Some doings.. 28 April 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, U.S. Senate.73 comments
Gannets – Chris Weston – BWPA
Just a couple of things frm Tapper today… 😉 Pols, they’d sell their mother…
[H]e kept repeating this mantra.
“If we lose my seat they have 60 Democrats, they will pass card check, you will have the Obama tax increases, they will carry out his big spending plans. So the 41st Republican, whose name is Arlen Specter is vital to stopping tax increases, passage of card check, and the Obama big spending plans….Those 41 seats are the only thing standing between a Democratic onslaught of higher taxes, more spending and card check.”
It was pointed out by a reporter that he voted for the $787 billion stimulus package.
“I voted for the stimulus package, which was the twin brother for what Republican President Bush had on the $700 billion bailout,” the senator said. “I voted for the stimulus because I was fearful we were on the edge of a 1929 depression. I thought it was necessary in order to put people to work, in order to maintain productivity and to avoid paying massive man hours of unemployment compensation.”
He was asked if he’d considered running as independent or Democrat.
“I am a Republican and I am going to run on the Republican ticket in the Republican primary,” he said.
Of course Ob and the Oblings along with a good number of so called conservative Dems and Red State Dems and whatever other pejorative… Bloooooooooo Dogs! Boll Weevils! were never going to see card check to fruition.
Sure as shootin’! Oops another one! They won’t even speak [hardly] of curbing that ol’ gun issue… talk about guns and butter. Lives and bullets…
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And, I don’t care whether it is Bush, scraps of Bush Heap or Ob and his Oblings.. but I LIKE it when the gov loses these state secret scrambles in the courts. Keep it up!!
Via Tapper:
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Tuesday rejected the Obama administration’s claim that a lawsuit involving extraordinary rendition must be halted for national security reasons, and reversed a lower court dismissal of the lawsuit.
As we reported in February, the case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition who sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured. The Bush administration, and then the Obama administration argued, that the case would
The court found that United States v Reynolds — the “state secrets” precedent the Obama administration had been relying on to block the lawsuit — “recognizes that the Executive’s national security prerogatives are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake: while ‘[s]ecurity depends upon a sophisticated intelligence apparatus,’ it ‘subsists, too, in fidelity to freedom’s first principles [including] freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adherence to the separation of powers.'”
Read the full Appeals Court decision in Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. HERE.
A press release from the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs, quotes one of the men, Bisher Al-Rawi, who was released from Guantánamo last year without ever having been charged with a crime.
“I am happy to hear this news,” Al-Rawi said. “We have made a huge step forward in our quest for justice.”
And Feingold spoke up…
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who earlier today said that the Obama administration “seems reminiscent” of the Bush administration in its invocation of state secrets, has reacted to the 9th Circuit’s decision by calling it “the latest example of courts being skeptical of the government’s argument that entire cases should be dismissed based on the assertion of the state secrets privilege without any evidence being considered.”
The Obama administration has been invoking the “state secrets” argument in quite a few court cases, among them Jewel v. NSA, where the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the NSA surveillance by suing on behalf of AT&T customers whose records may or may not have been caught up in the NSA “dragnet” (read more on that HERE); and Al-Haramain v. Obama, in which the leaders of a now-defunct Islamic charity, allege that the National Security Agency under President Bush engaged in illegal warrantless wiretapping (more on that HERE.)
Carry on!
North Louisiana? And really why should Baton Rouge have all the fun… 26 January 2009
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, WAR!.106 comments
Not that it matters. Just slowly starting off touring the political sites. Not that it matters… [sigh] but I landed at this first.. at The Page:
Curtain Rises on the Blago TrialIllinois’ Senate will open the state’s first-ever impeachment trial Monday, as Gov. Blagojevich continues his media blitz.
Set to appear Monday on “Good Morning America,”” The View” and “Larry King Live.”
Told the “Today” show that his trial is “rigged” and “fixed,” and that he draws comfort by thinking of Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King.
Not that it matters, as we all know Obama is from Honolulu and Jakarta. As I began the silly online perambulations, TV helpfully assisted with telling the Blago stories… with a cut from Daley being asked about Blago. His only answer was to “cuck coo” a few times. He does it well. Which might mean something. I guess.
Feingold has a nice idea (that I don’t see a bi partisan push back from governors going for) that out of cycle empty senate seats must be resolved by election, but hahahahahaha it barely scratches the surface of our political problems.
As for the rest, catching MTP on a repeat, Summers is surely on the right track, this was nearly the first out of his mouth.
DR. SUMMERS: I’m telling him he’s inherited an extraordinarily difficult situation: the worst economy since the second World War, a financial system that’s got very serious problems, government budget deficits he’s inheriting of a trillion dollars, an entitlement situation that’s three times the burden that it was in the year 2000. He’s inheriting an extraordinarily difficult situation in the domestic economy, in the global economy; the kind of situation that requires the types of decisive action he’s been working with Congress to produce.
Wars? Anyone care to mention the wars? The COST of the wars?
Oh look! Beyonce is serenading the Prom King and Queen… Look over there! At last… at last…
Things are in bad shape.
I do wonder what is to become of us.
The pieces shift into place 4 August 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, U.S. House, U.S. Senate.129 comments
The president praised senators for acting “to give our intelligence professionals the legal tools and authority they need to keep America safe. I appreciate the hard work they did to find common ground to pass this critical bill. Today, the House of Representatives has an opportunity to consider that bill, pass it and send it to me for my signature.”
Collaborators:
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., chastised his colleagues for bending to the administration’s will.
“The day we start deferring to someone who’s not a member of this body … is a sad day for the U.S. Senate,” Feingold said.
Can it, Boyo.
Barney and Ms Beasely (the official Bush WH dogs) to the senate. Pronto. It can only get better.
BooHooHooMan from the previous thread:
I’ve inferred before but can’t help but conclude now that the spying IS WHY the Democrats roll when push comes to shove– including ironically, the spying itself. Under cloak of the “WOT”, I have no doubt that Cheney engineered an EO for blanket electronic surveillance on elected officials under the guise of “prudent security of our public servants”, then use the unseemly results to excruciate discipline. And “disciples” they now have.
How much anyone wanna bet that they don’t have every porno site ever visited out of a Senator’s home? Before long., I suppose there’ll be a clamor to adopt teenage sons on the Hill.
Blackmail Inconceivable? Pfft. What’s to stop them…. Restraint on
Cheney’s part? The “principled Dem’s serving the will of the people? Tell me another…I see the Livinstone raid, and the DC Madam case as some shot across the bow, consequences that can be made to go away……. for a price.
I suspect underneath , that in addition to a Terrorist Surveillance Program, there is some other palatablly entitled caked-on ass-shit program for “protecting” Government officials
We are beyond screwed.
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IMPEACH! – they won’t – DE FUND THE WARS! – they won’t – Then: WITHHOLD THE VOTE! 16 July 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Afghanistan War, AFRICOM, Beirut, Bolivia - Evo Morales, Brazil - Lula, Chile - Bachelet, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iran, Iraq War, Israel/AIPAC, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Russ Feingold, South America, The Battle for New Orleans, Venezuela - Chavez, Viva La Revolucion!.123 comments
A partial repost from September 24, 2006, the week Morales, Chavez, Lula, Bachelet and Ahmadinejad spoke at the UN:
Budapest protests this past week. Protestor stands against the
water volleys from the police. [AP photo via BBC]
Full text [English version] of the Evo Morales speech at the UN: We Need Partners, Not Bosses. The last few grafs:
[F]inally president, the indigenous peoples, the poor come especially from a culture of life and not a culture of war, and this millennium will really have to be to defend live, to save humanity and if we want to save humanity we have the obligation to save the planet. The indigenous peoples live in harmony with mother earth, and not only in reciprocity, in solidarity, with human beings.
We feel greatly that the politics of hegemonist competitions are destroying the planet. I feel that all countries, social forces, international organisms are important, let us begin to debate truthfully, in order to save the planet, to save humanity.
This new millennium, the millennium that we find ourselves in needs to be a millennium of life, not of war, a millennium of people and not of empire, a millennium of justice and equality and that any economic policy needs to be orientated towards ending, of at least lessening these so-called asymmetric differences between one country and another country, those social inequalities.
