"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, September 30, 2007
AN EVENING WITH JOHN HALL AND JACKSON BROWNE
John Hall, Jackson Browne, John Amato, Lucas Gardner & your host
So I just got back from the meeting I alluded to below. It was John from Crooks & Liars, Lucas from The Battle School, myself and Congressman John Hall. Music by Jackson Browne. Yeah, it was a benefit concert for John's campaign but he asked us to get their a half an hour early for a meeting so he could explain why he voted against the newspaper ad (not against MoveOn).
It was all that Betray Us headline that caused the problem, not the body of the ad, which he thinks was accurate. John is serious about ending the war and serious about supporting the military. As a congressman he represents West Point and Petraeus' hometown as well. He's on the Veterans' Affairs Committee and one of his biggest concerns in Congress has been the unbelievable and catastrophic increase in severe brain injuries from the war. He said that if Bush's war were to stop today, the American taxpayers would have a trillion dollar bill just in caring for the wounded soldiers from this war so far. And it's not stopping today. Which is why that whole MoveOn fiasco was such a drag for so many of us. It drove a wedge, like the Republicans had hoped it would.
John and I explained as best we could why it was a betrayal for so many Democrats to follow Emanuel and Hoyer and vote against the ad. He had already read the comments at Kos and was more than aware of why progressives and anti-war activists were angry. John is offering an identically-worded bill tomorrow that condemns Limbaugh for the outrageous statements he said about "phony soldiers."
After our talk the fun started. There was good food; John made a nice speech; I got to reminisce with Jackson about how we met when we were teenagers. I had booked a concert at my school with the Jefferson Airplane and a little known band from Seattle called the Daily Flash and Jackson and his two pals, Tim Buckley and Steve Noonan came. After there was a party at my house and many of us had something Owsley gave us. I was shocked Jackson remembered! It was my first real trip.
Anyway, Jackson started playing mostly socially relevant songs, like Lives in the Balance and anti-war songs and he was smokin'! There were like 4--50 people in a really intimate and ideal setting and his voice was incredible. And then John Hall grabbed a guitar and started playing with him. At one point Jackson asked him to leave the stage because he played a song that he thought could get John in trouble with Nancy. It's called "Drums of War" and the line "Why is impeachment not on the table?" brought down the house. I noticed John was applauding as loudly as enthusiastically as everyone else. The song hasn't been properly recorded but Jackson said it would be ok to use this funky early version someone shot live. (Oh yeah and he did stuff like "Doctor My Eyes" and "Running on Empty" and I called friends up from my old college days as well as Jane and held my cell phone up to the speakers.)
"Roll out the drums of war Roll up the cover of the killing floor Roll out the drums of war and let's speak of things worht fighting for Roll out the drums of war
Time comes when everything you ever thought you knew comes crashing down and flames rise up in front of you
Roll out the drums of war Roll back the freedoms that we struggled for What were those freedoms for? Huh, let's not talk about it anymore Roll out the drums of war Roll out the drums of war
Whatever you believe the necessary course to be depends on who you trust to identify the enemy Who beats the drums for war even before the peace is lost? Who are the profits for and who are they who bear the cost when a country takes a whole world to war?
Who gives the orders orders to torture? Who gets the no bid contracts of the future? Who lies then bombs and calls it an error? Who makes a fortune from fighting terror? Who is the enemy trying to crush us? Who is the enemy of truth and justice? Who is the enemy of peace and freedom? Where are the courts, now when we need them? Why is impeachment not on the table? We better stop them while we are able
Roll out the drums of war Roll out the drums of war If you know what your freedom's for Roll out the drums of war
Whatever you believe the necessary course to be depends on who you trust to identify the enemy Who took this country to war long before the peace was lost? Who are the profits for and who are they who bear the cost when a country takes the low road?"
UPDATE: A JOHN HALL QUOTE I ALMOST FORGOT
"I don't have Exxon and Mobile, I have Jackson and Bonnie (Raitt)."
BE BACK SOON-- GOIN' TO MEET WITH CONGRESSMAN HALL
photo by Mark Cuff
John Amato (C&L), one of the other Blue America bloggers, and I are off now to meet with John Hall(NY-19), one of the victorious candidates we endorsed in 2006. John has been an exemplary congressman, sticking to his guns on the tough issues. His voting record is excellent when it comes to sticking with progressive values and principles, especially for someone in a Republican-leaning district with a tough re-election race. I guess he wants to explain to us why he voted against the MoveOn ad, which pissed us both off. And he probably also wants to explain his plan to prohibit the Bush Regime from sending any more mercenaries into Iraq, which sounds like a good idea to me. I'll report back in a couple hours.
FAR RIGHT GOP BOSSES GIVE A GIULIANI NOMINATION A THUMBS DOWN-- NOT THAT THEY LIKE ANYONE ELSE EITHER
Tom Schaller gets it so very right in Whistling Past Dixie when he makes the points that a)- the GOP is rapidly declining into a regional, racist, backward southern party which will be unable to compete in national elections, and b)- that the Democrats can win the presidency without wasting a dime on the Old Confederacy. You may have noticed that yesterday Giuliani was wimpering how even though he's out of step with the traditional reactionary southern values that have come to dominate the contemporary GOP, "The reality is we need a candidate who can run in all 50 states. I can." He may sound like Howard Dean there but he has a very good reason for pointing that up to Republicans who hate him. He says it's because he's the only one of the pathetic pygmies™ who can beat Hillary. But it goes beyond just that. You see, there was another little meeting yesterday, a very closed door one among the power-brokers who control the Hatred and Bigotry part of the Republican coalition that has paired Hatred and Bigotry with Greed and Selfishness. (Giuliani already competes well for the Greed, Selfishness and Fear-mongering contingents.)
A powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a third-party candidate for president if a pro-choice nominee like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.
The meeting of about 50 leaders, including Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who called in by phone, took place at the Grand America Hotel during a gathering of the Council for National Policy, a powerful shadow group of mostly religious conservatives. James Clymer, the chairman of the U.S. Constitution Party, was also present at the meeting, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.
The secretive-- even paranoid-- group of neo-fascist politicians agreed that if Giuliani wins the nomination, they'll bolt and take the South with them, dooming any already far-fetched hopes Giuliani has to win the presidency. Dobson, one of the big dogs in the group has already announced that nothing would permit him to support McCain, Giuliani or Frederick of Hollywood. He was the moving force behind the Gingrich trial baloon, which crashed to earth yesterday when Gingrich admitted that he can't run. Both Romney and Cheney addressed the group earlier in the day. The religionist right doesn't trust Flip Flop Mitt, not just because he changes his positions the way normal people change their socks, but because they view his Mormon religion as a dangerous-- and competitive-- cult. Some left the meeting muttering about finding someone else to run, either another Republican-- Sam Brownback and that Arkansas fella who lost all the weight must feel like shooting themselves about now-- or a third party spoiler. Looking at the Progressive Punch lists of the most reactionary senators and House members, may I suggest John Barrasso or Mike Enzi of Wyoming or, if that's digging a little too deep in the shitpile, how about Miss McConnell or John Cornyn, each facing huge disapproval ratings and possible defeat in his home state? OK, from the House we could go with any of a dozen congressmembers with perfect zeros: Patrick McHenry (if he manages to not get indicted and/or outed before the primaries, Steve King (the Ann Coulter of Congress), Virginia Foxx, Michelle Bachmann (fun at parties), Tim Wallberg. I think any of these would be the perfect representative of what is left of the Republican Party. Go for it, boys!
Oh, and one more thing. You know all that stuff up top about Rudy whining how the GOP has to be inclusive and bring everyone into the party, not just white southern bigots? He was just kidding. As this new video clip shows, he avoided Tavis Smiley's GOP debate that addressed issues important to the minority communities while he kissed up to California Hispanic's most distrusted ex-governor, Pete Wilson... and some former actress who now serves as a beard for Republican closet queens like David Dreier and Mark Foley.
FULL O' MITT-- ON VENEZUELA, ON IRAN, ON EVERYTHING THAT INVOLVES TELLING THE TRUTH
In your dreams, Willard
Judging by the unending media uproar over that Hsu guy donating money to Hillary's campaign, one can only imagine how the media would explode in fury if it turned out that a presidential candidate were taking money from Bush Regime enemies Venezuela and Iran. Fox would probably do a 24 hour special and the only good thing that could come of it would be that Limbaugh might overdose on oxy and croak.
Unless, of course, we're talking about Republicans. The traditional media never seems to mind when they take campaign contributions from or do business with criminals, child-molesters, or foreign bad guys. Of course all the Republicans do it so... no one ever seems to notice. Take for example, Full O'Mitt... I doubt Giuliani is in a position to attack Romney on this, considering his own extensive business dealings with Venezuela, so we'll have to give Mr. 9/11 a hand today.
In another typical Piece O'Mitt election stunt, Romney wrote to the Comptroller of New York State demanding that New York's pension fund divest itself of any investments in any countries he and Bush don't like, namely, in this case, Iran. "We want to squeeze the pressure on that country and get them on the right track." Yes we do and now let's take a look at the most disgusting candidate for the Republican nomination and how he proves without a doubt that he's as big a hypocrite as David Vitter, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and Larry Craig combined.
FROM SYRACUSE TO BAGHDAD TO TEHRAN TO... I HOPE NOT OBLIVION; I LIKE IT HERE
The idea of an uneducated yahoo for a president worried me a lot more than many other American voters. Bill Clinton, who always seemed brighter than most to me, made it look so easy to be president that millions of voters thought even a dolt who had failed at everything he had ever put his hand to, could lead the nation. That nonchalance helped install George W. Bush in the White House. (Systematic voter fraud and a gaggle of partisan Republican hacks on the Supreme Court didn't exactly hurt his cause either.) And, besides, we were assured, even if he is an unprepared 'tard, he'll have wise and experienced older men around him who will run the show. Reassuring.
When they decided to launch a series of wars against cultures they were all but clueless about-- as though they were invading Iowa or, at best, Germany-- I had a sinking feeling none of them had ever read Thucydides-- except maybe Colin Powell, the military guy none of them ever listened to in the run-up to war. Why Thucydides? No reason. Steven Pressfield would have sufficed. In fact I was reading his book, Tides of War, while Team Bush was busy stealing the presidency in a bloodless electoral coup, already dreaming of the day they could march into Baghdad and on into Tehran.
"Bloodless," though, wasn't what that presaged. I prayed Thucydides' and Pressfield's accounts of the Peloponnesian War weren't about to be lived out on my TV set and in the homes of thousands of American families.
At the time when Alcibiades was the toast of the town, Athens was a major world power with a pretty extensive empire based on its unrivaled naval power. The Peloponnesian War, which lasted nearly 3 decades, was at a stalemate when Athens invaded Sicily with the idea of absorbing Syracuse (a Spartan ally). Athens was a dominant military superpower and Syracuse was a modest regional power with no ability to project any kind of military power beyond Sicily. It must have appeared like a walkover. It ended, though, in the utter and total destruction of the Athenian military expedition, something that was not only incomprehensible but also something that led to a collapse of Athenian power and the end of the Athenian Empire.
I just ordered a newer Pressfield book, The Afghan Campaign. The review in the Marine Corps Gazette caught my attention: “Pressfield has done it again. The Afghan Campaign is yet another gripping historical novel... Although set in ancient times, Pressfield’s narration of the Macedonians’ efforts reveals remarkable parallels to later efforts by the Romans, British, Soviets, and Americans... an intense, fun, and thought-provoking read." Americans? Uh oh.
Even if Bush and the wise older men around him had read Tides of War-- or even the as yet unwritten Afghan Campaign-- it's unlikely they would have walked away with the right lessons, since their collective hubris is probably the only thing more colossal than their collective ignorance. And they could just as well prepared for the invasion of Syracuse as the invasion of Iraq. This morning's Washington Post voices their complaint that "The war has indeed metastasized into something 'completely different,' a conflict in which the roadside bomb in its many variants-- including 'suicide, vehicle-borne'-- has become the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan, as iconic as the machine gun in World War I or the laser-guided 'smart bomb' in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
IEDs have caused nearly two-thirds of the 3,100 American combat deaths in Iraq, and an even higher proportion of battle wounds. This year alone, through mid-July, they have also resulted in an estimated 11,000 Iraqi civilian casualties and more than 600 deaths among Iraqi security forces. To the extent that the United States is not winning militarily in Iraq, the roadside bomb, which as of Sept. 22 had killed or wounded 21,200 Americans, is both a proximate cause and a metaphor for the miscalculation and improvisation that have characterized the war.
But hard-line maniacs inside the Bush Regime still nurture the on to Iran dream near and dear to the heart contraption that beats in the bosom of the wise old man who would guide the dolt. Just today London's Daily Mail reveals one of the Kagens or Cagens bellowing truculently to a British delegation how she hates all Iranians and how it's Britain's fault Cheney might not get to fulfill his dream.
NY Times columnist Tom Friedman was one of many who beat the drums the hardest and most rhythmically for the Bush-Cheney Regime in the run-up to their premeditated, but poorly planned, invasion (successful) and occupation (catastrophically disastrous) of Iraq. Today he said he "will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate." So no Rudy, Romney, McCain, no Frederick of Hollywood. Not sure if Hillary fits in there, especially since she either appears to be a willing accomplice of the Bush Regime or has learned absolutely nothing whatsoever from her October 10, 2002 authorization votes (the ones that she excuses, lamely, with the "If I had known then what I know now..."). Friedman admits that his reaction to 9/11 made him stupid and knocked him out of balance. That's his excuse for providing the pseudo-intellectual heft for Bush' war agenda? Does that mean he's resigning in disgrace?
No; he has other crazy ideas. "You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty." And he's still talking about America helping to create a "progressive Iraq." How about a progressive Florida or Texas? Or a progressive San Bernardino County? How about we fix the problems with reactionaries here first before we start exporting our ideals to countries with very different traditions and very different perceptions than our own?
But Friedman, who has presumably read at least Thucydides, if not Pressfield, never once mentions the devastation Bush and his enablers caused in Iraq or the international destabilization or the cost to American families in blood and treasure. Instead Friedman's point seems to be that tourists don't come here anymore and American business is going to pot. He's supposed to be a smart guy who's thought about this before, no? Can't the Times find better help?
IT'S SEPTEMBER 30-- LARRY CRAIG RESIGNATION DAY! BUT THEN THERE'S THAT VERY INCONVENIENT BRENT WILKES CORRUPTION TRIAL SUBPOENA
Or maybe not. I know if they had fingers all the salmon in America would be crossing them and wishing he'd just resign already and leave them alone. Environmentalists and fishermen, on the other hand, do have fingers to cross-- and they've been fighting the arch anti-environmentalist for decades. "Craig, who was removed from leadership posts on the Senate Appropriations and Energy committees after a sex scandal, is known as one the most powerful voices in Congress on behalf of the timber and power industries. Environmentalists have fought him for years on issues from endangered salmon to public land grazing."
While Harry Reid (D-NV) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) are trying to undo some of the ecological damage done by Craig, at the behest of his campaign contributors and the Bush Regime, the Minneapolis-St Paul airport is frantic about the public toilet situation as the day of the Republican National Convention approaches. According to today's NY Times "Dividers intended to make soliciting sex much more difficult will be added to stalls in two men’s rooms at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport."
Anyway, Craig's attorney, Stan Brand, apparently a shameless publicity hound, was on Tweety's cable show Friday and he pretty much said the Senate is stuck with Craig until his term expires-- so much for the self-imposed September 30 deadline-- and if other Republican closet queens (like, say Mitch McConnell, who neatly fits into both categories) don't like it, they can just go suck on a... lemon.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the Ethics Committee. That‘s especially for you working within the Congress on ethics matters.
Can you win his case in the Ethics Committee, if it comes to that? I know that no senator‘s been expelled by the Senate. I-- I think you have to go back almost to the Civil War, when they expelled people for joining and taking an oath to the Confederacy.
BRAND: Right.
MATTHEWS: What is the case? Would they...
BRAND: Well, again...
MATTHEWS: What‘s the worst the Senate could do to a senator...
BRAND: Again...
MATTHEWS: ... if he says, I‘m staying?
BRAND: Yes. Again, I mean, I-- you know, I-- they‘re-- it‘s inconceivable to me that the United States Senate will open the door to bringing cases against senators for misdemeanor, misdemeanors that have nothing to do with the performance of official duties.
I know they say they have the right to discipline people for bringing discredit on the Senate. That‘s a vague standard. That‘s well beyond where we are in 2007. I can‘t imagine that 99 other senators want to be judged by that standard. [Especially not the ones Craig has some interesting information on.]
MATTHEWS: Yes, you wonder about all the traffic violations and other kinds of problems that they would be facing.
Anyway, thank you.
Stan Brand, is your sense that the senator may well be able to hang on until the end of his term?
BRAND: I-- I think that‘s conceivable, especially if he gets some type of relief in Minnesota. But I don‘t think it depends on that.
Funny that Tweety never asked the lawyer if maybe Senator Craig won't resign because he fears that subpoena in the Brent Wilkes corruption trial that he would have to comply with if he wasn't a U.S. Senator.
I've been hearing so many people complaining about "The Democrats." Why aren't they doing what we elected them to do? Why are they wasting time condemning the MoveOn newspaper ad instead of getting us out of Iraq or, crucially important for our country's soul, impeaching Bush and Cheney? Are they as bad as The Republicans? Who are "The Democrats?" We've been telling you about scum like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer for years. They are as bad as Republicans, even if they do sometimes, for whatever putrid reason, wind up voting for positions our progressive values dictate.
Today is the last day of the quarter for campaign fundraising. Humor me for a moment and open up the Blue America ActBlue page run by DWT, Crooks & Liars, Firedoglake and Digby. No presidentials on that page-- just candidates and incumbents committed to progressive values and ideals. And some of them are in primary races against the other kind of Democrat, the kinds who vote against the interests of working men and women. We only endorse in primary battles when there is a clear case of a progressive versus a reactionary-- a Ned Lamont vs Lieberman situation. In many of these races, the Democratic primary is tantamount either to election or-- worse-- to a choice between a reactionary Democrat and an even more reactionary Republican. Bleeeech!
Now is the time to effect that. Now is the time we can act in concert to derail some of the reactionary Democrats who give Bush the margin of victory to keep his toxic agenda of war and devastation and corruption hurtling down the tracks. Our collective action, in coordination with local grassroots activists, has already frightened off establishment, opportunistic Democrats seeking to get their reactionary asses into races against Darcy Burner and Eric Massa. But some of our Blue America candidates are still facing opposition from the wrong kind of Democrats. These are the ones we should be concentrating on right now.
We have one progressive incumbent, Steve Cohen, being challenged by an untrustworthy DLC-backed candidate in Memphis. Steve's voting record is the 4th most progressive among the freshman class and when it comes to Iraq, to the well-being of our military personnel, to environmental issues, and to health care his votes are 100% on the Progressive Punch scale. Steve has earned our support. If you want another compromising, corrupt reactionary to replace a real Democrat, do nothing to help Steve keep his seat. And now is the time in this district that went 70% for Kerry.
Donna Edwards is an old friend who should be running for president instead of for Congress. But first steps first. She's challenging a Steny Hoyer hack, a corrupt thug who has sold out his constituents on every occasion, the notorious Al Wynn. Donna seemed to have beaten him last year until some suspect last minute ballot boxes turned up. She's far better known now and she has a much better chance of beating Wynn.
Victoria Wulsin nearly beat Mean Jean Schmidt in southwest Ohio last year. This year, far better known, she is poised to close the deal. And wouldn't you just know it, some rich, opportunist shows up to muddy the waters. Vic was one of our favorite candidates in 2006 and we need to back her as strongly this year, now in the primary and then against Mean Jean in November of 2008.
With Denny Hastert finally slinking off in disgrace, we have a chance to elect a Democrat in IL-14. But what kind of a Democrat is up to us. There are two visions competing here-- a Blue Dog who will be a bit better than a Republican and then there's John Laesch, a union carpenter and Iraq War vet who is deeply grounded in progressive values. The choice couldn't be clearer. Unfortunately, though predictably, the Blue Dog is a millionaire eager to buy the seat. John... well, like I said... he's one of us, a working person.
South of John's district is IL-03, currently misrepresented by one of the worst of the Bush Dogs, Dan Lipinski, a Democrat in name only. He firmly opposes women's right to choice (and even stem cell research!) and consistently backs Bush on his war agenda and on domestic spying. Fortunately we have an incredible candidate running against him, Mark Pera, who has a real shot to defeat this slimebag right in Rahm Emanuel's own backyard. Lipinski has enlisted a gaggle of pathetic allies to jump into the race and split the vote, a tactic he employed last year as well. The netroots and local grassroots activists aren't being tricked and the opposition to the odious Lipinski has rallied behind Mark.
Our candidate in upstate western New York, Jon Powers, is taking on rubber stamp Republican Tom Reynolds and he has a great shot at defeating him. But first he has to defeat Alice Kryzan, one of Reynold's financial backers who is running as a "Democrat" to confuse voters. Most Democrats in the district who know her, and that isn't many, know her as the attorney for Occidental Petroleum who called the citizen uproar over the toxic disaster known as Love Canal "hysteria." Jon is a very different kind of candidate and I'd like to urge you to read his live session at Firedoglake and then think about donating what you can to his campaign and the campaigns of the other exceptional candidates mentioned here. Do it right here; it'll make you feel good.
As you may have surmised, DWT doesn't take advertising. I've seen how it can get in the way of keeping bias at bay and the stuff we cover here is just too important to me to take any chances. (I do take ads on the travel site, AroundTheWorldBlog so go over and click on them from time to time.) Anyway, lots of blogs are running this great ad about Miss McConnell and I thought I'd just like putting it up as a freebie for all the American patriots who have banded together to try to hold our out-of-control government accountable. Disclaimer: I'm a proud member of MoveOn.org
Quote of the day: Chuck Lorre bares the painful history of the miraculous, revolutionary invention by that perfidious genius, Schlomo Tivowitz
Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, and Johnny Galecki in The Big Bang Theory
"Thankfully, it isn't my nature to be bitter. But there are times in my life when I feel a little used." --TV producer-writer Chuck Lorre, in the end card from the premiere episode of his new CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory, reliving his brush with the infamous Schlomo T.
As many of you are aware, at the end of each episode of each show that Chuck Lorre [right] produces, buried after the end credits is a card densely packed with musings on some subject or other which readers gradually come to realize are mused by the master himself. Monday night CBS debuted Chuck's latest creation, an inauspicious-looking shebang called The Big Bang Theory, about a pair of to-the-nth-degree-super-nerd roommates who have a Super-Hot Chick move in across the hall in their dilapidated L.A. apartment building, the gimmick being that one of the nerds is conscious of his nerddom and has--obviously comical--aspirations to be, you know, a real boy. Ha ha.
I must have made my first stab at watching the thing as early as late Monday night, but the first five minutes or so was so discouraging that I postponed further investigation. I finally got back to it today, if only to be able to erase the damned thing--the hard drive of my (non-Tivo) DVR has limited storage capacity--and by episode's end felt ever so slightly more hopeful about the show's prospects.
But the real reward was this dramatic end card:
CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #182
Back when I was writing and producing Dharma and Greg the only way to read my cards was to record each episode on a VCR and hit the "pause" button. This was not an easy task. The image wobbled like crazy making the tiny words of my weekly tomes very had to see. Then it hit me. What about building a device that records images digitally? Wouldn't this make for a much more precise "pause" function? I took my little notion to an impoverished computer whiz by the name of Schlomo Tivowitz. At the time of our meeting Schlomo was feverishly trying to invent an improved version of the George Foreman Grill. Schlomo's grill would contain a hard drive that remembered all the details of your last barbecue as well as an address book. I didn't really see the point of it, but not being a tech guy, I held my tongue and presented him with my idea. I will never forget his reaction. With hamburger-flecked spittle flying from his blubbery lips, he laughed, called me some very unkind names and demanded that I leave his mother's basement immediately. My hopes dashed, I went back to work on Dharma and forgot about my silly idea. Well, I'm sure you can figure out what happened next. The fact that you're reading this card right now should tell you. Thankfully, it isn't my nature to be bitter. But there are times in my life when I feel a little used -- usually when I've forgotten how to effectively grill a fatty piece of chicken.
(LOW-)TECHNICAL FOOTNOTE
For the benefit of nitpickers who may check and find deviations between the above transcription and the actual end card, a few words: C'mon, gimme a break. Probably Schlomo could invent a better system, but--as longtime readers may recall--my crack TV transciption system consists of a cumbersome process necessitated by the fact that the TV with the DVR is in a different room from the computer. So the process is, approximately:
(1) laboriously hand-scribble a draft transcription, usually on the back of an envelope or newspaper or the like;
(2) locate the particular envelope or newspaper or whatever that happens to contain the desired draft transcription (I can't tell you how often, between steps 1 and 2, it turns out that, for the first time in weeks, I've bundled up and disposed of the accumulation of newspapers, including the one that presumably contained the transcription in question);
(3) at the computer, attempt to decipher the scribbling of the draft transcription (having learned the hard way to eschew shorthand-style abbreviations, even for the most common words, on the ground that the best clue to the identity of a hard-to-decipher word is often the shape of the mystery scribble);
(4) return wearily to the DVR-equipped TV and attempt to plug the gaps in the draft transcription; and finally--
(4) keyboard the fully (or as fully as it's going to get) deciphered version of the draft transcription, taking care to introduce some strategic "errors" (or "typos"), to give the end result a more "human" look.
