The long drawn out painful Donkey Screw… 22 February 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War.trackback
But the old “slow bleed plan” was just a couple of weeks ago? Now it is the revisit and narrow the authorisation?
There is such a “Humpty Dumpty – ness” about it all. And these are not even the “king’s men”.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) began calling for a reauthorization of the war early last month and raised it again last week, during a gathering in the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Participants included Kerry, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.).
Those Democratic senators have emerged as an unofficial war council representing the caucus’s wide range of views.
“We gave the president that power to destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and, if necessary, to depose Saddam Hussein,” Biden said of the 2002 resolution in a speech last week before the Brookings Institution. “The WMD was not there. Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The 2002 authorization is no longer relevant to the situation in Iraq.”
An observation that Gen Odom (ret.), NSA under Reagan, made in 2004. Then he said, BRING THEM HOME. Declare Victory, got Saddam, no WMD: mission over.
Long war.
Senior Democratic aides said the proposed resolution would be sent directly to the Senate floor for action, without committee review, possibly as an amendment to a homeland security bill scheduled for debate next week.
Reid said no final decision had been made on the timing. Spokesman Jim Manley said Reid wants to present the idea to other Democrats before determining how and when to proceed.
Meanwhile today, on The News Hour, I heard how just last month the rules for calling up the NG and the Reserves were changed entirely. Whole new ball game. The old rule was, serve, or may be called up, 24 months out of 5 years. The past was “wiped away” and a new 5 years is on the books. All may be called up again, for 1 year within 5 years. As soon as the transcript is up will post it…
From the NYT report (it was the same reporter appearing on TNH):
[N]ational Guard officials told state commanders in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio last month that while a final decision had not been made, units from their states that had done previous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan could be designated to return to Iraq next year between January and June, the officials said.
The unit from Oklahoma, a combat brigade with one battalion currently in Afghanistan, had not been scheduled to go back to Iraq until 2010, and brigades from the other three states not until 2009. Each brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.
The accelerated timetable illustrates the cascading effect that the White House plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq by more than 21,000 is putting on the entire Army and in particular on Reserve forces, which officers predicted would face severe challenges in recruiting, training and equipping their forces. [snip]
War. Long war. They will be scraping them out of Germany, out of the Korean DMZ, off far flung bases and installations. They can still break it more… and they will.
Suicide by president. Democrats complicit.
As I type this, on C-Span the long walk around presser at WRH/Building 18 today is on. Miserable. General after general intones in the days since the WaPo article broke.
Why are they always so surprised? We know they are not…
To draw more heavily on Reserve units, the Bush administration announced in January that it was revising rules that limited call-ups of Guard members. The previous policy limited mobilization of Guard members to 24 months every five years, but prolonged and large deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan led the Pentagon to abandon that rule.
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UPDATE, 6:41 am
Democracy NOW! had a segment yesterday on the issues raised in the Wapo article on WRH/Bldg 18. One participant, Mark Benjamin writes on injured vet issues, esp on the brain injured, Ward 54 at WRH. I used to read him when he was with UPI previous to Salon:
MARK BENJAMIN: … On the other hand, the same Army is trying to make a determination about how much money the Pentagon is going to pay that soldier, perhaps for the rest of their life. Now, the Army’s mission, you have to understand, is to take ground and hold it. The Army’s mission, frankly, is not to compensate veterans for their service.
So what we have is essentially a conflict of interest. The Army is trying to do both at the same time: save money for bullets and bombs on the backs of veterans, and also treat them and compensate them. So it’s this strange problem. [...]
And this…
MARK BENJAMIN: Well, certainly, I think what Lieutenant Goodrum is talking about is when a soldier who has a stellar career sees something that they think is wrong in the theater, say, in Iraq and tries to alert superiors and tries to do the right thing and ends up resulting, in this case, in the death of a young soldier, and in Goodrum’s case, which I think is very well documented, it ends up that there’s a lot retribution against the soldier, and it’s carried out through his medical care, and it’s carried out through charging him with AWOL for trying to go get psychiatric care. I think those cases are relatively unusual. They do happen. I mean, being a whistleblower in the military, stepping up and doing, frankly, what officers are taught to do, which is blow the whistle when things get out of hand, yes, there are serious, serious cases of retaliation, and you do come across them.
I think the bigger problem, though — and I think Lieutenant Goodrum can speak to both of those — is you have those situations where you have somebody who tries to blow the whistle about dangerous equipment or lack of equipment, and so on and so forth, but then you get into this other issue of this frightening sort of bureaucracy, where the military is, a, trying treat you and, b, trying to determine if they can compensate you — and I think a lot of soldiers would say “not compensate” you by trying to save money, and doing those at the same time. And when you mix all that stuff together — for example, in Lieutenant Goodrum’s case, you have a very nasty recipe, where soldiers are both being retaliated against and struggling against a bureaucracy that is set out to primarily — or my reporting suggests — primarily save money on long-term disability payments and not so much emphasizing medical care. [snip]
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UPDATE, 9:38 am
Politico.com on the current Democratic “plans”… my it is a thin read:
Both Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., are under pressure from anti-war lawmakers and outside groups to do more to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq.
But neither wants to take any step that risks exposing their party – and in Reid’s case, several Democratic presidential candidates – to a political barrage from Republicans. [...]