We are not trying to implement policies that allow the economic humiliation or economic looting; when they cannot loot according to the norms, they use troops.
I want to ask with great respect, that it is important to withdraw troops from Iraq if we want to respect human rights, it is important to withdraw economic policies that allow the concentration of capital in only a few hands.
And for this, I feel president, that these events should be historical in order to change the world and to change economic models, interventionalist policies. Above all else we want them to be times that allow us to defend and save humanity
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Danny Schechter at News Dissector has a bang up series of links and snips dated the 16th… he can be irritating (and people write to him and say so) he can be sloppy with links and sometimes not link, so a few excerpts to follow, it is jampacked…
Start with the worst:
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) – The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.
The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected “soon,” says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? “We’re still working that,” Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.
The Reaper’s first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.
“With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home,” North said.
IMPEACH! WITHHOLD THE VOTE: NO ONE is ending the wars. NO ONE WILL END THE WARS…
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Danny linked to and excerpted the from DAHR JAMAIL’S LATEST DISPATCH:
TARGETING AFRICA
When President George W. Bush announced the formation of a military command for Africa (AFRICOM) this past February, it came as no surprise to the Heritage Foundation. The powerful right-wing organization designed it. The Heritage Foundation, founded in 1973 by ultra-conservatives Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors and funded by such right-wing mainstays as the Scaife Foundation, has a strong presence in the Bush Administration. While not as influential as the older and richer American Enterprise Institute, it has a higher profile when it comes to Africa policy.
Back in October 2003, James Jay Carafano and Nile Gardner of the Heritage Foundation laid out a blueprint for how to use military power to dominate that vast continent. ”Creating an African Command,” write the two analysts in a Heritage Foundation study entitled U.S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better Solution, “would go a long way toward turning the Bush Administration’s well aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality.”
While the Bush Administration says the purpose of AFRICOM will be humanitarian aid and “security cooperation,” not “war fighting,” says Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.
The Heritage analysts were a tad blunter about the application of military power:
“Pre-emptive strikes are justified on grounds of self-defenseAmerica must not be afraid to employ its forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened.” Carafano and Gardner are also quite clear what those “vital interests” are: “The United States is likely to draw 25 percent of its oil from West Africa by 2015, surpassing the volume imported from the Persian Gulf.”
IMPEACH: The plan is to spin as much of the world to war as they can – what else does it look like?. ”THEY” is both parties.
WITHHOLD THE VOTE: They won’t de-fund!
DE FUND THEM!
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Last from Danny, is from Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive:
It’s NOT BUSH’S PLAN – IT’S ”THEIR” PLAN:
Bush’s Manual for Containing Protest
By Matt Rothschild in the Progressive:
After a myriad of stories about people being excluded from events where the President is speaking, now we know that the White House had a policy manual on just how to do so.
Called the “Presidential Advance Manual,” this 103-page document from the Office of Presidential Advance lays out the parameters for how to handle protesters at events. ”Always be prepared for demonstrators,” says the document, which is dated October 2002 and which the ACLU released as part of a new lawsuit.
In a section entitled “Preventing Demonstrators,” the document says: “All Presidential events must be ticketed or accessed by a name list. This is the best method for preventing demonstrators. People who are obviously going to try to disrupt the event can be denied entrance at least to the VIP area between the stage and the main camera platform. … It is important to have your volunteers at a checkpoint before the Magnetometers in order to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event. Look for signs they may be carrying, and if need be, have volunteers check for folded cloth signs that demonstrators may be bringing.”
In another section, entitled “Preparing for Demonstrators,” the document makes clear that the intention is to deprive protesters of the right to be seen or heard by the President: “As always, work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.”
The document also recommends drowning out protesters or blocking their signs by using what it calls “rally squads.” It states: “These squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad’s task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform.
If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!).
Think it will not be that way if Hillary goes in?, along WITH Obama – as Anna Quindlen is already calling on Hillary to do (and as Glen Ford at BAR has said since February, is the plan)
IMPEACH! DE FUND THE WARS — WITHHOLD THE VOTE!
They won’t be listening to polite pleas…
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Remember all of those nasty winger judges the Vichy Donks couldn’t filibuster? Remember the civil liberties they couldn’t fight for, women’s issues and worker’s issues they ran away from? Remember the war they wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t slow down, still won’t de-fund? Remember the Gang of 14, the SEVEN Donklephants that cozied up to the ‘Thugs to prevent even the HINT of a filibuster?
The OLD Donklephants … the Dixiecrat version, used to filibuster all the time to preserve Jim Crow. Oh, and lest you think that there is much difference between the current Donklephant and the ole’ Dixiecrat, think hard about how much fight they’ve put into protecting the vote. Maybe they don’t say “colored” out loud where we can hear them, but they don’t care about black people any more, or poor people in general, than Bush does, let alone more than they did back before LBJ told them they should (as he was undermining it all sending men off to kill poor yellow people).
Anyway, that invertebrate known as the senior Senator from Illinois is upset because the
theofascistauthoritariancorporatist…. ummmm … rightward-half-of-our-one-political-party is actually practicing politics and using the rules of the Senate to fight for it’s base’s priorities! SHAME ON THEM!
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DE FUND THE CONGRESS: Withhold the Vote!
They will still be sitting on the US taxpayer paid for toilets as the years roll by:
DE FUND THE CONGRESS: WITHHOLD THE VOTE!
They won’t do it: WITHHOLD THE VOTE
Not even a full three ring circus… 6 February 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Big Box Blogs, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, Russ Feingold.87 comments
From Blogometer, in continuing posting on the mess that was the Senate today. The mess that has been senators on the media this afternoon and evening:
IRAQ: Not As Useless As He Thought
Following the cloture vote on the Warner/Levin bill, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) had harsh things to say about fellows Dems in a blogger conference call, singling out John Edwards in particular.
The Brad Blog says Feingold: “was also critical of John Edwards who, he says, has been ‘masquerading’ as a critic of the war, but whose proposal so far only calls for refusing to fund the proposed Bush troop escalation in Iraq. Even he, Feingold said, fails in his rhetoric to call for withdrawal and a full defunding of the current debacle.”
Gee… Maybe withdrew a tad early? I agree with Feingold, tho…
Daily Kos‘ … quotes Feingold on his Dem colleagues: “This almost reminds me a little bit of the way Democrats behaved in October 2002, which was trying to play it safe, trying to use words such as ‘well, we’re going to vote for this resolution, but what it really means is that the president should go to the UN. That stuff doesn’t fly.”
David Sirota has select audio excerpts of the call here.
And – it was so noticable, no one could miss it:
The bloggers themselves kept fire away from Dems and concentrated on GOPers, regardless of whether they voted to end debate. DailyKos‘ founder Markos Moulitsas notes that up-in-’08 GOP Sens. Susan Collins (ME) and Norm Coleman (MN) both voted to end the debate but Kos promised anyway: “they’ll both be axed in 2008.” And for those Senate GOPers who voted to keep debate open Kos writes:
“we’ll make you regret this vote in 2008.”
Oh pish tish. And this is just plain funny!
The episode seems to have changed Kos’ mind on the value of the non-binding resolution as well:
“So this “non-binding resolution” wasn’t as useless as I thought. Now, we can beat Republicans over this vote for the next two years. … This was always the GOP’s war, but now more than ever. … Because of the Senate filibuster and presidential veto, It’s near impossible for Democrats to end this war. But what we can and do, and should do, is keep bringing up these resolutions. … Bring them up and keep forcing Republicans to stand with Bush in support of this war.”
Kos later adds specific posts on his top GOP targets, calling Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) a “coward,” Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) “weak,” and Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) “spineless.”
Well… it takes a real man – and a pair of shears – to trim a blogroll… 😉 Meanwhile, poor Salazar was easily vanquished on Hardball by both McConnell and Kit Bond. That is embarrassing. The Big Emotional Speech, at least in the 2 hours i watched, was from Kerry. The undertone from the R, as always is, you don’t support the troops. Chief deliverer, was John McCain. Warner as back up, by saying he does not accuse ever of lack of patriotism. Sotto voce, but if I did I would now.