Probably there are already screen grabs and more efficiently produced transcriptions of CLP card #182 all over the Internet. But ask yourself: Did any of them require this amount of gratuitous and utterly pointless drudgery? I've thought of putting out a "TIPS" jar to allow readers to show their appreciation, but so far the exceedingly low volume of street traffic passing my computer has discouraged me.
Of course, this is the same Rush Limbaugh who threw a fit about the Moveon.org Petraeus ad, calling it "contemptible" and "indecent." Apparently anyone in the military is above criticism as long as they agree with Rush's brave belief that we should be in Iraq "as long as it takes." And I use the term 'we' loosely, as I believe the closest Rush has ever gotten to combat was watching We Were Soldiers with surround sound.
Over at Salon today, Glenn Greenwald makes the case that this goes way beyond Limbaugh and goes right to the heart of the whole foul Republican propaganda machine. Glenn talks about Fox again trying to convince its mostly very elderly and frightened viewers that poor President Bush is surrounded by "disgraceful military leaders." These rightists want it both ways, don't they?
The Fox commentator and O'Reilly crony of the day is David Hunt and he starts his attack that you might not expect to hear from Fox after a week of non-stop condemnation of MoveOn's newspaper ad" Our generals are betraying our soldiers... Our generals in both the Army and Marine Corps have cared more about their precious careers and reputations than their soldiers and Marines under them... We should be putting these generals on trial. When will Fox condemn itself? When will the Senate and House condemn Fox? Of course, the only really relevant question is to ask when we, the American people, will condemn the whole lot of these right-wing hypocrites and loons and banish them from government entirely.
Even the sleaziest and most opportunistic of political hacks, Piece O' Mitt and McCain have attacked Limbaugh for his idiotic utterances. And you can even watch a White House flack distancing Bush from one of his foremost propagandists:
But so what? Limbaugh is a cyst on the rear end of Bush and McCain and Romney and the rest of these vicious right-wing thugs who have hijacked America fro their own selfish reasons. Forget Limbaugh and his hate comments; he makes them every single day. Instead just keep one thing in mind: More and BETTER Democrats
NEWT GINGRICH-- HE'S IN, HE'S OUT, HE'S IN, HE'S OUT... HIS CANDIDACY WOULD BE THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN FOR THE DEMOCRATS
Newt Gingrich's contentious, polarizing tenure as Speaker of the House from 1995-1999 has left his name in the consciousness of many Americans, mostly with highly negative connotations. The first most people ever heard of Gingrich was in connection to the word "bomb-thrower" and it didn't get much better as time went on with him becoming the face of right-wing obstructionism and of right-wing hypocrisy. He still lusts for... whatever it is that drives politicians to seek higher office. And he doesn't want his main role in the 2008 cycle to be that of the man who named the GOP contenders "a pathetic bunch of pygmies." Today CNN reported that he has definitively decided to not run for the presidency. Yesterday, everyone else reported that he had decided to run.
The NY Times explained that with the DOA candidacy of Frederick of Hollywood a complete bust, Gingrich has been easing towards an announcement that, despite incredibly high negative ratings, he will run as the conservative who can beat the hated Giuliani (if not Hillary, Obama or Edwards). Monday he'll kick off a website that seeks to raise $30 million in grassroots money for a campaign. He says he'll run if he reaches that goal before Halloween, a night that will be scary for many but certainly not for any of the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination-- at least not due to Gingrich.
In some ways Gingrich's well-known personal hypocrisy, his abysmal polling numbers, his right-wing extremism, his abrasive personality are perfect for the Democrats. Gingrich will certainly make mincemeat out of the mental midgets Romney, Giuliani and Thompson and mincemeat out of poor senile McCain; but, except for hard core Republican partisans, American voters won't take him seriously.
Gingrich tried to inoculate himself against all the personal problems by going on hands and knees to right-wing religionist politician Jimmy Dobson. And he is now widely viewed as Dobson's anointed one-- although that seems to have done more harm to Dobson than good for Gingrich. Dobson regularly and viciously eviscerates all the other Republican contenders and has made himself a hated man inside the Party of Hatred. And no one outside of the religionist nutcakes has changed their minds about Gingrich's long life of what right-wingers refer to as "prurient past personal peccadilloes." Hillary's advisors are salivating at the prospect of Gingrich as opponent; it would certainly remove the Republican threat of using her husband's randiness against her.
National Review, a far right propaganda rag, has come out squarely against Gingrich's running, claiming it will lead to a Giuliani victory, something no serious conservative contemplates without a shudder of horror.
[T]he late entry of such a controversial conservative candidate to the presidential field wouldn’t benefit the Republican party, or the Republic. There are already three top-tier candidates-- Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and John McCain-- contending to be the conservative alternative to Rudy Giuliani. With the support he manifestly enjoys among the grassroots, Gingrich would take his share from those conservatives unwilling to back Giuliani. But it’s extremely unlikely he could win the nomination. Legitimate reservations about his electability, his lack of executive experience, and his troubled tenure as Speaker would limit his appeal. Slicing up the considerable conservative vote into smaller shares would not, needless to say, advance the ideas he champions.
The most recent poll on the matter, Rasmussen's, last month, was clear: the majority of Americans hold an unfavorable opinion of Gingrich. 54% give him the thumbs down and only 37% see him in a favorable light. The same poll showed Hillary's favorables far outstripping his and her negatives, while formidable thanks to years and years of right-wing brainwashing, not nearly as bad as Gingrich's. And this is before the vicious campaigns of Full O' Mitt and Giuliani get to remind American voters about the 3 wives, the 84 ethics charges, the admission of guilt, the fines, the perjury, the constant in-fighting and vicious bickering within the GOP caucus (leading, of course, to a resignation from the Speakership and from Congress, and to political disgrace). Most Americans remember a bad odor attached to Gingrich. Wait til Romney starts writing checks to propaganda firms to remind people exactly why they don't like Newt!
UPDATE: WELL, THAT TRIAL BALOON POPPED PRETTY FAST
AP is reporting that the Newtster is outster. I bet Hillary is more disappointed than anyone! One of the least ethical men to have ever wormed his way into high office, says there are ethical problems with him running. You think?
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday.
"Newt is not running," spokesman Rick Tyler said. "It is legally impermissible for him to continue on as chairman of American Solutions (for Winning the Future) and to explore a campaign for president."
...Just last week, Gingrich said he had given himself a deadline of Oct. 21 to raise $30 million in pledges for a possible White House bid, acknowledging the task was difficult but not impossible. He abruptly dropped the idea Saturday, apparently unwilling to give up the chairmanship of American Solutions, the political arm of a Gingrich's lucrative empire as an author, pundit and consultant.
American Solutions, a tax-exempt committee he started last October, has paid for Gingrich's travel and has a pollster and fundraiser on staff. The outfit has raised more than $3 million, mostly from two benefactors who each gave $1 million: Sheldon Adelson, chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and North Carolina real estate developer Fred Godley.
Gingrich makes hundreds of speeches each year, many paid. He will not say how much he charges, and neither will the Washington Speakers Bureau, which books him. But some clients have said they paid $40,000 for a speech.
He also has a contract with Fox News for commentaries and specials; Fox said it does not disclose the terms of its contracts. Gingrich also is a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
So which one of the pathetic pygmies™ will he endorse and campaign for?
LARRY KISSELL-- TIME TO SEND A NORTH CAROLINA CIVICS TEACHER TO CONGRESS
The Republican Party is heading towards a fate they have worked very, very hard to achieve for themselves-- that of a ghettoized regional party with dominance in the rump of the Old Confederacy. I hope you've had a chance to read Thomas Schaller's brilliant analysis, Whistling Past Dixie-- How the Democrats Can Win Without the South because the exception we're seeing in NC-08 is even more startling in that light. Larry Kissell has joined us here before and 667 of us responded with contributions to his 2006 campaign with nearly $11,000. He came closer to beating an incumbent Republican than any other Democrat in the country who didn't win. After a recount only 329 votes separated Larry from rubber stamp Republican Robin Hayes. "That's darn close," Larry told me on the phone a few days ago... "to have come from nowhere. I give the people of this district all the credit. I just stood up; I gave them something and they chose to listen."
Last Saturday they were still listening-- only more so-- when Larry and a mutual friend, Ambassador Joe Wilson, spoke at an Elect Kissell rally in Charlotte. John over at Crooks & Liars has a note Joe sent Blue America after the rally:
"I had the privilege and honor to address North Carolina democrats supporting Larry Kissell for Congress in Charlotte, NC, last Saturday night. It was an easy sell. Larry, a teacher and former textile worker, is passionate for change and has a detailed command of the issues... It should be a piece of cake, but we all know that every election is hard fought and that the Republicans will do everything they can to hold on to power. Even as I was flying into Charlotte, the NRCC was again peddling the lies about me, and I'm not even running. Does anybody still believe that the President was not misleading the country about the justification for the invasion of Iraq? The Republican propaganda machine is still pushing the big lie even though it is so last year. They take the American people to be fools, and will continue to do so until we defeat them decisively. Larry is our man to do that in this race in North Carolina.
This morning is a much-welcomed return visit from an old friend and you might want to take a look at our last session with Larry. He joked with me on the phone that "to say that I was unknown is an injustice to the word 'unknown.'" You can't say that about him any longer and Insider prognosticators rate Larry's race the #1 best shot for a Democrat to beat an incumbent wingnut anywhere in the country.
In 2006 Rahm Emanuel didn't believe in anti-war, grassroots candidates and Larry's race was, tragically, ignored by the DCCC. "We never did get any financial help from the D Triple C. We had some very good friends up there who were saying, 'Give this campaign $100,000 and let them answer that one last set of ads and you'll be guaranteed a victory. But they had their numbers and they were looking at certain things-- which they tell us now, were wrong... They did send out an e-mail for us after we won their National Volunteer Day poll."
"Eventually, when we were down to $31 in the bank they put us on their Red to Blue website... At one time, at the end of the 3rd quarter before the election and we were down to $88 dollars in the bank and my opponent put out a press release saying we weren't serious. How could we be taken seriously with no money, they asserted. We responded that our bank account looks a lot more like the bank accounts of the people of this district than theirs. And the money started rolling in. People started sending $88 checks and $8.88 checks. Someone sent an $888 check. It was amazing how people responded... Over 10,000 individual people donated and many of those were contributing to a political campaign for the first time."
In the end Larry spent $779,341. The Hayes campaign, claiming he wasn't a "serious" candidate, spent $2,475,169 or $40.62 per vote, as opposed to Larry's $12.86 per vote. Imagine if Chris Van Hollen, who is heavily behind Larry's campaign this year, had been DCCC chair in 2006 instead of Emanuel! But Emanuel heard Larry Kissell yelling "Bring the troops home" in February of 2006 and he went south... (and west, to back quasi-Democrat Heath Shuler who won and has been voting more like a Republican than like a progressive).
Thinking back on those early days, Larry holds no grudges against any Democrats. That's not the kind of guy he is. Instead he's recalling how he and others were asking for the war to end then. "I thought we should start phasing the troops out then and now we're in the fall of 2007 and still fighting the same battle. My opponent went on CNN and claimed he had 'proof' that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11... He never questioned the administration's tactics; he never questioned the strategy; he was just 100% behind the war. You know we support the troops and we support the veterans and he will wave the flag but then lets our fighting men and women come home to horrible conditions in situations like Walter Reed. To me, if you're going to support the troops, you ask the tough questions. You don't just support your political party. You support the troops. He's just echoed whatever little theme they've come up with, like 'Defeatocrats.' He's just gone along; he's never scrutinized a thing; it's all just been 'rah! rah! rah!' We need someone in the game, not someone who's just on the sidelines cheering and not looking at what's going on."
"'Support the troops' means a lot more than just supporting blindly what a president says to do. I fully intend to support the troops in all regards; they're putting their lives on the line for us. And the best thing for our nation and the best thing for the troops is for them not to be involved with that war, which is clearly a civil war. As I said in February 2006, it's time to start phasing our troops out. We have a threat. Let's fight that threat in intelligent ways. We have to reassess our relationships around the world. Like a recent National Intelligence Estimate said, we're creating enemies around the world and we're creating more terrorists. There's a way to stop that and a way to start working more intelligently towards our goals.
"I feel that if I had been in Washington, and if more people like myself had been elected... the House leadership would have been offered a stronger dialogue and that they wouldn't have offered the wrong bills on Iraq. The key is cutting out the sanction for the war in a straight up or down vote and de-authorize the war... whatever we need to do to start bringing the troops home [in a safe and orderly fashion]. There should be a straight up or down vote on continuing or ending this war and then let everyone in Congress go home and face their constituents at election time. I would vote to bring the troops home. I've been saying that for 2 years now and that hasn't changed whatsoever. The Democratic leadership put the wrong bill on the floor; they need to fashion a bill-- straight up/straight down-- that is a congressional referendum on the war. We need to have the moral courage to get them out of there, not leave them there in harm's way."
That's someone speaking who is running for Congress from a North Carolina district which includes Fort Bragg and includes thousands of military families. And he's very proud that so many military families are supporting his campaign. They're his people. He takes the plight of his friends and neighbors very seriously. That too, if you remember from last time he visited with us, is the kind of guy Larry Kissell is.
"After the campaign when I went back to teaching, some of my fellow social studies teachers asked me what was my one lasting impression of what I'd been through and I said that North Carolina has some really good congressmen trying to do the right things for the right reasons, supporting Democratic values as I have learned them through my life." Larry and I talked about Brad Miller, Mel Watt, David Price and G.K. Butterfield. "That's the type of congressman I want to be... with Democrats who support the working person." No one mentioned the reactionary North Carolina members from both sides of the aisle who are plumb loco, not just Hayes, but other out and out extremist kooks like Republicans Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry as well as 3 of the worst Democrats in the country, Bob Etheridge, Mike McIntyre and Rahm's boy Shuler. One thing I can tell you about Larry; he'll be his own man-- one grounded in strongly-held progressive and democratic values who will make up his own mind for his constituents.
2008 is shaping up to be a good Democratic year in North Carolina. Local races will help bring out lots of Democratic voters in the highest performing district for Democrats in the South without a congressman representing them. Let's help change that. This is our last Blue America session of this quarter. It's no coincidence that I asked Larry to join us here today to field questions from the community. If you like what you hear, Larry's Blue America box is open.
Here's a little 30 second cable TV spot that we can help Larry put up all over NC-08. It costs $44 per run. If $44 is steep, remember $5.00 and $10.00 donations are every bit as valued. The strength of Blue America is our action as a community that puts all those $44 donations and $5 donations together and helps grassroots candidates stand up to the well-financed insiders.
FILE UNDER MORE AND BETTER DEMOCRATS: IN KENTUCKY, IN MAINE, IN TEXAS... EVEN IN OKLAHOMA!
Time to welcome Oklahoma back to the Union
Nothing is for sure in politics, although even Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher's cabinet members are sure enough that voters plan to boot him and his crooked administration out of office that they're already job hunting. According to a recent Lexington Herald-Leader "Kentucky's top state insurance official inquired about getting a new job in the industry she regulates because she thinks Gov. Ernie Fletcher's re-election looks 'bleak... I think I may need a job soon. Latest poll shows 18 pts with 90 days to go,'" wrote Julie McPeak, executive director of Kentucky's office of insurance.
And it is as safe a bet as you want to make in politics that Ernie Fletcher, the least popular governor in America-- and probably the least ethical one as well-- is going to lose his re-election bid in November. Along the same lines, it's a relatively safe bet that Republican rubber stamp senators John Sununu (R-NH), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM) will be joining 2008 retirees Larry Craig (R-ID), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), John Warner (R-VA), and Wayne Allard (R-CO) as ex-senators. All are on the wrong side of every important issue their constituents are looking at. That's a lot of new freshmen we'll be seeing in 2009.
And if there's as big a Democratic tidal wave building as it appears, some far less sure bets may pay off as well, namely for Rick Noriega in Texas and Mike McWherter in Tennessee and for whomever takes on Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Ted Stevens (R-AK)-- if Stevens is even his party's nominee and if he isn't in prison by then. And then there's Oklahoma...
I don't think there's a better Democratic senatorial candidate running against a worse Republican incumbents anywhere in the country. Oklahoma's James Inhofe has a voting record on the extreme edge of the Republican right. You'll always find his voting recordunderneath the bottom of the barrel, even worse than a garden variety rubber stamp Republican. And on Iraq? Inhofe has never once found an issue related to Iraq or to the well-being of our military personnel where he disagreed with Cheney. His ProgressivePunch scores are zero in both categories. On top of that, he's the biggest global warming denier in the Congress and he's such an extremist that he actually almost makes George Bush look pro-environmental!
And his opponent? State Senator Andrew Rice is the newest candidate endorsed by Blue America. He'll be our live blogging guest over at Firedoglake on Saturday, October 6 at 1pm (Oklahoma time), 11am PT and 2pm, EDT. I don't want to give it all away today but... well the guy is no Dan Boren. He's an honest to goodness Democrat with genuine progressive values. And he's proud of 'em and he doesn't hide behind complexities and weasel words. You talk to Andrew Rice and you know where he stands-- on health care, on Choice, on civil unions, on Bush's occupation of Iraq. And he stands with us. If you don't want to wait, his Blue America door is open now. MORE AND BETTER DEMOCRATS!
The bad news: Just 3 percent of our eligible voters have the power "to stop almost anything" in the Senate. The good news: We can work around this.
"Using Census figures, Geoghegan discovers that the 11 percent of Americans living in the least populated states have enough Senate votes--41--to sustain a filibuster. Yes, 89 percent of the population may support a policy, but 11 percent of the population has the senators to block that policy's enactment. . . .
"Lawmakers trying to keep their jobs only need support from a majority of those who turn out to vote. In those 21 least populated states with filibuster power, that majority is typically about 7 million voters, based on turnout data. That's just 3 percent of America's total voting-age population wielding enough Senate representation to stop almost anything." --David Sirota, in his latest syndicated column, "Tyranny of the Tiny Minority"
It would be nice, for once, to have some good news about our electoral process.
No, I don't have any good news. However, short of that, maybe we can settle for the occasional bit of new news. Taken by itself, it's just one more piece of bad news, of course, but just maybe, by increasing our understanding of our electoral process, it can enable us to find some creative ways around it.
"Wondering why Congress rarely passes anything the public wants?" David Sirota asks in his new column. "Then grab Thomas Geoghegan's 1999 memoir, The Secret Lives of Citizens."
As Geoghegan [right] notes, in the 100-member Senate, just 41 "no" votes kills most legislation with a filibuster. You might think that if 41 percent of our representatives oppose a bill, maybe it should die. After all, civics class taught us that the Senate is supposed to protect the voice of a significant minority.
But here is what civics class didn't teach: With each state getting two senators regardless of population, 41 percent of the Senate often represents not a significant minority, but an infinitesimal one.
Using Census figures, Geoghegan discovers that the 11 percent of Americans living in the least populated states have enough Senate votes--41--to sustain a filibuster. Yes, 89 percent of the population may support a policy, but 11 percent of the population has the senators to block that policy's enactment. When you go further than Geoghegan and consider the election-focused mindset of politicians, you see the situation is even more absurd.
Lawmakers trying to keep their jobs only need support from a majority of those who turn out to vote. In those 21 least populated states with filibuster power, that majority is typically about 7 million voters, based on turnout data. That's just 3 percent of America's total voting-age population wielding enough Senate representation to stop almost anything.
To see how this works, consider what followed a July CBS News/New York Times poll that found 69 percent of Americans support Congress either enacting a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq or defunding the war completely. When the Senate voted on timetable legislation that month, 47 senators voted "no"--enough to filibuster.
Should we be surprised that a policy supported by more than two thirds of America drew opposition from almost half of the Senate? No, not when we consider the math.
I can't say I ever thought of it that way.
Of course, once you have thought of it that way, it's hard not to be even more tummy-numbingly discouraged than before you thought of it that way. You have some new appreciation for what we're up against, but you're not apt to break out the champagne for that.
Our David is less easily discouraged, of course, which is why I encourage everyone to read his presentation. He's already come up with two ways of making this knowledge work for progressives.
First, he looks for someplace other than Congress to work for change:
In the Karl Rove age of base politics, this Senate setup means that most domestic reforms will not come from D.C., no matter which party controls Congress or the presidency. Change will come instead from the arenas that are more democratic and have no filibuster: state legislatures.
This isn't wishful thinking. As energy, universal health care and consumer protection initiatives face Senate filibusters, legislatures are acting. For instance, California already passed one of the planet's most far-reaching clean energy mandates and may soon enact a universal health care plan. North Carolina passed predatory lending laws that are setting national standards. Such examples could fill a phone book.
Then, he sketches "a new strategy making the Senate's drawbacks the campaign's strength":
Specifically, Senate Democrats whine about not having 60 votes to pass Iraq-related legislation. They pretend they are innocent bystanders with no means to act, and some anti-war groups give the charade credence by echoing these excuses. Yet, if properly pressured, those Democrats might be able to muster 41 votes to stop war funding bills.
Well, it's a start. And I guess it beats just plain whining, 24/7. .
IS THERE SOMETHING FUNNY IN THE WATER AT THE CAPITOL YACHT CLUB?
Larry Craig likes sailor drag too
What do Bob Ney (R-OH), Larry Craig (R-ID), Randy Cunningham (R-CA), and Ted Stevens (R-AK) all have in common? Well, yes, they have all been either convicted or, in Senator Stevens' case, about to be convicted of a career-ending crime. But that isn't news. The news is they all lived on yachts berthed at the Capitol Yacht Clubbefore being exposed as criminals. Craig and Stevens still live there, though probably not for long.
The travails of Mr. Craig, Republican of Idaho, who is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea to charges related to what the authorities say was a sex-solicitation incident at a Minneapolis airport restroom, are only the latest to rock this eclectic Washington neighborhood. Photographers gathered at D Dock on Wednesday to watch him leave for the Senate, carrying a boater’s bag.
One resident describes the strip of Potomac River waterfront as a “floating trailer park” where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Protected by locked gates and security, members of Congress rub elbows with lawyers and lobbyists, judges and bureaucrats, established government contractors and aspiring ones, and others lucky enough to own expensive boats and secure a coveted slip.
A story in this month's New Yorker claims Craig is "a fastidious man who was known to pick up trash around the club." Not just around the club, but in public toilets all over Washington and, apparently, all over America.
IT IS OBVIOUS PATRICK McHENRY (R-NC) IS A CROOK, BUT IS HE A GAY CROOK? DECIDE FOR YOURSELF
Mike Rogers is very thorough and very careful about who he accuses of being a closet queen. And he's never been wrong. The Republican hypocrites he exposes as closet queens always wind up in panic mode, in denial, in tears... and out of politics. Ed Schock was a right-wing congressman from Virginia; he resigned in disgrace. Mark Foley was a right-wing congressman/child molester from Florida; he resigned in disgrace. Larry Craig is a right-wing senator/toilet troller from Idaho; he's in the process of resigning in disgrace.
Mike has written plenty about North Carolina's diminutive Republican neo-fascist homophobe Patrick McHenry before even if he isn't prepared to make a definitive statement about what "everybody" in DC already knows. Today Mike has taken a giant step in that direction, though, with a blockbuster story about Lil' McNutcase's shady home with a shady GOP operative. Meanwhile, the investigation into McHenry's connection to a string of murders related to a gay escort ring, moves forward... at a snail's pace.
Quotes of the day: No doubt Chimpy the Prez and his henchthugs need a lesson in accountability, but let's hope they didn't see "The Office" last night
"Guess what, I have flaws. What are they? Oh, I don't know. I sing in the shower. Sometimes I spend too much time volunteering. Occasionally I'll hit somebody with my car. So sue me! [Pause] No, don't sue me! That's the opposite of the point I'm trying to make." --Dunder Mifflin Scranton Regional Manager Michael Scott [Steve Carell, above], the nitwit boss-from-hell of The Office, after sending employee Meredith flying in the company parking lot--and cracking her pelvis--in last night's season premiere, "Fun Run"
"As a farmer, I know that when an animal is sick, sometimes the right thing to do is to put it out of its misery. With the electricity we're using to keep Meredith alive, we could power a small fan for two days. You tell me what's ethical. [To Meredith] Blink once if you want me to pull the plug." --Dwight K. Schrute [Rainn Wilson, right], assistant to the Scranton regional manager and lifelong beet farmer, while inspecting the medical equipment to which seemingly unconscious Meredith is hooked up in her hospital room, during a reluctant visit ordered by Michael (she quickly comes alive to emphatically nix any thoughts of plug-pulling)
"You spend your life getting people to like you, and then you run over one person with your car, and it's not even one of the popular ones, everybody gets on your case! Doesn't make any sense. God is dead." --Michael, to the staff gathered in the conference room
PARTING THOUGHT FROM MICHAEL
Poor Michael gets it in his head that he actually did Meredith [Kate Flannery, left] a favor by mowing her down, because he also got her to the hospital and doctors were able to begin rabies shots promptly, which is how they're most effective--in the event that the patient may actually have been infected with rabies. Michael seems to have it worked out in his head that rabies is a condition Meredith might have contracted spontaneously, independent of her unfortunate interface with his car. (As he puts it later, in launching Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Race For The Cure: "A woman shouldn't have to be hit by a car to learn that she may have rabies. But that is where we are in America, and that does not sit right with me.")
In the glow of his newly self-appreciated heroism, Michael waxes philosophical:
"Is there a God? If not, what are all those churches for? And who is Jesus's dad?"
During the making of the episode: Somebody (Michael imagines) has to raise awareness that there is a cure for rabies, which (he thinks) people don't seem to know was once virtually eradicated in the country!