“We are going to be very measured in how we approach this,” said one top Democratic strategist. “We will do nothing to endanger our troops in the field, but we will continue turning up the heat on Bush to end the war. We will go step-by-step, day-by-day, until we get there.”
There? Quick! check all of America, but esp where the mics are in the halls at congress for “there”. Should be big, white taped “X”s to show “there”. Whereever film crews are setting up…
Such. worn. out. bullshit.
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UPDATE… 11:15 am
Oh this is just hilarious. Stoller on the Blue Dog bump in the road… And catch the thread… posters shocked! SHOCKED! I tell you!! at who is a Blue Dog…. others do the fast needlework to bind up the loose threads. What a joke… And Stoller who posted last week on Reid and other Dem weakness in the face of the war….. lists his blog critics.
LOL Tuck the baby into the coffin and shut the lid.
Very amusing. Blue Dogs acquired 7 in numbers in that so critical election just past… and New Democrats (basically DLC) swelled from 47 (iirc) to now 60. There is some cross over between the two.. and plenty of conservative Dems (Chet Edwards of TX for one) who are not official BD nor ND.
I gather Stoller’s reaction is to call for Edwards to be primaried.
Just a lot of very conservative Democrats. Oh the Boyz are so surprised. What did they think?
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UPDATE, 11:50 am
Who is IOZ Operation Himmler – on ME, US and The Dems…. from the close…
This is all to say: Iran has never invaded anyone and is in no position to invade anyone. It’s to say that there is no such thing as an accidental war. It’s to say that we aren’t arming our clients in the Gulf to defend against Iranian aggression; we are preparing them as staging grounds for American aggression. It’s to say that this is all hew, cry, and bullshit. And it’s to say to all the pansy-ass Donkle do-gooders who wring their hands over our warmaking but won’t say empire, who look embarrassed and say, “I’m not actually comparing the United States to Nazi Germany”–stand the fuck up and ask it with me: What is the putative difference between what is now occuring vis-à-vis Iran and what once occured vis-à-vis Poland? Fuck the Gulf of Tonkin. The word of the day is Gleiwitz.
Accidental fucking war indeed.
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Maybe when the economy finally goes off the cliff we’ll have to stop the military spending b/c we’re too broke. Like Chalmers Johnson has been saying, maybe bankruptcy is the only hope to save this country from itself.
Certainly Bush and his crew are not planning on ending this war –
The surge is in effect, basically approved of in the non-binding resolution which did not say ‘no more troops’. It said ‘no more than 21,000 troops’ – no one in the media pointed that out.
So, the games will go on – with resolutions such as Biden’s being blocked, filibustered etc. The message at dk and other ‘liberal’ sites will be ‘we are showing the American people that Republicans are refusing to end this war but when we have a bigger majority in 2008, then we’ll be able to do something’. So predictable.
Are any of the big box bloggers getting behind Mike Gravel? (I really don’t know much about him but he seems to exemplify “progressive”.)
I thought he did well at Carson City, better than at the Winter runway thing.
Not sure, I think I saw some rather niggling commentary from the Koswhack direction that he should drop out.
The smell of Democracy. Gee at least he is NEW!
The rest of it, but for newly birthed Obama, is so tired.
The rest of it, but for newly birthed Obama, is so tired.
I don’t think I’ll be able to make it until November ’08 without massive doses of IV caffeine.
The Italian left just capitulated… they will agree to Prodi’s enforcement of Berlesconi’s expansion of US bases and more soldiers to Afghanistan… in order to “save” their leadership in gov’t.
It is the same scam world wide.
Meanwhile Cheney is in Australia whining that the Chinese are rapidly building their military and that is not a good for world peace… yeah he actually said the word “Peace”.
Can I get an amen?
D Throat,
Speaking of Cheney…
well.. ITalian government.. what to say. I remember years ago reading some run up to the G-6 (I think it was 6 then), and the article flatly said, Craxi wanted to attend so everyone whould know he was still president of italy.
I have lost track of how many PMs they have had. Dozens since the war.
It also looks like Blair will redploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan…
oh and BTW Blair is also in talks with the US for installing a “Defense Shield” in the UK. Russia has already said that it will aim its missles at Poland and the Czech Rep if they go ahead with the same plans…
So it looks like Blair was just trying to temper public sentiment before he went for the “big guns”…. gee I am so glad that the Democrats are in charge… soon things will change…. not.
I think Berlesconi was the longest serving since WWII
OH!!!!!! You have to just watch the first 30 seconds of this... I couldn’t get any further than that
hmm I almost did not click on the link, as I had seen some of both panels that Cspan covered.
This is quite different. What are they, shock troops for a sick, old, venal man?
That is a political rally of a certain type. Distasteful.
You see this is where progressive always mess up… you can not fight illogical crap with logic. Why argue with nonsense? They got what they want national media and they furthered embedding the idea in the mainstream.
If I were a protestor I would have signed up to go hunt down Miss. Kannall… if they want to know so much what if feels like to be hunted down… now that would be much more effective than yelling at these fools … and it would make them think again for their next stunt. I wonder if Ms. Kanell would have enjoyed her experience of being hunted down by 200 Latinos.
But this is how they train the young GOPers… the more bold and outrageous your are at promoting the goals of the GOP you will be rewards… they see these stunts as Merit badges.
It goes with out saying that the Democrats do the opposite. Here we have a supposed progressive librul site where Generalitito comes down from the mountain every other day to proclaim a new law of the land… “No more swearing in Titles” and all the blogmaids and blogeunuchs… cheer and sing his praises.
