his bid for reelection, George W. Bush deserves the support of conservatives." Although the NR editors acknowledged that "mistakes" were made, they said that "Bush has shown evidence of being able to learn from his mistakes. We have made political strides in Iraq." They also said, while noting the "legitimate conservative criticisms that can be made of his record," that "Bush deserves conservative support, as well, on domestic issues." Thus: "For conservatives . . . backing Bush's reelection should be an easy decision."

And here is Jonah Goldberg anointing George W. Bush as the heir of Reagan conservatism and the Republican Party as the vessel of pure Reaganism:

But it is now clear that Bush's own son takes far more after his father's old boss than he does his own father, at least politically speaking. From tax cuts (and deficits, alas), to his personal conviction on aborrtion (sic), to aligning America with the historical tide of liberty in the world, Georrge (sic) W. Bush has proved that he's a Reaganite, not a "Bushie." He may not be a natural heir to Reagan, but that's the point. The party is all Reaganite now. What better sign that this is now truly and totally the Gipper's Party than the obvious conversion of George Bush's own son?

So let us smash the ludicrous pretense that Bush and the Republicans are somehow "separate" from "conservatism" before that toxic and grossly dishonest notion can take root. Until 2005 -- when the Bush presidency irrevocably collapsed -- who were the "real conservatives" who were insisting that George Bush was not one of them? The few who did -- Pat Buchanan, Andrew Sullivan, Bob Barr, Bruce Fein -- were deemed apostates and, in any event, compose such a small group that they are merely the exception that proves the rule...

Nobody forced George Bush on conservatives. They picked him, stuck by him, and long into his presidency, insisted that he was their leader and the face of conservatism. And so he is.

All of this is depressingly predictable. Last year, Digby famously defined "conservative" this way: "'Conservative' is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals." And Rick Perlstein has pointed out many times that, just like Communism: "In conservative intellectual discourse there is no such thing as a bad conservative. Conservatism never fails. It is only failed." But the predictability of all this doesn't make it any less deceitful, dangerous or just wrong...

It is the responsibility of journalists and, really, everyone, to preserve the basic truth that our country has been run exclusively by conservatives for virtually all of the last six years. It is true, as many (including myself, repeatedly) have noted, the Bush movement discarded "conservative principles" as they exist in text books. But it is equally true -- and far more important -- that all that has been done to this country has been done under the banner of "conservatism" and has been done by self-proclaimed "conservatives." There should be no debate about that because it is simply fact.

Contemporary American Conservativism has failed. Whether it is "true conservatism" or not is hardly the point. As Greenwald notes, it was all done under the banner of conservatism so parsing about whether or not it is pure is hardly an issue. The Republican/Conservative agenda failed so it is time to try something else.

Satire or Tomorrow's Headlines?

2006-11-14T22:15:00.000-06:00

Zombie Lies That Won't Die

2006-11-14T21:53:00.000-06:00

From a FoxNews memo leaked at Huffington Post:

“Be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem controlled Congress.”

George H.W. Bush

"I mean, you go back in history and you’ll find that there was always adversarial politics. There was always gut fighting. And it’s probably a little worse now given the electronic media and the bloggers and all these kinds of things."

Meanwhile, a rightwing blogger/terrorist has been arrested for sending fake anthrax scare letters. But in the bizzarro world that the media lives in this isn't big news. Democrats are still the shrill ones and Republicans are still allowed to say explicitly that terrorists support Democrats and Democrats support terrorists.

Rove's A Genius

2006-11-14T21:34:00.000-06:00

Eric Boehlert:

The Beltway press' gooey, ongoing crush on Rove has probably set some sort of record for longevity inside the Beltway as Rove's media stature seems to climb with each passing year, despite Bush's accumulating missteps -- missteps Rove helped choreograph (i.e., Terri Schiavo). Forget the fact that Bush needed the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the vote counting in order to secure a win in 2000, that Republicans in 2002 won congressional seats by promising a (phony) war of revenge against Iraq, or that in 2004 Bush, a wartime president who one year earlier boasted booming job approval rating, narrowly defeated a liberal from Massachusetts in the general election. The mainstream media echo chamber has been nearly unanimous; Rove was an organizational genius who had literally cracked the code to winning elections, while his Democratic counterparts wandered around in the electoral dark...

Last month, the Los Angeles Times described Rove as "far from being discouraged" about Republicans' chances this fall and giving "a virtuoso performance designed to prevent the Democrats from taking control of the House and Senate." CBS' Harry Smith announced Rove was "cool as a cucumber" because the "Republicans have an amazing get-out-the-vote mechanism." And Vanity Fair published an usually soft 8,500-word profile of Rove -- soft, given the fact that Rove was a man on the verge of his political and professional collapse.

And then there's the new, endlessly worshipful book, The Way to Win, by ABC News' Mark Halperin and The Washington Post's John Harris. (Talk about a bad time for a Rove-is-a-genius book to hit stores.) The tome stresses again and again that Rove is much more than a mere hired political gun, he's a thoughtful policy wonk. (He reads policy books! He attends policy conferences!) Halperin and Harris do everything in their power to prop Rove up as a wise man obsessed with "ideas" and desperate to implement thoughtful policy. Unfortunately, that loving portrait completely contradicts previous reports from inside the West Wing about how the Bush White House is almost uniformly devoid of serious domestic policy debate. Instead, politics -- by Rove's demand -- rules all:

There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.

That was John DiIulio describing the White House to Ron Suskind, writing for Esquire. DiIulio served as the first head of Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. (DiIulio's unflattering assessment -- senior Bush aides who didn't know the difference between Medicare and Medicaid -- went on for seven pages in a letter he wrote to Suskind.)...
Yet amidst the Iraq debate last June, ABC's Halperin warned Democrats, "If I were them, I'd be scared to death about November's elections," while Newsweek announced "Democrats lost the week in the war over the war" and that "the GOP was clearly on the rebound." ABC's The Note, issued by the network's Halperin-led political unit, declared that Democrats were "on the precipice of making Iraq a 2006 political winner for the Republican Party."...
The narrative had no basis in reality -- virtually every published poll at the time suggested the war was going to be a deadly anchor around the necks of Republicans come November -- but Rove was spinning his illogical tale, so lots of journalists played along, too timid to call it out for the obvious miscalculation that it was.

It was left to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, of all people -- the former Republican Revolution congressman -- to correctly identify the Rove strategy of embracing the war for what it was. Said Scarborough last June: "This sounds like a complete loser for Republicans come this fall."...
For now Bush is getting the blame. But does anybody really think that Rove did not play a significant role in the misguided decision to keep Rummy on through the elections? After all, it was Rove who insisted all year that Iraq could be a winning issue for Republicans and that candidates would get credit for sticking close to the president. That turned out to be a costly blunder, and so did Bush's refusal to can Rumsfeld.
Rove's fingerprints are all over both miscalculations, but the press, still not over its Rove crush, shies away from the tough questions.

Nuclear Israel?

2006-11-12T16:36:00.000-06:00

Israel Detonated a Radioactive Bunker Buster Bomb in Lebanon. The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon...

What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences?

Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years.

Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Phisics came to the same conclusion: “There are two ways to explain the origin of the enriched uranium found in Khiam:

About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities:

1) this material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army.

2) the enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work.

Yikes.

First of all, it looks the rumors are confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power even though they still deny it despite this evidence.

Second of all, it looks like Iraq and Iran weren't the biggest nuclear threat in the region. Let's be clear, Iraq's nuclear program was dismantled back in the late 90's while Iran's nuclear program won't produce enough material to make a single bomb for at least 15 to 20 years, and then it isn't even assured to work. In the meantime, Israel is actually using nukes against another country.

Israel has a gigantic arsenal of conventional weapons so it seems strange that they would use nuclear weapons. The only reason I can come up with is to tell their neighbors, "See...we gots nukes and we aren't afraid to use em." While Israel is still denying that they used any uranium based technology they must have known that scientist would confirm some had been used.

Scary stuff.

They need to come clean about their program and at least negotiate acceptance into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There should be consequences for creating this weapons program but there won't be. There should be consequences for them using non-conventional weapons on another country but there won't be. But when the US is violating international law so blatantly it makes it easier for other countries to do it. Not that we are the worst country or have the most violations but as one of the biggest remaining superpowers in the world we have an obligation to act better than this. Now we have no moral high ground and in inciting chaos in the Middle East, have pushed precious fringe groups like Hamas into legitimate popular government positions. We aren't the original cause of the problems over there but we sure as hell aren't sensitive to the underlying conflicts in the region. And now they are using Nukes against each other. It sets a great precedence for India/Pakistan.

More Atrios

2006-11-12T16:06:00.000-06:00

With talks of troop withdrawal/redeployment Atrios opines about the motives of the McCain/Leiberman stance and shoots down the bullshit before it gets off the ground:

Of course, the president has had the option to send more troops forever and hasn't done so. In fact, there's little the Democrats are likely to do which would stop the president from sending more troops. So McCain/Lieberman will pretend the Dems thwarted the plan for victory, even though the president will be the one who won't let them find the pony in Iraq.

Lovely game they're playing. Lovely that they feel this is a game.

This Modern World

2006-11-12T14:13:00.000-06:00

It's a few weeks old but Tom Tomorrow always seems to be able to get inside the heads of the wingnuts:

Meanwhile Lieberman and McCain call for more troops to be sent into the region. Realistically there are two options for what we could do at this point in Iraq. We can send in 100,000 troops or more into Iraq to thoroughly dominate the region and throw them into submission until an adequate infrastructure is in place for the country to run itself. The second option would be to admit it was a bad policy and pull out entirely and immediately.

Option one should have been implemented from the start if we were serious about this invasion business. Now, if implemented, it will be a clear admission that the Rumsfeld Strategy of using a smaller army (in direct opposition to the Colin Powell Strategy) was exactly wrong. Of course now it might be too late to secure the region at all as the severely misplanned war gets worse every day. Increasing troop levels is not an option though because we do not have the troops to send there outside of a draft which would be political suicide for however backs it.

Option two might is clearly not being considered at all by the decider. The only way this would be on the table at all is if the definition of victory was lowered so that what is going on now is considered "Mission Accomplished". Either way it would mean admitting that staying after toppling the regime was a mistake or that going in there in the first place was a mistake. That of course is too much to ask from a man who says his only mistake so far has been "Bring it on".

Instead, we will get option three, which involves doing absolutely nothing differently except for maybe some minor tweaks in ground operations that treat the symptoms of this civil war without addressing the cause. Instead of doing right by Americans and Iraqis, there will be nothing done because that would mean admitting failure which is not an option. So we'll wait another few months for something to magically change.

Billmon's Take on Newsbusters

2006-11-10T18:45:00.001-06:00

Sadly, it gets more difficult to write satire when the GOP continually adopts ridiculous stances like this as their accepted talking points.

Group Hug

2006-11-10T18:45:00.000-06:00

Everyone did it.

McCain in 2008?

2006-11-10T18:39:00.000-06:00

Like I said before McCain is 100% wrong on everything. He does not represent the center or the left. He represents himself. In that respect I'd like to encourage his nomination just so the Democrats could have a gauranteed presdiency but the fact is that while McCain doesn't court voters, he actively woos the press. They love him and will portray him as whatever he wants them to no matter what reality dictates.

So as McCain begins his campaign for presidency I'll have to begin my campaign to bring back out his selfish, entirely political nature.

Mandate Vs. Trial Period

2006-11-10T16:16:00.000-06:00

When the Republicans kept control of Congress and the Whitehouse, the popular line promoted by Cheney therefore picked up by pundits like Tucker Carlson was that the public gave the Republicans a mandate to do what they wanted. This was wrong because the country was and still is divided pretty closely down the center. The mandate philosophy disregards consequences for the future and lays the foundation for a divine right rule or similarly, the Chinese Mandate of Heaven. Religious undertones are apt considering who the base is supposed to be but it is not responsible to claim any broad sweeping powers like they did. The neocon strategy of "Energize the Base" focuses on giving what that small 30% minority want to ensure they come out to vote in droves. Thus the so called "mandate" of the people is anything but deferring to the people and what we want.

Now it is supposed to be shocking that this "mandate" is revoked when it was never there in the first place. The new Democratic Congress has Republican pundits claiming it is a trial Congress which the public will reject before restoring the rightful rulers back in their place.

While the Democrats did sweep the midterm elections by a huge amount, I wouldn't argue that they have a mandate. I don't think that term should ever be used in American politics. All rule is on a part-time, trial basis which is why we have elections. Despite the GOP's talking points, they never had a mandate but a trial period which, when up for renewal, the voters rejected.