FINALLY SOME GOOD NEWS-- REALLY GOOD NEWS: THE REPUBLICANS MAY STILL TRY TO STEAL THE ELECTION, BUT IT WON'T HAPPEN IN CALIFORNIA
It looks like all that work by the Courage Campaign and the Calitics netroots has paid off-- big time! This evening the L.A. Times reported that the dirty tricks initiative to split up the California electoral votes by counties (without a corresponding split up of the electoral votes in Florida and Texas) has failed. I had heard that polling for it shows that only one in five Californians would vote for it. But the Times says the backers are pulling the plug because they have no money to hire people to get their petitions signed. and, believe me, this was never going to be a volunteer effort.
The Times' Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds.
The Times, of course, tries assigning credit to some big money/Insider Hillary backers. It has more to do with the grassroots action against it, the organizing efforts of the Courage Campaign and the fact that the shady Republicans behind it, Californians For Equal Representation are a bunch of cronies of David Dreier's from Missouri and their actual agenda was the theft of the election for Giuliani.
THIS CAN'T SHOCK ANYONE WHO HAS FOLLOWED GIULIANI'S CAREER
Although his staffers are professing ignorance, it was a Giuliani pal and fundraiser, NY hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who was putting up the money to rig California's electoral system. Singer has donated well over a million dollars to Republicans and right wing outfits... and to Joe Lieberman.
SADDAM WAS WILLING TO GO AWAY BUT BUSH WANTED A NICE LITTLE WAR
I doubt if Bush is penny wise, but he is certainly pound foolish-- or maybe just pure evil. Or are Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz making this stuff up? I mean did Saddam Hussein really say he would go into exile a month before Bush attacked Iraq for a paltry billion dollars (and not even our billion)? Sometimes it sounds like that's what we spend in Iraq every week or two-- not even putting a price on the blood, familial and societal collapse, devastation, and misery Bush has authored in the process.
It all comes from a report in Spain's equivalent of the NY Times, El Pais and it lead to a Washington Post story called "Report Says Hussein Was Open To Exile Before 2003 Invasion." Bush was asked about it yesterday and refused to confirm or deny. It's based on a transcript of a meeting between Bush and then-Spanish Prime Minister Jose Aznar (soon after defeated because of his perceived closeness to the distrusted Bush) at Bush's Crawford Texas pig farm. The transcript makes Bush sound like a school yard bully whose got a big brother with a gun standing behind him.
In the transcript, translated from Spanish by The Washington Post, Bush said that Europeans were insensitive to "the suffering that Saddam Hussein has inflicted on the Iraqis" and added: "Maybe it's because he's dark-skinned, far away and Muslim-- a lot of Europeans think he's okay." But Bush was happy to play the "bad cop," he said. "The more the Europeans attack me, the stronger I am in the United States."
Aznar stressed the importance of U.N. authorization, saying "it was not the same" to act without it. Bush agreed to continue trying to persuade Security Council members, saying that "countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola and Cameroon ought to know that the security of the United States is at stake. [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos ought to know that the Free Trade Agreement with Chile is waiting for Senate confirmation and that a negative attitude on this could endanger ratification.
"Angola is getting money from the Millennium Account, and those agreements could also be in danger if they don't show themselves to be favorable. And [Russian President Vladimir] Putin ought to know that his attitude is endangering relations" with Washington.
Aznar and the other leading Bush ally on Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, were under intense antiwar pressure at home. Bush needed to appear serious about diplomacy to "help us with our public opinion," Aznar said.
"I'm not asking for infinite patience," Aznar said, but "simply that you do what's possible to get everyone to agree." He asked Bush to expand on reports that Hussein might be persuaded to go into exile.
"The Egyptians are talking to Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "He seems to have indicated he would be open to exile if they would let him take one billion dollars and all the information he wants on weapons of mass destruction." Later in the conversation, Aznar returned to the subject. "Is it true there's a possibility Saddam Hussein might go into exile?"
"Yes, it's possible," Bush responded. "It's also possible he could be assassinated." In any case, Bush said, there would be "no guarantee" for Hussein. "He's a thief, a terrorist and a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, [former Yugoslav president Slobodan] Milosevic would be a Mother Teresa."
Our survey last night about the Blue America-endorsed candidates who voted in favor of condemning MoveOn generated thousands of responses. Jane, John, Digby and I are still trying to count, analyze, and make sense out of them. I've also been in touch with each of the candidates or their offices and we are trying to arrange for the ones who would like to, to come over to FDL and speak to our communities. The first member to call and ask to come on was Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and we were close to working it out for this morning but she had to be on the floor of the House. She did send this note along for me to share though:
I understand the anger people feel about the MoveOn vote. Although I think that MoveOn erred and that we should avoid personal attacks in public debate, it was unfortunate that so much attention has been paid to this single ad and not to the much larger issues at play here.
Only a few years ago, political operatives attacked Democratic Senator Max Cleland, a decorated veteran who had lost both legs in service to our country, comparing him to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. This was a disgusting act yet many of the same people who criticize MoveOn today were silent then.
In 2004, a highly-partisan political hit group attacked Senator John Kerry, questioning his service in Vietnam. Again, the same group was silent.
Since I entered office, I too have been the subject of vicious attacks on my character. I have been called a “cockroach” and likened to Osama bin Laden.
I believe in freedom of speech. But these attacks demean public debate, and they distract us from the real issue-- the President’s tragic war in Iraq.
I am deeply troubled that that we have spent more than two weeks discussing this newspaper ad while the war in Iraq takes second stage. During this period, American troops have been fighting and dying. Innocent Iraqis have been killed and thousands have been forced to leave their homes. The war grinds on without a firm end in sight.
I will continue to work as hard as I can to redeploy our troops from Iraq and to bring this war to an end. I will not give up. There is too much at stake.
Well, I agree with everything she said but it doesn't satisfactorily explain why she voted with the swiftboaters. I know that unlike the Blue America candidates in safe and relatively safe Democratic districts (Hilda Solis, Jerry Nadler, Steve Cohen-- although he is under attack by reactionary Democrats in his district-- and Tom Allen), Carol, like John Hall, Jerry McNerney, and Patrick Murphy, has a really tough swing district with lots and lots of loud Republicans who are taking part in a well-orchestrated letters to the editor campaign.
One of Carol's constituents, someone who has volunteered in his campaigns and a DWT reader, sent me an e-mail today that I want to share:
I'm dismayed at how quick the blogosphere is throwing Carol under the bus. I get why folks are angry. Though I suspect most of this is about disappointment with the overall performance of Congress.
But you asked your readers to consider the MoveOn vote before making their end of quarter contributions and with regard to continuing to support her through Blue America.
Not her opposition to the FISA bill. Not her support of the McGovern Amendment. Not her opposition to the IWA blank check. Not the Amendment she authored in increase Pell grants. Not hundreds of good progressive bills she has co-sponsored. Not her 95% rating with progressive punch (in the top 20 and from a Bush 04 district). Not her bill on Bush's signing statements. Not the fact that she has said publicly on a number of occasions that she will not support any funding for Iraq without a hard redeployment date. Not the fact that she has said publicly that the House should continue to send bills to get out of Iraq over and over again to the Senate and the President and not cave on these appropriations.
The timing and framing of the survey make the result a foregone conclusion. But let's not pretend she hasn't been there for progressives when it really matters. So support us, don't support us, but give me a break with this disingenuous "spineless" or "bush lite" narrative. That is just patently false and you know it.
The language in the resolution wasn't too far off statements Carol has made publicly. She doesn't like personal attacks against members of the Armed Forces. Maybe it is the time she spent at Fitzsimmons with the maimed vets during Vietnam, or maybe just out of her basic sense of decency. She has never liked those kind of attacks, not when it was Cleland not when it was Kerry and not now. She has repeatedly called for a less personal and more rational tone in the debate on the war and she has plenty of personal experience having the attacks slung at her-- the Republicans up here have taken to calling her a cockroach in the letters to the editor.
I don't expect that sentiment to go over all that well on the internets but that is how she feels about public policy debate. And she won 2 upset elections without making any personal attacks but by kicking her opponents asses on the issues. When you can make a better argument you don't have to resort to the personal stuff.
If the netroots are looking for a meaner Democrat in NH's first district then they probably should look elsewhere. But good luck finding a stronger and smarter progressive voice than Carol. Don't be confused by the fact that the netroots apparently doesn't really have her back-- Carol has plenty of spine.
Chris and Matt over at Open Left have demonstrated how committed MoveOn and the netroots have been to helping elect Democrats to Congress. Is it too much to expect those congressmen and women to have the spine to stand up and defend them from the swiftboaters when the Republicans start ginning up the hatred?
Congress has once again demonstrated how out of touch they are with the rest of us.
We are currently engaged in the third longest war in our nation's history, a war characterized from its beginning by a lack of planning, unparalleled incompetence, and a continued lack of leadership from this Administration and their allies.
The number of men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice during this war is quickly approaching 4,000, and tens of thousands of American soldiers have had their minds and bodies scarred for life.
Despite all of this, we STILL have no plan to bring our troops home or bring lasting stability to an increasingly hostile Iraq.
Yesterday, those loyal to the Bush Administration forced the U.S. House of Representatives to take time out of their schedule to vote on a resolution condemning an advertisement in a newspaper. This was Congress' third such vote on this issue in the last week.
While our Representatives take the time to debate a partisan newspaper advertisement, no one is debating how to hold the Bush Administration accountable for its reckless course in Iraq. No one is debating how to better train our soldiers and provide them with the equipment they need to keep safe. No one is debating how we can best address the needs of our veterans when they return home.
As someone who served in this war, I find the politicization of any man or woman who wears a military uniform unacceptable. Questioning the motives or allegiances of soldiers who are duty-bound to carry out their military mission is giving in to the worst of our impulses.
While I reject the content of this controversial advertisement, I will always remain proud to have worn the uniform of those charged with protecting the right of free speech behind it, and find it totally unacceptable that we have Representatives in Congress who would use this issue for political gain.
The men and women who serve in our military are soldiers, not political pawns. It is absolutely unconscionable with all that is going on in the world that our Congress would take the time to cast three separate votes on this issue. There are far too many REAL issues to debate.
The 110th Congress has the fewest number of veterans of any Congress in recent history. Perhaps if there were more veterans representing us in Washington, Congress would not be losing focus on the REAL issues. Moments like this make clear how critical it is that we support veteran candidates who could bring true experience and perspective to debates such as this.
Although not all veterans share identical views on this war, I have no doubt they would all agree that the perspective of those that have served is dearly missed in Washington, and I know in my heart that our troops overseas would share this sentiment.
Americans want leaders who will debate the REAL issues, not waste time arguing over partisan newspaper advertisements.
We're still countin' the votes and if you haven't voted yet, there's still time. And there's still time to thank the candidates like Jon Powers, Rick Noriega, and John Laesch and the incumbents who voted to tell the Republicans and the Rahm Emanuels and Steny Hoyers to shove this divisive anti-American crap up their Insider posteriors. It's the end of the quarter. We need to elect more AND BETTER Democrats.
I wonder how the Democrats who joined with the Republicans yesterday to eviscerate MoveOn, will react to Rush Limabugh calling active duty, front line military (like Jon Powers) "phony soldiers." I know how the Republicans in Congress will react; they'll close ranks behind their base-- guaranteed. But what about Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer? Where are those big patriots all of a sudden? Are they hiding behind Nancy's tattered skirts today?
UPDATE: NO WORD FROM RAHM OR STENY BUT PATRICK MURPHY HAS SOME CHOICE WORDS FOR LIMBAUGH
"Someone should tell chicken-hawk Rush Limbaugh that the only phonies are those who choose not to serve and then criticize those who do. I served proudly, so did two of my fellow paratroopers in the 82nd Airborne who spoke out and died just weeks ago. Generations of American veterans have worn the uniform with pride and we know it is no contradiction to serve your country and still disagree with the Bush-civilian leadership that mismanaged this war."
LARRY CRAIG, MITCH McCONNELL & LINDSEY GRAHAM OPPOSE HATE CRIMES LEGISLATION... BUT IT PASSES ANYWAY. BUSH VOWS A VETO
The Senate just added the Hate Crimes bill as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill. It passed with a wide bipartisan majority, 60-39. Ironically, the opposition was led by the two remaining Republican closet queens in the Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The other senatorial closet case, Larry "Wide Stance, toe-tappin'" Craig (R-ID)-- who, by the way has changed his mind again and will not resign after all-- voted against the Hate Crimes legislation that is meant to help states prosecute attacks on homosexuals.
It's worth reading what Harry Reid had to say about the bill in his speech on the floor:
"The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act would strengthen the ability of federal, state, and local governments to investigate and prosecute hate crimes. This amendment would remove the current limitation on federal jurisdiction that allows federal involvement only in cases in which the assailant intended to prevent a victim from engaged in a 'federally protected activity,' such as voting. This amendment would expand the groups protected under current law to include all hate crimes-- including those based on disability, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. And this amendment would provide the Department of Justice the authority to assist state and local jurisdictions in prosecuting violent hate crimes, or to take the lead in such prosecutions where local authorities are unwilling or unable to act.
"Unfortunately, some of these crimes of hate-motivated violence have been directed at our men and women in uniform. In 1992, Allen Schindler, a sailor in the Navy, was stomped to death by a fellow serviceman because of his sexual orientation. Seven years later, Pfc. Barry Winchell, an infantry soldier in the Army, was beaten to death with a baseball bat because his attackers believed he was gay. In December 1995, two paratroopers who were members of a group of neo-Nazi skinheads at Fort Bragg shot an African-American couple in a random, racially-motivated double murder that led to a major investigation of extremism in the military. The killers were sentenced to life in prison, and 19 other members of their division were dishonorably discharged for neo-Nazi gang activities.
"According to a recent Southern Poverty Law Center report, the problem may get worse, as members of hate groups have been entering our military, which is increasingly desperate for new recruits. We have to make it clear that crimes of hate in our military will not be tolerated, and this amendment does just that: it strengthens the Defense Authorization bill by sending a clear message that such crimes will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
"As we hold ourselves up as a model for the ideals of equality, tolerance, and mutual understanding abroad, we have a special responsibility to combat hate-motivated violence at home. Our troops are on the front lines in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere fighting against evil and hate. We owe it to them to uphold those same principles here at home.
"The Matthew Shepard Act was introduced this spring at a ceremony attended by Matthew's parents, Judy and Dennis. I hope that today we will honor the memory of this young man by passing this important legislation which is named after him.
"We all remember the brutal killing of James Byrd some years ago in Texas. We need only look to the recent events in Jena, Louisiana, to see that for all our progress, racial tensions continue across our country today. This legislation honors the commitment to justice that is woven deep within the fabric of our nation. I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting to pass it."
And most of his colleagues did. But not the gay ones. Like I mentioned above, Larry Craig, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, the Senate's only 3 known gay men, all voted no. (Wyoming's John Barrasso is also rumored to be a closet case but there isn't much evidence. He voted against the Matthew Shepard bill.) Every Democrat voted yes as did 9 Republicans. It is interesting to note that several Republicans who are always demanding that traditional media refer to them as "moderate," also voted against the bill, namely Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Mel Martinez (R-FL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
McCain, as usual, was out dialing for dollars. And the 4th member of the GOP Perverts Caucus, David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), of course, voted no. You may recall that the House already passed this bill, also overwhelmingly. The bill is also overwhelmingly supported by American citizens, even conservative and religionist ones. Only 14 House Democrats opposed it:
* Marion Berry (AR) * Dan Boren (OK) * Chris Carney (PA) * Bud Cramer (AL) * Lincoln Davis (TN) * Joe Donnelly (IN) * Brad Ellsworth (IN) * Bart Gordon (TN) * Mike McIntyre (NC) * Charlie Melancon (LA) * Collin Peterson (MN) * Mike Ross (AR) * Rahm Emanuel's Heath Shuler (NC) * Gene Taylor (MS)
Among the best known and most notorious closeted Republicans in the House, Phil English (R-PA) and Jim McCrery (R-LA) voted with the Democrats; Planet Denny Hastert (R-IL) abstained; and Adrian Smith (R-NE), Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and David Dreier (R-CA), all very self-loathing and in denial, voted against the Hate Crimes bill.
WHY DID VERIZON REALLY AX NARL'S TEXT MESSAGING? MEET TOM TAUKE, ANTI-CHOICE FANATIC AND VERIZON EXECUTIVE VP
Verizon claims it was-- oops!-- all a great big misunderstanding; they meant no harm and it was certainly nonpartisan. Big mistakey-poo. Sorry, sorry, sorry; you can trust us. You won't read about it in the NY Times and you won't read about it in the Washington Post-- more because their reporters are lazy and coopted by the comfy system they thrive in than because of politics per se-- but Verizon did not make a big mistakey-poo; they were out for revenge and out for partisan gain.
Today's front page Times coverage was very tepid and... what's the opposite of hard-hitting? Soft-hitting?
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.
But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake. “The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.
“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”
Do they? Are you reassured? The Times reporter may be. But DWT readers better not be. Maybe he was satisfied by reading on the Verizon Foundation website how antiseptically neutral the company is when it comes to... ewwww... politics. But that's a big pack o' lies.
One doesn't have to look very hard or very long-- not that that matters to the Times or Post-- to get to the root of the problem between NARL and Verizon. Sniffing around among Verizon's top political donors, the one who stands out is Executive Vice President and chief lobbyist Thomas Tauke, a former far right Republican congressman (1979-91) from Iowa. When he ran unsuccessfully against U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in 1990, the virulently anti-choice Tauke was publicly targeted for defeat by NARL, which spent at least $100,000 on behalf of the pro-choice Harkin who won with 54% of the vote. Planned Parenthood and NARL both campaigned against Tauke and his hateful constitutional amendment criminalizing abortion. Tauke talked about NARL a lot and harbors great hatred towards them for ending what he thought was a promising political career on the fringes of the extreme right.
Tauke and his family have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to far right anti-choice Republicans. He personally has made $192,032 in major political donations to Republicans. Dennis Strigl, president and vice chairman, and his wife Amanda have given over $63,000 in politcal donations, primarily to Republicans. I guess the traditional media doesn't find this relevant, certainly not as relevant as Norman Hsu donating money to Hillary Clinton, which has been ginned up into a month-long major media clusterfuck. But had the Times or Post bothered to check, back copies of the National Journal from July, 1990 and March, 1991 they certainly would have found the context of the Verizon jihad against NARL. In fact, the Post wouldn't have even had to leave home! On October 15, 1989 the Post ran a story, "Abortion-Rights Group Targets Nine '90 Races," which quotes Kate Michelman, then NARL Executive Director, talking about targeting anti-choice Republicans. "To elected officials, we say: If you remain out of step on abortion rights, you will soon be out of a job." This was a departure for NARL, which previously had only rewarded their friends, not gone after their enemies. The Post story mentions "The 'NARAL Nine' target list includes:…Rep. Thomas J. Tauke (R-Iowa), who is challenging abortion-rights supporter Sen. Tom Harkin (D)."
In one of the National Journal stories (July 23, 1990) Tauke is quoted saying "When NARAL comes into the state, I'm not going to sit back and take it." Apparently he hasn't moved on.
But the real takeaway here is that-- like with the recent AT&T/Pearl Jam censorship travesty, these mega-telecoms, who spend millions of dollars on politcians, cannot, must not, be trusted to ever do what is right for the public. This disgraceful incident underlines the absolute need for Net Neutrality. Remember, text messaging is an important new tool for advocacy organizations seeking to educate and alert their members. It is constitutionally protected political speech. Verizon's very partisan decision to block this new form of political speech interferes with its users' right to get information and is clearly illegal. Do you think the recipients of their campaign largesse will do anything about it? You know, the ones who condemned the anti-war citizens' ad yesterday?
Another day, another Republican decided to retire. 8-term wingnut backbencher Terry Everett (AL-02) turned 70 last February. Today he announced he won't be running again in 2008. Good riddance but don't expect to see anything halfway decent coming out of southeast Alabama. Everett won with 70% of the vote last year, 71% the year before. Bush got 67% of the vote in 2004 and the Cook Index is R+13. It's safe to predict that whoever follows Everett it will be an extreme right wing maniac. Of course the good news is that it is also safe to predict that AL-02 will be one of the only congressional districts in the country to be sending a freshman Republican to Congress in 2009. And that isn't just wishful thinking from DWT. The nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly predicted a Democratic House increase next year.
Barring a tidal shift over the next 13 months, Republicans appear highly unlikely to achieve their goal next year of reclaiming the House majority that they held for a dozen years prior to the 2006 elections.
Yet despite their inability to get themselves together and do what they were elected to do, "Democrats currently have more opportunities to expand their newly minted majority in the House than the Republicans have to whittle their edge," according to CQ. They rate 82% of the congressional districts completely impervious to partisan change. But that leaves 78 battleground districts, 44 of which are currently Republican-held. Last year the Democrats did lose a single seat and it isn't likely more than 2 or 3 are endangered next year.
The most likely Republican losses include the following seats: AZ-01- Rick Renzi retiring/facing indictment CA-04- John Doolittle facing indictment/likely to retire or lose a primary IL-11- Jerry Weller retiring/possible indictment MN-03- Jim Ramstad retiring NC-08- Robin Hayes faces complete collapse of voter support OH-15- Deborah Pryce retiring NM-01- Heather Wilson can never run on ethics again NJ-07- Mike Ferguson supporters have wised up to rubber stampism WA-08- Dave Reichert supporters have wised up to rubber stampism AK-A-L- Don Young facing indictment IL-14- Denny Hastert retiring NY-25- James Walsh supporters have wised up to rubber stampism CT-04- Chris Shays threatening to retire/viewed by constituents as having gone insane FL-13- Vern Buchanan unlikely to be able to steal election two years in a row NY-29- Randy Kuhl supporters have wised up to rubber stampism IL-10- Mark Kirk supporters have wised up to rubber stampism NV-03- Jon Porter supporters have wised up to rubber stampism MO-06- Sam Graves supporters have wised up to rubber stampism MI-09- Joe Knollenberg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism MI-07- Tim Walberg's extremism has frightened his constituents PA-15- Charlie Dent supporters have wised up to rubber stampism OH-02- Mean Jean Schmidt CO-04- Marilyn Musgrave MN-06- Michele Bachman WY-A-L- Barbara Cubin IL-06- Peter Roskam doesn't have Rahm Emanuel interfering to save his seat this year WV-02- Shelley Moore Capito supporters have wised up to rubber stampism OH-16- Ralph Regula supporters have wised up to rubber stampism/could die PA-06- Jim Gerlach supporters have wised up to rubber stampism OH-01- Steve Chabot supporters have wised up to rubber stampism PA-03- Phil English supporters have wised up to rubber stampism FL-24- Tom Feeney supporters have tired of having a criminal congressman NY-26- Tom Reynolds supporters supporters have wised up to rubber stampism IL-18- Ray LaHood retiring VA-02- Thelma Drake supporters have wised up to rubber stampism OH-14- Steven LaTourette supporters have wised up to rubber stampism NV-02- Dean Heller supporters have wised up to rubber stampism PA-18- Tim Murphy supporters have wised up to rubber stampism NJ-03- James Saxton supporters have wised up to rubber stampism CA-26- David Dreier supporters have wised up to rubber stampism and closet queen hyocrisy MT-A-L- Denny Rehberg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism FL-15- Dave Weldon supporters have wised up to rubber stampism AZ-03- John Shadegg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism ID-01- Bill Sali sick and tired of a really bad drummer
And on top of all that they're broke. Actually worse than broke. The NRCC (their pitiful version of the DCCC), which finances the House races for the rubber stampers, has $1.6 million on hand and owes over $4 million. The DCCC has over $22 million on hand. (The Senate Repugs have about $7 million and the Senate Dems have around 3 times that.
UPDATE: DEMOCRATS READY TO SWEEP GOP GARBAGE OUT OF THE NORTHEAST ENTIRELY
Now that is wishful thinking... but still not that far off. That the Republican Party is coming to be a regional Southern party is clear as a bell. How soon is the question. 2008 will make it much more apparent. The Democrats picked up a lot of seats in the Northeast in 2006. They may pick up much of the balance of GOP-held seats in 2008.
Democratic strategists planning for 2008 contend, though, that they have not yet maxed out in the Northeast’s House contests. They will again be going after the sole Republican survivor in New England: veteran Rep. Christopher Shays, whose longstanding image as a moderate Republican maverick enabled him to overcome-- though narrowly-- dissent over his support for the Iraq war among his 4th District constituents in suburbs of New York City.
The party’s national target list also prominently includes other Northeastern Republicans who narrowly escaped the Democratic tide in 2006, such as upstate New York’s James T. Walsh, John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. and Thomas M. Reynolds; New Jersey’s Mike Ferguson; and Pennsylvania’s Jim Gerlach; and others, such as Pennsylvania’s Phil English, who received lackluster majorities over unheralded Democratic opponents last year.
Look for these pick-ups: Jim Himes (CT-04) Sam Bennett (PA-15) Linda Stender (NJ-07) Dan Maffei (NY-25) Eric Massa (NY-29) Jon Powers (NY-26) John Adler (NJ-03) Also in trouble are 3 more Pennsylvania Republicans where primaries have yet to determine their opponents: Tim Murphy (PA-18), Jim Gerlach (PA-06), and Phil English (PA-03). Will this also be the year New York Democrats finally get rid of Long Island and Staten Island throwbacks, Peter King (NY-03) and Vito Fossella (NY-13) ? And a retirement from John McHugh (NY-23), one of the guilty parties in the Walter Reed scandal, would leave the GOP exactly in the position they've earned in New York State.