It was pathetic. Dems bit back their tiny tears and worked hard to be rational. Just what was NOT needed.
Can they not kick the dogs to the curb? Oh … that was mere rhetoric… 😉
In the senate, out of the senate… what a cess pool. I was kind, there is more evisceration of Edwards at Blogometer…
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UPDATE, 5:38 am
Place your bets ringside… too much fun watching the punches land to hang at OTB…;)
NYO has a piece up on the breaking of the black power brokers between Hillary and Obama. Well, the top notes anyway… I say, when will either say something that is not a tricky game of avoidance. Tho it is fun to watch her struggle with the war… Meanwhile, “over there” a big copter was brought down this morning. A CH-46, a transport helo.
Shall we watch the Romans fiddle?
[T]he real questions about appeal to a broader audience of black voters will be answered closer to the end of this year, when primary voters focus on the race and make up their minds in large numbers about whom to support. Much of that will depend on Mr. Obama’s ability to withstand the intense scrutiny he’ll be in for in the coming months, and to prove that he is viable over the long term.
In his interview with The Observer, Mr. Jackson explained Mr. Obama’s challenge by saying: “He is greatly admired, and the question is how to close the gap between being admired and being followed.” [snip]
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UPDATE, 5:52 am on the Pacific Ocean…
Who is IOZ takes a look at our militaristic selves… and along the way takes a sharp lens out:
One of the unmoveable pieties of contemporary American life is Troops-love, and nothing twists the tits of righteous indignation faster than suggesting that your political Other isn’t spiritually prostrate before “the service and sacrifice of America’s fighting men and women,” as Oliver Willis, a broad ruminant of gaseous progressive wisdom, recently put it. The topic was David Broder, who increasingly looks and sounds like a man who should be eating oatmeal from an offered spoon and pinching nurses’ asses around the home. The question was “Do Democrats love The Troops™?” Broder said not so much. Willis popped up like Punxsatawney Phil and shrieked at his shadow. The Democrats do too love the military. They have nothing but hot, soldierly love for that aquiline good-posture-monger, Wesley Clark, who bombed his way into their hearts with a song, or sang his way into their hearts with bombs at a recent meeting of the Democratic National Committee. America’s Most Hysterical Homosexual™ soon joined the chorus: [snip snap]
That last toss refers to John Aravosis… a DC political operative. As are many, of course. Or state level operatives.
A few weeks ago, profiling MT bloggers, one Dem and one Republican, The News Hour just generally referred to both as “consultants”. A good idea I would say.
This snip from IOZ is too too delicious to pass up:
Now we have recently seen Democrats mob such luminous irrelevancies as Ned Lamont, a milquetoast cable millionaire who couldn’t beat a mush-mouthed goofball on the wrongest side of history since they gave Ezra Pound a spot on talk radio, so we know that the bar for Donkle mobbery is more limbo than high jump. There is also the confusion of item for category: Wesley Clark was in the military, but he isn’t the earthly avatar of the platonic essence of The Troop.
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UPDATE, 6:23 am
Don’t. even. get. me. started.
It has to be said, relying on Kos was the losing proposition. And now there is weeping in Peyton Place. Cue Grace Metallious… and stand back. There will be spasmodic bloodletting.
Addendum:
Talk about a basic misunderstanding of the business model at hand. Still using the weak old opera glasses. Set them down actually.
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Snagged this from Danny Schechter’s News Dissector:
”This morning, my email seemed to seize up. Here we go again I said to myself. The timing of this would have been about 24 hours into the “surge.” But then later, I read that the whole web had been under hack attack.”
Hackers overwhelm some key Internet traffic computers
AP: Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic today in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. “Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it doesn’t seem to be extortion or anything like that,” Wessels said.
Other experts said the hackers appeared to disguise their origin, but vast amounts of rogue data in the attacks were traced to South Korea.
The attacks appeared to target UltraDNS, the company that operates servers managing traffic for Web sites ending in “org” and some other suffixes, experts said. Officials with NeuStar Inc., which owns UltraDNS, confirmed only that it had observed an unusual increase in traffic.
“As one who has experienced hack attacks, I know how frustrating and demoralizing they can be. But now the whole world wide Web seems to be at risk.”
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UPDATE, 8:54 am
Whoopsie Daisie! As I said, they may find they are the hired help. And apparently the putsch is on against both… Stoller links to the NYT but other than that tries to write about it without naming The Bloggers:
Now, I have complained about the Edwards operation, and I’m now pretty sure that they aren’t ready for prime time. In response to a naughty words put up by in a previous blog by the new bloggers Edwards hired, here’s the Edwards campaign response in the New York Times.
Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.
That’s a bad answer. If a campaign’s first instinct is to grant credibility to manufactured complaints, then that campaign simply cannot make it through the right-wing gauntlet. This is also poor framing; the Edwards campaign knew what they were getting when they made the hires, and now to pretend like the bloggers did something wrong is not ok. It’s a pure ‘I’m going to offload responsibility onto the lower beings’ play.
Oh! Blahger scandal! It’s a razor laden briar patch out there…
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Friday Open Thread 2 February 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Big Box Blogs, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, la morte de St Germain Dog - the best the BLAHgers had, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, Russ Feingold, U.S. Senate.57 comments
Completely off topic, but of interest… From the BBC:
Russia has flown a team of chemical experts to a Siberian region to find out why smelly, coloured snow has been falling over several towns.
Oily yellow and orange snowflakes fell over an area of more than 1,500sq km (570sq miles) in the Omsk region on Wednesday, Russian officials said.
Chemical tests were under way to determine the cause, they said.
Residents have been advised not to use the snow for household tasks or let animals graze on it. [snip]
Apparently the snow has a high iron content.
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UPDATE, 1:01 pm on the Pacific Ocean…
A few weeks ago Obama said that Dkos was “predictable”. Well, he got that one right. Believe me, none of us who have observed the sludge heap that is too much of Dkos, all of the leadership (sorry, they signed on with bullies and they hope to be Fellows) and a large subset of the posters… none of us is surprised..
Delaware Dem has deleted his Grand ”Good Bye” Diary. I will say it again, til the masses over there, the Martin Longmans, the Pastor Dans (deleted the text of his diary) and so on, stop buying the fluff and stuff, the likes of DD – he is not alone – will not learn to self-fellate. Take it into the upstairs bathroom, Boyz. Close the door.
Simple as that.
Meanwhile: Viva FireFox Scrapbook!
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UPDATE, 3:08 pm
[S]peaking to a huge audience of Democratic elders and activists, Mrs Clinton was left in no doubt by the heckling she received — and the rapturous reception given to her rival Barack Obama — that her vote authorising the war poses a serious threat to her candidacy.
As the two presidential candidates were forced to appear on the same stage after weeks of carefully avoiding each other, Mr Obama, who spoke shortly before Mrs Clinton, brought the audience to its feet as he reminded his party that he opposed the war before it began.
The two frontrunners were taking part in the first public parade of the party’s ten White House hopefuls — and before an audience that will be crucial to gaining the nomination.
Mr Obama received a long and cheering standing ovation on the issue of Iraq; for Mrs Clinton, many sat on their hands. [snip]
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And across the pond and thru the chunnel, Sarkozy and Segolene go at it, on the internet, on the French blogs… have a laugh at how familiar it all is:
[T]ales of the supposed dalliances and skulduggery of the presidential candidates are flooding the internet as the parties, supporters, bloggers, trouble-makers and comedians pile in before the April presidential election.
Distrust of France’s compliant media and a love affair with weblogs and video clips have turned the internet into a strategic weapon of a kind seen so far only in US campaigns.
The main candidates have multiple sites and battalions of web infantry fighting their causes with both fair and dirty methods. Unlike the US, the French version has added spice because of the traditional squeamishness of the press over private lives and off-the-record talk. Ms Royal, the Socialist, and Mr Sarkozy, of the centre-Right Union for a Popular Movement, are discovering that little now can be hidden. [snip]
They squeal as they do not wish to be found out. Simple as that…
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UPDATE… 3:30 pm in San Francisco!