Now the Democrats are starting their trial period where they have to prove to the voters that their stance and ability to govern is acceptable to let them stay in office. Concern trolls all over the place are telling the Democrats to watch their step and don't hand the keys over to the islamo-commie-fascists as strawman leftists are prone to do. This point might come up right after they say that the new Democrats in Congress are more conservative than the false Democratic Effigies they have been burning this whole time. There is still a vision of Stalinists and hippies mixed with intellectual elitists and token minority races, who rule the Democratic Party's policies.

What reality shows, is that the Democrats ran a campaign built on moderate and centrist candidates. They are not conservative but centrists as in what most of the country wants. (An aside: centrists candidates in the Republican Party are commonly referred to as Centrists or Moderates while centrists in the Democratic Party are referred to as conservative Democrats) Even though it is conservatives forwarding this argument mostly, it serves to defeat their movement because if these Democrats are conservative (centrists) then what does that say about the radical shift in the GOP. It is a clear admission that the GOP does not represent the people but only the American far right.

There will be no "leftist" regime brought into power by Democrats. All the candidates ran on accountability and running a responsible government, not one that creates an enormous deficit with un-needed tax cuts, an outrageously costly war, and an increase of government in sections that did not help the people.

Now the dilemma the pundits are putting the Democrats in is that they are claiming the Democrats have no plan for any real effort to govern other than obstruction - while warning Democrats that they better not do anything radical - even though they claim that these Democrats are conservative. It makes my head spin.

It is likely that this Congress will be plagued by obstruction but let's face it, the majority party isn't the one that blocks the passage of bills. The only ones that will encumber the working of the government are the minority party.

But we'll have to wait to see how this all plays out, how both parties' deal with each other, and how it is portrayed in the media. In the meantime let's hope that this current Congress understands that it is, like all other Congresses, on a trial period. Let's hope they remain accountable to us and help clean up Washington.

But Everyone's Doing It...

2006-11-10T13:50:00.000-06:00

ThinkProgress, Josh Marshall, and Kos all have posts today pointing to Atrios not liking the conservative spin about Tester so I figured I'd join the party. As was pointed out earlier, every single Democrat that ran was referred to as "too liberal". Now they are all conservative Democrats so even though the GOP lost they still won.

Grover Norquist: Modern Conservative Intellectual

2006-11-10T01:07:00.000-06:00

Grover Norquist in November 9, 2006 LA Times article:

Grover Norquist said in an interview that he viewed the election as a bump on an otherwise smooth road to continued conservative dominance...
"In two years, there is no George W. Bush and almost no Iraq war as presently constructed," Norquist said.
"And Democrats will be standing there, naked to the winds, having been forced by Nancy Pelosi to vote for tax increases, gun control and impeaching the president," he added, referring to the future speaker of the House.

The neocons just don't get it. This is the man who recently was singing the praises of Bush/Cheney and their infallibility. Bush was leading the Republicans to the promise land of permanent Republican rule.

If I sound like I am gloating it is only because of the tone of Norquists earlier gem of a piece, a prediction titled, "The Democratic Party is Toast". I'm sure inaccurate and shrill essays like this September 2004 one are a dime a dozen from him but this one has a bunch of predicitions and assertions that I am glad to bring back to his attention:

The modern Democratic Party cannot survive the reelection of President George W. Bush and another four years of Republican control of both Congress and the White House.
No brag. Just fact.

...

Without effective control of the government, the Democratic Party is like a fish out of water, a vampire in the sun, Antaeus held aloft, an appliance unplugged. In the past, the Democratic Party could afford to lose the presidency and remain connected to its source of power--the state--through control of the House of Representatives, and often the Senate as well. Little damage was done to the structure of the Democratic Party during the interregnums of the Eisenhower, Nixon, and George H.W. Bush administrations, because their moves could be checkmated by a Democratic Congress.

His disdain for the American government and democratic process is shocking. His prose is so outlandishly excessive because he can't come right out and say that he hates 60% of Americans and doesn't want us to have any say in government.

Redistricting in Texas and throughout the country ensures that Republicans will continue to control the House through 2012. Over time, the Senate--thanks to those wonderful square states out west--will trend toward 60 Republicans as the 30 red states elect Republicans and the 20 blue states elect Democrats. The anomaly of four Democratic senators hailing from Republican North and South Dakota will come to an end, as will the Republican-held Senate seat in Rhode Island.

Ok...the Rhode Island thing was right. Score one for Grover for the Democrats winning back that seat. The other predictions are based on the faulty prediction that the "Fire up the base" strategy is sustainable. The loose confederation of groups that made up the GOP base wasn't able to absorb the incompetence and corruption the GOP usually made them swallow. Not to mention alienating the middle voters which the Democrats took overwhelmingly. All your base are belong to us, Grover.

Now that we have leverage the public image of the Democratic Party will change dramatically and the GOP will only be seen as even more corrupt than possibly imagined. I think that is something Grover was fearing back in 2004.

With Democrats lacking a beachhead in Congress, four more years of Republican governance with President Bush in the White House will badly damage each of the pillars of the Democrat establishment...
Abroad, four more years under President Bush will move America and the world towards greater free trade, spreading prosperity throughout the world and bringing more countries into the trading systems that require property rights and rule of law, draining the swamps that breed radicalism and terror. At home, a second Bush administration will permanently abolish the death tax, which not only threatens to confiscate up to half of your parents' lifetime earnings, but also leads to the creation of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford Foundations that inevitably are taken over by liberal bureaucrats. And a steady increase in the number of honest gun owners will continue to reduce street crime and make America safer...
Over the next four years, Congress will bring such sanity to Washington, D.C., and expand the number of Americans who can carry across state lines. Less crime means fewer prison guards and parole officers, shrinking the government workforce which tends to be 10 percent more Democrat and less Republican. Solving problems without hiring a lot of government workers is a virtuous cycle...
We'll also be able to shrink the number of government workers already on the payroll. Over the next few years, a high number of middle managers in federal and state governments will become eligible for retirement, allowing government at all levels to reduce the middle management bloat that the private sector shed in the 1980s--but through painless attrition rather than bitter mass layoffs. This will save taxpayers billions and make government more competent and accountable.

First of all, Iraq needs much more than a stock market to trade. His false belief in the god of wealth to create an upper class for him to be able to deal with is part of the reason Iraq is the way it is. People like Grover preach from the Bible of Free Trade expecting that to solve all our problems and people involved in the Iraq reconstruction believed it.

As for the repeal of gun restrictions, according to the Brady Campaign to Stop Gun Violence: "Among 26 industrialized nations, 86% of gun deaths among children under age 15 occurred in the United States...Taxpayers pay more than 85% of the medical cost for treatment of firearm-related injuries...From 1977 to 1996, the U.S. firearm industry produced 85,644,715 firearms, 39,024,786 handguns, 26,651,062 rifles and 19,969,867 shotguns in the United States." Not such a stellar record to advocate for less gun control.

And of course while lavishing praises on Bush, who oversaw the biggest increase of government in history followed closely by Reagan, he still has the audacity to claim that only Democrats want bigger government. There are so many false and erroneous statements made by him that I could be here all day nitpicking every wrong assumption but we need to move on.

Bush wants to create Retirement Savings Accounts to allow every American to sock away up to $5,000 for retirement tax-free...
Four more years of more and bigger individual retirement accounts, heath savings accounts, RSAs, and LSAs means four more years of more Republicans and fewer Democrats.

Too bad, Americans don't trust this scheme and rather than have this issue create "more years of more Republicans", Bush's heavy stance on this issue is what started turning the tide against him. In short, this issue convinced more people to vote Democrat.

Last, a Bush-Cheney victory in November will create the conditions for a constructive contest among leading Republican governors and senators for the presidential nomination in 2008.

Wrong.

Dick Cheney's heart troubles mean that he will retire with Bush in 2009. Usually the sitting vice president is the natural enemy of all ambitious politicians of his party, but now all Republicans want a Bush-Cheney victory in 2004, so they can run for an open presidential ticket in 2008.
This is good for the Republicans, if not the republic.

Tell that to Santorum, Allen, Sweeney, Burns, Talent, Chafee, along with all the incumbents who lost and any Republican candidate looking at '08 hoping to crawl out of the terrible slump the neocons dragged them into.

Grover Norquist is a leading Conservative thinker.

Wrong Strategy

2006-11-09T22:55:00.000-06:00

As Atrios says, "it's all 100% wrong"

Mehlman

2006-11-09T17:08:00.000-06:00

Ken Mehlman is making big news lately. After losing big this last election he is front and center as one of the people to blame. He was a Bush strategist and closely tied with the polarizing campaign stances preferred by Bush and extremists in the GOP - the strategy that could haunt the GOP for years to come. Then Bill Maher outs Mehlman, which is supposedly old news to the Washington insiders but I never heard it. Not a big deal if you are or aren't gay but apparently that doesn't play well with evangelicals. Now supposedly his future as RNC chairman is in question, most likely to do with losing a close election rather than for being a closeted gay man.

Mehlman's own future is in question: "I will announce soon what my plan is for the future,'' he said.

Do Nothing President

2006-11-09T15:39:00.000-06:00

I just heard an interesting segment on NPR describing Bush's plan for Iraq as what amounts to "laissez-faire". It would have been nice if we could have gotten a lot of this information out earlier but reporters smell blood in the water with Rumsfeld departure and the resounding message given by the public Tuesday.

Bush has always been commander codpiece and portrayed in the media as maybe a simple man but all in all, a macho man and one who is very entrenched in the military. Behind his presidency stood Cheney and Defence secretary Rumsfeld. Bush traditionally believes in military intelligence before anything from the CIA and under him new military divisions competing with the CIA were created. He is the one that wants the missile defence curtain around America and the man who is not afraid to throw the military around like it is a giant game of Risk. In fact the last few elections have seen him running around the country telling people to support the military, which meant him and not the Democrats.

As Commander in Chief, though, he is about as effective as a he was in the Air National Guard in Vietnam. The report on NPR brought out that he has relied solely on the premise that the Generals on the ground know best and we shouldn't be questioning them. From that logic comes the infallible Rumsfeld blossom which recently has been recognized for the wilted dead ideal that it is. It is difficult to say who is at fault in that one, though, because Bush has refused to accept Rumsfeld's resignation twice and has the voice of Cheney snarling in his ear.

Despite his machismo war-president image, Bush has done no strategic planning as the commander of our armed forces other than telling them to attack a country that didn't pose a threat. His track record in Iraq is like his Yale record and business record where he keeps going and hopes something good happens or someone bails him out. This is the most passive commander of a war in recent history.

The analogy was brought up of the Civil War and Lincoln's prolbems with Generals. When a plan advocated by a General wasn't working out, he would replace that man with someone else. Thanks to Ken Burns I think we are all aware of the parade of men who filled that position during the war. Instead of using his power to pursue success in Iraq he has used his position of Commander in Chief as a curtain to protect him against critism. He has probably used that position to attack the Constitution with his unitary executive theory of a wartime President and to enact controversial domestic measures than to actively engage foreign enemies.

He has made a mess of a country that posed no threat to us, threaten to destabilize the region and world with terrorism and jihads. As the war worsen, his rhetoric of blaming citizens of the US as terrorist appeasers for their lack of support for his do nothing policies, increases. Iraq is in shambles and unless he wants to create a worldwide crisis for the future, he needs to spend all of his time trying to figure out how to turn that country around. It would be nice if domestic policies received that kind of attention and funding but he made a mess and now we all have to clean it up.

We are not the enemy, Mr. President. The enemy was Osama Bin Laden but he is gone and any semblance of justice for the September 11th attacks remains elusive. Do not blame us, your critics, for telling you about your mistakes. With the Democrats sweeping the midterm elections and public disatisfaction threatening a serious GOP bid at the 2008 presidency, you will not only be seen as a mistake in American history but a blite on your party which they will be happy to distance themselves from.

There is an opportunity now to start fixing the messes that have been made domestically and internationally. There is a chance now to start cleaning up the mess that is Washington and time to start severing the bonds of special interest groups who undermine Democracy. It is time to start rebuilding and time to stop the massive bleeding of our resources and jobs.

Monday Morning Quarterbacking

2006-11-09T15:32:00.000-06:00

I know, I know...it's easier to criticize than to be involved in something that failed. And, yes, everybody hates Monday morning quarterbacking, but some things bothered me about some campaigns this year. The most irritating of these was the Duckworth/Roskam race.

First of all Christine Cegelis should have been running in this race without a doubt. She is a member of the community that built a grassroots campaign against the huge incumbent Henry Hyde. Hyde maintained his seat in Illinois' 6th District since 1975 comfortably until Cegelis came around. She did not manage to defeat him in 2004 but receiving 44% of the votes, she proved to be the most successful ever to run against Hyde.