Are we winning yet?????
But this is how they train the young GOPers… the more bold and outrageous your are at promoting the goals of the GOP you will be rewards…
D Throat this is what they do at DK. The bullies let it be known that if you want in, you have to be a bully too. It’s fascinating to watch. The vast majority definitely do NOT want in, but the few who do, study and work hard to demonstrate how ‘mean’ they can be and how impervious they are to insults. Creepy really.
They are no different than those students. They hunt down those they designate as ‘trolls’ in the same way. It is damn disgusting . Most of the rest merely watch and pity them. It was that behavior at dk that turned me off Democrats.
Amen, Catnip! Applause! Applause! They are so thin-skinned, such whiners and complainers. Babies, really. Keyboard ‘tough’ like their cohorts on the right who they strive to emulate.
So the rules changed once again just for Opol – he really gets to them for some reason. They really want him gone. I wonder if they know that an offer (I’ve heard more than one) was made to him re the media! I hope he accepts. I have a feeling if he is banned, dk will not be spared should he start doing interviews or creating artwork for media outlets. Bad strategists, bad public relations. They are their own worst enemies. It is a siege mentality.
His last diary had nearly 900 recs – much of his popularity is due to their relentless, blind hateful attacks each time he posts a diary. Because the attacks are not just on him. They are on a large part of the Democratic Party who increasingly are learning they are not welcome in the party, only their votes and cash contributions.
I laughed at the ‘no profanity in titles’ nonsense. A quick search of just one of the opol haters brought up these diary titles (Opol’s title also had asteriks btw)
The troll cop, eleeeech, as Miss D called her, wanted the ‘rules’ enforced in Opol’s diary, but laughably when Bob Johnson violated all diary rules (lost the link right now) well, she thought it was just fine. lol – and the whining from this woman about how ‘mean’ people are to her. She better be careful, gotta keep up that ‘I’m tough’ pretense. Could anyone take them seriously?
So now, profanity in a title is a bannable offense. Well, if you’re Opol! And it’s hillarious how the enablers try to excuse the ‘horsefu**er’ nonsense. ‘It was on a weekend’ or ‘horse doesn’t get caught in the filter’ etc. etc. Hillarious! They truly do underestimate people’s intelligence.
Hunter’s diary was on the FP all day with only 150 comments. I think that’s part of the problem. Opol represents the left and as everyone knows, the left is not welcome at dk.
and the left, the untapped, reviled left, is bigger than they want to face. MUCH more interested in chasing the votes of misogynist bigoted suburban white xtians.
It is all fun and games to people them. The undocumented are just prey for people like Ms. Kanell, and to her there is no value. Until somebody stands up to people like her, then they cry oh no, we are victims her. BULLSHIT, they are nothing more but soulless beings who have nothing better to do but to preach hate and violence so they can attract followers to do their bidding.
I’ve been saying for years that our Mess O’Potamia would be an issue in the presidential elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016. It seems that some in the MSM are coming to the same conclusion. This is web-exclusive commentary from Newsweek‘s Michael Hirsch (via msnbc.com, you wonder why this doesn’t get into the print version):
Well, it’s already taken quite a long time to get to this point, and things are obviously getting worse. And it is highly unlikely that we can still be fighting three years from now with the soldiers we are using and abusing today, so something is going to have to be changed w/r/t recruitment. You might think that some forward looking Congresscritters, particularly those on the Dem side of the aisle, would be thinking about how to deal with this and speaking about it, but if they’re doing the former, they certainly aren’t doing the latter:
No matter how bad a military situation appears to be, there’s always some hyperambitious general willing to sacrifice the lives of countless other people to satisfy his dreams of martial glory. As Hirsh points out, in the rare event Congress actually begins to show some spine on the issue of the Iraq war, all Petraeus will have to do to silence them is show up and demand they kiss his medals and combat ribbons. In the meantime, the soldiers doomed to fight this war will be faced with this:
It’s going to become blindingly obvious to just about everyone that no matter how bleak their lives might be, joining the military is no way to improve them. In a few years’ time, we might actually get an answer to that rhetorical question from the 1960′s: What If They Gave A War And Nobody Came?
[drift] Just noticed that somebody named “davidbyron” is posting at Mo Betta’. Watch your step around him. He is a notorious misogynist, despite his anti-war opinions. I remember him well from the Ms. days.[/drift]
JJB, thanks so much for that…
not the first time that Newsweek has covered its very large ass for posterity (meaning worthwhile material or strong statements from writers boxed up – but usable later – as ”web only”).
On the eve of invasion – and I do mean eve, it was almost the third week of March 2003, the 12th iirc… both Fineman and zakaria had interesting posts, web only.
Fineman went thru a tick tock of Powell’s connivance and closed with calling on him to resign in the face of war for lies, and put a hard line down. Yeah… so Fineman can quote that in a few years – or he may have already.
in the same online version Zakaria detailed his YEAR of travelling to various countries, US embassies and missions, meeting with various foreign government officials and detailed the already badly frayed, falling apart, angry, mad, hurt, shunned, abused, threatened, state of our Foreign Relations. Over and over, country after country, their leaders did not want this war.
All carefully prepared for when Fareed (who had recently become a US citizen and could be absolutely gag worthy in some of his fealty based conversations) and little Howard need those articles.
Any day now.