WSJ Opinion Journal on the Feingold hearing [not behind a sub wall]… btw, not the only under attended hearing. I was watching the hearing for McConnell (iirc, it was not the one for Fallon, nor for Casey) and Levin opened the hearing. Then I notice… WTF?? Warner speaks. Then McCain. Then there is some back and forth, Levin is obviously embarrassed, some chatter about his staff and the list he was given for who speaks. Then Sessions speaks. His 8 minutes in the first round.
Then what happens? Hillary shags in late, with Bayh in tow. And as the camer pulls back, that is it for the Dem side. Levin and the giggly kids. They almost look like High Schoolers who skipped class. That is it. Maybe others showed up later. It was a fucking REPUBLICAN hearing.
Back to Feingold:
Sen. Russ Feingold held a hearing this week on Congress’s constitutional power to shut off funds for the Iraq war, and followed it up a day later with legislation that would do just that. The Wisconsin pacifist might not understand the importance of winning in Iraq–or the cost of losing–but at least there’s an element of principle to his actions. He’s opposed the war from the start and his proposal to cut off money after six months would certainly end it. It also happens to be Congress’s one legitimate means of stopping a war.
Mr. Feingold’s reward for honesty was to preside over what might have been the least-attended hearing so far in the Iraq debate. And those of his Senate colleagues who did bother to show up looked like they couldn’t wait to hit an exit door.
“If Congress doesn’t stop this war, it’s not because it doesn’t have the power. It’s because it doesn’t have the will,” declared Mr. Feingold. Ted Kennedy–one of two Democrats who put in an appearance–could be seen shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
That’s because Sen. Feingold is coming uncomfortably close to unmasking the political charade playing on the Senate stage. {snip]
Bingo on that!
Whatever comes, Congress is to blame. For a month the Senate has been trying to wrestle control of Iraq from the president, but undercover, and in a way that that avoids accountability. Sen. Feingold shone a light under that rock this week, and now the hard questions begin.
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UPDATE, 4:00 pm PT
Madman has up a good piece over at LSF, tracking the latest congressional wilt. Not that there was much spine beyond the Hagel wording (now gone) and Feingold… Dodd seems to be emerging with some rhetoric – but, how cheap are the words?
[T]HE DEMOCRATS WILL NOT FIGHT TO END THIS WAR UNTIL THEY REALLY BELIEVE THAT WE WILL PUNISH THEM IF THEY DON’T.
Repeat that several times, make it a Sutra, chant it to people who browbeat you that you have no choice but to support the Democrats, even though they do nothing but make the rich richer, lay down for corporate donations and beat their breasts about how “strong” they are. A political party that really wanted to oppose a criminal President would force that President’s party to go on the record, to vote FOR his continued imprecations. They would do to the Republicans what the Republicans have been doing to them for decades now … they would force votes that differentiated the two parties, that actually at least went through the motions of appearing to fight for “their” voters. They don’t do that, they WON’T do that … because at base Nader was right, there is little difference between the two parties.
This is all even more galling as word comes out that many more troops will be sent to Iraq: [snip]
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UPDATE, 9:33 pm on the Pacific Ocean
Did not quite turn out the way you expected, did it Martin?
Since DD is a lawyer I assume he will be taking some action. If I were Marisacat I’d take that photo down and apologize…profusely.
I wonder, did you actually read the DD diary?
The comments he made? (hint: the comments are still around, in various comment searches)
Did you read the thread to the Pastor Dan sanctimonious diary (text also deleted at Dkos)? And those poor sods line up for his Christian crap and the virtual cookies…
Did you read the comments from the “leadership”, at the cess pool known as Dkos?
Or did you just take a call from DD, Armando etcetera? And they told you what to do? I think your “community”, some of the old timers, has figured out who your “community” is: The Boyz.
Poor guy. Flying blind.
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Green Zone under assault 25 January 2007
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Big Box Blogs, DC Politics, Iran, Iraq War, Russ Feingold, WAR!.34 comments
Washington Journal read a report off the wires a few minutes ago… this is up at Yahoo (full text from the AP):
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A huge explosion rocked central Baghdad just before sunset Thursday, sending a massive plume of black smoke into the air along the east bank of the Tigris River. The blast occurred shortly after two heavy mortar shells slammed into the heavily fortified Green Zone.
The public address system inside the zone, where the U.S. Embassy is located, could be heard warning in English that people should take cover, “this is not a drill.”
Heavy gunfire rang out throughout the center of the city after the explosion thundered across the city and was especially heavy in the Karrada district. Sirens on emergency vehicles wailed through the region.
Initial reports from police said two people were killed in the explosion.
Report from Reuters:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A car bomb, that killed at least two people, and two other explosions shook central Baghdad on Thursday, sparking alarms and warnings in the international Green Zone for people to take cover.
A police source said the car bomb in the Karrada district across the river from the Green Zone had also wounded eight other people, according to preliminary reports.
The first two blasts, just minutes apart, appeared to be mortar rounds or rockets and black smoke was seen rising from the area of the Green Zone. The third loud blast came about 20 minutes later and was followed by bursts of gunfire.
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UPDATE, 12:45 pm
A stunningly coherent assessment of America, from Who Is IOZ.
[T]he real Martin Luther King, Jr. was a radical “Christian Socialist” who, like such true Americans as Mark Twain, grew bitter as he aged, appalled at the hoary, violent, incontinent monster that was and is America. I carry no brief for socialism, nor yet for Christianity (as if there’s any particular difference), but I have a squishy spot for anyone who can stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial and decry “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” But so be it. It’s our depressing habit to recall black leaders in impotent Christitude. Scourge ’em and beat ’em. They love that shit! […]
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There is mention in the thread of Hillareeee (NYCee] and [gasp choke strangle] I have just heard bits of the hearing for Petraeus… and her questioning. My my. So tiresome. I never cared for the stern governess model, not as a child and not now. But before I do as I once did, pull on my tiny white cotton gloves and flounce away from the authoritarians, let’s have at them:
A good moment to bring up a series that Arthur Silber has over at Once Upon a Time (link goes to Part V, which has links to Parts 1 – IV . I am working my way backward from V to I, about half way).
He covers, in amongst much, Edwards at Herziliyah, Hillary and her right wing votes and commentary (so tired of the fucking wingers… like the poor they will always be with us… ) and he even slides past Atrios, with several excerpts of him calling for troop increase (oh to be sure, not the vilified “surge”, just the 92K that will cost hundreds of millions, SO progressive!!)…
And if you were to look to the liberal-progressive blogs in hopes of finding a different perspective on this question, you would be sorely disappointed. As just one example out of many, Atrios announced in December:
One thing this latest conversation has done is acknowledge that there aren’t enough troops. So why aren’t all of these patriotic Americans enlisting or calling on their fellow travelers to do so?
Lest you think this was a momentary blip on Atrios’s ideological radar, here is Atrios just the day before:
If Bush had, you know, listened to Kerry we’d already have a bigger military.
According to Atrios, this is yet another indication of the Democrats’ superiority to the feckless Republicans: if only Democrats were in charge, we’d have a bigger, better military sooner.
All of this is utterly fantastic. It is absurd and appalling.
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Oh YUM! Nothing short of real amusement from SMBIVA. With pics. Mayhem in Little Napoleon Land… enjoy!
Every so often I get an unconquerable urge to go trolling over on Daily Kos, and I keep a few sleeper accounts handy for the purpose. Yesterday’s post about John Edwards as rent-boy for the Israel lobby seemed like a good opportunity, so I cross-posted it, slightly edited, on Kos under the admittedly provocative user name ‘hamaschick’.
It was up for about an hour and a half late last night, and accumulated sixty-odd comments before ‘hunter’, that unsleeping Dzerzhinsky of the netroots, dropped the hammer. I saved it here, though, along with all the comments.
As usual, the pathos of the experience was the number of people who apparently know better but still can’t tear themselves away from this maelstrom of futility. My post contained a poll: {oh snip snap!!]
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UPDATE, 2:59 pm
My my mymymymy.