With a reputation as a rubberstamp, corrupt, and hypocritical republican, Hyde decided to step down given his age and the current political climate. Incumbents all over the country were fired on Tuesday as members of the most ineffective, laziest, and most corrupt Congress in a long time. That combined with a home grown hero breathing down his neck during the last campaign made a re-election attempt look difficult.

But the Democratic Party reorganized, and the different factions including Rahm's Blue Dogs and Dean's Grassroots were able to organize to win seats nation wide this last election. Part of the strategy was to kill the GOP talking point of week Dems by enlisting many young veterans of this Iraq war into the Fighting Dems. It effectively shows that the military is not behind Bush as well as shedding the elitist costume the media seems intent on dressing the Democrats in. These are young people that gave their time and risked their lives in war and deserve to have their voices heard more than any of the chicken hawk politicians.

Some, like Tammy Duckworth, gave more than a year of service. She gave up both of her legs and the use of one of her arms. Her story is compelling and courageous with her landing a helicopter being shot down to refusing to see the higher ups that came to see her. All in all she had a lot to fight for and be angry about. But that wasn't what her campaign was about.

She was endorsed by Durbin and Emmanuel and the reigning Illinois Democratic Political Machine. Most likely, if she would have won, she would have been beholding very much to Rahm and his Blue Dogs. She wasn't a very independent voice and would have only been played as a pawn in the Congressional power struggle.

Cegelis was an independent Democrat supported by Howard Dean's grassroots campaign. It is true that she would have caucused more with the Democrats than without, but she would have been a voice rather than just a vote. She would have brought passion to Washington and ideas.

Whether it was her independence that scared Rahm or Duckworth's past as a wounded soldier that appealed to the nationwide strategy, Rahm and the Illinois Democratic political machine chose to back Tammy. They barely edged out Christine in the primary.

From there Duckworth's campaign barely took off. Roskam was looked at as a highly vulnerable by both parties and a lot of money was poured into this campaign by Democrats and Republicans. Roskam and Mehlman spent their money on adds attacking Duckworth by distorting her stance on immigration and social security. They effectively framed Duckworth before she was able to say anything.

That is pretty amazing considering that as a wounded vet, her image should have already been framed leaving Roskam open for attacks or Duckworth open to discuss her platforms. Even after she swept all the local paper's endorsements, her campaign never really took off. Roskam is a very dirty man and part of the old Illinois Republican machine. His stances are so far right it is outrageous. He changed his position on a lot of platforms during the election and fixed a deal with the political arm of the VFW to get their endorsement even after Duckworth gave up more than him for this country and is still enlisted.

Tammy Duckworth had so many openings to attack him on but her campaign never fully materialized. It almost seemed like she was waiting and hoping for the national Democratic Party to help or out or have Rahm and Company run her campaign. I understand that she didn't want to tlook like a dirty politician like him but her ads were weak and she never took advantage of anything politically. Basically, what happened is that she let another right wing extremist into Congress because she didn't play rough enough.

Granted, this has traditionally been a Republican district and she was facing an uphill battle against Roskam and the RNC. It was not an impossible fight like Cegelis faced in the past. Duckwroth could have won but she didn't. Could Christine have run a better campiagn? I would like to say yes. It is hard to say whether a Democrat could have won at all in that district but it seems like Christine fought for it more in the past than Duckworth did.

I'm not saying that Duckworth isn't a good candidate, but rather that her campaign was weak and flawed. I hope she decides to run again but maybe in a different district with a tougher approach. As for Illinois' 6th, I'd like to see Cegelis vs. Roskam next time.

All Your Base Strategy

2006-11-09T08:48:00.000-06:00

I understand how the "Energize The Base" strategy is supposed to work but see the obvious flaws in the system. Other men, like one certain president that gave a news conference today, are convinced that this is the normal way to win elections rather than this being the exception. He claimed that Democrats effectively got out their bases vote, and because the GOP is full of corrupt pedophiles who loves them a far away unpopular war led by an unpopular president, they were not able to get out their vote. As I said before, yes the Democrats definitely got their base out to the polls but that wasn't what won the election. The independents and fed up Republicans (previously known as Reagan Democrats) voted blue because the red is too extreme. There is the first flaw of the Energize the Base (ETB) - it alienates those that are not true believers but are mainly along for the ride.

Here is how ETB works. On each side there is a 30% margin that will never vote for the other side no matter what. On top of that is about a 10% margin on each side that will most likely vote for a particular party every time but they still call themselves independents. Then there is the 20% who are so clueless or busy that they have no idea what is going on in the world and can be influenced easily. Not everyone is going to vote from any bloc and that is where ETB gives one side an extra boost. If the left gets their bloc and a majority of the independents that are voting but only half or less of these blocs are voting, the numbers aren't great. If at the same time the right gets 100% of its base out and some straggling independents, then the electorally they are looking pretty good. So even if the majority of the public disagrees with how the government is being run, the few people that can stop eating potato chips and get off their fat asses to vote control which nutjob will represent America.

That works if your base believes in you. But if a congressman who is supposed to be protecting children from sexual predators is found out to have been soliciting gay sex from minors while his leaders knew about it but chose to cover it up - it might de-energize the base. Or if one of the shepherd of the faithful who happens to call the Whitehouse once a week and who was adamant about the sins of gay sex is found to have a gay lover that buys him meth - it might make people question whether these leaders are just taking them for a ride. If this base finds out you want to mess with social security - that might make them less likely to stick with you. If your administration is found out to have lied to get us into a war they previously supported fully - the base might feel used. If your cronyism government causes the mishandling of one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the country - you can expect some disillusionment. When advocate sending the government in to override doctors and family members in private health decisions, or allow insurance company executives and drug company executives to write the drug plan, and allow oil and energy companies to write the energy bill, oversee a drop in median household income of 3% over six years, support a vice president that shoots old men in the face, refuse to alter the war plan no matter what happens, have leaks that you refer to the base as the wackos, have 18 members of congress under investigation of something, and have three leading members of Congress resign under scandal - your base is most likely not going to be happy.

There is a lot that a party can absorb by demonizing the other party and saying, "what you rather have that?" In order to have an effective ETB campaign the party needs to be perfect or free from scandals for a while. Rove misstepped when he tried to ram this same point home while telling everyone to ignore the skeletons in the closet. There are many reasons why their base didn't turn out and that is no ones fault but the Republicans.

But there are many reasons that the Democrats took a lot of Republican voters that were supposed to be the loyal red base. While the GOP wasn't afraid to alienate voters, the left listened to voters and based the campaigns on what people wanted. Democrats didn't tell people what they wanted or how they should be thinking, they offered people what they wanted and what this country needs right now.

On top of this, Bush was Dr. Death this year as a symbol for the frustrations of the country. Instead of energizing his base to get out the votes, he scared people away and turned alienated voters to another option.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that President Bush may have been the deciding factor that killed the GOP's momentum in some key Senate races over the last week. One Republican consultant is convinced that Bush's last-minute visit to Missouri on behalf of ousted GOP Sen. Jim Talent did the incumbent in.

Later on Chuck Todd asks,

So why didn't Karl Rove attempt to do what he did in '02 and '04 and dictate the terms of the debate? It was clear this was going to be a national election, yet the White House stuck to its "stay the course" guns for way too long.... The political arm of the Bush White House doesn't usually miss this badly, but it appears this election was misjudged from the beginning.

The answer is that Karl did try to do what he did in previous elections. All the old dirty tricks were brought out at the last minute, Mehlman ran smear campaigns, and there was mass attempts at voter suppression. They tried to turn the debate multiple times to taxes and Mexicans but the country wasn't hearing it this time. This campaign was misjudged by them but not because they did something wildly different or were more cocky than usual. It is more because they did the same thing and expected it to work again. Karl found a cocktail of dirty tricks that worked but were finally countered heavily by the Democratic offensive. Now the one trick pony is shown for who he is.

Now it is the Democrats turn to show the doubters that despite GOP calls to the contrary, they have plans and are more capable of running this government than the corrupt GOP. There are not going to be immediate results in key issues like the war but at least the Democrats can offer up their legislation now and actually be part of the governing process. The President and his GOP is on defense since if anything becomes gridlocked it will be the Republicans fault. The choice for the Republican Congressman now is, "do you follow Bush again and hope that it turns in 08 or do you caucus with the Democrats and hope your district shows you leniency?"

It's funny because it's true....

2006-11-08T23:15:00.000-06:00

Greg Saunders did a great job fixing up this photo.

Style Changes

2006-11-08T21:48:00.000-06:00

Trying a different style, html, colors, etc. Let me know if it doesn't work.

My Confession

2006-11-08T18:28:00.000-06:00

I was skeptical.

I did not think the Democrats would pull it off. 2004 showed that they were able to destroy commanding leads. Since then we've had bad news and worse out of Washington. The current politicians are so corrupt it is difficult to have any hope whatsoever for anything positive ever getting done.

I was more than skeptical. I did not believe the Dems could do it. In either house.

I knew they would close up the gaps considering the unbelievable amount of anger in this country. But it wasn't a national vote and a lot of these races looked close in the polls. Republicans do have a lot of money and a very loyal base. The base ensures that even if the country doesn't support a policy, as long as the base does what it is told and votes in large numbers a relatively minor segment of the population could have control of what goes on. Look at the last two elections.

I'm not happy that their base chose to vote along the lines of pedophile sex rather than torture and lies about a mismanaged war. I'm not happy that Roskam beat out Duckworth with lies about taxes and aliens. I'm not happy that Bush still doesn't see reality.

I was proven wrong about the power of the people.

We are organized now and look like a real party. I'm not just talking about internally because we always were a party. I mean that now American people know that we stand for something. The media is finally portraying us in a constructive light and our representatives finally have a chance to do something other than what the Texas Shah wants.

But I didn't believe it would happen. I was wrong.

Now it's time to prove that the Democrats can stand up and fight this travesty of government still in office. I'm hesitant to believe that will happen but I'm willing to believe.

Bush's Nuanced Concession

2006-11-08T15:34:00.000-06:00

"I say, why all the glum faces?"

He starts off the post midterm election press conference with yet another misreading of people and projection. Just because his view of American politics was rejected he thinks it means defeat when it is actually just our government moving on in accordance with the people's wishes. There is no reason people should be glum that America spoke out and rebuked this incompetent Congress and Administration. But, as always, Bush is projecting his mood onto others and acting like it is empathy.

A minor point, I know, but a good indication of what is to come. Anyone can dissect his speeches line by line and pick out the subtle digs at the opposition or numerous lies contained within the boundaries of just one speech, to say nothing of the inaccuracies of his policies as a whole. The main gist of this speech was: yes the Democratic Party won...but they still better follow the Bush plan because only the Bush administration knows what is best for the country.

George W. Bush won the election in 2004 with a mere 51% of the votes, yet his administration declared, "President Bush ran forthrightly on a clear agenda for this nation's future, and the nation responded by giving him a mandate." Despite only being able to claim a slim margin of victory that coincided with a brief spike in his popularity, his administration saw this vote as a thumbs up from the voters to do whatever he wanted for the next four years.

It was a contentious argument that abused the constitution to make himself king for four years. A man with grand delusions would not have been so bad if we a Congress that was willing to enforce any kind of oversight or some checks and balances rather than none at all. Instead, what we got was a government that answered to special interests groups instead of the people because obviously we aren't paying them enough money. In place of checks and balances we a received grandstanding McCain and others who made a big deal that they were standing up to the President but in the end caved to exactly what Bush wanted. Instead of resistance from the opposing party we got Lieberman and his gang of 14 that sided with the Republicans in order to make sure the opposing party had no options other than useless verbal objections.

After 2004 Congressional and Presidential approval ratings tanked and have not recovered. Finding out that we were lied to about Iraq as well as the ever worsening situation over there was part of the reason, clearly. However, the last two years have not been kind to Republicans and their batshit crazy policies. Starting with their self righteous indignation over the Terri Shiavo case, they continually dug themselves deeper into a hole of American discontent. Trying to privatize Social Security didn't help out matters, neither did the handling of Katrina because of an unqualified appointment. The Plame outing investigation ousting Scooter ending with Bush admitting he was the one who gave the orders to out her was embarassing for the administration and our country. They were rebuked by the Supreme Court over the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision.

The list could go on but the pattern was clear that the elephant in the corner was becoming to fat to ignore. Yet, Rove expected the GOP to retain its powers of closed door legislation, removing Democrats from decision making, and inviting lobbyist and special interests groups to undermine our democracy. Overwhelmingly the public say "enough" in one of the most stinging upsets and turn arounds in our nation's history.

Bush still had the audacity today to say:

The message yesterday was clear: The American people want their leaders in Washington to set aside partisan differences, conduct ourselves in an ethical manner, and work together to address the challenges facing our nation.