"REAL" MEN GOING TO TEHRAN AFTER ALL? LIEBERMAN & CHENEY LICKIN' THEIR CHOPS WHILE HILLARY PROVES SHE LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
photo by Tony Guzzi
The passage today of H R 1585, the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, was not even close to the declaration of war against Iran that Cheney, Lieberman and the Neocons are lusting for. But it is unquestionably another well-strategized step down that path. According to tomorrow's NY Times the nonbinding resolution calls on the Bush Regime-- and the calls needn't be very loud, since it was engineered by that very regime-- "to designate the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group and to impose economic sanctions."
McCain was out on the hustings as usual, with his head firmly up the asses of big-money contributors, so he couldn't bother voting. Two wiser Republican elders, Chick Hagel and Richard Lugar, voted against it and all the other Republicans-- including fake moderates Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith, John Sununu, Lamar Alexander, and Susan Collins, as well as the entire GOP senatorial pervert brigade (Larry Craig (ID), Miss McConnell (KY), Lindsey Graham (SC), and David Diapers Vitter (LA)-- voted for it.
No surprises there. But the Democrats... they seem to have looked at all the poll numbers against Bush and the rubber stamp Republicans and decided that it's time to rein things in a little and prove to America that they are as undeserving of trust as the GOP. Joining the Bush enablers like the reactionary Nelson boys, Landrieu, Feinstein, Pryor, Bayh, Salazar, Baucus, and Carper, were Democrats who should know better such as Cardin, Whitehouse, Schumer, Reed, Menendez, Durbin, and, of all people, Hillary. Can we expect a speech from her in the future about how if she knew now what she was too stupid to know then she would have voted against this?
The honor roll today, Democrats who do not want to attack Iran, are
Joe Biden (D-DE) Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Sherrod Brown (D-OH) Robert Byrd (D-WV) Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Chris Dodd (D-CT) Russ Feingold (D-WI) Tom Harkin (D-IA) Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Ted Kennedy (D-MA) John Kerry (D-MA) Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Patrick Leahy (D-VT) Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Jon Tester (D-MT) Jim Webb (D-VA) Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Obama was off with McCain. At least Dodd was paying attention and mentioned that "We shouldn't repeat our mistakes and enable this President again."
"I cannot support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran. To do so could give this President a green light to act recklessly and endanger US national security. We learned in the run up to the Iraq war that seemingly nonbinding language passed by this Senate can have profound consequences. We need the president to use robust diplomacy to address concerns with Iran, not the language in this amendment that the president can point to if he decides to draw this country into another disastrous war of choice."
UPDATE: OBAMA SAYS HE WOULD HAVE VOTED AGAINST THE KYL-LIEBERMAN THING
Here's his direct quote:
"Senator Obama clearly recognizes the serious threat posed by Iran. However, he does not agree with the President that the best way to counter that threat is to keep large numbers of troops in Iraq, and he does not think that now is the time for saber-rattling towards Iran. In fact, he thinks that our large troop presence in Iraq has served to strengthen Iran - not weaken it. He believes that diplomacy and economic pressure, such as the divestment bill that he has proposed, is the right way to pressure the Iranian regime. Accordingly, he would have opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment had he been able to vote today."
WE NEED YOUR ADVICE-- WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THESE DAMN DEMOCRATS?
It was very disheartening for House Democrats to play along with or get manipulated into supporting Republican change-the-subject strategies and instead of doing their jobs, vote to condemn a newspaper ad. Only 79 Democrats seemed to understand what free speech means. As I said earlier, Blue America has endorsed 8 incumbents and four stood up for free speech today-- Congressmembers Hilda Solis (D-CA), Tom Allen (D-ME), Steve Cohen (D-TN), and Jerry Nadler (D-NY)-- and four, in tougher, more Republican-leaning districts, took the bait and voted to condemn the ad: Carol Shea-Porter (NH), John Hall (NY), Jerry McNerney (CA) and Patrick Murphy (PA). Earlier I urged our members to stop donating-- at least for the rest of this quarter-- to the candidates who voted with the Republicans today. (I also asked everyone to thank Hilda Solis, Jerry Nadler, Steve Cohen, and Tom Allen by making a donation to their campaigns-- even if it's just a token one dollar each.)
But perhaps we need to go further. Blue America commissioned a poll to gage what the readers of Crooks & Liars, Firedoglake, Digby and DWT think. The survey asks if you agree or disagree with the candidates who voted against censuring MoveOn and then asks what you think we should do about the 4 who voted in favor of censure. There are 3 choices:
1) Encourage people not to give money to him for the rest of the quarter 2) Ask him to come on Blue America and explain his vote 3) Remove him from Blue America completely
Jane, John, Digby and I would like to get some guidance from our readers how strongly you feel about this and how strongly you want us to react. Please hit this link and take the survey.
A little while ago I spoke with John Laesch (D-IL), another Blue America-endorsed candidate. Like Martin Heinrich and Tom Allen he wasn't happy to see so many of his fellow Democrats fall into this trap. He told me he is "appalled that the House wasted one minute of their time condemning a newspaper advertisement. It's time to move on from the MoveOn ad. This is yet one more example of how President Bush continues to control the agenda in Washington." John has been fighting against Bush occupation of Iraq for several years-- and, as a vet of that conflict, he's not kidding around. He means business and I could just see him shaking his head in disgust on the other end of the phone.
I have no idea how much time U.S. House members have wasted on this bill, but I do know that our troops are still stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. I know that the healthcare system still leaves millions of Americans uninsured and the front page of my local newspaper featured one more story about a local business closing its doors.
The polling numbers of both the president (27%) and the United States Congress (11%) reflect how hungry America is for new leadership."
John had called to tell me that the Northwestern Illinois Building and Trades Council had unanimously endorsed his candidacy. But that got lost in all the hubbub about Democrats voting like Republicans.
"More and better Democrats" is a motto we need to be thinking about. Dan Grant, a Democrat running against Mike McCaul, a rubber stamp Republican in central Texas, sent me a note about McCaul's McCarthy-like vote against MoveOn. I want to share it with DWT readers:
One day after voting against extending the same kind of taxpayer-funded health care he himself enjoy to more than four million eligible American children who have no insurance at all, Mike McCaul has found a cause he can support-- condemning the free expression of opinion by a group of citizens during an important national debate.
The testimony to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus about the civil war in Iraq and what the U.S. should do about it was notable for at least two reasons:
* The aimlessness of the White House's policy * The absence of one of that policy's chief cheerleaders, Mike McCaul
That is, until now. Mr. McCaul has finally roused himself long enough to participate in a shallow charade that does nothing to make us safer, bring our troops home, or make up for rubberstamping the Bush-Cheney administration's misadventure in Iraq.
I served as a civilian in Iraq. I watched all kinds of men and women from all walks of life work their hearts out to try to fix this disaster. And while Mr. McCaul engaged in this pointless theatre, some of those people may have died. Shame on him.
That's how Democrats should be answering Republican calumny against citizens exercising their right to free speech in challenging a catastrophic and failed policy that Congress has enabled Bush to carry out-- and still enables Bush to carry out.
Larry Irving is founder and head honcho at the Irving Information Group, a consulting firm providing strategic advice and assistance to international telecommunications and technology companies, technology and media startups and foundations and non-profit organizations. Before that he served for almost seven years as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), where he was a principal advisor to President Clinton and Vice President Gore and the Secretary of Commerce on domestic and international telecommunications and information technology issues. From Clinton-Gore to DWT; he wrote us a post on the controversy around the issue of taxing the Internet. Here's his report:
The Senate Commerce Committee is set this week to debate an extension of the 1998 Internet tax ban preventing local and state government from collecting tax on Internet connection services.
Two proposals are currently competing on the floor: Senators and former Governors Carper (D-DE) and Alexander (R-TN), introduced a proposal in May, S. 1453, that would extend the ban for four years, but would permit states to collect on access taxed before the imposition of the moratorium in 1998.
Challenging the Carper-Alexander proposal is S. 156, introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) which proposes an indefinite, permanent ban. With outside support from likes of Google, Yahoo, AT&T, and Verizon (check out other supporters from the DontTaxOur Web Coalition), the Wyden bill has widespread bipartisan support.
In ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus, a provincial king, was subjected by the gods to the punishment of rolling a boulder up a huge hill only to have it roll down again. In present day Washington, advocates of freedom from Internet taxation are subjected to a similar punishment as every several years, despite strong public support and bipartisan political support they have to reestablish the fundamental principles on which the Internet was founded, freedom, minimal regulation and minimal taxation.
Congress passed the initial Internet Tax Freedom Act in 1998. The legislation, then as now supported by users and providers of internet access, passed overwhelmingly in Congress and was signed by President Clinton in October, 1998. Briefly stated, the Act barred local, state and federal governments from taxing internet access and from imposing internet only taxes such as bit taxes, bandwidth taxes and email taxes. The legislation has been renewed twice in intervening years. But for this legislation, the Internet would be subject to a myriad of possible taxes from, according to some tax experts, up to 30,000 state and local franchising authorities. The legislation introduced this year would make the ban on unneeded taxes and fees on internet use permanent and end the triennial Sisyphean effort presently necessary to protect the Internet and its users.
No one seriously argues against another short term extension. But state and local taxing authorities oppose making the tax ban permanent on the basis that taxes may one day be necessary. They can't articulate why taxing the internet would be a good idea or what would cause taxing the internet ever to be necessary, but they want the option. As a general rule, I am not reflexively anti-tax. I understand that governments need revenue to provide services to the public. But I can find no compelling reason for taxing the internet or users of the internet.
I served for almost seven years in the Clinton Administration and helped define the Administration's internet policy. We attempted to ascribe to what we referred to as the internet's Hippocratic Oath, "first do no harm." That philosophy served us well, has served our nation well, and I would submit, will serve the present set of internet policymakers, local, state and federal equally well. Taxation of the internet could cause substantial harm.
The internet and particularly the broadband internet have been huge success stories. In the 9 years since Congress first passed the first Internet Tax Freedom Act, tens of millions of American households and hundreds of millions of Americans connected to the Internet. Let me repeat that, in the past decade, hundreds of millions of Americans have joined the Internet revolution. As prices for access have fallen and the quality of the internet experience has improved, the Net has become an integral part of life for the majority of Americans. But there is more work to be done. Approximately a quarter of the American public are not connected to the Net and almost half of America is not connected to the broadband internet. Permitting taxation of internet services could stem the growth of the net. Worse, the state and local taxes most likely to be imposed on internet services are the type of regressive taxes that will disproportionately impact low income Americans, precisely the portion of our population that is most likely to not be connected now.
We have a chance to end our triennial homage to Sisyphus by passing the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 2007. Let's get it done and let's get on with the task of making broadband more accessible to and affordable for all Americans.
IF NORM COLEMAN THINKS EVERYTHING IS GOING SO WELL IN IRAQ, MAYBE HE CAN MOVE THERE AFTER AL FRANKEN DEFEATS HIM IN 2008
I haven't been able to talk DWT's best pal in Minnesota, Blue America heroine Coleen Rawley, into challenging her insane Republican congressman, John Kline (who just came back from Iraq babbling how eveything's comin' up roses) to a re-match. Nor have I given up. But Ken and I were so excited when Coleen sent us word of some grassroots action she was involved with on a non-Klinear level.
She wrote that she was so inspired by Ken's and Mike Stark's "brave stance in O'Reilly's driveway" that she and some of her friends decided to go visit Norm Coleman, their rubber stamp senator at his home. Remembering that Coleman and I were co-secretaries of our elementary school class in Brooklyn, Coleen knew I would want to see a picture of his St. Paul home and wonder why he's insisting that people in Minnesota aren't thinking about the occupation of Iraq. (We certainly know he doesn't want them too.)
Apparently his neighbors' yard signs ["Support the troops-- End the War"] weren't doing the trick in getting the message across to the Senator that Minnesotans are concerned about the terrible costs of the ongoing occupation of Iraq so we thought we'd communicate that message a little more clearly.
THE HOUSE CAN'T CONDEMN BUSH'S WARS AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ OR AGAINST SICK AMERICAN CHILDREN, BUT IT DID MANAGE TO CONDEMN... AN AD
Martin Heinrich (NM)-- file under: "More and BETTER Democrats"
DailyKos has the full list of how every member of Congress voted. We'll discuss this at greater length soon but since it is the end of the fundraising quarter I want to urge Blue America contributors to take today's vote into serious consideration when they decide who has earned a donation. Four of our endorsed incumbents voted against this stupid Republican diversion and four went along with it. Tom Allen (D-ME), who is running against Republican rubber stamp Susan Collins voted no, as did Steve Cohen (D-TN), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Hilda Solis (D-CA). Voting with the Republicans today were John Hall (NY), Jerry McNerney (CA), Patrick Murphy (PA) and Carol Shea-Porter (NH).
The 4 who voted for the GOP talking points have let us down. I would like to suggest that we withhold contributions from their campaigns for the rest of the quarter. I see Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer also voted with the Republicans. Let them go get their funding from them. (Current DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen stuck with us on this and voted "no.") I'm making a contribution today to Jerry Nadler, Hilda Solis, Tom Allen and Steve Cohen. Please consider joining me.
Tom Allen just sent us this message: "I do not believe the House should vote to approve or disapprove of political ads in our democracy. I voted against this resolution today because I believe it is the job of the Congress to bring our troops home, not legislate free speech." At the time the vote came down I was talking on the phone with Albuquerque City Councilmember Martin Heinrich, the progressive Democrat running against corrupt rubber stamp Heather Wilson (NM-01). He was very disappointed that the Democratic Leadership even allowed this idiotic voted to come to the floor. Martin's answer was what every Democrat should be saying. "There's a grand diversion for you... It's not something that I'd have been willing to support because it takes us away from the focus of actually making a difference on the ground in Iraq. What we ought to be voting on is a timetable to redeploy our troops."
“With every passing day, more information comes to light casting more and more doubt on the validity of the facts and conclusions presented by General Petraeus in his testimony before Congress. [Hit the link to see the stories.]
With every passing day, more American soldiers and Iraqi civilians lose their lives in this unwinnable civil war. It is unconscionable and outrageous that instead of doing the people's work and ending this war, Congress chooses meaningless and distracting gestures.
With every passing day, America's frustration with politicians in Washington drops the approval ratings for this Congress to new lows. Congress is fiddling with an ad while Iraq burns.
We will continue our ad campaign to accuse the Republicans who are blocking an end to the war of a 'Betrayal of Trust.'”
MISTER CREDIBLE SAYS THE IRAQI CIVIL WAR HAS BEEN PREVENTED
I guess Bush is going to let Maliki keep his gig in the Greed Zone. He's reading a GOP script while he's in NYC this week making believe he represents a soverign nation-- albeit one that can't even kick a vicious, murdering mercenary force out of it's jurisdiction. Yesterday's Washington Post mercifully buried the big news-- that according to Maliki "civil war has been averted in Iraq and Iranian intervention there has 'ceased to exist'"-- on page 15.
"I can't say there is a picture of roses and flowers in Iraq," Maliki told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "However, I can say that the greatest victory, of which I am proud . . . is stopping the explosion of a sectarian war." That possibility, he said, "is now far away."
While political reconciliation is not yet complete, he said, progress is being made. "Reconciliation is not a decision that can be made, but a process that takes continuous efforts and also needs strategic patience," Maliki said.
He said cabinet ministers who have left his government in protest will be replaced, and he expressed confidence that the Iraqi parliament will pass legislation that he, the Bush administration and Congress have demanded.
Maliki, who will speak to the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow, deftly dodged questions about last week's incident in which employees of Blackwater, a private U.S. security firm, allegedly killed 11 Iraqi civilians. While "initial signs" are that "there was some wrongdoing from Blackwater," he said, he will await the results of a U.S.-Iraqi investigation. He dismissed a statement by the interior minister in Baghdad that Blackwater will be banned from Iraq, saying the positions of the ministry and his office are "the same."
Iraqi security forces, Maliki said, are increasingly capable of operating without U.S. support. But he agreed with the Bush administration that an early U.S. withdrawal would be unwise.
Good boy gets to keep his job. But, alas, those spoil-sports and MoveOn bargain-rate givers in New York ruined the whole scenario this morning with more of their damn liberal doom'n'gloom.
Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq, staging at least 10 attacks in 48 hours.
...The latest outbreak of violence closely follows the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message.
...In the recent violence, several of the attackers were suicide bombers-- a signature of Sunni Arab extremists-- either driving cars or wearing suicide vests.
The most lethal attack was on Monday evening in Baquba, when a man wearing a suicide vest walked into a reconciliation meeting at a Shiite mosque in Shifta, a suburb of the provincial capital, and exploded his device as several hundred people drank tea after breaking the daylong Ramadan fast, according to an American military report.
The police chief, Brig. Ali Dlyan, was killed along with 11 other police officers, two of whom were senior commanders. There were differing accounts of the death toll, with the American military saying that 24 died and 37 were wounded and Diyala health officials saying they had received 18 bodies. The Baquba hospital reported receiving 27 with wounds.
The governor of Diyala Province, who was wounded in the attack, was saved from death by his bodyguards, who saw the bomber going toward the governor and threw themselves on top of him. All five of his bodyguards died and the governor had to be dragged from underneath them, said a provincial official in Diyala who rushed to the scene to help with the rescue. He requested anonymity for fear of becoming a target.
I wonder if Maliki has decided to endorse one of the pathetic pygmies™.
One of the most hated pieces of legislation to come out of the heinous Bush Regime was the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill, a law put together by the credit card industry and pushed primarily by corrupt members of Congress-- on both sides of the aisle-- who get gigantic payoffs from these same companies. The bill poisoned progressives against bought-off reactionary Democrats like Joe Biden (D-DE) and Al Wynn (D-MD).
With Democrats having won both houses of Congress, members are currently working on a completely different kind of bankruptcy bill, not one to protect Republican campaign contributors (and friends of Biden's and Wynn's) but to protect American working families who Republicans (and Biden and Wynn) spit on. Legislation was introduced into both houses today that would provide protection to workers who are usually the first to suffer for the corporate financial shenanigans that result in industrial bankruptcies (think Enron). The bill, which is already drawing criticism from the far right, would reduce compensation for top level management-- the ones, after all, who make the disastrous decisions that lead to bankruptcy-- in line with the cuts imposed on workers. The legislation would also prevent companies from dissolving collective bargaining agreements so easily. Sounds fair and reasonable, right? To Republicans it's the end of the world... communism.
"When Enron declared bankruptcy their workers and retirees were left high and dry," Senate Whip Richard Durbin, the bill's Senate sponsor, said. "Our bankruptcy laws made it easier to do this to the American worker. This bill puts the American worker in the front of the bus, not the back of the bus." The Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Ted Kennedy, who will be holding hearings on the bill, pointed out what I saw over and over again while I was in the corporate world. "It's the very insiders whose misconduct brings down a company who do well in a bankruptcy and walk away as millionaires." Democrats plan to change that equation so that working families are protected from predators and incompetents.
If anything, support in the House is even more powerful. And although you can expect a handful of the regular suspects-- reactionary Democrats like Chris Carney and Jim Marshall and Bud Cramer and their ilk-- to join with the GOP against American working families as they usually do, this bill is generating a great deal of enthusiasm. House Judiciary Committee Conyers is one of those who is most enthusiastic. "Under this legislation, a worker won't have to face the kind of threat to their benefits they are facing now and have been in recent years." Obviously this is a bill that will be vetoed by Bush and will have to await Hillary's ascension to the White House before it becomes law. She didn't vote in 2005 when the GOP/Biden bill passed but the other Democratic senators running for president, Obama and Dodd both opposed it. Needless to say every single Republican-- including fake moderates like Norm Coleman (R-MN), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), and John Sununu (R-NH) supported it, as did the entire Republican pervert contingent: Larry Craig (R-ID), David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), Miss McConnell (R-KY), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
HOUSE LAUNCHES SCHIP WITH A HUGE BIPARTISAN MAJORITY-- BUSH PROMISES TO SINK IT
As expected, the House passed the SCHIP bill 265-159, a far greater margin than the 225-204 by which it originally passed (before all the publicity and the pressure from constituents). The Democratic leadership was able to rein in 4 of the 10 reactionary slobs who originally voted with the Republicans: Jim Cooper (D-TN), Heath Shuler (D-NC), Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and Brad Ellsworth (D-IN). The other six renegades [Dan Boren (OK), Bob Etheridge (NC), Baron Hill (IN), Jim Marshall (GA), Mike McIntyre (NC), and, of course, Gene Taylor (MS)] all stuck with their soulmates in the GOP-- even as far more Republicans (45) abandoned their sinking party leadership to vote with the Democrats.
Fake Republican moderates who wanted to vote for children's health care but were too badly roughed up by Eric Cantor and Roy Blunt to work up the nerve and serve the interests of their constituents, included: Roscoe Bartlett (MD) Scott Garrett (NJ) Tim Johnson (IL) Judy Biggert (IL) Brian Bilbray (CA) Tom Reynolds (NY) Ginny Brown-Waite (FL) Joe Knollenberg (MI) Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ) Randy Kuhl (NY) Jim Saxton (NJ) Thaddeus McCotter (MI)
This afternoon Russ Warner, the Blue America-endorsed candidate against rubber stamp Republican closet queen David Dreier, wasn't surprised that Dreier stood with Bush and his funders from Big Tobacco against reauthorizing SCHIP but he was plenty angry that as a result of the vote hundreds of thousands of California families will likely lose health insurance for their children in the coming months. "At a time when we are spending $450 billion on the war in Iraq, David Dreier’s unwillingness to invest in California’s kids shows how out of touch he is with the priorities and concerns of people in the 26th district... After 27 years in Congress, all David Dreier has to offer are outrageous comments and unwavering support for George Bush’s failed policies. The money invested in covering children’s health today will save California money tomorrow, in identifying and catching illnesses earlier and in eliminating unnecessary emergency room visits. The people of the 26th district are ready for a representative who will fight for their interests-- not the interests of George Bush and Big Tobacco."
UPDATE: MITCH McCONNELL PLOTTING WITH BUSH HOW TO VETO THIS BILL. DOES THIS GUY JUST HATE CHILDREN? I KNOW PLENTY OF GAY PEOPLE WHO REALLY CARE ABOUT KIDS. WHY IS McCONNELL SUCH A DICK?
MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-TN) CRASHES, BURNS ON NATIONAL TELEVISION
Only one of these crooks is still in Congress
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is one of the worst right wing extremists in the entire U.S. Congress. Other than a gaggle of crazy freshmen who haven't had enough time to amass full-fledged lunatic voting records, she has the third most reactionary record in the Congress, beaten only by neo-fascist kook Eric Cantor (R-VA) and corrupt closet queen Patrick McHenry (R-NC). She thought she was going to be on MSNBC with Republican cypher Tucker Carlson and nearly pissed in her pants when confronted with an actual journalist, David Shuster, who cut short her propaganda rant about the NY Times and MoveOn.
Crooks & Liars has the embarrassing video up of a wingnut congressmember clearly out of her depth and fumbling, quite unsuccessfully, to keep from sounding like a nitwit and a hypocrite. A local paper, the Memphis Flyer claims Blackburn was flustered because she "forgot she wasn't on Fox."
Her opponent next year will be Bill Morrison, who ran against her in 2006. I like his ad. Here she is with Shuster:
UPDATE: AN ANTIDOTE TO BLACKBURN
Darcy Burner's comment about "more and better Democrats" is my theme for this election cycle. Jane has a post up at FDL right now, It's Ladies Night reminding everyone that the DCCC did not support women candidates in 2006. We're not taking any chances they make the same mistake again. We've got a great team of women running for Congress in 2008. So far Blue America has endorsed Sam Bennett, Darcy Burner, Donna Edwards, Victoria Wulsin and Angie Paccione. This is the last week of the quarter, a good time to show the flag. How about $5 for each of these extraordinary Americans?
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL WHAT WHAT A REPUBLICAN MODERATE IS? CAN YOU NAME ONE?
The last Republican moderate (the white guy in the middle)
A couple days ago Congressional Quarterly, took a look at the impasse over ending the occupation of Iraq and, echoing a consensus among Inside the Beltway media outlets, blamed... the Democrats for not dealing with Republican "moderates."
After the defeat on Thursday of an amendment to the defense authorization bill that also would have drawn down most troops from Iraq by next year, the leaders declared they would not give ground on their demands for a fixed withdrawal date merely to pass what they said would be toothless war legislation with the support of some Republican moderates.
“Compromise,” Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, does not mean Democrats will “give up our principles. Our principle is that we need to change the course of the war in Iraq, not have an amendment that we say could pass [with] bipartisan [support].”
Likewise, the Senate’s Republican leaders, who have kept their caucus solidly behind Bush during this week’s Iraq War debate, dug in their heels in support of the president’s war strategy.
Although a number of centrists from both parties sought middle ground, they appeared to be toiling against the wishes of their leaders. The moderates remained hopeful that Democratic leaders, in particular, would agree to consider several compromise measures on the war next week, by which time the toughest proposals would likely be dead.
...Moderate Republicans such as Collins, Smith, John W. Warner of Virginia, George V. Voinovich of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Norm Coleman of Minnesota have been meeting almost daily with Democratic centrists, including Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Ken Salazar of Colorado, to come up with a legislative formula both sides can embrace.
There have been 38 roll call votes in the Senate regarding Iraq since October 10, 2002's five roll calls on SJ Res 45 authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel have bucked the Bush Regime 8 times, although only four of those votes were considered controversial, the other four being routine and bipartisan matters. Even the most reactionary warmongering Bush-Dogs among Democratic senators-- Ben Nelson (D-NE), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Joe Biden (D-DE)-- were 3 times more likely to vote against Bush than these Republican fake moderates. And as for the other Republicans cited by Congressional Quarterly, Gordon Smith (R-OR), John Warner (R-VA), George Voinovich (R-OH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Norm Coleman (R-MN), they have even more spurious claims to "moderation." Alexander, for example-- up for re-election next year and desperate to appear independent of Bush-- voted against the Bush-Cheney line one time and that was on a non-controversial roll call with bipartisan support.