Feminism Is Destroying The World !
ms_xeno
LOL d*vidB*ron is the only person locked out of this site before I opened…
What a fucking mess. Dkos went thru DB I, II, III and IV as well. Thanks for th tip
Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:
FORMER GOV. TOM VILSACK, D-IOWA, IS DROPPING OUT OF THE 2008 PRESIDENTIAL RACE, ACCORDING TO THE AP
http://abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396
Ah, Mcat, his reputation precedes him, then. I tipped of MBM, too. I’m guessing he makes the average woman-hater on Kos look like Phil Donohue and Alan Alda rolled into one…
SB (#15):
Kos’s new “no profanity in titles” sneering , hypocritical dictat needs the caveat: “unless you are one of my paid employees, that is.”
Like Hunter the Horsef***er for instance.
I agree with what someone said earlier. Kos INC’s dem perception management operation employs the very same intentionally outrageous and hypocritical ‘controlled controversy’ tactics and a coordinated pack attack by “community” kos-operatives to try to get unherded commenters to blow their cool, and trip them up into making a intemperate statement, which they then exploit to attack or ban the wrong-thinking “troll”.
LOL… yeah basically I just declined to be their serf.
It is and was so clear, they wanna be Cyber Lords and Cyber Blog Maids.
BULLSHIT.
ms_xeno: that is one scary link. Feminism=Nazism is bad enough, but did you click on the “Feminism on Trial Ring” link? Maybe forced vesectomies/hysterictomies (some of the hatebloggers are women!) is not such a bad idea; these folks definetely shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce (/snark).
JJB: Great links and disection; topical as ever with Cheney telling the bruces in Austrailia, no worries we’re gonna “do” Iran, and Pelosi whining that Dick is being a Dick.
In a few years’ time, we might actually get an answer to that rhetorical question from the 1960’s: What If They Gave A War And Nobody Came?
Well buddy, if the kids don’t come then they make them come. There’s more than one way to “shanghai” sailors into service. Just one more “terrorist attack” or a “thermonuclear event” anywhere and the draft comes back with a vengeance.
Well I have not been to DB’s sites in a long time.. but they were a horror. IIRC he lives (or lived) in Alabama. No disrespect to the South as a whole… but gee whiz.
Well buddy, if the kids don’t come then they make them come.
I think one reason that San Francisco has gotten such a hard (extra hard) drubbing over the past year, 18 months is that our School Board was working to ban ROTC from the HSs here.
I don’t think all of the cute legislation about drafts is at all “benign”… and was very interested from 2001 forward, the bulk of it comes from the Fucking Democrats. Rangel really is distasteful to me. Esp with his draft leg and cute talking points.
They are afraid we might become some big (well bigger, and we are not all that liberal) Rebel Central.
I am sure they plan a draft within a few years. They are not giving up on war.
Tommy Sadsack is out?! Curious. IIRC, he was the only Pretzldental hopeful calling for immediate withdrawl from Iraq.
Sadly, Tuston, I’ve seen it all before. There are many adroit practitioners of Byron’s type out there. He’s just been at it longer and steadier than most.
Tuston… yeah agree. he did call for that. Very hard for him to get a hearing with the supposed Lion Tamers performing scheduled fights for the center ring.
looong two years.
From Dissident Voice and Greg Moses: (Thanks to chreebomb at LJ’s debunkingwhite board for the tip)
A Walk And Help For Suzi Hazahza
I see the military is taking the bold step of blaming the patients at Walter Reed for the conditions. Dr. Reed would be so proud! Glad to finally understand what “supporting the troops” means. My Bush era American English translator ring has been out of whack lately.
Tuston,
Oh yes, conscription is definitely the 800 lb. gorilla that dares not speak its name, to mix metaphors with a high-speed blender. My own feeling is that they’ll be some kind of national service requirement with non-military options so distasteful that the wartime military will look attractive by comparison. But with Cheney sending warning signals to China, there’s no way the military can be sustained by current methods, so some serious change is going to have to be made.
As to David Byron . . . what memories I have of that dear chap! In addition to the many awful things that can be said about him, he’s an apologist for the Ulster Loyalists, as well as the late Slobo Milosevic. I also recall him arguing that Hitler was more-or-less goaded into WWII, and for all his anti-war posturing, he would also give voice to some absurd apologias for British imperialism. Back in the pre-scoop days at Little Orange Footballs, I finally got under his skin to such an extent that he would stalk me in whatever comment thread he could find me with obscenity-laced tirades that finally got him banned. As I recall, the thing that pushed him over the edge was my linking to that ancient web site of his, which apparently he didn’t like having to answer for (taking it down appears to be beyond his competence). At any rate, he was banned, w/o my even having to request it. I kind of liked watching him sputter and spew uncontrollably. He came back for the scoop site, but didn’t last long. He’s been also been banned at Billmon, Atrios, steve gilliard, even My Left Whine — those are the ones I can remember, there are others whose names I’ve forgotten where he’s DBona non grata, as BooMan might put it.
My guess is his misogony stems from having contracted whatever STD is eating away at his brain. Obviously, it was the woman’s fault!
MCat,
Your guess about the Newsweek scribes covering their rears is doubtless correct. Also, I now remember there’s a foreign edition of the magazine that’s significantly different from the version available in the US, and that CYA material may be appearing there.
ms_xeno… I Love Greg Moses.. I tripped across his writings summer of 2005.