Based on his track record I expect him to pretend to do this then fake us out with demanding that the Democrats are being partisan for opposing him. In his speech Bush even mentions dreading having to work with the other party:

I'm obviously disappointed with the outcome of the election.

And more on reaching across the aisle:

I told Congresswoman Pelosi that I look forward to working with her and her colleagues to find common ground in the next two years...I believe that the leaders of both political parties must try to work through our differences. And I believe we will be able to work through differences. I reassured the House and Senate leaders that I intend to work with the new Congress in a bipartisan way to address issues confronting this country...

The election has changed many things in Washington, but it has not changed my fundamental responsibility, and that is to protect the American people from attack.

Since Bush is not willing to cede anything, his references to "common ground", "working through political differences", "addressing issues in a bipartisan way" means nothing more than him only working with Democrats as long as they say what he likes. Bold for someone who has not had approval ratings above the high 30% since just after being elected. But like he says, the election changed a lot of things but it has not changed his misguided and harmful governance.

He is a man who will play politics over American interests every time. Instead of accepting the elections and moving forward like he promised to he doesn't even wait one day to start replaying the bogus slanders against the Democrats. He would rather undermine troop moral and divide a country rather work together, as is evident by his subtle digs.

Amid this time of change, I have a message for those on the front lines. To our enemies: Do not be joyful. Do not confuse the workings of our democracy with a lack of will. Our nation is committed to bringing you to justice. Liberty and democracy are the source of America's strength, and liberty and democracy will lift up the hopes and desires of those you are trying to destroy.

To the people of Iraq: Do not be fearful. As you take the difficult steps toward democracy and peace, America is going to stand with you. We know you want a better way of life, and now is the time to seize it.

To our brave men and women in uniform: Don't be doubtful. America will always support you. Our nation is blessed to have men and women who volunteer to serve, and are willing to risk their own lives for the safety of our fellow citizens.

The reference is clear. He sees this as a vote for terrorism and a message to terrorists that their tactics are winning. There is a heavy campaign right now to put the Democrats on the defense by claiming that they represent American interests. This is disrespectful to the American public and dishonest at any level other than what passes for neocon discourse.

This scary section of the speech is George Bush telling the world that he is America, not the people. He is strong and everyone else is weak. He actively bashes the process of democracy while using it as the crutch of his arguments. Shameful and scary.

His oblivious blindness to reality and what is going on only negatively affect our country.

Don Rumsfeld has been a superb leader during a time of change.

No he hasn't. That is why he had to go rather than having the Democrats push him out.

Their candidates were well-organized and did a superb job of turning out their votes.

This falsely suggests that the outcome of the elections do not reflect the public's wishes, that it is only the Democratic party coming out in superior numbers. We came out in superior numbers but that wasn't what did it. It was the independents and moderates that abandoned his polarized politics is what swayed this election.

The American people want their leaders in Washington to set aside partisan differences, conduct ourselves in an ethical manner, and work together to address the challenges facing our nation.

No way. The vote wasn't for some bullshit faux partisanship. It was an overwhelming backlash of discontent and rejection of Repbulican policy. There was nothing that happened last night to remotely suggest that it was about putting aside partisan differences. As for the ethical stuff...look no further than the Republican party and their corporate backers. Bush's statement that, "the Democrats are going to have to make up their mind about how they're going to conduct their affairs" is straight out of opposite-land where the poor get tax breaks and Iraq has WMDs.

As further proof that Bush doesn't live in reality but rather, distorts what is happeneing to fit his views:

Well, there was a -- I read those same polls, and I believe that -- I thought when it was all said and done, the American people would understand the importance of taxes and the importance of security. But the people have spoken, and now it's time for us to move on.

Translation: "I read the polls but don't believe everything I read. Can't always trust the truth when you got your gut. The country voted for the Democratic Party but I think we can move past that to make sure I still can do what I want."

Well, we'll be starting to get some real answers and see some real battles between this administration and the Democrats pretty soon. Hopefully.

Democratic.Party.Won.

2006-11-08T13:47:00.000-06:00

Congratulations on restoring power. The American people are behind you.

Time to attempt to suture the hemorrhages and work towards 08.

They Still Don't Get It

2006-11-08T13:46:00.000-06:00

Bush just spoke at his press conference congratulating the "Democrat Party" on their victory and talking about how he hopes both parties can work together. These talking points started showing up last night from Mehlman on the news channels, that they are "committed to working with Democrats to get things done for the country". The history of these current Republicans point to anything but working together. Their version of bipartisanship is the Lieberman-style Democrats caving to anything the Republicans want.

Despite the overwhelming landslide that this country hasn't seen in years, the higher ups in the Republican party are still claiming that this was a typical election. The country rejected the views, corruption, and mismanagement of the republican party plain and simple. Yet, "President Bush believes the new House will mirror his thinking on some issues."

Today in his news conference Bush reflected the same thinking saying we are all going to work hard together to fix problems. He never took responsibility for any of those problems other than saying that he was to blame for a large part of the GOP's defeat. Not once did he say he was going to change his ways nor did he recognize the disgust of the people for his policies. It is clear what these next two years of him reaching out will be just like the last six.

"Bush wants to go back to the Texas model. He's always reached out. He's been trying over the last couple of years with limited success," Snow said.

Bipartisanship to this administration is their way or the way of terrorists. Reaching across the aisle isn't an option for them, they prefer it when Democrats have to crawl across to pick up the scraps like Lieberman had done.

From Time:

Snow, who worked conservative talk radio for three hours yesterday afternoon, said Democrats now "have to decide whether they're going to be part of the solution, or are going to try to shut down the government for two years and point fingers at the President."

It is clear that Republicans are not going to work with Democrats but rather spend their time gridlocking the government in Tom DeLay's preferred scorched earth policy. With fingers in their ears they ignore the voters and once again are on track to put their party over the good of the country. They still don't get that the voter's don't want them around.

Glenn Greenwald points out that the adminstration at this point is mostly concerned with fighting oversight. He sees a battle being fought already by the administration where they are trying to intimidate the Democratic Congress to not fight them because the administration will win. Translation: Bush doesn't think anyone should challenge him.

These are the same scare tactics Rove tried to use by declaring he had a November surprise, and convincing the GOP candidates to stick together, follow him, everything would be peachy.

Greenwald:

These anonymous shots across the bow are about trying to intimidate Congressional Democrats away from real oversight and trying to bully them away from investigating-- by boasting how the White House will inevitably win such fights, both legally and politically. And the White House no doubt expects to recruit the David Broders and Fred Hiatts of the world to sternly lecture the Democrats about their obligations to be cooperative and about how it is so mean and "divisive" to investigate the Leader. Instead, Democrats will be told that they should "work with President Bush" instead (meaning: ignore their base that elected them and just, all Arlen-Specter-like, politely request permission to modify a few things here and there on the President's wish list in order to cast the appearance of compromise).

Snow is already starting up this attack of blurring the lines between lackeyism and bipartisanship.

"Three dozen blue dogs have voted against her on various issues," Snow said, using a nickname for conservative Democrats. "And it's the conservative Democrats who made real gains."

Kos has a lengthy answer to the conservative Democrats talking point passed around the news station and a shorter response:

Let's not forget that during the campaign, every single one of these Democrats was accused by their Republican opponents of being "too liberal". Every single one of them.

These new Democrats are more centrist but hardly conservative. They will vote with Pelosi before Hastert.

Greenwald always says it best so I'll let him have the last word:

If there is anything that should be viewed as impotent at this point, it is Republican threats, accompanied by their boasting of inevitable victory. One of the most important things our country needs is a bright light to be shined on what this Government has done, and if the Bush administration really wants to resist those inquiries and claim the right not just to be above the law, but also immune from scrutiny, all the better.

Catholic Answer Action's Five Non-Negotiable Issues

2006-11-06T22:26:00.000-06:00

The latest last minute attempt to confuse voters into thinking they are angry at this administration and failing congress for no reason is the Catholic Answers Action's Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics (warning: pdf). Readers can help point out where it pops up, but so far I have seen it in USAToday. It is dishonest because it falsely implies that it is THE stance of the Catholic Church on issues voters should take into consideration when in fact the United States Bishops refuse to recognize it inlieu of their more comprehensive Faithful Citizenship. Whether or not these tip sheets should be issued to influence voters is debatable but the point is that Karl Keating is trying to bully voters into thinking that only "Serious Catholics" think the way he does.

Five Non-Negotiable Issues

The "five non-negotiable issues" they say should be of most consideration for "Serious Catholics" are abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, and gaymarriage . In contrast the official Catholic church guide refers to more than fifty key issues voters should think about while voting. Warning flags should go up right there especially considering that the issues Catholic Answer Action highlights are non-votable issues and more of vague stances - that isn't even getting into how each of these are GOP buzz word issues. While the issues and explanations are consistent with Catholic teachings, the limited scope of the focus is misleading, dishonest, and irrelevant.

Abortion

Obviously, the Church is fully against allowing this practice. Should it be an issue for how to vote this midterm election?

No. The party that is in power right now is the one that ran on the anti-abortion platform for years. Its base is the Evangelicals and their abortion stance has been part of the "value vote" for years. However, with the GOP in charge of the administration, Congress, and Supreme Court for six years now, there has been only a hint that this law will ever change. Fact is that this law will never change no matter who you vote for. This election is not about abortion and no election ever will be.

The fact that this has been a solitary voting issue for many Americans for years is sad and telling. If the GOP didn't have the anti-abortion thing to run on they wouldn't get nearly so many one issue voters.

Euthanasia

Umm...I don't even know when to start with this one. There is not one politician who has come out in the support of Kevorkian style mercy killing.

What they are referring to is the shameful Terri Shiavo fiasco. Politicians thought they knew better than doctors and family. Without getting in to the details, the politicians were wrong. Now this group is trying to spin one of the GOP and religiousrights biggest missteps in the last two years into them being right. Once again this is a non-issue and non- votable issue. There is no reason for this to be considered this election.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

While the Church is against this issue, they are wrong. The fear is that people are going to start harvesting babies and having babies to cure their diseases similar to Swift's "A Modest Proposal". A + B = Democrats want to eat babies.

There has never been any bills proposed for an unsupervised, free-for-all human testing. Instead of being used for cures, the GOP thinks that we should dispose of all these stem cell lines. It is a heartbreaking and cold stance on their part considering how many people suffering from chronic and debilitating pain can be cured.

The Church has often opposed contemporary scientific research throughout history. This is another time when they are on the wrong side of the issue. They don't even want to have the facts in this issue, since they are opposing the research not even the use forembryonic stem cells for cures.

Human Cloning

Considering that there is a world wide moratorium on human cloning and intense opposition from everyone, meaning that no one at all backs this (not to mention the technical impossibilities of cloning humans) this is another non-issue. This isn't even a non-issue, this stands next to the Bush's manimal stance.

Gay Marraige

The Church doesn't like gay marriage and doesn't allow it, perform it, much less recognize it. That is as far as their jurisdiction goes. If Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus, or whoever don't want to participate in homo-nups, that is their prerogative to set themselves to a higher moral standard.

Gay people exist, though. It is a fact and not disputable. To continue to demonize a good chunk of the population including many doctors, lawyers, religious leaders, politicians, CIA translators, garbage men, students, etc., is not a helpful policy. Two recently outed gay men were strong anti-gay advocates. The preacher has his reputation and career ruined all because he couldn't accept the fact that he is gay and needed someone to persecute.

---

That is the problem with this Catholic-front organization: all their stances reflect a push for power and dominance. Abortion is not so much about babies as much as it is about reducing women's rights. Euthanasia isn't about saving sick people as much as it is about using vulnerable people as shields and rallying cries without caring about the person. Embryonic Stem Cell isn't about saving babies, it's about blocking research and enforcing a minority's morality over the majority of people. Anti-gay marraige isn't about anything but superiority, persecution, and more moral grandstanding.

How Not to Vote

This section describes how Catholic voters ought not to vote. This section is an outright attack on Democratic candidates and fits in well with typical GOP ugly mudslinging when they have no issues to run on.

Political Affiliation

Do not just vote based on your political party affiliation....You need to look at the stands each candidate takes

Similar to Glenn Beck's faux moderation and the current astroturf word on the streets they tell you not to focus on political parties. It isn't a coincidence that this talking point is circulating while the generic polls show the GOP tanking. They are trying to confuse voters into thinking that because someone allies themselves with the GOP that they aren't necessarily voting with the GOP. The fact is that this administration and Congress has failed us in so many aspects; it is reprehensible to give them another chance. Political affiliation is a key factor in considering a candidate because most GOP candidates vote along party lines and sadly Bush and Cheney are influencing a lot of the policy making.