In the last few weeks I've asked why the traditional meet insists on labeling rubber stamp Republicans who have consistently and even reflexively backed every single Bush agenda item on Iraq as "moderate." I wrote several letters-- all unanswered-- to New York Times DC political chief Carl Hulse asking him on what basis he insists on labeling Lamar Alexander-- whose voting record makes a clear and unambiguous case that he is a down-the-line extremist on Iraq policy-- a "moderate." Lamar Alexander votes the same way
The following week the Washington Post was busy painting rubber stamp Republicans in the House, like Phil English (R-PA), as moderates. Again, there was not a single shred of evidence to point out a moderate stance on this. These Republicans all have to face moderate voters in 2008 and they all want to be perceived as moderates and in sync with their anti-war constituents... but not enough to vote against the demands of Bush and Cheney, not ever.
Are there any Republican moderates when it comes to the occupation of Iraq? Well, glad you asked. Let's look at that. There isn't a single one in the Senate, although recent votes indicate that Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) may be changing course and moderating their rubber stamp postures regarding the occupation of Iraq. In the House there are probably two Republicans who could honestly make the claim to moderate positions. Their votes are generally pro-Bush but each has taken significant stands against the Bush-Cheney line a few times: Ron Paul (R-TX) and Walter Jones (R-NC). Paul's votes on Iraq, in fact, are better than the handful of the most reactionary, pro-war Democrats (Chris Carney, Bud Cramer, Gene Taylor, and Jim Marshall). Other than that, there are no moderate Republicans when it comes to Iraq, despite the laziness of traditional media to check the facts before labeling members "moderate" or "independent."
The House has voted 56 times on Iraq-related bills. Regular readers of the NY Times, Washington Post, etc cannot be blamed from believing that there are some gung-ho moderate Republicans-- mostly in the northeast-- like Christopher Shays (R-CT), Mike Ferguson (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Christopher Smith (R-NJ), Jim Gerlach (R-PA), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mary Bono (R-CA), James Walsh (R-NY), Mike Castle (R-DE), Phil English (R-PA), Judy Biggert (R-IL), Charles Dent (R-PA)... The traditional media is constantly referring to these men and women as "moderates." Oft-proclaimed moderate Judy Biggert for example, has voted all 56 votes with Bush and Cheney. How is she a moderate? What is wrong with the media that they consistently bolster her re-election prospects by calling her a moderate every time they write about her. She never disagreed with the Bush company line... not one time. Neither did Charlie Dent, who is running around Allentown like a chicken without a head, campaigning against Blue America-endorsed progressive Sam Bennett (who adamantly opposes the occupation of Iraq) and he claims he's a moderate and an independent voice. The local and national media echo his claims, although his voting record puts them to the lie. He never, ever went up against Bush-- not a single time.
Oh but what about Christopher Shays? He's the one the NY Times is always touting as a paragon of moderation and independence. On October 17, 2003 he defied Bush-- along with a bipartisan majority in the House-- to demand competitive bidding on oil contacts and a few days later he again joined with a bipartisan majority to transform half of Iraq's $20 billion reconstruction budget from a grant to a loan. Other than those two votes and one bipartisan procedural matter he has been 100% behind the Bush-Cheney agenda of mayhem and destruction in Iraq. There is absolutely nothing "moderate" or "independent" about Chris Shays' Iraq voting record, a voting record he does everything he can to hide from Connecticut votes who are hearing Blue America-backed Jim Himes talk to them about plans to actually end the occupation of Iraq that Shays has so steadfastly supported.
These self-dubbed moderates, supported by a lazy and venal traditional media, all turn out to be radical right supporters of the Bush Iraq agenda. Who would have imagined? Perhaps that's why the latest Gallup Poll shows that nearly 60% of Americans have an unfavorable reaction to the Republican Party and that Democrats are favored 53-38%. And maybe that's why the GOP is broke and no one wants to donate to their loser candidates. And maybe that's why record numbers of Republican incumbents are announcing that they'd rather retire than face the voters in 2008. And, surely, that's why "None of the Above" beats each of the pathetic pygmies™ when Republican voters are asked which of the repulsive GOP candidate they favor for the presidency.
Greg Sargent over at TPM seems to have noticed something very similar. And so has David Shuster at MSNBC. Watch:
UPDATE: AND WHEN IT COMES TO CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE... THEY'RE NOT MODERATE ON THAT EITHER
The SCHIP bill originally passed the House on August first, 225-204. Ten reactionary Democrats joined with the Republicans in a vain attempt to defeat it. And 5 Republicans bolted from their greed-obsessed hateful leadership to vote with the Democrats. To get by Miss McConnell's obstructionist tactics in the Senate, the bill was considerably pared down in a compromise with Republicans that made millions of children ineligible. But even after the severe compromise, Bush and most Republicans are still against it. Radical right-- some would say neo-fascist-- Republican Eric Cantor of Virginia, a whip, says "this is a defining vote for Republicans. You are either for or against health care directed by the Washington bureaucracy." Hard core extremists like Cantor are threatening and berating Republican members who are wavering after hearing from their constituents that they want the bill passed.
While Cantor brags that he can keep enough Republicans cowed that Bush's veto will be sustained, Speaker Pelosi is hoping "to galvanize the support of the American people behind this legislation... The president has no credibility on matters of fiscal responsibility due to his astonishing record of compiling historic deficits over the last seven years... I urge the president to drop the partisan rhetoric, put down his veto pen, and work with the new direction Congress to complete this year's spending bills." Ray LaHood (R-IL), who is retiring and no longer fears the wrath of the radical right, joined with severely vulnerable Republican incumbent Heath Wilson (R-NM) to send a letter to other GOP House members urging them to ignore Cantor and the other Republican hate-mongers. They think they can bring in more than two dozen Republicans. I won't be holding my breath on that prediction.
"A bipartisan group of Senate and House Members have crafted this agreement. While not perfect, this agreement retains the core principles of SCHIP when it was enacted and provides states with new tools to enroll more eligible low-income children."
REPUBLICAN REP: "ALASKA'S NAME IS MUD"-- SO WHAT WOULD THAT MAKE TED STEVENS?
Ted Stevens (R-AK): nice collar but, crooked is as crooked does
The wheels of justice sometimes grind very, very slowly-- so wonderers are wondering how long it will take before uber-corrupt Alaska Senator Ted Stevens to be indicted on bribery charges. Stevens has been a reliable tool for the Bush Regime and a dependable rubber stamp-- but nonetheless far right extremists have never been delighted with him. His grotesque avarice-- think "Bridge to Nowhere"-- and his rampant criminality and unbelievable greed makes the whole GOP look like a vast criminal enterprise. So, according to yesterday's Moonie Times, the wingnuts at the Club For Growth are pushing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to challenge the vulnerable Stevens in the Republican primary. A poll, taken even before it was revealed that the FBI had taped conversations of the senator discussing bribes, showed that Palin would beat him 56-32%.
"Right now, Alaskans aren't hearing anything," Palin said, adding that she and many of the state's residents are willing to give Stevens more leeway than most people because of the Republican senator's long service to Alaska.
"But not hearing anything in terms of information that can be shared regarding the senator's innocence is kind of frustrating for Alaskans," Palin said in a telephone interview from Anchorage. "Alaskans are getting more anxious to hear any information that he can provide regarding his innocence."
Palin first expressed her concerns Thursday to a reporter with National Public Radio, who spoke to her after she dropped in on the federal corruption trial of former state Rep. Pete Kott. Among the trial's bigger revelations was testimony from former Veco chairman Bill Allen that he or his oil services company financed a substantial portion of the 2000 remodeling of Stevens' Girdwood home.
Palin's remarks took on greater significance when The Associated Press reported later Thursday that Allen agreed to secretly tape telephone calls with Stevens after authorities confronted the Veco executive with evidence that he had bribed Alaska lawmakers. The Washington Post on Friday confirmed the existence of the taped phone calls between Stevens and Allen. It's not clear what was said during the calls, or how many were recorded.
Stevens still has one comment only: "No comment." Although Friday a CNN reporter finally got him to open up a little after staking out his Capitol Hill office and asking him about the wiretap from his once close ally and alleged briber. "It's a nice day," was all Stevens would say in response to the questions. "I hope you're enjoying it. I'm having a great day."
It isn't what Palin wants to hear who thinks all the corruption is seriously hurting the state. "I think people are just kind of asking about the commitment that Alaskans have to change the political climate up here to a climate where (residents) can trust that the decisions the state government is making are based on the best interest of Alaskans, not due to undue influence." Rep. John Coghill (R-North Pole) added, "Alaska's name is mud right now."
And the first substantive test of Stevens' plummeting popularity comes next week-- in local elections in Ketchikan, where Greg Vickery director of the Tongass Conservation Society is a candidate for the Borough Assembly and is campaigning against Stevens. Vickery's beef is that Stevens took bribes from VECO in return for his influence in directing an Arctic exploration contract for the National Science Foundation to the company-- which has been a financial mainstay of the Alaska GOP and has lined the pockets of Stevens, his family and his cronies (including Alaska's sole House member, Don Young).
Mud of worse, Alaska Republican politics is a swamp that severely needs a major overhaul. It's time for the Stevens clan and Young to be retired from the public sector and start preparing for what looks like lengthy legal battles.
UPDATE: POLLS INDICATE THAT STEVENS MIGHT AS WELL RETIRE
This chart, based on polls from June 14 and September 17, shows what one could only call a precipitous collapse of support for Alaska's most corrupt politician.
Jesus' General did a purty art piece yesterday (the one above) and I was wondering how to sneak it onto DWT today. The General must have been reading my mind. This morning he accused me of committing treason... 3 times. If what Bush has done to America is patriotism and what we've been writing about at DWT is the opposite then I am guilty, guilty, guilty. And you know what... Christy at FDL and Eve at DKos are in the same boat that I am.
And I guess Charles Grassley (R-IA) is guilty of treason too. But not the pathetic pygmies™ running to personify a third Bush term and not this list of putative Democrats. You may recognize their names from the lists of Democrats who regularly and dependably support Bush on things like FISA and Iraq. They're against health care for children too. These ten are the only Democrats who stood with Bush and the GOP on denying health care to poor children. Keep in mind that the next time the DCCC asks you for money, it primarily goes to Democrats like these-- the ones who vote like Republicans and therefore can't get any support in their districts. Dan Boren (OK) Jim Cooper (TN) Joe Donnelly (IN) Brad Ellsworth (IN) Baron Hill (IN) Bob Etheridge (NC) Mike McIntyre (NC) Heath Shuler (NC) Jim Marshall (GA) Gene Taylor (MS)
The alternative to contributing to the DCCC and the DSCC: Blue America.
Yesterday Markos over at Daily Kos kicked off a huge effort to dislodge despicable Bush Dog Dan Lipinski and replace him with a stalwart progressive, Mark Pera in Illinois' 3rd congressional district. Chris Bowers at Open Left, DavidNYC at Swing State Project, and Jonathan Singer at MyDD, all followed suit, joining Crooks & Liars, Firedoglake, Down With Tyranny, Arch Pundit and most of the local Illinois blogs and activist groups in declaring for Pera's campaign. Please take a look at the live blog session Mark did for Blue America on September 8th and think about giving him a hand to defeat a Bush rubber stamp who shames the Democratic Party. Our Blue America page is open for Mark now-- and always.
This cycle's rallying cry: "More and better Democrats. Mark Pera fits the bill.
BRINGING RAW FOOD TO CONGRESS, ONE CANDIDATE AT A TIME
Jon Powers, the Blue America-endorsed candidate from western New York (NY-26), was in Los Angeles today and Irwing and I took him to dinner. I didn't ask him if he wanted Buffalo wings; instead we took him to Juliano's Raw for his first raw vegan dinner. He says he loved it and he sure cleaned his plate as well as the rest of us. Irwing has been thinking about enlisting in the French Foreign Legion and Jon gave him a good talk about that and recommended a couple of books to read a movie or two to watch before he does anything precipitous.
Jon is running against a classic rubber stamp Republican, Tom Reynolds, a professional politician and the walking, quacking definition of an Inside the Beltway hack. Reynolds has tried to tout himself as "an independent voice" but he can't seem to make that label stick. Maybe that's because of the 56 roll call votes he participated in relating to Iraq, he voted with Bush and Cheney 56 times. That doesn't exactly sound like an independent voice to me. I mean he couldn't even find one disagreement with the catastrophic Bush Iraq agenda? I guess if anyone loves the war and hates the troops they have the perfect candidate in Tom Reynolds.
Smelling very much like another Inside-the-Beltway candidate, former Reynolds supporter Alice Kryzan-- she donated $250 to his campaign on November 2, 2000-- has jumped into the race as well-- but as a Democrat challenging Jon in the primary! Most Democrats in the district who know her, and that isn't many, know her as the attorney for Occidental Petroleum who called the citizen uproar over the toxic disaster known as Love Canal "hysteria."
I hope when Jon's in Congress after January, 2009, he gets the cafeteria there to serve raw food. If you want to see the kind of guy he is, watch this shorts video clip. And if it so moves you, give him a hand in making America a better place.
In 1969 I still thought I was straight... although I was starting to get the... idea that I might not be. I went to Europe for the summer with my girlfriend and when she went back to the U.S. in September to finish her senior year, I headed out in my VW van for India and parts unknown. In Tehran I had met an Iranian guy and had my first sexual encounter with a stranger. I have no idea how he's been since the Revolution-- we never developed any kind of a bond beyond that 20-30 minute encounter in downtown Tehran (in my van)-- but I think he'd be shocked to have heard what Iran's crazy president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said at Columbia today about how there are no homosexuals in Iran.
I always found Muslim countries very friendly places for gay people, at least under the psycho-religionist surface. And speaking of psycho-religionists, the far right has been ginning up the hatred towards Ahmadinejad (and Iran and Columbia University) to better prepare Americans for whatever next move Bush, Cheney, Lieberman and the rest of the American fascists want to make against Iran. What a tragedy for that country that they have a clown for a president (like we do)!
This morning DWT's sometime Art Director, Adam, a Fox fanatic and crazed Zionist, was screaming about the evils of Ahmadinejad so loudly that I figured he fell asleep with a hate Talk radio station on. I keep telling him that rapid right wing kooks get themselves-- and their weak-minded listeners-- all worked up into a lather and bent out of shape making a simple fool like Ahmadinejad more important than he really is and elevating him to some kind of prominence. In Iran he's not that big a deal and has very little actual power. Progressives-- like Columbia University-- invite him to speak, let him expose himself as a jackass, call him out on his abuses and laugh at his primitive, religionist ignorance. Even analysts in Iran can't understand why we waste so much time here talking about him. Next thing you know, they'll be calling on David Vitter and his pals to speak!
Lucas over at The Battle School tells a cautionary tale today about a Neocon loon, "John," he met while he was volunteering at a hospital in the Dominican Republican last year.
While spending a weekend on the beach John noticed that I was reading America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama, and he asked me what it was about. I told him it was about Neo-Conservatism, and proceeded to tell him why it's so loathsome, and why it's killing America.
John disagreed with me.
John said that what is killing America wasn't the infringement of civil rights, the corrupt officials, the never-ending wars, the over-spending on said wars, the poor foreign policy, or the light-speed progress towards a dictatorship. None of that.
John said that what is killing America was homosexuals.
I hope John watches this videoclip of Ahmadinejad at Columbia today and decides that that is the perfect place for him to live. Perhaps he can take some of his friends as well.
DAVID DIAPERS VITTER DOESN'T JUST SPEND MONEY ON HOOKERS... HE ALSO SPENDS OUR MONEY ON PRIMITIVE RELIGIONISTS
One of the biggest perks members of Congress get is the ability to earmark. Under the Culture of Corruption instituted by Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert in the House and Rick Santorum and Bill Frist in the Senate-- with the active connivance of Karl Rove, of course-- members could steal whatever they wanted as long as it wasn't too blatant, in turn for rubber stamping every item on the Bush-Cheney agenda. And then, thanks to the out of control greed of the Jack Abramoffs, Brent Wilkses, Thomas Kontogiannises, Bill Lowerys, Mitchell Wades, etc it got too blatant, seriously blatant. And people have started going to jail-- even under a foot-dragging Justice Department run by Bush's crooked little Attorney General Fredo. But earmarks never go away; the piggies at the trough Inside the Beltway expect to get fed and they have the power to feed themselves. And they do. So why do people get so upset with poor David Diapers Vitter (R-LA)? I mean he wasn't sending earmarks-- as far as we know-- to houses of ill-repute or to diapers manufacturers. All he did was send $100,000 in taxpayers' money to some psychotic religionist group that fights against science. Is that so terrible? Compared to the millions many Republicans-- from Conrad Burns to Denny Hastert to Jerry Lewis to Ted Stevens to John Doolittle... have used to line their own pockets?
Afterall, primitive Bronze Age throwbacks who can be counted about to always vote for Republicans, even ones who like being spanked while they wear diapers, have some rights too. And the cash Vitter was funneling them via the 2008 labor, health and education financing bill gave the so-called Louisiana Family Forum $100 grand to "to develop a plan to promote better science education." Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn't it? I mean what did those stuffy old Founding Fathers a million years ago know about the importance of teaching religionist doctrine in school anyway? Screw them! And so what if Vitter has winked and nodded and made sure to surreptitiously see that these fine upstanding-- albeit a little backward and superstitious-- folks got plenty of dough sent their way?
The group's tax-exempt status prohibits the Louisiana Family Forum from political activity, but Vitter has close ties to the group. Dan Richey, the group's grass-roots coordinator, was paid $17,250 as a consultant in Vitter's 2004 Senate race. Records also show that Vitter's campaign employed Beryl Amedee, the education resource council chairwoman for the Louisiana Family Forum.
The group has been an advocate for the senator, who was elected as a strong supporter of conservative social issues. When Vitter's use of a Washington, D.C., call-girl service drew comparisons last month to the arrest of Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, in what an undercover officer said was a solicitation for sex in an airport men's room, Family Forum Executive Director Gene Mills came to Vitter's defense.
In a video clip the group posted on the Internet site YouTube, Mills said the two senators' situations are far different. "Craig is denying the allegations," he said. "Vitter has repented of the allegations. He sought forgiveness, reconciliation and counseling."
The Louisiana Family Forum tries to make sure the Big Guy in the clouds gets his due in science class. Vitter said the program improves science eduction. "I believe it is an important program," he said. Afterall, if not Vitter and his pals, who would undermine the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that "threw out a Louisiana law that would have required schools to teach creationist theories, which hold that God created the universe, whenever evolution was taught."
The group's stated mission is to "persuasively present biblical principles in the centers of influence on issues affecting the family through research, communication and networking." Until recently, its Web site contained a "battle plan to combat evolution," which called the theory a "dangerous" concept that "has no place in the classroom." The document was removed after a reporter's inquiry.
READING BETWEEN THE LINES-- BILL RICHARDSON ACTUALLY DOES WANT TO END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
Bill Richardson should put even more pressure on Hillary, Obama and Edwards to do the right thing in Iraq. Three committed blogger/activists, Christina Siun, Matt Stoller, and Chris Bowers, helped Richardson put the ad together, a short version of which will start running tomorrow in New Hampshire. Chris explains what's behind it today over at Open Left.
WILL EVAN BAYH BE TO HILLARY WHAT LIEBERMAN WAS TO GORE?
I was at a state banquet at the White House, September 16, 1998 in honor of Václav Havel when I was corned by my then least favorite character in Clinton Washington, Tipper Gore. I'm actually embarrassed about what I snarled at her when she asked me if I'd be supporting Al for president. Of course I eventually decided I would. And then he made his worst choice since marrying the censorious Tipper-- he picked the censorious Lieberman as a running mate. Could Hillary find someone as unappealing to grassroots Democrats? Not likely. But...
Last week Wes Clark endorsed Hillary and there was a flurry of VP talk. I suspect he'll be Secretary of State in the Hillary cabinet. And I'm still betting on ex-Iowa Governor Vilsack for VP. But today's endorsement by Indiana Senator Evan Bayh causes progressives to shudder that Hillary may be contemplating bringing that reactionary onto her ticket. Progressives may be shuddering; DLC reactionaries and conservative Democrats are salivating.
One of the local Indiana paper touts him by referring to him, proudly, as "cautious" and listing his most distinguishing attributes:
He is polite and charming. He's been an articulate spokesman for fatherhood, even writing a book on the subject. As Indiana's governor, he promoted the fatherhood movement and offered other culturally conservative initiatives. He didn't serve liquor at the governor's mansion and reinstated Gideons Bibles in state park inns after an overzealous official thought they violated the First Amendment... [He] is most zealous about being a moderate.
Forget for a moment that it would hand a Democratic Senate seat to the Republicans. Instead, just look at Bayh's voting record and it's weakest link, his record on Iraq, which shows that he has often sided with Bush and Cheney against Democrats. Overall, there are only 9 Democrats who vote more frequently with Republicans than Bayh.
Marlene Rose is a DWT contributor from way up in the northern reaches of the Doolittle Bad Lands. She's trying to clean up the territory. Here's a report she wrote late last night. After reading it, please watch the blogger video along the same lines we posted on Saturday.
I have always prided myself on being a Democrat, the party that fights for the less fortunate. I have not, however, considered myself a fool. The proposal to award California’s electoral votes on a district by district basis that was favored by 41% of the Democrats polled is electoral suicide.
If the Democratic and Independent voters of California do not wake up, we will never elect anyone but a Republican president. The new initiative being proposed by GOP lawyer Thomas Hiltachk is brilliant in its seeming fairness but is actually a political scam to keep Republicans in the White House. He proposes awarding electoral votes on a district by district basis rather than the present system in which whoever wins the popular vote in the state wins all of the electoral votes.
This initiative is not one that is being proposed throughout the nation. Only California will be asked to guarantee the election of the Republican candidate by handing over nearly half our electoral votes while red states like Texas can ignore any Democratic votes that may have been cast.
It is amazing how inventive Republicans are at stealing elections. They have mastered minority vote suppression, hackable electronic voting machines, and purging voter rolls. Nothing, however, is as sophisticated as this effort to emasculate California as a force in presidential politics. Bob Herbert says it best: “What the Democrats need to do now is make sure that California voters understand that they are the latest targeted pawns in the GOP’s long-standing efforts to undermine not just the Democrats, but democracy itself.”
The goal is not to make elections more responsive to the will of the people, but rather to make the election of a Democrat almost impossible. Allocating 20 or more of our 55 electoral votes while the rest of the country maintains a “winner-take-all” policy is guaranteeing a Republican president in perpetuity. . Stealing more than 20 electoral votes by the Republicans would guarantee a baseline equivalent to all the electoral votes of the winner-take-all states of Illinois, Pennsylvania or Ohio.
Our districts are so gerrymandered, no presidential candidate would ever set foot in California. We need only count how many GOP and Democratic Congressmen and women represent this state and we would know how many electoral votes would go to each candidate.
Every vote should count, but that means every vote in the United States, not just in California. Carving out California votes for the GOP candidate means no Democrat will ever have a fair opportunity to be elected president. If we do favor a change, only the proposal to endorse presidential election by popular vote will ensure the election of the person selected by the majority of the country.
The winner-take-all Electoral System has many faults, but for California to unilaterally commit political suicide is insane. We should be leading the parade to elect presidents by popular vote. Until then, unless every state provides proportional representation to the Electoral College, California should not fall for this scam. No one who cares about democracy should sign the petitions to place this piece of garbage on the ballot or, if enough signatures are gathered, no one should vote for this initiative.
-Marlene Rose
UPDATE: BRADLEY WHITFORD SAYS "NO!" TO DIRTY TRICKS
THE WORLD'S MOST HATED INDIVIDUAL CLAIMS HE WILL BE AN ASSET ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
At Thursday's White House press conference Bush told reporters he will be a "strong asset" on the campaign trail this election cycle. Was that bravado? Delusion? Stupidity? Ignorance? Was he high? Make up your own mind. The pathetic bunch of pygmies™ running to personify a third even more cataclysmic Bush term have certainly made up their mind(s); they want him to stay away.
To call Bush unpopular among American voters would be a severe understatement and to calculate his impact on Republican candidates on every level as anything less than disastrous would be pie-in-the-sky. Last week SUSA released Bush approval ratings in 15 states:
Do you think Norm Coleman, a fake moderate who has served as a Bush Regime rubber stamp since the day he was elected and whose own approval rating is an anemic 47% (a sure indication that he'll be a one-term senator) will be inviting Bush to campaign with him in the Twin Cities? And we have the exact same story in Oregon, where Gordon Smith is probably feeling pretty bad that he rubber stamped Bush's whole toxic agenda for the last 7 years while his approval rating sank to the nearly unsalvageable 46%. You think his campaign staff is planning a Bush-Smith whistelstop tour up the 5 from Medford, Eugene, Springfield, and Salem to Beaverton and Portand? Something tells me that's not in the hopper.
"Candidates," insisted the clueless Bush, "who go out and say that helping these Iraqis realize the benefits of democracy are going to do well." Yeah, that's on every American's mind. That and the story about how Saddam Hussein killed Nelson Mandela. Even though virtually all of the pathetic pygmies running for the GOP presidential nomination are running on platforms that are carbon copies of the disastrous Bush agenda, none of them want to be photographed with him and none of them are asking him to join them on the campaign trail. The AP reported today that "Republican presidential candidates can't be any more clear: President Bush isn't welcome on the campaign trail. They would rather choke than even mention his name into a microphone and have all been railing against the status quo.