Stuff like this always blows me away. Quite aside from mixing in (selling!) Webb, barely arrived and a Reaganite (oh those little Dems, so desperate to spread their legs!) with Barbara Jordan and Paul Wellstone. Poor Howard is just an evolving commodity by this point. Sad but true.
That’s my Democratic party. Strong voices from across the map. Voices for the small against the big, the weak against the strong, the powerless against the powerful. The Democratic Party needs to speak for the voiceless and to serve the oppressed and forgotten. I hope that now we will see new Democratic voices step forward and lead the charge.
As counterpoint, my favorite political interview of all time. Jerry Brown 
interviewing Gore Vidal on Pacifica Radio in the mid 90s.
None of this silliness of the greatness or goodness of the party (the staffers never stop the selling, many of us did notice). Just some truths. The way it is…
Yes, yes, yes… the slurrings of the online Dems… quite something to behold. So in love they are. There is nothing, I repeat nothing, about politics or politicians to fall in love with…
oh yes: that is right… Monica. Well, the less said the better…
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UPDATE, 9:20 pm
I have been saying for while that the military, certainly the officer class, is committing suicide by president or CinC.. Early today I read that the top surgeon in Iraq died in the Blackhawk that was brought down last weekend. And a very big kill of NG.
It was rather worse than that:
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two colonels, one lieutenant colonel and two command sergeants major were among the 12 soldiers killed last weekend in a Black Hawk helicopter crash northeast of Baghdad, the Pentagon said.
It appeared to be the largest number of key officers and command sergeants killed in a single incident during since the Iraq war started nearly four years ago.
The U.S. command has not said why so many key officers were aboard a single helicopter, which went down Saturday in Diyala province, one of the flashpoints of the Iraq conflict.
It was also unclear why they were traveling in the volatile region. But the loss of such pivotal figures is likely to be a severe blow to their units.
Ten of the dead were members of the National Guard, making it the deadliest single combat incident for the Guard since at least the Korean War, said Mark Allen, a National Guard Bureau spokesman.
A Pentagon statement Wednesday said the victims included Col. Brian D. Allgood, 46, the top U.S. Army surgeon in Iraq, and Col. Paul M. Kelly, 45, assigned to the Joint Force Headquarters of the Virginia Army National Guard in Blackstone, Va.
Other victims were Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn L. Gabbard, assigned to the Iowa National Guard, and Command Sgt. Maj. Roger W. Haller of the Maryland National Guard.
Command sergeant major is the Army’s highest enlisted grade.
The Army has said the cause of the crash was under investigation. But a Pentagon official has said debris at the crash site indicated the helicopter was downed by a surface-to-air missile.
Others killed in the crash included Lt. Col. David C. Canegata of the Virgin Islands National Guard; Maj. Michael V. Taylor of the Arkansas National Guard; Capt. Sean E. Lyerly of the Texas National Guard; 1st Sgt. William T. Warren of the Arkansas National Guard; Staff Sgt. Darryl D. Booker of the Virginia National Guard; Sgt. 1st Class John Brown of the Arkansas National Guard; Staff Sgt. Floyd E. Lake of the Virgin Islands National Guard; and Cpl. Victor Langarica, 29, of the 86th Signal Battalion, Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
Hopefully we hear more of this flight.
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In related news…. Majority? Majority… ?? Where for art thou, Majority? What does it all mean??
WASHINGTON – The leader of a bipartisan effort to rebuk President Bush‘s Iraq strategy said Thursday he would not strike a compromise with a harsher Democratic resolution the Senate will debate next week.
Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he won’t negotiate with Democrats to develop a single proposal on Iraq. His comments, along with the emergence of other resolutions the Senate might consider, underscored how a Congress largely against Bush’s proposal to send more troops to Iraq remained divided over what to do about it.
Warner’s decision bolsters chances that his resolution will be the one to win final Senate approval. Democrats are expected to vote for his proposal if their measure fails, and several Republicans said they prefer Warner’s approach because it is less divisive. [snip snap the old drunk wins?]
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At some point today, Kennedy was just losing it… oh yes Liberal Lion… this was not one of his patented rants. Really tearing into the landscape. Minimum wage not going well.
But I saw quite a bit of what I saw as the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary were visibly unprepared for any real, comprehensive, if losing, battle over Alito: Sadness. Bitterness. Rage. Dead brothers, over 40 years in the senate and this… is it.
I catch glmpses he thinks a stand against the horrific Iraq War his party facilitated may be the last for a Kennedy in the strange place that is Washington DC… the strange place that is America.
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UPDATE, 11:10 pm
A nice view of some of the organisation behind the big march coming up…and this is the close:
There was an election that showed clear consequences,” said Andrew L. Stern, the president of the union [SEIU]. “It’s incumbent on Democrats to express their disagreement with the president.”
While Democrats have shown little reticence speaking against the president’s plan, there is little agreement on the next step. Next week, Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is convening a hearing to discuss the ways in which Congress can begin blocking the financing for the war, an idea that remains deeply controversial inside the party.
“It’s a walk in the park right now to oppose the idea of this war. It’s also very easy to oppose the escalation,” Mr. Feingold said. “They are once again being too timid and too cautious.”
Oh but Senator… The Grand and Gracious Mr Webb of Virginia suits them jes’ fine. As he walks in the park…
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UPDATE, 1:00 am
I suppose we should not be surprised, Friday’s FP, WaPo:
The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.
And we all know what the game is… primed as we are:
A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.
“This has little to do with Iraq. It’s all about pushing Iran’s buttons. It is purely political,” the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States’ increasing inability to stanch the violence there.[…]
In interviews, two senior administration officials separately compared the Tehran government to the Nazis and the Guard to the “SS.” They also referred to Guard members as “terrorists.” Such a formal designation could turn Iran’s military into a target of what Bush calls a “war on terror,” with its members potentially held as enemy combatants or in secret CIA detention.
Asked whether such a designation is imminent, Johndroe of the NSC said in a written response that the administration has “long been concerned about the activities of the IRGC and its components throughout the Middle East and beyond.” He added: “The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force is a part of the Iranian state apparatus that supports and carries out these activities.”
And what of Terror’s base? 16 November 2006
Posted by marisacat in DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Iraq War, Russ Feingold.33 comments
On our way in, summer of 2002, I would think… 20 years?… no too short. 30? hmmm the same as 20. Fifty? Old news, Japan and Germany, the DMZ in Korea, were surpassing that marker… no it seemed that Iraq (and Afghanistan) was part of some terrible hundred year plan for imperialism. That seemed much more likely from the world that is Washington DC…
Of course, until they push us out… Mostly I just think, God knows what is coming.
From Tom Dispatch:
Permanent Facts on the Ground
[A]s the New York Times revealed in a front-page piece by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt on April 19, 2003, just after Baghdad fell, the Pentagon arrived in the Iraqi capital with plans already on the drawing board to build four massive military bases (that no official, then or now, will ever call “permanent”). Today, according to our former Secretary of Defense, we have 55 bases of every size in Iraq (down from over 100); five or six of these, including Balad Airbase, north of Baghdad, the huge base first named Camp Victory adjacent to Baghdad International Airport, and al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, are enormous — big enough to be reasonable-sized American towns with multiple bus routes, neighborhoods, a range of fast-food restaurants, multiple PX’s, pools, mini-golf courses and the like.
Though among the safest places in Iraq for American reporters, these bases have, with rare exceptions, gone completely undescribed and undiscussed in our press (or on the television news). From an engineering journal, we know that before the end of 2003, several billion dollars had already been sunk into them. We know that in early 2006, the major ones, already mega-structures, were still being built up into a state of advanced permanency. Balad, for instance, already handled the levels of daily air traffic you would normally see at Chicago’s ultra-busy O’Hare and in February its facilities were still being ramped up. We know, from the reliable Ed Harriman, in the latest of his devastating accounts of corruption in Iraq in the London Review of Books, that, as you read, the four mega-bases always imagined as our permanent jumping-off spots in what Bush administration officials once liked to call “the arc of instability” were still undergoing improvement.