JJB oh yes DB on the loose. Nothing changes As the Blogs Squirm.
Is anyone following the OKC stories? The internet was still pretty young at the time it happened and much of the weirdness surrounding it got relegated to conspirisphere. IIRC, it was even suggested that Chandra Levy’s murder was connected. She was at the execution IIRC.
Without getting into the specifics, I am wondering why this is happening now. I dont believe new information just bubbles up without someone having an agenda. I cant figure out how it hurts Bush (it doesnt appear to strengthening the theory Saddam was involved). So the only thing I can think of is that it meant to damage the Clintons somehow.
[drift] The Clintons were very lucky in the fact that most of their reign was before the net had matured. They got a free pass so many topics that today would be blogged and blogged and blogged again. Geffen was right about the baggage. If Clinton get s the nom she will be called the Dragon Lady by the time the convention rolls around [/drift
Revisionist, someone has sent me a little bit of what is getting kicked up just now about OKC.
I did not know that Chandra LEvy was at the execution ?? at one of the closed circuit sites that observed?
How interesting.
I guess my OCD GRRRLLness is kicking in again and checked out the orange bog (no L intended) and the liberturdian dumbocrat has a take down of Kucinich.
I realize that Dennis is a problematic character, and I’ll even admit kos scores some good (if hipocritical) points on choice, but mostly its a shitty LGF-esque attempt at demogogery.
The first comment is a real beaut though:
little lord kuss le ‘roid’s condescension is so cute, but I love this unasnswered mutinous question from BJ:
Sacrilege! Heresy! Abomination!
How dare anyone question the littlest blahhglord?!
Affidavit: McVeigh had high-level help
According to Oklahoma bombing conspirator, ranking officials were involved in the attack
Uh oh. Did I break the strict Mcat rulz agains posting CT?
(ha!)
well politico.com (just my take) is itching to track down quiet money to bloggers.
new media outlet, eager to be edgey… sure why not?
I got a hint of that off a comment Ben Smith (a side bar blog at politico) made about the Armstrong post at MyDD that brought up Gibbs, an operative for Obama, of the 2003 Osama ad against Dean (and I referenced MyDD yesterday, just not the politico link as I did not know of it then)
Marisacat:
#41 is an intersting observation. I think the Boyz (esp. Kuss) are headed for a very, very public “take down” or two heading into ’08. I suspect they will occur a just the right time to have the most spectacular effect (c.f. “dean scream”).
But I’m just speculatin’…
Armstrong v Gibbs in Politico…
he also raises a day or so later that Kos piled on Gibbs.
I was there every day, Kos did not post on apparently did not care about the Osama ad in Dec 2003. We took care of it in diaries. A fascinating political story, however one came down on the play that was run.
But now he does care about Gibbs.
ns_xeno said
i haven’t seen a MRA in months! where have they all been hiding? i was hoping sombody broke the mould (snicker) that made them.
ns_? kerchoo!
my keyboard sneezed!
well, I’m happy to reprt agence-france is reporting that Divine Strake has been canceleld – just a short bit, not worth a link – curious to see a longer article, i/e. it’s hard to beleive they are totally abandoning this which they’ve been so intent on ramming through – & we have all those languishing scientific mins to care for . . .
btw, I did post up that Manny Babbitt piece, along w/ something I think I owe catnip for finding on homeless & incarerated vets – nuttin’ overly original, jes the facts ma’am
have a good ‘n – a little later & we’re off to the coast today
I think we should start a “pool” on when Kos starts posting “why I now support Billary for pretzldent” pieces. The winner of the pool will get their own DLC-ona engraven plastic crown and an endless supply of PD cookies…
arcturus 1: Yah, sometimes we do catch a break. I’ve really had quite enuf rads for a lifetime, and could do without radioactive dust.
I’ve lived in deserts for most of my life, the Sonoran and Mojave but I’ve never experienced anything the Amargosa desert . Not only is it more barren and lifeless than my home, but its fucking creepy.
BTW I think Amargosa is derived from the spanish word for bitter, amargo.
arcturus thanks for posting that .. I had posted on Divine STRAKE a few months ago. IIRC there is a whole series… also Divine HATE.
Tuston jsut a matter of time. I saw the really very silly DD/LV diary on Obama, how this was his BIIIG mistake…. LOL he also was Delaware Dean til he had a big fake turn around.
As for mistakes. I see that Blogometer has a quote from obama, from Calitics and SF Gate Blogs…. Apparently he called Boxer a “cutie”.
Lordy. have to laugh.
here’s the Guardian:
as expected . . .
Incroyable!:
“According to the Journal, “Mr. Chalabi will serve as an intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces mounting an aggressive counterinsurgency campaign across the city. The position is meant to help Iraqis arrange reimbursement for damage to their cars and homes caused by the security sweeps in the hope of maintaining public support for the strategy.”