Candidate Appearance

Do not cast your vote based on candidates' appearance, personality, or "media savvy"

The Washington Post recently ran an article titled, Democrat Faces That Could Launch Thousands of Votes - "With a Parade of Attractive Candidates, the Party May Benefit From the Politics of Beauty". Once again it is no coincidence that a supposed Catholic organization urges voters against these pretty Democratic candidates. At this point they are not even trying to hide their partisanship.

Lesser Versus Key Moral Issues

Do not vote for candidates who are right on lesser issues but who will vote wrongly on key moral issues

Of course these key moral issues include this groups solitary five voting issues. At this point I'll mention that despite both Popes' vehement stance against the unjust war in Iraq, this group never mentions this issue once. Nearly 3,000 dead Americans, an administration that supports torture, over 600,000 dead Iraqis, and decreasing medical coverage aren't any key moral issues to this group.

If we wanted a moral government we wouldn't vote in the pedophile, lying, cheating, and crooked GOP candidates. But the government is held to a lower moral standard than religions and religious figures. Our government is a gigantic corporation and the voice of millions of people. We need to focus on the lesser and "key moral" issues. We shouldn't let our country go bankrupt because we need to kill brownies or because some sheep think that abortion is going to be illegal. There is more at stake here than the key moral issue of human cloning and manimals.

Declared Catholics

Do not vote for candidates just because they declare themselves Catholics

There are currently 11 Republican Senators versus 13 Democratic Senators declaring themselves Catholic, and 57 Republican Representatives versus 72 Democratic Representatives declaring themselves Catholic. This line is obviously calling into doubt how serious these Congressional members are and a clear attack on the Democratic party.

---

I'm not saying that there are better Catholics on either side of the aisle because most likely you aren't a practicing Catholic if you are a politician. But I do not believe that religion should be involved in politics. If people want to follow more strict moral codes that is great for them and I wish them well. However, trying to impose this more strict morality on everyone else is wrong. These moral issues that require the intervention of the government in personal and private family matters such as abortion and euthanasia show a sign of failure of Church teaching or failure of the righteous rather than a failure of the government.

Had Enough?

2006-10-27T00:08:00.000-05:00

Balanced Reporting

2006-10-08T10:07:00.000-05:00

This "balanced" reporting thing is getting out of control. News outlets decided at some point to abandon reporting facts opting instead to make their reports into a "he said, she said" courtroom where each side gets to present their case. The obvious problem with this style is that there is very little investigative reporting going on, to say nothing about the insulting assumption that people only fit into polar opposites on Kitty Farmer's Lifeline. Within this "objective" facade spin is often created but criticism of any slant is dismissed with the misleading claim that both sides had their say.

Debates are framed and how they are presented is far more important than having both sides resond. Clearly the whole, "if you don't support the war in Iraq, then you must hate the troops, freedom, and America" spin that has been going on the last four years is a ridiculous example but one that the media enabled by giving it a podium. Sure, the anti-war movement might have been given a chance to respond to these allegations but the fact that they needed a response makes the public assume that the anti-war people were a little guilty because these accusations don't come out of thin air.

Now, after trying a bunch of different strategies the GOP is sticking with the story that Democrats are just bringing this up now in time for the elections. After spending a week of actually trying to spin a story about a Congressional Representative soliciting sex repeatedly from minors online, then the Republican leadership covering it up they are doing what they do best - putting their party before America. Sadly some reporters are still so indoctrinated with the idea that the Democrats are evil and amoral that they are also trying to spin this story into a victory for Republicans.

Matthew Defour's story is about how the Democrats are annoying voters of Hastert's district by robocalling them with a message to ask Denny about his role in the scandal. The call was made by American Family Voices whose president is former Clinton staffer Mike Lux. Defour is upset that anyone on the left would associate themselves with family values and makes sure to "out" the group as a posing as conservatives and run from Washington.

Meanwhile, Hastert's robocalling is portrayed as a response to those evil Democrats from "out-of-town ... trying to smear a man who has served our communities with integrity for many years." After all Hastert's robocalling (which is never referred by that term in the article) is only "a set of calls trying to provide information and set the record straight."

Denny keeps avoiding opportunies to set the record straight himself while providing nothing butfalse information.

"Hastert's office is now declining to talk about specifics of the scandal, citing the ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation."

Please someone hold the GOP accountable for something.

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

2006-06-29T19:50:00.000-05:00

Maybe I'm naive for not understanding why this is such a landmark decision. The court said that the president has to follow laws and treaties. I thought that was implicit with the job. But as part of the cabal has noted "I find it strange the law applies to me...(because)...the law applies to me (anyways)." This time they are telling you that you need to follow the law.

Isn't it a little strange that the top lawyer of the land didn't even think that the Gitmo policies were questionable but absolutely neccessary and that the Geneva Convention was quaint? Doesn't it bother people that he was so far off?

Let's be clear about one thing though, this isn't a victory for terrorists. Everyone agrees that if they are terrorists and a big threat then they need to be put away. No one is questioning that. But if they are such imminent threats, shouldn't there be copious amounts of evidence against them that we wouldn't need secret courts? Just saying...

That Durn Librul Media

2006-06-28T18:15:00.000-05:00

Andrea Jones, press secretary to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, has left that post to join ABC News in Washington.

She becomes executive director of media relations, over seeing PR for Nightline, This Week and the D.C. bureau.

She replaces Emily Lenzner, who exited to join National Public Radio.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

2006-06-01T17:48:00.000-05:00

Robert F. Kennedy says yes.

Another Turning Point Without Progress

2006-05-23T11:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday Bush proclaimed we’ve reached “a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror.” Feel like we are caught in one of London’s traffic circles spinning around and around? Maybe that’s don’t even bother with making up new lies to tell us.

Previous Turning Points include:

December 14, 2003’s Capture of Saddam

“A turning point will come in less than two weeks. On June the 30th, full sovereignty will be transferred to the interim government. The Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, an American embassy will open in the capital of a free Iraq.” George Bush, June 18, 2004

“Tomorrow the world will witness a turning point in the history of Iraq, a milestone in the advance of freedom, and a crucial advance in the war on terror. The Iraqi people will make their way to polling centers across their nation.” George Bush, January 29, 2005

October 13, 2005’s Vote

“There's still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq, but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East, and the history of freedom.” George Bush, December 12, 2005

"The turning point here is that Iraq now has its first permanent government, and that it is a government of national unity, and it gives Iraq a real chance to deal with the real vexing problems that it has faced.” Condoleezza Rice, April 26, 2006

“We believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens and it's a new chapter in our partnership.” George Bush, May 2, 2006

Think Progress’s “Bush Stays the Course on Turning Point Rhetoric” is sadly still applicable.

Colbert

2006-05-03T09:28:00.000-05:00

The right is now trying to say that the president was more funny than these skits. I'm not sure if he meant for it to be "git er dun" fart-humor funny which maybe has them confused. If they didn't like what he was saying maybe they shouldn't have done all the stuff he was making fun of them for.

Annotated Mojo Article

2006-05-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

Looks like Bush’s faith has been shaken as his staff scours the U.S. looking for Bush’s lost charm as Bolten tries to “get (Bush’s) mojo back” according to the AP. Does Bolten also believe "God always does his best work right after a crucifixion"? Is the religious right scared that the man who once instituted a Jesus Day in Texas has forsaken the church in favor of voodoo charms? I know I’m angry but it has nothing to do with Bush’s political beliefs.

“(Bolten) said he and Bush have decided they want to be more open with the media and the public.”

This obviously doesn’t include Cheney who doesn’t feel his office is even required to report how many documents his office classified last year. The article also points out that the White House has doubled the amount of materials classified since 2001 which, sadly, isn’t the worst part.

Bush has clamped down on the release of government documents. That includes tougher standards for what the public can obtain under the Freedom of Information Act and the creation of a broad new category of "sensitive but unclassified information."

Not only has the administration reported a dramatic increase in the number of documents deemed "top secret," "secret" or "confidential," the president has authorized the reclassification of information that was public for years…

The White House has resisted efforts by Congress to gain information, starting with a White House energy task force headed by Cheney and continuing with the president's secret authorization of warrantless surveillance of people inside the United States suspected of communicating with terrorists abroad. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., recently threatened to withhold funding for the surveillance program unless the White House starts providing information.

The administration has withheld the identities of, and accusations against, detainees held in its war on terror, and it censored the findings of a joint House-Senate committee that investigated the events leading to Sept. 11, including a 27-page blackout of Saudi Arabia's alleged connections to the terrorists.

While maintaining a disciplined and virtually leakproof White House, senior members of the administration have been accused of leaking information to punish a critic of the war in Iraq. The grand jury testimony of a former White House aide reportedly asserts that Bush himself selectively authorized release of once-classified information to counter criticism.

This last part of course refers to Bush’s role in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

It looks like Bolten isn’t lying saying that they “decided” to be more open and honest with the public. Something is always going to be greater than nothing. If he wanted us to believe this line maybe he can get Tony Snow to explain why Kenneth Tomlinson thinks that the ~~PolitBuro~~ Broadcasting Board of Governors should enjoy a budget of over $600 million per year while the Corporation for Public Broadcasting still only gets around $400 million per year.

Bolten, however, has plans to change the public’s negative image of Bush that includes the administrations lack of transparency and accountability. From the AP article again, "We've taken advice from a lot of folks that we ought to put the president out more in ways that the American people can see what he's really like," Bolten said on "Fox News Sunday."

I’m skeptical because this administration absolutely adores semantic games. The whole White House “shake up” focused on getting their message out more forcefully and failed to address policy changes that the public desperately wants. I have a feeling we are still knee deep in rhetoric from Bolten.

AP article: Bolten made no promises of pulling up President Bush's all-time low approval ratings…he said that does not mean the president's policies are going to get an overhaul. "I don't think we need to change, but we do need to refresh and re-energize," Bolten said…."What the change (replacing Card with Bolten) does provide is an opportunity for the White House to step back, refresh, re-energize at a time when we're 5 1/2 years into an administration _ normally a slow point, a low point, in many administrations _ and a chance for us to get our mojo back, to go back more on the offensive and to get people within the White House to look at our operations, re-energize them for the next six months up through the election, the next 1,000 days through the end of this president's term," Bolten said.

As Bolten shoves his fingers into his ears to ignore the mandate of the public, he also disregards the fact that no president has ever endured such low numbers for so many weeks. This is a low point but it is most definitely not business as usual.

As Bush tightens up his inner circle, his staff attempts to shore up wayward conservatives by rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Changing the staff around is meant to show that they are not opposed to change – as long as things stay the same.

On the rare occasion that criticism of Bush reaches the White House, "He doesn't necessarily change his mind, but there's no penalty internally for disagreeing with the group or with the president," Bolten said. Ok, so he won’t get mad at you for telling him that his policies don’t work – but he ain’t gonna listen to ya.

Bolten continues, “But I say internally, because he's very much a CEO, and when he makes a decision, then everybody within the White House should salute and get in line, at least publicly, with that decision.”

CEO’s are leaders of their workers. Sort of like the president of the company. So Bush is sort of like a president of a company. But of course, anyone in the business world knows that the CEO is higher in authority than a president and if he disagrees with the board then his decision is the final word. Bolten then sees Bush as something like a president but more powerful. As Bolten says, “We're all serving at the pleasure of the president.”

What I've been saying

2006-04-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

We live in a dictatorship

Decisions

2006-04-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

Men decide far more problems by hate, love, lust, rage, sorrow, joy, hope, fear, illusion, or some other inward emotion, than by reality, authority, any legal standard, judicial precedent, or statute.

-Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC

I'm the decider. I decide what's best.

-George W. Bush (April 18, 2006)

Polls, Lies, Oil, and Promises to be Broken

2006-04-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

The buzz right now is summarized in this misleading headline "Bush Hires Tough Critic to Keep Media at Bay". Hiring a tough critic would seem like a good idea since Bush's poll numbers remain at an all time low. However, they forget to leave out that his criticism is that Bush is not conservative enough. Does the public want a more conservative leadership?

Not likely as his rubber stamp Republican congress is enjoying a similar reaction with an 11 point approval rating drop in one month with the public leaning left. Russert and NBC try to lay blame on Democrats by citing "fighting between parties" as a major source of discontent, while a sixteen day old ABC/WaPo poll indicates that the public prefers the Democrat's stance on the situation in Iraq, prescription benefits for the elderly, the economy, immigration issues, handling of the campaign against terrorism, health care, and corruption in Washington.

As prices climb higher with Iraq's oil supply effectively cut off and saber rattling Iran increasing dollars per barrel, we are paying rpughly an extra $0.30 on the gallon for every dollar increase per barrel. Meanwhile Exxon-Mobil posted a 42% increase in profits last year with over $36 billion dollars in profits. Somehow, I doubt that Bush's granting waivers on air-quality requirements is going to make a difference.