Englehardt includes a tidbit on Gates:
Here, for instance, is Robert Gates’ thinking eighteen months ago in a seminar at the Panetta Institute at California State University in Monterey on “phased troop withdrawals” from Iraq:
“But Mr. Gates qualified his comments, noting it sometimes takes time to accomplish your goals. Sixty years after the end of the Second World War, ‘there are still American troops in Germany,’ he noted. ‘We’ve had troops in Korea for over 50 years. The British have had troops in Cyprus for 40 years… If you want to change history, you have to be prepared to stay as long as it takes to do the job.”
So hold onto your hats. Tragedy and more tragedy seems almost guaranteed, and the Pentagon has just submitted to Congress a staggering $160 billion supplemental appropriation request in order to continue its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
![Lebanon, Beirut - Demascus - Sofar - Bekaa road [afp]](https://i0.wp.com/static.flickr.com/44/190532995_2e0fb8137f_o.jpg)
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More to come, I am sure… I see that Murtha lost his bid.. by a wide margin. Blue Dogs yesterday were happy to say most of them were for Steny… as was Maxine Waters and Barney Frank. Tauscher was out front for Steny, another CA Blue Dog, Anna Eshoo was for Murtha…
Off to the races it seems… 😉
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UPDATE, 1:10 pm, rainy day in San Francisco…
Feingold is up via TruthOut, on Iraq:
[O]n Tuesday, I introduced legislation requiring U.S. forces to redeploy from Iraq by July 1, 2007. My legislation recognizes that a target date for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq will help pressure the Iraqis to get their political house in order. Simply announcing when we will begin redeployment, without any end date, is unlikely to put adequate pressure on the Iraqis.
A target date isn’t just critical to our Iraq policy, it is essential for our national security policy. We cannot adequately focus on the pressing national security challenges we face around the globe when so many of our brave troops are in Iraq, and so many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent there. A timetable ensures that we can refocus our resources on fighting terrorist networks and on addressing trouble spots around the world that threaten our national security. [snip]
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Norman Solomon on how NYT and other Big MSM is screwing with the narrative (what else is new):
[I]n the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA — the front page of the New York Times.
The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.
Under the headline “Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say,” the Nov. 15 front page of the New York Times prominently featured a “Military Analysis” by Michael Gordon. The piece reported that — while some congressional Democrats are saying withdrawal of U.S. troops “should begin within four to six months” — “this argument is being challenged by a number of military officers, experts and former generals, including some who have been among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.” [snip]
ugh. Gordon was impossible in the run up to and early days of the war… it seemed entirely possible he lived in Wolfowitz’s jacket pocket.
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UPDATE, 3:30 pm
I am late landing on this at Rigorous Intuition:
[W]hat kind of world would greet Robert Gates’ appointment as Secretary of Defense as a happy news item? Regrettably, this one. That’s the true Bush legacy: diminished expectation, and delight and surprise at achieving debased, small victories that have to be handed to us.
I don’t mean that we shouldn’t take the good with the bad when we find it. But the good we can find is not as satisfying, enduring or as just as the good we should be able to make for ourselves. So yes, we’ll accept the gift of Donald’s Rumsfeld’s overdue resignation, yet Rumsfeld instead deserves to receive the revolt of our conscience and the judgement of the dead. American and international law ought to deliver humanity’s verdict, and that they won’t or they can’t is why we’re expected to dance in the streets when heads are made to roll for our pleasure […]
For five years there have been worries that the Bush crowd would do more than merely steal elections; they would do away with them altogether. But this is to misunderestimate the nature of late American fascism, which still needs the sustaining fantasies of liberty and representative democracy. Gains by the gentler, junior partners of the Washington Consensus serve this end, and present the impression of change while changing nothing. (I anticipate more tragicomic found-humour in the spectacle of “yellow-dog” Democrats justifying a now uncloseted bipartisan agenda.)
The neocons have served their purpose, and probably outlived their usefulness, which is why men like Perle and Ledeen are doing a shameless volte-face on Iraq. They have been a shock to the system of America, and to Americans who hadn’t realize what kind of system America had. It’s been a five-year plan of radicalism, and perhaps now comes two years of something like stability. But not a rollback. Most Democrats don’t have the interest in or the stomach for the fight, and many of them voted with the Republicans for tyrannical and bloody-minded measures that are not going anywhere, except burrowing deeper into the American routine. [snip]
Interesting thread to the post at RI… ruminations on Gates all thru it…
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UPDATE, 5:20 pm…
“Werther” drops in with insights on the ISG… I love slams like these, except I see no reason to give SDO’C a free ticket out of town:
A run-down of its other principals should give us a strong indication where this operation is heading. Aside from Baker, there is as co-chairman once again Lee Hamilton, a past master at these performances. As the éminence beige of the Democratic foreign policy apparatus, Hamilton has been participating in high-level cover-ups of government shenanigans stretching back to the Iran-Contra affair.
The rest of the cast consists of: Vernon Jordan, one of Bill Clinton’s money men and obviously intended to slap the Wahabbite insurgents of the Black Caucus into line; Ed Meese, faithful purveyor of balderdash for countless decades and a link to the Reaganites; Lawrence Eagleburger, a saturnine Bush family wheel horse and Kissinger liegeman known mainly for his staggeringly immense girth and ability to balance on a cane while juggling a cigarette and an asthma inhaler; Leon Panetta, a professional ward heeler and thief of a 1986 Indiana Congressional election, tasked to corral a spectrum of Democrats roughly bounded by Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer; former Defense Secretary William Perry, representing the interests of the merchants of death; Charles Robb, who began his career as a White House doorman and who symbolically remains one four decades later; ex-Senator Alan Simpson, wise-cracking cowpoke (and member of a disastrous Congressional delegation to Iraq in 1990, whose purpose was to ply Saddam with U.S. taxpayer loot via the Commodity Credit Corporation); and former Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the lone member of the commission with no obvious ties to Beltway monkey business and presumably tapped for the sheer novelty value.
Probably the only reason Baker and Hamilton didn’t select Clark Clifford or Paul Nitze to serve on the commission is that these two quintessential Establishmentarians are legally dead. But the leaden predictability of its membership preordains its conclusions.
Given that the rules governing these types of commissions are as ritualized as Noh drama, we believe it is safe to roll out our own projection of what its findings will be. Here, in capsule form, are the Baker-Hamilton report’s major findings: [snip]
Werther zips thru a synopsis of the likely advisories… and then lands this:
There will be more in the report, but it will amount to cotton-wool packing, filigree, and cathedral gargoyles.
The politicians will rush to praise the report’s sagacity, and heed it, more or less. For the Establishment, which stretches back through Clifford and Nitze, through Henry Stimson, Colonel House, Albert Beveridge, back through the Morgans and the Astors, through the founding of Skull & Bones, and finally alighting on Alexander Hamilton, the prototypical oligarch of the new North American republic, it will be a Bromo-Seltzer after the nightmarish hangover of a failed scion’s rebellion against his illustrious father. It will be an assurance, like a bank vault slamming shut, that in Washington, everything will be fundamentally the same for all eternity.
Unless you heard the sound of some Great Un-Screwing? … I did not…
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oh give me a fucking break… updates — and more updates… 19 September 2006
Posted by marisacat in 2006 Mid Terms, 2008 Election, Big Box Blogs, DC Politics, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, U.S. Senate.67 comments
The Party… their hopes, dreams, wishes. Their favored… their favored… well, their chosen, for 08.
Just one day skimming the media.
Shorter version:
Gotta blame someone. Won’t be blaming me. And Teresa said it is OK if I slam abortion… She could care less. And, you know, we are both Catholic, my wife was even a brave, brave colonial to the Little Brown People in Africa, I fought in a US battle against godless Communism (revise as needed)…
Why did I not get the Catholic vote [not worried about the little brown vote….] ?
[Bernard Cardinal Law gave Rover the US Catholic database in ’99, for one thing – Crawford CQ]
“Even as a supporter of Roe v. Wade, I am compelled to acknowledge that the language both sides use on this subject can be, unfortunately, misleading and unconstructive,” Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, told an audience at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. “Instead of making enemies, we need to make progress.”