In his new position, Chalabi will be responsible for security tasks.”
hey up there! number 12! D. Throat! i managed to watch the entire video!
it is a laid-back infomercial promoting the netroots / markos / BBB franchise. it could as easily be a video on amway.
about halfway through it the “speaking, close-up dude”, who functions as the blender to bind the various BBB bits together says something like “we only know each other by our screen names” and he goes on talking about how they develop respect, working together etc etc. from that point on i’m asking myself if the prog male who was on my screen is one of those who would rec. cunt-call attacks against women. kind of a little game i played to pass the time while i watched. surely i must have seen at least one or two. heck knowing Dkos, if but from a distance these days, i probably saw more than one or two.
the piece feels old, dated. one example: the cindy sheehan sig on the quilt was interesting in a sad way. cindy’s now gone. chased out of dkos, as i understand things, by reactionary chavez-haters (one of whom, i read here at marisa’s, is judged to have been a noted right wing troll). if she could have foreseen her dkos blogging fate would she still have handed over her signature to be sewn into a patchwork “Democrat Rose” by a quilting circle, then sold to raise funds? i realize at some point that at least some of those whom im watching on the video are “Shut Your Fucking Pie Hole” people. maybe cindy is really better off shed.
maryscott puts in an appearance and has one of the nicer segments in the piece. based on recent events i wonder if she may also be dated material to the franchise, and her blog a thing of the past to them.
the “we’re people who like to love our neighbors” bit at the end is clearly the biggest hoot-hoot-HOOT in the video and almost makes the time spent watching the video worthwhile. i won’t spoil it though and it is a bit too drenched in holy water for me. i suppose the video speaks the truth in the sense that religion is part and parcel of the franchise produc line.
technically, the setting is bad throughout, its endless hallways and meeting rooms in nondescript hotel convention spaces that could be anywhere in this country, all yellow soullessness on my screen. so antiseptic that it seems devoid of any life, other than artificial. by the end of it, i found myself once again resisting a mild depression, with this due to color and setting alone. most infomercials are far better lit.
hmm it was the opening (I mean it opened the video) rally at the speech Reid gave. I found it distasteful… and unpleasant. The raised fists for an old hack…
The rest was largely just plain old gush in gush out slop.
No shock.
Miss Devore….Rowan Scarborough previously of WahsTimes and now WashExaminer was on WJ this am… slightly pushing Chalabi. Trying to sell his Shia credentials. Amazing!
Well we still have Neocon active and writing and punditing and wheezing and loser Dems wheezing…
so I guess it means our first and bestest pet goes on, still on the Gravy Train
30. Tuston – 23 February 2007
“blockquote>Tommy Sadsack is out?! Curious. IIRC, he was the only Pretzldental hopeful calling for immediate withdrawl from Iraq.”
No, actually I think hopefuls Kucinich and Gravel are also calling for immediate withdrawal. Certainly, whatever “immediate” means, no less so than Vilsack.
Legal Statement filed by a US sponsored/supervised Interior Ministry counterinsurgeny torture program survivor, a resident of Fallujah, to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission
Disgusting.
No wonder the Bush regime don’t want the Gitmo detainees to have a chance to tell their stories in court.
Catnip, you mentioned Mike Gravel (Dem contender for prez, former Alaska senator) above in a positive vein re progressive bona fides…
Finally, some media spotlight on this maverick.
Mike Gravel will be a guest on Cspan’s WJ on Feb 26, Monday, 7:30 ET.
Thank you, Mr Lamb. I was a ‘wishin for this. The guy is like nonexistent on the radar, although he threw his hat in the ring months ago. I want people to hear him. HEAR what a political hopeful can actually say, can dare to say when they are true progressives and eschew the safe safe safe road.
From what I have seen and heard of Gravel, which, admittedly, is very little thus far, he is the one who cuts closest to the bone when it comes to antiwar and anti-imperialist/elitist issues, hitting at the US’s bad behaviors, present and (land sakes!) PAST. (Pssst … you know, those memory hole issues, largely forgotten and verboten: Unofficial dictum for politicians and msm: speak no evil of our nation in the past, and, voila, no evil EXISTED in the past.) I think he staged a days long filibuster re getting out of Vietnam – very active against that war, which is when he served in the senate.) He, I believe, speaks truth to power on our abysmal behavior re Israel/Palestine, too. (iirc from a brief Hardball appearance several years ago.)
At the winter mtg speeches last month, he not only called out Republicans but Democrats as well. He said that any Democrat who voted for the IWR is not fit to be president. He called it dereliction of duty (paraphrasing, but that was the exact phrase used by Barbara ??? who ran against Kay Bailey Hutchison for US Senate, TX, last go-round. And what he said was what she said, whatever the exact words. God, I loved it when she said that.)
Marisa, I actually liked Gravel at the winter mtg, but didnt catch him at the event you mentioned, where you said you liked him better. He started his warm-up a little wobbly, but once he got into the speech itself, he was surefooted and pounded a lot of very worthy and rarely pounded points on our foreign policy.
Of course, I can only like the guy up until he behaves in a way that changes my mind for the worse, but so far Im thrilled he’s going to be on the stage – small thorn though he may be, it is better he’s there than not at all, to say the things he says. What I’ve seen is nothing like what we usually see from establishment shrink-wrapped Dems. He also advocates for single payer healthcare, not the very ambiguous “universal”.
Hope he does well on WJ.
RE: Chalabi as new head of the Iraq ‘popular committees”
How Trotskyite of him.
You all were aware, of course, that Chalabi got his phd from the Straussian Neocon madrassah of the University of Chicago
Sounds like they are trying to get rid of the stragglers sooner rather than later… Visack quits and minutes later Kos is pushing Kucinich to drop out…. I guess Hilliary needs all of those 4 pts in the polls before the Oscars on Sunday. Whether Gore wins or loses if he shows up to the Oscars his face will be beemed to a billion people…. that can not be a good feeling for Hilliary.