The candidates are walking a fine line. They are trying to tap into the deep discontent those voters feel about the state of the country without alienating any who hold Bush in high regard. At the same time, they have to counter the Democrats' powerful arguments for a new direction.
How candidates handle the 800-pound elephant in the room now could have implications beyond the primary. Privately, Republican strategists agree their nominee will lose next fall if the general election is a referendum on Bush. They say GOP candidates are wise to distance themselves from the president now, given his unpopularity among the public at large.
It's unlikely that the Democrats are going to let that happen. The Republicans may not want to talk about Bush, but the Democrats will bring him up everyday, ever way on every issue and in every race. And they're just loving the impact Bush and his policies are having on relative fundraising between the two parties. Still, the delusional occupant of the White House, who has been wrong about everything he's uttered a word about, predicts whichever one of the pathetic pygmies™ the GOP throws up will beat Hillary.
MICHIGAN STRAW POLL-- ROMNEY BOUGHT TOP PLACE AS USUAL BUT WHAT'S INTERESTING IS THAT RON PAUL BEAT GIULIANI & FREDERICK OF HOLLYWOOD
No one exactly expected Rudy Giuliani to win over the NRA Convention this week, although some people admired his gumption for even showing up at all. After all, NRA members are well aware that as mayor of NYC Giuliani didn't just back gun control laws, but that he sued gun manufacturers, claiming that they are responsible for crimes committed by people using guns. Nor did they enjoy Giuliani calling them "an extremist group" back in the '90s before he ever dreamed he'd need their votes for something. They hate him and many NRA members would support a Democrat over Giuliani any day of the week, particularly Bill Richardson, who also addressed the conclave (the only Democratic presidential candidate to do so).
Politicized gun worshippers, like most of the radical right, are stuck without a candidate and are part of why "None of the Above" wins every Republican presidential preference poll. The pathetic pygmies™ seem none too appetizing to anyone. But "None of the Above" wasn't allowed on the straw poll ballot the Michigan Republican Leadership Conference held on Mackinac Island. No one was surprised that the tiny varmint hunter came in first since, as he always does, he paid for hundreds of people to attend. Observers discount his first place finish with a sneer. Earlier, at the NRA meeting, McCain had, in fact, summed Full O' Mitt up to the satisfaction of many wing-nuts, pointing out that Romney is all wrong if he thinks that claiming "bona fides by hunting ducks or varmints or quail, it makes up for support for gun control." Romney has been determined to get beyond being just "the untrustworthy Mormon candidate" and he has. He is now the untrustworthy flip-flip candidate with lots of money who is a Mormon.
So Romney's millions bought him 39% of the 979 votes cast and lots of eye-rolling and shrugging. McCain, who has just lost his Michigan State Chairman, Attorney General Mike Cox-- and no, since I know what you're thinking, Cox wasn't caught in a men's room blowing an undercover officer in diapers like other McCain state chairmen-- came in a surprising second. Third place went to Loonitarian Ron Paul, primarily as a protest vote among the 10% of Republicans who, like normal Americans, would like to end the occupation of Iraq. The shock, though, was that Paul beat Giuliani and Frederick of Hollywood, who showed up, spoke (really badly) and impressed no one at all-- not even far right extremists who thought he would save their crumbling universe. There were a scattering of votes for Duncan Hunter, Huckabee and Brownback (all together about equal to Sir Frederick's) and Tancredo didn't get a single vote.
YOU WONDER WHY GUN OWNERS HATE MITT ROMNEY ALMOST AS MUCH AS THEY HATE GIULIANI?
No wonder most NRA members are rooting for Bill Richardson this year! Here's some more of ole flip-floppin' Mitt:
HILLARY SAYS "NOT ONE MORE CENT" FOR BUSH'S IRAQ AGENDA
It's taken long enough, but today on Face the Nation and Meet the Press Hillary told Tim Russert that she won't be voting to authorize any more of the Regime's demands for the countless billions Bush needs to keep the occupation of Iraq going. We should expect no less from any candidates for any federal office-- or from any of the incumbents we support with our votes, our efforts and our contributions.
RUSSERT: As you well know you voted to authorize this war, voted to fund this war at lest ten times. Are you now saying that you will not vote one more penny for the war in Iraq.
HRC: Tim I am saying that. You know I've been guided by what I believe is the principle that should govern any decisions that any member of the senate and any one in public life makes and that is I try to do what is best for my country and for the troops who serve it. And I have seen no evidence that this administration is willing to change course in any significant way. We're now nearly at 3800 dead, we have more than 30,000 injured, the Iraqi government has failed to fulfill its part of the bargain to deal with the political issues that all of us know have to be addressed. I don't think the Bush administration has pursued the diplomatic agenda the way that it needed to be pursued and there is no military solution.
And these extraordinary brave young men and women should begin to come home out of refereeing this sectarian civil war. I voted against funding last spring-- I understand we are going to have vote shortly about funding and I will vote against it. Because I think it's the only way that we can demonstrate clearly that we have to change direction. The president has not been willing to do that and he still has enough support among the Republicans in the senate that he doesn't have to. And so on occasion after occasion I have made it clear that if the president does not begin to extricate us from Iraq before he leaves office-- which apparently, based on what he himself has said, he will not - when I am president I will immediately ask my Secretary of Defense, the Join Chiefs of Staff, and my security advisors to tell me exactly what the state of play is. I don't think we even know everything we need to know about what the plans for withdrawal are, how best to implement that and I will. And our involvement at the level we've seen has not proven to be successful.
TWO VISIONS OF AMERICA-- THE FAR RIGHT'S DARK, PARANOID NITEMARE AND THAT OF NORMAL AMERICANS
Yesterday's Blue America candidate was Pennsylvania's progressive Democrat Sam Bennett of Allentown. The night before I asked her to guest host the Late Night Music Club at Crooks & Liars. Her selection was "This Land Is Our Land" and although her manager suggested we use the updated and popular Bruce Springsteen version, which Sam also likes, she reiterated to me that it was Woody Guthrie's original that makes her spine tingle.
Listen:
What Sam didn't get into was the fact that Guthrie wrote what would turn out to be one of America's most beloved and admired folk songs as an antidote to the sappy Irving Berlin hit "God Bless America." In 1940 Guthrie was less than delighted to hear Kate Smith belting the complacent "God Bless America" out over the radio every time he turned one on. He took the melody of an old Baptist hymn, "When the World's On Fire" (recorded by the Carter Family in 1930) and wound up recording it in 1944. The lyrics he used when he sang it live were often far more political than the lyrics on the various recordings he-- and others-- did of it.
I bring it up again today because Steve Benen at Talking Points Memo has a somewhat related story about a bunch of religionist wingnuts who have also rewritten "God Bless America," but from a very different perspective than Guthrie. The new right-wing version was performed at a GOP HateFest that was avoided by frontrunners Giuliani, McCain, Frederick of Hollywood and Romney but attended by several of the other pathetic pygmies™ who "cozied up to luminaries such as Phyllis Schlafly, Paul Weyrich, and Don Wildmon."
There were plenty of bizarre questions and answers, but one of the elements of the debate that stood out for me was, oddly enough, the song that got things started. Event organizers invited the Church of God Choir, from Springfield, Ohio, to sing "God Bless America"-- except the lyrics were rewritten. Instead of a song about "the land that I love," and "home sweet home," this version condemns the country, saying we've all turned against God, and that He won't bless us. It was a big hit among the conservative Republicans in the room.
Listen to the sound of right-wing religionist hatred for our country:
Here are the lyrics of the right-wing version:
Why should God bless America? She’s forgotten he exists And has turned her back On everything that made her what she is Why should God stand beside her Through the night with the light from his hand? God have mercy on America Forgive her sin and heal our land The courts ruled prayer out of our schools In June of ‘62 Told the children “you are your own God now So you can make the rules” O say can you see what that choice Has cost us to this day America, one nation under God, has gone astray Why should God bless America? Shes’s forgotten he exists And has turned her back on everything That made her what she is Why should God stand beside her Through the night with the light from his hand? God have mercy on America Forgive her sins and heal our land In ‘73 the Courts said we Could take the unborn lives The choice is yours don’t worry now It’s not a wrong, it’s your right But just because they made it law Does not change God’s command The most that we can hope for is God’s mercy on our land Why should God bless America? She’s forgotten he exists And has turned her back on everything That made her what she is Why should God stand beside her Through the night with the light from his hand? God have mercy on America Forgive her sins and heal our land (Reading from 2nd Chronicles 7:14) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land
And just for the sake of comparison, here's Woody's version which is so admired by non-rightists:
This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York Island From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land is made for you and me. As I go walking this ribbon of highway I see above me the endless skyway And all around me the wind keeps saying: This land is made for you and me. I roam and I ramble and I follow my footsteps Till I come to the sands of her mineral desert The mist is lifting and the voice is saying: This land is made for you and me. Where the wind is blowing I go a strolling The wheat field waving and the dust a rolling The fog is lifting and the wind is saying: This land is made for you and me. Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking my freedom highway Nobody living can make me turn back This land is made for you and me. In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple; By the relief office, I'd seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me? As I went walking, I saw a sign there; And on the sign there, it said, 'No Trespassing.' But on the other side; it didn't say nothing! That side was made for you and me.
I always look forward to Yom Yippur because it becomes a lot easier to get a last minute reservation in a good restaurant. Tonight I went to dinner with two low key Mainers, Roland and Lucas, who had never met, at a Moroccan restaurant in a Jewish neighborhood. It was pretty empty but I could see them both cringing a little when I started getting into the specifics of the punishment I felt would be fair to mete out to Bush and Cheney and their cronies. Later Roland told me I was too loud and could have freaked out the other diners who may have had less severe-- or even completely different-- political views.
Maybe they need to be freaked out. Maybe we all do. My rage runneth over; why doesn't everyone's? Maybe it was a mistake to re-read an old Naomi Wolf piece from April before dinner, Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps. Every one of her "steps" raised my blood pressure by a few points, primarily because Bush has taken each and every one of them and because my countrymen have just shrugged it off.
A few days ago I was ruminating about how 30% of the colonists sided with the British during the Revolutionary War, conservatives like the 30% of the American public that still supports George Bush in 2007. Another 30% were the revolutionaries; I like to think I would have been one of them. And the rest... just wanted to go about their business and ignore "politics." I was the freshman class president in college and later chairman of the Student Activities Board when the Vietnam War was raging. 30% of my fellow students were opposed; 30% supported it... and the rest, just wanted to go about their business, etc. I marched, protested, got arrested, and, eventually left America and lived overseas because the thought of paying any kind of tax that would offset the price of a weapon that would be used to kill innocent civilians in the country we had invaded and occupied was keeping me from sleeping at night.
My anger towards Bush and his regime is bottomless. Do I think he's as bad as the other infamous tyrants of history? If you read DWT with any regularity, you already know the answer to that. I can barely keep my anger towards Nancy Pelosi in check about that off the table bullshit, even though I am painfully aware that a Congress that is incapable of putting aside partisanship even to give our soldiers some time away from the front lines is certainly incapable of impeaching, let alone convicting, the president they have enabled to commit war crimes and treason for the last half decade or so. Should every single member of Congress be tried and punished? No, some of them have been stalwart in their opposition to the encroachments against our liberty. But not too many.
If Wolf's 10 easy steps don't piss you off, there must be something wrong with you. This is what a would-be fascist must do to subvert democracy: 1- Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy 2- Create a gulag 3- Develop a thug caste 4- Set up an internal surveillance system 5- Harass citizens' groups (which is why the cowardly cooperation of so many Democrats with Bush's attacks on MoveOn so angered me this week) 6- Engage in arbitrary detention and release 7- Target key individuals 8- Control the press 9- Dissent equals treason (see #5) 10- Suspend the rule of law
Do any of them sound familiar? Are there any that don't? Go back to the link and read Wolf's whole report if there is something that isn't gelling for you. Democrats who vote to fund any aspect of the occupation of Iraq-- including for the casting of fake medals for Bush's political general and, of course, including the $200 billion Bush is asking for to perpetuate the catastrophe there for another ego-driven year-- other than the for the safe and orderly redeployment of our troops, can't expect Blue America to support their re-election bids no matter how much we otherwise like you and no matter how horrible your Republican opponent is. And if you voted for John Cornyn's resolution to condemn MoveOn... you're not one of us; you're one of them. Several senators we contributed to last year-- namely Amy Klobuchar (MN), John Tester (MT), and Ben Cardin (MD)-- were among the minority of Democrats to support Cornyn's scurrilous attack on American citizens. Good luck 5 years from now. We have long memories.
Today Glenn Greenwald deconstructs the Democratic majority in Congress with the purpose to discover what's gone wrong and he's hit upon a symbol of it's worthlessness: California hack Dianne Feinstein. Having lived in California for several decades, first in San Francisco and now in Los Angeles, I've been very aware of Feinstein and her modus operandi. I first heard her name from a close friend of mine who served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors with her, Harvey Milk. It was the assassination of Harvey and Mayor George Moscone at the end of 1978 by a crazed Republican politician, Dan White, that led to the political rise of Feinstein. As president of the Board of Supervisors she became mayor, a job she had sought, unsuccessfully, twice. She ran the following year and was elected. She has always been known as a bagwoman for her husband's financial interests and her career was always mired in a complex web of conflicts of interest which accelerated as her power increased. Jane Hamsher and I supported Jello Biafra. Feinstein ran for governor and lost but then went on to win three and a half Senate terms. I'm proud to say that I've never voted for her in any election. Glenn elegantly paints her as the quintessential betrayer of progressive values and principles.
In the wake of the series of profound failures that define the 2007 Democratic Congress, there is much debate over what accounts for this behavior. There are almost 300 "Congressional Democrats" and they are not a monolithic group. Some of them are unrelenting defenders of their core liberal political values and some are committed to providing meaningful opposition to the radicalism and corruption of the Bush administration. But as the sorry record of the 2007 Congress conclusively proves, they are easily outnumbered in the House and Senate-- especially the Senate-- by Bush-enabling and Bush-supporting Democrats... California's Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein provides a perfect case study for understanding why the Congress has done virtually nothing to oppose the most extreme Bush policies, while doing much actively to support it.
...Her votes over the last several years, and especially this year after she was safely re-elected, are infinitely closer to the Bush White House and her right-wing Senate colleagues than they are to the base of her party or to the constituents she allegedly represents. Just look at what she has done this year on the most critical and revealing votes:
* Voted in FAVOR of funding the Iraq War without conditions;
* Voted in FAVOR of the Bush White House's FISA bill to drastically expand warrantless eavesdropping powers;
* Voted in FAVOR of condemning MoveOn.org;
* Cast the deciding vote in August on the Senate Judiciary Committee in FAVOR of the nomination of far right Bush nominee Leslie Southwick to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2006, Feinstein not only voted in favor of extending the Patriot Act without any of the critical safeguards sought by Sen. Feingold, among others, but she was one of the most outspoken Democratic proponents arguing for its extension ("I have never been in favor of allowing any provisions of the Patriot Act to expire."). Also in 2006, she not only voted in favor of amending the Constitution to outlaw flag burning, but was, as she proudly described herself, "the main Democratic sponsor of this amendment."
In October of 2002, she (naturally) voted to authorize President Bush to use military force to invade Iraq. She now self-servingly claims that she "regrets" the vote and was tricked by the Bush administration into believing Saddam had WMDs, yet Scott Ritter has disclosed: "This is far different from the statement Feinstein made to me in the summer of 2002, when she acknowledged that the Bush administration had not provided any convincing intelligence to back up its claims about Iraqi WMD." And when it was revealed in August of this year that Awad Allawi had hired the most influential GOP lobbying firm to help oust Prime Minister Maliki, there was Sen. Feinstein leading the way in demanding Maliki's ouster.
Time and again, not only does she vote in favor of the most right-wing aspects of the Bush agenda, she uses her alleged expertise in areas of intelligence to pressure or give comfort to other Democrats wanting to do the same. Several of the 16 Democratic Senators who voted in favor of Bush's FISA bill in August, such as Jim Webb, cited assurances by Feinstein that she had obtained Secret Information as a member of the Intelligence Committee which proved how necessary this bill was. Similarly, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, she was one of the Democratic leaders urging the confirmation of Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA Director notwithstanding the central role he played as NSA Director in Bush's illegal surveillance programs.
Her primary allegiance is to the Beltway power system and her overwhelming affection is reserved for Beltway power brokers who are her true colleagues and constituents. That is particularly true of right-wing members of the defense and intelligence communities. Here, for instance, is the praise she oozed for the illegal-surveillance-implementing Gen. Hayden when urging his confirmation as CIA Director:
"I think the most important thing is that the individual be a competent, qualified, intelligent professional, and Mike Hayden is all of those things."
Glenn concludes that she, and many of her prominent Democratic colleagues, "have contempt for their base and share virtually none of their values... This has clearly always been the case with Dianne Feinstein. Hence, Dianne Feinstein funds Bush's war with no limits while condemning MoveOn. She votes to vest vast new surveillance powers in the President. She defends and vouches for and places blind faith in the whole litany of Bush intelligence officials who have spent the last six years radicalizing this country and breaking the law." This is what she is-- what I sensed in her since the late 1970s.
More than anything else, Feinstein worships at the altar of the Beltway power system and its most revered members. Conversely, she has contempt for the liberal base which elects her and the constituents she represents. She long ago ceased being driven by the political values which serve as props for her campaigns, if she was ever driven by them. And that is the story of so many of the Beltway Democrats.
There is only one viable answer and I don't feel it's a third party because I don't think a third party will do more than perpetuate radical Republican dominance for another 4 years or 20 years and I don't feel this country will survive that calamity. Instead, in the words of Darcy Burner: more and better Democrats.
DWT is dedicated to finding better Democrats. No one gets onto our Blue America list of endorsed candidates until I speak to them personally about the important issues of the day. And the few who manage to fool me and then go on to betray us-- like Chris Carney did last year-- we call out and try to hold accountable.
As a society and as a country, through our congressional representatives-- in this case, our congressional representatives of both political parties and across the ideological spectrum-- we have decided that it's high time we cover the health care for needy children though the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). If legislation, overwhelmingly passed by the House and Senate, isn't signed by next week, over a dozen states will run out of money to care for children. The carefully-crafted compromise between the magnanimous plans pushed by House Democrats and the Scroogier plans approved by the more narrowly-divided Senate gave Bush an opportunity to sign a reasonable bill.
But today the most hated man in the world and the most hated man to have ever occupied the White House has reiterated that he doesn't give a rat's ass what Congress thinks or what the American people think; he's vetoing the bill. It's not likely that the disruption of the vaccination process in the U.S. will bring an epidemic of disease to our country like Bush's agenda of greed, selfishness and arrogance has brought epidemics of war and anguish to every part of the globe he has meddled in. But it could happen. The man should be removed from office. No matter what Nancy Pelosi ever accomplishes she will always be shamed as the person who took impeachment-- of the most execrable character to ever disgrace our nation--off the table.
Bush said, "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed." Does he include mainstream conservative Republicans in that epithet-- like Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Chuck Grassley (R-KS). Bush and his rump coterie of extremists, like David Diapers Vitter (R-LA), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Larry Toilet Cruiser Craig (R-ID) vow to stand by and watch while ill children go untreated. They just don't care.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was on the air this morning appealing to Americans on behalf of children and common decency. "The administration has tried to turn this into a partisan issue and has threatened to veto. The health of our children is far too important for partisan politics as usual. If the administration is serious about solving our health care crisis, it should be expanding, not cutting back, this program which has made private health insurance affordable for millions of children."
Giuliani and the rest of the pathetic pygmies™ have ducked out of discussing this of course and would rather grandstand about a newspaper ad they didn't like my citizens who have banded together to pressure stubborn politicians to end the occupation of Iraq. Giuliani's idea of health care is a slapdash plan to further enrich the HMOs and insurance conglomerates while he tries to convince that NRA that he's as big a gun loon as the varmint shootin' Full o' Mitt and the rest of the silly Republicans vying to personify a third Bush term. It's possible that no one in Thompson's campaign has mentioned the issue to him yet-- although, like Giuliani and the varmint hunter, he's in Mackinac, Michigan talking to the gun worshippers.
UPDATE: HOW MUCH WOULD THIS BILL BUSH IS VETOING AS TOO EXPENSIVE COST?
Glad you asked! It costs $1,220 per month in federal money to insure a child. So ten million kids would cost $12 billion. Gee; that's a lot-- almost as much as a whole month of occupying Iraq! That's right-- Iraq is $9 billion a month, most of it going to line the pockets of war profiteers/Bush cronies. SCHIP will cost $12 billion for a year of insuring 10 million American children. We know where the Republicans priorities lay.
Last weekend a handful of bloggers got together in a quiet residential neighborhood on the northern edges of L.A.'s San Fernando Valley to talk, among other things, about how to thwart Republican efforts to steal the 2008 presidential election with another dirty trick-- this time not in Florida or Ohio-- but right here in California. You may have read about this before but this time David Dayen (D-Day) helped pull together a video that seeks to explain it as well. Take a look:
You want more than just bloggers? Today's New York Times carries a stark warning that the Republican effort is a boldfaced attempt to steal the election again, one that could become a constitutional crisis and one that even Republican Governor Schwarzenegger calls "dirty pool."
It’s panic time in Republican circles. The G.O.P. could go into next year’s election burdened by the twin demons of an unpopular war and an economic downturn. The party that took the White House in 2000 while losing the popular vote figures it may have to do it again.
The Presidential Election Reform Act is the name of a devious proposal that Republican operatives have dreamed up to siphon off 20 or more of the 55 electoral votes that the Democrats would get if, as expected, they win California in 2008.
That’s a lot of electoral votes, the equivalent of winning the state of Ohio. If this proposed change makes it onto the ballot and becomes law, those 20 or so electoral votes could well be enough to hand the White House to a Republican candidate who loses the popular vote nationwide.
...A sign of the bad faith in this proposal is the fact that there is no similar effort by the G.O.P. to apportion electoral votes by Congressional districts in, for example, Texas, a state with 34 electoral votes that is likely to go Republican next year.
Longtime observers in California believe the proponents of this change-- lawyers with close ties to the Republican Party statewide and nationally-- will have no trouble collecting enough signatures to get it on the ballot in June. The first poll taken on the measure, which is not yet widely understood by voters, showed that it would pass.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and one of the nation’s pre-eminent constitutional scholars, believes the initiative is blatantly unconstitutional. “Entirely apart from the politics,” he said, “this clearly violates Article II of the Constitution, which very explicitly requires that the electors for president be selected ‘in such manner as the Legislature’ of the state directs.”
In Mr. Tribe’s view, the “one and only way” for California to change the manner in which its electoral votes are apportioned is through an act of the State Legislature.
...The operatives behind the initiative are experts at causing trouble. The effort is being led by Thomas Hiltachk, a lawyer who was one of the leaders of the successful effort to recall California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. Politics is not just hardball to this crowd; it’s almost literally a fight to the death.
WHEN DARCY BURNER SAID "MORE AND BETTER DEMOCRATS," SHE COULD HAVE BEEN SPEAKING ABOUT SAM BENNETT IN PA-15
Sam Bennett with her husband Martin
Pat Toomey was elected to Congress in a moderate swing district (PA-15) and went on to launch a career of right wing extremism. Today he is the leader of the GOP hate group, Club For Growth. He was succeeded in 2005 by another fake moderate, Charlie Dent, one of those Republicans the traditional media consistently labels a "moderate" for some inexplicable reason, while he continues to amass a rubber stamp voting record that would be completely suitable for a far right Bible Belt district of Alabama but is completely at odds with Pennsylvania's very moderate Lehigh Valley. Today we welcome Siobhan ("Sam") Bennett, the progressive Democrat running for the congressional seat in PA-15 for her first Blue America session at Firedoglake. As you can probably tell from the title, she's pretty much my ideal candidate. I hope you'll see why when you meet her here yourself (2pm Lehigh Valley time).
Sam is probably best known for her grassroots activism-- she was the regional field director for America Coming Together in 2004-- but this isn't Sam's first run for office. In 2000 she came within 42 votes of winning the Democratic primary for Allentown's mayoralty. I found a kindred soul in her though, because she comes from an entrepreneurial background. She was very impressed with the Blue America interview with Jon Powers. She thinks that realistically the military can extricate themselves in an orderly fashion from Iraq in the next 12 months and she found hope for that in reading the FDL chat with Jon.
"I really loved reading about some of the successes he enjoyed with his entrepreneurial endeavors. Those are some of the kinds of things we're going to have to look at-- how we can continue to invest in Iraq (taking into account what Colin Powell told Bush: 'you break it, you bought it') to make a difference, which will be very, very difficult to craft and sustain-- but it must be done.
"With the right kind of creativity and entrepreneurial problem-solving anything's possible. Anything can be solved, That is a thread throughout my life. Right out of college I started buying dilapidated apartment buildings and renovating them, which led many years later to my non profit, Properties of Merit; anything is possible if you apply fresh thinking and that entrepreneurial approach and that's what I heard in that interview with Jon. We need more of that because the answers don't come when you go by the playbook."
As the ACT regional field director she worked in a grassroots coalition with partners from pro-choice groups, labor unions, environmental groups, they were the top-performing swing region in the country. She hired and trained fresh young talent right out of the high schools and worked early on registration and knocked on a lot of doors. "We turned in 10,000 Democratic registrations compared to 1,000 Republican registrations in the that cycle." And then she paid enough attention to the details to be able to successfully fight the Republican-dominated Board of Elections which said they intended to process them after the elections. "That's the way we win this district: in the field, bare-knuckle boxing, vote by vote."