And I still don’t understand why my friends Dole and McCain did not help me. Things got tough, I changed my hair, I changed my face… Next time I will be ready for my old commander Hatch and his boys. I swear. On a Bible! I am still washing off the slime. Don’t want that again, No sir!
And Hillary is moving right, leaving bread crumbs, I cannot be left behind! I am just praying John Glenn stays alive, I needed him when I went to military groups (NV and WV) so I would not be boo’d off the stage. Note to aides, get contingency plan if Glenn is “unavailable”.
Please, ask me about abortion… and, hmmm and… oh yes! VALUES. I want to talk about all of that. They told me that is the ticket. Or my ticket. Maybe Hillaree’s ticket?
Will there be another 15 million in take home pay ?? I am running. What else have I got to do…
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Shorter version…
… who needs the poor. Who needs the middle class!! They are soon to be poor. The top one per cent can help fund me. I will take care of them. Being one myself. Peer to peer, I am good to go on that….
In order to appeal to more voters, the party ought to avoid alienating wealthier Americans, Warner told members of the Greater Des Moines Partnership in Des Moines at the outset of a day of meetings in the lead-off caucus state.
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Shorter version…
… there is Warner money floating around. Awkward, but Tomasky, a poltiical writer I used to enjoy, squeezes some cover out for Warner. And Hillary. They, all the political writers yearning to breathe free – knowing they are the huddled masses, are wearing miner’s lights. They follow the bread crumbs at night. If they look really hard, there is cash lying about.
[N]ow, as to substance: I’m all for repealing the tax cuts. But I do wonder how much difference Warner’s position will make to the federal treasury. That is, President Edwards would presumably seek to repeal the cuts in 2009. President Warner would let them expire at the end of 2010. That’s just one year’s worth of revenue — somewhere around $35 billion if I’m remembering correctly. And the difference may not even be that great: President Edwards’ repeal, with the way tax law goes, would not take effect immediately when he signs the repeal in 2009 (and getting such a repeal passed in his first year is itself a best-case scenario), but probably sometime the following year — i.e., the same 2010 that represents Warner’s position.
So the revenue difference, in federal budget terms, is getting pretty close to negligible to my mind, [blah blah blah]
That is just junk writing. Soggy flaccid mess. And remember, TAPPED now has a tip cup. Makes them diarists, in my view. Good Lord.
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Shorter version…
Will a Wahmbulance come get me outta Harlem if I pen a long, long senatorial-styled exhalation from the Liberal (but they are not) Squeeze Box for the party?
I do not think a meeting between Bill Clinton, or any other member of the Democratic leadership, and a group of bloggers who were specifically engineered to present a more diverse image of the blogosphere than exists in reality would accomplish much.
I especially do not think this would be the case if that diversity was engineered in a way to intentionally reduce the number of leading bloggers who attended. Bill Clinton, or Harry Reid, or whoever, can meet with a diverse group of people anytime they want, for whatever reasons they want. However, if they want to meet with the blogosphere, and they want to do business with the blogosphere, I fail to see what business can be accomplished at such a meeting in terms of media or campaigns (the main reasons Democratic leaders want to talk to the progressive blogosphere in the first place), if instead of sending our leading voices who are most heavily involved in these areas, we instead send a group of far less connected, far less influential bloggers who are engaged in far fewer netroots campaigns to represent us. As long as you conceive of this meeting as primarily business oriented, and I certainly did, that would be akin to union leaders instead sending a representative sample of the various demographics of their membership to meet with Democratic leaders, instead of sending the actual union leaders. That wouldn’t make any sense, and would be of little benefit to either the Democratic leaders involved, or the unions involved. If we are going to meet with Democratic leaders, we need to send our leaders too.
Don’t worry hon. You sound a lot like Wolf Blitzer. And that “peer to peer” thang that Warner squeezed out in Iowa… some of that too. Don’t fall as you bend over to collect the cash. ooops right, sorry, I know you all paint this as barely sustainable political charity work. GMAFB!!.
Just appalling. As if he gives a hoo hoo. Mostly what I notice about Bowers is, he whines. About everything! [thanks Nanette for the link]
My prediction: it won’t be any different next time. Why would it be?
What was revealed: Daou is over paid – basic event planning in the political world failed to occur.
Also revealed: the pathetic state of affairs in general. Quite a lot of snide whie imperialism online.
Also revealed (again): Blahhgers are a minor tool of the party. Tho they advertise it is not that sort of set up. Minor, I mean. As you may recall, Armando claimed ot have ”driven” the ”national coverage of Katrina”. yes he did.
yes… they’ve all gone crazy on that small island called Official Dem Party Blaahhhgdom. Drunk… and over their own self-perceptions.
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Shorter version…
Kerry gets Jesus. Jesus regards this as charity work. But he has to move on, billions are suffering – and Kerry’s time is past. Reality: Kerry is STILL lost. The Republicans are still screaming with laughter.
Kerry said in Malibu, Calif., that he “wandered in the wilderness” after the Vietnam War but came back to the Roman Catholic Church after a sudden and moving revelation in the late 1980s.
Oh well. Not much worse than phoning in the filibuster fakery from behind the barbed wire, private security forces and champagne and cookies at Davos.
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Oh, and shorter this…
Ah feel mah own pain. Ah really do. Ah always did.
Upshot: they, heir (that would be the wif) and a spare, briefly, very very briefly made sense in ’92. Primarily a lingering effect of the very smart bus tour they made… However, It passed quickly… And, ever since, it has been all about them. As for the kid: send her to Iraq with the Bush Twin Set.
Have some Red Devil’s Food Cake. A long, long, long two years ahead.
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UPDATE: 6 PM PT
Oh too good. SYFPH again, on schedule. [thanks cactus ed] And from within a litter of kits that gets its chain jerked by some Thug. Go for it Night Prowl Kitty!!… try, try hard. We’ll compare notes in November…hmmm? Meow!
Seems like every few days someone puts out a diary that reminds me of an old cartoon. It’s been so long that I don’t quite remember the name of it — but the character I’m thinking of is an animal, a pessimist, and whenever a new adventure beckons, and a new obstacle arises, his immediate response is: “Oh me, oh my, it’ll never work!”
I’ve read one too many of this kind of diary lately, every time Bush has a tiny bounce in the polls, every time the Dems don’t react perfectly to Rovian tactics. I’m sick of it. This kind of diary veers pretty close to being a concern troll diary. It offers no solutions, no real analysis, proves nothing, and just annoys the hell out of me.
There are so many hundreds of people here at Daily Kos who are working as hard as they can on campaigns for Democrats across our nation. If anyone has a right to complain, it’s these folks, but I never hear anything but optimism from them, even when the campaign is such a tough one that the Repub opponent has a zillion more dollars than the Democratic candidate. They just keep plugging away, and they don’t let pessimism grab them and haul them down.
I know sweetie. Life is just so hard. And you worked your tiny paws to the bone. Just like Jane over at FDL. And you just know Lamont will win win win. And all will be fine fine fine in Disney World. Or Wally World. Or with Shamu. Or at Blahhger Dome. Or in Harlem. Or Chautauqua… or or or or.
Things will be fine.
meow.
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From The Hill:
Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has told business associates and Democratic donors that he will chair Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign next year, according to several Democratic sources. […]
While Clinton and her staff insist she is focused solely on winning reelection in New York this November, the decision over who will be in charge of getting her elected to the White House is already settled.
McAuliffe told The Hill yesterday that Clinton has not made a decision on running for president and will not do so until after Nov. 7. McAuliffe also denied telling friends that he will serve as chairman, although sources contradict him.
hmmm make of it what one may… it also has the feel of a bit of a push. McAuliffe pushing a bit…. But LOL do we care either way… 😉
“To be finance chair would be beneath him,” said one Democratic donor close to Clinton, who added that McAuliffe is “trying to make his presence felt” in moneyed Democratic circles.
No Democratic fundraiser has as high a profile as McAuliffe. Nevertheless, he may be feeling some competition from the many Clinton allies who are positioning themselves as important financial players for her presidential campaign.