A few days ago Gore was speaking at the University of Toronto and 20 dollar tickets were being scalped for 500 bucks… ya think he will have problems raisining money????
Oops (#58) Fixed Link for Straussian Neocon madrassah
NFN, there seems to ahve been a mini hot bed of tied to the US Gov Iraqis out of the UofC… I ahve cuaght interviews with others. To be blunt, nasty people.
NyCee.. I ahve cuaght him a few times. He was in NH a couple months ago wtih Granny D.
Nice guy. I like him.
I am still amazed that Hilliary has no stump speech.
DT
Gore coming here in April to the Masonic Auditorium. It was sold out months ago.
I don’t think he is running tho… The recent quotes are too strong.
gore just might want to be begged
(While Im at it, thanks, Geffen, too, re Hillary. Delicious. Spread around liberally.)
Oh my god, a smack at Hillary (Billary, twofer) AND Carville! The Clinton MACHINE. How sweet it is.
I have no idea whether this will help or hurt Hillary, but I am not surprised that “jounalist” Dickerson (cited in your popcorn post, I think) said the former. He has struck me as such an eager butler (handmaster? lol) to the establishment that coming from him, I would see it as a wish not an observation. I had a very bad reaction to him when I used to see him on TV, heard him on AAR a few times, too. Very careful to give BushCo the benefit of the doubt, bent over backwards, it seemed to me. That was back when Bush had better numbers, so perhaps he has oh-so-courageously (lol) deviated a bit from his safe perch, just coincidentally, while Bush’s numbers sink into the twenties.
I think what must be most worrisome to the “first black president” and wifey (is it a bi-racial marriage, or is she black too?) about Obama’s presence is that that huge bloc of black goodwill toward the Clintons has been made vulnerable to some serious erosion via Obama (Who would be the second black president, if he won, I suppose.)
Not a poll, but anecdotally, I noticed the beginning trickle of callers to Cspan saying they had been for Clinton (some even say, Oh I still like Hillary, she would be a good president) but Obama had (Instantly!) won them over, mostly during the period just after his formal declaration that he would run. It didnt take much to flip them into his camp, which, if Hillary were listening, could not have been comforting to her. And this is just the beginning.
Oh, if anyone hasnt seen it yet, here is the Dowd piece, en toto:
Obama’s Big Screen Test
she was always radioactive. Way back in ’92 she intro’d Bill at a rally in Chicago… and you could tell, she wished she was an elected IL Dem on the stage giving him a send up. It was def not “wife of the candidate” and yet I did not see that it got us anything nor would GET us anything.
Childrens’ Def Fund did yeoman work to recast her image for the ’92 run. Well Not Friends Now. MSM hid almost entirely her being a board memeber of Wal mart from 86 to 92 (it was in teh European media and UK media, similar to Laura’s early vehicular homicide… Europeans were very interested…)
So 14 years later. Here we are… her Iraq War vote a yoke on the nation and on her.
If Gore is not running then he must be getting a thrill out of causing such a stir. Hilliary finally got the big polling companies to drop his name in their polls.
Here’s an interesting, funny article re The New Republic:
Now, losing roughly half your circulation in the space of 5 years is a calamitous turn of events for any sort of periodical, and a story about how said publication is engaging in rather desperate measures to stay afloat might be expected to discuss just why readers have abandoned it in such large numbers. It isn’t a secret that the main reason for this plunge in circulation is due to TNR‘s having been one of the loudest voices cheering on our disastrous invasion of Iraq, and heaping invective on anyone who pointed out that it was likely to end in catastrophe. This isn’t even hinted at in this story, which parrots the TNR‘s claim about intentionally dropping readers who were given discounted rate subscriptions the same way it reports BushCo. fallacies with a straight face. I also love that “30% growth rate within Washington!” as if losing tens of thousands of readers throughout the rest of the country can be made up for by attracting a few hundred more in DC. Back in the late 1940s when Dwight Macdonald was publishing his wonderful magazine politics, he would joke about its low circulation with the advertising phrase “Be Exclusive! Read politics!” He also used that phrase to advertise a book he wrote by adding “only 2,000 copies sold!” or whatever the exact figure was. What Macdonald did as self-deprecating humor Foer and Peretz do with a straight face, claiming it proves how much more prestigious and influential they are with drastically fewer readers. One wonders if, like Macdonald, they will soon publish in the Letters To The Editor page a scathingly critical missive from someone claiming to be a Staten Island ferret rancher (the letter was in fact written by Macdonald himself). Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. What Peretz and Foer really need is to have whoopie cushions attached to every chair they own.
On a more serious note, the time for The New Republic to give up the ghost is long past. It has been moving steadily to the Right for a very long time now, to the point where any claim that’s it’s a left-of-center publication is ridiculous. If at all possible, the magazine should be given as dignified a death and burial as it’s possible for it to have. That way, those who cherish what it once was won’t be subjected to any more of the following:
Pounce yourself, Marty.
Only someone willing to fight for the vote, no matter the skin color that caste that vote, should run.
He remains vague on all of that.
Oh, here is the Gravel filibuster (lone, 5 month) to which I referred. It was to end the draft in ’71.
Gravel Versus “Warmongering Leaders
That’s my title imposed upon the link, but catch the last paragraph, from Gravel’s own website. Love it.
A little diary pimping: Canada’s supreme court has struck down the use of security certificates that were used to indefinitely detain and deport those suspected of terrorist activities and to hide secret intel used against them.