"This is a district that should be Democratic and should have a Democrat representing us in Congress. And Charlie Dent doesn't vote like a moderate and I need to get that word out to the voters. In the state senate he was somewhat of a moderate, although on the social justice issues I feel so passionately about he had never been tested. Now that he's being tested in the big boys' game in Washington, he fails every time. And there's a voting record that he can't crawl out from under-- a zero from the Children's Defense Fund, a 5% rating from the League of Conservation Voters in the 109th Congress. NARL gives him a 35% rating. NEA gives him a C-. The National Association for Retired Americans gives him an "undesirable" rating. He fails on every single front. Getting the facts in the hands of the voters is what I need to do. On the other hand, he's a nice guy; I go to church with him; he is a nice guy. He just doesn't vote like a nice guy. And he has a 100% voting record in line with George Bush on the Iraq War; he's been unwavering in his support of Bush and that is unacceptable."
But what about Sam? How do we know she won't get elected and turn into another Chris Carney or Jason Altmire, both freshmen Democrats who have been supporting the reactionary Bush agenda since being elected last year. I asked her and she said she found them "very disappointing. Far be it from me to speak ill of another Democrat but I'm very, very deeply disappointed... There's a motto, to paraphrase, that is very important to me-- something we raised our children with: 'If I am silent people think I agree.' There are hard, hard fought battles-- like a woman's right to choose, and like the GBLT communities' rights to have basic civil rights every other American is entitled to-- that some of the votes that we have seen by the folks on our side of the aisle not only are disappointing in the immediate but upend many, many years of work by people who have dedicated and given their lives for these basic values. And when we get to the war in Iraq... very, very troubling."
Her stepfather was the administrator of a children's surgery unit in a Saigon hospital and she lived in Saigon during the war. "My perspective on the war is informed by having seen the direct cost. It's pretty easy to be academic about war when you're looking at numbers on a piece of paper. But when you're playing with children who have lost limbs because of war, and particularly a war filled with such inexcusable folly as the Vietnam War was, that's a problem. And the Iraq War was entered into-- as everyone would acknowledge now-- for false reasons."
Meanwhile Gore and Kerry each carried the district against Bush. And Bush's popularity has sunk considerably since then. The war is unpopular. The Republican stands on Social Security, education, energy, and health care are unpopular. The DCCC is targeting PA-15 and with Chris Van Hollen at the helm instead of Rahm Emanuel they will not try to replace Sam with a pro-war "moderate" (like the ones who are consistently voting with Bush this year). Sam will be the grassroots, the netroots and the DCCC candidate and she will have a great shot at taking another Pennsylvania seat away from the Republicans. But it won't just be a win for the Democratic Party; this one will be a win for heartfelt progressive values and street smarts. Sam Bennett is a future leader worth investing in. Please join me at the Blue America candidate's page in contributing to Sam's campaign.
RENEGADE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SHOULD REAP WHAT THEY'VE SEWN, NO LESS THAN REPUBLICANS-- THAT'S WHAT PRIMARIES ARE FOR
Are Democrats better than Republicans? How about, both Inside the Beltway parties suck but all the Republicans are horrible and some Democrats haven't succumbed? In fact, most of the Democrats are voting pretty well on Iraq and most of the key issues facing the country. But there are 3 or 4 dozen reactionaries, mostly, though not exclusively, from the Old Confederacy, who team up with the Republican minority to thwart any kind of progressive agenda. We saw that this week quite a bit, didn't we?
Yesterday's Congressional Quarterly had an awkwardly titled story about how Democrats have to face up to this problem: "Possible Primary Challenges Haunt Democrats Struggling With Iraq Policy." The story has a pretty Inside the Beltway perspective.
House Democrats are peeved and Republicans are quietly delighted by warnings that anti-war groups may back primary challengers against Democrats who hesitate to directly challenge President Bush’s Iraq policy.
The threat of primary fights next year reminds congressional Democrats that as they search for a way to deal with the war, they must be mindful that part of their party’s base demands nothing less than a full legislative effort to get U.S. forces out of Iraq.
Republicans eager for any positive development regarding the 2008 elections say they can hardly believe their good fortune. Battles among Democrats would soak up campaign money and leave bad feelings that could spill over into the general elections.
Medea Benjamin, a leader of the women’s peace group Code Pink, said “There is a lot of anger’’ at Democrats who are seen as softening their war opposition, “especially in districts where people won in 2006 on an anti-war platform. They deserve to be challenged,’’ she said.
They certainly do-- and Blue America intends to help with that effort. Our Blue America page already is backing two outstanding progressive challengers, Donna Edwards (MD-04) and Mark Pera (IL-03), who are running against reactionary Bush-Dems Al Wynn and Dan Lipinski. CQ's information is badly messed up on who might be credibly primaried. They name Brian Baird (WA), Ellen Tauscher (CA), Wynn (MD), Joe Donnelly (IN), Hank Johnson (GA), and Jerry McNerney (CA). Johnson has one of the very best voting records of anyone in Congress and no one is seriously thinking of backing a challenge to him. McNerney has had a couple of rough spots with some of his most idealistic supporters but nothing that will amount to a challenge, especially when you consider that his actual voting record is excellent. Wynn, is not in the "maybe" category. He's being challenged-- big time. Neither Donnelly, Tauscher nor Baird have attracted an opponent, step #1 for a serious challenge. Dan Lipinksi, not mentioned in the CQ piece has 3.
Even the most stalwart progressive congressional Democrats tend to discourage primaries against their colleagues. Lynn Woolsey is an heroic exception. “'It’s perfectly legitimate for constituents to express disappointment. But strategically it’s a mistake to go after those Democrats,' said Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who says Congress should not approve more war funding without Bush’s agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraq next year. McGovern said anti-war forces should target their efforts elsewhere. 'I think everybody’s fire should be aimed at Republicans,' he said. 'What has screwed everything up is that Republicans, with near-total unison, have stayed with the president on the war.'"
Today the Democratic leadership tried ginning up some anti-Republican anger among the base regarding Bush's threat to veto the bill both houses of Congress pass regarding Children's health care. The horrible Republicans, the horrible Republicans," we heard them moan. But did they mention that there are 10 Democrats also voting against childrens' health care. Why should we be angry at the Republicans but not the Democrats who voted the same way? Yet you can count on the DCCC and the Democratic leadership to go to the wall to save the skins of reactionary Democrats who don't enthuse Democrats, like Dan Boren (OK), Jim Cooper (TN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Baron Hill (IN), Bob Etheridge (NC), Mike McIntyre (NC), Heath Shuler (NC), Jim Marshall (GA), and Gene Taylor (MS).
Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said the anti-war groups’ threat, coupled with pressure within the House Democratic Caucus to settle for nothing less than mandating a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, amounts to a “recapitulation of the Inquisition.’’
Abercrombie, who with John Tanner, D-Tenn., is lobbying Democratic leaders to permit a vote on their proposal requiring Bush to devise a plan for withdrawal but without setting withdrawal deadlines, called any effort to squelch debate within the caucus “very ill-considered.”
...Republican leaders are gleeful. “I just sit on the side and have a big grin on my face,’’ said Tom Cole, R-Okla., head of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Cole pointed to criticism of Democrats by the anti-war group MoveOn.org, which has become a GOP target since it sponsored an advertisement that Republicans denounced as an over-the-top attack on Iraq commander Gen. David H. Petraeus. “This is a constituent group that thinks it is the Democratic Party, and they’re madder at the Democrats than they are at us,’’ Cole said.
Cole’s NRCC predecessor, Thomas M. Reynolds, R-N.Y., said that if primary challenges develop, Democratic leaders will face tough choices.
“One thing we’ll see is if the leadership gets involved defending members, and if leadership does that, it has all kinds of cross-currents down the political river,’’ Reynolds said.
MoveOn.org says it will announce on Sept. 24 the results of an online poll that asked its members whether the groups should back primary challenges.
On the other hand, Cole and the NRCC hardly look like they'll be in a position to take advantage of anything. Aside from being nearly bankrupt and unable to raise any money, bitter infighting has spilled over into a battle royale between Cole and the hapless and ineffectual Boehner. Cole says if Boehner doesn't back down he can take the pointless, thankless job of trying to win back a GOP majority in Congress and shove it up his ass.
IF YOU'RE JUST WAITING FOR THINGS TO GET BETTER... NEVERMIND. ACTION, ON THE OTHER HAND...
An editorial in yesterday's NY Times didn't call for primaries against reactionary Bush-Dems, but they sure laid out the problem.
If you were one of the Americans waiting for Congress, under Democratic control, to show leadership on the war in Iraq, the message from the Senate is clear: “Nevermind.” The same goes for those waiting for lawmakers to fix the damage done to civil liberties by six years of President Bush and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress.
The Democrats don’t have, or can’t summon, the political strength to make sure Congress does what it is supposed to do: debate profound issues like these and take a stand. The Republicans are simply not interested in a serious discussion and certainly not a vote on anything beyond Mr. Bush’s increasingly narrow agenda.
Think Al Wynn. Think Dan Lipinski. Then think about Donna Edwards and Mark Pera-- and Blue America.
MAYBE THE WAR WILL END WHEN EVERY REPUBLICAN RESIGNS-- GOOD RIDDANCE JERRY WELLER
Jerry Weller hasn't been indicted for any criminal acts (yet) but, as today's Washington Post delicately puts it, "facing questions about his ethics, [he] announced Friday that he will not seek an eighth term." And, like all Republicrooks being driven from office, he wants to spend more time with his family.
Weller is fighting a subpoena in a former colleague's bribery trial, and he faces criticism that he did not reveal to Congress the extent of his Nicaraguan land purchases.
That's only one in a long list of crooked activities that are liable to land him in prison if he doesn't get out of Dodge quick. He can go to Guatemala where his wife is a congressmember-- and the daughter of the brutal former fascist dictator, Efrain Rios Montt. And this week Weller had the distinction of being placed on CREW's list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. A rubber stamp Republican and a complete tool of the Bush Regime, Weller has a perfect 100% voting record on Iraq; he never differed from Bush and Cheney on a single vote, not even on a procedural vote.
Democrats consider Weller's seat (IL-11) an excellent chance for a pickup. "I thought it was in play given the scandal-ridden state of Mr. Weller's affairs," Will County Democratic Chairman Myron Brick said. "But it's definitely in play now, and we are looking for the highest profile candidate we can find." Weller's share of the vote has sunk from 64% in 2002 to 59% in 2004 to 55% in 2006 when he beat out former CIA counter-intelligence officer John Pavich, who is likely to run again.
Just two days ago the Weller camp was denying rumors that he was quitting Congress and would soon be on the lam. His campaign manager, Steve Shearer said he has no plans to retire and claimed that reports that Weller would retire have become a "cottage industry... We're raising money. He's circulating petitions." Weller's departure makes for the third open seat Republicans will have to defend in Illinois. Republican congressmembers Ray LaHood and Dennis Hastert have each announced they will not be running for re-election. Earlier in the week Jim Ramstad (R-MN) also announced he would not be seeking re-election, making Weller's their 8th so far. Along with Ramstad's, Hastert's and Deborah Pryce's (OH), Weller's is the 4th suburban seat being given up. This is tough for the cash-strapped GOP since suburban districts are where they are faring worse these days.
The next three Republicans likely to announce they won't be running again are Tom Davis (VA), who plans to be the Republicans' sacrificial pig on the alter of Mark Warner, Ralph Regula (OH), who is old and tired, and Bill Young (FL) who is old, fed up, and embarrassed from the Walter Reed scandals he should have prevented. The only two Democrats retiring, Mark Udall (CO) and Tom Allen (ME) are trying to win senate seats and both districts are good bets for Democrats.
Blackwater is the most hated symbol of Bush's regime of mayhem and destruction in Iraq. Every self-respecting Iraqi, no matter how they feel about anything else, wants to wipe out the mercenary savages the Bush Regime has loosened on their country with a license to kill randomly and at will-- and with no oversight and no accountability. It is a clear war crime and hopefully one day we will all watch Bush being handed a last cigarette and a blindfold after his war crimes tribunal for this alone. Better than that than having to deal with a savage Republican private army in our own country.
My friends in Iraq-- some military, some civilian-- all agree on the brutality of the Blackwater mercenaries. "They use Iraqis for target practice," one friend told me. "The Iraqis all fear them and hate them." Most people who know of former CIA field officer Robert Baer know him for the film Syriana (which was based on his books Sleeping With the Devil and See No Evil and starred George Clooney playing him). This week he also has an article in Time, Why Blackwater-- and More-- Should Leave Iraq.
Baer points out that Iraqis "look at Blackwater as trigger-happy mercenaries, and Iraqis don't want any armed foreign security contractors in their country. Do we let Iraqi embassy private security contractors race around Washington or New York, machine guns sticking out the window, to prevent carjackings?"
Granted, Washington and New York aren't Baghdad. Still, the fact is security contractors are a daily reminder for Iraqis that their country is occupied, and they are second-class citizens. The insult is not just that security contractors are allowed to use lethal force and not worry about going to jail; a Western security contractor will make in a week what an Iraqi might make in a year. Private security contractors are a humiliation equal to the humiliations that provoked the Boxer Rebellion in China or drove Iranians to overthrow the Shah. Security contractors may be keeping our officials alive, but they are not winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis.
Papering over the problem by expelling Blackwater from Iraq leaves dozens of other companies working in Iraq, with their fingers on the trigger. With anywhere from 25,000 to 48,000 security contractors in country, we're bound to have another incident like Sunday's.
What the Administration should do is rescind Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, the decree that puts foreign security contractors beyond the reach of Iraqi law. This would effectively close down private security companies. There is no reason the State Department cannot provide its own security; State security officers are under diplomatic immunity. If there's a questionable shooting, the Iraqi government at least will have the satisfaction of declaring the shooter persona non grata under the Vienna Convention.
Bush's response was to get Condi to tell the Iraqi puppet government in the Green Zone that tried to expel Blackwater that they should back down. Lucas at The Battle School says she succeeded and Maliki has backed down. "Blackwater," writes Lucas, "was suspended, in total, for four days. Which equals out to be a half day for each civilian killed. So if you're Iraqi you should know that your death isn't worth a full 24 hours, just a petty 12. And if you're a mercenary in Iraq, you'll only get suspended for 12 hours for every Iraqi killed (so if you want a week off, then kill ten Iraqis).
UPDATE: ERIK PRINCE'S INVESTMENT IN THE GOP SURE HAS PAID OFF
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.
Everybody thinks Romney is... well, full of Mitt. But at least he's been a dad who has all those sons he's trained to serve America. Take a look at the video of Tagg and Josh and Snoopy and Sleepy and Goofy serving America. It's less than two minutes. It'll give you an idea about what's behind what that nice Mitt fella says on the teevee.
WELL, EVEN IF THE 5 ROMNEY SONS ARE PLAYING CHICKEN HAWK, NO ONE CAN CLAIM THE FULL O MITT CAMPAIGN ISN'T DOING ITS SHARE TO WRECK IRAQ
Even notice what terrible people Romney appoints to positions of importance? I don't just mean his ex-BBF Larry Craig or those staffers who were caught impersonating law enforcement officials or the child molestor who was running his finance operations. Romney picked Cofer Black as his national security advisor and if you like the way Blackwater is stirring up the hornets' nests in Iraq and if you like the idea of a private fascist army in America, you're going to just love a Mitt Romney Regime, featuring chacters like Cofer Black who will, presumably, resign his job as vice chairman of Blackwater when he comes aboard at the Romney White House.
REPUBLICANS BREAKING WITH BUSH REGIME OVER HEALTH CARE FOR CHILDREN-- WILL A HANDFUL OF RAHM EMANUEL'S REACTIONARY DEMOCRATS SAVE BUSH'S VETO?
Bush does have something to offer sick children
Can Bush still get in front of a microphone, spew out a pack of outrageous lies and expect anyone to believe a word of it? Have you ever listened the Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter? No one forces anyone to listen to that and no one forces anyone to believe any of their fairytales. But millions of Americans-- the incredibly shrinking Republican base-- do. So yesterday when I had the radio on and heard Bush spouting sheer nonsense about how Democrats are holding health insurance for poor children hostage by not passing his SCHIP bill, I wondered how many listeners who don't follow this stuff as closely as some of us do would walk away thinking that the vampiric Bush is a champion of health care for underprivileged children. For some very 2007 kind of reason the report failed to mention that the coalition against Bush on this is so overwhelming and that so many Republican rubber stamps have abandoned him that it is probably veto-prrof in both houses.
Republicans reacted angrily yesterday to President Bush's promise to veto a bill that would renew and expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, raising the likelihood of significant GOP defections when the package comes to a vote next week.
"I'm disappointed by the president's comments," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who urged Bush, in an early-morning telephone conversation yesterday, to support the emerging bipartisan compromise. "Drawing lines in the sand at this stage isn't constructive. . . . I wish he would engage Congress in a bill that he could sign instead of threatening a veto."
And Grassley isn't up for re-election in this cycle. Republicans who do have to face the majority of non-ditto-heads-- the ones who now see through the premeditated lies and propaganda-- at the polls are even more angry... and frightened. One of the more vulnerable Bush rubber stamps-- who has been working very hard this year to turn around his image and convince people he is an independent voice and a moderate-- is Oregon's Gordon Smith. He told the Post "I'm very disappointed. I'm going to be voting for it." He means to override Bush's veto-- a big step for some who has been a dependable rubber stamp for the last 7 years. But even rubber stamps not seeking re-election in 2008 seem eager to break with the most hated president in American history over this. Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a staunch conservative, said, "You bet your sweet bippy I will."
With the program about to expire on Sept. 30, Bush said in a news conference that he will reject the $35 billion funding expansion being cobbled together by House and Senate negotiators. He said the bill would inappropriately extend coverage to children in families with incomes of as much as $83,000 a year, prompting many parents to drop private insurance. He urged Congress to pass, instead, a temporary extension of the program until a more lasting compromise can be worked out.
"Members of Congress are putting health coverage for poor children at risk so they can score political points in Washington," Bush said. He added later that "health coverage for these children should not be held hostage while political ads are being made and new polls are being taken."
But members of both parties countered that it is the president who is putting children's health in jeopardy. They said most Americans, including many GOP governors and groups such as AARP, support the expansion of the program's enrollment to about 10 million children from 6.6 million now.
Overriding Bush's veto in the Senate will be easy. The House, infested with more die-hard and irresponsible extremists, may be more problematic. It will be interesting to see if House Republicans fearful of losing in 2008, will risk the ire of the Regime to vote for a bill this popular. My bet is that not enough will. They are given some cover by a tiny handful of reactionary Democrats, all Republicans at heart, who intend to continue rubber stamping Bush on this. Can Pelosi get them in line? That's unlikely. But will Emanuel and Hoyer, the two who are most responsible for supporting reactionary and disloyal Democrats, try to force them to stick with the party. Most unlikely.
So... DWT has a target list. If any of these right-wing Democrats is your congresscritter, please give him a call and tell him you will never vote for him again if he continues supporting Bush's reactionary agenda. I might add that all 10 of these renegade Democrats support Bush on almost everything. Dan Boren (OK) Jim Cooper (TN) Joe Donnelly (IN) Brad Ellsworth (IN) Baron Hill (IN) Bob Etheridge (NC) Mike McIntyre (NC) Heath Shuler (NC) Jim Marshall (GA) Gene Taylor (MS) It sure looks like they hate health care-- at least for needy children-- in Indiana and North Carolina. What the hell is up with that?
McConnell's the one who looks constipated... in the middle
What masquerades for conventional Inside the Beltway wisdom can't even fathom anything but a solid win for Mitch McConnell, Kentucky's senior senator, the Republican minority leader, a tightly wound, tightly closeted homosexual. The respected (Inside the Beltway) Cook Political Report rates his race "Solid Republican." Cook is solidly wrong. McConnell may win in 2008-- but it isn't likely, let alone assured. Right now the only things he's got going for him are that the Democrats are concentrating on winning the Kentucky gubernatorial race-- and their candidate, Steve Beshear is something like 15 points ahead of the thoroughly detested Republican incumbent, Ernie Fletcher-- and that there is no opponent for him yet.
But it is important to remember that McConnell's job approval rating is below 50% and that not a single incumbent senator was re-elected last year who's approval rating was below 50% a year out from the election. And McConnell's isn't likely to rise as he continues his role as chief obstructionist in the Senate for a hated Regime in it's last death throes. Only 44% of Kentucky women approve of McConnell, and only 39% of independent voters like the job he's doing.
Yesterday's CongressDaily painted a pretty bleak picture for the old Kentucky homo.
An aggressive cadre of anti-war groups, campaign finance watchdogs, liberal activists and others has for months targeted McConnell, protesting in front of his home and across Kentucky, running television advertising, launching opposition Internet sites and peppering the media with press releases, video reports and political attacks.
They paint McConnell as an ineffective and ineffectual leader, a toady to the Bush administration who is ripe for defeat for his continued support of the war in Iraq.
"These groups have sort of emerged organically, and they are committed to defeating Mitch McConnell," said Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Jonathan Miller, who is also the state treasurer. "He's vulnerable."
Very vulnerable. He is the embodiment of the betrayal that the Republican Party has offered America over the past 7 years. He takes money from Chinese business interests to allow tainted products into our country and to guarantee that good American jobs-- from Kentucky, no less!-- will be shipped into slave labor China. As a leader of the Love The War/Hate The Troops Coalition, he has prevented votes from coming to the floor of the Senate to help soldiers with brain injuries, to give active duty troops time away from the front lines and, of course, to end the war. He has blocked health care for poor children, education reform, and safety for miners-- a record of unadulterated betrayal.
McConnell blames his extraordinarily high disapproval ratings on his role Bush's Obstructionist-in-Chief-- as though that excuse will save his miserable ass at the polls. "I'm the leader of the Republican Party in the Senate. For some groups I'm a bigger target than I used to be. But that goes with the turf." The latest polls in the state show that his disapprovals have gone up significantly in the last several months and that 55% now disapprove of his position on Iraq. Only 47% currently think he's doing a good job.
Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a coalition of anti-war groups funded in part by organized labor, was relentless over the summer, staging protests and vigils at McConnell's home and at his field offices, dogging him at official events and campaign fundraisers and running more than $100,000 worth of ads against him.
Public Campaign Action Fund, an organization that favors public financing of elections, ran ads in Kentucky accusing McConnell of using his connections to benefit the client of lobbyist Hunter Bates, McConnell's former chief-of-staff...
SEPARATING THE WHEAT FROM THE CHAFF-- WHO REALLY WANTS TO END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ?
With all the bullshit going on Inside the Beltway, how can you tell who really wants the war ended and who's just faking or playing to the voters (who do want it over)? Easy-- at least in the Senate-- where Russ Feingold offered up a straight forward bill today that would have forced the Bush Regime to redeploy most troops out of Iraq by July 2008." It shouldn't surprise you that not a single Republican-- and that includes the fake moderates like Gordon Smith, Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, etc-- voted to end the war. Quite a few cowardly Democrats joined them. Of the two independents in the Senate, Sanders (VT) voted with the Democrats and, predictably, Lieberman was all about endless war and supporting the Bush Regime agenda of Middle East mayhem.
A slim majority of Democrats voted to end the war. The Democrats not this do not deserve your support. If you contribute to any of them-- or to the DSCC-- you are contributing to a policy of perpetual war. Try to remember. These guys you can support:
“I am pleased that the Senate leadership cosponsored and strongly supported this amendment and that, once again, the majority of Democrats supported ending the President’s flawed Iraq policy. The time to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq is now, and I will not relent until it happens. A vote against Feingold-Reid was a vote to continue the President’s disastrous Iraq policy. Every day that the Congress fails to act, our brave troops remain in harm’s way, and our national security continues to be undermined.”
His statement before the vote was even more inspired. He eviscerates Bush's whole propaganda surge against the American people. (There's a video of it too-- back there at the link.)
The take away: more and better Democrats in '08. You want to keep the war going, donate to any Democratic senator not on this list, warmongers like Baucus (MT), Landrieu (LA), Pryor (AR), Johnson (SD) or Levin (MI). You want to end the war? Donate to anyone on the Blue America candidates list. If someone votes to prolong the war they're disqualified from being on our list.
IN ALASKA A CORPORATE "SPECIAL PROJECT" MEANS BRIBING TED STEVENS AND DON YOUNG
I hope that by now all DWT readers know that VECO Corp. is an oil services contractor that made itself extraordinarily wealthy by purchasing the affections of the Alaska Republican Party. Now the company's managers and employees are spilling all the beans for the Grand Jury, the FBI, the IRS and other law enforcement agencies and local Republicans are being found guilty-- and turning on each other, especially Republicrooks higher up on the food chain. And at the tippy-top of that food chain are two of the biggest crooks in American politics, Senator Ted Stevens and Congressman Don Young.
One key witness in the bribery investigation is Robert Williams, the man VECO head-honcho-- and briber numero uno-- put in charge of "special projects."
the renovation of Stevens' home was one such project. Others included working three or four fundraisers for Stevens while on the clock with VECO. Federal elections laws prohibit candidates from accepting donations or free services from corporations.
Unlike other VECO employees, Williams did not itemize his time sheets with job codes so customers could be billed. When working on one of Allen's pet projects, Williams just logged his hours and VECO made sure he was paid... Williams said he also helped run annual fundraising pig roasts for Rep. Don Young, another Alaska Republican who has come under scrutiny in the VECO investigation.