To reinforce the President's line, anonymous Republicans quoted by Fox News still claim that this crisis is the Democrats fault for implementing any environmental regulations. Ignoring the claims that global warming is likely irreversible, Bush's calls for "federal agencies to watch for price gouging, insisting that he will not accept price "manipulation"" is more than a little disingenuous. (Would the President really do something like that?) Remember that Republicans were the ones who refused to make Oil executives testify under oath back in February. Is it any surprise to see that "Oil and gas companies overwhelmingly favored Republicans over Democrats in their campaign giving." With "just over 73 percent of the industry's campaign contributions have gone to Republican candidates and organizations."

Of course we can't forget the other victims in this oil run.

Maxed Out?

2006-04-26T16:43:00.000-05:00

"Diplomatically to the max"?

You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Put it up to eleven.

Net Neutrality

2006-04-24T14:18:00.000-05:00

Stoller on why this issue is important and immediate action is needed. Taylor Marsh adds his two cents. Or go here if you are a Wikipedia fan.

Bottom line is many big online companies including Amazon, eBay, Google, IAC/InterActiveCorp, Microsoft, and Yahoo oppose changes proposed. Consumers and start up companies would be hurt because bandwidth would be primarily set aside for major corporations that could afford it (think Exxon and Wal-Mart). I won't rewrite Stoller's piece here but the only people that will benefit are the broadband providers while the potential evolution of the internet is hampered.

Too Funny

2006-04-24T14:04:00.000-05:00

"Keyboard Kommandos... Attack! And God Speed!!!"

Go Help Save the Internet

2006-04-24T13:33:00.000-05:00

From MoveOn:

Hi,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an Ipod? These activities will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law that gives giant corporations more control over the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. Amazon.com doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Many of them take campaign checks from big telecom companies and are on the verge of selling out to people like AT&T's CEO, who openly says, "The internet can't be free."

The free and open Internet is under seige--can you sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Network Neutrality? Click here:

http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet

A list of all the ways you might be affected by Net Neutrality is located on the bottom of this link: http://civic.moveon.org/alerts/savetheinternet.html

Thanks!

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain....

2006-04-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

What do you do if you are the leader of a despised neocon agenda that is rejected by the American people? Change the subject

Keep Your Mouth Shut

2006-04-21T09:28:00.000-05:00

From the WSJ:

"I don't think the blogosphere is breeding cannibals. But it looks to me as if the world of blogs may be filling up with people who for the previous 200 millennia of human existence kept their weird thoughts more or less to themselves. Now, they don't have to. They've got the Web. Now they can share."

The irony of course is that he is sharing his weird opinion in the a place called OpinionJournal.com. Somehow people having discussions scares this Henninger. He thinks we should all keep our mouths shut and let them spoon feed us our opinions. If they are such weird thoughts that don't mean anything then why be concerned about it at all?

"But the blogosphere is also the product not of people meeting, but venting alone at a keyboard with all the uninhibited, bat-out-of-hell hyperbole of thinking, suggestion and expression that this new technology seems to release."

His erroneous dismissal of the blogosphere hinges on the premise that no one reads blogs...after quoting Huffington Post and Daily Kos. He doesn't mention any right wing blogs but I wouldn't be surprised if he is a big Powerline fan - you know those heroes that uncovered the Dan Rather typo. Putting his disdain for ordinary people writing aside, he fails to note that the some of the most popular liberal bloggers are lawyers and professionals.

"The Web site currently famous for enabling and aggregating millions of personal blogs is called MySpace.com. If you opened its "blogs" page this week, the first thing you saw was a blogger's video of a guy swilling beer and sticking his middle finger through a car window...In our time, it has generally been thought bad and unhealthy to "repress" inhibitions. Spend a few days inside the new world of personal blogs, however, and one might want to revisit the repression issue."

You mean like Cheney's lack of decorum? Or maybe Bush's? Or other shining moments that didn't happen on the internet:

It is Sweet and Fitting to Die for One's Country

2006-04-21T09:20:00.000-05:00

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Indication of What's to Come?

2006-04-21T00:26:00.000-05:00

The saying is that art imitates life and life imitates art. Can the same be said about American and International politics? Italian politician Berlusconi takes a page out of Bush's play book and refuses to recognize defeat after he lost control of Italian parliament. Citizens of Italy rejected his right wing platform in favor of "center-left" Prodi but Berlusconi vows to keep fighting the results. Sound like the 2000 election here? Not exactly. This time the courts there did the right thing and confirmed the defeat unlike the outcome of our 2000 presidential appointment.

The telling part of the article is that Bush and Putin have not yet recognized Prodi as the victor. Without throwing around terms like 'axis of evil' it wouldn't be out of line to note that they make for strange bed fellows. After all, Bush claimed a mandate after a slim and highly contentious win in 2004. The question becomes, will Bush leave when it is time to go when his term is up or if he is impeached? Considering his response to the Rumsfeld fiasco and his refusal to put new blood into the unpopular White House staff, it doesn't look like such a long shot. Shame on everyone who voted for him and the media for enabling him. What happens in the next few years is your fault.

Will he listen?

2006-04-20T23:08:00.000-05:00

They may not be authors of best selling fiction or leaders of churches but 12 top physicists might know something. The question is will Bush listen like he says he does. There is a difference between listening and hearing.

Looks Like the Neocons were right

2006-04-20T15:11:00.000-05:00

Bush is good for the economy. At least for some people.

Oldie but Goodie

2006-04-19T18:49:00.000-05:00

Why does anyone still believe anything they still say?

Republicans Live in a post-9/11 World

2006-04-19T16:26:00.000-05:00

Rove is shifting from trying to protect the president from the bitter sting of reality to focus on the politics of the party. Not that he’ll change his title or be any less influential in the White House but he sees the writing on the wall and wants to protect W’s power. In the midterm election, Democrats have a large and increasing lead over the corruption plagued Republicans. Without a rubberstamp Congress and in light of steadily declining poll numbers, the administration sees it’s tenure at the White House in jeopardy. A once united party is breaking apart under Bush’s incompetent leadership as he proves time and time again that he is out of touch with the American people in issues from Social Security, the Dubai port deal, Iraq, his administrations failure during the Katrina crisis as well as mounting legal troubles including his authorization to spy on Americans and his instigating role in the Plame affair. A fresh left leaning Congress is likely to censure and impeach the President over many of these issues and pull the purse strings getting our troops out of Iraq. Worse still, people might actually see that this was no the only route available. They might understand that there are other options besides repeated failure.

The current White House shuffle includes replacing insiders with insiders to boost rock bottom poll numbers. It is not an attempt to better understand America and give us what we want and deserve out of our leaders. Most of the shake up involves replacing senior members with other people who can more forcefully deliver the message. There is no different message and there is no changing course. All we are getting is people yelling at us louder that we are stupid for not blindly accepting failure.

Former Chief of Staff Andrew Card

Replacing Bolten with Card only served to tighten up the circle of insiders as their numbers shrink. Treasury secretary Snow is all but fired because he isn’t forceful enough in delivering the message. And who left today? The mouthpiece McClellan. There is no attempt at compromise or change in policy on the horizon. Don’t let this current faux shake up fool you.

Current Chief of Staff Josh Bolten

And then there is the Rove deal. He is only giving up policy development title for the White House while keeping the title deputy chief of staff. The difference in these roles remains to be seen but I would bet my watch and warrant on his influence remaining the same. This is the man that is trying to create a one party system where he can do whatever he wants without the minimal opposition the Democrats gave the last four years. To do this he needs a strong figure head in Bush which is threatened strongly by the upcoming midterm elections. With a Democratic congress he will have to act more like a president and not an emperor. Take your pick of which roles he fails worse at.
The way he did this throughout the last four years was to paint any opposition as unpatriotic. That line has worn thin as time separates us from the events of 9/11. Rove’s traditional “with us or with the terrists” line was scaled back as early as January when he said, "At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security. Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."
The deeply, profoundly, and consistently erroneous reasoning of Rove is that Democrats are living in a pre-9/11 world. It’s true that Republicans are living in a post-9/11 world where everything in the world from the bogus Social Security crisis to the bogus Iran crisis to the corrupt Bankruptcy bill to record hurricanes and tornadoes are based on two planes flying into a building.
Let them have their post-9/11 world. While they are living in the past we have to look to the future and focus on what would clumsily be called a post-post-9/11 world. A world where we have to fix all the neocons mistakes.
With the number of troops dead in Iraq slowly creeping towards the loss of life at the World Trade Center, record amounts of terrorism, sky rocketing fuel costs, as well as every other important issue that doesn’t involve the Middle East America’s bloodlust is oversatiated. It is clear that the neocon agenda did not work. We are less safe thanks to their post-9/11 world. Now it is time to move on to a post-neocon world where PNAC and PMC’s don’t decide our military strategies and Drug companies don’t write our national medical bills.
Rove is rightfully worried about the fate of the party. America is sober after being drunk on fear for so long and thoroughly rejected every single issue the neocons stand for. With assistance of Tomlinson he will have to buy some more good press because empires can only change reality so much before people start realizing that down really is down and spades really are spades. The rejection of the neocon message and corruption is a rejection of Rove himself. That is why he is planning one big push for the November elections. His announcement that he is focusing more intensely on politics is a reassurance to his corporate sponsors that he hasn’t forgotten his role. He is the leader of this revolution of the minority. And isn’t that the essence of a Napoleonic complex?

Nod from Jane

2006-04-19T10:49:00.000-05:00

To follow up, Jane from Fire Dog Lake mentioned and quoted my Ryan piece on her blog. She even added very kind words about me. I feel like in highschool when one of the cool crowd, who you always wanted to be your friends, waved in the hallway and said my name.

If this is the 15 minutes of fame for Buckley Roberts, I'll take it. But I'm going to at least try to stretch it to an hour.

Rove Not Going Anywhere

2006-04-19T10:15:00.000-05:00

Rove relinqueshing role? I don't see where the change is.

"Karl Rove, the Associated Press, CNN and Fox News all report, will be giving up oversight of policy development to focus even more intensely on politics. His title will remain deputy chief of staff, the reports say."

He is keeping his same job. With the same title. Don't buy into this.

Switcheroo

2006-04-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Rove giving up White House position? Most likely in title only. He is not out of the administrations and will still be doing the same thing as before. Only without the title.

Unless he is abandoning a sinking ship for an opportunity to run another administration. He needs to be locked away in Gitmo.

IMHO

The Case Against The Market Controlling Gas

2006-04-19T09:51:00.000-05:00

Gas is an essential part of life now. We are addicted to energy and since we still burn oil in cars to move from point A to B we are addicted to oil. Oil is now as essential to our society as water. Yet we are paying premiums on oil and still have relatively cheap water. If the market is the controlling invisible hand that is all powerful and must be obeyed, then we should be buying water by the barrel and selling it in the commodities pit right next to oil.

This argument is ridiculous (for the time being) because a lot people will die if that happens. Water is everyone’s right and our massive supply of it is for communal use. The money paid for water is supposed to support the systems bringing it to our faucets and toilets as well as its removal. It’s simple: if we don’t have water we won’t survive and anyone who cuts this off will face massive unrest.

Why is this argument any different then the argument for oil? We are so addicted to this stuff that we need oil to survive. How many people in America would be able to make a living without a full tank of gas? It’s simply that we need oil or we will die.

You don’t see massive hikes in food prices because the market demands food to live just as you don’t see these unruly hikes in water prices because the market demands water. Why do we have to see gas prices up so high? Fresh water is a finite supply too.

These companies are nothing more than thugs taxing us for what we need. Libretarians and conservatives complain about the government taxing people but have no problem with oil barons taxing the bejesus out of us. It is only evil when the government does it, not when these companies do it. It’s a matter of semantics and the conservatives support the oil companies rights.

The Hidden Story of Gas Numbers

2006-04-19T09:50:00.000-05:00

Most news coverage about the recent gas hikes focuses on the effect it has on ordinary people, the middle class who need to get to commute to work everyday. However, these prices created a different crisis that effects a different group of people, the people that sell us our gas. At gas stations around the country there is a concern about the shortage of giant plastic movable numbers on the large signs on the corner. As the prices climb the numbers need to reflect this new price and sadly, many stations are unprepared.

“I just stockpiled ‘2’s and now it looks like those will be useless until gas hits $12 a gallon,” one gas station owner who wished to remain anonymous complained.

Indeed, long time owners who are used to the slow hikes of the previous years did not expect to run through the $2 cycle so fast. Many now have to make plans to put their number ‘2’s in storage as they prepare for the summer prices. With some analysts predicting $4 - $5 gallons with impending war with Iran or economic sanctions on the country that would effectively cut off that country's output, owners of the giant signs are not sure which numbers to invest in.