A victory for human rights and justice!
Don’t know what to say about this. LOL.
“For now, bloggers must be their own police. Participating in online political discussions without disclosing financial ties to a candidate would violate the unwritten rules of the blogosphere, website operators said.
“Campaigns and organizations promote their candidates and efforts, obviously,” Markos Moulitsas , the founder of DailyKos.com , a prominent liberal blog, said in an e-mailed response. “If they do it openly, it’s well accepted. If they use sock puppets ( create aliases to hide their identities), then it’s a big deal.”
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/23/political_bloggers_fear_publicists_will_infiltrate_sites/?page=full
I’ll go out on a limb here.
The warmongers have not thought through how they will fight *the war* (the one they want to fight as opposed to the one that political reality has given them to fight). Or rather they have not thought through how to fight this McWar in terms of conventional military thinking, that which is taught in West Point and Annapolis, the kind which you might see referred to by Patrick Lang in his blog or other Ex-military. This thinking is probably very old. Who knows, it might even be a French invention.
How will they (the Kristols, Ledeens of the world) fight the war they want to fight? Well clearly, they’re probably smart enough to have realized by now that they can’t go to that war with the army they’ve got, as opposed to the one they would like to have. Even a draft won’t be enough. If you needed 1/2 million for Iraq, what’ll you need for Iran AND Syria? Plus logistics. Very expensive.
Maybe they’ll expect us to get used to a NKOW (new kind of warfare). Which as I said at the beginning I’ll go out on a limb and say it means that the kind of destruction we saw in Lebanon (Haret Hrek) may just be a precursor to far worse aerial destruction there and elsewhere. Of course this isn’t really a new kind of warfare, but its advocates will expect that the arguments (and evidence) against its effectiveness, even on military terms, will have either been forgotten or can be shoved aside as being based on obsolete conditions and assumptions.
Out on a limb. Maybe.
Good on Canada! Another √ in the column marked evolution of the species. Bravo!
aemd… thanks for the boston.com link.
What a HOOT! The sites are rife with paid operatives – as we all know… not a breaking news flash. Love the comments!! I bet that is why the paper wrote it, to get people to comment.
CSTAR…
that makes a lot of sense. Any wars to come will be massive carpet bombing. Guernica writ enormous. Lebanon for years.
Re what pundits and journalists say in the MSM v in cyber corners… Pat Buchanan is much stronger in his wording against US foreign policy, such as favoritism to Israel and the war on Iraq, online and in his mag (which I think I have seen transported, his columns, onto antiwar.com), than when he gets on TV (I think they keep a cot for him just off-stage at NBC/MSNBC… quick cat naps btw appearances…)
Good point, that pundits like Fineman put their feet on both sides of the fence, re the paper and the cyber publications (eg, Newsweek). I wasnt aware of his online view, as opposed to what he fed the mainstream TV and mag audience, which was typical and frustrating. Not opposition of any sort. Although, given that so many people read publications online now, one would think they would be more reluctant to put such contradictory two stepping on the record.
Kus trashes Kucinich because….[wait for it]…because according to Kus, Kucinich changed his stance on women’s issues to become more pro-choice.
Evidently, to the Kusser, such behavior is a sign of weakness and dishonesty.
[blockquote]I did not know that Chandra LEvy was at the execution ?? at one of the closed circuit sites that observed?[/blockquote]
Actually I was wrong. Levy arrranged for Susan Carlson to attend the execution but was not present. But part of the buzz earlier in the decade was she was offed because she stumbled on something regarding McVeigh and OKC.
New thread:
Friday afternoon and evening open thread
LOL well kos regressed to reveal his true self on womens issues and led FP abuse (abortion is “horrible, horrible” with idiots like RedDan carrying the clarion call) against women.
So that makes him what i wonder. Other than one more tired prick.
” was the opening (I mean it opened the video) rally at the speech Reid gave. I found it distasteful… and unpleasant. The raised fists for an old hack…”
The Reid thing was downright embarrassing. And Kos is one of the most boring uninspired speakers I think I’ve ever seen. I heard him on Air America a couple of times and was underimpressed – he talked fast and almost unintelligibly and clearly is uncomfortable in the spotlight. That assholiness is a cover for his extreme anxiety and insecurity, no doubt.
Man, if they were trying to “convince” people to become Dems by watching this video, they won’t get many takers. Yikes.
[...] to win a prize if they find an individual with an “illegal immigrant” name tag. (h/t to D. Throat over MarisaCat) The game was sponsored by the NYU College [...]
aemd,
Thanks for that link, the Kosolini quote is priceless. His site was overrun with political operatives prior to and during the 2004 campaign, at this point you might as well call it Sock Puppet Central.
As for BlackShirt (aka RedState), the damn thing’s probably run out of an office in the WH. It’s as independent from the GOP as Jeff Guckert was.
So much to catch up on.
NYCee,
Thanks for the info about Gravel. Imho, he’s probably too scary for the dkos bunch – kind of a real life OPOL.
arcturus,
Thanks for the nod on the homeless vets stats. I’ll check out your piece.
“Blogger Woodstock”? How nauseating. Woodstock in Las Vegas? Ummm…
JJB
speaking of RedState in the next thread I posted an old Garance Franke Ruta article from TAPPED, most info on RedState, Krempasky etc… but a little on the so called left.