...Fundraising and favors are at the heart of the corruption investigation, which has ensnared several Alaska legislators. Allen has pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers and is cooperating with the FBI. He admitted in court last week that his employees provided "some labor" on Stevens' house in 2000, but Williams recalled the job in greater detail.
This afternoon Congressional Quarterly reported on how the revelations about Young's ethical and, potentially, criminal problems are playing out politically. "Candidates are lining up for the 2008 contest to take on Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, whose current brush with ethics controversy is producing an unusually strong challenge to the political dominance he has enjoyed over more than three decades in the state’s sole House seat."
There's a grassroots progressive, last year's candidate, Diane Benson but the Inside-the-Beltway Democratic boys club is also encouraging more establishment figures to run-- ex-Democratic Party of Alaska Chairman Jake Metcalfe, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, or ex-state House minority leader Ethan Berkowitz.
UPDATE: STEVENS LIKES WIRETAPS BUT NEVER THOUGHT THEY'D USE 'EM ON HIM
You think I make this stuff up? I'm not that good. Watch:
Isn't it time for the Stevens family to leave politics and start getting ready for their well-earned lives behind bars? And what about the Senate Ethics Committee? Do any of the members have pulses?
CHRISTIAN RIGHTIST JAMES DOBSON GIVES FREDERICK OF HOLLYWOOD THE BIG THUMBS DOWN-- PROVING IMBECILES SOMETIMES STUMBLE ONTO TRUTH
Looks like far right religionist Jimmy Dobson-- who has previously condemned Giuliani, McCain and Flip Flop Mitt-- is holding out for his one true love: Newt. Today he said he will not support Republican lobbyist Fred Thompson's quest for the presidency. AP divulged the contents of a private e-mail in which Dobson accuses the bumbling, plodding lobbyist, who last weak admitted he doesn't go to church, of being "weak on the campaign trail and wrong on issues dear to social conservatives." The new Harris Poll shows Thompson has pulled ahead of the execrable Giuliani, almost as hated by many Republicans as he is by Democrats, and the rest of the pathetic pygmies™.
"Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a Constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors McCain-Feingold, won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his way out of a paper bag on the campaign trail?" Dobson wrote.
"He has no passion, no zeal, and no apparent 'want to.' And yet he is apparently the Great Hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers. Not for me!"
Thompson, busy sucking up donations in Texas, had no comment on Dobson's devastating accusations against him, accusations that will be taken very very seriously by much of the brain-dead, zombie-like GOP base. He would only say he's never met or spoken with Dobson but that some of Dobson's friends like him. I'm sure they do.
Last week Dobson wormed his way out of charges that he was illegally endorsing candidates on behalf of his politicized church. Bush's politicized FEC and IRS have been going after progressive organizations and fining them left and right but when it comes to reactionaries clearly breaking the law, like Dobson, no need to break a sweat.
SENATE CAN'T GIVE SOLDIERS SOME TIME AWAY FROM THE FRONT LINES-- LET ALONE END THE WAR-- BUT THEY DID MANAGE TO CONDEMN ANTI-WAR PATRIOTS
"It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war." - Chris Dodd
Even though MoveOn stole the name I invented for Petraeus, I'm proud to call myself a MoveOn Democrat. Move On is an action-oriented grassroots group that would be the home of people like Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Thomas Paine, John and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ethan Allen if this were the middle 1700's. I guarantee you that John Cornyn, Miss McConnell, George Bush, Rudy Giuliani, Frederick of Hollywood, Jack Abramoff, Flip Flop Mitt, and virtually the entire Republican Party of 2007 would be proud Tories and among the third of American colonists supporting the British monarchy and opposing the American Revolution.
Forget the desperate Republican insiders who stand to lose as many as 8-12 seats in the Senate this year and who will do anything to stop the slide. Instead, let's look at normal men and women of good intention and ask how they feel about the MoveOn ad the Insiders are having fits over. There are a certain number of people on both sides of the political spectrum who feel uncomfortable with pointing out that a general-- especially during wartime-- in betraying us. In reality the name BetrayUs kind of lends itself kind of seamlessly to "Petraeus" and it wasn't MoveOn (or even more, it turns out) who first used it. It may have been used in his third grade elementary school but the first documented usage was by American soldiers stationed in Iraq. More important, of course, is that no one can seriously dispute the factuality of anything in the MoveOn ad, especially not the main point that Petraeus was cooking the books on behalf of his masters in the Bush Regime.
Remember, Bush and Cheney had already ruthlessly purged all the honest generals who disagreed with them. Polls have consistently shown that no matter how inappropriate or appropriate most Americans feel the ad was, they don't dispute MoveOn's questioning of Petraeus' credibility. Americans were certainly not convinced by the Regime's pathetic, orchestrated dog-and-pony show in which Petraeus and Crocker took part.
George Lakoff's analysis of the MoveOn ad got it right. Today the U.S. Senate got it wrong. And the Democrats who joined with the GOP in this foolishness should be ashamed, very, very ashamed.
Betrayal is everywhere in the news. We learned today from the Washington Post that Alan Greenspan said, in his new book, "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Not keeping our country safe, as the troops were told. Not democracy. Not Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not al Qaeda. Oil! All those lives and maimings about oil! Are you shocked, shocked? It is Betrayal of Trust of the highest order: "Politically inconvenient ... everyone knows..." Oil was not discussed at the Petraeus hearings. The silence in Washington has been polite.
MoveOn's "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.
MoveOn hit a nerve. In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject -- away from the administration's betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad! To take the focus off maiming and death and the breaking of our military, they talk about etiquette. The truth has reduced them to whining: MoveOn was impolite. Rather than face the truth, they use character assassination against an organization whose three million members stand for the highest patriotic principles of this country, the first of which is a commitment to truth.
Paul Begala said much the same thing on CNN. Speaking of the partisan Republican attack on Democratic presidential candidates-- in this case led by arch hypocrite Bill Bennett-- he said it would be "foolish for them to disassociate themselves with [the ad]. They didn't create that ad. And we now have the standard-– it's the Bush standard. President Bush stood there and had a really disreputable man attack John McCain's record as a veteran and he said nothing… Republicans ran ads, Saxby Chambliss-– a draft dodger-– ran an ad against Max Cleland, a war hero, questioning his courage and depicting him with Osama Bin Laden in an ad. John Thune, who never served, attacked a veteran, Tom Daschle-– depicting him in an ad with Saddam Hussein. Now these are Republicans. MoveOn is a liberal group, and God bless them-– let them say what they want."
So you're probably wondering which Democrats joined Saxby Chambliss and John Thune and Miss McConnell (who was kicked out of the military for fondling a private's privates) and the rest of the Republican betrayers. Here's the roll call. Take a look and see if your senator joined the GOP today. These are the only Democrats who didn't (yes, look hard for Obama's name; you won't find it here):
And, by the way, did the Senate decide to condemn Senator Chuck Hagel, an actual war hero (unlike McCain who has traded on his unfortunate captivity for his entire miserable career)? Here's what Hagel said about Petraeus's testimony: "a dirty trick on the American people when you send a military man out there to basically do a political sell-job... It's not only a dirty trick, but it's dishonest, it's hypocritical, it's dangerous and irresponsible." Hagel shamelessly voted with his disgusting colleagues to condemn MoveOn today.
And it wasn't just Hagel and MoveOn who had some harsh words for the future Republican presidential candidate Petraeus. His superior, CentCom Chief, Admiral Bill Fallon was less kind, calling him "an ass-kissing little chickenshit... I hate people like that." Don't we all?
Today Rick Perlstein summed it up beautifully at the Campaign for America's Future website: "On September 11, General David Petraeus betrayed his office and abdicated his duty when he let himself be ventriloquist's dummy for a disingenuous propaganda campaign designed to hold American troops hostage in Iraq and keep the useless carnage indefinitely, exploiting cherry-picked or even invented statistics, under cover of the stars on his shoulder... The people holding Petraeus to account, with language that reflects the task's manifest moral urgency, are truthtellers doing God's work. And now I learn this: conservative senators are ginning up an amendment to say that the people telling the truth about General Petraeus impugn 'all members of the United States Armed Forces.'"
Glenn W. Smith agrees: "The Senate action on the MoveOn add is cynical and sad. MoveOn was right from the beginning, the ad was factual, hard-hitting, and focused on betrayal.
All that said, the saddest thing about the Senate vote today is the ease with which we have slipped into a state in which the military is politically untouchable and held in higher regard than its civilian leaders.
I don't mean to go all historical and hyperbolic here, but in the West, such anti-democratic trends and the spinelessness that marks them have often preceded the rise of Military States, from Rome to France to Germany.
Eisenhower was wise enough to take another path. Petraeus is ambitious enough to exploit this trend. The day is not far off when the MoveOn ad is going to seem even more righteous than it already is.
This morning Rick Noriega, the Blue America-endorsed candidate for the Texas U.S. Senate seat held by Cornyn-- the clown who introduced this attack on MoveOn-- introduced a resolution of his own-- in the Texas legislature. Rick sent me this today:
Today John Cornyn is introducing a Senate resolution to condemn a recent advertisement from MoveOn.org in the New York Times. While the Senate is debating important legislation focused on bringing a responsible end to the war in Iraq, this is what John Cornyn is focused on?
Yesterday, he voted against restoring the Constitution's basic right of habeas corpus. Yesterday, he voted against the Webb-Hagel amendment, legislation that would have provided a safety net for our troops, requiring that they spend as much time at home with their families as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. And today? He's wasting the Senate's and the people's time by introducing a resolution about MoveOn.org's ad!
John Cornyn doesn't want to discuss his rubberstamping of this Administration's failed policies in Iraq, his obstruction of comprehensive immigration reform, or the fact he voted against health insurance for millions of children across America. Instead, we get a resolution from John Cornyn over a MoveOn.org ad in the New York Times. Tell John Cornyn to move on from MoveOn.
The Democrats who joined the GOP today to condemn the patriotic, anti-war grassroots are DEAD TO ME. Here's the way real Democrats-- like Congressman Pete Stark-- answer calumny by hypocrites like Cornyn and McConnell:
"I commend MoveOn for their ad and for speaking truth to power. Up is not down, the earth is not flat, and the surge is not working. General Petraeus betrayed his own reputation by standing with George Bush in opposition to the timely withdrawal of all of our brave men and women from Iraq. I thank MoveOn for their patriotic ad and call on Petraeus to help Bush end a war the President should have never started."
UPDATE: ANY INTEREST IN UNDERSTANDING WHAT WAS REALLY BEHIND THE MOVEON AD AND THE INSIDER ATTACK AGAINST IT?
This AirAmerica segment explains it really well, really, really well. The boys in the club aren't us.
STUNNING ABOUT FACE! REPUBLICAN MAYOR OF SAN DIEGO ABANDONS HOMOPHOBIA AND ENDORSES SAME SEX MARRIAGE
Yesterday, by a 5-3 vote, the City Council of San Diego passed a resolution supporting marriage equality. Jerry Sanders, the Republican mayor-- who campaigned opposing marriage equality-- announced this morning that he had changed his mind and would sign the resolution instead of vetoing it. A former Chief of Police, Sanders, tearfully also announced that one of his daughters, Lisa, is gay and that he would lead with his heart. "The concept of a separate but equal institution is something that I cannot support," he explained, tearfully, with his wife standing at his time." Please watch the video; it is very powerful.
The San Diego Union-Tribune covered his press conference. "The mayor's new stance marked a reversal of his pledge Tuesday to use his veto power to block the council's move. At the time, he repeated his preference for civil unions, partnerships between same-sex couples that offer some but not all of the legal protections given to those who marry."
He began by explaining his refusal to veto the council's decision, saying his beliefs had “evolved significantly” since 2005, when he established his stance on civil unions during his first mayoral campaign.
In the time since, he said he realized he could not accept “the concept of a separate-but-equal institution.” Because of that, he continued, he was unwilling to send the message to anyone that “they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”
The mayor, now crying openly, noted that he has close family members and friends in the gay and lesbian community, including staff members and “my daughter Lisa.”
“In the end, I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana,” said Sanders, who quickly thanked reporters and dashed from the room.
Councilwoman Toni Atkins, a lesbian who pushed the city to take a stand on same-sex marriage, praised Sanders, calling him courageous for telling gay San Diegans that he supports them receiving “equal protection under the law.”
WHAT WOULD THE FOUNDING FATHERS SAY IF THEY COULD HAVE SEEN GIULIANI YESTERDAY?
Recently Rudy Giuliani refused to participate in a Spanish and English language debate sponsored by Univision that sought to bring the presidential into the millions of homes of American citizens who speak Spanish as a first or second language. (The Republican Univision debate had to be canceled when the xenophobic campaigns of Giuliani, Romney and the rest of the pathetic pygmies™ all said they were too busy to take part. The Democratic Univision debate drew a huge audience-- one out of ten Hispanics in the U.S., 4.6 million people. It was a bigger audience than the average English language debate so far (4.3 million). Giuliani also declined to participate in the YouTube debate that was designed to stimulate participation from young people in the political process and the All American Presidential Forum put together by popular black talk radio host Tavis Smiley. This worries some Republicans. Jack Kemp is one. "We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do-- meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote"
Giuliani would rather stick with the country club in the suburbs (or the newly yuppified and whitewashed inner cities). His campaign hasn't been addressing Latinos, African-Americans, gays or the less well-off.
Instead he's entirely focussed on two very narrow spectrums of voters-- the Republican base in the early states (New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina) and wealthy people who can be asked for donations. And the British. No candidate for president has ever personally campaigned outside of America before but if Margaret Thatcher was a friend of Ronald Reagan, nothing would keep this little pygmy away.
Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani made an unusual campaign stop here to address one of the perceived weaknesses in his bid for the White House: a lack of sufficient foreign policy experience.
...And Mr. Giuliani raised a little money during his brief stop here, attending a fund-raiser luncheon with Americans who live in Europe, most of them working in London's booming financial-services industry.
...As a former New York mayor, Mr. Giuliani wouldn't seem to have the same kind of foreign-policy résumé as some of his rivals for president. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona was a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam, and has long served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. He is joined there by the Democratic presidential front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who also represented the U.S. abroad as first lady. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware is the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
He also used his trip as the backdrop of a call to expand NATO to include Israel and to do some sabre rattling at Iran.
WILL SENATORIAL BACK-SCRATCHING LET DOMENICI SLIP AWAY FROM SEVERE ETHICS VIOLATIONS IN THE U.S. ATTORNEYS PURGE? WHAT ABOUT HEATHER WILSON?
Professional staffers for the Senate Ethics Committee have turned up enough heavy duty evidence on Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM) to possibly lead to a prison sentence in the purge of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. But the actual political hacks who serve as senators are loathe to prosecute one of their own. They'd rather just stick together, regardless of party-- or even level of criminality.
According to some senior staffers working for lawmakers who sit on the Ethics Committee, the six-month preliminary investigation into Domenici has turned up enough evidence to open a formal, public investigation into the New Mexico senator, having determined that Domenici acted inappropriately and that he may have violated Senate Ethics rules when he called Iglesias to ask whether Aragon would be indicted before the state's voters went to the polls last year.
But it's unclear if the Ethics Committee will end up launching a formal probe. A sticking point, Ethics Committee staffers say, is the long-standing "ethics truce" between Democrats and Republicans that dates back to the mid-1990s where lawmakers from both political parties agreed not to file ethics complaints against each other.
...The House Ethics Committee, meanwhile, is continuing to pursue its preliminary investigation into similar claims that Rep. Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico), by making similar phone calls to Iglesias last year inquiring about a sealed indictment against Aragon, may have violated House ethics rules. Wilson phoned Iglesias about two weeks before Domenici called the former federal prosecutor. The House Ethics Committee interviewed Iglesias in July about the substance of the phone call he received from Wilson last year.
Coincidentally, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson say's he isn't a candidate for the senile, corrupt and doddering Domenici's seat.
MITCH McCONNELL LEADS THE REPUBLICANS ON A RAMPAGE OF OBSTRUCTIONIST FILIBUSTERS
Apropos of the fake problem the Post discusses about fake moderates in the GOP, there is a solution: a fake amendment to replace the Webb Amendment (which is, of course, far too real for the Post's fake moderates). The clowns inside the Beltway-- even some on the Democratic side of the aisle-- seem to keep buying, after all these years, the Bush Regime propaganda spin. The American people... not so much anymore.
After switching votes and opposing the Webb Amendment-- which he already voted or once-- and thereby guaranteeing it's failure, one of the fake moderates, John Warner, teamed up with one of the Senate's craziest war fanatics, John McCain (who apparently took a few hours off his 24/7 pointless fundraising jag to do his bit for endless war) to undermine Webb's legislation by "compromising." The compromise will be a gentle suggestion to... George Bush, who probably peed in his pants laughing when Cheney explained it to him. This is another of Warner's kooky nonbinding "sense of Congress" resolutions that does nothing. Zero-- except for derailing efforts to end the war.
The Love the War/Hate the Troops coalition is in its death struggle. Webb's amendment is overwhelmingly supported by active duty military men and their families. That could spell the end of the line for coalition members like Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and John Sununu (R-NH) where the voters they will be facing next year tend to love the troops and hate the war.
Earlier today, Republican obstructionists led by Mitch McConnell had already killed a bill that the majority of senators backed to restore habeas corpus. The backers of both parties failed to shut down McConnell's filibuster 56-43 (4 short of the required 60 votes). All 50 Democrats plus 6 Republicans voted to restore habeas corpus. Lieberman plus 42 Republicans voted again it (with Saxby Chamberpot too frightened to come out from under his desk and vote at all). Oh, and just for the record, fake GOP moderates like Norm Coleman, Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander stuck with their far right extremist buddies on this. Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd both explained their disappointment to their constituents and made the point of why this is so important. Russ:
"It is deeply disappointing that a minority of the Senate once again blocked efforts to restore the writ of Habeas Corpus. The Military Commissions Act, which Congress passed last year, contradicted the fundamental principle that in America, the government does not have the power to detain people indefinitely and arbitrarily. We can and should bring terrorists to justice but we can do it without sacrificing the values upon which our nation was built."
Chris:
"America's moral standing, and with it the security of the United States, suffered another setback today, atop a pile of setbacks that has accumulated over the past six years. The outcome of this vote is both symbolic and tragic. Each of us in the Senate faced a decision either to cast a vote in favor of helping to restore America's reputation in the world, or to help dig deeper the hole of utter disrespect for the rule of law that the Bush Administration has created. Unfortunately, too many of my colleagues chose the latter, and my disappointment runs deep. But I will not rest my case with this vote. Instead, this defeat will only deepen my resolve to restore the rule of law and with it American security, for far too much is at stake-- for every American-- to simply give up the fight."
You don't find many posts here quoting the NY Times' stupidest and most dishonest columnist, David Brooks-- except to make an example of a moron writing propaganda for the extremists. But in today's column Brooks discusses Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assertion that he doesn't know if invading Iraq was a good idea or not. (Last week Bush's pet general said he doesn't know if fighting there is making us any safer or not. But Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in Congress want to stay there forever anyway. That's why they all need to be defeated. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
If you'd like to help, let me suggest dropping by our Blue America page and dropping whatever you feel like into the campaigns to replace Susan Collins with Tom Allen (ME), Charlie Dent with Sam Bennett (PA-15), Dave Reichert with Darcy Burner (WA-08), Chris Shays with Jim Himes (CT-04), Randy Kuhl with Eric Massa (NY-29), Dan Lipinski with Mark Pera (IL), Tom Reynolds with Jon Powers (NY-26), James Walsh with Dan Maffei (NY-25), Mike Pence with Barry Welsh (IN-06), Mean Jean Schmidt with Victoria Wulsin (OH-02), and, here in California David Dreier with Russ Warner and Gary Miller with Ron Shepston.
UPDATE: WEBB AMENDMENT NOT ALLOWED A STRAIGHT UP OR DOWN VOTE-- REPUBLICAN LOVE THE WAR/HATE THE TROOPS COALITION OBSTRUCTIONISM PREVAILS
The vote to shut off the threat of a Republican filibuster-- cloture-- needs 60 to pass. It got 56 votes. Last time the Webb Amendment came up it was also filibustered to death by McConnell, Lieberman and the GOP and the cloture vote was 56-41. The differences this time were that Tim Johnson (D-SD) is out of the hospital and he voted with the rest of the Democrats, making up for desertion by flip-flopper John Warner (R-VA). Last time Brownback was out on his pointless campaign so he didn't bother to vote-- I guess Kansas doesn't have sons and daughters dying in Iraq, so it doesn't matter there-- and this time he voted with the GOP, as did Vitter, who was chasing whores or finding new diapers or whatever he does when he isn't in the Senate voting the fascist party line.
WHY DOES THE MEDIA CALL RUBBER STAMP BUSH-CHENEY REPUBLICANS "MODERATES?"
Despite what the Post says, Phil English is not a moderate-- not in his politics or in his lifestyle
I'm not certain if the Senate is going to wind up voting today on the Webb Amendment or not. I just saw Senator Webb on CNN rip into John McCain's craven and love the war/hate the troops stand. In a way it was kind of embarrassing because it highlighted McCain's incipient senility and unfitness for office-- not just for the presidency he craves to desperately, but for the Senate as well. The poor old geezer really needs to retire and get some rest and sunshine into his dark, dark life. He called Webb's amendment unconstitutional, claiming "The Constitution of the United States gives no authority for the Congress of the United States to set lengths of tour or lengths of duty in the military." It's probably been a while since he's bothered to read it-- especially since his party has completely abandoned it. But, as Webb pointed out a few minutes ago:
Well, first of all, Sen. McCain, who I’ve known for 30 years, needs to read the Constitution. There is a provision in Article I, Section 8, which clearly gives the Congress the authority to make rules with respect to the ground and naval forces. There’s precedent for this.
Think Progress has the video of Webb being interviewed by a contentious Fox hack who now does the talking head thing at CNN. She wasn't happy-- and tried to shut him down-- when Webb said "This administration can no longer be believed when it's talking about policy in Iraq."
And according to this morning's Hill Reid and Webb are getting closer to the 60 votes they need to overcome McConnell's obstructionist filibuster. "Four new Senate Republicans signaled Tuesday that they may vote for a Democratic amendment aimed at giving U.S. troops in Iraq more time at home between deployments, helping Democrats inch closer to a rare victory on the conduct of the Iraq war."
Lamar Alexander (R-TN), a 100% Bush tool and rubber stamp on Iraq, has to face the voters next year and he's been sending out press releases about how moderate he is. Today he said he's "studying" Webb's amendment. Pigs will fly first before Lamar Alexander breaks with Bush. The other Republicans the Democrats are counting on are George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, all three of whom also have unwavering records as rubber stamps. And as Digby mentioned yesterday, "the best thing about the grey eminence John Warner finally leaving the Senate is that he will no longer be around to play Lucy pulling the football away from the Democrats at the last minute any more." If we have to count on him, every one of our soldiers there will be dead before they're brought home.
This morning's Washington Post tries talking about GOP "moderates" balancing loyalty to Bush against political loyalties. The concept is fraught with distortion and error. The "moderates" may call themselves "moderates" but had Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray done their homework at looked at how the "GOP moderates" have voted on the dozens of roll calls pertaining to Iraq, they would have noticed that, despite the press releases and the compliant, easily manipulated press, these members of Congress are anything but moderate.
With a difficult war debate looming and presidential vetoes for a host of popular legislation threatened, moderate Republicans in Congress are facing a tough choice: Stand by President Bush or run for their political lives.
That's because even if members of Congress like Senators John Sununu (R-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM), and John Warner (R-VA) and dozens of House members like Phil English (R-PA), Charlie Dent (R-PA), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Mary Bono (R-CA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Mike Ferguson (R-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Chris Shays (R-CT), Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Jon Porter (R-NV), James Walsh (R-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Frank Wolf (R-VA), Fred Upton (R-MI), Heather Wilson (R-NM), Judy Biggert (R-IL), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Peter King (R-NY), Bill Young (R-FL), Vito Fossella (R-NY) want to claim to be moderates-- like their constituents-- their voting records all have something in common: each and every one of them has been a Bush-Cheney rubber stamp on the entire Iraq agenda. But you would never, never, never guess that from reading the Washington Post. The Post and other Insider-the-Beltway establishmentarian media outlets have decided, arbitrarily, to refer to them as "moderates." In today's piece of puffery they single out Pennsylvania's Phil English, who is in a toss-up congressional district trending away from Bushism. Although the two Post writers certainly never bothered to look at it, English's voting record is very clear. He voted on 53 roll calls concerning Iraq. He differed from Cheney exactly once-- this year, when it became obvious that voters in his district were furious about being represented by a rubber stamp. Since that one vote he has reverted to form and has taken the Cheney position on the 7 subsequent Iraq-related roll calls. But without mentioning the way he votes Murray and Weisman make him sound like a reasonable "moderate."
Rep. Phil English (R-Pa.), who has been exploring bipartisan accommodations, especially on Iraq, complained yesterday that, for all their talk of bipartisanship, the "House Democratic leadership has not reached out to us at all."
Taylor Marsh was reading a different part of the Post this morning. While they were writing misleading headlines to make radical right Republican rubber stamps seem like reasonable statesmen, they were also smearing Democrats on another page.
After our talk the fun started. There was good food; John made a nice speech; I got to reminisce with Jackson about how we met when we were teenagers. I had booked a concert at my school with the Jefferson Airplane and a little known band from Seattle called the Daily Flash and Jackson and his two pals, Tim Buckley and Steve Noonan came. After there was a party at my house and many of us had something Owsley gave us. I was shocked Jackson remembered! It was my first real trip.