“I prepared for the worst,” anonymous Mr. A continued. “I now have large stacks of ‘3’, ‘4’, and ‘5’ in case (the price should climb that high). I like to get the most for my money but I fear that if we shoot through the ‘3’ (dollar price range) too fast, I’ll have to put them in storage nearly new.”

Other owners are talking about turning the capital letter ‘E’ backwards to simulate a ‘3’. This is referred to as a ‘robot 3’ or ‘alarm clock 3’ causing irk among competitors who claim that sloppy attitude gives all stations a bad reputation. These are the same owners who cite the fact that not only do they have to pay for the large numbers but also for the small numbers they add to try to confuse people about the actual price. They note, however, that this number largely remains a ‘9’ and hasn’t been different in over 20 years.

The large numbers are notorious for blowing off the board in strong winds by employees who improperly place the number on the sign with their giant suction wand. These numbers are lost to kids who steal them or simply blow away into the sunset like a giant number tumbleweed. Other problems noted is the storage dilemma. Owners claim there is simply not enough room to store their growing stockpiles. Originally the storage areas were designed to house ‘1’s and are becoming overcrowded with the larger integer brethren. Whether it is the Funion end cap that has to go or the new addition of the Blueberry Banana Coldy iced drink, it is clear that the ordinary people will lose. When asked to comment on this ignored crisis most people interviewed remain insensitive to the plight of the gas station owners responding like this individual.

“They're upset about what? You gotta be (expletive) kidding me. I had to go to that crooked ‘Check Into Cash’ to get a loan to fill up today.”

Excitement for a Politcal Junky Like Me

2006-04-18T20:45:00.000-05:00

I published that last post as a diary on DailyKos as I do with all of my mediocre writing. The only one that has gotten much of a response was my attack on McCain the faux centrist. One of them was "recommended" by Georgia10 (a bigwig on the site) which was exciting to know that someone like that read it and liked it.

But my Ryan diary was "recommended" by Jane of Fire Dog Lake!!! She sits at the cool guys table in the lefty blogoshpere and runs a website that I frequent and admire. Anyways, it was a seriously big deal for me, especially after my hiatus. I wrote to thank her and she responded promptly!!! Wow, can it get any better than that? She mentioned that she might even link to it in her page!!! That put me over the top.

Even if she doesn't, I'm happy just that she liked the post and wrote back. Looks like I'll have to start writing more again since I got invited to sit on the edge of the cool table. Don't want to disappoint. Hopefully, they won't read deep into this blog or else my chances are shot. Either way it was an exciting experience for a political blog junky like myself.

Why the George Ryan Verdict Matters

2006-04-18T17:54:00.000-05:00

Politics as Usual

Similar to the DeLay excuse, defense attorney Daniel Webb tried to base the defense around the premise that those damn liberals are trying to hamper the government by impeding how it is normally supposed to function. “Pay for play” politics is not how the government is supposed to function and because the corruption has gone unchecked for so many years does not make the process correct. Ryan is notorious in Illinois as a deal maker that both Democrats and Republicans loved. That is only because crooked politicians on both sides of the isle were allowed to dip into the kitty. Today’s guilty verdict on all 22 counts represented the people’s disgust for what passes for “politics as usual” and our condemnation of these crooked practices. Current Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) said, "Today's verdict proves that no one is above the law. And just as important, it proves that government is supposed to exist for the good of the people, not the other way around, and certainly not for the personal enrichment of those who hold public office.”

This statement goes for all politicians, not just the abundant corrupt Republicans being indicted these days. Not that it matters, but according to those who work with federal prosecutor Fitzgerald say that his politics are conservative. He isn’t one of those concerned about toeing the political line as he is interested more in cleaning the corruption out of the government and his party. We need to make sure our guys are clean and stay that way too. Blago and Daley, I’m looking at you…

Years of Service

Ryan’s comments about his years of service are meant to detract from the issue of the case. He is appealing to those people who still see the world and people as essentially good or evil. Sometimes good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Because you have years of service to the state does not allow you to bilk taxpayers out of money. It does not allow you and your friend to make millions off deals for computer systems that the state is buying by telling the companies that they need grease a middle man (who was not an official member of the government as well as not being registered as a lobbyist) in order to get this deal. Ryan did some positive things during his positions as Secretary of State and Governor but that’s not what this trial was about. It was about deciding if what he did was wrong. This argument can be extended to any national politician under indictment trying to guilt the public and courts into not enforcing justice equally.

No one saw him take an envelope of money…

One of the most contentious arguments Webb made during the trial was that there was no smoking gun, as if Ryan was supposed to document all the illegal transactions that took place. A lot of records Ryan had were shredded when investigators started sniffing around about the “licenses for bribes” scandal. Any direct evidence connecting him to the other crimes he was indicted on was lost, causing investigators and prosecutors to work extra hard - on the taxpayer’s dime no less. This was an eight year investigation and a seven month trial. The defense is estimated at spending over $20 million defending him. As Collins and Fitzgerald noted, the prosecution was outgunned and outmanned but thanks to the diligent and continually work of their team (a couple who I know personally and are very conservative – not that politics should matter with the law) were able to show indirectly that Ryan was guilty of racketeering, money laundering, tax evasion, and being a general bastard. Sadly, the last count isn’t indictable.

This style of prosecution scares many people involved in other bribing cases like the Abramoff case. Nowadays nobody is going to hand over money in an envelope marked “Bribe for (insert politician’s name)” but they think that this technicality gets them off the hook. Diligent investigators can prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt without direct evidence.

No Money Left…

When George Ryan was in office he did not draw money out of his bank account once. As soon as trouble looked like it was coming his way he gave massive amounts of his money and holdings to his children and wife. The defense showed pictures of his kitchen to show that he didn’t even have money to redo the kitchen. Now the point he is trying push is that this trial made Ryan flat broke and he will be on the streets rubbing elbows with the rest of us working slobs. However, Daniel Webb represented Ryan pro-bono despite the Ryan family being worth millions. Expect to see similar statements issued by indicted members of the national GOP.

Nice Guy

Conservative commentators frequently go back to the argument that Ryan was a nice guy and even notorious Democratic Chicago mayor Richard Daley has spoken highly of him. This goes back to the “essentially good” argument that says nice guys can’t go to jail. If he was such a nice guy, then why did he do this?

Shooting the Messenger

The last refuge of a desperate conservative is always to shoot the messenger, whether it be Bush outing a spy network, DeLay and Frist complaining about activist judges (who happen to be conservative), or Daniel Webb trying to over turn this case because of “unusual developments in the past few weeks with the jury.” Some members of the jury had to be let go and the jury reconstituted. It shouldn’t have happened but that doesn’t make Ryan any less guilty. They will once again try to confuse the issue with a broad statement about the jury trying to get the public to vilify the jury members instead of focusing on the issue. More typical GOP tactics. Ryan also thanked those in the media who reported fairly and criticized people who didn’t dig deep enough (meaning those that didn’t report his mafia style government in a favorable light). When there is no hope left, shoot the messenger.

One More...

2006-04-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

Fucking Ridiculous

So we have a pathological liar for president who surrounds himself with people to encourage him while he has his finger on the button and he isn't even getting censured. But we are concerned about Barry Bonds lying about taking steriods.

Fucking enough already. I want fucking justice.

Burned Out

2006-04-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

Too much shit going on right now to stay on top of it all. Reformatting and will hopefully be back with a more specific approach. Hopefully before Bush's impeachment and definitely before he gets hung for crimes against humanity. This is a very scary time we are living in. It feels good that the press is just waking up to how EVIL these people really are but it's too little too late. The damage is done and won't be undone for hundreds of years.

Pig

2006-04-05T03:35:00.000-05:00

Old man in DHS tries to seduce what he thought was a 14 year old girl online by describing sex acts andsending dirty mpegs. This is Bush's America.

Amen to That

2006-04-04T19:41:00.000-05:00

Sadly, The Onion, like This Modern World, is usually just barely ahead of the ridiculous curve. Expect to see this talking point from the religious right sometime in the near future.

Instead of Iraq...

2006-04-04T18:09:00.000-05:00

Something Awful tells us what we could have bought instead of the war in Iraq. Like 156,250 more episodes of Arrested Development!!!

Halliburton, other PMCs Destroyed Easy Iraq Exit

2006-04-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

Very in depth article about the role Halliburton and other war-profiteers had in the war. According to this article Halliburton has overcharged the government by 25% on all Iraqi projects. When we are talking about a multi-billion dollar operation that shit adds up in hurry. Mr. Steinberg also finds this situation and the British Empire's East India Trading Company analagous, in terms of building an Empire. Make no mistake about it that is what is going on now. He also says that there were plans to leave right away but were dismissed for an extended stay profitting Cheney's old company.

Get this administration out of office before they can ruin anything else.

Exxon Replaces Wal-Mart

2006-04-04T09:46:00.000-05:00

Exxon just replaced Wal-Mart in the list of Fortune 500 companies. Here are Exxon's stats. The parts I found alarming were:

Revenues	339,938.0($ millions )	25.5(change from 2004)
Profits	36,130.0($ millions)	42.6(change from 2004)

I know it's capitalism, free market, etc. But as prices keep climbing (especially since it looks like they are planning on going to war with Iran or at least bombing the crap out of it. either way we are going to pay higher gas prices if decide to engage them) just remember that Exxon Mobil's profits went up over 42

Bush's Vacations in Jeopardy

2006-04-03T14:50:00.000-05:00

Can’t a man get away from the wretched masses for some time alone to think his thoughts? I’ll bet Doc Holiday didn’t have to deal with miserable protestors voicing their complaints. All the man wants to do is relax in peace so go back to work and leave him alone. Besides he has made it clear that unless you are thinking with money it doesn’t he doesn’t care.

These days he is forced to do his Spring Break elsewhere, Cancun! While he promised reporters “No Speedo suit here,” he did not promise not to do body shots off of hot beotches in them little hot thong bikinis. As much as he likes a good Spring Break party, he indicated there was one thing he likes more, "I like a good lobbyist," Bush told a questioner.

He then made another joke about his chosen illiteracy (see: ignorance) saying, “You're going to ask me if I read the book…Little print, no pictures. Go ahead." Later in a little back patting remark he commented, "I'm the funny guy.” Looks aren’t everything, though.

He ended the question session with after calling on someone with this remark, "You've been very anxious," the president said. "This better be a good one. Yes, you've been waving and yelling over there. Waving, yelling, stomping your feet. It's a free society. That's what happens."

In a free society you are thrown scraps when those in charge deem it necessary to placate you.

Censure

2006-04-03T14:49:00.001-05:00

Is there anything Republicans, led by the infallible W, can do wrong? Not according to their strategists. Censure? That will only help the Republican cause. According to the latest internet add, censuring the President for illegal spying on Americans and blatantly violating the Bill of Rights while flipping the bird to the Judicial and Legislative branches of government. Using the same tired Rovian techniques of obfuscating and painting the Dems as wrong, they tried to Judo throw the issue.

“The risk is enormous to Democrats. Even talking about censure or impeachment threatens to really agitate the Republican base,” says Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report.

How is it risky if the majority of Americans are down with it?

“The best way for Republicans to get motivated in big numbers is that the idea of impeaching Bush makes them mad,” said Mr. Cook.

This is part of their rally behind Bush no matter what plan of attack. If it’s not working then just push harder. Even as Republicans are avoiding Bush and his reverse Midas touch that turns anything he comes into contact with into mold.

The Shake Up

2006-04-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

Realists see Bush’s continually tanking numbers as bad for the GOP. How does the administration respond to the revoked mandate? Take the hard line that no one is getting let go so that even a compromise will result in a minor switch-a-roo.

"You're going to have more change than you expect," one GOP insider said.

Really, how big?

Expected to survive the shake-up: Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, Vice President Dick Cheney's team, and Joe Hagin, Bush's deputy chief of staff, likely will stay, administration sources said.

Hmmm… sounds like business as usual. Names mentioned as possible sacrificial offerings include Presidential press secretary Scott McClellan and Treasury Secretary John Snow. The buzz word surrounding the “shake up” is communication.

"There is a lot of dissatisfaction with the state of communications, the daily communication from the podium, the congressional communications and strategic communications from both in and outside the White House," said one White House insider.
…
Many Republicans have complained the White House has dealt with Congress "as a transmitter but not receiver."

"The Bush White House has dealt with Congress in a highhanded way, and people are angry. But there is no magic cure," said one Republican official.