“She’s got a full operation,” said Wade Randlett, a prominent Democratic fundraiser based in San Francisco, of the network of Democrats who are laying the financial groundwork for Clinton in the Bay Area. “There are many, many friends who are active for her.”
And on that ”pitching in” that Senators are expected to do… Kos is helping Schumer collect. O sure, of course he is helping build that <cough spit strangle> majority. Oh right… yes… that is what it is all about.
Nooooooooo. It is all about the MONEY. Not the winning.
I took Hillary and some other Senate Dems to task for not contributing their weight to the DSCC.
Hillary may be cheap by giving just $1 million out of a $22 million warchest to the effort to win the Senate. Feingold’s $10K was pitiful. But of the Senate’s presidential aspirants, none is as cheap and miserly as Evan Bayh,
Amount given to the DSCC: $0
Cash on Hand: $10,363,520His next election is not until 2010.
Boo. Hoo.
You get the feeling that Feingold is saying something? 😉
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UPDATE, 11PM
Oh he long ago got his rocks off being nasty [thanks D Throat]:
Sigh
It’s the fucking blogosphere. Anyone can start a blog. If you have a strong interesting voice, people will read it.
No one asked me if I was Latino when I started blogging, and it wouldn’t have made a difference if they had. I appreciate this medium because none other would’ve been as friendly to me — a former poor war refugee who spoke only rudimentary English when I arrived in this country — as this one has been
I see lots of sour grapes. Like the crowd that complained a few years ago about the lack of strong female voices at the top of the blog world. Now, women have strong representation at the top. And it wasn’t because of some sort of affirmative action for women. It was because a new crop of strong, talented, and compelling women arrived on the scene and they built their audiences by providing a solid product.
Offline, race and sex matter. You can’t hide from your looks. But online? It’s as color-blind a society as you’ll ever find. That some people try to inject race into a medium that is by its very nature color-blind seems absolutely insane to me.
And for the record, I was invited to the Clinton meeting. I chose to spend the time with my family instead.
Believe me, anyone “playing along” now really is a token.
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UPDATE, 2:20 am
Nice analysis in the RI press about the Chafee win… a trial run for the big roll out in November.
Oh yes I am laughing. Chafee thanked the “disaffilated Democrats” several times in his really quite nice acceptance speech. Oh, ain’t politics a peach?
They exploited a quirk in Rhode Island law, letting undeclared voters participate in any party’s primary. Chafee supporters coaxed large numbers of Democrats to disaffiliate — Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian offered the figure of 1,600. And the Rove forces poured in millions of dollars to micro-target Chafee supporters with highly sophisticated polling and computer analysis. They ran a big get-out-the-vote campaign, and aired brutal ads attacking Mr. Laffey’s character to try to suppress his support. Mr. Laffey, for his part, refused to run such scurrilous ads, something analysts called a costly error — though the Club for Growth, a conservative group that heavily backed the mayor, ran ads denouncing Mr. Chafee’s record.
On Election Day, I noticed a man in a dark suit, wearing a Chafee button, with a cell phone shoved in his ear — apparently some kind of Washington operative — carefully monitoring the goings-on at the sleepy polling place where I voted. They had this election covered. Meanwhile, poll workers reported an unusual number of people instantly disaffiliating after voting Republican, suggesting that a large number of independents and Democrats took part.
And if I may say so… I think the A List team – this is a Casablanca gambling joint, we all know who they are – is showing evidence of being a tad ragged. Oh I am sure it is nothing… a good meal and perhaps they can stop inhaling each other’s helium. Or hey, just keep it up and have a ‘scattered over the landscape’ day, Wednesday in November.
Oh you bet I am laughing.
And obviously the Democrats have considerable forces. Certainly not relying on a rather rag tag – oops I am confused! – I am sure I meant to say: the online blogger A List team surely has super dooper help from DC. No doubt… 😉
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… and here is a column from J S Paine at Stop Me Before I Vote Again…
Enjoy!
[T]hen there’s overthrows that do get reversed fast — like in 1972. The insurgents, such as they were, held power for about 6 months. And yet the damage that overthrow did to the regular core effectively spelled the end of it — the end of the old Truman to Johnson regulars.
They may have restored themselves, but much like the Bourbons, not for long or not for real. Nope. Instead, the party was reformed — if that’s the word — incrementally over a few years into the hodgepodge pushmi-pullu monstrosity we still face today. [snip]
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A Team?? Got anyone in Jersey? I know. I know… all that work in CT. Busy busy…
“Fingers to the bone…” Lamont only won due to A List naked finger bones… Trading out one Democrat for another. Truly, the genius of it may be clear – someday. A cool 6 mil (bet it is by now… or… oops, is it MORE???? ) from Lamont, a dribble, or two, from those people who are told to ”add a penny”.
But… I don’t know… Jersey lookin’ kinda dire… Is it true what they say about Menendez? You know, a smallish modern day Don?
Anyway… NYO is a fun fun read. Enjoy! The real cherry on top for Dems -and national security – is the re-appearance of McGreevy. … hmmm I’d suggest some action wtih concrete booties… but ooops! Too late now!!
You may have figured out, I don’t think some god damned fucking shoved to gether half-assed lame conservative Democratic majority is going to save the nation. I don’t even think they can save their own souls.
I did not expect Kerry to win either… despite all the online, off line squealium.
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Senator Russ Feingold D-Liberty 4 June 2006
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, Democrats, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Russ Feingold, U.S. Senate.add a comment
I noticed in a news report that John Nichols of The Nation has used that definition for Russ, rather than D-WI. Maybe it should be Progressive-WI. Whatever, it is not DINO land. Nor is it scared and quavering pseudo-Democrats. Fools with no desire to represent people – nor ideas, ones they believe in and will fight to bring to fruition, for the future.
Here is Knight-Ridder via Contra Costa Times, on this weekend in NH, where Russ Feingold and Warner (D-VA) both appeared at events on Saturday. C-Span has covered both speeches on Road to the Whitehouse today.
Some snips from KR:
BY STEVEN THOMMA
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Anti-war and anti-Bush fervor is growing among rank and file Democrats, threatening to pull the party to the left and creating a rift between increasingly belligerent activists and the party's leaders in Washington.
Many outside-the-Beltway Democrats want the party to turn forcefully against the war in Iraq and to investigate, censure or even impeach President Bush should the party win control of Congress this fall.
Yet party leaders such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have maintained support for the war while criticizing the way Bush handled it, and have shied away from talk of using power to go to after him.
The fault line is evident as Democrats gather for spring and summer sessions filled with demands for bolder action by the congressional wing of their party, especially if they win control of the House or Senate in November.
In New Hampshire, the state that will kick off the party's 2008 presidential primary voting, activists gave thunderous ovations this weekend to Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., when he pressed his anti-war agenda, boasted that he alone among potential 2008 presidential candidates opposed the war from the start, and pushed for a censure of Bush.
In Maine Saturday, state Democrats passed a resolution urging impeachment.
I know I am very worried. It is not enough for Democrats to bleat, as much of the leadership softly does, with qualifiers and measured cadences, they bleat about Bush. Not enough. They are too comfortable with much of what he has done – or they outright assisted. And often, they simply did not care. They answer to their masters, whether that is corporate $$ or the Republicans themselves.
Online shakes a fist and then whimpers for their "blogfathers". Or counts their links and "hits". Too many are courtiers, virtually serving the Democratic "court"… helping the Democrats help their masters.
To bleat "Bush" is to ignore how long and hard it was to get to where we are. And how many wars participated to put us here.
Tiresome Eric Alterman, seen at a CAP panel for young journalists on C-Span… became ONE MORE pseudo-progressive to state he'd take the ''conservatism'' of Reagan.
Goddam it: NO.
We need a way out of the valley we have been in for so long. I am very worried as there is little on offer. The Republicans, ever reptilian, appear as "post-coup", to some degree. They cleared the hard, tough hurdle, and have landed on the other side of "re-election". Silly Kennedys arrive late, but thanks for the notations. And Kerrys take their money home with them, then think they can run again.
If Republicans are "post-coup", the DC Democrats, leadership, etc., are post-collapse.
Marisacat 