Magic cure in this case refers to a scenario where a bipartisan government listens and responds to the people instead of ramming unpopular decisions down our throats. There is no evidence that any change in policy is happening or that even fresh blood with different ideas will be brought in. They will continue with their PNAC dream of American Colonialism, irresponsible spending habits, and trampling the Constitution but this time they hope to sell it to us better. “Communication” here doesn’t mean a dialogue but a tedious monologue we are supposed to swallow. Look who’s on the chopping block. Treasury Secretary John Snow is under scrutiny because

House speaker, Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, had complained to Mr. Card and Mr. Bartlett that the administration needed to be more aggressive in talking about the economy.

Mr. Bolten…wants Mr. Bush to replace the Treasury secretary, John W. Snow, with someone who can more forcefully communicate the administration’s message that the economy is strong.

They don’t see policy as the problem, only that it’s not sexed up enough.

More Hollow Rhetoric

2006-04-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

After an embarrassing week of another classic McCain flip flop staring Falwell, he once again refuses to take a stance on anything…including whether or not he will run for president. Just in case he makes a run, it’s important to know that he is as political and unprogressive as they come.

Sunday, McCain continued to apologize for Bush’s mistakes hoping to capitalize off whatever political momentum Bush has left when he finally leaves office. This time he criticized people for taking the Presidents cursory evaluation of Putin ("I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.") seriously.

"Look, we all say things that are stupid. ... I'm sure that the president has re-evaluated his position in light of Putin's recent actions."
McCain, R-Ariz., added: "It was early in his presidency. The president was trying to develop a good relationship with Putin. ... I don't mean stupid. I'll say it was stupid as far as I'm concerned, but all of us make statements that are sometimes not correct in hindsight."

We all say stupid things but we are not all leaders of the free world. Policy doesn’t get made based on our silly cowboy fantasies. That being said, it is disturbing how they don’t feel Bush should be responsible for any of his actions. Condi said they made thousands of tactical errors so the current talking point must be “we’re only human and make mistakes…besides that was then and this is now”.

Condi's Weekend in the UK

2006-04-03T14:47:00.001-05:00

From E&P:

Later, at a press conference, asked to name some of the "thousands" of mistakes she had said the U.S. made in Iraq, Rice replied: "First of all, I meant it figuratively, not literally. Let me be very clear about that. I wasn't sitting around counting. The point I was making to the questioner ... is that, of course, if you've ever made decisions, you've undoubtedly made mistakes.

To paraphrase (not actual quote):

We made mistakes but you shouldn’t be counting them. Hell, we’re not even concerned with them. It’s in the past and we all make mistakes. Let’s just move on. Don’t take everything that we say as the gospel truth.

That was one of the highlights from Condi’s disastrous trip to the UK to visit British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s home town. Throughout the trip, she was met by protestors and had to postpone some sightseeing events. Referring to the protestors holding up small coffins, symbolizing the deaths of children from the invasion she said, "Oh, it’s OK, people have a right to protest and a right to make their views known.” Keeping with the Bush Administration’s governing philosophy she did not indicate that these views and concerns would be addressed. She opted for political posturing with statements indicating broad statements like how she will be "glad of the day when conditions permit the closure of Guantanamo," how she thinks “it would be wrong to somehow leave Iraq to the mercies of the Zarqawis of the world or the former Baathists who really do want to unravel the political process” indicating that the U.S. has more legitimate claims for governing Iraq than it’s citizens, as well as mentioning her fondness for the Beatles.

Proving that their journalists aren’t afraid of a confrontation with a leader she was called out on that last statement. And just when things didn’t look like they could get any worse Straw goes off and calls her Condom in a move sure to infuriate the religious right who see condoms as magical agents of Satan.

As they say in the Bush administration, when the going gets tough, the tough skip town. It was no surprise then that after her failed bluff against Iran and blunderous weekend on the Island, Condi decided to try her hand in Iraq. Her approach appeared similar to a frustrated worker slamming their hand against their computer yelling “Work, Dammit!” One can only imagine that Condi’s reception in Muslim Iraq to be analogous to the reception British Muslim’s gave her.

Iraq

2006-04-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

Despite logical opposition to an extended stay in Iraq, it looks like we will be there for a long time as PNAC gets their permanent bases. As the costs continue to squeeze out badly needed domestic programs, Iraqi operations continue to get a blank check every month. Is this war worth the price tag? These guys don’t want to do the moral thing so maybe we can turn them on the fiscal angle.

Was the war inevitable? Eric Alterman presents a list of people who opposed the Iraqi invasion. It is not a “told you so” list but shows that the opposition was there meaning that this decision was not unavoidable.

One thing that can’t be denied is the horrendous human toll as Civil War continues to spread despite our leaders contrary assurances. While there is a strong urge to help these people and fix Bush’s problem, it seems that the longer we stay there the worse things get. What’s the solution? Bomb Iran!!!

Iran

2006-04-03T14:46:00.000-05:00

After wars in two countries in the Middle East that spread our troops thin and weakened our support in the Muslim world we still aren’t deterred from striking Iran. Considering how the planning and invasion of Iraq went, this is a strong indication that this is a done deal. Of course this country is better equipped and determined to strike back. At least we have that missile defense security blanket to keep us safe.

Even if it is only saber rattling, Bush oil buddies are loving every minute of crisis.

Bush on Spring Break

2006-03-30T12:32:00.000-06:00

President Bush Skipping Speedo Swimsuit In Cancun

Looking past Bush's cracks about himself in a speedo and the fact that he's going to Cancun around Spring Break time, he had a few memorable quotes including.

Just testing your concentration.

You're going to ask me if I read the book. (referring to the annual report "Freedom in the World") Little print, no pictures.

I like a good lobbyist

I'm the funny guy. (after a reporter made a joke at his expense)

Scalia

2006-03-30T12:09:00.000-06:00

Didn't the Republicans in 2000 run on the platform of bringing dignity to the government? I know he's was around before that but still... You'd expect a little more decorum than none at all from a judge.

Condi's Bluff

2006-03-30T10:39:00.000-06:00

Yet, another reason the Iraqi war was a bad idea. We have our troops spread thinly and are calling up all reserves to avoid a draft while we try to maintain order in Afghanistan and Iraq. Any "confrontation" that Condi urges Iran to avoid will mean redeployment of troops from Iraq and elsewhere. Would that be a wise move considering how thinly spread our forces are already? We cannot afford another invasion/war/nation building mission but then again this administration does need something to toughen up its image after the Dubai Port affair, getting failing grades from the 9/11 commission, the successful importation of nuclear materials during a test, and the Democrat's latest National Security Agenda.

Will Iran be their new scapegoat or is this a bluff?

Bush Ignores Advice in a Nice Way Now

2006-03-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

This is supposed to be the leader of the free world?

"You know how he is, somebody presents an idea; he says, 'No, not doing that, next question.' But he was not like that, so that means he was at least digesting some of the advice suggesting change."

Is no one else concerned that this is considered progress? This was about criticism within his own party. I think Republicans and the GOP need to split apart into two separate parties. Maybe, George can restart the wig party here when the Republicans see that his policies only bring the party down.

Clinton and Media

2006-03-29T16:41:00.000-06:00

A group Bill Clinton is a part of bid on the Philadelphia Inquirer. If it goes through, then O'Reilly, et al, can blame Clinton and the media at the same time! No more beating around the bush trying to make cases why they are individually to blame for George's problems; now once one is guilty, both will be.

In all seriousness, the gropu plans to slowly give the paper to the reporters if their bid wins.

If it wasn't Saddam it was going to be Clinton

2006-03-29T15:44:00.000-06:00

"President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government."

Once upon a time McClellan said, "Well, the President is not one that focuses on blame or finger pointing. The President focuses on what we need to do to address challenges." But now they are squirming so they need someone to take the fall, Colin and Scooter have already taken a bullet along with Tenet. Andy Card just stepped down while Rove and Cheney are coming closer to falling under Fitzgerald's investigation. FEMA and the state of Louisiana both got blamed by this president who refuses to take responsibility for anything. Why not just have done with it and blame Clinton? At least he isn't blaming the media for the violence.

Who do the Iraqi's blame?

Let's get out before it gets worse. Or at least let someone competent handle the rebuilding process.

Florida Pie Dispute Over

2006-03-29T14:16:00.000-06:00

The battle royale that gripped Florida is finally over. From what started as a three way stand off, emerged the victor: Key Lime Pie. Southern Floridians relish this victory of having their favored pie win the title “State Pie” but don’t plan on resting on their laurels. The South Florida Key Lime Pie Association plans to launch a campaign promoting their pie early next week.

The group Farmers for Pecan Pies of America, who fought vigorously for the adoption of Pecan Pie, conceded defeat adding, “That’s ok. We all know which pie is more delicious. Let them sour pusses have their sour pie!”

The SFKLPA spokesman responded with, “They’re just a bunch of sore losers. Who wants nuts in a pie anyways? What's next, peanut pie? They’re nuts for thinking they had a chance.”

Three pies were considered early on, Key Lime Pie, Strawberry Pie, and Pecan Pie, each representing the southern, central, and northern regions of Florida respectively. Key Lime and Pecan were favorites all along, each having a legitamite claim. Lime represented the citrus industry Florida is famous for while Pecan represented the Pecan farmers in the Northern regions of the state.

Strawberry Pie was an early contender but pulled out amid flagging polls. Although, spokesmen for Strawberry Pie advocacy groups could not be reached for comment, it is rumored that they pulled out because of a backroom resolution with SFKLPA, who saw Strawberry Pies as drawing from their numbers. But this claim has been refuted by the SFKLPA attorney.

“Look, nothing illegal was done. Strawberry Pie just didn’t have a chance and stepped down to give the two strongest candidates their best shot possible. My client came out the tastiest. There’s nothing more than that. ”

Farmers for Pecan Pies of America say the fight isn’t over and plan to pursue all legal means available to overturn the decision. Until the matter is resolved, Key Lime Pie joins the ranks of Massachusetts’ Official Dessert, Boston Cream Pie, Vermont’s State Pie, Apple Pie, and South Dakota’s Official State Dessert, Kuchen. Other official state pie’s included Louisiana’s Official Meat Pie, Natchitoches Meat Pie. Pecan Pie is also featured as the dessert in the Oklahoma’s mammoth Official State Meal of fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken fried steak, pecan pie, and black-eyed peas.

Who's Running the Show? Josh Bolten edition

2006-03-28T14:47:00.001-06:00

The administration is dead! Long live the administration!

With the resignation of Andrew Card happening a week after Cheney’s assurances that there won’t be any shake-ups going on in the administration, everyone is talking about the fresh blood that’s about to invigorate the rest of the (hopefully short) term of George W. Bush. Cheney framed the issue by saying there would be no change and this is supposed to be some sort of compromise or defeat to get everyone off their backs. Let go of someone who was in the administration since the get-go in lieu of…someone who was in the administration from the get-go.

On the day Bush named Bolten director of OMB he described his as “one of my closest and most trusted advisors…and most important, from his tenure as my deputy chief of staff for policy, Josh knows the philosophy and priorities of my administration.”

Sounds like a big shuffle.

He is media shy but on a February 6, 2006 appearance with Wolf Blitzer he dismissed concerns about the exploding deficits under this administration saying, “the reason why we have that exploding debt situation is that we have unfunded obligations in our entitlement programs, in Medicare, in Medicaid, and Social Security, that no amount of spending cuts on the discretionary side nor any amount of tax increases could possibly close.” Earlier in the program he spoke about the necessity of a different entitlement program, Bush’s tax cuts. “We've included in our budget projections the permanence of all of the president's tax cuts,” indicating that they are priority over the programs on the chopping block. “The first people to suffer when there is a downturn in the economy are not rich people, it's people on the lower income scale.” They are also the first to suffer under the misguided fiscal policies of this administration.

In the interview he also addressed concerns about how the budget ends up being grossly larger than projected because of conveniently left out numbers like the war in Iraq or Ahfganastan. “The responsible way to handle it is not in the base, which ends up being spending that just goes on indefinitely, but as you need it. If it's extraordinary, one-time occurrences, like a war, the right way to handle it in budgeting is to do it supplemental.”

These wars for him are just a one time occurrence and are impossible to predict if they will need funding for the year.

He is not a man predisposed to negotiating and bipartisan accords that the President likes to disingenuously invoke. On the News Hour, he blatantly says that Bush’s budget will get passed even if Congress doesn’t like it. He is a powerful man that has a lot of influence in policy making.

This is not a shake up, shuffle, new blood, or new ideas. Even conservatives aren’t happy with this guy so how is this supposed to revitalize this administration? Instead of reaching out to people, they are once again turning within, and because Cheney mentioned the phrase “shake up” last week this is supposed to be seen as the big defeat for Bush. Don’t fall for it.

Who's Running the Show? Josh Bolten edition

2006-03-28T14:47:00.000-06:00